Infinite Ground - Martin MacInnes Page 0,1
sorts, and it was all my doing. I sent the invitations, made the phone calls, the reservation. The thing about the meal – it wasn’t to celebrate a particular occasion like a birthday or an anniversary or something, it was simply for the good of us all seeing each other. Many years, I’m ashamed to say. It was a beautiful night – because of the atmosphere, the light. The storm had cleared; it had just stopped raining.
‘As you know, my son Carlos pushed back his chair, excused himself from the table and went to visit the bathroom. We had eaten our starters and we were enjoying our main courses. It is a little surprising Carlos got up while we were eating. He is normally such an attentive and thoughtful man, though I imagine you never believe a mother when she says these things, and why would you? And he had already gone earlier – I assume that that was where he went, the bathroom – which is also unusual, because he had not drunk more than three glasses of wine.
‘Should I really carry on with these details? I’d thought they were only important to me, because of what happened later, what was about to happen, in the restaurant I mean. I wish I could remember everything. It was remiss of me not to have started from the very start and recorded everything my child did, moment by moment, so I could always have it – of course I never expected him to go, to experience losing him, which is unnatural, a mother having to confront this in the case of her child. Not that I am giving up hope, either. For one thing I have brought you here, to the scene.
‘I began making lists. I’ve been doing so ever since he disappeared. There is so much I don’t know of his life and I wouldn’t even want to speculate, it’s his own private area, it’s not a mother’s business, but at least at the start, when he was small, I had complete knowledge of things such as where he slept, and so I have begun making lists of my impressions from his early years. Here, I will show you one.’
The inspector scanned the pages, the locations written in brief descriptions as items numbered from the margin: ‘folds of assistant midwife’s lower arms’; ‘sand on cove’; ‘forest-patterned blankets’. The list went on. He nodded for her to continue.
‘Well, we recorded significant moments like birthdays and his first day at school, we have an album of photographs of those sorts of things, but it is all the uncountable, absent pictures between them that are difficult now. I’m not saying it’s possible to record everything, I know it’s not, but we could have done more, we could have held on to more of these details.
‘He pushed his chair back a little, careful not to let it screech on the tiled floor, and he smiled at his cousin Gabriela sitting to his left in a beautiful soft yellow gown that might have been thought too much for a routine family gathering, only this wasn’t routine at all, as I’ve explained, and I’m sure we would all have remembered it even if Carlos hadn’t disappeared. As he was pushing the chair back several inches in order to give himself room to stand, he stopped, aware just in time of the waiter about to pass between our table and the next; and it is just like Carlos to notice in time, he is very observant, and considerate, kind. He paused for a count of two, dragging out the motion, before finally standing up and walking to the bathroom. And that is the last I saw of him.’
She looked nervous. He thought she was waiting quite anxiously for his reaction. She looked away, then sharply back at him, as if trying to catch him out.
‘I have a confession, Inspector. In reality, I didn’t see him stand up from the table. I was aware of him doing it, from the corner of my eye. I didn’t pay attention, but others later told me he had gone to visit the bathroom. This is merely how I have chosen to remember it, with more of the detail it deserves.
‘I spend a lot of time imagining him pushing back his chair. I spend days doing only this, Inspector. I could speak about this for as long as you have to listen, which I know you will advise me is contrary to