Where Everything Seems Double

by Penny Freedman

  When I get to the jetty, the ferry has just pulled in and a trio of boys, fresh off it, I assume, is swarming around Freda, who has her sketchpad stowed away in her shoulder bag. I recognise Milo and Fergus, and I think the other boy may be the ferryman’s son – I saw him this morning helping people onto the ferry. I watch warily – I don’t want to get caught watching – and I am impressed by Freda’s poise. She is certainly better with boys than I was at thirteen, and better than Ellie and Annie were, I think, but I suppose that comes from being at a mixed school. Two girls come running down from the hotel to join them, and the imperious cry of the older one – ‘You rotters! Why are you so late?’ leaves me in no doubt that these are the posh girls, Dominic Fenton’s daughters, whom Freda has mentioned.

  So, is the gang all here? I wonder. Except, of course, for Ruby.

  They look happy enough. If Freda’s moodiness this morning was because of the dynamics here, she is hiding it well.

  I turn away to mingle with the crowd streaming off the ferry and up to the hotel for lunch, and as I turn I bump into a tall man who is striding past me. He turns to apologise, I look up at him and say, ‘Colin!’

  This is a moment I have been dreading. I never got a chance to talk to Colin after I shopped him to the police. I never thought I needed to apologise but I never explained either. I have no idea how he feels about me, but with Eve as angry as she is there is a good chance that he is holding a grudge too. He looks down at me, grave-faced and then, unexpectedly, bends to kiss my cheek.

  ‘You’re looking very svelte, Gina,’ he says, ‘but this is parka country, so a little city polish goes a long way.’

  He surveys me, almost as though I am back in his surgery. ‘And you look well,’ he says. ‘Are you?’

  ‘I am.’

  I’m looking at him. Is he well? Yes, I think. He looks far less changed than Eve does, in fact. He is still upright, head and shoulders above everybody else around us, His face is thinner, but not gaunt, and though his hair is white there is plenty of it. He still looks, in fact, like a recently retired, successful professional man.

  ‘And are you as well as you look?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he says, but I notice now the tension around his eyes and I read anxiety in the frown lines.

  I think he may see me noticing because he adds, ‘Tricky time at the moment. Police want to have a third chat with me. I can’t help thinking they may be going to keep me in this time. But then that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?’

  I am about to mumble that I am doing my best, but he turns away with a little wave of dismissal. ‘Off to see Eve,’ he says, and turns towards her studio. I scamper after him and tug at his sleeve like an importunate toddler. ‘Colin,’ I say. ‘What’s the matter with Eve?’

  ‘The matter?’ he asks, looking down at me.

  ‘The cough,’ I say.

  ‘You’ll need to ask her, won’t you?’ he says. ‘Patient confidentiality, you know,’ and he seems to be about to go striding on but then relents. ‘Eve would like everything to be your fault, but you and I know it isn’t. And you didn’t cause the cough either.’

  I don’t go straight back into the hotel but take a detour to the car park to see if I can find the sweet spot where my phone will work. I ought to communicate with Ellie myself and not just leave it to Freda, and it has just occurred to me that Freda’s low spirits this morning might have been to do with something going on at home. So I trawl the car park and realise that I have a connection only when a message comes pinging through:

  ‘Are you two all right? Odd message from Freda last night and you don’t answer my calls. Ring me!’

  I stand where I am and call.

  She picks up on the first ring. ‘Ma? What on earth is going on? All I’ve heard from you is that message from Freda about being in a car park. I’ve been calling you both all morning and—’

  I interrupt. ‘This is a mobile black spot. Nothing’s wrong but you have to stand in the corner of a car park to get a connection.’

  ‘Well you might have made that clear last night. That message from Freda’s phone wasn’t helpful. ‘Cant say much because its dark in the car park but we are ok xx’ Couldn’t you have done better than that? I couldn’t work out why you would be in a car park at nearly midnight.’

  My brain is churning. How can Freda have been in the car park at nearly midnight? I don’t know what’s going on. How do I hide from Ellie the fact that I don’t know what’s going on?

  ‘It’s a long story,’ I say with a thoroughly unconvincing little laugh. ‘We’d been to the theatre and hung around for the ferry and then had a hot drink and then—’

  ‘All right. I don’t need the whole rigmarole. As long as you’re all right. Can you put me on to Freda?’

  ‘Well, she’s…’ I say, and then realise that I don’t actually know where she is. Still on the jetty? I didn’t look for her as I came past. I need to get a grip on all of this. Ellie is assuming that Freda never leaves my side and Freda is assuming she can do whatever she likes. Ground rules. I should have laid down ground rules. In the past I wouldn’t have let Freda out of my sight, but the other kids here seem to be free to wander and Freda is thirteen after all. And so was Ruby Buxton says the mean little figure with the big, red warning flag who lurks in my head.

  ‘She’s back at the hotel,’ I lie breezily. ‘We’re just going to have lunch. Do you want her to call after lunch?’

  ‘No, don’t worry. I’m out later. Give her my love. Is she having a good time?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I say blithely, and I think it’s true though, frankly, what do I know?

  I speed back to the jetty to find Freda not there. The jetty is empty in a way that seems suddenly sinister. I pant up to the hotel and ask at reception whether she has picked up our key. She hasn’t. How can I have been so stupid as not to make a proper arrangement with her? And why doesn’t this bloody place have mobile coverage?

  I am about to run back to the lakeside but as I’m passing the entrance to the bar I catch a glimpse of kingfisher blue – the colour of the crop top Freda was wearing this morning. I look in and there they are, the group of them, cool as you like, sitting drinking cokes in one of the prime spots, a bay window looking out on the lake. As I move towards them, Freda jumps up and comes to head me off.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she hisses, backing me urgently into the foyer. ‘You weren’t going to talk to us, were you?’

  ‘I was only going to offer to buy you all lunch,’ I say self-righteously and untruthfully, ‘and to find out what your plans are for this afternoon. I do need to know where you are, Freda, and without a phone signal—’

  ‘I’ll just be around, Gran. The others don’t have to keep saying where they’re going. And thank you for the lunch offer but there’s no need. Venetia says we can have it on the house.’

  ‘And Venetia is…?’

  ‘Her dad owns this place.’

  ‘How convenient.’

  ‘We’re having a party tonight, so I expect we’ll be getting ready for that this afternoon.’

  ‘A party?’ I am instantly alert to the possibilities of danger.

  ‘Nothing big, just the gang and a few others. We’re having a barbecue on the jetty. The play’s over and the jetty will probably be out of bounds soon if the police decide to drag the lake.’

  I can’t really blame Freda for the callousness of this response since she didn’t know Ruby, but I am shocked at the others. Let’s have a party before we’re inconvenienced by the police dragging the lake for our friend’s dead body. But I am as much relieved as shocked, to be honest. If they are partying on the jetty, it will be pretty public. I could, if I wanted, watch the whole thing from my window. But you won’t, will you? I tell myself, and to compensate for the thought I say, ‘Would you like some money towards the food and drink?’

&nbs
p; ‘It’s all right,’ she says airily, ‘Chef says we can have stuff from the kitchen.’

  ‘About the drink, Freda,’ I say. ‘You—’

  ‘It’s all right, Gran. Venetia’s dad has already said no alcohol.’

  ‘But you know sometimes boys think it’s clever to spike a soft drink with—’

  ‘We’ve got a crate of cokes. I’ll make sure my bottle’s all right. It’s cool, Gran.’

  She turns to go but I hold her back. ‘Leave me a message,’ I say, ‘at reception, if you’re going further than this bit of lakeside. OK?’

  ‘I am thirteen,’ she says.

  ‘You know what my answer to that is, don’t you?’

  ‘And so was Ruby Buxton,’ she says and, surprisingly, gives me a quick kiss before sashaying back to the group in the window.

  I feel obliged to take my lunch in the garden, out of their sight, and there I sit, picking disconsolately at an enormous ham sandwich that has obviously been constructed with a sturdy hill-walker in mind rather than a woman who has done nothing more strenuous than ask some nosey questions and worry a lot. I am, I realise, muttering to myself as I dismantle the sandwich and swig the cider with which I am washing it down. It is not a good look, but I can’t help that. How exactly did I imagine this trip? Didn’t I want Freda to get to know the local kids? Well, yes and no. That was what I said to her but I think that really I had a hazy idea that she would be my sleuthing partner, that she would trail around with me, providing protective cover, bolstering my persona as a harmless granny figure while I, with deft sleight of tongue, asked penetrating questions and obtained revealing answers. Instead, I am out on my own, asking my probing questions and getting only the most meagre of answers even from the people I am supposed to be helping. And Freda is developing a happy friendship with a key witness from whom she is keeping me at more than arm’s length. These are my mutterings and they are getting me odd looks from a group at a nearby table. They may think I am dotty, but these days when people seem to be talking to themselves in public spaces it turns out that they are talking on a hands-free phone. If that’s what they are assuming, then they must be wondering how I have got a signal.

  I have no answer to my dilemma except one, and it is the one that I have been resisting for the past thirty-six hours. I will do nothing yet, I tell myself. I will spend a quiet afternoon with my book and will, eventually, find a way to talk non-threateningly with Milo – perhaps enlisting Colin’s help, I think, since he seems more reasonable than Eve. I finish my cider and go up to my room. I look out at the jetty but there is no sign of the kids there. I had thought of spending the afternoon reading by the window but I realise that I shall simply be on permanent surveillance here if I do that, so I decide on the garden. It is a bit chilly but I can put on a jacket, and if my eyes occasionally stray to the lakeside and the activities of a group of young people down there, well where is the harm in that?

  I stay in the garden until tea-time. I am reading Milkman, which is rather brilliant and certainly engrossing enough to distract me, though unsettling too if you’re worrying about the safety of a young girl. By four o’clock I am really quite cold. I have seen the kids toing and froing on mysterious errands. They disappeared briefly early on but soon returned with ice creams, and then were away for long enough to start me worrying but came back with a small barbecue. They look pretty amicable and Milo seems to be their leader as far as I can tell. I go inside to the bar for my tea, and to warm up, and when I go to pick up our key I find that Freda has already taken it.

  Upstairs, she is occupying the bathroom, from which she emerges swathed in towels and asks if I will use her new straighteners on her hair. It is quite like old times and I swallow a lump of nostalgia for the ten-year-old Freda for whom my straighteners were an exciting revelation. When her hair is sleeked to her satisfaction, she disappears into her room and comes out half an hour later wearing her black jumpsuit, a cloud of scent and a certain amount of makeup, I think, though it is discreet enough for me to ignore it. I do want to advise her to take a sweater with her but I resist the urge. She says she won’t be late because some of the partyers have to go back on the last ferry and I tell her to have a good time. Then she departs, leaving me to go down for a solitary meal in the restaurant.

  It is very difficult to eat slowly on one’s own, and it is hard to be self-indulgent without feeling pathetic, so I eat a modest main course and a scoop of sorbet and it seems no time before I am in the bar with my post-dinner coffee. From my viewpoint in the window I can see that there are about a dozen teenagers outside, clustered round the barbecue, and the muted throb of their music is audible through the double glazing.

  I try watching television upstairs, but it’s Friday night and it seems to be all game shows, so I settle down with the travails of the nameless narrator of Milkman and ration my glances out of the window to a sub-obsessive level. At nine o’clock I notice that others have gathered outside the hotel – spectators rather than partyers. Looking more closely I realise that some of the hotel waiters are out there now the restaurant is closed. I recognise Dumitru and his colleague Gheorghe and one or two of the others. With beers and cigarettes, they look distinctly adult compared with the teenagers, who are dancing now, not in pairs but in a small, heaving mass. It makes me uncomfortable to see them being watched by the men. Would it worry me if it weren’t for Ruby? I think it would. It feels voyeuristic verging on predatory. I go downstairs.

  Outside, the light is going and the evening is damp and cold. The kids are keeping warm but I am surprised by the hotel staff standing around in their shirtsleeves. I look at Dumitru, who is talking to Gheorghe, but with his eyes elsewhere. His gaze is fixed on the jetty, and as I try to follow it I see that he is looking at Freda and Milo, who are not dancing with the others but sitting perched on an upturned crate, heads very close together, and Milo has his arm round Freda. At any moment he is going to kiss her says a voice in my head, and without pausing to consider I wade in. Intent on one another, they don’t see me coming until I have dodged the flailing limbs of the dancers and am standing in front of them.

  ‘She’s only just thirteen,’ I yell at Milo, as Freda, scarlet-faced, jumps up and he rises slowly to his feet.

  ‘Sure, I know that,’ he says with infuriating calm.

  ‘Then what do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘We were just talking,’ Freda protests.

  ‘He had his arm round you!’

  ‘I was cold!’ she shouts, and then says, ‘I can’t do this,’ and makes to go, except Milo puts out a hand to stop her.

  Holding her arm he says, ‘She wasn’t just cold. She’s worried about something and she doesn’t think she can talk to you about it. But I think she should, and that’s what I was telling her.’ He looks around. ‘This will be breaking up soon,’ he says, ‘and then why don’t you two have a talk?’

  I am stopped in my tracks. How has he done this? I have caught him molesting my thirteen-year-old granddaughter and suddenly he’s the only adult here and I am being told what to do.

  Freda picks up his tone. ‘The ferry’s coming and people will be going home,’ she says. ‘Go in, Gran. I’ll come in as soon as the others have gone.’

  I stand deflated and dismissed. ‘Ten minutes,’ I say to Freda in an attempt at some sort of authority. ‘Ten minutes and I want you inside.’

  I turn to go, and I meet Dumitru’s eyes. I think he has been watching us all the time.

  It is twenty minutes before Freda comes in, but I decide not to make an issue of it. It is more important to find out what’s worrying her. I go for bland.

  ‘We’ve got some hot chocolate sachets,’ I say. ‘Shall I make some? Warm you up?’

  ‘OK.’

  She perches on the window seat, watching me. I bring the drinks over – one for me too, though I don’t really want it – and I sit beside her, not too close,
not looking at her, not confrontational. It occurs to me that I wouldn’t have taken this much trouble with my daughters – brisk bossiness and a certain amount of yelling was my default mode – but Freda is different: she is just on loan to me, I have to take care.

  ‘So, do you think you can tell me what’s worrying you?’ I ask.

  She starts with a lot of defensive stuff about why she was in the car park on her own, why she had to ring Ellie, how I didn’t understand, and I let that roll on until she comes to the crux.

  ‘And then I saw Dumitru,’ she says.

  My stomach lurches. I saw the way Dumitru was looking at her this evening.

  ‘What did he do?’ I demand.

  ‘Nothing. He didn’t do anything. He was just carrying something.’

  ‘Carrying what?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was just like a bundle. Only it looked…’ She shakes her head and drinks some chocolate.

  ‘It looked what, Freda?’

  ‘It looked like it might be a body,’ she says in a rush. ‘Now you’re going to say I’m being ridiculous, aren’t you, because you like Dumitru, and that’s why I didn’t want to tell you.’

  I put down my mug and try to speak very calmly. ‘Did he speak to you?’

  ‘No. He just rushed past. He looked – looked like he didn’t want to be seen.’

  ‘Furtive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that’s what made you think he was carrying a body?’

  ‘No. It was the shape. And the way he was carrying it.’

  ‘How was he carrying it?’

  She looks around the room, then jumps up and pulls off the bed the ornamental rug that is laid across the end of it. She rolls it up and then takes it in her arms and holds it against her as one might a child.