The Affair Read Online Free PDF Page A

angry with them both, willing them to calm the hell down. I cling to Aden’s hand, so tightly that it seems his skin has become a part of mine, and I breathe in, holding a blood-stained breath in my lungs, and think that I am at the bottom of the pool, and there is nothing more to it than that. Just an easy dive, down into the piercing blue deep. And any second now I will skim the bottom, then I will turn, arching my body up towards the light. And then I will break the surface. And this time the air will be clean. Bloodless.
    I remember the doors, swooshing open onto the still August air. The sun on the linoleum. The barrel of the gun. The shape it made as it faced me. The endless darkness hidden inside. The certain knowledge that I was going to die. Then Aden. That look, from me to him and back again. Then the gun, swinging around, finding him.
    Then a voice, low-sounding of whisky and darkness, breaks into my reverie. ‘You okay?’
    I start and release a sound, one that I have never heard from myself before, a kind of a cross between a yelp and a sob. Aden’s face is creased in pain. Eyes open, so slowly. He lies there for a minute, as if he cannot believe that he is alive.
    I wait for him to look at me. At least I give him that, before I throw myself at him. I can feel his breath on my cheek, hear his heart beating on mine. I’m dimly aware this is unlikely to help his wounds, but I cannot seem to stop myself, and after a second, as he presumably works at convincing himself that he isn’t dead, I feel his arm wrapping itself around me, pulling me in tighter.
    ‘You’re alive.’ His voice is rough, low.
    ‘You too.’ He smells of soap and gunpowder.
    ‘How bad?’
    I know what he’s asking. I know what he wants me to do. But I stay, cradled against him, until I absolutely, completely have to move. Then, with my one good arm, I push myself up. His shoulder is bleeding. The wound looks ragged, terrifying even, and I have no idea what will come next.
    ‘You’ll live,’ I lie.
    He grins, a fleeting smile so out of place in this setting, yet as welcome as a long drink of water on a burningly hot day. I know that he knows I’m lying. ‘Such a bedside manner. I meant the others.’ He gestures with one hand around the lobby, wincing, trying to look past me, but I don’t move. Ridiculous as it may sound, what with who he is and what he does, but I don’t want him to see. But I know that he won’t settle, not until he knows.
    I don’t have to look up. I see them anyway. I will see them every time I close my eyes for the rest of my life.
    There’s the elderly lady with the navy-blue raincoat, taupe slip-on shoes, yards away from us. Her head is rested on her arm, and it seems that she is merely sleeping. Just got tired and fancied a nap. The blood pools around her, turning her blue coat black. There’s a man, about my age, perhaps late twenties. He is slumped against the opposite wall, one partner in a pair of bookends. Only his chin, with the carefully trimmed goatee, is tilted forward onto his chest, his hands resting, palms up on his lap, as if to say: look at me, I won’t hurt you. His brains splattered across the wall that supports him.
    And him, the one who did this. He is lying amongst the casualties. As if he is one of them.
    ‘It’s bad, Ade. It’s really bad.’

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