The Godmother (35 page)

She paused again.

“Trust me, if it was my choice, I wouldn't be calling him.”

“It's just that—oh, it doesn't matter.”

“What?”

“Well, Billy has done this before.”

“Done what?”

“Told us—my husband—that Cora was ill.”

“She is ill quite a lot,” I said, exasperated.

“Not as ill as Billy led us—Christoph—to believe.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I'm at the hospital, Cora has pneumonia and for a little while they thought it was very serious. Billy just thought he should know.” Christ, I'm not surprised Billy didn't want to make this call.

“OK. Sorry. He's in Dubai, staying somewhere called the Burj Al Arab. I don't have the number because he always calls me. But that's where he is.”

“Thank you.”

“He won't come home, she's cried wolf too many times,” said Christoph's wife before I could end the call. “To be honest, he wouldn't come back for his own daughters.”

I didn't correct her Freudian slip. I didn't remind her that Cora was his own daughter. I didn't ask what she meant by cried wolf.
He'll believe you
.

International Directories put me through to the hotel. I didn't know much about Dubai's landmark hotel, except what I had learned going through back copies of
Ahlan!
I knew that it cost $1,000 a night. I also knew that some people called it the Cockroach—because from a certain angle it looks like the filthy beetle—though the name better suited a large proportion of the guests inside. A perfect place for a bug like Christoph to dwell.

“Burj Al Arab.”

“Mr. Tarrenot, please.” I waited to be put through.

“Hello?” came the familiar voice.

“Christoph, it's Tessa. I just called to tell you that Cora is in hospital with pneumonia.” There were no tears this time. My voice was steady.

“How did you get this number?”

“She is on the mend though, thanks for asking.”

“Is this for real?”

“Course it's for real.”

“Is she stable?”

“Yes,” I replied, knowing exactly what was coming next. God, how I would love to get this man in court. It was worth considering changing fields for.

“I can't come back.”

“I wasn't asking you to, Christoph. I was simply informing you that your daughter has been ill. Your wife has the details. Goodbye.”

I absolutely loathed that man.

I shouldn't have challenged Billy. It was my mistake. Not hers. I didn't understand why she had wanted me to call Christoph, now I understood. I still didn't think she needed to, but perhaps I was wrong about that. He was Cora's father, however poorly he did that job—even I knew he had rights. I shouldn't have pushed Billy while she was tired. She may have been behaving irrationally, but it was to be expected. I didn't want her sitting up in the hospital worrying about our argument, on top of everything else she had to worry about. I walked to a coffee shop and ordered Billy a latte to go. I pocketed some brown sugar and a twig to stir it in with, and returned to the hospital with my peace offering. This was the grown-up thing to do. I pressed the buzzer of the children's ward.

“I'm here to see Billy Tarrenot, she's with her daughter, Cora.”

“Can I have your name? Oh, sorry, I've just been told, she's…” There was a muffled pause. “She's not here.”

“Oh. Can I come in and see Cora?”

“Are you family?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you family?”

I waited too long before replying. “I'm her godmother.”

“Sorry,” said the nurse over the intercom. “Hospital policy. Only family allowed in.”

The speaker clicked. I was alone in the corridor. Only family allowed in. If I wasn't allowed to see Cora, who was allowed to come and see me?

I walked slowly back to the King's Road and caught the number 11 bus back to Victoria. Normally I would have been on the phone to Ben in a second, gabbling madly into the phone for the length of the journey, telling him about our argument. Almost every word. That way I'd have been able to stop any possibility of reflection and I would have let him make me feel better before I'd had time to work out why I really felt bad. I wondered, as I watched the high street shops judder past me, how long I'd been using him as a crutch. Ben would have told me not to worry; Ben would have reassured me that we always lash out at the person we love the most; that I was family, absolutely. He might have gently teased me that perhaps my timing was a little off, and I would have taken that tease on the chin and felt magnanimous about it. I stared at couples on the pavement below. But what he'd really have been doing was lying to me and I would have chosen to believe all those well-intentioned lies. I stared at my phone. I missed him. I missed that layer of protection he offered me. I put my phone away and stepped off the bus. I couldn't call him, it was out of the question, I'd made a pact with God—but I felt desolate because I realized that there wasn't anyone else in the world I ever wanted to talk to as much. I didn't trust myself to go home.

I cut through the back of Victoria and instead of crossing the motorway that separated me from the river and home, I turned left and made the short walk to Tate Britain. I climbed the wide stone steps to the museum and walked in. As soon as you are through the doors, the air changes. It is softer. The building has the ability to wrap itself around you, making you feel safe. All the animosity of the street is left outside, for everyone in there has come for the same reason. To be humbled by art. I walked through the reverential hush to the Turner exhibition and stared up at his mammoth paintings. I felt the rain in his paintings splatter my face. I heard the whisper of shingle on his beaches. I felt the rush of speed. The echo of silence. I got lost there for a blissful couple of hours. It wasn't as good as a chat to Ben, but it was close. And certainly a damn site healthier.

By the time I left the museum it was dark. I was feeling much calmer. I had climbed out of my funk unaided. People were hurrying home. Stressed, tired people, working all hours to educate their kids, rushing home to put them to bed, trying to cram in a day's worth of parenting into an over-wrought hour.
I ambled along the pavement, enjoying, for once, my leisurely pace. Maybe I was being selfish, but was that bad? I had to admit to myself that, arguments aside, today had been a good day. Cora didn't have meningitis. We got lucky. But what about the others? The people whose tests didn't come back negative. What about the mothers of those children? The ones who would not be leaving hospital. The whole children thing was a minefield, and that was after you'd managed to survive conception and pregnancy.

I walked past my local pub. On impulse, I ducked in through the corner door. It's an old-fashioned free house, no big football screen, no computer games, just a small telly behind the bar, good beer with strange names, Heineken on tap and packets of prawn cocktail crisps (a weakness of mine). I ordered a half from Kenny, the landlord. Yes, he knows me by name. Last time I'd been in was when I'd discovered my ex-boss had been institutionalized by his wife. It wasn't so much a celebration as a punctuation. But tonight wasn't going to be one of those nights; it wasn't even six, so just a quick half, no more and maybe a bottle to take home for later…Order a curry…Have an early night. Cora was going to be fine. Billy and I would sort out our little mess. And as for Ben, well, we would have to be fine. I relied too heavily on his friendship not to make it better between us. I had made a pact with God to put away my foolish thoughts and get back on track; He, in turn, had looked after the ones I love. So Ben and I would go back to being friends as we always had, and all would be well. It was a fantasy of my own making, my own perpetuating and only I could end it. Billy was right in a way—by imagining a parallel universe I'd made living in the real one seem unsatisfactory. But honestly, what was so wrong with my life? I hadn't had to give up the notion of having children, but having them didn't feel quite so vital to me at that moment.
The universe is unfolding as it should
. I would take a leaf out of Helen's book. I would put my life in the hands of fate for a while and see where that took me. Beyond the pub, that is.

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,

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.”