‘She did what to him?’
‘Turned him down, Jono. Sorry to disappoint. Apollo cursed her to see the future but never to be believed.’
‘How did that work, then?’ he asked.
‘Well, she could always foretell terrible events, but she could never warn people. Doesn’t that sound like a terrible curse?’
‘Wait.’ Annika was frowning. ‘Wouldn’t people start to notice that she was right all the time? I mean, if she kept telling someone they were going to get run over, and then they got run over, people would remember that she kept going on about it. Wouldn’t they?’
‘I’m not sure how it worked, but I suppose people misremembered what she’d said, or forgot it altogether. It’s a pretty grisly fate for her, don’t you think? She would have known that Troy would fall, she would have known that her family would be killed, she would have known that she herself would become a slave of the man who had destroyed her city and caused the death of her loved ones. And she couldn’t tell anyone. Or she could, but they would just think she was mad.’
‘That’s terrible,’ said Carly, pausing her manicure. ‘She must have been so lonely.’
‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘It’s hard to imagine something more isolating than being surrounded by people who won’t listen to you. And then she’s captured by Agamemnon, who takes her back to where he’s from. A city called Argos.’
‘Like the shop?’
‘Exactly like the shop, Jono, but only in its spelling. In all other regards, not like the shop. And waiting for him in Argos is Clytemnestra, his wife.’
‘She’s going to be pissed about him bringing Cassandra home with him,’ he said. ‘If my dad fucked off for… How long did you say the Trojan War took?’
‘Ten years.’ Mel answered before I could.
‘If my dad fucked off for ten years and then came home with another woman, my mum would go spare,’ he said.
‘Would you blame her?’ I asked him.
He grinned. ‘Nope.’
‘Well, Clytemnestra feels much the same. And she already hates him – long before he gets home with his girlfriend in tow – because before he left, he killed her daughter Iphigenia.’
‘Do you make these names up?’ he asked.
‘Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had two daughters, Iphigenia and Electra, and one son, Orestes. But Agamemnon offended the gods, and he had to appease them before he could sail to Troy. So he agreed to sacrifice Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis.’
‘And then he did it? Honestly?’ Mel looked appalled. ‘His own daughter?’
‘I’m afraid he did. He felt like he didn’t have a choice. He slit her throat.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Carly. She always put her hand on her heart when she was shocked. It was a curious, old-fashioned gesture. I wondered if she’d picked it up from her mother.
‘That’s parents for you.’ Annika shrugged. ‘They’re selfish.’
‘Is that what you feel?’ I asked her. As the words left my mouth, I wished I’d said ‘think’ instead. I didn’t want her to start yelling about how boring she found everyone’s feelings. To my surprise, she answered the question.
‘Of course it is. My parents have dragged me from one country to another, and from one city to another, without thinking about it from my perspective at all. Not once. They didn’t think about the friends I was leaving behind in Stockholm, they didn’t ask themselves if it was disruptive to my education to change languages midway through, and they didn’t ask me – ever – what I wanted. What word would you use to describe that kind of behaviour, Alex? Other than selfish?’ She had picked up her pencil as she was speaking, and was tapping it against her notebook.
I saw the trap too late. Answer her truthfully and she could go home and tell her mother that I’d said she was a selfish bitch. Placate her and she would almost certainly erupt in fury. The other three sat in silence, waiting to see how I would get out of it. And for the first time, I found that I really wanted to win one of these battles with Annika. Not because I didn’t want to lose face, again, but because I wanted her to get something out of my lessons. Just once.
‘I suppose your father might feel that he needs to go where the work is,’ I suggested. ‘And that’s something they could have tried to discuss with you. I’m sure they must know that they’ve disrupted your schooling, so I suppose what I’m hoping is that they did that because they felt they didn’t have much of a choice, rather than because they didn’t care about you, which I’m sure they do.’
‘My mother does,’ she said. ‘I have no idea if my father cares about anyone at all except himself.’
‘But your father must care about both of you, mustn’t he?’ I asked her. ‘Or he could have just left you in Stockholm and moved to Scotland on his own. Agamemnon kills one daughter then leaves the other behind with her baby brother. They don’t see him for ten whole years – that’s a lifetime for a child. Would you really have preferred to know your father didn’t want to be with you at all?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe.’ She looked up at me as she thought about it, then gave a brisk shake of her head. I felt an unexpected rush of pride. This was the first time she’d spoken to me about anything she cared about without shouting or being sarcastic. It was the longest conversation we’d ever shared.
‘Agamemnon sounds like a massive prick,’ said Jono.
All three girls smiled.
‘No wonder Clytemnestra hates him,’ said Mel.
‘Hate is the very word. She’s spent the whole ten years that he’s been away plotting her revenge. Firstly, she starts having an affair with a man Agamemnon hates. Then when Agamemnon finally returns from Troy – with Cassandra, remember – she pretends that she is delighted to see him home at last.’
‘So she lies to him?’ Jono asked.
‘She gives it everything. She says that he must come inside for a bath, and she welcomes Cassandra to the house as well.’
‘But Cassandra must be able to tell that she’s lying?’ Mel said. ‘If she can predict the future?’
‘She can, of course. You’ll see when you read it: Cassandra is completely fixated on the idea that she’s about to be murdered by Clytemnestra, this terrifying woman pretending to be the perfect hostess. Cassandra is predicting her own death, in bloody detail, and no-one is paying her the slightest bit of attention. She’s trying to tell everyone that she’s walking into a slaughterhouse, and she might as well be mute.’
‘That’s so horrible,’ said Carly, and she shrugged her shoulders in a tiny shudder.
‘Yes, it is. But Agamemnon doesn’t pick up on any of it, obviously. He’s so pompous and stupid that he buys into the idea that his wife would have got over her dead daughter, and would be over the moon to see him home with a pretty young girl. She really sucks up to him.’
‘Steady,’ said Jono.
I raised my eyebrows, and caught sight of the clock on the back wall. They seemed to be enjoying discussing this play, maybe we could go one step further.
‘OK, well we still have some time before the end of the lesson. Why don’t we start reading it together now? Jono, you’d better be Agamemnon, since you’re the only man left. Who wants to be Clytemnestra?’
I was thinking about the wrong character, of course. As always, I was looking the wrong way.
DD,
No-one would believe what I’ve found out. No-one. And I can’t tell anyone, because Carly’s being weird. She’s been funny ever since that session on Alcestis when she went mental. Now when I try to talk to her about Alex and Fridays and stuff, she doesn’t want to know. She says she’s ‘lost interest’ in it.
And she’s being really quiet in lessons. I wondered if she was upset about Ricky going. But it’s not like they were close or anything. She hardly spoke to him outside of Alex’s room. When I went to the toilet yesterday, I came back into the classroom and Carly was talking to Jono. When she saw me, she shut up like a fucking clam. And Jono went
bright red. He did that thing where his body crunches together, like he’s trying to take up less space. Fat chance.
But they weren’t talking about me. You can tell from someone’s body language if you’ve caught them talking about you, or if they’re talking about something else that they just don’t want you to hear. I can, anyway. People turn away from you when they’re talking about you. But when they just don’t want you to know what they’re saying, they can’t help looking at you, to check you’re out of earshot. So they must have been talking about Ricky, because what else would they have been talking about? I’ll work it out. I just haven’t yet.
But that isn’t the interesting thing. The interesting thing is about Alex. I thought I’d try and track her down online. I should have thought of doing this before. Well, I did, sort of, when she first turned up at Rankeillor. I looked her up on Facebook and stuff and she isn’t there. But this time I tried searching for her properly, although it took a while because lots of people have the same name as her. I found reviews of a few plays she’d directed. The word that people most usually used about Alex was ‘promising’. ‘Promising young director’, ‘promising new talent’. She’s like us and all our potential that Robert goes on about.
But once I’d gone past the reviews, I found a news story with her name in it. In the Richmond & Twickenham Times. Richmond is in the south-west of London, and Twickenham is next door. The River Thames runs through them, and Twickenham is famous for rugby. That’s what I found out about those places. And Richmond is where Alex and Luke used to live.
They ran a story about him dying, in the paper. He wasn’t hit by a car, like I guessed. He was stabbed by a man named Dominic Kovar. This Dominic and his girlfriend Katarina were having a fight in the street, on a small road just behind Richmond train station, it said. And Luke was on his way home. On his way home to Alex. Then he saw a man, a big man arguing with a woman. They were both shouting, apparently: there was a witness who could see them from the window of her bedroom. She saw the whole thing happen. She saw a man she described as ‘big, shaven-headed, thuggish-looking’ pull back his fist, as though he was going to hit Katarina in the face.
That must be what Luke thought too, because he ran across the road, according to the witnesses, and put himself between the two of them. He probably saved Katarina’s life, because a punch could kill you, if you fall and hit your head. But a few seconds later, Dominic Kovar stabbed him twice with a short-bladed knife. The police said Luke was stabbed once in the right lung, and once in the heart. But maybe he wouldn’t have stabbed Katarina. Maybe that was just something he did to Luke. So maybe Luke didn’t save her life, maybe he just lost his.
The paper said that a passer-by had taken Luke’s phone from his coat pocket and rung Alex, but that Luke died before the ambulance even got there. I know the person was trying to help, but I can’t stop imagining how she must have felt. She would have seen his name come up, and thought he was ringing to talk to her, but then it was a stranger ringing to say he was dead. That must have been the worst part, mustn’t it? Finding out like that. I think it could be the saddest thing that’s ever happened to anyone.
4
Lisa Meyer is sitting opposite me in an angular chair. It’s slightly lower than her desk chair, but it is the same grey, aerated fabric. It looks brand new. But so does everything in Lisa’s office.
It’s good to see you again, Alex, she says, and she smiles quickly, precisely. It’s from courtesy, not affection.
You too, I reply. I don’t know what else to say. She gives me a second tiny smile.
I’ve done further research, Alex, and I’m afraid my suspicions about Charles Brayford were quite correct. He has taken this case on to try and push himself ahead at his firm. It’s a perfect fit: he’s extremely ambitious, and this is a notorious case.
As she says this, she brushes an almost invisible thread from her pencil skirt, as though the very idea of such vulgar ambition appals her. I find myself thinking that Lisa Meyer is a consummate performer. Not for the stage, because she’s far too contained. But on the big screen she would be perfect. She always plays to her audience, and I realise I can’t begin to imagine what she would look like if she were alone. Would she switch from razor-tailoring to slouchy lounge-wear? Would she wear those perfect licks of blue-black eye-liner to go and buy a newspaper? I can’t imagine her in any context other than work, because she is playing her lawyer role with such conviction.
Looking round her office gives me no clues about her. No photographs on her wall, no personal things on her desk. She could have walked in off the street for the first time today, if she didn’t look so completely in control of the space. Her assistant comes in with two glasses of water, and he bobs as he puts them down on the table in front of us. I am under no illusions that this is for my benefit. He is either in love with Lisa Meyer, or afraid of her. Probably both.
Thank you, she says, without looking at him. This means he can blush unseen, which must be a relief.
I’m ninety-five per cent certain, she continues, that Brayford has decided to get his client off by blaming her actions on you.
I don’t really understand what she’s saying. On me? I repeat.
Exactly, she says. I think that he is going to go before a judge and explain that you took advantage of his client, that you twisted her affection for you into a destructive rage, that you knowingly led her to London and encouraged her obsession with you and Luke.
Her words are melting before they hit my ears, like tiny flakes of snow. I don’t… I can’t finish the sentence. Now my words are melting too.
Take a sip of water, Alex, and breathe, she says. I’m sorry this is so upsetting for you. I knew it would be, but there’s no other way to prepare you for what’s going to happen. We need to be ready to face his arguments; we can’t be in denial.
Lisa Meyer is the first person I have ever met who uses audible semicolons.
His job, she says, her eyes on my water glass, which is shaking slightly in my hand, is to get his client off. That means reasonable doubt. A good way to establish that in the mind of a judge is to cast the blame onto someone else. He has a few options: her mother, her father, her schoolfriends. But obviously, you are by far the best target. He can construct a narrative around you and his client which will sound plausible, even if it isn’t true.
I take another sip of water.
Do you understand what I’m telling you, she asks. He is going to try to throw you against the wall to get her off these charges. I’m not going to let him succeed, obviously.
I nod. The very idea that Lisa Meyer would let someone succeed at her expense is demented.
But you need to be aware of what’s going to happen, she says. Her voice softens. I don’t want it to come as a shock to you.
I nod again. I think it might be too late for that, I say.
She does the smile again. I really am sorry, Alex. If I can keep you out of the courtroom, I will. But it might not work. She picks up the pencil again. We need to decide on a strategy, she says. I need to discredit his argument, and for that, I need you to tell me more about her. She was clearly unstable when you met her. She latched onto you in an inappropriate way, and she concealed that from you successfully. And that is all going to work in your favour.
Wait.
She stops talking and raises the eyebrow again. Her pencil is held perfectly vertical over her paper.
I don’t understand. He blames me, and so to get me off the hook, we blame her?
Lisa Meyer gives me an unreadable look. This is the moment that cinema-goers would talk about in reverential tones once the film was over.
That’s right, Alex. It’s the only way, I’m afraid.
We can’t do that, I say.
Lisa purses her lips, but her glossy mouth is so neatly renewed by the action that it looks more like grooming than irritation.
We don’t have very many options, she replies.
We can’t, though. She’s j
ust a child. And none of this was her fault.
Alex, I’m going to suggest that you take some time to think about what’s at stake, she says. I understand that you’re very fond of her, and that your concern for her is both real and considerable. But I want you to think about what you have to lose.
I have nothing to lose. The words are out of my mouth so fast that I feel my hands move, to try and catch them and stuff them back.
Lisa looks at me sadly. That simply isn’t true, Alex. I understand you lost someone you loved. But you must understand: there is always more to lose. It would be better if you took my word for it than decided to test the theory. I realise that it will take a little time for you to come to terms with what is happening. Come back next week, and we’ll talk again.
I won’t change my mind, I tell her.
She gives a miniature, bonsai shrug.
You will, she says.
* * *
Carly had been doing some serious practice: her eyes were lined in bright turquoise, with darker blue lids fanning out above.
‘Your eyes are amazing today,’ I told her, and she blushed pink, through her sparkly peach blusher.
‘Thank you, Alex.’
‘Did you all manage to read Agamemnon?’
‘Yes,’ they chorused. Mel didn’t notice the look that flashed between Carly and Jono. It was so quick that I barely saw it myself: a crackle of something secret, that no-one was invited to share. Almost instantly, the moment dissolved, and they were facing me, ready to work. I wondered if I’d really seen it. Carly and Jono? So the make-up wasn’t practice after all.
‘OK, I thought we’d talk about Clytemnestra today. She kills Agamemnon, while he’s in the bath. And she kills Cassandra too. She’s drenched in blood by the end of this play, isn’t she? Just like Oedipus at the end of his play. Except he’s covered in his own blood and she’s wearing the blood of her enemies. Are there any other differences between them?
‘She’s happy,’ said Mel.
‘Exactly. Oedipus punishes himself for his terrible crimes. At the end of his play, he’s wretched. But Clytemnestra really revels in what she’s done. She isn’t sorry at all.’
The Furies: A Novel Page 17
