She closes her eyes.
“Hey,” he says, “hey,” placing his fingers at their corners and opening them. “Sadie.” She looks back at him. “Thank you,” he says, his voice low and caressing. His eyes have the flat cool gleam of metal. She can see nothing behind them, not even her own reflection.
He pushes his body against hers suddenly, standing over her where she sits on the little wooden table against the wall. The shock of it makes her gasp. This is what she’s dreamed of, wanted so fiercely for what feels like years, and even though it’s all mixed up with the ugliness of what has just happened here—in this very room—it’s euphoric, shocking her with its intensity, and it blows everything else out of her head like a hurricane.
His mouth comes down to hers, and she feels it move against her skin, his tongue flicking sensuously across her lower lip. He kisses her harder, slipping his hands around her waist and holding her against him. The sudden need floods through her, drenching her. She can taste his skin, the mix of salt and sweet, and when he slides his hand up beneath her dress she cries out as if he has slapped her. She hears him unzip the fly of his trousers, and wraps her legs tight around his waist, urging him inside her. His teeth are grazing the skin of her collarbone, his hands encircling her thighs, and pulling her toward him. There is nothing in her mind now, nothing but the urgency of wanting him there and then, with no room for thought or delay. He stares at her as he enters her, and the power of his gaze, the liquid darkness of his eyes, forces a moan helplessly from her throat. Slowly at first, then faster, he begins to move his hips, his arms stock still and holding her there on the table. It is hard and brutal, setting all her senses on fire. Come for me, he hisses, and she does, and it’s the best it’s ever been.
But then it’s over. And in no more than a second she feels everything drain away and she’s back there in the room, her body numb and sore and with nothing to block out the reality of what she has done.
“Wait ten minutes before you leave,” he says, breaking away from her, doing up his trousers. She watches his strong hands wrench the belt into place. He throws her a brief glance before he leaves. It is not the sort of look you would give a lover; it is cold, searching, and it issues a warning.
She sits there in the empty room, feeling the cool air trickle over her bare shoulders and thighs. Ten minutes is not long, but it is long enough for her to realize something that should have occurred to her weeks before. It comes to her that Kas’s interest in her is not, as she has always thought, because of her strength, her independence, or her defiance. It is because of her weakness. He has recognized something in her that few people have ever seen: a malleability, a desire to please that will overstep normal boundaries. A willingness to do anything. She sees this with clarity now, but it is too late.
* * *
• • •
HIS TEXT MESSAGE wakes her the next day: Best if you stay away for a while, baby. I’ll be in touch. X. Over the next three weeks she looks at it again and again, wrenching drops of new meaning from it. He isn’t simply telling her to stay away; he’s protecting her, shielding her from something, and he’s promising that he’ll be back, that whatever it is between them isn’t finished. She is his baby.
In those weeks she reworks those few minutes in the basement repeatedly, and just as with the text message, she soon finds herself remembering them differently. Perhaps the look he gave her when he left hadn’t been cold, after all, but simply intense—caught up in the passion they had just experienced. That at least isn’t something she has to warp or refigure. She remembers every detail: the seamless fit of his body to hers; the speed and the violence of it; the pure, perfect chemistry that has always eluded her before. It must mean something. It has to. She knows that Kas has made some bad choices, but it’s part of the life he has grown up in; something that he has to do to stay on top and which he could leave behind, which he will leave behind, once they are together properly. Her thoughts skate around the truth, and when she allows the images of those two men—George Hart, Felix Santos—to slip into her mind she blocks them straight out.
Murderer. Sometimes she finds the word there in her head, clear and present. But she just lets it linger there for a moment, and the sound and the shape of it is so unfamiliar that she can’t connect it with reality and it fades away again. Surely, this isn’t who he is.
She goes through those three weeks on autopilot, barely speaking to anyone. After the disastrous interview at the office, Rachel snapped out a few crisp words about humiliation and washing her hands of the situation, and she’s avoided her ever since. Their paths rarely cross, and when they do, Rachel behaves as if she’s alone in the room, her jaw set into a hard, defiant line. When Sadie lets herself think about it, it hurts. So she doesn’t, and it just becomes another thing to block out, another part of the churning white noise that fizzes constantly around her like static. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight, and so she tells herself that she had better get used to it—that this strange, sleepwalking stasis is how it’s going to be for her now.
It’s the twelfth of January before something happens to jolt her out of it. She’s walking the streets around Covent Garden in the late afternoon as dusk begins to fall, staring at the market stalls, when she sees a little ornamental desk calendar propped up on one of them. It’s the kind that you move little painted numbered blocks around to form the correct date, and as she looks at the curved figures of the twelve, something clicks. Her period falls on the sixth every month, regular as clockwork. She can’t remember the last time she was late. And yet here she is, almost a week on, and her body is resolutely unprepared, with none of the usual twinges of oncoming cramp or the slight oiliness of her skin.
She stands quite still for a few moments, and then she turns and runs, back up toward the station and down a side street where she knows there is a pharmacy. She makes straight for the family planning section and snatches up the nearest test, then pays for it, fumbling with her wallet and snapping at the saleslady who is so slow at finding a bag that in the end she just snatches it and runs out of the store again. She makes a run for the pub across the street, elbows her way past the little clutches of people gathered outside. Swerving past the bar, she finds the toilet and locks herself in the cubicle, panting and catching her breath. Her bladder is full to bursting and she lets the stream flow, her fingers shaking as she holds the test in place and then stares at it, counting the seconds in her head. She has heard that most people like to hide it until the three minutes are up, prepare for a moment of sudden revelation. But she isn’t like most people and she doesn’t take her eyes off the stick, and so she sees every fraction of the change, the shifting colored molecules that start off gray and slowly coalesce into a pale pink line, faint but unmistakable.
She holds it tightly in her hands, trying to breathe deeply. She’s on the pill, of course, but she knows it’s not foolproof. And yet this has never happened to her before. It’s no coincidence that it has happened now, with him. It’s meant to be. Her eyes fill up with tears as she tucks the stick carefully into her handbag and picks up her mobile. She’s never contacted him unprompted before, but this is different. Kas, I need to talk to you, she types. Can we meet as soon as possible? Sadie xx.
It’s less than a minute before the phone buzzes in response. I can be at Camden market in an hour. This is important, yes? You wouldn’t ask otherwise.
Something about the message unsettles her a little—there’s a hint of a threat, an intimation that whatever this is had better be worth his time. All the same, she’s thrilled at the prospect of seeing him so soon. She quickly redoes her makeup in the mirror above the basin, painting her lips with strawberry gloss and drawing her eyeliner thickly. Her eyes are sparkling, and as she turns and pushes her way back through the pub and out to the street she’s aware that she’s never looked so good—that people are turning their heads as she walks by and craning their necks to watch
her, and a laugh bubbles in her throat because she’s finally feeling happy.
The tube takes a long time, wheezing its way between stops and frequently sitting for minutes at a time. At first she doesn’t mind, but the longer she sits there, surrounded by irritable commuters sighing and fidgeting, the more the edge starts to wear off her elation. A sliver of doubt worms its way in, sharp and cool as a knife. Kas isn’t a single man, after all. His situation is complicated: it won’t be easy to resolve. She tries to push the doubt away, to imagine them together this time next year . . . imagine him cradling their baby, a baby with dark olive skin like his and the same gleaming, liquid eyes. But it’s hard to put him into this picture. For an instant, she’s uncomfortably reminded of the fear that shot through her when he came back into the basement, the few seconds before he kissed her. Is this man cut out to be a father? Does she really want this, after all?
It’s these questions that are still hammering in her head as she steps off the tube and takes the lift up to the platform, as she weaves her way through the streets toward Camden Lock. She stops by the edge of the market, leaning back against the side of a juice stall, breathing in the sharp scent of freshly squeezed orange mixed with the faint sweetness of marijuana on the air. Something is closing over her, darkening her vision, and in that moment she has almost decided that this is a mistake. But as she pushes herself slowly away from the wall, preparing to leave just so that she can have a little more time to think this over, she sees him.
He’s leaning against the opposite wall, scanning the far side of the street, the smoke from his cigarette curling up through the air. A dark jacket is slung around his shoulders over a tight black T-shirt and jeans that would look ordinary on anyone else. In the few seconds before he turns his head and sees her, Sadie gazes at him: the aristocratic slash of his cheekbones, the sensuous curve of his lip. Her stomach clenches and she can feel her heart thudding against her ribs, and by the time he notices her she’s already hurrying toward him. As soon as she nears him she can smell his aftershave cutting through the heavily scented air with its familiar note of cinnamon.
“Sadie,” he says, tossing the cigarette to the ground and grinding it out. He reaches out and touches the side of her face, a lazily charming movement. The cold of his fingers makes her shudder. “I had meant to call you before this. You know, it was only for your sake that I asked you to stay away. You realize this? In these matters, it is best to take precautions.”
She nods mutely, and for a moment she has to fight an inappropriate urge to laugh. It’s the unknowing irony in what he’s said—the reminder of the one precaution he failed to take. She bites her lip, sucking in hard, and she sees his eyes flick coolly down to follow the movement before returning to hers. Desire rushes up through her body, and she takes a long breath. Kas is smiling faintly, his head tipped slightly to one side.
“So,” he says, seemingly more at ease now that he can see that she isn’t angry or distressed, “why are we here? I don’t flatter myself that you only wanted to see me.”
“No,” she says, although he must know she’d walk over broken glass to get to him if there was no other way. “I—I have something to tell you.” She hesitates a moment, feeling the space between them electrically charged with expectation. “I’m pregnant,” she says at last. On the way here she’s rehearsed several ways into this, but now they all seem redundant. “It’s your baby. There’s been no one else for ages now.”
He is absolutely silent for more than ten seconds, and in this space she realizes just how long time can stretch. It feels like an eternity. His expression is entirely unreadable, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully and studying her, evaluating what she has just said.
“Well,” he says eventually. “Life is full of surprises.” His tone is blandly neutral; he could be commenting on a news story of passing interest. When she doesn’t reply, he smiles again, a little tightly. “It is natural, I suppose, that you wanted to inform me,” he says, and she is briefly struck by the stilted elegance of the way he speaks, the only sign that English is not his first language. “But I am not sure what you want from me.”
She swallows, tasting something bitter at the back of her throat. “I thought that you would want to know,” she says. “I thought . . .” She realizes that there is no point being coy. If she wants this, she is going to have to ask for it. “I want to be with you,” she says, loudly and clearly. “I want us to be together, to have this baby and be a family.”
Kas raises his eyebrows and smiles again, a glittering, incredulous smile that fades as quickly as it has appeared when he sees that she is serious. He brings the tips of his fingers to his mouth, rubbing lightly across the skin. “Sadie,” he says quietly, so low that she has to lean in to hear him. “You know that cannot happen. I am married.” For the first time, she is aware of the dull gold ring on his fourth finger; a plain wide band that looks a little loose, as if it would be easy to slip off and toss away into the gutter.
“I know,” she says, forcing herself to remain calm. She takes a moment, looks beyond him at the brightly colored clothes hanging from the roof of the market stall, swaying faintly in the breeze. “But you and I, we have something, don’t we? There’s something between us that . . .” She trails off. She has never felt so young and so vulnerable. She has no idea how to express what is swirling inside her, the conviction that she needs him to feel as much as she does herself.
His face softens now, and he reaches out for her, pulling her against him, putting his mouth close to her ear. “Something, of course,” he murmurs, and she feels him hardening against her thigh, his fingers gripping her waist. “But one does not throw away a marriage for this kind of something, Sadie. You must understand that. I have my life. I have my duty.” He seems pleased with this word, listening to its echo, giving a brief nod to himself. “I am sorry,” he says, releasing her, “but you must see that this is impossible.” His voice is lightly regretful now, and he moves away, taking the warmth and the heat of his body with him, stepping back from her.
“But, Kas,” she says, hearing the crack in her voice and knowing that she is about to cry. “I don’t know what to do. I’m only nineteen, for fuck’s sake. I’m not ready for a baby! I can’t do this without you . . .”
He shakes his head, and he’s backing off fast now, raising his hands palms outwards in an expression of defeat. “If only things were different,” he says smoothly, “but they are not, Sadie, and the best I can advise you is that you deal with the situation in the sensible way and put all of this behind you. Think it over, and let me know when it is done.” And with that parting shot he turns on his heel and walks confidently away, moving the crowds apart with the force of his stride. She sees the heads turn—the sparks of interest and apprehension that flare up around him—and she sees how he ignores them all, locked inside his own force field, uncompromising, untouchable.
RACHEL
JANUARY 12, 2000
She’s developed a kind of instinct for when Sadie is in trouble—a prickly, uncomfortable sense that makes it impossible for her to sit still and that scratches at her whatever she’s doing. Today it’s more insistent than usual. Rachel doesn’t know where her sister is; she thinks Sadie mumbled something at lunchtime about going to the shops round the Covent Garden market, but that was hours ago now and she still isn’t back. In itself this isn’t unusual. She’s used to Sadie changing her plans on a whim and not bothering to inform anyone, but there’s something about the way she’s been recently—detached to the point of remoteness, but at the same time less defiant, more pliant than normal—that sets Rachel on edge. She doesn’t know what to do about it, and ever since the disastrous interview she set up for Sadie at the office, which has resulted in more than one awkward conversation with her boss, she’s felt less and less inclined to do anything at all.
She makes herself some dinner, watches a cooking show on TV and has a couple of glasses of wine. It
’s half past ten and she thinks about going to bed, but something tells her not to get undressed just yet. She finds herself glancing at her phone repeatedly, almost daring it to buzz, and when it does and she sees Sadie’s name flash up on the screen she feels nothing but a kind of internal hardening, a knowledge that this is going to be a bad one.
The message is barely coherent. Its all fucked what the hell am I going to do. Im in the golden bell where are you?? The name is vaguely familiar; Rachel has a shaky image of a black frontage, diamond-patterned windows. She’s sure she’s seen it before, on the way to the club with Sadie, and when she googles it her suspicions are confirmed; it’s a pub in Camden, not far from Kaspar’s.
She looks out the window. It’s drizzling, slapping softly against the glass, and the tree branches that crisscross the streetlamps move sluggishly back and forth in the wind. She remembers being outside earlier, the startling cold of the air cutting through her clothes. There is almost nothing she would rather do less than go out again now, take the tube across London and pull her drunken sister from a pub. Instead, she could have a bath, luxuriating in the heat and warmth, and then go to bed with a book and drift off into sleep, ready for work in the morning. She’s still thinking about this possibility as she pulls on her boots and searches for a scarf. Why can’t she do it? Sadie is nineteen, not quite an adult perhaps in the way that most people are, but not a child. If Rachel wasn’t there, she would have to manage. These thoughts circle around her head, increasing in indignation with every rotation, but she still can’t translate them into action. The old brute force of responsibility is propelling her, driving her out of the apartment and down the freezing streets toward the station.
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