Part 16 (1/2)

Chapter Four.

The Other Sarah Tucker I.

A long time ago, things were simpler. The Other Sarah Tucker ate what was put on her plate, never answered back, worked hard at school and pa.s.sed exams. The real Sarah this Sarah grew to hate her. But she was always there, out on the fast track; making friends easily, cooking like a saint. She could sing, dance, rollerskate. It was like sharing headroom with Supergirl.

Once, she told somebody about the Other Sarah: one of those mistaken moments of confidence that mark the road to adulthood like accidents mark a motorway. It reverberated round the school like a dis...o...b..at. Sarah Tucker had an imaginary friend. No: Sarah Tucker had an imaginary enemy. Sarah Tucker was deeply weird. She'd end up in a bin.

Meanwhile, the Other Sarah Tucker had a boy for each day of the week. She did not get spots; her hair did not hang limp. Her friends.h.i.+ps were as painless and uncomplicated as her periods, and the way she modelled school uniform made her a walking definition of Style. This was a girl to make the whole school proud. She didn't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blew.

Sarah struggled, sc.r.a.ped, pa.s.sed by. With a handful of O-levels, ascended into the sixth form.

'And Mr Silvermann's body was behind the desk.'

'Yes.'

'Did you touch anything, Mrs Trafford?'

'You asked me this yesterday.'

'And now I'm asking you today. Did you touch anything? Did you touch the body?'

'No,' she said. 'I didn't touch the body.'

She hadn't even touched the telephone. Had left Joe's office and called the police from the pub on the corner.

'And what were you doing there, Mrs Trafford? In a private detective's office?'

There was a careful absence of sneer when he said private detective. In fact, Sarah thought, you only noticed the sneer at all because of the thoroughness with which it wasn't there. She said, 'I had . . . there was a job I wanted him to do.'

'And what was the nature of this job?'

Which was policeman talk, she decided, for 'And what was this job?'

'Mrs Trafford?'

'That's private.'

He sighed. 'We're investigating a suspicious death. Nothing about it is private.'

'Was he murdered?'

'It's a suspicious death,' he repeated. 'I'll ask you again, Mrs Trafford, what was the nature of your business with Mr Silvermann?'

'I wanted him to . . . follow somebody,' she said.

'And who might that be?'

'My husband.'

'Your husband,' he said. 'I see.'

The first time she blew the Other Sarah away was at a sixth form party in a huge terrace house on the north side of her home town. Somebody's parents were away, and Sarah went because everybody went: it was that kind of party. There was a schizophrenic soundtrack Led Zeppelin v. The Clash; Born to Run alternating with Rattus Norvegicus and the punch was spiked with everything: by nine o'clock the back garden was full of vomit and thras.h.i.+ng bodies. Sarah was handed a roll-up she'd smoked cigarettes before and had already breathed it in before she realized it wasn't tobacco. The music got softer after that, though a great deal more important, and she was filled with the wonderful sensation of having done something the Other Sarah wouldn't, but which was much more fun than anything the Other Sarah did.

A boy she'd never met told her she had beautiful eyes, and she told him she wasn't born yesterday, though it felt like a lie at the time. After a while they were in the bathroom together, looking for something he kept hidden in his trousers. Eventually they found it, though it wasn't worth the bother.

Next day she was sick as a pig, and endured a fortnight's torment before turning out unpregnant. She never saw the boy again. But still remembered those first few minutes of it: not the s.e.x, the dope. It had felt like putting down something very heavy, something she'd been carrying round in her mind. It had felt like something she'd do again.

It was easier this way. It was almost certainly safer. What she should have done, she knew, was leave Joe's office quietly, pretending it never happened; or, at least, that she'd never been there to see it. But there were other factors. The man outside the Italian restaurant, for a start; he'd seen her. And, more important, Joe himself, whom she had not been able to leave like an unmade bed, an unwrapped parcel, a dusty shelf.

She did not for a moment believe he had killed himself. Forget about the razor in his hand.

'You suspected your husband of having an affair, and set about hiring a private detective to confirm this.'

'It can't be that unusual.'

Or original, he seemed to want to say. 'But you never got to speak to Mr Silvermann yesterday, did you?'

'No,' she said honestly, offering silent thanks for that yesterday.

'Or actually meet him.'

'No.'

This was not denying Joe exactly. It was simply, she preferred to think, what he would have advised: Take care of yourself. Don't get involved. Look what happened to me. My fault, Joe. I'm sorry, so very very 'In which case,' the detective said, 'you wouldn't expect to appear in a case file of his, would you?'

Birmingham was a large, disappointing city, neither different enough from the one she'd left for her to feel she'd travelled any distance, nor similar enough to allow her to feel at home. The streets had the same grey rained-on air, though, and you never had to go far in any direction before reaching a betting shop or a row of boarded-up windows. Cl.u.s.ters of warehouses dotted the landscape like enemy settlements. This was where she had come to make sense of literature, or at least convince enough people that she had that they gave her a degree. Back then, this was still thought an advantage in the job market.

They put her in a hall of residence which contravened seventeen health and safety regulations, and armed her with timetables and reading lists, and no guidance whatsoever on how to be a grown-up. But she made this discovery: that every second person she met was scared witless, and desperately trying not to show it. It was the sort of perception that bestowed confidence. She began going out; crashed parties like everyone else. The Other Sarah Tucker, she left in her room.

Their first encounter was tediously ba.n.a.l. He was tall, blond, amused; with chinos, a white collarless s.h.i.+rt, a blue sweater draped over his shoulders, and the lazy good looks of a Test cricketer who never quite achieved his potential.

'Some party,' he said.

'As in good or bad?'

'Which would you prefer?'

Another poseur. She left him decorating the doorway and found another cup of sweet warm wine abandoned on a mantelpiece. The first rule of parties was, Never bring anything you'd drink yourself. The second was, Drink anything you find without cigarette ends floating in it.

'My G.o.d, he spoke to you!' This was Mandy, a round, spotty second year.

'Who did?'

'Mark Trafford!'

'Who's he?'