Virtue (27 page)

‘I didn’t want to let anyone down,’ she says. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise I was going to end up feeling like this.’

I sit down opposite her, take her hand. In contrast with her forehead, it is slightly cold and clammy. I don’t think she’s going to die, but she must feel awful.

‘You’re really not well, sweets. You must go home.’

‘I can’t,’ she insists. ‘I’ve got to do the cellar.’

Oh, dear. I know I’m going to regret this. ‘Don’t be silly, honey, you’re ill. I’ll sort it.’

There. I regret it already.

‘No, Anna,’ she protests feebly, ‘I can’t just dump it all on you.’ And then she shivers. A strand of hair has worked loose from her schoolgirl ponytail and clings limply to her forehead.

‘Just accept this, Harriet,’ I reply firmly. ‘You’ve got to go home. You look like shit and you obviously feel like shit and I don’t want you getting any iller than you can help. Come on, love.’

She looks up with large, wounded eyes, and her lower lip wobbles slightly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and because she’s ill, she says it slightly tearfully. I give one of those half-laugh-half-sobs as I look at her; the sight of someone else in trouble always fills me up. ‘I really don’t feel well,’ she finishes.

I squeeze her hand, brush the strand away from her face. ‘I know, darling. So go home.’

A tear drops out of one of her eyes and she wipes it away with the back of her hand. ‘Stupid. Sorry. Bugger. Pathetic.’

‘Come on. Go home. Stop worrying about it and get into bed. I’ll see you in the morning.’ I help her to her feet, put her into her coat. It’s like dressing a small child. I get the tips pot and press the contents into her hand. ‘And take a taxi,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t want you walking, do you understand?’

She sniffs, apologises again. Then with heavy feet she trails out through the kitchen and the alley door bangs behind her.

I switch the Gaggia back on and wait for the steam to build up. I reckon a quadruple espresso should do it. At least until four in the morning. While I wait, I cash up. Not a bad night. We’ve taken nearly two grand despite the fact that huge tables usually mean that everyone else leaves early. Maybe I should think about opening a restaurant of my own when my trust comes through; if you’re successful, it’s practically a licence to print money. I stuff the cash in my money belt and take the credit-card slips downstairs to add to the shoeboxful already there.

It doesn’t get any better, the cellar. Something scutters away into a corner when I switch on the light; I don’t know what and I don’t want to know. Eyeing the cobweb by the fusebox, I feel my way down the stairs and click on the anglepoise on the desk. Boot up the computer. It grunts. I sit down. I can’t even kick off my shoes. If the punters could see the damp in here, they would never order another drink again. The quiet hum of computer and freezer scarcely disguises the fact that this room is unnaturally silent, oppressive, full of shadows. Everything in here seems to throw a shadow; the freezer, the bottle racks, the piles of spare crockery, the basket from the dead deep frier, the crossed lacrosse sticks over the box files. Joy of joys.

The computer beeps to let me know that it’s finished booting up and I open the shoebox. Rest against the chair-back and start to leaf through the receipts within. Roy’s been stowing the incomings and outgoings in the same box again, damn it. I sigh, take a slug of coffee and settle down to separate them.

Boring, boring, boring. There must be a better way of raising income than this thing that combines excruciating tedium and gnawing terror in equal quantities. The combined hours wasted nationally on sorting pieces of paper into in and out, taxi and bus, vegetable and mineral, electricity and telephone would probably fund the entire NHS on their own. I hate it. I hate Customs and Excise and their right to come into people’s premises whenever they feel like it and subject their lives to humourless scrutiny and wordless accusation. I hate that gnawing dread that starts up a month before the returns are due in. But most of all, I hate the boredom. If I could sue the government for the amount of boredom they’ve caused me in my life so far, I’d be a millionaire.

By the time I’ve got to box two, my eyelids are drooping. It’s two in the morning already, and there are five screens’ worth of dreary figures glowing ghostly white before me. The weight of the house above me seems to be pressing down on my back in the thick air, and my concentration is shot to shit. Picking up a handful of already sorted receipts, I realise that I’ve been assigning them randomly, simply staring dumbly at them and then dropping them on whatever pile my hand had drifted towards. I yawn, rub my neck, sip cold coffee and feel the tears of boredom begin to slide.

I’ve got to do this. Come on, Anna. Do this and then you can go home.

Perhaps just a little nap.

Come on. Pull yourself together. Arcoroc glasses, six dozen …

Just a small sleep. Will concentrate better when …

I pinch myself. Come on. You stay up much later than this without trouble when it’s fun. Come on. 28 June: Table 6: dinner, 4 pers, 117.75 …

Just a bit. If you laid your head down on the desk and closed your eyes …

I can’t help it. Bundling up my jacket for a pillow, I rest my cheek upon it for a few moments and everything goes black.

At first, I don’t know what’s woken me. I’ve been so heavily asleep that I haven’t even been aware that I was, and finding myself in the cellar comes as an unpleasant surprise. Even more unpleasant is the discovery that I’ve been drooling, and my cheek and the shoulder of the jacket are smeared with stale-smelling sog. I smack my lips, raise my head and groan. Damn it. What time is it?

The computer says that I’ve been asleep fifteen minutes. I don’t feel even slightly better for it; feel heavy and grimy and deeply depressed. Funny. I usually sleep for forty-five minutes if I take a nap. Wonder what woke—

Footsteps. That’s what woke me. There’s someone in the kitchen. Shahin forgotten something and come back half-cut to get it, maybe, or Roy come down to check on me. Ah, well: might as well make another coffee while I talk to them. I pick up my mug and get to my feet, and as I get to the bottom of the stairs, I’m about to call out. And then I hear the footsteps again, and stop.

That’s not the footstep of someone pissed. That’s a furtive footstep. There’s someone up there, but they don’t think they should be.

Oh, yeah, I’m awake now. Freezing cold and perspiring at the same time. Oh, shit. There’s someone up there. I didn’t lock the back door and now there’s someone in the kitchen, and they’re making their way towards the restaurant.

Slowly. It’s, like, footstep, pause, footstep, pause, two steps, longer pause. Whoever they are, they’re in no hurry. They’re being careful. And me in the cellar in nothing but a gymslip.

Oh, God. What do I do?

The shadows close in suddenly and my temperature drops another couple of degrees. I know what I want to do. I want to run away. But there’s nowhere much to run from a hole in the ground whose only exit lies in the path of the intruder.

Maybe he’ll go away. Please, God, make him go away
.

A stealthy new approach towards the kitchen door.

Fuck. He’s going to come through in a second and see the light shining out under this door. I have to do something.

What? What? Oh, for God’s sake don’t make me have to go up there
.

To my astonishment, my feet seem to have made the decision for me while my mind was panicking. I am creeping up the cellar steps and I want to scream.
Please, God. If you exist. I’m sorry I said you didn’t exist. Please
.

Two steps from the top, I stretch out as far as I can reach and take the old-fashioned button switch between thumb and forefinger. Slowly, slowly, millimetre by millimetre, I pull it downwards. Don’t let it click, God. Just let it cut the connection and set me free.

The bare lightbulb behind me fizzes, dies.

It’s still light, for God’s sake, you stupid tart. The light’s on on the desk.

I’ve started talking to myself again. Decision-making in order, and the internal dialogue is pumping away.

Can’t I just hide somewhere?

Don’t be stupid. He’ll see you.

Why did this happen to me?

Nothing’s happened.

Yet
.

Yet. But it’s going to.

What did I do? Why me? What did I do to deserve this?

Shut up. Do something.

There’s a five-year-old child bawling and wailing and shouting inside me. I can hear it, and I can hear the blood surge in my veins.

Shut up
.

Stupid. I actually think he’ll be able to hear me breathe. Kick my shoes off at the bottom of the steps. Tiptoe across the cellar floor, snap off the light.

The kitchen door creaks open. Whoever it is is standing in the doorway. Probably deciding which way to go first. Looking around. To his left is the bar, and the cash till and the alcohol. To his right is the cellar door. God, let him turn left.

Frozen, I realise that I am still not entirely in darkness.

Fuck. Computer’s still on. God.

Maybe it’s not enough light. Maybe it’s okay. How much can you see by the light of a computer screen?

Stupid. Stupid stupid. If he comes in and sees that the computer’s on, of course he’ll know you’re here. Stupid. How could you be so careless? You think
he’s
being careless?

Maybe he won’t know
.

Just turn it off.

He’ll hear
.

Turn it off.

I can hardly bear to breathe as I creep round the desk and feel along the underside of the monitor. He’s still standing in the doorway; hasn’t moved. Listening. My fingers find the switch. Thank you, God. I depress the raised end.

Beep.

I’m down in the kneehole of the desk before I’ve thought; knees and ankles and elbows and head crammed in like noodles, mouth hanging open in the gasp I don’t dare let out.

He’s heard. He opens the door.

I stop. Completely stop breathing. I think my heart actually stops. He’s standing at the top of the steps, and he does nothing.

I don’t know what they mean when they give you all that guff about adrenaline kicking in, or your mind being overtaken by calm in crises. Every hair on my body, every pore of my skin, every nerve ending within, is pure fear. Freezing, sharp-edged, paralysing fear. The only part of me that is not screaming at this moment is my mouth. Oh, God, make him go away. Make him go away.

The light comes on.

Silence.

Heart.

Silence.

Heart.

Silence.

A word forms in my mind: God knows where it came from. It’s the word brave men use when facing death on the battlefield. It’s a word that takes me totally by surprise.

Mummy
.

I have to breathe. Take my hand from my mouth and, with infinite stealth, allow air to stream into my shuddering lungs. Let it out again. In again.

Silence.

Breathe.

Silence.

Breathe.

He speaks.

‘That’s all right,’ he says. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

Steps backward. Turns off the light. Closes the door.

He’s playing a trick. He’s still inside. Waiting. I can hear his heartbeat. Smell him. Upstairs, footsteps cross the restaurant floor. It’s my heart. He must be able to hear it.

They cross back, pause once more outside the cellar door. Then a sound I really don’t like.

He laughs.

Kitchen door creaking. Make him go away, God. Please.

He stays. I hear the scrape of Shahin’s stool at the central island. He’s sat down. At least I can breathe. Briefly, this improvement in my circumstances is enough. I haul air into my body, uncurl my legs to make more space for my chest. That’s fine, stupid, but you’re still trapped.

I know
.

Get out.

I can’t
.

He’s waiting.

I can’t
.

You must.

How?

The mobile. You stupid bitch, the mobile.

My bag is on the floor beside me, round the back of the desk out of his eye view. The mobile.

Save me
.

It’s off. I stuff it under my tunic and switch it on, muffling the beep. The welcome message takes half a lifetime to load; all the time, I can hear him shift about on the stool. What’s he doing?

Menu.

No bars.

Shit. Basement. Widest coverage in the UK, my arse. What’s the use of a network that lets you talk from a beach in Cornwall when you can’t talk from a basement in London?

I cast around. There is nothing here, no way out, nothing. We had the coal hole blocked up when we brought the computer down here in case of burglars. Good joke.

He’s waiting.

You’ve got to go to the top of the stairs.

No
.

You’ve got to do it.

I start to cry, stifled wimpers which I cover with my sleeve.
Please don’t make me. I’m so afraid. Please
.

You have to.

Please
.

You’ve got to GO.

And I know I’m right. But I’m snivelling like a cornered bully and the five-year-old’s screams have reached full volume.

GO NOW.

I go. Crawl out from under the desk and, because my legs won’t hold me, slither over the slimy floor to the foot of the steps.

He shifts on his stool and I make ready to bolt back to my hiding place. But then he settles down.

Please, God, please, please
.

Don’t let the steps creak. I go up slowly on my knees, weight all thrown over onto the wall side. Check the bars on the phone as we rise. One. Nothing. Two. Nothing. Three. Nothing. Four. Nothing. Five. Nothing. Six. Nothing. Seven. Nothing. Eight. The display flickers; for a split second a bar appears, then nothing.

There are only two steps between me and the door. My legs are shaking.

Go on. Go up.

I can’t
.

GO UP.

I go. Nearly drop the phone because of the sweat on my hands.

He’s humming in the next room ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’. And there’s a strange scraping noise, like metal on metal. What’s he doing?