neurologist in the hospital, the clammy pallor of him and the fold of his neck over his shirt collar as he stared blandly back at me: It depends on multiple factors.
What fac, factors? Thick-tongued and idiot-sounding. The near-concealed pity and distaste sliding across his eyes, the moment when he demoted me to something not worthy of explanations, branded and filed away, no appeal possible.
It’s very complicated.
Yeah but but but, can you, can—
Why don’t you concentrate on your physio. Leave the medical issues to us.
Kick in the ribs and something snapping, stupid cunt think you’re fucking great
“OK,” Susanna said. “What did you want to do to them?”
It stopped my throat. Not for anything in the world could I have put it into words, what I had wanted to do and how badly. I shook my head.
“And how did it feel when you didn’t?”
The memory flared all through my body: fist throbbing where I had smashed it into the wall over and over, leg one great bruise where I had punished it with every heavy object I could find, head pounding blindingly from slap after slap. I couldn’t breathe.
“Now imagine,” Susanna said. She was looking at me very steadily, through the smoky air. “Imagine you did it.”
Air rushed into my chest and for an enormous light-headed moment I felt it: the impossible ecstasy of it, almost too huge to be survived, the vast lightning rush of power and my fists and feet thundering down again and again, bones crunching, hoarse screams, on and on until finally: stillness; nothing left but obliterated gobbets of pulp at my feet and me standing tall, streaming blood and gasping air like a man rising from some purifying river, into a world that was mine again. My heart felt like it would burst free of my ribs and soar like a Chinese lantern up and away, through the window glass and out over the dark trees. For an insane second I thought I was going to cry.
Susanna said, “That’s what it was like.”
For a long time no one said anything. Things wavered in a sly draft, flames and high cobwebs, pages of a book lying open on the coffee table, the soft edges of Susanna’s hair.
Leon said, “Aren’t you happy?”
I laughed, a harsh astonished crack that came out too loud. “Happy?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Or anyway not anything that could get you in trouble. That’s not good news?” When I didn’t answer: “Should we not have told you?”
I said, “I have no idea.”
“I didn’t want to. I thought we were all better off just leaving it. But Su thought you should know.”
“I felt bad about making you think you might have done it,” Susanna said. “But that seemed like the best way to handle things at the time. And I was right, wasn’t I? It all worked out in the end.”
I let out a hard, breathless laugh. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“It’s over. The cops are gone. We can forget the whole thing.”
“Yeah. Melissa’s gone, too.”
“That’s just because all the fuckery and drama got to be too much for her. I don’t blame her. Now you can go tell her it’s over, you had nothing to do with it, the end. You’ll be fine.”
“She’ll be over the moon,” Leon said, peering earnestly at me through the dimness. “She’s mad about you.”
“Sweep her off her feet,” Susanna said, tossing her cigarette butt into the last of the fire. “Live happily ever after.”
Rain swept softly against the window, the fire fluttered. I felt like there was something else they should be telling me, some crucial secret that would illuminate this whole story so that all its rotten shadows blazed to life with a great transforming meaning, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what that might be.
Twelve
It seems obvious that, just like Leon said, that revelation should have improved things. I wasn’t a murderer after all; what could be better news than that? Plus—yay for Toby the Boy Detective—I had finally found out what had happened to Dominic, just like I had wanted to; and to put the cherry on top, it was pretty clear that Rafferty couldn’t do anything to anyone, we were all home free and clear. Everything should have felt, within the limits of the situation, just creamy-peachy.
And yet, somehow, it didn’t. I had no idea what to do with this new state of affairs. Just for example, probably I should have at least done a little bit of ethical debating with myself