by Victoria Fox
Her ghosts are my ghosts – at least some of them are. I think about the love I’ve lost, about his voice when I called him, right after his wife did it… the silence, stark and absolute in its direction. I cannot know you any more.
But what if I still want to know you? What if I can’t survive unless I do?
Gingerly, I open Vivien’s wardrobe. It’s musty, seldom used, and when I see the outfits inside it’s clear why. Glorious robes of silk and satin spill on to my fingers, lace sleeves and collars soft as rabbits’ ears; I can feel their expense, the sheer luxury Vivien would have draped herself in. What parties had they held at the Barbarossa? Had Vivien swept downstairs to greet her guests, a train liquid as caramel pooling behind her? Had the man been with her, ready to take her hand, the perfect couple?
At the foot of the closet is a shelf. I crouch, expecting to see rows of shoes concealed beneath the skirts, but instead I spot a leather-bound book. I reach in. The cover is oxblood and worn, its surface gently cracked like the icing on a day-old cake.
Opening it, I find the pages yellowed. There are no dates, just passages, some beneath a day header, others random. As I flip through, the writing becomes erratic and harder to interpret. I settle on one entry towards the end, a Sunday:
Help me. I do not know how much more I can take. I cannot live like this, a prisoner in my own home. Is this my home? Has it ever been? Or has it always been hers? Hers and his, together… Some days it is all I can do not to leave. Would he realise, then? Or would that mean she had won? That’s the way she sees it, I know. A competition. From the first day she has loathed me, and I her. But I cannot walk away. Not now. There is too much at stake. I’ve seen the way she watches me. She wants what is mine. She cannot have it. I will kill her before that happens.
Heat prickles on the back of my neck, my fingers white as they grip the page.
Outside, I hear the sound of a car door.
I bundle the diary back where I found it, close the wardrobe, and check the room a final time before locking it behind me. I hurry back downstairs in the hope that I might catch them, run into the woman who is appearing to me in so many pieces, finally see her whole, but the car is parked and empty and the hall is quiet.
*
That night, I can’t stop thinking about Vivien’s diary. I want to have it in my hands, read it from start to finish. Fragments swim before my closed eyes, joining dots, pieces slotting together then coming apart. Briefly it occurs to me that, for once, I am not consumed by him. Instead I am consumed by the black shadow settling over us, of the fountain, of Vivien, of Salvatore, of this tragic, elusive secret…
I need to speak to Max.
Finally, I fall asleep, or at least I must do, because the next thing I know I’m suddenly awake, pulse racing, sweat pasted across my chest. Blood thrums in my ears, hectic and hot. I struggle to catch hold of the nightmare that possessed me.
We were there again, on the station platform. Early morning, just like any other morning, with his scent still on me, the back of my hair dishevelled because I didn’t want to lose one splinter of his touch. That stupid, love-dumb smile on my face, and it was an intrusion to my reverie when a woman said my name. Lucy. I had known it was his wife: if my fellow commuters had been less absorbed by their own worlds they might have known too. Grace Calloway was a household name.
My dream conjured her smile in just the way I remembered it, better than I remembered it, for in the ensuing weeks I must have frozen it out. Strange how the mind locks these details away – things we think we’ve lost, things we’ve tried to lose, but they’re all still there, filed away in a dark recess. Why the smile? It wasn’t happy, neither was it sad. Resigned. Stoic. Grace had known what she had come to do.
And then she’d done it. Right there, in front of my eyes. The twin lights approaching down the tunnel, the expectant shuffle of feet as the crowd moved towards the rim of the platform. Stand behind the yellow line. The rattle of the Northern Line train as it entered the station. She had been like a swimmer on the blue rim of a pool, elegant and calm. Jump! Never once taking her eyes from mine.
Vanished.
Only not. The crunch of her body, that shocking crunch I will never forget until the day I die and even then it will haunt me beyond, as her bones met the wheels. The awful screams as it dawned what had happened, and one of them could have been mine but I can’t promise it was. I was running, up and out, have to get out, fumbling in my bag for my phone because all I could think about was hearing his voice…
I swallow, hard, in the darkness, and hear my throat contract.
My pyjamas are stuck to my legs. I sit, attempting to throw off the flavour of the nightmare but it clings on with grisly fingers, all up my spine and crawling around my shoulders. Oh, Grace, I think. I am so sorry. I am so very, very sorry. I wish I could say sorry to her children. She was a wonderful mother, by all accounts. But that would be selfish, an act to alleviate my own grinding conscience. Not for them at all.
So many times I’ve tried to make sense of what I did. Even believing that his marriage was in crisis, I was still sleeping with a husband and a father. The temptation was too great, too new, for me to resist. I didn’t want to be predictable Lucy any longer; I wanted to amaze not just other people but myself. I wanted to look in the mirror and not quite recognise the person looking back, because she had become more powerful and remarkable than I’d thought she could. Until I met him, I’d been living for other people – but when the time came to seize something that was mine, just for me, I went too far. Every rule and discipline was thrown into the fire. Everything I’d thought I was, gone. It was a reckless thrill, like flying. And if I’d remembered to look down, I might have seen his wife and kids far beneath me, and my dad, and my sisters, and I might have decided to stop. But I never looked down. I flew for the sun.
My window is shut. Turning to the clock at my bedside, I see the time:
3:12 a.m.
The house is dead. I need fresh air and stumble out of bed. I’m not really concentrating when I go to the window and release the catch, but then, with a rush that leaves me breathless, I’m back in the instant, my nightmare blown like leaves.
There is a woman by the fountain.
She is dressed in white. She is looking in. For a wild moment I am seeing my earlier self, looking as I had into the well today, standing in just that way, leaning, leaning, until I thought I saw what I know is impossible…
I want to call out but my lips don’t work. Am I dreaming? The figure is there but not there; her outline is unfeasibly pale, flickering in the uncanny light, as if she is underwater herself. I squint to draw her into focus. Is it Vivien? It can’t be, yet I cannot process the alternative. I see the woman’s back tense, her head lift abruptly like an animal picking up sound, as if she senses she is being watched, and with a surge of unease I watch her straighten and I know, I just know that she is going to see me. The thought of this wordless encounter is too terrifying to articulate, too dreadful to consider, but I am unable to move. I see her dark hair, so like Grace, and her pale skin, so like Grace. The room swims and I put my hands in front of my eyes like a child afraid of the dark, and when I open them again she is gone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Vivien, Los Angeles, 1979
The proposal came on a summer’s night, in a restaurant overlooking the bay. Vivien hadn’t been expecting it. Tonight was her birthday and that was celebration enough. All through her childhood – indeed, until Gio – she had never marked her birthday. A limp hug from her mother and a brusque nod from her father was all she had become used to, not like the other kids who got sticky iced buns and candles to blow out. And later, when she’d hit the private clubs in LA, then the movie studios in Hollywood, she’d let her birthdays come and go without telling anyone. What was the point?
With Gio, it was different. He treated her as if she was worth something, showering her with gifts. ‘It’s too much,’ Vivien said, as she opened a box with
a delicate gold bracelet laid inside. ‘You shouldn’t have gone to such trouble…’
‘Why not?’ Gio watched her in the candlelight, the sound of waves lapping on the shore their only accompaniment. ‘You’re an amazing woman and I’m lucky to have you. The way you’ve been with Bella this past year, I can’t thank you enough.’
Vivien bit her tongue. She didn’t want to ruin the moment. But try as she might – and she had tried – she had still got nowhere with Isabella. She put a brave face on it, visiting the house, bringing the sister gifts, making an effort to talk to her and encourage her and bring out a smile or a laugh, saying she didn’t mind when Gio had to cancel a date last-minute – but privately it had started to eat her up. She struggled with how Isabella dictated so much of his life, and consequently her own. She couldn’t bear how Isabella gave her nothing, absolutely nothing, except evil glares and hidden scowls, none of which she could tell Gio about because it would drive a wedge between them. Would he even believe her? Whenever Gio asked, no, she didn’t mind; no, nothing Isabella did was too much trouble; yes, she liked her. She hated deceiving the man she loved, but she had no choice.
‘You don’t need to thank me,’ Vivien said, sipping her wine.
Gio’s face shone back at her in the gloaming, those intense, heroic eyes, his angular jaw and the way his hair caught the collar of his jacket. It was sexy how proficient he was at work, yet with her he carried this streak of jeopardy, this dark thrill that rendered her like a teenager whenever she was with him; she still had butterflies and grew tongue-tied, even after so many months.
I adore you, she thought. You’re worth it.
And in that same instant Gio was on his feet, suddenly down on the floor, then his hand was in his pocket and in a rush Vivien knew what was coming.
The ring was exquisite. Gio’s expression was determined as he asked:
‘Vivien Lockhart… will you marry me?’
*
The wedding was arranged for the fall. Vivien couldn’t wait to make Gio her husband. She thought of the beauty of the day, the beach – their special place, the scene of their early dates – where it would happen, the dress and the decorations. But most of all she thought of the moment at which he would be hers and only hers. She had the diamond but she wanted the wedding band. It was proof of his commitment. Once that was on her finger, Isabella would be forced to take second place.
VIVIEN SET TO WED DOCTOR HERO, the newspapers announced. THE DOCTOR AND THE STARLET! It was a shock to see her name in the press again. Dandy got back in touch with a script but she turned it down. Even Jonny Laing made an attempt at contact, wishing her his best and at the same time inviting her out to his holiday home in Frisco for a weekend if she ever found ‘married life too much’. While the advance was brazen, it interested her that Jonny had retreated from her life. Maybe he sensed she could no longer be touched: he could tell the world whatever the hell he wanted and it could never tarnish her happiness. Or maybe he wasn’t going to risk crossing Gio, for while Gio didn’t have the credentials of a Hollywood titan, his status – and appearance – possessed a quiet, lethal command, like a tiger lounging on a tree branch. Jonny, for all his foolishness, at least had the sense to see it.
In striking out the superficial circles she’d once moved in, Vivien’s guest list made for sobering reading. Family was a no-go – she didn’t even know if Gilbert Lockhart was still living, and even if he were she could scarcely invite a man whom her fiancé imagined to be dead, and the maiden aunts that had terrorised her childhood wouldn’t be missed. She closed off the part of herself that witnessed other people’s weddings and saw the tight bonds of brothers and sisters, cousins, moms and dads, grandparents, because there was no point in dwelling on what couldn’t be changed.
Never mind, she thought, flipping her address book shut. It’ll be more intimate this way – just me and Gio and a close crowd. Isn’t that the point of the day? The thought gave her comfort. She had the love of her life. He was all she needed.
If only Isabella wasn’t such a bad apple in the proceedings.
‘Involve her,’ Gio urged, taking Vivien’s hand, ‘please.’ And Vivien smiled, swallowing her misgivings. Involving Isabella was impossible. On those occasions Vivien tried, sitting with her at the house and running through menu cards and dress ideas, Isabella was impenetrable. The sister just sat there, her face inscrutable.
‘Is she happy about this wedding?’ Vivien asked.
‘She’ll come round,’ said Gio. ‘It takes her a while to get used to new people.’
Vivien hardly thought she could be deemed a new person, but Isabella’s way, of course, was the way to which they bowed. If Isabella was in a dark mood, it wasn’t a good time to visit. If Isabella was sobbing in her room, Vivien ought to leave. The worst part was when Vivien could tell that Gio knew more than he was letting on. Did Isabella speak to him? The thought was heinous not just for its deception but also for its implication that he was keeping things from his soon-to-be-bride. Vivien was strict with herself. She had to trust him. She did trust him. It was Isabella she didn’t trust.
She was certain that Isabella loathed her brother’s engagement. Those coal-black eyes roamed over Vivien like a snake, slow and sinuous, its poison bite only ever a heartbeat away and the results would be fatal. When they were alone, Vivien began to poke her like a child with a stick. She knew it was mean, but she couldn’t help it; she had to get something from Isabella, and besides, Isabella was more than capable of giving as good as she got, without ever saying a word. ‘Do you like this?’ Vivien would ask. ‘How about this veil with these shoes? I don’t know… it’s so hard being a bride… I don’t suppose you’d know, never having been one…’
One time, Vivien pushed it too far. She had spotted a magnificent brochure for a boat wedding, out on the glittering Pacific, champagne in hand with only the horizon for company. Actually she hadn’t brought it up on purpose, the significance of open water momentarily slipping her mind, but once she saw Isabella’s reaction she couldn’t help but nudge a little further. ‘Just imagine,’ she mused, ‘out there in the middle of the ocean, all that sky and water, and the man I love…’ Isabella had fled in tears. Vivien had thought it safest to bring the episode up with Gio herself and apologise in advance for her thoughtlessness. If Isabella was communicating with him, she wasn’t letting her reach him first. It was a game – and one Vivien had to win.
Vivien knew it was spiteful but she couldn’t stop. Life had taught her to protect herself at all costs – it was hunt or be hunted – and whatever she had to do, however she had to get there, she would see salvation and she would claim it. She was by turns frustrated and angered by Isabella, and her sole consolation was the thought that, once she and Gio were married, they could begin their lives together, alone.
*
October arrived and with it the most important day of Vivien’s life. As she prepared early morning at home, hair and make-up girls showering her with attention, she could hardly believe she was here. When she’d been a girl, tortured by dreams of an unknown future and nightmares of a wretched past, when she’d been a hostess, when she’d been a hollow, fame-hungry actress, when she’d slammed her car into a wall because she’d had too much to drink, never had she imagined finding peace with someone like Gio Moretti. He would never hurt her. He would never hit her or make her feel bad; he would never let her doubt his love. Today proved it once and for all.
‘Is your dress here?’ her stylist asked as she applied an airbrush foundation – not that Vivien needed it, she was already aglow with the promise of the day. Nothing could ruin it, not even the press who had threatened to camp out by the beach house.
‘Not yet.’
Vivien pictured perfectly the gown she had lovingly chosen from all her bridal magazines, a floor-length lace number with exquisite full sleeves and a high collar. It was an impeccable choice, Italian in flavour and quintessentially elegant. She planned to wear it with a short lace
veil and baby white roses in her hair.
She thought of old photos she’d been shown of Millicent Lockhart’s wedding dress, a starched smock that had been approved of by Gilbert on account of its shapeless dreariness. Gilbert had commanded chastity, and with it the closure of any beauty or freedom Millicent might have known. Vivien felt sorry for her mother.
But she let him do it, Vivien told herself, refusing to tumble into the past. You won’t allow the world to beat you like that. You’re tougher than she was.
And the dress she’d picked proved it.
Just wait until Gio’s family saw her; they would gasp in amazement. It was particularly delightful to imagine Isabella’s reaction. Vivien had been compelled to ask the sister to be bridesmaid. In a last-ditch attempt to forge some bond with her, Vivien brought a gift, turned up at the house with a slate wiped clean and a smile to start over – but Isabella had received the news with her usual blank expression.
‘She probably feels helpless,’ Gio had encouraged. ‘Give her something to do: she likes to feel included.’ So Vivien had awarded Isabella the job of collecting the dress – or, rather, because Isabella was unable to venture into busy public spaces, taking delivery of it and bringing it to Vivien’s house, carefully preserved in its box.
Then he’ll see who’s most beautiful.
As Vivien regarded her reflection in the make-up girl’s mirror, she saw how absurd she was being. Isabella was his sister – of course there was no contest between them. And yet a warning thread needled, rooting away day and night in all her fragile places. She’d seen how Isabella looked at her brother, the naked worship and affection she bestowed upon him. Call it gratitude, dependence, need, or plain old sibling fondness – whatever it was, Isabella wanted her brother all to herself.
‘It’ll be here soon,’ Vivien promised the girls, focusing again on the dress and on stepping into it, the feel of brittle lace around her shoulders. She couldn’t wait.
