A Question of Identity (12 page)

Then into your coat, your hat and your boots. Big boots. Then you went out.

And there was no one. The snow had covered the towpath and the banks of the canal. Over the bridge it was piled three inches. Down the steps. Hold onto the rail, mind.

Then you were down on the other side and up the street and there was no one. A car on the main road then not another for ages.

Nobby smiled, crunching the snow. Sweet as a nut. Lovely. He pushed his boot down into it. Stood still. Pushed the other boot down. Stood looking round. The sky was clear, the stars like the bright heads of pins in a velvet pincushion.

They had names, and he knew some of them but not which name belonged to which.

He walked slowly. No one about. Empty world. Half a mile. A mile. Into the town. Along the road past the hill which was like one of the Alps in a picture.

Untouched snow. He laughed as he sent it flying, kicking it in all directions. Then he fell over and rolled in it. Got up before his clothes were too wet and walked on and laughed now and again because the snow made him happy. Snow and night. Night and snow.

No one about. No one to see Nobby. That was all right. Then a dog saw him. Ran away. He got near town. Lights on. A car or two. A cat. Snow. But it was messed up here where people had trampled it on the pavements. He hated them. How could they make snow into such a dirty mush? They should respect it.

Yes.

Respect.

He said it aloud.

‘Respect!’

A police car went slowly round the town square so he dodged into a shop doorway. They’d stop and ask him, where was he going, what was he doing, why was he in town at this time, get in, Nobby, we’ll take you home, you’re better off out of this cold, aren’t you? What did they know?

He waited till they were well away. It was cold but all right in the doorway and he liked the smell of the night air, sharp and clean. He couldn’t see why people said they hated snow. Snow was good. Snow was a beauty if you walked in it, though it messed up the roads for cars. But cars messed up everything, messed up the quiet and the emptiness. Mucked the snow.

After a bit it got too cold just standing so he went down the narrow lane towards the cathedral and stood marvelling at the snow there, great white billows of it, curvy and soft, over the grass, over the stones, on the paths. Holy snow. He wouldn’t walk on holy snow.

Nobody about. Nothing. Taxi rank had two cabs. Empty ones.

Then there was somebody, walking quickly, softly down towards him, hands in pockets, collar up, head down. Nobby stopped. You never knew. He pressed himself into the wall on his left. The man walked on. Didn’t pause in his stride. Then he was up the slope and round the corner into the darkness. Not glancing back. Never saw Nobby Parks.

It was like school lessons. They wrote down a chunk of stuff about where I’d come from, my family, where I was born, where I went to school, all that. All made up. I couldn’t get my head round it. I said that was daft, anybody’d find out I hadn’t lived in that street and been to that school, especially now, with what you can get on the computer. They said I had lived in that house, been to those schools. I said I hadn’t. They said, You have now. It’s all in there. Someone checks those school registers, there you’ll be. That street. There you’ll be.

‘So, what about Lynne then?’

‘You don’t know any Lynne.’

‘My wife. Lynne Keyes.’

‘You’re divorced.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are. You’re divorced. Now. It’s all been done, all legal. Alan Frederick Keyes had a wife, Lynne Margaret Keyes. They’re divorced.’

That’s what they do.

This stuff they put under my nose. House I’d lived in, schools, even people in my class. Best friends = Jim Little. Peter Wainwright. Larry Urmston. Their addresses. Names of their brothers and sisters. Birthdays even.

That’s another thing. My birthday.

‘When’s your birthday?’

‘Twenty-second of
March
.’

‘That’s Alan Keyes’s birthday. When’s yours?’

‘Fifteenth of July . . .’

‘Think again.’

‘Twentieth of . . . July.’

‘OK. You have to snap it back. Nobody hesitates about answering when their birthday is. When’s your birthday?’

‘Twentieth of July.’

‘Good.’

‘
I CAN’T TALK
about it here. It makes me feel even more guilty.’

They were the only ones in the Italian restaurant apart from a solitary businessman eating with an iPad propped in front of him. The roads were still difficult. Simon and Rachel had walked from Cathedral Close. How the businessman had arrived they had already asked themselves in whispers.

They had eaten hot langoustines with lemon mayonnaise. Spaghetti alla vongole was on its way. The bottle of house red was already three-quarters empty.

Simon put his hand over Rachel’s. He had not wanted to ask about her husband but it never seemed right to ignore the subject altogether.

Rachel smiled. ‘I’m so pleased you had a good week. You needed that.’

‘Sam did too. I’d broken my promise to him too often. I just wish it had been us. Or that it could be us soon anyway. Can we ever get right away together?’

Her eyes clouded with anxiety and Simon wished he could take the burden of guilt away from her, knew he could not. Ken was no better, not much worse. And so it went on.

The waiter topped up their glasses. The spaghetti came steaming in its bowls.

‘I love you.’

She looked down quickly. Picked up her fork. ‘Yes.’

‘I don’t want it to go on and on like this.’

She ate.

‘Rachel?’

‘Don’t. Leave it. I know, I know, but what else can I do? You know how it is.’

‘Yes, I know how it is. I’m sorry.’

And then he glanced up and saw two figures he recognised pass the window, and the door of the restaurant opened on his father and stepmother.

‘Darling!’ Judith first, warm, loving, coming quickly over to kiss him on the cheek. To look across at Rachel. She knew about Rachel.

Richard, looking buttoned, shook Rachel’s hand, put his fleetingly on his son’s arm.

‘Good time with Sam?’

‘Terrific. He loved it – snow and all.’

‘It’s been absolutely awful here – we decided we’d risk it in my car or we’d go stir-crazy. It’s all right for those within walking distance of course.’

‘Judith, come and join us,’ Rachel said.

‘No, we have our own table reserved, we won’t intrude.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dad – at least have a drink with us.’

‘No, you’re halfway through your dinner.’ He gave Judith a sharp look. Simon watched. Usually, she would have ignored it, joined them, as he had suggested, for a glass of wine, before retreating. This time, she simply nodded and followed him to their table at the other end of the restaurant.

‘You didn’t tell me you’d met Judith.’

‘No. I didn’t, did I?’

He frowned. ‘How?’

‘We both go to Emma’s book group. So does your sister.’

‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘Oh, one reason and another.’

‘What reason and another?’

‘
This
reason,’ Rachel said calmly. ‘You see? Because I knew you would make some sort of fuss about it, and really, there is no reason why I shouldn’t go to a book group with members of your family, is there?’

‘There’s every reason.’

‘We don’t talk about you, Si. We never have. Not once.’

‘That puts me in my place . . .’

Rachel smiled. He pushed back his white-blond hair from where it had flopped, as ever, over his forehead, a gesture she had grown to understand. He made it when his hair annoyed him, but also when he felt caught out or embarrassed. As now.

The waiter came to take their bowls away and offer the dessert menu.

Simon waved it away. Rachel put out her hand to take it. ‘Thank you,’ she said, still smiling her open and beautiful smile. Then she put her hand on Simon’s. ‘Listen, I’m enjoying my evening. I’d like a pudding. And coffee. And you should take a deep breath and stop sulking. And forget your father and stepmother.’

He looked at her.

She was teasing him. Smiling.

He relaxed suddenly.

‘Better?’ Rachel said.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No need. No need for any of it actually.’ She kept her hand over his as the waiter hovered. ‘We’d both like the raspberries and Chantilly cream, please. And two black coffees, one decaf, one strong.’

She turned back to Simon. He saw in that moment that she loved him absolutely and that whatever happened she would go on loving him. He understood her, and he knew, too, that he had no excuse at all for not looking after her, protecting her, being loyal to her. And loving her in the same way.

He snatched a glance over his shoulder. There was something about the way Richard and Judith sat, a little apart, carefully not touching, the slight distance between them more than the sum of its parts. She was looking down, he was staring straight ahead in the way Simon recognised so well. He could imagine his father’s expression, haughty, proud, detached, giving away nothing. But polite. Ever and meticulously polite.

Rachel raised an eyebrow slightly. He shook his head.

A single large white bowl of raspberries was set down in front of them. Two smaller bowls. Another, of Chantilly cream. The
waiter brought a bottle of raspberry liqueur and poured some over the fruit.

‘I love her,’ Simon said now. ‘And if my father loses her, I swear I will kill him.’

Rachel looked at him gravely, her violet eyes clouded. ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, you won’t and please never say that sort of thing again. You of all people.’

For a moment he was angry. No one spoke to him like that except his sister, the only person he would take it from, though his mother had sometimes been critical, as had Judith once or twice. But their tone was different. Rachel spoke in the way Cat did, almost as if he were Sam’s age and behaving childishly. He looked at her across the table. Her eyes were steady on his, as she ate her pudding quite calmly.

And then he smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re right. Of course you’re right.’

‘It’s so easy. “I will kill him”, “I wish she were dead”, “I hope I don’t live to see it”. So easy.’

‘And then something happens.’

‘Even if it doesn’t. Once . . .’ She held her spoon very still and did not look up. ‘Once . . . it had been a really awful day . . . in all sorts of ways but mainly . . . oh, Kenneth’s illness and . . . and I wished he would die. I didn’t say it but I thought it very clearly. “I wish you’d hurry up and die.” And I’ve remembered it and felt terrible about it ever since and whenever something happens, whenever he deteriorates or . . . the thing is, you never forget what you wish and you never stop feeling guilty and . . . and when eventually it does happen . . .’

On their way out, Simon looked towards Richard and Judith’s table but they were turned away and he did not want the awkwardness of going over to say goodnight.

‘They’ll be fine,’ Rachel said, taking his hand. ‘People who come out to have a quiet dinner together in this weather are not at loggerheads. Trust me.’

The pavement was treacherous and the gutter hidden beneath inches of frozen snow. She let him lead her down through the icy cobbles, under the east arch and into the close, empty, white and ghostly under the moon.

‘Not even a cat’s paw print.’ Rachel looked across the stretches of untouched snow. There had been another light fall and the air smelled of cold, metallic and clean.

They stopped. Rachel had a fur-trimmed hood that outlined her face in soft whiteness. Simon held his breath, looking at her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Things are better left unsaid.’

‘I can’t –’

‘For now anyway.’

She smiled. Her expression was open and happy. She had learned the trick of setting the Kenneth part of her life aside. She would return to it again tomorrow. That was the only way she could divide herself between Ken and Simon without ruining both. Simon had learned to help her do it.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘A fire and a glass of Laphroaig.’

She bent, made a snowball, and threw it at him. They ran, laughing, towards the house in which his flat at the top was an eyrie and a refuge.

Nobby watched them, from his hiding place in the shadow of the cathedral. The stone gave off the cold but he would not move away until they were out of sight. He heard the echo of their laughter across the blue-white snow. Silly laughter.

He waited another few minutes before slipping out of the shadows and round the side, into the lane. Shadows here too. High walls. Icy. Be careful, Nobby, he said. You don’t want to go having an accident and getting taken to hospital and having to answer a lot of questions. You mind your feet.

There was no one else about until he reached the top of the lane. Then there was someone. Just one person, like him, walking and not as careful as he was, so once and then again he slipped and almost fell. Nobby kept back. He didn’t want to see anyone else’s accident either, have to stop and help and answer questions there as well.

Stay back. The other one reached the square and turned the corner. When Nobby caught up, he was gone. Nobody. A single taxi waiting at the rank. Then a man and a woman getting in. Not the same man.

Nobby kept to the shadows of the shops and the pub and the bus shelter, slipping in and out. Not a bad night, and it wasn’t over yet.

A LONG WAIL
of distress. Then another.

Harry Fletcher opened the door of the boys’ bedroom on the third, by which time Bradley was sitting up and leaning over his bunk. Harry got him to the bathroom in the nick of time.

‘Daaaad . . .’

‘Hang on.’ Harry grabbed a flannel, wet it and wiped his son’s face. ‘Better?’

‘No . . .’ Bradley bent his head abruptly over the toilet bowl again.

‘What’s happening?’ Karen came into the bathroom, half asleep.

‘Muuuum . . .’