Unfamous

by Emma Morgan

  *****

  https://callmechiara.blogspot.com/

  Water Load Of...

  Posted by Chiara on October 11, 2010

  Stacey was snoring in front of the Frat Pack comedy that followed The Man Who Knew Too Much. I could wake her up, and she could tell me what was wrong with what I had written, even though she didn’t know a) what was right or b) how to write.

  I let her lie.

  The more I had written, the less she could be bothered to change, I reasoned. If at the end of the week I handed her a stack of printed pages and asked for alterations, I knew I would get it back with the first few pages smothered in red pen and the rest barely touched, if even read.

  So I returned to Marrakech.

  ‘The diplomat left the master bedroom and withdrew to his study, his solace away from work. It was abnormally dark for a room in this city, but he had wanted to replicate the wood-panelled feel of his offices and club back home, so had fixed dark shutters to the windows and used only lamps, not the main light. ‘Dingy’ was how Hilary referred to it, privately thinking of it as his ‘hovel’, but he felt as calm in the dark as he felt startled in the noon-day sun. Here, he could be almost anywhere civilised (by which he meant ‘British’), were it not for the calls to prayer and honking street noise; it was too hot to close the windows and the shutters barely blocked out any sounds – his salary didn’t stretch to an air-conditioning unit that met with Hilary’s health-and-safety approval.

  He sat in his armchair for as long as it took to mentally file away the information his wife had given him about the pregnant American, and to assess the benefits and negatives of an ongoing friendship with her. He could not imagine anything but agony when the baby was eventually born. Although neither of them had made an outward show of their grief, he knew how appalling he felt, and multiplied it in his head for how Hilary must feel, based on having actually carried the child for nine months. How could being on-hand for another birth do any good? Any joy Estella felt, and exhibited, would just create the inverse emotion in Hilary and, to a slightly lesser extent, himself. Imagine being invited to hold the baby – and then having to give it back. Always be giving it back. Perhaps they could babysit but then, at the end of the evening, they would go home alone as mother and baby gurgled at one another, ignorant of the angst of absence.

  Hilary could change her mind, of course. She had never been enamoured of the Americans she had previously met through his work, so it could be that in a few weeks the in-built confidence and broken volume control would rankle, and they would be but nodding acquaintances come the due date. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed; Fourth of July parties had always been her least favourite events on the social calendar, closely followed by Thanksgiving dinners. She would blame the food, usually, burnt barbeque meat and dry turkey both being indigestible to her delicate constitution, but he knew it was really the effort of making nice with the braying wives, decked out in their finery and letting everyone know the bottom line of such a display.

  And another thing – to deny healthcare to a pregnant woman would be criminal. He too doubted a mouthful of orange and vodka could harm anyone (even fed directly to a baby, it would only have short-term effects, surely? He didn’t want to know if anyone knew the answer) but it was best to check it out. The last thing he needed was for Hilary to feel culpable for anything happening to another newborn.

  Their baby’s death was not her fault, or his, or anyone’s. Something had gone wrong at some point and it had just stopped growing. The doctors assured them there was nothing anyone could have done, and even if they had been in a better-equipped city they would only have found out sooner, they wouldn’t have been able to solve anything.

  “I know this is no consolation,” Doctor Harris had told them both, “but in situations like this there is none. We don’t know what went wrong, but we do know it wasn’t your fault.”

  That last sentence troubled him still; how could they know they weren’t responsible if they didn’t know what had/had not been done? It seemed like a philosophical riddle.

  But Doctor Harris had at least been honest with them, he hadn’t subjected them to tests to try and find a cause that would no more bring back their baby than a miracle would occur, so he trusted he would do the same with Estella. And if it helped to set Hilary’s mind at rest, that could only be for the good. He had watched her, hawk-like, for the past few months, convinced she was on the brink of a breakdown, but she had held it together. Just. And he didn’t need to uncover a catalyst in the form of Estella’s baby being born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, which he had read about in a science journal once and been horrified by. Some babies of drunk mothers were actually born smelling of booze, like the amniotic fluid had become more alcoholic with every passing day. The physical signs were visible and would become ever more apparent through ongoing behavioural and mental issues... but at least they were alive. He thought again how unfair it all was. They had done everything advised by experts and authors but had still lost their child, yet a chronic alcoholic can go full term and give birth to a breathing baby. He felt his eyes grow sore inside and, fearing tears would follow, reached for the phone.

  It was a Saturday but Doctor Harris gave out a special contact number for fellow ex-pats, in emergencies. He knew it wasn’t an emergency really, but if he implied Hilary was worryingly anxious about Estella (rather than sleeping off a hangover), he knew that would be enough for the doctor. The phone was answered on its second ring – was Dr Harris sitting somewhere similar, just wondering his life away on a beautifully sunny day? – and they chatted amiably for a few minutes, as if both were glad of the chance to talk about anything other than what had just been occupying their minds. What could a doctor worry about, thought the diplomat, surely he knows the solution to anything that ails you? But he also sees the signs we medical mortals would miss; he recalled a man with a slight discolouration in one eye who had explained it away, unembarrassed, when he saw anyone notice, until one day a doctor at a party insisted it be checked out – it was indicative of liver cancer but, thankfully, they caught it in time. Imagine seeing the tiny signs of ill heath and even death in the face of happy people – how horrible to have to break their hearts with quiet asides about cancerous moles over canapés.

  Their smalltalk soon evaporated and an appointment was made, the diplomat outlining the circumstances as best he could without implying Hilary was now self-medicating with drink. They shared a small, contained laugh at the neuroses of women and agreed to meet on Monday morning at 10am. “I look forward to it,” said the diplomat as he hung up, both he and the doctor knowing he meant no such thing.

  He lingered a little while longer in his sanctuary, allowing the roar of the motorbikes and the car horns lull him. He knew parts of London must sound just like this, but when one worked in the diplomat corps one’s offices tended to be down side roads away from the main tourist thoroughfares, in rooms with feet-thick walls to protect from bomb blasts. He was more likely to hear the clip-clop of horses turning out of Horseguards’ Parade than an open-topped tourbus passing by. Even protest marches tended to skip their street; he had to lean out of the window to even see the passing disenfranchised, and could never hear their message. So much for mass action – when it is out of earshot, it looks like fun.

  He filled his lungs with the warm air wafting in through the plantation shutters and headed back to the bedroom, making a cup of weak tea en route. “Here you go!” he said, the faux joviality surprising even himself, as he put it down beside his gently snoring wife. She coughed herself awake by way of thanks. “How are you feeling?”

  Hilary looked at him from below scrunched-up eyelids smeared with black liner. “Fine...” she began, as if their earlier conversation had been a dream. He was tempted to see how long it would take her to recall it all, but thought it best not to toy with his wife’s emotions. But what if she had now forgotten and he would be bringing a baby into her empty mind? He watch
ed her focus on the cup, frowning as she pieced together events growing foggy as she awoke fully. Her forehead smoothed itself out and her eyes brightened in a way they had ceased to do ever since... and he knew Estella’s baby was here to stay, that she could think of little else.

  “I have spoken to Doctor Harris and he can see us, see Estella, first thing on Monday morning, 10am. So why not give the Mamounia a call and leave a message? Probably best not to wake her, she will need her rest, but let her know we will collect her at quarter-to. OK?” He spoke fast, not wanting her to find gaps to burrow and brood in.

  Hilary sipped at the tea, its sweetness startling her dehydrated tongue. She forced the rest down, in between ‘Ugh’s, as if it were medicine rather than imported Twining’s. “Yes,” she said, draining the china cup, “of course, I will call right now. Do you have the number?” Last night, she had made a show of ‘remembering’ it; “I have a wonderful memory for numbers,” she boasted in reception as they awaited their ride home. “I don’t need to write it down, just tell me and I will commit it to my mind forever more!” Now, not only could she not remember it, she forgot claiming she could, as he had expected, taking a card from the front desk and slipping it into his jacket pocket.

  He went over to the chair and reached inside the jacket again, reading out the numbers as Hilary cranked the rotary dial: “Three – eight – eight – six-hundred.” His wife fell back against the pillow, the heavy handset cooling against her face. And yet, when the phone was answered, she instantly became the diplomat’s wife again with a hearty “Good morning!”

  “I was wondering,” she enunciated clearly and too loudly, “could I leave a message for one of your guests? Her name is Estella...” She suddenly looked at her husband for a prompt; covering the mouthpiece, she hissed, “What is her surname?” He shook his head and shrugged. Hilary almost looked furious but fortunately the receptionist needed no further information. “Wonderful, thank you, if you could just tell her we will meet her in reception at 9.45am on Monday, that would be, er, wonderful. Again. Ha ha!” The façade was crumbling as the exhaustion conquered Hilary’s etiquette. She managed to force out a ‘Goodbye’ before her hand slammed the receiver back down and she rolled over to sleep some more.

  “Good-o, glad that is all sorted then,” he said. “Want any breakfast?” She did not; she wanted only quiet and darkness and for the sensation of being badly sunburnt to leave her – but she had one thing to tell her husband before he pottered off to make himself poached eggs.

  “She is staying in one of the riads,” she croaked.

  He was confused; “So she’s not staying at the hotel after all? I must say, she didn’t strike me as a liar...”

  “No, there are riads within the hotel, in the gardens. Did you not see them? Three of them. They are supposed to be amazing – and they’re very expensive. Very expensive...”

  ‘Well’, he thought as he headed for the kitchen, ‘if that is the case she can probably pay Doctor Harris’ bill without any help from us.’

  Raucous laughter from the living room alerted me to the fact Stacey was now awake. I saved everything and emailed myself a copy, as I always did, having once lost a dissertation 12 hours before the hand-in date due to a power cut. We didn’t have the internet in my student house at the time, that was a few years away, but I had a floppy I could have counted on. As it was, I drank several litres of Diet Coke and just typed until I had run out of things to waffle on about and hit my word count – amazing training for my day job, as it turned out.

  I shut the laptop and headed next door, finding a tiny space on the sofa that somehow wasn’t occupied by Stacey’s spread-eagled body. For a scrawny woman, she seemed to have an enormous surface area, like a human pancake.

  “Anything good on?” I asked, not caring what she might say, just wanting to insinuate myself into the room without having to deliver the latest chapter in her life story or justify my artistic licence.

  Fat chance.

  She ignored me for the time it took for the pizza she had just ordered to arrive, sniggering at the screen instead, then, midway through her first slice, spoke.

  “Have I been born yet?”

  “Not yet, no,” I replied, picking pepperoni off my half and wondering whether she had deliberately ignored me when I told her I was vegetarian. I dabbed at the almost neon meat grease left behind with the solitary napkin provided by the delivery man.

  “So what are you writing about, then?”

  “I am still setting the scene,” I insisted, trying to find a section of molten mozzarella untouched by rendered animal fat.

  “How much setting does it need? A rich woman got pregnant and died and I was her daughter and I want my money.”

  “You don’t mean that,” I said, my mouth full. If she was going to be so crude, I wasn’t going to be on my best behaviour.

  “No, of course not, but that’s the gist, isn’t it?”

  “That you want your money?”

  “That I want my birthright recognised.”

  I wondered whether she had known that word a week earlier.

  “Well, I have to establish what your birthright is. I have to draw the reader in, let them know who your mother is, why she’s important and hence why you are important.”

  But how important is an heiress no-one remembers and a daughter no-one even knew she had, really? Stacey had been right the first time: she wanted her inheritance. I suspected if I told her there was a way to just get the money without having to go through the time-consuming hoo-haw of actually writing a book and have people read it, or at least the most interesting extracts, Stacey might take it. Maybe it wasn’t even about the money, maybe that was a handy distraction. Maybe it was all about the fame?

  “I cannot believe it is taking you so long.”

  In other words: ‘I am bored. Play with me. Write about me.’

  “Look, films aren’t shot on empty stages, they have to build scenery and dress the set, and that is what I am doing. I am taking the reader to Marrakech, introducing your parents, all of them, establishing their relationship, and then you will come into the picture and you can take over the storytelling. If no-one knows that stuff up front, it’s just a story about a baby girl being adopted, nothing special. Telling readers your mother was rich is not as effective as showing it. And the more they like your mother, the more awful her death and your separation will be. We’re not bashing out bullet points, we’re trying to persuade them of the heartache you have endured and the battle you face.”

  Stacey had glazed over for much of my monologue but was suddenly sharp.

  “What battle?”

  “To claim your inheritance.”

  “Why would there be a battle? It’s mine.”

  “Is it?”

  “Do you not believe me now?”

  “I don’t have to believe you, I’m not an executor of your mother’s estate.”

  “And what makes you think they won’t believe me?”

  “Why should they?”

  “Because of the book, for starters...”

  I slapped my pizza back in the box: “Anyone could write it.”

  “But no-one else knows...”

  “It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove. The burden of proof is on us.”

  “The certificates, they prove it!”

  “How? They show that your parents adopted a girl and a woman died. They don’t show an indelible link between the two events. We are creating a story that makes that link obvious, and therefore makes you her heir, but there is no actual proof.”

  “So we could write this book and it could all be waste of time?” Stacey looked like I’d assaulted her. “I can’t believe you’ve not mentioned any of this before...”

  “I can’t believe it’s not occurred to you before. Did you think you would rock up to the lawyers, hand them a signed copy of the book and get a cheque in return?”

  “Well, no, but I just thought...”

 
“Assumed.”

  “...That it would be obvious to people who knew her. If I am making it up...”

  “I’m not saying you are.”

  “...Then why has no-one else made it up first? If my mother has been missing for 35 years, why am I the first? People remember her, they make TV shows about her, you said, so why has no-one else done this? Because I know I am her daughter and people will see that I am telling the truth.”

  “Lie detectors are not admissible as evidence in most US states, so even if you manage to convince people you are telling the truth, it’s still not proof. You would need something like a DNA test to prove you were from that family.”

  Stacey still looked stricken. “But they are all dead now. I am the only one left...”

  “Estella was the only offspring of the marriage, as far as I know.”

  “...So how can I have a DNA test? They will just have to take my word for it.”

  It was an exhausting argument. “Wills don’t work that way. Even when people are named and their bloodlines are tested and accepted, wills can still be debated for years. Like in Bleak House – they debated a will for so long that when it was resolved all the money had been spent on the case and there was nothing left. The trustees, whoever they are, will not part with it quickly.”

  “Well all this seems pretty pointless then... I mean, what is in it for you?

  Good question. Assuaging my guilt, initially. But Stacey seemed totally over the whole Cady Stone incident. It was as if nothing had ever happened. Maybe, by the time we got back to London, Cady would have forgotten too and they would all live together again and we would go back to our old roles. So why was I doing it?

  “I believe you.”

  Did I? I wanted to, as they used to say in The X-Files. But the more I looked into the story, the less Stacey seemed to want to find out. It was like she knew she was the heroine of the story and that was all she needed to know. Others could struggle.

  “What if other people think I am a liar, that I have made it all up?”

  “That won’t happen. We are not hacking out a trashy autobiography, we are crafting the tragic tale of the richest girl in the world who never knew her mother...”

  “The richest girl in the world?”

  The merest mention of money seemed to stem Stacey’s self-pity.

  “Something like that. Who knows what money is even left?”

  “Left? Why would there not be anything left? I thought there were billions?”

  “Who knows? Some people say Louise hired private investigators to find her daughter, and that would have cost a lot. And she probably lived well, until she...”

  She is dead, isn’t she?

  I was suddenly unsure. Louise Dulac had become a recluse after Estella’s disappearance, like Dietrich and Garbo. But that didn’t mean she was actually dead. There must be plenty of rich old women too vain to let the world see their withered faces and frames by leaving the comfort of their homes. Was Louise Dulac one of them?

  Of course, if she was still alive, that sorted the issue of proving Stacey’s claim. How we would get her to agree to a DNA comparison test I didn’t know, but surely the prospect of seeing her only grandchild could get her to entertain a doctor for a moment or two for a quick swab of her gums?

  Infuriated at the thought her inheritance had already been spent, Stacey left the table and cranked the TV up, giving little thought to her grandmother’s mortality. Shouldn’t she be begging me to find out about her, to see if there was someone out there who shared enough chromosomes for her to cash in?

  Just meaning to check that the back-up email had arrived safely, I opened the laptop again to find a message from my picture editor:

  ‘Found something – scans to follow, but here are some snaps from my phone.’

  Attached were five black-and-white party pictures, just big enough to make out faces – or rather masks. It was a fancy-dress party, as we had hoped, but many guests weren’t in full-on costumes, just formal outfits with their faces covered.

  I didn’t recognise anyone unmasked but one woman caught my eye immediately. I didn’t know who she was but I knew who she looked like. And, like Stacey’s father, my first thought was Marlene Dietrich.

  “Stacey!” I shouted. “Come and look at this!”

  She trudged wearily back to the table, like an insolent teenager.

  “What.” She said the word as flatly as if reading it off an idiot board.

  “We need to confirm dates with the photographer but I think this is a picture from that Halloween party at...”

  Before I could finish, she had lifted the laptop off the table, yanking the power cable out of the side, and was holding it in front of her face, bathing herself in blue light as her eyes pinged around the screen.

  “This is her?” She was asking rather than asserting.

  “It fits with your father’s story, about thinking the girl was dressed as Marlene Dietrich? That is who she looks like, to the untrained eye.”

  “It is...” she murmured, scanning the picture into her memory. “I think it is.”

  “I don’t know who the other people in the picture are with her but...”

  “Them?” She almost laughed. “Don’t worry about them.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re just my parents.”

  “Are you sure? Absolutely sure? I mean, you can’t see their faces, so...”

  “I know those masks. Those horrible hand-carved African masks. They are one-of-a-kind. It’s not very clear on these pictures but there’s a scrape down the side of the one she’s wearing and the bit on his that looks like sun rays is this feather pattern.”

  She seemed to have solved her own problem.

  “If these people in the picture are your parents and if you can produce the masks as proof, it might help make your case stronger. Sometimes circumstantial evidence is all that is available, and this is pretty strong. A picture of your parents with, well, your birth mother, the masks – it’s pretty compelling. It certainly indicates a relationship.”

  Stacey looked triumphant.

  “Good,” she grinned. “I know exactly where they are.”

  (24) comments

  *****

  Daily Mirror, TUESDAY 12.10.2010

  SHH! Could it be that there’s a truce between a certain tell-all socializer and her blogger rival? The two have been at odds over the starlet’s supposed life story but they seem to have started backing up each other’s tall tales. Could the claims actually have credibility?