As I watch him now, I wonder if Imran ever does things like this. Goes out to see jazz. Exists in the world. Enjoys things. I think of him often. I wrote to him, again and again, after his first letter, but he never responded.
Reuben joins me after his set piece. He weaves his way across the room. I can see him easily – he’s so tall – but he moves differently than Before, as though he is some sort of celebrity now.
He’s holding a glass of something dark to his chest. It’s barely more than a shot. He’s leaning over me strangely and I realize with a start that he’s drunk. He’s never usually drunk, can drink a bottle of red and be seemingly unaffected.
‘The thing is,’ he says, slurring strangely, not looking at me, his hair dark in the dim lighting, ‘I don’t even know why you’re here.’
‘I wanted to see you play,’ I say, twisting my wedding bracelet around my wrist.
They wouldn’t let me wear it in prison. A gem-less ring or nothing, they said. It lived in a locker for two years. It came out as shiny as it went in. It had nothing to dull it; no life.
‘Oh, did you?’ Reuben says, with a faint smile. There is something dangerous about his tone. Mocking.
‘Yeah,’ I say, looking up at him.
His eyes finally meet mine. They’re black.
‘I don’t know why you’d want to hang around with me at all,’ he says.
At first I think he’s talking about the constant WhatsApp notifications I receive. He always frowns when I receive them, until I feel like a naughty child, reduced to tapping out replies to people in the toilet.
‘What?’ I say.
‘I don’t know why you’d want to hang around with me at all,’ he says, louder this time, right in my ear.
When I pull my head back, I see there are tears in his eyes.
‘I might preach about doing the right thing, but do I?’ he says.
‘I don’t know … I don’t understand what you mean.’
He leans close to me, so our faces are level. His breath smells sweetly, of alcohol, just like Sadiq’s did. I jerk my head back.
‘It’s all my fault,’ Reuben says. ‘That’s why I hid our relationship on Facebook.’
‘What? What is?’
‘Your incarceration.’
‘No, it’s not,’ I say.
I go to turn away, ready to leave, but he pulls gently on my wrist.
‘I told the barrister,’ he says.
And it’s those four words that change everything.
‘You told the barrister what?’
‘When your barrister took my proof. He asked me about the call records. How long Imran lay in the puddle for. And I crumbled – stammered, Jo,’ he says softly. ‘And then, after I’d crumbled, I told him everything. Your lie.’
He’s speaking so softly I can only just hear him. Somebody else has taken the stage, is playing a moody tune. It’s a woman and her voice fills the club.
‘What? Why?’ I say.
I look at him, remembering that morning. The air was chilled in the courthouse and my limbs felt as though they were full of ants. I remember that. I remember it all. Reuben going to chat to the barrister, Duncan. Both of them coming back, faces sombre. I thought myself merely paranoid. Shortly after that, I was offered a plea bargain, and I took it.
‘I took a plea,’ I say.
‘Because of me.’
‘Was it?’
‘They offered a plea. But Sarah advised taking it … because of me. Because I made your risk too high. I was your only witness and I just – I couldn’t lie to your barrister. Not wouldn’t. Couldn’t. I was … he asked me directly. And I tried to lie. But it was obvious. He said I’d be cross-examined on it. Because of the medical experts fighting over whether there was hypoxia. So, I told the truth. That you lied. It was me,’ he says. ‘I shopped you.’
His voice breaks on the last line, and then he’s crying, standing alone. My husband. My betrayer. He has held my hand and stabbed me in the back, all at once.
I stare at him, too shocked to say anything.
That first night, in the designated First Night Cell, where I was put on suicide watch because I was so shocked and alone. The fleece pillow I cried into that dried unnaturally quickly. The nights I counted down. Each strip search. Each random drugs test when I had to wee in a pot. Looking forward to being on cooking duty because it would earn me money to watch the television and give me something to do. Feeling complete and utter panic the first day in the yard as I knew nobody, like we were in Azkaban and they’d had their souls sucked out of them. The two years. Experiencing time stretched thin like wire. Having nothing at all to look forward to. Out, now, my life in tatters.
And it could have been avoided. Perhaps. In part. Not made worse. If the barrister hadn’t known about my lie … if Reuben hadn’t told him. We might have gone to trial. I might have got away with it.
I stare at him, still shocked. He’s leering strangely at me.
‘Why didn’t they tell the prosecution?’ I ask.
‘They don’t have to. But they got you to take a plea. They wouldn’t put a liar on trial. Either of us,’ he says.
‘Why didn’t they tell me?’
He shrugs, just looking at me. ‘Why would they?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So it’s fair to say I caused all this,’ he says, gesturing at me.
‘All what?’ I say, my voice only just above a whisper.
‘This detritus,’ he says, his voice going back to his London roots, the way it does when he lobbies, when he gives soundbites to the news or speeches about Islamic prejudice.
‘Detritus.’
‘The detritus of our marriage.’ His eyes are still on me, the drink still held to him, curled up against his chest. ‘After I poisoned it.’
‘You didn’t poison it,’ I say automatically.
‘We both did.’
‘What are you saying?’
Reuben leans against the wall in that way that he sometimes does, resting his weight against it, his head tilted. ‘I can’t bloody do this any more, Jo.’
‘Can’t do what?’
‘I just … I waited, and waited, and waited for you.’
‘I know, I …’
‘House of Cards. Game of Thrones twice. Homeland,’ he says, talking over me.
I frown up at him, baffled.
‘The Good Wife. Breaking Bad. Sherlock. Mad Men.’
‘I …’ I stammer. I don’t know what to say to this ranting man in front of me.
‘All these things watched in the hours and hours without you. I’m so fucking tired of watching television on my own.’
‘But I’m back now,’ I say, spreading my arms wide.
My drink sloshes. It’s just a Coke. My hand’s wet from the spillage and I glance at it, breaking Reuben’s gaze. I feel my skin getting sticky as it begins to dry.
‘You’re back, yeah,’ he says, looking down at me, his expression suddenly tender.
No, not tender. Something else. I step closer to him, and his body accommodates mine, as it always has. And then I’m in his embrace and his breath is alcoholic as he ducks his head to mine, and his body is warm and solid.
‘You’re back, Jo, but I grieved for you. I miss you.’
‘You miss me?’ I say. ‘But I’m here.’
‘I still feel like I miss you. Or that you’re gone.’
I look away.
‘I grieved for you. Yeah,’ he says.
He’s talking the most I’ve known him talk in recent times. His words are tripping over each other like clumsy children marching in line on a school trip.
‘I watched all those TV shows on my own and I got over you.’
‘You got over me?’
His truth is so painful that I close my eyes against it. If I could go back, and not call 999, and walk away instead, I would. Oh, in this moment, I would.
‘I mourned you. I didn’t do anything. I stayed inside all the time. Work put me on … you know. Back office duties. I had nowhere to go and I didn’t want to see anybody.’ He shifts out of the way as another couple moves past us. His body jostles mine. ‘I wasn’t wearing black. There wasn’t a funeral. But there was grief.’
‘Well, now I’m back – from the dead. And aren’t you pleased?’
‘No, Jo,’ he says, shaking his head sadly.
And then I realize what his expression is. It’s pity. He pities me.
‘No,’ he says again.
The woman is still singing loudly on the makeshift stage, a blues number, but we don’t have to shout now. Over here, as our marriage ends, the volume’s on low.
‘They don’t tell you, but grief has a lot of anger. Sometimes people are angry that people die … that they left them.’