Nutshell(37)

She reaches up to a cupboard for the tin of ground coffee and the filter papers, runs the cold-water tap, fills a jug, fetches a spoon. Most of the cups are clean. She sets out two. There’s pathos in this familiar routine, in the sounds of homely objects touching surfaces. And in the little sigh she makes when she turns or slightly bends our unwieldy form. It’s already clear to me how much of life is forgotten even as it happens. Most of it. The unregarded present spooling away from us, the soft tumble of unremarkable thoughts, the long-neglected miracle of existence. When she’s no longer twenty-eight and pregnant and beautiful, or even free, she won’t remember the way she set down the spoon and the sound it made on slate, the frock she wore today, the touch of her sandal’s thong between her toes, the summer’s warmth, the white noise of the city beyond the house walls, a short burst of birdsong by a closed window. All gone, already.

But today is special. If she forgets the present it’s because her heart is in the future, the one that’s closing in. She’s thinking of the lies she’ll have to tell, how they need to cohere, and be consistent with Claude’s. This is pressure, this is the feeling she used to have before an exam. A little chill in the gut, some weakness below the knees, a tendency to yawn. She must remember her lines. Cost of failure being higher, more interesting than any routine school test. She could try an old assurance from childhood – no one will actually die. That won’t do. I feel for her. I love her.

Now I’m feeling protective. I can’t quite dispel the worthless notion that the very beautiful should live by other codes. For such a face as I’ve imagined for her there should be special respect. Prison for her would be an outrage. Against nature. There’s already nostalgia in this domestic moment. It’s a treasure, a gem for the memory store. I’ve got her to myself, here in the ordered kitchen, in sunshine and peace, while Claude sleeps away the morning. We should be close, she and I, closer than lovers. There’s something we should be whispering to each other.

Perhaps it’s goodbye.





EIGHTEEN


IN THE EARLY afternoon the phone rings and the future introduces herself. Chief Inspector Clare Allison, now attached to the case. The voice sounds friendly, no hint of accusation. That may be a bad sign.

We’re in the kitchen again, Claude has the phone. His first coffee of the day is in his other hand. Trudy stands close and we hear both sides. Case? The word packs a threat. Chief inspector? Also unhelpful.

I gauge my uncle’s anxiety by his zeal to accommodate. ‘Oh yes. Yes! Of course. Please do.’

Chief Inspector Allison intends to visit us. Normal practice would be for both to come to the station for a chat. Or to make statements, if appropriate. However, due to Trudy’s advanced condition, the family’s grief, the chief inspector and a sergeant will come by within the hour. She’d like to take a look at the site of the deceased’s last contacts.

This last, innocent and reasonable to my ears, puts Claude into a frenzy of welcome. ‘Please come. Marvellous. Do. Take us as you find us. Can’t wait. You’ll—’

She hangs up. He turns towards us, probably ashen, and says in a tone of disappointment, ‘Ah.’

Trudy can’t resist mimicry. ‘All … fine, is it?’

‘What’s this case? It’s not a criminal matter.’ He appeals to an imaginary audience, a council of elders. A jury.

‘I hate it,’ my mother murmurs, more to herself. Or to me, I’d like to believe. ‘I hate it, I hate it.’

‘This is supposed to be for the coroner.’ Claude walks away from us, aggrieved, takes a turn around the kitchen and comes back to us, outraged. Now his complaint is to Trudy. ‘This is not a police matter.’

‘Oh really?’ she says. ‘Better phone the inspector and put her straight.’

‘That poet woman. I knew we couldn’t trust her.’

We understand that somehow Elodie is my mother’s charge, that this is an accusation.

‘You fancied her.’

‘You said she’d be useful.’

‘You fancied her.’

But the deadpan reiteration doesn’t needle him.

‘Who wouldn’t? Who cares?’

‘I do.’

I ask myself once more what I gain by their falling out. It could bring them down. Then I’ll keep Trudy. I’ve heard her say that in prison nursing mothers have a better life. But I’ll lose my birthright, the dream of all humanity, my freedom. Whereas together, as a team, they might scrape through. Then give me away. No mother, but I’ll be free. So which? I’ve been round this before, always returning to the same hallowed place, the only principled decision. I’ll risk material comfort and take my chances in the wider world. I’ve been confined too long. My vote’s for liberty. The murderers must escape. This is a good moment then, before the Elodie argument goes too far, for me to give my mother another kick, distract her from squabbling with the interesting fact of my existence. Not once, not twice, but the magic number of all the best old stories. Three times, like Peter’s denial of Jesus.

‘Oh, oh, oh!’ She almost sings it. Claude pulls out a chair for her and brings a glass of water.

‘You’re sweating.’

‘Well I’m hot.’

He tries the windows. They haven’t budged in years. He looks in the fridge for ice. The trays are empty in the recent cause of three rounds of gin and tonics. So he sits across from her and extends his cooling sympathies.