by Rachel Rhys
‘I told you, I was just poking about. You know. Seeing if anything down there triggered any memories.’
‘What I don’t get is how you managed to shut yourself in,’ says Sully, who is sprawled on the chaise longue on the other side of the room. What is it with this man, that he cannot just sit, that he must be forever in a horizontal position? ‘You must have given the door a pretty good slam to make the handle fall off like that.’
‘I didn’t slam it. I didn’t even touch it. Perhaps someone else did.’
Noel smiles in a way that makes Eve want to slap him.
‘Who would have done that? Mrs Finch is out, Sully was working. You know, I didn’t even know they’d found the key for that room. It was locked for years, after Guy gave up on building a boat from the parts he used to store down there. No wonder bits of it are falling off.’
‘Your brother could have closed it. Or Miss Atwood. They were here earlier. Perhaps they didn’t know I was in there.’
‘Duncan and Clemmie were here? That’s news to me.’
Noel looks at Sully, who shrugs.
‘I didn’t see them either. Probably came to batter some sense into Eve here about selling the house, and slunk off when they couldn’t find her.’
Eve is quiet, remembering the raised voices behind the door, the heart-thumping dread of discovery. She can still feel the creep of the damp on her skin in that cellar, the sense of something lurking in the dark corners of the room. Yet, after they’d pulled her out of there, Noel had brought a torch from the storeroom next door and shone it around just to prove to her she’d been quite alone.
This place is making her into a fool. A fanciful fool.
Noel wants to ask her about her mother. Specifically, whether Eve has been in touch with her to ask her about that name, Francis Garvey. When Eve explains that she’s waiting for her mother to reply to the letter she’s written to her, she is incensed by the astonishment he doesn’t even try to hide. As if everyone in the world has a telephone of their own!
‘So send her a telegram, asking her to telephone you at the hotel.’
‘It would be too much of a shock for her, seeing a telegram boy arrive.’
He has no answer to that. Everyone who lived through the last decade learned to live in fear of the surprise knock at the door.
She doesn’t tell him that she has no language with which to begin this conversation with her mother. That at least a letter presents an extra distance between them, across which the words must travel and hopefully lose some of their impact by the time of landing.
‘Am I right in thinking you’re not that close to your mother?’
‘I don’t know where you got that idea, Mr Lester.’
If voices could cut through glass.
Sully, as if sensing the cooling in the atmosphere, changes the subject.
‘Have you decided yet, Eve, what you will be wearing to the wedding of the decade?’
He has propped himself up so he is draped across the back of the chaise, leaning towards them as if agog, but Eve thinks she can hear a new tinny note in his voice.
‘I heard she has to be drugged just to spend a night with Laurent Martin. How is the poor woman to endure a whole lifetime?’ asks Noel.
‘Why must everyone here be so cynical?’ Eve asks. ‘It’s practically a sport with you all. Laurent obviously adores her and she him. She’s just nervous about the wedding, as anyone would be. Anyway’ – Eve’s curiosity gets the better of her – ‘where did you go with her yesterday, Sully?’
‘She wanted some recommendations of local places to go.’
‘Beauty parlours?’ asks Noel.
‘Bookshops, actually,’ says Sully, and Eve relishes the expression of surprise on Noel’s face.
‘Gloria is trying to better herself,’ continues Sully. ‘She has read the entire works of the Russian masters and last year slogged her way through Ulysses, although she gaily admits to not understanding a darn word.’
Sully’s imitation of Gloria’s accent is unnerving, but still he has this hard edge to his voice.
There is a noise from above. The sound of the front door closing. Rapid footsteps on the stairs.
‘Good afternoon all,’ says a breathless Mrs Finch, her eyes flicking from one to the other. Hooked over her right arm is a basket of vegetables, as if she is fresh from the market. In her left hand she holds a large stiff brown envelope.
‘This was in the hallway. It must have been hand delivered,’ she says. ‘It’s for you, Mrs Forrester.’
Eve stands up to reach for the letter, all of a sudden nervous that it will turn out to be from her mother, somehow redirected by some local sorting office. She wonders what her mother could possibly find to say that would require such capacious stationery. Her mother does not easily tolerate excess in any form.
There is no stamp on the letter to give away where it comes from. Her name is written in blue ink pen in capital letters, very different from her mother’s cramped, precise hand. Eve is conscious of Noel and Sully watching her and Mrs Finch lingering in the doorway.
She slips her hand inside the envelope and extracts a piece of card. No, not card: a photograph.
Eve stares at it for a long moment while her mind struggles to register what she is seeing, then she gasps. Lets the photograph drop to the floor where it lies face up. There is a silence.
And then: ‘I had not realized you were quite so well acquainted with Victor Meunier,’ says Noel.
‘You do seem very … cosy,’ agrees Sully, his head twisted to the side so he can see the picture the right way around.
Eve, who has frozen to the spot, angles her head down so she is seeing the same thing they are seeing. A black and white image, grainy, but clear enough to make out the two figures. His arm protectively around her back, her head resting on his shoulder. His face turned towards her as hers tilts up to him, as if they are at the very point of a kiss.
With a sickening thunk, Eve remembers the couple she and Victor had passed on the way to the car, taking pictures of the moon on the water.
‘I don’t understand,’ she says, and her voice is like a stranger’s, high-pitched and strained.
‘I imagine there’ll be a letter in there to go with this,’ says Sully. He reaches out a hand and she passes him the envelope as if she has no free will of her own.
He is right. The letter is typed on a single sheet of white paper.
Perhaps your husband would like a copy of this photograph? Go home, Mrs Forrester.
Eve sinks down heavily on to the sofa from which she has just risen, her heart juddering.
‘We were not … that is, there was nothing …’ She stops, unsure how to continue. ‘Mr Meunier was only helping me to the car as I was feeling unwell.’
‘I’m sure Mr Meunier was most attentive.’ Noel practically spits out the Frenchman’s name, and Eve feels grubby, even though she is sure she has nothing to feel grubby about.
In her head she hears Victor’s voice asking her back to his house. Calling her beautiful. Sees herself lapping up his words like a cat with milk. She feels sick.
‘Oh, but this is quite thrilling,’ says Sully. Now that he has recovered from his surprise, he looks to be almost relishing this unexpected drama. ‘I’ve never been blackmailed. I don’t suppose I ever had anything worth being blackmailed for. No money and certainly no reputation. I’m almost jealous.’
‘But who would do such a thing?’ asks Eve. Her voice trembles dangerously and she realizes she is on the verge of tears.
‘Shall we make a list of all the people who’d like you to just sign the sales papers for the house and be on your way?’ says Sully.
‘Hold on a minute.’ Noel’s eyes seem to grow darker when he’s angry so that now they are the green of deep woods where the sun never penetrates, or the reeds on a muddy riverbed. ‘Are you implying that someone in my family—’
Sully holds up a hand, and Eve sees that he is indeed enjoying himself.
‘I’m not implying anything. Just examining the facts.’
‘The facts are that Mrs Forrester has placed herself in a very vulnerable, compromising position.’
Now the tears that have been threatening arrive in earnest, pooling in her eyes and spilling down her face. Eve swipes them angrily away, but not before both men have seen them.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s a bit late for tears now,’ says Noel.
Sully drops down on to the sofa next to her and takes her hand.
‘It’s not as bad as you think,’ he says kindly. ‘Whoever sent the letter won’t have your home address, will they?’
‘My husband is in the phone book,’ Eve splutters between sobs. ‘He has his own business. Oh, what will he think of me?’
‘Perhaps you should have thought of that before carrying on with Victor Meunier in the street,’ says Noel.
Carrying on?
‘Are you sure you didn’t hear a car coming up to the house to drop the envelope off?’ Mrs Finch asks from the doorway, startling Eve, who has forgotten the housekeeper is there. She holds her hand to her face to hide her tears.
An image comes into her head of her father’s funeral, she and her mother walking stiffly into the church side by side like two black chess pieces. Before they entered, her mother put a warning hand on her daughter’s arm and leaned towards her. Eve can still remember the rush of shock, thinking at first that her mother was about to embrace her, or at least to whisper some message of emotional support. Instead she hissed, ‘If you feel the tears coming, focus on a point just above the vicar’s head and concentrate on that until the feeling passes.’
Hold it in, was her message. Cover it up, present your best blank face to the world.
The sound of the doorbell rips through the emotionally charged air, and Mrs Finch retreats to the hallway and up the stairs. There is a murmur of voices.
She reappears in the doorway, looking agitated.
‘It’s Mr Meunier wanting to speak to Mrs Forrester. He does not wish to come in. He seems a little on edge.’
A flame works its way up from Eve’s chest to her neck, then into her cheeks until all the capillaries in her face are on fire. She will not look at Noel. Will not give him that satisfaction. After the shock of that image of her and Victor so close together they might almost have been lovers, the prospect of speaking to him now brings on a rush of shame.
But if she refuses to speak to him, how much worse will that look? As if she has something to hide?
‘I’m coming.’
She gets heavily to her feet.
‘Eve?’ Victor’s voice, usually so soft, has an edge of urgency. Standing in a pool of weak sunshine on the doorstep, he looks pale and leans heavily on his cane.
‘I don’t wish to alarm you, but I felt I had to speak with you. I have received an … unfortunate letter.’
‘You too!’ It has not occurred to her that Victor might also be compromised by the photograph. After all, he is not married, so what does he have to lose? The answer comes with Victor’s next words.
‘I have some clients who are very, shall we say, conservative – and who would not be happy about me being … how do I say it … involved … with a married woman.’
Eve feels the blood rush to her face.
‘Involved? But nothing—’
‘Of course you and I know the truth, but there is the question of how it appears. How other people will see it. These clients have a lot of influence, and I do a lot of business with them. I cannot afford to lose them. Do you see?’
‘Yes. Of course. I’m sorry. I also have received the same letter. With a threat to send the photograph to my husband.’
Victor’s eyes soften.
‘Please forgive me, I have been so concerned with myself I have not asked about you. What a shock it must be for you. But perhaps your husband will see it for what it was, just two … friends, walking home after a lovely night.’
Eve laughs – a particularly mirthless sound. ‘I’m afraid I very much doubt it.’
Victor sighs. ‘I suppose one cannot blame him. When a man has such a beautiful wife, it would be hard not to become jealous and think the worst. So you will be going home, then, Eve?’
Again the heat in her cheeks, and a chasm opening up under her rib cage. Home. Just a four-letter word, but was there ever one more freighted with meaning?
‘Yes. I haven’t had a chance to make plans, but I expect I shall.’
‘That is a great pity.’
After Victor leaves, she stands for a moment in the hallway with her back to the door. The words going home echo in her head.
Something of her distress must show in her face because as soon as she walks back into the sitting room, Sully summons her to sit down next to him.
‘Listen,’ he says, his big, square hand reaching out to squeeze one of hers. ‘Someone is just trying to frighten you. Make arrangements to go back to England if you must, but delay them for a few days and stay for the wedding as you originally planned. Whoever sent this will see that you’re intending to leave and ease up. Gloria will never forgive me if you leave her in the lurch; she’s taken quite a shine to you. In fact she has commanded me to bring you over to her house tomorrow so that she can dress you up in some of her discarded finery. After that you are free to go back to your home and your husband and this will all seem like a preposterous dream. Don’t let malice or jealousy scare you away prematurely. You will stay, won’t you?’
Eve hesitates, and then nods. She has always been a passenger in her own life. Only this trip to France has been driven by her. And look where it has ended up. Easier to do as she is directed, to hand over the responsibility for her choices to someone else.
‘That’s settled then,’ says Noel. ‘And happily Victor Meunier will be at the wedding too. You can renew your acquaintance there.’
Eve focuses on a point just past Noel’s head, and stares at it until the backs of her eyes no longer burn from her unshed tears and she feels nothing at all.
Guy, 28 April 1948
HOLKE HALL IS a terrible place. All red brick walls and a tower at one end with an enormous clock that looks like an eye. The sky behind the tower is the same slate grey as the wire fences that surround the whole building.
The screams are like skin ripping.
Endless corridors that smell like shit and bleach mixed together. I hold my breath and fight the urge to turn and run. This is not what I imagined. This is not what my money is for.
The nurse who shows me the way wears shoes that squeak on the polished floors. She looks at me sideways through lowered eyes and I know she is sizing me up. My clothes, my accent. The way my skin hangs so loose after my rapid recent weight loss. Strange to think that just a few months ago I would have been sizing her up too. Her figure, how old she is, whether it is worth the effort of flirtation. Now that I am beyond all of that, preoccupied only with staying alive, it strikes me how very shallow my dealings with women have been. I have not given myself time to do more than skate the surface of them, so hurried have I been to move on to the next and then the next.
My poor Diana.
I am shown into the visitors’ room, a comfortless space, with windows set way up in the walls so that all I can see is the sky, the colour of gunmetal. There are tables here and I sit down at one in a hard-backed chair, thinking about all the other people who have sat here before me, so that I don’t have to think about her and how she might react when she sees me.
When the door opens I get to my feet, my heart thudding like something wild and out of control.
‘There’s been a mistake.’
They’ve brought the wrong woman. This one is old with broken capillaries in her cheeks and eyes that are cloudy and unfocused. She wears a smock-type dress that is soft with age and her hands flutter, moth-like, at her collarbones. A vein stands up on her leg like a worm under her stocking and there’s a purple, puckered dent on either side of her forehead, ar
ound which her hair falls lank and almost entirely grey.
‘No, sir,’ says the nurse, frowning. ‘This is the lady you requested to see. I did think it queer though. She hasn’t had a visitor in the whole time I’ve worked here.’
I look again and something shatters inside me, tiny needle-sharp shards embedding into my chest as I recognize the distinctive ring she wears on her finger, with the green stone.
I remember a girl with smooth dewy skin spattered with blood and long thick curls in which globules of red matter lodged themselves like beads.
Oh God, what have I done?
‘Of course. I remember now,’ I say, for the benefit of the nurse. Then I ask the woman, ‘Do you remember me?’
The nurse laughs. She doesn’t look like she should be a nurse. Doesn’t look to be much more than Libby’s age.
‘Since Dr Cranleigh had a good poke about in her head with his ice pick she doesn’t remember her own name most days.’
The woman is staring at me with those unsettling eyes, only now there is something in there, some spark of something.
‘I remember,’ she says eventually, in a voice that sounds croaky as if not much used. Still she stares. Unblinking.
‘I am sorry,’ I tell her. ‘I didn’t know. This place. What has happened to you. I didn’t know.’
The truth is I didn’t want to know. It is only death that has brought me scurrying here to this dreadful place in search of eleventh-hour forgiveness.
That night I go out and drink whisky until my thoughts drown in the stuff.
20
8 June 1948
‘I WOULD JUST about saw off my own legs at the knee if I could be as petite and dainty as you.’
Gloria Hayes is surveying one of her shapely bare legs as if it is the ugliest thing she has ever seen.
Eve can’t help laughing, conscious that it is the first time she has done so since the events of yesterday.
Only now, here with Gloria Hayes in this fairytale palace with different tiers each painted a different shade, like frosted icing on a wedding cake, does she feel the dark cloud that has hung over her every breath since the arrival of that photograph finally lift.
