Anne Billson - Suckers

I went for long walks, trying to fill the empty hours. I revisited places where Duncan and I had been together. I couldn't understand why being there without him should make me feel so unhappy. On the face of it, nothing had changed — I was still walking, on the same two legs, across the same stretch of the park, stopping at the same pond to watch the same ducks. I was still sitting in the same pubs, drinking the same drinks and munching the same brand of crisps. But it wasn't the same. I tried to pretend it was, but it wasn't. There was something missing, and it wasn't just Duncan.

I was still going to the same cinemas, too, though for obvious reasons I couldn't watch the same movies, not all the time. I pored over film textbooks, searching in vain for mention of lost German masterpieces. I sat through all the German films I could find, just in case, but never once did I see those eyes up on the screen. The films, being German, did nothing to lighten my mood.

The good news was that I lost my appetite. Cakes and croissants no longer gave me pleasure. The weight fell off until, for the first time in my life, I discovered I had cheekbones — they'd been buried there all along. I stared at them in the mirror. The face that stared back was pale and interesting. It was some consolation, but not much. What was the point of cheekbones? What was the point of anything, when I couldn't have what I really wanted?

I couldn't sleep. I would lie there, fretting and perspiring in a shallow fever of helplessness. I wrote long, rambling letters to Duncan, and tore them up. I wrote long, rambling letters to myself, and to this Violet person, and I tore them up too. My room was strewn with stream-of-consciousness confetti.

One night, the fever got so bad I felt like banging my head against the wall. The only way I could stop myself was by getting up and getting dressed. I went for a walk, with no idea where I was heading. My feet took me all the way up the High Street to the Grand Union Canal. I clambered over the locked gate and walked alongside the water, thinking how easy it would be to step into the dark reflection. I heard the night-time noises of the zoo, and walked and walked. Sometimes the path tried to lead me away from the water, but each time I found my way back. I walked for hours, until I found myself at the north end of Ladbroke Grove. I had never meant to go there, but my feet had developed a mind of their own. Now they took me south, overland. They took me straight to Duncan.

I stood beneath the trees on the opposite side of the road and stared up at the light in his second-floor window. It was the only light in the block, the only light in the street. I wondered what he was doing, up at such an unsociable hour. I debated whether to call in and demand a cup of tea. It was four in the morning, but that wasn't what stopped me from ringing the doorbell. He wouldn't care what time it was — he didn't care about things like that any more. I didn't ring because I knew what his reaction would be; polite, as always, but thinking, all the time, about someone else. It would have been unbearable.

One or two cars went past. I walked round the block three or four times, doing a brisk pin-step, then stopping again in the shadow of the trees. I didn't know what I was waiting for, but after half an hour or so, the front door opened. He stepped out, and of course she was with him, wrapped in her furs. I couldn't see so well from where I was standing, but her movements were not those of a sixty-year-old woman. She was petite and childlike, not wizened and old. I'd made a mistake, or Duncan had, or perhaps she'd told him a downright lie.

He stooped and she kissed him. At least, I think that's what she did. Her hair fell across both their faces so that I couldn't see properly. I think he started to say something, but I couldn't be sure. She left him there, staring at her back as she walked away, pulling her hat down over her face and folding herself tightly into the fur. He drank in one last look, as though she was all the sustenance he had, and turned round and went back inside the house and shut the door.

I wondered why she was leaving so early, why she was walking, why hadn't she phoned for a cab. I had nothing better to do, so I followed her. It was the first time I'd ever followed anyone, and in those days I wasn't too good at it. I did all the things I'd seen them do in movies — stopping to tie my shoelace, ducking into doorways, turning to gaze into shop windows. It was ridiculous; we were virtually the only two people on the streets, and still she gave no indication of having seen me.

She walked surprisingly fast, all the way down Ladbroke Grove and along the Harrow Road. She looked neither to left nor right as she went, and I stuck with her all the way.

And that's how I found out what she really was.

I thought at first the gates had been left unlocked, because she slipped between them. When I got there I found they'd been padlocked after all, but the chain was slack and left enough of a gap for a skinny person to squeeze through. Thanks to my recent weight loss, I made it.

So she liked cemeteries too. She and Duncan made a fine pair. Inside, the faint moonlight illuminated ranks of tombstones glowing softly in the undergrowth. Violet was a dark and distant blur on the path ahead. After a few seconds I lost sight of her, but now I could hear her singing softly to herself. 'Libiamo, libiamo …' I couldn't understand the Italian, but I knew it was that bloody drinking song again.

What the hell was she up to? I had to find out. Whatever it was, I would be able to use it against her. I trod cautiously, avoiding the gravel and sticking to the grassy verges, trying to make as little noise as possible. Vandals had passed this way before me. Monuments had been daubed with graffiti, angels had lost their noses, graves gaped in preparation for the day of judgement. I wondered how I'd allowed myself to be lured into this stupid place, at this stupid time of night. But it never occurred to me that I might be putting my life in danger.

A pale grey mass loomed ahead: a mausoleum. I climbed the steps to the portico and was greeted by the stench of urine, and of something else, something familiar I couldn't quite identify. I was wondering which of the three paths Violet had taken when there was a clatter of metal which echoed and clashed — I stopped dead, ears straining, hardly daring to breathe, but the echo died and the rest was silence. I homed in on the source of the sound, and found myself creeping along a passageway lined with pillars; to the right they opened on to a moonlit courtyard; to my left they stood guard over the dim outlines of family tombs.

I had my ideas, most of them far-fetched. I thought she might be involved in espionage, or terrorism, or a spare-parts surgery racket. Or a black-magic cult whose members danced naked and sold their stories to the News of the World . I was an incurable romantic with a vivid imagination, but it stopped short of embracing the paranormal as a part of everyday life. I had always liked horror movies, but had never imagined the creatures they depicted were real. I didn't believe in vampires. But the process by which disbelief turned to acceptance was fairly swift, and it started around the next corner.

There was a soft rustling sound, like dry leaves trembling in the gentlest of breezes. I turned the corner, and what I saw was this: the moonlight casting pale strips across the floor, and a writhing shape slumped against one of the pillars. I knew the shape wasn't human because it had too many limbs. An arm flopped sideways on to the ground, and I heard the rustling again as the hand involuntarily tightened its grip around a crinkly plastic bag. Then a leg kicked out, also involuntarily, and once again a thick crepe sole came into contact with the tin and sent it spinning away on its side. As soon as I spotted the red and white label, I knew what the other familiar smell had been. Cow Gum had always been a vital factor in my collage assembly.