by Jane Robins
Tilda was polite, but she talked too fast. “Thank you. That’s kind of you. We’d been married only a few weeks . . . it’s still sinking in.”
“Of course.”
“I was wondering if Callie could come out with me for half an hour or so.”
“Yes, yes . . . we’re not busy—that’s totally fine.”
We went back to the Albany—only for coffee (her) and hot chocolate (me) because it was 11:00 a.m., not lunchtime. I was bracing myself, preparing to come clean and admit to everything, to confess that I’d stolen the memory stick, read her letter to me. I didn’t know exactly how far I’d go—to tell her about Scarlet, and my fears that Felix had been murdered, seemed too much at this stage, while her grief was raw . . . I sipped my hot chocolate and was about to launch into my speech, when:
“Callie, I’ve been making decisions . . . I’ve been so low, crying and crying, even thinking about taking an overdose—killing myself.”
She was making a tremendous effort to get her words out fast, speaking with a hollow, breathy urgency, all the time tracing shapes on the table with her finger.
“I miss him so much.”
She was bent up, staring at me so hard.
“And it’s so much worse when I’m at Curzon Street. He made it his place—choosing everything—the colors of the walls and the floors, the art, the bed, even the crockery and the cutlery. I walk around the place and I see him everywhere—cooking that damned squid in the kitchen, watching movies with us, lying in bed, and I can scarcely breathe—his ghost is in the brickwork there. And I’m not consoled by his presence—like those people who keep dead relatives’ rooms just as they were left, like a shrine. I’m fucking tormented by it. . . . Everything that tells me that he was there, tells me also that he’s gone. Forever.”
She tried to pull herself upright but couldn’t manage it.
“Anyhow, Callie. Here’s the thing. I’ve decided to leave England. I’m going to LA, to see if I can break into movies there. I’ve spoken to an American agent who says I have a good chance, because of the scripts that are already being sent to me because of Rebecca, and also my role in Envy should help. You remember I told you about that? It’s the one that reminded me of Single White Female. And this American agent says he can also help find me a good place to live in LA!”
She sounded wasted and manic at the same time.
“It’s the best way forward for me . . . I need to move on. Not to forget Felix, of course. But to honor him by doing good work. Really honor him. Demanding roles in good films—the sort of thing that would have made him proud of me.”
I was so surprised that my brain felt numb. Eventually, I managed: “I don’t understand. . . . How long will you be gone?”
“Oh, as long as it takes!” She spoke in a way that suggested a long sweep into the far future.
My thoughts stumbled towards practical things, obstacles. “Don’t you need a green card?”
“It’s fine—Felix was American. And I’m his wife. Anyhow—it’s easy with acting, if you’re offered a good part. It’s international.”
“What about money?”
“I can sell Curzon Street if I need to. But, in the short term, you can move in there. It’s so much nicer than your flat.”
“You mean you’re leaving soon?”
“Yes . . . I can’t stand being here much longer. . . . As I say, it’s ripping me apart, being alone in that flat.”
“But that will look so bad. He dies, you leave.”
“For fuck’s sake. I don’t care how it looks. I don’t care! I’m falling apart—and I need to save myself.” Her desperation was obvious now.
But still I said, “Tilda . . . please don’t go! I’ll miss you too much.”
She got up and came round to my side of the table and gave me the deepest, warmest hug I’ve ever had from her. I sensed the enormity of her decision. She wanted to sever herself from everything, from England, from Curzon Street and from me. Inside, I was screaming, This cannot happen!
“I know you’ll miss me, little one. But I’ll be in touch. And I’ll come home sometimes. . . . Come on . . . chip, chip.”
“Can I come and see you?”
“Maybe . . . maybe, yes.” It sounded like no.
“I’m going next week. I’ll get a spare key from Eva, and you can move in.”
I didn’t tell her that I already had the spare key. I just sat silently, in shock, struggling to understand.
43
Tilda left for Los Angeles, and I moved into Curzon Street. Before I’d even unpacked, I went to the linen cupboard, rooting around, feeling for my fix. The memory stick was in its home—the corner of the last pillowcase in the pile. So I extracted it, plugged it into my laptop, and was instantly rewarded:
Yes, Callie, I know you’re reading this. I know you go through my things, looking for morsels of me to eat, searching for clues about my life, and you’d never miss my favorite hiding place. You think you know me, that you’re under my skin—but I know you better!
I have one last message for you, little sister—let matters lie; stop your relentless prying. You think there’s some mystery to solve about my life, but there isn’t; I’m just a woman who’s lost her husband—a grieving widow. Allow me that. Felix was a charismatic, flawed control freak who died tragically because of a random, cruel, idiotic heart defect. Yes, he was dangerous; yes, he manipulated me emotionally—I can see that now that he’s gone—and it might have been me who died first. But that’s all over, and I need to move on.
Try to support my decisions. I’ll have a new life, and new roles—my American agent is excited about my prospects in LA. . . . I’ll be able to lose myself in work, and maybe achieve some real success. It will be such a relief after the trauma of Felix’s death. I’m hoping to do a fair amount of nothing also; lounging about in a villa in the Hollywood Hills, catching up on sleep, swimming in my pool, maybe I’ll even try to meditate!
As for you, Callie. Nurture your own life now; think about your own ambitions. Go on—try to rustle up some! You can do it! And my offer stands—if you need therapy I’ll pay for it, and you can stay in Curzon Street as long as you like—I don’t mind paying the bills. I can afford it, Felix’s money will come to me. He was too young to have made as many millions as he wanted, but there’s enough—for both of us.
So realize that our old lives are over—and that the future has begun.
Tilda x
She knew, then, that I’d found the memory stick and read her letter! She knew, and she’d said nothing, and had continued to write to me. While I tried to take that in I wandered about the flat looking for something of hers to eat. She was right about that, at least. I searched in the bathroom, hoping that she’d left something behind—a used toothbrush that I could suck, or a lipstick that I could take a shaving from. But there was nothing. Apart from a few pieces of unwanted clothing, she had cleaned the place out, and there was little sense of her in the flat—it was all Felix, Felix, Felix.
I lay on her bed, rereading the letter, marveling at her change of tone. Distraught Tilda had gone—she was now digging deep inside, trying to be optimistic, imagining a new future, and I should have felt happy for her. But I didn’t. It was too soon. I knew that, in truth, she was still in the first stages of grief, that her real emotions were a maelstrom of pain and anger. The upbeat force of the final words in her letter could only be explained by their heartbreaking falseness, and I thought that if she could make such an admirable, incredible effort towards survival, then I should be strong too. I shouldn’t give in or rest, however weary or defeated I felt, and I opened up the dossier again, scrolling down, randomly stopping, and reading words that I’d written at the beginning of the summer, concentrating on my observations of Tilda’s appearance, the gaunt look of her face, her nervous eyes, her unkempt appearance. Then I read a note that I’d completely forgotten about: Does Felicity Shore realize something is wrong? Have further information? It seemed so long
ago—that day when I’d searched the Curzon Street flat for clues, and listened to the answering machine, to Tilda’s agent pleading with her, “Come to lunch or something, and let’s go through your options.” But I thought, one last push—for Tilda’s sake, I’ll see Felicity Shore.
• • •
As it happened, she said, she could spare a few minutes in the afternoon. So I walked across town to her office, which was in Soho.
“Hello, Callie.” She held out her hand; her manner warm, her plump palm slightly moist. She was a large lady, wearing large-lady clothes, a purple batwing sweater over a long green jersey skirt. And she was lavishly decorated—a statement silver necklace, with dangling ingots, vaguely African, fat silver bangles, oversize blue spectacles.
Her room was cluttered—photographs everywhere of her clients, some of them glossy head shots, others of actors acting in plays and films, and I sat down in the comfy chair that she offered, mildly distracted by the cigarette smell and the photos, also thinking about how to explain myself, how to start the conversation. My mind was blank, but then she said:
“I’ve been trying to get hold of Tilda, but she’s not returning my calls. So I’m guessing that she’s avoiding dealing with me directly—has she sent you as an envoy?”
“Yes, that’s right,” I lied. “You know she’s gone to LA?”
“What? No I didn’t know that. Not at all . . .” She put her fist down on the table, not hard, but it made her bangles and bracelets rattle as they fell down her arm like a Slinky.
“Oh.” My embarrassment was obvious. “She’s only just left . . . a few days ago.”
She leaned forward, parking her big breasts on her messy desktop. “I see. Well that’s what she wanted all along, isn’t it? To make it in America? But she knows my opinion—she needs to mend fences here first. You know she alienated people on Rebecca? Behaving like a diva when you’re just starting out—it’s not a clever move. It’s made it hard for her to get jobs.”
“But she has the Envy role coming up?”
Felicity laughed, in a derisive way. “Really—that’s all very well, but it’s low budget, and Robert Galloway—he’s an inexperienced director. It’s not going to help. But she doesn’t listen to advice these days. . . .” Even though she was sitting down, she seemed out of breath.
“She did listen to Felix, though,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he was tough with her. Telling her not to take second-rate roles . . .”
The bangles arm moved again, with percussionary sound effects, as she put her elbow on the table and her fingers to her chin.
“Is that so?” she said. “She didn’t give me that impression when she came to see me. Second-rate roles, as you put it, were all that were coming her way, and not very often. She seemed only too keen to take them.”
I had a sense that, although I’d been in her office only five minutes, I knew that she didn’t like Tilda. Also, she’d given me the information I needed, and I could leave now. In a businesslike way I said: “Well, thank you, Felicity. Tilda wanted me to tell you that she’ll be away for a while, but will be back in eight weeks for filming on Envy and she’ll call you then.”
As I was leaving, I looked around at the chaotic room—books piled up on chairs, posters of her clients untidily pinned and taped to the walls, a tapestry throw draped over a cupboard. Then I noticed a photograph propped up on a bookcase—it was of Tilda and a bunch of other actors from her student days. I studied it, Tilda with her arms around her two best friends at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, looking relaxed and joyful. The three of them seemed so bright-eyed and optimistic—young people about to break free and make their mark on the world.
I hurried back to Curzon Street, and in the dossier I wrote: Tilda wasn’t honest with me about her career. It hasn’t been going well—she behaved badly on Rebecca, and the only role she’s managed to get since—Helen in Envy—is a low-budget movie with an unknown director. She’s gone to LA against the advice of her agent, Felicity Shore. It sounds like a desperate move, and I fear she is in one of her depressions, heading for a breakdown.
44
It was 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday and I was at Curzon Street, lying in bed with Wilf, my legs across his, both of us staring at the ceiling, and in that moment I wasn’t thinking of Tilda; I was in Wilf-world, feeling safe and cocooned. “I love helping in the garden,” I said. “I think it’s because it stops me thinking. At the bookshop I’m thinking all day long, and that’s how I become so obsessive and paranoid. . . . But in the garden my mind shuts off; it’s wonderful, and I can enjoy the sense of things—without my bloody thoughts intervening and screwing everything up. I can just feel. The fresh air and the soft ground, the animal life, the earthworms and birds. There’s always a robin that turns up when you start digging—I’ve noticed that.”
“I’m pleased that you get it,” said Wilf. With a finger, he was following the contours of my waist and stomach and hip bones.
“Oh I do. Absolutely.” I rolled over, on top of him, and he held me in his arms, his finger now following the curves of my shoulder blades and my back. “You know,” I said, “when I was little, on my seventh birthday, I was in the Kent countryside, running down a long hill, and I fell right into a bush. I was stuck in there, and I put my hand deep into the earth and found the skull of an animal. Mum said it probably belonged to a lamb, and I was so moved by it, it made me cry.”
“It was everything at once, birth and death, and you felt protective of a life that didn’t last . . . and of the mother who lost her baby.”
I kissed him on his stubbled cheek for that, and then—across the room—my phone rang. I wrapped myself in a blanket and stumbled over to pick it up. It was Melody Sykes, working on a weekend.
“Callie, I hope it’s a convenient moment . . . I want to tell you about our investigation. We’ve spoken to Charlotte Watts and to Luke Stone’s friends and family, and we’ve reached the conclusion that there’s no reason to investigate further. The postmortem confirms a drug overdose, and his personal history with drugs suggests that they were self-administered.”
I turned my back to the wall, leaning on it for support.
“But you’ve seen the emails that Charlotte and I sent each other? How can you not realize what they mean?”
“I acknowledge that you believed you were entangled in some sort of murder plot, Callie. But I have to look at hard evidence, not at the fantasies that you and Charlotte dreamed up.”
She hung up and I relayed her message to Wilf, who sat up in bed and let out a long, guttural sigh. “Well, that’s great news. Couldn’t be better. Now you can forget about bloody Scarlet and her poisonous mind-fucking, and I can get you back—the real you.”
“Really? You really think it’s all over?” I sounded sarcastic; but then I sighed too—wishing I could agree.
“I know her real name now,” I said. “Charlotte Watts.”
Wilf got out of bed and went into the bathroom to shave. He stood at the sink, running the tap, and I stood behind him, my arms around his waist, peeking out to study the two of us in the mirror, to see how we looked together, to see if we seemed a good match. And we did: his ginger hair was ruffled up, his eyes were receding and bloodshot from sex. And I looked like a jumbled mess too—messy hair, cheeks flushed with red, an old robe of Tilda’s pulled around me untidily. I noticed a cocktail of scents, a concoction of his smell and mine, of bodies, and I felt happy. I looked around, the bathroom was scattered with used towels, opened toothpaste, bits of makeup—mascara, lipsticks, Wilf’s dirty clothes on the floor. The flat’s minimalist days were over.
“Let’s get out of here and pick up some decent coffee at the Copernicus,” Wilf said.
“Okay.” I was drinking coffee now.
• • •
We sat at a table by the window, the one that I’d chosen at the beginning of the summer, when I’d been spying on Tilda. (I could admit it now—i
t was spying. I had been the little stalker.) Wilf tried to keep the conversation positive.
“Come with me to the Bishops Avenue garden . . . you’ll see the progress. There’s actual planting now—camellias and hydrangeas and fruit trees—and I’m getting paid on Monday. It’ll be enough to buy a new vehicle, with my name on the side! I’m going to call myself Wilf Baker Gardens—not very creative, I know. What do you think?”
“I love it. I love your name.” I leaned my head on my hand, gazing at him sadly, wanting to be the person he wanted me to be.
“What?”
“I’m thinking that you’re going to do brilliantly at this, at gardening and business and everything—and I am going to support you as much as I possibly can. . . .”
“But . . . ?”
“Wilf, I can’t give up my investigation into Scarlet, into Felix’s death . . . I’m really close now, I know it.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so, Callie; I think you’re as far away as ever. And in any case, you’re so worried about Tilda, that she’s so unreachable and alone and mentally unstable . . . What do you think it would do to her to claim, on thin evidence, that Felix was murdered? It would be devastating.”
The way he spoke, firmly but not without kindness, made me slump in my chair, like someone who’d been thumped, and it forced me to question my own judgment. Was I so sure of myself that I was prepared to risk losing Wilf? We stared at each other, each silently assessing the strength of our convictions, each yearning to close the gap between us.
“Okay,” I said eventually. “I can’t promise anything . . . but I’ll try to take a step backwards for a while, just until I can see things more clearly.”
45
I’m trying, so hard, to be a good girlfriend. Every day I try to focus on the future and my relationship with Wilf, rather than obsessing about Tilda, Felix, Scarlet and Luke. I’ve even given in my notice at Saskatchewan Books, and I’m going to be the manager at Wilf Baker Gardens. It was time for me to move on anyway, and it will be exciting to try to make the business a success. Also, psychologically, it will be good for me to be doing rather than watching. “I don’t want to sound too new age,” I said to Wilf, “but I want to be connected to the earth.”