The only alleviating factor was that she appeared too wrapped up in the process to notice that I’d gone into lockdown; or, if she did, she attributed my strange behaviour to a grief that was in truth so far down my list of priorities that I wondered sometimes if I’d ever get round to it. I’m still not quite sure that I have.
I made the effort to talk about the case because saying nothing would have looked suspicious, but it was like playing tennis with live grenades. I tried to talk in generalities, about the nature of consent, but even then I couldn’t seem to say the right thing. My life since that week has been lived as though with a glass of water balanced on my head. It is just about possible to walk without spilling a drop if you devote all your concentration to balance. These days, protecting Laura is something so internalised that I can do the emotional equivalent of dancing or turning cartwheels without spilling a drop, but back then everything I did was controlled and conscious and the result was a physical tension, across my face and shoulders, that fast became as much a part of my body as my head or my hands.
On the third day of the trial, when Fiona Price stood up to cross-examine me, I almost confessed on the spot to pre-empt the grilling I was convinced was coming. But I held my nerve, and it paid off when I realised her baffling questions were a set-up for Jamie’s cover story about drugs in his pocket. Later in the proceedings, I was sure I’d given myself away when the barrister asked the doctor if she’d found any ejaculate when she swabbed Beth and I shot forward like I’d been catapulted from my seat. To my paranoid mind it was as good as a confession, but Laura just rolled her eyes, then turned them straight back to the evidence.
Chapter 56
KIT
31 May 2000
I didn’t get Beth alone until the second time she came to visit us in Clapham, and even then, privacy meant a hurried conversation while Laura showered. My dirty little secret had kicked off her silver trainers at my front door and was barefoot at my stove, slowly scrambling eggs to go with the smoked salmon and bagels she’d bought. Her straight back was turned to me. There was nothing in her posture to suggest anything like the anguish that pressed down on my shoulders, so much so that I was surprised whenever I brushed my teeth not to see a stooping zombie in the mirror. Far from freeing me up to move on with my life, the effort I’d put into keeping it together in the run-up to the trial had used up a whole year’s reserves of discipline and the London life I’d been so keen to return to was falling apart. I wasn’t sleeping. The undergraduates I was supposed to be mentoring hadn’t seen me for weeks and I’d had a written warning from the department about my continued absence. Mum had gone from nursing a dying husband to worrying about a degenerating son. Mac had taken cash from her purse, forged cheques in her name and sold her computer. I was only lending him money because I couldn’t bear to have him steal from me.
‘Beth.’ I kept my voice low even as Laura sang tunelessly over the whirring Vent-Axia and the patter of water on the curtain. The irony weighed heavy on me that only illicit lovers usually understand the urgency of such snatched moments. ‘I’m sure the verdict won’t be overturned. There’s no way they’ll get an appeal past a panel of judges.’ (I’d read on the internet that judges hate appeals; it calls their judgement into question and if you take that away, what have they got left? The only thing they hate more, apparently, is perjury.)
Beth cracked an egg on the side of the pan with one hand. For a second I thought she was going to ignore me, but instead she took the pan off the heat and faced me, arms folded across her chest.
‘Meaning, I can move on with my life after all? Meaning, I should fuck off out of yours?’ Her fury was a reminder of how carefully I must tread.
‘That’s not how I’d have put it,’ I said, although it was exactly what I had meant. The gas ring burned blue behind her elbow: she didn’t seem to notice.
‘You think I’m going to tell her about us,’ she said. I winced at that ‘us’ – I would have preferred a ‘what we did’, or even ‘your mistake’.
‘Are you?’
Before answering, Beth wiped her hands on her skirt with the weariness of an old-fashioned scullery maid. If she was toying with me, she didn’t seem to be enjoying it. ‘Laura’s about the only friend I’ve got in the world right now,’ she said flatly. ‘Or the only one who understands about the Lizard. I can’t get through this without someone to talk to. Telling her about us would be the surest way to have no one. And I need someone, ok?’
How could I begrudge her a friend? I just wished, for the millionth time, it didn’t have to be Laura, and to wish that was to wish for the millionth time I’d never given Beth cause to follow me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘I bet you are,’ she said. She attempted a brave smile; she didn’t get past rueful. ‘D’you know what the worst thing is? You’re the only one I can have a completely honest conversation with. The only one in the world who knows the whole story. And you can’t stand the sight of me.’ She finally turned off the gas. ‘I don’t want you any more, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not really looking for a boyfriend right now, funnily enough.’