The Suspect

12

The school is beautiful: solid, Georgian and covered with wisteria. The crushed-quartz driveway begins to curve as it passes through the gates and finishes at a set of wide stone steps. The parking area looks like a salesroom for Range Rovers and Mercedes. I park my Metro around the corner on the street.

Charlie’s school is having its annual fund-raising dinner and auction. The assembly hall has been decked out with black-and-white balloons and the caterers have set up a marquee on the tennis courts.

The invitation said “formal casual,” but most of the mothers are wearing evening gowns because they don’t get out very much. They are congregated around a minor TV celebrity who is sporting a sun-bed tan and perfect teeth. That’s what happens when you send your child to an expensive private school. You rub shoulders with diplomats, game-show hosts and drug barons.

I join the men congregated at the bar. Bottles of wine and beer are buried in tubs of ice and various spirits and mixers are set out on trays.

This is our first night out in weeks but instead of feeling relaxed I’m on edge. I keep thinking about Ruiz. He doesn’t believe my excuses and explanations. Julianne also thinks I’m hiding something. Why else would she ask Jock if I was having an affair? When is she going to say something?

Ever since the diagnosis I have descended into dark moods and withdrawn from people. Maybe I’m feeling guilty. More likely it’s regret. This is my way of disinfecting those around me. I am losing my body bit by bit. Slowly it is abandoning me. One part of me thinks this is OK. I’ll be fine as long as I have my mind. I can live in the space between my ears. But another part is already longing for what I haven’t yet lost.

So here I am— not so much at a crossroads as at a cul-de-sac. I have a wife who fills me with pride and a daughter who makes me cry when I watch her sleeping. I am forty-two years old and I have just started to understand how to combine intuition with learning and do my job properly. Half my life lies ahead of me— the best half. Unfortunately, my mind is willing but my body isn’t able— or soon won’t be. It is deserting me by increments. That is the only certainty that remains.

The fund-raising auction takes too long. They always do. The master of ceremonies is a professional auctioneer with an actor’s voice that cuts through the chatter and small talk. Each class has created two artworks— mostly brightly colored collages of individual drawings. Charlie’s class made a circus and a beachscape with colored bathing huts, rainbow umbrellas and ice-cream stalls.

“That would look great in the kitchen,” says Julianne, putting her arm through mine.

“How much is the plumbing going to cost us?”

She ignores me. “Charlie drew the whale.”

Looking carefully I notice a gray lump on the horizon. Drawing isn’t one of her strong suits, but I know she loves whales.

Auctions bring out the best and worst in people. And the only bidder more committed than a couple with an only child is a besotted and cashed-up grandparent.

I get to make one bid for the beach scene at £65. When the hammer comes down, to polite applause, it has made £700. The successful bid is by phone. You’d think this was bloody Sotheby’s.

We arrive home after midnight. The babysitter has forgotten to turn on the front porch light. In the darkness I trip over a stack of copper pipes and fall up the steps, bruising my knee.

“D.J. asked if he could leave them there,” apologizes Julianne. “Don’t worry about your trousers. I’ll soak them.”

“What about my knee?”

“You’ll live.”

We both check on Charlie. Soft animals surround her bed, facing outward like sentries guarding a fort. She sleeps on her side with her thumb hovering near her lips.

As I brush my teeth, Julianne stands beside me at the vanity taking off her makeup. She is watching me in the mirror.

“Are you having an affair?”

The question is delivered so casually, it catches me by surprise. I try to pretend I haven’t heard her, but it’s too late. I’ve stopped brushing. The pause has betrayed me.

“Why?”

She’s wiping mascara from her eyes. “Lately I’ve had the feeling that you’re not really here.”

“I’ve been preoccupied.”

“You still want to be here, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

She hasn’t taken her eyes off me in the mirror. I look away, rinsing my toothbrush in the sink.

“We don’t talk anymore,” she says.

I know what’s coming. I don’t want to go in this direction. This is where she gives me chapter and verse about my inability to communicate. She thinks that because I’m a psychologist I should be able to talk through my feelings and analyze what’s going on. Why? I spend all day inside other people’s heads. When I get home the hardest thing I want to think about is helping Charlie with her multiplication tables.

Julianne is different. She’s a talker. She shares everything and works things through. It’s not that I’m scared of showing my feelings. I’m scared of not being able to stop.

I try to head her off at the pass. “When you’ve been married as long as we have you don’t need to talk as much,” I say feebly. “We can read each other’s minds.”

“Is that so. What am I thinking now?”

I pretend I don’t hear her. “We’re comfortable with each other. It’s called familiarity.”

“Which breeds contempt.”

“No!”

She puts her arms around me, running her hands down my chest and locking them together at my waist.

“What is the point of sharing your life with someone if you can’t communicate with them about the things that matter?” Her head is resting against my back. “That’s what married couples do. It’s perfectly normal. I know you’re hurting. I know you’re scared. I know you’re worried about what’s going to happen when the disease gets worse… about Charlie and me… but you can’t stand between us and the world, Joe. You can’t protect us from something like this.”

My mouth is dry and I feel the beginnings of a hangover. This isn’t an argument— it’s a matter of perception. I know that if I don’t answer, Julianne will fill the vacuum.

“What are you so frightened of? You’re not dying.”

“I know.”

“Of course it’s unfair. You don’t deserve this. But look at what you have— a lovely home, a career, a wife who loves you and a daughter who worships the ground you walk on. If that can’t outweigh any other problems then we’re all in trouble.”

“I don’t want anything to change.” I hate how vulnerable I sound.

“Nothing has to change.”

“I see you watching me. Looking for the signs. A tremor here, a twitch there.”

“Does it hurt?” she asks suddenly.

“What?”

“When your leg locks up or your arm doesn’t swing.”

“No.”

“I didn’t know that.” She puts her fist in my hand and curls my fingers around it. Then she makes me turn so her eyes can fix on mine. “Does it embarrass you?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is there any special diet you should be on?”

“No.”

“What about exercise?”

“It can help according to Jock, but it won’t stop the disease.”

“I didn’t know,” she whispers. “You should have told me.” She leans even closer, pressing her lips to my ear. The droplets of water on her cheeks look like tears. I stroke her hair.

Hands brush down my chest. A zipper undone; her fingers softly caressing; the taste of her tongue; her breath inside my lungs…

Afterward, as we lie in bed, I watch her breasts tremble with her heartbeat. It is the first time we’ve made love in six years without checking the calendar first.

The phone rings. The glowing red digits say 04:30.

“Professor O’Loughlin?”

“Yes.”

“This is Charing Cross Hospital. I’m sorry to wake you.” The doctor sounds young. I can hear the tiredness in his voice. “Do you have a patient named Bobby Moran?”

“Yes.”

“The police found him lying on the walkway across Hammersmith Bridge. He’s asking for you.”

Julianne rolls over and nestles her face into my pillow, pulling the bedclothes around her. “What’s wrong?” she asks sleepily.

“Problem with a patient.” I pull a sweatshirt over my T-shirt and go looking for my jeans.

“You’re not going in are you?”

“Just for a little while.”