The Suspect

As I edge along the gutter, my head fills with images of what could go wrong. If this were a Hollywood movie Malcolm would slip at the last moment and I’d dive and pluck him out of midair. Either that or I’d fall and he’d rescue me.

On the other hand— because this is real life— we might both perish, or Malcolm could live and I’d be the plucky rescuer who plunges to his death.

Although he hasn’t moved, I can see a new emotion in his eyes. A few minutes ago he was ready to step off the roof without a moment’s hesitation. Now he wants to live and the void beneath his feet has become an abyss.

The American philosopher William James (a closet phobic) wrote an article in 1884 pondering the nature of fear. He used an example of a person encountering a bear. Does he run because he feels afraid, or does he feel afraid after he has already started running? In other words, does a person have time to think something is frightening, or does the reaction precede the thought?

Ever since then scientists and psychologists have been locked in a kind of chicken-and-egg debate. What comes first— the conscious awareness of fear or the pounding heart and surging adrenaline that motivates us to fight or flight?

I know the answer now, but I’m so frightened I’ve forgotten the question.

I’m only a few feet away from Malcolm. His cheeks are tinged with blue and he’s stopped shivering. Pressing my back against the wall, I push one leg beneath me and lever my body upward until I’m standing.

Malcolm looks at my outstretched hand for a moment and then reaches slowly toward me. I grab him by the wrist and pull him upward until my arm slips around his thin waist. His skin feels like ice.

The front of the safety harness unclasps and I can lengthen the straps. I pass them around his waist and back through the buckle, until the two of us are tethered together. His woolen hat feels rough against my cheek.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks, in a croaky voice.

“You can pray the other end of this is tied on to something.”

2

I was probably safer on the roof of the Marsden than at home with Julianne. I can’t remember exactly what she called me, but I seem to recall her using words like irresponsible, negligent, careless, immature and unfit to be a parent. This was after she hit me with a copy of Marie Claire and made me promise never to do anything so stupid again.

Charlie, on the other hand, won’t leave me alone. She keeps bouncing on the bed in her pajamas, asking me questions about how high up it was, whether I was scared and did the firemen have a big net ready to catch me.

“At last I have something exciting to tell for news,” she says, punching me on the arm. I’m glad Julianne doesn’t hear her.

Each morning when I drag myself out of bed I go through a little ritual. When I lean down to tie my shoes I get a good idea of what sort of day I’m going to have. If it’s early in the week and I’m rested, I will have just a little trouble getting the fingers of my left hand to cooperate. Buttons will find buttonholes, belts will find belt loops and I can even tie a Windsor knot. On my bad days, such as this one, it is a different story. The man I see in the mirror will need two hands to shave and will arrive at the breakfast table with bits of toilet paper stuck to his neck and chin. On these mornings Julianne will say to me, “You have a brand-new electric shaver in the bathroom.”

“I don’t like electric shavers.”

“Why not?”

“Because I like lather.”

“What is there to like about lather?”

“It’s a lovely sounding word, don’t you think? It’s quite sexy— lather. It’s decadent.”

She’s giggling now, but trying to look annoyed.

“People lather their bodies with soap; they lather their bodies with shower gel. I think we should lather our scones with jam and cream. And we could lather on suntan lotion in the summer… if we ever have one.”

“You are silly, Daddy,” says Charlie, looking up from her cereal.

“Thank you my turtledove.”

“A comic genius,” says Julianne as she picks toilet paper from my face.

Sitting down at the table, I put a spoonful of sugar in my coffee and begin to stir. Julianne is watching me. The spoon stalls in my cup. I concentrate and tell my left hand to start moving, but no amount of willpower is going to budge it. Smoothly I switch the spoon to my right hand.

“When are you seeing Jock?” she asks.

“On Friday.” Please don’t ask me anything else.

“Is he going to have the test results?”

“He’ll tell me what we already know.”

“But I thought— ”

“He didn’t say!” I hate the sharpness in my voice.

Julianne doesn’t even blink. “I’ve made you mad. I like you better silly.”

“I am silly. Everyone knows that.”

I see right through her. She thinks I’m doing the macho thing of hiding my feelings or trying to be relentlessly positive, while I’m really falling apart. My mother is the same— she’s become a bloody armchair psychologist. Why don’t they leave it to the experts to get it wrong?

Julianne has turned her back. She’s breaking up stale bread to leave outside for the birds. Compassion is her hobby.

Dressed in a gray jogging suit, trainers and a baseball cap over her short-cropped dark hair, she looks twenty-seven, not thirty-seven. Instead of growing old gracefully together, she’s discovered the secret of eternal youth and I take two tries to get off the sofa.

Monday is yoga, Tuesday is Pilates, Thursday and Saturday are circuit training. In between she runs the house, raises a child, teaches Spanish lessons and still finds time to try to save the world. She even made childbirth look easy, although I would never tell her that unless I developed a death wish.

We have been married for sixteen years and when people ask me why I became a psychologist, I say, “Because of Julianne. I wanted to know what she was really thinking.”

It didn’t work. I still have no idea.

I walk to work every weekday morning across Regent’s Park. At this time of year, when the temperature drops, I wear nonslip shoes, a woolen scarf and a permanent frown. Forget about global warming. As I get older the world gets colder. That’s a fact.

Today I’m not going to the office. Instead I walk past the boating lake and cross York Bridge, turning right along Euston Road toward Baker Street. The sun is like a pale yellow ball trying to pierce the grayness. A soft rain drifts down and clings to the leaves, as joggers slip past me, with their heads down and trainers leaving patterns on the wet asphalt. It’s early December and the gardeners are supposed to be planting bulbs for the spring. Their wheelbarrows are filling with water, while they smoke cigarettes and play cards in the toolshed.

Langton Hall is a squat redbrick building with white-trimmed windows and black downspouts. Apart from a light over the front steps, the building looks deserted. Pushing through the double doors, I cross a narrow foyer and enter the main hall. Plastic chairs are arranged in rough lines. A table to one side has a hot-water urn, beside rows of cups and saucers.

About forty women have turned up. They range in age from teens to late thirties. Most are wearing overcoats, beneath which some are doubtless dressed for work, in high heels, short skirts, hot pants and stockings. The air is a technicolor stink of perfume and tobacco.