Killing Me Softly

by Nicci French

  ‘Even if this were true, which it isn’t, there is no evidence and no way of finding any. You’re stuck with what you know now, which is nothing. So that means that you’ve got two choices. The first is to leave Adam.’

  ‘I couldn’t. I don’t dare to do it. You don’t know him. If you were me, you’d just know that that was impossible.’

  ‘If you’re going to stay with him, you can’t spend the rest of your life living like a double agent. You’ll poison everything. If you’re going to make a go of it, then you owe it to both of you to tell him about everything. Explain your fears to him.’

  I laughed. It wasn’t funny at all but I couldn’t help it.

  ‘You want to put some ice on it.’

  ‘Which bit, Bill? All the bits hurt.’

  He laughed. ‘But think what a favour you’ve done to your cardiovascular system.’

  Bill Levenson may have looked like a retired lifeguard but in fact he was the senior executive from Pittsburgh in charge of our division. He had arrived at the beginning of the week and had been conducting meetings and making assessments. I had expected to be summoned for a grilling in the boardroom but instead he had invited me to meet him at his health club to play a game called racquetball. I told him I’d never heard of it.

  ‘Have you played squash?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you played tennis?’

  ‘At school.’

  ‘Same thing.’

  I turned up with some rather fetching checked shorts and met him outside what looked like a normal squash court. He handed me an eye-guard and a racquet that looked like a snowshoe. Racquetball turned out not to be at all the same thing as tennis. I had a few distant memories of tennis at school: a bit of pretty scampering up and down the baseline, some delicate swings of the racquet, lots of giggling and flirting with the male coach. Racquetball consisted of desperate sweaty lunges and sprints, which quickly reduced me to a tubercular wheeze while muscles started to nutter and spasm in strange recesses of my thighs and upper arms. It was good for a few minutes to devote myself to an activity that drove all my worries from my mind. If only my body had been able to tolerate the burden.

  After twenty minutes of the scheduled half-hour I fell to my knees, mouthed, ‘Enough,’ and Bill led me from the court. At least I was in no condition to observe the response of the other lithe, tanned members of Bill’s club. He led me to the door of the women’s changing room. When I rejoined him in the bar, I was at least looking better, but walking had become something I had to concentrate on, as if I had only just learned.

  ‘I ordered a bottle of water for us both,’ Bill said, standing to receive me. ‘You need rehydrating.’

  What I needed was a double gin and tonic and a lie-down, but I cravenly accepted the water. Bill removed his wristwatch and laid it on the table between us. ‘I read your report and we’re going to deal with it in precisely five minutes.’

  I opened my mouth to protest but for once I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘It was bullshit. As you know. The Drakloop is going into a black hole fast and we’re paying for it. From your, shall I say detached?, tone in the report, I would infer that you are aware of that.’

  All I could have said honestly in reply was that the tone of my report was detached because for the last few months my mind had been on other things. So I said nothing.

  Bill continued, ‘The new design hasn’t yet worked. I don’t believe it’s going to work. And you don’t believe it’s going to work. What I ought to do is shut the division down. If there’s anything else I should do instead, tell me now.’

  I buried my head in my hands and for a second I considered just leaving it there until Bill had gone away. Or maybe I should leave myself. The other bit of my life was now a disaster as well. Then I thought, Oh, fuck it. I raised my head and looked at the slightly surprised face of Bill. Perhaps he thought I had gone to sleep. ‘Well,’ I said, giving myself time to think, ‘the impregnated copper was a waste of time. The benefits weren’t significant and they haven’t managed to make it anyway. The emphasis on ease of fitting was a mistake as well. That makes it less reliable as a contraceptive.’ I took a sip of water. ‘The problem isn’t with the design of the Drak III. The problem is with the design of the cervixes that they are attached to.’

  ‘So?’ said Bill. ‘What do we do?’

  I shrugged. ‘Dump the Drak IV. Give the Drak III a few tweaks and call it the Drak IV. Then spend money on advertisements in women’s magazines. But not with soft-focus pictures of couples watching the sunset on a beach. Give detailed information about the women IUDs are suitable for and those they aren’t. Above all, give them advice on getting them fitted. Competent fitting would achieve a greater improvement than the Drak IV would have managed, even if it had worked.’ A thought struck me. ‘And you could get Giovanna to organize a programme of retraining GPs for fitting it. There you are. I’m done.’

  Bill gave a grunt and picked up his watch. ‘The five minutes is up anyway,’ he said, fastening it back on to his wrist. Then he lifted a small leather case from the ground, placed it on the table and snapped it open. I assumed he was going to produce my redundancy papers but instead he had a glossy magazine in his hand. It was called Guy and was evidently for men. ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘I know something about you.’ My heart sank but I carried on smiling. I knew what was coming. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘your husband is incredible.’ He opened the magazine. I saw a flash of mountain peaks, faces in goggles – some familiar ones: Klaus, the elegant snap of Françoise that seemed to be the only one anybody could get hold of, a gorgeous one of Adam caught off-guard talking to Greg.

  ‘Yes, he’s incredible,’ I said.

  ‘I used to do some hiking when I was in high school and I do some skiing but those climbers – that is something. That’s what we’d all like to be able to do.’

  ‘Lots of them died, you know,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t mean that. I mean what your husband did. You know, Alice, I’d give up everything, my career, everything, to be able to know that about myself, to have proved myself in that way. It’s an amazing article. They’ve interviewed everybody, and he did it. Adam was the man. Look, I don’t know how you’re fixed but I’m flying out on Sunday. Maybe we can all get together.’

  ‘That would be good,’ I said warily.

  ‘It would be my privilege,’ Bill said.

  ‘Can I borrow this?’ I said, pointing at the magazine.

  ‘Sure,’ said Bill. ‘It’ll be a treat for you.’

  Thirty-two

  I had obviously woken him up, even though it was past eleven o’clock: he was puffy and squint-eyed with sleep, and was wearing grubby pyjamas, wrongly buttoned up. His hair stood out from his head, making him look even hairier than I had remembered him.

  ‘Greg?’

  ‘Yes?’ He stared at me from the doorway, showing no sign of recognition.

  ‘It’s Alice. I’m sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘Alice?’

  ‘Alice, as in Alice-and-Adam Alice. We met at the book launch.’

  ‘I remember.’ There was a pause. ‘You’d better come in. As you can see, I wasn’t really expecting visitors this morning.’ And he smiled suddenly; baby-blue eyes very sweet in his crumpled, unwashed face.

  I had been expecting Greg to live in a mess, but it was a neat little house, everything in its proper place, every surface wiped and clear. And there were pictures of mountains everywhere – great snowy peaks in black-and-white or colour on every white wall. It felt a bit strange, standing in this over-tidied house, to be surrounded by such epic vistas.

  He didn’t ask me to sit down, but I did anyway. I had crossed London to see him, although I didn’t know why. Perhaps I had just remembered liking him when we had met briefly, and clung on to that. I cleared my throat and he looked suddenly amused. ‘Tell you what, Alice,’ he said. ‘You feel uncomfortable because you’ve just turned up on my doorstep uninvited,
and you don’t know how to begin. And I feel uncomfortable too, because I’m not dressed when any respectable person would be, and I’ve a cracking hangover. So why don’t we go into the kitchen? I’ll show you where the eggs are and you can scramble some and make a pot of coffee while I put some clothes on. Then you can tell me why you’re here. This isn’t just a social call, I take it?’

  I stood dumb.

  ‘And you don’t look as if you’ve eaten in weeks.’

  ‘Not very well,’ I confessed.

  ‘Eggs, then?’

  ‘Eggs would be great.’

  I whisked four eggs in a saucepan and set them over a low heat, stirring all the while. Scrambled eggs should be cooked very slowly, and served soft rather than like rubber. Even I know that. I made the coffee – far too strong, but we could probably both do with a jolt of caffeine – and toasted four slices of stale bread. When Greg came back into the kitchen breakfast was on the table. I found that I was ravenous, and the salty, creamy eggs and buttery toast soothed and steadied me. The world ceased swimming in front of my eyes. I took gulps of bitter coffee between mouthfuls. Opposite me Greg ate with methodical pleasure, distributing the eggs evenly over the toast and pushing neat squares on to his fork. It felt strangely companionable. We did not speak.

  When he had cleared his plate, he laid down his knife and fork and pushed his plate away from him. He looked at me expectantly. I took a deep breath, smiled at him, and to my consternation felt tears hot on my cheeks. Greg pushed a box of tissues at me and waited. ‘You must think I’m mad,’ I said, and blew my nose. ‘I thought perhaps you could help me understand.’

  ‘Understand what?’

  ‘Adam, I suppose.’

  ‘I see.’

  He stood up abruptly. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  ‘I haven’t got my coat. I left it in the office.’

  ‘I’ll lend you a jacket.’

  Outside, we set off at a lick along the busy road that led down to Shoreditch and, beyond that, the Thames. Suddenly Greg led us down some steps and we were on a canal towpath. The traffic was left behind and it was as quiet as the countryside. It seemed reassuring, but then I thought of Tara. Was it in this canal that her body had been found floating? I didn’t know. Greg walked as fast as Adam, with the same effortless stride. He stopped and looked at me. ‘Why ask me, of all people?’

  ‘It happened so fast,’ I said. ‘Me and Adam, I mean. I thought the past didn’t matter, that nothing mattered. But it doesn’t work like that.’ I stopped again. I couldn’t tell Greg all my fears. He was the man whose life Adam had saved. He was Adam’s friend, sort of. I looked at the water. Motionless. Canals don’t flow like rivers. I wanted to talk about Adele, or Françoise, or Tara. Instead, I said, ‘Do you mind the way everyone thinks he’s the hero and you’re the villain?’

  ‘Villain?’ he said. ‘I thought I was just the coward, the weakling, the Elisha Cook Junior role.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He was an actor who played cowards and weaklings.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean…’

  ‘I don’t mind people thinking he was a hero, because he was. His courage, fortitude, coolness, all that, was extraordinary that day.’ He glanced sideways at me. ‘Is that what you want to hear? As for the rest of it, I’m not sure I want to talk over with you how I feel about my failure. Wife of the hero and all that.’

  ‘It’s not like that, Greg.’

  ‘It is, I think. Which is why you found me in my pyjamas this morning, nursing a hangover. But I don’t understand it, and that is what torments me. What does Adam say about it?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I think what Adam believes is that there were people in the expedition who didn’t belong on Chungawat.’

  Greg gave a laugh that dissolved into a racking cough. ‘He can say that again,’ he said, when he was recovered. ‘Carrie Frank, the skin doctor, she was a fit hiker but she’d never climbed before. She didn’t know how to put her crampons on. And I remember screaming a warning to Tommy Benn when he had attached himself wrongly to the belay. He was about to fall off the mountain. He didn’t respond and I remembered he didn’t understand any English at all. Not a single word. God, what was he doing with us? I had to slide down and reattach his ‘biner. But I thought I’d handled that, that I’d created a foolproof system. It failed and the lives of five people under my protection were lost.’ I put a hand on his arm but he went on, ‘When it came to it, Adam was the hero and I wasn’t. You don’t understand things about your life. Join the club.’

  ‘But I’m scared.’

  ‘Join the club, Alice,’ he repeated, with a half-laugh.

  Suddenly and incongruously, there was a small garden on the other side of the canal, with ranks of red and purple tulips.

  ‘Was it something in particular that’s scared you?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘It’s all of his past, I guess. It’s all so shadowy.’

  ‘And so full of women,’ Greg added.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Difficult for you.’

  We sat on a bench together.

  ‘Does he talk about Françoise?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I was having an affair with her, you know.’ He didn’t look at me as he said it, and I had the impression that he had never said it before. For me, it was like a blow, sharply unexpected.

  ‘An affair with Françoise? No. No, I didn’t know. God, Greg, did Adam know?’

  Greg didn’t answer at once. Then he said, ‘It began on the expedition. She was very funny. Very beautiful.’

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘It was over between her and Adam. She told him when we all arrived in Nepal that it was ended. She was sick of all his infidelities.’

  ‘She finished it?’

  ‘Didn’t Adam tell you?’

  ‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘He didn’t say anything about it.’

  ‘He doesn’t take kindly to rejection.’

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘Françoise ended her long-standing relationship with Adam, and a few days later you and she started having an affair?’

  ‘Yes. And then, if you want me to spell it out for you, a few weeks after that she died up in the mountains because I fucked up with the fixed lines, and Adam saved me, his friend who had usurped him.’

  I tried to think of something to say that could be plausibly comforting and gave up.

  ‘I must be getting back.’

  ‘Listen, Greg, did Adam know about you and Françoise?’

  ‘We didn’t tell him at the time. We thought it might be a distraction. It wasn’t as if he was being celibate himself. And afterwards…’ He let the sentence die away.

  ‘He’s never mentioned it?’

  ‘No. Are you going to discuss it with him?’

  ‘No.’

  Not that, not anything else either. We were long past the point of telling.

  ‘Don’t stay silent on my account. It doesn’t matter any more.’

  We walked back and I took off his jacket and handed it to him. ‘I’ll catch a bus along here,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Greg.’

  ‘I’ve not done anything.’

  Impulsively, I put my arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth, feeling the prickle of his beard.

  ‘Take care of yourself,’ I said.

  ‘Adam’s a lucky man.’

  ‘I thought that I was supposed to be the lucky one.’

  Thirty-three

  It had sometimes felt to me as if when I was with Adam I was dazzled so that I couldn’t really see him, let alone analyse or make judgements about him. There was sex, sleep, fragmentary conversation, food and occasional attempts at arrangements, and even those took place in an atmosphere of emergency, as if we were doing what we could before the boat went down, before the fire consumed the house with us inside it. I had just given in helplessly, grateful at first to be free from thought, from chat, from responsibility. The only way of assessing him in any rati
onal way was in the mediated form of what people said about him. This more distant Adam could be a relief, and useful too, like a photograph of the sun at which you could stare directly as a way of learning about that thing above, out of direct vision, burning down on you.

  When I got back from seeing Greg, Adam was sitting watching TV. He was smoking and drinking whisky. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked.

  ‘Work,’ I said.

  ‘I rang. They said you were out of the office.’

  ‘A meeting,’ I said vaguely.

  The important thing about lying is not to offer unnecessary information that can catch you out. Adam looked round at me, but didn’t reply. There was something wrong about the movement, as if it was just a bit too slow or too fast. He might have been a bit drunk. He was moving between channels, watching a programme for a few minutes, changing to another, watching for a few minutes, changing again.

  I remembered the magazine I had borrowed from Bill Levenson.

  ‘Did you see this?’ I said, holding it up. ‘More stuff about you in it.’

  He looked round briefly but didn’t speak. I knew the story of the Chungawat disaster intimately but I wanted to read about it in the light of what I had learned about Adam and Françoise and Greg to see if it was different, so I sat at the kitchen table and leafed impatiently through the ads for running shoes, cologne, fitness machines, Italian suits, pages and pages of male stuff. Then I came to it, a long prominent article called ‘The Death Zone: Dreams and Disaster at 28,000 feet’.

  The article was longer and much more detailed than Joanna’s. The author, Anthony Kaplan, had talked to every surviving member of the expedition, including, I saw with a pang, Adam himself. Why did he never tell me these things? It must have been one of those long phone conversations or one of those bar-room meetings that had occupied so much of his time during the previous month or two.

  ‘I didn’t know you’d talked to this journalist,’ I said, in what I hoped was a light-hearted tone.