Philip Hensher - The Northern Clemency

‘No,’ Alice said. ‘No, I believe you.’ It was true. She did believe it. Oddly, it was the way the note of deception had crept into the woman’s voice that convinced her. The woman, whatever else she was, had no gift for lying, and in most of what Alice had heard from her, the note of helpless truth had been audible. It was only at that point, asked directly if she were, in fact, having an affair, that the voice had started to listen to itself as if to monitor its scrupulous lies. And yet the voice was telling the truth; Alice had no doubt of that. The woman was not having an affair, as she said. But Alice had touched something secret and cherished; she had touched, surely, some characteristic and elaborate pretence. Katherine had lapsed into what, surely, was her usual allusive and interior style where Nick was concerned; she had treasured him up and made a precious mystery out of him before the only audience she had, her husband and children. There was nothing there; Alice could see that. But she’d played it out, and he’d believed what she’d wanted him to believe. The woman sat there in her kitchen, looking firmly ahead, away from Alice. She was smiling tautly, her expression now as she wanted it to be, and that must be bad to live with. An affair would be better; that was something to forgive, to walk away from. To have done nothing wrong, to make a secret of nothing, to coach yourself in the gestures of mystery and deflection, to turn your head away to suppress a manufactured expression of recalled rapture, all that, daily; from that there was no walking away.

‘Where’s he gone?’ Alice said.

‘Malcolm?’ Katherine said. ‘I don’t know. He’s just gone.’

‘He didn’t say anything?’ Alice said.

‘Nothing,’ Katherine said. ‘Not even a letter.’

Alice looked at her, seriously wondering. ‘He’s just disappeared?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Katherine said. ‘Just like that.’

‘But—’ Alice said. ‘Sorry, but – I mean – are you sure that he’s not – well, it could be anything, it could be—’

‘No,’ Katherine said. ‘He’s all right. I know that. He phoned his office this morning. I don’t know where from. He’d do that – he’d phone the office so as not to let them down. Me—’ She left it at that. ‘No, he’s not hurt or in an accident. If that’s what you mean. He’s obviously left me. He told the office that his mother’s been taken ill and he had to go over there all of a sudden.’

‘And she hasn’t been taken ill?’ Alice said.

‘Not urgently,’ Katherine said, and started laughing, an ugly sound.

‘Not—’

‘She’s dead, she’s been dead for five years. I’m surprised the building society didn’t remember that when he said so. It’s a stupid thing for him to say to anyone. Honestly, I don’t have any doubt what’s happened.’

‘I see,’ Alice said. She didn’t see at all. There must be other solutions to this situation; she just couldn’t see what they were.

‘It’s just the waiting,’ Katherine said.

‘Yes,’ Alice said. ‘I can see that. Not knowing.’

‘When there’s some news,’ Katherine said, ‘that won’t be so bad. Then I’ll know where he is, what’s happening, even, God forbid, if he’s done something stupid, but then we’ll know, there’ll be things to do. It’s the not knowing.’

‘Yes,’ Alice said. ‘Have you talked to the children?’

‘No,’ Katherine said. ‘Yes. Well, sort of. Not all this. There’ll be time enough.’

‘If I were you,’ Alice said, ‘I’d just go and sit with them. You know, be all jolly and cheerful, as if nothing much has happened. They’ll be worried, too. I don’t know, go and help your little boy, show an interest in the snake, that sort of thing—’

‘The snake?’ Katherine said. ‘How on earth did you know about Tim and snakes?’

‘Well, I saw him,’ Alice said. ‘In the window.’

‘But how do you know—’

‘He was holding it up,’ Alice said.

‘A snake?’ Katherine said. ‘He hasn’t got a snake. He never shuts up about them, it’s snakes from the moment he wakes up, but I promise you—’

Alice looked back at her, and, incredibly, felt herself starting to blush. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to tell you anything you didn’t know. But he’s definitely got a snake up there. When we were walking up your drive, I looked up and there he ws in the window with a snake round his neck. I’d better be going.’

Outside on the stairs, Jane had been listening to quite a lot of this. The kitchen door had been taken off, long ago, or perhaps there had never been one, she couldn’t remember. There was a sort of open-plan idea going on, and whenever anything was fried in the kitchen, the smell carried right upstairs, the light patina of grease settling on almost everything throughout the house. You could hear anyone talking in there, too. She’d heard everything her mother had to say, but this would bring her out of the kitchen, and Jane got up briskly and walked back to her bedroom. In a second her mother was following her; up the stairs at quite a trot, you could hear. ‘Timothy,’ she said, raising her voice, ‘Timothy!’ and into his bedroom. Jane came out on to the landing; so did Daniel. Downstairs, the new neighbour was standing in the hallway; she looked a nice woman, and tried a smile, a confused one, on the pair of them. The moment for her farewell was on the far side of some terrible family scene. She just stood there. Jane would have done the same.

‘Is this true?’ Katherine said, in the doorway of Tim’s room.

‘What’s this now?’ Daniel said.

‘Tim’s got a snake,’ Jane said to Daniel.

‘Is it true?’ Katherine said.

‘Is it true what?’ Tim said. He had got up from his bed, had backed nervously away to the window. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

‘You heard what your sister said,’ Katherine said. ‘Have you got yourself a snake?’

Tim said nothing for a moment; his fingers, behind him, running fretfully along his little shelf. ‘I’d love a snake,’ he said forlornly, but his regular request, so long overlooked or greeted with the same brief riposte had lost conviction. ‘I really would.’

‘Do I have to hear from the neighbours that you’re hiding a snake in the house?’ Katherine said. ‘Where is it?’

‘It smells in here,’ Daniel said, coming to the door of Tim’s room. ‘It really does.’

‘I haven’t got any kind of snake,’ Tim said.

‘Are you lying to me?’ Katherine said. ‘What’s under your bed?’

‘Nothing,’ Tim said, breaking out into a wail, but Katherine was already on her knees, dragging out the glass case with one, then two hands. She pulled it into the middle of the room, and knelt there, staring at the thing. It was like an aquarium of air; littered with small rocks, little toys and, ignoring all of these, curled up, was a snake; thirty inches long, yellow, skinny and ugly. With a gesture of disgust, Katherine got up, pushing the case to one side, and stared at Tim. He started to cry, turning his face away.

‘What is that?’ Katherine said.

‘Let’s have a look,’ Daniel said, coming in and peering at the thing.

‘It’s – please don’t – I didn’t mean—’

‘That,’ Katherine said, ‘is a snake. And where did it come from?’

‘I – I—’ Tim said, but it was all too much, and his tears overcame him.

‘You can’t keep it,’ Katherine said. ‘There’s no argument about that. It’s going straight back to wherever you got it from.’

‘What’s he called?’ Jane said.

‘Geoffrey,’ Tim said, through his tears. ‘I only wanted a snake called Geoffrey.’

‘How do you know it’s male?’ Daniel said, looking closely. ‘Look, he’s seen me, he likes me—’