Killing Me Softly

by Nicci French

  At a fork in the road there was an ornate war monument with an eagle on it to people in the RAF. We went right.

  ‘We’re here,’ said Adam.

  He pulled into the side of the road and switched off the engine.

  ‘Where?’ I said.

  Adam reached into the back of the car for the camera. ‘Come,’ he said.

  ‘I should have brought my boots.’

  ‘We’re only walking a couple of hundred yards.’

  Adam took my hand and we walked away from the road, along a path. Then we turned off the path, into some trees and then up a slope, slippery with leaves still decaying from last autumn. Adam had been silent and thoughtful. I was almost startled when he began to speak.

  ‘I climbed K2 a few years ago,’ he said. I nodded and said something affirmative but he seemed lost in his own world. ‘Lots of great, great climbers have never done it, lots of great climbers have died trying. When I was at the top I knew intellectually that it was almost certainly the greatest climbing thing I would ever do, but I felt nothing. I looked around but…’ He made a contemptuous gesture. ‘I was up there for about fifteen minutes, waiting for Kevin Doyle to join me. All the while I was calculating the time, checking my equipment, going through the supplies in my head, deciding on the route down. Even as I looked around, the mountain was just there as a problem.’

  ‘So why do you do it?’

  He scowled. ‘No, you don’t get my point. Look.’ We were emerging from the trees on to some grass, almost moorland. ‘This is the landscape I love.’ He put his arms round me. ‘I was once here before, and I thought it was one of the loveliest spots I had ever seen. We’re in one of the most crowded islands on earth but here we are on a patch of grass that’s off a path that’s off a track that’s off the road. Look at it with my eyes, Alice. Look down there, the church we passed nestling in the land as if it had grown there. And look round there at the fields, underneath it but they seem close up: a table of green fields. Come and stand here, by this hawthorn bush.’

  Adam positioned me quite carefully and then stood facing me, looking around, as if orienting himself precisely. I shook him off, bewildered and uncomfortable. What had all this to do with his dozens of infidelities?

  ‘And then there’s you, Alice, my only love,’ he said, standing back and looking at me, as if I were a precious ornament he had put into a shop window. ‘You know the story that we are all broken into two halves and we spend our lives looking for our other self. Every affair we have, however stupid or trivial, has a bit of that hope that this might be it, our other self.’ His eyes turned dark suddenly, like the surface of a lake when a cloud has moved in front of the sun. I shivered in front of the hawthorn bush. ‘That’s why they can end so badly, because you feel you’ve been betrayed.’ He looked round and then back at me. ‘But with you, I know.’ I felt myself gasp, my eyes water. ‘Stand still, I want to take a photograph of you.’

  ‘Christ, Adam, don’t be so odd. Just kiss me, hold me.’

  He shook his head and raised the camera in front of his face. ‘I wanted to photograph you here, in this place, at the moment that I asked you to marry me.’

  There was a flash. I felt my knees give way. I sat down on the damp grass and he ran forward and took hold of me. ‘Are you all right?’

  Was I all right? A feeling of extraordinary joy rose up in me. I stood up and laughed and kissed him on the mouth, firmly: a pledge.

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  ‘Of course it is, you idiot. Yes. Yes yes yes.’

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Here she is.’

  And there, indeed, I was, open-mouthed, wide-eyed, taking shape, colours deepening, outline hardening.

  ‘There we are,’ he said, handing it to me. ‘It’s a moment, but it’s also a promise. For ever.’

  I took the picture and put it in my purse. ‘For ever,’ I said.

  Adam seized my wrist with an urgency that startled me. ‘You mean it, don’t you, Alice? I’ve given myself before and I’ve been let down before. That’s why I brought you here, so that we could make this vow to each other.’ He looked at me fiercely, as if he were threatening me. ‘This vow is more important than any marriage.’ Then he softened. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose you. I could never bear to let you go.’

  I took him in my arms. I held his head and I kissed his mouth, his eyes, the firm jaw and the hollow of his neck. I told him I was his, and he was mine. I felt his tears on my skin, hot and salty. My only love.

  Twelve

  I wrote to my mother. She was going to be very surprised. I had only told her that Jake and I had separated. I hadn’t even mentioned Adam before. I wrote to Jake, trying to find the right words. I didn’t want him to hear it from anyone else first. I met more of Adam’s friends and colleagues – people he had climbed with, people he’d shared tents with and crapped with and with whom he had risked his life – and everywhere we went I could feel Adam’s appraising eyes on me, making my skin prickle. I went to work and sat at my desk, loose with remembered and anticipated pleasure, and pushed paper around desks and sat in meetings. I meant to ring up Sylvie, and Clive, and even Pauline, but somehow I always put it off. Almost every day now we would receive silent phone calls. I got used to holding the receiver a bit away from my ear, hearing the raspy breathing and putting the phone back on its stand. One day wet leaves and earth were pushed through our letterbox, but we ignored that as well. If occasionally I felt anxious, the anxiety was drowned out by all the other turbulent emotions.

  I learned that Adam cooked great curries. That television bored him. That he walked very fast. That he mended the few clothes he owned with meticulous care. That he loved single malt whisky and good red wine and wheat beer, and hated baked beans and bony fish and mashed potatoes. That his father was still alive. That he never read novels. That he was almost fluent in Spanish and French, the bastard. That he could tie knots with one hand. That he used to be scared of enclosed spaces, until he was cured by six days in a tent on a two-feet deep ledge on the side of Annapurna. That he didn’t need much sleep. That his frost-bitten foot still hurt him sometimes. That he liked cats and birds of prey. That his hands were always warm, however icy it was outside in the streets. That he hadn’t cried since he was twelve and his mother died, until the day I said I would marry him. That he hated lids to be left off jars and drawers to be left open. That he took showers at least twice a day, and clipped his nails several times a week. That he always carried tissues in his pockets. That he could hold me down with one hand. That he rarely smiled, laughed. I would wake up and he would be beside me, staring at me.

  I let him take photographs of me. I let him watch me in the bath, on the lavatory, putting on makeup. I let him tie me down. I felt at last as if I had been turned inside out and all my private internal landscape, everything that had belonged only to me, was known. I think I was very, very happy, but if this was happiness, then I had never been happy before.

  On Thursday, four days after Adam had asked me to marry him and three days after we had gone to the register office to post our banns, sign forms and pay money, Clive rang me at work. I had neither seen him nor spoken to him since the tenpin bowling, on the day I left Jake. He was polite and formal, but asked me if Adam and I would like to come to Gail’s thirtieth birthday party. It was tomorrow, Friday, nine o’clock, with food and dancing.

  I hesitated. ‘Will Jake be there?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘And Pauline?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do they know that you’re asking me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have rung you without talking to them first.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘You’d better give me the address.’

  I didn’t think Adam would want to go, but he surprised me. ‘Of course, if it’s important to you,’ he said casually.

  I wore the dress he had bought for me, chocolate-brown velvet with long sleeves, deep neck and slashed, swirly skirt. It was the first time I
had got dressed up for weeks. It occurred to me that, since Adam, I had, bizarrely, paid little attention to what I wore or how I looked. I was thinner than I had been, and pale. My hair needed cutting and there were dark smudges under my eyes. Yet I felt, examining myself in the mirror before we left that evening, that I looked beautiful in a way that was new. Or maybe I was just ill, or mad.

  Gail’s flat was in a large, rickety house in Finsbury Park. When we arrived there, all the windows were lit up. Even from the pavement we could hear music and laughing voices, and see the shapes of people through the open curtains. I clutched Adam’s arm. ‘Is this a good idea? Maybe we shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘Let’s go in there for a bit. You can see everyone you need to see, and we can go and have a late meal afterwards.’

  Gail opened the door. ‘Alice!’ She kissed me exuberantly on both cheeks, as if we were old friends, then turned inquiringly towards Adam, as if she had no idea who he was.

  ‘Adam, this is Gail. Gail, Adam.’

  Adam said nothing but took her hand and held it for a moment. She looked at him. ‘Sylvie was right.’ She giggled. She was drunk already.

  ‘Happy birthday, Gail,’ I said drily, and she forced her attention back to me.

  The room was full of people holding glasses of wine or cans of beer. There was a raggle-taggle band of musicians clutching their instruments in one corner, but they weren’t playing. Music was booming from the stereo instead. I took two glasses from the table and glugged some wine into them for Adam and me, and looked around. Jake was standing near the window, talking to a tall woman wearing a strikingly short leather skirt. He hadn’t noticed me come in, or he was pretending that he hadn’t.

  ‘Alice.’

  I turned. ‘Pauline. Nice to see you.’ I moved forward and kissed her cheek, but she was unresponsive. I introduced Adam awkwardly.

  ‘I gathered,’ she said.

  Adam took her by the elbow and said in a clear, carrying voice, ‘Pauline, life is too short to lose a friend.’

  She looked taken aback but at least she managed to speak. I drifted away from them, towards Jake. I had to get this over with. He had seen me now. He was still talking to the woman in the skirt, but his glance kept turning towards me. I went over. ‘Hello, Jake,’ I said.

  ‘Hello, Alice.’

  ‘Did you get my letter?’

  The woman turned and left us. Jake smiled at me, and said, ‘God, that was hard going. It’s difficult being single again. Yes, I got your letter. At least you didn’t say you hoped we could still be friends.’

  At the other end of the room I saw Adam talking to Sylvie and Clive. Pauline was still beside him; and he was still holding her arm. I saw how all the women eyed him, drifted over towards him, and I felt a twinge of jealousy. But then he looked up, our eyes met, and he gave a funny twisted grin.

  Jake saw the glance. ‘Now I know why you were suddenly so interested in climbing literature,’ he said, with a painful smile. I didn’t reply. ‘I feel so ridiculously stupid. All that happening under my nose and me not knowing. Oh, and congratulations.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When is it going to be?’

  ‘Oh. In two and a half weeks’ time.’ He winced. ‘Yes, well, why wait… ?’ I stopped. My voice sounded too bright and cheery. ‘Are you all right, Jake?’

  Now Adam was talking just to Sylvie. His back was to me, but she was staring up at him with a rapt expression I knew too well.

  ‘It’s no longer your concern,’ said Jake, in a voice that was trembling slightly. ‘Can you tell me something?’ I saw that his eyes had filled with tears. It was as if my going had released a new Jake – one who had lost his mellow cheerfulness and his irony; who wept easily.

  ‘What?’ I realized that Jake was a bit drunk. He bent closer to me, so I could feel his breath on my cheek.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for, you know, him, would you have stayed with me and –?’

  ‘Alice, it’s time to go.’ Adam put both arms round me from behind, and rested his head on my hair. He was holding me too tightly. I could hardly breathe.

  ‘Adam, this is Jake.’

  The two men didn’t say anything. Adam let go of me and held out his hand. Jake didn’t move at first; then, with a puzzled expression, he put his hand into Adam’s. Adam nodded. Man to man. A desire to giggle rose in my throat, which I suppressed.

  ‘Goodbye, Jake,’ I said awkwardly. I was about to reach up and kiss him on the cheek, but Adam pulled me away.

  ‘Come on, my love,’ he said, leading me from the room. I sketched a half-wave at Pauline and left.

  Outside the house, Adam stopped and turned me towards him. ‘Satisfied?’ he said, and kissed me savagely. I slid my arms under his jacket and shirt and leaned into him. When I pulled away, I saw Jake, still standing at the window and looking out. Our eyes met but he made no gesture.

  Thirteen

  I tried to make the question seem casual, although I had been shaping it and rephrasing it in my mind for days. We were lying in bed, exhausted, long after midnight, coiled round each other in the dark, when I sensed an opportunity.

  ‘Your friend Klaus,’ I said. ‘Writing about what happened on Chunga-whatever-it-is. I can never remember the name.’

  ‘Chungawat,’ said Adam.

  He didn’t say anything else. He would need more prompting.

  ‘He said you were pissed off with him for writing the book.’

  ‘Did he now?’ Adam said.

  ‘Are you? I don’t see why it’s a problem. Deborah told me what you did, what a hero you were.’

  Adam sighed. ‘I wasn’t…’ He paused. ‘It wasn’t about heroism. They shouldn’t have been there, most of them. I…’ He tried again. ‘At that height, in those conditions, most people, even fit people who are experienced in other conditions, can’t survive on their own if things start to go wrong.’

  ‘Is that your fault, Adam?’

  ‘Greg shouldn’t have organized it, I shouldn’t have gone along. The rest of them shouldn’t have thought there was an easy way of climbing a mountain like that.’

  ‘Deborah said that Greg had worked out a foolproof way of getting them up the mountain.’

  ‘That was the idea. Then there was a storm and Greg and Claude got sick and the plan didn’t work out so well.’

  ‘Why?’

  His tone turned irritable. He was impatient with me for pressing him, but I wasn’t going to stop.

  ‘We weren’t a team. Only one of the clients had ever been to the Himalayas before. They couldn’t communicate. I mean, for God’s sake, the German guy, Tomas, could hardly speak a single word of English.’

  ‘Aren’t you just curious to see what Klaus has to say in his book?’

  ‘I know what he has to say.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve got a copy.’

  ‘What! Have you read it?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve looked through it,’ he said, almost with contempt.

  ‘I thought the book hadn’t been published yet.’

  ‘It hasn’t. Klaus sent me one of those rough, early versions – what are they called?’

  ‘Proof copies. Have you got the book here?’

  ‘It’s in a bag somewhere.’

  I kissed my way down his chest, his stomach and beyond, until I could taste myself on him.

  ‘I want to read it. You don’t mind, do you?’

  I made a private rule for myself that I would never try to compare Adam with Jake. It seemed a last, feeble way of trying to be fair to Jake. But I couldn’t help it sometimes. Jake never just did something, never just went out. He was too considerate and attentive. He asked my permission or informed me or planned it in advance and probably asked me to come with him, or what I was doing. Adam was completely different. Much of the time he was utterly absorbed in me, wanting to touch, taste, penetrate or just look at me. At other times he would make a precise arrangement for where and when we would next meet,
then he would throw on a jacket and go.

  The next morning he was standing at the door when I remembered. ‘Klaus’s book,’ I said. He frowned. ‘You promised,’ I said.

  He didn’t say anything but walked across to the spare room and I heard sounds of rummaging. He emerged with a book with a floppy light blue cover. He tossed it over to where I sat on the sofa. I looked at the cover: Ridge of Sighs by Klaus Smith.

  ‘It’s only one man’s view,’ he said. ‘So I’ll see you at the Pelican at seven.’

  And he was gone, rattling down the stairs. I went to the window, as I always did when he went out, and watched him appear and cross the pavement. He halted, turned and looked up. I blew him a kiss and he smiled and turned away. I went back to the sofa. I had, I suppose, some idea of reading for a bit, making some coffee, having a bath, but I didn’t move for three hours. At first I flicked ahead, looking for his lovely name and finding it, and looking for photographs, and not finding them, because they wouldn’t be in until the final published version. Then I turned to the beginning, to the very first page.

  The book was dedicated to the members of the 1997 Chungawat expedition. Beneath the dedication there was a quotation from an old mountaineering book of the thirties: ‘May we, who live our lives where the air is thick and minds are clear, pause before we judge men who venture into that wonderland, that looking-glass realm on the roof of the world.’

  The phone rang and I listened to the silence for a few seconds before putting it down again. Sometimes I could persuade myself that I recognized the breathing; that it was someone I knew at the other end. Once I said, tentatively, ‘Jake?’ to see if there was any response, any sharp intake of breath. This time, I didn’t really care. I wanted to get on with Ridge of Sighs.

  The book began more than twenty-five million years ago, when the Himalayan range (‘younger than the Brazilian rainforest’) was pushed up in folds by the northward drift of the Indian subcontinent. It leaped forward to a catastrophic British expedition up Chungawat just after the First World War. The attempt on the summit was abruptly halted when a British Army major lost his footing and pulled three of his comrades down with him, falling, as Klaus put it drily, around three thousand metres from Nepal into China.