Where There's Smoke

CHAPTER 11

The summer burned itself out. The days were bleached by a sun that scorched grass and cracked the earth, while the nights hung unmoving in a breezeless haze. Newspapers ran features on global warming and droughts, and garden hoses were sneaked out after dark to sprinkle desiccated lawns and plants away from the censorious eyes of watchful neighbours.

Kate began to see Alex regularly, once a week to start with, but then more often as the reserve between them slowly dropped away. The results of his first sample and set of blood tests came back clear, and he began his trips to the clinic, going once or twice a week as far as Kate could tell. He still hadn’t cashed the cheque for expenses, though, she saw when she received her bank statement.

“I said I’d take it, I didn’t say anything about cashing it,” he told her with a grin, when she confronted him. She argued, but this time he was insistent. “We can sort it out later,” was as far as he would commit himself.

He rarely alluded to the visits, and Kate didn’t press for details. She knew he was sensitive about them, and didn’t want to risk embarrassing him. She had spoken to Dr Janson after Alex’s first session at the clinic. It had not gone well. “Non-productive” was the term Dr Janson used.

“Nothing to worry about,” she had told Kate. “It happens to quite a lot of men. They find the whole idea of masturbating to order a bit off-putting at first. Especially in a hospital cubicle.”

Kate had decided against asking Alex about it, realising that was probably the last thing he needed. He made no mention of what had happened, but cried off from meeting her as they’d arranged, claiming he had too much work. He sounded tired and depressed, and the faint stammer, which had become hardly noticeable, was more pronounced than ever.

Her relief when the clinic told her there had been no problems with his next sample was as much for his sake as for her own.

They continued to go out together. They would meet in some pub or wine bar, generally one with a garden, where they could sit outside in whatever cool there was.

One night Alex convinced her to go to an arthouse cinema in Camden, where they sat in sweltering discomfort and watched The Wicker Man. Afterwards, Kate joked that in the final conflagration scene Edward Woodward had probably been cooler than the audience. They spent the rest of the evening good-naturedly arguing the point in a Chinese restaurant.

She didn’t admit to herself how much she looked forward to seeing him. It was one thing to appreciate her luck at having found a donor she liked and respected, but Kate veered away from considering the extent to which she enjoyed his company. When she thought about it at all, she rationalised that it was only natural to want to know him better, so that she could one day tell her child (and the thought of her child still gave her a little dip of vertigo) what sort of person its father was. There was nothing wrong in that, she told herself. But she didn’t think about it too often.

Only once was there a slightly discordant moment, and at the time Kate thought little of it. She had met Alex for a drink, and as they found a table in the pub’s beer garden she noticed a smear of black on the back of his Levi’s. “Have you got decorators in at work?” she asked.

“No, why?”

She grinned and nodded at the patch. “You’ve got paint on your jeans.”

“Where?” He craned around to see.

“At least I think it’s paint,” she said. “It might be ink.”

Her grin faded. Alex was staring at the black patch. His face was drained of colour.

“What’s the matter?”

He quickly straightened. “Nothing. I–I just …” The colour was coming back into his face now. He sat down. “I d-didn’t know it was there, that’s all.” His stammer was noticeable again.

“It might come out,” Kate said. “You might be able to buy some sort of cleaning solvent if it’s ink — “

“It isn’t ink.”

She was surprised at his vehemence. He dropped his eyes. “I mean, I think it’s p-paint. I–I must have leaned against something.”

Kate gave an uneasy nod of acceptance as she sat down. She regretted having pointed it out to him, although she couldn’t see why it mattered what it was, or why it should have upset him so much. But the brief awkwardness raised between them by the incident soon faded in the warm evening. It was probably just embarrassment at meeting her in paint-or ink-stained jeans, she decided. She never saw him wear them again.

They saw quite a lot of Lucy and Jack. Alex enjoyed playing with the children, and he and Jack would preside over barbecues in the back garden with varying degrees of success. Lucy was pleased but exasperated by Kate’s relationship with him, even though Kate insisted she didn’t have one.

“You don’t have to justify seeing him to me,” Lucy said once, when Kate grew defensive. “I think it’s great. I just can’t understand why, since you obviously like the bloke, you’re still intent on using the poor bugger as a donor. I mean, what’s wrong with having it draught, like everybody else?”

“Lucy!”

“Well, I’m sorry, but it seems odd to me. I mean, have you slept together yet?”

Kate’s face grew hot. “That’s none of your business!”

“So you haven’t,” Lucy said, blithely. “Why? What’s wrong with him? He’s not queer, is he?” She held up her hands before Kate could object. “All right, sorry. I mean gay. But he isn’t, is he?”

“No!”

“So why don’t you sleep with him, then?”

“Because we’re just friends!”

It sounded trite, even to her, but she doggedly refused to admit there was anything more than friendship between them. The ground rules of their relationship had been set at the beginning, by her, and since Alex seemed content to abide by them, Kate didn’t let herself so much as consider an alternative.

One hot and restless Sunday, though, Kate broke with routine and phoned him to suggest they go for a picnic. She was mildly surprised to feel nervous in case he said no, but he didn’t. They caught a train to Cambridge, where they bought a bottle of wine and baguettes filled with cheese and salad, and queued on the steps of the river for a punt. They took turns in poling the unwieldy, flat-bottomed boat upstream, laughing at each other’s clumsiness, until they reached a relatively quiet spot in which to picnic. Kate almost overbalanced climbing onto the bank, and when Alex grabbed her arm to steady her, the sudden contact embarrassed them both.

She busied herself unwrapping the sandwiches, while Alex uncorked the wine and poured it into paper cups.

He had taken a camera with him, and unobtrusively snapped Kate before she knew what he was doing.

“Right, in that case I’m going to take one of you,” she said, and, over his protests, took the camera from him. She caught him in the frame, grinning and flushed from the sun, looking absurdly boyish in his white T-shirt and faded jeans.

The fine silver chain he wore around his neck gleamed in the sunlight. Kate had been meaning for some time to ask what he wore on it. She was about to now, but before she could phrase the question a middle-aged Japanese man detached himself from a family group and came over. Smiling, he pointed to himself, then to Kate and Alex, and mimed taking a photograph.

“I think he’s offering to take our picture,” Kate said. The man nodded, still smiling as he reached for the camera. A little uneasily, Kate relinquished it and moved next to Alex. The Japanese man motioned them to stand closer together. They edged nearer to each other. Kate felt her bare arm brush Alex’s. He smelled of sun-heated flesh, deodorant and, ever so faintly, of fresh sweat. She remained aware of the contact as they both grinned, self-consciously, at the camera. The Japanese man pressed the shutter and handed the camera back.

“Thank you,” Kate said. The man smiled again and bobbed his head, then went to where his family, a woman and two teenage boys, stood waiting.

The camera went back in its case, like a dangerous toy, while the two of them ate their picnic.

It clouded over as they took the punt back. The first fat drops of rain began to spatter on the steps leading up from the small wooden quay. They took cover in a nearby pub as the drops became a downpour, and other people ran inside for shelter. They managed to find a table overlooking the river before the pub became too full, and watched as the water’s smooth surface splintered into fragments. A flash of light lit the copper-coloured sky, followed by a crack of thunder a few seconds later.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got an umbrella handy, have you?” Kate asked Alex, and for some reason that struck them both as funny. They laughed helplessly as the other customers gave them curious glances, and the storm clamoured overhead.

Afterwards, Kate was always to think of that as the end of summer. The sun returned in the wake of the rain, but now with that subtle change in light that comes when the season has peaked. The mornings became fresher, and the evenings were shattered by more storms that spiced the air with ozone and the mustiness of rain on hot pavements. In the space of a week it was autumn.

The trees began shedding leaves, stirred by breezes that carried a chill hint of winter. Nights grew darker, afternoons dusky and seasoned with the smokiness of autumn.

On bonfire night, Kate and Alex arranged to go to a firework display with Lucy, Jack and the children. But the day before, Lucy phoned to say that both Emily and Angus had been stricken with chickenpox.

Alex sounded disappointed when she told him. “There’s no reason why we can’t still go,” she said. “Is there?”

They met in a pub near the park where the display was being held. Kate laughed when Alex presented her with a packet of sparklers. “God, I’ve not held one of these since I was a kid.”

He smiled, pleased with her reaction. “That’s the point of bonfire night. We can pretend we’re kids again without anyone thinking we need locking up.”

They left the pub and made their way through the park towards the fire. The night was hazy with woodsmoke and sulphur. Exploding rockets peppered the sky with sounds like tearing cloth. As they drew nearer, the pungent smells of the hot dog and burger stalls threw their weight into the atmospheric stew. They bought jacket potatoes and mulled wine, and made their way through the crowd towards the bonfire. It towered behind a cordon of ropes, throwing a stream of sparks into the sky. A lifelike guy was slumped in a chair balanced at the top, smouldering but not yet alight. One gloved hand, buffeted by the heat, moved disturbingly up and down, as though trying to beat down the flames.

Kate grimaced. “It’s a bit gruesome, when you think about it, isn’t it,” she said. “Pretending to burn someone. Even if he did try to blow up Parliament. Not much reason to call it a ‘good’ fire, is it?”

Alex was watching the guy. It seemed to take a second for what she said to register. He looked at her with a quizzical expression.

“Bonfire,” she explained, feeling stupid, “At school they said it meant ‘good fire’. You know, as in bon, French for ‘good’.”

A smile touched his face. “That isn’t where it gets its name from. It’s derived from ‘bone fire’. Because they used to burn bones.”

Kate gave a horrified laugh. “God, it gets worse! I thought it was bad enough celebrating someone being executed!”

Alex shook his head, turning back to the flames. “That wasn’t what it was about originally. To start with it was a Celtic fire festival called Samhain, when people used to build fires to mark the beginning of winter. It wasn’t even on November the fifth, it was on the first. But after the Gunpowder Plot people were encouraged to burn effigies of Guy Fawkes on the fires, and the whole idea was hijacked.”

“You sound like you don’t approve.”

He didn’t answer at first. His face was jaundiced with reflected flame. “It was something pure to start with,” he said. “People celebrating fire as a counter to winter. Then it was turned into a political sham, a warning from the government to any other malcontents. Fawkes was a scapegoat. He was just a mercenary, an explosives expert hired to handle the gunpowder. Robert Catesby was the real leader, but no one hears about him. He was killed when they arrested the actual plotters, so they played up Fawkes’s role instead. And the real reason for lighting the bonfires became lost.”

He stopped, giving her a chagrined grin. “Sorry. Lecture over.”

“You sound like you’ve read a lot about it,” Kate said. It was rare to hear him speak at such length.

Alex seemed about to say something else when a detonation above them lit the sky with a stuttering crack! Kate looked up and felt the pressure of the rocket’s percussion on her face as the display began.

They were forced closer together as people pushed forward for a better view. Kate was conscious of him standing slightly behind and to one side as the firebursts boomed and flowered overhead. She swayed back, involuntarily, but in the moment before her shoulders brushed against him, a sudden waft of hot smoke stung her eyes. She turned away, blinking, and as she wiped them there was a commotion at the opposite side of the fire.

Through streaming eyes she saw a man duck under the rope cordon. A steward made a grab for him, but the man jinked around his outstretched hands like a rugby forward. He ran straight at the blazing stack of wood, and as Kate watched, still not believing what he was going to do, the man launched himself into it.

The steward’s cry was drowned in the bang of another explosion overhead. He dodged back, throwing up his arm to shield himself as the bonfire collapsed in a frenzy of sparks.

Behind him, the horrified, pale faces of the people standing by the ropes began to turn away, like lights blinking out. She heard one or two screams above the clatter of the fireworks, but most of the crowd were unaware of what had happened.

A cooing ahh went up at another extravagant rocket-burst as stewards ran towards the fire.

Kate quickly turned away as two of them pawed with long poles at a smouldering shape in the edge of the flames. She clutched hold of Alex’s arm. “Let’s go.”

Now more people were turning to look. A low murmur, almost a moan, went up from the crowd at some further movement from around the bonfire.

“Alex …”

He was still staring at the cluster of stewards. She tugged at him. He didn’t move.

“Come on, Alex.”

His face was blank with shock as he let her lead him away. They pushed against the flow of a crowd that was now moving towards the fire to see what had happened.

She almost lost her grip on Alex’s arm, but then the crush thinned and they could move freely.

Kate gagged at the smell of cooked meat as they passed the hot dog and burger stalls. She held her breath until they had left them behind, and glanced at Alex. His eyes were unfocused. He walked loosely, as though he were concussed.

“Are you all right?” Kate had to repeat the question before he responded. For a moment he looked at her without recognition, then he nodded.

“Yes, sorry, I …” His voice tailed off.

“Do you want to go for a drink?” Kate asked. They had reached the park exit. In the light from the street lamps she could see how pale his face was.

“No … no, I think I … I’d just like to go home.”

Kate flagged down a taxi. They rode in silence. Alex seemed to have withdrawn into himself. He sat in a corner of the cab, staring out of the window. Lights from the street played over his face like a slow-motion strobe.

“Why would someone do that?” Kate said, unable to keep quiet any longer.

Alex shook his head.

Kate saw the figure leap into the flames, the fire collapse again. She gave an involuntary flinch. “Even if he wanted to kill himself, why pick such a — a horrible way?”

She found that her teeth were chattering a little as she spoke, although it wasn’t cold in the cab. Alex continued to stare out of the window.

“Perhaps it didn’t seem horrible to him.”

His face was in shadow. Kate couldn’t see his expression.

She knew she was beginning to sound ghoulish, but couldn’t stop herself. “But why do it like that? In front of all those people?”

She felt rather than saw Alex stir. “It was a way of getting attention. Showing everyone he was there. Perhaps he wanted to hit out at them. Or at someone in particular. Like saying, ‘Look what I’m doing, this is your fault. You made me do this’.” He was silent for a moment. “Or perhaps he wanted to punish himself.”

Kate tried to shut out the memory of the steward’s face, paralysed with horror and disbelief as he was forced to watch. She knew that no matter how bad her nightmares might be, his would be worse.

“It seems … I don’t know. Selfish, somehow.”

“Selfish?” Alex had turned to look at her.

“Doing something like that in front of so many complete strangers. Not caring what it would do to them afterwards.”

“Would they have cared about him if he hadn’t done it?”

“No, probably not, but — “

“So why should he care about them?”

The bitterness in his tone was like a rebuke. She didn’t answer.

Alex sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, I …” He gestured, helplessly. “It just got to me a bit, that’s all.”

Kate was already regretting what she’d said. Alex rarely talked about his work, but she felt clumsy and insensitive for not anticipating how this might have affected him. Tentatively, she asked, “Have you known someone like that?”

“Once,” he said, looking back out of the window.

Lucy and Jack asked Kate over for Christmas Day, as they usually did. “Ask Alex, too,” Lucy added. “Unless you’ve both got other plans?”

Kate tried not to sound too evasive. “I haven’t. I’m not sure what Alex is doing, though.”

“Is he thinking about going to his parents’?”

“He might be, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Haven’t you asked him?”

“Uh … No, not yet.”

“Not yet? Don’t you think you’re leaving it a bit late?”

Kate wouldn’t meet Lucy’s eye. “I just haven’t got round to it. Anyway, I expect he’s already got his own plans.”

“And I expect he’s thinking exactly the same about you. God, you’re as bad as each other!” Lucy went to the phone, looking exasperated. “All right, what’s his number? If you’re not going to ask him, I will!”

“Don’t you dare!”

Lucy smiled, the receiver held ready.

Kate threw up her hands. “All right, all right! I’ll ask him.”

“Now?” Lucy offered her the phone.

“Tomorrow,” Kate said, firmly.

She told herself it was ridiculous to feel nervous, but that didn’t make her feel any less so as she waited to broach the subject the next night. The theatre bar they were in was festooned with gaudy green and red baubles and tinsel. Christmas was inescapable, no matter how much you tried.

“Are you going to Cornwall for Christmas?” Kate asked finally, giving up any attempt at subtlety.

“Cornwall?”

“To your parents.”

“Oh! Oh … yes, probably, I expect.” He gave an unenthusiastic smile. “Have to carve the turkey and listen to the Queen’s speech, and everything.” He paused. “What about you?”

Kate tried to sound unconcerned. “Lucy and Jack have

invited me over. They wondered if you wanted to go as well, if you hadn’t already got something lined up. But I said you probably would have.”

“For Christmas Day?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes, but it’s all right. We thought you’d be spending it with your family.”

The chime sounded for the start of the next act. Kate finished her drink. “We’d better go back in,” she said, and blamed the flatness she felt on the poorness of the play.

It was two days later when Alex phoned. “Looks like I’ve been ditched at Christmas,” he told her. “My mother rang last night and asked if I minded if they went away instead. A last-minute offer from friends in Spain.”

Kate kept her voice neutral. “So what will you do now?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Probably just spend a quiet one on my own.”

Kate could almost hear Lucy’s prompting, Oh, for God’s sake, just ask him. “You can still come over to Lucy and Jack’s,” she said, trying to sound off-hand. “I know they’d be pleased to see you.”

Christmas morning was bright with a crisp winter sun that struggled to melt the white frost garnishing the pavements. The big house smelled of cooking and mulled wine. Nat King Cole vied for precedence with the TV as Jack took their coats and gave them both a steaming glass. Alex had taken a carrier bag full of presents, and Emily and Angus delightedly shredded the garish paper from theirs, carried away more by the orgy of opening rather than the gifts themselves, which were an expensive but unimaginative doll and a toy car that Angus was too young to appreciate.

There was a bottle of whisky for Jack, Chanel perfume for Lucy. Her eyes widened when she saw it.

“Oh, my God, now that’s what I call a present!”

She kissed Alex on the mouth. Kate felt a quick jab of something that could almost have been jealousy, and then

Alex came over to her. “Happy Christmas.”

Almost shyly, he handed her a small parcel, and she suddenly wished she had bought him more than the bottle of Irish whiskey.

She took the parcel from him and unwrapped it, aware of the others watching her. Inside was a long box. Kate opened it and took out the plain gold chain and locket.

“I didn’t know what size socks you took,” Alex said. The quip sounded rehearsed.

“It’s beautiful,” Kate said. “Thank you.”

She stepped forward and kissed him. The kiss was no longer than the one Lucy had given him moments before, but it was their first, and Kate felt acutely aware that Lucy and Jack were watching. When they moved apart she made a show of fastening the chain around her neck to hide her confusion.

They drank a dry Spanish sparkling wine with the enormous turkey Lucy had cooked, and then various bottles of whatever Jack produced during the afternoon. By early evening Kate was pleasantly light-headed, and the pressure of anticipation that had been building in her all day finally found a focus.

She and Alex were in the kitchen, washing the stack of congealed dishes. She handed him a wet glass to dry, and as their hands touched, the thought came without warning.

Tonight.

Flustered, Kate turned away, briskly scrubbing at a greasy plate to conceal her sudden tumult.

She pushed all thought of the decision to one side, but the awareness remained on a subliminal level for the rest of the evening; a faint breathlessness, a tensing in her lower stomach. And then she and Alex were saying goodnight to Lucy and Jack and climbing into the taxi, and all at once it confronted her with the suddenness of a slamming door.

Alex seemed to sense her tension. The atmosphere in the cab became strained. Familiar landmarks went past the windows like a countdown, and then the taxi was pulling into Kate’s road. It stopped outside her flat.

Her heart thudded. The words felt clumsy in her mouth. “Would you like to come in?”

She saw understanding dawn on his face. He looked away quickly.

“I’d, er … I’d better not. It’s late.”

The rejection was so unexpected she felt nothing. “Oh. Okay,” she heard herself say, and then she was climbing out of the cab. The cold night air didn’t penetrate any deeper than her skin. “Goodnight, then.”

Alex didn’t look at her. “Goodnight.”

The taxi pulled away, leaving behind a fading blueness of exhaust. The street was deserted. Kate walked up her path.

Her keys were in her hand, although she had no memory of taking them out. She reached up to unlock the front door, and then it hit her.

She squeezed her eyes tight against the pain of it, hand still outstretched towards the lock. For a long moment she stood, rigid, unable to make herself move. There was a miaow at her feet. She looked down as Dougal twined himself around her ankles. The cat stared up at her, wide-eyed and indifferent. “Happy Christmas, Dougal,” she said, and let them both into the empty flat.