‘We’re looking for something for a restaurant in the Meatpacking District, a fish place. Something similar to this, but it must be six feet by four. Are you interested? We need it by August.’
‘Of course.’ Trying to suppress the rising excitement I really felt.
‘I’ll call you to discuss details. Give me your cell number.’
‘What did he say?’ It was Chiara, when the man and his wife had moved away.
‘He’s buying the big oil,’ I said. ‘And they commission work.’
She beamed at me and I allowed myself to beam back.
‘Bloody hell! Exciting! I knew you’d do it! At last the world is recognising your true talent.’
‘What’s all this?’ said Louise.
‘Blimey!’ she said, when Chiara had filled her in. She held up her glass. ‘Guy! Liam, over here. Listen to this. That’s so fantastic for you, honey. I’m thrilled.’
I smiled at her, and she looked pleased for me. She really did.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Liam had to leave after our kipper breakfast on Sunday morning, as he was doing the sound check for a gig in our local pub that night, and I was relieved that it meant Chiara would be coming back in the car with me. She would be my other pair of eyes, like a second pilot, ensuring I wasn’t distracted. A chaperone to make sure I didn’t get obsessed with some daft idea that I’d hit someone on the road!
Last night my friends had stayed up late.
Liam had got the fresh fish he’d talked about the night before from one of the fishing huts – sea bass – and wanted to do it in a salt crust as he’d seen all the TV chefs doing, and Guy offered to help, so we women sat by the wood-burner with bottles of wine and talked. It was like old times – in our first year when we’d shared a student flat at art college. One of those memorable evenings when everything seemed to slot into place. Louise told us the whole tale of how she’d met Guy trekking in the outback, and then we all admired Chiara’s tiny bump and talked about names for her baby. And my friends wanted to know all about Aunty May, about my special relationship with her and why she’d left me her house.
‘We sort of bonded over painting,’ I told them. ‘My mother was working, or on research trips, or writing retreats, drumming up plots for her romantic fiction. Before she and my dad split up, he would be working at the museum, and so they would send us down to Aunty May’s in the holidays.’
As I sat and related those holidays to my friends I could actually feel my little brother Ben’s hot little hand in mine as my mother deposited us on the train that took us from Liverpool Street to Darsham where Aunty May would pick us up and drive us back to her house.
‘Aunty May let us have more freedom than we ever had at home. We had whole days out on the beach, or in her beach hut, swimming, crabbing, building sand castles.’
‘Sounds idyllic.’
‘It was.’ I was thinking about what Ben had said, when we’d cleared her things out of the house back in the winter.
‘Looking back, though,’ I said, ‘I realise she could be a bit vague, distracted . . .’
‘Ah-ha. Like you!’ Chiara said.
‘Really?’
‘Der!’
They laughed.
‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘My happiest memories are of being with her. Nights on the beach in midsummer when it barely grew dark. Visits to see the insects trapped in amber in Dunwich museum. She told us some moments in life are perfect, like the amber. Precious and glowing with an almost unearthly light. Those holidays were like that for me.’
I paused, remembering. ‘Then she would say, only you have to beware. Sometimes insects get trapped in the amber when it’s soft and then it hardens and they are trapped there forever. Even the most perfect things can be treacherous.’
‘I guess she must have decided later that there were no more amber moments for her, because why else would she have committed suicide?’ Louise said.
‘What an odd thing to say, Louise,’ Chiara said, looking at her.
I had loved those holidays, but I was only young. I’d loved going painting with my aunt, out on the shore. But even back then I’d always had to do my three taps on the gatepost to make sure May wouldn’t die while I was here. Why, I wondered now, had I been so frightened, even at such a young age, that Aunty May might die? Was it to do with being left in charge of my little brother in this house that was so far from the world I knew, from streetlamps and shops and traffic lights and buses and the things that made the world feel safe to me?
If May died while we were there we would be left all alone with nothing but the sea, and miles of unchartered countryside between us and civilisation and I would never be able to let Ben out of my sight in case he ran away and drowned.
And so although I was happy to be with my aunt by the sea, I tapped the gatepost, to keep Ben and May safe.
Now as we drove back towards London, Chiara holding Pepper on her lap on the front seat, I was aware of that lift in my heart again, that felt like happiness. The weekend had been a success in the end. It had been so lovely spending time with my friends. They had helped bring life back into May’s house. And, although I didn’t say this out loud, the knowledge my art was going to appear in New York gave me a delicious warm excited feeling in the depths of my belly. I was moving on at last! May would have been thrilled for me.
I might have been tempted to do a detour through Cambridge to see my mother, tell her my news. But she hadn’t made it to my Private View and I didn’t want to guilt-trip her. She was busy. This was a full-on time of year for her, she was finishing a novel and would feel she ought to stop and pay me some attention, but would be distracted, her head in a storyline. I’d just have to save it for another occasion.
‘Madonna!’ Chiara said, as we sat in a traffic jam coming into London. ‘Does everyone have a second house on the coast? I could do with a wee – it’s the baby, pressing on my bladder.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes. I can just about hold on. Distract me, tell me a bit more about these Americans. How soon do they want the commission?’
‘I’ve got till August,’ I said, leaning forward, afraid of taking my eyes off the cars in front.
‘It’s fantastic, Els, just what you needed.’
‘I know!’ I looked at her quickly, unable to suppress a grin. ‘I feel blessed, actually. Things seem to be slotting into place.’
I pushed the thought of the man in the hospital out of my mind; the incident was done with, he was alive. He would be OK. He would probably forget he’d ever seen me. It was over.
‘Ellie! Oi, Ellie! Wakey-wakey. I think you are.’
‘I am what?’
‘Missing him. Finn. I was going to say something on Friday night. You seemed distracted.’
‘I was nervous. About the exhibition.’
‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing? You can still move on in your career and stay with him too!’
‘I just have to try this,’ I said. ‘I just have to see.’
‘OK.’
‘ Look, Chiara, it wasn’t Finn I was thinking about on Friday. I’ve sorted it now, and it probably sounds bonkers. It was just that – you remember on the way down Louise was delayed, and you and Liam had to go on a diversion? There was an accident on the B road into Southwold?’
‘Yes. A hit-and-run. It was on the news.’
‘I thought it was me.’
‘What?’
‘When I heard the news, I became convinced I might have been the hit-and-runner . . . it haunted me all that night. I had to make sure it wasn’t me. I know now it wasn’t.’
Chiara laughed.
‘You thought it was you?! You are bonkers, Ellie. You would have known if you’d run a man over – it was a man, wasn’t it? Fully grown?’
‘But I bashed into something on the road. It smashed my wing mirror, look, see?’ I gestured over to my left, where the mirror was smashed, one piece of the glass missing.
‘O
h, I see. Yeah. But still, I’ve hit a baby deer, in Scotland, much smaller than a man, and believe me you damn well know if you’ve hit something that size,’ Chiara said, ‘the impact’s terrifying. I had whiplash after that and it was just a little thing. You’re a nutcase, that’s all there is to it. It’s just like the time you made me go all the way back to the flat with you because you were convinced you’d left the gas on and might be poisoning poor old Frank and all the other neighbours!’
She chuckled.
I didn’t want to mention that I’d actually gone so far as checking by visiting the hospital. It would sound completely mad. Over-the-top – obsessive.
We’d turned off down the Mile End Road now and were crawling past the fried chicken shops and the Asian food stalls and the mosques. The air coming in was warm and fuggy with smells of the city, exhaust and oil and a fainter sweeter smell of good spicy food. Police cars sped past us. The man who arranged all his fruit in plastic ice-cream tubs on the pavement, exposing them to a constant smothering of exhaust, sat outside his shop on a fold-out chair. We passed women in wildly patterned headscarves pushing buggies, caught glimpses of men in djellabas and leather jackets inside cafés, chatting in groups. Another world to the middle-class enclave that was Southwold.
‘Look,’ Chiara said, and I glanced at her. Her tone had changed. ‘While we’re on the subject of moving on and all that, I have to tell you . . . I’ve been putting it off, but . . . oh dear, this is hard.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, it’s just that Liam’s found somewhere in London Fields. It’s a flat, but there’s a garden. He’s put a deposit down.’
‘Oh.’ Was her suggestion I go back to Finn a way of softening this blow?
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘So, you’ll be moving out?’
‘But you’re going to be OK, Ellie. If you carry on like this you’ll be leaving your teaching job, you’ll probably move down to Southwold, won’t you? Become a full-time artist.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. I knew Chiara and Liam were looking to buy a house, it was to be expected now they were having a baby, but I’d imagined it might take months. I’d imagined I would have moved on long before they had. The thought of being left alone in our little flat without Finn, without my best friend, unnerved me.
‘Ellie? Things had to change some time didn’t they?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you’ll be OK. We’ll both be OK.’
‘Sure.’
‘See you at the gig later,’ Chiara called over her shoulder as I dropped her at Liam’s house in Tredegar Square, and I went on to our road, a cul-de-sac just past Stepney Green Tube. Amazingly I found a space just next to our building.
Chiara was right. I’d be OK. I would focus on the commission for New York. I’d been so preoccupied, I was forgetting the money I’d just made at the gallery. Nearly two thousand pounds. If I sold any more paintings I could put a deposit down and rent a nicer flat. I’d move to a quieter area, perhaps drop another day’s teaching, spend more time sending out proposals for commissions. I’d socialise in new circles and might even meet a new man. It was what I’d wanted!
I dragged my bag from the boot, took Pepper up in one arm. We climbed the steps to the front door. I was met by the fusty smell of a building lived in by many people, and stumbled over the heaps of junk mail no one bothered to pick up from the slimy floor. Yes, I would definitely move, once Chiara had gone. I wouldn’t be able to afford to live here alone anyway. Chiara had, as usual, left her domestic mark on our little kitchen with its window overlooking the B&Q car park. Fresh tomatoes and lollo rosso and some interesting-looking cheese in the fridge. Oranges in a bowl. The flat was just bearable with her homely touches, but I couldn’t imagine living here alone, or sharing it with anyone else.
This conversion didn’t work. The building had been chopped up into flats so the landlord could make maximum money out of the limited space. The circulation of air was poor, cooking smells infiltrating the bathroom and the cut-in-half bedrooms, and the sounds from other flats came through badly engineered partition walls.
I dumped my bag on the shoddy grey carpet and went to listen to the messages on our landline answerphone. There was one from Mum asking me to let her know how the house had seemed this weekend, whether I’d had further thoughts on selling it. Another message from the suppliers I’d contacted about some canvas and stretchers.
Then there was one that sent a chill from my toes up through my body to my head. I had to hold on to the bookshelf to steady myself.
‘Ellie? This is Patrick. The nurses said you came to visit me. They’ve told me I have amnesia and to get in touch with you as soon as possible. You’re not supposed to use mobiles but these hospital phones are hell to use, you have to get a card and fiddle about so it’s easier for you to call me. I’m pissed off. They’re saying I’m going to need major rehabilitation. Call me, will you? It might help, they say, if we can just talk. Here’s my number. Oh and . . . You looked so pretty when I saw you leaving.’
I slammed the phone down.
How did he get my number?
How did he know my name?
CHAPTER NINE
I stood for several minutes beside the phone in the kitchen, trying to ignore the drip from the ceiling our landlord had failed to fix. A pigeon was preening itself on the windowsill. One of its feet was deformed, a pink stump where the claws should have been. I looked away. Played the message again.
Was this a punishment for not going back and checking whether I might have hit someone on the road? A man – a stranger – was stalking me. Stalking? The man in the bed had seemed so strong, so wealthy, and good-looking, I couldn’t imagine he called people he didn’t know out of need. That glamorous woman on his iPhone showed he was hardly desperate. And anyway, it was me who had gone to see him. Stalking was the wrong word. He had phoned me because he believed I was someone he knew.
I would call Chiara, confess I’d gone as far as visiting the man in hospital, that now he’d rung me thinking I was someone he knew, and we would sit in the pub and have a good laugh about it. She would tell me to forget it.
I picked up my phone, relieved to have a signal now I was back in civilisation, and pressed Chiara’s number. It went straight to voicemail.
Flustered now, I played Patrick’s message again. His tone was relaxed, friendly. The anaesthetic – and he must only just have been coming out of it when he woke and saw me leaving – must have confused him. That was when I remembered my diary, missing when I’d gone to get it out at the exhibition. I got my bag and put it on the kitchen table. I rummaged through. My make-up bag was there. My purse. No diary.
I’d emptied my bag in the hospital, looking for my mobile, when the nurse had suggested showing him photos. Had I missed putting the diary back, in my anxious state?
If he rang again I would tell him that we’d never met. That it was a mistake. If he asked how my diary had got there I would say I had no idea. There were any number of explanations – someone might have found it elsewhere and brought it in while visiting someone else. Who knows?
Everything would be cleared up and I would never see him again.
With this thought I went through to my room to unpack my bag, shaking everything out onto the bed, then pushing it into the washing machine. The clothes I wore at the hospital seemed contaminated, I wanted the weekend washed off them.
I put on my yoga trousers and a vest top and spread a rug out on the floor. I lay down and lifted my thighs into the Bridge. Lowered myself. I moved into a Fish, arching my back, folding my legs into a fishtail shape, lifting my shoulders from the mat and resting the tip of my head on the floor. I lay on my back and did a Happy Baby pose – holding my toes – usually guaranteed to evoke a sense of being in the moment. I lay back, tried again to empty my mind.
The phone went almost as soon as I’d relaxed. I heard it click on in the kitchen, the
recording asking the caller to leave a message.
‘Ellie! I’m a bit drugged up. You didn’t call back! I need your help to get me through this. Someone ran me over. But they can’t find who did this to me. It’s all getting to me now. Please phone, no one else has.’
Was he crying? Was that a sob I could hear?
Should I pick up the phone? Explain? Or pretend I wasn’t here?
I could perhaps ask to speak to one of the nurses, tell them that their patient was ringing me in the mistaken belief that he knew me. I hesitated, then made for the phone, grabbing it just as the line clicked shut. That settled it. I would leave it.
The poor man must realise, as his memory came back, that he’d never met me, that it was a mistake. The diary would be thrown away and my visit forgotten.
I sidled into our cramped bathroom, put the plug in, ran a deep, hot bath and got in. Reflections of bathwater danced on the ceiling, white on white. Police cars whooped along Mile End Road outside. Cars, their windows down, went past, music turned up loud, the bass reverberating. The bathroom door was ajar. I hadn’t bothered to lock it since there was nobody here but me. I thought for a second that I heard someone opening the main door into the flat. Pepper began to yap. No one but me and Chiara had a key. But Chiara was at the pub with Liam. I froze. Someone was moving about out there. I could hear the creak of a floorboard, the sitting-room door’s squeak.
There was a smallish window in here, frosted glass, big enough if I pushed it up to crawl out of onto a garage roof. If I’d locked the bathroom door, I’d have had time. I sat up, pushed my hands down on the edges of the bath, stood, dripping, reached for a towel.
I stopped, listened again. I’d left my yoga clothes strewn all over the sitting-room floor. Nothing could have given an intruder a better indication of my vulnerability, in the bath, on my own.
My options: one, lean across, slam the door to buy myself time, jump out and slide the lock across. Two, confront whoever had come in. It couldn’t be Patrick from the hospital. He couldn’t have recovered already. But his voice on the phone had unsettled me. So, option three, climb straight out of the window onto the garage roof off the road.
A Trick of the Mind Page 6