Renée Knight - Disclaimer

She can see Robert in the kitchen, watching her. He doesn’t move and neither does she. The length of the hall stands between them, a ten-foot space swimming with unspoken words. Catherine struggles to work out which ones to swallow, which ones to use. And once chosen, which order they should be in. She is the first to move, travelling through the hall towards Robert, her mouth open, gathering up words as she goes.

“It was sent to our old address. To me. It’s about something that happened, years ago.” She falters. “They’re trying to punish me.”

“Punish you? Who’s trying to punish you?”

“Whoever wrote the book.”

“Punish you for what? Is it to do with a film you made? If it is we should get the police involved….”

“No, it’s nothing like that….”

“Well, what then?” He sounds impatient. He is tired. “Who sent it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What makes you think it’s about you?” There is scorn in his question.

“I recognised myself.”

“Do they name you?”

She grabs his hand, hoping it will give her the strength to carry on.

“No, they don’t name me but they describe me and—”

“Describe you? What — blond? Middle aged? For God’s sake, Catherine…”

He takes his hand out of hers and sits down. She feels the words slip back down her throat and anger rise up. She is angry with his ignorance. Blames him for not knowing. For not being there. For making it so hard for her to tell him. And now the moment has gone. She cannot tell him now, not like this, and her speechlessness makes her weep. She sits down, and collapses, face on arms.

“Oh, Catherine, Catherine. You shouldn’t have let things get this bad.” His tone is softer and she feels his hand on her hair.

“What is it about that book? Nick read it, didn’t he? That seemed to bother you. Why?” He waits for an answer and she forces herself to look up at him, her face soggy and flushed.

“It frightened me…. I saw something in it that…” She pushes herself on, trying to tell him some truth. “It made me hate myself. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” And she falters; she can’t do it, so she tells him something she knows he will believe. “I’m being paranoid… it’s in my head, I can’t explain….” A moment’s silence, then he fills it.

“Oh, Catherine, you don’t have to explain to me. I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t mean to get angry, but I worry about you.” He takes her hands in his. “I know it’s not been easy between you and Nick. It’s hard for you. But he loves you, you know that. He and I just find it easier to talk, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.” He puts his arms around her to soften his words, but they still make her flinch. “He can be tricky, I know that. I’m not blaming you. That book’s obviously triggered something… connected with you. What’s it about? Guilt? A mother and son?” He waits for her assent and reads it in her silence. “You have nothing to feel guilty about, Catherine. Nick is twenty-five and it’s about time he moved into his own place. He can always come back to us if he needs to. We’ve still got a spare room.” He takes her face in his hands and forces her to look at him.

“The only one who’s punishing you, Catherine, is you.” His voice is gentle. “You must stop it. Promise me?” She nods.

“We’ve been here before, Cath. Let’s deal with it quickly this time — there’s no need for you to torment yourself. Go and see the GP. Talk to her. And why don’t you ask her for something to help you sleep?” He smiles. “I know you too well. You’ve tried to hide it, but I can tell. And you look bloody awful.” He kisses her. She nods.

“I’m sorry, you must be exhausted,” she says. “And you’ve got to be up early tomorrow.”

“It’s fine,” he says. “Just promise me you’ll go and see the doctor.”

“Yes I will. I promise.”

“You know you can tell me anything. You know that, don’t you.” It is not a question. He takes her hand and leads her back upstairs. “Just talk to me, Catherine. When you feel like this, just talk to me.” His words — kind, caring — conflict with the backdrop in her head: her face, the one her husband is stroking now, smashed beyond recognition on a railway line.

A sharpened pencil in the right hands can be a lethal weapon. At the very least, it can take out an eye, at the worst push right through the socket into the brain. I had sharpened mine to perfection. But a lethal weapon is useless unless it hits its target.

I knew who my target was; I had known her name for years; now I needed to reach her.

I took advice from a local man, the printer who had produced the order of service cards for Nancy’s funeral. It was he who suggested I cut out the middleman and publish the novel myself: “Go direct to the reader,” he said. Music to my ears, but “online”? Well, there he had lost me. I was not “online.” I didn’t even possess a computer. There aren’t many advantages to being old and lonely, but in that instance I managed to make the most of my pitiful situation. I needed help, and that kind man gave it to me. “A laptop,” he suggested. Yes, I liked the sound of a laptop and he helped me buy one, guiding me through the bewildering process, and then he set me up online. I would never have managed it without him. Such a patient man, so obliging. He gave me a freedom I didn’t even know I lacked — set me off on a voyage into a boundless universe, me an elderly man, free to roam wherever I wanted.

My first port of call was her name. I typed it in, and then up it all came. Photographs, a short biography and all her credits, everything she’d ever worked on. A few imposters came up too, but I recognised the real thing when I saw her. We’d never met, but I had no doubt which Catherine Ravenscroft was mine. And there was her husband too. Robert. Robert and Catherine. In one photo he had his arm round her. Her hair was windswept and she was smiling. To my amazement, I discovered that when I clicked on this photo I could find out the exact spot where it had been taken: GPS coordinates. I looked them up on a map, and there it was. Fowey in Cornwall. A holiday in a smart hotel, I imagined. The photo taken on a mobile phone. Perhaps her son had taken it. Her little boy, a young man now. Nicholas. Nicholas Ravenscroft. Here he is. No university education? A dropout? Surely not. A salesman? I’d expected more from the offspring of such an ambitious and successful couple. Oh happy days. So many missing years, and yet it took me no time at all to catch up and find out what she and her family had been up to. What a full, rich life she’d been leading, and how well she’d been rewarded for it. It showed in her teeth — straight and white — a sign of prosperity for sure, rather like a tan was in the ’60s. Her hair was expensive too, well cut, and the grey hairs (surely she would have had some by now) ingeniously blended with blond. Yes, she was thriving all right.

I became quite the intrepid traveller. There were other paths I was drawn to, and I confess that at times I became distracted. One led me to a former pupil. He’d been a favourite, this young man, but of course he wasn’t so young now, he was approaching middle age. I’d thought of him over the years, wondering what he’d made of himself, and now I could find out. With light fingers I picked my way through his career, his social life. Unmarried, no children. From this distance, it was safe to watch him. No one would know.

But back to business. I needed an address: the bull’s-eye at the centre of my target. I knew where she worked, but it was her home address I was after and that was proving a little elusive. It was her husband, in the end, who spilled the beans. I read a profile of him in the business section of a newspaper. Blah, blah, blah, and then “Robert Ravenscroft lives in North West London with his son, and wife, Catherine, a successful documentary filmmaker.” Not a whole address, but a clue, and in the end it was my fingers which did the walking and found me their listing in the telephone directory: “Mr. R. Ravenscroft.” I noted down the telephone number for future reference.