As for Grégoire’s house, already it was as though she had conjured it in a dream. She looked down at her body under the water, at its tonal changes, arms and legs still stained dark by the southern sun, the middle part paler, more vulnerable, and tried to imagine herself as she had been the previous morning, in his hands. She felt detached from the memory already, as eager as ever to rewind her mind to the one before, the only one. Paul.
She wondered, as she did every day, where he was now, and if he was back in England yet, and who he had been with since they parted, and whether he ever regretted ending their relationship, and if he had returned to the spot where he’d dismissed her from his life (she’d waited a full hour for that very reason), and… on and on the wondering went, suffocating her with pain. She had trained herself to stop after a certain number of what-ifs, just as she had trained herself not to check his activity on the social networking sites he used to update family and friends on his travels, an abstinence that had been easier since she’d been unable to spare the euros for the use of a computer. She had long run out of credit for her mobile phone. At first it had felt frightening to be cut off, but soon it felt only natural, even preferable.
She recalled noticing a laptop in Emmie’s room, but it was out of the question that she should use it without permission. The paradox of this struck her with less shame than it perhaps should have, for already it seemed inconceivable to her that she should yesterday have committed the crime of breaking into a stranger’s house with the intention of occupying it for as long as she could get away with. She couldn’t have done anything like that, could she?
No, it was impossible.
Emmie returned to the house at lunchtime. Tabby was waiting to thank her, her backpack by the door, the mug she’d used for her morning tea washed up and returned to the cupboard (there were spares, it turned out). Charitable and forgiving though Emmie had been, she knew she must now set about finding somewhere to stay and a job to pay for it. The best way of combining the two was hotel work, and her immediate plan was to obtain a list from the tourist office and work her way down it. Was it cheeky to ask Emmie if she could leave her backpack here while she did this? It would look better not to be seen to be lugging her ragged possessions like a refugee. After her bath and the use of a hairdryer and iron, she looked more like a normal person, the sort who might get a job on merit as opposed to pity.
She had notions of delivering Emmie a thank-you gift when she was back on her feet.
‘Everything all right?’ Emmie asked her. Having expected a more sombre mood, an impatience to see her trespasser on her way, Tabby was surprised by how light-hearted she was, even pleased to see her again. In daylight she could see how attractive Emmie was, too, or at least would be if she wanted: she had strong, symmetrical bones, her eyes wide-set and large, her teeth straight and white. She would have suited her hair longer than the careless, slightly lopsided style she wore. Not that I’m one to talk, Tabby thought; before the bath, I must have looked like a fisherman.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Emmie said, eyes and voice bright. ‘I know how it feels to have everyone turn against you, so if you really have no other options, you can stay here until you sort yourself out. Be my lodger for a while.’
Tabby gaped, her heart racing at the prospect of lightning striking a second time. ‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s incredibly kind of you, but the problem is —’
‘Money, obviously.’ Emmie shrugged. ‘If you really can’t get any from home, then you can owe me the rent. Just pay it when you’ve got it. Fifty euros a week or something like that will do. I’m not charged very much myself.’
Though this was extremely generous – a week in this delightful place for little more than a night or two in a squalid hostel – it did not change the fact that fifty euros was more than Tabby possessed. Even half that and she would not be able to eat for long.
‘I could give you twenty to begin with and the rest as soon as I get work? I was just about to go down to the port and ask around for bar shifts.’
‘I might be able to get you something with the woman I work for,’ Emmie said. ‘I think she’s still looking. You only need basic French and she’d probably pay cash. You don’t have to fill in forms or anything. She doesn’t even know my name – surname, I mean,’ she added when Tabby looked puzzled.
‘What sort of work do you do?’ Emmie was well spoken and gave every impression of being well-educated, qualities Tabby associated with white-collar, professional roles. She herself had limited office skills. Before travelling, she had suffered from an inability to settle in a job, her last, as an administrative assistant for a property management company, having taxed her organisational skills in spite of its entry-level demands. She couldn’t imagine producing documents in French and she did not want her ineptitude to reflect badly on Emmie.
‘Cleaning,’ Emmie said, as if reminding her of information she’d already given. ‘You could do that, couldn’t you? Most of the houses here are second homes or holiday units rented out weekly, so there’s going to be more work now we’re coming up to summer. It’s crazy over July and August, apparently, getting houses ready for their owners and doing all the changeover days for the lets. But it’s decent work, takes your mind off other things.’
‘Cleaning, right.’ Tabby was careful to conceal her surprise. ‘Have you been doing it for long?’
‘Since I came here, about a month ago.’
Very recently then, which explained the paucity of personal belongings in the house. And an odd time of year to have come, if, as she said, work was to be had mostly in high season. Presented with Emmie’s open and generous mood, Tabby was sufficiently encouraged to venture a further question or two. ‘What did you do before, in England?’
In an instant, Emmie’s expression neutralised. ‘Not this.’
‘You just wanted to live in France?’
‘Not particularly, no.’
‘So it didn’t work out back home?’
‘No, it didn’t.’ There was a pause as Emmie took her time choosing her words, eyeing Tabby narrowly before averting her eyes altogether. ‘You’re not the only one with traumas to forget, you know.’
Tabby very much wanted to ask her what those traumas were, what ‘things’ Emmie needed her mind taking off, why she had had cause last night to say, ‘It’s good that you don’t know.’ Know what? But Emmie’s replies had been evasive enough for her to hold her tongue. With an offer like this on the table she could not afford to speak out of turn, not when there might by the end of the day be no other alternatives bar stealing or hitchhiking.
Emmie sighed. ‘So do you want to stay or not?’
‘I’d love to,’ Tabby said.
Chapter 4
Emily
Before I continue, I should like to say that I am writing this for myself, not for anyone else, and certainly not for the public record. Of course, there are people who I’d like to think ought to read it – my side of the story and as honest an account as I can make it – but I don’t plan to give them the opportunity. They wouldn’t accept it, in any case, not while events are so recent, the pain so raw. On the contrary: they’d like to see me properly punished, an Anne Boleyn or a Ruth Ellis, both of whom have been invoked in media articles about me – or at least about the Emily Marr they’ve decided I am.
IS THIS BRITAIN’S MOST HATED WOMAN? one newspaper asked, and it wasn’t even Nina Meeks who wrote that.
Why put pen to paper at all, then? Why torture myself by reliving the horror moment by moment? It’s not for reasons of pride or posterity, that’s for sure. I probably won’t ever re-read this, nor even print out a copy and make a material memento of it. When I told Ed Meeks at the Laings’ party that it was my ambition to be a writer, I could not have imagined in my darkest nightmares subject matter like this. But perhaps nothing less could have impelled me to do it.
No, the reason is simple: I want to rid myself of it. If I
shed the words, empty them from my head, then hopefully I’ll be able to refill the space with new words, new stories. A new life.
Hopefully. I have to hope, you see. I have nothing else left.
The second time I met Arthur it was in an unlikely context: the pottery café where I worked. The fathers of teenage boys were not the demographic most typically represented in Earth, Paint & Fire, or males generally: decorating milk jugs and eating cupcakes was incontestably a mother-daughter indulgence. But there he was one Saturday in January, right at the end of the afternoon, approaching me in the studio behind the shop as I cleaned up after the chocolate-fountain finale to a fifth-birthday party. The acoustics were painful back there and the squeal of young girls’ voices remained in my ears, that particular pitch of excitement I’d learned to recognise as a tipping point: on one side noisy joy, on the other the kind of delirium that led to children being carried out over their parents’ shoulders like so many broken dolls.
So when he spoke, the words made restful, consoling sounds. I wanted to touch them, hold my wrists in their cool flow and feel my pulse settle.
‘Hello again. I don’t know if you remember but we met at Marcus and Sarah’s party? Arthur Woodhall.’
‘Of course I remember. How are you?’ I was self-conscious in my apron, with its paint spatters and chocolate smears (it was possible I even had chocolate on my face), and my general disarray. My hair, which at the party had spilled down my back in an extravagant show of blondness, was today pulled into a workmanlike ponytail. My work leggings and overall were stained and my pumps scuffed. By contrast, his weekend dress of jeans and blazer scarcely concealed a natural neatness, the polish of wealth. ‘You’re not collecting someone from the party, are you? I think they’ve all gone home now.’
He glanced at the remaining devastation. ‘Is that what this was? A party? Looks more like the remains of a pitched battle.’
I laughed. ‘They’re virtually the same thing. And you have no idea how good it feels to speak to someone who isn’t about to burst into tears.’
‘Well, try me on another day and it could be a different story,’ he said.
We looked at each other, smiling. I felt the disarming sensation of certain knowledge that I would agree to anything he cared to suggest.
‘So how can I help you?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been sent to pick up some sort of plate.’ He said this as if speaking of an obscure artefact, not an everyday household item. ‘My wife was here with her niece a couple of weeks ago and they painted one. She says it should be ready by now.’
‘Do you have the receipt with you?’
‘Sorry, no.’
‘Well, if it was a couple of weeks ago it will have been in one of the last batches we fired, last Monday, or possibly the one before. All the finished items are on display in the café; let’s have a look.’ I led him to the enormous dresser opposite the counter, which held the many hundreds of items awaiting collection. There were battalions of glazed figurines, cats and dogs and ducks and turtles, fleets of gravy boats and milk jugs and teapots. Some were a dashed-off mess, destined to be tucked out of public sight, others painstakingly composed and deserving of pride of place. Collectively, every conceivable blend of colour had been used, squirted from the banks of plastic bottles we replenished daily. Sometimes I wondered what would happen if the dresser were to come crashing down; it was like trying to picture Armageddon.
I turned back to face him, my attitude of indulgence the same one I used with any hapless male who’d come at his spouse’s bidding – OK, perhaps a shade more flirtatious. ‘What are we looking for exactly? Any idea of size?’
‘Big, I think. It’s a birthday gift for Sylvie’s sister and apparently it has the date of her birthday on it. That should be a clue.’
But when presented with three dinner plates and one platter bearing commemorative dates in the next two weeks, Arthur confessed he couldn’t remember his sister-in-law’s date of birth after all.
‘Do you know what colours they used?’
He didn’t know that either. ‘My preparation for this mission has been woeful, I’m afraid,’ he said, looking entirely unafraid, and I found the phrasing exciting – no other customers spoke to me in this formal, bold way. It was not unusual, however, for them to be so vague about the item for collection. Mothers would spend hundreds of pounds on a pottery party for their children and then barely pay attention to its taking place, standing in the café talking to the other adults. Sometimes, after casual Saturday visits, they would not bother to return to collect the fired article even though they’d already paid for it. It was an expensive way to amuse a child for an hour.
‘You might need to come back another time,’ I said, sensing that my tone had changed to something more overtly inviting than it should have been. ‘I can’t let you take one in case we get it wrong, and the other customer is bound to come in the moment you walk out the door.’
‘No, that’s fine. We can’t do that.’ The echoed plural seemed to establish a conspiracy between us, but before I could register my pleasure in this he had already upgraded it by asking if I had finished for the day and, if so, did I want to stroll back to the Grove together? I was astonished by my body’s reaction to this suggestion: blood rushed faster and air grew lighter, as if I’d been summoned to a paradise island with a movie star, his private jet standing by on the street outside.
‘Sure,’ I said, struggling to sound cheerful rather than elated. ‘That would be lovely.’
It was the standard Saturday situation of my shift having overrun, with neither extra pay nor Brownie points to be gained (I’d long ago realised there was no chance of promotion when the manager was also the owner of the franchise and her holiday cover her sister-in-law), and so I decided to leave without finishing cleaning up and without asking Charlotte’s permission.
‘I have to go on time today,’ I called to her. ‘I’m due somewhere else.’ She was at the till, just starting to cash up, and frowned without glancing up. ‘It’s almost done back there, just the floor still needs sweeping – could Aislene do it?’ Aislene, the Saturday girl, was paid by the hour and could not be expected to work overtime for free, I thought.
Arthur a step ahead, I followed him out of the door, rebellious, the worm that had turned, Cinderella cutting loose.
‘Shall we go through the park?’ he suggested. ‘Or is it too dark now?’
‘No, let’s, if it’s still open.’ I would not have dreamed of taking the park route on my own at this time of year, for not only was it unlit, but it was also less direct than the road option. Both, this evening, were advantages: we would not be seen and, if we dawdled, it would take half an hour to reach the Grove. I wondered if this had occurred to him, too.
‘I’m glad I saw you,’ he said, as we waited for the lights to change at the crossing. ‘I wanted to ask how your father’s doing.’
Feeling my smile sag, I willed the muscles to lift it again. I didn’t want him to see me as the despairing kind, I didn’t want to be the despairing kind. ‘Not very well, to tell you the truth. On my last two visits, he hasn’t been conscious. It’s getting hard to believe that it’s worth my going – from his point of view, I mean. Even if he’s awake he doesn’t always recognise me, or he’ll need to see a photo of me when I was younger and even then he can’t make the link.’
‘No new memories. That’s part of the disorder, isn’t it? Apart from childhood or earlier adulthood, everything is as if for the first time?’
‘That’s right. There’s no point arguing or trying to persuade him to remember. Usually I just agree with whatever he thinks and if he seems anxious about it I try to distract him with something different.’
‘That sounds kindest,’ Arthur said.
The park gates were still open. Out of the street light, our deserted path flanked by silent, black conifers, I felt the same urge to confide that I’d felt at the party. ‘The thing is, sometimes I really feel like he wants to be
able to understand it all again. Everything he used to know. To be who he used to be. But I know that’s just me projecting my own feelings. It’s an irreversible disease and he’s long past that stage.’ I sighed, partly to pre-empt the choking-up of my speech. ‘There’s a student nurse there who he’s more attached to than me. Even though all of their interaction must be like the first time, he feels a connection with her. Not that I mind – I’m glad he does, you know, with anyone.’
‘Still, that must be very upsetting for you.’ Arthur’s voice was full of sweet condolence, and of the personal kind, as if we knew each other well, as if my pain were his pain. It was impossible not to compare that with Matt’s enquiries, which were dutiful but offhand, all too expectant of the bleakest of responses.
The Disappearance of Emily Marr Page 5
