Secret Smile

At his flat, he made supper for us – smoked mackerel and salad with a bottle of white wine – while I sat on the church pew he'd bought at the reclamation centre and watched him. When he sat down he took a small bite, but then pushed his plate away.

'Um – what I was saying this afternoon

'Yes?'

'About your plans, you know. Well, I was thinking – you could move in with me.'

I started to speak, but he held up a hand.

'Hang on. I'm saying this all wrong. I don't mean, you could move in with me. Well, I do of course, but that's not what I'm really saying. And when I say, I was thinking you could move in – as if it had just occurred to me – well, it's what I'm thinking about all the time.'

'You're confusing me.'

'I'm nervous, that's why.' He took a breath and then said: 'I very much want you to come and live with me.' He twisted the wine glass round by its stem. 'I want you to marry me, Miranda.'

Happiness bubbled up in me like an underground stream finding the surface. Unlooked-for, undeserved happiness that had come into my parched life when I met him.

'I want to have children with you…' he continued.

'Don,' I said.

'I want to grow old with you. Only you. Nobody but you. There.'

'Oh,' I said.

'I've never said anything like this before.' He gave a grimace and rubbed his eyes. 'Now you're supposed to reply, I think.'

'Listen, Don,' I said.

'Just tell me.'

I leaned towards him and put my hands on either side of his lovely, clever, kind face; kissed him on the eyelids and then on the lips. 'I love you too,' I said. 'I love you very, very, very much. Only you.'

'That's good,' he said. 'Isn't it?'

'Can you wait a bit?'

'Wait?'

'Yes.' I held his gaze.

'Well, of course I can wait – but does that mean you're not sure? About me, I mean?'

'No. It doesn't mean that at all.'

'Why?'

'I am sure about what I feel,' I said. 'I used to wonder how you knew when it was the real thing. Not any more.'

'So why?'

'It's complicated,' I said evasively.

'Are you scared?'

'Do you mean of commitment or something?'

'Not exactly. But after everything you have been through, maybe you feel it's wrong to be happy.'

'It's not that.'

'Or maybe you feel you're not safe, and therefore anyone who's with you isn't safe either. We've talked about that – about how you felt you were the carrier. Is that it? Everyone you love dies.'

'You're the psychologist,' I said.

'Because I don't mind,' he said. 'Everything's a risk. You just have to choose the risk you want to take. I chose a long time ago. Now you have to as well.'

I put my hands over his, turned his palms upwards, kissed them both. 'I have chosen,' I said.

'You're crying,' he said. 'Into your food.'

'Sorry.'

'Of course I'll bloody wait.'

I've met a man. Don. I wish you could meet him as well. I think you'd like him. I know he'd like you. It feels – oh, I don't know, odd, unsettling, not right, to he in love with someone again. I never thought it would happen, not after everything. I thought all of that was over. And sometimes – well, a lot, really – I get this sudden rush of panic that it's wrong. Wrong to be happy, I mean, when you're not here and Laura's gone and Mum and Dad are wrecked and so many people have suffered and I feel that it was because of me. It was me who spread the terrible contagion. I can see that sardonic expression on your face when I say that, but nevertheless it's true. I'll always miss you, Troy. Every minute of every day of every week of every year that's left. So how is it possible that I can allow myself to be happy? Maybe it isn't. We'll see.

CHAPTER 40

My eyes were closed, hard, my breath coming in gasps. My heart was beating so fast that my body seemed to hum with it. I was sweating. I could hardly feel the pain. I knew it was there. On my face, around my jaw. I could taste blood, warm, metallic. Around my neck, the scraping. My ribs, sore, bruised. My eyes still closed, afraid of what was in store. I felt the sounds of someone approaching, the vibration of footsteps on the stairs. The touch, when it came, was gentle on my face and cheeks, but it still made me flinch. I didn't open my eyes. I murmured something.

'Jesus, Miranda!' said the voice. 'I heard glass breaking… What the fuck? Miranda?'

I opened my eyes. The light hurt them. Don. Don's lovely face looking down at me, close, distressed. He ran over to the window. I spoke in a murmur, but Don couldn't make it out. He leaned close to my face.

'Said he was going to kill me,' I said in little more than a whisper.

'Who?'

'Hurt me,' I said. 'He hurt me.'

His expression darkened. 'Was it him? Brendan?'

'Said he'd come for me.'

'What's he done to you?'

I felt him gently touching my face, stroking my hair, unfastening my shirt, assessing the damage.

'You're bleeding.'

I just groaned. He was looking around.

'There's blood on the… What the fuck did that bastard do to you? I'm calling the police. And an ambulance.'

'No,' I said, half raising myself and flinching at the pain it caused me. 'Don't… It's not…'

'What are you talking about?' Don said, almost angrily. 'I'm sorry, Miranda. I'm not listening to you.' I heard three little bleeps as he punched the numbers into his mobile phone. I sank back almost sobbing, partly with the pain, partly at the thought of what was to come.

I wasn't there when the police examined the room, when they dabbed at the blood on the wall and picked hairs off the carpet and put the knife in a plastic bag. I was grateful for that. It would be like the death of Troy all over again. I might have found it hard to retain control. Don told me about all that later. He had wanted to come with me in the ambulance, but a policeman told me he ought to stay and help to identify objects at the scene. What was mine, what was his and what was 'foreign'. Much, much later Don told me that he had been – in the midst of his distress – rather interested to see the scene-of-crime procedures with all their special gloves and tweezers and scalpels, plastic bags and labels, flash photography. He'd been rather excited to be on the inside of the tape that was shutting the crime scene off from the outside world.

Meanwhile I had been taken away in an ambulance with a female police officer for company. She was like a free pass that took me to the front of the queue. I was led through a waiting area full of people who, whatever their injuries, were inordinately interested in me – a young woman being led by two nurses and a uniformed police officer. What could have happened to me? They would probably have to wait hours. Within two minutes I was being examined by a young doctor and a nurse. A minute later he stepped aside when a consultant in a white coat and a spotted tie arrived. I felt nervous, as you do with doctors.

He examined my face and the inside of my mouth.

'What were you struck with?' he said.

'A wall,' I said.

'Do you know who did this?' he asked.

I nodded. He turned to the police officer.

'You'll need to photograph this. The neck as well.'

'He's on his way,' said the WPC.

'We'll be taking an X-ray, but the cheekbone is probably fractured.'

I gave a cry because as he said it he had given a dab on my cheek with his finger, as if to test his theory. He shone a light into my eyes and into my ears. He held up his finger and asked me to look at the point as he moved it around.