Pat Barker - Border Crossing

‘Then I can start reading?’

‘Yes. Gently.’

They took their glasses over to a table by the window and sat down. ‘Well, then,’ Martha said, lighting a cigarette, ‘how does it feel to be a hero?’

‘Dunno.’

She smiled. ‘C’mon, Tom. How close was it?’

‘For him? I don’t know. He’d taken enough pills to knock him out, so I suppose, yes, it was pretty close.’

‘Extraordinary coincidence.’

‘Extraordinary.’

They didn’t need to say much to make themselves understood.

‘Of course he’d say it wasn’t a coincidence,’ Martha went on.

‘That’s right. Arranged by God.’

‘Well, don’t knock it,’ she said. ‘A lot of perfectly rational people would agree with him.’

‘Yes, I know. And a lot of perfectly rational people would say it happened that way because Danny planned it.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘I don’t know. And, anyway, he has to be given the benefit of the doubt. There’s no way we’re going to prove anything. And outrageous coincidences do happen. He’s told you he wants to come and talk to me about…” He glanced round, but they had the back room to themselves. The solicitors and barristers who were the Crown’s daytime clients preferred the lounge bar. ‘The murder.’

‘He’s been talking about doing that on and off ever since I’ve known him. And I’ve always encouraged him. I think he needs to do it. Whether this is the right time

‘Did you think he was depressed?’

‘No. He seemed angry, if anything. But then I suppose if the anger’s got nowhere to go…’

‘How often do you see him?’

‘Three times a week.’

Tom whistled. ‘That’s a helluva lot.’

‘Yes, well, he needs it.’

‘Do you find him difficult?’

‘Draining. Sometimes after I’ve seen him I have to go home and lie down. But actually he’s also quite rewarding. He’s… I don’t know. Very empathic. At times it’s almost uncanny. You think, how the hell could he know that? I haven’t said anything.’ She paused to think. ‘He gets inside.’

‘Like a tapeworm, you mean?’

‘To-om.’

‘All right. I was starting to think I might consult him. So anyway, you think I should do it?’

To his surprise she didn’t answer immediately. ‘I’m not sure. You know I said he was very good with people? Well, he is, but —’

‘He doesn’t like triangles.’

She looked surprised. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Just a hunch.’

‘Did he say anything?’

She was over-involved. ‘About you? No.’

‘Well, anyway, you’re quite right, he doesn’t. Mike Freeman — you know Mike? — and I were supposed to work together, they thought it would be good for him to have a man and a woman. And it simply wasn’t possible.’

‘It must’ve been quite bad if he actually split you?’

‘Yeah, well, Mike isn’t very experienced/

He had split them. ‘And you think the same thing might happen with you and me?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘I don’t really see what you’re worried about. So okay, he’s not good at triangles? The general idea is that we’re supposed to be.’

‘It’s not just that. There’s a certain amount of antagonism there, Tom. Towards you.’

‘Yes, I think 1 detected that. Does he say why?’

‘He trusted you. In his mind, you let him down quite badly. He thinks if it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t have been in court at all, he’d have been dealt with as a child. You were the one who said he understood what he was doing and that he was fit to plead in an adult court. He hasn’t forgiven you.’

Tom nodded. ‘We’d need to talk about it. But the antagonism itself isn’t automatically a barrier. I mean, frankly, even if I was starting from scratch, I’d expect to be on the receiving end of a fair bit of hostility, because he’s angry. He hates the system, he hates what it did to him.’

Martha shook her head. ‘No, it’s more than that.’

A long pause. Tom said, ‘There’s no question of my going ahead without your approval.’

‘And I think he needs to do it. So that’s that, then.’ ‘

You could try getting him to talk to somebody else.’

‘I have.’ She smiled. ‘It’s you or nobody.’

‘Which raises doubts about his motivation.’

She hesitated. ‘He wants to get at the truth, Tom. I’ve no doubt about that.’

He looked at her. ‘You’re very concerned about him, aren’t you?’

‘Over-involved, you mean?’

Tom smiled. ‘How much is over? I don’t know.’ ‘I’m concerned about you, as well. What do you want to do next? What do you want me to tell him?’ ‘I need to see him again. And I’d quite like that to be in your office. You know, establish a fairly formal framework.’

‘All right. Normally I don’t see him there, because… because Ian hasn’t got a record, for one thing.’ ‘I suppose you do know how bad for him that is?’ ‘But there’s no choice, Tom. If the press found him, his life wouldn’t be worth living.’ She picked up her bag. ‘Anyway, I’ll fix something up, and give you a ring. Oh and by the way, if you ever phone the office, you will remember he’s Ian Wilkinson, won’t you?’ He nodded. ‘Thoughhe’s gotto be Danny withme.’ ‘Yes, I know. Well, I think he’ll welcome that.’

Talking to Ian on the phone, half an hour later, she was fully aware of how much he welcomed it. ‘Dr Seymour hasn’t said he’s going to do it,’ she warned.

‘No, I know. But he will.’

She put the phone down, thought about ringing Tom with suggested times, then thought she wouldn’t disturb him yet. The cursor on the computer screen winked at her. She felt slightly sick, a combination of VDU glare and sunshine coming through the window. That day she went to fetch Ian back from the prison it had rained as if it would never stop. A smell of wet clothes, condensation on the windows closing them in, a constant patter of drops on the sunroof, and herself, hunched forward over the wheel, trying to see out through windscreen wipers that seemed only to spread the dirt more evenly across the glass. She leant back in her chair, with her hands over her face, and gradually the hum of the computer was replaced by the rhythmic squeak and whine of the wipers moving to and fro.

It had been late evening by the time she reached the prison. Ian was sitting in the waiting room, looking lost. ‘You don’t half put yourself through it, don’t you?’ she’d said.

He shook his head without speaking. The street lamps were on as she drove away. Rain bounced on the pavements. In the town she would have said it was dark, but out on the moors you realize what darkness is.

Rain, endless rain, and mist. The snow posts by the side of the road flashed past, inducing an almost trance-like state. She would have welcomed conversation, if only to keep her awake, but Ian remained silent. The mist thickened. They were driving along a narrow road with a steep drop on the left. When she cornered, the headlamps swept across a hillside with heather and clumps of gorse and, scattered here and there, huge grey boulders. Erratic blocks they were called, she remembered, dredging up some geography lesson of long ago.

Ian opened the window to throw his cigarette out, and drops of rain blew into her face. She heard the clank of bells on sheep grazing by the side of the road. In this light they looked like lumps of clotted mist, and any one of them could wander out into the middle of the road. As much as the rain and mist they forced her to slow down.

Ian was angry. That curious blocked anger of his. Knowing he wasn’t the victim, knowing he had no right to be angry, and yet seething anyway. She felt his anger in the silence, heard it in the hiss he made drawing on the next cigarette. My God, and she thought she smoked too much. It was making her want one, though. ‘Could you get me one of mine?’ she asked.