I opened them again and saw, as if in a dream, that he had a knife in his hand. It was not pointed towards me, but at Adam. Then I saw Adam slamming his fist into the man’s face. He cried out in pain, and dropped the knife. Adam hit him again, a cracking blow into his neck. Then into his stomach. The tattooed man was buckled over; blood was streaming down from his left eye. I saw Adam’s face: it was stony, quite without expression. He hit the man again and stepped back to let him fall to the ground, where he lay at my feet, whimpering and holding on to his stomach.
‘Stop!’ I gasped. A small crowd had gathered. Pauline was there; her mouth was an O of horror.
Adam kicked him in the stomach.
‘Adam.’ I grabbed hold of his arm and clung on. ‘For Chrissakes, stop, will you? That’s enough.’
Adam looked down at the body writhing on the pavement. ‘Alice wants me to stop,’ he said. ‘So that’s why I am stopping. Otherwise I’d murder you for daring to touch her.’ He picked up my bag from the ground, and then turned to me and took my face in both his hands. ‘You’re bleeding,’ he said. He licked some of the blood away. ‘Darling Alice, he made you bleed.’
I saw dimly that people were gathering, talking, asking each other what had happened. Adam held me. ‘Does it hurt much? Are you all right? Look at your beautiful face.’
‘Yes. Yes, I don’t know. I think so. Is he all right? What’s he… ?’
I looked at the man on the ground. He was moving, but not much. Adam paid no attention. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, licked it and started to wipe the cut on my cheek. A siren wailed close by us and over Adam’s shoulder I could see a police car followed by an ambulance.
‘Nice one, mate.’ A hefty man in a long overcoat came up and held out his hand to grip Adam’s. ‘Put it there.’ I looked at them, appalled, as they shook hands. This was a nightmare, a farce.
‘Alice, are you all right?’ It was Pauline.
‘I’m all right.’
Policemen were here now. There was a car. It was an official incident, which somehow made it seem manageable. They leaned over the man and pulled him to his feet. He was led away out of my sight.
Adam took off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders. He smoothed back my hair.
‘I’m going to get us a cab,’ he said. ‘The police can wait. Don’t move.’ He turned to Pauline. ‘Look after her,’ he said, and sprinted off.
‘He could have killed him,’ I said to Pauline.
She looked at me oddly. ‘He really adores you, doesn’t he?’ she said.
‘But if he had…’
‘He saved you, Alice.’
The next day the journalist, Joanna, rang up again. She had read about the fight in the evening paper and it was going to make all the difference to her interview, all the difference. She just wanted both of us to comment about it.
‘Piss off,’ said Adam mildly, and handed me the phone.
‘How does it feel,’ she asked me, ‘to be married to a man like Adam?’
‘What kind of man is that?’
‘A hero,’ she said.
‘Great,’ I said, but I wasn’t exactly sure how it felt.
We lay opposite each other in the half-dark. My cheek stung. My heart was hammering. Would I never get used to him?
‘Why are you scared?’
‘Please touch me.’
The orange street lamps were shining in through the bedroom window’s thin curtains. I could see his face, his beautiful face. I wanted him to hold me so hard and so close that I would disappear into him.
‘Tell me first why you are scared.’
‘Scared of losing you. There, put your hand there.’
‘Turn over, like that. Everything will be fine. I will never leave you and you will never leave me. Don’t close your eyes. Look.’
Later, we were hungry, for we hadn’t eaten that evening. I slid out of the high bed on to the cold floorboards, and put on Adam’s shirt. In the fridge I found some Parma ham, some ancient button mushrooms and a small wedge of hard cheese. I fed Sherpa, who was twisting his small body round my bare legs, and then I made us a giant sandwich with some slightly stale, thin Italian bread. There was a bottle of red wine in our inadequate box of groceries by the door, which I opened. We ate in bed, propped up on pillows and scattering crumbs.
‘The thing is,’ I said, between bites, ‘I’m not used to people behaving like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Beating someone up for me.’
‘He was hitting you.’
‘I thought you were going to kill him.’
He poured me another glass of wine. ‘I was angry.’
‘You don’t say. He had a knife, Adam, didn’t you consider that?’
‘No.’ He frowned. ‘Would you prefer me to be the kind of person who asked him politely to stop? Or ran to get the police?’
‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’
I sighed and settled back against the pillows, drowsy with sex and wine. ‘Will you tell me something?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Did something happen in the mountains… ? I mean, are you protecting someone?’
Adam didn’t seem startled by my question, or cross about it. He didn’t even look round. ‘Of course I am,’ he said.
‘Will you ever tell me about it?’
‘Nobody needs to know,’ he said.
Eighteen
A few days later I went down to get the post and found another brown envelope. It had no stamp but on it was written: TO MRS ADAM TALLIS.
I opened it immediately, down there in the common passage, feeling the doormat prickle the soles of my feet. The paper was the same, the writing was the same, though a bit smaller because the message was longer:
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR WEDDING MRS TALLIS.
WATCH YOUR BACK
P.S. WHY DON’T YOU MAKE YOUR HUSBAND
SOME TEA IN BED?
I took the note up to Adam and put it on the bed by his face. He read it with a sombre expression.
‘Our correspondent doesn’t know that I’ve kept my own name,’ I said, with an attempt at a light tone.
‘Knows I’m in bed, though,’ said Adam.
‘What does that mean? Tea?’
I went to the kitchen and opened the cupboard. There were only two packets of tea-bags, Kenyan for Adam, poncy lapsang souchong for me. I tipped them out on to the counter. They looked normal enough. I noticed that Adam was behind me.
‘Why should I make you tea in bed, Adam? Could it be something about the bed? Or the sugar?’
Adam opened the fridge. There were two milk bottles in the door, one half full, one unopened. He took them both out. I looked in the cupboard under the sink and found a large red plastic bowl. I took the bottles from Adam.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
I emptied the first bottle into the bowl.
‘Looks like milk to me,’ I said. I opened the other bottle and started to pour.
‘This is… oh, Jesus.’
There were little shadows in the milk and they bobbed to the surface of the bowl. Insects, flies, spiders, lots of them. I very carefully put the bottle down and then emptied the milk down the sink. I had to concentrate very hard in order to stop myself vomiting. First I was frightened, then I was angry. ‘Somebody’s been in here,’ I shouted. ‘They’ve fucking been in this flat.’
‘Hmm?’ said Adam absently, as if he had been thinking hard about something else.
‘Somebody broke in.’
‘No, they didn’t. It’s the milk. They put that bottle on the step after the milk was delivered.’
‘What shall we do?’ I asked.
‘Mrs Tallis,’ said Adam thoughtfully. ‘It’s aimed at you. Shall we call the police?’
‘No,’ I said aloud. ‘Not yet.’