The Road Between Us (26 page)

Despite willing myself not to, I found myself imagining what it felt like when your head was pulled back and the knife cut into your skin. Can you taste the blood in your windpipe before you die?

To distract myself I tried to picture the boulder. As I recreated its movement in my memory, I realized that it must be hollowed out, intended not to keep me in so much as to disguise the opening in the roof of the cave. I thought if I could only climb up there I could perhaps dislodge it myself.

I crawled until I reached a wall, then I stood up. As I scraped my way along it, I came to something small and round. It was cold and hard … Metal. There was another one a few feet
further
farther on at the same height and, at my feet now, the rattle of more metal. It was a chain. Feeling my way along it, I came to a flat, rounded surface and, when I realized it was a manacle, I dropped it. This cave had been used as a prison before. I wondered what happened to the previous incumbents, whether they had been released.

But at least this meant the guards sometimes came down there. They must have a ladder. I tried to work out whether I could hide the next time they brought food, then, when they
would come
came down to look for me
and
I could overpower them.
But I knew I was deluding

My lack of resolve left me feeling cowar

I attempted to find foot- and handholds in the wall but soon realized that its overhang made climbing impossible. I had another attempt, but succeeded only in breaking a nail.

Walking stiffly, I began to pace backwards and forwards. Three steps, turn. Three steps, turn. I kept this up for about an hour before I decided to try a circuit of the cave, to measure the circumference. Then my feet touched something. It was a toshak, one of the narrow mattresses that Afghans use instead of chairs or beds. It was hard and thin and stank of sweat and urine, but it was a mattress nonetheless. I found there was a blanket on top of it so I lay down, pulled it over myself and shivered, more from solitude than lack of warmth.

After this the days and weeks merged into each other. The dripping noise which had sounded so loud now seemed quite distant. I would try to focus on it but it would keep slipping from my attention. I was becoming deaf to its repetition.

The slightest bump from ‘upstairs’, as I had begun thinking of the world above me, made me jump, but it was the absence of noise that frightened me more. The absence of contrast.
The sensory deprivation.
Already I was cursing the contortions of my
mind
imagination. As my eyes strained, trying to make out shapes, I fancied I was staring at my own sanity, as if it was an entity with which I was sharing the cave.

III

One year and two months after Edward’s release

WHEN SHE HEARS THE DOORBELL RING, HANNAH PUTS HER GLASSES
on and looks through the spyhole. If this is the journalist, he is ten minutes late. Whoever it is has his back to the door and is holding a mobile to his ear.

As she releases the latch, the phone in the hall rings and the man turns and smiles. He has a few days’ stubble on his face and looks to be in his late twenties, early thirties. ‘Have I got the right house?’

‘If you’re from the
Guardian
you have.’

The journalist touches an icon on the screen of his mobile and the phone in the hall stops ringing. ‘Damn. I’m from
Farmers Weekly
. Wrong house.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry. Joke. Attempted joke. I
am
from the
Guardian
. And that was me calling to check the address.’ His voice is warm, well modulated, as Irish as whiskey with an ‘e’. ‘Sorry I’m late.’

They shake hands. His is dry, hers, she realizes, is clammy. ‘Hannah, right?’

‘Right.’ She is rubbing her palm on the seat of her jeans, wishing she could remember his name. Too late to ask now.

‘Martin Cullen,’ he says.

With his beige cord jacket, open-neck shirt not tucked in
properly and scuffed suede shoes, he looks to Hannah more like a part-time lecturer at her college than a full-time journalist from a national.

‘Come in,’ Hannah says. ‘Your photographer is still out in the garden with my dad. I think he’s nearly finished.’ She closes the door as the journalist steps in. ‘They take a lot of shots, don’t they?’ she adds.

‘Oh, they’d go on all day if you let them. Some of them even try to …’

Hannah doesn’t hear the rest of the sentence. She is feeling dizzy as if she has just risen from a hot bath. The gaps between the objects in the hallway seem to be warping.

‘What?’ Cullen is wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Have I got …’

‘What?’

‘You were staring at me.’

Hannah looks away. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean …’ She feels hollow and full at the same time. And in motion. As if she is standing on wet sand, sinking. ‘I think I’m going to …’

When she comes round she is lying on the sofa and the journalist is standing over her, holding out a glass of water.

‘You fainted,’ he says. ‘Are you OK?’

She sits up and takes a sip. ‘I’m fine, thank you. I think I just need to …’ She reaches for a banana from a fruit bowl on the coffee table, peels it and eats half of it. ‘I haven’t eaten anything today,’ she says between mouthfuls. ‘Completely forgot! I’m not normally like this.’

‘No worries.’

Hannah looks around as if only now realizing where she is. ‘Did you carry me in here?’

‘Well, you sort of fell into … my …’ He holds out his arms and grins.

‘Thank you.’ She fans her face with her hand. ‘That wasn’t embarrassing at all. Where would you like to do the interview? I thought maybe the kitchen or in here. You won’t be disturbed in either.’

‘Here, then. Thanks.’

She watches the journalist’s eyes flick around the room. His hand is being drawn to a signed rugby ball on a stand. He strokes it like it’s a baby seal. ‘Yours, I take it?’

Hannah smiles. ‘Yeah, I was tight head prop for the Quins.’

Cullen has now picked up the carved handle of an African switch and is flicking the horsehairs over each shoulder in turn, dispersing imaginary flies. ‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ he says. ‘That must have been so hard for you.’

‘You think?’

‘And hard for your father to come back and find that his wife … I guess you have had to take on that role.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing. You know, just … hard for both of you.’

Yeah, she thinks. Funny how I almost wanted to become my mother, to help my father adjust. Bring her back to life, for my benefit as well as his. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Yeah, it was hard. Can I get you a coffee?’

‘Do you have any herbal tea?’

‘Sure.’

Cullen studies her for a moment then asks a question which seems vague and yet to a purpose. ‘Have you and your father been living together since he got back?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And before that?’

‘Had a couple of friends living here with me.’

‘How would you describe your relationship with him?’

‘Good. Why? Has someone said different?’ Hannah laughs falsely.

‘Can I just check? This is an exclusive, right?’

‘The interview? Yeah, I think so. I didn’t set it up. But I’m sure Dad’s not talking to anyone else. And as far as I can tell, he didn’t want to do this one. My godfather had to bully him into it.’

‘Sir Niall Campbell, right?’

‘Right. Is there any chance we can see the piece before it goes to press?’

‘’Fraid we can’t give copy approval. That’s more
Hello!
magazine territory. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.’

‘You will go easy on him though, won’t you?’

‘Don’t worry.’

‘Did you see the documentary?’

‘Yes. Really interesting.’

‘I should warn you, Dad can seem quite cold and distant with strangers at first. It can be disconcerting when you’re not used to it. Sometimes it’s like throwing a brick in a lake and not only not creating a splash but not creating a single ripple. It’s like he drags everything down into the depths.’

‘Now you’re scaring me.’

Hannah throws out a laugh, a single syllable. Her turn to reassure. ‘You’ll be fine.’

‘I’m hoping he’ll talk about his time as a hostage.’

‘Well, good luck with that. I don’t think he’s talked about it to anyone yet. Certainly not me.’

Cullen picks up his ringbound notepad and flicks to an empty page. ‘Can I quote you on that lake stuff. What was it again?’

‘Um, not creating a single ripple. As if the calm surface hasn’t been disturbed.’

He is scribbling. ‘Oh, you’re good. Can I talk to you again after we’ve done the interview?’

‘Sure.’

‘If you give me your mobile number, I’ll call you once I’ve transcribed the tape and started writing it up.’

Hannah cocks her head to one side as she tries to get the measure of him. Is he hitting on her? Possibly. Yet he seems too … gentlemanly. With his drawing-room manners he even seems a little amateurish. And she likes the calm way he holds her gaze. Before she can change her mind, she snatches his pen off him, pulls his hand towards her and, with her lips pursed to stop herself from grinning, writes her number on the back of it. ‘I was going to make you a herbal tea, wasn’t I? Peppermint OK?’

‘Thanks. And is there a toilet I can use?’

‘Upstairs. First door on the right. I think I just heard your photographer go into the downstairs one.’

She makes her way through to the kitchen. As the kettle comes to the boil, she realizes the journalist is taking a long time. The house is silent. She climbs to the first landing, treading carefully to avoid spilling the tea.

He is in the master bedroom staring at the corrugated sheets on the unmade bed. Her mother’s dressing gown, the one she sometimes uses, is on the pillow. There are a pair of men’s boxer shorts on the floor. ‘Are you lost?’ she asks.

‘Sorry. Big house. Lot of bedrooms.’

‘Yes.’

Cullen nods at the bed. ‘Which is his side?’

Hannah looks at him without answering.

‘This
is
his bedroom?’ he prompts.

‘Why?’

His eyes fix on the boxer shorts.

Hannah can feel with her memory the cool touch of linen as she slides between these sheets. She can hear her own laughter as her father flinches when she warms her cold feet against the backs of his legs. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘This is where he sleeps.’ Her brow puckers for a moment then clears. ‘Or tries to sleep. He gets nightmares and I have to come in here to reassure him, stroke his hair, sing to him.’

Cullen gives a sympathetic nod. ‘All right, so.’

‘Sometimes it’s me who can’t sleep. When I’m frightened. Didn’t you do that with your parents? Come into their bed?’

‘When I was six maybe, but not …’

‘We’re both afraid of the dark.’

This seems to satisfy his curiosity. ‘Well, that’s understandable.’

Hannah tries to smile. ‘It is, isn’t it? Anyway, here you are.’ She hands over the mug. ‘Peppermint.’

They go and check the progress of the photographer. He is finally packing up his equipment and Edward is waiting for them in the sitting room. Cullen smiles broadly as he goes to shake his hand and introduce himself.

‘I’ll let the photographer out,’ Hannah says. ‘Leave you two in peace.’

Cullen is looking at a photograph in a frame on the dresser. He has his back to Hannah and seems not to realize she is still in the room. ‘She’s very photogenic, your daughter.’

Edward rubs the bridge of his nose. ‘That’s my wife. My late wife.’

‘Really? They look identical.’ When the journalist looks up and sees Hannah, colour rises to his cheeks for a moment. ‘Would you mind if I put these on?’ he says, turning back to Edward and taking out two identical digital voice recorders from his laptop case. Placing them side by side on the table next to an abandoned game of Scrabble, he presses two ‘record’ buttons on the sides of the gadgets and a red light appears on each. He then clicks his fingers and, like the wide lines that register a lie on a polygraph test chart, sound-level meters register thick pulses on both screens.

‘Let’s start with your release,’ he says, the gentle tone gone from his voice. ‘Was a ransom paid?’

IV

Three days later

AS CUSTOM DICTATES, THE PERMANENT UNDERSECRETARY WAITS
to greet the new Foreign Secretary under one of three arched and pedimented porches off King Charles Street. Although this entrance is on a side road, a conceit the architects borrowed from Somerset House, it nevertheless affords the most impressive view of the building. Two Union flags are stirring gently on the poles above his head, their cords clanking.

They’re giving her the full treatment, Niall thinks. But where is she? He checks his watch and rocks back on his heel. The new Foreign Secretary is late. Is this a deliberate tactic to show Niall who is boss? How tiresome, if so.

Standing a few feet behind Niall are three senior mandarins representing different departments within the Foreign Office. To his right, talking to a knot of press photographers, is the Principal Private Secretary, Linda Coleman. To his immediate left is Sir Simon Bradley, the British ambassador to the UN, a Wykehamist who always wears one red sock and one yellow sock with his bespoke suits because, he says, they help him keep things in perspective. As might be expected, he is highly skilled in the arts of negotiation, compromise and concession – no one in the diplomatic service used the word appeasement any more – but he
is also a legend of ironic urbanity. ‘Tonal balance,’ he likes to call it. ‘Cultivated vulgarity,’ his colleagues teasingly prefer.

Bradley has delayed his return to New York by three days so that he can brief the incoming Foreign Secretary in person. Show willing. ‘So do we hold our new boss in high regard?’ he asks without turning to face Niall. His lips barely move as he talks, as if afraid of letting something slip.