by J. S. Monroe
We followed them, along with a group of other curious students. It’s strange how you know something awful has happened before there’s any empirical proof. It’s something in the air, perhaps, a metallic taste in the mouth. The pea-lights in the branches above us no longer seemed so soft and inviting, the braziers suddenly burned more fiercely.
A crowd had gathered near the wall at the very back of the garden, where there were no lights. The grass was worn there and it had been marked out of bounds all evening by wooden fencing and rope. As we drew near, people were peeling away, hands over their mouths. There was no panic, just a numbing stillness spreading through the garden like heavy fog. Instinctively, I reached out for Nick and linked my arm through his.
‘Oh God, oh God,’ he was whispering. I couldn’t see anything from where we were standing, but he unlinked my arm and made his way through the crowd. Already, a security guard was ushering people away. ‘Everyone back. Can you all move back.’
And then I saw her, in a tree to our left, head limp, her body hanging from a low branch. She was moving, but only because one of the security guards had grabbed her legs, around the knees, and was trying to support her weight, take the strain off the ligature around her neck.
I couldn’t bear to watch any more. Nick had stepped forward and was helping the security guard hold her body. ‘Somebody call an ambulance – please,’ I heard him say, but it was already too late. Everyone apart from Nick seemed to know that.
I offered a prayer and fell to my knees, looking around: silence, disbelief, tears. So this is how it feels for those left behind, I thought.
I don’t want my own death to be like that, ripping up the lives of others, but I have run out of options.
17
‘Do you find it comforting, when you see Rosa?’ Kirsten asks, sitting at her desk.
‘Frustrating.’
Jar is on the sofa in the window of Kirsten’s consulting room in Harley Street, not finding their first formal early-morning session easy. After the troubling incident with his office email account yesterday, he went out on the tear with Carl, drank too much for a Monday evening. The daylight is torturing his eyes.
‘Do you talk to her?’ she asks.
‘When I see her?’
‘It’s not uncommon for people to reach out to a loved one when they are experiencing a hallucination, try to engage them in conversation.’
‘Occasionally, yes.’
‘Can you tell me about it?’
Jar stays silent, listens to the street outside: a moped driving past, a fading police siren. He hasn’t had time to process what happened on the pier, when Rosa was standing on the railings. He closes his sore eyes, thinks back to another time when he saw her by the sea.
‘I was staying with a family friend in Cleggan, on the Connemara coast. It was just after daybreak and I went for a walk, up to Cleggan Head, to get a view of the bay and the islands, spread out like giant lilies in the sea. I remember at one point it was boggy underfoot. That’s when I saw her. She was in my peripheral vision, to the left, walking along beside me. I didn’t want to turn and look at her in case she vanished. It was comforting, to be sure – having her with me. The memorial service had been a few weeks earlier and I was still feeling raw.’
‘What did you say to her?’
‘She spoke first, picked up on something I’d said shortly after we first met in Cambridge, when I told her that I was a “bogger” – someone who doesn’t live in Dublin, who’s beyond the pale. A culchie. She laughed at that, said she’d never heard the expression before.’
‘What exactly did she say?’
‘It was after my foot slipped in the mud. “Clumsy bogger,” she joked. “You should have stayed in Dublin.” “I’d never have met you,” I replied. She didn’t say anything else after that. I kept talking though, asked her what she thought of the music we’d chosen at her memorial service. We left the church to “What a Wonderful World”.’
There is a pause. He can hear the sound of Kirsten’s pen writing on paper and then that odd intake of breath again. He wonders if she emits a similar sound, louder perhaps, more of a gasp, when she’s making love. He tries to shut out the image, uncouple his train of thought and concentrate on her questions.
‘Why do you find it frustrating, when you see her?’ Another silence. He senses that he’s being boxed into a corner, like a defence witness.
‘Because you know you’re hallucinating?’
Jar nods, despite himself. The mood in the room shifts imperceptibly, the ensuing silence no longer awkward, more an invitation to reflect. That’s her job, he thinks: getting people to the point where they want to open up. Clever, manipulative. Hence the box of tissues at his feet. He hears her breath again, just before she speaks.
‘Why did you come here today, Jar?’
He feels his eyelids throbbing. Does he tell her that his life is being destroyed by the belief that Rosa is alive? That the love they had for each other was stronger than the lure of the Norfolk sea and her apparent suicide was out of character? That he is still drinking too much and suspects he’s being followed everywhere? That he has become a cynical and jaded human being, worn down by a job he dislikes and the extinction of a once-promising talent to string sentences together?
Or does he confess that he welcomes the prospect of spending an hour each week talking about Rosa? (Even if it is to an older woman he knows she would have disliked – Rosa had a thing about bottle blondes.) Carl listened in the early days, but Jar can tell he’s bored by it all now. He doesn’t blame him. Amy still listens. So does Da, but Jar feels guilty whenever he brings Rosa up in conversation; his parents are too old to worry about their grown-up son. It’s Kirsten’s job to listen.
‘Talking about her keeps the memories alive,’ he offers finally.
‘And the hope that she’s alive too?’
He doesn’t answer.
‘I’ve got to be straight with you, Jar,’ she says. ‘No one I’ve spoken to about post-bereavement hallucinations believes their loved ones are still alive. They see their hallucinations more in terms of an ethereal trace, a contrail left in the sky.’
Where has he heard that expression before?
‘You mean an apparition? This isn’t a ghost story.’
He listens to the sweep of her fountain pen, guessing her handwriting is rounded, well formed, as he wracks his brain.
‘I’m going to ask you a very blunt question. I don’t mean to be insensitive, I just need a single-word answer, the first that comes to mind.’
‘Go ahead.’ Here comes Sigmund, he thinks.
‘What would you have felt if Rosa’s body had turned up?’
Jar pauses. Despite the warning, he is unsettled by her question.
‘Suspicious,’ he says, his voice quiet but firm. They look at each other in silence. Kirsten pushes back her chair and comes over to sit next to him on the sofa.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, placing one hand briefly on his forearm. It’s not a flirtatious gesture, but he isn’t prepared for the inevitable intimacy that follows, her face now close to his, the scent of citrus. She rests her notepad on her lap and pulls the hem of her skirt – shorter than yesterday? – over her knees.
‘For these sessions to work for both of us, I need to understand your current state of mind, ask occasionally awkward questions, analyse your answers. It’s part of the free-association method I mentioned yesterday. Then we can talk more meaningfully about the hallucinations. Is that OK with you?’
Jar nods, turns away and then looks back at her. She is still staring at him.
‘Why “suspicious”?’ she asks.
He notices that the second button on her blouse is undone. It must have fallen open when she moved from the desk to the sofa. She can’t have done it deliberately – everything about her manner today is professional, neutral, denuded of all sexuality – but the flash of flesh is distracting, enough for him to drop his guard, confide more in her than
he intends.
‘Because I think her death was faked.’
‘Faked by whom?’
‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here now.’
He glances at his watch, suddenly resentful of the meeting, her, Carl’s insistence that he come here, the ease with which he has been distracted.
‘It’s not my area, but isn’t faking a death quite a hard thing to do?’ she persists.
‘I’ve never tried.’ But he’s looked into it, in more depth than she will ever know, studying every permutation and practitioner, from a man in Milan called Umberto Gallini who can make people disappear (for an eye-watering fee) to ‘canoe man’ John Darwin. Lost at sea is as good a method as any.
‘Are you a naturally suspicious person?’ she asks.
‘I never used to be.’
‘What else makes you wary?’
The traffic warden across the street who watched him ring the intercom on her front door today, he thinks. The removal men lingering on the stairs outside his flat this morning.
‘All these questions,’ he says, swallowing hard.
He’s remembered now. The first diary entry Anton sent him: There should be no record, no contrails left in the Fenland sky.
‘It’s not what you expected?’ she asks, getting up from the sofa and moving back to her desk. Her hips have a subtle sway.
‘I don’t know what I was expecting,’ he says, managing a smile, his thoughts tripping over each other. No contrails left in the Fenland sky. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful now. It feels good, for sure, talking it all through like this. I’ve always found talking helpful.’
But it feels anything but good and she knows it. ‘Does it truly?’ she asks.
‘I can see it helps,’ he lies. He needs to get away from her.
‘That’s great. I appreciate your honesty. May I ask you one last question: did Rosa write you a farewell letter, an explanation at all?’
‘A suicide note, you mean?’
‘I didn’t want to call it that.’
‘She did.’
Where’s she going with this? I just wish I didn’t have to leave you behind, babe, the first true love of my life and my last. He has vowed never to share Rosa’s final letter with anyone.
‘Was it useful?’
‘Ambiguous.’
‘But she was someone who liked to write?’
‘How d’you mean? She was always putting off essays.’
Jar doesn’t see the next question coming.
‘What about a journal? Did she ever keep a diary?’
The words resonate in the cool, still air. Did she ever keep a diary?
‘Reading it can sometimes help those left behind,’ she adds.
He looks up, returns her intense gaze. How much does this woman know? How much has Carl told her?
‘A diary?’ he says, thinking of the latest entries he read last night about Phoebe and the college ball, hoping there are more waiting for him in the drafts folder. ‘No, she never kept a diary.’
18
Cambridge, Summer Term, 2012 (continued)
I wasn’t the only one to leave early. The May Ball committee, on the advice of the police, decided to cancel the rest of the evening.
I didn’t see Nick again, or Tim. I could have found him, used the excuse of Phoebe to explain why I hadn’t returned to the casino boat, where I’d left him, but I just wanted to get away from the college as fast as I could.
I walked over the bridge and down towards King’s Parade, hoping that Jar wouldn’t mind being woken at such an hour. There were other people from the ball wandering the streets in their finest – Cambridge’s privileged diaspora. A girl in tears, being comforted by her partner. A couple on the wall beside King’s College porter’s lodge, talking quietly, a bottle of champagne at their feet.
It took a few rings of his doorbell before Jar came to the door in his dressing gown. I was crying and wearing a ball gown and it was two in the morning, but he let me in without saying a word. The moment the door was closed, I fell into his arms, sobbing. He held me tight until the tears stopped, and then moved me gently upstairs and on to the leather sofa in his sitting room, pushing aside some cushions and a blanket.
Over a whiskey, I told him about the night, first about Phoebe, then we talked about Tim. My worries about him suddenly seemed so petty compared to the tragedy that followed in the Fellows’ Garden.
‘If they found Phoebe quickly, she might have a chance,’ Jar said.
‘They didn’t. She was gone, Jar, I’m sure of it. The ambulance left without a siren.’
‘There’s no traffic at this time of night.’
‘Her head was hanging so heavy.’ I couldn’t get the image of her in the tree out of my head. Jar poured another whiskey.
‘You can’t go blaming yourself, Rosa.’
‘I could have been a better friend to her. And Nick. He’ll never recover from that. His face when he saw her…’
Jar hugged me closely as I cried again, feeling safe in his warm embrace. I should never have gone to the ball, I thought, or walked out on Jar that night.
As I sat there holding him tightly, thinking that there was nowhere else in this world I’d rather be, I heard a noise in Jar’s bedroom behind us. I swallowed hard, pulling away from him.
‘Is there someone else here?’ I managed to whisper, wondering if it was possible for my evening to get any worse. I couldn’t blame him if he’d got a girl staying over.
‘Niamh, my cousin,’ he said, wiping a tear away from my eye. I wasn’t sure if there was a knowing smile playing faintly on his lips. ‘She’s over from Dublin for a few days.’
I started crying again. ‘Hold me tight, Jar,’ I said. And never let me go.
‘I shouldn’t have left Tim tonight, walked out like that,’ I said, regaining my composure. ‘For all I know, he just wanted to place a few bets in the casino.’
‘And this Hannah, presumably she’s Tim’s ex?’
‘Probably.’
‘In that case, I wouldn’t believe a word the floozie said.’
The doorbell downstairs was ringing.
‘Busy night,’ Jar said, getting up from the sofa as his cousin appeared at the bedroom door. ‘Niamh, this is Rosa. Rosa, Niamh.’
Niamh came over and sat down next to me. ‘Everything OK now?’ she asked, a hand on my arm. God, was it that obvious? I must have looked wrecked.
‘I’m making a tea, do you fancy one? Seeing as we’re all up.’
‘Go on then,’ I said. Niamh had kind eyes, like Jar’s, and her Irish accent was stronger, but she was short and gamine, with none of Jar’s heft. I remembered him saying something about her being an artist.
As she fetched a boiling kettle from the bedroom, I wondered if she’d heard our conversation. I didn’t have the emotional energy to tell her about Phoebe.
I hope to God Phoebe survives. There’s a chance, as Jar said. She can’t have been there long.
‘Who’s at the door?’ Niamh asked.
We both listened. I could hear Jar’s voice but not the other person’s. Then the door closed and Jar came back up the stairs. I looked up and saw him in the doorway, with Tim beside him, his white tie undone, eyes red, hair a mess.
‘I just wanted to check that you’re OK,’ he said, sheepishly.
I glanced at Tim and then Jar, wondering how Tim had found me, why Jar let him in.
‘Do you fancy an Irish whiskey?’ Jar said to him and then smiled at me, as if to tell me that everything was in hand.
‘Or a tea?’ Niamh said.
Tim looked at me and then Jar. ‘A large whiskey.’
For a moment I wondered if Jar and Tim knew each other, whether the whole evening had been another set-up, but it turned out Jar just wanted to give Tim a chance to explain himself. A bit of male solidarity, which irked me, but Jar also knew how bad I felt about walking out on him. More than anything, I think he just felt sorry for Tim, for me, for everyone w
ho’d been at the ball, and over a new bottle of twelve-year-old Yellow Spot (‘toasted barley, newly cut hay, hint of grapes’) he encouraged us to talk about Phoebe.
As dawn broke, Jar made us all scrambled eggs and bacon, our alternative May Ball breakfast, which the four of us devoured as if we’d not eaten for days. He put on the Villagers, too, who I never did get to see at the ball.
In a quiet moment on the sofa, Tim apologised for Hannah, hoped she hadn’t upset me. Jar was right, of course. They used to go out and she’s never forgiven him for splitting up. He didn’t know that I’d been about to walk out on our evening, had just assumed that I was swept up in the awful events of the Fellows’ Garden, and I left it at that.
‘How did you know where I was?’ I asked.
‘I asked a few people in the street if they’d seen a beautiful girl in a ball gown wandering around on her own.’ He paused, glancing across at Jar and Niamh, who were washing up. ‘Is Jar the chosen one then?’
I nodded, feeling guilty that I’d misjudged Tim and grateful to Jar for allowing some closure on the evening, as my counsellor would say.
I wonder if Dr Lance ever called Phoebe in, whether she met the foxy college shrink. Phoebe always had a complicated relationship with authority. I realise more than ever now how lucky I am. It could have been me swinging from a tree.
19
Jar’s mind clears the moment he steps out on to Harley Street and into an ordinary day. The sky is an electric blue and people are on their way to work, clutching takeaway coffees, talking on phones, messenger bags strapped across shoulders. A few people are running, light rucksacks on their backs. On the corner, an orange-tanned woman – all fur coat and no knickers, Jar thinks – hails a taxi.
He could do with an espresso himself, as he glances at the brass plates beside the doors of the Georgian houses he passes, a snapshot of affluent hypochondria and vanity: dental implants, colon hydrotherapy, aesthetic surgery, mindfulness hypnotherapy, thread-vein removal, leech therapy, laser teeth-whitening. He got off lightly.
The session with Kirsten was unnerving, though. Her line of questioning was odd, even allowing for Freud: asking if Rosa kept a diary. And that reference to contrails left in the sky. He’s more troubled that he confided in her, fell briefly under her fleshy spell.
