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‘My children.’ He looked down at the tattoos. ‘That’s Roxy and that’s Rick.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about them.’
‘Yes, so am I.’ All the light leached out of his eyes.
‘They were very young, weren’t they?’
‘Yes, Roxy was five and Rick was four.’ And he looked so bleak and wretched I wanted to hold him tight.
‘Oh, Marlow.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It was another lifetime. I’ve learned to live with it now. I’m all right.’ And then he sank onto the bed and, running his hand through his hair, sighed sadly. ‘It’s OK,’ he said again, as if he was not talking to me but comforting himself even though he knew it could never be repaired.
‘Will you tell me about them?’ I asked.
He looked up at me, his beautiful, kind eyes pained. ‘I can’t. I just can’t. Not yet.’
19
Marlow
We depart with a thousand regrets in our hearts.
—Omar Khayyam
After Olivia left the next morning I went into the top shelf of my cupboard and brought out the envelope that was there. It was only two years old but it was gray with use. I had read it so many times I almost knew it by heart. Each word burned into my mind and still smoking after all this time. There were four pages to the letter. I opened them. The creases were so ingrained, they were soft and powdery, the ink gone from them.
I stared at the first page.
Her writing: neat, controlled, small and familiar. So familiar. Oh! Maria. I remember she used to write me love notes and put them into the lunchboxes she insisted on making for me. They wouldn’t say much…
I’m wearing no panties. When you come home, come find me, and without saying a word fuck me. xMina
Or it would say…
When you eat these corned beef sandwiches, just remember I t
hought of you while I was spreading the mustard and I will think of you all day until you return to me and spread my legs. xMina
But she had not left her last letter to be found by me. She had posted it. It arrived a day after the ‘incident’. At that time I was so shocked I read the whole thing twice and could not understand anything.
For days afterwards I had stared at it without any real comprehension. I mean, I understood the meaning of every word and I got each sentence when taken separately, but as a whole, in context: what the fuck was it all about? What the hell was she going on about?
Then I would think of her buying that grenade. I mean, who does that? Who blows themselves up with a grenade? People gas themselves in the privacy of their garage or take sleeping pills or slit their wrists, and the really scary ones launch themselves off buildings, but grenades? Wow! And afterwards, buying all those gas canisters just to make sure that nothing worth saving would come out of her bonfire.
If total annihilation with an audience was her intention she certainly succeeded. I saw it all happen in slow motion: the explosion, red first, then blossoming into orange, the middle turning white, then back to orange and red. Then smoke: thick, black, acrid smoke. I had lain on the ground and watched the car’s doors fly away, the glass shattering outwards and upwards, while all around me fiery debris rained from the sky. Roxy’s shoe was the hard part. The way it landed next to me, charred and heartbreakingly small.
Like a taunt. See, how powerful I am.
I used to stare into the bottom of a glass of whiskey and replay the memory of her, as she was the day before she died, chewing on an apple, laughing, an almost sublime expression on her face, as she watched me playing with the children. How could a woman wearing such an expression be thinking of ending it all the next day?
There had been nothing. Nothing to tell me she was unhappy, upset, or standing on the verge of committing suicide and taking our children with her. It was the most perplexing, shocking thing. Finally, I phoned her best friend.
‘Did you know that Maria thought we were having an affair?’
‘What?’ she had almost shouted down the phone.
‘She thought we were having an affair,’ I repeated.
