His & Hers(18)

I think it’s the same for everyone, but as a species we are preprogrammed to pretend to be happy when we think we should be. It is expected of us.

You buy the car you always wanted, but in a couple of years you want a new one. You buy the house of your dreams, but then decide that your dreams weren’t big enough. You marry the woman you love, but then you forget why. You have a baby because that’s next on your list of things to do. It’s what everybody else does, so maybe it will fix the thing that you’ve been pretending wasn’t broken. Maybe a child will make you happy.

And she did for a while, our daughter.

We were a family and it felt different. Loving her seemed to remind us how to love each other. We had somehow made the most beautiful living thing that my eyes had ever seen, and I would often stare in wonder at our baby, amazed that two imperfect people could somehow produce such a perfect child. Our little girl saved us from ourselves for a short while, but then she was gone.

We lost a daughter and I lost my wife.

The truth is that life broke us, and when we finally acknowledged that we didn’t know how to fix each other, we stopped trying.



* * *



“The body has been moved, sir,” says Priya.

I don’t know how long I have been standing outside the tent in a world of my own. Even if nobody else finds out about last night, I can’t help worrying that Anna somehow knows something. She could always see through my lies.

We both ran away from what happened. She hid inside her work, and I came back here—to a place where I knew she wouldn’t follow me—not because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t bear the way she looked at me anymore. Anna never actually blamed me for what happened, at least not out loud. But her eyes said all the things she didn’t. Full to the overflowing brim with hurt and hate.

“Sir?” says Priya.

“That’s good, well done.”

I had deliberately asked the team to move the body from the scene while I was giving the press conference. There are some things that should never be captured on camera.

Priya is still waiting beside me, I’m not sure what for. When I don’t speak, she does, and I find myself staring at her rather than listening. She always looks the same to me: ponytail, old-fashioned hair clips pinning any stray strands off her face, glasses, shiny lace-up shoes, and ironed blouses or whatever it’s called when a woman wears a shirt. She’s like a walking Marks & Spencer catalog; lamb dressed as mutton. Not like my ex-wife, who is always so stylish. Anna looks even better now than when we were together, unlike me.

I think maybe solitude suits her. She’s lost some weight, I notice, not that I ever minded. She was never big, even when she thought she was. She used to say that she was a size eleven—always somewhere between a ten and a twelve. Christ knows what she is now … an eight perhaps. Loneliness can shrink a person in more ways than one. Unless perhaps she isn’t lonely.

I always used to wonder about the cameramen Anna went on trips with. She was sometimes away for days at a time, staying in hotels, covering whatever story she had been deployed on as a correspondent. Her job always came first. Then what happened happened. Anna was broken; we both were. But when she got her lucky break and started presenting, things were better between us for a while. She worked more regular hours, and we spent more time together than we had before. But something was missing. Someone. We could never seem to fully find our way back to each other.

It was Anna who asked for the divorce. I didn’t feel like I had any right to argue. I knew she still blamed me for the death of our daughter, and that she always would.

“I don’t understand how she knew.”

“Sorry, sir?” Priya asks, and I realize that I said the words out loud without meaning to.

“The object inside the victim’s mouth. I don’t understand how Anna could have known about that.”

DS Patel’s eyes look even bigger than normal behind her tortoiseshell glasses, and I remember seeing her and Anna talking before the press conference.

“Please tell me that you didn’t tell a journalist something which I specifically told you not to?”

“I’m so sorry, sir,” she says, sounding like a child. “I didn’t mean to. It just sort of slipped out. It was as though she already knew.”

I don’t blame Priya, not really. Anna always found the right questions to ask in order to get the right answers. It still doesn’t explain why she is really here though.

I start walking back toward the parking lot. Priya practically runs beside me, trying to keep up. She’s still apologizing, but I’ve tuned out again. I’m too busy watching Anna talk to her cameraman, and I don’t like the way he looks at her. I know men like him; I used to be one. She climbs into the red Mini convertible she bought after the divorce—probably because she knew I’d hate it—and I’m surprised to see that it looks as if she is going to leave. I have never known her to give up easily on a story or anything else. Which makes me wonder where she is going.

I walk a little faster toward my own car.

“Are you okay?” DS Patel asks, still chasing after me.

“I’d be a lot better if other people did their jobs properly.”

“Sorry, boss.”

“For Christ’s sake, I’m not your bloody boss.”