The Light of Day: A Novel (15 page)

41

The Saab came up out of the entrance tunnel and took the lane to Terminal 2. I was three cars behind. When I moved into the same lane I reduced the gap to two. Five past six. The sudden urgency of an airport.

They followed the sign for “Short Stay Car Park— Terminal 2.” Short stay? A brief slow-down, then we both swung into the multi-storey and began the spiralling ascent. On the fourth level there were spaces and when the Saab pulled into one I drove by, turned back on the far side and parked where I could watch.

Almost a minute passed before either of them got out. The last moment at which there might have been a change of plan? Of heart? He still had the key in the ignition. She was still sitting beside him.

Though what
was
the plan? “Short Stay”: that might mean nothing. The car might just stay there, till somebody asked questions, till Sarah had to deal with it—with that too. An expensive decoy, a top-of-the-range Saab, if that was the plan—but only a small part of everything he’d be leaving behind.

You take a step, you cross a line.

But people do weirder things. And some people, he might have thought, like this woman still there beside him, don’t get to choose. They turn their backs and life explodes behind them.

His excuse: she was his example? Why play safe? The world doesn’t.

And she was sitting there now, perhaps, waiting. Watching him waver, watching him sweat. It was up to him.

I couldn’t make them out, behind the glints and shadows. The Saab was parked facing away from me. It might already have been empty, except (wavering, sweating?) he hadn’t yet switched off his lights.

“Missing Persons . . .” They’d often start with an abandoned car. In a multi-storey car park, say. The point of departure. The point where somebody hoped, for one reason or another, that they might become somebody else, they might walk right out of their own life.

Missing Persons: my bread and butter these days too. Missing Persons and Matrimonial Work: they sometimes amount to the same.

He switched off his lights at last. She got out first. His door opened, more slowly. Yes, she was taking the lead. She was coaxing him through this as if he might have been some stumbling invalid. She was the one who took command in a crisis.

And, yes, as she moved ahead of him, towards the back of the car, I saw something you might have wanted, if you were the right man in the right place, to obey and follow like some dumb dog. Dark pools of eyes. Her skin, in the harsh light, drained of blood.

He opened the boot as if acting under silent instruction. He took out the two suitcases—just the two, the same two. He might have been simply her driver, dealing with the luggage, anticipating a tip, except that when he put the suitcases down his hands went up, as if to something much more in need of handling, to the sides of her face. As if to some vase perched on a shelf.

I opened my car door. A rush of chill air. The roar of planes and the smell, keen but vaguely stomach-turning, of aviation fuel, mingling with the cold-petrol smell of parked cars. The scent—there is one—of emergency.

She took his hands from her face. Gently, firmly. Some yards away, near the lift, was a stack of luggage trolleys, and she walked across—deliberate strides—to get one.

A destitute student. In that sleek black suit that stood out against all this dingy concrete? You wouldn’t have believed it.

She wheeled back the trolley. He was waiting with her coat. He put the suitcases and her carry-on bag on the trolley. He shut the boot and locked the car, then took the handle of the trolley and began to push.

I grabbed my own coat. Now their backs were turned, I got out and walked, like them, towards the lift.

It was a temptation, of course, a big temptation. To have stood with them while the lift came—to have stepped in with them. And how would they have known? A temptation: a breach of the rules. Never risk having your presence noted. Keep on your side of the line.

But now I wish I had. Entered—just for that brief journey down—their space. I’d have read all the signals close-up, in the bright light of the lift. Scented the scents. I might even have given that quick meaningless smile a stranger gives in a lift. As if I didn’t have a clue.

I’d have looked at her, at him. He’d have looked at me. I’d always know that we’d looked each other in the eye.

I veered past them, took the stairs. A more-than-professional tact? The lift to themselves: those few seconds down to departure level. But every second, perhaps . . .

There’s a word I’ve learnt about from Sarah, that goes with the closeness of people. “Aura.” It’s Latin or maybe Greek—like “gynaecologist.” It means “breath, “breeze,” “shimmer.”

I’d have been in their aura. Kristina’s aura.

Sarah’s aura.

I took the stairs slowly. When I reached the walkway to the terminal they’d already emerged and were several yards ahead.

In airports there are channels and slots and filters like being in a production line. A great grinding system that takes away aura or—by the same token—makes it stand out. So many departures, so many arrivals: you can’t tell the simple good-byes from the agonies, the lovers from the friends. People get excited, they hug, they cling, they kiss. What do those wet eyes mean? See you next Saturday? I’ll never see you again?

All this intimacy in public. But here it’s not unusual, it’s almost the done thing.

And, by the same token, it’s a detective’s dream. You’re part of the crowd, you won’t be noticed—even if you should brush right by.

And, anyway, it doesn’t take a detective. Something in the blood. Who hasn’t done it—stood, sat at the edge of some big milling space, and watched? And who hasn’t, just for the sake of it, picked out, like a spy, some single figure, some couple, followed their every move and gesture, tried to read their lips? Wondered: what’s their story?

That couple there, for example—that striking girl (Italian?) with the handsome but anxious-looking older man.

Arrivals and Departures. Check-in was a level below—they’d missed a sign. I followed them down, watched them find their way to a line. Flight 837 for Geneva. So? A longish queue.

So little time left now (if that was how it was): to have to spend it in a queue. She was the steadier. He kept looking at his watch. The nervousness of a man about to be condemned? Or about to abscond? His hand kept going to her waist, her arm, her shoulder, sliding through her hair to the nape of her neck.

They shuffled forward. Perhaps this was more terrible than either of them had imagined. She was the steadier— almost a grimness, as if
one
of them had to hold on. They’d said they’d go through with it,
he’d
said they’d go through with it. But now, at the barrier, he was starting to crumble, back down, he was slipping away from her.

If that was how it was.

Shouldn’t a gynaecologist have learnt to stay calm?

Two tickets or one? I still couldn’t be sure. Those suitcases could mean anything—all part of the decoy perhaps. People walk out of their lives with next to nothing, with just the clothes they’re wearing. His hand on her neck.

To lose, to have the one you love. To love isn’t to have, to keep.

I still didn’t know.

42

Her eyes seem to stare through me today as if at someone else in the distance.

She says, “You went?”

“Of course. I took flowers. Roses. It’s a beautiful day out there.”

And that seems wrong, of course—both to say it and the fact. Today, of all days, a beautiful day.

How does she get through this day?

There’s a little hard knot in her brow, tight as a question-mark. She stares into my face. At the same time there’s a sort of shame in her eyes, a shy twist at the corner of her mouth, as if she’s saying, I know this is absurd, George, I know I’m being silly, but—

And maybe she’s thinking, like I’m thinking: this is how it was two years ago. Me with my mission, her waiting to be told.

What can I say? There isn’t any message, I’m not his messenger. I’m just your visitor, like any other day.

“It all looked—good. It all looked—just the same.”

What can I say? That he hasn’t budged? Not going anywhere. That he said he’d always be waiting, too?

And I know she doesn’t believe in ghosts. At least on any other day.

“ ‘Haunted,’ George?” she said once. “That’s too simple a word. That’s not how it is . . .”

But I know she’s been with him, she’s told me, in dreams. With Bob in dreams, even though he’s dead, even though she killed him. That seems just an incidental point, until she wakes up.

And I’ve been with Sarah in dreams—my dreams and hers (she’s told me)—even though she’s here in prison, which seems incidental too, where we can hardly touch.

In dreams there aren’t any locked doors.

I say, “I stood there, sweetheart. I can’t speak for him. And he can’t speak.”

It seems almost cruel, like explaining something dreadful to a child. And she’s my teacher, usually—I’m the kid, turning up at this special school.

“I stood there quite a while.”

(I gave him time, I gave him his chance.)

And I know well enough the word she wants to hear— or something near it, just the promise, the glimmer of it. And she knows, well enough, she can’t have it.

And, God knows, though some people might say she blew away that possibility completely (and what crime did
he
commit?), she’s forgiven
him.

But I can’t say it for him. I can only say, and I have, that I forgive her. Thousands wouldn’t, but I have. A thousand times.

And, God knows, it was always my feeling about murder victims (I’ve seen a few): why, if they could come back, should they ever forgive? I’ve seen the victims of lesser crimes, still able to speak. Why should they ever forgive?

Why should Patel have forgiven—Dyson or me?

“It’s just a grave, sweetheart. I stood there.”

The twist at the corner of her mouth tightens. What did she expect?

There’s no grille or barrier. A plain table, chairs fixed to the floor. They let you touch, they let you hug. Once a fortnight: a hug. Of course it’s not private, there are all the others, and you’re being watched. The screws can see your every move—hear, if they want, your every word. You’re on CCTV. But, after a while, you don’t let it bother you. It’s not so different, really, from visiting in hospital. You can get a cup of tea. At some beds there are intense conversations, at others no one knows what to say.

A play area for the kids. The squeal of babies. Some of them live here. Hospital, nursery . . . You might be fooled.

She doesn’t give up. She says, “But what did you think?”

As if I should say I thought the gravestone was looking less hard, less stony, less unforgiving.

Or as if I should say, “I hated him. Just a bit. More than a bit. I had this—foul taste in my mouth.” But she knows that. I know. She knows that’s how I think. And how can she blame me—when she
killed
him—for just hating him in my head?

“I thought: I wish you’d been there. With me, at my side.”

The twist leaves the corner of her mouth. She smiles thinly. The ghost of a smile.

“I was. You know that.”

It’s how we speak of things now. The arrangement we have.

“It was all—so clear and still. The trees, the leaves . . .”

Absurd, to believe in ghosts, on such a bright clear day. But I could wish they did exist, so he could come back and say, like any self-respecting dead husband who’s been let out of his grave, “It’s okay, you two, you go ahead. Don’t mind me.”

She can smile, even today. I must have my dad’s old knack after all.

She didn’t always smile, of course. No place for smiles here. Wipe that smile off your face. It had to come back, like a pulse. One day, one amazing day, it was there.

She says, “Did
you
say anything, George? To
him
?”

“I said, ‘These flowers are from Sarah. With love.’ ”

It’s true, I said it. (Along with all the other things I said in my head.)

Her eyes look through me again.

But then—if he could come back he’d have the last laugh. Go ahead! She’s yours, feel free! He’d laugh his head off.

Or he’d just shut up and know his place. A ghost, a shadow, the perfect detective, watching. He wouldn’t let us know he was here.

The screws stand around as if they’re on playground duty, ready with their whistles. But it’s not a game. These visits—these smiles—like cracks of light in a wall. A whole world behind. Prison takes away aura too. My gulps of air, the smell on my clothes, in my hair, of a cold dazzling November day. A little for a lot.

“I didn’t go straight away. I had plenty of time. I went and sat on this bench, in the sun. I sat and I thought . . .”

I’ve never told Sarah about my mum and dad, about Dad and Mrs. Freeman. It never ended, after all, with anyone being stabbed—except my mum, by a name.

I don’t tell her I thought about couples. How when one goes first and gets a resting place, it begs the question . . .

“I sat there, and—I did what you’ve been doing, sweetheart. I’ve been doing what you’ve been doing all day.”

She doesn’t have to ask, she knows. I’ve been going through it bit by bit, that day, two years ago. Going over it again, like evidence. Every step, every move. Replaying it like a film.

Half past three. The sun will be dipping outside—the band of glowing brickwork getting narrower. On this day, two years ago, I hadn’t even arrived yet outside the Fulham flat.

On my birthday Mum used to say, to tease me: “It’s not your birthday yet”—since I was born at eleven p.m. As if I might not get a birthday before I had to go to bed, I might not get a birthday at all. Then she’d relent and smile.

But Sarah will take it literally, precisely, I know. Every hour, every minute, every detail.

And I’ll be doing it with her, though I wasn’t with her then, not till it was over. And I can’t be with her tonight—at eight-forty. Holding her hand.

Still all to come, all to happen. Though I don’t tell her how I drove up, this morning, in the sunshine, to Beecham Close—with still hours to go. But couldn’t do it.

As if I were Bob, in the clear light of day, coming back.

Every moment, every clue. Reliving it. She was in her kitchen. I was in Departures. His hand on her neck. Every twist. Trying to find the point where the sequence might have been different, where it might have turned another way. So that this time around, at last, the third time of trying, she won’t do it.

But I can’t be with her when it happens. Holding her hand.