‘Good girl, Lara, well done. That’s beautiful. Really stunning.’ The photographer’s patter comes naturally to her.
‘Now put your hands behind your head and lean away from the lens…’
I see Christina wince with pain as she moves into position but she knows better than to complain.
‘One leg slightly forward, that’s it… You’re looking up dreamily at a stunning blue sky… Remember that day in the punt on the Cherwell? Willow branches arching overhead, sunlight on the water… passion shining in your eyes – or was it madness, like Ophelia?’ She murmurs on tunelessly. ‘Playing with desire… When it burns like fire.’
‘If anyone’s acting crazy round here, it’s you,’ I shout out from across the table. ‘This madness has got to stop.’
Gabrielle turns to me with a smile worthy of Medusa. ‘Nothing sweet about me,’ she says.
Christina’s face is a picture of misery as Gabrielle drags her wrists behind her head. Impatiently, Gabrielle slams the camera down on the table and her anger explodes,
‘Come on Lara, I need you to try harder, we need some conviction here. You’re a young woman in love. Not a bloody victim of gang rape.’
Christina shuts her eyes and rearranges her features. I see she’s done this kind of thing for Gabrielle before. Swiftly, Gabrielle changes the lens on the camera and moves in for a close-up frame. ‘Look at me Lara, open your eyes,’ she says softly. ‘I’m still waiting for that perfect shot. You always were my inspiration, my alter ego.’
As the yacht sways to one side, the knife slides across the floor of the saloon towards the side where I am tied up. I lunge down for it, but she pounces and grabs it first.
‘Snap!’ she yells in excitement as my hand thumps down a fraction of a second too late. Armed with the knife again a new idea seems to enter her head. Roughly she gathers up Christina’s blonde hair in her right hand. ‘You’ll never get away from me, Lara.’ For a second, I think she’s rearranging Christina’s hair for the next frame. ‘Golden girl! You were always so proud of your golden curls, weren’t you?’ With a flick of her wrist, she twists Christina’s hair into a ponytail and hacks it off with the knife.
‘Stop!’ I shout, desperately trying to kick my ankles free from the legs of the stool without tumbling onto the floor.
Gabrielle refocuses the viewfinder. ‘That’s so much better,’ she says. ‘We’ll just have to make do with the gang-rape-victim-look, if we can’t manage blissful-romantic today.’
I manage to free one leg. ‘Are you mad?’ I lurch towards Gabrielle, dragging the stool behind me. ‘Give me the knife!’ I succeed in grasping her right hand as she moves forward to pick it up. But I’m out of luck. Like a snake, Gabrielle whips around, seizes the knife in her left hand and slashes my outstretched forearm. Of course! She’s left-handed being Christina’s genetic mirror-image twin. I clutch my arm to staunch the blood streaming from the wound.
‘Now look what you made me do!’ she says. ‘Be careful.’ She nods towards Christina. ‘It’ll be her face next time.’ She bends down and cuts through the rope still binding one of my ankles to the stool. ‘Now for God’s sake go to the sink and get a towel,’ snaps Gabrielle. ‘I don’t want your blood dripping all over my floor.’ The polished wooden floor is drenched in petrol so her concern about a few bloodstains strikes me as bizarre. As if reading my thoughts, she pats the packet of matches bulging in the pocket of her shorts. ‘Don’t do anything stupid. Any trouble from you, and we all go up in flames.’
Christina begins to shake and sob silently. Strands from her newly-styled bob stick to her cheeks. Gabrielle puts both hands up to her sister’s neck and for one beat I fear she’s going to strangle her. But then she grabs her shirt and rips it open, exposing her breasts. She stands back to look. The image pleases her.
‘That’s good,’ she says, suddenly detached and professional again. ‘Now, stretch your arms above your head, you’re hanging from a tree… super… well done. Remember that day on the river in Oxford… Look up at the leaves, dappling against the sky… Hold it there … Perfect… Now, look down… down into the black water swirling below. OK, at last we’re getting somewhere.’
Christina sways from side to side as the catamaran is battered by the waves and what with Gabrielle vocalising her sadistic fantasy, I can’t stop myself from imagining her swinging from a tree. Now I see what Gabrielle’s playing at – trying to make me complicit, drawing me in to this ‘toxic triangle’ the way she’s done with others before, making me feel tainted and dirty as a witness to this degrading spectacle of abuse.
At this moment, there’s a sudden flash of lightning and a huge clap of thunder directly overhead. The power trips off, filling the saloon with shadows and gloom.
‘The gods are smiling on us,’ says Gabrielle. She changes the filter on the lens and switches the camera to video mode. ‘We need some more action shots. I’m going to make the mood a little darker,’ she says. ‘Now, Lara, get on the floor. Hands and knees will do fine… Face the other way… Now look back at me… Just a few black-and-white stills and a video sequence then we’re done.’
Gabrielle sits cross-legged on the floor, camera in hand, contented and relaxed.
‘Ritual humiliation and sexual innuendo. We have to get some in somewhere,’ she says, to no one in particular. ‘Isn’t that how every good story ends?’ Then she turns to me with a smile. ‘Hey Scarlett, this is your department, isn’t it? Any suggestions? Any good creative twists?’
I’m lost for words, powerless to stop this madness. She’s too far gone. All I can do is pray that the coastguard or the police will come to our rescue. Where the hell are they? They should have found us by now…
Gabrielle crouches forward to take some close-ups of her model, then slides the switch on the camera to video mode.
Christina is connecting with the lens now – she’s on fire. Her eyes are hard as she says, ‘This isn’t one of your fantasy porn and bondage movies, Gabrielle. It’s time to break out of your sick fictional universe and face the truth.’
‘Keep your mouth shut,’ says Gabrielle. ‘It’s the moving images I want to capture – not what you’ve got to say.’
Christina brings her face right up to the lens until her features blur in Gabrielle’s viewfinder.
‘No, you can’t silence me any longer,’ she says. ‘You need to hear the truth from me, once and for all.’
Gabrielle is still filming – a video recording of Christina’s confession, a strangely powerful voiceover montage. Even Gabrielle won’t be able to deny the reality of that, I say to myself, when she plays it back in glorious technicolour.
Christina speaks very slowly and clearly to make sure she can be heard above the wind and the waves. ‘Whatever happens to me,’ she says, ‘Katie will never be yours. I’m keeping her because she’s mine. I’m her biological mother. She belongs to me.’
Gabrielle’s face is as fixed and expressionless as a mask but there’s a loud crack as she lets the camera drop to the floor.
Christina continues in a cold monotone. ‘You found the photograph so you know it’s true. James tricked me into going to Venice. He gave me the plane ticket. He told me you would be there and it would be a chance for us to bond before the baby was born.’
The camera slides across the petrol-soaked floorboards as the yacht tilts violently in the water but Gabrielle makes no attempt to retrieve it.
Christina continues with her ‘confession’. ‘I went ahead with the embryo implantation procedure as planned. Unfortunately for you it failed. I wasn’t pregnant, the embryo had not survived, as I discovered on the day before my flight to Venice. I knew it would be a great disappointment so I decided that I would tell you both in person when I arrived in Venice, and in the meantime I booked in at the clinic to schedule an appointment for a second attempt at the implantation a few weeks after the trip.’ Christina’s eyes go all dreamy as she says, ‘Thanks to James, it was not necessary. Two weeks after I got
back from Venice, I discovered I was pregnant – but not as your surrogate. No, I was pregnant with my love child conceived with James in that enchanting Italian city of bridges and canals.’ She observes the look of disgust and denial on Gabrielle’s face. ‘So I went to the clinic, impersonating you – you know we’ve played that game so many times, it comes to me quite naturally – to tell them the good news. My pregnancy was confirmed and the second embryo transfer procedure was cancelled. I informed the director of embryology that we would not be requiring the clinic’s services any longer.’ She looks out to sea. ‘All my years of drama training saw me through that day. I gave my best-ever performance – worthy of an Oscar, so convincing, so authentic. They were completely taken in.’
At last, Christina pauses. Then she looks up into Gabrielle’s eyes. ‘I gave the clinic instructions to dispose of your remaining frozen eggs – all five held in storage were destroyed. It wasn’t an appalling administrative error as you believed. The clinic was acting on my orders. I completed all the necessary formalities in your name.’ She whispers sweetly, ‘Blame it on Venice.’
There’s a long silence. Gabrielle grabs the camera. The lens is cracked. She doesn’t seem to care. ‘Nice try!’ she says, forcing her lips into a smile. ‘I can see through your lies. I always could. Ever since you were in pigtails, you’ve been a nasty little liar.’
White-knuckled, Gabrielle’s hands grip the camera. But her hands are shaking so much that she can’t press the shutter.
‘I’m so sick of you,’ she says.
Their faces are within inches of each other now – confronting each other across an imaginary line, reflected and inverted in the black dilated pupils of each other’s eyes. I’m struck by how interchangeable they remain despite Christina’s shocking, convict-hair.
‘That’s the shot,’ I say. ‘Give me the camera. I’ll take it for you. It’s perfect. Photograph Thirteen. It’s done.’
39
Scarlett
It seems ages since Gabrielle went down to the dark room to develop the pictures from the photoshoot. Before leaving the galley she tied us up again. I’m mortified at how impotent I have become to defend us from this madwoman but with her knife pointing at Christina’s throat there was no room for heroics. This time Gabrielle’s strapped us together back-to-back with the thick leather belt James bought for her in Venice, and our ankles bound to the legs of the bar stools.
The moment she left us on our own, I asked Christina the question that had been on my mind for hours: ‘What did you do with the gun?’ She sounded contrite. ‘I couldn’t use it. I’m sorry. But she doesn’t know about it. I hid it in the cabin.’ I lapsed into silence, exasperated by her faint-heartedness.
Ominous black storm clouds roll over the churning sea while gusts of wind whistle and howl across the decks. Christina slumps against my back, her body shuddering. I decide the best thing is to keep talking, to keep her conscious and calm.
‘Were you telling the truth?’ I say, ‘About the surrogacy…and the rest?’
‘Yes,’ she whispers. ‘Do you hate me?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s not my place to judge you. The truth is rarely pure and never simple – remember? You told me that.’
‘Oscar Wilde,’ says Christina in a toneless voice.
‘It’s clear Gabrielle thinks you’re lying,’ I say. ‘She really believes Katie is her baby.’
‘She’s a fantasist as well as being a pathological liar,’ says Christina.
She flinches in pain as she shifts her position on her chair.
‘How is it?’ I say. I can feel the exhaustion and strain in her voice.
‘Bearable,’ she says. ‘In some ways it helps to have a focus for the pain, you know?’
I get it. She means the pain that’s part of her very being now – since the day Katie disappeared.
‘But surely Gabrielle must understand that taking Katie is child abduction, pure and simple?’ I say.
‘Gabrielle makes up her own reality,’ says Christina. She believes what she wants to believe and rejects anything that doesn’t fit in with her narrative. She thinks Katie is the surrogate baby that she planned to call Rose. She is convinced that she is the biological mother. The truth is too painful for her to contemplate so anything that contradicts her “truth” must be denied or destroyed. She’ll be all the more determined now to take Katie away from me.’
I think of the collection of photographic prints lining the walls of the Master Cabin. Embryonic Love. Gabrielle wants to believe in her own version of the truth all right. It’s an obsession.
God help us!
‘One thing is for sure,’ I say. ‘As the birth mother, you’ve got the law on your side. Nobody can make you give her away – even if a DNA test can’t be used to prove which of you is Katie’s biological mother.’
I look down at the belt strapped around our torsos. Suddenly ‘the truth’ seems rather academic.
‘You can’t let her get away with this,’ I say. ‘You can’t just let her keep on trying to bully and abuse you into submission.’
I nod towards the bundle of legal documents in the galley.
‘She can’t force you to sign some piece of paper making her the legal mother. If you sign under duress, it wouldn’t stand up in a court of law.’
Christina gives a hollow laugh. ‘I know that. But it’s all part of her campaign of intimidation. Open your eyes and look around. I don’t think Gabrielle concerns herself too much with legalities.’
For a moment, we are silent, listening to the gathering storm.
‘I would fight back,’ she says. ‘I’m not scared of what she might do to me. But I’m scared of what she might do to Katie. That’s why I’ve been hiding and running away from her since the day Katie was born. That’s why I didn’t want the police to get to her first. She’s a sick woman. She’s always been unstable, on anti-psychotics since she was a teenager. And now her sick obsession is not just about Katie, it’s about me. She’s been like this since we were little girls. She always thought I was the favoured twin – Daddy’s golden girl, teacher’s pet. She was insanely jealous of me. And she couldn’t bear the thought of something or someone belonging to me and not her – that’s why she smashed my dolls, that’s why she stole my boyfriend, and that’s why in the end she killed James.’
I look round the saloon, littered with debris, and empty jerry cans and vodka bottles, the luxurious décor wrecked and defaced with petrol and blood stains and smashed glass. I look down at us, hostages, tied to the chairs.
She’s won.
‘So, what will you do?’ I ask Christina, shocked by this endless submission to her abusive twin. ‘Sign the papers and let her have her way? Abandon Katie to this maniac?’
‘I’ll never sign the papers,’ says Christina.
*
Gabrielle returns and slams the album down on the table in front of us.
‘It’s finished.’ she says.
She pulls up a chair, lights a cigarette and pours herself another vodka from a new bottle.
‘Haven’t you had enough already?’ I say, nodding towards the glass.
She yanks off the belt that binds us together, giving us the freedom to move our arms and torsos. She seems manically cheerful, which is no less frightening.
‘I’m not an unreasonable woman. Would you like to join me girls? Let’s all have a drink!’
She raises her glass in a toast.
‘To Our Life,’ she says, looking at Christina, and downs the vodka in one.
I twist round on my chair to face her. I’ve decided the last hope is to try to reason with her – to treat her as a rational human being.
‘Gabrielle, it’s over.’ I say. ‘We know you’re hiding Katie. By now Damien will have been arrested and charged with her abduction. It’s only a matter of time before the police find her. It’s only a matter of time before the police catch up with you. This is your last chance. Give yourself up now before it’s too late.’
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I reprimand her in my best stern ‘nanny voice’ as if talking to a naughty child caught stealing sweets from the corner shop. ‘Katie’s not your little girl. She belongs to Christina.’
She looks at me as if I’m the one who’s out of my mind.
‘I know you’re confused,’ I say. ‘If you give yourself up to the police, things won’t be so bad. You can get psychiatrists’ reports and evidence of mitigating circumstances – even what you’ve written in this album could be used in evidence to explain your disturbed state of mind and your desperate actions. You might escape a jail sentence on grounds of diminished responsibility. And you’ll be able to get access to all the medical support you need.’
I almost feel sorry for Gabrielle now. She’s clutching her stomach as if she’s about to throw up.
‘Traitor, liar.’ She spits the words at me. ‘The child’s mine and I’m keeping her.’
She slips the loose prints into the album and stalks to the corner of the saloon where she flings open a cupboard door to reveal a safe. She inputs the code, slides in the album and slams the door.
‘Fireproof,’ she says. ‘Just in case.’
She lights another cigarette and lets the flaring match drop to the floor before she grinds it under her heel not a microsecond too soon.
I’m not that easily intimidated so I carry on with my lecture.
‘Even if Christina signed the adoption papers now, the court would never give you parental responsibility. Not after what’s happened. You’ll never be Katie’s mother, never in a million years.’
Playing the drama queen to perfection, she sits down suddenly and holds her head in her hands. She starts murmuring to herself and I hear the words: ‘One of us must die. That’s the only way. One of us must die.’
Her head jerks up and she looks at me.
‘You’ve read our life story. Now you can be the judge. Just like King Solomon in the bible story.’
‘Have you been forgetting to take your medication?’ I say. ‘You’ve got to stop this ridiculous game now, Gabrielle, before it’s too late. Give yourself up before something horrific happens.
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