‘OK. Would you like to talk about that, or would you prefer to take a few minutes on your own? Or something else?’ I was running out of ideas.
‘I’ll take a minute, thank you.’
She got up and walked to the other end of the classroom. The younger kids used it as a performing space every day, but this group hardly ever left their chairs: adolescence had made their bones and muscles ache (what my mother used to call ‘growing pains’), and they were happiest sitting down. But she walked to the back window and stood looking out over the yard. She’d have been happier out there, I guessed, but she’d have to go up a floor and then down the steel steps outside. There was no access from the basement, except through an alarmed fire door.
‘What just happened?’ Jono muttered to Mel.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, eyes wide, shoulders high. The picture of innocence.
Whenever I went into the staffroom, I was reassured by tales from the other teachers and therapists on the Unit that they too saw spontaneous combustions and meltdowns virtually every day. Arguments, fights and tears were part of the currency of Rankeillor. It happened more often with the newest arrivals, who were still bruised from their old schools and were more likely to lash out at each other and the staff. But every class at Rankeillor had the potential to explode with no warning whatsoever. And the anger or hurt or frustration which spurted from a child was contagious: there were whole days sometimes on the Unit when no-one ever settled because one kid had had a tantrum and then it spread round the building. The walls and floors were thick, yet still the students often seemed to sense when things were awry.
Policemen and doctors will tell you they know when it’s a full moon, because the A&E units fill up more quickly than on other nights of the month. Sometimes I would think the same was true at Rankeillor: there was a trigger of some kind – invisible to adults but perfectly tangible to the kids – which would make them all go nuts for a day or two each month; or week, if we were really unlucky. You looked for patterns, but you could never find one. Perhaps there were just too many contributing factors – the lessons, the weather, their families, stuff going on outside of school. I never came close to predicting the days when it would all cave in around me. Usually they kicked off when one kid insulted another. But that day, when Carly burst into tears, was the only time I ever saw it happen because of a play.
Mel shrugged. I decided to try and keep them focussed on their work, but we avoided further discussion of the ending, in the hope that we wouldn’t upset Carly further. So I asked them about host–guest relationships in the ancient Greek world, and how things differed now, assuming that no-one could take offence at something so dry. When the bell rang, I walked over to Carly to ask if she was OK.
‘Yes, thanks,’ she said. ‘Except my make-up looks revolting now. Do you mind if I stay here and fix it? I won’t be long.’
‘No, of course not. I’m sorry we made you feel bad, Carly.’
‘I know,’ she said, through a tight smile. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
I left her to repair her face in private. Mel was hovering on the stairs, waiting for her.
‘Go back in, if you want, Mel. I’m sure Carly won’t mind.’
‘Are you alright?’ she asked, looking me square in the mouth, as she always did when she was concentrating on what you said to her.
‘Of course. Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?’ I gave her a smile to match Carly’s. And because of the way the lesson ended, it was the next day before I noticed that something had gone missing from the classroom.
DD,
Fuck, what a day. I swear to God, if I’d known how today was going to pan out, I would have just pretended to be ill this morning and stayed at home. Seriously. It was our last day on Alcestis, and I honestly thought it was going to be fun. We all had stuff to say about it, and then everything went wrong.
Firstly, Ricky hadn’t read it. Alex never tells him off for not doing homework, but you can see that she’s disappointed when he’s done fuck all. I can see, anyway, even if no-one else can. It’s only about twenty pages, for Christ’s sake, why can’t he just read it? I know he’s a slow reader and all that, but even so. So, firstly, Alex is upset about that.
And then Jono of all people, like a fucking hero, steps up. He’s read it and he understands it and he’s thought about it and all that, and Alex looks really chuffed. It’s such a relief to see her again, instead of zombie-Alex. And I’m joining in and it’s all going really well and we’re having one of these lessons that Annika meant when she asked if we could learn proper stuff this term.
We’re asking questions and Alex is coming back to life and it’s all really fucking good. And then suddenly Carly wigs out. Literally the last person you’d expect to go off on one. She hadn’t said a word to me about not liking the play before today. Just nothing. And then she feels the need to tell the world, especially Alex. She gets caught up in this problem she has about us discussing whether it’s definitely better to be alive instead of dead, or whether it might not be. We’re all talking about it, really talking about something and working out what we think. And out of nowhere Carly goes nuts and bursts into tears. Anyone would think she’s the one with the dead brother.
Except she isn’t. She’s an only child, she’s got two parents, she’s got two grannies and two grandpas. She’s never seen anyone she cares about die. She’s only ever seen a couple of people get hurt, even, and one of those was me and I’m fine now, so that can’t be it. But she’s not putting it on. So she yells at Alex and you can see, anyone could see, that Alex is horrified. Carly seems to have forgotten completely that it was her who wanted to do this play rather than another one, and now she’s gone ballistic because she doesn’t like it.
I think the truth is that she’d rather we weren’t doing these plays at all. She thinks it was all Annika’s idea, and we’re just reading them because it’s what Annika wants. She thinks it’s depressing that we’re talking about dying and proper stuff.
Anyway, Alex kept the lesson going, and we all just sat there talking really quietly until the bell went, while Carly sulked in the corner. It was ridiculous, really. Then she waited behind when the others left, so I went back to try and find out what her problem is. And she’s still crying about how we’re all just being so miserable and horrible and she hates it and I of all people must know why, even though I have no fucking idea what she’s on about.
To be honest, I wished I’d gone after Alex instead, to check she was OK – she looked really strung out when the lesson was over – since Carly was just crying snot all over my jumper. And I love her and everything but that doesn’t make it any less annoying or gross. And she’s trying to tell me what the problem is, but she keeps gulping so I can’t make out what she’s saying at all, so I’m patting her hair and saying ‘Shush, Lee,’ because she likes being called that. Her dad calls her ‘Car’ and it drives her mad. Two syllables isn’t much, is it? But sometimes it’s still one too many. And all the while I’m shushing her, I’m thinking that I should be with Alex, because she doesn’t have anyone.
And just for a moment – but now I can’t get it out of my head because it was such a strong feeling – I hate Carly. I think she’s stupid and selfish and a whining cry-baby and I want to stop patting her head and smack it instead. Just for a moment, like I said. Then I remembered that she’s my best friend and I can’t get cross with her for getting worked up over nothing, because it’s not like I don’t ever do that. I mean, everyone does sometimes. Not just Carly.
So I decide to stop being mad at her and I take her outside and walk up to Clerk Street and buy her a Starbucks and she sits there drinking hot chocolate through a moustache of whipped cream and her eyes are all red and puffy and I remember I don’t hate her at all. I feel bad. But not sorry.
6
I know the exact date when that happened, the day Carly got so upset about Alcestis. I don’t know many dates from that year, because I didn’t really keep a diary.
My friends wouldn’t believe this was possible, because I was the one who wrote everything down and kept lists. Luke always had so many work commitments that came in at the last minute, but my diary was always fixed weeks or months ahead. Previews, press nights, auditions, meetings with writers, producers and venues.
Putting on a play, even a tiny one with a cast of three in a studio theatre, takes a lot of paperwork. And I never wanted to be late or double-booked, because most of the people who work in theatre are impossibly thin-skinned. You can insult someone to the core just by forgetting that they only drink soya milk. Luke would point out that anyone who drinks soya milk is asking to be insulted, but that isn’t something I could ever say, as I tried to claw my way into the theatre world.
You can want to direct plays without loving every aspect of the industry, I would reply.
You mean theatre folk? An old actor I had directed in a production of The Three Sisters once described himself to Luke as ‘theatre folk’. Luke, to his credit, merely nodded, then retained it as shorthand for everything he hated about my job.
But these people had an incredible capacity for perceiving slights. How can they be so sensitive and simultaneously so tactless, I would rage at Luke, when one actor had made another one cry by giving her a line-reading or raising an eyebrow at her unusual bag.
So I kept a detailed diary, for years, and never missed an appointment. Then when Luke died, I didn’t need it any more. I didn’t have to remember when he had stuff on at work. I didn’t need to make sure I wasn’t double-booked on nights out we’d arranged with our friends. And I didn’t need it for work. I quit the play I was directing, because there was no point continuing with it. The only person I wanted to see it was dead.
My mother said that I was being irrational and melodramatic. She didn’t use those words, obviously. She’s much too kind to say something so blunt to someone grieving. She said things like, are you sure work wouldn’t help take your mind off things, and is it possible Luke would have wanted you to carry on with the part of your life that you’ve worked so hard for, and that makes you so happy? But I was sure. I believed, even if it sounded silly, that theatre needed to come from the heart. It isn’t just an intellectual exercise, it’s an emotional one. And how do you put your emotions into anything when the only thing that’s keeping you upright is boxing them away and refusing to look?
I couldn’t carry on with directing Ibsen, just like I couldn’t talk about what had happened to Luke, or eat anything he liked to eat, or hear any music he liked, or walk past his belongings on my way to the kitchen, or open the wardrobe and smell the echo of him on his clothes. I just couldn’t.
I also couldn’t pay rent with no job, and that’s where Robert’s plan came in. By agreeing to it, I put myself in a position where I didn’t have to do any of the things I found impossible, other than get from the beginning of each day to the end. And in Edinburgh every week was the same. I ran the same sessions with the same kids in the same room at the same times each week. I worked the same days every week. I didn’t make plans with anyone, because I never knew if I’d feel up to leaving the flat or not, and I assumed I wouldn’t, because I often didn’t. I didn’t know anyone in Edinburgh anyway, except the staff and the kids.
Sometimes Robert would swoop in and ask me round for dinner, or to see something at the Festival Theatre or the Traverse, and usually I would say yes. He would always ask on the day, never before, so I didn’t have time to think of an excuse. He would just produce tickets to a concert from his desk drawer, and brandish them at me until I admitted I was free that evening. Courtesy prevented me from failing to show up, so I just went along with it. I loved that about Robert – he never once asked if I wanted to go out, or if I was spending too much time on my own (brooding, as my mother would call it). He just declared we were going out that night and made it easier to agree than to argue.
But I know that the day Carly got upset was a Wednesday, the 16th of March. And I know that because when I got back to the flat there was a letter from London waiting for me. Almost no-one had my address in Edinburgh, so it could only have come from one of a few people. My mother and Luke’s parents knew where I was. Luke’s mum used to send me cards every couple of weeks, giving me their news, telling me how Luke’s sister Tara was getting on at university, and so on. I replied to about every third letter, even though I never seemed to have anything to say. I used to walk down Jeffrey Street till it became Market Street, and choose postcards for her from one of the art gallery shops: elegant scenes of the city itself, reproductions of paintings, or sometimes a photograph of a piece of unnerving sculpture – a giant Christ-figure on a cross, made entirely from coat-hangers – when I ran out of the more staid options.
I tried to explain that things were going OK, that I was having quite a good time at Rankeillor, that I thought I was making a difference to some of the kids, and so on. As much as you can in a few lines anyway. I used to hate writing her surname, seeing Luke’s name squatting there. I would walk up the road to post it as soon as it was written, just to get it out of the flat.
But this letter wasn’t from Luke’s mum, and it wasn’t from mine. It was a white business envelope, with a window that revealed my typed address. I opened it without much thought: could it be a bill? I was paying inclusive rent, so I had no idea when the electricity and gas bills would come through. Besides, they wouldn’t be in my name. I unfolded the pages, feeling a sharp burn in the index finger of my right hand as the paper edge sliced it open. I squeezed it between my other fingers to stem the blood, and began to read the typed letter that was wrapped round a sheaf of forms.
It was from the police liaison officer, Sergeant Summers, you can call me Ann. We’d met last year. Dear Alex, it began, I’m sorry to have to tell you.
What could she possibly be sorry about? The police had done a good job in Luke’s case. They’d arrested his killer within a week of the murder, a man named Dominic Kovar. He had faced previous criminal charges in Germany, where he’d lived for four years before he moved to London. The police had arrested him, and questioned him, and charged him, and he had been remanded in custody ever since. They had done everything right. Even the tabloids, even the internet vigilantes, hadn’t criticised the police for the way they handled this case.
The question people asked, when he was arrested, wasn’t about the police, it was about him. Journalists, I mean. How do you feel now Luke’s killer is behind bars, Alex? It was perverse: it’s not like they could print the question, let alone the answer, when he hadn’t yet been convicted. And anyway, how do you answer it? Dominic Kovar’s impact on my life was so immense that I felt about him the way people must feel who lose everything to tornadoes or earthquakes. You see them crying, dead-eyed, on the news, standing among the ruins of what used to be their homes, trying to explain to a reporter that this pile of rubble was once a bedroom, a kitchen, a child’s room. To everyone on the outside, it just looks like a crazy person weeping on broken concrete. You can’t hate the weather.
I read her letter three times before I understood it. She wrote in police-ese, tortuous, full of regret but neatly avoiding blame. Not that I would have blamed Ann. She had tried to warn me, in her own way. She had made gentle generalisations about times when the police brought a suspect to the courts, only to see the Crown Prosecution Service undermine all their good work.
I had nodded and made sympathetic noises, stupidly thinking that she was telling me to get it off her chest. It never occurred to me that she was telling me for my benefit, to prepare me for what might happen. I read it through again. Dominic Kovar is pleading guilty to manslaughter. The CPS have accepted the plea and agreed not to prosecute for murder. He will probably serve less than five years.
It’s only a guess, she says, several times. But the sentence is unlikely to be more than eight years. The court will take into consideration the fact that he has saved them time and money by pleading guilty. An expensive trial has been avoided, and that is
likely to be viewed positively. He will serve half of that time, and he has already been in jail for five months. So he could be out in a couple of years, and I should prepare myself for that.
Prepare myself. The one thing I have not been able to do in this whole demolition of everything I wanted in my life is be prepared for it. I have tissues and a pen and spare change for the bus and a notebook and lip balm and gloves in my bag all the time: I am a naturally prepared person. But how do you prepare for this? How does anyone? I wanted to write back and ask her, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to answer. Why would she know, any better than I do?
ACT THREE
1
So you were angry? Charles Brayford asks. This is our second meeting. As he speaks, he glances at his watch. It isn’t even discreetly expensive: it has a huge face set into a metal strap so thick that if he ever decides to swing a punch, he could shatter someone’s jawbone with a single blow.
Was I angry? When I received a letter telling me my fiancé’s murderer would spend almost no time in jail for killing him? Take a guess.
The words have slammed out of my mouth before my lawyer can intervene. Yes, my lawyer. I took Adam’s advice after our last meeting, and called Luke’s old firm. His former boss couldn’t come today, too busy demolishing some hapless prosecutor in court. In his stead, he has sent Luke’s direct superior, Lisa Meyer. I haven’t met Lisa before, because she took up her position at Hollis, Butterworth just before Luke died. They must have worked together for six weeks at most. Was she at his funeral? I don’t remember. I also don’t know what he thought of her, except that she didn’t suffer fools. He liked that about her, since he wasn’t a patient man himself. When Brian Hollis told me he was sending someone else to meet me, I wasn’t too surprised, given how late the notice was. But I was disappointed. I’d hoped it would be him, someone I knew.
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