Three Steps Behind You

Chapter 4

I always sleep with the door open, just because I can. Once you’ve slept with it closed, locked, against your own volition, I think you always will. I bet Adam does, too. Although I can imagine Nicole wanting to seal them in, into that prison of a bedroom, with her.

He always used to sleep with the door closed, before, when we were kids, when I was staying. He liked the dark, unlike some boys. His own space, cut off from other people. Adam must have been thrilled when he got the house in West Hampstead. Or rather, thrilled that he had found a wife who owned such a house. Comforted that he could still live there after her death.

My bedroom ceiling here has stars on it. Stars and little aeroplanes and space ships. Only partly because of the time when I couldn’t see them. Mostly because Adam had them, in his room. When Adam was pretending to sleep so that I wouldn’t exhaust myself from talking to him, his face turned to the wall in the bed on the opposite side of the room, I used to stare at those stars. Sometimes I’d wish on them. The main wish: that Adam and I would be together for always.

I don’t need to wish that now, though, here, tonight. You see, I know now that Adam and I will always be together. Sure, we sleep in separate beds, miles apart – 3.2 miles, to be precise. But even though I am tucked up here and he is there, doing unthinkable things with Nicole, we are together really. It was like that before, when we had separate rooms. I knew he was with me really.

Most people are not lucky enough to have a twenty-nine-year friendship like ours. I think I always knew it would be special, from the moment we started playing together, when we were eight. We had all the same interests. He joined chess club, I joined chess club. He went to the library, I went to the library. He played football, I played football. Like every good shadow, I was always there. We shared everything, then.

So I suppose I should be content. I suppose I should be happy, lying here, with my hands under my covers, preparing all of myself for sleep. But we’ve been so close, in the past. Even closer than now. True, he invites me round for dinner all the time. When Helen was there, I just had to take me chances, pop in when I could. Since she died, he’s more open to me being there. But I want to be closer. Again.

Oh! But of course! The method will give me that closeness! I sit up in the dark. Nicole is perfect for book four. I should have realised that is why I was led to her, as my woman to get close to, for Luke. It’s almost as pure and perfect as the epiphany that prompted book three. Her flesh will bring Adam and I as close as we were in that book, it will give me the closeness I’ve craved ever since.

For this is it: Adam has been there. In Nicole. If I, as Luke, have the most intimate closeness to, in, Nicole, I will be where Adam has been. And it will be like I am touching him. Our ultimate manhood brought together in Nicole.

Luke, then, will do it for me. Luke – my character, my invention – holds the key to unlocking those remaining layers that separate us. Yes, all the other goals remain the same. Through Nicole, through being with her, to understand what it is to be with a woman, I can method write that as well as the other parts of the book, and so I will get published. I’ll be able to afford a place on his street. I’ll get close to my main reader again, the one for whom I write all my work and live all my life: Adam. And when he sees the next book, and the fame that it brings me, he’ll appreciate my work. On page, and off. Yes, all that.

But now, I see, much more than this, I will achieve my prime goal: I will be as close to Adam again as I was in book three.

Chapter 5

Ignorant of my epiphany in last night’s darkness, the guys at the car rental are on true back-slapping form. Not my back – that never gets slapped. You’d think after ten years here I might be allowed into their fraternity. But then, they have not been here the full ten years. Just me. I wonder what they put in handover notes to their successors? Abuse Dan, he’s a weirdo. Mock Dan, it’ll kill some time. But don’t get changed in front of him.

This morning, it starts with my suit. That’s not my fault: Luke wears a suit to work in book four, so I need to see what that’s like, how restrictive it is, whether the tie stops me breathing. Luke’s suit would of course be grey silk, perfectly cut, like the suit Adam wore on his [first] wedding day. Unfortunately, my only suit – my funeral suit – is black and too small. Plus running in it probably hasn’t helped. It sticks to me in odd places.

Steve wolf-whistles when I walk into the reception area. He puts his head into the back room.

‘Guys,’ he shouts, ‘you gotta see this. Danny boy’s all dressed up!’

I ignore them and check the time. Good – 8.45. Another fifteen minutes until we open. I take my notebook and red pen from my rucksack. I sit on the high-stool beneath the counter, then stand up, wincing. My legs are covered in little scabs and bruises where the pin penetrated: a small round of blood encircled in a wider sphere of grey. Sitting down is to be avoided.

I start writing Luke’s working day in the City and then become conscious that I am being observed. I try to ignore the feeling but it is too intense, so I turn.

Steve, Chris and Prakesh are standing looking at me, grinning.

‘Oh, he’s writing in his diary now!’ says Chris.

‘It’s not a diary, it’s a novel,’ I say. They should know by now. I tell them often enough.

‘Are you writing down who you fancy, Danny boy?’ asks Steve. ‘In your diary?’

There’s enough of that in books two and three, I feel like telling them. But that would only lead to more questions.

‘Ooh, let it be me, let it be me,’ cries Prakesh, his hands clasped beneath his beard.

I continue writing.

Luke surveyed the other men on the trading floor, their sweaty ape-like faces. Their time had come – the trading bell tolled for all men. He rolled up the sleeves of his Thomas Pink shirt, cufflinks popping. Without warning, his fist connects with one of their jaws. The crack sounds like …

What does a crack sound like? I must find out. I take off my jacket and drape it over the counter.

‘Oh, a strip show! Excellent!’ says Steve.

I roll up the sleeves of my shirt, buttons popping.

‘Da, da, da-da-da,’ sings Steve. ‘You’ll have to be quick, mate, we open in five.’

I take one of my arms right back until my fist is level with my shoulder. I propel my fist forward and hit – nothing.

‘What, you practising your front crawl, mate? Need some armbands,’ laughs Steve, amused by his own wit.

A bell rings.

‘Customer!’ shouts Steve. ‘Right, Danny boy, sort yourself out, get into the back room, stick a polo shirt on and come back when you’re decent.’

I glance over my shoulder, hoping for Adam. No. He used to come here a lot more, before The Accident. Not so much, after that. Then, it was just the police.

So without Adam, I go into the back room and change.

Transformed, I return.

The crack sounds like …

I smile politely at the customer Steve is dealing with. Steve is doing the paperwork. Jimmy Price used to do it for us. He was the ace at paperwork. Always used to help Adam, too. But then he left, suddenly. Dropped in once, afterwards, driving a Maserati. Said he’d won the lottery, told us a whole long story about when he’d won, how much, and what the numbers were. Like we needed to know all the details.

The crack sounds like …

I practise squeezing my fist under the counter. Steve escorts the customer out into the car park and shows him the car. Steve has handed over the keys and is coming back.

The crack sounds like …

I advance towards him. He looks up briefly and stares at me blankly, the look of a co-worker who doesn’t care.

Ready, this time, I take my clenched fist and I swing.

Oh, I see.

The crack sounds like the breaking of a lobster’s claws.

Chapter 6

Apparently it is unacceptable workplace conduct to give your co-worker a bloody nose, so on suspension I run over to Adam’s. I know he will be in. It is his first wedding anniversary – or rather the anniversary of his first wedding – and he always takes the day off work. He knows I generally find myself coming over there to keep him company. He never objects.

I find him sitting in the dark drinking Veuve Clicquot, the same champagne they had at their reception. He is watching the wedding video, smiling softly to himself. Adam is a real romantic, although you wouldn’t know it unless you are close to him.

‘Dan! What are you doing here? How did you …?’

I remind him about the spare key, for use in emergencies.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Right. I thought I’d changed the locks after, you know?’

I shrug and sit down next to him, wincing as the scars of last night’s research make themselves felt. After that initial first shock, though, the pain can be endured.

He sips some champagne and presses pause on the video. The best man is in the act of handing over the rings. I understood when Adam didn’t ask me to be best man. After all, if I’d been there at the altar with him and Helen, his loyalties would have been divided.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there to comfort you, that night,’ I say.

‘It’s okay, mate,’ he says, punching me lightly on the arm. ‘Your aunt was sick.’ He presses play again on the television.

We sit there, listening to each other’s breathing. Or at least, I listen to his. It is regular but deep, and every so often, he sighs. The grief is still there, it seems. It reminds me of old times, when I was fourteen and the grief was mine, and he sat next to me in church. I held hands with his mother, on the other side of me. She squeezed my hand. I took Adam’s hand and squeezed it. He didn’t squeeze back. At first. I wonder now whether I should take his hand and squeeze it? But no. He understands without that, now, having read my earlier work.

On screen, with the best man out of the way, the bridal couple are revealed again. Helen has mistakenly worn a strapless dress. It is either to show off her cleavage or the family wedding jewellery. Both are too showy.

‘She looked beautiful,’ comes a voice from behind us.

I jump and turn. Nicole is here! She is wrapped in a silk dressing gown – at 11a.m. The luxury of not having to earn your keep. It doesn’t look like there’s much on under her dressing gown. That doesn’t interest me. But it would interest Luke. It interests Adam, too, unfortunately, despite this being his and Helen’s day – he strokes her silken arm.

Nicole is not in the market for his seduction, though.

‘I just wish Helen had been more careful,’ says Nicole, ‘on her ride.’

‘But then you couldn’t have married Adam,’ I say, which is true.

Nicole stares at me as though I have missed the point. Apparently it is rude to state the obvious.

‘Dan just means we have to be thankful, Nic. That’s all,’ says Adam, playing peace-maker.

‘Yes, that’s all,’ I say. ‘Don’t misunderstand me.’

‘Helen would be happy for us,’ says Adam. ‘Believe me. She was a very generous person.’

I’m sure Nicole has heard it all before, had her second-wife guilt assuaged while she delights in her inherited husband. But still, there’s no harm in comforting her. If it will bring her close to Luke.

‘Come and join us, Nicole. Plenty of room.’ I pat the sofa next to me.

‘No, I’m fine. I’d be intruding. I’ll go and take a shower or something.’

‘I insist,’ I say.

‘Yes, come on, Nic,’ says Adam, looking at her. ‘I want to mark the past, but I can still celebrate our future, hey?’

You can see why Nicole thinks Adam loves her. When the sapphire of his eyes is directed on you, the world sparkles. Plus, Nicole apparently enjoys the idea of being celebrated. She moves to join us on the sofa, and stands between me and Adam, waiting, apparently expecting me to shift over so that she can sit next to Adam. I do shift, but closer to Adam, leaving her with the bit of sofa on my other side. Rolling her eyes, she sits down next to me. Even a banker’s sofa is not big enough for three adults to sit next to each other without touching. On the one side, is Nicole’s leg, pressing into mine. On the other, is Adam’s, resting comfortably against me. I know which one I would like to touch. But that is forbidden to me. Adam made that clear, after book two, by not responding, when he’d read it.

Nicole’s dressing gown has come slightly loose, revealing pale inner thigh on both her legs. I lean over her, and gently pull the dressing gown over thighs, tightening the sash. She gasps and pushes me away, standing up.

‘Don’t!’ she says.

Even Adam has to look up at this.

‘What?’ he asks.

‘Dan touched me!’ Nicole exclaims.

‘I was trying to protect her modesty,’ I say. ‘The belt had come undone.’

‘He touched me!’ Nicole says again.

Adam leans over me to pat Nicole’s leg.

‘I don’t think Dan’s interested in that kind of thing, honey,’ he says, reassuring her. Then he takes a sip of champagne and turns back to the screen.

He knows, you see, that I only love him. He will have read that, when he read book two. We’ve never discussed it, but he must have read it. By now. What he doesn’t know is the full extent of how the method will manifest itself, with Nicole.

Nicole shoots a glance at me, pulling the dressing gown tight around herself. This will make things a bit more difficult for Luke. But there are ways round resistance.

Nicole stands abruptly. ‘I’m going to have that shower.’ and she leaves us to it.

Once she’s gone, Adam turns to me. ‘Is this going to be an issue?’ he asks. ‘Because I need you to get on with Nic. Like you got on with Helen.’

I resist the urge to snort. Helen hated me. Plus, I never got invited over as much when she was alive. Even when I dropped by, they wouldn’t open up. Adam’s got better about that, since she died.

‘I never said how grateful I was for your support,’ Adam says earnestly, ‘after the accident, and the, you know …’

‘The break-in.’

‘Right. The “break-in”.’

We stare at the wedding video. ‘I do,’ says screen Adam. I remember sitting in the congregation, wishing I’d given him book two sooner. I gave it to him after the rehearsal, the night before, asking him to read it before the big day. He laughed and said he needed to sleep, to keep his stamina for the big day. I suggested he read it on honeymoon. He laughed again, clapped me on the arm. ‘Mate, you crack me up!’ he’d said.

‘She died doing what she loved, you know,’ I say, in case it will make him happy. I don’t think the idea of Adam dying doing what he loved would make me happy. Particularly if it was Nicole.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘She just loved cycling along cold dark lanes.’

‘While you were out partying,’ I half-joke. She just loved that, too – nagged him about it. If she’d lived, she would have guilt-tripped him for not collecting her.

‘It was a work thing. You saw that, on Facebook – I had to go out with the guys. But listen, Dan mate, it’s so important we all get on: you, me and Nic.’ He looks at me, his cheeks flushed. I know it’s the champagne, but I wish it wasn’t.

‘I know what,’ he says, reaching into his pocket. He pulls out a wad of cash. ‘Here. Take her out.’

‘What?’

‘Take Nic out for the day. The park or the zoo and lunch, or something. I need to be alone, with the video, today, do my grieving – you know that.’

I nod, and accept the money. I will take Nicole out.

But first, that shower.

Chapter 7

Luke stands at the door of the wet-room, watching his lover wash herself clean of him. She is oblivious to him. She is washing all the most intimate parts of herself, her back to him, her wet hair slicked down her back. The shower must be hot, he thinks – her usually pale skin is turning red. He moves closer towards the crack in the door. He can almost see the beads of moisture on her glistening back. She starts to turn to face him. If he stepped forward one more step, pushed the door open further, stepped through, he could—

Nicole screams, backing away from me in the shower area. I back away too, back across the threshold, but that doesn’t stop her screaming, so I move forwards, into the wet-room, holding up my hands flat, showing I mean no harm. She continues to scream.

‘Shh!’ I say, my finger to my lips.

‘Adam!’ she yells. ‘ADAM!’

She is covering herself for modesty. I don’t care about that. I’d hand her a towel, but I see her neck is still soapy. She could do with a hand wiping it off. I advance forward to help. Nicole backs into the corner of the shower area, pressing herself against the terracotta tiles.

‘Adam!’ she shouts again.

‘I’m sorry, I was just waiting for my turn. I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ I say.

‘What’s going on?’

I hear Adam’s voice over the water.

‘Adam!’ Nicole runs to him. Seeing as she doesn’t seem to mind about the soap, I turn off the shower and try to pass her a towel. Adam takes it, and wraps it round her.

‘What the hell are you doing, Dan?’ he demands. The usual jocular tone is gone. This is fierce Adam. I can see his point. I am in a shower room with his naked wife. At least I have my clothes on. I would like to tell him it is for the sake of art, but he might not believe me. Some things even book two doesn’t excuse.

‘He was watching me! He was standing there, watching me!’ shouts Nicole.

‘I wasn’t watching, Adam. The door was open, I was waiting for my turn. The hot water’s broken at mine.’

‘He came in!’

‘Because you started screaming. I wanted to calm you down. I’m sorry. I see now I ought to have shut the door.’

Adam sighs deeply. When he speaks again, his voice has less edge. ‘Nicole, go into the bedroom. I’ll come through in a minute.’

She disappears, leaving me with Adam.

‘I’m sorry, Adam,’ I say. ‘It was a misunderstanding.’

‘A misunderstanding?’ Adam looks me in the eyes, questioning me. I stare back into them. Surely I don’t need to speak to answer? Surely we can communicate without words, by now?

But he seems to be waiting for me to verbalise.

‘A misunderstanding,’ I say.

He looks at me for a moment longer, then takes a deep breath. His shoulders rise and fall.

‘Ok, I trust you, mate. I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.’

I nod back. I would never hurt him, intentionally.

‘And you were willing to take the rap for me, I’ll always remember that,’ he says. I nod. We both know the reference. ‘But Nic doesn’t know that. She gets anxious. Just … I’ll smooth it over, but try not to freak her out, okay?’

‘Okay.’ I nod. I will try. I suspect she may find Luke a bit intimidating, but I have to persevere. For Adam. For art. For publication and his adulation.

Adam walks through to the bedroom that adjoins the wet-room. He kisses her on the lips and I turn away, but I can still see them in the mirror. Adam opens his eyes during the kiss and makes eye contact with me in the reflection. He holds my stare as he moves with Nicole into the depths of the bedroom.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was revenge.

But it can’t be, because he doesn’t know. So I close the door between the two rooms and listen to him converse with Nicole while I take off my clothes.

‘It was just a misunderstanding, Nic,’ I hear Adam say.

‘he was standing there!’ she protests, loudly.

‘Keep your voice down!’ Adam hisses.

‘Why do you let him come round here?’ Nicole asks. ‘You don’t even like him. Just tell him to get lost.’

‘Look, sweetie, I know he’s a bit odd, but he’s always been there when I need him. Give him another chance, okay? For me?’

Silence. I sidle closer to the shower-room door, pressing my naked body close to it so that I can hear the conversation in the other room.

‘I’ll make it up to you,’ says Adam, so softly I can barely hear him.

I hear Nicole giggle. I doubt she is still wearing the towel.

‘But I thought this was Helen’s day!’ says Nicole, cheekily.

‘Well, I can’t do this’ – there is a pause, while presumably Adam does something – ‘to Helen, can I, hmm?’

Then there is no more talking. I move away from the door and turn on the shower. I don’t want to hear the intimacy of their silence. I must focus on Luke, focus on the task in hand.

Luke closes his eyes, and lets the water course over his body. He can still feel that final touch of his lover, can still see her fine neck, smell her jasmine shower wash. Opening his eyes, he turns to face the room, he finds it empty of life. He’d half expected to see her looking at him. But of course, she wouldn’t be, not any more.’

Yes, that would work well, towards the end of the book. When Luke has finished with Nicole. But for now, he has barely started.

Chapter 8

Adam was not overestimating his power of smoothing things over. By the time I am out of the shower, Nicole is dressed and ready to accompany me to the fair. We leave Adam at the front door. He kisses Nicole goodbye and waves to me. It should be the other way round, me being kissed, her being waved away, but that is how it must be, for now.

All is not quite forgiven, though. Nicole makes a gulf between us as we walk up Narcissus Road to the bus stop. All wrapped up in her usual red beret, scarf and gloves, she keeps close to the holly bushes that line the inside edge of the pavement, as if she is trying to blend in with the berries.

I guess I will need small talk if I’m going to use Nicole for book four. I am struggling for conversation starters when a cyclist zooms past to the outside of me, helmetless.

‘I think all cyclists should wear helmets, don’t you?’ I ask. I don’t care, but it is something to say.

‘It didn’t help Helen,’ is Nicole’s immediate response.

‘Was she wearing a helmet?’ I ask.

Nicole nods. ‘I’ve been over it a thousand times with Adam. She always had bike lights, reflective clothing, all that stuff.’

Yes, of course. The reflective clothing. I went through all this at the time. With a distraught Adam, and with the police, too, before they decided it was an accident.

‘Seeing that wedding video today just reminded me, you know,’ she continues, ‘how much Adam loved her.’

This is not a useful conversation. I have no wish to be reminded of Adam’s love for another, from the one he currently says he loves.

‘You should come round for dinner some time,’ I say.

‘I wish I could find out who was driving, put his mind at rest. Give him closure,’ Nicole says. Then she stops talking, registering what I’ve just said. ‘I’ll ask Adam, we’ll fix up a date.’ Back on with the Helen routine. ‘Whoever it was, the police will find him. I’m sure. They just need a little help.’

‘No, not Adam. Just you, and me. Dinner,’ I say.

The bus appears, and any reply Nicole gives is lost.

We tap our Oyster cards dutifully and take our seats.

I keep on with my efforts for a conversation change.

‘I’m sorry about the shower,’ I say.

I touch her thigh, lightly.

She removes my hand, firmly.

‘Adam and I love each other,’ she says.

I’m not sure how that is relevant. I love Adam, after all, but the need here is different. Luke must have his material.

So I just shrug and say sorry again. She shrugs back. She seems to have calmed down. Maybe Adam explained why I could not have a real interest in her. Maybe, in that darkened room, before we came out, Adam was telling Nicole about book two. Maybe it was words, not just actions, that flushed her cheeks.