Bring Me Back (B.A. Paris)(61)
A message. On my knees, I begin rifling through the wooden carcasses, hoping to find something, a doll still intact with a piece of paper hidden inside, maybe. But they’ve all been pulled apart and it suddenly dawns on me that I haven’t come across a single one of the tiniest dolls. What I have in front of me are their left-behind, unwanted relatives. Which means that unless Layla brought them all to the house with her earlier this evening, took them up to the attic and hid them in the chest – which is possible but not likely, because there are so many of them – the little Russian dolls that Ellen and I found outside the house, or received through the post, all originated here, in the attic.
Shock rocks me back onto the floor. I sit, my elbows on my knees, staring at the chest, while the truth ricochets through my brain – that Ellen is somehow involved in all this. Layla couldn’t have got the dolls into the attic without help from someone. She’s never been to the house so she wouldn’t have known the attic existed, or that the dolls could be hidden there. Only Ellen could have told her.
During all those weeks when Layla had been in contact with me, it had never occurred to me that she might also have been in contact with Ellen, sending her emails just as she’d been sending me emails. Manipulating Ellen just as she’d been manipulating me. When she’d been urging me to tell Ellen she was back, had she been urging Ellen to tell me the same thing? Had she been playing us off against each other? Had she arranged to meet Ellen somewhere, just as she had arranged to meet me? Is that where Ellen had gone those times she’d left a note on the table for me, the notes saying she had gone shopping? She never normally left notes, she always came and told me if she was going out, yet those two times she hadn’t. Was it because she didn’t want me to know she was going out in case I asked to go with her? Maybe she had only asked me to join her for lunch to give her notes a more genuine flavour, counting on the fact that I probably wouldn’t see the notes until it was too late, or not at all. And if I had, and had phoned her, she would have told me that she was already on her way home. Not only that, when she’d come back that time, I’d thought she was upset with me. But maybe the reason she was upset was because she’d gone to meet Layla and Layla hadn’t turned up, like she used to do with me.
I leave the attic, desperate to disprove every theory I’ve just come up with. But the absence of signs of a struggle in the bedroom or anywhere else in the house again suggests that Ellen left of her own accord, that Layla didn’t force her to leave. I check her office and find that not only is her computer switched off, it’s also unplugged. It’s useless to me anyway; even if I get it up and running again, I don’t know her email password. There must have been something incriminating on it – emails between her and Layla, perhaps – for her to have turned it off so completely. Or perhaps it’s a statement of intent, as in ‘I’m never going to use my computer again because I’m never coming back.’
What had happened here, just a few hours ago? Had Layla asked Ellen to choose between me and her, just as she had asked me to choose between Ellen and her, and had Ellen chosen Layla? I couldn’t blame her, not after what I’d done, not after I’d chosen Layla over her.
My mind ploughs on relentlessly, finding new theories to torment myself with. Maybe Ellen was part of it all along, maybe she’s always known Layla’s whereabouts. Maybe my whole relationship with her was a farce, payback for the hurt I caused Layla, even though Layla had hurt me first. Is that really what this is all about? Revenge? It’s hard to believe.
A wave of exhaustion hits me. I check my mobile and see that it’s midday. I try and work out how long I’ve been awake but my mind is so fuddled it takes me a while. I didn’t sleep all night, so nearly thirty hours. Suddenly, more than anything I want to sleep, because when I wake up I might find it’s all been some terrible nightmare. But first, Tony.
I psyche myself up so that I’m not disappointed if I can’t get through to him, now that I’ve decided to tell him everything. But he answers almost at once.
‘I need your help, Tony.’
‘Fire away,’ he says. ‘But first, take a deep breath.’ And I realise how agitated I must sound. It’s nothing to how I sound when I begin speaking, though. Even to my ears the whole, unabridged story – the Russian dolls, the emails, my trips to St Mary’s and Ellen’s subsequent disappearance – sounds mad. I sound mad. When I eventually get to the end of my monologue, because Tony didn’t interrupt me once, there’s only silence, confirming what I thought, that I sound completely unhinged.
‘I’m coming down,’ he says, putting me out of my misery.
It’s as if a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. ‘Thanks, Tony, I really appreciate it.’
‘But I need you to do something for me.’
‘Of course.’
‘I want to check a few things this end first so I’ll be a few hours. Make yourself something to eat and get yourself to bed. You sound as if you’re at death’s door. Leave the key under the mat and I’ll let myself in.’
‘Thanks, Tony,’ I say again.
‘See you later.’
I feel as if I could never eat again so I go for a long, hot shower instead. After, I feel so hungry that I get through half a loaf of bread, making slice after slice of toast. Then I go upstairs to the bedroom, push the pile of Russian dolls off the bed and climb in. I’m asleep before my head has even touched the pillow.