by Rosie Fiore
I said thank you to Lara and went back upstairs. We’re poor and badly dressed and going to school without the right books and stuff. We’ve gone from being the best family in the school to being the almost Mickeys. It’s all Helen’s fault. Helen and Dad. I hate them both so much.
Lara
‘So sorry. Something’s come up. Running late.’
What kind of text message is that? What’s ‘come up’? As I loaded the machine with the girls’ school uniforms, I wondered, not for the first time, if I was being taken for a total mug. I wasn’t keeping score, but this was the third time in the last fortnight Sam had dumped his kids on me with scant warning. Dumped sounds harsh, but that’s how it felt. This was one of my rare Thursday evenings off, and Mum was out at a film with friends. Sam and I hadn’t arranged to get together and I’d been looking forward to some quiet time alone with Frances and Jonah, and once they were in bed, I’d planned to watch a soppy chick-flick and then get to bed early myself. Now I’d be doing a Cinderella, waiting up for the washing machine to finish so I could iron the school uniforms and hang them up to dry for the morning. I’d also somehow have to magic an extra two packed lunches for school tomorrow out of thin air. It was petty to worry about these details, but someone had to – and it sure as hell wasn’t Sam. I understood that his job was unpredictable, but it struck me that as a single parent, he might do better to push back a little harder when people made unreasonable demands. He worked in advertising, for God’s sake. It wasn’t exactly life or death if he said he couldn’t make a short-notice, after-hours meeting.
And anyway, hadn’t his meeting been at about half past four? It was almost nine now, and all the kids were in bed. How long could it possibly have gone on for? I was being the domestic drudge while he was probably whooping it up in some classy bar in central London, which he would justify as ‘client relations’. I caught sight of my reflection in the kitchen window: hair frizzy and coming free from my scruffy ponytail, stained old T-shirt, no make-up, and a face like sulky thunder, quite justifiably. What an appealing sight to come home to. Not to mention my irresistible conversation about laundry and PE kit. So he’d come swanning in from his exciting life in the city and I’d be the resentful, boring ‘her indoors’ who was no fun to be with. I felt like I was being totally set up to fail. I shook my head. This was Marc all over again.
When I’d thought about getting involved with Sam, I’d had misgivings – he was still grieving and there were so many practical considerations. But what tipped the balance for me was the fact that Sam was such a nice man. I thought I knew about bastards. After Marc, I thought my bastard radar was finely tuned. But it looks like Sam might be a bastard by stealth.
I looked at the clock. The school uniforms would come out of the machine in just over an hour. It wasn’t worth starting a film just to have to interrupt it. I was considering watching whatever mindlessness I could find on TV when I heard a soft rapping on the front door. I took a deep breath and tried to wipe the sulks off my face. Sam and I needed to have a proper conversation about our situation, but answering the door with a dropped lip like a petulant teenager wasn’t going to advance my cause.
I opened the door and the shock must have registered on my face, because Tim laughed.
‘I’m guessing you weren’t expecting me,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Um, sorry. Good to see you. I thought you were Sam.’
‘Is he not here?’ Tim looked puzzled. ‘I went past his place and it was in darkness. I reckoned he and the girls must be with you.’
‘The girls, yes. Sam, no. He had a work meeting.’
Tim glanced at his watch and raised his eyebrows. ‘Some meeting.’
I was irritated by his casual tone. ‘Look, do you want to come in? You’re welcome to, but I don’t know when Sam. . .’
‘Yeah, thanks, that’d be nice,’ he said. He reached into the shopping bag he was carrying. ‘I have a bottle of very nice red wine that I was planning on sharing with my big brother. He’s a philistine when it comes to wine though, so it’d be good to share it with someone who might appreciate it.’
I wanted to disapprove of Tim. I’d had him pinned as a player the first time I’d seen him – a charmer with a taste for young, disposable women and an incorrigible flirt. But he’d been nothing but kind to me (and not at all flirtatious) since Sam and I had started seeing each other, and he was here on my doorstep with what looked like a very good bottle of wine indeed.
I fetched glasses and we went through into the living room. Tim was right. It was a smooth and velvety red, but probably too heavy for Sam. He’d have called it a ‘headache in a glass’ or wanted a big rare steak to have with it.
‘So how are things?’ I asked as casually as I could. I had never chatted to Tim without Sam before, and I realized I didn’t know enough about him to ask any specific questions about his life.
‘Busy. My commis chef walked out on me earlier this week. Decided the kitchen life wasn’t for him. Too stressful, he said.’
‘Couldn’t take the heat, I reckon.’
Tim smiled. ‘I think he was surprised that it impacted so badly on his social life, to be honest.’
‘It’s kind of the point of the hospitality industries,’ I said. ‘You’re working when everyone else is having fun.’
‘You’re not working tonight?’
‘No, rare night off.’
‘And I bet you had plans that involved a bag of crisps and an early night, not skivvying for four children.’
‘Chick-flick and chocolate, but the principle is the same.’ I paused. ‘It’s not skivvying, though. They’re lovely girls and I’m always happy to have them.’
‘I guess Sam helps you with your kids too,’ said Tim, and I noticed he was watching me closely.
I was disconcerted by his gaze and waited a fraction too long before I said, ‘Of course.’
‘Don’t let him take the piss, Lara. He does that.’
‘Does what?’
‘Does that sweet, helpless, crooked smile and gets people to do stuff for him. My mum and dad fell for it for years when he was growing up. Leonora didn’t take any shit from him, but Helen. . .’
He looked guilty for mentioning Helen.
‘Helen what?’ I prompted.
He paused for a moment and then said, ‘I always thought they were a terrible combination. A person who needs loads of help, and a control-freak perfectionist.’ He took a sip of his wine. ‘I adore my brother, but he’s a taker, and she was. . . not so much a giver as a doer. Now you. . . you’re a giver. And you need to be careful.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ I said coolly. ‘It’s not terribly loyal to your brother though.’
‘I’d say it to his face,’ said Tim. ‘I have, on more than one occasion.’
I thought I should try to steer the conversation back on to safer ground, so I asked him what he was doing about finding a new commis chef.
‘I’ve got the agency sending me someone new tomorrow,’ he said. ‘It’s frustrating though. I put a lot of energy into training Kevin, and we were working on a new menu. . .’
‘New menu?’ I said. This sounded like something uncontroversial we could talk about. I’m not into cooking myself, but I’ve spent most of my working life around chefs, so I can talk foodie stuff with the best of them. Tim had been doing research into Middle Eastern cuisines and was trying to put his own spin on some recipes. We talked about harissa paste, and what you could get away with doing with cinnamon, and whether quinoa was hopelessly last year or not. The wine was going down easily, and I found Tim equally easy to talk to. I hadn’t warmed to him at first, and I think he knew that. But chatting to him now I could see he was ambitious about his career, and driven. Just like the commis chef, his working hours would have cost him his social life. It would take an extraordinary woman to fit in around the lifestyle of a serious chef. Maybe his track record of brief, unserious relationships was born of practicality.
&nbs
p; The washing machine beeped in the kitchen and I stood up rather unsteadily.
‘Whoops,’ I said. ‘Nice wine, but it’s more potent than I’m used to.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Tim.
‘The washing machine.’ I waved in the direction of the kitchen. ‘I need to iron the girls’ uniforms and hang them out to dry for tomorrow.’
‘I’ll do it,’ he said, hopping to his feet, looking much more sober than I felt.
‘No, no, no. . .’ I began.
‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘They’re my nieces. And besides, I’m a ninja ironer. Crispest chef’s whites in the West.’
‘Ninja ironer?’ I followed him into the kitchen. ‘Really?’
‘It makes it sound cool, doesn’t it?’ he said, efficiently setting up the ironing board. ‘Like I’m an ironing superhero.’
He pulled Marguerite’s little gingham pinafore out of the washing machine and held it up to look at it.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Exactly like an ironing superhero.’
He was a ninja ironer. I watched him as he expertly spun the pinafores and pressed each surface, flattening the collars and aligning the buttons. He got them looking much neater than I would have done. He doesn’t look anything like Sam, I mused. He’s compact and wiry where Sam is big and broad; dark-haired and olive-skinned where Sam is fair-haired with a light, English complexion. It’s hard to believe they’re brothers. Then he looked up and caught me watching him and smiled, and I saw the resemblance. They have the same heart-tugging charm. I would bet that the young women he’s had his flings with wanted to do stuff for him too. He finished with the dresses and I got him a couple of hangers and he put them in the conservatory to dry.
The bottle of wine he had brought was mysteriously empty. I didn’t have anything as classy, but I managed to root out a decent bottle of Merlot. As we sat back down on the sofa, I checked my phone.
‘Nothing from Sam?’ said Tim, noticing.
‘Nope. It’s probably client drinks or something.’
‘Or something.’ I wasn’t sure what Tim meant and I didn’t want to think about it too much, so I took another long sip of my wine. I was going to feel shocking when I woke up after all this red wine, but I’d deal with that in the morning.
Tim said suddenly, ‘So tell me about you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know anything about you,’ he said. ‘I know you’ve got two kids and you’re a restaurant manager, but that’s it.’
‘Not sure there’s all that much more to tell,’ I said. ‘I was a dancer once.’
‘Ah yes. I knew that. Miranda told me all about it. So was that the big dream? Is it still the dream?’
‘The dream?’ I said stupidly, as if he had used a phrase I wasn’t familiar with.
‘The dream. Your ultimate goal. Raison d’être and all that.’
‘Does everyone have to have one of those?’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’
‘What, like a calling? A vocation? A burning ambition? I don’t.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Unless being happy and having happy kids and a secure roof over my head is a burning ambition.’
He thought about it for a second. ‘Yeah, that’ll do.’
I laughed suddenly. ‘Wow, imagine if I still had a burning ambition to dance. The pirouetting school-gate mum. There’s a dance movie in that – like a modern-day Flashdance.’
Tim grinned. ‘Sorry, that did sound trite, didn’t it? A neat Hollywood answer.’
‘So do you think everyone should have a singular goal?’
‘No, of course not. I guess I always did. I knew what I wanted to do for as long as I can remember. So it’s not always easy for me to understand that not everyone is like that.’
‘Sam isn’t.’
‘Sam’s ambitious, but in different ways. He’s always liked money, and prestige and status. And he wants people to like him. So he worked hard for those things. Not for love of the work itself. He likes it in other people, though. His first wife, Leonora, was a musician, and he loved her passion and dedication.’
The girls have a picture of Leonora in their bedroom at Sam’s flat. She was beautiful – dark and striking – and even in the black-and-white portrait you can see her fire and verve. First her, then Helen, all smooth elegance and sparkly intelligence. What the hell was Sam doing with me?
As if reading my thoughts, Tim said, ‘Helen. . .’ and then he stopped again.
‘You can talk to me about Helen,’ I said. ‘I knew her quite well, you know. Well, I thought I did. I think everyone thought they did.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Tim. ‘We never really got on. She didn’t like me.’
‘Did you like her?’
He was quiet for a long time. I got the sense he was planning his answer very carefully. ‘I respected her, if that means anything.’
‘Respected?’
‘I could see her power.’
‘What, like a superpower?’
‘No.’ He laughed. ‘Well, maybe, yes, a bit. She was powerful. Ambitious. No, that’s not quite the right word. She was. . . competitive. She had to be the best.’
I nodded. I could see some truth in that. I sort of bumble through life trying to get things done, trying not to be an embarrassment to myself or my family. But I don’t care what people think, most of the time. Helen had seemed to care fiercely. It didn’t matter if she was baking a cake, or on a table at a quiz, or dressing her kids for a non-uniform day, she had to do it perfectly. Or, if you subscribed to Tim’s view on it, better than anyone else. And to be fair, she had disappeared completely and untraceably. She was the best at disappearing too.
Sam
She’d been getting off at Canary Wharf, I reasoned, and when she saw me, she’d got back on the train. That meant she would have to come back to Canary Wharf, surely? Or maybe she’d got off to change trains, and she’d taken a different route to her eventual destination. There was no way of knowing, but all I had was the fact that she’d got off at Canary Wharf. After standing in the milling crowd in a state of shock for some minutes, I went over to the westbound platform. If she’d gone one stop and changed trains to come back, she’d get off here. But the platform was long and the crowds poured out of trains every few minutes. It was hopeless. I would never spot her in this seething mass of people. After half an hour or so, I felt battered by the constant jostling of the crowds, and faint from shock. I needed to get above ground.
I made my way out of the station and stood in the wide concourse in front of the entrance. All around me, people were meeting and greeting, kissing each other or shaking hands, going off together to bars and restaurants. I was supposed to be at a meeting, I thought vaguely. I looked at my watch. Five o’clock. I was over half an hour late. I took out my phone and rang my office. The receptionist answered, and I told her a garbled story about being taken ill on the Tube and having stayed down on the platform until I felt better. I asked her to ring the client and make my apologies, saying that I was going home.
‘Poor thing,’ she said sympathetically. She’s a sweet girl, our receptionist, and I always make sure I’m nice to her, even a little bit flirtatious. She’s a useful person to have onside. ‘Look after yourself,’ she added.
I should go home, I thought. There’s no point in hanging around here. But somehow I wasn’t ready to. I’d been so close. And maybe Helen was nearby, in a bar or restaurant, and if I left now, I’d miss her and never find her again. I sent a quick text to Lara, saying something had come up, and I decided to walk for a while and look around. Just for half an hour or so, to put my mind at rest.
The bars and restaurants of Canary Wharf were beginning to fill up with suited businesspeople. The dress was more formal than the trendy, casual attire in the West End, where the media people congregate. I wandered from glass-fronted bar to bar, gazing in at groups of pink-shirted, muscular men. There were lots of women in heels and skirts, swinging th
eir straight, glossy, impeccably coloured hair and laughing. None of them resembled the version of Helen I’d seen, with her severe blonde crop and buttoned-up suit. It was a pointless exercise, I knew, but I wasn’t ready to give up. After an hour or so, I started to feel dizzy and thirsty, and I saw a vacant table outside a bar and sat down. A waiter took my order and brought me a cold pint, which I swallowed down in one go. While I waited for the next one, I spotted two young women, standing uncertainly, looking up and down the crowded tables. They were clearly searching for somewhere to sit. One of them caught my eye and indicated the empty chairs at my table. I nodded assent, and they came over to sit down.
I took out my phone and stared at it, trying to let them know that I didn’t want to engage in conversation, but I needn’t have worried. They both angled their chairs away from me and turned to one another, chatting in that breathy, interrupting, overlapping way young women do, carrying on several threads of dialogue at once. My second beer arrived, and to save time I ordered another immediately. The two women got their drinks too and kept chatting without drawing breath.
I stared out at the passing parade of people. Where was Helen? Was she around the corner, or already far away and fleeing further? Why was she still in London? And why did she look so different? From what she’d been wearing, it was likely that she was working. At what? Where? None of my web searches had turned up her name in any context. But that assumed she still had the same name – I’d been looking for Helen Cooper or Helen Knight. Perhaps she’d changed her name altogether?
What are the odds of bumping into someone in London? One in several million? And yet it happens. Had happened. Helen had obviously decided that it was worth the risk of staying in London, that the odds were overwhelmingly in her favour. She might easily have lived another lifetime in the city without ever encountering me or anyone she knew. But she’d been unlucky. She’d caught the wrong Tube on the wrong day, and despite the enormous changes to her appearance, I’d seen her.
My stomach churned. The pain of her leaving had been bad, excruciating even, but over time, with nothing to feed it, it had lessened. It had had to. I could only agonize over the facts I knew. I couldn’t add any new ones. Without knowing where she had gone, or why, I had eventually had to get on with my life. My conversations with Judy had been illuminating about Helen’s past, but they hadn’t brought me any nearer to where she might be in the present. But now this.