The Caller

NINE

Mary Burig stood in the doorway of the library with her smartphone in her hand, open on a drawing programme. With the stylus, she drew a rough sketch of the room, L-shaped because a small storage area had been built in the back right-hand corner. Bookshelves ran around all the walls of the library and in the left-hand corner, the top of the L, was a circle of six low-backed chairs in worn orange fabric. Mary used the eraser tool to take the chairs away. She drew them into the space right inside the door. Then she put them back where they were, saving the drawing and putting the phone in her pocket. She walked over to the poetry section, pulled out a book and went straight to the page she had kept marked with a pink Post-It.

Stan Frayte opened the door and stuck his head in. ‘Hey, cut out the noise in there,’ he said, winking. ‘I got work to do.’

Mary looked up and smiled. ‘Come here for a second,’ she said. ‘Listen to this. “No night is endless, dark and bleak / When in the rising dawn, a weakened light / Erupts to blaze and fire / And guide me past a spirit tired / By heavy hopes and wingless dreams / To find another future’s gleam / And when I search the brightness’ source / I find your heart, a blinding force.”’

‘I don’t think the source of light was a heart, Mary. It was, like, a bulb, a lamp, something an electrician worked real hard at.’

‘Maybe it was,’ said Mary, smiling.

‘No maybe about it.’ Stan walked into the room, pulling a measuring tape from his utility belt. ‘It’s so great that you’ve got a library in the building.’

‘I know,’ said Mary. ‘But not a lot of people use it.’

‘That’s a real shame,’ he said.

‘I mean, I don’t want you to think all your work will be for no-one.’

‘If it’ll make one person happy,’ said Stan. ‘That’s good enough for me.’

‘Thanks so much,’ she said.

‘So what would you like?’

‘Well, this corner,’ she said, ‘where all the chairs are, there are no outlets. I think it would be nice to have some desk lamps here instead for night time, because,’ she pointed to a fluorescent strip-light on the ceiling, ‘that is really glarey. It hurts my eyes.’

‘OK,’ said Stan.

‘And I think that’s everything for the electrical department.’

He laughed. ‘Well, what about some lighting in the shelves? At the top? That could be neat.’

‘That would be great,’ said Mary. ‘I’d love that. If it’s not too expensive.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Stan. ‘Also, the walls could use some paint.’ He nodded. ‘I can do that at the weekend. Anything else?’

‘Thank you so much. Magda’s going to get some magazine racks. Most people who come in here read magazines. I prefer poetry.’

‘I don’t know a lot about poetry,’ said Stan, ‘but I like the idea of it. I like that you have to say everything in as few words as possible.’

David Burig parked outside the apartment block in his black Mercedes. He grabbed a gift bag from the passenger seat and got out. June was on the reception desk and waved him through. He took the elevator to Mary’s floor and knocked on the door.

‘Hello, there,’ he said. He handed her the bag.

‘What is this for?’ she said, smiling.

‘For the hell of it,’ he said.

‘OK. Can I open it?’

‘No. Save it for Christmas.’

Her face fell. David rolled his eyes. ‘Of course you can open it.’

‘Yay!’ She ran to the sofa and opened the bag.

He closed the door behind them and waited for a reaction.

‘Ohmygod! This is so cool,’ said Mary. ‘So cool.’

‘Do you like it?’

‘No.’

‘Very funny.’

Mary was holding a huge grey scrapbook with ‘There’s Something About Mary’ written across the top. On the first page was a photo of her – age two – almost in silhouette with a random streak of light covering her head. The caption read: Why Mom Should Never Have Taken Photos. Mary laughed out loud. The next photo was of Mary holding up the winning end of a giant Christmas cracker with David beside her, his face frozen in the shock of defeat. The caption read: Traumas of David’s Young Life: Part I.

‘Is there a Part II?’ said Mary.

‘See page twenty-five,’ he said.

‘Oh God,’ said Mary when she found it. Sellotaped to the page was a Motley Crue/Whitesnake ticket stub from Madison Square Garden 1987. And beside it, a photo of a tanned and sweaty David in tight jeans and vest top with long shaggy hair and bandana, giving the peace sign.

‘It needs no caption,’ said David, shaking his head.

Mary laughed until she cried. ‘Oh my God! Do you remember meeting that girl afterwards and she said, “What’s your name?” and you said, “David” and she said, “David who?” and you said, “David. Lee. Roth, baby.”’

‘I did not!’

‘You did, you loser.’

‘Hmm. Yeah, I may have filed that memory under “Destroy. Destroy.”’

‘What is it about teenage years that no matter who you are, you look back and are like, “What the hell was I thinking?”’

‘It’s so that no matter who we end up being, we can never take ourselves too seriously. Because at one point, we were all proud to wear snow-wash.’

Mary glanced down at her jeans.

David laughed. ‘Like, I’d ever let you do that again. Anyway, look, I’d love to stay and talk, but I’ve got to get back to the office. I just wanted to drop that in.’

‘It’s the best present ever. Thank you.’

‘Wait ‘til you see the secret compartment at the back.’

He hugged her and left before she had a chance to open it. He jogged down the hallway, nodding at Stan Frayte as he passed.

Mary turned to the back of the album and to a flap in the cover with a loop of red ribbon. She pulled it and it opened a little door. Inside was a disk: Rebecca on DVD with a note saying, ‘Can’t believe you’ve never seen this. Awesome! XX’.

Magda Oleszak rode the elevator to the second floor. She stepped out and was hit with the grinding stop/start sound of drilling from down the corridor. She took a right then a left, away from the noise and towards Mary’s apartment at the end. As she got closer, she sensed something wasn’t quite right. She walked a little faster, holding tight to the shoulder bag that banged off her hip. When she reached the door, it was open. Stan turned to her, his face stricken. Mary was lying on the floor at his feet.

Magda rushed to Mary’s side. ‘What the-’

‘I don’t know! I have no idea.’ Stan’s voice was pitched high. He wiped the sweat from his face with a stained yellow cloth from his belt, his eyes moving everywhere around the room.

‘Did you hurt her?’ said Magda.

‘What? No!’

Magda shook Mary’s shoulders gently, looking up at Stan. ‘What were you doing in Mary’s apartment?’

‘Coming to show her paint samples. That’s all.’

‘Did you call the doctor?’

‘I just got here! Right before you walked in.’

‘What’s all this?’ she said, looking at the floor around the body. ‘Did she do this while you were here?’

Stanley shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about this.’

‘Call the doctor,’ she snapped. ‘And get security up here.’

Mary’s eyes flickered open.