Renée Knight - Disclaimer

“Sit down.”

So I do. Why not?

And then she spits at me. Covers me with it. It seems as if she cannot stop. It keeps coming until I am awash with thick, clogging mucus which pours out of her, and settles on me. I am an insect again, trapped by the spittle of my predator who is planning to eat me alive. I am being eaten alive.

Catherine has blood on her hands. Mixed with her sweat, the inside of both her palms are a filmy red. But it is her blood, from a cut on the heel of her right hand where she broke the glass and reached through to open his front door. She sits in her car outside Stephen Brigstocke’s house and wipes it off onto her jeans.

She hadn’t bothered to knock. She simply broke in and closed the door behind her. The curtains were drawn and in the dim light it took her a few moments to recognise that she was walking through the wasteland of a life. Dirty cups, plates, empty tins of beans still with the fork in them littered the table. The floor was strewn with bits of paper; an old Welsh dresser recoiled in humiliation, its drawers hanging out, its doors flung open. Her eyes were drawn to the only tranquil spot in the room: a desk, neat and tidy, with a silver-framed photograph of a young couple from the ’60s and a laptop, open but sleeping. She woke it up with a stab of her finger and then flinched as Nicholas’s Facebook page blinked back at her. There is a message on it from Robert giving an update on Nicholas’s condition.

She walked on through the filth and stink of the kitchen and stood at the kitchen window. She knew he must have heard her, knew he was probably upstairs, but she was in no hurry. She looked out at an apple tree laden with fruit, a garden neglected, but beautiful still. Wildflowers tickled through the unmown grass and mature shrubs stood proud against the weeds which threatened to strangle them. A bonfire smouldered, and she went outside and stood over it, looking down at the remains of the things he had tried to destroy.

She felt him before she saw him: a shrunken figure, hugging a woman’s cardigan around his scrawny, bare torso, standing at the open back door. He didn’t protest, barely blinked, when it poured out of her, but she saw him wilt and shrivel under her words.

Catherine remembers more than she told him. Unspoken words swam around her head, but she held them there, not wanting them to clutter up her story. Get to the heart of it. And she had. When she finished he was silent, looking down into his lap, his hands gripping the edge of his stool.

“I’m sorry.” The words surprised her. They came from her, not him. She hadn’t planned on saying them, they just came out. She left them there, got up, and walked out.

And now she allows herself to cry. Years and years of tears pour out of her.

SUMMER 1993

When Jonathan smiled at Catherine sitting on that bar stool, after her phone call with Robert, she smiled back. It was instinctive, but it embarrassed her and she ignored his gesture inviting her to join him and hurried instead to the lift up to her room. She locked the door and moved over to the bed, checking on Nicholas. He was fast asleep, spread-eagled in her bed. She opened the door into the adjoining room and carried him through to his own bed. Then she had a shower before going to bed herself. Nothing had happened that night. Nothing.

The following day she and Nicholas went to the beach. It was early, Nicholas had been up since seven, so they were there by about eight thirty. She remembers feeling lonely, but she remembers too the brilliance of the sun, not too hot, and the miles of sandy beach. A beach all to themselves, she remembers telling Nick. There were endless trips to the sea and back with buckets of water. They were building a town, or at least Catherine was. Nick hadn’t quite got the hang of it, and thought the buckets of sand she emptied out for the shops and the houses were there just to be knocked down. She remembers her patience, and also the twinge of guilt she had at being conscious of her patience. It hadn’t come naturally. She went with it though, went with him. And as he flattened down the buildings, she started on the roads, dragging a spade through the sand, creating winding streets through the heaps of sand he trashed.

After a couple of hours other people started arriving and by lunchtime the beach was full. By lunchtime too, Nicholas was hot and tired. They went to a café for lunch, leaving their towels, but nothing valuable behind. They were hand in hand and Catherine remembers being happy. She remembers the pleasure of Nick’s pudgy little hand in hers and giving it a squeeze, and him squeezing back. They were leaving the day after tomorrow and for the first time she found she had the heart to make the most of the time they had left in the sun.

Nick ate his lunch without a fuss, and after, she bought them ice creams. She had strawberry, he vanilla, and they shared them as they walked back to the beach, each taking a lick of the other’s. She remembers the blob of strawberry ice cream on the end of Nick’s nose where he lunged for hers at the same time as she held it out to him. He giggled, enjoying the cold on his face, and then daubed his cheeks and chin with vanilla. He tried to stretch his tongue round to lick his nose and chin, but it didn’t reach and Catherine used the edge of her beach dress to clean him up and stop the wasps homing in on his sweetness.

When they got back to their towels, they flopped down, hot from the walk. She remembers taking off her sundress and sitting with her legs apart, and Nick snuggling up between them and leaning against her bare stomach as she read to him. His body became heavier, and his head lolled against her arm. He had fallen asleep, and she carefully lifted him from between her legs and lay him on his side, draping her sundress over him to protect him from the sun. He slept for over an hour and she read her book, happy. Really happy. She fell asleep herself for a bit, curling around him, spooning her son.

When Nick woke, she woke. When she sat up, she saw Jonathan. There were people between them. He was closer to the sea than she and Nick, but he had a clear view of them. He was lying on his stomach facing them. She wondered how long he’d been there. She pretended she hadn’t seen him and turned her attention to Nick, getting a drink out of the bag. He must have taken some photographs of them then. She doesn’t remember him doing it, but she has seen the photographs. The snap of her and Nick sitting on their towel and her handing Nick his drink. The plastic bottle was warm and the drink must have tasted disgusting but Nick didn’t complain. She remembers feeling self-conscious about her near nakedness. She was exposing no more flesh than anyone else on the beach, and yet she felt exposed and moved her legs closer together and pulled up the straps of her bikini top when they slipped from her shoulders.

By about three, Catherine and Nick left the beach and returned to the hotel. She can’t remember what they did in the next couple of hours there, but the time passed peacefully. Then they took a taxi into the town. Catherine would have preferred to walk, but it was too far for Nick, so the hotel ordered them a taxi. They ate pizza in a café, and then they walked hand in hand around the small streets until they came to a square and she remembers Nick’s squeak of excitement when he saw the carousel. It was as if it had appeared straight out of the pages of a children’s book. He wanted to go on his own horse and for Catherine to sit on the one behind. She remembers putting her hands over his, making sure he held on to the pole thrust through his horse, and then she mounted her own, right behind him, just as he’d asked. She felt queasy as the horse went up and down, round and round, and she worried every time Nick turned round to look at her that he might let go but he didn’t, and he loved it. He had a wonderful time.