knows? It was an Israeli rifle but the army said the bullet was fired from a stolen weapon, intentionally to stir up anti-Israeli feeling in America. Either way, didn’t matter much to Dan.’
She sighed, there were no tears, she was too professional for that. Although sometimes tears help.
‘OK, so it’s the risk we all take. Could have been anyone. Would have been me, if Dan hadn’t cheated. But it got me thinking, what do you leave behind? What did Dan leave behind after all those years of screwing and drinking his way around the world? Of finding the back doubles to every airport and putting his neck on the line so some armchair producer back in the States can fill in the airtime between the sponsor’s messages? What? A better world? All Dan left behind was a grieving mother, a busted Chevvy and an empty apartment in Greenwich Village on which he still owed fifteen years’ payments. And I didn’t even have a mother to grieve, K.C., so I knew I had to get on and have those kids or I’d end up just like Dan. Does that make sense?’
‘Does the sun rise, stupid?’
She shook her head wistfully. ‘So I panicked. Married Joe. I’d known him for more than two years, although I realized later that in all that time we’d spent less than three months physically together. And I understand why he wants out. It’s an occupational hazard in my job and his. And men change after kids, you know. The first one is a mystery to them, a mixture of fascination and terror; by the second it’s simply a matter of mechanics. Your plumbing gets torn and twisted, you end up running on a damaged undercarriage and you find that once-passionate lover starts approaching you with all the sensitivity of a mechanical shovel.’
‘And only one gear.’
‘Joe was lousy about pregnancy. Resentful, jealous even. The baby had taken my body and his place beside it, and the more I swelled and the baby wriggled the more he simply moved away from it. From me. Like his life had been invaded. With Benjy he was bad, with Bella even worse.’
A silence hung between them. For the first time, as she found the words to describe her husband’s reaction, she knew without doubt that it was over. A chapter now closed, one she had never dared read out loud before.
‘But somehow I can’t find the energy to be angry. Hell, I’m almost relieved. I’ve been trying to balance Joe and the kids and the job for so long I was feeling like a bridge too far, slowly cracking in a hurricane; this simplifies things, one less weight to carry.’
The frost-dried leaves were beginning to chatter on the trees like the dying rattle of the day, falling around the women like the tears Isadora had been unable to shed.
‘How long are you going to be here?’ K.C. enquired.
‘Everyone seems delighted with my progress. Maybe just another two weeks. Then perhaps I’ll take a month off to get Benjy straight, sort things out with Joe. He’s bitter at the moment, but he’s not a bad man, he’ll come round. I need time for myself, too. I haven’t even been able to say goodbye properly to Bella.’ The voice, so used to talking of death, was steady but very quiet. ‘No tears yet, no mourning. They cremated her, did you know that? An unidentified little baby, no claimants, so they cremated her. I can’t even bury my baby.’
‘That’s … barbaric,’ K.C. shook her head in disbelief.
‘No. Just bureaucracy. Mindless bloody bureaucracy, as it is all over the world.’ She fashioned a smile of defiance. ‘Don’t worry, Izzy Dean will be back, I shall insist on it. I need just a little time for the bruises to heal. New Year.’
K.C.’s eyes grew large and swam with tears. ‘Oh, shit,’ she stammered. Leaves rustled round their ankles like rattling leg chains.
‘I’ve had a crack on the skull, K.C., but I haven’t lost all command of my senses. The Great Grubb doesn’t hand out trans-Atlantic air tickets like cups of coffee. You’re here to do a job, his job, I’ve known that ever since you arrived and I’m sure you’ve come bearing more than our beloved foreign editor’s best wishes. But you are also my friend, I won’t forget that. What is it?’
K.C.’s eyes begged apology. ‘You know the pressure he’s under. The money people have moved in, they’ve laid off another fifty staffers, the newsroom looks like the Alamo.’
‘Before or after Santa Anna arrived?’
‘Izzy, you’re the best we’ve got, even Grubby has to admit that, but it also means you’ve got one of the best foreign postings we have and there are fifty people sniffing around to see if they can take it from you.’
‘That’s a compliment.’
‘Even your little pimp of a producer has put in an official request to join the reporting staff, based on what he’s done in the weeks he’s been filling in for you.’
‘How long is it now?’ She furrowed her brow and tapped her forehead. ‘God, there are still things in here which simply don’t connect.’
‘We’re into December, Izzy. Nearly six weeks since you last had anything on air. And they’re building up for a civil war in Ukraine. Grubby wants you in Kiev not …’
‘Not flat on my back with my feet up in some part of the world he’s never heard of.’
‘You’ve got it.’ She hesitated. ‘You’ve also got this letter, Izzy.’ She reached inside her shoulder bag and retrieved an envelope. ‘It says three weeks. It says be back in three weeks, by Christmas, or they are terminating your contract. That taking off without letting anyone know where you were going was a hanging offence. That in the last three years you’ve clocked up more sick leave than anyone in the office.’
‘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