The Body Lies Read online

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Forget it.”

  “Forget what?”

  “Forget I said anything.”

  “You didn’t say anything.”

  “Yeah, that’s becoming a habit.”

  A crowd came past us. Loudly cheerful kids, staggering and embracing. They clambered into cabs and were gone. The remaining cabs nudged forward.

  “I had some news today,” I said. “I’ve not told anyone yet.”

  “Oh?”

  “Mark left me.”

  “No.”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh God. I’m so sorry.”

  “It happens every day,” I said. “People leave people. Marriages break up.”

  “Yeah but. It doesn’t happen to you every day.”

  “No,” I said. “That’s true.”

  “What about the wee lad?”

  A young woman swung into the back seat of a cab, bum first, legs tucked after, calling something to her friend. The roof light blinked out, the taxi pulled away, and no new cars joined the rank.

  “Sammy doesn’t know yet.”

  “Couldn’t you get counselling, go to Relate, or something?”

  “Mark’s gone; I mean emotionally, he’s gone. He’s committed to this other woman now. I know him. He’s fiercely loyal.”

  “D’you think that might be a tad over-generous, in the circumstances?”

  I closed my eyes. The blood pulsed in my eyelids; the rain fell on my face.

  I thought of Sammy down at his grandma’s asleep in the icy old spare bed, and Mark hunched over a pint in what used be be his local. I thought of Amy in some dank flat in Penge telling her husband she was leaving him and then being stuck in the same two rooms as him all weekend. Or, the heartsinker of it, tripping over to Anerley to our flat, with her own set of keys, letting herself in. I thought of the dark house out there, and Nicholas haunting the place, his presence seeping through the woods and lanes and moor. I thought how I had caused it all, had chosen it; not always the freest choice maybe, but still these were all my decisions. None of it would have happened if I had handled things better. If I had known the right way to deal with the man in the blue anorak.

  “I don’t know what to do.” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

  “You could come back to mine,” Patrick said.

  I looked at him.

  “Just for a bit. I’ll make you a cup of tea. We can talk. And I’ll call you a cab in a bit.”

  “Please,” I said.

  We walked on, down through the town centre, past women in huge heels and tiny clothes and men with short sleeves and chunky jewellery, through bouts of loud lad-singing and huddled earnest conversations and clouds of cigarette smoke and vape and alcohol. In Wilko’s doorway, a girl dressed in tiny lacy black was scrummed with mates, sobbing, and her friend was saying, He isn’t worth it, Izzy, he really isn’t worth it.

  We climbed out of the town centre, over the dark glittering canal, and into quietness. We passed a shuttered corner shop, a pub, and turned down a street of solid-stone-built terraces. Three bedrooms and a garden, I remembered; a tree house big as our flat. The kind of place where we would have been living, if Mark had only wanted it too.

  A flat-fronted terraced house; three stone steps and Patrick fumbling open the door. He flipped on a light and we were in his front room, which was warm and smelt of woodsmoke. Books, lamps, pot plants, books. Books everywhere. He toed off his shoes, and so I unzipped my boots, and we left them side by side there on the mat. He held out a hand for my coat, and I took it off and passed it to him.

  I followed him through into a back sitting room, with a TV and newspapers and magazines and abandoned coffee cups and a cold log-burning stove, and from there down bare stone steps into a little cellar kitchen; I felt the need to touch, fingertips on plaster, on chipped paintwork, on the cup-ringed wooden countertop. The layeredness of this place, the sense of time passed and passing here.

  “Have a seat,” he said, and drew out a stool for me. “Are you hungry?”

  I shook my head. It hadn’t occurred to me to be hungry, though now I came to think of it…I lifted it and turned my hand; the tendons were standing proud; the skin was pale, almost transparent; it was trembling: “Maybe.”

  “Toast?”

  “Please.”

  “And tea.”

  “Tea.”

  He filled the kettle, then rummaged for bread, then spooned loose tea into a matte-white bamboo-handled teapot.

  “I like your teapot,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  “I also like your socks.”

  Attention drawn to them, his toes ran a little Mexican wave.

  “I like the stripes, the way the colours are all—complementary.”

  He stood there with his hand on the belly of the pot, studying me, cheek bunched in a half-smile.

  “I’ve been wanting to—” he said. “I’ve thought that you— For a while I’ve been thinking. You seem so—” He flapped a hand around, frustrated. “Jesus, Patrick, finish a sentence here, would you?”

  “Tricky things, sentences.”

  “Aren’t they. What I’m trying to say is, do you remember that kids’ show, Crackerjack!, or are you too young?”

  “I’m not sure…”

  The kettle began to rumble and steam.

  “They had this quiz; kid would answer all these questions and each time they’d get handed a prize. Footballs, skateboards, Kerplunk, Operation, all that kind of stuff. But if they got the question wrong they’d get given a cabbage. They’d keep getting questions and they’d keep getting prizes and cabbages. They had to hold everything they’d won, cabbages and board games and SodaStreams or whatever, right up until the end of the game, and if you lost hold of it, everything would go tumbling, all the stuff you’d won, and all the cabbages too, all of it tumbling on the floor and you lost everything.”

  “I don’t think I ever saw it.”

  The toast popped up; he fished it out of the toaster.

  “Well, that’s what I think of. When I think of you. That’s not all I think of.” He flicked a glance at me. “But it’s like you’ve got the prizes and you’ve got all the cabbages too, and people keep handing you more and more cabbages to hold, and you’re desperately trying to cling to everything, cabbages and prizes, so as not to lose it all. And I just wanted to—I dunno, take some of the cabbages off you. Stop people handing you any more.”

  I watched as he poured water into the pot, and stirred it, and clunked the lid into place.

  “Butter? Jam?”

  I cleared my throat. “Just jam, please.”

  He busied himself with a jar and knife.

  “And now here’s Mark,” he said, “who by rights should be helping you handle the cabbages, and the prizes, but instead he’s gone and lobbed a giant mammoth cabbage for you to catch. And meanwhile here’s me, and I want to help, but I don’t really have—permission.” He put the plate of toast beside me. He set down a cup of tea. “Do you take milk?”

  I shook my head. He touched the backs of his fingers against the back of my hand. I bit my lip. Then he slipped his hand under mine, and lifted it, so that it lay in his warm palm.

  “And I just wanted to say that. Sorry. I hope that’s okay.”

  I bit harder on my lip.

  “That’s got to hurt,” he said. “Can you say something, please? Maybe before you actually draw blood?”

  I slid off the stool, and put my arms around him and rested my head against his chest. On the rise and fall of it, the thud of his heart. He let his arms come around me; his hand cupped the back of my head. I let a long breath go.

  And we just stood there, just breathing, till he squinted down at me and said, “Still awake?”

  I no
dded. I’d left a smudge of mascara on his T-shirt. I touched it. “Sorry.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “I really should go home.”

  “Or—not? If you don’t fancy going back to an empty house, you could stay here?”

  I hesitated.

  “Too much?” he asked.

  “I don’t want things to be awkward.”

  “No, that’s okay. I get that. And you know what, these past few months it’s been a treat, just bumping into you at work and trying to make you laugh. And I’m okay if we go back to that. I didn’t imagine that it’d ever be anything more than bumping into you and making you laugh.”

  “I don’t want to—have sex. Tonight.”

  He went sweetly red. “Well, I’m glad we’ve cleared that up, thank you very much.”

  “But I don’t want to mess you around either.”

  “That’s not something to worry about. There’s a spare room, if you want. Or you can come in with me, if you want. Just for sleep, and company.”

  “That’s what I want,” I said. “That is what really I need. Sleep and company.”

  “No ghost stories, now.”

  “I promise.”

  He pushed the teacup closer to me. I lifted it, and drank. I felt the warmth in my hands, and felt the warmth spreading through me.

  Chemistry

  The little boy’s a scribble and she’s an upward brushstroke their voices sing. Crouched on the old floorboards, scuff the scabs of fallen mortar and the birdshit and birdbones underfoot and roll the matted spiderswebs between fingertips and watch the two of them climb into the wind. Voices come in bits and drabs, broken scattered. Sheep’s calls, curlews, oystercatchers. The cold of fingertips and nose and shivering.

  He rests his head against the wall, it sticks to cobwebs and damp lime.

  He is so tired but he doesn’t sleep he has given up trying to sleep. He is keeping watch, but from the distance that he has to keep, he cant see what his words are doing to her, cant see how they colour the world for her.

  Later he hears a car and he creaks up onto his knees, looks out sidelong towards the cottage, his body jagged and crooked with stillness. A man climbs out of the car. That’s him. Another upward stroke, darker than hers. And she is swinging back down the lane towards him, swept with the wind, the kid in her arms and held to her, clinging like a tick and

  If he could be closer what would he see.

  The child’s hand resting on her collar bone, at the open throat of her shirt. Sweat beading there, the warmth of blood under the skin. The man’s easy smile and the easy kiss. From where he is just the two lines of them coming together and then parting, and then the scribble swung across from one to the other and stuck now to the man. They go inside.

  He sinks back down below the windowsill, only the rubble wall cobwebs and fallen lime, his own head his whole body full of her of them.

  He could just go down the creaking ladder and across the lane and in through their front door like Banquo’s ghost all the lies that they were telling themselves and each other they would all fall away; she will have to say what she is what she has done to him and all that she has made him feel.

  But he does not go. And does not go. And does not go.

  Because his thoughts are pulling together and making a story that begins to work. Here it is. If he tells the man then the man will see the truth will see her for what she is will go he will take the boy and the boy will stop being there sitting on her hip hand on her collar bone blood and sweat. He tells the man and the man is angry is done with her and he takes the boy and she is free she is free to be with him. It is colder and he shivers and his nose drips and he. Won’t be her student anymore and she won’t be his tutor and they can be together and

  He creaks to his feet, stands to the side of the window. Lights blink off and on the little boy is being put to bed. His joints ache. He breathes on his fingers, and then stuffs his hands into his pockets, and he watches the lights and the movement of shadows. He could go over there now. He could go over there.

  A light in her bedroom window. He can see flickering movement, just here and there, as though a bed is being made or clothes picked off the floor. His stomach drops like a stone. The two of them in bed together the two of them together he will be sick at it.

  But the lamp is still lit downstairs. And she comes to the bedroom window and is silhouette and alone

  He watches longer and she is alone

  He imagines himself in that room, the yellow wallpaper, moving in behind her, his hands slipped onto her hips, her straightening up to press back against him, and smile at him in the mirrored window. He shouldn’t be angry it is difficult for her she is drained she is leeched all over by the man and the boy and the work and if she were free

  She stares out at the night. He stands foursquare in the window and stares back at her. She is looking at him she is wanting she doesn’t see how easy it would be to have if she would just be brave enough. He hurts with wanting, hurts with her pain. He scrambles down the ladder, leaves the darkness of the barn for the moonlit field. He walks towards the cottage. She will see him she has seen him she knows that he is there and

  He comes to the field gate, stares across at the lit window at her silhouette. He wants to break something, wants to smash something, shatter the windscreen and kick in the headlights of the little red car. He grips the cold metal top bar of the gate and he stares up at the top window. The light on her skin she raises her hands to cover her face. He glances, quick, at the downstairs window, and there is a low lamp lit there too; he looks up again and she is there still and still alone. She doesn’t look at him but he knows that it is meant for him that she is telling him. Signalling.

  She will be brave. But she must take her time. He must be patient.

  Then she tugs the curtains closed.

  Aching sick wanting and the damp and cold and alone he turns down the lane, and quietly through the farm, the dog teeth and eye in the kennel and a flick of torchlight and a snarl and he goes on quietly through the wet night

  * * *

  —

  Monday morning. I woke at six with my head pillowed on Patrick’s chest, my knee over his thigh. I’d slept all night without surfacing once. I don’t know when I had last slept like that.

  He got up to make coffee and we drank it in bed. There was a new toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet, a fresh towel on the rack. When I came downstairs in yesterday’s clothes, there was toast and more coffee waiting for me in the kitchen.

  I slipped out of Patrick’s car on the perimeter road of the university, leaving him to park. We walked into the department separately. It was early; raindrops glittered the grass; a groundsman was picking litter from the roadside shrubs. It felt all bright and wholesome. Good things could still happen.

  I turned the corner in the corridor and there was Scaife. “Ah yes, hello there, there you are. Do you have a moment?”

  “Not right now, sorry; really busy.” I went to go past him, but he shifted into my way; I stepped back.

  “Something’s come up,” he said. His eyes travelled down, as if he were considering the way I was dressed. No worse or better than usual; I ran my fingers over my shirt buttons to check they were fastened. At a glance he couldn’t possibly know I was in yesterday’s clothes.

  “Is it urgent?”

  “You’re busy?”

  I nodded, impatient; he grimaced.

  “Come to my office, tomorrow morning first thing, eh. We’ll have a proper chat then.”

  He stepped aside; I slipped past him and dodged into my office, and was just booting up my computer when Patrick dropped by, bringing coffee. He stood in the doorway and asked distinctly, so that anyone could overhear, if I got home safe last night, how Monday morning was treating me, which made me smile. I had this
strange split vision, of this lovely glow of this new thing with Patrick, and beyond him, looming like a storm, was a snarl of darkness.

  When Patrick had gone off to his own office, I checked my email, and there it was, this charming new piece of work from Nicholas. My world had been falling apart around me, and Nicholas had watched it crumble, and made every moment, every gesture be about him. As far as he was concerned, I didn’t exist beyond the meaning that he gave me.

  And the way that he wrote about Sammy. My stomach curdled.

  * * *

  —

  I skipped out of work, going the long way around to avoid passing Patrick’s door. I caught the bus.

  I hadn’t really thought about the barn beyond the first day’s noticing of it. It hadn’t seemed significant. Swallows had swooped in and out of it late summer, when we’d moved into the house. Of an evening, it cast a long shadow across the grass.

  I wrestled with the twine that held the gate shut, and then I gave up and climbed. My hands gripped the cold top bar, where his had grasped. I stumbled over the rough ground towards the barn. Sheep lifted their heads and stared at me. Rabbits fled. It was quiet. Just the sheep calling, and birdsong, and the sound of a distant car grinding along the country lanes.

  The barn doorway was high and arched, big enough to let a hay cart through. I stepped from daylight into shadow. I breathed in the smell of sheep and hay and creosote and damp. There was a shaft of cold light from a low window, and another from a trapdoor, a ladder leading up. I picked my way towards it, past rusted bits of farm machinery, feeding troughs and plastic sheeting. The centre of the ladder treads had been scuffed clear of dust, where he had climbed. I climbed too.

  Bare boards, rubbed-flat cigarette ends, crushed cans, food wrappers. The stink of urine. But he wasn’t there. I moved across the timbers, gingerly; the floor was uneasy underfoot; the whole place felt soiled and sordid. I went to the window, looked out at the front of our house.

  I heard that car again, closer now. And then I saw it swing around the bend. Our little red C3. Cogs spun in my head and wouldn’t mesh: it shouldn’t be here; Mark wasn’t back, Sammy wasn’t back. They were due on Wednesday. It wasn’t Wednesday. But the little red car pulled up outside the cottage and the engine died.