Beneath Marco’s humming heater, George wrote of waiting, a storm and a restless man at the door. (Once George had committed the past to paper, Nino had told him to gather up the present moment. ‘It keeps you in the here and now’) When the rain became fitful he made his way back to Trespass Place.
The recollection of Nino’s words made his stomach turn. There was something foolish in what George was doing: sitting beneath a fire escape expecting a monk to appear around the corner. It was like pretending that Elizabeth hadn’t died, or that her death would have no consequences. In the here and now, Elizabeth was dead. His recollection of all they had done together was a kind of grieving, but also a running away because it lay back there in the past, when she’d been alive. He shivered with cold and anxiety as if a harsh truth were creeping across Trespass Place: accepting Elizabeth’s death meant accepting that Riley would get away after all. They were the two sides of the one coin. Spinning it in the air day after day was just an illusion.
Wrapping his arms around his legs, he remembered that Elizabeth’s optimism had been without limit. And it worked backwards as well as forwards: she’d said the past is up for grabs.