What happened between Juliet and Dickie? Had there been an affair, like Caroline suspected? Or was it something else? A rejection? Or some old Chesterfield injury? I always thought the pair of them were on the same side but, then, I suppose sides can change. One thing I know for sure: Juliet always had it in her to be cruel.
I thank the man with the briefcase and make my way out of the tube. As I walk up the escalator, a memory of Dickie returns to me, leaping exuberantly on the rugby pitch after scoring a try. But I won’t feel sorry for him, I decide, sliding out of the tube station with my head tucked down. He doesn’t deserve it.
In the evening, I spend my time on social media, scrolling through photographs of Charles. Gorging myself on his face, his smile. I’m unsure how things are going to develop now, with the complications of Fiona and the twins. From the little I can see of the children on social media, they resemble their father more than their mother – but that’s often the case with infants, I’ve read. Fiona doesn’t post much of their faces. I suppose you don’t know what weirdos are out there, watching.
While I’m scrolling on Instagram, an alert pops up to say that Ellie has tagged me in a post – a photo of Rose on a tricycle. It’s an artful composition with the red tricycle contrasting with the glittering white mountains on the horizon, the blue of the sky. You can’t see Rose’s face as she pedals away from the photographer, but her hair is a tawny cloud curling behind her.
Ellie has written: A menace on three wheels! Watch out, world! Thank you, Auntie Fran, for these amazing dungarees. #BestAunt #ThanksSis
I stare at the photograph for a long time. It’s the first one I’ve seen for a while and I’m struck by how much longer Rose’s hair is now. Her roly-poly baby legs are starting to stretch out into the limbs of a skinny child. I’ve missed the years of her infancy. I’ll never know the scent of her baby head or feel the weight of her in my arms.
But mostly I stare because the dungarees in the photograph are bright blue.
I like the image and then, bewildered, unlike it again. I write underneath. Is she wearing the wrong dungarees? But, because that makes me sound deranged, I delete the comment – I have to look up how – and write Ellie an email instead.
Did I send you the blue dungarees? I was sure I’d sent you the red.
It’s a tiny thing, not even worth dwelling on, but it leaves me with a flickering anxiety for the rest of the night. In the end, I phone Caroline on the pretence of making a date for tea. I’ve missed a call or two from her recently, and I’ve been putting off getting back to her after my evening with Charles in case I blurt out something I shouldn’t about his suspicions. We catch up briefly, making a date to meet soon, and I mention it as casually as I can before I say goodbye.
‘You know the dungarees I bought Rose?’
‘Mm-hmm.’ She sounds distracted. Daisy begins to grumble in the background.
‘They were red, weren’t they?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘You couldn’t swear on it?’
There’s a teasing smile in her voice. ‘Fran, what’s this about?’
I tell her the story in a garbled way, knowing I haven’t quite got her full attention; unable to convey the strangeness of Ellie’s post.
When I stop to draw breath, she says kindly, ‘Could Ellie just have picked up the wrong pair before taking the photo? Kids have so many clothes. We were given bags of hand-me-downs by friends before we had Daisy. It’s probably just a mix-up.’
I exhale. ‘Do you really think so? It just seemed so odd.’
‘Why don’t you call her?’ Caroline suggests. ‘Ask her about it?’
Silent for a moment, I lay a hand across my forehead. I can’t tell her, I realise, that I won’t call Ellie because that’s not something I’ve ever done since she moved. That she comes and goes as she pleases. That most of the time I don’t know where she’s living – let alone if she’s back in the country. That we haven’t had what you’d call a normal relationship in years.
And I can’t say anything to Caroline, of all people, because it’s important she thinks Ellie has been in France all this time. In case anything more should come out. In case Charles decides to share his suspicions with the police.
30
After Ellie joined me at Chesterfield, it was easier. When I walked around the school with her, people looked at us more; they smiled. Even teachers would regard us more indulgently, which I came to learn, later in life, is the way the world tends to look upon the beautiful. People – boys, mainly – would sidle up to me and ask innocent-seeming questions – how are you and what was that homework assignment – before moving on to what will you be doing this weekend and does your sister have a boyfriend.
The interest in her only grew stronger as Ellie got older. A couple of years after Ratings, when Ellie was in fifth form, Dickie developed a crush on her. He’d appear by her side after meals or hover outside her classroom at the end of the day, offering to carry her satchel, which she always refused. If Ellie seemed mildly annoyed by this, she tolerated him, answering his questions politely but shaking off his attention in the way a beloved pet shrugs off too much love – slipping out of the room at the earliest opportunity.
‘Cradle-snatcher,’ Juliet said to Dickie once, before English. ‘She’s only fifteen.’
But Dickie was oddly quiet. ‘It’s not like that,’ he said, uncharacteristically reticent, refusing to be drawn.
Juliet toyed with the friendship bracelet Charles had given her. She was put out by the fact her most loyal admirer was distracted. She didn’t seem to want Dickie for herself, but she didn’t like his interest in someone else.
She and Charles had been together a long time by this point, and though he was always a gentleman in front of me, mindful of my feelings, Juliet had no such qualms, whispering loud details of their latest exploits within hearing distance – what Charles was like as a kisser, the secret places they frequented. Usually, I’d put my Walkman on and hum along (so loudly once that Juliet checked to see if I was all right – ‘We thought you were having some kind of fit’).
Ellie’s mind, all this time, was on swimming. She still struggled with her school work – even with Mother and me coaching her in the evenings. There wasn’t the same support for learning difficulties that there is now and it looked unlikely she’d pass her exams, but the school made allowances on account of her swimming talent, reducing the number of GCSEs she had to sit. She always won everything at interschool competitions but her focus that year was further afield, on the European Junior Swimming Championships.
Chesterfield’s Victorian pool would probably be considered a health and safety hazard these days, and has long since been razed to the ground – but Ellie loved it and would train while Mother, on her nights off, sat poolside on a damp bench darning or tacking nametapes into our clothes. Sometimes, when Mother was working, I went in her stead, trying to read as condensation dripped down from the vaulted roof, blotting the pages. It wasn’t my natural milieu, but I was proud of Ellie: it was a privilege that she was allowed to use the pool on her own.
Dickie’s pursual of Ellie sometimes brought him to the side of the pool (‘Leching at her in her swimming costume,’ remarked Juliet), where on a couple of occasions he sat a few feet along from me on the wooden bench, timing her with a stopwatch when she asked.
‘She’s like a fish, isn’t she?’ he said admiringly as she climbed out after a record-breaking length.
There was certainly something creature-like about the way Ellie sped through the water, but it was always an otter I thought of when she emerged like this, her hair slick against her shoulders, her eyes closed in bliss.
Dickie leapt to his feet to bring Ellie her towel. She buried her face in it, taking a moment to recover. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘How did I do?’
He punched the air. ‘Smashed it again.’
She rewarded him with a wide smile, stooped to dry her feet before pushing them into her flip-flops.
‘Look at that,’ he noticed. ‘Your toes are webbed. So that’s your secret.’
‘It’s not exactly a secret,’ said Ellie, wrapping the towel around her.
‘I mean to your success,’ he teased, ‘though if I told the other boys, we would have to knock a half mark off your perfect ten.’
Until then, it had never been confirmed but now I knew: Ellie had been the first girl in living memory to get a perfect score. The information was bittersweet. Only recently someone had let slip – a friend of Juliet’s – that I hadn’t even been given a mark. Like a test paper so bad the examiner didn’t bother with it. Or, perhaps, as I told myself, it merely made me indecipherable. An enigma.
‘I won’t tell them, though,’ Dickie promised Ellie. ‘It can be our secret.’
‘You can if you want,’ said Ellie. ‘I don’t care.’ And she walked off, her flip-flops slapping against the wet tiles.
‘It’s incredible, isn’t it?’ Dickie remarked to me. ‘That she’s so pretty and you’re so …’
He didn’t finish the sentence, but it was clear that whichever word came next wasn’t going to be a good one. To this day, I’m not sure if he intended to be unkind – as a way of lashing out at Ellie’s dismissal – or if it was just an accident: a thought of his I happened to overhear. Which would have been even worse. I hoped in that moment that he’d get his comeuppance for being so swayed by beauty. Perhaps now he has.
31
The problem with working in a public place is anyone can wander in. A couple of days after seeing Charles, I return from my lunch break in a happy daze only to slow down when I spot Fiona leaning over the counter, our Christmas-edition bag dangling from her arm. She seems to be having a cosy chat with Brenda.
I’m not sure whether or not my meeting with Charles is a secret. He never said, but I suspect it is. Hopefully Fiona’s presence here is just a coincidence. On seeing me, her face lights up.
‘Fran!’ she says. ‘I’ve been having a lovely chat with your colleague here.’
Brenda blinks a couple of times. ‘Thank you,’ she says quietly. She pauses to gather herself. ‘It takes someone who’s been there to understand.’
Fiona gives her a meaningful look and turns to me. ‘I was going to suggest we grabbed a bite somewhere, but I hear you’ve just had your lunch break.’
I blink stupidly, unbreathing. Fiona and I have never ‘grabbed a bite’ anywhere. We’ve never spent any time at all one-on-one, so why is she pretending we’re friends? I don’t say this out loud, of course, and not just because of the kindness she showed me at the auction. She’s someone with natural authority – the sort who was probably head girl at school. She has a slightly bossy riding teacher manner that maybe comes from a youth spent around horses. They’ve always made me nervous – you never know when they could spin around and kick you in the face.
‘Perhaps we could have a word here?’ She takes a few steps away from the tills, standing close to the two-for-one table. ‘You see lots of Caroline, don’t you?’
Air starts to flow around my lungs again. I exhale. It’s OK: this isn’t about Charles. ‘From time to time,’ I say, looking down at the sad, scuffed pattern of the shop-floor carpet.
‘I was wondering, if she seems …’ Fiona pauses, running a finger along one of the stickers on a book cover in front of her. ‘Distant?’
She picks the edge of the sticker. I wish she wouldn’t – we’ll only have to smooth it back on.
‘I’m worried she’s drinking again,’ she says quietly. ‘In secret.’
I’m torn between my loyalty to Caroline and the importance I feel in having my opinion sought. I recognise this feeling – the cloying need to please. ‘She seems OK,’ I say in the end. ‘I mean, she’s grieving, so …’
‘Yes, of course.’ Fiona looks stricken for a moment. ‘Of course, I realise that. I’m not saying … We’re so worried about her. And there are times when she’s seemed … so I just thought I’d mention it.’
My hand goes to my forearm where Caroline gripped it that night, leaving crescents imprinted on the flesh. I remember how uneasy I felt the next day; how I couldn’t shake the sense there might be another side to her.
I hesitate. ‘Well, there was one thing.’ Even before I begin the story, I regret it.
Fiona leans forward.
‘It’s probably nothing, though.’ I glance at the till. ‘I should get back.’
‘Please, Fran. Just say – whatever it is.’
I swallow, then say the words quickly, ‘When I was staying, Caroline sleepwalked into my room. She said later it was something she usually did after drinking.’
‘And she hadn’t?’
‘Not with me – that was the night of the auction.’
‘Ugh,’ Fiona says. ‘I was so ill.’
‘Did they ever find out what that was?’
‘Food poisoning, I think. Ghastly – like being pregnant again.’ She glances at Brenda. ‘I had hyperemesis gravidarum, like Kate Middleton – I could barely leave the house.’ She waves a hand to dismiss the subject. ‘Anyway, was that all? She just walked in her sleep?’
‘Well, there was more than that,’ I say, bridling at her tone. ‘She grabbed me.’
‘Grabbed you?’
‘She was a bit aggressive, that’s all.’
‘Poor you – it sounds quite upsetting.’
‘It was.’ I tidy a pile of books on the table in front of me, patting them into place. ‘But it doesn’t mean she was drinking.’
‘Hmm,’ says Fiona slowly. ‘Well, let’s keep an eye on her, shall we? I’ll give you my mobile number. Just in case.’
She asks Brenda for a scrap of paper and jots down her contact details. The pair of us watch her go, walking smartly in her high-heeled suede boots with no hint of a wobble.
‘What a nice lady,’ says Brenda. And she goes back to her work contentedly, as if Fiona’s visit has made her day.
I keep gazing after Fiona, pondering all the omissions in our conversation. Neither of us mentioned Charles or that I’ve seen him recently – so it’s quite possible that she doesn’t even know. I need to speak to him.
32
‘Have you told Fiona?’ I ask Charles when I next see him in the National Gallery café.
We’re in the corner, watching visitors line up at the canteen opposite. Our spot feels secluded, cut off from the hustle and bustle of visitors fetching trays and pushing them along a counter like at school.
‘Told her what?’ He pauses with his cup of coffee hovering close to his lips.
‘That we’ve seen each other like this.’
He stops and puts the cup back on the table without drinking from it.
‘Actually, no, I haven’t got around to it yet.’
‘But you will?’ I check, although the idea disappoints me. If he does tell Fiona, then perhaps it’s nothing after all. Perhaps it’s all in my head.
‘Do you think I should?’
I can’t read his tone. His face is grave but is that a smile tugging at his lips? It gives me hope. I want to ask him: what is this? Is it what I think it is? But I have no experience, nothing to compare it with – aside from Gareth’s clumsy approaches.
Occasionally, very occasionally, over the years, a customer has taken to me, like the man who bought the bullying books for his daughter. It’s usually someone older, with whom I’ve struck up a lively conversation about a novel. As our chat concludes, he might say something about a pub nearby or a restaurant he likes – and it’s not until later, after he’s gone and I haven’t responded in the right way, that Brenda might observe, ‘Think you have a fan there.’
It’s funny because I started reading so early – Mother made me a set of flashcards when I was three. She never held back from using longer words when she spoke to us and, as I got older, I started making a note of them. Precarious. Phony. Ineffable. But when it comes to people, I can’t read them at all. I sometimes wonder if it’s the way I
feel – or don’t feel – about sex: if it locks me out of a whole other world of meaning and motivation.
This much I know, though: if Charles doesn’t tell Fiona, our meetings remain a secret between us. And secrets can link people like chains.
‘I don’t think you need to tell her,’ I say with a coy smile. ‘I mean, it’s not as if we’re doing anything wrong, are we?’
‘Absolutely not,’ he says solemnly. But there’s still a gentle twinkle in the way he says it, which keeps me guessing.
‘She came to see me in the shop the other day – she wanted to talk about Caroline.’
‘Yeah?’ He scratches his head absent-mindedly. ‘She worries too much.’
It’s a glimpse of their intimacy, like looking through a crack in a curtain into their house: Fiona restless in the kitchen, wiping at imaginary specks of dust, Charles with a newspaper, reading, thinking, minding his own business, but she can’t just leave him alone, can she? I peeked on a scene like this on a night-time visit to Honeybourne. As usual, they had no idea I was there. Fiona pestering and pestering. Not quite dusting him down with the cloth but flitting around him like a mosquito. She keeps trying to start a conversation but even though I can’t hear the words I can tell he doesn’t want to be drawn in. He’ll say something briefly then return to his paper. And she’ll start again. I would know, I want to tell him, when to leave you alone, let you read. In the end, he gives up, pulling her by the wrist onto his lap and kissing her firmly to shut her up. I don’t stay around for long to see what happens next. Only for a bit. It’s the closest I’ve got to it – watching Charles. I’m not proud of that. Quite the opposite.
Of course, I can’t tell him any of this. Any more than I can tell him I witnessed Dickie’s death. I’ve left it too late now. There are secrets between us too.
‘Did you speak to Juliet?’ I ask.
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