White Bodies(23)

It turns out that being with Belle isn’t difficult at all, and we chat as we walk the streets. Then we stop for lunch at Pizza Express, which is by the River Ouse, and while we eat our dough balls she tells me that Lavender has changed her plans. Instead of escaping to her mother’s house with the two children, they’re going to Belle’s flat. She’s bought inflatable mattresses and bedding from Argos, and treats for the children—a Nerf gun for Alfie and a jewelry-making kit for Saskia. I think about telling Belle that she’s gender stereotyping, and also that she has revealed the children’s real names, but I don’t. I just nod and ask if she’ll be able to cope with having them crowding out her flat. She says, “It will be fantastic having them around, and there’ll be masses to do—finding Lavender a new home, consulting lawyers to get a non-molestation order to keep X away, and a consent order to get him to pay her maintenance money.”

“What if X shows up at your flat?”

She puts her head to the side so that her long hair falls from behind her ear. “Luckily he never sees me and doesn’t even know my address, or my phone number, or anything. I’m not sure he even knows my surname. And Lavender will bring her laptop and her phone, so he can’t go snooping there.”

“But still. He’s violent.”

She leans in, and her little voice goes up a note. “I know. And he’s been making threats, literally about killing Lavender, and he puts his hands round her throat while he screams at her, and makes her choke.”

“Oh God . . . He’ll go crazy.”

Our pizzas arrive, and Belle starts cutting her margherita up rather intensely. I can tell she’s mulling something over. Then she lowers her voice to a hush:

“Actually Scarlet has been talking to me about that in the Zone. She has some radical ideas for a way to fight back. She’s trying to figure out the details. . . . Scarlet has asked me to help her, and I am. I want to play my part.”

This is a surprise. I didn’t know that Scarlet and Belle plotted together without including me. I raise my eyebrows, encouraging her to go on. But she retreats.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Callie, I shouldn’t really have said that. Scarlet told me to keep everything a secret.”

“Fuck Scarlet!”

Belle looks shocked.

“Sorry,” I say. “It’s just that there are so many examples of Scarlet being bossy.”

“It’s because she’s prey; she’s closer to the danger than us. Of course she has strong feelings.”

“I suppose.”

For a while we eat our pizzas in silence, looking out the window. Six girls with ponytails row down the river, their oars slicing the water so that they are gliding along at speed and for a moment it seems like, on the other side of the glass, there’s nothing wrong in the world. We carry on eating, not able to think of anything to say, until Belle asks me about Pink’s holiday in Martinique, and my opportunity to get into her flat.

My mouth’s full of pizza, but I speak anyway. “I’m not sure what I’ll find. But I’m hoping that something there will unlock things. Make it clear what’s going on.”

“You might find notes. Lavender’s husband is always leaving her notes giving her instructions. ‘Clean this.’ ‘Buy that.’ ‘Wash the bedsheets. . . .’?”

“I’m not sure that’s Felix’s style.”

“Felix! Callie, you shouldn’t . . .” She blinks unnaturally, and scratches her left hand and her arm.

“Oh crap. . . . It slipped out.”

“Oh well.”

After lunch she shows me around York; we visit several old churches and then the shops, stopping at Marks & Spencer to buy food for a picnic and a bottle of Frascati wine that’s on special offer. As the sun goes down, we make our way to the vigil by York Minster. It’s busy already, with people sitting in groups on the grass, some of them holding posters with Chloey’s face and the words End Male Violence and Enough Is Enough. Most of the crowd is young and dressed for an indie music festival or an environmental protest. Beside us, an older scrawny guy with a one-eyed dog and a guitar sits on a crate and sings “Hey Jude,” while a fair-haired girl with dreadlocks and piercings and a bare stomach drifts about handing out cupcakes. A breeze sends scraps of debris, mainly food wrappings, swirling around the ground, causing an herby fragrance to come and go. I turn to Belle:

“What do they think this is—a party?”

She ignores me and says, “Look, there’s a lovely spot.”

Belle has a fleece blanket in her jute bag. We set it down, then lay out our food: prawn cocktail sandwiches with salt-and-vinegar crisps and apples, and we open the wine and pour it into plastic cups, while the scrawny guy jumps on to the stage and tries to make everyone sing “We Will Overcome.” But the crowd isn’t enthusiastic, apart from the cupcake girl, so he returns to his crate and the dog, which is barking now and straining to be free of its string. Belle has brought magazines to read, and we flip through Grazia and Cosmopolitan until, just after seven, a vicar with straggly hair goes to the center of the stage, with a microphone.

“Friends! Thank you for coming out on this glorious summer evening to express your support and your love for Chloey Percival and the Percival family. Our thoughts and prayers are with them all.”