White Bodies(74)

“You mean you’re leaving soon?”

“Yes . . . I can’t stand being here much longer. . . . As I say, it’s ripping me apart, being alone in that flat.”

“But that will look so bad. He dies, you leave.”

“For fuck’s sake. I don’t care how it looks. I don’t care! I’m falling apart—and I need to save myself.” Her desperation was obvious now.

But still I said, “Tilda . . . please don’t go! I’ll miss you too much.”

She got up and came round to my side of the table and gave me the deepest, warmest hug I’ve ever had from her. I sensed the enormity of her decision. She wanted to sever herself from everything, from England, from Curzon Street and from me. Inside, I was screaming, This cannot happen!

“I know you’ll miss me, little one. But I’ll be in touch. And I’ll come home sometimes. . . . Come on . . . chip, chip.”

“Can I come and see you?”

“Maybe . . . maybe, yes.” It sounded like no.

“I’m going next week. I’ll get a spare key from Eva, and you can move in.”

I didn’t tell her that I already had the spare key. I just sat silently, in shock, struggling to understand.





43


Tilda left for Los Angeles, and I moved into Curzon Street. Before I’d even unpacked, I went to the linen cupboard, rooting around, feeling for my fix. The memory stick was in its home—the corner of the last pillowcase in the pile. So I extracted it, plugged it into my laptop, and was instantly rewarded:

Yes, Callie, I know you’re reading this. I know you go through my things, looking for morsels of me to eat, searching for clues about my life, and you’d never miss my favorite hiding place. You think you know me, that you’re under my skin—but I know you better!

I have one last message for you, little sister—let matters lie; stop your relentless prying. You think there’s some mystery to solve about my life, but there isn’t; I’m just a woman who’s lost her husband—a grieving widow. Allow me that. Felix was a charismatic, flawed control freak who died tragically because of a random, cruel, idiotic heart defect. Yes, he was dangerous; yes, he manipulated me emotionally—I can see that now that he’s gone—and it might have been me who died first. But that’s all over, and I need to move on.

Try to support my decisions. I’ll have a new life, and new roles—my American agent is excited about my prospects in LA. . . . I’ll be able to lose myself in work, and maybe achieve some real success. It will be such a relief after the trauma of Felix’s death. I’m hoping to do a fair amount of nothing also; lounging about in a villa in the Hollywood Hills, catching up on sleep, swimming in my pool, maybe I’ll even try to meditate!

As for you, Callie. Nurture your own life now; think about your own ambitions. Go on—try to rustle up some! You can do it! And my offer stands—if you need therapy I’ll pay for it, and you can stay in Curzon Street as long as you like—I don’t mind paying the bills. I can afford it, Felix’s money will come to me. He was too young to have made as many millions as he wanted, but there’s enough—for both of us.

So realize that our old lives are over—and that the future has begun.

Tilda x

She knew, then, that I’d found the memory stick and read her letter! She knew, and she’d said nothing, and had continued to write to me. While I tried to take that in I wandered about the flat looking for something of hers to eat. She was right about that, at least. I searched in the bathroom, hoping that she’d left something behind—a used toothbrush that I could suck, or a lipstick that I could take a shaving from. But there was nothing. Apart from a few pieces of unwanted clothing, she had cleaned the place out, and there was little sense of her in the flat—it was all Felix, Felix, Felix.

I lay on her bed, rereading the letter, marveling at her change of tone. Distraught Tilda had gone—she was now digging deep inside, trying to be optimistic, imagining a new future, and I should have felt happy for her. But I didn’t. It was too soon. I knew that, in truth, she was still in the first stages of grief, that her real emotions were a maelstrom of pain and anger. The upbeat force of the final words in her letter could only be explained by their heartbreaking falseness, and I thought that if she could make such an admirable, incredible effort towards survival, then I should be strong too. I shouldn’t give in or rest, however weary or defeated I felt, and I opened up the dossier again, scrolling down, randomly stopping, and reading words that I’d written at the beginning of the summer, concentrating on my observations of Tilda’s appearance, the gaunt look of her face, her nervous eyes, her unkempt appearance. Then I read a note that I’d completely forgotten about: Does Felicity Shore realize something is wrong? Have further information? It seemed so long ago—that day when I’d searched the Curzon Street flat for clues, and listened to the answering machine, to Tilda’s agent pleading with her, “Come to lunch or something, and let’s go through your options.” But I thought, one last push—for Tilda’s sake, I’ll see Felicity Shore.

? ? ?

As it happened, she said, she could spare a few minutes in the afternoon. So I walked across town to her office, which was in Soho.

“Hello, Callie.” She held out her hand; her manner warm, her plump palm slightly moist. She was a large lady, wearing large-lady clothes, a purple batwing sweater over a long green jersey skirt. And she was lavishly decorated—a statement silver necklace, with dangling ingots, vaguely African, fat silver bangles, oversize blue spectacles.