The boy ran off and seemed to enjoy having the freedom of the place — a windswept scrap of land on the side of a hill. A couple of swings and a rusting roundabout. No railings.
While Jonny played, Nicholas and Liz talked. They decided there was no particular justification for questioning the judgement of the GP.
The year turned: I was glad to see the back of 1992 but I had no cause to believe that 1993 would be an improvement. Veronica was no more than civil to me; the marriage was over, in all eyes but those of the law. She made no attempt to restrict my access to the children. She was too clever to present my legal team with useful ammunition. Legal team. A university friend specialising in conveyancing and operating out of store-front premises between a charity shop and a bookmaker’s in Basingstoke.
I took the children to nursery and picked them up most days. I wasn’t trying to rack up credit; I knew there was no point. I was just trying to maximise the amount of time I spent with them. I knew I would always have photographs, but I didn’t want to forget what they smelt like. I didn’t want to forget the touch of their skin. The sound of their breathing as they slept.
I kept up appearances, but when I was alone I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I couldn’t read or write. If I put a CD on, I took it off again before the end of the first track. I would put the radio on, but it could have been broadcasting static for all I took in. I went for long walks. I walked on different routes out of London, each time in a straight line — Uxbridge Road, the A5, the A1. I just kept going until exhaustion forced me to stop and then I would catch a bus or the Tube to get back. I thought about nothing other than the upcoming case and the twins. Their faces went round and round in front of my eyes until they started to blur and I had to get their picture out of my wallet to fix their faces in my mind again.
There was a chance, or so I believed at that stage, before the case reached the courts, that I’d get visitation rights. A good chance. But I felt that chance receding once the case began and Veronica’s lawyer, predictably, went to town on the dogging angle. My own counsel just ended up sounding pathetic as he objected that we had not been dogging because we had not been deliberately performing for the entertainment of others.
‘They had sex — let’s not put too fine a point on it,’ said Veronica’s lawyer, ‘they had sex in Ms Ashton’s vehicle in full view of other car-park users and hundreds, if not thousands, of airline passengers coming in to land. Those with window seats, anyway.’
A titter ran through the courtroom.
The case did not reach a conclusion on the first day.
‘I think we still have a good chance of visitation rights,’ my lawyer friend said to me.
I looked at the defeated slope of his shoulders in his ill-fitting suit.
The following morning, Veronica left the house first. The idea that we should have travelled to court together was, of course, absurd. She was going to drop the twins off at nursery and I was to leave the house shortly afterwards. Instead I sat in the kitchen, staring out of the window at the brick wall that separated our house from our neighbours’. I made a cup of tea, but didn’t drink it. A greasy film formed on the surface of the tea.
I got a bag from the cellar and packed it with a small number of items. I walked out of the house and placed the bag in the boot of the car. I returned to the house and walked up the stairs to my study. I sat at the desk and looked at the mannequins — the woman and the two children. I got up close to each one and stared into their glass eyes. They looked real.
I looked at my books, my eye drawn by the repetition, numerous copies of the same book. The same title over and over again. The same author’s name. The same colophon.
I got up and left the room. I went downstairs. I stood in the kitchen staring out of the back window. After an indeterminate length of time I left the kitchen and walked through the hall. I closed the front door behind me and double-locked it. I got into the car and started the engine. I drove around the block. I parked again and switched off the engine. I started it again and drove to the nursery, where I said I had come to pick up the twins. We were going somewhere, I explained. The staff were surprised, but released the children. They were my children, after all. I led them out of the building and to the car, which was double-parked. It was a narrow road with cars parked on both sides and there was no way past my car. Three cars sat waiting. The driver of the first car was leaning on his horn. When he saw me he started to gesticulate. He wound his window down and shouted at me. It was just noise. I strapped Jonathan into his seat, then took Laura’s hand and led her around the back of the car to get to the other side. I told the driver of the car behind to shut the fuck up. He got out of his car. I took no notice of him, even when he came very close to me and continued to shout abuse at me. I just made sure that I kept my body between him and Laura. I lifted Laura into her seat and fixed the straps. I closed the car door, aware of the man’s breath in my face. He wouldn’t stop shouting. I told him again to shut the fuck up and I felt a sudden buzzing in my ear and I fell against the car. My ear started to throb. I realised I had been hit. I opened the driver’s door and collapsed into my seat. I managed to pull the door shut and lock it, despite the man’s efforts to stop me. He stood alongside the car, his arms tensile bows, fists clenched, white knuckles. His body seemed to vibrate with fury and barely controlled energy. I looked away from him and felt a powerful thud against the door where he had kicked the car. I twisted the key in the ignition and pressed the accelerator to the floor, vaguely aware of another insistent noise just below the screaming of the engine. Because the man had to run to get back in his car, I reached the junction before he was able to catch up with me and there was no way out into the traffic for him to be less than several cars behind me. I tried to change out of first gear, thinking that the noise I could hear was the sound of the engine racing, but I wasn’t in first gear and the noise I could hear was the children crying. I checked the rear-view mirror, but there was no sign of the man’s car. I overtook a bus and negotiated a roundabout and headed out of London.
The children eventually cried themselves to sleep and didn’t wake until I pulled into a service station on the M1, parked up and switched off the engine.
I turned to face them as they stretched and slowly came round.
‘Daddy, why have you got a bleed?’ asked Laura.
‘Where?’ My jaw ached as I spoke.
‘On your face. You’ve got a bleed on your face.’
I turned to look in the rear-view mirror and saw that I had a cut above my cheekbone where the man’s fist had struck me.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said.
I took the twins with me into the services and bought sandwiches and crisps and drinks.
‘Where are we going?’ Jonathan asked once I had strapped them both in again.
‘For a drive,’ I said.
I started the engine and looked for the way out of the car park.
Jonathan asked a couple more times where we were going, but I just kept driving. I checked my watch. It was a little after half past eleven. I pictured the courtroom. The looks of worry, my lawyer’s drooping shoulders. I pictured our empty house, a ringing phone. I took the exit for the M6. All the choices I was making seemed preprogrammed. They had nothing to do with me. I looked in the rear-view mirror. Jonathan had gone back to sleep and Laura had her head turned to one side and was gazing out of the window. I didn’t know where I was going. I was just driving. I knew what was in the boot, but I wasn’t thinking about it. I read the road signs, noticing how the distance to Manchester kept decreasing. Each time I read the name, I sensed a certain lightness on the horizon, which seemed incongruous. I left the motorway at the next junction. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to drive and drive and never stop.