Стивен Бут - Drowned Lives

‘Well—’

‘I wish you luck. But you’re not the most comfortable of people at meeting strangers, are you, Chris? Still, we’ll have to arrange some other time to meet. Give me a ring if you like, but I might be away next week.’

I had a brainwave then, and couldn’t wait to share it with her. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Come with me to see Wheeldon. You can make up for my social deficiencies. You might be able to ask him questions I wouldn’t think of. Don’t you think you’d find it interesting, Laura?’

‘Well, you could be right. And he lives where?’

‘A nursing home a few miles the other side of Chester. We can get there in an hour or two.’

‘All right then. Since I’ve nothing else to do.’

‘Excellent. And when we get back, I’ll take you to dinner as a reward.’

She smiled, and my heart gave a little lurch. ‘We’ll see about that,’ she said.

Sunday couldn’t come round fast enough as far as I was concerned. By Friday I was already eaten away with impatience, and I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything. And, unaccountably, I began to feel uncomfortable being alone for the first time I could remember.

I went into the office that morning, my last day as a council employee, and attended my meeting with HR. The news was exactly what I’d expected. Without too much sympathy, I was told that the days when the department could afford to employ three information officers were over. The time had come to bite the bullet and accept cutbacks.

The tone of the delivery was such that I was made to feel I ought to have known all these things already, which indeed I did. I had to admire the system that had left me in no doubt of my fate long before it came to the point of someone telling me. It saved embarrassing scenes.

Since I’d worked for the council for less than two years, the pay-off I’d get was negligible — certainly not enough to keep me alive for more than a few months. Unemployment was staring me in the face, and destitution was lurking at its shoulder.

The HR manager even had the nerve to ask if I needed any help to cope with my redundancy. Did she mean counselling? The word seemed to be on the tip of her tongue.

‘Your colleagues say you haven’t been yourself for some time,’ she said. ‘I believe there was a family bereavement?’

‘Both my mother and father died within three months of each other.’

‘Awful. That sort of trauma can have a lasting impact. Emotionally and—’

‘Psychologically?’

She winced at the word. ‘I wish we’d known sooner that you were struggling.’

‘I haven’t been struggling,’ I said quickly, trying to sound confident, though my voice let me down with that sudden crack on the last word.

‘But it’s not too late,’ she said, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘We can still offer you help.’

I’d stood up then. I recognised when it was time to go.

My colleagues in the office practically ignored me, leaving me plenty of time to clear out the rest of the accumulated rubbish in my desk. At lunchtime, one of the IT team wandered in and tentatively invited me out for a drink at the local pub. But I declined politely. It wasn’t his fault. It was just that I associated him with Dan Hyde, who’d worked closely with him until he had left the council. And Dan wasn’t my favourite person at the moment.

At some point, we had to arrange a visit to see the bank manager about our loan and negotiate easier repayments over a longer period. The aim, as far as I was concerned, would be to try to delay things long enough for me to claim Samuel Longden’s bequest. The other creditors would have to be stalled for a while.

Rachel had already been away for two days by then. She was staying with her family in Hendon, and looking forward to some visits to London theatres and musicals. Miss Saigon had been mentioned, and the highlight would be a matinee of Cats . Rachel had been excited about the prospect for weeks.

Without her, it was too quiet at Maybank. It was strange having no one watching me drive off in the mornings, and no Riverdance numbers thumping through the walls. There was nobody walking in through my back door at the most inconvenient moments, or keeping a check on my visitors while pretending to sweep the leaves from the path. No one to be concerned about my welfare.

I knew Rachel had a small group of girlfriends she went out with. It would be ridiculous to feel jealous, and wonder how much she was enjoying herself. I was perfectly fine here on my own, with the cat.

So I turned to my pile of CDs. I had Suede and Pulp on top of the stack, but I felt the need to go back a few years before Britpop. Ah yes, there were Bowie and U2, redolent of a different period in my life. Achtung Baby had the right tone to it. I turned up the volume to listen to The Edge’s guitar and Bono singing about the end of world until he got to ‘Love is Blindness’, when it no longer felt so satisfying.

In Lichfield, a thin sprinkling of snow overnight had made everything look clean and new. But underneath was the same old winter mud, the same dirt-stained pavements. A town crier walked round the market square wearing a three-cornered hat and ringing his handbell, advertising an indoor market. Big Issue sellers stood on the corner of Baker’s Lane complimenting passing businessmen on their suits to charm them into buying a copy of their paper.

I was already committed to completing the project bequeathed to me by my Great-Uncle Samuel. To contemplate anything else would have been too painful, even without Caroline Longden’s efforts to twist the knife and Simon Monks’s attempts at intimidation. But since the funeral, there was one part of the picture I hadn’t quite got clear in my mind. Before I could come to terms with Samuel’s death, I had to be sure how and why he’d died.

Finally, Sunday arrived and I set off early to collect Laura from the George. She looked a bit askance at the Escort, and I was uncomfortably aware of the contrast with her Mercedes. But I could hardly have asked her to drive me to Cheshire. She was already doing me a big favour, and I was treading on eggshells trying to keep her interested.

The drive was nearly eighty miles, up the M6 and round the bypass at Nantwich to get onto the A51. As we crossed the Cheshire Plain, I found I was telling Laura all about myself. She had an undoubted skill at subtle questioning, winkling out everything she wanted to know without seeming intrusive, then listening with a flattering absorption, as if what I had to say was the most interesting thing she’d ever heard. Even as I talked, I congratulated myself on my coup in getting her on my side. She would be a great asset.

‘So the business venture has gone down with a heap of debts, and now I’m on the dole,’ I said. ‘That’s my story. I’m a bit of a disaster all round, really.’

It didn’t sound very impressive, but Laura wasn’t daunted.

‘And your parents have died?’ she said.

‘Yes, in the last year. My father just three months ago.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No need to be.’

‘Did you get on with them?’

‘Does anybody get on with their parents?’

‘Only if they don’t have to live with them.’

‘That’s true. I found them almost tolerable while I was living in Stafford.’

‘Was it your father or your mother you didn’t get on with?’

‘I don’t know really.’

‘It’s usually one or the other.’

I watched the Cheshire villages spinning by. They had curious English names in this part of the world, and I saw signs for Tilstone Fearnall, Bunbury, and Aston juxta Mondrum. Laura looked at me thoughtfully, but didn’t press me. I didn’t mind talking to her about myself. I’d do it as much as she liked. But my parents weren’t a subject I was comfortable with.