by Lucy Atkins
They left the room, Chloe first, David close behind her.
Olivia wasn’t sure what she’d just witnessed. Dom got up then. ‘Be careful,’ she called after him. ‘Stay with Dad, OK?’ Then she saw Khalil gesturing her into the kitchen. She got up, leaving Jess on the sofa.
Emma was getting out plates now and Nura was still on the stool. Khalil’s voice was low, diplomatic and slightly clinical, ‘Look, Liv, if someone broke into the tower last night, you probably need to ask Jess if she’s in any pain?’
She felt her stomach turn over as his meaning sank in. Khalil squeezed her arm as he left the room.
‘Come on, guys, grab a mug and a plate,’ Emma was calling to the children. ‘Can someone take the baguettes out to the table? They’re stale, I’m afraid, but they’ll be fine if you put lots of jam on and dip them in your hot chocolate …’ The children came through and began following Emma’s instructions.
Olivia took Jess to one side and asked her if anything in her body hurt.
‘My hair,’ Jess said. ‘The space where my hair should be hurts every time I put my hands up there.’ She waved her hands around her shoulders. ‘It’s like I can feel it, but not feel it, and it makes a sort of noise, like a bad song.’
She decided it was best to be specific. ‘What about your vagina?’
‘WHAT?’
‘I just need to know if you’re hurting there, at all. Or anywhere else.’
‘No!’ Jess screwed her face up in disgust and pushed back her ragged hair. ‘Can I go?’ She ran out to join the others on the terrace.
‘You know, I think we should call the police,’ Emma whispered. Even her freckles looked pale.
Nura watched Jess go. Nura and Jess’s friendship had no balance, Olivia thought. Nura was slavish while Jess often treated her with indifference. That, surely, must lead to resentment. And Nura might have a complicated relationship with Jess’s hair too. They had spent their early lives watching toxic Disney movies involving princesses with long blonde hair.
Olivia bent so that she was eye level with Nura. She felt Em hovering, but didn’t care. ‘Are you sure you don’t know anything about this, Nuri?’
‘She doesn’t, Liv,’ Em said.
Nura’s bottom lip wobbled.
‘She’s upset!’ Emma pushed herself between them.
‘Can you just let her answer my question?’
Emma recoiled.
‘I didn’t cut Jess’s hair, Mummy.’ Nura looked only at her mother. ‘I didn’t, I promise.’
‘OK, sweetie, we know that.’ Em’s face was puce. ‘Olivia’s just upset.’
But there was something in Nura’s eyes – a flicker of uncertainty – that made Olivia sure that she was holding back. ‘You do know something,’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’
Nura blinked. ‘I don’t know what I heard.’
‘What, darling?’ Em crouched next to her. ‘Did you hear someone?’
‘I might’ve heard the door shutting,’ Nura whispered. ‘But I was asleep.’
‘OK,’ Olivia said. ‘Did you see anyone come in or out of the room, Nura?’
Nura shook her head. ‘I maybe heard the door. I think it woke me up. I thought it was Mummy.’ Her eyes grew wider. ‘But then I went back to sleep.’
‘Do you know what time this was?’
Nura shook her head.
‘Was it light outside?’
‘I don’t know.’ Nura reached out her small hands to her mother and Emma swept her into a hug. ‘Shhh, it’s OK, it’s OK. You didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘OK, Nuri. It’s OK. Well done.’ Olivia straightened. ‘Well done.’ She looked at Em over Nura’s head. Neither of them spoke.
She imagined a stranger, or perhaps worse, worse even than that, someone who was not a stranger, someone she could not bring herself to think about again, standing in the tower doorway with scissors, watching all the sleeping children.
But of course, it could just have been Paul and Miles sneaking out to look for a ghost.
On the terrace the children were unusually quiet. Jess stared at her plate. She was, Olivia thought, actually quite traumatized. She sat down, put her arm around Jess’s shoulders and felt her daughter lean into her.
Paul got up and paced over to the far edge of the terrace, which looked down at the lines of olive trees. ‘I can see Al,’ he called back. ‘But not the others.’
Olivia could see Al walking up towards the house through the olive grove. The bald spot on the top of his head gleamed. Khalil emerged from a line of trees, too, with Dom just behind him. ‘Where’s David?’ Olivia called down. ‘And Chloe?’
Khalil looked up and shaded his eyes. ‘They’re coming. It’s all fine. Nothing down here.’
They heard footsteps and David appeared through the French windows. Olivia felt a wash of relief at the sight of his face. ‘Well, there’s nothing out there.’
He pulled up a chair and poured himself a coffee.
‘Where’s Chloe?’ Emma asked.
Nobody answered. Then Chloe stepped through the French windows, too.
Khalil, Dom and Al came in a moment later and they all sat at the long table together. Em made more coffee, warmed more milk, stirred Banania powder into it. They sat quietly, spreading apricot jam and salted butter onto yesterday’s baguettes as the sun lifted itself above the terrace for another perfect day.
‘Just a thought, but is it at all possible,’ Al said, when the children had finished and, at Chloe’s suggestion, gone inside to watch a DVD, ‘that Jess cut her own hair?’
‘Of course she didn’t,’ Chloe said.
‘No, no, I wondered that, too,’ Emma said. ‘It does happen.’
Olivia could not speak because inside her head, fear was swelling, leaving no room for anything else, taking up all the space and resources.
‘People do strange things in their sleep don’t they,’ Al went on, ‘they make meals, send texts, watch TV, have sex … There was this guy who got off a rape charge because supposedly he was asleep at the time. There’s some word for it. It’s an actual medical condition, a sleep disorder.’
‘Jess hasn’t got a sleep disorder.’ David sounded weary.
‘Of course she hasn’t.’ Chloe looked at David, who stared at her a moment, then looked away. Again, Olivia felt as if the two of them were in the middle of a different, secret conversation.
Al’s face darkened. ‘Well, presumably no one knows they’ve got a sleep disorder till something like this happens.’ He layered butter on another chunk of baguette. He had a glob of jam on his chin.
‘It’s possible it wasn’t one of the kids,’ Khalil said.
‘You mean a stranger? What sort of lunatic would come up here and cut a little girl’s hair off?’ said Al. ‘It’s hardly likely, is it?’
Olivia looked over across the hills; on the other side of the valley, a far-off hilltop town teetered, blanched, in the distance. Down below, among the familiar flesh-pink roofs of the village, the church bell rang, eight unhurried tenor strikes, circles of sound pushing through the soft air.
‘You can sell hair for hair extensions,’ Chloe said. ‘I read an article about it. It was happening to women in Venezuela, I think, they had their hair hacked off literally as they walked down the street.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ David’s fist, on the table, tightened.
‘What if someone spotted Jess when we went for ice cream yesterday?’ Emma said, in a tremulous voice.
‘Well, the gate was wide open so basically anyone could have just walked into the courtyard,’ David said. ‘The kids were sitting ducks in there. We’re lucky it wasn’t something much worse.’ He looked at Olivia as he said this and she heard the accusation. And with that, he broke ranks. They were no longer a team. He was the opponent again.
She had been in such a fraught state the evening before when she came back from meeting Vivian in the village. She didn’t remember but she knew she could easily have left the gate
open. Through the French windows she could see Jess curled in a corner of the sofa with her shaggy head on her knees. The other children lay motionless, not even on their phones, just staring at the TV.
The breeze wafted the scent of lavender and wild thyme across the terrace; it mingled with the smell of chlorine from the unused pool.
‘OK. Enough is enough.’ David got to his feet. ‘I’m going to call the police.’
Vivian
Dieppe–Newhaven Ferry
I left the chambres d’hôte before dawn, too early for the breakfast, too early to tell the goat-faced owner that I was going.
As I followed the auto route up through France, paid tolls, filled and refilled the petrol tank; as I queued for the ferry in Dieppe while the sun began to sink; as I left my Fiat in the bowels of the ship and limped up the clanging stairway, down sticky-carpeted corridors that smelled of vomit and out onto the deck, the knowledge of what Olivia did, of what she has hidden from me for all these months, ran through my mind over and over.
The knowledge of what happened to Bertie is unbearable. None of my usual techniques – counting, breathing, listing – will stem my obsessive thoughts. I have found a spot on the deck, now, where nobody else wants to be, next to the guttural engines, below the choking fumes and as I cling to the slimy railings, I relive last night’s unspeakable scene.
I got to my feet as she reached my table: she was sorry for the offhand way she had treated me before, with her friend. She had come back to make amends, to listen to my idea.
‘Olivia,’ I cried. ‘I was just thinking about you. I wanted to explain why I’m here …’
But her fine features did not soften. ‘That’d be good, Vivian,’ she said, through almost closed lips. ‘I’d really like to know what you’re doing here.’
I had never seen this look on her face before. I was not sure exactly what it was, but I knew that it was not warm. I felt the hope stutter and retreat.
‘Won’t you join me?’ As I gestured at the free chair, I knocked the edge of the table with my knuckles and almost sent my wine glass flying. ‘I’ll get you some wine,’ I said. ‘Or maybe not? It’s dreadful, rough local stuff. How about—’
‘Vivian!’ she cut me off. ‘I don’t want a drink.’ She pulled out the chair and plonked herself onto it, knees apart, unladylike. ‘I want to know what you’re doing here.’
‘What do you mean?’
She gave a hollow and slightly exhausted laugh. ‘You’ve followed me all the way to the south of France. How did you even know I was here? I don’t remember telling you the name of this village. Did I? Because I really don’t think I did. I don’t remember a single conversation in which I told you the location of my holiday house.’
I felt blood rush to my face. I did not want to tell her about finding her laptop in the Farmhouse the night I stayed over with her children. It was intrusive of me to pry that night, but it was months ago. I’d seen her type in her laptop’s password numerous times in the bakery, she had never tried to conceal it. But I felt that if I were to come clean then she would, perhaps rightly, be very angry with me. And I did not want that. I wanted her to listen to me.
I could feel her unblinking eyes fixed on my face.
The bark of the plane tree next to my table was camouflage patterned, as if it had slipped into army fatigues. The waiter appeared, but Olivia dismissed him with a shake of her head. He practically genuflected as he backed off.
I knew I had to give her some kind of explanation, so I said that I had no intention of intruding, but hoped she might be interested in discussing my book idea, now that she was more relaxed, without all the other demands of her life.
‘You came all the way to France to talk to me about a book?’
I nodded.
She stared at me, then, round-eyed and tight-mouthed and I felt myself coming apart inside, growing ragged, bits flailing around. So I started to make a list. It is a technique I used to use at governing body meetings when they would all turn on me, or in tricky departmental meetings when I was under attack. I developed it as a child for the times when my father had been drinking and would get angry with me for my failings, or when he would lose control of himself – the times when I couldn’t get away through the woods to the hollow oak or up to the meadow. Listing is my protective shell. On this occasion I chose tribes of the subfamily Cetoniinae: flower chafers, flower beetles, flower scarabs.
‘Vivian! Why are you staring at the tree like that? Did you hear me? I asked you a question.’
Fortunately, just those few moments counting Cetoniinae had anchored my panic somewhat and I found that I was even able to look up at her, briefly. Her irises were a dark royal blue at the edges, very striking. She did not blink. She just stared back at me. She was facing me, knees splayed, chin lifted, fists resting on the plastic tabletop. I could not keep the eye contact going. Eye contact, even with someone familiar, can feel like having hot needles inserted into my eyeballs.
I looked over at the pale, ancient stone of the fountain. ‘Shall I tell you my idea?’ I said. ‘It’s a book about the Chocolate Cream Poisoner, a Victorian lady from Brighton, Christiana Edmunds. Do you know about her? Her story is rather fascinating.’ I glanced at her again. She gave her head a little shake.
I wasn’t sure if she was encouraging me, but I decided to continue anyway. ‘She lived in Brighton with her elderly mother and fell in love with her neighbour, a married doctor called Charles Beard. When he ended the affair, she injected a box of chocolate creams with strychnine and gave them to his wife, who miraculously survived, though she was very ill indeed. After that, Christiana went a little mad, she started buying chocolates and sweets and injecting them with poison; she killed a four-year-old boy. For a while, the whole town was living in fear, avoiding sweets—’
‘Vivian! Stop. Stop this.’
‘But this is exactly your sort of subject, Olivia. Just hear me out. Christiana was a bright woman driven insane by loneliness and rejection, lack of prospects, a dismal future caring for her mother. She was almost executed but got off on an insanity plea and was sent to Broadmoor—’
‘Oh my God, Vivian! I don’t want to talk about the Chocolate Cream Poisoner. I’m with my family, I’m on holiday. I’m with my friends. This is …’
This was really not going the way I had hoped. There was not even the slightest hint of eagerness. ‘I didn’t just come here to talk to you about the Chocolate Cream Poisoner.’ It was stupid to pretend but I was ashamed and it just came out. ‘I needed a holiday. It won’t stop raining in Sussex. I’m here to look for harlequins too.’
‘No.’ She tapped the table, sharply. The words shrivelled in my throat. ‘Don’t lie to me. This has nothing to do with ladybirds and we both know it. My God, Vivian, you have to stop lying.’
‘But it’s the truth.’ I felt chilly, suddenly, which was odd as the air was still hot.
‘I don’t think you know the difference between truth and lies, Vivian. You told me you were an Oxford professor, for God’s sake! Do you think I haven’t Googled you? You don’t exist at Oxford University, you never did. You pop up with your Ileford associations, some dispute with the parish council a few years ago over the bin collection, and I’ve found plenty of other Testers all over East Sussex, in stoolball leagues and in censuses, but as far as a professorial career is concerned …’ She tailed off, as if it was too much effort to go on.
I was surprised she hadn’t confronted me about this before. I certainly never intended to tell her that I had been an Oxford professor. In fact, I had intended not to. It just came out of my mouth that day in the museum. For a long time afterwards I was expecting her to say something and had decided to be evasive, but her delicacy and preoccupation – or pragmatism, she couldn’t afford to upset or alienate me, after all – saved me the trouble.
None of this really mattered now anyway. It was suddenly clear to me that coming to France to talk about further collaboration might be construed as unhing
ed.
And then a sort of crazed defiance settled on me – a compulsion or intense urge to continue even though I knew, rationally, that it was unwise. I just couldn’t help myself, I had come here to tell her about Christiana and I had to finish my story. ‘Christiana loved to dance,’ I said, ‘right to the very end, well into her seventies. She’d dress up every day with false hair, false teeth and rouge, and she’d dance. Hence her other nickname, “The Venus of Broadmoor”. Now, wouldn’t that make a good title for the new book?’
‘I have no intention of writing a book about the Chocolate Cream Poisoner, Vivian.’
‘But I’ve already contacted the Broadmoor archivists,’ I objected. ‘I have copies of newspaper articles from her trial, an account from a Brighton society lady who almost died. I’ve got a whole file on this, up in the chambres d’hôte where I’m staying. It’s just up the road behind the square. I’ll go and get it, if you like? I’ll show you what I have.’
I knew, of course, that this was hopeless, I was only digging myself in deeper, but I continued anyway. It is a failing of mine that when something interests me, I find it extremely difficult to stop talking once I have started. ‘She got the strychnine from a chemist friend, she told him she needed it to poison stray cats—’
She slapped her hand on the tabletop. The wine glass rattled against its carafe. ‘Stop. Please, Vivian. You have to stop. I don’t want to hear about this. You have to listen to me now. I can see I need to be really clear, OK? So, here goes. You’ve been a superlative RA, you’re extremely bright and organized, but I have no intention of doing another book with you, not about the Chocolate Cream Poisoner, the Venus of Broadmoor, or anything else. Ever.’
I must have looked crestfallen because her tone softened. ‘You’re just not very easy to work with, Vivian. You must know that? I haven’t … I’m so sorry but the truth is I just haven’t got room in my life for … for …’ She waves a hand in my general direction. ‘For this.’
I could see her mouth opening and closing but all I could hear was a rushing sound – I was at Beachy Head with wind punching my eyes, swaying on the crumbling chalk edge, buffeted by salty air, ready to fall. I started to list tribes of the flower chafer again, scarab, subfamily Cetoniinae: Cetoniini, Goliathini, Schizorhinini … Calmer, just a little calmer, I forced myself back from the edge and tuned in to what she was saying to me. Her voice was softer.