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The photographs have been taken over a series of days; not one day but several. More than several? He tries to remember. Nicholas is in most of the beach scenes. There are other photographs too, where Nicholas does not appear. Was he there, in the background? He must have been near by. Was he in the same room? Was he in the next room? Alone? Was he asleep? What did he see? What did he hear? In these other photographs Catherine is wearing underwear, not a bikini. Knickers and bra. Definitely not a bikini. Lace. Straps that slip off shoulders. Nipples seen, sharp, through the lace. Knickers, not bikini bottoms. Nothing as robust as that. Tiny, fragile. Nothing that would stay on underwater. He should know – he had bought them for her, for their holiday. And her hand is down the front of her knickers and her head is back as if she is looking at something on the ceiling, but she is clearly not looking at anything. She has taken herself away somewhere else; she has reached a place which has parted her lips and closed her eyes. Lost in her own exquisite space. Not quite alone though, because someone else is there. A silent, appreciative witness. Invisible. Except in one photograph. One slip-up. A shadow on the edge of the frame.

Robert is grateful he is alone; grateful that no one is there to witness his tears. The initial shock at seeing the pictures has given way to an ache that runs through him like a steel blade slicing down from the crown of his head to his stomach. He feels his insides leaking from the gash. His fingers had been shaking when he’d texted Catherine to say he was stuck at work. A text was all he could manage. He couldn’t speak to her, not yet. He was not capable of having the conversation he knew they would have to have at some point, but not now.

He wants to believe that it is a mistake, yet he cannot deny what he is looking at. It is her. In full colour; in close-up. He can almost smell her body coming off the shiny prints. The images speak for themselves; images that are new to him, and yet flashes of which he recognizes. The underwear. He had chosen it, and the red bikini. Her face is the same – younger, but the same – and yet her expression is not one he quite recognizes. And that is so, so painful. He has never seen that absolute abandon on Catherine’s face. It is Catherine and yet it is not his wife. The location he recognizes too. Spain in … when was it – ’91? ’92? A small Spanish seaside town. A summer holiday for the three of them. And then his anger rises, and he is grateful for it – allowing it to overwhelm the pain for a moment. He remembers he had missed part of that holiday. He had flown home early, leaving Catherine and Nicholas behind. A case had come up, something which must have felt important at the time but now is lost in the more important fact that it took him away from his wife and child.

Catherine may not look like his wife in the photographs, but Nicholas is absolutely recognizable as his son. His smile. His slender body, baby fat gone, very much a little boy, no longer an infant. All angles, knobbly knees, sharp elbows. A constantly moving flash of a boy, electric with curiosity. Looking at this little boy fuels his anger. What did Nicholas witness? How much did he see? How much did he understand? The poor little mite would have had no choice. He couldn’t catch a flight home. He couldn’t ask Daddy to come and fetch him.

Robert pushes his mind back to when Catherine and Nicholas came home from that holiday. It was soon afterwards that Catherine announced she wanted to return to work full-time. He remembers it well. It had come out of the blue. He had assumed she would stay at home a while longer, then go part-time. It wasn’t the money; he’d been earning more than her – enough for both of them. It had upset him, yet he hadn’t said anything; he’d covered up what he felt because he put her needs before his. He had kept his disappointment to himself.

He swallows down the phlegm that has gathered at the back of his throat. She’d told him she was depressed, that she missed her work. She didn’t say it, but he could tell that being a mother was not enough for her; she put her own needs before their child’s. As had he. He had put Catherine’s needs before Nick’s. So it hadn’t been about work – it had been about her affair on holiday.

She was depressed about their marriage, not about being at home. He looks at the photos spread out on his desk. She found something more exciting on that holiday. Fucking hell, he’s been such an idiot. He should have pushed her the other night when he caught her burning the book. She was about to tell him and she would have, if he’d insisted. But of course he didn’t. He played right into her hands, as always. That’s why she hasn’t been sleeping; that’s why she’s so fucking caught up with herself: she’s been found out. It wasn’t about Nick moving out, or her guilt – she doesn’t give a fuck for Nick or him. No, she’s been found out, that’s what this is about. Found out about an affair she had years ago. An affair she had under their son’s nose. Jesus Christ.

Poor Nicholas, trapped in Spain with his mother and who else? Who was there with them? His mother with a stranger and him, a five-year-old witnessing God knows what. The perfect stranger? He rakes through his memory to see if he can retrieve any conversation he might have had with Catherine when she came home, something that might give him a clue. All he comes up with though are innocuous phrases:
We missed you
…
It wasn’t the same once you’d left.
Well, that’s for fucking sure.

And what about Nicholas? Did he say anything that Robert could have picked up on? Should have picked up on? Did his behaviour change? Was he withdrawn? Robert can’t remember Nicholas saying anything at all. Surely he would have said something like,
Mummy’s friend did this
… or
We met this nice man
… or
Mummy made a friend?
He can’t remember his son saying anything, ever, about the time when he was alone with Mummy on holiday. And a stranger. Was it a stranger? Or did he know him? It worries him that Nicholas said nothing. It is not normal for a child to simply say nothing. A child only says nothing when they are hiding something, something that is unsayable.

His phone beeps. A text from Catherine:
Wish you’d let me know earlier.
No kiss this time. He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t want to talk to her, text her even. But his son he must talk to. He must see him. Remembering the Nicholas in the photographs and knowing how he is now as a young man, he is struck by the discrepancy. That crash-bang-wallop of a child is nowhere to be seen in the plodding, rather aimless, twenty-five-year-old Nicholas. That child was snuffed out by adolescence – smoked out – and never quite recovered. He’d always asked himself why. Why did he drop out? Why was he so unmotivated? And his mother had said nothing. Well, maybe this is why. Maybe little Nick saw, heard things he shouldn’t have. Perhaps now Robert has the key to unlock whatever it is that knocked the fizz out of his son.

‘Nick? Hi, it’s Dad.’

‘Hello.’ His voice is flat.

‘Listen, have you eaten?’ Robert infuses his voice with enthusiasm.

‘Er, no.’

‘Well, I’m going to swing by and take you out to supper. I’ve had to work late and I’m starving …’ Nicholas hesitates, but Robert is determined: ‘Just a quickie, we can grab something in the pub near you. It’s on my way home.’

‘Mum’s trying to get hold of you, by the way.’

‘I’ve spoken to her, don’t worry,’ he lies. ‘I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.’

There are four bells on Nicholas’s front door, three with scribbled names, one without. Robert rings the top, nameless bell. He hasn’t been here since he and Catherine helped Nicholas move in three months ago. He pictures him making his way down the four flights. When he finally opens the door he looks exhausted.

‘Shall we go?’ Robert beams, over-compensating for his son’s lack of enthusiasm.

‘I’m not quite ready.’

‘That’s fine. I’ll come up and wait.’ Robert follows him, holding back his strides to fit his son’s heavy tread; taking in Nicholas’s bare feet, the dirty soles; the post littering the hall floor; the stained, cigarette-burned carpet. Robert waits in the sitting room, peering into the kitchen, taking in the sink full of dirty plates, the blackened frying pan on the hob, the bin that needs emptying – juice and milk cartons, scraps of food spilling from the black bag. What you’d expect from a flat full of students, he tells himself. Except Nick is the only one who isn’t a student. His flatmates are out and the place reeks of dope. He hopes that it’s from them, not Nick. Please don’t let him be back on weed again. But he doesn’t want to risk annoying his son, so says nothing.

‘Ready?’ Robert pushes open the bedroom door and his stomach dips again. Pants, plates, jeans, cups, all dumped in their own filth. The duvet has a yellowish tinge to the edge where Nicholas’s face has rubbed against it. He is sitting on the bed, putting on his socks. Robert watches him push his feet into the pair of black slip-on shoes he wears for work and feels another surge of anger towards Catherine. This is her fault. She pushed Nicholas away. She persuaded Robert that it would be good for him to be independent. There’s not even a lampshade on the ceiling light. His throat catches. He sees the mobile Nicholas had had as a little boy hanging from a hook intended for something else: the fragile paper wings of the planes crashing against the wall, not enough space for them to float freely.

‘Come on, mate, let’s get going.’ He gives his son an encouraging smile. He is determined to get through the evening without breaking down.

Father and son. A bottle of red wine. Steak and chips. Robert had persuaded the kitchen to serve them late. A loving father who wishes he had done this before. Wishes he had made a habit of it. He asks Nicholas about work, but only half listens as he answers. Being a trainee salesman for John Lewis isn’t the career Robert and Catherine had wanted for their son, nevertheless Nicholas seems to have enough to say about it to convince his father he’s all right. He’s perked up now he has eaten. He was ravenous. He tells Robert about training days and staff benefits. But is this really what he wants to do with his life? Is it enough? Does he enjoy living in such squalor?

‘So, how you finding it? The flat?’ Robert asks.

Nicholas shrugs, but then a smile tickles his mouth.

‘Haven’t actually been there much recently,’ he says, sticking his fork into Robert’s chips.

‘Oh?’

‘There’s a girl I’ve met. I’ve been spending quite a lot of time at her place.’

‘So tell me about her.’ This is good news.

‘Not much to tell. Don’t think she’d be Mum’s cup of tea—’

‘Well, it’s nothing to do with her, is it?’

His tone makes Nicholas look up in surprise.

‘So what’s she like?’ Robert moves on.

‘Nice. We’re hoping to go away this summer, if we can get the money together.’

‘Really? Where?’

‘Somewhere cheap. Maybe Spain. Or Majorca.’ He grins.

‘Spain.’ Perfect. ‘D’you remember that holiday we went on when you were little? To Spain?’

Nicholas looks irritated by the change of subject. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘You were about five. I had to go home halfway through because of work. You and Mum were there on your own.’ He scrutinizes Nicholas’s face for a sign, but there is nothing. A blank, revealing surely that something must have been erased.

‘Vaguely. Not really.’

‘It was only for a few days.’ He wants to nudge his son into remembering without causing alarm. ‘I felt bad about it at the time. I shouldn’t have left you. On your own. With Mum.’

Nicholas looks at him, shrugs. ‘I don’t really remember, Dad. Don’t feel bad about it.’

Robert searches his face again for any flicker of pain, but detects none. Whatever he experienced back then has been buried deep.

‘You should take your girlfriend somewhere nice. I’ll help you out. It must be hard on your salary, with the rent and everything.’

Nicholas is thrown. This is surely against the rules, Mum’s rules, but he’s happy to take anything he can get from his father.

‘Thanks,’ he says.

After Robert has dropped Nicholas back at the flat, he drives around until he is sure Catherine will be asleep. He parks outside the building and looks up at their bedroom window. The light is off. He takes the book from his bag and, lighting the first page with his phone, reads:
Victoria station on a grey, wet, Thursday afternoon. The perfect day on which to escape …

He is too tired tonight to face what it might tell him, and it is the photographs which have seared his heart. He will read the book tomorrow. He googles
The Perfect Stranger
from his phone, and finds the site for the book. Like Catherine, he finds nothing to tell him who the author might be – male, female, young, old. He presumes male, of his age. He reads the review and wonders who wrote it. He gets out of the car, shuts the door and lets himself into the flat. He listens for a moment, then goes up to the spare room, taking care to be silent.

23

Early summer 2013

This is the second night running that Catherine has gone to bed alone. She had tried to stay awake last night, waiting for Robert to come home, but she couldn’t. When she woke the following morning there was no sign that he had been to bed at all. It was only when she heard the front door close and ran downstairs that she realized that he had, and then he had left again without wanting to wake her.

He must be really snowed under at work to come home so late and leave so early in the morning. She had wanted to talk to him, ask him why he hadn’t called her and let her know what was going on, why he wasn’t home for supper. He is a thoughtful man. Yes, thoughtful. So thoughtful that he’d slept in the spare room so as not to wake her. He is pleased she is sleeping again and didn’t want to disturb her. And then again in the morning he must have made sure she wouldn’t wake. She should have been grateful, but she wasn’t. She was uneasy. And her unease had grown during the day when her calls went unanswered and her texts received replies which were slow to come and terse in tone.

And now, on this second night alone, she lies in bed, listening out for him again. It is just before midnight. She hears the rumble of a train, the hiss of cars on the wet road, the grumble of a taxi pulling up. The slamming of a door. She sits up. This could be him. She listens for a key in the front door, but hears nothing except the distant chime of the church bell ringing midnight. She gets up and goes to the top of the stairs. Then she hears the sound of keys being laid on the hall table, so quietly that if she hadn’t been listening, she would have missed it. If she had been lying in bed, as she guessed Robert thought she was, she wouldn’t have known that he had come in and was downstairs. What she really heard was the effort he’d put into hiding his return. She waits for him to come upstairs. When he doesn’t, she makes her way down, tightening the cord on her dressing gown, trying to strangle the churning in her stomach.