moment of escape.
‘I was just telling Gabrielle about you and Kristin,’ says Bethany. She grins wide, like a gargoyle, revealing a blackened tongue. ‘But now you’re here, you can tell her yourself.’
When she electrocuted herself, why didn’t she just die?
Flushing fiercely, I glance sideways. He’s moving towards me, but when he sees the look on my face — a look I can’t hide — he stops in his tracks and his smile fades. Bethany sucks in her breath theatrically.
‘Ooh, she’s angry, Frazer, I’m warning you! You’d better protect your balls! Catch you later!’
Thrilled with herself, she snatches up her Haribos, runs across to the doorway, ducks under the physicist’s arm and out of the room.
Ned, silently sipping coffee on the sofa opposite me, seems absorbed in his own painful thoughts. The physicist and I look at one another. I see the green shard but I won’t let it pull me in. I long to be back in my wheelchair but if I transferred to it now, I’d reveal my weakness. Bethany is right. I am stuck.
‘Gabrielle,’ he says softly.
He comes forward — to do what, embrace me? Seeing me recoil, he hesitates, sighs and settles himself into the armchair next to my chaise-longue. He is too big and too close. I ache for him and hate myself for it.
‘We kept you in the dark to protect you.’ His voice is gentle but there’s a hint of defiance.
‘Like hell.’ And anyway, I think bleakly. It’s not about that.
‘It’s true,’ says Ned, topping up my coffee. I breathe in sharply and feel the bile shoot through my blood. ‘I can see why you’d be angry but Frazer figured that if you lost your job you’d be in big trouble. Personally and professionally. Seriously, Gabrielle. We thought it through.’
‘I did lose my job.’
‘Oh no,’ says Frazer Melville. ‘God. Oh, Gabrielle, I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t mention it.’ I take a sip. The coffee is good. Strong and dark and fortifying. ‘I’m now officially unemployable.’
‘Actually that won’t matter in the larger scheme of things, if Bethany’s right,’ suggests Ned. Perhaps he believes he is being helpful.
Ignoring him, I address the physicist. ‘I may be restricted, physically. But your behaviour suggests you think I’m mentally incompetent with it.’
‘If you were to stay above suspicion with the police, you couldn’t know what we were planning. Or what we’d done.’ Frazer Melville’s expression is pleading. ‘I hoped I dropped enough clues for you to guess that I was behind it.’
‘Which I did when I covered for you with the police and risked imprisonment for perverting the course of justice.’
From the next room,
‘Someone wants some attention,’ Ned sighs, rising. ‘I’ll go and sort her out.’
‘Get those sweets off her,’ I call after him. ‘And if you have some, she needs fresh bandages.’
When the door has fully closed behind him, I take a deep breath. I can feel the physicist looking at me intently.
‘Sweetheart—’ He puts a hand on my arm but I shake him off violently.
‘Don’t touch me and don’t call me that!’
‘Hey, what’s going on with you?’ He sounds offended.
‘Tell me, what else have you been up to with Kristin Jons dottir?’
The physicist’s face switches from concern to bafflement. ‘I haven’t seen her. I’ve been in Thailand and Paris, in case you didn’t know. Why are you so angry?’
Where to begin? But I can’t. It’s too humiliating. Whatever I say will sound bitter and self-pitying. I have my pride. I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them again he is still there. In the next room, the TV noise stops and Bethany protests. I hear ‘bastard’ and ‘arsehole’ and some quiet remonstrations from Ned.
‘Well, if you won’t tell me…’
‘Do I have to spell it out? OK, I’ll spell it out. I know about her. OK?
‘Get the fuck off me!’ Bethany shrieks from the next room. ‘Cocksucking arsehole! I can do it myself!’ Then Ned’s voice, sharp with alarm: ‘Hey! Look what you’ve done! Jesus!’
The door opens and Kristin Jons dottir walks in, smiling.
She comes towards me, her hand outstretched. She has one of those faces you’d look at twice without quite knowing why. A broad forehead and calm eyes. A serenity. ‘Gabrielle. I’m so pleased to meet you at last.’
In the next room, Bethany has begun a new tirade.
‘Gabrielle,’ says the physicist, ignoring the noise. ‘This is Kristin.’
Reluctantly, I take the hand she offers, but drop it again as swiftly as possible.
‘Kristin Jons dottir with a soft J, pronounced Y,’ she says, smiling. ‘I am Icelandic.’ There’s a catch to her accent that might make you want to hear more, if you were in love with her. It strikes me that she seems to feel no embarrassment about meeting me. She even looks happy. Because — I flush as it dawns on me — the physicist never even told her we were lovers. Just as he never told Ned. I am no threat to her. And never have been.
‘I looked you up,’ I say. ‘But the soft J wasn’t mentioned.’ If she hears the irony in my voice, she ignores it. She is still smiling, taking me in with her calm, friendly eyes. The world of women is divided between those who can be bothered with make-up, those who can’t, and those who don’t need it in the first place. She’s the last: a fresh-air woman who offsets her carbon emissions.
‘I’ve been looking forward to this. Encounters with art therapists aren’t normally on the agenda of someone specialising in the world fifty-five million years ago.’
‘Whew. Jesus.’
‘All sorted?’ I ask.
‘She scratched me.’ He shows his forearm, striped with beads of blood. ‘So, Kristin. What did Harish Modak say?’
She takes a breath. ‘He’s still reluctant.’
‘I’ll go and ring him,’ says the physicist, rising to his feet. He probably can’t leave fast enough. ‘Ned, perhaps you and Kristin can fill Gabrielle in some more?’
‘Sure thing,’ says Ned, lifting a laptop from the floor and booting it up. ‘Just give me a minute and we’ll do a visual.’
‘So, Kristin. Geology,’ I say, when the door has closed behind the physicist. I pull the thunder egg from its pouch under my seat. I feel like hurling it at her, but instead I hold it out. She takes it, and a smile of great beauty illuminates her face. Her eyes are a delicate greyish green. She weighs it in her hand, then shakes it. ‘Solid. You’ve never been tempted to crack it open?’
‘I’m waiting for the right moment. It’s an heirloom.’
She smiles. ‘Where’s it from?’
‘Nevada.’
‘If it’s fromthe Black Rock Desert, it probably has a lovely opal filling. Some of them are agate. Or a mixture.’ So she can identify a piece of rock as fast as I can diagnose a loony. I hate her with a hate that I fear may be deeper than the deepest love. Handing the thunder egg back, she clasps her other hand over mine, enclosing it around the stone. ‘You’re upset with me. And you’re right to be. I owe you an apology.’
I shrink into myself. She is looking me in the eye with a terrible calmness. With a sharp movement, I tug my hand back. The last thing I’ve expected is candour. It might be more than I can bear. I take an inward breath. I too must be candid.
I say, ‘Yes. I think you do.’
Ned is watching us with interest. A spot of red has appeared on each of Kristin Jons dottir’s cheeks.
‘The way I handled things when you rang me out of the blue like that was unforgivable. I’m afraid I panicked. It never crossed my mind that you would find out about me, and then call. It threw me totally.’
‘I bet it did.’
‘You must be quite a detective.’
