Page 34 of A Slow Fire Burning

“I was the one who found him,” Miriam said. “My boat—the pretty green one, with the red trim, theLorraine, you’ve probably seen it—it’s moored just a few yards from where his was.” She smiled at Laura, letting this information sink in. “I was the one who found him. Who found his body. I was the one who called the police.”

Laura’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?Fuck.That must have been grim,” she said. “Seeing him... all... bloody like that.”

“It was,” Miriam said. She thought of the gash in his neck, the whiteness of his teeth. She wondered whether, at that moment, Laura held the same image in her mind, whether for a moment or two they found themselves in alignment. She tried to meet the young woman’s eye, but Laura was in the process of pushing her chair from the table, getting to her feet, reaching over Miriam’s shoulder to pick up her empty mug.

“Have you... have you been in touch with the police since?” Laura asked her, her voice strangely high. “Since you found him, I mean. Are they, like, giving you updates or anything? Because I keep looking at the news and nothing really seems to be happening and it’s been more than a week, now, hasn’t it, since he... well, since he was found, so...” She tailed off. She was standing with her back to Miriam, placing the mugs in the sink.

Miriam didn’t answer the question, but waited until Laura had turned back before she spoke. “I saw you leaving,” she said. “The day before I found him. I saw you leaving the boat.”

Laura’s eyes widened. “And?” Her expression was defiant. “It’s not a secret I was there. I told the police I was there. Everyone knows I was there. I didn’t lie.”

“I know you didn’t,” Miriam said. “Why would you? You did nothing wrong.” Laura turned away again. She turned on the tap, rinsing the mugs under the stream of water, her actions jerky, a little frantic. Miriam’s heart went out to her; she could see her victimhood written all over her, in every flinch and every twist. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” Miriam asked gently. “Do you want to tell me what he did?” Breath held, blood singing, Miriam felt herself teetering on the edge of something important: a confidence. An allegiance. A friendship? “I’m on your side,” she said.

“My side?” Laura laughed, a scornful, brittle sound. “I don’t have a side.”

But you could have, Miriam wanted to say. You could have an ally. It could be us against them! Those people who think they have all the power, who think that we have none, we could prove them wrong. We could show them that we can be powerful too. You up here in your shabby tower, me down there on the water, we may not live in elegant homes, we might not have expensive haircuts andforeign holidays and good art on the walls, but that doesn’t make usnothing. So many things Miriam wanted to say, but she had to be careful, she had to approach this thing slowly, she couldn’t rush it.

A slight change of tack, to test the ground. “Do you happen to know anything about his family? Daniel Sutherland’s family?”

Laura shrugged. “His mum’s dead. She died quite recently. She was an alkie, he said. He has an aunt. I met her at Irene’s.”

“Irene’s?”

“My friend.”

“Who’s your friend?” Miriam asked.

“Just a friend. None of your beeswax.” Laura laughed. “Look, it was nice to have a chat and everything, but I think—”

“Oh, well,” Miriam cut her off. “I know quite a bit about Sutherland’s family, and I think you might find what I know quite interesting.” Laura was leaning against the counter now, picking at her nails; she wasn’t even paying attention. “The thing is, you see, I think it might have beenher,” Miriam said.

“Her?” Laura looked up.

“I think his aunt might have had something to do with it.”

Laura’s brow crinkled. “With what?”

“With his death!”

Laura gave an abrupt bark of laughter. “Hisaunt?”

Miriam felt her face redden. “This isn’t a joke!” she snapped, indignant. “I saw her there, I saw her visiting him, just like you visited him, and I believe that something happened between them.” Laura was watching her, a crease at the top of her nose. “I think,” Miriam went on, “and this is the important thing: I think that her husband—herex-husband, I mean, Theo Myerson—I think he might be trying to cover the whole thing up, because...” Miriam kept talking, but as she did, she could see the girl’s expression change, fromskepticism to disbelief to suspicion; she could see that she was losing her trust. How could this girl be so obtuse? Couldn’t she see, at the very least, that it was in her own best interest to point the finger at someone else? Wasn’t it obvious that Miriam’s theory was beneficial to her? “It may sound far-fetched,” Miriam said at last, “but I think you’ll find—”

Laura smiled at her, not unkindly. “You’re one of those people, aren’t you?” she said. “You like to get involved in things. You’re lonely, and you’re bored, and you don’t have any friends, and you want someone to pay attention to you. And you think I’m like you! Well, I’m not. Sorry, but I’m not.”

“Laura,” Miriam said, her voice rising in desperation, “you’re not listening to me! I believe—”

“I don’t care what you believe! Sorry, but I think you’re a nutter. How do I even know that you’re telling the truth? How do I even know that you saw me at the boat? How do I even know that you’re telling the truth about finding him? Maybe you didn’t find him at all. Maybe he was alive and well when you went down there! Maybe it was you stuck a knife in him!” Laura sprang toward Miriam, her mouth wide open and red. “Hey,” she laughed, prancing around the table, “maybe I should be calling the police right now?” She mimed making a call. “Come quick! Come quick, there’s a madwoman in my house! There’s some psycho hobbit woman in my house!” She threw her head back and cackled like an insane person, she danced about, she was up in Miriam’s face, invading her space. Miriam struggled to her feet and lurched away from Laura.

“What is wrong with you?” But the girl was laughing, manic, lost in her own world, her eyes glistening, sharp little teeth shining white in her red mouth. Miriam felt tears stinging her eyes. She had to get away, had to get out of there. Horrible laughter ringing in herears, she walked, with as much dignity as she could muster, from the flat. She shuffled exhaustedly down the walkway and down all those stairs, legs heavy as her heart.

Miriam was tearful by the time she arrived home, which was a dramatic overreaction to unkindness from a stranger but not unusual. She overreacted to slights, that’s how she was, and knowing a thing about yourself didn’t stop it from happening. Miriam had lost the talent for friendship when she was young, and once gone, it was a difficult thing to recover. Like loneliness, the absence of friendship was self-perpetuating: the harder you tried to make people like you, the less likely they were to do so; most people recognized right away that something was off, and they shied away.

The worst part of it wasn’t the end, it wasn’t the jeering and the mockery, the insulting her appearance, it was what Laura had said earlier.You’re lonely and you’re bored and you think I’m like you.And Miriam did, she did think Laura was like her. That was the worst part of it, being seen for what she was, what she felt. Being read and being rejected.

In the cabin of her boat, in her sleeping quarters, Miriam had an annotated copy ofThe One Who Got Away, a copy on which she’d marked up relevant sections, on which she’d noted key similarities to her own memoir. The pages toward the back of the book were thick with her scrawl, blue ink soaking through the pages where she had pressed her pen against them, her notes all but unreadable to anyone but her, where she railed against Myerson’s twisting of her tale, against all the things he’d got wrong, all the things he’d got right.

Small things throw your life off course. What happened to Miriam wasn’t a small thing. It was a very big thing, but it started with a small thing. It started when Lorraine said she couldn’t stand two hours of Mr. Picton’s coffee breath, and biology was so boring anyway, and there was a sale at Miss Selfridge. Miriam didn’t even want to bunk off; she thought they’d get into trouble.Don’t be such a wuss, Lorraine said.

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