The Most Difficult Thing Read online

  Compared to the last time I had seen it, the wide entrance hall felt eerily devoid of life. As I stepped inside, the air lightly hummed with the smell of stale booze and stale bodies.

  ‘Sorry about the mess.’ David led me through the hallway, scooping up half-drunk glasses as he went, placing them on the kitchen table.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  He moved to the fridge, his hair flattened on one side from where he must have slept. When he turned, he was holding two bottles of beer. ‘There’s not much else. I could pop out to the shop.’

  I shook my head, gratefully accepting the drink, wondering for a moment how he could live like this while holding down a job in the City.

  ‘What is going on?’

  He leaned back against the table as I took a sip of beer.

  ‘Meg’s gone.’

  He moved onto the other foot, ‘What do you mean, gone?’

  ‘She’s gone. Taken all her things. She said something about a job in Bristol this morning and then when I got home after work, she had cleared out.’

  ‘She can’t have done.’

  ‘She left a note.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘Nothing. “Take care of yourself.” I just don’t fucking get it – why would she just leave?’ I raised the bottle to my lips again, the glass knocking against my tooth.

  ‘You’ve tried calling her? I’ll try now …’

  He walked into the living room, the phone pressed against his ear, and I followed. There was something mausoleum-like about the inside of the house, like a set of family life, frozen in time. Framed pictures of David as a baby were neatly scattered across the surfaces of a huge pine dresser. Heavy woven rugs, William Morris curtains, an oil painting hanging above the fireplace.

  ‘It’s going to voicemail.’

  ‘Where is that?’ I was transfixed by a painting hanging above the fireplace, dusty strokes of blues and rusty greens.

  ‘That is the view from my parents’ house in Greece when they first bought it. It was just a shack really.’ He spoke as if to himself.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘My mum fell in love with it, she did loads of these after we first moved in. For a while …’

  ‘Your mother painted this?’

  ‘That’s how they met. My mum grew up on the island and when she was in her early twenties she used to have a stall at the top of the village, selling her paintings. Dad was on holiday, stumbled upon her shop and …’

  The thought of Meg popped back into my mind and I shook my head.

  ‘She said I have to move out, unless I can cover the rent on my own, which obviously I can’t …’

  Pushing his phone back into his pocket, David looked at me.

  ‘Move in here.’ He said it straight away, as if the sounds had been poised on his lips all his life.

  ‘I mean it, why not? Move in.’

  Even if I had wanted to hold back, my face would not contain itself. Lips curling at the edges, my chest lifted my whole body with something between gratitude and excitement, and something else too – an unease, a feeling I could not place, creeping in from the side.

  ‘Really, but …?’

  David rose then, unwilling to hear it. ‘No buts.’

  A moment of doubt, that is all there was. And then I felt myself nodding, pushing away the lingering sense of discomfort, stifling it with all my will until, just like that, it was gone.

  CHAPTER 10

  Anna

  The weeks passed slowly and then quickly in the months following Meg’s disappearance.

  David spoke to Meg’s mother who told him she was surprised Meg had not been in contact with either of us directly and confirmed she was in Bristol, working for a paper, and was, for want of a better explanation, probably just busy.

  Why had I refused to call? I told myself I was too hurt, but perhaps even then I was instinctively fearful of what I might find out.

  There was a moment, one morning at the office not long after she left, when I found my hands hovering above the keyboard of my computer, her name at the tip of my fingers. But what would be the point? I moved my attention towards something else. I was not on Facebook, and neither was she; what would be gained from trawling the internet for her most recent press cuttings, other than confirmation that she had moved on – and that I should, too?

  At first, I had taken Harry’s response to the news I was moving in with David as a form of contempt. There was a note in his voice that I did not recognise when I told him of my new living arrangements, and it pleased me.

  ‘I never knew you and David were so close …?’

  ‘We’re not. Well, not like that, obviously. He’s an old friend, and he’s living in this massive house on his own and … where else am I going to go?’

  I swallowed, knowing I was crossing a line.

  ‘Anna, you know if I could, I would ask you to stay at mine. But it’s not …’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Would it help if I said I was jealous?’

  ‘Maybe.’ I smiled reluctantly, leaning forward to kiss him, but he was less easily distracted than I was.

  ‘So, this house, it belongs to David’s parents but they don’t live there?’

  I was touched that he cared enough to want to understand my life.

  ‘Exactly. His dad is mega-rich, he’s usually away on business and when he’s in town he has a flat he uses. So that just leaves David and the house …’

  ‘And now you.’ He thought for a moment before nodding. ‘OK.’

  It did not hint at anything out of the ordinary at the time, the excitement shining in his eyes as he raised his glass to his lips, his eyes holding mine as he drank.

  It was a while later that he pushed the parameters of our relationship beyond the generally permissible limits, broaching the matter one night as we lay side by side, our legs entwined, between the sheets.

  ‘I know I said I was jealous of the idea of you and David sharing a house, but I wouldn’t mind if you and he …’

  My body tensed. Sensing my reaction, he placed his hand gently in the small of my back.

  ‘That’s not because I don’t want you – you know that, right? It’s just … You and me, there’s no question over what we have.’

  Swallowing, I chose to ignore that questions blew between us like sheets billowing precariously on a line.

  His lips pressed against mine and the thought was pushed away. He was a free spirit, that was all it was. There was no reason to feel alarmed.

  ‘It’s just, if it makes life easier, you know? I have no problem with it.’

  I tried to forget Harry’s words over the following weeks, but no matter how hard I tried to run from them, they chased me. The thought of his indifference, the ease with which he could accept the possibility of another man’s body on mine, following me into sleep … But there was an excitement too. The seed of a possibility of something I could sense if not name.

  And over time, I suppose, the idea lost its menace. Was it that simple? Perhaps it wasn’t, but in the end it felt like little more than an inevitability.

  We had been sitting on the sofa, David and I, flicking through magazines, a half-smoked spliff resting in the ashtray on the coffee table. It was not planned, not consciously at least. David leaned forward to reach his glass of water and I felt my fingers stop him, my hand on his shoulder. Then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, I was leaning in, my fingers lifting to his face, cupping his chin.

  His mouth was dry from the weed, and I moistened it with my tongue, leaning him back against the sofa and lifting his shirt in slow, gentle tugging motions. His eyes were bloodshot and his face temporarily frozen. Throughout, I felt his want driving me, spurring me on, wondering how many times he had envisaged this moment.

  Once he had finished I sat up and lifted the spliff from the ashtray, lighting it and inhaling deeply while he trembled on the sofa.

  It was two months to the
day after my first time with David that I stumbled upon the notes on Harry’s desk. We were lying on his bed watching a film on the laptop balanced on the duvet between us, the sound of a party flooding in from the flat above.

  ‘Do you want me to ask them to turn it down?’ I had asked as he fidgeted beside me, his hands refusing to settle.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The music …’

  He looked confused and then batted his hand. ‘It doesn’t bother me.’

  For a moment he was silent, and then he continued, shaking his head dismissively. His timing was perfect.

  ‘Sorry. It’s nothing, it’s just work.’

  ‘Anything I can help with?’

  ‘It’s just this story I’m working on.’ Leaning forward, he took a swig from his glass. ‘It’s nothing. Let’s just watch the film.’

  The following morning I woke to find him already seated at his desk on the other side of the bedroom, his body folded over the table.

  I loved watching him work, the way he argued with himself under his breath, chewing the tip of his pen, as he did now, absent-mindedly circling words on the page.

  I pushed myself up to sitting. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You’re awake.’

  He turned slightly from his chair, keeping his eyes fixed to the page. ‘I’m going to make coffee,’ he added without moving.

  I smiled to myself, leaning back, breathing deeply, drinking in his smell, letting the coolness of the sheets settle against my skin.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll make it.’ I went to stand but he got up first.

  ‘No, no, it’s fine. You stay there.’

  I watched him walk through the bedroom door to the kitchen in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, the cotton rubbing against the curve of his shoulder blade.

  Contentedly, I let my eyes drift around the room, soaking up the old press cuttings, a couple in frames against one wall, a thick stack of books on either side of the fireplace.

  It was not like me to overstep boundaries with Harry. But it was in both our interests, I told myself as my toes pressed silently onto the floor next to the bed, the wooden boards soft against the soles of my feet.

  Still, I was reassured by the sound of the kettle lightly humming in the kitchen as I wrapped the bedsheet around myself, turning slightly to the empty doorway before moving towards his desk.

  I stopped again, giving myself a chance to back out; but it was not as if I was snooping, I reminded myself as I lowered myself slowly into his empty seat, which was still warm. It was hardly rummaging through his secret possessions; it was just a pile of papers and a pad, his writing, unconcealed, the thick, loopy scrawl of someone who thought too quickly.

  I did not touch anything, I did not have to turn my head to read it. It was just there, in the middle of a series of words connected by arrows, streaking angrily back and forth across the page, the word ‘TradeSmart’ circled in pen.

  My whole body tensed. That could not be right. I looked again, picking up the notepad this time, turning it so that the words were in sharp focus in front of my face.

  As I raised the pad, a photo fell loose, landing face up on the floorboards by my feet. I looked down, and the image stared back at me. The single image of a boy, his extremities protruding from under a white sheet – a child of six or seven.

  If it wasn’t for the skin, which was black, and the hair, which clung to his head in tight curls, it might have been Thomas. My own brother’s face, his skin unnaturally white that day, beneath a scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose, had shared the same slackness of the jaw, the same unmistakable absence of life. His blond hair stuck to his forehead where he had pushed away the heat of the summer’s day with a tiny wrist.

  ‘Your coffee?’ Harry stopped when he saw my expression.

  My eyes were unable to leave the photo. As if looking in from somewhere else, I heard myself gag, watched myself stand too quickly and then the chair falling away behind me.

  ‘Anna?’

  Harry rushed towards me and I pulled myself away, making it to the bathroom just in time.

  He had not been angry about me prying and, like a fool, I had taken his softness as a sign of his love. Rather, he had merely sighed, as if there was an inevitability about what was to come.

  Leading me into the living room, he held a cigarette packet in his hand as we sat opposite each other on the sofa, spinning the box slowly between his fingers as he spoke.

  After some deviation, we got to the point.

  ‘The thing is, Anna, for the past four years I’ve been part of a team looking at a company called TradeSmart.’

  ‘I know who they are.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  He dropped his eyes, looking away momentarily, releasing a small sigh.

  ‘Well, as you may or may not know, David’s dad’s company, they’re a massive FTSE 100 organisation. A leading logistics and commodity trading company, by their own account.’

  He lit a cigarette, his forehead creasing, sliding the pack along to me.

  ‘Clive Witherall, David’s father, he’s …’ He paused. What was he thinking in that moment? Did he ever doubt me – did he ever wonder if it was safe to carry on? Or was I so clearly enraptured by then that he already knew what I would be prepared to do?

  ‘We haven’t met.’ I filled in the gaps.

  He carried on after a moment, holding my eyes.

  ‘Well, as you might be aware, to the outside world, Witherall is a bit of a saint. Philanthropist, socialite … Runs a couple of orphanages in Central Africa, patron of several charities, friend to the great and the good, whatever else you like.’

  He took a drag of his cigarette between words, exhaling a thin, steady stream of smoke.

  ‘You’ve probably seen him on TV. He’s a cocky fucker, always up on his soap-box, brazen as anything. What he’s less keen to stand up and talk about, though, is the fact that TradeSmart, for all its talk of corporate social responsibility and ethical foundations, is responsible for dumping a shitload of toxic waste at the edge of villages in Equatorial Guinea, through a series of local contractors. The fallout of which has meant thousands of people have died.’

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, unsure what to say.

  ‘Shit. That’s terrible.’

  ‘It is terrible. I mean, we’re talking babies, children, women … and hundreds more left with horrific health problems.’

  I had no idea where this was going; I was just so happy, so grateful, to be party at last to his inner life. Perhaps once he learned he could trust me, then we could become a proper couple. I could move in, introduce him to my work colleagues …

  Even then, my mind had skated to David but only for a second. The presents, the house? For Harry I would have given it all up in a second.

  ‘That’s so fucked up. I can’t believe it. I mean, seriously, to hear David talk about it, you would think his dad was like some kind of god. So you’re writing a piece about this?’

  He pushed himself up from the sofa, moving purposefully back towards his desk, shoulders broadening.

  He opened the drawer slowly, as if still unsure whether to show me or not. By the time he pulled out the folder, turning to face me with renewed purpose, he had me rapt.

  ‘It gets worse.’ His voice lowered as he sat. ‘A lot worse, Anna … The problem with people like Clive Witherall, you see, is that they have friends everywhere.’

  I nodded along, the dutiful student.

  ‘And when you have the right friends in the right places and the means to take advantage of destabilised borders, there is no limit to what you can get away with … The problem is, right now, we’ve hit a wall. It doesn’t matter what we know, because if we can’t prove it—’

  He cut himself off, his demeanour visibly shifting, as if suddenly aware of the line he had crossed.

  ‘God, Anna, I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear this.’

  ‘No, I do.’

  I unfolded m
y legs, on cue, turning my attention to what he was holding. After just enough deliberation, he took a step towards me, taking in my silence as he handed me the file – an A4 folder, neatly stuffed with papers and photographs.

  Amidst the horror of what was being revealed, there was something so natural about sitting there with him, the intensity of the secrets passing between us. I felt his eyes on me as I flicked through pages of transcripts, studying my reaction to the images of dead bodies scattered across a dirt track; weapons, lined up like contestants in a beauty pageant – caring what I thought.

  Yet, as I turned the page again, I felt my chest contract. The image had hit me in the chest with the force of a hammer.

  At first my eyes were hesitant to settle on the lines of the child’s face, but after that I could not wrench them away.

  He would have been six or seven, the same age as Thomas, his eyes closed as if in sleep, peering out from under a white sheet. His mother’s arms were locked around her son, her face twisted; it was the same expression I saw when I closed my eyes at night.

  Here, in Harry’s flat, in this image of someone else’s child, stiff and lifeless under the sheet, I saw the tiny mound of limbs on the driveway of my parents’ home, my own mother’s heart being torn from her body.

  I dropped the file as soon as I saw it, turning from Harry, my fingernails running down my arms.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘Who is that?’

  Harry’s face gave nothing away, but clearly he knew he was safe to carry on.

  ‘This is one of the children who died after a TradeSmart contractor was paid to dump seriously toxic waste at the edge of a playground.’

  He let the words settle, waiting for me to soak them in.

  ‘And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In that folder you’re holding we have transcripts from women, children who …’

  He must have seen the unease that spread across my face.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you this.’

  Taking a step back, he took a final pull of his cigarette before smearing the butt across the windowsill and letting it drop from his hand.

  We were silent for a few minutes. I don’t remember taking a single breath as I processed his words, leaning forward, the image of the boy’s body soldering into me, intensified by my desperation for Harry’s faith in me. Desperation not just to know, but to be the one he chose to confide in.