Searching for Celia (3 page)

I scan the concourse as I speak. “Celia, it’s Dayle. I’m still at Heathrow. If you get this message, stay put. I’ll be there soon.”

I regret the message as soon as I hang up. I should have been sharper, wittier. More like Celia.

*

Just outside the arrivals area, awash in a cold, drab sea of rain-darkened concrete, is a taxi stand. I grab the first black cab in the queue and settle in for the fifty-minute journey to Hampstead. My driver is an old-school East Ender, thick necked and tattooed, with crooked yellow teeth. The fatigue of the long flight and subsequent questioning creeps up on me as the soft patter of rain lulls me toward sleep.

Traffic is slow and heavy, as always, and I struggle to stay awake as we pass through the uninspired suburbs with their ribbons of run-down row houses and abandoned industrial estates that line the motorway from Heathrow eastward into the city. I last lived in London four years ago and haven’t even been back to visit in the last year and a half, but nothing much has changed. The city always seems to be under construction; as soon as one project is done, something right next door gets under way. London never feels finished to me; it’s as if someone parted the curtains and unlocked the door before the shop was ready to open, and now the city is trapped in an endless cycle, struggling to catch up.

The taxi’s radio drones softly in the background, barely audible, until an announcer breaks in with a news bulletin and the driver raises the volume:
The capital is on high alert as Britain’s home secretary today warned Londoners to remain vigilant in the face of what has been described as the very real threat of a major terrorist attack…
The driver turns down the sound.

“You a Yank?” he asks suddenly, glaring darkly at me in the rearview mirror.

“Yes,” I reply.

“It figures,” he scoffs.

“I’m sorry?”

“We have Iraq, Afghanistan, and you lot to thank for this mess.”

*

I stir to life as we enter Hampstead, which, despite the low slate-colored late-March sky, appears as leafy and prosperous as a well-heeled Victorian resort, with old-fashioned pubs, trendy restaurants, and expensive designer shops. People spill from the Hampstead Tube stop onto the cobblestone sidewalk, dodging raindrops and rushing into elegant cafés while avoiding the outdoor seating arranged beneath broad, wind-battered canopies.

At least Celia lives in a nice neighborhood, I think, as we wind southward down the hill through bumper-to-bumper traffic. I know she has struggled recently, personally and professionally, and I haven’t been the most attentive friend.

“Number ten, Rosslyn Hill,” the cab driver announces as we squeal to a sudden stop in front of a ragged Victorian mansion, several stories high and showing serious signs of decay. Leave it to Celia to choose the only tumbledown structure marooned amidst a sea of luxury.

I grab my luggage, step outside, and reach into my backpack to pay the driver.

“Word in your ear, love,” he says as I give him four twenty-pound notes and a tenner.

“What’s that?” I crouch to see him through the opened window.

He scowls. “Best pretend you’re Canadian, at least for the next few days.”

As the cab eases back into traffic, I haul my suitcase up the crumbling concrete steps to the building’s massive front door, painted strangely pink within the otherwise cream-white exterior and edged on either side with panels of smoke-damaged stained glass. I ring the buzzer for flat number five. No answer. I ring again. Still no answer, so I nudge the door with my shoulder and it inches open into a dimly lit lobby with a split staircase rising to the upper floors. One hundred years ago this would have been an elegant one-family mansion, but now, monumentally disheveled, it resembles an elderly lady whose regal bearing retains only faint traces of her perfumed youth.

I ascend to the second floor, where a rank odor seeps into the darkened hallway, a combination of rust, cooking fat, and excrement. I find the door with the numeral
5
hanging loosely from a nail and lift my hand to knock, but the door swings open at my touch.

“Celia?” My voice sounds as tired as I feel.

Celia’s apartment is cold, damp, and tiny, a single rectangular room, every inch of which is immediately visible. I drop my luggage and gaze around the haphazard mess. There’s a single bed, consisting of two flabby mattresses stacked one atop the other, without a box spring or frame. One corner of the room contains a chest of drawers and a warped wooden wardrobe with layers of clothing draped over the door; the opposite wall features a card-table desk with a telephone, answering machine, computer, printer, and fax, barely visible between teetering towers of paper. From this modest office, Celia single-handedly runs The London Refugee Relief Centre, through which she organizes support and resources for refugees, asylum seekers, and modern-day sex slaves from around the world who seek safety and sanctuary in the UK.

Across the room is the kitchenette with a spider-veined sink stained copper and green, a dorm-size fridge, and a combination hot plate/toaster oven, covered with what looks like congealed cheese. Balanced on a shelf above the sink are a CD player, scattered CDs, several overflowing ashtrays, and a small TV. The mold-infested bathroom contains a toilet, sink, and tub.

I imagine Celia will be back soon and left the door unlocked for me. Giving in to exhaustion, I take off my coat, lie down on Celia’s double mattresses, and sink almost to the floor. Loose coils poke my elbows while the familiar, heady scent of Celia—a mixture of cigarettes, sweaty feet, and Ryvita crackers—rings my head. I settle into the bed’s remembered dimensions of her body: narrow trenches for limbs, and the hollow that nightly cradles her skull, a skull that once nestled so expertly in the warm palm of my hand.

From where I lie I can see Celia’s desk and copies of both of our first books: my novel—Dayle Salvesen’s novel—
Down on Euclid Avenue
, and Celia’s acclaimed collection of short stories,
West of Blessing, North of Hope
. Beside the books are framed photos, one of Celia with a tall, square-shouldered biracial woman who must be the girlfriend I’ve yet to meet, Edwina Adebayo. Another shows Celia and me in our undergraduate days, round-cheeked and eager, dressed in jeans and matching sweatshirts. The third photograph is a faded color print, creased down the middle, of a gaunt, middle-aged woman, head in a kerchief, sitting on a bench beneath Blackpool Tower and cradling an overdressed infant.

Curious, I rise from the mattress, reach over, and take the photo, removing it from its frame. On the back someone has scrawled:
Maggie + Celia. Oct. ’78
. Of course. Celia and her mother. This would have been less than three years before Maggie died. I realize, in the twenty-plus years I have known Celia, this is the first I’ve seen a picture of her mother.

I replace the photo and lie back down, linking my fingers behind my head. I look at the walls, where the flocked velvet wallpaper has peeled off in strips, exposing ancient gray brickwork beneath. The only decorations are two posters, one from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the other from Amnesty International’s 1981 fund-raiser, The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball.

So it’s come to this, I think sadly. Six years ago, Celia shone with literary promise, brimming with a fluid and natural gift; now she’s reduced to living in what the British call a bedsit. My condo on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive has closets bigger than Celia’s apartment.

After Celia phoned in December and invited me to visit, I did some research and discovered that her last book was savaged by critics, and the publisher canceled the second in her two-book deal. But she’s doing the work of a Lord she has never believed in, every day delivering desperate souls to safety. Writing fiction must seem small, compared to that.

Suddenly there’s a noise in the corridor.
Celia?
I sit up quickly and my head spins. I must have drifted off to sleep. Dizzy, I clutch the mattress and my fingers sink into the cotton batting.

“Hello? Is someone there?” a voice calls meekly from the hall.

“Yes. In here,” I reply.

An elderly woman appears in the doorway, nervously rubbing her hands. She is small and sinewy, dressed in an oversize housecoat and ragged slippers. “Oh, I didn’t know you’d arrived—”

“It’s okay.” I want to stand but fatigue keeps me glued to the makeshift bed. “My name is Dayle Salvesen and—”

“Oh, I know who you are.” She pauses. “I’m so sorry, love. Cecelia Frost is dead.”

Wednesday

9:35 a.m.

“Come along, now. Wake up, love.”

Someone pats my hand rapidly and breathes into my face. My vision has blackened; I’m spinning into a dark hole without dimension, without end.

“There’s a good girl. Eh? Let’s get you some tea.”

My vision clears. The woman looms over me, tipped forward with fists on hips.

“Tea?” I whisper. “All right.”

The woman takes my elbow and helps up me from the Celia-scented mattress. Celia’s ghostly odor rises with me, dissipates, then disappears. Dumbly I follow the woman out of Celia’s flat and down the hall past two other flats to her own. Although no bigger than Celia’s, this room is painted canary yellow, with pressed lace curtains and a box of ambitiously British flowers, stiff stemmed and stubbornly colored, gracing the windowsill.

“Here we are, love. Have a little rest.” The woman sits me down at the table and putters in her kitchenette, switching on the electric kettle and opening a small tin of tea bags. Across the room she has a twin bed with a quilted duvet, upon which rests a listless tabby cat, sleepily eying a caged budgerigar.

“I’m sorry, Mrs.…?” My voice cracks. “I don’t know your name.”

“Dolores Crawford,” she answers proudly. “Friends call me Dot.”

“Dot.” I draw a deep breath. “Celia died?”

She nods solemnly. “’Fraid so.”

“When?”

“Early this morning.”

“How?”

She taps her foot, waiting for the kettle to boil. “I don’t know the whole story, mind you. The police only left a quarter hour ago.” As the water heats, so does Dot’s excitement. “Apparently they found Celia’s car near Waterloo Bridge. They reckon she jumped.”

“Have they found her body?”

“They didn’t say.”

“So she might still be alive.” Hope. I have hope. A car is not a body.

Dot turns from the sink and considers me with pity. “Well, Celia’s had some…troubles,” she says gently.

“Troubles?”

“Yes. She tried to off herself.” Dot pauses dramatically. “Twice.”

“What?”

“Oh yes.” Suddenly animated, Dot can’t wait to share the sordid tale. “First time must have been ’round about a year ago. She done slit her wrists. It was only her girlfriend getting her to hospital in time that saved her life.”

“And the second time?”

Dot scowls, searching her memory. “Two months ago? Overdosed on sleeping tablets. Again the girlfriend rescued her. Reckon this time, she couldn’t help.”

“Why not?”

“They ended it two weeks ago.” The kettle clicks off and Dot pours the boiling water over tea bags in two mismatched ceramic mugs. She fingers their cracked handles, waiting for the tea to brew.

“I don’t understand.” I shake my head. “We’d been out of touch for a while, but when Celia phoned me before Christmas, she seemed fine.”

“Maybe she was ashamed…?” Dot looks down at her well-worn slippers.

“Ashamed of what?”

“Well, I shouldn’t be telling stories out of school, but money was tight. The landlord was always pestering her for the rent and Celia was always pleading,
Just a few more days, sir, just a few more days
.”

Dot removes the tea bags and balances them beside the sink, from where I imagine she will use them later, squeezing out the last few drops of a thin and bitter liquid.

“Then, last week, Celia was attacked in the street,” Dot continues, placing a pint of milk on the table and setting down the mugs.
In Celebration of The Royal Wedding, HRH Prince Charles and Lady Diana, 29th July 1981
, my mug proclaims in fancy lettering, while the royal couple stare straight ahead and smile brightly, unaware of their sad future.

“Celia was attacked?” I ask.

“Yes. She came home with a black eye and a gashed cheek. Said someone grabbed her handbag and she fought back. She was a bit woozy, so I did the neighborly thing and cleaned her up”—Dot nods over her shoulder—“with that very tea towel. Haven’t done my washing yet.”

I glance at the threadbare towel’s brownish,
S
-shaped smear of blood. Celia’s blood, still visible. Like Celia’s scent, still trapped in her mattress. How can she have died? So much of her remains.

I sip the tea, cradling the hot liquid in my throat. “I knew Celia had some problems, but nothing…” Suddenly I stop and listen: steady footsteps climb the staircase and turn toward Celia’s flat. “Should your neighbors be home now?”

Dot shrugs. “Colonel Fielding doesn’t get out much anymore. The amputation and all. Why?”

“Come with me.” I set down the mug and beckon Dot to follow. She is officially having the most exciting day of her life. I hold my finger to my lips and tiptoe, motioning for silence.

We creep down the hallway, past the staircase and toward Celia’s flat. The door is open, but not enough to see in. Someone is opening and closing drawers, searching, rustling. I push the door and it flies open, banging against the wall.

A woman standing at the dresser jumps back and gasps as the drawer she’d been holding clatters to the floor. She is in her early forties, tall and thin with a long, narrow face, beaky nose, and lank dirty-blond hair.

“DC Callaway?” Dot asks, surprised. “I thought you’d finished here.”

The woman smoothes her dark blue skirt and peels off her rubber gloves. “Yes…well, I was. But I wanted to double-check something.”

“Oh. This is Cecelia’s friend from the States…?” Dot searches for my name.

“Dayle Salvesen,” I say, extending my hand as Dot and I step closer. Callaway’s hand as she takes mine feels cold and lifeless. She strikes me as a peevish, impatient woman who probably smokes and is prone to being judgmental.