She walked past him, towards the betting shop door. Her waist was narrow, her hips thin; she had long legs, and the short skirt she was wearing showed them off. Simon followed her outside, and then along a narrow alley at the side of the betting shop. She stepped up onto a metal stairway, took a key out of her pocket, and opened the door there.
Simon waited to be invited up.
“Come on, then,” she said, shaking her head. “I haven’t got all day.”
He followed her inside.
They went up a stairwell, Melanie’s high heels echoing like gunshots in the enclosed concrete space. At the top of the stairs was another door, clearly the main door to a flat. She used another key and unlocked the door, and then pushed it open.
He climbed the last couple of concrete stairs and followed her into the flat, closing the door behind him. He was standing in a narrow hallway. There were two doors in the wall on each side. Up ahead, he could see Melanie moving around in a small living room, putting her coat down on the arm of a sofa, brushing something off the front of her skirt.
Simon walked along the hall. There were framed prints of Paris, Barcelona and New York on the walls. “You travel a lot?”
She turned as he entered the room. “No, but I wish I did. That’s what those pictures are — wishful thinking. One day, I might even get to see those places.” Her smile was small and sad. “Drink?”
“No thanks. I’m already full up with tea and if I have anything alcoholic I might collapse from exhaustion.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, sitting down heavily on the patterned sofa. She slid off her shoes and flexed her stockinged feet. “You now have ten minutes to explain yourself,” she said. “And if this isn’t as important as you claimed downstairs, I’ll fucking Mace you.” She smiled, but it was devoid of humour. She pointed at the small, cluttered coffee table under which she’d rested her feet. There was indeed a can of Mace on the tabletop.
“Really, I am a friend of Marty’s.” Simon kept his distance. “An old friend. We haven’t seen each other for a long time, but I need to see him, to speak to him about something important.”
“You aren’t impressing me yet,” said Melanie, curling up her legs on the sofa. “Sit down. I was joking about the Mace. It isn’t even real — it’s a novelty cigarette lighter.” This time the smile was mellower, tinged with humour. “If I thought you were a threat, do you think I’d have invited you up here?”
Again, Simon felt obscurely insulted. Did he present a threat to nobody around here? Was he really so harmless?
“I’ve seen your photo,” she said. “I saw it at Marty’s place.”
Simon shook his head. “When we were kids, you mean? A school photo?”
“Nope. In his wallet — a clipping from a London newspaper. He showed me, bragged about how one of his old mates was a millionaire.” Her legs squirmed on the sofa.
“He keeps a photo of me in his wallet?”
“Weird, eh? But Marty Rivers is one strange dude.” She stretched out those long, slender legs, making herself comfortable. Simon wasn’t sure if this was the preamble to some sort of seduction. She certainly looked as if she were limbering up for something.
“I don’t understand.” He sat down on the chair opposite, sinking into the soft cushion.
“That makes two of us. He seems really proud of the fact that you got away from here, though. I mean, he doesn’t talk much about you — but that one time, when he showed me the photo, he was, like, beaming with pride.” She blinked slowly.
Simon could barely believe what he was being told. All this time, he’d thought that his old friends had forgotten about him, perhaps even hated him for managing to get away while they’d stayed behind. The truth was, at least one of them had wished him well, silently supporting his escape. A welter of emotions surged though him — pity, regret, hatred, despair, and even what he thought might be affection.
“So what do you want to talk to me about? Surely you can just call Marty on the phone?” She feigned disinterest, examining her nails. They were long, and painted deep red.
“No, I can’t. I was telling the truth when I said that we hadn’t seen each other. I got out of the Grove not long after leaving school, and we haven’t even spoken since then.” He breathed heavily, feeling tired all of a sudden, as if by taking a breather here, in the small, cramped flat, he had allowed everything to catch up with him.
“Oh. I see. So now you want to know where he is? Maybe get an address?”
Simon nodded. “His grandmother told us that he doesn’t answer his phone unless he knows who’s calling, so we struck out there. I tried calling him earlier, on the way here, but only got his voicemail.”
Melanie laughed. “Marty is a paranoid man — the most paranoid man I’ve ever known, to be honest. He doesn’t trust anyone. The circles he moves in, the people he knows… well, let’s just say that it pays him to be suspicious of people’s motives.”
Simon sat up straight and rested his hands on his knees. He felt awkward, displaced, as if he had no business being here, with this woman. “Yes, I’ve heard that he’s into some dodgy stuff. Criminal stuff. How deep is he involved?”
Melanie bent her legs at the knee and sat up; it was a graceful movement, like something a dancer might do. “He doesn’t really talk to me that much. He doesn’t talk to anyone, really. All I know is that he’s always out at night, and he often comes home with bruised knuckles and blood on his shirt. He’s a violent man, but only if you cross him.” Her face changed again, then, becoming cold and hard and bitter. “I suppose that’s the attraction with a man like Marty Rivers — that sense of danger, and the fact that you know he’ll protect you. That counts for a lot in a place like this, doing a job like I do.” She tilted her head, indicating the betting shop downstairs, then shrugged, stood and walked across to the window. “He’s stopped calling me. I haven’t seen him for days. I guess he’s dumped me.” Her shoulders tensed as she looked out of the window, across the estate. “He doesn’t like to get too close to people.”
Sunlight flared, creating a soft halo around her head as she turned to face the room. Simon squinted against the glare, feeling as if, for a second, he had been transported elsewhere, to another place that existed alongside the reality he knew.
“I suppose I can give you his address,” she said, moving towards him, out of the light. “I don’t owe him anything, not now. He thinks he can pick people up, use them for a while, and then throw them away. What do I care if you know where he’s staying?” The light faded behind her. Simon felt the absurd urge to get up and run towards it, try to prevent it from going away.
“Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
Melanie picked up a pad and a pencil and started to write down the address. “It’s on the other side of the river — Gateshead. A penthouse flat on one of those nice new riverside developments that keep popping up along the quayside up these days.”
Simon smiled. “I remember when Gateshead was a shithole.”
Melanie looked up from the notebook. “It still is,” she said. “People just pretend that it’s changed. Isn’t that what we all do? We pretend that things aren’t what they really are?”
Simon wasn’t sure what she meant, but it sounded like her words had taken on a meaning that she had not intended, as if they were talking about something else.
She tore the page from the notebook and handed it to him. She looked pensive, as if this was the end of something that she was reluctant to finish. “Don’t tell him you saw me. I’ve had enough of his crap. He had his chance and now it’s gone. I want to get on with my life, and if that means leaving him behind, then I’m cool with that.”
Simon nodded. “I won’t mention you. And thanks again… this really does mean a lot. Could I ask you something else?”
Melanie returned to the sofa, where she sat and began putting on her shoes. “Time’s up, mister, so make it fast.”
Simon folded up the piece of paper and slipped it into the back pocket of his trousers. “Did Marty ever mention anything about what happened to us when we were kids?”
Melanie looked up as she struggled with the strap on her right shoe. “What do you mean? What happened when you were kids? Is that what this is all about? Some kind of closure for a falling-out you all had when you were younger? I thought it might be something more exciting than that.” Some of the hair had fallen out of her ponytail,
