White Bodies(39)

Afterwards, I sit at my table under the window and switch on the computer. While I’m waiting for it to boot up, I glance at my phone and see that I have a text from Tilda:

What the fuck is this crap in the Mail??? How could you? I despair.

I go to the Daily Mail’s website and read the top headline in the sidebar: “Tilda Farrow in Love.” The article is filled with insinuation—Tilda Farrow apparently is so in love with her new man, wealthy banker Felix Nordberg, that she has given up acting to devote herself to the relationship. Felix is well-known for his “meticulous attention to detail, planning and strategy.”

I feel weak, my thoughts going immediately to Wilf. How could I have been so stupid, so careless? Or, to see it another way, so trusting of someone I hardly know? I pace the room, wondering what to do, and then I phone Tilda again. She answers this time, saying, “You’re the only person, Callie. The only one that this shit could have come from. Who the fuck have you been speaking to?” I don’t want to tell her about Wilf, so I say, “I’m so sorry, really I am. I don’t know how it happened. I might have talked to a couple of people . . . maybe Daphne, maybe someone else.” I’m braced, ready for her to go ballistic at me and make threats, but instead she pauses, then changes her attitude completely, sounding upbeat and giggly. “Oh well, fuck it. Let’s ignore the bastards. What about my news? Isn’t it totally wonderful! Aren’t I the luckiest woman in the world?”

I’ve decided to go along with it all. To give Felix the benefit of the doubt, and in the most lively voice I can manage, I say, “Congratulations! The future Mrs. Nordberg . . . It sounds so grand! Can I be a bridesmaid?”

“No bridesmaids. None of that shit. Just a very small, simple, elegant wedding. It’s so exciting!”

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.