What Came Before He Shot Her

He lived in a flat above a pub called the Falcon, where Kilburn Lane became Carlton Vale. She made home visits, didn’t she, because that’s what he needed.

            He sounded polite. He was soft-spoken. The fact that he lived above a pub seemed to make it safe. Kendra logged an appointment for him and loaded her table into the Punto. She threw Cumberland pie into the oven for Joel and Toby and produced some Maltesers and fi g rolls for their pudding. She gave Joel an extra pound for having placed the advertisements so wisely, and she went on her way to find the Falcon, which turned out to be sitting on what was nearly a roundabout, with a modern church opposite and traffic shooting by from the three roads that met in front of it.

            It was no easy feat to find somewhere to park, and as a result Kendra had to lug the massage table some hundred yards from a lane that veered away from the main roads and provided space for two schools. She also had to cross over Kilburn Lane, so by the time she struggled inside the pub to enquire how to get to the flats above, she was out of breath and sweating.

            She ignored the stares of the regular patrons gathered at the bar and hoisting pints at the tables. She followed the directions, which had her return to the pavement, go around the building, and find a door with four buzzers lined up on one side. She rang, banged her way up the stairs, and paused at the top to regain her breath. One of the doors opened abruptly, silhouetting a well-built man in the light from within. He was obviously the one who’d phoned for the massage, for he hurried forward in the gloom of the corridor, saying,

            “Lemme help you wiv dat.” He took the massage table from her and carried it easily into the flat. This turned out to be little more than a large bedsit, possessing several beds, a basin, an electric fire, and a single ring for cooking whatever could be cooked on a single ring. Kendra was taking all this in as the man set up the table. For this reason, she didn’t take much note of him nor he of her until he had the table unfolded with its legs extended, and she had unpacked most of the accoutrements of massage.

            He set the table upright and turned to face her. She shook out the table’s cover and glanced his way. They both said, “Damn,” at the same moment. It was the man who, on Kendra’s disastrous girls’ night out, had brought Ness home drunk and eager to do whatever he wished her to do to him.

            Kendra was at a momentary loss. She was holding the table’s covering, her arms extended, and she dropped them at once. He said, “Well, dis  is a bloody awkward moment, innit.”

            Kendra reached a quick decision about the matter. Business was business, and this was business. She said formally, “You said a sports massage?”

            He said, “Yeah. Dat’s what I said. Dix.”

            “What?”

            “My name. It’s Dix.” He waited until Kendra had the table covered, the soft terry cushioning for his head in place. Then he said, “She ever tell you what really happened dat night? It was like I said, y’know.”

            Kendra smoothed her hand over the cover. She opened her bag and brought out her oils. She said, “We didn’t talk about it, Mr. Dix. Now what scent oil would you like? I recommend lavender. It’s most relaxing.”

            A smile played around his lips. “Not Mr. Dix,” he said. “Dix D’Court. You’re called Kendra what?”

            “Osborne,” she said. “Mrs.”

            His glance went from her face to her hands. “You got no ring, Mrs. Osborne. You divorced? Widowed?”

            She could have told him it was none of his business. Instead she said,

            “Yes,” and left it at that. “You said you wanted a sports massage?”

            “What I do first?” he asked.

            “Strip down.” She handed him a sheet and turned her back. “Keep your shorts on,” she told him. “This’s a real massage, by the way. I hope that’s what you wanted when you phoned me, Mr. D’Court. This is a legitimate business I’m running.”

            “Wha’ else would I want, Mrs. Osborne?” he asked, and she could hear the laughter in his voice. In a moment, he said, “I’m ready, den.”

            She turned to see him supine on the table, the sheet pulled up discreetly and tucked around his waist. She thought a single word: shit. He had an exquisite body. Weight lifting had defined his muscles. Over them stretched skin as smooth as a baby’s. He had no hair that Kendra could see, save for eyebrows and lashes. Not a mark was on him. The sight of him reminded her at the worst possible time of the ages it had been since she’d had a man. This, she told herself, was not what she was supposed to be feeling in her line of work. A body was a body. Her hands upon it were the tools of her trade.

            He was watching her. He repeated his question. “She tell you?”

            Kendra had forgotten the reference. She drew her eyebrows together, saying, What?”

            “Your daughter. She tell you wha’ happened b’tween us dat night?”

            “I don’t got . . . I don’t have a daughter.”

            “Den who . . . ?” For a moment it seemed he thought he was mistaken about who Kendra was. He said, “Over Edenham Estate.”

            “She’s my niece,” Kendra said. “She lives with me. You’ll need to turn over. I’ll begin with your back and shoulders.”

            He waited for a moment, watching her. He said, “You don’ look old ’nough to have a daughter or  a niece like dat.”

            “I’m old,” Kendra said, “just well preserved.”

            He chuckled and then cooperatively turned over. He did what most people do at first when being given a massage: He cradled his head with his arms. She changed his position, bringing his arms down to his sides and turning his head so he was lying facedown. She poured the oil into her palms and warmed it, realizing at that moment that she’d left her soothing music in the car. The result of this was that the massage would have to be given to the accompanying noise from the pub below, which came up through the floor steadily, impossible to ignore. She looked around for a radio, a stereo, a CD player, anything to make a difference to the ambience. There was virtually nothing in the bedsit, save for the beds, which were difficult to ignore. She wondered why the man had three of them.

            She began the massage. He had extraordinary skin: dark as black coffee, with the feel of a newborn infant’s palm, while just beneath it the muscles were perfectly defined. He had a body that indicated hard manual labour, but what encased it suggested he hadn’t held a tool in his life. She wanted to ask him what he did for a living, that he should be fashioned so magnificently. But this, she felt, would betray an interest that she wasn’t supposed to feel towards a client, so she said nothing.

She remembered her massage instructor explaining something that, at the time, had seemed rather mad. “You must get into the zen of the massage. The warmth of your intentions for the client’s comfort should transmit itself to your hands until the you of you disappears, so there is nothing left but tissue, muscles, pressure, and movement.”

            She’d thought, What bollocks, but now she attempted to go there. She closed her eyes and aimed herself towards the zen of it all. “Feels bloody good,” Dix D’Court murmured.

            In silence, she did his neck, his shoulders, his back, his arms, his hands, his thighs, his legs, his feet. She knew every inch of him, and not a centimetre of his body was different in condition from any other. Even his feet were smooth, not a callus anywhere. When she fi nished           this part of the massage, she concluded he’d spent his life floating in a vat of baby oil.

            She asked him to turn over. She made him more comfortable with a towel she rolled up and placed behind his neck. She picked up the bottle of oil to continue but he stopped her by reaching out and grasping her wrist, at the same time saying, “Where’d you learn dis, anyway?”

            She said automatically, “Go to school, mon. Wha’ else you t’ink?”

            And then, the correction because she’d spoken almost out of a dream state, matching his dialect simply because—she told herself—she’d achieved the zen that her instructor had spoken of, “I’ve taken a course at the college.”

            “Give you high marks.” He grinned, showing teeth that were straight and white and as perfect as the rest of him. He closed his eyes and settled in for the second half of the massage. Because she’d inadvertently slipped from Lady Muck, Kendra felt found out. Her discomfort propelled her through the rest of the massage. She wanted to finish and be gone from this place. When she’d completed her work on his body, she stepped away and