I watch him for a moment. He stops looking at me and waters another plant. Some of the water comes out of the head of the can unevenly and sprinkles on to the concrete steps.
Unlike the plants that Reuben tends to, which are just budding in the summertime, we are dying, Reuben and I. The symptoms of our demise are everywhere: that we haven’t crossed a single film off the blackboard for months. That we used to sleep naked, but now I sleep in a T-shirt and pants, unable to cross the line in the middle of the bed, physically or emotionally. That I answer Reuben in one-word sentences, so much so that he no longer bothers asking me any questions.
And so here we are. I’m on the steps, my jacket slung over my arm. He’s just straightening up.
Unbidden, an image of the police pops into my head. Ed will have called them. Won’t he? It seems certain, inevitable, to me, but paranoia has obscured my vision, like the dye they used to put in my eyes at the optician’s when I was younger. That blond policeman, and his smaller, dark friend. Their tread along Hammersmith Broadway. Turning right at Byron Burger. Then left. On to my street. I’ve got to get away. I can’t be here to see Reuben’s face transform the moment he realizes what I have done.
But before that, I think sadly, looking at Reuben, I need to offer something up. A sacrifice. A ritual. A last-ditch attempt.
And this isn’t fair, anyway. This pseudo-relationship that confuses and irritates Reuben. He should be free to find somebody else. He shouldn’t be burdened, either, by a confession, by having to cover up my crime with me.
‘Why’d you throw your stuff away?’ he says, as if reading my mind.
He doesn’t look suspicious. He just looks sad. Reuben may not know, but Ed must.
‘I didn’t want your coat any more,’ I say, swallowing back my tears as I lie to my husband.
I look down. He’s got no socks on. The air is warm and soft. He winces as my words hit him.
I will miss those feet. And those freckled hands. That brow.
‘I can’t live like this,’ I say to him. ‘I’m sorry but I’m not happy. I’m just not happy with you – any more. I haven’t been for ages.’
It’s a commendable performance, I think. The words are false but my tone rings true. I sound distressed, resigned, but honest.
Reuben’s head snaps up and he sets the watering can down on the step. It teeters for just a second, then stills, the sound echoing out in the quiet around us. His mouth has fallen open in shock. Disbelief is etched in lines across his forehead. And, worse than that, there’s judgement, too. A kind of I knew you’d do this.
He puts his hands on his hips, his weight set back, looks at me, and says, ‘Do you mean that?’
I look him directly in those forest-green eyes. ‘Yes,’ I say.
And there it is. Us. Severed. Killed. One marriage, shot dead.
He stares at me for just a moment longer. I expect he thinks it something banal; quotidian. That I have tired of him. That there is another man. That my low self-esteem has pushed him away. He would never guess it’s this: murder. In cold blood. And it’s better that way. For him.
‘I see,’ he says softly.
He is, in our relationship’s death as well as in its life, true to himself. He doesn’t bargain with me, pressurize me, demand answers.
After holding my gaze for a second more, he simply turns and walks inside, without me.
32
Reveal
I see Reuben and the barrister speaking and, only a few feet away from them, Sarah speaking to another, different barrister. The prosecution, maybe? That barrister is tall and blonde, wearing kitten heels. Her nails are painted nude, her foundation elegantly blended, her cheeks highlighted as though she’s been caught in a slice of moonlight. In another time, I’d have wanted to ask her what product she used, and then I would have bought it, smearing it ineffectually over my cheeks, looking like white stage make-up.
Reuben and Duncan are by the door. The barrister is gesturing, and Reuben is following his hands, his eyes watchful. They bend their heads even closer together. Duncan covers his mouth with a hand.
After a few minutes, Sarah arrives back, and I raise my eyebrows at her.
She says, ‘Not the prosecution. I know her. A friend.’
I blink, trying to calm myself.
Duncan returns, and his posture is strange, his shoulders rounded, as though he has just been told off. He runs a hand across his forehead. Reuben hands me a cup of coffee – my last, in the outside world? – and I take it, thanking him with my eyes. I should be making the most of this. Duncan smiles reassuringly at me, and I chastise myself. I’m imagining everything; inventing their backstories and lives again. Reading the worst into my barrister’s body language, worrying he is incapable of defending me, does not believe in my case.
‘I need the toilet,’ I mutter, wanting to be, just for a moment – for the last moment before my trial begins – alone.
‘I have to come with you,’ Sarah says. She smiles apologetically. ‘They want to keep you apart from the witnesses. And your jury.’
‘My jury,’ I echo. I hadn’t thought of it. But – of course. They must be here. As I gaze around, I see the signs up. White laminated signs, with a red arrow on. ‘First day jurors, this way,’ they say. Twelve men and women. Here to judge me on what I did. I can hardly comprehend it.
‘Look,’ Sarah says, stopping my thoughts. She points up high above the doors to the courtroom, to what – at first – looks like a mark on the wall. ‘It’s a shard of glass,’ she says. ‘From an IRA bomb.’ She points behind her, to the doors, to the road outside. ‘It got embedded. And they left it. Two hundred people were injured, and the only person who died – they died of a heart attack.’
I stare at it.
If that could survive – that dysfunctional, flawed emblem – I find myself thinking, then so can I.
Sarah takes my arm, leading me to the toilet. The cuffs of my white shirt are stiff and starched against my wrists.
It happens in a moment. We could be two people crossing paths at the concourse of a busy train station or airport. She’s dressed in a long grey cardigan that she’s dragged over her hands like a child might, in comfort, maybe. Her hair is long and sleek, her eyes lined like Cleopatra’s. She looks just like him. Like Imran.
She doesn’t see me; doesn’t recognize me. I can’t speak to her, and so I duck my head, but I can’t help looking at her as she retreats. I’m sorry, I think. I’m so sorry.
Sarah checks the toilets are empty then waits outside for me. I stare at myself in the mirror. I look older. I wonder if there are mirrors in prison. Perhaps they would be too dangerous, too easily broken. Perhaps I won’t look into my own eyes for years to come. I take ages in there. Sarah probably wonders what I’m doing, but I don’t care. I use the soap, pretending it’s fancy hotel stuff, look into every stall, steady myself, looking in the mirror. I’m at least ten minutes.
When I’m out, something is different. Sarah’s body language is rigid. She leads me to a table; a different one. I can see Reuben and my barrister sitting opposite us, at our old table.
‘Joanna,’ Sarah says. ‘I want you to listen carefully.’ She takes a shuddery breath, and my body seems to know what she’ll say before my mind does. ‘The prosecution has offered a plea bargain.’
I’m not surprised. I knew they would; she said they would, after they upgraded my charge.
‘And I think you should plead,’ she says.
She looks as though she has thrown a grenade. I slam my hands down on the marble, shocked and terrified. And then, as though he knows, Reuben appears by my side. He makes a noise like an irritated horse.
‘Plead?’ I say.
‘They’ve offered a better plea than I thought they would,’ she says. ‘They initially went back to a section eighteen offence but I was very robust with them. I indicated you’d be interested, and they’ve just offered a section twenty.’
‘Section twenty? Why did you say I’d be interested?’ I say. ‘I want my trial – my say.’
‘To see what they’d offer. The lesser offence. Remember? On the ladder I showed you? Section twenty is GBH, Jo.’