Standing in front of Siri’s desk, with its silver Apple laptop, assorted knick-knacks of sentimental value and a half-full bottle of San Pellegrino (but no glass — does she swig it from the bottle?), I’ll find my eye drawn to the shelves above, to the top right, but there’ll be no sign of the orange-spined book previously spotted in the Writers’ Rooms picture. Perhaps she is reading it, I’ll think to myself. Perhaps it’s lying on her nightstand.
I have one of these, you know, I’ll say to her, resting my hands on the back of her Herman Miller Aeron chair. Really? she’ll say. Yes, did you know that Geoff Dyer, Alain de Botton and Francesca Simon all have one as well? She’ll say, I didn’t know that. I’ll ask her what she’s working on and she’ll tell me a little about the memoir she’s writing, The Shaking Woman. She’ll tell me about her mother and her migraines. I’ll say it sounds fascinating, that it explains a lot about The Blindfold. I’ll tell her what I thought of The Blindfold. I’ll tell her about the strange déjà vu experience I had while reading it. She will look at the floor and then up at me and say, I am delighted by your déjà vu experience because when I set out to write the novel, many years ago now, I was guided only by the thought that I wanted to write an uncanny book — unheimlich, as Freud said — and your reading falls squarely into that category.
And then either she’ll ask me what I’m working on or she won’t, and if she does, I’ll tell her I’m working on a novel but that it’s taken a funny turn and is threatening to fall apart. It’s beginning to remind me, I’ll tell her, of a first novel by David Pirie called Mystery Story, which held my attention all the way through and remained plausible, indeed strangely compelling, spellbinding in fact, and then right near the end the action shifted to America and it just seemed to go off-key somehow. Pirie must have thought so himself, too, because twenty-one years later he published another novel and on the jacket it said, This is his first novel.
There will be a silence and I will say that I should go, they must be busy. She will escort me downstairs and as we pass what I imagine to be Paul’s study I will hear the low murmur of a one-sided conversation. Siri will smile at me in the hallway and I will thank her for her kindness. She will hold out her hand and I will hold it briefly in mine.
Outside, the sky will have darkened a shade as afternoon edges towards evening. On the streets, a lot of people will be in Halloween costume. There will be zombies and vampires and Dead Barbies and people wearing red plastic horns and carrying tridents with flashing lights inside them. It will still be a little early for trick-or-treating, but people will be getting in the mood.
As I approach Bergen Street subway station, I will notice a man in a devil mask coming directly towards me. I’ll think he might be drunk and that it would be wise to get out of his way. Being unable to see his eyes will mean I can’t be sure of his intentions. His mask will be red with strong black markings and two small rubber horns. He’ll open his arms and force me to enter into his embrace. Still I won’t know if he’s intoxicated or murderous. I’ll sniff for alcohol fumes creeping out from behind the mask but all I’ll be able to smell will be the man’s sulphurous cologne. I’ll feel something cold in my stomach and then hot — and then, as he releases me and steps back, cold once more. There will be blood pulsing out of a wound in my stomach rapidly turning my white T-shirt red.
I will collapse to my knees, remembering the last line of a short story by Daphne du Maurier. Oh God, I’ll think, what a bloody silly way to die.
Or I’ll keep on going and pass through the tunnel under Didsbury Road and I’ll slip across the narrow waist of the Green Pastures housing estate and get back on to the path that runs downhill through a small patch of woodland until the school playing fields are revealed on one side and the golf course on the other. Down at the bottom will be the river, where I’ll turn left. It won’t be especially high, but the combed fringe of vegetation on both banks will reveal that it has been higher. On the far side, in a sandbank, I’ll notice a number of holes like tiny caves: nests for sand martins, which will have flown south at the end of summer. I will approach the first pylon and pass under the power cables. Shortly after the path turns to the left, I will leave it, going to the right, towards the river itself, using a small tree as my landmark. The tree will have seemed bigger in the dark. Something — a dog, the wind — will have moved the fallen branch so that the corner of gabardine is once again visible. I’ll check the path in both directions. Either there’ll be a man walking an Alsatian or there won’t be. When the coast is clear I’ll move a few yards away from the body and take a tentative first step into the brambles. I’ll take long strides towards the river, thorns catching in my jeans, until I’m beyond a line level with the body, then I’ll turn right. I’ll sting myself on a nettle and curse quietly.
Eventually, still keeping an eye out for runners or cyclists, I’ll lower myself into a crouch between river and tree. I’ll feel the muddy bank beginning to slope away beneath my feet. I’ll wonder why I didn’t bring gloves. As I extend them through the undergrowth, my hands and lower arms will be etched with red scratches, reminding me of the marks on Grace’s arms, but finally I’ll catch hold of a scrap of coat and I’ll work out — from a hard, bony protuberance and the arrangement of the coat — that I’m touching a shoulder. Reaching for the other shoulder, my fingertips will alight on a surface as damp as the coat but colder. My hand will shrink back from the contact and the edge of my palm will snag on something sandpapery and I’ll remember reading somewhere that it’s a myth that hair and fingernails continue to grow, post-mortem, for up to seventy-two hours. Instead it’s shrinkage in the skin and the flesh — hair follicles, nail housings — that’s to blame.
As I get my hands under the arms and start pulling the body further down towards the river, into the concealment of thicker, taller undergrowth, I’ll notice, for the first time, the smell. It will remind me of the time I emptied the salad drawer of contents that had been left in there far too long. I’ll leave the body close to the lip of the bank, the legs anchored by tough brambles, and retreat, doing my best to leave the vegetation looking as undisturbed as possible.