Alex Preston - The Revelations

Her flat was at the top of a tall building whose ground floor housed an antique bookshop. Marcus could make out a first edition of Surprised by Joy in the window, alongside a series of framed etchings of famous composers. Higher up, the building was striped with red and white bricks. It was a feature of many of the houses in the area and always put Marcus in mind of a series of lighthouses standing sentry over the sweep of Kensington and Chelsea below them. Marcus rang the bell again. A face peered out from a window on the second floor, then disappeared. Marcus was about to leave when the door opened a crack.

‘Are you a friend of Lee Elek?’ The voice was that of an old woman. She was lost in the shadows of the hallway and Marcus couldn’t see her face. He walked up as close as he could to the door and peered inside.

‘Yes, I am.’

The door opened for an instant and the woman dropped something into Marcus’s arms. It was Darwin. The dog, recognising a friend, gave a contented yelp and reached up to lick Marcus’s face.

‘I looked after the dog all weekend. She said she’d be back by lunchtime. I’m going to my book club tonight and I simply can’t have the thing yipping around my heels. Goodbye.’

The door shut firmly in Marcus’s face. He carried Darwin under the shelter of the umbrella as he walked back home, letting the small brown dog nuzzle against his cheek. His fur was sleek and soft. Marcus let Darwin tumble onto the floor of the flat as he came inside. Abby was still asleep and so Marcus placed some slices of salami and smoked salmon on a plate for the dog in the kitchen and stretched out along the sofa, his head and joints aching. He dialled Lee’s mobile again. He listened to her message, was about to hang up, and then stopped. He spoke in a whisper, covering the mouthpiece with his hand.

‘It’s Marcus. If you get this, please give me a call. I’m sorry for what happened, I really am. Please come back.’

Abby walked into the room and he hung up quickly.

‘What’s Darwin doing here?’

‘I went down to Lee’s. The batty old woman who looks after the dog when Lee isn’t there literally threw him at me.’

‘So she isn’t back yet?’

‘No.’

‘Are you worried?’

Marcus paused.

‘I’m always worried about Lee. But you know somehow that she’ll always be OK. She has a weird resiliency. She’ll turn up and be charmingly repentant and we’ll all have to forgive her.’

Abby made dinner and they went to bed early, Darwin slumped across their feet. In the middle of the night the dog woke and scratched at the door. Marcus realised that there was nowhere for the animal to crap and so, wrapping a dressing gown around himself and slipping a pair of trainers on his feet, he carried the dog downstairs. In the emptiness of the early hours of Monday morning he stood watching the quivering buttocks of the sausage dog as he forced out a stringy shit. The first planes were queuing to land at Heathrow. He thought about how he used to sit with Lee on her tiny terrace and watch them cruise across the sky. He could tell that Darwin missed Lee. He scooped the dog under his arm and made his way back to bed.

The next day Marcus sat in his office and made telephone calls. It was raining again and he was waiting to receive documents from the shady portfolio manager at Plantagenet Partners. He sat with his feet against the glass of the window, his chair reclined and the phone in his lap. Abby had taken Darwin to the church with her and he could hear the dog barking in the background when he called her. There was still no news of Lee and Marcus continued to dial her mobile, his fingers skipping over the numbers on his phone, tracing the pattern that meant Lee to him. He spoke to Mouse, who was somewhere high in Senate House: the howling wind made conversation almost impossible, but they arranged to meet for a drink that evening.

Finally, Marcus looked through his address book until he found Lee’s parents’ number. He dialled it and waited. An old man answered, his heavily accented voice high and impatient.

‘Yes?’

‘Um, hi. Is that Mr Elek?’

‘Yes. This is Lazlo Elek. Who is this?’

‘It’s Marcus Glass. I’m a friend of your daughter.’

‘Yes?’

‘Listen, she’s not with you by any chance? I mean, I was hoping to get in touch with her and she doesn’t seem to be answering her phone. I wondered if she might be with you.’

‘No, she’s not here. And you’re the second person to call for her. That priest of hers was on the phone earlier. Perhaps she doesn’t want to see you. Did you think of that? Poor girl might want to be left alone.’

‘I’m worried about her, Mr Elek.’

The old man’s voice suddenly softened.

‘Don’t worry about Lee. What did you say your name was? Marcus? Ah yes, you came up to visit, didn’t you? Lee will be just fine. We’re stronger than people think, the Eleks. I’ll let you know when I hear from her. Goodbye.’

Marcus sat staring out of the window at the rain until darkness fell and the City was a smear of office lights seen through the downpour. He lit a cigarette on his way to the Tube and smoked it in four drags before plunging down into Moorgate Station.

Mouse was waiting for him at Euston. He had turned up the collar of his faded velvet jacket and was standing in the centre of the station, entirely still as commuters rushed around him. He had his head turned upwards, surveying the rarely observed heights of the station, taking note of the sooty concrete crevices above him.

‘Hello, sport,’ he said.

Marcus embraced Mouse and dragged him by the arm through the hassled rush of workers. Mouse seemed reluctant to emerge from his reverie; his eyes remained misty as they made their way down Gordon Street to the Union bar where they used to come and drink with Lee.

They sat down in a shadowy corner of the bar. A football game was being shown on a large screen at the other end of the room. Marcus had bought them both a pint and they sat in melancholy silence, half-watching the game. Finally, Mouse turned to Marcus and spoke, twisting his signet ring on his finger as he talked.

‘I’m worried that it was my fault. That I said the wrong words to Lee this weekend.’

Marcus looked up at his friend.

‘Don’t beat yourself up. There probably wasn’t a right thing to say. It’s hard to know how to help someone who’s that far gone.’

‘But if I’d really spoken to her, really broken through. . She trusted me.’

Marcus sighed and shook his head.

‘We’re all to blame in one way or another.’

They left the bar and walked back to the train station. Marcus rode with Mouse to Kensal Green, left him at the bridge over the canal and strode down Ladbroke Grove until he came to the bus stop. When he got home, Abby was watching television with Darwin curled up in her lap. Marcus poured himself a glass of wine and ran a bath. Abby looked up at him as he passed, but since he said nothing she went back to staring at the TV, her hand thoughtlessly playing with the dog’s long, silky hair.

Marcus ran the bath full and hot, lowering himself down gently into the water, which turned his skin bright pink. He lay back and balanced an ashtray on the dry island of one knee. He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke upwards. Abby didn’t like him smoking in the bath. He had filled the glass of wine right to the rim and sat with an empty mind until the bath was tepid and the glass empty. He pulled himself regretfully from the water, tipped the ash down the sink as he brushed his teeth, and then half-read a book until he was too tired to turn the pages. He was asleep before Abby and the dog came to bed.