Girl Unknown (30 page)

‘Everyone ready?’ he asked.

Chris ran a hand through his hair, momentarily undecided, before he followed Zoë back into the house.

‘What?’ David asked me, but I didn’t answer.

I was thinking about the fire burning at the other side of the island, making prisoners of us. On the limestone terrace Zoë’s dark wet footprints were fading beneath the sun.

We cycled in a row along the narrow white path, through the dead heat. We crossed swamps and marshes, the water glittering through the reeds and grasses. The wetlands, usually straining with life, were unusually quiet that day, no swish of tails in the water, no sudden flap of wings. As we neared Saint-Martin, the smell of smoke changed, became textured with the tang of burning rubber.

We stopped for lunch at the oyster bar and sat with glasses sweating in the heat. It was after midday but the heat was still rising. We ate in silence, the food tasting different now, flavoured with smoke. Looking out at the haze of blue sea and sky, the horizon appeared shimmery and indistinct. The wine had a soporific effect on the men, and they began to voice reluctance to travel any further, content to sit in their own uneasy silence gazing at the ocean. Robbie was locked within the grim confines of his defeat, and so it was that our group split along the gender divide as Holly, Zoë and I mounted our bikes after lunch and continued on to Saint-Martin.

We pedalled the short distance to the town, locked our bikes at the marina and set out through the narrow cobbled streets, Holly going ahead, now and then turning back to check we were still behind her. The air felt dry, the alleyways quiet, and there was a sleepy feeling in the town, as if everyone else was having a siesta while we trudged through shop after shop.

‘Look,’ Zoë said, holding up a black T-shirt she had found, white lettering emblazoned on one side:
Sweetness, I was only joking
. ‘I’m going to get it,’ she declared, clearly delighted. ‘I’ll wear it any time Chris and I have an argument. It will be my way of apologizing.’

I couldn’t picture them fighting. The way he fawned over her, Zoë’s sulkiness – it seemed an uneven match.

Holly, having picked out a few items of clothing, disappeared into the changing rooms while I went outside to wait. Zoë emerged with her purchase in an orange plastic bag and, for a few moments, we stood alongside one another on the cobbled street in the shade thrown by the awning overhead.

After all that had happened between us, small-talk seemed impossible. She had a way of standing still, her face impassive, as though she were waiting for me to say something, do something, an expectancy that I found troubling. I noticed she was twisting the ring on her finger and I glanced down at it – a trio of diamonds clustered on a white-gold band. It was an old ring, purchased in the Clignancourt markets outside Paris, they had told us, and both the size and the setting of the stones bore the veneer of age. It was not a very delicate ring – the diamonds looked heavy on her slender finger – more suited to a woman in her thirties or forties.

It was the first time we had been alone together since the announcement of their engagement. I suppose, with the incident at the pool that morning still troubling me, on top of what I already understood of her fickle nature, I couldn’t help but wonder whether she was serious about it or whether her acceptance of the marriage proposal was just another strand to her elaborate game.

‘Have you told your adoptive parents about your engagement yet?’ I asked, thinking about Celine Harte, imagining her hooded eyes growing fractionally heavier at the weight of this news.

‘No,’ she admitted, letting go of her ring and looking around distractedly. ‘They’ll go nuts when they find out.’

‘Oh?’

‘When they hear I’m marrying a divorced man they’ll hit the roof. Not that I care what they think.’

She leaned back against the window, her arms crossed, the plastic bag hanging from her wrist. I had the impression she was affecting nonchalance. Beneath the bravado there was uncertainty.

‘What about your friends?’ I asked. ‘Have you told any of them?’

‘Yeah, a few people. Mostly they didn’t believe it.’

‘I don’t suppose there are many married students in your class,’ I remarked.

‘Nope, apart from the mature students.’

‘It’ll be something of a talking point, I imagine. Your engagement.’

She shrugged. ‘For a little while, I guess. Until something else comes along.’

‘How do you think you’ll manage it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What about parties, nights out with your friends? Won’t it be strange for you, having a husband or a fiancé you must return home to instead of staying for all of that? Won’t you find it limiting?’

She looked at her ring, twisted it on her finger. ‘Not really. Chris is cool – he doesn’t believe that marriage needs to tie us to each other.’

‘Did he say that?’

‘Sure.’

I thought of how closely he shadowed her, the way his
gaze followed her around the room, and scepticism inflated within me.

‘After all he’s been through with Susannah,’ she went on, ‘he wants things with me to be different – more free and relaxed. She was such a head-fuck, constantly making demands on him. I’m like the exact opposite.’

‘That’s a little unfair on Susannah.’

‘I know she’s your friend. But she really did give him a hard time.’

‘I’m not saying Susannah is a saint, but I wouldn’t say that of Chris either. Marriage is complicated. Things go wrong – unexpected things. We all start off full of hopes and ideals, armed with the notion that our relationship, our marriage, is going to be a success, but no one can see into the future. Things come along to test us. Are you ready for that?’

She pushed her hair over her shoulder. ‘Is that how it was for you?’ she asked then.

‘Yes,’ I admitted carefully. ‘When David and I got married, I believed we had faced our big trial. I was young and naïve. We both were.’

‘And now?’

She had put on her sunglasses so that I could no longer see her eyes. I remembered her in my kitchen with my phone in her hand, having read Aidan’s text message. I remembered Holly at the quarry’s edge, the hand reaching out to push her. I remembered all those lies Zoë had told about me, the damage she had inflicted on her own face and then blamed on me, the corrosive way she had come between me and David, and with these memories came caution. I already knew she was dangerous to me.

‘Now things are good,’ I said.

A thin smile appeared on her face. Perhaps I imagined it, but it seemed to contain a grain of pity, which confused and angered me. Behind her through the window, I could see Holly returning the clothes she had tried on to their racks.

‘One thing, Zoë, before Holly comes out. And please don’t take offence.’

‘What?’ she asked.

‘I hope you’re being careful. That you’re taking precautions.’

She laughed and shook her head, making a deliberate show of her mortification.

It had been on my mind since my conversation with Chris that morning. ‘Seriously, though. Getting engaged is one thing. Having a baby is quite another.’

She ran her finger over her lower lip, the smile still there.

‘You don’t want to get caught out –’

‘Like you, you mean?’

The venom in her voice was unmistakable. It came at me so suddenly it took me a moment to absorb it fully. Before I could answer, she spoke again, her voice rising with a little tremor in it. ‘Or were you referring to my mother?’

The coolness of her sudden anger pooled in the air between us.

‘Why would you say such a thing?’ I asked, and thought of how it always was whenever I was alone with her – her iciness announcing itself abruptly, coming down on our conversation, like a blade slicing through air.

‘Any luck?’ she asked brightly, as Holly joined us on the street.

‘No,’ she answered.

We tried other shops but the offerings were overpriced, largely just souvenirs, which was not what Holly wanted. She became more despondent as the afternoon wore on and eventually declared she’d had enough.

‘We can go to La Rochelle another day,’ I said. ‘Once the fire has burned out and we can escape the island.’

‘Let’s just go home, Mum,’ she said, turning for the harbour and walking back towards the bikes.

We passed through streets of tall buildings with grand apartment blocks, clipped boxwood and lollipop bay trees standing sentry at the doors, the niggle of Zoë’s words worming its way inside me.

Like you, you mean?

But how did she know? Had David told her? We had never discussed it with the children – or with anybody. That he might have shared something so intimate with her – a secret so deeply private to me – felt like the worst kind of betrayal. And if she knew, had she shared her information with Chris? Or with Robbie? The worry brought a new bloom of anger. When was she going to leave us? This was our holiday and the days were petering out – how much longer would we have to tolerate her company?

We were nearing the harbour, the air drenched with the smell of salt, smoke and petrol, when my eye was drawn to the draped folds of silk on a mannequin in a window and I stopped outside a bridal shop. An idea took hold. ‘What do you think?’ I asked Zoë. ‘Shall we go in?’

I’m not sure what drove me to do it – anger pushing me towards meanness? Her reluctance served only to spur me on.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘It’ll be fun.’

After the glare of sunlight on the street outside, we had to wait while our eyes became accustomed to the low-key lighting and plush interiors. The shop assistant, a woman I guessed to be my own age in a smart linen suit, pearls at her throat, came forward all smiles and greetings, switching from French to English once she realized we were not natives.

‘Ah, but you are so young!’ she remarked gaily, when we told her that Zoë was the bride.

She drew us further into the shop where velvet armchairs clustered in the centre of the room, a chandelier twinkling overhead.

‘Have you anything particular in mind,
chérie
?’ she asked.

Zoë chewed her lip, looking at the rails of dresses, each one encased in a zipped clear bag. ‘Not really.’

The first dress she tried on was a lace gown with a slim silhouette and scalloped neckline, the skirts pooling around her bare feet on to the plush grey carpet. It dragged her down, her figure appearing curveless within the crusts of lace that clung to it.

‘I have something better,’ Madame suggested.

‘I’m not sure about this,’ Zoë said quietly, but I would not listen to her reluctance.

‘Oh, come on!’

The hard kernel of anger was pushing me.
Let’s play my game now
, I thought.

I made her try on five dresses in all, and with each one, she became increasingly withdrawn.

The last was a delicate thing made of white tulle, cinched at the waist with a band of nude pink satin. Beneath the whispery outer layer there was a glimpse of the same pink in silk beneath. Dainty lace appliqués adorned the bodice, which closed like a corset low on the back. Behind her a tiny train spread across the floor of the changing room.

‘
Parfait!
’ Madame declared. ‘Look at yourself!’ she demanded, turning Zoë towards the mirror. ‘You are beautiful!’

‘You really are,’ Holly agreed, her voice coming out hushed with awe. Or maybe it was envy.

Zoë stood perfectly still, looking down at the reflection of her feet in the mirror, refusing to take in the full length of her body. ‘I want to take it off,’ she said quietly.

‘One final touch,’ Madame insisted, going to the glass cabinet and removing from it a small tiara twinkling with Swarovski crystals. ‘Just to complete the picture, yes?’

She fixed the crown carefully into Zoë’s hair, which fell around her shoulders in a deluge of curls.

‘Such hair!’ Madame remarked, oblivious to the brittleness of Zoë’s mood, the shadowy look that was crossing her face. ‘There!’ She stood back to admire her handiwork. ‘What a proud man your husband will be!’

I could see that Zoë was close to tears. Her cheerfulness over lunch, the sunshine of the day, her delight at her purchase, all of it had vanished. The weight of each dress had soaked through her, crushing any happiness inside her. On the floor, tossed to one side by the mirror,
lay the orange plastic bag containing her T-shirt, its youthful sensibility forgotten amid these sombre dresses and the onerous responsibilities they symbolized. Beautiful as she was, there remained something ridiculous about her, in the same way that her ring was ridiculous – a little girl dressing up in her mother’s clothes. She had no intention of going through with the marriage – she never had. I knew it and now I had exacted my proof.

‘Get it off me,’ she said, distressed now, reaching behind her to claw at the clasps holding the bodice together.

‘Careful with that,’ Madame said, coming alive to Zoë’s fragile state, and going forward to assist. I just sat there, held back by the coldness of all she had done, her meddling, her manipulation, the memories making me cruel.

The clasps undone, Zoë wrenched herself free of the corset, her breasts, small and wide apart, visible for just an instant. The rings of the curtain sang out as she drew them swiftly across the cubicle rail.

Outside, the heat hung above the streets, the houses, down to the white shore, the boats clinking under the sparkling sun. Nearby on the bridge a fire raged. But in that changing room there was only cold.

Madame bent down and picked up the corset, fingering it delicately, the look she gave it bordering on distaste as if it had been sullied by the grubbiness of this exchange. There was no sound apart from that of weeping in the cubicle, and the clink of the glass cabinet as the tiara was returned.

The rest of the dresses were gathered up with a new alacrity, Madame saying, ‘I will put these back if you are finished,’ anxious now to be rid of us.

Sometimes, even now it is all over, I think I can hear her crying like she did that day in the dress shop. Her weeping echoes up from the corridors of the past, making me stop whatever I am doing, momentarily thrown by what has happened. And I think of the straightness of her back as she cycled ahead of me, back along the track, past the oyster bar, empty now as the sun dipped towards the horizon. I see her in my mind’s eye cycling away from me, moving towards the evening and all that was to come.