Chapter Thirteen

Beth arrived just after eleven. She apologized, saying she had been out late, but she looked entirely fresh and rested. And she was immaculately dressed, entirely different from the day before: a dark grey pencil skirt with a little slit up the back, shoes with very low heels, and a waistcoat over a crisp white shirt. Her skin glowed, her hair tumbled over her shoulders. She made me feel shabby, old and boring. She seemed surprised and not completely pleased to see me. ‘Where’s she going to work?’ she asked Frances.

‘She’s going to hover,’ I said, before Frances could reply. ‘Just sort out a few things and not get in anyone’s way.’

‘I was just asking,’ said Beth, and was interrupted by a merry tune from her mobile phone. She opened it and turned her back on me; I noticed there were seams on her black tights.

It was immediately obvious that it would take more than a day or two to restore order to the chaos of the office. It surprised me that Frances had let everything get into such a mess: she seemed the kind of person who would be calmly and instinctively organized: knickers folded in her underwear drawer, herbs and spices arranged alphabetically on the kitchen shelf, car insurance and MOT documents neatly filed.

‘Did Milena do the organizing and filing?’ I asked, as we drank our first coffee of the day, poured from a new cafetière.

‘That’s a laugh,’ said Frances. ‘No. Milena was the gorgeous public face of Party Animals. It was her job to schmooze the clients, flirt with the suppliers and come up with the brilliant ideas.’

‘What did you do?’ I asked.

‘We picked up the pieces,’ said Beth, from across the room.

‘She sounds quite a character,’ I said.

‘You must have seen that,’ said Frances.

‘I meant that you don’t know what people are like at work,’ I gabbled, cursing myself silently. ‘You must miss her.’

‘She’s certainly left a gap,’ said Frances, as she picked up her phone and punched numbers into it.

I found some space by a work surface at the back of the office that gave out on to the steps that led up to the garden. I began to add to the piles of paper I had created the previous day. I tried to avoid speaking for a while, worried I might give myself away again. I felt startled and shifty every time Frances called me Gwen. Couldn’t she tell that I was not a between-jobs Gwen but an out-of-control Ellie, that my black trousers, grey jersey and eye-liner were a feeble disguise? I kept expecting a stern hand to fall on my shoulder.

‘How did you know Milena?’ Frances asked me.

‘Oh.’ My mind raced. ‘I met her at a fund-raising event. For breast cancer,’ I added. ‘It was boring and she was fun so we kept in touch. Vaguely. I can’t remember when I last saw her, though.’ I glanced at Frances: she didn’t seem to find my words incredible.

‘What do you do normally, Gwen?’ she asked.

‘I’m a maths teacher at a comprehensive school.’ So far so Gwen Abbott.

‘No wonder you’re good at this kind of thing. But why did you leave?’

‘I don’t know if I have left, not permanently. I’m taking a break. I like teaching but it’s so stressful.’ Frances nodded sympathetically and I warmed to my theme, remembering things Gwen had said, TV documentaries I’d watched, and my own schooldays, when I’d hated maths. ‘I teach in an inner-city school in…’ areas flashed through my mind and I seized on one that was far to the north but still in London ‘… Leytonstone. Half the kids don’t want to be there. Some hardly speak English and need much more support than they’re actually getting. Instead of teaching them, I try to keep order. I thought I’d take a few months out and think things over. If I’m going to make a change, it should be now. Maybe I’ll travel.’

‘Lovely,’ said Frances, staring at a brochure and frowning. ‘Where?’

‘Peru,’ I said. ‘Or I’ve always wanted to go to India.’ Without warning, tears stung my eyes. Greg and I had talked about going to India together. I blinked furiously and pushed two receipts into the appropriate folder.

‘Are you married?’

‘No. I was with someone for a long time but it didn’t work out.’ I gave a rueful shrug. ‘Between jobs and between relationships. So, you see, I have this rare moment of freedom.’

‘No children yet?’

‘No,’ I said shortly. And then I added, without realizing that I was going to, the words taking me by surprise, ‘I always wanted children,’ and for one fearful moment my defences were down and I was being me, Ellie, with a pain in her heart because she hadn’t been able to have children and now… I sat up straighter, snapped a folder shut. ‘Maybe one day,’ I said – Gwen said – with brisk cheerfulness.

‘I never wanted children,’ said Frances. ‘It seemed so time-consuming, so wearing, trading your freedom for someone else’s well-being. I watched friends turn from fun-loving, carefree creatures to people who talked about nappy rash and started yawning at eight o’clock and thought, That’s not for me. And David agreed. I used to thank God I was born into a time when it was permissible to admit to possessing no maternal feelings. But then, just a few years ago, I suddenly thought how nice it would be to have someone to care for like that. Would have been, I should say. Too late now. Tick-tock,’ she said, with a sad little laugh.

I didn’t get much information about Milena from the papers I went through on that first morning, just slapdash signatures on copies of letters about the cost of finger-food and the hire of champagne flutes, although I wrote down every relevant date and place in my little notebook. I decided to go for a more direct approach.

‘Tell me,’ I said, as we sat drinking another of the mugs of coffee that punctuated the day, ‘this man Milena died with: who was he?’ I ran my finger round the rim of the cup, trying to appear casual. Was my voice wobbling?

Frances shrugged. ‘I don’t know anything about him. I think he was married. Silvio said something about meeting his wife once. He seemed rather taken with her – but, then, Silvio’s an odd fish.’

My face felt hot. How would a normal person react? Should I ask who Silvio was? No. I was meant to know Milena. ‘You never met him?’

‘I never even knew he existed.’

‘Strange,’ I said.

‘Not in Milena’s world.’

‘How d’you mean?’ I put my mug down and shuffled papers, as if I wasn’t particularly interested in the answer.

‘Milena’s private life was always a bit complicated. And mysterious.’

‘You mean she was unfaithful.’

Frances’s face was flushed with either embarrassment or distress. ‘Basically, yes.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know. Didn’t her husband mind?’

Frances gave me an odd look. ‘I don’t know if he even knew. People see what they want to see, don’t they?’

‘So she didn’t confide in you?’

‘When she wanted to. I guessed she’d met someone new. She had the familiar radiance about her.’ She gave a small, sour smile. ‘You probably think I’m being heartless, speaking ill of the dead.’

‘You’re being honest. Milena was a complicated woman.’ I worried that I’d gone too far. I didn’t want Frances to think I was prodding her into being rude about her friend. ‘And messy,’ I said, standing up and crossing the room to fetch another pile of unsorted papers. ‘I’d better crack on with this lot.’

‘Gwen?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s really nice to have you here.’

I tried to smile. ‘It’s nice to be here.’

At lunchtime, Beth went upstairs to the kitchen and made us the kind of meal I’ve always imagined women eat after they’ve had their hair done: a light salad of green beans, butter beans and beansprouts, scattered with health-giving seeds and dressed with a lemon vinaigrette, and when we’d finished, I was hungrier than I had been before.

Answering Frances’s questions, I found out more about my life as Gwen: it turned out that she had grown up in Dorset, the youngest of five children, gone to Leeds University and studied maths and physics, that she liked gardening and even had an allotment (stop! I commanded myself – you know nothing about allotments), that her father was dead. I felt a growing anxiety as I made up a life on the spot. It would have been much simpler to stick to the facts of my own life – or that of the real Gwen at the very least. Now I had to remember what I had said. Beth didn’t speak but just looked at me. Had I made a mistake? All it would take was for Beth or Frances to be a bit too familiar with Dorset or Leeds or Leytonstone, and who knows what would happen? At the same time, I felt a thrill of pleasure as I concocted a life for myself. I’d always wanted to be the youngest in a large, close family, rather than the eldest in a small, distant one, and now, for a few days, I was. And maybe I’d get an allotment. Why not? Anything is possible when you decide to be someone else.