The Girl in the Red Dress

by Elaine Chong

  This earth-shattering piece of news is met with stunned silence but eventually he replies, “I honestly don’t know what to say. Maggie is Lena Bartok?”

  “Yes, Maggie is Lena Bartok. It’s hit Mummy really hard. She thought this woman was her friend. A ‘friend’ of all things! She’s been lying about who she is for twelve years, ingratiating herself into our family. You know I really don’t understand how you people operate over here,” I continue angrily. “When does someone, who you employ to clean your house, become someone you confide your problems to? It’s ridiculous! I tell you Richard, I’m absolutely fuming, yet Mummy tells me she’s hurt and disappointed.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” he says.

  “Why aren’t you angry?” I shout into the phone.

  His response is to tell me to calm down. “I agree it’s a bit of a shock, but perhaps this friendship has come about because of us.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m just saying, if we’d been there for her when she needed us then she wouldn’t have had to look to someone else for support. Maggie – I mean Lena Bartok – wouldn’t have had the opportunity to worm herself into Mum’s affections in the way that she has.”

  “She had Aggie! Aggie was her friend.”

  “Yes, and look how that’s turned out,” he replies glumly.

  “We have to confront the woman,” I tell him. “Find out exactly what she’s been up to.”

  “You’re right,” he says. “There’s definitely been something fishy going on. I’m busy this afternoon and tomorrow morning, but I can pick you up in the car around four o’clock tomorrow afternoon and we’ll have it out with her.”

  I’m thinking about marching straight over to the offices of Hutton Home Help and having it out with her right now so when I don’t immediately concur with this arrangement, he’s quick to insist, “You’re not to do anything until I can come with you. Are you listening to me, Julia? We don’t want to upset Mum more than she is already. This must have shaken her to the core.”

  Reluctantly, I give my agreement.

  Before he hangs up, Richard says, “You didn’t tell me how you found out about Maggie?” So, I explain how Mummy and I were searching the study; that someone had left the window open and a sudden gust of wind caused the picture of Lake Windermere to fall and break, revealing the portrait of Maggie hidden behind it. “Don’t you think that’s a bit strange?” he asks in rather a strained voice. “I mean … that’s quite a coincidence isn’t it? You searching the room, and then the picture falling down?”

  “I told you, it was a gust of wind.”

  “Are you sure?” he says. “The windows are all locked, Julia. I know because I locked them.”

  Richard

  I’ve found it hard to concentrate this morning after yesterday’s revelation about Maggie. Our new client kept throwing me worried looks. I think he must have sensed that I wasn’t really present at the meeting arranged to discuss the refurbishment of an old office block he bought last year.

  His plan to take out most of the internal walls and rebuild as luxury apartments has been rejected by the local authority for a second time; it wants affordable housing for local residents. He tells me over and over again it’s not financially viable, but it is. This is the problem with speculative investors: they hope to make a killing and are disappointed when it doesn’t work out.

  I tried my best to reason with him, but he was adamant: make some minor changes to the plans and resubmit.

  Well, it’s his money, I thought to myself.

  The meeting didn’t end till lunchtime, at which point I had another meeting with a happily satisfied client: the owner of our old friend Hotel Albatross. She was organizing a relaunch of the hotel and wanted to hand-deliver my invitation. It’s to be renamed ‘The Bed of Roses’, which goes a long way to explain the floral theme that finally found favour with her – though no doubt she’ll change her mind at some point, but that won’t be my problem.

  It’s nearly three o’clock before I leave the office and I’m hoping and praying that Julia hasn’t taken matters into her own hands, but I missed lunch and I don’t like running on empty so I grab a sandwich and a coffee ‘to go’ from the café at the corner of the street.

  Eating and drinking while driving isn’t the most sensible way to navigate a busy road and I know I’m going to be late, but it helps to prevent me from thinking too deeply about Maggie’s or rather Lena Bartok’s photograph hidden behind the picture of Lake Windermere (because it has to be Lena Bartok).

  It isn’t the fact that my father chose to have the photograph in the house, which preoccupies me – it’s just another example of his monstrous conceit. No, the thoughts, which crowd my head, relate to the finding of the photograph. I told Julia I thought that something ‘fishy’ was going on, but I didn’t want to tell her that our mother isn’t the only person who’s experienced strange phenomena. I realise now that it started more than two weeks ago when I was sitting in the kitchen and heard noises overhead – that’s when I first discovered my mother had closed up Julia’s bedroom. Was I led to the room in the same way that I was led to the garage? And what happened on Sunday evening? Well, I know what I saw and what I saw was a woman in a red dress, but could it really have been a ghostly manifestation of Aggie leading me to Julia’s bedroom once again?

  My mind is still reeling with the possibilities when I finally pull onto the drive at Hillcrest.

  Julia must have been looking out for me because she’s already walking out of the house before I have a chance to even open the door. She climbs into the front seat of the car and says a little breathlessly, “I persuaded Mummy to take an early rest. I just popped upstairs to check on her and she’s sleeping. She was still very upset this morning – she wanted me to phone Maggie and ask her to come over.”

  “I hope you didn’t do that,” I say.

  “Of course, I didn’t…” She stops suddenly, and I can almost hear the cogs and wheels grinding while she works out if it’s worth bearing the consequences of admitting that she has done something I won’t approve. From the corner of my eye I see her glance at my face. I know what she’s thinking: Is it worth it? I hear her take a readying breath before she says in a low voice, “I did phone her just now. There’s no point driving over there if she’s not in,” she quickly adds. “I told her we want to speak to her about Mummy. I didn’t say when, I just asked if we could make an appointment to see her. She said she’s free Friday morning.”

  “I really wish you hadn’t,” I tell her.

  “Well, at least now she won’t be expecting us, and she doesn’t know we’ve discovered her real identity.”

  “Okay, okay,” I say. “Let’s hope she’s still there.”

  Thanks to the traffic, it’s nearly five o’clock when we reach the offices of Hutton Home Help. The sun has disappeared behind a bank of dark clouds and it feels like night is already drawing in. Someone is still working because bright light illuminates the interior. Maggie isn’t visible through the glass panel in the door, but when I open the door and walk in, I can see her speaking to someone on the phone.

  When she sees us, she doesn’t hang up immediately, but she turns her head away, mutters something in a low, insistent voice. She ends the conversation abruptly with, “Tot later. Dag.” She turns back to us, unsmiling, almost angry. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

  I look around for a second chair and invite Julia to sit down. I know she’s primed and ready to launch a verbal attack, but I want to keep the conversation calm. We won’t achieve anything by anyone losing their temper.

  Maggie looks at us enquiringly. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  Addressing us like two naughty children is an interesting gambit under the circumstances and it immediately provokes Julia to say, “You’ve got some cheek.”

  I lay a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Let me handle this.” I can’t think of any easy way to start t
his conversation, so I cut straight to the chase. “Maggie, we know who you really are.”

  For a brief moment her face registers unhappy surprise, but she quickly recovers. “I wondered how long it would take you to find out. Your mother told me you wanted her to move so I guessed it wouldn’t be long before you spoke to her solicitor. How did you make the connection? Between Maggie and Magdalena?”

  “We found a photograph. A professional portrait of you in a white evening dress. It was on the wall of dad’s study.”

  She shakes her head. “I know that’s not true.”

  “It is true!” Julia jumps in. “It was hidden behind the picture of Lake Windermere.”

  Maggie’s eyes widen. “It was there? All this time?”

  “As you can imagine, this has been quite a shock for all of us, but especially for our mother,” I continue in a calm voice, but Julia has other ideas.

  “How could you do that?” she shrieks at Maggie. “Pretend to be her friend. All this while she’s trusted you, confided in you, and you’re … you’re … you’re a liar and a cheat!”

  Maggie’s response is to immediately place her hand over her heart. “I never lied to her. I swear it.”

  “But you didn’t tell her that you’re Lena Bartok,” I point out.

  “How could I tell her that?” she flings back at me. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what it was like for me when George died.”

  “I know it wasn’t easy. I know you lost your home,” I say.

  She nods. “Miriam told me she spoke to you. Did she tell you I had to leave her with her grandparents?”

  “Yes, and I know she wasn’t happy there.”

  A look of pain and sadness sweeps across her face. “She became hysterical when I left her that first time. She was ten years old. She knew what ‘death’ meant. She knew she’d never see her father again, and then I went away. Can you imagine how that was for her?”

  It’s a rhetorical question and one I couldn’t answer even if I wanted to, but the tension in the room is rising minute by minute and her polished English accent is slowly dissolving.

  “Why didn’t you bring Miriam back with you?”

  She doesn’t hesitate to answer. “Because it was impossible. I knew I couldn’t live in the house any longer. I only had a part-time job, so I had to find a second job, find somewhere to live. Later … when I take over this business … she doesn’t want to come back. She’s not happy in Urk with my parents but she has friends, she has a new life. Only now, now she wants to live with me again.”

  “What about my mother?” Julia says sullenly. “It’s a great sob story that you’ve just told us, but it doesn’t explain what you did to her.”

  A pleading note enters Maggie’s voice. “You have to understand, George told me many things about Lenora, he said…”

  I interrupt her. “He told you that she wouldn’t agree to a divorce, didn’t he?”

  Maggie nods.

  “But that wasn’t true.”

  She closes her eyes for a brief moment and when she opens them tears threaten to spill down her cheeks.

  Julia has been watching her intently all this time and she seems unmoved by this overt display of emotion. “You still haven’t explained why you insinuated your way into our mother’s life.”

  Maggie pulls a tissue from her desk drawer and slowly, carefully dries her eyes. It’s enough time to restore her composure and answer Julia’s question in a quiet, measured tone. She says, “I know it looks bad, but I was thinking of my daughter and her future. I only found out that George had left the house to Miriam and not to you, after he died.”

  “I don’t believe you!” Julia exclaims angrily.

  “I didn’t know before that,” Maggie insists. “When I found out …” She looks up at me and once again her eyes shine with emotion. “I hadn’t met your mother then. I didn’t realise how unhappy…” She leaves the sentence unfinished and straightens her shoulders. “I knew she had someone from Hutton Home Help cleaning for her – George used to complain about the cost. I got work with them and after a few months they let me work at Hillcrest. I thought I could…” She hesitates.

  “Keep an eye on Miriam’s inheritance. Make sure that it wasn’t sold off or passed on to someone else without you finding out?”

  She inclines her head just a fraction but it’s enough to confirm that my accusation is correct. “I realise that George wasn’t the man I thought he was,” she goes on. “And I know that Lenora is a kind, caring person. I should have told her the truth.”

  “You should have told her,” I say. “Especially now that Miriam seems to think she can turn her out of the house.”

  “Miriam didn’t mean to…” she begins, but then she realises that this is an admission of some unnamed guilt.

  Of course, she doesn’t want to incriminate her own daughter, but I don’t want to play good cop bad cop in order to find out if Miriam has already acted to have my mother removed from Hillcrest, so I try to appeal to her good nature. “I know you care about my mother – she thinks of you as a friend – but you need to tell us what Miriam has done. What did she do, Maggie?”

  When Maggie answers her voice trembles and she looks away. “She wanted to see the house for herself so one day, when I knew Lenora was going to be away, I brought her with me. It was just a natural curiosity, and nobody needed to find out. It did no harm and it made Miriam happy.”

  I’ve spent the last ten minutes watching Maggie fall apart and gather herself together again, but she can’t conceal her emotions which is how I know that she’s still keeping something from us. I can’t think what it might be and then I remember how she reacted when I told her about the garage, and it hits me. “She’s been inside the house more recently, hasn’t she?”

  Maggie’s face crumples. “She stole the key from the safe and made a copy of it.”

  Julia can barely contain her fury. She moves to the edge of the chair and speaks directly into Maggie’s face. “Are you saying she could get into the house whenever she wanted?”

  Maggie recoils in fear. “She didn’t really want to hurt Lenora. She just wants to have the house. I had no idea when I told her all about Aggie, about the red dress … I couldn’t know that she’d use it to do what she did.”

  “What was she doing?” Julia shouts.

  I grasp my sister’s shoulder and pull her back into her seat. “Just calm down, Julia.” I turn to Maggie. “When did you find out?”

  “Your mother showed me a perfume bottle – Aggie’s perfume. And then the family photographs… I guessed what Miriam had been doing and how she’d been doing it. I told her it had to stop. I took the key from her and I thought that would be the end of it.”

  “Then I told you about the garage,” I say. “And the broken glass. That was her?”

  “That was Miriam?” Julia demands. “Every weird thing that’s been happening in the house was Miriam?”

  Maggie doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to because the expression in her eyes betrays her.

  “I have to ask you this, Maggie,” I say. “Did Miriam push Mum down the stairs?”

  “No!”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I know because she was here with me,” she insists. “That was the day I told her I was going to your mother’s house to tell her what Miriam had done: the perfume bottle, the writing on the mirror, the photographs, the red dress … everything, everything … so Lenora wouldn’t be frightened any more. I told Miriam the house would be hers, but she must be patient.”

  “She was here when you left?” I ask her.

  “No, she left before me, but I went straight to Hillcrest.”

  “She could have got there before you. Got in through the garage. Where is she now? Do you know?”

  “She didn’t tell me...”

  Julia has been listening to this exchange with rapt attention. “You told her we were here in the office with you, didn’t you?” She turns to me and the look o
f fear in her eyes is mirrored in my own quaking heart. “That means she knows that Mummy’s alone in the house, Richard.”

  I close my eyes for a moment and a picture of Miriam fills my mind. She is my father at his ruthless, heartless worst. “My mother told me that a woman in a red dress with long dark hair pushed her down the stairs. She saw her, Maggie. Miriam pushed her down the stairs.”

  Lenora

  Today has been a day of quiet contemplation for me, but not for Julia. After yesterday’s bombshell she’s been crashing about the house, turning out cupboards and searching through sundry drawers because she’s convinced herself that she’ll find something that will ‘convict’ Maggie. I asked her what Maggie was guilty of and she told me, “Lies and duplicity.”

  When I said that lying isn’t really a punishable crime, she became quite cross.

  The strange thing is, I don’t feel that Maggie has lied to me because she’s always spoken openly about her life – at least the life she’s lived since George died. Of course, she never referred to her daughter’s father as ‘your husband’, but she did tell me he was killed in a car accident and that for many years afterwards their young daughter had to live with her grandparents in a small, fishing town in the Netherlands. I had all the pieces of the puzzle in front of me; I just didn’t put them together.

  The even stranger thing is that I don’t think Maggie really is Lena Bartok anymore. At least, she’s not the Lena Bartok whose photograph was hidden behind a picture in George’s study. I fear that radiantly beautiful young woman was very much like the young Lenora, who was once captivated by a handsome man’s charm and then bitterly disappointed when she discovered the truth about him. I’m sure he promised her a wonderful life and, though it pains me to admit it, he might even have loved her – as far as a man who thinks only of himself can truly love another – but it doesn’t change the fact that when he died he left her only debt and despair. At least I still had a roof over my head.