You read about criminals returning to the scene of the crime. It’s almost like a proverb. Is it a certain fascination, pulling you back like gravity? Or perhaps it’s simply the nagging feeling you get when you have to keep going home to check you didn’t leave the gas on or the window open. I knew this was a form of madness because I was trying to remember the things I’d forgotten. What were the gaps? What were the objects that were just outside my range of vision? And what about my things? What about my satchel? Where had it gone?
If only I could be certain that this was the best it would ever get. That nothing more would happen, nothing would be discovered. I’d just have the rest of my life to try to think of the mistakes I might have made, and not to think of the terrible things I had done.
Before
I felt weak and unsteady as if I had gone a day without food. The bare boards seemed to sway under my feet as I walked to the bathroom. The water from the shower head was hardly more than a trickle. Everything felt just slightly askew and strange, the way it does when you’ve arrived in a foreign city and you’re noticing life in a way you don’t when you’re at home. I aimed the shower at my face, trying not to get my hair too wet, then gave up and found some shampoo on the end of the bath and washed it. My body felt tender and bruised but what did I feel? What did I feel in my head? What did I feel in my heart? I pressed my hand against my breast and closed my eyes. What had I done?
I’d seen Hayden at Sally’s house, noticed how, with his long body and his air of total acceptance, he had occupied the space. If there was food, he had eaten it, if there was a sofa, he had sat on it—sat on it so conclusively and definitively that there was no room for anyone else. He seemed to live in a perpetual present, the past forgotten or denied, the future unimagined and ignored, cause and effect irrelevant to him. What had happened between us existed in that world of disconnected moments, with no context and no meaning. Was that how I should think of it? Pick up my clothes and leave as dawn broke and the birds began to sing, pretend when we next met that we were strangers?
With Amos, sex had been a natural part of our life, sewn into the fabric of things. We spent time together: we went to movies, concerts, pubs and clubs, we met friends, we ate out and we ate in, we went for walks, we hugged, held hands, made love. But this: I didn’t know what it was. It was as if I was a piece of food, a rare and lovely delicacy that Hayden had found, wanted, picked up and eaten with great care and discerning pleasure—something intimate yet also impersonal.
I found a towel and sat on the edge of the bath, drying myself carefully, even under my feet, and tried to think what I was feeling, feel what I was thinking. I wasn’t sure of the difference. With Amos it had been clear: sometimes good, sometimes not so good, sometimes tender, sometimes more passionate, sometimes something a bit wrong that we could discuss. But what about this? How had it been for me? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t even know if I wished it hadn’t happened or if I was glad it had. It had felt new, like something I had never done before. Somehow the safety net had been taken away.
When I went back into the room wrapped in the towel, Hayden’s head was turned towards me but it was still too dark for me to see if his eyes were open. He didn’t speak or move.
I had to kneel on the floor and search under a chair and the sofa for my clothes. It was difficult to find them among all the other mess. My tights were scrunched up with my knickers trapped inside them. My bra and dress were by the end of the sofa. My shoes had been tossed in random directions. I pulled them all together into one pile and then, quite slowly, put them on, facing Hayden. Now his hands were behind his head and I could feel that he was watching me. I imagined him unblinking and expressionless and, in the darkness, felt more exposed than I had ever been before. As I pulled my clothes on, I thought of him peeling them off me with deliberate care, as if I was precious and might break.
When I was done I walked across to the sofa and sat beside him.
‘I’m going,’ I said.
‘It’s not light yet.’
‘It’s just a few minutes’ walk.’
‘Stay awhile. Nobody should be alone in the small hours.’
‘Is
