A Division of the Light (15 page)

“I was hoping you wouldn't be here when I got back,” she said.

The flutter became a hard fist in the center of his chest. It stopped him breathing freely. Not knowing how to respond, he began to check the temperature controls on the cooker as though they were complex devices.

“I said,” Alice repeated, “that I was hoping you wouldn't be here.”

“I'm not teaching today,” he answered weakly.

She walked across the floor again. For the moment Thomas dared not turn. Her glare would be enough to unman him. A part of him knew he should say nothing, but another part lacked the resolve to remain silent. He spoke as if they were continuing a discussion Alice had begun days ago.

“I've been thinking about journeying north to visit those locations but I haven't been able to plan it out yet.”

The speech collapsed around him like a deflated balloon.

Alice paused and folded her arms. She knew what the truth was. Thomas would never get to see his overlooked and unimpressive sites. The Neolithic ax factory on the side of a mountain, the stone circle that was too far off the beaten track, the high barren moor with its near-formless mound of stones—these were all destinations he would never reach. These bleak locations, unvisited and ignored by his peers, were emblematic of Thomas's modest, unadventurous life. He was a clever man but so flawed that all his potential had been wasted. It was too late now for any form of recovery. Thomas Laidlaw was beyond redemption.

And what terrified Alice most of all was the suspicion, the threat, that in many ways she and Thomas could have similar futures.

“I wasn't talking about your travels,” she announced. “I was talking about you moving out.”

The expected blow always falls the hardest. Thomas drew his elbows in at his sides and raised his shoulders as if a current had passed through his body.

Alice moved a step closer, but stayed far enough away to be
out of reach were he suddenly to whirl round. She went on.

“I was hoping you'd be gone. Because we both know there's no future for us.”

It felt as if she were inserting a knife, but at the same time she knew that such a moment of truth was justified. She continued. “I thought you would have read all the signs—they've been clear enough. I thought that maybe we could avoid a scene like this. But if you'd understood you'd have offered to go before now. What is it that makes you want to stay? Nothing that you can do will take things back to what they were. I'm sorry, you're sorry, we're both sorry. Why do we say that? Our apologies make no difference.”

She paused, took a breath, and said what had to be said.

“Thomas, I want you to leave. I want you to leave straight away. I want you to go and not come back. I don't want you to phone, I don't want you to write, I just want you to go.”

He turned and looked at her, his face stricken into a kind of paralysis.

“We have to talk about this,” he said.

“No, we don't have to talk about it. Words will change nothing.”

“We can't just give up on things.”

Exasperated, Alice shook her head. “I've told you, there's no point in discussing it. It's settled. Whatever you say I'll not change my mind. Look inside yourself and you can see that I'm right. If this didn't happen now then it would happen tomorrow or next week or next month. It's better for us both if we just end it today, now, this minute.”

Desperation laced his speech. “Whatever happened today has got you in such a mood that you see everything as black. But it isn't. We have a future together.”

Thomas held out his arms to embrace Alice, but she moved away.

“Hold me and it will be all right,” he pleaded. “I promise you everything will be all right.”

And he stepped forward, his gait as ungainly as any monster's, his arms stretched out as if in parody. Alice raised a hand. It stopped him like a charm. He stood there looking at her with shocked eyes.

“This is it,” she said firmly. “End of the road. We both knew it was coming. It's here. Understand? It's here
now
.”

And he looked so helpless, so unequal to everyday life, that for a moment, but only for a moment, Alice pitied Thomas and hated herself for making him suffer.

The mood passed as suddenly as it had arrived. There was no alternative. He was a dead weight, he was manacle and shackle, and she needed to be free. What happened to Thomas now was his own concern; Alice was not his keeper.

A part of her life closed behind her and a new part began to open up. She could sense its energy and its heat. And although Thomas had been a small element in the past, he featured not at all in the future.

Alice had the lock changed the day after she had finally succeeded in banishing Thomas. Only then did she feel secure and confident that she was moving on.

Getting rid of him was prolonged and distressing, and she could not fully understand why he had to cling so desperately to the past. Men were like that, she thought—fundamentally they were needy and unambitious. Their braggadocio was nothing but a threadbare camouflage for insecurity. Usually
they wanted a wife to come home to, although not necessarily to be faithful to. At deep levels that they were unwilling to admit, men were always anxious for affirmation. They constantly hunted for compliments but if given one were never sure how to deal with it.

Before he was shamed into leaving, Thomas exhibited a range of emotions that were unpleasant and annoying. He walked around, he stayed still, he sat down and immediately stood up, and he moved from room to room as if he expected Alice to follow, crumple, and then tell him she did not mean what she had said. Alice was always determined, but Thomas tacked back and forth across the sea of his emotions as if he did not know which course was best. In turn he was jealous, bumptious, angry and craven. When he left, he was like an innocent man found guilty of a terrible crime.

Soon after she had closed the door on him, Alice began to cry.

At the end of each of her relationships she always wept spasmodically for two or three days. After that she was calm, she was happy, and the rest of her life seemed as though it would be worth living. And although she wept because she could not avoid inflicting pain, Alice was never overwhelmed by guilt.

Her lovers, on the other hand, were never able to forgive. Even though each affair had turned stale, they all acted surprised, wounded and betrayed. She believed that this could only be because of an irrational masculine pride. As a young woman Alice had expected men to be tougher, even unfeeling. She had not known that their emotional bruises never faded. Men who had craved affection were unable to recognize its decay and hopeless at recovering from its collapse.

As soon as the lock was changed Alice began to clean the flat, move the ornaments and rearrange the furniture. This was important even if the differences she made were only minimal. On several occasions she had to stop, sit down and weep. But after a few minutes she was able to stand up and carry on as if nothing had happened.

She energetically polished the worktops and the table, and then washed the cutlery and every plate and cup and glass. She found the last two bottles of wine that Thomas had bought and poured them down the sink. There was something comforting and final about the way in which the wine swirled red against the white surface before disappearing down the waste pipe in a series of expiring gulps. Every book, every CD and DVD was checked; if there were any suggestion that they might belong to Thomas, they were placed in a cardboard box with a lid that was closed and which she would later tape shut. Three wallets of old photographs, very few of them featuring Alice, were also slipped into the box. In the bathroom a bar of soap, two unused razor blades, and an almost-empty can of shaving gel had been left behind like relics. These were collected and put into a black refuse bag. Joining them was a supermarket ready-meal that Thomas had asked her to buy and that she no longer wished to eat. Also dropped like a contaminant into the bag was an unused packet of condoms from the table on the side of the bed where he had usually slept. Alice tied the bag with a double knot before dropping it down the rubbish chute.

When all this was completed she looked round the flat and decided that soon she would repaint part of it, hang new curtains and buy a new duvet and perhaps a new standing lamp. Then she sat at the dining table and spread out the appointments
section of a daily newspaper, glancing as quickly as she could through the jobs that were on offer. She would walk out of her present employment in a day or so, claiming irreconcilable differences as if she were a board member. There was enough money in her bank accounts to allow her if necessary to live without worry for several weeks. After that she would have to start earning again.

When she had considered the advertisements and found nothing Alice checked her phone and found that Gregory had rung from his mobile. She had not responded to an earlier call, and she was not fooled by the apparent casualness of his message—something about asking if she wanted to help on a project that he did not describe. For a few minutes she considered ringing him back, but then decided to let him wait. Every trivial reason not to return such a call now began to seem increasingly important.

And yet she could not stop thinking about Gregory. He was a strange person, certainly someone worth cultivating, and, as with all men, he used professionalism as a mask for his uncertainty. For him a camera was both shelter and probe. He was content to objectify Alice and yet eager to please her. There was little doubt that he wanted to have sex with her, but nevertheless he seemed conflicted about his reasons.

As for Alice herself, she had grown used to the idea that she could enjoy sleeping with him—the trouble was, she was not sure if it would be worth it. Had she not by now had her fill of love affairs, of their profligate squandering of emotion? Gregory Pharaoh must have had many women, and he could never be as much trouble as Thomas had been. But something happened to men when they fell in love; it was as if they were no longer capable of reason. Would it not be wiser to keep Gregory at arm's
length, to use him when he could be useful and not to enter with him into the broken maze of an affair? Besides, Alice thought, it was possible that she had already been given the best that he could offer. What could he do now but take even more photographs? Was this the help he was requesting?

She knew that all of these questions had a rational, considered answer. She had already had enough lovers; there was nothing to suggest that an affair with Gregory would be different from any of the others. But Alice also knew that she was a woman who had never been able to resist the intoxicating temptation of an unwise action.

The underground vault lay behind an oak door that was bolted, padlocked, and always remained unopened except for authorized visits. These were always arranged to take place when the church was quiet. At exactly the specified time a churchwarden arrived with a heavy key strung on a rope as thick as a lanyard. He opened the padlock and slid the long bolt right back so that it made a noise like a stone hitting raw earth. The churchwarden would adjust his glasses, grip a handle, and pull hard so that the door slowly moved, its iron hinges creaking like hawsers. The door had sunk under its own weight and could not be opened fully. Its lower corner ground so harshly across a flagstone that over the years a pale arc had been scored into the surface.

Just inside the door was a switch that operated an electric light fixed to the wall in a metal cage. The cable for the light was bracketed to the wall at head height, and led down a stone staircase that turned to the right. The steps were narrow and gloomy and there was no handrail, making any visitors descend gingerly with arms outstretched and fingers trailing along the cold stone.
This is what Gregory did until he grew used to the descent. Alice was less confident and continued to touch the walls for security.

At first the size of the vault was difficult to gauge. The ceiling bulb was dim and a yellowish deposit coated its underside, further weakening its glow. Traceries of decaying cobweb were strung around the fitting. At the end of the room a tiny barred window looked out onto the churchyard. Grass grew unchecked on its outside and the inside had been colonized by pads of moss. Most of the panes were level with the ground so that apart from a thin strip of pale daylight the window admitted only a murky green.

When she first saw the bones piled on the wooden racks Alice could not think what she should say. Instead she remained silent and unmoving in the gloom at the bottom of the stair, tightening her arms around herself because of the cold. As Gregory walked along a narrow aisle, checking the perspectives, his breath turned to cloud and his voice was metallic and unreal.

“There are hundreds—can you see? Look at the numbers. This one is 248. Another one over there is 316.”

The crypt was stacked with human bones—not every bone, only the skulls and the long bones from the limbs. These, Gregory had been told, were the bones that were considered essential for resurrection. At some moment in the past the ribs, pelvises, vertebrae and digits had been lost, disposed of, perhaps thrown into the nearby river and washed away. Now all that was left of the dead was piled on the tiers and rows of grubby wooden benches, each one slatted like a barracks bed. As though arranged by a weaver or builder of stone walls, the long bones had been placed in configurations that steadied them against each other so that they did not slip or roll away. On top of these secure layers the
skulls had been set down in rows, some with their jawbones, some without. Every relic was shaded in color from pale yellow to dark brown, like nicotine stains, and every skull had a number inked on its forehead. Each number was fading into the bone, and none was in sequence, as though at some point the entire collection had been taken apart and then reassembled at random.