Pale as the Dead

by Fiona Mountain

  On your own now, mate. Sorry!

  She bought a good bottle of red Australian Cabernet. The bottle safely tucked under the passenger seat, she eased out into the traffic again, checked her mirror at the lights. She did a double take, gripped the steering wheel. The lights were changing back to amber. She shot across the junction. The Celica was right there behind her.

  She’d only been to Will’s new flat once before, for the house warming, but from what she could remember she was nearly there. Past the Holst Birthplace Museum, onto North Street, the shopping arcades on her right, then Imperial Gardens. Still shadowed by the Celica.

  Up Montpellier Promenade now, past the smart wine bars and boutiques and restaurants, right again into Will’s road. She parked as close as she could to the flat, watched the other car continue on. She sat rigid, daring it to park further up the street or turn back. It didn’t do either. She took a second to compose herself, locked up and sprinted across the road, couldn’t help glancing behind her as she waited at the door, willing someone to open up quickly.

  Emily, who Natasha used to share an office with, answered with a champagne flute in her hand, looking very glamorous in white silk, her short auburn hair pulled back. ‘Hi, great to see you.’ She gave Natasha a hug, relieved her of the wine bottle and her coat. When Natasha had met up with Emily last, she was talking about moving in with Will. Seemed very at home already.

  Natasha went through to the spacious living room. In the warmth and light, surrounded by familiar faces and normality, the incident with the Celica seemed ridiculous. Forget it. Just a coincidence the car had been heading in exactly the same direction she was.

  Will was standing by the fireplace and came across to give her a hug. He was three years older than Natasha, worked in the department of Generations that specialized in genealogical investigations allied to genetics, for the purposes of tracking hereditary medical conditions, Alzheimer’s, Cystic Fibrosis and blood disorders, for medical advancement and for people who wanted to know what genes they might be passing onto their children, or to look into the past to see their own future. It was an area Natasha had always avoided.

  She was used to listening to Will though, enthusing about how genetics was going to open up a whole new chapter for genealogy, give it a new relevance, was its scientific sister. And how it worked the other way around. Using genetics to fill in genealogical gaps, to enable everyone to trace common ancestors back over not hundreds of years but thousands, to the Vikings and the Celts.

  Emily joined them, topped up Natasha’s glass.

  ‘Happy New Year,’ Natasha toasted. It didn’t feel particularly new any more.

  ‘Happy New Year,’ Emily smiled.

  The gossiped about bosses and mutual acquaintances, Emily bringing Natasha up to date with some of the contacts the company used around the world.

  ‘It’s not the same without you, you know,’ Will said. ‘We miss your spats with the big chiefs, waiting to see what wonderful outfits you’ll turn up in. I don’t drink half so many cups of tea and coffee now you’re gone, mind.’

  ‘That’s no excuse. You can come over for a cup whenever you fancy. Kettle’s always on.’

  ‘So how’s it going, out in the big wide world?’

  ‘Great.’ That didn’t sound very convincing. ‘You should try it.’

  ‘I don’t have your dedication. And I’m rather attached to my regular pay check.’

  ‘There is that.’

  ‘Would you ever come back?’ Emily said.

  Will answered for her. ‘No chance.’ There was the slightest edge to his voice. Natasha knew very well what he was getting at. The end of their relationship. Her move as usual. Absorption in their work had pulled them apart, but she’d given the final shove. He’d suggested a re-match once or twice, before Marcus, and she’d told him it wouldn’t work.

  It was nicer having him as a friend. Not just a consolation prize, but special.

  It was odd, seeing everyone. It made Natasha feel a bit remote as well as nostalgic. You forgot all the hassles of working for a big company, the politics and routine and bureaucracy, once you’d left, remembered only the gossips over coffee and the photocopier, the banter and moral support.

  If Adam had approached her while she was working at Generations or at the College of Arms, she could have legitimately shared her concerns about Bethany’s note with half a dozen people. But then she’d most likely not have been able to take on the case in the first instance. Not enough profit. No profit more like.

  She’d had half a mind to talk about it all to Will or Emily anyway. But the moment never seemed quite right.

  By nine the heavy drinking had started. Natasha had to drive home so she made her excuses.

  As she crossed to her car she glanced across the road to the shadowy park, almost expecting someone to leap over the railings. She checked her side mirror as she set off and again as she reached the outskirts of town. But she was alone on the road. Relief flooded through her. She opened the window, let the cold air blast in and keep her awake. The shrill beep of the mobile made her realise it hadn’t worked all that well and she’d been almost dozing at the wheel.

  The phone was sitting on the passenger seat. She glanced across at it warily. She let it carry on, reluctant to pick up. Why was it so damned impossible to ignore a ringing phone?

  ‘You changed your mind then?’ It was Adam.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Posing.’ She knew immediately what he was going to say, her mind already running ahead, working out how she was going to talk herself out of this one. She slowed down so she could pay more attention. ‘Diana said you called her for some tips.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Nothing like setting a trap for yourself.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Midway between Cheltenham and Broadway.’

  ‘Come over now.’

  Twenty-Five

  AS SHE DROVE, switching direction, heading south towards Burford and the A40, Natasha examined her motives, as well as the sense, or lack of it, in agreeing to go to Adam’s studio alone, late at night. Trouble was, she wasn’t sure whether it was Adam she didn’t trust or herself.

  She tried exploring her conscience instead. Bethany had walked out on Adam, freeing him from any obligation. It was never as simple as that, though. There was no point pretending, acting the martyr. She wasn’t doing this because, after her conversation with Diana, it was less complicated to go along with Adam’s request.

  No, she wanted to do it.

  She wondered if she was in danger of copying Steven’s cavalier attitude to the opposite sex.

  Adam let her into the studio. Over his shoulder she could see he’d already rigged the lights. Beneath the spot was a plain wooden bench.

  She tried to think of Jake and his friend, the threatening voice on the answering machine, the Celica, but she was having problems connecting any of it to Adam, to the here and now.

  He handed her a glass of red wine.

  ‘I’ve had plenty already.’

  ‘Then one more won’t do any harm. It’ll help you loosen up.’

  She needed that, but on the other hand she wanted to keep her wits about her. What the hell am I doing here? A question she seemed to be asking herself a lot lately. The wine, or the feel-good factor it would induce, was too tempting. She took it.

  ‘There’s an outfit in the dark room. You can change in there.’ He seemed distant, cool. Natasha couldn’t help wondering if he’d spoken to Jake Romilly as well as to Diana, knew she’d been snooping around behind his back. She could leave now, walk away this minute – if he’d let her.

  She walked over to the small door. ‘A word of warning,’ Adam said. ‘The material’s a little damp. I’ll explain later.’

  Damp was an understatement if ever there was one. Unsubtle was another. The costume was hanging on the back of the door. It was of flimsy cotton, a long white Grecian robe. Droplets of water were snaking from the hemline, making a
pool on the varnished floorboards.

  She might as well be stark naked. It would cling to every line and curve.

  She took it out to the studio, holding it at arm’s length towards Adam. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

  ‘I used warm water and the lights will keep it that way. It shouldn’t be too uncomfortable.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ She hung the robe back on the door. ‘Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea.’

  ‘Aren’t you even curious to hear what I want you to do?’

  She snorted. ‘I think I’ve a pretty good idea.’

  ‘You’re father’s an archaeologist. He took you to the British Museum when you were a little girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He showed you the Elgin Marbles?’

  ‘He did, yes.’

  ‘He told you their story? How Lord Elgin brought them back from the Greek Parthenon in the nineteenth century, how Greece has been fighting to have them repatriated ever since?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Know how classical figurative sculpture was done?’ He started walking slowly towards her. ‘They drape the model in wet cloth.’ When their faces were a few inches apart he stopped. ‘I want to shoot you as one of the Elgin Marbles.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘Only if you promise not to run away.’

  She crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘Promise.’

  She followed him back into the dark room. He took the Cameron book down from the shelf and showed her a picture of one of the Marbles, a fragment of sculpture, two female figures in robes reclining against one another on a pedestal. Headless. Alongside it was one of Cameron’s photographs, the sitters on a bench, mirroring the attitude of the statues.

  Adam handed the book over to Natasha.

  ‘The particular statue was from the Parthenon’s east pediment,’ he told her. ‘Cameron chose them for the very fact that their heads are missing. They’re figures from myth and legend.’ He looked at her. ‘But because they’re broken, their exact identities can never be known. So it’s perfect, you see. You can make them what you want them to be.

  He wasn’t talking about Bethany. He was talking about her.

  ‘That comment you made the second time we met. When I asked you if you had Russian blood. “I’d like to think so,” you said. I knew you had no way of finding out. I can see you very clearly, with your mane of hair and your black eyes, standing in Red Square, dressed in fur with snow swirling about you. That’d be too obvious, though.’ He handed her the robe. ‘Which brings us back to the Marbles.’

  Removed from the natural environment. Rescued by an archaeologist. Identities unknown. Very neat. ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  She took the outfit and Adam turned to go. ‘When you’re ready.’

  She closed the dark room door, took off her dress and shoes. She decided her underwear would have to come off too. It would show through. Naked, she stood for a moment and listened, couldn’t hear any sounds coming from the studio, wondered what Adam was doing. She stepped into the wet robe. The coolness of the cotton wasn’t unpleasant at all, made her skin tingle the way it did when she stepped into cool water.

  She wasn’t sure what to do with her hair. She looked around for a mirror, seemed to remember there was one at the far side of the studio. She glanced down at herself, the wet fabric hugging her narrow waist, her hipbones jutting out, not to mention her nipples. She found she didn’t care.

  She adjusted the fabric slightly and opened the door. Adam was sitting on the bench as if it was in a park, elbows resting on his knees, a broadsheet newspaper open in front of him.

  When he saw her he folded the paper slowly, looked her up and down. He stood, came towards her, touched her hair. ‘May I?’

  She nodded.

  He moved behind her. She felt him take the weight of her hair in his hand, twist it, then lift it and knot it loosely and expertly on top of her head. Then he adjusted the drape of the robe, pulling it lower across her arms, carefully arranging the folds, his fingers brushing her shoulders, warm against her chilled skin.

  He took a stick of kohl from his jacket pocket. ‘Close your eyes.’

  She felt the pencil pressing down sharp on her eyelids.

  ‘OK.’ He nodded towards the spotlight. ‘In your own time.’

  She walked into the glare, the floor cold on her bare feet, aware of his eyes following her. She sat down on the bench.

  Adam had moved behind the camera so she could no longer see him. She waited for what seemed like ages. Much longer and she’d be as stiff as a real statue. The heat of the spotlight on her naked shoulders was nice though, like a sun lamp. She could feel it drying the robe.

  Then she glimpsed him, a shadow standing in shadows. He adjusted the camera, aimed it at her like a weapon, making her suddenly feel exposed and vulnerable. He’s a photographer not James Bond for God’s sake. Guns don’t come disguised as cameras in the real world.

  ‘Lean back a little. Lift one foot up onto the seat, like in the book, remember? That’s right.’

  He disappeared again. Then the flash came, blinding. She was sure she’d blinked.

  ‘Tip your head back a little. OK. Now bring your arm down across your breast. Relax.’

  The flash again.

  ‘Look to one side now.’

  Flash.

  ‘Puts a whole new twist on playing statues. Don’t I get any emotional direction? I thought that was your style.’

  ‘You don’t need it. The marbles had no identity. The idea is you interpret them however you want.’ She could see him vaguely through the dazzle of the afterglow, detaching the camera from the tripod. He stepped into the light, came towards her, crouched so he was at her level and put his fingers under her chin to tilt her head back slightly. ‘All I want to take from the originals is the idea of classical beauty, nobility, a reflection of more heroic times. You’ve got plenty of that.’ He draped her arm further across her body.

  He kept his eyes fixed on her as slowly he lifted the camera to them, brought his hand up to adjust the lens, carefully and quietly, as if she were a rare bird he was trying to photograph without startling. The camera was a few inches away from her face.

  ‘Tell me about your mother.’ She looked down, then back into the lens, was half tempted to push it away.

  ‘I don’t know anything about her.’ Click. ‘Except that on one night, in 1973, she was at the Jessop Hospital in Sheffield.’ She couldn’t believe how easy the words had come.

  The camera came in even closer.

  ‘What is it you want from her most? Love?’

  ‘To understand.’

  The camera twisted round. Another click.

  ‘When did they tell you?’

  ‘I’d rather not talk about it.’

  ‘They didn’t tell you? You found out for yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Eighteen.’ She’d never talked about this before. Not to anyone. Hearing her own voice in the empty room was strangely cathartic. It should have felt invasive, with the camera pointing at her, but it was the opposite, gave a distance, a reassuring anonymity, like confiding in a diary, only more compulsive. She’d never understood before, why people went on television to disclose their most private problems.

  ‘I needed my birth certificate to get a passport to go on a school skiing trip to France. All my friends had full certificates. I didn’t know the terminology for them then. They were long and thin, folded into three, with details of both mother and father, their occupations and address.’

  ‘But you didn’t have one.’

  ‘No. It had to be ordered specially. My friend Rachel said it must mean I was adopted. She meant it as a joke. We’d often talked about it. It was the perfect explanation for why our parents never understood us, teenage alienation and all that. We used to giggle about how we were different from them, compare the shapes of our noses, peculiar habits. We
invented fascinating ancestors for ourselves. Decided our real mothers had given us up to pursue glamorous careers.’ She paused. ‘When my certificate arrived it was half the size of everyone else’s, unfolded, with just my name and date of birth.’

  Use your initiative. Work things out for yourself. That was what Steven had taught her. So she’d gone to the local library. They directed her to the small genealogy section in the shelves where the history books were kept. There was an entire book about adopted children, with a pink and blue cover and bold black title lettering, including a brief section on birth certificates. It explained everything quite plainly. It said that short certificates were introduced to conceal adoptions, a job they didn’t fulfil all that well. Documents were normally signed by the assistant registrar, but those issued for adopted children had to be authorised by a higher authority, the registrar general. And instead of the customary national health number, they had an adopted child register number. The book gave examples of both. She photocopied the pages and then compared them when she got home.

  The odd thing was that she didn’t feel anything. It was as if she’d just confirmed something she’d always known.

  As Marcus said: ‘You’ve always known your real mother left you. Deep down you remember it all. You must. You were there.’

  The click of the shutter made her jump.

  Adam’s voice. ‘You confronted them.’

  She sat up straight, the eye of the lens following her. ‘Yes.’

  Everyone was downstairs in the kitchen. Ann was at the oven, stirring sauce in a steaming pan. Abigail sitting at the dining table doing her homework, physics it was, Steven beside her, helping her. A tumbler filled with whisky and soda sat at his elbow.

  They’d been just a few paces away, near enough to touch, but it was as if she was watching them through a telescope, from miles away, from another planet. It took a while to register that they could see her too, that they were looking at her. She stared down at the piece of paper in her hand and crushed it.