The Furies: A Novel (22 page)

But that isn’t the interesting thing. The interesting thing is about Alex. I thought I’d try and track her down online. I should have thought of doing this before. Well, I did, sort of, when she first turned up at Rankeillor. I looked her up on Facebook and stuff and she isn’t there. But this time I tried searching for her properly, although it took a while because lots of people have the same name as her. I found reviews of a few plays she’d directed. The word that people most usually used about Alex was ‘promising’. ‘Promising young director’, ‘promising new talent’. She’s like us and all our potential that Robert goes on about.

But once I’d gone past the reviews, I found a news story with her name in it. In the Richmond & Twickenham Times. Richmond is in the south-west of London, and Twickenham is next door. The River Thames runs through them, and Twickenham is famous for rugby. That’s what I found out about those places. And Richmond is where Alex and Luke used to live.

They ran a story about him dying, in the paper. He wasn’t hit by a car, like I guessed. He was stabbed by a man named Dominic Kovar. This Dominic and his girlfriend Katarina were having a fight in the street, on a small road just behind Richmond train station, it said. And Luke was on his way home. On his way home to Alex. Then he saw a man, a big man arguing with a woman. They were both shouting, apparently: there was a witness who could see them from the window of her bedroom. She saw the whole thing happen. She saw a man she described as ‘big, shaven-headed, thuggish-looking’ pull back his fist, as though he was going to hit Katarina in the face.

That must be what Luke thought too, because he ran across the road, according to the witnesses, and put himself between the two of them. He probably saved Katarina’s life, because a punch could kill you, if you fall and hit your head. But a few seconds later, Dominic Kovar stabbed him twice with a short-bladed knife. The police said Luke was stabbed once in the right lung, and once in the heart. But maybe he wouldn’t have stabbed Katarina. Maybe that was just something he did to Luke. So maybe Luke didn’t save her life, maybe he just lost his.

The paper said that a passer-by had taken Luke’s phone from his coat pocket and rung Alex, but that Luke died before the ambulance even got there. I know the person was trying to help, but I can’t stop imagining how she must have felt. She would have seen his name come up, and thought he was ringing to talk to her, but then it was a stranger ringing to say he was dead. That must have been the worst part, mustn’t it? Finding out like that. I think it could be the saddest thing that’s ever happened to anyone.

4

Lisa Meyer is sitting opposite me in an angular chair. It’s slightly lower than her desk chair, but it is the same grey, aerated fabric. It looks brand new. But so does everything in Lisa’s office.

It’s good to see you again, Alex, she says, and she smiles quickly, precisely. It’s from courtesy, not affection.

You too, I reply. I don’t know what else to say. She gives me a second tiny smile.

I’ve done further research, Alex, and I’m afraid my suspicions about Charles Brayford were quite correct. He has taken this case on to try and push himself ahead at his firm. It’s a perfect fit: he’s extremely ambitious, and this is a notorious case.

As she says this, she brushes an almost invisible thread from her pencil skirt, as though the very idea of such vulgar ambition appals her. I find myself thinking that Lisa Meyer is a consummate performer. Not for the stage, because she’s far too contained. But on the big screen she would be perfect. She always plays to her audience, and I realise I can’t begin to imagine what she would look like if she were alone. Would she switch from razor-tailoring to slouchy lounge-wear? Would she wear those perfect licks of blue-black eye-liner to go and buy a newspaper? I can’t imagine her in any context other than work, because she is playing her lawyer role with such conviction.

Looking round her office gives me no clues about her. No photographs on her wall, no personal things on her desk. She could have walked in off the street for the first time today, if she didn’t look so completely in control of the space. Her assistant comes in with two glasses of water, and he bobs as he puts them down on the table in front of us. I am under no illusions that this is for my benefit. He is either in love with Lisa Meyer, or afraid of her. Probably both.

Thank you, she says, without looking at him. This means he can blush unseen, which must be a relief.

I’m ninety-five per cent certain, she continues, that Brayford has decided to get his client off by blaming her actions on you.

I don’t really understand what she’s saying. On me? I repeat.

Exactly, she says. I think that he is going to go before a judge and explain that you took advantage of his client, that you twisted her affection for you into a destructive rage, that you knowingly led her to London and encouraged her obsession with you and Luke.

Her words are melting before they hit my ears, like tiny flakes of snow. I don’t… I can’t finish the sentence. Now my words are melting too.

Take a sip of water, Alex, and breathe, she says. I’m sorry this is so upsetting for you. I knew it would be, but there’s no other way to prepare you for what’s going to happen. We need to be ready to face his arguments; we can’t be in denial.

Lisa Meyer is the first person I have ever met who uses audible semicolons.

His job, she says, her eyes on my water glass, which is shaking slightly in my hand, is to get his client off. That means reasonable doubt. A good way to establish that in the mind of a judge is to cast the blame onto someone else. He has a few options: her mother, her father, her schoolfriends. But obviously, you are by far the best target. He can construct a narrative around you and his client which will sound plausible, even if it isn’t true.

I take another sip of water.

Do you understand what I’m telling you, she asks. He is going to try to throw you against the wall to get her off these charges. I’m not going to let him succeed, obviously.

I nod. The very idea that Lisa Meyer would let someone succeed at her expense is demented.

But you need to be aware of what’s going to happen, she says. Her voice softens. I don’t want it to come as a shock to you.

I nod again. I think it might be too late for that, I say.

She does the smile again. I really am sorry, Alex. If I can keep you out of the courtroom, I will. But it might not work. She picks up the pencil again. We need to decide on a strategy, she says. I need to discredit his argument, and for that, I need you to tell me more about her. She was clearly unstable when you met her. She latched onto you in an inappropriate way, and she concealed that from you successfully. And that is all going to work in your favour.

Wait.

She stops talking and raises the eyebrow again. Her pencil is held perfectly vertical over her paper.

I don’t understand. He blames me, and so to get me off the hook, we blame her?

Lisa Meyer gives me an unreadable look. This is the moment that cinema-goers would talk about in reverential tones once the film was over.

That’s right, Alex. It’s the only way, I’m afraid.

We can’t do that, I say.

Lisa purses her lips, but her glossy mouth is so neatly renewed by the action that it looks more like grooming than irritation.

We don’t have very many options, she replies.

We can’t, though. She’s just a child. And none of this was her fault.

Alex, I’m going to suggest that you take some time to think about what’s at stake, she says. I understand that you’re very fond of her, and that your concern for her is both real and considerable. But I want you to think about what you have to lose.

I have nothing to lose. The words are out of my mouth so fast that I feel my hands move, to try and catch them and stuff them back.

Lisa looks at me sadly. That simply isn’t true, Alex. I understand you lost someone you loved. But you must understand: there is always more to lose. It would be better if you took my word for it than decided to test the theory. I realise that it will take a little time for you to come to terms with what is happening. Come back next week, and we’ll talk again.

I won’t change my mind, I tell her.

She gives a miniature, bonsai shrug.

You will, she says.

*   *   *

Carly had been doing some serious practice: her eyes were lined in bright turquoise, with darker blue lids fanning out above.

‘Your eyes are amazing today,’ I told her, and she blushed pink, through her sparkly peach blusher.

‘Thank you, Alex.’

‘Did you all manage to read
Agamemnon
?’

‘Yes,’ they chorused. Mel didn’t notice the look that flashed between Carly and Jono. It was so quick that I barely saw it myself: a crackle of something secret, that no-one was invited to share. Almost instantly, the moment dissolved, and they were facing me, ready to work. I wondered if I’d really seen it. Carly and Jono? So the make-up wasn’t practice after all.

‘OK, I thought we’d talk about Clytemnestra today. She kills Agamemnon, while he’s in the bath. And she kills Cassandra too. She’s drenched in blood by the end of this play, isn’t she? Just like Oedipus at the end of his play. Except he’s covered in his own blood and she’s wearing the blood of her enemies. Are there any other differences between them?

‘She’s happy,’ said Mel.

‘Exactly. Oedipus punishes himself for his terrible crimes. At the end of his play, he’s wretched. But Clytemnestra really revels in what she’s done. She isn’t sorry at all.’

‘Why should she be?’ yawned Annika, stretching her long arms over her head. She looked tired today: tiny grey shadows marked the skin beneath her eyes. I wondered what had been keeping her up late. I hoped she’d been out misbehaving, but it was more likely she’d been arguing with one or both of her parents again. ‘I mean, he started it.’

‘You are such a psycho,’ said Jono, shaking his head. ‘You don’t really think killing someone because they killed someone else is fair enough. Do you?’

‘God, I’m tired,’ she said, as if he hadn’t spoken.

‘But what should she have done then?’ Mel kicked the back of Jono’s chair to get his attention. ‘To get revenge for Agamemnon killing their daughter? Iphigenia, I mean?’

‘I don’t know. I just think you can’t go round killing everyone you don’t like,’ he said.

‘But Annika’s right.’ No-one looked more surprised by this statement than Annika. As far as I’d ever been able to judge, the two girls tolerated each other, at best. Perhaps Mel and Carly were growing apart, and she was beginning to realise she could do with another friend. ‘He did start it.’ Mel held firm. ‘He killed their daughter, and she hadn’t done anything. She thought she was getting married and then he just killed her. He’s a horrible person. Why should he be allowed to stay being the king when he’d done that?’

Jono shrugged and turned to face me. ‘Didn’t they have other kids?’ he asked.

‘Yes. They have Electra and Orestes. We’ll find out more about them in the next play.’

‘Well, that’s the problem then, isn’t it?’ He turned back to Mel, triumphant. ‘She kills him to avenge her one daughter, but now her other kids don’t have a dad.’

Mel looked at him. ‘Well, that’s a good thing, then,’ she said. ‘It means they might live to be grown-ups.’

He rolled his eyes and looked away. Carly was completely quiet. Then the bell rang, and Jono sprang from his chair. ‘See you tomorrow,’ he muttered as he raced past.

Carly turned to Mel as they gathered their books, but her eyes had followed him to the door.

Mel stopped for a moment to ask me about the next play in the trilogy, and by the time she and Carly had gone, I was late for a staff-meeting upstairs. I went to grab my bag, and it wasn’t there. I usually hooked it over the back of my chair, but now it was missing. I looked under the desk and in the drawers. Stupid: why would I have put it in a desk drawer? It took me several moments to accept that it had been stolen by one of the fourth-years.

DD,

Ricky leaving has made our sessions with Alex go weird. I didn’t really see what he brought to the classes, to be honest. He didn’t understand a word we’ve been reading. He joined in a bit when we talked about it, but he was mostly drawing his endless fucking pictures. But without him, the group feels strange. Uneven, like we’re walking with grit in our shoes.

There’s me and Jono who like talking about stuff, except that he doesn’t always get it. There’s Annika, who gets it but doesn’t like talking about it much. And then there’s Carly, who likes talking, but doesn’t like the plays. I’m not sure how much she really understands them, if that doesn’t sound too bitchy. And Jono and Ricky were always kind of a double act, and now Jono hasn’t got anyone to hang around with, he’s like a spare part. Something’s going on with him and Carly but she won’t tell me what it is. They must have argued about something.

I still can’t work out why Alex goes to London. I can’t work out why she doesn’t go to see her mum. Or why she doesn’t go to the place she and Luke lived. At least that would make sense. But whatever the reason, it’s a thing she has to do, I get that much. She has to go to London and do the same thing every time, walk through the park to that café, The Regent’s Café. I had to look at the map of the park online to find out its name: it seems stupid to be writing about it and not know what it’s called. Then she has to wait there for an hour, and then come back to Edinburgh.

I still have no idea who she’s waiting for. And why do they never show up? Is it her mum who doesn’t come? Maybe they fell out with each other. I know one thing for sure: Carly was way off when she said it might be a new man. If it was, Alex wouldn’t keep going when he doesn’t turn up. She’d have some dignity, right? Besides, she still loves Luke. She wouldn’t want to meet someone else.

But then maybe she doesn’t go to meet someone at all. Maybe it’s a memorial thing, like my mum visits the tree she had planted in the Botanics on Jamie’s birthday. She goes every year at Christmas. She doesn’t think he is the tree, or anything mad. She says she just likes somewhere to go and think about him which isn’t a graveyard. She says she likes to think of his life, not his death. That makes sense, right? So is that what Alex is doing? Is that why she goes to the park instead of to their old house? Maybe they met in the park? Or maybe he used to take her there? That makes him sound really fucking boring. I hope that’s not it.