‘But you chose to do this, instead,’ he says, cutting the strings of my balloon.
It’s not the word I notice – chose – though I note it. No. It’s this casual gesture he makes. He gestures at me, palm up, like a parent might to a child’s messy room, or an angry road user might to another driver. He thinks it is something I have done rather than something that happened to me. To him, I am not unlucky.
I don’t say anything more. It’s better not to. To distract, to avoid, to suppress. I don’t want to know what he thinks. Not really.
He looks as though he’s going to speak again. I can tell only because of how well I know him. He stops, opens his mouth, extends a hand to me. He has something to tell me.
His eyes meet mine.
But then he pauses, and it’s as though I’m watching him rewind. He turns away from me. Whatever it was, he’s kept it inside.
27
Conceal
Reuben persuades me out on the first day of spring. That’s the line he used. The first day of spring. ‘It’s good to go out and enjoy ourselves,’ he added, looking self-conscious as he peeled a potato. He passed one to me to do, but I declined; my hand still doesn’t work.
I haven’t been back to the library’s offices at night. I’ve decided to wait it out. It’s too dangerous. I can’t break in again. It was illegal, what I did. I’m permitted into the library by day, as an employee. But stealing keys and going in at night – even though it’s the same building; the one I’m paid to go in – is a crime. No. I can’t do it again. The wavering is endless. My dithering over the right things to do. But I have to wait it out.
We go to a pub one street across from ours, called The Lemon Grove. The walk there is paved with nostalgia from when we first moved into our Hammersmith flat, not long after we married, and went through a phase of going out every evening for a nightcap. We’d take cards and play Newmarket. The barman would shush us, sometimes, when we laughed too loudly and too long.
The pub is old, with a TV in the corner. It’s very Reuben. The opposite to the kind of place Wilf would take me – the wine bars with modern art and stags mounted on the walls. This is simple: warm and cosy, lit with candles in the windows. The windows overlook a courtyard, not the street, and so I can’t look for the police. The relief is immediate. Nobody can see me in here. Lawson can’t see me in here.
‘Gin?’ Reuben says to me, one elbow resting on the bar. He’s taken his coat off already. His cheeks are flushed – even though it’s neither warm nor cold outside – and the sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up. ‘You could do with the calories,’ he murmurs.
‘No,’ I say immediately. I haven’t drunk once, since. But then, something changes my mind. His expression, maybe. Or perhaps it’s just the thought of the enticingly sharp cut of the lemon, the piney tang of the gin. ‘Oh – yes. Forget it,’ I say. ‘Yes.’
He raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything, and I wonder what he thinks of this; this strange date night that feels to me like a sort of swan song. He orders a red wine, and we stand awkwardly at the bar.
It’s late. Just after ten. That’s why I agreed, I suppose. The romance of popping out to the pub, just like we used to. It felt safe. In half an hour, or maybe an hour, from ten o’clock until last orders, with Reuben, I can’t confess. I can’t get drunk enough to confess. And so I agreed. And here we are.
I take a sip of gin just as Reuben murmurs, ‘Table,’ and steers me towards it.
My drink tastes so sweet and mellow. There’s nothing like it. Like spring in a glass. ‘Ah,’ I say, a tiny, tiny dart of happiness firing my heart as I sip the G&T and look across at my husband. It’s the first spark of pleasure in my Afterworld. I try to dampen it down, like an ember just beginning to burn. I can’t feel it. I can’t let myself feel it. I don’t deserve it.
Reuben sits down opposite me in a booth. The leather underneath us is red, faded and cracked. The table is sticky on top, with a huge pillar candle between us. Reuben moves it so he can look properly at me. I had forgotten he always used to do that. He leans forward, those freckled elbows on the table, and looks at me intently. He can make my insides feel molten when he holds my gaze in this way.
‘What’s new?’ he says.
‘Been texting your dad,’ I say, trying to make conversation. ‘He sent me a BuzzFeed link to twelve joyful dogs. I think he’s learning. What I like.’
Reuben laughs softly. ‘No more asking you your thoughts on the break-up of the Soviet Union,’ he says.
‘Life’s too short for that.’
I remember when I first met Reuben’s parents. I was trying to hold my own during a conversation about Assad, and Reuben texted me from across the room: A commendable performance.
‘So, Oliva,’ he says now, holding my gaze. ‘It’s been ages.’
I stare back at him, the gin working its way around my bloodstream, the pub narrowing to just me and him, the way it’s always been, the way it always was. I know exactly what he means. And it’s fair enough. I almost groan with it. Imagining taking his clothes off. Feeling that hot, strong body against mine. But then … I’d tell him. Post-coitally, when I would always cry. I’d tell him.
I stare back at him, wanting to stay there forever, crucified by those eyes of his. They have me impaled, right on the booth in front of him.
But then, a flicker on the television behind him, and I can’t help but break his gaze and look. Something compels me to.
It’s on mute, but the ticker headline is running.
Canal death inquest to commence tomorrow
It scrolls along the screen, white against red. Bandages against blood. The inquest. I didn’t even know there was to be one. I haven’t been able to google it. Haven’t felt able to buy the newspapers. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was tomorrow.
Reuben is still staring at me but I can’t look at him again. I can’t let him know I’ve seen the screen. I need to cover it up, like somebody under-confident covering their entire body, their worst bits, in loose, draped clothing. He can’t know.
They could conclude anything tomorrow. What are the verdicts? I can’t remember. Accidental death? Unlawful killing? Or are those crimes, instead? I don’t know. I don’t know. But, tomorrow, it seems I might. And then, they will come for me. Again.
I sip my gin and look at the tiny picture of Imran’s face on the bottom of the news programme. Imran whose face will no longer age. Imran who is buried in the cemetery opposite the mosque.
I haven’t spoken since Reuben did, and when I look back at him I see that he’s gazing down into his lap, shaking his head in something resembling disbelief.
But I can’t deal with him now. I can’t give him anything of myself. Right now, with the inquest verdict on my mind, I want to be alone, at home, to think it through. To say my sorries, offer them up to Imran. To commemorate. To digest it all.
I down my drink, start to fiddle with my phone, ignoring Reuben.
‘Let’s go, then,’ he says after a few moments.
He shoots me a sorrowful look as we weave our way through the pub and I catch a gulp of tears in my throat. I cannot even give him one evening. Not one evening without something happening, something related to what I did. It is like a voracious weed, spreading into and invading every part of my life.
He doesn’t reach for my hand. Doesn’t look at me. We pass underneath another television, right next to the exit, and he stops and looks at it, pausing just infinitesimally. ‘Oh, there’ll be hell,’ he says, looking up at it, then back down at me.
‘What?’ I say, my voice barely a whisper.
He looks at my stricken expression and must read something else into it, because he shakes his head, his mouth tight, and says, ‘Forget it.’
We walk home in the cold, in silence. As we reach our door, a siren sounds in the distance. I hear footsteps along the road. I fling the door open and lock it behind us, peering out. There’s nothing. The siren has passed. The footsteps were Edith’s daughter.
28
Reveal