A Line of Blood (16 page)

I turned back to Millicent. ‘You’re right, and I’m still a little drunk. Sorry. Speak.’

‘I ended it, Alex.’

‘Did you now?’

She produced a small envelope with her name written in tidy handwriting.

‘Scented,’ I said. ‘Classy.’

I opened the envelope and found a single sheet of paper. ‘A notelet. With his address printed on and everything. Classier and classier.’

‘Alex, you have the moral high ground.’

‘Yes, I’d say I do. “
My America
,” it begins. You let him call you
My America
?’ Millicent gave a diffident little shrug.

My America,

How many hours must I spend watching, seeing your shadow pass before the light, knowing you are at home, yet knowing that you will not answer? How many times must I dial your number, hear the telephone ring out through the thin wall that divides us, and know that you will not pick up?

So it’s husband before lover, duty before passion, routine before LIFE.

I bear you no ill will. Soon I shall be gone, so that your marriage may continue, our love sacrificed on the altar of convenience and bourgeois convention.

In eternity,

Bryce

‘He loved you, Millicent. It says so here, right before the signature. That’s what
In eternity
means, isn’t it? And he bore you no ill will. He was grateful to you for enriching his life for those few intoxicating months – I’m reading between the lines now.’

‘Alex, not so loud.’

A burst of cold adrenaline as the anger hit my heart.

‘Oh, sorry, is this
humiliating
for you?’ I looked around the café. ‘No one else here minds about the end of our marriage. Did you love him?’

She shook her head.

‘Well, I have
your
word for that.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Oh, and he thinks our marriage is a bourgeois sham. The little anal-retentive thinks
I’m
too middle-class.
Thought
. Sorry.’

‘Alex, don’t do this.’

‘What do you reckon, Millicent? What’s your professional hunch, as a purveyor of comfort to people in need? Are we going to be together in a year’s time? Am I going to kick you out, only to realise that what I
really
,
really
,
really
need to do is to see this as an
opportunity for growth
and forgive you? Or am I going to let you stay on in the house for Max’s sake? What’s your guess, Millicent? Assuming, that is, you even want to stay.’

‘I ended it, Alex. It won’t get any worse. I promise you.’

The anger was starting to ebb from me now. I felt depleted. I longed for sleep.

‘You can’t promise me,’ I said, ‘that it won’t get any worse.’

‘Yes, Alex, I can promise that.’

‘Millicent,’ I said, ‘last time we were here you
needed me to understand
that you would never betray me. And yet, you betrayed me. Repeatedly. I want to tell you to move out. But I can’t because I know you’ll tell me that Max has enough to worry about.’
And I’m scared that I’ll end up begging you to stay.

‘I don’t want either of us to move out. But I’ll respect what you want, Alex.’

The phone rang. I rejected the call.

‘That was Dr Å. You can ring her back. I’m drunk.’ She said nothing, pressed her fingers to her temples.

The coffee arrived. I nodded at the waitress, who looked pained, even as she returned my nod.

‘So, Millicent, why?’

‘Why?’

‘Yeah, why?’

Millicent rubbed the bridge of her nose. ‘I don’t know why Bryce killed himself.’

‘That’s not really one of the questions I was asking you.’

‘Shut up and listen, Alex, you self-righteous asshole.’ That was loud. The divorcée with the hair reacted, looked at us, intrigued. Millicent turned to her. ‘Sorry, I meant arsehole,’ she said, in her best Cali-girl accent. ‘He’s an arsehole. Did I get that right? I’m often told I lack nuance.’ She turned back to me. ‘You’re an arsehole, Alex. You’re such a freaking nihilist. You’ve always seen all the possibilities, decided they’re meaningless, and rejected them. Bryce didn’t spend our conversations pre-empting what I was going to say.’

I looked down at her hands, at her delicate wrists and slender fingers.

‘What’s the story with the bracelet my mother gave you?’

‘I don’t know.’

Millicent’s phone began to ring. She ignored it, and stared directly at me.

‘And I don’t know why I lied, Alex. I really don’t know.’

‘Looking me in the face doesn’t prove you’re not lying now. The police think I killed him.’

‘They asked you not to leave the country. That is not the same thing.’

‘What did you tell them about you and Bryce?’

‘The same thing I told you. First time round.’ She glanced at the screen and rejected the call. ‘Dr Å. We should really call her back.’

‘Summoned by the shrink … Go right ahead.’

‘Max is our joint responsibility, Alex.’

Anger like a shard of ice in my spine.

‘Millicent, until four days ago I thought I was a happy nihilist. And my happy innocent state ended when Max and I found the next-door neighbour reclining in the bath with an erection. I’m still fighting to erase the image that’s imprinted on the inside of my skull, and God alone knows what Max is struggling with because he can’t bring himself to talk about it. And now it turns out that it’s thanks to you, and that we all three have that in common – Bryce and his penis. Whatever it is that’s wrong with Max,
you
did it to him. So the shrink thing? You sort it out.

‘And speaking of practicalities, a scaffolder came round with an invoice for £23,523. Made out to
your
boyfriend at
our
address. I forgot to ask for a copy to throw on the table in front of you as I walk out. Did you know he was trading from our house? Police are going to love that one.’

I got up to leave. Millicent got up too. She was close to crying.

‘Alex,’ she said.

‘Feeling bad, Millicent? You in some sort of private hell?’

Her eyes were wet now.

‘Sit down,’ I said, and left, nodding to the manager on the way out.

On a bench in a corner of Highbury Fields I watched a mother lift a screaming baby from his pram. With her right hand she raised her top, freed her left breast, and gave suck to the child, who quietened at once.

‘Sorry,’ she mouthed at me.

‘Don’t be.’

‘Thanks.’

The police would like Millicent’s affair. I could argue all I wanted that I never knew, that I only became the angry husband after the neighbour was dead. But if I were the police, I would like me as a suspect.

I watched, trying not to, as the baby drank his fill and fell asleep at his mother’s breast. I tried not to think about my son, and my wife. I tried not to think about Millicent feeding Max for the first time, the transcendent pleasure that I had felt in that most everyday of things.

Then I tried not to think about sex.

I failed. I thought about those things, and about what I was about to lose. I thought about them for the longest time.

Millicent was waiting outside Dr Å’s door as I approached. She touched my hand, but I ignored her and pressed the bell.

Five minutes later we were sitting, miserably drinking tea, on Dr Å’s straight-backed chairs. Dr Å had said little since we had arrived, and we had said even less. Her message on my answering machine had been very precise, and had left no possibility of not coming to this meeting. Millicent, I imagined, had received the same message.

Dr Å smiled her efficient Scandinavian smile, first at Millicent, then at me. Just long enough, just warm enough, entirely professional.

‘Here we are,’ she said.

Millicent put her cup on the floor and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

‘Before we begin,’ said Dr Å, ‘is there anything either of you would like to tell me?’

Millicent shook her head. I spilled tea on my leg, managed not to swear, and put down my own cup. Dr Å smiled her efficient smile. I rubbed my hands together, breathed out, and steeled myself.

‘So, your son strikes me as a relatively normal eleven-year-old boy. I’m really not going to tell you very much about what Max has said to me, if you don’t mind. You are of course within your rights to insist that I do, given his age. But I would ask that you do not do that. OK?’

Millicent nodded.

‘Sure,’ I said.

‘Max feels, and I don’t think I’m breaking confidence here in saying this, that you are relatively good parents.’

I felt Millicent bristle.

‘I should say that this is a remarkably positive assessment. Most eleven-year-olds are much less flattering about their parents’ abilities. But there is one concern that Max and I share. Your relationship as a couple …’

‘Which Max has assessed as imperfect?’ I said.

‘If you like, yes. Although, with children, they’re often not as analytical about these things as you or I might be. But Max is deeply concerned. He rang me this morning.’

I stared hard at Millicent, but she stayed facing forwards, refusing the challenge.

‘Did Max say what exactly it is that concerns him?’

‘He believes you wish to leave the relationship, Alex.’

Still Millicent would not look at me.

‘And why would I wish to do that?’ I said.

‘Alex, I am not here to give ammunition to your battles with your wife,’ said Dr Å. ‘I would ask you not to question Max about this. I doubt if you would be able to frame your questions in an appropriately neutral way. But children tend to know a lot more about the state of their parents’ relationships than adults imagine. Your anger is, by the way, entirely appropriate.’

‘Am I angry? And what does appropriate even mean?’

Dr Å ignored the questions. ‘I cannot provide you with therapy. I can, if the two of you wish it, provide you with the names of people I can recommend, but you will understand that I do not want to find myself in a situation where the wishes of one client come into conflict with the wishes of another. As for example in the case of your perfectly natural desire to know the truth about Millicent’s affair.’

‘Millicent’s affair,’ I said, my voice flat. ‘Do I even know about Millicent’s affair?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. I could see that she regretted her words.

‘I do know, as it happens, Dr Å. The question is, how do
you
know?’

I looked at Millicent.
Did you tell her?

Millicent shook her head.
No
.

I looked back at Dr Å. ‘Max told you.’

‘Alex,’ said Dr Å, ‘Alex, I would ask you not to press me on this.’ She looked wearily back at me, a woman burdened by the knowledge she bore.

‘Could I insist that you tell me?’

The weary look passed, and she was a professional once again. ‘I cannot recommend that you insist. It would not be appropriate for me to discuss what Max has told me in confidence. Your son has experienced a great trauma. Alex, I feel that you too may be experiencing trauma, both from the discovery of the neighbour, and also from the discovery of the secret between Millicent and your neighbour. You will no doubt have heard of post-traumatic stress disorder. It is my job, working with Max, to help him to avoid the symptoms of which you may have heard. Flashbacks, fear of unfamiliar situations, an inability to form or maintain relationships.

‘These things are severely debilitating in an adult, but imagine for a moment the devastating effect on a child. In the next few years, your son will become a sexual being. How he experiences that transition from childhood to adulthood will affect every relationship, every friendship, every professional transaction. For ever.’

‘Especially when it’s your mother’s affair that caused the trauma.’ Millicent shifted position in her chair. It was subtle, but I could read the anger in her.

‘This must be very painful for you, Alex,’ said Dr Å, ‘but I must ask you not to confuse your own feelings with Max’s feelings.’

‘Max feels the same thing I do.’

‘That is unlikely, is it not? After all, Millicent is his mother; she is your
wife
.’

I made to speak but she smiled and turned to Millicent.

‘Millicent, you too must be suffering greatly. You are likely to be grieving both for the excitement of the affair, and for the life of a man for whom you must have had feelings.’

‘She certainly spends a lot of time out of the house grieving,’ I said. ‘Don’t you, Millicent?’

‘OK,’ said Millicent. ‘Yes, Alex, I guess I do.’

‘It’s like you’re breaking down all over again,’ I said. I stood up. I wanted to leave.

‘It wasn’t a breakdown,’ said Millicent, as if to herself.

‘Alex, would you mind sitting down?’ There was kindness in Dr Å’s voice now, and the smile had lost its Scandinavian precision. ‘I can see that accepting Millicent’s grief must be hard for you.’

I sat down, put my head in my hands, and breathed out. The room was silent, and I could think of nothing to say. Nor, it seemed, could Millicent. We sat, angled away from each other. Five minutes passed on the silent clock.

Dr Å crossed and uncrossed her legs. ‘We’re coming to the end of the time I had set aside. I hope you can understand that my focus has to be on Max, and on Max’s needs. I will, however, say this. There is a mounting body of evidence that states that splitting up is the worst thing you could do. Unhappy parents who stay together are still better than parents who part company. For the children, that is.’

‘That’s your advice?’ I asked. ‘Don’t leave?’

‘That’s my advice. I’m sorry I can’t do more for you. I understand Max is making his own way here.’

That evening my mother rang. She was speaking so quietly that at first I could hardly make out what she was saying.