by Steve Mosby
A clatter from downstairs.
Sarah listened, still worrying at her fingernail. James was washing up, she guessed. Or rather - throwing plates into the sink, deliberately loud enough for her to hear. It was generally his way. He'd never been good with words, but could usually make himself clear when he wanted. You needed to work out the precise shade of the anger, and then translate it, but she'd become used to it. What he was saying now was:
Don't leave me.
James had his own blueprint: his own lines that had been gone over too many times. His earliest memory, he'd told her, was of his father leaving. The man was clambering into his car to drive away, and James had been stood by the side of it crying, begging him not to go. His father had moved him gently backwards so that he could close the car door.
Another clatter.
I'm sorry, James.
Last night, he'd asked if she loved him, and she'd said that she did. It was true. When he asked why that wasn't enough, she had no idea what to say. The question had hung in the air for days before he'd eventually asked, and it had remained there since. She was almost afraid to go downstairs and see him now. But she had never been one to turn away.
Outside, a car beeped: the taxi was here.
The sound was immediately followed by a smash from downstairs. James had broken a glass. Either dropped it, or, more likely, thrown it across the room.
Sarah took a deep breath, trying to find some resolve, and then picked up the bag and walked out onto the landing. The door to the spare room was open. All her articles were boxed up in there, sitting on the shelf. Maybe she should take those? But you could go on for ever, couldn't you?
She hitched the bag up on her shoulder and made her way carefully down the thin stairs.
James had been drinking already. Most likely he was drunk by now. That wasn't unusual, but it concerned her today, as he could be unpredictable and volatile. There hadn't been a scene yet - not unless you counted the silences - but she suspected there was going to be. Perhaps he would beg her not to go. Christ, she hoped not. It wouldn't change her final decision, but it would make things harder for both of them, and for him most of all.
But deep down, Sarah thought, he did understand. He just loved her more than anything and didn't want to be without her. That was why it was so hard for him, and it was why, ultimately, he wouldn't stand in her way.
It'll be OK, she told herself.
Drunk or not, he wouldn't try to stop her.
* * *
Chapter Two
It sounded like a gunshot.
The noise came from somewhere overhead, echoing around the empty square.
I glanced up. It wasn't a gunshot, of course; it was an old woman, three storeys above. Her face was like a wizened fist wrapped in a handkerchief, and she was holding a faded red blanket out in the late afternoon sun, a cloud of dust descending towards me. She gave it another ruffling crack, then glared down at me and shouted something in Italian.
I had no idea what she was saying, but, clearly, she wasn't impressed. Perhaps she was wondering why I wasn't down at San Marco with everyone else, rather than cluttering up her piazza and getting in the way. Tourists. It had been two years since I'd left England, and I'd been travelling the whole time, collecting a deep tan and uncut, sun-bleached hair along the way. But wherever I went I was still immediately pegged as English. And that was before I even opened my mouth.
'Displace,' I said.
She didn't acknowledge the apology. I stood up and walked away across the square. A moment later, I looked back to see the old lady pull the shutter closed with an indignant pock.
And then it was blissfully silent again.
I'd been in Venice for nearly a week. Most of that time, I'd been walking around on my own, searching out little places like this. It was the same wherever I went; I always did my best to avoid the standard attractions. What I enjoyed more than anything was exploring the background - the smaller streets, away from the floods of tourists. I wasn't out here on holiday, as such, so my aim was never to collect photographs or gather memories. It was more a case of finding somewhere fresh and different, then kicking my heels for a while and allowing myself to become lost.
After a few days in a place, when I began to recognise its people and paths, the urge to move on grew steadily more insistent. It was as though I'd used up the strangeness of whatever city I was in and needed to seek out a new one. Either that, or I'd have the vague sense of a shadow falling slowly across me, cast by something enormous approaching from the distance. Each time that happened, without considering the matter too deeply, I packed my small rucksack and left as soon as possible. On those occasions, even though I understood there was nothing physical pursuing me, I tended to travel the furthest.
I headed away from the piazza now, breathing in the warm air.
Venice was one of the first places I'd visited that was threatening to hold onto me. I liked it a lot: its small, shaded alleys and dry, hidden squares; the dusty arches and secret walkways. Over a hundred separate islands, split by water, and stapled into a patchwork maze by the bridges. You walked through it, and it seemed like something coherent and whole, but it wasn't. You stepped down too heavily and the city creaked, like the deck of an old ship.
I was staying in the north, in a hostel. In truth, I still had more money than I knew what to do with, but this was the general standard of accommodation I sought out wherever I went. There was something simple and spartan about hostels, which was all I needed, but they also managed to be both anonymous and familiar at the same time, like coach seats. Wherever I'd gone, I'd learned to expect the same rough cloth on the beds, the same showers, the same clack of pool balls coming from slightly different lounges. You shared a room with someone that kept changing but somehow staying the same, about as variable as the wallpaper.
Currently, I was sharing my room with an American guy called Dean. He was travelling with a group of friends and was the unlucky odd-number in terms of room allocation. He was a bit talkative, but he seemed basically all right. The whole bunch were back-packing across Europe over the summer, aiming to end up in Pamplona so they could run in front of the bulls. From my point of view, bulls running down a street at me would be a good indication I should be somewhere else, and since the event was world-famous there was no real excuse for failing to avoid it.
But he was only nineteen, and ten years makes a big difference. Maybe that's part of being young: challenging your mortality; sneaking up to Death and smacking it around the face a bit, then running away and feeling invincible because it ignored you. The truth is that when mortality means business it'll steamroll straight over you no matter how fast you fucking run. But I quite liked Dean, and I hoped he came out of it with whatever affirmation of existence he thought he needed.
He wasn't there when I got back. The window was slightly open, and I could hear the call of seagulls drifting in with the breeze, and smell air that had skimmed the scent off the water.
I shrugged my T-shirt off, sprayed on some deodorant, and then picked a fresh top from the small pile I kept under the bunk.
Before I put it on, I looked at myself in the thin mirror on the wardrobe door. I saw a thirty-year-old man with long blond hair, rough stubble, and a solid tan. Bare living had stripped a lot of excess weight from my body, so that it looked functional and strong, like a piece of rope designed to carry something, day after day. Anyone who had once known a young man named Alex Connor would barely have recognised him standing here. Even for me, it felt like I was looking at a stranger, or at the reflection of somebody who wasn't really there.
I slipped the T-shirt on, then headed down for a drink.
The lounge in this hostel was how I imagined a rec-room in a prison: a high ceiling and drab paintwork, with lots of tatty old armchairs dotted around. There was a pool table at one end, and a small television mounted on a spike in the wall at the other. Halfway between, glass doors were propped open onto a patio overlooking a pa
rticularly effluent stretch of canal. I bought myself a bottled euro-beer from reception then headed in.
A few groups of young travellers were sitting around talking. A girl was holding her hair back from a beaming red tan, brushing it into a ponytail with her hands. Everyone seemed excited, keen, eager. It was the same with most of the young travellers I'd met over the last two years. If they stepped off a building, they expected a safety-net to have been erected the night before. As with Dean's potential suicide-by-cattle, perhaps it should have annoyed me, but it didn't. I remembered feeling that way myself, and I missed it. I certainly didn't want to kill anyone's joy, like some bitter old grandfather standing at the edge of the playground shouting obscenities.
I went out onto the patio, resting my elbows on the flaking paint, and watched the water slap gently against the side of the canal. The evening sun cut against it, highlighting the dense water. Everything was still and peaceful, and I closed my eyes for a second, breathing it in. When I opened them, an immaculate woman in sunglasses and high heels was clicking past on the cobbled walkway opposite. She had a big square bag and a sense of purpose. Behind me, back inside, I could hear people laughing.
'Who are you?'
It was a man's voice, from right beside me, and it sounded slightly disgruntled. I turned my head, and there was nobody there.
I took a swig from my beer and watched as the woman headed up some steps and disappeared around a corner, out of sight; she might have been moving into a different world altogether. Behind me, the laughter sounded much further away than it had before, as though I wasn't only separated from the people in there by distance or age, but by something more profound. The sadness was like a grey curtain, unravelling quickly down inside me.
It was time to move on. Tomorrow.
I went back into the lounge, figuring I'd take the bottle up to my room. Head out for some food in a bit, maybe, then turn in and try to sleep through the cycle of chart hits pounding dully through the walls. Get an early start-
Instead, halfway across, I stopped.
I wasn't even sure why at first. There was something on the TV. I knew that much. But it took me a second to recognise it and find a frame of reference in which to fit it.
Sarah is on the television.
A photograph of her was taking up the left-hand side of the screen. It was an old picture, and one I half recognised. She was outside somewhere, squinting against the sun, with her bright red hair and a slightly lop-sided smile. Her face took up most of the image, but I could see grass in one corner, and she was leaning back against the shoulder of someone behind her on the left.
The red banner at the bottom of the screen said:
FIELD SEARCHED AFTER FIVE DAY HUNT
The right-hand side showed an aerial shot of a field. The footage appeared to be live, taken from a helicopter that was circling overhead. On the ground below, a large tent had been constructed next to a hedge, and small white figures were moving around it. Some were picking through the grass a little distance away. There was no sound.
I stepped between some armchairs by the television, and looked down at the girl sitting nearest.
'Is there any way of turning the volume up?'
'What?'
'The volume?'
I tried the side of the set. The cheap plastic creaked, but I couldn't find any controls. It filled me with an absurd sense of powerlessness.
'What,' the girl said, 'you know her?'
I started to answer, but then the screen changed.
The right-hand side now showed a reporter talking into a microphone. Behind him, I could see a country lane, and a gate with a policeman stationed in front of it. And on the left-hand side, Sarah's photograph had now been replaced by another.
This one showed my brother, James.
* * *
Chapter Three
Two and a half years ago, on the day of Marie's funeral, a strange thing happened. I woke up and absolutely nothing was wrong. It lasted for a couple of seconds. Then I noticed the empty bed beside me, registered the silence of the surrounding house, and I remembered what my wife had done.
At that point, I swung myself out of bed and away from everything. It was still early days, but that was already how I'd learned to deal with things: by hiding from them or running away. I'd never been like Sarah, determined to face problems head on. Instead, I kept myself moving. It was as though the impact of what had happened was genuinely physical, a punch I could slip if I ducked quickly enough. One that, if it landed square-on, would knock me flat.
I showered, then went downstairs and made coffee with a dash of vodka in it, and then put on my suit. From eleven o'clock, I started going through the motions of opening the door to welcome friends as they arrived, enduring all the well- meant words and hesitant pats on the shoulder.
And then, at some point, I went through the kitchen and out into the back garden, ostensibly for a cigarette, and I walked away.
It was easier than it should have been, but I suppose there wasn't much to it physically, and it seemed to happen almost on auto-pilot. I just started walking: slowly at first, then moving faster, until, by the time I reached the end of the street, I was running, my heart thumping in my chest.
I felt absolutely exhilarated.
At two o'clock, when the service was due to start, I was sitting in the beer garden of a small pub called The Cockerel. It was a rough, old drinkers' pub on the arse edge of the Grindlea estate. The winter's day was clear and sharp, but it felt precarious. The rain last night had been heavy, landing against my bedroom window like handfuls of stones, and there were still dirty puddles of rainwater in the gutter now. The air remained damp from it, and the world itself seemed like it was quietly shivering, as though it had been soaked through and then left out in the cold.
I sat at a rickety wooden bench and drank beer after beer, vodka after vodka, observing the minute hand of my watch with an almost professional detachment.
The minister will be telling them how wonderful Marie was.
And she was.
A minute later: he'll be using the word 'tragedy'.
The whole time, my attention kept being drawn to a house across the road. Cars flashed past in between. On the face of it, it was an innocuous building, with nothing obvious to distinguish it from its neighbours. Just another red-brick semi with the curtains shut tight and the paint peeling from its old front door. The small garden out front was unkempt and bedraggled, like hair the owner didn't see a point in combing any more.
Eventually, my latest glass was empty and it was time to get another. After I'd paid and gone back outside, I found Sarah sitting at my table.
She had long, bright-red hair, a pretty face covered in freckles, and she was wearing a black jacket, with a black blouse and trousers beneath. I paused, then walked over and sat down, putting my beer and vodka on the table between us.
'I didn't know you were coming,' I said. 'I'd have got you a drink.'
She picked up the vodka.
'This one's fine. Fancy seeing you here.'
'Yeah,' I said. 'Imagine.'
'Cheers, anyway.'
Sarah raised the glass, then winced as she took a sip.
'Neat. Well, I did have a hard time finding you, to be honest. I drove around a while. Tried the usual places.'
'There'd be no point hiding in one of those.'
That, at least, got a grim smile. 'Any reason for this place?'
'Just fancied a change of scene.'
'Lovely scenery.' She glanced around dubiously, then back at me. 'People are worried about you. I guess you know that.'
'It's none of their business.'
'OK. So your friends and family aren't important.'
I sipped my beer and said nothing. The harsh truth was that my friends and family meant absolutely nothing to me right then. But I hadn't quite reached the point where I'd say so out loud. After all, Sarah had come looking for me, just as I should have known she would. That had always be
en her nature: to go looking for people; to pick them up when they fell. As shit as I felt, I wasn't about to throw that back in her face, and so it was safer to say nothing at all.
Sarah tapped the bench.
'J's really annoyed at you for running out.'
That didn't even deserve a reply. Seeing my brother at the house that morning had been the day's most awkward moment, this current one notwithstanding. It was stupid and unfair, but I couldn't help thinking that, deep down, James might be secretly pleased Marie was dead. After all, his little brother had always been the one with the grades, the good job, the girlfriends, whereas all James had collected was minor criminal convictions - fighting, mainly - and a string of abandoned jobs and broken relationships. From his perspective, life had treated him pretty badly, while everything had gone lucky for me. Finally, he was probably thinking. Your turn.
'He's right, though,' Sarah said. 'You can't just… run away from what's happened, you know. You need to face up to it.'
Again, I said nothing.
'I wish you'd talk to me, Alex.'
'What would you like me to say?'
'I don't know. It's hard for me as well. She was my friend too.'
I nodded, feeling even worse now.
Sarah had actually known Marie longer than I had, and they'd been very close. I imagined she was taking it badly, partly for the same reasons as me, and also because Sarah's relationship with death had always been a strange one. I first met her when she came to live with her aunt in Whitrow, after her father's suicide. We were both ten. But even now, when I looked at her as an adult, I could still see that same little girl in her face. There had always been this odd mixture of sadness and determination to her, as though life had presented her with a painful problem that she was absolutely intent on solving.
I could never decide whether that was a good or bad thing: to be that young and to have already found your calling. These days, Sarah worked as a crime correspondent at the Evening Paper, and it suited her down to the ground. Death was something she'd always been driven to confront and understand. You couldn't deal with anything, she thought, by turning away from it. I had no doubt that right now she was dwelling on all the things I was too scared even to allow in my head.
