Untouchable Things Page 5

  “Let us roll all our strength, and all

  Our sweetness up into one ball;

  And tear our pleasures with rough strife

  Through the iron gates of life.

  Thus, though we cannot make our sun

  Stand still, yet we will make him run.”

  Her eyes swam: her tears or his? Her breathing stopped and started in shudders as they regarded each other. She had never known such desire. Not just for him, maybe not even for him, but for his words and his gaze and the possibilities that simmered between them.

  And then?

  Then…

  Are you okay, Miss Laurence?

  She went home reeling, metallic, jangling inside. Thank God she had the house to herself. She flung herself on her bed, dropping her keys to the floor, pushing down her jeans, stroking and groaning to a shivery orgasm. Afterwards she lay curled up on her side clutching the pillow, wondering what on earth she had met.

  Scene 8

  I believe Michael Stanley is an old friend of yours, Miss Jarret?

  Michael? Yes, since university.

  And how does he get on with the rest of the group?

  Um – well, on the whole. He’s honest and principled, people respect him.

  Honest and principled. Could you describe his relationship with Mr Gardner?

  Seth? It’s… they’re sparring partners, I suppose. Seth used to tease Michael and Michael would put him in his place… it was all good humoured. Mostly.

  You see, that’s not exactly what I’ve been hearing, Miss Jarret. It would seem that there’s a certain amount of antipathy towards Michael from some quarters. Would that be fair to say?

  Look, Michael’s stressed right now, we all are. Sometimes he goes too far.

  Too far?

  I mean, he says what he thinks. But what you’ve got to remember is, unlike some people, he doesn’t gossip. He’s straight up. I’d trust him completely and he’s a brilliant friend. He drove me up to see my parents last year because he knew I was anxious about it…

  The summons. Her mother was having a clear-out and now that Catherine was in a place of her own, surely she could take some of her stuff away, which they’d kindly been storing for her but was now rather cluttering the place up. She knew she would leave a little less of a person, some of her newly expanded horizon cordoned off. So Michael had come for moral support. And Seth had so kindly lent his car.

  …I believe Mr Gardner lent you his car that weekend, Mr Stanley?

  Not me, he lent it to Catherine. She was nervous of pranging it so I drove.

  Nice car, was it?

  A Jaguar: what else would Seth drive? Pale blue, an extension of the April sky, shimmering in front of Catherine’s front door like a mirage.

  If you like that sort of thing.

  And you don’t, of course, Mr Stanley.

  So just because I’m a man I’m some sort of petrolhead? You lot are all the same. I’ve never owned a car, nor do I want to.

  But it didn’t take him long to start enjoying it. The give of the leather around his thighs, the purr of the motor, the responsiveness of the wheel. He felt Seth all around them, the cool, woody scent of his aftershave still hanging in the air, the driver’s seat still weighted and warm. And his laughter, as Michael put his foot down in the fast lane and felt the engine kick…

  So you drove out of the goodness of your heart to help an old friend. You and Catherine Jarret were at university together?

  Yes. Nottingham.

  He found her in the practice rooms one day playing the Schubert B flat sonata. A skittish little Maths stowaway, scared of being chucked back into a sea of algebra. Not like his fellow music students, pissheads with a sense of entitlement inversely proportional to their talent.

  And your friendship remained… platonic?

  Yes. Believe it or not, a man and a woman can have a friendship without… sex coming into it. Catherine and I, we look out for each other.

  I see. Was there anything noteworthy about the weekend? Perhaps something connected to Mr Gardner and the loan of the car?

  All that springs to mind, quite frankly, is Catherine’s mother, making sure the neighbours got a good look at the Jag.

  Pouring out cups of tea for him and put-downs for her daughter. ‘Don’t you ever want to wear colour, darling? You’ll never stand out from the crowd in neutrals.’

  We packed up Catherine’s stuff and left the next day.

  It was an insight into her home life, though. He was even privy to a family argument, when Catherine discovered they’d sold her old piano. A proper middle-class argument, where nobody swore and people clenched their jaws instead of their fists. Wine was produced over tea, dinner as they called it, whereupon Sylvia Jarret’s merciless hospitality became open flirtation. Catherine stared at her strawberry gateau, her face reflecting its colour, while her dad tried in vain to cork the wine. Poor chap. He’d been a musician, first violin for the CBSO, until Mrs Jarret had put her foot down and insisted he did something more ambitious. Apparently the subject was off-limits now.

  Later, all tucked up in Catherine’s sister’s old room, staring at posters of black-clad rock bands and, bizzarely, Boris Becker, Michael thought about meals in his own family home. Meat, potatoes and two veg, delivered onto a scrubbed table at five on the dot or else there was trouble. No conversation he could recall, unless the meat was overcooked. Then I wouldn’t feed this to the fuckin’ dog, a meal shoved in the bin, a slammed door and his mother’s face pulled taut like the skin of a drum. I don’t know what you’re staring at. Finish your carrots, else there’s no pudding.

  There was no love that he could remember. He and his brother and sister were fed and clothed in a cramped but pristine home environment. There was no connection between them all. They rolled around each other like different-sized marbles on a tray. Thank God for his Walkman, drowning out the arguments between his parents when his dad had stayed too late at the pub. No jaw-clenching restraint there.

  And thank God for… but it’s hard to say his name, even in his head, even after all this time. The person who’d saved him, put something inside him that he would always have, something of beauty that lay apart from the shittiness of the world. The person who’d done too much, gone too far and ruined everything.

  Mr Stanley?

  I had a bad night. It happens to me sometimes.

  He’d had flashbacks before, but this was different. This wasn’t moments, this was the whole scene on playback, his own childhood made viscerally real again by stepping back into Catherine’s.

  The top sheet of the single bed becomes the brush of velvet on his bare forearms. He’s back there, fifteen years old, concealed behind the curtains of the practice room where his music teacher, Mr Fleming, lets him stay after school. He can’t have a piano at home so this is the next best thing. Mr Fleming teaches him in his lunch hour and he practises here after school. But he’s just heard footsteps and instinct has told him to hide. Through a frayed hole in the fabric he sees Mr Johnson and Mr Crane enter the room.

  “No one in here today. Thought I might find that fifth year, what’s his name? Stevens… Stanley, Michael Stanley. Fleming seems to let him practise piano after school. All a bit non-regulation.”

  “Oh yes, the boy he’s mentoring. I must say he’s blossoming with it.”

  “Yes, apparently he has real talent.”

  “Not the boy – I mean old Fleming! You must have noticed. He used to walk around all hunched up…” Mr Crane stoops and pulls a face and both teachers snigger. Michael finds he has a handful of velvet tight in his fist. “Kids giving him a hard time, I think. But now he’s swaggering around with a twinkle in his eye, if you know what I mean. Given him a reason to keep going, poor bugger.”

  What sort of bad night?

  Michael threw back the covers, wincing at the boom of the teachers’ laughter in his head, torched all over again with that strange feeling of shame. Despite the assault of floral fabric softene
r he could still catch a whiff of the musty damp of the practice room where he’d waited the next day for his lunch hour lesson, staring at cobwebs he’d never noticed before, the yellow-toothed grin of the keyboard. The door opening and Mr Fleming’s eyes lighting up at the sight of Michael. The grotesque image of a dog bounding over to its master.

  Michael sat up. He switched on the bedside light, but he knew it was too late. The scene played out in front of his eyes like a film.

  Sorry, I got distracted. I couldn’t sleep, that’s all.

  You look a little pale, Mr Stanley. Is there anything else of note from that weekend?

  Only… no. Nothing of note.

  Scene 9

  So you drove home, Miss Jarret?

  Yes.

  It’s hard not to tremble and look down as she says it. She knew from the beginning she shouldn’t be in charge of that car. But when she saw Michael’s face at the breakfast table what could she do? He hardly looked like he should be behind a wheel either. His eyes were bloodshot behind his glasses. Said he’d had a bad night. She insisted on driving.

  At first it was a relief to be leaving the labyrinth of identical tree-lined suburban roads. Leaving her mother, her hen-pecked father, that house of disappointments where the music had been snuffed out. The car was straining towards London, mirroring her energy. She started to relax as they hit the motorway and she got the hang of power steering. Michael was already asleep, or at least his eyes were closed, frowning under a thatch of wayward hair. She was glad they didn’t have to talk. A squeeze of tenderness made her smile. He was always there when she needed him. He was a good-looking guy, intelligent, musical but somehow she’d never felt like that about him.

  A pulse started inside her as she pictured Seth, green eyes teasing. He had exploded into her life like a firework, a Catherine wheel, turning and spinning and lighting her with energy. She struggled to remember a time before she knew him.

  She breathed slower and deeper.

  She is a concert pianist, making a name. She has a gig at the Wigmore Hall. Her dress, long and burgundy, her hair swept off her neck. She is playing Bach. No, she is at the Festival Hall performing the E minor Chopin piano concerto. Her hair is loose, her body a conduit for the music. She is playing how she has always wanted to play. He is watching her, transfixed by her, eyes spilling tears. The audience bellows and stamps when she finishes, the conductor takes her hand as if in shock, hardened orchestral players wipe their eyes. She goes to her dressing room for a few minutes alone. There is a hesitant knock at the door. He stands at the threshold, unable to speak. Slowly he reaches out a hand…

  “Catherine!” Michael’s voice is a roar, a scream, a sound she has never heard before. And there’s another scream from the wheels as they leave their lane and she sees the barriers rushing up to meet them. One of them twists the wheel, sends them ricocheting back into lane but they don’t stop there and a horn bays like a wolf at their heels. Then they’re over in the next lane and she waits for the bang but Michael is holding the wheel with her, and together they steady the panicked car.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” Every part of her is shaking.

  “Pull over.”

  “But you’re not allowed…”

  “Pull over now!”

  She turns the car onto the hard shoulder and brings them to a stop. For a whole minute they sit in silence, panting like they’ve been sprinting. Catherine lays her head on the steering wheel and her shoulders heave. His voice, that cry, seems to echo round and round them. She feels a hand on her shoulder.

  “Did you fall asleep?”

  “I – no – I just…” She doesn’t know what to say. She nearly killed them. She’s never gone that far before, lost herself so completely.

  Miss Jarret?

  Sorry. Yes, I drove. The journey was fine, from what I remember.

  We haven’t yet located Mr Gardner’s car. Do you know where he kept it?

  Oh. No, he dropped it off at mine and picked it up on Sunday. I think he rented a garage somewhere.

  And you have no idea where?

  Sorry, no. Do you think…?

  Let’s leave it there for now.

  Scene 10

  And so your first meeting of the — what was it? — Friday Folly. Was it what you were expecting, Miss Laurence?

  Expecting? She had no idea what to expect. Up until an hour before she was still considering a tub of ice cream and an episode of Friends as a safer alternative. Hamlet had just finished and she could feel the downer hovering over her like a cloud, looking for a point of entry. Something out of the ordinary would be more likely to fend it off.

  So she went, as Seth knew she would. Her newly washed hair had dried into soft spirals with no hint of frizz: a good omen. She arrived outside 15 Linfield Gardens at just gone eight – too eager, too early. It was one of those majestic rows of white, Regency houses where London showed its best side. She walked on for a few more minutes and stopped in the shadows to prepare, closing her eyes and breathing slowly as if she were going on stage. A lone breath of wind found its way down the neckline of her coat and made her shiver. Her cue.

  As she approached the house she heard voices from an open balcony door on the first floor. She buzzed Flat B. For a second nothing happened. Then the intercom blared into life with the sound of raucous laughter and a man shouting, “Hello?”

  “It’s Rebecca.” Now she wanted to go home.

  “Come in, first floor.” She was buzzed into a grand old hallway with a marbled staircase and shiny black bannisters. She mounted slowly, admiring the carved cornices but in reality buying herself a little time. Chatter swirled above her head, increasing in volume as she climbed. And then there was Seth in a white shirt and jeans, smiling and holding open a black door.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  “Me neither.” She was held by his eyes, which caught the hallway light like algae on a sunlit pond. Waist down she was jelly already.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll hold your hand.” And he did, gently squeezing heat into her palm as he led her into a white hallway. The first thing she saw was her own face smiling nervously into a huge mirror panel. She followed Seth down the passageway, which abruptly gave into an expanse of twinkling lights, people and laughter.

  She blinked and wolf-whistled under her breath; she couldn’t help it. Seth was enjoying her reaction. “Does the lady Ophelia approve?”

  How could she not? The room was at least forty feet long, hung with gilt-framed oil paintings, mirrors and a chandelier glimmering in the candlelight. Near her was a dining table set for dinner; at the other end she could see a blazing fire and dark wood furnishings. The back wall seemed to be one huge window where the brooding night sky provided a panoramic frieze. As she took it in her eyes fell on the painting nearest to her, showing a howling man on his knees.

  “Oedipus.” He was following her gaze.

  “Wow.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. The other side of the room seemed to be teeming with people, voices interwoven as they clustered round the fire. Set back a little, as though snoozing in the corner, was a grand piano.

  “I didn’t know you were a pianist.”

  “I’m not.” Before she had chance to ask more she realised the room had hushed and everyone had turned to look at them. Now she could focus, Rebecca was surprised to see how few people there were – maybe half a dozen. Still holding her hand, Seth led her towards the fire. “Ladies and gentlemen, meet the lovely Ophelia, who also goes by the name Rebecca.”

  She felt like a child allowed into an adults’ party. There was a general murmur of hellos. She felt the heat from the fire seeping into her cheeks. The woman nearest to her, blonde and curly haired, flicked her eyes towards Rebecca and Seth’s joined hands before a kind-faced, bearded man came over and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Delighted to meet you. I’m Charles. We’ve heard all about your amazing portrayal of Ophelia from Seth. He hasn’t shut up about
you, in fact.”

  “And who can blame him?” A huge hulk of a man with a skunk-like stripe of blonde in his light brown hair grinned down at her. “I’m Jake. I’ll be your chef tonight. I ’ope you ’ave a good appetite.” Rebecca wasn’t sure if he was hamming up the strong cockney accent. He winked and she smiled back easily. Noticing neither of the women had approached her she moved towards the tall blonde as the others melted away. “Hi there.”

  Seth stepped in. “Rebecca, this is Anna, the grande dame of the group. How’s life as a thirty-something, sweetheart?”

  Anna pulled a face. “Ya cheeky fucker. Actually it’s fine now the hangover’s fading.” She spoke with a Northern Irish burr.

  Seth dropped Rebecca’s hand to brush what looked like a sliver of potato crisp from Anna’s hair. “Anna’s a marketing whiz who likes to spend her free time with a bunch of no-hope creatives.”

  “Ah there’s always hope – even for you, Seth Gardner.” She cocked her head and her smile passed over Rebecca as if accidentally. They were a similar height but Anna was considerably broader, with a huge bob of curly blonde hair and unmissable cleavage. Rebecca turned towards a third man, a mad professor type as her mother would say, with wiry hair and glasses, his eyes hidden as they caught the candlelight.

  “I’m Michael.” He grasped her hand and a static shock ran through her, causing them both to jump back a bit.

  They shared an embarrassed smile.

  “Even his handshake is over-flowing with good intentions.” Seth’s voice was smooth, hard to read. “Michael keeps us on the moral straight and narrow. Unlike José.”

  A short Mediterranean-looking man with closely cropped hair, neatly trimmed goatee and a tight T-shirt grinned and kissed her. “Welcome to the madhouse, darling.”

  “Aww, he had to get up on his toes.” It was Anna to her left. “You’ll have to get your high heels out, José.”

  “Stilettos or wedges, darling?”

  “Enough, you two.” Seth waggled a finger. “Now, are we done? Ah, no, Rebecca, this is my Catherine.” Seth had put his arm round a mousy-haired young woman who leaned into it. Rebecca stuck out a hand pointedly. My Catherine? A sister perhaps? Her fringe grazed the top of her eyebrows like a child’s. A small, cool hand was offered and almost immediately withdrawn. They said a guarded hello.