He tutted hard and covered the cut hand with the other, muttering 'for fucksake' and 'just a cut' as he busied himself taking off his rings and his watch. He stripped down to his boxers and hung his clothes up, ignoring Helena. He saw her in the reflection of the window, sitting in the shaft of harsh light from the hall. Her hands were clasped to her chest and, even in a reflection, Phil could see a hundred tiny white scars, each a centimetre long, criss-crossing her face and hands, intersecting her eyebrows and lids, crawling over her lips like a hundred tiny worms.
When he met Helena she was young and pert and game for anything. She said something cheeky to him in front of all the men gathered round the barbecue, something about her needing a good slap. They became inseparable. They travelled when they could take holidays, went to visit her cold parents in Paris and bought the house after the wedding. It began in this house, drunken arm-twisting and small hits, getting bigger and closer to her face until she couldn't go to work for more than a day a week and they sacked her. But now it was no more than a hollow ritual, a reminder of when she'd really had something worth taking away.
'Goodnight, Helena.' He climbed into bed and turned off the light.
She stayed on the floor in the shaft of light, sobbing while her energy lasted, ending up sniffing and lonely on the big white floor.
Phil lay in the bed facing the windows with his eyes shut. He pulled the sheets up to his mouth and felt, for the first time in years, a little guilty. He listened as she cried quietly. He listened as she tried to get up, her feet scrabbling on silk nightie against the woollen carpet, looking for purchase, trying hard to get up but failing, like a spider caught in the bath.
He didn't want to ring too early in the evening. He wanted her to wait and get desperate, to reach the stage where she expected him not to phone but dearly wanted him to. Helena had told him how she'd waited by the phone the day after the first real beating, praying for his call, wishing, wishing. He ordered a steak sandwich at the bar and another pint of Stella. The pub was at Charing Cross, an anonymous theme bar less than half a mile from Anya's flat. He didn't know anyone in there and mingled happily with the other commuters relaxing with the paper on their way home. He flicked through the Evening Standard, skimming the articles, thinking about the bracelet in his pocket.
They had been seeing each other for four months, all of it very nice, out to dinners or staying in, having a good time while he waited. When he saw the charm bracelet dangling from the tree he knew that now was the time. She was attached enough. He would give the bracelet to her afterwards, pretend he had bought it in a flurry of remorse.
It looked like something a Russian girl would like, gold and rich, vulgar and an obvious antique. It had individual charms hanging off it; a tiger, two dice, a little steam train with wheels that spun, all heavy and expensive. Not designer, not pretty, she wouldn't necessarily like the thing but she'd feel the weight of it and know how much it was worth, and that alone would endear him to her. And then, when she had calculated how much it was worth and what he would have spent retail (she knew he didn't have any contacts in wholesale, they'd had that conversation when he bought her the watch), when she was already pliable and forgiving, then he'd give her the smaller box in matching green velvet with the pink egg inside.
The bracelet was dun and stuck with leaves and mould when he found it. It had been left hanging in a branch like a child's lost glove, advertising itself to passers-by. The sun passed overhead and he caught a glint of it. He was sitting on the bench in the overgrown path, phoning her. He told her he was thinking about her and touching himself (he wasn't) and wanted to kiss her all over and look after her (he didn't). On the other end of the phone Anya was saying that she'd got a hundred quid tip from a handsome man the night before.
It was all she talked about, money, all she wanted, poor immigrant. Perhaps the man will come back, perhaps he would give her more money and try to become her lover. Would that make him jealous? Would that make him angry? Phil could hear Fat Eugene laughing in the background.
'You know, Anya,' he said, picking the bracelet off the branch like a fruit, 'all that glisters is not gold.'
She didn't understand of course. She asked him what twice and then brushed over it.
He stopped himself from telling her he had a gift for her.
He had paid to have the bracelet cleaned and polished and bought the best box the jewellers had to present it in. The green box had a yellow coat of arms stamped on it, some spurious connection to an obscure European family of aristos prepared to exploit their family history to make and sell trinkets for tourists. It had a gold satin interior. And then he saw the egg in pink enamel with gold weave around it, a poor man's Fabergé. The elderly jeweller showed him how to open it. 'A special message can be placed inside, you see, for a loved one.' He glanced at Phil's wedding ring. 'For an anniversary. It's a brand new piece, valuable, from a very reputable maker, intricate.' It was yellow gold meshed over menstrual pink enamel. Phil could see it was crap. That's why he bought it.
He finished his sandwich and stepped outside the sticky hub to make the phone call. He found an alley away from the pedestrians and faced the back, hanging his head low, getting the voice right.
'Please don't hang up,' was his anxious opener. He loved her. He needed her. He was sorry. He finished by telling her that she deserved so much more.
She was delighted to hear from him, he could tell by the high tone of her voice. 'Please to come,' she said. 'We can talk please.'
'I'm so sorry.'
'Come to me, Pheel.' She sounded quite turned on, a little breathy even.
He hung up and went back into the pub for another quick half.
It was a cheap room in a pricey area. Soho might have been the centre of the red light district but it was still expensive. Small rooms in overpriced narrow houses. The buzzer system was ramshackle, with biroed names sellotaped on to the buzzers. Some of them weren't even names, some were just descriptions: Young Model, Swedish Girl, Lonely Guy. Anya only had a number on hers. She must have been waiting by the entry phone because the moment his finger came off it she buzzed him up.
The stairs were wooden and narrow and worn in the centre where eager feet had rattled up them and sloped down for a hundred years. Anya was waiting for him on the second landing, dressed in a sheer black silk shirt and jeans, standing in the doorway, watching for his face to appear on the bend. She looked tentative and nervous. He brought his eyebrows together in the middle, whispering her name as he ran up the three final steps.
'Forgive me.' He brought her hand to his lips, looking at her face and noticing a small black crescent on her cheek where the tooth had gone into it. He kissed the mark lightly. She kept his big hand in her small one and pulled him into the flat.
The apartment had been chopped up from a grand whole and there was no hallway. She manoeuvred him to the sofa and sat him down. He stayed on the edge of the seat, acting anxious still.
'I have something for you,' she said and skirted round behind him to a sideboard. 'I bought for you.'
She bent down, presenting him with her tight little arse in denim, and pulled from the cupboard a bottle of Remy Martin XO Special. It was very good cognac and she had the presentation bottle: a flat oval with ornamental ridges all along the side. They had it in the drinks cabinet at work. It was a delicious, cool fit on the well of a palm and cost extra to buy. In the four months they had been together he had never known her spend any money on anything and he knew that this bottle cost closer to a hundred quid than fifty.