I can’t remember exactly where I ended my story last time or when my last entry was made, but it must have been only a day or so afterwards that Phil’s house was burgled and my laptop taken. I knew my days – perhaps hours – were numbered just as soon as the break-in was discovered. There was no evidence that the intruder had taken anything belonging to Phil, Julie or the kids, but just knowing a stranger had walked through their house and climbed their stairs to the bedrooms was violation enough. I’m sure I would have felt exactly the same in their position.
It was no surprise that everything taken was mine, and none of it of any monetary value: the bottle of bluebell perfume Arthur had given me, a lipstick, a dress, a pair of shoes; a postcard from Arthur that came with a gift he’d sent to me soon after we had fallen in love (I don’t need to record the message he wrote on it: it will never be forgotten, whether I have the card in my possession or not); and the photograph of Matt and me I’d kept, the one from his cousin’s wedding that the Press used first and was so widely published afterwards. I’d looked at it now and then since leaving Walnut Grove; it had become an unexpected source of comfort. The signs in Matt’s face of his love of easy times and paths of least resistance: I’d thought how fond I was of him. That, at least, had come of the tragedy.
Though I cried for my stolen belongings, especially the postcard, it was only the loss of the laptop that caused real trepidation, more specifically the one document stored on it that I had authored. It seemed impossible that I could rewrite my story, remember the painful and joyful details, survive a retelling when the telling had been so difficult. But over time I’ve begun to realise that it doesn’t matter that it has gone because I’ve achieved my original aim: in writing it I’ve purged myself of the worst of it and been able to take heart in the best. I don’t need to see it again. As I said at the beginning, it was never meant for posterity.
No, my fear, of course, was that my words should find their way on to the internet or into a newspaper. Were they reproduced in full, it wouldn’t be so bad (it’s the plain truth, after all), but I of all people know how sentences are sliced up, phrases taken out of context and used to damn the author herself.
Though I can make a reasonable assumption that the document will be kept private, I tell myself that even if it does surface and the media appetite for the story is rekindled, I’m away from home, I’m out of range. I’m in old-fashioned exile in Paris, just like Wallis Simpson, whom not so long ago I had the pleasure of appearing alongside in one tabloid’s ‘fun’ countdown of women who’d caused their man’s downfall. I was the only twenty-first-century representative in the list; perhaps there are none in recent years thought likely to stand the test of time.
I won’t either. Someone so easy to fictionalise will be just as easy to forget.
I reported the theft to the police in Newbury, but they were powerless. Of course, I had a fair idea who the thief was, and so must they, given my previous complaints. For in the days prior to the theft I’d come to realise that the sensation I had of being followed every time I left the house was not lingering paranoia but well-honed instinct. There was someone shadowing me, a woman. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I recognised her from the regulars at the gate of my Grove flat. Not one of the haters, but one of the sympathisers.
The police were reluctant to use the word ‘stalker’, though Phil and I did – out of earshot of Julie.
I’d noticed her for the first time just as I’d begun to believe I was anonymous again. It was mid-morning, mid-week, and I’d just left the house for a run when I collided with someone in the street, about four houses up from Phil’s. Apologising, I moved off without making eye contact (head low, eyes on my feet: this was habitual now, hence the risk of collision), but not before noticing the person’s shoes. They were green velvet, like the pair I’d included in the bags I donated to the charity shop on the high street near the Grove.
I tried to dismiss it as a coincidence but, reaching the end of my laps and panting towards the gate, I saw the velvet-shod feet again. They belonged to a woman sitting alone on a bench in the drizzle. When I’d crashed into her, she’d been walking in the opposite direction from me, which meant she must have intentionally turned and followed me to the park. Now, quite openly, she rose to tail me again.
Sprinting home, I quickly lost her, not giving her the satisfaction of knowing I was aware of her, but I might as well have invited her to stroll by my side since she already knew where I lived and could find me again whenever she chose. It struck me she must have been watching me for some time, keeping her distance so I’d only sensed the surveillance rather than noticing the observer.
That now altered. Suddenly I saw her every time I set foot outside, if not in Phil’s street then wherever it was I’d walked to. There was no eye contact between us, for I made a point of not looking directly at her. It was surprisingly easy to marginalise her, or, if my mood was particularly upbeat, to see her in a good light, as a guardian angel or a protector – only possible, I imagine, because it was a woman and not a man. But the reality was I did not go out often, rarely more than once a day, and she must have been prepared to wait in all weathers for my sporadic appearances. That meant she could not be holding down a job; was she even sleeping at night, and if so, where? She was devoting herself to me, to staking me out. Male or female, it was unsettling behaviour.
We came face to face just twice and they were two of the strangest experiences of my life.
The first was a Monday. I’d been to the corner shop for chocolate – how modest my adventures! – and was letting myself back into the house when I turned to find her right behind me, just a couple of feet away. She’d followed me up the drive quite silently and I let out a squeal of surprise before composing myself. I pulled off my hat and jangled my keys to signal to her that her presence had not bothered me and I would be putting myself indoors and out of reach within seconds. Phil happened to be working from home that day, so I knew I need only call out to him if I was in trouble. I was quite safe.
Key in the lock, something made me turn back and for the first time look square at her. ‘Can I help you?’ I asked.
Two things startled me. First, the way her face collapsed in front of my eyes. I assumed it was a reaction to the sound of my voice, it had disappointed her in some way, but I was soon put right on this score. ‘What did you do to your hair?’ she asked, the distress audible in her voice. ‘It was so beautiful.’
‘My hair?’
But she continued to stare at the top of my head, her eyes quite horrified, as if someone had tipped something unpleasant over me. It was the most peculiar response.
‘I cut it off,’ I told her impatiently. ‘A while ago.’
‘But why?’
‘Oh come on, I would have thought that was fairly obvious. I don’t want to be recognised – and I thought I’d succeeded.’
Her mood seemed to cheer in an instant, facial muscles springing up again, mouth smiling brightly. ‘We have succeeded,’ she said eagerly. ‘No one knows.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I asked, but received no answer, only that continuing vivid beam of a smile. I concentrated then on the second reason I’d been startled by her, the cause of the cold feeling now crawling across my skin: the fact that she looked so very like me. I don’t mean we were doppelgangers – it wasn’t that close in terms of our bone structure – but we were the same height and build, no more than a year or two apart in age, similar enough to be mistaken for sisters or half-sisters. It wasn’t that, though, that chilled me; it was how she was dressed, the way she had done her hair and make-up, and obviously with painstaking care. All of it was a clear tribute to me, or rather to Emily Marr, to the woman in the images that had circulated after the scandal. Standing there, looking at the beige boiled-wool swing coat just like the vintage mustard one I’d once worn, the shoes, which I saw with relief were not my own but a rounder-toed copy, I had a moment of sudden understanding: I’d lost mysel
f, I’d lost myself the first day I stepped from my besieged little flat with my head covered. I’d been in disguise ever since. I’d thought it was the day Sylvie died and Arthur gave me up, but it had come later. Even at the inquest, when I’d wiped off my lipstick and regretted my footwear, I’d still been myself. Now, six weeks later, all that was left of me was imitators like this.
‘Who are you?’ I demanded. ‘Why are you dressed like this?’
‘Because we’re the same,’ she said happily.
‘No, we’re not. We don’t know each other.’
To my relief, the front door opened and Phil appeared in the porch behind me. ‘Who’s this, Em?’
‘I don’t know, but she’s been following me. I’m trying to find out why.’ I had half a notion to invite the girl in, satisfy her curiosity once and for all, fail her with so much evidence of my new ordinariness that she would lose interest of her own accord. But Phil had other ideas. He threatened her with the police, rudely telling her to get lost.
‘You have to go,’ I agreed, but more civilly. In spite of the invasion, I couldn’t help wanting to treat her respectfully; she must have been damaged in some way to have let her fascination with me take such a grip of her. She was like a teenager at the stage door waiting for the star, except she was a grown woman and I was no star. I remembered now the ‘protest’ group who had doorstepped Nina Meeks; they’d had special T-shirts made. And there had been fan blogs, too, one of which, I seemed to remember, had brought news of a new girl group called The Emilys.
This fan was not as singular as she supposed and, watching her scamper off down the drive, I felt a little sorry for her.
Inside, Phil begged to differ. ‘Who the hell is that freak show? She looks more like you than you do.’
‘Than I did, yes. I think she might be one of the ones who hung around in London. I don’t think she means any harm.’
‘That’s not how Julie will see it.’ It was true that my sister-in-law would be anxious about the children’s safety if she heard someone had been watching the house. ‘It’s not how you should either,’ Phil added. ‘Anyone who’s mad enough to come from London and turn up at a stranger’s house dressed exactly the same as them is potentially dangerous.’
‘Well when you put it like that…’ I tried to joke.
‘We need to report this headcase to the police.’
He duly phoned to report the incident but, without a name or any threat of ill-intent, we could not expect any intervention. I had not had police protection in London when I lived under permanent siege, so I was unlikely to get it now.
I didn’t see her the next day, but the one after that she was back, ringing the doorbell, a bold new step for her. I was in the house on my own and did not answer the door, but she returned after dark when the whole family was at home and Phil made me stay indoors while he handled it.
‘We’ve filed a complaint against you,’ I heard him tell her. ‘If you keep coming back here, we’ll apply for a restraining order. What’s your name? Come on, don’t be a coward, spit it out. Don’t you want your hero to know who you are?’
Only when she was goaded to repeat her answer did I catch it. ‘Emily.’
‘Yes, I know you know her name. I’m asking you what yours is.’
I understood before he did that she was saying her name was Emily as well. I didn’t believe that, of course: she had simply appropriated my name just as she had appropriated my style of dress. Peering over Phil’s shoulder, I saw with horror that this time she was wearing something that really had once been mine, a black wool jacket with oversized buttons and fake-fur collar that I’d sold back to the vintage shop near work where I’d bought it. Had she followed me that day I’d lugged bin liners down the Grove to the bus stop? Had the shop assistant recognised me and made a virtue of the items’ provenance? As worn by the famous slut Emily Marr! Had she, and others like her, taken possession of my entire wardrobe? Were there pieces of me for sale now on eBay?
I called out, ‘I’ll be leaving the country any day now. You won’t find me where I’m going. So whoever you are, just forget this, forget me and go back to your life.’
I felt the words catch in my throat, because it applied to what I was supposed to be doing about Arthur: forgetting him, forgetting us, going back to my life.
Perhaps this woman’s ‘real’ life was as elusive and frightening to her as mine was to me, in which case we were more alike than I had thought.
After she’d agreed to go, Phil, bless him, tried to joke. ‘She puts the fanatic back into fan, eh? If she goes around looking like you, maybe she’ll get a stalker of her own. Now that would be news.’ With Julie hovering, I quickly gathered that the levity was for her benefit, and I joined in with a show of laughter.
Julie’s eyebrows were pinched anxiously together. She cared about me very much – I couldn’t have asked for a kinder, more thoughtful sister-in-law – but there was not a single word she uttered or breath she took that did not prioritise concern for her young sons. ‘I bet she’s not the only one out there, Emily. People in these news scandals always get this sort of thing.’
Still aiming to keep the mood light, I told her that at the peak of the media interest I had read that women were saying to their hairdressers they wanted a haircut like mine.
She nodded, face still tense. ‘It’s the blonde thing. Seriously, I bet even Myra Hindley spawned a few sick lookalikes in her day.’
‘She means someone with a distinctive look,’ Phil said hastily. ‘She doesn’t mean you have anything in common with one of the most infamous child killers of the twentieth century.’
This time I could not share the joke. Recalling Nina Meeks’ reference to Lizzie Borden and the other writers’ constant comparisons of me with criminals and low-lifes, I felt tears rise at the idea that my own family could make the same casual references. Mortified, Julie began apologising. I accepted her words but, even so, I was upset.
‘The best thing you did was chop off your hair,’ Phil told me. ‘You don’t need the hat any more. No one will recognise you now.’
‘Well, this woman has,’ Julie pointed out.
‘She’s the only one, though, isn’t she? She must have heard you had a brother, looked up the address, struck lucky to find you here.’
I knew what Julie was thinking: if one louse had come out of the woodwork, any number of them might follow.
No matter. The point was, there was a finality to these conversations that all three of us recognised. Phil had as good as asked me to hide abroad – offered me the money to do it, no less – and I had as good as agreed. I’d delayed and delayed, but now I had to leave them in peace; my refuge here was no longer tenable.
And then, the very next time the house was left empty, came the break-in. As burglaries went it was an orderly, almost sensitive one. She’d broken glass in the kitchen door, but collected up the pieces and placed them on a sheet of newspaper on the kitchen worktop. She disarranged no contents of drawers or wardrobes, upturned nothing. She’d merely picked out the items she needed to complete her Emily Marr wardrobe and while she was at it gained access to my innermost thoughts. She couldn’t have expected that bonus material. Soon she would know me almost as well as I knew myself. In the immediate aftermath, I felt sick with helplessness, but later, as I say, I’ve found it was actually the catalyst I needed.
The following evening, after another fruitless report to the local police, I prepared to leave. Without the laptop and other stolen items I had even fewer possessions to take with me than I’d arrived with, and it took less than an hour to pack. I told Phil and Julie where I was going only in the morning, before they left for work. I knew they were filled with pity for me, but also relieved to have me go of my own volition, and I could hardly blame them for that.
Phil promised to transfer some money to my account to top up the little I had. ‘Keep in touch,’ he said. ‘Don’t disappear so well that we can’t find you.’
‘I won’
t,’ I promised.
As I went through passport checks at St Pancras I thought I saw the official narrow her eyes slightly at the sight of my name – and my photo, too, which was from my better-known blonde incarnation. She made no comment, however, just handed the passport back to me and let me pass. There was no final humiliation. In Paris, three hours later, there was not a flicker of recognition at Immigration, and as I walked through the Gare du Nord without attracting a single sideways glance, I knew I’d done the right thing.
As Phil says, the best I can hope for is that when I come back – if I ever do – people will have forgotten I was ever anyone they’d heard of in the first place.
The last thing to say is that I have contacted Arthur a final time. I did it the old-fashioned way, by letter, addressed to his Harley Street clinic and marked Private & Confidential. I slightly disguised my writing on the envelope and hoped the Paris postmark might pique him into opening it. But of course he must have been receiving unwanted mail just as I have, plenty of it innocently marked Private (I imagined it still falling in handfuls through the letterbox of 199, for of course I’d left no forwarding address). As the days pass and no reply comes, I’ve come to suspect that his two secretaries, the ones who denied me any contact by phone, must continue to shield him from any but the essential correspondence. ‘I’m sure you understand,’ they would say.
The Disappearance of Emily Marr Page 38