Inch Levels (26 page)

But not this time: and not simply because of the memory that the sound invariably brought: the coastal footpath at home, the gust of noise, the gulls that she watched being forced straight upwards by the force of the explosion: straight into the air before turning and wheeling north and south in the freezing winter air. No: she had had a premonition, this time: she sensed which building, which business, which shop had just been pulverised.

So: the evil eye?

Was that the explanation for all these events over the years?

What nonsense: of course not.

And yet.

‘I knew which shop it was, as soon as I heard the explosion last night.’ She gestured out of the window and down Shipquay Street, where the white cordon lines flapped in the cold breeze and police Landrovers squatted nervously and half of what had once been a building lay spread across the road. She almost expected to glimpse a mannequin, its blonde wig all askew, lying on the ground in a provocative pose, legs spread – but no, no mannequins. Just rubble and bricks and shattered glass.

Her children looked. Until this moment, they had tried to ignore the whole scene.

Margaret said, ‘The evil eye?’

‘It was Toner’s shop,’ Sarah said, ‘and I passed it yesterday afternoon and looked in the window and I remember thinking how nice the displays looked. They’d really made an effort, I thought. And now today,’ and she stopped and took a yet tighter hold of her coffee cup, ‘it’s blown to kingdom come. And that isn’t the first time that something like this has happened.’ The second, the third time, she thought: I could name each shop. Is it any wonder, then, that I’m thinking along these lines?

‘So I’m wondering if I’m carrying some kind of curse around with me. I see the shop this morning, bombed out, and I wasn’t a bit surprised.’

Did this explain Anthony, too? Of course not.
What nonsense
, she thought again.

Patrick said coolly, ‘But you don’t have the evil eye. There isn’t any such thing.’

Now Sarah drew herself up a little. ‘I said that it makes me
feel
as though I have. As though I have the evil eye.’ She was being misunderstood deliberately. Margaret made as though to speak, but Sarah went on, speaking rapidly now as though she absolutely could not bear another interruption. ‘It isn’t the first time a thing like this has happened. That’s all I’m saying.’ She paused for a breath; Patrick was gazing out of the window. ‘It makes me think.’

‘Think what?’

Sarah paused again. ‘That maybe bad luck follows me.’

Her son and daughter looked at her now. Neither said anything, and after a moment she watched Patrick resume his study of the window, the view of cordon tape and leaves and bomb damage.

Sarah knew that the tenor of this conversation was utterly new. And again now, a moment came – and again it went; a branch in the road was noted, ignored. ‘Your father,’ Sarah said now, ‘he’ll be wondering where I am.’ But she stayed where she was as other instincts took over: to fend people off, to keep them at the end of a cattle prod. To probe their weaknesses, the better to protect herself – and to protect them from her.

She had said too much.

‘And what about Robert?’ she said – and was duly rewarded, for Margaret flinched. It was all too easy to make the girl flinch; Patrick, really, was a much tougher nut to crack.

Well, and he took after her, didn’t he? – her own shell was like a Brazil nut. You’d have to get right in there with heavy-duty metal, with muscle and force of will; and even then, there were no guarantees that the shell would crack even a little. The metal might break first. The only person who had managed to get inside had been Cassie; and Cassie was gone now. Long gone: and even Cassie hadn’t always been successful. Sarah remembered now that evening, long ago now, when she tapped on Margaret’s bedroom door and sat on Margaret’s bed – eager, desperate to unburden herself, to shed a burden that in her rational mind she knew she ought not even to be carrying.

And instead, had asked Margaret about her upcoming exams.

I don’t like Physics, but even that’s going along, you know, well enough too.

Cowardice. She remembered the misty rain and the streetlamp and the sound of the television drifting the length of the house. There were moments when it was possible, when the option was given to you to turn off onto another road, to begin another journey. I suppose that these possibilities become fewer and fewer, she thought, the older you get; eventually, they stop coming; they stop completely. She would put it down to God shrugging in irritation and impatience – if she believed in God.

As it was, she put it down to nothing, or to herself. I’m too set in my ways, she thought, now. Set fast.

*

Margaret and Patrick were on foot. ‘Will I give you a lift?’ their mother said – but no: Margaret scotched that idea immediately. There was no need for a lift, for the weather, though chilly, was still dry; they would walk. ‘Are you sure?’ Sarah said, already poised to go. They were sure. They parted on the corner of the Diamond: Sarah glanced once more along Shipquay Street at the cordon, the Landrovers, the scattered remains of the building. ‘See you, then,’ Sarah said and they nodded – the Jacksons knew they did not kiss – and she was off, trotting away briskly along Ferryquay Street, eddied and spun by passing shoppers on the narrow pavement, giving as good as she got, passing out of sight.

Now, a brief silence. To Patrick, a moment of consideration: it seemed to him that he should take a moment to brace.

Later, he would imagine that a presentiment came out of the crowds of shoppers: squeezing out of the gap, perhaps, that his mother had left as she had retreated. A shadow, bearing down on them. Though even this was hardly the case: had he not felt this premonition earlier, early this morning, with the sound of the ringing phone? He had. They were coming thick and fast now, these shadows slipping out of corners. And now, standing there on the street corner, he was aware of taking a deep breath, and holding it in his lungs for a second. Bracing himself, and then turning and seeing Margaret’s face, chalk-white and turned up towards him.

‘Let’s go somewhere to talk,’ she said.

‘What did you want to talk about?’ he said, still braced; and she took his arm and they set off walking.

‘I don’t know,’ Margaret said.

He was aware of her clutching arm: their family did not hold or embrace, any more than they kissed. This clutch was uncomfortable; again, he felt a shadow behind him, shadows at either side.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. They were walking south now, along Bishop Street, away from the cordon and the flashing lights, the rifles and bullet-proof vests that dredged up unwanted, ugly memories – but aimlessly just the same. There was no end in sight – but now, he was aware of her taking a deep breath too, and holding it; and now she pointed along narrow, shadowed Palace Street. ‘Shall we go down there and onto the city walls?’ she said. ‘Let’s do that.’ He nodded and they crossed the road and turned onto Palace Street and here, with neat terraced houses on one side and a high brick wall on the other and already bare branches overhead, she seemed to breathe normally again. They turned the corner and the lane widened: they passed the churchyard now and stepped up onto the ramparts. Margaret’s face was paler than ever. ‘I need to sit down,’ she said.

It was dramatic up here, for the whole city opened up: the cathedral on its hill and the long terraces of houses, and spires and the sweep of the river; and then the distant hills like blue whales, with cloud shadows moving smoothly and silently along their dark slopes. Closer at hand, late roses were still blooming in the pretty churchyard behind them; and the avenue of sycamores, that had been planted perhaps a century ago on the walls themselves, were shedding yellow leaves. But the views were closed off by high metal security fences: ahead and to left and right; they could walk only a hundred yards or so along the ramparts before being turned back; and the wide views were obscured and barred. Yes, it was dramatic – but maybe not in the best way, he thought; and it was not really a place to go walking.

Again he said, ‘What did you want to talk about?’

Margaret glanced: there were benches placed at intervals along the avenue of sycamores; and she gestured at one. ‘I need to sit down,’ she said, and made her way over, and sat.

‘What did you want to talk about?’

She replied, ‘My head is light.’ Well, he could understand that, he thought: their mother’s sudden strange appearance, strange mood and strange language – it had all been enough to turn anyone’s head light.

‘Adrenalin, and caffeine,’ Margaret said, as though beginning to compose a shopping list. ‘And the cafe.’ For a moment, she said nothing: he began to think that whatever this news was, he was not going to hear it – not today; and quite possibly not ever. But then she said, ‘You know those cop shows. Those American cop shows. Kojak and all.’

He nodded.

‘They go, like, “Zip it!”’ She sat forward on the bench. ‘“Zip it, man! or I’ll zip it for you!” And “Or I’ll zip
you
!” And next thing they’re lying dead.’

Patrick nodded again.

‘Robert,’ she said. ‘He told me to zip it. Last night. He told me to keep my mouth shut, or I’d wreck everything.’

Another pause, this one hanging on. He watched Margaret’s profile as she looked out through the metal bars of the security fence at the distant hills, her eyes moving in time with the silent shadows of the clouds moving across blue slopes.

‘Mouth shut about what?’

Margaret shook her head – but then she began to tell him.

‘The child who went missing – Christine Casey, the night of my birthday dinner.’ She took a breath. ‘And then, last night, I told Robert I was leaving him.’ And a short, snorting, desperate laugh. ‘And he said I can’t, and then he told me why.’

*

The previous evening, Robert had moved around the house unplugging lamps and flicking switches: now only one light burned in the hall, outside the children’s bedroom; the living room, where she sat on the sofa and he sat in the deep armchair, was in gloom. Now he said, ‘And no, you can’t leave me.’

Margaret had intended to be kind, circumspect: not to describe the suffocation of her life, the corridors that ended in a blank wall, the days and months of her life running away like sand in an hourglass, with nothing to show for it. She did not love him, she felt nothing for him, really – this was no marriage.

He listened, composedly. No sign of his temper. No sign of anger, of despair – of anything, really. He listened from the depths of the armchair, the tips of his fingers pressed together in front of him. She could just make out his shape, there in the darkness: he seemed calm, dreadfully composed.

‘I need to stay here, the girls will need some sense of a stable environment, their things about them. But you can take all the time you need to find another place.’

He sat, looking at his fingers.

‘Look: can’t we have a light on?’

He looked at her now through the darkness, then shook his head a little.

‘No.’

She opened her mouth to speak again: but now he held up a hand to silence her, shook his head again.

‘And no, you can’t leave me.’

She caught the glint of his eye in the darkness. ‘Why? Why can’t I?’ She laughed, a little uneasily as he shrugged. A short silence.

‘You can’t, because if you do, I’ll pull the plug on the girls’ lives.’ Another shrug. ‘Do you want me to tell you how I can do that?’

Margaret stared at him.

‘It’ll be easy,’ he added. ‘The easiest thing in the world. If you stay with me, though,’ he added, as though offering her a most beguiling choice, ‘I won’t have to.’

‘What did you do?’

Now Robert sat up, turned in the gloom: the glint left his eyes, which were dark now, and his outline was dark against the thicker surrounding darkness.

‘Inch Levels,’ he said. ‘You can imagine the rest.’ And then, in the same reasonable, almost jaunty tones, ‘But if you stay with me, I won’t have to go to the police, I won’t have to blow the whistle on myself, I won’t have to do that to the girls.’ He pressed his fingertips together again. ‘Stay with me, and we’ll carry on; and nobody need ever know; and our girls can get on with their lives.’

Margaret sat very still. She didn’t ask the natural question, not yet:
why
he had done it; why, in the first place. She was instead chilled by the familiarity of the story, by her sense that this story was horrible – was horrible beyond description – and yet was not wholly unexpected. She had married – badly, though of course she had not known quite how badly, had not known the extent of his periods of silence, his flashes of temper, his black fits, his deep and profound introspection. But she had known she was marrying him on the rebound: not from another man, but from her family, from her mother, and with a sense of desperation.

And six years and two children later, she realised the extent of her mistake.

But now, in this instant, she saw that a trap had been sprung – that leaving Robert was indeed impossible. Because it was true: she could not after all leave her husband, not if it meant that her children’s lives would be blighted by the facts attached to their father. Of course, she thought in this instant, they’ll be blighted in another way: they’ll be blighted by living in the midst of an unhappy marriage – but I’ll find ways to compensate for that. Won’t I? Clarinet lessons – her thoughts in a tumbling rush – and checks, and balances: and there is time, only a few years, really, not many years before the two girls fly the nest. I can manage until then. Yes, she thought: surely I can.

‘You’re shaking,’ Robert said coolly. ‘I can feel it, even from here. You need to pull yourself together.’

‘I’m chilled.’

‘Chilled. I’m the one who should be chilled, Margaret. Pull yourself together.’

This was brutal – but worst was the familiarity of this story: as though she knew it already, as though she had come across it long ago, in some story, or book or magazine; or had intuited it at some deep, cellular level.