Chapter One
She liked to stroll in the morning when her mind was at its sharpest. Just now there was certainly much to consider, and the sleeplessness plaguing her more recently had seen her up at six today, pacing around the flat, fretting as she dressed. It had been a relief to step out into cool late June, to breath in the air of the yet-to-arise town. At such moments money matters belonged to a different realm; yet lately moments were all she was offered.
Alison had just completed a university degree in psychology. She was expected to achieve first-class honours, awaiting only a few examination results. Her final-year dissertation had explored romantic relationships from the perspective of people of varying ages. Encouraged by her supervisor, she was eager to develop some of her ideas for a PhD. The problem was funding - more accurately, a lack of it.
Having held down a part-time job in a local pub, she’d just about survived on her student loan. But now the final instalment was down to its dregs and her overdraft up to the hilt. She might ask her parents to help, at least until she decided what to do with herself, yet such an act would compromise everything she’d claimed moving away would achieve: responsibility, independence, self-sufficiency. In any case, mum and dad had their own lives to lead without worrying about their only child.
So what were her options? She could seek a full-time position. Her personal tutor had described her as “eminently employable”, though had confused by adding, “The loss to academia will be capitalism’s gain.” Then why wasn’t the Department of Behavioural Sciences taking steps to retain her? In fact financial support for postgraduate study was, as her ex-boyfriend had been wont to say, as “rare as a faithful lover”. He’d gone on to prove his assertion, but there were plenty more sprats in the pond.
Maybe she could marry money! Twenty-one was the age that most men believed was ideal for a wife (she had statistical evidence) and if the many ardent suitors since her mid-teens were to be trusted, Alison had a look to attract whomever she set her Machiavellian sights upon. Nevertheless there was one major hindrance: she would no sooner throw over her complete agency to a husband than she would leap out of a window.
What to do, then? By now she was crossing the road for the campus. The traffic was thinner than it would be in an hour or so, though she had to hurry nonetheless. Her mobile phone jolted against her hip in her jeans pocket. She preferred pants with a belt and a no-nonsense blouse, always had; good boots for walking too. She believed that rather than any propensity to the tomboy, this choice was informed by that part of her upbringing spent near the country. Yes she’d enjoyed the town, but every now and then she had to get back to nature. That was why she was headed for the canal: person-made, yet redolent of the simple life she’d left behind.
Alison was interested in contradictions, the way people were often lured by two or more ostensibly incompatible goals. The choice of career - immediate versus deferred gratification - was one example, as was the polarity between the urban and the rural. Sexual attraction was quite another case in point. How could a person be simultaneously drawn to opposite prospective partners: say, fun extrovert and thoughtful introvert, or the ephemerally fashionable and the permanently stylish? For years Alison had assumed that this was a subjective quirk, but her undergraduate research had shown it to be a common phenomenon.
Another theme had emerged from the analysis of interview transcripts: Don’t believe everything you see. In the ‘meat market of human coupling’ (as one of her informants had memorably phrased it) individuals attempt to sell themselves, using every ruse they know to succeed. Alison had discussed such strategies - clothing and cosmetics, storytelling, manufactured attitudes - under the technical term ‘impression management’. If some of the older people she’d questioned were correct, there was a great deal of deception out there. Imagined identities were shorn with nuptial brevity. It was a wonder partners stayed together at all! Oh but cynicism wasn’t inevitable. Life could be sweet to certain lucky adventurers.
Alison was pacing through the deserted stone grounds of the university. She negotiated the bridge and then descended innumerable steps to the waterside where a family of ducks was sailing across the murky surface. Amid workshop cabins and converted mills, treetops whipped in the sedate breeze and the smell of the land fell to her, rich and ripe, ready for summer. The world was a beautiful place; it simply required a little working at.
The institution owned several properties along the canal. Here were small schools and lecture halls, currently inhabited only by academic staff. The long break between terms was an opportunity for renovations to be carried out: various buildings loitered at irregular stages of reconstruction. She’d reached a point at which the towpath broadened, gave on to a road. To the right, white lines demarcated parking slots, and to the left, beyond the adjacent pavement, stood a tall brown structure whose façade remained unfinished. One enormous very high window had been stripped of glass; there was no door plugging the wide entrance. To one side lay a random clutter of discarded material: planks of wood, broken bricks, a lengthy stretch of drainpipe.
Strolling towards this lot, on the other side of the road, she noticed a young man.
Alison slowed, almost coming to a halt. It was only now that she registered the sounds of a nearby factory, charging its machines in preparation for the working day, the noise eclipsing the incessant gurgle of water. But her conscious attention was directed the way of the pedestrian. He was a thoroughly striking chap, perhaps in his mid-twenties. A thatch of brown hair sat atop a clean-shaven face, the whole of this an effortless compliment to the lean frame bearing him up the pavement. He was clutching a book rather tightly, a thick volume that possibly meant a great deal to him. His clothing resembled some kind of uniform, dark blue with red and green flecks. Was he a postman? Whatever his situation, he’d now stopped at the kerb, ready to cross.
It was then that her attention was distracted by the sound of a car.
The road hugged the corner occupied by the brown gap-toothed edifice. Just then a low black sports saloon was careering around this right angle, its engine nothing less than an aggressive buzzing. Alison glanced at once into the driver’s compartment; the glass was rolled down, a man was stationed behind the wheel, one arm rested on the frame. He was very attractive. Perhaps in his early-thirties, his tanned rugged visage bore stubble and a crew cut. His neck was stout, and although only his shoulders were visible, she knew he would be muscular. The made-to-measure suit and a shirt-and-tie added a sophisticated sheen to the bullish comportment. An orange light had begun flashing on this side of the vehicle. Was he indicating to park?
Alison experienced a moment of confusion into which was compacted a plethora of sensations. Had the postman spotted her on the opposite pavement before deciding to cross? She glared in his direction and saw a face rising to meet her…but might that have belonged to the driver of the car? She flipped her stare back to the passing vehicle, its sidelight still blinking. Had the thickset man seen her on the roadside and elected to stop? Either way one of the guys was gazing at her, smiling broadly. The other face remained deadpan, a prelude to inexorable alarm. This all happened so quickly she was unable to process the information further; it was driven out altogether by what she witnessed next.
The saloon hit the man in the uniform at a fair clip. He was jerked off his feet by the sloping bonnet - his book flipping up and away immediately - and sent forwards in a graceless parabola. Alison had practiced gymnastics as a child, as a result of which she could say with authority that this motion possessed no grace. Then the full horror of the event struck her and she began to feel astonishingly guilty. As the car screeched to a halt, the victim landed with a grisly thud that even the din from the factory wouldn’t spare her.
Alison was running forwards, hesitating, running forwards again. She clapped a hand painfully to her mouth.
“Oh…my…God,” she said. “Oh…my, my…”
But nothing else came.
It was dismaying to realise that she felt responsible. Although both men ought to have had their focus on the road, she’d undeniably distracted one of them. She had a mental image of wonderful eyes fixed on hers, a fine smitten grin. The terrible fact was, however, she couldn’t remember which of them had noticed her.
