Complicit (9 page)

‘She was good at things like that.’

‘So what happened?’ I knew that this was a form of confession, something he needed to tell me before we went any further. I felt a twinge of apprehension at his solemnity. ‘Why did it end?’

‘She died.’

‘Oh!’ This was so utterly unexpected – not a story of another messy break-up but something altogether more heartbreaking – that for a moment I was quite lost for words. ‘God, Neal,’ I managed. ‘I’m incredibly sorry. How? Had she been ill?’

‘A head-on collision.’

‘That’s – that’s awful. When did it happen?’

‘Two years ago. More. It was in February, icy roads. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.’

‘What a sad thing,’ I said. I didn’t know what words to use. I wondered if I should stop and hug him or something, but he kept on walking, eyes ahead.

‘It’s all right now,’ he said, adding: ‘There hasn’t been anyone since.’ He gave an odd laugh. ‘I didn’t know how.’

‘I see.’ And I did see. It was as if I was stepping into the shoes of a dead woman. This wasn’t going to be just a carefree summer affair with Neal but an undertaking. As we walked, I felt a heaviness settle on me, like a warning.

Perhaps the Pimm’s hadn’t been such a good idea after all. It certainly wasn’t weak. Hayden drank a large amount, which seemed to have no effect on him, but he also kept topping up Joakim’s glass, which Joakim gulped eagerly while Guy glared at him. Richard came home from work to find six strangers (and me) making a horrible noise in the living room, which, although quite big, was certainly not large enough for an oversized bluegrass band. Sally was lying flung out on the sofa, her cheeks flushed.

‘What’s happening?’ he hissed angrily to her.

She giggled and rolled her eyes at me.

‘Is there anything to eat?’ Richard asked her.

‘Why don’t you go and have a look?’

‘We’re going,’ I said to Richard. ‘Sorry. We should have left before now. It didn’t go very well.’

‘It wasn’t so bad,’ said Amos, a bit aggressively, I thought.

‘It wasn’t so good,’ said Hayden, as Richard left the room and started banging pots and pans in the kitchen. He was sitting on the floor with his knees up and had hardly touched his guitar all evening. He looked tired, maybe a bit downcast.

‘At least some of us make an effort.’

‘You should try and keep to the rhythm,’ said Hayden, in a kindly tone. ‘Joakim’s got the right idea. See if you can copy him a bit more.’

Amos’s entire body tensed. Sonia stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm. ‘I thought you did fine,’ she said softly.

‘It was OK for a first attempt,’ said Neal. He was standing at my side. My fingers brushed his.

Hayden shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, you’re not really in the band to make music, are you? We’re not all blind.’

‘Hayden,’ said Sally, from the sofa, ‘shut up and have another drink.’

‘Sometimes drink doesn’t make you drunk,’ he said. ‘I think I should go.’

There was a small silence after he’d left. Amos looked at me. ‘Are you going to tell him, or shall I?’

‘Tell him what?’

‘That he’s out of the band.’

‘Come on, Amos. He’s the best player we’ve got!’

‘And he knows it,’ said Sonia. ‘Maybe he’s too good for us.’

‘How can you be too good?’ Sally sat up rather unsteadily on the sofa. Her hair was mussed.

I couldn’t quite believe that she was getting involved in a discussion of who did and didn’t belong in our band. I wanted to tell her to shut up but that wouldn’t have been right in her house. ‘We’re lucky to have him,’ I said. ‘The group feels different when he’s in it.’

‘He’s great.’ Joakim’s voice was impassioned and slightly slurred from the Pimm’s. ‘He can really play. If he leaves so do we – right, Dad?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Guy.

I could see that an argument was about to start. I held up my hands. ‘I’ll go round and talk to him. I don’t think he quite knows the effect he has on people.’

‘He knows,’ said Amos. ‘He’s got it in for me. It makes me play badly as well. My fingers turn to thumbs when I feel him staring at me. And he does it deliberately.’

‘Bonnie’s right,’ said Neal. ‘He just says whatever comes into his mind.’

‘Like a child,’ said Sonia, a bit contemptuously.

I pulled on my jacket and picked up my banjo. I’d had enough of this. ‘I’ll explain things to him. Maybe he’ll just solve the problem by leaving.’

I cast a glance back at them all as I went: Neal looking rueful, Amos smouldering and Sonia having her usual calming effect on him, Joakim red with angry excitement, Guy austere and Sally very definitely drunk. It was a relief to get out of there.

After

It was nearly seven in the morning. The sky was a pale turquoise, with just a few thin streaks of cloud on the horizon. It was Saturday, 22 August. In a few hours I was supposed to be at a rehearsal. I stood in the kitchen and closed my eyes. Don’t think, don’t feel, don’t remember. I drank a glass of cold water, then another. The pain in my ribs and the pain in my neck seemed to be connected and my whole body throbbed. The keys to the car and the flat lay on the kitchen slab and I stared at them for a moment. What should I do with them? With thick fingers, I separated them, put the flat key on my own ring and held the car key in my fingers, twiddling it. I opened the lid of the swing bin, then changed my mind. In one of the mugs? No, anyone might find it there. In the bread bin, the teapot, the empty biscuit tin, the porcelain jug I used for flowers, the drawer stuffed full of old brochures? In the end, I pushed it deep into the sugar jar. I went into the bathroom, where the tiles I’d prised off lay in a heap by the bath, and peeled off my clothes. I would have peeled off my skin as well, if I could have. I had a shower that started off scalding but gradually ran tepid, and scrubbed myself all over, though I avoided my neck. I washed my hair twice. When I rubbed the fogged-up mirror I saw that my bruise was spreading, like a stain.

I realized I was hollow with hunger, but the thought of anything to eat made me want to gag, so I climbed onto my bed, still wrapped in my towel. The strips of wallpaper that were hanging off the wall looked like skin. I pulled the duvet over my head so I wouldn’t have to see them. Images flickered past me and I couldn’t stop them. His eyes, his mouth, his hand reaching out towards me, his body splayed in the boat like a beached fish, his dead, unblinking eyes and his body sinking under the surface of the water. The phone rang and I heard a voice leaving a message. Sally. I had to ring her as soon as possible. Then my mother. Then Sonia. My mobile buzzed. I heard the ping of texts arriving. Hours passed. Perhaps I slept. Perhaps I dreamed that none of it had happened, but then I woke and knew all over again that it was true.

Before

He just held open the door. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see me. I stepped over a pile of unopened letters and into a small hot kitchen-cum-living room that was strewn with clothes, books, sheet music, empty bottles, tipped-up mugs. On the small table there was a pan of burned rice. He picked it up as if he didn’t know what it was or how it had got there. ‘Don’t worry about the mess,’ Hayden said, putting the pan on a chair.

‘I wasn’t. How long have you been here?’

‘Just a week or so. It belongs to a friend. Or, at least, a friend’s renting it, I think. I’m looking for something more permanent. Beer?’

‘All right.’

He pulled the tab off a can and waited until the spume had sunk back into its hole before handing it over. I took a gulp. I already felt slightly muzzy from the wine I’d had with Neal, then Sally’s Pimm’s. Hayden, on the other hand, appeared stone-cold sober although I’d seen how much he had drunk. He took a can for himself, then settled into a sagging armchair and pulled off his shoes and socks, wriggling his toes luxuriously.

‘That’s better.’ He tipped the can back and I watched him. ‘I could make us something to eat,’ he said. ‘Or you could, which might be better. A fry-up, if Leo’s left stuff in the fridge.’

‘I don’t cook,’ I said, and perched myself on the sofa opposite him.

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Why?’

‘Do you cook?’

‘Not much.’

‘There you are, then.’

‘But I’m good at eating what other people cook.’

It was true. He ate anything he was offered, as if he was permanently hungry and nothing could ever fill him.

‘I came to ask you something.’

‘Let me guess. You want me to be nicer to that guy. What’s he called?’

‘Amos.’ I knew he remembered.

‘Yeah. Him.’

‘You’re upsetting him.’

‘I think he’s upsetting himself, Bonnie. You and him?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘He’s still half in love with you, or certainly doesn’t want anyone else to be, and he’s trying too hard to impress you, Sonia too. It’s a bit complicated, like a tightrope act, and he’s wobbling all over the place. Poor guy.’

‘That’s not really the point.’

‘One of the lessons in life is that the more you care the less you impress.’

‘How cruel.’

‘Cruel but true.’

‘I don’t think so.’

He stared at me for a moment. ‘You don’t care much what people think of you, do you? And look at the result.’

‘I care as much as anyone.’

‘And then there’s Neal, of course,’ he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken.

‘I came here to talk about the band.’

‘If we’re not going to have a fry-up, at least let’s have some crisps. I think there are some in that cupboard.’

Before I could think what I was doing, I’d stood up and was obediently searching among the jumble to find them. I tossed the packet over to him.

‘Don’t you want some?’

‘I’m a vegetarian.’

‘Smoky bacon flavour doesn’t mean there’s bacon in them.’

‘You’re sowing discord.’

‘That sounds Biblical.’ He pulled open the bag but didn’t eat.

‘What’s the point of humiliating people?’

‘I don’t mean to.’ A look of puzzlement crossed his face. ‘But it was such a horrible noise in there, and Amos doesn’t really care about music. He just wants to look good, to make an impression. Suddenly I couldn’t be arsed. Do you want a cigarette?’

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘You don’t smoke, you don’t eat meat. What do you do?’

‘Please will you be more tactful.’

‘The young guy’s OK.’

‘Joakim. I know.’

‘And you, of course.’

I felt absurdly pleased by that, then immediately annoyed with myself for being pleased. For some reason, I got up from the sofa and stood opposite him to speak, and then felt stupid for doing that, while he lay back in his chair and smiled at me as though I was some comic act he was taking pleasure in watching.

‘I want to know if you’ll help me,’ I said, very formally. ‘It’s just a stupid thing. I know we’re not very good. I know it’s not important or glamorous or challenging, and there’s no reason that you should be involved at all.’

‘Except, of course,’ he said, ‘there is a reason.’

‘You should leave if you can’t be part of the joint effort. That’s fine, I’d understand. I just won’t have you upsetting everyone for the fun of it.’

‘I can’t leave.’

‘What do you mean?’ It was suddenly hard to speak.

‘You know what I mean.’

He still didn’t move, and neither did I. We stared at each other. My heart was beating painfully in my chest; my body felt loose and hot. I couldn’t drop my eyes but I didn’t know how long I could go on standing in front of him.

‘No,’ I managed at last. I thought of Neal. I fixed his image in my mind. I remembered his smile. ‘I don’t.’

He reached out a hand and took mine. I let him. I let him pull me to him. ‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘Prickly Bonnie Graham.’

‘I’m not,’ I said.

‘One of a kind.’

I could say I didn’t mean it to happen. I could say I forgot myself – what does that mean anyway, to forget yourself, to lose yourself? I did feel lost, adrift on a tide of desire that took me so much by surprise it was as if I’d been punched in the stomach, all the wind knocked out of me, and I sank to my knees beside the sofa with what sounded like a sob. I could say that I didn’t mean it, it wasn’t me, it just happened, but it was me who took his face, a stranger’s face, unfamiliar, between my hands and held it for what felt like ages so that I was conscious of time passing, of cars outside, people’s voices. And then at last he was kissing me and I was kissing him. I knew that this was what I had come for and I knew he had been waiting for me.

‘No,’ I said, as he lifted me onto the sofa, but I didn’t mean it. I know I didn’t mean it, because when he said, ‘Bonnie?’ I said, ‘Yes. Yes.’

After

I lay in bed and stared at the light that was now glowing behind the curtain, projecting its stripes onto the carpet. What was the plan? There wasn’t exactly a plan. There was nothing more to be done. Nothing except to go over and over things, to work out where we had made a mistake because there was always a mistake. Were we really sure that nobody had seen us? Were we really sure we hadn’t left some sort of trace behind? Had it been the right place to dispose of a body? How long would it be before they found the car? Neither of us had any idea what the procedures in the car park were. People go away on holiday for two weeks, maybe three or four. The car park empties and refills like a tide going in and out. What procedure do they have for spotting an abandoned car? Is it possible that we left something in it? Would it be a clever idea to go back to the car park after a week or two and drive it to another zone? I could check at the same time whether we had left something. Or would that be stupid?