better on “Blue Beard” than any critic, Clarissa. You should be the professor. You should have finished that PhD.’
I shake my head to deny this. Even after my head stops moving, the world continues to waver from side to side. I hardly ever tell anyone about the abandoned PhD. I wonder vaguely how you know, but halt abruptly, distracted by a ring in a shop window. It is a twist of platinum twinkling with diamonds. It is the ring I dreamed Henry would one day surprise me with, but he never did. Moving lights glitter and flash inside the gems like bright sun on blue sea. White and gold fairy bulbs rim the window, dazzling me.
You pull me away from the glass and I blink as if you’ve woken me. By the time we’ve passed the closed shops in their deep gold Georgian buildings, my steps are no longer straight. Your arm is around my waist, aiming me in the right direction.
I hardly remember going through the subway, but already we are climbing the steep hill and I am breathless. You are holding me close, pushing or pulling me, half-carrying me. Flashes from the diamonds and fairy lights come back, tiny dots before my eyes. How is it that we are already at the door of the old house whose upper floor is mine?
I sway gently, like a funny rag doll. Blood rushes into my head. You help me find my keys, help me up the stairs to the second floor, help me to put two more keys into the locks of my own front door. I stand there, dizzily, not knowing what to do next.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in for a coffee?’
It can’t fail to work, your manipulative little call to my politeness. I think of idiot-eyed Snow White opening the door to the wicked queen and practically grabbing the poisoned apple out of her hands. I think of Jonathan Harker crossing Dracula’s threshold freely and of his own will. I think again of Bluebeard and his bloody chamber. Did he carry each new bride over the threshold and into his castle after she’d leapt happily into his arms? After that came the room of torture she never imagined.
I try to smile but my face seems not to move as it should. ‘Of course. Of course I am. You must come in for a coffee and warm up while I call you a taxi. It was so sweet of you to walk me home on your special night.’ I’m jabbering. I know I’m jabbering.
I stand in front of the sink, letting water run into the kettle. ‘I’m sorry.’ My words sound smudgy, as if spoken in a language I barely know. ‘My head is feeling funny.’
It is such an effort to stand up. I feel like a spinning top. Or is it the room that is revolving? My body seems to be made of liquid. I float down, my legs folding with such pleasing neatness, until I find myself sitting on the slate tiles of my galley kitchen. The kettle is still in my hands, sloshing water from its spout. ‘I’m very thirsty.’ Though the water is splashing onto my dress, I can’t imagine how to get any of it into my mouth.
You find a glass and fill it. You kneel beside me, feeding the water to me as if I’m a child drinking from a sippy cup. You wipe a drop from my chin with your index finger and then put it to your lips. My own hands still clutch the kettle.
You rise again to set the glass down and turn off the tap. You lean over to take the kettle from me. ‘It hurts me to think you don’t trust me.’ I can feel your breath in my hair as you speak.
You pull me to my feet, supporting my weight. My legs are barely working as you move me towards the bedroom. You sit me at the edge of the bed and crouch in front of me, leaning me into you to stop me from falling over. I can’t keep my back straight. I am weeping.
‘Don’t,’ you whisper, smoothing my hair, murmuring that it is so soft, kissing away the tears streaming down my face. ‘Let me put you to bed. I know just what to do with you.’
‘Henry …’ I try to say. Speaking seems too difficult, as if I have forgotten how.
‘Don’t think about him.’ You sound angry. You look deeply into my eyes, so that I must close my own. ‘The Munch painting, I know you were thinking of us, imagining our being together. We both were.’
I am completely floppy. I feel as though I am made of waves. I am slipping backwards. All I want is to lie down. There is a rushing in my head, like the sea. There is a pounding in my ears like a drum beat, my own heart, growing louder.
Your hands are on my waist, on my stomach, on my hips, on the small of my back, moving over me as you unfasten my wrap dress.
I only ever meant for Henry to touch this dress. I made it for the birthday dinner I had with him seven months ago. Even though we both knew it was all but over, he didn’t want me to turn thirty-eight alone. Our last night together. A goodbye dinner, with goodbye sex. This dress was never meant for you.
I am trying to push you away but I might as well be a child. You are pulling the dress the rest of the way open and sliding it off my shoulders. And then the room tips, and everything that follows is shadowy. Broken images from a nightmare I don’t want to remember.
She was so immersed in writing that the rasp of the jury officer’s microphone startled the pen from her fingers, making it shoot across the quiet area where she was sitting. ‘Will the following people please come and stand by the desk for the trial that is about to begin in Court 12?’ Her name was the first to be called, giving her an electric shock. She shoved the notebook into her bag as if it were a piece of incriminating evidence she didn’t want to be seen with.
Two minutes later she was hurrying after the usher with the others. A heavy door sprang open and they were in the hidden depths of the building, winding their way up several flights of draughty concrete stairs, padding across the linoleum of a small, overly bright waiting room, then stumbling through another door. She blinked several times as she realised that they were in the courtroom. Her name was called again and she filed into the back row.
Henry would have refused the Bible but Clarissa took it from the usher without wavering. She meant every word of the oath, though her voice was faint.
Sitting next to her was a prettily plump, dark-haired woman whose necklace spelled her name in letters of white gold: Annie. As if through a haze, Clarissa glanced farther to the right, where five defendants sat only a few feet away, flanked by police guards. Annie was studying the men with undisguised interest, as if daring them to notice.
The judge addressed the jurors. ‘This trial will last for seven weeks.’
Seven weeks. She’d never dreamed she’d be that lucky.
‘If there are compelling reasons as to why you cannot serve on this jury, please pass a note to the usher before leaving. Tomorrow the Crown will make his opening remarks.’
She groped for her bag, tugged down her skirt as she stood to make sure it hadn’t ridden up, and lurched after the others. As she passed the dock she saw that if she and the nearest defendant were each to stretch out an arm, they would almost be able to touch.
She squirmed off her mittens as she boarded the train, found the last empty seat, and took out her mobile. A sick wave went through her. Four texts. One from her mother. The others from Rafe. It was actually restrained for him, stopping at three.
She didn’t smile, as she normally would, when she read her mother’s – Coffee is not a breakfast food. Nothing could inure her to his little series, however harmless they might seem to somebody else.
Hope you’re sleeping. Hope you’re dreaming of me.
