Disclaimer (13 page)

Robert looks at Catherine, but says nothing. His eyes stay on her as she comes closer and pulls out a chair, joining him at the kitchen table. He drinks from a glass of whisky he has poured himself, his eyes still fixed on her.

‘Robert,’ she says softly. His name is all she can find to say.

He puts down his glass, reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out an envelope. He tips the photographs on to the table and spreads them out with his fingers, as if he is about to perform a card trick. She looks at them, confused at first, as he had been when he first saw them. Then it hits her. She sees the images. Hears the sound. Click, click, click.

‘Oh God,’ she says as she is dragged back, an unwilling time traveller. She doesn’t touch them, just looks.

He grabs her wrist and makes her pick them up. ‘Look at them. Look at them closely. Look at yourself.’ And she does. Tears come to her eyes, her throat closes, dry, choking. She wipes her sleeve across her eyes. She cannot cry – if she cries she will never stop, it will go on and on and she will drown. They will both drown. Is this the worst moment? She knows it is not.

‘I said, look at them.’ She has never heard him so cold, never felt this chill his voice sends through her. He doesn’t shout, but love has been stripped out, leaving only fury.

‘Look at all of them.’

And she is forced to go through them, one by one.

He stops her hand when she gets to a photograph of her masturbating. There is more than one and he will not allow her to flick through them. She must look at them slowly. Then he snatches them from her and lays three down side by side: a triptych of his shameless wife. His wife spread out in glossy colour on their kitchen table, her fingers sticky, tucked into herself. Light, nimble fingers. And then Robert begins to cry, and it breaks her heart.

‘Oh, Robert, I’m so sorry … I should have told you …’ She moves towards him, wanting to put her arms around him, to pull him closer, but he pushes back his chair. He doesn’t want her touching him. He snatches up a photograph of Nicholas on the beach with her.

‘What the fuck went on?’ That voice again. There is more anger than pain in him.

‘I should have told you … but … Nicholas didn’t know anything. Really. He didn’t know … it was so long ago … I—’

‘I know exactly when it fucking was,’ he interrupts. ‘It doesn’t matter how long ago it was. You did this—’ and he grabs up the photographs and throws them in her face.

The shock of it makes her gasp. Most of them fall to the floor, a couple settle on her lap. She brushes them off, leaving them where they lie.

‘And Nicholas?’ he says. ‘What did he see? It’s one thing doing it to me, but to him? How could you? I didn’t think you were capable of …’

He can’t say it and she waits for him as he struggles to order his thoughts. Yet it is dangerous to wait. She should step in before he says too much, but she is lost. She is lost back then, remembering.

‘Who was it? I want to know who the fuck it was. Did it carry on? Or was it some fucking Spanish waiter – a holiday fling, like you were some teenage slut who had a holiday shag. An easy lay. Those fucking English cunts – bit of sunshine and sangria and they’re anyone’s. Of course they don’t usually have their fucking kids with them. Were you bored? Had to get a bit of attention for yourself?’

‘No, no, it wasn’t like that …’ It feels as if a stranger has walked into their home. This is not Robert.

‘Well, how was it then? He was taking pictures of our son. So tell me? How was it?’

‘Stop shouting at me!’ Because he is shouting and she cannot think if he shouts. He is no longer cold; his anger has warmed him up. ‘Please. Stop. I will tell you, if you listen … just try and listen …’ She grabs his whisky and finishes it. She prepares to say it out loud, to confess why she has never told him. ‘I didn’t want you to leave us there. Do you remember that? I asked you not to go, not to go back to work, to stay with us …’ She stalls, building up to it, but he doesn’t let her. He snatches control again, unable to contain his fury.

‘You are unbelievable. You’re saying that it’s my fault? That because I left early it justifies you fucking a stranger under our son’s nose? Exposing him to that? You really think you can justify anything you do, don’t you? That you are always right. That right is always on your side. Saint fucking Catherine.’

She is stunned. He hates her in that moment, she can see it. So quickly he has turned from love to hate. He is hurt, she tells herself, yet she fears it is more than that. Clogging, dark resentment bubbles out of his mouth. She watches him, his mouth opening, stuff coming out.

‘You couldn’t do without me for four days? You couldn’t manage without sex for four days? As I remember it, we were barely having sex then anyway. That was why I bought you that fucking underwear!’ He kicks at one of the photographs. ‘So how long did it go on? Did you have little reunions? Meet up over a glass of Rioja back in England? Oh, maybe all those fucking
work
trips. Did you take him with you?’

What had she expected? Not this. She looks at the photographs on the floor and bends down to pick them up.

‘Where did you get them?’

Robert ignores her, opening his bag and slapping
The Perfect Stranger
down on to the table.

‘So it
is
about you.’

Sweat soaks into her dressing gown.

‘Yes, but it wasn’t like that – not like it is in there …’ It feels as if he has jammed his fist down her throat and she can’t get her words out.

‘Really? So why were you so worried? Why did you try and burn it? And you’ve just said that Nicholas knew nothing about it, but he was sent this book too, wasn’t he – so he must have been involved—’

‘Yes, but not …’ she starts and then stops. ‘You haven’t read it?’

‘No. I haven’t had the stomach. These tell me enough.’ And he kicks at the photographs again. ‘Did
he
write it?’

‘No,’ she whispers.

‘What? I can’t hear you.’ Scornful. Bullying.

She shakes her head.

‘So who then? His wife? Did she find out?’

‘His father. I think it’s his father.’

‘His father? Oh, for fuck’s sake! He was young? How young exactly? Don’t tell me he was under age.’

And then Catherine raises her voice, but it’s more a scream than a shout. Shrill and desperate.

‘He’s dead! He died—’

She catches the shock on Robert’s face. A shock wave that has taken twenty years to travel from her to him, and now has smashed down the defences she had constructed around their life together.

24

Summer 1993

It wasn’t the middle of the night, or three in the morning. It was teatime on a bright, sunny day. Nancy and I had been sitting in our garden, reading the newspapers and drinking tea. We had moved our chairs to the corner of the terrace, making the most of that last bit of sun before our north-facing garden was in total shadow. I didn’t hear it at first; it was only when I went into the kitchen to refill our cups that I saw two figures through the glass of our front door. And then I heard them. I realized later that they had probably been knocking for a while, because what I heard from the kitchen was no longer a knock but a thump, with a fist. Not aggressive, yet urgent. The teapot was in my hand, ready to pour, and I put it down and glanced through the open kitchen door at Nancy, her hat pulled down, shielding her eyes from the sun, lost in concentration. What was she reading? I don’t know exactly, I remember it was the review section so it would probably have been something about a play or a film, or a concert that she might have circled with her pencil and suggest we get tickets for. We never did. We never went to the theatre or listened to music after that.

I left her reading and went to the front door. You just know when something is so wrong. And I wanted to leave her as long as possible in that old world where the Sunday papers could be read and sympathy felt for other people’s troubles, not our own.

‘Mr Brigstocke?’ he asked. And I nodded, not moving from the doorstep, not wanting to let them in.

‘Can we come in, sir?’ She spoke this time, her eyes determined to hold mine. I hesitated, then stood aside, opening the front door wider, allowing them in.

‘Is your wife here, sir?’ she asked.

I nodded. ‘What’s happened? Why are you here?’

‘I’m afraid it is bad news, sir. Please go and find your wife.’

And I obeyed. They followed me to the sitting-room door and said they’d wait there. I made the walk through to the kitchen and out of the back door and stood in the shade looking at Nancy, one splash of sun remaining on the edge of her hat.

She looked up.

‘What is it?’ Her eyes were screwed up, squinting at me in the shadow. ‘Stephen?’

‘The police are here. In the sitting room.’

And she continued to stare at me, her mouth partially open, knowing, as I did, that we were about to become old before our time. Bowed and buckled under a weight too heavy to bear. She pushed herself up from the depth of the deckchair, the vitality it seemed already having left her. I held out my hand and we walked together into our sitting room and sat in two separate chairs. The police officers had taken the sofa.

‘You have a son, Jonathan. Aged nineteen? Travelling in Spain.’

We both nodded. Not dead then, I thought. They used the present tense. Nancy must have thought the same: ‘We had a postcard from him yesterday. From Seville.’ She actually smiled as she said it, as if this was proof somehow that he was fine; confirmation that he was a good boy who loved his parents; who didn’t want them to worry about him.

‘We’re so sorry – Jonathan died in an accident. Yesterday. We’re very sorry.’ I nodded, Nancy didn’t move. We both sat in our separate chairs and then I stood up and went over to her. I took her hand. It was clammy, unresponsive.

‘What sort of accident?’ I was thinking road. Something on the road, that’s where accidents happen. A car hitting him. Him falling from a motorbike at speed. Being hit by a truck. Something quick and final with no hope of recovery.

‘He drowned,’ the policeman said, and the policewoman got up and offered to make tea. I pointed to the kitchen.

‘It was an accident. The Spanish police are clear about that. Tarifa – the sea is treacherous there. Unpredictable.’ He looked at us.

What could we say? What could we do? We needed to be told what to do. He knew that.

‘You will have to go to Spain to identify your son,’ he told us. ‘The Spanish authorities won’t release the body until there’s formal identification. Unless there’s someone else who could do that for you …’

‘So, you’re not sure it’s Jonathan? It could be a mistake?’ Nancy snatched at hope.

‘Mrs Brigstocke, I’m sorry, but there is no mistake. The Spanish police have been through your son’s things … his bag was on the beach … There still has to be a formal identification though.’

‘Maybe someone stole his bag?’ she pleaded.

‘They found his passport. It’s definitely Jonathan.’

The female officer returned with the tea – too milky, too sweet.

‘The body can’t be released until it’s been formally identified. After that, you can bring him home,’ she said as she put down the tray. ‘If there’s anyone else who could do that …’

‘No, there’s no one else,’ I said.

‘No other family?’

I shook my head.

She took this in, then carried on. ‘The consulate will help with all the arrangements. They’ll look after everything for you.’

The body. Our son. The body. I felt Nancy slip her hand out of mine and wrap it around her teacup.

‘Here’s the number for the consulate, and I’ll give you mine too,’ the policewoman said, writing in a small pad. ‘In case you have any more questions.’ She held the piece of paper out to me, but it was Nancy who took it. She sat down with it, staring at the numbers. She didn’t look up when they walked to the door, or when she heard it close behind them.

There were questions, of course, which I hadn’t had the presence of mind to ask at the time. How exactly had it happened? What sort of accident? Was there anyone else involved? It was Nancy who found out those details when she telephoned the consulate, and it was Nancy who told me. That is when I first heard the name Ravenscroft. Nancy wanted to get in touch with her, but I persuaded her not to. I’d said it was up to her to contact us, and she’d agreed with me at the time. The fact that Catherine Ravenscroft made no attempt to do so made me even more certain that it had been the right decision. It was only later, after Nancy had developed the film from Jonathan’s camera, that she must have changed her mind. But she didn’t tell me. She kept it to herself.

When the door closed behind them I saw Nancy was shivering and I took the blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around her shoulders. She still hadn’t looked at me.

‘Nancy, Nancy,’ I whispered. I knelt down and pulled her towards me – I had to pull her, she didn’t come willingly. It was shock, she couldn’t move. Of course I was shocked too, but in a way I was luckier than she was. I had her to focus on. I had to help her, so I couldn’t think about how I felt. I stroked her hair as if she was a child. I said her name again, several times, quietly, as if coaxing her out of sleep. And then she woke up and looked at me, shrugged the blanket from her shoulders and stood up, roughly dislodging me.

‘Book a flight, Stephen.’ Then she went upstairs and I heard a suitcase being dragged from under our bed.

25

Summer 2013

Robert’s neck is stiff, his eyes dry. Catherine’s lover is dead. Jesus. That’s why she thought she hadn’t needed to tell him. She thought she’d got away with it. Her lover was never going to turn up on their doorstep. No wonder she’d been depressed. She was grieving. Had she fallen in love? Not in such a short time, surely. But did it make her think she was missing something? Robert had spent the night in the car, taking the bottle of whisky with him when he stormed out of the flat. She begged him to stay, begged him to listen. She even ran after him.