第 23 页

I talked to him this evening, as we sat in the dining room. “Can I ask you a question?” I said, and then, when he looked up, “Why did we never have children?” I suppose I was testing him. I willed him to tell me the truth, to contradict my assertion.

“It never seemed to be the right time,” he said. “And then it was too late.”

I pushed my plate of food to the side. I was disappointed. He had got home late, called out my name as he came in, asked me how I was. “Where are you?” he’d said. It had sounded like an accusation.

I shouted that I was in the kitchen. I was preparing dinner, chopping onions to fry in the olive oil I was heating on the stove. He stood in the doorway, as if hesitant to enter the room. He looked tired. Unhappy. “Are you okay?” I said.

He saw the knife in my hand. “What are you doing?”

“Just cooking dinner,” I said. I smiled, but he did not reciprocate. “I thought we could have an omelet. I found some eggs in the fridge, and some mushrooms. Do we have any potatoes? I couldn’t find any anywhere, I—”

“I had planned for us to have pork chops,” he said. “I bought some. Yesterday. I thought we could have those.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I—”

“But no. An omelet is fine. If that’s what you want.”

I could feel the conversation slipping, down into a place I didn’t want it to go. He was staring at the chopping board, above which my hand hovered, clutching the knife.

“No,” I said. I laughed, but he did not laugh with me. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t realize. I can always—”

“You’ve chopped the onions now,” he said. His words were flat. A statement of fact, unadorned.

“I know, but . . . We could still have the chops?”

“Whatever you think,” he said. He turned around, to go into the dining room. “I’ll set the table.” I did not answer. I did not know what it was that I had done, if anything. I went back to the onions.

Now we sat opposite each other. We had eaten in near-silence. I had asked him if everything was okay, but he had shrugged and said that it was. “It’s been a long day,” was all he would tell me, adding nothing but “at work,” when I looked for more. Discussion was choked off before it had really begun, and I thought better of telling him about my journal and Dr. Nash. I picked at my food, tried not to worry—after all, I told myself, he is entitled to have bad days, too—but anxiety gnawed at me. I could feel the opportunity to speak slipping away, and did not know whether I would wake tomorrow with the same conviction that it was the right thing to do. Eventually, I could bear it no longer. “But did we want children?” I said.

He sighed. “Christine, do we have to?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I still didn’t know what I was going to say, if anything. It might have been better to just let it go. But I realized I could not do that. “It’s just that the oddest thing happened today,” I said. I was trying to inject levity into my voice, a breeziness I did not feel. “I just thought I’d remembered something.”

“Something?”

“Yes. Oh, I don’t know . . .”

“Go on,” he said. He leaned forward, suddenly eager. “What did you remember?”

My eyes fixed on the wall behind him. A picture hung there, a photograph. Petals of a flower, close up but black-and-white, with beads of water still clinging to them. It looked cheap, I thought. As if it belonged in a department store, not someone’s home.

“I remembered having a baby.”

He sat back in his chair. His eyes widened, and then closed completely. He took a breath, letting it out in a long sigh.

“Is it true?” I said. “Did we have a baby?” If he lies now, I thought, then I don’t know what I will do. Argue with him, I suppose. Tell him everything in one uncontrolled, catastrophic outpouring. He opened his eyes and looked into mine.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s true.”

He told me about Adam, and relief flooded me. Relief, but tinged with pain. All those years, lost forever. All those moments that I have no memory of, that I can never get back. I felt longing stir within me, felt it grow, so big that I felt it might engulf me. Ben told me about Adam’s birth, his childhood, his life. Where he’d gone to school, the Nativity play he’d been in; his skills on the soccer field and the running track, his disappointment in his exam results. Girlfriends. The time an indiscreet roll-up had been mistaken for a joint. I asked questions and he answered them; he seemed happy to be talking about his son, as if his mood was chased away by memory.

I found myself closing my eyes as he spoke. Images floated through me—images of Adam, and me, and Ben—but I couldn’t say whether they were memories or imaginings. When he finished, I opened my eyes and for a moment was shocked at who I saw sitting in front of me, at how old he had become, how unlike the young father I had been imagining. “But there are no photographs of him,” I said. “Anywhere.”

He looked uncomfortable. “I know,” he said. “You get upset.”

“Upset?”

He said nothing. Perhaps he did not have the strength to tell me about Adam’s death. He looked defeated, somehow. Drained. I felt guilty for what I was doing to him, what I did to him, every day.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I know he’s dead.”

He looked surprised. Hesitant. “You . . . know?”

“Yes,” I said. I was about to tell him about my journal, that he had told me everything before, but I did not. His mood still seemed fragile, the air tense. It could wait. “I just feel it,” I said.

“That makes sense. I’ve told you about it before.”

It was true, of course. He had. Just as he had told me about Adam’s life before. And yet, I realized, one story felt real and the other did not. I realized that I did not believe that my son was dead.

“Tell me again,” I said.

He told me about the war, the roadside bomb. I listened, as calmly as I could. He talked about Adam’s funeral, told me about the salvo of shots that had been fired over the coffin, the Union Jack that was draped over it. I tried to push my mind toward memories, even ones as difficult—as horrific—as that. Nothing would come.

“I want to go there,” I said. “I want to see his grave.”

“Chris,” he said. “I’m not sure . . .”

I realized that, without memory, I would have to see evidence that he was dead, or else forever carry around the hope that he was not. “I want to,” I said. “I have to.”

I still thought he might say no. Might tell me he didn’t think it was a good idea, that it might upset me far too much. What would I do then? How could I force him?

But he did not. “We’ll go on the weekend,” he said. “I promise.”

Relief mixed with terror, leaving me numb.

We tidied away the dinner plates. I stood at the sink, dipping the dishes he passed to me into hot, soapy water, scrubbing them, passing them back to him to be dried, all the time avoiding my reflection in the window. I forced myself to think of Adam’s funeral, imagined myself standing on the grass on an overcast day, next to a mound of earth, looking at a coffin suspended over the hole in the ground. I tried to imagine the volley of shots, the lone bugler, playing, as we—his family, his friends—sobbed in silence.

But I could not. It was not long ago and yet I saw nothing. I tried to imagine how I must have felt. I would have woken up that morning without any knowledge that I was even a mother; Ben must have first had to convince me that I had a son, and then that we were to spend that very afternoon burying him. I imagine not horror but numbness, disbelief. Unreality. There is only so much that a mind can take and surely none can cope with that, certainly not mine. I pictured myself being told what to wear, led from the house to a waiting car, settled in the backseat. Perhaps I wondered whose funeral we were really going to as we drove. Possibly it felt like mine.

I looked at Ben’s reflection in the window. He would have had to cope with all that, at a time when his own grief was at its most acute. It might have been kinder, for all of us, if he had not taken me to the funeral at all. With a chill, I wondered if that was what he had really done.

I still did not know whether to tell him about Dr. Nash. He looked tired again, now, almost depressed. He smiled only when I caught his gaze and smiled at him. Perhaps later, I thought, though whether there might be a better time I did not know. I could not help but feel I was to blame for his mood, either through something I had done or something I had not. I realized how much I really cared for this man. I could not say whether I loved him—and still can’t—but that is because I don’t really know what love is. Despite the nebulous, shimmering memory I have of him, I feel love for Adam, an instinct to protect him, the desire to give him everything, the feeling that he is part of me and without him I am incomplete. For my mother, too, when my mind sees her, I feel a different love. A more complex bond, with caveats and reservations. Not one I fully understand. But Ben? I find him attractive. I trust him—despite the lies he has told me, I know that he has only my best interests at heart—but can I say I love him, when I am only distantly aware of having known him for more than a few hours?

I did not know. But I wanted him to be happy, and, on some level, I understood that I wanted to be the person to make him so. I must make more effort, I decided. Take control. This journal could be a tool to improve both our lives, not just mine.

I was about to ask how he was when it happened. I must have let go of the plate before he had gripped it; it clattered to the floor—accompanied by Ben’s muttered Shit!—and shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces. “Sorry!” I said, but Ben did not look at me. He sank to the floor, cursing under his breath. “I’ll do that,” I said, but he ignored me and instead began snatching at the larger chunks, collecting them in his right hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’m so clumsy!”

I don’t know what I expected. Forgiveness, I suppose, or the reassurance that it wasn’t important. But, instead, Ben said, “Fuck!” He dropped the remains of the plate and began to suck the thumb of his left hand. Droplets of blood spattered the linoleum.

“Are you okay?” I said.

He looked up at me. “Yes, yes. I cut myself, that’s all. Stupid fucking . . .”

“Let me see.”

“It’s nothing,” he said. He stood up.

“Let me see,” I said again. I reached for his hand. “I’ll go and get a Band-Aid. Do we—?”

“For fuck’s sake!” he said, batting my hand away. “Just leave it! Okay?”

I was stunned. I could see the cut was deep; blood welled at its edge and ran in a thin line down his wrist. I did not know what to do, what to say. He had not shouted, exactly, but neither had he made any attempt to hide his annoyance. We faced each other, in limbo, balanced on the edge of an argument, each waiting for the other to speak, both unsure what had happened, how much significance the moment had held.

I could not stand it. “I’m sorry,” I said, even though part of me resented it.

His face softened. “It’s okay. I’m sorry too.” He paused. “I just feel tense, I think. It’s been a very long day.”

I took a paper towel and handed it to him. “You should clean yourself up.”

He took it from me. “Thanks,” he said, dabbing the blood on his wrist and fingers. “I’ll just go upstairs. Take a shower.” He bent forward, kissed me. “Okay?”

He turned and left the room.

I heard the bathroom door close, a tap turn on. The boiler next to me fired to life. I gathered the rest of the pieces of the plate and put them in the garbage, wrapping them in paper first, then swept up the tinier fragments before finally sponging up the blood. When I had finished, I went into the living room.

The flip-top phone was ringing, muffled by my bag. I took it out. Dr. Nash.

The TV was still on. Above me, I could hear the creak of floorboards as Ben moved from room to room upstairs. I did not want him to hear me, talking on a phone he does not know I have. I whispered, “Hello?”

“Christine,” came the voice. “It’s Ed. Dr. Nash. Can you speak?”

While this afternoon he had sounded calm, almost reflective, now his voice was urgent. I began to feel afraid.

“Yes,” I said, lowering my voice still further. “What is it?”

“Listen,” he said. “Have you spoken to Ben yet?”

“Yes,” I said. “Sort of. Why? What’s wrong?”

“Did you tell him about your journal? About me? Did you invite him to Waring House?”

“No,” I said. “I was about to. He’s upstairs, I— What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s probably nothing to worry about. It’s just that someone from Waring House just called me. The woman I spoke to this morning? Nicole? She wanted to give me a phone number. She said that your friend Claire has apparently called there, wanting to talk to you. She left her number.”

I felt myself tense. I heard the toilet flush and the sound of water in the sink. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Recently?”

“No,” he said. “It was a couple of weeks after you left to go and live with Ben. When you weren’t there she took Ben’s number, but, well, they said she called again later and said she couldn’t get through to him. She asked them if they’d give her your address. They couldn’t do that, of course, but said that she could leave her number with them, in case you or Ben ever called. Nicole found a note in your file after we spoke this morning, and she rang back to give the number to me.”

I didn’t understand. “But why didn’t they just mail it to me? Or to Ben?”

“Well, Nicole said they did. But they never heard back from either of you.” He paused.

“Ben handles all the mail,” I said. “He picks it up in the morning. Well, he did today, anyway . . .”

“Has Ben given you Claire’s number?”

“No,” I said. “No. He said we haven’t been in touch for years. She moved away, not long after we got married. New Zealand.”

“Okay,” he said, and then, “Christine? You told me that before, and . . . well . . . it’s not an international number.”

I felt a billowing sense of dread, though still I could not say why.

“So, she moved back?”

“Nicole said that Claire used to visit you all the time at Waring House. She was there almost as much as Ben was. Nicole never heard anything about her moving away. Not to New Zealand. Not anywhere.”

It felt as though everything was suddenly taking off, things were moving too fast for me to keep up with them. I could hear Ben, upstairs. The water had stopped running now, the boiler was silent. There must be a rational explanation, I thought. There has to be. I felt that all I had to do was to slow things down so that I could catch up, could work out what it was. I wanted him to stop talking, to undo the things he had said, but he did not.

“There’s something else,” said Nash. “I’m sorry, Christine, but Nicole asked me how you were doing, and I told her. She said she was surprised that you were back living with Ben. I asked why.”

“Okay,” I heard myself say. “Go on.”

“I’m sorry, Christine, but listen. She said that you and Ben were divorced.”