The Book of You: A Novel (27 page)

There was a bell coming from somewhere far away. She thought it must be the church bell tolling her funeral. Something was heavy on her breasts. She opened her eyes and saw it was an arm. And then she remembered where she was and what had happened and who the arm belonged to, and realized there hadn’t really been a fire. But she knew she had been in deep terror, and that he had done something very bad to her head that made her unable to think properly or stay awake, and she was certain she had had some kind of absolute and uncontrolled panic attack and lost consciousness, and she knew she had to try as hard as she could not to let that happen again because somebody had once told her that if you fell asleep with a head injury you would die.

There was a rattle, then a crash of metal. He was stirring, looking around sharply and listening, muttering and swearing under his breath. He slammed a fist into the top of her head. There was a blast of tiny dots, then only dark.

S
HE THOUGHT THAT
she must be dreaming. She was peering through a shimmering fog, and Robert was bending over her, pulling at something on her face. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. He was at the bottom of the bed by her ankles and moving her legs, laying them alongside each other instead of so far apart. He was reaching above her, and then she could see her hands, held in his, and he was rubbing them. His face, his beautiful face, was white. Why was it so white? And his cheeks were wet. Was it raining? The drops were like tears, but that couldn’t be right. Didn’t Robert once say that he never cried? Or was it the man called Azarola who’d said that? Robert seemed to be whispering. Why did he sound as if he were choking? His voice was so odd. And he was wrapping her in the quilt, arranging her on her left side. He was holding a phone and punching numbers into it and giving her address.

There was something very important that she must remember. She was trying so hard, but couldn’t make herself. And then it came to her. “You must watch,” she tried to say.

He only shushed her gently. He was holding her fingers again, rubbing them. Her fingers were very white, whiter even than his face.

But then she could see a shadow in the doorway. She knew the shadow belonged to the man. Robert followed her gaze and jumped to his feet, putting as much space as he could between himself and the bed, as if to lead the man away from her.

The man was waving the knife in his right hand. With the blade pointed up and out, he advanced toward Robert. Robert took a step back and also leaned back, but the man stepped forward to maintain his face-to-face proximity to Robert and held the knife out farther.

Robert feinted a punch to the right. When the man thrust his knife out to meet it, Robert pivoted, used his left hand to hit the top of the man’s right arm, used his right hand to grab the wrist with the knife in it, and jabbed his left forearm into the man’s nose. All at once, there was an earsplitting crack of bone, a burst of bright blood, and the clanging of the knife onto the floorboards. As the man swayed on his feet, blinking and dazed, Robert brought his right fist to the man’s left temple and his left fist to the man’s jaw so his head snapped back and his body recoiled. Like the loser in a boxing ring, the man wavered for an instant, then crashed down, thumping so hard onto his side that the whole room seemed to shake.

Robert kicked the knife away as he stepped forward to inspect the man, who was entirely still but for the ragged rise and fall of his chest. He checked and double-checked for signs of consciousness, as if the man were a rabid dog he didn’t want to turn his back on. He leaned over to lift the man’s limp hand and then drop it, watching it fall with a resounding thud. It was his fingers Robert seemed especially concerned with, as if wanting to assure himself that there wasn’t the slightest twitch.

There was a fresh rush of blood from her cheek and a sharp cramp in her stomach. She didn’t realize she’d groaned until Robert turned his back on the man, calling out her name as he took a step toward her. It was only a few seconds of inattention, but it was too many, and it was all her fault.

The man stretched his right arm over his head and reached beneath her bedside table. When his hand emerged, it was holding a second knife. More of its mass was in the black rubber-grip handle than the blade, which was short and wide. The man sat up and drove the knife into the back of Robert’s upper thigh.

Robert screamed, an animal noise that went right through her. He fell to his knees, straight down.

The man spat crimson from his mouth and blew it from his nose. He reached up, the knife shining silver above his head, held high to finish Robert off. As the knife swept down, Robert twisted around, grabbed the man’s right wrist with both hands, jerked him onto his back, and half sat on him, pinning him down with a knee on his abdomen.

Robert seemed not to notice his other leg, which was splayed on the floor, the light-brown corduroy of his trousers darkening with blood. His navy jersey was damp with sweat under the arms, on his chest, over his back.

The man punched Robert in the face with his left fist, splitting Robert’s lip, but nothing would make Robert let go of the man’s right wrist. Nothing would make him stop trying to get the man to drop the knife. Nothing would make him give up his effort to keep the knife away from his own body.

There was so much blood. Robert’s dripped down his chin. It pooled from his leg onto the floorboards. The man’s left a track from his nose, which had spattered his bare chest and chin as well as the sleeve of Robert’s jersey.

The man slapped his left hand over Robert’s two hands, fighting to control the knife. It juddered between them as each tried to drive it toward the other, as each tried to turn the blade toward the other. The man was on his back so that he had to push the knife upward against gravity. It was Robert’s only advantage but the advantage wasn’t enough. It was a kind of awful arm-wrestling match, and Robert was slowly losing, weakening as he lost more and more blood. His face was gray. His forehead was beaded with sweat. He grunted.

Neither of them noticed her slipping off the bed. She lifted the first knife by its tortoiseshell handle from the floor where Robert had kicked it. She stepped shakily toward them, looking like a newly made vampire rising from her grave for the first time. Blood snaked along the inside of her thighs. Blood streaked from her face and down her neck and over her breasts and belly. Blood matted her blond hair, staining it dark red.

The kind and helpful policemen had lied to her, feeding her all of that false, deadly hope, telling her she was safe when she wasn’t, when really she was as far from safe as anybody could be. The things they did didn’t work. Only she herself could truly make the man disappear. Only she could make him vanish so completely he’d never, ever be able to come back. It was the only way. Nothing else would make him leave her alone. Nothing else would help Robert. The next time the man’s knife went into Robert, it would kill him. She knew it would. She knew exactly what she had to do, and she knew she’d only have one chance.

She really was extremely good at human biology, as she’d once told Robert. Her obsession with reproduction spilled over into a fascination with the whole body, but it was an interest she’d had even as a schoolgirl. All of those details had imprinted themselves on her. She remembered the pictures of the heart, the photographs and illustrations and anatomical diagrams that she’d always thought so beautiful. She’d studied them all over again when her father had his bypass.

The man was wearing only boxer shorts. She could see those pictures as if they were drawn on top of his chest in layers: the heart and its labeled chambers beneath the thoracic cage, the thoracic cage beneath the skin. Even with her pounding head and blurry eyes she could see them. She didn’t even have to try. She knew that there was a gap between his ribs, just above the right ventricle. She knew that that was the deadliest place. She made herself focus on the target, in line with his nipples and slightly off center, trying not to let herself be distracted by the pain etched on Robert’s face.

She didn’t let herself take her eyes off that spot as she aimed the knife into the man’s chest with all the force of her own downward rush. It was easy for her to fall to her knees on the floor just above his head; falling was what her body wanted to do. There was a split second of resistance, like the instant just before she penetrated the rind of a melon with a very sharp point; then the metal sank deeply, as if his flesh were the inside of the fruit. The knife went all the way in. It didn’t stop until the hilt reached his skin.

He wheezed and sucked, but only briefly. His lips were no longer pale. They were blue. Bubbles of red were leaking from between them. The blood didn’t spurt from the knife wound, as she’d thought it would; it seeped up steadily, to shape itself into a dessert plate around the handle. Her hands weren’t working like they usually did, and the knife was getting so wet and warm and slippery it was difficult to grasp. But she knew that she mustn’t let go. No matter what happened. She knew that. She kept trying to hold it for fear of it not working. In case she’d miscalculated or missed the spot she’d aimed for. As if he would recover if she let go. As if he’d grab up the other knife again and plunge it into Robert. As if the hole she’d made would seal over and he’d pop up and come after her if she didn’t make absolutely sure the knife had done its work.

His eyes rolled, then froze. They were still open, but she knew that he wasn’t seeing her. At last he wasn’t looking at her. He really wasn’t. She knew he could never look at her anymore.

Robert’s arms were around her, and she let go of the knife. He was sitting on the floor, pulling her across his lap, scooting them as far away from the man as he could get them, smearing a trail of red over the floor as he dragged his stabbed leg. He was holding her and rocking, somehow tearing off his jersey at the same time and wrapping her in it, both of them soaked with blood. He was saying her name. Again and again he was saying it, as if he were trying to call her back from somewhere else. But she felt herself falling away, and his voice seemed to come from a great distance even though his lips were still shaping the word.

The room was full of strange people dressed like policemen and paramedics and Miss Norton was there, too, weeping. She could feel them tearing her from Robert, hear them telling him that he needed urgent treatment himself. She tried to cry out his name so they wouldn’t take him from her but she couldn’t make any sounds come out. All at once, the pain in her head exploded and the world snapped into black.

E
IGHTEEN
W
EEKS
L
ATER

The Maiden Without Hands

Monday, July 20

The clinical psychologist asked me to start a new notebook. It’s handmade by my mother, covered in dusty plum fabric sprinkled with lily of the valley. The psychologist calls it a “Recovery Journal.” I flash the handwritten pages at her during our appointments to demonstrate what a sensible and sane patient I am. If I actually let her read it, though, she’d probably give me a big fat F for what I’m writing—and to whom I’m writing it.

Tuesday, July 21

My father is golfing with another retired teacher. My mother sits beside me in the soulless hospital waiting room. She is reading a newspaper while I try to think about anything other than the test results I’m about to be given.

What I think about is you. What I spend way too much time thinking about is you.

It is eighteen weeks since I’ve seen you. Eighteen weeks since you rescued me.

Eighteen weeks since that man’s lawyer conned them into letting him out so he could break into my flat.

The police arrested and charged him with the harassment and violence offences on the morning of Thursday, March 5. But the judge didn’t issue the restraining order until the afternoon of Friday, March 6. The catastrophic mistake was that they didn’t get him into court and before the judge within the twenty-four-hour legal deadline. That meant the restraining order he breached a few days later wasn’t legally valid, so they couldn’t keep him in prison for violating it.

Would it have happened if DC Hughes hadn’t been away? I think even DC Hughes couldn’t have prevented his release for the legal technicality. But DC Hughes might have warned me that they’d freed him. He might have found some way to get him back in jail. He might have sent someone to watch over me, to stop him before he did the things he did. I’ve pieced that night together, or most of it, with the help of the sexual offences liaison officer. But I keep going over and over these contingencies, these countless what-ifs.

I am torn from these thoughts when the doctor comes out to get me. He says hello to my mother, and she practically blushes in delight at the attention, despite the fact that she’s as scared as I am of what I’m about to find out. I give my mother’s hand a good-bye squeeze and rise to follow Dr. Haynes. My back is soaking wet, and I’m flashing between heat and chills.

Sometimes I wonder if it is because of the things that happened that I am so sick, but Dr. Haynes says no. He says that extreme nausea like mine even has a name.
Hyperemesis gravidarum
. He says that some people think it’s what Charlotte Brontë died of, and I like it that Dr. Haynes knows such a thing. He says there’s a physiological basis for it. The multiple hospital admissions to get my hydration and electrolytes back up, as well as the anti-emetics I have to take each day, certainly feel physiological. I don’t think the clinical psychologist agrees with Dr. Haynes on this one, though.

Dr. Haynes is very Oxbridgy and very kind and also very handsome in an intelligent superhero kind of way. In different circumstances, I would almost certainly have a crush on him; the different circumstances would be my never having met you.

Dr. Haynes gives me a serious look. “I have the results back, Clarissa.”

I thought I’d composed myself over the past two weeks, waiting for this moment. But icicles seem to pierce my heart.

Dr. Haynes reaches across his desk to touch my hand. “The genetic tests eliminated the possibility that Rafe Solmes is the father of your baby.”

I can feel my lips trembling, and my hands, and my eyelids vibrating, too, and I think it must be because my body is registering some kind of physical symptom of my relief. But Dr. Haynes tells me that twitching and tremors can be a rare side effect of the anti-emetics, and though he hopes it’s just a one-off, he wants to try me on a different medication. He says I’m very pale, and he makes me sip some water and climb onto the examination table to rest for a few minutes. He sits and writes in my notes, though he breaks off a few times to recheck my pulse and blood pressure.

Even before I had proof, I had faith. I knew that baby was there as soon as we made it, when you woke me up after our first night together. But I mustn’t let myself think like that. For me to think of our first night together suggests we had a long series of nights together. There were only two nights. I tell myself that there will only ever be two.

At last, Dr. Haynes lets me sit up, and I immediately start to babble. “I knew deep down it wasn’t his. The police asked me to have the test, and I was scared to refuse. I didn’t want them thinking I was motivated to kill him so that he couldn’t have any hold over me through the baby.”

“Well, they couldn’t think that now. Based on dating scans and your early pregnancy hormone levels, you are twenty-one weeks pregnant. This means the egg was fertilized nineteen weeks ago. My report concludes that you conceived a week before you were assaulted; you couldn’t have known at the time of Mr. Solmes’s death that you were pregnant. I have consulted with other specialists. Their views concur with this, and are also part of the report.”

They had plenty of his DNA to compare to the baby’s. I didn’t need your permission for the test. I didn’t need your DNA, either. Now that they have officially ruled him out, you are the only option. A process of elimination.

“And there’s more good news. No genetic anomalies were detected.”

I’d been so anxious about the paternity test I never thought to worry about the baby’s health. What kind of mother will I be?

He pauses. “I can tell you the sex if you’d like to know.”

“I think it’s a girl,” I say. “Is it?”

Dr. Haynes is smiling so much I think he really does care. “Yes.”

“I think she has dark hair and bright blue eyes like her father. I think she’s very beautiful.”

He laughs. “We’ll have to wait until she’s born to see if you’re right about the hair and eyes, but there’s no doubt she’ll be beautiful. Shall we take a look at her? I know how concerned you were about the amniocentesis needle and the risk of miscarriage.”

Dr. Haynes squirts cold jelly on my belly, and she pops onto the screen as soon as the probe touches my skin.

Her lips are exactly like yours, Robert. She shapes them into a rosebud and blows me a kiss. I blow one back.

Wednesday, July 22

The sexual offences liaison officer is here. She isn’t wearing a police uniform. She’s wearing a navy skirt and a cream shirt that hang elegantly on her willowy frame.

Compared to her, I am curvy, a new experience for me. My breasts are fuller beneath the white gauze blouse that is like the one Lottie wore her first day in court. My stomach makes a small mound above the stretchy waistband of yet another skirt my mother whipped up for me.

The officer’s name is Eleanor, and that’s what she likes me to call her. Not PC This or DS That. Just Eleanor.

You’d tell me I mustn’t let myself forget for an instant that even if those understanding nods are all sincere, Eleanor is still watching and listening for any crumb of intelligence she can gather so that they’ll have a big juicy file to send to the Crown Prosecution Service. You’d tell me that I shouldn’t swallow the police line that they’ve given Eleanor to me because they regard me as a surviving victim who needs a single point of contact for all police communications. You’d tell me that the police keep sending Eleanor here because they regard me as a suspect.

Eleanor and I sit in my parents’ living room in the two armchairs inside the bay window, my usual place for the view of the sea. Two cups of tea sit on the table between us, where my mother left them before disappearing into the garden with my father.

Eleanor pushes her black hair behind her ears and shoots a look of gentle straightness in my direction with her dark eyes. “I promised I’d never keep any information from you that I am permitted to disclose,” she says.

“Is it the Crown Prosecution Service?” I am struggling to sound calm. “Are they going to charge me in connection with his death?”

“There are a few final pieces of evidence for the police to gather before they send the complete file to the CPS for a decision on whether to charge. I believe they’re awaiting some reports from your obstetrician?”

“Those are on their way.”

She nods. “Good. There’s also the coroner’s final report. It’s for your protection that the police need to be thorough. It’s a serious and complex case, Clarissa, involving a violent death. It’s always in the public interest to ensure a proper investigation is conducted.”

“I just wish it were over with.”

“I know it’s hard to have this hanging over you, but I want to stress again how very rare it is for the CPS to bring a prosecution in connection with the death of an intruder into somebody’s home. Especially when the intruder acted violently and had a weapon. There’s a strong argument that you used force to defend yourself and another person. Diminished responsibility is an important factor, too, given your head injuries.”

“Okay,” I say slowly, though I don’t feel very okay.

She takes a breath. “I already told you that the five defendants in that trial were found not guilty on all counts.”

The judge let the other ten members of the jury go into deliberation without us. All five of the defendants walked free while I was still in hospital under police guard and you were having an operation on your leg.

“It’s hardly a surprising result, given the way the defense barristers all tore Miss Lockyer to pieces.” I look down at my lap. “She was so brave.” I speak very softly, still not looking up. But then I do. I make myself. And I see that Eleanor is frowning.

She unzips her brown leather portfolio. “The police thought you’d want to be informed.” She hands me a newspaper clipping.

A verdict of death by misadventure was recorded at the inquest into the death of a popular 28-year-old Bath woman. Tragic Carlotta Lockyer died of an overdose on May 10. Coroner George Tomkins noted that significant amounts of heroin and crack cocaine were found in her body, and that their toxic effect had been enhanced by high levels of methadone in her bloodstream. Mr. John Lockyer, 78, told the hearing that his granddaughter had successfully completed a detoxification program but relapsed shortly before her death. He discovered her body on the bathroom floor when he returned from church.

I hug myself and rock back and forth in the self-comforting behavior one of the police witnesses described Lottie engaging in. I sob wretchedly. Some bile chokes up and dribbles down my chin, and I wipe it with a tissue. Eleanor waits patiently until I’ve calmed down. I don’t know how much time passes until I do. I blow my nose loudly.

“I can see how very, very sad you are,” Eleanor says. “I’m sad, too. So are my colleagues. She was a courageous young woman, and she fought a terrible fight.”

I glare right into Eleanor’s night-sky eyes, trying but failing to unnerve her.

“I can see you’re very angry, too, Clarissa,” she says. “That’s understandable.”

“That article’s a fake. It was published last week, after the supposed inquest on July thirteenth. They don’t have those inquests that fast, just two months after someone dies. You said yourself that we’re still waiting for the coroner’s report on that man—he died four months ago—that’s twice as long a time. Lottie is somewhere else, somewhere far away, and the police want those men to think she’s dead so she can have a new safe life. That article’s a lie, to trick them.” I am snatching at hope. Maybe Laura did something like this, too.

“I don’t think so, though it’s a clever theory and I’d like you to be right. We all would.”

“You wouldn’t say. You might not even know.”

“True on both counts,” Eleanor says.

My father shouldn’t have named me Clarissa. Pollyanna would have been more fitting. But there can be no glad game here. Laura is lost, probably forever, and so is Lottie. I cannot save either of them now by making up silly stories.

Thursday, July 23

It’s therapy morning with Mrs. Lewen, the clinical psychologist. I had to promise to see her each week. That was the only way they’d agree to release me from hospital in Bath and make all of the arrangements with the police and doctors here in Brighton.

Patient compliance
is a phrase I’ve heard too many times.

I hate the word compliance.

Mrs. Lewen is in her late fifties, with short curly brown hair. She’s a few stone overweight and wears bright-colored caftans. Today’s is yellow and orange and purple. She looks like an earth mother, but I don’t really think she is.

There’s a framed poster from the film of
The Wizard of Oz
on her wall. The main characters with their arms linked, about to skip off down the yellow brick road. Mrs. Lewen thinks there’s a
life lesson
in that film for everyone who ever watches it. I can’t imagine that you would like Mrs. Lewen much.

Mrs. Lewen settles into a peach armchair and smiles expectantly. I’m huddled on the sofa that faces her, my legs curled beneath me. The sofa is peach, too. All of the furniture is upholstered in this supposedly tranquil peach, and I detest it. The walls are peach, too. If Mrs. Lewen ever tries to make me listen to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” there will be puke on the peach carpet.

Last week’s subject was my face. The plastic surgeon’s gobbledygook clotted the air; Mrs. Lewen made me repeat his phrases as if they were medicine.

The good news is that faces heal fast
. My scar is one and a half inches long, a diagonal slash across my cheekbone. I measured it.

We’re fortunate that it was a straight wound
. My scar is swollen and pinched and puckered around the edges.

Scars fade and flatten considerably over the first year
. My scar is vividly red and raised.

Superficial facial nerves come back, but it can take six to eight months
. My face seems not to move properly around my scar, the way a person’s mouth feels after a shot of novocaine.

Today, my initial silence is too long even for Mrs. Lewen. Usually she likes me to be the first to speak, but this time she quietly prompts me by asking what I’m thinking about.