The Perfect Girl

by Gilly MacMillan

  RICHARD

  Zoe is making a scene in the garden. I notice it happen from the kitchen window and the detectives in the dining room see it too, because one of them interrupts the interview with Tessa and calls for the Liaison Officer woman to go out and help. Grace and I are struggling somewhat to find something else suitable for her to eat, but we settle on a biscuit, which she seems to enjoy hugely, and somebody has put a bottle of her milk in the fridge so I heat that up the way I saw the Russian do it earlier: small saucepan, water heating, bottle floating in it. I feel quite professional when I squeeze some of the milk out of it on to the inside of my wrist to test the temperature, as I also observed.

  ‘It’s perfect, darling,’ I say to Grace and she stuffs it into her mouth even before I’ve got us settled down properly in the sitting room, and guzzles it with the rather unnervingly greedy intensity of a lamb at the ewe’s udder.

  We disturb Lucas. He’s looking through my collection of DVDs, and he jumps out of his skin when we enter the room, as if I’d caught him with his hand in my wallet.

  ‘You can borrow one if you like,’ I say, to put him at ease. ‘I mean, not today, but when things are more… although if it helps to watch something now, then feel free.’

  ‘No, thank you, I was just looking.’ He sits back down, plunges his hands into his pockets.

  I’m not really sure what to say to him, though I feel sorry for him. He probably had become fond of Maria, had maybe even come to love her, and to bear this in addition to the premature loss of his own mother is going to be hard, is hard. I’m also at a loss for words because I mostly only talk to other scientists at work and to Tess at home. My friends have long since slipped down the cracks between my infrequent attempts at keeping in touch. I should probably say something reassuring, or comforting, but all I can come up with is, ‘Do you like film then?’

  He nods. The movement is economical, the eye contact only fleeting.

  ‘What sort of films do you like?’

  He glances back at me, and then at the door, as if he’s not sure either that we should be talking like this, but I think it’s OK, especially if it keeps his head above water, reminds him that somebody is interested in him.

  ‘I like some old films.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Um. Apocalypse Now is a favourite.’

  I’m surprised that he’s been allowed to watch that in their closeted household, but I try not to let that show.

  ‘One of my favourite opening sequences,’ I say.

  He sits up straighter, engages with me with startling intensity. ‘I know, it’s incredible. The montage is quite confusing at first but it gives you the whole scene, how it starts off with the slow rasp of the helicopter blades, which comes in and out like an echo, and you fade in to the palm trees with blue sky above, and then you see the yellow smoke and the helicopters coming across the trees and then, boom!, the explosion, which is so intense, and then there are loads of images overlaid on each other so you see his face in the hotel room over the images of his memories of Vietnam and then the fan above him becomes the helicopter blades and you’ve got “This is the End” playing over it which is so intense when you see his eyes, and his pupils are like pinpricks and then the camera goes to the window and you’re in Saigon. And the voiceover starts. It’s incredible.’

  He comes alive as he delivers this speech and I’m astounded because I’ve never heard this boy talk so much. Granted, I’ve only spent time with him on a handful of occasions, but he behaved as if he was mute then, and Tessa has made the same observation about him.

  ‘I love the scene where they brief the main character,’ I say, wanting to keep Lucas talking, thinking that it’s good for him.

  He fixes me with eyes that seem slickly alive, like black treacle. He says, in a slightly strange accent: ‘“Because there’s a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil… Every man has got a breaking point.”’

  ‘What?’ I say, feeling rather unnerved, before I appreciate that he’s quoting the film, and in fact the scene I just mentioned. In truth, I have very scant recollection of it, but I don’t want to discourage him, so I say, ‘Oh sorry, yes! Bravo, Lucas. Yes, very good. It’s a very dark film, I think.’ That, I do recall.

  ‘I think it’s his best film,’ he says.

  ‘What is?’ Chris has crept up on us, but he makes no move to take his daughter from me. The poor man looks absolutely shattered.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ I ask him. ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing.’ He gestures towards Grace, who hasn’t really reacted to him, because she’s still too busy sucking at the bottle, which is nearly empty now. ‘I hope you’re not being a film bore,’ he says to Lucas, rather harshly I feel, though everybody is, of course, under pressure.

  ‘No, not at all. He was very helpfully answering a question of mine.’ I brush it off, while Lucas reverts to staring at the floor.

  We’re distracted by the sight of Zoe being led in through the hallway, and escorted up the stairs. She’s leaning on the arm of the Liaison Officer and her father is in their wake. They ascend extremely slowly and we watch.

  ‘She’s a bit overwhelmed, I think,’ I say to the others, because I feel the need to excuse her behaviour, perhaps because she belonged to us before she belonged to them, and even though Grace chooses that moment to finish her bottle and try to heave herself into a sitting position with the last gulp of milk drooling from her lips, it doesn’t escape my notice that Chris is looking at Zoe with an expression that I would struggle to describe as either friendly or caring.

  ZOE

  They bring me upstairs and tell me to lie on the single bed that’s in Richard’s office. The bedding smells of a man and it’s creased as if it’s been used, but it’s soft and comfortable, and I feel sleep taking hold of me like it sometimes used to do at the Unit: more of a cosh than a slipping away, as if your body has decided that you need time out and that’s the end of the matter.

  At the Unit they used to tell me it was shock that made me into a virtual narcoleptic for the first couple of months.

  As I shut my eyes, I feel the weight and sag of my dad sitting down on the end of the bed. As I slip away, I hope he’s not doing that staring at me like he’ll never be able to work me out thing, but, by the time I wake again, he’s gone and I’m relieved.

  The waking is sudden, though: it comes via a deep, sharp intake of breath, and a sudden urge to be sitting up, as if the covers were about to choke me, and then the knowledge that my mum is no longer here flows back into my conscious mind like water coursing through the holes in a colander.

  The digital clock on Richard’s bedside table tells me that I’ve only been asleep for about twenty minutes. I can hear voices downstairs but they’re faint and indistinguishable.

  I let my tears fall silently because I don’t want anybody to hear me sobbing and to come with sympathy eyes. I don’t like people to see me cry because that’s ingrained in me since I was little. ‘Don’t cry if you lose a competition, Zoe, that’s called being a bad loser,’ or ‘If you keep crying, your practice will take twice as long as it needs to.’

  Not crying publicly could be seen as a little tribute to my mum.

  It’s also a tribute to the Unit where prolonged sobbing could make you a target. It keeps other people awake, you see, and they shout at you that you’re fucking with their heads and that they’ll give you something to cry about if you like.

  So my tears fall silently and I think about how my mum has always been there to tell me what to do, and now I don’t know who’s going to do that.

  I think of Lucas, who lost his mum too, and that reminds me of the email that he deleted, and I decide that I want to read the rest of the script. The first part was kind of soppy and strange, but there must be something more in it or he wouldn’t have asked me to delete it if it was just like a love story all the way through. I know it’
s not on my email any more, but it will be on my mum’s account still, surely, because it wasn’t just me he sent it to.

  I don’t have my phone any longer because the detectives took that, just like I told Lucas they would, so that once again they can comb through my private world and then pretend in interview that ‘internet experts’ have told them what all the text speak abbreviations stand for.

  They’ll see the panop messages that freaked me out earlier, but I don’t mind that too much, because it wasn’t illegal for me to use panop, just ‘not recommended’ by Jason, and I can explain that Lucas found out about me and he sent them to wind me up.

  At Richard’s desk, which is just a few feet away from the bed I’m lying on, I click the computer mouse and his monitor comes to life silently. There’s some of his work up on the screen, but I want the internet so I carefully reduce the windows he has open and go online. No passwords are required at any stage, and that is so different from our house where everything is password protected because of ‘the importance of internet and personal data security’.

  My mum’s email is easy to access. I haven’t done it often, but just sometimes because I saw her password once and that makes it very tempting. Her password is ZoeGrace and some numbers.

  Her email account is very boring, though. She mostly emails her beautician and hair salon, she gets loads of shopping order confirmation emails, and she talks to some piano people, and baby group friends, and sometimes she and Chris have incredibly boring conversations by email about paint colours or when the man’s coming to trim the tree or stuff like that.

  It’s easy to find Lucas’s email and I see that it hasn’t been opened yet, so I click on it. He’s sent my mum the exact same thing he sent me – it’s near the top of her inbox, just above an email from Chris with the title ‘Appointment on Wednesday’ as if my mum’s his secretary or something.

  Richard and Tess must have super-efficient WiFi because the attachment that Lucas sent opens immediately and I start to read on from where I left off.

  ‘WHAT I KNOW’

  BY LUCAS KENNEDY

  ACT II

  INT. CHRIS AND JULIA’S NEW HOME. DAY.

  JULIA is up a ladder, hair tied up, overalls on, in the middle of a lovely room, which has gracious and generous proportions. She’s painting the intricate plasterwork on the ceiling rose.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  My marriage was lovely at first, and my only sadness was settling down so far away from my mother, so I wasn’t able to be with her when she died. I hadn’t really had time to make many friends in Bristol before I met Chris and our life together sort of overwhelmed me, so I threw myself into making our marriage a wonderful place. We renovated a beautiful house, which Chris bought for us, and very soon we discovered that we were expecting a baby.

  We see JULIA pause in her painting, rub loose strands of hair from her eyes, and put a hand to her stomach. She has felt a twinge, and we see in her eyes that she knows.

  INT. KENNEDY HOUSE, CHRIS AND JULIA’S BEDROOM. DAY.

  The room is beautifully decorated and a lined crib sits at the end of the bed. Sitting in bed, her newborn baby in her arms, is JULIA.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  The pregnancy went swimmingly. I was healthy and energetic throughout it. And on a warm May day, my baby was born. We named him Lucas. Chris chose the name.

  We see the baby close up. He’s beautiful.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.) (CONT’D.)

  The problem was, Chris never bonded with the baby.

  As the camera pulls away, we see CHRIS standing at the end of the bed. He’s looking at his wife, who is entirely absorbed in her young son, and the expression on his face is blank. He feels nothing. He turns and leaves the room, and JULIA, lost in her son’s eyes, is oblivious. It’s only when the door closes behind him that she raises her head.

  JULIA

  Chris?

  INT. CHRIS AND JULIA’S HOUSE, SITTING ROOM. DAY.

  It’s Christmas Day, a few years later. We see a lovely tall tree, and a fire in the hearth. The Christmas decorations are tasteful, restrained and conservative.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  After Lucas’s birth we still gave the impression of being a happy family, and we often were. But something had changed.

  CHRIS, JULIA and LUCAS are opening presents. It’s not an especially warm scene, there’s too much formality about the little group for that, but they’re going through the motions cheerfully enough, although the three-year-old LUCAS seems to be rather a quiet, guarded child. When he’s given a present he looks to his father for permission before opening it.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  The problem was that since Lucas had been born, Chris had become prone to losing his temper. At first it wasn’t too bad, but as the years went by, it got more serious, and more frightening.

  LUCAS has opened his present and is looking at it on the floor. JULIA is on a chair beside him and she too is opening a gift from CHRIS. She gasps when she unwraps it as it’s clearly a very expensive ring, bigger and more flashy than her engagement ring.

  CHRIS

  What’s the matter?

  JULIA

  Nothing’s the matter. It’s beautiful. I’m just shocked, in a good way, of course, that’s all.

  CHRIS

  You don’t like it.

  JULIA

  Darling. I love it. It’s just so much more than I was expecting. It’s wonderful, really.

  She takes the ring out of its box and tries to slip it on to her finger, but it won’t fit.

  JULIA (CONT’D)

  Oh dear!

  She pulls it off and tries it on another finger but the ring is too small. She laughs nervously. CHRIS is watching her like a hawk. LUCAS plays on the carpet, oblivious.

  JULIA (CONT’D)

  Do you think they might be able to swap it?

  CHRIS

  Put it on.

  JULIA

  Darling, it’s just a little bit small, I’m sure if we asked them they would be able to loosen it, don’t you think?

  CHRIS

  Put it on. Not on that finger. Rings don’t go on little fingers.

  JULIA glances at LUCAS, and then back at CHRIS, who gazes at her impassively, arms crossed.

  JULIA

  Don’t you want to see what I got for you?

  CHRIS

  I want to see you put the ring on.

  We see from JULIA’s face that she knows there’s no point in arguing with CHRIS, that she fears an escalation. CHRIS watches without flinching as JULIA forces the ring over the knuckle of her second finger. It takes time and JULIA’s clearly in pain as she does it, though she stays silent, so LUCAS will not notice. When the ring is finally on, JULIA holds a trembling hand out to CHRIS to show him. CHRIS takes her fingers and turns them a little from one side to the other to examine the ring. It’s impossible to ignore the red, scraped and bruised skin which bulges around it.

  CHRIS (CONT’D)

  It looks beautiful. Well done.

  CHRIS leans in to kiss JULIA and she submits to this with an attempt at a smile.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  I kept the ring on for a week before going to hospital to have it cut off and receiving antibiotics for the infection that had crept into the broken skin underneath. When Chris found out, he pulled a clump of hair out of the back of my head and told me I was lucky that was all he did.

  INT. KITCHEN IN THE KENNEDY HOUSE. EVENING.

  Six-year-old LUCAS is finishing his supper while JULIA prepares something for herself and CHRIS. LUCAS and JULIA exchange a smile and we see that the atmosphere between them is sweet and lovely.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  Chris didn’t always behave like that. In fact he was mostly very generous and loving, but there were triggers. And, as time passed, I learned to recognise them.

  The peaceful scene is interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up outside and then the slam of a car door. JULIA glances anxious
ly at the kitchen clock.

  JULIA

  Oh! I think Daddy’s home early. Lucas, do you think you could run and play in your bedroom while I finish making supper for him?

  The dinner she’s preparing consists of piles of chopped ingredients. It’s nowhere near ready, and we see that makes her nervous. LUCAS gets up and she ushers him out of the room and into the hallway.

  JULIA (CONT’D)

  Well done, poppet, I’ll be up to give you a kiss later.

  LUCAS

  Will Daddy?

  JULIA

  I don’t know. He might be a bit tired, but I will, I promise.