She’s right. Before Belle died, I was having doubts about Controlling Men; and since her death I’ve found it hard to connect with anything—even important things, like the split with Wilf, and Tilda’s wedding.
“Look at this.” She pulls up her sleeve and shows me three burns on her skinny forearm, raised circles of mottled red.
“And you have more on your back?”
“That’s right. Each week it gets worse—burns, kicks, punches. And if I run—what? I have to live in fear that he’ll follow me, that he’ll go mad like Joe Mayhew. And it’s no good thinking the police can protect you—they can’t.”
“I know . . .” Then: “My sister’s marrying Felix . . .” Scarlet’s burns are stoking up my paranoia.
“Fuck.”
“What are we going to do?” I watch a man and his small son throwing sticks for a golden retriever. “Really, Scarlet. You’ve been talking about taking control somehow . . . but I don’t know what you mean. It seems so impossible.”
The dog bounds up to our bench and sniffles at some crumbs by our feet. I stroke its fur, but Scarlet shivers and moves away until the dog runs back to the lawn and the sticks.
“I have an idea,” she says, sounding tentative, like she hasn’t made up her mind yet about revealing it to me.
“It’s going to freak you out, Callie. But do listen. Have a cool head . . . and think of the alternatives.”
“Tell me. . . .”
She leans forward, and a dark strand of hair falls out of her head scarf. She takes off her sunglasses and turns her face to mine, and I see how blue her eyes are. Deep set, with black lashes.
“I’ll get rid of Felix,” she says, “if you get rid of Luke. We’ll make a pact.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I think you do. I’m saying I’m prepared to destroy Felix, to save your sister—but you must do the same for me. Nobody will find out, because I’m unconnected to Felix, no motive, nothing—and you’re the same with Luke.”
Her voice has changed—she sounds resolute, like she’s telling me what to do, not asking me. And I fear her answer to my next question.
“What do you mean—destroy?”
“I mean kill in order to prevent a killing. Kill in order to save a life.”
I slump backwards, wanting to get my face away from hers.
“That’s insane. It’s a movie plot, not real life.”
“Think carefully . . . women die every week because they do nothing, because they let these fuckers take control. It doesn’t need to be like that, not if people like you and I are strong.” She lays her rough hand on my arm and lowers her voice. “You should know that Belle agreed with me, and look what she did for us.”
She doubles up to reach a leather bag that’s under the bench, and pulls it onto her lap.
“Here . . .”
I look inside and see several syringes and medical-looking boxes.
“I brought these to show you, so that you would know Belle was committed. She stole them from the hospital so that we could use them.”
“I don’t believe it. . . . I don’t believe that Belle would do that.”
“You have to—these drugs and these syringes are the proof. I have diamorphine here—if it’s injected in a vein, it will kill someone in minutes.”
I feel myself collapsing into the bench, battered by Scarlet’s words. She’s so extreme, so crazy—and yet, as I look at her hunched body, her cold gaze, I believe she’s serious.
“That’s not all, Callie . . . I know who Felix is. You’ve dropped enough hints and it’s an unusual name—and I read the papers.” She’s putting her book into her bag, preparing to leave, telling me that she’ll take care of Felix, and she’ll find a way of telling me about Luke, and how I can keep my part of the bargain. She turns to leave, and I say, “Wait, let me walk with you. . . .”
“No. That’s all I had to say—we don’t need to talk further, not now. But take this, and look after it.” She pulls a plastic bag out of her leather bag, and passes it to me, then she walks off, along past the benches and right, taking the path that goes towards the parking lot.
I look inside the bag, and see that she has given me diamorphine and three syringes. I take off my orange scarf and stuff it in the bee bag, feeling I’m discarding Scarlet along with it. She’s evidently mad, and I wonder whether I should go to the police. I wish that Belle was here so that I could seek her advice. Maybe she’d tell me to lighten up; that she hadn’t stolen drugs from the hospital; that Scarlet is a fantasist and the best course of action is simply to cut myself off from her. As I walk back down the hill and through the woods I feel suddenly lonely—Belle dead, Scarlet insane, Wilf gone—even Daphne is going away, off to Denmark.
When I reach the bus stop, I throw the drugs and syringes into a bin.
22
I call Tilda. I’m suppressing thoughts of needles and diamorphine and murder pacts; I’m also ignoring her hysterical letter to me (that’s how I’m thinking of it now).
For once, she answers her phone, but she sounds vague, as though I don’t have her full attention. As sincerely as I can manage, I ask her about her wedding preparations and say that I can’t wait to have Felix as a brother-in-law. I ask whether Mum’s attitude is softening (she’d been cold with Tilda, and asked her whether she “was sure” about Felix, and about getting married). Tilda informs me that, yes, “she’s coming to terms with it.”
“She’ll come round,” I say, “like I did.”
“Hang on a second.” I can tell by the muffled silence that she’s put her hand over the phone, and then she’s back on the line, sounding almost friendly.
“Lucas is here . . . Felix’s brother. He’s visiting from France. Would you like to come to Curzon Street for supper?”
“Absolutely!” The relief’s bursting out of me; it’s like Tilda’s decided to play along with my new approach. A life more ordinary.
? ? ?
I’ve been to a trendy shop in Hoxton and splurged, so I dress up in new black jeans and an apple-green silk top; I wear the suede boots again, and do smoky eyes and pale lipstick, and I set off. At Curzon Street it’s Lucas who answers the door, with an easy handshake and a kiss on the cheek.
“Hey,” he says. “How does it feel to be tying yourself to the Nordberg clan?”
His accent is broader, looser than Felix’s—he sounds properly American, sounding the r in Nordberg, whereas Felix always sounds a little Scandinavian, hard to place.
“You’re the first member of the clan who I’ve met, apart from Felix, obviously.” I hand over my Strongbow (it seems like he’s the host) and he says, “Bold choice,” and pours me a glass. I watch, assessing him. His hair’s blond, like Felix’s, but thicker and wavy, and his eyes are the same shade of metal gray. Generally, though, he’s unlike his brother, wearing artsy clothes, having a brash manner and sporting a light brown hipster beard.
Felix and Tilda are out, buying wine, and they return just as I’m saying to Lucas—“So you’re an architect, and you work in France?”