I Know What I Saw

But the image dissolves, and in its place is Ebadi’s home as it was on the police video. I scream for the memory devoured now, roughly, rudely, by the vulgar new one. The footage is eating my memory, contaminating it and invading the peace of my mind like an earworm.

I have to think of something else to destroy the memory worm: Seb, the house, the dollars, Grace, Rory. I slide one image after another into my head to shake my head back into order, but it’s no good. I can feel the invasive thoughts knocking. The resilience of them.

And now that word, resilience is setting its own hares racing. I wasn’t resilient enough. That was the problem. That’s what she thought. Grace.

When I saw her in her new flat, surrounded by boxes, she said she’d wanted me to do something nice for her. I chose dinner at a Café Rouge. It had been a student hang-out and now that we were fully grown, being there was dizzying, as if I was looking down at us from a height.

We ate solemnly. The meal had a biblical quality to it and by the end of it, I was more certain than ever that it was over. Finally, to break the gloom I reached into my pocket and presented her with the small box that was waiting there.

‘It’s your conch,’ I said as she took in the tiny gold pendant. ‘I found it in a drawer.’

She peered into the box and smiled sadly before taking it and closing the lid. We ate the rest of our meal in silence.

‘I think it’s time for me to go,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘I’ll run you home.’

Grace pulled up outside what had been our house. I looked at her face and was shocked by how unfamiliar she had become, and how quickly.

‘I can come in for a coffee,’ she said, looking at her watch, ‘but only for fifteen minutes or so.’

‘No need,’ I said and got out of the car. I walked up to the front door and put a key into the lock. I looked round to watch her leave but then stopped. She’d switched off the ignition and was now climbing out of the car.

‘I can stay for longer,’ she said evenly, walking towards me.

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘There’s no need.’ I removed the key from the lock and waited for her to leave.

‘Well, I’m coming in anyway,’ she said. ‘Just for a minute.’

I sighed then and put the keys away into my pocket. ‘You can’t come in. I can’t even go in. I’ve given the place up.’

Her mouth dropped into a small O. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

I shrugged.

‘Well, get back in then,’ she said, indicating the car. ‘I’ll take you to your new place.’ She was halfway to the car before she realised I wasn’t following.

‘There is no new place,’ I said.

‘What then? Where are you staying?’

‘Seb and Nina’s,’ I said, lying.

Grace took a step towards me, hooking a stray golden curl over her ear. ‘Nina never said.’

I shrugged again. ‘Maybe she doesn’t know yet.’

‘You mean you haven’t moved in yet? Where have you been staying?’

I walked towards the car and opened the driver’s door for her to get in. ‘Here and there. Don’t worry. I’m not as fragile as you think,’ I said, and shut her in with a soft thud. She looked dolefully at me through the glass and then wound down the window.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s me. I’m too fragile, I think. To help.’

‘But if you knew that just seeing you, what it does for me,’ I said before stopping myself. ‘Forget I said that.’

She shivered in the damp air and then fussed around her collar for a minute. I saw the shell there glinting under her chin.

The window rose smoothly up and then, with a small smile, she drove away.

That was almost the last time I saw her, I think. We met in the street once. And then, that was it.

I have to walk. I have to walk my thoughts into the pavement. Grind them into the concrete and stub them out. When I focus my eyes again, I see that I am at the library. I look up at the building. It is a cathedral. I begin to walk around it. Each step I take feeds a stream of invasive thoughts into the ground. I can feel myself shedding them as I circumambulate the building, until dozens or more circuits later, I am nothing but a pilgrim.

Me on one side and the universe once again on the other. In perfect balance.

25 Monday

By the time I walk inside the library, the day has begun to cool. I shiver and make straight for the armchairs.

I shut my eyes to summon the memory of that room, and before long I am there again, the flames licking long shadows on to the walls. I am on the floor, squinting at the scene at the far end of the room, and she is there, bent backwards over the table. There’s something about this scene that I’m missing. My head knows it but my heart stalls each time it draws near. What is it? The music drifts in waves over me.

There’s trouble on the uptrack
And trouble going back
I’ve had trouble with my memory
And trouble with my back …