Little Liar

by Julia Gray

  And by and by, it did.

  One name stood out among the small-print of personnel at the bottom of most of the posters: Anton Ingram. He was credited as producer or executive producer each time. This, surely, must be Bel’s father. Of course! I remembered Jonah Trace saying as much. I noted it in my head, along with some of the film titles. I would look him up, as soon as I got home. A large poster in a heavy frame featured a stately Georgian manor house, fringed with pinkish-purplish trees. Jacaranda, the film was called. I’d heard of it, but not seen it. I looked for Anton Ingram’s name, but it wasn’t there.

  Down, down, down I went. The carpet was soft and yielding under my socks. From the landing below I could see another bedroom, which must belong to her parents. This I did not venture into, though I saw from the doorway more of the same: plants, books, textiles, art from abroad. A set of decorated masks, mounted on a wall.

  A clock chimed from somewhere. I stirred. Should I go home? How long would Bel sleep for? While I considered what to do next, I returned to the ground floor. I had Bel’s tumbler and mine: the perfect excuse to go into the kitchen, to wash them up. I did this first. There was a stack of unwashed crockery in the sink. As I washed the glasses, I studied the pictures on the wall. Much of it was artwork done by Bel at different ages; each picture had been labelled in a careful hand. There was another name too: Darian. Was that a boy’s name, or a girl’s? I wasn’t sure. I was gratified to see that at the same ages I’d been a better artist than both of them. There was a marked difference in styles: Bel’s work was splashy, imaginative and bold, while Darian’s paintings were cautious, well-executed and small in scale.

  A sudden streak of movement. I looked round: a fat tortoiseshell cat had appeared at the cat flap in the conservatory door. Padding into the kitchen in the liquid, soundless way that cats seem to have, it oozed around my legs while I washed up the tumblers. With its hollow purr, it was quizzing me, I thought. What are you doing here, Goldilocks? Sleeping in the beds, eating all the porridge? I was starting to think that the cat was right. I’d better get going. I didn’t know if Bel was expecting me to still be there when she woke up. She’d wanted me to tell her a story, and this I had done.

  But perhaps I would just finish my self-guided tour, before leaving.

  Nora Tobias, Reader of Houses, worked on.

  The living room was painted a mustardy colour. In this room, I imagined, drinks parties might be given and parlour games played. A carved chess set rested on the coffee table. There were books on Japanese art and Gothic literature, on gardens, on fashion and on film. The walls were stained with patches of damp, but the television and sound equipment looked expensive. So did the furniture.

  In this room, the family photographs were plentiful. One shot showed a dark-eyed, brown-haired man in a green suit and a tall blonde woman in a long, pale dress, standing in the middle of a field; there were others of these people separately, and much younger. The woman was exquisitely beautiful. She was so beautiful that she did not even look real. She was the kind of person that Evie would want to dress. This must be the famous actress that Jonah Trace had mentioned to me. She’d been on some of the film posters too, and some of the theatrical ones. Phyllis Lane, she was called. And was Phyllis not Annabel’s middle name? I wondered how old Phyllis Lane was now, and whether she still worked.

  There were pictures too of Darian, a boy a little older than Bel, and of Bel herself. I tracked their progress through the years, from white-haired toddlers to raggedy, scuff-kneed children, Bel always in some kind of outlandish attire, Darian watchful and withdrawn. For a while longer I looked, an interested museum visitor. Evie and I did not have many family pictures. It was a sad fact that Evie, in moods ranging from mad to miserable, had destroyed a lot of photographs of my father – it was hard for me, nowadays, to recall his features with any clarity.

  ‘Hello,’ said a voice.

  I turned. There was a man sitting in a chair by the fire-place. I felt a bolt of cold shame, akin to that I’d felt at the swimming pool when Sarah Cousins challenged me. Had he been watching me wandering about the room as though it were mine? I supposed he had. But the man was getting up now and smiling, holding out his hand to shake mine. He did not look offended by my presence.

  ‘You are a friend of Annabel’s?’ he said. ‘How d’you do. I’m Anton.’

  ‘I’m Nora,’ I said.

  The first thing I thought was that he looked old, older than most people’s fathers, certainly older than mine would have been. He was in his sixties, at least. Very tall. He had sparse grey hair, longish, and a beard, and a face I can only describe as strong, definite, almost stern. He was wearing a checked, open-neck shirt and dark jeans, and he was reading something on bound A5 paper that I guessed was a script. He had a faint lavenderish scent that reminded me, strangely, of France.

  ‘Have you been offered tea?’ he said.

  ‘Gin,’ I said.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Come. I shall make some.’

  In the kitchen, he filled an old-fashioned kettle with water and set it on the stove, saying: ‘Are you part of Bel’s little project that she’s working on?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. I wished that I were able to come up with more impressive things to say, but I felt, for some reason, hugely intimidated by this man.

  ‘What are you studying at school?’ he asked, as he set two mugs on the counter and added tea bags.

  This was better: it was no problem for me to talk about literature. I told him which texts I was reading in English and French, and he listened with what seemed like interest, asking intelligent questions that showed me that he knew the books. Before long, I could tell that he was marking me in his mind as a suitable friend for his daughter.

  ‘I wish Annabel showed as much aptitude as you do for learning,’ he said. ‘She makes very little effort at school. She has a brain, but not much interest in using it. Of course, we didn’t set her a good example. Neither her mother nor I went to university. Her mother went to LAMDA, and I went straight into the business. Annabel has a place at drama school, but I’d like her options to be wider than that, which is something she doesn’t seem to appreciate.’

  I sneezed, which saved me from having to respond to this. It seemed oddly confessional.

  ‘You’re not well,’ said Anton. He removed the Earl Grey tea bag from my cup. Reaching for a chopping board, he sliced half a lemon finely and put the pieces in the cup, adding hot water. He pushed it towards me, along with a jar labelled Miel, saying, ‘Careful. Hot. This, and perhaps some honey, will do the trick.’

  My father would have done exactly that, for me or Evie or Nana. Hot lemon and honey, every time. I appreciated it.

  The front door banged and footsteps could be heard in the hall. Then into the kitchen came the boy I’d seen in the photographs in the living room. It must be Bel’s brother, Darian. He was very tall, with dark gold hair and a lean face; he looked like he seldom smiled. He was wearing a slate-coloured hoodie, jeans and trainers: none of his sister’s elaborate costumes. He seemed not to notice me.

  ‘This is Nora, a friend of Bel’s,’ said Anton.

  ‘Hi,’ said Darian.

  ‘Are you out tonight?’ asked his father.

  ‘I have a gig later.’

  ‘Supper?’

  ‘Sure.’

  The hot lemon was just the thing for my scratchy throat and tired sinuses. I sipped it, leaning in what I hoped wasn’t too awkward a fashion against the big oak table. The cat curled up in a wicker chair and watched me. In turn, I watched as Anton melted butter in a pan, and fried tiny pieces of onion, and added rice and wine and some amber liquid from a saucepan, while Darian did the washing up. There was something calming and symphonic about the scene.

  ‘Lettuce,’ said Anton.

  Darian got some out of the fridge. ‘Where’s Bel?’ he asked.

  ‘Asleep,’ I said.

  ‘I am not,’ came a voice, and Bel walked in. The hem o
f her kimono dragged along the kitchen tiles. She saw me and looked pleased. ‘You’re still here, sugar.’

  She poured a glass of red wine from the bottle and walked over to pet the cat, moving with the absent grace of a foil-wrapped ghost. I noticed her father’s look of disapproval, and the way the look was mirrored, briefly, in Darian’s eyes.

  ‘What are we having for supper?’ said Bel.

  ‘Risotto.’

  She shook her head. ‘I want a short-order of pancakes with maple syrup.’

  ‘Well, you are more than welcome to prepare them for yourself.’

  ‘I wanna go out,’ she said.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Somewhere elegant, with white napkins and a dessert trolley.’

  ‘The Savoy?’ asked Darian, squeezing the other half of the lemon into a cup, and adding olive oil.

  ‘Yes.’

  They all – father, brother and cat – ignored her.

  ‘Can I help?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s very kind. You can lay the table,’ said Anton. ‘Cutlery in the dresser, napkins in the drawer, glasses in that cupboard on the left.’

  Finding the cutlery, I was momentarily paralysed by anxiety. Were you supposed to eat risotto with a fork, or a spoon? Should I lay out both? What about knives? I did not want to reveal my lack of culture, my fatal ignorance. But I did not want to ask. In the end, I opted for a fork and a spoon, setting them together, rather than at right angles, and hoping that was correct.

  ‘Set a place for Mama,’ said Bel.

  So I laid the table for five, while Anton stirred the risotto and Bel lolled backwards like an off-duty clown in a wicker chair. Darian had gone next door; I heard piano music, so expertly played that I thought it was a recording, coming from the living room.

  ‘Ready,’ said their father. ‘Nora, come and sit.’

  Bel came and sat down next to me, bringing the cat with her.

  ‘Should we not wait for your mother?’ I said to Bel in a whisper.

  The cat squirmed fatly on her lap, shedding a cloud of fur.

  ‘Oh, Mama’s here,’ said Bel.

  She nodded towards the windowsill, which held stacks of unopened letters, a camera, a box of worming tablets and an earthenware pot. I looked up, half expecting to see Phyllis Lane through the window, tall and blonde, perhaps pushing a bicycle, her hair full of stars. But there was no one there.

  ‘She’s in the jar. Cheers, Mama,’ said Bel, raising her glass.

  Darian and Anton raised their glasses likewise. I did not, because I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to.

  I saw Bel looking at me, with her eyebrows quirked as though in a silent challenge. I wondered whether she wanted me to be shocked, or surprised, that they kept their mother’s ashes in the kitchen. But I wasn’t. It was the sort of thing Evie might have done, although my father was buried in France.

  ‘Dig in,’ said Anton.

  It was a delicious risotto. He had added some cheese – goat’s cheese, I thought – and a handful of spinach. I tried not to eat too fast. They ate with forks, I saw, so I took care to copy this. Despite her protestations, Bel finished her plate in seconds and was now helping herself to more, though I noticed she had not taken any salad.

  ‘Mama died on an aeroplane,’ said Bel, from the stove. ‘She choked on a peanut.’

  ‘Cashew nut,’ said Darian.

  ‘She hated flying,’ said Bel.

  They did not seem particularly perturbed; I understood this. Their pain had been translated, over time, into the realms of anecdotage. It must have been many years ago. I noticed that their father said nothing. I wondered if they nodded their glasses to their mother, in her jar, every night, or whether it was a show they put on for visitors.

  For a while there was silence. I didn’t mind it; Evie and I often ate in silence.

  ‘Daddy,’ said Bel. ‘I thought you’d like to know my production is going just … swimmingly.’ She said this with heavy emphasis, but I didn’t think it was meant ironically.

  ‘That’s good to hear, beauty,’ he replied.

  ‘Rehearsals all next week,’ said Bel. ‘Performance on Monday after half term. You will be there, won’t you? Darian, I need you too, for the music.’

  ‘I might have a recital.’

  ‘I need you,’ she repeated. Her glass was once again empty. ‘You wouldn’t let me down.’

  ‘I’ve got to go. We’re sound-checking at eight.’

  Darian put his plate in the sink and left. He and his sister were tremendously unalike, I thought. But they did not seem to hate each other the way that some siblings did. The cat curled itself around my leg, and I sneezed again.

  ‘Bless you,’ said Anton, to me. Then, ‘Bel, where are you performing?’

  ‘St Michael’s hospital. The children’s ward.’

  He nodded. ‘That was a good idea.’

  ‘My idea.’ Her eyes were glinting again. ‘You are coming, aren’t you, Dad?’

  ‘Unless things go awry in Berlin and I get held up, I shall be there. I look forward to seeing what you’ve come up with, you and Azia,’ said Anton. ‘And now, girls, if you’ll excuse me, I have a call with LA.’

  Bel reached over and ate the rest of my risotto, while the cat looked on.

  4

  The business. A call with LA. Performance. LAMDA. Production. A child of the theatre.

  These terms were used so easily by the Ingram family. But to me the glamour of them was almost palpable: they were like gilded party streamers, or birds of paradise. They dazzled me, these phrases, those people. Although Evie worked in television, I never thought of that as Show Business, as such. The Ingrams, now: they were one of those families in whose DNA the business, as Anton called it, ran deep and unsullied. Every available space in that grey Gothic house was loaded with the stuff of performance: scripts, leaflets, tickets, posters, programmes, old reels of film in metal cases. The longer I spent there, the more I saw, and the more intoxicating I found it.

  After supper, Bel dragged me back upstairs to her bedroom.

  ‘Now, sugar, what size would you say you are? Extra-super-tiny? I wonder … Ah! Take off your clothes.’

  Not quite knowing how to say no, I found myself taking off my shirt and trousers. I stood there in my underwear while Bel dug around in boxes and chests. I despise being naked in front of people; I had not been naked in front of anyone for a very long time. That I had never been naked in front of Jonah Trace goes without saying.

  ‘Nora, you’re a doll,’ Bel was saying. ‘I could just eat you. A marzipan mouse of dainty deliciousness.’

  As she spoke she was lacing me into a kind of basque, lilac in colour and looped with a silvery design, as though fairies had gone to work with calligraphy pens. It was small and extremely uncomfortable; the hooks nicked my skin in places as she did them up. With one hand Bel tugged the elastic from my hair; she fanned it out over my shoulders.

  ‘Left foot, right foot,’ she chanted.

  I obeyed, picking up each foot in turn, allowing her to bring a bundle of gauzy turquoise fabric up to my waist and secure it with a safety pin. Now she was smoothing the skirt down; her hands passed deftly over my hips. She seemed to be enjoying herself. The skirt was pleated and iridescent and even in the dull light of her room it glowed with semi-precious other-wordliness. I glanced at myself in the mirror. Against my better judgement, I was quite pleased with what I saw. Bel had turned me into a wingless sprite. My hair was a burnt-toast cloud against my shoulders. I admired my collarbone, and the way the basque triangulated into my waist, making my hips seem wider. When anyone I knew dressed up in this kind of excessively girly way I felt nothing but casual loathing, but there was something so strange about my reflection that I felt peculiarly liberated. I could have been anyone.

  ‘That will do very nicely,’ said Bel. ‘Oh! Shoes you must have. What size?’

  ‘Four. But I don’t wear heels.’

  She sorted through a mountain of assor
ted footwear and brought out some velvet slippers.

  ‘These,’ she said.

  I did not like the idea of old shoes, as much as I did not like the idea of old clothes. And yet I still did not argue. I put them on.

  ‘You shall go to the ball,’ said Bel. She wrapped one arm around my waist. The pressure of it caused the hooks and bones of the corset to bite a little deeper. ‘Although, in point of fact, that’s your line.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Your line. “You shall go to the ball.” Say it!’ she commanded.

  ‘“You shall go to the ball”,’ I said slowly.

  ‘More on the “shall”. Less on the “go”.’

  ‘You shall go to the ball.’

  ‘Now say: “You shall go to the palace ball, and you’ll be the fairest one of all.”’

  I said it.

  Bel squeezed me again. ‘Perfect. Just perfect,’ she said.

  She had changed too, though I hadn’t noticed. I saw that the clothes she had dressed me in matched her own: she was wearing a blue kimono now, embroidered with dragons and starry-leaved trees, and underneath it a vest and layered skirt not unlike the one she had chosen for me. She stood a good six inches taller than me in her trainers.

  Looking out of the window, she said: ‘Cody’s here. Good. Got everything?’

  I wanted to change back into my old clothes, but I didn’t think this was going to be viable. Sweeping them into my rucksack, I followed her as she tripped down the stairs. She jumped the last few steps of each flight.

  ‘See, Nora,’ she explained, as we descended. ‘This production of Cinderella is something I’m putting on for some children in a hospital, as I was saying earlier. I’ve called it The Belle of the Ball. And one of the cast members has dropped out. Wretched Steph, who plays the Fairy Godmother. I’d do it myself, of course, but I’m directing, and I’m the stepmother too, and I’d have to rewrite the final scene without the Godmother in it, which would ruin it rather. It’s only a small thing, but it’s fearfully important that it all goes well. I have to be able to concentrate. So, I thought, when I saw you in the library – I mean, look at you! You are a fairy! Even that mark on your face is … so special. You know?’