‘Aren’t you head of South America now?’ she’d yelled at him from halfway up the stairs. ‘And you still earn nothing?’
‘How dare you?’ he’d growled and she’d watched him master the urge to come charging after her. ‘Everything I do is for you – all the travel, all the hours.’
She’d looked him in the eye. ‘Bullshit.’
By October, however, she’d been glad he’d said no. Strict rules determined when boarders could leave the school grounds; living at home, alone, she governed herself and could spend as much time at Fyfield Road as she wanted.
When James Greenwood told her he’d moved to Oxford so his daughter could live at home, she’d been jealous. It was ludicrous, she was thirty-two, but the contrast still hurt. What was it like to have a father who would uproot himself from London and commute for hours every day to give you a stable home life?
Inside the school the bell rang, the sound unchanged since their day. Lunchtime: 12.35. The scuffing stopped, and a minute later the girls filed off to the locker rooms, voices fading.
Bryony was eighteen, Turk said, she would leave school in the summer so, unless the rules were different now, she’d be allowed out for an hour at lunchtime. Sixth-formers would start coming through the side gate any minute.
Could Rowan really talk to her? Going to see Greenwood was one thing but waiting for his daughter outside school was a huge risk. Bryony was bound to tell him and if his antennae weren’t up already, they surely would be then. She had to be so careful that, in trying to keep Marianne’s secret, she didn’t alert people to its existence. On the other hand, if they had been as close as Turk said, Bryony might know something valuable.
She crossed the road and hovered near the laurel bush where the Cherwell boys used to wait for them. Jacqueline’s bag was heavy so Rowan took it off her shoulder and propped it carefully on top of the wall. Over the road, the heavy bolt was drawn and the side gate opened, emitting three girls in the Sixth Form’s version of uniform: pleated navy skirts that took a liberal interpretation of ‘on the knee’, oversized navy jumpers and the grey school blazer. Patent loafers and scarves so huge they were better suited for the gulag than a trip to Starbucks. All three clutched mobiles between fingers that barely protruded beyond their cuffs. Rowan felt a burst of nostalgia. Things had been so much simpler then, pure potential, nothing screwed up. Nobody dead.
Another pair came out, deep in conversation, one with a messy blonde topknot, the other with a dark one. The blonde girl took a pair of sunglasses out of her blazer pocket and put them on. Would she recognise Bryony? Rowan wondered. She called up a mental picture of her at the funeral and remembered her fine features and high forehead. Her hair was a honey shade of blonde, golden, not pale like that.
The gate opened again and again, barely closing between the little groups now, and she remembered the urgency of making the most of the hour outside school walls. Pairs and trios, a couple of fours. No one came out alone, it wasn’t allowed. She used to think it was funny, the school’s excessive caution regarding her safety for that one hour of broad daylight when, at night, she’d been home alone for years. A few girls glanced over, trained to be suspicious of anyone hanging round, but they saw a woman and looked away.
Her phone began to ring and she took it out of her pocket. Another unknown number. Casting a brief smile at a pair of girls who were looking over, she answered.
‘Is this Rowan Winter?’
She barely had time to register the voice – male, an American accent – before he said, ‘This is Michael Cory. I’m sorry to call out of the blue. James Greenwood gave me your number – I’m a friend of Marianne’s.’
She spun around, turning her back on the school. ‘Yes, this is Rowan.’ She’d given Greenwood her number yesterday; Cory must have spoken to him since then.
‘I’m a painter,’ he said, as if she wouldn’t know. False modesty? Yes: if they’d talked about her, Greenwood must have mentioned she’d asked about Cory. ‘I was painting Marianne’s portrait.’
‘James told me. I saw him yesterday.’ On the other side of the wall, a spider negotiated the frosty spokes of a web constructed between the branches of a rosebush.
‘He said. I wondered, could I come talk to you? I want to finish the portrait – more than ever now – and James said you knew Marianne very well.’
‘As teenagers, a long time ago. We met when she moved here from London.’
‘Right. I’d love to talk to you about her. It’s very important to me, for my work, to understand the person I’m painting. Now she’s gone, I’m having to find other ways. Would it be possible?’
‘Yes,’ she said, mind whirling. ‘I think so.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow?’ It seemed very soon.