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I can and I do.
The homeless lad wasn’t on his bench; he was on the pub doorstep in a sleeping bag. I said the cheeriest good morning I could manage. The top of the sleeping bag unfolded. He was wearing a woolly hat.
‘Morning,’ he said and gave me the most generous, most beautiful smile I’d seen in a long time. His eyes were blue, like Kieron’s; I think I saw that for the first time.
‘Are you not cold?’ I asked him.
He shrugged. ‘A bit.’
‘I’ll bring you your tea, won’t be a tick. Or coffee, if you prefer?’
‘Coffee, please. Thank you.’
I returned his smile, unlocked the door and switched on the lights, which flickered and flashed. I stood in the lounge bar, my back pressed against the door. Empty chairs sat upturned on empty tables, the slot machine stood lifeless in the corner, spirits of amber and brown, yellow and clear, waited in their optics, upside down and doubled up in the mirror. Behind me, the latch clicked shut.
‘Please God,’ I said. ‘Please let me not be responsible for Anne-Marie. Please let it turn out to be someone else.’
Blue Eyes narrows her eyes, recrosses her legs and leans forward. ‘So, as late as Saturday morning, you still believed you hadn’t attacked or killed anyone?’
‘Yes, at that moment. Or hoped. Belief, hope – not much between them, is there? Both a question of faith, I suppose.’
‘Why do you think that was?’
‘Because my memory offered me nothing, not one shred, to make me believe that I’d done anything so terrible. Not then.’
‘What about the flashbacks?’
‘That’s all they were. Flashbacks. Images. As I say, nothing concrete. I suppose I still had hope, so that’s what I clung to.’
Hope. Hope that Mark’s knife would not match the wounds on poor Anne-Marie, hope that the blood on my tissues was my own. Hope that my proximity to every single attack could be explained away by coincidence even though one coincidence is believable, three not so much. Hope that the police would discover some incriminating piece of evidence that pointed to a local madman.
My phone buzzed. A text. Lisa.Are you OK? Thinking of you. Call me any time. I’m here, you know that. Xx
I switched my phone off, felt my mouth contort. Anger had turned, as anger will, to hate.
I don’t know what’s worse, being betrayed by your husband or your best friend. A love triangle straight from one of the Trollope books I used to borrow from the library. There was something old-fashioned about it, a bit seventies – like sexism, or racism or homophobia:Take my missus, I wish somebody would;Hey up, Chalky;I’m free,what a gay day.Laughter from a can. Sunburn. Sideburns. Sheepskin coats.
In the staff kitchen of the pub, I pressed my fists to my temples and roared. So much for my dear ones not seeing me. Turns out I hadn’t seenthemat all, was blind to all but strangers.
The kettle rumbled. I took the young chap his coffee.
‘What’s your name, love?’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry I haven’t asked you before.’
‘Ian,’ he said. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Rachel,’ I said.
‘Pleased to meet you.’ That lovely smile again. All the warmth of the sun in it.
‘You too.’
I told him I’d be back in a minute. I had to get away, away from the bar, from everything. I locked the pub door and walked away, to the canal, to where I’d seen that GP, and carried on, left, towards the arts centre. The day was up, thick white cloud above me, the black water of the canal below. A man had been strangled and dumped in the water here in the eighties, under the bridge, they said. I remembered it from when I was a kid. I stood on tiptoe, caught the reflection of the top of my head. Water is a mirror. Life is a mirror. Mark never looked at me. But if you want someone to look at you, really look at you and see, chances are you have to look at them. You have to see them too. And I hadn’t looked at him. Not for a year.
I walked back into town, past the swimming baths, round the corner into Church Street, past the betting shop and back to work. I didn’t care about being late opening up but I didn’t know what to do other than this. I had nowhere else to go, no one left, no one at all. All I had were the seconds, the minutes, the hours of this horrific day, of every day after this one, hours upon hours, chiming on a great cosmic clock. I had the town, the Co-op, the Barley Mow pub.
I had Dave, who, when he popped in to see if I was OK – checking up, more like – at around midday, in a newsworthy act, made me a cup of tea.
‘Are you all right, Rachel?’ he asked. ‘Sure you’re OK?’
