I Know What I Saw

When I manage sleep, the memories begin to gather. They are liquid, like blood, pooling in places, coagulating in others. There is a kind of repair going on where the gaping patches are slowly, haphazardly, being stitched together. Since all of this began, I’ve started waking up sometimes with my fingers at the edge of something important, delicate. There are, for instance, cold ponds of recollection: long nights in squats. Fights over sleeping bags or sticky, collapsed mattresses. Fights over drugs. I couldn’t function there in that world. The rules had all to be relearned. Hierarchies I had known were no longer recognisable.

And then the memories jolt forwards and backwards years at a time. But through it, that song is there like a shard in my brain.

There’s trouble on the uptrack …
But the vision of a girl on my mind
Just won’t go away …

And after meeting Nasreen, I know why. That record connects me to her life and death and I can’t let it go. The image jabs, again and again. A broken record. The bench. There in the museum grounds. We sat on it together, Grace and I. Our bench. But when the images of those days collide, it’s not the sunshine that filters through, it’s the mud. I am clawing away at the wet earth, sinking my fingers deep into the mud, and I am desperate. There is an urgency in the memory or the dream, whichever it is. I am on all fours, digging, digging as if trying to uncover a dead body. And in my dream I pull the body out, wrapped in paper, only to discover it’s not Grace. Or it is her, but a fractured version of her.

I haven’t roamed as freely as I used to. Back then I’d go from night to night, shedding all the excess that I was carrying; now, instead, it just builds. Whatever is in here, in my head, feels like it has the time at last to multiply and colonise. It is as if I am the host for a disease. But I am tired of being in my head. I have to climb out. I bring myself to my surroundings and am relieved to find that I am in Seb’s house, in ‘my’ room. The key he gave me sits on the bedside table. I leave it there when I go down to the kitchen so that it doesn’t feel as if I’ve taken ownership of it.

I make a pot of coffee and take an extra mug into the living room for when Seb wakes up. As I walk in I hear a grunt and look to see Seb there, slouching on the sofa and staring into the ceiling. He flinches when I walk in but otherwise doesn’t react. He’s dressed for work but there’s growth across his cheeks.

‘You’re up,’ I say and pour him a steaming cup. He gets up to take the coffee.

‘Yeah, well, couldn’t sleep,’ he says.

I sit in the matching chair and put the cafetière at my feet.

‘Listen, Seb,’ I say. ‘I need to ask you something.’ My heart is beating but I don’t think the tremor reaches my voice.

He sits up so that he can better look at me.

‘Ariel didn’t take the money, did he?’ I say.

He half-smiles at the question before he realises that I’m serious. ‘I have no idea, Xand. That was your theory, wasn’t it?’

‘It was to begin with. Until—’

‘Until what?’

‘Until I spoke to you.’

‘I’m not following,’ he says. There is irritation leaking into his voice.

‘He didn’t break into your house and steal the money.’

‘Right … So what’s your new theory?’

I notice him swallow hard, staring at me too firmly. Agitation in the way he seems to concentrate on stilling himself.

‘There was no sign of a break-in,’ I say steadily.

‘Well, there’s the window.’ He looks down briefly before looking up again. ‘You remember how it rattled – it was that rotten.’

I am embarrassed for him – for us both – that I have to ask these questions.

‘But he wouldn’t have known that,’ I say, watching him carefully. There is colour climbing up his neck.

‘Then he could have done it at the wake. I told you he was hanging around upstairs a lot,’ Seb says, shifting in his seat.

‘And then what? Did he climb into your loft and carry out bags full of cash?’

‘Maybe.’

‘How did he know where it would be?’

‘I don’t know, maybe Nina told Grace, and she told him,’ he says, reddening further.

‘But Nina said she was sure he didn’t come to the wake. She seemed annoyed at him for missing it – as well as the funeral.’

He cocks his head at me, waiting for what is next.

‘You invented that earring, didn’t you?’ I say. ‘I didn’t see an earring up there by the box.’

‘What? I was trying to get her to confess,’ he says. ‘We know she took it. You said it yourself.’

‘You’re not working, are you, Seb?’

‘What?’

‘I mean, every time I knock on the door, you’re here to answer it. Whatever the time of day. You were even here when the police came. To arrest me. How are you always at home? Even now. Why aren’t you getting ready for work?’

‘I’ve had some days off. What are you getting at?’

He stands now and I do too, but I have two inches on him, and these bones. ‘Days off from where?’ I say.

‘What?’

‘Where do you work?’ I press.

‘You know where – Deutsche.’