Personal Darkness (24 page)

Maybe that was where Tray got her looks from after all. Or from his own mother. The Old Girl had been quite a piece in her youth, he had seen the photos.

In the glass, over Marilyn's struggling reflection (she had started the bike again), the gold winked on his St. Christopher medallion, his sovereign ring, his Rolex.

Behind him was the huge room, which Marilyn had decorated, like all the house, but bought and paid for by Nobbi.

Red velvet curtains held back by satin cords, studded red velvet couch and chairs, red Axminster carpet. Two chandeliers. On the glass coffee table, a stack of Mari-lyn's
Vogues
and a big china doll in an Elizabethan dress and ruff of real silk and lace.

Over the gas log fireplace was
The Haywain
, reproduced to look like genuine paint. And on the other wall, which was papered in crimson damask, was Van Gogh's
Sunflowers
, a blot of yellow on all that red.

Nobbi did not bother with art, normally he did not notice. But the sunflowers always unsettled him a little, and Marilyn did not like them either, he knew, but only felt they should be there.

On the mantelpiece was Marilyn's collection of china figures, ladies from various historical eras. Nobbi quite liked those, because they were women.

Certainly they were expensive, like everything else.

Over by the large TV were Marilyn's fourteen exercise videos. Poor old Marilyn.

She was eating chocolate again, still pedaling.

Nobbi turned away. He would have to find something to do to take his mind off Tray.

It was no good worrying about her. When she got into a mess she would call him again, and he would go and rescue her. She knew he was always there.

He realized she was not innocent. She had slept with fellows. He wished it was not so, but that was the way it went nowadays. It would not matter in the long run. One day he would give her a white wedding, when she had calmed down, when there was a chap with money who could look after her, keep her happy. A son of one of the lads. Someone in the business.

He blamed that Lou. Lou had led Tray into all this nonsense, rock groups and running about. Lou came from scum, poor cow, she had never been any good. Had an abortion at twelve, he had subsequently found out. Too late now to get Tray away from her. Tray would find out for herself, and then he would be there, and then maybe he could get her to stay here, and she would be safe.

If only she would phone regularly. Even Marilyn had started to complain about it. If only he knew where she was—

Nobbi went out of the lounge, and up the thickly carpeted stairs.

He glanced into the bedroom he shared with Marilyn. It was curtained and bedspread with cotton sateen and matchingly papered in a pink migraine attack of small flowers. Ruched lace rucked up before the windows. On the bed were Marilyn's two bedroom dolls, a life-size little girl in a pink frock and a life-size little boy in blue.

Nobbi sometimes jokingly objected to the boy doll. Another man in his bedroom. He did not mind the little girl.

Marilyn had done the bathroom in piercing primrose yellow, to be cheerful. Tray's bathroom, around the turn of the corridor, was done in salmon. Marilyn had insisted. "You can spoil your bedroom if you want, but I want you to have a proper bathroom."

On the washbasin, next to the oyster-colored bar of unused soap, stood the half-empty abandoned bottle of Tray's nail varnish, black with gold specks. The cleaning woman always carefully replaced it when she had mopped the basin. The nail varnish was dried up. It had been there three months.

Nobbi tried not to, but he could not help it. He went into Tray's bedroom.

It was done in black crushed satin, with bands of gold-scrolled black dado. Black lace hung over the lamp. Before the windows were suspended sheets of smoked glass with skulls on them, and on the walls were posters of long-haired, bare-chested young males, and one of a decomposing skeleton creature with white hair and a sword. Tray had told him this was called Eddie.

The bed had four black posts, and here sat another doll. It had once been quite sweet, but Tray had awarded it spiked orange hair and black lipstick, chains and a nose stud.

There was also the stuffed lion.

He had given her that when she was six.

"Lovely animals," he said, "lions."

"It'll frighten her," said Marilyn.

But the lion did not frighten Tray because Nobbi told her about lions, how noble they were, and how the lion would look after her when he was not there.

He picked up the lion now, and gave it a gentle shake. "Bloody useless, ain't you, mate."

On the dressing table were other things she had left behind. Some beads, a string of real pearls he had bought her on her fifteenth birthday. A little bone ring. Her fingers were so slender.

Christ, she was tiny, and the world out there was full of shit.

Nobbi squeezed the lion.

On the surface of the built-in wardrobe hung a miniature dress in coral and black, and a big black velvet hat. The cleaner always carefully replaced them.

It was like one of those bedrooms you kept for someone dead. A shrine.

Nobbi went out quickly and shut the door. He had the lion under his arm.

He walked down through the large house, and went out of the side door and over the garden, behind the grape pergola to the built-on annexe, his office.

A kind of relief laved over him when he came here. It was furnished with stuff from the Old Girl's house at Clapham, the big creaky chairs, the ancient sideboard.

Above the clutter of his office desk hung his grandfather's brass telescope and a sea chart Nobbi could not read. His father had been a bugger, but his granddad was a winner. An ugly old bastard, like Nobbi, with about three teeth in his head, mouth like a sewer—his mother had screamed at the language—and a mind full of trea-sure. He took snuff, and Nobbi had kept the battered tin. He could recall taking those gifts of snuff and fags, the bottles of rum. The muddly house. The lovely elderly dog with one blind eye, like Nelson.

Nobbi would have liked a dog, but Marilyn had been upset by the idea of the hairs. Tray was frightened of dogs.

Bugger this.

Nobbi put the lion on the desk and gave it a pat.

Then he picked up the phone and dialed Sandy.

They were doing a job over at Richmond. It was something for the Corporation. Had to be spot on. Should have been finished by now.

When Sandy came on the phone, Nobbi gave him a bollocking.

Things had to be special for Mr. Glass. Christ help you if they were not.

But Nobbi had always kept on the good side of the Corporation, and he did all right.

Then again, his firm was raking it in. He charged top prices for his work, and something over. Some people were so bloody stupid, they had more dosh than sense.

Except now and then, he would do a job himself, like for that old bird in Kentish town. Two hundred that had cost him, but she lived like a sparrow. "Call it ten quid, love. And give us a cuppa. Or give us a kiss and we'll call it five."

Sandy took the bollocking in his stride. He promised the job would be complete by Monday morning, they would go on over Sunday.

After the call, Nobbi tried to relax. He lit one of his cigars, which Marilyn said smelled, using the matches on his desk and ignoring the gold lighter. The cigar triggered his cough.

The lion looked happier in the office.

It had been fine when she was little. She used to follow him about. He had been able to look after her.

Nobbi put out the cigar and got up. He took his jacket off a chair, and went out of the office, locking the door.

Marilyn was sitting out on the lawn now, by the saccharine-blue swimming pool.

"Sorry, love," he said. "Something's come up. I've got to go over to Richmond."

"Oh, Nobbi."

"Sorry, love. It's a special job."

Marilyn knew it would be useless to protest. She understood, although they were maintained as a secret from her, that Nobbi sometimes did favors for and always had contacts in shadier areas than plastering and decorating. She preferred not to think of this.

She said, "Will you be back tonight?"

"I'll stay over with Sandy. Get an early start in the morning." Poor old Marilyn. "We'll go up The Fantail tomorrow night," said Nobbi.

Marilyn always liked to go out, although they did so two or three times every week. She brightened.

He left her looking at the blue pool, and went to liberate his Jag from the double garage.

Nobbi drove over the river.

As he went through the winding streets, he found himself looking here and there, and once he saw a slim little girl with long curling sunny hair. But it was not his Tray.

The sun was low, slanting sherry-colored through the parched green of the trees in tiny gardens, and sheeting the dim walls with apricot. Indian summer. Why did they call it that?

The gray Jaguar turned down the road with the launderette, fish shop, and Pakistani grocers. It came to a halt outside the three-story block of flats.

Nobbi got out, and glanced up at the windows.

Marilyn always liked notice if anyone was coming.

She even preferred it if Nobbi gave her a call to say what time he would be in. Tray used to drive her mad.

But here, there had never been any awkwardness like that.

He walked up the path over the square of grass and opened the outer door. Then he walked up the two flights, although it brought on his cough.

Flat 5A had a cream door that could do with another coat, and he ought to see to that fairly soon.

He rang the bell.

He knew what would happen, but he never got tired of it.

The door opened about two inches, and a thin face peered out. The face was framed by dead black hair cut level with the jaw. It was without makeup, strained and thin-lipped, with two enormous black-brown eyes. There was nothing about the face, nothing, until it saw him. And then it blossomed like a flower. It became flushed and almost pretty, and the door and the eyes opened much wider and the lips softened and parted.

"Nobbi! It's you! Nobbi, darling."

"Hallo, Star. I'm sorry, I didn't bring nothing for you. I forgot."

"I don't want anything. Only you."

And Nobbi went into the flat, and Star flung her arms around him and kissed his face with lots of quick light kisses.

Her actual name was Stella Atkins. She spoke well, and that always pleased him. He liked that sort of accent, the kind that was without any accent at all. She was a library assistant, clever.

He supposed that maybe she never minded when he arrived because she was always prepared. She was always bathing, and never put any cosmetics on her face. Her nails were bitten down like a girl's, although she was thirty-five. She was thin like a girl, too, and not very big on the bust. But she had lovely skin, smooth and pale.

The flat was always dusty, and always cluttered, with books and records and tapes everywhere. She did not care about appearances, wearing shabby suits to work, and jeans and sloppy shirts at home. She had no jewelry but for a silver watch which had been her mother's.

She had had a cat. It had been twenty-six when it died, sleeping on her lap. She had never been able to bring herself to replace it. The cat had been before his time.

"I've got a bottle of wine in the fridge. I saved it for when you'd come."

She ran to get it, her feet were winged.

He watched her bend to remove the bottle. She had a lovely bum.

He pinched her gently, and she squeaked, and came up and around with the wine in one hand, and kissed him deeply on the lips. Her other hand cupped his genitals. There was no mucking about with Star.

"Saucy," said Nobbi. He felt himself getting hard.

He was half a head shorter than she. But that had never concerned them. He opened the bottle, with slight difficulty, as Star caressed him.

They managed a quarter of a glass each, and then she was pulling him fiercely to her clean and neatly made bed, the only neat thing in the flat, soon to be wrecked.

Nobbi drew up Star's shirt, and found her bare shallow breasts. He tongued them all over and Star writhed and wrapped her legs around him.

He got off her jeans and panties, and licked her clit thoroughly. She tasted lovely, she always did. She came as he did this, giving off wild high cries, and the spasm running through her strongly enough he could feel it in his tongue, and taste the sharp minty fragrance.

"Christ, you're fucking lovely, you are."

Then she undressed him.

She did not seem to need chocolate for energy. The only sweet thing he had known her eat was an apple or a peach. She did not like chocolates, in fact. She did like his penis.

Star finally climbed up on Nobbi's fat muscular body like a queen into her chariot.

She rode above him, her face now glorious, and savage. "Oh, Nobbi— Oh, Nobbi—"

She flung back her head and had an orgasm that shook both of them, and, as he watched her, Nobbi came, groaning.

Star went to fetch the wine. She asked if he was hungry, and when he said he was, she brought him a toasted bacon sandwich on Boursin, with green chillies.

"Can I cook for you tonight?" asked Star.

"I can stay the night."

She kissed him.

When he had rested, she lay down across his legs and began to suck on him again. Although her lips were not full, her mouth was adept and marvelous, and her tongue drove him crazy.

He came again with a shout, and Star drank him down.

"I wish I could keep some of that in a bottle."

Nobbi lay back. He felt great. He slipped asleep, thinking that he had not thought of Tracy for a whole hour.