Killing Me Softly

student, I had a boyfriend who was a climber. So I climbed with him. People want a doctor along. So I go every so often. Sometimes I hang around at base camp. Sometimes I go up.’

‘With your boyfriend?’

‘He died.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘It was years ago.’

There was a silence. I tried to think of something to say. ‘You’re American.’

‘Canadian. I’m from Winnipeg. You know Winnipeg?’

‘Sorry.’

‘They dig the graves for the winter in the autumn.’ I must have looked puzzled. ‘The ground freezes. They guess how many people they think will die during the winter and they dig that many holes. There are disadvantages to growing up in Winnipeg but it teaches you respect for cold.’ She put her cigarette in her mouth and held up her hands. ‘Look. What do you see?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ten fingers. Complete and unmutilated.’

‘Adam has toes missing,’ I said. Deborah gave an accusing smile and I smiled ruefully back. ‘He might have just told me about them.’

‘Yeah, right. That’s different. That was a decision. I’ll tell you, Alice, those people were lucky to have him out there. Have you ever been on a mountain in a storm?’

‘I’ve never been on a mountain.’

‘You can’t see, you can’t hear, you don’t know which way is up. You need equipment and experience but it’s not enough. I don’t know what it is. Some people stay calm and think rationally. That’s Adam.’

‘Yes,’ I said, and then left a pause so that I wouldn’t appear too eager. ‘Do you know where I can reach him?’

She thought for a moment. ‘He’s an elusive man. He was going to meet someone in a cafe over in Notting Hill Gate, I think. What was it called? Wait.’ She walked across the room and returned with a telephone directory. ‘Here.’ She wrote a name and address on a used envelope.

‘When will he be there?’

She looked at her watch. ‘Now, I guess.’

‘I’d better go.’

She led me to the door. ‘If he’s not there, I’ve got some people you might try. Let me give you my number.’ Then she grinned. ‘But you’ve got it already, right?’

All the way along Bayswater Road in the taxi I wondered if he would be there. I constructed different scenarios in my head. He isn’t there and I spend the next few days living in hotels and wandering the streets. He is there, but with a girl and I have to spy on them from a distance to work out what’s going on then follow him until I can get him alone. I guided the taxi just past the cafe in All Saints Road and walked cautiously back. I saw him straight away,sitting in the window. And he wasn’t with a girl. He was with a black man who had long dreadlocked hair tied back in a pony-tail. In the taxi I had also been considering ways of approaching Adam that wouldn’t make me look like a stalker but nothing had occurred. Possible strategies were rendered irrelevant in any case because, at the moment I caught sight of Adam, Adam caught sight of me and did a double-take like in the movies. Standing there with all my current worldly possessions – old knickers, old shirt, bits of newly acquired makeup – in a Gap bag, I felt like some pathetic Victorian-style waif. I saw him say something to the man with him and then get up and walk out. There was a strange ten seconds or so in which the man turned and looked at me, obviously wondering, Who the fuck is she?

Then Adam was on me. I had been wondering what we were to say to each other, but he didn’t say a word. He held my face between his large hands and kissed me deeply. I let the bag fall and put my arms round him, as tightly as I could, feeling the old sweater he was wearing, and his strong body underneath it. Finally we moved apart and he looked at me with a speculative expression.

‘Deborah told me you’d be here.’ Then I started to cry. I let him go and took a tissue from my pocket and blew my nose. Adam didn’t hold me and say, ‘There, there.’ Instead he looked at me as if I were an exotic animal that fascinated him and he was curious to see what it would do next. I composed myself to say what I had to say. ‘I want to tell you something, Adam. I’m sorry I sent you that card. I wish I’d never sent it.’ Adam didn’t speak. ‘And,’ I paused before leaping, ‘I’ve left Jake. I spent last night in a hotel. I’m just telling you this. This is not to put pressure on you. Just tell me to and I’ll go away and you’ll never have to see me again.’

My heart was beating painfully fast. Adam’s face was close to mine, so close that I could feel his breath. ‘Do you want me to tell you to go away?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Then you’re all mine.’

I gulped. ‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ said Adam, not as if he were surprised, or joyous, but as if the obvious had been acknowledged. Perhaps it had been. He looked round at the window and then back at me. ‘That’s Stanley,’ he said. ‘Turn and give him a wave.’ I gave a nervous wave. Stanley gave me a thumbs-up back. ‘We’re going to be staying in a flat round the corner that belongs to a friend of his.’ We’re. I felt a wave of sexual pleasure inside me at that. Adam nodded at Stanley. ‘Stanley can see that we’re talking but he can’t lip-read. We’ll go back in for a few minutes and then I’ll take you to the flat and I’m going to fuck you. Painfully.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘You can do anything you want.’

He leaned down and kissed me again. He ran his hand round to my back and then beneath my shirt. I felt his fingers under my bra strap, a nail running down my spine. He took a fold of flesh and pinched it hard, agonizingly. I gave a sob. ‘That hurt,’ I said.

Adam brushed his lips against my ear. ‘You hurt me,’ he whispered.

Nine

I was woken by the phone. The light felt painful against my eyes. It was near the bed, wasn’t it? I found it by touch alone.

‘Hello?’

I could hear some noises, traffic maybe, but nobody spoke and the receiver was replaced. I put the phone down. A few seconds later it rang again. I answered. The same nobody. Was there a sound on the line? Some whispering, very quiet. I couldn’t tell. I heard the dialling tone once more.

I looked down at Adam’s sleepily opening eyes.

‘It’s the old story,’ I said. ‘If a woman answers, hang up.’ I tapped out four digits on the phone.

‘What are you doing?’ Adam asked, yawning.

‘Finding out who called.’ I waited.

‘So?’ he asked.

‘A call-box,’ I said finally.

‘Perhaps they couldn’t get the money in in time,’ he said.

‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘I’ve got nothing to wear.’

‘Why do you need anything to wear?’ Adam’s face was a few inches away from mine. He tucked some strands of hair behind my ear, then trailed his finger down my neck. ‘You look perfect like that. When I woke this morning, I thought it must be a dream. I lay here, just looking at you asleep.’ He pulled the sheet off my breasts and covered them with his hands instead. He kissed my forehead, my eyelids, then my lips, gently at first, and then