seeking some consolation to offer his companion.
“Maybe. But it was also vanity. You know it was,” insisted Stephen. “A final gesture to show that she had the power of life and death in her hands. I hate her, and yet I love her too. It tears me apart every minute of the day.”
“We’re human beings. We don’t stop loving people just because they’re gone,” said Trave, thinking of his own lost son.
“No. But the trouble is I don’t know what to hold onto anymore. Everyone I ever cared about turned out to be someone I never knew. It’s a hall of mirrors I’m living in. Sometimes I wish old Murdoch had had his way and this was all over. It’d certainly be a lot easier.”
Trave leant over and gripped Stephen’s hand, lifting him from his chair.
“Come with me,” he said. “There’s something I need to show you.”
He walked quickly to his car, propelling Stephen along beside him. And then he drove fast, not needing to slow down to read the road signs. He knew exactly where he was going, even though he’d only been to the place twice in his life before.
Fifteen minutes later, he pulled over onto a muddy grass verge on the side of a narrow country road. It was nothing more than that. There were beech woods growing on either side over carpets of dead leaves left over from the fall, and a bunch of white chrysanthemums was tied to a tree trunk a little farther down the road. Vanessa had already been here, Trave realised. She knew the exact spot even better than he did.
“This is where my son died,” he said to Stephen once they had both got out of the car. “It was about this time of day. He came round the corner, lost control of his motorbike, and hit that tree over there. And then he died. I don’t know how quickly. The doctors couldn’t say. And I don’t know where he was going or why he was driving too fast. All I know is that he never came back.
“There was certainly no reason for his dying. None at all. It just turned out that way. And there’s no reason for what happened to you, Stephen. Except you lived. You didn’t die on the end of a rope. And now you’ve got to make something of your life, do you hear me? Precisely because there isn’t any meaning, because there might not be any God, it makes everything in this world all the more precious. And that’s why you have to live, Stephen. Not for me, not for anyone else. But for you. Do you understand me? Live. Nothing less will do.”
And Stephen did understand. He smiled, and his face was suddenly lit up by the beauty of who he really was. And for a moment, looking at him, Trave thought he saw his son again. For a moment it was as if Joe had never died.
