Where Everything Seems Double

by Penny Freedman

  Freda hops up and down with excitement, the new dignity of being thirteen temporarily forgotten. ‘There they are! See? Milo is in the near one and Fergus is in the other one.’

  I can see them, frowning in concentration, paying no attention to us even if they have heard Freda’s excited squeaks.

  ‘What’s the race they’re practising for?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t know exactly. It’s supposed to be next week but they’re not sure if it’ll happen because of the police. They might – you know – drag the lake because of Ruby.’

  ‘Yes, they might.’ I can’t help wondering why they haven’t done it already; it seems to me most likely that that is where she is.

  We meet Eve at her studio and she immediately takes Freda under her wing.

  ‘An assistant is just what I need this morning,’ she announces. ‘While your gran is talking to Ruby’s parents just along there, you could help me with my pots. I’m firing and glazing this morning.’

  Freda is delighted and I have to swallow a sizeable lump of sour resentment. I am the person who offers Freda exciting new experiences; Eve has no business muscling in. I can see her clearly through Freda’s eyes – an alternative grandmother, more fun, more creative, more laid-back, new and different, outclassing me in charm and empathy just as she used to with the kids at school.

  I fake a big, jolly smile.

  ‘Then everyone will be happy,’ I say, and I walk with Eve along to Neil Buxton’s studio.

  Like Eve, he has his workshop behind and goods on display at the front. He is out at the back when we walk in and I have a moment to look round. This, I see at a glance, is a man who takes the work seriously – he calls himself an artist, I am sure, rather than a craftsman. There is no concession here to tourist tat, no strings of beads or jolly jugs, the shop is almost like a gallery, its few pieces arranged individually, each unique. I don’t get a chance to look at the prices but I can guarantee that they won’t be cheap. Does he sell enough here to make a living, or are they on sale in upmarket outlets elsewhere?

  The man who comes through from the back surprises me. I was beginning to form a picture of a self-confident, even arrogant man, but Neil Buxton is small and inconspicuous, a man you might not recognise at a second meeting. He has thin, sandy hair and pale blue eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses and his face is impassive as Eve introduces me. I offer a handshake and he takes it without enthusiasm and says nothing. Nervous, I start to prattle.

  ‘These are lovely,’ I say.

  He looks at Eve. ‘Susan will be here in a minute,’ he says.

  ‘Then I’ll leave you to it,’ Eve says brightly. She is as uncomfortable with him as I am. ‘See you later, Gina.’ And she’s off.

  I watch her go. When I turn back, I find that Neil Buxton is looking at me.

  ‘I don’t know why she thinks you can help,’ he says.

  So thank you, Eve, for preparing the ground so thoroughly, I think.

  ‘Well,’ I say, feeling as though I am at a job interview, ‘I have been involved in a couple of cases with the police down in Kent. A student of mine was killed, and a girl at my daughter’s school was…’ I peter out. This is not going well. I am already implying that we are dealing with a murder. I take another tack. ‘Eve asked me to come,’ I say, ‘and she is my friend, so I came.’

  He is not looking at me and is possibly not listening either. He is examining one of his pieces, a tall, slim vase in a very pale green; he seems to be looking for flaws. I look at the open door and I am tempted to do a runner. I don’t have to be here, doing this, do I? And what is it that I am doing exactly?

  A woman appears in the doorway and I have no doubt that she is Susan Buxton. She is as pale and nondescript as her husband. At first glance I think that she is old to be the mother of a thirteen-year-old, but as she approaches I can see that she is actually quite young and it is just the defeated slump of her shoulders and the limp straggle of her hair that make her look older. I wait a moment for Neil to greet her and when he doesn’t I step forward.

  ‘You must be Susan,’ I say.

  She looks startled, as though I have performed a magic trick, but she must have known that I was coming.

  ‘Yes?’ she says, warily.

  ‘I’m Gina,’ I say. ‘Eve’s friend.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  This is going really well, isn’t it? If I stop talking, will one of them start? I try it, taking a sudden interest in a blue dish with an asymmetrical, curled edge.

  ‘Eve is worried about Colin,’ Susan Buxton says. ‘Because of the coaching.’

  This is new. Something else Eve failed to say.

  ‘Colin was giving Ruby coaching?’ I ask.

  ‘In chemistry,’ she says. ‘The school—’

  Her husband interrupts, suddenly animated. ‘Useless,’ he says, ‘that school. They’ve had nothing but supply teachers for science this year. Ruby’s a clever girl, she’s going to be a doctor. None of this going off to stage school. She’ll stay here and get her A levels.’

  ‘Her sister’s at a stage school,’ Susan explains. ‘One of the best – Alcott Park – you may have heard of it. She got a full scholarship and she’s doing very well.’ She gives her husband a quick look which is almost defiant. ‘Ruby was thinking… but her dad wants… and she is a clever girl.’

  ‘It’s this stage rubbish that caused all this – trouble,’ Neil says, and the blood is rising in his pasty face. ‘That nonsense on the lake. What’s it for?’

  I wish we could sit down now that we have started talking. Instead we are standing around among the exhibits like characters in a badly directed play. Directors feel that they have to keep actors on the move, but who does that in real life when they are having a serious conversation, unless they are actually out on a walk? I look round but can see no chairs, so I move to a position between the two of them and hope to create a circle of a kind.

  ‘Is Ruby’s sister home for the holidays?’ I ask.

  Neil gives a sort of low growl and Susan says, ‘No. Grace has got a part in a show. Not West End or anything but professional. The school put her up for it. They’re on a foreign tour for six weeks – Belgium and Holland, I think, and maybe…’

  ‘Are she and Ruby close?’

  ‘They were,’ Susan says, ‘but Grace is fifteen now, and she’s been away at the school for two years, and she’s quite grown-up now, so…’

  I wait expectantly but she doesn’t go on. Why can’t she ever finish a sentence? Is it because she expects to be interrupted? I look at the two of them and I am amazed really that these two colourless parents could have produced two girls who yearn to perform. Maybe they are secret exhibitionists. Glass blowing, after all, is quite dramatic, with its white heat and its air of danger. I went once to a glass workshop in Sweden, where serious-faced, silent, Nordic giants moved around one another carrying molten glass with practised ease, and there definitely was an air of performance. Still, I am puzzled by these parents, not least because they don’t seem desperate enough. If one of my girls had gone missing like this I think I’d be out on the lake wailing like an Irish fairy woman. These two look sad and bewildered but I don’t sense a desperate fear about what has happened to their daughter.

  I try shock tactics. ‘What do you think has happened to Ruby?’ I ask.

  Neither answers. Susan turns away.

  ‘Neil?’ I ask.

  ‘It’ll be that Romanian boy,’ he says. ‘I’ve told the police. He’ll have her somewhere.’

  ‘Romanian boy?’

  ‘The one who was in her boat with her, he means,’ Susan says, although she still has her back to us. ‘The waiter at the hotel. Dimitri or something.’

  ‘But wasn’t he working that night?’ I ask. ‘I thought—’

  ‘That’s what he says, but the others will be covering up for him.
They stick together, don’t they, that lot?’ Neil starts to move away as he says this, back towards his workshop.

  ‘You think he’s abducted her?’ I ask before he can disappear.

  ‘She gets ideas,’ he says enigmatically. ‘They do at that age.’

  And he’s gone. Susan turns back to me once he has left.

  ‘Do you think she’s with Dumitru, Susan?’ I ask.

  She gives me an odd look, more focused than she has been and almost pleading.

  ‘She’s only thirteen,’ she says.

  ‘You said that Eve was worried about Colin. You don’t think he’s involved?’

  ‘I don’t,’ she says. ‘I really don’t. And I’m sorry this is causing him trouble.’

  We stand and look at each other rather helplessly, and I am thinking up some closing words when two blond heads look in through the doorway. Milo says nothing but Fergus is polite. ‘Good morning. We saw you there and we wondered if you have Freda with you.’

  They are in their rowing gear, sweaty and cheerful with the glow of exercise and competition. Freda will be ecstatic to see them.

  ‘She’s down in your grandmother’s studio, potting,’ I say. ‘I’ll walk down with you.’

  Freda is cradling a small pot with a fish design on it when we go into the studio. ‘It has a flaw,’ she says, ‘and I rescued it from being smashed.’

  She points to the way a couple of the fish scales have dripped. ‘I think that’s what makes it special,’ she says.

  ‘That’s what I say about my home-made cakes,’ says Eve. ‘All right for amateurs but I’m supposed to be a professional.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s lovely?’ Freda appeals to the boys and they go into a huddle while Eve takes me aside.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Dumitru,’ she murmurs. ‘He’s on duty in the bar but it’s quiet at the moment. You could have a quick word.’

  Without waiting for me even to open my mouth, she calls across to the boys, ‘Look after things here for a bit, will you, chaps? I’m going up to the hotel with Gina for a moment.’

  So saying, she bundles me out and starts to march me along the lakeside at a brisk pace. I stop dead.

  ‘Hold on, Eve. I’ve just had one meeting with people who didn’t know what I was there for and I’m not having another one. What exactly have you said to him?’

  ‘I’ve told him you’re a friend of mine, up here for a week’s holiday with your granddaughter, that you’re an English teacher and you’re happy to give him a bit of coaching because you’re a very kind person.’

  ‘Really? And you were able to say that with a straight face?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ She starts walking again. ‘Anyway,’ she calls over her shoulder, ‘it’s almost true. And I bet you’ll enjoy teaching him once you get started.’

  She stomps off ahead of me and I can see how thin she is – her shoulder blades sharp and angular under her cotton sweater. Is she ill or just sad? What did that coughing fit mean? Coughs can sound worse than they are, can’t they? Can’t they?

  The bar at the hotel is rather overbearing. It has big windows all along the side that faces the lake, but they are draped with heavy, elaborately swagged curtains, and dark oak beams loom from the ceiling. However, we find Dumitru in a patch of sunlight, at the end of the bar, near an open door that leads out into the garden. He is dark and tanned, with that fine-featured Italian look that a lot of Romanians have. (I have had a few Romanian students, but mainly observed this from television footage of their revolution in 1989 that ended in the trial and execution of Ceauşescu and liberation from communism. It was all very inspiring but was given an edge of unreality for me because the young protestors all looked like beautiful Hollywood extras.)

  Eve introduces us, he shakes my hand and gives me a dazzling flash of white teeth and then offers us both a drink. Eve declines, fidgeting to be off back to her studio, and I look at my watch and hesitate. Eleven-thirty. Coffee time, but I overdosed at breakfast, where refills were circulated assiduously, and it is too early for alcohol. Dumitru seems to read my mind.

  ‘Is very nice iced tea,’ he says, ‘for a warm morning. Perhaps in the garden?’

  I note the classic inversion of ‘Is very nice iced tea’, which is what Italians do a lot. Romanian is not a Slavic language – it is a Romance language, as its name implies, with its roots in Latin, and its history as the Roman province of Dacia. Confusingly, though, its pronunciation is strongly Slavic-influenced, and it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. So English presents some challenges for Dumitru and I’m about to find out what they are.

  Eve departs; I accept the offer of iced tea, Dunitru has a muttered conversation with a fellow barman and we go out into the garden, where we seat ourselves at a table near the entrance to the bar. ‘Is not busy yet,’ Dumitru says, as he stirs sugar into his espresso, ‘but Gheorghe will call me if he needs.’

  Talking turns out to be very easy. Dumitru, who has already done two years of a social sciences degree in Romania, wants really to be a book illustrator. It has, he says, been his dream since he was a child, but it was impossible to pursue it in Romania. He came to the UK with the naïve hope of studying at Chelsea College of Art but followed a girl he met up here to Cumbria, and has adjusted his ambitions to the college in Carlisle, which offers, he says, a course perfect for him. He has been here for a year, one of the few temporary staff to be kept on over the winter. The girl has moved on – ‘Scotland, I think,’ he says vaguely – and appears to be not much missed. His spoken English and listening skills have improved and he scored the necessary 5.5 in them in a recent International English Language (IELTS) test. It is his writing that is the problem. Partly this is because he doesn’t get a chance to practise, partly it is because English spelling defeats him, and partly, he says, ‘My fingers are made for drawing. This is how I express.’

  Time is not on our side. He has a provisional place at the college to start in October but he will need to retake his writing test before then and get his 5.5 (or 5.0 at least – I think they will stretch a point for an art course). If he can start this year, before we leave the EU, then he will pay fees as a home student; if he has to postpone until next year, he will be paying a lot more as an international student. He has some money, a legacy from his grandmother, and he will go on working at the hotel in the evenings and at weekends, but the extra money could be beyond him. None of this did Eve tell me, of course, in her airy reference to his ‘needing a bit of help’, and I don’t plan to be here for more than a week at most. Even the most intensive work can’t do wonders in that time, and how intensive can we be with Dumitru’s full-time job (not to mention his moonlighting as a fairy henchman) and my duties as grandmother and gumshoe?

  ‘It will be a challenge,’ I say, and he raises a hand to brandish an imaginary sword.

  ‘I accept!’ he says, and we shake hands.

  ‘To start with, I need to see something that you’ve written. You must have written a personal statement for your application to the college, but I suppose someone helped you with that?’

  He shrugs. ‘Of course,’ he says.

  ‘Then write something about the play – about A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s all right, you don’t have to tell me the story – I know it already – just write about what you do in it – what you do, what you wear and so on. And a bit about how you feel about it – whether you enjoy it – if you can.’

  He looks reluctant so I am brisk. ‘Have you got any free time today?’

  ‘This afternoon I have a break. Two hours.’

  ‘Perfect. Write the piece for me and leave it at the reception desk for me to collect. I’m seeing the play tonight so I can check if you are telling the truth.’

  He opens his arms in a gesture of surrender. ‘I am in your hands,’ he says.

  ‘Good idiom,’ I tell him. ‘Do you know what an idi
om is? No? Then I’ll tell you tomorrow. When are you free?’

  We settle for the post-breakfast lull tomorrow morning, when Gheorghe will cover for him if necessary, and he departs, taking our crockery with him. I watch him go and then lie back in my chair and absorb the sun. And tomorrow, I think, we will segue neatly into a discussion of why exactly you weren’t in Ruby’s boat with her on the night she disappeared, and what you were doing instead.

  Chapter Six

  A FAIR WIND

  Thursday

  It was all so good that it made her a bit nervous. Today, she thought, had probably been one of the nicest days of her life. The work in Eve’s studio had been so interesting, and Eve had talked to her as though she was really being useful and not just hanging about getting in the way, and then the afternoon with the gang, out on the lake, and Micky’s dad letting Micky and Milo drive the ferry when it was coming back nearly empty from the town. And then her hair hadn’t gone frizzy despite her afternoon on the lake, Granny was on her best behaviour after her meltdown last night, and this evening they were going across to see the play at the theatre. So why did she feel nervous? Enjoy it while it lasts, she admonished herself. Stop worrying about how it could all go wrong.

  They ate an early supper in the bar, which was rather a relief as it meant that they didn’t have to sit and face each other across the table in the restaurant again and remind themselves of yesterday’s row. The bar was comfortable and they sat by the window, and the menu wasn’t in French, which was a bonus. They both ordered smoked salmon – hers as an open sandwich, her grandmother’s with a salad – and she decided that it would not be embarrassing to order a coke in here. They were served by a good-looking waiter called Dumitru, who seemed to have become Granny’s new BF. There was lots of joking about his English homework which they didn’t explain to her and which she really didn’t want to know about. If Granny was focusing her need to reorganise people’s lives on the waiters, that was all to the good – it meant she might leave Milo and Fergus and the others well alone.