Burial (17 page)

'My body trying to get you pregnant.'

'Well, I don't want you to stop or anything.'

'But what if it worked?'

'What if what worked ?'

'My body. Trying to get you pregnant.'

She sat up, propped on an elbow. 'How do you feel about it?'

'That depends.'

'On what?'

'On how you feel about it.'

She lay on her back with a forearm across her eyes, slapping at his upper arm.

'I feel pretty good about it.'

What does "pretty good" mean?'

'I'm ready if you are.'

'Okay.'

'It's not too soon?'

'I don't see why.'

She sat up again.

'Have you been thinking about this?'

'Of course.'

'For how long?'

'Since forever. I don't know.'

She tickled the short hairs on the nape of his neck.

'You're sure you're sure?'

That night they stood together over the lavatory and, one by one, pressed her birth control pills from the blister pack and dropped them like confetti down the bowl. She pulled the flush and watched them bob and dance away.

She said, 'It's not too late.'

He led her by the hand to the bedroom and laid her down. When they were done, she placed the palm of his hand loosely on the soft swell of her belly, and they fell asleep like that.

Late that night, she turned on to her side and nuzzled him. He pulled the duvet over her. He lay awake. He thought of the dark rooms below, and the dark hallway, and the dark bathroom with its uncovered mirrors. He thought of the dark cupboard under the stairs, where a human form could curl, to reveal its smiling face when the door was opened. And he thought of the flickering scraps of life, his essence, struggling blind inside Holly.

Eventually, in the darkness, he slept.

When her period arrived, they pretended not to be disappointed.

They'd only been trying for a couple of weeks. They were too polite around each other, but only for a day or two.

When it happened again, four weeks later, it was a little worse -- but only a little. But it was a little worse again, the month after that, and the month after that. But it was still early days, and they were young, and it was still fun trying.

And they tried and they tried -- but there was always blood at the end of the cycle. And with the blood came another spectral bereavement; the idea of a boy or a girl -- no more than a scrap of possibility, but beloved for all that -- had been wiped from the world.

Every year, as the anniversary of Elise's disappearance drew near, Holly became withdrawn. Slower to speak in the morning, she walked round the bedroom befuddled, as if her mind was elsewhere, before grabbing a towel or a clean pair of knickers or her watch.

One Sunday morning -- near Christmas, 2004 -- Nathan rose early and cooked Holly breakfast in bed, taking it up on a tray.

She sat up. Her hair was awry and the rucked bed linen was imprinted on her breasts and ribs. There was a diffuse red flush on her sternum. He passed her a T-shirt because she didn't like to eat naked.

She sat cross-legged with the tray balanced on her lap. She took a sip of orange juice, then coffee and said, 'So what's all this in aid of?'

'It's in aid of, I'm worried about you.'

She took the scrunchy band from her wrist and made a loose ponytail.

She pushed some scrambled egg on to an upturned fork.

'Worried about me how?'

'You know how.'

she popped the eggs into her mouth.

He watched her eat, saying: 'Look, it's not healthy.'

She gave him a silent warning.

He was longing for a cigarette. But he'd given up, long ago.

He said, 'You never really talk about her. Even now.'

'That's not fair. I talk about her all the time.'

'You think about her all the time. That's different.'

'What do you want me to say? You always look so uncomfortable whenever I mention her.'

He hadn't known that.

He said, 'That's not fair. How am I supposed to react? You don't give me any clues. Am I supposed to be comfortable about it?

Because I'm not.'

'I really don't want to argue about this.'

'I don't want to argue about it either.'

'Then what were you saying?'

'Look, Jesus. You haven't got any photographs of her. Perhaps it would be better, I don't know, after all this time - perhaps it would be better if you just hung some photos or something.'

For a long time, she was very still. And then she said, 'Sometimes, I don't believe you.'

He looked at her with a swell of horror.

But she was paying him a compliment. She drained the coffee and leapt from bed and scuttled around the room, naked but for his Tshirt, the pale ghost of a suntan still visible around her arse. She was gathering clothes. She had a quick shower and soon they'd arrived at Graham and June's house in Sutton Down.

Nathan hadn't shaved. He wore old jeans, trainers and an overcoat.

To his recall, he'd never allowed Holly's parents to see him dressed less than immaculately. Graham disapproved of slovenliness.

As

ever, his parents-in-law were dressed as if to receive visitors, although June had yet to apply any make-up. She looked shockingly naked without it.

Graham said, 'There's nothing wrong is there?'

In answer, Nathan showed him the carrier bags containing fresh bread, eggs, bacon and fruit juice they'd just bought from the farmer's market. For the second time that morning, Nathan prepared breakfast. Holly made a round of coffee.

June said, 'To what do we owe this honour?'

Holly looked at Nathan.

'Go on. Tell them.'

'Tell them what?'

'What you told me this morning.'

Nathan looked down at his poaching eggs.

'Tell them what?' said Graham.

Holly folded her arms. 'Nathan had an idea. To mark the anniversary -- we dig out all the old photos. The photos of Elise. And we rehang them. In our house and in yours. And I think he's right. I think it's the right idea.'

So they ate breakfast. Then Graham went and pottered in the greenhouse and Nathan sat in the conservatory reading the papers while Holly and her mother climbed into the attic and brought down several taped-up cardboard boxes. The framed photographs and albums had been parcelled up in bubble-wrap, secured with tape how typical of June, he thought, to be so organized about something so unendurable.

He wondered what he'd been doing and where he'd been, the day these photographs had been boxed -- and where he had been the day June decided to clear Elise's bedroom and put it to use as an office.

She'd hooked up a network of computers in there, and printers and scanners and filing cabinets. She'd given Elise's bed and wardrobe and other furniture to one of her charities. Elise's personal effects were boxed in the attic. Her clothes would sit there, folded and vacuum-sealed, coming slowly in and out of fashion.

He couldn't imagine where he'd been, or who. That person was alien to him, more insubstantial than a ghost.

He wandered into the dining room, where June and Holly were laying out the photographs on the table. They held hands and laughed. They reminisced about certain photographs - Elise as a fiveyear-old, chubby on a Cornish beach; as a eight-year-old in a polo neck, wanting front teeth. A scowling schoolgirl in a blue A-line skirt she'd loathed.

Tenderly, June said, 'She hated that skirt. She bought another one and altered it, turned it into a miniskirt. Changed into it when she got to school. Came home every night and hand-washed it in the bathroom, using shampoo. Dried it over a radiator, disguised by her towel.'

Then Holly reminded June how all the teacups and coffee mugs in the house eventually found their way into Elise's room, such that June had staged a monthly raid, carrying downstairs armfuls of mouldy mugs and hairy biscuits.

By now, they had divided the photographs into two lots: Holly's had been loosely repacked in a box that stood in the centre of the table. Nathan glimpsed corners of Elise's smiling mouth, the edges of her hair, a laughing eye.

He went outside again. He sat on a bench in the garden, watching the gentle sway of the apple trees. He watched the bright clouds.

Back inside, Holly was getting her coat on.

Nathan carried the box of photographs to the car. He kissed June.

They said goodbye, and drove home.

That evening, as Nathan watched television, Holly hung the photos.

He listened to the sounds of measurement and concentration and short, precise flurries of hammer blows. Then an hour -- a happy hour, he thought -- arranging and rearranging them on the wall. By the time she'd finished, it was nearly eleven. Nathan called out for curry and they ate it, tired, in front of the late film.

They crept up to bed after midnight. In the darkness on the stairs, Nathan could feel Elise's repeated image smiling at him. He tried not to turn, in case in one of the photos her smile had become a wet leer.

But he was weak. He did turn on the stairs. And they were only smiles.

In their first year of marriage, Holly borrowed enough money to mortgage three run-down houses. Two of them she converted into flats, the third she gutted and extended, rendering its exterior starkly modernist. The five-bedroom was a big risk and she never repeated it. They spent many sleepless nights discussing it -- but it sold, in the end, and she put the profits into more property.

She employed June as her sometime adviser and part-time PA. For a while they worked from home, but soon Holly rented some offices and expanded the business to incorporate third-party site management and architectural services. She employed four young architects, full-time.

Nathan remained at Hermes, where his early trajectory had been halted by Justin's profound tenacity.

He was offered other jobs, but Hermes always paid him to remain.

It wasn't the money that kept him there, though. He stayed because he liked the configuration of his life. Monday to Friday, he worked.

He set the alarm for 6.45 and rose at 7.15. Tuesday and Thursday evenings, he cooked. Fridays, they ate a takeaway, Chinese alternating with Indian. Saturday nights, Holly went out with friends -- once a month, she slept round Jacki's house. Sundays they spent in Sutton Down. Holly and June were careful not to talk shop at the dinner table. Sunday evenings, Nathan and Graham went to the pub; Graham bought the first drink, lager and lime in summer and cask bitter in winter.

They took one week's holiday per year with Graham and June; alternating June's choice of destination with somewhere Graham could play golf. Nathan had once protested that he would sooner die than find himself on a golf course -- but he didn't mind, not really, and Graham enjoyed it.

Every year, Nathan and Holly spent two weeks sizzling on a beach somewhere: Barbados or Bermuda. The deep-blue, gold-shot sarong knotted at her hip always aroused him. He liked to watch her walk into the sea; he loved the smell of salt and Ambre Solaire on her skin.

To mark Holly's birthday, they'd go away for a long weekend. For their anniversary, they spent a weekend in London or Paris.

Once or twice a year, Nathan and Graham went away to fish.

They'd erect tents by the river and lie in their sleeping bags, watching the stars. They rose early, while there was still mist on the water, and heated breakfast on a Primus stove.

He seldom thought about Elise. Except in the feverish immediacy of his dreams, he felt no link to the person he'd been the night she died. He still fell quiet when driving past the woods - the flickering in his peripheral vision -- but it had become almost a learned response, a Pavlovian reaction to an ancient, forgotten stimulus. Like the genuflection of a lapsed Catholic.

By 2007, they'd saved enough to buy a larger house in a better area.

But they knew they'd never leave this house while the painted nursery remained unoccupied. It would be bad luck.

The pattern of their sex life was ordinary - full of troughs and peaks. But Holly had long since given up elevating her hips on pillows after sex, and they'd long since given up holding hands and discussing names and local schools.

They took fertility tests. There was no pathology.

Nathan had no doubt the imperfection was his. He imagined Holly's gently luminous ovum withering at the touch of his infected sperm.

He'd first suggested the IVF programme a long time ago. Holly had rejected the idea: it would happen when it happened, she said, and it wasn't like they weren't busy. By now it was 2008 and they were considering it. Soon they were talking about names again, and schools. They stood in the doorway of the empty bedroom, looking to the future.

And then Bob came back, to tell Nathan they were digging up the woods to build a housing estate.

23

Bob looked at the photographs for a long time.

When he turned to Nathan, his voice had gone.

'What the fuck is this?'

'I told you not to come in.'

Using the wall for balance, Bob lowered himself. He sat on the stripped Victorian floorboards. He looked wrong, like an optical illusion, like a drawing where the perspective and the scale have been altered.

Fingertips brushed the hair on Nathan's nape.

In the living room, the TV flickered - and it seemed to Nathan that the lights dimmed, and flickered, then rose again.

Nathan said, 'My wife will be home.'

'I need to talk to you.'

'Then give me your number.'

From his pocket, Bob produced a diary. Once, he had constructed a makeshift Ouija board from an identical book. Now with a shaking hand, he scribbled a number in it, tore out the page, handed it to Nathan.

'You must call me.'

'I will. Now, you really need to be fucking off.'

They were lit yellow by the sweep of passing headlamps. It immobilized them. They heard the sounds of a parking car, nudging and edging into a small space.

Nathan said, 'Oh Jesus.'

'Is this your wife?'

Nathan followed the line of Bob's eyes and began to understand.