The Book of You: A Novel (5 page)

Rowena’s too excited to notice. “It’s all in the explicitness—that’s what Rafe’s getting out of me. Remember how I got you home and cleaned you up?”

“I do,” I say quietly. “Nobody could have helped me like you did.”

“It’s a great story. Clarissa will be proud of you when she reads it.”

I’d kick you under the table, but I don’t want to touch you even with my boot and I’m not about to let you prove to Rowena that I’m unbalanced. To my amazement, you stand up. For a second of reckless hope I actually think you’re going to leave. But of course you’re not. You’re just going to the bar.

I’m on my feet, ready to walk out, but almost immediately I sit down again. I couldn’t abandon my worst enemy to you, let alone my oldest friend, though right now Rowena is acting more like the first than the second. Whatever Rowena may be, I am my parents’ daughter; they taught me too well the importance of loyalty to friends and family, even when—especially when—that loyalty is tested. The Rowena I loved must still be in there, though right now she’s buried so deep I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to find her again, or if I even want to try.

It’s as if she gave you a tour of my underwear drawer. But I know I need to sound calm if I’m to have any chance of getting through to her. “I don’t want you talking about me to him. Please don’t.”

“It’s my story. You just happen to be in it. You have no right to dictate to me.”

“You may want him here, but I don’t. I’ve made that clear. Any normal man would respect my wishes. Don’t you see that?”

She doesn’t answer. For an instant I think she does see it. Rowena’s ears always redden when she’s upset, and that’s what they’re doing now. Their heightened color makes me notice the scars just in front of them, and I look away so she doesn’t see me seeing.

“He tricked me into coming here. He knew I never would if you told me he was joining us. Don’t you think it’s odd that he asked you to keep it a secret?”

She hesitates, considering, but she wrestles with whatever doubts she may be starting to have about you and spits out the word “No.”

I don’t want to say what comes out of my mouth next, but I know I must. “He’s not interested in you at all.”

Rowena’s lips curl into disbelieving rage. “Not every man on the planet’s in love with you. You can’t take them all.” Perhaps she has guessed the truth about Henry. Maybe you actually told her. You probably just let it slip out casually while talking about something else. That’s exactly the sort of thing you’d do.

“What he does isn’t love. It’s the opposite of love.” I’m speaking gently, softly, as tenderly as I can. “It’s as if he’s trying to steal me. And now he’s stealing you from me.”

“I’m not yours to steal. You haven’t been real with me in years. You’re so full of secrets, I hardly know you anymore. Don’t you realize how much that hurt me?” Her voice cracks at the last sentence.

I put my hand over hers, moved by this glimpse of the old Rowena’s need for me. “I know. And I regret that. But right now I’m trying to stop you getting hurt. That’s the only reason I’m sitting here when all I want is to run out that door. He knows that. That’s why he set this up.”

She rips her hand away. “How very generous and selfless of you.” Her voice is cold, clipped. “You don’t want him. So leave him to me.”

“He’s dangerous. He’s making my life hell. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s a hard thing for me to trust anyone with. I’d call the police on him this minute, but you wouldn’t back me up if I did, would you?”

“You’re being hysterical. He’s an invited guest. I actually think you’re sick. I’ve got to know him well.”

“You’ve no idea what he’s like. He’s just using you to spy on me.”

“You’re the most egotistical woman I’ve ever known.”

Already you’re back, and so is your smirk. “Peach Bellinis,” you announce proudly. “Tonight’s special. The bartender here is great. That’s why I suggested this place.”

Rowena lights up again. “I adore Bellinis.” She truly does like you.

I try to see you as Rowena does. Henry thought you were a buffoon, but he admitted that students sometimes got crushes on you. Tonight you’re wearing black jeans and a deep-blue shirt, untucked. It’s my favorite shade of blue. Midnight blue. I actually like what you’re wearing. It occurs to me that Henry sometimes dressed like this, and you’re deliberately copying him.

You set the Bellinis on the table, and a bottle of French beer for yourself. “Let’s all have fun now.” But you already are: the most fun you’ve had since November. “I hope you like Bellinis, too, Clarissa.” You look at me, then at the naked woman on the wall above the table.

She is sitting on a stool, her legs together at the knees to stop it being too graphic. She is wearing a suspender belt, stockings, high heels, and nothing else. There’s a riding crop across her lap. You gesture toward the painting and arrange your face in a grimace of fake embarrassment. “Sorry. I’d forgotten about the décor here.” But you and I both know you’re getting off on this public porn: on seeing me surrounded by these pictures. That’s why you chose this place.

“I think it’s beautiful. Tasteful.” Rowena reaches for her glass.

I wonder again about the wine you fed me in November. “Don’t drink that.” I grab her hand but she snatches it away. I try again, and she actually smacks my wrist—hard—and picks up the glass. After an absurd struggle I spill her peach Bellini all over the basket of dried-out baguette slices.

“You’re being insane, Clarissa,” she says. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“I think Clarissa isn’t well.” You manage to appear sorrowful. “She needs our understanding and support.”

“She needs professional help,” Rowena says.

I pick up the other peach Bellini. I don’t want to leave it on the table now that I’ve made Rowena so determined to drink it. I grab my bag and coat from the back of my chair. Like you—because of you—I have a habit of keeping my things close so I can make a quick getaway. I consider rushing out of the restaurant, but I know you’ll only come after me and I’ll end up alone on the dark street with you. There’s only one place I can think of where I can call a taxi and hide until it’s here. And I have a plan, formed crudely only in the last few seconds. It means facing you once more, on my own, but it’s fairly safe, and because of Rowena I can’t see an alternative.

You start to rise and my hand flies up in warning, like a traffic policeman’s. “Don’t you dare follow me.” I can count on you to ignore my wishes. You always do. I’m so loud the people at the tables around us stare. I choke out a good-bye to Rowena, but she doesn’t answer. I speed toward the metal stairs that spiral down to the basement, where the cloakroom is.

There’s another piece of fake Art Deco porn down here, just outside the cloakroom. This one is of a man and woman together, to show that the cloakroom is unisex. In keeping with the rest of the art, they’re both naked. He’s standing, looking down at her. She’s on her knees before him. The view of her is from behind; her head blocks the center of his body.

The cloakroom is so trendily dim I feel blind again. I head toward a stall, hurling the peach Bellini into the chrome sink as I move. The stall has the kind of door with no gaps at its top and bottom, so there’s no chance of your crawling under or peering over. I phone for a taxi. The dispatcher tells me a driver will be along in ten minutes. I plan to stay behind this locked door for the first nine of them.

When I emerge, you’re in the room, just as I expected. You’re barring the exit. The cloying smoke of the incense they’re burning down here makes it hard to breathe, and you’re blocking what light there is. My head is pounding, maybe from eyestrain, or maybe because I’m being choked by a poisonous fog of synthetic jasmine. I remind myself that the taxi driver will come into the restaurant any second to ask for me. I calculated before I came down here that someone was bound to walk in, so I don’t think you’ll risk doing anything too uncontrolled. Still, I don’t want to be trapped here long enough to find out; I’ve staged this collision with you as exactly as I could, leaving the smallest amount of time possible to say what I need to without Rowena hearing.

I get straight to it. “I’m not going anywhere near Rowena again. Hang around her all you want. I don’t care. It’s not going to help you get near me.” I know you. I know Rowena won’t be in any real danger from you. Rowena is throwing herself at you. You’re not interested in women who actually want you. Only the ones who clearly don’t.

“I care about what you care about, Clarissa. I want your friends to be my friends. I want to help Rowena. For you, Clarissa. I’m only interested in her because you are. Don’t be jealous.”

“I’m not—” Your last point is so outrageous I begin to deny it, but I manage somehow to bite back the end of the sentence. I start again, trying to sound indifferent and cold. “Rowena and I have grown apart. It’s been too long. She doesn’t interest me anymore. I don’t even like her anymore.”

As soon as the forced betrayals are out of my mouth, I want to disavow them. But I can’t, despite my spasm of grief for Rowena. It’s impossible for me to try to help her as a friend should. Or her me. Not now that you’ve hijacked her. Saying these things is all I can do for her: I need to make sure she’s of no use to you. But she won’t thank me for it.

I take a small step toward the door. “Get out of my way.”

You don’t move.

“If you don’t get out of my way I’ll make you.” It sounds ridiculous as I say it. We both know I can’t make you do anything.

You smile, indulgently. “You’re charming when you’re angry, Clarissa.”

My hand is curling around the frosted-glass soap dispenser. It’s heavy. It’s as ludicrous as everything else in this supposedly atmospheric, irritatingly trendy unisex cloakroom.

“It pleases me that you’re jealous, Clarissa. I want to pull those clips out of your hair and run my fingers through it and kiss you. I want to see what you’re wearing beneath that dress.”

I raise the soap dispenser as if it were a weapon.

You actually laugh out loud. “You’d never be able to hurt me, Clarissa. I know you.”

My hand stops doing what hands are supposed to do. The soap dispenser slips from my fingers, shattering like a bomb on the monochrome-tiled floor just as the main cloakroom door slams into you, propelled by Rowena. You stumble and then skid on the mess of liquid and glass, only just catching yourself by grabbing the sink. The whole evening has been a surreal nightmare, but the unintended choreography caused by Rowena’s entrance is straight out of a slapstick comedy.

“I have to go, Rowena.”

She seems not to know what to do. For an instant, her face softens, and her eyes fill with tears that she manages to keep in. Then she says, “Nobody’s stopping you.”

I stagger up the twirly stairs and out of the restaurant and into the waiting taxi. My lips taste of salt because I’m crying; I realize I must have been biting them because the tears are stinging. Rowena is lost to me. Lost to herself. I saw that in my first few minutes with her. Even before you walked in and did what you did.

Thursday

Thursday, February 5, 8:02 a.m.

There is another envelope from you this morning, waiting for me on the mat inside the front door. You must have pushed it through the slot very early for it to have escaped Miss Norton’s notice. I hurry along the path to the taxi, relieved that at least you aren’t actually here.

As the taxi zooms down the winding hill, I dial Rowena’s hotel. She’s going back to London today. Out of your reach, I hope. But also out of mine.

She answers with a slurred “What?”

“It’s me.”

“He’s not here, if that’s why you’re calling. He only stayed in the restaurant long enough to tell me he can’t help me with my writing anymore, or have anything to do with me. He says he won’t come between two lifelong friends.”

But you already have: Rowena slams the receiver down with a clang and the line goes dead.

At least I know she’s safe. At least you’ve pulled back from her as I predicted. You’ve got what you wanted. You’ve got as much of me as she can give you.

I tear open your envelope. In it is a ticket to the ballet. Tonight’s performance. And a letter.

You must be stressed, Clarissa. I know you don’t mean to treat me unkindly. You can’t have meant the cruel things you said. I only want to make you happy. I wanted last night to be special for you, reuniting you with your friend, but I can see I misjudged it. I promise never to see Rowena again. Please let me make it up to you by taking you out. On your own. Just the two of us. I’m all yours. No gooseberry. I know you’ll love the Prokofiev
Cinderella.
We share so much, Clarissa. Meet me in the foyer at 7. Don’t forget your ticket! We’ll have a drink first. And a late dinner after. Love, Rafe.

I hardly know where to begin to rip apart the madness of your letter. Do you not hear the things I say to you—no, no, and no—again and again? I think you must not take it in; you’re in the grip of a crazed kind of shifting reasoning, even a terrifying sincerity.

Did you rifle through my CDs and DVDs when you were in my flat? Because you are right, guessing how I adore that ballet. But you can’t imagine how I’d hate it with you. From a different man the gesture might have been sweet. It might have been romantic. But not from you. The man who exploited my oldest friend and turned her against me. From you this ticket is an assault, not a gift. Surely you must know, deep down, that you won’t be sitting next to me in the theater tonight?

But I can’t shake my dread of what you will do when the curtain rises and I’m not there. I can’t help picturing you standing on the tiled floor, watching yourself in the elaborate gilt mirror, waiting, angry and upset when I don’t turn up, the man behind the ticket collection counter noticing you, guessing you’ve been stood up.

You were a baby once. What could have happened to you, to make you like this?

“A
RE YOU ABLE
to continue this morning, Miss Lockyer?” Mr. Morden looked sad and concerned. His voice was soft and gentlemanly.

The defendants all gazed ahead, their faces blank, sitting very still in their shiny wooden box, on chairs that were covered in the same royal-blue woven upholstery as the jurors’ and barristers’. It was all very blue, but for the judge’s deep-brown leather.

“I’m okay. Thank you.” She spoke as if the conversation were just between the two of them. Clarissa saw then that her voice could be pretty, in different circumstances.

“I know yesterday was very difficult for you.”

Miss Lockyer’s hair was in two low ponytails, like a little girl’s. She tugged at one of them.

“Can you please tell the jury what happened next?”

Her voice was decided and unashamed. “I went back into the bedroom. I know it might seem strange that I got back into bed with the two men who’d just raped me, but I thought if I didn’t they’d come and look for me and that would be worse. I huddled in the corner of the bed, in a kind of ball, hugging myself. You just can’t imagine how cold that flat was. Their weight was on the duvet, so I could only pull a bit of it over me. I was scared if I tugged at it too much they’d wake. I dozed, I was that tired, but I kept jerking out of sleep. Then it was morning, and Sparkle came and stood in the doorway and signaled for me to follow him into the lounge.”

Tuesday, November 11, 9:00 a.m. (three months ago)

It is the morning after your book launch party. I fight my way out of a nightmare, thrashing to get free of a very dark place. I am in my own bed, lying on my side, my back to you. You are pressing the front of your body into me, spooning me, and I can feel your erection. Your hand is over my breast, stuck to it like a suction cup. You are kissing the nape of my neck and whispering that you’ve been watching me dream. You are holding me so tight I have to struggle hard to wriggle out of your arms and snatch my dress from the floor to cover myself as I rush into the bathroom to be sick. When I’m finished, grabbing the sink to balance, I look down at my body. Spots of blood have dried on the insides of my thighs, where there are red marks that I don’t want to think about. They will turn into bruises the next day. My lips and wrists and ankles are chafed. My hair is matted and tangled. My eyes hurt too much. I turn the lights off. I stand beneath the hot shower in the dark, shampooing my hair and soaping every inch of my skin. It stings, when I wash between my legs. I brush and floss my teeth. My jaw aches. The last thing I can recall is your taking my dress off. After that, there is only blackness. The bathroom door is locked behind me. I ignore your repeated knocks and concerned questions from outside. Late that afternoon I need an emergency appointment at the doctor’s to get antibiotics for a bladder infection. I am ill for three days after: I have a pounding headache that just won’t go; I vomit and vomit until there is nothing left but bile; I sleep and sleep. No matter how much I sleep, I cannot wake up.

M
ISS
L
OCKYER BEGAN
to pant. Abruptly, dramatically, her skin paled. It was easy to see this in the clear light pouring through Court 12’s domed glass ceiling and the row of windows on the wall behind Clarissa—the only windows in the room and far too high to look out of. It could have been a ballroom. Maybe it was, long ago.

“I need a break. I’m sorry. I need a break.” Miss Lockyer covered her face.

T
HEY WERE SITTING
in the small, windowless waiting room just outside Court 12.

“She’s not coming back,” Annie said.

Clarissa said softly, “I’m sure she’ll be back.”

Annie rolled her deceptively gentle brown eyes and swung her shiny black hair and puffed her apple blossom cheeks. Beneath the artificial lights, her creamy skin was faintly yellow.

“You’re probably right,” Clarissa said quickly. “You watch all the time. I write too much. I take too many notes. I’m probably missing something by not looking.”

Annie’s face was cherubic and heart-shaped. Her angelic features seemed to relax a bit. She tapped her sweet little chin several times with her index finger. “What did she think was going to happen, stealing those drugs from them?”

Clarissa pulled out a Japanese pattern book. There was a nightdress with a crossover bodice she loved the look of—she had some silk the color of a bruise that she’d use. She’d make two and send one of them to Rowena once she’d managed to get Rafe safely out of her life.

“My wife used to sew.”

The owner of that voice must have noticed what she was looking at. Her face reddened as she hurriedly shut the book. In the chair opposite was the tall man who sat in front of her in the jury box. She liked his dark-brown hair, so short it made her wonder if he was in the military; she’d spent a lot of time over the last two days with that hair in her view; she thought it would feel bristly.

“Does she not anymore?” she said.

His jaw—strong and square and so unlike Henry’s—stiffened almost imperceptibly. She had the impression that he was considering what to tell her, though his pause probably seemed longer than it actually was. “She died. Two years ago.”

“Oh—I’m so sorry.”

His name was Robert. She told him her own name as the door into Court 12 opened and the usher invited them back in. She stood and lined up with the others, but Robert’s voice soon made her turn around.

“You left this on your chair.” He was holding out the Japanese pattern book. The nightdress she’d been studying—very pretty, but a little revealing—was featured on the cover, hanging against a wooden wardrobe. The picture was covered by his large hand.

She bit her lip slightly and shook her head in ironic embarrassment, surprised at the same time to find herself noticing how symmetrical his lips were, and that they were perfect—not too big and not too small, not too red and not too bloodless, but just right. His eyes were the brightest sapphire blue she’d ever seen in human eyes. She thought she might be blinded if she looked too long at them.

Despite its remarkable features, his face was neutral, perhaps even expressionless. “I think you’re right,” he said. “I think she’ll be back.”

A
ND SHE WAS,
though her eyes were rimmed in red and she had to swallow hard several times as she spoke.

“They made me lie down on the floor. They threw a quilt over me. They started . . . kicking me, hitting me. I was in a ball, trying to shield my breasts, my head. I thought they were actually going to kill me and they’d covered my face so they wouldn’t have to see me while they did it. I started screaming that I’d call my grandfather, that he’d give me the money.

“Sparkle took the quilt away, handed me my phone. ‘Dial,’ he said. I told my grandfather I was desperate, that I needed fifteen hundred pounds, but he said no. I thought they’d start beating on me again then, but Sparkle said I could pay him back by dealing for him. He gave me three hundred pounds’ worth, so I could get started. Then he drove me to the train station and let me go.”

Thursday, February 5, 8:30 p.m.

At eight thirty the doorbell rings. And rings and rings and rings. I’ve known since this morning that you’d come after me for jilting you at the ballet. I don’t answer, of course. But I do experiment: I take the intercom phone off its cradle, but this fails to disable the buzzer; worse yet, your voice is now incessant. Without a word I put the intercom back in its place and refuse to pick it up again.

I go into my bedroom and grab the handset for my landline. I press the 9 once. I press it twice. Remembering my call to the emergency operator last Friday, I pause before pressing it a third time.

I am fifteen again, reporting the bag theft. The policewoman is firing her questions at me, and I’m wishing that my parents were beside me instead of in the waiting area with Rowena and the shouting relatives of criminals. Had my bag really been stolen? Perhaps I’d simply lost it and feared telling my parents the truth? Surely they’d be upset by the expense and inconvenience such carelessness would cause: getting the locks changed, replacing my schoolbooks, giving me another week’s worth of lunch money? I said that my parents would never mind about such things. I said I could never fear them. I said they cared only about my safety. The policewoman’s incredulity seemed to deepen with every word I spoke. I managed to persuade her to let me drag Rowena in, but the policewoman regarded her as an unreliable witness, a loyal friend to me whose confirmation of my story couldn’t be trusted.

They didn’t find the girl who assaulted me. Of course they didn’t. I doubt they even looked for her.

The police cannot act unless there is evidence that a crime has been committed.

I press the red button instead of the third 9 and toss the handset on my bed, knowing I can’t go to the police yet. I still don’t have enough evidence. And by the time they got here you’d be gone—then they wouldn’t take me seriously. You’re not stupid enough to let them catch you at my front door. Maybe they’d even charge me with wasting police time for making another inappropriate 999 call only six days after the last one. They’d think you’re a phantom just like that girl who punched me on the seafront.

By nine o’clock the endless scream of the bell is more than I can stand. I pick up the intercom phone, but I say nothing. Knowing it won’t be long, I wait for your voice.

“Clarissa?” you say. “Clarissa? I waited for you, Clarissa. Is something wrong, Clarissa? How could you be so horrible to me, Clarissa? I thought you’d be sorry after how you treated me last night, but now this.”

Until you, I loved my name. I don’t want you to take that away from me, too. I can’t let you do that, though I cringe each time you repeat it.

The way you veer between solicitousness and anger, conciliating and scolding, makes me so fearful I hug myself and rock back and forth.

I go into the bathroom and shut the door, though it hardly does anything to block out the noise. I turn on the tap at full force, and that helps but doesn’t completely drown you out. I shake lavender bath salts over the tub: Gary’s Christmas present, which is the same every year, making us both laugh as he hands it over. I do not feel like laughing right now. I drop my clothes on the floor, and as soon as the bath’s full enough for the water to cover my ears, I get in with a clumsy splash.

That does the trick entirely. I can’t hear you at all now. But the bath salts do nothing to relax me, and after only a few minutes I’m weak and faint from the heat, and the steam is making it impossible to breathe. Not being able to hear anything at all is frightening in a different way. I have a tiny kernel of hope that when I break the water’s surface and reemerge there will be silence, but you are still there, of course, making your noise. I get out too quickly and feel dizzy.

The nice word for you is methodical. Obsessive-compulsive is the meaner phrase, and one you’ve truly earned. Nobody lives up to that one better than you. You press the buzzer for a shrill sixty seconds exactly, then allow me precisely two minutes of precious quiet before repeating the cycle. You probably keep a stopwatch in your bag of tools. It’s a good thing Miss Norton is near deaf and goes to bed early, taking her hearing aids out before sleep. I am grateful that I’m not in a public place where you can ambush me like you did with Rowena.