by Isabel Wolff
‘So does she have a key? Please don’t tell me she has a key, Luke.’
‘She doesn’t,’ he said wearily. ‘But she does know where I keep the spare. But I don’t think she did this just because you moved her clothes.’
‘Then why did she?’
‘Because she’d found out that you’d met Jess.’
‘Really?’ He sighed, then nodded. ‘How? Did she see the Easter egg I gave her?‘
‘No. She had Jessica’s photos developed this morning and she saw you in one of them.’
‘Ah…’ I remembered the flash going off as I moved out of shot.
‘She phoned me in a rage and I was incredibly busy hanging the pictures for the show, so I told her to get lost. I didn’t think she’d do…this.‘
‘Are you saying she drove over from Chiswick, in order to cut up my things?’ I felt almost flattered.
‘No. She had to come over here anyway because Jess had a play date in Notting Hill, and while she was waiting, she must have let herself in, had a snoop, then seen you’d moved her stuff, and just…lost it. It would have been too much for her.’
I sat down next to him, still stunned. We didn’t need to watch The Mummy’s Revenge. We had our own version going on right here.
‘I’ll speak to her…’ he said. ‘I’ll put it right with you, I don’t know how, or what I can do…’ He buried his head in his hands. ‘It’s such hell, Laura. You can’t imagine the stress. It’s like living on the lip of a volcano.‘
‘Magma,’ I said quietly. ‘Her name should be Magma.‘
I put out my right hand to support my back. As I did so I could feel something hard under the duvet. I pulled it back. Placed in the middle of the pillow on my side of the bed, was the pair of large dressmaking scissors that Magda had obviously used to cut up my kimono, the blades open. I stood up.
‘I don’t think I’ll stay here tonight.’ I picked up my bag. ‘I’m sorry, Luke. It’s just…too much. And I’ve had a very stressful day as it is.’ I thought of Mike, and the baby. ‘Let’s speak tomorrow.’
I walked down the stairs and out of the house. I didn’t have the energy for anger—I was still subdued by shock. But as I made my way back to Bonchurch Road I thought how amazing it was that Magda should have wrought so much destruction, and at the same time exhibited such control, carefully closing the window out of which she’d hurled my things, then diligently setting the burglar alarm and locking the door.
I heard a clock strike eleven. I looked at my mobile phone. I had eight missed calls—all of them from Hope—and when I got back I saw that she’d left five, increasingly desperate messages on the answerphone. I texted her to say I couldn’t speak to her tonight, but that I’d call her first thing. But before I was even awake the next morning, she had phoned me.
‘Why didn’t you call me back?’ she wept. I blearily glanced at the clock. It was six-thirty. I’d hardly slept. ‘I’ve been going crazy!’ she wailed. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’
‘a),’ I croaked, ‘because it was impossible, and b) because I knew that by the time I could have done, Mike would be at home.’
‘So…’ I heard her draw in a breath. ‘What did you find out?’ I didn’t reply. ‘What did you find out?’ she repeated. ‘Where did he go? What’s this Clare woman like? Is she younger than me? Is she more attractive? Did you get a photo of her? Will you please tell me what you saw? Please Laura. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it! I’ve got to know. Just tell me, will you Laura! Tell me! Please, please, please tell me…‘
I took a deep breath. ‘No. I won’t.’ There was a gasp.
‘What do you mean—you won’t? You’ve got to. That’s why you followed him. What are you playing at?’
‘I’m not playing at anything. But I don’t want to tell you what I saw.’
There was a shocked silence. ‘Why not?‘
‘Because I want to show you—that’s why. Tomorrow evening I want you to come with me, and I will show you what I saw. And you are to control yourself until then, and not pester me, or berate me, or cast aspersions on my integrity or my motives, or rant at me about how miserable you are because, actually, Hope, I’ve got my problems too…’ My throat was aching. ‘And, believe it or not, I’m trying to do my best for you here.’
I could hear her crying.
‘It’s bad news, isn’t it?’ she wept. ‘That’s why you don’t want to tell me. Because it’s such bad news. It’s the worst possible news.’
‘Well…’
‘Mike’s in love with this…Clare,’ she croaked. ‘Isn’t he?’
‘Yes. I think he is.’
‘My marriage is over.’
‘Maybe…But I want you to trust me—and you are to say nothing to Mike tonight. Please don’t confront him however much you may be tempted to.’
‘Of course I want to, but I can’t, because he’s just gone to Brussels and he won’t be back until tomorrow lunchtime—he left early to get the train. Maybe she’s gone with him,’ she added dismally.
‘I think that’s unlikely,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’ll meet you…where? Outside Westminster tube station at…7pm tomorrow night.’
‘But where are we going, Laura?’
‘You’ll see.’
TEN
I recorded the show the next afternoon—the winner got a very high score—and then, embarrassingly, as it turned out, she decided to turn the tables. The question she asked me was perfectly reasonable: ‘In Greek mythology what effect does drinking the waters of Lethe produce?’ But with all that’s been happening my concentration was poor and I said ’sleepiness’, when the right answer was ‘forgetfulness’, which I did know, although, ironically, I’d forgotten. Anyway, the audience sniggered at that, which annoyed me, and the contestant’s prize money doubled to thirty-two thousand—which was a bit of a budget-buster—and then just as we’d finished the last re-take there was a power cut. All the lights went out because, we learned afterwards, there’d been some problem with the grid in this part of west London, so that wasted another half an hour as we sat there in the dark—there’s no natural light in the studio—while someone tried to find a torch. Apart from the inconvenience, I hate the dark, so I was glad when the electricity was restored and we could all go home. Luke phoned me as I sat in the cab.
‘I’ve just spoken to Magda,’ he said. ‘She’s feeling pretty rotten about what happened…’
‘About what happened ?’ I closed the glass partition so that the cabbie couldn’t hear. ‘About what she did, you mean.’
‘She’s very sorry, Laura, she’s feeling…really…’
‘Cut up?’ I suggested.
‘Bad. She admitted that she’d lost her temper.’
‘No, Luke, she didn’t “lose her temper”. She went berserk!’
‘But things haven’t been easy for her lately, Laura.’
‘Poor love. Still, nothing like a little recreational destruction to perk you up when you’re having an unsatisfactory day is there?’ We’d stopped at a red light.
‘And she’s worried that it’s not going well with Steve. She’s—’
‘Don’t tell me—for the chop?’
- ‘not been feeling that confident—she was convinced it was over—and she was annoyed that you’d moved her things.’
‘I was annoyed that they were there!’
‘And sometimes, Magda just gets a bit…het up,’ he went on, ignoring me. ‘But now she’s a lot calmer. Normal. Almost.’ The lights turned green.
‘Look Luke, I really don’t want to hurt your feelings—I realize that Magda’s the mother of your child, and must therefore be sanctified, or at least, not criticized, but the fact of the matter is, she’s insane. For the purposes of this argument, I am Jane Eyre, you are Mr Rochester, and Magda is Bertha Mason. Except that she isn’t locked up in the attic, she’s rampaging through the house with a pair of dressmaking shears. How do I know it won’t be a chainsaw next time? Or that she’ll decide to cut up my clo
thes while I’m still wearing them!’
‘Look, Laura, she’s offering you an olive branch—and I really hope you’ll accept it. She said that she’d like to meet you.’
I gasped. ‘No way!’
‘Please Laura.’
‘Not after that! No! How could I? And in any case, what’s the point?’
I heard Luke sigh. ‘The point is that I have to have a reasonable relationship with her, which means that you do too. Because we’re going to be together, Laura. Isn’t that what you want?’
I looked through the windscreen.
‘Yes…’ I said after a moment. ‘It is.’
‘Which means that Magda will be in your life.‘
‘I don’t…really see why. There are a million step-families in this country, Luke, and I imagine that in the majority of cases the first and second wives have zero contact. The children are dropped off, and their mum zooms away. And if that’s how it is with Magda then that’s fine by me.’
‘But it isn’t fine by me. Look, Laura, I know she can be a bit…tricky…’
‘You’re sounding like Comical Ali.’
‘But if you want to get on with Jessica, which I assume you do…’
I looked out of the window. We were in Chiswick.
‘Of course I do,’ I said quietly.
‘Then however much you may hate the idea, you’ll have to have a civilized relationship with Magda.’
‘Which would be fine if Magda was civilized, but on the evidence of last night, she isn’t.’
‘Please Laura. She can be perfectly…rational…sometimes.’
‘You want me to appease her,’ I said angrily. ‘She behaves horribly, destroys my things—but the idea is that I now bow and scrape to her like you do. Well I’m not bloody well going to!’
‘You don’t have to. You just have to be nice. I want you to help me realize my goal of a happy and harmonious setup for Jessica.’
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s possible.’
‘It is. You know those friends of mine you met at the gallery last night. Grant and Imogen? The ones with the baby?’
‘Yes.’
‘Grant and Rose split up five years ago, and a year later he met Imogen, and last year they had Alice. Now, they all get on really well. Rose likes Imogen, she brings the boys over most Sundays and they all have lunch; she also adores Alice and sometimes even baby-sits her while Grant and Imogen go out. Sometimes they all go down to his parents together. They’ve even talked about going skiing together. They’re all friends, Laura, and the children are happy and secure because of it—and that’s how I would like it to be with us.’
‘It sounds lovely,’ I said. ‘What could be more civilized? Utopian even…But the point is, Luke, that a) it sounds pretty unusual, and b) in your friend’s case, wife number one is clearly a nice, normal, sensible person—unlike Magda. I’m sorry to be so uncooperative here Luke, but she turned my silk kimono into dust rags. And now you’re asking me to sit down and take tea with her as though we’re in some play by Oscar Wilde!’
‘Well…yes. I suppose I am. She’ll be at the house tomorrow afternoon, and it would be wonderful if you could be there too. It would also help me, because I don’t want Magda to change her mind about my trip to Venice so I need her to feel confident and calm. Please Laura. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I hope you’ll do this for me.’
Why are people always asking me to do things I don’t want to do, I thought crossly? Why am I constantly being cajoled and coerced? But then, out of curiosity about Magda, as much as any desire to help Luke, I found myself saying.
‘Ohhhhh…All right then, dammit. What time?’
The tabloid hacks, fresh from their Easter holiday freebies, have had another go at me. IS TV LAURA LOSING HER WAY? screamed the masthead of the Daily News this morning. There was a large headshot of me looking worried. On the centre pages was a splash by their showbiz editor about how my ‘friends‘ were worried that the ‘strain of presenting the quiz‘, the ‘trauma‘ of not knowing where my husband was, combined with the ‘emotional agonies‘ of dating a ‘married man‘ were beginning to get to me. There was a grainy photo of me dropping the question cards that time, captioned ‘The stress gets to Laura‘—one of the audience must have taken it with a mobile. Beneath, one unnamed ‘confidante‘ was quoted as saying that the ‘guilt‘ I felt at having ‘stolen Magda’s husband‘ was ‘eating me up‘, while another ‘reliable source‘ claimed that I wasn’t eating at all, but was ‘struggling with anorexia‘.
‘You’ve got to get your side of the story across,’ Nerys said when I went in to work. She patted her salon-stiff hair which, this week, was the colour of loganberries. ‘In my view, you’re letting them get away with murder. It’s awful.’
‘It is, Nerys. I’m absolutely sick of it.’
‘Then you should do an interview yourself,’ she said as she adjusted her headset. ‘Just my opinion. Good morn-ing, Trident Tee-veee.‘
‘Nerys does have a point,’ said Tom. ‘This has been going on long enough. Maybe it’s time you played the media game, Laura—I know that’s what they think at Channel Four.’
‘I thought they were delighted with the rising ratings—aren’t we up to four million now?’
‘We are, but they’re worried about you. They feel you should respond.’
So when, later that day, Nerys took a call from a broadsheet journalist, I let her put him through.
‘Miss Quick?’ He sounded very earnest. ‘My name’s Darren Sillitoe. I’m from the Sunday Semaphore.’
‘Yes?’
‘First of all, can I just say that I’m a huge admirer of yours. I think the quiz is wonderful.’
‘Oh. Thanks.’
‘I saw that piece about you in the Daily News this morning.’ I felt my face flush. ‘I must say the tabloids have given you a pretty rough ride.’
‘You’re telling me.’
‘It was obvious that the News had made up most of those quotes.’
‘They had.’
‘I know you’ve so far refused to speak to the press, but I was wondering whether you don’t now feel that it’s finally time to go on the record—with a “proper” newspaper.’
‘Well…as it happens, I had been wondering that.’
‘Oh…then I’ve called at the right time.’
‘Maybe. But what would you want me to say?’
‘Well, it would be a profile of you—a positive one—but we’d want the human story, which would, I’m afraid, mean talking about your husband’s disappearance.’
My heart sank. ‘Would I have to?’
‘I’m afraid so, otherwise there’d be no point in doing the piece. But we would interview you very sensitively and then carefully report what you say. But while you’re on the phone, can I just ask you, by way of background, what sort of things have especially bothered you about the coverage you’ve had recently?’
‘Well…everything,’ I replied. ‘But mainly the suggestion that I broke up Luke North’s marriage when his wife had left him ten months earlier, and that I’m difficult and demanding—I’m not.’
‘Well…it’s been very hard for you. But the Sunday Semaphore is at least a serious newspaper and for once the public would be reading about you in your own words.’ There was a pause. ‘I’ll give you my direct line and you can let me know if you’d like to go ahead.’
‘Would you let me see the copy in advance?’
He hesitated. ‘That’s not something we normally do.’
‘Well, giving interviews is not something I normally do. So I’ll only consider it if I’m allowed to see the piece beforehand.’ I was surprised to hear myself sound so tough.
‘Well—perhaps I could swing that—given the sensitivity of your position.’
‘And would your paper donate a fee to the National Missing Persons’ Helpline?’
‘I’m sure that could be done.’
‘Not less than five hundred pounds?’
/>
I heard a quiet laugh. ‘You’re driving a hard bargain.’
‘If you want me to talk to you, I’m afraid that’s what it’ll take.’
‘We do want to talk to you—exclusively of course.’
‘Yes, of course. But I’d like to have a think.’
After all the lies that had been printed about me, I was very tempted to agree, but I wasn’t going to decide there and then. I had too many other things on my mind—not least my rendezvous with Hope. I was dreading it.
I arrived at Westminster underground a good ten minutes early, but Hope was already there. She was standing by the street map, her face as pale as papyrus. But although resentful at not knowing where I was taking her, she was at least reasonably calm. But as we set off across the bridge the atmosphere between us was strained; so, to distract her, I asked her about the request I’d had from the Semaphore.
‘Well, I suppose at least being a sensible broadsheet they won’t print brazen lies about you like the tabloids have done,’ she said as we walked over the bridge.
‘They also said they’d let me read the piece beforehand.’
‘They’d give you copy approval?’
‘Unofficially, yes.’
‘In that case, there’s no downside—go for it.’
‘I might. But I’ve got too many other things on my mind to make a decision now. Not least…this.’
‘So…where are we going then, Laura? Please tell me. I’m in agonies. Where are we going?’ she repeated as we crossed the Thames, the wind whipping our hair.
‘You’ll see.’
She emitted a frustrated sigh. ‘And how long will it take to get there, wherever it is?’
‘Not long.’ I looked away to the left. There was the London Eye, and the Oxo Tower behind it, and the elegant white masts on Hungerford Bridge. Terns were diving and swooping over the water. A pleasure boat passed underneath us, leaving a fan of water in its wake.
‘So Mike will be there, will he?’ I heard her ask, raising her voice above the rumble of the traffic. ‘I’ll see him?’
‘Yes, you will.’
‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ she said. ‘Just allowing you to take me to this unknown place without a clue as to what it is or where it is.’