FEBRUARY 2003 #6
I looked away, unclasping Joel’s watch.
The pit was so low we had to drop him down, and he hit the earth with a dull thud.
I didn’t trust Harper’s resolve entirely, not when it came to the worst of it. “Can you scan the area with the torch and check we haven’t left anything?” I asked.
The moment her back turned I brought my shovel down hard into Joel’s face.
“What?” she shrieked, and I did it again.
“Making it harder to identify him from dental records,” I said. I didn’t know if it worked that way, but anything that made it more troublesome for all involved or a more chaotic scene to piece together had to be good for us.
Harper looked away. “I’ll make sure to burn his comb and toothbrush with the rest of his things. They’ll have to go to a relative for DNA and his mother’s in a care home in Valencia. I’m not sure they’ll go to the fuss.”
He’s Joel Ingram, I wanted to say, they’ll go to the fuss.
But Harper was calm, and I didn’t want to ruin it.
We piled the mud back on quickly and tossed around a few leaves and sticks to make the ground look as undisturbed as we could.
Then we set back off toward the car.
We’d brought a compass this time. We wouldn’t be lost in this forest again.
———
When Harper got home she was going to wash the mud off the number plates then burn everything and dispose of the ashes: his clothes, the blood-soaked rags, the map to Barlam Thicket, and enough of Joel’s belongings to imply he really had skipped town.
Meanwhile I would be partying in London like nothing had ever happened.
I crawled into the back of the car to dress myself for my grand return. I wiped flecks of mud off my skin with the inside of the clothes I’d been wearing—which were also ready to be burned, and wrestled into my sequins.
Harper had to pull over to do the buttons up for me, her fingers deft and hurried.
“I don’t want you whoring yourself out for me,” she said. “I don’t like this part of the plan.”
“Harper, at this point I’m doing it for me too. I need to make sure I’m seen very far away from here.”
“I don’t like it,” she said again.
Back in the car, she hurtled toward London, and I let her, despite my fear of those grinding mechanics and the risk of being pulled over. Anything we could do to make it all go a bit quicker was appreciated. It was already half past three. If it were anyone but Caleb I’d worry I’d missed my chance.
“What do we do after this?” she asked.
I took a breath. “You’ll go home. You’ll pretend everything—”
“No, not me. I’m clear on my role in this. But us. Keep pretending we hate each other?”
“Pretending?”
“What, you do?” she laughed like the thought was ridiculous. “Come on, it’s far more complicated than that or you wouldn’t be here now. Neither of us would.”
“In this car? No. I’d be at a party in Soho celebrating my BAFTA.”
“No you wouldn’t. I’m what gives you hunger to savor a win.”
“You’re right,” I said dryly. “You made me a much better actress and a much worse person.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Look, Harper. I was determined back when you were still flirting with professors for grades. You distracted me from that determination with all this rivalry bullshit. I’d be perfectly fine without you.”
“You were bored stiff. Admit it. I saved you.”
“You ruined me.”
“Same thing.”
She pulled up to a red light and took the opportunity to cock her head to the side and look at me, a smirk drawing slowly across her still-stained lips.
“You’re a beautiful ruin, Nadine. I don’t want to imagine me without you or you without me.
Not when what we’ve created is so fascinating. So noteworthy.”
“Noteworthy like a body in the woods.”
“Yes,” she said simply, like that didn’t matter much at all.
I flipped the mirror down on the sun visor, trying to pin my hair back into some semblance of how it had looked before with the added messiness of a few hours of dancing.
“In terms of what we do from here,” I said carefully. “We lean in like we’ve never leaned in before. We create chaos. We are the great big look over there that keeps eyes away from your missing husband.”
“And us?”
She was rolling through South London now. She was dropping me in Brixton, where I could jump in a cab and pretend I’d been at The Fridge all evening. I’m sure plenty of people would be on enough substances to hallucinate me there anyway.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I need to think.”
She nodded and pulled up at the curb on a quiet side street.
“What are you without me?” she asked quietly—not to be cruel, as I would usually expect, but like she truly needed the answer.
A multi-award-winning actress. An icon. One of the biggest names in Hollywood.
All answers I might have given in another life but couldn’t right now. It didn’t seem to be what she was asking. It wasn’t a response I could give.
“I don’t know, Harper,” I said, sliding out of the car. But I hesitated before I closed the door, met her wretched eyes and said: “The only thing I know is that all I ever wanted was attention. And no one ever paid me as much as you.”