Not Dead Enough

101

Cleo lay on a sofa in the downstairs living area, with an almost empty bottle of rosé wine on the floor and a completely empty glass lying next to it. A DVD of Memoirs of a Geisha was playing on the large television screen, but she was struggling to keep her eyes open.

She shouldn’t really have drunk anything, she knew, being on call tonight – and she had an essay to write for her philosophy course – but finding Fish on the floor had really upset her. It was strange, she was thinking, that she saw dead human beings all day long and, with the exception of children, remained emotionally detached from them. But seeing little Fish lying sideways across the join between two oak planks, much of her vivid gold colour faded to a dull bronze, her opaque eye staring up at her, accusatory, as if saying, Why didn’t you come home and rescue me?

And how the hell had the little creature got there? If it had been yesterday, she could have blamed her cleaning lady, Marija, because the clumsy woman was always breaking things. But she didn’t come on Tuesdays. Could a cat have got in here? A bird? Or had poor Fish been trying out some wild new exercise?

She reached out her arm, poured the last drops into her glass and drained it. On the screen, the Geisha was being taught the arts of pleasuring a man. She watched keenly, suddenly feeling more awake now, getting her second wind. She had put this film on in the hope of learning a few things she could try out on Roy.

Which was why all she had on beneath her silk dressing gown was some very slinky and revealing cream lace underwear that she had bought on Saturday, at an outrageous cost, from a specialist shop in Brighton. All evening she had been planning what she would do when he arrived. She would open the door, kiss him, then stand back and let the front of the dressing gown fall open.

She was longing to see his reaction! She had once read that men got turned on by women who took the lead. And it was a real turn-on for her just lying here, in this outfit, thinking about it. The clock on the front of the video player read eight minutes past midnight. Where are you? she wondered.

As if in response, her home phone rang. She put the cordless handset to her ear and answered. It was Roy, on a crackly mobile.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘How are you doing?’

‘I’m OK. Where are you, you poor thing?’

‘Five minutes from the office. I’ve got a couple of things to quickly sort for the morning – I could be with you in half an hour. Is it going to be too late to come over?’

‘No, it won’t be too late at all! Just get here when you can. I’ll have a drink waiting for you. How’s it gone?’

‘Good. It was very good. Tiring, but worth the journey. Are you really sure you’d like me to come over?’

‘I’m totally sure, my darling! Making love is really a lot more fun with two people than one!’

She heard the call-waiting beep just as she hung up. The phone instantly rang again.

‘Hello?’ she answered.

And then, Shit! she thought, her heart sinking as she heard the voice at the other end. Bugger, bugger, bugger! Why now?