‘So, what about this guy, Ariel?’ I say. ‘Harry Yull?’
‘Nothing. He’s dead. Died of a heart attack in 2000.’
Dead.
The bridge has resumed its usual pace. People walk past, immersed in their own presents.
‘It wasn’t my print,’ I say to Seb, handing him back the phone.
‘It wasn’t your print,’ Seb says, holding me by the shoulders.
‘But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t responsible,’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I’m not sure any longer. When I bring it back, it’s not as I told it.’
‘What do you mean?’ he says into the wind.
I look back into the river, inviting me to become a part of it. I turn away from Seb and make off up the bridge, heading to the northern side. He follows me and after just a few strides, I feel his hand firmly against my arm.
‘Stop running. Xander. Just stop.’
‘I have,’ I say. Tears gather behind my eyes and I am so angry that they are there. I don’t need tears. I need resolve. I take in a deep breath and look into Seb’s eyes. I don’t want to burden him with this. I want to take the weight with me. When I go I want to leave the world behind me lighter. But when I look into his eyes, I see that it’s too late.
He stares at me and there is fear and anger there. But he waits.
I sling my mind back to the night it happened. I am there once again, lying behind the chesterfield holding my breath, afraid of being caught. The flames are making shadows on the walls and that song, playing no more, lies broken in two on the floor.
‘Shut. Up,’ the man says.
He has leaned her back over the table, covering her mouth with his hand. I see her wriggling then. She is fighting to get upright. Fighting to get his weight off her body. Fighting to get his hand off her mouth.
Her legs kick out, but reach only air.
I get to my knees. From this position I can see that she is changing. Her face, her neck, are changing colour. Perhaps, I think, I can make a noise. Distract him. I cough loudly and then just as he turns, I duck back down. It has worked. He has released her. He turns back towards her. She gasps loudly, clutching her throat and then levers herself off the table.
He has forgotten what distracted him and has now turned to her, holding her gently by the elbows.
‘I’m so sorry. I’m so … I’m drunk,’ he says, and then he gathers up his belongings. As he does he knocks over a glass which shatters on the hard surface of the coffee table.
‘Oh, shit,’ he says, and begins to collect up the shards. ‘Oh, shit,’ he says again, his finger is in his mouth and he hops around trying, drunkenly, to clear up the room. At the other end of the room, Grace is breathing heavily but has returned to herself.
He straightens up from where he has been rooting around on the floor. I can see from the sofa that he has gathered up the broken record pieces. He proffers them, pathetically, to her.
‘Just leave!’ she says.
He drops the pieces softly by the window, and then he is gone.
And now I am on my feet. Her sobbing has brought me out and I think, ridiculously, that I can comfort her. That she wants me. I pad softly to where she is standing by the dining table. She is crying softly into her hands. I put my arm around her and she bristles suddenly.
‘You nearly killed me, you. You fucking, you fucking weak, pathetic,’ she says. The words have struck me before I have registered what they mean. Before I have understood that they are meant for him and not me. She will think that I’m him, until she can see me. But she can’t see me, it is too dark. It is too much of a stretch for her mind to make sense of me, here. When she realises it’s not him but someone else, she screams out in terror. She lashes out frantically, in fear, slapping at my face. As soon as the blows land – almost before the sound waves reach my ears – I react. As if bound by the laws of physics. Every force. An equal and opposite reaction. As soon as her hand whips my skin, my instinct for survival pushes mine back at her. It happens before I can stop it. It is that quick.
Her head snaps back on her neck with a crack. She freezes then as if between decisions. Her face is a pale, perfectly still surprise. My heart stops. In that gap. When all things still remain possible. My life, then, flashes before me in a kaleidoscope. Bright-light moments. Heavy sadnesses. Regrets, all of them. Mistakes. My mind gathers as many as it can in that divided infinite sub-second, as if fleeing from a burning building with my last possessions.
Then her knees buckle, as if the bones in her legs have vaporised. As she drops, another dull crack. Her body pulls the back of her head down hard on the edge of the table. And then, a final thud, and she lies scattered on the floor.
I remember dropping to my knees and whispering her name over and over.
I remember walking in circles, frantic. Parts of my brain are imploring me to wipe surfaces and things I might have touched. And then I see the record pieces and the world stops spinning. I am caught in that nowhere time. One of the pieces is smeared with drying blood and I know that he has touched it, his finger cut from the broken glass. The working, calculating part of my brain impels me. I should take it. In a light daze I grope around for something to wrap it in and find some newspaper.
There is the wine. She was drunk. She fell. I pick up the bottle and pour some of it on her shirt. I study the angles. What will work. I see her pendant next to her on the floor.
And then, I run.
I hear the door at the end of the corridor slam. And as it does, at last, I too am slammed, back into existence.
I am here. On this bridge.
‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ I say, crying.
‘It wasn’t you,’ he exclaims.
‘It’s been so long, Seb.’
He holds me then until the tears finally subside. He releases me from his embrace and puts an arm around my shoulder.
‘Come on. Let’s go home,’ he says.
We dodge the traffic to cross the road. The car is sitting against the kerb edge, waiting to take us away. But I know as I climb in that it can never take me far enough.
The road opens out before us. Seb reaches out and touches my arm as he drives. I think I see somebody behind us, and I turn around to look in the back seat. It’s empty.
Acknowledgements
To Mama without whose prayers and support nothing good that came my way would ever have reached me. Thank you for everything you gave me without counting any of it. Thank you for life. And for love. And for more than I will ever know. I love you.
To Dad who wanted me to read – always – to make up for the reading that wouldn’t come to him. Thank you for the stories. And for that smile. And for being proud whether I deserved it or not. We will come to you one day not too far away.
To Sadia, my wife. My life. And the third best lawyer in the World. Thank you for all that faith that you somehow still have in me. Thank you for the daily blessings bring into my life. I love you. One day I will repay you with twenty-two point two million somethings. What those somethings are though is not yet clear. I’m beginning to think it might not be pounds. I really hope by now you’re getting some sleep though I’m not hugely optimistic. Thank you for your belief and your ideas and that believable optimism that you infect everything with. I couldn’t do any of this without you. I wouldn’t want to.
To my brothers and sisters, Kash, Omer, Khurrum and Aiysha. I miss you all. To me each of you is a compass point that helps me find my place in the world. Thank you.
Now to ones who make this thing happen … the Book GIANTS.