My Sister's Bones(94)

A polite silence descends upon the cafe, broken only by the high-pitched chatter of the children at the table behind us.

But I’m angry now and I want to unsettle him, want him to feel the pain that is invading every inch of my body.

‘Your wife,’ I say, raising my voice slightly. ‘She’s not at all how I imagined. But, hey, you were always full of surprises.’

He puts his head in his hands and I turn away. This is pathetic. I’m being pathetic. But I can’t stop myself.

‘I needed you,’ he says. ‘Not once did I lie. You knew from the beginning that I was married.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And you said that you didn’t want commitment,’ he continues. ‘What with your father and everything, the idea of marriage repulsed you. You told me that when we first met, before anything had happened.’

‘And you said your wife repulsed you, if I remember correctly,’ I say, my voice catching.

His shoulders sag.

‘I love you, Kate,’ he says.

Big fat tears well in my eyes. Why won’t he just stop?

‘I love you so much it scares me. But we could never work. We’ve seen the same horrors; we have the same nightmares. I read what your cameraman, Graham, said in the paper about that child in Aleppo and I knew what you’d gone through because I’ve hauled bodies like his from shallow graves, sometimes up to ten of them a day. I’ve cradled them in my arms and they looked just like my children sleeping.’

His face is puffy with tears and I can’t help but lean across and wipe his cheek gently. He catches my wrist and kisses it.

‘When I close my eyes at night I see those dead children,’ he says. ‘There’s a darkness that sits up here and won’t go away.’ He taps his forehead with my hand. ‘That’s why I need Helen. I need her because she has no idea what I’ve seen. I can go home and forget everything. I can wash away the smells and replace the images. The house, the girls, Helen, they’re untainted.’

‘And I’m damaged goods,’ I say, releasing my hand from his grasp.

‘No, Kate,’ he says. ‘You are beautiful and clever and brave, the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. And if this world was good and just, well, who knows what would have happened.’

‘Happy ever after,’ I say ruefully. ‘You know that doesn’t exist, Chris, and it wasn’t what I was looking for.’

‘Then what was it?’ He leans forward and stares at me. ‘What made you stay with me all those years?’

‘While I was with you the nightmares stopped,’ I say. I meet his gaze for a moment then turn and look out of the window.

Another ambulance has pulled into the car park and as it sits waiting to dispatch its patient I feel the engine vibrate beneath my feet. I can sense that Chris wants to continue the conversation but I am tired, tired of trying to resurrect something that had no right to live in the first place.

I press closer to the glass and as the landscape fragments into a series of dots I see my past flickering in front of me. I see my father standing on the doorstep, his arms folded, a broken man in a broken house; I see my mother running towards the waves; David’s face as we collected pink seashells; Hannah wriggling in her plastic cot. I see Nidal’s football lying in the street and Sally’s smile as she closed her eyes. The cafe is full of ghosts and as Chris holds my hand I close my eyes and try to brush them all away but they remain lodged inside my brain like tumours feeding off each other.

I look at Chris and I can see in his face that we have said all that needs to be said. This is it; the end of the line.

Silently we stand up and make our way out of the cafe, through the labyrinthine corridors and out into the vast concrete car park.

As the air hits my face, my muscles contract with exhaustion. A cab toots its horn and a group of hospital workers bustle past as we stand inertly on the kerb, neither wanting to be the first to say goodbye.

‘You’re right,’ he says finally. ‘Happy ever after doesn’t exist. But we can try, Kate, we can hope. Because at the end of it all surely it’s not wishful thinking to dream of a happy life?’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ I tell him, thinking of Hannah and David and the long journey ahead. ‘I couldn’t do my job if I didn’t believe that. As long as I can believe that human beings can love as well as hate, then I can go on living.’

‘And the nightmares?’ He looks at me pleadingly, as if he is hanging from a precipice and I am his only hope of salvation. ‘Do we just live with them too?’

‘I’m going to work on it,’ I tell him. ‘Maybe go and see a therapist, I don’t know.’

‘Well, if it works, give them my number, eh?’

I smile. Here we are, two shattered people standing on the threshold of a new life, both reticent to take the first step.

‘So,’ I say. ‘Where are you headed?’

‘I . . . I’m not sure,’ he says. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Me? I’m going to go back in there and find my family,’ I tell him. ‘And I think you should too. Go home, Chris.’

He nods his head and frowns. ‘And then what?’

‘Then who knows?’

‘Yes,’ says Chris. ‘Look, I’m going to get a cab and let you . . .’