A Lovely Way to Burn

Six

Stevie woke, stiff and thirsty, unsure of how long she had been asleep. She took another shower. The rash was still there, but it was less angry, the blisters that had made her think of radiation sickness already fading of their own accord. She rubbed the blandest moisturiser she could find on to her skin, extra gently around her ribs which were still tender from throwing up, and pulled on an old tracksuit, soft and baggy from over-washing. Stevie texted Joanie to ask her to let the station know that it would be a day or two more before she could return, then she lay down on the couch, dragged a throw over herself and fell back to sleep.

Later she made herself a cup of weak black tea and turned on the television. Later still she put together a pot of noodle soup from a packet she found at the back of the cupboard. Stevie ate cautiously, unsure if she would be able to keep it down, but to her surprise she found that she was starving and it was an effort not to wolf another bowl.

The act of eating seemed to wear her out and she curled up on the couch again, thinking about the soiled sheets and pillowcases she had stuffed beneath the bed, but lacking the strength to do anything about them. She turned on the television, and remembered the hang of Simon’s head, the sneer of the smile that was his and not his.

Stevie woke to the sound of Big Ben and the frantic jingle that announced the news. The headline story was of a cache of bomb-making material found in the home of a white supremacist somewhere in the Midlands. Stevie muted the sound, pulled her hair back, shoved her feet into her trainers and padded down to the shops beneath her apartment. It was cool outside. The stars were hidden by the sodium glow of the streetlamps but she thought she could feel their presence sharp and prickly in the firmament. She didn’t believe in God or an afterlife, but her mind was so full of Simon that it was as if she could feel him, standing just beyond her sightline, watching to see what she would do next.

‘I don’t fucking know what I’ll do,’ Stevie whispered, and then felt bad, though Simon would have laughed.

She bought a pint of milk, drank a glassful and went to bed in the spare room.

Stevie checked her mobile phone the next morning and discovered a screed of missed calls and texts. She spooled through them, wincing at the sight of Rachel the station producer’s number, repeated over and over like a warning. Then she curled up on the couch and turned on the television again. The bomb-making story had given way to an explosion in a fireworks factory somewhere in the Far East, the sound was too low for her to hear where. She worked her way through her messages, looking for Joanie’s name, wondering if her friend had mislaid yet another phone. Stevie wanted to tell Joanie about Simon, to dilute the shock of his death by saying it out loud.

The doorbell pealed, loud and insistent, ringing on longer than was polite. Stevie muttered, ‘Speak of the Devil and smell smoke.’ She padded through to the hallway, wondering how bad the apartment smelt and hoping Joanie didn’t have a bottle of Cava tucked in her bag. The bell rang again and she shouted, ‘I’m coming,’ in a voice that sounded torn.

The woman at the door was a little older than Stevie. She was dressed in a no-nonsense navy business suit and a frothy white blouse that made her look top-heavy.

‘I’m looking for Steven Flint.’

She held a large handbag, decorated with unnecessary gold chains and buckles and stamped with the Chanel logo, in front of her, as if preparing to ward off an attack, or perhaps launch one of her own.

Stevie took a step backwards, keeping a hand on the door, ready to close it. She said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t buy things on the doorstep,’ even though she instinctively knew the woman wasn’t out to sell her anything.

‘I’m not here to try and persuade you to change gas suppliers.’ The woman’s laugh was harsh and incredulous, but there was an edge to it that told Stevie she was nervous. ‘This is the right address?’ She took a piece of paper from her pocket and looked at it. ‘Steven Flint does live here?’

‘What do you want?’

The woman hesitated and an expression that might have been sympathy flitted across her face. ‘Are you his wife?’

‘I’m Stevie Flint.’

It wasn’t the first time her name had led people astray. When she was a journalist, before the Internet had closed the newspaper she was working for and made all but freelance work (and precious little of that) impossible, it had occasionally opened doors.

The woman looked confused. ‘I was expecting a man.’

‘No, Stephanie Flint, Stevie for short.’

The woman stared at her and Stevie was reminded of a computer rebooting after a tricky download.

‘I’m Julia Sharkey, Dr Julia Sharkey, Simon Sharkey’s cousin.’ She faltered again. ‘He asked me to give you something.’ And a single tear trickled down the side of her cheek.

Stevie made them both a coffee, though she knew she wouldn’t be able to stomach hers, and they went through to the lounge. She saw Julia Sharkey taking in the room: the cream rug and the Heal’s couch; the Timorous Beasties blinds; the coffee table that was like the one Stevie preferred in John Lewis, but was actually from Ikea; the 1960s Ercol sideboard she had found on eBay.

The news was still running silently on the television. A shot of people in white cotton surgical masks crowding a city square somewhere in Asia cut to a view of a hospital ward, failing bodies laid out on rows of beds. Stevie lifted the remote and killed the screen dead.

She had opened a window and turned on the fan, but was sure that the smell of her own illness still permeated the flat. As if to prove her right, Julia Sharkey said, ‘You’ve been unwell?’

Stevie wanted Simon’s cousin to deliver whatever it was he had left for her, and then leave. But she summoned a smile and said, ‘Yes, I’m still a bit shaky, but I think the worst is over.’

Julia Sharkey got up from her seat, crossed to where Stevie was sitting and placed her hands either side of Stevie’s neck. ‘Tilt your head back for me, please.’ Her palms were cool and smooth, their pressure a comfort against Stevie’s skin. Julia’s fingers pressed a pathway along Stevie’s neck, and then slid towards her clavicles, gently kneading the soft tissue at the base of her throat. Her perfume was a blend of bright floral notes Stevie couldn’t identify. She said, ‘Tell me your symptoms.’

‘Vomiting, diarrhoea, fever. I thought I had Ebola.’ Stevie gave a small laugh. ‘I had lots of bad dreams – I suppose you might expect those under the circumstances – and a horrible rash.’

The uncertain woman who had faltered in the doorway had given way to an assured professional. Dr Sharkey asked, ‘Do you mind if I take a look?’

‘No.’ Stevie lifted the top of her tracksuit and exposed her stomach. ‘It’s a lot better than it was. The blisters have almost gone.’

‘I can see that.’ The doctor looked at her skin without touching her and then nodded at Stevie to cover up again. ‘Exactly how long was it from onset to recovery?’

‘I don’t know exactly. I didn’t feel too clever when I left work, but I was coming off night shift and I never feel very clever after that. I was sick for the first time when I got home. I was probably laid up for between fifty-two and sixty hours, if you count it from then.’

‘And you feel okay now?’

‘Like I said, a bit shaky, but basically I think I’m fine. I thought it was a reaction to the shock of Simon’s death.’

Stevie waited for the other woman to give her diagnosis, but Julia Sharkey simply said, ‘Well, you certainly look like you’re on the road to recovery.’ She crossed her legs, giving a quick glimpse of the red soles of her Louboutins, and pushed her coffee cup out of reach, as if ensuring that she didn’t absently take a sip. ‘The police told me that it was you who found Simon’s body.’

‘Yes.’

Stevie cradled her cup between her hands; the smell of the coffee revived the memory of her nausea, but the fan had made the room a little chilly and the feel of the warm china against her palms was comforting.

‘I wondered why you hadn’t got in touch with us, Simon’s family, but if you were unwell that would explain it.’

Stevie rubbed at a stain on the thigh of her tracksuit trousers.

‘Simon didn’t talk much about his family.’ She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them Julia Sharkey was still sitting in the armchair opposite, the cup of untouched coffee in front of her. ‘We hadn’t been going out for very long. I’m sure he would have introduced us eventually, if we’d stayed together, but I’m afraid that even if I had been well enough, I wouldn’t have known who to get in touch with.’

‘We weren’t close.’ Julia Sharkey shrugged as if to indicate that was just the way things went sometimes. ‘Both Simon’s and my parents are dead, and Simon’s brother lives in Thailand. I have a family of my own, two girls, and I work as a GP. When you combine all that, there isn’t much time for anything else. And Simon was always very busy at the hospital.’ Her voice was businesslike, but she drew a tissue from the cuff of her sleeve and wiped away another tear. ‘I hadn’t seen him for at least a year. We had lunch together, just the two of us, somewhere near St Thomas’s. He told me he was going to get married and have a family of his own. All he needed to do was find the right girl.’ She looked up. ‘Had he found her?’

Stevie said, ‘I don’t know. We liked each other a lot, but it was too soon to tell.’

Julia Sharkey nodded. Stevie saw how pale she was and wondered if she too were coming down with something or if grief had sucked the colour from the doctor’s skin.

‘That’s a shame. I would have liked to think of him being happy before . . .’ The sentence trailed away as she dabbed at her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a bit of a shock.’

‘I think he was happy. He found his work fulfilling.’ Stevie brushed a stray hair from her eyes, searching for a way to describe how things had been between them. ‘We enjoyed each other’s company.’

They had enjoyed being in bed together. Everything else had led towards or from that, their two bodies moving together.

Perhaps Julia Sharkey saw it in Stevie’s eyes because she sighed and tucked the tissue back in her sleeve. She pulled an envelope from her handbag and handed it to Stevie.

‘I found it in the tea caddy. A perfect hiding place for something you don’t want to be overlooked, don’t you think?’

‘Yes.’ Stevie turned the envelope over in her hands. Her name and address were neatly printed on the outside in Simon’s clear, undoctorly hand. ‘The perfect place.’

Julia Sharkey got to her feet, as if eager to be gone now that her task had been accomplished. She said, ‘If it’s a suicide note, I’d rather not know.’

Stevie followed her into the hallway.

‘The policeman said Simon died of natural causes.’

‘Yes.’ Julia Sharkey paused at the front door and turned to look at her. ‘And so it probably was. But don’t forget, Simon was a doctor, and we doctors have a way with death. If he’d wanted to, he could have killed himself quietly and neatly.’

Stevie put a hand against the wall to steady herself.

‘However neat it was, someone had to find him.’

‘True, but if he did do it, and there’s no evidence that he did, at least he showed some consideration.’ Julia Sharkey leant her back against the door. Her skin was the colour of old bone, her eyes hollow shadows. ‘I’ve seen too many messy suicides to think of them as anything other than acts of revenge.’ She forced a smile. ‘Sorry, that’s what being a GP does to you.’ Julia opened the door and stepped into the lobby. ‘I’m not sure when the funeral will be, there has to be an inquest first, but I’ll let you know. I expect a lot of Simon’s friends and colleagues will turn out for it. I posted the news on his Facebook page and we’ve already had condolences from as far away as Hong Kong. He had a talent for friendship.’

‘I didn’t really know any of his friends. We hadn’t got to that stage.’

‘No.’ Julia stared down the lobby, past the doors to other apartments, towards the stairs. ‘The police said you surrendered your keys to Simon’s place to them.’

The word ‘surrendered’ felt like an accusation. Stevie said, ‘I volunteered them. The police gave me a receipt.’

‘Of course, but is there any possibility you picked up his set?’ Julia looked her in the eye. ‘By mistake?’

‘Finding Simon’s body was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. The last place I’d want to go is back to his flat.’

‘I didn’t mean to imply you’d done anything wrong. It’s just that I’ve not been able to find Simon’s keys, or his mobile phone. I thought it might help me be sure I’d been in touch with everyone who needs to know, but it seems to have vanished.’

Julia Sharkey was one of those women who never meant to imply anything, Stevie decided, but who was adept at making insinuations all the same.

‘I’ve no idea where his mobile might be, but Simon always hung his keys on the hook next to the door. He was meticulous about keeping them in the same place. The first time I stayed the night he made a point of telling me where they were. I teased him and asked if he thought I might do a runner. But Simon was serious. He said he’d seen a family of four who died of smoke inhalation in a house fire, when he was a junior doctor. They were found in the hallway, crumpled against the front door, mum, dad and two kids. The keys were in the father’s jacket, upstairs in the bedroom.’

‘Typical doctor.’ Julia Sharkey smiled sadly. ‘We develop obsessions from our patients’ tragedies, as if their misfortunes might help prolong our own lives. What we should realise is, death comes for us all eventually. The day before the police contacted me about Simon I admitted four previously healthy patients to hospital with the same symptoms you exhibited. One of them passed away, another looks like he may not make it. But here you are, hale and hearty.’ Julia Sharkey glanced at her watch and the shadows caught her face again, showing the hollows beneath her cheekbones, the sockets sunk in her skull. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. I took holiday leave when I heard about Simon’s death, but the surgery rang this afternoon and asked me to cut it short. I managed to buy enough time to keep my promise to the girls that I’d collect them from school. They consider it a great treat to see me at the school gate, which makes me feel rather guilty.’

‘Are you saying that what I had was serious?’

Julia shrugged. ‘There’s certainly a nasty virus doing the rounds – as usual the media are making a big thing of it – but you’re young and in good basic health, so probably not. If you were old, or suffering from an underlying condition, it might be a different story. The main thing is you recovered.’ She took Stevie’s hands in hers and gave them a brief squeeze. Her palms were slightly damp. ‘I’m glad Simon had you in his life.’ Julia gave a wry smile. ‘When I saw your name on the envelope and assumed you were a man, it crossed my mind that he might have been gay. Not that I would have cared about that, but he was always so private, I thought maybe he had killed himself out of some kind of misplaced shame. I’m not sure I could have stood that.’

‘So you do think he killed himself?’

‘I think I’m just doing what I’ve seen countless relatives do, trying to attach some kind of meaning to death. Maybe that’s why I’m fixating on his missing keys and telephone, to distract myself from the pointlessness of everything.’ Julia settled her oversized handbag on her arm and her brow furrowed as if something had occurred to her. ‘If Simon was feeling unwell he very possibly locked the door and put them somewhere he wouldn’t normally.’

‘Yes,’ said Stevie. She remembered the damaged door jamb and the necessity of locking the door to keep it closed. ‘I’m sure they’ll turn up, eventually. Things usually do.’