Little Face

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘No, I was quite happy with mine and Alice’s relationship. But it annoys me to watch people being stupid, especially intelligent people. Alice should have stood up to Vivienne and insisted on having a life of her own.’ Her tone challenged Simon to disagree.

  ‘Did you tell her that?’ He wondered what it would be like to receive therapy from somebody so opinionated.

  ‘No. She’s not the sort of person you can be overly familiar with, you know? She has . . . boundaries.’ That’s what I like about her, thought Simon. Though ‘like’ was such a weak word, one step up from ‘tolerate’.

  ‘She’s quite a private person in many ways. Like, in the couple of months before she went on her maternity leave, something was definitely bothering her. Unless it was just nerves about impending parenthood. But, somehow . . .’

  ‘What?’ Simon scribbled in his notebook.

  ‘I don’t think it was only that. In fact, I’m sure not. The last time I saw her, I could tell she was considering confiding in me about something.’ Briony Morris grinned suddenly. ‘I can be quite a mind-reader. For example, I know you’re thinking, how come a harridan like her can be a touchy-feely therapist by profession. Right?’

  ‘I was under the impression that people in your sort of job were supposed to be non-judgemental,’ said Simon, scorn underlining the last word. How could you be a force for good in the world unless you used your judgement? Simon hated the sort of flabby-minded empathy peddled by most of these quacks, the assumption that everyone was equally deserving of compassion and consideration. Bollocks. Nothing would ever shake Simon’s conviction that life – every day, every hour – was a battle between moral salvation and the abyss.

  Briony surprised him by saying, ‘All the emphasis on positive, calm feelings in the world of alternative health and therapy is just nonsense. We all have negative feelings, we all have people we hate as well as people we love. You can’t achieve true emotional freedom unless you recognise that the world consists of bad as well as good things. I love westerns, me. I like it when John Wayne shoots the bad guys.’

  Simon smiled. ‘So do I,’ he said.

  ‘You see, Alice would hate that,’ said Briony. ‘Actually, if I had to criticise her, I’d say she’s a bit naive. She’s so kind and generous, she sees good in people even when it’s not there.’

  ‘Like Vivienne?’

  ‘I was thinking of David, actually. Her husband. Alice is always trying to make out he’s deep and sensitive, but quite frankly, I think the lights are on but there’s nobody home.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s one of those people who, no matter how many times you meet him, no matter how long you talk to him, you never feel you’re getting to know him any better. I’ve met people like that before, personally and professionally. Sometimes it can be a defence mechanism – they’re scared of anyone getting too close, so they hide behind a shield that no-one can penetrate. And then some people are just plain shallow,’ she concluded. ‘I’m not sure which David is, but put it this way, I saw no similarity between the man I met several times and the man Alice used to talk about. None whatsoever.’ Briony shrugged. ‘I sometimes wondered if there were two Davids that swapped back and forth without anyone knowing.’

  Simon looked up, startled.

  ‘What? Did I say something wrong?’

  He shook his head.

  Briony played with her hair. ‘Will you let me know as soon as there’s any news?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about Florence, poor little mite. Do you think . . . ?’ Her words ran out. It was as if the mere act of asking a question reassured her, even when she couldn’t think of anything new to ask.

  Simon thanked her for her time and left. Two David Fancourts. And two babies. No matter what Charlie said, he knew that nothing would now stop him from looking at the Laura Cryer case files as soon as he had the opportunity.

  15

  Sunday September 28, 2003

  The phone rings while we are eating dinner. We are all desperately grateful. Suddenly we can breathe again, and move. Vivienne marches into the hall. David and I lean in the same direction, wanting the news faster than we can get it.

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ says Vivienne briskly. ‘Friday? But . . . I was hoping you might be able to fit us in sooner than that. It’s an urgent matter, as I thought I made clear. I’m willing to pay more if you can see us immediately. Today, or tomorrow.’ She has spent the whole morning making calls to private hospitals. I could have insisted on arranging the DNA test myself, but I need Vivienne’s support, and I will only get it if I don’t challenge her authority. I wonder if she senses how desperate I am to have her as an ally.

  ‘All right. It doesn’t look as if I have much choice,’ she says coldly. I press my eyelids tightly shut. Friday. Nearly a week. I don’t know if I can stand it. When I open my eyes, my uneaten lemon meringue pie spins in front of me, garish yellow goo and stiff white foam. I managed to swallow about a quarter of my shepherd’s pie before a twitching in my throat told me I couldn’t risk another mouthful.

  David finished all his food. I could tell Vivienne was surprised. He ate more quickly than usual, making a big show of scraping the food off his plate and into his mouth, to demonstrate that he wanted this family meal-time to be over as quickly as possible. He and I haven’t looked at one another since we sat down at the table.

  Vivienne appears in the doorway, her arms folded. ‘Friday morning. Nine o’clock,’ she says, her voice deadened with disappointment. ‘And then another two days before they can give us the results.’

  ‘Where?’ I ask.

  ‘The Duffield Hospital in Rawndesley.’

  ‘I don’t need any results,’ David mutters angrily.

  ‘One of you is going to have a lot of explaining to do,’ says Vivienne. ‘Why not admit you’re lying now, save us all the agony of a week’s wait?’ She looks at David, then at me. ‘Well? You can’t both be telling the truth.’

  Silence.

  ‘My photographs of Florence were deleted from my camera before I went to Florida. Which means it must have happened in the hospital, on the day Florence was born, because I went straight from the hospital to the airport. Whoever did it knew what was going to happen.’

  Mandy was in the hospital. And her boyfriend. And Vivienne didn’t go straight from the hospital to the airport. She went to Waterfront in between, to take Felix to his snorkelling lesson. I do not dare to remind her of this. There is no point. It proves she is wrong about a minor detail, not that I am telling the truth, not that I’m as sane as she is.

  I wonder what she did with her camera while she was at Waterfront. Was it with her all the time, in her handbag? Did she put it in her locker, for safe-keeping? I know the key lives behind the reception desk most of the time, and in any case, there must be a master key. In theory, any of the Waterfront staff could have broken into the locker and tampered with the camera. But I know what Vivienne would say: the health club staff worship her, and would never dream of violating her privacy. Besides, how could they possibly have anything to do with any of this? It is inconceivable.

  ‘Well? Alice? David? Is anybody going to say anything?’ Vivienne wants one of us to own up. I want David to tell her that I’m right, that the baby in the house is not our daughter. Little Face. I wonder if I can call her that. I have to call her something. The phrase ‘the baby’, with all the distance it suggests, breaks my heart.

  Felix’s puzzled stare burns into me across Vivienne’s enormous mahogany dining table. The four of us always sit in this precise formation: Vivienne and David at either end, metres apart, me and Felix in the middle, facing one another. The dining room is my least favourite at The Elms. It has dark purple flock wallpaper on all four walls, navy curtains and a dark, polished wooden floor that can’t have been sealed properly, because in the winter cold air blows around your legs while you eat.

  On the walls there are framed bl
ack and white photographs of Vivienne’s adored parents and Vivienne herself as a child. Her mother is a small, plump woman with sloping shoulders and her father is tall and athletic-looking, with bulbous eyes and a moustache that conceals his upper lip. Neither of them is smiling in any of the photographs. I have always found it difficult to believe that these are the same loving, indulgent people Vivienne talks about so warmly. ‘They bought me two of everything,’ I remember her telling me. This was so that her friends, when they came to the house, could play with one set of toys and it wouldn’t matter if they ruined them; Vivienne had her duplicates, her ‘real toys’, safely stashed away.

  ‘Have it your own way,’ she says icily. ‘I’ll find out the truth soon enough.’

  Never mind you, I think impatiently. It’s the bloody police who need to find out the truth.

  ‘What is the baby’s usual routine?’ Vivienne asks. ‘Is she likely to stay asleep now?’

  Routine. The word makes me want to weep. She’s a baby, I scream inside my head. Vivienne expects everyone to operate according to a strict timetable, even newborns.

  ‘Which baby are you talking about?’ says David. ‘Oh, sorry, do you mean Florence? She has a name, you know.’ I have never heard him speak to Vivienne like this before. I spent most of my pregnancy wishing that he were able and inclined to stand up to her. I know he was as taken aback as I was when Vivienne showed us the letter from Stanley Sidgwick Ladies’ College, confirming that a place had been reserved for Florence in their lower kindergarten year for the January after her second birthday. I willed David to say thank you but no, to tell Vivienne that we didn’t want Florence to attend any school or nursery full-time until she was quite a lot older. He said nothing. Nor did he object when Vivienne insisted on paying all Florence’s school fees herself.

  ‘I won’t tolerate unpleasantness,’ she says now. ‘I want to make that clear to both of you. Until this matter is resolved, we will all behave like civilised people. Is that understood? David, answer my question. What is the child’s routine?’

  ‘She’ll sleep all night, but she’ll wake up twice for bottles.’ He is the obedient little boy again.

  ‘I want to feed Little Face tonight,’ I blurt out. ‘David always does the night feeds and . . . I want to . . .’ I can’t say it because it’s too painful. I am desperate to do all the things mothers do, to freeze small blocks of pureed vegetables in ice-cube trays, brush each new tooth as it appears, sing lullabies, hear myself called ‘Mummy’ for the first time. I clear my throat and continue, looking at Vivienne. ‘I hope that, wherever Florence is, some woman is looking after her and will keep her safe until I find her. I want to do the same for the baby upstairs. If I can’t be a mother to my own daughter, I want to at least do the best I can to take care of the baby I’ve got.’ My eyes fill with tears. ‘The way you looked after me when my mother died.’

  Because that is Vivienne’s appeal. When you are under her wing, she makes you feel that the harsh blows of life cannot touch you. When David and I were engaged, my car was photographed by a speed camera. It was going at eight miles an hour over the legal limit, and I received a notice of intended prosecution from the police. With a carefully worded letter, Vivienne made the whole unpleasant business disappear, just as she did when my credit card company froze my account after a misunderstanding about a payment. ‘Leave it to me,’ she says, and the next thing you know, your troubles have vanished as if by magic.

  I can see from her face that mine have not. She is not on my side, not yet, or not entirely. Certainly not in the way I need her to be. I feel exiled, desolate. This would be hard even with Vivienne’s support. Without it the next few days will be agony.

  ‘No way,’ David snarls. ‘You’ve chosen to disown Florence. You’re not going anywhere near her.’ His words jar. I can’t understand why I am shocked anew every time he is cruel to me, every time he attributes the worst possible motives to me and refuses to give me the benefit of the doubt. I realise what a sheltered life I have led. Like many people who grow up taking their happiness and safety for granted, I find it hard to believe in destructiveness, unkindness, horror, unless I see them on the news or read about them in the papers. Faced with such things in my own life, my first instinct is to assume it must be a misunderstanding, that there must be a more innocent explanation.

  ‘Mum, is Alice being naughty at the moment?’ Felix continues to inspect me, as if I am the most mysterious and fascinating object he has ever seen.

  ‘Finish your dessert, Felix, and go and get into your pyjamas. You can read in bed for ten minutes, and then I’ll come up and tuck you in.’ I despise myself, momentarily, for the rush of grateful relief I feel when Vivienne doesn’t say, ‘Yes, Alice is being very naughty.’

  ‘Mummy Laura was naughty, wasn’t she, Dad?’ Felix turns to David, as if hoping he will be more forthcoming. I freeze. Felix has never mentioned Laura before, not in my presence.

  David looks at Vivienne, as surprised by the question as I am.

  ‘Mummy Laura was naughty and she died. Will Alice die too?’

  ‘No!’ I blurt out. ‘Felix, your mother didn’t . . . she wasn’t . . .’ I stop. Too many eyes are on me.

  I wait for Vivienne or David to say ‘Of course Alice isn’t going to die,’ but they don’t. Instead, Vivienne smiles at Felix and says, ‘Everybody dies eventually, darling. You know that.’ Felix nods, his upper lip trembling.

  Vivienne believes that children grow up to be stronger adults if they are told the truth about the harsh realities of life. Her parents brought her up in the same way. They were not religious, and instilled in Vivienne the idea that heaven and hell were fictions invented by weak, flawed humans in an attempt to dodge responsibility. There is no afterlife in which people are punished or rewarded; one must strive for justice in this world, while one is still alive. When Vivienne first told me this, I couldn’t help but admire her philosophy, even though my own beliefs about what happens after we die are a lot more ambiguous.

  ‘But you aren’t going to die for a very, very long time, not until you’re very old,’ she tells Felix. I realise I am waiting for a similar reassurance. She says nothing about me.

  ‘Now, come on, young man – it’s bedtime for little imps . . .’

  Felix smiles at the familiar phrase. ‘And bedtime for little chimps!’ he joins in.

  As soon as he has left the room, before my courage has a chance to fail me, I say, ‘What have you told Felix about Laura’s death? Why does he think she was naughty? Have you told him that she died because she did something wrong? Don’t you see how terrible that is, even to let him think it? Whatever she did, whatever you thought of her, she’s still his mother.’

  Vivienne purses her lips and leans her chin on her hands, saying nothing. She won’t talk about Laura’s death any more, I’ve noticed. She refuses to engage with the subject if I ever bring it up. I have a theory about this. I actually think Vivienne resents Laura for being dead. They were adversaries, on an equal footing, and then suddenly Laura was murdered and the whole country felt sorry for her. She was elevated to a higher realm, fixed for ever as a victim, a wronged woman. To Vivienne, this would have seemed like cheating, as if being fatally stabbed were a cheap, easy way to gain sympathy.

  And Laura was out of reach for ever. Vivienne couldn’t battle against her any more, which meant she couldn’t win in the way she’d always wanted and needed to. She knew she’d never hear Laura say, ‘I’m sorry, Vivienne. I can see that you’ve been right all along.’ Not that Laura would ever, in a million years, have uttered those words.

  ‘Laura’s dead,’ says David. ‘And you’re a lying bitch,’ he snaps at me. He sounds like Mandy’s boyfriend. Worse. I wonder what would happen if I phoned the hospital and asked about Mandy. Would they give me her full name, her address?

  ‘Stop it, both of you,’ says Vivienne. ‘Didn’t you hear me before? You’re to behave courteously while you’re in this house. There will be no slan
ging matches over the dining table. This isn’t a council estate.’

  I push back my chair and stand up, shaking. ‘How can you care about manners at a time like this? Florence might be dead! And the test isn’t until Friday, which means the police won’t start looking for her until then – doesn’t either of you care? Yes, I will bloody well shout if I want to. I want my daughter, and time’s slipping away and there’s nothing I can do about it! Every day, every hour . . . can’t you both see?’

  There is a glint of triumph in Vivienne’s eyes. She enjoys the sight of other people losing control. She believes it proves that they are wrong and she is right, their need to resort to emotional hyperbole. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say quickly. ‘I’m not shouting at you. I’m just . . . I can’t bottle it up any more or I really will go mad.’

  ‘I’d better go and see to Felix,’ says Vivienne, her voice hoarse. ‘I shan’t come back downstairs. Good night.’

  I listen to her footsteps as she crosses the hall. I know that the words ‘Florence might be dead’ are ringing in her ears. Good. I want her to be as full of dread and terror as I am.

  David leaves the room without a word. Bedtime is much earlier for all of us now that we are so miserable. I clear away the dinner things slowly, allowing him plenty of time to fall asleep before I go upstairs. As I walk along the landing, I try the handles of all the spare bedrooms and find them locked. I cannot sleep downstairs. Vivienne wouldn’t allow it. It is one of her house rules, and I have no doubt that David would alert her to my absence from our bedroom. I can picture her shaking me awake in the middle of the night, telling me that The Elms is not a youth hostel. I do not want to antagonise her.