Pitt sat in silence. From a distant field there was the faint smell of slurry. Occasionally a car drove past. A small plane droned, low in the sky, to the south.
He felt nothing. The breeze touched his neck. The smell of the country washed over him and he did not even notice. There came the buzz of insects from a nearby hedge.
He thought about the three vines he had stripped and which were now sitting in the back of his car. All that was left. All he had in the world. Except for this moment, when he still had Yuan Ju.
The police station was at the edge of the village. In front of him there was a dip in the road, a hedgerow on either side. At the bottom of the slope, the road turned and rose and was lost behind a small copse. There were fields, gently sloping away, on either side. One of them was empty, but had been cut and rolled so that it looked immaculate, like a golf course, or Wembley before the Cup Final. The other side was not so manicured. There were sheep dotted around, grazing in the morning sun. Some of them lay on the ground.
Time stood still. Like it so often did when he sat in the cellar. Like it had when he’d held Ju.
How long had he stood with her in his arms? That defining moment, the one that separated his two lives.
The buzz of insects seemed to die away; the pitch became lower and lower until it vanished. Time really was slowing down. Why couldn’t it? Why couldn’t he stay in this moment forever? What was time? What was it that drove events ever forward?
Pitt stared straight ahead. Silence engulfed him. He held his eyes so steadily on the road that his vision began to cloud over.
Life pirouetted on a spinning coin.
Heads, Ju was safe, shortly he would enable her release, and by that evening they would be sitting outside a café in Paris drinking coffee.
Tails...
He had no thought of tails.
The insects had stopped. He glanced at the hedgerow. His sight cleared. He could see one bee, paused in flight, as if undecided which way to go or how fast it needed to be flapping its wings.
He looked up at a blue sky scattered with white. There was one plane overhead, high above. It seemed to have stopped moving. He kept his eyes on it for a few moments, but could discern no movement against the solid blue that surrounded it.
He felt nothing. Looked back at the clock. It didn’t seem that it had moved for a while, but he wasn’t sure. Didn’t time slow down, after all? Couldn’t it stop altogether?
What would happen if he turned on the radio?
He had never turned on the radio. Perhaps it wouldn’t know what to do. Pitt stared dully at the dial. Why was he thinking about the radio?
He was drifting in silence, fighting off reality. Perhaps time had indeed stopped, but he could not stop the creep of fear and desolation that was seeping through him. Almost a physical manifestation, it was crawling from his stomach up through his body, descending from the top of his head down through his brain, covering his eyes.
Here was grief, come to take Pitt to join in Ju’s great romantic tragedy.
The bee buzzed. He could hear the sound of the plane as it travelled high overhead. A car passed by, already accelerating towards the speed limit sign.
Pitt looked over at the police station. She was in there. Ju was there, dead or alive, and she needed him. He got out of the car, closed the door but did not lock it, and walked across the road.
Time was in that car, he thought. Accelerating away.
There goes time.
The noise was sudden. When it finally broke through, the shrill chirp of the robin was like a syringe stabbed directly into the side of his head.
He straightened up, his eyes widened. Absurdly, hope flooded into him like the morning sun. The sound of the bird did not diminish. He did not turn and look for it, his eyes on the door to the station. He walked quickly forward, suddenly aware that the moment was coming to him, rather than the other way round.
The pounding of several sets of feet. The door crashed open, a paramedic came through backwards, pulling a stretcher on a trolley. Another paramedic followed him through. On the stretcher lay Yuan Ju, pale and beautiful. She seemed lifeless, and yet her face was not covered, and she was hooked up to two drips. Saline and blood.
The trolley was pushed towards the rear of the ambulance, Pitt stood little more than a couple of yards away.
‘Is she all right?’ he heard himself asking.
‘Who are you?’ asked the paramedic. Opening the ambulance rear doors, barely looking at Pitt.
Pitt stared blankly at him. He looked down at Ju’s arms, which were lying still on top of the white sheet. Heavily bandaged at the wrist. The paramedics pushed the trolley to the rear of the ambulance, lifted it easily, pushed it inside. One of them leapt in beside Yuan Ju, the other closed the doors, ran round to the front.
Pitt turned round; Inspector Malcolm was standing in the doorway to the station, looking at him. The same lugubrious eyes, the uncomfortable case of Yuan Ju having become even more entangled.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ said Malcolm. ‘I’ll speak to you in a minute. Come inside.’
The ambulance started up and quickly headed off. Pitt glanced at Malcolm and barely gave it any thought. He turned. He ran to his car. He got in. He did not look back.
Malcolm stood and watched him go.
56
Pitt bided his time. It came naturally to him, sitting in silence. Around him, the A&E whirred in slow motion. He heard none of it. The ward was quiet at any rate; its remoteness somehow having allowed it to survive the myriad cuts of the past twenty years, as wards and nurses had been axed to make way for management and computers.
Pitt knew nothing of the National Health Service.
He did not ask after the welfare of Yuan Ju. Was she still alive? Had she suffered any lasting damage? When would she be free to leave the hospital? Instead, he sat and waited in silence. He had spent so much time, so many hours and weeks and months, waiting to see how a vintage would develop. A few minutes, becoming hours, waiting to hear the fate of Yuan Ju, came naturally to him.
A policeman came shortly after they arrived, left the reception area and walked into the hospital. His duty was to stand by Ju’s bedside, to make sure she did not flee, was not abducted, and did not receive any visitors.
The investigation was ongoing as to whether Mrs Cromwell had supplied Ju the means to cut her wrists, or whether Ju had been in possession of such means on entering the cell. Either way it did not look good for the police. There would be much to brush beneath the carpet. Inspector Malcolm, distracted from a series of break-ins, was unsure whether it would be better for them if Ju died or survived. At that precise moment, he did not have a preference.
Pitt waited over four hours, into early afternoon. He went to the bathroom once; he bought himself a coffee and a bottle of water from the machines in the waiting area. Accidents and emergencies came and went. The more serious ones did not come back out through reception, but were obviously sucked further into the inner workings of the hospital. Yuan Ju did not reappear.
Pitt waited. One person came to ask him if he was all right. Pitt did not encourage conversation, yet did not appear suspicious. He was waiting. A man who waits in silence is no threat to others.
He did not know what he was waiting for. He did not want to be approached, he did not want Malcolm to arrive; he did not expect Ju to suddenly walk out of the hospital. He did not notice the hands of the clock on the wall move inexorably round the large white face.
Eventually, the police officer appeared and looked around the waiting area. He paid no more attention to Pitt than anyone else. It was not apparent what he was looking for. Pitt did not look at him, kept his gaze solidly on an indeterminate spot in the middle distance. The police officer retreated. The waiting area returned to normal.
Ten minutes later, the policeman walked back through the waiting area and out of the hospital. He was not replaced.
*
The inspector was a man
who knew things. He sensed how things were supposed to be. He could read people, even the impenetrable ones like Pitt. He knew that Pitt was a good man, an honest man. That was why his excitement at the thought of a girl-in-the-cellar front-page story had died; Pitt was a man who had kept Yuan Ju locked up for her own good. The story had been going nowhere, until Yuan Ju had found the means to attempt suicide.
Inspector Malcolm intended taking himself down to the hospital. He needed to interview Yuan Ju to establish how this had happened. However, he had seventeen other matters to take care of, and Yuan Ju steadfastly refused to rise to the top of the list. Yuan Ju was that tricky piece of paper in your in-tray that you keep putting off. The difficult phone call. The e-mail that remains unwritten. It lies beneath the surface, causing ripples, imposing itself on the flat calm around it.
Sometime into the afternoon, with the problem of Yuan Ju knocking relentlessly at his head, a solution occurred to Inspector Malcolm. He called the police officer on duty at the hospital, an officer whose man-hours he could not really afford to waste standing at the end of a corridor in a hospital in which no one was particularly interested.
It was time for him to return to the station. He would be replaced, but there would be a small window in between. They didn’t have to worry, as Yuan Ju was obviously not going anywhere. They were just not staffed at such a small station to be able to guard a potential suicide twenty-four hours a day.
The officer left the hospital, leaving notice that he would be replaced later that afternoon.
*
For a while, the nurses had the time to check that Yuan Ju was all right, but eventually Yuan Ju also slipped back in their list of priorities and she was left on her own; lying in a bed, feeling weak, drifting in and out of sleep. The smell of a hospital in summer, the windows open, unidentified noises coming from outside. Seven other women on the ward. Occasionally, they chatted. Occasionally, visitors came and went. Yuan Ju did not know about visiting hours on a hospital ward.
She could not think clearly, although that was partly because she did not want to. All she wanted was to be at home, sitting at the dinner table with her mother and father and grandmother, listening to the old stories, discussing that day’s news. Yet, she could not think, for they were the very people she had shamed.
She became aware that a hand was in hers, fingers slowly massaging her palm. She struggled up from the bottom of her dreamy, sedative-induced pit and opened her eyes. A few seconds to focus. Pitt was standing over her.
She couldn’t think clearly. Somehow, she should have been surprised by it. Somehow, Pitt standing over her should have been the last thing she expected to see; so unusual, in fact, that perhaps she might have been dreaming.
Yet, strangely, Pitt being there was the most natural thing in the entire world. Of course he had come for her. The razor in the rice, the razor that had been a message from Pitt, hadn’t been from him. How could it have been?
She heard the sound of the chair being drawn closer to the bed, and then he was sitting beside her. Slowly she climbed ever closer to full consciousness. She turned her head towards him.
‘I don’t know how much time we have,’ said Pitt. He had faced the possibility that Yuan Ju was dead, that he would never see her again. Now that he had her in front of him, words would no longer be his barrier. ‘Do you think you can walk out of here?’
A minute earlier Yuan Ju had been drifting in and out of consciousness, her mood informed by vague feelings of despair. She had not known what to think, and so had not been thinking.
She held his gaze. Her fingers moved slightly in his hand, her grip strengthened. With his touch she was being lifted gently to the surface.
‘The police will be back, and we have to make sure that you’re not here when they come. It’s not too far to my car, then you can sleep on the way.’
The words themselves did not matter. The gentle glide to the surface was becoming a headlong rush and Yuan Ju could feel the most incredible shiver course its way through her body.
He squeezed her hand. The love that had surged through Yuan Ju during their embrace in the basement returned. Their eyes engaged, then he leant forward, kissed Ju softly on the forehead, then pushed the chair back, rose to his feet and pulled gently at her hand.
‘Can you get up?’ he asked.
He did not know if the words themselves meant anything to her, but there was no doubt that she understood. Adrenaline coursed through her body. Yuan Ju could get up. More than likely, Yuan Ju could fly.
She eased the covers away from her body and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Pitt removed his jacket and placed it around her shoulders. Her bare feet dangled a few inches above the floor.
‘Should I get a wheelchair?’ he asked, suddenly concerned about her walking out of the hospital with no shoes.
She stood up, he held her arm. Despite the situation, they both felt it; the sensation of standing next to each other, of holding on to one another, arms entwined as their lives had become.
He smiled at her, the smile that Hardyman had seen on the one occasion they had discussed Yuan Ju, a smile that belonged to his eyes as much as his lips; and Yuan Ju returned the look, squeezing his arm.
Together they walked from the ward, out into the corridor. A nurse bustled past them, giving Yuan Ju a quick glance but too busy to ask any questions. Through the first set of swing doors, Ju finding her feet all the time, walking more easily. A weakness in her legs, but freedom was at hand and she could have walked for miles.
‘Where are you going?’
The voice barked officiously at them from behind. Pitt turned; Yuan Ju could not. Matron. Blue uniform. Stern features.
‘I’m just taking her downstairs for a cup of tea,’ said Pitt, the lie coming easily.
The matron strode towards them, took hold of Ju’s other arm. Ju flinched.
‘No you’re not. This patient is not to leave the ward.’
Pitt gently squeezed Ju’s arm. She was not going back to the ward. His face descended. He wore the look of the man who had killed three people in five minutes. He was not threatening, but vacant and devoid of all emotion or life.
‘I’m taking her for a cup of tea,’ he said, the frivolousness of the words cup of tea completely at odds with his demeanour. ‘Call the police if you like. We’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Now let go of her arm.’
The matron held on for another couple of seconds, then something within her ceded to Pitt’s will and she released her hold on Ju, took a step back.
‘I will call the police,’ she said.
‘They can find us in the canteen,’ said Pitt.
She held his gaze for another few seconds, but could not bear it. She turned and walked quickly to her office. She knew they were not going to the canteen; or, if they were, they were going in the wrong direction.
Pitt watched her go, Yuan Ju could not look at her, then he gave Ju’s arm a squeeze and walked with her to the elevator.
A short wait, down one floor, and they were walking through reception. The results of a minor car accident were being brought in, which meant that Pitt and Ju could go unnoticed as they walked out.
Outside, the ground felt warm beneath her feet. Pitt led her to his car, opened the passenger door. She looked down at the seat. Her book was sitting there, waiting for her. He had not left it behind, just as he had not left her behind. She lifted it, and sat down.
Pitt closed the passenger door, then walked round to the driver’s side. Before he opened the door, he became aware that the air was filled with the sound of birdsong.
He listened for a moment. The world had returned. Straightened its axis, readjusted the poles. The world had done whatever it had had to do. He looked up into the trees – he could not see any of the birds that were singing so clearly – then eased himself into the car, and closed the door.
He looked at Yuan Ju, took hold of her hand, squeezed it softly one more time. She smiled weakly in return. She looked
tired and unwell, and he had a moment of wondering if he had taken her out too early. But he felt the life in her hands, and, for the first time that summer, there was so much life in her eyes.
‘We should get going,’ he said.
Only once he was on the road and away from the hospital would he start to think about their destination; the road untraveled, the hotel in Paris that he had booked, a lifetime ago, for that evening. Or a hotel anywhere. It hardly mattered.
A last touch of her fingers, then he started the engine, finally managing to pull his eyes away from her, and drove slowly out of the car park.
Yuan Ju rested her head back on the seat, closed her eyes and lightly laid her fingers on the book that now bound her as much to Pitt as it did to her home.
57
conversations with hardyman
Pitt couldn’t help noticing that his accountant was smiling. Hardyman was in the kind of jovial mood of which Pitt was not really capable. He sometimes enjoyed it in his friend.
Hardyman had made a rare trip down the M4, and they had met up in Cheltenham. Hardyman had made jokes about being in a backwater, loudly enough to be overheard from neighbouring tables. They were both eating fish and drinking a bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc.
‘What?’ asked Pitt.
Neither of them had spoken for five minutes. They often lurched into silence to enjoy food, although they were just as likely to talk through it.
Hardyman waited a second, then glanced at him.
‘What?’
‘You’re smiling,’ said Pitt. ‘It’s annoying. What is it?’
Hardyman laughed. He took a long drink of wine. He was already a glass and a half ahead of Pitt.
‘You’re a miserable piece of work,’ said Hardyman.
Pitt didn’t reply. Hardyman shook his head, took some more food. The smile came back to his face.
A Room With No Natural Light Page 22
