I wrote the standard reply, listing all the local help groups and social clubs, but it was plain to see that he didn’t want social clubs. He wanted Edith.
After that I packed it in for the day.
After rehearsals, Lily treated me to lunch at the Oak Bistro, and despite the oncoming winter the day was bright and crisp and even a little warm, as though it had wandered in lost from another season. Boldly, we decided to eat in the walled garden, in splendid isolation. I ordered the tiger prawn linguine; Lily, raging carnivore that she is, went for the chargrilled rib eye without comment or apology.
It’s one of the things I really love about her.
‘You should ask them for a sabbatical at that paper,’ said Lily as we waited for our food, crossing her legs before her and making her elaborate patent-leather high-heeled boots creak.
‘The Examiner? What? Why?’
‘Don’t you have enough on your plate?’
I shrugged and regarded the contents of my glass of Prosecco. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’
‘It’s a divorce, Margot, not a particularly large gas bill.’
‘Both are common.’
‘Oh, don’t do this,’ she said, tossing her long hair over her shoulder. This month, it was white-blonde with lavender streaks and mint-green tips.
‘Do what?’
‘Minimize everything. It’s nothing, it’s nothing, it’s nothing. All it does is piss people off because they know it’s not true and then it will make you sick again… don’t look at me like that.’
I kept looking at her, in that way I was not supposed to be looking at her.
‘Margot, I’m warning you…’
‘I’m still not seeing what good whining about my woes to the world will do.’ I put the glass down. ‘Besides, he dumped me for someone richer and prettier…’
‘And older.’
I managed a rueful smile. ‘It’s just too embarrassing to discuss in public. Better educated, too, which is the thing that stings most.’
‘Better educated.’ Lily snorted, her red lips contorted into a scowl. ‘She’s a professor in metallurgy. How’s that meant to make you a better person? How do you hold together a truly riveting dinner party with your anecdotes about smelting and mass-scale lead production?’
I burst out laughing.
‘It’s indium tin production,’ I corrected her. ‘They use it for touch-screens.’
‘There, see? It was so utterly fascinating the first time you told me that it stuck in my memory.’ She topped up her glass and mine. ‘Honestly, Margot, you’re worth ten of her. Ten of him, if we’re getting down to brass tacks. Greedy fucking chancer that he is.’
‘Lily…’
‘Well… it’s true.’ She reached into her bag, her heavy bangles clattering against one another. ‘Never mind him now. I’ve something to show you, I finished it this morning in rehearsals.’
She pulled out her sketchpad and handed it to me. It was a picture of our latest staff meeting, in two panels. The first was entitled ‘How We See Him’, and it was a caricature of Ben, the headmaster, leaning over his desk, shouting at us. His face was dark with rage. He sported a judge’s wig and full academic gown, and was carrying a huge paddle. The three of us – Lily, Estella, and I, sat in chairs opposite, only we were tiny little girls in pigtails and school uniforms, clearly terrified.
The next panel was called ‘How He Sees Us’, and this time, Ben was the tiny boy in school uniform, cowering in front of us. The three of us relaxed before him on what looked like thrones carved out of bones – she’d drawn us all as female monsters out of antiquity. Estella the harpy flexed a pair of wings and her birds’ talons crossed over each other at the ankles; Lily’s long hair was a cloud of hissing, multi-coloured snakes, and I sat on the end, leathery bat wings sprouting from my back, curved fangs gnashing against my bottom lip as I leaned forward, glaring at Ben, caressing the razor-wire whip in my clawed hands.
She had, in her light quick pencil strokes, captured me as one of the Erinyes: a Fury, an ancient Greek goddess tasked with hounding sinners to madness and death.
I laughed out loud.
‘I love it!’ I said. ‘It’s my new favourite portrait of me. Makes me look so much more approachable than the picture on the school website.’
She smiled, proud and pleased.
‘I thought you’d like it,’ she said. ‘And that whole chaotic…’
‘Chthonic…’
‘… Underworld goddess of vengeance and rage thing suits you.’ She took the pad off me and peeled the sheet off. ‘If you’d kept up that look at home, Eddy would never have dared to go elsewhere.’
I snorted out another horrified laugh. ‘You’re such a cow!’
‘I know,’ she replied with a kind of smug pride. ‘And it’s nice to be appreciated. Here,’ she was writing something along the bottom of the picture. ‘Take this. I drew it for you.’
Along the bottom she had penned, ‘Stay mad! Love, Lily.’
I was touched, suddenly terribly moved, and I realized I was in danger of bursting into tears. Because she was right – it had been tough, horribly tough, and humiliating and isolating and all the rest.
‘I don’t know what to say.’ I wiped at my eyes. ‘Thank you.’
She grinned. ‘Don’t say anything. Look, the food’s here. Let’s eat.’
Lily had to get back to her kids, and rather than return to my empty home I took the long route through Coe Fen, alongside the river, to get back to the Corn Exchange.
I struck off along the path through the marshes. I love it around here, especially in the autumn, when the tourists have eased off and the mist and the bowing shapes of the willows are at their most magical. I crunched through the wet, dead leaves. The path turned towards the Mill pub, and I followed it, enjoying the way the rain had made the place smell, while the river lapped softly beside me with its flotillas of parked punts, and the ducks struggled and bickered with one another. Somewhere a long way off a bonfire was burning, and the scent whipped briefly past my nose. It would be Bonfire Night soon, which pleased me, since I love fireworks. This year we would invite… but of course, I recalled, with a bewildered and sinking disappointment, we wouldn’t invite anyone over for Bonfire Night because Eddy didn’t live in the house any more and we were getting divorced.
I would have to get some treacle toffee together before then, I told myself. I’m a dab hand at the treacle toffee, me. In fact, I quite fancied some right now.
I had to pass by the Examiner offices to get to the sweet shop, and after briefly weighing up my alternatives, I went in.
There was a letter for me.
Dear Amy,
No one has come. I know it’s not your fault and that you are doing your best. It’s just that I didn’t tell you enough about how to find me. It’s hard, though, because I don’t know very much. Not only that but the things he told me might be wrong, or lies. I’m frightened that if I tell you something that’s wrong then you’ll never find me. That’s the thing that scares me most.
I don’t know much about where I am except that it is a cellar in a big old house. There is this kind of foam stuff attached to the walls so no one can hear me, but if I put my ear to the pipes I can hear things. Like, there are dogs that bark at night sometimes, though they sound far away.
I tried to peel a corner of the foam up, just a little, hoping he wouldn’t see, but he spotted it and went absolutely mental. He nailed it back down and said that if I did it again he’d hammer the nails into me next.
I believe him.
I can’t tell you anything else about which house I’m in, because he put a bag over my head while I was still in the car and I’ve never seen the outside of it. I don’t know anything else about it.