I was sitting at the bar, happy in familiar surroundings, exchanging pleasantries with a couple of the regulars when the Channel 5 news came on. Kirsty Young was mouthing words at me that I couldn’t hear. Television is strangely mesmerizing, even with the sound off. I took a long, grateful sip. A tag line appeared at the bottom of the screen. “Comic killed,” it said. I took another. The lager was good. Cold and wet and immediately hit the spot. A face flashed up. A face I knew.
“Kenny,” I said, frowning as the face faded away, “can you turn that up, please?”
Kirsty, was suddenly replaced by a clip from a sitcom. The landlord picked up the remote control and pressed a button. The glass of beer hovered somewhere near my mouth. There was Neil, delivering some slapstick line; I heard the canned laughter, but I had no idea what the cans were laughing about. I shook my head rapidly, and looked again. Kirsty was back, speaking in her low, dour Scottish accent, eyeballing me from behind her glass plate. Eyeballing me.
“That was Neil Williams, appearing in the hit Channel 4 show, Value Added. He was declared dead today following a road accident outside Bristol in the early hours of this morning.”
I jumped as though I’d been burned. My glass slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor. The glass bounced, the beer leapt up like a Las Vegas fountain and for a split second was suspended midair, then it fell back to the floor, covering me, the stool and the hideous carpet.
“Shit, sorry,” I said, bending down too quickly, and beginning to feel queasy.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”
I leaned against the bar. I didn’t feel too good. “I know him,” I said, in disbelief. “I know him,” I said again. “I’ve got to call Helen.”
The pub was filling up but I couldn’t wait. I looked for my phone in my bag; I couldn’t see it. I searched my pockets. Was Neil really dead? Surely not. I felt something vibrate in my pocket. It was in the pocket I had just looked in. I answered the call.
“Helen?”
“Tessa King?”
“Yes.”
“As a close friend of the deceased, would you care to comment on allegations that this was a drunk-driving incident?”
“Who is this?”
“I’m calling from the Express—”
I pressed “end,” then stared at my phone. I looked at Kenny. “Who the fuck was that? How did they get my number?”
He shrugged. I rang Helen’s mobile. It was switched off. She was probably being hounded by the press. I called her home. The answerphone picked it up.
“Helen, don’t worry, I’m on my way.” Maybe she was in Bristol. Maybe she’d gone to identify the body. Drunk-driving? Early hours of the morning? There was no allegedly about it. Damn it, he’d gone and fucking got himself killed. I reached for Kenny’s remote and flicked through the news channels. Sky. CNN. It wasn’t being covered. I looked at Kenny again. “Who’s got the twins?” He replied by passing me another drink. Vodka and tonic.
“Thank you,” I said, gratefully. I had to do something I never thought I would: I called Marguerite for help. It wasn’t hard to get the paper’s number. I was put through to her assistant. “I need to speak to Marguerite now,” I said, knocking back the vodka.
“I’m afraid she isn’t taking calls at present.”
“I know, I’ve been hounded by the press too. Tell her it’s Tessa. Tessa King. I just need to know where Helen is.”
The woman didn’t answer me.
“I’m not some mad woman, I promise. Helen is a friend, I’m the twins’ godmother. I just found out about Neil. Please help me.”
There was another lengthy pause. “Hang on.” I started tapping the bar with my nails until Kenny looked at me, so I started pacing a very small area instead. Come on. Come on. The line crackled. I should be at home.
“I’m putting you through to Marguerite. I’ll text you her number, in case there is a problem.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you…” I managed to get my coat back on.
“Tessa, are you there?”
“Marguerite, sorry to bother you. I just want to know where Helen is, there’s no answer at home…” I waited. Marguerite didn’t say anything.
“Marguerite? Are you there?”
“Yes…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Tessa, about Helen…”
“Is she with you?” No answer. Unless you call a sigh an answer. The woman was infuriating. Did I have to beg? “Marguerite, someone should be with her.”
“Tessa…”
“Yes!”
“God, Tessa, Helen was in the car.”
“What?” No. Helen, in Bristol, in the early hours of the morning. She didn’t do press junkets. She didn’t leave the twins. “Is she all right?”
I will remember this moment for as long as I live. A woman came to the bar in a sorry state and asked for a cider and black. She was wearing fake fur and fake pearls. Kenny knew her by name too.
“I’m sorry, Tessa,” said Marguerite. “She was killed outright.”
I staggered backwards and landed against the stool. Marguerite wasn’t making sense.
“Neil’s been killed,” I said.
“I know. Helen was with him.”
I looked down. The swirling pattern of red and purple started to rotate beneath my feet.
“You all right, lass?”
“That bastard killed her,” I said.
“No, Tessa. It was an accident.”
“Fucking drug-addict, piss-head bastard killed her.”
“Tessa, no, stop it, please…” Was Marguerite crying?
“How can you defend him?”
“I’m not. Oh my God, Tessa, I don’t know how it happened. Helen was driving. Helen was driving the car.”
Where was all that noise coming from?
“What?”
“They came off the road at ninety miles an hour and hit a tree. She was killed outright; Neil was thrown from the car, but died in hospital from massive internal injuries.”
I looked up at Kenny, he was undulating too.
“It was a terrible accident.”
There was an excruciating pain in my chest. I’d been tricked. God was a two-faced, lying b—
“Timbeeeer,” yelled a voice from somewhere. The next thing I knew I was staring at Kenny’s shoes.
I was out for seven and a half minutes. The motorcycle paramedic reached the pub within six. If I had been having a heart attack, the man would have saved my life, but he couldn’t fix me because I wasn’t having a heart attack. I was having a panic attack. Apparently, they feel much the same—agony, but quick. Because of my mild hyperglycemia, I experienced a brief blackout. The paramedic advised against alcohol for a few days. I didn’t tell him that I would ignore his advice as soon as he was out of the building. Helen was dead. Every time I thought that, my chest tightened again. It was agreed that I shouldn’t walk home although it was literally over the road, but it was a fast main road, where the speed camera flashed as regularly as the paparazzi, and they didn’t trust me. So Kenny went out to flag me down a cab. The paramedic left, someone passed me a brandy. I knocked it back. Helen was dead. Squeeze.
“Cab’s outside,” said Kenny.
“I’m sorry,” I said, as he took my arm.
“You take it easy now, girl,” he said. “Can’t go on like this.”
“Helen is dead,” I said.
He simply nodded and closed the door behind me. Three pounds later, I got out. Roman buzzed me in before I had to start fishing around for my keys. I looked at him. I could see the concern in his eyes. I felt a fool. A bloody fool. I walked over to his desk.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “For worrying you.”
“Are you feeling OK now?” he asked.
How could I tell him? How could I ask for more sympathy, more attention? I couldn’t. I too had cried wolf many times before. I nodded. “Thank you,” I said, and walked to the lift. The doors opened with a ping. The hollow, lonely tune to my homecoming. I wanted Ben more than I ever thought possible. The deal was off.
The inside of my flat was dark. The string of lights that edged Battersea Park glowed across the river. It was a high tide. High and choppy. The barges battered one another. The water pummeled the foundations of the bridge. Clouds had descended from on high to soak up the spit and dribble of Londoners on the move. And Helen was dead. I didn’t care what Marguerite said. As far as I was concerned, she’d been killed by her husband. As good as killed by her husband. I turned on the television and watched the flat fill with its flickering blue, electric light. I’d missed the six o’clock news. I’d wait for Channel 4. In the half-light, I located the holdall that held my life in photographic form. I picked up a handful of packets. Somewhere in there was Helen as I’d known her. Alive. Free. Young. I went to the kitchen to get a drink. There, on the fridge, attached by a cowboy magnet, was the thank-you note she’d sent me for the twins’ christening present. I stared at her handwriting, but what I heard was her voice. It was so clear, as clear as if she were standing next to me: Whatever you do, don’t let my mother get her hands on my boys…I took the note off the fridge.
My darling Tessa,
What a hit you were, as always. I absolutely adore the hip flasks you gave them…Whatever you do, don’t let my mother get her hands on my boys…And the quote from the Desiderata” you had engraved on them nearly finished me off. I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye, I hit a hormonal wall, I guess, but thank you for all your support, as always. Whatever you do, don’t let my mother get her hands on my boys… I know that the boys will be in safe hands with you and Claudia as godmothers and guardians. I trust your judgment more than my own, so I know that you will be a great godmother and will always know what to do, whatever the circumstances. I love you, as always, and remember—the universe is unfolding as it should, even if you think it isn’t.
Helen xx.
PS Whatever you do, don’t let my mother get her hands on my boys…
There was no ink on the page after her kisses, but there may as well have been. I called Marguerite back. Holding the phone to my ear, I put my head on my knees and listened to the ringing.
“Tessa? Are you all right? Some man said you’d fainted.”
“I’m all right. Well, I’m not all right, obviously.”
There was an awkward silence.
“There was nothing about Helen in the news,” I said, finally speaking.
“Not yet. I have some clout, but not as much as I need.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m afraid Helen might have been drinking.”
“Helen? She never…” Well, once, at Neil’s launch, but…
“I’m afraid she did.”
“She didn’t.”
“So, you didn’t get the crazed, ranting calls in the middle of the night?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but couldn’t think of what to say. Helen and Marguerite’s relationship had always been destructive.
“That was just reserved for me. I see.”
“I never saw her drink,” I insisted.
“Well, anyway, they’d been at a party, not her favorite environment, so I thought it best to keep the attention away from Helen; she never liked it.”
“No, she didn’t.” Though you love it.
There was another silence.
“Anyone else hurt?” I asked.
“Thankfully, no. The police told me it was an empty road. There were no brake marks, or evidence that she lost control of the car. They think she probably fell asleep at the wheel and the car simply drifted off the road.”
“So they don’t think it was drink-related?”
“No. But they don’t know my…” Marguerite cleared her throat. “Didn’t, um…What do you want, Tessa?”
To talk to someone who knew Helen long into the night until my heart caught up with what my head was being told. To make good my promise to your daughter, although, as ever, at the time I hadn’t known what I was promising. “I was wondering where the twins are.”
“I have them.”
“And where are you?”
“At their house.”
Promise me.
“I’m coming over.”
Promise me, Tessa.
“I am about to take them home to mine.”
I peeled myself off my floor. “Don’t go anywhere, Marguerite.”
“The press is camped outside.”
“Please. For Helen, don’t go anywhere.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m coming over.”
“I think there has been enough drama for one day, Tessa, don’t you?”
“I mean it, Marguerite.”
“I’m taking the nanny, they’ll be perfectly well looked after. I’m not proposing to do it on my own.”
“I don’t care if you have an army of nannies, stay there.”
“Tessa, these are my grandchildren. I can take them wherever I like.”
“I am their guardian. You’ll stay where you are.”
My strong words belied the state I was in. I ended the call and slumped back down on the floor. Helen was dead. Neil was dead. The twins were mine.
I didn’t have to call Ben, he called me. He was the first of many calls that peppered that night and the following days. But Ben was the first. Of course. Death put silly stolen kisses into perspective. Death put arguments in perspective. Death put everything into perspective.
“Where are you? Shall I come over?” asked Ben without introducing himself, or saying hello.
“I’m in a cab, going to Helen’s house. Marguerite is with the twins and all I know is that Helen would not want that.”
“You’re going to take the twins?”
“No. God, no. I’m just going to make sure someone is there representing Helen.” Representing Helen. I shuddered.
“Are you all right?”
“I just can’t believe it. How did you find out?”
“A hack called me, he knew I knew them both.”
“Someone from the press called me,” I said, suddenly remembering the random call.
“People are sniffing for a story,” said Ben.
“There isn’t one, is there?”
“No. Neil was paralytic, but I doubt Helen would have let him drive.”
“She didn’t,” I said sadly. “But she should never have been driving at that time of night.” I remembered Helen literally dropping off to sleep on the sofa mid-sentence. It made me feel sick. She should have been at home, tucked up in bed, planning her divorce, not partying with him. It didn’t make sense. “I don’t even know what she was doing there. Bristol, of all places.” We talked round in circles until the taxi pulled up outside the cream-colored house. Marguerite was right: the press was hovering.
“Listen,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”
“Good luck, darling. If you need support, you know where I am.”
I thanked him, paid and got out of the cab. I pushed my way through to the gate and pressed the buzzer. I knew the security code into the front porch, but didn’t dare use it in case someone saw the numbers. Cameras were flashing, but they quickly lost interest when they realized I wasn’t anyone important. I couldn’t understand why they were there. It must have been a quiet day in the newsroom.
Marguerite let me in, but not until she’d let me sweat for a minute or two. All the time I had known Helen I had known that, given the chance to be kind or mean, Marguerite was mean. It was in her DNA, she didn’t know how to be any other way. I wasn’t sure she even knew she was doing it. As I stood on the doorstep waiting to be let in, I squeezed and released my fists like a boxer preparing for a fight. I knew I had one on my hands; I didn’t know that in that brief thirty minutes, Marguerite had already taken the first punch.
A bewildered-looking woman opened the door and showed me through to the drawing room with the large cream sofas. It was there that Neil had held one of the twins high over his head, high on drugs, shaking him in time to the music. It was there that I had sat, having put Helen to bed, and poured myself a large whisky. It was there that I had thrown myself once again into the middle of someone else’s drama and only seen the episode I had wanted to see. Had Helen had any intention of leaving Neil? Or had she gone to Bristol to patch things up again?
Marguerite sat as still as stone; she looked as immaculate as ever but I couldn’t help noticing the empty brandy glass and the rapid pulse in her neck. I wanted to go over and hug her, but she wasn’t that sort of woman, we didn’t have that sort of relationship. I stood uncomfortably.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Marguerite,” I said.
“Thank you,” she replied.
I tried to think of something else to say, but my words deserted me. Marguerite was looking at me with disapproval. I glanced at my own reflection in the large gilded mirror that hung over the fireplace. I had dressed in a mad panic. I had dressed a lifetime ago, preparing myself for the worst before dashing to hospital, not knowing whether I was going to make it in time to see Cora alive.
I thought going back to being just friends with Ben was enough to meet my part of the bargain I’d made, but it clearly wasn’t—not by God’s standards, not by Marguerite’s and not by my own. Because here I was, in those same clothes, standing in the house that Helen would never come home to, trying to come to terms with her horrific, sudden death.
“I’m sorry,” I said, self-consciously pulling my jersey sleeve up my arm. “I dressed in a hurry.”
“Weren’t you in a pub?”
I frowned. How could I explain the inexplicable? “Can I get you something? Water, a drink—”
“Another brandy, please.” She held out her glass. Her short, dark red nails brushed over my skin. As a child, Helen had been beaten with a hairbrush by those same hands. I snatched the glass away. No wonder Helen never wanted her children being brought up by this woman. “Help yourself,” she said. I did. I carried the refilled glass back to her. She took it without thanking me. This was not a time for small talk or manners.
“How did you find out?” I asked after another lengthy silence.
“Bristol police called me in the middle of the night. I didn’t answer it at first, but Helen never rang more than twice, so in the end I picked it up.” She swilled the brandy around the bulbous glass bowl. “I wish I hadn’t.”
“Did you have to go and…” I faltered.
“I will tomorrow. A name can’t be released to the press if it hasn’t been officially identified,” said Marguerite, sounding a trifle victorious.
“So it might not be her!” I exclaimed, suddenly excited.
“It was her.”
I wasn’t listening. Neil liked picking up girls, it could have been any of his floozies. Maybe Helen had left him, maybe she’d set up home in the Mandarin Oriental.
“I’m sorry, Tessa, but wishful thinking isn’t going to get you out of this one. It was Helen driving the car.”
“I hate to tell you this, now of all times, but Neil often went off with other women. She was thinking of leaving him because of it.”
“She was never going to leave him over a couple of minor indiscretions. Honestly, you’d have thought I’d taught her nothing.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, perplexed.
“Please will you stop pacing.” I hadn’t realized I had been. I stood still. “Anyway, I know it was Helen, because she rang me before she got into the car.”
There was still a possibility that Marguerite was mistaken. “What did she say?”
Marguerite looked at me, then shook her head a fraction. “Nothing.”
“She rang you at two in the morning and said nothing?”
Marguerite paused again. “Yes.”
“Had she been drinking?”
“Tessa, do you mind? I’m not feeling up to an inquisition right now.”
“Sorry, I just thought—”
“I know. That’s you to a T. Underneath it all, you’ve always been a very positive person. I hoped it would rub off on my daughter. I don’t think it did.” Marguerite looked at me again. “She wasn’t a very happy woman, was she?”
I shook my head. Marguerite downed the rest of her drink and put it on the coffee table next to a pile of Hello! magazines.
“The twins will fare better. I’ll see to that.”
Ah…So the easy bit was over. The ceasefire, what little there had been of it, had ended. I braced myself for battle.
“Where are the twins?” I asked, taking a seat opposite her.
She looked me over. “Upstairs, of course. Sleeping.”
“Do you think they know?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tessa. They’re babies.”
I sighed. She was right. They’d never know. “Poor little things, life without a mother to care for them…”
“The nanny seems very competent. She specializes in twins and has been very eager not to alter their routine.”
I decided she was missing my point on purpose, but I refrained from saying anything. I was going to try and keep things amicable. Trouble was, Marguerite and I didn’t do amicable very well.
“Rose telephoned,” said Marguerite, not bothering to wait for my reply.
I looked up. At last, someone I could genuinely commiserate with. Rose loved Helen, had cared for her since she was a child; she’d come, she’d come back.
“I told her she was no longer required since I’m fairly sure she has no intention of coming to live with me. She hated me the day I moved to Hong Kong and she’s hated me ever since. She spoilt my husband and Helen rotten. Well, I’m sorry, but indentured servitude wasn’t my style.”
I opened my mouth to protest.
Marguerite held up her hand. “Please keep those thoughts to yourself and try and remember that my daughter died last night.”
That’s all I was thinking about. “Marguerite, about the twins?”
“Yes, Tessa.” It was clear to me that she’d simply been waiting while I plucked up the courage to have the conversation. My stalling, my pretence at sympathetic chat, had just given her the opportunity to see how scared I was.
“Helen left me in charge of deciding what should be done in the event that she and Neil died. I never thought I would have to have this conversation with you, I never thought in a million years…” I couldn’t go on. I paused, breathing deeply. “I don’t believe this is happening.”
“You want the twins,” said Marguerite, putting me out of my misery, and adding to it at the same time. “My daughter has just been stolen from me, and you want to steal the twins, too?”
Stolen? Steal? I wasn’t stealing anything.
“No, Tessa. Family is family.”
Since when did family mean so much to you? I thought. She could con everyone else, but she couldn’t con me. Forget trying to keep this amicable. I stood up. Even if she stood too, I had height on my side. “I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking to. Your relationship with Helen has always been strained. So don’t ‘family’ me.”
“Or what? What are you going to do?”
That, I didn’t know. “Come on, Marguerite, let’s not do this. We both loved Helen, we both love the boys. Let’s do this together.”
“You are not getting my grandsons, Tessa, and that’s that.”
I opened my mouth, but Marguerite went on.
“I mean, look at you—hardly the model parent, are you?” she said, eyeing me with obvious disapproval. “My daughter is not yet dead for one day and you’re already planning how to get custody of her children.”
“I don’t want custody of them. I wish this wasn’t happening.”
“Oh, you just don’t want me to have them.”
Whatever you do, don’t let my mother get her hands on my boys. “It’s complicated. We’ve got to be adult about this. Helen had wishes, wishes I intend to see she gets.”
“I’ve called the lawyer. You being the twins’ guardian is just a whimsical thing that Helen did to tie you to her. But it doesn’t stand up to very much. It isn’t statutory law. The courts deal with everything on a case-by-case basis. Really it is up to Helen’s trustees to decide where the boys should go and I’ve already spoken to them. I am their next of kin, whether you like it or not. Bad luck, you don’t get an instant family.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Helen died in a car crash. I only found out a couple of hours ago.” I ran my hands through my hair. “I’m still trying to get my head around that!”
“Lie to yourself, Tessa, all you like, but it doesn’t wash with me.”
“Lie to myself about what, exactly?”
“You want the boys for yourself. This is nothing to do with Helen’s wishes.”
“What?”
“You want the twins. It’s a perfect solution to your life, isn’t it? Can’t get the man, but you can get the babies, who happen to come with a considerable amount of money.”
I didn’t want to be in the same room as Helen’s mother, but temporarily found that I lacked the strength to stand. She’d sucked the last of my courage from me. I landed in the oversized cushion and felt myself sink slowly into the sofa. That was when I noticed the same silver-framed photo of Neil and Helen’s wedding day that I had seen Neil use to chop out lines of cocaine on. My beautiful friend, who’d swung from a hammock on a Vietnamese beach, was dead. The man standing next to her in the photograph had killed her, I didn’t care what the police report said; I didn’t care if she had fallen asleep at the wheel, she wouldn’t have been exhausted if it hadn’t been for him, so whatever the outcome, he killed her. He killed my friend, but long before she’d met him, the woman sitting opposite me, had been bleeding her dry. I wanted to cry but I would not. For Helen’s sake, I would not. I knew what Helen wanted better than anyone. I knew she wouldn’t want her mother taking care of her kids. No way. Whatever Marguerite threatened me with, I would fight her to the bitter end. I would use any means I had to ensure that Helen’s wishes were met.
I lifted my chin from my chest. “Apart from the christening, when did you last come over to the house to see the boys?”
“That is irrelevant.”
“When were you last invited to?”
“Tessa—”
“You only live round the corner, you must have popped in all the time.”
“I work, remember.”
“What about the weekends—did you look after them and let Helen have a few minutes to herself?”
“Helen had her own nanny living here, as well as one for the boys. I didn’t think she needed my help.”
“OK, when did you just pop over for a visit? When did you and she last have a nice mother-daughter lunch? And her last exeat from school doesn’t count!”
Marguerite simply stared back at me.
“Where did she want to be buried?”
“I presume where she was married.”
“Wrong. She wanted to be cremated. She wanted her ashes to be scattered on a beach in Vietnam. China Beach, to be exact. It spoke to her roots. What was her favorite piece of writing?”
Marguerite raised her chin slightly.
“Desiderata. Where were the twins conceived?”
I watched with satisfaction as Marguerite shifted uncomfortably.
“What song did she play loudly on the stereo every time you invented a new way to hurt her?”
Marguerite stood up. Her Nicole Fahri suit hung off her slim frame. “Yes, yes, I’m sure she confided all those things to you. No doubt trying to impress you. But then you know that; that’s why you liked her, isn’t it, Tessa? Because she relied on you so much. How very life-affirming it must be, to be so pivotal to others.” Marguerite turned the clasp of her large Mulberry handbag with a click and looked at me. “Doesn’t leave you with very much, though, when they move on, does it?”
I let a little sarcastic laugh fall from my lips while simultaneously erasing Marguerite’s words from my mind. “If finding fault with me provides you with comfort at this difficult time”—I spread my arms wide as an offering—“then I am glad.” I straightened up. Two could play at this game. “But let’s get one thing straight: I didn’t fuck up your daughter. The damage was done long before we ever met.”
Marguerite leaned closer towards me. “And don’t you just love a pet project.”
I opened my mouth to retaliate, but Marguerite held up her manicured hand. “I’m going to let this pass, on the understanding that you may be suffering from some kind of shock. But mark my words, Tessa King, you’re not going to win this one. You think I’m the only one they’ll turn the microscope on? Do you? You think you are so fit to be a parent? A girl who can’t even keep a job down without creating some kind of sexual scandal? How many other marriages have you wrecked, I wonder? I shouldn’t think it would be hard to find out. What will the courts think of all those men, coming and going in the night? The booze. The parties. Not a great deal.” She looked me up and down with disdain. “You can’t even look after yourself.”
I wanted to rise up out of the sofa and hit her, but it would only serve her more. She could say what she liked. It was her way. But finally this wasn’t about me; it was about Helen. She couldn’t defend herself when she was alive, but I was going to make damn sure she was defended now.
“I’m going to go now,” said Marguerite. “I will let you ponder upon my words, and when you’ve come to your senses, you can call me. Failing that, my lawyer will contact you as he will Neil’s family.”
“Neil’s family?”
“Yes, Tessa.”
“What do they want?”
“I’ve no idea. Until the police told me, I wasn’t even sure that his parents were alive. But they are, so even if they weren’t particularly important to Neil himself, I will see that their wishes are considered. There’s a brother, too. A builder in Norfolk, I gather.”
“And what about your daughter’s wishes. Are you even going to ask me what they were?”
“Tessa, you have always been very loyal to Helen and whatever you may think, I appreciate that. But you have to realize that Helen said one thing to you, another to me, and probably something entirely different to her husband. You couldn’t possibly know her wishes.”
“Why’s that?” I asked belligerently.
“Because she didn’t know them herself. I may not be the perfect mother, but I did try to instill some sense of purpose in my daughter, but she refused to learn. I would have been happy for her to just be a mother and wife, if she’d been happy. But she wasn’t. She liked to blame me for everything, but you don’t get to gad around for thirty-five years and then suddenly ask to be taken seriously.”
I was emotionally exhausted. It made me less cautious. “I think she just wanted to be loved. By you, if you want the truth.”
“The truth, Tessa? You have that unique ability to see the truth, do you? Tessa King—the Oracle?”
“Didn’t take a genius to work it out.”
“Oh, Tessa, when are you going to learn that there are no simple answers in this life. I loved her, she knew that, but she drove me mad.” Her voice cracked a little, but she quickly composed herself. “She did nothing with the gifts she was born with. Was I wrong to expect more from her? Does that make me so terrible? I have no doubt your parents ask just as much from you, probably more.”
“My parents didn’t get divorced.”
Marguerite shook her head at me. “That barely deserves a response, but yes, I made a mistake marrying Helen’s father. Our cultures were too different. Should I have stayed and lived a half-life? Would that have made me a better mother? Living to a fraction of my capacity?”
I couldn’t answer. I didn’t want Marguerite becoming too human.
“Don’t look for simple answers, there aren’t any.” She rose out of the chair, and stood in front of me. “The trustees have frozen funds for the time being, just to make sure nothing untoward goes on. Since you’re determined to make sure the twins stay here, then you’ll have to stay here too. Keep the nanny if you wish, but she is a hundred pounds a day, so you may want to reconsider. You know where I am.”
Marguerite collected her hat and coat from the banister. I heard her heels clip the marble floor.
“Do you care at all that your daughter is dead?” I shouted from the sofa.
The heels stopped. Only for a fraction. Then I heard the door slam. That was her answer. The flashing lights of the cameras firing off sparked through the muslin drape. The grieving mother. Poor, poor Helen, to have been born into her care when there were so many others who could have done a better job. I climbed the stairs and crept into the twins’ room. I lay on the floor between their cots, stared at the luminous galaxy on the ceiling and listened to their snuffling, grunting baby breathing.
All you’d have to do is find them a happy home, Helen had said.
That was it, then. I had to find my godsons a happy home. Easy. Who was I trying to kid? If the last few weeks had taught me anything, it was that happy homes were hard to find. Life on the other side of the fence wasn’t as blissful as I’d thought.
I woke up in the middle of the night with a sore neck. It took me a moment to figure out where I was. The luminous stars had faded, I was in pitch-black. I couldn’t hear anything. I felt the carpet I was lying on, then found Peter Rabbit. I sat up in the dark. I was in the nursery, so why couldn’t I hear anything? I crawled towards the bar of pale light under the door and eased myself up. I found the light and slowly switched on the dimmer. Two babies lay, spreadeagled in their sleeping bags, in the middle of their enormous cots. I’d never known babies lie so still. I crept over and placed my hand on Tommy’s chest. I felt nothing through the quilted blue gingham. I pressed slightly harder. Suddenly he flinched. It startled me. His arms and legs shot up. He grunted, then his limbs lowered slowly back down again, and he resumed his restful sleep. My watch said 4:02. So I was right, it hadn’t been the twins keeping Helen up all night.
I crept back out of the bedroom, left the door ajar and went downstairs to the spare room I’d slept in on Saturday night. I couldn’t really sleep. I kept hearing the twins crying out, so I’d climb back up the stairs, peer into the cots, only to see two babies sound asleep. My ears were playing tricks on me. Fran told me she still occasionally hears a baby crying in the house. Two nights sleeping in the same house as the twins and I already had baby tinnitus. Eventually, the nanny came out of her room, closed the twins’ door and told me to stop worrying. Poor woman looked terrified. I didn’t blame her.
Of course, it was really my brain that was keeping me awake. Memories kept coming back to me. Memories of Helen, happy and carefree. Of the ridiculous things she made me do. Dangerous and wild at times. We hitchhiked to Oxford once, gatecrashed an Oxford University May ball and ended up jumping on the bouncy castle with the band. A totally unheard of Jamiroquai. She took me to Cuba for a week when I was broke and another badly chosen boy had let me down. It was Helen who’d told me I picked badly on purpose. I didn’t believe her, but she’d been right all along. She’d never forgotten what I had told her floating down the Mekong River. She alone had tried to pull me out of my “comfort circle,” as she called it. Nick and Fran, Ben and Sasha, Claudia and Al, and I would go with her—Cuba, Las Vegas, skiing, hiking, yoga retreats were all her doing, but I always returned to my friends. To Ben. And then she met Neil and, bit by bit, the Helen I knew began to change. All this time I’d been worried about Helen selling herself short, becoming invisible, but the person who’d really been living a half-life was me.
At seven the twins woke up. A blessed relief, I was going mad lying there. I got dressed and went up to the nursery. I leaned over each cot and smiled down. I got two gummy grins back. Was it my imagination, or were these kids getting more attractive? I was halfway through changing Bobby, when the nanny came in.
“I can do that,” she said.
“Don’t worry, nearly done.”
I explained to her who I was and apologized for creeping around the house.
“So, if you are the twins’ guardian, does that mean I’m working for you or their grandmother?”
“Everything is a bit up in the air at the moment,” I replied, “but you’ll be paid.”
She looked back at the babies, satisfied that she’d be looked after at least. “Poor little things,” she said.
I brushed a tear away. I didn’t want the boys seeing any sad faces. I didn’t want them to be disorientated, or hurt. I wanted them to think nothing was wrong. Trouble was, Helen fed them herself, so that was going to be hard.
“I’ll need your help feeding them.”
“Sure,” she said. She went over to the cupboard and took out two cartons of readymade milk.
“Shouldn’t we use the breast milk? Won’t it be less stressful for them?”
“What breast milk?”
I pointed to the cupboard. “There is a freezer behind there, packed full of the stuff.” She looked confused.
I understood her confusion. “It’s a clever design,” I said, hoping to reassure her.
“I know there is a fridge there, but there’s no breast milk in it.”
There was, she’d been looking in the wrong place. I’d seen it myself. I’d used it. Well, I hadn’t, because it had curdled, but that was my fault. I’d heated it up wrong. “You do this,” I said. “I’ll find it.”
The nanny took over changing Bobby and I opened the freezer door. It was empty except for some ice-cube trays. I closed the door again. That was weird. I opened it a second time, just to make sure. Then I looked in the fridge. That was empty too. Where had all the milk gone? There had been row upon row of it. We could have fed the boys on Helen’s milk for a month. I didn’t understand.
“Mrs. Williams told me to use these.” She showed me the cartons before deftly decanting them into waiting bottles. “It is expensive doing it this way, but they have benefits. The twins aren’t used to warm milk, which makes feeding in a hurry much easier.”
“Isn’t breast milk warm?”
“Yes.”
“They didn’t have to get used to the difference?”
“Difference between what?”
“Breast milk and that—” I pointed at the cartons. I was beginning to recognize the expression on her face. Was I losing my grip on reality?
“Wasn’t Helen feeding them herself?”
“No.”
That didn’t make sense either, though I had told her myself to quit.
“I think she stopped breastfeeding some time ago, but I don’t know the details. I was going to talk to Mrs. Williams when she returned. I don’t think this brand of milk suits Tommy. He drinks more but is then very sick, which is why he weighs considerably less than his brother. I would like to try him on a formula for hungrier babies; it should keep him happier for longer. If that doesn’t work, we could try goat’s milk.”
“How long have you been working here?” I asked.
“Since Monday night. It took me a couple of days to figure out what was wrong with Tommy.”
“And everything was OK?”
She didn’t answer.
“You can tell me, what harm can it do now? I know Neil wasn’t very easy. I was here Monday morning myself. There was a bit of a scene.”
“I don’t think the problem was with Mr. Williams.”
“Oh.”
“Really, I don’t know the details. Personally, I didn’t notice anything.”
“Anything about what?”
“Well, um, they did warn me that Mrs. Williams had a small problem—”
“She didn’t go by that name. She was called Helen Zhao, OK?” The woman nodded. “And for your information, it was Mr. Williams who had the problem, not Helen, I assure you.”
She held up her hands. “Sadly, I didn’t get to know them. I really wouldn’t like to say.”
I was perplexed, but since she’d been around for such a short time, I didn’t continue the conversation. Instead, I quietly fed my orphaned godson and saw Helen in his eyes for the first time. I put Tommy over my shoulder to wind him and was rewarded with a waterfall of puke down my back. I gave him back to the far more competent nanny.
“Get the new milk,” I said bossily, and left the nursery. Had that been my first parental decision?
I stood in Helen’s bedroom and looked around at the immaculate dressing table, the silk cushions and vast bedspread. I opened the closet; there was row upon row of designer outfits, all the “must-have” pieces, accessories, handbags and shoes. I ran my fingers along them. I wanted to find her smell, something I could hold on to, but everything was clean and in bags. There was no trace of her at all. I thought about my friend. She was lying in a bag too. The Helen I’d known was gone. Long gone. I stared into the vast wardrobe.
“What’s going on, Helen?” I asked her clothes. Strangely enough, it was her clothes that gave me my first answer. I was covered in puke. I felt strange wearing her clothes, but I needed something to borrow while I put my stuff through the washing machine. Helen was much smaller than me, but there were some items of hers that I did suit, and had always coveted. Her vast collection of Maharishi trousers, for example. I found a pair and put them on. Then I saw the jumper she’d been wearing that day in the kitchen when I’d come over to visit. It was only a few weeks ago, but my God, it seemed like years. The jumper was folded on the top shelf. I heard her voice again. Consider it yours. Here was a piece of Helen I could keep. As I pulled it down, a large plastic see-through ziplock bag fell on my head. I picked it up. It was from the Portland Hospital. It had a medicine helpline number on it and Helen’s name and her room number at the private hospital. I glanced at the contents. Inside were flattened packs of some hefty-looking medication. Codrydamol. Dicloflenac. Zanax. Diazapam. Vicadin. Volderol. They were all empty. Helen had had a long and complicated Caesarean and her scar had got infected. I remembered visiting her in the hospital and she was panicking then about taking medication and breastfeeding but the maternity staff had reassured her that it would be fine. Some even recommended she wash them down with a nice red wine. I looked briefly at the packets. From the amount in the bag, it looked like she’d been taking them for some time. I threw the ziplock bag in the bin, pulled the jumper on, and went downstairs.
I looked at my watch: 7:53. Far too early to call anyone without kids. I dialed Francesca’s number.
“Hello?”
It was Nick. “You’re back. It’s me, Tessa.”
“Oh my God, Tessa, are you OK?”
“Not really. Do you know—”
“About Neil, yes.”
“Oh Nick, there’s worse, more…”
“We know. Ben called everyone. He said you were off to get the twins, is that true?” I imagined the jungle drums had been beating fairly loudly between my friends. Did they feel, as Marguerite felt, that I was off to claim my instant family? Just add death.
“It’s not like that. Helen didn’t want her mum to have the kids. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“It’s a big responsibility.”
“I haven’t even spoken to the solicitor yet. I’m just trying to do what Helen asked me to do.”
There was a pause from Nick.
“You still there?” I asked.
“Yes, of course. Just, oh, I don’t know, be careful.”
“I know how to handle Marguerite,” I said, full of bravado I didn’t feel.
“Just, well, be careful you don’t get so involved you can’t get uninvolved.”
I didn’t like where this conversation was going. “Is Fran there?”
“Just getting everyone up. Caspar’s home.”
I didn’t have the energy to think about Caspar right then.
“I think I see a glimmer of improvement,” said Nick.
“Well, he’s always loved your mum and dad,” I said, forcing a response.
“True. Maybe seeing things through the eyes of someone he respects so much has helped.” Meaning he didn’t respect me? Now I definitely didn’t like where this conversation was going.
“Well, anyway—”
“Sorry, now’s not the time to talk about that. Is there anything we can do for you?”
Lay off me?
“No, thanks. And don’t worry about getting Fran, I’ll call her later.”
“It’s no problem.”
“Actually, the twins need—”
“I understand. I’ll tell her to call you.”
I put the phone down and stared out across the empty kitchen. The twins didn’t need anything, the nanny had everything beautifully under control. I really hadn’t charged over to Helen’s house to claim her children as my own. I really, really hadn’t. Who wanted that kind of responsibility suddenly foisted on them? It wasn’t going to improve my chances of finding a pod partner and, anyway, I didn’t have the room. I was doing this for Helen. Surely my friends knew that.
I paced the house, feeling at odds with myself until I could call Helen’s solicitor. It was nice to talk to someone who had clearly cared for Helen, and was in as much shock as I was. We could have talked for hours, but I needed some vital information. So he went over the rules of guardianship with me. He had taken care of Helen’s legal affairs since her father had died and had power of attorney over Helen’s affairs. More importantly than that, I quickly learned that he did not care for Marguerite. If this did turn into all-out war, I was fairly sure this man would be my ally. Ally? The word triggered a memory. A recent conversation: You remember my solicitor, he makes a pretty good ally. He’s good at dealing with Marguerite too. It sent a shiver through me.
“For now, the twins are in your hands,” said the solicitor, rounding up. “The money is in the control of the trustees; whatever is decided should be by mutual consent, and then the courts won’t have to get involved. Are you thinking of taking them?”
I sat at Helen’s desk and stared out of the bay window on the raised ground floor. “I don’t know what to think yet,” I said truthfully. “Helen wanted me to find them a happy home and I don’t really have a home as such to offer them.”
“Well, they sort of come with their own home, so that shouldn’t matter.”
I didn’t think Helen was thinking bricks and mortar, but I took his words on board anyway. My mobile phone started vibrating on the leather desk. I glanced at it. It was Billy’s number. I swore silently. “Do you mind hanging on for one second?” I said to the solicitor.
“Not at all.”
I held the phone in one hand and picked up my mobile with the other.
“Billy, hi, everything all right?”
“Fine, I just wanted to say…God, I’m so sorry about Helen and—”
“I know, I know.” I felt my voice cracking. It hurt my throat. “I’d really like to talk to you, but…I’m so sorry about—”
“Shh, doesn’t matter.”
“I’m just on the other line so can I—”
“Course, any time. And Tessa, you know I—”
“I know. Me too. Thanks for calling.”
“Don’t worry about us. You and me, I mean. We’re fine. Call me later.” I clutched the phone before placing it back on the desk. With monumental effort I brought the other phone back up to my ear.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “Where were we?”
“Marguerite.”
I sighed. “All I know is what Helen told me, and that was if anything ever happened to her, she didn’t want her mother bringing up her children.” I thought about what Marguerite had said to me. About the different sides of Helen. About the fact that she was one person to me, another to her mother. That she’d only been trying to impress me. Was that true, or was Marguerite just trying to manipulate me? “I believed her when she said it, but, oh, I don’t know, maybe she was being overdramatic?”
“Possibly. But that was my understanding of the situation when we last spoke.”
“It was?”
“She made it very clear.”
I was relieved, for a moment. Until another thought struck me. “When was that?”
“A couple of months ago when she came in to amend her will—”
“What for?”
“Nothing sinister, the twins had been born, her will needed to reflect that. While we were at it, she made a few changes. I suggest we all meet up after the funeral and then we can decide what we are going to do.”
“The funeral,” I said, aghast. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“I’m afraid Marguerite does have jurisdiction over that. My understanding is that Marguerite wants to arrange a burial at St. John’s, followed by a wake at her house.”
“Helen wanted to be cremated,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
I’d like my ashes to be scattered on China Beach. What had I told her? That China Beach would probably resemble the Gold Coast by the time she and I popped our clogs, so she’d said any beach would do.
“Yes, I’ve told Marguerite already,” I replied.
“Well, you’d better tell her again. She is already making plans for when the police release the body. You’ve got a bit of time because of the coroner’s report.”
“Coroner’s report?”
“It’s normal practice.”
“She won’t have to be—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“They will take a toxicity reading of the blood, just to rule out drunk-driving. It’s all for insurance purposes. Nothing sinister.”
“She didn’t drink,” I said. “Neil, Neil was the boozer.”
“I know, but they have to be able to rule the cause of death as accidental.”
“Of course, it was accidental! You think a woman drives herself and her husband into a tree at ninety miles an hour without braking on purpose?”
As soon as the words were out there, Helen’s voice came ringing in my ears. And then they kept coming, more and more of Helen’s well-chosen words.
Whatever you do, don’t let my mother get her hands on my boys…
All you’d have to do was find them a happy home…
I have a very understanding doctor…
I can’t afford to get divorced…
Neil has to be dealt with and I am going to deal with him…
Deal with him…
Deal with him…
I ran upstairs to Helen’s bedroom and retrieved the bag of pills from the bin. I pulled each one out, searching for dates. They had been represcribed over and over and over again. Long after the scar had healed and the pain had gone, Helen had been mixing what looked to me like a terrifying amount of medication. I sat down on the bed and stared through the open doors of her wardrobe. The jumper had sat proudly in the middle of the shelf. Consider it yours. Consider it yours? Why had she left me these to find? Why? I looked back at the empty boxes of pills. This? This was the universe unfolding as it should?