Remember Me This Way Page 14

  She laughs. ‘No. Nothing. He wasn’t at the art school, or the university. He didn’t study anything.’ She laughs again dismissively, an edge of contempt. ‘Not as far as I know.’

  I take a gulp of coffee. ‘I don’t understand. He said he met you at Edinburgh.’

  ‘We met in Edinburgh, not at Edinburgh. If you see the difference. Zach was a shop assistant. He worked in the art-supply shop on Princes Street. DaVinci’s, it was called. We were in all the time before our finals, getting new charcoal, string, endless blocks of paper – displacement activities probably. We used to hang out in the pub.’

  Heat in my neck. A coldness in my legs. Another lie. I picture the biographical notes I saw him write for ‘Light on Water’, the show in Bristol that never came off. He had written Edinburgh College of Art. ‘So where did he study?’

  She gazes at me. ‘He was a good artist, Zach. He had a certain rough talent. No one can ever take that away from him. But he was self-taught. He just had this ability, this sense . . . He didn’t always paint what people wanted to see.’

  My voice sounds high-pitched and strained. ‘I thought you all moved to Brighton together the summer after graduation?’

  ‘Pete and I – we did. Pete had a job lined up. He’d been interning at Bull Trout Media in the holidays. I came down with him and found work quite quickly. Zach? It was a bit of a surprise, actually. I mean, obviously we knew him to chat to. He was very helpful in the shop. I also suspected he hooked up briefly with our flatmate Margot. He certainly had an eye for her. And then he just turned up. Here. In Brighton. He hitched down in the September. He found out where we lived—’ She breaks off, frowns. Her nose concertinas. ‘I don’t know how, actually, but anyway he was waiting for us when we got back from work. He loved the sea, didn’t he?’ She rocks her chair back to check the baby in the basket.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, firmly. I look at my hands splayed on the table, feeling the solidity of the wood. ‘He did love the sea.’

  ‘And then,’ Nell says, rocking forward, ‘he moved in. We’d rented a flat down in Hove, but it was pricey and we’d been looking for a third person . . . the timing seemed too good to be true. We had a laugh while it lasted. He was such a big character.’

  She puts her hand out to cover mine. ‘I was fond of him.’

  ‘Was?’ She seems to be emphasising something that was in doubt. Such a ‘charmer’, a ‘big character’: there’s a code in judgements like that. Teachers use them at parents’ evenings all the time.

  Her reply makes it sound as if I’d simply drawn attention to the use of past tense. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know him very well really. But I’m glad he was happy. I’m glad he met you.’ She half smiles.

  Pidge climbs down from the table and says he wants to go into the garden. Nell unlocks the back door but tells him not to get too dirty because a friend is coming to play. I watch as he climbs the steps and sits on the small square of muddy grass with a trowel in his hand. He appears to be digging for worms. Safe, normal activities. Did she just say she hadn’t known him very well? That doesn’t make sense. They were best friends. I know they were.

  I take a deep breath. ‘On the phone I said I had some questions and you might think they’re odd. Zach’s accident has left things a little . . . open-ended.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘In Brighton, for example, he didn’t live with you the whole time, did he? He rented a flat on his own or—?’

  ‘No, he only lived with us for about four months. He moved in with his girlfriend. She had a flat in the centre of Brighton, just up from Churchill Square shopping centre.’

  A twist in my chest. He told me I was the first woman he had ever lived with, ever been close enough to even to consider it. But he lied. His body in her bed. Limbs curved. His face in her neck. I dig my teeth into my lip. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  She gives a quick, reassuring smile. ‘He wasn’t there for a huge amount of time, either. Hardly even a year. He met you and—’

  A sudden, swirling thought. ‘I don’t suppose she was called Xenia?’

  ‘She was called Charlotte. Charlotte Reid.’

  Nell turns to watch Pidge in the garden, but I catch something dart across her face, confusion or guilt. I’m not sure. Her body language is telling me to drop it.

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘She was sweet. Younger, quite a lot younger, than him. She had a high-powered job in the City, one of those smartly dressed girls in trainers who carry high heels in her handbag. When they were going out, we saw quite a bit of them—’ She breaks off, swivels her eyes to mine and then bites her lip as if stopping herself from saying more. ‘She doted on him. I liked her. She was lovely. He could have done a lot worse.’ She brushes some invisible crumbs from the table.

  I take another gulp of coffee, harsh at the back of my throat, and cradle the mug. ‘So what happened?’

  Nell sighs. ‘She wanted to marry him, and he didn’t want to marry her. The same old same old.’

  She stares out of the window again. She’s probably wondering how Zach, who could have had lovely, sweet, high-powered Charlotte Reid, ended up with the odd little person sitting here. And I am feeling guilty that I did, and grateful and heartbroken, and also muddled because neither of us is really saying what we want to. Zach isn’t here and I shouldn’t have come. Amid the ordinary cheerfulness of this house, this life, I feel like an oddity, a splinter in a smooth surface.

  The room seems unnaturally quiet. I can see Pidge’s arms moving, but I can’t hear him. And then, I catch a sound – a noise above our heads – two separate creaks, a beat apart.

  A shower of dirt hits the glass doors. Pidge has dug his trowel in a little too enthusiastically and sent turf flying.

  Nell leaps to her feet, throwing back her chair. ‘Careful,’ she shouts, through the glass.

  ‘What was that?’ I say.

  ‘Little tyke,’ she says, misunderstanding or choosing to.

  She begins to clear away the coffee cups and I help. As I rinse them under the tap, I strain my ears for more sounds, glancing up at the ceiling. They were footsteps. Someone is up there. Nell has started talking again. She asks after my mother and I explain briefly how quickly, after diagnosis, her condition deteriorated.

  ‘And your dog?’ she says, with the jaunty enthusiasm I remember from last time. ‘Didn’t you have a dog?’

  A twist of anxiety: I haven’t thought about Howard since I got here. Onnie and the key dangling from her finger. I should get back.

  ‘Yes. He’s been a great comfort to me,’ I say. ‘Does that sound stupid? Zach loved him too.’

  ‘Not at all,’ she says sympathetically.

  I make movements to leave. She takes me to the front door and we hug and she tells me to keep in touch.

  ‘I will,’ I say in a cheerful sing-song.

  The door closes and I walk a little way down the road before I stop. I lean against the wall of a house and stare at a strip of sea pencilled above the rooftops. Is that it? Am I going to travel meekly back to London? She was hurrying me out of the house, I know she was, and of course there could be a million reasons. But those footsteps: I need to know for sure.

  Pidge comes to the door this time – I can tell because of the fumbling and the time it takes to open. ‘Oh,’ he says, disappointed at the sight of me. ‘I thought you were my friend.’

  I look past him into the kitchen. Nell is standing in the doorway, staring down the passage at me, and behind her, at the table, is a man.

  My heart stops.

  ‘Did you forget something?’

  Nell walks towards me, blocking my view, dusting her hands on her dress. Behind her, the man gets to his feet. I wonder if he’s going to move out of sight, but he comes as far as the kitchen door. I lean against the wall for support. The light is behind him, and I can’t see his face. I hold my breath until I hear his voice.

  The words fall like ashes. ‘Hello. Sorry to hav
e missed you earlier. I was working upstairs, not feeling too hot, and . . .’

  Nell, looking both resentful and abashed, says, ‘You remember Pete?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. My legs seem to be disintegrating. How stupid I’ve been. ‘Nice to see you again.’

  Nell is making excuses. She is talking about how Pete had been feeling a bit woozy, how he would have loved to have popped his head round the door to say hello, but he was full of germs and had nodded off. ‘Bit woozy’. ‘Popped’. ‘Nodded’. Nursery terms to cover her discomfort.

  ‘Back up to the old grindstone, actually,’ Pete says, stepping quickly behind her to the foot of the stairs. He is much shorter than Zach; his hair isn’t chestnut brown, but dirty blond, his face is round, plump-cheeked. It doesn’t have Zach’s hollows, or tight lines around the mouth. ‘So sorry for your loss, Lizzie.’

  He can’t wait to get away now he’s been rumbled. I can just imagine the conversation they had before I came.

  ‘Do I really have to talk to her? Can’t I just stay out of sight?’

  ‘Oh, all right. But you owe me.’

  God. I don’t blame either of them. I wouldn’t want to have to make polite conversation with the widow of an old friend. No, not even friend – ‘I didn’t know him very well really.’ The truth of it hits me. Zach wasn’t their great mate. He was just someone they used to know and probably didn’t even much like. He’s not here. He never has been.

  Pete disappears up the stairs, taking them two at a time. ‘It’s fine,’ I call weakly after him. ‘Don’t worry.’

  I turn back to Nell. ‘I’m glad you came back,’ she says. ‘I felt awful after you left. It’s obvious you didn’t know about Charlotte and I clearly put my foot in it.’

  ‘It took me by surprise, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She pulls herself together, looking over her shoulder. ‘Anyway, did you forget something?’

  ‘Um. Yes. No. But . . .’ I flail momentarily and then I realise. Charlotte. I should talk to her. She might know something, or at the very least, understand. ‘Yes, actually. I couldn’t have Charlotte’s phone number, could I? If you’ve got it. Odd request I know, but it would be helpful.’

  Nell screws up her face. ‘Sorry. But no,’ she says. ‘No.’

  I begin to back away. ‘Of course not. Tactless. I don’t know what I was thinking. Insensitive of me. The last thing she would want to do is talk to me.’

  Nell is just staring. ‘It’s not that,’ she says.

  I’m suddenly cold. Her tone has made me shiver. ‘Oh you just haven’t got the number. It was a long time ago. Why would you?’

  Nell is shaking her head. ‘You don’t understand,’ she says. ‘I can’t.’ She lowers her voice and glances over her shoulder. Her words when they come, spoken so softly, are like falling snow, small glances of ice. ‘I can’t give you Charlotte’s number,’ she says, shaking her head, ‘because she’s dead.’

  Zach

  July 2010

  A small wedding. Luckily it’s all Lizzie wanted. Wandsworth Town Hall on a Wednesday morning. Her and me and a small collection of her close friends and relations. Sorry, Alfie – you can’t be a pageboy (only tricky moment). None of my chums could make it, sadly. (Probably as a result of not being invited.) Lizzie understood. ‘You’re all I need anyway,’ I told her, and she smiled at me in that way that makes my insides clench.

  After the ceremony, we partook of champagne and sandwiches at the County Arms, and then, as soon as we could get rid of everyone, we went to bed – Lizzie naked at last in my arms. A delicious consummation, all the more so for being legal. Surprised me, that. The happiest day of my life, I told her. It wasn’t a complete lie. In fact, now I think of it, it wasn’t a lie at all.

  The old woman is at the Beeches now, packed off with her boxes of hideous possessions. I’ve begun on the house, but only slowly. I’ve pulled up the horrible carpet and stripped the wallpaper. The walls I’ve painted a cool blue-grey called Borrowed Light – the colour of Nell and Pete’s walls in Edinburgh. It’s a work in progress. I’ve still got to decorate the bathroom and the kitchen. Lizzie says we have to wait for her next pay cheque, but I persuaded her to buy a new mattress for the bed, pretended the old one was too soft. It was a germ thing really, but I didn’t tell her that.

  Work is going better than it has for months. I’ve found a small studio space in an old converted warehouse near the greyhound track in Wimbledon. My room, tucked away on the ground floor, is the size of a shoebox and has no natural light. The rent is cheap, but the landlord reduced it further on condition that I assist the caretaker with the odd repair about the place. Most of the windows in the building need replacing, but he says I can take my time.

  I like the darkness. I’ve rigged up an extra bulb in the ceiling, and I can direct both on to the canvas when I’m painting. I’m in the middle of a series. It’s called ‘Broken Days’. Is that shit? Now I write it down, I think that’s shit.

  The studio is full of busybodies, people wanting to poke their noses in – a punky young Slovakian girl who knits at the end of the corridor; a guy about my age who Photoshops hideous horses running through surf; a couple of screen-printers; a sculptress. Lunchtime they congregate in the little kitchen over their Pot Noodles. They all wanted a bit of me when I arrived, but there’s a lock on the door and I keep it shut and bolted, even when I’m in. I set my iPod to white noise. Most of the time, no one knows I’m there.

  Lizzie can’t cook. I’m teaching her how to do it my way, step by step, protein by protein. The state of her fridge made me feel physically sick – all the veg muddled up in the drawers, soiled carrots, out-of-date food. I found a jar of Branston Pickle that must have celebrated the Coronation. She is untidy too, sluttish in that regard. I’m trying hard to teach her.

  None of it seems to matter as much as I thought. Sometimes when I’m with her, I close my eyes and feel an approximation of happiness. It’s so near I can almost touch it. I feel less restless than I have for years. You could almost call me relaxed. I’ve cut right down on the medication, only half a pill here and there, when my knees begin to shake.

  I never thought I’d end up with someone like Lizzie, but here I am. Is this what being normal feels like? It’ll do me, if so. She doesn’t bore me: that’s the thing. I feel safe with her, and appreciated, a better person for it. She’ll never let me down. Ever. ‘Me and you (against the world),’ I said the other day. I was quoting from that Joe Jackson song. But she held my chin and gazed into my eyes. ‘Me and you against the world,’ she said.

  Summer in the city. Swifts screaming high in a blue sky. Bees stabbing at the open faces of roses. You really can’t complain. I’m in a deckchair on the grass, glass of your finest Glengoyne malt at my side. (Damn dog better not knock it over.) Lizzie makes an effort in the garden. I like that. It reminds me of my mother. She was always pottering, too. She’s ‘planting out’ the flowers we bought yesterday at the local nursery. I was expecting tedium, but I was touched by her industry, the way she picked up each plant and studied it before making her selection. She chose candy-pink geraniums to fill the pots, and blooming white bedding plants for the gaps in the borders. I kissed her, among the wallflowers, told her she was the only white bedding plant I needed. We came home and had sex. ‘You can’t get enough of me, can you?’ I told her. She wasn’t even offended. ‘No, I can’t,’ she said and lay her soft naked body down on top of mine.

  She’s plumper than she was, her breasts and hips are fuller, a small roll around her stomach. Married life has brought out the best in her, too. The tension has eased around her mouth, now she’s no longer dealing on a daily basis with her mother. I’ve taught her to say no to her sister, too, not to drop everything the moment the new baby wants bathing or Peggy needs a lie-down. Lizzie’s new haircut suits her, if I say so myself. More of a bob, too short for her to chew the ends. ‘You could take it up professionally,’ she said. ‘If ever you wanted a prop— I mean new
job.’ (I decided not to rise to that.) She’s terrible with make-up, even after all the money we shelled out at Bobbi Brown. She’s made an effort today – she’s wearing that red lipstick I chose. It makes me want to suck it off her.

  I yelled across to remind her to wear gloves. She’ll be ruining her fingernails. She sat back on her haunches. ‘I told you it was a waste of time paying for me to have a manicure,’ she said. ‘Not that I didn’t appreciate it. You’re very kind. A very kind man.’ She came over to try and kiss me, but I pulled away. I told her I didn’t like dirty hands, and she laughed again and said I’d have to wait until she’d finished as there was no point washing them now.

  Christ. She’s impossible to affront. I know she sees the best in people, but I didn’t expect her to see the best in me. Lizzie does me good. See, I’ve said it. It turns out I only needed to find the right person for everything to be all right.

  Oh, I could almost go to sleep, lazing here.

  London is doing me the world of good.

  Lizzie is doing me the world of good.

  If it weren’t for the fact that Charlotte keeps phoning, I’d be in pig’s heaven.

  I suppose I shouldn’t have slept with her the night before I moved out, but hey – one for the road.

  Chapter Ten

  Lizzie

  On the train, I stare out of the window, through Hassocks and Burgess Hill, Gatwick Airport, East Croydon, my mind churning. I can’t get warm. I keep thinking about that poor girl’s parents. A different sort of grief to mine. I can’t even touch it.

  A terrible accident, Nell said, when I asked. ‘No one’s fault. Just one of those awful things.’ She’d told Zach, she said, that day we had lunch.

  ‘I wonder why he didn’t tell me,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  She shrugged: ‘I’m not sure it affected him hugely.’

  I know she’s wrong. He would have been affected. It would have gone deep. I wish I knew the full story. Half of one is more disturbing. I can’t put a finger on how I’m feeling. I feel responsible and implicated. I keep thinking how easy it is to die.