Jim Crace - All That Follows

Leonard does not kiss her, though. He can smell the cigarettes as well. He knows that here he has a chance to recount the truth about his day, just to get it off his chest and have her agree with him that he must extricate himself. For a moment he even considers arguing that she should phone Lucy herself, with some excuse. It’s tempting. But who can tell what Francine might think or what she might advise? He suspects she could be more angry that he has deceived her than with the scheme he and Lucy have dreamed up. It’s possible that she could even like the prospect of a guest in the house, a bright young woman sleeping in a once-bright young woman’s room. But, no, he will say nothing, because he understands from experience that once Francine has committed herself to something, she will be lost to it. He has married a woman with a wild stripe. She will be deaf to any warnings or any fears he might offer about willful mistreatment of a minor. “Oh, Leonard, do grow up,” she’ll say, as she has said more than once before. “I know what they’ll put on your gravestone. It’ll say ‘Scared to Death.’”

So he pulls his hand away from hers and goes again into the kitchen. As he has feared while she’s been holding him, his fingers do stink of tobacco. He plunges them into the suds left from the washing-up and wipes them roughly with the pan scourer. He swills his mouth with grapefruit juice and rubs his teeth. When he goes back in the room, sucking surreptitiously on a mint tablet, he is relieved to find that Francine is dozing again. He presses her earlobe until she half opens an eye. “Come on, go up, you need to get a good night’s sleep.”

“Carry me upstairs,” she says, putting her hands around his neck and putting on her Helpless Hannah face. She loves it when he carries her. She’s small enough.

“I can’t. My shoulder’s killing me.”

“Well, don’t be too long. Come up soon.”

Leonard doesn’t go up soon. It’s cruel to have to stay downstairs. Life is playing tricks on him. Francine has made it clear — isn’t it so? — that she does not want him to pull out and flatten the futon tonight, that he will be more than welcome on her side of the bed. Everything she has done since his return is telling him she is ready, hoping even, to make love. It’s what he’s wanted for the past few weeks but has not dared to initiate. At last a window opens in their life. But Leonard cannot attend to his wife or even satisfy himself just yet. His mind is fixed elsewhere.

Leonard has to hunt to find the remote console pushed into the folds of the futon. It’s behind the still-warm cushions where Francine has been sitting. His hand is shaking even more than when he loaded Maxie’s photograph the previous evening. He has been aroused by Francine’s attention, the warmth and smell of her, his love for her too infrequently expressed. That’s cause enough to make him shake. But he is shaken by the lies he’s told as well. And by the stupid criminality he’s felt, the guilt, of coming back to his wife stinking of Lucy’s roll-ups. But most of all he’s shaken by the phone call he must make. He’ll do it now and go upstairs for his reward. Do it, do it, do it now, ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum . He’ll phone. Yes, he will phone.

Leonard clicks an on-screen toolbar and, half watching for updates in the headlines window that is minimized in the corner of the screen, opens Utilities and scrolls through the options until his arrow locates TelecomUK. He specifies Domestic and Residential, types in Lucy’s full name, and identifies her hometown, not expecting any luck and not getting any. Cell phone numbers are always hard to find with so little information. He presumes her mother will have a registered home address, though. What isn’t registered these days? He tries again, with “Emmerson, Nadia.” But gets nothing other than “This person could not be found. Check your data.” Maybe she has changed her name, he thinks. Or has a married name. Or has adopted a more exciting title: Red Nadia, Nadia Firebrand, Ms. Sofa Emmerson. He simplifies his search, her surname only. The engine offers seventy results, only four of which have N as their opening initial. He highlights and strikes out the rest, and then strikes out “Nigel Emmerson.” He’s narrowed it to three. He writes the numbers and addresses next to the initials N. H., N., and N. T. T. on a scrap of card torn from the cover of Francine’s Florentine box. He’ll have to try them all until he strikes lucky. But Leonard cannot risk calling the numbers from the house — there is an extension next to the bed that always Morses its own erratic commentary when the terrestrial line is in use — and so he puts his shoes back on and, hoping that Francine is too fast asleep by now to hear the chime of the front door, goes out into the street and to the parking bay to try these numbers from the van, even though he knows it’s almost ten o’clock and late in the day to be calling strangers.

N. H. Emmerson, or at least the person who answers the phone, is female and not quite British. Canadian, perhaps. She sounds anxious, not used to evening calls.

“Is Lucy there?” he asks.

“Lucy who?”

“Lucy Emmerson.”

“We are Emmersons, but we haven’t got a Lucy here.”

“Do you have a Lucy in your family?”

“Who is this speaking, please?”

Leonard ends the call rather than answer, rather than be ill-mannered and not reply. He knows he has mishandled it. This time, with N. T. T., he’ll be more subtle. But there is no need. “Lucy’s living with her mum these days,” an older man volunteers at once.

“Is that with Nadia?”

“Correct.”

“Can I check her phone number with you?” Leonard reads out the last remaining number on his list.

“Correct,” the man says again. “Is it Lucy that you want? Say hi from Grandpa Norman, will you, when you speak? Do you take messages?”

“I can.”

“You can tell her that I’m sorry about her bicycle. Some people’ll help themselves to anything these days.”

“Somebody stole her bicycle?”

“Correct.”

Leonard cannot phone at once. His heart is beating and his mouth is dry. He drains the last few drops of now cold tea from the neck of his flask and clears his throat. If it weren’t for Francine, perhaps awake indoors, and maybe even calling out his name to no reply before coming downstairs in her bare feet, hoping to find her husband safe and deaf to the world between his iPod earphones rather than dead on the carpet, he’d leave this final call for fifteen minutes or so. Enough time for a fortifying shot of rum, if they still have any rum. Enough time for deep breaths and embouchures. He dares not risk the fifteen minutes, though. He keys the number at once and lets it ring. He will allow ten tones and then give up. A second and maybe better possibility would be showing up tomorrow at the Zone as agreed and talking then and there to Lucy, explaining to her face to face why her genius is flawed. Yes, that would be less cowardly and less immediate. But Nadia Emmerson answers her house phone at once. Her voice is still familiar and unnervingly attractive, though any trace of adopted Texan has gone.

“Has anybody at this number lost a bike?” Leonard asks, unable to stop himself from disguising his own voice.

“Good heavens, yes. My daughter has. Who’s talking, please?”

Leonard can hear a background voice, the television possibly, except that Nadia is shushing it. “It’s a man about your bike,” she says, off-mike, and to the phone, “Hold on. She’s coming now.” And here is Lucy on the line, teenage-husky and familiar. “Hey,” she says.

“Lucy, listen to me, this is Leonard Lessing,” he whispers. “Pretend to Nadia that someone’s found your bike, okay? Then redial me on this number in the morning, at nine o’clock. Exactly nine o’clock. We have to talk. Tomorrow morning, then. Don’t let me down.”