White Bodies: An Addictive Psychological Thriller

by Jane Robins

  Felix is sitting stiffly, gazing at his squid, as Lucas chatters on about France and architecture and his ambitions, and I actually feel sorry for my future brother-in-law—he can hardly effuse about the wonders of hedge funding, or his personal ambitions to make more money. At one point he says, “Who’d like chocolate mousse? I made it earlier.” And Tilda says, “Yummy!”—making me think, Is this the only sort of conversation they have when they’re alone these days, baby talk, and banal comments about food and cooking, maybe occasionally talking about holidays? And then a riveting idea occurs to me—if I steal Tilda’s memory stick again, I’ll maybe get her version of this evening, of Felix’s reaction to his brother’s good-humored boasting. Of her attitude towards me. And I say to myself, That’s what I’ll do—and if Tilda’s evening turns out to be benign, nothing sinister, I’ll forget everything, all the Controlling Men nonsense, and Scarlet’s monstrous suggestion. I feel that I’m conducting some sort of scientific experiment as I say, “So, Lucas, what were you and Felix like as children? Were you always the creative one?”

  “How can I put it, I was the one who, in all senses, was expressive—drawing, painting, playing baseball and soccer—generally noisy. My big brother was the observer in the family; always watching, keeping his thoughts to himself, making private plans.” Lucas’s gaze flits lazily between Tilda and me, gently encouraging us to play along, only once glancing at Felix, but in that second his expression hardens, and Felix carefully moves the wine bottle three centimeters to the right.

  “Callie’s an observer,” says Tilda. “You and Felix are alike that way.”

  “What? I’m like Felix? No, I’m not, not at all. . . .”

  “Thank you for sharing.” Felix’s tone is wry and faintly comical.

  “No—I only mean that, although we’re both observers—you’re a leader, a doer, you make things happen. I tend to follow, like a sheep.”

  “You’re not a sheep,” says Lucas. “You’re a beautiful little black pony. . . .”

  “What animal am I?” asks Tilda. And together Lucas and I say, “A white butterfly.”

  “It must be true, then,” I add. “But what about Felix? What is he?”

  “A snake,” says Lucas in a voice that indicates he’s joking. Felix pretends to laugh.

  Then we turn to praising Felix’s chocolate mousse, and Lucas returns to the subject of their childhood. Felix, we learn, never had leanings towards architecture, but he was a remarkably capable builder and had constructed a tree house in their back garden. “Do you remember?” says Lucas. “All the planning you did. I think you spent nearly a year planning it in minute detail, then buying all the materials and tools with your saved-up pocket money.”

  “That’s what I meant,” I say. “That’s Felix . . .”

  He says, “Good thing too,” and returns to the kitchen, loading the dishwasher, wrapping clean bowls up in cling film.

  I watch him at his work, thinking, It’s okay to be odd, Felix. I’m not going to condemn you right now. At least, not until I’ve checked the memory stick again.

  23

  It’s Tuesday morning and I’m in charge of the bookshop while Daphne is promoting herself in Copenhagen. It’s strange and quiet when she’s away because, even when she isn’t talking, she generally makes her presence felt—bashing her keyboard, drinking her coffee, tapping her feet on the floorboards. The unusual, slightly creepy silence allows me to get a few tasks done—I sort out the new books, and I phone Mum, who’s now up-to-date, and says, “I’m not sure about this wedding. We don’t really know him, not properly. . . .” But she agrees to come to London to shop together for her wedding outfit. Then I go online and, despite my resolution to avoid Controlling Men, I check out the site. The members are talking about Joe Mayhew and Bea Santos—several people reckoning that he’ll try to have the murder charge reduced to manslaughter, pleading diminished responsibility. “He’ll say he was depressed, that mental illness meant he wasn’t responsible for his actions,” writes someone called Lemon-and-Lime. “He’ll be on suicide watch now—the coward’s way out.” I agree. I want him to go to court, and I want him to be convicted of murder.

  I’m scrolling down, reading, when our bell jangles, signaling the arrival of a customer, and I’m surprised to see Lucas. My nonchalant half smile is supposed to suggest that I’m intrigued that someone as urbane as him has troubled himself to come to Willesden. And I’m leaning my chin on the back of my hand, hoping that my body language indicates that my work here is an amusing sideline, not a financial necessity. Possibly, though, I’m wasting my efforts.

  He says: “I’m stopping by to inspect your architecture collection.”

  “You could have gone to Central London. To Waterstones or Hatchards or something.”

  “But then I wouldn’t have had a chance to see you. And look what I’ve brought.”

  He has a paper carrier bag with two salads inside, in cardboard boxes, with little bamboo forks. “Pea and mint with feta cheese,” he says. “Tilda said that lunch might be a problem for you—with your boss away.”

  “I’d brought a cheese-and-Marmite sandwich, but your salad looks nicer.”

  I fetch him a chair from the back office, and we sit and eat, and he says: “So, now you have a chance to ask me about my idiosyncratic brother—I could tell at dinner last night that you were dying to get the full story—all that digging you did, asking about our childhoods.”

  I feel suddenly nervous—like he’s been sent by Tilda or Felix to trick me. But he’s eating his salad in a way that I’d call hearty, and looking at me with a straight, unbothered eye.

  He’s right, of course, I’m desperate for more information. All week my mind has been flipping between two extreme modes—one minute I’m filled with alarm at Tilda’s letter, and the evidence that Felix really is a danger. Those bruises, that thrown vase. And then I think of good Felix, weird-but-nice Felix, in-love Felix. Now I have Lucas to talk to. Clearheaded, easygoing Lucas.

  “I just want to know that my sister is safe.” I’ve decided to be blunt. “What is his relationship history like? He told me about Francesca, the journalist.”

  “Why do you think Tilda may not be safe?” He doesn’t look at me now but at his food, moving it around with his fork, and I get the impression that he has, after all, had a pointed conversation with Tilda and Felix about me. That he’s been sent by them.

  “I don’t know . . . Felix is a strong character. Everything has to be done his way.”

  “You’re right to think he’s pretty dominating, I guess. And that’s the reason that we don’t always get along. You saw what he was like with a simple thing like squid—he just couldn’t allow me to cook it my way—he had to take over.”

  “And you let him. . . .”

  “That’s the easiest way to deal with my brother—to let him take control.”

  “I have to ask the obvious question.”

  “What happens when you challenge him?”

  “Yes . . . not that I see Tilda challenging him ever.”

  He puts his salad box on the counter and faces me directly, like he’s saying, Enough about food, now for the serious stuff. “Well, he can go into deep, black moods. A lot of anger . . . just below the surface, even over small things. When we were kids it could be anything—one time I went into the tree house without his permission, and moved his things around. . . . He was totally pissed, for weeks. Weeks! And he cut up my soccer jersey with scissors, my favorite shirt.” He smiles, like it’s a fond memory, not a horrible one.

  “What happened with Francesca? How did she deal with the moods?”

  He frowns. “Poor Francesca. She was so in love . . . which isn’t unusual by the way. Women do fall for him, repeatedly. He was always the better-looking brother—he has a certain charisma I guess.”

  I’m in a difficult position. I can’t say, “Oh no, Lucas, you’re the attractive one!” because it isn’t true. Even though Lucas is sophisticated and smiley an
d approachable, I can see that women are more drawn to Felix, with his finer features, his enigmatic, unknowable quality. The mere fact that he speaks less than Lucas does.

  “Felix is a bit like Max in Rebecca,” I say. “I mean, sort of smoldering . . .”

  “Francesca thought so. She always tried to please him, to be the person he wanted her to be—perfectly dressed, well-mannered, discreet. She was doomed to fail, though. Her personality made her unguarded, opinionated. And she lacked something that Felix was looking for. It’s hard to identify it exactly—I think Felix wants a woman to be a work of art, like a perfect painting . . . and your sister is definitely the closest he’s come to finding that. She’s extraordinarily beautiful. She’s kinda . . . Venus rising . . .”

  “We’re the normal people, you and me—the civilians. They’re from some other world.” I realize that we’re talking about Felix as though he’s an interesting character in a book, that we are being superficial, not truly exploring the sinister side of his psyche, and I want to ask—“But is he physically dangerous? Did he harm Francesca? Is that the real reason that they split up?” But there’s something so good-natured and affable about Lucas that I find it hard to ask outright whether his brother is an abusive monster. I just hint at it, saying, “If Francesca were with us now, what would she say about Felix?”

  “She’d say he broke her heart . . . that he made her unhappy, and she’s found it difficult to move on.” He picks up his salad and starts eating again. I’m not going to get anything stronger from him, and I take a different line: “Do you ever see her?”

  “No, sadly. She’s an impressive woman. Very intelligent. I liked her.”

  “Is she still in this country? Working here?”

  “I think so. She’s a correspondent at an American paper, in the London bureau. She’s often traveling, though. She’s covered Libya and Syria. . . .”

  I store the information, thinking that the time will come when I need to track her down, to find out the truth.

  Lucas wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and says, “And now you can tell me about Tilda. And, if we’re going to quiz each other about our siblings, I may as well follow your probing style—what’s her relationship history like?”

  I’m taken aback. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might have doubts about Tilda, and hearing my own words sent back to me gives me a little shock, they sound antagonistic. “I’m sorry! I’ve been rude. . . .”

  “No need to apologize. It’s fair enough. I mean—marriage is huge. Of course we want to know . . .”

  “Well, Tilda has had lots of boyfriends, but they come and go. I never even met them . . . Nothing like Felix. He’s the first she’s really included in her life—and it’s amazing to see her behavior with him, the way she’s fallen into the adoring-wife role. I haven’t seen her so in love since she had this huge crush when she was a teenager, on a boy called Liam Brookes. . . . In fact, I know she’s kept in touch with Liam over the years and I always expected her to get back with him. But now that she’s with Felix I can see that he’s the one. He’s her future; Liam’s her past.”

  I fold my arms in front of me, on the counter, let my head fall down into them and close my eyes. Out of the blue I’m overwhelmed—by the contrast between the violent undertone of Tilda’s confessions on the memory stick and the blandness of the account I’m giving Lucas. Deep down I know I’m suppressing my worries about Felix and am blindly hoping for the best.

  Lucas’s hand touches my arm. “Hey . . . What’s the matter?”

  I pull myself upright, recognizing pity in his voice and realizing that he thinks I’m jealous of Tilda! “Oh, it’s nothing. As you say—marriage is huge.”

  “Yes. And that’s why I need to ask you—all those boyfriends of your sister’s—why did she fail to commit? Does she run away at the first sign of trouble? Or was she always in love with this Liam guy?”

  “I don’t think so, Lucas. I think it’s more that she wanted someone other than Liam, but she’s very picky. Maybe she has been waiting all her life for Felix. She needs his strength. . . .”

  “Well. I guess we should let Tilda and Felix live their lives—they’re well matched and I’ve never seen Felix this committed to a girl. He loves her.”

  I think, So you were sent by Felix after all, as part of his campaign to win me over.

  He stands up and stretches his chest. “Now . . . show me your architecture books.”

  • • •

  At home later I google Francesca and Libya and Syria, and find out that her name is Francesca Moroni. She writes about British and European politics, and covers conflict and war sometimes. I think of the old days when Tilda used to talk about going with Liam when he joined Médicins Sans Frontières. I know now that she wouldn’t have been brave enough, that she would never have had Francesca Moroni’s guts.

  I click Google images, and find a page full of photos of a young woman with a mass of brown wavy hair that, when she’s working in war zones, is pulled back into a messy ponytail, and at award ceremonies is allowed to fall around her face, flamboyantly. Her features are dramatic—big brown eyes, full lips—and her figure is large, but in my view, she’s a beauty. Nothing about her suggests Lucas’s image of “poor Francesca.” One picture of a social event shows her in a red sparkly evening dress, in animated conversation with a man I recognize as the foreign secretary. Another, clipped from a TV news report, shows her in a flak jacket standing on a dusty dirt road, notebook in her hand while, behind her, three slouchy men in hoods are holding guns. When Lucas said “poor Francesca” was nonetheless impressive, I hadn’t grasped what he meant.

  But I can see that, as he suggested, there’s nothing discreet about her—that to fit into Felix’s concept of the perfect woman she would have had to change herself. It seems strange to me that such a strong character would have attempted to do that. If she did, it’s further evidence of Felix’s power. I can’t help it—I open my laptop and go to the dossier, and I write about Francesca Moroni. I wish she were here, that I could talk to her right now, reassure myself that it’s okay for Tilda to marry Felix. If only I could just go to Curzon Street and argue it out with Tilda—but she won’t allow that. She’d defend Felix, and cut me out of her life. I write also: I’d like to check the memory stick to see if Tilda has added anything to her letter. But I can’t. She’ll be at the flat until the wedding, and will know if I take it. I’ll have to wait until she’s away on honeymoon.

  24

  St. Gregory’s church in Berkshire is pretty. It’s Norman, set centrally in a graveyard with old, leaning headstones, the names on them smoothed away by the wind or partially hidden by moss. Before the wedding, I walk around, trying to make them out, forming images of Emily Jane Goode, who died in 1830 at the age of twenty-one, and Henry Watson, who perished in a foreign field in 1809, at the age of twenty-nine. And those who lived to be old, Ernest Norwood Richardson, ninety-three, who is buried with a dozen or more of his descendants, perpetually guarded by a mournful stone angel. I sit on a rickety bench by a wall, and find that I’m missing Wilf. I wish he were here today, that the incident with the Mail had never happened. I would find his big, earthy presence comforting, and I need comfort. I’m in a troubled daze, knocked almost senseless by the occasion, unable to work out whether I’m happy for my sister or whether she’s on a path that has nowhere to lead other than her own death.

  Mum weaves her way through the graves towards me, unsteady in high heels, and I grin at her, feeling suddenly affectionate. I’d helped choose the floral chiffon dress she’s wearing, with dangly bits at the bottom, and the shocking-pink fascinator. I’m a little unnerved by the ankle tattoo, but it’s not as bad as I’d feared.

  “You look lovely.” I notice that her complexion looks fresh and youthful. Sometimes it is infused with the high blush of too much alcohol, but not today.

  “You too, darling.” I’m wearing the blue dress that Daphne bought me, and the suede ankle boots. I didn�
�t want to buy anything new.

  “The Nordberg parents have arrived, all the way from Boston, come and meet them. Erik and Alana. They seem jolly nice. . . .”

  She takes my hand, pulls me up from the bench, and we join Mr. and Mrs. Nordberg in the vestibule of the church. They each kiss me lightly on my cheek, and welcome me into their family. Erik comments on the beauty of the church, and Alana says, “We’re both so happy for Felix and Tilda,” in a light, vague voice that somehow sounds regal, like she is the queen of Sweden. She’s wearing a simple beige silk dress, no hat, and her husband looks chic in a well-cut dark suit. They are both skinny and tall, and they make our curves and Mum’s chiffon seem provincial, almost tacky. Lucas appears and ushers us into the church, and we are sent to the bride’s side, while the Nordbergs sit behind Felix, who turns to chat to his parents, his arm draped languorously along the back of the pew, not reflecting the tension that he holds in his gray eyes, which dart around the church, checking everything is in place—the walls, the roof, the congregation.

  It’s the smallest of weddings, a cluster of a dozen people each side of the aisle. I recognize Paige Mooney (definitely obese now, dressed in ruched layers of green polyester) and Jacob Thynne (from his appearance on-screen), but no one else. Kimberley hasn’t made it, apparently, or Sasha. Felix’s guests look like they belong to a single tribe, financial people, slick and neat. I lean my head on Mum’s shoulder, like I used to when I was a child, and she says, “Chip, chip.”

  “Will Tilda be all right?” I say.

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “I love the church.” It is simple and ancient, and the air inside is heavy, infused with the cold scent of rain and stone.

  “You were christened here. My parents were married here. . . .”

  “Tilda told me. . . . It’s weird that I didn’t know.”