When Sam goes to the toilet, the other man will disappear. How, she is not quite sure: either his phone will ring, and he’ll go outside, or she’ll make him not exist. Then it will be just her and Danielle, who will smile and say, “How did you meet your husband?”
Her tone will not be suspicious or baffled. She will ask in a tone of approval, admiration, maybe even jealousy. This last possibility will make Caitlin pause. She will consider the woman’s cheeks, the pout of her lips, the way her hair holds its shape despite the sea breeze. What is her intention? Is she a threat? Does she guess there was a time when it seemed as if she and Sam would never be together? Is she trying to conjure that hateful time into their blissful now? Perhaps she thinks this is a wedge that she can hammer in. That Caitlin will hang her head, acknowledge she once was undeserving. This, like murder or rape, is a crime with no statute of limitations. No matter that her cheeks are whole; that she and Sam have children; that he has held her every night for fifteen years: The fingers of the dead can point just as well as those of the living.
And she loves the colour of the river. It is like whisky, like ale. It is the kind of river people are warned about in fairy tales. Don’t drink the water in the forest or you will fall asleep for ten years. But this doesn’t seem so bad. Her tomorrow will be like her today. But in a year, or five, or seven, she will be better, not a princess, but not a monster either. When she believes this, she is impatient. The future, her future, is within sight, and she does not want to wait. She wants to be happy.
“We used to work near each other,” is how she will answer Danielle. Who will smile as if to say Go on. But Caitlin will leave it at that. She will act as if this is a story not worth telling, as if there were no obstacles. They met and fell in love; how and when are details.
Walking and the sound of the river. She likes to hold her breath in the bath, the pressure in her lungs and skull building, the sound of the water no longer outside but something swirling within. This is how she feels about Sam. A stream, at times a river, is flowing from her. To call it love would be an understatement. It is not a single feeling. There is no love without joy, hope, desire, despair, hatred, and jealousy. With adoration comes the wish to hold a pillow over his face.
She is walking more slowly. Starting to relax.
Danielle will have many other questions. How long have they been married? Have they got children? Have they been to Greece before?
Perhaps she is not so bad. She doesn’t want to come between Caitlin and Sam. She just likes them as a couple, albeit in a fawning manner. But this is more touching than irksome. It is what happens to couples greater than the sum of their parts.
The path begins its long bend round the Colonies. These stone houses are where labourers lived when all the area was part of an estate. On a wall, high up, is a carving she has never noticed before. There is a hammer, a chisel, some L-shaped measuring device, what looks like a bushel of wheat.
“Where do you live?” Danielle asks, then blushes, not so much at the question, but the eager way she asked. Caitlin tells her she and Sam live in a converted barn in the Scottish Borders.
“It has a really large pond Sam dug for me because he knows I love ducks.”
“How lovely!” says Danielle, as delighted as if the pond had been dug for her. “Do you have any other pets?”
“Two dogs, both from a rescue home.”
“What are their names?”
“Bobby and Trick.”
“Or Trick and Tricky,” says Sam as he sits down. Which makes Danielle laugh, though she doesn’t, couldn’t, get the joke, not knowing Bobby, what he gets up to, or frankly, anything about her life with Sam. It makes her seem pathetic.
But when Sam puts his arm around Caitlin, when his hand caresses her shoulder, she sees Danielle flinch. And who could fail to pity her. Beautiful, intelligent, but with a husband who is not Sam.
The ducks return. Unless they’re different ducks. Although Caitlin cannot tell them apart, these do seem happier. Their quacks are like a laugh. She smiles, rubs her cold ears. This has been a good walk: She has spent time in the future. She will go as far as the bridge and then turn back.
A jogger overtakes her, and for the next half a minute she must watch the smooth action of the woman’s arms and legs, the confident bob of her ponytail. She runs with the resolve of someone trying to punish herself.
The woman goes under the bridge, then disappears, for that is where the path loops back on itself. The river takes a strange route. Though it flows down straight from the hills, seemingly intent on reaching the sea, during its last few miles it meanders and switches direction, as if the prospect of losing its freshness to salt suddenly makes it shy. Caitlin doesn’t know the reason; it is probably something to do with rocks, or soil, or maybe people changed its path. It is definitely a good thing—if the river were straighter, more canal-like, there’d be no surprises.
Under the bridge it is dark and cold and the stone presses down. As a child, this frightened Caitlin. Any tunnel, underpass, or bridge made her shut her eyes and take quick breaths, and sometimes she passed out. Her mother thought she was claustrophobic, but that wasn’t the problem. She could hide in wardrobes and cupboards for hours without fear. What terrified her was the idea that it only took a second for the tunnel or bridge to collapse. Whatever rules or forces kept the tunnel intact, however many centuries the bridge had stood, no one could guarantee these forces would not fail.
But Caitlin is not a child. She is an adult who believes that although the world may not be kind or fair, it is at least consistent. The sun rises in the east. The seas shall never boil. She can stand beneath this bridge for years, and it will never fall.
A pause to listen to the river. To look at leaves, at smoke, at the limbs of trees. Then she is heading home. Past the Colonies, round the first of the bends.
When you know someone well, you spot them at a distance. Their overall shape and height is a pattern you recognise. So when Caitlin sees Sam, he is still half a minute away.
Disbelief; a moment of wonder; then she slowly exhales. She has been holding her breath since she last saw him, on Thursday, when they hardly spoke because so many people were bringing in donations. She does not recognise the green trousers or black jacket, but it is him, she is sure. She wants to raise her hand and wave. She wants to call his name.
She puts her hands in her pockets.
Bites her lip.
Lifts and moves her left foot forward.
Ditto the right.
And though it must look like she’s blushing, that is not it: Her blood is just impatient. It wants to be nearer to him. She wants this, as it wants this, but she also wants the opposite. She wants to walk past him. To disappear. She has no idea what to say.
He might not have seen her. Perhaps she can turn, walk round the bend, throw herself in the bushes. She wants to do this, and without warning a laugh leaves her. She is so stupid. She is obsessed, would die for him, but she is not a teenager, not a virgin. This is the man she wants, and she will walk towards him. She will be normal, interesting; she will not say, I love you.
She is seen. Recognised. He raises his hand. There on the riverbank, in the terrible present, he is speaking to her.
“Hey,” he says. “How’s it going?”
As if there were nothing remarkable about their meeting; as if they were always bumping into each other.
“Good,” she says, which although not sparkling, is certainly better than fine.
“What have you been doing? Did you work yesterday?”
“No, did you?”
“Half a day. I yawned, and then it was over.”
She laughs briefly, through her nose. And how would he react if she pulled off her jumper and T-shirt in one fluid motion? Just to show him there is nothing wrong with the skin on the rest of her body.
“What are you doing today?” he says. Which might be an invitation. If she says she’s doing something, he’ll think she’s saying
she’s busy. But if she says she’s doing something he thinks is fun, maybe he’ll want to join in. It’s an opportunity and a risk. If she says she’s doing nothing, he might think she’s boring (which he probably already does). Or he might say, “All right then, let’s do something.” It doesn’t matter that Sam has never, in the fifteen months of their acquaintance, asked her to have even a cup of coffee. There’s always a chance.
“I don’t know,” she replies. Then shrugs.
To which he says, “OK.” He shifts his weight to the other foot. Looks past her as he says, “Yeah, me neither. Hang on a sec—”
He puts his hand in his pocket, brings out his phone. He touches a button and looks at the screen.
“Anything?” she says.
“No,” he says, and sounds disgusted. In ten seconds he will leave. Then there will be months of standing in his shop or her shop, talking about fucking books. And if she is this pathetic now, how will she be in six months? She will be like that scary goth girl who pretends to be looking in the bookshop window. There are days when Caitlin times her. So far the record is thirty-seven minutes.
He looks at his phone and says, “So, are you going home?”
“That’s right,” she says. “I’m going home. I think my face is bleeding.”
He looks up.
“It probably looks like meat.”
And other people would say “What?” or pretend not to hear. They would look at the river, the trees, the sky and its very few clouds. Certainly from embarrassment, but also from kindness: The afflicted cannot be expected to control themselves.
“No,” he says. “It doesn’t. It’s not as bad as that.”
And when he raises his hand there is no swell of music. Time does not slow. This is still the present. He pulls aside her scarf, and in doing so, a fingertip brushes her face. This is how, at twenty-seven, she learns that memory is useless. She will remember him doing this, but only as an event. The sensation of his finger, its slight caress, will elude recall.
Caitlin closes her eyes. She refuses to see his expression.
“I’m not a doctor,” he says. “But no one has these conditions forever. It can just take time to find the right treatment. Maybe it’s an allergy, or maybe you shouldn’t use soap.”
When she opens her eyes, he is looking at her with his usual expression: calm, interested, but without more emotion.
And when you have tried to show someone you love them, and got nothing back in return, the only way to save yourself is to try to hate them.
“You know what? I’ve tried everything. I gave up milk, coffee, and cheese. I rub steroids into my face. I don’t have an allergy to wheat, dairy, gluten, or yeast. I don’t use fucking soap. I wash in tepid water. I stay out of the sun. I don’t use washing powder, and my clothes are never properly clean. My thyroid is fine. The only thing left to do is graft skin from my tits, or maybe the tits of a mouse, or just grow me a new fucking head.”
Sam’s expression does not change. So fucking what if he stops talking to her. Better to live without hope or joy than be an idiot.
Better for him to hate her.
Better to read one novel, then another, then another, and whatever she thinks about each—whether she liked the minor characters, or found the book confusing, its plot predictable—to speak to no one about it. Better to treat each book as a dream that happens only for her.
Better to feel nothing.
Better to be dead.
“Come on,” he says. “I’m getting cold.”
“Come where?”
“This way,” he says, and turns towards the direction he has come from. For an instant Caitlin is confused. He does not appear annoyed or angry. If anything, he seems pleased. He is whistling, or rather half-whistling—the notes are often just blown air—as he looks upstream.
When she steps forwards, he smiles. “All right,” he says. “Shall we?”
For the next minute Caitlin’s mind is occupied with several difficult tasks. She must move a body that no longer feels like hers. She must accept that this is real. She must focus on the fact that she is walking along the river with Sam. She must pay attention to everything so she can remember it. She must recall the brown and foaming water, the green-headed ducks in a hurry, the plastic bags shredded by branches. She gathers these details; she hoards them. But they are only twigs from which to make a nest. The shiny, precious things inside will all come from him. The pout of his lips, his cautious stubble, the lean line of his jaw.
As they walk, she swipes these glances, but they are not enough. If she looks longer, it will be staring, which is what she wants to do, but cannot. She needs to be patient. As soon as he starts to speak, she can look all she wants.
They pass under the small stone bridge, where Alasdair is squatting, possibly defecating. He glares at both of them.
“What do you know about him?” Sam asks.
It is like the first bite when hungry.
“Not much, except that he’s a bastard. Can I say that? I know he’s homeless, and I know he probably has mental health problems, but does that make it OK for him to be horrible?”
Sam looks at her, which means she can stare. His lips are so red they look sore.
“I mean, have you heard how he speaks to people? He makes them feel awful. It’s very aggressive. He dresses it up in this new-age diet crap, as if he cares about their health, but he’s just a bully. He knows they wouldn’t take it if he weren’t homeless.”
And maybe she shouldn’t talk. Every word is a risk. He is already looking at her in a way that makes her head feel like it’s made of glass.
“So what did he say to you?”
“All kinds of stuff. Mostly about my face.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. One time he said I needed to eat raw onions with every meal. He also said I should avoid direct sunlight at all times.”
She laughs. Looks. There are grey hairs above his ear.
“That doesn’t sound mean. He just tells me to eat more fruit. Especially apples.”
She snorts. Not an attractive sound, but she is too indignant. “He also said my face wouldn’t get better unless I stopped hating myself.” This so clearly vindicates her opinion that Sam needn’t say anything more. But it would still be nice if he did.
They keep walking. The river widens, seems slower. They pass a play area where every child seems possessed. Shrieking, screaming, they run in tight circles, spinning, colliding, falling over, hurting and being hurt.
“What’s wrong with their parents?” he says. “Why don’t they take care of them?”
“They’re just playing. They’re fine.”
He shakes his head.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
He begins to walk faster. As they round the curve of the river, he neither looks at her nor speaks. He has either forgotten her or (more likely) is trying to pretend she is not there.
The path stops at steps. Something is burning. She cannot see the smoke. The sky is blue, incredibly pale, as if the atmosphere has grown thin.
This is so autumn, she thinks, then says, just to hear the words out loud.
“Everything must end in autumn,” he says.
He is smiling, not looking at her, as if this is a joke. And she has thought him many things—wonderful, brilliant, kind, cruel, cold, and indifferent—but this is the first time he has seemed weird. For the last twenty minutes he has been someone else. In some ways she likes this, because it makes her feel they are closer, that he has shared something with her. Except this is not quite the man she loves.
The river is ten feet below; black railings block off the drop. To their left the land rises in steeply terraced lawns, each with a waist-high chain-link fence separating it from the path. Though there are no signs saying private, it seems wrong to imagine opening one of these gates and trying to climb the slope. The grand houses above seem to forbid it.
It is ten thirty, perhaps eleven
. There are now prams and tricycles, scooters, children running, children refusing to walk. There are also couples hand in hand, arm in arm, hands in each other’s pockets. A lot of people, too many eyes. A cold voice in her head says, Quit while you’re ahead.
As they near a domed stone building they are forced to stop. Two families are blocking the path. A boy is turning slow circles on a tiny bike while two little black-haired girls have a skipping rope stretched taut between them. From their pinched expressions it is clear they mean this as an ambush.
None of the adults is paying attention. The three men have their backs to the children; the two women are caught in a state of delicious outrage. “Totally ruined,” says one with a French accent. She is wearing earrings that are miniature wind chimes.
“So what did you do?”
“I had her put down,” she says, then chops the air with her hand. Her earrings chime their approval. As for her friend, she shows her appreciation by laughing and taking a step forwards to put her hand on her friend’s arm. With this there is a gap in their ranks. The children freeze as Sam and Caitlin approach.
“Come here, darling,” says the Frenchwoman, then places her hand on the nearest girl’s head. The girl, who is seven, maybe eight, drops her end of the rope, then clings to her mother.
As they step over the rope Caitlin smiles and says, “Don’t shoot.” The Frenchwoman stops talking to her friend. Fuck off, she says with her face, while her lips say, “Alan.” With that, the three men turn. This no longer feels like a public path; it is their living room into which two strangers have walked.
Something is wrong with these people. She has smiled, made eye contact, tried to sound friendly, and although Sam has done none of those things, he hasn’t been rude. She wonders if something terrible happened to one of these families. Perhaps there was once a young man and woman who walked up to one of their girls and hit her in the face. Or worse. Did they have a boy or girl who disappeared? A child who was found dead? A child that was molested?
The Casualties Page 9