The Light of Day: A Novel

1

Something’s come over you. That’s what Rita said, over two years ago now, and now she knows it wasn’t just a thing of the moment.

Something happens. We cross a line, we open a door we never knew was there. It might never have happened, we might never have known. Most of life, maybe, is only time served.

Morning traffic in Wimbledon Broadway. Exhausts steaming. I turn the key in the street door, my own breath coming in clouds.

Something’s come over you, George.

But she knew even before I did. She’s not in this job for nothing, she can pick up a scent. And soon she’s going to leave me, any day now, I can tell. I can pick up a scent as well.

She’s here before me of course. When isn’t she? She doesn’t sleep these days, she says. These days have lasted years. Always awake with the dawn, so why not? Always something to be done. And I pitch up after her. Boss’s privilege. Though it’s not yet half-past eight, and last night I was out on a job till gone two. And today’s a special day.

As I reach the top of the stairs I hear the click and hiss of an already warm kettle being switched on. The computer in her little compartment (we call it the reception area but area’s a generous word) is already up and running. It feels like she might have been here all night.

Cold, she says, with a shiver at the air I’ve brought in and a little nod to the outside world.

But beautiful, I say.

She’ll have been here before the sun hit the streets.

Coffee or tea? she says, ignoring my smile—and that word—as if insisting I’ll have had a rough start.

But I don’t have a sleep problem, not now. Though maybe I should. I can grab it when I can, cat-nap, get by on little. An old trick of the trade. And Rita’s sleep problem, if she’s honest about it (and sometimes she is) isn’t really a sleep problem either.

An empty bed, George, that’s all it is. If there was someone there . . .

Tea, I think, Reet. Nice and strong.

She’s wearing the pale pink top, soft wool, above a charcoal skirt. Round her neck a simple silver chain. The small twinkly stud earrings, a waft of scent. She always gets herself up well, Rita. We have to meet the public, after all.

But the pale pink is like a flag, her favourite colour. A very pale pink—more like white with a blush. I’ve seen her wearing it many times. I’ve seen her wearing a fluffy bath-robe of the same soft pink colour, loosely tied, tits nuzzling inside. Bringing in morning tea.

I go into my office, leaving the door open. The sun is streaming through my first-floor window, the low, blinding sun of a cold November morning, the sun Rita never gets in her compartment, except through the frosted glass of my door.

She follows me in with the tea, and a mug for herself, a bundle under her arm. There’s always this morning conference—my office door open—even as I settle myself in, take off my coat, switch on my own computer, sit down. The sun’s warm through the glass, even if outside the air’s icy.

She puts down my tea, already sipping her own, eyeing me over the rim. She slips the bundle onto my desk, pulls round the other chair—the client’s chair. She steps through bars of bright light.

It’s like a marriage really. We’ve both thought it. It’s better than a lot of marriages (we know this). Rita—my assistant, my associate, my partner, or not-quite partner. Her job description has never exactly been set in stone. But I wouldn’t dream of calling her my receptionist (though she is that too) or even my secretary.

Be an angel, Reet.

I am an angel, George.

Where would I be without her?

But she’s going to leave me, I can tell. One morning like this one: she won’t bring in a mug of her own and she won’t put down the bundle of files, she’ll keep it hugged tight to her, a shield, and she won’t sit down. She’ll say George in a way that will make me have to look up, and after a bit I’ll have to say, Sit down, Rita, for God’s sake, and she’ll sit facing me like a client.

It’s been good knowing you, George. It’s been good working with you, but . . .

She knows what day it is. A Thursday, and Thursdays are special, but she knows the date, the day of the year. November 20th. Two years—if you count it from that day. Two years and it hasn’t stopped. And if it hasn’t stopped, it will go on for the years to come, however many they’ll be. The time’s gone when she could say (as she did once), How can you, George—with her? Or when she could say, to herself: He must be mad, he must be off his head, but he’ll come round, it’ll stop, give it time. He’ll come slinking back. And meanwhile what better guarantee, what better safeguard, really—that woman being where she is?

I think she’s come to accept it—even to respect it. A fact, a feature. Mr. Webb is always on an assignment every alternate Thursday afternoon. I’ve even seen this look of sweet sad understanding in her eyes. That’s why I think she’s going to quit.

Those are for Mrs. Lucas—this afternoon. Five fortyfive. Earliest she can do. A quick glance. You’ll be back?

We both know what’s in the envelope. Photographs. Photographs of a man and a woman in a hotel room. A little blurred but clear enough for recognition, at six-by-nine enlargement. Surveillance equipment is reliable these days. We have to get the film processed specially—a private contract—and Rita collects. A man and a woman doing things with each other. But this sort of stuff hardly raises an eyebrow or even gets that much of a look from Rita and me. It sits there, like the morning mail, between us.

Our stock-in-trade. Can you see who’s who? That’s the vital thing.

Yes, I’ll be back by five-thirty.

And I’ll just say—she doesn’t push the point too much—you’ll be out of the office till then?

But I won’t leave before ten. I can take calls till then.

Okay.

It’s a beautiful day out there, I say again. Cold, but beautiful.

Another sideways look, more lingering this time. She might be saying, You poor bloody idiot.

The eyes are tired, made up immaculately, but tired. The sunlight streaming in is like a warm bath, but it isn’t kind to the lines round her eyes. It catches a wisp of steam rising from her mug and puts a sparkle in her hair. She moves a bit closer to point out something. A silver bracelet at the end of the pink sleeve.

A long time now, since the last time. I’d asked her round to try some of my cooking (Rita may be an angel, but she’s a hopeless cook). I might even have spelt it out to her: a meal, that was all. But that’s the trouble with good cooking (if I say it myself). Not to mention red wine. It warms the heart, the cockles, as well as the stomach. Melts the resistance.

Things on your mind, Reet? The considerate boss.

Not exactly, George. You? She’d cupped her wineglass in both hands—her nails wine-red too. It’s just not having anyone there. You know. Somebody by your side.

2

Something happens. Something comes over us, we say.

Mrs. Nash, can I ask what your husband does?

He’s a gynaecologist.

And I didn’t voice any of the thoughts I had, of course not. Though one of them was that this was a new one—I’d never known this before: a gynaecologist. Shouldn’t they make safe husbands? Wouldn’t it be like a guarantee? Since they’re seeing other women all the time. You’d think they see enough. But what does it feel like to be married to one? A man who sees other women every day.

I see, I said.

But I think she read my thoughts. Women (Rita, for example) read thoughts, faces, quicker than men. A working principle, a lesson of the trade. Maybe it’s also a gynaecological law.

I looked at her face—brown eyes—looking at mine and had the exact thought: She’s reading my face like a book. But that’s just an expression. I didn’t read faces like books (I didn’t read many books), I read faces like faces.

Brown eyes. A special brown. Clever, I thought, and none too sure of me. My dumb I see’s. This hideaway of mine, up narrow stairs, overlooking the Broadway. But not so clever, or so sure of herself—or why was she here?

Later, on one of my Thursdays, she’d say, He wasn’t a gynaecologist when I met him—fool. He was just—a not very committed medical student.

And she’d actually laughed, a small dry laugh. A laugh— it was possible. And I’d thought: This might be ordinary life, we might not be here.

Later still, she’d say, " ‘Gynaecologist,’ it comes from the Greek. It literally means ‘womanizer.’ Ha. But he wasn’t that. I mean, there was only her. I know."

The truth is she’s taught me to say things, to say all this, to put things down in words. It’s been an education, really.

He was a gynaecologist and she was a lecturer in languages. English included, of course.

I see.

The sun came in at a low slant through my office window, just like it’s doing today. Cold outside, warm slabs of sun indoors. It fell like a partition across the desk between us. It just touched her knees, making them look as if they couldn’t hide.

She’s not sure of me, I thought, she can read my thoughts—my gynaecological thoughts.

But if she could, if she did, she’d have read the one I felt, like a small pang, for her. That it must make it worse for her—the pain and the shame. All the tired old jokes and remarks popping up and pressing round to haunt her. Him a gynaecologist too . . .

She looked at me and smiled, for some reason. A smile as defenceless as her knees.

You cross a line.

3

The florist’s is only just starting its day. Trails of silvery-bright drips across the floor. Here, on the other side of the Broadway, at ground level, the sun comes in from behind, through a back window, so the girl who’s serving becomes for a moment a silhouette against a sheet of light.

If Rita’s watching (it’s just my guess), if she’s gone to my office window to look out, she’ll have seen me cross over and confirmed it to herself: he’s getting the flowers. Though it’s Rita who’s the regular customer here, not me. I haven’t seen this girl before. The first time it was like a blatant message: the flowers, in a brand-new vase, on my desk.

That’s for nothing, George—now start something. A slight sway of the hip.

But she bought some for herself too—for reception (a smaller vase)—and I saw she’d put it down in the books she was starting to set straight: Office Flowers. A weekly item. Not for nothing: I was paying.

One of her many introductions—along with sorting out those books, along with her whole refurbishment plan.

Presentation, George. It makes sense. If they see a vase of flowers, it’s reassuring. It’s good for business.

True. And no nasty smells. And no bad jokes. You’re my presentation, Rita. When they see you . . . I didn’t say it. All the same, it was true.

And why hadn’t I thought of it myself? A simple touch. A vase of flowers. From Jackson’s here, only just across the street. Not to mention the personal factor. Be kind to yourself. Eat well. Go easy. Buy yourself some flowers.

I used to be a cop. The police don’t go in for flowers. But I had the example from long ago: my dad’s shop, with the studio above. Right next door to a florist’s. And Dad was always buying flowers.

The girl wipes her hands on her apron. The buckets are packed tight. Everything has the feeling of being just picked—as if there’s a magic garden, just out the back, defying the November frost. A cold sweat on the grey metal.

All the little daily mysteries. How do flowers—lilies in midwinter—arrive in town? And the bigger mystery, which isn’t such a mystery: how come flower shops still exist? In this day and age. This place, Jackson’s, I’m always expecting it to go, the way shops suddenly vanish, but it hasn’t. Whole shops full of flowers. How come it hasn’t been scrapped long ago, this daft soft urge to go and buy flowers ?

And he was actually called Rose—the florist next to my dad’s. Charlie Rose. As if he’d never had a choice: a whole life in a name. But no choice in any case, according to him: You think of all the reasons why people buy flowers, and you tell me if there’s a better thing to sell. Charlie and Kate Rose (her name should have been Daisy or Violet at least).

And shall I tell you the biggest reason? What they’re really for. Conscience. That’s what they’re for.

Why haven’t we all become florists? And, yes, if I could arrange it, this place wouldn’t even be here, on this side of the street, it would be below my office. What presentation, what planning. They’d have to come up almost right through a florist’s.

Though what I have is special enough: a tanning studio, a Tanning Centre. Under my office—but I don’t think about it much—naked women stretch themselves out. I’ve said to Rita, Why don’t you give it a go? You could pop down for an hour, pop back up. My treat. But she never has. It’s full of young girls. I think she thinks at her age it only shows up the lines.

"Why don’t you?"

A tanning studio. Flowers, suntans in winter. We have it easy, a place for every need.

The girl steps through the light again as if she’s passing through some screen. She’s wearing one of those puffy sleeveless jackets, over an apron, a polo neck sweater. A loose strand of hair. You can picture her breath steaming not so long ago as she unloaded a van.

I don’t have to dither. I go for the tried and true. Anyway, I have my commission. I point to the red roses, the flowers still thick half-buds, the outer petals, in the shadows of the shop, sooty-dark.

A dozen, please.

The girl counts out the stems, holds them up for me to approve. I nod. She smiles. You can’t help the obvious thought: a flower as well. I smile back. She turns into a silhouette again, then goes to the table in the corner and spreads out a sheet of wrapping-paper.

There’s a cold draught from the back and a woman bustles in: the owner. She’s wearing a thick coat, undone, the collar turned up, and boots that show an edge of fleecy lining. I know her, she knows me. She knows what I do. Could she even know what day it is today? Put two and two together?

A quick nodding smile. She’s thinking of other things. A pair of scissors in her hands. Perhaps all she’ll say to the girl, after I’m gone, is: He’s a private detective, and he buys flowers.

Roses, blood-red roses. The same as last year. What else could it be?

The girl hands me the bunch and I reach for my wallet. Half-past ten. It’s a short drive. I get a sudden black bitter taste.

In my father’s studio there’d always be—easily restocked—a big vase of flowers. A prop, if required, or just an encouragement, a prod. I can hear his routine (one of many):

Look at the flowers . . . now look at the camera . . . but think of the flowers. Smile!

4

Two years ago and a little more. October still, but a day like today, blue and clear and crisp. Rita opened my door and said, Mrs. Nash.

I was already on my feet, buttoning my jacket. Most of them have no comparisons to go on—it’s their first time. It must feel like coming to a doctor. They expected something shabbier, seedier, more shaming. The tidy atmosphere, Rita’s doing, surprises and reassures them. And the vase of flowers.

White chrysanthemums, I recall.

Mrs. Nash, please have a seat.

I could be some high-street solicitor. A fountain-pen in my fingers. Doctor, solicitor—marriage guidance counsellor. You have to be a bit of all three.

The usual look of plucked-up courage, swallowed-back hesitation, of being somewhere they’d rather not be.

My husband is seeing another woman.

There aren’t so many ways of saying it—but you have to look as if you haven’t heard it said in every possible way. They’re all unique: the only one to have to come to the doctor with this rare complaint.

I see. I’m sorry. Can I offer you some coffee—tea?

A doctor—a specialist. You’re already gauging the symptoms. At any moment now there could be tears, curses, fireworks, waterworks. They all come with a script, fully rehearsed, and at some point it all gets abandoned.

Something I never expected: that this would be the most demanding, the most absorbing, the most rewarding part of the job. Things you weren’t taught in the Force.

She didn’t want coffee or tea. But Rita, I knew, was outside, like a trained nurse with the emergency trolley, ears pricked, kettle primed, ready to rush in with the tray at a moment’s notice.

And, as an extra fall-back, the bottle of Scotch in the little cabinet in the corner. Strictly for client use only. Though it’s surprising how often they’ll say, Aren’t you going to have one too?

You know, or you think?

I know.

No hesitation there. She had eyes that seemed to shift— under a slight frost—from black to brown, to ripple. Tortoiseshell. The hair was the same. Black, you’d say, but when the sunlight from the window caught it you saw it was deep brown.

Another thing I never expected—though it’s obvious, you only have to think. Mostly women. Or say sixty per cent.

I said to Helen, my daughter, They’re mostly women, Helen.

She said, Is that a complaint?

And some of them don’t just come in with their lines rehearsed, they come in as if for a full-blown audition, as if they’ve spent the last two hours in front of a mirror. (Rita, for example.) Dressed to kill. Clouds of scent. They don’t want you to think it’s for that reason, that it’s out of neglect. They’ve made the decision, but they’ve got their pride.

Doctor, solicitor, casting director . . .

But she wasn’t one of the star turns—if she wasn’t cheaply dressed. The black coat: pure cashmere. She’d done her face, I guessed, in the hasty, automatic way of women who don’t need to slap it on like war paint. She didn’t need to—though she might be going to war.

You think, of course, of the husband. You think: What could be going on here? You put yourself in the husband’s shoes (that’s what they know you’ll do).

Early forties—forty-two, forty-three—and in good shape. The eyes with just their touch of frost. Clever quick eyes—the frost making them look stern. But you could imagine them melting.

A teacher, it turned out, a college lecturer. Used to running the show.

Teachers—even on day-release in the Force—always used to give me the willies.

Clever, and comfortably off: the coat. An easy ride through life, probably, till now. So the sternness was thin. One of those women who come with a little professional crispness and firmness, but you can still see in them the woman of half their age, the girl.

I see. So you know who the woman is?

She’d undone her coat but hadn’t taken it off, and she was carrying a bag, a plain black soft-leather bag which she’d unhooked from her shoulder and let slip to the floor. The flaps of her coat fell open. A black skirt of some velvety material, a sandy-coloured top over a white blouse. The bar of sunshine between us caught her knees and gave them an almost tinselly sheen. They didn’t seem like the usual knees of women that can project from a skirt with all kinds of angles and meaning. They were just knees caught in the light.

It was her knees, maybe.

Yes. Her name is Kristina Lazic.

That sounds foreign.

She’s from Croatia.

Could you spell—?

I’d pulled my notebook towards me. There’s a point where it helps to get brisk.

And do you know where your husband and Miss Lazic—is it Miss?—meet?

It’s Miss. Yes, I can give you the address. It’s a flat in Fulham. A first-floor flat. We rent it for her—I mean, my husband rents it for her.

I see.

"Before this—I mean before she lived