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8. TWO YEARS EARLIER

I hoped that working on a book about eighteenth-century monoliths would keep my head clear — that it would divert my mind from dwelling on Nancy’s betrayal. That’s how I thought of it then. I thought of her secret as a betrayal. I tried not to. I tried very hard to concentrate on writing about the Martello tower. I had propped a photograph of one on the dresser shelf above the collection of postcards Jonathan sent from his travels. It squatted there, lumpen and grey, so I took it down again. How could I concentrate? There was a sliver of metal rattling around in my head. A tiny shaft of silver taunting me from my desktop. Attached to the spare keys to Jonathan’s flat, which I had found in Nancy’s bag, was another smaller key. Too small for a front door but a key to something else, a key to something which was in his home, not mine. It caught the light and winked at me every time I tried to focus on my work. Who did I think I was? A man with ten-feet walls to protect him from the past? I wasn’t built like a Martello tower. I was a man with thin, crepey skin who needed to find out what else his wife might have hidden. I was human, at least. That slip of a key had burned a hole in my head and I knew I wouldn’t be able to write anything until I had unlocked its secret.

Jonathan’s flat is at the top of a mansion block, prewar, built about ten years before I was born. There is no lift, but someone has thought about those of us who might struggle to reach the top and they have put a chair on each landing. I sat in every one. Onwards and upwards. I dragged myself up the last flight and then looked down, through the beautiful wrought-iron balustrade which curved and fell to the cold stone floor. A softly curving funnel through which a human might swallow-dive, not touching the edges, slipping through but still ending in a bloody mess at the bottom. I had a feeling then that I shouldn’t have come, that I had no right to intrude. This was Jonathan’s place.

The plant outside his front door was dead. It hadn’t been watered for some time. I put the key in the lock. There was probably a knack to it, but I didn’t have it and it seemed to take forever to get in, and all the time I was expecting someone to tap me on the shoulder and ask what I was doing there.

Once inside I was struck by the most terrible smell. Putrefying. Something rotten, something dying or dead. I went straight into the kitchen, assuming it must have been something in the bin, but that was empty. On the kitchen table was a vase of flowers. Dead, dried, crisp, just a green line around the vase where the water had once been. I hesitated, not sure it was my place to throw them out. I went into the sitting room and sat on Jonathan’s sofa and looked around. I could see the unmistakeable signs of femininity. More flowers on the small table by the window. Lifeless, ugly, their parched stems desiccated sticks crying to be put out of their misery. A woman’s touch. I left them where they were. I hadn’t put them there. They were nothing to do with me.

When I walked into Jonathan’s bedroom, I gagged from the smell. His bed was unmade, the duvet mussed and falling off. The cover was dark blue, the bottom sheet maroon. It reminded me of a school uniform, good dark colours that didn’t show the dirt. The smell came from the corner near Nancy’s desk. I approached it, hand clamped over my nose and mouth, and there it was. A body. Rotting. Neck broken, mouth open, teeth bared, giving off that inside-out stench of putrefaction. I should have known. Death. Always leaving its predatory stench, like a lusty tomcat long after it has left the scene. I found a plastic bag in the kitchen, and wearing it like a glove, picked up the whole thing, trap and mouse, and disposed of it in the kitchen bin.

I went back into the bedroom and sat at Nancy’s desk. It’s smaller than mine and the tops of my legs rubbed against its underside. It would have been even more of a squeeze for Jonathan, and I imagined his six-foot frame and his strong legs squished into what had been his mother’s space. I was pleased to see it had been taken care of. No rotting flowers there. No water rings from cups, or glasses of water, just an undisturbed film of dust. There were pieces of paper, neatly stacked on it, and a photograph of Nancy and me. Mum and Dad. Husband and wife. Two people in love. Two people who were loved.

I clicked the switch on the desk light, but the bulb had gone. And then I began my invasion. I pulled at the first drawer and looked inside: empty, apart from the odd pencil stub and leaky biro. I went through the others and found the same. The last drawer was the smallest. Tucked under the desk top it ran between the two pedestals, a slender place. It was locked. I put in the key, turned it, then slid back the chair and pulled open the drawer. And what an industrious place it was. Pens, pencil sharpener, pencils, a box of paper clips, three notebooks. They were the type Nancy used, blue-lined reporter’s pads, nothing special. She’d always carried one with her when she was writing, filling it with thoughts or sights which struck her, overheard conversations, that sort of thing. I flicked through one, but didn’t give it much attention. It was the manuscript which sat underneath the notebooks that interested me. I picked it up. “Untitled.” Someone else’s work then because Nancy always came up with her titles first, and it was dated long after I knew she had stopped writing. Was it Jonathan’s? I turned the page. But no, this manuscript was dedicated to Jonathan. He hadn’t written it. “To My Son, Jonathan” I read, and then my wife’s name typed at the bottom of the page, my wife proclaiming her authorship. A book, written in secret and locked away from my prying eyes.

Sticks and stones, I told myself, but I feared the words on those pages might actually break me. I wasn’t ready for them. There were other objects rattling around in that drawer, cuddling up to my wife’s manuscript: a Swiss Army knife; a half-empty pack of cigarettes; and a can of deodorant with a cheap, erotic name. I grabbed the deodorant and marched around the flat like a crazed pest controller, shooting “Wildcat” into the air, covering up the stench of dead animal and everything else that offended my senses. When I was calmer, I put the can back and picked up Nancy’s untitled work, holding it against my chest as if it was a small, trembling creature. I shouldn’t have taken it, it wasn’t mine to take, it was Jonathan’s. But I did take it. I left the notebooks, but took the manuscript. Jonathan would never know I’d been there, and I promised myself that I would return it as soon as I had read it.