The Light of Day: A Novel (17 page)

45

“You know what he said once, George? He said, ‘I can’t live without her.’ ”

We sit at our prison table. She’s never told me this before.

“Just before she moved out—into the flat. How are you supposed to take that? Your husband says he can’t live without another woman. It’s the sort of thing that should never get said—and he didn’t have to bloody well say it—but once it’s said, what are you supposed to think? He doesn’t
mean
it?”

I think of a table laid for two.

“And what are you supposed to
feel
: it’s wrong—that can’t be?
I’m
the one you shouldn’t be able to live without. But is that what counts, is that how it should be—to expect that someone else can’t live without you?”

I look at her and try not to think too hard.

“And he
had
lived without her, hadn’t he? All the time he’d never bloody known her. All the time he’d been living with
me.
So what
did
he mean?”

It’s as though Bob’s still here and she’s giving him a grilling. All his bloody fault.

Or giving me a grilling in his place.

I should shrug and say it’s just an expression, it’s just a bunch of words. But I take words seriously these days.

Her face has gone grim and cold. Like it was in those first days I came visiting.

“Of course we can live without,” she says, “we can live without anyone. If we have to, we must.”

I look at her, not blinking. It’s like a test.

“Look at Kristina, George. Wasn’t she living without? Without just about everything. And this place—my God— doesn’t it teach you to live without, doesn’t it teach that?”

I try to smile. “I wouldn’t know, sweetheart.”

The barest of smiles back. “It’s a luxury, isn’t it? Having someone you can’t live without?”

“But this isn’t luxury, sweetheart.”

The screws stand around, keeping an eye. It’s not a playground (despite the kids) but it’s a kind of school. Here you have to learn. And here—she’s explained it more than once, though any fool might guess—it’s not so much what you have to live without but what you live
with.
More words that you have to take seriously, big wordy words that used to be just words in the dictionary or like words in someone else’s language. But now (I feel their weight too) they’re as real as rocks.

“Remorse,” for example.

Today, of all days, they’re real.

“It wasn’t a luxury for him, either. I wish I could have said it was. You know—like men have another woman because it’s a luxury. She’s just his luxury. So—he’ll get tired.”

The smile’s disappeared.

“You know what I thought—ha!—he’s the refugee now. He’s the bloody refugee. The one who doesn’t know where his home is. Now I’d be giving
him
shelter. I’d be sheltering my own husband.”

It’s as though it’s still happening now. It must be the day. The reliving.

Sometimes I want to say—and then it seems absurd: Stop punishing yourself. Today, of all days, it seems absurd.

On the wall in the Visits Room there’s a clock with a red second hand that jerks round, telling you the time you have left. It always seems like a bad joke. Thirty minutes . . . Eight years . . .

If only they’d let her out, just for this day. So she could go to the grave and see. If only they’d allow her that— luxury. I’d take her, I’d stand surety, I’d deliver her back. I wouldn’t sneak off with her, oh no. I’d even stand off to one side, like a guard—it’s my job, to tag people—while she stood there looking.

A cruelty for her to look at it. A cruelty that she can’t.

So she could see. Just a grave.

“You know what I thought, George? Well, now you can’t be greedy any more. You can’t be greedy. If you can’t live without
him
—then share. But don’t stop loving him, don’t stop loving him—that’s not how it works.”

I say to myself: Do I want to hear this, do I want to hear any of this?

What do I want to hear? That Bob was a mistake, a long mistake? A smashed windscreen,
coq au vin.
Like I became a mistake for Rachel. Goodbye, George.

I don’t know what she’d say now—after two years—if she was let out, if she could stand by the grave. I don’t know how it works.

I’d stand to one side straining my ears.

Goodbye, Bob.

The second hand jerks on. Nearly a quarter to four. Two years ago it was their last afternoon in Fulham.

I can tell you now, Bob—as the one who killed you, after
all—I don’t love you any more.

Her eyes look worn, as if she hasn’t slept. The knot in her brow. She’s not wearing make-up.

Don’t punish yourself.

“She wasn’t his luxury, was she—only his luxury? Otherwise he could never have said it, he could never have dared say it to me: ‘I can’t live without her.’ ”

She looks down at her hands. “And, anyway, it was true, wasn’t it? He didn’t, did he?”

46

My job was over when I said those words.

“He’s on his way home.”

I could have gone home myself—cooked my own supper for one. Cannelloni with spinach and ricotta. It was already done (I think ahead), it only needed twenty minutes in the oven. A tomato and basil salad. A glass of Chianti. Don’t stint yourself because you’re on your own. Allow yourself a little luxury.

But I’d seen his face—or that loss of a face—as he turned, came stumbling, without knowing it, towards me. There was a moment when I lay right in his path and—had he been looking, had he been seeing anything with that emptied-out face—he’d have seen me, for an instant, no more than three yards away, phone to my ear. He’d have taken in a man he wouldn’t have known at all, a nobody, but who was right then talking to his wife. While, in reverse, I was looking at a man I knew (I’d seen his photo—a holiday shirt) but who seemed to have become a nobody. So for a second or two it was like looking in a mirror. Is that
me
? That lost soul?

Then he swerved, lurched away from me. I pocketed my mobile. My job wasn’t done. Of course not.

It’s where Marsh’s questions began. You didn’t have to do it—keep trailing him still.

No, I could have been eating cannelloni.

As if it wasn’t up to me to make it true. To stand surety. He’s coming home. That leap in her voice—“oh, thank you”—and that leap inside me, when I should have been sinking, like him.

The other’s happiness, not your own.

He headed back towards the car park. In his shoes what would I have done? Found some spot that looked out on the runways? Pressed my nose against cold glass? All those taxiing lights. All those trundling planes, the people inside them like mere possibilities. At night it’s hard to follow . . .

I followed him along the walkway. “Followed” isn’t really the word. I couldn’t explain this to Marsh. “Urged” maybe. Forced. None of the usual caution: see and don’t be seen. As if I might have caught up with him—his own steps heavy and slow as lead—gripped his arm, dragged him along. Come on, do it!

How he found the right level, found the car, I don’t know. At the best of times you get lost in such places, forget where you were. But less than an hour ago he must have known it, not wanting to think of how it would feel: he’d have to come back this way, retrace his steps, all by himself.

The mercilessness of a multi-storey car park. Cold concrete, blotches of oil. The scream of jets. She’d gone. He found the Saab, got in. A car can be like a bunker, a bolt-hole, a tomb. After a few seconds the interior light went out and he still hadn’t switched on anything else. I couldn’t see if his head was in his hands.

Five minutes must have passed. So the car became like a black hard shell again. Was there a person inside?

For God’s sake, man. Start the fucking car!

47

I think: he only lived without her for a couple of hours.

I don’t say anything.

And this has been two years.

Sometimes, on the other side of the table, she’s as close as a breath, sometimes it could be a mile.

It’s not the first time I’ve thought it: if I’m a good visitor, an unfailing visitor, if I serve
my
time (two years!), won’t they let me take her home?

Shouldn’t it work that way round? I’ll look after her, I promise. No more killings. She’s safe with me. Surety, indefinitely.

I’m nice to the screws, I’m always nice to the screws.

And it would be one less problem, one less chore for them. One less mouth to feed, one less inmate to house. A small easing of the public burden. Private charity work. I’ll keep her, myself, under lock and key.

It’s only what
she
did once—three years ago: she took Kristina in. Was that overstepping the mark? For pity’s sake.

The screws stand around as if at any time they could make their selection. Okay, you two, we’ve been watching you. Today’s your lucky day. No—don’t thank us.

But they simply watch. It’s their job. You stay detached. As if there’s a line for them too. All the lines.

It’s nearly four. They’re still in the Fulham flat, the curtains drawn. And in a moment I’ll be down below, in the car, watching, waiting. The light fading. Okay, you two, time’s up.

She looks at me as if she’s looking for something beyond me, something more than me. It hurts me. As if today I shouldn’t have come alone, I should have picked someone up on the way (I tried). Look who’s here. Look who’s with me . . .

And if that’s what it would take, and I could do it, I’d do that too.

Look, it’s Bob after all. Look everyone: Bob Nash. It was all a mistake.

I’d say: Okay, you two—good luck to you both. Now I’ll be slipping away, now my job’s finally done.

But it hurts me.

I
should feel hurt today. The absurdest things: I’m jealous of the man she killed. I want him out of her life. And he is. But today he has visiting rights. It’s his day, I can’t deny it.

Four o’clock . . .

But he’s still with the woman he said he couldn’t live without.

“Did you go to the office?” she says.

Small talk, casual talk, skirting the subject. You sit by a hospital bed and talk about the weather. Around us, maybe twenty other conversations. The one question that makes no sense in here: How was your day?

“Just for an hour or so—before I left for the cemetery.”

“Rita’s there now?”

“At the office? Of course.”

“She knows where you were going?”

“Before here? Of course. She knows what day it is, she hasn’t forgotten.”

Her eyes go a little edgy. Sometimes I think Sarah would like a word, a message, from Rita—another woman’s word. And I’d bring that too, if I could, Rita’s word.

Rita says, “Hello.” Oh and, by the way, she says to forgive you.

I haven’t told Sarah everything about Rita—not about the pink fluffy dressing-gown. But she knows, I know she knows, she can guess. It’s a game we play. The absurdest things. A game of jealousy. As if Sarah should be jealous, as if she has a right. Or a cause.

But she looks at me closely, only a slight crease of a smile. As if I’m under interrogation. Another game. I’m the one under suspicion, even the guilty party. Sarah’s had me in for questioning, a grilling. At her bare table. I’m the one who still lives in the world, where people go wrong. How can you go wrong in prison?

“And what does she think?”

“What does Rita think? About—?”

“About.”

“I think Rita thinks I’m mad.”

She looks down again at her hands. She often looks at her hands as if surprised they’re still hers.

“And are you?”

“I’m not mad, sweetheart. You know that. I said she should have the day off. Since it’s—a special day. Since I wouldn’t be around much myself. But—Rita, take a day off? She’s there now, working twice as hard.”

“As if you’re skiving.”

“As if I’m skiving. Not mad, just skiving.”

The crease of a smile broadens. Her bare table. There are times on these visits when we forget which way round it is. Am I visiting her? Is she visiting me?

Another game we play: the big continuous game. It’s not you who’s locked in, sweetheart, it’s me who’s locked out.

“She’s a loyal woman, George. You’re lucky to have her.”

“I am.”

Though I could tell her, I could tell her even now: I think Rita’s going to quit. That would end our game, our little jealousy game—it would mean Sarah would win. Rita’s going to leave me, I’ve read the signs.

(Rita’s read them too.)

But I know this isn’t the time to tell her. They wouldn’t be the words she’d want to hear. Rita’s had enough, she’s giving up, she’s going to quit.

“Yes,” I say. I look her straight in the eye. “I’m a lucky man.”

It’s strange how in this place where there can’t be any privacy you can learn to say so much. As if there’s a code, a second language under the one you speak.

Strange, how here you can confess.

But I haven’t told Sarah everything. Does anyone tell anyone everything? There are things I can’t and won’t tell Sarah yet. Perhaps I never will.

48

He started the car, drove out of the car park. I followed him home.

Home? Where was that for Bob Nash, that night?

We threaded the tangle of roads inside the airport— where you might circle around for ever—then took the tunnel out under the runway.

Can you tell from the way a car is driven what the driver is thinking? Can you read a car like a face? Maybe not. He didn’t speed—the opposite. The slow lane again. I should have thought: this is good, he knows he has to take care— given the state he’s in. He’s making sure he makes it safely.

When we came off the motorway onto the slower elevated section, I dared to drive right on his tail.

Did I want him to know I was there—urging him, escorting him?

If he hadn’t been thinking of other things, his head might have jerked to his mirror. Who’s this joker behind me who can’t keep his distance?

A Monday evening. The traffic, in this direction, quiet by now. He might have been back in Beecham Close in half an hour. But at the exit for the North Circular—the first option for Wimbledon, via Kew Bridge—he carried straight on, and when he took the Hammersmith exit he didn’t take the second option—via Hammersmith Bridge—but continued round the Hammersmith roundabout and took the Fulham turn.

Still an option—via Putney—for Wimbledon. But he wasn’t thinking beyond Fulham (I’d guessed it by now). He was retracing his route of two hours before, as if to turn time around.

I’ve never told Sarah this: that he went to Fulham first, on the way back. It wasn’t that he was caught in traffic, that he took it slowly, had to stop, even, to collect himself. He went back to the flat.

And I’ve never told Sarah what happened before that— right there, on Fulham Palace Road, just a little way down from the Hammersmith turn.

There was a set of lights that had just switched to red: nothing between him and them except fifty yards or more of road. But he didn’t slow down. For the first time that night he suddenly accelerated. For the first time that night he drove like a madman.

It’s not a busy intersection, a minor road to left and right, but a long, high-sided truck had already started to lumber its way across. He speeded up—I’d swear it—when he saw the possibility. When he saw the side of the truck about to straddle the road like a wall.

A mistake? He hadn’t seen the lights, his mind just wasn’t on the road? No. I’m a trained observer—observation’s my job. He speeded up, he went for it.

And only slammed on his brakes at the point where if his tyres hadn’t been good, if the road had been wet, it still might have turned out bad.

Fulham Palace Road. Junction with St. Dunstan’s and Winslow.

A cop again, composing an accident report, even before it had happened. The standard notebook phrases. Distance, direction, speed. It’s your job—you stay detached. It was only when he stopped short and the truck lurched on, clearing the main road, that I noticed where we were. Charing Cross Hospital. Just south of Hammersmith. On the left, just ahead, on the far side of the lights: Charing Cross Hospital.

I never told Sarah. Or Marsh.

A necessary moment? A moment of truth? A self-administered shock? The life that used to be his, right there, about to pass in front of him.

They might have had to carry him in. It might have been handy. Accident and Emergency. Someone might have realized who he was. My God—that’s Bob Nash.

But he came to a halt.

She might have had to go and visit
him. She
might have been the visitor. Never knowing how lucky she was—that this was really incredible luck in disguise. It might have saved them both. The danger list, then off it. It might have glued them together again as surely as his mending bones.

“Lucky to be alive.” Oh, but more than that. Doubly that.

And I’d have been nowhere to be seen.

Or he might have died. That way too. She’d never know. Never have to know—what she was capable of. Thinking it the cruellest possible thing (and where could she have turned for comfort?). A “tragic accident”—at
that
point. Thinking even—it had been her “concession”—it was all her fault.

But she wouldn’t have to be in this place now. Visiting time, like a hospital ward. Neither of us would.

A screeching, bucking halt. Pedestrians froze, turned, looked, walked on. But I don’t think the truck driver, up in front in his cabin, even noticed what had happened.

Charing Cross Hospital: staring him in the face.

The lights were still on red. He’d stalled. He restarted. The lights went green. And now—if he was himself again, if the shock had worked—he might have driven straight on (I wished it, truly, willed it): Fulham Palace Road to Putney Bridge, then Putney, Putney Hill, Wimbledon Common . . . home.

But he turned left at Lillie Road and I followed him back to the flat.

Yes, I’m the lucky man.

The street just as before. Streets don’t change, they don’t breathe a word, they don’t tell a soul. He parked, got out, walked to the front door and, as he’d done so many times before (did he keep a count?), let himself in.

Ten minutes to eight. I’d slipped into a space on the far side, twenty yards or so back. Now, more than ever, it could hardly have entered his head that he was being watched.

So—should I have stopped watching? Got out, crossed the street, tapped him on the shoulder? Made it my business?

Mr. Nash? Robert Nash? Police. Would you step this way?

The front door closed behind him. The light went on upstairs. It might still have meant nothing: he had charge of the flat, after all. There might have been something he’d left there. Some simple unimportant matter. (After nearly driving into a truck?)

But anyway, could you begrudge it, if he couldn’t resist it? A last look, on his way home. A last look while the room, the bed, still had a trace of warmth. While the scent of her was still there.

Nearly eight o’clock. She was in the air.

And here perhaps anyway he could truly say his farewell. Settle the balance of his life. Turn himself back into the husband of his wife.

I don’t think Sarah would have begrudged it, if that was all it was.

But how long do you give it? How much time? A farewell. Just to that flat, to all it had meant? And I’d seen his face at Departures—his face like a departure itself. I’d seen him speed up at a red light.

Even so, I didn’t move, I didn’t leap from my car until at least ten minutes had passed. It’s true, I just sat there. I let whole minutes pass. Settling, maybe, the balance of my own life. I didn’t take prompt and decisive action based on reasonable suspicion and surmise, I didn’t take due initiative— prepared, if necessary to arouse neighbours to gain entry. Police. Police, open up.

It’s true, Marsh. I sat there. Not being a policeman any more. Nothing to do with me. I may even have clutched the steering wheel as if I was clinging to a rock.

Five, ten—fifteen minutes. Dinner was cooking. The wine was breathing. Sarah was looking at the minutes ticking too.

You cross a line.

I opened my door, sprinted across the street. And it was then he would have seen me—seen me and not seen me—for the second time that night. I’ll never know. He appeared at the front door just as I reached the front gate. I had to stop short, just like he’d done at the lights. Turn myself into some chance passer-by—acting a little oddly it’s true, catching my breath. But he came up the front path as if he hadn’t seen me, brushed past me, heading for his car as if he might have stepped right through me.

And that’s what he looked like, already, a ghost.