I Know What I Saw

‘Well, you better let me speak to her first and try to iron this out. She might have a reasonable explanation.’

‘Seb. If I don’t have the money, they’ll charge me with murder.’

‘Okay. I’ll call her in the morning,’ he says.

I think about this but tomorrow is too late. ‘I’ve got to meet the solicitor tomorrow. She wants an answer about the money. I really need to know where it is. You don’t understand. I can’t go through a criminal trial. I can’t.’

He is in the middle of pouring out coffee but stops. ‘Fine.’ He takes his phone out and takes a breath. ‘Okay,’ he says and presses a number on the screen.

I hear the number ring. It rings and rings until I’m sure it’s going to ring out. And then at last it’s answered.

‘Nina. It’s Seb. Hi,’ he says, and pauses. ‘Yes. Sorry. I know it’s late. Look, I need to see you. It’s important.’ Her voice is tinny through the handset. ‘No. I mean now. I can come to you or— No,’ he says, looking across at me. ‘It can’t wait.’ He pauses for Nina to say what she has to. ‘It’s better if we do this in person, trust me, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’ He waits as she speaks and then shrugs at me. ‘Well, it kind of is life or death, Nina. Okay,’ he says and puts the phone on the table.

‘She’s coming now.’

My stomach lurches. Now? I haven’t seen her for over thirty years. I remember seeing her briefly a few months before Grace and I split up. Grace went to stay with her to think things through but when I went to pick her up, I got the feeling that she thought that Grace would be better off if we simply ended it there and then.

Nina had always been overprotective of Grace. I didn’t know whether that was because Grace gave off something that signalled a need for protection or whether Nina just didn’t like me.

Once I told Grace that Nina made me feel as if she’d found me under her shoe. She hates me, I said to her.

‘That’s not true! She just prefers women to men.’

‘Or some women to some men,’ I said. ‘She seems to like Seb well enough.’

‘I don’t know about that. Not sure she likes him much at the moment either.’ I think we were in the kitchen. I have a half-memory of her picking up a tea towel and drying some dishes. ‘She’s got a thing about controlling men,’ she said then, almost casually.

‘What?’

A beat passed before she answered. ‘She thinks you try to control me with your jealousy.’ Then, seeing my expression, added, ‘That’s her – not me.’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘What? She thinks I’m controlling?’

‘I know,’ she said, agreeing, wide-eyed.

‘Well, she got the idea from somewhere,’ I muttered under my breath and then left the room.

Later I’d apologised. ‘It’s okay. I know what Nina’s like.’ I’d seen Nina just a couple of times since then. Once was on the day I’d brought the dollars. She had been out so Seb and I had taken the cash from the bin-bags and bundled them tightly into carrier bags, the better to fit the coffee table-trunk in the loft. I was passing the last bundle of notes to him when I heard the front door open. It was Nina. We froze. We heard her going through the house and then suddenly Seb dropped the bag that was in his hand and there were dollars everywhere. I still remember how we scrabbled about on hands and knees, picking up cash by the fistful before she came up. Then when she did we feigned innocence.

‘What?’ we said on the landing as she came up.

She said nothing but knew something was up. And when she stalked out, we both laughed.

The bell rings and Seb gets up to answer it. He pauses by the kitchen door. ‘Let me do the talking.’

I wait.

The front door opens in a clatter of locks and chains, then the sound of heels on wood and later the scent of rose. It’s a smell I remember. Another madeleine bringing a rush of memory. That rose. Turkish delight.

When Nina comes into the kitchen, she is mid-sentence with Seb and then stalls. She sees me and we lock eyes. Mine see a woman with the same cut-glass cheekbones and bright blue-green eyes that I remember. The effect is as arresting as ever in her pale face. Her fringe is still dark. Only a few fine lines around the eyes give away the time that has passed.

‘Xander,’ she says. There is no warmth in it at all. She turns her back to me and faces Seb, arms crossed. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘He’s the reason I called you. Have a seat. Coffee?’

She sits but does it by perching at the edge. She makes no move to remove her blood-red coat. It remains draped across her sharp shoulders. I pull my chair back to make room for her but she’s not looking at me at all.

‘Well?’ she says, taking her coffee from Seb.

‘Well,’ he says, drawing breath. ‘It’s to do with Xander really.’ They both look at me. ‘How to begin?’ he says. ‘Some years back, Xander left some cash here for safe-keeping. After he and Grace—’ He coughs when he sees her face. ‘Anyway. It’s missing.’

She absorbs the information but says nothing. She takes a slow sip and puts her cup down softly. Then she raises her eyebrows, waiting.

‘Nina?’ I say irritably.