The Book of Evidence (17 page)

I drove and drove. "Whitewater is only thirty miles or so f r o m the city, but it seemed hours before I found myself in the suburbs. Of the journey I remember little. That is to say, I do not remember changing gears, accelerating and slowing down, working the pedals, all that. I see myself moving, all right, as if in a crystal bubble, flying soundlessly through a strange, sunlit, glittering landscape. I think I went very fast, for I recall a sensation of pressure in 115

my ears, a doll, rushing blare. So I must have driven in circles, r o u n d and r o u n d those n a r r o w country roads. T h e n there w e r e houses, and housing estates, and straggling factories, and supermarkets big as aircraft hangers. 1 stared t h r o u g h the windscreen in d r e a m y a m a z e m e n t . I m i g h t h a v e been a visitor f r o m another part of the w o r l d altogether, hardly able to believe h o w m u c h like h o m e everything l o o k e d and yet h o w different it was. I did not k n o w w h e r e I was g o i n g , I m e a n I was not g o i n g a n y w h e r e , j u s t driving. It w a s almost restful, sailing along like that, turning the wheel with one finger, shut o f f f r o m everything. It w a s as if all my life I had been clambering up a steep and difficult slope, and n o w had reached the peak and leaped out blithely into the blue. I felt so free. At the first red traffic light the car drifted gently to a stop as if it w e r e subsiding into air. I was at the j u n c t i o n of t w o suburban roads. On the left there was a little green rise with a chestnut tree and a neat r o w of n e w houses.

Children w e r e playing on the grassy bank. D o g s g a m b o l l e d . T h e sun shone. I have always harboured a secret fondness for quiet places such as this, u n r e m a r k e d yet cherished d o m a i n s of building and d o i n g and tending. I leaned my head back on the seat and smiled, watching the youngsters at play. T h e lights changed to green, but I did not stir. I w a s not really there, but lost s o m e w h e r e , in s o m e sunlit corner of my past. T h e r e w a s a sudden rapping on the w i n d o w beside my ear. I j u m p e d . A w o m a n with a large, b r o a d , horsy face — she r e m i n d e d m e , dear G o d , of my m o t h e r ! — w a s peering in at me and saying something.

I rolled d o w n the w i n d o w . S h e had a loud voice, it sounded very loud to m e , at any rate. I could not understand her, she w a s talking a b o u t an accident, and asking me if I w a s all right. T h e n she pressed her face f o r w a r d and squinnied o v e r m y shoulder, and-opened her
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mouth and groaned. O h , she said, the p o o r child! I turned my head. T h e r e was b l o o d all over the back seat n o w , far too much, surely, for just one person to have shed. For a m a d instant, in which a crafty spark of h o p e flared and died, I w o n d e r e d if there
had
been a crash, which s o m e h o w I had not noticed, or had forgotten, if s o m e overloaded vehicle had p l o u g h e d into the back of us, flinging bodies and all this b l o o d in through the rear w i n d o w . I could not speak. I had thought she w a s dead, but there she was, kneeling between the seats and g r o p i n g at the w i n d o w beside her, I could hear her fingers squeaking on the glass.

Her hair hung d o w n in bloodied ropes, her face was a clay mask streaked with copper and crimson. T h e w o m a n outside was gabbling into my ear about telephones and ambulances and the police — the police! I turned to her with a terrible glare. M a d a m ! I said sternly (she w o u l d later describe m y voice as
cultured
and
authoritative
), will y o u please get on about y o u r business! She stepped back, staring in shock. I confess I was m y s e l f impressed, I w o u l d not have thought I could muster such a c o m m a n d i n g tone.

I rolled up the w i n d o w and j a m m e d the car into gear and shot a w a y , noticing, too late, that the lights had turned to red. A tradesman's van c o m i n g f r o m the left braked sharply and let out an indignant s q u a w k . I drove on.

H o w e v e r , I had not g o n e m o r e than a street or t w o when suddenly an ambulance reared up in my wake, its siren y o w l i n g and blue light flashing. I was astonished. H o w could it have arrived so p r o m p t l y ? In fact, this was another of those appalling coincidences in which this case abounds.

T h e ambulance, as I w o u l d later learn, was not looking for me, but was returning f r o m — yes — f r o m the scene of a car crash, with — I'm sorry, but, yes — with a d y i n g w o m a n in the back. I kept g o i n g , haring along with my head d o w n , my nose almost touching the rim of the wheel. I do not 117

think I could have stopped, locked in fright as I was. The ambulancc d r e w alongside, swaying dangerously and trumpeting like a frenzied big beast. T h e attendant in the passenger seat, a burly y o u n g fellow in shirt-sleeves, with a red face and n a r r o w sideburns, looked at the blood-streaked w i n d o w behind me with mild, professional interest. He conferred briefly with the driver, then signalled to me, with complicated gestures, n o d d i n g and m o u t h i n g , to follow them. T h e y thought I was c o m i n g f r o m the same crash, ferrying another victim to hospital.

T h e y surged ahead. I followed in their wake, befuddled with alarm and bafflement. I could see nothing but this big square clumsy thing scudding along, w h o o s h i n g up dust and w a l l o w i n g fatly on its springs. T h e n abruptly it braked and s w u n g into a w i d e gateway, and an a r m appeared out of the side w i n d o w and beckoned me to follow. It was the sight of that thick a r m that b r o k e the spell. W i t h a gulp of demented laughter I drove on, past the hospital gate, plunging the pedal to the floor, and the noise of the siren dwindled behind me, a startled plaint, and I was free.

I peered into the mirror. She was sitting slumped on the seat with her head hanging and her hands resting palm u p w a r d s on her thighs.

Suddenly the sea was on my left, far below, blue, u n m o v i n g . I d r o v e d o w n a steep hill, then along a straight cement road beside a railway track. A pink and white hotel, castellated, with pennants flying, rose up on my right, e n o r m o u s and e m p t y . T h e road straggled to an end in a marshy patch of scrub and thistles, and there I stopped, in the midst of a vast and final silence. I could hear her behind m e , breathing. W h e n I turned she lifted her sibyFs fearsome head and looked at m e .
Help
me, she whispered.

Help me.
A bubbl e o f b l o o d c a m e out o f her m o u t h and burst.
Tommy!
she said, or a w o r d like that, and then: i ig

Love
. W h a t did I feel? R e m o r s e , grief, a terrible — n o n o no, I w o n ' t lie. I can't r e m e m b e r feeling anything, except that sense of strangeness, of being in a place I k n e w but did not recognise. W h e n I got out of the car I was giddy, and had to lean on the door for a m o m e n t with my eyes shut tight. My jacket was bloodstained, I w r i g g l e d out of it and flung it into the stunted bushes — they never found it, 1

can't think w h y . I r e m e m b e r e d the pullover in the boot, and put it on. It smelled o f f i s h and sweat and axle-grease. I picked up the h a n g m a n ' s hank of rope and threw that a w a y too. T h e n I lifted out the picture and walked with it to where there was a sagging barbed-wire fence and a ditch with a trickle of water at the b o t t o m , and there I d u m p e d it. "What was I thinking of, I don't k n o w . Perhaps it was a gesture of renunciation or something. R e n u n c i a -

tion! H o w do I dare use such words. T h e w o m a n with the gloves g a v e me a last, dismissive stare. She had expected no better of me. I went back to the car, trying not to look at it, the smeared w i n d o w s . S o m e t h i n g was falling on me: a delicate, silent fall of rain. I looked u p w a r d s in the glistening sunlight and saw a cloud directly overhead, the merest smear of grey against the s u m m e r blue. I thought: 1

am not h u m a n . T h e n I turned and walked a w a y .

ALL MY ADULT LIFE
I h a v e ha d a recurrin g d r e a m (yes, yes, d r e a m s again!), it c o m e s o n c e or twice a year and leaves me disturbed for days afterwards. As usual it is not a d r e a m in the ordinary sense, for not m u c h happens in it, really, and n o t h i n g is explicit. T h e r e is mainly an undefined but p r o f o u n d and m o u n t i n g sensation of unease, which rises at the end to full-fledged panic. A l o n g t i m e a g o , it seems, I h a v e c o m m i t t e d a crime. N o , that is t o o strong. I have d o n e s o m e t h i n g , it is never clear what, precisely. Perhaps I s t u m b l e d u p o n s o m e t h i n g , it m a y even h a v e been a corpse, and c o v e r e d it up, and almost f o r g o t a b o u t it. N o w , years later, the evidence has been f o u n d , and they h a v e c o m e to question m e . As yet there is n o t h i n g to suggest that I w a s directly i n v o l v e d , not a hint of suspicion attaches to m e . I am m e r e l y another n a m e on a list. T h e y are mild, soft-spoken, stolidly deferential, a little b o r e d . T h e y o u n g o n e fidgets. I r e s p o n d to their questions politely, with a certain irony, smiling, lifting an e y e b r o I tell m y s e l f s m u g l y , the p e r f o r m a n c e of my life, a masterpiece of dissembling. Y e t the older one, I notice, is regarding me w i t h d e e p e n i n g interest, his s h r e w d eyes n a r r o w i n g . I m u s t h a v e said s o m e t h i n g . W h a t h a v e I said? I b e g i n to blush, I 1 2 3
.

cannot help it. A horrible constriction takes hold of me. I babble, what is intended as a relaxed little laugh turns into a strangled gasp. At length I run d o w n , like a clockwork toy, and sit and gape at them helplessly, panting. Even the younger one, the sergeant, is interested n o w . An appalling silence descends, it stretches on and on, until at last my sleeping self makes a bolt for it and I start awake, aghast and sweating. W h a t is peculiarly awful in all this is not the prospect of being dragged before the courts and put in jail for a crime I am not even sure I have committed, but the simple, terrible fact of having been found out. This is what makes me sweat, what fills my mouth with ashes and my heart with shame.

A n d n o w , as I hurried along the cement road, with the railway track beside me and the sea beyond, I had that same feeling of ignominy. What a fool I had been. What trouble there would be in the days, the weeks, the years ahead. Yet also there was a sensation of lightness, of buoyancy, as if I had thrown o f f an a w k w a r d burden. Ever since I had reached what they call the use of reason I had been doing one thing and thinking another, because the weight of things seemed so much greater than that of thoughts. What I said was never exactly what I felt, what I felt was never what it seemed 1 should feel, though the feelings were what felt genuine, and right, and inescapable.

N o w I had struck a b l o w for the inner man, that guffawing, fat foul.mouth w h o had been telling me all along I was living a lie. A n d he had burst out at last, it was he, the ogre, w h o was pounding along in this lemon-coloured light, with blood on his pelt, and me slung helpless over his back. Everything was gone, the past, C o o l g r a n g e , Daphne, all my previous life, gone, abandoned, drained of its essence, its significance. To do the worst thing, the very worst thing, that's the w a y to be
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free, I w o u l d never again need to pretend to m y s e l f to be w h a t 1 w a s not. T h e t h o u g h t m a d e m y head spin and m y e m p t y s t o m a c h heave.

I w a s prey to a host of n i g g l i n g worries. T h i s pullover w a s smelly, and t o o tight for m e . T h e knee o f m y left trouser-leg h a d a small rip in it. People w o u l d notice that !

had not shaved t o d a y . A n d I needed* I positively longed, to wash my hands, to p l u n g e up to the e l b o w s in scalding suds, to sluice myself, to drench, rinse, scour — to be clean.

O p p o s i t e the deserted hotel there w a s a j u m b l e of grey buildings that had once been a railway station. W e e d s w e r e g r o w i n g on the p l a t f o r m , and all the w i n d o w s in the signal b o x w e r e smashed. A pockmarked, enamel sign with a lovingly painted pointing hand indicated a cement b l o c k h o u s e set at a discreet distance d o w n the p l a t f o r m . A c l u m p o f purple buddleia w a s flourishing b y the d o o r w a y of the gents- I w e n t into the ladies — there w e r e no m o r e rules, after all. T h e air here w a s chill and dank. T h e r e w a s a q u i c k l i m e smell, and s o m e t h i n g green and glistening w a s g r o w i n g up the walls. T h e fittings had been ripped out l o n g a g o , even the stall d o o r s w e r e g o n e . It w a s apparent f r o m the state of the floor, h o w e v e r , that the place w a s still in frequent use. In a c o m e r there w a s a little heap of stuff —