Half the World Away - страница 45

‘Was it a shock, Lori breaking up with you?’ I say.

Tom raises his eyebrows at me. Maybe I am being personal but I want to know. It may have something to do with Lori’s disappearance a few days later.

‘At the time.’ Dawn plucks at her lip. ‘But things had been up and down. Maybe I should’ve seen it coming.’ She has that rising inflection on everything she says, so it all sounds like she’s questioning, like there’s some room for doubt.

‘Was there any particular reason?’ I say.

‘Lori, she likes to party, a social life. It’s hard for me, out by the third ring road. I wanted to spend more time together, just the two of us. She didn’t like coming out there. It got a bit one-sided.’

I’ve no idea how deeply Dawn felt about Lori. I don’t know whether she is heartbroken. They’d been together just a few months.

I watch the numbers change until we reach the fifth floor and Dawn says, ‘Here we go.’

Tom pulls back the lift doors in turn and we enter the hallway. It’s dim, lit by a weak light recessed in the ceiling. I can smell cigarette smoke and spicy food.

‘This way.’ Dawn takes us to a door halfway along the hallway.

I want to knock, have Lori throw the door wide, laugh that crazy laugh with surprise at our visit, pull me into a hug. I take a breath while Dawn unlocks the door. I have to be strong.

Of course no one’s there. But standing in the space, seeing Lori’s possessions in turn, each one is like a punch, thumping home the reality of the situation. In her home, her absence is magnified. I say nothing for a few moments, my eyes roving, greedy, hungry.

A kitchen opens into the living room with a balcony at the end, looking out to the high-rises and the ring road alongside. The flat is furnished with orange plastic chairs and blue translucent plastic stools that double as tables. We’ve seen the same stools outside the snack bars along the streets. Lori’s are strewn with bits of litter, paper tissues, food wrappers, empty drinks cans. An old couch has folding tray tables on thin metal legs in front of it. There are marks on the white plaster walls, where other furniture has rubbed off the surface paint, scuff marks on the door jambs, electric wiring loose in the ceiling where the lights once were. Chunks of plaster have come away in the square archway that divides the kitchen from the small living area. Mould speckles the corners. The flooring is vinyl. A Chinese knot, large and red, hangs on the longest wall. Its shape reminds me of a Celtic cross. Pinned to the wall beside it is the photo of us all she took on the weekend before she left for Thailand.

It’s stifling. I feel sweat prick my hairline, trickle down my sides. ‘Is there air-conditioning?’ I ask Dawn.

‘It doesn’t work.’

In the corner beside the fridge there is a water cooler, a red tap and a blue one, like mine at the hotel, the settings read heat and warm but the lights beside the labels are both off.

‘She turned the water off,’ I say to Dawn.

‘We do. No point in wasting the leccy.’

She blinks rapidly, perhaps worried about whether ‘leccy’ is acceptable or too frivolous in this situation. To reassure her I leap in, ‘Makes sense.’

Above the water cooler, a noticeboard is scrawled with names and addresses, phone numbers, some in Lori’s writing, the rest in Dawn’s, probably.

Anthony hovers in the living room as we look round.

In the fridge I find tomatoes rotting, oozing liquid in the salad tray. Some beers. The crockery in the kitchen cupboard is all made of plastic or metal. I pick up one of the metal bowls – it’s very light, tin, perhaps. I remember breaking Lori’s mug. Isaac’s expression.

The small bathroom has no bath, just an open shower with a drain in the corner, a washbasin and a toilet. Large plastic wall tiles have cracked and are held together with lines of thick Sellotape. The sink is chipped around the rim, the chrome on the taps pitted with rust, the acrylic filler at the back of the basin black with mould. The mirror above is tarnished and peppered with white material. Flecks of Lori’s toothpaste. No toothbrush.