I stare at the immaculate glass. It isn’t smeared. Why not? I wonder. There’s a security guard behind me, in a navy-blue uniform. He’s making sure I don’t move, bolt, make a run for it. Because, once again, I’m no longer free. Not for now. Not for these minutes.
My whole body is covered in sweat. I try to calm myself, try to imagine placing my hands against the panes. Perhaps I’m just at SeaWorld, or at the zoo – the penguin enclosure cool against my palms. We’ll get an ice cream and then drive home. I close my eyes with the ferocity of my desire. If only I had walked away. If only it had never happened.
‘Joanna Oliva, please stand again,’ the magistrate says.
Her voice was clear at the beginning of my bail hearing, but has become muffled and raspy-sounding, as though she can no longer be bothered, by twelve forty on a Monday afternoon. There are three of them, the magistrates, but only she speaks.
Oliva. I was so happy to have his name. To ditch my plain name, and take his interesting one. ‘No, it’s O-lee-vah,’ he’s always had to say, and now I do, too. I liked it. And the rest; his family name and all it stood for. That he was adopted, and they all loved each other, it seemed to me, without conditions. The Oliva pub, where he spent his teenage years getting a fantastic alcohol tolerance and a brilliant poker face and an education in all the classics. R. Oliva, occasionally quoted in the press on issues of social justice, London gangs. I loved all of it. Joined it readily. The Oliva clan. And now, here I am, tarnishing it.
I look up, my eyes trailing past the bench, past the justice crests, past the high, barred windows and beyond, up to the strip lights. They’re the same as in the police cell, and the panic washes over me again, less like a wave and more as if I have jumped off a boat and sunk fifty fathoms deep.
I haven’t even been thinking about it. Haven’t been working it out. But my brain has, ticking over in the background like a radioactivity monitor nobody knows is working, totting up numbers all on its own.
There are five and a half thousand nights in fifteen years, a life sentence, I think suddenly to myself. And I did just one. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I want to break free of my enclosure, rip out the glass.
The magistrate is speaking. I don’t understand – can’t understand – the words she’s saying, but I like the tone. It reminds me of when Wilf and I would watch the football scores coming in, on our tummies in front of the television, and we would try to predict the results from the tone of the announcer’s voice. I can hear it. While this is serious … she’s saying. The rest is currently unsaid, but I understand what it’ll be. The State: nil, Joanna: one.
She is listing the things I haven’t done. I didn’t flee the scene. I have not attempted to conceal evidence. I have not ever committed an offence before. And then she says: The defendant sought immediate help. I ignore this, not letting my mind look at it, like trying to hold still a mechanical toy.
‘And so I am minded to think that, although this carries with it the risk of a very long prison sentence, I am not of the view that the defendant needs imprisoning pending trial.’
I look across at Sarah, wondering if what I’m hearing is correct. Her back is to me, her head bent, intently listening to the magistrate. I look at Reuben instead. He’s looking directly at me. He’s wearing a shirt and tie; he hates ties, always pulls them off at the earliest opportunity, always looks slightly scruffy, even when he’s trying hard not to.
The magistrate moves on to bail conditions. I don’t listen to them. I am daydreaming about how I am to be – temporarily – free. I don’t want to think about the tomorrows; the trial, the aftermath. I will think only of right now, I tell myself. The sky beyond those windows. The weather. Our tiny basement flat. Reuben. All mine for a few more months of borrowed time.
My case is committed to the Old Bailey, and then I am led out.
The guard’s hand is gently resting against mine, and then, as we reach the foyer, he slowly releases it, and I am alone. I shrug, out of his gaze, of his touching distance, of the shackles of custody.
Bailed. I am free. For now.
But it is not true freedom, of course. It is temporary. A purgatory. Until later, when it will surely end. Now, it’s like a little taster, a teaser. A ceasefire. A friendly football match, on Christmas Day, in the middle of a war.
13
Conceal
The GP thinks my hand and wrist need strapping. I enjoy her tender touch on my arm and hand, her concerned expression when I tell her I have had a lot on, that I fell when hurrying.
‘Be kind to yourself,’ she says, in the tone of an exasperated schoolteacher.
When I get home, Reuben stares at the strapping, and I tell him the truth: that I fell over.
I only omit to tell him when, and why.
I don’t check the work rota much more than a day in advance – a fact which irritates Reuben – so I don’t know until the Monday – ten days After – that I have the Tuesday off.
I kiss Reuben goodbye as he leaves. I haven’t kissed him since it happened, and a faint frown crosses his face as his lips meet mine, which I try to ignore. But I can’t un-see the way he draws me to him, wanting to extend the kiss like someone on rations might bulk up a meal.
‘You’ve got so thin,’ he says.
‘Oh, really,’ I say, self-consciously patting down my slim hips. The bones protrude into the palms of my hands. ‘Good.’ I want to disappear.
When he’s left, I go out and walk, crunching around in the winter frost. Walking’s the only thing that seems to work for me. The only time I feel okay. The rhythm of it. The lack of thought. The cold, harsh air. Who knows what I’ll do when it’s warm again?
Of course, I find myself walking towards Little Venice, but I steer myself south.
It’s no longer snowing but it’s still bone-cold – the worst winter on record, the newspaper headlines scream – and I wrap my thin trench coat around myself, walking alone along an A-road in Paddington. A bizarre, sixties building with an extra bit on the top of it sits to my right, and I turn instinctively towards it, crossing the road, turning down a side street towards central London. I will go and look at the landmarks, I think. Look at my London: one of my favourite things to do.
I wander for hours. And then, before I know it, without realizing how far I have drifted, it is there in front of me, a white, square building, a golden dome: the Paddington Mosque. I stand in front of it, blinking, and I know why I have arrived here, almost unconsciously, without quite knowing myself. To pay my respects. To say sorry. To express my regret. I’ll do it alone, and quickly. I think back to the news article. He was buried yesterday. I won’t be disturbing anybody. I’ll nip in. Find his grave. Leave. Nobody will know. It is necessary, I realize, for me to do this.
I let myself in through the door – my left hand hangs by my side, strapped and useless – knowing just enough to remove my shoes and hold them in my hands as I cross the carpet of the women’s section. I cover my hair with my scarf.
The mosque, on the inside, is nothing like a church. More like a living room. The carpet is red and swirling and the edge of the room is lined with pillars. Otherwise, it’s almost entirely empty. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling and it seems to sway slightly in a breeze that must be coming from outside. A few men are praying around the edges of the room, and I cross it silently, putting my shoes back on when I reach the door. But, after a second, I realize there’s no graveyard here. I ask someone, and she directs me to the cemetery over the road.
It’s frosty and the grass crunches underfoot. My breath steams out in front of me, eddying like bathwater in the frigid air.