Chapters (71)
I don’t want to see any more, I think to myself, as I close the album and shove it back in the drawer. And yet, I can’t resist opening the bottom drawer. This one is lined with flowery scented paper. Drawer liners. My mother always used them. On top of the liners are piles of notebooks. I pick one up and flick through pages of notes on Macbeth. They must be Ben’s notebooks from Oxford. I rummage through the pile and then I see something that makes my blood go cold. There, at the bottom of the drawer, is a yellowing newspaper cutting with the words DRAMA AT THE RIVERBANK emblazoned across the top. It’s dated 15th January 1989. I pick it up and see, below the headline, a black-and-white photograph of me.
‘No,’ I gasp, dropping the cutting on the floor and running out of the room. ‘No, no, no.’