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She was right of course, but I still found myself putting her on the phone, asking her to speak to them about specifics or comfort Mum about flat-roof leakage. I shouldn’t have used our holidays like that. I should have taken her to Mexico and the Maldives, like she wanted.
She should be here with me. My yearning for her is so strong that it feels as if all the panels of our fractured picture will inevitably slide back to true and we’ll be as we were before.
In my head I run through the last ten minutes of a cheesy film about a couple chasing each other on the beach, barbecuing fish, horseback riding, etc., and then I remember it’s Susie. I snort, thinking about it; imagine her, slathered in sunscreen, turning to me and saying, “This beach is chemically unsafe.”
chapter six
IT’S COLDER TODAY. I MIGHT NEED TO BRING A HEATER UP HERE. My feet are quite warm, but the top of my head gets cold. I think all the heat rises from the house and gets sucked sideways, out through the attic space next door. I’d like to insulate this room for Susie coming home, paint it maybe, and buy her a new computer and not say anything so she comes up here and gets a nice surprise. I could convert the whole loft area and give her a really big office. We don’t keep that much stuff in there, just Margie’s baby clothes and the LPs and some suitcases that were here when we moved in. I’d like a building project, something big, as a sign of good faith that she will come home. I think it would cheer me up. But, then, she probably doesn’t want a big office. The claustrophobic feel of this little room, squashed in next to the chimney stack, has an intense privacy about it. If anyone else were in here, they’d be standing indecently close to me. It’s like a physical incarnation of personal space. The nights are coming earlier and earlier, and as the skylight deadens, the slow black oak waves softly in silhouette, reminding me that there is an outside to this small, tall room. In case I forget.
I find myself craving this study when I’m downstairs coping and feeling tired and worn and put upon. It’s not just the room, though, it’s because of the Dictaphone tape as well. I’ve been looking forward to getting back to it all day. It’s as if Susie’s up here waiting for me to come to see her. It makes me feel as if I only need to die of love and sorrow until eight o’clock in the evening. Then I can leave Yeni to deal with Margie’s final, stalling requests for water and come up here to the virtual woman in the attic.
I find I’m rewinding the tape to the start each time on the pretext that I need to check if I’m getting it down correctly. But as it plays, I’m not reading what I’ve written, I’m just glazing over and losing myself in the texture of her voice. I wonder if Susie wished herself up here when she was downstairs with me. And if she did, who was in here waiting for her?
I got another letter from her this morning. It’s longer than the first but just as cagey. She tells me she’s been seen by the psychiatrist and he’s drawing up the report about her. The sooner we get to sentencing, the sooner we can start the appeal. It must be weird being assessed by a colleague. She’ll almost certainly know them, at least vaguely. She’s sounding less shocked, although it still doesn’t sound like her. The letter is stiff and formal, as though she’s trying to pass on a coded message. But then we’ve never written to each other, so maybe that’s just her writing style. I asked her to phone me. She still hasn’t and doesn’t even mention it in the letter.
I rewind the tape for a moment and press play: “… are generally middle-class white teenagers. Same thing. That luxury of distance.”
The interviewer asks a long question.
“We screen all potential visitors to make sure that the prisoner hasn’t misrepresented himself. Also, we need to know that the new visitor won’t try to kill the men they’re visiting. Yes, it is. It’s a very real worry actually.
“I had been in charge of screening his letters. The law’s changing and we won’t be able to read their mail for much longer. It’s an important security function at the moment. Strangers get in touch with them, and they don’t always wish them well, I’m sure you can imagine.
“Do
Susie had told me about the letters to Gow. Apparently a lot of women sent in pornographic photographs of themselves, and some of their letters were filthy. But Do
Mumbled question.
“So, yeah, she seemed reasonable enough. How sensible is anyone who writes unprompted love letters to a self-confessed serial killer? Actually, when I interviewed her, I was surprised by how bright she was. She’s intelligent, has a quick mind, and she’s quite well read, too. Strange accent- have you heard her speak? Do
I suddenly understand why the journalist wished her ill. She sounds so contemptuous. She used to talk to me about my writing using just that voice. It sounded like she was being a cheeky cow, but she is just a very practical person, very goal-oriented. She doesn’t understand anyone pursuing a career with an uncertain outcome, or doing anything just because you enjoy the process.
“The background is that Do
Susie moves in her chair, bends forward or something. The waistband on her skirt gently squeezes a breath from her as it contracts on her smooth, down-dusted belly. She lets out a sigh so small, so intimate, it makes me want to cry. It’s as if she’s brushing her lips past my ear, a small breath easing from her throat, past the palate, brushing between her lips, and out. She takes in a tiny rasping breath to compensate before she carries on, and when she does, her voice has changed. She’s giving a lecture, a tutorial report, regurgitating information. She is hesitant, not because she is unsure, never that, but because she is summarizing, compressing, simplifying.
“She threw her husband out, got a restraining order against him, and her father died shortly afterward. A few months later she wrote her first letter to Gow. It may have prompted her to write to him, actually. A cross between a relief and a grief reaction.”
The interviewer says something.
“I don’t know about Do