11 The Man in the Carriage
Friday 25 November
Dawn breaks across the city skyline, pinks and apricots giving way to crisp azure as I close my laptop. I have three new chapters. I am back. Robert and the Holbecks have reignited the fire inside me.
I let the sun warm my face as I remember with an illicit thrill that Robert’s tape is waiting for me, like an early Christmas present demanding to be unwrapped. The sooner I can find something to play it on, the better.
In the kitchen I make a plump stack of silver dollar pancakes with streaky bacon and wait for Edward to emerge from the bedroom. I know I should tell Edward about the tape, about the conversation with his father last night, but selfishly I want to hear what’s on it first. That, and I promised Robert I would keep it between us, for now.
When Edward finally enters the kitchen, bleary-eyed and hungover, my desire for total honesty has thankfully passed.
Once I’m showered and dressed, I slip Robert’s tape into my pocket. I need to do a little research. If I want something to play the miniature cassette, I’m going to need to find a specialist store.
As I head out the door, Edward kisses me goodbye, a portrait of hungover shame. ‘Thank you for breakfast. You’re too good to me,’ he says with a shake of his head. ‘And, listen, I’m sorry again about last night. I should have prepared you better. I should have told you about… I’m sorry if you felt thrown in at the deep end.’
‘It’s okay. It’s always weird meeting someone else’s family. Probably good I didn’t know about Bobby. It would have been another thing on my mind.’
He takes my hand across the table. ‘How did I get so lucky with you?’
I feign remembrance of our first meeting. ‘I think you picked me off from the herd while I was trapped. That sound about right?’ I ask with a grin, the hard plastic angles of RD’s tape cassette digging into my thigh with almost anthropomorphic insistence.
* * *
Out on the blustery streets of Manhattan, I check my route again before heading down a set of subway steps. The temperature has dropped in the city in spite of the cobalt blue sky, my fingers already red and numbed as I feed my ticket through the turnstile. I was warned about New York winters; they sneak up on you.
After a little googling, I managed to find a second-hand electrical store down in the financial district. The store specializes in second-hand audio and recording equipment so, if I can get my hands on a Dictaphone, I could be listening to Robert Holbeck’s story before the day is out. I would be lying if I said the idea of that alone wasn’t enough to propel me across town.
The tiny tape Robert handed me last night is an Olympus XH15 microcassette, placing its time of manufacture firmly in the late ’90s. According to the internet, I need a similar microcassette recorder to listen to it.
Although the tape is old, it’s impossible to know when he recorded it. I get a jolt of excitement at the thought of hearing a younger Robert’s voice, his words coming to me directly from the past. I wonder what the tape will tell me about his life, his family, his children.
Every writer knows, even if a story is pure fiction, there are truths hidden in there, about the writer, about the time it was written, which are inconvertible. I get a now familiar shiver of guilt as I hop through the doors of the subway carriage and slide into one of its glossy plastic seats. I shouldn’t be this excited about hearing Edward’s father’s voice.
But thoughts are just that: thoughts. It’s impossible to police them, and as long as they stay just thoughts, I have no reason to feel guilty – do I?
I put this odd little infatuation down to two very simple things: early pregnancy hormones and the novelty. I haven’t had access to Edward’s family until now and I’m getting carried away. This mild obsession with Robert is just an obsession with everything to do with that family, with Edward’s life before me as shrouded in mystery and exoticism as it is.