Killing Me Softly (12 page)

‘And tell them what? That somebody knows where we live?’

‘It’s for you, I suppose.’

Adam looked serious. ‘I hope so.’

Fifteen

I took the week off work. ‘To prepare for the wedding,’ I said vaguely to Mike, although there was nothing really to prepare. We were going to be married in the morning, in a town hall that looked like the presidential palace of a Stalinist dictator. I would wear the velvet dress Adam had bought me (‘and nothing underneath,’ he’d instructed me), and we would haul two strangers off the street to witness the ceremony. In the afternoon we were driving up to the Lake District. He had somewhere to take me, he said. Then we would come home, and I would go back to work. Perhaps.

‘You deserve time off,’ said Mike enthusiastically. ‘You’ve been working too hard recently.’

I looked at him in surprise. Actually, I had hardly been working at all.

‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘I need a rest.’

There were a few things I needed to do before Friday. The first I had been putting off for a long time.

Jake had arranged to be there when I turned up on Tuesday morning with a rented van to collect the rest of my things. I didn’t particularly want them, but I didn’t want to have them in our old flat either, as if one day I might return to that life, step back into those clothes.

He made me a cup of coffee, but stayed in the kitchen, bent ostentatiously over a folder of work, which I’m sure he hardly looked at. He had shaved that morning, and put on a blue shirt, which I had bought him. I looked away, tried not to see his tired, clever, familiar face. How could I have thought he had made those phone calls or sent those anonymous notes? All my Gothic thoughts died down, and I just felt dreary and a bit sad.

I was as businesslike as possible. I stashed clothes into plastic bags, wrapped china in newspaper and put it into the cardboard boxes I had brought along, pulled books off the shelves and then closed the gaps that marked where they had been. I loaded the chair I’d had as a student into the van, my old sleeping bag, some CDs.

‘I’ll leave my plants, shall I?’ I asked Jake.

‘If you’d prefer.’

‘Yes. And if there’s anything I’ve overlooked…’

‘I know where you live,’ he said.

There was a silence. I swallowed the tepid remains of my coffee, then said, ‘Jake, I’m very sorry. There’s nothing I can say except sorry.’

He looked at me steadily, then smiled, a thin smile. ‘I will be fine, Alice,’ he said then. ‘I haven’t been, but I will be. Will you be fine?’ He put his face closer to mine, until I could no longer focus on it. ‘Will you?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, drawing back. ‘There’s nothing else I can do.’

I had thought of driving to my parents’ house and leaving all the stuff I didn’t need there, but just as I didn’t want things to be waiting for me at Jake’s so I didn’t want them to be waiting for me anywhere at all. I was beginning again, fresh. I had a giddy sense of burning off my past. I stopped at the first Oxfam shop I saw and gave the astonished assistant everything: books, clothes, china, CDs and even my chair.

∗

I had also arranged to see Clive. He had rung me at work, insistent we get together before I got married. On Wednesday we met for lunch at a dark little tavern in Clerkenwell. We kissed each other awkwardly on both cheeks, like amiable strangers, and then sat at a small table by a fire and ordered artichoke soup with hunks of brown bread, and two glasses of house red.

‘How’s Gail?’ I asked.

‘Oh, probably all right. I haven’t seen her that much recently, actually.’

‘Do you mean it’s over?’

He grinned ruefully at me, a flash of the Clive I knew so well and had never stopped feeling uneasy about. ‘Yeah, probably. God, you know how hopeless I am with relationships, Alice. I fall in love, then as soon as it gets serious I panic.’

‘Poor Gail.’

‘I didn’t come to talk about that.’ He poked his spoon moodily into the thick, greenish soup.

‘You wanted to talk to me about Adam, right?’

‘Right.’ He drank some wine, stirred his soup again, then said, ‘Now that I’m here, I don’t know how to say it. This isn’t about Jake, okay? It’s… well, I met Adam remember, and, sure, he made every other man in the room look feeble. But are you sure you know what you’re doing, Alice?’

‘No, but that doesn’t matter.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Literally, it doesn’t matter.’ I found that for the first time since meeting Adam I wanted to talk about how I felt. ‘Look, Clive, I just fell utterly in love with him. Have you ever been desired so much that –’

‘No.’

‘It was like an earthquake.’

‘You used to make fun of me for saying things like that. You used words like "trust" and "responsibility". You used to say’ – he pointed his spoon at me – ‘that only
men
said things like "it just happened"
or
"it was like an earthquake".’

‘What do you want me to say?’

Clive looked at me with a clinical interest. ‘How did you meet?’ he asked.

‘We saw each other on a street.’

‘And that was that?’

‘Yes.’

‘You just saw each other and leaped into bed?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s just lust, Alice. You can’t throw away your whole life for lust.’

‘Fuck off, Clive.’ He seemed to accept that as a reasonable answer. So I continued, ‘He’s everything. I’d do anything for him. It’s like a spell.’

‘And you call yourself a scientist.’

‘I
am
a scientist.’

‘Why do you look as if you’re about to cry?’

I smiled. ‘I’m happy.’

‘You’re not happy,’ he said. ‘You’re unbalanced.’

And I had arranged to meet Lily, although I didn’t know why. A note had been left for me at the office, addressed only to ‘Alice’. Perhaps she didn’t know my full name.

‘I need to talk to you about the man you stole from me,’ it read, which should have made me throw it away at once. ‘It is urgent and must remain secret. Do not tell him.’ She had given a phone number.

I thought of the note that had been pushed through our door. The paper was different, the writing was small and neat, like a schoolgirl’s. Completely different, but what did that mean? Anyone could disguise their handwriting. I realized that I wanted it to be Lily, and not Jake. I should have shown it at once to Adam, but I didn’t. I persuaded myself that he already had too much to worry about. Klaus’s book was coming out soon. Already two journalists had rung Adam, wanting to interview him ‘about being a hero’, and asking questions about Greg and his moral responsibility for the death of the amateur climbers whom he had led up the mountain and left to die. He was contemptuous of the word ‘hero’, and simply refused to comment on Greg’s behaviour. But I often heard him and Klaus talking about it. Klaus kept going on about the fixed line, and how he didn’t want to be judgemental, but how could Greg have been so careless? Adam repeated, over and over, that above eight thousand metres people cannot be held responsible for their acts.

‘There, but for the grace of God, go all of us,’ he said.

‘But you didn’t,’ I interjected, so that the two men turned to me, benign and patronizing.

‘That was my luck,’ he replied, very soberly. ‘And Greg’s bad luck.’

I didn’t believe him. And I still thought something had happened up in the mountains that he wasn’t disclosing to me. I would watch him at night, sometimes, as he lay asleep, one arm on my thigh and one flung above his head, his mouth slightly open and puffing with each exhaled breath. What dreams sucked him under to where I could not follow?

Anyway, I decided to meet Lily without telling Adam. Maybe I just wanted to see what she was like; maybe I wanted to compare myself to her, or to get a glimpse into Adam’s past. I phoned her, and she told me, talking quickly in a low hoarse voice, to meet her at her flat in Shepherd’s Bush on Thursday morning. The day before the wedding.

She was beautiful. Of course she was beautiful. She had silvery hair, which looked natural and a bit greasy, and the tall leggy look of a model. Her grey eyes were huge and wide apart in her pale triangle of a face. She wore a faded pair of jeans and, in spite of the inclement weather, a tiny grubby T-shirt that showed her perfect midriff. Her feet were bare and slender.

I gazed at her and wished I hadn’t come. We didn’t shake hands or anything. She led me down into her basement flat, and when she opened the door I recoiled in horror. The tiny, muggy flat was a tip. Clothes were flung everywhere: bowls were heaped up in the sink or stood in dirty piles on the kitchen table; a stinking cat-litter tray stood in the middle of the floor. There were magazines, or bits of magazines, strewn about. The large bed, which was in the corner of the living room, was a mess of stained sheets and old newspapers. There was a plate with half a piece of toast on the pillow, and a half-empty bottle of whisky nearby. On the wall – and this nearly made me flee – there was a huge black-and-white photograph of Adam, very serious. And as soon as I saw that, I started to notice other signs of Adam. Several photographs, which had obviously been ripped out of books about climbing, were propped up on the mantelpiece, and he was in each of them. A yellowing newspaper article was Blu-tacked to the wall with Adam’s picture gazing out of it. By the bed was a picture of Lily and Adam together. He had his arm around her and she was gazing up at him, rapt. I closed my eyes briefly and wished there was somewhere to sit down.

‘I haven’t cleaned for a bit,’ said Lily.

‘No.’

We both stayed standing.

‘That was our bed,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said, looking at it. I wanted to vomit.

‘I haven’t changed the sheets since he left. I can still smell him.’

‘Look,’ I said, with an effort, for I felt that I had walked into a terrible dream, and was trapped in it, ‘you said you had something urgent to tell me.’

‘You stole him from me,’ she continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘He was mine and you came along and stole him from under my nose.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No. He chose me. We chose each other. I’m sorry, Lily. I didn’t know about you, but anyway…’

‘You just smashed up my life without thinking of me,’ she looked around her disastrous flat. ‘You didn’t care about me.’ Her voice sank. ‘Now what?’ she said, in a kind of listless horror. ‘Now what am I supposed to do?’

‘Listen, I think I ought to just go,’ I said. ‘This doesn’t help either of us.’

‘Look,’ she said, and took off her T-shirt. She stood there, pale and slim. Her breasts were small, with large brownish nipples. I couldn’t make myself look away. Then she turned around. Livid weals striped her back. ‘He did that,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Now what do you say?’

‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, rooted to the spot.

‘To show how much he loved me. He branded me his. Has he done that to you? No? But he’s done it to me because I belong to him. He can’t just throw me off.’

I walked to the door.

‘That’s not all,’ she said.

‘We are marrying tomorrow.’ I opened the door.

‘That’s not all that he…’

A thought occurred to me. ‘Do you know where he lives?’

She looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Goodbye.’

I shut the door on her and ran back up the steps to the pavement. Even the exhaust fumes smelt clean after Lily’s flat.

We had a bath together, and washed each other meticulously. I shampooed his hair and he mine. Warm lather floated on the surface of the water and the air was steamy and fragrant. I shaved his face very carefully. He combed out my hair, holding it with one hand while he teased out little knots so as not to hurt me.

We dried each other. The mirror had fogged over, but he told me I did not need to look at my reflection this morning, except in his eyes. He wouldn’t let me put on any makeup. I put my dress on over my naked body and slipped on shoes. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘Ready,’ I said.

‘You’re my wife now.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is this all right? Don’t flinch.’

‘Yes.’

‘And this?’

‘No – yes. Yes.’

‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Always?’

‘Always.’

‘Tell me if you want me to stop.’

‘Yes. Do you love me?’

‘Yes. Always.’

‘God, Adam, I’d die for you.’

Sixteen

‘How much further?’ I tried to keep my voice steady, but it came out in a raggedy gasp, and the effort of speaking hurt my chest.

‘Only about eight miles,’ said Adam, turning back towards me. ‘If you could manage to walk a bit faster we should get there before it begins to get dark.’ He looked down at me dispassionately, then unslung his backpack, in which he was carrying all my stuff as well as his, and took out a flask. ‘Have a cup of tea and some chocolate,’ he said.

‘Thanks. Some honeymoon,
darling.
I wanted a four-poster bed and champagne.’ I took the plastic cup of tea in my mittened hands. ‘Have we done most of the steep bit?’

‘Honey, this is a stroll. We’re going up there.’

I twisted my neck back to see where he was pointing. The wind bit into my face; my chin felt raw. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You might be. I’m not.’

‘Are you tired?’

‘Tired? Oh, no, not at all, I’m fit from all my walks to the underground station. I’ve got blisters under my new boots. My calves are burning. I’ve got this stitch in my side that feels like a knife jabbing at me. My nose is freezing cold. My fingers have gone numb. And I’m scared of fucking heights. I’m staying right here.’ I sat down in the thin covering of snow and pushed two squares of cold, hard chocolate into my mouth.

‘Here?’ Adam looked around us, at the lonely moorland rimmed with jagged hills. In the summer, apparently, quite a few walkers came this way – but not on this Saturday in late February, when all the grass was iced into spiky tufts, the few bare trees stooped against the wind, and our breath curled into the grey air.

‘All right. I’m not staying here, I’m just making a fuss.’

He sat down beside me and started to laugh. I think it was the first time I had heard him laugh properly. ‘I’ve married a wimp,’ he said, as if it were the funniest thing in the world. ‘I spend my life climbing mountains, and I’ve married a woman who can’t climb a gentle slope without getting a stitch.’

‘Yeah, and I’ve married a man who drags me into the wilderness and then laughs when I’m in difficulty and feeling embarrassed.’ I scowled at him.

Adam stood up and pulled me to my feet. He adjusted my mittens so there wasn’t a band of naked wrist between them and the sleeves of my jacket. He took a scarf out of the backpack and wrapped it around my neck. He tied my laces more tightly, so that my boots were not so loose on my feet. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘try and get into a rhythm. Don’t hurry yourself. Not that you have been. Just get into a stride and then keep going. Let your breathing come evenly. Don’t look ahead where we’re going, just one foot in front of the other until it feels like a meditation. Ready?’

‘Yes, Captain.’

We walked in single file along the track, which gradually became steeper until we were almost scrambling up it. Adam looked as if he were loitering, yet he drew ahead of me in seconds. I didn’t attempt to catch up with him, but tried to follow his instructions. Left, right; left, right. My nose was runny and my eyes were rheumy. My legs ached and felt like lead. I set myself some mental arithmetic. I tried to sing to myself an old song about the chemical elements that I had performed in a show at college. ‘There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminium, selenium…’ What came next? I didn’t have the breath for it anyway. Occasionally I stumbled over small rocks in the pathway, or snagged myself on thick brambles. It never quite got to feel like a meditation, but I kept going, and soon the stitch dulled to a mild ache and my hands warmed up, and the clean air felt fresh rather than harsh when I breathed in.

At the top of one rise, Adam made me stop and look around.

‘It’s as if we were all alone in the world,’ I said.

‘That’s the point.’

It was getting dark when we saw the cabin just below.

‘Who uses it?’ I asked, as we made our way down to it, shapes of huge boulders and stunted trees looming out of the dusk.

‘It’s a climbers’ and hikers’ hut. It belongs to the British Alpine Club. Members can stay. I’ve got the key here.’ And he patted the side pocket of his jacket.

It was freezing inside, and without obvious comforts. Adam lit a large gas lamp hanging from one of the beams, and I stared at the narrow wooden ledges round the room that were meant to be beds, at the empty fireplace, the small basin with a single cold tap over it.

‘This is it?’

‘Yep.’

‘Where’s the toilet?’

‘There.’ He pointed back out through the door, to the snowy spaces outside.

‘Oh.’ I sat on a hard bed. ‘Comfy.’

‘Wait a minute.’

There were several large boxes of logs and sticks in the corner. He pulled one of these towards the fireplace and started to break the smaller twigs into pieces, arranging them into a neat dome around a few crumpled balls of newspaper. Then he piled some larger logs on top. He struck a match and lit the paper and flames began to lick at the wood. At first the fire was bright but heatless, but soon it was giving out enough warmth to make me consider taking off my jacket and mittens. The cabin was small and well insulated: in half an hour or so it would be warm.

Adam unstrapped the small gas stove from the base of his rucksack, unfolded it, and lit it. He filled a battered copper kettle from the tap and set it on the heat. He shook out the two sleeping bags and unzipped them so that they were like duvets and laid them in front of the fire.

‘Come and sit down,’ he said. I took off my jacket and joined him by the flames. He pulled a bottle of whisky from the bottom of the backpack, then a long salami and one of those whizzy penknives that are also screwdrivers, bottle-openers and compasses. I watched him as he cut thick slices of salami and laid them on the greased paper. He screwed open the whisky bottle and passed it to me.

‘Supper,’ he said.

I took a gulp of whisky and then a couple of chunks of salami. It was about seven o’clock and utterly silent. I had never in my life been in silence like this, so thick and complete. Outside the uncurtained window it was inky black, save for the pinpricks of stars. I needed to pee. I stood up and went to the door. When I opened it, the freezing air hit me like a blast. I closed it behind me and walked out into the night. I had a shivery feeling that we were quite, quite alone – and that we would always be alone now. I heard Adam come out of the cabin and close the door behind him. I felt his arms wrap around me from behind, hugging me into his solid warmth.

‘You’ll get cold again,’ he said.

‘I don’t know if I like this.’

‘Come inside, my dear love.’

We drank more whisky and watched the shapes in the flames. Adam threw on more logs. It was quite hot now, and there was a lovely resiny smell in the small room. We didn’t talk or touch each other for a long time. When at last he put his hand on my arm, my skin jumped. We got undressed separately, watching each other. We sat cross-legged and naked opposite each other and looked into the other’s face. I felt oddly shy, self-conscious. He lifted my hand, with its new band of gold on the third finger, brought it to his mouth and kissed it.

‘Do you trust me?’ he said.

‘Yes.’ Or: no no no no.

He handed me the bottle of whisky and I took a swig, feeling it burn as it went down.

‘I want to do something to you that no one has ever done before.’

I didn’t reply. I felt as if I were in some kind of dream. Some kind of nightmare. We kissed, but very gently. He ran his fingers over my breasts and trailed them down on to my stomach. I tracked his vertebrae down his spine. We held each other very carefully. One side of my body was too hot from the fire, the other chilly. He told me to lie on my back and I did. Maybe I had drunk too much whisky and eaten too little salami. I felt as if I were suspended above an abyss, somewhere in the cold, cold darkness. I closed my eyes but he turned my face towards him and said, ‘Look at me.’

Shadows fell across his face; I could only make out parts of his body. It started out so tender, and only gradually became so savage; notch by notch to pain. I remembered Lily and her ridged back. In my mind, I saw Adam up in his high mountains, among all that fear and death. How was it that I was here, in this terrible silence? Why was I letting him do this to me and who had I become that I would let him? I shut my eyes again and this time he didn’t tell me to open them. He put his hands around my neck and said, ‘Don’t move now, don’t worry.’ Then he began to squeeze. I wanted to tell him to stop but somehow I didn’t, couldn’t. I lay on the sleeping bags by the fire, in the dark, and he pressed down. I kept my eyes closed and my hands still: my wedding present to him, my trust. The flames danced on my closed lids, and my body writhed under his, as if I had no control over it. I felt the blood roaring round my body; my heart hammering; my head thundering. This was neither pleasure nor pain any longer. I was somewhere else, in some other world where all boundaries had disintegrated. Oh, Christ. He must stop now. He must stop. Darkness rolled in behind the bright lines of pure sensation.

‘It’s all right, Alice.’ He was calling me back. His thumbs eased off my windpipe. He bent forward and kissed my neck. I opened my eyes. I felt sick and tired and sad and defeated. He pulled me upright and held me to him. My nausea ebbed away, but my throat ached badly and I wanted to cry. I wanted to go home. He picked up the whisky bottle, took a swig, then held it to my mouth and tipped it down my throat as if I were a baby. I sank down on the sleeping bags, he covered me over and I lay there for a while gazing into the flames, while he sat there beside me, stroking my hair. I slipped very slowly towards sleep, while Adam fed the dying fire beside me.

At some point in the night I woke, and he was lying by me, full of heat and strength. Someone to depend on. The fire had gone out, though the embers still glowed. My left hand was cold where it had slipped from under the sleeping bag.