Chapter Seven
Now that he had his own writing space, Martin could let Alison go to bed and work. If she wanted to watch something on TV that he didn’t like, whereas before he would have stayed on the sofa with her telling her what a waste of time the programme was, now he could go up to his writing room and close the door.
In the six months that had passed since they moved in, Alison noticed that he was talking less. To her anyway. Sometimes she would come to his door before saying goodnight and hear him muttering. She would open the door a bit and he would jump up to kiss her goodnight.
“You not coming to bed then?” she would say.
“In a bit, babe,” was his usual reply. At the threshold they would hug and then he would close the door again and she would turn and go to the bedroom.
There on the bedside table were the magazines and catalogues of things to make their new home more comfortable, more beautiful, more individual. She would browse through them until she felt tired enough to turn the light off. In the hallway a thin strip of light escaped from beneath Martin’s door, and Alison could hear the tap-tapping on the keyboard.
This was how it went on, Martin in his room with the door closed and Alison on the outside hearing the tap-tap-tapping. Martin wrote and wrote until he had completed a first draft. He sent it through to Noire.
Alison stood in the doorway. “Does this mean I’ll get you back? You need a break anyway, it can’t be good for you to be locked away in that room all day and night. When will you know?”
“When they’ve had time to read it, I guess.”
“Well they can take their time, so I’ve got you all to myself.”
* * *
The first time Alison had ever heard Martin mention Lucy it was a Friday night and Alison had still not changed out of her suit. When she got through the door from work she was ready to just get changed and go out for some food and some drinks. She had texted Martin to tell him not to bother with dinner, that they would go out, so she was expecting him to be changed, for the place to be clean, for her evening to be ready to begin. Instead Martin was still in his slacks and his dressing gown. He was sitting at the kitchen table with the laptop open in front of him. She knew there was something wrong. He showed her the email from Noire.
Gregor Alskev is great, it said, but what has happened to the detective? Henry Bloomburg is the one we fell in love with through your stories in Noire. We were expecting a story about him.
“But that’s okay,” she said, “that’s positive. Look, they fell in love with the detective. In love. Sweetheart, that’s great.” She really wanted to get out of her shoes and her suit. “You just have to figure it out. Let’s go out and talk about it at Giorgio’s or the Mexican place. Come on, get your things on.”
“But it’s Lucy’s story,” he said. She stopped with her foot on the stairs.
“Who’s Lucy?”
He didn’t answer.
* * *
They went out to Giorgio’s. There was a wait for a table, so as they sat at the bar, Alison asked again.
“Who’s Lucy?”
Martin rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. “She’s involved with Gregor.”
“And it’s her story?”
“Yeah, it’s her story.”
“Well, everybody’s got different ideas about stories, don’t they? You can’t expect them to think exactly the same way as you. Do you have to do a new one? Can’t you just change it? Can you do it that way?”
A smiling barmaid slid a small plate of black olives in front of them, each one speared on a cocktail stick. Her hair was brown and tied back in a ponytail. Her complexion was tanned and her teeth seemed almost to glow white in the low light of the restaurant. Alison smiled back. Martin shifted on his bar stool.
“Your parents are still together,” he said.
Alison nodded. He knew they were. He had met them both at their house. Well, their house-boat. They had spent two days there, on the lake. Alison had felt so happy, finally bringing a man she could say she loved to meet her parents, and she knew Martin would love it. He did.
It was a two storey wooden house set on a floating platform. For the first twenty minutes or so, Martin just stood in front of the wall of glass that looked out on to the lake and the mountains beyond. The water came right up to the base of the wall and swans and ducks floated past, just a few feet away. The sunlight hitting the water bounced through the window and around the room, throwing intensities of light like a diamond turned in the hand of a jeweller.
Her mother said to her as they prepared dinner, “He’s very sensitive, isn’t he? Quiet. Just lovely.”
Martin and her father didn’t have much to say to each other at the start. By the end of the second day they were playing chess and drinking brandy while discussing the politics of the impending energy crisis.
“Your parents are still together because their story stayed the same. Mine broke up because I changed their stories. For my mother, after I was born, the story was now about me, do you see? Everything was now in relation to that. But for my dad the growth of a child was too slow, too predictable a plot.”
Martin had never gone into much detail about his family. Like Alison he was an only child, but his upbringing was very different. His father had left and come back several times, and each time his mother had accepted him back. Alison got the impression that he was a womaniser who probably had more than one family on the go, but Martin still held an obvious affection for him. His mother had several relationships with different men, and Alison knew that Martin resented that. But each relationship ended as soon as his father came back, and then within months he would be gone again.
In all the time Alison had known Martin he had never talked of contacting either of his parents. She thought it odd that he was talking about them now. She was chewing on the olives and placing the sticks neatly in a row at the side of the plate.
“Hmm, it seems like they changed their own stories. I mean, you didn’t consciously do anything to make them act the way they did.”
“No, but the very fact that I was there changed everything for them.”
“I don’t see what you’re driving at. What has this got to do with the story you are writing?”
“If Bloomburg comes into it, just the fact that he is there will change everything. Everyone’s story will change.” The smiling bar lady was back and asked them did they want to top up their glasses. They did, and while she poured the wine she apologised for the wait. She was pretty sure that a table was coming free any minute now. It is usually very busy on a Friday. She spoke with a thick Australian accent.
Alison said, “Thanks. We usually book, but tonight we just came out.”
“I know,” said the waitress, “it’s not like you can plan everything is it? I mean, look at me. I was only going to stay here two weeks. That was two years ago.” They laughed.
“Something must have caught your interest then,” Martin said.
“Well, something or someone,” she replied, raising her eyebrows and smiling her neon smile. “I will let you know soon as that table is free, guys,” and she walked away.
“But Martin, you are in control. It’s up to you what happens,” said Alison.
“Ah, that’s it, that’s not the point. The point is, the point is—” Martin ate another olive and placed his little stick down across the neat line Alison had created on the side of the plate, like a bar in a fence, “—the story is about Lucy. If Bloomburg comes along, everyone’s story will change.” He pushed the plate away and turned around in his bar stool, scanning the restaurant.
Couples and small clusters of people ate and talked and poured each other’s wine and water. How many stories were changing right now, in this room? How many people would rise after this meal, wipe their mouths with their napkin and pay the bill, with their lives altered? None, Martin thought. Because even when people made decisions it was not until the action was carried through that change actually occurred. And actions can be deferred. How many life-changing moments are there in a lifetime? He saw a waiter place a fresh tablecloth and wine glasses on a table for two near the door. He turned back to the bar.
Alison said, “You’re making this hard for yourself. Just give them another story then. Change it. Or start a new one. Give them what they want. They love the detective, they love him.” She chewed the last olive and put the little stick next to the others, and moved the one Martin had placed across so that it was standing in line.
The bar lady was back.
“Table six is ready now,” she said. “Sorry again about the wait.”
As Alison gathered her bag and her wine glass, Martin said, “And you, are you still with the person you stayed here for? I mean, did it work out?”
Alison looked up sharply, and said, “Martin, that’s none of your—” but the bar lady cut her off.
“Oh no, it’s okay,” she said. She was blushing, crimson showing on her tanned cheeks. “It didn’t work out with that guy. He turned out to be a total loser, but I’m with an amazing fella now that I would never have met if I hadn’t stayed in the first place. So it did work out. Not the way I thought it was going to. Not quite a fairy tale, but—”
Alison put her hand on the bar lady’s arm and said, “Really, I must apologise for him.”
The bar lady just smiled. The redness was fading from her cheeks now. “That’s okay, really. Number six is over there by the door. Enjoy your meal.”
As the evening turned, Martin couldn’t help but look around at the other diners. He watched them chew and mumble, saw heads tilt and eyebrows rise as they listened and were listened to. He saw one woman put down her fork, reach across and put her hand on the hand of the woman sitting opposite. The man at the next table was twisting and twisting his napkin in his hands just below the table edge. He and Alison talked about the present, guessed about the future, and laughed about the past. Maybe he was wrong about no-one in this room having life-changing moments.
A lifetime is long. He was thinking too quickly. He was thinking of change as being something instant, but change can happen at a creeping pace. It depends on the pressure. Change takes pressure and pressure needs to build. That build was one long moment, he just didn’t know when it would end.
Later, while Alison was looking at the dessert menu, she said, “If you do continue the Lucy story, don’t kill her off.”
Martin sat back in his chair, then forward. “What? Kill her off?”
“Well I’ve only read a few of your stories, but it seems like if there’s an attractive girl, she gets killed off.”
“Come on. How can I kill her off if it’s her story?”
Alison shrugged. She looked back at the menu. Martin leaned back again.
“I’ll just have a coffee, I’m full. You go ahead.”
“What age is Lucy?”
“Em, about your age actually, but I’ve been thinking of making her younger.”
“And what does she do? She doesn’t work in property, does she, Martin?”
“No, no, of course not. That would be far too … no, don’t worry, babe. I can be creative you know.”
“I know, I know.”
***