Shit. I swallow past the sudden dryness in my throat. Then I delete it. Block the number.
As I say, it was all a bit last minute, coming here. Ben didn’t sound that thrilled when I called him earlier and told him I was on my way. True, I didn’t give him much time to get used to the idea. But then it’s always felt like the bond between us is more important to me than it is to my half brother. I suggested we hang out last Christmas, but he said he was busy. “Skiing,” he said. Didn’t even know he could ski. Sometimes it even feels like I’m an embarrassment to him. I represent the past, and he’d rather be cut loose from all that.
I had to explain I was desperate. “Hopefully it’ll only be for a month or two, and I’ll pay my way,” I said. “Just as soon as I get on my feet. I’ll get a job.” Yeah. One where they don’t ask too many questions. That’s how you end up in the places I’ve worked at—there aren’t that many that will take you when your references are such a shitshow.
Up until this afternoon I was gainfully employed at the Copacabana bar in Brighton. The odd massive tip made up for it. A load of wanker bankers, say, down from London celebrating some Dick or Harry or Tobias’ upcoming nuptials and too pissed to count the notes out right—or maybe to guys like that it’s just so much loose change anyway. But, as of today, I’m unemployed. Again.
I press the buzzer a second time. No answer. All the building’s windows are dark again—even the one that lit up before. Christ’s sake. He couldn’t have turned in for the night and totally forgotten about me . . . could he?
Below all the other buzzers there’s a separate one: Concierge, it reads in curly script. Like something in a hotel: further proof that this place is seriously upmarket. I press the button, wait. No answer. But I can’t help imagining someone looking at the little video image of me, assessing, then deciding not to open up.
I lift up the heavy knocker again and slam it several times against the wood. The sound echoes down the street: someone must hear it. I can just make out a dog barking, from somewhere deep inside the building.
I wait five minutes. No one comes.
Shit.
I can’t afford a hotel. I don’t have enough for a return journey to London—and even if I did there’s no way I’m going back. I consider my options. Go to a bar . . . wait it out?
I hear footsteps behind me, ringing out on the cobblestones. Ben? I spin round, ready for him to apologize, tell me he just popped out to get some ciggies or something. But the figure walking toward me isn’t my brother. He’s too tall, too broad, a parka hood with a fur rim up over his head. He’s moving quickly and there’s something purposeful about his walk. I grip the handle of my suitcase a little tighter. Literally everything I own is in here.
He’s only a few meters away now, close enough that by the light of the streetlamp I can make out the gleam of his eyes under the hood. He’s reaching into his pocket, pulling his hand back out. Something makes me take a step backward. And now I see it. Something sharp and metallic, gleaming in his hand.
Concierge
The Loge
I watch her on the intercom screen, the stranger at the gate. What can she be doing here? She rings the buzzer again. She must be lost. I know, just from looking at her, that she has no business being here. Except she seems certain that this is the place she wants, so determined. Now she looks into the lens. I will not let her in. I cannot.
I am the gatekeeper of this building. Sitting here in my loge: a tiny cabin in the corner of the courtyard, which would fit maybe twenty times into the apartments above me. But it is mine, at least. My private space. My home. Most people wouldn’t consider it worthy of the name. If I sit on the pull-down bed, I can touch nearly all the corners of the room at once. There is damp spreading from the ground and down from the roof and the windows don’t keep out the cold. But there are four walls. There is a place for me to put my photographs with their echoes of a life once lived, the little relics I have collected and which I hold onto when I feel most alone; the flowers I pick from the courtyard garden every other morning so there is something fresh and alive in here. This place, for all its shortcomings, represents security. Without it I have nothing.
I look again at the face on the intercom screen. As the light catches her just so I see a familiarity: the sharp line of the nose and jaw. But more than her appearance it is something about the way she moves, looks around her. A hungry, vulpine quality that reminds me of another. All the more reason not to let her in. I don’t like strangers. I don’t like change. Change has always been dangerous for me. He proved that: coming here with his questions, his charm. The man who came to live in the third-floor apartment: Benjamin Daniels. After he came here, everything changed.
Jess
He’s coming straight for me, the guy in the parka. He’s lifting his arm. The metal of the blade gleams again. Shit. I’m about to turn and run—get a few yards on him at least—
But wait, no, no . . . I can see now that the thing in his hand isn’t a blade. It’s an iPhone, in a metallic case. I let out the breath I’ve been holding and lean against my bag, hit by a sudden wave of tiredness. I’ve been wired all day, no wonder I’m spooking at shadows.
I watch as the guy makes a call. I can make out a tinny little voice at the other end; a woman’s voice, I think. Then he begins to talk, over her, louder and louder, until he’s shouting into his handset. I have no idea what the words mean exactly but I don’t need to know much French to understand this isn’t a polite or friendly chat.
After he’s got his long, angry speech off his chest he hangs up and shoves the phone back in his pocket. Then he spits out a single word: “Putain.”
I know that one. I got a D in my French GCSE but I did look up all the swear words once and I’m good at remembering the stuff that interests me. Whore: that’s what it means.
Now he turns and starts walking in my direction again. And I see, quite clearly, that he just wants to use the gate to this building. I step aside, feeling a total idiot for having got so keyed up over nothing. But it makes sense; I spent the whole Eurostar journey looking over my shoulder. You know, just in case.
“Bonsoir,” I say in my best accent, flashing my most winning smile. Maybe this guy will let me in and I can go up to the third floor and hammer on Ben’s apartment door. Maybe his buzzer’s simply not working or something.
The guy doesn’t reply. He just turns to the keypad next to the gate and punches in a series of numbers. Finally he gives me a quick glance over his shoulder. It’s not the most friendly glance. I catch a waft of booze, stale and sour. Same breath as most of the punters in the Copacabana.