Only when I am too tired to remain upright do I go to bed.
In the morning I walk down the dismantled railway line as far as the bottom of Burnage Lane, where I stop and listen to the sound of my own breathing. I face a choice. Either I go left up to Didsbury Road and catch a bus to Stockport in order to pick up the car, or I go straight on through the little tunnel and then down to the river and Overcoat Man.
Either or.
Either I’ll walk up to Didsbury Road and sit and wait for a bus to Stockport and I’ll pick up the car and call Helen and meet her somewhere and either we’ll have sex again in the car or we won’t but either way I’ll never see her again after that. She won’t quit the course, but she’ll stop attending and it won’t be long before someone talks to the university and an investigation is carried out and I will be relieved of my position. It may be impossible to get rid of staff who underperform or who complain about this or that injustice while taking sick leave at the first sign of sniffles, but failure to disclose a previous identity and by extrapolation a criminal record will be reason enough. I’ll be out of a job. I’ll email Grace, but she won’t reply. I’ll give it a few days, I’ll give it a week, but she still won’t reply. I won’t know if I expect her to. I suppose I’m not surprised, I’ll think to myself.
One afternoon I’ll drive down Kenworthy Lane in Northenden. I’ll knock on Erica’s door, but she won’t answer. I’ll wait outside in the car. An hour will pass and finally she’ll walk down the street, coming home from work. I’ll open the car door. She won’t want to get in, but I’ll persuade her. I’ll tell her we’ll go for a drink, for a meal, whatever she wants. I’m depressed and confused, I’ll tell her, I don’t know who else to turn to. With obvious reluctance she’ll get in. I’ll start the engine and drive the car to the end of the road, where it turns into footpaths and cycle paths that go off into the woods and under the motorway. While I’m in the middle of executing a three-point turn I’ll look at the line of four concrete bollards that I’ll remember from the last time I saw Erica. I’ll remember specifically thinking about driving into them at speed. I’ll picture the moment of impact.
I’ll still be thinking about the bollards as I’m driving back down Kenworthy Lane towards the main road with Erica in the passenger seat. We’ll take a meandering route over to Stockport. There won’t be much conversation in the car. I will try, but Erica will resist. We’ll reach the roundabout over the river and I’ll take the exit for the Pyramid. I’ll pull in to the side of the road and Erica will stiffen in the seat alongside and I’ll try to reassure her that I don’t mean any harm. I’ll tell her, I just want to know about the Pyramid. I’ll ask her, How can I get inside? Can’t you get me inside? What’s that window there on the east wall, why is it different? See, one window on the east wall is different. It’s not a different size or anything, the windows are all the same size, but it’s a different colour. It’s kind of blank or opaque, while the others are semi-reflective. What’s special about it? I’ll ask her.
It’s the body door, she’ll say. I’ll say, What? What’s the body door? But she won’t say any more about it, just that it’s the body door. Perhaps it’s something she’s heard someone say. It’s not even an Egyptian pyramid, she’ll remark. It’s more Aztec or Babylonian. I’ll wonder if she’s right. I’ll look up at the steps near the summit. Two steps. The clear glass of the apex. An interior ladder goes right to the very top, but you’d climb it on your own. A pyramid is a house for one. Only one person can occupy the highest point at any one time. It’s narcissistic, solipsistic; it’s about power and the individual. I guess that’s why I’m drawn to it.
I’ll ask Erica if she can get me inside the building. This will be the last time I will ask her. Either she’ll say yes, in which case I will go in there and climb to the second floor and throw myself out of the body door. Or she’ll say no, and I’ll turn the car around and return to the roundabout. I’ll take Didsbury Road and drive in silence right through Heaton Mersey and East Didsbury and Didsbury Village with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on my leg, ready to change gear. When I look down, I’ll notice Erica’s leg. I’ll notice its constant tremor.
I’m not dangerous, I’ll tell her. She’ll look at me briefly, then back at the road ahead; she’ll be like a porcelain figure, fragile, brittle. I’ll turn left into Victoria Avenue and I’ll drive past the house where they filmed Cold Feet while I was in prison and then past the house of Elizabeth Baines and once I’m past the next junction the houses will get bigger and I’ll turn right, driving past even bigger houses belonging to doctors and lawyers and drug company executives until I turn left into Holme Road and right at the bottom into Dene Road West and I’ll skirt the speed bumps with the nearside wheels as I floor the accelerator. The stop sign will be obscured by the overgrown bush, the white line hidden by the last of the speed bumps. I’ll drive straight across Palatine Road. A car travelling from north to south will pass behind me so close it will feel as if it’s passed right through the back of the car. The woosh of air, the shriek of the engine. The scream of the horn, the explosion of brake lights — once we’ve missed each other and it’s too late for a warning, but not for a rebuke. I’ll turn to look at Erica as the car’s suspension reacts to the change in camber by bouncing into Mersey Road. She’ll be looking at me, eyes wide, mouth moving, but no sound coming out, or none that I’ll be able to hear. She’ll attack me, blows raining down on my arm as I continue to drive one-handed. I won’t feel a thing, but then I haven’t felt a thing for more than fifteen years. Under assault I’ll be unable to change gear and when the road bends to the right I’ll have to slow down and the engine will grumble. I won’t be able to hear it but I’ll feel the car begin to shiver and shake and I’ll have to brake and come to a halt and Erica will open her door and get out and run back down Mersey Road towards Palatine Road, where she will turn right and continue running and walking back to Northenden. I’ll take a deep breath and reach across to close her door, then I’ll turn the car around and drive to and fro across Palatine Road between Mersey Road and Dene Road West without stopping or even looking. I’ll do it five times each way, ten times. I’ll do it until I hit someone or until I’ve had enough, whichever comes sooner.
There will be a period of time spent figuring out what to do, trying to see Grace and trying to get back in touch with Helen. Neither will return my messages. I’ll walk the streets. I’ll see Dog Man without his dog, looking lost, bewildered, but still leaning forward. I’ll work on my novel, but it won’t come. Everything I try will seem forced. I’ll turn to my author’s copies of Rites. I’ll flick through each one, noticing that I no longer seem to have a copy with a folded corner. A picture will enter my mind of Helen at Lumb Bank handing me her copy for me to sign.
I’ll spend hours looking at my other books — the white-spined Picadors, the orange and green Penguins — taking them off the shelf, blowing off the dust, smelling the pages, putting them back. I’ll take the remnants of Veronica’s collection and distribute them among the charity shops in the village as I become increasingly aware of a need to get away somewhere, somewhere different, a long way away. Eventually I’ll book a flight to New York.
Landing at JFK in the early afternoon, I’ll jump in a cab to Brooklyn and I’ll notice that most of the houses we pass have pumpkins outside them, often as many as two or three sitting on different steps, all elaborately carved. I’ll be wearing a simple dark jacket and white T-shirt and I’ll wonder if it will be enough to keep me warm. I’ll either walk around Park Slope hoping to catch sight of either him or her and if I do I’ll follow them home and inveigle my way into their house, or I’ll hang around the Community Bookstore on 7th Avenue, their local bookshop, their favourite one apparently, which will have a Halloween-themed window display with plastic spiders and fake cobwebs, and maybe one or both of them will bob in and I’ll introduce myself. I’ve come all this way, I’ll say, and they’ll have to invite me back. He’ll be politely affable in a reserved kind of way and she’ll be more outgoing, friendlier. She’ll be wearing the black and white striped cardigan and the dangly earrings that I’ll recognise from the magazine articles; he’ll look relaxed in a grey zip-up cotton jacket over a soft brown shirt tucked into belted black jeans. His eyes will be hidden behind aviator-style sunglasses; hers will shine like opals from their deep settings. They’ll walk with me back to their house, which will have a pumpkin with an evil-looking grin sitting on the stoop, and we’ll go in and I’ll find myself standing in the living room with the olive-green leather sofa and the shiny round coffee table stacked with books. The stacks will look slightly less neat than in the photographs. Conjunctions 49: A Writers’ Aviary will still be there, although it will have migrated to the left-hand pile. Joe Brainard’s The Nancy Book will be lying open, as if in the middle of being read. Paul will mutter something about having to make a call. He will shake my hand and withdraw to another room and Siri will smile and lead me to her study on the fourth floor.