The Taxi Queue (20 page)

‘You make it sound like the Middle Ages.'

‘It was a bit like that. Without the witches.'

Kirsty picked up a piece of the jasmine that was within reach. She held it between her two hands and tugged at its
elastic strength. She realised she was crushing the new shoots and let the stem fall across her lap. ‘We never liked going to see him,' she said. ‘We didn't
hate
it, but there was nothing to do. He never made us a bonfire.'

‘No. I thought he might get more interested in you as you got older. But it never happened. There was that time when you went there and he wasn't in. I was going to give him a bollocking about that but then I thought, why bother?'

‘He didn't change?'

‘No, he didn't change.'

This suddenly struck Kirsty as unlikely, given the bonfire. There must have been other flarings. The famous photograph of Tamsin had been one. There
must
have been others over a lifetime. Somehow, it had been convenient for all of them to think of Neil as a lost cause.

‘Would it have made a difference if we'd tried harder?' she asked.

‘You were children,' Gloria said.

‘Children can try.'

‘Yes and no.'

‘He must have thought about us though – or he wouldn't have left us the house.'

‘Yes. I don't know what went on in his head. I think he didn't want you to reject him. He preferred that you didn't know him at all. In the end, he gave you what he had. It could have been worse,' Gloria said.

‘You've never said that before. About rejection.'

‘I don't know what went on in his head.'

Kirsty stopped drinking after the second glass of wine. It would be a mistake to fall asleep on the train. She was glad that Gloria hadn't asked about Abe – and she herself hadn't mentioned Luka. Sometimes it was good not to talk about the present. She thought of Neil's own childhood. His father, the GI, who hadn't stayed in Britain once the Second World War ended. They had never had news of him. Neil's
mother, Shirley, back in the late 1940s had wanted to forget everything about her American boyfriend. Women did that in those days – wished something had never happened, then lived the rest of their lives as if the wish had come true. She hadn't put her baby up for adoption, though. Shirley had focused on the hair and said her own sister's had been bushy – bushy was a forties word. And since her sister had gone to live in Belfast there was nothing to disprove it. She might well have had a perm that had gone wrong. Reality gives its support to odd causes.

The song that Kirsty had almost forgotten seemed as if it might get written – not in a rush of adrenalin but gradually, slowly, over the summer. If she became famous, or even if she didn't, she would dedicate it to Neil: ‘In homage to Neil Rivers'. She felt fond of her house again. She wanted to get back there. She thought of the old furniture and was pleased that it hadn't all gone up in smoke. The lumpy sofa covered in Indian cloth – it seemed right that someone in need of a bed should be sleeping on it.

She and Gloria went inside and made some food – eggs on toast – and took it out into the garden to eat. Then, when they had finished, they carried the sewing machine into the kitchen because although it was still light, the shadows were long, stretched across from fence to fence, and the light wasn't good enough to sew by. Kirsty left soon afterwards and walked to the station.

IT WAS ABOUT
ten o'clock when Kirsty arrived back home. As she walked in, she could hear Abe's television on upstairs. The lower part of the house was quiet. Kirsty opened the door to the living room. The pillow and folded sleeping bag were in a neat pile on the floor but the zip-up bag had gone. She turned on the light and looked round the room. The yellow-haired horse was on the bookshelf where she had placed it the previous evening, crammed between the cracked spines of Neil's paperbacks. Otherwise everything was as it had always been: the sofa and chairs draped in Indian cloth, the threadbare rugs with their trailing fringes, the lifeless curtains. Two used wineglasses and an empty bottle stood on the floor. Kirsty went down to the kitchen. The back door was locked. There was no note. Notes are left in obvious places. She felt aggrieved that her hospitality was no longer required. She picked up her phone, about to call Luka, then stopped herself. She had wished him gone and now he was. It had been a safe kind of wish since she hadn't imagined it coming true – she had failed to put her back into it. She hadn't gone on to consider how she would feel if Luka left. Kirsty unbolted the back door and stepped outside, not knowing what to make of the changed situation. The garden smelled dry in spite of her manic watering the previous evening. She walked round to the tap and turned it on. The water gushed into the can and she regulated it to a more moderate pace. She filled the can seven
or eight times and drenched her plants until they smelled green.

Kirsty went back into the kitchen. She was surprised to see Abe sitting at the table. She hadn't heard him come in, while she had been out in the garden.

‘I hope you're pleased with yourself,' he said.

Kirsty had been about to say ‘hi'.

‘It feels good wrecking other people's lives, does it?' His voice was quite neutral, given what he was saying.

‘I haven't wrecked anyone's life. What are you on about?'

‘Think about it.'

‘I'm going to make a cup of tea. Do you want one?' she asked. ‘I went to see Mum after work.' Kirsty switched the kettle on. She took two mugs off the shelf and a new packet of tea bags from the cupboard. She started to remove the plastic covering, running a fingernail under the join.

‘Righteous cow,' Abe said.

Kirsty's mood was calm. That didn't change. She was untouched by what Abe said. ‘I'm making this tea for you,' she said when she heard the switch on the kettle click. ‘If you don't want to stay for it, that's fine by me.'

‘Some sort of control freak,' Abe said.

‘Abe. Would you stop insulting me, or leave now. Please.'

‘Do you really not remember?'

‘Remember what?'

‘Think about it.'

Kirsty poured the boiling water into one of the mugs. She held the kettle poised above the other one. ‘Do you want this or not?'

‘What is this, “control through tea”?' he said. ‘You're not a fucking Japanese tea master. You've got your priorities wrong.'

‘If you say so. But I don't go round insulting people for no reason.' Kirsty went to the fridge and took out the carton
of milk. She poured a slug into the mug; some of it dribbled down the side.

‘So it's all right to interfere in someone's marriage, is it? To tell a woman you've never even met that her husband is gay?'

Kirsty went still. ‘I didn't do that.' She stared at Abe.

‘As good as.'

‘What happened?' she asked.

‘Oh, so you want to know now, do you? You've remembered.' Abe stood up. He walked towards the door and before Kirsty had a chance to stop him he had left the room. She could hear him going up the short flight of steps to the hall. Let this not be real, she thought.

She heard Abe's feet on the next flight of stairs. She ran out of the room and up into the hall. ‘Abe,' she called.

‘What?' He stopped and turned round.

‘I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it like that. Please tell me what happened.'

Abe stood on the top step, looking down.

‘Please. Can't you be nice to me?' she begged.

‘Nice to you? Why?'

‘You've done stupid things too.'

Abe made some dismissive noise. He turned back again, went through his door and closed it behind him.

Kirsty went down to the basement and into her bedroom. She lay down on her bed. She felt as if her head were underwater and she would have to stay there until she drowned. At first she couldn't cry, then she started and couldn't stop. The noise and the heaving passed through her in waves. She didn't know where they kept coming from. She cried for the unknown couple and their children, if they had any. For Neil and Gloria and Luka and Abe. For herself. She was a thing that convulsed, a switchback, a wailing machine. She carried on and wore herself out. She fell asleep.

Kirsty woke up, sensing someone standing over her.

‘Kirsty?'

She sat straight up. The lights were on and Luka was standing at the end of the bed. She was as shocked as if he had been a burglar.

‘I thought you'd left,' she said, staring at him.

‘I went to my cousin's in Luton but the children were ill. I couldn't stay. Why have you got your clothes on, Kirsty?'

‘Luton. That's miles away. Why did you go there?' she asked.

‘I thought you wanted me to go.'

‘That's terrible,' Kirsty said. She looked down at herself – the crumpled skirt and T-shirt. Her feet were unwashed; grey as newspaper print on top of the white sheet.

‘You've been crying. You weren't crying because of me, were you? . . . Kirsty?' Luka moved to the side of the bed. As he came closer, she smelled the out-of-doors on him – London, night air and public transport. She smelled it on his shirt and on his hands. Kirsty remembered why she was still dressed and why she'd been crying. She wished she had been crying only for Luka. How simple that would have been. ‘I'd better get up,' she said, pushing him.

‘Why?' he asked.

‘I can't stay here.' She stopped pushing but she felt the room closing in and Luka as the sentry to the exit.

‘What do you mean? Kirsty, you're not making sense.'

‘I don't know how to put it right. I can't put it right.' She tugged at a strand of wiry hair as if to measure the space she was confined in. Luka put his hand on her head. ‘Don't touch me.' He took the hand away. ‘No. Hold me,' she said.

Luka sat down on the edge of the bed and put his arms round her. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. It was different with her eyes shut and Luka holding her. She was grateful. They stayed like that for several minutes. Luka's hand moved. He started to rub her back.
‘Look, Kirsty,' he said in her ear, still rubbing, ‘I shall turn the lights out. I'll come straight back. If you want to talk you can talk. Is that all right?' Kirsty nodded and Luka disengaged himself. She lay down and waited, still with her eyes closed. She could hear Luka go to the bedroom door. He switched off the light and the colour behind her eyelids changed. He went into the passage, then into the kitchen, turning off lights as he went. Finally it was dark. She heard him return. He shut the door behind him. There was some shuffling – he was taking his shoes off. He came over to the bed and lay down next to her. She shifted so that he could fit his arm underneath her. She moved close to him.

‘Will you tell me?' Luka asked.

The seconds passed. Luka moved his shoulder to get comfortable. He adjusted the hand that rested on her, so that its position and pressure remained as before.

‘You remember last night?' She spoke as if from the distant end of a tunnel.

‘Yes.'

‘The phone call I told you about?'

‘Yes. I think so.' His ear brushed hers as he nodded.

Kirsty opened her eyes. She couldn't make herself understood with them shut. ‘You must remember,' she said.

‘Some gay guy, wasn't it? Friend of Abe,' Luka said.

‘No. It was a woman. I rang her back and told her to go and see Abe. I was annoyed with Abe. That's why I did it.'

‘Quite right. Abe gave her your number.'

‘No, he didn't. He gave it to her husband,' she said quickly.

‘Who cares? Abe shouldn't give your number to other people.'

‘But it's a sort of joke. I
know
about it.'

Luka raised himself on the elbow that was underneath her and leant over her. ‘What
happened,
Kirsty? I can't help you if you don't tell me.'

‘I shouldn't have done it. It was none of my business.'

‘But what happened?' His voice was too loud.

‘Lie down,' she said. ‘I don't like you up there. I can't think.'

Luka lay down flat. This time he held her hand. She thought of Abe three floors above and wondered if he was asleep. She told Luka what Abe had said. She remembered the conversation verbatim. She didn't exaggerate. When she had finished Luka took a deep breath. He moved his head from side to side as if he had a stiff neck.

‘Kirsty,' he said. ‘Nothing happened. Probably.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You don't
know
. Abe didn't tell you. The woman, the wife, she goes to the clinic place. Maybe she has treatment.'

‘No one has treatment if they don't need it. I keep telling you, she went to see
Abe
. I sent her. Why would Abe have said that stuff – that I'd wrecked people's lives – if it wasn't true?'

‘Kirsty.' Luka made her name sound like a warning. He squeezed her hand tighter.

‘Let go, that hurts,' she said. He relaxed his grip and she continued, ‘I can bear anything – as long as it happens to me, not to other people.'

‘Nice idea – but I don't think so.'

‘Hearing the detail wouldn't change anything,' she said.

‘Yes, of course it would. Some facts. He's just winding you up. Did you give the woman Abe's number?'

‘Yes, I think so.'

‘Then no worries. She called Abe and he told her to piss off.'

Kirsty shifted away from Luka. ‘You just don't like him,' she said. ‘I wish I hadn't told you.' Luka's reasonableness felt like an insult.

‘Kirsty. Just think. Please. Even if this woman went to see Abe today – imagining whatever. Abe's as clever as fuck. He fixed it. If he can't do that, no one can.'