Death of a Bookseller, page 16
Just then, Laura’s foot slapped hard against the pavement. I thought she’d tripped again, clumsy and uncoordinated with all the wine, but as she lifted her foot, I saw the crushed shell and phlegmy yellow smear of a dead snail, murdered under Laura’s spiteful step.
“Little bitch,” she said, inexplicably, to the mashed snail. “You little fuck.”
I stared at the crime scene in muted silence, and she drifted on without me. With her inhibitions lowered, the true depth of Laura’s cruelty revealed itself. Under a streetlight, her orange skirt glowed like a flame. She’s the devil, I thought, taking one last glance at the oozing shards of snail shell.
“This is me,” she said, turning down her dark garden path and trudging towards her navy-blue front door. She stabbed her key in the lock and I hovered, breath held in anticipation, as she pushed open the front door. The air in the flat smelled funereal, of dust, dried flowers and spent matches.
She tripped and stumbled into her hallway. “Whoops!” she said brightly. I was about to ask her if I could come in, maybe have one more drink, but before I could open my mouth again she’d called an indifferent, “Bye then!” and slammed the door in my face.
Her keys dangled from the lock and before I could process the weight of my decision, they were in my hand. I went to take a look through the living room window, but to my great annoyance, she’d installed some kind of matte sheath over the glass—presumably to prevent peeping Toms. How incredibly presumptuous, I thought.
I adjusted my beret, lit a cigarette, and smoked it as I walked home. I had a vague plan to dump her keys somewhere out of spite—a bin or a skip, a drain, somewhere irretrievable, just for the sake of inconveniencing her but I quite liked knowing that I had them. I felt like I’d scored a point over her, and I decided to keep hold of them for a little while.
Never have I fucking ever. Never have I fucking ever read The Virgin Suicides, Laura. Never have I fucking ever read My Year of Rest and Relaxation never have I fucking ever read The Secret History never have I fucking ever read Junk never have I fucking ever read Looking for Alaska never have I fucking ever read Noughts and Crosses never have I fucking ever read Ariel never have I fucking ever read Let Them Eat Chaos never have I fucking ever read Night Sky with Exit Wounds never have I fucking ever read The Outrun never have I fucking ever read I Am, I Am, I Am never have I fucking ever read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings never have I fucking ever read Maus never have I fucking ever read Fun Home never have I fucking ever read Ghost World, Laura, never have I ever got a tattoo, never have I ever kissed Eli, or worn lipstick to work, or read my poetry at an open mic night. Never have I ever been loved, been cherished, been celebrated, like you have, Laura. Never have I ever had everything I ever wanted, at the drop of a hat, a hat that perfectly matched my shoes.
When I got home, I lay on my bed and googled murdered women in London, speculating over which one could have been Laura’s mother. The possibilities were limited, but at the same time they felt endless. I didn’t know for sure where Laura had grown up, after all, and besides, even if she had grown up in Walthamstow, her mother may not have been murdered in the area in which she lived. She may not have been killed in London. She may not have been killed in England. And of course, “mother” could mean stepmother, or adoptive mother, or estranged biological mother, all of which could have an impact on whether they shared the same surname, looked alike, or lived in the same place. With the information I had, it was impossible to draw any conclusions. I couldn’t rule anyone out. If I was going to get to the bottom of this, I needed more information, and if Laura wasn’t willing to give it to me, I was going to have to take it.
I fell asleep and dreamed of all the possibilities, of lonely moors and barren wastelands, of mirror-still lakes and the murky depths of undredged canals.
LAURA
In bed, alone and drunk, so drunk I travel the world with Lydia. I work my way through the Europe tour first. Custard tarts in Lisbon and bookshops in Paris, a bowl of fat queen olives in Barcelona, a cluster of heart-shaped padlocks in Florence. And then I keep going. I look at vegan currywurst in Berlin in spring 2016, and clinking champagne flutes at the top of the Eiffel Tower in winter 2015. I look at a hotel brunch in Edinburgh in summer 2014 and I watch the sun set over the Golden Gate Bridge the previous spring. I look at the milky waters of the Blue Lagoon in 2013, and the creamy head of a Dublin Guinness in 2012, and over-filtered cocktails on Thai beaches in 2011, and grainy Mardi Gras in New Orleans in 2010, where she laughed with strings and strings of plastic beads around her neck, and then I accidentally hit the heart-shaped like button and although I unlike it immediately, my cheeks are red-hot and I know I’ve fucked up.
I wake up early, way before my alarm, to the sound of a neighbour’s baby crying, a bold and throaty wail of anguish. I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Shame creeps over me as fractured pieces of the night before float to the surface of my hangover. Flirting with Eli, spilling drinks. And you’ll . . . be in my bed? Everything feels muggy and fuggy and foggy. Ugly.
The bedroom curtains are open—I forgot to close them last night and I feel sick, sick to my stomach, at the thought of being so exposed. Exposed. My mother was murdered when I was a teenager. My stomach churns with the memory of my words, of Roach leaning across the table, so transparently desperate for the details.
It’s another clear and bright morning, the sky cross-hatched with scars from passing planes. I imagine I’m on one, heading to New York or Tokyo or Bali, and the thought of travel takes me to Lydia, and to my stupid fumbling thumbs. She might see the notification, curse me out to Eli. Laugh at me. Then again, it might not matter. She might not care at all.
A collection of empty wine glasses and jam jars line the windowsill, etched with fingerprints and smeared with different shades of lipstick. A different lipstick for every day of the week. My mother was murdered when I was a teenager.
I close my eyes, scrunch my face against a growing swell of sorrow. It’s November sixth today. An internal latch unfastens somewhere inside me, and my eyes brim with tears. Flat on my back, staring up at the lace of mould that stretches from the window like a shadow, I let myself break apart. I cry because the mould that blossoms from every corner of my flat has the mottled quality of dead skin. I cry because when I take a deep breath, my lungs push against my rib cage as though they haven’t enough room to manoeuvre, all the spare space instead filled with smoke. I cry because my kitchen floor will be looped with the tracks of a slug infestation that I cannot seem to control, and my vegetable rack stinks of mouse piss, and I will still have to wash those shrunken carrots and eat them. I cry because I can’t afford better.
My mother was murdered when I was a teenager. I cry for my mother. I cry because she should be turning fifty, and instead she’s just an imprint, an echo, a line in someone else’s story. And, like the rest of the dead, she’s being submerged by the tides of time, and each day that passes is another day further from her last, and she’s already been gone for ten years. I cry because eventually I’ll have spent more time on this Earth without her than I did with her, and one day I’ll be older than her. I cry because we’ll all end up dead, just a string of memories so utterly devastating, so painful, tender as an open wound, that we’ll hardly be spoken about at all, and then the people who remember us will die too, and so on, and so on, until there’s nothing left of any of us.
On the floor, on top of a pile of books, sits the lilac diary Eli gave me all those weeks ago. I can’t be bothered to find my door keys to open the stupid little lock. This makes me laugh out loud, a wild incongruous sound. What a stupid obstacle to have to overcome. I shove it under my pillow and, determined not to be derailed, I use the notes app on my phone to write it all down, fill three pages with rambling, emotional metaphors about imprints and tides and open wounds, and the act of writing is like a cool slick of aloe vera smoothed over a sunburn.
When my thumbs feel cramped and I have nothing left in me, I wipe my face on the duvet. I’m calm, focused. With a fresh mindset, I climb out of bed and gather the empty glasses from the windowsill. I wash up, make myself some buttered cinnamon toast and then shower, washing my sadness away. I pick out a midnight-blue dress, thick black tights and step into matching blue flats. I make up my face to hide the sallow skin of my hangover, and spray rose perfume over my clavicles, and then I feel ready to go to work, ready for another day of bright smiles and forced laughs and absolutely impeccable customer service.
I don’t have time to make lunch, but it doesn’t matter. I check my tote bag for everything I need: phone, battery almost flat as I forgot to plug it in to charge, and charger. Purse, water bottle—no time to fill it, I’ll have to remember to fill it at work—lipstick, hand cream. Lighter, almost out of gas. I crack the wheel and the flame stutters and dies. An empty Rizla packet. Tobacco, almost empty, and a midnight-blue beret. I go through my bag once again, raking through my things, but no: I can’t find my door keys, they aren’t there, and they aren’t in the pocket of my coat, either. I try to think what dress I was wearing yesterday—did it have pockets? Unlikely.
I’m inside the flat, so they must be inside with me, otherwise how else would I have let myself in? I look under the sofa, feel between the cushions, check all the strange and unusual places a careless drunk might discard her keys, like inside the fridge, among my cosmetics in the bathroom, in the fruit bowl. I try to retrace my steps, but the end of the evening is a bit of a blur. Did someone walk me home? I have a vague, squicky memory. Was it Eli? Was it Roach? I can’t think. I’m running late now, getting stressed, losing my cool. I can’t face the expense of a locksmith, can’t bear the thought of calling my father and asking if I can borrow some money.
“If you can’t afford to live alone, don’t live alone,” he’d say.
Finally, I have to give up and tip the contents of my kitchen junk drawer over the floor to riffle through the scattered playing cards, sachets of ketchup and ramen seasoning, incense sticks and dead plastic lighters. I scrabble through the detritus until I find the spare set of keys, hooked on to a lustrous tiger’s eye key ring. I’d always meant to give them to a neighbour in case of emergencies, but my neighbours were a revolving door of strangers and I’d never bothered to introduce myself to any of them.
By the time I get to work, I’m only a few minutes late. I lock myself in the loo and kneel on the cold tiles, head hanging over the shit-streaked bowl. My stomach convulses and I regurgitate a mouthful of bitter bile that marbles the water, thick as phlegm. In the mirror, my eyes are threaded with red. I splash my face with cold water and dab it dry on those green paper towels that smell of school. A little dab of lipstick and I’m ready to face the day.
In the staffroom, Eli is sitting on one of the cafeteria tables, waiting for me.
ROACH
It was my day off, and I listened to a murder podcast about death row brides as I walked through the park. A fussy little spaniel in a pink jacket and a scrappy, bow-legged mutt darted after one another on the muddy grass, occasionally succeeding in their quest to insert their noses into each other’s rectums. Their owners chatted at a distance on the cracked, leaf-strewn path.
I’d always fancied myself as a death row bride. I’d rock up in black lace, a leather jacket, sunglasses. I liked the idea of writing to a serial killer in jail, striking up a friendship, finding out what made them tick. It was difficult to find cool serial killers to write to in the UK, though. They lacked the glamour of the Californian devils of the 1970s, the wry smiles and sarcastic waves to the press, the rock-star swagger, the achingly cool indifference to it all. There were loads of them in the ’70s. It was like the Satanic American dream: girls with bare shoulders hitchhiked and climbed happily into the cars of strangers, housewives left their back doors unlocked, slept with their windows wide open and welcoming. But that was then. The golden age of serial killing was over, and the chances of me finding one to marry were slim. Sam, with his nivelin echoes of Ramirez, would have to do.
Richard Ramirez got married on death row, had groupies. They turned up to court every day during the trial, and sent him letters, flashed their knickers and their bare breasts, sent erotic photographs of themselves, and detailed their most private, most morbid fantasies for his pleasure. He didn’t want any of that, though. His bride wasn’t like the other groupies. She was a normie, a Christian drawn to the idea of saving his soul. She wore white lace on her wedding day and divorced him when DNA evidence linked him to something that was too much even for her strong stomach to digest. I thought about that a lot. It was almost like having honour among thieves. We all had a line, I supposed.
Laura’s keys were cold and light in the palm of my hand. She had two standard door keys looped on to a rose quartz key ring, along with a tiny thumbnail-sized key. They were just ordinary keys, but the doors they could unlock! A doorway into Laura’s mind, her past, her present. Her inner self, her sanctuary, her history. The story of her mother. She was impenetrable, but I had found a way in. I felt excited as I walked to my destination. I was just going to go in, take a look around, and leave the keys somewhere stupid but plausible, like stuffed between the sofa cushions or kicked underneath the fridge. She’d never know I’d been there. A perfect, victimless crime.
When I reached Laura’s flat, I knocked on the door as a precautionary measure, but the living room window was dark and I knew she was working that day because the night before, in the wine bar, Eli had ribbed her about whether she’d turn up to work with a hangover. A tingle of pleasure shivered through my body as I plunged the Chubb into the lock and felt the mechanism catch. Her door sighed with relief as I let myself in, as though the flat had been waiting for me to come home.
As I prowled through each room, I felt underwhelmed. It was a one-bed with a pokey living room, a galley kitchen and small bathroom with a cracked tub. She kept everything nice and neat but there was a faint, cloying smell of mildew in the air.
In the living room, she had four cheap bookcases stuffed with paperbacks. The books were arranged in alphabetical order by author surname. I couldn’t help but laugh. You could take the girl out of the bookshop . . . I scanned the shelves, rows and rows of normie shit, mass-market paperbacks from mainstream presses, all bestsellers, all predictable and familiar, the occasional cool-girl romance or indie short story collection. Boring. Whichever true crime books Laura had sourced—stolen—her words from, she clearly hadn’t kept hold of them.
I couldn’t let myself get distracted. What I really wanted to find was a cache of old diaries, a box of keepsakes, a scrapbook. Anything that might provide me with enough clues to begin my investigation.
Abandoning the bookshelves, I slipped into her bedroom. Her bed was made, and the curtains were open to reveal an overgrown garden. I could just see her rising at dawn and making her bed like a little chambermaid. The bedroom smelled like clean sheets and cosmetics, but underneath the powdery scent of flowers, there was that sour thread of mildew again, stronger than anywhere else in the flat. It turned my stomach, and I had to open the window to stop myself from gagging.
Disappointment permeated the air around me. I flopped on to Laura’s bed, just to lie there and feel nothing. Her sheets smelled like sheets. Boring. Fabric softener that faded to skin. I hadn’t been as drunk as Laura last night, but my late night was catching up on me. There, I fell asleep.
LAURA
Eli makes me a coffee, rolls us both cigarettes, and we take them on to the roof. Bundled in our winter coats, we smoke and look across the city shrouded in a light morning fog. There’s a mean bite in the air, and a column of steam rushes from my cup towards the sky. I take a drag of my cigarette and swallow the fresh urge to vomit.
“You don’t look so good,” he says.
“I don’t feel so good.”
A V of geese flies overhead in perfect formation. We watch the birds disappear into the distance, and I keep my eyes on the horizon. Somewhere down below, an accordion player begins to play a melancholy tune.
“Have you been sick?”
I close my eyes and nod, take a deep breath of cool air in through my nose and out through my mouth. The taste of stale alcohol stirs at the back of my throat and I press a hand to my lips to control the rising tide of nausea.
“Look, you can’t be on the shop floor in this state.”
A thin tear rolls down my cheek and I smudge it away.
“It’s my mother’s birthday today,” I say sadly. There’s a pause, and then in lieu of platitudes, he scooches over and takes my hand. I lower my head on to his shoulder and we sit like that for a minute in silence, just smoking and exhaling thick winter breath.
“There’s five of us in today,” he says in a gentle voice. “I’ll check with Sharona but I don’t think we need you. Maybe she’ll let you go home. Have a bath, eat some toast, watch a film. Take a day out. Come back tomorrow swinging.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks,” I say, surreptitiously wiping my nose with the fingers of my free hand. “I won’t let it happen again.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” he says with an affectionate smile, letting go of my other hand.
It’s cold but fresh, and the unexpected time off unspools ahead of me. I start to walk home, thinking of the lure of fresh pyjamas and the chance to sleep off the dying embers of my hangover, but the pull of the pavement feels good under my feet, distracts me from my hangover, so I just keep going. Everything will be okay if I just keep walking.
