Falling Off Air

by Catherine Sampson

  “I should tell you I had an argument with Paula. It was about the terrible things life throws at us, the things that make us feel like hell, and that we simply cannot comprehend. Those of us who are Christians still find ourselves asking how God can allow these things to happen. War, famine, sickness, and decay. Violent death, suicide. What in God's name is their purpose?

  “I told Paula that all I can think is that we're never going to understand and we're always going to struggle against these things, but that God is always there. At all times, in all situations, with us and beside us and right smack in the middle of the awfulness. She disagreed with me and many of you will know that having Paula Carmichael disagree with you was pretty scary. Those are the times and the situations, she said, when we realize there is no God, and it is in those minutes of most profound loneliness that men and women turn to other men and women for their salvation. Sometimes other people come through for them, and sometimes they don't. Now I'm not going to try and kid you that the difference in our positions is only semantic. It's not. But nor are they mutually exclusive.

  “The second thing I want you to go away with,” Father Riberra continued, “is the Carmichael challenge: ‘So what are you going to do about it?’ If anyone had asked her what she wanted on her tombstone, that would have been it. Don't whine, don't pass the buck. Put yourself there, smack in the middle of the awfulness. Alongside God, I'd say. Alongside humanity, she'd say. Don't walk away. Get your hands dirty.”

  The priest dropped his head, as though the homily had simply run out, and there was silence.

  Then all of a sudden there was a clatter from my right and I turned my head. Adam was out of his seat and pushing past mourners to the central aisle, apparently not caring about the disruption he was causing. He glanced up, his face suffused in panic, and for an instant he caught my eye and paused, as if he were about to address me. Then he shook his head in confusion and turned away. The entire congregation must have watched his stumbling exit. Only the priest kept his head bowed.

  Finney, observing Adam's departure, had caught the moment's connection between Adam and myself and turned to me now, his eyebrows raised again, this time in interrogation.

  I shook my head wordlessly. All that I had seen in Adam's eyes was pain.

  “You know him, the man who walked out?” Finney pursued me out of the church at the end of the funeral mass. The sky had darkened and heavy drops of rain had begun to fall. Some of the crowd was hurrying off, but for the most part people seemed to be rooted to the spot, as though the funeral hadn't ended, as though there was still something to wait for.

  “I used to work with him.”

  “At the Corporation,” he clarified. “I've seen him on television.”

  I nodded.

  “Why's he at the funeral?”

  “I think he worked with Paula Carmichael at one point.”

  Finney gazed off over my shoulder and seemed to focus on someone else in the crowd. Then he came back to me.

  “Is he the mutual friend you mentioned who might be the link with Paula's diaries?”

  Interesting, I thought, that he's using her first name as if they've grown to be friends, as though she had reached out beyond the grave to him to smile and say, “Been there, done that.”

  “It's possible. I'm going to ask him.”

  “Don't let me put you out,” Finney scowled. “I'll talk to him myself.”

  “No.” The thought of Adam and Finney having a heart-to-heart was, for some reason, not good. “I'm going to see him this evening, it's all been arranged.”

  He nodded, his eyes distracted by Richard Carmichael's emergence from the church and the forward thrust of the media. I had no idea whether Finney had really heard what I said. He turned away and snapped at one of his officers to clear a broader path for the mourners. The crowd and the outside broadcast TV vans had all but blocked traffic, and horns were blaring. D.C. Mann materialized at Finney's side and acknowledged me with a dip of the head.

  “I'll speak to you tomorrow,” Finney told me. “We have to clear this up.” He moved away.

  I was jostled from side to side by the crowd, then I felt a hand on my elbow, and turned. I had assumed Suzette was there out of duty—she had hardly been full of praise for Paula—but she looked shaken all the same. She wore a charcoal gray dress, and a gray pillbox hat with black feather was perched on her gathered blond hair. We hugged and kissed on the cheek, the nature of the occasion making us more demonstrative than we would otherwise have been. The misunderstanding over money still sat uncomfortably with me, but we were friends and we started to walk side by side. The bottleneck had eased and the current of mourners swept us along.

  “Do you know what that was all about?” I asked her.

  “Adam?” She pulled a face. “I suppose he wasn't feeling well.”

  “You think so?” I said it uncertainly, although of course it was the only sensible explanation. It just hadn't looked that way to me.

  “I spoke to him before the funeral and he said he had a headache,” she said.

  I had misinterpreted the pain I saw in his eyes, then. Adam had a history of occasional but severe migraines that made light and noise unbearable and made him vomit. When they struck he needed medication immediately, but because the headaches were rare he often forgot to carry his pills with him.

  We paused and watched as Richard Carmichael, still hand in hand with his older boy, the younger standing a yard away, stood and chatted with journalists for a moment.

  “It's hardly the time, you'd have thought,” Suzette murmured.

  “He seems to think he can use the media,” I said, “but they'll be just as eager to destroy him if things turn that way.”

  “He's still trying to peddle this line that someone was seen visiting Paula Carmichael before she died,” Suzette said thoughtfully. “Although there seems to be only the son's word for it.”

  “You don't believe him?” I said. We were talking in low voices, aware that Carmichael friends and family were all around us.

  “Carmichael needs the money,” she said softly. “That means Paula can't have committed suicide, and he can't have killed her. That's a bit of a tightrope.” She paused and sighed. “Was that man you were talking to with the police?”

  “Finney.” I nodded.

  “Does he think it's suicide?”

  “I don't think he knows what to believe.”

  Suzette gave a tight little smile.

  “Welcome to the club,” she said.

  I headed to my mother's first to pick up the children, because I knew she had to go out.

  She was waiting for me, dressed in a suit, her bag on her shoulder, and clearly annoyed.

  “I'm supposed to be there already.”

  “I thought you said you were leaving at four-fifteen,” I said, my heart sinking, stretching out my arms for the twins.

  “I had to be there by four-fifteen, I'm sure I said.”

  I put Hannah and William in the stroller, apologizing profusely. Then I walked back to the garage where I'd left the car and wrote a check for three hundred pounds of work on it, which did nothing to lift my mood. I loaded the children and headed home, wishing I'd never agreed to see Adam.

  Chapter 12

  I get home at five-fifteen and busy myself with the children's tea. Once they are eating I look in the mirror. I have already thrown the black jacket over the back of a chair. The short black skirt has to go too or I will look like a French waitress in a farce. My hair could do with a wash. I drag some jeans and a striped T-shirt out of the basket of clean laundry and iron them. I pull the blind closed and strip down to my underwear. Then, still in the kitchen, I wash my hair in the sink. The children watch this, fascinated, and all the time they keep stuffing food in their mouths. This is great. I should do it every mealtime. I comb my hair through, leaving it to dry, and pull on the clean clothes. At six I examine myself critically in the mirror. I could do with some lipstick and mascara, but this is n
ot a date. All I want is for Adam to see that I am strong, that I have not fallen apart, that I do not need him, that we do not need him, that we are all fed and clothed and happy and clean. I clear up the tea things, wipe hands and faces with a flannel, check their nappies, change them into cuter clothes.

  I glance around the flat and look for the first time as through Adam's eyes. He will think it poky, which it is. He will be surprised I've put up with the bizarre color schemes, but I have. The best I have done is to jolly it up in places—I've made mobiles out of magazine pictures, framed lots of photographs, filled vases with my childhood collection of peacock feathers, painted mirrors and lampshades. These tasks have filled lonely evenings when the children are in bed. I have no money to spend on anything but food and clothes, but I want them to feel their home is a warm and happy place. As I look at it through Adam's eyes my efforts look amateurish and cheap. I could clear my pathetic handicrafts away, but I will not. At least it is clean and tidy. Adam always said he didn't care about tidiness, but he would have cared if he'd had the mess of children around him. I pull more laundry from the drier. I will fold it and take it upstairs before he comes.

  At six twenty-five the phone rings. It is probably Adam, I think, my heart pounding, Adam saying he's been delayed. It is Terry.

  “You're going to take the job, that's brilliant.” He hears my silence, tries to jolly me along. “I know it's not exactly what you want, but there are people losing their jobs left, right, and center. It's a promotion, for heaven's sake.”

  I sigh, my heartbeat still failing to slow. I look at my watch. Six-thirty. I hear a car pull up in the road outside.

  “I'm sorry, Terry, I really can't talk right now.”

  “I just feel we should have a chat before you start at work, and you're starting tomorrow.”

  “Fine. Good, we'll talk, but not now,” I plead. “I'm in the middle of something. I'll explain later. Really. I'll ring you.”

  He doesn't like it of course, but he says good-bye.

  I hurry into the sitting room and look out of the window, but if a car had pulled up it has moved on again. There are no free parking spaces outside the house. By this time of day the road is always lined with returning commuters, and a green Toyota is sitting outside the house, parked badly in a space that could have taken two cars.

  By six-forty I am a wreck. My hackles rise like a dog's with every passing vehicle. When a nice man knocks on the door at six forty-five to ask for a charitable donation I nearly bite his head off. At six-fifty I try calling Adam. Perhaps he has forgotten. But I just get his answering machine and I decide that it is a good sign and he must be on his way.

  Just before seven there is a knock on the door and I open it ready to punch the man who stands there. It is Dan Stein. His face falls.

  “I've come at a bad time again,” he says, looking at my expression.

  “No, no.” I try to smile, but it doesn't really work, and I realize I have to explain, “I've had some bad news, a family thing, but I'm fine.”

  “Okay.” He doesn't know how to go on. He's embarrassed by this talk of family because we are not yet familiar. I am not being exactly welcoming. I haven't invited him in this time, and I cannot. Not tonight.

  “Could we go out for a drink on Saturday,” I offer, managing a smile of sorts. “I'm sorry, I'll be in better shape by then.”

  “You're in great shape right now,” he says, and grins to tell me the remark is intended in the best of taste, just meant to comfort me.

  I manage to smile back.

  “Why don't you come over at around eight?” I suggest. “And we can go to the George.”

  “Or for a meal,” he suggests. “If it's going to take this long to arrange one date, it might as well be a good one.”

  “Okay, but not Indian,” I say, trying to make conversation but not wanting to.

  “Are you sure you're okay?” he asks softly.

  I nod, my jaw set. He lifts his hand, and for an instant I think he is going to touch my face. I draw back and his hand goes to his pocket for a pen to write down his telephone number. We agree that we will see each other on Saturday, and I close the door on him. Tonight was not the right time to entertain a suitor. Nevertheless, he is persistent and I like that. He has met the twins and he is still persistent. I like that even more. He has sympathetic eyes, but he looks so young and pristine, especially this evening, dressed in chinos and a leather jacket. Surely I am too old for him, too old and bashed around.

  I bathe the children. I dress them in their nightclothes. At seven-thirty I try calling Adam's mobile, but it rings and rings and no one answers. At eight I give up on him. I mean I give up properly, forever. He has not managed this one simple thing. He has been delayed by some trivia, diverted by some irrelevance, one way or another there's something he would rather do than meet his own children. He has as good as turned his back on them. I contain myself until the children are in bed and then I pace the floor fuming and fulminating, cursing myself for ever having listened to him, hating myself for wanting him to come, despising myself for ever having believed in him.

  By ten I have calmed down. The first trickle of relief has found its way through the hurt. I am not going to have to deal with Adam. There will be no agonized discussions about his involvement in our lives, the children will be all mine again. I am under no obligation to him. For the first time since Adam and I parted I go and kneel by the cupboard where my papers are stored and I pull out a box of photographs that I have avoided like the plague. I stare down at the picture on the top of the pile, Adam and I, arms around each other's shoulders on holiday in Morocco, both tanned, happy grins on our faces. I put the photographs down and go and pour myself a whiskey in the kitchen, then I return to the photographs with the bottle and sit cross-legged on the floor and work my way through the images of our time together. It is a grand farewell. Laughing, hands clasped, arms entwined, even one of us kissing, his hands on my face, pulling me to him. I close my eyes, lean back against the sofa, and run our time together like a movie in my head.

  I was working for financial news and documentaries and I'd got a whiff of scandal before the country knew it as a scandal. I'd had word that Paper Money, a young but outstandingly successful investment company, was concealing huge losses from the public with the help of some creative accounting. It was nothing more than a whisper, and small investors couldn't resist, continuing to throw their money into the void. For six months I pushed and probed and combed the company accounts. I wined, I dined, I flattered. I even flirted, which is something I only do under duress.

  It was at this point that I met Adam. He egged me on, even as Paper Money got wind of my interest and tried to intimidate me with talk of lawsuits. Eventually my breakthrough came in the form of a Deep Throat from the Serious Fraud Office. Then Adam presented the forty-minute documentary that caused Paper Money's demise and won me a prestigious award. It wasn't the award that gave me a kick so much as the fact that I'd single-handedly brought Paper Money down. I was drunk on my own power and I was hungry for the next challenge. I don't know what that challenge might have been because I fell in love with Adam and, after a few months, became pregnant with twins, and then he left.

  Adam was my best friend as well as my lover, but all of it was tied up with work. Work was who we were, both of us. We talked endlessly about it, laughed about it, we made love after it and before it. When I started to change, when the double helping of life inside my belly started to move my head and my heart in new directions, Adam stayed where he was. And when he found himself alone in that place he looked around for a new companion.

  I didn't know the details, the who or the where or the how many times, but that there was someone else I am certain. I suspected it in the week before his declaration of non-love for me. Then, when I challenged him, he didn't deny it. It made all the difference to me. If there had been no one else, if Adam was just afraid of how parenthood was going to change his life, I would have dragged him k
icking and screaming into domesticity, but when I knew there was already someone else, then I knew he'd made a choice and that choice was not to be with me and with our children.

  “To closure,” I murmur and raise my whiskey glass in a farewell toast. I sip. Time for bed.

  But “Greensleeves” shatters the silence and I haul myself to my feet. I find Finney and D.C. Mann on my doorstep.

  “Miss Ballantyne,” Finney says, “do you own a red 1990 BMW?”

  “Yes, what's—?”

  “Can you tell me the license number?”

  I recite it and Finney nods, and looks sadder than I have seen him. Which makes no sense.

  “We need to come in,” he says, and I stand back, mystified.

  We go, all three of us, in the sitting room. The glass in the window has been replaced, but during my evening of fury I have not once paused to pull the curtains closed. I can see the Carmichael house, all lit up, on the other side of the street. Finney runs his eyes over the room. I see him take note of my tumbler of Laphroaig, the stack of photographs scattered where my foot caught them carelessly when I went to answer the door.

  “I need your car keys, Robin,” Mann says.

  I stare at her. Go automatically to my bag. I search for the keys, first calmly, then upending everything on the table. My house keys tumble to the floor and I seize them up, then realize that the car key isn't on the key ring as it usually is.

  “I don't …” My brain has gone blank. Then I realize what must have happened. “I had the car inspected this afternoon,” I explain, “so I gave the key to the mechanic, and I suppose I didn't put it back on my key ring when I picked up the car … I had my hands full …”

  “So where is it?” D.C. Mann is not interested in my story of domestic life.