She typed in different variations of Simon’s name, St Thomas’s Hospital, her own name, his cousin’s name. Each try elicited an irritating wobble on the screen.
‘Simon, you are really pissing me off now,’ Stevie muttered. She was going to have to stop these whispered appeals to the dead, especially when it seemed she had never really known the living man.
Eight
Stevie turned off the laptop, pulled on clean underwear, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, took the telephone through to the sitting room and phoned the TV station, hoping to God it wasn’t Rachel who was producing the show that night.
‘Hello?’
Rachel had recently abandoned the mockney accent she had cultivated for years and reverted back to the clear, well-formed vowels of public school and Oxford. Her hello hung in the air like a challenge.
‘Rachel, it’s me, I’m sorry I didn’t ring earlier but . . .’ Stevie paused, unsure of what to say.
‘But you know I run a relaxed ship and that it’s easy come easy go around here?’
‘I asked Joanie to call you. My boyfriend died and I’ve been throwing up for the past few days.’
There was a pause on the line, and then Rachel said, ‘I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.’
‘I don’t any more. I found him dead in his bed on Wednesday.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Rachel’s voice was surprisingly gentle. ‘I had a cousin who accidentally took an overdose at a party. My sister and I found her the following morning. It was horrible.’
‘It wasn’t drugs. He was a doctor.’
‘Either way it’s a tragedy.’
Rachel’s tone suggested that doctors were far from being above suspicion.
‘He didn’t do drugs.’ Stevie wasn’t sure why she was so anxious to labour the point. ‘The police think it was something called sudden adult death syndrome. You go to sleep and never wake up.’
Rachel sighed. ‘I was about to send someone round to check on you.’
‘To check on me?’
‘You live on your own, you phoned in sick and then we heard nothing, complete radio silence. I got young Precious to phone, but you didn’t pick up. I was worried.’
‘I’m touched.’ Stevie silently cursed Joanie. She was probably off on one of the short-lived romantic adventures that had become a feature of her life since her Derek’s defection.
‘I’m genuinely sorry to hear about your boyfriend, Stevie,’ Rachel continued. ‘Believe me I wouldn’t do this if I had any choice, but you’re on shift tonight.’
Stevie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had calculated the consequences of walking out on her job so many times that the urge to tell Shop TV to shove it automatically conjured the aura of unpaid bills and lawyers’ letters. But proximity to death had made her reckless. She opened her eyes.
‘Rachel, Simon died. I found him. I don’t think I can go on live television and pretend to be wet about whatever crap it is we’re punting tonight. Cut me bit of slack, just this once, please.’
‘I would love to, believe me I sympathise. I’ll never forget finding my cousin Charlotte, it took me years to get over it. I’m not sure my sister ever recovered, but we’re three presenters down, including Joanie who’s in hospital.’
The guilt that had sat on Stevie since she had discovered Simon screwed itself tighter in her stomach.
‘What’s wrong with Joanie?’
‘The same thing that’s wrong with the rest of them, only more so, sickness, vomiting, diarrhoea, high fever, hot and cold sweats. Don’t you watch the news?’
‘I told you, I was sick. I thought it was the shock of finding Simon.’
‘The great washed and unwashed of London are going down with the lurgy, as are a good portion of Paris, New York and anywhere else you care to mention. People have died. That’s why I was going to send someone round to check on you. I was worried you might have shuffled off this mortal coil.’
For the first time Stevie thought she could detect a note of panic beneath Rachel’s posh bonhomie. She walked to the window. The parade of shops in the street below looked as busy as ever. Rachel had a reputation for exaggerating, but she wouldn’t lie about Joanie being in hospital.
‘Do you think that might have been what got your boy?’ the producer asked.
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Rachel that Simon hadn’t been her boy, not really, but Stevie merely said, ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘If you can get here for seven, I’ll get Precious to go over the briefings with you, and you can go on at eight.’
‘I look like shit.’
‘We’ll all look like shit by then. I’m covering for Brian, and then doing my own gig tonight. Put your trust in make-up, darling. You’ll look a million dollars by the time you go on.’ Now that everything had been settled, the producer was back to her usual brisk self. ‘I’ll email you the product line-up so you’re not entirely in the dark when you arrive. We’ve got some top-notch stuff.’
Rachel always described their merchandise as ‘top-notch stuff’. Joanie, whose father and grandfather had worked the markets, called it swag.
Stevie asked, ‘Which hospital is Joanie in?’
‘I’m not sure, hang on.’ Rachel had a muffled exchange with someone and then came back on the line. ‘St Thomas’s. She’s in intensive care, but I’d keep away if I were you. This thing seems to be catching and we can’t afford to lose another presenter.’
‘You forget I’ve already had it.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re immune. My cousin Charlotte thought she was immune. Look where it got her.’
Nine
Rachel had spoken as if London was in meltdown, but the Jubilee line showed no sign of crisis. The carriage was full and Stevie was forced to stand, her body just one of many sardined together, hurtling through the depths. Perhaps the trains were brightly lit to take people’s minds off how dark the tunnels outside really were. The Underground carriage’s fluorescence drained the passengers’ complexions of any lustre. The dark skin of the business-suited man beside her had turned grey, and the woman leaning against the pole by the door had taken on a jaded sheen that reminded Stevie of the print of Tretchikoff’s green lady that had hung in her grandmother’s hallway.
Stevie felt the weight of the city above her and wondered how deep beneath the ground she was. West Hampstead . . . Finchley Road . . . Swiss Cottage . . . St John’s Wood . . . The automated announcer declared the stations in her machine-plummy voice, not bothering to warn them to mind the gap. Londoners didn’t dwell on the people who had died on the Underground: the navvies sacrificed to its construction, the suicides and careless drunks crushed against the tracks, the terrorist bombings, Jean Charles de Menezes murdered by police marksmen. They walked past the memorial to those who had died in the King’s Cross fire without a glance, because to remember too often would be crippling. Londoners were the blood of the city and the city went on, regardless of the Black Death, the Great Fire, the Blitz, and terrorist bombings. It was only occasionally, when the train stopped between stations, that passengers caught each other’s eye and wondered if their luck had run out.