After Isabella

by Rosie Fiore

  That was the third of six messages on her phone. The last three seemed just to be silent, although she thought she could hear someone breathing. Maybe Michael had called again – but why would he have waited for the message tone? Or perhaps it was just a wrong number. She rang Michael. He sounded tired; the meeting had gone on late. He hadn’t seen her TV appearance but said he looked forward to seeing the recorded version when he was round at her house the following evening.

  ‘I’ve just put some toast in and the bath is running,’ he said.

  ‘Go,’ she said. ‘Have a good sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.’

  ‘Thanks, ditto, ditto and ditto,’ he said, and rang off.

  She walked through the house, put the last few dishes away in the kitchen and turned off the lights. She was about to head upstairs when her mobile rang again. It could only be Michael at this hour, surely? But the caller display said ‘Withheld’, and when she answered it, there was silence and breathing on the other end of the line. She said ‘Hello?’ a few times, but the person didn’t reply. She rang off, but the phone rang again immediately.

  ‘Hello?’ she answered, then listened to the quiet breathing for a moment. ‘I don’t know who this is, but stop it, all right? I’m turning my phone off now,’ she said. She ended the call and switched her mobile off immediately. Her hands were shaking. It was almost certainly nothing – probably one of those automated cold calls where a machine rang hundreds of numbers and operators answered whoever picked up first. She must have imagined the breathing. Still, it was disconcerting.

  She went to her room and plugged her phone into its charger, then went to the bathroom to shower and get ready for bed. When she got into bed ten minutes later, she hesitated, then switched her phone on again. There were three voice messages from the ‘Withheld’ number. The first two were silent, and in the quiet of her bedroom she could hear the breathing distinctly. She hadn’t imagined it. She was about to delete the third message when she heard something, so quick and indistinct she thought she might have imagined it. She played the message again and turned the volume up on her phone. It was quite clear this time. Breath. Breath. And then a whisper. ‘Esther.’ Click.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  She didn’t mention the whispered message to anyone, although she did leave her mobile phone switched off for the majority of the following day, only turning it on briefly once every few hours to check for messages. There were none, and nor did there appear to be any missed calls.

  The principal seemed thrilled by her TV appearance and, just as Michael had predicted, Abigail put a link to the clip on the homepage of the university’s website. Esther put up with a little goodnatured teasing from her colleagues and from every student she met or taught that day. They had all seen it, but only, she suspected, because Channel 5 showed the Aussie soap operas that all students seemed to adore. If only they would give what happened in Northanger Abbey the same attention they gave events on Ramsay Street. Her email pinged constantly with notifications from her Twitter account, people following her or sending congratulations.

  She was just getting out of her car that evening when Michael pulled into the road behind her. She waited as he got out of his. He took her in his arms and kissed her, then held her close.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said and, taking her hand, led her into the house.

  She made a quick pasta sauce with tomatoes and chilli, and Lucie and Michael set the table. They were all about to sit down to dinner when her mobile, which she’d turned on when she got home, bleeped with a text message. She didn’t recognize the number – it wasn’t one in her contacts list. Perhaps an advertising message? She clicked to open it. It contained a single word.

  ‘Slut.’

  She dropped the phone on the kitchen counter. Michael and Lucie were laughing about something as they carried bowls of pasta to the table. Now wasn’t the time. She’d tell Michael about this and the voice mails after dinner. She turned the phone off again, poured herself an enormous glass of wine and joined them at the table.

  She drank too much wine with her dinner and kept refilling her glass when they went to sit in the living room. Lucie was pleased to see Michael after a few days’ absence and kept chattering excitedly at him. Esther knew she should tell her to go to bed, but she couldn’t find the energy. Michael came to sit beside her on the sofa and took her hand. He gently massaged her palm and fingers, all the while listening to Lucie talk about a swimming gala at school. She knew he was being patient and sweet, as he always was, and that she should make a move, take control, send Lucie to bed. But she felt overwhelmed with a horrible lethargy. The little flurry of excitement around her TV appearance had given her a brief respite from her misery about Laura, but somehow the horrible text and the voice message from the night before had thrust her back into a dark place. She didn’t want to have to talk about it, to theorize about who it might be, or to deal with it in any way. Maybe she could pretend to lose her phone and have to change her number.

  The landline phone rang and she jumped to her feet, adrenaline coursing through her. She could hear her own breath quickening and knew Lucie and Michael were looking at her curiously. Her first thought, irrationally, was that the secret message-leaver had got hold of her home number. But then she glanced at the clock and realized that it was more likely to be Sally. She let out a sigh of relief. ‘That’ll be Sally,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it upstairs. Lucie, it’s time for bed, my lovely.’

  She heard Lucie’s wail of protest behind her as she grabbed the cordless phone and made for the stairs. But her issuing the order gave Michael tacit authority. She could hear him talking soothingly to Lucie, no doubt offering some breakfast treat as a bribe for an argument-free going to bed.

  In the split second before she answered the call, fear almost overcame her. Maybe it wasn’t Sally. Maybe it was the anonymous message-leaver after all. ‘Hello?’ she said cautiously into the phone.

  ‘You’re talking very quietly,’ said Sally. ‘Is this a bad time?’

  ‘No, no… It’s a perfect time. I was sinking into the sofa, and I really needed to get moving. You gave me the nudge.’

  ‘How’ve you been?’

  ‘Busy couple of days. Sorry we didn’t get to talk yesterday. I did this television thing…’

  ‘Television thing?’ Sally said excitedly.

  Esther gave a brief explanation. Sally was disproportionately thrilled. ‘Well, that’s quite something. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who’s been on television before. Oh, no, wait… except for Isabella, that time she won the competition.’

  Esther smiled. ‘I remember that now.’ There’d been a competition to find a young architect to design a new canal-side arts centre in Birmingham. It had to incorporate a listed building that took up half the proposed site. Isabella’s audacious idea, which incorporated walls covered in plants, solar panels and a water mill, had won. It had led to a brief appearance on the news, Esther recalled. Isabella had been diagnosed with cancer some six months later and hadn’t lived to see the centre completed. ‘Did they finish the building? After she died?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Sally. ‘Although I think the design changed quite a bit in the building of it. Budget constraints, you know how it goes.’

  Esther did know how it went. She also knew that, had Isabella been fit and well, she would have fought fiercely for the integrity of her design. She wouldn’t have stood for contractor kickbacks, or time-wasting, or whatever profligacy had frittered the money away. ‘We should go up and see it sometime,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘I would love that!’ Sally enthused, and Esther instantly regretted her off-hand comment. She couldn’t imagine when she might have time to go to Birmingham. And she wasn’t sure she would want to spend a weekend away with Sally, no matter how grateful she was for her patient friendship.

  ‘It’s one of the things I’m going to do when my car gets delivered,’ Sally said. ‘Drive around and look at all Isabel
la’s buildings.’

  ‘Wait… Your car?’

  ‘Yes! I passed my test yesterday.’

  Esther cursed herself. She had known that Sally was doing her driving test the day before. A good friend would have rung or texted to wish her luck. And a good friend would definitely have remembered to ask her how it went. ‘I’m so sorry. I should have asked…’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry!’ said Sally cheerfully. ‘You have such a lot on your plate.’

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘All right. I had a few minors, but I passed. So now I’ve ordered the car I always wanted, a Mini convertible. I’ll have to wait a few months for them to make it. In the meantime, I’ve hired a car. Just a little hatchback.’

  ‘Well, huge congratulations! Great to hear you’re already on the road.’

  ‘I’ll let you know when I’m out and about and which routes to avoid.’ Sally giggled.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine.’ Esther imagined for a moment the freedom that a car would give Sally. She thought of the timid woman she had brought to her house for dinner all those months ago – a woman who had barely left her neighbourhood in years.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said, a little regretfully. Talking to Sally was simpler than the conversation she would have to have with Michael when she went back downstairs. ‘Have a lovely evening.’

  ‘I will. I’m going to pick up Paul and Tim and we’re off to a pub quiz. They want me to win the music round for them.’

  Esther laughed. ‘You’re a formidable secret weapon. I remember how well you did, the night of the quiz with the amateur dramatics lot.’

  ‘Oh, don’t get me started on that evening. That Gavin with the waistcoat? Thought he knew everything? We was robbed!’

  Esther felt a tiny pang that she hadn’t got an invitation to the pub quiz with Tim and Paul – in the days before she and Stephen had split, she’d been a fixture on the team. But once she became a single parent, she’d had to drop out. At least Sally was getting out more, she told herself.

  She popped her head round Lucie’s door and delivered the standard admonishments about turning her laptop and phone off and being asleep by ten. Lucie nodded in the standard way, which Esther knew meant she had no intention of doing so. She’d have to come back up and nag in half an hour’s time, she knew.

  She walked slowly down the stairs, pausing in the kitchen to refill her wine glass and pick up her mobile phone. When she came into the living room, she smiled to see that Michael had dozed off. His head was resting on a cushion and he was snoring very softly. She liked to look at him when he was unaware of her gaze – his face, usually so lively with humour and intelligence, was simply handsome in repose. Absent-mindedly, she clicked her phone on. Immediately it beeped, a sign that she had a message. She was scared to look at it, but she had to.

  ‘Screwing your gigolo with your child in the house? Whore.’

  Now she was afraid. Properly, chillingly afraid. The first text might have been a random insult, but this was someone who knew her, someone who had been watching her house and had seen Michael go in with her.

  She walked to the window. She wished she was brave enough to whisk the curtains open and stand, defiantly backlit, looking out. But she wasn’t. She knew whoever it was might be watching for movement in the middle of the window, so she stepped to one side, pushed back the edge of the curtain and peered out. The street was quiet – she couldn’t see any cars she didn’t recognize, and there were no pedestrians in sight. Could the stranger be concealed in one of the other houses? Or had he gone?

  ‘What’s up?’ Michael’s voice made her jump. She hadn’t realized he was awake. She turned around. ‘Just having a look outside,’ she said, not sure why she sounded guilty.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes. No.’ She went to sit beside him on the sofa, then opened the text messages and handed him her phone. ‘There’s a voice message too. Just my name, whispered, so you can’t identify the voice. I can’t even tell if it’s male or female.’

  Michael read the texts and then without a word took out his own phone and dialled the sender’s number. He listened for a second, then passed the phone to Esther. A recorded voice said, ‘The number you have dialled is unavailable. Please try again later.’

  ‘I can google the number, but my guess is that whoever it is has got an unregistered pay-as-you-go SIM card,’ he said. ‘Do you have any idea who this might be?’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘When did the first one come through?’

  ‘I had a few missed calls on my phone yesterday, after the TV appearance. Then the texts today. Who would have the need to be so nasty? I just don’t get it.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. In my experience, some people are just awful – cruel, selfish, desperately trying to make up for inadequacies in their own lives by being cruel to others. Do you want me to ring the police?’

  ‘And tell them what? There are no threats in the messages. I think they’d probably tell us they couldn’t do anything.’

  ‘So do we wait for real threats? Or for someone to hurt you?’ Michael looked genuinely distressed. ‘You think it’s some crank who saw you on TV?’

  ‘A crank who has my mobile number and knows where I live?’

  ‘So it has to be someone you know. A disgruntled colleague?’

  ‘In the cut-and-thrust world of Victorian literature? I think that’s unlikely.’

  ‘So what do you want to do?’ he asked, taking her hand.

  ‘For the moment? Nothing, I think. As I say, there are no actual threats. It’s just the sort of nastiness that happens when someone, particularly a woman, is in the public eye, however fleetingly. You read about it happening all the time in the press.’

  ‘Fair point. Still, for the next while, just be careful, okay? Try and come home in daylight. And as much as I can, or as much as you’ll let me, I’ll be here.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Grief, Esther realized, was a guerrilla fighter. It didn’t engage in honest warfare. It didn’t plan a sustained attack or agree to a ceasefire. It hid in the jungle and ambushed you when you were least expecting it, when complacency had made you vulnerable, or when your mind was occupied elsewhere. It came for her at 4 a.m. Michael was sleeping peacefully beside her, and she was suddenly awake. As her eyes snapped open in the dim room, she recalled that, moments before, she’d been dreaming about Laura. She was in Laura’s kitchen on the Isle of Wight, and they were chatting easily. Laura was pottering around, cooking, baking, tidying, moving constantly, as she always seemed to. Then, without warning, she turned, smiled at Esther and walked out of the kitchen door. In the dream, Esther saw her cross the courtyard to the garage, open the door and close it behind her. She knew Laura was going to gas herself, but, with dreamlike logic, she couldn’t be bothered to go and stop her. She’d get round to it, eventually. She had to be on TV first.

  Grief and guilt. Twins. How quickly life had crowded in. Here she was, working, living, making love with Michael, worrying about some scumbag who was trying to frighten her with text messages, getting on with things. And Laura was dead, decomposing in her unmarked forest grave. Dead by choice, because she knew Esther would have been too busy to look after her. What would she have done if Laura had asked? She didn’t know. She couldn’t have dropped everything and gone to the Isle of Wight, or could she? How would she have supported herself? And what about Lucie? Could she have uprooted her daughter? Or could she have brought Laura back to London? How long might Laura have lived? What kind of care would she have needed? She didn’t have answers to any of these questions, because she hadn’t been given the chance to try and look for them.

  She began to imagine scenarios where she might have made it work. The university would undoubtedly have granted her a sabbatical, and she had an income-protection plan, so she might well have been able to make ends meet for a year or so. As for Lucie, she had adored Laura and might have been happy to go to the
Isle of Wight, or to have her here in the house in London. Yes, that would have been the more logical choice. London. And Laura would have contributed financially towards her own care; Esther knew from the breakdown of the estate that she had had money. It could have worked. She could have done it, in theory at least.

  But then she began to imagine what it might really have been like. She had read up on the condition, and the inevitable outcome was horrible. Slurring, visual impairment, incontinence, dementia. How Laura would have hated the loss of dignity, the increased reliance on help for basic physical needs. As a family, they had never been all that comfortable with physical intimacy; she had no memory of having seen Laura naked, for example. How would they both have felt had she needed to bathe her? Or help her on the toilet? But how minor these things seemed in the face of the alternative – the alternative that Laura had chosen. And how crushing an indictment, that Laura had deemed her incapable of doing these normal, kind, human things. Things that daughters and sons had done for their parents for generations.

  She knew then that sleep wouldn’t come again that night. Slipping out of bed, she grabbed a dressing gown and went downstairs. She might as well get some work done. Since getting back from the Isle of Wight, she still hadn’t fully taken up the reins again at the university. She was fighting fires, lurching from task to task, with no long-term sense of what she was supposed to be doing. Her current research project, a chapter for a new book on Jane Austen, was still just a Word file of sketchy notes. She opened the folder on her computer and looked at the date when it was last saved – well over six weeks ago. She was sure she was supposed to have submitted something by now. She must have a note in her diary somewhere. There were also dozens of emails in her ‘Action’ folder. She’d skimmed them when they’d come in and then flagged them as needing replies. She did a quick count – there were fifty-two. Well, that was as good a thing as any to do at 4.30 a.m. It wasn’t as if there would be any interruptions.