by Monica Ali
“No, go for it,” said Lydia. “Let’s make a splash. How many have you sold?”
Amber smiled ruefully. “One. Plus the one you insisted on paying for.”
“Let’s get to work. We’ll have them lining up and down the block.”
They tried the peach chiffon first but the tone didn’t work with the mannequin’s coloring.
“No,” said Lydia. “Not unless we give her an instant tan.”
They took it off and replaced it with the blue taffeta. Lydia stepped onto the platform and Amber handed up the mannequin. The dress needed pinning in at the back of the waist, and when she had done that Lydia whisked around to the front to check the alignment across the collarbone.
Mrs. Deaver from the drugstore waved as she passed by at a pigeon-chested strut. Across the road, Sonia from the florist added pails of yellow and white chrysanthemums to the display outside her store. She wiped her hands on her apron and stretched her back and then leaned against the doorpost, her movements as languid as a cat’s. Kindergarten had let out for the day and mothers and children paddled casually, stopping and starting, between the lakes of sun that fell between the buildings and the cool pools of shadow in front of the stores. They eddied generally in the direction of the bakery, from which the children emerged with a swoosh of sugar-fueled high hopes.
Albert Street was wide and generous. A grass verge extended the sidewalk on the east and the road itself was wide enough to turn full circle with a horse and cart. The town hall crowned the north end with erect Georgian symmetry, and the stores that mingled with the houses bore fascias and awnings in tasteful cottage-garden hues. The buildings, all clapboard or half-timbered, had air around them. It was the town’s main street but it wasn’t squeezed. It was a street with room to breathe.
Lydia looked to see if Mr. Mancuso would emerge from his bungalow. He liked to sit out on his little steel tube stool at this time. There he was, beaming as always, as if he couldn’t believe his luck in living through another day. He was getting so frail now that perhaps there wouldn’t be too many more. He set up the stool at the bottom of his stoop, and when a child stopped to have his cheek pinched Mr. Mancuso nearly fell off his stool in delight.
Six weeks to go, thought Lydia, until Albert Street put on its finery for the annual fête. She was looking forward to it. She smiled to herself. There had been a time when she could scarcely stay in one city, one country, one continent, for more than a day or two without being burned by the apparent certainty that she was in the wrong place. She’d step off the jet and be wondering if she had better cut short the trip.
Now she lived here round the seasons, three full cycles so far, through the calendar of annual events, and the daily parade, and she let herself (though she smiled at it) be cradled by the quiet rhythms of this place.
“What shall we do next?” said Amber. “The green silk?”
“Yes. Now give me the progress report.”
“Phil?” Amber checked herself in the mirror and smoothed down her skirt. “We had dinner, it was nice. I thought he’d call yesterday but he didn’t. Do you think he’ll call today?”
“Oh, so you like him? You didn’t sound too sure before.”
Amber groaned. “You’re right. I wasn’t.”
“And now you are?”
Amber arranged herself on the fainting couch. “A week or so ago I’d have said I wasn’t really interested. He’s nice, good manners, bit short, bit of a potbelly, not particularly handsome but nice eyes. The kids have met him—only in passing, because he lives so close, but I think they’d get along okay. He’s a dentist. He talks about teeth a lot.”
“Wow,” said Lydia. “That’s a big subject.”
“I know!”
“If you like him, you like him.”
“A week ago I could take it or leave it. I was thinking it might be . . . a little fling, maybe.” Amber got off the couch to help with the next mannequin. “Honestly? Last week I’d have said he was nice but kinda boring. This week? If he doesn’t call me, I’ll die.”
Lydia laughed. “And if he does you’ll run away to Acapulco with him.”
“Oh, why am I always like this?” said Amber. “I know he’s not exactly thrilling but when he calls I’ll pee my pants.”
“I think Mrs. Deaver sells incontinence pads,” said Lydia.
“Oh my God,” said Amber. “Seriously, I’ve got to start doing my pelvic-floor exercises more regularly.”
“You know I’ll babysit for you,” said Lydia.
“How’s it going with Carson? Are you two good?”
“Hang it,” said Lydia. “This shoulder won’t sit right. Think we need to get the steamer out.”
“I’ll find it,” said Amber, but she stayed where she was. “Are you in love?”
Lydia shrugged. “We’re doing fine,” she said. “I do tend to clam up on him though.”
“Guess you haven’t known him that long. I mean, it took you a while to tell me everything.”
She hadn’t told Amber everything. But she had let her suppose, and those suppositions had turned into facts as far as Amber was concerned.
Amber said, “Do you think that . . .” She stopped and composed her hair, and then spoke in a rush. “Do you think that your ex would actually try to find you? I know you don’t like to talk about him. And what would happen if he did? What would happen if he showed up right now?”
“It wouldn’t be him,” said Lydia. “It would be someone else.”
“Like a private detective?” said Amber.
“You know,” said Lydia, slowly, “I don’t think anyone’s looking. That’s what I think. I wanted to disappear. I couldn’t stand it anymore. And when you do that you always feel like you’ve got to keep looking behind you. The rest of the world moves on. I’ve got to move on too. I’ve got to stop being such a numskull.”
“You’re not a numskull,” said Amber.
“I am. I failed all my exams. Twice. I left school at sixteen without a single qualification.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Means you had your head in the clouds, maybe.”
“Right,” said Lydia. In her old life she could never shake the feeling that she was an absolute dunce. Her husband saw to that early on. He was the intellectual, and she was the brainless clotheshorse. She could read a briefing for a charity meeting and remember all the facts and figures she needed, but she put the confidence on like a suit. Underneath she was butt naked.
She’d still say she was thick as a plank but she didn’t mean it anymore. If she’d put her mind to it she could have tackled Lawrence’s books. She wasn’t educated. Nobody had cared how she did at school, least of all her. Maybe she was just a late starter, but she felt ready for something more than the drugstore novels now.
“Oh,” said Amber, “on your birthday, I’m getting the girls together, throwing a little tea party for you after work.”
“Thank you,” said Lydia. “Can we fill one teapot up with wine? And I’ve got to tell Tevis, the weekend straight afterwards, I can’t make it to the cabin. Carson’s taking me to the ballet in New York.”
“New York? Ballet? Shut up! We’ll do the cabin another weekend. Two birthday weekends instead of one. Will you wear the gown?”
“Absolutely,” said Lydia. She wouldn’t. It would be over the top.
It wasn’t her real birthday. But that’s what it said on her driver’s license and passport. There was her real birthday and her official birthday. She had known long ago that she would never be Queen, but she had never thought she might end up with two birthdays just like her mother-in-law.
Queen of Hearts. That’s what she’d said she wanted to be. How grandiose that sounded now.
A couple of customers came in and Amber sold a gray shift dress and a pale blue cashmere vest. The window display was much admired, and Sonia and several of the neighboring storekeepers came in to say as much. Mrs. Jackson rapped on the window and when Amber walked over from the counter to see what
was up, Mrs. Jackson pointed at the mannequins and mouthed “Look,” through the glass.
“As if we might not have seen them,” said Amber.
“I think she likes it,” said Lydia.
Mrs. Jackson bowled through the door. “Oh,” she said, “look at those! They are beautiful! If I were five years younger . . .”
Lydia knew not to look at Amber or they’d set each other giggling right away.
“How’s Otis getting on, Mrs. Jackson?”
Mrs. Jackson fluttered her hands. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m a martyr to that dog. Couldn’t live without him of course.”
She set down her shopping and slipped off her shoes and sat down on the couch. She wore heels even for a trip to the grocery store. Her bare legs were mottled with an excellent array of colors, like the inside of a mussel shell.
“Lydia, I’ve got a guest staying with me whom I’d like you to meet.”
“Forget about matchmaking, Mrs. Jackson,” said Amber. “Lydia’s spoken for.”
“That wasn’t my intention, I do assure you.” Mrs. Jackson had been a leading lady in Kensington’s amateur dramatics society. It was a source of great regret to her, as she had previously informed Lydia, that the society had died—of natural causes, if you can call everyone spending their evenings sitting in front of the television natural. She had to make do now with the impromptu stage and scripts of life. “Lydia is dating Carson Connors. I do keep up with the news,” she said, as if she had gleaned the information from CNN.
“Who’s the guest?” said Lydia.
“A gentleman from England,” said Mrs. Jackson. “And I’ve told him all about you. Oh, yes, I said, we’re quite multicultural around here. Lydia’s as British as they come, but we’ve taken her as one of our own.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Jackson,” said Lydia. Amber disappeared into the stockroom, apparently choking on a cough. “When would you like me to come?”
“I’m ever so busy this week, it’s spring cleaning. I turn all my mattresses once a year, pull the armoires out, all the pelmets come down, everything. I’ve told him I’ve made an exception and he can stay, and I won’t even ask him to change rooms. He’s creative, you see.”
“Yes, I see,” said Lydia.
“So come next week, one afternoon.”
“I don’t work Wednesday afternoons. I could come then. Will he still be with you?” Mrs. Jackson’s guests tended to stay only a day or two.
“He likes the quiet,” said Mrs. Jackson. “I don’t disturb him, so of course he will. Stay, I mean. Anyway, I thought, I must invite Lydia. It’s not often we get a Brit, is it? You’ll want to talk about . . .” She waved a bejeweled hand.
“Yes,” said Lydia. She’d lived here three years without hearing another British accent. She wondered what had brought him here.
“You’ll make him feel at home,” declared Mrs. Jackson. “It’s a lonely calling, isn’t it?”
“I’m sure you make all your guests feel at home, Mrs. Jackson.”
Mrs. Jackson received the compliment with a regal incline of the head. “So it’s all arranged,” she said as she inveigled her feet back into her unwelcoming shoes. “I’ll make my famous scones.”
Amber came out of the stockroom after she’d heard the door open and close. “I couldn’t keep it in,” she said. “I had to go and laugh into the leftover winter coats. I hope she didn’t hear me.”
“I don’t think so. Have you had her famous scones?”
“Naturally,” said Amber. “And they’re pretty good. Who’s the mystery guest, anyway? Did she say? Is he from London?”
“No, she just said he’s an artist or something. I didn’t want to ask too much.”
“In case you set her off ?”
“Something like that.”
“When she said, we’re so multicultural, that’s when I had to go in the back room.”
“She’s a sweetheart, though, isn’t she? We shouldn’t make fun,” said Lydia. An English boarder at the Kensington bed-and-breakfast. The first, as far as she knew, in three years. There could be any number of reasons . . . Mrs. Jackson had had a Japanese guest last year.
Amber shrugged, and started tidying up for the end of the day. “I know it seems like a silly idea of hers, like, why would either of you want to meet just because you’re from over there. But it might turn out you have something in common. You never know.”
When she began her lengths Rufus kept pace with her for the first dozen or so, urging her on like a cox from the tiled shore. Then he wandered away to look for raccoons in the undergrowth. He loved frightening himself with them.
Lydia swam a hundred lengths, trod water for a few minutes, and then went back to a steady crawl. She lost herself in the movement, or rather the movement became lost to her. As if she had ceased to push against the water and she were still as it flowed around her.
She had forgotten to bring a towel out and she shivered as she dripped through the kitchen. Her cell phone had a new text message from Carson. He’d had to go out of town on a claim for a couple of days. She texted him back and went upstairs to shower.
If he brought up the idea again, maybe she would move in with him, or he could move in with her. Would she ever tell him everything? If she was even thinking about it then it wasn’t impossible. Lawrence would be urging caution. Actual urging was never his style. A significant pause, a quick twiddle of the thumbs, maybe the telltale eyebrows a little raised. He’d seen her lovers come and go, seen the end of each affair in its beginning. But Lawrence stayed the distance. Lawrence was always there.
Chapter Eighteen
No one, Grabowski decided, would voluntarily incarcerate themselves in such tedium. If it was really her then she must bitterly regret the position in which she’d put herself. Lydia went from home to work, to the grocery, and either home again or to her boyfriend’s house. Grabowski followed her in the car. She made regular stops at the bakery, the boutique, the drugstore, and sometimes ate out at the Italian restaurant. The boredom would be intense. To live life at dazzling breakneck speed and then end up in this endless drag of to and fro would be unbearable.
Just as she had the previous Wednesday, Lydia left work at lunchtime and strode over to her car. Grabowski, on his knees behind the trash cans, had his longest lens trained through the gap. For a moment when she turned her head straight toward him he thought the game was up. She got into the car, and when she pulled out onto the road, Grabber hoofed it back to the Pontiac and followed at a relaxed distance. There was no danger of losing her. In the old days he had come to predict her patterns, erratic though they were, had developed an instinct for her moods, her swings, and where they would lead her, to the therapist, the astrologer, or the airport. Now the choices were minimal. When she parked and went to the bakery he stayed in his car and waited to make sure he was right. She headed straight for the clothing store.
He already had shots of her in this location and there was nothing more to be gained so he went back to the bed-and-breakfast.
Mrs. Jackson caught him on the way in. “John,” she said, “how are the juices? I won’t keep you a moment, just come into the parlor.”
The sitting room was a graveyard of teak and rosewood furniture, scattered with faded tributes of floral cushions. In the back corner, Mrs. Jackson’s husband dozed in his planter’s chair with his feet up on a carved giant turtle. Otis raced over the ottomans and couches, snaking back and forth like a balloon that had been blown up and let go. Grabowski nearly sat on the damn animal.
“It’s coming, Mrs. Jackson, the work is coming along,” he said. Mr. Jackson was pretty much deaf, so there was no need to keep their voices down.
“Splendid. I won’t ask to look at even a page or a single photo,” said Mrs. Jackson, which meant that she would pretty soon. “Even though,” she added, “it would be a delight to see which vistas you’ve captured in our little town.”
“I appreciate that,” said Grabber. “
You’re a very sensitive lady.”
Mrs. Jackson primped her lips self-deprecatingly. “Do you remember I was telling you about Lydia?”
Grabowski’s cock twitched. Was it possible he had fallen into some kind of sexual obsession without even realizing it? That the rest was bullshit, that it was all about how much he had fancied her in that first second when she looked up from stroking the dachshund on the sidewalk?
“Lydia?” he said.
“The English lady,” said Mrs. Jackson. “Works with the dogs.”
“It’s coming back to me,” said Grabowski. Mr. Jackson snorted in his sleep.
Mrs. Jackson tutted at her husband. Grabowski wondered if he ever moved from that chair. He seemed to be there every day. Maybe Mrs. Jackson dusted around him. She dusted every day because of her allergies. Perhaps she dusted her husband as well.
“I’ve invited her over,” said Mrs. Jackson, “next Wednesday, for my famous scones. She’d love to meet you, that’s what she said. Chat about England and all that. It’s not often she gets the chance.”
“That’d be lovely, Mrs. Jackson. Have you fixed a time?”
In his room he uploaded more photos and sorted through what he’d got. Yesterday she’d had sunglasses on but today he’d got some clear shots of her face. He checked and rechecked the eyes. Since he’d noticed how uncannily similar they were, he’d spent hours overlaying photos, checking the exact size and shape and spacing. Most of all he had scrutinized the slender broken band of green, tiny flecks lacing around the right pupil. In a single shot it might have been a trick of the light. The next day he couldn’t get the angle—it had to be fully frontal—and the day after that her face was in shadow and he knew from experience that the color wouldn’t show up then. After that his bad luck broke and he got the shots he wanted. It was there all right.
What did that prove, though? What had he got? And what would happen when Lydia came around for the famous scones? He had to know what he was doing by then. Either that or avoid the situation. Be called away suddenly on urgent business.
If his theory was correct, then how could he prove it? You could identify a person by their iris scans, but that was no use without an initial record with which to compare them, and it wasn’t as though he had an iris scanner in his briefcase. What about fingerprints? Fabulous work, Grabowski. Get her prints off the teacup next week and then all you need is her criminal record, you idiot. DNA, dental records, whatever. The whole thing was pie in the sky.
