Nocturne Read online

  ‘Well? Don’t you think I’m right?’

  I said I didn’t know. He patted me benignly on the hand and told me I’d be crazy to do anything else. After another brandy, he called me a cab. I was home just after midnight. The cats were in the kitchen, waiting patiently beside the door.

  Instead of a salary bonus, Brendan offered me a promotion. So far I’d been employed as a researcher, a catch-all job description that included more or less anything he chose to pass my way. As well as compiling background on the weekly guests, I’d been in and out of various video archives, looking for footage, tracking down stills, and checking out old stories, as well as finding time to speed-read the daily papers and make the odd phone call to the handful of political journalists who would, for a fee, mark our card.

  This list of little errands, though trivial enough, had begun to give me a real feel for the way the political world worked, and the deeper I got into it all, the more naive I realised I’d been at university.

  Politicians weren’t just corrupt. Some of them were bloody clever at it. This revelation gave me every incentive to dig deeper still and when Brendan hauled me into his office for a little chat about my infant career, I was wide open to offers.

  ‘Guest researcher,’ he repeated. ‘Solange’s got to have an operation.’

  Solange was the girl who’d got her neck half-broken in a traffic shunt on the Hammersmith flyover. She’d been guest researcher on the series, and since the accident, I’d been picking up bits and pieces she couldn’t manage. The guest researcher books the weekly invitees. The job involves lots of showbiz networking and high-powered chat to agents. Even politicians, you’d be amazed to know, have agents.

  ‘You think I’ve got the experience?’

  ‘No, but I know you’ll pick it up. Agents are like most human beings, only worse. Twice as nasty. Twice as ruthless. Twice as susceptible.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘You’ll love it.’ He dismissed my query with a wave. ‘It’s all word of mouth, anyway. Your name gets around, your reputation, the deals you’ve done, all that stuff.’

  ‘Deals?’ I frowned, trying hard to think what he could possibly mean. He smiled back at me in that knowing way men have when they’re not quite sure of their facts.

  ‘You’re telling me Fairweather’s coming in for nothing?’ he inquired archly.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Good dinner, was it?’

  ‘Lovely. And good company, too.’

  Brendan looked at me for a moment or two longer, toying with the temptation to take the conversation further, but I foreclosed on him. I wanted to know how long Solange would be away. I wanted to gauge how genuine this offer of his really was.

  ‘Months,’ he said vaguely. ‘She thinks early summer at the earliest.’

  ‘So I’d be booking for the rest of the series?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘And you’ll get another researcher in to replace me?’

  He looked at me again, that mischievous smile back on his face. By now, I’d been at Doubleact for long enough to recognise what drove the company forward. Greed was pretty high up on the list, Brendan’s and the bitch-queen Sandra’s. The fewer paid hands at the pump, the more of the production budget slipped effortlessly into their pockets.

  ‘We’ll be looking at it,’ he said lightly. ‘Seeing how you get on.’

  ‘Meaning yours truly does both jobs?’

  ‘Meaning yours truly trusts me.’

  The notion of trusting Brendan made me giggle. He looked briefly hurt.

  ‘You don’t want the job?’

  ‘Of course I want the job. What I don’t want is a heart attack, or a breakdown, or ending up in a traffic queue, not concentrating properly,’ I smiled at him. ‘Like Solange.’

  Brendan sighed and stared out of the window and I knew what was coming next. Out there, he’d say, are ten squillion bright young things, hurting, yes hurting, to get into television. Ten minutes on the phone, and he could have the pick of them. Double firsts. Treble firsts. Prizewinners. Sex queens. Wannabe film auteurs. All of them just aching for it. And yet here I was, just a couple of months in, being difficult about the prospect of an extra challenge or two. What was the matter with me? Why didn’t I have the stamina for it? Where had my hunger gone?

  ‘Six hundred and fifty,’ he said instead. ‘A week.’

  I blinked. Currently, I was on £350. An extra three hundred quid was a lot of shopping.

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘And we’ll get another researcher, sooner or later.’

  The last bit could have meant anything but to my shame I didn’t give it a thought. Every girl has her price and Brendan had just named mine.

  He was standing up now, one hand extended.

  ‘Shake on it?’

  ‘Deal.’

  He held my hand a moment longer than necessary.

  ‘One other thing.’ No smile now. ‘Can anyone ask you out to dinner, or do you have to be a Tory MP?’

  I celebrated my promotion with a bottle of gin. I telephoned my mother, who was clueless about the small print but impressed by the money, and several friends, who reacted pretty much the same way. It was nearly ten o’clock before I’d finished boasting and I was looking at the bottle, wondering how I’d sunk so much Gordons, when I heard the ring at the street door.

  It was Gilbert. His hair was matted from the rain and his thin coat hung wetly on his gaunt frame. He was carrying a grey, oblong box with a handle. The box looked about the right size for his flute.

  ‘You’ve been playing,’ I said brightly. ‘Come in.’

  He stared at me for a moment. His other hand was in his jeans pocket, still rummaging for something.

  ‘I can’t find them,’ he said at last. I definitely had them earlier.’

  ‘Keys?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I stood back, holding the front door open, letting him in. On impulse, as he headed for the stairs, I called him back. I was having a little celebration. Would he like a gin and tonic? He stopped at once, curiously obedient, and when he turned round and I saw the expression on his face it was suddenly clear to me what I should do. This man was a child. He needed direction. He needed reassurance. I should have known all along.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘it won’t do you any harm.’

  In the kitchen, I made him take his coat off. I hung it on the back of the door, spreading yesterday’s copy of the Guardian to catch the drips. Gilbert had sunk onto one of the kitchen chairs. His hands were blue with cold but he looked cheerful enough and when I asked him again about the flute he said yes, he’d been playing in a little restaurant down in Stoke Newington, a newly opened place called Colcannon’s that specialised in Irish cuisine.

  ‘Your idea,’ he said.

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘Yes, you told me I should do it professionally. In fact you insisted. You said it was really important. So I thought, why not?’

  He told me how nervous he’d been. He’d read about the restaurant in the paper but it had taken him days to muster the courage even to lift the phone. The woman at the other end had been nice enough though, and he’d played for free that first night, a kind of voluntary audition.

  ‘And you’re going back?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Why only maybe?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll see how I feel.’

  ‘Does she want you back?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded vigorously. ‘Oh, yes.’

  He seemed pleased, knotting his hands together, and watching him I was glad I’d let the conversation develop, determined not to interpret what he’d said as any kind of threat. Of course I hadn’t insisted he get a job. Why should I? But perhaps this pretence of his that I had was his way of saying sorry. He’d intrud
ed. He’d overstepped the mark. And now he was trying to make amends.

  I fetched him a glass, splashing in more gin than I’d intended, and he pre-empted my next question by opening his instrument case and taking out the flute. The jig he played me was unusual, a jauntiness suffused with something altogether more plaintive, and the end result was one of those long silences it’s difficult to break. At length, he asked me about the cassette. Had I listened to it? Did I understand?

  I studied him a moment, remembering the face on the stairs, the glimpse I thought I’d had of the real Gilbert. Children, above all, prefer the truth.

  ‘It puzzled me,’ I said. ‘And it disturbed me as well.’

  ‘You didn’t follow it?’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s the fact that you left it in the first place. That you stayed here. While I was away.’

  I watched my hand reaching for the gin bottle. I couldn’t remember finishing my last glass. Gilbert was looking shamefaced. For a moment or two I thought he was going to apologise but he didn’t. He still had the flute, in his lap and he lifted it to his lips and blew a long, melancholic note.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  He shook his head, putting the flute down. Then, abruptly, he changed the subject. He was looking down at Pinot, sprawled at my feet.

  ‘It’s clever,’ he said, ‘how cats find their way to the fridge. It must be something to do with the frequency of the motor. They must sense it. Like bats, really.’

  ‘That’s another thing,’ I said gently.

  ‘What’s another thing?

  ‘Taking my cats like that.’

  ‘I didn’t take them. They came.’

  ‘But you must have let them out, opened the door for them.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then you must have the keys.’

  ‘Yes.’ He was frowning now, still studying Pinot.

  ‘You took copies of the keys?’

  ‘Yes, I thought I mentioned it. I thought we talked about it.’

  ‘Never.’ I shook my head. ‘Why should we? Why should I want you to have a copy of my keys?’

  At this point, as if I’d touched a nerve, he suddenly looked up. ‘The dark,’ he said.

  He left an hour and a half later, his gin and tonic barely touched, and as I shepherded him into our shared hall, I felt flooded with relief. It wouldn’t, after all, be necessary to change the locks or bar the windows or supplement Pinor and Noir with a Rottweiler. Gilbert was a little simple, certainly, and a little mixed up about one or two things, but at heart he was still the man I thought I’d befriended, the gentle, considerate, neighbourly soul upstairs.

  If he had a fault, I thought, then it was the instinct to be over- protective. He was concerned about the world. In fact he was terrified at the direction events were taking. Not just on planet Earth but way out in what I suspect he meant by ‘The Dark’. The signs weren’t good, he kept telling me. He read all the latest scientific magazines, and it was perfectly obvious that we were facing an impending catastrophe. Quite what he could do to protect me from this kind of disaster wasn’t at all clear but listening to him trying to explain it, I had absolutely no doubt about his sincerity.

  This man, poor soul, had suffered some kind of ghastly trauma. It had demolished more or less all the personal defences we take so much for granted and as a direct result he was convinced he was in tune with the future, a helpless savant cursed with a knowledge of the horrors to come. These horrors were numberless and beyond description but they were also in some strange way avoidable, and the fact that he counted me amongst those worth saving I took as a compliment.

  I watched Gilbert until he disappeared into his flat upstairs and later, lying in bed, I could hear him walking up and down again, mumbling to himself, patrolling the battlements he’d thrown up around our little house. At worst, I told myself, Gilbert was simply harmless. At best, once I’d learned to cope with his funny little ways, he’d be the perfect antidote to the infinitely less benign lunatics with whom I worked.

  A couple of days later, Brendan cornered me on the stairs at Doubleact. He was more determined than ever to drag me out to dinner and my new promotion had given him fresh leverage.

  ‘We need to discuss things,’ he said. ‘Away from the office.’

  He left the choice of restaurant to me and out of curiosity I booked a table at Colcannon’s, the place in Stoke Newington where Gilbert had performed. It was a Wednesday evening. Incoming fire at Doubleact had been light to non-existent all day and offhand I couldn’t think of anything really pressing that Brendan and I could possibly have to talk about. The last thing I expected was an in-depth analysis of my documentary ideas.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  Brendan nodded. He said he’d been going through the stuff I’d sent up with my application and thought it was about time we kicked the odd proposal around. I was astonished and - to be truthful - a wee bit guilty. Just ten weeks ago, I’d had absolutely no doubts about what really mattered in television, promising myself regular evenings at the spare room desk, developing ideas, polishing submissions, plotting my assault on the world of social documentary. None of that, of course, had happened, partly through sheer pressure of work, but partly too because of the growing realisation that I’d chanced upon something that I was good at. I didn’t want to spend a lifetime conjuring order out of chaos, and in the shape of people like Brendan I could see exactly where this kind of non-stop madness led, but just now - in mid-series - I was quietly pleased with my own performance. I’d survived. I’d won myself a decent promotion. And the fact that I hadn’t even been to Texas or B&Q for the flatpack desk really said it all.

  ‘Documentaries,’ I mused. ‘What brings this on?’

  Brendan mumbled something about taking stock. The restaurant had a bare, chilly, unfurnished feel - quite at odds with what you might expect from a place serving Irish food - and the fact that we were virtually the only people there made us mildly self-conscious. Brendan had lowered his voice to a whisper.

  ‘You get to an age,’ he was saying, ‘when it isn’t bloody funny any more.’

  ‘Change the gags,’ I suggested automatically. ‘Change the writers.’

  Brendan didn’t react. He was looking hard at the table placing. His glass, for once, was untouched.

  ‘I mean it Jules,’ he muttered at last. ‘I’m in the shit.’

  At this point I recognised, rather belatedly, just why he’d been so keen for us to talk. It wasn’t about me and my documentary ideas at all. It wasn’t even about Members Only, or any of the other half-dozen shows churning through the Doubleact production machine. It was about Brendan.

  I touched his hand, a gesture of reassurance, and felt him give a little involuntary jump. Maybe the rumours are true, I thought. Maybe he’s finally overdone the coke, or the vodka, and any of the other little treats that flag your path to the first million quid.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked as gently as I could.

  He glanced up, almost furtive. He looked terrible, his face gaunt with exhaustion.

  ‘You want a list?’

  ‘Only if you’re offering.’

  ‘OK,? he shrugged. ‘Let’s start with you.’

  I let him get it off his chest. He said he’d fallen in love with me. Right from day one. That’s why I’d got the job. That’s why I’d slipped so effortlessly into Doubleact. He’d noticed the photo, and he’d heard the voice behind my various submissions, and once I’d turned up in the flesh he was doomed.

  He looked up, seeing the expression on my face, sensing my anger at this self-confessional drivel. Hadn’t I won the job on merit? Because I was good? Because I deserved it? He stilled my protests, holding up both hands. That was exactly the problem, he said. I had been bloody good. I was bloody good. And the better I got, the more I got on top of the job, the worse it became.
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br />   ‘Worse?’

  ‘For me. Loving you. Being in love.’

  He went on and on, talking about the long nights he’d had, not sleeping, the days he’d had, laying little ambushes for me around the office, making sure he got his hourly fix of glimpses, chance meetings, corridors, stairwells, even the fucking kitchen, for Chrissakes. I nodded, afloat on this torrent of self-revelation, wiser now about his obsession with Doubleact’s jar of instant coffee. The stuff Sandra gave us was dreadful. Why would anyone want more than one cup a month? Why hadn’t I wised up?

  ‘Your desk’s outside the kitchen,’ he pointed out. I use the kitchen to see you, to watch you, to warm my hands at your fire. I know it’s adolescent but that’s just how fucking appalling it is.’

  The bit about warming his hands at my fire made me want to laugh.

  ‘Give it up then,’ I suggested. ‘Knock it on the head. Cold turkey. Jules Anonymous. I’ll give you a phone number.’ I was back in Doubleact mode. I couldn’t help it. Pure self-defence.

  With a little tight-lipped grimace, he mentioned Sandra. She’d noticed. He knew she’d noticed. Next thing, there’d be a confrontation, and that he very definitely couldn’t deal with.

  He looked up. I returned his gaze. I felt angry again. I didn’t want to laugh any more.

  ‘You want me to leave?’

  ‘Christ no, anything but that.’

  ‘What then? How can I help you? What can I suggest?’ He studied me for a long time.

  ‘We could fuck,’ he said uncertainly. ‘We could fuck and it might be a disaster and then it would be OK again.’

  ‘You’d like me to go to bed with you to have a bad time?’

  ‘Yes. Sort of.’

  ‘You’re crazy. What kind of offer is that?’

  ‘You’re interested?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you understand what I’m trying to say? How bad it is?’

  ‘No.’

  He stared at me, not quite knowing where to take the conversation next, and I stared back, equally frustrated. He was obsessed with me.

  ‘Maybe you really should try therapy,’ I said slowly. ‘People make jokes about it but it’s helped friends of mine.’