‘No, but I mean–’ She stopped, smiled the way someone smiles when they don’t understand the joke. ‘You should see my room.’

An image of her bed flashed across his thoughts. He began perspiring fully then. He felt the heat coming into his face and a single bead trickle from the pit of his arm and down his side beneath his shirt. The first thing he’d have changed about himself – maybe not the first thing, but a thing – was how he never stopped assessing his performance in life while it carried on around him.

‘My room is overflowing with…’ Clare searched for the word, ‘clutter, I guess.’ She told him then how they had moved all the time when she was growing up, how they had lived on exotic bases all over the world but never the same base for long. ‘It was only what I brought with me that made it home. I couldn’t bear to throw anything out.’

‘I keep all my books,’ he said.

‘Yes, that’s true. All four hundred and something of them.’

‘Four hundred and thirty-nine.’

She contemplated that for a moment. ‘It’s not so different, really. The things I keep, they’re stories too. Just my own stories.’

She was, somehow, more beautiful than she looked. He remembered what his mother had said about people being Christmas presents, that what they looked like was the wrapping paper and that the real gift was inside. To his horror Benjamin Tate began suddenly to weep. Large bulbous tears streamed silently out of his eyes without any good reason. He gathered the cups and hurried into the kitchen. When he returned she was standing by the door. She was holding his coat.

‘Shall we go then?’

They were beside the canal now, walking in the watery sunlight. She wasn’t holding his hand. He had thought perhaps she might. The path was narrow and unruly bushes kept impeding their progress, forcing them into single file. He realised he’d never seen her from behind. Her shoulders were broad, like a swimmer’s, and her hips seemed to belong to a larger woman. How round and marvellous and opulent they were in that dress. He saw beneath it and beneath her skin to the skeleton, to the bones that rolled and rose one side then another, making everything sway. How old did she say she was? The people that came in the opposite direction, that looked from her to him and back to her again, they wondered what she was doing there. He wondered that also.

‘We’re so lucky to have places like this to come to,’ she said. A heron stood on the far bank, long and slender, beak turned up to the sky, its reflection rippling beneath it. ‘Quiet places. I know I talk a lot, but the truth is I prefer the silence.’

She stopped walking then and turned to face him. One of the coils of her hair was uncoiling in the damp dusk air and she brushed it out of her eyes.

‘Can I ask you something, Benjamin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has something happened to you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just… I like to help people.’

He didn’t answer. She walked on a little, slowed, waited for him to draw up alongside her, then they walked on together. Behind them the heron watched them depart through blank, black eyes. Eventually, satisfied, it launched itself off its low perch and swept past them, flying flat over the water with great, slow swoops before gradually climbing higher and higher on its wide wings.

‘Here,’ she said a little later. The town was far behind them now. ‘Let’s sit down. It’s my favourite spot.’

Through a gap in the hedges the bank rose away sharply to a level patch that was sheltered from the wind. The ground was damp and he took off his jacket for them to sit on. From up there they looked down through the light that was flattening into a dullish blue-grey towards the path and the canal. He’d seen a fox in there once. It had been perfectly preserved in a sheet of ice, its lustrous coat was still a healthy chestnut brown and apart from the fact of it being dead it appeared completely untroubled by the ordeal. The water below stirred then stilled. Whatever had disturbed it had sunk back down into the grim depths. What must it be like down there, on the bottom, the things that must coming apart piece by flaky piece.

‘I didn’t mean to pry earlier,’ she said.

‘No, it’s fine.’

‘But if you ever want to talk about anything, anything at all… I don’t judge people. Sometimes just saying something makes it go away.’

He wanted to kiss her; more than that, he wanted her to kiss him. He wasn’t sure but he must have had a dream the previous night. He awoke from it to the shocking but not unpleasant surprise that his entire body, every inch of it, was awake. He had lifted up the duvet and opened his knees. Yes, it had been undeniable. He’d put his hand down there and held it for a moment. It was surprisingly hot and he’d been able to feel it pulsing.

‘It’s just that something is meant to happen,’ Clare said, ‘to us, or between us. Don’t you feel it, too?’

A cyclist passed in front of them. Benjamin Tate followed him along the path until it turned his head and he found himself looking at Clare’s fixed profile. She hadn’t noticed the cyclist. He had simply passed through her line of sight, like a deer might pass through a sunbeam in a forest. As he watched, her lips parted ever so slightly, drawing out between them a silver, glistening thread of saliva. Suddenly she turned to face him. The directness of her action froze him and he felt his mouth instantly dry up. A section of his brain wondered about the way fluid moves around the body, why his tongue and lips were thick like cardboard yet his brow, his palms and his spine prickled with sweat. He could feel her breath, cool and a little stale in his nostrils.

Something is meant to happen between them, she’d said. She must not know him. Nothing ever happened. But this was happening. ‘Be brave’, he’d written in that stupid ledger. He leant towards her.

‘Oh,’ she said, jumping up. ‘Oh no. I’m so sorry. I– That’s not what I meant.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

‘Please,’ Clare said, ‘wait, don’t go. I’m sorry. It’s my fault.’ He was half walking, half falling down the bank. ‘Benjamin, wait.’ She said more after that but he was moving faster than her, despite his knee, and the breeze that blew along the canal carried her voice away. On the path, cosily hugging itself, a duck was asleep on its webbed feet. Its soft body, stout in the middle and tapering at the head and tail, was the same shape as a rugby ball balancing on its tee. He imagined his boot catching the bird flush, the choked squawk, the sudden rush of air and whatever else being expelled through the too narrow gap. He imagined the largest section of whatever would remain of it, the crushed middle part with its caved-in flanks, flying through the air and splashing flatly on the far side of the canal, like a carrier bag full of small stones.

Who was this Clare, really? Where had she come from? How quickly she’d bounced up onto her feet, as though fearing he might try to inflict another kiss on her. He wanted to scream at her. More than that, he wanted to take out this rage on himself. He didn’t think he was a special case. He thought he was far less than that. He thought that on every street, perhaps in every house almost, there were people who had carried greater burdens, who had seen greater obstacles placed in front of them and had overcome them. He was a less than a special case. His obstacle was still there. For twenty years his nose had been pressed up against the sheer face of it. He wondered, truthfully, if he’d ever properly tried to get over it, or around it, or through it. Maybe he had. But what did trying look like? Maybe he’d tried so hard he’d smashed himself to pulp against it, that all he was now was a dark, liquid stain, absorbed into it, part of it.

He was walking, lurching rather, pitching forwards. His body was taking him home. There was that cat, on the wall again. It was the same cat as before. It arched its back and hissed and then jumped onto the pavement and loped away across the road in that soundless way that all cats have. He turned left. It wasn’t late, but the streets were quiet. Dark pools swirled between the lampposts. Cars parked up against the kerb eyed him anxiously as he approached, braced as he drew level, relaxed as he passed. He felt, alongside the anger, a sort of liberating elation. A low branch hung down and he reached up, snapped it and dropped it over his shoulder without breaking stride. All around him the houses were closed up, doors closed, windows and curtains closed. Behind them the families would be settling in for the night, telling their stories. And his family? Those two little boys that played about his heels, his wicked and wild wife? Where were they? He thought of his empty flat – empty even when he was there – silent, unmoving, lifeless, devoid of life, unlived in. He wanted to be there again, right now, with a heavy implement in his hands. He saw himself tearing at things, pulling stuff over, breaking things, throwing them into harder things and then stamping on whatever of them remained. He slapped himself in the face so hard it made him yelp. There was relief in that. He did it again. Why had he never self-harmed? He imagined that had he started he might never have stopped.

He strode on. He wasn’t going home. He had assumed he was but had already passed his flat. There was that white building, still white even in the dark, white in the reflected glow of the stars and the moon and all the other lights whose effervescence was somehow absorbed by it. It rose up from the ground, towered over everything like it believed itself to be some great monument to heroic deeds. He had wasted most of his life there. All his adult life. He wanted to take a torch to it. He would. He would, but not tonight. He circled around its perimeter and kept going. He knew now where he was going. It wasn’t far. It had never been far, yet he’d managed, somehow, to never go back.

‘My friend calls me Florence Nightingale,’ she had said. ‘I just like helping people, is that so terrible? Let me help you. Tell me why you are the way you are?’

‘The way I am? I’ve managed for twenty years by myself,’ he’d shot back. ‘I don’t require an intervention.’

‘What happened twenty years ago?’ she’d asked keenly.

He was approaching it from the other side now. Would it look the same? What, he suddenly wondered, if it was no longer there? Town planners were always busybodies, looking for new ways to justify their positions. But no, it would be there, unchanged. He knew it would. It was no distance now. Less than a mile. He was walking as fast as he could. If only he could have run.

Maybe he should have just grabbed her, Clare that is, or Madeline, or that old whore, or anyone. What did it matter? That feeble, trembling little creature he’d hid inside for so long, he wanted to grab him too, shake him, shake him until he dropped down dead. He wanted to drag what was left to a bridge and dump the limp weight over the edge. He imagined the slow submerging before the black surface closed over where he’d been. He heard, shockingly through the silence, a horrible shriek. He realised the noise was coming from himself. All around dogs started barking. He hurried on. To his left was a supermarket, unnaturally bright on the far side of the deserted car park. Where was everyone? What time was it, really? He kept going, past the bus shelter, also empty. His knee was aching now. Good, let it ache. He approached a bin pinned to a pole and drove his knee into its side with all the force he had. Maybe that’s why the cars had winced. He collapsed on the ground and remained there for several minutes. Eventually he pulled himself up using the pole and walked on.

And then, all at once, he was there. He stood on the bend and looked down at the soft grey of the pavement’s ridge and the gutter, the black tarmac in front of him, the roundabout a short distance away. He looked to his left and saw a concrete wall – that was new, or different – behind which he saw the top of a brick building which he knew was the electric substation.

He stepped off the pavement and walked a few paces. He looked both ways down the road, then down at his feet. He couldn’t be certain, but he imagined he was in the exact spot. He stood very quietly and paid close attention to his body, searching out new sensations, listening for the beginnings of things profound. He expected to feel something, although he wasn’t sure what, but he felt nothing. He sat down and waited.

‘You want to get off there,’ a voice said. On the opposite side of the road an old man had stopped walking and was watching him. He had both hands on his hips. One hand had been inserted through the loop of a lead, at the end of which was a small dog, nose to the ground, stub tail stuck straight up, flicking back and forth in the air.

‘I used to live nearby,’ Benjamin Tate said.

‘Right.’ The old man hesitated, as if replaying in his mind what had just been said to him. ‘Well, it’s a dark corner. Whether you live here or not.’ He put out his hand. ‘Here. Come away now.’

Benjamin Tate looked down the road. There was something there. He couldn’t see what it was, but it was there. He looked back at the old man, pointing off into the dark. ‘See?’ he said. The old man, who still had his hand out, said something back but Benjamin Tate had stopped listening. He looked back down the road. In the brief moment he’d not attended it, it had crept closer, although it still couldn’t be seen. Benjamin Tate leant forward from the hip, stretching out his neck. He was conscious of not wanting to move his feet. ‘It’s just over there. Can you see?’ The dog was yapping silently on the end of its lead. The old man put a foot into the road and then withdrew it. His mouth was moving. The hand not holding the lead was gesticulating in the air. He looked angry. Benjamin Tate started laughing. Down the road the thing that was there was closer still. It had a shape now, a black, formless bulk. He only had to wait a moment longer and it would reveal itself to him.

Would Clare ever let him kiss her? What did it matter. He realised he didn’t want to kiss her. For the first time he imagined her without any clothes on. How old was she? She had told him, but he’d forgotten. She would have been about Clare’s age now. She. Yes, this was the spot. He felt sure of it now. They’d both been ended here. He would have to speak her name.

Suddenly the thing in the road began to charge. It moved with alarming speed towards him, gulping up the ground. He could hear a whirring sound. He wasn’t sure if it was the thing itself, or the sound of the air being shoved aside in front of it. The small dog tried to leap away but the lead pulled taut, jolting its head back and sending its hindquarters flaying out in front of it. Two eyes, two dazzling eyes at the front of something monstrous coming at him, hurtling itself at him. He looked down at his feet, immobile. He didn’t care. He had tried to kill himself many times. With rope. With pills. Be brave. But he was such a coward. He realised they were headlights at the same time he realised it was too late to get out of the way.

Just before they hit he saw the driver’s face illuminated in the dashboard lights. It was his own face, younger, with sun on it, although there was no sun. Then the car was on top of him, crashing over him, ploughing through him, and he was tumbling backwards through empty space. The moon and the stars and the black road spun around him, faster and faster until they merged and he couldn’t tell them apart. He saw himself with his arms folded across his chest, travelling at light-speed through a tunnel. He realised he’d run out of time. He began to shout out her name, but he was moving too fast now and the words were behind him before they were ever heard, like those white puffs of smoke that had once disappeared over his shoulder. Then, with one final whoosh, the tunnel ended, and he went spinning off into open space, like something rigid dropped out of the back of a plane.

‘You crazy bugger!’ The excited dog, he thought it was a terrier, reached him first. It jumped up onto his chest and began licking his face. He was surprised by how light the animal was. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ The old man caught up, coughed. He looked flushed. Benjamin Tate stood up. The road, in both directions, was empty. He bent down and stroked the dog. The fur around its nose was hard and course. There was a white patch beneath its chin like a small goatee beard. ‘Good boy,’ he said. ‘What a good boy.’ He thought he’d like to get a dog. ‘Sorry,’ he said, addressing the old man now, but not looking at him, still stroking the dog. ‘Just a dizzy spell.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE