The lights of the Mary-Lou came on, and bats flitted over the water in their beam. She wanted to talk to Dr Bywater. She needed the therapy. Quite clearly, and shamefully. She needed to explain to someone. Her mind turned to Aranxto, who lived five minutes away, though his motives would be mixed with Schadenfreude. He was at his best when she was down: brotherly, and in control of her. She didn’t always trust him.
She rang him.
‘Taking a dump,’ he said. ‘Call me back in five.’
‘Classic.’
A longboat travelled almost silently along that stretch of Regent’s Canal, and Beth waved to its driver with some vague clasping at humanity. She sank her head, ignored the cigarette beggar Aranxto had nicknamed Philter as he crept past, and saw moons against the pressure of her knees, recalling all the unfortunates Aranxto had appropriated to provide him with the same pleasure as his net curtains and claimed taste for Special Brew as he fraternised with them in his kitchen when he wanted to escape the art world. His games when he was bored – ruses and tricks that amounted to meddling in people’s lives – were becoming more elaborate the more effortlessly successful he became, a habit that both amused and alarmed Beth, who had once given him a large wooden spoon to represent his stirring. Sol had always disapproved of Aranxto’s inconsistent patronage of outcasts. A thought about Fern suddenly occurred to Beth, but Aranxto was jumping down the bridge steps.
‘You fruitcake,’ he said, leaning over to give Beth a string of kisses on the cheek, their warmth then cooling rapidly on her skin. ‘What are you doing in this fucking freeze?’
‘I know,’ said Beth.
‘Having a Bethy crisis?’
‘Worse.’
‘Are you at—’
‘No, not my period, my hormones, my sex life, my – womb,’ she said in a drone.
He lowered himself beside her on the earth in his expensive trousers. He pulled her hard towards him, as she wanted him to; she curved into his torso, his body aftershave-spiced and so much taller than Sol’s, and they sat shivering in silence, their breaths merged in air-mushrooms.
‘What is it, darling?’
‘I – I can’t sleep for worrying. Fern. She’s always late. A boy seems to be messaging her. Or what if he’s older? Something is distracting her. In fact – perhaps you know something?’
‘Me?’ said Aranxto in the falsetto that had broken into his voice since his teens.
‘Well?’
‘Why should I know anything about her?’
‘I saw that you text – well, message – her.’
He paused. ‘You spy on her phone?’
‘No. I saw when I was with her.’
‘She was my god-daughter last time I was aware,’ he said airily. ‘I don’t know a thing, babe. What do these girls get up to? Do they use tongues yet?’
‘Aranxto! God. Please. You’d tell me if she’s telling you anything about a boy. Right? Entirely between us.’
‘Of course I would,’ he said in more serious tones. ‘Of course.’
‘OK. Thank you. She’s really pulling away. From me. Do people always have to leave me? Aranxto?’ She blinked, hard. ‘No, that sounds self-pitying. But Sol’s … I can’t seem to work. You saw my mum. Everything. I seem to hate myself. Ignore me. It’s mad.’
‘You just have these bouts of self-doubt every now and then. You always have had.’
‘Yes. But it’s not just self-doubt.’
‘But it is, babe. You’re brilliant. You don’t always do the best by yourself, that’s all. You need to get the fuck on with it. You’re so talented. Come on,’ he said, and she let herself be enveloped by his strength. ‘What’s this about?’
She shook her head, pinned against him. ‘I was always. Pretty useless,’ she said. ‘At heart. Not to be relied upon. You know that more than anyone.’
‘You blame yourself for things you shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘None of that was your fault. You’re a good person, Bethy-Boop.’
She shook her head again.
‘I need proper help, I think.’
‘Bullshit. Look – loosen up. I’ll get you drunk. Get you a boy to shag. Take you to Barcelona. How about a taste of Dorian again? Go on. You know you want it.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I’m seeing a therapist.’ She coughed.
‘Ha! You. My cynical Bethy. Is he a beardy in terrible shoes? Or a tasty doctor-type and you fancy him already?’
‘She’s a woman.’
‘Oh. Well I hope she’s hot shit, to deal with your verbals.’
‘I think she is. I’m beginning to think she really is. I wish I could talk to her right now.’ She hesitated. ‘I really do.’
He glanced at her. ‘You a bit intrigued, babe?’
‘Well, yes, totally, because they don’t give anything away.’
‘Hem. Do I sniff a fleeting homoerotic … throb?’
‘Er, no. It’s impossible to even know her, let alone …’
‘You getting it from that grumpy American you live with?’ He started cracking his knuckles.
‘You getting it from every grovelling post-grad you meet?’ she said.
‘Got a smile out of you! I’m better than that head-shrinker chick.’
‘I’m sure you are. OK, you can fuck off now. I hate it when you start to get twitchy about leaving. I’ve got to get some Chinese anyway. Thank you – thank you – for coming.’
***
When Aranxto had gone, Beth looked through the darkness of the canal towards King’s Cross, trying to detect the tops of the cranes as the development spread its tendrils ever further, wrapping warehouses in scaffolding covers and throwing down girders. Building work was taking place at the Lock in the other direction as well, so she felt encroached upon in her damp, gnatty run. Again, she wanted to talk to Tamara Bywater. What would she be like, away from the hospital? She would google her more thoroughly later.
She turned to that tumbledown haven across the water, her home on Little Canal Street. House of Cardigans was Sol’s current name for it, in reference to the excess of woolly clothing she possessed and their series addictions, often several years behind their broadcast dates. Its roof and higher floors were visible above the trees, the clambering narrow building that defied estate agents’ dictates and inspired surveyors’ head-shaking, and it brought her comfort. She loved its tiny creaking bedrooms leading into staircases and finally a ladder, its light pipe and miniature conservatory, crammed extensions, its ziggurat of terrace and balcony, and its dance of dazzle and old panel, odd fittings, shelves. Laurie’s blue bulb flicked on in the loft room, and she smiled. The ground floor reminded her of Dickens on foggy days; at other times of Disney’s dwarves’ kitchen; of the Ladybird Elves and the Shoemaker. Higher up, its rooms quivered with water and sky, and there you could live in the clouds and the treetops, hear the rain on the roof. She sometimes put her head out of a window there, trying to imbibe the elements, to fly away to a new land, and sex, and extremes: a wilder life.
***
As Fern pulled away, her phone silently vibrating, and No Caller ID failed to call, Beth was becoming more reliant on the therapist’s sessions. She googled her again yet discovered nothing personal at all nestling among the academic papers, the employment histories, the records of conferences attended and occasional quotes given. Only Dr Bywater, she thought, could understand her.
Every night was a land she entered. She approached it knowing she would travel, temporarily eased, through the comfort of darkness before something rocky and acidic slowly surfaced, pressing against her until it woke her in the hours before dawn. The acid seemed to soak into her brain and pump out self-disgust. Bright images rained down on her: her mother turning round to wave at her in her bedroom; her mother’s hospital bed; the window by Sefton Park. She had turned thirteen three weeks before her mother left, and it was the not-knowing Beth couldn’t bear. The cowish ignorance of what was to come.
Mortgage calculations and Sol’s alimony
payments scrawled through her mind at night, always on graph paper, in bright blue ink. Sometimes Sol heard her involuntary whimpers and bed-turnings, and rubbed her head until she slid back into sleep. She often slept for an hour or so once the birds had woken, then rose with Fern in the exhausted darkness, as though a caul were over her, picturing the tiredness as the skin of boiled milk.
‘This is activating a core schema,’ Dr Bywater said. ‘It triggers that old fear of abandonment. But look around you. You are loved.’
The session was now the hour of salvation, the soft-voiced cure in which Beth was taken apart and rebuilt, and she emerged upright to face the newly unearthed demons.
‘Do you think,’ Beth asked her old friend Ellie, ‘it’s possible that my shrink, like – I sound like Fern – kind of approves of me?’
‘I’m sure,’ said Ellie. ‘Why wouldn’t she?’
‘Yes, but she’s so strictly professional, it’s not as if she ever says anything, indicates anything in any way. It’s just this feeling …’
‘Well. You always were either a rebel or a bit of a star,’ said Ellie.
Beth laughed. ‘You mean, either trouble or a teacher’s pet?’ she said, and they were back to where they had always been, arrested in a version of their teenage alliance with its shorthand and levity.
‘I love you, my Ellie P,’ said Beth.
‘I love you, naughty teacher’s pet.’
‘Can you be both?’
‘I think you are, is the point.’
‘Is the point?’
‘So perhaps you should watch out.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know what I mean. Just that.’
SEVEN
‘I’ll bet there’s a boy in the frame,’ said Sol, at home before setting out on another job. He walked out of the room, his arms swinging from square shoulders.
‘Uh?’ said Beth, barely hearing what he said. She was looking at the post, which contained some worksheets with printouts about perfectionism and mindfulness from Dr Tamara Bywater that she was meant to use in the week. Beth noted the signature on the hospital comp slip.
‘You didn’t hear me, did you?’ said Sol.
‘What?’ called Beth.
‘It’s a boy,’ he said, putting his head round the door.
‘Well, yes! Duh. This is part of what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ said Beth, her voice uncomfortably shrill.
‘When girls entered Laurieworld, he became a lying jerk for a while. Quit the stressing.’
‘You go more American when you’re secretly worried. Where is she, anyway?’
Beth looked out of the window at the shadows on the towpath. Sol went to take a shower.
‘Where is she?’ she called to him after ten minutes. ‘She had Drama, but that’s all.’
She rang Fern’s mobile, the pause that preceded the voicemail taunting her with frustration, and she stood by the window at the back of the house, willing the sight of that fast-stepped walk in trainers, a rucksack draped with hair, but the water and trees were blurring in darkness.
‘It’s fine,’ he said, as she knew he would; as she wanted him to, and didn’t want him to.
‘It’s five fifteen. Just past. Ten to is the latest she gets here after after-school clubs. Usually.’
‘She sometimes talks to her friends.’
‘I suppose,’ she said. ‘Yes.’
‘Don’t stress yet,’ he said, but there was a catch of tension in his voice.
She walked over to the window again, and the sky’s grey glare had dulled.
‘It’ll be dark soon.’
She rang Fern’s school, but its voicemail came on after several rings to inform her of office hours.
The trees now crouched shadows over the canal. The pathway was emptying, the Mary-Lou unlit, no sirens or bicycle bells rising above the undulating drone of the Camden traffic.
Dr Bywater, she wanted to say.
‘She’s really late,’ she said. She tried Fern’s mobile again, and a friend’s, then a different one, and their parents, who knew nothing. She sent another text.
‘If she’s not here in half an hour, we call the police,’ said Sol.
‘Half an hour!’
‘Twenty minutes then.’
‘It’s dark.’
‘Right,’ said Sol, and she could hear a hesitation for the first time that tightened her gut.
‘You’re worried now, aren’t you?’ said Beth. She opened the window to regulate her breathing. The sweet mould of cannabis hung in the air. Dr Bywater, she thought. Dr Bywater made everything all right. Dr Bywater would save Fern, would save her, would put the worries into perspective.
Only the harmless local alcoholic Philter was out there now, a couple of cyclists speeding through the dusk. She called Fern again, then another friend, who didn’t answer. She left a further message.
‘I told you we should be worried,’ said Beth.
Sol said nothing. He put his palms up.
‘That is maddening,’ she said. ‘Don’t do that! She keeps getting messages, Sol. That she’s all secretive about. I bloody told you that. Say something!’
‘Yes. A boy,’ he said calmly.
‘Exactly! You just think this is some crush. She’s too distracted, too late, too secretive. Don’t you realise? She’s thirteen, not fifteen.’
She tried Fern’s number again, and again, the only action she could take. She started to pray in haphazard beggings to a god she was hazy about.
‘Let’s call the police,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said, tears beginning to run over her face in silence. ‘Hurry.’
He rang as she paced between the two sides of the house, listening. Sol was patiently giving out details. So many stupid details. She nudged him and he looked up. ‘Faster,’ she muttered as he repeated their address with his usual clarity.
The doorbell rang. Sol paused. ‘Yes. Please. Fern,’ Beth yelped uselessly, storming down the stairs, but, oh God, perhaps it was the police, the other police, the ones who didn’t know about the ones being called now, and were here reporting an accident. She made a primitive animal sound as she reached the door.
‘Mum,’ said Fern.
The darkness seemed to bend in front of Beth’s eyes.
‘Fern, Fern, oh God. Thank you,’ she said, clutching her with an urgency that made Fern cry out in protest. ‘Sol,’ she called up the stairs, burping with a sob as she shouted. ‘She’s here! Don’t you have your key?’ she said to Fern.
‘Uh, yes, sorry,’ said Fern.
‘Thank you God,’ said Beth. She was laughing, and crying, and laughing, and she pulled Fern to her again, ignoring the girl behind her. ‘Hello,’ she said, beginning to close the door. ‘Bye.’
‘Mum!’ said Fern. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Where were you?’ said Beth. ‘Fern, do you realise? My God.’
‘Mum! Why are you all red? What’s the matter?’ said Fern, but a wave of self-consciousness passed over her face.
‘You are over an hour late from school. Nearly an hour and twenty minutes! It’s dark. Your phone wasn’t on. You – you—’ said Beth, her voice rising then cracking.
‘God, Mum. Calm! I’m here.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘Jemma’s here.’
‘Who?’
‘Mum! Here. Jemma. You haven’t met yet, right?’
She stared through the gloom at the child, a plumper, blonder version of Fern: odd twins, with their denim shorts over thick tights, their trainers and unstructured falls of hair. She could hear Sol terminating his phone call, ever steady and polite.
‘Where did she – you – go?’ she snapped.
‘Cool down, Mum,’ said Fern.
‘Fern—’
‘That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.’
‘Come straight upstairs.’
Fern rolled her eyes and shrugged to her friend, who backed away.
‘What were you d
oing?’ said Beth, holding Fern again, kissing her. Fern pulled the Tudor mask she was carrying protectively away from her. Sol leaped towards them, two steps at a time.
There was the slightest pause. ‘Talking to Jemma.’
‘Why would you take that long? Dad’s been on the phone to the police.’
‘Sorry,’ Fern muttered, blushing. Awkwardness washed over her face.
‘You must have done something else.’
‘Talked to my friends,’ said Fern, glancing to one side.
‘Who?’
There was a pause. ‘Jemma. And—’
‘And?’
Fern now stared straight at Beth. She started counting off her usual school friends, mock-tolerantly, on her fingers, but Beth interrupted her.
‘Tell me where you were,’ she said.
‘I told you,’ Fern said, shook her off and climbed the stairs, her mismatched fluorescent laces shining in the gloom, the Tudor mask blank-eyed.
***
‘She has a love bite,’ said Beth to Dr Bywater that Tuesday. ‘I think. I saw it the following morning. She says she doesn’t.’
She put her head in her hands. The rows with Sol of the preceding days, the grounding of Fern to volleys of protest, the logistics of supervision, washed over her, the exhaustion only hitting now.
‘Our arguments follow an almost identical course,’ she said.
‘What did he say about the love bite?’
‘He didn’t believe me. As in, he thought my fevered imagination was seeing things. She was wearing a high neck by the time he saw her, and the next day it had disappeared – she’d used foundation on it, I’m sure.’
‘There’s a trust issue here.’
‘There really is. I wanted to call you,’ said Beth. ‘I wanted to call you the evening she was so late, I mean. When I was so scared.’ She blushed. ‘That’s strange.’
‘Not really,’ said Dr Bywater. ‘I’m here to look after you. We work well together as therapist and patient.’
‘Oh—’ Beth’s mouth opened.
The changeable pewter of Dr Bywater’s irises appeared lighter. After the wincing illumination of the corridors, her consulting room resembled a cinema with its low soupy lighting. She wore a black skirt and a black silk blouse, thin black tights and flat black shoes, the blackness relieved only by small silver earrings. Her nails were long and polished, lightly pink yet transparent, as though she had had a French manicure.
The Seduction Page 5
