by Nuala Casey
He looks at his watch as they walk down Prince of Wales Drive. It is just after three; still early really. Yasmine will be busy briefing the maître d’; Seb won’t be able to get in to hang the pictures until at least six. And it’s such a beautiful day – fragments of lazy sun peep through the afternoon sky, bathing the pavement in pinky-gold rays – it would be criminal not to have a walk in the park.
‘Okay, Cosima,’ he says, swinging her hand in the air. ‘Let’s cut through and see what’s new. Maybe we’ll see that heron again by the lake, he was a strange old fellow wasn’t he?’
‘He wasn’t a heron, Daddy,’ says Cosima, her happy face wrinkling into a frown. ‘He was a cormorant. Cormorants are stragglier than herons. Mrs Daley says they’re the laughing birds because of their heads.’ She skips alongside him as they cross the road and approach the park gates. ‘The feathers on their heads are shaped like a jester’s hat, you see.’
‘My mistake,’ laughs Seb. ‘You have to remember that I’m not as clever as you when it comes to wildlife spotting. You’ll have to be patient with me.’
‘You can borrow my bird book if you like,’ says Cosima. ‘That will tell you everything you want to know.’
Seb smiles at her serious little face as the vast sweep of Battersea Park opens up before them. ‘Now, we can’t be too long in here. Granny will be expecting us soon and I hear she’s making your favourite for dinner.’
‘Sausage and mash!’ Cosima yells, almost falling over a black Labrador bounding towards them.
‘No,’ says Seb, trying to keep up with his daughter as she runs towards the glinting metal railings of the play park. ‘Guess again.’
She stops and puts her fingers to her mouth, looking up to the sky as though finding the answer to the most difficult question in the world.
‘Let me think …’ she begins, a wisp of a smile appearing at the corner of her mouth. ‘It couldn’t be, could it? Sunshine rice!’ she shouts. She smiles at him, a wide gappy-toothed grin and Seb’s heart hurts.
Still, six years after holding her in his arms as a tiny bundle in St Thomas’s Hospital, he can’t quite believe that this beautiful, clever little being is his own, his flesh and blood, his responsibility. The enormity of being a parent is like nothing he has ever faced before. Sometimes, at three in the morning, he lies awake worrying about what would happen to her if he and Yasmine were to die; then he starts to worry about all manner of things: nuclear war; global warming; food additives, the price of housing … And each worry introduces another, bigger worry, on and on until there is a pile of them all stacked up on top of each other like toxic building blocks hammering against his head, daring him to try to sleep through their din. The concerns that occupy his mind in the early hours of the morning would amaze and baffle his younger self.
But he would not change any of it.
He smiles at Cosima. ‘You guessed it,’ he says. ‘Sunshine rice. Granny’s speciality.’
But his words disappear into the air. Cosima has reached the children’s playground and is busy scrambling up the deck of a giant pirate ship.
He walks over to a bench by the railings and sits to watch his daughter play. Within seconds she has climbed to the top of the ship’s mast, her little legs wrapped around it like a monkey. She waves at Seb then makes a sharp descent down the pole like some miniature firewoman.
Seb smiles at his fearless daughter. There is something about her that will always be a mystery to him; her pioneering spirit, her thirst for adventure, her brown eyes – deep pools of darkness inherited from her North African grandfather. There is something of the wild horse about her, something primordial and raw and free-spirited; a sense that she will one day break away and travel the world, soak up every experience, every piece of knowledge, every spine-tingling view. Though physically more like her mother, there are suggestions of Seb all around her but, like jumbled reflections in a lake, you have to look closely to see the resemblance. She has his pale, blonde hair and the same long, lean body; she shares his attention to detail and his love of beautiful things. He is glad she is feisty though, glad that she hasn’t inherited his melancholy. When he was Cosima’s age, he was just about to start his first year of boarding school. A timid, skinny boy, he had no idea of the horrors that lay ahead at that bleak school on a deserted hilltop on the south-east coast.
He shrugs away the memory and looks around at the great park, the spot that has become something of a place of worship for him these past few years. It seems to understand his changing moods; falls in sync with them and, like an understanding friend, never imposes, never demands anything, just wraps its emerald green cloak around his shoulders and offers him hope and solace.
Seven years ago he had come here with Yasmine. They had sat down next to the pond in the Old English Garden, while deep orange October sunlight cast its glow on their faces. And there, in that idyllic spot, he had asked her to marry him. They had only known each other for six weeks, but he knew from the first moment he met her that she was the person he had always needed to be with. And when she said yes, it was as though everything around them nodded in agreement; the silver fish in the pond, the monkey puzzle tree with its knotty, elephant’s trunk; all of the life of the park seemed to breathe a deep sigh of contentment as they stood up and walked home together.
Two months later, on the shortest day of the year, as the tropical plants stood shivering in their mummy-like shrouds and a thick frost clung to the trees like sugar, turning the lake to ice and the air to vapour; they had returned to the park and said their vows in the little Pump House by the lake. And life had begun there, in that moment.
It was odd to think that Battersea Park had once been his guilty secret, the place he had conducted a secret affair with a married woman. It is eight years now since she died, yet it seems a lifetime ago, it is though he played no part in all that heartache and turmoil. He remembers how they would meet every day at 1 p.m. by the Henry Moore sculpture. She always got there first and he would see her waiting for him as he approached, still and serene, like the unofficial fourth figure of the piece. She loved that sculpture and was always trying to imagine what they were looking at, the three figures all huddled together, their faces held up to the sky. Were they witnesses to a rare comet or a message from heaven? She would never know.
He had almost killed himself drinking in the months after her death, and there was a point at which he thought he would never be able to live again. It had been all he could do just to wake up each day, to put one foot in front of the other, to remember to breathe. In those dark early days of 2005, he could never have imagined that his return to Battersea Park, to life, would be so triumphant.
‘Daddy! I’m hungry, can we go now?’
He looks up and sees his baby skipping towards him. He knows it could all have been over in a whisper, his life. He knows that Yasmine and Cosima are his gift from God, his second chance. He dare not take it for granted, this happiness and love.
‘Come on then,’ he says, standing up and taking hold of Cosima’s hand. ‘Let’s go and find that sunshine rice.’
*
Kerstin Engel sits at her desk staring at her computer, immersed in the series of numbers and words that are scrolling down the screen like tiny black flies glistening in the sun. Just two more pages to go and this section of the report will be complete; then tonight she can give herself a break – no punishing repetitions, no stair climbing, no counting.
The ‘desk’ is a large communal table around which sit six men and four women: traders, analysts and hedge-fund managers all squirreling away in this small, airless office five floors above St James’s Street, the London branch of German asset management company Sircher Capital LLP.
But Kerstin is unaware of the other people sitting around the desk. She has learned to block them out, to focus only on the task in hand; to avoid any unnecessary distractions, any futile talk. She is in her safe place: lost in beautiful numbers which give her a tingle of elation a
s they reconcile themselves into neat ordered groups. But this feeling of control is as thin and delicate as a thread. If it snaps she will have to start all over again, scramble around in the darkness and try to pick up the loose ends. Still, something about this day makes her feel she can do it, she can keep her head above the water.
‘Come on, lovely lady, time to pay the piper!’
She feels a sharp jab on her shoulder, blinks at the numbers on the screen and feels the thread loosen.
She recognises the sing-song west-country accent of Cal Simpson, Sircher’s Junior Analyst, her assistant and general pain in the arse. Inspired by the buzz that accompanied this year’s Olympic Games, he completed a half marathon in Brighton last weekend. But instead of straight forward sponsorship, Cal had asked his colleagues to guess his finishing time. If they guessed correctly, they would win one hundred pounds. If not, they had to pay ten pounds. It was typical of Cal, who rather resembled a young springer spaniel in both looks and temperament, to turn a simple sponsorship request into a gamble.
Kerstin is aware of him standing behind her but she will not let herself give up on the figures. She is so close, and now this idiot is going to ruin it all. She had got through the ordeal of lunch so seamlessly that she thought this afternoon was going to be okay, she was going to be okay.
Kerstin, along with the others, orders her lunch each morning via email, then at twelve noon on the dot a motorcycle courier arrives at reception with armloads of sushi and pizzas, salads and sandwiches from various outlets around St James’s. At five past twelve Mandy, the loud receptionist with the bright pink lipstick, will burst into the office shouting everyone’s orders like a barmaid in a noisy bierkeller. What follows is a ten-minute dissection, led by Cal, of ‘what’s everyone having for lunch?’, ‘You’ve got sushi today have you, Karen? Is it good?’, ‘Jim’s got a salad! What’s the matter with you mate, you not hungry?’. Kerstin spends those ten minutes hiding behind her computer screen. She lays out her sandwich (always the same sandwich: tuna, no mayonnaise, wholemeal bread) on the paper napkin and begins to eat, starting with the crust and working her way in. Then when she has finished she will eat her fruit salad: grapes first, then the apple slices, then the orange. Once lunch is consumed in the right way, she can get on. And today, after overcoming the tension of the lunchtime banter she had really managed to make some progress on the report. But now as Cal stands behind her clearing his throat, the thread begins to unravel; the numbers flicker across the screen like seeds scattered by the breeze and she can feel the familiar tension rise from the pit of her stomach. Her chest tightens and her head starts to throb.
‘Er, it’s ten squids, when you’re ready, Kerstin.’
She turns and looks at Cal. He is standing with his arms folded across his chest defiantly. He raises his eyebrows at Kerstin and grins at her.
Kerstin tries to hide the contempt from her face as she looks at the young man. So arrogant, she thinks. Look at him grinning at me like that. She looks at the time on her computer screen. It is just nearing 4 p.m. It’s okay, there is still time.
Sighing, she reaches down beside her chair and picks up her bag. It is a neat, grey leather bag with small pockets and compartments. Pockets and compartments are important to Kerstin. They make her feel secure. She opens the front pocket and takes out a small, grey leather purse.
‘You were close, Kerstin,’ says Cal, looking down at his iPhone. ‘I’ve got all the estimates listed here, and according to this you said one minute fifty, just six minutes shy of my time. It was a PB too, I was well proud …’
But Kerstin does not hear what he is saying. She is staring in horror at her purse, at the rip in the leather, a deep slash that has appeared over the course of the morning. It was fine when she last saw it, she thinks, her hands shaking as she turns the purse over and checks the other side. She retraces the morning’s routine in her head as Cal taps his foot impatiently. She had taken the purse out at Tesco on the King’s Road where she bought a packet of mints. Then, after she had been served, she had put the purse back into her bag; in the left-hand pocket on the front. How could it have ripped?
Panic starts to build in her chest as she grips the purse in her hand. She cannot spend the rest of the day sitting at this desk knowing there’s a damaged purse in her bag. She stares at the rip; the fabric of the purse is poking out beneath, little wisps of straw-coloured thread jutting out. It looks ugly, wrong. She must not have ugly, broken things about her. It’s a sign, a test. She has to get things back in order. There must be order and perfection. She hears her father’s voice in her head. She must sort this out or else everything will fall apart.
‘Kerstin,’ says Cal, impatiently. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’
Kerstin jumps at the sound of his voice and with shaking hands, she opens the purse, pulls out a crisp twenty-pound note and thrusts it at him.
‘There,’ she says, brusquely. ‘Well done.’
‘Thanks Kerstin,’ he says, brightly. ‘Now hold on a sec, I’ll get you your change.’ He puts his phone down on Kerstin’s desk and pats his pockets.
Kerstin grabs her bag from under the desk, shoves the ugly purse into the right-hand pocket – she will not let the left-hand pocket be contaminated by it – then pushes past Cal and heads for the door.
‘Kerstin, where you going?’ shouts Cal, holding out a ten-pound note towards her. ‘I’ve got your money.’
But Kerstin doesn’t hear him. She is running down the stairs, counting as she goes. She must not let herself stop counting until she has replaced the purse. As soon as she has the new one, the perfect new purse, then she can stop; then everything will be all right.
3
There is a slight jolt as the train slows down. Mark opens his eyes and looks out of the window blearily, trying to focus on the new vista that has opened up since he fell asleep at Doncaster.
The train trundles through deserted little stations, the names of which all appear to begin with ‘H’, then it slowly moves out into open countryside, picking up its pace for the final leg of the journey.
It’s grim this place, Mark thinks, as he looks out at field after field; so tidy and neat and groomed; so claustrophobic. The landscape makes him think of those boxy gardens at the back of suburban semi-detached houses; the ones that are lined with shrubs and plants in faux-stone pots from B&Q, the ones whose owners spend their weekends mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges into uniform slabs of neat fuzz.
The fields rise into hilly mounds and Mark sees, amid the curves of the land, little dots of primary colours, like pinheads on a noticeboard. As the train gets closer he sees that the little dots are groups of sixty-something men and women dressed in red and blue sweaters, long shorts and sun-visors. They stand brandishing their golf clubs like medieval spears.
It’s softer than the north, thinks Mark, as the train leaves the golfers behind and heads back into flatter territory. It’s lighter: the earth, the grass, the sky. There is something intangible about it, something diluted and fragile, like it could all just dissolve in your hands. The north is different, it’s as hard as metal. The north wears its industry like armour, like a soldier always ready to defend himself. His dad used to say that the north-east of England was like the shoulder of the country, carrying its burdens like Atlas carried the world.
It is seven years now since he and his mother travelled to London to identify the body of his sister. On the way down, they had made polite conversation, eaten sandwiches, taken phone calls from the police, from his aunts, from Zoe’s friends; the journey had gone quickly. At King’s Cross they had been met by Detective Inspector Christine Worsley, the woman in charge of the investigation. She had spoken kindly to them, offered her sincerest condolences, promised them that whoever had done this would be brought to justice. Zoe had been found with no belongings; no wallet, no phone, nothing to identify her by. If it hadn’t been for her mother phoning the police after a week of no contact then Zoe would have probably ended
up as yet another anonymous dead girl, another secret swallowed up by the dark, labyrinthine streets of Soho.
Mark and his mother were taken to Charing Cross Police Station where they were led deep into the bowels of the building to the morgue. It was freezing down there; he will never forget the cold. It was like the icy breath of the dead blowing down his neck, like every one of the poor, unfortunate souls who had ended up in that bleak, netherworld was suddenly released, swirling about the room like will-o’-the-wisps as he and his mother stood there waiting by a blanket-covered mound. When the detective pulled back the covers, his mother had screamed; it was a raw, gut-wrenching sound that seemed to come from the depths of her soul. ‘Oh, my beautiful girl, my beautiful girl, what have they done to you?’
Mark had watched as his mother took his dead sister’s face in her hands and stroked it, the way she had when they were both young, when they were poorly or upset. She rubbed and rubbed it as though she could somehow bring her back to life. Then she had started talking to her as though they were sitting round the table having a chat: ‘Your hair looks nice, pet,’ she had whispered. ‘It suits you short. You always had lovely hair even when you were a little girl …’ Then she had crumbled, the tears came and she sobbed and wailed, tore at her own hair as the detective covered the body. But Mark had remained silent. He had noticed other things that his mother hadn’t or perhaps she had and was blocking them out. He had seen the red lines around her neck; the purple marks on her shoulders. His father had looked at peace when he died; serene and still, but Zoe was different. The expression on her face was horrific, an anguished, restless grimace.
The journey home had been unbearable. The train crew, noticing the state his mother was in, had upgraded them to a first-class carriage and the two of them had sat there like ghosts, sipping complimentary tea, his mother breaking down into staccato fits of tears which no amount of reassuring words could ever stem.
