boss, you know.’
‘There’s such a lot to do and I think I’m still in shock.’
‘You will be. You must be.’
Yes, I must, thought James. Even if I’m not, and I’m not sure if I am, I must seem to be. God, this is going to be hard.
He selected a pair of black trousers and a dark blue shirt. With a black belt and black shoes he would look sad and dignified without actually looking as though he was in mourning.
It dawned on him that Helen might ring while Philip was there. For years she had been unable to ring him at his home. It had upset her occasionally, although most of the time she had accepted it as sensible and inevitable. Today she would feel that she could ring, and so she would. It would be a defining moment for her. How awful it would be if she did.
He started to put on his shirt and then stopped. He was almost naked, it was early morning, it wouldn’t be so terrible, this morning, to phone her in the altogether.
He took off his shirt and his purple pants, picked up the cordless phone, and went into the spare bedroom, far from prying photographs. He sat on the bed and dialled.
Her voice was sleepy.
‘You’ve woken me up.’
It was a rebuke.
‘You know I don’t work Thursday mornings.’
Helen and her friend Fiona ran a smart little dress shop in Chelsea. It was quiet enough for them to take it in turns to attend, except on Saturdays. James thought they were playing at it, and had been unwise enough to say so once. It was not a thing you would say twice.
‘Sorry, darling, but I needed to speak to you.’ He amended the sentence hurriedly. ‘I wanted to speak to you.’
‘That’s nice.’
She was mollified. He breathed a sigh of relief. He began to be glad that he had taken his pants off. Things would have been tight.
‘Are you naked?’ he asked.
‘Of course. Are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, James. Oh, James, my darling. Are you…?’
‘Very. Oh, Helen.’
Her pouty mouth. Her pert breasts. Her slim arms. Her disturbingly neat bottom. Her pale soft skin. Her wide green eyes.
‘Oh, Helen. Oh, my God.’
It was so quick. Absurdly quick. Fierce, painful, glorious, uncontrollable yet perfectly synchronised.
‘God, that was good. Oh, Helen darling, you are so unbelievably lovely, my darling. Um …’ The gear change was going to be difficult, very difficult. ‘Um … well, I’d better get dressed, I suppose. My brother Philip’s coming round to help. There’s such a lot to do.’
‘Poor you. I wish I could be with you.’
‘I know. So do I. Um … the … um … the thing is, Helen … oh, God, I wish you could be with me, but the thing is …’ Oh, Lord, this was difficult. ‘The thing is … I thought maybe you might phone me today, but Philip’s going to be here and … um … it could be awkward … a bit.’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘Is that why you rang?’
‘No. Well, I mean … no, I really wanted to … you know … what we did … but yes, I knew I had to talk to you about this. Obviously Philip doesn’t know anything about us, and it would be very hard to explain.’
‘I understand.’
‘But you’re not happy. I can tell you’re not happy.’
‘Well … I do understand, James. I can see the difficulties. It’s just … nothing’s changed.’
‘It’s early days. I want these next days to be dignified in memory of Deborah. She deserves that.’
‘I know. I agree. I never wanted to hurt her, James. You know that. That’s why I accepted … everything. But now … well, it’s a bit galling to find that nothing has changed.’
‘Everything’s changed. I want to marry you and live the rest of my life with you and soon I’ll be able to. We just have to be patient.’
‘I know. I know you’re right. I know how dreadfully difficult this is for you. I really do, darling. It’s just that I’ve been patient for so long. And now …’
‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow, over tea.’
‘Yes. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’
From her repetition of his words he sensed how vulnerable she felt.
‘Bye, James.’
From the abrupt way she rang off he knew that she had been about to cry.
He couldn’t cry. He just felt … flat. Flat, in his situation? He shook his head in disbelief at himself.
His first phone call, and already he was exhausted.
He opened the window of the spare bedroom, for fear that Philip would detect a faint odour of semen. In came the smell of heat, grass and petrol.
He took another shower, then went back into the master bedroom, tried not to look at the smiling photo of Deborah on the dressing table, kissed the photo of a fourteen-year-old Charlotte, and dressed.
He made himself his usual breakfast: two slices of toast which he cut into halves and covered with spreadable butter on its own, or marmalade, or honey, in a different order every day, lest he should feel that he was becoming a creature of habit. The order this morning was marmalade (Seville orange), butter, honey, and marmalade again (three-fruit).
At ten past nine – give her time in case she was a few minutes late and punctuality wasn’t one of her virtues, but come to think of it, what were her virtues? – he phoned Marcia.
‘It’s me. Marcia, I’m not coming in today.’
‘Crikey. Are you ill?’
‘No. Marcia, you remember that police message.’
‘I remember. The one I almost forgot and then remembered.’
A feeling of dread shuddered through his body, dread of all the sympathy he was going to get, from Marcia, from everyone at Globpack UK, from his friends, from his fitness trainer, from his acupuncturist. Sympathy and pity.
‘It was to tell me … Deborah’s been killed.’
‘What??? Oh no!! James! Oh, James!! Oh, that’s … awful!! That’s … terrible!!!’
There were a lot of exclamation marks in Marcia’s young life.
‘How?’
