THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2013
EVENING
I’m sitting on the sofa in his living room, a glass ofwine in my hand. The house is still a total mess. Iwonder, does he always live like this, like a teenageboy? And I think about how he lost his family whenhe was a teenager, so maybe he does. I feel sad forhim. He comes in from the kitchen and sits at myside, comfortably close. If I could, I would come hereevery day, just for an hour or two. I’d just sit hereand drink wine, feel his hand brush against mine.
But I can’t. There’s a point to this, and he wantsme to get to it.
“OK, Megan,” he says. “Do you feel ready now? Tofinish what you were telling me before?”
I lean back a little against him, against his warmbody. He lets me. I close my eyes, and it doesn’ttake me long to get back there, back to thebathroom. It’s weird, because I’ve spent so longtrying not to think about it, about those days, thosenights, but now I can close my eyes and it’s almostinstant, like falling asleep, right into the middle of adream.
It was dark and very cold. I wasn’t in the bath anylonger. “I don’t know exactly what happened. Iremember waking up, I remember knowing thatsomething was wrong, and then the next thing Iknow Mac was home. He was calling for me. I couldhear him downstairs, shouting my name, but Icouldn’t move. I was sitting on the floor in thebathroom, she was in my arms. The rain washammering down, the beams in the roof creaking. Iwas so cold. Mac came up the stairs, still calling outto me. He came to the doorway and turned on thelight.” I can feel it now, the light searing my retinas,everything stark and white, horrifying.
“I remember screaming at him to turn the light off.
I didn’t want to see, I didn’t want to look at her likethat. I don’t know—I don’t know what happenedthen. He was shouting at me, he was screaming inmy face. I gave her to him and ran. I ran out of thehouse into the rain, I ran to the beach. I don’tremember what happened after that. It was a longtime before he came for me. It was still raining. Iwas in the dunes, I think. I thought about going inthe water, but I was too scared. He came for meeventually. He took me home.
“We buried her in the morning. I wrapped her in asheet and Mac dug the grave. We put her down atthe edge of the property, near the disused railwayline. We put stones on top to mark it. We didn’t talkabout it, we didn’t talk about anything, we didn’t lookat each other. That night, Mac went out. He said hehad to meet someone. I thought maybe he wasgoing to go to the police. I didn’t know what to do. Ijust waited for him, for someone to come. He didn’tcome back. He never came back.”
I’m sitting in Kamal’s warm living room, his warmbody at my side, and I’m shivering. “I can still feelit,” I tell him. “At night, I can still feel it. It’s thething I dread, the thing that keeps me awake: thefeeling of being alone in that house. I was sofrightened—too frightened to go to sleep. I’d just walkaround those dark rooms and I’d hear her crying,I’d smell her skin. I saw things. I’d wake in the nightand be sure that there was someone else—somethingelse—in the house with me. I thought I was goingmad. I thought I was going to die. I thought thatmaybe I would just stay there, and that one daysomeone would find me. At least that way I wouldn’thave left her.”
I sniff, leaning forward to take a Kleenex from thebox on the table. Kamal’s hand runs down my spineto my lower back and rests there.
“But in the end I didn’t have the courage to stay. Ithink I waited about ten days, and then there wasnothing left to eat—not a tin of beans, nothing. Ipacked up my things and I left.”
“Did you see Mac again?”
“No, never. The last time I saw him was that night.
He didn’t kiss me or even say good-bye properly. Hejust said he had to go out for a bit.” I shrug. “Thatwas it.”
“Did you try to contact him?”
I shook my head. “No. I was too frightened, at first.
I didn’t know what he would do if I did get intouch. And I didn’t know where he was—he didn’teven have a mobile phone. I lost touch with thepeople who knew him. His friends were all kind ofnomadic. Hippies, travellers. A few months ago, afterwe talked about him, I Googled him. But I couldn’tfind him. It’s odd?.?.?.”
“What is?”
“In the early days, I used to see him all the time.
Like, in the street, or I’d see a man in a bar and beso sure it was him that my heart would start racing.
I used to hear his voice in crowds. But that stoppe............