The Disappearance of Emily Marr

by Louise Candlish

  ‘Aren’t you at that pottery café any more?’ Marcus asked. I was impressed that he remembered.

  ‘No, I am, but I’ve got the afternoon off.’ More unprovoked detail; they were unlikely to know I was contractually obliged to work on Saturdays. ‘Anyway, they haven’t got anything at the moment. The recession, you know.’ A sideways glance reassured me that there were no signs in the window advertising for staff.

  ‘The market will pick up soon,’ Marcus said kindly. ‘And there are always other options, aren’t there?’

  I’d grown adept at reading other people’s thoughts, not through any special instinct but through my dealings at work with couples just like this one, and I could guess what they were thinking. Why does she do this sort of menial work? Doesn’t she want a nice white-collar office job, a ‘proper’ career? She’s reasonably well spoken and is obviously presentable. What a prospect, what an impossible thought, in a sunny street in an affluent neighbourhood, to explain to two manifestly wealthy people that I had grown up in a climate of real financial struggle, my father having left his job to nurse my mother before her death and never able to regain the security he’d begun with, hanging on by the skin of his teeth in jobs where employers were not yet enlightened enough to understand why a man would choose to raise children on his own. There had been no money for college and now there was no money for any but the most basic care for him during his own cruel illness.

  I hated myself for having wanted to agree when Arthur had called me ‘unlucky’, but I did; sometimes, to my shame, I wallowed in self-pity. But what then did that make the poor soul who used to be my father incarcerated in a hospital unit and literally not knowing if he was coming or going (neither, in that place)? Damned, perhaps?

  ‘I just thought it might be time for something new,’ I said to the Laings, my reply girlish, anodyne. ‘I’ve been at Earth, Paint & Fire for almost two years now and I’d like to try for a managerial position somewhere.’

  ‘We’ll let you know if we hear of anything,’ Marcus said gamely, and I did not look at Sarah, preferring not to see her poorly feigned agreement.

  Just as I judged it safe to sidle off, Marcus was calling out Arthur’s name and raising a hand in greeting. To my relief, Arthur had not followed me through the main doors but had appeared from the alleyway that ran to one side of the hotel building, where there was a fire door. He joined our gathering with an impressively natural look of surprise.

  ‘I don’t know if you remember meeting at our party?’ Marcus said to the two of us.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, cheerfully, ‘I think I do. You’re the eye man, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Sarah said, and she and Marcus laughed together at my lack of due reverence. It was clear they were in awe of Arthur and thrilled by this opportunity to have him to themselves. I eyed him shyly; he did not look as if he’d just spent the afternoon having sex with me.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember your name,’ he said to me, apologetically, and Marcus jumped in to clarify.

  ‘Emily. Emily Marr. Our next-door neighbour. She of the potter’s wheel.’

  ‘I don’t actually make the pots,’ I laughed. ‘They all come factory-made and ready to paint.’

  ‘Oh, what a disappointment,’ Marcus said.

  ‘What, you like a woman in clay-smeared overalls?’ Arthur asked, amused.

  ‘No, just clay-smeared,’ Marcus said, chortling.

  ‘Well, we all have our weaknesses.’ Arthur spoke in the droll, self-confident tone I recognised from the men at the Laings’ party. How I admired the ease with which he bantered with this pair – or with Marcus, at any rate, for the exchange had apparently displeased Sarah, who was struggling to suppress a scowl. Like Sylvie Woodhall’s in the café, her dislike of me was instinctive. It would be ridiculous of me to protest, however, since it was fully justified, and more ridiculous still to go on wanting to be liked by them while happily making off with one of their men. I suppose I wanted it both ways and yet, standing there on the pavement with the three of them, I had never felt more out of my depth, unfit for either role, let alone both. Twenty minutes ago Arthur had told me repeatedly that he loved me, and I would have traded a hundred avowals then for a silent, secret one now. But instead he glanced at me as if he really did not know me and had no particular reason to reverse the situation.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ I said, with a general smile. ‘Enjoy the rest of the weekend, everyone.’

  I left a cautious interval before texting him: Does that alley lead anywhere besides the fire exit of the hotel?

  He replied: It’s a short-cut to the station. I told them I’d just come from Harley Street.

  Thank God. I was scared they might have guessed.

  No. Don’t worry.

  Sarah doesn’t like me, does she?

  If she doesn’t it will be because Marcus does. And there’s nothing wrong with his vision, as far as I’m aware.

  I didn’t care much for this theory, but I supposed it was preferable to Sarah hating me because she suspected I was having an affair with one of her friends’ husbands.

  And, all things considered, I would far rather have bumped into her in that situation than into Sylvie herself – or her friend Nina Meeks.

  Chapter 9

  Tabby

  How seamless the weeks were when you might be working on any day. They turned without pause, the island’s summer season unstoppable both for the holidaymakers and those who served them. Tabby knew which she would rather be, given the choice. A regular income having lifted her from the ranks of the near-homeless, she began to feel stirrings of a desire to let her hair down. All at once it felt tightly braided, knotted to her scalp so closely she could no longer breathe for the pain.

  Which was another way of saying she was bored.

  Though much had happened in the intervening months, it wasn’t so long since she’d devoted her own days to hedonism, to floating in the waters of the Gulf of Thailand with her arms outstretched and eyes closed, feeling the sun burnish her cheeks while alcohol or other chemicals flowed through her bloodstream. Here, she was excluded from the forces of indulgence at play around her, the daily demonstrations of high spirits in the bars and cafés of the port, and it was an exclusion that was self-imposed – and self-defeating. It began to seem absurd that she and Emmie were living in such a sedate manner, behaving more like elderly spinsters or war widows than young women in their twenties and thirties. How anonymous their lives were, how clandestine! They’d dropped out of everybody’s society but one another’s, a pair of oddballs with no friends among the locals and only one bicycle between them, spending their working hours preparing houses for other people’s holidays, people who sat in the sunshine and drank rosé and licked ice-creams and danced and laughed and… everything else.

  Everything else that made life a pleasure and not a punishment.

  Having thought she had successfully buried the memory of her night with the Parisian Grégoire, even reached the point at which it was possible to pretend to herself it had not actually happened, she now relived with disturbing clarity her reacquaintance with his guest bedroom. As she’d stood by the bed, the deadweight of fresh linen in her arms, she’d been unable to prevent the onslaught of a series of destabilising lurches as she recalled how good it felt to have sex with a man – with Paul, ideally, who in declaring himself dissatisfied with all other aspects of their relationship had not been dissatisfied with that. The pitching feelings had gone on even as she tucked the sheets and hauled the quilt into its new blue-and-white gingham cover, thumped the pillows into plumpness; they startled her like hiccups that could not quite be beaten.

  Which was another way of saying she was lonely.

  Though her experience of that earlier feminist epiphany had been acute, she’d since continued to be painfully reminded of her aloneness, of being unequal to the task of that aloneness – not like Emmie, whose character appeared well suited to her s
olitude. (Or maybe she was just better at concealing her frustrations than Tabby was.)

  ‘Why don’t we have a night out?’ she suggested one Saturday evening soon after the job in Les Portes. The distant music of holidaymakers’ voices through their open kitchen door was always more potent with the added energy of the weekenders. ‘You’re not booked to work tomorrow, are you?’

  ‘No. What did you have in mind?’ Emmie asked, doubtfully, as if there were hundreds of ways in which the two of them might risk life and limb in this law-abiding place, and she wanted nothing to do with any of them.

  ‘Just a drink in one of the bars. All these places, and I’ve hardly been to any of them. You do drink, don’t you?’ Tabby had never seen Emmie drinking alcohol. She herself had supplied bottles of wine here and there – it was as cheap as water in the supermarkets – but Emmie had declined all offers of a glass. ‘Or we could just have a coffee? Come on, you can’t spend every night reading or staring at your computer…’ She faltered, realising too late that Emmie had not once brought the laptop downstairs but kept it at all times in her bedroom, which meant Tabby could only have known she passed evenings in this way because she’d peeked through the glazed panel of Emmie’s closed door.

  But Emmie didn’t make the connection. ‘All right, why not? Give me a few minutes to get ready.’ She was unexpectedly agreeable, even pleased, which made Tabby wish she’d made the suggestion weeks ago. Why hadn’t she? Money, she supposed. The bars and cafés in the port were expensive and her priority remained to save cash, not spend it. As for Emmie, while having appeared when they’d met to be in a far healthier position than Tabby, she was, it transpired, living a similar hand-to-mouth existence on the earnings she made from cleaning for Moira. Other than the bottle of expensive perfume, there’d been no evidence of any former affluence, nothing to bring to the table from her old life; even the bike had come with the house.

  Upstairs, as Tabby dispensed herself enough cash from her savings for a couple of carafes of wine, the sight of the modest stash of euros caused sudden euphoria in her. Of course she should overlook her strict budget for a few hours. She’d worked hard to pull herself back from poverty, she’d hidden herself away for almost six weeks now, and it had been months since she’d made an effort with her appearance. Standing at the mirror and putting on her make-up, she felt the exhilaration grow: it felt less like the application of a mask than the removal of one, the overdue reinstating of who she really was. She was twenty-five, young! She deserved a public airing.

  She hurried downstairs, wishing Paul could see her looking good again – a weak, futile desire, she knew, but at least she was now free of the belief that there was no point if he could not.

  ‘All set?’ she called up, hearing Emmie’s door open and close, her footsteps on the stairs. As Emmie’s lower body began to come into view, she couldn’t help but stare, first at the footwear – deep-green velvet court shoes with a glamorous high heel – and then at the skirt – full and swinging, a vintage print of pink and green – which revealed itself to be a dress, cut low at the front and puffed a little at the shoulder, a garment not only at odds with Emmie’s usual style but also the first time Tabby had seen her in any dress. Last came her face: she too was wearing make-up, rose-pink lips, kohl smudged under the eye and winged liner on the lids, bringing drama to her green eyes, and a creamy foundation that polished the contours of her cheekbones and jaw. Her hair, normally unkempt and, Tabby had come to assume, resistant to styling, was smoothed from her forehead and secured with a narrow band. It was not just a smartening-up but a complete reconfiguration.

  ‘Wow, Emmie, you look amazing!’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you in make-up before. And can you walk in those shoes?’

  Emmie frowned, offended. ‘Of course I can. Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘I just meant on the cobbles?’

  ‘Oh, I see. I’ll try.’

  They managed the short walk without injury, Tabby slipping her hand into Emmie’s elbow to help steady her on the uneven ground. This in itself was without precedent, for they had not yet developed the kind of friendship where touch was natural. They attracted glances as soon as they merged into the flow of the promenade. Tabby, in one of the sheer cotton cover-ups she’d bought in the Far East, had forgotten how revealing the fabric was, and as for Emmie’s dress, well, it was very tight at the chest and hips; she must have been a smaller size when she bought it. As they took seats at the bar on the quay, she noticed the glances growing into stares.

  ‘Well, what a beautiful evening, still so hot!’ She gestured to the waiter for service. ‘Let’s pretend we’re the ones on holiday, let other people do the work for once.’

  But no sooner had they ordered their wine than Emmie was springing to her feet again. ‘I’m just going to the tabac to get some cigarettes,’ she announced.

  Tabby was amazed. ‘Cigarettes? I didn’t know you smoked?’

  ‘I used to, now and then.’ And she was gone before Tabby could make further comment.

  Alone, she became aware of two men at the table next to theirs who were looking her over with particular interest. Something about one of them reminded her uncomfortably of Steve: he had the same British complexion, the same insolence in his eyes. It struck her for the first time that it was not beyond the realms of possibility that she might meet someone she knew from England while she was here. Not Paul, of course, this was not a traveller’s destination, but it was certainly a tourist’s – and just a short flight from London. She was confident, however, that she would not be likely to encounter her mother and Steve. They would not be attracted here for the same reasons that they would be so out of place if they were to find themselves here: it was not flashy enough, but understated, a world of faded beachwear and demure cotton print shifts. No wonder she and Emmie had stood out as they tottered across the cobbles, their faces vivid with make-up.

  The last tables were filling, the chatter thickening around her, as the waiter returned with the wine. Tabby began without Emmie, finding she needed the drink more urgently now her thoughts were sliding in the direction she most disliked, towards the single occasion when she had voiced a complaint to her mother about Steve’s attentions. For what it had been worth.

  It had been about six months after he had moved in with them and only a few weeks since her mother had confided in her that she thought he was about to propose.

  ‘I don’t like the way he looks at me,’ Tabby began, struggling to gain her mother’s full attention. Waiting for an opportunity to get her alone meant she had to ambush her as she left for work.

  ‘Oh, it’s just his way,’ Elaine said. ‘He likes the ladies, but he doesn’t mean any harm.’ It was the pride in her voice that had disheartened Tabby most, for it was evidence that she was applying all Steve-related matters to herself, not to her daughter, prepared to turn suspicion of him into a compliment to herself. She revelled in her renewed status as a woman desired, even if it made her daughter uncomfortable. Tabby supposed all children of first marriages must encounter this when their mother began again with someone new – but they surely did not encounter the rest.

  ‘Mum, he came into the bathroom when I was in the bath. He saw me naked!’

  ‘He told me all about that, Tabby. He didn’t realise you were in the house at all, he thought you were at school.’ This, Tabby knew, was where Steve’s testimony held weight, since she had been supposed to be at school but had skipped the class for the history A-level that she would go on to fail. ‘He was as shocked as you were. Try to imagine the situation from his point of view. He was blushing like anything when he told me.’

  ‘But he —’

  ‘Please, Tabs, stop this.’ Elaine’s voice grew hard. ‘It’s difficult enough making a go of things second time around without having to deal with you criticising him the whole time.’ And she closed the discussion before Tabby could find the nerve to give further insight into Steve’s ‘point
of view’. Yes, she could have insisted, she could have followed her mother out to her car and spewed the full details, shouted, ‘Propose? Why don’t I tell you what he proposed to me!’, but what would have been the point? She would only have been accused of attention-seeking, of trying to come between them out of loyalty to her father or jealousy of her mother, of creating disharmony where Elaine was determined harmony should reign. She could not win.

  She could not forget, either, not the smallest detail of the episode. She’d been at home on her own, reading in the bath, when Steve had come home unexpectedly from work. She heard the front door open and close, his voice call Elaine’s name and then, getting no response, her own.