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‘Is something wrong?’ I asked.
‘Far from it,’ he said. ‘Looking at this, I can’t imagine what Frances and Milena were up to. But you’re in danger of turning this company into a going concern.’
‘I’m just tidying up.’
He gave a languid smile. ‘That’s about ninety-nine per cent of what it takes to run a business.’ He looked across at his wife who was huddled in conversation with Joh
‘It isn’t what I do for a living,’ I said.
‘You mean you want to get back to teaching a class of young hoodlums? Let me tell you, they’re not worth it.’
I felt I ought to leap to the defence of those kids, even if they didn’t exist; even if the person who was defending them didn’t really exist. ‘I don’t agree,’ I said.
‘You like teaching logarithms and trigonometry year after year?’
‘Um – yes!’ I replied wildly, praying he wouldn’t ask me anything technical. I knew about addition, subtraction, simple multiplication and even simpler division, and that, more or less, was it.
He ran his fingers through his thick, greying hair as if it was an architectural feature he was quietly proud of.
‘Joh
I didn’t reply. Like so many conversations I was having in that office, I didn’t want it to go any further, any deeper. I did worry and, more than that, I didn’t like the idea of being discussed over lunch by those two men, as if I was a specimen. And I didn’t like the way that Joh
‘You’re an enigma. That’s what Joh
I snatched at the opportunity to push the conversation in a different direction. ‘It’s strange for me,’ I said. ‘Milena feels so present here, and absent as well. What did you make of her?’
‘You knew her, didn’t you?’ His tone was curt.
‘Not well,’ I said. ‘Were you close to her?’
I expected David to smile and make a joke but his face took on a stony expression.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t say I was close to her.’
‘But she was a remarkable character, wasn’t she?’
He allowed himself a very small, very forced smile. ‘In some ways, yes.’
‘You don’t sound as if you liked her very much.’
“‘Liked” is rather a tepid word when talking about someone like Milena. People either found her whole act appealing and attractive, or… well, they didn’t.’ He looked at me more closely. ‘It’s fu
And yet, I thought, she’d been involved with my husband. Perhaps that was what he had been looking for: someone as different from me as it was possible to find.
‘You see?’ he said. ‘You’ve got me changing the subject. You’ve got me talking about Milena, when what I want to talk about is you. Milena would have liked that. She wanted to be the centre of attention. She would have liked the idea of us talking about her even after she was dead and buried. Or dead and scattered, in her case. To get back to you, what Joh
I tried to force a laugh. I felt I was being backed into a corner. ‘There’s nothing mysterious about me,’ I said. ‘I wish there was. I’m really just a glorified cleaner here. I wanted to help Frances, that’s all.’
‘Why?’ said David. ‘Why did you want to help her? From a general love of humanity? A religious calling? Do we have a Good Samaritan here?’
‘It’s nothing complicated,’ I said. ‘When I was little I used to like clearing up my room, putting things in piles and arranging them. When I saw the mess this office was in, I wanted to sort it out. When the job’s done I’ll return to my old life.’
David glanced at me more sharply. ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘I reckon you’ll find it harder to walk out on this than you think.’
He had used a silky, detached tone that made it difficult for me to decide whether he was paying me a compliment or threatening me. He moved away and I tried to continue working but he poured himself a cup of coffee and returned to my side. He looked at the receipts, letters and invoices with me, made comments and suggestions. He was helping but it felt as if he was assessing me at the same time for a test I didn’t know how to pass because I didn’t know what the questions meant.
After a few minutes I felt a hand on my shoulder and Joh
‘I can’t,’ I said, deliberately not making an excuse, something that could be argued with.
Joh
I shrugged, and he led me outside. We sat in his car.
‘I thought you needed rescuing from their clutches,’ he said.
‘I can look after myself,’ I said.
‘That’s probably true.’ There was a pause. ‘I meant it about driving you, though. Where shall we go? My place or yours? I’d like to see where you live. I’d like to learn something about you.’
The idea of Joh
‘Let’s go to your place,’ I said.
He watched me as I undressed, as if seeing me naked was a way of seeing me as I really was. But even with my clothes off, even when we were entangled in his bed, I tried to make myself believe I wasn’t really there.
Afterwards, I lay with my back to him and felt his fingers ru
‘This doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?’ he said.
I turned to face him. Suddenly I felt hard and cruel. I had spent too long trapped in my own misery, behaving as if I was the only one who was real and everybody else just a supporting actor in my drama. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But – well, I am in the wrong place. Wrong place, wrong time. Working for Frances was meant to be an interlude. I need to stop it and get back to my own life.’
Joh
That wasn’t a question I could answer. ‘I feel I’m filling in for a dead woman and it’s not right.’
‘That’s crap.’
‘Milena was the one the company was built round, she’s the one everybody talks about. She needs to be replaced, and that’s not something I could do, even if I wanted to.’
Joh
‘I think I’ve seen her in something.’
‘She didn’t at all, of course. It was about wanting to be French and Bohemian. You’re not unreliable. You’re not dishonest.’
‘Reliable. Organized. Unselfish. Lovely. It sounds like I should get a Girl Guide badge.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
I leaned forward and kissed him, but only on the forehead. ‘I’ve got to go.’ I climbed out of the bed and began to pull on my clothes, with my back to him so I couldn’t see him watching me.