The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (3 page)

It was Iris's outfit that had done it – a backless green crêpe-de-Chine cocktail dress she'd had specially altered.
She had been talking to a friend for some time but had still been aware of the man who had sidled up next to them. He was looking about the marquee with an air of calm assurance as he sipped his champagne, as he waved at someone, as he passed a hand through his hair. When the friend said, 'That's quite a dress, Iris,' the man had said, without looking at them, without even leaning towards them, 'But it isn't really a dress. Isn't it what used to be called a gown?' And Iris looked at him properly for the first time.

He had proved to be a good lover, as Iris had known he would. Considerate without being too conscientious, passionate without being clingy. Tonight, however, Iris is beginning to wonder if she is sensing the slightest hint of haste in his movements. She opens her eyes and regards him through narrowed lids. His eyes are closed, his face rapt, concentrated. He lifts her, hoisting her from the desk to the floor and, yes, Iris sees him – she definitely sees him – cast a look at the clock above the computer.

'My God,' he says afterwards, too soon afterwards, Iris feels, before their breathing has returned to normal, before their hearts have slowed in their chests, 'can you drop in every evening?'

Iris rolls on to her stomach, feeling the prickly nap of the carpet against her skin. Luke kisses the small of her back, running his hand up and down her spine for a moment. Then he hoists himself upright, walks to the desk, and Iris watches as he gets dressed. There is an urgency to the way he does it, yanking up his trousers, jerking on his shirt.

'Expected at home?' Iris, still lying on the floor, makes sure to enunciate every word.

He glances at his watch as he straps it to his wrist and grimaces. 'I told her I'd be working late.'

She reaches for a paperclip that has fallen to the carpet and, as she starts to untwist it, remembers irrelevantly that they are called
trombones
in French.

'I should call her, actually,' Luke mutters. He sits on his desk and reaches for the phone. He drums his fingers as he waits, then smiles at Iris – a wide, quick grin that disappears when he says, 'Gina? It's me. No. Not yet.'

Iris tosses aside the paperclip, elongated out of shape, and reaches for her knickers. She doesn't have a problem with Luke's wife but she doesn't particularly want to have to listen to his conversations with her. She gathers her clothes off the floor, one by one, and dresses. She is sitting to zip up her boots when Luke hangs up. The floor judders as he comes towards her. 'You're not going?' he says.

'I am.'

'Don't.' He kneels, wrapping his arms round her waist. 'Not yet. I told Gina I wouldn't be home for a while. We could get a carry-out. Are you hungry?'

She straightens his collar. 'I've got to go.'

'Iris, I want to leave her.'

Iris freezes. She makes to get out of the chair but he is holding her fast. 'Luke—'

'I want to leave her and be with you.'

For a moment, she is speechless. Then she starts to prise his fingers off her waist. 'For God's sake, Luke. Let's not have this conversation. I have to go.'

'You do not. You can stay for a bit. We need to talk. I can't do this any more. It's driving me mad, pretending everything's fine with Gina when every minute of the day I'm desperate to—'

'Luke,' she says, brushing one of her hairs from his shirt, 'I'm going. I said I might go to the cinema with Alex and—'

Luke frowns and releases her. 'You're seeing Alex tonight?'

Luke and Alex have met once and only once. Iris had been seeing Luke for a week or so when Alex turned up unannounced at her flat. He has a habit of doing this whenever Iris has a new man. She could swear he has a sixth sense for it.

'This is Alex,' she had said, as she walked back into the kitchen, her jaw tight with irritation, 'my brother. Alex, this is Luke.'

Hi.' Alex had leant over the kitchen table and offered his hand.

Luke had stood and taken her brother's hand. His broad-knuckled fingers covered all of Alex's. Iris was struck by their physical contrast: Luke a dark, hulking mesomorph next to Alex's lanky, fair-skinned ectomorph. Alexander,' he said, with a nod, 'it's good to meet you.'

'Alex,' Alex corrected.

'Alexander.'

Iris looked up at Luke. Was he doing that deliberately? She felt dwarfed suddenly, diminished by both of them towering above her. 'It's Alex,' she snapped. 'Now sit down, will you, both of you, and let's have a drink.'

Luke sat. Iris got an extra glass for Alex and slopped in some wine. Luke was looking from her to Alex and back again. He smiled.

'What?' Iris said, putting the bottle down.

'You don't look at all alike.'

'Well, why would we?' Alex cut in. 'No blood relation, after all.'

Luke seemed confused. 'But I thought—'

'She's my step.' Alex glanced at Luke. 'Step-sister,' he clarified. My father married her mother.'

'Oh.' Luke inclined his head. 'I see.'

'She didn't say?' Alex asked, reaching for the bottle of wine.

When Luke went to the bathroom, Alex leant back in his chair, lit a cigarette, glanced round the kitchen, brushed ash from the table, adjusted his collar. Iris eyed him. How dare he sit there, contemplating the light fittings? She picked up her napkin, folded it into a long strip and thwacked it hard across his sleeve.

He brushed more ash from his shirt front. 'That hurt,' he remarked.

'Good.'

'So.' Alex drew on his cigarette.

'So what?'

'Nice top,' he said, still looking away from her.

'Mine or his?' Iris retorted.

'Yours.' He turned his head towards her. 'Of course.'

'Thanks.'

'He's too tall,' Alex said.

'Too tall?' she repeated. 'What do you mean?'

Alex shrugged. 'I don't know if I could ever get on with someone that much bigger than me.'

'Don't be ridiculous.'

Alex ground his cigarette into the ashtray. Am I allowed to ask what the...' he circles his hand in the air '...situation is?'

'No,' she said quickly, then bit her lip. 'There is no situation.'

Alex raised his eyebrows. Iris twisted her napkin into a rope.

'Fine,' he murmured. 'Don't tell me, then.' He jerked his head towards the door, towards the sound of footsteps on bare boards. 'Lover boy's coming back.'

Esme sits at the schoolroom table, slumped to one side, her head resting on her forearm. Across the table, Kitty is doing French verbs in an exercise book. Esme isn't looking at the arithmetic that has been set for her. She looks instead at the dust swarming in the light beams, the white line of Kitty's parting, the way the knots and markings in the wood of the table flow like water, the oleander branches outside
in the garden, the faint crescent moons that are appearing from under her cuticles.

Kitty's pen scratches on the page and she sighs, frowning in concentration. Esme thuds her heel against the chair leg. Kitty doesn't look up. Esme does it again, harder, and Kitty's chin lifts. Their eyes meet. Kitty's lips part in a smile and her tongue pokes out, just enough for Esme to see but not enough for their governess, Miss Evans, to notice. Esme grins. She crosses her eyes and sucks in her cheeks, and Kitty has to bite her lip and look away.

But with her back to the room, facing out to the garden, Miss Evans intones, 'I am hoping that the arithmetical exercise is nearing completion.'

Esme looks down at the strings of numbers, plus signs, minus signs. At the side of the two lines that mean equals there is nothing: a black void. Esme has a flash of inspiration. She moves her slate to one side and slides off her chair. 'May I be excused?' she says.

May I be excused...?'

May I be excused, please, Miss Evans?'

'For what reason?'

'A...' Esme struggles to remember what she's meant to say. 'A ... um...'

'A call of nature,' Kitty says, without looking up from her verbs.

'Was I addressing you, Kathleen?'

'No, Miss Evans.'

'Then kindly hold your tongue.'

Esme breathes in through her nose, and as she lets it out very slowly through her mouth, she says, 'A call of nature, Miss Evans.'

Miss Evans, still with her back to them, inclines her head. 'You may. Be back here within five minutes.'

Esme skips along the courtyard, brushing her hand against the blossoms that grow in pots along the wall. Petals cascade in her wake. The heat of the day is reaching its peak. Soon it will be time for a sleep, Miss Evans will disappear until tomorrow, and she and Kitty will be allowed to lie inside the haze of their mosquito nets, watching the slow circles of the ceiling fan.

At the dining-room door, she stops. Where now? From the dank interior of the kitchen comes the hot, buttery smell of
chai.
From the veranda, she can hear the murmur of her mother's voice: '...he would insist on taking the lake road even though I'd made it perfectly clear we were to go straight to the club, but as you know...'

Esme turns and wanders up the other side of the courtyard towards the nursery. She pushes at the door, which feels dry and sun-hot under her palm. Inside, Jamila is stirring something on a low stove and Hugo is standing, holding on to a chair leg, a wooden block pressed to his mouth. When he sees Esme, he lets out a shriek, drops to the floor and starts crawling towards her with a jerky, clockwork motion.

Hello, baby, hello, Hugo,' Esme croons. She loves
Hugo. She loves his dense, pearly limbs, the dents over his knuckles, the milky smell off him. She kneels down to him and Hugo seizes her fingers, then reaches up for one of her plaits. 'Can I pick him up, Jamila?' Esme begs. 'Please?'

'It is better not to. He is very heavy. Too heavy for you, I think.'

Esme presses her face to Hugo's, nose to nose, and he laughs, delighted, his fingers gripping her hair. Jamila's sari shushes and whispers as she comes across the room and Esme feels a hand on her shoulder, cool and soft.

'What are you doing here?' Jamila murmurs, stroking her brow. 'Isn't it time for lessons?'

Esme shrugs. 'I wanted to see how my brother was.'

'Your brother is very well.' Jamila reaches down and lifts Hugo on to her hip. 'He misses you, though. Do you know what he did today?'

'No. What?'

'I was on the other side of the room and he—'

Jamila breaks off. Her wide black eyes fix on Esme's. In the distance they can hear Miss Evans's clipped voice and Kitty's, speaking over it, anxious and intervening. Then the words become clear. Miss Evans is telling Esme's mother that Esme has slipped away again, that the girl is impossible, disobedient, unteachable, a liar...

And Esme finds that, in fact, she is sitting at a long table in the canteen, a fork held in one hand, a knife in the other. In front of her is a plate of stew. Circles of grease float on
the surface, and if she tries to break them apart, they just splinter and breed into multiple, smaller clones of themselves. Bits of carrot and some type of meat lump up under the gravy.

She won't eat it. She won't. She'll eat the bread but not with the margarine. That she'll scrape off. And she'll drink the water that tastes of the metal cup. She won't eat the orange jelly. It comes in a paper dish and is smirred with a film of dust.

'Who's coming for you?'

Esme turns. There is a woman next to her, leaning towards her. The wide scarf tied round her forehead has slipped, giving her a vaguely piratical air. She has drooping eyelids and a row of rotting teeth. 'I beg your pardon?' Esme says.

'My daughter's coming,' the pirate woman says, and clutches her arm. 'She's driving here. In her car. Who's coming for you?'

Esme looks down at her tray of food. The stew. The grease circles. The bread. She has to think. Quick. She has to say something. 'My parents,' she hazards.

One of the kitchen women squeezing tea out of the urn laughs and Esme thinks of the cawing of crows in high trees.

'Don't be stupid,' the woman says, pushing her face up to Esme's. 'Your parents are dead.'

Esme thinks for a moment. 'I knew that,' she says.

'Yeah, right,' the woman mutters, as she bangs down a teacup.

'I did.' Esme is indignant, but the woman is moving off down the aisle.

Esme shuts her eyes. She concentrates. She tries to find her way back. She tries to make herself vanish, make the canteen recede. She pictures herself lying on her sister's bed. She can see it. The mahogany end, the lace counterpane, the mosquito net. But something is not right.

She was upside-down. That was it. She swivels the image in her head. She had been lying on her back, not her front, her head tipped over the end, looking at the room upside-down. Kitty was walking in and out of her vision, from the wardrobe to the trunk, picking up and dropping items of clothing. Esme was holding a finger against one nostril, breathing in, then held the finger against the other, breathing out. The gardener had told her it was the way to serenity.

'Do you think you'll have a nice time?' Esme asked.

Kitty held a chemise up to the window. 'I don't know. Probably. I wish you were coming.'

Esme took her finger away from her nose and rolled on to her stomach. 'Me too.' She kicked a toe against the bedhead. 'I don't see why I have to stay here.'

Her parents and sister were going 'up country', to a house party. Hugo was staying behind because he was too little and Esme was staying behind because she was in disgrace for having walked along the driveway in bare feet. It had happened two days ago, on an afternoon so scorching her feet wouldn't fit into her shoes. It hadn't even occurred to
her that it wasn't allowed until her mother rapped on the drawing-room window and beckoned her back inside. The pebbles of the driveway had been sharp under her soles, pleasurably uncomfortable.

Kitty turned to look at her for a moment. 'Perhaps Mother will relent.'

Esme gave the bedhead a final, hefty kick. 'Not likely' A thought struck her. 'You might stay here. You might say you don't feel well, that—'

Kitty started pulling the ribbon out of the chemise. 'I should go.'