Frozen (23 page)

“Ask agency. Ask photographer,” Karel shrugged. He laid out the kit for another cigarette, tobacco pouch, Rizlas. The tobacco tumbled on to the bedclothes, and he pinched up each strand carefully.

Sam held out her hand and looked expectantly at me. It took me a moment, but then I twigged and handed her Verity's Filofax.

“Verity was seeing someone,” she said. “Here. The day she jumped. And here, a week before. And another, two days before that.”

He took the Filofax and studied it with the eye that wasn't full of smoke. Then he went through stabbing at each entry with a forefinger. “This Wednesday was test shoot. This one, Bristol for party—ask Michael. This one, okay was here alone, so no proof, but not me. This one... don't know.” He ran rapidly back through the weeks then stopped triumphantly on a page. “Ha! Here. Says ‘K.’ ‘K’ is for Karel, yes? Restaurant, then film. I remember. I am K. Other person is no letter. Also, why I go...” He flicked back to more recent times. “Granada Service, A4? I want Verity, she live Battersea.”

That was hard to argue with. Also, if he could prove where he was the day Verity jumped, then that was that. Except for one other thing. I tried to keep my voice casual, because if he sensed the venom he wouldn't reply. “So why did you do it, then, Karel?” I asked. “How much did you get for the TV and stuff? Why piss on the floor and rip things up?”

Strangely, Karel was unfazed. He replied as calmly as ever—directly to Sam, of course. “This is burglary, yes? I not touch. I take money sometimes. Like when this guy come”—he nodded towards me—“I take money for making him angry. But break in? Hard work. No point.”

“Of course you did it,” I snapped. “The doors were unlocked—
unlocked
, understand? The house door
and
the one to her flat. Now, who do
you
know who had the keys?” I injected as much savagery into the sarcasm as I could. “Well, there's Verity... couldn't have been her, she's in intensive bloody care. Oh, and there's
you
.”

He shook his head happily. At Sam.

“Not. Not have key.”

“You bloody do!” I shouted. “You showed me.”

“Hey, Sam, you
like
this guy?” Karel opened his mouth in mock-shock. Sam's eyes widened subtly and she moved the faintest fraction towards him.

He grinned toothily round his cigarette. “Friday, after Bastard Face say go from flat, I see this guy. In street, in car,” Karel said. To Sam. He nodded vigorously. “He call over, ‘Hey, you got key?’ I say yes. He say, ‘Is nice flat?’ I say yes.” He beamed. “Man say, ‘Hey, fifty quids for key.'” He settled back with a satisfied sigh.

“You sold the key.” Sam said flatly.

Karel blew smoke at the ceiling. “Fifty quids.” He grinned fruitily at Sam. He kissed two fingers, and blew across them in her direction. She slid a little further up the bed towards him. I might as well not have been there.

“So, what did he look like?” Her eyes were wide. Her face glowed with fascination. Her gaze was locked on him. “What car was he in? Did you notice?”

“Small guy,” Karel said airily. His roll-up had gone out with less than an inch left. He snapped his lighter at it—quickly, so as not to burn his nose. “Yellow hair, smaller maybe even than Bastard Face. And thin, thin, thin. Car was small also. Old. Ford, maybe. Beige. Not cool.” He laughed.

“Is that it?” I growled. “That's all you remember?”

Karel glanced at me, and then turned back to Sam. “Hey, Sam, you very sexy girl, you know. I tell you before, I very great lover. Great body, last long time. Do many times—all night, I think, ‘Why you stay with this guy? You come with me. Hey, now maybe?'” He eased the covers open beside him and favoured her with a wicked smile.

She rolled her lips together. “I'd rather screw a slug,” she said sweetly.

*

Home—at Sam's—she grabbed me and nibbled my neck, and mumbled something about unfinished business. And I stood, wooden and unresponsive, wondering who I was supposed to be.

Her familiarity with Karel had left me uncomfortable. I knew that she'd been putting on an act, flirting with him to encourage him to talk to her. But jealousy wasn't the real reason for my discomfort: it was just the excuse. The truth was, I wanted to put some distance between myself and Sam, but I couldn't admit why, to myself or to her; there was only so much pain I could bear. Today I can talk about it—just barely. But back in the days immediately after Verity's fall, how could I have begun to explain to Sam that, even though what was sustaining me was her warmth and support, being with her also forced me to confront feelings I had successfully buried for decades? I needed Sam, but I also needed our relationship to have no meaning—and that was impossible, because even if this was only a casual fling, every touch and kiss was still an act of betrayal. I still felt I was being unfaithful.

Eventually Sam gave up trying to kiss me. She studied me from a few paces away; I studied the carpet, furiously. I had no idea what to say, and she seemed content to let my silence do the talking. After a while she nodded, as though I had finally made a point that made sense to her.

She began tidying her flat. Loudly. As though I was not there.

*

Later we sat opposite each other with cups of tea in front of us, unnoticed. I was tired. More than anything I wanted to go to bed. On my own. To sleep.

I tried to concentrate on my tea. I don't really like tea.

As I left, we kissed—uncomfortably—and Sam smiled at me. She pulled away from me and folded her arms. She stood with her legs neatly together, suddenly self-contained and rather fragile. She looked sad. It was another unwanted burden.

“Off you go, then,” she said quietly.

“Look, Sam—”

“Will I see you this evening?”

“I haven't... I'll have to see...”

“Bye, then.” She blew me a kiss, and turned away.

The drive back to my own flat was miserable. I could see what I was doing, and I wasn't proud of it. For a mile or so, I tried to justify it as an understandable insecurity about Sam and Karel, but that was so obviously unlikely that I found I couldn't even pretend.

Betrayal. Adam seeing Verity; Karel selling the key to her flat (why? who to?); Gabriel's face at Verity's childhood window... me sleeping with Sam while Verity stared at an empty wall—the biggest betrayal of them all.

Then I was home. I scooped up the post in the hallway, and trudged upstairs to my flat, opening the first letter as I went. It was a mortgage statement. Another: credit card offer from some obscure bank. Another: this one was a duplicate of Verity's phone bill, one of the documents that had been burned in the break-in and I'd had to track down the supplier and request copies.

And Verity's phone bill held a surprise for me. Because the last person Verity had ever called from her flat had been Adam.

YOU FIND THE years have passed. You find that you have found a way.

For me, rejection became a part of life; for Verity, rebellion did. The rest of our school years were spent in the same ritual dance—she initiating, drawing us together, the gathering intimacy, and then withdrawal. So eventually I found a distance from her, close enough for warmth, not so close that it hurt, and I stayed there. Good old dependable Harry, around when he's needed, but always knowing when to make himself scarce.

“Coming out tonight, Harry?”

Someone pressed behind me and put their hands over my eyes. Sweet cool breath against my neck, Wrigley's and woodscent. She released me. She looked up at me—though only slightly, because she had grown far more than I in the last two years. Her smile was white-toothed, soft-lipped; her eyes large and alive, her skirt too short, her breath a little too rapid. Grey school jumper, slack-knotted tie, nylon shirt, soft warm breasts. The skin on her knees was mottled with the cold, red and olive. She stood close and lifted her face towards me.

“We're going down the Cavern. Coming?”

The Cavern was a nightclub—we called them discos back in the dark days of the early eighties. I wasn't the hippest of fifteen-year-olds. I preferred the dim light of the darkroom to the disco. She tutted at my obvious reluctance. “Oh, come on, Harry, it's brilliant, you'll love it. See you outside Central Library at ten. We'll wait ‘til quarter past.”

She skipped away from me, blew a kiss, twirled towards a group of sixth-formers on the far side of the playground, all of them boys. “Be there, Harry,” she sang over her shoulder.

The boys widened their circle to accommodate her, their postures shifting enough to show interest, not enough to be uncool. She swung on the nearest boy's arm as she talked to them, and they all crushed a little closer.

“Hey Verity! Show us your knickers, girl!” Oba yelled from the climbing frame. She glanced over her shoulder and flicked two fingers at him. One of the boys she was with ran a few steps towards the gang, threatening, and they clattered from the climbing frame in all directions. Verity grabbed his arm and pulled him closer to her, hips swaying towards her newest knight.

She was fourteen.

It was freezing. I hugged my arms for warmth. The clock in the entrance hall said twenty-five past one. Five minutes to lessons, but I had a study period. The lights in the classrooms were warm and bright. A few of the more serious-minded children were already inside, making sure of good desks, propping books open, setting pens and rubbers in line. I headed round the back, towards the darkroom, wondering if she would notice me going.

Of course I would go. I would be there at ten. But, then, she knew that. It was part of the ritual.

I was there at nine fifty, in my best (dull) finery, my ears burning from the cold cycle ride to get there, and from the row I'd had with Mum to be allowed out. Waiting on the frozen concrete benches opposite Central Library, hugging my numb hands between my knees, I didn't have a coat—what the hell do you do with an anorak at a disco?

I was still there at ten-thirty, when she turned up with her best mate Gail, plus two other girls from her class and a couple of rough-looking blokes, shaven-headed, in their early twenties. The girls clung together, giggling. They wobbled unsteadily across the road.

“Harry!” Verity yelled raucously, and fell about laughing. Doubled over, she beckoned for me to come over. I felt painfully self-conscious. They were dressed to the nines, I was wearing the corduroy “best” trousers Mum had bought me.

“Looking good, Harry,” Gail said, when they had calmed down enough—and they both wailed hysterically again.

I stood, mute and unsure, until Verity hugged me sloppily. I almost toppled as she slumped on me. I caught the sharp smell of cider. The two rough-necks prowled uneasily about the periphery, their eyes scanning the shadows, necks craned.

We poured into the club past two unconvinced-looking bouncers. One of them muttered, “Fuckin' kiddies' night.” Verity was clinging to me, giggling. Sound and smoke and light poured out.

It was early, and the disco was almost empty. Red and green light pulsed rhythmically on the tiny dance-floor. The bright lights and deep shadows made it seem far larger than it was. Two girls in white leather trousers were dancing unenthusiastically to “Tainted Love.” They were using a rhythm that had nothing to do with the music, curling around each other at a distance, arms rising for a few swaying beats and then falling again, each instep tapped against the other in turn. A handful of much older men cruised the room's perimeter.

We grabbed an alcove. Verity did the introductions. She couldn't remember the two men's names, and none of us heard what she was saying anyway. We were underage, so Verity persuaded one of the men to get the drinks. He was clearly not best pleased that he had to include me in the round. The other sat on one end of the curved bench, his eyes flicking around the room. The drinks arrived, and we sipped and sat looking at the two girls gyrating, wrapped in angry sound. The lager was watery, and dry-ice fumes burned my nose and tongue.

Verity tugged at my arm. She mouthed something at me; I couldn't hear her, but I knew what she meant. Reluctantly I let her lead me on to the dance-floor. I shifted uneasily from side to side, dazed by sound, and Verity danced for both of us. Gail brought one of the men out to dance with her, and with three couples on the floor it seemed a little less strange. Verity grabbed both my hands and swung them from side to side, singing the words of whatever the song was, pulling me along with her, smiling into my face. I sang back—kind of—still moving awkwardly, but moving, at least, following her lead.

I don't remember the songs, only their effect. It's so easy to stereotype a period; the early eighties, that would be disco, or ska, or New Romantic, or reggae, but actually it was all of those, and loads of other stuff too—Bucks Fizz, Chas and Dave, Abba, the Boomtown Rats, “Remember You're a Womble”—but in recollection, the music all compresses to a single feeling, a time and a place. I remember endless discos from my teenage years. I patrolled the edges of countless rooms, afraid to stay still in case it showed that I was alone, watching the strange rituals of the dance, unsure even how to begin. Verity was trying to pull me into a world where she was someone else. I allowed myself to be pulled.

We danced. And soon enough, as the floor filled, a ginger-haired boy began to dance around us. She opened our circle of two to admit him, and then we were three. And then they were two. I returned to the smoky alcove, now the sole custodian of slopped drinks, purses and coats.

A slow track came on, and the groups and singles filtered away to their tables, leaving pairs of strangers eyeing each other uncertainly. Some slipped into a clinch, others not. Gail clamped her man firmly to her and went straight for the snog. The other man who had been with Verity and Gail had disappeared. Her other two friends were at another table, talking to a group of three men. Verity shrugged and smiled at Ginger, and he gave her a philosophical grimace. She came and flopped next to me. I smiled at her, and she clutched my arm and smiled back.

She drained her second Malibu. I went to buy her another, and amazingly, the barman served me without a word. When I got back, Ginger was leaning over her, talking. I nudged him aside to pass the drink, and he stood back, fidgeting. As I sat next to her, Verity tweaked her eyebrows at him and grinned. He grinned back, and disappeared into the thickening crowd. She shuffled closer to me and leaned across to chink her glass, inaudibly, against mine on the table. I chinked back, pushing closer to her in turn, and swigged.

People swayed in silhouette, hair fringed with slowly cycling colour: red, green, blue, yellow, red. The dry-ice machine roared, and clouds of smoke rolled out across the floor, swirling round the dancers' feet.

Later, I sat with my second water-flavoured pint and watched them kiss. They were perched on a brass rail that ringed part of the dance-floor, craning towards each other, necks extended, bodies not yet touching. She groped for his hand and planted it on her waist. Without unlocking their lips, he manoeuvred round to stand in front of her and squashed himself against her, his thigh between hers, her throat arched up to meet his mouth. His hands running down her sides, stroking up, her skirt riding higher. Lights pulsing, music pumping, each thick beat harder and more forceful than the one before.

Later, she came over for her coat, trailing him behind her on a fingertip. She mouthed, “See ya, gorgeous,” wrinkled her nose confidently, and winked. They drifted together towards the exit.

I waited, so that I wouldn't see them again outside. The music was a chant:
Go, Harry, leave, Harry, go, Harry, now—go now, Harry, leave, Harry, now, now, now
. I left.

The air was sharp and still. The concrete buildings shone in the orange streetlight. I walked towards the bike racks. My ears were ringing in a suddenly silent world.

Two in the morning.

They were there, on a low wall by the bikes. She was on his lap, one arm round his neck, the other hand drifting over his chest, with her fingers poking through the gaps in his shirt. One of his hands was on her waist; the other was up her skirt. Her eyes were closed, his open. He saw me, and hitched his hand higher on her thigh. She moaned through his mouth, urged herself towards him. His gaze moved away from me, unconcerned.

I bent to unlock my bike.

“Harry!”

She unwound herself from Ginger, straightened her skirt and tottered over to me. “You going, Harry?”

I could barely hear her. My head still sang in time to the music—
Go, Harry, go, Harry, now, go now
. I nodded and bent back to the rusted lock. The key snagged in it. I jerked it savagely.

She stood, uncertain, tight to herself and shivering. I put my leg over the bike and flicked the pedal into position.

“Thanks for coming,” she muttered, not looking at me.

I hefted my weight on to the pedal.

“Hug,” she blurted suddenly, and held out her arms.

Stiffly, we hugged, her yielding towards me, me astride my bike. She tilted up her face and reached for my mouth. I pulled back, turning it into a kind of peck.

Not too close, Harry.

Never too close.

“I love you, Harry,” she said drowsily. Drunkenly. “You're a good mate.” She nestled her cheek on my collarbone.

“Verity? Come home?”

With a slow effort, she straightened and took a step back. She sniffed hard, and her gaze seemed to clear. “Wassa time?”

“Two.”

“Be along in a mo’.” She nodded sagely.

She staggered back to Ginger and sat astride him again, sank her head towards him, closing her eyes. I watched for long enough to know that she wasn't coming.

I cycled home in the cold moonlight, the wheels of my bike humming on the silent streets. In north Oxford, I ducked left on a whim and followed the canal. I could barely make out the path, a dark gravel strip between the dark water and the darker verge.

Home, I manoeuvred my bike through the narrow gate and round the side of the house, quietly cursing the shrubbery and my still-ringing ears. I caught a movement and looked up. Lit by the moon through a window, Gabriel's face was flat shapes and dark gashes. He let the curtain drop, and the windows became as lifeless and blank as they had been when I arrived. Verity's curtains were open, the room still in darkness. Somewhere in there was her bed, her clothes, mirrors, hairbrushes and perfume.

Still looking up, my face offered to the moon, I tripped over a tussock and fell flat on the grass. It was wet. It tickled my face. It was embarrassing.

And I wished she had been there with me. To laugh.