Free Crazy Paving by Louise Doughty Page B

William was hard put to come up with any complaints about Alison and Paul,
although he did his best.
    Sitting at his desk in John Blow House, William bent down and pushed a hand into the inside pocket of his jacket, which was slung over the back of his chair. He pulled out a
small leather wallet – maroon-coloured – and flipped it open. Behind a square of plastic was a picture of his wife and child. Alison was smiling brightly. Her teeth gleamed. Paul was
frowning and looking over to the left. William had been there when the shots were done, at a photographer’s in Bromley High Street. Later, they had taken Paul for a burger and chips. He was
up all night vomiting.
    William closed the wallet and put it back into his pocket. Then he rose and went round the office divide, to Annette’s desk. She had not yet returned. He sat down in her swivel chair and,
for the want of anything useful to do, swivelled.
    He turned and looked up as she returned. Seeing him sitting at her desk, she looked slightly startled. Then she smiled. She approached and lifted up her handbag, which sat next to her computer
keyboard. She opened it and replaced the hairspray and brush. As she did, her hair fell forward. He gazed at her.
    ‘Well?’ she said, a little awkwardly.
    He could not interpret the word. Well. Did that mean,
Well what now?
Maybe it meant,
Well get off my seat, I have typing to do
.
    He stood. She was an inch or so taller than him.
    He reached out and placed his hand around her upper arm. Through the thin softness of her jumper, he could feel how slender she was. His hand seemed large and rough by comparison. She did not
move. He could not bring himself to meet her gaze in case it held reproof, so he stared at her throat; her pale, fragile, immaculate throat.
    Then he felt the lightest of touches, her hand on his shoulder, resting her fingers there for a moment. The feel of them burned through the light cotton of his shirt.
    There was a pause during which the air caved in, the clouds collided, and the stars burst into fatal showers that set the sky alight.
    They both heard it at the same moment: the unmistakably prosaic sound of Raymond whistling to himself as he strode down the office, the chink of loose change in his pocket. They broke apart.
Annette dropped down into her chair and lifted her hands to the computer keyboard. William reeled away, wondering, as the world righted, how on earth he was going to find his way back to his
desk.

 
Chapter 3
    The only parts of school that Helly had enjoyed were taking up smoking and her history project. Their teacher, a thin Scottish man they called The Beard, had asked them all to
think of a local topic. Helly, along with four others in the class, had come up with
The History of Stockwell Tube Station
. It had been one of the first to open, on the fourth of November
1890, as part of the City & South London Railway. There was a display in the local library.
    She had started the project with some zeal, drawing the front cover before she had even written the introduction. The earliest tubes had distinctive domed roofs which housed the lifts. She drew
her dome with great care. The rest of the station had been built with red bricks and decorated with white tiles. She bought a tin of Lakeland pencils specially for the task and drew three Victorian
ladies, complete with bustles and parasols, promenading in front of the station. They held their parasols at an angle and their faces were smudgy, like the one in a Degas painting she had seen in
the school secretary’s office. At the end of two weeks she had the best drawing she had ever done and a contents list.
    One day, The Beard asked them all to get out what they had done so far and lay it on their desks so that he could come round and check on their progress. He worked his way round the class.
    Next to Helly was Marhita, the sulky girl who had joined the class last term after her father had pulled her out of her previous school,