Caroline crushed the packaging into an overflowing bin. ‘What about getting in touch with those people who run the local literacy initiative?’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a voluntary programme where you help out at one of your local primary schools –’ There was an interruption as one of the Sellers girls could be heard at the kitchen door, asking in a bold, accusing tone, ‘Are there crisps?’
‘Back to bed!’ Caroline screamed, startling Christy and causing her to slop wine over her wrist, before continuing seamlessly with their conversation: ‘Just a couple of mornings a week, supporting kids who’ve fallen behind with their reading and need a bit of extra encouragement. But it wouldn’t be till the new school year, I’m guessing.’
‘I could still give them a call,’ Christy said, applying kitchen roll patterned with cherries to the spillage, for September was not so far away.
‘And if you did have a new job by then, you could always negotiate the hours off. I think you have to commit for at least half a term. I’ve probably got the details somewhere, I’ll dig them out and drop them round tomorrow if you like.’
‘That would be perfect.’ Thanks to this – and the fishbowl of wine – her epiphany was receding to a more manageable size. ‘All these lovely photos,’ she remarked, standing before a radiator cover stacked with framed school portraits of the Sellerses’ smiling children in various stages of dental development.
‘Yes,’ Caroline said. ‘Just when you think you’re sick of the sight of them, you can come in here and see their faces a thousand times over. It’s like Room 101.’
Among the school photos there were a few family ones, including one of the Sellerses at a beach café somewhere exotic, Richard looking as if he’d just escaped a house fire, Caroline vividly draped and accessorized; the look did not quite gel with her disordered appearance this evening. In another, a group of mostly middle-aged adults clustered before the camera in a garden strung with fairy lights, glasses raised. In the corner was what appeared to be an oversized swan; closer inspection revealed it to be part of a fairground ride.
‘Why’s there a carousel in someone’s garden?’ she asked. ‘Hang on, is that our garden?’
Caroline peered over her shoulder. ‘It is, actually. The Frasers had a party when they’d finished their renovations. There were all sorts of entertainments, including the ride. I was never entirely clear how they got it in and out of the garden, but no doubt Amber charmed someone on the park committee into risking life and limb with a fork-lift truck.’ She smiled. ‘I hope you don’t think it’s a bit creepy to see your own home in a photo in someone else’s house?’
‘Of course not, it’s nice,’ Christy said, chasing off any deflating thoughts of her own guestless get-together.
‘It was going to be an annual thing,’ Caroline said, ‘every August bank holiday, but of course it turned out to be the first and last. Richard and I talked about hosting it instead this year, but it wouldn’t be the same without Amber. She made things special. Look, that’s her there, in the middle. See what I mean about her figure?’
Christy inspected the picture with fascinated interest. At last, an image of her famously alluring predecessor. And it was all she could do not to gasp, for it was true, Amber had all the components of outstanding beauty: a body that was both toned and curvaceous, a shining mane of flame-red hair, glowing skin, an immaculately fitted designer dress and high heels. Her cheekbones were high, her nose straight, her eyes wide and her smile broad: all the right adjectives went with all the right features, not a mix-up among them. Such was her youth and glamour compared to the others in the group it looked as if a Hollywood actress had put in an appearance at her parents’ small-town barbecue. All at once, the idea of her having removed herself from Lime Park made complete sense to Christy. An exotic creature like this, a bird of paradise, didn’t belong in a suburban garden.
‘So who is everyone else? I can recognize you and Richard, and that’s Felicity, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right. She was lovely, Felicity, quite political, always lecturing my girls on financial independence – as if they have a clue at their age – and there’s me, standing right next to them, an unwaged wastrel!’
Christy could not help but contrast this display of easy humour with the indignation unleashed on her the first time they’d met. She very much liked this new, droll Caroline.
‘And on the left is Kenny, then his wife Joanne – you’ve probably seen them with their Labradoodle, Poppy. She’ll be here tonight. Not the Labradoodle, I mean, the human.’
As she pointed out others half-recognizable from her daily surveillance, Christy’s eye settled on a male figure she’d seen in another photograph: cropped greying hair and angular, intelligent face. He was in excellent shape for his age.
‘Is that Jeremy Fraser?’
‘That’s right. Wonderful man.’ Caroline paused. ‘That’s why I don’t worry, not really.’
‘Worry about what? Amber?’
‘About both of them. If they’re together, then wherever they are I know they’re OK.’
Christy wondered if she should report what Gemma at the media agency had said about Amber only being where she wanted to be; would that put Caroline’s mind at ease a little? But the last time she’d mentioned one of Amber’s other friends, she’d only succeeded in disheartening her.
‘Who’s the younger guy?’ Christy indicated the smiling black-haired man standing directly behind Amber. He, too, was familiar to her.
‘You don’t recognize him? He’s your neighbour on the other side.’
‘Rob?’ It occurred to Christy that Caroline never directly used his name. Did her loathing run so deep? ‘He looks so different without his beard.’ She thought of the photo she’d seen on the Internet, coloured slightly at the memory of her snooping.
‘Yes, he’s put on weight since then as well.’ Caroline spoke as if it were a decade ago, not eleven months.
‘He’s like a bear, we think,’ said Christy (again, that fraudulent ‘we’). ‘One of those ones that can decapitate a human with a swipe of its paw.’
Caroline laughed. ‘Well, in those days he was more the lithe panther type, quite the heart-throb in fact – I think I’m allowed to say that.’
‘Why wouldn’t you be?’ For Christy, Rob’s presence in the photo only made more of a riddle of him. Seeing him in this new context jarred her assumptions, made a mockery of her speculation about formal illegalities (‘Lime Park killer’!). He didn’t used to be rude, Imogen had said, and on this evidence he’d been in fact very popular, right in the centre of the throng, smiling happily, certainly not someone you’d be warned to avoid or want to anonymously call ‘scum’. How could a ‘heart-throb’ have become persona non grata in so brief a time? ‘Distressing stuff’ Caroline had called it before, which could apply to a multitude of sins. Might his fall from grace, for instance, be the result of something more prosaic, a case of the oldest story in the book – and indeed in the book to be discussed that evening – an extramarital affair? A romantic skirmish that had caused the closing of ranks and reprisals that included fists flying and people yelling up at windows?
If so, with whom had he had the skirmish? Looking once again at the photograph, she was quite clear that Amber Fraser was the one you’d pick out of a line-up, the one with mythical levels of desirability, the one who had left in mysterious circumstances. And yet Caroline had vouched for the Frasers’ marital devotion as if in a court of law (They’re together forever …), her words having struck Christy as entirely truthful and authentic. So if not Amber, who? Caroline herself? It would certainly make sense of her ambivalence towards Rob, for what woman was not ambivalent about past passion, even the legitimate sort?
But no, that didn’t make sense either, for Caroline had approved the choice of Madame Bovary for the book group: a guilty woman, especially one who appeared to be the leader of the group, would surely have used her power of veto to avoid
such an awkward discussion. In any case, adultery did not explain that repulsive note. A raging husband or established opponent would surely sign his name; he’d certainly not make the mistake of posting it through the wrong door.
‘Well, he can’t be as awful as we think, because his girlfriend keeps coming back for more,’ Christy said.
‘His girlfriend?’ Caroline turned sharply. ‘Who’s that? What does she look like?’
‘She’s small and blonde and tanned. Very pretty. Early thirties, maybe?’
‘That sounds like Pippa,’ Caroline exclaimed, amazement overriding discretion. ‘She must be crazy if she’s still hanging around! I thought she moved out months ago.’
‘Oh, she doesn’t live there,’ Christy said. It was out of the question for formal removals to have escaped her surveillance. ‘So she used to, did she?’
‘Yes, earlier in the year, but not for long.’
‘Strange.’ Who would move in with a boyfriend, leave again, and then continue to visit regularly immediately afterwards? ‘Maybe they’ve got one of those relationships that thrives on drama and insecurity?’
‘If that’s the case then I worry for her.’ Caroline sucked in her lips, her vow of silence reclaiming her, as her eyes drifted once more to the photograph. The way she looked at it was as if she longed for the glory days, for that golden age when Queen Amber presided. Like a deposed aristocrat dreaming of the last days of Versailles.
By the time the doorbell signalled the arrival of other book lovers, Christy had almost forgotten why she was here. A group of four, including Liz and Joanne, had come together; Christy imagined them calling on one another as they walked down the street, like kids knocking on doors to see who was coming out to play. Sophie and Mel were the other two, their faces now familiar both from her stints at the window and the photo in Caroline’s kitchen. They were a friendly enough group, if disappointingly eager to resume a conversation begun en route, which had to do with Lime Park Primary and the resignation of the deputy head, the content of which was recapped as a matter of priority for Caroline’s benefit. It appeared that discussion of the book would wait until the subject had been dissected to its smallest particles.
Christy glanced around the sitting room, where Caroline had arranged refreshments and hooked up an iPod that shuffled disconcertingly between eighties heavy metal and noughties Disney. It bore signs of a hasty tidy: in one corner a tennis racket, a tangle of chargers, a collapsed tower of magazines, three odd trainers – as if someone had used the racket to sweep the rest out of sight. On one of the bookshelves was a familiar object, the hourglass bottle of scent she’d seen in Felicity’s hallway. Christy reached for it, raised it to her nose. It smelled warm and smoky and dark.
Rejoining the conversation, she found it had progressed: one of the women’s husbands was being discussed and found wanting. ‘I suppose I just have to accept that I’m married to a fucking moron,’ Mel said, and Christy couldn’t imagine speaking of Joe in this way; even if they had begun to argue a little lately, it was nothing like that.
‘Aren’t we all,’ Liz said with bitterness. ‘That’s why some of us decided not to be any more.’
Joanne pulled a consolatory face. ‘I’m lucky with Kenny. He’s no trouble.’ This caused a quick glance between Caroline and Liz, which Christy guessed had to do with the hand injury. Was the scuffle with Rob not common knowledge then? (If indeed there had been any scuffle; sometimes she forgot what she knew and what she only thought she knew.)
As faint praise failed to save Mel’s husband from his damning, the one called Sophie remembered the newcomer by her side and broke away to say, ‘So you’re in the Frasers’ place, right?’ And she reached to touch Christy’s wrist, exclaiming, ‘What a beautiful bangle! Is that amber?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ Christy gave a guilty start, twisting the bangle so the clasp was not visible, the narrow silver band sliding innocently over her wrist bones onto her hand. She’d meant to take it off before spending the evening with Amber’s friends.
‘I love amber. Where did you get it?’ Sophie asked, speaking into a sudden hush, for the others had allowed their conversation to lapse, Mel and her maligned spouse evidently forgotten. It was because the word ‘amber’ had been mentioned, Christy realized.
‘I don’t remember,’ she said. ‘On holiday somewhere, I think.’ Self-conscious now she had everyone’s attention, she resorted to the more comfortable role of questioner: ‘So did Amber Fraser ever come to your book group?’
To her surprise, at this the women broke into a delighted uproar. Exactly as she’d found with Caroline, the subject of Amber-in-residence was not only fair game but also everyone’s decided preference. Glasses were drained, wine replenished and the atmosphere became almost festive.
‘Yes and no,’ Caroline explained to Christy. ‘The first few times we invited her she pretended she was busy, and then when she finally did agree to come, do you know what she did? She insisted we do it at her place, your place, but when we all turned up she’d hired this guy to make cocktails for us. She said, “Why read when we can carouse?” That was such an Amber word, wasn’t it? “Carouse”.’
‘It was,’ Liz agreed. ‘I’d completely forgotten she used to say that!’
‘Oh my God, it was carnage that night,’ said Sophie. ‘Like a hen night.’
‘I couldn’t get my key in the door when I got home,’ Joanne confessed. ‘I had to shout through the letter box to wake Kenny up to let me in. The dog was going berserk.’
‘Her copy of the book was still in the bag from the shop, do you remember?’ Caroline said. ‘She hadn’t even opened it.’
‘That’s right,’ Mel said, ‘it was the new Ian McEwan. She said she’d got the low-down on the plot from Jeremy.’
‘And when he came home he was annoyed because she was supposed to be following some clean-living programme to help with getting pregnant. And there she was, knocking back these lethal mojitos.’
‘I don’t think he minded really, do you? She could get away with murder, he was so besotted.’
‘Any man would have been. Anyway, ridiculous, don’t you think? If you had to be sober to get pregnant there’d be a population crisis!’
‘There would in Lime Park, anyway.’
With this the conversation took a feverish turn: the conceptions of the women’s own babies, the shortcomings – or absences – of their sex lives since, the galling way attractive younger men now looked straight through them in the street or, worse, treated them with scrupulous respect, as if reminded of their own mothers. Having longed to be accepted, Christy now felt rather relieved to be outside of their shared realm of experience.
‘I’d almost prefer to be ignored,’ Sophie said, becoming angry, ‘than patronized in my own street.’
‘I totally agree.’
‘Me too.’
‘I didn’t know there were any young men on Lime Park Road,’ Christy interjected, a sly attempt to get one of them to mention Rob, but she was too late because Liz had become tearful at their talk of waning desirability (her ex-husband had just become engaged again, Mel whispered; to someone much younger from Sales).
‘Why are the decent ones always married?’ Liz asked, with tipsy theatricality. ‘Why can’t I meet a Jeremy Fraser?’
In the absence of a satisfactory answer to this (Jeremy Fraser was, after all, married too), the group decided instead that it should turn its attention at last to the book.
‘Did anyone manage to finish it?’ Caroline asked brightly. ‘The print was really small, wasn’t it?’
But they’d all been far too busy to read more than the first few chapters. All except Christy, who opened the discussion with a rather faltering precis of Flaubert’s plot, all too aware that the minds of the women in the room remained on the dramas of their own lives.
Chapter 18
Amber, 2012
Well, what can I say? It was my mistake and mine alone to believe that honeymoons could last
forever – and I don’t mean only with Rob, I mean with everyone on Lime Park Road. That glorious giddying sensation of being at the centre of everyone’s attention, the sunshine in which they queued to bask: it passed that autumn as garden gates were closed, curtains drawn and folk began to hibernate.
Just as Rob had once warned, school concerns dominated the community. Even Caroline became distracted by applications, her elder daughter Amelia now preparing for senior school entrance exams. Out for the campaign came the old jeans and nautical tops, though she did at least grasp the importance of getting her highlights refreshed. As for Joanne, who had a son in the same class as Amelia, so all-consuming was her obsession that she was temporarily to be avoided. Once I even saw Felicity cross the road to elude her, while Kenny could be seen to roll his eyes as his wife paused at their gate to exchange war stories about private tutors with yet another antsy parent.
Ironically, the only neighbour who could be prised from the subject of education was the education journalist himself – if I was lucky enough to get an audience with him, that was.
For Rob continued to give me the runaround. Oh, it was classic stuff, I see that now, unworthy of Amber Speed, much less Mrs Fraser, but the unedifying truth was that the more he waned the more I waxed. I waxed because he waned. And the fact that this was no deliberate strategy on his part, that he was oblivious to the effects of his casual neglect, just strung me out all the more.
I began to have anxiety dreams. Not for me the mutant monsters and slasher-film plots of normal nightmares, but the real players in my life, the actual backdrops, distorted and dangerous: Rob with Pippa at our party, making love on the carousel, faces strained in rapture; Jeremy ninety years old and emaciated, tottering towards me with a newborn baby in his fragile grasp; Gemma on the screen of every computer and television in the land, announcing my guilt, mocking my beginnings.
The Sudden Departure of the Frasers Page 22