Calendar Girl (3 page)

The wave crashed. I drowned. She licked her fingers and smiled.

“Mmm, salty but not quite kosher. Good shabbas anyway.”

She fell asleep and I lay, marvelling at the ability some people have of giving their all and then just giving up to sleep. It takes me hours to wind down after sex. That’s why I like to have sex in the morning, it sets me up for the day.

I’m watching her now. It’s dawn and she lies there quiet as I touch myself.

I watch her silent body as I slowly take myself down that tunnel.

Two weeks after her birthday Saz Martin sat across a table from John Clark. Apparently he’d called again three times but her mother had managed to be cold enough to give Saz money for her birthday and Saz had managed to be cold enough to use it to get her answerphone fixed. Overuse had rendered it useless, so she’d missed quite a few calls for a couple of weeks.

John Clark had rung sounding harried and tired and Saz had agreed to meet him at a café near Leicester Square. She leant back on the hard bench seat they were sharing with the other late afternoon customers. Refugees from office hour mentality.

Middle-aged, grey-faced and obviously ill at ease. John Clark picked up his glass of iced water and put it down again for the third time without drinking.

“So you see, it’s unheard of for me not to see her for this long – four weeks. She’s never not contacted me before. And I feel so strange about it. And well, now I don’t know what to do and I think … I mean I know she’s in trouble. She needs help but I don’t know how to help her. So when this bloke at work mentioned he knew someone who … well, women like you. I mean people doing what you do. I thought, maybe you could help me …?”

Saz finished her espresso and motioned to the counter for another. She stared out the window at the drizzle, then shook her head as she looked down at the notepad on the table in front of her.

“Now let me see if I’ve got this straight. You, Mr Clark, are telling me that you have a very best friend, a woman you would give your life for, a woman who is the only person who understands you. And vice versa. Right so far?”

John Clark nodded and played with the ice floating in his glass, Saz continued.

“This woman asked you to accept voluntary redundancy from your job so that you would get quite a few thousand pounds worth of golden handshake. Sixteen thousand pounds in fact, most of which you then ‘loaned’ to her to get her out of a financial jam she wouldn’t even tell you about. A financial jam you didn’t even know about until the night she came up with the idea. And you left the money for her – cash – in a left luggage locker at Charing Cross Station. And that was six weeks ago now. Yes?”

“Not quite, they’d been hassling us to make up our minds about the redundancy offer for ages. I’d talked it over with my wife and she thought it might be the best thing – pay off most of the mortgage and we’d still have some left over to keep us for a bit. And something to give the kids – university, all that to consider …”

“Yes. But to get back to your friend?”

“I told you. She said she was in trouble and it would be best for both of us if I knew nothing about it.”

“Hold on, you’re skipping the most important bit. This ‘best friend’ is someone whose home you have never been to, whose occupation you have no idea of, whose name you don’t even know, who you’ve only ever met for dinner on the first and third Friday of every month for the past three years. You have never had a phone number for her, she
was never more than three minutes late and she’s only ever cancelled three dinners in all that time.”

“Yes. I don’t see why you think it’s so strange …”

“No, no – please wait. And best of all you’ve never slept with her. I mean really Mr Clark, forgive me if it all sounds just a little bit far-fetched!”

“I know. You’re right. And that’s why I couldn’t go to the police. But I tell you Miss Martin …”

“Ms,” Saz corrected him automatically.

“Sorry, Ms Martin. It’s the truth and I know something is wrong. I can feel it. I know her very well. She wouldn’t lie to me. There were certain things – her work, our lovers, my marriage, childhood – which we never spoke of. At least not the specifics of those subjects. She said that way, we’d never be tempted to lie to each other. We talked about art and music, writing and philosophy. We have had a relationship for three years. We understood each other. We talked about feelings. And I can feel that something is wrong.”

Saz looked at John Clark. An ordinary man in middle age in his grey office suit – the sort of man she’d seen and immediately forgotten so many times before. The sort of man who might have a fling with the temp or flirt with the babysitter. The sort of man with a hefty mortgage and a couple of teenage kids. With a willing but secretly frustrated wife. The sort of man who had two weeks holiday a year, and that holiday was planned and paid for in February. This was not the sort of man with the imagination to make up a story like this. Not at £25 an hour of Saz’s time. And this was not the sort of man to lie about something big. Probably not anyway.

“OK Mr Clark. I believe you. At least I figure I might as well believe you. But if I’m to even begin trying to find your friend I need to know a lot more than this. Don’t you
have any idea what her name is? I mean, what did you call her? ‘Hey you’?”

“No, after our third dinner she came up with an idea, I was to call her whatever the month was called. You know like April, May, June …”

“Bit much in December wasn’t it?”

“Well, it only happened twice a year.”

“I suppose so. OK, no name. Where did you meet?

“In a bookshop. We were both browsing. I asked her to have a coffee with me. She had lots of bags with her. I assumed she was just back from holiday.”

“Did you ask where she’d been?”

“No.”

“But she agreed to have a coffee with you?”

“Yes, we got on, I suggested we have dinner. It’s that simple.”

“Yeah, right. What about the restaurants, whose name were they booked under?”

“Mine, I paid too so I couldn’t tell you what credit cards she had – has – or even if she has them, she always carries cash.”

Saz started on her second espresso and turned her notepad over purposefully.

“Right then, Mr Clark. Here’s something you will be able to answer. Give me a complete physical description. I want to know everything. From her height to her weight to any little – it doesn’t matter how little – scars or marks she may have had. Fire away. I want the works.”

John Clark frowned, closed his eyes and began.

“She’s medium height, 5’6” or 5’7”, not taller. Medium build, 126 to 1301bs. She doesn’t wear high heels. Doesn’t
need to, she’s got great legs. The rest of her body is good, I think she goes to a gym, she works out somewhere anyway. But her legs are the best. She has very long, shapely legs. Nice lips, she wears hardly any makeup, just a touch of lipstick, no mascara. Orange is her favourite colour. She has long pale blonde hair. Short fringe. Well, shortish. It depends. When she’s happy she goes to get it cut, but if she’s having a difficult time, not feeling particularly at ease with herself, she lets it grow. She says it gives her something to hide behind. To cover her eyes. Her amazing eyes. It’s hard to tell what colour they are at times, they’re so dark, as if the whole eye is taken up by her pupil, but in the light you can see them clearly, they’re brown. Very dark brown. They’re beautiful. She’s beautiful Ms Martin, and she’s my friend. Please … help me?”

John Clark looked up at Saz.

Saz reached across the table and took his hand.

“Look Mr Clark, I know you’re upset and you’re scared and you can’t bear to think the worst but whenever you let your mind go that’s all you can think. I know you’re having an appalling time right now. But you’ve got to hold it together. You left your job two weeks ago. You’ve got sixteen thousand pounds redundancy payment, a mortgage, two kids and a wife to support who probably doesn’t yet even know you left work voluntarily, let alone that you gave over two thirds of your redundancy payment away as a ‘loan’ to a woman who’s now disappeared. Am I right?”

John Clark nodded.

“Right, and added to that you’ve got me to pay, so now let’s get on with it. I need you to remember stuff. The time she didn’t meet you, why was that?”

“She hurt herself. She broke her ankle.”

“Great. We can check hospitals and emergency records. When was it?”

“Three years ago, only our fifteenth dinner.”

“Wonderful. I can spend the next nine months checking hospital records. Anything else while I’m at it, anything she was allergic to? Any medication she took?”

“I’m not sure. She did see a homeopath for a while. About two years ago. It made it very difficult to eat out. She couldn’t have alcohol or spicy foods or even coffee. It was for headaches I think. And she got hayfever – sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Well, we went to a couple of outdoor concerts one year – I arranged them as a special treat – you know the ones, Kenwood, Alexandra Palace, she especially liked the jazz – so do I. Jazz is something of a hobby of mine Ms Martin, you see I …”

“The hayfever, Mr Clark?”

“Oh yes, well she got hayfever. Once. Sneezed almost constantly for a couple of hours. I had to take her away – I offered to take her home but she wouldn’t let me. Made me drop her off at the tube.”

“Can you remember which one?”

“Not offhand, somewhere in North London obviously – probably the Northern Line, we were at Kenwood when she started sneezing if I remember correctly.”

“And this was?”

“Summer before last.”

“This is good Mr Clark, specifics are good. Now what I want you to do is this. Go home. Try and be nice to your wife. Don’t tell her about June or July or whatever her name is, she’ll never understand and she’ll definitely think you were having an affair. In fact she’ll probably think we’re having an affair. Check your diaries, I want times, dates and places of every meeting the two of you ever had.
Can you do that? Do you keep your diaries?”

“Well, yes of course.”

Saz looked at John Clark’s grey suit and smiled.

“Somehow I thought you might. Let me know as soon as you’ve compiled a comprehensive list of places and dates. And write more about what she looks like. You might think of more if you try to be a little poetic. Try thinking romantically.”

“But it wasn’t like that!”

“Well, philosophically then. Think about her – clearly. See what vision she conjures up for you. I want to know what she wanted you to feel about her. We need to know what she thought to get any insight on who she was. Is, sorry. Try and remember if she’s mentioned any shops to you – the place she gets her hair cut maybe, or any bags she might have carried her shopping in. I want to know everything. Any waiters or waitresses she might have been especially friendly with. And any foods she didn’t eat – might help if she’s funny about certain foods – religious or something like that. She’s your friend so lots of things will seem insignificant to you, but not to me, right? I need to know everything you know about her. And more. Her name for a start. Get back to me in a couple of days time. OK?”

John Clark nodded and Saz hurried out of the cafe into the grey London drizzle, the spring in her step belying the weight on her mind. Once she was out of his range of sight she slowed down and followed the pedestrian flow into the tube, thinking it over.

“And John Clark, I’ll take the interesting jobs. I’ll check the gyms … and the morgues –

“Got any bodies with stunning brown eyes?”

“No, but the ones who got punched to death have got black ones!”

“That’s the way Saz, faced with the completely impossible, joke about it! No Mama, I’m just fine. My job’s not unsafe at all. Weird, but not unsafe. Not yet anyway … Damn you September, the left luggage at Charing Cross Station and not even giving him your real name! How naff film-noir can you get?”

For three months we saw each other at least three times a week. Three nights a week. Nights that extended into afternoons and the next night. For three months we saw each other three times a week, seven nights a week. Dolores wanted to find a way to hate her but she couldn’t. The Woman with the Kelly McGillis Body was quiet and accommodating and tidy and polite. At my house. In her own domain she was loud and orgasmic and a slattern. I was loud and orgasmic everywhere, upstairs, downstairs and in my lady’s chamber (especially in my lady’s chamber), but nowhere, never, was I a slattern.

Towards the end of the third month I had a lot of work, for about three weeks we only saw each other in bed. I’d come home to my bed or hers at about 2am, we’d fuck, sleep and she’d get up for work at eight. We were tired and irritable and hungry for more of each other. We ate each other up.

It was November. I’d just finished a run of particularly demanding late night gigs (nasty students, lots of boys, lots of alcohol) and she arrived to pick me up. I got in the back of the battered old red sports car and saw a full plastic bag in the back.

“What’s that? Can’t find a rubbish bin in North London?”

“No” she replied “It’s your clothes. We’re going away for a few days.”

Charmed by the fact that someone had actually been as romantic as I’d always hoped someone – anyone – would, I fell asleep and slept beside her as she drove through the night. We arrived at about 7am. A “Women’s Guest House” in Yorkshire. Two up, two down and the whole of the down was ours. The landlady, looking rather more like someone’s mum than a northern dyke, showed us through the ‘separate entrance’ to the ground floor of her house. Sitting room backed on to kitchen/diner. Bathroom backed on to bedroom. The sitting-room and bathroom were both grey, damp and freezing. But then, we had no intention of sitting and little desire to wash the perfume of each other from our bodies. However, it was cold and Yorkshire is no place to be in November without central heating. Or a partner. The fridge in the corner of our own private kitchen was crammed with cold meats and vegetarian selections – pasta, cheeses, pâté. Fresh milk and orange juice. Honey smoked turkey. Meat and milk jostling for space on the same shelf. But I didn’t know that mattered, then. A fruit bowl filled with winter miracles of mango and pineapple. Fresh bread. We stayed five nights and every morning there was fresh bread and milk. We decided our landlady was either a witch or Jesus. But I said she couldn’t be Jesus because while there were plenty of loaves, there wasn’t a fish in sight. The Woman with the Kelly McGillis Body didn’t know what I was talking about.