Significance (50 page)

She'd never promised him anything and while he was still married she had presumed that she was free to pursue other lovers. Not that she had. Then he had left. Just at the point when the scales were beginning to fall from her eyes and she had begun to grow frightened of him.

Florian wasn't a killer. He lived a little beyond the law, but a killer? Yet how well did she know him? These truths sat uncomfortably side by side, each depended upon her judgement of the characters of two men. If she had been wrong about Severin she could also be wrong about Florian. A statue symbolising justice came to mind, a female figure holding a balance in one hand, a sword in the other, but her eyes were blindfolded. Suzette never understood that, to know the truth one must see everything.

Florian was innocent.

She was going mad. He was innocent. He'd been set up.

Nothing was real. There was nothing outside this room. Nothing.

She picked up a handful of money and jammed it into the pocket of her jeans, then made her way over to the bar. Nothing was more real than the bar. The night air was refreshing, cool on her burning red
-
rimmed eyes. They would know she'd been crying. Not that it mattered.

She turned a corner and there it was. A few customers sat outside, inside she could see the familiar figures behind the bar. Then her eye caught sight of him. He was sitting with his back to the window, hunched over a table, shoulders bristling with angry muscle, the thick neck bullish, like the man. Severin.

She stopped walking, moved sideways to a doorway, stared and stared. It was him. It couldn't be him. It could. It was. It explained everything. Where else would he go to collect his prize, his possession?
If I can't have you, no one will.

She turned back the way she had come, walked briskly, hugging the walls and shop fronts, shrinking from what she imagined was the searchlight of his gaze.

Into the Shadows

‘Here,' said the girl and she let go of Marilyn's arm.

Marilyn looked down the lane hoping to see an immediate sign of either the
boule
green or the Hotel de Ville or the police headquarters, but the lane sloped away downhill and at its end seemed to drop out of sight completely. Marilyn guessed there must be steps there.

She hesitated.

‘Down there, turn…' the girl sought the English word, but failing to find it reverted to French and a hand gesture. ‘OK?'

Marilyn wavered, she was on the brink of moving off and yet she wanted to be certain of her direction. Of her safety also, as she did not like the look of the narrow lane.

But the three teenagers were already losing interest and turning away. Vincent had thrown his arm around the prettiest girl's neck and was steering her off.

‘Au revoir,'
the girl called happily, turning her head and smiling, confident of her kindness.

Marilyn began down the lane, after a few steps she turned back to take a last look at the three young people, but they had already gone, vanishing quickly into the clotted shadows under the trees.

She walked briskly. On either side of the path there were high walls, to her left was one built from dirty grey breezeblocks, while the one to her right was brick and looked much older. Moss gathered on the outer edges of the path, as well as brambles and nettles and tall orchid
-
like flowers that must have been weeds of some sort. Above the breeze
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block wall there loomed an ugly 1960s' steel and panel construction building with boarded
-
up windows. It might have been a small factory or office or school, but it seemed to have deteriorated rapidly, even in the dim light Marilyn could make out large shadowy stains streaking the building's side. She could not see much over the brick wall on the other side as it was taller and whatever buildings were behind it must have been some distance away.

It seemed unnaturally quiet where she was, her own footfalls barely made a noise, and she could hear the sounds of her clothing rubbing and rustling with her every movement. She was aware too of her breathing which she realised sounded a little strained and noisy as if she were exerting herself by running on a treadmill or up too many flights of stairs. There again the moment became like one in a film; a lone woman walking at night down a badly lit alleyway; the soundtrack would emphasise her breathing, it would alert the audience to her vulnerability. A more clichéd film would add a resonating heartbeat.

Stop thinking like this, she commanded herself, stop it.

By now part of her wanted to break into a run, but resisting this impulse, she walked more briskly until she came to the top of the steps. She looked back once; the lane was empty behind her, as she knew it would be. The steep steps leading down were also empty. They were dimly lit, but in the distance, partly obscured by a filigree of leaves and branches, was another streetlamp, promising a broader, more populated avenue.

She descended the steps quickly and cautiously. She had moved away from the first streetlamp whose light had been localised and meagre so she couldn't see where she was going and the steps were uneven. Far off she heard a dog barking, suddenly and furiously.

Ten more paces and she was out of the alleyway onto the street. The road she found herself on was narrow and quiet. A number of vans and lorries, all of them with black and saffron
-
coloured liveries that bore the same inscrutable geometric logo, were parked in front of the concrete industrial building. Like wasps crawling over an abandoned picnic table.

There were no residential buildings that she could see. To the right, bounded on both sides by trees, the road disappeared in a sharp, uphill curve which she figured must lead back in the direction she had come. But the girl had instructed her to turn right. Marilyn pictured the girl smiling; so pleased with herself and so earnest, saying
‘droit'
and indicating with her slim elegant hand a right
-
hand turn. To the left the road swept away downhill towards a more brightly illuminated area where there must be more houses and perhaps shops and bars.

A number of cars passed, a van, one motorbike.

Marilyn moved to the edge of the pavement considering her choices. She should go right following the girl's directions. She had no reason to doubt the girl and yet it just didn't seem to make sense.

Some people had difficulty with left and right, even people with high intelligence who are able to deal with the most complicated of facts, theories, debates, science. A lecturer who had taught her years ago could effortlessly quote entire poems, everything from Spenser's
The Faerie Queen
to Eliot to Seamus Heaney and Billy Collins; his knowledge was frightening, encyclopedic, and yet he mixed up left and right. He drew attention to his muddle
-
headedness, even telling the class how that morning he was late because he had lost his car keys, had searched high and low, then eventually found them in his microwave oven. So there was a chance, a very small chance, that the girl had made a mistake.

As Marilyn pondered her dilemma, (looking from left to right and slowly coming to the conclusion that she should go left, then at the first sign of a shop or someone on foot, she would ask for directions again) she noticed that directly opposite was another lane which, except for the interruption of the road, seemed to lead on from the lane she had emerged from. Inside the entrance to the second alleyway was an old fashioned street lamp with a curled neck like a shepherd's crook. It gave the scene an aspect of enchantment. Marilyn crossed the road and looked down this new lane. It was much shorter than the other, with another set of steps. She could see how in the young girl's mind the two lanes separated by a narrow road merged into one. You might be so used to taking this route, focusing on your destination, moving on automatic pilot that you would no longer think about or notice the road dividing it, and would forget to mention it to a stranger.

Less than twenty yards down the second lane was another crook
-
necked street lamp the same as the first, though its light seemed whiter and brighter, the hedges and shrubs beneath it were as green and glossy as if it were daylight.

She had hesitated long enough, she decided, and without another thought, Marilyn set off down the second alleyway. She was aware once more of the different effect this place had on sound, bordered as it was on two sides by high walls. Her breathing once more seemed amplified, and she heard, almost against her will, her barely perceptible footsteps and the swish of her clothes.

She remembered one of the lines she'd added to her poem, just before she left the house, ‘But I am only paper, mother.' Paper mother – no comma and the meaning changed.

She stepped on something that snapped loudly underfoot.

Damn it, she would remember this, take this orchestra of sound and emotion and light and shade and remake it anew on a later date. Make it a poem.

She was only ten yards from the end of the lane with its stark, almost dazzling blaze of white light when a man suddenly appeared, as if from nowhere.

He had obviously been walking along the road which the lane led onto and had turned quickly and confidently up the alley. A tall, thin man (she had no doubt it was a man) dressed in a short black jacket such as a workman would wear.

Marilyn gasped. An audible sharp intake of breath speaking clearly of her fright, which caused the man to become as suddenly aware of her as she had been of him. The light was now behind him, but she saw recognition register in him, something in the forward slouch of his shoulders changed, stiffened, his head tilted upwards. She could not see his face, but knew instinctively that he saw her clearly and had all the advantage in that.

Self
-
consciously looking beyond him to the end of the lane, Marilyn continued to walk briskly forward, just as he continued towards her.

To pass a stranger, even a stranger in a narrow lane at night, all one had to do, all one was meant to do was to act as if they did not exist. How many thousands of individuals do we pass day by day, our paths like threads, twisting and turning, moving one step to the left or right to negotiate those in our path and hardly ever (unlike cars) colliding. Barely seeing or recognising one another. Deliberately keeping one's gaze away, avoiding eye contact.

The lane was narrow, but there was easily enough room for Marilyn and the man to slip past one another.

She walked on. Not looking, not looking. Or rather only looking towards the distant space that was her destination; the end of the lane beyond the blaze of light. Everything else was absorbed only through her peripheral vision. The figure of a man dressed in a black jacket. A jacket at first glance, like a squarely cut workman's coat, broad
-
shouldered, thigh
-
length, then she noticed that it wasn't black, but navy blue, double
-
breasted, stylishly tailored.

The main thing was not to look at his face. To look in a man's face; to meet his eyes was to suggest engagement, it was an invitation. The woman must set her face so that no emotions were betrayed. Do not smile. Do not show fear. The face must be a detached stoical mask. Even if she is certain she is being scrutinised, gazed at boldly.

All of this, the flood of thought in the seconds between seeing the man and plunging on forward down the lane which is bounded on both sides by high walls and is well lit.

Eyes fixed on the distance, two legs scissoring sharply, her breathing once again becoming rapid and shallow.

All of it happening so fast.

Three of her strides and two of his (he is faster, his legs longer) and she should be past him.

There is a sort of rush of wind, not wind but the velocity of two objects going in opposite directions, each pressing, pushing, agitating the air.

Or not wind but the rustle of his clothes, her clothes. Or her breath, loud suddenly, magnified by effort, by fear.

Or his breath. His heavy breath. Asthmatic. Laboured breath. The lungs pulling hard in preparation for action. His ribs opening like wings.

A rush then, of something, a near object in a narrow space, an object far larger than her. Her eyes off somewhere, but noticing that the coat is a pea jacket. Yes, that is the name for this sort of garment.

And then she is knocked sideways.

The sickening body
-
jarring thud of his shoulder striking hers. The massive force of it – a shock. She staggers – she was mid
-
stride, half off
-
balance anyway and so her left ankle bends, her left shoulder hits the wall with as much force as her right received when the man barged into her. The same force, but this one sharper, against a solid object: a crack, the wind knocked out of her with a word half
-
formed on her tongue. The word an exclamation, oh!

What was she trying to say? Ow? Or ouch? But it's not really one of those silly words, it's just a sound.

Her knees buckle and she goes down, her body twisting and folding, arms raised to catch at something, anything to stop herself. Her left hip strikes the stone path, bearing all of her weight, carrying all the velocity of her movement, all the suck of gravity, and her head rolls back and hits the wall. The explosion of pain is familiar, there is a sharp, cracking, brittle quality to it.