Simon Beckett - Where There's Smoke

Feeling pervasively soiled, she walked back towards the tube station.

The summer passed its mid-way point. Lucy and Jack took the children camping to Brighton. They were worried about leaving the house untenanted, so Kate offered to stay there while they were away. She’d never been wholly comfortable in her own flat after Paul had barged his way in, and since Miss Willoughby’s solicitors had put the old lady’s up for sale she had felt even less so. Miss Willoughby had left everything to a botanical society, her solicitor had told Kate at the funeral, a sad little affair with only Kate, the vicar and the solicitor in attendance. A lorry had arrived to clear the flat the next day, and Kate still wasn’t easy with the thought of living above the empty rooms, with their uncurtained windows and bare floors. Two weeks in Lucy and Jack’s rambling house appealed like a holiday.

“You should go on a proper one yourself,” Lucy had commented, when Kate had said as much to her.

“Perhaps later,” Kate had replied, and both of them knew she had no intention of going away.

The house seemed odd, much bigger and less friendly now that she was alone in it. Lying in bed in the spare room on the first night, she had listened uneasily to the unfamiliar creaks and noises until at some point she had fallen asleep. After that, though, she had grown accustomed to the solitude, until it no longer bothered her. Echoes of the family still filled the house, scattered toys and books and clothes, so that it didn’t seem empty so much as paused, a Mary Celeste waiting for voices and life to resume. Sometimes Kate felt like a ghost moving through it, living there but leaving no trace of herself. It was a gentle, lulling feeling.

Going there at night became a pleasure, so that she resented having to call at home to feed Dougal and check the post. The evenings were hot and muggy, and she would prepare a salad and eat it outside in the garden. Afterwards she would either just sit, or read until it became too dark to see, and then she would go inside and listen to Jack’s jazz and blues collection, head back on the overstuffed sofa as Billie Holiday bared her heart, and the moths bumped and whirred against the lampshade.

It was so long since Kate had felt relaxed that it was an unfamiliar sensation. Only the question of finding a donor still chivvied away at her, but as the weeks had passed with no further response to her advert, she had begun to accept that there was unlikely to be one. She was already considering her next step when the letter arrived.

She had not checked the box in over a week, and it was with a sense of obligation rather than hope that she called in to the depot one lunch-time. When the woman returned with an envelope, Kate felt her day lurch into confusion. She signed for it and took it outside. The memory of the condom made her handle it cautiously, and she superstitiously moved to another spot to open it.

This time there was a letter inside, neatly handwritten in blue ink on a cream vellum. There was an Ealing address and telephone number. Kate saw by the date that it had been posted over a week ago. It had been waiting for her to collect it all the time she had been lotus eating at Lucy’s.

The letter began without preamble. “I am writing in response to your advertisement for a donor for artificial insemination,” Kate read. “I am a thirty-four-year-old clinical psychologist, based in London. I am single, with no children.” Kate smiled at that, “average height, slim, with dark hair and blue eyes. If you would like to meet up, please call me at the above number after 6.00 p.m.”

It was signed “Alex Turner”.

Kate had begun walking without having any idea of where she was going. She stopped, looking around. The sunlit street suddenly seemed unfamiliar. Its brightness dazzled her, and for an instant she felt unsure of where she was. Then the sensation had passed. Folding the letter back into the envelope, she set off for the tube station.

She sat in the garden again that evening, but now its peace had been shattered. Her meal had consisted of a mug of tea, which sat cooling and untouched on the table in front of her. Next to it was the letter. She picked it up and reread it from time to time, as though she might be able to glean something else from the small, careful handwriting. The thought of meeting the man who had written it terrified her. This was what she had wanted, but now it had actually happened even the thought of telephoning him seemed monumental. She found herself remembering Lucy’s warning: he could be anyone. A piece of bark from the laburnum tree lay on the white plastic of the table. Kate nudged it absently with her finger, and the shape resolved itself into the dry husk of a dead moth. She brushed it off the table, grimacing. Abruptly, she snatched up the letter and went inside. The telephone waited on a bureau in the lounge. Kate strode over and picked it up. She stabbed out the first three digits of the number from the top of the letter before banging down the receiver.

“Come on, get a grip,” she murmured. She wished Lucy wasn’t away so she could talk it out, and immediately felt a surge of anger at herself.

She picked up the phone again and quickly dialled the number. There was a tightness in her chest as she waited for the connection to be made. The receiver was clammy in her hand as she heard it begin to ring.

“Hello?”

It was a man’s voice that answered. Kate found she had no idea what to say. She quickly checked the letter for his name. “Can I speak to... to Alex Turner, please?”

There was a pause. “This is Alex Turner.”

Kate swallowed. “My name’s Kate Powell.”

Belatedly, she remembered she hadn’t intended to give her name. “You answered my advertisement. For a... a donor.” She closed her eyes, squirming.

“Oh... Yes.”

“I was wondering — that is, I suppose we ought to meet up.”

Another pause. “Okay.”

Kate tried not to be discouraged by his lack of enthusiasm. “So, when’s convenient?”

“Whenever.”

Kate wished she had never phoned. “Well... er, how about...” She blanked. “Tomorrow lunch-time?” she gabbled, and immediately regretted it. Too soon, too soon. She willed him to say no.

“Yes, tomorrow’s fine.”

“Oh, okay. Er...” Her memory failed to come up with an obvious place to meet. “Do you know Chando’s brasserie?” It was the first name that occurred to her, and Kate winced. The restaurant was French, pretentious and expensive. She had never liked it, but she was too embarrassed now to change her mind.

She heard him hesitate. “No. Sorry.”

“It’s just off Soho Square,” she told him, and gave directions. “Will one o’clock be okay?”

“Fine.”

She waited, but there was no more. “Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Kate waited until he had hung up before replacing the receiver herself. She looked around the empty room. The need to talk, to tell someone, was like a suppressed shout. But she was on her own. She phoned the restaurant to make the reservation.

The restaurant was full. Conversation bubbled along, snatches of laughter occasionally surfacing through it. Waiters swirled around the tables like eddies in a stream, trays balanced, pads held at the ready.

Kate flinched as a loud hiss and billow of flame showed through the open hatch into the kitchen. She looked again at her watch. It was five to one. She had been there since a quarter to, long enough to feel as though she’d been waiting a lifetime.

She stiffened as the door from the street opened. A man walked in, dark hair swept back, wearing a bow tie and camel-coloured waistcoat despite the hot day. He spoke to the girl behind the reception desk, who scanned the book in front of her before answering. The man looked imperiously around the room, and his gaze stopped on Kate. Just as she was about to give a tentative smile, he turned away. The girl escorted him to another table, where two men greeted him. Kate felt a small wash of relief.