‘I’m sorry about it all,’ I said inadequately.
‘I’ve been staying at my mum’s for a bit, but it was awful. I couldn’t tell her anything – I didn’t know how. And then the police called me up and I had to go back to be interviewed again. Oh, God, Bonnie, it was horrible.’
‘Horrible how?’
‘The way they talked to me, asked questions. I told them everything.’
‘About you and Hayden?’
‘I had to. They were behaving as if they knew anyway, and I suddenly thought how petty and unfeeling I was being, worrying about my stupid little secret getting out, when someone has murdered him. So I told them everything – not that there was much to tell. And then they were really interested. They behaved as if I’d done it. And they asked about Richard, if he knew and how he’d reacted and was he the jealous type, and I think they’re going to interview him now. I know I did a terrible thing and deserve to be punished – but this feels as though the whole world is falling round my head. I slept with another man, but I’m not a monster because of it.’ She gave a violent sniff, and I put a hand on her shoulder.
‘It’s better it’s out in the open,’ I said. ‘Secrets are dangerous.’
‘They think I did it.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘Or Richard.’
‘No – they’re just following up all leads.’
‘Oh, Bonnie, I don’t know what I’d do without you to talk to.’
‘If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have met Hayden and then none of this would have happened.’
‘Something would have, though. I couldn’t have gone on the way I was.’
‘How are things with Richard now?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, sometimes he’s very sweet to me and sometimes it’s as if he can’t bring himself to even look at me. As if I’m carrying some terrible disease.’
I nodded.
‘Sometimes he cries. Not in front of me, though. In the bathroom, when he thinks I can’t hear.’
‘Things will get better.’
‘Do you think so?’ She shivered and kissed the top of Lola’s head.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Nor do I.’ She rubbed the back of one hand against her forehead. ‘He seems a bit mad sometimes.’
‘Mad?’ Unease settled on me.
‘Wildly unpredictable, at least.’ She looked down at Lola. ‘You know the only good thing to come out of this?’
‘What?’
‘How I feel about her. I never get impatient with her any more. I just want to be with her and never let go of her. How could I have threatened all of that?’
‘These things happen,’ I said uselessly. ‘They take us unaware.’
Before
Even when you’ve split up with someone, it takes quite a long time for them to give up the rights they used to have over you. Except that in the case of Amos I strongly believed that he ought to give them all up immediately, especially the right to come to my flat unannounced and walk in as if we were still living together.
‘Is this something urgent?’ I said. ‘Because I was just about to go out.’
‘Where?’ he said.
‘You see, that’s the sort of thing you don’t get to ask any more,’ I said, ‘due to us not being together.’
Amos took a piece of paper out of the pocket of his jeans and unfolded it. ‘I’m not blaming you for this,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Disentangling possessions after two people have been living together is always a complicated business.’
‘We did this already, remember?’ I said. ‘It’s done.’
‘It’s just a few loose ends,’ he said. ‘I’ve been jotting them down as I’ve thought of them.’
‘Are you saying I took things I wasn’t entitled to?’
‘No, no, no,’ he said, as if he was trying to calm an over-exuberant puppy. ‘It’s just that we did it so quickly.’
‘What we need is to draw a line,’ I said.
He looked at the piece of paper. ‘The one-volume Shakespeare,’ he said. ‘I got it as a prize when I was in the sixth form. You couldn’t have taken that by mistake, could you?’
‘No, I couldn’t,’ I said, ‘due to it having a big label inside it with your name on, which you kept showing me and telling me about how you won it.’
‘Did you take my Steely Dan boxed set?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ I said. ‘Due to me being a woman.’
Amos looked hurt. ‘Is that one of those things women don’t like?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Oh, well, I may have lent it to someone.’ He went back to the list. ‘There was a small etching.’
‘What of?’
‘I can’t really remember. It had gone very faint. I think it had a windmill in it and a horse or a donkey. An aunt gave it to me.’
‘I don’t remember that at all.’
‘I had a blue bowl that my mother gave me. I didn’t think much of it but apparently it’s made by someone famous.’
I was going to say no again and then I felt a jolt. An uneasy jolt. I had an internal flashback of me putting the bowl into a cardboard box. I’d never thought of Amos as the sort of person who would own a decorative bowl. Or perhaps because I had been the only person who had ever got the bowl out of the cupboard and put fruit into it I had assumed that it must have been mine. Unfortunately, the first flashback was followed by a second flashback in which, with great clarity, I saw myself throwing the box onto a skip.
‘I haven’t got that,’ I said, quite truthfully.
‘It’ll probably turn up,’ said Amos. ‘Sonia’s got this thing about bowls of fruit. She keeps bringing apples and pears and oranges and then there’s nowhere suitable to put them. I must say that, for me, fruit should go in the fridge, if you buy it at all. Why put it on the table?’
‘Is there anything else?’ I asked, keen to move on.
‘Those green towels. Were they really yours?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Do you know?’ I said. ‘I’m really not sure whether they’re mine or yours. I thought we’d sorted it out, but if you want them, take them. One’s hanging over the bath, so you’ll probably need to wash it before you use it.’
‘And you checked inside the books you took away? Mostly I write my name in mine.’
‘Which is why I checked,’ I said. ‘But if there are any you want, you can take them back.’ I thought with a pang of guilt about the bowl. ‘In fact, if there’s any object at all that you want, take it, but take it
now
. We’ve got to draw a line – we’ve got to have, you know, like that thing where you can’t prosecute Nazi war criminals any more.’
‘A statute of limitation.’
‘That’s right. We had this strange time where we shared our things and we owned things together but it’s over.’
Amos folded up his piece of paper and put it back in his pocket. ‘You can keep the towels,’ he said. ‘They’ve gone a bit rough anyway.’
‘Is that it?’ I said. ‘You came all the way over here about towels you don’t want?’
‘And the Steely Dan boxed set. You’re really sure you haven’t got that?’
‘Is anything up?’ I asked.
Amos didn’t seem to be paying attention. He wandered around the room, inspecting the half-painted walls, the books in boxes, the general air of neglect and abandonment. ‘You want to get someone in to do this.’
‘I was planning to do most of it myself. That’s why I didn’t go away this summer.’
‘It looks as if you’re behind schedule.’
‘I think I may have taken on a bit too much,’ I admitted.
‘What happened to us?’ he said.
‘Amos…’
‘When I look at this mess here, you trying to make a home for yourself, and me with my stupid piece of paper and us arguing over who bought which paperback book…’
‘We didn’t really argue. We bickered.’
‘I can’t believe we started there and ended up here. Do you remember the early days? That time we had the plan to cycle along the canal towpath until we reached the countryside but we didn’t make it and came back on the train? That was when even the things that didn’t work out seemed somehow fine, and then we got to a stage where something was wrong even with the things that
did
work out. How did we get there – here?’
I’d known almost from the start that this visit wasn’t just about a few things he thought I’d taken. ‘We’ve been through all of this,’ I said. ‘Over and over again. We’ve moved on now. You’re with Sonia. She’s a special woman.’
He smiled. ‘In a way that you’re not?’
‘I can quite honestly say that Sonia is special in many ways that I’m not. I should also say that this is exactly the sort of conversation that you and I don’t have any more.’
Amos frowned and there was a pause.
‘It’s not working out,’ he said finally.
‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘I had no idea.’
‘What?’ said Amos, puzzled. ‘No, I don’t mean Sonia and me. That’s fine. Whether it’s a serious thing, whether it’ll last, I don’t know.’
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Don’t talk to me about that. I don’t want to hear. You’ve no right.’
‘Who else have I got to talk to?’
‘Not me,’ I said. ‘Anyone but me.’
He was affronted by that. Did he want to have Sonia and somehow hold on to me as well?
‘Anyway, I didn’t mean that. I meant the music, the performance.’
‘What’s your problem?’
‘
My
problem?’ he said, with a sarcastic laugh. ‘I just feel it’s my responsibility to point out that things are not going well.’
‘Have you been sent?’ I said. ‘Is that it?’
‘Of course they haven’t sent me,’ said Amos. ‘This isn’t the mutiny on the fucking
Bounty
. I just thought I should point out some salient truths to you. I mean, what a fucking collection you’ve brought together. I admit that Joakim’s a nice kid, although I can’t work out whether he’s got a bigger crush on you or on Hayden. You haven’t done him any favours by throwing him into this lion’s den. But his dad’s a complete pain in the arse.’
‘He’s out of his milieu.’
‘I don’t even know what he’s doing in the group apart from spying on his son and then not turning up when he feels like doing something else, though he’s pretty pompous about other people doing the same. Neal’s Neal, I suppose, and I’m not sure what he’s doing there either, unless your point was to surround yourself with admirers.’
‘Fuck off, Amos.’ He laughed. ‘No, really, I mean it. What’s this about? You were the one who wanted to be part of it.’
‘And what you thought you were up to letting Hayden loose on everybody, I just don’t know.’
‘So you don’t like him? Big deal. Get over it. You only need to see him a couple more times.’
‘I can’t understand what you thought you were up to bringing him in. If ever in my life I’ve met someone who was trouble, it’s him.’
‘I didn’t exactly bring him in. He offered to help out and thank God he did. He’s a real musician.’
‘He’s a real something,’ said Amos. ‘And I’m not really sure that I do dislike him. Which is pretty incredible of me, because I’ve never in my entire life met anyone who treated me the way he does. The only comfort is that he treats other people even worse. At least he doesn’t play around with me. In fact, if it was just me I’d find it quite interesting watching him at work fucking with people’s heads.’
‘Which is not what he’s doing.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Amos said. ‘Am I venturing onto delicate ground?’
‘If what you’re saying is that you want to drop out, then I can’t stop you.’
‘What I’m saying is that in my opinion either Hayden goes or it’s time to call a halt to this. It’s only a wedding. There are other dance bands in the phone book. I think we’d make a better contribution if we clubbed together and bought them a set of wine glasses.’
I didn’t immediately retort angrily, which I was tempted to do, because a part of me had been thinking the same thing. I’d embarked on this because I’d thought it would be easy and wouldn’t take much time. I’d been wrong on both counts.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s too late. It’s like when you taught me to play poker – you know, when you’ve put all your money in the pot and you have to stay in just to see how the hand turns out. Do you understand what I mean?’
Amos just shook his head. ‘I think I’ve realized for the first time why things didn’t work out with us. I wasn’t good enough at music and you weren’t good enough at poker.’
After
What I used to do at times like this was lose myself in music, in a place where there were no words, no ideas, no having to be clever. Now music was no longer there for me in that way. It was like a drug that had stopped working. The feel of a guitar or a keyboard wasn’t an escape but a sharp reminder of things that had gone terribly wrong.
In normal times, or at least in normally abnormal times, I would have gone out to see friends. But I knew they would want to ask about him, to get my side of the story, to pump me for memories, to share in some of the celebrity of knowing someone who knew a murder victim. I was tormented by the feeling that it would take just one slip, one wrong note, one misjudged response to raise suspicions and everything would unravel. I imagined saying something to someone and they would respond, ‘But I thought you said…’ or ‘But how could…’ or ‘But doesn’t that mean that…’ or ‘But weren’t you…’ There was one truth hidden by an infinity of lies.
Sally rang and told me she and Richard were going away together to try to sort things out. She kept crying so I could hardly hear what she was saying, but I did gather she had been with the police again, and so had Richard. I kept receiving emails and texts from friends. Had I heard about that band he’d been in? Who could have done it? They helpfully sent me links to footage on the Internet of appearances he’d made at festivals in Germany, Holland, Suffolk. There was a Wikipedia entry on him. It said that his career had been promising, that back in the nineties he had been talked of as a major young talent, but that from the beginning he had been a maverick with a self-destructive streak and that in the end his career hadn’t come to much. That was me. I was part of what his career hadn’t come to.