by B. A. Paris
‘I hope you didn’t go outside like that,’ I tease.
‘Outside?’
‘To put the Russian doll back.’ I slip my hand into my pocket, intending to surprise her with it, because why shouldn’t she keep it?
‘I haven’t put it back yet.’
I look at her, thinking that she’s joking. But her cheeks have flushed red.
My fingers, clasped around the Russian doll, freeze. ‘What do you mean, you haven’t put it back yet?’
‘I was going to do it after breakfast,’ she says, mistaking my shock for annoyance. ‘I wasn’t going to keep it.’
‘Where is it?’ I hate that I sound angry because I’m not, I’m rattled.
She hurries out of the room and comes back carrying the large Russian doll that has sat on top of the teak cupboard in our dining room since she moved in with me last year. She unscrews it in the middle, takes out the Russian doll inside, unscrews that one in the middle, takes out the next one, unscrews it, then takes out the next one. As she twists the last one apart, I realise that she’s joking, that there’ll be nothing inside and she’ll smile and tell me that of course she put the doll back outside. I raise an eyebrow and begin to smile.
‘Here it is.’ She takes a little Russian doll out and puts it down on the worktop amid its dissected relatives. ‘I was only going to keep it for a while.’
Keeping the smile on my face, I casually remove my hand from my pocket, leaving the doll I found on the wall where it is. ‘Hey, it’s fine, keep it if you want to.’
She looks at me doubtfully. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, nobody’s going to come looking for it, are they?’
‘No, I suppose not.’ She begins putting the Russian dolls back together but instead of stacking them one inside the other she places them side by side on the kitchen worktop, starting with the biggest and ending with the little one. It matches the rest of her set exactly. ‘There we are, a complete family of five. How strange that after all these years, I’ve finally found what’s been missing.’
I turn away, wondering what she would say if I told her that I just found a second Russian doll. If Layla’s body had been found, she would put it down to a bizarre coincidence. But her body has never been found. And if there’s one thing I don’t want, it’s Ellen thinking that Layla might still be alive.
I’d hate for her to have false hope.
FOUR
Before
That night, it took thirty-six minutes to get from Liverpool Street Station to St Katharine Docks. As we made our way through the crowds standing outside pubs and wine bars, already celebrating the New Year, I told myself it was the atmosphere that made me feel drunk. But I knew it was because of you.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Layla.’
‘I expected something more Scottish,’ I admitted.
‘I was lucky, my mum got to choose my name. My dad chose my sister’s name and she wasn’t so fortunate. He’s originally from Islay so he called her Ellen, after Port Ellen.’
‘It’s still a pretty name.’
‘Yes, it is. What about you? What’s your name?’
‘Finn.’
‘Irish?’
‘Yes. I was born and raised in Ireland,’ I explained.
You couldn’t get over the size of the Tower of London, proudly illuminated against the night sky, or the majesty of Tower Bridge. By the time we reached the docks, where people were partying on the various yachts and boats moored there, you were completely overwhelmed.
‘This is London?’ you asked.
‘It is,’ I said, pleased at your reaction to the city I loved. I stopped in front of my apartment block. ‘And this is where I live.’
‘Where you live?’ You seemed suddenly doubtful and I remembered that I was meant to be finding you a hostel or hotel.
‘Yes. You’ll never find somewhere to stay tonight so you can stay with me and Harry. Tomorrow, we’ll find you a hostel.’ You still weren’t convinced. ‘We have a little study with a sofa-bed, you can sleep there. You’ll be fine, I promise.’
I tapped in the door code and after a moment’s hesitation you followed me inside. In the lift, your unease grew – but of course, I had more or less kidnapped you. I wanted to put your mind at rest, to tell you that I hadn’t been lying, that you would never have found anywhere to stay that night because every hotel, every hostel would have been booked up months ago. But we were already on the third floor and I hoped that once you saw the flat, you’d feel more comfortable.
‘Oh my God, is this really yours?’ you breathed as I showed you around.
‘Mine and Harry’s.’
‘It’s beautiful!’
The next couple of hours passed in a blur. You were hungry, do you remember? So I made an omelette and while we ate, we exchanged information about our lives. You told me you’d lived on Lewis, a remote island in the Outer Hebrides, all your life and had been fairly happy until you were fourteen and your mother died. After, things had become difficult, you said. Your father became an alcoholic and ever since, you’d been counting the days until you could leave.
‘I stayed for Christmas,’ you said. ‘Then I packed up and left. I was determined to be in London for the first of January.’ You paused, and the light from the massive lamp that hung above the dining room table bounced off your hair. ‘A new year, a new life. That’s what I’m hoping for, anyway.’
‘What about your sister?’ I asked. ‘Didn’t she want to leave?’
Your eyes had filled with tears. ‘Yes. But in the end she couldn’t.’
‘Why not?’
You took a long time answering. ‘My dad has cancer. He’s also diabetic. Somebody has to look after him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
You laughed suddenly, unnerving me. ‘Can we talk about something else? I don’t want to be sad on New Year’s Eve.’
‘I’m meant to be going to a party tonight.’ I pointed through the window at a building on the opposite side of the dock. ‘My boss lives on the top floor. We should go.’
You looked doubtful. ‘I don’t really have anything to wear to a party.’
‘You’re fine as you are,’ I told you.
I don’t remember much about the party except feeling as if I’d stepped into a parallel universe. You were completely out of place among the women in their dresses, their nails manicured and polished, their hair styled, and I couldn’t believe it was a world I’d inhabited just a few hours before. It felt stifling and dull, and when Caroline slid her arms around my waist and asked me how I’d enjoyed the theatre, I had trouble remembering she was my girlfriend. I introduced her to you and explained something of what had happened. Maybe it was the mention of a youth hostel, but the story amused her and when she turned and raised her eyebrows at me, I knew she was laughing at you. And my fists clenched, hating her for it.
FIVE
Now
It’s amazing how those two Russian dolls play on my mind. It would be easier if I’d thrown the one I found away, or at least confined it to the drawer in my desk along with the other one, the one that had belonged to Layla. But I keep it close to me, in my pocket, a reminder that I can’t be complacent. Inevitably, though, it brings back memories of Layla. It doesn’t help that Ellen has left her family of Russian dolls standing in a row on the kitchen worktop, instead of stacking them back together again, one inside the other, and returning them to the dining room. I don’t want to ask her to move them because I don’t want to give too much importance to the fact that she hasn’t, or make her think that they make me uncomfortable. But the fact is, they do. Maybe it’s the way Ellen’s eyes are continually drawn towards them, reassuring herself that the smallest one is still there, that it’s not going to suddenly disappear, like Layla did all those years ago.
I’ve just dropped her off at the station in Cheltenham in time for the ten o’clock train to London. She has a lunch meeting with her agent to discuss illustrations for a new
book, and is going shopping in the afternoon, so she won’t be home until late. I could have gone with her, gone into the office, but I tend to work from home nowadays. There’s not a lot I can’t do from the bank of screens I’ve installed in my office.
I check the markets, catch up on the news, make a couple of calls, look for new shares to invest in. I usually read the newspapers online, because it’s more practical, but today I have physical copies, bought at the station earlier. So at lunchtime I return to the kitchen, make myself a pot of coffee and a sandwich and, with Peggy at my feet, spend a couple of hours reading the papers cover to cover, instead of only the financial sections, as I normally do. There’s a small paragraph in the Financial Times about Grant James’s investment in Richmond Global Equities, and I’m glad all over again that I managed to pull it off. Harry has done a lot for me in my forty-one years, so it’s a relief to be able to do something in return.
If anyone has shaped my life, it’s Harry. He was my brother’s best friend at the LSE, and when Liam was killed in a motorbike accident not long after graduation, Harry had been there for me. Since then, he’s got me out of trouble and back onto the right path more times than I care to remember. He was there twenty years ago, when I needed to get out of Ireland double-quick, inviting me to stay with him in London while I sorted myself out. A couple of months later, fed up with me mooching round his flat, filled with self-hatred, he gave me a job at Villiers, his investment firm, where I became fascinated with the workings of the markets and quickly earned a reputation for being ruthless. He was there during the nightmare of Layla’s disappearance, hiring the best lawyers and whisking me back to England as soon as the French police allowed me to leave. He was there at the cottage in St Mary’s, helping me look for Layla, using his contacts and printing ‘Missing’ posters, which he arranged to have distributed in and around the Fonches area. He was there six months later, when I could no longer stand the silent recrimination of the empty cottage, taking me back to London, to the flat I still co-owned with him. And he was there nine months after that, when I could no longer bear the London streets that echoed with Layla’s presence, installing me in Simonsbridge, a little village tucked away in the Cotswolds, because he had a friend who was moving abroad and had a house to rent there.
At first, in Simonsbridge, it was no different. I lived the life of a hermit, as I had done in London, with only thoughts of Layla and playing the markets for company. I only ventured out when Harry visited and, unable to stand the stench of despair that permeated the house, dragged me along to The Jackdaw for a drink. Through the fog that clouded my brain, I was dimly aware that Ruby, the landlady, liked me. But I wasn’t interested, not then.
After a few months, Harry tried to get me to go back to work. When I refused, knocking back a glass of whisky with one hand and reaching for the bottle with the other, he told me I needed a dog. So we visited dog home after dog home where I turned down so many potential companions that Harry was bemused. I couldn’t tell him what I was looking for because I didn’t know myself. Then I saw Peggy and when Harry asked me why I’d chosen her, I didn’t dare tell him it was because her coat was the same colour as Layla’s beautiful hair.
During all that time, Harry never once asked what really happened the night Layla disappeared. Ellen has never asked me either. She’s never had any reason to doubt my version of events, which were widely published in the press at the time. It’s why I found myself asking her to marry me; basically, I got caught out in a lie.
When the police questioned me, in the long days and even longer nights that followed Layla’s disappearance, I told them that during our holiday in Megève I’d asked her to marry me and that she had accepted. There was no truth in this, but I needed the police, and everyone else, to believe that everything had been perfect between us during those last few days. As the years passed, I presumed my lie had been laid to rest. Then, a couple of months ago, Ellen, out of the blue, said that Layla must have been very happy when I’d asked her to marry me.
‘Yes, she was,’ I said, taken aback that she’d suddenly brought it up.
‘You must have loved her very much to propose.’ Ellen’s voice was quiet. ‘You hadn’t been together very long.’ She paused, her eyes finding mine. ‘About the same amount of time as us, in fact.’
She was right. I was with Layla for thirteen months before she disappeared and it was over a year since Ellen had moved in with me. I looked back at her, uncertain as to what she was thinking. Was she hoping for the same commitment? She’d never once asked if I loved Layla more than I loved her. But that day, I knew that if I didn’t ask her to marry me, she would think I loved her less. So I ignored the feeling that I was somehow betraying Layla, and proposed.
Ellen had shaken her head. ‘I don’t want you to feel that you have to marry me just because you proposed to Layla.’
I hesitated, because I didn’t want her to think less of me. But maybe it was time to come clean. ‘Actually, I didn’t,’ I admitted.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It was something I said to the police at the time of my arrest, to make it look better.’
‘So you hadn’t asked her to marry you?’
‘No.’
‘But you were going to,’ she stated. And because I wanted her to feel that I loved her more than I’d loved Layla, I decided to lie. ‘No.’
She looked at me in surprise. ‘No?’
‘No,’ I repeated. But the truth was, I had been going to propose to Layla, on her twentieth birthday, the month after we got back from Megève. I’d had it all planned, I’d even bought the ring.
But then she spoiled everything.
SIX
Before
The day after the New Year’s Eve party, I told Caroline it was over. And when you tried to move out of my flat, a few days later, I did everything I could to persuade you to stay. Without asking Harry, I told you that you could have the study, at least until you found a job, saying that he wouldn’t mind. But you were adamant that you wanted to move into a youth hostel, telling me that if you were to make a life for yourself in London, you needed to meet other young people. The realisation that you thought of me as old was hard to take – hell, I was only twenty-seven. But in your eyes, I was nothing more than an older guy who had given you shelter for a couple of days.
In the event, you stayed a little over a week. For a man who lives in the present, I can still picture every minute of the day you moved out. I helped you move into the hostel you’d found, hoping you’d soon become disillusioned with sharing a room with five other people. Your idea was to find a job as soon as possible, which would allow you to move into a flat-share.
When it came to saying goodbye, I gave you my business card, telling you to call me if you needed help of any kind. And then I went back to my flat and drank half a bottle of whisky, moaning at Fate for leading you to me when you weren’t going to become a permanent fixture in my life.
Harry was bemused, then fascinated that I’d fallen so hard for you, Layla Gray. He pointed out that my girlfriends to date had all been smart young city women and that you were unsophisticated in comparison. He couldn’t see that that was the biggest attraction for me. Even before you, I’d become increasingly disenchanted with the uniformity of it all; the smart business suits, the killer heels, the sharp fingernails that raked my back with dreary repetition during sex. Harry tried to tell me that what I felt was infatuation and I tried to believe him. I also tried to forget you, working and partying twice as hard as before, to fill the void you’d left in my life.
I lived in hope of you phoning me, just to let me know how you were getting on. When a month passed without news, I told myself that you never would. And then, two months after you first disappeared from my life, you walked back in.
SEVEN
Now
I look at Ellen across the table, her head bent over her bowl of muesli, Greek yoghurt and blueberries, and find myself comparing it to Layla’s break
fasts of toast and chocolate spread. I frown, annoyed with myself. I’ve been doing that a lot lately, not just thinking about Layla, but comparing Ellen to her.
Sensing my eyes on her, Ellen looks up. Although I’m staring at her, I don’t see her, I see Layla, which is strange because physically, she’s nothing like Layla. Maybe it’s her hazel eyes. Are they what attracted me to her in the first place, because they reminded me of Layla’s?
‘So,’ she says, ‘any plans for today?’
I force myself away from the past and back to the present. But it leaves behind a trace of anxiety, spawned from the two Russian dolls we found, and I look over at Ellen’s set suspiciously, because she still hasn’t put them away.
‘I’ll probably go for a run. Maybe water the garden first. It’s as dry as a bone.’ She smiles approvingly and I can’t help remembering how Layla had laughed when I told her that one day, I wanted a beautiful garden in the country so that I could grow my own vegetables.
‘Gardening is for old men!’ she’d mocked. I’d never mentioned it again.
‘Have you remembered that I’m going into Cheltenham this morning, to the beauty salon?’ Ellen asks.
I hadn’t, but I should have, because every three weeks Ellen subjects herself to an intense beauty regime; waxing, tweezing, a manicure and God knows what else, followed by a session with her hairdresser, who operates from the same salon. Ellen takes care of herself in a way that Layla never did. Layla never cared much how she looked.
‘Maybe I’ll come and meet you for lunch,’ I say.
‘That’ll be lovely,’ she smiles.
I stand up, take my plate and reach for hers.
‘Leave it,’ she says, putting a hand on my arm. ‘I’ll clear away, I’ve got time before I go.’
Suddenly, the thought of being on my own while she’s in town, with memories of Layla within easy reach, makes me claustrophobic. I run a hand over my chin, wondering if I could get my beard trimmed, or thinned, while Ellen is at the salon. But I keep it so short it doesn’t really need it.
