Second Life (39 page)

‘I can prove it.’ I hold my phone in front of me. ‘Just listen to this. Please. And
then—’

‘Miss. I’m going to have to ask you to move out of the way. Now.’

He steps between us. My desperation turns to anger; the world comes back in a furious
rush. The station seems noisy and I don’t know whether Anna will be able to hear
my recording. A small crowd has now gathered, on both sides of the barrier, staring
at us. A man has taken his phone out and is taking pictures.

‘Please! This is important.’ I’m fumbling with my phone, unlocking the screen, opening
the file. ‘Please, Anna? For Kate?’

She stares. It’s calm, suddenly, and then the guard asks me again to move away. This
is my last chance.

‘Just give her this. Please?’

‘Miss—’ he begins, but Anna interrupts him. She’s holding out her hand.

‘I’ll listen. I don’t know what you want, but I’ll listen.’

I hand the phone to the man standing between us, and he passes it to Anna.

‘Press play. Please?’ She hesitates, then does so. She stands, her head craned forward.
The section I’d selected is ready. My voice, his voice. Just as it’d been in the
taxi. She’s too far away and I can’t hear what she’s listening to, but I know it
by heart: ‘. . . a nice little arrangement . . . I don’t
love
her.’ She plays enough,
just a few moments, then it ends. She crumples. It’s as if all the tension of the
last few minutes has caused her to snap.

‘I’m sorry.’

She looks at me. She’s crushed. She seems diminished, empty. All emotion is squeezed
out. I wish I could reach out, comfort her. I can’t bear the thought of doing this
to her and then sending her on her way. Back home. Alone.

Then she speaks.

‘I don’t believe you. It doesn’t even sound like him. Ryan’s right.’

I see the doubt on her face. She’s not sure.

‘Listen again. Listen—’

‘It’s not him.’ Her voice falters, broken. ‘It can’t be.’

Her free hand goes to my phone, though. She presses the play button, tries to turn
up the volume.

‘Love Anna? . . . I don’t
love
her.’

‘Anna. Please . . .’ There’s a hand on my arm, someone tugging at the sleeve of my
jacket, trying to drag me away.

‘Anna?’

She looks up at me, then. The expression on her face is chilling, her eyes wide with
disbelief and pure horror. It’s as if I’m watching all of her plans evaporate, taking
flight like nervous birds, leaving nothing behind.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘We need to talk.’ It’s so quiet I can barely hear her. The crowd around us senses
the breaking tension and begins to move, to go back to their day. The bubble of drama
that had formed in front of them has burst. Anna turns to the official standing between
us and says, ‘Can you let me back through? Please? I need to talk to my friend .
. .’

Time seems to speed up. The world has been on pause, held in the thrall of her fury,
and my desperation. But now it’s all been released; it crashes in. The noise of the
station, the bustle and chatter, the old piano that’s been installed on
the concourse
and which somebody is playing badly, the same phrase, again and again. I take her
arm and she doesn’t resist; together we go, up the escalator, supporting each other.
We’re silent. I suggest a coffee, but she shakes her head, says she needs a drink.
I need one, too, I tell myself I could, just this once, but I force the thought away.
Anna is crying, her voice cracks as she tries to speak. She fumbles for a tissue
and we go upstairs to the bar. I feel wretched, my guilt is almost overwhelming.
All I can think is,
I’ve done this. This is my fault.

We sit under the umbrellas. Behind me the door leads to the hotel, to the room in
which Lukas and I first had sex. Memories of our affair are everywhere, and I look
away, trying to ignore them. Anna is murmuring something about her train. ‘I’m going
to miss it,’ she says, stating the obvious. ‘I want to go home.’

I hand her a tissue. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll help. You can stay with me, or—’

‘No. Why would I want to do that?’

She looks angry. It’s as if things are finally coalescing for her, the hurt she feels
condensing, becoming easier to comprehend. I want to do something, make some small
gesture, however meaningless.

‘Then I’ll pay for you to go on the next train. But Anna, you have to let me explain.
I didn’t want any of this to happen . . .’

‘I can pay for my own ticket.’ She’s defiant, but then she looks down at her lap.
I imagine she wonders how she could ever have got herself into this situation, how
she could have let herself trust Ryan. And also how she could have ever trusted me.
The waiter comes over and I order some water and a glass of white wine. He asks which
we want, whether we’d like to see the list. ‘Anything. Just the house white is fine
. . .’

Anna looks up once he’s moved away. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Believe me. I never knew . . . I didn’t know that that man, Lukas
was seeing you. If I had, I’d never have dreamt—’

‘You mean he didn’t tell you? He didn’t tell you he was engaged? To me?’

‘No.’ I’m emphatic. ‘Of course not.’ I want to make her understand; right now it’s
all that seems to matter.

‘And you didn’t think to ask?’

‘Anna, no. I didn’t. He was wearing a wedding ring—’

She interrupts me, shocked.

‘A ring?’

‘Yes. He told me he’d been married, once, but that his wife had died. That was it.
I thought he was single. I didn’t . . . I wouldn’t have seen him if I’d known he
was involved with someone else. Least of all you . . .’

Even as I say it I wonder if it’s true. Am I kidding myself? My relationship with
Lukas had developed incrementally, had started off with my search for the truth,
developed into chatting online, and from there had turned into what it became. Even
if he had been married, or engaged, at what point would I have stopped it, said,
no, this far but no further? At what point
should
I have done that?

There’s a point when an online dalliance might become dangerous, but who can really
say when it is?

‘I swear.’

‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’

I feel a flicker of anger, of injured pride, but her face is impassive.

‘He pursued me, Anna. You might not want to hear that, and I’m sorry, but you need
to know. He came after me.’

She blinks. ‘You’re lying. He wouldn’t.’

Her words are a slap. They sting. Why not? I want to say.
Why wouldn’t he? I’m aware
again of the way he’d made me feel. Young, desirable. Alive.

‘Because of my age?’

She sighs. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean that. I just meant . . .’ The sentence
dissolves, her head sags to her chest. She looks exhausted. ‘I don’t know what to
think.’

‘Anna—’

She raises her head. She looks defeated, she’s searching for help, for somewhere
to turn. ‘Tell me what happened. I want it all.’

And so I do. I tell everything, in great detail. She’s silent as I talk. Five minutes.
Ten. The waiter comes with the glass of wine and my water, but I push my drink away
and keep talking. There are things she’s heard before, and things she hasn’t, yet
this is the first time she’s known the story is not about me and a stranger but about
me and her fiancé. I find it hard enough; for her the pain must be unbearable. Every
time I ask her if she’d like me to stop she shakes her head. She says she needs to
hear it. I tell her about Lukas’s first approach. I tell her that we’d started to
message regularly, that I thought he lived abroad, in Milan, that he told me he travelled
a lot. I explained that he’d asked me to go and meet him, in real life, and because
I’d thought it could only happen once and might lead me to the truth about my sister
I’d done so.

‘And you had sex?’ Her lips are set in a hard line. I hesitate. She knows we did.

I nod.

‘What was it like?’

‘Anna. Please . . . I’m not sure it’s a good idea—’

‘No. Tell me.’

I know she wants to hear that it was disappointing. That we didn’t click, that it
was obvious his heart wasn’t in it. She
wants to be allowed to think what they have
is special, and that what happened between me and him was a one-off, nothing.

I can’t lie, but neither do I want to make her feel any worse than she already does.

I look away. Unwittingly, my eyes are drawn to the statue across the platforms. ‘It
was . . . all right.’

‘All right. So you never saw him again, after that one time. Right?’

Her sarcasm is caustic. She knows I did.

‘I never intended for it to become an affair. I never intended any of it.’

‘And yet here we are.’

‘Yes. Here we are. But you must understand, Anna, I didn’t know he even
knew
you.
I promise. What can I swear on?’ I whisper. ‘Connor’s life? Believe me, if that’s
what it takes I will.’

She looks at the wine in the glass in front of her, then back up to me. She seems
to make a decision. ‘Why? Why is he doing this?’

‘I don’t know. Money?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘He knows Kate left money to you, and to Connor. Maybe he was hoping to get his hands
on Connor’s share as well as yours—’

‘He isn’t going to
get his hands on
mine!’ She sounds shocked, affronted. ‘We’re
getting married!’

‘I’m sorry. You know what I mean.’

‘And how would he get his hands on yours, anyway?’

Once again I look away. ‘He has pictures. Pictures of us. Of me . . .’

‘Having sex?’ She sounds devastated, the words are seeping out.

I nod. I lower my voice. ‘He’s threatened to show them to people. To Hugh.’

I see Hugh’s face, sitting at the dining table, looking at the pictures. He looks
confused, then shocked, then angry. ‘How could you do this?’ he’s saying. ‘How could
you?’

‘He’s asked you for Connor’s money?’ says Anna. I think about blackmail. If I let
it start, it’d never stop. He’d just demand more and more and more.

‘Not yet. But he might.’

She looks down again. Her eyes seem to lose their focus. She slowly nods her head.
She’s remembering, piecing things together.

‘That recording,’ she says eventually. ‘He says he doesn’t love me.’

I reach across the table and take her hand.

‘None of this is your fault. Remember that. He could be anyone. He’s probably not
called Ryan or Lukas. We don’t know who he is, Anna. Neither of us does . . .’ I
take a deep breath, this is painful. I’m trying to support her when I have no strength
left myself.

But I have to do this.

‘Anna,’ I say. I hate myself for asking her, but know I must. ‘Has he ever hurt you?’

‘Hurt me? No. Why?’

‘During sex, I mean?’

‘No!’ She answers a little too quickly, and I wonder whether she’s telling me the
whole truth.

‘I just wanted to make sure—’

She looks horrified. ‘Oh my God. You still think he killed Kate?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m certain he didn’t. He can’t have—’

‘You’re crazy,’ she says, but at the same time I see horror
flash on her face. It’s
as if I can see her faith, her belief in her fiancé, disappear.

‘He killed Kate,’ she says.

‘No. He can’t have—’

She interrupts.

‘No! You don’t understand,’ she says. She’s speaking quickly, caught up in the whirring
cogs of her own fantasy. I’d done it myself, not long ago. Tried to make his behaviour
fit into a pattern I could recognize. ‘He might’ve met her, online, then found out
about the money. He might’ve got close to me just to get to her, then killed her,
and—’

‘No. No, it’s coincidence. Lukas was in Australia when Kate died. And anyway—’

‘But we don’t know that! He might’ve lied to both of us . . .’

‘They’ve caught the man who killed her. Remember?’

She still looks unconvinced. I go on. ‘Anyway, there’re photos. They show him, in
Australia. They’re dated from the time that Kate was killed . . .’

‘Is that conclusive? I mean, can’t you alter those things?’

I don’t answer. ‘But the main thing is they caught him, Anna. They caught the man
who killed her.’

It seems finally to sink in. ‘I don’t believe this,’ she says. A low moan starts
in her throat; I think she’s going to scream. ‘How could he do this to me? How could
he?’

‘It’ll be okay. I promise.’

‘I have to end it, don’t I?’ I nod. She reaches for her bag. ‘I’ll do it now . .
.’

‘No! No, you mustn’t. He can’t know I’ve told you. He said if I told you he’d show
Hugh those pictures. Anna, we have to be clever about this . . .’

‘How?’

I’m silent. I know what I want her to do. To wait for a
while, to pretend to the
man she calls Ryan that she’s still in love with him. And then to end it, in a way
that seemingly has nothing to do with me.

Yet how can I ask her to do that? I can’t. The idea is monstrous. She has to realize
it for herself.

‘I don’t know. But if you end it now he’ll know I had something to do with it.’

She’s incredulous. ‘You want me to carry on seeing him?’

‘Not exactly—’

‘You do!’

‘No, Anna. No . . . I don’t know . . .’

Her face collapses. All her defiance rushes out, replaced by bitterness and regret.

‘What am I going to do?’ She opens her eyes. ‘Tell me! What am I going to do?’

I reach out to her. I’m relieved when she doesn’t push me away. Sadness fills her
face. She looks much older, nearer to my age than to Kate’s.

‘It’s up to you.’

‘I need to think about it. Give me a few days.’

I’ll have to live with the uncertainty. But next to what she has to live with, that’s
nothing.

‘I wish this had never happened. I wish it could be different.’

‘I know,’ she says.

We sit for a while. I’m drained, without energy, and when I look at her I see she
is, too. The station seems less crowded, though that might be my imagination; the
lunchtime rush can hardly make any difference to somewhere so perpetually busy. Nevertheless,
a quietness descends. Anna finishes her drink then says she has to leave. ‘There’ll
be another train soon. I need to go and get a ticket . . .’