The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries

THE BRICK by Natasha Cooper

It all started with the broken window. That was what was so infuriating. If those wretched children hadn’t found the brick next door’s cowboy builders had left in the front garden and thought it would be fun to smash a big bit of clean glass, none of it would have happened. We’d still have been OK; not in seventh heaven or anything extravagant like that, but OK.

The randomness of it still makes me swear. It needn’t have happened; none of it. That’s what gets to me when I let myself think about it.

There I was peacefully sitting on a beanbag on the floor (we’d sanded the boards by then but not varnished them and they looked a bit splintery; but they were clean, which was something after the state we’d found them in when we tore up the old lino) reading short stories for a prize. They were all about spouses killing each other, of course: short stories for prizes nearly always are. And I’d been congratulating myself rather because however livid I’d been with John, I’d never, even in my wildest, most secret fantasies, wanted to kill him. Stiffen him, maybe; tell him not to be such a baby and to get on out there and do his bit of the bargain, like I’d always done mine. I mean, I’d given up my job when it was clear that he needed more input than I’d been able to give him while I was working so hard.

It wasn’t only the comfort and the listening and the putting-up with stress-induced sulks, you see; he’d needed a lot more practical help with all sorts of things, and meals suddenly became important to him in a way they’d never been before. We’d always just picked for supper whenever we both got back from work, but suddenly he wanted three courses with both of us sitting down at the table, whenever he got back. And my publishing salary just wasn’t up to paying a housekeeper, not after tax and all the things I’d had to pay for, you know, decent clothes and that sort of thing. So I’d given up. I’d always done a bit of freelance, luckily as it turned out. So when John cracked up, I still had all my contacts in place.

Anyway, where was I? Being on my own all day means that I do get very short of chat, which is why I can’t stop talking when there’s any opportunity. Sorry about that. I’ve lost my drift. Oh, yes, the brick. Well, you see, there I was, sitting by the window, thinking that at least this titchy little South London cottage was a bit lighter than our Kensington house, when this bloody brick crashed through the window and landed by my feet. It must have been in next door’s garden for a while because it was coated with mud and had woodlice clinging to it. You know, those prehistoric-looking horrid little black things.

They were all over the house when we bought it, but once we’d sorted the damp we got rid of most of them. They crunch under your bare feet. In a way that was nearly the worst thing, getting out of bed that first morning in the new house and hearing the crunch under my feet. I could have hit John then. I wouldn’t have, honestly, and I never told him that’s how I felt, but it was the last straw.

He was lying there with most of the pillow over his head, not getting up, hating the potty little job that was all he’d managed to get. I know he was feeling awful. And I did sympathize. I really did. You couldn’t not if you loved him, and I did. But I wished he’d just pull himself together a bit. I mean, the rest of us had to.

Anyway, the brick. Well, it wasn’t so much the brick as the bits of glass. One of the bigger splinters sliced through my forearm, you know, the one bit of one that stays looking reasonably firm even when the rest begins to go scraggy. It was such a shock. I was still reeling from the noise. You can’t imagine how much noise one of those plate-glass windows makes when it’s broken. And then there was a kind of stinging down my arm; that’s all it seemed to be at the beginning, a sting. And I looked down and there was this great long red line, getting redder and wider all the time. Spreading. It was about six inches long, I think, and the lips of it opened as I looked, like a cut in a bit of steak.

Anyway, for a while I just sat and looked at it. Then when the blood started dripping down onto the beanbag – it was natural canvas, so it showed – and the planks we’d spent so long sanding, I knew I’d have to do something. It was hurting by then, too. And I felt like a child. Perhaps that was why I let her in. I felt wobbly and pathetic, nothing like Penny-who’s-such-a-brick, Penny who’s always kept everything going even when her husband cracked up like that and both the children went so peculiar.

She rang the bell just as I’d got to the hall, gripping the sides of the cut with my other hand. Well, it would have to be the other hand, wouldn’t it? Honestly, sometimes I forget I’ve ever been a copy-editor. Where was I? I know, trying not to think too much about her. She’d have said I was in denial and she’d have been right. I sort of thought it must be whoever’d chucked the brick through the window who was ringing the bell and I wasn’t going to answer. I was leaning against the hall wall – we hadn’t painted that yet, just stripped off the awful old spriggy paper we’d found when we came – and feeling faint, really. Anyone would have. And then she called out:

“Are you all right? I saw them throw it and tried to catch them, but I was just too far away.”

She did sound breathless, as though she’d been running. And she had a nice voice, rich and deepish, and very warm. It sounded so safe and sure that I came over even more wobbly than before, which was barmy. Children always do it if you’re too sympathetic when they’ve bumped themselves, but I was old enough to know better.

“Hello? Are you all right? My name’s Sophie Allen. I live just round the corner. I’m perfectly respectable. Can I come in? Give you a hand? There’s a very good glazier I know who does our windows whenever we’re burgled. I can give him a ring for you, if you’d like. Are you there?”

So then I stammered out something idiotic and opened the door. And there she was, just about my age but much younger looking. She wasn’t having to hold down all that fury, for one thing. Or not by then. I found out later that she’d been through the same sort of thing in a way, but she’d got over it. People do. Or so they say.

“You poor thing,” was all she said. But she came right in, put an arm round my shoulders and nearly pushed me towards the kitchen. I’d hated that, too, being able to see into the kitchen from the front door. It really drove the down-shifting bit home.

She knew all about the house because hers was exactly the same. They all are in those little streets between the commons. She had my arm under the cold tap in seconds. The firmness of her was lovely then, just as safe-making as her voice. The brick and the malice of it were washed off just like the blood. They came back. But for a bit they’d gone. She kept on talking and I didn’t really listen to the words, just the sureness of her voice.

It sounded as though she knew everything that mattered and would always help but never ask the sort of questions you didn’t want to answer. She always did see a lot, and she knew what you could take and what you needed – and offered it straight off. Always.

When she’d got me bloodless and dried out and bandaged up, she called the glazier she knew and swept up the glass, found the Hoover and sucked up the splinters from the beanbag, too, and even Hoovered my jeans. I wouldn’t have thought of that, but she was right; there were chips of glass caught in some of the seams. I saw them gleaming as she sucked. It was a weird sensation, that powerful pull all down my thighs and her lovely, warm matter-of-fact voice, telling me what she was doing and why and what the shock of it all was doing to me, and why I was feeling so awful, and who she thought the children were who’d thrown the brick and how it wasn’t me they were throwing it at but the old bat who’d lived there before us. She’d been a bit of a witch apparently, always complaining about ordinary noise and making a great fuss about children playing in the street. They still do that, round here. I couldn’t believe it at first: rollerblading in the middle of the road, chucking balls about. As though they weren’t ten minutes’ walk from two huge open spaces. And they always did make a bit of a row. I saw what she meant: the old bat, I mean, who in a way caused the trouble because if she hadn’t upset them in the first place, they wouldn’t have chucked the brick and none of the rest of it would’ve happened.

“But there’s a SOLD sign outside,” I said at the time. I remember that. It was nearly the first thing I’d said in the torrent of all the comfort she’d poured out. I’d meant to say something about how amazing it was to find a friendly neighbour in a place where I’d never expected to, but all that came out was that peevish little protest. “Can’t they read?”

“Probably not. Lots of the more delinquent ones can’t. I’m a woodentop, and I see a fair amount of children like them.”

“A woodentop?” I thought I hadn’t heard properly, but she smiled, a great huge smile that showed off her perfect, white teeth. Mine aren’t like that: crossed over at the front and a nasty grubby colour like stale clotted cream. Ugh.

“Magistrate,” she said, laughing. She had a lovely laugh, too, and none of us had laughed for ages, not happily like that. “No one calls us that these days, but in the old days they did and I like it. Now, you’re glass-free. You’d better have something hot. Tea? Coffee? God! I sound like an air hostess, don’t I? Shall I put the kettle on?”

And so she made herself at home. I liked it, which I’d never have let myself do if it hadn’t been for the brick and the blood. I sat on the beanbag, looking at the jagged great hole in the window and thought about the violence of South London and how much I hated it and how scared I was even though I couldn’t afford to be. They say it’s changed now, but in those days it was pretty rough. So there I was, thinking how amazing it was that she was there, and perhaps even in South London there would be people to meet and like and talk to. Damn! I’m forgetting the copy-editing again. But I can’t stop once I’ve started. Sorry. I don’t often talk as much as this. Well, I do actually, but it feels new each time I do it and I always mean not to afterwards.

There was one little bit of glass she’d missed. Even she’d managed to miss one and it lay on the scrubbed board just near a stickying puddle of my blood, glinting. It was a sunny day. All the days that summer were sunny. It seemed unfair in a way.

She came back with the tea, very strong, tea-bag tea. It tasted like her, strong and warm and helping. Then we just talked. She was still there when the woman who was doing the school run to the local comprehensive dropped my two off and she stayed to tea and made them laugh and helped with their homework. Then she went, giving me her number and telling me she’d drop in again. She only lived round the corner.

It wasn’t for weeks that I got round to asking her for supper so that John could share in it all. I suppose in a way I’d wanted to keep her as my treat. But then it seemed selfish, so I fixed it so that he could meet her too.

When he took one look at her and said, “Sophie?” in that surprised but blissful voice I suppose I knew what was going to happen. I was angry with her for not telling me she knew him, but when I looked at her I saw that she was just as surprised as he’d been. She knew my married name, of course, but I never talked about John because it would have been disloyal and so she’d never made the connection; she’d been married, too, for about ten years and so he hadn’t recognized her name when I’d talked about her.

That was it, really. They tried not to, I think. They really did try, but she was just so much better at making him feel all right than I was. I understood that. She did it for me, too, when he could only make me feel miles worse. In a way it wasn’t what they did that made me so angry. It was what he said when he’d made his decision, as though I’d be pleased to hear it, as though he was giving me something again after all.

“If it wasn’t for everything you’ve taught me I’d never have been able to love Sophie as she deserves. I couldn’t do it when I first knew her because I didn’t know enough. It was you who taught me how to know people and let them know me. It’s all your doing, Penny. You’ve shown me how to be all the things she wanted me to be then and I couldn’t. We owe it all to you and we’ll never forget it.”

I won’t either. Not ever. You see, that was when I did want to kill him. But even then, if I hadn’t been jointing the chickens when he said it and had a sharp knife in my hands, we’d still have been all right. I know we would.