The Book of Eve

by Julia Blake

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I began. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s no point saying anymore,’ she snapped waspishly. ‘What’s done is done, you’re here now, the wheels have been set in motion and it’s too late to stop them.’ She stomped from the kitchen, leaving me angry and more than a little fearful.

  Of course, in one sense Caro’s bleak prediction was realised.

  In the end, I did hurt Annaliese. I hurt her when I left without word and without trace. When I stayed away for almost a year, only coming back when it was too late, when she was dead and it was too late for apologies and explanations.

  But my self-imposed exile was self-defence; it did not come about through any desire on my part to hurt Annaliese. No, I was forced to leave, the monumental and devastating blow Annaliese dealt me first, leaving me with no other option than to run as fast and as far as I could.

  Chapter Six

  Chronicles

  At this point in the book of my life with Annaliese, maybe I should take a step back and examine the supporting acts; her friends, the inner circle, that small group of people who, in the apparent absence of any actual blood relations, stood in as her surrogate family.

  Not until I’d left the narcotic and addictively soothing presence of Annaliese, did it occur to me how strange it was she didn’t possess a single family member. No parents, dead or living, no siblings, not a single cousin, no aunts or uncles, or at least none I ever heard of. It was as if Annaliese had arrived on the planet, fully formed and perfect, at the age of seventeen; her first novel completed and on its way to win the Booker prize, her second novel in draft stage. She was truly a woman of mystery, her origins shrouded in secrecy and ignorance.

  Of course, it was a modern day fairy tale exactly how Annaliese had come to the attention of Robert Macleod, the solidly successful agent some fourteen years her senior. Magazines were forever rehashing the story of how the seventeen year old had merely walked into his agency one day and charmed the secretary into taking the handwritten draft of her first novel.

  The secretary, who’d worked for Robert for many years and perhaps believed herself more competent than he at discovering new talent, had taken the manuscript home that weekend, wanting to read it for herself before taking a chance on passing it onto her employer. Rushing back into work the following Monday, having sat up until three that morning, weeping copiously and unable to put the novel down, the secretary had enthused about the sparkling new author with the innocent, untouched air and the sweetly shy smile, the writer whose very first novel touched the heartstrings with its simple, homespun characters and subtly sophisticated plot.

  Intrigued, knowing his secretary was not one to get excited over nothing, Robert had read the novel himself that day, sitting quietly in his wood panelled office, his secretary fielding all calls and re-scheduling appointments, whilst he’d turned the pages, the naivety of the words somehow emphasised by the gently sloping handwriting of the author. When he’d finished the final page and emerged, blinking, back into the real world, having read uninterrupted for over six hours, he’d felt a frisson of excitement creep down his spine as he’d realised this new author was going to be huge, and, furthermore, was going to revitalise his flagging agency.

  Controlling his enthusiasm with difficulty, he’d buzzed his secretary for the author’s details and the awful truth had dawned upon the hapless woman. Apart from the large neatly written pile of papers containing the feel good tale of love and family loyalty which had so bewitched them, the young girl had left nothing else, no address, no telephone number, not even her name.

  A month passed, the manuscript sat on Robert’s desk, inert but by no means forgotten about. Occasionally, Robert would flip through the bundle of papers, scanning the neat schoolgirl like writing, seeking some clue he’d previously overlooked.

  Then, one wet and drizzly February evening, the phone rang as his secretary was applying lipstick for the tube journey home, after all, one never knew where or when Mr Right would occur. Briefly, she contemplated leaving it, but thought Robert, still in his office, would probably take a dim view of that, so snatched the phone up, dropping the lipstick in the process.

  Next moment, as the softly lilting tone which had previously invoked sensations of flower strewn meadows and babbling brooks drifted down the line, the secretary sat bolt upright in her chair, the lost make up dismissed as she realised it was her, the missing author, the elusive girl they’d been trying so hard to find.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ interrupted Robert’s secretary, desperately grabbing her pad and pen. ‘What did you say your name was, Annaliese?’ There had been a long pause, she’d felt her heart thud at the thought she might have once again lost her, then.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the girl slowly. ‘That’s it, that’s my name, Annaliese.’

  Taking the precaution of carefully writing down a contact telephone number and her address, just in case, barely able to contain her excitement, the secretary placed the call through to an unsuspecting Robert. She’d then loitered, pink with anticipation, until a good ten minutes past the end of the working day, before twin realisations of the train she’d now missed and the ever increasing downpour outside, had made her reluctantly put her coat on and go home.

  Next day, Annaliese came to the office, as beautiful and charming as the secretary remembered, and the romantic heart beating under her sensible grey suit throbbed with vicarious pleasure at the bemused and stunned expression on Robert’s face as she’d ushered Annaliese into his office. Later, taking coffee in, she’d observed the look on his quietly handsome face when he’d offered Annaliese a cup, the pretty blush which appeared on the shy young girl’s face, and the thrilled secretary felt she’d stepped straight into the pages of Jane Eyre.

  An hour later they’d emerged, eyes not quite meeting in the agony of instant attraction. Robert had chivalrously helped Annaliese on with her coat, his secretary beaming pinkly with pleasure, as he explained he was taking the young lady out to lunch to discuss ‘terms’ and could she please leave any messages on his desk as he was unsure how long he would be.

  A month later, two days after Annaliese’s eighteenth birthday, they were married, leaving immediately for a month honeymoon in the Caribbean. The secretary noting with satisfaction upon their return that Annaliese had matured and developed, money and grooming making her appear older than her age and Robert looked almost a decade younger, love and relaxation making him appear so near his new bride in years no innuendoes or snide comments were forthcoming at either Annaliese’s youth or the disparity in their ages.

  The following year her first novel was published under the name of Annaliese Macleod, and was the instant and massive success that Robert had predicted.

  Twenty seven years and some twenty novels later, the marriage was still as solid as a rock, Robert’s eyes lighting up whenever Annaliese entered the room and in the eight or so years that I lived at the Hall, I never heard a cross word exchanged between them. Magazines held them up as a true example marriages could last and be happy, and, until the night of my desperate flight, I never saw anything to contradict this premise.

  Caro, I suppose, is the person I should deal with next, Annaliese’s bulldog. Yet where Robert’s background and introduction into Annaliese’s life was a matter of common knowledge, very little was known of the woman who had controlled and managed Annaliese’s affairs since she was eighteen years old.

  All I knew, all anyone knew really, was that Annaliese had hired Caroline O’Donnell on her return from honeymoon to aid her with correspondence and research. Gradually, as Annaliese became more successful and rich in her own right, Caro helped her with her various charities and worthy causes, especially the string of orphanages which Annaliese founded. In time, Caro ceased to be Annaliese’s researcher, instead concentrated on deploying her not inconsiderable administrative skills in the practical side
of Annaliese’s life.

  She had been married, many years previously, to an American named Edward Shayne. Rich and powerful, he owned a travelogue magazine, but although their relationship seemed cordial, Caro never travelled to America to see him and, to my knowledge, he never came to see her. I knew the marriage hadn’t lasted long; a year or so at most, they’d been divorced for nearly as long as Annaliese and Robert had been married.

  During their brief marriage, they’d had a son, Luke. He worked as a photographer for his father’s magazine, travelling around the world to take stunning, award winning pictures of the world’s most inaccessible regions. I’d never met him, he’d always lived with his father; a situation I found so unutterably alien it further biased my feelings towards Caro. How could any mother allow her only child to be taken so far away from her, to be raised by her ex-husband? No matter how loving or wonderful a father he was, it still felt wrong to me, unnatural and unwomanly. I would sometimes look at Caro, wonder what precisely went on behind that hard as nails exterior. Could any woman really be so devoid of emotion as Caro appeared?

  I knew she loved Annaliese with a passion bordering on obsessive, including Robert within that obsession as an extension of Annaliese. She also seemed to have a great affection for Mimi, and sometimes I saw her watching Essie, when she believed herself unobserved, and her face would soften into an expression almost approaching love. But, towards the rest of us, she was cold and detached, tolerating the others and positively detesting me, her antipathy constant and unwavering, even though I’d lived for many long and happy years with the Macleod’s and, despite her gloomy predictions, had so far done nothing to hurt or damage them at all.

  Mimi’s real name was Marie Clare and she was the next friend to join the charmed circle, becoming Annaliese’s closest female friend soon after Annaliese and Robert had bought the Hall and moved away from the increasing stresses of London life. Born of a French father and an English mother, Marie Clare’s first nine years of life had passed normally enough in a small village located to the south of Paris. Following the tragic death of her mother to cervical cancer, ten year old Marie Claire and her father moved to Paris to live with family and it was there her father met Sophie, ten years his junior and only ten years older than his daughter. She was to become Marie Clare’s stepmother and would have a profound effect upon her life.

  Stylish, chic and beautiful, Sophie ran a small and exclusive boutique in the heart of the first city of fashion, and Marie Clare became fascinated by the heady, exciting world her stepmother occupied. She would rush directly to the boutique every day after school, working there in the holidays, absorbing and learning everything she could about the clothing and retail industry.

  Finishing university, she wished to enter immediately into the industry, yet Sophie persuaded her to take some time out, to travel, see a little of the world before settling in one place, even if that place was Paris which, in Sophie’s opinion, was the only place in the world.

  Gradually becoming excited at the thought of stretching her wings, Marie Clare decided to go to England, her mother’s homeland which she’d never even visited, and look up relatives who’d always merely been names on Christmas cards. She boarded the Channel train one sunny June day, planning on spending a few short weeks having a brief holiday, before going home and commencing the start of the rest of her life. She was never to return.

  Upon reaching the small market town where her mother had been born and raised, Marie Clare wandered down to the park and sat neatly on a bench, admiring the massed banks of colourful blooms. Looking in dismay at the women who passed by, dressed in ugly, unsuitable and ill-fitting clothing, she’d muttered depreciating comments under her breath in French, longing for the stylish sophistication of the friends she’d left behind her.

  There’d been a snort of laughter from the bench next door, and Marie Clare had raised mortified and curious eyes to meet the laughing blue gaze of one of the most radiantly beautiful women she’d ever seen. Sleek and sophisticated she was not, yet she had a certain something about her and Marie Clare itched to tell her how to dress to maximise her assets, but embarrassed and suddenly shy, instead she’d mumbled a hasty apology and hurried from the park.

  Wandering around the town, trying to find the way back to her hotel, Marie Clare had taken a wrong turning and found herself drifting down a charming street, where a small bistro had tables and potted trees outside, a second hand bookshop invited you in and there, sandwiched between the two, she found her shop.

  Not knowing at first, not really, that it was her shop, Marie Clare had merely paused, her trained eye noticing the potential of its twin deep bay windows, the appeal of the pretty stained glass panels above the door. Pressing her nose against its grimy glass, she’d noted with approval the depth and generous proportions of the shops interior.

  Next day, her feet somehow found their way back to the street and the shop and she’d stood and looked and thought and considered. A week later it was a done deal, she’d signed a year’s lease on the shop, arranging with her stepmother’s suppliers to establish a direct line into the UK, realising there would be teething problems, it might take time to get established, but confident with her skills and knowledge she would succeed, because this town and its women needed her.

  The first month was sketchy, the second month worse and Marie Clare despaired, knowing she needed sales to pick up or else she would be going home with her tail between her legs. After all her grand plans and reassurances to her father and Sophie, she was determined that was something that could never happen.

  Then, one day, the shop bell tinkled and in walked the woman from the park, eyes widening in gleeful recognition and Marie Clare’s life once again changed. She was an author, the woman explained, a magazine was doing a centre page feature on her so she needed new clothes but was unsure what suited her. Would she be able to advise and help?

  Of course Marie Clare was only too delighted to help, relishing the chance to dress this oh so beautiful and unusual English woman in clothes that made the most of her elfin slim figure and long golden hair. Skilfully, she put together a capsule wardrobe to take her from a simple lunch date to a night at the opera, showing her how to wear the outfits and with what accessories.

  The woman listened seriously, her blue eyes intent and absorbed, caught up in the passion the tiny fiery French woman clearly felt for her subject. At the end, passing over her credit card for more money than Marie Clare had taken in a month with a careless abandon that had Marie Clare biting her lip in admiration, and then gasping as she recognised the name.

  The feature was a great success, the simple elegance and style of the outfits Marie Clare had chosen for her enhancing Annaliese’s ethereal beauty and other worldliness. At Annaliese’s insistence, the magazine had given the name and address of Marie Clare’s shop as the place where Annaliese bought all her clothes from. The business never looked back.

  Stunned by the woman’s generosity, Marie Clare sent her a stylish handmade card, offering a discount on all future purchases and thanking her for what she’d done for her fledgling business. Squinting to read the illegible spidery handwriting, Annaliese misread the signature, believing the abbreviated Mme to in fact be the name Mimi, and proceeded to address Marie Clare as such when she’d telephoned to invite her for supper with herself and her husband at the Hall. Unwilling to correct her, Marie Clare left Annaliese in ignorance of her mistake until many months had passed and they were firm friends, the name too securely entrenched to be changed.

  With the discovery of Annaliese, the fortunes of Robert’s agency had taken a significant turn for the better. Even after they’d moved to the country, Robert still spent at least two or three days a week in London, constantly searching for the new and exciting talent his agency had gained a reputation for being able to spot.

  Influenced by Annaliese, Robert became more daring, more open to
new authors, whom many agencies would probably have rejected out of hand as not being commercial or main stream enough. Gradually, he built up a stable of fresh and original talent, somehow managing to tap into new trends and to always have a finger on the pulse of the moment, to be of the zeitgeist. Very often, Annaliese would travel to London with him, staying at their comfortable apartment, filling her days whilst he was at work with writing, shopping and visiting friends.

  One day, deciding to drag her husband out to lunch if it was the last thing she did, Annaliese slipped into the offices, noticing his secretary was absent and that a young man was sitting on the sofa, an air of nervousness hanging about him, his soft floppy brown hair showing clear signs of being anxiously tugged at.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ she’d enquired and the young man turned worried brown eyes to her.

  ‘Apparently Mr Macleod’s secretary is off sick and he’s running a bit behind on his appointments. I said I’d wait, but I’m afraid I’ve no idea how long he’s going to be.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Annaliese exclaimed, biting her lip in annoyance. ‘I really was hoping to see him.’ The young man looked at her and his face softened.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ he’d asked and patted the sofa next to him. Intrigued, realising he had no idea who she was, Annaliese sat beside him.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she’d asked, and the man had flushed.

  ‘The usual,’ he’d explained. ‘I’ve written a book and was hoping Mr Macleod might be interested in it. I’ve tried other agents but been rejected so many times I was about to give up, then saw an article about Mr Macleod in the Writers Magazine. It said he often gives chances to authors nobody else will even look at, so I thought, well, let’s give it one more go.’

  ‘What is your book about?’ Annaliese asked, feeling herself warm towards this intense young man with the kindly brown eyes.