Atlantic Shift

by Emily Barr

  I smile at the thought of Dominic. I doubt he would go to the papers with ‘My Night with Evie’. He is too busy enjoying his life, and I don’t think he’s desperate for cash. Dan would never, ever talk to a journalist about me, because his minders wouldn’t let him. I should be safe from kiss-and-tells, at least.

  The food is astonishingly nice. I’m always surprised by the quality of airline food. I watch a bit of the film and eat every single thing on my tray. I drink one bottle of wine and the water, then let my new friend take the tray away, leaving me to drink the other bottle. Its contents disappear strangely quickly. I force myself not to ask for a third.

  Jack told me about the couple who are buying our house in Greenwich. I couldn’t have cared less, so I let it wash over me and waited for him to finish. They are expecting their first baby in a couple of months, he said, pointedly. The house will be perfect for them. It is an ideal house for a baby, not too big, not too small, and with the park a couple of minutes’ walk away. Jack revealed he had even painted the walls to make it less tatty, more enticing to buyers. They won’t need to change anything.

  ‘Great,’ I said, bored. ‘Let’s go for a drink.’

  The pub was crowded and smoky. Jack found a table and bought me a glass of wine. I watched him while he was at the bar. He was dressed in new jeans and a jumper that I had never seen before. It suited him. I was alarmed to see him moving on. He wasn’t my Jack any more. He was Sophia’s Jack. He was no longer where I needed him.

  Sophia and Jack. They even sound good together. And she is an actress. I imagine a twenty-year-old Juliette Binoche.

  ‘Got you a large glass,’ he said, smiling as he threw himself on to the stool. ‘You sounded like you needed it this morning.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I told him, clinking glasses. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘So, what’s up?’

  He looked eager, and I made sure he reacted in exactly the way I wanted him to. It was almost too easy.

  ‘Jack?’ I asked. My voice came out small and vulnerable.

  ‘Mmm?’ He leaned forward.

  ‘I have to ask you something. Don’t be offended.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you could say much to offend me, Evie.’

  ‘You haven’t written me any letters, have you?’

  He frowned. ‘Letters? I did write some when we first split up, when things were a little raw. But I never sent them. Unless I did when I was drunk without remembering. Which is a possibility but I doubt it. What letters do you mean?’

  ‘It’s OK. I know they’re not from you. Don’t think that I’m even suggesting it. But the police said I had to ask you.’

  He put down his pint. ‘The police?’

  ‘Mmm.’ I took a letter out of my handbag. ‘This is a photocopy of the latest one. It’s the fifteenth, I think. Sixteenth, maybe.’ I took a deep breath. ‘They come all the time. Every week, now. Sometimes twice a week. And no one knows about them except the police and now you.’ A tear slid down my nose and I blinked hard and wiped it away when I knew he was looking. Jack took the sheet of paper and stared at it.

  ‘Evie!’ he said, and moved his chair closer to mine. ‘Evie, this is horrible. Bloody hell. It’s disgusting.’ He put a hand on my sleeve.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And these are reaching you at home?’

  ‘Yes. The address isn’t quite right, but they get there.’

  ‘And are they all like this? Threatening, I mean?’

  ‘They’re getting worse. This one is really quite specific, isn’t it? They used to be a bit more vague than that. And much shorter.’

  ‘Evie, this guy says he’s going to come into your bedroom and rape you.’

  I blinked harder. ‘I know.’ It came out as a whisper.

  I told him how I’d hoped the first few were from him, even though I’d known, really, that they weren’t. I told him that Megan doesn’t know, despite the fact that she is as vulnerable as I am. I know I should tell her, because it affects her too. The policewoman always asks how Megan feels, and I always mutter something about being supportive. I can’t admit that she doesn’t know. The longer I leave it, the worse it gets. I can’t tell her now that threatening, obscene, terrifying letters have been arriving at the flat since the week after I moved in.

  ‘You have to tell her,’ Jack said firmly. ‘She has the right to know.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, looking down. ‘But I feel terrible. It’s her parents’ flat. And I’ve brought it to the attention of a stalker.’

  Jack sighed. ‘Evie, he’s not stalking the flat. He’s stalking you. Talk to Megan. Get new locks on the doors, get a video entryphone. Get bars on the windows. Move out. Do whatever you have to do. You can’t carry on living there under these circumstances.’

  He looked at me, saw the tears, and put his arm round my shoulders.

  ‘Come here,’ he said, and pulled me towards him. I leant my head on his shoulder, and let him protect me for a moment.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ I murmured. ‘I’m sorry to get you back from Scotland for this.’

  It felt natural to turn my face up towards his, and he kissed me like he used to when we were first together. As our lips met, and then our tongues, I felt a surge of satisfaction. I had him back. I had used my letters to get him back where I wanted him. I knew I was cold and hard, and I didn’t care.

  When we pulled apart, I looked at him anxiously. I didn’t want him to regret it. He smiled.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘You’re gorgeous. It’s been too long. Do you want me to take you home?’

  I nodded. ‘Are you OK?’ I asked. ‘What about Sophia?’

  He gave a small laugh. ‘Hey, you’re my wife. It’s allowed.’

  He stayed the night. We squashed together in my single bed, and I made sure I took the side next to the wall, exactly as I used to do when we were at university, so he couldn’t push me off the edge in the night. Jack and I fit better in a single bed than Dominic and me.

  He was with me almost all of yesterday. We walked around west London together, stopped in cafés and shops, talked about inconsequential matters, and acted in every way like a loving couple. I suppose a part of me does love him, in a way. Mostly, I love the fact that he loves me. We didn’t talk about Sophia at all. Jack seemed happy to forget all about her, and when his phone rang, in the middle of the morning, he let it go to voicemail, then switched it off.

  On the limo ride to the hotel, I try to muster some energy. I suddenly feel drained. It is the flight, I tell myself, though I know that, in fact, it’s Louise. It’s the fact that I let myself think about her again. Louise has officially been banned from my brain for fourteen years.

  Being in America again also makes me edgy. I look through the tinted glass and try to enjoy the petrol stations and the rows of houses, and the sponsored highway litter collections. Everybody else loves arriving in New York, and I can see why, but for me there are too many complications. The traffic is fairly clear, and before long we are emerging from the Midtown tunnel into Manhattan. I look at the familiar lines and delicate curves of the Empire State Building, shrug my shoulders, and pour myself a drink from the well-stocked minibar. I don’t have to pay for the drinks in the car, whereas I do if I raid the bar in the hotel room. May as well make the most of it. Besides, my body clock says it’s nine in the evening, and everyone’s allowed a drink at that time. I find some gin, because it’s a depressant and I am wallowing, and add some tonic. Spirit and mixer mingle in roughly equal quantities. It numbs me, slightly.

  I am back in America. Last time I was here was for Howard and Sonia’s wedding. I went straight from the airport to their house in Queens, stayed one night, and avoided Manhattan altogether. The whole world loves Manhattan. It makes them feel that they’re in a film, that they can be anyone they want to be. I love it, too, on a good day. I love the energy. I love the differences between this city and London. I adore the way it’s so hard to get lost here, in the numbered streets and avenues.
I love the fact that a park in a city can be so huge.

  But New York can no longer work its special magic on me. I can only become one other person while I’m here: my teenage self.

  All I can think of are those four terrible months when I was fifteen. I celebrated my sixteenth birthday in my father’s apartment. I remember looking down on his street - East Fifty-fourth - and seeing a woman pushing a stroller down the road, with a baby asleep inside and a little girl holding the side of it, next to her. The girl had a woollen coat on, the sort the royal family used to dress their children in. The woman looked tired, and was wearing jeans and a tight white top and a leather jacket. She had long, light brown hair, like mine was back then. I watched them idling down the road, and before I knew what was happening, I was erupting in ugly sobs.

  ‘What is it?’ demanded Howard, rushing into the room. ‘Evie, what is it?’

  I pointed at them. ‘A family.’

  He looked. ‘That’s a nanny, darling.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I do. You can spot them at fifty paces. A woman who dressed her kid like that wouldn’t dress herself like that. She’d be in Gucci, head to toe. This woman’s in the Gap.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  He hugged me. ‘I know. It’ll be over soon.’

  I remember looking at him. ‘I don’t want it to be over.’

  ‘You’ll be able to go home and get on with your life.’

  ‘I don’t want to go home and get on with my life.’

  He sighed. ‘Yes you do. You will. You’ll look back on this in years to come and be thankful that you took the only choice that was available to you.’

  ‘I wish I’d told someone earlier.’

  He squeezed my shoulders. ‘We all do, sweetie. But you didn’t, and this is the only other option.’

  The baby kicked. I felt sick. I hated it, and I loved it, and I wished I could wake up from the nightmare.

  Don’t think about the baby. Do not think about the baby. I refill my glass, this time with neat vodka, and knock it back. Out of the window, brownstone houses with fire escapes line the road, letting me know, casually, that I really am in Manhattan. I don’t care. I never have to work out how old my child is. I always know it without thinking. Then I calculate it, and I am invariably right. She will be fifteen on June the second. I will be thirty-one on May the second. She was born exactly a month after my sixteenth birthday. I drink more vodka. I mustn’t think about her. Nothing good can possibly come of it. I am over it now.

  We have stopped. The driver says over his shoulder, ‘Here we are, madam.’ I swallow what remains in my glass, and step out of the open door, wondering why I didn’t think to bring some dollar bills for tipping. I hardly ever let myself dwell on what happened. I never allow myself to articulate the words ‘my’ and ‘baby’ in conjunction with each other. Mum and Phil know about it. Howard obviously knows about it. The headmistress knew and so did some of my teachers. I have never told anyone else, not Kate, not Jack. But I did tell Louise, and so the whole school found out.

  Once someone from Bristol told the Sun that I had an illegitimate child when I was a teenager and had it adopted, and they came round to ask me if it was true. I acted astonished and denied it, petrified because Jack was standing behind me at the door. They couldn’t find any records of a birth, so they dropped it. I have always wondered whether it was Louise, or some bitchy opportunist looking to make a few hundred pounds. It chills me to know that, if Mum and Phil and Howard hadn’t decided to hide me in America, my secret would be out by now. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

  The sun is shining in Manhattan, and I barely see my suitcase and cello as they are whisked away by a porter. The doorman ushers me into the foyer, and I look around. They have pushed the boat out this time. I thought a hotel in Times Square would be, at best, faceless and bland. This one is new and extremely trendy. The lobby is discreetly lit, with lamps, lots of wood, and a large abstract rug on the floor. This, I realise, is a ‘boutique’ hotel. It is not owned by a huge corporation.

  I rummage in my purse and find a twenty-dollar bill.

  ‘Before I check in,’ I say brusquely to the tanned receptionist, ‘could you change this for me?’

  She beams as if my request has made her day. ‘Hi there! Sure!’

  I rush back through the hushed lobby, and tip the driver, the doorman and the porter, all of whom immediately and enthusiastically like me again. Then I check in on autopilot, remembering to offer a false smile from time to time. If I run out of insincerity, I will be finished.

  My room is large and airy, with blond-wood shutters surrounding a window which overlooks the Square from a reassuring height. Despite the flattering lighting, I can’t help noticing that I look like death. I throw myself on the enormous bed, kick off my shoes, roll over and try to pull myself together. I am here to work, and it could take my career on to another stage. It is vital that I don’t fall apart. If I turn up at the studio tomorrow wan and listless and hungover, they will fire me. They will do it in the most euphemistic way possible, and I might not even realise they’re doing it, but I will suddenly find I am no longer welcome.

  I am in New York. I had the baby in New York. She was adopted in New York. This is not a straightforward place. I study the ceiling, which is plain and white. No cracks. Nothing to watch up there. Then I pick up the remote control from the bedside and flick through some inane television channels. It seems to be mostly adverts, and I turn it off again. I am not in the mood for Will and Grace or home shopping. I consider calling Jack, but I can’t be bothered to speak to anyone.

  I wish my life had turned out differently. If I hadn’t found myself pregnant at fifteen, I might have been shy and obscure for ever. I think I would have been happier, but I cannot wish that baby out of existence, even though I have played no part in her life. As it is, everything I have ever done has been a façade. I look like a success, but it’s an illusion. Up close, I have no substance. I am a bitch, just because I can’t feel safe being any other way. I don’t know how you can be a failure when you have money and a career, friends and family, but I am living, walking, talking proof that it’s possible.

  The phone rings. I wait five rings before answering it.

  ‘Hello?’ I say, hoping for Howard, or for Kate.

  ‘Evie! Hi there!’ says an enthusiastic man. ‘This is Alexis Stone! How are you doing there?’

  Alexis Stone is the PR assigned to me by the label. His job is to launch me on to an unsuspecting New York. I sigh, take a deep breath, and step back behind the façade.

  ‘Alexis!’ I exclaim. ‘Good to hear from you. I’m doing great. Just great.’

  ‘Wonderful, Evie. Listen, I’m thinking dinner. We have reservations. How is the Gramercy Tavern at nine o’clock?’

  I screw my eyes tight shut. ‘Fabulous!’ I tell him, in a sincere voice. He must not guess. ‘That will be absolutely great. I’ve been longing to go there.’

  chapter nine

  The next day

  ‘Evie, thank you so much,’ says Roger, from behind a glass screen. ‘That was wonderful.’

  I smile winningly at everybody. ‘Did you think so?’ I ask, with mock self-deprecation. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It was fabulous. But we need to do it again. Our fault. Sorry.’

  Again, my fake smile. ‘Not a problem, Roger. My pleasure.’

  It won’t take long before everybody is happy. It may be a hackneyed staple of the cellist’s repertoire, playable by any Grade 4 kid with a reasonable vibrato, but I love ‘The Swan’. I played it in a performance of the Carnival of the Animals, once, at a children’s concert at the Royal Albert Hall. They had a huge screen with animal scenes on it, and I got to dress up in white - much as I will be doing tomorrow - to represent the bird in question. I was glad I wasn’t on the double bass, portraying the elephant. Thank goodness my mother started me off on a graceful instrument, when I was six.

  The studio is t
iny, but high tech, and I’m quite impressed that they’re recording me playing this afresh for their advert, rather than getting it from my second ever CD, The Sensual Cello. Or using someone else. I manage a far better performance today than I did when I was twenty-five. I have made a huge effort with my appearance, even though I am only here for the sound. I know that every single person involved in the process is scrutinising me and making judgements that will affect my future, so I have dressed judiciously in a pair of Armani jeans and a tight black T-shirt and cashmere cardigan, with boots that give just enough of a heel to make me look good, without letting me tower above the men. Owing to the fact that I’ve been awake since five, I have had ample time to wash, blow-dry and style my hair, so it’s sleek but bouncy. I’ve also managed to conceal a worrying outbreak of spots and blotches, which I hope are a symptom of my stressful journey and jet lag, rather than an irreversible part of the ageing process. I can’t age. I can’t afford to. I’m wearing a little make-up. I am, in fact, wearing a lot of make-up, masquerading as a little, but I hope that no one else will realise this fact.

  I am hiding behind my image. This strategy has worked for me so far, and it has got to carry on working for me now.

  I know it was something of a gamble for them to cast a British cellist no American has heard of, and I suppose they have only done it because most people over here haven’t heard of any living cellists at all. I am determined to be professional and impressive. They are treating me far better than I had expected - the hotel proves my worth in their eyes - and this really is my big break. Everything I do in America must be a performance.

  I know Alexis is pleased, because every time I glance at the window he is looking at me and smiling to himself. He is an intense man in his late thirties, and I think I could warm to him. I am doing everything in my power to make him like me. He is, I discovered last night, a fanatically healthy eater; thus, while I am in the same room as he is, so am I. I don’t know how I pulled myself together last night. As usual, the strength appeared from somewhere at the very moment I needed it. I sat in the Gramercy Tavern, ate salad, and chattered brightly about myself and my cello and where I saw myself in five years’ time.