by Clare Curzon
Slamming the drawer finally shut made the whole piece shake. The triptych mirror on top wobbled, threatening to fall. She reached out instinctively to save it and her fingertips closed on a lump behind one edge of the frame.
She laid the mirror flat and peeled off the sticky tape which secured a small flat package wrapped in a white tissue. The contents yielded like granules of coffee sweetener.
She held her breath and gently eased off the tape seal. The tissue tore but she could always replace it. No,of course she’d never replace it; not if inside there was what she suspected.
In her hand lay a small plastic envelope containing white powder. One corner had been snipped off and a little eased out as she held it. Dear God, no!
Pointless to try it on her tongue. What should it taste of? Shouldn’t taste of? And in any case she knew: she’d seen it so often on television, in films; little packages like this, and the knowing glance exchanged between investigating police. She knew the contents because she knew the cliché.
But what had this to do with Chloe? It made her present disappearance more alarming. Supposedly visiting her grandmother, she was deep into deceit, concealing her whereabouts from her family; perhaps planning her flight to Montreux with a grown-up lover. Or waiting there alone, and writing back to demand why he hadn’t caught up with her?
It had to be Pascal she was involved with. And now this new discovery must surely mean that he was her supplier.
Everything had suddenly changed, yet again lurched into a Kafkaesque distortion. She saw now that searching she’d been looking for something different, proof that Chloë’s link with the man was less serious; some innocent reason for her writing. It would have been disturbing enough because unsuspected, but hurtful on a personal level only because Leila herself had been attracted, and deceived, by him. She’d not have needed to see Chloe and herself in the same predicament.
Now that she knew for certain that the child was in moral danger she must search more thoroughly. She began again, desperately.
Nothing new in the drawers, which yielded only underclothes, with school uniform strictly segregated. The sliding doors of her wardrobe re-opened on to the same hanging garments; on the floor the same games gear and files of school notes, lacrosse and hockey sticks; a box with microscope and slides; shoes neatly lined up in pairs; stationery for personal correspondence and for printer.
Nothing. Leila sat back on her heels. If Chloe had anything relating to her secret life she would have taken it away with her. So what had she actually packed in her single suitcase? Which of her clothes were missing?
As Leila’s hands brushed along them a hanger clattered and some filmy material cascaded down. She bent to pick it up and saw that at the top it was still attached to the hanger. A full-length evening dress.
She lifted it out. It was of semi-transparent silk chiffon and low cut, panelled on the bias. Weird purples, black and poison green merged into each other under a glittering tracery of silver thread. Quite fabulous.
She laid the dress on the bed and stared at it; imagined Chloe spellbound by its fantasy. And she had never spoken of it, kept to herself what must have been a very thrilling, personal gift, because no way would her pocket money ever have stretched to this.
Leila felt sick at how easily the girl had been bought: with drugs and a fabulous dress.
But she was a greater fool herself, when it took no more than a Centre Court ticket and a river trip to have her convinced that Pascal was in love with her! And herself with him. That had been enough to destroy a lifetime’s belief in a wife’s due loyalty. Something inside seemed to shrivel at the thought. ‘God,’ she moaned, ‘what a pathetic fool!’
She heard the squeal of the garden gate. Someone was approaching the house by the front path. From behind the curtain she looked down and saw Pascal loping towards the front porch. So at last he had thought up some scheme of damage limitation.
She wasn’t ready for him. He shouldn’t find her here.
He rang three times with long pauses between. Even when his footfalls had died away she stayed crouched beside Chloë’s bed, the fabric of the abominable dress crumpled in one fist. She let time pass before standing up, and found she had stiffened.
She straightened and took stock. One thing about the dress now puzzled her: that it was still here. That and the powder, whatever it was.
If Chloe had special plans for Montreux, why hadn’t she taken these things with her? It was unaccountable, on a level with Pascal himself having stayed behind.
She had thought she knew her stepdaughter. Was it just possible that the extravagant gift of the dress had embarrassed her and she’d sense enough to see through the motive behind it? Handing it back might have been awkward, involving seeing the man again. The letter from abroad could be her way of explaining how she felt.
No, it was a wilful stretching of imagination to think that Chloe had repudiated him and that, rejected, he’d then meant to use her stepmother to regain access. And yet why else such deliberate pursuit? - and it had been deliberate, she saw now; from the first, with that self-guying, stage-Gallic role he’d played to catch her attention at the cricket match.
Holding the dress close Leila now became aware of its perfume. The whole wardrobe had smelled faintly of Chloë’s favourite Je Reviens - one of Uncle Charles’s unsuitable gifts last Christmas. The scent certainly didn’t come off her laundered school uniform. It was this filmy material that had perfumed the rest.
Which suggested that Chloe had already worn it.
Now that Leila examined it more closely she found a drawn thread puckering the fabric of one slim shoulder strap. And the hem had been amateurishly turned up to make it two inches shorter. Not even hemmed, but secured at distances of four or five inches with stationery staples.
At some time Chloe must have gone out dressed in this seductive outfit and her parents had known nothing of it. Nor that she was experimenting with what could be cocaine.
There seemed no end to the disasters that threatened to submerge her. For a short while Leila’s reason deserted her. In febrile shock she went round the house double-locking outer doors and closing windows, as if preparing for a high gale. She felt the house under siege, and herself gone to earth like a hunted beast.
Shaking, she fetched a decanter and a tumbler from the dining room and went back upstairs. In her own room she slid beneath the duvet. One outstretched arm encountered Aidan’s folded pyjamas and she recoiled, dragged herself from the bed and fled to the ochre and terracotta stage-set of Chloë’s room. Nothing, herself included, was normal any more. She was become part of the surreal.
There she closed Chloë’s dark curtains and turned on the overhead light - at eleven o’clock on a bright summer morning. It was insane and she dimly acknowledged it. She shed all her clothes and slid between the cool sheets, poured brandy into the chattering glass, then lay shivering, despite a temperature already in the eighties.
It was the doorbell’s shrilling that half-woke her. Still confused by the brandy she stumbled downstairs. The brain inside her skull felt swollen, pressing hotly behind her eyes. It beat at each step and her balance was uncertain. In the hall she clung to the newel post to steady herself, gasping as she bruised her naked breasts.
She was aware enough to seize a raincoat from the lobby and cover herself before opening the front door. It was then she recalled the danger: that Pascal could have come after her.
Someone she didn’t know was standing there - a young man in shirtsleeves and chinos. He was trying not to notice her dishevelled appearance. ‘What is it?’ she demanded.
He had to explain twice over because she didn’t grasp his connection with the library. Then it appeared that he worked there and he’d called here on his way home.
So it was evening now. And yes, she did remember him after all. He had been the serious one usually date-stamping or working at the computer keyboard.
It seemed the book was for her daughter. Chloë must
have left it behind: one from her list for exam work. By mistake it had been put back on the shelves where a helpful browser had reported something of Chloë’s inside. Then a librarian remembered a student laying it down to riffle through her tote bag. She could have gone off without it.
The young man hoped it wasn’t too late to be helpful with her work. It must be the end of term soon.
‘Yes, yes. Thank you.’ It was too complicated to explain that Chloë was away, having been allowed, like other pupils, to slope off early once her own exams were over.
The young man wanted to linger and chat but she shut the door firmly on him and relocked it.
The book was a novel by Martin Amis. Leila hadn’t known it was on the Eng Lit syllabus. If she left it in Chloë’s room she would find it when she returned. Not that it was clear when that would be, or if at all.
Drowsily she went back and sat on the side of the bed, opening the book at the first page. She read a paragraph through and it made no sense. Well that was probably intentional. There were people who read Joyce’s Ulysses for the fun of its obfuscation. Amis appeared rather the same, only simpler. Time’s Arrow. Chloë might enjoy it. Not herself.
Reaching out to the bedside table she miscalculated and the book fell, exploding on its face. A square white envelope had detached itself from the pages.
This was what the young man had mentioned: something of Chloë’s which another reader had found. The envelope, printed with the girl’s name but no address, showed no sign of having been opened.
Until today Leila had respected her stepchildren’s privacy. But no longer. Opening this was no more taboo than searching Chloë’s room had been. She inserted a fingernail in the envelope and tore the flap back.
The deckle-edged card it contained was a formal invitation requesting the pleasure of the company of … Chloë’s name was written in by hand, with the word ‘over’ after place and time.
On the reverse side the same script offered a personal message: ‘A few very select friends look forward to meeting you. Come precisely at ten and you shall have what you asked for.’
Come where? Leila turned back to the card’s die-stamped heading. Carnaval Masque. The address was a house near Henley. The date two days ahead.
Whatever it meant Leila felt a cold shiver of premonition. On the surface the invitation was formal and proper, yet she was aware of menace in the wording. The written sentence was ambiguous, but for Chloe it must hold a specific message.
Would she have known who they were, these few very select friends eager to meet a young schoolgirl? And given a precise time at which to appear - like a servant or some kind of performer. And what was promised that she had asked for?
Had she really made some demand, or should the phrase be taken in the other sense, as a bully’s threat that she would ‘get what she’d been asking for’?
The envelope was unstamped, so delivered by hand. As the book had been just now. It could mean that the young man from the library was involved. She would see him and demand to know.
But no: anyone could have left that for her at the library, where her name and face would be familiar. If the young librarian hadn’t brought it Chloe would have been handed it next time she went in. Which meant the sender had no idea Chloe was away and untraceable. Had she disappeared for just that reason, being afraid of what might happen? Scared for the results of some action of her own?
And where in this was the link with Pascal revealed by today’s letter to him? ‘Carnaval Masqué’: because of the use of French, Leila felt this had to be more of his doing.
There was also the recurrence of Henley in the address, close to where he had taken her yesterday! She mistrusted coincidence. She wished she had a clearer head, because it was up to her now to find out what these ‘few special friends’ expected of Chloe. She had been a weak fool to befuddle herself with drink.
Leila went through to the kitchen and poured a tumbler of water. It made her retch and she recalled she’d run out on breakfast and had only brandy since. She must force something down.
With a slice of wholemeal toast inside her she felt more normal. Thank God Chloe was away and hadn’t received the invitation. It was up to her, Leila, to follow up the card, drive over to Henley while it was still daylight to hunt out the house where the masquerade was to be held.
Quickly she tidied both beds and dressed to go out, but as she opened the front door she saw Aidan’s car turn into the driveway, blocking the way out for her own.
He’d said he’d be gone for two days, hadn’t he? And that must have been three or four days ago. She seemed to have lost all account of time.
Whatever, he wasn’t in the sweetest of tempers. As he passed her in the hall he stopped and stared suspiciously. He sniffed. ‘You’ve been drinking. I hope you let someone else drive you home.’
It was easier to let him think she’d just come in. ‘Of course,’ she said, dumped her shoulder-bag and made again for the kitchen. The smell of toast there was less conspicuous than the brandy but she opened a window straight away. A few minutes later he followed her in and demanded, ‘What’s for dinner?’
‘Breasts of lamb,’ she invented quickly. It seemed to have almost Freudian aptness but her womanising husband missed it.
‘You’re earlier than I expected,’ she told him, ‘so they’re not marinaded yet. We’ll be eating at eight.’
He hardly seemed to hear what she said, and certainly hadn’t picked up on her uncustomary sharpness. ‘I’ll be in the lounge,’ he said shortly. ‘You can bring me some coffee through.’
Drawing-room, she corrected him silently: you’re in the wrong house. You aren’t at your little bimbo’s semi now.
It amazed her how strong her distaste for him had suddenly become, and what pleasure surged up from such petty rebellion. It seemed she had passed over an invisible line, and instead of the expected guilt at adultery it brought her a kind of angry release.
At least for that she could thank Pascal.
She wondered how far rebellion could take her; whether she would become like one of those vengeful wives who cut up their husbands’ suits, poured away their vintage claret and slashed their car tyres. Perhaps, some day; but for the present there were more serious worries to occupy her. And in comparison Aidan’s affaires seemed of little importance.
What most rankled was his utter inability to understand or help with whatever fix his young daughter had landed herself in. She could never even suggest to him that anything was amiss in Chloë’s life. It would only send him berserk, raging at Leila herself.
She continued to play the distant housewife, allowing rancour to build silently inside throughout their meal, fortifying her. When the hall phone shrilled she was on her way to the kitchen with her hands full of dishes and all her tension flooded back.
He beat her to it, anxious to prevent her taking the call. His body language gave him away, hunched with his back towards where he guessed she must be standing. Then the loosening up, the turning to include her: ‘It’s Chloe; she’s calling from Granny’s.’
After a few meaningless words he handed the receiver across. ‘Mum,’ her stepdaughter greeted her, ‘how’re things? Is the heatwave still on? It’s terrific here. I’ve been swimming in the sea with the boy from the apartment opposite, name of Roger but pronounced Ro-zhay; a bit of a prune actually.’ She was talking fast to prevent her stepmother squeezing a word in.
Leila attempted to hold her voice steady. ‘Hello, love. Yes, it’s been baking. Someone dropped by to see you this evening. Remember that serious young man from the library? He brought a book you left behind there.’
There was silence at the far end of the line and she tried to picture the girl’s face. ‘He seemed disappointed you weren’t here.’
‘Yeah; think I know the one you mean. Rather sweet really. What book was it?’
‘A Martin Amis. I didn’t know you were into that gloomy stuff.’
‘Nor did I. I guess he made
it up for an excuse. Philip, I mean. If so, that’s quite enterprising. For him, that is.’
Aidan was hanging about in the hall and it wasn’t possible for Leila to probe what she needed to know. ‘Could I have a word with Granny now?’ she asked, falsely casual.
‘Sure. She’s right here. Wait a minute while she plugs her ear-thingy in.’
Leila’s mother-in-law came on, gushing about how wonderful to have little Chloe turn up. They were going to visit all sorts of places together. And she would take really good care of her. They weren’t to worry at all about her darling granddaughter.
‘I’m sure you’ll have a great time together,’ Leila assured her, shaky with relief. ‘Make her stay as long as you can.’
She chatted on about airy nothings and hung up after another fruitless little session with Chloe.
In the kitchen, preparing after-dinner coffee, she heard the phone ring again and Aidan rush to take his expected call. This silly affair of his didn’t matter so much, now that Chloë was where she should be - safe, at least for the present. Perhaps Aidan could be persuaded to pay his mother a long-promised visit and act as a damper on Chloë’s flitting again.
But not bring her back until the mysterious business of the Henley invitation was sorted.
The girl’s phone call had settled some doubts but raised a fresh suspicion. It had come too opportunely on Leila’s intercepting her letter from Montreux. So had Pascal, realising what her running off signified, immediately rung Chloe in Montreux and advised her to beat it to Granny’s fast? It would have taken her the best part of the day to get there and settle in.
That could be the reason Pascal hadn’t come back here with excuses after his first fruitless call. He’d expected that whatever had been going on between himself and Chloe could now be swept under the carpet.
But then he didn’t know what Leila had turned up during her search of Chloë’s bedroom. Nor that she held the sinister-sounding invitation with the Henley address.