John Harvey - Off Minor

Now it was this: three afternoons out of the last four, after Lorraine had collected Emily from the school and driven home, there she was, waiting across the street-Diana. The first time it had given Lorraine quite a shock, seeing her standing there in that bottle-green coat she always seemed to wear, the one with the hood. Lorraine had hesitated, expectant, waiting for Diana to walk towards them, imagining perhaps that something had happened, something important. But no. No movement. No sign of recognition. Aside from the fact of her being there: there and watching.

Lorraine had busied Emily into the house; she could go back later and put the car in the garage, plenty of time before Michael would be home. She made Emily her usual home-from-school treat, four or five assorted biscuits with the profiles of different animals embossed on them, each arranged round a piece of Marks and Spencer Swiss roll at the center of her Peter Rabbit plate; then she’d shooed her off into the living room with this and a glass of banana-flavored milk, switched on the TV. Outside, Diana hadn’t moved. She was standing on the opposite pavement, close by an overgrown cotoneaster, three doors down. Her hands were in her pockets and her face looked cold, expressionless and cold. Lorraine had to fight a sudden impulse to go over and talk to her, say hello, invite her into the house. Perhaps it would be possible for them to sit down, that kitchen, sit over a pot of tea and talk.

She had never really talked to Diana.

“You don’t talk to Diana,” Michael had said. He had made it absolutely clear. “You take Emily, you drop her off. The only conversation you need to have, make sure she knows what time you’ll be there to pick her up. That’s it. Understood?”

Perhaps if she were able to talk to Diana, she might be able to understand Michael a little better. Try and make sure that whatever it was went wrong with the two of them, Michael and Diana, didn’t happen again. But she knew she couldn’t do that. It wasn’t real. What it was, the kind of thing that happened on television, Neighbours, Brookside. Besides, it would probably mean they would have to talk about the time Diana went into hospital and Lorraine didn’t think she wanted to know about that.

“Only surprising thing,” Michael had said when he’d heard, “is that she didn’t end up there years ago. Best place for her.”

Lorraine turned away from the kitchen window, swilled boiling water around the pot and emptied it into one side of the twin sink, dropped in a tea bag and three-quarters filled the smaller pot. When she looked out again, Diana had gone.

Three days later, she was there again; and two school days after that. Lorraine began to find excuses for not bringing Emily straight home, something she’d forgotten from Sainsbury’s, why didn’t they go into town and have tea out, a treat? The days shortened and Diana was little more than a shadow, something glimpsed over Lorraine’s shoulder as she hurried Emily into the house, a blotch of pale face above a formless patch of darkness, darker than the rest.

Something choked in Lorraine’s throat: what was she doing? Scurrying a six-year-old girl away from her mother’s reach, out of her sight.

“Mummy!” Emily had called out once, as Lorraine was urging her through the front door.

“What about her?” Chubb lock against her back, holding tight to Emily’s hand.

“I saw her.”

“Yes, the other Sunday.”

“No. Now.” Emily pointing towards the door, Lorraine scooping her up into her arms, “Nonsense, sweetheart, you just imagined it,” sweeping her through to the rear of the house.

The noise would have been enough to shatter the plaster from the walls, if it hadn’t been for over a decade’s cigarette smoke and nicotine holding it glued together. Residents had long since given up complaining; turned up their TV sets, their stereos, instead; arranged their nights out around the pub’s live music. Tonight was blues night: take your basic three chords and a few flourishes and process them through the amps at a volume that defied criticism.

Naylor made it back through the packed bar without spilling more than a few inches from each pint glass.

“What’s this?” Divine shouted over the din. “You order halves?”

If he heard, Naylor chose to offer no comment. He squeezed back alongside Divine, sharing his section of the bench seat with a broad-faced Rastafarian and a scrawny student type, sporting a string of political badges, a wisp of beard and a navy blue peaked cap that sat sideways on his head.

“What the hell we doing here?” Naylor asked.

“Keeping our eyes open, remember?”

A month before the drugs squad had intercepted a couple of padded envelopes on their way to a known dealer who lived above a video shop off the Alfreton Road. One appeared to have been posted in Canada, the other in Japan; the original source of both turned out to be Pakistan. Bribe a few officials, infiltrate them into the postal system as if they had started out in countries which aroused little Customs and Excise suspicion-bingo! your friendly, international mail-order drug company. While Interpol and the National Drugs Unit were hauling in the bigger fish, Naylor and Divine were supping dubious bitter and watching out for a few minnows.

It didn’t look as if it were going to be one of their nights.

“If that fat bastard,” Divine yelled in Naylor’s ear, indicating the middle-aged white man at the piano, “sings another word about going to Chicago, I’m going to take him down the station personally, stick him on the fucking train.”

They left thirty minutes short of closing, sound ringing in their ears.

“Fancy anything?” Divine asked, eyes on the kebab place across the street.

Naylor shook his head. “Got to get home.”

“Debbie waiting up for you?”

Naylor shrugged.

“Better still,” Divine winked, “waiting in bed.”

Naylor had left his car at the station; he knew he probably shouldn’t be driving, leave it there till morning, take a cab. What the hell! Lights shone from the first-floor windows and for half a moment, Naylor considered going back in, passing the time, make himself a coffee, black. Instead he backed the car out onto the road and headed for home.

Only the small light burned above the front door. There was a pint of milk open in the fridge and Naylor drank it right down, scarcely moving the carton away from his lips for air. He thought about opening another, making himself some cereal. Inside a bowl, covered over with a small plate, there was some tuna and he took that through into the front room and switched on the TV, volume low. Faces snarled at one another from banked rows of seats, a serious political presenter egging them on. Asian men and women in black and white costumes and subtitles, talking, talking, talking. Soccer Special. Newsnight. He switched the set to an empty channel and finished his flakes of tuna, staring at the moving speckles of the screen, listening to the hum.

“ Wife okay? Baby? ”

As far as he knew, they were fine.

Raymond lay there, that narrow bed in his twelve by fourteen room, seeped in semen and his own stale sweat, trying not to think about the girl. Smiling face and the bright hair and the slightly chubby hands that seemed eager always to reach out and touch.

“Ray-o!”

Sitting on the wall outside the pub, he had told her his name, his nickname, and she had shrieked it aloud, gleeful, her whole body shaking as she danced up and around.

“Ray-o! Ray-o! Ray-o!”

Without thinking he had whisked her off her feet and whirled her round, like a carousel at Goose Fair, round and round until he lowered her gradually down, laughing and shaking, excitement tinged with fear. The next time he saw her, days later, she had tugged at her nan’s hand and pointed across the street-“Ray-o!”-and he had quickly waved and walked on.