He shook his head and rolled his eyes. ‘If it helps you to forgive my brusqueness, then try to understand that part of my response this morning was total exasperation with the role you had assigned me. I didn’t want to play it. I didn’t like the choice of dialogue. I wanted to write my own response, but felt I couldn’t. I said what I believed you wanted me to say, in the way that you wanted to hear it. If you love me then give me the chance to speak my own words and not yours. Stop playing ventrilo—’
‘Then speak! Say what you have to say.’
‘Then don’t interrupt me!’ he shouted, his face reddening. They stood in silence for a moment and then the phone rang. Clare wanted to ignore it but feared it might be Marie.
‘Mrs Wald?’
‘Yes? Who is this?’
‘It’s your neighbour, Donald Thacker.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I saw that your lights were all on, and that a car had come in. I wanted to be sure there was nothing the matter.’
‘Nothing in the least. Thank you for your concern. I must say goodnight now. I have a guest,’ she said, and put down the phone. ‘My neighbour,’ she said to Mark. ‘A busybody English widower.’
Mark dropped into a chair, flinging his attaché case onto the carpet. He took an inhaler from his jacket pocket and administered himself a dose.
‘Please go ahead. I shall remain silent,’ Clare said. ‘For a change, I shall be the one to listen.’
Mark looked exhausted and glanced at Clare in a way that made her feel she was expecting far too much of him. She did not want to cause him further sadness or pain, or to force him to shoulder a duty that was by rights only hers to bear.
‘You gave me your confession,’ he said, his breath coming more steadily. ‘Now I wonder if you’d be willing to hear mine? Like yours, it’s not a confession of a crime per se. I think we can agree that you’ve committed no crime. Equally, mine isn’t a confession of sin, since sin is something I don’t believe in, and I suspect you don’t either, though I realize we’ve never had that conversation. So it’s a secular confession of — I don’t know what to call it. Let’s call it a secular confession of shortcoming, as yours was something like a secular confession of carelessness. These are confessions that we can only make to each other. Maybe, I don’t know, I might be able to say this to Dad, though he and I don’t speak about things like this. It’s not easy for me, as the person who listens to other people’s grievances and failures and who’s always looking for flaws and shortcomings in my professional life, to describe my own, or even to admit that I have any.’
He paused, and as he was about to speak again the phone rang.
‘Blast that man,’ Clare said, and picked up the phone. ‘What do you want?’
‘Mrs Wald? It’s Donald Thacker again. I’m sorry to bother you but I noticed that the lights were still on and I wondered if perhaps something was wrong only you couldn’t say because you would be overheard. If there is something wrong, why don’t you say to me “Yes, I would be very happy to join your bridge party,” and then I should know that I ought to phone the police.’
‘Really, Mr Thacker, I must go now. I am busy with my guest,’ she said, and put down the phone. ‘A most insistent man. Please continue.’
‘The year that Laura disappeared, she came to see me in Jo’burg. I was single, working all the time, putting money aside. If things got worse I thought I might emigrate. I’ve never told you this, have I? I was on the verge of packing it in and going abroad — I was also afraid that my medical exemption would no longer be enough to keep me safe from the army, that things were getting so desperate they’d force even the likes of me to shoulder a gun, or at least press me into serving in some more bureaucratic capacity. In any case, the time I’d spent at Oxford convinced me I could live in England if I had to. And if not there, then Australia or New Zealand, or even the Netherlands. So I was saving up in expectation of leaving. I knew it would take everything I could scrape together to do it comfortably, which was the only way I was prepared to do it. I didn’t want to suffer. Laura came to me the spring before she disappeared. It was a strange meeting. She spoke almost in gibberish. I wondered if she was on drugs of some kind. I knew what she was involved in and even having her in my flat terrified me. The last thing I wanted was her activity attaching itself to me and ruining my own chances of getting out of the country. But what I remember most from that last meeting was how frightened she seemed.’
‘Did she say what she was afraid of?’
‘It was obvious that she believed in what she was doing, but that she was having second thoughts and was worried about her own safety. She said she was being selfish but she needed to get out. So she asked me for help. What she wanted was a loan, to start over somewhere else. That’s what she asked me to give her. She spent two hours that evening asking in about a hundred different ways, promising me that nothing bad would happen if I helped her, that I would pay no price. In the end, I didn’t believe her story. I thought she was lying. I thought she wanted the money for other things.’
‘For her associates.’
‘Yes. I thought it was a ruse. And I didn’t want to be involved in any of that. I was keeping my hands clean. I was afraid that if I gave her anything, and if something happened and the money could be traced back to me, then that would be the end of my career and the end of my chances to get out. So I refused to help. And what was so horrible about the whole thing was that she acted like it was the very answer she’d been expecting. She tried to change my mind even though I think she knew it was impossible. I was so stubborn. When she disappeared I realized that I’d made the wrong decision. She’d never given me any reason to disbelieve her. She was the most truthful person I’ve ever known. Who was I to think she would deceive me?’
He covered his eyes with his left hand and his mouth with the right. It was no longer apparent to Clare what she should do or how she should behave, if it would be wrong to cross the room and hold her son, or if that was the very thing he wanted. They sat in silence for ten minutes and then he removed his hands from his face and looked at her. As he was about to speak the intercom at the front gate buzzed.
‘If this is my neighbour I shall phone the police to charge him with harassment. Yes?’ Clare barked, pushing the intercom button as the screen flickered into an image of the driveway. ‘Oh God what do you want?’
‘Mrs Wald? It’s Donald Thacker again.’
‘I can see that.’
‘I know that something is wrong there. I know you’re being held hostage. If your attackers can hear me, then they should know that I have a gun and that I’ve phoned the police. The police are on their way and everything is going to be fine.’
‘Mr Thacker, you have made a fool of yourself. There is no one here but my son.’
The little black-and-white image of Donald Thacker looked stunned, and then Clare could hear the police sirens and the different pitch of her own security company’s sirens. It took a further half hour to sort out the confusion. Clare consented to the police and security company undertaking a search of the house to be certain there were no intruders hiding in wait until the authorities had left. The police were not amused and warned Mr Thacker he could be charged with wasting police time.