Damage (15 page)

The empty lobby became a marble pit, into which people threw questions of hope in shocked voices.

‘Shall I call a doctor?’

‘Can I help?’

‘I’ve called the police.’

‘Shall I bring a blanket? For you? For the body?’ I realised I was naked.

‘Is he dead? Oh, is he dead?’

And then Anna slowly walked towards us. Dressed and combed and hideously calm she said, It’s over. It’s all over.’ Touching me lightly on the shoulder and looking at Martyn without pity, she almost glided towards the door, and disappeared into the night.

Others now were in the pit. They formed a silent circle round us, the naked man and his jeaned and sweatered beautiful dead son. A woman threw a red stole over me. It fell on my body, to the sound of the door slamming behind Anna. More noise, and then a policeman parted the group without having to say a word. Kneeling quietly beside me he said:

‘He’s dead, I’m afraid.’

‘Yes — he died instantly.’

We looked at each other.

It’s … it’s … ?’

‘Yes.’

‘And who is the young man?’

‘He is my son, Martyn.’

The doctor and ambulance men knelt down beside me. Another policeman quietly asked the small group to move with him to the back of the lobby. I heard their whispers like a soft, sad song in the background. It was hard to let Martyn’s body go from my arms. But the doctor was gentle and the ambulance men were discreet and efficient. Then it was only me, and the policeman, and we were mounting the stairs towards the flat. The door was open. Apart from my now neatly folded clothes, there was no sign of how the time had been before the crashing of the door.

‘May I dress?’

The policeman looked at my naked body clutching the red stole and he nodded. ‘We will need to take a statement … later, sir. We’d like to take it at the police station.’

‘Yes, of course. I must talk to my wife. It’s vital I talk to her.’

‘I understand that, sir.’ He looked around. ‘There seems to be no phone.’

‘No.’

‘Who owns this flat, sir?’

‘My son’s fiancée.’

‘And what is her name?’

‘Anna Barton.’

‘Was she the young lady who left as we arrived?’

The policeman who had been talking to the group downstairs had joined us.

‘Yes.’

‘She can’t have lived here long. There’s nothing here.’

‘She doesn’t live here.’

They waited. I had finished dressing.

‘We know it was an accident, sir. Two witnesses saw your son fall backwards over the banisters. They confirm you didn’t touch him.’

‘No.’

‘What were you doing, sir?’

‘I was with Miss Barton.’

‘Your son’s fiancée?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sir. I must ask this question. You were naked …’

‘Miss Barton and I were making …’ I stopped.

It was not a word I had used before.

‘We understand, sir.’

‘Your son was unaware of this until tonight?’

‘Of course.’

‘How did he know you were here?’

‘I don’t know. I simply don’t know.’

‘And where is Miss Barton now?’

‘I don’t know. She just walked out. Just walked past us.’

‘She will be in a state of shock. We had better try to trace her.’

‘I don’t know where she’d go. Maybe back to their house.’

‘Whose house, sir?’

‘Anna’s and Martyn’s. They had just bought a house. They were engaged.’

‘And when did they plan to marry, sir?’

‘Tomorrow.’

There was a long silence. ‘Let’s go to the station now, sir.’

I rang Ingrid from the station. Sally answered.

‘You don’t have to say anything. Anna’s been here.’

‘Oh, God! Where is she now?’

‘At the hospital — the Wellington — with Wilbur.’

‘Wilbur?’

‘Yes. He had a heart attack this afternoon. Martyn rang earlier, he was trying to find Anna.’ She paused. ‘I told Anna about Wilbur and she left immediately.’

‘Is your mother there?’

‘Yes. Don’t ask to talk to her. Not yet.’

‘Sally. Oh, Sally.’

‘Mother and I are going to see Martyn’s body. She wants to desperately.’

I turned to the policeman. ‘To which hospital did they take my son’s body?’

‘The Middlesex.’

I told Sally. ‘Now listen, please, please don’t go. I will make a formal identification tonight. I swear I will take you tomorrow. Persuade your mother to wait. It’s most important. Please do this, Sally.’

‘I’ll try, I’ll try. Anna’s mad — you know that, don’t you?’

‘No. No, Sally, she’s not mad.’

‘She had her suitcase with her. She said she would see Wilbur and then she would go to Paris. “I was all ready for the flight anyway,” she said, “for my honeymoon.” She smiled at me. Can you believe that? She smiled at me. If she’s not mad, she’s evil.’

‘Oh, Sally, Sally, she’s neither of those things.’

‘What is she then? She has led both you and Martyn to destruction.’

‘She told your mother everything?’

‘I don’t know. There are some things Mother won’t say. I can’t ask really. But I can guess.’

‘I don’t think you can, Sally. I will come home later.’

‘Don’t. Please.’

‘I will, Sally. I must. Later.’ I put the phone down.

‘My wife knows.’

‘Yes, sir. I could tell.’

I sat in a small office with a tall grey-haired man, Inspector Doonan. He had a weary kindness about him. Kindness was perhaps his last resort when confronted by the endlessly repeating pattern of human folly. How lucky I was to be with Inspector Doonan.

I made my statement. He had some questions.

‘How long has your relationship with … ?’

‘Anna. Five months.’

‘How long have you known her?’

‘It started immediately. Within days of our meeting.’

‘Your son had no idea?’

‘No one had.’

‘No one?’

‘Well, one person. Anna’s stepfather, Wilbur. Oh God, he’s had a heart attack. He’s in the Wellington. That’s why Martyn was searching for Anna. May I phone?’

‘Yes, sir, of course.’ He went to the door and someone got the Wellington on the phone. I established which suite Wilbur was in, and spoke to the Senior Sister. It was a brief and reassuring conversation. Wilbur was out of intensive care — three days in hospital and then he must take a long rest. It had been a very mild attack.

‘How did your son know you were both at this address?’

‘He didn’t. I just don’t understand it. He didn’t know about this flat.’

‘He didn’t have a key. He forced the lock,’ said Inspector Doonan.

‘That’s what brought the Thompsons to the landing upstairs.’ The young policeman spoke.

‘The Thompsons?’

‘The witnesses who saw Martyn fall.’

‘Ah.’

‘Do you think Miss Barton was careless? Maybe she left the address in a book?’

‘No. She was not a careless person.’

‘Where is she now? We will have to talk to her.’

‘Paris. She’s on her way to Paris, to Peter. Peter! This was his flat originally. Martyn may have called him when he couldn’t think where Anna would go. Peter! He must have talked to Peter in Paris.’

‘Who’s Peter?’

‘She said she wanted to be alone before the wedding. Just turn up from a secret address.’

‘Slow down, sir. It’s confusing.’

‘Can I ring him?’

‘Who? Peter?’

‘Yes.’

‘In Paris?’

‘I’ll pay.’

‘It’s not that, sir.’ He sighed. ‘Do you know the number?’

‘Yes.’

Inspector Doonan handed me the phone.

‘Peter?’

‘
Oui.
’

‘It’s Martyn’s father.’

‘I know. Anna rang. She’s on her way here. There’s nothing to say. I’m desperately sorry.’

‘Did you give him the address?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought so.’

‘I didn’t know you were there. I thought it was where Anna would go to think. To be quiet before tomorrow. When Martyn rang … desperate … because of Wilbur, I told him. We were friends, in a way, Martyn and I.’

‘In a way we are friends.’

‘In a way.’

‘Anna may have to come back.’

‘I will explain to her.’

‘The police know it was an accident, but she will have to make a statement.’

‘Sure, I understand.’

‘I must go now.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.’

I made my statement.

‘We’ll drive you home, sir. But first we need a formal identification.’

We went to the hospital. I made the identification. There is nothing to say. I will not speak of this.

It was after one o’clock when I let myself into the house. The door of Sally’s old bedroom opened. Her groggy face appeared. I motioned her back and whispered: ‘Your mother.’ Sally closed the door.

I walked towards a light — Ingrid was waiting for me in the kitchen. It was not a kitchen designed for this kind of pain. Its shiny surfaces and high whiteness were more likely to intensify agony than to abate it. There were no dark corners and no soft wood to absorb the screams —whether silent or not. Black-suited, with her back to me, she bore for a second a most terrible resemblance to Anna. She swung round to me. The shock of her face brought vomit to my mouth. I grabbed a towel; the sick was an old familiar odour to me. She handed me a glass of water.

Touching her face she said, ‘I did it to stop the pain, with this.’ She held up a small blood-spattered white towel with a knot in it. Her face was streaked with blood. The swelling of her cheeks made her face look as though all its outlines had been raised, while her eyes seemed to have been forced back into tiny pools of black in some lumpen moonscape.

‘The pain was devouring me. This helped.’

She picked up the towel again and lashed herself. A spurt of blood dropped into the glass on the table. Some image of Anna came obscenely to me. Her face, I thought, had always had something swollen — indelicate — about it. Perhaps that was the key? Anna had no delicate features that could be harmed by the brutality of kisses that must save a life.

Ingrid’s face, previously so delicately shaped, so fine of cheekbone, so small, so pale of eye, had always seemed to say: ‘Be careful. I can be broken.’ Her body too, so long and so thin with subtle curves of breast and hip, had spelled taboo to anything other than most gentle love. I had searched for pleasure as carefully as one would examine a rare piece of porcelain from some distant land.

Ingrid sat down opposite me.

‘You are not an evil man,’ she said. ‘And I am not a foolish woman.’

We looked at each other, a man and a woman, total strangers. Tomorrow or the next day we would bury our son.

‘It is clear to me, you and … Anna,’ she sighed rather than spoke her name ‘ … you could do nothing. You are not an evil man.’ Her swollen lips and the tears in her throat gave a thickness to her voice. The words ‘evil man’ had a heavy falling rhythm as though a drum were beating a single word: ‘Evilman, Evilman, Evilman’.

‘When you knew …’ she said, ‘when you knew you were lost …’ She paused, and seemed to sway, so that the strange new shape and violent colour of her face became like some hideous mobile. ‘… you should have killed yourself. You should have killed yourself. You know how. It would have been easy for you. You know how.’

‘Yes. I suppose I do.’

‘Not now,’ she said, ‘not now. No, you coward, not now. Stay. Stay on in this world. Stay on and give me a little joy. Why, oh why didn’t you kill yourself? You knew how to do it.’

‘I honestly never thought of it. I never even thought of it.’ I felt like some child who could so easily have saved himself from a severe beating. But who had simply never thought of the obvious solution.

‘Aston did that,’ I whispered.

‘Aston?’

‘Her brother.’

‘I had forgotten about him. Aston … and now Martyn. Oh God, that evil girl.’ She screamed at me. ‘I could have buried you and lived. Do you understand? I could have buried you, and lived. Even knowing what you had done, I could have buried you. And lived. And loved. The pain would have been bearable. This pain is unbearable. It is unbearable.’ She started to whip her face again. I ran behind her and grabbed her. It was an uneven struggle, and was quickly over.

I placed her in a chair. ‘Don’t move,’ I whispered. I went to my cabinet, and came back with some tranquillisers.

‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘And no and no and no.’

‘It is essential,’ I said.

‘Essential for whom?’ she rasped. ‘For you. Because for once you don’t know what to do … do you, doctor? I only want what I can never have. I want my son back. Give me my son back. Give him back to me. Now. Give him back to me now.’

‘Ingrid, listen to me. Martyn is dead. He is gone for ever. For ever. His life is over. Listen to me, Ingrid. Listen to me. I brought this death into being. Let me carry it. I will never release myself from his death, or fly away from it. Let it slip towards me, Ingrid. Push it towards me, push his death towards me. Breathe deeply, Ingrid, breathe deeply. You will live after this. Push Martyn’s death towards me. You will live. Give him to me now. Give me his death.’

I took her to the table, and laid her on it. She drew her legs towards her chest as though to give birth. Tears ran stinging down her cheeks. The buttons of her jacket burst under her convulsions, and her sobbing and the writhing of her body. ‘Give his death to me now, Ingrid.’

‘Oh Martyn, Martyn, Martyn,’ she cried. Then a terrible silent scream was followed by a sigh so deep that I knew it was over. Something flew towards me and seemed to invade me.

She lay on the table quietly weeping. The tears flowed, softly bathing her bruises, gathering the blood from her face. Tears and blood almost formed a garland around her neck, that broke into rivulets of pale rose and flowed towards her breasts.

‘I am going to wash,’ she said.

I led her to the bathroom. We moved slowly, my friend and I. Perhaps I had some skills that might yet send her peacefully into the rest of her life.

I ran the bath, and added one of her oils. She loosened her hair which had incongruously remained throughout in an elegant chignon. Her hair clips and her years of expertise allowed it to survive such chaos, like some small token of normality.