Part of me wanted to say I was sorry and smooth things over, so that everything could go back to how it had been before. But I also felt confused, unsure whether to believe what she had said the previous night. Part of me hated her for saying those things. If they were true, that meant she had lied to me all those years ago – and allowed me to believe something that was entirely false. And if it had been a lie, then what future was there for us, when she couldn’t tell me the truth on something as important as this?
She had claimed that she told me she was pregnant in the mistaken belief that I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it – and that I would be the one to bring the relationship to an end. At first, I dismissed this out of hand. I told myself that she had only said that because I had backed her into a corner; it was the only way for her to avoid admitting that I was Jonah’s father. But the more I thought about it, the more doubts began to surface in my mind.
I kept going back to what she had said to me that night we had first slept together. I had often wondered why she had said “It’s OK, I won’t get pregnant.” At the time, I told myself that finding out why wouldn’t have made any difference. So I had simply let the matter drop. But it had always puzzled me. And perhaps Kay had now given me the explanation; perhaps she had said that she couldn’t get pregnant because at the time, she already was pregnant.
Initially, I told myself that this was ridiculous. How was her story about using the pregnancy to break off our relationship consistent with her subsequent behaviour towards me? She had even told me at one point that she loved me. But maybe that had more to do with the way I had behaved. I had not reacted in the way that she had expected; on the contrary, I had accepted the situation and made it clear that I would stand by her. This might have made it more difficult for her to break off the relationship. It might even have made her wonder whether she had been right to want to break it off in the first place. Maybe she had genuinely changed her mind about me for a time - only to change it back again a couple of months later. Viewed in that light, her conduct towards me didn’t seem quite so puzzling.
Not that I found much comfort in this explanation. I found all these doubts intolerable. And I knew that the only way to resolve them was to go back to Kay and to keep pressing her about what had really happened.
In the meantime, I had opened the package that Pete had given me the night before. It contained a thick sheaf of loose, mostly handwritten papers. There was no covering letter or set of instructions explaining what Pete wanted me to do with them. All I had to go on was Pete’s request to look after them. After skim-reading the first sheet of notes, it was obvious that I had been given a collection of Pete’s interminable and increasingly paranoid ramblings about the Overmind. I shoved them back into the package and tossed them onto the floor.
Several days went past and I had still heard nothing back from Kay, despite leaving further messages for her. Her mobile was still switched off. I decided to phone her work again. I got put through to one of Kay’s colleagues. Sensing that she knew more than she was telling me, I pressed her for an answer.
“Are you a relative of hers?” asked the woman.
“No. I’m a friend. A close friend. I really do need to speak to her urgently.”
“And you’ve not spoken to any of her other friends?”
“No.”
“Right.” She took a deep breath. “I’m very sorry Mr Jensen, but you won’t be able to speak to Kay. There’s been a car accident. I’m afraid she passed away, Mr Jensen. I really am sorry.”
“But... when did this happen?”
“I don’t know the full details. I think it was two days ago. She was with her husband. They were both killed, I’m afraid.”
“I see. Thank you,” I said. I didn’t feel grateful, of course. It was just something to say, a feeble attempt to mask the brutal reality of her words with a veneer of politeness.
There was a long silence. “I’m really sorry you had to find out like this,” said the woman. She too obviously felt the need to say something, anything, to fill the dead air between us.
“What about Jonah – her son – was he with them?” I asked, finally.
“No, he’s OK. He wasn’t with them. But it’s awful for him. Poor kid.” This time I was grateful, but said nothing.
Once I had got over the immediate shock of the news, I was gripped by a desire to know exactly what had happened. I would probably have condemned such feelings on the part of anyone else as morbid curiosity. But having been denied the chance to see either Kay or Pete ever again, I felt an urgent need to know as much as possible about their final moments. I thought that in doing so, I would uncover some vital piece of information which would explain exactly why this event had occurred - and that somehow, this rational explanation would remove the appalling senselessness of the accident.
Eventually, I managed to speak to a policewoman who had been at the scene of the crash. She told me that, according to eye witnesses, the car had veered erratically before leaving the road and turning over several times, finishing upside down in an adjoining field. Both Kay and Pete were dead on arrival at hospital. The emergency services were not to blame; they arrived quickly and did what they could. It was just an accident. These things happen.
Or do they? Could things have been different if I had not acted the way I had? What if I had made my feelings about Kay clear to her at an earlier stage? Maybe if I had been with her at the time, the whole thing could have been avoided. And even if the accident was somehow inevitable, at least I would have known how she felt about me. As things stood, I couldn’t say for sure how she would have responded. Maybe she would just have told me not to be ridiculous. But I was unable to dismiss the possibility that she might still have been interested in me. I had simply left it too late to say how I really felt.
There was nothing in the local paper about the accident. In my thirst for information, I felt disappointed that the paper had not found out about Jonah and gone for the human interest angle – “Child Orphaned By Tragic Double Road Death” etc. Even if the article had simply regurgitated facts that I already knew, I would have found it somehow comforting to see them confirmed in smudgy black newsprint for me to read over again and again. But to the wider public, the accident was no more than another depressing addition to the statistics on road fatalities.
I found out from friends of Kay’s that Jonah was now living with Kay’s parents. For a short while, I seriously contemplated the idea of turning up on their doorstep and announcing myself as his true father. I fantasised about being welcomed with open arms as a ray of hope in the midst of tragedy. But what would I say to them? Would I be offering to adopt Jonah? What if Jonah didn’t want to have anything to do with me? How would I feel then?
There was also the small matter of actually proving that I was his father. After what Kay had said to me, I no longer felt so sure of my ground. Part of me wanted to be bold, to seize the moment and try to salvage at least something from the situation. But there seemed to be so many risks, so many things that could go wrong. I told myself that I had to be absolutely sure that I would be doing the right thing for Jonah. And I failed to convince myself. So in the end, as usual, I did nothing.
Make a free website with Yola