We talk about wedding venues and guest lists and other fripperies, then she’s called away by Felix to “enjoy my breakfast champagne!” and I imagine her skipping flirtatiously across the room to the kitchen area, then tiptoeing to kiss her fiancé’s handsome face.
I sit down again at the table, weary from my attempt to be supportive and joyful, and I see on my phone that there’s an email from Scarlet. So I turn to my laptop and read and as I do so, all my thoughts of Tilda and Felix’s wedding and of Wilf’s betrayal are obliterated. I reread the message, and Scarlet’s words sink slowly into my brain, and they are utterly devastating.
19
Belle.
Her real name is Bea Santos. I know that now. Her mother, Patricia, came from the Philippines in the 1980s to work in the NHS as a nurse, and Belle carried on the family tradition. I know also that she could tap-dance and sing, and liked to perform to “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’?” while wearing special white patent leather boots. I’ve learned that Belle was a proficient seamstress, excellent at blanket stitch and buttonholes and zips (she made her green dress). The other things I know are rather random—her fear of moths and of sticky labels; her poor exam record; her love for her childhood pet, a bulldog named Ed. I realize now that the sweet nervousness that I noticed in her was loved by her workmates and friends, and that a drawer in her bedroom contained more than a hundred thank-you cards and letters from her patients and their families.
I learn all this on a vile, rainy day when I travel again to York—this time for her funeral. That email from Scarlet had plunged me into a bleak new world, leading me to a news story on the BBC website. A man had broken into a flat in the Dringhouses area of York and had stabbed a woman named Tricia Mayhew along with her friend Bea Santos. Two small children were present but not physically harmed, a girl aged seven and a boy aged four. Tricia had survived, and was well enough to attend Belle’s funeral, and she sat at the back of the church, her face a mask, deadened by shock. According to the papers, her husband, Joe, was in police custody.
The service is a Catholic mass, with Latin and incense, and a choir sings unfamiliar hymns. Mainly I look down at my hands, but occasionally I glance up, and see the coffin, and I think, Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Two people speak about Belle: one, her boss at work, Kevin Attwood, and the other, someone who knew her from the church, a woman named Holly Gracie, who says she had known Bea since she was a little girl, and I’m aware that Bea’s mother is sitting in the front pew, protected by large men on either side. Patricia Santos is a tiny figure, perfectly still, wearing a black veil over her black hair, not standing up when everyone else does, or kneeling, just sitting there. And she doesn’t take Communion.
At the end, the congregation shuffles into a neighboring church hall, a modern building with a laminate floor and exposed bricks on the inside walls. I offer to help hand out sandwiches and refreshments, thinking that I’ll be able to overhear conversations and learn more about Belle. I move from group to group, and offer mini quiches to a short, stocky young man, who manages to smile sadly. I ask him, “How do you know Bea?” and he tells me that she had been his girlfriend in the years after they left St. Xavier’s School. His name is Charlie and he’s a paramedic, and he seems perfect for Belle, since his voice is unmistakably kind.
I move on, wandering about with my plates, and it occurs to me to look out for Scarlet. In our email exchanges, she said several times that this changes everything, that we’re entering a new phase, and, given the sense of urgency in her language, I was surprised when she said that she couldn’t attend Belle’s funeral. I suspect she’s lying—that she’s here, but that she doesn’t want me to know it. So I try to establish who all the young women are, and I find myself ruling people out on the basis of the way they look—too garish to be Scarlet, too scruffy, or too many piercings or too loud a voice. All my observations based entirely on a concocted idea of her, probably wrong. I take a plate of cucumber sandwiches and sit down in a corner, next to a refreshments table. But I’m there hardly five minutes when Tricia comes and sits beside me.
“Hello,” I say. “I’m Callie.”
She looks into my eyes, puzzled as though she doesn’t understand, her raw exhaustion at odds with her formal clothes and her neat chestnut bob. She says, “Oh yes . . . I remember. Bea described you to me. . . . One of the last conversations we had was about you. She loved it when you came to York.”
I think I might cry, and I sit still, brushing away crumbs of cucumber sandwich that have fallen onto my lap. I compose myself and ask Tricia what age she and Bea had been when they met.
“We were eight. It’s hard to believe that she was thirty-four, like me. She had a childlike quality, didn’t she? In her appearance, and her personality.”
“I loved her bee bag,” I say. “It was so sweet, like her.”
“It’s my fault she died.” Her words come out flatly, like she has no emotions left. “I shouldn’t have moved into her flat. . . . She discussed it with you, didn’t she? How I might escape?”
She sounds accusatory.
“She wanted to help.” I place my hand on her arm, just for a second. “Here . . .”
I reach into my bag, looking for a pen and a scrap of paper. “This is my address and phone number and email. If you need anything, I’d like to help.”
It seemed unlikely that she would follow up—but I’m trying to be more like Belle, kinder and helpful.
I realize also that Tricia is about to go through the horror of Joe’s trial, without her best friend beside her, giving her support. I want to say something reassuring, but nothing comes, and instead I just look at her, noticing that under her prim navy jacket her silk shirt is buttoned up on the wrong buttons. As she takes the paper from me, I notice too that her hands are bare: no rings or bracelets or varnish on her nails.
“Oh, look,” she says. And we both watch as Bea’s mother is led out of the room by a large man, sweaty in the face and wearing an ill-fitting suit.
“I didn’t talk to her.”
“Don’t worry . . .” Tricia is struggling to speak normally. “She can’t talk to anyone, or listen. She’s not taking it in. Send her a card and write about a lovely moment that you spent with Bea; that’s the thing to do. Here . . .” She takes the pen and writes down Mrs. Santos’s address and her own email. Handing it to me, she rises from her chair, picks up her bag and leaves—a ghost of a woman, weirdly dressed in executive clothes.
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