After Everything

by Suellen Dainty

  The words hung in the room. He had said it, the thing he and Jeremy had sworn never to talk about, had tried and almost convinced themselves that it didn’t happen, that it was a random and tragic accident. But it was a lie. Polly Beresford had died and it was his fault.

  ‘So, this is the thing I’ve never told anyone. You’ve asked me and now I’m telling you.’

  There was the noise of a police siren, and the sound of a bus changing gears. Under everything was the dull constant hum of traffic.

  ‘It was my fault,’ the voice repeated. ‘Everything was my fault.’

  He was the one who had sidled up to Polly after finals and suggested the drive to Bampton, the celebratory drink at the Morris Clown. He knew Jeremy was already drunk, barely able to stand. Still, Sandy persisted, persuading Polly that it was a lovely day, that the village was pretty, that Jeremy’s new Karmann Ghia was a beauty and they deserved a break after the long nights of black coffee and cramming.

  He squeezed himself into the tiny back seat and the three of them roared out of Oxford. Sandy knew that Polly got into the car because of him, because of their friendship, their casual meetings and the trust that had grown up between them. He knew Polly disliked Jeremy and only tolerated him because of Sandy; and he knew Jeremy only wanted her because everyone else did.

  Somewhere near Witney, it started to rain and Jeremy drove faster, showing off his slick gear changes as he swung through roundabouts and pushed past tractors. Polly wanted him to slow down but Jeremy laughed and put his hand on her knee. Polly shifted her legs away from him. Her hair whipped behind her, strands blowing in Sandy’s face. He could smell cigarettes, shampoo and rain, feel the engine reverberating under his feet.

  Then there was a screeching sound of metal against tarmac, a flash and the smell of burning rubber. Polly was lying on the side of the narrow road, that glorious hair matted with blood and leaves. Her eyelids fluttered like broken wings and she moaned softly for some minutes before falling unconscious. One of her long legs was skewed at an obscene angle and a shard of bone protruded from the torn denim. Her books had skittered into the ditch. Sandy hauled himself from the wreckage and knelt beside her. He cradled her head in his arms and tried to breathe life into her, the metallic tang of blood around her mouth smearing his cheeks. He kept trying long after he knew she was dead and then he lay beside her and wept as Jeremy crouched by the ditch, vomiting again and again.

  ‘Someone drove past us and went to call an ambulance and the police. I remember praying that maybe I was wrong, that the ambulance drivers would find that she was still alive.’ He couldn’t bring himself to look at Carolyn. He heard her shoes scuff the floor. He heard himself continue to speak.

  ‘By the time they arrived, Jeremy had regained control and we’d agreed on our story. I would say I was driving, because I was sober, and we’d say I’d swerved to avoid a deer and the car skidded. I told all these lies to save Jeremy from being charged with manslaughter and maybe going to jail. We swore to each other that we’d never speak about it again.’

  There was no blurred palimpsest on his memory. He had never poked or prodded it or rationalised it into something else because up to this moment he had tried to ignore it.

  ‘I don’t know why I did it. I think I loved him, I wanted him to be like a brother, I wanted to please him. He’d protected me at school, stopped me from being bullied. He was the only real friend I had. There are two other guys, Tim and Peter, who were at university too. They were friends as well, but not in the way Jeremy and I were.

  ‘And now that friendship is over. He was looking after the bit of cash I had left, swore blind he would keep it safe. He knows about money, he’s in that game. But he lost it all, and couldn’t even tell me to my face. I just got an impersonal letter. After everything. When I found out, I was so angry I trashed his precious houseboat, sprayed the whole deck with fluorescent paint. It felt good at the time, but it didn’t solve anything. I could write “Fuck You!” on his deck, but I can’t rewrite what happened more than thirty years ago.’

  He was suddenly cold and began to shiver. He felt his nose running and he wiped it clean with the back of his hand. The light coming in through the window was uncomfortably bright.

  ‘There is no excuse for what I did. Polly was a wonderful person. She was kind and honest and beautiful. Of all of us, she had the brightest future, the most to offer. She had parents, people who loved her, a fiancé. They had a right to know the truth.’

  Eventually Carolyn spoke. ‘That’s a huge thing to keep buried inside yourself for so long. It must have been incredibly hard for you.’

  Sandy stared out the window. The sun glinted off something metal in the sink. His mouth was so dry. His tongue made soft sticking noises against his palate and he realised that the separate voice, the third presence in the room, had disappeared. He was still shivering.

  ‘I just pretended it never happened,’ he said. ‘Every time it came into my mind, I thought about something else and eventually, after a while, years actually, the whole thing became like a nightmare that you used to have as a child. It lost reality.’

  ‘Still, you never forgot it,’ said Carolyn. ‘You couldn’t make it disappear.’

  But he thought he could, at first through the trusting gaze of Penny, wobbling on her bicycle to secretarial college in Summertown, then through Emily and Matthew and the cosy hub of family life. In the studio, there were the perfect note moments, as if the music would drown the screeching noise of the car crash, and obliterate the sight of Polly lying dead on the side of the road. There were the random mindless affairs. The end of his marriage. Eventually nothing provided true oblivion except the steady drip-feed of alcohol.

  ‘Everything would have continued as before, but one afternoon, I was walking home after lunch with Jeremy and I saw these two men on the common, across the road from me. They were pushing buggies and they looked so happy, being with their babies. I don’t think I ever took Matt or Emily out in their prams. I remember once going to a bar on the way home, waiting there until I was sure they’d gone to bed and Penny could give all her attention to me. I loved them, but I was so selfish. Somehow, seeing these two men made me so sad about what I’d missed and I just walked out into the road. You know the rest.’

  Carolyn cleared her throat. ‘What a dreadful thing for you to bear, to keep all that to yourself all these years.’ She stroked his hand. ‘Did you ever tell Penny?’

  Sandy shook his head. He felt his chin begin to lose its bearings and wobble. His cheeks flushed and his eyes welled up.

  ‘I was always too ashamed,’ he stuttered. ‘But that is no excuse. I just know I don’t deserve sympathy or forgiveness for any of it.’

  ‘You could look at it another way,’ said Carolyn. ‘It’s not a matter of deserving anything or continuing to blame yourself. You could accept what happened, understand why and try to live more honestly from now on.’

  ‘Ah, straight from a therapy handbook, if I’m not mistaken. But what does “understand why” really mean? Polly died and I was responsible. There’s nothing more to understand.’

  Carolyn scooped the heap of crumbs onto a plate and cupped her face with her elbows. She looked like she was wearing a wimple. The sunlight had moved from the sink and shimmered on the wall above her head.

  ‘I’m not a shrink. But maybe the part of you that asked Polly to get in the car was the childish part of you that hero-worshipped Jeremy and would have done anything for his approval. Maybe the part of you that lied to the police was a fear that you’d somehow lose his friendship, which had protected you. You wouldn’t blame a child for his actions, not entirely, would you? But you’d hope that the child would grow up, eventually.’

  Sandy wanted to say he was grown up, that he couldn’t begin to change now. He was too old and too scared. And then he wanted to weep and was afraid he would. He was terrified the tears would form on their own by some force he couldn’t control and he would end up bawling; beca
use, under the shame, there was also an unaccustomed feeling of relief that for once he had told the truth.

  Chapter 31

  The hotel porter had just brought his bags up to his room when his mobile rang.

  ‘Gibbo here,’ someone shouted.

  ‘Who?’ asked Jeremy, moving the phone away from his ear.

  ‘Gibbo,’ the voice repeated, impatiently this time.

  It took Jeremy some seconds to work out who he was talking to.

  ‘Charlie, great, good to hear from you,’ Jeremy said. ‘Looking forward to seeing you this afternoon. I think we arranged three o’clock, in the lounge downstairs. I’m at the Mandarin.’

  ‘No can do,’ barked Gibbo. ‘Have to catch up another time.’

  There was nothing tentative about Charlie Gibson now, no more clearing of the throat before he spoke. In his own hemisphere, he had an authoritative New World boom.

  ‘Got a bit of a problem on one of the Pilbara sites. Need to fix it.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Jeremy. ‘But perhaps you might have time for a quick meeting. It’s quite some distance from London.’ He was almost pleading.

  ‘No way,’ replied Gibbo. ‘I’m in the car on the way to the airport. Late already.’ Jeremy flung his briefcase onto the bed. The prick could have paused for a second, at least pretended to be polite.

  ‘Give me a couple of days, she’ll be apples. The sight of my face generally makes the lot of them perk up,’ continued Charlie. ‘But I’ll be up here again next week, if not the week after that. Why don’t you hang about? And don’t give in to the jet lag. Only girls do that sort of thing.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Jeremy said, his voice clipped in annoyance. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  A click at the other end of the phone. Gibbo wasn’t one for the old-fashioned formality of a goodbye.

  There was nothing else to do except go home. To wait around for someone like Charlie Gibson to return was to exude the unmistakeable smell of desperation. Jeremy thought of arranging some other meetings, a quick trawl through the expat community, but he was too tired.

  He spent a sleepless night in an airless suite full of potted orchids before the hotel limousine dropped him back at the airport and he boarded the flight back to London. He’d called Rosie and asked if he could fly to Dubai for a quick visit, but she was in Doha and frantically busy, or so her assistant said. He missed her. They’d lived in two separate worlds for too long.

  Another six hours before he landed at Heathrow. Jeremy jabbed at the buttons on his remote control. An air stewardess glided to his side.

  ‘I can’t bring up this film,’ he complained. ‘The screen just goes dark.’

  ‘Let me see, Mr Henderson.’ A current of warm jasmine-scented air wafted towards him. She leaned over, adjusting her scarf as she fiddled with the controls. The screen was still dark. Jeremy glared and she signalled for assistance from the purser. Together they pushed and prodded, plugged and unplugged, shrugged and gesticulated. Still nothing happened.

  Jeremy slowly placed his spectacle case on the table in front of him. Even more slowly he uncrossed his legs then crossed them again. ‘I particularly wanted to see that film, so perhaps you might arrange another seat for me, as the controls on this one clearly do not function correctly.’

  He did not raise his voice. Each word was enunciated with care, with menacing effect. He didn’t even want to watch the film, until he realised he couldn’t. Then he wanted to watch it, very badly. He needed to watch it. He could think of nothing else except watching this particular romantic comedy about a man and a woman and their menagerie.

  The stewardess and the purser glanced at each other. ‘I am so sorry, sir, but first class is completely full,’ said the man. ‘We are unable to move you at this time.’

  Jeremy closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. ‘Are you quite, quite sure about this?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir. The cabin is fully booked.’ Her accent became thicker, her voice rose. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Henderson. Perhaps another film? We have a wide selection, over eighty in total.’

  Jeremy stopped rubbing his forehead. ‘May I see the control please?’

  The stewardess smiled and handed it to him. Anything to please. He examined it, as if it were the first time he had seen such a thing, as if he didn’t know how it worked or what it did. He turned it upside down, then sideways. Jeremy did this very deliberately, almost in slow motion. Then he dropped it on the floor and stamped on it again, then again and again until the back shattered. Splinters of grey plastic exploded on the floor. Jeremy kept stamping. Under his feet tiny coloured wires pinged free of their housing. Batteries rolled under the seat. The screen in front of him silently flickered between embracing couples, soldiers shooting into the jungle, three girls drinking in a bar and finally, just before it faded to grey, a Labrador puppy chasing a ball.

  The stewardess paled under her headscarf. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Henderson,’ she kept repeating as she scrabbled around the floor, picking up the pieces. ‘I’ll report the fault and make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

  Jeremy ignored her and turned his head towards the window. The sky outside was navy under tiny stars. He wished that he was flying to Doha, to see Rosie. He imagined them eating lunch under a palm tree, making up for the years spent apart. The thought of London was depressing. He imagined himself flying away into the empty space until he disappeared. He wanted fresh air, not this stale re-circulating stuff that somehow still had a faint smell of tobacco years after the no smoking ban. He hated planes. He resented being confined to his pod. He loathed the suffocating clutter of scented face towels, pillows, duvets and fluffy socks.

  The red dot above the toilet light turned to green. He undid his seatbelt and walked down the aisle, seeing the stewardess duck into the galley. Locking the door behind him, he stared at himself in the mirror. His hair clung to his head in greasy strands. His face was grey and drawn and his eyes were bloodshot and puffed. He sat down on the toilet and put his head in his hands. It felt heavy and he began to cry. He hadn’t cried since he was ten years old and now it seemed he couldn’t make himself stop.

  But after a time, he did stop. He splashed cold water on his face and scrubbed it dry, then went back to his seat. His hands shook as he pulled down his eyeshade. It rubbed against the bridge of his nose and he flung it off. If only he could sleep.

  He had to get himself under control. Apologising to the stewardess would be a start. People like that didn’t take it on the chin anymore. They complained, pressed charges, demanded damages. They talked to newspapers. He pressed the button again and another stewardess glided to his side, one he’d not seen before.

  ‘I was wondering if I might have a word with the other stewardess.’ He didn’t know her name. ‘The one I spoke to before, about the film.’

  The woman’s eyes popped in alarm. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Henderson. Samira is on other duties at the moment.’

  ‘Well then, might you be able to convey to her my apologies for my bad manners? I am so sorry. I haven’t slept for some time. Could you tell her that please?’

  The stewardess nodded and quickly backed away. Jeremy pressed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. His sinuses were raw from the dry air. He tried to conjure up instances of the effortless superiority he usually took for granted: walking along Cork Street, seeing a picture and buying it just for fun; suddenly thinking about St Tropez and then to be eating langoustine and inhaling the scent of lavender on the evening air only hours later; everywhere people greeting him, acknowledging that his presence was important.

  He thought of Sandy, and the easy fun of their friendship. He remembered the times he’d taken a posse of stuffy brokers backstage, courtesy of Sandy, and seeing their eyes widen at the sight of that year’s pop sensation, hopping between the snake trails of cables while ogling those tousle-haired girls. He remembered the pleasure of being with someone who liked you just as much as you liked them.


  He rubbed his sinuses again. It was time to stop that kind of thinking or he would turn into a sentimental fool, just like Sandy. Survival of the fittest. Herbert Spencer had the right idea. Sandy was excess baggage. Jeremy had to look after himself first.

  He shifted in his seat. It might have been designed by a genius in ergonomics, but it was impossible to get comfortable. His buttocks ached and there was a painful crick in his neck. He moved his head in circles. His shoulder tendons pinged in protest.

  He was too smart to fail. Everyone made mistakes sooner or later. His mistakes happened later, so they surprised him. They wouldn’t happen again.

  mattman5@hotmail.com

  To: emily.ellison@gmail.com

  Hey Em,

  Negotiated Delhi and will be on the bus in an hour. Kind of weird, but exciting. Is it really true that Sandy might be coming here? That would be so weird. I can’t remember him going anywhere except America or some luxury island. Hope he’s not turning into a parachute parent. After not noticing we were around for most of our lives, that would be hysterical. Annoying too. I wanted this to be my time. Let’s make the most of it before he gets to us.

  m

  Chapter 32

  This was not the evening for a quick stir-fry, courtesy of Nigella or Jamie, and a casual slump on the sofa with a box set.

  Peter showered, cleaned his teeth and changed his shirt. He put on his black trousers, the new ones that Frieda liked. He called the restaurant to confirm his reservation of table eleven, the one in the corner.

  He rang Frieda to ask what time she would be back. Her phone was switched off. He sat in the kitchen watching the minutes blink away on the oven clock, telling himself not to panic. Forty-five minutes late. Where was she? What had happened? A problem with a client? An accident?

  Ah, there she was at last; at least there was the sound of her footsteps outside in the hall. He was so eager to see her that he almost ran to open the door. The evening would go to plan after all.