The Black Monastery Page 2

  They came out of a cab parked on the other side of the street. They were perfect. The denim jackets, slouched shoulders and messy hair. He watched them as they buckled against the wind and rain, unsheathed umbrellas and lit cigarettes. They were all smiles and chatter. Two or three drinks in, oblivious to all around them. He checked both sides of the road and made his move.

  They didn’t even notice as he crossed the street and fell in behind them. The wet pavement muffled his footsteps. The umbrella hid his face. He slowed when they slowed, then sped up as they climbed the marble stairs and approached the doorway. He could see the bright lights from inside and hear the spilled sound of laughter as it rushed out towards him.

  This was the crucial moment. Everything depended on the next two minutes. His body shook. His mouth was dry. He’d never done anything like this before.

  They stopped at the door. They fidgeted and searched pockets.

  They’re looking for their invites. They can’t get in without them. A chorus of despair rattled through his head, but the men were only taking off their coats, stubbing cigarettes, straightening their ties.

  He took a deep breath and closed the gap to only a few inches. He could hear them talking about football scores, smell the mix of aftershave and beer on their coats. He kept the phone to his ear and his eyes fixed straight ahead as he passed the sullen bouncer and gilded door frame, almost stumbling on the steps, nerves and panic fighting like two faded boxers inside him.

  The lobby was brightly lit and thronged with people. His heart pounded like a train piston. The hand holding the phone was slicked with sweat. But he was in. That was all that mattered. That and the backpack which rested heavily on his shoulder. A reminder of why he was here.

  He’d imagined this moment countless times since seeing the event advertised. But he’d imagined humiliation and shame. A hundred excuses for not having an invite. A room full of staring eyes. A quickly ushered exit. He’d never for one minute thought he’d be successful.

  The crowd flowed through the club’s lobby and into the main ballroom. He followed them, past portraits of greying lords on their last hunt, crumbling country houses and rows of dusty books with crimson covers. It was too hot in the room. His clothes stuck to his skin. The lights were too bright. His head was pounding. He could leave now. Save all the stress and hassle. The inevitable disappointment too.

  He could hear champagne bottles roaring, glasses crashing, folk music playing, people laughing and chatting, a white noise of repeated remarks and feigned surprises. He tuned it out. He wasn’t here for that. He’d come for only one reason.

  He scanned the room, looking for her.

  He wasn’t sure he’d even recognise her. He knew her only from photos.

  At first, there was nothing. A blur of people, suits and haircuts, greetings and kisses, noise and chatter. Then he saw her. A flash of black hair, the angle of a cheekbone but, when she turned, the girl was much younger and didn’t look like Kitty at all. His breathing returned to normal. His heartbeat began to slow. A voice in his head told him to leave before he made a fool of himself. But there were other voices too, saying the signs were right, that this was his best and only hope. He stood there and concentrated on his breathing. Slow and deep, like something you have to learn how to do. He was relieved he couldn’t see her. It delayed the moment of action. There was plenty of time, and there would be a more propitious moment. It was all in the choosing. A wrong choice could damn a life. He’d made one before, he wasn’t going to make another.

  He walked over to the publicity table, and there she was. Black and white and seven foot tall. A blow-up of the photo used for her last novel. He stood there and stared at it. He knew every inch of the photo by heart but the magnification had caused certain things, previously occluded, to emerge. He noticed the chipped nail on her left hand, the smudge of lipstick on her bottom lip, an expression in her eyes he hadn’t caught before. It was like looking at a totally different image. He wondered which of her three photos she would most resemble.

  He was breathing too fast. He fought back a flutter of nerves. Tonight he would finally see her. The real Kitty Carson. Not the photo reflected back from of a million paperbacks, their spines bent and broken on a beach in the midday heat. Not the face of a thousand Tube posters staring out into the sooty gloom. But Kitty as she was, stripped of flashlights, poses and Photoshopped edges.

  A thread of hope wound through his body, detonating in his head. His excitement surprised him – he’d never felt this way before nor done such a thing; there were no rock stars or actresses on his walls – but he didn’t think about it for long because there were things to do.

  He scanned the table. Press releases and mock covers for Holland Heart, Kitty’s new Lily Lombard novel. He took the press release and carefully folded it before putting it into his pocket. It would make a nice addition …

  ‘Hey … I know you, right?’

  Jason spun around, startled. A girl was staring at him. Her hair was like a flame about to go out, the last blaze of blood before it’s snuffed. Her eyes searched his face. He nodded, not recognising the girl, wondering if his cover was about to be blown. If she began asking who he worked for, why he was here …

  ‘That’s it!’ she smiled, all teeth and crinkled eyes, ‘The gallery on Marylebone High Street. Didn’t you used to run that? The one with the café?’

  His heart crashed against his ribs. He thought of long days and unslept nights. The fires and winter floods. He wanted to lie, tell her she was wrong, but she seemed so sure of herself and so happy to have remembered that he didn’t want to disappoint her.

  ‘A long time ago.’

  She laughed. He thought perhaps she was attracted to him. Or maybe he was wrong, maybe she was just being polite. He could never tell with these things.

  ‘What happened? I noticed it closed down a couple of years ago.’

  He shrugged. His mind flashed back through those last months. The constant letters and bills, demands and buzzing of the door. A year of being afraid of the morning post.

  ‘I’m doing other things now.’ He tried to keep his voice steady and his eyes locked on the girl’s. ‘For a long time I thought it was who I was and then one day I knew it wasn’t.’

  The girl nodded sympathetically, ‘I used to like going there. You never knew what would be on the walls.’

  ‘Thanks.’ It touched him that she would remember, that anyone would, something he’d tried so hard to forget.

  ‘Um … would you like to join us?’ She placed her hand on his arm. It felt warm and familiar. ‘It’s about to begin.’ She pointed across the room to a table with two other girls sitting around it. Jason started to say no, thanks but I’m waiting for someone, when he spotted Kitty. She was sitting at a table adjacent to the one the girl was pointing to. She was smiling and sipping white wine. She looked nothing at all like her photos.

  ‘You’re a fan, I assume?’

  Jason swivelled round. He’d been staring at Kitty. The redhead smiled. He realised she’d asked him a question.

  ‘Very much so.’

  ‘Who isn’t?’ The girl on her left said, and they all laughed.

  ‘We all work for her in one capacity or another. Ignore us.’ The third girl added.

  They introduced themselves, and the redhead, Marissa, shuffled closer to him. Her skin smelled sweet and flowery. If he hadn’t come here for a purpose, he would have enjoyed talking to her, maybe swapped numbers, and, if he was lucky, she would call him and they would see a film together.

  He angled his seat so he could see Kitty and Marissa at the same time. It seemed the best compromise. In the lulls of conversation he could hear the talk from Kitty’s table, her accent much more clipped than he’d imagined, her voice full and throaty like someone who smoked, though, of course, he knew she never smoked. The backpack was placed safely between his feet. The thing inside nestled against his left shin, a reassuring presence but also a reminder that he hadn’t a
chieved anything yet. Every minute it sat there felt like a tiny failure.

  He looked across at Kitty and imagined his opening line, the way she’d be stand-offish at first and then something would pass between them, some shared recognition that lies beyond language. Only then could he give her the manuscript of his novel and she would remember him and start it later that night, calling him after finishing the last page, her voice husky and sleep-deprived, saying how she couldn’t go to bed, how she … he crushed his hand into a fist. His eyes watered. He was back in the room. The girls were talking about some film he’d missed the name of. Kitty was sitting at her table, sipping wine, less than five feet away. He leaned towards her table, concentrating until he could make out the words she was saying.

  ‘I’m so sick of all this.’ Kitty sighed, and Jason wondered whether she meant the champagne glass she was holding, the launch, or something else. There was a tremor in her voice, a touch of sombre weight, the way some words slowed down almost as if hitting a wall. He hadn’t expected her voice to be like this at all.

  ‘It just feels so pointless these days. Most of the time, I don’t even want to turn on the computer. I’ve never felt like that before.’

  He noticed it again. A ghost flicker across Kitty’s face. Something which looked very much like boredom when she thought no one was watching.

  ‘This one’s going to take you all the way.’ The man on her left, her agent, replied.

  ‘To where?’ Kitty asked, and the other two laughed but Jason didn’t think she was making a joke.

  ‘You’ll feel different after your holiday.’

  ‘Will I? I’m stuck on this new book. I shouldn’t even be going away.’

  The agent turned towards her, and his eyes caught Jason’s. Jason quickly looked away. ‘That’s exactly why you need this. Unwind. Get out of the country for a few weeks. It was so daring of you to have just gone in there this morning and booked it.’

  Kitty shrugged. She downed her drink and was immediately poured another.

  ‘The Greek Islands.’ The agent continued, caressing the words as if they were a swallow of ancient, oak-casked Scotch. ‘Which one? Mykonos? Antiparos?’

  ‘Palassos,’ she replied, and something crept into her voice; something like hope, excitement? Jason took out his pen, unfolded the press release, kept listening.

  ‘The travel agent recommended it. It’s quiet, not too many nightclubs. Places for walking. I … I think it’s what I need. I feel so tangled these days.’

  ‘There’s always something magical about your first time in the Aegean.’

  Kitty laughed, but Jason could tell she didn’t mean it. ‘I went as a student with some friends. We were doing Classics. We thought we were the first ones to discover Greece.’ She took a sip of wine and stared at the wall, ‘God, that seems a lifetime ago.’

  ‘You told Don yet?’

  She shook her head, ‘I’m going to be missing his reunion gig.’

  There was a silence in which everyone set about refilling their glasses or playing with the silverware.

  ‘When are you leaving?’

  Kitty turned towards her agent, relieved at the change of topic. ‘Saturday. They booked me on an afternoon flight, can you believe it? By the time I arrive it’ll be the middle of the night and I’ll have to find the hotel in the dark. You’d think they’d plan these things a bit better.’

  ‘So, what do you think about the film?’

  It took Jason a few seconds to realise Marissa was talking to him. He didn’t know which film she meant. ‘It’s OK, nothing special.’

  ‘Nothing is these days.’

  But his mind wasn’t on the conversation, or on the girls sitting across from him, but on what he’d just heard. She was going away. If he didn’t do it now, he’d miss his chance. He stared up at the swirling ceiling and made his decision.

  But not yet. A few drinks first.

  He realised he wasn’t going to get her alone; she probably couldn’t remember the last time she was alone in a public place. He needed to bump into her in a corridor or lift. But there was no time for that now. He’d have to hand it to her in front of whoever was there, her agent, editor, the whole bunch of them.

  He looked back down at his watch, no time for fantasy scenarios now. He told himself, ten minutes, then no matter who she’s talking to he’ll get up, walk over and …

  ‘She’s halfway through the next one,’ the girl who worked with Kitty said in reply to a question he’d missed.

  ‘I heard there were problems,’ Marissa replied.

  ‘People love rumours, you know that.’ The girl tilted her head, ‘Believe me, this one’s going to be better than anything she’s done before.’

  ‘You know, I once sent her a draft of my novel.’ It was the girl who hadn’t said much up to now. Jason’s heart rammed his chest. His attention swooped back down to the table. ‘Before I realised I wasn’t a writer but an editor, that is. It was a pretty awful take-off of what Kitty was doing. I’m so embarrassed she’ll link me up with that one day.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ Kitty’s secretary replied.

  ‘Why’s that?’ It was the first unprompted thing he’d said all evening.

  ‘Oh,’ she smiled, ‘she gets so many manuscripts every week. If she even bothered to read them, God knows how she’d have time to do her own work.’

  ‘What does she do with them?’ He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, but he ended up sounding like someone with a speech impediment.

  ‘She uses them to line her rabbit cages.’ She looked at the girl who hadn’t said much, ‘Sorry, Danielle.’

  ‘That’s OK, that’s all it deserved anyway. I’m actually relieved she didn’t read it.’

  ‘Nothing personal. She doesn’t read any of them. Maybe the rabbits do, who knows?’

  The girls disappeared. The room fell away. He felt like people must feel in an earthquake; that first disorientating moment when the Earth shifts beneath your feet and you no longer know which way is up. He’d been so sure she would read it if he could only get it into her hands. He could still try and give it to her, but he couldn’t bear the thought of her smile, her thank you, and the idea of his novel sitting at the bottom of a rabbit cage, being shit on and torn by small, sharp paws.

  Fuck.

  He couldn’t understand what the girls were saying. He watched their lips move, their arms arc and circle, but he couldn’t hear anything. Only the blood pounding through his ears. The rat-a-tat rhythm of his heart. The clamour of everything promised and gone.

  He excused himself from the table, said he felt unwell and got up. The bag felt like a weight on his back. He took one last look at Kitty and left.

  He walked through Soho. The rain was gone, but the street shimmered with reflected neon and the strobing of traffic lights. He stared down at his feet as they splashed against the ground. People passed him, their arms heavy with shopping, their faces smiling and happy, a black mirror reflecting all he’d lost. He thought of all the days leading up to this one. His plans and hopes and dreams.

  When he’d seen the notice for the launch he’d known it was meant to be. That he’d been granted a last chance. Maybe if she read and liked the book, she’d pass it on to her agent. He’d spent three years trying to be a writer. He’d staked everything on it. He’d borrowed money, lost friends, mortgaged his flat. The money had allowed him to write the novel. The money was running out. Barely enough to see out the month.

  He hunched his shoulders against the wind. He walked for hours, crossing and recrossing familiar streets, one minute hoping he’d bump into her as she was about to get into a cab, the next kicking himself for such groundless hope. He knew where it would leave him. He’d blown his chance like so many times before. He’d waited for the perfect moment which never came, and he’d missed all the other possible moments.

  He lit another cigarette and turned down Piccadilly. At the corner of Haymarket he stopped for a traffic li
ght when something caught his eye. He crossed the street, drawn by the vista of blue and white, so clean and precise and different from everything around him in the London night.

  He stood in front of the shop window. He stared at the poster. At the sun-blasted beach and landscaped hills. The white monastery in the top left-hand corner. And if he looked really close, he could see two figures, their backs turned, hand in hand, walking along the beachfront under unfamiliar stars and, looking even closer, his face pressed up against the glass, he could make out the outline of Kitty’s hair, her hand in his, the silence of an island evening, the feeling that there’s no one else in the world but the two of you.

  TWO

  The cab dropped her off at the far end of the street, a winding foliated cul-de-sac hidden somewhere in Kew. As she got out she felt the pain in her chest. The telltale fist that closed around her heart. She took deep breaths. Palpitations rumbled, and she fought hard against the screaming voice inside her head. It was the panic and excitement, she knew. The strain of these past few hours. The dread at having to tell Don. The secret pleasure too.

  How he would react to this, she didn’t know. Well, maybe she did. She’d never done such a thing in six years of marriage, never been away without him, though he, of course, could be away for months at a time when his band sporadically reformed and toured.

  She walked slowly up the street, the quiet houses winking with switched lights and family warmth. She sometimes thought they were the only house in the road without kids and Christmas trees. Other times she knew it was so.

  She reached the gate and stood there for a moment staring at the thin yellow rivulet of light emanating from the living room.

  He would rage.

  She knew that. Expected it. Especially with the concert next week. The comeback he’d been waiting for. She’d promised she’d be there. Had she forgotten? No, the holiday just seemed more pressing. She would explain to him why she had to go, why when she saw the poster showing the mysterious hills, skull-like monastery and sun-blasted beach, it was like everything she ever wanted but never knew she did. He would get angry, storm out, not talk to her. The routine was familiar, she could go through it once more.