Killing Me Softly

Seventeen

‘No,’ said Adam, and brought his fist heavily down on the table, making the glasses on it jump. Everyone in the pub looked round. Adam didn’t seem to notice; he lacked all sense of what my mother would call social decorum. ‘I don’t want to give an interview to any crappy journalist.’

‘Look, Adam,’ began Klaus soothingly, ‘I know that you –’

‘I don’t want to talk about what happened up on the mountain. It’s past, over, finished. I’m not interested in going over the whole messy fuck-up, not even to help you sell your book.’ He turned to me. ‘Tell him.’

I shrugged at Klaus. ‘He doesn’t want to, Klaus.’

Adam took my hand and pressed it against his face and closed his eyes.

‘If you gave just one, then –’

‘He doesn’t want to, Klaus,’ I repeated. ‘Can’t you hear the man?’

‘OK, OK.’ He put his hands in the air in mock surrender. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a wedding present for you two.’ He leaned down and took a bottle of champagne out of a canvas bag at his feet. ‘I, urn, wish you luck and great happiness. Drink this in bed sometime.’

I kissed his cheek. Adam gave a half-laugh and sat back in his chair.

‘All right, you win, one interview.’ He stood up and held out his hand for me.

‘Are you going already? Daniel said he might turn up later.’

‘We’re going to drink the champagne in bed,’ I said. ‘It can’t wait.’

When I got back from work the next day, the journalist was there. She was sitting opposite Adam, their knees almost touching, and on the table beside her a taperecorder was running. She had a notebook on her lap, but she wasn’t writing anything. Instead, she was gazing intently at Adam, nodding when he spoke.

‘Ignore me,’ I said, when she made to stand up. ‘I’m going to make myself a cup of tea then disappear. Do you want anything to drink?’ I took off my coat and gloves.

‘Whisky,’ said Adam. ‘This is Joanna, from the Participant. And this is Alice.’ He took my wrist and pulled me towards him. ‘My wife.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Alice,’ said Joanna. ‘None of the cuttings said you were married.’

Shrewd eyes, behind heavy frames, peered at me.

‘None of the cuttings knew,’ said Adam.

‘Do you climb too?’ asked Joanna.

I laughed. ‘Not at all, not even stairs when there’s a lift available.’

‘It must be strange for you, waiting behind,’ she went on. ‘Worrying about him.’

‘I haven’t done the waiting yet,’ I said vaguely, moving off to put the kettle on. ‘And I have my own life,’ I added, wondering if that was a lie now.

I thought again about our honeymoon weekend in the Lake District. What had happened between us in that cabin – the violence he had done to me, with my permission – bothered me still. I tried not to think of it too much; it had become a dark zone in my mind. I had put myself into his hands and for a few moments, as I lay beneath him, I had thought he would kill me and I had still not struggled against him. Part of me was aghast at that, and part of me stirred.

As I stood by the kettle, half listening to the interview, I noticed a scrumpled-up sheet of paper with heavy black writing on it. I opened it up, knowing in advance what to expect. ‘I WON’T LET YOU REST,’ it said. They made my skin crawl, these letters. I didn’t know why we hadn’t gone to the police long ago. It was as if we had let ourselves become accustomed to them, so that their threats were like storm clouds in our life, which we simply took for granted. I looked up and saw that Adam was watching me, so I gave him a grin, tore the paper up into small shreds and dropped them disdainfully into the bin. He gave me a small nod of approval and turned his attention back to Joanna.

‘You were telling me about the last few hours.’ Joanna turned back to Adam. ‘Did you have any intimations of disaster?’

‘If you mean, did I think all those people would die up there, no, of course not.’

‘So when did you realize it was all going wrong?’

‘When it all went wrong. Can I have that whisky, Alice?’

Joanna looked down at her notebook and tried another tack. ‘What about the fixed ropes?’ she asked. ‘From what I understand, Greg McLaughlin and other expedition leaders fixed the different-coloured ropes that led up the ridge to the summit. But at some point the last bit of rope became untied, which might have made all the difference to the climbers.’

Adam stared at her. I brought him over a large shot of whisky. ‘Do you want some, Joanna?’ I said. She shook her head and went on waiting for Adam’s response. I poured myself a slug and downed it.

‘How do you think it happened?’

‘How the fuck do I know?’ he said eventually. ‘It was freezing cold. There was a storm. Everyone was out of it. Nothing functioned any more, nobody. I don’t know what happened to the rope, nor does anyone else. Now, you want blame, don’t you?’ He slurped some whisky back. ‘You want to write a nice, neat story saying so-and-so led a group of people to their death. Well, lady, it ain’t like that up in the death zone. No one’s a hero and no one’s a villain. We’re all just people stuck up a mountain with our brain cells cascading away.’

‘The book implies that you were a hero,’ said Joanna, quite unperturbed by his outburst. Adam said nothing. ‘And,’ she went on, carefully, ‘it also half implies that the leader of the expedition must bear some responsibility. Greg.’

‘Can you get me another, Alice?’ Adam held out his glass. When I took it from him I bent down and kissed him. I wondered at what point I should tell Joanna to go.

‘I gather that Greg is now in a bad condition. Is that guilt, do you think?’

Once again, Adam said nothing. He closed his eyes briefly, and tipped his head back. He looked very weary.

She tried again. ‘Do you think the trip was an unnecessary risk?’

‘Obviously. People died.’

‘Do you regret the way that the mountains have been commercialized?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yet you are part of that.’

‘Yes.’

‘One of the people who died,’ Joanna said, ‘was very close to you. An ex-girlfriend, I think.’

He nodded.

‘Were you badly affected by not being able to save her?’

I took the second whisky over and Adam put his arm around my waist as I leaned towards him.

‘Don’t go,’ he said, as if he was talking about our whole relationship. I sat on the arm of his chair, and rested my hand on his tangled hair. He stared assessingly at Joanna for a moment. ‘What the fuck do you think?’ he answered at last. He stood up. ‘I think that’s enough, don’t you?’

Joanna didn’t move, except to check that the spools of the taperecorder were still turning.

‘Have you got over it?’ she asked. I leaned over and turned off her taperecorder and she looked up at me. Our eyes met and she nodded at me, approvingly, I thought.

‘Got over.’ His tone was withering. Then he said, in an altogether different tone, ‘Shall I tell you my secret, Joanna?’

‘I’d be delighted.’

I’d bet she would.

‘I’ve got Alice,’ he said. ‘Alice will save me.’ And he gave a rather cracked laugh.

Now Joanna did stand up.

‘One last question,’ she said, as she put on her coat. ‘Will you go on climbing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m a climber. That’s who I am.’ His voice was slightly blurred with the whisky. ‘I love Alice and I climb mountains.’ He leaned against me. ‘That is where I find grace.’

‘I’m pregnant,’ said Pauline. We were walking in St James’s Park, arm in arm but awkward together still. It had been her idea to meet, and I had been half unwilling. All my old life seemed far off, almost unreal, as if it had happened to someone different. In that life, I had loved Pauline and depended on her; in this life, I had no room for such an intense friendship. I realized, walking to meet Pauline on that frosty Saturday afternoon in March, that I had put our friendship by for a rainy day. I assumed that I would be able to return to it, but not just yet. We had walked through the park together until it started to get dark, gingerly feeling our way round subjects where once we had been able to say more or less anything to each other. ‘How’s Jake?’ I had asked, and she, wincing slightly, had said he was all right.

‘How’s your new life?’ she’d said, not really wanting to know, and I hadn’t really told her.

Now I stopped and took her thin shoulders. ‘That is wonderful news,’ I said. ‘How pregnant?’

‘Eight or nine weeks. Enough to feel sick most of the time.’

‘I’m very happy for you, Pauline,’ I said. ‘Thanks for telling me.’

‘Of course I told you,’ she replied formally. ‘You’re my friend.’

We came to the road. ‘I go this way,’ I said. ‘I’m meeting Adam just up there.’

We kissed each other on both cheeks, relieved, and I turned away, into the unlit street. As I did so a tall young man stepped in front of me and, before I had time to register much except his dead white face and his garish mop of ginger hair, yanked my bag off my shoulder.

‘Oil’ I yelled, and lunged at him as he ducked away from me. I got hold of the bag, although there was almost nothing in it of any value, and pulled it from him. He whipped round to face me. There was a spider-web tattoo on his left cheek, and a line round his throat read ‘CUT HERE’. I kicked at his shin but missed, so I kicked again. There, that must have hurt.

‘Leggo, you cunt,’ he snarled at me. The straps of my bag cut into my fingers then slipped from me. ‘You stupid fucking cunt.’ He lifted his hand and struck me across the face, and I staggered and put a hand up to my cheek. Blood was running down my neck. His mouth was open and I saw that his tongue was fat and purple. He lifted his hand again. Oh, God, he was a madman. I remember thinking that he must be the man who was sending us those notes; our stalker. Then I closed my eyes: better get it over with. No blow came.

I opened them again and saw, as if in a dream, that he had a knife in his hand. It was not pointed towards me, but at Adam. Then I saw Adam slamming his fist into the man’s face. He cried out in pain, and dropped the knife. Adam hit him again, a cracking blow into his neck. Then into his stomach. The tattooed man was buckled over; blood was streaming down from his left eye. I saw Adam’s face: it was stony, quite without expression. He hit the man again and stepped back to let him fall to the ground, where he lay at my feet, whimpering and holding on to his stomach.

‘Stop!’ I gasped. A small crowd had gathered. Pauline was there; her mouth was an O of horror.

Adam kicked him in the stomach.

‘Adam.’ I grabbed hold of his arm and clung on. ‘For Chrissakes, stop, will you? That’s enough.’

Adam looked down at the body writhing on the pavement. ‘Alice wants me to stop,’ he said. ‘So that’s why I am stopping. Otherwise I’d murder you for daring to touch her.’ He picked up my bag from the ground, and then turned to me and took my face in both his hands. ‘You’re bleeding,’ he said. He licked some of the blood away. ‘Darling Alice, he made you bleed.’

I saw dimly that people were gathering, talking, asking each other what had happened. Adam held me. ‘Does it hurt much? Are you all right? Look at your beautiful face.’

‘Yes. Yes, I don’t know. I think so. Is he all right? What’s he… ?’

I looked at the man on the ground. He was moving, but not much. Adam paid no attention. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, licked it and started to wipe the cut on my cheek. A siren wailed close by us and over Adam’s shoulder I could see a police car followed by an ambulance.

‘Nice one, mate.’ A hefty man in a long overcoat came up and held out his hand to grip Adam’s. ‘Put it there.’ I looked at them, appalled, as they shook hands. This was a nightmare, a farce.

‘Alice, are you all right?’ It was Pauline.

‘I’m all right.’

Policemen were here now. There was a car. It was an official incident, which somehow made it seem manageable. They leaned over the man and pulled him to his feet. He was led away out of my sight.

Adam took off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders. He smoothed back my hair.

‘I’m going to get us a cab,’ he said. ‘The police can wait. Don’t move.’ He turned to Pauline. ‘Look after her,’ he said, and sprinted off.

‘He could have killed him,’ I said to Pauline.

She looked at me oddly. ‘He really adores you, doesn’t he?’ she said.

‘But if he had…’

‘He saved you, Alice.’

The next day the journalist, Joanna, rang up again. She had read about the fight in the evening paper and it was going to make all the difference to her interview, all the difference. She just wanted both of us to comment about it.

‘Piss off,’ said Adam mildly, and handed me the phone.

‘How does it feel,’ she asked me, ‘to be married to a man like Adam?’

‘What kind of man is that?’

‘A hero,’ she said.

‘Great,’ I said, but I wasn’t exactly sure how it felt.

We lay opposite each other in the half-dark. My cheek stung. My heart was hammering. Would I never get used to him?

‘Why are you scared?’

‘Please touch me.’

The orange street lamps were shining in through the bedroom window’s thin curtains. I could see his face, his beautiful face. I wanted him to hold me so hard and so close that I would disappear into him.

‘Tell me first why you are scared.’

‘Scared of losing you. There, put your hand there.’

‘Turn over, like that. Everything will be fine. I will never leave you and you will never leave me. Don’t close your eyes. Look.’

Later, we were hungry, for we hadn’t eaten that evening. I slid out of the high bed on to the cold floorboards, and put on Adam’s shirt. In the fridge I found some Parma ham, some ancient button mushrooms and a small wedge of hard cheese. I fed Sherpa, who was twisting his small body round my bare legs, and then I made us a giant sandwich with some slightly stale, thin Italian bread. There was a bottle of red wine in our inadequate box of groceries by the door, which I opened. We ate in bed, propped up on pillows and scattering crumbs.

‘The thing is,’ I said, between bites, ‘I’m not used to people behaving like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Beating someone up for me.’

‘He was hitting you.’

‘I thought you were going to kill him.’

He poured me another glass of wine. ‘I was angry.’

‘You don’t say. He had a knife, Adam, didn’t you consider that?’

‘No.’ He frowned. ‘Would you prefer me to be the kind of person who asked him politely to stop? Or ran to get the police?’

‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’

I sighed and settled back against the pillows, drowsy with sex and wine. ‘Will you tell me something?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Did something happen in the mountains… ? I mean, are you protecting someone?’

Adam didn’t seem startled by my question, or cross about it. He didn’t even look round. ‘Of course I am,’ he said.

‘Will you ever tell me about it?’

‘Nobody needs to know,’ he said.