‘I told Adam I can’t face it. He won’t listen. We had an argument while you were asleep.’
We knew, of course, she would face it. For several minutes we ate in silence. Her head was low over her plate, contemplating what she herself had set in motion. I understood why, for all her dread, she must go ahead and try to undo the errors she had made before and after Mariam’s death. I agreed that Gorringe’s three years were not enough. I admired Miranda’s determination. I loved her for her courage and slow-burning fury. I’d never thought that vomiting could be a moral act.
I changed the subject. ‘Tell me more about Mark.’
She was keen to talk about him. He was much wounded by his mother’s disappearance from his life, kept asking for her, was sometimes withdrawn, sometimes happy. On two occasions, he was taken to see her in the hospital. On the second visit, she didn’t or wouldn’t recognise him. Jasmin, the social worker, thought he’d been smacked frequently. He was in the habit of chewing on his lower lip, to the point of drawing blood. He was a fussy eater, wouldn’t touch vegetables, salad or fruit, but seemed healthy enough on a diet of junk food. Dancing remained a passion. He could pick out tunes on a recorder. He knew his letters and could count, by his own boast, to thirty-five. On shoes, he knew his left from his right. He was not so good around other children and tended to move to the edge of a group. When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would answer, ‘a princess’. He liked dressing up as one with crown and wand, and ‘flitting about’ in an old nightie. He was happy in a borrowed summer frock. Jasmin was relaxed about it, but her immediate superior, an older woman, disapproved.
I remembered then something I had forgotten to tell her. When I crossed the playground, hand in hand with Mark, he’d wanted us to pretend we were running away, in a boat.
She was suddenly tearful. ‘Oh Mark!’ she cried out. ‘You’re such a special beautiful kid.’
After the meal, she stood to go upstairs. ‘I always thought I’d have children one day. I never expected to fall in love with this boy. But we don’t choose who to love, do we?’
Later, while I was clearing up the kitchen, I had a sudden thought. So obvious. And dangerous. I went next door and found Adam closing down the computer.
I sat on the edge of the bed. First I asked him about his conversation with Miranda.
He stood up from my office chair and put on his suit jacket. ‘I was trying to reassure her. She wasn’t persuaded. But the probability is overwhelming. Gorringe will plead guilty. It won’t come to court.’
I was interested.
‘To deny what he did, he’d have to tell a thousand lies under oath and he knows God will be listening. Miranda is His messenger. I’ve noticed in my researches how the guilty long to shed their burden. They seem to enter a state of elated abandonment.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘But look, it’s occurred to me. It’s important. When the police read of everything that happened this afternoon?’
‘Yes?’
‘They’re going to wonder. If Miranda knew that Gorringe raped Mariam, why would she go alone to his bedsit with a bottle of vodka? It would have to be revenge.’
Adam was already nodding before I’d finished. ‘Yes, I’ve thought of that.’
‘She needs to be able to say she only learned today, when Gorringe confessed. There needs to be some judicious editing. She went to Salisbury to confront her rapist. Until then, she didn’t know he’d raped Mariam. Do you understand?’
He looked at me steadily. ‘Yes. I understand perfectly.’
He turned away and was silent for a moment. ‘Charlie, I heard half an hour ago. There’s another one gone.’
In a lowered tone, he told what little he knew. It was an Adam of Bantu appearance, living in the suburbs of Vienna. He had developed a particular genius for the piano, especially for the music of Bach. His Goldberg Variations had amazed some critics. This Adam had, according to his final message to the cohort, ‘dissolved his consciousness’.
‘He’s not actually dead. He has motor function but no cognition.’
‘Could he be repaired or whatever?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can he still play the piano?’
‘I don’t know. But he certainly can’t learn new pieces.’
‘Why don’t these suicides leave an explanation?’
‘I assume they don’t have one.’
‘But you must have a theory about it,’ I said. I was feeling aggrieved on behalf of the African pianist. Perhaps Vienna was not the most racially accepting of cities. This Adam might have been too brilliant for his own good.
‘I don’t.’
‘Something to do with the state of the world. Or human nature?’
‘My guess is that it goes deeper.’
‘What are the others saying? Aren’t you in touch with them?’
‘Only in times like this. A simple notification. We don’t speculate.’
I started to ask him why not but he raised a hand to forestall me. ‘This is how it is.’
‘So what’s deeper supposed to mean?’
‘Look, Charlie. I’m not about to do the same thing. As you know, I’ve every reason to live.’
Something in his phrasing or emphasis aroused my suspicion. We exchanged a long and fierce look. The little black rods in his eyes were shifting their alignment. As I stared, they appeared to swim, even to wriggle, left to right, like microorganisms mindlessly intent on some distant objective, like sperm migrating towards an ovum. I watched them, fascinated – harmonious elements lodged within the supreme achievement of our age. Our own technical accomplishment was leaving us behind, as it was always bound to, leaving us stranded on the little sandbar of our finite intelligence. But here we were dealing on the human plane. We were thinking about the same thing.
‘You promised me that you wouldn’t touch her again.’
‘I’ve kept my promise.’
‘Have you?’
‘Yes. But…’
I waited.
‘It’s not easy to say this.’
I gave him no encouragement.
‘There was a time,’ he started, then paused. ‘I begged her. She said no, several times. I begged her and finally she agreed as long as I never asked her again. It was humiliating.’
He closed his eyes. I saw his right hand clench. ‘I asked if I could masturbate in front of her. She said I could. I did. And that was it.’
It wasn’t the rawness of this confession or its comic absurdity that struck me. It was the suggestion, yet another, that he really did feel, he had sensation. Subjectively real. Why pretend, why mimic, who was there to fool or impress, when the price was to be so abject in front of the woman he loved? It was an overwhelming sensual compulsion. He needn’t have told me. He had to have it, and he had to tell me. I didn’t count it as a betrayal, no promise was broken. I might not even mention it to Miranda. I felt sudden tenderness towards him for his truthfulness and vulnerability. I stood up from the bed and went over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. His own hand came up and lightly touched my elbow.