by Daisy Pearce
‘You going to do something with your hair?’
‘What do you mean?’
Carmel looks at me flatly. Ever since I came back from the hairdresser earlier this week she’s been pecking at me: What did you do that for? That blonde is ageing on you. Those extensions make you look like bloody Rapunzel. I stare back at her, too tired to argue. Eventually she sighs.
‘I saw a girl in Brighton last weekend with a jet-black Vidal Sassoon bob that would look amazing on you. Right now you look like you’re about to enter an American beauty pageant. I mean that in a bad way.’
‘Are you done?’
‘You’re still coming, right? You’ll be okay for the party?’
‘Yes. I’ve already said all this. Just go. Go on. I’m going to have a bath and a sleep.’
She looks me over, not bothering to mask her concern. I want to tell her that she is mistaken, that she has it wrong, she and Marco both have it wrong. I am not my mother. I am braver than her. More resilient. The thought makes tears spring to my eyes, and I lift the book to my face so Carmel does not see.
I hear the front door quietly close an hour later as I’m lying in the bath watching the sun move from the far wall across the floor. I’m not expecting Carmel, or Tia – they are going straight from the wine merchants to the hotel near the venue to get ready. Perhaps they have forgotten something? I sit up slowly in the cool water.
‘Carmel?’ I wait. ‘Tia? Hello?’
There is no answer. My skin ripples with gooseflesh as I strain to hear. There is a soft creak as someone starts to climb the stairs. I can just make out the rustle of clothes, the soft tread on the floorboards. I can’t remember whether I locked the bathroom door and from here it’s impossible to tell. My mind instantly recalls the cyclists from upstairs telling us about the burglaries this summer.
I call out again, my voice shaking. There is no response, but this time a floorboard creaks just outside in the hallway. From where I’m sitting I can see the frosted glass of the bathroom door, and there is someone moving out there. Tall, broad. All the saliva in my mouth dries up. My skin prickles with cold. Now I’m thinking about those phone calls I’ve been receiving, the silent ones. Long exhalations of breath in the darkness. Joey Fraser asking me where my muzzle is and someone else, Lesley Patterson maybe, who’d played Lucy in the show, saying, ‘They call female dogs bitches, isn’t that right, Joey?’
But she is dead now, isn’t she? Carbon monoxide poisoning. Suicide. But Joey Fraser isn’t. He’s got a film coming out. He’s come back to England.
I look around me frantically for something I can use as a weapon. I’m naked and vulnerable, still with the bruising on the inside of my elbow where the nurse had taken my blood. She’d asked me what I wanted to do a silly thing like kill myself for, and I hadn’t answered. Outside the door the shadow moves, growing taller. I watch the handle slowly turn, my heart hammering in my throat. Carefully, so carefully, I pull the shower curtain closed around the bath so that I am hidden from view. I hear someone come into the room, and the curtain ripples gently in the draught.
Now they are crossing the floor with a slow careful tread which makes me want to scream. The nearest thing to hand is a shampoo bottle which I have wrapped my fingers around, weighing it carefully. I can swing it, I figure, maybe enough to hit them on the temple, stun them perhaps. Despite the cold I am sweating. Whoever it is has stopped in front of the bath. I can see the shape of them through the filmy curtain, and as I watch, horrified, I see them raise a hand and stroke their fingers down the plastic, making a shrill squeaking sound. I want to shout but before I can, before I can spring forward with the urgency I feel coiled in my muscles, I hear a voice say, ‘Stella?’
‘Marco?’ It’s Marco. I am flooded with relief. He draws the curtain back.
‘Are you hiding?’ He sees the bottle in my hand and a look of concern creases his face. ‘Stella? Were you going to attack me?’
‘I didn’t know it was you. Why didn’t you say something?’
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘Didn’t you hear me calling you? God, you had me out of my mind.’
‘Out of your mind is right. You look awful.’
‘Great, thanks a lot. Pass me that towel.’
He helps me out of the bath because my legs are shaking. When he folds me into a warm towel, I lean against him, smoothing out my ragged breathing. He lifts my face to look at me, cradling my chin with his hand.
‘I mean it, darling, you don’t look well. Have you slept?’
‘I’ve done nothing but sleep for the last twenty-four hours. How did you get into the house?’
‘I had a key cut. After what happened I thought – I thought it would be prudent.’
‘You spoke to my aunt.’
‘Yes. Are you mad at me?’
‘I am, a bit.’ I start drying myself. He watches me wrap a towel about my head, turban style. The weight of my new extensions presses down on me. ‘You’ve worried her. You didn’t need to do that.’
‘I’m sorry. I was trying to help. Come on, get dressed. I’ve got something for you.’
It’s food. The grease-spotted bag is sitting on the table and inside, silver foil cartons, a rich smell of spices, hot fluffy naan bread. I hadn’t realised how hungry I am.
‘I’m trying to be healthy,’ I tell him, not meaning a word of it.
‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’ He’s brought us cold bottles of beer and now he cracks one open, handing it to me and kissing me full on the mouth. When we sit down, he takes my hand. When we speak, our voices overlap.
‘I think—’
‘Stella, I—’
‘You first,’ I say.
‘Okay.’ He draws a deep breath, rubs his palm along the length of his thigh. It occurs to me then that he’s nervous. I immediately brace myself.
‘I did call Jackie. You’re right. But not quite for the reason you think. Or not just for that, anyway. Uh—’
He’s reaching into his inside pocket, sweat prickling his brow. For a moment, one crazy moment, I think he is going to pull out a gun on me. But then I see the little box in his hand.
‘In the absence of your father I need to ask someone for permission so I thought it should be her.’
He opens the box. Inside, a ring. Glittering emeralds in a plain silver band. I put my hand over my mouth.
‘Stella, I – God, I knew I’d make a mess of this. Stella, will you marry me?’
I am silent. The time expands like foam, a balloon slowly inflated. It is thick and almost tangible. In it everything seems frozen, a perfect clarity.
His voice is prickling with nerves. ‘Do you want me to go down on one knee? I’ll do it, if you want.’
‘No, Marco, no. This is – it’s beautiful. It’s just right.’
‘Is that a yes?’
‘Yes, of course it’s a yes!’
His smile widens, teeth gleam. He takes the ring from the box and slides it carefully onto my ring finger, telling me – almost babbling – that the ring had belonged to his grandmother and how she’d bought it in Penang (‘That’s in Malaysia, Stella’) and how he’d kept it a secret these past few weeks – and all I can think is, How could you have thought he was pulling a gun on you?
After sex, because of course there is always that – lust like a hot scalding liquid – after that we lie in my bed looking up at the ceiling. I have my head against his chest and he is tangling his hands in my hair. He loves it long, he tells me. Much better. Prettier. After filming the very last episode as Katie Marigold I’d cut it all off; that beautiful, waist-length, honey-coloured hair. I was sick of it. I’ve never grown it past my shoulders again. I lift my hand to look at my ring and hear myself say, ‘When I came out of hospital there was a piece about me in the papers.’
‘I know.’
‘I just – I mean, I’ve been thinking about it, and—’
‘You think I sold them the overdose story on you?’
/> I shrug miserably. ‘Did you?’
‘Of course not,’ he says softly. ‘If you want my opinion, whoever did that was pretty desperate. I mean, no disrespect to you, Stella, you know I loved that show, but – it’s hardly news, is it? You haven’t been on television for a long time. Financially speaking, it would hardly be worth it.’
He leans onto his elbow to look at me, half smiling in that way he has. ‘You happy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I love you, Stella. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And when we’re married it will just be us, just me and you.’ He lifts my hand and presses it to his lips. ‘Will you keep your last name?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe not. I’m the last of the Wisemans, after all.’
‘Have I told you about Bruce at the golf club?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘When he married Wendy they couldn’t agree on a surname and both their names were too long to hyphenate so they changed it to a whole new one by deed poll. He’s Bruce Griffin now.’
‘Is that what you want to do?’
‘It’s an option, if we can’t decide.’
‘What to?’
He smiles again. ‘Marigold.’
He looks at me and just for a moment I think he is serious. ‘Can you imagine,’ I say, and then we both grin.
‘Anyway. Tonight. It’s party night. The big party that you’ve paid for with your ever-dwindling reserves of cash. What will you wear?’
I laugh. ‘It’s not that bad. I have savings.’
‘You keep saying that. When was the last time you looked at your balance?’
I stiffen. I don’t remember. I think about those rings in my dad’s freezer, fossilised. Marco looks at me gently. I know what he’s going to say. Exactly what Carmel had said. Time to wake up, Stella, time to face the real world. But I can’t. I’m not ready. I can’t.
‘Tell you what,’ I say, ‘you choose what I wear tonight. I’ve got loads of clothes.’
He brightens.
I laugh again. ‘Oh, and I haven’t, by the way, paid for the party.’
‘No? How can Carmel afford it then?’
I don’t know what to tell him. Carmel hadn’t needed the money in the end. She had told me not to worry, not to worry about anything. She’d get it from somewhere else. And so she had. It was only a few hundred pounds. Maybe she’d borrowed it from Martha. Maybe she’d finally sold some of her vintage clothes on eBay like she was always threatening to do. Idly I wonder how much you could sell a story for, even a pathetic little story about a former child star no one has thought of in decades. Got to be worth a hundred at least, maybe two.
I look up at Marco. ‘Jackie said you’d mentioned seeing a doctor.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you really think I need to?’
Without hesitation. ‘Yes.’
‘Can you arrange it?’
‘Yes. I’ve seen him before. He prescribed me those pills.’
‘Why?’
‘I work very hard – too hard. It’s what comes of inheriting your father’s legacy. My old man had a heart attack at forty-two and another three before the one which killed him in his fifties. When they opened him up they said he had the heart of a seventy-year-old. That’s what stress does to you, Stella. Doctor Wilson thought I was going to kill myself if I carried on. He gave me the pills to help me relax. Switch off. To sleep.’
Switch off. That gets my attention.
‘Can you get me an appointment with him?’
‘Sure.’
Marco climbs from the bed and opens my wardrobe. I lie back, full of food, suddenly sluggish. The beer has gone right to my head. Marco pulls out a fringed black dress, tight, mid-length, and pulls a face.
‘No,’ he says firmly, putting it back, pulling out another, strapless, shimmering metallic grey. ‘No.’
‘Why “no”?’
‘You need something simple. You’re so beautiful. Why distract from that? Where’s the one I bought you?’
I push myself backwards into the pillows. My eyes are so heavy. I know the dress he means: it’s navy, long-sleeved. Plain. I just want to sleep. I can hear the rattle of coat hangers, Marco asking me why I need so many clothes, why I don’t have any proper dresses. I open my mouth to ask what he means by a ‘proper’ dress and then I am sinking, so tired. Just a little nap. So tired.
I’m woken by the thin morning light, and Marco gently shaking my arm. ‘Stella,’ he is saying, ‘Stella, you need to wake up.’ I groan, screwing my eyes up. My head is pounding, although it doesn’t feel like a hangover. Not yet. It’s at the base of my skull, a tight, vicelike pain.
‘What time is it?’
‘It’s nearly eleven.’
‘In the morning?’
I sit up in horror. I’m in bed, a blanket pulled over me. I’m not wearing any clothes and the disorientation I feel is like vertigo, like swooning. Marco is holding my phone out to me. I can’t read the expression on his face. Pity? Resentment?
‘I tried to wake you but—’ He shrugs, his face inscrutable, and I am stricken with worry. That I have done it again. I’ve got mad at him. Hurt him. I massage my jaw with my fingers. I think I have been grinding my teeth in my sleep. Or biting.
‘Oh my God,’ I say, scrolling through the dozens of missed calls. Martha, James, Tia. Carmel, of course. Loads from Carmel. Some from a withheld number, although that was later, much later. The last one recorded was at 04:27. ‘I missed the party.’
‘I spoke to her at about midnight when it became clear I couldn’t get you up. She told me to leave you. Said you’d be better off sleeping.’
‘Was she upset?’
He nods. He has made coffee and now he passes it to me. I scan his arms for bite marks or scratches while I’m listening to my voicemails. Carmel’s voice is tight, frustrated. I’m sorry you’re going to miss all the fun, you silly cow. Call me.
Then the last message, just after three. A voice I don’t recognise, wet-sounding, bronchial. There is no background noise of the party, no music or shouting. Just that rasping burr, thick intakes of breath.
‘You’re next.’ Silence. Then, ‘Lucy. Bonnie. Katie. You all look so beautiful when you’re dead.’
I sit looking at my phone for a moment and then run to the sink, sure I am going to throw up, but there is only the slow roll of my stomach and black violets blooming in front of my eyes. Marco is rubbing my back, talking to me gently, urging a glass of water into my shaking hand as I replay the message for him.
‘I’m calling the police. It’s a threat.’
‘They won’t do anything,’ I tell him, but he calls anyway, insists on it. He has high colour on his neck and cheeks, clenching and unclenching his fists, frustrated. As he speaks and paces the room I go and have a shower, my eyes ringing, my blood high. By the time I come out I’m calmer, less jittery, but he is still flushed with anger.
‘They’re useless. You’re right. They don’t give a shit.’
‘What did they say?’
‘Keep a record. It’s not considered harassment because this is the first time you’ve actually had a threat. All the silent calls, all the middle of the night calls, they don’t count, apparently. You know what else she said?’
I do, but he needs to get it out of his system. I’ve been through all this before when I was a kid.
‘She said the good news is that if they were planning on hurting you they’d probably just go ahead and do it. These threatening calls are just that. Threats.’
‘I don’t even remember falling asleep last night.’
‘No?’
I shake my head. My head full of needles. Now I feel hungover. That rough, abrasive feeling behind the eyes. The lurch of my stomach. I can’t face Carmel, or Tia or Martha. You all look so beautiful when you’re dead.
‘I hate this. What if this man knows where I live?’
Then Marco says something which jer
ks me upright, taller. Scared.
‘What makes you so sure it’s a man?’
The pill is small and round and grey. It is unbranded, like the bottle, and almost entirely unremarkable. I am used to swallowing them now. At first they left a metallic taste in my throat, like pennies. Now I barely taste a thing. Sometimes I drink them with juice or coffee. I used to take them with wine, but all that’s changed now. It’s all changed.
And so. I’m standing in my bathroom, water puddling at my feet. I look down at myself, noticing that I’m dressed but no shoes. The light coming through the window is the dirty grey of smog or a ruptured exhaust. It’s early, and I am at home. The heating hasn’t come on yet, and I can see my breath. Winter frost on the windows. I am shivering with cold. And I must take this pill.
There is someone at the door. I can see the shape of the figure through the patterned glass. I swallow the pill dry. My hair is wet, and he is knocking against the glass, saying, ‘Are you done yet?’, and he is saying, ‘Stella, we need to get going’, but I can tell by the set of his shoulders that what he means is I will swallow you, I will swallow you whole, and I am afraid.
Chapter 10
By the time we leave the motorway we have been driving for nearly four hours. I know all the roads we’ve been on because Marco has sworn at each one, individually. ‘The bloody M4’, ‘The bastard A30’. The car is hot and uncomfortable and smells stale; coffee and nicotine and Marco’s aftershave. When I look at him askance I can see the little muscle ticking beneath the shelf of his jaw, his muddy brown eyes staring ahead. His leg is jittering and when I put my hand on his thigh the muscle stiffens. Still, he will not look at me.
There is a bag by my feet, canary-yellow leather. I found it in a charity shop in Kent three years ago, and I used to think it was the most beautiful thing I owned. It doesn’t fit right though. I can’t work out what it’s doing here. Then another wave hits me, a pleasing numbness, and I pull a phone from the folds of the bag, old and slightly battered. I turn it around in my hands.