Michael crosses the highway and enters the city at Christopher Street, passing gay and lesbian clubs, sex stores and psychics. He watches the people walking towards him, the young women, and tries to picture what Samantha might have been like when she’d been here as a student. When all her world was still possible, and only just beginning.
Michael has never heard from Samantha. He knows this is for the best — that the note he left must have provoked the hurt and annoyance he’d intended. He’d wanted his leaving to be complete. It was, in a way, his final offering to her. Which is why, telling his agent he wanted to work on it some more, he’d withdrawn The Man Who Broke the Mirror from publication. And why he’d taken up a teaching job here in New York rather than embark on any more books. So that Samantha and Rachel wouldn’t ever have to see his name again in a shop window or in a magazine. But even though Michael knew this was how it had to be, for several months after he’d moved back to New York he’d still often found himself scrolling to Samantha’s number, or hovering his cursor above her email. For a long time he hadn’t been sure why he did this. Any contact from him would only be painful for her and he had, after all, made a promise to Josh. But then, as the months passed, he’d come to understand.
It was because he’d never told her the truth. He’d never let the true story of what had happened in her house, to her daughter, exist in the world, and in not doing so it had remained unfinished within him. It was like Caroline had told him back in Coed y Bryn — an untold story, it was like landfill, unseen but still there, seeping into the soil. Which is why, six months ago, Michael decided to find a way he might keep his promise to Josh, but still also release those true minutes and finally tell the true story.
All he had to do, he’d realised, was what he’d always done best, and turn the authorial technique he’d practiced throughout his adult life upon himself. Rediscover the alchemy of experience formed into words and disappear himself from the page again, although this time in a different way to how he’d ever done so before. Not by removing himself from the story, but by putting himself into it. If he forced himself to do this, every day and every night, then eventually, regardless of whether what he wrote would ever be seen, it would at least be over.
―
Michael leant back in his chair and looked at his screen, its white page printed with the black of all he’d done, all he’d remembered. Reaching forward he scrolled back to the first page of the document, centred the cursor, and wrote a dedication:
For Samantha
Which it was, even if she’d never see it. Although of course he knew it was for himself too. And for Caroline, perhaps, who’d always, regardless of the consequences, so badly needed a story to be told — and who’d also have understood why he’d had to tell it like this. Not with just the facts, as she’d quoted to him in the Frontline on that first night they’d met, but with everything else, too.
Whether it would be enough, Michael would know only in time. He’d once told Samantha a story didn’t need a reader to be complete. But now, as he printed off the pages he’d just written and added them to the pile beside his desk, he was no longer so sure. Perhaps Samantha had been right and this would only be a temporary solution. Perhaps one day he would, after all, have to follow the example of the man who’d killed his wife, and slip these printed pages into an envelope addressed to the house where this had all begun: 32 South Hill Drive, Hampstead, London, NW3 6JP. But until that happened, if it ever did, then this pile of pages beside his desk would have to suffice. At least in them Michael had finally told their story. He’d offered what he could. He had brought it into the world. As a confession, yes, but also as an attempt to bring it to a close for all of them — for Samantha, Caroline, even Josh. To bring it to a close, their truths told, with this last sentence, these last words, and this full stop.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This novel is written in memory of Deborah Rogers, literary agent and exuberant champion of readers and reading.
Several books were particularly helpful in my research, including Drone Warfare by Medea Benjamin and Barbara Ehrenreich, Wired for War by P. W. Singer, Mirroring People by Marco Iacoboni, and The Hunters by James Salter. NBC’s interview with Brandon Bryant was an invaluable insight into the life of a UAV operator.
I am grateful to Alan Little, Derek Gregory, and Giles Hannah for sharing their specialist knowledge, and to the staff and administrators of the London Library, Burgh House and Hampstead Museum, Fenton House and 2 Willow Road. I would also like to thank the following institutions and individuals for providing me with space, time or both to write this noveclass="underline" The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, the University of Falmouth, the Pavilion café in Victoria Park, David Harrower, and Francesca Simon.
My thanks and gratitude to my editor Sarah Savitt and all at Faber & Faber, to my agent Zoe Waldie for her unfailing guidance and support, and to Nan Talese for her graceful faith and patience.
Lastly, and firstly, thank you and more to Katherine and Anwyn, for making sense of it all.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Owen Sheers is a poet, author, and playwright. His first novel, Resistance, was translated into ten languages and adapted into a film. The Dust Diaries, his Zimbabwean nonfiction narrative, won the Welsh Book of the Year Award. His awards for poetry and drama include the Somerset Maugham Award for Skirrid Hill, the Hay Festival Medal for Poetry and the Welsh Book of the Year for Pink Mist, and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award for his play The Two Worlds of Charlie F. He lives in Wales with his wife and daughter. He has been a New York Public Library Cullman Fellow.