Moses let his forehead fall against the cold glass of the phone-box. A different kind of shivering now. The pips went. You have to pay to go on thinking, he thought. He pressed another coin into the slot, then looked at the groove on his thumb that the coin had left behind. He was noticing things like that now. Things he usually skimmed over. The word dead did that. It turned you into a camera. Automatic pictures: those red ducks revolving in the window; that slush in the gutter; the words GOD and FUCK. God and fuck. That just about summed it up.
Saturday …
They had driven south to look for his parents. They had broken down on the way back. Mary had tried to phone Alan. She hadn’t got through. And no wonder. Alan had been dead the whole time.
‘Mary — ’
‘It’s all right, Moses. I’m still not used to saying it.’ A wry toughness in her voice. Almost cavalier, she sounded.
‘Shit, I don’t — I don’t know what — ’
‘It’s all right.’
Silence again. Their relationship hadn’t been built to withstand anything like this. One moment they were sailing along, the next they were clinging to the wreckage. He pressed his forehead into the glass. Icepack-cold. Numbing. He wanted to see her, but he could only see the darkness behind his closed eyes. The colour of mourning. The colour of her clothes. Maybe he was seeing her.
Tap, tap.
Somebody was tapping on the glass. He opened his eyes and saw a pair of black shoes. Then a grey pinstripe suit and a furled umbrella. Finally a pinched indignant face. He turned round, faced the other way.
‘Can you hear me?’ Mary said.
‘Yes.’
‘I want you to listen to me and try to understand what I’m going to say.’
He could hear the bravery in her voice. It made his voice catch when he answered her. ‘I’m listening.’
Tap, tap.
‘I don’t want to see you, Moses. Can you understand that?’
‘I think so.’
Tap, tap, tap.
‘Don’t call me and don’t write. I need some time.’
‘OK.’
Tap, tap. TAP, TAP.
He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and pushed the door open.
‘I’m in a hurry,’ the man with the umbrella said. ‘Could you please — ’
‘Wait your fucking turn, all right?’ Moses forced the words out, one syllable at a time, through clenched teeth. He pulled the door shut again.
‘Hello? — Moses? — ’
‘It’s all right. I’m still here.’
‘Do you understand what I’ve been saying?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you understand why?’
‘I think so. I’m trying to.’
‘That makes me feel a lot better.’
‘Good.’
Tap, tap.
‘I’m going to hang up now, Moses.’
‘OK.’
Tap, tap. TAP.
‘Goodbye then.’
‘Goodbye, Mary — and take care — ’
But she had already hung up.
He listened to the dialling tone until it cut off. Then only void. A distant sputtering, like outer space.
Tap, tap, tap.
TAP, TAP, TAP.
He replaced the receiver and pushed the door open. He snatched the man’s umbrella and, with a kind of weary strength, hurled it towards Cambridge Circus. It cartwheeled through the icy sky, spinning black on grey, and landed in the middle of Charing Cross Road. He thought he heard a discreet snap as it was crushed by the wheels of a passing cab.
‘Hey,’ the man cried. ‘You can’t just — ’
‘I just did,’ Moses said.
And walked away. No smile on his face. Not even a backward glance.
*
South from Soho.
It had always been a favourite walk of his. It used all the senses. The sultry neon of strip-joints, arguments in Chinese, rack on rack of foreign magazines, the forest-fire crackle of pork frying, a million brands of cigarettes, cauliflowers bowling along the gutters, snatches of crisp disco-funk from curtained doorways, the steamy reek of Dim Sum whisked into the street by ventilator-fans. He usually dawdled. This time, though, he walked fast, automatically. A turbulent mixture of emotions drove him along like high-octane fuel. If he slowed he would explode. He didn’t understand this impetus they gave him. He was no mechanic.
He suspected that he made an impression on the city that afternoon. His size, his haste — both excessive. As he burst into Piccadilly Circus he saw one tourist point and giggle. ‘Look at that English. Crazy, no?’
Yes, crazy. He had this exaggerated sense of his own power — as if, simply by walking across London, he could alter the course of history. On Haymarket he stepped out in front of a chauffeured limousine. The limo swerved, threw its passenger’s bald head against the window. Afterwards Moses thought he had placed that bald head. It belonged to a senior cabinet minister. Would the minister now make an uncharacteristically shaky speech in the House of Commons?
Moses crossed Trafalgar Square on a diagonal, ignoring the traffic lights, the screech of brakes, the horns. He didn’t even stop to swear at the pigeons (something he had got into the habit of doing recently). He stormed straight into Whitehall, oblivious, vacant, irresistible. The horseguards fought to control their mounts as he passed. No doubt several of the tourist snaps taken at the time would come out blurred. Shame. He wondered if he had rattled any of the windows in 10 Downing Street. He hoped so. Oh, for a million like me, he thought. Did the Ministry of Defence report any slight earth tremors? It didn’t seem beyond the bounds of possibility. Not even Elliot, friend and benefactor, could put a stop to the projectile that Moses had become. He advanced to meet Moses, hands outstretched in greeting, only to be unceremoniously brushed aside and left spinning on his heels, like someone in a cartoon.
Moses didn’t slacken his pace until he reached his bathroom. Never had he needed the soothing properties of his bath more urgently. He soaked for an hour and a half, waiting for calmness to descend, hardly daring to think. He lay in the bath until the water turned cold for the third time, until all he could see was a faint orange glimmer on the surface.
Alan dead.
Excluded from Mary’s sorrow, confined to his own. That and the swirl of water as he stirred an arm or a leg. How close he was to that original memory of his.
Alone. The darkness. The sound of water. Dimly he began to understand his fascination with baths.
Later he walked into the bedroom, lay down on the bed and fell asleep.
*
He woke two hours later, sticky and confused. Dreams he couldn’t remember rustled in his head like tissue-paper. His mouth tasted sour. His anger had curdled, turned to defiance. He picked up the phone and weighed it in his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, he called Jackson.
A fumbling on the other end, then a stammered, ‘Hello?’
‘Jackson?’
‘Moses!’ Jackson cried. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages. How are you?’
‘Not too good at the moment. What’re you doing tonight?’
‘Tonight I’m busy. What about tomorrow?’
Moses hung his head, said nothing.
‘Why?’ Jackson went on. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I just feel like seeing someone.’ Moses allowed himself a wry smile. ‘It’s a pity I can’t see that ghost you’re always going on about. That’d be better than nothing.’
Jackson produced a silence so incredulous that Moses wondered what he had said.
‘What ghost?’ Jackson asked eventually.
‘The ghost you told me about. The ghost that was sitting next to me. You know, on the sofa,’ and Moses pointed at the sofa, as if it proved something.
Another silence from Jackson, equally incredulous.
‘You do remember,’ Moses said, ‘don’t you?’