‘Except what?’ said Connie.
‘Except being here,’ I said.
Connie looked thoughtful. ‘I think you have actually felt a lot of things,’ she said. ‘But you didn’t trust them. Maybe you’ve got to the point where you really have to trust yourself. You haven’t stopped feeling, Laura. You’re just scared of what you’re feeling because it’s new. There’s no alternative in this world, you know, other than to trust yourself.’
I swallowed. ‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘Think of it like stepping into another room you’ve never been in before, but you suspected it existed. Getting into the room is easy, once you have the key. But the reality of the room, the new dimensions, the new furnishings, the way the light sits – it will never be how you imagined it. But it is the room you’re supposed to be in, because the other door has closed.’
‘I feel . . . small,’ I said.
‘You’re not small,’ said Connie. ‘You’re the opposite. But just as there’s always a price to pay for accepting love, so is there for stepping away from it.’
Something in her voice made me look up. ‘And what’s that price, in your experience?’
Connie sighed, thinking hard. ‘That either way, you forgo your right to innocence. When you walk away from someone you used to love, you’re stepping closer to the person you really are.’
27
Between Christmas and New Year I stayed close to Connie. I didn’t call Joe, and Kelly was still in the no-man’s-land of her in-laws. I slept at Connie’s, wearing the necklace she had bought me, never taking it off. Joe texted me on the 27th of December, no doubt when he’d returned to the flat to find me gone.
Where are you? he wrote.
Happy Christmas to you too. I’m at Connie’s.
Still looking for your mother? Found her yet?
I didn’t reply.
On New Year’s Eve, he texted again to apologize for his last text: his tone was uncalled for, and he was sorry. He hoped I was all right, and that maybe we should talk soon. What are your plans for New Year’s Eve? he asked. I’ll be at Connie’s, I replied, and this time, it was me who didn’t hear back. I was still looking for my mother, but I was almost sabotaging the search. I spent most of my time cooking for Connie. She’d asked for more Italian foods since discovering my alleged Paduan cookery experience, so daily I was searching on my phone for articles such as ‘How to Make the Best Handmade Pasta’. Connie and I took slow walks on the Heath, coming back for crumpets and tea – my carrot muffins being only a briefly tolerated hit – and in between all this, I typed. I did think about my mother, but in an increasingly abstract sense again, more as I had when I was little. A dream woman – a woman who did not want to be found – or someone I was truly too scared to locate? She had felt more palpable to me when I’d first entered Connie’s house, as if she was definitely going to manifest, and things would be resolved. Fiction doesn’t put anything right, Connie had said to Deborah. But at least it tries. But as we neared the end of typing up The Mercurial, I felt less enlightened about my mother than when I started.
The book would be ready by New Year’s Day, Connie announced, at which point I would send it by email to Deborah.
The more time I spent as Laura Brown, the more I drifted away from Rose Simmons and all her worries. I was safe as Laura Brown in this house. I was trusted, I was needed. I took on Connie’s worries as if they were my own; her life and the fate of the book were more vivid, more exciting, than anything that had been happening before I met her. I shared her concerns: that no publisher would want it, that no one would buy it, that Connie would be seen as a has-been who’d deserved to be forgotten in the first place. I reassured her, inserting myself in her quandary because I felt that my own fate was bound up with that of this new and vulnerable book. With every page I typed I’d gone deeper not just into the world of Margaret Gillespie, but that of Laura Brown as well, a lost girl in the wood of words, waiting for the epiphany of Connie’s last full stop.
*
Connie was either a true artist who understood her internal rhythms before they made themselves heard to the rest of the world, or she was a control freak. Maybe it was both, because just as she predicted, on New Year’s Day, alone in the kitchen, I typed up her novel’s final sentences.
They didn’t know she’d been swimming all this decade, nor half of the things she could do. They thought she could fly, become a goat, a hare, a virgin of perilous beauty. But they did not think much about her actual arms and her actual legs, her lungs and her boredom. They’d see the pile of clothes and think she’d turned into a gnat.
Instead she was going to turn into a fish. Margaret took off her boots and stood in the cold water, watching her toes bleach and fatten in its distorting coverage. Her skirts and apron, the stained cuffs of her shirt – she began to cast them off, the fabric expanding in the ocean. Her skin turned to gooseflesh even though it was a sunny day.
If it hadn’t been for the sun, Christina had once said about their arrival, we’d have swum in the wrong direction and fallen off the world!
But Margaret knew where she was going. She knew that as long as you could breathe in it, the world went on. And after that, it wasn’t your concern.
Her waist, her ribs, her breasts, underneath the water. Eastward now, submerged, breathless from the cold on her skin, Margaret kicked. Began to swim.
I sat there for a few moments. Outside in the garden it was a bright morning, and I watched a male blackbird hopping from planter to planter, his yellow beak a saffron dash against the barren soil. I closed my eyes, thinking of the story I’d just been in. Christina was dead. She’d died in her mother’s arms, a scene that chilled me. It had been her blood swirling pinkly with the minnows, not Davy’s. And after that, did Margaret wish to die? Not according to Connie. Did Margaret wail and beat her breast? No. She had no desire to exterminate herself, but her life was indeed now compromised. She was compos mentis enough to understand that she had to get away. Connie had given her character a second chance: Margaret Gillespie had escaped.
I closed the laptop. Connie’s fiction held no fixed answers for me; so what choice now did I have? I could be bold. I could just tell Connie who I was – Connie liked me, she said she was glad she’d found me. And was I not both these women, Laura and Rose: their attributes living cheek by jowl within me?
‘Connie,’ I called from the foot of the stairs. After a few beats, I heard her office door open. ‘It’s finished,’ I said. ‘I’m done.’
‘Oh!’ she shouted. I stood vigilant in the hallway to make sure she didn’t trip as she descended the stairs. ‘So?’ she said, stomping down towards me. ‘What do you think?’
‘The witch flees,’ I said.
‘The witch succeeds,’ Connie replied with an elated grin. ‘We’ve done it! It’s done!’
We went into the kitchen and I sat back in front of the laptop screen. ‘Congratulations, Con,’ I said. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Tired,’ she said. ‘Relieved. What do you think about the ending?’
In truth, when it came to the ending I had anticipated a more explicit conclusion as to Margaret’s guilt or responsibility. Some clarity as to whether she did actually intend to do away with her daughter. I thought that would be the culmination of the book. Instead, one woman was dead, and the other was still on the run. Connie’s book had given me more questions than answers.
I said nothing, and sensed Connie’s unease. ‘At least it makes a change from drowning,’ she said. ‘I’m sick of women drowning in art.’
I still said nothing. ‘You don’t like it,’ she said.
‘I do,’ I said. ‘Of course I do. But, Connie – is Margaret guilty or not?’
She looked confused. ‘Guilty of what?’ she said.
I tried to mask my impatience. ‘Christina’s dead. Was that Margaret’s intention?’
Connie frowned. ‘Have I not made her intentions sufficiently obvious?’
‘Maybe I’m bein
g stupid, Con.’
‘No, you’re not. I’m interested in what you think.’
Emboldened, I pushed on. ‘I just thought – given that it’s a book about responsibility—’
‘Oh,’ she said, elongating the word, her eyes wide. ‘You thought there’d be some justice. A sort of reparative chapter at the end.’
‘I just thought we’d – understand Margaret’s intentions. Whether she had any remorse, for example.’
‘Huh.’
‘People – are going to want to know.’
‘Well,’ said Connie brusquely. ‘They’re going to have to work it out for themselves. This is a book about how people damage each other inadvertently. I’m not going to spoon-feed them. Bash them over the head with it. That’ll kill it.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘Although maybe I need to amp up Margaret’s pain a bit. Show some odd behaviour or something. I don’t want her to be aware of it, you see. Because she is hurting.’
I fought back the tears that were threatening. ‘So Margaret did love her daughter?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Connie, looking at me in disbelief. ‘Of course.’
‘And did she mean her to die?’
‘No,’ said Connie. ‘But that’s between you and me.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry, Laura. I didn’t realize you were going to react so strongly to it.’
‘I suppose that’s what happens when you become so intensely involved.’
‘I suppose. And I’m glad you are.’
‘And Margaret – is she going to die in the sea? I mean, it’s the Atlantic Ocean,’ I said.
‘Well, if she didn’t go into the water, they were going to set the dogs on her. She had no choice, Laura. But don’t worry: she isn’t going to die in the sea.’ Connie put her hand on my shoulder. I felt the bone and sinew of it. ‘Margaret Gillespie never dies.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I haven’t written that, that’s why not.’ I shrugged her hand off. It was the most transgressive thing I’d done to her: it felt teenaged and taboo, and Connie looked shocked. ‘What on earth’s wrong?’ she said. ‘It’s just a story.’
‘It isn’t,’ I said. ‘I know it isn’t.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘It’s your life.’
Connie’s eyes narrowed. ‘No, it isn’t my life, Laura. It’s my work.’
‘But it’s come from inside you. Who is Christina? Who is Margaret?’
Connie looked alarmed. ‘Christina is Christina. Margaret is Margaret. Who do you think they are?’
‘They’re people you know.’
Connie stiffened. ‘In a manner of speaking, yes. As figments of my imagination.’
‘Just figments?’
‘Where has all this come from?’
‘I just – I’m confused, Connie.’
‘I see that. Confused about what?’
I struggled to find the right words. ‘Nothing,’ I said eventually, miserably, feeling a fool.
‘Laura,’ said Connie more gently. ‘Come away from the computer for a moment.’
I obeyed her, turning round to face her fully. She looked down at me, her expression one of concern. ‘Are you angry that we’ve finished? Do you think I won’t need you any more?’
‘No,’ I said, but I realized as I spoke that the thought of not being near Connie, not being wanted by her, would devastate me. ‘Connie,’ I said, looking pleadingly up at her. ‘You haven’t written anything for thirty years. Why did you want to write this now?’
She gave me a long look. From the slight twitch at the side of her mouth, I could tell she was irritated and had had enough of questions. ‘Because it was what was inside me, Laura. And it had to come out.’ She put her hand up to stop me saying more. ‘Now, can you go and send it off to Deborah?’
*
Chastened, frustrated, I went to the corner cafe – more of a teashop than a greasy spoon, this was Hampstead, after all – to use the Wi-Fi and email the manuscript to Deborah from another account I’d had to make up for Laura Brown. I texted Deborah to tell her to expect it waiting in her inbox when she got back to work.
Deborah texted back immediately. Thanks, she wrote. What a way to start the new year! Can’t believe it really. Having a brief glance now, it seems very clean. Excited!
I was interested in the word clean. Clean – as if Connie had threatened Deborah weeks previously with something dirty and messy, a tangle of the past unthreaded and re-woven for the present. This book had a sleek, authoritative power to it, and its characters emanated guilt and mystery. Deborah would find that out.
I didn’t reply, because I was worried I’d get sucked into writing something that could be used against me if anyone ever discovered who I was. Deborah had the manuscript, and that was all that mattered. When I got back from the cafe, Connie was standing in the hallway, wrapped in a long scarf and coat. ‘I’m going to the Heath,’ she said.
‘I might go for a nap,’ I said, ‘I’m exhausted.’
She stopped in the hallway. ‘You’re often exhausted, Laura,’ she said. ‘Are you eating enough?’ Then she was gone.
I wandered into the front room, drained yet slightly wired from Connie’s energy. I pictured her pacing the common land, sparked and restless, anticipating her agent’s verdict after such a monumental break in time. But what I should have been doing was paying more attention to myself. Not to Connie. Not even to my invisible mother. Not to Margaret Gillespie or her daughter Christina. But to myself.
1982
28
Everyone from the last few months of their LA life came to Elise’s belated birthday party. Connie had hired waiting staff, who moved in and out of the groups with trays of canapés. The waiting staff all looked like models – young men and women, extra-tall and extra-beautiful, their minds only half on their serving duties, waiting to get back to their small apartments in case today was the day for the magic phone call from their agent that might change their lives. The canapés they took around the patio were delicate and colourful, little blobs of avocado, curls of smoked salmon, puffs of pastry filled with Californian vegetables that nobody wanted to eat. There was tequila and vodka, and wine and beer and soft drinks. Music pumped from speakers that Connie had placed facing the garden from the living room: Roxy Music, The Sweet, The Stranglers, The Clash.
The cast and crew of Heartlands, Matt and Shara, plus friends of friends were there, and even Connie’s agent, Deborah, who had flown out to see how things were going – but who really, Elise suspected, just fancied a holiday. Elise had heard about Deborah but never met her, and she was curious. Judging by the intensity of Deborah’s gaze upon her, the feeling was mutual. Everyone had dressed up, and although looks-wise, most of them couldn’t compete with the waiting staff, it seemed big shoulders, plumes of earrings, rings the size of Roman medals and fuchsia and turquoise prints were the order of the day. Connie was wearing a burnt-orange pantsuit. Elise did not think she’d ever see Connie in burnt orange, let alone a pantsuit, yet here they were.
‘Deborah, this is Elise. El, this is Deborah,’ said Connie. ‘She runs my life.’
‘I’d like to run her life, but she won’t let me,’ said Deborah, putting out her hand to shake Elise’s. ‘Happy birthday, Elise. We finally meet. I’ve heard a lot about you.’
‘And I you.’
‘Elise is sitting for a portrait by Shara,’ said Connie. ‘You remember Shara, my friend from university?’
Deborah looked unsure. ‘It’s going to be spectacular,’ Connie went on.
‘You’ve got a lot of people here,’ said Deborah.
‘They’re mainly Connie’s,’ said Elise. ‘She knows all these people better than I do.’
It was true; Connie was greeting and waving at five people for every one that Elise managed to muster a hi for. Elise felt a mixture of anger and defeat over the situation; Connie had meant well, hadn’t she? She constantly tried to introduce Elise to everyone she thought Elise might like. But Elise jus
t wanted to get away.
Connie put her hand on Elise’s arm and said more gently: ‘Relax. People like you. You’ll have fun.’
Elise wished Connie wouldn’t speak to her like this in front of other people. It was as if Connie thought she didn’t have feelings on the same level of sophistication as others, that she could be spoken to like a child.
Deborah was watching them both. Despite the late-August heat making her hair frizz, and the beads of sweat on her temples, she carried herself with a natural air of authority. Elise had always assumed the woman would be older than Connie, but she wasn’t: she was younger, shorter, plump and dark. She wore glasses and her eyes darted constantly, an agitated habit of looking all around her as if sizing up the emergency exits and the most useful people in the room. ‘Do you like it out here, Elise?’ Deborah asked. ‘Would you recommend it?’
‘What are you looking for, exactly?’ said Elise.
Deborah seemed disconcerted. ‘I’m not looking for anything.’
‘Well, then. You’ll probably be fine,’ said Elise. ‘There’s nothing here except make-believe.’
Deborah didn’t bother to conceal her look of alarm at Connie, but Connie only laughed. ‘Ignore her, Deb. I know you’re not scared of make-believe. You can’t afford to be.’
‘Actually, she’s got a point, Con,’ said Deborah. ‘You could lose yourself here. Plenty of people have. I thought I should come over and check you were still sane.’
‘I’m not going to lose myself, Deb,’ said Connie. ‘You know I’m not.’
Deborah jumped as a waiter with brown curly hair and the looks of Gregory Peck appeared at her side bearing a plate of smoked-salmon blinis.
‘Ma’am?’ he said.
‘Are they for me?’ she replied, giggling. Elise could hardly stop rolling her eyes to the back of her head.
‘If you want them to be, ma’am, you can take the whole plate.’
Deborah went puce. ‘Just one,’ she managed to utter, and he smiled and melted away.
‘Anyway,’ said Connie. ‘It’s all wrapping up. Filming’s heading east. We’re like reverse pioneers.’
The Confession Page 20