When I saw him over her I could have done something.
I sit up at once. When I blink rapidly she appears in the creases of the darkness, her face familiar now.
‘Let me out!’ I shout. ‘Let me out!’
The pounding in my head returns. If I call for a doctor, perhaps somehow he could explain to them why I need to be out of here, and how it will corrode me if I am left any longer. Soon the hatch will open so they can check I am alive. If I scream when it opens, would that get me out?
Minutes drip by.
Then there’s a noise at the door. I make ready to scream at the hatch but it’s not the hatch but the whole door that opens. The light blazes on causing me to shield my eyes.
‘Come on, Mr Shute. You can go.’
I look through my fingers. It’s Blake.
‘What?’ I say, getting up.
‘We have an address for you,’ she says.
When she sees the look on my face, she adds, ‘Thirty-two Cross Street. SE22.’
‘What?’
‘That’s the address we have on the PNC,’ she says. ‘You were arrested in 1989 for Common Assault. Cautioned.’
I know that address. It rattles in some hollow place in my brain. ‘But that’s not my house,’ I say.
‘I know,’ she says, her tone flat. ‘It belongs to a Sebastian Matthews.’
That name and a catalogue of memories it spins with come crashing around me.
‘I’ll take you back to get your personal property. Don’t forget your return date in two weeks,’ she says and hands me a paper with the date on it. I take it and crumple it into the pocket of my tracksuit bottoms.
If I keep quiet I can leave. There is no need to upset everything with truth – the truth that I don’t live there and that I don’t know him any more – that he wouldn’t want me there. I’ll walk out of this police station and straight to some sheltered nook or station waiting-room. I don’t need to upturn this tiny conspiracy we share. She knows I won’t go to that house. She knows it’s not an address I can use. She’s just finding a way to help me.
‘And count yourself lucky we haven’t charged you with Being on Enclosed Premises. Don’t go breaking into any more houses, even if you think they’re empty,’ she says.
Blake leads me out to get my things. The fag ends are the only things that I can see through the window of the paper bag they hand me.
‘I am sorry,’ I say at last to Blake as she turns to go. ‘Tell her family I am sorry.’
She smiles but there is no joy in it at all.
‘I can’t go out in these,’ I say indicating the jogging pants and thin grey sweatshirt they have given me. The plimsolls are the things that make me feel most vulnerable. ‘Can I at least get my boots back?’
‘Evidence,’ Blake says, shaking her head.
I am about to protest when I remind myself that she has pulled strings to get me out of here.
‘Thank you for finding a way to get me out,’ I say at last.
She frowns a little at this as if confused. ‘Don’t thank me. Thank him,’ she says, nodding at the space behind me.
My breath catches as I chase her meaning. I look across the low aluminium gate and see him for the first time in years.
‘Seb?’
‘You look like crap,’ he says.
11
Thursday
It is 03:11 according to the clock. The warmth of the car and the smoothness of the ride cajole me into sleep, but I can’t let go yet. I look across to Seb who holds the wheel with confidence. His sleeves are crisp, cufflinks glinting gently in the street lights as they pass. He stares straight ahead at the road in concentration, though the traffic is light on Crystal Palace Road. It seems as if he’s keeping his eyes occupied just to avoid me.
We go over some speed bumps and then pull off to the right and down a row of smart terraced houses. Memories rush in but in no kind of order. I know this place. The car draws smoothly to a halt and a button is pressed for a handbrake. When did this happen to cars?
‘This is us,’ he says and steps out. He looks the same, still handsome, greyer. He’s a touch more drawn around the cheek but something gets us all. I climb out and follow him to his door and wait while he unlocks it. He presses a switch to flood the hall with soft amber light. The walls are painted in muted shades but the light dances off the polished wood handrails and antique sideboard.
‘Come in,’ he says, waiting.
‘I can go,’ I say, looking at the dirt on my hands. ‘I won’t stay.’ The cold drops over me and irritatingly I shiver.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he says. ‘Come. You’re letting the weather in.’
I shiver again in these thin police-issue clothes, and suddenly whatever power there was in my legs has gone. My knees buckle and I’m falling against the door, but he catches me just in time. Everything becomes murky and then there is nothing.
I wake up and gather fragments of memory. There’s Seb half-dragging me inside his house, up the stairs – soft cream runners against dark, polished wood. Me, stumbling, being ushered like a drunkard to a bed and the sensation of my ‘cell’ clothes sticking to my skin as they are pulled away. The smell as the garments come away and how it stains the air. A towel is laid out on a chair through patches of vision. Then I feel warm air slowly wrapping my limbs. Then darkness and oblivion and finally sleep.
When morning tears open my eyes, I stall for a few moments, trying to remember where I am. My head is throbbing. I get up out of bed and partially draw the curtain across the low morning sun. From the clock on the bedside table, I see it’s just after eight. I open my eyes and listen for sounds because I don’t know anything about the life of the man whose home I’m in. I don’t know if there are any children in the house, or a partner, or friends.
There’s some distant clinking, like the sound of breakfast being laid. I look for the tracksuit I’d been given but I can’t see it anywhere. Seb must have taken it away for washing. He’s left me a change of clothes, laid on top of a white towel. Dark red trousers, blue-checked shirt, some new underpants still in the box, socks and a crew-neck sweater. These are his clothes, clothes in current use – not spares. I take the pants from the box. They are pristine in my stained hands. It has been years since I’ve worn pants; they aren’t necessary. The whiteness of the cotton stares out at me. I can’t wear his clothes without a bath.
I wrap the towel around my hips and walk along the corridor, taking in the bookshelves crammed with books. The mix of French literary fiction and pulp is disconcerting until I remember I left the French books here long ago and Nina always loved cheap and easy thrillers. I also remember now, randomly, that she smelled of roses. I wonder if she’s still with Seb. The bathroom door has been left ajar as an invitation. I go in and stare at the polished bath. It’s been so long since I’ve been in one. I reach across to the taps but hesitate. It feels like an intrusion, but in his house, his clothes, it also feels like the least I can do. A few minutes later I am lying in the water and watching the dirt as it runs off my body and sinks to the bottom. I find a nail brush and scrub away what I can without losing my mind. Then the hair. Not until I soak it do I become aware of how long it is. Finally, I scrub my face until it feels as if it is pink again. When I drain the bath I’m shocked by the grime lining the bottom.
When I walk out I catch sight of someone in the mirror. Someone from a nightmare. Of course, it’s me, but the face staring back at me is running with blood. I realise with a dull ache that I have scrubbed away my stitches. I sigh and clamp the towel to my face until I find plasters with cartoon pigs on them. So he has children? I manage to staunch the flow with three of them overlaid one across the other and take a last look in the mirror. I look clean but faintly ridiculous.