I Know What I Saw

49 Tuesday

It takes an hour to reach Waterloo Bridge. It is the one that I use more than any other to cross the border. It has none of the beauty or the fancy ironwork of Chelsea or Albert. It has no lights, or towers. There is only one thing to mark it out from every other: the view.

I avoid it, now, that view. But halfway along I stop and gaze into the river instead. The river’s muddy faces swell and shift but they are still impassive, inscrutable. Tourists and workers in suits and coats pass behind me but don’t give me a second look. I don’t want to be seen. I could climb over this low barrier and slip into the water without so much as a turned glance. I would slide in like a knife and sink to the bottom with mouthfuls of river water in my stomach and lungs. The cold of it, the shock of it, will make me gasp. I will flail and when the water begins to claim me, I will rail and fight as my body’s instincts overpower my will. But then, after a brief rattle of life, I will go.

When Rory died, he succeeded but I did not. I see that now – at last. The haunting of those years finally over. I see it. I know what it means to yearn for release in this way. To be free of the oppression of memory and action. I know what made him want to go and why he climbed on to the ledge. When you are there facing the eternal nothingness, it is overwhelming. It is all that it can do. It must overwhelm because that is its nature. So, he was overcome, as he was bound to be.

Now I am, as he was then, straddling the barrier. I swing a leg over until I am sitting on the wide wall that separates earth from air and water. The surface is slippery and sitting on it makes me feel giddy, as if on a downward swing. I swivel to face the water and feel the pull of the waves. When people visit high buildings and climb to the top, the thing they fear most isn’t falling, but jumping. They are afraid that some urge will take them and they will jump. And now here I am fearing the opposite – that I don’t have the courage to jump.

The river tugs at me. I inch forward, sliding on the smooth paint. There is tingling in my feet. I slide a little further until my legs dangle freely. The nerves in my toes sizzle with the sensation of falling, but my hands are still here, gathering sweat on the flat of the wall. I am aware of some people stopping, looking. A phone or two has come out to raise the alarm.

It is time.

I can see Grace now. Her face is there in the water. Now her arms. She is beckoning me.

‘Xander!’

From behind me.

I turn my head and I am shocked to see that it is Seb. His car is parked opposite, the hazard lights blinking, and he is running towards me. I could go now, before he reaches me, but then there will be alarms and panic and commotion, and rescues. And I don’t know if I can try again after that.

I spin back around and slide reluctantly on to my feet. ‘Why are you here?’ I say.

He comes puffing up, crossing the road quickly in between beeping cars. ‘What are you doing?’ he says, panting.

‘You knew,’ I say. ‘You knew I was doing this. I told you.’

He nods frantically. ‘Yes,’ he says between breaths, ‘but that was before.’

‘Before what?’

‘Xander. When you went haring out of the house after that call, I did last number ID and called the number. Jan.’

‘So?’ I say. She can’t have told him anything – she would be bound by confidentiality.

‘So, speak to her,’ he says, handing me his phone. I stare at it momentarily before taking it.

‘Jan?’

‘What’s that noise – I can hardly hear you. Is that you, Xander?’

The traffic crowds into the phone and I cup my hand around it to fend it off. ‘Sorry. Can you hear me now?’

‘Xander? Good. You hung up before I could tell you.’

‘Tell me what?’ I say. Already my heart is beating hard.

‘Whose print it was. Our print was for a guy called Yull. Harry Yull.’

‘Harry Yull?’ I say weakly. And then the name begins to chime bells. As I say it out loud it strikes me.

‘He went by a version of the name. Ariel,’ she says. ‘Anyway, the police, your friend Blake especially, have been busy following up this guy. Turns out he was in the area on the date of the murder. He was working just around the corner from her address. So, the Crown are reviewing the case.’

For a few moments, I stand there in silence. I am sure I cannot have heard this properly and yet, there she is on the other end of the phone, almost laughing from the news.

‘But,’ I say, ‘I was there.’ Seb looks at me expectantly, the wind blowing tears into his eyes.

‘Well, they’re not saying it wasn’t you. It’s more that they’re saying they can’t be sure it was you. They can’t disprove your defence. You said it was another guy, and, well, it turns out another guy’s print was on the record fragment. In blood.’

‘So, what about this guy, Ariel?’ I say. ‘Harry Yull?’

‘Nothing. He’s dead. Died of a heart attack in 2000.’

Dead.

The bridge has resumed its usual pace. People walk past, immersed in their own presents.

‘It wasn’t my print,’ I say to Seb, handing him back the phone.

‘It wasn’t your print,’ Seb says, holding me by the shoulders.

‘But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t responsible,’ I say.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I’m not sure any longer. When I bring it back, it’s not as I told it.’

‘What do you mean?’ he says into the wind.

I look back into the river, inviting me to become a part of it. I turn away from Seb and make off up the bridge, heading to the northern side. He follows me and after just a few strides, I feel his hand firmly against my arm.

‘Stop running. Xander. Just stop.’

‘I have,’ I say. Tears gather behind my eyes and I am so angry that they are there. I don’t need tears. I need resolve. I take in a deep breath and look into Seb’s eyes. I don’t want to burden him with this. I want to take the weight with me. When I go I want to leave the world behind me lighter. But when I look into his eyes, I see that it’s too late.

He stares at me and there is fear and anger there. But he waits.

I sling my mind back to the night it happened. I am there once again, lying behind the chesterfield holding my breath, afraid of being caught. The flames are making shadows on the walls and that song, playing no more, lies broken in two on the floor.

‘Shut. Up,’ the man says.

He has leaned her back over the table, covering her mouth with his hand. I see her wriggling then. She is fighting to get upright. Fighting to get his weight off her body. Fighting to get his hand off her mouth.

Her legs kick out, but reach only air.

I get to my knees. From this position I can see that she is changing. Her face, her neck, are changing colour. Perhaps, I think, I can make a noise. Distract him. I cough loudly and then just as he turns, I duck back down. It has worked. He has released her. He turns back towards her. She gasps loudly, clutching her throat and then levers herself off the table.

He has forgotten what distracted him and has now turned to her, holding her gently by the elbows.

‘I’m so sorry. I’m so … I’m drunk,’ he says, and then he gathers up his belongings. As he does he knocks over a glass which shatters on the hard surface of the coffee table.

‘Oh, shit,’ he says, and begins to collect up the shards. ‘Oh, shit,’ he says again, his finger is in his mouth and he hops around trying, drunkenly, to clear up the room. At the other end of the room, Grace is breathing heavily but has returned to herself.

He straightens up from where he has been rooting around on the floor. I can see from the sofa that he has gathered up the broken record pieces. He proffers them, pathetically, to her.

‘Just leave!’ she says.

He drops the pieces softly by the window, and then he is gone.

And now I am on my feet. Her sobbing has brought me out and I think, ridiculously, that I can comfort her. That she wants me. I pad softly to where she is standing by the dining table. She is crying softly into her hands. I put my arm around her and she bristles suddenly.

‘You nearly killed me, you. You fucking, you fucking weak, pathetic,’ she says. The words have struck me before I have registered what they mean. Before I have understood that they are meant for him and not me. She will think that I’m him, until she can see me. But she can’t see me, it is too dark. It is too much of a stretch for her mind to make sense of me, here. When she realises it’s not him but someone else, she screams out in terror. She lashes out frantically, in fear, slapping at my face. As soon as the blows land – almost before the sound waves reach my ears – I react. As if bound by the laws of physics. Every force. An equal and opposite reaction. As soon as her hand whips my skin, my instinct for survival pushes mine back at her. It happens before I can stop it. It is that quick.

Her head snaps back on her neck with a crack. She freezes then as if between decisions. Her face is a pale, perfectly still surprise. My heart stops. In that gap. When all things still remain possible. My life, then, flashes before me in a kaleidoscope. Bright-light moments. Heavy sadnesses. Regrets, all of them. Mistakes. My mind gathers as many as it can in that divided infinite sub-second, as if fleeing from a burning building with my last possessions.

Then her knees buckle, as if the bones in her legs have vaporised. As she drops, another dull crack. Her body pulls the back of her head down hard on the edge of the table. And then, a final thud, and she lies scattered on the floor.

I remember dropping to my knees and whispering her name over and over.

I remember walking in circles, frantic. Parts of my brain are imploring me to wipe surfaces and things I might have touched. And then I see the record pieces and the world stops spinning. I am caught in that nowhere time. One of the pieces is smeared with drying blood and I know that he has touched it, his finger cut from the broken glass. The working, calculating part of my brain impels me. I should take it. In a light daze I grope around for something to wrap it in and find some newspaper.

There is the wine. She was drunk. She fell. I pick up the bottle and pour some of it on her shirt. I study the angles. What will work. I see her pendant next to her on the floor.

And then, I run.

I hear the door at the end of the corridor slam. And as it does, at last, I too am slammed, back into existence.

I am here. On this bridge.

‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ I say, crying.

‘It wasn’t you,’ he exclaims.

‘It’s been so long, Seb.’

He holds me then until the tears finally subside. He releases me from his embrace and puts an arm around my shoulder.

‘Come on. Let’s go home,’ he says.

We dodge the traffic to cross the road. The car is sitting against the kerb edge, waiting to take us away. But I know as I climb in that it can never take me far enough.

The road opens out before us. Seb reaches out and touches my arm as he drives. I think I see somebody behind us, and I turn around to look in the back seat. It’s empty.