Nicci French - Until it's Over

‘You haven’t seen what I’ve started to do to your en-suite bathroom this evening,’ said Dario, ‘have you?’

‘No.’

‘I was working on it when that inspector-person arrived. There’s no lavatory in there.’ He sniggered. ‘Just a big hole. And the plumbing’s turned off.’

‘Dario,’ said Miles, ‘don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Oi!’ said Mick. ‘Can anyone hear me? Or maybe I’m simply dreaming.’ He pinched his cheek exaggeratedly. I watched, fascinated, as a red mark blossomed between his fingers, but he didn’t seem to feel the pain. ‘Nope, not dreaming.’

‘We’re not doing anything else, either,’ said Dario. ‘Not a thing. Look.’ He picked up a can and tipped out the remaining beer into a puddle on the floor. ‘I’m not cleaning that up,’ he said triumphantly.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ snapped Leah, ‘don’t be such a baby.’

‘Or this,’ said Dario, and turned an overflowing ashtray upside-down.

Leah scraped her chair violently back, stood up and strode from the room.

‘Here, who wants some?’ asked Owen, laconically, holding out a jumbo-sized joint.

‘Me,’ said Dario.

‘She never said what was wrong with me,’ said Pippa. ‘Pity.’

The door opened and Leah’s voice came through it: ‘You behave like a slag.’

Two red spots appeared on Pippa’s cheeks, but she laughed lightly. ‘Thank God for feminism and the pill,’ she said.

Davy stood up quietly, kissed the top of Mel’s head, then fetched a cloth from the sink and started mopping up Dario’s spilt beer.

‘Miles,’ I said.

‘Yeah.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Do?’

‘We can’t live like this.’

‘It’ll die down.’

‘You think?’ asked Pippa scornfully. ‘You mean, if we all pretend nothing happened then we can go back to the way things were before Leah betrayed us.’

‘We have to deal with this,’ I continued.

‘We’ll have no-go areas,’ said Dario.

He rushed from the room and we watched him go in bewilderment.

‘He’s very upset,’ said Davy, rinsing the cloth in the sink, then drying his hands. ‘It’s -’

‘Don’t,’ I said.

‘Don’t what?’ said Davy, puzzled.

‘Don’t say it’ll be all right. That we can talk it over.’

While Davy looked disappointed, Dario reappeared, carrying a pot of paint in one hand and a large paintbrush in the other. He dumped them on the floor just inside the door and levered off the lid. The paint inside was a deep green.

‘What?’ said Miles, as Dario lunged the brush into the paint and started drawing a thick, messy line across the kitchen floor.

‘She can only stay on her side of the line,’ he said. ‘I’m not having her crossing over.’

‘Wow!’ said Pippa, giggling. ‘Look at that. She can’t get to the cooker, she can’t get into the garden – except by the side alley, I guess. And she can’t sit down at the table. All she can do is walk in a line towards the cupboard with the light-bulbs in it.’

‘You’ve stepped in it,’ I said.

‘I’m not sure this is going to be enforceable,’ said Davy. ‘What do you reckon, Pippa?’

‘Not enforceable, but fun,’ she said.

‘Give that brush to me.’ Miles was on his feet and holding out his hand. At last he was angry, rather than embarrassed and defeated. ‘Now!’

‘Come and get it.’ Dario waved the brush in the air and green spots of paint spattered everywhere.

‘Maybe I should make tea,’ said Mel. ‘That’s what we need.’

Now Miles had hold of the brush as well and the two men were struggling over it. Tiny speckles of green paint covered them like duckweed, and they were panting. Then the brush slipped from their hands and landed wetly on the floor. A sudden silence gripped the room. Miles stared round at all of us, opened his mouth, closed it again, and left. For a moment, I thought of going after him because the look on his face had been so wretched, but Pippa put out a hand and restrained me. ‘Not now,’ she said.

‘Don’t start feeling sorry for him,’ said Dario. His eyes glittered in his green face.

I got up and went to look out into the garden, which lay quiet and still in the evening light.

‘What is it, Astrid?’ asked Pippa.

‘You know, you can get so caught up in the rightness of your own position that you say and feel all sorts of terrible things,’ I said. ‘And then it’s too late and you can’t go back.’

‘Go back?’ asked Davy.

‘We were all friends.’

‘He’s got to choose between her and us,’ said Dario.

‘There you are,’ I said. ‘That’s what I mean.’

∗ ∗ ∗

‘We seem to have got things the wrong way round,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Owen.

‘We never do anything normal, like go to a movie or have a meal or hold hands in front of other people.’

‘Is that what you want?’

I ran my hand down his smooth body and he shivered and I was filled with an unsettling joy: he seemed so invulnerable, yet when I touched him, he shivered. After the awfulness downstairs, the meanness, the violence, it had seemed natural to walk upstairs together, to hold each other. At the same time, I felt I was giving in. ‘You were good down there,’ I said. ‘Not everybody was. I’m not sure what I want. Just don’t talk crap to me. Don’t start saying things like you’re not ready for a relationship.’

He didn’t say that. He didn’t say anything. He pulled me towards him until my head was on his chest, his chin was on my hair, our legs were tangled under the covers, our hearts were beating together and I couldn’t tell which was mine and which his. We drifted off to sleep like that, until I woke in the darkness and sneaked away, like a thief.

The next two days were strange and unhappy ones in the house. An air of foreboding hung over everything. I tried to be there as little as possible, and spent more time than usual in my own room. Even so, it was impossible not to be aware of the feuds and factions, the whispering in corners, the slamming of doors, the sudden chill silences that would fall if Leah came into the kitchen.

Every so often one of the group would draw me aside to tell me what was happening or who had said what to whom. Pippa told me that she was now asking for more money from Miles. Miles told me that he was unable to go any higher in his offer and, anyway, he didn’t see why he should, and please could I act as a mediator? Leah told me she wasn’t going to let Miles give us any money at all and that Dario would be chucked out if (a) he didn’t start paying rent and (b) he didn’t replace the lavatory at once. Dario said he was never going to replace the lavatory, nor would he wash up, rinse out the bath after use, put out the bin bags, vacuum the carpet or do any other household duties, which, as far as I knew, he never did anyway. He said we should go on strike. Mick said nothing, but scowled more than ever. Davy said Miles should be given a way out, not be painted into a corner. I came in and found Davy replacing the lavatory.

‘Properly, this time,’ he said. ‘That Dario. I’m surprised we haven’t got cholera.’

Owen went away again, to Milan this time and for longer. Perhaps that was just as well. I tried to stay out of it all, but found myself drawn in when I reminded Dario that he still had to find his friend, Lee, and make him contact the police, and he told me I should watch out or I’d turn into Leah mark two.

A few days after Ingrid de Soto ’s murder, I received a phone call. I was about to leave the house and Davy called me back, holding out the phone.

‘I’m late,’ I mouthed.

He covered the mouthpiece. ‘I think it might be important,’ he said.