What the Eye Doesn't See Page 17

  Geoffrey paces back and forwards. Stops. Places his hand on Rex’s china head. He looks as bad as I feel. ‘Look, Max, I’m sorry. I’ve said again and again it’s not what I want. It’s not going to bring Tiffany back, is it?’ There’s a crack in his voice as he says her name.

  ‘I’m her husband,’ he says. ‘You’d think my views would count for something.’ Still he talks about her in the present tense.

  ‘Geoffrey, there must be something you can do.’

  I can’t bear to plead with him, but I must.

  He shrugs and shakes his head. ‘They’re set on it.’

  ‘But Geoffrey, you know what this means, don’t you? You understand what’s going to happen?’

  He looks at me blankly.

  ‘Maggie is going to have to testify in court, and I can’t have that. For myself I couldn’t care. I’m prepared to go to a hundred courts but I don’t want Maggie involved. It isn’t fair on her.’

  ‘I’m not sure it will be necessary for her to testify.’

  ‘Yes, it will be. And I’m asking you, Geoffrey, to try to stop this. For her sake. You’re her godfather. You know she hasn’t had it easy. And now I just don’t want her to have to go through this.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Geoffrey says and wipes his hand across his face. ‘Would you like me to talk to her, would that help?’

  ‘No, thanks. No. It’s better for me to deal with it.’

  ‘She’s away at the moment, isn’t she? Spain? With that journalist chap.’

  ‘Yes.’ As though I need reminding of that.

  ‘Rather nice for her really,’ Geoffrey says.

  How can he be so bloody stupid. I turn, nearly shout at him, then swallow back the words. ‘Geoffrey,’ I say. ‘Tell Tiffany’s brothers that you won’t let them do this.’

  ‘I’ve already tried to say that.’

  ‘Well, try again.’

  ‘Yes,’ Geoffrey says. ‘Yes.’

  I try to calm myself. I must be calm. He mustn’t know that I’m frightened. I remember Gus on the night of the fire. It’ll hold. It’ll hold. But not if Maggie has to go to court.

  ‘Of course,’ I say, ‘I know Maggie wouldn’t mind. I know she’d do that for you. But I just don’t like her involved. I’m sure you can understand.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Geoffrey says. ‘I’ll try and talk to them again.’

  But I’ve little confidence that’ll do any good. Because, in truth, Geoffrey is rubber-spined. I feel let down by him. I’ve always been a good friend to him, but now he won’t help me. I pour myself another whisky.

  Geoffrey shakes his head, starts to pace, his shoes creaking over the parquet. From outside there’s a tak-tak-tak from one of those pogo-stick road diggers. It makes my teeth wince. For Christ’s sake, what are they doing digging holes at this time of night? The weather is wretchedly humid, the sky pewter grey, the air sticky. June this year has a tired, end-of-summer feel. Like August. In the square they’ve mended the fountain so that now the green goddess disports herself amid arching jets of water. I wish Geoffrey would stop striding around the place and sit down.

  ‘Have they actually set a date for the trial?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh no, not yet, it’ll be a while. Three or four months perhaps.’

  We go through to the back room, hoping that it might be cooler there. The kitchen table is littered with my papers. I’ve taken to working here instead of the Parliament. The overgrown garden is wilting. Even in here I can hear the angry battering of the digger. Geoffrey sits on a kitchen chair, crosses his legs, uncrosses them. Moves to another chair, balances one foot on a wine crate. We sit in uncomfortable silence.

  Where in God’s name is Gus? I don’t feel up to any of this, and I’ve got to get my act together for tomorrow. There’s a report on waste management tomorrow and I’m leading the group’s vote. Gus has done most of the work, thank God. But I need a couple of hours at least to look through the papers. I look at the clock. Eight forty.

  ‘Of course, it’s my fault,’ Geoffrey says. ‘I wasn’t a good husband to her. If I had taken better care of her …’

  ‘No, Geoffrey. No.’

  God spare me. Geoffrey’s face is grey, he presses his hands to his eyes. Crosses and uncrosses his legs again. He’s sitting forward, looking at me. His face is flushed and sweating, as though he’s in pain. His voice is low and his bloodshot eyes are fixed on me. ‘Max. Don’t worry, please. It will all blow over.’

  I think of Tiffany. Her voice. You lied. You lied. An image flashes in front of my face. The camera lurches. Her clenched fists bash against me. A knife on the stainless-steel draining board. The linoleum floor of the kitchen, a pattern of beige and brown. A red plastic canister with a label on, smudged by paraffin. The photographs melting and bubbling as the match touches them. I’ve got to stop this.

  ‘Max, there’s no need for you to worry,’ Geoffrey says.

  I turn back to him and pour myself more whisky. He’s still watching me. There are deep lines in his face. He’s pulling at the cuffs of his shirt. It feels as though that digger is inside my head. Geoffrey is crumpled, with one knee pulled up to the side of him. I’m tingling all over. Either the drink or this ghastly situation.

  ‘I mean, there’s no need for you to worry, is there?’ Geoffrey says.

  I know quite well what he’s asking. I wipe a handkerchief across my face. Where in God’s name is Gus? I look at the clock. Quarter to nine. I resort to that time-honoured politician’s trick of answering the question you’d have liked to be asked.

  ‘Geoffrey, you needn’t worry that this will have any effect on you and me because it won’t. This has never come between us and I won’t let that happen now.’

  Geoffrey squeezes his eyes shut. ‘It helps that you say that. Because I need old friends more than ever now. I miss her terribly …’

  I look away from him. What can I say? Nothing. Time is a great healer. Blah, blah, blah. That’s the kind of thing people say. Bloody stupid. The truth is that you don’t want the days to pass. Because every day is one day further from her. You don’t want to forget. Not an inch of her flesh, not a hair of her head.

  ‘Max, I know that Tiffany was fond of you. I know that. And you were fond of her as well, of course. I know that.’

  I feel as though I’m being dragged towards the edge of a precipice.

  ‘Yes, of course. I miss her too. We all miss her.’

  It would be a relief to talk. Perhaps he would understand. I look at Geoffrey’s shattered face and words start. Then the doorbell rings. The sound crashes through the house. My whisky glass goes down onto the table with a bang. I jump up. ‘Ah, there we are. That’ll be Gus.’ My head spins. I put a hand on the back of a chair to steady myself.

  ‘Listen, Geoffrey. Gus already knows about this, and that’s fine. He can be relied on to keep his mouth shut. But don’t say anything to anyone else, will you? I’m going to have to talk to Maggie, and to Fiona, of course. But I don’t want to do that yet. First I want you and me to think of anything we can do to stop this trial. So we’ll talk, but other than that, keep it quiet.’

  I lay a hand on Geoffrey’s shoulder. He looks up at me with broken eyes. ‘Now buck up, old chap. Gus doesn’t want to see you like this.’

  Gus is standing on the doorstep with a pile of papers. He bounces into the hall. God knows why he’s so cheerful.

  ‘Gus, good to see you,’ I say. ‘You’re just in time to see Geoffrey.’

  The smile slides from his face. ‘Geoffrey?’

  ‘Yes, he’s just dropped in but he’s leaving in a minute.’

  Gus pulls a face and whispers. ‘Sorry. I should have got here earlier.’

  ‘Yes, you should.’

  Geoffrey appears. ‘Gus, how are you? You’re looking extraordinarily well.’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. What news from Dear Old Blighty?’

  I leave Gus with him, go upstairs to wash my face. I have a sudden longing for Nanda, a longing to go home. I was g
oing to go last time I was back at Brickley. Been meaning to go for a while. Oh well, I’ll be in Gloucestershire next weekend. Time enough then. Anyway, she would have no sympathy for me. She never wanted any of this. I never discovered what she did want, but it wasn’t this.

  Gus calls from downstairs. They’re talking shop. Gus lounges back on the green velvet sofa. ‘Max, Geoffrey was just saying that they’re beginning to take a closer look at this waste management question back home … we should be linking into that, don’t you think?’

  ‘Should I make some enquiries for you?’ Geoffrey asks. ‘I could speak to a few people. Because you want to look to the future. You don’t want to be stuck out here forever.’

  ‘Yes, good idea. Why not?’

  The future may not exist. The doorbell rings.

  ‘Oh no,’ Geoffrey groans. ‘Already? I’ve hardly had a moment to talk.’

  I go with him to the front door. He pats me on the shoulder as he says goodbye.

  I walk back through the house. Gus is rubbing his raw hands together.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he says. ‘What did he say?’

  Of course everything is not all right. But I don’t want to talk. If I talk, I’ll have to think. Gus trails after me. Just like that morning after the fire. Wants the role of saviour. Drives me bloody mad.

  I pick up the papers that Gus has brought, sit down at the kitchen table. ‘Right, let’s get going.’

  Gus stands beside me and lays the papers out in piles. ‘You’ll see that I’ve done preparatory notes for the main reports in Committee tomorrow. I think it’s pretty clear.’ He looks at his watch. ‘I can get in early tomorrow if you want.’ He’s got his jacket in his hand.

  ‘What? What are you doing?’

  ‘Sorry. I did mention earlier. I’m going out to dinner.’

  ‘Dinner? For Christ’s sake, Gus. What do you mean you’re going out to dinner?’

  He shrugs his shoulders. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I did mention it earlier.’

  I really can’t have Gus going on like this.

  ‘Of course, I can cancel it,’ he says. ‘I can easily do that if you want.’

  I find my glasses and sort through the papers. I pour myself another whisky. Gus comes to stand beside me again. I light a cigarette, look at him, sigh.

  ‘I can cancel it if you want.’

  I say nothing. He turns away and goes to the phone in the front room. I don’t know what’s got into him. He was the one who wanted to come out here, but now he seems to have lost his enthusiasm for what I’m doing here. Which is all very well, except I rely on him. He and I are in this together, or so I thought.

  I leaf through the papers on the Waste Management Report but I can’t seem to focus. Gus comes back from telephoning. He stands at the door and bites his lips. I look down at my hands. Outside, the noise of the digger is still rattling through the evening air. The windows of this house are dusty and the air heavy. I feel tired and old. How many days of freedom do I have left? Do I want to spend them doing this?

  ‘Are you all right?’ Gus asks.

  ‘My luck seems to be running out.’

  ‘Your luck? Or your nerve?’

  Funny, his ability to read my mind. I turn back to the Report and papers.

  ‘For the waste management vote I’ve worked with Wolfgang on the group list so it should be fine,’ Gus says. I look through the list and the fog in my mind clears a little. Work, work. Thank God for work.

  ‘One thing,’ Gus says. ‘Whatever happens in the vote tomorrow you can expect the Greens to table something on financing before the Plenary vote …’

  ‘Well, that’ll never pass. We’ll tell them to sod it.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure,’ Gus says. ‘The Germans may not back you on that …’

  ‘Well, good for them. They can do what they bloody well like.’

  Gus’s round eyes are shining. ‘That doesn’t sound like a man who’s lost his nerve.’

  After Gus has gone I open a bottle of wine. Fall asleep in the chair and wake at four. Outside it’s getting light. No point in sleeping. I sift through Gus’s notes and the reports again. I feel well prepared. And I’ll turn up tomorrow and I’ll be good. Very good. Because I always manage to come out best in these situations. That’s my talent. Maverick, controversial. A master of the political cut and thrust. Or I used to be, anyway.

  I walk back and forwards through the empty house, wish that Rosa was here. I stand and stare at James’s pictures, stuck up on the wall. Seems strange that I can prepare for this committee, work until four in the morning, just not think about the fire. Or Tiffany. Or Geoffrey. Incredible that I can go on as though nothing is happening. In a few months time I could be in prison. I could be divorced. Deprived of every penny I’ve got. Disgraced. Robbed of James. Those thoughts are too much. Usually I don’t let them start.

  But now I sit down in the armchair, in the bay window. Next to the palms and Rex. Beneath the brass birdcage. I take a gulp of red wine. Stretch my head back. Long for the end. Just explain. Tell the truth. That’s what Rosa said. It’s hard now to remember the truth. If you tell lies you start believing them. And once you start you can never stop. Of course, everyone makes the assumption that I was having an affair with Tiffany. And I can’t blame them for taking that view. I’m a dog with a bad name. Fidelity is not my strong suit.

  All those endless, bloody stupid questions the police asked. That’s what they really wanted to know. Was I attracted to Tiffany? Of course, I said I was. They’d have thought me a homosexual if I hadn’t admitted to that. But the point is that I wasn’t having an affair with her. I’m no saint but I would never have taken Geoffrey’s wife from him. Although I did have sex with her. Once, twice. I don’t remember exactly. It was just a passing thing. Nothing serious.

  It happened just before Christmas, the year before last. Everyone was snowed in. I couldn’t get down to Gloucestershire because the roads were closed. Geoffrey was stuck in Washington. He phoned me from there, worried about Tiffany. She was alone in London. He asked me if I’d go around and see her, check she was all right. I was pleased enough to go. Always an odd time, that week before Christmas. Everyone’s off the leash. Christmas lunches, a bit too much to drink. A breath of hysteria in the air. And that year more so than ever due to the snow. Besides which, I was feeling pretty low. Rosa wasn’t returning my calls.

  So anyway, I went around to see Tiffany. Because I’d been asked to go, favour to an old friend, and all that. In truth, I knew before I went where things would lead. It had been in the air a long time. Ever since that stupid fortune-telling business the year before. Not that I started it. I certainly didn’t. She was the one who made the running. But I wasn’t averse to the idea. A very pretty girl offers herself to you. What do you do? So anyway, that’s how it was. Nothing to be proud of, but there we are. I’ve no excuse. Drink. Lust. A few evenings together at Geoffrey’s house in Chelsea. Just a bit of fun, that’s what I thought.

  I don’t do that kind of thing all the time, mind you. But I was going through a bit of a phase. General view is that you have a riotous youth, then you grow up and become sensible. But that’s not my experience. In my thirties and forties it was all marriage, mortgages, jobs, responsibilities. Then I hit fifty. Next thing I know I’m throwing up in wastepaper bins and waking up in bed with women whose names I can’t remember. Curious, really. Growing up is a process that can switch into reverse.

  Anyway – Tiffany. Yes, she did tell me she was unhappy with Geoffrey. And she told me I wasn’t happy with Fiona. That I was meant to be with her. Probably I agreed with her. But that’s just the kind of thing you say in those situations. I mean, really, you’ve got to dress it up a bit. No one wants sex just for sex.

  By the end of that week I was actually pretty fed up with her. She wouldn’t stop asking me questions. She fancied herself as some kind of amateur psychologist. At first I didn’t mind. Everyone likes to talk about themselves, after all. But th
en she started on about one thing and another. Stuff that had nothing to do with her. In truth, she was pretty tactless. And I wasn’t putting up with that. Anyway, by then the snow was clearing, Geoffrey was on his way back. So that was the end of that. Just one of those things. Or so I thought.

  But she wouldn’t let it rest. Telephone calls, letters, teasing threats. Was I a little in love with her? I don’t think so. But I was flattered. I accuse her of a taste for melodrama but perhaps I was as bad. Certainly, we were a bad combination. And, of course, I couldn’t avoid her. Because of Geoffrey. Everywhere we went she would corner me. A bad case of intimacy harassment. Often she would turn the screws. But only in a joking kind of way. I’ll tell Geoffrey. I’ll tell Fiona. Usually I’d manage to jolly her out of it.

  Why do men lie to women? She asked me that once. She’s not the first who’s asked. An interesting question. But a more interesting question lies behind it. Why do women believe things that men tell them even when those things are patently untrue? Point is, I’ve never told a lie to anyone who didn’t want to be lied to.

  Then the night of the fire. She rang and asked me to go over for a drink. She knew that Fiona and James were in London and Maggie was out. I thanked her but said no. It was gone ten o’clock. I was buried in paperwork. And anyway I didn’t want to see her. Although, of course, I didn’t say that. I should have foreseen trouble. I should have known from her voice. But, in truth, she often sounded hysterical. For all I knew she’d laddered her tights. I put down the phone and started to work.

  Ten minutes later she rang again. Started to insist that I should go around there. I was polite but firm. Then she started to threaten me. Same old thing. She would tell Geoffrey, she would tell Fiona. Except this time she sounded more serious. I really thought she might do it. I was bloody furious with her. But finally I had to go.

  When I arrived I knew she’d been drinking, which she hardly ever did. She had no head for drink. I’d already had a few glasses as well, since it was Saturday night. Straightaway she started in on me. I had lied to her. All the time I’d been telling her that I couldn’t leave Fiona. But it wasn’t that at all. The truth was that I had another woman.