Loss of Separation by Conrad Williams Page A

even. I noticed that I'd failed to switch the sign around to read OPEN. I went over and let him in. His expression didn't change.
    'Books?' I asked, cocking my head at the box. 'Ruth's not around at the moment, but you can leave them with me if you like.'
    'Not books,' he said. And then I saw that his expression was less to do with whether the shop was open and more to do with me. He was assessing me.
    'This is... well, let's just say it's a box of things I don't need any more and leave it at that.'
    I nodded. I was a little taken aback. Usually I was left items by anonymous donors. This was the first time I'd seen in person someone who wanted to be rid of something. I didn't want to touch the box, so I asked him to leave it outside. He did so, wiping his hands on the back of his trousers. He seemed about to leave when he turned back. Suddenly he was close to tears.
    'You're filth,' he said, and it seemed he was having trouble keeping the emotion from his voice. His eyes shone. 'You disgust me. I wish you'd died on that road. Nothing you can do. Nothing we can do. Nothing we've done . None of it is any good. Nothing will work.'
    I didn't know how to respond. I felt as if he'd kicked me in the guts, despite my feeling the same way sometimes, about my unconventional role within the community. Was this how people saw me? Even as they were leaving me their little piles of guilt to dispose of? I stroked Vulcan's fur and thought about how I had come about this unwanted position. I felt upset: there was a spike in my throat I couldn't swallow around. Sin-eater. Trouble-shooter. Janitor. Eliminator.
    I didn't recall seeing the old man around the village before, but then I didn't pay much attention to other people. Maybe he was an out-of-towner come in especially to give the village pariah a box of grief.
    I went outside and picked up his offering. It was heavy, and something was seeping through the cardboard, darkening it. There was a faint smell rising from beneath the oily tea-towel that served as a lid, a smell I recognised so well yet could not identify.
    I carried the box away from the village, as if it were a bomb that needed to be disposed of in a safe environment. It was heavy. At the pier I hobbled down the concrete steps to the sand and shuffled into the shadows where the ghosts of previous fires waited bitterly for me. The wind hissed around the promontory; slow footsteps moved across the wooden slats of the pier above my head. In the summer this place was thronged with visiting families. Queues in the café for fish and chips snaked out of the door. Out of season I was sometimes the only person in that café for hours.
    Blistered, salt-burned supportive columns. An empty beer bottle. The sand gradually losing its toffee colour to the pounds of carbon dust I was adding to the beach. I thought I saw the broken gull being rocked on the curdling tide but it could have been anything. I stared at the box. I knew what was inside. I couldn't understand how he had happened upon it, or why he thought I would be able to destroy it with fire.
    I peeled away the tea-towel and gazed at the 'black box' nestled within. Much of it was dented and scratched, the lettering stencilled upon it - FLIGHT RECORDER DO NOT OPEN - partially obliterated by scorch marks. Fire had already tried to have its way with this thing.
    'But there was no crash,' I said. 'There was no fire.'
    I felt something cold sweep through my bowels, as if I'd suddenly been immersed in the North Sea. I wanted to hurl this thing away. I couldn't understand why the guy had dumped this on me: no beach fire was going to penetrate an exterior capable of withstanding temperatures upwards of 1,000 degrees Celsius. Of course the box was nothing to do with Flight 029, but inexplicably, I knew that if the tape housed inside the thing were retrieved and played, my voice would be on it, monotoning the same mistake that I had made on that night over Madrid.
    I lifted the box so that it