In the New Year Wilf grew a big ginger beard, I became a better cook, and we both resolved to get out of London more, planning to see Mum in Wales in the spring and then travel down to Cornwall to go surfing. Also we moved out of Curzon Street. All the costs of the flat had been paid by Tilda, direct debit, and for a while we were grateful to be able to live somewhere so central, I’d even say glamorous, for nothing. But I was always less comfortable there than Wilf was, seeing Felix everywhere—in the choice of furniture, of crockery, even of the bathroom taps. And my feelings about Felix had become horribly painful. I knew now that he wasn’t a monster after all. He just liked order in everything, was a run-of-the-mill control freak. In Curzon Street it was hard to suppress such thoughts, but we couldn’t go back to my flat, which had been let out to someone else, and I was pleased when, in January, Wilf and I viewed a one-bedroom first-floor apartment back in Willesden Green. The kitchen was tiny, and the bedroom filled up totally by the bed—but the sitting room was a decent size with a balcony and a view of a garden. When I stood out there I could hear the sound of trains.
Wilf resigned from Willesden Estates so that he could do gardens full-time. He worked longer hours than before, sometimes gardening from first light until after dark, and he would arrive home sweaty, dirty, exhausted and never quite free of the garden smell, even after he showered. He’d collapse onto the sofa with me, and we’d sit there with our chili con carne and beers watching I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here or The Great British Bake Off, making occasional comments about the contestants, or about the rain outside, which was going sideways. Not real conversations, just enough to feel companionable. I loved those evenings and I could see that he did too.
One time, I was lying with my legs across his, TV on, and I looked over, catching a slightly dazed expression on his face. I asked, “What are you thinking?” He smiled and said, “Never ask me that. Life’s better when you don’t have to spell it out.” In total agreement, I kissed him, thinking only for a second about my dossier and its horrific catalog of secrets; only for a second about Tilda and her extraordinary career in Hollywood. It ends here, I thought. This is my life now.
48
Everything has changed, because of the body of a girl floating, facedown, in a swimming pool in California. The image is so clear inside my head. I see those long thin arms outstretched, those parted fingers, and that bloated white skin taking on a tone of grayish-blue. I see too the long hair radiating out like a distorted halo, signifying something that I can’t articulate. Something toxic. She’s wearing that diaphanous golden dress, the one with the delicate straps that crisscross all the way down her back. It’s the dress that I tried on that day in Curzon Street, the one that I pulled off so quickly that I split the seam. Is it split now, I wonder, as it clings to her lifeless body and winds around her skinny legs?
When Felix died, the hotel manager said he was reminded of the painting of the death of Thomas Chatterton; and now I think of another painting—of Ophelia, a beautiful floating corpse, caressed by the softness of her dress, seeming as though she might be gently sleeping. But this Ophelia is inverted, her blank eyes gazing at the bottom of the pool. All I see is the back of her head, the radiating hair, and I wonder about her last thoughts. Was she regretful, or remorseful? It’s two weeks ago now, but I haven’t stopped thinking of the scene, turning it over in my mind, trying to make sense of it.
I slump in the back of the taxi that is taking me from Los Angeles airport to Tilda’s villa in the Hollywood Hills—to that cursed place, that pool. It’s my first visit to America, but it’s hard to be curious about my new surroundings. The road starts to twist and climb, and I’m dimly aware of the hazy sky, the strange, waxy vegetation, the low whitewashed buildings set back from the road. It’s merely an unfamiliar backdrop for my grim mission here.
“Come for a vacation?” says the driver.
“No—nothing like that.” He doesn’t hear, and in any case my mind is elsewhere—I’m thinking of the dossier, and the section that I wrote after my visits to Liam and to Felicity Shore.
Before I left London, I had opened it up and reread those final words one last time. I wanted every detail to be fresh in my mind when I arrived in America. I’ve brought the laptop with me, of course. It’s in the bee bag on my lap, and I hold it tight, clinging to my dreadful words, the loathsome truth that I put into a letter that wasn’t sent.
Dear Tilda,
I know now that you met her at drama school—your “girl crush,” the young woman who is Scarlet, Charlotte, or Lottie. And you made such a pretty couple: your willowy beauty, her dark intensity. I imagine that you were the sisters then, the twins. But afterwards, Charlotte failed at acting and modeling, while you picked up decent roles and were stunning in Rebecca. You had the beginnings of the glittering career that you so desired, while she was stuck in Manchester with horrible, sadistic Luke, occasionally picking up some role in a tiny theater production. What did you promise her, Tilda? A life together in LA, where she could make a fresh start?
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I want to go back to the beginning—and that night when you invited me to Curzon Street to meet Felix for the first time. I remember you in my flat, half out the door, saying, “How can you stand it? All those broken fingers tapping at the glass.” I should have realized that you weren’t really talking about the twigs tapping at my windows, you were thinking of the painful self-doubt in your head, the needles in your brain. But I wasn’t thinking deeply enough then, not like I am now, and I turned up at Curzon Street, bright and sunny, with my bottle of Strongbow—noting that Felix was in charge of everything—the wine, the kitchen. But I was wrong. I see that. You were in charge, not Felix—making us watch Strangers on a Train—the film that was an inspiration not just for your acting but also for a path in life that you had dreamed up, a path that involved me and Charlotte, and the death of Felix.