Mo Hayder - Poppet

He stops. She is getting to her feet. She’s a little unsteady, still disorientated and shaky. But she keeps her balance. She drags her bag up, hoists it on to her shoulder. She turns on one heel and walks stiffly away. After a few seconds he follows, only he’s left it too long. By the time he rounds the corner she has broken into a jog and is almost at the car. Before he can catch up she has jumped inside, started the engine and is screeching off into the road.

He puts out a hand to stop her, but she executes a tight U-turn, guns the engine and within a few short seconds is gone. Then it’s just him and the night – the whiff of exhaust and burnt rubber like a handprint in the air.

THEY END UP taking a taxi to her house, which turns out to be not a million miles from his – but quite different. Melanie lives in a very sparkly, clean new-build three-bed maisonette on the outskirts of Stroud. She has an overrun garden which, she explains to AJ, she doesn’t have time to venture into, a view of the surrounding hills on one side and a view of the city lights on the other. There’s no driftwood furniture – in fact she doesn’t have any discernible style. It’s clean and straightforward and not as perfect and grown-up as he thought it would be.

She pours more drinks – vodka and orange – but they sit untouched on the glass coffee table while he and Melanie get down to some heavier kissing on the sofa. AJ is lost, his head turning crazily. She is soft and smooth and silky. She smells of all the things he imagined she’d smell of: strawberries and lemon and marshmallow. And she is making up for lost time – devouring him – holding him by both ears and pulling his mouth hard on to hers. He runs a finger down her spine – feels the soft nub of her bra fastening between her spine and blouse.

‘Mmmmmmm,’ she murmurs, not resisting him at all. ‘Nice …’

‘Melanie …’ He has to pull away from her. He puts both feet on the floor, elbows on his knees, head dropped. His thoughts are racing.

There’s a pause, then she sits up. Pushes her hair back. ‘AJ? What is it?’

‘It’s been a long time. That’s all.’

‘Well …’ She gives a small, nervous giggle. ‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’

‘No, I …’

‘Oh no—’ She clamps her hands over her mouth. ‘You’re gay.’

‘I’m not gay.’

‘You’re impotent.’

‘No! No – none of that. I’m just …’ He swallows. Rubs his hands hard across his face, trying to bring a little sobriety into the equation. ‘I’m …’ He turns and looks at her. Her make-up is all smudged. ‘Christ, you’re so fucking fanciable.’

‘Am I?’

‘God yes.’

‘Then … ?’

He sighs. ‘Don’t freak out when I tell you – it puts some girls off.’

‘OK,’ she says cautiously. ‘Hit me with it. HIV? Herpes?’

‘No. Worse. I’m old-fashioned.’

‘Old-fashioned? In what way? Kinky? Or sensitive?’

‘Not kinky.’

‘Sensitive then? And that puts women off?’

‘Can I explain?’

‘I’m sorry. I won’t interrupt.’

‘OK – three years ago I was with this girl, this woman—’

‘You’re still in love with her?’

‘Are you going to let me talk?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘OK – the answer’s no. I definitely am not in love with her and I definitely wasn’t at the time. In fact, I can’t even remember her name. But that was sort of common for me in those days.’

‘Racy.’

‘Yes – racy – but kind of pathetic and empty. So I’m in bed with this nameless, faceless girl, knowing that after the sex I’ll probably pay her cab home then avoid her phone calls, because that’s the sort of person I was in those days. Girlfriends came and went. It’s afternoon – y’know us shift workers have to get it when we can – and my mum’s out in the garden.’

‘You live with your mother?’

‘Yes – I mean, no. It’s not like it sounds. It was good the way it was. Anyway, I’m in the bedroom and mum’s outside and …’ He trails off. He still doesn’t quite get this part right when he tells it to people – it never comes out as smoothly as he wants. ‘And Mum had a convulsion – she used to from time to time. Epilepsy. I used to take her to the neurology clinic at Frenchay to keep her medication checked – they said it was under control, except, no, the drugs weren’t working. So she’s having this convulsion and as she’s going down she hits a rock in the garden.’ He taps his temple. ‘Here.’

‘Nasty.’ Melanie sucks in a breath. ‘One of the worst places.’

‘She’d have survived if she’d been taken to hospital. But I’m so engrossed in what’s happening on the end of my dick that I’m not thinking about my mother. I can hear my dog barking outside, but I ignore it. There’s no one else at home and so Mum lies out there. There’s a bleed on her brain and before you know it …’

‘Christ. Christ.’

‘I know … Christ.’

A long dulling silence comes down on them as they both go over this in their heads, Melanie maybe trying to picture it more clearly and AJ trying to picture it less clearly. Then, after what seems like for ever, she rests a tentative hand on his back. ‘Look, if it helps at all, my dad died – he had brain cancer, so I learned a bit about the brain. I used to go with him when he went for radiology. So you and I? We’ve got something in common.’

AJ remembers the radiology department – he used to walk past it with Mum. All the living dead, their perspex radiology masks in their hands, waiting to have their heads blasted. So her dad too? He feels stupid. ‘I’m sorry. I know I’m not the only one – I’m being selfish.’

‘No no! You’re not. Not at all – I completely get it, I promise. And I get the guilt thing too. But listen – let’s picture this: you’re at work when it happens. Or at the shops, or at the pub …’

‘I know, I know all that – I know the logic – and I know the reality. I’m not saying I’m a born-again Christian or anything, but it’s made me a bit more … serious. Grown-up? That zip-up-and-move-on stuff? I just don’t do it any more. And it turns out that is the biggest turn-off for lots of girls. Turns out women are more ruthless than men when it comes to sex.’

‘Sluts,’ she says, her eyes hooded. ‘What awful, shallow little sluts.’

He gives a sad laugh. ‘Yeah, well. I dunno why I had to come out with that speech now, I just did. That’s what I mean: I’m old-fashioned.’

‘Well, thank God for that.’ She stands and pushes him back on the sofa. Straddles him with both legs. ‘I thought you were going to tell me you couldn’t get it up.’

LIFE HAS JUST taken exactly the slow, unstoppable flip of fortune Caffery hoped it wouldn’t. He’s got it wrong – so wrong it is spectacular. He imagined Flea would at least recognize what it’s cost him to keep her secret, if not actually thank him and call him a hero. But life has a way of not behaving. And anyway, saints and heroes aren’t in the spectrum of colours Caffery plays. He has to look at things afresh.

He drives back to the offices slowly, through the streets of Bristol, where the last wave of drinkers are trailing home. This town was built on the slave trade – all the spindly town houses grown up from the money of that trade, unabashed by their finery. He’s tired. He’s hungry and he wants a drink. He holds his pass to the automatic barrier and slides into the car park. The place is almost empty, just one or two Scientific Investigations vans and a scatter of vehicles belonging to civilian staff. He parks under the flyover, nose into the railway line, pulls on the handbrake. He’s about to get out when he senses he’s not alone here. There’s someone else.