10. Stoke-on-Trent, June
STOKE-ON-TRENT, JUNE
Just before Anna left for her summer holiday in Greece, I arrived back from walking Quill one rainy afternoon to find a small group of people perched on stools in her kitchen.
They were corporately dressed, with notebooks and large files spread across the marble counter.
Anna stood in front of them all, wearing the kind of luxuriously comfortable clothes she did at home: a fawn-colored cashmere poncho and a pair of large gold hoop earrings.
She had weights attached to her ankles and was performing leg raises while briefing the team.
I hesitated outside by the glass kitchen doors, unsure whether to enter.
“Everyone, this is Gussie,” Anna announced, beckoning me through. “Quill’s carer. My carer. And guess what: She’s also a ceramicist, just like me! Mega- talented. Sells it all from a little branded storefront online. No overheads. Just genius .”
I waved uneasily at the group, who blinked at me with tired faces.
Then, with a jolt of panic, I realized their stationery bore the name of a legal firm.
I had overheard Anna many times on the phone to these people but never encountered them in person.
I thought anxiously of the NDA, unsigned, in my inbox, the background checks Clover had neglected to run.
It wasn’t sensible to stay. But my curiosity overruled it.
“It’s pouring outside,” I murmured quietly to Anna. “Can I wait here until it stops?” There was a nervous edge to my voice that I regretted.
“I’ll have to park you in the lounge,” she whispered with exaggerated secrecy.
She was now making slight pulsing squats from the knee.
There was a manic energy to her today, which I found even more alarming than the presence of her legal team.
I left the dog lead on the table and the kitchen door slightly ajar.
That way, Quill could come and go with ease, and their conversation would also be audible.
After some minutes of subdued exchange, their meeting grew more animated.
“We have to get hold of that other girl, Oriel,” Anna ordered, her folded arms barricading her chest. “What’s her surname?”
“Ayres?” one lawyer suggested. “Oriel Ayres.”
“Yes, well done,” Anna said irritably. “Where are we with her?”
“I’m afraid she’s just been hospitalized again. She’s fine, but it’s unlikely she’ll talk. Overdose.”
“Again?” Anna said. “ Fuck. And her mother?”
“Her mother won’t speak without Oriel’s consent. We’ll have to wait.”
“Well, actually,” Anna snapped, “I’m done waiting.” There was a deferential silence. “She must know that it’s me seeking help?” She made a low, frustrated sound. “What have we offered her? Whatever it is, raise it. Double it.”
Someone delivered vague assurances, then the group fell quiet again. When I looked through the ajar doorway, the lawyers were squinting toward laptops or studying their notebooks. Anna had her back to me, was busy scrolling her phone.
After a while, she sighed. “Dare I ask, then, where we got to with Lawrence?”
“You mean Lawrence Melrose?”
“Who else?”
My chest skipped at the name of that renowned artist. I held tightly on to Quill’s body to quiet his breathing. Together, we listened.
“We need to have him there. Just his name, you know. It adds gravitas.”
One of the more senior lawyers cleared his throat. “We’ve actually got a development. He seems to have got into a spot of trouble. A rather ugly accusation. From an ex-student.”
My chest pounded with interest.
“I know about that,” said Anna flatly. “It’s nothing—”
“Well,” he insisted, “it’s becoming something. We’re not sure how good it would look if we summoned him for our side.”
“He told me it had blown over.”
“There’s an update for you here,” one of the lawyers said. “We could summarize now, or…?”
“Later,” Anna blustered impatiently. “I’ll read it later. Please let’s move on.”
It was seven o’clock by the time the lawyers packed up and filed down the stairs. When the front door slammed and I was certain they were gone, I crept into the kitchen.
“Christ,” said Anna, clutching her chest with one hand. With her other hand, she held a glass of white wine. “I’d forgotten you were still here.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and hesitated. “It’s still too wet to go out.”
“Oh, forget it,” Anna said, and passed me the wine bottle and a glass.
There was a pause as she crossly scrolled through something on her phone, then she sighed, tossing it to one side.
“Cheers, then,” I said, watching her carefully and settling at the counter.
Anna’s eyelids flickered as she leaned back against the Aga and swallowed. “ Jesus , Gussie, I don’t think I can manage cheers . Not after today.”
My gaze floated to a black notebook one of Anna’s lawyers had left behind, on the counter by the fridge. I wondered if they’d return for it, or even miss it at all. “Was it a difficult meeting?” I asked gently, wanting to fill in the gaps of what I’d overheard.
Anna dipped her chin. “It’s always difficult,” she said. “But today, yes, today was bad.” There was a brief silence as she concentrated on rolling a cigarette. “We’ve had some strange news. A sighting. Bonamy bumped into her. Mary.”
The air in the room began to feel very thin, as if there were no oxygen left in it. “Where?”
Anna grimaced as she exhaled smoke. “Maida Vale Tube station, of all places. Mary wouldn’t even speak to him. And my husband—the idiot. The class A cunty coward—he just let her go. He just walked off.”
“It must have been an awful shock,” I began, trying to keep my face even. “Maybe it was the wiser choice, to approach things gently—”
“No, Gussie,” Anna said, flicking her lighter. “It was absolutely spineless of him.”
I proceeded carefully. “Did Bonamy say where she was going?”
“She wasn’t going anywhere. Apparently, she looked like a tramp, standing alone in the cold, handing out flyers. Recruiting more victims for that witch. Can you imagine it? My daughter. Practically begging in public?”
My skin chilled as I pictured the scene. The harrowing coincidence of it. A family reunion in such a painfully public place.
Anna stubbed out her cigarette, and I gestured for her to join me at the counter. She slumped forward on the stool, her chin in her hands.
“When did this happen?” I said, wondering if I dared touch her.
She replied in a low, unguarded tone. “Three days ago. Bonamy didn’t even come to me with the news.
That bastard. He told our private investigator first. Before telling me.
” She reached for her wineglass. “They think that if I found out where Mary was, I’d just turn up and start looking for her.
They’re frightened about another arrest. They all see me as a liability. ”
“That doesn’t make you a liability,” I said soothingly, placing a hand not yet on her body, but on the back of her seat. Her long hair tickled the inside of my wrist, where my pulse was beating rapidly. “That makes you a mother.”
Anna considered this for a moment, then slowly shook her head.
Her manner had quieted now. As I noticed the wilted movements of her eyes and the irregular clenching of her jaw, I wondered if she was on something stronger than the wine in her hand.
In the bathroom cupboards, there were stacks of painkillers and antianxiety pills.
Had she taken something to deal with the pain of her husband’s encounter?
It would be understandable, I decided, with a flutter of nerves.
And it could be useful. If Anna was high, or stoned, I might be afforded a different kind of intimacy.
Tentatively, I filled her glass. She soon began to repeat herself.
“I promise I’m not normally like this, Gussie,” Anna slurred, making a light sound of exasperation.
“So weepy . I just can’t bear the thought of my daughter, standing out there, advertising the services of a crook who steals her money.
I refuse to let it happen.” She pointed to herself.
“And I won’t let that witch get a penny of my money, either. ”
“But she’s not interested in your money, right?” I hesitated, unsure whether I should use Anna’s term. “The witch , isn’t she giving anything she wins through the case to charity?”
Anna looked mystified. “What do you mean?”
An indignant lump rose to my throat. “Aside from legal costs; those damages she’s seeking—?”
“Where did you read that?” Anna interrupted. “This woman wants money. She’s always wanted our money.” She briefly reflected, then raised her voice. “Is that what they’re saying now? Is that what they’re writing?”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said, and shook my head. “Forget it. I must have it wrong. Really, I have no idea.”
“No one does!” Anna stared at me, though she could no longer focus.
“You know, Gussie, I never stop dreaming of her coming back. I have this fantasy where she remembers that she loves us again. And that we were good parents to her. When I wake up, I think that she’s still in her bedroom, fast asleep in her tartan pajamas. ”
Tears streaked from the corners of her eyes. I reached over to wipe them. “Some mornings, after I dream, I even go into her room. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am when I see her bed’s empty. Do you think that’s strange?”
“A little—”
“And I hear her voice all the time . And I think that I see her, too. Walking around, I get these glimpses. It’s like I have a thousand missing daughters, all just out of reach.
” Anna’s reddened eyes roamed over my face.
“Every young woman reminds me of her.” She frowned.
“Even you. I mean, obviously, you’re so different, but you seem somehow similar, too. ”
I smiled warily, toward my glass, desperate now for Anna to stop talking.
An unbearable pain was building in my chest. I kept picturing the flickering lights of the Tube station, the sluicing sound, like sharpening knives, as trains passed through it.
Bonamy meeting his daughter, like she were a stranger.