Consent Page 10

  Patrick begins to laugh, and soon she understands. Now she’s trying not to laugh as well, or not laugh loudly. They veritably shake, the two of them. She is going to have to tell the driver to stop soon, but doesn’t trust herself to speak.

  Here, she manages.

  Just here?

  There’s a smile in his voice too.

  Yes, she says, relieved.

  The house is dark and still.

  Patrick passes some notes through the taxi window and says keep the change. She unlocks the front door, and with a finger tells him to wait on the step. A quick search satisfies her that the house is empty. She tidies as she goes.

  My housemate, she says when she returns. I wasn’t sure if she’d be in.

  I live alone, he says.

  But it’s easier to kiss, and in they stumble. His hands resume before the door is closed. They go underneath her jacket. They cover and contain her. She tries but her arms won’t go round him. She’s lost in the heat of alcohol and laughter and how long it’s been since she had grip on a man.

  He lets his jacket fall and she does too. Her shirt she leaves for him. His fingers pick roughly at the buttons until she totters back against a radiator, half undone. He lifts her off the ground with ease. She closes her eyes and feels herself crushed against the wall. Pressing him away with her palms, she forces him to put her down again. She takes his hand and leads him to the stairs, extremely ready.

  *

  Are you the same person now that you were a year ago? Or ten years? Just consider it. Consider how you feel. Myself, I find the question peculiarly hard. I can remember things I did, and things I knew, and how I felt, and I suppose I am a changed person, but what does that mean? Can people change and still be themselves? Or does changing change who you are? The question has been asked since Heraclitus at least.

  Recklessness is interesting. You’ll know the feeling, I expect, when a kind of lust for now swamps all good sense. Who-you-are-now just wants something and that’s the end of it, because who-you-are-going-to-be will pay the bill. To me, this suggests that you are different people at those different times, otherwise you would value the feelings of each moment equally. It certainly seems wrong to feel guilty afterwards. You-now can hardly be responsible for the choices you-then made so selfishly. I suppose this may explain guilt’s popularity. It holds you together by a thread that you are reluctant to let go.

  I have another question. If I had a machine that could instantly and exactly duplicate every particle and energy state in your body, would the copy of you it produced be you as well? It would certainly think it was, since it would have all your memories. Yet I would know which was the original, and it feels to me like that would matter a great deal. You cannot suddenly have two lives, surely? On being told that it had lived only a few seconds, that all its memories were copies, I expect the duplicate of you would be very upset.

  Where this leaves us, I think, is having to accept that neither you nor I exist materially. You are neither your mind nor your body. You are your story. Think of yourself as a stack of snapshots taken at every instant of your life, each very like the one above and below it, but no two identical. That’s who you are, not the snapshots themselves but the sequence of them. It’s when time drags a finger down the corners that you come to life.

  *

  One at a time we were taken away to make statements. There was another office across the concourse, which they’d made private by rigging some kind of blanket against the glass. We who were left just watched the escalator running. We saw police and the orange vests of the engineers. A long dark bag was carried up on a stretcher, rather decorously, we knew, for the mess inside. We saw the cleaners going down.

  When they finished asking me what I’d seen and making me sign things, the police gave me a leaflet. Victim Support, it said, and underneath in cursive script, We’re here to help. I’m looking at it now. It makes me think. Am I a victim? A subhead answers my question with a question. Do you need counselling? Well maybe I did need it, but I didn’t feel so then. I felt drugged. I was flying. There was a kind of wildness and escape. I’d taken a not at all calculated risk, but I felt more free than frightened. What I’d done for her, for both of us, it belonged in legend. Like something for the Greeks, or Shakespeare. Besides, I’d lived circumscribed by good sense for many years, and the lack of risk imparts a stealthy kind of drift to life, which is a risk in its own right. Maybe that’s why we inoculate ourselves with the synthetic jeopardy of stories. Maybe danger is a food group.

  Suffice it to say I’ve not discussed Will’s death with anyone before now, but I have often contemplated the discussion. I imagine being asked Why? and my answer is always that the feeling I found on the station platform doesn’t have a name that I know, but it’s in the same family as the lure of cliff edges and car accidents. The feeling was strong, and I couldn’t help it. I did it for justice, for Frances, for the sake of it, for myself.

  I went home. Police said they’d drive me but I said no thanks. I wanted the meander. For several hours I sat on buses thinking about Frances. I wanted to go to her and say what I’d done, but I became tangled by my hesitations. I don’t know when I got back. Quite late. I remember putting away the glasses and showering the gel grooves from my hair. I didn’t sleep much. I rose early again the next day.

  *

  Patrick leans out of bed and fetches cigarettes from among his clothes. He offers them over. He must have been abstaining all this time. The ghost was in his hair. Frances says no thanks. He reaches for his lighter, but the reach becomes a search, conducted in phases marked by thwarted sighs and little groans of effort. She watches the triangle of his hip and shoulder flex in the lamplight, the grid of his ribs.

  OK, she says. Give me one, and yelps as the packet flies over.

  The lighter at last found, she flicks the lamp off and opens the window, wrapping herself in a counterpane against the cold. He takes her cigarette and lights it in his lips with his. He looks still bigger naked, more serious. They smoke silently for a while, aiming their outbreaths through the curtains.

  I know what you should do, he says. You should say you’ll tell the client everything, unless you get your job back.

  Yes, I’ve thought about that. It’s my nuclear deterrent. But I’d be finished in consulting if I went through with it. I’d probably be finished just by making the threat.

  His ember nods and rustles. They fall silent again.

  People get sex all wrong, she thinks. It’s not an expression of being connected to someone. It’s a way for people to connect. Or maybe she’s not good at connecting in other ways. Certainly it’s rare for her to feel the kind of intimacy, even with good friends, that she feels now in the dark with this naked stranger. Perhaps that’s lust’s ulterior motive, to lead her here to these calm aftertimes. Perhaps that underlies her liking for haphazard and unsuitable partners. Unsuited to the main part of her life anyway. You don’t get this kind of peace with suitable people, people like colleagues or friends, people you have a future with. After sex with them you have silences of other kinds. Of course she can guess what’s said about her, and cares not a bit whether the guess is right. All the suitable relationships she sees when she looks around are either patched with compromises or flat. There’s romance in the sad brief truth of flings.

  I suppose, he begins …

  Oh forget it. She blows out smoke. Tell me about your business. What do you deliver?

  Anything. Anything you can put in a van. A lot of chairs and desks and stuff, for this office supplies company. Books? Architectural models? Design prototypes? That’s probably the most interesting. I work with a few architects and designers.

  They must really trust you to move stuff like that.

  Yeah. I think they do. Obviously you empty the van and strap everything down. I also found this tool that plots a route without speed bumps. Or hardly any.

  Clever. How many vans do you operate?

  Well, he says, a
nd straight away she knows that it’s one. It depends on the job. You don’t want lots of vans parked up all the time, costing you tax and interest payments, so I like to keep a small core for regular or short-notice work, with access to more drivers and a bigger fleet when I need it. If I got an order right now that needed fifty vans, I could fill it. No trouble.

  Have you looked at the online auctions market?

  Not in detail.

  It’s just that there’s still growth in most online sectors. It’s demographically driven, so it’s pretty secure. Basically old people who don’t understand computers are dying all the time and being replaced by people who grew up with them. Most markets are already crowded, but because they are still expanding that creates niches like yours. Fragile goods specialists, I mean.

  He is nodding.

  If you get on there and position yourself that way, you might find a lot more business, and at a negligible upfront cost. Look at what the competition is charging, if there is a competition, then decide whether you offer a clearly better service, or could do it cheaper. It’s probably best to start cheap anyway, while you get the hang of things and people get to know you. Mention the speed bumps. That’s great.

  Mmm. Thanks.

  Back in bed they put their arms around each other. She disengages to find a more comfortable position, then he does, then they go to sleep.

  *

  UHF audio and video transmitters are cheap and small but as I may have said they have a limited range. That’s why spies and cops in movies have to wait outside in a van. Not being able to wait continuously myself, I had therefore installed some miniature recording devices alongside the transmitters, much as I did with Nina. In order to upload the contents I’d need to visit now and then, like a fisherman checking lobster pots. Thanks to the transmitters however, I could rest against the wheel arch with my headphones on, waiting for someone to wake up. I dozed peacefully.

  Shortly before 8.30 a car pulled up beside the van. It paused, then parked behind me. I wound back the video. It was a police car. The doors opened, but instead of knocking on my window or flinging the van open, which I was braced for, the two officers crossed to Frances’s doorstep, then pressed the bell.

  Thuds. A mechanism. Feet finding rhythm on the stairs.

  Frances herself at the door in a dressing gown, sleep’s disorder in her hair, its chalk on her skin. Poor thing. Face agape with worry.

  They took her to the living room and told her. For a while she said only, I see.

  More feet on the stairs. Slower ones this time.

  Is everything OK?

  A man’s voice.

  No, actually. Someone at work has had an accident. Sorry, can we have a minute?

  The police assented. On the kitchen microphone I heard the man say,

  Are you OK?

  I don’t know. It’s, um … Look, let’s talk later. What’s your number?

  He recited the digits. Patrick from the pub. Then her voice said,

  I’ll call you so you have mine.

  Cool … No, hang on, my phone’s dead.

  OK. Wait a minute. Um. Use that.

  Thanks. Sorry but I’m late for a job. I’d better go, OK?

  OK. See you.

  I hope things work out.

  More footsteps.

  Sorry about that.

  She was back in the front room.

  He opened the door in last night’s clothes and scanned the street. When you’ve studied guys like this you learn that furtive and strutting are the two styles. It’s either the quick arms and the chin victorious or it’s this clownish shrinking out of sight. They always think someone must be watching, they have such admiration for themselves.

  The police said that Frances was seen arguing with Will shortly before what they would only call the incident.

  Out of sight of the house, Patrick’s walk got its jostle back. He’d done her and was thinking, as they do think, young men like him, that sex is theft. It’s probably best that we don’t have his thoughts in detail, better not to know what Frances was to him. Just remember that one day he’ll get his. It’s the tragedy of youth, the belief that these are the good times, that they’ll soon be over, and the way that the belief itself makes this come true.

  That’s right. There were some problems at work.

  The police said her colleagues mentioned that.

  Could you tell us what you remember about his behaviour?

  Patrick took a phone out of his pocket and held it to his ear.

  Well. We were on the street. We argued actually. As I say, we’re going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment. We were. It’s complicated. I was angry … Sorry, I’ve literally just got up.

  In the front room they tell her what has happened, the fire remnants cold in the grate, a woman and a man. The woman does the talking. She is good at it, quiet and slow, giving each piece its time. To look at, she’s all hands in her lap and level eyes and sorrowful resolve like a hangman’s. It would be her speciality, the grief knock, a matter of repute down the station and delegated gladly. Frances wonders whether this woman also gave the news to Will’s wife Sophie. She thinks of Sophie this morning, gathering the girls.

  It appears to have been an accident, the policewoman is saying like it could have been something else. Was Will depressed?

  Frances thinks. Was he? She knows they don’t always seem it, the depressed, but Will really did seem quite the other way. Maybe he did write the email and knowing he was about to be exposed thought the prospect worse than dying. Had her shouting found its target? It hadn’t seemed so. And what would it mean for her? Would she return to work his murderer or his victim? Through the mists of the moment she can’t tell. She keeps thinking about his girls.

  Is everything OK? Patrick is dressed and leaning in from the hall, leaning not entering.

  No, actually. Someone at work has had an accident. Sorry, can we have a minute?

  The policewoman agrees and Frances takes Patrick to the kitchen. She has no wish to see him again, but can’t summon the bluntness of not swapping numbers. They don’t even kiss goodbye. Fifteen hours since they met. Fourteen since Will died. It could be months. Last week was years ago.

  When she returns the police ask where she and Will left things. She’d expected some of this. Why else make the trip to tell a colleague? Maybe the man was watching how she took the news. She tells them everything, in a gentle version. Her feelings have softened after all. She asks them to wait while she gets dressed, and brings down the email for them to read.

  Where exactly did she go after the dispute with Will?

  Back into the pub. To the table with Patrick.

  How much longer did she stay there?

  An hour or two? A while. I don’t know.

  Did she leave the pub at all during that time? Maybe get something to eat? Go for a smoke?

  I don’t smoke. No, I mean. No, I didn’t leave.

  Is Patrick a friend? A boyfriend? A colleague …?

  They let the interrogative note hang, to show that of course the endless variability in the types of human relationship cannot possibly be represented by a list of standard terms, and that they’re fine with that, because, both as police and despite being police, they celebrate all lifestyles.

  It’s complicated, she says.

  Her feet are cold. Having gone to get dressed, she wonders if it would look evasive to go again for slippers.

  They want to know if Patrick spoke to Will or saw him.

  No. He stayed inside. I mean he might have seen him through the window …

  Patrick? they say, and suspend the word again.

  You want his surname?

  They do, but she knows she doesn’t know it. They let her think for a long time, the bastards. She hates them for their tact.

  At last they stand, their uniforms rustling. They say they’re sorry for bringing such sad news. They thank her for her time. There’s no hurry, they say, but if possible they’d like a phon
e number for Patrick, and maybe his address? She gives them the number she has and they leave theirs in case she thinks of something. The cat suggests breakfast round her shins. She wonders if she should have had a lawyer present.

  *

  It’s important to keep your distance in these situations, by which I don’t mean enough yards of pavement, though it’s important to keep those too, but emotions-wise. I learned this the hard way with my seventy-first subject, Evangeline F. She was thirty-four years old, divorced with children, and her boyfriend hit her. You wouldn’t know. I didn’t know. Whatever his feelings at the time, they never overpowered him to the extent that he hit her in the face. I only discovered what was going on when I overheard one of his apologies on a Sunday morning. We were in a playground, him, Evangeline and me, plus a lot of other people. He went on a great tour of his regrets while the kids took turns on the slide and limping Ange stood silent. You could see that bugged him. With hindsight, he obviously regretted beating her, so now, being sorry, he expected to be forgiven. He thought that’s what being sorry got you, and did not at all like being refused. So he kept talking. He kept talking and talking, trying new phrases, new angles, new combinations of old phrases and angles, right through his repertoire of passwords to her anger. He did his best but he was not a patient man. Soon he was on her share of the blame. Ange said nothing. Now and then a child called out to have its exploits witnessed, and she would brighten and congratulate them. Nothing for him. Yet she did not kick him out. That puzzled me until later in the week when, after work, she at last shared her problems with two friends, who had all but guessed already. She said she knew it was what beaten women said, but she did think he was trying to change, and that she owed the kids stability. They’ve already lost one dad. I underlined those words. Her friends did not contradict her. I suspect they were keeping straight faces in order to respond more credibly to any future hints of a changed mind. I watched for hints myself over the weeks that followed, but I didn’t see any. I saw more beatings, or their results. It got depressing and I tried a couple of times to move on to other subjects, but I found it hard to concentrate and kept coming back to check on Ange. I’d wait outside her flat, full of hope, then see the way she walked to work, and I’d just know. She looked sadder some times than others. Otherwise nothing changed. You could only hope that eventually her stoicism would be weaker than her ribs. Then by chance I became aware of a technique the guy was using to inflate his social security payments. For days I agonised over whether to inform the authorities. At last I did, and the guy skipped town. I was delighted, as were the children. They hadn’t cared for him at all. But it brought a change in Evangeline. Friends told her she was better off without him, but she didn’t see it that way. Pretty soon she was fully depressed, unable to work, neglectful of the children. Worse, when she found out that the guy had a new girl, she became vindictively fixated. She took to making silent phone calls and sending weird things in the post. It was hard to say what she hoped to achieve. By then I don’t think her behaviour had reasons you or I would recognise. Now I realise that I’d mistaken her suffering for virtue, which is the kind of moral hallucination that empathy induces if you don’t keep properly detached. When you see Patrick leave, and you leave your van to follow him, you must be sturdy. You can’t be flotsam on your feelings.