This cabin with the blacked out porthole would be a good hiding place. Although it seems empty, I check under the bench, behind storage containers and inside every cupboard, just to make sure. But there’s no sign of Katie.
Defeated, I go back to the locked door in the first hull and try the handle again – there’s no shifting it. Strange… there’s no keyhole. Abruptly, the music stops. Any minute now, they might come down below deck. With no time to lose, I look round for something to break open the door. Chances are they’ll hear me but I’ve got to find out if Katie’s in there. I’m about to go back up to the galley to look for some kind of tool or kitchen implement that might work as a wrench, when I look up and notice the bolt that’s been screwed on to the door right at the top edge. It’s clearly a DIY job. Whoever fixed it has made a mess of the doorframe. But the fact it’s a bolt and not a key, is significant: someone is being locked in, not locked out.
I reach up and pull back the bolt.
The room is in shadows as the porthole is screened with a makeshift blind. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. It’s a small cabin, with a single bed along the starboard side. At one end, there’s a mirror above a sink, an open door leading to a small toilet cubicle, and some wooden panels that look like built in full height cupboards. It appears empty and unoccupied. I step though the doorway to check under the bed and in the cupboards – just in case there’s a big enough space to hide a small child. As I turn round to come out again a dark shape catches my eye, a hump of denser black low down behind the open door.
My God, is that Katie!
I press the light switch but nothing happens – maybe someone’s removed the bulbs – so I rip open the blind that’s been clumsily tacked to the wooden sill and the cabin floods with moonlight. The figure is not a young child but that of an adult, huddled on the floor.
It’s not Katie…
She’s sitting on the floor, hugging her knees, with her eyes closed and head back, resting against the wall. Her wrists are tied with cord. I sink down onto my knees in front of her.
It’s Christina.
‘Christina, what the hell is going on?’ She opens her eyes.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she says wearily.
Her white shirt is torn and her lip is swollen and bleeding.
‘Did that pig hit you?’
I put my arms around her gently. They must have come down while I was admiring the prints in the master cabin. Is it some kind of sado-masochistic sex thing they’ve got going on here?
‘What’s happening, Christina?’
He must have roughed her up on deck then shoved her in here and bolted the door.
‘Did that bastard rape you?’
I touch her cheek gently.
‘Oh my God, what has he done to you?’
Just as I’m helping her up onto the bed and leaning over to untie her wrists, I feel a presence darkening the doorway behind me like a spectral moonlight shadow. That prickling-flesh sensation, stock image of trashy ghost stories, spreads through me. I look back over my shoulder. I double-take – literally. I’m seeing double – either that or the spliffs are kicking in and making me hallucinate.
It’s Christina again, or her shadow, at least – same tall, lean figure, same bone structure, same profile, same long, wavy hair.
She’s standing in my shadow, so I move to one side, to get a better view, still transfixed by what I see.
Now glowing in the moonlight, she too wears a white shirt, unbuttoned but not torn and her face is unblemished, perfect, a picture of happiness and health. The sex goddess of the sundeck smiles at me.
‘Hello Scarlett. Welcome aboard The Phantasea. We’ve been expecting you. What took you so long?
What took you so long?
The words echo through my brain, as I stand there stunned, gaping.
I turn to Christina and see a pathetic, broken version of herself.
I’m shaking so much now that I can barely open my mouth to speak.
‘What’s happening? I don’t understand. Who did this to you?’ I look from Christina to her spectral twin. ‘Was it her? Did she beat you up like this? Or was it that sadistic bastard up on deck?’
‘Calm down, Scarlett. Don’t be so melodramatic,’ says the other woman. ‘Just a few scratches… she’ll live.’
She holds out her hand.
‘By the way, it’s Gabrielle, very pleased to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.’
She smiles and those perfectly straight white teeth, the same as Christina’s, glint in the moonlight.
I ignore her hand, shrink away from her and stand protectively in front of Christina, struck dumb with fear.
‘I don’t suppose she’s told you much about me,’ says Gabrielle, gesturing vaguely towards Christina. ‘Lara likes to pretend I don’t exist. She’s written me out of her life story.’
Lara? Lara? What is this crazy woman talking about?
She’s there in the doorway, an apparition, so charming and so civilised and so utterly terrifying.
Suddenly I find my voice.
‘What have you done with her? Where’s Katie? Where are you hiding her?’ I’m screaming at her now. ‘I know she’s here somewhere.’
Gabrielle laughs haughtily.
‘Calm down, you ridiculous, hysterical girl. I have absolutely no idea who you are talking about.’
And with that, she backs out of the room and bolts the door.
28
Photograph Nine
12 May 2010: The Bridge of Sighs, Venice
This faded black-and-white Polaroid makes me sick but the album wouldn’t be complete without it.
Can you see the crease lines? It was folded into four, tucked away in James’ wallet – that’s where I found it, on that fatal day. You could say, this scrap of paper sealed his fate. You scrawled the date in pencil on the back – 12 May 2010 – so you were pregnant with my baby when this photograph was taken.
Look at you! Leaning back against his shoulder, rocking to his beating heart, rapt in easy ecstasy as you gaze at the intricate carvings above your heads.
You and James, together, rocking my baby in your belly, without me, in a gondola, in Venice. Treachery and fornication are imprinted on your up-turned faces, in the dancing shadows of the Bridge of Sighs.
*
Gabrielle drove James to Heathrow. He was going on a business trip to Milan for five days – at least that’s what he’d told her. The pharmaceuticals conference was an important networking opportunity. He couldn’t miss it, much as he hated to be leaving her alone again. It was unfortunate timing, just when she was feeling so stressed and anxious and the very morning after ‘that day’ which James so annoyingly insisted on referring to as ‘Blast Off’ – the date on which the blastocyst transfer of their genetic embryos into Lara’s uterus (following the petri-dish fertilisation of Gabrielle’s eggs) had been scheduled to take place in New York. The eggs, frozen through a procedure known as cryopreservation some years earlier, had previously been exported to the American fertility clinic chosen by Lara. Gabrielle had not been required to travel to New York at all. She would happily have made the journey but Lara had insisted that Gabrielle should have no contact with the clinic. Lara would take charge of everything and go through the medical procedures alone.
James, however, had been required to attend NYC Reproductive Medicine Associates in person some days earlier to perform his part in the surrogacy and being a practical man had combined this with a business trip to visit important medical associates in New York. He was empowered to deal with the medical and administrative formalities at the clinic on behalf of both genetic parents leaving his wife strangely excluded from this momentous event and more isolated than she had ever felt in her entire life. On his return, James found her in some distress. She had been waking up every day with nausea and a splitting headache – it was just like morning sickness in fact. She was suffering vicariously.
‘You’re bound to be fee
ling bad,’ he said. ‘We both want this so much and we’ve been through such tough times.’
But Gabrielle knew this was something more elemental than James could understand.
‘You just don’t get it,’ she said. ‘This is between her and me.’ Although separated by thousands of miles and a vast ocean, Gabrielle felt as if the intense intimacy of the planned surrogacy, had unleashed some kind of telepathic response in her body and mind, something she hadn’t experienced since they were little girls. Though so conflicted, they were so close, almost the same flesh and blood. She could imagine and visualise her twin’s physical and emotional turmoil so vividly that it had become her own.
Gabrielle woke every night with excruciating lower back pain and stomach cramps. Then one night she woke screaming from a nightmare in which she herself, pregnant and in the throes of agony, gave birth to a horribly deformed creature. In the dream, James stood at her bedside, holding her hand, and laughing uncontrollably at the sight of the monster being pulled out from between her legs. And while he stood there laughing, she called out again and again, ‘They’ve mixed up the eggs, it’s not my baby… give me my baby.’
‘This is getting out of control,’ said James. ‘I’m going to make an appointment for you to see your therapist. This surrogacy business is having a detrimental effect on your mental well-being. You need to increase your medication or get some extra mindfulness counselling or CBT or something…’
Gabrielle felt all the more bereft when James took off for Milan.
‘I’ll call you every day,’ he promised. ‘And I’ll bring you back something special.’
‘Dolce et Gabbana perfume please – The One,’ called out Gabrielle, as she waved him off through security. ‘I’ve almost run out.’
James kept his word, calling every evening to entertain her with amusing conference anecdotes. When he bounded out of the taxi on his return a week later and burst through the front door looking a million dollars in a new Italian leather jacket and tailored chinos, Gabrielle raced into his open arms, all the more welcoming as each hand was holding gift bags emblazoned with enticing Italian brand names.
‘You’re looking hot,’ she said, taking in his suntanned face and sharp new jacket. ‘So you found time for shopping, and it looks as if you’ve caught the sun. I hope you didn’t enjoy yourself too much without me!’
She was delighted to discover that not only had he bought her a nice big bottle of her favourite fragrance but also a very stylish handbag in the best soft brown Florentine calfskin leather and a chic double-looping wide leather belt with a brass buckle.
‘Love the bag,’ said Gabrielle. ‘It’s exactly the style I would have chosen for myself.’ It had a long leather shoulder strap so you could sling it casually across your body. It was both practical and the height of fashion. She was pleasantly surprised as James was not a handbag connoisseur! He laughed.
‘I can’t really take any credit for choosing it. Francesca picked it out for me.’
‘And who is Francesca?’ said Gabrielle, with a frosty smile.
‘Ah! Francesca… she’s the very pretty and sexy Italian shop assistant who took pity on this helpless Englishman.’
‘Whatever… I love it,’ said Gabrielle. She threw the handbag to one side and picked up the belt. ‘Come here and stop teasing, or I’ll strap you to the bed.’ There was a hint of menace in her voice.
Playfully, she looped the belt around his waist and hers and pushed him roughly backwards onto the mattress, flipping onto his chest between his splayed legs.
‘There, I’ve got you now,’ she murmured, as she grabbed the buckle and tightened the belt until her hips were crushed against his loins.’
Later when Gabrielle began to suspect what had really happened in Italy, the smell of the perfume was enough to make her retch, and she couldn’t stand the sight of the bag or the belt any longer, so she stuffed all three into the back of her wardrobe. Even though she couldn’t prove it, she had a feeling in her gut that James was hiding something. He was such an incurable flirt. Was this Francesca really just a shop assistant? Or someone he had met at the conference and taken out on a date – or worse?
Of course, she was right – something had happened in Italy. However, Gabrielle’s suspicions about Francesca were unfounded. There was no shop assistant called Francesca. It was Lara who had chosen the belt and handbag for Gabrielle – which was why they conformed so perfectly to her taste.
*
On the day in late April that James attended the clinic on Seventh Avenue, Lara had been surprised to hear from him. Gabrielle had stipulated in the surrogacy agreement that there should be no contact between James and Lara in New York. The protocol governing relations between the genetic father and the surrogate mother was designed to be as arms’ length as possible. This suited Lara well. She was not in the mood for a sentimental reunion. She had spent the day shopping on Fifth Avenue, coming home somewhat perversely with an expensive designer bikini from Calvin Klein.
James apologised for telephoning but explained that the clinical procedure had been so cold and sterile that he couldn’t help himself. He told her that as he had walked out of NYC Reproductive Medicine Associates on that beautiful spring morning, he had felt suddenly very lonely amongst the streaming crowd of commuters and had been compelled to call her.
‘I know I’m not supposed to be contacting you but I think it’s important to mark this day somehow. Let me take you out for dinner at least.’
‘No, James,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s not a good idea.’
‘Oh come on. Don’t be such a bore!’ he said. ‘It’ll be miserable to be here on my last night in the Big Apple dining alone! Just name the place – I’ll take you wherever you want to go, the most expensive, exclusive restaurant in New York. Let’s dine with the stars tonight. You deserve to be spoilt. After all, you won’t be wining and dining once the pregnancy starts in a few days’ time.’
Lara chose The View, New York’s only revolving restaurant, on the 48th floor of the Marriott Hotel, which had spectacular views of the Empire State Building and many other iconic buildings in the city. They met in the lobby at eight o’clock. Lara chose an exotic salad with vibrant colours and chiselled vegetable sculptures, while James feasted on a twelve-ounce Texan char-grilled steak and fries ‘flown in this morning from the Lone-Star State.’
‘I’m getting healthy for the pregnancy,’ said Lara. ‘Once I’ve agreed to do something, I do it properly.’
Nevertheless, when James ordered the waiter to crack open a bottle of champagne ‘to toast the baby’ she allowed herself three glasses, and by the end of the meal she was dizzy with drink, and laughter and the endlessly revolving view.
‘Weird to think that in a petri dish on Seventh Avenue your baby has already been conceived,’ she said.
James leant across and held her hand.
‘Our baby,’ he said.
Lara pulled her hand away.
‘I’ve got some gifts for you,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘I know Gabrielle is going to pay you but I wanted to thank you personally for your generosity in doing this for us.’
He placed a large brown envelope on the table then reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small turquoise box, marked with the Tiffany logo and tied with a white satin bow.
Lara opened it – a single solitaire diamond ring.
‘What’s this all about?’ she said. Her eyes were fixed on the diamond, gleaming in the candlelight. ‘Seriously?’ She wasn’t smiling any more.
‘I bought it this evening – just as the shops were closing. It’s the only way I could get a table,’ said James with calculated flippancy. ‘They told me you have to book six weeks in advance – but I begged them. I asked to speak to the manager and told him I was intending to propose to you over dinner. Look, they’re over there, spying on us.’
He pointed at the waiters giving furtive looks in the direction of their table.
‘Besides,
it might come in useful,’ he said. There may be times when you’d rather not be taken for a single mother once it becomes obvious that you’re pregnant. Americans can be so reactionary in their views.’
Lara laughed bitterly.
‘That’s the most cynical and absurd “un-proposal” that I can possibly imagine. I feel like Alice at the Mad Hatter’s “un-birthday” tea party!’
She tried on the ring. It fitted perfectly.
‘How did you manage that, you clever man? Now let me guess, you checked the size of Gabrielle’s engagement ring before you left for the airport.’
She twisted off the ring, placed it back in the box, and pushed the box back across the table.
‘I’m not her clone, you know, James. We’re not one and the same person. You’re married to another woman.’
She got up and walked away from the table, ignoring the group of waiters standing expectantly at the side of the bar, ready to congratulate the happy pair.
James threw down a wodge of dollar bills and caught up with Lara at the lifts.
‘OK, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. But look, you forgot this. He handed over the brown envelope. I wanted to give you the ring first. But I think you’ll be able to accept this – if you just let me explain.’
As they rode the elevator down the forty-eight floors, Lara ripped open the envelope. Inside was a small guidebook to Venice and a sheet of paper headed ‘The Magic of Italy,’ giving details of a reservation for a luxury twin bedroom at the Gritti Palace hotel – ‘an opulent conversion of a fifteenth century palazzo in a spectacular setting overlooking the Grand Canal’ – and a travel itinerary showing her return flight from New York to Venice airport with transfer by water taxi to the steps of the hotel.
‘Don’t get me wrong. See, I’ve booked you a twin room, to share with Gabrielle. But please don’t tell her you’ll be there. It’s a surprise.’
‘I haven’t said I’m coming yet,’ said Lara, glaring at him. ‘I’ve done my homework. Transatlantic travel is not recommended in the early weeks of a gestational surrogacy. I’m sure you’ll have the best interests of your baby at heart!’
She's Mine Page 24