White Bodies(55)

“I guess it was. More suited to decorous cocktail parties than to two small boys running around and jumping on the furniture.”

Although I fear Felix, and think he’s deranged, it’s hard to totally hate him. Maybe I even feel a little sorry for him—I’m imagining that he was screwed up by his boyhood, spent in a world designed and constructed by Alana with the primary purpose of making Erik feel important, a big beast. I imagine, too, that Erik might like to be called “sir” by his children and that, even when the boys were young, he was endlessly pontificating on interest rates and productivity statistics, spouting his views on the global economy.

We move to the sofa, and I want to ask Felix what it was like to be the son of a renowned “thinker.” But Tilda says I must see the honeymoon photos, and then we’ll watch the film. She opens her laptop, and I admire pictures of her in neon-colored cotton kaftans, lounging about at their villa. Eventually there are a couple of photos of her in a bikini, but she’s turning to one side, looking flirtatiously over her shoulder at the camera. It’s useless. I can’t tell anything.

“It’s hard to be back in London,” Felix says. “Work and everything.”

“Did you manage to switch off while you were away?” I’m still trying to do normal, not wanting to be thrown out of the flat.

Tilda laughs. “Of course he didn’t. Zillions of calls to the office, and constant checking online.”

“Hey! I wasn’t so bad. What I mean is, I’m back to long hours away from you, and I have this wretched conference on Friday.”

“How long will you be away?” Tilda asks.

“Two days.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, babe.”

The babe makes me get up from the sofa, unable to stomach being close to him, and I sit by myself. Tilda presses the remote.

She’s right. The movie’s atmospheric and brilliant. Jennifer Jason Leigh as Hedy is a dark-haired, quiet observer (like me), and Bridget Fonda is fair-haired and successful (like Tilda). You might think that is just coincidence, but there’s another element that gives me the creeps—it turns out that Hedy is a twin, her sister having died years ago. So at first it seems like she’s tormented, looking for a lost soul. Everything gets darker and darker, because it’s that sort of film, and by the end I feel winded—and still suspect that Tilda’s making a point about me.

“It was amazing,” I say. “The character of Hedy is so intense, she was riveting.”

Tilda and Felix are lying together on the sofa, she cradled in his arm. She eases herself away, sits up straight, mushing up her hair. “Well, guess what, Callie? Guess fucking what?”

“Yeah?”

“They’re making a new film—same themes as Single White Female—a close study of two young women, one of them slightly unhinged, always observing the other. One of them envious, the other glamorous and successful.”

A stab of pain in my chest.

“Sort of like Rebecca too, then?”

“Absolutely. The working title is Envy. Two main characters, Evie and Helen. And—amazing fact—it looks like I’m going to be cast as Helen!”

I’m looking nervously back and forth, at Felix and Tilda. “The glamorous one?”

She gulps her wine. “Yes, the glamorous one. I auditioned the week before the wedding—and I’ve got the job!”

Felix is sitting there looking stunned. Wooden. And I snap, becoming high-pitched and shrill: “Don’t you dare stop her! I know you hate her being successful—but if you do anything to harm her—anything—I’m going to the police!”

Felix gets up from the sofa, and says angrily, “This is too much. I’m going out. I need wine.”

“We have wine,” says Tilda nervously.

But he’s gathering up his keys and his jacket and leaves, slamming the door.

In an instant, everything has changed. I know this sudden exit is a prelude to violence later on, and I imagine gripping and punching and suffocating. For an instant, I imagine her death.

“Oh God,” she says shakily, struggling to articulate the words. “I didn’t tell him that I’d gone to the audition . . . I thought that when he saw Single White Female, he’d realize what a fabulous film it is and be pleased that I’m doing something similar. Something that could be totally brilliant for me . . .” She curls up into a fetal position, making herself tiny, and I make a mental note—she’s being honest. For the first time, to my face, she’s blaming him and not me! I think she’s sobbing now, silently, her face hidden, and it’s hard to believe that the evening has fallen into this state; it’s gone so suddenly from pretended conviviality to utterly broken.

I kneel beside her, placing my face so that it touches the back of her head. Softly, I say, “He can’t do this to you. You can still leave him. . . .” I’m about to tell her that I’ve read her letter, that I know Felix might kill her at any moment. But she turns, leaps up and screams at me, a frenzied, piercing screech: “I will not leave him! I will not! Just shut your fucking mouth!”

She stumbles towards the bedroom and even in this moment of crisis, I’m heartbroken by her beauty, her physical fragility. Those thin white legs, thin hips.