drawers and wardrobes. Every item of clothing had been cleaned, folded and stowed. Some were in cardboard boxes with destinations marked in her clear, assertive handwriting. Her workroom seemed empty but that was because it had been given a terminal organisation. I knew that she had completed her last book a couple of months before she’d died and she had used her last months systematically. Notes and many of her old papers had been thrown away. A couple of drawers opened at random showed that every file, every stapler was in its place. This was Martha’s last great gesture. There was not a corner of the house where we could catch her ghost unawares, in dishabille. Before she had departed, she had left everything signed, sealed and as she wanted it. The realisation of it was the only thing that made me smile that day.
The brothers had nothing to do there. They didn’t talk much – Fred was scarcely more sober than his father – but I believed that the three of them could not imagine the idea of leaving Alan alone in that house. As it turned out, they never would.
Lunch was a dismal affair. Bread, cheese, wine and some weirdly bright conversation, with even Alan joining in occasionally. This wasn’t the real world. We were teetering along a ledge between existences. The acknowledged old life organised by Martha had not been relinquished, and what the new life might be, nobody spoke of or imagined. Did they think we could all just go and leave Alan to run this house alone?
When we were finished, Claud almost physically prevailed on Alan to stay downstairs.
‘You and me and Jane are going for a quick walk,’ he said.
Alan looked at the two of us with a start, and I was scarcely less surprised.
‘Are we?’ I asked.
‘Yes, it’s a bracing day,’ Claud said cheerily.
I looked out of the window and saw lowering clouds.
‘Let’s all get our coats on,’ he continued.
He helped Alan on with his waterproof, his hat, scarf and boots, and put his old stick in his fist. We pulled on old coats that we found hanging there (with a shiver I realised that I was wearing one of Martha’s) and Alan was firmly led out between us. As we made our way across the lawn, Claud talked about the walk he had taken the day before, how he thought he had seen an owl’s nest in an ash by the drive and he thought we might take a look at it. Suddenly, he slapped his forehead.
‘Bloody hell, I forgot the binoculars. Nip back and get them will you, Janey?’
We were married again, it seemed.
‘Where are they?’
‘In the boot room. Which I locked, of course.’
‘What on earth for?’ asked Alan.
‘Hang on, I’ll give you my keys,’ Claud said, pushing into his various pockets. ‘No, sorry, I must have put them somewhere. Dad, could you give Janey your keys?’
Alan took a large bunch of keys from his pocket and gave them to Claud, who passed them over to me without any traceable expression except for a possible flicker of irritation at his own forgetfulness. They say doctors have to be actors as well.
‘See you in a minute,’ I said and turned and ran back up the lawn.
?
Hall, first floor, up the steep stairs that led to the large attic. My legs were trembling so much I thought I might fall and I gripped the handrail tightly. I tried several keys until one fitted and I pushed the door open and stepped into Alan’s space. It was sacrosanct and indeed it oddly resembled a church nave, lodged as it was under the roof. There were skylights on each incline and they diffused a grey light through the space that gently illuminated it, even before I switched the light on. I had been in here only a few times in my life. This was where Alan wrote and pretended to write. If it had been empty it would have seemed large. As it was, it was cramped and almost impassable. The daily bills, receipts, letters from publishers and universities, junk mail, pamphlets, requests from students who were studying him, old newspapers, postcards from his sons, invitations, many letters that had not even been opened. I checked a postmark at random: 1993. I stared around at the piles of books higgledy- piggledy on the floor, the scrunched-up tissues in the corner, the line of coffee cups growing mould, the nearly empty whisky bottle on the window ledge.
Alan’s desk was the one clear space in the room. His ancient heavy German typewriter squatted like a tank at its centre. Next to it was a beaker full of pens and pencils and a blank memo pad. On the shelf above were dozens of copies of
The next cupboard was crammed with magazines and newspapers, probably old reviews and interviews. The next was what I was looking for. Piled along the shelves were dozens of hard-backed notebooks. I pulled one out at random. On its cover was written
I quickly found the volume I was looking for. I opened it and a piece of paper fluttered out and landed at my feet. I hurriedly flicked through the volume but when I reached July I found something I hadn’t expected, the stubs of pages which had been ripped from the book. From the beginning of July until September there was nothing. Then the entries resumed as before. I felt stymied. Almost as a reflex, I bent down to pick up the slip of paper that had fallen from the book. It was a yellowing piece of lined paper, full size, folded in half. I opened it out. It looked as if it had been hastily torn from a notebook because it was ripped jaggedly across the top. I instantly recognised the blue-biro handwriting as Natalie’s. I still knew her handwriting as well as I knew my own. It read:
I felt entirely calm now. I refolded Natalie’s note, and slipped it back inside the diary volume. I turned and saw Alan standing in the doorway. He was still wearing his large coat and the rubber boots which had masked his footsteps on the stair carpet. He was breathing heavily from his climb.
‘I think you’d be more likely to find the binoculars downstairs.’
‘I wasn’t looking for the binoculars. Where’s Claud?’
‘Downstairs. If you’re going to break into my study, Jane, you ought to be more careful about switching the light on. From the wood opposite it was not unlike the Blackpool Illuminations. What are you doing here, Jane? I see you’ve been reading my great works.’
‘I saw you, Alan.’
‘Indeed?’
‘I saw you kill Natalie. I saw you strangle her. I forgot and I’ve remembered again. And now I’ve got proof.’
‘What do you mean “saw me”? What proof?’
He approached me. I tried to move past him but he caught me by the wrist, and the book fell to the floor. I
