The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

feel.

‘He says he did.’ Aidan paces the room, back and forth. ‘Whoever he saw claimed she didn’t know me. She’d never heard of me.’

‘What do you mean, “whoever he saw”?’ A cold ripple of panic passes through me. ‘Didn’t he check…?’

‘She showed him her passport and driving licence. The woman he spoke to was Mary Trelease. His description of her fitted the one I’d given him, detail for detail.’

‘Aidan, I…’

‘So, that’s it.’ His voice is loud and forced. ‘They don’t believe me. It’s over as far as they’re concerned.’ He lets out a humourless laugh, jeering at himself. ‘No one’s going to come and arrest me in the middle of the night, no one’s going to cart me off to jail. We should celebrate.’

‘Aidan…’

‘Three cheers for me.’ He looms over me, a droplet of his saliva landing on my face. ‘Why don’t you crack open a bottle of champagne? It’s not every day your boyfriend gets away with murder.’

I didn’t meet Aidan by chance. I planned it, though it took all the self-discipline I could muster to put the plan into action. On the twenty-second of August last year, I got up, threw on the T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops I’d worn every day for the past two months, and got into my car without giving myself time to think or change my mind.

I had Aidan’s details written on the back of a receipt in my jeans pocket. I knew where Seed Art Services was, didn’t need reminding, but having the address with me, written in black and white on a piece of paper, made it harder for me to avoid what I knew I had to do. A positive prescription, my books call it. I’d tried the technique a few times and it seemed to work.

I parked at the bottom of Demesne Avenue, where it gives way to the unmade road that runs alongside the river, and walked under the overhanging trees, counting my footsteps to take my mind off the task ahead. I’d got as far as forty when I reached the small, flat-roofed grey-brick building, with a wide wooden door that had buckled at the bottom where the wood was cracked and blistered, flaring out like a skirt. The door stood slightly ajar. On its inside were two large iron hinges and two even bigger bolts. Rust clung to them, looking like an exotic species of chestnut-coloured moss. Had the door been closed, I’m not sure I’d have been brave enough to knock.

Saul Hansard, my boss at the Spilling Gallery until two months earlier, had promised me Aidan would be pleased to see me. He could have told me thousands of times and I wouldn’t have believed him. Wherever I went, I felt unwelcome. I stared at Aidan’s open door and listened to the music that was coming from inside the workshop: ‘Madame George’ by Van Morrison. I knocked and waited, feeling my heartbeat in my throat, staring in through the long rectangular pane of PVC-framed glass on my right-the only window, as far as I could make out. It ran the length of one side of the building. Through it I saw neon strip lights, a concrete floor, dozens of planks of wood, some plain and some painted, leaning against a wall; two large tables, one covered with what looked like velvet cloths in different colours, a small radio with a paint-spattered aerial. On the other table there was an enormous roll of brown paper, scissors, a pair of pliers, a Stanley knife, lots of what looked like catalogues in a pile, a few bottles of glue and tins of paint.

No Aidan Seed.

I shivered in spite of the heat, jumpy and nauseous, every nerve in my body on alert. Why was nothing happening? Where was he? Aching to run away, I told myself I had the perfect excuse. If I knocked and no one came, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t walk in uninvited. My fingers closed around my car keys, tightening their grip. I flexed my toes, ready to move at speed once I gave myself permission. Go, then. I never wanted to set foot in another picture framer’s studio as long as I lived. I could leave and no one would know; Aidan Seed, whoever and wherever he was, wouldn’t know I’d been here.

Saul Hansard would know.

I stayed where I was and knocked again, louder and more insistently. Saul would never let it lie. I didn’t want any more messages from him, any more fatherly concern. Even thinking about him made me feel ashamed. I had to convince him I was all right, and there was only one way to do that.

That’s a negative reason. Think of a more positive one.

If I go through with this, I told myself, if I’m brave and ask Aidan Seed for a job, I’ll start to earn money again. I’ll be able to afford to stay in Blantyre Lodge, to buy more paintings to put on the walls. I needed to be able to do that. The book on my bedside table at the time was called What if Everything Goes Right? Its blurb promised to train me to make decisions based on hope, not fear.

I knocked again, and this time an impatient voice, deep and male, shouted, ‘Coming,’ as if I’d already been told several times and was being unreasonable. Aidan appeared in the doorway, holding a threadbare blue towel. His rough hands looked red and damp; he’d been scrubbing at them. ‘Yeah?’ he said, looking me up and down.

More vividly than anything else about that day, I remember my utter surprise at the sight of him. It had nothing to do with attractiveness, though I registered that he was unusually attractive. This is the man, I thought. I’d never seen him before, but I recognised him as being the right person. Right for what, exactly, I couldn’t have said. All I knew was that I wanted to keep him there, keep myself there with him for as long as possible.

‘I’m busy,’ Aidan said. ‘Do you want something?’

I’d almost forgotten, in the shock of seeing him, why I’d come. ‘Um… Saul Hansard from the Spilling Gallery told me you’re looking for someone to work for you,’ I mumbled, taking in the shiny shoulder patches on his black jacket, the dark stubble on his chin and above his mouth. His hair was so dark it was almost black. It hadn’t been combed recently, if ever. A scar formed a lopsided cross with the line of his upper lip, cutting his stubble diagonally in half. When he moved nearer, I noticed his eyes were dark blue with flecks of grey around the pupils. I guessed that he was in his early forties.

He was inspecting me closely too. ‘I’m not looking for anyone, ’ he said.

My spirit withered. ‘Oh,’ I said faintly.

‘Doesn’t mean I don’t need someone. Just haven’t got round to looking yet. Been too busy.’

‘So… does that mean you’d be interested in…’

He gestured towards the workshop. ‘I can’t do it all myself,’ he said, as if I’d told him he must. ‘Why, are you looking for a job?’

‘Yes. I can start straight away.’

‘You’re a framer?’

‘I…’ The question had floored me, but I did my best not to show it. I wasn’t a framer-in all my time working for Saul I hadn’t framed a single picture-but I sensed that ‘no’ would be the wrong answer. I was as eager to prolong my conversation with Aidan as I had been to leave a few moments earlier. I couldn’t let him dismiss me. It scared me to feel such a strong, irrational need for a stranger who owed me nothing. ‘At the moment I haven’t got a job,’ I said. ‘I used to work for Saul at the Spilling Gallery, but I didn’t…’

‘How long were you there?’

‘Nearly two years.’

‘Right,’ he said. Was he grinning at me or sneering? ‘What did you think of Hansard’s framing skills?’

‘I… I don’t know. I…’ Surely one picture-framer’s methods would be much like another’s, I thought. Again, I sensed this would be the wrong thing to say, so I kept quiet.

‘Did he train you?’ Aidan asked.

‘No. I never actually did any framing.’ Better to admit it straight away than be caught out trying to wing it, I decided. ‘Saul took care of that side of things. I did some admin for him, answered the phone, took care of sales…’

‘In two years, you never framed a picture?’

I shook my head.

Aidan jerked his in the direction of his workshop. ‘If I put you in there and told you to get started, would you know what to do?’

‘No.’

He pushed his fringe out of his eyes with his paint-spotted right arm. ‘In that case, you’re no use to me. I’m a picture-framer. I need a picture-framer to help me. Frame more pictures, ’ he said slowly, as if I was stupid.

‘I can learn,’ I told him. ‘I’m a quick learner.’

‘You’re a receptionist. I don’t want a receptionist. Hansard doesn’t listen. No surprise there-his head’s all over the place. You must know that if you’ve worked for him.’