‘Everyone was scared to speak out, scared of what the company might do if they found out …’
It was Harry’s voice I was remembering again now, the memory of it sliding down my skin like fingernails.
He had been so proud of himself as he explained how he had been talking to an employee of an NGO on the ground in Bata, which had been helping deliver medicine to victims of the disaster, and how he had been working to find victims to come forward.
And I was jealous because it was taking him away from time he could have been spending with me.
‘The problem is, we’ve dealt with cases like this before and people like Clive are very good at handing down blame.’ Those were his words at the time. ‘Unless we can prove he knew about the deal – that he was explicitly aware of what was contained in the waste units, and the fact that they had been rejected by the water police in a number of other countries on grounds that they needed to be properly disposed of, as chemical slops, then he’ll find a way to wriggle out of it. He’ll say he was unaware, and pass the buck to some other sucker.’
‘Your brother, did he …?’
The sentence petered out on my lips.
She nodded, looking down at her hands.
‘Yes, he died. But it wasn’t the sickness that killed him. The villagers, parents of the children who died, after what happened, they blamed him. One day they came to our house and …’
She stopped then, and I took my cue.
‘What do you want from me?’
She paused, possibly questioning whether it was hostility or willingness that tinted my voice.
‘The receipt you sent Harry a picture of, the one in Clive’s study in Greece. We need the paper. We need you to go back to Greece and find it.’
‘What?’
She didn’t repeat herself, so after a moment I carried on. ‘But that’s absurd. I mean, we don’t even know it’s still there!’
‘Why would he move it?’
‘Well, I don’t know. Why wouldn’t he?’ My voice reflected my growing impatience. ‘I’m sorry, where is Harry?’
She paused, her expression settling into one of concern, and then I heard his voice behind me, a ripple of cold air bushing against my neck.
Mimi looked down, perhaps aware that she was intruding on a moment that should have been ours alone.
‘Anna?’
I stood, allowing myself a moment before I turned, waiting for my body to tell me how to respond. For a moment, I didn’t move, letting him take me in: my pressed white shirt tucked into light-grey woollen trousers skimming black leather boots.
In all the times I had imagined the moment of our reunion, as I had so often over the years, I never saw myself in his eyes, only him in mine. And every time I had imagined him, I realised now, I had pencilled in an extra detail.
‘I needed to make sure you were alone.’
He answered the question I had not yet asked. His voice was rushed, less controlled than the one I remembered.
‘It’s too much to explain now. I still can’t be sure you’re not being …’
Without warning, he took my hands. The shock of his touch was sharp and I felt my body pull back.
‘I’m sorry.’
He was struggling to sit still, his voice speeding up as he continued.
‘I had to check you were alone. I needed to know you weren’t being watched,’ he added, noticing my hesitation and rephrasing so that he and I were once again in this together.
‘Things have been happening … Things …’
What was he talking about? I looked to Mimi for reassurance, but she was ringing her hands, her face turned away from mine.
‘I can’t explain, other than to say things are more urgent than we expected. Your message, it came at the right time … The woman you saw me with – David’s old colleague? She is working for us too.’
He saw my face fall.
‘I’m sorry that I can’t explain further right now. There isn’t time. But you just have to listen to me, Anna, you have to believe me when I say that all I know is that we are in danger and the only way to get out of this is to get that receipt, get Clive locked up, and then leave.’
‘What are you talking about, Harry? How can you turn up here out of the blue and expect me to— What? What is it that you are even asking?’
He took a moment. ‘Out of the blue?’
‘It’s been a year and a half, Harry.’
He looked at me then as if I were a stranger.
‘Anna, I’m sorry if all this hasn’t been linear enough for you, swift enough. I didn’t realise we were working to a timeline.’ He paused, finding his flow. ‘I mean, really, what did you think we were doing here?’
Mimi threw him a look that made me question the true nature of their relationship.
‘What Harry is trying to say is that these things take time. I can only imagine how distressing it has been for you, waiting so long, not understanding what was happening; but Harry has intentionally tried to shield you, where he could. But now the time has come for action, and we’re asking you – I’m asking you – for those children, for my brother …’ She paused. ‘Only you can help finish this.’
Amidst the turmoil, my mind scrabbled for something tangible to hold onto.
‘The receipt, I don’t understand. Why do you need that? You have the photograph I took of it, surely that’s enough?’
‘It’s not.’
Harry shook his head, the flourish of anger having dissipated. Not wanting to meet his gaze, I focused on his fingers, the smooth curve of the nails I barely recognised. The hands that once held me so close against his chest that I could feel his heart beating as if it were inside me too were now those of a stranger.
There was an unnatural calmness as he spoke.
‘With a photograph, when the case gets to court – which it will, by the way – his defence could easily argue it’s a fake. We could have just photoshopped it. Whatever. If we have the signed paper, which clearly sets out the deal TradeSmart was striking with the owners of the Miracle, with Clive’s fingerprints, that is a far tighter hole to squeeze out of.’
I felt Mimi’s eyes on my cheeks. My perfectly preserved skin, which I layered each morning with moisturiser that probably cost more than a week’s worth of the medication her brother had desperately needed. What must she think when she looked at me? What would she think if she knew what I had done, the choices I had made?
‘Once we have the document …’ Harry resumed his explanation. ‘Once we have it in our hands, then we can get the ball rolling. Without saying too much, Nguema has a lot of power in his country, but we have ways of making things happen. Once we have the receipt, an arrest warrant can be issued for Clive Witherall’s arrest.’
‘But will the British courts really be able to try him for something that happened in another country?’
‘With the scale of this case, and the involvement of various international charities who are prepared to condemn the environmental impact of the waste deposits, as well as the human cost, it could be that this is considered more than a local issue. Besides, this is essentially a British company and it’s been breaking international trade laws left, right and centre.’
With the help of the emails I had found, Harry continued, he was able to hack the company’s internal emails and weed out a chain of messages in which high-level employees debated how to dispose of the mercaptan without paying the proper $40,000 fee.
Did he notice how I flinched at how casually he raised our collective past?
‘We’ve got at least thirty or so emails with employees talking about dodgy contacts in corrupt countries across the world who might be able to offer a way out. At one point, they discuss the possibility of buying a ship, loading it with the mercaptan and sinking it, in order to save a few thousand pounds.’
I could feel the movement of Mimi’s body as she rocked her foot gently from side to side, her eyes still darting across the park, where a group o
f nursery children in high-visibility vests were being led to a picnic.
‘The bottom line is, we don’t want TradeSmart on trial in Africa. We want it done here, and we have the means to bring about a serious class action case. We’ve got everyone on board, but the one thing we don’t want is for Clive to give us the slip. And the only concrete evidence we have linking him to the waste dump is that receipt.’
I shifted again in my seat. It was cold, I realised. The sun had abandoned us and the flesh across my shoulders rippled with goose-bumps. I could feel Harry growing restless beside me. Seeing him now, this man I barely recognised against the vision that had kept me awake at night, I wondered if I had redrawn him in the image of a person who had never really existed at all.
Briefly, I felt a tug of pain, an almost overwhelming longing for what had abandoned us now. I turned to face him, the words I had practised waiting to be said. And yet, something stopped me, the inevitability of it all offering some relief. He was right. It had, of course, always been leading to this. How many times had I imagined this moment in my mind; how many hours had I spent with David snoring lightly beside me, deliberating the move that I always knew would eventually come? The final epoch. The action without which everything else would have been nothing but a charade. Or so I thought.
CHAPTER 57
Maria
Anna was working late one evening, the girls already tucked up in their beds, when I came down to find David alone in the kitchen, his face stained with tears. The girls’ picture books were still scattered across the table, and he had a bottle of whisky hanging from one hand. In the other was a letter, which he refolded as he heard me enter the room, but not before I saw the girls’ names printed on the lower half of the sheet.
His face changed when he saw me, a pitiful smile lifting at the corners of his mouth. Pulling out a chair beside him, I slid my hands towards him and held them there.
‘Is everything OK?’
‘No, it’s not. I’ve just … Never mind …’ He shook his head wearily, closing his eyes. ‘Maria, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. That night, in Greece, I …’
It was the first time he had mentioned it, in all these years.
Shaking my head, I squeezed his hand.
‘Stop. It’s OK. I know, you had lost your mother. You were a child. I shouldn’t have reacted so …’
Something in his expression changed and he pulled away from me.
‘Don’t do that, Maria.’
I stood, moving towards the sink. ‘Do what?’
‘Don’t be disingenuous. Don’t lie to me. I’ve had enough of people lying.’
There was a glint in his eyes that made me question, for a moment, how much he really knew. He took another swig of his bottle.
‘I wouldn’t have done it.’ His voice was quiet, his body sitting straighter against the back of the chair.
I knew, even before he touched me. My eyes held his as he crossed the room, in silence, my breath quickening as he approached.
He paused for a second, our faces a breath apart, before our mouths finally touched. I was the one who pulled away first.
‘I …’ My reply barely penetrated the silence, which was broken as the jingle of keys in the door interrupted us and I turned, moving out of the room seconds before Anna walked in.
CHAPTER 58
Anna
When I think of the life I am leaving behind, my first thought is always of Rose. Rose, who had been born fearful, as if something inside her had always known.
‘You can’t take them with you,’ Harry said that afternoon once Mimi had left us, her part in my transformation complete; just the details left to iron out, like my children, which Harry referred to now as if they were a piece of hand luggage.
I looked away, my eyes filling with tears. But the fact was, no matter how you looked at it, I was not the parent the girls needed. It was debatable, perhaps, why my parenting was so inadequate. Possibly I did not have it in me to give them the love, the security they needed, because of my own emotional weakness, the lingering sense of failure that made me too afraid to try to protect them from a world I struggled to navigate for myself. A world in which I could not even protect my own twin.
Perhaps I simply did not have it in me to put their needs above my own; perhaps, somewhere along the line, I had fabricated my insufficiency in my own mind in order to justify my escape; the means to the life that I had wanted so badly that I had been prepared to give up all else.
Had I kept them at a distance in order to protect them, or to protect myself?
So many potential reasons why, but in the end it hardly mattered; whichever prevailed, the result was the same – the girls would be better off without me.
I shivered as a breeze blew over the top of the hill.
‘I just have to make the best decision I can for them in the circumstances. David is a good father. He’s a good man …’
My voice trailed off. Sitting up straighter, for a moment it struck me that perhaps I could stay after all. How would Clive know I had been the one to steal the papers? If he was behind bars, surely then the threat would disappear? There was no reason for him to know anything …
Harry saw it in my face.
His voice was gentle but firm as he cast me out.
‘Anna, you have to go. It’s going to come out. These things always do.’
‘Not necessarily.’
My tone was so rational that for a moment I almost believed it myself.
‘Even if it did …’ I was holding on to the idea with both arms. ‘I mean, everyone will know why I did it. David, he will understand, once he knows what his father has done. It’s Clive who is the criminal.’
As I said it, I felt my voice falter.
‘The choices I’ve made were honest, surely they will see that? I’m not the one who’s to blame here …’
‘You really think David will see it like that, when he finds out the truth? And he will find out, Anna. You have to know that. Besides, the reality is, whether or not you get the receipt, you’re not safe any more.’
‘What about Rose and Stella? If I’m not safe, what makes you think—’
‘Anna, whatever Clive might be, those girls are his grandchildren. David’s children. You really think he would …’
I shook my head, unwilling to hear him test the words.
‘Will they even remember me?’
He didn’t answer, and I wondered if his thought in that moment was the same as mine: maybe it’s best that they don’t.
I turned away, so that he would not see me, pushing my sleeve across my cheek. I would not let him see me cry.
‘You made this choice, Anna. I’m sorry if it sounds harsh, but there is no one else to blame here.’
‘Blame?’ I turned on him now, years of unspoken rage pouring out of me in a hot, sudden burst. ‘No one else to blame? Fuck you, Harry.’
Silence swung between us. When I looked down at my hands they were shaking. A dark cloud had settled above our heads. On the horizon, where the Walthamstow Marshes faded into a too-bright sky, a train cut through the Lee Valley like a snake arrowing towards its victim.
‘Where will I go?’
I kept my face turned away from his.
‘Anywhere. I mean, I’d suggest somewhere people won’t come looking.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to help, in these situations? Don’t you usually provide somewhere … a new life? I mean, where am I supposed to go?’
I felt the panic seeping in, filling my throat.
‘Trust me, you don’t want us knowing where you are. There are too many people on the inside who … Clive has friends. You know that. The fewer people who know where you’re going, the better.’
‘People know who I am, Harry. My picture is in the paper. I can’t just disappear.’
Though, of course, I could. It was what I had been doing all my life, disappearing into a crowd, slipping through the cracks. There was something chamele
on-like about my demeanour that meant that even with my recent notoriety, people rarely recognised me. It was both a gift and a curse.
‘You must have plenty of money saved by now. I mean, my God, you’ve been paid enough.’
He was right. I had barely touched the money Harry had facilitated over the years. I had never needed to; I could hardly spend all the cash David poured into our joint account every month. Aside from that, there had been my more-than-sufficient wage from the magazine that had been piling into a separate bank, without David ever questioning it. Yet, without a job – and I could hardly expect to tout myself in anything other than cash-in-hand, low-skilled work – how long would it actually last?
‘We can get you a passport.’
Harry spoke quickly, speeding through the finalities, ticking off the boxes.
‘We’ll try to keep your name out of the press, of course. For the sake of the girls as much as anything. Anyway, they are young. By the time they’re old enough to take it in, everyone else will have forgotten. And maybe by then they’ll understand. What you’re doing, it’s heroic.’
I looked away, biting the tip of my tongue until it bled.
CHAPTER 59
Anna
‘Have you seen this?’
Millie stands by the door to my office, holding a magazine spread in my direction above the swollen curve of her belly.
I take a moment to finish the sentence I am writing at my desk, pushing the open bottle of wine with my foot so that it will not be seen, placing my pen neatly to one side before looking up, folding the letter I know in my rational mind there is no reason for Millie to take notice of, a letter to the girls that I will never send.
‘What is it?’
I know the answer even before she scuttles inside, brandishing the photo-spread taken from the society pages of one of the fashion magazines she devours. I see my own face and David’s staring back at me, the colours weeping into one another.
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