The Water Tower - Books 4-5

Chapter 35-4

ArmsThe same questions were pouring through her mind as she knew they would be everyone else’s. She’d wanted so desperately to stop Victoria in her tracks; to ask her why she’d done what she did, to discover what could possibly have compelled her to support the demolition of the Tower. But she’d known that there was someone else who would need those answers first; someone who deserved to hear Victoria before any of the others. So she’d let her friend run past. Towards the park. Towards Adam.

She’d let her go.

The phone kept ringing. Hilda pulled her mobile away from her ear and glanced at the screen. There was still no answer from Constantine.

That was the fifth time she’d tried to call him.

Where are you?

Where are you?She posed the question to herself, without voice, knowing that no reply would come, yet still harbouring the hope that, somehow, he’d hear her.

She answered Madison’s text. A quick, straightforward response comprised of just nine words.

OK. Call me when you and Clarissa get back x

OK. Call me when you and Clarissa get back xThen she switched off the light, pulled on her driving gloves and started the engine. She saw a couple locked in an embrace by the bus stop across the road, framed beneath a street lamp, their lips pressed together.

As she drove away, the echo of the dial tone resounding in her ear, she couldn’t help but feel that she was still fumbling around in the dark.

* * *

The corridor was empty. Clarissa had wanted to avoid as many of the people packing out the Square as she could. She’d thought that using one of the side exits would be the easiest way; a chance to slip off without being noticed. A kindly porter had directed her down here, where a redundant photocopier and a half-empty water cooler lay resting against the wall beside a door marked “Tea Room”.

“Tea Room”She knew that if she passed through the main throng of gatherers outside, there would be some who’d want to congratulate her, others who’d to commiserate, and some who would just want to ask questions. She was desperate to swerve all three. She didn’t want to celebrate, she didn’t have the strength to mourn and – most of all – she didn’t have the answers. Despite having seen him rush away, appearing to all intents and purposes as if the walls of the world were closing in on him, she still believed that only Adam could get those.

She saw Victoria as soon as the doors at the end of the corridor swung open. Both women stopped simultaneously. Clarissa wondered which of them would speak first. Her mind flitted through discordant possibilities, the myriad of ways she could begin the conversation, or pose any one of the host of questions that sat expectantly on her tongue.

What happened? Why did you do it? What’s wrong? Have you spoken to Adam?

What happened? Why did you do it? What’s wrong? Have you spoken to Adam?In the end, Victoria saved her from the decision.

“It’s getting colder out there. I think it’s going to rain.”

Of all the ways she’d imagined they might begin, talking about the weather hadn’t been amongst them.

“Have they – have they all gone?” Clarissa ventured.

Victoria nodded. “There are still a few… stragglers. They’re trying to grapple with what happened.”

“What did happen?” Clarissa asked, seizing the opportunity. “Victoria, you looked –you didn’t look like yourself in there. Are you – are you alright? What – what could possibly have happened to make you do that? After – after the election. After everything.”

didalrightdoeverythingVictoria’s eyes fell. She studied the shade of royal red that carpeted the floor, then took a tentative step towards the photocopier and placed her hands on it. If she hadn’t known better, Clarissa would have thought that the older woman needed a purchase; as if she were fighting to stay upright. Had the events of the night really taken that much of a toll on her?

“I had to make a choice,” she answered eventually. Then she fell silent.

Clarissa felt a breath escape her lips; short and sharp and ragged.

“That’s it?” she asked. “That’s – that’s all you have to say? You turned your back on everyone – on all of us – just like that, and that’s all we get?”

usVictoria swallowed, lost in a long moment, before she turned to face Clarissa, her arms spread-eagle.

“Guilty as charged,” she told her, quietly.

Clarissa felt her eyes burning with tears. She tried to hold them back, tried to stem the flow beneath the memory of every conversation she’d ever had with Victoria, forcing herself to recall the strength she’d found in her then, and all the possibility she still believed existed.

“I don’t believe you,” she retorted. “There’s something more. Something you’re not telling me. I can see it in your eyes.”

She wasn’t lying. Victoria’s eyes had glazed over, as if reality had re-shaped itself around her and she was still trying to find her balance in a new, unfathomable world. She was holding something back; keeping her truth contained.

“It’s nothing that a good night’s sleep won’t cure,” Victoria answered simply.

“I – but I – I thought you were ill. Victoria, you looked awful. Like you were carrying a loadstone on your back.”

illawfulThere was no reply.

“Have you spoken to Adam?” Clarissa forced down the advancing bile in her throat with a thick swallow. For the first time, she thought that Victoria’s eyes looked hollow; as if the indefinable magic they’d once held had been stolen away, and there was nothing left in its place.

“Oh, I’ve spoken to him,” Victoria admitted. “I tried… I tried to talk. To explain. There were things I needed to tell him. Then he – he said – he said…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Try again,” Clarissa insisted, wondering exactly what had passed between them.

Victoria repeated the shake of her head. “Too late,” she told her, weakly. “Much too late.”

“But – Hilda – Constantine – Hugo –” Clarissa stammered.

“Clarissa,” Victoria said, mustering some inner strength in a bid to lend weight to what came next, “you can’t fix this. This is all on me.”

In any other circumstance, her words might have sounded soothing; reassuring. Now, in an empty corridor where the lights were low and all the hope once offered by Victoria Kendall lay unspooled at their feet, they were nothing more than empty vessels of inevitability; tokens of inexorableness, filling the air in the wake of a storm.

“All on you?” Clarissa repeated, incredulously. “No, this is on all of us. Hilda, Constantine, Hugo, Elaine, Sarah, me. Even Sally! We trusted you. We believed in you. And look – look where that got us! Look where that got me. Turns out I’m the same stupid girl I always was. Always believing in something that was never going to justify my faith.”

you ustrustedbelievedme. “Clarissa—”

“No, don’t. Just don’t.” She paused for breath, relinquishing space enough to allow her anger to subside. She sighed, the list of names she’d reeled off still dancing in the northern hemisphere of her mind, until she honed in on one, and one alone. More quietly now, with none of her earlier intensity or insistence, she told Victoria with simple, straightforward clarity of thought, “I thought about you and Adam all the time, you know. I nearly tore myself apart wondering what it was he saw in you. What you had that made his heart beat that little bit faster. What you gave him that I never could. I wrestled with it – oh, every night. I kept telling myself that if I tried just that little bit harder – maybe if I pulled my head from out of my books once in a while…

don’thadlittle bit harder“It was something to aspire to, you know? I could never match what you had, I knew that. I could never be you, but maybe – maybe I could find it in myself to be just enough.

youjust enough“But you know what? The truth is, you"re not all that. Not really. Everything you are, everything you have, has been given to you by somebody else. Say what you like about me – and I know what I am – Clarissa the dreamer, Clarissa the lonely, stupid Clarissa who’s still trying to make her Dad proud – but at least my decisions, my consequences, my successes and failures – they’re all my own. I don’t need to be somebody else. I’m stronger for being me.

havestupid consequencesme“And you? You’re nothing but a fraud.”

She wanted to cry, and she thought fleetingly that Victoria did too. But she wouldn’t allow herself that indulgence.

So she tucked a drifting ringlet behind her ear and walked away, leaving Victoria beside a dead photocopier, in an empty corridor, with nothing. Not even the indefinable magic that had once shone so brightly inside her eyes.

* * *

“Yer got wha’ yer wan’ed then.”

He seemed to consider that. Madison watched Robert Grainger impassively as his mouth curled into a smile. Then the smile widened, and he started to laugh. A low, steady, thrumming laugh that bounced off the walls of the empty meeting room that was lit only by the pale yellow light of the moon’s curve as it filtered through the window.

He’s laughing, she thought. He’s laughing. Why’s he laughing?

He’s laughingHe’s laughing. Why’s he laughing?He didn’t stop. The sound sent a chill through her; a shiver ran down her spine as if someone was walking over her—

“Why yoo laughin’?” she asked him.

“I’m laughing at the irony. You do know what irony is, don’t you, Madison?”

knowShe didn’t answer. She just stood there as he looked her over, his face contorted into a mocking expression of pity.

Clems would know, she thought. Clems would know what ‘irony’ was.

Clems would know,Clems would know what ‘irony’ was.“’M not stupid,” she said finally, uncomfortably shuffling her feet on the darkened carpet.

It’s the same expression, she thought. The same one he’d given her the last time they’d come face to face. He doesn’t see me any differently.

It’s the same expressionHe doesn’t see me any differently.“No,” Grainger said at last, turning away from her and returning to the window. “No, I suppose you’re not.”

A silence veiled the near-empty space. She considered him, wondering if it was her turn to speak; if he was waiting for her response. A tiny corner of her mind sparked with earnestness, urging her to turn and leave; to walk out of the room and confine Grainger to the darkness. She shut down that part of her psyche and stayed rooted firmly to the spot.

She watched. And she waited.

“Who were you looking for?” he asked finally, as if remembering a remark she’d made but which he had only half absorbed.

“Clems,” she answered. Then, with a swallow, she quickly corrected herself. “Clarissa.”

“Ah yes,” Grainger answered, pushing the balls of his fists into his trouser pockets. “Your little hero of the hour.”