Eyes of the Blind

by Alex Tresillian

  He sat, at something of a loss. He didn’t have Karin Leman’s number, or he would have tried it. Perhaps he should call Faith at Moorfields. Either she would know where Miranda had gone, or, as her sort of temporary guardian, she ought to know that her charge had disappeared.

  “Yes,” he said to Hugo, convincing himself.

  Faith’s mobile went to voicemail. He didn’t leave a message.

  He tried Miranda again. If she and her mother were in and out of shops or tubes they would pass in and out of pockets of reception.

  Still nothing.

  He called Simon.

  “You’re missing a great day,” Simon said as he answered.

  “Has Miranda called you at all?” Niall asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Simon said. “I know what to say.”

  “It’s just that she’s not here,” Niall said.

  “Where?”

  “At the house.”

  “You went out. Maybe she went out,” Simon observed.

  “Genius,” Niall said.

  “She may’ve left a note.”

  “She’s only just learning to write. Why not call and say she was going?”

  “Because she was probably pissed off with you for leaving her.”

  “Yeah. Maybe,” Niall acknowledged.

  “She probably told Faith.”

  “Faith’s not answering.”

  “No, well, some of us work,” Simon said.

  “So you do. Sorry mate,” Niall said, hanging up. He had been one of the world’s workers six months ago. Would those days ever come again? Once you fell off the carousel (or got pushed off, in his case), could you ever get back on it again? The news was full every day of the millions of unemployed. With all those millions to choose from, what employer was going to be drawn to a blind man? A blind journalist. It was a joke, when you thought about it. He should eat humble pie and see if he could get something at Victory. He could write copy for their promotional material.

  Victory. Might Miranda have gone to Regents Park? What for? He could call Lindsey. No, he couldn’t face that. He would just have to sit, bored, and wait.

  Alone in her office, Faith reflected on the extraordinary interview that had just ended. She had got used over the years to confessions of one kind or another – the confessions of parents who felt guilty and inept, the anguished confessions of blind adolescents following questionable paths in their search for warmth and meaning in their world. But Juliette Warwick’s was unique, in both matter and manner. It had been entirely devoid of emotion and, really, of explanation. Just a litany of barely credible facts, and she didn’t know, even now, if she was in possession of them all.

  And what was she going to do with it now?

  “I just want someone to know,” Juliette had said. “I’m not looking for action or sympathy or even understanding. None of that matters, but it matters to me that the knowledge is out there.”

  Which was all fair and fine, but given the nature of the knowledge, the enormity of the secret empire building Juliette had described –

  Most of it, though, was about BAB and its own internal workings. That three people had stopped at nothing to make BAB their own personal gravy train was really none of her business: she wasn’t a BAB employee. Only BAB did cast a huge shadow over the lives and expectations of many of her charges, and where these Machiavellian plots impacted the lives of vulnerable others – then there was a case to answer.

  Niall’s ‘journalist’s nose’ had led him to the tip of an iceberg. She could imagine how triumphant he would be, armed with what she now knew, what cages he would ill-advisedly and unsubtly rattle.

  All of which made a very good case for not sharing any of it with him.

  Apart from the occasional wandering hand, the lunch had passed off uneventfully. Miranda did not feel that she was much further forward in terms of the investigation, but Daniel had definitely thawed. He exuded confidence and ease. Now she needed that confidence to tip the balance into over-confidence, and then, she was sure, she would start to find things out. It was a relief to escape from the dark intimacy of the restaurant, and the prospect of accompanying Daniel to his office and having a look round at BAB, where there would be people, and lights would be on, was actually quite exciting.

  “What pathetic things I find exciting,” Miranda told herself.

  Daniel spent the drive from north London to Knighstbridge trying to impress her with the various shortcuts and rat-runs he knew that could avoid the worst of the traffic trouble-spots, but in truth she was left confused and cold. She would rather have followed major thoroughfares and seen famous landmarks that she had never been able to see before.

  “I don’t usually go in the main entrance,” Daniel said to her after they had parked, “but it’s much more impressive and this is something of an occasion. Our own celebrity coming to pay us a visit.”

  “Well,” Miranda said, trying to sound flattered and at the same time not to feel it.

  Daniel put a proprietary arm around her shoulder as they approached the imposing porticoed entrance, where a woman was standing in a light blue raincoat.

  “Excuse me,” the woman said, as Daniel and Miranda prepared to pass her. “It’s Daniel Sullivan, isn’t it?”

  Daniel stopped. Miranda looked at the woman. She appeared pale – drawn and exhausted.

  “Yes,” Daniel Sullivan said.

  “I’ve been waiting here all day in the hope of catching you,” she went on.

  “Then you’re very lucky,” Daniel said. “I very rarely use this entrance.”

  “God is good,” the woman said, and spat in his face.

  Miranda felt Daniel stiffen, and then relax as he calmly removed a handkerchief from his pocket.

  “That’s for my husband,” the woman said. “Yes, that’s right. Look confused. You don’t know me from Adam. Which is why you couldn’t care less. I’m Theresa Clarke. I’ve heard your disgusting and libellous allegations about my husband, that he was some deranged killer, some wolf in sheep’s clothing. He was a good man, a lovely man, a family man, and I don’t know what awful place he ended up in that caused him to do what he did and leave me and the children but it must have been truly awful and I can’t help thinking that maybe you or one of your ilk had something to do with that. But then to have the effrontery to claim to the media that he was trying to ruin the operation that he had been so excited about – oh, and look, you’ve got the poor brainwashed girl on your arm now. My husband did nothing to damage your recovery, Miss, he cared about you and he cared about his job and he cared about us. And you, Mr. Sullivan, are a vile man.”

  Miranda could see that Theresa Clarke was shaking. Tears were running uncontrollably down her cheeks.

  “Madam,” Daniel Sullivan said calmly, “I understand that it is a shock –”

  “How dare you!” she shrieked. “How dare you give me that and try to pacify me. I am his wife. I know him. Far better than you ever can or will.”

  “Of course you are upset –” Daniel began again. Theresa Clarke ignored him and turned to Miranda.

  “How can you bear to stand next to him?” she asked. “You think it’s all thanks to this man that you can see?” she asked. “It was the doctors that made you see. Jamal Daghash and my husband. My dead husband. He’d’ve probably given you his eyes if he thought you’d stand a better chance with them. That was the kind of man he was. Oh but no because he was secretly on some mission to do God’s work which was apparently to make sure brilliant pioneering scientific endeavour was an utter failure. You’re all vicious and evil and vile.”

  BAB security had clearly communicated quickly with the police, as a female officer materialised as if by magic and started to escort Theresa Clarke away.

  “It’s very hard to defend yourself when you’re dead,” Theresa Clarke called out as she started to walk away, “but I’ve not finished with this. I’m telling you.”

  Miranda watched her walk angrily up the road, the police
officer keeping pace with her and trying to talk to her.

  “Shall we?” Daniel Sullivan said, indicating the door.

  Suddenly it was the last thing she wanted to do. All she could see were the tears streaming down Theresa Clarke’s face as she spoke. She wanted to go home, to get away from all the unpleasantness. But she had come this far. She should see the day through to the end.

  NINETEEN

  Disaster. Was perhaps the politest, the kindest, the least emotive way of putting it. Debacle. Catastrophic cock-up. They were other options.

  Niall lay in bed reflecting on the point at which his evening had gone off-plan and descended into chaotic, humiliating failure. Wasn’t there some poem by Robert Frost about a road forking in a wood and going one way or the other? He had thought he was on one path but he had ended up on the other and it had led down and down into a hideous swamp. Where he was now wallowing.

  Of course it was all his fault. But was it though? Yes. No. Yes.

  Miranda had come home at last. He heard her getting out of a taxi and went to meet her at the door.

  “Hello. Where have you been?” he asked in what he meant to be a friendly and not peremptory tone.

  “Out,” she said. “Like you.” He could tell at once that something was wrong.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” he asked.

  “Oh Niall,” she said, and burst into tears. Clumsily he took her in his arms and held her, which felt surprisingly good. Hugo came to see what the commotion was and leant affectionately against their legs.

  Niall steered Miranda into the front room and sat her down, still with his arms around her. He kissed her damp cheeks and then turned her face towards him so that he could kiss her mouth. Though her lips were trembling, he could feel the eagerness of her response. Even as a beginner, her kissing was more advanced than Lindsey’s. Without a word having been spoken, they seemed to have got to where he wanted to be. If he could rewind his life to that half hour or however long it was that their lips were locked together, then he would.

  But the moment had come when they had paused for breath and he had asked her what it had all been about.

  “Promise you won’t get angry,” she had said.

  “I promise,” he had replied.

  Then when she told him he had got angry. He couldn’t control himself. And yet two minutes before he had been tasting the passion in her lips. It seemed she had done the one thing that would be calculated to spite him, and though she claimed it had been for the good of their research, she had actually found out nothing. Too busy lapping up Sullivan’s odious attention. By the time she got to Damian Clarke’s wife he had totally lost interest, and had deliberately trumped her by saying “Well while you were sharing fingerbowls with Daniel Sullivan I was having a pizza with Rebecca Blackford.”

  “I thought you were spending the day with Simon.”

  “I spent the day with Rebecca Blackford.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “No I didn’t.” Yes he did. “And you weren’t honest with me.”

  “You never asked.”

  By the time Faith came home Miranda was shut up in her room and Niall was sitting disconsolately in the kitchen. He had snapped at her when she asked if anything was wrong, and she had then suggested that perhaps it was time for him to go home.

  “I don’t think you’re doing any good here anymore.”

  “What about Hugo’s physio?”

  “There are vets in Telford.”

  “Fine,” he had said, “I don’t want to outstay my welcome,” and had promptly got on the internet and booked himself a ticket for the following day.

  So an evening that had begun with Miranda in his arms without a word having been spoken, an evening that had ‘dream come true’ written all over it, had ended up as a nightmare in which his friendship or whatever it almost became with Miranda had come to an end; he had fallen out with Faith, his oldest ally, the one person who had stood by him in his life when others hadn’t; and he found himself on the eve of walking away from the newly discovered love of his life, and the whole Daniel Sullivan eye transplant case that he and Rebecca had made plans for.

  Sometimes he wished he could cry.

  He heard soft footsteps on the landing outside and then his bedroom door opened.

  “Niall, are you awake?” Miranda whispered.

  Was he going to be awake?

  “Yes. What is it?”

  “Ssh. I don’t want to wake Faith. Can I come in for a minute?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  He heard her come in, close the door, and walk to the bed, which she sat on.

  “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I can’t bear it when things aren’t good between us. So I’ve come to say sorry. I don’t care whether it was my fault or not. I’m sorry. I don’t want us to stay upset and angry with each other.”

  “I accept your apology,” Niall said, meaning to sound comic, but actually coming over a little pompous. “But you know it was me. So I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  “Well, are you then?” Miranda asked, and he could hear the smile in her whisper.

  “Yes.”

  “Not for kissing me, I hope?”

  “No. Not sorry for that.”

  “When I decided to come along to your room I was rather hoping you might kiss me again,” Miranda admitted.

  “Were you now?” Niall asked. He reached out to where he knew she was sitting and gently pulled her towards him.

  After ten minutes of steadily increasing passion he asked, “Why don’t you get under the covers so I can kiss you properly?”

  “Do you promise you won’t take advantage of me?” Miranda asked. “Because I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

  “Promise.”

  “So long as you mean it.” Niall felt her stand up and then slide under the duvet beside him. “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello,” he answered, turning to her and running his hands up under the jersey night-shirt she was wearing. When had he last felt a girl’s skin under his hands? Too long ago to even remember. How different Miranda felt to the likes of Lindsey. Lindsey had been generally soft, her breasts large and malleable; Miranda was firm. Her legs and buttocks were firm, he could feel the bones of her back, and then, when he tentatively explored her breasts, they were small and firm too.

  “Nothing special, I know,” Miranda whispered.

  “Very special,” Niall breathed in her ear.

  They kissed for another acre of uncharted time.

  “I’m sorry,” Miranda said then.

  “What for now?”

  “For not being ready. I know what you want.”

  “It’s fine, really.”

  “I’m going to go back to my room now,” Miranda said. “Just promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Niall asked.

  “That when we meet in the morning we won’t be all awkward and pretend this never happened.”

  “It happened,” Niall said. “And I’m glad.”

  “Me too,” Miranda said. They kissed again and then she extricated herself and slipped out of the bed.

  “Goodnight, Niall,” she said.

  “Goodnight,” he answered. Then he heard her go. Niall lay on his back reflecting on the switchback nature of the evening. The disaster scenarios had been premature. Miranda had dragged him out of the swamp and given him another chance to choose the right road. Bless her. Suddenly, life was good. As good as it had ever been.

  But he still had a ticket to Telford. Shit. Faith had still told him to go and he wasn’t going to plead with her or let Miranda plead on his behalf. She didn’t even know that he was going. He should’ve told her. He hadn’t thought about it. His mind had been on other things. But he needed her to know. And before morning really because his train was at eleven. Would she be asleep yet? Oh, bugger it.

  He got out of bed and trailed through the dark house to Miranda’s room. Although he still had light perception it was
as easy wandering around in the dark as in the light.

  To knock or not to knock? No. Knocking was the kind of noise that might wake anyone. He opened the door gently.

  “Miranda? Are you sleep?”

  “No,” came the reply. “Hardly, after what just happened. But you’re very naughty.”

  “I just need to come in for a minute.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” Miranda said.

  “No, I know,” Niall said. “I just need to tell you something.”

  “If it’s some confession about Rebecca Blackford I don’t want to hear it.”

  “It’s nothing to do with Rebecca Blackford.”

  “Good.”

  Niall decided the Rebecca Blackford bridge could be crossed another day.

  “Faith asked me to move out,” he said, sitting on the bed. “After you’d come upstairs.”

  “Oh, Niall. Why?”

  “I snapped at her. I was under stress.”

  She stroked his arm.

  “And now I’ve got a ticket to Telford for tomorrow.”

  “Where is Telford?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  “No. Of course I don’t.”

  “Then come and stay with me. It’s time I went home.”

  “Your dad will never have me in the house.” “My mum will.”

  “Without warning?”

  “Niall, I’m offering you the chance to come and stay at my house. Try to sound pleased.”

  He kissed her.

  “I’m pleased,” he said.

  “Now go to bed. And leave me to sort it out in the morning. You can concentrate on getting the money back on your ticket.”

  After one more lingering kiss, Niall left and went back to his own room.

  “So this is Surrey,” Niall thought, as he, Miranda and Hugo travelled south in Geoff Jefferies’ cab. “I’ve really arrived.”

  Faith had been shocked and surprised to find Miranda packed and ready to leave as well as Niall in the morning.

  “Are you going to Telford?” she had asked Miranda.

  “No, I’m going home,” Miranda said, “and Niall’s coming with me.”