– or imagined that she saw him – in an attitude that for once suited him, and made perfect sense: she saw him as a man surrendering to a feeling that must have come so naturally, with such a healing inevitability, that it might almost have felt like a release; a man in mourning over the death of the son he had always wanted.
11
At 11.30 on the morning of Monday, 2 March 2009, I found myself in Reading, sitting in Alan Guest’s office. All ten full-time staff members of Guest Toothbrushes were present, including Trevor, Lindsay, David Webster and chief accountant Tony Harris- Jones. The weather outside was grey but moderate, with no immediate threat of rain. Beneath us on the forecourt I could see four black Toyota Priuses, ranged neatly in a line; sitting on a bollard next to them was a bored-looking press photographer, chatting to his colleague, a local journalist, who stood leaning against one of the cars and smoking a cigarette. The offices of Guest Toothbrushes were part of an industrial estate in the south-western suburbs. Beyond the forecourt I could see rows of warehouses and low-lying office buildings, the province of firms specializing in bathroom fittings, computer components and sports and leisure wear. A network of little roads and mini-roundabouts criss-crossed the estate, but I couldn’t see any cars using them. It was almost eerily quiet.
As for the mood in Alan Guest’s office, I could best describe it as tense. Today was a big day in the history of Guest Toothbrushes – there were three bottles of non-alcoholic champagne on the table, along with eleven glasses – but for some reason nobody seemed to be feeling particularly celebratory. Alan, a thin, ascetic-looking, silver- haired man in his mid-fifties, had a distracted air about him. It was falling to Trevor to do most of the talking.
‘Now, gentlemen, we’ve been monitoring the forecasts on the BBC Weather site, and I have to say that the news isn’t too bad, for most of you …’
I should really have been listening to this, but I wasn’t able to concentrate. My mind kept going back to Caroline’s story. For the first few days after reading it I’d been able to think of nothing else. I was so outraged, so furious with her, that every inch of mental space (do you measure mental spaces in inches? I’ve no idea) had been colonized by thoughts of how I was going to respond. I drafted dozens of emails in my head – some of them from me, some of them from Liz Hammond. I picked up the phone a hundred times, thought about calling and then put it down again. In the end, as you probably guessed, I hadn’t responded at all. How could I? What was I supposed to say? My sense of betrayal at what she had written was beyond words. And although I’d managed to calm down about it since then – to a certain extent, at least – there were still moments when my sense of injustice reared up again. I couldn’t help it. It was a completely involuntary thing. And it was happening now.
‘So we’re not anticipating any major meteorological upsets,’ Trevor continued. ‘Certainly not in the first half of the week. Things might get a little choppy on the crossing from Aberdeen, Max, if you leave it till Wednesday or Thursday, but I can’t see you having to do that …’
At the same time, I had to concede my grudging admiration for what Caroline had done. I’m no literary critic (God forbid), but as a piece of writing, it struck me as .… well, competent, at any rate. No worse than many of the turgid yawn-fests she’d thrust under my nose during our marriage, in her attempt to get me to read ‘serious’ novels.
‘Now, as you know, we’ve allowed in our expenses for five nights’ overnight accommodation, but clearly most of us won’t be needing that. After all, there’s a competition for the first man there and back, but I think we all know who’s going to win that one.’ (Laughter, and glances in the direction of Tony Harris-Jones, whose journey would be taking him no further than Lowestoft.) ‘But if the rest of us can manage it in four days, or even three, all such savings would be much appreciated by our Supreme Leader, I’m sure. We are in the midst of a nasty recession, and times are tough out there, as everybody is all too aware.’ (The glances were directed at Alan Guest, this time, and there was no laughter to accompany them. He stared ahead, expressionless.) ‘And please, might I add, be reasonable when choosing your accommodation. No five-star establishments, please. No Scottish castles or country house hotels. Think Travelodges, or Best Westerns, if you feel like pushing the boat out. Try to keep it under fifty quid a night, if at all possible.’
And the other thing was – how had she done it, exactly? Was she a mind-reader or something? Caroline and I had barely spoken to each other in the final years of our marriage, it seemed to me now. I had spent most of that time sitting in silence beside her, either in front of the television or at the wheel of our car, or opposite her at the breakfast or dinner table, neither of us speaking a word, and I can honestly say that I never had the faintest idea what was going on inside her head. And yet in writing that story, she had more or less transcribed my thoughts; and transcribed them, I would say, in a way that was about eighty-five per cent accurate. It was frightening. Was I really that transparent, or was she simply blessed with amazing powers of perception, which I had never suspected or noticed before?
‘As for the competitive element of this trip, Lindsay has been doing some more brainstorming over the weekend – she never stops, this woman:
But there was an ironic side to this as well. Caroline would never realize it, but she’d fallen at the last fence. Those powers had failed her at the most crucial point. Because she was wrong – totally, fatally wrong – about what I’d been thinking that day, after Joe had been pulled out of the nettle pit and she saw me kneeling over him on the grass. ‘In mourning over the death of the son he’d never had’ – is that what you reckoned, Caroline? Was that the spin you’d decided to put on it? Well, listen to this: you were miles off. Not even close. And neither you nor anybody else was ever going to find out the truth, either. Not if I had anything to do with it.
Lindsay, meanwhile, had started to tell us something about the onboard computer system on our Priuses. I really ought to be paying attention.
‘So what happens is, when you press the “Info” button on the fascia, you get a choice of two screens. One of them is the Energy Monitor screen, which tells you where the power is coming from at any given time, and the other screen gives you detailed information about how much petrol you’ve consumed since the trip counter was last reset. Those trip counters have been set to zero on all four vehicles, by the way, so please don’t touch them until you’re safely back here …’
Another nasty thought had occurred to me, too. A lot of the information which had formed the basis of that story could only have been obtained from Lucy. Especially that stuff about me not knowing why the grass was green. (Which was all perfectly true – and would still be perfectly true now.) So, yes, Caroline and Lucy must have got together and had a right old laugh, some time or other, about silly old Daddy, who knew fuck-all about the important things in life, and was always trying to bullshit his way out of difficult questions and awkward situations. Obviously, my comical ignorance about matters of general knowledge formed the basis of many of their cosy mother-and-daughter chats, these days. Well, I suppose I should be glad that I gave them something to bond over …
‘So what we are offering you, gentlemen, is the opportunity to win not just one but
