“Gin?” Reuben says to me, one elbow resting on the bar. He’s taken his coat off already. His cheeks are flushed—even though it’s neither warm nor cold outside—and the sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up. “You could do with the calories,” he murmurs.
“No,” I say immediately. I haven’t drunk once, since. But then something changes my mind. His expression, maybe. Or perhaps it’s just the thought of the enticingly sharp cut of the lemon, the piney tang of the gin. “Oh—yes. Forget it,” I say. “Yes.”
He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything, and I wonder what he thinks of this, this strange date night that feels to me like a sort of swan song. He orders a red wine, and we stand awkwardly at the bar.
It’s late. Just after ten. That’s why I agreed, I suppose. The romance of popping out to the pub, just like we used to. It felt safe. In half an hour, or maybe an hour, from ten o’clock until last orders, with Reuben, I can’t confess. I can’t get drunk enough to confess. And so I agreed. And here we are.
I take a sip of gin just as Reuben murmurs, “Table,” and steers me toward it.
My drink tastes so sweet and mellow. There’s nothing like it. Like spring in a glass. “Ah,” I say, a tiny, tiny dart of happiness firing my heart as I sip the G and T and look across at my husband. It’s the first spark of pleasure in my Afterworld. I try to dampen it down, like an ember just beginning to burn. I can’t feel it. I can’t let myself feel it. I don’t deserve it.
Reuben sits down opposite me in a booth. The leather underneath us is red, faded, and cracked. The table is sticky on top, with a huge pillar candle between us. Reuben moves it so he can look properly at me. I had forgotten he always used to do that. He leans forward, those freckled elbows on the table, and looks at me intently. He can make my insides feel molten when he holds my gaze in this way.
“What’s new?” he says.
“Been texting your dad,” I say, trying to make conversation. “He sent me a BuzzFeed link to twelve joyful dogs. I think he’s learning what I like.”
Reuben laughs softly. “No more asking you your thoughts on the breakup of the Soviet Union,” he says.
“Life’s too short for that.”
I remember when I first met Reuben’s parents. I was trying to hold my own during a conversation about Assad, and Reuben texted me from across the room: A commendable performance.
“So, Oliva,” he says now, holding my gaze. “It’s been ages.”
I stare back at him, the gin working its way around my bloodstream, the pub narrowing to just me and him, the way it’s always been, the way it always was. I know exactly what he means. And it’s fair enough. I almost groan with it. Imagining taking his clothes off. Feeling that hot, strong body against mine. But then . . . I’d tell him. Postcoitally, when I would always cry. I’d tell him.
I stare back at him, wanting to stay there forever, crucified by those eyes of his. They have me impaled, right on the booth in front of him.
But then, a flicker on the television behind him, and I can’t help but break his gaze and look. Something compels me to.
It’s on mute, but the ticker headline is running.
CANAL DEATH INQUEST TO COMMENCE TOMORROW
It scrolls along the screen, white against red. Bandages against blood. The inquest. I didn’t even know there was to be one. I haven’t been able to google it. Haven’t felt able to buy the newspapers. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was tomorrow.
Reuben is still staring at me, but I can’t look at him again. I can’t let him know I’ve seen the screen. I need to cover it up, like somebody underconfident covering their entire body, their worst bits, in loose, draped clothing. He can’t know.
They could conclude anything tomorrow. What are the verdicts? I can’t remember. Accidental death? Unlawful killing? Or are those crimes, instead? I don’t know. I don’t know. But tomorrow it seems I might. And then they will come for me. Again.
I sip my gin and look at the tiny picture of Imran’s face on the bottom of the news program. Imran whose face will no longer age. Imran who is buried in the cemetery opposite the mosque.
I haven’t spoken since Reuben did, and when I look back at him I see that he’s gazing down into his lap, shaking his head in something resembling disbelief.
But I can’t deal with him now. I can’t give him anything of myself. Right now, with the inquest verdict on my mind, I want to be alone, at home, to think it through. To say my sorries, offer them up to Imran. To commemorate. To digest it all.
I down my drink, start to fiddle with my phone, ignoring Reuben.
“Let’s go, then,” he says after a few moments.
He shoots me a sorrowful look as we weave our way through the pub and I catch a gulp of tears in my throat. I cannot even give him one evening. Not one evening without something happening, something related to what I did. It is like a voracious weed, spreading into and invading every part of my life.
He doesn’t reach for my hand. Doesn’t look at me. We pass underneath another television, right next to the exit, and he stops and looks at it, pausing just infinitesimally. “Oh, there’ll be hell,” he says, looking up at it, then back down at me.
“What?” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
He looks at my stricken expression and must read something else into it, because he shakes his head, his mouth tight, and says, “Forget it.”
We walk home in the cold, in silence. As we reach our door, a siren sounds in the distance. I hear footsteps along the road. I fling the door open and lock it behind us, peering out. There’s nothing. The siren has passed. The footsteps were Edith’s daughter’s.
28
REVEAL
On the morning of my trial, my phone springs to life, as if woken from a slumber.
“Hi,” I say to Sarah.
“Joanna?” she says.
I look at the clock in the bedroom, glowing green across the room at me.
“It’s six o’clock,” I say. My body is trembling with anticipation. Maybe they’re calling it off. Maybe they’ve realized it’s all a mistake.
“Just checking you’re ready,” she says. “Got the suit?”
“Got it,” I say.
We said I’d buy a new one. A nice one, from Hobbs. Reuben paid. I haven’t earned any money for six months.
* * *
—
The kitchen is cool and quiet. It used to get slugs in overnight, coming down the steps, we presumed, until I laughingly suggested we plug the holes with Blu Tack. Reuben was amazed when it worked, called me a genius.
But it still has a smell. Chilly, wet. Like cold stone buildings. I didn’t think it was possible to smell your house’s smells unless you’d been away. But maybe my body and mind are preparing me. Maybe I am already in prison.
Or may as well be.
* * *
—
I want to go to Little Venice,” I say to Reuben.
I’m sitting on the end of the bed. He was like a wooden board beside me all night. It occurs to me, in the back of my mind, that I’m not sure where I will sleep tonight. It might be here.
It must be here.
The alternative isn’t possible, though I’m aware of it, like the Syrian war on the television, like the Boxing Day tsunami. It plays out, in my blind spot, looking too horrendous to be real.
Somehow, I know that, whatever happens later on today, nothing will be the same, even if my head does hit this pillow tonight. I won’t seriously come home and resume my life. How could I? What life is left?
“Okay,” Reuben says. He doesn’t question me.
I am like a person granted their dying wishes. Whatever I say goes.
He doesn’t check that we have time. He takes the back seat, again and again. He puts his clothes on, his limbs moving automatically.
I avert my gaze
.
* * *
—
This station is Warwick Avenue, the Tube announcement states dispassionately. My hand slides on the red pole I’m standing next to.
The doors open, and we get out and follow the journey I made that night. I got the Tube here, met Laura, injured a man, and never came home again. Not really. Reuben reaches for my hand, and I stop in surprise. It’s warm, and he squeezes mine. It’s less of a lover’s gesture and more of a carer’s. He is showing solidarity. I appreciate it nevertheless.
I ascend the Tube escalator and emerge, walking for a few minutes in silence until I see the Little Venice bridges.
“It’s over there,” I say.
Reuben nods, although he must surely know.
The dregs of the May blossoms hang on the trees, a moldy pinkish color, and it’s a glorious day. The trees have hit their stride, verdant, overgrown, approaching midsummer. A couple are embracing at the other end of the bridge. I can’t look at them. I, a wife in the last chapters of her story, compared to them, at the very beginning. I may as well be old, a haggard, homeless nomad.
It is too painful to be here, in beautiful London in the springtime, like looking at glass reflecting the sun too sharply. Little Venice is just waking up. It looks to be a perfect June day.
I walk across the road and stare at the spot. The spot where it happened. You would never know. There is no crime scene barrier up. No white chalk outline. No bloodstains. Nothing. Just a normal spot in the heart of London, some brick steps. Some shrubs. A tree. The place where my life changed forever. The grass just over there has recently been cut, too close, like a newly shorn animal.
I look at Reuben. He’s staring down at the flight of stairs.
I take a step forward and sit down on one of the stairs. The concrete is already sun warmed.
I’ll see him today for the first time. I’ve seen snatches of him on the news as my trial approached, one video on the BBC website that I watched over and over, covertly, like an ashamed teenage boy with an obsession, but I’ve not seen him in the flesh, not since that night. Sometimes, when I’m reliving it, I still picture his face as Sadiq’s and have to correct myself. I’ll see Sadiq, too, of course, a traitorous witness for the prosecution. All three of us, connected together, through my actions.
I keep thinking of the doctor’s witness statement. I can’t stop.
He’s forgetful. Demotivated. Anxious. Depressed. He has to outsource his memory. That’s the phrase they used. He relies on Post-it notes and calendars. Otherwise he won’t know what he’s doing that day.
Because of me. Because of my mind. Because of my body. Its reflexes. A rush of chemicals released.
It’s like a kind of telepathy. Imran and I were at the center of an event that’s changed our lives forever, but we can’t see each other.
And it’s funny, but it’s not in the courtroom that I realize. No. I’m not in the dock, looking at the victim slowly, painfully, arthritically making his way into the courtroom. And it’s not when I’m cross-examined, reexamined. And it’s not when I’m faced with a judge telling me how wrong I was, or with Imran’s sister, or his cousin, or his parents.
No. It’s here, sitting on these steps, my husband standing up next to me, a hand extended so I know he’s there. I realize when I look down at these steps, which bear no scars from what happened that night six months ago.
It was wrong. I ruined somebody’s life, for no good reason. I have no justification. No excuse.
I deserve everything I get.
* * *
—
Reuben gives me a small, sad smile as we leave, doleful and strange.
“What?” I say softly.
“Nothing . . . just.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” he says again, even more sadly this time.
“You look sad,” I say bluntly.
He squeezes my hand. I like the squeeze, at first, until I realize it’s part of his removal. He withdraws and places his hand back in his pocket, even though it’s too warm.
“I am sad,” he says. “I’m sad about Imran. And I’m sad about you.”
“Me, too,” I say, looking at him as we walk toward the Tube.
The sun is already warm over London. It will be a beautiful Monday, for most.
My whole life I’ve ignored the people who don’t get to experience those beautiful Mondays. The homeless and the people looking for drugs. The people who want jobs and can’t get them. The people checking in for bail every day. The people attending at contact centers. The people in care homes, no visitors. The chronically sick. The forgotten, the people in the justice system who were invisible to me. And now, here I am. It’s only right. I deserve it. I had thirty years of a middle-class existence, only worrying about needing a vocation and when I’d ever find the time to have a baby.
But now everything’s changed, and I am other.
“Really sad for Imran,” Reuben says.
His words irritate me, and I can’t work out why for a moment. I walk along the street lined with white mansions, to Warwick Avenue, confused at my own emotions, wondering what it is. The thing I’m trying to hide from.
And then it reveals itself to me. It’s my expectations: I expected more. Of my husband. I expected him to feel sorrier for me. To want to tell everyone my side of it. Instead, he’s being fair. Reasonable. Rational. Isn’t he?
But maybe not to me.
I look at him. He’s squinting into the sun, and I can’t see his eyes.
29
CONCEAL
We are in the offices today. The back rooms, inputting data from our stocktake. I like these days. These unusual days, away from the mobile library, where I look for Ayesha at every turn. I like to be here, static. I hear the sirens too much out on the road. End up hiding in the bus from innocuous police community support officers. My anxiety is getting worse, not better. I see things, sometimes. Things I’m not really sure are there. Flashes of blue lights coming for me. I look constantly, shiftily, at the CCTV, which now stares back at me, unblinkingly, from the suspended ceiling.
I haven’t been able to find out the inquest verdict, despite trying to catch the news every night for weeks without attracting Reuben’s attention. Who knows what it said? Unlawful killing, I bet. Unlawful killing by Joanna Oliva.
Nothing more has happened about the keys. But it’s just a matter of time. I know it. They’re still in my handbag. Anybody could find them at any time. I’m too scared to put them back. Frozen in procrastination, as ever. The police haven’t been again, either. But they will. I am sure of it.
“Adult fiction?” Ed says, typing into the computer.
“Five hundred and two,” I say. My hand aches after moving the books around so much.
“Ah,” Ed says, and something in his tone of voice makes me look up.
And there he is. Reuben. At the door, holding a bunch of spring tulips. They’re yellow, incongruous against the tired, shabby surroundings.
“What’re you . . . ?” I say.
He shrugs, a small, self-conscious shrug. He’s wearing a T-shirt, his freckled arms out, and I see his stomach muscles tense under the material, the way they do when he is shy, feeling exposed, and my heart twangs for him.
He gestures uselessly with the flowers. “I bought you these,” he says quietly. “I thought we could . . . go somewhere. In the weather.”
It’s been six months since that night. The world’s turned from long nights to long days, sailed around the sun half an orbit, and yet hardly anything at all has changed. I look at the flowers, and that’s the part that breaks my heart. Reuben has never once bought me flowers. And here he is, with a bunch of them, forced to act so utterly out of character to try to bridge the gap I’ve formed, to try to journey back to me. I imagine him picking them out. He’d have chosen carefully, sl
owly. His palm out as he thought, scanning over the flowers. Perhaps he picked the most expensive bunch, or the prettiest. He’d bring them to my work, he thought. Surely he would be able to find a way back to me, with flowers? A few tears leak out of the corners of my eyes and I shake my head again and try to stop them, even though tears are nothing to me now.
“Oh, I . . .” I say.
“Anyway, here they are,” Reuben says awkwardly. And then he speaks again. And maybe it’s because he’s trying to cover up the tense silence. Or maybe he welcomes the change of subject. “Hey, maybe your coat’s here? Have you seen Jo’s coat?” And he turns to Ed. “She lost it in the winter . . .”
Of course he’d ask, I find myself thinking. He hasn’t seen Ed for ages, but of course he’d remember to ask. He probably noted it somewhere, for the next time he came.
I feel my face heat up. Oh no. This isn’t happening. My coat is just over there. Reuben will recognize it immediately. I have been so concerned about the CCTV and the stupid keys, I forgot the main thing: that hiding my own evidence in my place of work was unbelievably, unspeakably stupid.
“Jo’s coat?” Ed says. “No?”
“She lost it.”
“Oh, let me check the cupboard,” Ed is saying.
The world is becoming quiet and dim around me. I need to disappear inside my mind, somehow. I cannot witness this fallout.
“It won’t be here,” I croak.
“You don’t know where you lost it,” Reuben says. “That’s the point.”
“I wouldn’t have left anywhere without it in winter,” I snap.
“Well, it’s not at home.”
Ed holds a hand up, like we are bickering children, and locates his key on his belt.
The Choice Page 21
