Untouchable Things Read online

  His mind had been on overdrive since the photo, searching and surmising and making connections even in his sleep, insidious connections in deep, dark neural pathways. At three in the morning he’d ping suddenly awake with a perfect recollection of something Seth said, a put-down, an obscure reference, a hint. Stuff he’d forgotten, or tried to forget. He was re-evaluating everything he thought he knew about his oldest friend.

  He’d said nothing to Sarah, of course. Something like that – well, goodness knows what it could trigger. He tried to be natural around her but he kept seeing her in a red wig and unsisterly pout. A child playing dress up. The shock of ribs under her taut skin. The Bridget connection came to him in one of those midnight epiphanies. Sarah, Mrs Larson had said. Seth had betrayed Bridget with Sarah. He had pushed it out of his mind and now it was staring him in the face. Looking at the photo, the timing fitted. Sarah would have been doing her Masters. He’d no idea they’d stayed in touch. And now she couldn’t even bear to hear Seth’s name. What the hell had he done to her?

  This was no longer playboy Seth, hedonistic Seth, notching up conquests for fun. This was completely personal. Seth, his oldest friend, his best friend, had tried to ruin the two most important women in his life.

  But why?

  Was he jealous?

  That seemed ludicrous. But the only other explanation was a terrifying malice. Or it wasn’t Seth at all. Someone else was behind it, someone who wished them all harm. His hands trembled as he put the inhaler back in his pocket and surveyed the quietening road. A tiny bulb of panic started to flash in his head, faster and faster. He couldn’t even get himself home, let alone figure out how a mind like Seth’s worked. His friend’s laughter blew around him like the accelerating rain and spray from passing cars.

  He gripped his keys in his pocket. That’s when he remembered. He pulled them out and checked. There it was, a single gold key, never used. He laughed back into the wind. Seth may as well help him out for once.

  Scene 6

  She burrows down into wrinkled white cotton, one pillow nuzzled by her face, the other hugged hard to her chest. She is awake and asleep, drowsy and alert, suspended in dreams and duck down duvet. She knows he will come to her, summoned by her whispered calls like Jane Eyre to Rochester. She hears his key in the lock. Honey, I’m home. Rolling through ripples of darkness towards the chink of light she sees a silhouette above her. He tries to speak but she puts a finger over her mouth and holds out a hand. He takes it wonderingly as she pushes back the covers to let him see her. Any second now she will feel his hand on her, first fluttering then frantic, then the weight of his body drowning her out, crushing her to rubble. His neck is wet and she closes her eyelids against his tears.

  * * * * *

  “Catherine, please talk to me.”

  How can she talk when she cannot look, cannot meet his tender confusion and fired hope, her mirrored image in his eyes?

  “I don’t want you to feel embarrassed about what happened. I don’t. It was beautiful.”

  She’s in a nightmare. That’s what it is. She’s in the misted kingdom of changelings and dark magic where betrayals are undone upon waking.

  His hand tries to evoke a response from her rigid body. “Please. Please look at me. I know I was – I’d had a few drinks, but I knew exactly what I was doing and I don’t regret it for a second. To be honest I don’t think I’ve ever had such a nice surprise.”

  He means to lighten the atmosphere, make her feel better, but she curls up as if he has released a swarm of cockroaches to crawl over her body. “Please leave.” She has too little power to be polite. Her voice is a whisper and she knows he will make her repeat it. The second time she manages to say sorry.

  Nothing moves in the room for a second. Then the creak of the bed tells her that he is getting to his feet. Still she cannot turn her head.

  When the door has clicked closed she flies into sudden life, stripping stained sheets and cases and covers until they are safely scrunched behind the snap of the washing machine door. For the first time in weeks she takes a shower instead of a bath, twizzling the nozzle until it stings and pummels. She gets dressed in the swirl of steam, brushes her teeth without a glance at the obscured mirror.

  By the time she has smoothed down the tumble-dried bedding it’s eleven o’clock and people will raise eyebrows at a doctor’s appointment taking so long. For a second she thinks of making an excuse and going home, but there is something in that choice that frightens her even more. On impulse, she nearly posts the key back through the letterbox after locking the downstairs door. In the end she slips it back into the breast pocket of her jacket and hurries onto the street.

  Scene 7

  Charles skips work. He’s never done it before – thirty-three years old and never taken a ‘sick day’. Sometimes he thinks he hasn’t lived, not like other people. Responsibility is sewn into his DNA. Always taking care of other people, trying to do the right thing, good old Charles picking up the pieces of other people’s adventures.

  Never having his own.

  But today will be different. Today he’s breezing around Hyde Park in yesterday’s clothes and unbrushed teeth. He’s had a pastry and cappuccino for breakfast and intends to have another coffee stop soon. Flashbacks break over him, disrupting his stride, his train of thought, flushing him with stunned pangs of arousal. The directness of her desire, her creamy skin, the vice-clasp of legs wrapped around him. He has to stop for a second and grasp something solid, something to tell him it wasn’t a dream. Rust from a grilled fence rubs into flakes under his fingers while a man and his dog stare. Charles laughs.

  She was mortified this morning. He knows women can feel tremendous embarrassment, even shame, at taking the lead in bed. With her sensitive nature, Catherine would feel it even harder. The thought that such passion, such abandonment, is simmering under the still waters of her public face, that it was he who unleashed it… he has to stop again until his vision clears. She is embarrassed now but if he gives her space while remaining attentive, she will surely unfurl like a snowdrop in the sunshine.

  He needs a plan. The thought buoys him towards another coffee stop, where he finds his reveries punctured by the waitress. She’s impossible to ignore, especially since his table almost adjoins the counter. She has a strong regional accent – northern of some description – in which she booms ‘nice one’ in response to every transaction. At first he finds it amusing, even charming, but halfway through his coffee he wants to throttle her. She’s chatting to some supplier or other who’s leaning on the counter in a familiar way. Charles tries not to listen but the bawdy laughter cuts through his would-be daydreams.

  “By the way, if you see Jonny, tell ’im nice one.”

  He’s about to leave when she’s called through to the back; now the slow rotation of his hand stirs up sugar and memories. He’s had a soft spot for Catherine for some time, an Achilles’ heel that Seth used to kick at when the mood took him. He always flatly denied it, which made it hard to pay Catherine any particular attention in a group situation. And they were always in a group situation.

  Back then, Catherine never looked much further than Seth. She was dazzled by him, like all women, maybe like everyone. So dazzled that when she looked at Charles she probably saw dancing spots in front of her eyes. Maybe since Seth had gone her eyes were readjusting. Last night, for sure, she had seen something that she wanted. What incredible luck that they had both needed somewhere to crash out for the night. Was it luck? Or fate?

  His heart beats to the rhythm of the generic Latin American soundtrack. He thinks of her pulling him down onto her outstretched nakedness. Then he thinks of the sweetness of her smile and the line of her spine like a pencil at the piano. How could he not have known he was in love with her? Why had it taken Seth leaving to see clearly?

  The thought comes so rapidly that he doesn’t have time to deflect it. He doesn’t want Seth to come back. His breathing is jagged as he stares at his coffee.
r />   He thinks of Mrs Larson and her warning. Ever since that visit he’s been batting away memories of what happened with Bridget. Sometimes he can’t help revisiting that moment, those black suspenders and ludicrous heels, the red haze that descended over his vision and said kill him.

  He thinks of Sarah, wrapped up in jumpers too big for her, and pictures Seth strolling back into their lives, broad smile, flashing energy like an electric storm.

  Then he sees Catherine’s face crumple into euphoria, her bare arms reaching for Seth.

  And his hands twitch and start to sweat.

  * * * * *

  He’s back at Seth’s flat. He could rather get used to it here, especially with no one in it. He sips his Earl Grey and smiles. Catherine has made the bed but he prefers to think of it rumpled. Hopefully she’ll return later and this time he can surprise her. He’s got them some supper in. Seth can provide the wine.

  At five o’clock he pops on some Schubert and starts to potter. He sticks his head into the bedroom a couple of times. That’s when he notices the door to the wardrobe slightly ajar. He goes over to close it but finds himself pulling it open. All those shirts lined up, awaiting a wearing that may never come. It makes him shiver. He sees the boxes of folders where Bridget’s name was buried. Did they ever finish going through them?

  He drags a couple of boxes through to the drawing room and opens a bottle of red wine. Rioja Reserva, good choice, Charlie boy. He flips and sips, flips and sighs. It’s all academic stuff, notes on sexual imagery in the metaphysical poets, detailed analysis of some George Herbert poems. He starts to feel overwhelmed and a little light-headed.

  Halfway through the third folder down he sees that the handwriting has changed. It’s tidier, smaller, like a child’s. There’s some more poetry but this is definitely not George Herbert.

  He must die

  And I must do it.

  Shake him up like a

  table cruet.

  Knife his heart like a

  fillet steak,

  Teach him not to

  fork at the table.

  Swill him down with Wolf Black Label.

  Something flashes, something Catherine had said about Seth catching his parents having sex – was it on the kitchen table? And is this a poem about his father? He reads on.

  Wipe the debris, slip outside,

  Illegal smoker, patricide.

  Charles stares at the poem. The word is there in black and white, cementing his worst suspicions onto paper. Patricide. He skims the papers underneath. Death-laced images jump out like pop-ups from a children’s story. Poems about patricide.

  He puts down his wine and goes to the kitchen to make more tea. His hands shake like an old man’s but his mind is agile, leapfrogging to make sinister connections. But he needs to be careful. These are adolescent ramblings. What teenager hasn’t wished their parents dead? Well, maybe not dead – and maybe not enough to write several poems about it – but then he had a decent upbringing. It seems fairly clear that Seth hadn’t. Maybe he’s just processing his feelings.

  Rapid, staccato knocks at the door jump-start his heart and set it pumping in synch. His first thought is the police. Who else could bypass the entry phone? He runs to the lounge, starts stuffing papers back into folders as the knocking comes again, just as urgent. One of the others? Catherine? He cranes his head towards the front door as he loads up the box, sees it move inwards slightly as if someone is pushing against it. He calls out, just coming, won’t be long, hauls the boxes to the corner and closes the drawing room door behind him.

  As the knocks start up again he twists the catch, his smile prepared to greet Anna or Catherine or the lady detective.

  It would be rude to drop the smile immediately just because he doesn’t recognise the caller so he lets it hover inanely for a second. The woman’s eyes are darting, trying to see past him.

  “Is Seth here?”

  She speaks quickly with the cool, deep tone of authority. Charles finds himself gripping the doorway as if she will try to push past him.

  “I’m afraid not, no.”

  “I see.” The woman appraises him, top to toe, in a blink. She is as tall as him with long, rust-coloured hair. Her face is ageless; she could be anything from thirty-five to sixty. “Are you expecting him back soon?”

  He coughs. “I’m not sure. May I pass on a message?”

  The woman’s eyes are flicking again. Something resonates with him.

  “Are you sure he’s not here?”

  He strengthens his voice. “I’m sure. I’m his friend, Charles. Can I help you in some way?”

  They weigh each other up for a second and then the woman says Christ, and runs her hand through her hair and she too grasps the doorframe.

  “Can I wait inside for him?”

  He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know when you last saw Seth but he’s not been here for quite a while. We don’t know when he’s coming back.” It’s the first time he’s had to break the news of Seth’s disappearance to anyone. The woman makes a small moan and leans on her hand as if she’s about to collapse. Should he ask her in? Something tells him not to. Her face is hidden by swirls of hair as thick as Rebecca’s. Slowly she lifts her head and turns sea-coloured eyes on him, watery pools that harden as she stands upright.

  “If you speak to him, please tell him that – Julia was looking for him. Tell him to come – to go back to Burnholme.”

  She turns so swiftly that he gets an eyeful of hair.

  He sees her a second time that day. When he turns on the TV for the evening news. Her face is taut despite the frown and the tears. She’s making an appeal for witnesses to come forward. Witnesses to the abduction and murder of her husband, Clive Rothbury.

  Scene 8

  “What thinks you, fair Ophelia?”

  They are enacting a light-hearted lunch, the three of them, plus Charles, who’s on rather good form. He even seemed cheery as he told them about his run-in with Seth’s mother.

  Anna looks up. “Yeah, what was all that Ophelia business anyway?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, Seth was obsessed by you as Ophelia for a while, wasn’t he?”

  “Was he?” She remembers achingly well. Good night, sweet Ophelia.

  “Maybe he’s just got a penchant for mad, badly-treated, suicidal women.” Charles again, making them laugh. Rebecca sees José purse his lip. He’s joining in the chit-chat but seems preoccupied. The shadows under his eye look almost blue. He cried when he told her his secret a couple of days ago and she held him, hiding her shock. Seth did something good there, getting him out of that life; no one could take that away from him. But who sent the letter?

  They measure his disappearance in months now, rather than weeks, rather than days, an ever-more robust baby whose presence is no longer marvelled at continually. Four-and-a-half months, give or take.

  José looks across. “What’s Hamlet about anyway?”

  She blinks. “Oh – er, well Hamlet’s father, the King of Denmark, is murdered by his own brother, who then marries Hamlet’s mother, but the King’s ghost tells Hamlet what happened so he spends much of the play agonising over how to carry out his revenge, in between dallying with Ophelia’s feelings, who then drowns herself. In the end he kills his wicked uncle and dies himself.”

  Charles smiles. “Basically it’s about revenge, old boy.” He sounds thoughtful.

  “Revenge served cold with a large side order of procrastination.” Rebecca winks at José. “What’s all this? Are you doing English lit A-Level or something?”

  Anna nudges him. “Lots of cute foreign students?”

  He gives her a saccharine smile. “Just trying to understand your cultural heritage better.”

  “Ah, that’s what they call it these days.” The laughter ebbs as they go back to their plates.

  Charles dabs his face with a napkin and addresses Rebecca. “She looks like you, you know.”

  “Who does?”

&n
bsp; “Julia Rothbury. Seth’s mother.”

  She remembers the conversation. You remind me of someone. “Makes me feel a bit weird, really.” She flicks hair from her face.

  Anna snorts. “Yeah, good job you didn’t, you know, sleep with him or anything.”

  It isn’t just Rebecca who looks embarrassed. Anna’s trying too hard today, her one-liners constantly overshooting like stray arrows.

  Rebecca coughs and changes the subject. “So, where’s Catherine then?”

  They all look at Charles, who is chasing an errant potato around his plate.

  “Oh – think she’s busy with her sister or something.” There’s a studied casualness to his response. Rebecca exchanges a look with Anna.

  “Did you tell her we were meeting?”

  He succeeds in getting his fork into the potato. “I texted her but didn’t hear back. I’m pretty sure her sister is around.”

  The women share more silent communication and continue eating. After a minute or two, José carefully lays down his cutlery.

  Anna raises an eyebrow. “’Ey up, more Shakespeare analysis coming.”

  “Ha ha. I was just going to say…”

  “You can’t bear to look at the spinach between Rebecca’s teeth anymore.”

  “What?” Rebecca falls straight into Anna’s trap and puts her hand to her mouth. They laugh at the slight break in tension.

  Anna points her knife at him. “Don’t tell me. You’re really straight and have had a crush on me for years.”

  “Anna. For God’s sake.”

  Rebecca doesn’t blame José for snapping. No matter how hard they try, they’re just playing at having fun. The banter is as dry as firewood and goes up in flames with a single stray spark.