by Kyra Wilder
Police think it started in our corner of the building, M said. They say it might have been some woman, M said. They found her by the bins acting strangely I guess. They’re still investigating.
An old woman? I asked.
Maybe, he said. He didn’t know.
In a purple coat? I asked and he said again he didn’t know. Then he looked at me in a way I didn’t really want to be looked at, questioning something, so I didn’t ask anything else. I thought though, about the old woman by the bins, about her licking her lips with her fingers in the garbage bags, her neat hair, her damp breath, her smell that hovered between shortbread, wet wool and rotten teeth. I thought about her counting out those coins on the table beside her empty coffee cup. Later I would say to the police that yes, I had seen a woman, once, by the bins acting strangely.
During the interview, one of the police officers, a man with short blond hair and beautiful hands, when I said this, about seeing the woman by the bins once at night, though I didn’t say much of what I’d seen her doing, this I didn’t think was really possible to say, reached into his bag and pulled out a picture of Nell and showed it to me.
Was it her? he asked me, jabbing the picture and I said no, it had been someone else. Have you seen her? he asked. Recently? Since the fire? She has two children, he said.
I said no, that I hadn’t seen her at all, that I hadn’t been near the apartment, that I’d only been out of the hospital for a few days, that we had been staying in a hotel by the lake. That we were leaving soon, in fact. Was that all right? I asked. Was I allowed to leave?
I was speaking too quickly, getting nervous. I was remembering the candles, the cups in the cupboards that were always filled with ash, and I was also quickly pushing all of those things away, pushing them far from me. I could feel sweat collecting on my upper lip and I wiped it with my un-bandaged hand. Of course it was all right, for me to leave. I was only there at the station for questioning, only there to help. I was the victim in all this, no one more than me, a young mother with babies to tend to. Soon, I was released back to my family, to my children, to M.
When I walked out of the station, M was waiting for me behind the steering wheel of our new car, the children were buckled up in their new Swiss-made car seats. I slid onto the soft leather seat on the passenger side and closed the door. M leaned across the sleek console, the GPS system, the touch-sensitive interfaces, and kissed me, and I buckled my seatbelt and M signalled and we turned out onto the road. I think you’ll really like it, he said. What? I said. Our new place, he said.
Our new place, I said after him, repeating. Our new place, I said again, to myself, testing the words. It would be perfect. It would be a house with high ceilings and a view out over the lake and in the summer the days would balloon up inside with happy hot afternoons and in winter the snow would cover the tops of the mountains and we would marvel at the quiet of it, the way it covered everything up, the way that we were there, tucked away inside behind the windows, to see it. We could stand behind those windows looking out for years I thought, loving each other just like we did right now. Love could do that I thought, my love could, it could keep everyone young and happy and always together. I reached into the back seat and scrunched up E’s toes, ran my fingers through B’s hair. I am the only one for you, I thought. For all of you. The only one. What I’m trying to tell you is that that’s what I was thinking when I went there, when M drove us to our new home. I was thinking of love.
We stopped at a buvette for lunch, one of those little places by the lake where the boats are all arranged in front, tied to the dock like swans with ropes around their necks. We ordered tall glasses of fresh orange juice with ginger and E went to go play in the grass, though really she just twisted the leaves off some bushes and whispered to her giraffe. Really mostly she just looked at me. I tried to smile in the right way but it was so unclear what she had seen in the fire that I was unsure how to act around her. I waved and M waved too.
We have to give her time, M said and I said yes, that was it. The juice was fresh and bright and every bit as good as it should have been. We ate egg and cucumber sandwiches that were made by the smiling bearded man who worked behind the counter. The sun felt like a gift on our shoulders. B tried a bit of egg, just a tiny smush. He smiled when it touched his lips. It was the first time that he’d had it, egg, and I thought that yes, of course, this is happiness, day after day of smushed eggs. Mornings and afternoons with all of us inside it. Juice and sandwiches. I want you to see that I wanted them all so badly, all those perfect days.
I left B with M and walked back to the counter and ordered espressos, two doubles. When they came to our table they were perfect. I smiled and M did too and our eyes got tangled up together and I saw ourselves when we used to drink stale diner coffee with so much sugar in it that it stung our tongues. How once we drove all night to get to one particular beach by sunrise. How we got to the beach just in time but fell asleep, nestling in the dirt beside the parking lot, holding hands. How we missed it all, and, of course, didn’t miss a thing. I’m telling you this because I want you to see me there, sleeping by the car as the sun comes up. I want you to see me cooking salmon that was pink inside like kisses. I want you to understand that. I’m asking you to.
We said thank you to the man and drank the espressos which were excellent and exactly what we needed. We could have been anywhere, there beside a lake, coffee cups empty but still warm in our hands. M reached over the table and took my hand and yes, afternoons could happen this way. I could see it. For another hundred years. Dark coffee, white boats, blue lake. The sun would shine on our shoulders if we let it, it really would. If I believed this enough it would be true.
The new house will be perfect, M said. You will love it. You can see the boats on the lake from our bedroom.
But I’m trying to say that I felt it then, a hesitation. I want you to understand that I reached out to M. That I put my hand on his shoulder. That I rested my hand there long enough for me to have leant over and whispered into his ear, Let’s not go, let’s not.
And I almost did, say it I mean. M, Let’s not.
See? I almost stopped it, everything.
When I looked up, I saw Nell sitting also at a table next to mine and she was holding her baby and drinking juice and I saw that her arms had burns all over them and I looked down and saw that I was also covered. That all the tables were filled with injured mothers drinking juice and faintly smoking, faintly disappearing into the air. Once we had a party or, wait, let me tell you once about a fire, please don’t go and leave me with all these words sitting in my mouth. They’re burning my lips.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks and much gratitude to my amazing agent Jon Curzon, who rescued this book from the recycling bin. Thanks also to the rest of the team at Artellus for all their support and care.
Thanks to Sophie Jonathan for insightful editing and expert guidance, and for showing me how to turn a manuscript into a book. Thanks to everyone at Picador, I’m unbelievably lucky to be published by you.
Thank you to my family. Thanks to my parents, Mary Neerhout and Lane Borg, and thanks to my sister, Emma. Thanks to Kathy and Donna and Laura Jane. Thanks to Margaret and thanks to Jane.
Thanks to Dashiell, and Dexter, and Daley, my funny, my wise, my brilliant people.
Thank you also to my friends.
Thank you also, Alan, for everything.
Kyra Wilder is a first-time novelist who received her BA and MA in English Literature at San Francisco State University.
She also graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and went on to work under Michael Tusk at the, now, Michelin-starred Quince, making pasta.
She continued working in restaurants on the East Coast, before moving with her family to Switzerland.
First published 2020 by Picador
This electronic edition first published 2020 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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ISBN 978-1-5290-1738-0
Copyright © Kyra Wilder 2020
Fiction
Jacket photograph © plainpicture/Ralf Brocke
Author photograph © Sergen Yener
Design: Ami Smithson, Picador Art Department
The right of Kyra Wilder to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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