Amy Bird - Three Steps Behind You

‘Shh!’ I say, my finger to my lips.

‘Adam!’ she yells. ‘ADAM!’

She is covering herself for modesty. I don’t care about that. I’d hand her a towel, but I see her neck is still soapy. She could do with a hand wiping it off. I advance forward to help. Nicole backs into the corner of the shower area, pressing herself against the terracotta tiles.

‘Adam!’ she shouts again.

‘I’m sorry, I was just waiting for my turn. I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ I say.

‘What’s going on?’

I hear Adam’s voice over the water.

‘Adam!’ Nicole runs to him. Seeing as she doesn’t seem to mind about the soap, I turn off the shower and try to pass her a towel. Adam takes it, and wraps it round her.

‘What the hell are you doing, Dan?’ he demands. The usual jocular tone is gone. This is fierce Adam. I can see his point. I am in a shower room with his naked wife. At least I have my clothes on. I would like to tell him it is for the sake of art, but he might not believe me. Some things even book two doesn’t excuse.

‘He was watching me! He was standing there, watching me!’ shouts Nicole.

‘I wasn’t watching, Adam. The door was open, I was waiting for my turn. The hot water’s broken at mine.’

‘He came in!’

‘Because you started screaming. I wanted to calm you down. I’m sorry. I see now I ought to have shut the door.’

Adam sighs deeply. When he speaks again, his voice has less edge. ‘Nicole, go into the bedroom. I’ll come through in a minute.’

She disappears, leaving me with Adam.

‘I’m sorry, Adam,’ I say. ‘It was a misunderstanding.’

‘A misunderstanding?’ Adam looks me in the eyes, questioning me. I stare back into them. Surely I don’t need to speak to answer? Surely we can communicate without words, by now?

But he seems to be waiting for me to verbalise.

‘A misunderstanding,’ I say.

He looks at me for a moment longer, then takes a deep breath. His shoulders rise and fall.

‘Ok, I trust you, mate. I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.’

I nod back. I would never hurt him, intentionally.

‘And you were willing to take the rap for me, I’ll always remember that,’ he says. I nod. We both know the reference. ‘But Nic doesn’t know that. She gets anxious. Just … I’ll smooth it over, but try not to freak her out, okay?’

‘Okay.’ I nod. I will try. I suspect she may find Luke a bit intimidating, but I have to persevere. For Adam. For art. For publication and his adulation.

Adam walks through to the bedroom that adjoins the wet-room. He kisses her on the lips and I turn away, but I can still see them in the mirror. Adam opens his eyes during the kiss and makes eye contact with me in the reflection. He holds my stare as he moves with Nicole into the depths of the bedroom.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was revenge.

But it can’t be, because he doesn’t know. So I close the door between the two rooms and listen to him converse with Nicole while I take off my clothes.

‘It was just a misunderstanding, Nic,’ I hear Adam say.

‘he was standing there!’ she protests, loudly.

‘Keep your voice down!’ Adam hisses.

‘Why do you let him come round here?’ Nicole asks. ‘You don’t even like him. Just tell him to get lost.’

‘Look, sweetie, I know he’s a bit odd, but he’s always been there when I need him. Give him another chance, okay? For me?’

Silence. I sidle closer to the shower-room door, pressing my naked body close to it so that I can hear the conversation in the other room.

‘I’ll make it up to you,’ says Adam, so softly I can barely hear him.

I hear Nicole giggle. I doubt she is still wearing the towel.

‘But I thought this was Helen’s day!’ says Nicole, cheekily.

‘Well, I can’t do this’ – there is a pause, while presumably Adam does something – ‘to Helen, can I, hmm?’

Then there is no more talking. I move away from the door and turn on the shower. I don’t want to hear the intimacy of their silence. I must focus on Luke, focus on the task in hand.

Luke closes his eyes, and lets the water course over his body. He can still feel that final touch of his lover, can still see her fine neck, smell her jasmine shower wash. Opening his eyes, he turns to face the room, he finds it empty of life. He’d half expected to see her looking at him. But of course, she wouldn’t be, not any more.’

Yes, that would work well, towards the end of the book. When Luke has finished with Nicole. But for now, he has barely started.

Chapter 8

Adam was not overestimating his power of smoothing things over. By the time I am out of the shower, Nicole is dressed and ready to accompany me to the fair. We leave Adam at the front door. He kisses Nicole goodbye and waves to me. It should be the other way round, me being kissed, her being waved away, but that is how it must be, for now.

All is not quite forgiven, though. Nicole makes a gulf between us as we walk up Narcissus Road to the bus stop. All wrapped up in her usual red beret, scarf and gloves, she keeps close to the holly bushes that line the inside edge of the pavement, as if she is trying to blend in with the berries.

I guess I will need small talk if I’m going to use Nicole for book four. I am struggling for conversation starters when a cyclist zooms past to the outside of me, helmetless.

‘I think all cyclists should wear helmets, don’t you?’ I ask. I don’t care, but it is something to say.

‘It didn’t help Helen,’ is Nicole’s immediate response.

‘Was she wearing a helmet?’ I ask.

Nicole nods. ‘I’ve been over it a thousand times with Adam. She always had bike lights, reflective clothing, all that stuff.’

Yes, of course. The reflective clothing. I went through all this at the time. With a distraught Adam, and with the police, too, before they decided it was an accident.

‘Seeing that wedding video today just reminded me, you know,’ she continues, ‘how much Adam loved her.’

This is not a useful conversation. I have no wish to be reminded of Adam’s love for another, from the one he currently says he loves.

‘You should come round for dinner some time,’ I say.

‘I wish I could find out who was driving, put his mind at rest. Give him closure,’ Nicole says. Then she stops talking, registering what I’ve just said. ‘I’ll ask Adam, we’ll fix up a date.’ Back on with the Helen routine. ‘Whoever it was, the police will find him. I’m sure. They just need a little help.’

‘No, not Adam. Just you, and me. Dinner,’ I say.

The bus appears, and any reply Nicole gives is lost.

We tap our Oyster cards dutifully and take our seats.

I keep on with my efforts for a conversation change.

‘I’m sorry about the shower,’ I say.

I touch her thigh, lightly.

She removes my hand, firmly.

‘Adam and I love each other,’ she says.

I’m not sure how that is relevant. I love Adam, after all, but the need here is different. Luke must have his material.

So I just shrug and say sorry again. She shrugs back. She seems to have calmed down. Maybe Adam explained why I could not have a real interest in her. Maybe, in that darkened room, before we came out, Adam was telling Nicole about book two. Maybe it was words, not just actions, that flushed her cheeks.

As though five years had not passed, Nicole starts up about Helen again.

I hear about the pearls that reverted back to Helen’s family, the guilt Nicole and Adam felt when they sent out their own wedding invitations, Nicole’s constant search for justice. She is a woman obsessed.

‘Someone out there drove away knowing they’d hit her, that they might have killed her,’ she says, looking at me. ‘Who does that?’