The Book of Evidence (21 page)

T h e r e was a p h o t o g r a p h of her standing a w k w a r d l y in front of her cottage, a big, raw-faced w o m a n in an apron and an old cardigan, peering at the camera in a kind of stolid dismay. H e r Josie, she said, w a s a g o o d girl, a decent

"girl, w h y w o u l d anyone want to kill her. A n d suddenly I was back there, I saw her sitting in the mess of her o w n b l o o d , looking at m e , a bleb of pink spittle bursting on her lips.
Mammy
was what! she said, that was the w o r d , not T o m m y , I've just this m o m e n t realised it.
Mammy
, and then: Love.

I
THINK THE TIME
I spent in Charlie French's house was the strangest period of my life, stranger even and m o r e disorienting than my first days here. I felt, in the brownish g l o o m of those rooms, with all that glistening marine light outside, as if I were suspended s o m e h o w in mid-air, in a sealed flask, cut o f f f r o m everything. T i m e was split in two: there was clock time, which m o v e d with giant slowness, and then there was that fevered rush inside my head, as if the mainspring had broken and all the works were spinning madly out of control. I did sentry-go up and d o w n the kitchen for what seemed hours on end, shoulders hunched and hands
stuck
in my pockets, furiously plotting, unaware h o w the distance between turns was steadily decreasing, until in the end I w o u l d find myself at a shuddering stop, glaring about me in bafflement, like an animal that had blundered into a net:. I w o u l d stand in the big b e d r o o m upstairs, beside the w i n d o w , with my back pressed to the wall, watching the road, for so long, sometimes, that I forgot what it was I was supposed to be watching for. There was little traffic in this backwater, and I soon g o t to recognise the regular passers-by, the girl with the orange hair f r o m the flat in the 149
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house next door, the smooth, shady-looking fellow with the salesman's sample-case, the few old bodies w h o walked their pugs or shuffled to the shops at the same hour every day. A n y w a y , there w o u l d be no mistaking the others, the grim ones, when they c a m e for me. Probably I w o u l d not even see them c o m i n g . T h e y w o u l d surround the house, and kick in the door, and that w o u l d be the first I w o u l d k n o w of it. B u t still I stood there, watching and watching, m o r e like a pining lover than a man on the run.

Everything was changed, everything. I was estranged f r o m myself and all that 1 had once supposed I was. My life up to n o w had only the weightless density of a dream.

W h e n I thought about my past it was like thinking of what s o m e o n e else had been, s o m e o n e I had never met but whose history I knew by heart. It all seemed no m o r e than a vivid fiction. N o r was the present any m o r e solid. I felt light-headed, volatile, poised at an angle to everything. T h e ground under me was stretched tight as a trampoline, I *

must keep still for fear of unexpected surges, dangerous leaps and bounces. A n d all around me was this blue and e m p t y air.

I could not think directly about what I had done. It w o u l d have been like trying to stare steadily into a blinding light. It was too big, too bright, to contemplate.

It was incomprehensible. Even still, when I say
I did it,
I am not sure I k n o w what I mean. O h , do not mistake me.

I have no wish to vacillate, to h u m and haw and kick dead leaves over the evidence. I killed her, I admit it freely. A n d I k n o w that if I were back there today I w o u l d do it again, not because I w o u l d want to, but because I w o u l d have no choice. It w o u l d be just as it was then, this spider, and this moonlight between the trees, and all, all the rest of it. N o r can I say I did not mean to kill her — only, I am not clear as to when I began to mean it. I was flustered, impatient, 1 5 0
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angry, she attacked me, I swiped at her, the swipe became a b l o w , which became the prelude to a second b l o w — its apogee, so to speak, or perhaps I mean perigee — and so on.

There is no m o m e n t in this process of which I can confidently say, there, that is when I decided she should die. Oecided? — I do not think it was a matter of deciding.

I do not think it was a matter of thinking, even. That fat monster inside me just saw his chance and leaped out, frothing and flailing. He had scores to settle with the world, and she, at that m o m e n t , was world enough for him. I could not stop him. Or could I? He is me, after all, and 1 am he. B u t no, things were too far gone for stopping. Perhaps that is the essence of my crime, of my culpability, that I let things get to that stage, that I had not been vigilant enough, had not been enough of a

dissembler, that I left Bunter to his o w n devices, and thus allowed him, fatally, to understand that he was free, that the cage door was open, that nothing was forbidden, that everything was possible.

After my first appearance in court the newspapers said I showed no sign of remorse when the charges were read out. (What did they expect, that I w o u l d weep, rend my garments?) T h e y were on to something, in their d i m -

witted w a y . R e m o r s e implies the expectation of forgiveness, and I k n e w that what 1 had done was unforgivable. I could have feigned regret and sorrow, guilt, all that, but to what end? Even if I had felt such things, truly,
in
the deepest depths of my heart, w o u l d it have altered anything? T h e deed was done, and w o u l d not be cancelled by cries of anguish and repentance. D o n e , yes, finished, as nothing ever before in my life had been finished and done — and yet there w o u l d be no end to it, I saw that straight away. I was, I told myself, responsible, with all the weight that w o r d implied. In killing Josie Bell 151
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I had destroyed a part of the world. Those hammer-blows had shattered a c o m p l e x of memories and sensations and possibilities — a life, in short — which was irreplaceable, but which, s o m e h o w , must be replaced. For the crime of murder I w o u l d be caught and put away, I knew this with the calmness and certainty which only an irrelevance could inspire, and then they w o u l d say I had paid my debt, in the belief that by walling me up alive they had struck a sort of balance. T h e y w o u l d be right, according to the laws of retribution and revenge: such balance, however, would be at best a negative thing. N o , no. What was required was not my symbolic death — I recognised this, though I did not understand what it meant — but for her to be brought back to life. That, and nothing less.

That evening when Charlie returned he put his head cautiously around the door as if he feared there might be a bucket of water balanced on it. I leered at him, swaying. I had finished the gin, and m o v e d on, reluctantly, to whiskey. I was not drunk, exactly, but in a kind of n u m b e d euphoria, as if I had just c o m e back f r o m a lengthy and exquisitely agonising visit to the dentist.

U n d e r the new buzz the old hangover lurked, biding its time. JViy skin was hot and dry all over, and my eyes felt scorched. Cheers! I cried, with a fatuous laugh, and the ice cubes chuckled in my glass. Charlie was darting sidelong looks at my outfit. H o p e you don't mind, I said. Didn't think we'd be the same size. Ah, he said, yes, well, I've shrunk in my old age, you see. A n d he gave a graveyard laugh. I could see he had been hoping I would be gone when he came home. I followed him out to the hall, where he took o f f his bookie's titfer and put it with his briefcase on the b o g - o a k hallstand. He went into the dining-room 152
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and poured himself a modest whiskey, adding a go of flattish soda f r o m a screw-top bottle. He took a sip, and stood for a little while as if stalled, with a hand in his pocket, frowning at his feet. My presence was interfering with his evening rituals. He put away the whiskey bottle without offering me a refill. We traipsed back to the kitchen, where Charles donned his apron and rooted about in cupboards and on murky shelves for the makings of a stew. While he worked he talked distractedly over his shoulder, with a cigarette hanging f r o m a comer of his lopsided mouth and one eye screwed shut against the smoke. He was telling me about a sale he had made, or a picture he had bought, or something like that. 1 think he only spoke for fear of the prospect of silence. A n y w a y I was not really listening. I watched him glugging the better half of a fifty-pound bottle of P o m m e r o l into the stew. An inch of cigarette ash went into the pot as well, he tried vainly to fish it out with a spoon, clucking in annoyance.

Y o u can imagine what it's like for me, he said, actually parting with pictures! I nodded solemnly. In fact, what I was imagining was Charlie in his poky gallery, b o w i n g and scraping and wringing his hands in front of some

£ur~coated bitch reeking of face-powder and perspiration, whose hubby had given her the money to bag a bauble for her birthday. I was depressed suddenly, and suddenly tired.

He served up the stew, spilling some on the floor. He was not g o o d with implements, they tended to turn treacherous in his hands, to wobble and veer and let things slither o f f We carried our plates into the dining-room and sat d o w n at the table under the stuffed owl's virulent, glassy stare. We drank the rest of the Pommerol, and Charles fetched another bottle. He continued to make an elaborate business of avoiding my eye, smiling about him

*53

at the floor, the furniture, the fire-irons in the grate, as if the c o m m o n p l a c e had suddenly presented itself to his attention with a n e w and unexpected charm. T h e lowering sun w a s shining full u p o n me t h r o u g h the tall w i n d o w at my back. T h e stew tasted of burnt fur. I pushed my plate aside and turned and l o o k e d out at the harbour. T h e r e was a s h i m m e r i n g flaw in the w i n d o w - p a n e . S o m e t h i n g m a d e me think of California, s o m e t h i n g about the light, the little yachts, the gilded evening sea. I was so tired, so tired, I could have given up then and there, could h a v e drifted out into that s u m m e r dusk as easily as a breeze, u n k n o w n , planless, free. Charlie squashed out a sodden fag-end on the rim of his plate. D i d y o u see that thing about Binkie Behrens in the paper? he said. I p o u r e d m y s e l f another fill of wine. N o , I said, w h a t w a s that, Charles?

By the b y , w h a t w o u l d I have d o n e in all this affair without the solace of drink and its deadening effect? I seem to h a v e g o t over those days in a series of q u a k i n g lunges f r o m one brief state of drunken equilibrium to another, like a fugitive fleeing across a zigzag of slimed stepping-stones. E v e n the colours, gin-blue and claret-red, are they not the very e m b l e m s o f m y case, the court-colours o f m y testimony? N o w that I have sobered up forever I look back not only on that t i m e but on all my life as a sort of tipsy but not particularly h a p p y spree, f r o m which I k n e w I w o u l d have to e m e r g e sooner or later, with a b a d headache. This, ah yes, this is h a n g o v e r time with a v e n g e -

ance.

T h e rest of that evening, as I recall it, was a succession of distinct, muffled shocks, like falling downstairs slowly in a d r e a m . T h a t w a s w h e n I learned that my father had kept a mistress. I w a s first astonished, then indignant. I had been his alibi, his c a m o u f l a g e ! W h i l e I sat for hours in the back of the car a b o v e the yacht club in D u n L a o g h a i r e on 1 54

Sunday afternoons, he was o f f fucking his fancy-woman.

Penelope was her n a m e — Penelope, for G o d ' s sake! Where did they meet, I wanted to k n o w , was there a secret love-nest where he kept her, a bijou little hideaway with roses round the door and a mirror on the b e d r o o m ceiling?

Charlie shrugged. O h , he said, they used to c o m e here. At first I could not take it in. Here? I cried. Here? B u t what about —? He shrugged again, and gave a sort of grin.

M a m m y French, it seems, did not mind. On occasion she even had the lovers join her for tea. She and Penelope exchanged knitting patterns. Y o u see, she knew — Charlie said, but stopped, and a spot of colour appeared in the cracked skin over each cheekbone, and he ran a finger quickly around the inside of his shirt collar. I waited. She knew I was fond of your — of Dolly, he said at last. By n o w I was fairly reeling. Before I could speak he went on to tell me h o w Binkie Behrens too had been after my mother, h o w he w o u l d invite her and my father to Whitewater and ply my father with drink so he would not notice Binkie's g a m y eye and wandering hands. A n d then my mother w o u l d c o m e and tell Charlie all about it, and they w o u l d laugh together. N o w he shook his head and sighed. Poor Binkie, he said. I sat aghast, lost in wonderment and trying to hold my wine-glass straight. I felt like a child hearing for the first time of the doings of the gods: they crowded in my buzzing head, these tremendous, archaic, flawed figures with their plots and rivalries and impossible loves. Charlie was so matter-of-fact about it all, half wistful and half amused. He spoke mostly as if I were not there, looking up n o w and then in mild surprise at my squeaks and snorts of astonishment.

A n d you, I said, what about you and my —? I could not put it into words. He g a v e me a look at once arch and sly.

Here, he said, finish the bottle.

i 5 5

1 think h e t o l d m e s o m e t h i n g m o r e a b o u t m y m o t h e r , b u t I d o n ' t r e m e m b e r w h a t it was. I do r e m e m b e r p h o n i n g her later that night, sitting cross-legged in the d a r k on the floor in the hall, w i t h tears in my eyes a n d the telephone squatting in my lap like a f r o g . S h e s e e m e d i m m e n s e l y far a w a y , a m i n i a t u r e v o i c e b o o m i n g at me tinily o u t of a t h r u m m i n g v o i d . Freddie, she said, y o u ' r e d r u n k . S h e asked w h y h a d 1 n o t c o m e b a c k , t o collect m y b a g i f for n o t h i n g else. I w a n t e d to say to her, M o t h e r , h o w c o u l d I g o h o m e , n o w ? W e w e r e silent f o r a m o m e n t , then she said D a p h n e h a d called her, w o n d e r i n g w h e r e I was, w h a t I w a s d o i n g . D a p h n e ! I had n o t t h o u g h t of her for days.