by Daisy Pearce
‘Oh, you lovebirds,’ Carmel chimed. ‘Please. Stella, you’re here now and I’m thrilled. Well done me on being so excellent and getting a job.’
‘Sorry, Carmel. Well done.’
‘Have you seen what Marco brought along?’ Carmel asked, smiling just a little. She pointed to a box in the centre of the table. A big box. A cake box. I stared at it. The pain in my head was humming brightly.
‘It’s very thoughtful. I’m surprised. I always think of you as being such a wanker, Marco.’
Marco raised his glass to her wryly. It can’t be, I stupidly told myself as I stood to look inside the box. It can’t be. She must be wrong.
But she wasn’t. It was a cake. A huge sponge cake fashioned to look like a pair of breasts in a bra. The blue icing had been piped on in delicate filigree patterns to form the lace of the cups in a pale blue. There was even a diamante clasp in the centre. It had been professionally made, with a scattering of icing flowers about the edges and ‘Congratulations’ spelt out in cursive icing at the top. It was enormous, and it was beautiful. Tears stung my eyes as I gasped and sat down a little too quickly. Marco grabbed my forearm, face creased with concern.
‘Sweetheart, are you all right?’
‘I can’t believe you did that.’
‘Did what? Are you okay? Do you want some water? You look awful.’
‘I can’t beli— You knew I was making a cake for her.’
Just for a second he looked at me blankly and I thought, Okay, there will be a punchline. There will be an explanation, and we’ll laugh and fall into each other, but his face remained still, frighteningly still.
‘Stella? All right?’
‘No, I’m not, I’m not bloody all right. You knew what I was planning. What do you think is in the box next to you, for God’s sake?’
He lowered his voice. ‘Listen to yourself. I thought we’d agreed this. We all know you can’t cook. Isn’t it better this way?’
I blinked at him.
‘Honey, don’t you remember? We talked about it earlier, about how you burn everything you bake, how you can’t be trusted in the kitchen.’
He laughed, looking around the table, appealing to the others sitting there.
‘Come on, you can’t be mad about this. Don’t you remember? When I said we should just buy one?’
My mouth was opening and closing. He laughed again mildly.
‘I just wanted to do something nice for Carmel,’ he continued, ‘and I thought you agreed with me.’
‘Why? You’ve never liked her.’
Someone whistled, long and low. The sound of a bomb falling. I didn’t look up.
Marco’s face darkened, and he said quietly, ‘Stella, lower your voice. People are staring.’
I closed my eyes, opened them, Marco was looking at me. There was nothing on his face, no expression. He was a blank page.
‘Stella?’ Carmel was saying as I stood, picking up my unopened cake box, my eyes full of tears. As I walked away towards the toilets I heard Marco saying that he was sorry, that he didn’t know what my problem was. The pain in my head was glittering.
Inside the toilets I tried to catch my breath, to slow the tears which I knew were coming. Sadly, I lifted the lid of the cake box and stared at my own effort, lumpy as hand-thrown clay. I had written ‘Silky Bollocks’ across it in wobbly red icing and covered the bits where it had stuck to the cake tin with thick layers of too-hard icing. It was too dark, too dry, too shit. I stuffed it into the bin in the toilet, slamming the lid against it, and cried and cried.
Chapter 16
Alice answers when I call Marco’s office. I can hear her nails clattering against the keyboard and imagine her with the phone tucked beneath her beautifully straight jawline, pastel-pink lips moving ever so slightly. Alice would never do anything as vulgar as speak loudly.
‘Did you get your luggage, Stella?’
‘I did, yes. Thanks.’
‘You’d left it right by the door. I’m surprised you didn’t trip over it on your way out.’
‘Can you – please can you get Marco? Tell him it’s important.’
‘He’s in a meeting. I can’t interrupt him at the moment.’
‘Please, Alice . . . I – I—’ I’m horrified to discover there is a lump in my throat and I remind myself to breathe, breathe. ‘I think someone has been breaking into the house.’
‘Are you safe? Have you called the police?’
‘No. Not yet, I mean.’
‘Has anything been taken?’
‘Maybe. I think so. I don’t know. Things have been moved around. Please, Alice, can’t you get him for me?’
‘He isn’t here, Stella, and this meeting is taking up most of his morning. He’s not due back till later today.’
‘Okay, okay.’
‘What kind of things have been moved around?’
‘Cups. Bowls. All the cutlery in the drawers. And someone has left a box of eggs on the doorstep this morning with a threatening note.’
‘What does the note say?’
‘Uh, it said “Pay Attention”.’
Alice is quiet for a moment although I can still hear her typing. Finally she says, ‘Are you in danger?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t find my pills. I can’t think straight. I’m sorry.’ My voice cracks, and I start to cry. I apologise again, breathlessly.
‘It’s all right,’ she tells me as I sob quietly to myself for a second or two, shoulders shaking, my hand over my mouth immediately wet with tears.
‘I’m better now, sorry,’ I say again after a moment has passed. ‘That took me by surprise.’
‘No problem.’
‘It’s just – I got scared, didn’t I? When I came home. The mess that was everywhere and now I can’t find my pills although I’m sure’ – I release a shuddering breath, my cheeks are damp – ‘I’m sure I had them before I left the house.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘For breakfast wi— Just for breakfast.’
I don’t want to tell her about my breakfast with Frankie, and I don’t know why. Partly, I suppose, because she would almost certainly tell Marco but mainly because he is my secret. My friend. He feels like the only one at the moment.
‘Where are you now?’
‘At the cottage, at Chy an Mor. In the garden.’
‘Is it sunny?’
‘Uh – yes. Not a cloud in the sky.’
‘Can you see the sea?’
‘Yes, I can.’
In the background, in the busy office in which Alice is currently sitting, I hear a phone ringing. In her normal, adult life three hundred miles away. I sigh. I’m done crying. The force of my tears frightened me, but now it is weak and watery. I give one last shuddering breath.
‘Go on,’ she says.
‘Whenever I see paintings of the sea it’s always a blue-green. I don’t know why they do that because the only time I’ve seen the sea it’s been grey, like silver. Mercury-grey.’
‘Are there any gulls?’
‘Not today. But I hear them sometimes.’
‘How’s the garden looking? Need work?’
‘Lots. The old caretaker has been in hospital, and it doesn’t look like it’s been touched since the spring. Nettles everywhere.’
I know what she is doing. She is distracting me, calming me down. I am at once grateful and infuriated by it, by the implication that I am a child. Poor old Stella, can’t deal with reality. Poor old Stella can’t handle her life. I inhale deeply, wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and squeeze the snot from my nose. I feel better. I thank her. She tells me not to worry, that she is used to it. It won’t be until later that I will think what a peculiar thing that was to say.
Without my pills I can’t sleep. I lie awake and listen to the sounds of the house, the groans and scratches. The way the floorboards creak. My shallow dreams are full of noise, and I wake up to get away from them. I think there is someone in the house with me. At one point, I
imagine I see a shadow pass the doorway, as though running. The rustle of fabric, a watery sigh. But there are no footsteps, and no doors open and close. I think I hear the taps switching on only once, as I lie with my ear pressed to the pillow, but I can’t be sure and by that time a peach dawn is breaking, and I am drowsy again.
The noise is soft and unremarkable, the clink of the letterbox. It wakes me with a jolt, and I push myself up onto my elbows, staring wildly around. The light filtering is a dirty grey smudge, and I can hear the restless patter of rain. When I open the curtains I notice that the ocean and cliffs have been spirited away by nature’s great conjuror, a thick sea mist. Below me the waves are booming in the lightless caves. A movement in the garden catches my eye, and I press myself against the cold glass, but there is nothing but creeping fog. The house is cold as old stones. Downstairs I find a white oblong on the mat, an envelope. There is no writing on it, and inside, nothing but a photograph. It slides out into my outstretched palm, face up.
The woman in the picture is me, and it gives me a jolt. It’s me and then, when I look closer, I see it is not, not quite. She is looking directly up at the camera – neither smiling nor frowning – she looks uncertain, suspicious. Blonde hair swept back from her face, and all that can be seen of her shoulders is covered in a red-and-white scarf knotted at the throat. Her skin is pale and slightly sickly-looking, the colour of milk which has turned over in the night. The horrifying thing is the bruising. Plum and violet and a sickening nicotine yellow across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes are set in swollen cushions of skin, a rich deep blue. It looks like she’s been hit by a truck. It shocks me. My hands start to tremble.
I turn the photograph over. There is writing on the back in blue ink.
‘Pay AttenTIon’, it tells me, and that is all.
I stand in the cold kitchen, turning the photograph back to front and back again. The edges have softened and curled with age. I stand as the kettle boils and cools, as the mist presses close to the cottage like an overcoat. In the background the news plays out on the television screen just visible through the living room doorway. A fire in a department store. A stabbing in Manchester. A new policy to cut funding to nurseries. This piece contains some graphic footage. I walk to the drawer and pull out the piece of paper which had been beneath the box of eggs. I smooth it flat with the side of my hand. ‘Pay AttenTIon’, it read, and the handwriting on both was the same. ‘Pay AttenTIon’.
I do not know the poor, injured woman in the photo, nor do I recognise the writing. I make toast with marmalade and find an old radio under the sink and tune it in. Some music. I put the photograph together with the note on the table, weighed down with my mother’s jar with the coins inside. Her earthly remains. I must have picked it up when I left London, although I don’t remember. It had been in my suitcase, lying on top of the clothes I’d packed. Anxious, I call Frankie. The reception is bad and I can hear the wind blowing across the line. It is a lonely sound and I’m glad when he picks up. Frankie sounds pleased to hear from me and when I tell him about the notes he tells me he’d be happy to stop by.
‘Weirdest thing,’ he says. ‘But I’ll have a look, and of course if I can help you I will.’
I call Marco again and leave him a voice message. ‘Marco, I’m scared. Please call me, please come back. I need you.’
I hang up and pace the floor. I need something, something to get me through the withdrawal of these pills. I wish I had some Valium or a sleeping pill. Anything. Hell, I think brightly, I’d snort some ketamine if I knew where to get some. Anything to stop this. I think about calling Doctor Wilson, but then a memory floods back to me, sharp as lemon juice.
It was my second appointment with Doctor Wilson. I was calmer that day, less agitated. Perhaps it’s because Marco was with me. Perhaps it was because I would be getting more pills.
‘Guess how much it’s worth,’ Marco said, as we’d pulled up outside the vast Edwardian building. ‘Go on, guess.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Five million. A five-million-pound house. You could fit ten of your flats in there, easy.’
This time a young woman opened the door; a pale housemaid with a strong Eastern European accent and white-blonde hair. She led us through the hallway to Doctor Wilson’s study.
‘Mr Wilson, it is your guests.’
The housemaid turned, smiling, revealing lines of tiny, regular teeth like a cat. ‘He says to go on inside.’
Doctor Wilson had risen from his desk smiling, eyes impossibly blue and glassy, like polished jewels.
He nodded to Marco and asked us both to sit.
‘Excuse the mess’ – he indicated the paperwork on his desk – ‘I’m only just back from holiday.’
‘Anywhere nice?’
‘Yes, weekend in St Tropez. Anita was pining. All too brief, unfortunately. Tea or coffee?’
‘Coffee. Stella?’
I nodded. Doctor Wilson held his hand up, three fingers raised, to the maid who was hovering by the door.
‘Lovely girl,’ he confided as she closed the door behind her, ‘you wouldn’t know she came from a war-torn country. She laughs a lot.’ He folded his hands on the desk. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
‘Thank you for seeing us again at such short notice,’ I heard Marco say, ‘I know how busy you are.’
Doctor Wilson was nodding, his fingers steepled beneath his chin, eyes on me. He’d picked up a small statue no bigger than a fist from his desk and turned it towards me.
‘Do you know who this is?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s Shiva. The destroyer. His purpose is to destroy in order to rebuild. What do you think you have in you – inside you, Stella – which needs to be destroyed?’
He looked from me to Marco and back again.
‘Hindus believe that death is not an end, only a beginning. It makes way for a rebirth. So let’s talk about how we can create your death, Stella, how we can do this.’
I must have looked startled because he laughed and said, ‘Metaphorically speaking, of course.’
The maid came into the room, padding softly, carrying a tray. She poured the coffee at the end of the long mahogany desk, sneaking looks at the three of us occasionally from beneath lashes so fair they were almost white. Doctor Wilson was addressing Marco.
‘You, sir, I’m afraid, will have to leave. You can take your coffee into the conservatory. Estelle will show you where it is.’
I turned my head and watched him go, realising I was holding on to the arms of the chair so tightly my knuckles were white. Nothing frightens me more than scrutiny.
‘So, Stella, let’s talk. Open up. Tell me about yourself.’
‘I don’t want to talk about me.’
‘Well, we need to start somewhere. How about you tell me what you do for a living? Do you enjoy your job?’
‘Oh, oh no. It’s not what I planned to do.’
‘What did you plan to do?’
I hesitated, looking down at my lap. ‘I studied art history. Hoped one day to curate a gallery, maybe in New York.’
‘No more acting?’
‘God, no.’
‘I remember the show. “Let’s take a walk to Honeypot Lane, let’s meet the fam-a-lee”.’ He stopped singing and looked at me, eyebrows raised.
I laughed nervously. ‘Well, that was a long t—’
‘You in your little dress and that dog. You remember there was one episode, when – uh – when the dog had to wear the little bonnet you made it, for the parade?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you told him off, right? You said “Make sure you walk behind me” and what do you know? He did! Right up on two legs. Man, that was one clever dog.’
‘Nine. There were nine of them. They kept dying.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘People used to think we were cursed. The show, I mean. We went through so many golden Labradors I’m surprised the RSPCA didn’t press charges. One of th
em was poisoned.’
I looked down at my hands. That wasn’t quite right, was it? I’m thinking. One dog or two? Or more? I could remember seeing a bulky shape hidden beneath a tarp in the corridor, and my mother ushering me past. ‘Don’t look, Stella, love,’ she was saying. ‘Keep walking.’
‘You know my favourite? That brother of yours, the oldest one.’
‘Eddie.’
‘Eddie! That’s him. Eddie Marigold.’
‘All the Marigold children had “e” sounds at the end of their names: Bonnie, Lucy, Katie, Eddie, Mikey – even the dog, Frisky. It was lame.’
I’d spiked his gentle good humour a little. He lifted the statue of Shiva again, studying it.
‘What kind of person would you say you are, Stella? Happy? Calm? Morose?’
‘God, I’m – I don’t know – neurotic? A little bit prone to fantasy.’
‘I deal with a lot of addicts, Stella. Drugs, booze, porn, gambling.’
I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination that heard the stress he put on the last word. But he couldn’t know about my dad, could he? The betting slips and scratch cards and the clamorous beating of hooves. I blinked rapidly.
‘One thing they all have in common is a refusal to see themselves as they are – as they truly are. And when that happens it makes my job more difficult, do you see? I wonder what will help you to understand the depth of your problems.’
‘Problems?’
‘Well, yes. You’ve been drinking too much, taking risks. I heard about the violence, the paranoia you’ve been displaying. It’s much more pleasant for you not to look at yourself though, I understand that. Do you know what arrested development is?’
‘Something to do with drug addiction, isn’t it?’
‘It’s theorised but yes, it’s thought so. The impact of trauma can have the same effect too. A stunting of the emotional growth and psychological development at the age when the addiction or the event occurs. Now, your childhood was far from normal, and the death of your mother at such a sensitive age – well – that is bound to have had an effect on you.’
‘This is ridiculous. I’m not drinking because my mother is dead. I’m sick. I’ve been ill. I can’t sleep. I’m only here to get the pills, that’s all I want, it’s the only thing that works.’
