The Carrier

by Sophie Hannah

  “No fun, this, is it?” my attacker says. “Not at all fun—not for you and certainly not for me. Think about that. Do I want to force myself on you? No, I don’t.”

  I hold the idea of Tim in my mind. He is suffering more: in prison, charged with murder. He must be frightened.

  Cold air on my bare skin. Too much skin. I am all surface, no self. Disintegrating, losing too much too quickly.

  Don’t feel it. Think about Tim. Think of his nightmare, not mine. The first time he told me, the conversation we had . . .

  It takes all my mental energy to set the scene: Passaparola, the table in the bay window. Can I will myself into the picture, forget where I am? Lunchtime, three weeks before Tim checked out of my life. “I think Francine might once have tried to kill me,” he said. “But that’s impossible, isn’t it? If I’m not sure?” On his plate, black linguine with squid: his favorite.

  My safe place breaks up as vile words pour into my ear: “Are you ashamed? I feel sorry for you. I really do. I’m not as hard-hearted as I seem, not once you know me.”

  Don’t feel it.

  “It’s not impossible, no. People do try to kill people, often their husbands and wives. Though it’s odd that you don’t know for sure.”

  “I’d be ashamed if I were you. Would you say you’re a coward, Gaby? People like you often are. I would, by the way—I’d say you’re a coward.”

  No. Cowards don’t escape. Only the bravest escape, like me, back to Tim.

  “I have this recurring dream. It’s set in Switzerland, appropriately enough.”

  “That’s lucky. If you had a recurring dream set in the UK, think of the tax you’d have to pay on it. The rate’d probably go up with each repeat.”

  “Repeated with cold sweat side effects on average three times a week. Keep this to yourself, okay? I haven’t told Dan and Kerry. It’s not easy to admit to being bullied by a dream. If you want to retain any dignity, that is.”

  “Has this happened to you before, when you’ve been scared?” asks the monster. My skin burns as if it’s caught fire. “Well? When I ask questions, I expect answers, Gaby.”

  I don’t hear my answers, only Tim’s questions: “Why would Francine have tried to kill me in Switzerland? I know dreams aren’t reliable, but the setting’s always the same.”

  “Have the two of you ever been to Switzerland together?”

  “Once—to Leukerbad, on holiday. It’s where she proposed to me.”

  “She proposed?”

  “Yes. It was 29 February, a leap year. Women are allowed to propose, and men have to say yes.”

  I fell into his trap. “Men don’t have to say yes,” I said.

  Tim feigned shock. “Really? Francine told me they did.”

  I waited.

  “It was probably the easiest stretch I’ve ever had with her, that holiday. She was happy—for Francine. Why would she try to kill me when I’d just said I’d marry her?” I watched as he lost patience with himself. “For God’s sake, if my wife tried to kill me, in Switzerland or anywhere, why don’t I remember it when I’m awake? If it weren’t for the dream, I wouldn’t have this absurd idea in my head.”

  “What happens in the dream?” I asked.

  No answer. No Tim. I’m the one expected to answer: which is worse, the shame or the fear? What exactly is going through my mind? What’s the worst thing the monster could do to me now? The worst three things? Will I try to forget this as soon as it’s over? Because that would be against the spirit of the lesson; I must remember it every day, so I don’t slip up again.

  I am streamed into two separate zones: in a restaurant in Spilling, and in hell.

  “Tell me about the dream,” I say in my head, to make hell disappear.

  Tim is back. Thank God. “There’s not much to it,” he says. “I’m in a small room—our Leukerbad hotel room, I think, except in the dream it’s much smaller, the size of a bathroom. Square. Francine’s walking toward me, diagonally across the room. A diagonal line, definitely. She’s walking very slowly. I can’t see her, only her shadow against the white wall, coming closer and closer. Carrying her handbag—not in her hand, draped over her arm. It’s the bag that I’m most scared of. Whatever she’s going to use to kill me is in that bag. I stare at the triangle of white wall between the bag and its strap. I can’t bring myself to look at the bag directly.”

  “It’s lucky you’ve got a bag over your head,” the monster says. “Lucky you can’t see how pathetic you look with your hands taped behind your back: like an animal with a tail, a squirming pink tail.” I stop moving my fingers. They stiffen. My cutlery falls to the floor with a clatter.

  No, it doesn’t. I’m not in the restaurant now. It was my Saint Christopher that fell, from my jacket pocket.

  “Francine’s arm looks as if it’s broken, the arm her bag’s hanging from, as she moves toward me,” Tim says. “Something about the angle of it . . .”

  “Did you break her arm? Did the two of you have a physical fight?”

  “Gaby!” A sharp jab of fingers to the side of my head. “You’re not paying attention. When I talk to you, I expect you to listen. When I ask you a question, I expect you to answer.”

  “I’ve never broken a bone,” says the shadow of Tim. “Neither one of my own nor anyone else’s. In my nightmare, I’m the prey, not the predator. I’m petrified, crouched in a corner, trying to keep completely still and not give myself away, but I can’t. My body’s shaking, jerking in odd directions. I can’t control it. I know Francine’s never going to stop sliding toward me. Oh, she’s sliding, not walking—did I mention that? When she reaches me, I’ll be snuffed out forever. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it—it’s going to happen. All I can do is stare at the shadow gliding along the white wall, getting closer. Francine’s twisted arm, the white triangle between the bag and its strap.”

  “Do you know what the word ‘humiliate’ means? ‘To make humble.’ That’s what I’m doing to you: I’m making you humble. Humility’s a virtue, isn’t it? Not one that comes easily to you, from what I’ve heard.”

  Tim? Where have you gone? Where has the table gone?

  “Come on, don’t cry. Stop sniveling like a baby. You don’t know you’re born.”

  I can do this alone, without Tim. I can speak for us both.

  The twisted arm has to be significant.

  It’s too thin, way too thin, like a starving person’s. And . . . there’s something sticking out, a lump of bone jutting out of the flesh.

  Or an elbow?

  No. I don’t think so. Wrong place.

  Has Francine ever broken her arm?

  Not that I know of.

  “Stay away from Lauren Cookson and we won’t have a problem in the future.”

  What about Francine’s other arm? Is that normal in the dream?

  I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t think I can see it. Don’t notice it, anyway. I just see the too-thin arm and the bag. It was real, the bag—expensive. She bought it specially for our trip. I never saw it once we got back. When I asked her about it, she said the strap broke so she took it back to the shop.

  Do you ever get to the part in the dream where Francine murders you? Do you know how she does it?

  “There’s no need for you to cross paths with Lauren in the future. Make sure you don’t.”

  No. To both.

  Did the dream start while you were still in Switzerland?

  I had it for the first time two days after we got back. Something happened there, Gaby. I just wish I knew what. Most men, if their fiancées tried to kill them, would review their options. If they’re not scared of being killed, that is. Kind of a catch-22, isn’t it?

  “Keep away from Lauren and I’ll stay away from you. You don’t always want to be looking over your shoulder, do you? Forget Lauren, and you won’t
have to worry, this will be over.”

  Have you told Francine about your recurring dream?

  Are you joking? What if I’m going mad, imagining the whole thing? What if knowing I know makes her try again?

  “Lauren should never have gone looking for you in the first place. You’re not the only one with a lesson to learn.”

  POLICE EXHIBIT 1435B/SK—

  TRANSCRIPT OF HANDWRITTEN LETTER FROM KERRY JOSE TO FRANCINE BREARY DATED 12 JANUARY 2011

  How would you feel, Francine, if I told you that when you married Tim, you took the surname of his secondary school English teacher? Would you keep an open mind for his sake, because you care about him, or would you bypass curious in your haste to get to furious? I asked Dan about this this morning. He nearly spat out his cereal. “Francine, open-minded?” he said. “She’d be incandescent.” We started to giggle over our Weetabix like hyped-up kids. The idea of someone whose anger is frightening getting really, really angry is funny as long as it’s not actually happening.

  I’d like to tell you—not the full story, just a teaser. You’d be desperate to get your hands on all the details, but since you can’t speak, you wouldn’t be able to demand them. Maybe I’d adopt the morally superior tone that used to be your trademark and ask you a test question: “Do you want to know for the right reason,” I’d say, “or only so that you can assemble your Yet Another Terrible Thing That Was Done To Me narrative? The Truth My Husband Withheld That I Had A Right To Know?” If I felt really vindictive, I might then make a show of waiting for the answer you’d be incapable of giving me. How you’d hate me for using your beloved “right reason” line against you, for knowing something about Tim that you don’t. How dare he tell me and Dan and not you?

  In case you haven’t worked it out yet, Tim dares to tell me and Dan things because he knows we’ll accept his decisions, even the bad ones. Like marrying you. Like moving back in with you after the stroke. Though, actually, that’s done him good. I was certain any contact with you would be dangerous for him, but I was wrong. (That’s why you should never attack another person’s autonomy, Francine—because what if you’re wrong? What if you emotionally blackmail them into doing what you “know” is right, and it turns out not to be? And isn’t it kind of unbelievable that there are people like you who need this spelled out for them?)

  Watching Tim lose his fear and start to be more natural around you convinced me that I’d miscalculated. I’ve stopped worrying that he’ll try to kill himself again; now I worry instead that he’ll kill you, which might bring him psychological closure but would also land him in prison. Having said that, I think Tim could live quite happily in prison—more so than most people. He doesn’t give two hoots about his physical surroundings as long as there are books there. He’d have a prescribed routine, plenty of time to read, lots of people to charm and impress and, crucially, proof that he’s a bad guy. I think he’d find that comforting.

  Thank God prison is the worst-case scenario for him. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about our capital punishment argument—remember that horrendous evening, Francine? If words could leave scars, yours would have. It started off as a discussion, but you quickly turned it nasty and personal. You were (are?) in favor of the death penalty, and Dan and I were (are) against, and when we tried to explain why, you couldn’t handle it, could you? You started yelling at us, saying that it was thanks to people like us that multiple murderers killed again and again. You told us there was blood on our hands. I remember, Dan and I laughed afterward about how we’d both looked down at our hands at that moment. We examined them, found them unbloodied, then did what we always did when you made a scene: pretended you weren’t behaving badly, upped our own politeness levels to counteract your self-righteous hostility. Anyone watching us would have found the scene surreal, as if you and we were participating in two wholly separate dialogues: a hissy, red-faced “All I know is, I’ve got no child deaths on my conscience!” followed by a silky-smooth “Absolutely, and your sense of justice is really admirable, and I can totally see why you feel the way you do, but . . .” And then a self-effacing shrug, because it would have been too incendiary to say, “But we believe it’s wrong to kill people, even if it’s legal and those people are violent criminals.”

  Tim rang us three days later to apologize for your aggression. Being Tim, he didn’t use the word “aggression” or say, “I’m sorry,” at any point in the conversation. I answered the phone and he chuckled and said, “You two got off lightly the other night.” My heart plunged to my guts. I’d have preferred it if Tim had got off lightly, since he was the one who’d been unable to leave at the end of the evening, or at the end of any evening with you. Tim was the one who had to sleep next to you, wake up with you. Unlike me and Dan, he didn’t get to escape with someone who loved him unconditionally and approved of him; he didn’t get to laugh cathartically and compare notes about your insane need to create misery for yourself and everyone around you.

  It surprised me to hear that he hadn’t got off lightly, naïve fool that I was. Even then, well into his marriage to you, I hadn’t got to grips with the full extent of your corrosiveness. By your standards, I thought, Tim had surely behaved better than Dan and I had. Insofar as it’s possible for anyone to have done nothing wrong in Francine World, he had done nothing wrong. He hadn’t disagreed with you about the death penalty, hadn’t spoken a single word until the conversation had moved on to a less contentious subject. “Did you say something to wind her up after we left?” I asked him, thinking it incredibly unlikely. Tim always took care to say as little in your presence as he could get away with.

  “It’s what I didn’t say that was the problem,” he explained. “My silence was disloyal, apparently. I should have made it clear I was on her side.” “You’re pro–death penalty?” I said, surprised. It’s probably wrong of me, but I naturally assume everyone I like is anti. Tim said, “If I’m only executing in the abstract, then I’ll hang, guillotine and crucify all the livelong day to get my own sentence down.” He chuckled. “Two days in the dark cloud for the minor disloyalty of failing to defend Francine’s point of view. I’d get at least a fortnight for the major disloyalty of not agreeing with it. And she’s quite right: she’d never be disloyal to me, minorly or majorly. When I start to defend state-sanctioned murder in public—and quite frankly, what’s holding me up?—she’ll be front and center cheering me on, even after my unforgivable behavior of the other night.”

  I was stunned. “She actually said that? That she’d defend you if you were spouting her opinions?” I resisted the urge to say “bigoted, barbaric opinions.” “Yup,” said Tim cheerfully. “She meant it too. My wife’s a better person than I am: she never says things she doesn’t mean. I do it all the time. And, to be fair to her, she thinks our opinions are interchangeable. She’s far better at being married than I am.” God, he could be infuriating: the deadpan way he’d describe your outrageous attitudes and behavior toward him as if he didn’t disapprove of them himself, purely to wind me up.

  What would the penalty be for lying about his name and his family, if you were in a position to hand out punishments, Francine? Would Tim’s sentence be harsh or lenient? How long in the dark cloud for telling you his parents were dead and he had no siblings, when in fact he has two brothers—one older, one younger—and his parents are alive and well and living in Rickmansworth? Their surname isn’t Breary, it’s Singleton. That’s what Tim used to be called. Breary came from his fourth-year English teacher, Padraig Breary—housemaster at Gowchester School by day, poet by night, died of a brain tumor in 2007, aged sixty-three. Tim read about his death in one of the poetry magazines at his local library: if it weren’t for the library, he told me and Dan, he wouldn’t have made the effort to leave his Bath bedsit to buy food. He’d have starved to death and saved himself the bother of having to do melodramatic things with a knife.

  It was exactly a month after Padraig Breary die
d that Tim tried to follow his example: same date the next month. Tim didn’t tell me that. I found out by accident months later, when I read an obituary of Padraig Breary from the Times that Tim had cut out and kept. I never mentioned to him that I’d made the connection between the dates.

  I don’t think you’d be all that interested in Padraig Breary, would you, Francine, even if I told you what a brilliant poet he was? You were proud of your belief that poetry was a waste of everyone’s time. You’d want to know all about the Singletons, though: the in-laws Tim denied you that were yours by right—his parents, Veronica and Trevor, both now retired, and his two brothers, Stuart and Andrew. Veronica used to be a solicitor like you, though her field was employment law, not pensions, so not too spookily similar. Trevor was something senior and managerish at British Airways. Stuart sort of followed his dad’s example and is a pilot, and Andrew runs a gourmet pizza takeaway-and-delivery company. They’re both married, with a child each.

  Tim didn’t tell me about his brothers’ careers or families because he doesn’t know. Shortly after his suicide attempt, I paid a private investigator for information about Stuart and Andrew Singleton. In case Tim ever wants to trace them, I’ve saved him the trouble. Though, truthfully, that’s not why I did it: it had more to do with wanting to be able to get in touch with them quickly and easily if anything were to happen to Tim. He has no relationship with them now, but I’d want to let them know, and I’d want to know if I were them.

  I don’t think there’s any circumstance that could make me want to contact Veronica and Trevor Singleton, who never spoke to their children apart from about the practicalities of day-to-day life, never kissed or cuddled or said they loved them, never took them anywhere a child might want to go more than an adult would. From all the stories Tim told me and Dan (as if they were hilarious and had happened to someone else) what most sticks in my mind is his description of family mealtimes: Veronica and Trevor reading in silence while shoveling in each day’s identical food—porridge for breakfast, salad and tinned fish for lunch, stew for supper—with their books held up close so that their sons couldn’t see their faces. They bought no books for their sons, ever, though they didn’t mind if Tim read the paperback novels they’d finished with, which he did as soon as he was old enough. Stuart and Andrew never showed an interest, and read only at school when they had to.