Keep You Close

by Lucie Whitehouse

  Rowan had looked at the anorexics, the last tiny woman so close to death, and thought about Cory’s portraits of his mother. Had Marianne talked to him about her work? Might he even have inspired her to track the progress of a disease like this? Maybe he had nothing to do with it: Mirror, Mirror, Jacqueline’s most successful book, discussed eating disorders, and Marianne was a feminist before she could spell the word. On the other hand, both she and Cory seemed to have been drawn to women in extremis.

  Had they been drawn to each other, too? She shouldn’t rule out that possibility.

  Turning to go, she’d switched off the lights but then, changing her mind, she’d walked over to the window. The moon was almost full and, when her eyes adapted, its milky glow showed her the garden quite clearly. Stillness, complete silence, as if she were the only person awake in the city. The flats in Benson Place were dark.

  She’d leaned forward until she could see the ruined grass. What happened, Mazz?

  Seconds later, she reared back. In the top flat opposite, the light had snapped on and she saw the same man silhouetted in the window. After a moment, she’d realised he couldn’t see her, the studio was dark, but how long had he been there? She hadn’t long turned the light off; had he seen it and come to the window? It was three o’clock in the morning.

  Downstairs, she’d sat on the edge of the bed. Who was he? What was he doing? And how had he done that, turned on the light and yet been standing there motionless?

  When the shock began to fade, she’d been a little ashamed of herself. This was a city – a city full of all kinds of highly intelligent, unconventional people. ‘Nutters, to be plain,’ said Marianne’s dry voice. Maybe the guy was an insomniac; maybe he just liked to work at night, when it was quiet.

  But if he was up at night, she’d thought suddenly, standing at his window like that, perhaps he’d seen Marianne go off the roof. Perhaps he’d seen what happened. But the surge of excitement fell away as quickly as it had mounted. No, he couldn’t have: as Turk said, the police weren’t idiots. They could see as clearly as she could that the flats looked on to the back of the house and they would have interviewed everyone who lived there.

  She needed to sleep, she’d told herself, but she’d still been awake when the first crack-throated birdsong started up outside. Again and again, she came back to Michael Cory and the longer her mind whirred, the more convinced she was that somehow he was involved. A girlfriend dead by suicide; Hanna Ferrara’s nervous breakdown. The words of the pianist repeated themselves: He wanted to know me, really know me, as if there was something inside me – an essence, a truth – that he could pull out.

  What if he had done that to Marianne? What if he’d got to her? What if he knew what she did?

  Rowan fell asleep properly as the train reached the outskirts of London, and the heavy drugged feeling lingered as she walked down the platform to the ticket barrier. Marianne described Paddington as a whale, its elaborate ironwork a giant ribcage, but to Rowan, the station was a great ravening Dickensian engine fuelled by people. Today, only the prospect of trying to park in Mayfair had persuaded her to take a train but in the Sixth Form, they’d loved it, coming to London to see exhibitions and bands or just to wander about. There hadn’t been any barriers then so they’d rarely bothered with tickets.

  She bought an espresso then made her way towards the mouth of the Underground. At the top of the steps, she felt her mobile vibrate in her pocket. A number she didn’t know. Stepping out of the stream of people, she answered it.

  ‘Rowan?’

  With the background noise, it was a second or two before she recognised his voice. ‘Adam.’

  ‘How are you? How’s everything at the house?’

  ‘Good. Yes, fine. I …’ She was drowned out by an announcement that the eleven o’clock for Bristol Temple Meads would depart from platform six.

  ‘You’re not in Oxford now?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Platform six. Oxford Station only has two.’

  ‘Oh – of course. No, I’m in London. Paddington. I’ve had to come down for a meeting with my supervisor.’

  ‘Ah. That’s why I was ringing. I need to get some paperwork from Dad’s desk and I wanted to let you know rather than barge in unannounced and give you a coronary.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘This evening. I’m at a thing in Birmingham, a conference, and I can drop in on my way back to Cambridge tonight.’

  ‘Of course – well, I mean, obviously, it’s your house.’ As she said it, she wondered if that was actually true. Who did own it? ‘Sorry, that sounded rude, didn’t it? What I meant was, I’ll be back by then and thanks for ringing to let me know. It’ll be nice to see you.’

  She thought she heard him laugh. ‘I’ll see you this evening,’ he said. ‘Probably about seven.’

  Queensway, Lancaster Gate – the Central Line clipped rapidly through its stations and she tried to concentrate. Adam had distracted her. She regretted having to tell him she was seeing her supervisor but the truth wouldn’t have done any good, either.

  Once, years ago, they’d kissed. The summer she left school, he’d come home from Cambridge for the long vacation. Seb had taken Jacqueline to Barcelona one weekend and they’d had a house party, Adam’s friends and theirs, standing room only in the sitting room and kitchen, the garden full of people messing about in the paddling pool or sitting round the fire basket Turk borrowed from his parents. Yesterday, in fact, she’d seen the wine stain she’d made on the dining-room carpet, faint but still there nearly fifteen years later.

  When she’d bumped into Adam on the landing, it had been after midnight. She’d spent most of the day getting the house ready but he said hello as if he hadn’t seen her for months. He was carrying a stack of CDs. They looked at each other and then he reached for her hand and they threaded a path through the people sitting on the stairs and went to his room. Blondie’s Atomic, playing on Jacqueline’s stereo downstairs, faded only a little when he closed the door. A warm breeze riffled the papers on the desk.

  Without saying anything, he’d pulled her towards him. Everyone smoked then, the house had been like a working-men’s club the next morning, but she’d smelled sunscreen and washing powder on his shirt. A gentle kiss first, barely a touch of the lips, but then he’d put his hands around her waist and kissed her as if he meant it.

  Sliding his hands to her hips, he lifted her backwards on to his desk. She’d pulled him closer and, at that moment, the door had burst open. Marianne.

  He’d stepped quickly away.

  ‘Shit.’ She looked at them both. ‘I’m so sorry, I had no idea you were … I just came to get some more music.’ She glanced at the CDs he’d dropped on the bed.

  ‘Mazz?’ Heavy footsteps on the stairs and Turk appeared in the doorway, too.

  Adam held out his hand and helped Rowan down. He gestured at his music collection. ‘Have a look, Pete. Take whatever you want.’

  She’d assumed they’d find each other again but somehow, they hadn’t. She couldn’t locate Adam and then he’d come looking for her just as the police arrived to shut them down. At five she’d fallen asleep on Jacqueline’s reading sofa and the next day, he’d given her just a single embarrassed smile. They’d never talked about it and it never happened again, though she’d thought about it for years afterwards.

  By then, she’d started to see Seb with adult eyes. The differences between them intrigued her, especially since, in some respects, Adam seemed more mature. He was quiet and calm where his father was extrovert, voluble. It made sense that Adam had become an academic but Seb must have struggled with the mandatory silence of libraries. She pictured him at the Bodleian, words building up inside, levels rising and rising until, sensing he couldn’t hold them much longer, he’d come spilling out onto the pavement to pour them into his mobile in a great bubbling stream. He was constantly on his phone, it was never out of his sight, and the fluency with which he talked made him a natural for his radi
o and TV work, interviews and commentary and the documentaries he made from time to time.

  When she was at college, he was interviewed on Parkinson. He was the first guest, just the opener for the musical act and the big Hollywood star, but from the TV room at Brasenose she’d watched him work his charm as she’d seen him do a hundred times at Fyfield Road. When he listened, he leaned forward as if he were paying attention with his entire body; his responses started out measured and carefully honest, respectful of the questions, but then lightened into self-deprecation and glinting humour. He wove back and forth, picking up themes, riffing on ideas, a conversational jazz musician.

  The Tube rattled into Marble Arch and a gang of jostling Italian teenagers filled the carriage. When had Rowan realised he wasn’t faithful to Jacqueline? Not long after she’d kissed Adam: she’d still been pretty young. ‘Naïve,’ Marianne’s voice corrected, and it was true she’d struggled to understand. She dealt in absolutes then: you either did something or you didn’t, loved someone or not. It was later that the greys began to shade in.

  She’d overheard Seb on the phone. They were lying out on the lawn with books but Marianne had fallen asleep, her cheek crushing the pages of her paperback. Maybe he’d thought they were both sleeping or maybe he’d just forgotten his study window was open but she’d heard the phone and then, unmistakable, the low, teasing, confidential tones of a man – a flirt – talking to someone he’d either slept with or was planning to, soon. At first she’d thought it was Jacqueline – she’d heard him talking to her like that as they’d come out of their bedroom one afternoon – but then he’d suggested supper that night in Faringford. Jacqueline was at a seminar in New York.

  Despite the sun flooding the garden, Rowan had gone cold. Her first impulse was to thank God Marianne was asleep but, sitting up, she’d looked at her friend’s exposed neck, the fine hairs escaping her ponytail, and had felt a wave of incredulous anger: how could he? He was gambling all their happiness, jeopardising everything. She was furious with him, as furious as if he were her own father. She had to tell Marianne, she decided. They had to stop him before Jacqueline found out.

  Hours later, when, freshly showered and shaved, Seb had left, her efforts to find a sensitive way to say it had failed and Rowan blurted: ‘I heard your dad on the phone. I think he’s having an affair.’ Her mouth went dry; she’d expected Marianne to cry or scream at her, kill the messenger, but instead she’d walked to the fridge and taken out a Coke.

  ‘I know.’

  Rowan had been momentarily lost for words.

  ‘It’s hard not to – I live with him.’ Marianne cracked the can open and took a sip. ‘He’s not subtle. I mean, he goes round with that look on his face, all smug and self-satisfied and conspiratorial, as if there’s something exciting going on and he wishes he could tell us about it but unfortunately …’

  Rowan had been engulfed by pain, a sense of pure betrayal: why hadn’t Marianne told her? If her father were being unfaithful, she’d have confided in her friend straight away.

  Marianne saw her expression. ‘Here.’ She pulled out a chair for Rowan then sat down next to her. ‘He does this,’ she said. ‘It’s not the first time.’

  ‘You’ve never told me.’ As if that were the issue.

  ‘I didn’t want you to know. I’m ashamed.’

  ‘In front of me?’ Another burst of pain. ‘You never have to feel ashamed in front of me.’

  Marianne covered her face with her hands. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  The fridge hummed into the silence.

  ‘How long’s it been going on?’

  ‘This one? Not long – a few weeks. In general, years. Not continuously but …’

  ‘We have to stop him, Mazz, before your mum finds out.’

  Marianne raised her head. ‘She knows.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She always does. She knows him better than anyone else.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘She says it’s about vanity – he needs it, them, for his ego.’

  Rowan hadn’t been able to contain a cry of disbelief. ‘Your mum’s not enough? She’s amazing. He should be counting his lucky stars she even deigns to …’

  ‘He is – he does. It’s … different.’

  ‘How?’ She’d sounded hostile now, as if it were Marianne’s fault.

  ‘Ro, come on, you know my parents. Can you imagine them apart? They need each other. They love each other.’

  ‘Then why would he … ?’

  ‘Like I said, ego. It’s the biggest cliché going: middle-aged man chases younger women to make sure he’s still got it, he can still get the ladies.’ Marianne gave a snort. ‘Why do you think he’s spent his whole professional life studying sex? Of course he’s an expert, he’s done enough research. But they burn out. A few weeks, a few months, and he gets bored. It never burns out with Mum. He never gets bored with her.’

  ‘And she puts up with it.’ Rowan’s voice was flat with betrayal but this time the betrayer was Jacqueline. She, with everything she wrote and argued and believed, let her husband cheat.

  Marianne went to the drawer where her mother, who’d been trying to give up since Rowan met her, kept her cigarettes. She got a saucer from the cupboard then lit two and handed one of them over.

  ‘It took me years to understand,’ she said, ‘but I think I get it now. Most of the time, she turns her back on it, waits for him to get bored, but – you really don’t want to think about this stuff when it comes to your parents but, hey, it’s not like I had a choice.’ She shrugged and took a puff. ‘I think there’s a bit of her that doesn’t mind. Maybe there’s something she even likes about it.’

  Rowan stared at her again.

  ‘Every time he ends one of these … flings, it’s an endorsement of their relationship, isn’t it? He chooses her over the other woman. He chooses her over and over again.’

  Twelve

  At the end of the room, a woman dressed in black sat at a long table. She looked up, said a curt hello then turned back to her laptop. Assessed and dismissed in a second, thought Rowan.

  She hadn’t recognised the name of the artist stencilled on the window but the paintings on show were still lifes, apparently traditional: a bowl of lemons and a pomegranate spilling blood-red seeds were the focal point of the first. From a distance, the surrounding canvas looked blank but as she got closer, she saw that a network of fine grey lines like map contours delineated a wine glass, the limp body of a rabbit and, next to it, a mobile phone and a set of keys with an electronic fob, as if it wasn’t a carefully composed still life but an oil-paint snapshot of someone’s hall table. What was the rabbit? Road-kill from the BMW? At closer range still, she noticed that each tiny area of canvas was numbered and at the bottom right, there was a guide. 2: Jaune Brillant; 3: Raw Umber Light. Fine art colour-by-numbers.

  The gallery was one long room with white walls and a dark polished-wood floor. The plate-glass frontage provided almost all the natural light; the only other window, high on the rear wall, was covered with vertical bars. Nonetheless, the space was bright, dozens of recessed bulbs in the high ceiling creating a shadowless light.

  She looked at the paintings one by one, working her way towards the desk. After a while, she felt the woman’s eyes on her, as if the length of time she’d lingered had marked her out as someone who was worthy of attention after all or – more likely – suspicion.

  ‘May I help you?’ The cool voice again.

  Rowan approached. ‘I hope so. I wondered if James Greenwood was in?’

  The woman stood, revealing a pair of black trousers as spotless and well tailored as her pin-tucked blouse. ‘Is he expecting you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you an artist? I’m afraid we don’t meet people on an ad hoc basis. We get a huge number of enquiries and …’

  ‘No, I’m not an artist. I’m an old friend of Marianne Glass.’

  The woman looked at her. ‘Let me call him,’ she said
after a moment. ‘He’s here today – at work – but he’s popped out. Can I tell him your name?’

  Rowan moved away while the woman rang Greenwood’s mobile and spoke to him in a low voice. ‘Rowan Winter. Yes.’ It was impossible to gauge what he was saying.

  ‘Rowan? He’s just walking back now. He’ll be here in five minutes.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She dawdled, feigning absorption in the paintings. The first one had been mildly amusing but after three or four, it was hard to see them as more than a gimmick. The door opened and a couple came in, the man about sixty, the woman perhaps thirty and dressed in tight indigo jeans, a long camel coat and heels that gave her a bird’s-eye view of her companion’s shiny pink cranium. She reached repeatedly for an iPhone in a diamanté case into which she spoke rapid-fire Russian. Niet, niet.

  When the street door opened again, it was Greenwood. He looked better than he had at the funeral but not much. His eyes were still hollow and grey-shadowed, and he seemed thinner, his coat at least a size too big.

  He recognised her and came directly over. ‘Rowan.’

  ‘Mr Greenwood, I’m so …’

  ‘James, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry just to turn up like this without ringing.’

  He shook his head, reflexive good manners.

  ‘I wondered if I could talk to you?’

  He glanced back at the desk and seemed to think. ‘Would you like some coffee?’ he asked. ‘There’s a place just around the corner.’

  He gave the woman – Cara – a message then ushered Rowan towards the door. He was someone brought up to know how to make any social situation comfortable, she thought, but this was testing even his limits. He was stiff with tension, straight-backed as a meerkat. They walked side by side, both trying to find something to say that wasn’t ludicrously trite. The weather, the cold – how British.