by Helen Smith
‘In the top drawer. With the pizza leaflets.’ Victoria watched while Piers rummaged for a bit and then pulled an old VHS tape out of the drawer and brought it over to the table. She said, ‘It was twenty years ago. I’d almost forgotten about it, but then it arrived in the post a week or so ago. The widow of my old tutor sent it to me. She’s getting on a bit, and she’s got to move into a care home. She found it when she was clearing out her house. There was a lovely note with it, saying, “I don’t blame you for what happened to Bill.”’
‘Is the note anything like these ones?’ asked Emily.
‘No, unfortunately. Or fortunately. She was a really nice woman.’
‘Why is it bad luck?’ Piers asked.
‘Well, David and I always believed that Bill – my old tutor – died because of it. And then we split up – though that’s a good thing, in hindsight. Or I’d never have met you. It just seemed like one thing after another. Though death is much worse, of course, than the breakup of a love affair between two drama students.’
‘He died because of your video?’ said Piers. ‘What on earth do you mean, Vee?’
‘He had to evaluate it for our degree. It really was the most awful, earnest piece of tosh. An interpretive dance piece – we were very proud of it, of course, at the time. But we showed it to a few of the other students, and they cracked up laughing at it. My friend Gloria had an asthma attack – they had to take her to the walk-in health clinic and put her on the nebulizer. Then poor old Bill had a heart attack and died while he was watching it. They found him sitting in his arm chair in front of the TV, with this awful rictus grin.’
‘Surely they didn’t mention the awful rictus grin in the coroner’s report?’ said Piers.
‘No. But that’s what we heard afterwards from his wife – his widow. Everyone teased us, all the other students. They said he died laughing. I don’t doubt it’s true. Honestly, I can’t bear to have it in the house. And now this business with the poison pen letters. What shall I do with the ghastly thing?’
‘There’s no such thing as bad luck brought by a video. Your tutor would have died anyway, Victoria, if he had a weak heart. You know that. You know what we ought to do? We’ll watch it now – prove there’s nothing in it.’
‘Is it very long?’ asked Emily. ‘The video?’
‘It’s VHS,’ said Victoria. ‘We haven’t got a machine that will play it in the house.’
‘Have you, Emily?’ asked Piers. He seemed ready for action.
Fortunately Emily only had a DVD player. But it seemed a good time to take her leave. ‘I have some errands to run in the morning,’ she said, meaning that she would like to stay in bed. ‘But I could be at Showstoppers by ten o’clock tomorrow to help out.’
‘That would be great!’ said Victoria. Emily relaxed a bit – actually it might be quite nice to work for Victoria for a while. She smiled. The fragrant, delicious, very cold, expensive white wine that Piers had dispensed for her in a heavy, expensive wine glass had worked its magic on her. But then Victoria delivered her punch line, ‘Unfortunately the children will start coming in around ten o’clock. It’s best if I introduce you to the staff before that. Shall we say eight thirty-ish?’
The next morning, as she was on her way to Showstoppers shortly before ten o’clock (with Piers’s help, she’d managed to talk Victoria into letting her have a later start), Emily saw her neighbour Dr. Muriel on the other side of the street. ‘Lovely day for a wedding!’ called Dr. Muriel, waving her stick in the air when she saw Emily. Dr. Muriel was a middle-aged feminist who lived alone. She was wearing a tweed skirt with a grass stain just above the hem, where she had knelt to weed her herbaceous border after cutting the lawn, going down on her right knee to do it like an old-fashioned suitor. Emily took a few moments to try to evaluate Dr. Muriel’s comment. Given her appearance and her independent nature, Emily thought it unlikely that Dr. Muriel was on her way to a take part in a ceremony that would seal her future to that of a man or woman. Emily herself wasn’t getting married. But it was a sunny day, and it was a Saturday, and someone, somewhere would be getting wed. Therefore she deduced that Dr. Muriel was just making a slightly obtuse remark that didn’t merit a reply. This was not unusual. Emily waved back as if to say, ‘Noted!’ and she did it with a smile on her face in case it was a joke, to show that she had got it and she was amused. Dr. Muriel was one of those people who could help to simplify an idea and provide an answer to a problem if one were needed – and if not, she could complicate everything needlessly. Emily wasn’t in the mood for complications or cryptic remarks. She went on her way.
But Dr. Muriel swooped across the road – a big, grey owl, Emily her helpless quarry. Why was everyone so friendly? You didn’t move to London to have a chat. You moved to London to get on in life and get invited to sophisticated parties – not that Emily had had much success with either, to date.
‘Terrible business!’ said Dr. Muriel to Emily.
‘Yes,’ said Emily, not quite sure what she was talking about.
‘You’re a bright girl. You’ll find something that’s right for you…’ Dr. Muriel saw that Emily had abandoned any attempt to pretend she understood the topic of conversation. She said, ‘Vicky told me you were out of work again.’
Emily said, ‘You should see the job adverts these days – it’s all about “passion” and “commitment” and “making a difference”. I’d just like to find an employer that will pay me a decent wage for doing a competent job. I don’t want to give up a piece of my soul.’
‘You rail against potential employers who treat their trivial business as though it were important, and yet you treat your important business – your life, your future – as though it were trivial. You most certainly do not just want to do “a competent job”, Emily Castles. You are an inquisitive, fair-minded, insightful young woman who is easily bored. It’s true that employers are continually letting you go, but it’s because you have let them go long before it ever comes to that. You could do worse than go and work for Vicky, m’dear. There are always interesting dynamics in a staffroom (I should know), and of course, there are all those pushy parents intent on polishing pebbles and producing diamonds in two lessons a week during term-times, for £20 a week. I think you’ll find it stimulating. I hope so, anyway.’
Emily would have liked to confide in Dr. Muriel about the blackmail and Victoria’s video. But she had only known this secret for less than a day, and she didn’t think it would be to her credit to spill it to the very next person she saw after Victoria told her about it. Instead she said, ‘So are you going to a wedding?’
‘Gracious, no! Weddings are awfully depressing, aren’t they? They do have a tendency to make one feel suicidal. No, indeed. This afternoon I shall be attending an event that always makes me feel positively murderous.’ And Dr. Muriel smiled wickedly and went on her way.
Showstoppers was in a red and yellow brick Edwardian building not far from the street where Emily lived. It would be pleasant to walk to work, she acknowledged – and it would be strange to be walking to school after all these years, even if it was to a performing arts school. Emily enjoyed a pleasant little frisson of nostalgia as she thought back to the days when she walked to school as a child in her blazer and grey and blue school uniform. It had always seemed sunny. For a moment she wondered whether this was a kind of false memory – the rosiness of an adult reflecting on her childhood – and then she realised that she probably only remembered sunny days walking to school because she would have got a lift when it was raining.
Victoria came out to greet her when she arrived at Showstoppers, gripping Emily by the shoulders and giving her a kiss on one cheek. She was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, with a hideous pewter-grey loose-knit shawl draped over her shoulders that made her look fragile and tragic, as though her husband had been lost at sea and she had grabbed just anything to wear to keep herself warm while she walked along the shoreline, waiting for news of him. ‘Hello, Ems,’ said Victor
ia. ‘Listen, you won’t tell anyone here that I killed a man?’
‘No,’ said Emily. ‘I won’t do that.’
The dance school had once been a local primary school, so it had several large, airy rooms with wooden floors and high ceilings, a performance space where assemblies had been held, and a suite of tiny toilets for small children, as well as standard-sized facilities. The offices were upstairs on the first floor. It had been a long time since Emily had been in a place like this. She had forgotten about the shiny thick linoleum on the stairs, the worn banisters, the scratched wooden floors in the classrooms. From downstairs there drifted the plangent sound of the piano being played by unknown hands, and over the music she heard the excited, almost-mocking sound of children’s laughter, and she was struck again with memories, as though the school was full of ghosts whispering about P.E. lessons and colouring-in.
Victoria opened the door to the office. ‘Let me introduce you girls to each other,’ she said in her weary, posh voice. ‘People say “girls” now, right? I’ve been “a woman” since I was eighteen, but that was in the eighties. I’ve lived so long, we’ve all become girls again. I would say it’s like a fabulous rejuvenation cream – except it only recategorizes you, it doesn’t remove your wrinkles.’
Emily smiled at the girl behind the desk and raised her eyebrows to signal that she was slightly baffled. Did Victoria always go on like this?
‘I’m Seema,’ said the girl behind the desk, ignoring Emily’s eyebrows. The trousers Seema were wearing were as white as her teeth, and her smile was as big as her hair, which had been backcombed and sprayed until it stood an inch above her scalp. She was plump and pretty. ‘I don’t mind being called a girl. They can chuck me in my grave when I’m ninety and say “here lies the old girl” and I won’t mind. But then I won’t mind about anythink much, will I, if I’m dead? You feeling old today, Victoria?’
‘I am a bit.’
‘Thought so. You only mention the nineteen eighties when you’re feeling old. Ready for your holiday after this? You can have a nice rest.’
‘Emily’s here to help out while I’m away.’
‘Yeah? Me and Emily’ll run the place smooth as ice cream and twice as sweet, Victoria.’
‘You are a darling, Seema. What would I do without you? It’s too, too stressful.’
‘About time you got some fresh air on them frown lines. Forget about this place next week, it’s in capable hands. You’ll come back and you’ll wonder why you don’t leave everythink to us every day.’
Seema was a white-trousered steamroller, trundling over all of Victoria’s anxieties – and some of her self-esteem – and crushing them all, cheerfully.
Victoria picked up a folder from Seema’s desk. She held it as far away from her face as she could to read it.
‘You want your glasses on, Victoria,’ said Seema.
‘Oh, I know. I’m too vain. I think I’d rather be fitted with extendable arms than wear my reading glasses. Is this the list of new clients? I’d like Emily to interview the parents, get a feel for how we do things.’
‘You want Emily to do the induction? What’s she gonna say if she don’t know the place?’
‘Not an induction exactly… asking questions: a screening process.’
‘They’re supposed to ask questions, and we’re supposed to have the answers. That’s how it works usually, innit?’
‘Oh, Seema. You are so terribly efficient,’ said Victoria. ‘But I think we should introduce a screening process, don’t you? Whittle out the undesirables.’
‘Undie-what? That’s not a word your accountant would understand, Victoria. The bills don’t pay themselves.’
‘Actually, I rather think they do, with these electronic systems and direct debit and whatnot.’
‘So long as they pay termly in advance, they’re desirable, ent they?’ Seema took the folder from Victoria and read aloud from it. ‘Dolly, Kayleigh, Maqsood, Robin, DeShawn. Four, five, six years old, these kids – what harm can they do?’
‘It’s not the children I wanted to screen, so much as the parents…’
‘I don’t want Emily turning away potential clients because she’s unfamiliar with how to run an establishment like this. No offence, Emily.’
How many jobs had Emily started where she had soon enough discovered that there was some kind of polite feud going on, with undercurrents of tension about who was really in charge and how things should be run? Too many; most of them; all of them. The thing about being here – or anywhere – on a temporary contract was that, ultimately, she didn’t care. She smiled at Seema: a genuine, warm smile. Seema was posturing. Emily wanted to let her know that she, Emily, wasn’t a threat.
‘No, of course,’ Victoria said, more vague than contrite. She picked up her handbag and felt around in it before bringing out something that Emily recognised: the video. ‘Can you put this somewhere safe for me? Lock it away?’ Victoria said to Seema.
‘Is it for the show?’ Seema said. ‘I’ll have to get Dizzy to bring the video cart down. I don’t know if we’ve even got the screen set up.’
‘Crikey, no! It’s just something that needs to be locked away, very carefully, out of sight. I don’t want it in the house. I can’t deal with it now. I’ll worry about it when I get back from holiday.’
‘Oh?’ said Seema. She looked as though she were about to burst out of her trousers with curiosity.
‘Dirty video, is it? Found Piers’s porn stash?’ The dreadlocked head of a smiling man who Emily hadn’t even noticed emerged with regal sedateness from behind Seema’s desk, where he had been working on a cluster of electrical plug sockets set into the floor in the office. He was in his forties, tiny strands of silver hair twisted in among the black, as though his locks were magnetic and had attracted a powdering of iron filings that had been spilled on the floor near where he had knelt to work. He held a screwdriver and wore very dark blue overalls that had a few daubs of paint on them. There was no doubt in Emily’s mind that he was the school’s handyman. In fact, he did a bit of everything – technician, electrician, carpenter, caretaker and occasional chauffeur. He was indispensable because of his willingness to turn his hand to anything, though he wasn’t especially skilled at any of them.
‘Nothing like that, Dizzy,’ Victoria said. ‘It’s a video I made when I was a student, with my boyfriend at the time, David Devereux. I don’t want anyone to see it.’
‘Oh!’ said Seema.
Dizzy said respectfully, ‘An acting video? My mistake, Victoria. Hello, Emily.’
Victoria said, ‘Dizzy, you’re not trying to fix the electrics yourself, are you? You need someone qualified.’
‘Mr. Barrymore’s helping me,’ said Dizzy.
‘Barry’s helping you?’ Victoria put her hands palm-out in front of her and made a ‘window-washing’ movement, fingers spread wide, as if trying to wipe away Dizzy’s words where they hung in the air between them both. ‘You are joking? Please don’t let him anywhere near it. He’s more likely to sabotage it than fix it. You know he wants me out of this place. I noticed the infant toilets didn’t get blocked up once when he was away for his fortnight in Menorca.’ She turned to Emily and said, ‘Mr. Barrymore, our horrible landlord, is trying to get me to give this place up so he can sell it to developers to be made into luxury flats.’
Emily said, ‘Hello, Dizzy.’
Seema said, ‘I’m studying for a City & Guilds in building maintenance. I’d take a look at the wiring myself but I’m too busy.’
‘Of course you are,’ Victoria said. ‘Right! I need to go and get changed. I need to rehearse the teachers’ skit with Graham, he’s over-creaking his Tin Man in my Wizard of Oz tap-dancing routine. He doesn’t even have to tap dance, just gyrate his hips a bit. Some of the children have already arrived, and the rest will be arriving any minute. We’ve got the patrons coming in to give prizes. They’ll need to be briefed. We’ve got the new parents coming; they’ll need to be interviewed. We’ve g
ot the current parents coming; they’ll need to be avoided, especially if their children aren’t being awarded prizes.’
There was suddenly a very unpleasant smell in the room. ‘Oh my goodness!’ said Victoria. ‘What’s that? Don’t tell me we’ve got a problem with the drains?’
A sweaty white man with a bald head edged into the room – apparently he had been standing in the doorway for a short while. The man was about fifty years old, and he was wearing an England football shirt, which was made of white synthetic material with three blue lions embroidered on the left breast. Emily didn’t recognise him and, given his age and physical condition, was inclined to disbelieve he played for the team. She took a dislike to him: she didn’t approve of snoops. ‘I think it’s Precious,’ the man said. ‘I’ve been feeding her extra sausages to get her to be good.’
‘Barry,’ Victoria said, ‘what on earth is Precious doing here?’
‘You said you needed a real dog to play Toto,’ Seema said. ‘Mr. Barrymore’s was the only one available at short notice. It seemed the best thing to do.’
‘No trouble at all,’ said Mr. Barrymore. ‘Specially as we’re only next door.’
Victoria walked around the desk behind Seema, and Emily followed her to see an extraordinarily ugly bulldog lying on a blanket. The dog sighed.
‘If you brought this malodorous animal onto the premises as your first step in an eviction plan, you’re more cunning than I thought,’ said Victoria, opening a window in the office.
Mr. Barrymore laughed appreciatively and for slightly too long, as though he had met his favourite TV comedienne by chance in the supermarket and she had said something funny about the vegetables in his shopping basket. He said, ‘There’s another place I want you to look at in Crystal Palace, Victoria. Very modern. Much better appointed than this. I don’t need Precious to persuade you. Soon as you see it, you’ll love it.’
Victoria said, ‘I’m going to get changed. Emily, do you know Morgana Blakely, the romance novelist?’
