‘Frances. You were dreaming.’
Maya offending Mikail, arguing with him, laughing at his religion, thumbing her nose at him, openly deriding his rigid rules, she was free, scornful, brave, his rage out of control, one punch.
‘Here, take this. It’ll stop you dreaming.’ She handed me a pill and a glass of water. I refused, but when she went on stubbornly insisting I took the glass and washed the pill down.
I woke with the sun full on my face, the curtains drawn back and a washed blue sky through the open door, the rainclouds gone. It was already hot in the Normanby, no breeze to cool the small rooms. Mazarine was sitting beside me, her hand on my shoulder, lightly shaking me. She was dressed, wearing make-up, her hair damp from the shower.
‘Frances, look.’
She put her open laptop in front of me.
I was looking at a Facebook page, headed by a photo of a young man. The title was Remembering Dominic Hay-Godwin.
Scrolling down the posts: In loving memory. Sadly missed. Gone but never forgotten.
Photos: the man in a bar, his arm around a young woman, raising a glass. At parties, bars, clubs, on Mediterranean beaches.
‘How do we know it’s the guy?’
Mazarine shrugged. ‘He’s a Londoner. Unusual name. There aren’t any other Dominic Hay-Godwins on Facebook.’
The man in the photos was muscular and chunky, with small, dark, vivid eyes and a square jaw. He sported a pointed little beard, his brown hair was shaved at the sides, longer on top, a single ring in his ear.
‘Look at the geek tattoo.’
His arm was inked from wrist to bicep in a network of lines that looked like the connections on an electronic motherboard.
‘Taken from us too soon. When? And how?’
‘It doesn’t say when, there’s no date. I’ve looked through all of it.’ Mazarine logged out, closed the laptop. ‘It doesn’t actually prove he’s dead. I can’t find any other current Google reference to him, dead or alive.’
‘Anyone could have posted it.’
She shrugged. ‘Either way, he’s not around.’
The sleep had done me good. In the shower I dismissed my anxious dreams as paranoia brought on by exhaustion. I dressed in a hurry, came out and said, ‘I’ll talk to Sophie Greenaway again. After breakfast—’
Mazarine was standing in the middle of the room with her suitcase packed and zipped.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I don’t have time for breakfast. You slept so late, you must have really needed it. I’m going to St Pancras Station. I booked a ticket to Paris. I’ll see Emin, find out what news he has.’
I stared.
She said patiently, ‘Maya and Joe are not together anymore.’
I said nothing.
‘So, I’ll go to Paris and look for Joe, and I guess you’ll want to be here in London for Maya, when she starts back at work.’
‘I have no idea where Maya is.’
‘Yes, but the point is, she’s not with Joe.’ She smiled, gestured at the room. ‘You will have the Normanby to yourself again.’
She smoothed her hair, cleared her throat formally. ‘I would like to thank you, Frances, for sharing the flat with me these last few days. And for the nice books.’
I watched her gather up her things and wheel the suitcase to the door. In the hallway she turned and faced me, arms outstretched.
‘So. Can I give you a hug?’
I stood without moving while she hugged me, her blonde hair in my face, scent of soap and shampoo; she drew back, held my shoulders for a moment, and I saw the coloboma, the tiny black fissure in her eye, then she hugged me again, my chin against her shoulder.
‘Emin put something in an email last night, a reference to when the boys were young. Something he used to say to them when they misbehaved. That’s all he did, refer to it. He’s travelling at the moment, but I’ll hope to catch him.’
She brought her face close to mine, our lips almost touching. Still I didn’t move or speak. She gave my shoulders a little shake, to wake me from my frozen state, but when I didn’t react she pushed me away, crinkled her eyes, smiled, summoned the elevator, waved and wheeled the suitcase in.
I said, ‘So we have no connection—’
But I was talking to the metal doors.
FIFTEEN
Something gave way inside me, I felt it go, and I collapsed on the bed, unable to move. I lay motionless, hardly even breathing, I don’t know how long.
After a time, I went out. A dumb sense drove me into the streets, first in the direction of St Pancras, where I walked mechanically through the crowded station, then south towards the river, barely noticing where or what streets or who I pushed past or bumped into, there were two selves within me, and I couldn’t sustain them.
Two selves. One understood: the situation had changed and Mazarine’s reaction was rational, there was no reason for us to stick together, after all we had just as much chance of finding our children if we separated. This self processed: words, reasons, solutions. The other self didn’t understand and wouldn’t be calmed or soothed, this other self cried out and smashed its own face and beat its hands against—
On Tottenham Court Road I stopped outside a store, looking at a window display of retro furniture. Among a collection of art deco tables, dyed sheepskin rugs and knick-knacks, my eye fell on a line of novelty lava lamps, white plastic tubes in assorted shapes, with hints of colour swirling inside them. I went in and found the lamps displayed throughout the shop. I touched one of the tubes and the crimson substance inside was drawn to my fingers, pooling and intensifying against the plastic.
I walked slowly among the multicoloured lamps, touching each, the vivid, viscous lines within converging and deepening in colour at each point where my fingers made contact. Even before I touched the surface, the veiny lines began to waver in the direction of my fingers. A moment of stillness, I felt stunned, fascinated that the universe was providing me with a symbolic image, as it so often did — does — with such weird, comic regularity, in fact, that I’ve almost ceased to believe in chance. Truth is stranger than fiction, is all I can say, and all is connected.
Going from lamp to lamp, like a person in a drugged trance, it was clear to me that Mazarine’s mime of kissing had activated some frozen entity within my self, an inner identity I thought I’d killed off years ago, who’d come alive, all flickering and yearning, had reached towards touch and come up against the hard outer shell that was me, the I that was in charge.
No one had ever talked to that inner person; I had not allowed it. That self was not fit for purpose, was not controlled and careful but was all raw nerves and longing.
The self within me in turmoil, unable to understand, and yet when I passed a mirror I looked calm, an ordinary woman, slightly anxious perhaps, a little distracted, no sign of a mad inner being hurling itself against the void, destroying itself, a self that had no words, that could only reach outwards and catch hold of nothing.
Meanwhile Mazarine. The train rushing through the yellow fields towards Paris. Her nose in a crime thriller, hand groping guiltily for the bag of sweets, her messy blonde hair, curvaceous figure, confidence and calm, air of orderliness, lawless smile, toughness and sensuality, the yin and yang of her.
I had her contact details, could phone or email, but I had no photo of her. I could remember her beautiful voice, but I couldn’t picture her face. Even now I felt my certainty slipping. Was my sense of her correct, did I know her at all, did she really exist?
Did I invent Mazarine Libard?
Crowds passing outside the shop window, the summer sun bleaching the light, shoppers murmuring in different languages as they browsed through the aisles. The memory of the metal doors closing on her was so painful that I stopped breathing for a moment, winded by it. That she would walk away from me, turn her back with ease, that I would probably never see her again, no connection between us, that she didn’t seem to care, didn’t hesitate.
Yet the woman in the mirror, the I, looked composed. Patrick married that outer self, the confident one. It would not have done to unleash the inner, crazy one on him; he would have run a mile. So I kept myself in check, as partner, as mother, and I was a perfectionist. Patrick and I were good together, we loved one another in bed and out, had a lot of laughs, all was well, and when Maya arrived we were both tough, pragmatic, and that was how we were able to love her, and do the right thing by her, conscientiously, always.
Now Mazarine had shaken me, thrown me, cracked the glass surface that had enabled me to live while knowing — what?
The surface had enabled me to get on with Inez. Complicated mental tricks were called for; none of it came naturally. It must have been hard for her, too. The faint uneasiness: you’re just too different. What if the mask should slip, and her eyes reflect a void back at you? Imagine the sly wink, the secret, exclusive channel, all darkness. No one else sees. You are bad in your self. There is no love, only quicksand. I would like you to disappear …. Soon.
Soon it would be evening, another day gone by with no sign of Maya, and the connections to her vanishing too, Joe gone, Dominic Hay-Godwin posted as dead.
Mazarine flying away across the yellow fields.
Walking in the direction of the Normanby, wishing I had the dog, Bernie, with me, the eager dopey soul, I looked at my reflection in shop windows, my shadow on the street, crossing the city, making my way steadily back, both of me. Gradually I, the rational I, started to organise my thoughts.
I would find a police station and report Maya missing. As soon as I resolved to do it, the counter-argument flooded my mind: I would fill out a form, tell them everything, ask for advice, add her name to the pile, no doubt there were thousands of ordinary people missing or just not in contact in these boiling summer weeks, on the move inside the vast, borderless expanse of the Schengen zone, not to mention the mass of refugees fleeing Africa and the wars in the Middle East, spilling out all over Europe, off the boats, walking, stowed away inside trucks and trains, hungry, distressed, desperate, sleeping rough, lost, searching for safety, banned, walled out, hunted, unwanted; when I thought of that frantic swirl of humanity it seemed hopeless to file a report on my girl; who would care or bother to look for her, when borders were crammed and countries were inundated with the nameless, the stateless, the displaced?
Imagine the exchange. The polite policemen. So, she’s emailed you, but you didn’t quite like her tone. She sounded a bit unfriendly, you say?
Still, I would do it this afternoon. In the meantime, I would email my cousin Max for news from the cul-de-sac, visit the health club, check my bank account, which was under considerable strain, meaning I would have to start using the stash of screenwriting money I’d been putting aside for a new house or flat. I listed these small, practical errands, shoring them up against the void.
When I came up the stairs, the door of the flat was open. With a rush of hope I stopped on the landing, almost called out, Mazarine? A woman backed out, phone in one hand and a plastic garbage bag in the other. She looked familiar, had dark eyes, dark hair covered with a scarf. I started to speak but she cut me off.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, and hurried off down the stairs.
There were two more women inside, their trolley parked in the hallway, one vacuuming, the other, with a cleaning cloth slung over her shoulder, pausing to wind her dreadlocks around her head.
‘Weekly service,’ she said to me.
I dodged around them, getting changed. In the kitchen, I found a pair of Mazarine’s sunglasses and a bottle of multi-vitamin pills, in the bathroom a tube of face cream. I threw the lot in the bin, then retrieved the glasses and put them in my bag.
To avoid the cleaners, I went to the health club, exhausted myself, even swam some lengths in the pool, came out red-faced and hot. When the changing room had emptied, I checked Mazarine’s hiding place. The flash drive was gone.
I walked slowly over to the supermarket, all the time quelling the other self. I was like a rational person trailing around after an insane, mute relative, wringing my hands, trying to keep the lid on, while the other sank, rose up and silently raged, despaired, sank again.
The woman at the checkout made a point of chatting; I exchanged greetings, smiled, talked about the heat wave, I was polite and calm.
Mazarine must have gone by the health club on her way to St Pancras. It was unlikely anyone else could have taken the flash drive. It was only a few centimetres long, hidden in a tiny space, no person or camera could have spotted her slipping it in there as she sat on the wooden bench.
I would ring her and ask. But would she tell me the truth? Would someone be listening if I did? Who was she, could I even trust her? Going around it in my mind, I couldn’t decide. I had no reason to care about the flash drive; it had nothing to do with me. But it had to do with Maya, even if indirectly, so it did matter, and if it did count for something, was it a risk to talk about it on a cellphone, given that no communication was secure?
Depressed, I went into the Pret a Manger opposite Russell Square Tube station, bought a salad and a coffee and sat in the window. I played with Mazarine’s prescription sunglasses, trying to picture her face. I could almost get her wide smile and her intelligent eyes, but not the whole image.
The sense I had of two selves battling it out, the rational one and the other, made me think of my nice shrink, Werner Bismarck. I had a good excuse to call or email: Hi Werner, I know I left you, I know I said I didn’t believe it, but perhaps your theory was right, I seem to have a mutiny on my hands, something rising up in me I can’t control, I’m bowed down by it, weighed down, I cannot merge these fragmented parts of my self.
Sitting there in Pret a Manger, the only solution I could think of gave an insight into self-harm: I needed to beat the inner self into submission, shut it up, put it back in its box, before it capsized everything, turned me over.
There were Werner’s details in my contacts. Lovely Werner with his German guilt and his kindness, and I sitting across from him pretending to all kinds of fluttering uncertainty, when what I really would have liked was for him to climb into his dusty old BMW, drive over to my house and move in. For good. Why did I get so fond of him? Was it just because he listened? We used to stare into each other’s eyes while we talked, and I felt I could have him around for the next twenty years. I wouldn’t mind betting that we could have been best friends, if it hadn’t been for all those rules.
Werner got flustered once, when I’d pushed some boundary. He said, ‘You’re questioning my ethics.’
‘Is it just a matter of ethics?’ I said, all weary and broken-hearted. What I was really thinking was, Not so much questioning. More attempting to tear up altogether …
I put on Mazarine’s glasses and my vision turned sepia and indistinct.
The world jumped back into focus when I laid them aside and I saw Nick Oppenheimer across the street.
SIXTEEN
I had the Normanby rented for another two weeks, but in my alarm, I cleared out, checking in to the King’s Cross Inn, down near the station. It wasn’t a move that made any sense, but I was so unnerved and defeated all I could do was wait and see what I did next. In the shabby hotel room, I locked the door, lay down and didn’t move for a long time.
Later, rousing myself, I inspected the minibar. There was no wine, so I opened a tiny bottle of gin. I nervously watched CNN, emailed cousin Max and asked after the dog, issued a few instructions about the house. I looked at the Air New Zealand website, checking prices and specials, knowing I couldn’t book anything.
Seeing Nick, my immediate reaction had been anger. Of all the places in the world, in this vast city, two streets away from where I’m staying, coincidence I don’t think so.
I’d assumed he’d gone into the Tube station, and I’d followed, the lift doors closing as I searched for my Oyster card. When I got down there the platforms were empty, just the blast of hot wind and the roar of a train
disappearing along the tunnel.
After searching for him I sat on a bench in Russell Square. The anger drained away, leaving uneasiness; now I constantly scanned the crowds. Nick Oppenheimer, all the way from Auckland, as though my searching had conjured him up, like a vision in a fever dream. I was so disconcerted, the only solution I could think of was to pack my bag and move.
Lying on the hotel bed, I was back in Werner Bismarck’s office, consulting him about my selves.
Werner frowning: ‘But you can’t recall faces, Frances. How can you be sure you saw Nick Oppenheimer?’
I sweated, explaining. There’s a distinction, I can’t visualise faces, but I recognise them. It’s only if I don’t know people well that I make mistakes. Or if I’ve never seen a photo of them.
It was Nick. Definitely him.
The hotel room was stuffy, the air conditioner rattling but ineffectual. I lay sweltering, missing the Normanby.
Dozing on and off, I remembered one of Werner’s theories. He’d asked about Inez’s mother, my adoptive grandmother Dee, and so, dredging up what little information I had, I told him how Dee’s husband, Old Bravo, had travelled for his engineering job, spending long periods building bridges in South America, and that a vague accusation had hung over the birth of Inez, who was said, by various cruel and racist neighbours in Ann Arbor, to have a slight ‘look of the tar brush’.
There was no scandal, and the story was repeated more as a joke, but it was true that Inez’s dark, glossy-haired beauty could have been part Native American or Hispanic or African American in origin, unlike her brother Tyson and Old Bravo who were sandy-haired with ice-blue eyes, and Dee who was plain freckly Irish and pale.
Who knows whether Inez grew up with a doubt hanging over her, that she mightn’t be Old Bravo’s daughter.
Werner picked this up and ran with it, made a meal of it you could say. According to his theory, Inez had reservations about me and Frank, because we were both olive-skinned and dark-haired. Natasha, our sister, took after the Judge and was born blue-eyed and straw-haired, a fact Inez loved. She did tend to rave on about Natasha’s golden colouring.
Mazarine Page 17
