How peaceful the days are now, here at the dead end of the year. Sitting in the fastness of this grey room I sometimes imagine I am utterly alone, that there is no one around me for miles and miles. It is like being in the deep hold of a great grey ship. The air is heavy and still, it presses in my ears, on my eyes, on the base of my skull. A trial date has been fixed at last. I know this should concentrate my mind, give me a purpose and so on, make me excited, or afraid, but it does not. Something has happened to my sense of time, I think in aeons now. The days, the weeks of this banal little courtroom drama will register as no more than a pinprick. I have become a lifer.
Again today Maolseachlainn brought up the topic of how I should plead. I let him maunder on for a while, then I got fed up and told him I would dispense with his services if he did not come straight out and say whatever it was he had on his mind. This was disingenuous of me, for I had realised, of course, since his last visit, that he was hinting at the possibility of an arrangement – I understand, from the conversations I have had in here, that there is hardly a sentence handed down that has not been prearranged among counsel. I was curious to know what the court could want from me. Now, as I watched poor old Mac squirm and sweat, I thought I had it: Charlie, of course, they were trying to salvage something of Charlie's reputation. (How could I have imagined they would care a fig for Charlie, or his reputation?) I would do all I could for him, that went without saying, though it seemed to me a bit late now. All right, Mac, I said, holding up a hand, I'll plead guilty – and what then? He gave me one of his over-the-spectacles looks. Then it'll be an open-and-shut case, won't it? he said. This, I realised after a moment, was intended as a witticism. He grinned dolefully. What he meant was that the trial would open, I would deny the charges as stated, plead guilty to manslaughter or something, the judge would pass sentence, with a bit lopped off in return for my co-operation, and then, presto, it would all be over, the hearing would end, the case would be closed. He could guarantee nothing, he said, but he had a duty to his client to try to secure the best judgement that was possible within the law. He is very charming when he waxes pompous like this. What's the point, I said, what's the trick? He shrugged. The trick is that no evidence will be heard. Simple as that. For a moment we were silent. And will that work, I said, will that save him? He frowned in puzzlement, and at once I saw I had been wrong, that Charlie and his embarrassment were not the subject here. I laughed. I've said it before, sometimes I think I am hopelessly innocent. Maolseachlainn glanced over his shoulder – he did, he really did – and leaned across the table conspiratorially. No one is worrying about Charlie French, he said, no one is worrying about him.
Your honour, I do not like this, I do not like this at all. I'll plead guilty, of course – haven't I done so all along? – but I do not like it that I may not give evidence, no, that I don't like. It's not fair. Even a dog such as I must have his day. I have always seen myself in the witness box, gazing straight ahead, quite calm, and wearing casual clothes, as the newspapers will have it. And then that authoritative voice, telling my side of things, in my own words. Now I am to be denied my moment of drama, the last such, surely, that I'll know in this life. No, it's not right.
Look, the fact is I hardly remember that evening at Charlie French's. I mean, I remember the evening, but not the people, not with any clarity. I see far more vividly the lights on the water outside, and the last streak of sunset and the dark bank of cloud, than I do the faces of those hearty boy-men. Even Max Molyneaux is not much more, in my recollection, than an expensive suit and a certain sleek brutishness. What do I care for him and his ilk, for God's sake? Let them keep their reputations, it's nothing to me, one way or the other, I have no interest in stirring up scandal. The occasion passed before me in a glassy blur, like so much else over those ten days. Why, even poor Foxy was hardly more substantial to me in my frantic condition than a prop in a wet dream. No, wait, I take that back. However much they may hoot in ribald laughter, I must declare that I remember her clearly, with tenderness and compassion. She is, and will most likely remain, the last woman I made love to. Love? Can I call it that? What else can I call it. She trusted me. She smelled the blood and the horror and did not recoil, but opened herself like a flower and let me rest in her for a moment, my heart shaking, as we exchanged our wordless secret. Yes, I remember her. I was falling, and she caught me, my Gretchen.
In fact, her name was Marian. Not that it matters.
They stayed very late, all except Mrs Max, who left directly dinner was over. I watched as she was driven away, sitting up very straight in the back of one of the black limousines, a ravaged Nefertiti. Max and his pals went upstairs again, and caroused until the dawn was breaking. I spent the night in the kitchen playing cards with Madge. Where was Marian? I don't know – I got blotto, as usual. Anyway, our moment was over, if we were to encounter each other now we would only be embarrassed. Yet I think I must have gone to look for her, for I recall blundering about upstairs, in the bedrooms, and falling over repeatedly in the dark. I remember, too, standing at a wide-open window, very high up, listening to the strains of music outside on the air, a mysterious belling and blaring, that seemed to move, to fade, as if a clamorous cavalcade were departing into the night. I suppose it came from some dancehall, or some nightclub on the harbour. I think of it, however, as the noise of the god and his retinue, abandoning me.
Next day the weather broke. At mid-morning, when my hangover and I got up, the sun was shining as gaily and as heartlessly as it had all week, and the houses along the coast shimmered in a pale-blue haze, as if the sky had crumbled into airy geometry there. I stood at the window in my drawers, scratching and yawning. It struck me that I had become almost accustomed to this strange way of life. It was as if I were adapting to an illness, after the initial phase of frights and fevers. A churchbell was ringing. Sunday. The strollers were out already, with their dogs and children. Across the road, at the harbour wall, a man in a raincoat stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing out to sea. I could hear voices downstairs. Madge was in the kitchen doing last night's washing-up. She gave me a peculiar glance. I was wearing Charlie's dressing-gown. How is it, I wonder, that I did not catch it then, that new, speculative note in her voice, which should have alerted me? She had a helper with her this morning, her niece, a dim-looking child of twelve or so with – with what, what does it matter what she had, what she was like. All these minor witnesses, none of whom will ever be called now. I sat at the table drinking tea and watched them as they worked. The child I could see was frightened of me. Fe fi fo fum. He's gone out, you know, Madge said, her arms plunged in suds, Mr French, he went out as I was coming in. Her, tone was unaccountably accusing, as if Charlie had fled the house because of me. But then, he had.
In the afternoon a huge cloud grew up on the horizon, grey and grainy, like a deposit of silt, and the sea swarmed, a blackish blue flecked with white. I watched an undulant curtain of rain sweep in slowly from the east. The man at the harbour wall buttoned his raincoat. The Sunday morning crowd was long gone, but he, he was still there.
Strange how it felt, now that it was here at last. I had expected terror, panic, cold sweat, the shakes, but there was none of that. Instead, a kind of wild-eyed euphoria took hold of me. I strode about the house like the drunken captain of a storm-tossed ship. All sorts of mad ideas came into my head. I would barricade the doors and windows. I would take Madge and her niece hostage, and barter them for a helicopter to freedom. I would wait until Charlie came back, and use him as a human shield, marching him out ahead of me with a knife at his throat – I even went down to the kitchen to find a blade for the purpose. Madge had finished the washing-up, and was sitting at the table with a pot of tea and a Sunday tabloid. She watched me apprehensively as I rummaged in the cutlery drawer. She asked if I would be wanting my lunch, or would I wait for Mr French. I laughed wildly. Lunch! The niece laughed too, a little parrot squawk, her top lip curling up to reveal a half-inch of whitish, glistening gum. When I looked at her she shut her mouth abruptly, it was like a blind coming down. Jacintha, Madge said to her sharply, you go home. Stay where you are! I cried. They both flinched, and Jacintha's chin trembled and her eyes filled up with tears. I abandoned the search for a knife, and plunged off upstairs again. The man in the mackintosh was gone. I gave a great gasp of relief, as if I had been holding my breath all this time, and slumped against the window-frame. The rain teemed, big drops dancing on the road and making the surface of the water in the harbour seethe. I heard the front door open and bang shut, and Madge and the girl appeared below me and scampered away up the street with their coats over their heads. I laughed to see them go, the child leaping the puddles and Madge wallowing in her wake. Then I spotted the car, parked a little way up the road, on the other side, with two dim, large, motionless figures seated in the front, their faces blurred behind the streaming windscreen.