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‘What are you doing?’ She doesn’t move. Robert thunders towards her and stares down into the blackened mess. They both study it, this thing which, despite all her efforts, is still recognizable as a book. He is standing next to her, searching her face for an explanation. Catherine sidles away from him, pulling her dressing gown tighter.

‘Catherine?’

She shakes her head. Caught. She has been caught. Perhaps she wanted to be. Perhaps it is for the best. Between finger and thumb Robert lifts the sodden pulp and holds it up:
Perfect
, the only distinguishable word left on the jacket.

‘It’s about me.’ She might as well have said, ‘I’ve lost my mind.’ She wishes she could suck the words back, but they are out. Is this what she wants? To tell him? Now?

‘Darling.’ She hears confusion and anguish wrapped in the word as Robert drops the book back into the sink. She grabs at it with both hands, rushing it to the bin as if it is still on fire, and tosses it in. She pulls out the black bag and ties it up. All this done at speed, as if someone has pressed
Fast-forward.
She runs the bag to the front door and out of the flat, dropping it into the dust- bin outside and banging down the metal lid. Slower now, she walks up the steps into the hall and closes the door behind her.

She can see Robert in the kitchen, watching her. He doesn’t move and neither does she. The length of the hall stands between them, a ten-foot space swimming with unspoken words. Catherine struggles to work out which ones to swallow, which ones to use. And once chosen, which order they should be in. She is the first to move, travelling through the hall towards Robert, her mouth open, gathering up words as she goes.

‘It was sent to our old address. To me. It’s about something that happened, years ago.’ She falters. ‘They’re trying to punish me.’

‘Punish you? Who’s trying to punish you?’

‘Whoever wrote the book.’

‘Punish you for what? Is it to do with a film you made? If it is, we should get the police involved …’

‘No, it’s nothing like that.’

‘Well, what then?’ He sounds impatient. He is tired. ‘Who sent it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What makes you think it’s about you?’ There is scorn in his question.

‘I recognized myself.’

‘Do they name you?’

She grabs his hand, hoping it will give her strength to carry on.

‘No, they don’t name me, but they describe me and—’

‘Describe you? What – blonde? Middle-aged? For God’s sake, Catherine!’

He takes his hand out of hers and sits down. She feels the words slip down her throat and anger rise up. She is angry with his ignorance. Blames him for not knowing. For not being there. For making it so hard for her to tell him. And now the moment has gone. She cannot tell him, not like this, and her speechlessness makes her weep. She sits down, and collapses, face on arms.

‘Oh, Catherine, Catherine. You shouldn’t have let things get this bad.’ His tone is softer and she feels his hand on her hair. ‘What is it about that book? Nick read it, didn’t he? That seemed to bother you. Why?’

He waits for an answer and she forces herself to look up at him, her face soggy and flushed.

‘It frightened me … I saw something in it that …’ She pushes herself on, trying to tell him some truth. ‘It made me hate myself. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry …’ She falters; she can’t do it, so she tells him something she knows he will believe. ‘I’m being paranoid … it’s in my head, I can’t explain …’

A moment’s silence, then he fills it.

‘Oh, Catherine, you don’t have to explain to me. I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t mean to get angry, it’s just that I worry about you.’ He takes her hands in his. ‘I know it’s not been easy between you and Nick. It’s hard for you. You know he loves you though, don’t you? He and I find it easier to talk, that’s all.’ He puts his arms around her to soften his words, but they still make her flinch. ‘He can be tricky, I know that. I’m not blaming you. That book’s obviously triggered something … connected with you. What’s it about? Guilt? A mother and son?’ He waits for her assent and reads it in her silence. ‘You have nothing to feel guilty about, Catherine. Nick is twenty-five and it’s about time he moved into his own place. He can always come home to us if he needs to. We’ve still got a spare room.’ He takes her face in his hands and forces her to look at him.

‘The only one who’s punishing you, Catherine, is you.’ His voice is gentle. ‘You must stop it. Promise me?’

She nods.

‘We’ve been here before, Cath. Let’s deal with it quickly this time – there’s no need for you to torment yourself. Go and see the GP. Talk to her. And why don’t you ask her for something to help you sleep?’ He smiles. ‘I know you too well. You’ve tried to hide it, but I can tell. And you look bloody awful.’ He kisses her. She nods again.

‘I’m sorry, you must be exhausted,’ she says. ‘And you’ve got to be up early tomorrow.’

‘It’s fine,’ he says. ‘Promise me you’ll go and see the doctor.’

‘Yes, I will. I promise.’

‘You know you can tell me anything. You know that, don’t you.’ It is not a question. He takes her hand and leads her upstairs. ‘Just talk to me, Catherine. When you feel like this, talk to me.’ His words – kind, caring – conflict with the backdrop in her head: her face, the one her husband is stroking, smashed beyond recognition on a railway line.

12

End of winter–spring 2013

A sharpened pencil in the right hands can be a lethal weapon. At the very least it can take out an eye, at the worst push through the socket into the brain. I had sharpened mine to perfection. But a lethal weapon is useless unless it hits its target.

I knew who my target was; I had known her name for years. All I needed was to reach her.

I took advice from a local man, the printer who had produced the Order of Service cards for Nancy’s funeral. It was he who suggested I cut out the middle man and publish the novel myself: ‘Go direct to the reader,’ he said. Music to my ears, but ‘online’? Well, there he had lost me. I was not ‘online’. I didn’t even possess a computer. There aren’t many advantages to being old and lonely, but in that instance I managed to make the most of my pitiful situation. I needed help, and that kind man gave it to me. ‘A laptop,’ he suggested. Yes, I liked the sound of a laptop and he helped me buy one, guiding me through the bewildering process, and then he set me up online. I would never have managed it without him. Such a patient man, so obliging. He gave me a freedom I didn’t even know I lacked – set me off on a voyage into a boundless universe; me, an elderly man, free to roam wherever I wanted.

My first port of call was her name. I typed it in, and up it all came. Photographs, a short biography and all her credits, everything she’d ever worked on. A few imposters came up too, but I recognized the real thing when I saw her. Even though we’d never met, I had no doubt which Catherine Ravenscroft was mine. And there was her husband too. Robert. Robert and Catherine. In one photo he had his arm round her. Her hair was windswept and she was smiling. To my amazement, I discovered that when I clicked on this photo I could find out the exact spot where it had been taken: GPS coordinates. I looked them up on a map, and there it was. Fowey in Cornwall. A holiday in a smart hotel, I imagined. The photo taken on a mobile phone. Perhaps her son had taken it. Her little boy, a young man now. Nicholas. Nicholas Ravenscroft. Here he is. No university education? A drop-out? Surely not. A salesman? I’d expected more from the offspring of such an ambitious and successful couple. Oh, happy days. So many missing years, and yet it took me no time at all to catch up and find out what she and her family had been up to. What a full, rich life she’d been leading, and how well she’d been rewarded for it. It showed in her teeth – straight and white – a sign of prosperity for sure, rather like a tan was in the sixties. Her hair was expensive too, well cut, and the grey hairs (surely she would have had some by now) ingeniously blended with blonde. Yes, she was thriving all right.

I became quite the intrepid traveller. There were other paths I was drawn to, and I confess that at times I grew distracted. One led me to a former pupil. He’d been a favourite, this young man, except he wasn’t so young any more – he was approaching middle age. I’d thought of him over the years, wondering what he’d made of himself, and now I could find out. With light fingers I picked my way through his career, his social life. Unmarried, no children. From this distance, it was safe to watch him. No one would know.

Back to business: I needed an address, the bullseye at the centre of my target. I knew where she worked, but it was her home address I was after and that was proving elusive. It was her husband who eventually spilled the beans. I read a profile of him in the business section of a newspaper. Blah, blah, blah and then:
Robert Ravenscroft lives in North-west London with his son and wife, Catherine, a successful documentary film-maker.
Not a whole address, but a clue. In the end it was my fingers which did the walking and found me their listing in the telephone directory. Mr R. Ravenscroft. I noted down the telephone number for future reference.

I was like a child at Christmas when my friend the printer delivered the first copies of my book. In fact Christmas had been and gone – a solitary one for me. A ready-meal of turkey for one, roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts, gravy and cranberry sauce. It smelled better than it tasted – a hint of festive spice in the air when I peeled off the cardboard lid. I had to wait until the end of January for my real Christmas, but when I took that first book out of the box I knew it had been worth waiting for. I’d used an image from one of Jonathan’s postcards on the cover. Blue sky, burning sun. Yes, it worked very well: a hot, white sun you could see even when you closed your eyes. My friend was all for sitting me down and guiding me through the process of managing orders online, but I didn’t have time for that. I was keen to get on. I reassured him that I’d mastered the Internet universe. I had no intention of waiting for orders online.

When I put that first book into a jiffy bag and wrote her address on it my hands were trembling with anticipation. I took such care, making sure I didn’t transpose any letters or numbers on the postcode, only to decide in the end that I would hand-deliver it. Hot off the press, a free gift for a very special person. To keep it a surprise I delivered it in the wee small hours when I was sure I wouldn’t be seen. There was a satisfying slap when it landed on the mat: a grenade waiting for someone to pull out the pin. I wanted her to feel its full blast when she was least expecting it, perhaps curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine in her hand. I didn’t include a note with the book. I wasn’t seeking attention for myself – it was recognition I was after. Not of me, but her. I wanted her to recognize that the woman in the book was her true self, not the one she pretended to be: the real one. I wanted to smack her in the face with the truth.

I suppose the book was like a terrier, my Jack Russell of a novel which would sniff her from her hiding place and chase her out into the open. Its sharp, pointed teeth would expose her, strip away the counterfeit selves she’d assembled. How well she’s hidden inside her long, successful marriage, her celebrated career – being a mother, too, we mustn’t forget that. Such a useful disguise. Be honest, for fuck’s sake. Own yourself. Let’s see how you live with yourself after that.

I was tired when I got home so I went to bed for a bit. I woke around lunchtime and made myself a cheese sandwich. It was a sad affair; the cheese was dry and the bread stale. I had a shelf in the larder where I still kept the preserves Nancy had made. I hadn’t touched them since she’d died, but that day I picked out a jar of onion chutney, scraped off the mould and spread chutney over the cheese. As I swallowed down the first bite of sandwich something caught at the back of my throat. I stopped chewing, using my tongue to wheedle out the alien body. It wasn’t alien though, it was part of Nancy – a long, white hair. I could have chosen any jar, but for some reason it was that one I’d been drawn to – the one which contained a token from my wife. I sucked it clean and laid it on the side of my plate. It was a sign of her approval, I was sure. She was pleased with what I had done so far. It made me think about what else I might do to please her. Be bold, I thought. So I was.

It was a bright, crisp day, the sun sharp and valiant and I enjoyed the feel of it on my face as I sat on the top of the bus. Although it was only a short walk from Oxford Circus, it took longer than it should have to negotiate my way through the dithering pedestrians and reach the electrical department of John Lewis, but lunch had restored my energy. A new vacuum cleaner, that’s what I settled on; which one, though? I looked around for help and there he was. The man I was looking for. He
was
helpful at first, the suited young salesman with his slip-on shoes and his name badge. He seemed to understand exactly what I needed. Something light for an old boy to manage up and down the stairs. He was sympathetic when I told him that my wife, sadly deceased, had taken care of most of the household duties. He suggested a Dyson, something I could pull behind me, with a handle to make it easier to get up the stairs. Attachments and a super-suck, nothing stronger on the market. Oh, but I did feel nostalgic for an upright. I felt I would be more comfortable with something that resembled our old model. I couldn’t help noticing the smell of tobacco on him. Just back from a sneaky fag, no doubt. The upright proved even heavier than the Dyson – I wasn’t sure I had the strength to manage it. Perhaps something non-electrical might be better? A Bissle? Isn’t that what they’re called? Something with rollers that catch the dust as they move over the carpet? What about that? He cocked his head and looked as if I had asked him to conjugate his Latin verbs. Then he fired off his own questions: how thick was my pile? Carpet or rugs? Bare floors? He struggled on as best he could and we went backwards and forwards until he could no longer hide his impatience. Was I taking up too much of his time? Was I eating into his tea break? I could see the tension in his jaw, the gritting of his teeth, the glancing over to a colleague and the rolling of his eyes. I’m sure if his manager had seen that, he would have been taken to task. What would you do, if you were me? I asked. The Dyson, he said. You’re the expert, I replied and he took down the box and told me ‘it won’t disappoint’. Well worth the money. Never knowingly undersold. He carried it to the cash desk, at which point I had a change of heart. How to break it to him? It was a lot of money for someone on a pension. I couldn’t go through with it, I said. I hoped I hadn’t wasted his time.