The Other Ida (26 page)

This is what it's like to be mad, she thought. Now I know.

As she looked down at her boots she remembered Dave, how she'd kicked him as hard as she could. She had wanted him dead, too.

Ida walked round the side of the house, down the lane and deep into the woods. She lay on the ground, the frozen twigs cracking beneath her. She would sleep here, among the goblins and the moss. It was a good place for an evil girl to think about things.

There was something wrong with her, something badly wrong.

Because it wasn't only Dave she'd hurt. Once, when she was young, she'd tried to kill her sister in the sea.

There was a tapping on her forehead, something light and soft like fingertips, and she realised it was snow. She thought about
Jane Eyre
on the moors.

Tina was definitely going to chuck her out. She'd said she would if Ida didn't pay the rent.

There was nowhere she could go, nowhere except these woods.

I've got a murderer's name,
Ida thought. Her ma must have known what she'd be. It wasn't enough for Bridie to write a girl in a play, she'd had to bring Ida to life. It was a horrible experiment that needed to end.

And Mary. She'd even let wonderful Mary down.

She could die here, couldn't she? People did freeze to death. It wouldn't be like the times before, like cutting your arms, or taking fifteen aspirin. No one could say it was a cry for help.

Fuck cries for help.

Wonder spread through her as she realised that this – a real, quiet death – was exactly what she wanted.

There was a pain in her cheek and she opened her eyes. A teenage boy was poking her face with a stick, while a group of his friends stood round, drinking and smoking and shivering.

“Is she dead?” one of them asked. His teeth were chattering and he sounded scared.

“Boo!” shouted Ida and all the boys screamed.

“Dale, run back to the street. Get someone to call 999,” said the one with the stick.

Ida realised that she couldn't move her legs and in her hand, stuck with cold, was an empty bottle. Her clothes were covered in inches of snow.

She closed her eyes and wished to God they'd left her where she was.

They had saved her fingers and toes. Twice a day for a week they'd ‘rewarmed them' in a little plastic bowl. It sounded quite nice but it hurt so much she'd scream, and they'd given her Valium to calm her down.

Now each of her digits was separately wrapped like weird sausage rolls. They let her stay on the pills for now.

Tina lied for her and told the hospital they were sisters. They had no reason not to believe her, Ida hadn't been reported missing, but after a few days Ida relented and let Tina call her father; she said that Ida had been mugged and left for dead.

Bryan and Terri piled into the hospital under mounds of grapes and balloons, smiling and tearful, apparently believing the story. It was only Alice – staring, scared, stroking Ida's sore, bound up fingers – who seemed to know that something strange and much worse, something unsayable, had happened.

Terri came in the afternoons and sat by Ida's bed, reading her Agatha Christie books and giving her Coke through a straw. No one suggested telling Bridie and Ida was grateful for that as well.

After a few days it was time to go home. She wished she could stay.

Tina offered to have her back again, but Ida was too dosed up and tired to argue when Terri insisted she came back to theirs.

It wasn't until they arrived at the flat and she saw her room – pink and perfect with teddies on the bed – that she knew she couldn't be there for long. People went their whole lives without saying things, with unspoken horrors, but Ida wasn't one of them. There'd be a time, likely sometime soon, when she'd need to get drunk and tell it all to someone, and it was far too embarrassing for Terri and her father to be there when that happened.

She lay on the bed and found her feet hung off the end. In a month or so she'd get her money from the post office and fuck off to America to see Anna. She reached into her pocket and got another pill, ignoring Terri as she shouted up the stairs about tea. Closing her eyes she tried to imagine she was on a raft, lost at sea somewhere warm and dry, drifting slowly and gently towards her home. Wherever that might be.

Chapter twenty-eight

~ 1999 ~

They'd only meant to lie down for a minute – the sex and the long bath had made them both sleepy – but it was getting dark outside when they were woken by a knock at the study door.

“Shit sorry – let me get dressed,” said Ida, confused and shivering, assuming it was her sister.

There was another knock, harder this time.

“What?” Ida asked, annoyed.

“We believe Elliot Hill is in there Miss Irons. It's the police.”

“What the fuck?” asked Ida, sitting up and shaking Elliot.

He sat up, blinking, irritated, but far from surprised. “Oh fuck,” he said, “I probably should have told you –”

“I'm coming in,” the man said. He was wearing a uniform and held his hat under his arm. “Elliot Hill?”

“Yes, that's me.”

“Elliot Hill, I am arresting you on suspicion of theft. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

Elliot laughed, sadly. “Oh shit. Yes, I know the drill. Can I at least get dressed?”

“I'll have to remain in the room, my colleague will wait outside. Miss Irons, can I ask you to leave the room as well.”

“Yes, okay, let me get some clothes.” She stood up clumsily – she was shaking all over – found the suit trousers, a shirt and a bra and put them under her arm.

“Fucking hell. Fucking hell,” she leant down, kissed Elliot on the top of the head, and slapped him lightly on the forehead with her palm. “You total twat.”

“‘Whatever I've done', right? That was the deal we made in the bathroom?”

“I walked right into that one, didn't I? You're a lucky bastard to have me. I'll meet you at the station, yes?” They kissed briefly on the lips and she left the room.

To the side of the door a young female police officer stood gazing at her shoes, while Alice stood to her right, holding a tea towel and looking totally defeated. Tom was standing behind her with his back against the wall.

“What have you done? What?” Alice asked Ida, quietly.

“What the fuck makes you think I've done anything?” Ida asked.

Tom stepped forwards. “Is there anything I can do to help? Drive you somewhere?”

Peter came out of the sitting room and put his hand to his mouth, his eyes sparkling as he looked at Ida. “It's better than EastEnders round here isn't it?” he whispered.

Ida laughed and hugged him. “Peter, will you drive me to the station in a bit? Tom, you should stay with Ally.”

“Of course, of course,” Peter said. “Go upstairs and put your kit on or you'll get arrested too – you're practically naked. How do your lot feel about nakedness?” he asked the policewoman who smiled despite herself.

“Bloody hell,” said Alice, starting to cry, shaking herself free of Tom and walking quickly across the hall and upstairs.

“Sweetheart,” said Tom after her.

Peter shooed him upstairs. “Go up to her darling. This is the last thing she needs.”

The policewoman looked embarrassed and examined her fingernails. No one seemed to know quite what to do and Ida was about to go and change when Elliot was led, handcuffed, towards the front door, his head down slightly, smiling sheepishly as though he'd been caught drinking his housemate's wine. The policeman was carrying Elliot's brown bag.

“Really sorry about all this, it's a stupid misunderstanding,” Elliot said to no one in particular.

“Worse things happen at sea, as your girlfriend would say,” said Peter walking towards him. “Do you need anything? We can try to find you a lawyer?”

Ida touched the back of Elliot's hair as the policeman walked him outside. Peter hugged her, hard.

“I'll be okay, thanks though, both of you,” Elliot said behind him as he was led down the stone steps towards the waiting car.

The policewoman followed. “Lovely to meet you all,” she said and turned towards Peter. “Saw you in a panto years ago at The Pavillion, Mr O'Shea. My mother was a fan.”

“Lovely to meet you too. How kind. I always think police-women look so elegant – you especially. And I'm sure you do a sterling job.”

The woman closed the door behind her and Ida buried her head in Peter's neck. “So elegant? Ha.”

“Oh my, it never rains but it pours,” Peter said.

“Couldn't it stop, for five minutes?” said Ida. “I swear it's been pouring for the last twenty years.”

“Sweetheart, you're freezing,” said Peter. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, go into my case and choose yourself a sweater. I imagine you're low on nice things and we can't turn up to the police station with you looking like a rag-and-bone man. Your sister will have to fend for herself for a couple of hours. We've a prison break to arrange.”

The man sitting opposite Ida was thin, pale and nervous – nothing like the policemen in films or those she'd met before. It was a small room, brightly lit – the sky through the narrow window was almost black now, and there was a low hum from a tape recorder in the corner. On the table between them, in a clear plastic bag, lay Elliot's leather satchel and next to it was a box file.

“He's a good man, he wouldn't do anything like that,” Ida said. It was a formality – both of them knew he would.

“You can see why we might have our suspicions. The gallery are insistent that he coerced a young assistant into providing him with the safe code. Then the cash went missing.”

“It's his gallery.”

“Not any more – as you well know he sold it to the current owner in 1996. You can see why we might be a little concerned – he has two prior convictions for theft, and many more for drug-related offences. And you have your own convictions, Miss Irons.”

“Shoplifting, years ago,” she said.

“The gallery have said they had some issues with you at Christmas. Damaging some work?”

“For fuck's sake! I fell on a sculpture at the Christmas party… I was pissed.” Ida could hear she was slurring her words. Her cramps were still bad and she'd taken three codeine before leaving the house.

The man's mouth twitched as he tried not to laugh. He composed himself, opened the file and cleared his throat. “I am showing Miss Irons the contents of Mr Hill's bag,” he said towards the tape recorder, removing a pile of documents.

“Fuck me,” said Ida.

“Miss Irons said ‘fuck me' when viewing the first item,” the man said. “I am now placing on the table the script for the film
Ida
, signed by Anna DeCosta.”

Ida's hand hovered above it.

“Now, a number of pencil sketches by Jacob Collins,” he said, laying them down.

Ida looked at the man, confused, hoping this was some kind of trick and knowing that it wasn't. She remembered one of the sketches now though she hadn't seen it for years – it had been Blu-tacked up in the study when she was little – Bridie in two poses side-by-side, naked and sprawled across a bed, a study for the painting Ida guessed.

“A tin believed to contain cannabis and prescription medications,” he said putting down Elliot's battered tin and reaching back into the file. “An envelope containing a letter addressed to Miss Irons herself, from her late mother. And a collection of notes, again believed to have belonged to the late Bridie Adair.” The man placed a pile of papers near Ida's right hand.

Ida couldn't make anything out, they were scribbled, faded, and upside down. They must have been in the brown envelope they'd found, the one he'd said was ‘just full of bills'.

The man looked at her sadly. He pitied her, she could tell. She didn't speak.

“Do you recognise these items?”

“Some of them,” she said quietly.

“Did you give these items to Mr Hill?” he asked.

She didn't reply.

“Miss Irons did not respond,” the policeman said.

“Well, ummm, he was looking after them I suppose, making sure no one else got them,” Ida said, her eyes on the cream envelope and the spidery letters that spelled her name.

The man reached back into the file and removed the last item, another letter, crumpled and without an envelope. He held it up to Ida. It was Elliot's writing.

Dear Jim

Sorry about everything – bit of an emergency. I'm going to pick up some amazing stuff for you (a Jacob Collins painting hopefully) and we'll call it quits?!

E

“Oh God. You stupid bastard,” Ida said, as though to herself, feeling like she might be sick.

“Can I ask who you're referring to?”

Ida didn't reply. “What does the letter to me say, the one from my mother?” She pointed at the envelope on the table. “It is mine after all.”

“You answer first.”

Ida sighed loudly. “Elliot Hill.”

“And did you give him these items or did he take them from you?”

She looked at the table.

“Miss Irons?”

She looked him in the eye. “I didn't know he was going to take them but –”

The man shook his head.

She realised what she looked like, a desperate, deluded, ugly girl, defending her horrible boyfriend no matter what. This man saw women like her every single day. Never had she felt so depressingly ordinary, so pathetic or so small. She took a deep breath.

“I didn't give them to him, no, they were my mother's things. My mother recently died.”

“And do you know anything about the theft from James Walsh? From the gallery?”