Renée Knight - Disclaimer

“We’re so sorry — Jonathan died in an accident. Yesterday. We’re very sorry.” I nodded, Nancy didn’t move. We both sat in our separate chairs and then I stood up and went over to her. I took her hand. It was clammy, unresponsive.

“What sort of accident?” I was thinking road. Something on the road, that’s where accidents happen. A car hitting him. Him falling from a motorbike at speed. Being hit by a truck. Something quick and final with no hope of recovery.

“He drowned,” the policeman said and the policewoman got up and offered to make tea. I pointed to the kitchen.

“It was an accident. The Spanish police are clear about that. Tarifa. The sea is treacherous there. Unpredictable.” He looked at us. But what could we say? What could we do? We needed to be told what to do. He knew that.

“You will have to go to Spain to identify your son. The Spanish authorities won’t release the body until there’s formal identification. Unless there’s someone else who could do that for you….”

“So you’re not sure it’s Jonathan? It could be a mistake?” Nancy snatched at hope.

“Mrs. Brigstocke, I’m sorry, but there is no mistake. The Spanish police have been through your son’s things… his bag was on the beach… but there still has to be a formal identification.”

“Maybe someone stole his bag?” she pleaded.

“They found his passport. It’s definitely Jonathan.”

The female officer came back with the tea — too milky, too sweet.

“The body can’t be released until it’s been formally identified. And then you can bring him home,” she said as she put down the tray. “But if there’s anyone else who could do that, then…”

“No, there’s no one else,” I said.

“No other family?” I shook my head. She took this in then carried on.

“The consulate will help with all the arrangements. They’ll look after everything for you.”

The body. Our son. The body. I felt Nancy slip her hand out of mine and wrap it around her teacup.

“Here’s the number for the consulate, and I’ll give you mine too,” the policewoman said, writing in a small pad. “In case you have any more questions.” She held the piece of paper out to me, but it was Nancy who took it. She sat down with it, staring at the numbers. She didn’t look up when they walked to the door, or when she heard it close behind them.

There were questions of course, which I hadn’t had the presence of mind to ask at the time. How exactly had it happened? What sort of accident? Was there anyone else involved? It was Nancy who found out those details when she telephoned the consulate and it was Nancy who told me. That is when I first heard the name Ravenscroft. Nancy wanted to get in touch with her, but I persuaded her not to. I’d said it was up to her to contact us and she’d agreed with me at the time. The fact that Catherine Ravenscroft made no attempt to do so made me even more certain that it had been the right decision. It was only later, after Nancy had developed the film from Jonathan’s camera, that she must have changed her mind. But she didn’t tell me. She kept it to herself.

When the door closed behind them, I saw Nancy was shivering and I pulled the blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around her shoulders. She still hadn’t looked at me.

“Nancy, Nancy,” I whispered. Then I knelt down and pulled her towards me, but I had to pull her, she didn’t come willingly. It was shock, she couldn’t move. Of course I was shocked too but in a way I was luckier than she was. I had her to focus on. I had to help her, so I couldn’t think about how I felt. I stroked her hair as if she were a child. I said her name again, several times, quietly, as if coaxing her out of sleep. And then she woke up and looked at me, shrugged the blanket from her shoulders and stood up, roughly dislodging me.

“You must phone that number. Get us on a flight.” And she went upstairs and I heard a suitcase being dragged from under our bed.

Robert’s neck is stiff, his eyes dry. Catherine’s lover is dead. Jesus. That’s why she thought she hadn’t needed to tell him. She thought she’d got away with it. Her lover was never going to turn up on their doorstep. No wonder she’d been depressed. She was grieving. Had she fallen in love? Not in such a short time surely. But did it make her think she was missing something? Robert had spent the night in the car, taking the bottle of whiskey with him when he stormed out of the house. She begged him to stay, begged him to listen. She even ran after him.

He only drove up into the next street, he didn’t go far. He didn’t know where to go so he parked and sat there, half expecting her to appear at the bottom of the road, having run after him. He kept checking in the rearview mirror, but she didn’t come, and so he reclined his seat and finished the whiskey.

He should feel sick from it, but he doesn’t. It is his wife who conjures up the nausea. Her lies — he doesn’t want to hear any more and he ignores all her calls, finally switching his phone off. His anger is solid within him and he clings to it, to stop himself disintegrating. It sickens him to think how she has manipulated him, but he should have known. It’s the tool of her trade, something he’s always admired: her ability to persuade people to do things they’d prefer not to. He never dreamed she’d use that trick on him.

He started reading the book last night while he swigged on whiskey but he didn’t get far. He was too distracted and couldn’t concentrate, but he will read it today, this morning. He’d slept on the backseat, curled up like a baby, his knees tucked into his chest. He is still in the back, sitting upright now, as if he’s waiting for his driver. His head aches and his mouth tastes as if he’s drunk the contents of the toilet before it’s been flushed. He reaches to the front of the car and jams three extra-strength bits of gum into his mouth. He needs food, he needs coffee, and he needs time to sit and read. He can’t drive though, he daren’t risk it. He must still be over the limit. So he locks up the car, straightens his clothes, and heads off to the bus stop.

It is five thirty. He has hours before he needs to be at work for his first meeting. He waits for the bus. It is a beautiful day, sunny, quiet still. He is the only person waiting, but when the bus pulls up, there are a couple of people already on it. People he doesn’t normally travel to work with. He guesses that the young African woman is going home after a night shift. He notices the edge of a uniform below her anorak. She looks tired, deep purple rings under her eyes. A hospital worker perhaps, but he thinks auxiliary not medical. And he thinks, a good woman: a woman who works shifts to support herself and her family; a woman without vanity, who has no time for affairs and deceit. He wonders whether his thoughts are racist, and decides they probably are, this presumption of simplicity — the imposition of worthiness to her existence. And the elderly man, Eastern European, he guesses, with a knitted hat even in the summer, and a rucksack with a lunch Robert can smell from two seats away. A builder, he guesses, off to tart up some privileged Londoner’s home. A home like his. Where this man, who should have retired by now, will be begrudged cups of coffee and the use of the toilet. On him, Robert imposes a quiet dignity, a silence from where he observes the lives of the people he works for without making judgments on them. When he gets up, ready for his stop, Robert smiles, first at the woman, then the man, but neither notices him. Sanctimonious twit is his judgment on himself.

This is a morning of firsts, and he finds a small café, the type he would never normally choose, but which is the only one open at six in the morning around Berkeley Square. He asks for tomatoes on toast. Brown bread, not white. No, toast please, not fried. And a cup of tea, which, when it arrives, is the colour of toffee. He has chosen a corner at the back and settles down to read.