The River House

At exactly six I go in. At first I can’t see him. I try to remember his face, but it eludes me, though I saw it so precisely in my dream. I worry, like a girl on a first date, that he’s here and I haven’t recognised him.

He’s in the corner, by the fruit machine. I see him before he sees me. In that brief moment before he knows I’m there, he seems quite different from when we met before, his shoulders bowed, head lowered—as though something weighs on him and presses him down. As though there’s a shadow on him. This surprises me.

He looks up.

‘Ginnie.’

He’s vivid, eager, again. I forget the shadow.

He stands and kisses me lightly, his mouth just brushing my skin. I breathe in his smell of smoke and cinnamon.

‘I’ll get you a drink,’ he says.

‘I’d love a whisky.’ I wish that my voice didn’t sound so girlish and high.

The pub looks as though it hasn’t been decorated for years. The chairs have grubby corduroy seats, and there are curtains with heavy swags, and eighties ragrolled walls. You can smell hot chip oil. The place is filling up with workers from local offices, relaxing before their journey home—raucous men with florid ties, and women in crisp trouser suits and wearing lots of lip gloss. A teenage boy with an undernourished look and blue shadows round his mouth and eyes comes up to the fruit machine and starts to play.

I take off my coat, rather carefully: my body feels clumsy and ungainly. I watch all the glittering colours that chase across the fruit machine. I have a strong sense that I’m forgetting something important. Pictures of home move through my mind, a catalogue of possible disasters: Amber losing her keys and waiting on the doorstep in the cold, or starting a fire because she heats up the casserole after all and then gets sidetracked by an urgent text message. I take out my phone, I’m about to ring her again. But Will is coming back with my drink. I watch his easy grace as he weaves through the crowd towards me. Instead of ringing Amber, I turn off my phone.

He sits.

‘So you’re OK?’ he asks. Just to fill in the silence. His eyes linger on my face for a moment, then flick away. I realise he too is nervous.

‘I’m fine.’

He smiles at me rather earnestly, as though this is encouraging information.

‘I hope this pub’s all right,’ he says. ‘I thought it would be easier to talk here.’

‘Of course, it’s great,’ I tell him.

I think of the dream I had about him, his warm slide into me, the shocking openness of it. Now, sitting here in this banal place with this man who’s still a stranger, I’m embarrassed by the memory of my dream.

He sips his beer.

‘Let me tell you,’ he says. ‘About young Kyle.’

‘Yes. Please.’

‘You were absolutely right,’ he says. ‘In what you suspected. The father’s very violent.’

I nod.

‘The mother called us a few times. I had a word with Naomi Yates, who’s her liaison officer. Nasty stuff: he used to choke her, she said. It started when she was pregnant. As so often.’ A kind of weariness seeps into his voice.

‘Did he ever hurt Kyle directly? ‘

‘Not so far as we know. That happens, doesn’t it?There are men who’ll beat up their wives and not lay a hand on the kids.’

‘Yes,’ I say.

He takes a sip of his beer. I watch his hands, his long pale fingers curving round the glass.

‘She’d leave and then go back to him. You know the story—these women who keep on leaving and then can’t stay away. All it takes is some tears and a bunch of cut-price roses. It’s one of the great mysteries, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘Why women don’t just give up on these psycho husbands.’ When he frowns, there are hard lines etched in his face. ‘There’s fear, of course, but it isn’t always fear. I don’t want to buy into that whole hooked-on-violence thing, but you’ve got to wonder.’

‘Perhaps it’s remorse they get hooked on,’ I say.

This interests him. Lights from the fruit machine with all their kaleidoscopic colours glitter in his eyes.

‘You could be onto something,’ he says. ‘I imagine it’s very seductive. He sobs and says he’s sorry and it’ll never happen again… We believe what we want to believe, I guess. About the people we love.’ His gaze is on me, that intent look. ‘I mean, we all do that, don’t we?’

‘Yes,’ I say.

This hint of intimacy stirs something in me, a little shimmer of sex.

‘You know about this stuff, then, Ginnie,’ he says,after a moment. ‘Well, of course you would. You work with the kids who get caught up in it all.’

I have a sudden sharp impulse to uncover myself, to reveal something.

‘It’s not just that,’ I tell him. ‘It’s in the family.’

His eyes widen. He’s very still suddenly.

‘Now, you mean?’ He leans towards me, his voice is careful, slow. ‘Or are we talking about the past here?’

‘Not now. Now is OK. In the past. My childhood.’

‘Your childhood,’ he says gently.

He makes a little gesture, reaching his hand towards me as though to touch me. His hand just over mine. My breathing quickens—I don’t know if he hears this.

There’s a resonant clatter of coins from the fruit machine beside us. The noise intrudes and pushes us apart. Will leans back in his chair again. The teenage boy scoops up his winnings and stuffs his pockets with coins.

Will looks at me uncertainly, but the mood has changed, we can’t get back there.

‘Tell me more about Kyle,’ I say.

‘The last time was the worst,’ says Will. ‘Naomi reckons this is what triggered the mother’s breakdown. She said she was going to leave, that this time she really meant it, and he threatened her with a pickaxe. Actually, threatened doesn’t quite capture it. I think this could be the thing you need to know.’

‘Kyle built a room with Lego,’ I say, ‘but he wouldn’t open the door.’

Will nods.

‘How Naomi told it—Kyle and his mother were in the bedroom, and she pushed the wardrobe over and barricaded them in. She’d got her phone, thank God, she managed to call us. We got there just as the father was breaking down the door. Afterwards he said he wanted to make her love him. Weird kind of loving.’ He twists his mouth, as though he has a bitter taste.

I shake my head.

‘I got it totally wrong,’ I tell him.