“That it wasn’t enough. That it could never be enough.”
“Charlie, what good…?”
“I know, I know. All the arguments. Revenge and not reform. Lock a man up and the longer he’s inside the worse he’ll be when he comes out.”
“You say it as though you know it without believing it.”
Resnick picked up the wine bottle and Rachel set her hand over the top of her glass; he refilled his own.
“There’s nothing that clear-cut. I understand about the loss of dignity, about recidivism…”
“But your job…”
“And what I do, more often than not, more often than probably I think is wise, results in criminals being shut away. It’s what happens, Rachel. It’s the law, part of it. At the moment you can’t have one without the other, and if I believe in most of what I do, I seem to have to accept the rest.”
“Like Sharon Taylor’s father getting three years?”
“That’s easier to take than most.”
“Not for him.”
“Christ!” exclaimed Resnick. “Don’t expect me to feel sympathy for him.”
Heads were angled towards them, conversations lowered. “Everything all right, sir?” The waiter bowed to one table. “Everything satisfactory, madam?” to another.
“I don’t.”
“He’ll be out and on parole in two, less.”
“You know what they’ll do to him inside, as soon as they know what he’s in for.”
“Yes.”
“You make it sound as if that’s what he deserves.”
“It’s hard not to think it.”
Rachel slowly shook her head. “I don’t understand how…Charlie, I may not know you very well, but I don’t think you’re that kind of man.”
“What kind of man is he, for Christ’s sake?”
“Charlie, don’t…”
“All I know, if that had been my child…”
“Oh, Charlie.” She took his hand which had closed into a fist between hers and held it for a moment against her cheek. “Don’t punish yourself more than you have to.”
What am I doing? Rachel Chaplin thought when he was away from the table. On my own for what, a week, and I’m calling up this nice, shambling man and dangling things before his eyes I know he can’t have. And why? Because I’ve been in too many nights in a row? Because I needed something other than Carole’s too-sensible chatter to wind down with after work? Because I always did like to do the things I know are courting danger?
She turned her head as she heard him coming back towards the table, a big man with broad shoulders who moved a little like a dancer. Was it then just because she found herself fancying him, this Charlie Resnick? No more nor less than that? The muscles of her stomach wall tightened, knowing that she could go to bed with him now, that evening as soon as the meal was over, and knowing that she wouldn’t.
Reaching out with her chopsticks to take the last prawn, Rachel realized there were goose-pimples along her arm. Who are you not being fair to? she asked herself, dipping the prawn in the remainder of the plum sauce before putting it in her mouth.
Neither of them had driven. Walking down the hill back into the center of the city, they hailed an empty cab almost opposite the pub where they had first gone for a drink. Resnick suggested that they drop Rachel off first and, although it was furthest away, she agreed.
They leaned back against the seat, one of Resnick’s arms across her shoulders, the back of her left hand resting against his leg. After all the talk during the meal, neither spoke until the driver turned into the street where Carole lived.
“Charlie,” Rachel said, turning to face him, “I’m really pleased you were in when I called, pleased you came. I’ve had a good time tonight.”
Resnick tensed, waiting for the but.
“I like you, Charlie Resnick, at least I think I do, I enjoy being with you, but nothing more.”
“What more is there?”
Rachel laughed and threw back her head. “You’re impossible!”
Resnick leaned forward and kissed the stretch of muscle of her neck. She twisted slowly against him, moving her head until he was kissing her mouth. As the cab slowed to a halt, Resnick’s lips parted and her tongue slid over his.
“Time to go, Charlie.”
Resnick sighed, “Sure.”
Rachel opened the door, reaching for her purse with the other hand.
“On me,” Resnick said. “You paid for the meal.”
“Okay,” she said, getting out.
“Next time we’ll swop around,” Resnick called.
Rachel raised a hand. “Next time you phone me.”
“Right.” Resnick closed the door and the driver swung the cab into a U-turn. He looked through the side window, but she had already turned away and was walking slowly up the path towards the front door. A few seconds and she was almost lost to shadow.
Rachel shook her bag, patted her pocket, where had she put the key? There were no lights showing in the house which meant either that Carole was out or had already gone to bed, tired out. She didn’t want to stand around in the cold and damp and neither did she want to ring the bell and risk waking Carole. The sound of the cab taking Resnick away had already faded.
“Never do it, can you?”
Harsh, the words broke the darkness for a moment that for her was timeless, Rachel’s heart stopped. The bag slithered between her fingers towards the path. At first she could not place even the voice, much less where it came from.
“Always amazed me, someone as organized as you, half an hour to find a front-door key.”
Rachel’s fear became anger as Chris Phillips stepped from the shadows towards her. She wanted to hurt him for frightening her, but he caught the swing of her arm easily and held it above the wrist.
She could see that the upper sections of his raincoat were close to sodden; he was bareheaded and his hair stuck close to his scalp.
“How long have you been spying on me?” Rachel asked, shaking herself free.
“For about as long as you’ve been lying to me.”
“I haven’t lied.”
“No?” Chris angled his head slowly back towards the road, looking in the direction that Resnick’s departing cab had taken.
“You said there wasn’t anybody.”
“There isn’t.”
“What was that then? Some fucking apparition?”
“That was a friend.”
“I’ll bet!”
Rachel turned away and walked to the front door; a light had gone on in the hall, Carole alerted by their raised voices. Her finger was almost upon the bell when an open hand smacked past her, shaking the door on its hinges.
“Don’t you turn your back on me!”
“It’s too late for that, Chris,” Rachel said, facing him once again. “I already did.”
“Oh, you’re so clever, aren’t you?”
“I’m not trying to be clever…”
“Comes natural, does it?”
“Chris…”
“Like lying!”
“How many times, I have not been lying. Why should I? What would be the point?”
“And whoring!”
Carole was standing behind the door, her silhouette fractured by the glass. “Let me in,” Rachel called and before she had finished speaking the door was open on to the hall.
“Hello, Chris,” Carole said in a neutral tone. He ignored her, staring at Rachel with the same mixture of hatred and desperation she recognized from so many of her clients. He made as if to follow her and smartly Carole pushed Rachel inside and leaned against the door. Phillips was trapped with one side of his body jammed up against the wall.
“Carole, you’d better let me in!”
“I don’t think so, Chris.”
“Rachel and I have got things to talk about.”
“No, we haven’t,” called Rachel.
“You heard her, Chris,” said Carole.
He leaned his weight against the door and forced her back some way but not far enough for him to squeeze inside.
“You shouldn’t be doing this, Chris,” Carole said. “Go home.”
“Not until that lying bitch comes back out here to talk to me.”
“I’ve nothing left to say to you,” said Rachel, back at Carole’s shoulder, “and if I ever did, this has made me see the pointlessness of it. Just go.”