The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

by Maggie O'Farrell

  'How did you know that?' She hears her voice waver, rise at the end of the sentence and she tells herself, watch it, be careful, be very careful. How did you hear about those things?'

  'That is not the question. The question, is it not, is whether you still experience these hallucinations?'

  She digs her nails into the flesh of her thighs; she blinks to clear her head. 'No, Doctor,' she says.

  Dr Naysmith writes furiously in his notes and there must be something in what she says because, at the end of the appointment, he leans back in his chair, fingertips resting together in a cage. 'Very good, young lady,' he intones. 'How should you like to go home soon?'

  Esme has to suppress a sob. 'Very much.' She manages to speak these words in a thoughtful voice, to sound not too eager, too hysterical. 'I would like that very much.'

  She runs down the corridor towards the window, which is illuminated with soft spring light. Before she comes to the ward door, she cuts her pace to a level, ordinary walk. Ordinary, ordinary, is the word she incants to herself over and over again as she enters the ward, as she walks to her bed and sits herself down on it, like a good girl.

  —a terrible thing to want—

  —sewed the sequins on the evening bag for her. She couldn't do it. In truth, she didn't try very hard. After only two she had stabbed herself in the finger and tangled her thread and dropped the box of sequins. She flung the whole thing aside in a rage, saying, how does anyone stand the tedium of it? I took it up because it had to be done and I sat by the fire while she wandered from the window to the table to the piano to the window again, still ranting about tedium and boredom and how was she to stand it. I said, you're dripping blood on the carpet, so she put her finger in her mouth and sucked it. It took me all evening to sew the sequins and I said she could tell Mother that she'd done it but Mother took one look at it and—

  —dropped the flowers on the way up the aisle. I don't know why. I wasn't nervous; I felt peculiarly clear-headed and I was cold in my thin dress, Mother's dress. But everyone gasped when I did this and the girl who was bridesmaid darted round me and picked them up and I heard someone muttering that it was bad luck and I wanted to say, I don't believe in that, I am not superstitious, I am getting married, I am getting married and—

  —a terrible thing to want a—

  —remember very clearly the first time I saw her. The ayah, I forget her name, came in and put her hand on my neck and said, you have a little sister. We walked hand in hand round the courtyard and into the bedroom and Mother was lying on her side and Father said, ssh, she's sleeping, and he lifted me so I could see into the crib. The baby was awake and involved in some tussle with her coverlet, and her skin had a pale, waterlogged look to it, as if she belonged to some other element. She had eyes dark as coffee beans and she was watching something just past our heads. What do you think, Father said, and I said, she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and she was, she was—

  —a nightgown in rosy silk and I imagined him saying, you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And when he came out of the bathroom and I lay there on the bed, ready in my gown of rose-petal silk, I wasn't nervous. I just wanted it over, so' that we could begin, so that my new life could start and I could leave all that behind me. In the train, I had practised writing my new name, Mrs Duncan Lockhart, Mrs K.E. Lockhart, Mrs DA. Lockhart. I showed him, just for a bit of fun. And he said that he didn't particularly like my name. Kitty, he said, was a name for a pet, a cat perhaps, didn't I think that Kathleen was a more sensible option now that I was—

  —a terrible thing, a terrible—

  —and so I lay there and it seemed like a dreadfully long time. I couldn't hear anything, no water running, no moving about. Nothing. I had an urge to go up to the bathroom door and press my ear to it, just to be sure he was still in there, and a dreadful thought crossed my mind: what if he had escaped through the window and into the night? But then the door opened and yellow light spread into the bedroom, before he turned it off, and I saw his pyjamaed figure moving through the room, felt the bed sag as he sat down. He cleared his throat. You must be very tired, he said. His back to me. I said, no, not really. I tried to add, darling, but it didn't quite come out. And then a really dreadful thing happened. I found I was thinking about Jamie, about the way his smile lifted his face, the way his hair grew in a peak on his forehead and I turned my head away and I think he saw, because he was lying down by this time. I turned it back and I wanted to say, I wasn't turning away from you, but I couldn't because he leant over and he kissed me on the cheek. He had one hand on my arm and he kissed me on the cheek and he hovered there for a moment and I thought, now, it will happen now, and I was holding my breath and then he said, good night. And I couldn't understand what—

  —and I stood there in Mother's room with the letters in my hand and I saw my name on the front and I saw the writing and I saw that they had never been opened so I put my finger under the flap of one and the glue gave easily and I unfolded the sheet and all I saw was, please, please, come soon, and when I saw this I—

  —realise I am speaking aloud. Terrible thing, I am saying, to want a child and not be able to have one. A nurse is standing by the table, peering at something on the wall, and she gives me a funny look. She is young. What does she know? What do you know, I say, and—

  Iris stands on the threshold of her living room. Alex is slumped in one corner of the sofa, arm outstretched, aiming the remote control. The television startles into life and a man is frowning at them from a studio, pointing at the concentric circles of a storm approaching another part of the country.

  She comes to sit next to him, curling her legs underneath her, resting her temple against his shoulder and they look together at the weather map.

  Alex scratches his arm, shifts in his seat. 'So I told Fran I'd probably stay'

  'Stay?'

  'The night.'

  'Oh.' Iris is surprised, but struggles to pretend that she isn't. 'OK. If you like.'

  'No.' He shakes his head. 'If you like.'

  'What?'

  'I'll stay the night if you want me to.'

  She straightens up. 'Alex, what are you on about? You know you're more than welcome to stay but—'

  He interrupts in the calm, reasoned voice that never fails to enrage her. 'Can you not tell when someone is trying to do you a favour? I thought I'd stay the night in case you were worried. You know. About being alone with Esme.'

  'Don't be ridiculous,' she scoffs. 'She is perfectly—'

  Alex catches her face between both hands and pulls it close to his. She is so taken aback that for a moment she cannot move. Then she starts to writhe crossly in his grip. He doesn't let go. 'Iris, listen to me,' he says, at their new, close range, 'I am offering to stay to help you out. I don't know if you know this but you're supposed to say "yes" and "thank you" in these situations. Would you like me to stay the night?' He forces her head into a nodding movement. 'Good. That's settled, then. Say "Thank you, Alex," please.'

  'Thank you, Alex, please.'

  'You're very welcome.' He is still holding her face between his palms. They regard each other for a moment. Alex clears his throat. 'I mean on the sofa,' he says quickly.

  'What?'

  'I'd sleep on the sofa.'

  Iris pulls away. She smooths her hair. 'Of course,' she says.

  She turns her attention back to the television screen. It is showing images of a half-collapsed building, a river flooding its banks, a flattened car, thrashing trees.

  'Do you remember,' Alex says suddenly, 'when it was that we last slept under the same roof?'

  She shakes her head, still looking at the storm pictures.

  'Eleven years ago. The night before my wedding.'

  Iris doesn't move. She focuses on the frayed edge of his sleeve, the spot of what looks like ink there, the way the lock and weft of the fabric is beginning to unravel.

  'Except you were on the sofa that night. Not me.'

&nbs
p; Iris remembers the low buzz of a defective light in the corridor outside his tiny apartment in Manhattan's Lower East Side, long hours of jet-lagged wakefulness, an iron bar that seemed to run the length of the sofa just beneath the upholstery. She remembers the boom and wail of the city rising up to the open window. And she remembers Alex appearing next to her in the middle of the night. No, she had said, no. Absolutely not. And she had struggled away. Why, he had said, what's the matter? She hadn't seen him for almost nine months—the longest they had ever been apart. Iris had been in Moscow, as part of her degree course, struggling to teach sullen Russian youths the subtleties of the English pluperfect.

  You're getting married, Alex, she had shouted, tomorrow. Remember? And he had said, I don't care, I don't want to marry her. Then don't, Iris replied. I have to, he said, it's all arranged. It can be unarranged, she said, if you want. But he had shouted then: why did you go to Russia, why did you go, how could you leave like that? I had to, she shouted back, I had to go, you didn't have to come to New York, you don't have to stay here, you don't have to marry Fran. I do, he said, I do.

  Iris uncurls herself, straightens her legs, places her feet on the floor. She says nothing.

  'So, what are you going to do about this Lucas person, then?' Alex asks, fiddling with the remote control.

  Iris allows there to be a slight pause before she says: 'Luke.'

  'Luke, Lucas,' he waves a hand, 'whatever. What are you going to do?'

  'About what?'

  Alex sighs. 'Don't be obtuse. Just try it. For once. See how it feels.'

  'Nothing,' she says, looking fixedly at the television. She doesn't want to talk about this any more than she wants to talk about the night before Alex's wedding, but she is relieved that at least they seem to be back in the present. 'I don't know what you mean. I'm not going to do anything.'

  'What – you're just going to continue as this guy's mistress? Jesus, Iris,' Alex flings the remote to the arm of the sofa, 'do you never feel you're selling yourself short?'

  She snaps upright, stung. 'I'm not selling myself in any way at all. And I'm not his mistress. What a hideous word. If you think—'

  'Iris, I'm not having a go at you. I just wonder if...' He trails off.

  'What? You wonder what?'

  'I don't know.' Alex shrugs. 'I mean, is he ... I don't know.' He fiddles with a loose thread in a cushion. 'Is he who you want?'

  Iris sighs. She flings herself backwards so that she is lying flat against the cushions. She squeezes her eyes shut, pressing her fingers to them, and when she opens them the room leaps with violent colour. He says he's going to leave her.' She addresses the lampshade above her.

  'Really?' He is looking at her, she can tell, but she doesn't meet his eye. 'Hmm,' he mumbles, and picks up the remote again. 'I bet he won't. But what would you do if he did?'

  From her reclined position, Iris sees Esme enter the room and drift towards them. She has the ability to make herself almost invisible. Iris doesn't know how she does it. She watches her and sees that Esme doesn't look their way, doesn't acknowledge their presence in the room, as if they are invisible to her.

  'What?' Iris says, watching Esme. 'Oh, I'd hate it. I'd be horrified. You know that.'

  Esme has been distracted from her invisibility thing by something. She stops in her tracks, then approaches a desk Iris keeps pushed up against the wall. Is it the desk she's interested in? No. It's the pinboard above it, where Iris has stuck a patchwork of postcards and photographs. She sees Esme leaning in to look at them. Iris glances back to the television, to the reports of high winds and rain.

  Then she turns. Esme has said something, in a peculiar, high voice.

  'What was that?' Iris says.

  Esme gestures at something on the pinboard. 'There's me,' she says.

  'You?'

  'Mmm.' She points at the pinboard. 'A picture of me.'

  Iris scrambles from the sofa. She is more than keen to leave it and the conversation with Alex. She crosses the room and comes to stand next to Esme. 'Are you sure?' she says. She is sceptical. It's not possible that she has had a photo of Esme on her wall for all these years and not realised it.

  Esme is indicating a brown photograph with curling edges that Iris had found among her grandmother's papers. She'd liked it and kept it, pinning it up with the other pictures. Two girls and a woman stand beside a big white car. The woman is wearing a white dress and a hat pulled down over her eyes. A fox hangs about her shoulders, tail snapped in mouth. The elder girl is standing with her head touching the woman's arm. She has a ribbon in her hair, ankle socks, her feet splayed, and her hand rests in that of the younger girl, whose gaze is fixed on something just beyond the lens. Her outline is slightly blurred – she must have moved as the shutter fell. To Iris, it gives her a ghostly appearance, as if she might not have been there at all. Her dress matches that of the other girl but her hair ribbon has come loose and one end hangs down to touch her shoulder. In her free hand is a small, angular object that could be a baby's rattle or a kind of catapult.

  'It was in our driveway in India,' Esme is saying. 'We were off on a picnic. Kitty got sunstroke.'

  'I can't believe that's you,' Iris says, staring at an image she knows by heart but suddenly cannot recognise. 'I can't believe you're there. Right there. You've been here in front of me all these years and I never knew about you. I've had this photo up by my desk for so long and I've never thought about who the younger girl was. It's stupid. Incredibly stupid of me. I mean, you're wearing matching clothes.' Iris frowns. 'I should have noticed that. I should have wondered about it. It's so obvious that you're sisters.'

  'Do you think?' Esme says, turning to her.

  'Well, you don't look alike. But I can't believe I never saw it. I can't believe I never asked her who you were. I only found it after she'd become so bad we had to move her out of here.'

  Esme is still looking at her. 'How ill is she?' she asks.

  Iris bites at a snag in her nail and pulls a face. 'It's hard to quantify. Physically, they say she's in good shape. But mentally it's all a bit of a mystery. Some things she remembers quite clearly and others are just gone. Generally, she's stalled at about thirty years ago. She never recognises me. She's got no idea who I am. In her mind, her granddaughter Iris is a little girl in a pretty frock.'

  'But she remembers things from before? From before thirty years ago?'

  'Yes and no. She has good days and bad days. It depends when you catch her and what you say.' Iris wonders whether or not to bring this up, but before she has even thought it through, she finds herself saying, 'I asked her about you, you know. I went to see her specially. At first she said nothing, and then she said ... she said a very strange thing.'

  Esme looks at her for so long that Iris wonders if she heard her.

  'Kitty,' Iris clarifies. 'I went to see Kitty about you.'

  'Yes.' Esme inclines her head. 'I understand.'

  'Would you like to know what she said? Or not? I don't have to tell you, I mean, it's up to—'

  'I would like to know.'

  'She said, "Esme wouldn't let go of the baby."'

  Esme turns away, instantly, as if on a pivot. Her hand passes through the air above Iris's desk, past the papers, the envelopes, the pens, the unanswered mail. It comes to a stop near the pinboard. 'This is your mother?' Esme asks, pointing at a snapshot of Iris, the dog and her mother on a beach.

  It takes Iris a moment to respond. She is still thinking about the baby, whose baby it might have been, she is still hurtling along a detective track and it takes her a few seconds to slam on the brakes. 'Yes,' she says, attempting to focus on the photo. So you're playing the avoidance game, she wants to say. She touches the next photo along, giving Esme a quick glance. 'That's my cousin, my cousin's baby. There's Alex and my mum again, on top of the Empire State Building. Those are friends of mine. We were on holiday in Thailand. That's my goddaughter. She's dressed as an angel for a nativity play. That's me and Alex when we
were children—that was taken in the garden here. This one was at my friend's wedding a couple of months ago.'

  Esme looks at each one carefully, attentively, as if she will be examined on them later. 'What a lot of people you have in your life,' she murmurs. 'And your father?' she says, straightening up, fixing Iris with that gimlet gaze of hers.

  'My father?'

  'Do you have a photograph of him?'

  'Yes.' Iris points. 'That's him there.'

  Esme bends to look. She eases out the drawing-pin and holds the photograph close to her face.

  'It was taken just before he died,' Iris says.

  —and so I hid from Mother and Duncan and I took a taxi cab. I told them I was going into town but really I went in the opposite direction. As we drove there I kept thinking about how it would be and I pictured a pretty sort of room and her in a nightgown, sitting in a chair with a rug over her knees, looking out over a garden, perhaps. And I pictured her face lighting up when she saw me and how I might help a little, in small ways, straightening the rug for her, perhaps reading a line or two from a book, if she felt up to it. I pictured her taking my hand and squeezing it in gratitude. I was amazed when the driver told me we had arrived. It was so close! Not ten minutes from where we lived. And all that time I had imagined her far away, out of the city. It couldn't have been more than a mile or so, two at most. As I walked up the drive I looked around for other patients but there were none. A nurse met me at the door and she showed me, not to where she was, but to an office where a doctor was fiddling with a fountain pen and he said, it's a pleasure to meet you, Miss—and I said, Mrs. Mrs Lockhart. And he apologised and nodded and he wanted to know. He wanted to know. He said, I have been trying to make contact with your parents. He said—

  —and on the sixth night of my marriage, when he got into bed, I reached out for him through the dark. I took his hand in mine and I held it firm. Duncan, I said, and I was surprised at how authoritative I sounded, is everything all right? I had rehearsed this during the day, during the many days, I had decided what I would say. Is it me? I said. Is it something I'm doing or not doing? Tell me what to do. You must tell me. He extracted his fingers from mine. He patted my hand. My dear, he said, you must be tired. On the nineteenth night, he suddenly rolled on to me in the dark. I was just drifting off to sleep. It gave me a shock and I couldn't breathe but I lay still and I felt him grip my shoulder with one hand, like a man testing a tennis ball, and I felt his feet paddling at mine and I felt his other hand pulling up the hem of my nightgown and then he made a kind of frantic, tugging motion somewhere lower down and he shifted the hand on my shoulder to my breast and all I could think was, my God, and then he stopped. He stopped dead. He scrambled off me, back to his side of the bed. Oh, he said, and his voice was full of horror, oh, I thought ... and I said, what, you thought what? But he never—