Falling Off Air (15 page)

“I should tell you I had an argument with Paula. It was about the terrible things life throws at us, the things that make
us feel like hell, and that we simply cannot comprehend. Those of us who are Christians still find ourselves asking how God
can allow these things to happen. War, famine, sickness, and decay. Violent death, suicide. What in God's name is their purpose?

“I told Paula that all I can think is that we're never going to understand and we're always going to struggle against these
things, but that God is always there. At all times, in all situations, with us and beside us and right smack in the middle
of the awfulness. She disagreed with me and many of you will know that having Paula Carmichael disagree with you was pretty
scary. Those are the times and the situations, she said, when we realize there is no God, and it is in those minutes of most
profound loneliness that men and women turn to other men and women for their salvation. Sometimes other people come through
for them, and sometimes they don't. Now I'm not going to try and kid you that the difference in our positions is only semantic.
It's not. But nor are they mutually exclusive.

“The second thing I want you to go away with,” Father Riberra continued, “is the Carmichael challenge: ‘So what are you going
to do about it?’ If anyone had asked her what she wanted on her tombstone, that would have been it. Don't whine, don't pass
the buck. Put yourself there, smack in the middle of the awfulness. Alongside God, I'd say. Alongside humanity, she'd say.
Don't walk away. Get your hands dirty.”

The priest dropped his head, as though the homily had simply run out, and there was silence.

Then all of a sudden there was a clatter from my right and I turned my head. Adam was out of his seat and pushing past mourners
to the central aisle, apparently not caring about the disruption he was causing. He glanced up, his face suffused in panic,
and for an instant he caught my eye and paused, as if he were about to address me. Then he shook his head in confusion and
turned away. The entire congregation must have watched his stumbling exit. Only the priest kept his head bowed.

Finney, observing Adam's departure, had caught the moment's connection between Adam and myself and turned to me now, his eyebrows
raised again, this time in interrogation.

I shook my head wordlessly. All that I had seen in Adam's eyes was pain.

“You know him, the man who walked out?” Finney pursued me out of the church at the end of the funeral mass. The sky had darkened
and heavy drops of rain had begun to fall. Some of the crowd was hurrying off, but for the most part people seemed to be rooted
to the spot, as though the funeral hadn't ended, as though there was still something to wait for.

“I used to work with him.”

“At the Corporation,” he clarified. “I've seen him on television.”

I nodded.

“Why's he at the funeral?”

“I think he worked with Paula Carmichael at one point.”

Finney gazed off over my shoulder and seemed to focus on someone else in the crowd. Then he came back to me.

“Is he the mutual friend you mentioned who might be the link with Paula's diaries?”

Interesting, I thought, that he's using her first name as if they've grown to be friends, as though she had reached out beyond
the grave to him to smile and say, “Been there, done that.”

“It's possible. I'm going to ask him.”

“Don't let me put you out,” Finney scowled. “I'll talk to him myself.”

“No.” The thought of Adam and Finney having a heart-to-heart was, for some reason, not good. “I'm going to see him this evening,
it's all been arranged.”

He nodded, his eyes distracted by Richard Carmichael's emergence from the church and the forward thrust of the media. I had
no idea whether Finney had really heard what I said. He turned away and snapped at one of his officers to clear a broader
path for the mourners. The crowd and the outside broadcast TV vans had all but blocked traffic, and horns were blaring. D.C.
Mann materialized at Finney's side and acknowledged me with a dip of the head.

“I'll speak to you tomorrow,” Finney told me. “We have to clear this up.” He moved away.

I was jostled from side to side by the crowd, then I felt a hand on my elbow, and turned. I had assumed Suzette was there
out of duty—she had hardly been full of praise for Paula—but she looked shaken all the same. She wore a charcoal gray dress,
and a gray pillbox hat with black feather was perched on her gathered blond hair. We hugged and kissed on the cheek, the nature
of the occasion making us more demonstrative than we would otherwise have been. The misunderstanding over money still sat
uncomfortably with me, but we were friends and we started to walk side by side. The bottleneck had eased and the current of
mourners swept us along.

“Do you know what that was all about?” I asked her.

“Adam?” She pulled a face. “I suppose he wasn't feeling well.”

“You think so?” I said it uncertainly, although of course it was the only sensible explanation. It just hadn't looked that
way to me.

“I spoke to him before the funeral and he said he had a headache,” she said.

I had misinterpreted the pain I saw in his eyes, then. Adam had a history of occasional but severe migraines that made light
and noise unbearable and made him vomit. When they struck he needed medication immediately, but because the headaches were
rare he often forgot to carry his pills with him.

We paused and watched as Richard Carmichael, still hand in hand with his older boy, the younger standing a yard away, stood
and chatted with journalists for a moment.

“It's hardly the time, you'd have thought,” Suzette murmured.

“He seems to think he can use the media,” I said, “but they'll be just as eager to destroy him if things turn that way.”

“He's still trying to peddle this line that someone was seen visiting Paula Carmichael before she died,” Suzette said thoughtfully.
“Although there seems to be only the son's word for it.”

“You don't believe him?” I said. We were talking in low voices, aware that Carmichael friends and family were all around us.

“Carmichael needs the money,” she said softly. “That means Paula can't have committed suicide, and he can't have killed her.
That's a bit of a tightrope.” She paused and sighed. “Was that man you were talking to with the police?”

“Finney.” I nodded.

“Does he think it's suicide?”

“I don't think he knows what to believe.”

Suzette gave a tight little smile.

“Welcome to the club,” she said.

I headed to my mother's first to pick up the children, because I knew she had to go out.

She was waiting for me, dressed in a suit, her bag on her shoulder, and clearly annoyed.

“I'm supposed to be there already.”

“I thought you said you were leaving at four-fifteen,” I said, my heart sinking, stretching out my arms for the twins.

“I had to be there by four-fifteen, I'm sure I said.”

I put Hannah and William in the stroller, apologizing profusely. Then I walked back to the garage where I'd left the car and
wrote a check for three hundred pounds of work on it, which did nothing to lift my mood. I loaded the children and headed
home, wishing I'd never agreed to see Adam.

I
get home at five-fifteen and busy myself with the children's tea. Once they are eating I look in the mirror. I have already
thrown the black jacket over the back of a chair. The short black skirt has to go too or I will look like a French waitress
in a farce. My hair could do with a wash. I drag some jeans and a striped T-shirt out of the basket of clean laundry and iron
them. I pull the blind closed and strip down to my underwear. Then, still in the kitchen, I wash my hair in the sink. The
children watch this, fascinated, and all the time they keep stuffing food in their mouths. This is great. I should do it every
mealtime. I comb my hair through, leaving it to dry, and pull on the clean clothes. At six I examine myself critically in
the mirror. I could do with some lipstick and mascara, but this is not a date. All I want is for Adam to see that I am strong,
that I have not fallen apart, that I do not need him, that we do not need him, that we are all fed and clothed and happy and
clean. I clear up the tea things, wipe hands and faces with a flannel, check their nappies, change them into cuter clothes.

I glance around the flat and look for the first time as through Adam's eyes. He will think it poky, which it is. He will be
surprised I've put up with the bizarre color schemes, but I have. The best I have done is to jolly it up in places—I've made
mobiles out of magazine pictures, framed lots of photographs, filled vases with my childhood collection of peacock feathers,
painted mirrors and lampshades. These tasks have filled lonely evenings when the children are in bed. I have no money to spend
on anything but food and clothes, but I want them to feel their home is a warm and happy place. As I look at it through Adam's
eyes my efforts look amateurish and cheap. I could clear my pathetic handicrafts away, but I will not. At least it is clean
and tidy. Adam always said he didn't care about tidiness, but he would have cared if he'd had the mess of children around
him. I pull more laundry from the drier. I will fold it and take it upstairs before he comes.

At six twenty-five the phone rings. It is probably Adam, I think, my heart pounding, Adam saying he's been delayed. It is
Terry.

“You're going to take the job, that's brilliant.” He hears my silence, tries to jolly me along. “I know it's not exactly what
you want, but there are people losing their jobs left, right, and center. It's a promotion, for heaven's sake.”

I sigh, my heartbeat still failing to slow. I look at my watch. Six-thirty. I hear a car pull up in the road outside.

“I'm sorry, Terry, I really can't talk right now.”

“I just feel we should have a chat before you start at work, and you're starting tomorrow.”

“Fine. Good, we'll talk, but not now,” I plead. “I'm in the middle of something. I'll explain later. Really. I'll ring you.”

He doesn't like it of course, but he says good-bye.

I hurry into the sitting room and look out of the window, but if a car had pulled up it has moved on again. There are no free
parking spaces outside the house. By this time of day the road is always lined with returning commuters, and a green Toyota
is sitting outside the house, parked badly in a space that could have taken two cars.

By six-forty I am a wreck. My hackles rise like a dog's with every passing vehicle. When a nice man knocks on the door at
six forty-five to ask for a charitable donation I nearly bite his head off. At six-fifty I try calling Adam. Perhaps he has
forgotten. But I just get his answering machine and I decide that it is a good sign and he must be on his way.

Just before seven there is a knock on the door and I open it ready to punch the man who stands there. It is Dan Stein. His
face falls.

“I've come at a bad time again,” he says, looking at my expression.

“No, no.” I try to smile, but it doesn't really work, and I realize I have to explain, “I've had some bad news, a family thing,
but I'm fine.”

“Okay.” He doesn't know how to go on. He's embarrassed by this talk of family because we are not yet familiar. I am not being
exactly welcoming. I haven't invited him in this time, and I cannot. Not tonight.

“Could we go out for a drink on Saturday,” I offer, managing a smile of sorts. “I'm sorry, I'll be in better shape by then.”

“You're in great shape right now,” he says, and grins to tell me the remark is intended in the best of taste, just meant to
comfort me.

I manage to smile back.

“Why don't you come over at around eight?” I suggest. “And we can go to the George.”

“Or for a meal,” he suggests. “If it's going to take this long to arrange one date, it might as well be a good one.”

“Okay, but not Indian,” I say, trying to make conversation but not wanting to.

“Are you sure you're okay?” he asks softly.

I nod, my jaw set. He lifts his hand, and for an instant I think he is going to touch my face. I draw back and his hand goes
to his pocket for a pen to write down his telephone number. We agree that we will see each other on Saturday, and I close
the door on him. Tonight was not the right time to entertain a suitor. Nevertheless, he is persistent and I like that. He
has met the twins and he is still persistent. I like that even more. He has sympathetic eyes, but he looks so young and pristine,
especially this evening, dressed in chinos and a leather jacket. Surely I am too old for him, too old and bashed around.