She wanted out of this conversation. Wanted out right now. It was starting to slice her to the bone. But it wasn’t possible to simply cut and run, not without a departure that would reduce her status in his eyes. She had to stay with it.
‘I can see, Mr Whittler, for a deeply introverted person – in the true sense of the word – a relative lack of direct contact might be preferable, or desirable. But truly, your experience seems to go way beyond that. In that sense, it’s so beyond mainstream that it could only be reached by an unusually strong personal choice and an unusually strong willingness to see that choice through, regardless of consequence.’
‘What consequence?’
She’d slipped. He’d challenged an assumption she’d made, but she couldn’t quite grasp what that assumption had been. It was obviously counter-productive to suggest that he’d gone mad after fifteen years of complete silence.
‘Well, most people in, for example, solitary confinement, find their lives extremely difficult. The lack of communication, and validation, plays on their mind.’
‘Do I seem crazy to you, Detective Russo?’
He was looking straight at her. Not at the mirror; not at his foot or the corner of the table. He was staring at her. She could feel herself flush – all her thoughts of being a kindred spirit seemed to fold at once.
Her assumed ‘connection’ was so flimsy that two seconds of eye contact could unravel it. He’d neutered it in a heartbeat. For this moment he was not supplicant and she wasn’t in charge. Unprepared for his sudden change of body language, his near-instant display of belief, she’d yielded control and made herself the recipient. She didn’t like it.
‘Well? Do I?’
‘No, Mr Whittler, you don’t. You seem remarkably – totally – lucid and sane. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t.’ He had sea-green eyes and long eyelashes that seemed to make his blink slow and drowsy. Dana felt skewered by his gaze. She could see herself in it: desperate, keeping the worst fears at bay with stoic suffering. It hurt when Nathan demonstrated how similar they were.
‘So what was this “consequence” you said I risked?’
Dana thought for a moment – she felt Nathan would grant her that. He was running this conversation. Had he reeled her in? Or had she been complacent? She swallowed and tried to refocus.
‘I think many introverts struggle with the dichotomy presented by their preferences, Mr Whittler. So they wish for some communication, but according to their choices and on their terms. Too much human involvement leaves them exhausted and unhappy. If the balance goes too far the other way and they get little or no communication, it can affect their general sense of perspective; their view of themselves and their lives. It can cause depression, heartache; a sense that they can’t break free from those problems.’
Dana could feel the internal heat of confession and shame and the rancid memories that combination created. She tried to keep her voice from shuddering, became conscious of where the breaths should go. Nathan was watching her intently, focused on her words. Now she was the one talking to the corner of the table.
‘So,’ she struggled on, ‘in your situation you already had a circumstance that leads to considerable solitude. You chose to compound that by avoiding all contact. As opposed to, say, living where you lived but working locally and mixing with colleagues. In those terms, you expose yourself to all the potential consequences faced by introverts, but to a far greater degree. There is no counterbalance in your life, Mr Whittler, nothing to break the sequence. People will wonder why you didn’t crack under those conditions, as they would. That’s what I meant by “consequence”.’
Nathan looked down at his hands, turning his fingers and rubbing once again along his fate line. ‘I see. Yes. Hmm. Put like that, I understand where you’re coming from. But I think you have to see the bigger picture, as they say. My life – my choice – wasn’t something I feared. I preferred it: sought it. Silence is not nothing. It’s not an absence. It’s a full experience in itself. People who are scared of silence are scared of the nothingness of it – they think it’s a void, a vacuum, a danger. But it isn’t.
‘My solitude is total. If I keep the modern-day mind-set, then yes: the seclusion will probably kill me. At the very least, it will grind me down and leave me exposed to the kinds of problems you so eloquently laid out, Detective Russo. But consider another view: instead of fighting the solitude, you relax into it. You slow all the rhythms of your day, of your life. You throw away the telephone and the computer and the clock. You allow the isolation to be yours, not you to be a prisoner of it.
‘Lo and behold, Detective, a different life comes into view. You don’t rush, you don’t care how long something takes. So it takes two hours, or four – what do you care? It takes what it takes, and you have no other appointment you must make, anyway. Once you go with it, then it becomes like sea legs – you don’t feel the motion because you’re moving with it, part of it. Then you come to relish the peace, love the silence. The opposite emerges: instead of fearing solitude, you embrace it, and fear losing it.’
That one phrase – fearing solitude – made Dana end the discussion. Her energy had disappeared with his words. Breathing was hard and her flight instinct took over.
‘I see. That’s an interesting proposal, Mr Whittler. I’ll have to think about that. I must also meet with my colleagues, if you’ll excuse me.’
She snapped off the tape hastily and was halfway to the door before she turned. ‘Thank you, Mr Whittler. We’ll talk again, soon.’
He looked straight at her again. As though he could see through her to the doorway. As though he knew what he’d just done.
‘I’m sorry someone did that to your kneecap, Detective.’
Chapter 12
In the women’s bathroom harsh light slapped around on shiny surfaces; a mirror occupying one wall, blank white tiles on the floor. Grotesque reflections curled across the metal hand dryer. The legacy of bleach and perfumed sanitiser saturated the air. Two stalls were empty and one was occupied. Lucy tapped on the closed door.
‘You okay, Dana?’
There was a pause and a muffled voice. ‘Could be anyone in here.’
Lucy smiled and leaned back against the countertop. ‘Nine women in this station. I’m one. Three are in admin and I’ve just walked past there. Sue and Nikki are on an interstate warrant all day. Miriam’s on reception – her voice would go through sheet metal – and Ali is off with flu. Process of elimination. The application of logic, Dr Watson.’
Dana emerged, looking sheepish and tired. It felt ridiculously hot in the bathroom. ‘Yes, hmm, maybe that wasn’t too difficult.’
Lucy turned to face her. ‘He got to you, didn’t he?’
Dana nodded to her reflection, unable to face Lucy directly. She didn’t want to have this conversation – not here, not on this Day, and certainly not with Lucy. All three dimensions made it raw; amplified her vulnerability. She could feel her skin sing.
‘Yes. Not crying, though. Didn’t sniffle. It’s a little close to home, some of it. Which is ironic’ – she patted at her face with a tissue – ‘considering I’m the best person to be going at him.’
‘Double bind, huh?’
‘Exactly, Luce. I have to understand him enough to get inside his head. If he doesn’t give up more than he has so far, a murder conviction’s going to be a reach. He can claim all manner of accidental in that store: we have almost nothing to contradict him. But to understand him, I have to empathise, and that’s a little… exposed.’