I Spy

by Claire Kendal

  My heart was beating fast and my brain was spinning dizzily and my stomach seemed to be shaking around in my torso despite how crowded it was in there. Nonetheless, my eyes still closed.

  I wasn’t sure if I was in a dream when Zac knelt by the side of the bed, saying softly that it was nearly nine o’clock and I should rest and not worry about anything, and he’d go down and have dinner on his own. Though I fought hard to look at him, I couldn’t wake up.

  When I next dragged my eyes open the clock said 1 a.m., and Zac’s side of the bed was empty. I felt queasy, but the tiredness was more powerful and I fell asleep once more.

  Two hours later Zac returned. I felt him lifting the hem of my dress, his hand on my skin, resting on my bump. ‘Holly? My love?’ Somehow, he had got the counterpane out from beneath me and opened it fully to cover us both. He was naked, which was how he always slept. He pressed against me, his breath on the nape of my neck as he asked if I was awake, whispering that he’d tried to rouse me for dinner but the colleague he’d hoped to introduce me to cancelled and I’d been in such a deep sleep he didn’t have the heart to disturb me. I realised I hadn’t dreamt his coming in to talk to me.

  ‘What colleague cancelled?’

  ‘Another cardiologist. It was disappointing, but we’ll rearrange.’

  ‘Why was it disappointing?’

  ‘There’s some research I wanted to share with him.’

  I thought again of the micro card. ‘Oh. What kind of research?’

  ‘Medical, of course. But you and I have more important things to talk about.’

  ‘Yes.’ That was a word he usually liked. I was glad he couldn’t see my face, though I wished I could see his.

  ‘I won’t be able to sleep if we don’t make up,’ he said.

  ‘I saw you in the bar, Zac. I came down to look for you, to say sorry again. You were with a woman. I didn’t know what to do. I left.’

  I braced for him to rage at me for spying on him. To my surprise, he didn’t. Instead, his lips were on my shoulder. When I flinched, he said, ‘Oh, Holly, I’m so sorry,’ then kissed me again. ‘I shouldn’t have lost control. I got too angry.’

  I was stunned that he’d apologised, that he had shown some recognition of what happened. I could feel my heart starting to thaw, and I told myself to keep it frozen.

  He went on, and I sensed that he was trying to think aloud, and that what he was saying was difficult for him. ‘Did you know, what you experience as anger, as my attacking you, it’s actually distress?’

  ‘I didn’t know that, no.’

  ‘Does it help you to understand better?’

  ‘Maybe. But the woman. Who is she?’

  ‘An old friend of mine from university. She’s making a brief visit to the UK after some time in America. She’s expecting her first baby, too.’

  ‘She happened to be here, in this hotel, in the bar?’

  ‘No. She got in touch and we planned a quick drink. She only had an hour. I went and had dinner on my own after she left, when I couldn’t wake you.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Eliza.’

  ‘Are you lovers?’

  ‘Honestly, Holly. She’s six and a half months pregnant!’

  ‘Pregnancy’s hardly stopped you wanting me.’

  ‘That’s because you’re you. I’m pleased by this new jealous side of yours, but no, I’ve never been attracted to her – Holly?!’

  ‘Did you see the flashing lights?’

  ‘You’re overtired.’

  ‘Did you – did you put something in my water earlier?’

  ‘Of course not.’ I could hear him trying to temper his response, trying not to sound too furious.

  I flung his arm off, sat up as fast as I could and stumbled out of bed towards the bathroom.

  I didn’t make it to the sink. I’d barely stepped through the door before yesterday’s omelette and juice spattered onto the white tiles. I was bent over, my hands on my knees, shaking so much I wasn’t sure if it was me who was moving or the floor itself. Zac came from behind and wrapped his arms around me, as if I were in labour.

  When I’d finished, when there was nothing left and I was so floppy and exhausted my head felt too heavy for my own neck, he sat me on the edge of the bath, turned on the taps, and peeled the sticky clothes from my body. He got in with me, seeming to fear I would slide under the water and drown if he didn’t. Washing the sick from my hair and my skin, washing us both everywhere.

  Now The Visit

  Two years and one month later

  * * *

  Bath, Friday, 5 April 2019

  Eliza’s house is early Victorian, and sits low on a hill on one of the most expensive streets in the city. It has to be worth several million. There is a gravelled forecourt big enough for five cars, and black iron gates that are over two metres tall. I really need to find out where all this money comes from.

  The gates are locked, so I push a button above an intercom. Eliza’s voice greets me as she buzzes me in and the gates swing open. I hate being captured on film. But cameras are what people who live in houses like this insist on, so there is no avoiding them.

  I smile as I crunch across the gravel towards Eliza and the open front door. Alice is anaemic. Her doctor wants her on iron straightaway, but Eliza didn’t get the blood results until late yesterday, through a voicemail that was left while she was on her way to meet me at the pizza restaurant. She listened to the message in horror as we waited for our wine, so I offered to pick up the prescription and bring it over as soon as I could this morning. Anaemia is something I know about first-hand but don’t like to remember.

  ‘Do you have time for a coffee?’ she says.

  Knowing that Zac is safely in Edinburgh, I say that I’d love one, then follow her into what appears to be a beautiful mausoleum. The floors are white marble, and the stairs, which go up and down and in all directions in a fair imitation of Hogwarts, are white marble too. Is there a danger of Alice falling? There are no stair gates.

  It takes more effort than usual to get my bearings in this seeming labyrinth, as we descend to the basement, where there is a kitchen that is twice the size of my flat. One wall is made entirely of glass, and opens into a huge garden that slopes gently downwards.

  I rummage in my bag, then hand her the bottle of iron. ‘It’s in liquid form. She’ll absorb it best if you give her some juice and food with it. Oh – and avoid milk if you can, close to when she takes it. There are instructions on the bottle label.’

  ‘Do you do this for every patient?’ Eliza smooths her already-smooth dark hair. I’m struck by her dark eyes, which are huge and lovely but so unlike Alice’s.

  ‘Only the special ones. And their mums. But her iron is very low – the doctor wants her started on this.’

  ‘As soon as she finishes her nap.’ Eliza’s face is radiant. ‘Did you know her hearing test was perfect?! We’re in the lucky forty per cent. I knew we would be!’

  I do know, because I looked up Alice’s result, but all I say is, ‘That’s wonderful news.’ And it is, because the majority of those with type 1 Waardenburg syndrome have hearing loss.

  ‘We had so much fun last night, Helen.’

  ‘I think she got more of the toppings on herself than the pizza base.’

  ‘Well, I was so tired. I can’t tell you how much that little break meant. Sitting and enjoying a glass of wine while someone else entertained Alice. You absolutely enchanted her. I hope she didn’t exhaust you.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  While Eliza busies herself with the cafetière, I climb onto a high stool at the breakfast-bar end of a granite-topped island. There is a row of old servants’ bells on the wall, with an oval plaque underneath each one to indicate where the call is coming from. North Bedroom. Blue Tapestry Room. Dining Room. Study. Library. The Red Room. The Cabinet Room. Picture Gallery. The Chapel. Grey Dressing Room.

  ‘Most of the rooms those bells rang in are long gone.’ Eli
za is arranging biscuits on a stoneware plate. ‘Our house is the sole surviving wing of a once-grand mansion. The wing was a late nineteenth-century addition.’

  ‘It still seems pretty grand to me.’

  She laughs. ‘The central building and the other wing burned down in 1904. There was parkland, these huge grounds, but they sold most of it off and built on it. There’s a bit of the original garden left.’ She points to the right of her own garden, where the tops of several trees are visible on the far side of a tall brick wall. ‘Over there. Do you see?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It belongs to the city, now. I love taking Alice there for walks and picnics.’ Eliza smiles at the flowered paper bag I’ve laid on the table. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh. A little something I thought Alice might enjoy.’

  ‘How kind.’ She slips the book out of the bag. ‘Horton Hatches the Egg. I love Dr. Seuss – I don’t think I’ve read this one.’

  ‘It’s one of my favourites.’ There was a copy among the picture books that were part of my forgotten life with my parents, chosen by them. I kept those books in my childhood room. They are probably still there, alongside my father’s edition of A Tale of Two Cities, because I can’t imagine Milly letting anyone move them.

  Eliza takes the chair beside me, gives my hand a squeeze. ‘I’m so happy you’re here.’ Her eyes look wet, as if tears are on the verge of spilling. Even now, a stranger’s kindness can sometimes make me cry. Does Eliza have reason to be that raw, too?

  ‘You must be homesick. Bath is much smaller than London – it’s lovely, but there’s so much we don’t have in comparison. When did you move in – I can’t remember if you said?’

  ‘I’m not sure I did. A month ago. My husband’s idea.’

  ‘It must be hard, being away from your friends.’

  ‘It is. Meeting you helps. I should probably say that I don’t usually pick up new friends in hospitals.’

  I laugh. ‘Me neither.’

  She reaches across, squeezes my hand. ‘It’s just, my husband—’ She bites back whatever she was about to say.

  ‘Have you taken Alice to some toddler groups? We have details for loads of them at the hospital. I can grab some flyers for you.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can—’ Again she breaks off, leaving me anxious at this visible sign of a woman censoring herself – it is too familiar.

  ‘It’s not easy, moving to a new place, meeting new people.’

  She nods vigorous agreement. ‘Absolutely. That’s what I try to explain to Zac. He travels all the time for his work, so he doesn’t understand – he’s away in Edinburgh right now – I think I told you. He’s away so often.’

  There it is at last. Despite my guess about who Eliza was from the day I met her, and Maxine confirming it, to hear her finally use Zac’s name punches the air from my stomach.

  I study Eliza’s beautiful face. She looks so innocent of her effect on me, though in spite of Maxine’s assurances to the contrary, I still wonder if Eliza has been cultivating me because Zac wants her to.

  ‘Have you and Zac been married long?’ I don’t hesitate to say his name. I won’t let myself be fearful of speaking it or thinking it. I won’t allow him that power.

  ‘Alice was a year old when we got married. I met him at university. I had a big crush on him then. You could probably say I was a bit in awe. But nothing happened. He barely noticed I was alive.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘We ran into each other, quite by accident, about two and a half years ago …’ Her face reddens. ‘That’s when Alice was conceived. I don’t usually open up about this, but Alice was a happy accident. Zac didn’t tell me until I was pretty far along that he was in a relationship. I thought— Well, until Alice was a few months old, I thought I’d be raising her alone.’

  I know all too well how good Zac is at keeping secrets. Did he tell Eliza in that London hotel that he was expecting a baby with his wayward and mad girlfriend, who happened to be asleep in their room upstairs? Maybe he was making this confession as I watched the two of them from the doorway of that hushed bar.

  ‘It’s great when things work out.’ I am scanning for family pictures. There is nothing in this pristine kitchen, which isn’t surprising, given how Zac detests clutter. He isn’t someone who would tolerate a fridge that was covered in a child’s art or magnet photo frames, as Peggy’s used to be. In fact, I cannot see a fridge at all – it must be hidden behind the bespoke cupboards.

  Eliza pushes the biscuits towards me. ‘And you? I was starting to ask you last night if there’s anyone, but then Alice sprinkled you with sweetcorn.’

  ‘I like sweetcorn.’ My smile is real, when I remember Alice trying to brush it off me, afterwards. ‘There’s nobody – I’m good on my own.’ I take a rectangle of shortbread, nibble on it. ‘Can I use your loo?’ I hear how abrupt the question is.

  ‘Of course.’ She directs me. ‘Don’t get lost. Everyone does.’

  I laugh too. ‘I never get lost.’ Though this time I plan to.

  I deliberately miss the ground-floor cloakroom that she told me about, instead passing through huge rooms that seem to dissolve into one another. There is nothing personal in any of them. No discarded shoes or toys. No dust anywhere. It is as if this house is a giant hotel, a place straight out of Zac’s dreams. My trainers squeak with every step, and I make a quiet note to myself that trainers on marble are not good.

  I climb the stairs to the first floor, where I find two master bedrooms, each with its own sitting room and bathroom. They make me think of castles where the king and queen each had their separate quarters, though the king would visit his lady’s chambers on occasion. Is this the kind of arrangement Eliza and Zac have? It is difficult to imagine Zac wanting that.

  In Eliza’s room is a framed collage of photographs, the first intimate thing I have found in this house. It sits on a dressing table that is made entirely of mirrors. I snap a photo of the collage as fast as I can, knowing I will study it more closely later.

  For now, I cannot let myself react to what I see. Eliza holding Alice at a few weeks old, looking blissfully pleased with herself, as I would have. They are both wearing white eyelet sundresses, a mother and her mini-me dressed as angels. My heart is pounding, and I press my lips together.

  It pounds harder still at the photograph of Zac, holding an older baby Alice at about six months. He does not look happy, though he is standing in a playground, holding his child beneath a maple tree so heavy with red leaves it resembles a firecracker.

  I am increasingly disinclined to agree with Maxine that Eliza doesn’t know who I am. How can she not? But if she does, why doesn’t she say? I shake my head. My thoughts seem to shake with it, in a confused jumble. Again, I ask myself if Eliza engineered that appointment at the hospital. Then I remind myself that Alice’s condition is real – Maxine was right to say that the need for her to be examined regularly at that clinic is an absolute.

  Given this, did Zac ask Eliza to look for me there, and to try to strike up a friendship with me? It’s also possible – no, probable – that Eliza is another of his victims. And this could be true even if he has forced her to collude with him.

  Does Zac know I am here now, in this house? All at once, I am consumed by the idea that this is a distinct possibility, despite Eliza saying he was in Edinburgh. I think of the hidden surveillance cameras in the house we shared in Cornwall, and his ability to monitor them in real time using the Internet. He has probably done the same thing here, so he can spy on Eliza and Alice. He could be watching me live, standing in Eliza’s bedroom. I am torn between my impulse to run and the intensity of my need to learn more. For myself and for Jane, and maybe for Eliza too. Above all, for Alice. Because how can she be safe with such a father?

  I rush from the room, enter a bathroom on the same floor, flush the loo without using it, wash my hands without needing to, splash water on my face, compose myself.

  I re-enter
the kitchen. ‘I did get lost! Your house is beautiful. Very big, and a bit of a labyrinth, but extremely lovely!’

  ‘We like it.’

  ‘Do you mind my asking where you go for your hair? I really love it.’ Does she hear the falsity of this over-bright guest voice?

  ‘He’s near Pulteney Bridge. I’ll give you his card. I used to be blonde, but I wanted a change – you can feel so frumpy when you spend all your hours looking after a child – but Guy is a genius with colour.’

  I remember that flash of her long light hair in the hotel bar. Her admission is so open. For most people a change in hair colour isn’t a sinister disguise. It is simply what human beings sometimes do.

  Eliza tops up my coffee. ‘You’re wonderful with Alice.’

  I smile, trying to keep it light, keep it natural. ‘I love children – that’s why I love where I work. Alice is especially gorgeous.’

  She touches my hand. ‘Sometimes you seem rather sad.’ She smiles wistfully. ‘Sorry to be so personal – I know what it’s like.’

  ‘Are you sad, Eliza?’

  ‘Sometimes. It makes me sound spoiled, to say that.’ A shadow falls across her face. ‘Zac is always saying …’ She stops herself.

  ‘You don’t sound spoiled at all. What is it that Zac is always saying?’

  She starts to take a sip of her coffee but stops. Her hands are shaking. ‘I’m so lucky to have Alice.’

  ‘Well, Zac is right about that.’

  ‘Oh, no, that isn’t what he says. It’s what I say.’ She hastily adds, ‘And lucky to have Zac too, of course. But marriage … don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s easy.’