Just In Case Part 18

'What were you thinking, Agnes? It's horrible.' He glared at her, eyes burning. 'You're horrible. What have you done? You've turned me into some kind of freakish spectacle. And you didn't even ask me.' Fury boiled in his blood. He felt capable of killing her, himself, everyone in the room.

'I'm sorry, Justin. I should have warned you.' She sounded defensive. 'But I made something of it. That's all.'

'You made something? Of corpses? Of me?'

She followed his eyes over her shoulder to a suit jacket that had been sliced to pieces, then st.i.tched roughly back together with brown string.

Justin collected himself. 'I have to go now, I just wanted to stop for a minute.'

Someone called Agnes and she turned away, leaving Justin tumbling slowly towards the exit. There appeared to be plenty of time as he fell, time to experience quite distinct waves of anger and disgust.

'Justin ' Agnes called after him without much conviction. She didn't add wait'.

He opened the door, and the gallery coughed him out into the street.

45.

Outside, bathed in the faint greenish light of a winter thunderstorm, Justin ducked his head against the frigid wind. From the shadows, puffing calmly on a cigarette, Ivan watched, amused.

So, Agnes hadn't told him he was the star of her little show? Tch, tch. Shocking omission. Well, there's no such thing as a free s.h.a.g, Justin, my boy. There's a lesson for you, for next time.

Justin raised his head to look back through the heavy plate gla.s.s. Everywhere he looked, his own image stared back, twice as large as life, mocking him.

It's not me, he felt like shouting. That person isn't me. The need to rid himself of the person in the photographs, to destroy the hideous, pitiable figure in the beautiful grey coat, took him over until there was nothing left but rage. And so as it began to rain, big icy drops that turned the grimy road slick with mud, he peeled off the precious garment and hurled it as hard as he could. It landed flat and heavy under a steady stream of traffic and sleet.

'Let's get out of here,' he said to Boy, and began to run, head ducked, his brother's Christmas present pressed to his chest, shirt collar pulled up against the rain. If he'd waited another few seconds, he might have seen Ivan dive into the traffic after his coat with a furious oath. He might have heard the skid and screech of tyres and seen the stormy oblivious world close over the man one last time, seen the sodden coat and its maker become indistinguishable from roadkill.

But Justin's head was down and it was dark. It was all he could do to keep upright against the driving needles of freezing rain. Which is how he came to collide with a middle-aged woman walking towards him on the pavement. Her head and neck were stiff and painful and she walked quickly, eyes downcast, anxious to be home in bed. The rain stung her face and ran down into her eyes, a tiny percentage pooling and mixing with fluids contained in the conjunctiva.

In the exact moment of the glancing impact of Justin's body against her own, she blinked, and momentum caused a drop of fluid from the mucous membrane surrounding her eye to traverse the few inches into Justin's slightly open mouth. It was the sort of event that happens a thousand times a day on trains, in lifts, wherever strangers in close proximity cough or sneeze or shake hands.

In its entirety, the encounter lasted about two seconds.

Justin, soaked and freezing, regained his balance, mumbled an apology and continued to run. At Peter's house, he towelled off his dog, threw a blanket on the floor, placed his brother's gift on the radiator to dry, stripped off his own clothes, ran a hot bath and lay in it until his bones thawed, his fingertips accordioned into whitish folds, and the water began to cool. Then he dried himself and crawled into bed beneath a pile of quilts, his steaming body warming the cold sheets.

Peter and Dorothea arrived home soon afterwards, and Justin could hear them at the doorway to the bedroom, whispering. They waited for a sign that he wanted company, but he gave none, and eventually the whispering ceased.

The next time Justin woke up he could hear Peter's calm regular breathing across the room, and the dial of his watch glowed 2 a.m. He lay awake then, disturbed by images of disembodied limbs and torsos riddled with shrapnel, legs with no feet, fingerless hands.

The memory of Agnes's photographs sickened him.

He came down the next morning thick-headed and depressed, and found Dorothea and Anna already awake, feeding the cats and talking about Agnes. He asked Dorothea, cautiously, what she thought of the show.

'It's very clever in some ways,' she answered coolly. 'And the photographs of you are beautiful, even when you look your worst. Most people won't care that it's all very horrible as well. They'll just think it's new and different and terribly original.' Dorothea's eyes were unsentimental. 'I'm not wild about her angle on friendship, if that's your question. She's treated you very badly indeed.'

And that was that. The next minute she was making him a cup of tea and describing a snow leopard doc.u.mentary she and Anna had seen on TV.

Dorothea's appraisal of Agnes was a revelation. She was so definitive and matter-of-fact that Justin felt the terrible shame inside him begin to dissipate. Agnes's power was flawed, so flawed that an eleven-year-old could defy it.

Peter came into the kitchen. 'Have you seen the paper today?'

Later that day Justin thought back on their conversation and wondered whether the things that kill you were not just the crashes and explosions from without, but the bombs buried deep inside, the bombs ticking quietly in your bowel or your liver or your heart, year after year, that you yourself had swallowed, or absorbed, and allowed to grow.

46.

A few days after the opening, Agnes telephoned.

'I'm sorry I haven't been in touch.'

Justin said nothing.

'What with the funeral and the inquest. And everything.'

There was a long silence.

'Justin?'

'Yes.'

'You just don't give a d.a.m.n about anyone but yourself, do you?'

'You think I should be weeping over Ivan?'

'A man died, Justin. It's a great loss.'

'A great loss to whom? To you, maybe. To you and your career. You've lost your precious two-faced mentor.'

'It wouldn't hurt to show a little remorse. After all '

'After all what? I killed him? Tell me, what kind of genius jumps in front of a car to rescue a coat?'

'Justin '

'But while we're on the subject of remorse, let's talk about you'

Agnes inhaled sharply. 'Justin, look, I am sorry. I should have warned you. I should have asked you about using the pictures.' She hesitated. 'It was stupid of me.'

'But you had more important things to think about.'

'Well, as a matter of fact I did, but it's not that. It's just that I didn't want you to get the wrong idea.'

'And what would that have been?'

Agnes hesitated. 'That I was using you.'

'Oops. Too late.'

'Justin.' Her voice shook. 'Don't be like that.'

'OK, I won't be like that. Let's simplify things. You tell me exactly how to be and I'll be like that.'

She said nothing.

'Oh dear,' he said, 'don't tell me I've hurt your feelings.'

'Justin.' Her voice was quiet. 'I'm sorry I hurt you.'

'IT'S-NOT-THAT-EASY' He was furious, menacing.

'I can't talk to you when you're like this.'

'Do you think I care whether you talk to me or not?'

'But I still care about you. I want to know what you're doing, how you're feeling.'

'How do you think I'm feeling?'

'A little angry, at a guess.'

'How perceptive.'

'Stop it, Justin '

'Don't tell me what to do.'

Her voice caught. 'Look, I know I behaved badly. But I wish you would stop being such a '

'Such a what? A prat? A child? A virgin?'

'You make it impossible to explain.'

'Do I? How rude of me. Please explain.'

'Whenever I think for a moment I might be talking to someone sensible it just ends up as an idiotic discussion about '

'Yes?'

'About invisible dogs and fate and things I can't even begin to cope with.'

'So don't.' He spat the words.

There was a silence.

'Why exactly do we have to be enemies?'

'Why exactly did you think it was OK to use my unhappiness for your personal gain?'

Agnes said nothing.

'Why exactly would you have s.e.x with someone and afterwards think it's OK to ditch them, pretend it never happened and then use their worst nightmares to further your own reputation?'

And by the way, why don't you love me any more?

'I said I'm sorry.'

'Oh well, that's just fine then.'

'And I didn't ditch you, and I didn't pretend it never happened.'

'It?'

'Our little s.e.xual encounter.'

'A little encounter, was it? You've had bigger, no doubt?'

'You're behaving like a child.'

's.e.x with a child. Isn't that against the law?'

'Jesus Christ Justin! Weren't you there when it happened? Wasn't it your choice too? You'd just love it all to be my fault, wouldn't you? Well it's not. I'm sorry I had s.e.x with you and if I could take it back I would. Are you happy now?'

No.

'Look,' Agnes tried again, 'I don't know what you want me to do or say.'

He said nothing for a long time. The silence pooled stagnant between them.

At last he spoke. 'I don't know either.'

Liar.

You know exactly what you want her to do and say. You want her to say she loves you to distraction, you want her to beg you for s.e.x five or six times a day, implore you to live with her, remain true to you for the rest of her life. That's all. That's what you want her to do and say.