An Accusation: A Novel

by Wendy James

  “Enough of what?”

  “Of acting, partly. But mostly it was the whole scene. Being a celebrity.”

  “Isn’t that something most people dream about?”

  “Most people don’t experience it. It’s not what they imagine.”

  “Most people don’t give it up without a fight, so it must have some . . . consolations.”

  This was something that I’d spent a lot of time considering, so the answer came easily.

  “It wasn’t bad at all. It was the opposite, if anything. And it was highly addictive. It was like the public me pretty quickly began to feel like the only me—and eventually that began to feel pretty scary.”

  “Why scary?”

  “I think you lose your sense of being like everyone else. You don’t have the same limits. It’s hard to describe. Anyway, I decided that I wanted out of it before it . . . consumed me.”

  “Was it to do with your mother?”

  I laughed, but his question was surprisingly perceptive. “Aren’t most things? But yes, I suppose she was a sort of . . . cautionary tale. I guess her life might have been exciting on one level—but on every other it was completely fucked. And I really didn’t want to go there. I realized what I really wanted was what other people had—marriage, family, a job I enjoyed, enough money to have a decent life. I got some of them. And I still don’t regret getting out. Most of the time, anyway.”

  “Only most of the time?”

  “Well, sometimes I miss the food. They always fed us really well on set. I never had to cook.”

  “Actually, there’s another thing I don’t get. What’s with all this dutiful-daughter stuff? Are you some kind of saint?”

  “A saint?” This time my laughter had a brittle edge. “I don’t think so. Half the time I want to kill her.”

  “Then why take her on?”

  “I really don’t know. She’s on the list for the Franchise, but that could take years. Living with her was never meant to be a long-term thing.”

  “So, why don’t you find her a place elsewhere? It doesn’t have to be close to you, does it? It’s not like you owe her anything.”

  I didn’t have a rational answer to that. “I honestly don’t know, Chip. Sometimes I think I might be a bit mad.”

  He looked thoughtful. “Have you checked your palms lately?”

  “Checked my palms? Why?”

  “For stigmata. Or hair. Maybe both.”

  I turned the conversation back to Chip, asked if he’d had other relationships since his wife died. He’d had a few flings, he told me, and his late wife’s younger sister had tried to set him up with a few of her friends, but nothing ever worked out. “Kate thinks that I’m still mourning Gemma, and it’s true, I do miss her, but it’s not that. Or not just that,” he said. “The truth is, I just don’t have the energy to do it all again. I’m sure a shrink would say it’s fear of loss, and maybe that’s part of it, too—but I think maybe I’m lazy. What about you?”

  “Am I lazy? Or do I think you’re lazy?”

  “No. I mean what’s your relationship to . . . relationships? I know you said before that you weren’t ready, but . . . I thought maybe . . .” He faltered, suddenly awkward.

  The wine had loosened up more than my tongue. “What I think is that we’re two lonely people with nothing left to lose, and that you should probably stay the night.”

  He didn’t disagree.

  ABDUCTED: THE ELLIE CANNING STORY

  A documentary by HeldHostage Productions © 2019

  ELLIE CANNING: TRANSCRIPT #4

  She asked where I lived, and when I told her Manning, she laughed and said, what a crazy coincidence, she was actually heading up that way herself.

  So when she offered me a lift, I agreed. Okay, in retrospect it was dumb—what sort of an idiot accepts a lift with a stranger? But she seemed so genuine and kind, and so concerned about me spending the night at the station by myself . . .

  She said I should wait and finish what I was eating, and she’d get her car and come back for me in half an hour—she wanted to get a few things for the trip first.

  She picked me up and we drove for a while and chatted about things, school mostly, what subjects I was doing and that sort of thing. We’d been driving for an hour or so when she offered me a thermos of hot chocolate, told me to drink as much as I wanted, that it would warm me up.

  The next thing I remember was waking up in that room, tied to the bed.

  HONOR: MAY 2018

  The two women met whenever Honor was in town for the weekend and didn’t have other plans. Usually she went to Suzannah’s, but there had been drinks at the pub and the occasional meal out when Sally was available to stay with Mary. Dougal had even been persuaded to come with Honor to Suzannah’s on one of his increasingly rare weekends away with her. He had enjoyed the company, though he’d been bemused by Mary, who had insisted on calling him Hannibal throughout the evening and made frequent allusions to eating human remains. (Dougal was round-faced and balding, but that was his only resemblance to Anthony Hopkins.) And he’d been pleased to see Honor making new connections, he’d said. When she’d laughed, pointing out that making connections wasn’t something she had a problem with, surely, he’d looked at her curiously for a moment.

  “You’re right, of course,” he’d said. “But you know I worry about you, Honor. You don’t really have many friends, do you? Suzannah seems a bit more real than most of the people you know. And she doesn’t want anything from you.” He’d given her shoulders a friendly squeeze, removing any unintended sting from his words.

  She enjoyed the informal meals at Suzannah’s place the most. They could both relax, let their guard down, and talk without worrying about being overheard. It was completely unexpected, Suzannah confided, the way being a teacher in a small town was a bit like being in show business—you really couldn’t say or do anything in public. There was always likely to be someone listening in, taking notes. They talked mainly about their current lives, but they gradually learned about one another’s pasts, too. Honor had told Suzannah bits and pieces about her happy-enough country upbringing, her hard-fought-for career, her marriage . . . had even mentioned the once-heartbreaking fact of her infertility. She, in turn, had managed to build up a picture of the other woman’s history—Suzannah’s entry into and exit from the limelight, her motherless childhood, the sad failure of her marriage. There were certain things that Suzannah hadn’t mentioned, too, that Honor had read about online, but her desire to keep parts of her life private was something Honor respected, and understood.

  Honor had also come to enjoy Mary’s company—not when she was sitting blankly in front of the television, barely conscious of the world around her, but when she was in one of her manic, refractory moods or telling outrageous stories about her misspent youth. Honor was never sure whether she should believe Mary’s anecdotes about all the famous people she’d worked (and frequently slept) with in the music industry. Suzannah was no help; her mother’s life was a complete mystery.

  “She really could have been anywhere, doing anything. Mary tells a lot of stories and drops a lot of big names, but I don’t know how much of it is true. She says she lived in New York and Rome and Paris, but she could have been living in the next suburb for all I know. She doesn’t have anything from her past—no photos, not even a passport. I’ve done online searches, looked in rock histories, but never come up with anything. Maybe she didn’t use her real name. But who knows,” she added, “maybe some of what she says is true. Maybe she was bigger than we know. Then again, maybe it’s all bullshit.”

  “It’d be interesting to find out, don’t you think?” Honor said. “Maybe I can make some inquiries for you. I know a few people who were around back then—they might know something.”

  Suzannah dismissed the idea. “I’m not sure that I really want to know, to tell you the truth. I kinda like the mystery.”

  One late-autumn evening, Honor and Suzannah were sitting out on th
e veranda, drinking gin and tonic, as the sun sank slowly behind Mount Waltham, bathing the surrounding landscape in golden light. Mary, who had rather rudely rejected the lasagna that Honor provided, was inside watching back-to-back episodes of SpongeBob. They had been trading tales about a notoriously handsy film executive, long dead, they’d both had dealings with when they were startled by a faint rustling in the trees to the east of the farmhouse. They heard the crunch of footsteps across the gravel driveway before a figure moved out of the shadows and resolved into a familiar male form.

  Honor spoke first. “Chip Gascoyne. What’re you doing here?”

  “Saw the lights on, thought I’d drop in.” His voice was as laconic as ever. If he was surprised to see Honor, he didn’t show it.

  He loped up the veranda steps and walked toward them. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” He held out a bottle of red.

  Suzannah jumped up. “Not at all. We were just having an after-dinner drink. I’ll get some more glasses.” She seemed awkward, her speech slightly stilted. “Take a seat.”

  Chip sat down in a vacant chair and yawned.

  “Big day?” Honor asked.

  “Not really. Just long.” He yawned again and stretched his legs out in front of him.

  Honor broke the silence. “I didn’t realize you and Suzannah knew each other that well.”

  “We don’t. I just felt like some company, thought it might be time to do the neighborly thing. Wasn’t even sure there’d be anyone home.” He added casually, “Didn’t know you were coming out this weekend.”

  “I left a message—”

  Suzannah walked back out onto the veranda, carrying three wineglasses.

  “I was just telling Chip that I wasn’t planning to be here; it was all very last minute. I had a call from the Franchise this morning. They were worried about Dad—thought he’d had a stroke.” Honor sighed. “But it was a false alarm. Just the aftereffects of some nasty virus, apparently.”

  “Ah. Well, I guess that’s good news. And how’re things in the big smoke?”

  The night was pleasant, the conversation among the three of them comfortable, lighthearted. Mary made a brief appearance, requesting that Chips Rafferty show her his spurs. She demanded more ice cream and then disappeared inside again.

  Around ten, Honor called it a night. “I have to be back in Sydney early, so I’d better go get some beauty sleep.” She offered Chip a lift home.

  “Thanks, Hon. It’s not that I don’t trust your driving, although I don’t”—he smiled up at her—“but I might just wander back the way I came.” He picked up the wine bottle, tilting it toward the light. “And I’m not quite ready yet. There’s at least another glass; this is a good red, pity to waste it.”

  Suzannah walked Honor to her car. As soon as they were out of earshot, Honor clutched Suzannah’s arm. “You should be very careful with Chip,” she whispered, shocked by her own bluntness. “He’s a player. You’ll only get hurt.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me.” Suzannah sounded amused. “I’m not exactly an innocent.”

  Honor considered her for a long moment. “Okay. As long as you know what you’re getting yourself into.” She realized she sounded like a drunken maiden aunt but couldn’t help herself. “Just don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  SUZANNAH: MAY 2018

  Honor wasn’t the only one to warn me off Chip. Tania from the school office, whose unerring instinct for gossip was evenly matched by her compulsion to stick her nose in other people’s business, told me in no uncertain terms, and in the hearing of a couple of smirking colleagues and several round-eyed Year Seven girls, that Chip Gascoyne had a bit of a reputation and I should watch myself around him. This was right back at the beginning of first term, before I’d even met him, and I dismissed it with a laugh. She looked at me sternly. “You haven’t met him yet. I’ve known him all my life. He’s not a bad bloke, as blokes go. And he may have been a model husband when poor Gemma was alive, but now . . .” She slammed her fist down on the stapler.

  Mary, too, in one of her odd moments of (usually malicious) insight, had told me that I was an idiot to think a bloke like Chip would want a woman like me. “Why would he go for you? I mean, you’re not that bad for your age, but he could get someone a fair bit younger.” She had given me a critical once-over. “He might want kids, and you’re a bit past all that, aren’t you? A bit long in the tooth?”

  “I’m not actually that old, you know.” I couldn’t resist. “Not as old as you, anyway.”

  She ignored my adolescent jibe and continued, “Anyway, he’ll probably be the last fuck you’ll ever get, so you may as well make the most of it.”

  I’d confessed to an old friend from my early teaching days, Laura, that I’d met someone.

  “Is it serious?”

  “I don’t think so. No.”

  “You mean he’s not serious.”

  “No. It’s mutual. We’re having fun. He’s someone to talk to, but that’s it. I don’t want serious at this stage. Everything’s too complicated. I’ve got to sort out Mary first.”

  She’d sighed. “There’s never going to be a stage where it’s simple, Suze. Not at your age. You’ve got baggage. And he’s going to have baggage, too.”

  “He does. But it’s not . . . well, it’s not like mine.”

  “Well, duh.” She gave an exasperated sigh. “You need to protect yourself, Suze. And you know I don’t just mean use condoms.” We both laughed. “And if he’s not serious, you need to be extra careful. You really don’t want to get burned.”

  I didn’t want to get burned, but I didn’t want to run away from something that was proving to be far more pleasurable and far less complicated than I’d ever imagined. After that first dinner, Chip had begun calling in, uninvited but never unwelcome, once, twice, sometimes three times a week. If it was late, past Mary’s bedtime, he’d bring a bottle of wine to share; if Mary was still likely to be awake, he’d bring a tub of her favorite ice cream. Sometimes he’d even arrive in time to join in our nightly Trouble game. It was clear Mary enjoyed his company almost as much as I did. She’d swing between outrageous flirting and affecting a painful Victorian coyness, all giggles and sweetness, sometimes even to the point of letting him come close to (but never actually) winning. Occasionally she’d beg him to read to her—“You do it much better than Dame Judi here. She sounds like she’s got a peg on her nose”—and mostly he’d oblige.

  Most nights, once Mary was asleep, we’d be up late drinking and talking, and almost always Chip would end up staying over. Somehow, regardless of our virtuous intentions—the good sleep I desperately needed, his early-morning start—he never seemed to make it home. Because if our conversations were good, and they were, the sex was even better.

  ABDUCTED: THE ELLIE CANNING STORY

  A documentary by HeldHostage Productions © 2019

  ELLIE CANNING: TRANSCRIPT #5

  When I first woke up, I actually thought I was in hospital, that I must have been in an accident.

  It was just like one of those scenes from a movie. You know, where the heroine’s just out of surgery, and all she can see are bright lights and blurry figures leaning over her, with all the sound muffled as if it’s coming from far away. It took me ages to work out what was going on, where I was, what was happening to me. There was just, like, this blurry figure, and a voice murmuring, or maybe singing, and then it would go dark again.

  Sometime later—I really don’t know whether it was hours or days—I woke up a bit more, though I still felt pretty foggy and disoriented. I tried to get out of bed, but there was some sort of restraint around my waist—like, not tight or anything, but my movements were completely restricted. But I was so out of it that it didn’t really bother me. I just lay back down and drifted off again.

  When I was conscious enough to look around me, I saw that the room was sort of like a hospital room, only dingier. There was hardly any furniture—just the bed I was lying on, which ha
d this old metal headboard; there was a bedside cabinet, a chair beside the bed. There was a sliding door on one wall, and the main door, one of those old timber-paneled doors, on the wall across from me. It was kept closed. There were no windows; the only light was from a bare bulb dangling from a black cord. Oh, and there were these two paintings on the wall opposite me.

  It seemed like days before I actually saw anyone for real. I had vague memories of someone being there, but there never seemed to be anyone around when I was awake. I have no idea how I was being fed, or if I was being fed, but I had no consciousness of hunger, only sometimes my throat would be sore, and I would be very thirsty.

  I could never work out how much time was passing. It was like time had become something sort of meaningless, you know. Even when I thought I was awake, I was kind of, like, floating. I spent days just gazing at the pattern on my quilt. There were these tiny flowers all over it, and if I squeezed my eyes half-shut, they turned into fireworks. I used to play that childhood game, open-shut them, open-shut them, watching the colors burst and fade and burst and fade.

  HONOR: AUGUST 2018

  Honor took Ellie Canning on as a client just a few days after the story broke. She’d driven by the hospital earlier, seen the crowd outside, and she knew that this story was only going to get more intense and that her services—or the services of somebody like her—would be desperately needed.

  She’d known the officer in charge, Hugh Stratford, since childhood. They had moved in very different social circles even then, but he’d been very helpful when her father reversed into a bakery in Enfield Wash’s main street a few years earlier, and as was her practice, Honor had cultivated the connection. She could hear him sigh when her call was put through, initially irritated by the interruption, but he still gave her the information she needed.

  Yes, he’d told her reluctantly, the girl was still in hospital, and yes, she was up to talking to visitors, and yes, Honor was right—she probably could do with some help dealing with the media. Right now they couldn’t move without treading on the bastards, and the station and the hospital were being inundated with calls—it was almost impossible to get a line in. It would be helpful if they could direct them elsewhere. And as for the girl herself, the situation was stressing her out. It was all a bit much after everything else that had happened. Anyway, yeah, he’d tell the nursing unit manager, another old schoolmate, that Honor would be coming in to talk to her.