Owen Sheers - I Saw a Man

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Michael withdrew his hand from Samantha’s. “How do you know?” he asked her. “About Maddy?”

“Oh,” she said, “it’s been brewing for years. From before Tony even married her, in a way. I suppose I don’t know for sure. But I’d be surprised if I’m wrong.” She lifted her teacup to drink. “She’s probably just playing with him,” she said, as she put it back on its saucer. “To alleviate her boredom. She’s that kind of woman.”

“But Tony,” Michael said. “Josh adores him.”

“No,” Samantha said clearly. “He wants to be him. He aspires to him.” She waved a hand in front of her face, as if clearing a spider’s thread. She didn’t want to talk of it anymore. She gave him one of her smiles; distancing, a polite mask. “I’m enrolling in an MA,” she said by way of changing the conversation. “In September. Photography, at the Royal College of Art.”

For the rest of their time in the café, Samantha talked about her future, not her past. However much Michael wanted to help her through her loss, so far she’d barely mentioned her grieving to him, or the circumstances of Lucy’s death. He’d tried to broach it, gently, when they’d gone for a coffee in the week after the funeral. But Samantha had just shaken her head. “I’m sorry, Michael,” she’d said, crying quietly. “I can’t.”

Since then, recalling his own weeks after Caroline’s death, he’d come to understand why Samantha might be holding her loss close. It was as if her grief was a newborn, an infant with whom she, and she alone, was learning to communicate. He knew she’d talk about it when she was ready, but until then his just being there would have to be enough, however impatient he was to be of more tangible help. So as they finished their teas and another bus moved on, unlocking more of the sky above them, Michael had listened, aware that this, as much as anything, could be a form of contribution. The promises Samantha was making to herself were, he felt, as much to bolster her decision to split from Josh as they were promises to be kept. The MA, finding a job, to pick up her yoga classes again, to join a friend’s book club. How many of these might come to fruition, Michael couldn’t tell. He remembered making similar plans himself in the months after Caroline died — to move back to America, to stop writing and work for a charity or NGO instead, or even to try and use Caroline’s insurance payout to set up a foundation for young journalists in her name. And yet he’d remained in Britain, moved to London, and had, in the end, even through the turmoil and sleepless nights of the past two months, eventually returned to the comfortable pastures of The Man Who Broke the Mirror. But he knew now that the keeping of his promises had not been the point. And it was the same with Samantha. For now, their potency was in their making rather than their practice. And so Michael listened, realising that if what Samantha had said about Josh was true, and they’d separated for good, then it was likely that it would be in her alone his atonement would be focused. That it was to her his attention and time must be devoted.

As they left the café, Samantha paused on the pavement outside. She had a small case with her, on wheels, as if she might stay away for longer than just the one night. Michael was about to ask if she wanted him to walk her to the Tube station, when he saw she still had something to say. Something she didn’t want to leave unspoken.

“It hasn’t been just Josh,” she said, as she put her purse back in her handbag. “It wouldn’t be fair to make you think that. It’s been me, too.”

Michael stepped aside to let a woman with a pram pass. Samantha watched her push it on down the pavement, a child’s arm hanging from its seat. Out in the light Michael saw how Lucy’s death had etched lines about Samantha’s eyes, her mouth. She turned to him. “I haven’t…” she began, her eyes welling again. “I haven’t been able to forgive him, Michael.” She took hold of his arm. “For what happened. I mean, he was there.” As she said this she squeezed his arm, her fingers pressing into his flesh. “He was there, ” she said again, breaking down.

Michael held her as she cried, feeling the stabbing breaths of her sobs, just as he’d felt the spasms of Josh’s back on the Heath. Over her shoulder he watched the child’s arm hanging limp from the pram as its mother pushed it up the street. In reply he saw a flash, as he did all the time, of Lucy’s arm, hanging off the edge of the stair, her other twisted behind her. No, he wanted to say to Samantha as he held her. No, Josh wasn’t there. But I was. This is my fault, everything — your grief, Josh’s leaving, Rachel’s hurt. I watched her fall. I heard her die. Because I was there, in your house. I was there.

But what good would it do? How would his confession help this woman sobbing in his arms? It wouldn’t. It would be for his sake, not for hers. This is what Michael told himself as he gently pulled back from Samantha and, gathering herself, she, too, pulled away from him.

“God,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I must look a state. I’m sorry.” She took a breath. The storm had been sudden but had passed. “I want to forgive him,” she said, frowning. “I really do.”

“You will,” Michael said. “In time.”

“You think so?” Her eyes held a child’s look of hopefulness, the willingness to be told an adult’s untruth, a lie even, if it would just make it all better.

“Yes,” Michael heard himself say. “Of course you will. It was an accident, Samantha. A terrible accident. No one wanted it to happen, and everyone wishes it hadn’t. But you can’t blame Josh.” Again, he wanted desperately to say more, to tell her. But he had to protect her. “Josh wasn’t able to stop it happening,” he continued. “But he didn’t make it happen, either.”

“I know,” she said. “I just keep thinking of everything we could have done. Everything we should have done.”

“Don’t,” Michael said, holding her by both her shoulders. He bent his head to catch her eye. “You’ve got to look forward now. Think of Rachel, like you said. And yourself. And help Josh, if you can.”

Samantha nodded. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I know.” She looked up at him. “That American pilot?” she said, weighing her words carefully. “Have you forgiven him?”

Michael wasn’t expecting the question. Of course not, he wanted to say. Why would I? Just because he broke cover and wrote to me? He thought of Daniel’s most recent letter. How willing he’d been to answer his questions. How he seemed to see himself as another victim of Caroline’s death, not the perpetrator of it. But Michael had to be careful. Samantha was looking to him for a way forward. And yet he couldn’t lie. Not about this. “It’s very different,” he said eventually. “He aimed at Caroline. He had intent to harm. If not her, then someone. So I’m not sure if I have, yet. But,” he went on, seeing disappointment bleed into her expression, “I suppose I’ve come to understand. A bit. That he didn’t mean to kill Caroline personally. That in that way, at least, it was an accident.”

Samantha nodded again. She had no idea that Daniel and his missile had killed her daughter, too. “Thank you, Michael,” she said, taking his hand in both of hers. “Thank you. You’re a good man.”

He didn’t reply. He couldn’t. He was sick with himself. He’d secured those false minutes again. For Josh this time, as much as for himself. Perhaps, he thought, this was also to be the breed of his atonement. His contribution to Josh’s healing. A making of his lie into a truth, a blending of their shared lies into one.