I Know What I Saw

‘What?’ she says without looking up.

‘Did you take the money?’ I say.

‘What money?’ She moves in her seat.

Whatever coldness or indifference she once felt for me has deepened over the years.

‘There were two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In the house. It’s gone. All of it.’ Seb is getting irate.

Nina blinks at him and pulls out a packet of thin cigarettes from her bag and lights one. The scent of her hangs in the air.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t even seen him,’ she says, pointing her cigarette at me, ‘for thirty years. And I think I’d remember a quarter of a million pounds in cash.’

‘Dollars,’ I say but she looks away, saying nothing.

‘Nina?’ Seb says, bristling.

‘What?’

‘The money. Where is it? It’s important.’

A sense of dread grows in me. I worry that if she doesn’t have it, then there’ll be no way of finding it again. And that could be the end for me.

‘You knew I had the money. I know Grace spoke to you about it,’ Seb says. ‘We had an argument about it. You wanted to give it straight to Grace.’

She wriggles in her seat and then suddenly stands, pushing her chair back with a screech. ‘What’s this all about, Sebastian? You can’t have called me all the way here for this.’

Seb stands and then sits back down again. He looks at me for permission but I haven’t caught up with him. ‘We need it, Nina. Xand needs it. Now,’ he says, pulling his sleeves back.

‘Well, I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time. I don’t know anything about the money. I never even laid eyes on it. And then I left you – and this house. And you know exactly what I took with me,’ she says and draws her coat together as if to leave.

Before she can get to her feet, Seb puts a hand out. ‘Nina,’ he says, and then I see that he is holding up an earring. It swings in his fingers.

‘What’s that?’ she says, and we both look at Seb.

‘It was by the trunk that had the money in it.’ Seb calmly places it into her hand. I stare at her and then him. I didn’t see it by the trunk.

‘So, I lost an earring.’

‘It was by the trunk, Nina.’

‘What trunk?’

‘The one that used to be our coffee table. The one with all the money in it,’ he says, raising his voice.

‘I’ve never even been in your goddamned loft,’ Nina says, her voice piercing the air. And as soon as she says it, she stops, and then sighs.

‘I didn’t say it was in the loft,’ Seb says.

‘Oh, where else was it going to be?’ she says and sits back down. ‘Get me a proper drink.’

‘You stole it?’ I ask.

‘Don’t be so sanctimonious, Xander. You stole it in the first place. It was Grace’s money. You dropped her and then emptied her account.’

‘Dropped her?’ I say, incredulous at the accusation. And even as I say it, I realise that of all the things Nina is saying to me, this is the thing that hurts most. ‘She left me. You know that, Nina. You do know that?’ My voice now is the one inflected with anger. The earth is shifting beneath me. I don’t know who I am if I am not the person who was left broken by Grace. I can’t be misremembering this.

‘I know what I know,’ she says, her tone flat.

‘Is that what she told you?’ I say. ‘That I left her?’

‘No. She didn’t tell me that, Xander. She wouldn’t tell me that – she didn’t have to. She was destroyed when you left.’

My head reels and I can’t seem to grasp a still moment. I need something to anchor me, a thought, a reliable thought that is beyond shifting. I find nothing. And so, on I spin. In the background, I hear Seb questioning Nina urgently about the money and her responding in slow, liquid tones. I catch splinters of conversation as I spin on and on.

Where is it now? Xander needs it. The police. Police? POLICE? Murder investigation. It could be evidence. We need the money back, Nina. It’s gone.

Xander.

‘Xander,’ she says.

‘Nina! Don’t.’

And then I am here, my face stinging from her hand. The room has become still. Nina and Seb flushed as if they have stepped off a fairground ride. They have been talking but to me they’ve done it all as if behind glass. All I can think of is this – that Grace said that I’d left her, destroyed her when I did. I can’t make any sense of this. Through the fog I see Seb gesticulating at Nina, as if calming her. She is close. Too close to me. And now she is pushing against me as Seb restrains her. Everything is imbued with a muffled, dreamlike quality.

‘You murdered her?’ she shrieks, piercing the spongy atmosphere, before chasing her voice with another slap.

‘Stop it! He didn’t murder Grace,’ Seb says, pulling her arm back.

‘The police don’t investigate people for murder without evidence.’

‘They do exactly that, Nina. He didn’t kill her.’ I hear the words but I am still consumed by this information. Why would Grace have been destroyed by me if she had left me, if she didn’t love me any longer?

‘She didn’t love me any more. That’s why she left,’ I say quietly to myself.

Nina swings her fringe out of her eyes. ‘Even you can’t believe that.’