Every Contact Leaves A Trace (41 page)

‘What do you mean, what you could do about Rachel?’

‘How we could bring her round, that’s what. How we could make her agree to meet me, and how we could get her to apologise.’

‘I see. And what did you decide, in the end?’

‘Ah,’ Anthony said, leaning across the kitchen table towards Harry, his face crinkling into its familiar half-smile, half-frown. ‘That, Harry, is where you come in. Or at least, I very much hope it is.’

And when Harry sat back in his chair and raised his glasses onto his forehead and crossed his arms Anthony stood and said, looking down at him, ‘You see, Harry, this is the thing. Evie and I need your help,’ and then he smiled his old lopsided smile. ‘We need you to make Rachel see things as we see them. We need you to make her change her mind.’

Harry was reluctant to get involved at first. Anthony said he’d completely understand if he turned them down, and that he more than anyone was aware that the whole thing was a little absurd, but he and Evie had decided it was worth a try, thinking it likely that Harry would be able to talk Rachel into some kind of meeting where they had failed. He spoke with a wheedling tone that morning in Judd Street, and Harry was bewildered by the constant switching from the fragile pleas of a man desperate for resolution, to an excessive and almost self-indulgent openness about matters that were extremely distasteful. It was obvious Anthony had suffered unduly for something that had not been entirely his fault and that, for whatever reason, his life was still being affected by it, but Harry knew that he couldn’t right a wrong, not at this stage, and that nobody could really help Anthony except himself.

It was thinking once more of Rachel that made him agree in the end. Thinking of Rachel, and of what she might stand to lose if he didn’t intervene. Despite Anthony’s assurances that he was over it, and that it was only because he’d seen Harry in the British Library
that
he’d thought it was worth one last try, Harry was disturbed by the things Anthony had told him, and deeply so. While he couldn’t see Anthony going through with his threats to expose Rachel’s plagiarism, and while no real damage would be done even if he did, not now, it was clearly desirable that such an outcome should be avoided. If a way could be found of helping him to move on sufficiently for him to fade once more from their lives, Harry could see no harm in trying to make it happen. Indeed, he considered himself duty-bound to do so, feeling an enormous degree of responsibility for how things had ended up: Anthony was right that Rachel’s career had not been disadvantaged by her long association with Harry, and he knew that if he and Haddon had only managed to get to the nub of the matter at the end of that summer term, everything might have turned out very differently for Anthony.

He decided in the end it was just a conversation that needed to take place between two adults about events that had happened a very long time ago, and it struck him on the train back to Oxford that it didn’t have to be any more complicated than that. The plan he devised was straightforward. He settled on the idea of a dinner in Oxford to which everyone could be invited and over which he would preside. The more he thought about it, the more obvious it seemed that this was, in fact, the only sensible solution. Sitting in a taxi up to his house on the Woodstock Road, he resolved to discuss things with Rachel when he was next in London. When he got into College the following morning he sent the briefest of notes to Anthony to that effect and a postcard to Rachel saying he’d be back in town on Monday, sooner than he’d expected, and if the weather was fine and she had the time, why didn’t they go for a stroll on the river? Unless he heard otherwise, he would wait for her in the British Library courtyard at noon.

‘Let’s see the Dalí,’ she said the minute they met, tugging at the sleeve of his jacket like a child, so that he felt the cruelty of what he was going to do. ‘It’s on at Tate Modern,’ she carried on, pulling
at
his sleeve again. ‘You’ll love it, I promise,’ and she started to walk away, only stopping when she realised he wasn’t following her.

‘What?’ she said, puzzled. ‘What is it? Come on. We’ll wander down to the river like you said. Bloomsbury, Covent Garden, Waterloo Bridge. It’ll be lovely. Come on Harry don’t be grumpy, it’s a completely gorgeous day,’ and she was pulling him across the courtyard and they were walking and because he couldn’t think how to begin he didn’t, letting her turn the conversation whichever way she wanted until they were on the bridge and had stopped to look at the views on either side.

‘I can never make up my mind which one I prefer,’ she said, turning first one way and then the other. ‘Never never never.’

‘St Paul’s,’ he said. ‘Surely.’ And then, realising he couldn’t leave it any longer, he began. ‘Rachel—’

‘But there are so many cranes always,’ she said, looking back that way. ‘I’m not sure they need as many as that, not all the time. Imagine if there weren’t any. It would be so beautiful wouldn’t it?’

‘Rachel—’

‘You’re right,’ she said, looking west again before saying, reluctantly, ‘I always think I ought to prefer this one. But isn’t it just too obvious? Big Ben. Isn’t it Harry?’ and she turned back to look at him. She swept her hair back from her face with both hands, squinting at him in the sunlight. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes, I’m alright, but there’s something I have to tell you, I’m afraid.’

‘What do you mean you’re afraid?’ she said. ‘Afraid of what?’ and she laughed. ‘Has someone died, Harry?’ and when he shook his head she laughed again. ‘Can’t be that awful then can it? Out with it, and stop looking so gloomy for goodness’ sake.’

‘I mean I’m afraid you might not want to hear it, that’s all,’ he said. ‘But there we are,’ and he took her arm in his and steered them both around to face the South Bank and started to walk with her across the rest of the bridge, not wanting to look her in the eye.

‘I have spoken with Anthony Trelissick,’ he said. She stopped walking immediately and he turned and saw her face set against the
clouds
that blocked out the sun towards Westminster and for a moment, he wished he hadn’t said anything after all.

‘Anthony Trelissick?’ she said, looking as though Harry had actually struck her. ‘Are you insane Harry? What the hell right do you think you have—’

‘Rachel. Please don’t be angry until you have heard what I have to say.’

‘Of course I’m bloody well angry, Harry. What’s going on? What’s bloody well going on?’

She stood there with her arms folded, staring wildly at him, and she was on the point of speaking again when he said, ‘Rachel. Reserve your judgement, please. At least until you’ve listened to me. I think you owe me that much, if nothing else.’

She looked amazed, but didn’t say a word, so he pressed on in the face of her silence. They started to walk again and he described how he had gone to Anthony’s flat. He said that he was only speaking to her about it because Anthony had asked him to, and then he began to tell her everything he’d learned while he was there.

She said nothing while he told his tale. It wasn’t until some time after he had finished that she spoke again, and even then she did it so quietly she was almost whispering. They’d reached the other side of the bridge and had walked down the steps and were standing by the railings in front of the National Theatre, looking out at the river. ‘Oh, Harry,’ she said, staring blankly at the water. Her eyes were open slightly wider than before, as though she were a sleepwalker, or had seen a ghost. ‘I am so sorry.’ And she half stumbled over to one of the benches behind them and sat down, wrapping her arms around herself and leaning forwards. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said again, and then she was silent, so he stood beside her and waited for her to carry on.

Eventually she sat back up. ‘I’m not sure you’ll ever know how grateful I am for the things you’ve done for me,’ and she shivered slightly, despite the sun that fell on her. ‘All of them. And I’m not sure you could ever imagine what it meant, to have your help when I did.’

She was crying now, choosing her words slowly and speaking so quietly that Harry had to sit down beside her on the bench and lean
in
towards her to hear properly. ‘And I don’t think I can even begin to explain myself, for the things I did. And for the way I was. I wouldn’t be able to. I’d have no idea how.’

‘Please, Rachel,’ he said, but she shook her head and carried on.

‘Will you forgive me, Harry? I mean, can you?’

‘Of course I can forgive you.’ She sighed and wiped her eyes, and he reached in his jacket pocket for his handkerchief. ‘But Rachel, really, it’s more important that we have what we do, the two of us. What we’ve built up, over the years. It was a long time ago, all of this. I do think you need to think about Anthony though,’ he said, holding out his handkerchief to her. ‘For fairness’s sake, if nothing else,’ and then he saw again a flash of the anger Anthony had described.

She pushed his outstretched hand away and stood from the bench. ‘Fairness! What has this got to do with fairness? He’s a psychopath, Harry. You think he told you everything? You really think he told you all the disgusting things he wrote in those emails? Do you?’ and people started to look at her and look away again, embarrassed.

‘Rachel. Come on. You’re upset. You’re not thinking clearly. Please sit down,’ and when she did, he carried on. ‘Anthony is a damaged man. And you had no small part to play in—’

‘Harry for god’s sake,’ she said, standing again. ‘We’re all damaged aren’t we? Even just a little bit? Christ. But we don’t all go around the place sending filthy stalker letters and behaving like some kind of nutter. Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen him watching me in the bloody library? Why?’

‘I didn’t think,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know. I couldn’t be sure it was him.’

But he could see that she wasn’t listening, and he watched her walk back over to the railings and lean against them, putting her head in her hands. When he went and stood beside her and placed a hand on her back, she shrugged it off straight away.

‘The past is the past, Rachel. And neither of us can rewrite it. But what we can do is try to make amends. That’s all he wants and that’s all I’m suggesting.’

‘An apology? Jesus. You really think that’s all he wants?’

‘I do, yes. And I think you’ll find that an apology can be a very powerful thing, in actual fact, for the person who has been wronged.’

Rachel laughed and shook her head and sighed, pushing herself away from the railings as he continued. ‘I’m sorry if you think I’ve gone too far already but, really, I’d be grateful if you’d look at things from my perspective. When he took me there that day and told me those things I had my entire understanding of a past turned upside down and inside out. So you will have to forgive me, Rachel, if you think that by listening to him I have betrayed some kind of trust. We are all capable of such errors of judgement, I think, as a betrayal of trust, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Fine. Emotional blackmail. I get it.’

‘Rachel. I’m not doing that. I am simply saying that I think we can find a way to resolve things, and I also happen to think it’s in your interest that we do so.’

She sighed again and they stood for a time in silence, looking out at the water. When a river taxi went past he tried to defuse things by asking her if she’d ever taken one and she said no, she preferred to walk. He said he hadn’t either, and when she asked him why not, he took advantage of the ground he seemed to have made and explained that he’d always suffered from terrible seasickness. He told her then about a day trip he’d taken once, as a child, with his parents and his cousins. The sea had been flat, he said. As flat as a saucer of milk. And still he’d been sick, which meant they’d all had to come back early. He hadn’t been on a boat again for years after that, he told her, and even then it was only one that was moored on the Thames for a party and it had happened all over again.

‘Dirty British coaster,’ Rachel said, suddenly, and he was puzzled until he looked and saw the tug that was shuddering past in front of them.

‘With a salt-caked smoke stack,’ he replied, finishing the line for her, glad that something seemed to have shifted, and that everything might be alright after all.

‘OK then, Harry,’ she said. ‘What exactly did you have in mind?’

‘Shall we walk again?’

‘Oh. Well if that’s all you’re after, no problem,’ she said, and he laughed a little at her joke, and as they made their way underneath the trees it was with the sound of seagulls wheeling that he set out his plan. She’d become distressed again once she’d heard it, almost immediately, and they’d argued quite heatedly as they walked, until he realised he wouldn’t be able to persuade her otherwise and they had come to a compromise.

She said that the conversation that had to happen was to be, as she understood it, between her and Anthony, and nobody else. Not Harry, and certainly not Evie. On this she was intractable: it was Anthony who was demanding the whole thing, and she’d already made her amends with Evie, some time ago now, and if Harry meant what he said about forgiving her, then she’d made them with him also. Evie and Harry were only involved because she and Anthony hadn’t managed to sort it out, and while she recognised it was very kind of them to help and that each of them had her and Anthony’s best interests at heart, there really was no need for them to listen to the actual conversation. He gave in to her arguments but insisted on retaining some of his original idea, saying why didn’t she and Alex finally come to dine on High Table, and why didn’t they do it on Midsummer Night? That way they could stay on and make a weekend of it, and she’d be able to fit in a meeting with Anthony while she was there.