‘Oh my God, Chris,’ she said, casting nervous glances up and down the road. ‘You mustn’t come here. If Owen saw us together . . .’
‘I’ve been worried about you. I thought you’d at least ring.’
‘I couldn’t. I mustn’t see you or talk to you. It’s one of the conditions.’ She drew back under the awning of a newsagents.
‘How did he find out? You didn’t tell him?’
‘No. I didn’t tell him. He already knew.’
‘How could he? You don’t think Leila?’
‘No, it wasn’t Leila. It was Gerald.’
‘Gerald?’
‘He came to the house to collect some sponsorship money that we owed him. I wasn’t in, but Owen was. Gerald told him that he’d spoken to me at your flat a couple of days before, but had forgotten to ask me for the money.’
‘Oh my God.’ I closed my eyes. Coloured lights flickered and seethed behind my eyelids. Gerald would have had no idea of the chaos that his casual remark would unleash. If he’d only been the sort of brother you could confide in, the sort of brother who could comprehend deception and uphold it, like any normal person. But I’d done the very opposite of confide: even when he’d given me an opening, I had chosen to deny, deny, deny.
‘What did Owen say?’
‘He waited until after Christmas to confront me. Because he didn’t want to spoil it for the girls. He said, “You went to Chris’s flat and never mentioned it. Why?”’
‘Couldn’t you think of something to say that wasn’t incriminating?’
‘Not off the top of my head. Not with him looking at me as if he already knew everything.’
‘Did he go mad?’
‘Not mad. Just hurt and disgusted and going over and over it, wanting to know all the details, and then brooding over them for days. It’s been awful.’ She was still as jumpy as a wild deer: it gave me a pang to remember the poised, elegant woman who had taken pity on my flounderings at dinner with Ravi Amos, to see her so reduced and know I was to blame.
‘So I can never see you?’ I said.
‘No. You must have known it would end like this. Owen and the children were always going to be . . . inevitable. There was never any question . . .’
‘I know. It’s just hard to believe we can’t even talk now and then. Can’t I even ring you?’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t afford the smallest slipup. I’m lucky I’ve still got a marriage left to save. Anyway, no contact is easier. I can manage not seeing you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You know what I mean. Occasional contact would be agony. I’d have to get over you again, every time. I couldn’t do it.’
Don’t get over me! I wanted to shout at her. Come and live with me. But I wasn’t that stupid, or that cruel. I couldn’t provide a home for Diana and the twins in my one room, and the idea of bringing up Owen’s daughters – even part-time – had never entered my head as a possibility. I must have known all along that we were heading for a dead end, and now we’d hit the wall and Diana was right: there was no way round it.
A woman with a pram went into the newsagents, calling out a greeting to Diana as she passed.
Diana acknowledged her with a fluttering hand. ‘I really do have to go now,’ she said.
I decided to call her bluff. ‘Goodbye then,’ I said neutrally.
‘Don’t say it like that,’ she pleaded. ‘When you have children of your own you’ll understand.’ A rag of muddy paper blew across the street and caught on the spiked heel of her boot. She shook it off impatiently.
‘If you say so.’
‘It’s worse for me, Chris, whatever you think. Just because I can’t see you, doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking of you. I will be.’ She spoke very softly and I could tell she was desperate to end on a note of affection, but I wasn’t going to let her off lightly. The only way I could assert myself against this dismissal was to deny her romantic spirit the satisfaction of a proper farewell.
I glanced at my watch. ‘Go on then. You’ll be late.’ There was a tightness in my chest of held breath and bricked-up emotion as I waited for her to turn away from me for the last time, and when she did, with a final look of helpless apology, it was almost a relief.
25
THE UNSPENT ENERGY and rage inside me had to be used. I rode at a furious pace all the way to Gerald’s office in Croydon, flying across junctions blindly, weaving between cars, daring death to come and claim me, and knowing it wouldn’t. In the depths of despair we are invincible.
I ran up the eight flights to Motor Claims. The girl at reception didn’t have a chance to speak as I rushed past, bursting through the double doors into a vast open-plan office.
‘Gerald!’ I bellowed, across the ranks of partitioned desks. Eighty or more heads swivelled my way. Voices were hushed, telephone calls suspended mid-sentence. Gerald, about halfway back, rose to his feet from behind a computer console, a look of sheer panic etched on his face. Raked by the gaze of his astonished colleagues, he stumbled his way down the aisle towards me.
‘What are you doing here? Are Mum and Dad OK?’ he asked as he hustled me out of the door.
‘Gerald you fucking idiot. Why did you go to Owen’s? You don’t know what you’ve done. You’ve ruined everything.’
‘What? What are you talking about? You can’t come to the office like this. It’s not allowed.’
‘Just keep away from me. Keep away from Owen and Diana.’
‘Who? Oh, them. I haven’t done anything. I only went round to collect the money he owed me.’
‘I don’t want to see you or talk to you ever again.’
‘All right.’ He seemed relieved that this was all. ‘Can I go back to work now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t come here again. You’ll get me in trouble.’
‘Trouble? You’ve just ruined my whole life!’ I ranted.
‘You’re mad,’ said Gerald.
‘Is everything OK, Gerald?’ I heard the receptionist say as I walked away.
‘Yes, it’s all right,’ he replied, in exactly the same embarrassed-defensive tone that I had always adopted to apologise for him. ‘He’s my brother.’
26
THE NEXT FEW weeks were abysmal. I hardly left my room. There were days when I didn’t bother to get out of bed, but lay staring at the ceiling, unable to bear any distractions from my own misery. At a stroke I had lost everything that made my life interesting, enjoyable and promising, and all I had left was endless, empty time in which to contemplate my regrets.
Like the heartbroken throughout history I considered myself to be uniquely afflicted: my circumstances were exceptional; my suffering unparalleled. I suppose in my defence it could be claimed that at least I didn’t inflict my morbid mood on other people. Instead I withdrew like a wounded animal, shunning the outside world. (The outside world, it has to be said, remained entirely indifferent to this gesture.)
Sometimes I would sit on the window ledge, where Diana used to sit, and look down at the passers-by with an alien’s mystification. I watched my skinny Rastafarian neighbour’s swaggering stride as he left the house, and the woman across the road trying to run for a bus in her sari, and felt consumed with envy for their sense of purpose. I would have chewed my arm off for his confidence or her urgency.
Occasionally I tried to remember what my life used to be like before I met Owen and Diana, and how I filled all those untroubled years, but it seemed unimaginably remote now and meaningless.
One morning I woke up feeling slightly better and I allowed this unexpected momentum to get me up and out of the house. Even though I was not eating heartily, supplies were running low, so I walked as far as Sainsbury’s and had just filled a basket with canned food, when I was swamped by a wave of dread. The flickering lights and vibrant colours and the hum of the fridges and clamour of voices suddenly seemed overpowering and I had to dump the basket and bolt for the exit. I reeled home, buffeted by thousands of competing sense
impressions, and slumped down on my bed, my heart heaving in protest. I knew it must be some form of panic attack, and that I wasn’t seriously ill, but the episode made me even more reluctant to leave the flat.
Six weeks of isolation were broken by a visit from Mum, the first since the incident with the vandalised car aerial. It was midday and I was still in bed.
‘I’ve been trying and trying to ring you, but no one ever picks up the phone,’ she said. ‘You missed your father’s birthday. He was very good about it.’ She took in my unkempt appearance and the general air of neglect in the surroundings and her tone softened. ‘Are you all right? Have you been ill?’
‘I suppose I have a bit,’ I said, running a hand through my hair and finding it stiff with grease. ‘But I’m fine now,’ I added, and bared my teeth in what I imagined to be a grin consistent with rude health.
Mum strode past me to the window and threw it open, letting in a gust of clammy February air. I suppose the room may have smelled a little stale. ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘What a pong.’
‘Damp,’ I agreed.
‘More like BO,’ she replied. ‘When did you last have a shower?’
‘Er . . . I can’t remember. Not too long ago.’ The days and weeks had started to run into one another with little to distinguish them, so it was hard to recall the precise date of something as unmemorable as washing.
‘I suppose you don’t feel much like it when you’ve got flu,’ said Mum, who had come to her own conclusions about my ‘illness’. I decided to let her diagnosis stand.
‘No.’
By now she had removed her coat and was looking for somewhere to put it: all the likely surfaces, as well as much of the floor, were already occupied by discarded clothes. I took it from her and hooked it over the carriage arm of the typewriter. ‘I’ve fallen a bit behind with my laundry,’ I said apologetically, indicating the carpet of strewn boxer shorts, T-shirts and socks.
Mum began to gather them up, gingerly. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You’re very drawn.’ She looked at me with sudden suspicion. ‘You’re not on drugs, are you?’
‘No.’ It was nice to be able to offer her some reassurance that was entirely genuine.
‘Look, you obviously need looking after. Why don’t you come home for a few days to convalesce, and I can feed you up and do your washing. Just till you’re back on your feet.’
I shook my head, remembering the marshmallow-pink bedroom and scented pillows. ‘I’ll be OK. Really.’ Just saying the words aloud seemed to make it possible. ‘Perhaps the washing . . .’ I conceded.
Mum was delighted with this admission of need, and set about stripping my bed, filling the duvet cover with all the clothes she could lay her hands on – dirty, clean, she didn’t discriminate in her zeal for decontamination. ‘I’ll bring them back tomorrow. You won’t be going anywhere, I take it? Perhaps you should go to the doctor – get yourself checked out,’ she advised. ‘You don’t want one of those post-viral things that linger on for months.’
She left, dragging the laundry sack behind her. I couldn’t help her carry it to the car as she’d left me no trousers.
As soon as I had my clothes back I did go to the doctor. I told him about my lethargy and the panic attack in Sainsbury’s, and he prescribed antidepressants. When I got back to my room – a little dazed and breathless from the outing – I made the mistake of reading the list of side effects. Dry mouth, dizziness, shortness of breath, constipation, headache, nausea, visual disturbance, haemorrhage, coma. I decided my symptoms weren’t so bad after all, and put the pills in the back of a drawer, unsampled.
I suppose it must have been the subject of depression which triggered thoughts of Lawrence Canning. I pulled the copy of The Magenta Staircase from its place among my few hardbacks, and settled down on my bed.
It had taken him five years to write, and thirty-five years to live the story he told, and it took me just seven hours to read. When I finished it was dark outside, a frozen moon had risen in the sky and I was completely drained, and calm. Although he had described a descent into madness and the blackest pit of despair, it was not a depressing book. On the contrary, the brilliance of his mind shone through every line, so that the final impression was one of unquenchable hope, and the transcendent beauty to be found in even the dusty corners of existence. For the first time in my life, I understood what people meant when they talked of the healing power of art. Through his wisdom and vision I felt myself reconnected to the world, part of that vast communion of human souls, dead and alive. My one regret was that I had missed the chance to tell him myself what a difference he’d made.
I suppose that Epiphany marked the beginning of my recovery.
With it came fresh problems. There was the small matter of my book. Owen now had the only copy of my manuscript. I half wondered whether he had already destroyed it out of spite, but I was unwilling to believe him capable of such a petty act. On the other hand, he no doubt had once been unable to imagine me capable of sleeping with his wife. I couldn’t bring myself to write and ask him for it back, in case the reminder of my existence triggered a vitriolic paper-shredding spree.
I dreamed up various plans for its retrieval, including breaking into the offices of Kenway & Luff, but before I could act on any of them it arrived in the post, securely packaged in bubble wrap and brown paper, but with no accompanying note.
The sight of it recalled the heady optimism of those early days of Owen’s patronage. I flipped idly through the pages, noticing faint pencil marks in the margins: ticks, exclamation marks and the occasional comment: Ha ha or Successful? Yes. This brought on a fresh wave of loneliness, so I shut the manuscript away in the drawer with the antidepressants, and forgot about it. I assumed naively that Owen’s reputation and influence were vast, that the publishing community was small and closed, and that news of my treachery would have spread and my name and work would be untouchable. It didn’t occur to me then that a married man might not necessarily want to broadcast his wife’s infidelity.
I would have liked to reciprocate by returning the Goddards’ £2,000 but the fact was I’d already spent a thousand of it, and repaying half struck me as a rather tepid gesture. Besides, I needed the rest to live on. But it was always my intention to honour what I now saw as a debt, as soon as I possibly could.
Once I had begun the business of getting over this episode, I had to face the future as a matter of urgency. I had only ever intended my hand-to-mouth existence to be a temporary measure, until I was a successful, feted author, but since that was clearly not going to happen, I needed to act decisively. I had no useful qualifications, apart from two-thirds of a maths degree, and so, somewhat to my amazement, I found myself writing to the Admissions Officer at my old university to ask if I could reapply to sit my third year, and take my finals. This strategy had the added advantage that it would give me six months’ grace: it was only April and the new academic year started in late September. To my relief my old tutor interceded for me and I was accepted.
In the meantime I had to get away from London. The noise and overcrowding and the sleepless streets, which had once seemed so invigorating, were now, in my newly lonely state, repellent and slightly menacing.
With some of my remaining money I bought a Eurorail pass: once that was paid for I reckoned I could live as cheaply abroad as at home: more cheaply in fact, since the rent on my Brixton room was higher than the pittance I expected to spend on the occasional camping pitch. I bought a new tent, sleeping bag and rucksack, rather than make any borrowing approaches to Gerald, who was now, according to Mum, lodging in Beckenham with an elderly alcoholic called June. He had found her drunk on a park bench one day when he was out for a run, had taken her home and never left.
I packed up my few books, tapes, leftover clothes, manuscript and the picture of the St Ives fishermen which I’d never got round to hanging, and deposited them with Mum and Dad. They were so pleased that I had decided to resume my degree that they g
ave me £100 – a fortune by their standards, and the only handout I had ever received from them. As well as this I had nearly £700 left of Owen and Diana’s money and the £120 deposit from the bedsit.
‘You will phone occasionally to let us know you’re OK,’ Mum said, in the interval between holding out the money and actually letting go of it, so that my acceptance had a contractual air to it. ‘I realise letters are out of the question.’
I confessed that this was the case. ‘But I will ring. Now and then.’
I set no date for my return, and had no itinerary. I chose my destinations on a whim, standing on the concourse of the Gare du Nord, staring up at the international departure board, dizzy with choice. Rome, Barcelona, Salzburg, Frankfurt, Istanbul. I had no preferences: I aimed for anywhere, and sometimes changed my mind and alighted at a station on the way if I liked the name, without always being sure which country I was in. To save money, or if I couldn’t find anywhere suitable to stay, I would make my way to the railway station late in the evening, catch whatever train was passing through, and sleep where I sat. If I was lucky I might have a compartment to myself and I could stretch out, using my backpack as a pillow.
I criss-crossed Europe haphazardly, like a fly on a windowpane. As I became more confident in this peripatetic way of life, I began to observe that I wasn’t alone. Everywhere I went other people like me were making similar pilgrimages, and if given the slightest encouragement were keen to share their experiences, their food, and occasionally their beds.
When my meanderings brought me to Florence, I thought the city warranted some investigation, so I took the unusual step of paying for a minute pitch at the crowded campsite at the Piazza di Michelangelo, overlooking the city. I was parched after a long, dusty walk up the hill in the heat of the afternoon, so when I’d rigged up the tent and had my first satisfactory shower in some days, I went to the terrace bar for some shade and a bottle of water.
The place resembled an international students’ union: everyone was young and scruffy, apart from a few donnish types in socks and sandals, who reminded me of the denizens of the Powys Society, and there was a background buzz of chatter in several languages. Columns of rippling smoke rose from parked cigarettes; the smell of dope took me back to the stairwell of the Brixton house. In one corner four Chinese girls were playing a noisy game of mah-jongg. Above the clatter of tiles came occasional cries of ‘Pung’ and ‘Kong’.
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