White Bodies(45)

“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?”

Felix kisses me and says, “You’re so stylish these days,” making me feel like his special girl, just as he’d done at the Wolseley. Tilda does her usual thing—draping herself over the sofa, hugging a pink cushion (one of the few items that’s survived Felix’s makeover of the flat).

“Well?” she says.

“Well, what?”

She sweeps her arm about in an actressy gesture. “The flat of course—what do you think?”

I sit with her and she puts her legs and bare feet across my lap. “I don’t know . . . It’s a little . . . psychiatric. Or like living in a fridge.”

Felix raises his eyebrows at us genially. “I think it’s wonderful,” Tilda says. “It’s so chic and well designed. The attention to detail is amazing.”

“I’m sure it is . . . Where’s all your mess? Old Biros and bits of string and magazines and old electrical cables, all that stuff.”

She flicks her wrist, like she’s batting away a fly. “Gone, Callie . . . all gone.”

For a second I find myself identifying with bits of string, feeling their pain.

In the kitchen area the brothers Nordberg are making a dish with squid that’s come from the market, and Lucas grabs a knife and lays the squid out on a chopping board.

“Can I make a suggestion,” Felix says, and starts rearranging the squid, lining them up. “If you put them this way, it’ll be easier to remove the tentacles.”

“Here we go . . . ,” Lucas says with a huff.

“And then you cut just below the eyes, like this . . . and remove the quill.”

“Hey, Felix . . . I know, I know!” Lucas leaves the kitchen and comes to sit with us, saying, “I’ll let him play head chef. . . . It’s his kitchen after all.” Then: “How do you deal with it, Tilda?”

“Oh, he’s not so bad.” I detect a fragile tone in her voice.

“Really?”

“Well . . . he did give me a Power Point presentation of our trip to Martinique—before we went! What we’d do on each day . . .” We laugh, and Felix shrugs and says, “Okay, guys, laugh at me if you will—but it was an awesome vacation, wasn’t it, darling?”