Second Life (29 page)
Yes.
And what would my defence be?
I didn’t want it to happen, though. Not like that!
I felt myself crumple. I began to cry again as I imagined what might have happened,
what Lukas might’ve done and got away with.
I thought of Hugh, and Connor. I imagined them finding out where I’d been, how I’d
ended up. I’d have to tell them, there’s no way I’d be able to lie; I’ve done enough
of that already.
‘I don’t even know where he lives.’
She paused. ‘Is there anything, anything at all, I can do to help?’
There’s nothing anyone can do, I thought. I just have to leave him, to walk away,
to make the severance that, just a few hours earlier, I’d been dreading.
‘No.’
I went home. I knew what I had to do. Let Lukas recede into the past, do my best
to forget him. Not log on. Not check my
messages. Not raise my hopes that there’ll
be flowers, apologies, explanations. Move on.
Mostly, I’ve succeeded. I’ve carried on working. I told Hugh I’d decided to stop
seeing the counsellor but to start going back to my meetings. I’ve done so, and kept
busy in other ways. I’ve called Ali and Dee and the rest of my friends, and spoken
to Anna every day. I’ve spent more time with Connor, even tried to talk to him about
Evie, to reassure him that he can tell me about his girlfriend, if he wants. ‘I’d
like to meet her, one day,’ I said. His shrug was predictable, but at least I’d made
the effort.
I’ve met up with Adrienne, too. Finally. She invited me to a concert and we had dinner
afterwards. We chatted; the argument we’d had outside the house felt all but forgotten.
Before we said goodbye she turned to me.
‘Julia,’ she said. ‘You know I love you. Unconditionally.’ I nodded, waiting. ‘And
so I’m not going to ask you what’s going on. But I need to know. Are you all right?
Is there anything I need to worry about?’
I shook my head. ‘No. Not any more.’
She smiled. It was the nearest I’d come to a confession, and she knew I’d tell her,
one day.
I’ve only been weak once, one Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago. I’d fought with Hugh,
Connor was being impossible. I couldn’t help myself. I logged on to encountrz, ignored
the couple of new messages I’d accumulated, then searched for his username.
Nothing.
Username not found.
He’d vanished.
I couldn’t help it. I called him.
His number was unavailable. It didn’t even go to voicemail. I tried again – in case
there’d been a problem, he was out of the country, there was an issue with the connection
– and then again, and again, and again. Each time, nothing.
And then I realized where I was, what I was doing. I told myself I was being ridiculous.
I’d promised myself complete cut-off; I’d told myself it would be easier, the best
way.
And here it was. The severance I craved. I should be grateful.
I get in late. I’ve been out, taking photos, first portraits of a family that had
been in touch through the website, then on the way home I’d stopped off to get some
shots of people as they stood outside the bars of Soho – trying to get back to the
subjects who really interest me, I guess – but now Hugh is already home. He asks
me to come with him, he has something to tell me.
It sounds ominous. I think of the time I got home from the gallery, the police in
the kitchen, the news that Kate was dead. I know Connor is fine, his light is on
upstairs, it’s always the first thing I ask when I arrive home and I’ve already done
so tonight, but still I’m nervous. Tell me now, I want to say, whatever it is, but
I don’t. I follow him into the kitchen. I dump my bag on the floor, my camera on
the table.
‘What is it?’ He looks serious. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
He takes a deep breath. ‘Roger called. From the Foreign Office. They think they know
what happened to Kate.’
I feel myself collapse. Questions tumble out – What? Who? – and he explains. ‘There’s
a man, this guy who they arrested on something totally unrelated. Roger isn’t allowed
to tell us what, exactly, but he hinted it was something to do with drugs. A dealer,
I guess. Anyway, apparently he’s known in the area; they even questioned him about
Kate but he said he’d seen nothing.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘When they searched
his place they found Kate’s earring.’
I close my eyes. I picture him ripping it off her, or her being
forced to give it
to him, thinking that cooperation might save her life when in fact it did no such
thing.
A dealer. Was it drugs, after all? Not sex?
Suddenly I’m there, again. Me and Marcus. We’d go together, but I’d wait for him.
At the end of the street, on the corner, outside the station. He’d meet our dealer,
hand over the cash. He’d come back with what we both wanted. Smiling.
But Kate saw none of that. I made sure of it, even the one time she visited us, during
the school holidays. She hadn’t wanted to go home and be alone with Dad, she begged
me to let her come for a visit. ‘Just for a few days,’ she said, and I relented.
I scraped some money together to pay for her ticket, and our father put up the rest.
She came for a long weekend and slept on the bed in our room while we slept on the
couch, but I’m certain she saw nothing. It was a few weeks before Marcus died, and
neither of us was using. I took her to the galleries, we walked the length of Unter
den Linden, drank hot chocolate at the top of the Fernsehturm. I photographed her
on the streets of Mitte – pictures that are lost, now – and we wandered around Tiergarten.
I left her with Marcus only once, when I went to buy groceries, but he knew how much
I wanted to keep her from drugs and I trusted him completely. When I got home they
were playing cards with Frosty, the TV on in the background, showing cartoons. She
saw nothing.
Still, shouldn’t I have set a better example?
I begin to sob, a sound that turns into a howl of pain. Hugh holds my hands in his.
I’d thought it might make me feel better. Knowing who’d killed my sister. Knowing
he’d been arrested, would be punished. It should draw a line under everything. It
should open up a future, allow me to move on.
But it doesn’t. It feels so meaningless. So banal. If anything, it’s worse.
‘Julia. Julia. It’s all right.’
I look at him.
‘I can’t bear it.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s definitely him?’
‘They think so.’ I begin to cry properly, tears run in thick streams. My sister dead,
her son devastated, over drugs?
‘Why?’ I say, over and over. Hugh holds me until I calm down.
I want my son.
‘Have you told Connor?’
He shakes his head.
‘We need to tell him.’
He nods, then stands up. He goes to the stairs as I go into the kitchen. I grab some
kitchen roll and wipe the tears from my face, then pour myself a drink of water.
When I go back into the living room Connor is sitting opposite his father. He looks
up. ‘Mum?’
I sit down on the sofa and take Connor’s hand.
‘Darling . . .’ I begin. I’m not sure what to say. I look at Hugh, then back at our
son. I dig as deep as I can, searching for the last reserves of strength. ‘Darling,
they’ve caught the man who killed Auntie Kate.’
He sits, for a moment. The room is perfectly still.
‘Darling?’
‘Who?’
What to say? This isn’t the movies, there’s no big plot, no satisfying resolution
to the story, tied with a bow at the end. Just a senseless waste of life.
‘Just a man,’ I say.
‘Who?’
I look again at Hugh. He opens his mouth to speak. Don’t
say it, I think. Don’t tell
him it was someone selling drugs. Don’t put that idea into his head.
‘Auntie Kate was in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ he says. ‘That’s all. She
ran into an evil man. We don’t know why, or what happened. But he’s been caught now,
and he’ll go to prison and pay for what he’s done.’
Connor nods. He’s trying to understand, trying to come to terms with the lack of
an explanation.
After a moment he lets go of my hand. ‘Can I go back to my room now?’
I say yes. There’s an urge to follow him, but I know I mustn’t. I leave him for ten
minutes, fifteen. I ring Adrienne, then Anna. She’s shocked. ‘Drugs?’ she says.
‘Yes. Did she—?’
‘No! No. Well, I mean, she partied, you know? We all did. But nothing hard core.’
As far as you know, I think. I’m only too well aware how easy it can be to keep these
things hidden. ‘Maybe you just didn’t know?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she says. ‘Honestly, I don’t.’
We talk for a while longer, but I want to see my son. I tell Anna I’m looking forward
to seeing her in a couple of weeks and she tells me she can’t wait. We say goodbye,
and then I tell Hugh I’m going up to see Connor.
I knock, he tells me to come in. He’s playing music, lying on the bed, facing the
ceiling. His eyes are red.
I say nothing. I go in. I hold him, and together we cry.
She’s arriving today. I’m picking her up later, we’ll have a coffee or something,
but for now I’m alone. I have the newspaper spread out in front of me. I turn to
the magazine, skim read something about some fashion designer, what she wishes she’d
known when she was young, then turn the page. A real-life article, someone whose
daughter became a heroin addict; I turn that page, too. I think of my own narrow
escape – if that’s what it was, if I really can be said to have escaped – and wonder
for a moment whether they’d run a story about me and Lukas. I shudder at the thought,
but my story isn’t unusual. I got myself involved with a man who wasn’t the person
I thought he was, and things went too far. It happens all the time.
I close the magazine and empty the dishwasher, on autopilot. I pick up the dishcloth,
the bottle of bleach. I clean the surfaces. I wonder if this is how my mother’s generation
felt; Valium in the bathroom cabinet, a bottle of gin under the sink. An affair with
the milkman, for the adventurous. So much for progress. I feel ashamed.
When I’ve finished my chores I go up to see Hugh. He’s in his office, despite the
cold he’s been fighting for almost a week. He’s working on a statement; the case
against him has progressed, the patient has relapsed and solicitors have been instructed.
The hospital’s legal team want to prevent it going
to a tribunal. ‘They’ve said I’m
screwed if it does,’ he told me. ‘The fact is I didn’t write down what I’d told them,
so I might as well have said nothing.’
‘Doesn’t it make any difference that they’d have gone ahead anyway?’
‘No. They just want some cash.’
It’s Maria dealing with the family now. According to Hugh, if they were that upset
they’d have sought their second opinion from a different hospital altogether.
I’ve asked him if he’ll lose his job. He said no, no one’s died, he hasn’t been criminally
negligent, but I can see the stress it’s causing him. I knock on the door and go
in. He’s sitting at his desk. He has the window open, despite the draught, the cool
air of early October. He looks pale.
‘How’re you feeling?’ I say.
‘Fine.’ Sweat sheens his brow.
‘Are you sure?’ I say. It’s good to care for him; it’s been a long time since I’ve
felt he needs me. ‘Want anything?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, thanks. How about you? What’re your plans today?’
I remind him about Anna. ‘I’m picking her up from the station.’
‘She’s not staying with us, though?’
‘No. She’s booked into a hotel. She’s coming for dinner on Monday.’
‘Where’s Connor?’
‘Out. With Dylan, I think.’
‘Not his girlfriend?’
‘I don’t know.’ Again I feel that sense of loss. I turn to Hugh’s shelves and begin
straightening things. I’m beginning to worry now. Connor is still upset after our
discussion the other night, yet he won’t talk to me. How can I be expected
to protect
him, to counsel him as he enters the world as an adult, if he won’t let me in?
And that’s my job. Isn’t it? In the last few weeks the need to protect him, to keep
him safe, has only increased. Yet I know I have to trust my son. To be old enough,
mature enough. Not to get into any trouble – or not too much at least, and nothing
with real repercussions. There’s little point in me demanding that he lives a blameless,
spotless life, after what I’ve done. He has to make his own mistakes, just as I made
mine.
And he will make them; I just hope they won’t be as catastrophic. Smoking in an alleyway,
yes. A bottle of vodka or cheap cider, bought from the off licence by whichever of
his friends is nearest to growing a beard. Weed, even; it’s going to happen sooner
or later, whether I like it or not. But nothing stronger. No accidents, no pregnancies.
No running away from home. No getting mixed up with people when you should know better.
‘Is he still seeing her?’ I say.
‘I’m not sure.’ I’m momentarily relieved. I’m aware it’s a contradiction; I want
Connor to be close to Hugh but don’t like the thought of him telling him things he
won’t tell me. ‘What d’you make of it all?’
‘What?’ I turn back to Hugh. ‘His girlfriend?’
He nods. ‘They met online, you know?’
I flinch. I turn back to the shelves. ‘Facebook?’
‘I think so. She’s a friend?’
‘I don’t know. She must be, I guess.’
‘Well,
is
he still seeing her?’
‘Hugh, why don’t you ask him? He talks to you about this stuff more than he talks
to me.’
He points to his screen. ‘Because I have enough on my mind as it is.’
