Listening In (ebook)

Argumento de Listening In (ebook)

A cleverly ironic tale of love, betrayal and self-deception. A compelling read. --Zelda West-Meads, Mail on Sunday

December 23rd …

When you earn your living by the hour providing an intimate service for total strangers, you develop a keen feel for the passage of time, and he sensed that hers was almost up. A deft glance at the clock confirmed as much and he smiled inwardly. He watched in silence as she filled out his cheque, savouring the elegant swirls of permanent black glimpsed beneath the blood red flashes of her nails. She had barely completed the signature when a raft of hail clattered the window, putting paid to his reverie and making her shudder to the core; such child-like reaction in so painstakingly beautiful a woman he found almost touching. Loosing the cheque, she wafted it back and forth, pursed her lips and blew long and seductively across the surface as if it were a hot tasty morsel she was preparing to pop into an infant’s mouth. He found himself both engrossed and amused by this ritual, despite her eyes for once being trained, not on him, but on events outside.

“There,” and satisfied the ink was dry she gave the cutest smile. “I must say I like your taste in paintings,” Gina declared, gesturing to the two Degas prints upon the wall between their chairs, as she leaned forward to hand him the cheque, forcing him to avert his eyes from the first subtle hint of her cleavage. “Far more conducive than the weather.”

Seeing no need to apologise for the weather, and resisting his desire to enquire what she saw in the Degas prints, he simply thanked her politely, stashed his fee inside his week-to-a-view diary, confirmed time and date of her next appointment and led her out into reception. Hearing her groan as another blast of hail scatter-gunned the pane, he turned to be confronted by her handbag, proffered as she made to don the black p.v.c. trench-coat draped across her arm. Ignoring the bag, he seized the coat and held it open invitingly. He noticed how her body acquiesced, the way her spine arched towards him allowing her shoulders to press against the heels of his palms much as a cat brushes the legs of its owner, and for one fleeting moment, he almost regretted not taking the handbag after all. Raising the collar about her neck she craned to look back at him.

“Mmm, the perfect gentlemen, thank you, Patrick,” she purred, and her eyes cast him a kiss, “… and to think, one of my girlfriends told me to watch out; she said ‘therapist’ also spells ‘the rapist’!”

Patrick’s smile was tight-lipped.

Despite Gina’s long coat depriving him of his customary glimpse of her fine legs, his eyes followed her along the landing until she disappeared from view down the stairs, at which point he quietly closed the office door and retreated to the safety of his desk. Removing her file, he opened its buff cover and shook his head. No sooner had he written the date than there was a loud knock on the outer door and he let out a sigh. ‘What is it this time,’ he thought, rising wearily from his chair, ‘car keys, fountain pen, or the card for her next appointment? Any ploy to exact a little more than her due, and of course, it always works.’

“Neil!” Patrick’s jaw dropped. “I thought you were …”

“Dead? We’re all dead, Patrick, it’s just that some of us don’t know it yet. I imagine you still allow half an hour between clients? By the way … she’s hot! How do you keep your eyes trained on her psyche when what you really want is to look up her skirt? Well, are you going to let me in or do we have to conduct our conversation on the doorstep?”

Patrick closed his mouth, swallowed hard and swung the door wide allowing his deceased ex-client to step across the threshold where they both loitered uncomfortably.

“Er, shall we, go through …?” Somehow Patrick stuttered out the words that seemed required by his role as host.

“To the therapy room? I know I haven’t got an appointment, but I hoped I could rely on a good pro like you turning a trick for a sad old punter like me? It’ll be just like old times, eh, Patrick?”

They settled in their accustomed positions and Patrick’s hands fidgeted for something to grasp. Normally at the start of a session he would place his diary, symbolising both the promise, and limitations, of the therapeutic alliance, down upon the coffee table and commence proceedings with his customary word of introduction, ‘Welcome’. But this was no scheduled appointment and his diary lay alongside Gina’s notes out there on the desk. Instead, Patrick’s elbows located the flat wooden arms of his therapy chair, allowing his hands to interlock and support his chin in a futile effort to establish a degree of comfort. Duly settled, he focused upon the young man whose own hands lay quiet and still in his lap, from which the long, black nozzle of a silencer lay trained in Patrick’s direction.

“Neil, that’s not funny.”

“Quite right.”

“Is that thing real?” Patrick enquired softly.

“Real as that hole in your wall,” replied Neil, shifting his head a touch to the right. Patrick half-turned to follow Neil’s line of sight and as he did so a muffled crack rang out and a neat hole appeared in the wall just behind his head surrounded by a ring of crazed plaster. In slow motion, Patrick’s hands parted, lowered and gripped the arms of his chair as if they were handrails on a rope-bridge.

“Neil …” Patrick had no idea how the sentence would end, let alone this impromptu session with a dead client. Suddenly, Neil’s words came back to him, ‘We’re all dead, Patrick, it’s just that some of us don’t know it yet.’ And Patrick realised his own life was about to end in the very place where he had chosen to live the best of it, here in his therapy room, staring down a barrel of malaise.0