Touch (38 page)

I am policeman.

I am meant to be obeyed.

I shout, “Everybody out!” but everybody has gone.

My hands are sweaty where they hold the gun, but my recovery time is impressive, heart already slipping down into steady double figures inside my chest.

“William…”

A child’s voice, sing-song. “Oh William!”

Who the hell is William?

(My Will, dead on a Miami dock.)

Ah yes.

I was a William once.

A long time ago.

I peep round the side of Athena, and there he is.

The schoolboy, Galileo, barely nine or ten years old. He’s smiling, one hand in Pam’s, the other still clasping his satchel. She stares at nothing, face greyer than her scarf, the gun still in her right hand, limp at her side. Of course. She came here without any gloves and now stands there, a picture of motherhood holding a child, and that child is Galileo.

I level my gun at the child, then turn it towards Pam.

The boy tuts. “But which one am I now?”

The boy staggers. Pam blinks, then smiles, her fingers tightening around the child’s little fist. “Which one do you want me to be?” she asks, then she too sways as the child grins, pressing Pam’s hand against his cheek like a cat brushing itself against its master’s legs.

“Shoot me…”

“or me?”

“Which one…”

“first?”

He is she, she is he, clinging to each other, and in the moments when she is not he, she is terrified, tears rolling down her cheeks, and in the moments when he is not she, he is pissing his pants, a child lost and confused, clinging to a stranger’s side and not knowing how he got there.

I stand.

The gun trained on some point between them both – best chance if I’m fast and they’re slow.

I am New York’s finest, called to the scene of the crime.

I am armed.

I am come to kill the child, Galileo.

Will, dying on a Miami dockside, the blood popping in his chest.

Johannes Schwarb, burned alive for all to see.

Do you like what you see?

I said, “I killed you before; I’ll do it again.”

Galileo grins, and as soon as the expression comes, it goes again, and, rubbing one eye with a fist, he stammers, “B-b-b-but please, sir, don’t hurt the little boy.”

I tighten my grip on the gun, level it at his skull. “I don’t know you,” I reply. “It will be a moment. That’s all. Just another moment, and done.”

My finger tightens against the trigger.

A shot.

Not mine.

Something slams into my back, into the bulletproof vest, knocking me down. I land on my hands and knees, gasping for breath, head ringing, Galileo before me. The shot frightened him and he must have jumped, because now she’s standing there, breathless, gun raised ready to fire, a two-handed grip, and at her side the child is crying, standing bewildered, doesn’t know where to go, doesn’t understand.

Footsteps behind, approaching, by my side.

I half-turn my head, ribcage screaming at even that little movement, and Coyle is there, above me, a gun held tight, pointing at Pam, who tightens her grip and points straight back. “Remember me?” he asks. Galileo’s head tilts on one side, curious. “Remember me?” Coyle’s voice shook round the empty hall, off the sad smile of mother Hera, through the twisted limbs of raging Poseidon, into the cold white stones of the museum.

I tried to stagger up, and thought better of it, remained on my hands and knees, sucking in air. My jacket had stopped the shot, but not the shock, and now my ears rang and my tongue tasted of bitter adrenaline.

“Coyle…” I wheezed.

“Shut up,” he barked, eyes still fixed on Galileo. “Do you remember me?”

“No,” she said. “Who are you?”

He draws in a breath. Is this hurt? Had he imagined his murder meant something to a creature like Galileo? “Boy. You!”

The child looked up.

“Get out of here.”

The child didn’t move.

“Run!” Coyle’s voice echoed off stone walls, off statues of gods and monsters, and the child ran, leaving his satchel behind, slipping on the papers strewn across the floor.

Coyle kept the gun trained on Pam; she kept her gun trained on him.“Well,” she said at last. “What now?”

Coyle’s hand was shaking, but his voice shook more. “
Santa Rosa
. You wore me there. Do you remember?”

“No.”

“I killed a woman –
you
killed her in
me
. Do you remember?”

Galileo shrugged.

Coyle’s hands shook around the tight fist of the gun. “You stuck a knife in me. How can you not remember?!”A scream in the hall.

I think: you’re getting hysterical, Nathan Coyle. Nothing.

Galileo remembered; she didn’t remember.

Either way she didn’t care.

“Nathan… please…” I tried to crawl to my feet, made it to my knees, made it to one knee, my hand shook as I reached for his gun. “Give me the gun. I’ll do it. Give me the gun!”

“Oh! Do you love me?” Surprise, delight in Galileo’s voice, she beamed at Coyle now, studying his face, her shoulders straightening, head coming up, delighted, a princess on display for her prince. “Do I love you too?”

Coyle’s lower lip curled into his mouth, arms locked, fingers tight.

Then he lowered the gun.

Galileo smiled.

I lunged for my gun, throwing myself belly first across the floor, but even as my fingers reached the butt Coyle slammed his foot on to my hand, my fingers spasming, pain bouncing up through my elbow. He bent down, put an arm across my throat, dragged me up, pulled me so my body rested against his, his knees in my back, and levelled the gun to my head. “Sorry,” he grunted. “Sorry.”

“What are you doing?!”

“She’s right. I love her. I love Pam. Not blazing love, not that. I love her… just enough. Just a tiny, tiny bit more than I hate Galileo.”

“She dies or we die,” I hissed. “That’s how this ends!”

He hit me. It wasn’t hard, but with the butt of a gun it didn’t need to be. I slumped in his arms, felt blood running down behind my ear, his breath against my skin, his bare hand across my throat. “I killed Josephine,” he whispered, so soft now, a voice only for me, a lover’s sigh. “I killed her without a thought. I killed her even though you were gone. Do you remember?”

Galileo, watching.

Coyle licked his lips. “All right,” he said. “OK then.” His hands shook, his lips puckering in and out as if he wanted to swallow himself whole. Then he threw his gun away, let it clatter across the floor, pushed me to one side, straightened up, eyes on Galileo.

I fell, blood on my face, air in my lungs, rolling for breath, face burning, limbs cold.

Galileo tightened her grip on her gun, uncertain who to shoot first. I curled in close around my own aching body, squeezing my eyes shut, waiting for the shot, the pain, the end.

Then Coyle said, “Be me.”

He wasn’t speaking to me.

I looked up.

He was staring at Galileo, hands open by his sides.

“Be me,” he said and took a step towards her.

Galileo put her head on one side. “Why?” she asked.

“Nathan.” My voice was a scratching wheeze, my tongue barely moved. “Don’t.”

“Kepler loves me,” he said. “He’ll kill you regardless of who you are. I love you. I love you, I love… the one you wear. I won’t let her die, not now, not after all… But Kepler won’t kill me. I have killed… many people. I was following orders. You don’t remember me, but I love you. Be me.”

I crawled across the floor, grabbed Nathan’s fallen gun, raised it. He stood between me and Galileo, blocking my shot. “Coyle! For God’s sake get…”

His hand brushed Galileo’s cheek, soft, lovers meeting after a long while. “Do you really want to be loved?” he asked. “Do you really want to know what it means?” Galileo’s gun was pressed into his belly, but he didn’t seem to care. “Kepler, when he was me, undressed me. Lay in a bath and felt heat go through my skin; crawled under blankets, stared into the mirror and saw my eyes. Do you want to know what love really means?”

“Nathan!” The word came as a sob from my throat, a heat running through my body, a terror in my hands. “Please!”

“He’ll kill you,” whispered Coyle, his lips caressing Galileo’s ear. “He’ll kill you without a thought because it will only take a second and he’ll be gone. That’s all this is to him. A moment that came, and a moment that passed. But I won’t let that happen – not any more. He loves me. Kepler loves me, isn’t that right?”

“No, please…”

His voice was soft now, so soft. “Listen to him. Have you ever heard anyone beg like that before?”

“No,” said Galileo. “Not like that.”

“That’s love. It’s not mercy, like we begged you for mercy on the
Santa Rosa
. It’s not fear or pain or passing fancy. It’s pure love, one creature for another. Kepler has been more intimate with me than any living creature. Kepler loves me. He would never hurt me. Do you understand?”

Galileo said, “Yes.”

Coyle smiled, pressed his lips to Galileo’s neck, held her tight.

For a long while they stood there, the man and the woman. Her hands curled round to press against Coyle’s back, to hold him closer still. It seemed that they were stone, a living statue, an embrace that could never end.

Then Coyle’s hands dropped.

Pam staggered, confused, dizzy.

Coyle stayed where he was, head down, back straight. Pam’s gaze swept the room, fell on me, her lips opening and closing, trying to find words to say.

Coyle raised his head and smiled at her. One hand caught her around the throat, holding her tight, the other grabbed the gun from her limp hands, turned it so the barrel was against her belly.

“No! Nathan! No!”

His head half-turned at the sound of my voice, but he didn’t move, didn’t take his fingers from Pam’s skin. I threw the gun away, heard it clatter among Greek stones and Roman deities. “Let her go,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you want, go wherever, be whoever. Let her go.”

His fingers brushed her neck, feeling its contours.

“Please.”

Begging on my knees: please.

Coyle

not-Coyle

smiled.

Not his smile.

“Do you love me?” he asked.

I closed my eyes. “Yes.”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes. I love you very much.”

His fingers slipped from Pam’s throat. He pushed her, very gently, away, saw her tear-streaked face, her running make-up, tutted. “Run along,” he said. “Run along.”

She ran.

I was alone with Galileo.

With Coyle.

With Galileo.

He came towards me, and I stayed. He stopped in front of me, smiled, looked into my eyes. The hand with the gun placed it against my skull. With his other he caught my chin, pulled me to my feet. I didn’t resist. He held my face in his fingers, neither gentle nor hard, reached a conclusion, pulled me closer, pressed his lips against mine. Galileo kissed me, and I kissed Coyle back.

He let me go, looked again, his eyes filling with tears, his lips stretching back into an expression of excitement and delight. “You do love me!”

“Yes.”

“You love
me
! You really love me, you love me!”

I stared into the face that had been my own, child-like now, distorted with joy, hope, wonder. The gun slipped down to his side, briefly forgotten as he reached round behind me to put his hand across my neck, pulling me in again to his embrace. He kissed like a man newly released from an island prison, and I held him tight to me and kissed him back, my right hand tangling in his hair, feeling the warmth of his skin, my left slipping around his side, beneath the loose weight of his arm.

My fingers brushed against his, found the weight of the gun still in his hand.

And it seemed to me, as he held me against his warm, familiar skin, that in that moment I was Nathan Coyle, and he was me. His flesh tangled with mine, his pulse beat against my skin, so I couldn’t work out whose hand belonged to what body, whose leg pressed against whose thigh, whose lips tingled so. Rather, I knew then what Coyle would do, what he was doing even as Galileo pulled his lips away from mine and, the tears running freely down his face, stared into my eyes.

He loved me.

My fingers tightened around the gun in his hand, turning it gently towards his side.

He brushed my cheek with his finger, outlining the contours of my face. “Now,” he said, “I know what love looks like.”

I pulled the trigger.

When the police find the body, it has already been found.

One of their number,

a man who is…

… someone…

a man with a gun,

is already there.

They call out, Aldama, show us your hands, Aldama, get away from the body, show us your hands.

He does not.

Instead he cradles the body of the man who lies dead, holding it like a child, and weeps.

They handcuff him anyway.

The medic asks him, what is your name?

What is your name?

He doesn’t remember.

Shock, they say – it must be shock. Gets to us all eventually, even old Aldama.

A lieutenant brings him a cup of tea.

Their fingers brush as he passes him the cup.

Aldama says, what the fuck am I doing here? Why the fuck am I in handcuffs? What the fuck is going on?!

The lieutenant doesn’t answer.

New York, in winter.

I walk, but walking is too slow, and I have lost my way. There is a bright winter sun somewhere overhead, but the buildings are higher than the sky and I cannot find my way through the shadows that fall into the streets.

I walk, and don’t even notice the chill in my legs, the cold in my fingers. I must have had a coat, left it in the museum cloakroom; must have a bag, my name buried somewhere within it. A woman selling roast nuts and caramel sauce says,

“Hey! Lady! Are you OK?”

Am I lady?

Is that what I am today?

“Hey! Hey, you lost?”

“No. I’m not lost.”

“You look a little lost.”

“I’m not lost. I’m fine. Thank you.”

Her mouth says, OK, but her eyes say, you lie, though about what precisely, she isn’t so sure.

I walk away, aware now of all things, of my pin-thin legs and thick tights, my blue-tinged fingers and gently falling hair, and as awareness comes, so does the remembrance of blood in my veins and time in my eyes, but it was only a moment, and the moment passed.

I walk, and it is too slow; always, all things are too slow. Slow to travel and slow to learn, slow to study and slow to grow, slow to catch a husband, slow to get a wife, slow to age and slow to die. Too slow, this life, always too slow, and I

cannot stick around for very long. For someone has the thing I want, whatever that may be.

I walk

and then I run.

I race without moving, travel by touch.

My skin is wild in the wind

my breath is restless shock

and I am

woman, thick gloves woolly against the cold

man in yellow shoes who lost his way

I am the stranger who gave you the white flowers she carried in her hand

the face you forget as it turned away

I am beautiful

until I see that she is more beautiful than me

and he more beautiful again

so beautiful, and never enough

I am the woman who stood on your foot on the train

jostled you in the queue

asked you for the time

I am the ancient man who has forgotten his name

the tired old woman who wished to be someone else.

I am no one.

I am Kepler.

I am love.

I am you.