Christopher Fowler - Personal Demons

I put the ficus in with the other plants, made myself a coffee and sat by the window for a while. The room seemed oddly silent now. For the first time in ages I thought about sharing my life with someone. No-one in particular, just someone.

On Thursday I called the police again, with no luck. Miss Amity was due home the next evening, and I dreaded to think what I would say to her. I played back her messages; the usual assortment of normality-impaired individuals, someone asking her about selling a speedboat – she seemed to be acting as the middleman in a deal – someone else wanting to know if you could put a copyright on planets and sell them as brand-names.

Someone had also been in the apartment. I could smell cigar smoke. There was a squashed-out butt in the sink, and a pair of half-empty coffee cups beside the sofa. Worse still, it looked to me as though they had made love on the bed. The covers were rumpled and the room smelled stale and faintly perfumy. There was a time, just a few days ago, when the discovery would have shocked me, but my accumulated indirect knowledge of Miss Amity told me something about these new occupants. That, trapped perhaps in loveless relationships, they had fallen for each other and were unable to meet anywhere else, so she had allowed them to use the apartment for their trysts.

When Miss Amity called, I told her my suspicions.

'Damn,' she cried, 'that filthy whore has been dragging her johns in again. I warned you about Sheryl-Ann. Once I came home and found some poor businessman tied naked to a chair with duct-tape. It took hours to get it all off because he was so hairy. A nice man. I had to lend him cab fare because she took his wallet. His wife couldn't see they had a problem. Listen, I must tell you my news. Barbara has a date. Aren't you pleased for her?'

She never waited for you to catch up. 'Who are we talking about now?'

'Oh, Charles! The girl in your office. I fixed her up with my cousin Joel. He owns a chain of hardware stores. Is two a chain? He's taking her dancing. Isn't that great? Do you like mariachi music?'

She seemed to be moving in circles around me, making waves, brushing against the lives of others. This was beyond my experience. 'I'm very glad for her,' I replied. 'How did you -'

'If somebody calls about a speedboat, don't talk to them. I checked it out, and I get the feeling it was not acquired legally, if you know what I mean.'

I took Friday afternoon off. I was so nervous about Miss Amity coming home, I wanted some time to myself to figure out how to handle it. She called from the hospital at four to say she was just leaving. At half-past, there was another call.

'Guess what?' shouted Donald, out of breath. 'We found the dog.'

I leapt out of the armchair. 'My God, Miss Amity's due back any minute. Where is he?'

'In your building. He's been there the whole time. Mrs Beckerman's been looking after him. He stays with her whenever Mary goes out of town.'

'Why on earth didn't she bring him back?'

'I guess she thought she was meant to look after him, what with Mary in the hospital. She called me to ask when Mary was getting out. Ground floor, apartment 1b. Go get 'im.'

'Donald, you are a lifesaver.'

'So buy me a drink sometime, Mr Snooty Englishman.'

'Tomorrow,' I promised. 'Tomorrow night.'

'Deal.'

The other line rang. I switched across and answered. 'Hello?'

'It's me, Mary. I stopped to get some groceries on the way. Listen, I can't get in. I don't seem to have my keys. You will be there, won't you?'

'Of course. I'm looking forward to meeting you.'

'Did you get the dog back from Mrs Beckerman?'

'You mean – you knew?'

'That you'd lost him? Of course I knew. From the moment you performed that ridiculous impersonation over the phone.'

'But if you knew, you must have had an idea where Bolivar had gone.'

'Well, of course,' she replied.

'Then why didn't you tell me?'

'I would have thought that was obvious. I wanted you to spend some time with Donald. Charles, I have something to tell you. I was talking to your mother earlier and -'

'My mother? My mother in England?'

'You have another?'

'How did you get her number?'

'Barbara found it in your address book. She's seeing Joel Saturday. I hope they get on. They're the same height; it's a start. I called your mother because I wanted to ask her something, that's all. She thinks an awful lot of you. We talked for quite a while, her and me, and one thing led to another, and I accidentally let slip -'

The other line rang.

'There's another call.'

'I have a feeling that'll be her now. Don't be mad.'

'Hold on.'

I gingerly switched to the other line.

'Mary Amity tells me you're gay,' said my mother. I nearly dropped the phone. Regaining my composure, I switched lines back.

'I didn't mean to out you,' said Miss Amity apologetically, 'I wasn't sure you even knew yourself, but it was obvious to me. Families. We shock and disappoint each other, but there's still love. Look at Randy. Pour a drink. Brandy is good. Talk to your ma, don't fight, just run with it, she's fine. I'll be there soon.'

I talked to my mother.

I collected the dog.

I waited for Mary.

But Mary Amity never arrived. We never did meet.

She hadn't been in the hospital for a hip operation. The doctors had removed a tumour. She didn't want to worry people. In the cab she developed a cramp and asked the driver to take her back. She died a few minutes after being readmitted. She was the only person who ever got my name right.

I no longer work at the bank. I have an apartment of my own now, a modest place in Brooklyn. Two floors up, with four rooms, one bull terrier and far too many sets of keys.

Everyone has a story to tell, he reminded himself. Whether it really happened, to them or to someone else, is irrelevant. What's important is that they believe some part of it, no matter how small. The most ludicrous and unlikely narrative might yield a telling detail that could lodge in a person's mind forever.

Harold Masters smiled at the thought and was nearly killed as he stepped off the kerb on the corner of Museum Street. The passing van bounced across a crevice in the tarmac andsoaked his trousers, but the doctor barely noticed. He raised his umbrella enough to see a few feet ahead and launched himself perilously into the homegoing traffic, his head clouded with doubts and dreams. Why were his pupils so inattentive? Was he a poor storyteller? How could he be bad at the one thing he loved? Perhaps he lacked the showmanship to keep their interest alive. Why could they create no histories for themselves, even false ones?

Fact and fiction, fiction and fact.

What was the old Hollywood maxim? Nobody knows anything . Not strictly true, he thought. Everyone has some practical knowledge, how to replace a lightbulb, how to fill a tank with petrol. But it was true that most information came second-hand, even with the much-vaunted advent of electronic global communication. You couldn't believe what you saw on the news or read in the papers, not entirely, because it was written with a subtle political, commercial or demographic slant, so why, he wondered, should you believe what you read in a washing machine manual or see on a computer screen? A taxi hooted as he hailed it, the vehicle's wing mirror catching at his coat as he jumped up on to the opposite kerb.

Dr Harold Masters, at the end of the twentieth century:

Insect-spindled, grey, dry, disillusioned, unsatisfied, argumentative (especially with his wife, whom he was due to meet on the 18 40 p.m. train from Paddington this evening), hopeful, childish, academic, isolated, impatient, forty-four years old and losing touch with the world outside, especially students (he and Jane had two of their own – Lara, currently at Exeter University, and Tyler, currently no more than a series of puzzling postcards from Nepal).