by Louise Voss
‘Um … I’d have to get to know him pretty well to get him to open up to me about his marriage. I’m not interested in prostituting myself, you know.’
The little island of hair on Metcalfe’s pate shot backwards as his eyebrows jerked upwards. ‘As if we would suggest such a thing!’
‘So, how exactly am I meant to gain his trust?’
‘Men and women can be friends, can’t they? I reckon your best bet is to be the new rock in his life. A bit of flirting won’t hurt. You can flirt, can’t you Waites? You’re not unattractive. I’m sure if you put your mind to it…’
‘Thank you,’ I said, as sarcastically as I dared.
‘Search his house again when he’s out, in case we missed something. Listen out for clues as to his relationship with Shelagh Naismith. Talk to the boy if you can, without arousing suspicion. Anything that might ultimately give us the evidence we need. DCI McLoughlin speaks very highly of you, and assures me you’re up to the task.’
I felt a flicker of something at the mention of Adrian’s name. Sadness? Flattery? Loss? I really wasn’t sure what it was.
‘That’s nice, sir.’
‘Call me Brian, Waites.’
I laughed at the irony of this, and he joined in – but only after several beats. He was a serious sort of chap.
‘So what happens next, Brian?’
He leaned forward, both palms planted on the table. ‘We get your life story straight. And before we do that, we pick your new name. That’s our goal for this afternoon. In fact, let’s go now. We can talk more on the way.’
I was confused. ‘Where do we go?’ I had a fanciful mental image of some kind of Names Department of Surrey Police where you went to sign yourself out a new one, like the ARG signing guns out for their raids.
‘You’ll see,’ he said, standing up.
Metcalfe and I got the train to the Family Records Centre in Clerkenwell and, five hours later, I had my new name. Cara Lynn Jackson. I chose it myself – or rather, I stole it from a little dead girl. So many dead children, so many names. I had run my eyes down hundreds of columns, searching for a girl born in the same year as I was who had died young. She needed to have had a plain surname – not Smith or Jones, that was too plain – but nothing unusual or easily searched-for online. We needed to share a Christian name: that was trickier, but eventually I found the birth and death certificate of a little girl called Cara Lynn Jackson, born just three months after my real birthday, died aged three of meningitis. Perfect, for my purposes.
Poor little Cara though, I thought, as I’d ordered a copy of her birth certificate. I imagined her as a chubby toddler, one minute running around on chunky legs, gleeful in a sandpit – and then the bewilderment on her feverish face, howls subsiding into ominous silence as her temperature rocketed and her parents – Debbie and Cliff – became more and more frantic as their daughter’s life slipped away before their grieving eyes, her identity only to be stolen years later … For some reason I felt more upset thinking about Cara’s death than I did about my own parents’.
She had lived her short life in a council flat in Rayleigh, Essex, and later on I visited it, standing outside the address, looking at overflowing bins and flaking pebbledash. Her parents no longer lived there, I’d checked – they divorced a couple of years after Cara’s death. Cliff had moved abroad and Debbie remarried, which was useful to me. Made them both very difficult to trace, if someone ever became suspicious.
After going to the flat, I visited Rayleigh cemetery and found Cara’s grave. It was in heart-shaped granite with a stone teddy peeping over the top left corner, and the inscription: ‘Our Precious Little Girl: We Have You in Our Hearts But Wish We Had You in Our Arms’, with her dates underneath.
I made myself put it out of my head; put Cara out of my head. She no longer existed. I was Cara Lynn Jackson now; even my new passport said so. But everyone would call me Lynn.
20
Towards the end of January, as instructed, I pitched up at the Molesey Amateur Dramatic Society’s open audition. It was for a wartime play about land girls. I was pretty certain I’d never get one of the four parts, having not acted since I was at school, but I figured that there would be loads of other ways I could get involved – I didn’t care what I did as long as I got myself in there somehow.
I sidled into the little studio theatre at the designated time and clocked Ed Naismith straightaway, tall and impressive, clad in expensive-looking jeans and a beautifully cut soft leather jacket. He had an amazing shock of sandy hair and his eyes looked even bluer than in the photos I’d studied. As I took a script out of the box, he smiled at me, and suddenly it wasn’t difficult to imagine that I really did want a part in the play.
‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’ whispered the woman next to me, a rake-thin forty-something with sparse dark hair scraped into a high ponytail. ‘I wouldn’t mind being directed to do anything by him!’ She chuckled lasciviously under her breath and took a seat in the third row. Grateful for someone to talk to, I slid in next to her and looked around at the couple of dozen women, many of whom seemed to know each other already.
‘Marion,’ said the woman, holding out a bony hand. When I shook it, I felt the veins on the back of it so thick and prominent that they yielded and squidged under my fingers.
‘Lynn,’ I said, smiling at her as I flipped through the pages of the script. ‘I’m new.’
‘Hey, me, too. We should stick together. So – you recognise him, don’t you?’ my new friend asked confidingly, making sure she wasn’t overheard.
I turned and looked at Ed with a casually puzzled expression on my face. ‘Him? No – recognise him from where? Is he on telly or something? He looks like he should be.’
Marion smiled, revealing crowded smokers’ teeth that ruined her appearance in a flash. ‘Not exactly. Don’t you remember, he was all over the local news last year? His wife’s the woman that went missing.’
I shook my head. ‘No … I’ve only just moved to Hampton so I wouldn’t have seen it unless it was in the national news. Poor bloke! Poor woman, too – what happened to her?’
Marion shrugged, an expression in her eyes that looked to me more like delight than concern. ‘She’s never been seen again! Just like Richey Manic, you remember, that pop star? She suffered from depression, too, apparently. That’s their son over there. Don’t know what he’s doing here. Waiting for a lift, probably.’
‘How awful.’ I regarded Ed, who was standing on the stage chatting animatedly to the older woman next to him.
His son was a great hulk of a teenager in school uniform, sitting in the raked seating away from everyone else, pecking at a mobile phone and looking disdainful. Even through the greasy blond hair and acne I could see the resemblance between him and Ed. He’d be good-looking, one day, I thought.
The older woman clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. She introduced herself as Sandra, the producer. She was dressed in tight jeans and a clingy, garish top, but her face belied her age. Thick foundation and powder settled in all her many lines and it became obvious, when she adjusted it, that she wore a wig.
She introduced Ed – not mentioning anything of his personal circumstances of course, but talking about his long career within MADS as both actor and director.
‘Thank you all for coming,’ she concluded. ‘It’s great to see so many new faces. Right, let’s make a start. We’re going to call you up in groups of four and get you to read a few lines of the different parts.’
In the first ‘round’, I read the part of Mabel, a housemaid from Stevenage. Then I read some of Joan, a secretly lesbian farm girl, Millie, the society one, and finally Doris, a seamstress from the East End of London. Ed and Sandra the producer watched impassively, but at one point I saw Ed lean over and whisper something in Sandra’s ear whilst gesturing towards me. Sandra nodded briefly. It looked as though it was going well.
Finally we all had to sing a verse of The White Cliffs of Dover, four at a time. I was
standing next to Marion, but the woman had a voice like nails down a blackboard and it really put me off. I hoped they didn’t think it was me.
I went home to my studio that night feeling a sense of achievement, despite being certain I wouldn’t be offered a part, but I was even less bothered than I’d been before the audition, because a part would mean performing a quarter of a whole play, in front of whole audiences. Yes, I liked a challenge, but this one was so far out of my comfort zone that it was ridiculous. Surely Metcalfe didn’t really expect me to do that?
I’d met Ed, which was my brief. Even if I didn’t get a part, they had emphasised what I had thought, that they also wanted costume assistants, ticket-tearers and volunteer bar staff. Plenty of other ways I could get close to him.
So it was with a combination of astonishment, delight and trepidation that I received news the next morning – I’d been offered the part of Mabel. Ed rang me himself. He was completely charming, saying how beautiful my singing voice was, and how well I had read. The first meeting would be in two days’ time, for the cast to meet each other and do a read-through. I came off the phone and triumphantly fist-pumped the air. I was in! Metcalfe would be very happy with me. I was pretty happy with myself, too.
21
The first meeting of the cast of Make Do and Mend convened at Ed’s house a few days after the auditions. I consulted an A-Z and got there on foot, although it turned out to be a lot further from my flat in Hampton than I’d thought. I’d wrapped up warm as it was a frosty day and had ended up taking off winter accessories – hat, gloves, scarf – and stuffing them into my bag at regular intervals along the way. Ed lived somewhere I’d never heard of called East Molesey, which turned out to be a conservation area near Hampton Court Palace. His house was massive, a detached early Victorian villa with gables, stained glass above the door and original wooden shutters at the windows.
I crunched sweatily up the drive and pulled the doorbell – it was one of those horrifically loud jingly-jangly ones that rang on and on for what seemed like an eternity, making it sound like you were a really aggressive visitor when really you’d just intended to announce your arrival with a quick ring. A sulky teenager answered the door, all sallow skin and spots. Ed’s son, the one who had been sitting, uninterested, at the audition.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded, glaring at me.
‘I’m Lynn. Is this, er, Ed’s house?’ I said, although of course I knew full well that it was.
‘No, I meant, who are you in the play?’ His expression had duh written all over it. It had often occurred to me since that Ben had never really stopped looking at me like that.
‘Oh! I’m going to be Mabel. The housemaid.’
He gave me a head-to-toe once over and then sniffed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can see that now.’
I resisted the urge to accidentally-on-purpose elbow him in the face as he reluctantly admitted me into a monochrome-tiled hallway. ‘Lovely house,’ I said, but he ignored me. ‘Da-ad!’ he yelled. ‘Another one’s here!’
Ed’s face appeared upside down over the ornate banisters, blood rushing to his already-red cheeks, which were dangling slightly, like a cartoon dog’s. At that moment I didn’t fancy him at all.
‘Lynn! Do come upstairs to the living room,’ I wondered if he’d added the last four words in case I thought he was inviting me into his boudoir. ‘We’re almost all here.’
‘Sorry, am I late?’ I asked, affecting fluster. His head withdrew and then the whole of him reappeared at the top of the stairs.
‘Not at all, not at all. I see you’ve met Benjy.’
I smiled at Benjy, who did not smile back.
‘Dad! I told you, it’s Ben now,’ he shouted up at his father.
There was a large framed photograph on the wall up the stairs of him, Ed and Shelagh, taken a few years back because Benjy – Ben – was at that stage of childhood where he had enormous tombstone front teeth. Interesting, I thought, trying not to stare at it as I passed. Shelagh was, or had been, exceptionally beautiful, with long auburn hair, green eyes and a delicate smattering of freckles across a tiny little nose.
‘Come through,’ Ed said expansively, gesturing to the front room. ‘Ben’s just bringing up some coffee. Aren’t you, Benjy?’
There was a growl of ‘It’s Ben!’ from downstairs, an extra-enunciated ‘n’ on the end so it sounded like ‘Ben-nuh’.
‘This is April, who’s playing Doris; and you remember Sandra, our lovely producer?’ He put an arm around Sandra, who pretended to shake him off but secretly looked thrilled.
April was a petite blonde with such a pretty face that I couldn’t stop glancing at her. Whenever she smiled, the pink of her cheeks deepened into apples and showed off her perfect little white teeth. I felt like a galumphing elephant in comparison, even though actually April and I were a similar size. April’s petiteness looked soft and feminine next to my more androgynous body.
Both women said hello to me and April stood up and formally shook my hand.
‘You’re new to MADS, aren’t you?’ April asked.
‘Yes, I’ve only just moved to the area.’
April had one of those really intense gazes that you felt slightly trapped by. ‘Don’t worry, we’re all very friendly. A big family, really, aren’t we?’
She didn’t ask where I had moved from, or what I was doing in the area – which of course was a relief to me, although I had my cover story rehearsed and off pat: I’d split up with my husband and moved here to have a fresh start; I’d always wanted to live round here after fond memories of summers spent with a grandmother who owned a houseboat on the Thames; I was looking for work as a PA.
The others laughed as though she had cracked a hilarious joke when she said they were all a big family.
‘April’s married to Mike, who’ll be our set designer,’ Ed said by way of explanation, and April thrust the knuckles of her left hand forward to show off an enormous diamond engagement ring with a thick gold band beneath it, as if they had only just got betrothed, even though I later found out they had eleven-year old twin boys. ‘And Sandra is Mike’s mother.’
‘Wow, that’s a lovely ring,’ I said politely, although it was much more ostentatious than anything I would ever have chosen. April beamed.
‘Isn’t this exciting? I just can’t wait to get stuck in.’ She picked a script up off the sofa and began to read – I noticed she had already highlighted all of her lines in neon yellow – in an OTT Cockney accent, all glottal stop and hammy delivery: ‘”So I fort I would get off of my fat backside an’ get a job on one of them farms. I ain’t never been to the cunt’ryside before…”’
‘Marvellous, darling,’ Ed said. I thought he sounded sarcastic but April gave a little curtsey and looked delighted. Had she only got the part because the producer was her mother-in-law?
‘Right, we’re just waiting for Robina.’ He turned to me. ‘She’s playing Joan. The fourth member of our cast is Pat, but she can’t make it today. You’ll meet her at the first rehearsal next week.’
I nodded obediently and sat down on the huge, overstuffed sofa. It was one of those really deep sofas that you had to either perch on the edge of, or sit back so far that your legs stuck straight out in front like a child’s.
‘Nice house,’ I offered, looking around the room at the African artefacts – wooden masks, zebra print cushions – and theatre memorabilia, framed playbills and posters for productions. The whole house looked recently decorated, all the pine interior doors stripped and beautifully waxed, no fingermarks or scuffs on the banisters or walls.
‘Thank you. Glad you like it. Ah – refreshments have arrived!’
Ben reluctantly returned, carrying a tray that was almost too wide for him to hold and that wobbled perilously. A pot of coffee and four mugs clinked together, and a plate of Party Rings slid around the tray’s slippery surface, almost falling off, as he teetered towards a coffee table. Sandra intercepted it just in time.
The doo
rbell rang again, but in the way I would have wanted it to when I’d pulled it myself – a brief discreet jangle. Robina had obviously been here before too.
Looking back, I couldn’t remember much about Robina at our first meeting. She was lovely – they all were – but it was April’s huge blue eyes and china complexion that stuck in my mind. That, and Ed’s magnetism.
It was funny, I thought much later, that so many of the people in that theatre group came to play such a huge part in my life in the years to come. Ed, obviously; April and Mike, obnoxious Benjy, my stepson. The costume lady, Maddie, who became my closest friend.
Ed seemed at first to have no interest in me at all, other than as an actor in the play he was directing – but then, why would he? It had only been a year since his wife had vanished. I worried that I was being ridiculously presumptuous to think that I could stroll in and win his confidence, just like that, particularly when the whole thing was a charade.
But then, suddenly, within a few weeks, something began to change.
I started to wonder if I was imagining the new chemistry between us. It just felt too good to be true, both from the perspective of my mission and from a personal point of view. Sometimes it felt so strong, crackling blue and invisible whenever our eyes met, and other times it wasn’t there at all. I felt confused, but ever more determined. I had to play it right – too uninterested, and I would never get to know him. Too keen, and I would scare him off.
So for the first few weeks of rehearsals I focussed instead on building my friendships with the three other cast members, as well as with Sandra and Ed. When Ed praised me, I affected nonchalance, while the other three would squeal and blush if he singled them out. I pretended not to notice when he gazed at me and decided that I would only gaze back very occasionally, just enough to make him aware that I might – might – be interested. After a couple of weeks I realised it was working – he was definitely beginning to pay me more attention.
