The Most Difficult Thing. Charlotte Philby
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I pushed myself up to sitting. ‘What are you doing?’
‘You’re awake.’
He turned slightly from his chair, keeping his eyes fixed to the page. ‘I’m going to make coffee,’ he added without moving.
I smiled to myself, leaning back, breathing deeply, drinking in his smell, letting the coolness of the sheets settle against my skin.
‘It’s OK, I’ll make it.’ I went to stand but he got up first.
‘No, no, it’s fine. You stay there.’
I watched him walk through the bedroom door to the kitchen in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, the cotton rubbing against the curve of his shoulder blade.
Contentedly, I let my eyes drift around the room, soaking up the old press cuttings, a couple in frames against one wall, a thick stack of books on either side of the fireplace.
It was not like me to overstep boundaries with Harry. But it was in both our interests, I told myself as my toes pressed silently onto the floor next to the bed, the wooden boards soft against the soles of my feet.
Still, I was reassured by the sound of the kettle lightly humming in the kitchen as I wrapped the bedsheet around myself, turning slightly to the empty doorway before moving towards his desk.
I stopped again, giving myself a chance to back out; but it was not as if I was snooping, I reminded myself as I lowered myself slowly into his empty seat, which was still warm. It was hardly rummaging through his secret possessions; it was just a pile of papers and a pad, his writing, unconcealed, the thick, loopy scrawl of someone who thought too quickly.
I did not touch anything, I did not have to turn my head to read it. It was just there, in the middle of a series of words connected by arrows, streaking angrily back and forth across the page, the word ‘TradeSmart’ circled in pen.
My whole body tensed. That could not be right. I looked again, picking up the notepad this time, turning it so that the words were in sharp focus in front of my face.
As I raised the pad, a photo fell loose, landing face up on the floorboards by my feet. I looked down, and the image stared back at me. The single image of a boy, his extremities protruding from under a white sheet – a child of six or seven.
If it wasn’t for the skin, which was black, and the hair, which clung to his head in tight curls, it might have been Thomas. My own brother’s face, his skin unnaturally white that day, beneath a scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose, had shared the same slackness of the jaw, the same unmistakable absence of life. His blond hair stuck to his forehead where he had pushed away the heat of the summer’s day with a tiny wrist.
‘Your coffee?’ Harry stopped when he saw my expression.
My eyes were unable to leave the photo. As if looking in from somewhere else, I heard myself gag, watched myself stand too quickly and then the chair falling away behind me.
‘Anna?’
Harry rushed towards me and I pulled myself away, making it to the bathroom just in time.
He had not been angry about me prying and, like a fool, I had taken his softness as a sign of his love. Rather, he had merely sighed, as if there was an inevitability about what was to come.
Leading me into the living room, he held a cigarette packet in his hand as we sat opposite each other on the sofa, spinning the box slowly between his fingers as he spoke.
After some deviation, we got to the point.
‘The thing is, Anna, for the past four years I’ve been part of a team looking at a company called TradeSmart.’
‘I know who they are.’
‘Of course you do.’
He dropped his eyes, looking away momentarily, releasing a small sigh.
‘Well, as you may or may not know, David’s dad’s company, they’re a massive FTSE 100 organisation. A leading logistics and commodity trading company, by their own account.’
He lit a cigarette, his forehead creasing, sliding the pack along to me.
‘Clive Witherall, David’s father, he’s …’ He paused. What was he thinking in that moment? Did he ever doubt me – did he ever wonder if it was safe to carry on? Or was I so clearly enraptured by then that he already knew what I would be prepared to do?
‘We haven’t met.’ I filled in the gaps.
He carried on after a moment, holding my eyes.
‘Well, as you might be aware, to the outside world, Witherall is a bit of a saint. Philanthropist, socialite … Runs a couple of orphanages in Central Africa, patron of several charities, friend to the great and the good, whatever else you like.’
He took a drag of his cigarette between words, exhaling a thin, steady stream of smoke.
‘You’ve probably seen him on TV. He’s a cocky fucker, always up on his soap-box, brazen as anything. What he’s less keen to stand up and talk about, though, is the fact that TradeSmart, for all its talk of corporate social responsibility and ethical foundations, is responsible for dumping a shitload of toxic waste at the edge of villages in Equatorial Guinea, through a series of local contractors. The fallout of which has meant thousands of people have died.’
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, unsure what to say.
‘Shit. That’s terrible.’
‘It is terrible. I mean, we’re talking babies, children, women … and hundreds more left with horrific health problems.’
I had no idea where this was going; I was just so happy, so grateful, to be party at last to his inner life. Perhaps once he learned he could trust me, then we could become a proper couple. I could move in, introduce him to my work colleagues …
Even then, my mind had skated to David but only for a second. The presents, the house? For Harry I would have given it all up in a second.
‘That’s so fucked up. I can’t believe it. I mean, seriously, to hear David talk about it, you would think his dad was like some kind of god. So you’re writing a piece about this?’
He pushed himself up from the sofa, moving purposefully back towards his desk, shoulders broadening.
He opened the drawer slowly, as if still unsure whether to show me or not. By the time he pulled out the folder, turning to face me with renewed purpose, he had me rapt.
‘It gets worse.’ His voice lowered as he sat. ‘A lot worse, Anna … The problem with people like Clive Witherall, you see, is that they have friends everywhere.’
I nodded along, the dutiful student.
‘And when you have the right friends in the right places and the means to take advantage of destabilised borders, there is no limit to what you can get away with … The problem is, right now, we’ve hit a wall. It doesn’t matter what we know, because if we can’t prove it—’
He cut himself off, his demeanour visibly shifting, as if suddenly aware of the line he had crossed.
‘God, Anna, I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear this.’
‘No, I do.’
I unfolded my legs, on cue, turning my attention to what he was holding. After just enough deliberation, he took a step towards me, taking in my silence as he handed me the file – an A4 folder, neatly stuffed with papers and photographs.
Amidst the horror of what was being revealed, there was something so natural about sitting there with him, the intensity of the secrets passing between us. I felt his eyes on me as I flicked through pages of transcripts, studying my reaction to the images of dead bodies scattered across a dirt track; weapons, lined up like contestants in a beauty pageant – caring what I thought.
Yet, as I turned the