with her new husband, gazing out at a future she could not predict and did not want to, and thought about how much I share with her. But all of it is physical. Cells and tissue. DNA. Our chemical signature. But nothing else. She is a stranger. There is nothing linking her to me, no means to thread my way back to her.
Yet, she is me, and I her, and I could see that she was in love. With Ben. The man she has just married. The man I still wake up with, every day. He did not break the vows he made on that day in the tiny church in Manchester. He has not let me down. I looked at the photograph and love welled inside me again.
But still I put it down, carried on searching. I knew what I wanted to find, and what I dreaded finding also. The one thing that would prove my husband wasn’t lying, that would give me my partner even if, in doing so, it would deny me my son.
It was there. At the bottom of the box, inside an envelope. A photocopy of a news article, folded, its edges crisp. I knew what it was, almost before I opened it, but still I shook as I read.
The grief hit me then, with a force I doubt it can ever have had before. I dropped the paper and doubled up in pain, too much pain even to cry, and emitted a noise like a howl, like a wounded animal, starving, praying for its end to come. I closed my eyes, and saw it then. A brief flash. An image, hanging in front of me, shimmering. A medal, given to me in a black velvet box. A coffin, a flag. I looked away from it, and prayed that it would never return. There are memories I am better off without. Things better lost for ever.
I began to tidy the papers away. I should have trusted him, I thought. All along. I should have believed that he was keeping things from me only because they are too painful to face, fresh, every day. All he was doing was trying to spare me from this. This brutal truth. I put the photographs back, the papers, just as I had found them. I felt satisfied. I put the box back in the filing cabinet, the key back in the drawer. I can look whenever I want now, I thought. As often as I like.
There was only one more thing I still had to do. I had to know why Ben had left me. And I had to know what I had been doing in Brighton, all those years ago. I had to know who had stolen my life from me. I had to try once more.
For the second time today, I dialled Claire’s number.
Static. Silence. Then a two-tone ring. She will not answer, I thought. She has not responded to my message, after all. She has something to hide, something to keep from me.
I almost felt glad. This was a conversation I wanted to have only in theory. I could not see how it could be anything but painful. I prepared myself for another emotionless invitation to leave a message.
A click. Then a voice. ‘Hello?’
It was Claire. I knew it, instantly. Her voice felt as familiar as my own. ‘Hello?’ she said again.
I did not speak. Images flooded me, flashing. I saw her face, her hair cut short, wearing a beret. Laughing. I saw her at a wedding — my own, I suppose, though I cannot say — dressed in emerald, pouring champagne. I saw her holding a child, carrying him, giving him to me with the words
‘Claire?’ I said.
‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Hello? Who is this?’
I tried to focus, to remind myself that we had been best friends once, no matter what had happened in the years since. I saw an image of her lying on my bed, clutching a bottle of vodka, giggling, telling me that men were
‘Claire?’ I said. ‘It’s me. Christine.’
Silence. Time stretched so that it seemed to last for ever. At first I thought she wouldn’t speak, that she had forgotten who I was, or didn’t want to speak to me. I closed my eyes.
‘Chrissy!’ she said. An explosion. I heard her swallow, as if she had been eating. ‘Chrissy! My God. Darling, is that really you?’
I opened my eyes. A tear had begun its slow traverse down the unfamiliar lines of my face.
‘Claire?’ I said. ‘Yes. It’s me. It’s Chrissy.’
‘Jesus. Fuck,’ she said, and then again. ‘Fuck!’ Her voice was quiet. ‘Roger! Rog! It’s Chrissy! On the phone!’ Suddenly loud, she said, ‘How are you? Where are you?’ and then, ‘Roger!’
‘Oh, I’m at home,’ I said.
‘Home?’
‘Yes.’
‘With Ben?’
I felt suddenly defensive. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘With Ben. Did you get my message?’
I heard an intake of breath. Surprise? Or was she smoking? ‘Yep!’ she said. ‘I would have called you back but this is the landline and you didn’t leave a number.’ She hesitated, and for a moment I wondered if there were other reasons she had not returned my call. She went on. ‘Anyway, how are you, darling? It’s so good to hear your voice!’ I didn’t know how to answer, and when I didn’t reply Claire said, ‘Where are you living?’
‘I don’t know exactly,’ I said. I felt a surge of pleasure, certain that her question meant that she was not seeing Ben, followed by the realization that she might be asking me so that I don’t suspect the truth. I wanted so much to trust her — to know that Ben had not left me because of something he had found in her, some love to replace that which had been taken from me — because doing so meant that I could trust my husband as well. ‘Crouch End?’ I said.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘So how’s it going? How’re things?’
‘Well, you know,’ I said, ‘I can’t remember a fucking thing.’
We both laughed. It felt good, this eruption of an emotion that wasn’t grief, but it was short-lived, followed by silence.
‘You sound good,’ she said after a while. ‘Really good.’ I told her I was writing again. ‘Really? Wow. Super. What are you working on? A novel?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’d be kind of hard to write a novel when I can’t remember anything from one day to the next.’ Silence. ‘I’m just writing about what’s happening to me.’
‘OK,’ she said, then nothing. I wondered if perhaps she did not entirely understand my situation, and worried about her tone. It sounded cool. I wondered how things had been left, the last time we saw each other. ‘So what is happening with you?’ she said then.
What to say? I had an urge to let her see my journal, let her read it all for herself, but of course I could not. Or not yet, anyway. There seemed to be too much to say, too much I wanted to know. My whole life.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s difficult …’
I must have sounded upset, because she said, ‘Chrissy darling, whatever’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m fine. I just …’ The sentence petered out.
‘Darling?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. I thought of Dr Nash, of the things I’d said to him. Could I be sure that he wouldn’t talk to Ben? ‘I just feel confused. I think I’ve done something stupid.’
‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.’ Another silence — a calculation? — and then she said, ‘Listen. Can I speak to Ben?’
‘He’s out,’ I said. I felt relieved that our discussion seemed to have moved on to something concrete, factual. ‘At work.’
‘Right,’ said Claire. Another silence. The conversation felt suddenly absurd.
‘I need to see you,’ I said.
‘“Need”?’ she said. ‘Not “want”?’
‘No,’ I began. ‘Obviously I want …’
‘Relax, Chrissy,’ she said. ‘I’m kidding. I want to see you, too. I’m dying to.’
I felt relieved. I had had the idea that our talk might limp to a halt, end with a polite goodbye and a vague promise to speak again in the future, and another avenue into my past would slam shut for ever.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
