The Touch of Innocents

‘Being pregnant is not an illness,’ she replied testily.

‘Izzy, I’m sorry.’

‘I know you are.’

‘You’ll be back. Please say you’ll be back. Don’t let those miserable men with the clammy hands push you out.’

The night was silent. The wind had dropped as the rain began to make itself known, the storm was almost upon them. They were back beneath the great oak, but the leaves had stopped falling. They were all gone. The tree stood stark and bare. Winter had arrived.

‘My baby. My husband. And now my job?’ Izzy replied at last. She shook her head. The words of her award-winning report from Gaza, unscripted, the camera no more than a blur through the tears, the blood of her friend still damp on her hands, were forcing their way back into her memory.

‘In this land there are no victors, only victims. No children who are not soldiers, no difference of view which does not make enemies, no freedom which does not mean the persecution of others, no justice. In this land the utmost barbarities are committed in the name of God and love by extremists on all sides. And tonight they have claimed one more innocent victim. His name was Dan Morrison. He was my friend.’

In a green and pleasant land many miles away from Gaza, the tide of personal injustice seemed to have become a flood and about to carry her away as just another helpless victim. The rain began to fall, heavily, trickling down her face.

‘I’ll let Benjy decide. I’ve still got him. I’ll let Benjy decide.’

But it was not to be.

Michelini slammed full into the wall, the impact driving the breath from his lungs and forcing the taste of bile into the back of his throat. His heart hammered against his aching ribs, a searing pain like a razor-cut stretched from his left ankle all the way up to the back of his knee. He thought he might vomit. He was about to slump to his knees but knew that in doing so he would concede not only the game and the ten dollars but also his sense of virility. He would die standing up, not on his back. On second thoughts, dying on his back offered amusing prospects, but not during a game of squash. Instead of expiring, he settled for a slow and methodical retightening of his shoe lace. He had found himself retying his shoe laces a lot recently.

‘Can’t you afford new laces, Joe?’ his opponent enquired with a knowing smirk.

‘With what you lawyers charge? Gimme a break.’

‘OK. Last game. You win and I’ll buy lunch and new laces.’

‘Yeah. And charge it back to me in your bill with a goddamned mark-up. Creep.’

‘You’re the one who’s been creeping. You put on more weight or something?’

‘Screw you.’

‘We aim to please. But you know I charge by the full hour. Way out of your endurance league.’

Michelini decided to save his breath and responded with a gesture involving his little finger and its pinky ring before retrieving the ball from a far corner of the court. So he was a pace slower today; he was as fit as ever – well, would be if he gave up smoking once again – but he’d not been in the mood since he had heard about Bella. He’d been home most evenings alone, brooding, trying to work out the anger which had been growing within.

He felt cheated. He had scarcely seen Bella for more than a few weeks during her short life and then only at nights when he wasn’t travelling or working late. There had always seemed to be plenty of tomorrows for catching up. He was too used to not seeing her; he scarcely knew her, his own baby. Couldn’t even focus on what she looked like. And because he also felt ashamed that he did not feel her loss so very much more, he turned the sense of shame into anger aimed at his wife.

Then, last night, there had been a knock at his apartment door. A neighbour, a woman newly arrived in the Watergate complex with whom he’d exchanged pleasantries in the elevator about the turning of the leaves and the previous weekend had lent a hand with some bulky shopping. She had knocked about half eight, thanked him once again for his help and asked if he’d had dinner, would he fancy a hamburger and bottle of wine? He was about to explain that he’d already eaten and anyway was on a diet and didn’t want to be disturbed when he noticed she was already carrying the McDonald’s and Montrachet. She meant business.

He had stuffed two quarter-pounders and finished most of the bottle himself while, in between hamburgers, she had satisfied some of her own appetites. They hadn’t even left the sitting-room floor and he could still feel the carpet burns. When it became apparent that she’d be going for more, both before and after apple pie dessert, he’d had to fake it, and he wasn’t as good at that as he used to be.

This morning he’d felt like one of last night’s french fries; no wonder he was a pace slower. And he still didn’t know her name. Better ask the concierge.

It had been the first time he’d done it in the family home. He had a sense of family ethics that you didn’t cheat on your wife in her bed or on her living-room rug, you kept that for elsewhere, separate from the family. But he felt that she – it was ‘she’, not ‘Izzy’, he’d already embarked upon the mental process of divorce – that she had cheated him far more fundamentally than he had ever cheated on her. He was not even two full generations away from the old country concepts of family and vendetta; somehow it passed through the blood that there were no situations in which no one was to blame. This had to be someone’s fault. Her fault.

Usually he’d announce some of the more adventurous details of his conquests to his lawyer, Antonini, just before they played an important point so as to consume his opponent with titillation and second-hand lust just when he needed all his powers of concentration. He decided against it this time; it might seem inappropriate and even incriminating on the day they’d agreed to extend the game into lunch in order to discuss his matrimonial problems. In any event, he felt invigorated by the memory and once again set about persuading himself that he looked, felt and played younger than he was. He pummelled the ball and started the new game.

They were towelling themselves dry when Antonini got down to business.

‘You sure, Joe? About this divorce?’

‘I’m sure. The marriage is going nowhere, doesn’t really exist. She’s never here, always off with God knows who doing God knows what.’

‘Double values, Joe? You’ve been no saint, either.’

‘All that counts is it’s over. One big, fat zero.’

‘Pity. I thought you two had such a good thing going. I’d hate to think you were – you know, simply going through one of those phases.’ He’d meant to say ‘patches’, but now it was out. ‘A lot of men do, Joe, and regret it like hell after.’

Michelini’s eyes flared. ‘What? You think I’m going through the male menopause?’ His tone was aggressive; he was naked, suffering that feeling of inadequacy borne by many men in the locker room, and covered that inadequacy with belligerence. ‘Thanks, Toni, but my hormones are working great – good enough to give you another thrashing on the court any time you want. No, I’m not going through one of those phases, it simply that my marriage is down the pan and I want you to help me clean the mess up.’

Antonini backed off, waving his hands. ‘Fine, Joe. I hear you loud and clear.’

But Michelini was in gear, wanted to get it out of his system. ‘It’s never been much of a marriage. All she wanted was kids so she chose me as some form of farmyard stud. Rent-a-dick. “Is it your fertile time of the month, dear, or shall I roll over and reread yesterday’s newspaper?” I’ve felt like I’ve been drowning in her hormones. She goes on about motherhood yet there she is every day trying to prove to the entire fucking world she’s got bigger balls than the next man. I wanted a wife, a real woman, Toni, not some flak-jacketed Amazon who travels the world with a camera lens poking out of her knickers.’

He threw his damp towel bitterly across the room where it flopped into a large hamper. ‘She wouldn’t even call herself Mrs Joe Michelini. What’s wrong with that, for Chrissake?’

The lawyer’s tone was smooth, professional, but pressing. And once more inappropriate. ‘Have you thought about the kids?’

‘Kid, Toni. Kid. We’ve only got one now. She killed Bella, remember?’

Michelini, completely naked, squared up to the lawyer with his arms hanging stiffly at his side and his fists clenched. He felt guilty about Bella, wanted to take a swing at someone. He was beginning to attract the attention of others in the locker room.

‘Easy, Joe. I’m only doing my job, I have to ask these questions. You’ll thank me for it later.’

‘The kids should never have been dragged halfway round the world by a mother who even then would take off at the drop of a hat and disappear for a week or more. Kids need a mother, not to be dumped with a string of agency nannies who don’t even speak proper English.’ His chest heaved as he fought to control his own passion. ‘They also need a father, yet because of her I scarcely knew them. Now with Bella I’m never going to get the chance.’ He jammed a college ring back on his finger with a violence that must have hurt, but he did not flinch. Rather his voice grew quieter, more disciplined, the words like ice.

‘She is a completely irresponsible mother, Toni, and in a million years I’ll never forgive her.’

‘Try not to make it all too bitter, Joe. That’s the way things get messy. Expensive.’

‘No worries. My company’s backing me on this one, it’s agreed to pay every cent of my legal costs. No expense spared this time around. Don’t let it go to your head, you bastard. Just make sure I win.’

‘If it can’t be done neatly and cleanly, she’ll fight. She’s got to protect her professional image as Miss Clean, won’t accept being pilloried as an unfit mother.’

‘But she is an unfit mother. That’s the whole point. And she may find it more difficult to contest than she thought.’

‘What do you mean?’

Michelini turned to look into the mirror as he adjusted his silk tie. He was all control now. ‘Because she’s away so much she left it to me to sort out the bills and family finances, that sort of thing. Gave me power of attorney in case anything happened to her.’ He finished the knot with a flourish and turned to face the lawyer. ‘I have control of her bank accounts.’ He paused. ‘Sadly, we hit a lot of unusual family expenses recently. When she gets round to looking into her accounts, she’ll find nothing but a rainstorm of red ink.’

‘You cleaned her out? But she can sue the pants off you for that.’

‘If she wants all her dirty underwear spread out in public, sure. And if she can find a lawyer to work for her for love and no money. So I’ll be reasonable, we’ll compromise. I shall let her have a clean and quiet divorce. I won’t drag her reputation through the mud. I’ll even replenish her bank accounts. All on one condition.’

‘Which is?’