The Other Rebecca

by Maureen Freely

  I sat down on the bench outside, drew my cardigan around me and surveyed the assembled cast. Giles and Max’s father were in the far corner, at the chess table. With a fixed but patient smile, Giles was trying to explain to his partner why it was against the rules for him to move pawns like knights. Max was sitting on the sofa to the right of the fire. He had one arm around each child. Jasper sat curled up at his feet. Bea sat on the sofa opposite, while Crawley perched on the footstool, gazing moodily into the fire.

  There was a tap on the door. In came Danny, flushed and suppressing a giggle. In swept Rebecca in the wrong dress. Suddenly her hair was black again. Was this her real hair, or was it a wig? She looked younger and far more beautiful than her famous photograph. ‘It still fits!’

  A cheer went up as she walked into their midst. She received their admiring laughter as if their voices were the first raindrops heralding the end of a drought. The fire behind her caught the highlights of her hair as she threw back her head and joined them. William jumped up and hurled himself at her legs. Rebecca stepped back into the hearth. ‘Mummy, you’re on fire!’ Hermione cried as she jumped to her feet. But already Max was up and stamping it out with his foot.

  Bea had already thrown a glass of water on a tea towel. Now she handed it to Max, who pressed it on the singed sash. When the emergency was over, the laughter resumed.

  ‘Well!’ said Rebecca. ‘This dress certainly hasn’t lost its evil ways, has it? It’s as wrong a dress as it ever was. You know what? I’m going to change back into something right. Right and comfortable.’ Danny and the children followed her out.

  ‘She does look lovely,’ Bea said after she was gone. ‘Don’t you think, Max?’

  He nodded, then retrieved his crossword puzzle.

  ‘She seems to have grown younger. Can it simply have been the path of righteousness, do you think? Max? Max! What do you say?’

  ‘It was probably the usual boring things. Lots of exercise. Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. No alcohol or heroin.’

  ‘But she looks so happy!’

  ‘She always does when she’s the centre of attention.’

  ‘Well, unlike some people, at least she gives you something worth watching.’

  I took that to be about me.

  ‘Max. Max! What are you going to do?’

  He looked up with a frown. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You have a free hand, you know. You can choose the one you think is best for you. After all, it’s not as if you deliberately set out to have a harem, but there you are. To all intents and purposes, you have one now.’

  In a dry voice he said, ‘Oh, do I? Thanks for letting me know.’

  ‘You’re already letting, yourself slip back into American. She hasn’t been back a day and you’re already slipping.’

  ‘You seem to forget that I’ve been living with an American for the better part of a year.’

  ‘That only makes it more apparent. In all that time she’s made no imprint.’ Max frowned. ‘Of course that’s what you said you were looking for. A companion who was too decent to ever want to drive you mad, who would let you work in peace. But, Max, isn’t it possible that this terribly sweet girl – and she is a terribly sweet girl – simply doesn’t have it in her to fire you up? I know what it took out of you to be in mortal combat with Rebecca day in and day out – but don’t you think it was the sparks you two sent flying that inspired you both to do your best work?’

  Still Max said nothing.

  ‘What I’m trying to tell you, Max, dear thing, is that your present wife is a teeny tiny bit dull.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Max. ‘But only a teeny tiny bit. And it’s still early days.’

  Bea appeared to ponder this. ‘You like her writing,’ she then said.

  Max shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, she has her earnest and pedestrian moments, but her wit can be fine and there is an underlying sadness in her work which I find rather appealing.’

  ‘Crawley? What do you think? How does her writing stand up to the competition?’

  Crawley paused before speaking. ‘All in all, I agree with what Max said. Although she falls into the category of worthy authors you would like to like more than you actually do.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Bea said. ‘She’s not exactly going to set the house on fire, is she?’

  And now, as if on cue, Rebecca swept back into the room. Now she was wearing a long, green shift that was not only right and comfortable but showed off her California tan. Her children ran ahead of her and then pulled her down on the sofa next to Max.

  ‘Max?’ said Rebecca.

  He looked up wearily. Rebecca stared at him, then turned herself around to stare at the others. ‘Is he always like this now?’

  ‘He’s not the most gregarious person I’ve ever met, no,’ Crawley ventured. ‘But if you hold your breath and remember not to squirm or complain, you might get a response in two or three days.’

  ‘Well, that shows progress, if you ask me, Max. This new wife of yours must really be working overtime. When we were an item, you were desperate and suicidal. But now you’ve found someone who’s been able to pull you out of the slough of despond and make you just unbearably gloomy.’

  At this even Max’s death mask dissolved into a smile.

  Striking a reproving pose, Rebecca said, ‘She probably would have preferred to make you happy.’

  ‘Mission impossible,’ Max said.

  ‘But! At least I’ve gotten you to speak to me. Are you going to risk a second sentence?’ She took his hands. Max looked away.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Crawley said. ‘Max, give her a kiss. Thank her at least for saving us all from a hell of a lot of trouble.’

  For a few endless moments, he looked down at his limp hands. Then – too suddenly – he put his hands around Rebecca’s face and gave her a kiss. ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear,’ he cried, and then he threw his arms around her.

  Everyone clapped, then began to laugh as the embrace grew tighter. ‘Watch out, boy! You’re going to strangle her!’

  When he let go, Rebecca looked up, put her finger on his nose and said, ‘You know what, Max? You’re so very lucky you’re handsome.’ She threw her arms around him and returned his kiss.

  It was the way he sighed when she broke away. The way she put her head on his shoulder when they were back on the sofa. The way he took her hand and put it on his knee.

  ‘More champagne, anyone?’ Bea asked.

  Rebecca said, ‘I’d love some more water.’

  As Bea passed the open French door, she stopped and said, ‘Did anyone just hear a noise? Something like a ghost coughing?’ She peered out through the French doors, her eyes fixed on the very bench where I was sitting, but still she couldn’t see me, and at that moment, the moment I saw her looking through me, I had a revelation that took the pain away: it was not her fault that she couldn’t see me. She couldn’t see me because she was on the wrong side of the lights. I had come too late to save them from Rebecca. They had all died, all died inside long before I met them. They were locked inside a play that would repeat itself over and over but never finish. They were in agony. They kept crying for help, they kept looking out through the French doors for the one who might save them. But in that same instant I knew I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t even make them see me because they were blinded by their own brilliance.

  They couldn’t see me, but even though they didn’t even care to see me, how extravagantly they gave of themselves! The girl in the painting, Queen Mary on the side table, Bea in her element, Rebecca in green and Max in ecstasy. How strange they all were! How strange and how beautiful and how desperate to find the words that could recreate what they ought not to have destroyed in the first place. How hard they tried to resurrect themselves with the lie to end all lies. Borrowing other people’s words and then twisting them, misplacing their own, but never quite asking the question, How could the truth hover between alternatives?

  Writers didn�
��t tell the truth. They just played with it. Had it not been for Rebecca sending me back into the shadows, I would be locked in there too. But now I was free. I could look at Rebecca’s hand on Max’s legs and I could look at Max’s hand on Rebecca’s forearm as if neither had anything to do with me. They no longer owned me. I was free to go home now. Free to see things through my eyes instead of theirs. I could look at them as if they were strangers or I could turn away and never look back, but when I did turn away I was overcome with the same dead chill I feel this morning, as I sit at my desk writing this story, surrounded by the wreckage of this story. Cursed by it.

  Why didn’t they listen to me?

  Why didn’t I listen to myself?

  As I stood to make my way back across the lawn, I saw a light flashing in Danny’s cottage. One, two, three. Then, one, two, a light flashed upstairs in the big house. I did not turn around in time to see which window it came from, but looking back into the sitting room, I saw Rebecca rise from the sofa, move to the French doors and look out into the night in a way that struck me as … out of character.

  And so I turned around and looked again, at Rebecca, and then at the girl in the original wrong dress in the picture above the fire. I looked at this girl’s hand raised in warning, and I followed her painted gaze back to the sofa. Hermione had picked up Rebecca’s handbag from where she had left it on the sofa and was rummaging through it. ‘Mummy,’ I heard her say. ‘Mummy! What’s this?’

  ‘What’s what, darling?’ she said as she stretched her arms and yawned. But when she turned to see Hermione’s hands in her bag, she moved as fast as if she were pulling her daughter from the path of a speeding car. ‘That’s a treat for later,’ she said as she snatched the handbag out of her daughter’s hands. Her face was calm but her hands, I noticed, were not. That was what did it. I snapped out of my trance.

  Too late, I saw it. This time, the play would have an ending. Rebecca was here to see to it, had already set it in motion, but I could not let her, I could not take this on top of everything else. Unable to stop myself, I threw my last chance of a life away and stepped back inside.

  I wanted to go for her throat. I wanted to shake the truth out of her. But I contained myself, even though the effort made me shake. I tried to keep my voice moderate and look straight into her eyes. ‘I don’t trust you,’ I said. ‘I think you’re up to something.’

  She looked at me with just the sort of smile an actress would give if a member of the audience had wandered onto the stage.

  ‘You’re playing a game,’ I said. ‘And I want you to stop.’

  A shadow of fear crossed her face, but then she regained her air of embarrassed tact. She leaned forward until her eyes were so close I could hardly see them.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she said, very much the caring nurse now. She reached her hand out; I pushed it away. ‘I meant your health,’ she said. ‘The baby.’

  ‘You couldn’t care less about the baby.’

  ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I think you misunderstood what I said to you earlier. You probably think I’m trying to ease you out. But look at me. Look into my eyes and you can tell I’m not lying. I left this life years ago and I have no desire to return to it. I was just speaking to you woman to woman, writer to writer, but I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do. All I wanted you to know is that it never pays to ignore an open door. How you interpret that is up to you. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here for my own salvation. I came back to mend bridges.’

  ‘Like hell you did! You’ve never mended anything in your whole life. You came back to burn bridges. That’s all you know how to do.’

  Another shadow of fear passed across her face. But before I could put my hands on her throat, Max’s hand came down on my shoulder. ‘Darling, you must sit down. You’re taking things too personally. You’re cold,’ he said. ‘Bea, she’s shaking. Please find her a blanket.’

  Suddenly I had two blankets. Three blankets. Four. Suddenly they were all on their feet. ‘I’ll fetch her a hot drink,’ Bea was saying.

  And Rebecca was saying, ‘Why don’t I put the children to bed?’

  Ça c’est une très bonne idée,’ said Bea. ‘C’est vraiment aprés le – comment est-ce qu’on le dit en français? Le nine-o’clock watershed.’

  ‘I catch your drift, at any rate. I’ll get Danny to help me, shall I?’ Rebecca said.

  ‘Good thinking,’ said Bea. ‘And now for that hot drink.’ She rushed out of the room. Rebecca and the children and Jasper rushed out after her.

  ‘You poor, poor thing,’ Max said to me when they were gone. ‘How all that must have looked to you!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Rebecca said to me when she and the children came back into the room with an even more flushed Danny in tow. ‘And I really mean it, don’t worry.’ She knelt before me. ‘I tell you now for you to think about later. We’re not enemies. You can’t keep a woman down without staying down with her. Listen. We’re on the same side. Remember. I’m there for you. All you have to do is shout.’ She looked at me. ‘Do you know how to shout?’

  ‘Take your hands off me!’ I said, but too softly.

  She laughed, too cheerfully. She patted Max on the head and said, ‘So, Max. See you in hell.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘The first course of which should be on the table in three quarters of an hour.’

  ‘I said I’d read the children three stories each. If I’m not back by then, just start eating without me.’ And she herded the children out through the French doors.

  Bea was looking kindly when she returned, kindly in the way she looked when Danny told her about messages from the other side, or when the seamstress said Henry Morgue instead of Henry Moore.

  ‘You must, must, must forgive us,’ Bea said. ‘We’ve all been terribly, terribly naughty. We ought to have realised how it must have looked to you. You must be feeling dreadful. And this sort of thing is so much more difficult when you’re pregnant. But you mustn’t worry. We all understand, and I for one know how much restraint you exercised. I for one have done far, far worse. Do you know, I’ve broken glasses, smashed cars, thrown the offending parties out of taxis … Hell hath no fury, as they say.’

  It was then that it dawned on me. ‘You think I’m jealous, don’t you?’

  She smiled. ‘Of course you’re jealous.’

  ‘But I’m not. I’m -’ I tried to stand up but Max held me back.

  ‘You’ve got to sit still, dear. You’ve got to sit here and let me warm you up. You’ve got to think of the baby if not of yourself. You’re chilled to the bone.’

  ‘We’ll leave you alone, shall we?’ Bea suggested brightly.

  Crawley said, ‘I’ll be pushing off now. My dinner is allegedly in the oven and if I wait any longer it will be burned to a crisp.’

  ‘And I think we’d be better off moving the chess game into the next room,’ said Giles. They all skirted me on their way out as if I had a contagious disease.

  ‘Don’t mind them,’ Max whispered into my ear when they had left. ‘They don’t know any better.’ He tightened his grip on me. I struggled to get out of it. He tightened his grip even more. ‘They’re afraid of your artlessness,’ he persisted, ‘but that is what I value most in you. That is what makes me love you. That is why I consider myself so very lucky to have met you, why I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’ He squeezed me even tighter. ‘Why I want to change my life.’

  ‘The question is,’ I said, and I was aware that I was speaking to him for the first time ever in my own voice, ‘do I want to change it with you?’

  ‘Look,’ Max said, ‘I’ve been speaking to Giles. He wants me to take over the press. I could stop working in London then. You and I could work here, together. Make our own life together. Become a family, a real family, get it right.’

  ‘We’ll never be a real family. I can’t ever love your children enough. Do you want to know the truth, Max? I don’t even like them.’

  �
��But that’s because you haven’t had a chance to make them your own yet. And neither have I. In the end, that’s the only thing I feel guilty about. But here’s one last chance.’

  ‘I don’t know if I care enough. I’d only be pretending.’

  ‘I understand why you want to give up on me. But doesn’t it mean anything that I’m not giving up on you? Look where I am. I’m here, with you. I’m choosing you, not Rebecca, and don’t think for a moment that I won’t have to pay a high price. Nevertheless – to quote the great poetess herself – the door is open for once, and maybe for the last time. We mustn’t ignore it.’

  But now through this open door came an ashen Crawley.

  ‘They’re not there, Max.’

  ‘Who’s not there?’

  ‘Rebecca’s not there and, more to the point, the children aren’t there.’

  Max jumped to his feet and then paused to scratch his head. ‘Perhaps they’re at Danny’s?’

  ‘I checked Danny’s too. She’s not there, Max, and neither are Rebecca or the children. They’re gone, Max. She’s taken them.’

  He jumped to his feet. ‘But she can’t! She can’t have done!’ He rushed for the French doors. ‘You can’t have looked everywhere!’ he cried as he bounded across the lawn.

  I followed him as best I could, but soon lost him to the shadows. I caught up with Crawley, who was leaning against the tennis fence, looking back at the house.