The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend (45 page)

‘And so we come to the little matter of their marriage …'

‘I think that's a matter you'd be better off speaking to them about.'

‘We will do,' said the bureaucrat.

He seemed to be about to ask something else, when the policeman suddenly looked up and fixed Josh and Caroline with a penetrating stare.

‘Tell me you two aren't together too,' he said.

‘We're just friends,' Caroline said.

‘Like hell!'

She turned towards Josh. She couldn't help it. It was unlike him to be so fierce. Her hands were shaking.

‘We're friends, aren't we …?' she said uncertainly.

‘I told you I'd changed my mind, didn't I?' he said.

That he had changed his mind about being with her, yes. Not that they weren't friends. Or rather, it was obvious that she had known they wouldn't be friends afterwards. But she had never thought he would come right out and say it.

He looked at her. She averted her gaze and blinked quickly. She forced herself to swallow and say ‘Of course', as calmly as she could, but her voice sounded feeble and unhappy. She forced herself to nod as well, just to be on the safe side. ‘Maybe it's for the best,' she said.

‘I'm not going to go to Denver and leave you in peace just to make life easier for you,' he said. ‘Isn't that the point of attraction? That it makes life
more interesting
?'

Caroline smiled faintly, despite herself. ‘Definitely more interesting,' she agreed.

He glared at her. He was extremely attractive when he was angry.

‘It
should
be hard work and complicated and wrong and strange. Let people laugh. It just means we're living more interesting lives than they are.'

Caroline tried to get her head around this latest development but failed. She said nothing.

‘There are two types of people in the world, Caroline: those who take the lead and live, and those who follow, laughing at them. However much you pretend to be boring and sad, you're not. You're just going to have to learn to be a bit tougher than the rest of them. The only really weak thing I've seen you do was end things with me.' Something determined had appeared in his eyes. ‘And I'm not planning to let you do it. I refuse. Give me one good reason why we shouldn't carry on like we were? It's not like we were planning on getting married or anything, for God's sake.'

‘Maybe,' Caroline said cautiously.

He stopped short.

‘Maybe?' he said. ‘Not no?'

‘Yes.' She smiled. ‘Not no.'

The bureaucrat coughed in an attempt to regain their attention. The policeman seemed half fascinated, half doubtful.

‘So we're going to carry on as before?' Josh said. ‘You'll continue to see me?'

‘Well, it
was
fun,' Caroline said.

‘What
is
it with this town?' the policeman muttered to himself.

Josh looked at him. ‘The sex was great, you see.'

Caroline smiled her most bland and polite smile at the policeman. ‘So important, don't you think?'

The policeman had been about to drink some coffee, and actually spluttered over Caroline's next sentence: ‘I came to it late in life, you know. Lots of catching up to do.'

Caroline saw it as a form of victory, although one small part of her still prayed that he wouldn't tell anyone about it. Beside her, Josh shook with silent laughter.

The bureaucrat tried desperately to retake the lead.

‘About Sara,' he said.

Both Josh and Caroline seemed surprised to discover he was still in the room. Caroline couldn't help but smile at Josh, and their eyes shone in silent, amused agreement.

‘Sara and Tom. A lovely couple,' Caroline said. ‘They go very well together. They're the same age, for a start, and … hmm … well, neither of them was with anyone else when they met. Tom had been single a long time. You've got to understand we all thought it was very … fitting that they got together.'

The bureaucrat rubbed his temples.

‘Fantastic woman, Sara,' said Josh. ‘She helped me get a job here.'

‘And the armed threat?' the policeman asked.

‘A misunderstanding,' Josh said.

‘Oh yes,' Caroline agreed. ‘A way of celebrating, you know? That wom— Grace has always been quite
inspired
in her celebrations.'

‘If we could go back to Tom and Sara,' Gavin said firmly. ‘They seem to have found one another amazingly quickly.'

‘Very fitting.'

‘Did they know one another before she came to the US?'

‘No, not at all. I don't think she knew anyone here.'

Bored, the policeman turned towards the window once the couple had left.

‘D'you think they know we can see them?' he asked.

‘Probably,' said Gavin. He didn't look up from his notes. The next interview had to be right.

‘So they're really just together to get residency?' The policeman continued to look out through the window into the waiting room.

‘Presumably,' Gavin replied.

‘I don't like it,' the policeman stated. ‘People shouldn't get hitched if they don't really love each other. Enough problems are caused by unhappy marriages as it is.'

Gavin made no comment.

‘Would it make a difference if they actually
were
together?'

Gavin thought about it. ‘I don't actually know,' he said eventually.

The policeman looked at him. ‘Do you realise we still don't have any concrete evidence that anyone has been trying to dupe us? I reckon we might have a genuine case of love on our hands.'

Gavin had indeed realised the lack of evidence so far, but he wasn't as sure about the love match. ‘Just bring them in,' he said.

It was all so surreal.

Sara was sitting there, staring at a wall of faded wallpaper. There was a water cooler in one corner, and she could hear country music coming from a radio in the background.

So this is how it's all going to end, she thought.

The reception itself was in darkness. She could make out four desks through the Plexiglas, and little holes for passing passports and other documents through, all empty and unused on a Saturday afternoon.

It was quite strange, really, such a big operation just to make sure she wouldn't end up with him.

‘Tom …' she said. She didn't know what she was going to say next, but she felt like she should say
something
. It was all her fault. She held out her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

He shook his head.

‘We should talk,' she said, though she didn't sound particularly convincing. Doing so was always difficult when you yourself didn't even believe what you were saying.

‘I don't think we can fix this by talking, Sara,' he said.

A new song had started. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Want to dance then?' she joked desperately. Something had to be done to ease the tension.

He stood up and held out a hand, in an absurd gesture of gallantry, and after a moment's thought she got to her feet too. Why not?

He took her hand in his, put his other arm around her waist.

She closed her eyes and leaned in to him.

His white shirt was surprisingly soft beneath her hand. Something within her began to flicker.

And then his hand started moving down her back.

To begin with, she wasn't sure she had actually felt it, whether his hand really was moving. She touched his shoulder and there it was. A definite movement. A harder grip around her waist. She touched the soft hair on his neck and could feel his jeans against her legs, his belt against her stomach, and the warm darkness which embraced them the moment she closed her eyes. Their bodies drew closer until, finally, one of his legs moved between hers and she was pressed up against his thigh.

In a remote corner of her mind, she knew this unexpected closeness would make the distance afterwards even harder, but there was nothing she could do about it.

She knew that reality was waiting somewhere out there, beyond their only dance together, but so far, miraculously, no one had come to collect them. For the first time, she wondered whether it would feel better or worse if he loved her too.

She didn't know, but one thing was certain: this was much too intense for a relaxed dance between friends, and she felt how the muscles in his arm tensed as his grip on her back tightened, just between her waist and her shoulder blades. She clung on to him, or perhaps they were clinging on to one another. Her head was resting against his shoulder, his cheek against her hair, and nothing else existed other than the music and their bodies.

The song was coming to an end. Her body noticed it before she did, how the song reached a kind of high point and then began the journey back down to the end. How the chorus was repeated one last time, with slightly more emphasis, signalling that the best was over and it was time for all this to end.

Her body reacted by pressing ever closer to him. Somehow, unconsciously, it seemed to be trying to memorise the feeling of his thighs and stomach and shoulders and jaw, the little lock of hair behind one of his ears, the scent of aftershave and his soft shirt, eyes closed as he danced. It seemed as though he could feel it too, because his grip grew tighter and he pulled her in to him until she could no longer breathe but also no longer needed to.

There was something so tragically simple about a dance ending. A hand leaving a shoulder, a waist; two hands unclasping and letting go of one another. Just like that.

Tom cleared his throat. She looked at him, in confusion. He took her hand in an almost absent-minded gesture. Then he raised it up to his lips which gently brushed the inside of her wrist.

‘Who wants to go first?' the policeman asked.

Sara was much too confused to make any decisions, so Tom squeezed her hand gently and then left her dazed and alone in the confusing waiting room of a confusing authority.

Confused. She was confused. She sank down into the nearest chair.

The policeman moved away from the wall and leaned against the edge of the desk.

‘So you were the sacrificial lamb?' he asked.

Tom said nothing.

Gavin took over. ‘Whose idea was it, this mad plan?'

‘Mad?'

‘Getting married so she could stay.'

‘Ah,
that
madness.' He looked at them. ‘It was completely my idea.'

Gavin leaned forwards. ‘So there was a plan? For residency?'

‘The others must've told you.'

‘They … told us a lot of interesting things, yes.'

Tom flashed a quick, weak smile. ‘I can imagine. Anyway, it was my idea. Sara didn't want to. I convinced her. If anyone gets into trouble over this, it should be me.'

‘It's a serious crime, of course,' said Gavin. ‘But a confession always helps.'

‘And Sara?'

‘She'll obviously be sent home.' He shrugged. ‘If you confess, I can arrange it so there aren't any fines.' As a warning, he added: ‘Or any jail time. But she'll have real trouble being granted a visa at any point in the near future.'

Tom nodded.

‘Or ever.'

‘So you don't love her?' the policeman asked.

This time, Gavin Jones didn't attempt to stop him.

Tom looked at him in surprise. ‘Of course I love her. I
wanted
to marry her.'

‘And her?'

‘I guess she just wanted to stay.'

The policeman seemed moved. Gavin did not.

The memory of being close to Tom faded fast in the tired office surroundings.

She could no longer remember exactly how his aftershave smelled, and in just a much-too-short period of time, she wouldn't remember his arm around her waist either. Her body was forgetting the feeling of his.

One day, she wouldn't even be able to remember the colour of his eyes, or how they looked when he smiled, and she experienced a moment of blind panic sitting there on the edge of an uncomfortable office chair. She closed her eyes and then forced them open again.

The grey man from the wedding was sitting behind the desk. He had taken off his jacket and was wearing the kind of cheap shirt which almost immediately develops sweat patches. He didn't seem to care though, and was looking at Sara curiously.

The policeman hadn't said a word when he came to get her, nor during the short walk to the office. Once they were there, he had sat down at the desk and started staring at her. His greyish-green uniform seemed remarkably formal in comparison to his youth, and Sara thought he seemed almost disapproving.

She didn't know where Tom was. She wondered how long this kind of decision usually took. Surely they wouldn't send her home before she had time to say goodbye, she thought desperately. Though on the other hand, what was there to say?

‘So,' Gavin said. ‘Tell us about this marriage plot.'

‘It was my idea,' Sara said.

Neither of them believed her. She wasn't good at lying.

‘Tom was practically forced into it.' Strangely enough, that sounded like the truth. She averted her gaze. ‘None of the others knew a thing.'

The policeman laughed at that. ‘Are you trying to tell us that none of the people we've spoken to today managed to work out the truth?'

‘It was my idea,' she said stubbornly. But she looked so worried. It was her eyes which betrayed her; she was looking at them almost pleadingly. ‘They're not going to get into trouble over this, are they …?'

The policeman shook his head before Gavin had time to say anything, and Sara smiled, relieved.

‘Thanks so much,' she said. It sounded as though she meant it.

‘You won't be allowed to stay, though,' Gavin said.

Her smile faded.

‘So you just wanted to get married for residency?' the policeman clarified.

‘I …' She looked away again. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘To be able to stay.'