The Closed Circle Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t stop
in any of them because I was scared that he might be following and if he saw me
there he’d pull over too and try to complete his unfinished business. So I drove on,
which was a crazy thing to do because I was crying and shaking all the way back
into Birmingham, and endlessly looking around to see if there was a Mazda sports
coming up behind me on the outside lane, headlights flashing, guns blazing for
battle.
    Maybe some women would have turned around and given him the same
treatment in return. But I genuinely think that if I’d wound the window down he
would have attacked me. He was beside himself, completely out of control. I’ve
never seen—
    I stopped there because I was about to say I’d never seen a man look that way
before. But that isn’t true. As I said, I only glimpsed his face for a moment, but
that was enough to see into his eyes, and yes, I
have
seen that kind of hatred in a
man’s eyes—just one other time. I saw it a few months ago, in Italy. But that’s
another story, and I should save it for another day because my hands are already
stiff from all this writing.
    How quiet this house is. I really noticed it then. I realized that the scratching
of my pen had been the only sound.
    Good night, sweet Miriam. More tomorrow.
    In my old bedroom

St. Laurence Road

Northfield

Sunday, 12th December, 1999

Late morning
    So, big sis, can you guess where Dad is, and why I’ve got the house to myself
for an hour or two? Of course you can. He’s in church! Making himself a better
person. Which would be a wonderful idea, in his case, if there was only the slightest prospect of it working. But he’s been doing this, week in, week out for about
sixty years now (as he was reminding me over breakfast only this morning), and if
you ask me, the results haven’t exactly been outstanding so far. To be honest, if
that’s the best the church can do after sixty years, I think we should ask for our
money back right now.
    But no—he’s not worth thinking about. And besides, I’ve only got one more
meal to sit through with him—the dreaded Sunday lunch—and after that I’m
out of here. I’ve decided to spoil myself, and I’ve booked in to the Hyatt Regency
for two nights. It’s the poshest new hotel in Birmingham: more than twenty
floors, right next to the new Symphony Hall and Brindley Place. I was walking
round that part of town on Friday and I could barely recognize it, it’s changed so
much since the 1970s. All that area around the canals used to be deserted, a waste-land. Now it’s wall-to-wall bars and cafés, and every one of them was jumping.
More of that mysterious meeting and talking that I’ve noticed springing up everywhere.
    But maybe you know all this. Maybe you’ve been there yourself, in the last
year or two. Maybe you were there on Friday morning, having a coffee with some
friends in All Bar One. Who can say?
    Even though I only saw it for a fraction of a second, I keep thinking of the face
of that man who swore and spat at me yesterday because I pipped my horn at him.
I told you, didn’t I, that it reminded me of something that happened in Italy this
summer. It was the only other time I’ve seen a man lose his temper like that. It
was a terrible thing to see (in fact I did more than see it, I was caught up right in
the middle of it), but in a way the consequences were even worse, because it led
directly to me becoming involved with Stefano. And look where that got me.
    It seems like a lifetime ago, already.
    Lucca is surrounded by hills, but it’s the ones to the north-west that are the
loveliest, I think. High on a hillside there, in open countryside but with a fabulous
view of the city (which is one of the most beautiful in Italy), an old farmhouse was
being restored, from top to bottom, inside and out. It was being restored by a
British businessman by the name of Murray—or at