Lost Girl

by J. C. Grey

  That evening, I sit at the kitchen table, my empty soup bowl pushed aside and the pendant lights casting an intimate circle of light. I flick through the photographs repeatedly, wishing I could print them and spread them out on the table, scrutinising them for imperfections, identifying opportunities for improvement.

  It strikes me that the pared-back elegance of the rooms would make striking backdrops for a fashion shoot. My friend Claire, the fashion designer, would be in seventh heaven. I can see her deceptively simple creations here: an ivory camisole draped over a kitchen chair, billowy Bedouin pants on a padded hanger hooked lazily over a window frame, a lacy bustier looped over the newel post. But I do not want her here. I do not want anyone here.

  As I ready for bed—brushing, flossing and Listerine-ing—I stare at my reflection. The shadows are already less evident; either that or I am so used to them I don’t see them. I realise the space, the silence is what I need, and what I didn’t have before—what I craved without knowing it. Here, I need please no one but myself. I can put aside the grief to examine at a time when its bite is not so savage, or maybe not examine it at all. I imagine boxing it up, pushing the lid firmly down and tying tough brown string around it, then placing the box in the sealed cupboard or room or whatever lies beyond the locked door. It is close but not too close, there but not here.

  Only at night does the door open, silently, letting grief roam free and unfettered, seeking out the dark places …

  I push the thought aside and settle down on the chaise in the dark, not yet sleepy despite my soup-warmed belly. Rather than think about locked doors, dark cupboards and sealed boxes of sorrow, I think about the photographs, and about angles and light and interiors and swathes of fabric fluttering in the breeze from an open window …

  Morning comes rudely, or at least I am suddenly alive to it. Immediately, I sense that something is missing but it takes a moment for brain to catch up with instinct. Then I put my hands to my face, which is free of tears or the salty remains. As my eyes look towards the light that sneaks in through the shutters, the doorbell clangs and I jump, my heart following a moment later.

  Marc has found me.

  On bare feet, robe untied and billowing behind me, I race up the stairs and peer from the narrow window that overlooks the front drive. I dare not attempt to open it for fear the sound will give me away. From here, I cannot see the front door, but I can see a car parked next to the Audi. It is white and conservative. Not Marc, then. I do not want to think about how this makes me feel.

  The bell jangles again, but by the time I get downstairs and turn the big key in the lock, she has turned away, having given up. It is Viking Val, the real estate agent. She spins as she hears the creak of the door, her face settling smoothly into the professional smile of her trade.

  ‘Hello!’ she says with robust cheer. ‘I thought you must be out gardening or walking on such a lovely morning.’ She takes in my dishevelled state. ‘I hope I haven’t woken you.’

  ‘No,’ is all I can manage, suddenly gripped by the feeling I am about to be turfed out on my ear. I grab the edge of the door, just in case she plans to drag me from the house here and now, although this is unlikely. Val is more one for lawyers and bailiffs, I suspect.

  Her eyes are now focused on the vestibule and I realise she expects to be invited in, but a flutter of fear ripples through me. My feeling is that it would be like inviting the enemy inside the gates, which is ridiculous, especially as she is now digging into her bag—one of those brands whose commitment to genuine leather is one-hundredth of a millimetre thick—and pulling out a sheaf of papers.

  ‘Sally forgot to give you the lease to sign,’ she is saying.

  She hands them to me and I take them wordlessly, my mind a whirling dervish of confusion, fear and relief that leaves me speechless. When I realise my arm is still outstretched to take the papers, long after my fingers have clasped them, I shake myself together.

  ‘Sorry.’ I manage a smile to match hers. ‘I overslept. Would you like to come in?’

  She walks up the steps towards me. I have an urge to slam the door before she can step inside but I am too late. I close it softly and as we stand in the shadows she appears somewhat diminished. At least, I am no longer afraid of what she might do.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, staring around, a look of surprise on her face. ‘It’s nicer than I remembered.’

  Of course, I immediately start to wonder if she means to increase the paltry rent, but she hasn’t finished.

  ‘It’s amazing what a difference a few simple touches can make.’ Now, that could have sounded like an estate agent trying to offload a lemon, but Val’s eyes are on the sprigs of wild jasmine and mint curling from a jar on the table that I moved from the library to the foyer for my photo shoot, and—through the open drawing room doors—to the chaise-bed with the dove-grey waffle-weave picnic rug tossed over the end.

  ‘Perhaps, the kitchen,’ I say, dragging her gaze away. I am less in evidence in the kitchen, I hope. As soon as I sign her papers, she will have no reason to stay.

  Yet she seems just as charmed by the kitchen with the soup bowl upturned on the drainer, and two blue-striped tea towels draped over the bench. A small bowl of eggs sits centre-table because their organic shape appeals to me.

  ‘Clever,’ Val murmurs, handing me a pen and walking to the windowsill where a row of late-season plums catch the morning sun. She turns and I know she watches me as I sign the papers. My hair falls over my face, concealing my expression, as I realise she no longer has control of this encounter.

  She wants to ask me what my intentions are, I know, but is trying to get the framing right. So I plunge in with a question of my own.

  ‘How long has the house been empty?’

  Startled, she can’t quite hide the truth in her eyes before I see a fragment of it. ‘Oh, quite some time.’ She waves a hand to indicate a time period somewhere between a month and a century. ‘It became too much for the elderly couple who owned it. After that, there was an attempt to convert it for commercial use—possibly more than one—but …’ She shrugs. ‘It’s rather off the beaten track.’

  ‘When was this?’ I press.

  ‘Well, before I moved to Lammermoor,’ she says. ‘And that was … thirteen years ago. Good Lord, time flies.’

  She knows more than this—much more—but is unwilling to be drawn. It surprises me as I had her pegged as someone who uses gossip as currency. I hand the papers to her and add some pressure.

  ‘And the family? Do they still own the house?’

  Something moves behind her eyes. ‘No. It’s been owned by a financial corporation for thirty years or so.’

  I frown, wondering why a bank would let an investment like this moulder away untenanted for thirteen years or more. Marc would not approve. An investment that doesn’t work for you is not an investment, it’s a ball and chain, he would say.

  Too late, I realise my distraction has cost me the chance to dig further. Val is shouldering her cheap yet capacious bag and making to leave.

  ‘We can set up an automatic debit for the rent, if you prefer,’ she says as I trail after her. ‘You don’t have to come into the shop each month.’

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ I tell her as we pause by the front door.

  ‘All right, Mrs Reed-McAllister.’ As she says my name, heavily mascaraed lashes drop and I realise she has worked out who I am, and is weighing up the value of the information.

  ‘Just Reed. I’m glad I found Lammermoor House,’ I say. ‘With the high walls, it feels very private.’

  Again, something flickers in her eyes that makes me certain her thoughts are different from what she is about to say. Nevertheless, she has not missed my meaning. ‘I understand,’ she says and walks through the door.

  I stand there uncertainly, watching her drive towards the gates, and wonder if she will blow my cover. Probability says not; she has a business to run and I am renting her white elephant. But just in case, I lock the
front door from inside.

  August the year before last …

  Winter falls softly outside the window of Marc’s warehouse apartment. In the half-light of late afternoon, we sprawl lazily on the long suede couch. A log fire burns low in the hearth. Despite the open-plan space, it feels intimate. I have rearranged the furniture from its summer floor plan to make it so. It made Marc smile and shake his head, but he didn’t stop me.

  His fingers twine through mine and he raises our clasped hands to the meagre light, while his other hand strokes languidly down my spine. Everything in me stills with the realisation I am happy. Not in the scream-yourself-silly sense but in the quiet knowledge that there is nothing I would change about this moment. I am almost stunned at the realisation. Is it true? I do not ever remember a time when I was not thinking ahead to my next move. Yet now I want time to stop and this moment to last forever.

  Marc chooses the moment to shatter my peace.

  Looking at our raised left hands, he says, ‘We should get married—’

  It takes a moment for his words, their meaning, to make any kind of sense. Then, terrified out of my wits, I am off the couch and across the room before he can finish. I stand, shivering, by the fire, arms clasped around my middle. How long would it take me to reach the door? On my trembling, unsteady legs, would I make it before he stopped me?

  He sits up slowly on the couch, seemingly untroubled by my abrupt departure. ‘As I was saying, we should get married … next month.’

  A terrible situation has just worsened. I do not like watershed moments that I have not instigated. One moment, I was content and in control; now I am off balance and trying to recover my wits as he adds a deadline to his declaration. It’s not fair. No, more than that. He is being utterly unreasonable.

  ‘Why?’ I eventually stutter.

  ‘I don’t think giving you time to dwell is a good idea.’

  ‘Not why next month, I mean why at all?’ I clarify.

  ‘You know why,’ he replies, those fallen angel eyes on my face. And the truth is I do. The reason is in our every touch, our every look. It has been so from the moment we locked eyes across the crowded gallery, and nothing—not even his exposure to me twenty-four seven since I moved in six weeks ago—has succeeded in crushing it.

  I am appalled by his recklessness, and begin to list all the reasons it is a bad idea. It is a long list that starts with the fact that he knows nothing about me. His lack of knowledge is because I am expert at diverting conversations as they approach treacherous territory.

  ‘I assume you’ll tell me in your own time,’ is his reasoned response.

  ‘I could be a …’ I am trying to find the magic word that will cause him to drop this insane idea. Inspiration strikes. ‘I know, a bigamist! Yes, a bigamist with a whole string of husbands.’ I sneak a look at his face. His eyes are alight with humour, which is not the desired result. Despite this, I can’t help myself. ‘Some alive … and some who have expired in mysterious circumstances.’

  ‘Are you?’ he enquires with a quirk of an eyebrow.

  ‘Well, no. Of course not.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘The point is, you don’t know what you’re taking on. I might have been to jail for fraud or money laundering. Imagine what that would do to your reputation!’

  ‘Em, I’ve never even seen you look at a bank statement. You told me you were financially illiterate.’

  ‘It could be my cover.’ I tighten my arms around my waist, feeling this whole conversation getting away from me.

  ‘But it’s not.’

  ‘No,’ I mutter. ‘I’ve never been to jail.’

  ‘Well then,’ he says again, his face calm. ‘What is it about your past you’re afraid of?’

  ‘I’m not afraid of it. It’s just irrelevant. Boring.’ The sensation of being trapped in rising flood waters is overwhelming, and a bigger part of me that I want to admit would risk drowning to find out where this leads.

  He smiles victoriously. ‘There we are then. If it’s irrelevant, there’s nothing preventing our marriage.’

  In desperation, I air a few other reasons, each more poorly articulated than the last. When I reach ‘your mother hates me’, he gets up, goes to his study area, opens a drawer, comes back and stands in front of me.

  A small vintage ring box of faded olive green velvet is in his hand.

  ‘Don’t.’ Childishly, I clasp my hands behind my back. ‘Your mother does hate me.’

  It’s true. Yvette McAllister is haughty, well bred and half French. She recognises peasant stock when she sees it and has no problem letting me know she knows.

  Marc shrugs. ‘I know, but she has no say in this.’

  I suck in a breath at this bold statement, but there is a light of almost holy invincibility shining in Marc’s eyes.

  ‘She’ll make your life hell.’ It is costing everything I have not to run, and almost as much not to snatch the box greedily from his hand.

  He shakes his head. ‘Not possible while you’re in it.’

  This wildly romantic statement, uttered with quiet intensity, shears straight through the first line of my defences.

  ‘She’ll make my life hell!’ I counter.

  ‘Quite possibly, but you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you stole her darling boy out from under her nose.’

  I frown, thinking about it. He is right. How could I turn down the opportunity to rub her nose in it? An engagement will suffice to seriously piss her off but, tempting as it is, even I know it’s not nearly a good enough reason.

  Still, I’m not quite done yet. ‘You’ve only known me three months.’

  ‘I knew the day after that first night.’ He is implacable, which means I will have to find a reason to turn him down rather than convince him to withdraw the proposal.

  ‘What’s the rock like?’ I ask, jabbing a finger at the box. It offers the only way out I can think of right now. If it is ugly, I will take it as a sign that I should turn him down. ‘Is it big?’

  Marc smiles slightly as he shakes his head and flicks open the box. The Art Deco ring sits there, small and perfectly formed in silver with a square emerald a shade brighter than the colour of my eyes flanked by three diamonds on two sides.

  My arms are wrapped even more tightly around my waist now against the compulsion to reach out and touch it. But I am done in—both of us know it—not by the gorgeous ring but by the fact he knows me well enough not to buy some expensive modern monstrosity. The second line of my defence is obliterated. Bastard.

  ‘What will you do if I say no?’ I wonder aloud.

  ‘I’ll love you just the same.’

  It is the first time he has used the L word. My defences have been stormed. When my arms fall to my side, he takes my left hand in his and slips on the ring.

  ‘All done,’ he says. ‘Now that really wasn’t so bad, was it?’

  I sniff. ‘Baddish.’ And I warn myself not to be surprised if he calls it all off in a few weeks.

  Four

  Present day, morning

  The howl wants to rise up out of me, banshee-like, and it is so sudden and powerful that for a second I can’t breathe. The panic attack is literally suffocating, and for a brief moment I am terrorised, before realising that, if this is indeed death, my troubles are at an end. I relax at the thought, and just as suddenly I can breathe again and the drama is over. I’m still alive, damn it!

  The waffle-weave rug, carrying Marc’s scent only faintly now, is tangled around my legs, trapping me. Frustrated, I tear it and the sheets off and hurl them to the floor. Rolling on to my belly, I thump the chaise with my left fist. But the thick upholstery deadens the sound, rendering it utterly unsatisfying. It seems even my rages are doomed to failure.

  Grief has a trick or two up its sleeve, I am learning. Just when I think I have made progress, it sends me back to step one. Well, not quite. Nothing could be quite as terrible as those days when the initial numb denial turned to crushing despair
as I realised nothing would ever be the same again. I would have ripped my heart from my chest to be freed from the grief. The banshee is merciful in comparison so maybe I should be grateful.

  Something cool and soft touches my little toe, wiggles it. For some reason, I think of little piggies going to market and wee-wee-wee all the way home, which is odd. The only time I remember my stepfather being playful was in the presence of social workers and cops, and never with nursery rhymes. My mother preferred other kinds of games altogether, switching affection on and off like a tap. Perhaps one of my sib … no, I don’t think so.

  The wiggling sensation comes again. With a gasp, I push myself up and I hear the soft pad of feet running away from the scene of the crime, the suggestion of a giggle trailing in the air behind.

  Wildly, I throw myself from the chaise and out of the room but by the time I reach the doorway, the house is silent again.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I call down the empty hallway. ‘What do you want?’

  I strain my ears and try not to imagine what could be lurking in the shadows, just out of sight, but all I can hear is the beating of my heart against my ribs, slowing with each moment of silence. My shoulders droop. I feel exhausted, although the day has barely begun, and defeated, as though my battery has run dry after the energy spurt of the past days.

  Slumping down onto the chaise, I stare at the small toe of my right foot. It looks normal, untouched by a playful hand. My nail polish is badly chipped though. If for no other reason than pride, I will need to see to it.