Connections Read online

  By the time he came back she’d taken the order for dessert and delivered it, dealt with a proposition and served the last bottles of white wine.

  Geoff showed her how the till worked and sat down heavily in front of the bar. His eyes were very red and his face pasty. Fleur wondered what he’d been up to during the last few hours. She also asked him if he’d pay her cash at the end of every shift. She wasn’t sure if, one way or another, the job would last even a week – it might collapse, or she might. Reluctantly, he agreed.

  Around ten Al emerged from the kitchen. “You’re on your own now,” he said to Fleur. He held his hand out to Geoff who handed him his pay from the till. “And the shopping,” Al said firmly. “Sixty-eight pounds nineteen.”

  Geoff produced the cash and Al said, “Cheers, Fleur. See you tomorrow?”

  Fleur found herself grinning. She said, “I can’t wait.”

  Three

  Fleur was still mourning her lost life but, with the feeling she was at least ticking over in neutral, began to get used to her job. It was obvious that McCarthy’s was running on a cash-only basis. Each day the previous day’s takings, left overnight in the till, provided the money for the next day’s purchases and Fleur became accustomed to going to Tesco and coming back with huge carrier bags of food. Sometimes Al went with her if the load was expected to be exceptionally heavy. Each night Geoff brought along supplies for the bar in the boot of his car and Fleur was expected to unload. At least, she reflected, all this was keeping her fit and at least this time the cash flow where she worked was not her responsibility, though she knew what the probable outcome would be. Good, she thought – when the bailiffs hit McCarthy’s she’d walk away and find another job.

  She got her telephone connected and late one evening called up the answering machine at the old office. Mysteriously, it was still on and, as if in a dream, she heard voices asking for Ben.

  A few days after the installation of the phone, the silent calls began, two or three a day sometimes. Was it Ben, wanting to speak but unable to do so? At the memory of their time together, she drooped, remembering the laughter, the champagne poured out in the club after they’d concluded a successful deal or finished filming. After one silent call she looked round her simple flat; thought about spending ten hours at a time on her feet, dashing in and out of the kitchen; compared her new associates – unhealthy, deceitful-looking Geoff and stringy, pale, drop-out Al – with the well-set-up, smart, successful people among whom she’d previously lived. Oh well, she thought – oh well, and went to bed.

  The wind started blustering the leaves off the young trees outside Adelaide House. It rained a lot. The clientele at McCarthy’s began to come in soaked, shaking themselves like wet dogs. Damp macs clogged the coat rack. Fleur borrowed some tools from Mr Simmons and put up a few bookshelves in her room. She unpacked some items, though without much enthusiasm.

  Then crisis came. It began with the departure of the Morgans, who were retiring to the Caribbean island they had come from forty years earlier. Children and grandchildren arrived early one day, helped to pack, bore off useful items. Fleur left for work in the middle of the morning as usual and by the time she returned, late, the flat next door was empty and the couple on their long journey back to the home they’d left long ago, young and hopeful.

  It was the next day when, taking her rubbish to the chute, she came across Mrs Simmons, her face pale and set, gallantly wheeling her shopper along the landing to the stairs. Fleur said, “I was sorry to see the Morgans moving,” and Mrs Simmons responded, with a sigh, “We were neighbours for over twenty years. They lived upstairs at first, then got transferred to the smaller flat when their kids moved out. Our kids went to school with theirs, you know.” She added, “I’ve tried to find out who’s moving in, but the council say they can’t tell me. Won’t, more likely.”

  “That’s a shame,” Fleur said.

  Mrs Simmons evidently thought Fleur was taking too little interest. “It’ll affect you, too,” she said, “if we get the wrong sort. I just wish the Morgans had bought the place when they had the chance. As it is, we’ll get whoever the council chooses to dump on us. It could be anybody.”

  Fleur expressed a concern she did not really feel but began to see the point of Mrs Simmons’ fears one evening when she came back early from McCarthy’s and was faced with Dominic Floyd, wearing worn jeans, a ripped T-shirt with an anarchist symbol on it and a black leather jacket. He was ringing her doorbell.

  He was tall, extremely thin, with shoulder-length hair and large dark eyes. Had it not been for an air of fatigue and hard times he would have been as handsome as a model. Behind him stood a big black and white dog, blunt-muzzled and intelligent-eyed. The dog began to wave his tail at Fleur.

  Dominic himself said, “Sorry to bother you. We’re moving in next door and I wondered if you had a big screwdriver. We’re trying to do some work and just as we were moving in some villain’s had it away with half my tools.”

  Fleur put her key in the lock. “Try Mr Simmons in the next flat,” she said. She wasn’t sure what impression her new neighbour’s appearance would make on Mr Simmons, but thought the Simmonses would have to meet him sooner or later anyway. She went inside saying, “Welcome to Adelaide House.” Then, thinking he might be the son of some reliable couple moving in, she turned and asked, “Is it just you in the flat?”

  “Not really,” he told her. “There’s three of us in fact – me, Joe and Vanessa.” His tone was deliberately vague – it was, after all, only a one-bedroom flat.

  “It’s a nice place,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We’ve been really lucky.”

  Before she could close her own door there was the sound of the one on the other side opening. A brown-haired young woman in a long cotton dress appeared behind Dominic. Fleur noticed her feet were bare and thought they must be freezing.

  The woman peered up at Dominic through her curtains of hair and said, “Dom, I can’t make the central heating go on.” Meanwhile the dog began to nose into Fleur’s knees, tail still wagging. Fleur bent down to pat him.

  “He likes you,” Dominic said.

  “Nice dog,” Fleur said, gazing into the animal’s bright amiable eyes.

  “Dom—” appealed the barefoot woman.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll sort it.” To Fleur he said, “What’s the man next door’s name?”

  “Simmons,” she said.

  “Nicer to use his name if I’m trying to borrow his tools,” he said. “Come on, Jason, leave the lady alone. See you.”

  Fleur nodded and went in. She turned up the television to cover the sound of heavy banging and music from next door, only turning it down when her phone began to ring.

  “Darling!” came her mother’s voice. “What’s happening? Where are you? We’ve been so worried. Why on earth haven’t you been in touch? Robin had to get your number from Jess and he had trouble finding her, too – Fleur, what’s going on? Is anything the matter?”

  “I’m so sorry, Grace. It’s the move—”

  “Well – exactly. Why have you moved? Where are you?” And, as Fleur opened her mouth to reply, her mother’s voice came again, cautiously this time. “Is Ben there?”

  Fleur’s mind drifted off, visualising her mother with her soft, well-cut, silvering hair, wearing some soft, autumnal-coloured jersey and skirt. She’d be standing in her charming sitting-room overlooking the garden, the lawn, the old mulberry tree. Or perhaps she was at the pine kitchen table, where orderly rows of jam and pickle stood neatly labelled on a shelf, her grandmother’s Victorian tea-set on the dresser.

  She pulled herself together.

  “Ben?” she answered. “Ben’s in Florida, I think. I don’t know why, or if he’s coming back.”

  “Oh dear – oh Fleur,” came her mother’s distressed voice. “Oh dear,” she said again.

  The banging from the flat next door became louder. “What is that noise?” her mother asked, perhaps
relieved not to have to comment immediately on Ben’s mysterious disappearance. She’d always liked him.

  “It’s some people moving in next door,” Fleur told her.

  “It’s very loud,” her mother said doubtfully.

  Grace Carew-Stockley had lived for twenty years in the same quiet house, once the village forge, at Yarrow St Mary in Kent. She supplied her own explanation. “I suppose it’s a party wall.”

  “It is, Mum. It’s an ex-council flat, so the walls aren’t all that thick.” She continued succinctly, “The firm went bust and I’d secured some of the debts with my flat. The bank took it. I just managed to seize back enough, with the help of the firm’s accountant, to put down a small deposit here. Jess helped me to present myself to a building society in a respectable light. Then she helped me move too.”

  There was a pause. “Oh – good heavens,” came Grace’s voice. “Why didn’t you tell us? What’s Ben doing about all this?”

  “I’m not sure. He’s out of touch.”

  “Oh, Fleur. Jess didn’t explain anything about all this to Robin. Why on earth didn’t you tell us? Fleur—”

  Fleur’s doorbell rang. She got up and carried the phone to it. “I’m just answering the door,” she told her mother. “Who is it?” she called out.

  “Doug Simmons from next door,” a voice called back.

  “Oh – Mum, it’s my neighbour. Can I ring you back?” Fleur asked.

  “Yes – yes, of course,” came her mother’s disconcerted voice. Fleur rang off.

  Doug Simmons stood in the middle of the room, his solid, lined face angry. “What do you think of all this noise? It’s past ten o’clock and it’s coming right through your walls to ours. I’m going to go and complain.”

  Realising he wanted her to come with him, Fleur said, “I’ll come too, to make sure they aren’t planning to go on all night.”

  Together they went to the Morgans’ old front door. “He’s been round already, trying to borrow my tools,” Doug Simmons said resentfully. He pressed the bell long and hard and waited. “I don’t like the look of this,” he continued, half to himself.

  It was the young woman, Vanessa, who opened the door. She stood looking at them in wild alarm. Still barefoot, she trailed an old teddy bear from one thin arm. She turned uncertainly, calling “Dom?”

  Dominic came into the hall, the dog behind him. In his hand was a small saw. Fleur, looking at him and thinking of Doug Simmons at her side, hoped there would be no trouble.

  Dominic carefully put the saw down on the floor. He said, “I’m really sorry about the noise—”

  “So you ought to be,” Doug Simmons said uncompromisingly.

  “We’re just moving in, man.”

  Emerging behind Dominic, Fleur saw another figure in jeans, shorter than Dom, slighter, with very short pale hair. He was holding a hammer at the end of a stringy arm.

  “What’s happening?” he called, advancing. Fleur noted a pale face and very blue eyes. She began to worry again about violence.

  “Too much noise,” Dominic told him.

  The other man appeared to accept this. “Yeah,” he said and disappeared back into the room he’d come from.

  “We’ll pack it in for today,” Dominic said to Mr Simmons.

  There was the sound of loud hammering from the next room. Music started up. “Joe!” Dominic called back. “We’re stopping for tonight.”

  Joe re-emerged. “What about my bed?”

  “Kip on the floor for tonight,” Dom told him. “Let these good people get some rest.”

  “Half an hour,” said Joe.

  “Can you give us another half-hour?” Dominic asked Doug Simmons and Fleur.

  “Long as that’s all it is,” Mr Simmons said discouragingly.

  “Sorry about all this.”

  “So am I.”

  “Goodnight, then.”

  Doug Simmons would not yield. “I hope it will be,” he said and turned round and marched off.

  Two paces away he paused outside Fleur’s front door and invited her in for a cup of tea. Soon Fleur found herself in the Simmons’ neat front room sitting on a floral sofa with a cup of tea in her hand.

  Doug Simmons said, “I don’t know, but it looks to me as if the council’s foisted on us some of London’s bloody homeless. I’ll go straight down there tomorrow.” Fleur knew from Betty Simmons that Doug had taken premature retirement from driving a bus, due to chronic back strain.

  “They’ve got to live somewhere, I suppose,” his wife said mildly, though her eyes were anxious. Fleur was uncertain whether this was because of the new tenants or her husband’s reaction to them.

  “Yes, on the Yarborough. That’s the place for them. That’s what they’re fit for. They’re the wrong sort for a quiet, well-kept block like this.”

  “Doug – there’s no point in antagonising them,” his wife appealed.

  “Perhaps we should give them a chance,” Fleur added.

  He looked impatiently at both of them. “That’s all very well. But I’ve bought this flat – and you’ve bought yours,” he said to Fleur. “I don’t want this estate dragged down. Supposing one of us wanted to sell – what’s it going to be like with rubbish strewn all over the landing, loud music and that dog barking at everybody? It doesn’t take much for a place to start on the slippery slide. That’s a one-bedroom flat. What are they all doing there? The dog’s illegal, too. You’re not allowed to keep pets here. I’ll take that up at the Town Hall, as well.”

  “Why don’t you give them a few days, Doug,” his wife suggested, “just to see how things go?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t need days,” he told her. “I’ve seen enough. That girl’s on drugs. You should see her. Tell her,” he urged Fleur. “Tell her how she came to the door. No shoes on and holding a teddy bear. A kid’s toy – I ask you. And thin—” He shook his head again. “I tell you, that’s got to be drugs. In this world,” said Doug Simmons, “silence means consent. And I’m not consenting. The thing to do is get your complaints in hard and fast…”

  That was the way matters were left. Fleur went home. The noise of hammering and music stopped not long after, though not before a noisy dispute between the two men had penetrated the thin walls of her flat. By that time, ignoring the winking light on her answering machine, Fleur was in bed.

  When she played the message back next day there was another of the long silences. No message.

  Four

  A part from the normal sound of moving, for the next few days all was peaceful on the landing at Adelaide House. The next-door tenants actually made less of their move than wealthier neighbours with higher expectations might have. Fleur deduced her new neighbours slept late and went out late in the evenings. From time to time she would hear their front door bang in her sleep. But trade in the bar was brisk, the cleaner seemed to have made her last call at McCarthy’s and with the cleaning to do, the trips to Tesco, the kitchen duty, the waiting and the bartending, Fleur was not suffering from insomnia. She still felt low, still thought of Ben, but the sheer exhaustion of a ten or eleven hour day took her mind off it to some extent.

  Protests to the manager were fruitless. He implied that her position was to do as she was told and that if she didn’t like it he would find someone else who would be glad of the job. So Fleur got on with it. Since she had begun at McCarthy’s three weeks earlier she had not seen Mr Housman again. Perhaps he called early, before she arrived; perhaps he never came at all.

  In a state of collapse after ten hours on her feet one evening, Fleur said to Geoff, who was behind the bar, “Geoff – I’ve had it. I’ve had no time off for eight days. I’m going home.”

  A party of fourteen from a local building society was singing “Happy Birthday” for the umpteenth time and calling for more tequilas, but, looking at her and realising she was serious, Geoff agreed. “Get your coat, then,” he said. “Early start tomorrow, though. There’s a party coming in for lunch.”

  Fl
eur held out her hand for her pay. He opened the till and gave her the money. Fleur walked out, legs and back on fire.

  Outside, about to cross the road towards Adelaide House, Fleur almost bumped into her new neighbour, Dominic, who had his dog trotting beside him. Jason’s foot wore a neat bandage.

  “What about a drink?” he asked and they went into the Findhorn Star, where Fleur flopped down exhausted. Dominic insisted on buying her a lager. Fleur had imagined the trio next door to her living on benefit, but noticed that, at the bar, Dominic paid from a big roll of notes from the pocket of his leather jacket. Where had that come from? she wondered.

  Back at the table Dominic lifted his glass. “Cheers!” he said.

  “Cheers,” she responded.

  “Do tell me,” he said immediately, leaning forward, “what brought you to this neck of the woods.”

  “The short version is, the firm went bust, my job, my flat and my partner went with it.”

  “A yuppie tragedy, eh?”

  She thought sadly of Ben and decided she didn’t like Dominic’s challenging tone. In any case, what was she doing fraternising with this drop-out? Drop-out? He’d never been far enough in to drop out – and where did all that money come from?

  She said, “A yuppie tragedy is still a tragedy, if you’re in it. So – what about you?”

  “What’s to say?” he asked. “Vanessa, Joe and me were on the streets. Then, lo and behold, after Van’s mother put her on the council housing list practically at birth this flat came up. Van’s mother’s a social worker so she organised all the paperwork. Here we are, rehoused, next door to you.” He gave a sardonic smile. “Do you mind?” he asked.

  She returned his smile. “Do you care?” She added, “Do you want the other half?” He agreed, she went and got it.

  The landlord, fat, sharp-eyed Patrick, looked at her as he drew the lagers. “Slumming?” he asked, with a glance at Dominic.

  Fleur saw that living in Adelaide House and drudging next door in the wine bar had not wiped out the traces of a Home Counties and boarding-school upbringing. “He’s my next door neighbour,” she said.