Darling Girl

Chapter One

December 2012

Elisabeth pulled a sheet of paper from the desk drawer, her hands shaking. There were no words — none good enough, anyway — when she’d first met Lenni, and none with which to leave her. No lexicon for the angles in her smile, or the line of her neck traced by loose wisps from her ponytail. Nothing for the silk-scent tenderness of holding her close, or for the music of the laughter that was so often in Lenni’s kiss.

There wasn’t enough time. She made several attempts, but it was no good, and Elisabeth tore sheet after sheet from the notepad, a familiar panic blooming in her chest. This was her fault, her doing. And Lenni deserved so much better.

But then the words came, and her writing grew fevered and messy. When at last she set down her pen and folded the paper, there were no tears. She was numb, spent. On the coffee table, her lipstick was smudged on the mug beside Lenni’s drumsticks. The shopping list, in her own sloping handwriting, was tucked into Lenni’s paperback, so Len wouldn’t crack the spines by leaving them sprawled, face down.

In the near silence, a high-pitched ringing rushed towards her and clawed its way into every corner of Elisabeth’s skull.

The doorbell brought her back to herself, to the room. She ran a finger beneath each eye, got to her feet and exhaled to even out the shake in her breath.

A delivery, perhaps. Between the two of them, the march of books into the house was all but constant.

In the hallway, she pulled at the catch and swung open the front door. A rush of fear caught up her heart and breath and handed both to him. He wore glasses now. His head was shaven, the muscles in his arms and shoulders more pronounced.

She spoke his name. A plea. A prayer for Lenni.

He stepped into the hall and glanced at the two cases behind her. “We both know you need to come with me.” His voice scraped low. The house seemed flimsy around him, as though he might sink a hand into flaky plaster, or a foot through gooey carpet.

“You can’t be here.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

He took in the print on the wall — Lenni planting a kiss on her cheek. “Oh, Elisabeth...” He twisted the sinews of her name between his teeth. “What have you done?”

“I was going to leave. I didn’t mean for it to get this far.”

“You did this on purpose.”

“No! I know what it looks like, but—”

“How am I supposed to take anything on faith, when you keep hurting me?” His eyes were narrow, dark circles beneath.

“I swear, I didn’t know… about her.”

“Be very careful with your words.” He closed his eyes tightly, urgently. “Very careful. You can’t afford to put yourself at risk like this. Have you forgotten what’s at stake?”

She shook her head slowly. Liar. “She doesn’t know either.”

“You haven’t told her?”

“I couldn’t bear to. She’s a good person. And you…” Nausea clambered up her throat.

He followed her into the sitting room, grabbed her shoulders and turned her around.

“You don’t need to be frightened of me.” He was reading her as well as ever. “I’m here to help. Just like always.” They were inches from the desk, the letter.

He stroked her cheek, his gaze lambent, and her heart began to strike an insistent warning.

Her phone sprang to life on the coffee table behind her and he glanced down at the screen before she reached down to swipe it from his view. School. She killed the call.

He raised his eyebrows. “Who was that?”

“It’s nothing.”

He swallowed, as though steeling himself to be patient. “We leave now, together,” he said, softly. “Then she doesn’t have to know.”

“Alright,” she whispered. “Alright.”

He crossed back to the hall and lifted the cases with ease. “Is this all you’ve got?”

“It’s all I’m taking.”

“We’re not coming back. You understand that, don’t you?”

She nodded and he inclined his head, gesturing for her to lead the way.

Chapter Two

August 2013

A pinpoint of light plays across Lenni's keyboard and dances on her screen. Ah Tabai is cleaning himself in his warm spot on the windowsill. The sun glances off his collar tag as he circles a paw over his head and flicks his ear.

Lenni leans back in her chair and rubs at the bridge of her nose. She found jade underground in Chichén Itzá this summer, in the cenote, the freshwater sinkhole west of El Castillo. An offering to the gods. Proof, or as close as she and the team can get without excavating, that the temple itself was a rich man’s grave. The biggest discovery of her career. Now she’s hot property and everyone in her inbox wants something.

But what she wants is not on email or on her phone. No search result exists for the question she needs to answer.

Ah Tabai slips from his spot and clambers onto her lap. He always preferred Lenni, because Elisabeth loved him more and he didn’t want to give himself to that kind of obvious affection. And of course, he didn’t give a shit that Elisabeth wasn’t around anymore. He’d been more concerned about Lenni sodding off and leaving him with Johnno. She’s never been a cat person. But she shared him with Elisabeth, this little tom, and she won’t give him up.

Nearly eight months since Elisabeth left and the wound hasn’t begun to knit, nor even pucker at the edges, in spite of the clamour, the noise. Being back in Cambridge is worse. She can barely put her full weight on this life, when at any moment, she could hear The Pretenders and feel Elisabeth’s hips sway beneath her fingers. Flick on the TV and see her cross-legged on the sofa, toying distractedly with the cushion and heckling Saturday Kitchen.

Her sabbatical — the cool, dark apartment in Mérida — was supposed to have been an escape, but it was nothing more than setting herself in amber, only to smash it all to bits now she’s back in Cambridge.

She’d walked across the colonial city to campus each morning, past the macaron pink and green facades. The Biblioteca with its murals of startled eyes and entwined hands, scripts and scrolls and struggling, striving men. Seville oranges and habanero peppers in the fruit market. The click of Spanish over the crashing and scraping of chairs and plates in the canteen.

She’d gone on to Mexico City and found a club in the Zona Rosa. Girls for miles, and she’d looked around as though searching for a friend, ordered a drink and left after a few sips, when her breath had stalled in her throat.

Her book is all but finished now, but it reads flat and stifled. It isn’t percolated with the life that used to round her words and mete out her tone — with evenings in the garden, Lis stretched out beside her under the arbour, and bees worrying at the lavender.

Ah Tabai is asking to be let out. Johnno must have taught him this — he was a bona fide house-cat before. She opens the back door and he leaps onto the garden shed and arches his back, fur standing on end.

There’s no traffic from Emmanuel Road. No double-deckers hissing their way up from the bus station, or screeching brakes as student cyclists take their lives in their hands. Nothing. This is exactly what she’d wanted when Elisabeth had left. A moment’s silence. A quiet in-breath.

Her phone rings. A withheld number. Probably another journalist wanting to talk about the cenote, the hidden treasure.

Pain, sly as smoke, seeps through every chamber of her skull, dips into her throat and billows into the air as a groan. The Nahuatl knew it as Ollin; the Zapotecs, Xoo. But the Maya called it Kaban, and so does she. The earthquake in her head brings the ground rushing up to meet her. It beats its way around and tries to crack her open.

The ringing is excruciating now, but if she moves to answer the phone, she’ll probably vomit. All she can do is take shallow breaths and make room for the pain. She closes her eyes against the sickening sunlight and grabs a handful of grass, rubbing the blades between her fingertips. But the texture is unbearable too.

After a time, the pain greys and recedes to the corners of her skull. They’re getting more frequent. Headache and migraine tablets don’t touch them. She hasn’t made another appointment because she doesn’t want to know the answer.

That evening, she takes a long bath and switches off her phone, but can’t sleep. Pain is ringed around her eyes and the weight of her eyelids makes them water. Cats — indignant and sharp-clawed — are screaming on a rooftop nearby. With any luck, Ah Tabai is sitting out this round.

She wakes in the middle of dreams and bears witness to the dregs swilling around her mind. Lost books, missed meetings. Flying, then falling. Swallowing glass, sometimes. She can still hear Elisabeth breathing, see the curve of her waist beside her that falls away as the room shrinks into sense, into morning. It wakes her angry as fuck, this foolishness, this betrayal of her own mind.

What she wants — and has not been able to do in months — is to dream of Elisabeth. Soft, romantic dreams where Lis is singing, cutting thyme for the roast potatoes, or dancing with Lenni to shake off a bad mood. Harder ones. Hell, she’d take something utterly mundane — anything that lets her exist in a world where Elisabeth’s loss sits at a distance, somehow.

The door nudges open a little wider and Ah Tabai jumps onto the bed and settles at her feet. The pain has all but washed away and Lenni is pared down. In the darkness, there is nowhere to hide from the truth.

Elisabeth is married. To a softly-spoken Royal Marine with designer stubble, wireframe glasses and grey marl t-shirts that cut across the large muscles in his arms.

Elisabeth is sick.

Her Elisabeth never was.

She’s seen the proof.

But she’s had time to think, while she’s been away. And there’s a heck of a lot that doesn’t add up.

Chapter Three

June 2012

The two boys looked harmless enough. They were fourteen, fifteen, maybe. And although they’d made short work of the cans of lager beside them, they sat quietly on the river bank, the other side of the bridge. The smaller one ran a hand self-consciously through his hair, while the bigger tore handfuls of grass and watched the geese pottering around them.

That lawn was only for members of college and maybe it would be better if Lenni had a quiet word with the kids before the porters had a loud one. She smiled at a group of guests edging towards the canapés. I know it’s stupid, she wanted to say to the boys, palms up in apology. I know it’s just bloody grass.

Johnno was heading towards her, holding out a gin and tonic. The Student Union reps had wanted her to wear her gown so the guests would know she was a Fellow, but it felt heavy and showy. She tugged at her lapel and sipped her drink. They must have put out the good juniper for once. It was sweet and urgent, and it planed her edges. A breeze curled in from the Cam and a family of Canada geese called out as they scuffed its surface.

“Liv Tyler, over there,” said Johnno in an undertone. “Totally checking you out.”

The woman’s hair was dark sheet glass, pulled into French combs; her skin, the creamy porcelain of old dolls — the kind that could chip and break to dun. Buttery evening sunlight glanced off the belt buckle of her dress. And she shot Lenni half a smile.

“She probably just wants to talk access strategy,” said Lenni through gritted teeth.

“Mm-hmm.” Johnno read her expression. “No. You’re not renting me out again.”

Because he was good-looking in that corvid, aftershave-and-polo-shirt way that straight women seemed to like.

“Go on. Do your worst.”

“No!” He wiggled his wedding ring with his thumb.

“I’m not asking you to take her home.”

“Go and talk to her, for heaven’s sake. You’ve got the perfect excuse.”

“Look, if you’re not going to help, off you fuck so she doesn’t think we’re together.”

Johnno turned away, smiling as he shook his head.

The woman was watching the boys now, concern tugging at her brow. She spooled out a half-glance to Lenni, then reeled it back in.

The smaller boy leaned towards the bigger one, then there was a shout. The larger pushed the smaller squarely in the chest, sending him reeling and slipping down the bank, and, with the punch that followed, knocked him into the water, a streak of red across his face. The river wasn’t all that deep there, but he was dizzy and uncoordinated. He gulped a lungful and spluttered, his eyes wide. The bigger boy began sprinting down the tree-lined avenue towards Queen’s Road.

“Hey!” The woman dropped her handbag, kicked off her heels and ran, Lenni close behind. The boy was struggling in the water, his head tilted back, his mouth opening and closing. Lenni's heart was thumping, her breath ragged, as the woman gained the bridge, jumped off it and wrapped an arm around his neck.

Lenni sprinted over the bridge and lowered herself onto the bank. As the pair neared it, she tried to pull at the boy’s shirt, but he was heavier than he looked, disorientated, and slipping between them, beneath the water’s surface. The woman’s expression was determined, her lashes thick with water. Then Johnno was beside Lenni, grabbing for the boy’s arm. Between them, they pulled him through the long grass and onto the lawn.

Lenni stepped down the bank and held out her hand. The woman froze, disbelief and deep sadness mingling in her eyes. Something within her dove too deep, and then she seemed to be struggling hard to surface and shut it down. Lenni caught little more than a glimpse, before the woman blinked it away, grabbed Lenni's hand and clambered up, her hair clinging to her cheek and pouring down her neck like treacle.

Johnno had rolled the boy, coughing and groaning, onto his side and a porter was running towards them. The two men wrapped the boy in Johnno’s blazer, hauled him to his feet and escorted him over the bridge to the college nurse’s office.

“Here.” Lenni shrugged off her gown and handed it to the woman, who pulled it on gratefully, then sank down onto the grass, her hands over her nose and mouth.

“He could’ve killed him,” she said.

“It’s OK.” Lenni sat beside her. “He’s OK. Are you?”

The woman ignored the question. “You must be Dr Alexander,” she said instead.

She was pale, confused. Was she injured? In shock?

“Yeah, I’m Lenni. And you are?”

“Elisabeth.”

“We should get you checked out too.”

“No, I don’t need that, I—”

“You need dry clothes, at least.”

Elisabeth inclined her head towards the party. “It’s alright. You have all these people to look after.”

The idea of leaving her there, dripping wet, seemed so ridiculous that Lenni tried to stifle a laugh that would have been wholly inappropriate. “Well, there’s not much more to this evening, to be honest with you. I mean, there was my one-woman burlesque show, but now you’ve stolen my thunder, so…”

Their eyes locked, and for a beat, Lenni wondered if she’d caused offence, but then Elisabeth’s face brightened into a smile. There was a dress and jacket in her office, Lenni told her, and fresh towels in the bathroom.

As they crossed back over the bridge, Elisabeth winced at the gravel beneath her bare feet. On impulse, Lenni reached out her hand to lead her onto the grass and, to her surprise, Elisabeth took it. The touch was new and yet familiar, somehow. The softness of the crook of her thumb. The cold metal of the ring on her forefinger. It was little more than an instant, before each let the other go.

“That was brave of you,” said Lenni, trying to cover the silence.

“It was bloody stupid. He was stronger than I thought. He could easily have pulled me under through sheer panic.”

“You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

“I grew up by the river.”

“Cam?”

“Thames. Henley.”

So she was one of the regatta girls — with a rich daddy and a wardrobe full of Louis Vuitton, no doubt. They’d have nothing in common. Not that that was a consideration.

A few minutes later, Elisabeth emerged from Lenni's office in the jersey dress and suit jacket, running her fingers through her hair. There were little smudges of kohl beneath her blue eyes — smoky, as though they could have been on purpose. “It’s not a bad fit,” she said, smoothing the dress over her hips.

“It isn’t, at that,” said Lenni, trying to find somewhere to look. “Can I get you anything? A stiff drink? A taxi?” But she didn’t want to send her away in a cab. She wanted to know that she was safe.