The Girl in the Red Dress

by Elaine Chong

  “Perhaps she’s just lost interest,” I say. “Or maybe she can’t manage it anymore?”

  “What about the house then?”

  “What about the house? She’s still got … what’s her name … Maggie, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but that’s something else that’s bothering me. I swear Maggie knows what’s been going on.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “Of course! But she said that Mum doesn’t confide in her.”

  “I don’t suppose she does,” I say. “I can’t imagine confiding anything to any one of the people who Colin and I employ – not even the name and number of my manicurist.”

  “It’s not like that here,” Richard says sharply.

  “What’s wrong with the house then?” I say. He looks away, rearranges the cutlery with one hand and scratches the back of his head with the other. Patience has never been one of my strengths, and my blood sugar levels are now running dangerously low, so it doesn’t surprise me when I find myself barking at him, “For God’s sake, Richard, spit it out!”

  He finally finds the courage to meet my eyes. “She locked your bedroom door.”

  “So?”

  “So, it hasn’t been cleaned since ... I don’t know, probably last year judging by the depth of the dust that’s accumulated.”

  “Only my room?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is strange.”

  Richard doesn’t respond immediately and there’s definitely something shifty in his expression. I haven’t seen my brother very frequently over the last thirty-odd years that I’ve lived in Singapore, but I recognise that look. “What are you hiding from me?” He does the same routine with the cutlery, but this time he swivels the plate round and adjusts the position of the wine glass. “Good grief!” I explode at him. “I hope you don’t cheat on Silvio, because poker-faced you ... are ... not!”

  “I was hoping to avoid telling you.”

  “I think we’re done with that, don’t you Richard?” I say, sarcasm oozing from every syllable.

  “Okay. According to Maggie, Mum nursed Aggie for the last few weeks of her life in your bedroom. And she died there, in your bed.”

  “Oh. I see. Well, I can understand why you didn’t want to tell me that,” I reply, because I’m not a squeamish sort of person, but the idea of anyone breathing their last breath between my sheets does fill me with a certain distaste.

  I can still remember Aggie quite well even though she wasn’t a regular visitor to the house. My father had taken against her for reasons, which were never fully explained, but I know that whenever her name came up in conversation with my mother, an odd look passed over his face; on reflection, the same look I just saw on Richard’s face. Daddy had probably made a pass at her – something he was more than capable of doing after a few drinks – because she was a nice looking woman: tall, slim, pale-skinned with dark brown hair and pretty blue eyes, although the thing I remember most clearly about her was the perfume she always wore: Je Reviens. She once showed me the blue glass bottle it came in and sprayed some onto my wrist. It smelt like summer.

  “I really didn’t want to tell you,” Richard goes on, “because I know what you’re like and...”

  “I’m not the hysterical, teenage sister you remember from your youth,” I interrupt him. “I’m a grown woman, and in any case I have absolutely no intention of sleeping there when I’m already staying in a nice hotel with room service.”

  “But when Mum is discharged?”

  “I’m still not moving in.”

  I know Richard is ready to argue the issue. I see the way his mouth compresses into a thin, angry line, but I’m saved by Silvio: he swings through the fire door with three plates balanced precariously on one arm and a bottle of wine tucked neatly under the other.

  “Mangiamo! Let’s eat,” he calls out.

  “Lovely,” I say. “And just in time. Richard was priming himself to launch into a lecture. Something I don’t need.”

  “Lecture?” Silvio enquires with a frown.

  “About me staying with my mother at Hillcrest when she comes out of hospital?”

  He rounds on Ricardo. “Of course, Julia is going to stay there. What were you thinking of?” He offers me an unwavering smile and says, “We eat and then you go and see your mamma. I know you can’t wait.”

  Richard

  After lunch, when Julia has excused herself to go to the bathroom, I tell Silvio, “You’re positively Machiavellian. Did you see the look on her face when you told her you know she can’t wait to see Mum?”

  “Niccolò Machiavelli was diplomat, Ricardo.”

  “I thought he was an evil genius?”

  “Non è vero!”

  “Well, you are a genius. Although she’s still going to take some convincing to stay over at Hillcrest now that I’ve told her about the bedroom.”

  He reaches for my hand, brings it to his mouth and slowly wraps his tongue around my index finger. “You taste of pizza.” He licks his lips. “Pomodoro e basilico.” He suddenly makes a face. “You need more salt.”

  “I blame the chef.”

  He looks aghast. “I’m the chef!”

  “Well, you need to shape up,” I tease him. “Or I’ll be taking my custom elsewhere.”

  He leans in to kiss me, but Julia suddenly appears, and he pulls back. “Are you ready to leave?” he asks her with another winning smile.

  My sister is stony-faced in response. The cheerful expression she struggled to maintain throughout the lunch has been abandoned, wiped away from her lovely mouth with the last traces of Linguine Carbonara alla Bocca Felice. She says, “You know, I have a terrible headache. It’s probably the red wine. I think I might just go back to the hotel.”

  “No!” Silvio exclaims loudly. “I will drive you both to the hospital. It’s no trouble.”

  “I’d really rather go straight back to the hotel,” she says.

  Silvio leaps to his feet and gathers her into his arms. “Oh, poverina, mi dispiace tanto. I’m so sorry, poor Julia. Come. I give you some nice, cold ice water to drink and you take an aspirin. You’ll be fine.”

  I watch her hesitate; watch her rapidly sum up the possibilities of persuading Silvio that today really isn’t the best day to visit her ailing mother, but I think she knows he won’t be diverted by feeble excuses. She sighs loudly, and he simply kisses the top of her head and leads her back to the bathroom.

  Silvio insists that everything is left on the table to be cleared away later, but just as we’re leaving, he’s called to a crisis in the restaurant kitchen downstairs. I take the car key from him, but he accompanies us to the car. “Give my love to your mother,” he tells Julia. “She will be so happy to see you.”

  Julia manages a tight-lipped smile in response, but as soon as we drive away, she says, “Take me back to the hotel, Richard, I really do have a headache. You know I struggle to deal with our mother when she’s compos mentis. I can’t talk to her if she’s lost the plot.”

  A surge of anger washes over me. This is typical of Julia: selfish to the end. How Colin has lived with her all these years is beyond me, but I think he’s always treated her with the same paternal indulgence that my father did. Julia only had to say the words ‘Please, Daddy, darling,’ and the chequebook was on the desk; the car keys were laid on the table; misdemeanours dismissed with a wave of the hand. That’s why she always struggled with our mother: because she saw through Julia; she recognised self-serving manipulation where our father only saw smiling entreaty.

  I rein in my temper and tell her bluntly, “We’re going to the hospital. We don’t have to stay long, but if Mum does have dementia then the sooner you get used to it the better, because we’re both going to have some difficult decisions to make if she can’t live at Hillcrest on her own.”

  Julia turns her face away from me and looks out of the window. She says in a quiet voice, “I’m never coming back here to live, Richard. Even if Colin decides he wants to leave Singapore
, I’m not leaving, and I’m not being made responsible for our mother either. I don’t care what you say; I don’t care what you think of me. I’m only interested in what happens to our family home.”

  Anger swells in my chest once again. “Let me get this straight, just so we understand one another; just so that we’re on the same page. You only came back here to claim your inheritance?”

  Her head swivels round, and she says defiantly, “What’s wrong with that? I only want what’s rightfully mine. I need that money!”

  “Since when?”

  Her voice is full of raw emotion when she replies. “Since I decided to divorce Colin.”

  So, that’s it.

  I suddenly realise I don’t want to know the whys and the wherefores of this decision – Julia’s private life can remain her own concern – but I still care enough about her to want to make her understand that she’s heading down a road marked ‘no entry’ if she thinks she can contest our father’s last will and testament.

  At the first opportunity, I pull over to the side of the road and still the engine.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  Yet again, I find myself assuming the role of the older brother: I want to protect her – if only from her own selfish desires. “Look, Julia, I’m not interested in your problems with Colin.” I take a deep, calming breath; prepare myself for the backlash. “If you’ve been banking on getting money from the proceeds of the sale of Hillcrest then you’re going to be disappointed. You can’t contest the will. It’s too late. You don’t have a right to anything from Dad’s estate. The will might not be fair, but it’s legal.”

  “It can’t be!” she cries.

  “I’m sorry, but it is.”

  “There has to be some way...”

  “There isn’t.”

  I realise I’ve been anticipating an outburst of hysterical fury from her, so I’m struck with wordless surprise when she doesn’t scream her frustration into my face the way she used to do. Instead she takes a paper tissue from her bag, carefully wipes her eyes and blows her nose then leans back in the seat and closes her eyes. She says in a low voice, “I suppose I might as well tell you – even if you’re not really interested – but I’ve been involved with someone else for about eight years. Colin doesn’t know ... well, I thought he didn’t, but now ... I don’t know.” She opens her eyes and blinks back tears. “I can’t stay with him, Richard. We make each other miserable. He wants to retire in a few years, come back here and buy a cottage in the country, and I can’t do it. Suffolk, for crying out loud! What am I going to do in Suffolk?”

  “If you get a divorce then surely money shouldn’t be an issue?”

  “It will be. For me, at least. We don’t own our apartment: we accept a generous living allowance from the company. Colin has money invested, but I have nothing in my name except the gallery and that won’t me allow me to live in Singapore, at least not the way that I want to. I don’t wish Mummy dead, obviously I don’t, but I’ve been thinking of Hillcrest as my ... I don’t know ... my eventual escape route, I suppose. I don’t understand why Daddy would do this. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Which bit doesn’t make sense? That he decided not to leave us anything, or that he had a second family?”

  She looks thoughtful, and I can actually see in her face that she’s considering which part of this conundrum pains her the most. Eventually she says, “If I’m being completely honest, it’s the fact that he left us nothing. I mean ... even if he was seriously involved with someone else for years and had a child with her, he was still married to Mummy; we’re still his children.” She turns her face towards me and asks with complete sincerity, “What did we do to deserve this?”

  As her eyes meet mine, I wonder how long it will take her to recognise that this was the wrong answer. And it does take her several minutes of increasingly awkward silence to realise that I’m not responding with resounding agreement. When it does sink in she demands, “Well, what did you expect me to say?”

  “I hoped that for once in your life you might think about someone other than yourself. He had a second family, Julia. He didn’t just have a bit on the side, he had a second home with another woman, who effectively lived as his wife, and they had a child together.” She opens her mouth to interrupt, but I put up my hand to stop her. “Let me finish. I don’t think he left Hillcrest to this other daughter, this Miriam, because he didn’t care about us – not about you, anyway. I think he did it to punish Mum, and I know that sounds mad, but I think it was his way of making sure that she continued to live her life in thrall to him. So that she had nothing of her own; so that he still had all the power.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Is it? They might have lived under the same roof, but they lived separate lives. Mum never knew where he was, what he was doing or who he was with. Why didn’t he just leave her? He could have paid her off and then he would have been free of her, but he chose not to.”

  Naturally Julia jumps to his defence but she clearly isn’t thinking when she says, “She could have left him if she wasn’t happy.” No sooner have the words been uttered than the significance of them hits home and her face burns, I think with shame as well as embarrassment.

  “This act of malice wasn’t about you,” I say quietly. “This was about our mother.”

  I restart the engine, wait for a pause in the flow of traffic then pull out into the road. Julia goes back to looking out of the window, and we spend the rest of the journey in ruminative silence.

  I don’t know why I’m surprised to find the car park full to overflowing on a Sunday afternoon when we get to the hospital. We have to queue, and then we have to wait until someone leaves, before we can park the car. The anticipated outburst of impatience from Julia doesn’t manifest itself until we’re walking into the hospital itself.

  She says, “I don’t know why I let you drag me here. It’s taken us nearly an hour. I really do have a headache, you know, so don’t expect me to play the kind, caring daughter for too long.”

  “Mum wouldn’t recognise you if you did.”

  “She might not recognise me anyway,” she says and sticks out her tongue at me.

  We’re buzzed into the ward and I lead Julia straight to the room where I last saw my mother, but she’s not there anymore. Another even more elderly and bewildered-looking woman is lying in the bed. She starts to cry when she sees us.

  Julia looks horrified and quickly backs out of the room.

  “They must have moved her,” I say. “Wait here and I’ll check where she is.”

  Julia grabs my elbow. “Don’t leave me on my own. I’m coming with you.”

  The nurse at the reception desk checks the whiteboard on the wall behind her and informs us that Mrs Oakley has been moved to bed eight in the side ward at the end of the corridor. We find her sitting up in bed and her face breaks into a delighted smile when she sees Julia.

  “What a wonderful surprise,” she says.

  Immediately Julia replies, “You sound like you weren’t expecting me.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  I stoop to kiss her cheek and she reaches up and touches my face very gently. “It’s so good to see you again.”

  Julia continues to stand at the foot of the bed. She glances over her shoulder, her gaze resting briefly on each of the other elderly women on the ward. She passes her small handbag from one hand to the other; shifts her weight from side to side; tries to form her mouth into an attractive smile every time her gaze returns to our mother’s face, but the effort of trying to look like the caring daughter is hard to sustain. At last she sinks onto the end of the bed, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “We’re not going to stay very long,” I say. “Julia only arrived yesterday evening and she’s a bit jet-lagged.”

  My mother nods her head in response. Her eyes look bright, but not feverishly so. I notice that the tubes, which were attached to her hand and her abdomen, have now been removed and she defin
itely seems more comfortable.

  “How are you?” I ask her.

  She points to her hip. “I’ve got the mother of all bruises there where they sliced me open, but I’m feeling more like my old self.” She turns to Julia, “It’s so lovely to see you, dear. Although it really wasn’t necessary for you to rush back here.”

  “Richard insisted,” Julia says then her mouth snaps shut again.

  This juvenile attitude irritates beyond measure, but I ignore it for my mother’s sake. I say, “I just told Julia we might have to make some changes to your living arrangements. I mean ... if you’re going to struggle to live on your own at Hillcrest ... well, then we might have to...”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” she says abruptly. “I suppose you’ve told Julia that the house isn’t mine?”

  Before I have a chance to reply, Julia jumps in. “Why didn’t you contest the will?”

  My mother looks surprised at this sudden turn in the conversation and I’m stung into asking, “Do we really have to do this now?”

  “But I want to know,” Julia insists. She turns back to our mother. “When you found out what he’d done, why didn’t you do something about it? You do know it’s probably too late now, don’t you?”

  “I do know,” our mother says. “But you have to realise, Julia, there were so many other things to think about at the time, not least of which was the fact that your father had been knocked down by someone, who then drove off and left him dying on the side of the road. Do you know the police investigated me?”

  This is yet another piece of information she’s kept to herself, and now I can’t help wondering what other closeted skeletons are waiting to reveal themselves. I realise I want to ask her about the bungalow, but one look at Julia’s face confirms that now isn’t going to be the best time.

  Julia hasn’t finished being crass and insensitive and exclaims loudly, “What did you expect? As soon as they found out that Daddy was involved with someone else, you would have been the prime suspect.”