"In the long run what?"
"In the long run it"s not the people on the ground making the big decisions. Can I get anybody more wine?"
"So you"re coming down pretty firmly on the fence, then?"
The Trophy Wife spoke for the first time in a while. "I"d like some more wine." Mark tried hard not to beam in grat.i.tude, and disappeared to the kitchen to find another bottle.
Sarah turned to Gerard. "What"s your stake in it, anyway?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I don"t know what you do, other than it involves supplying commodities to a variety of customers. I mean, you don"t actually make anything, do you?"
"I make money, my dear. A great deal, actually."
She"d walked into that one. "And that"s what you"ll be doing if there"s a war, is it? Making profits out of the dead?"
"You make it sound as if I go grubbing round battlefields picking the pockets of corpses."
"Well, you might as well, mightn"t you?"
He looked at her. "No, in fact. My "stake" in it is the same as yours, actually. In that I"ll be a member of an involved nation. Other than that, I"ve no direct interest. But unlike you, I gather, I"ll actually be supporting the troops sent out in my name. Because the fewer of them die, the happier I"ll be. Is that what you were getting at?"
Sarah bit her tongue. Slippery b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
Gerard looked at Rufus. "So much for world events. What is it you do?" He put a slight stress on do, as if the notion of Rufus in action, hard as it was to swallow, had to be faced up to sometime.
"I, er, freelance."
"Freebase? That"s some kind of drugs thing, isn"t it?"
Rufus coughed. "Freelance."
"Oh, freelance. At what? Quant.i.ty surveying? Window cleaning?"
Mark came back with an open bottle and began waving it vaguely, as if expecting a queue to form in front of him.
"I teach," Rufus said. "Adult literacy," he added.
"How fascinating," Gerard breathed.
Sarah had had enough. Much more of this, and Gerard Inchon would be wearing her cutlery in his back.
"Wine, er, anyone?" Mark said at last.
"I"ll go and make the coffee," Sarah said.
But the explosion, when it happened, drew a line under the conversation. It seemed to come in two distinct stages, though afterwards Sarah could never recall in which order they occurred. The room shook, not violently, but more than was usual during the average dinner party; the prints on the walls rattled in their frames, and the light-fitting spiralled, sending shadows swinging from their corners. And then, or possibly slightly beforehand, there was a dull thump followed by a sliding noise, as if a geological event were taking place at an unexpected venue. Wigwam dropped her empty winegla.s.s; the Trophy Wife"s eyes grew round in alarm. Mark rose to his feet, looking automatically to Gerard for enlightenment, as if having more money than anybody else made Gerard the expert on everything. To her fury Sarah found she"d done the same herself. Gerard put his gla.s.s down very carefully and turned to look at the curtained window, then nodded to himself, as if an earlier suspicion had been confirmed, and turned back to Sarah. "That was a bomb," he said.
"A bomb?"
"Unmistakable. A gas explosion would "
Rufus brushed past him on his way to the front door.
There was a moment"s confusion, as if n.o.body were sure whether to follow Rufus or listen to Gerard; then a general exodus in the former"s wake. Probably the only time Rufus could expect to upstage Inchon, but Sarah only managed this thought later. At the time, her mind was locked in that off-kilter clarity in which all perceptions are heightened, and everything happens in slow motion, but nothing is capable of articulation. She wished afterwards she"d savoured the look on Gerard"s face, but had to make do with imagining it.
It had come, the explosion, from several hundred yards up the road, maybe as far as the river itself, and even against the night sky inky black smoke was visible, clouding the air the way a squid might stain the lower depths. But there was little flame, and if it weren"t for the crowd already gathering under streetlights, Sarah would not have known which way to look. The noise that remained was the sound of aftermath: a kind of muted roar still echoing off the houses. Sarah bit her lip, tasted blood tinged with mint, and half of her wanted to understand what had happened, and the rest didn"t want to know. They stood in a group, with only Rufus apart; a few yards closer to the destroyed house, as if that slight edge gave him a different perspective. And under the roar she could hear the muttering of the crowd ahead; the appreciative undertone you get at a bonfire. For there was a fire. If you looked closely you could see a glow from an upper window, as if a dragon breathed against the pane.
"Must be a gas main," Rufus said.
"What can we do? We can"t just stand here!"
Mark put an arm round her. "There"s nothing we can do. Just wait for the professionals, that"s all."
"But whose house is it?" asked Wigwam. "Is it somebody we know?"
As if this made all the difference, thought Sarah. Or any difference at all.
"I can hear sirens," the Trophy Wife said. Sarah wished she could remember her stupid name. "There!"
They could all hear them: a high-pitched keening, curling over the rooftops and echoing down the street.
Gerard lit his cigar. The flame from his lighter threw a devilish cast across his round face, stressing his widow"s peak. "Bit more excitement to wind up on," he said. "You lay this on especially, Mark?"
"Oh, shut up," Sarah said.
She did not know whose house it was, but it lay hard by the river. The crowd was keeping a distance; no amateur heroics this time of night. Maybe it was empty, after all. But Sarah wished somebody would do something, if only to absolve the rest of them from the crippling sin of being useless in a crisis. She took a step away from Mark, whose arm dropped from her shoulder. And now fire engines came crashing round the corner, still blaring their sirens to underline the nature of emergency. Nothing serious ever happened quietly. Not while men were driving, anyway.
"There"s nothing to see," Mark said, in unconscious parody of a policeman in move-along mode. "No sense rubbernecking."
"Isn"t there an ambulance?" asked Wigwam.
"It"s coming."
It tailed after the fire engines, its blue light scooping in and out of the gaps between houses. Because there was an ambulance did not mean anyone was hurt, Sarah thought. But it was pointless reaching these rational little conclusions. The house could be stuffed full of infants for all she knew. The fire engines pulled up near the house, and all sorts of efficient things happened. Hoses snaked from the backs of trucks, while men in yellow helmets shouted instructions to each other. The crowd moved back in awe or obedience while two men in white pulled stretchers from the ambulance. At this remove, it all had an air of unreality, as if she were watching a not-quite accurate account of a small disaster. She heard gla.s.s breaking, then a hose whooshed on, trained on what was left of the upper storey. At this angle she could not be sure, but the house had a lopsided appearance, as if part of it had been swallowed by night and shadow, or something with an altogether larger appet.i.te. It was the house on the corner, she decided. So any part of it that had collapsed had probably fallen into the river.
"Shall we go closer?" fretted Wigwam. "I can"t see whose house it is."
"We"ll only be in the way," Mark snapped.
Rufus reached out and caught Wigwam"s sleeve, whether in comfort or prohibition, Sarah had no idea. There was another rupture from the emergency scene, and uniformed men danced back from sliding rubble.
"I can"t bear this," she said.
"Let"s go inside."
They straggled back in, Gerard alone reluctant. Perhaps he got a kick out of other people"s tragedies; more likely he wanted to finish his cigar. Sarah found two inches of it squashed upright on the gatepost next morning, like the offering of a particularly acrobatic poodle.
All were subdued, and at least two of them deeply upset by what had happened. So Mark approached the matter in best masculine fashion, producing the brandy he held back for private emergencies; he and Gerard made the most of this one, though everybody else declined. Rufus never touched spirits. Gerard wasn"t surprised. Other than that, an armistice had been declared, which lasted until the dinner guests called it a night. It had gone twelve, to Sarah"s surprise. She thought she"d been excruciatingly aware of every minute, but the last hour had pa.s.sed her by entirely.
The thank-yous rang phony in her ears. Half her guests, she never wanted to see again; the other half she wished she"d not invited. Mark, come to that, was scoring small in the Good Husband stakes. So pleading a headache, she retreated to the kitchen almost before they were out the front door. At the back of the house, she could pretend the noise outside was a party. That way all she had to grieve about was the fact that she hadn"t been invited.
She could hear Mark heading upstairs. Once he"d have been in to clear up. Now it seemed this was her domain; he"d cancel his subscription to the Guardian before using the phrase Woman"s Work, but he"d justify not helping nevertheless. Hard day at the office; long journey back; had to stand all the way from Padding-ton. Plus she"d been p.i.s.sy with his guests, which was hardly the way to further his career. And underneath that, no matter what kind of day he"d had, no matter what she"d said to whoever, there"d be that nasty little jingle that she heard all the time these days, although he"d yet to say it aloud: It"s not as if you do anything else. Is it, Sarah?
She stacked dirty dishes. Fifteen minutes" work here, but she was tired. The morning, she thought. She"d do it in the morning. Then a sudden, unwanted vision attacked her of them both being blown away in their sleep, and morning never coming. But that wouldn"t happen, not twice in the same street. Not two gas accidents so close, though she might just get the boiler checked while she had accidents in mind Gerard, remember, had been sure it was a bomb.
Something moved outside the back door, shocking her from her thoughts. Probably a cat, she quickly decided. Which it was. Moving closer she could make it out, sitting on the patio, grooming itself; a familiar local black, the opposite of a stray in that about six different households fed it. No way was she joining in. But she stood and watched it for a while, until it became too difficult to focus on the world beyond her own reflection, chopped and multiplied in the dozen gla.s.s panels that made up the back door. See yourself as Pica.s.so sees you, she thought. In her case, heavy. Lifeless shoulder-length hair. A smidgin over-made-up this evening . . . This woman has low self-esteem. Which didn"t make her wrong, Sarah thought bitterly. Let"s get Mark"s opinion on the subject, shall we?
He was not available. The cat was subjecting her to pretty close scrutiny though; its eyes reflecting the kitchen"s glow, its gaze steady and unforgiving, and it seemed to Sarah that it was weighing her according to some feline scale; checking out her potential for survival on the other side of the gla.s.s, where the wild things were. She didn"t rate highly. Too old, too slow, too fat. Only thirty-three. Never what you"d call fast. She could stand to lose some pounds, it was true. The Other Sarah Tucker would have done just fine. But I don"t know about you. It was the judgement of a superior creature, she felt; a creature that never suffered a dinner party for its mate"s awful client, or squandered its emotions keeping house.
But for all that, Sarah Trafford, nee Tucker, thought, it was only a cat.
II.
South Oxford had its compensations. North Oxford had the parks, the houses, and one or two minor colleges; East Oxford had Tesco"s and an energetic police presence. West Oxford had the railway station. South Oxford had the river.
Not all of it, true, but as much as fitted into a long stretch beween two locks: Old Lag River. Between Osney and Iffley it meandered, with the pedestrian bridge at Friars Wharf marking the midway line: a harmless if unattractive structure, its metal frame daubed with uninspired graffiti. Twice a day this saw heavy traffic as infants from the estate were ferried across it to school. Sarah used it habitually as a shortcut into town, and from it could make out the exploded house next morning, an end of terrace whose exposed side stood on the footpath that ran by the river. Or had stood, rather, since now the house had folded in on itself like a used-up cardboard carton, all that remained of the wall being a faint outline the eye drew on the air, as if bricks and mortar had been reduced to an architect"s plan. The front door stood upright; a bright cheeky red which could have ill.u.s.trated the spirit of the Blitz. But everything to its left had collapsed, laying the interior bare to the gaze of onlookers like Sarah, and the gaggle of women still returning home two hours after dropping their kids at school: they huddled nearby, smoking, telling lies about seeing it happen, while on the riverbank groups of policemen did much the same, except kitted out in dayglo overalls. The footpath had been cordoned off, along with the top of the road giving out on the river; little strings of yellow bunting flapped in the wind. The second storey of the house was gone, and the ground floor a mess of smashed furniture and broken walls, as if a whole collection of worldly goods had been dropped from a great height. The wallpaper on the inside upright was scorched and shriven, and on it Sarah saw the shadow of a chair which no longer existed, one the blast had reduced to matchwood. What was left of the roof sagged, still shedding tiles at irregular intervals. To all intents and purposes, the house next door was now nearest the river. South Oxford had grown smaller by one address.
There was a sealsplash as a wetsuited policeman dropped into the water. One of the women detached from her group and came over. "They carried three out. I saw the stretchers."
Sarah didn"t know what to say. She had never spoken to this woman, and didn"t know three was a significant number. "Well . . ."
"And she lived alone. Just her and the kid."
"Who was "
"n.o.body knows."
There was a shout from below. The frogman surfaced, holding what looked like an intact teapot.
"I don"t even know who she was."
"Maddie. Maddie Singleton."
The name meant nothing. "And the child?"
"Just a bairn. Could have been one of us, couldn"t it?"
"What could?"
"Something like that. The mains it was, they reckon. See our block?" She waved a hand at the flats behind them. "It happens over there, Boom! Goodnight, Vienna." She was much the same age as Sarah, but her smoker"s features added years. "Goodnight f.u.c.kin" Vienna."
"Were they killed?"
"Course they were killed. It was an explosion."
A policeman had taken the teapot and was trying to fit it into a polythene bag. The frogman dived once more, his flippers breaking the surface briefly, then disappearing with hardly a ripple. The women on the bridge murmured, as if giving points for style. It was a strange new spectator sport: catastrophe aquatics. The frogman would collect what used to be a life, and pack it all in polythene bags for the experts to put together again.
"Shocking, I call it. They should do something about it."
"Like what?"
But the woman didn"t know.
She went back to join her mates, the word spread, the message pa.s.sed on. Sarah felt she"d fumbled the encounter, but couldn"t think how to recover it. And felt clumsy, too, standing here; looking on someone else"s accident. Then she saw the man on the other side of the river, standing on the ap.r.o.n of gra.s.s below the flats: he too was a voyeur. But something about him held her gaze.
He looked to be forty, though that was an outright guess. The first glance told Sarah he"d lived a life that had aged him fast, though she"d have been at a loss to supply the detail to back up that notion. His long hair flopped untidily across his forehead and was tied in a knot at the back; it also sprouted in a stringy, undernourished beard that looked fairly recent. Outfitted by Oxfam, Sarah thought: denim jacket, patched jeans, scuzzy white T-shirt; he could have been one of the dozens of homeless who mumbled round the city centre, carting bundles of newspaper and litter-filled plastic bags, but something took him out of the category; she couldn"t fathom what. His air of concentration perhaps. Something, anyway. She"d work it out. And all the while Sarah gazed down at him he didn"t once look up, yet she was sure he was as aware of her presence as he was of all those presences on the bridge, enough to have described any one of them a week hence . . . Perhaps she"d drunk more than she"d thought last night.
Enough, anyway, not to notice Wigwam until she was nearly on top of her. Or recognize, rather, for Wigwam was not unnoticeable. Bright yellow shorts this morning, with a pink, hugging T-shirt that walked a line between brave and downright stupid; turning a figure you might call generous into one that looked plain greedy. Though Wigwam, Sarah had long since known, cared nothing about her appearance.
"Are you all right?" were her typical opening words.
"I was miles away."
"Poor thing."
But Wigwam, Sarah realized, wasn"t addressing her any more. "Did you know her?" she asked.
"Maddie? Yes, of course. Didn"t you?"
"Don"t think so."
"You must have done. Tall woman, blonde hair. Her daughter"s just a tiny." Wigwam"s eyes filled with tears.
Sarah was remembering a flitting shape, a head of hair, an outline without a voice. "Red overalls?"
"Maddie?"
"The child."
"Dinah. I think so."
She had sat on the towpath throwing crusts to the swans. Sarah remembered her now; a fair child with her hair in bunches, and grubby clothes, and bright yellow jellies. She couldn"t have been much more than three. "Swans," she"d said to Sarah, and pointed. There"d been a mother there, but she hadn"t left a mark on Sarah"s memory.
It had only happened once. But now, even looking at it, she found it hard to picture a towpath without a grubby blonde child casting stale bread into the water.
"Poor love. All alone now, even if she does "
"She"s alive?"
"Oh, she wasn"t killed. Not Dinah."
"I thought she was."
"She was shielded by a wardrobe or something. From the blast. She was in bed, and the bed just dropped through when the floor caved in. She didn"t even fall out."
"How do you know all this?"