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Chapter 17

Kate got out of the car and stretched her legs and back, squinting into the sun and wishing she had her sunglasses with her. She’d forgotten to pack them, along with her sun cream. If only the sun would go behind a cloud and the greyness would return – it was damaging her eyes and skin and playing havoc with her libido. The heat always did this to her. Like that summer at the CRU, when it was sticky and sultry and her hormones had been aflame. Like the tropical night on a budget holiday to Cuba when Jack was conceived, back in the days when she and Vernon were still sexually attracted to one another. There was no point being coy about it: hot weather made her horny. Perhaps she should do a rain dance.

Salisbury town centre was quiet, as drowsy as the wasps that circled the rubbish bins in the marketplace, drunk on Coca-Cola. Kate held Jack’s hand as he eyed the wasps warily. When he was three a wasp had crawled into a can of Sprite Vernon had let him have, against her wishes – all that sugar! – and stung Jack on the tongue. Then there was the dash to the emergency room as Jack’s tongue swelled up and Kate shouted at Vernon in the car as Jack screamed and Vernon shouted back and called her an ‘uptight crazy Nazi health bitch.’

Not the happiest of memories. Things had changed between them so dramatically over such a short period; at a time when they ought to have been relishing every moment of Jack’s babyhood, not yelling at each other. Instead, Vernon had tried to convince her that her depression at the decline of the relationship was a sign of burgeoning insanity, and that she needed intensive therapy and anti-depressants to ‘cure’ her.

‘Where is everyone?’ Paul wondered, getting out of the car and rubbing his upper arms, and then producing a pair of shades from his pocket. The shades were overly trendy and made Paul look older than he was: the opposite of their intended effect. She didn’t feel that she knew him well enough yet to tell him this though. Stop trying to look like a movie star, she wanted to say. You don’t need to make such an effort.

She couldn’t imagine Stephen trying to be trendy. He wouldn’t have known the difference between Gap and Gucci.

‘Mummy, I’m thirsty.’

She ruffled Jack’s hair. ‘Let’s go and get a drink, shall we?’

‘Coca-Cola?’

‘No, you can have orange juice.’

There was a newsagent across the road and as they walked towards it Jack said, ‘That wasp was looking at me. It wanted to sting me.’

A couple of teens thundered past on skateboards and Jack gawped after them, the insect forgotten. Paul pointed towards a board outside the newsagent advertising the Salisbury Journal with the headline Cathedral in Buddhist Row. Another board yelled Blues Boss Quits.

Inside the shop, Kate took a couple of cartons of orange juice from the double-fronted fridge, a bottle of water for Paul and a copy of the Journal from the top of a stack of newspapers on the bottom shelf. She carried them all to the counter, where a girl leaned against the till with her index finger in her mouth. Kate thought she was trying to make herself sick, then realised she was playing with her tongue stud. The girl wiped her saliva-soaked finger on her jeans before using it to stab the price of their purchases into the till.

Back outside, Jack held his juice carton up to Paul, who helped him by stripping the cellophane from the straw and poking it through the hole in the carton. Jack sipped, then pulled a face.

‘It’s gross,’ he said.

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘It tastes like crap.’

‘Don’t say that.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘A little phrase he picked up from his father.’

‘I don’t like English juice. I want proper juice.’

‘This is proper.’

‘I don’t want it.’ He threw the carton onto the floor.

Kate watched the juice dribble through the straw onto the pavement. Normally she would really tell him off, but right now she felt like she needed to hold back. He’d been so good over the last few days, acting like the model child she’d often fantasised about while she was pregnant. She’d known it wouldn’t last forever, but she didn’t want to be too hard on him. He deserved a break. But that didn’t mean he could be allowed to get away with this behaviour or he’d get worse.

‘Pick it up please, Jack,’ she said in her most calm, reasonable voice.

‘No. It tastes like crap.’

‘Do not say that.’

‘Crap. Craaaaaap. Crap crap crap.’

Paul laughed.

Kate shot him a look. ‘That doesn’t help.’

‘Sorry.’

Kate crouched so she was on Jack’s level. ‘Look, I know it tastes different to what you’re used to, but if you don’t drink it a wasp will get it.’

‘The wasps can have it.’

‘Just pick it up.’

‘Go on, Jack, do what your mum says,’ Paul interjected.

Kate held up her hand, a sign for Paul to keep out of it. He walked a few steps away. Kate said, ‘Okay, if you pick up the carton, I’ll drink it and we can buy you another drink. What would you like?’

‘Chocolate milk.’

She sighed. ‘They might not sell that.’

‘But I want it.’ He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and she realised how tired he must be.

‘Okay, we’ll look for a chocolate milk. If you pick up the juice.’

Finally, he did as she asked, handing her the carton. She went into the shop and, luckily, found a bottle of chocolate milk, which Jack grabbed from her hand and had running down his chin within seconds.

Kate wiped Jack’s chin with a tissue while saying to Paul. ‘Sorry if I snapped at you, but it’s best if I deal with these things.’

‘I understand. So . . . shall we go back to the car, then, and try to find the CRU?’

Kate didn’t reply. She didn’t need to look at any map. She remembered exactly where the Unit was. She had driven there many times. When she was living with Stephen, he would often leave her his car to use during the day, and she would drive out to the Unit to pick him up after work. She’d park in a lane down the road and sit there with the radio on, listening to Radio One – all the silly love songs whose lyrics she would eagerly embrace, waiting for the moment her heart would flutter as Stephen came over the crest of the hill towards her. Some evenings they’d drive down to the local lovers’ lane and spend a while in the car before going home. Weird how she could remember some aspects of that summer in such filmic detail while the really important stuff had been . . . well, what did it feel like? Like it had been erased.

‘You’ve gone very quiet,’ Paul said. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Yes.’ She hoped she hadn’t flushed pink. ‘Everything’s fine.’

They walked back to the car. Kate watched Paul, wondering what he’d meant by his comment about jail on the drive down. It worried her. She was putting a lot of trust in this man, mainly because of who he was – or rather, who his brother had been. But despite this hint that there was something unsavoury in his past, just watching him with Jack, the way he’d tried to help, even if his attempts were misguided, she was sure she was right she could put her faith in him. She hoped she was making a wise judgement.

‘Do you want to drive?’ Paul asked.

She hesitated. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t driven a stick for years.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You really have been living in the States too long.’ He held out the keys. ‘Go on.’

‘My Daddy says my Mummy’s a bad driver.’

‘Does he?’ said Kate. ‘Right, that decides it.’ She took the keys from him and opened the door on the driver’s side. The car had heated up while they were in the shop so they wound all the windows down, enjoying the balmy breeze that blew through the vehicle. It was like being on holiday. She hoped Jack didn’t spill chocolate milk on the backseat of Paul’s car. Sod it, it was inevitable. She started the engine and the radio came on. It was the traffic bulletin: the reporter was saying there’d been a pile-up on the M3 causing long delays for drivers heading to London from the west.

‘Oh great,’ Kate said. She paused, then added, thinking out loud. ‘Perhaps we should stay here tonight. The thought of getting stuck in that traffic in this heat is too awful to contemplate. We could find a hotel.’

Paul didn’t respond straight away and Kate hurriedly said, ‘God, I’m being so presumptuous, as if you’ve got nothing better to do. If you want to get back . . .’

‘I haven’t got anything better to do.’

‘Really?’

‘I’ve got my laptop and my phone, so if work needs me they can contact me. I’m owed a few days off anyway. I really need to find out what happened to Stephen, Kate.’

‘Okay.’

They headed up a big hill with a wonderful view of the Cathedral behind them, filling her rear-view mirror whenever she glanced in it. Before long, they turned the corner onto the road where the CRU stood.

But it was completely gone, replaced by a housing estate – new starter homes for couples and young families. Kate pulled up to the kerb and sat silently for a few minutes, staring at the freshly-trimmed lawns and gleaming garage doors. She got out of the car and stood in the road, turning slowly in a circle. Gone.

Why had she thought the buildings would still be here? How foolish. But surely it was reasonable to think there would still be a trace of those prefab huts, the wire fence that surrounded them, all the work and research that went on.

No, it had been erased. The people who lived in these houses – like that guy over there, watering his lawn; that woman sitting reading a fat paperback in her striped chair; those kids kicking a football around – all probably with no idea about what had once stood here.

She walked over to the wooden fence that marked the edge of the estate. Here was something that hadn’t changed: the verdant fields and crooked mud paths where she and the other volunteers had walked, allowed to wander as long as they didn’t come into contact with any outsiders. She closed her eyes, felt the sun on her face. In these fields, not so far away, she and Stephen had made love on a hot summer day like this one, beneath an oak tree, her long skirt pulled up, baked-dry grass prickling the flesh of her thighs. She had been so happy. The future was a golden place with Stephen in it.

She closed her eyes again and the images shifted.

The fire alarm screamed, smoke billowed through the corridors, Sarah held her up as they tried to find their way out of Hell . . .

She sensed Paul and Jack coming up behind her, their shoes scuffing the asphalt, and she wanted to turn to them. But she couldn’t open her eyes.

Outside now, running towards the building, the firefighters carrying someone out on a stretcher. Stephen. Oh god, no, Stephen. And the doctor coming up to her and everything fading.

‘Kate? Are you alright?’

The images shifted again – back to Sarah, pulling her out of bed. And further back – she and Sarah fighting. Fighting? What about?

Of course.

She opened her eyes and found Paul standing in front of her. For a moment, the walls of time flickered and Paul became Stephen: young, shy, flushed from their lovemaking. But then it was Paul again.

‘I’ve remembered what happened with Sarah,’ she said. ‘And I can remember her name too. Sarah Evergreen. The Green Eyed Monster.’