Now You See Me (32 page)

I left them. I walked away back down the path and heard the door click shut behind them as they went in.

Thirty-nine

When I turned the bath taps on the room filled up with steam. Taking off the wet clothes was like peeling off dead skin. I gasped as I stepped into the scalding bath but made myself slide right down. The water held me like a cradle or like arms. But I could not relax with all the helter pelter skelter in my head.

I was thinking that we would have to run. When he got back from Marion's. Whatever happened there. Whatever was happening. She wouldn't shop him, call the police, I was pretty sure of that. But Sarah … we would have to go before she turned up again or sent another stupid threatening letter. We would have to run. What was up with her trying to mess everything up? It would be OK, on the run, together. Me and Doggo. It would be fine.

The rain was streaming down the windows and the grey light mixing with the steam ran down the mirror and the walls. Tears ran down my face, mixing with the wetness in the bath and in the air. I don't know what I was crying for. I didn't want to. I didn't mean to. Crying is no good, it only makes you ugly and wet – but in all the wetness what difference would a few tears make? I lay and watched the world get dark.

I do not want to be alone. I'm
not
alone with Doggo there. Even if we do nothing else but lie.

I thought, what if he does not come back?

I knew I should get up and pack my stuff and as soon as he returned we should go out into the horrid night. Go out, go anywhere. But while my mind thought that my body just lay there in the cooling water.

Of course he would come back. He had to. And after a long time I did hear his feet come stomping up the stairs. He came right into the bathroom and put the light on. I slid under the water, deep as I could. He said nothing. I couldn't stand the dripping quiet. Something needed to be said.

‘Could you put the hot on?' He turned the tap, sat on the end of the bath and stared at me. I stared straight back. ‘So?' I said.

He looked as if he'd been crying again but who was I to talk? He sat there for a minute, dabbling a finger in the water. ‘Can I get in?'

‘I'll call you when I get out.'

‘No, with you, I mean,' he said.

‘With
me?'

His fists were loose, his hair was long, his face was so so sad. I thought, why not? The water was hotting up again and he turned off the tap. Then he took off his clothes and I tried not to stare at how beautiful he is. And that is true. Beautiful to me.

He stepped in and his skin was cold against mine at first and it was strange and squashed, with knees and elbows everywhere and water spilling out and sloshing on the floor. He got behind me and I lay back, my head against his chest. His heart boomed through me. We lay there as if we'd gone into a trance but in the end I had to ask what happened.

He didn't answer for a moment. The tap dripped circles that broke and warped when they hit the angles of our knees. He started telling me what I didn't even want to hear. About how he hadn't meant to kill his brother. How he'd been off his head. How he'd been going to see his mum when he first met me to tell her he was sorry.

‘And now you have,' I said.

‘Yeah.' He took a long breath in.
‘Sorry
, that's such a … such a crap word, isn't it?' he said.

‘No,' I said.

‘But it sounds so … you do … you do terrible things … and then you say
sorry
like you think everything will then be OK.'

‘What did she say?'

‘You know how Catholics confess?' he said. ‘I knew a Catholic guy inside. You're not Catholic, are you?'

I did know what he meant. It is a sweet lie, make-believe, a funny sort of fairy-tale, that you can ever be forgiven. If we could believe that maybe we would be all right.

‘But what did she
say
?'

‘I'm turning myself in.'

‘No.'

‘She's coming with me. Tomorrow. Going to stand by me. Pay for a brief and that.'

My heart was jumping. I could see it through the wet skin between my ribs. ‘She's forgiven you?'

‘Nah. How could she?'

The phone rang and I nearly shot out of my skin. I'd thought it was unplugged. He must have plugged it in while I was out. We lay and listened until it stopped.

‘Doggo, we have to get away from here,' I said. ‘Now.'

‘Nah. Like I said. I'm turning myself in. I've had enough. And I promised.'

‘Promised who?'

‘Her.'

‘No,' I said. ‘Don't. Please. She'll understand.'

‘Sorry.'

‘No, Doggo. You can't. You don't have to do that. We can go away somewhere. Please. What about
me
?'

‘If I give myself up that'll go good for me. I can't hide out for ever.'

‘You can,' I said. ‘Of course you can.'

‘I've had enough.'

But I would not let him. There was no way.

I tried to get out of the bath but he started soaping me. First my arms and every finger and under my arms and then my belly and my tits, round and round making them glitter with all the suds. He stroked the scars on the insides of my wrists.

‘Don't ever cut yourself again,' he said. ‘Promise?'

‘K,' I said. True or not, who knows?

His hands carried on down me, soaping and stroking until I got a feeling in my belly like I have never felt before. Even though I was under the water it felt like flames. I started to melt then thought, he touched
her
like that. He touched Sarah there.

‘Come on,' he said. He got out and I went under for a minute and came up blinking. He held a towel up for me, it was cold and damp. The air was bitter on my skin. ‘Let's get upstairs,' he said.

The lighthouse room was flickering bright and warm. The wind was roaring in the trees outside and sounding like the sea. He put me on the bed. He lay on top and kissed me. I thought, this is the same place that he lay and kissed Sarah and didn't only kiss her either. I waited to turn to stone. I let him kiss me, let him touch. This was now and it was me. My head was so tired with the thoughts. The way he was touching was really getting through to me.

And then we did it. My body did not stop me. I didn't get turned on enough to lose myself, who wants to lose themselves? But I watched him and felt him, the weight of him, the heat of him, the bucking strength against me, inside me. I breathed his breath, his film of sweat wiped off on me. And it was making love, him making love.
Really
. To me.

He came with a groan like being killed. I held him tight. My heart was beating. This was what I wanted, me and him, and this was what I'd got. A bird shrieked outside the window and made me start.

‘Frigid, eh?' he said. He grinned and kissed me on my forehead. It was useless to explain. He was hot and heavy like someone drugged. He soon fell asleep. I slid down and put my head on his belly. The flesh was like a hammock slung between the hips. I lay there looking at his cock curled up like a mouse in a black nest and breathing in the sweet and scuzzy stink of sex.

I knelt up and gazed at his face. The long lashes, the pale jag of scar through his eyebrow. His sleeping throat was white and smooth. Beneath the line where the black beard started, shockingly soft, tender as a baby's skin. In his sleep he stirred and smiled. I was lulled by a lazy pulse beating by his collar bone. I touched it with my finger and he woke.

‘I'll get some tea,' I whispered.

In the kitchen I looked at knives. Mr Dickens' terrible blunt bent knives. I picked one up and pressed my finger against the blade. Nothing but a dent. That was Doggo's lie. He didn't really stab. Why did he say that? Burning would make more sense. Zita burnt and Mr Dickens. Doggo's brother burnt to death. If someone burned Doggo it would be revenge for that. In some societies that would be considered right.

I would not have burnt him though. Never. I struck a match and watched it burn, held it till the flame licked my fingertip – weird how it felt cool – and dropped it on the floor. We had to go. I lit another.
We had made love
. Doggo had made love to me. The flame flapped against the dirty floor and died. And made love to Sarah too.

We really had to go.

I made some tea. Soon as we'd had the tea I'd persuade him that we had to leave. There would be a way. We were two of a kind, Doggo and me, and belonged together, that was obvious. Of course it was. It would be the two of us, together on the run. Even running for our whole lives would be better than any other life I could imagine. Because now we were lovers and I could persuade him. I know I could have done.

I took the tea up. He was asleep again, his eyelids twitching in another dream. I bent down to kiss him but before I touched him with my lips there was a sudden blurt of Trumpet Voluntary. I jerked upright, sloshing the tea. He woke with a start. ‘Christ,' he said, ‘who's that?'

‘Dunno,' I said. My heart was going like a hammer. The Trumpet Voluntary went again and then there was a banging, a serious banging, and the sudden smash and splinter of the door. The dogs were going berserk down there. Doggo leapt up and pulled a pair of jeans on. His hair was wild and his cheek creased from the bed. He knew and I knew straightaway.

‘Run down and out the back,' I said.

‘Don't be fucking stupid.'

He sounded calm for someone about to be arrested. We could hear them getting in downstairs. He pulled me to him and hugged me hard. Our two hearts banged together like prisoners through walls and then he let me go. Feet were coming up the stairs.

‘Take dogs to my gran's,' he said.

‘Martin Wickerson? It's the police, Martin. Are you there?'

‘OK,' he shouted, ‘I'm coming down.'

‘Are you armed?'

‘Don't be fucking stupid.'

‘Write to me,' I said.

‘Where?'

‘I dunno.' My mind jumped.

‘Martin?'

‘OK.'

‘Your gran's.'

‘What?'

‘We're coming up.'

‘I'm
coming.'

He gave me a long wild look, a shrug, a miserable smile and went down ahead of me. There were four policemen. Two in uniform and two not. Four to catch one man. A man hunt, men hunting a man. And catching him. We all trooped down into the back room. Gordon wagged his tail when he saw Doggo and sat beside his feet. They handcuffed Doggo. They went through all the rigmarole they have to say. He looked small and shifty, his eyes cast down. Then they turned to me.

‘Name?'

‘Zita,' I said.

‘Surname?' The policeman had a dewdrop on his nose. He waited, pencil poised.

‘Innocent.'

Doggo turned his face away before it could explode.

The policeman raised an eyebrow. ‘Zita Inn-o-cent,' he said, raising an eyebrow as he wrote it. ‘Girlfriend?'

‘Just a mate,' Doggo said.

‘And what are you doing here – Zita?'

‘I'm Sarah's friend. This is her house.'

‘Either of you know someone known as'–he squinted at his pad – ‘Lamb?'

‘No.'

‘Nah.'

‘Address, Zita? We'll have to ask you to make a statement.'

I gave them the Harcourts' address. It was what came into my head. Well they don't know a Zita Innocent, do they?

‘Are you aware Mr Wickerson is an escaped criminal?'

‘He's
not,'
I said.

‘How well do you know Mr Wickerson, Zita?'

I shrugged.

‘How long have you known him?'

‘We just met,' Doggo said.

Then they took him away.

‘I … I'll see you,' I said, as they led him out. Stars came in his eyes, and one trickled down his cheek. ‘I'll wait for you. Yeah?'

Our eyes met. ‘Yeah,' he mouthed and then he looked away.

‘We'll certainly need your statement, miss,' the policeman said.

‘Yeah.'

‘Bye,
Martin,'
I said. ‘See you soon.'

He said nothing. That was OK. I could see he couldn't speak. I followed them down the hall to the front door and watched them go off down the path. The rain had stopped. Doggo looked so small between the four policemen. He didn't once look back at me.

They opened the back door of a police car and he climbed in. I watched the two cars drive away, listened to the engine sounds blending with all the sounds of the world out there till they had died away.

I bang-shut the door and then it's only me. I listen to the shadow of the bang, the echo. My echo twitches on the floor in front of me. The house, Sarah's house, settles round me, sighs. Not
only
me. There are the dogs. Gordon looks up at me and yaps, head cocked. What now?

I get my stuff. Some photo albums, some plastic ear-rings, a silver lamb. Doggo's new coat, which he forgot. I put it on, though it's still damp and the sleeves are much too long. I'll wear it till I give it back. I fasten the dogs' leads, pick up Doggo's gran's address. She's alone too. I think she will be glad to see me, with her bad hips and her failing mind. She will be very glad.

Before I leave I build a fire. Boxes, a camp bed, ladders, deck chairs, magazines. Remembering what Doggo said about how to build a fire, leaving air space, piling on plenty of kindling before the heavier denser stuff. On the cellar floor I build a fire, which I could light before I leave. That would serve Sarah right.

I light a match, watch the wobble of the flame and blow it out. Because if the house burned down, the lighthouse room would be gone. And I don't want that. Even though I'll never see that room again, or be in it, I'll want to, need to, know it's there.

I step outside where the air is fresh and sweet after the rain. A bird sings, maybe thinking it is spring. I look at the wreck of the garden one last time. Out of the mud a skinny snowdrop droops. I wish Doggo had seen.