Little Face (18 page)

`So Alice and Vivienne were close?' Simon tried not to be offended
by the Christian remark.

`I don't know if that's the word for it. Alice was in awe of Vivienne. When she first came to work here, she quoted her almost nonstop. Vivienne had a saying or a rule for just about everything. It
was a bit like a religion, actually. I think Alice liked the certainty it
provided.'

`What sort of rules?'

`Oh, I don't know. Yes, I do. Never buy a carpet that isn't a hundred
per cent wool, that was one of them. Alice told me when I was buying
my house. Oh, and never own a white car. Two important mottos for
life, I'm sure you'll agree,' said Briony sarcastically.

`Why not? A white car, I mean?'

`Lord only knows,' Briony said wearily. `Thankfully the quoting died
down after a while, otherwise I think we'd have had to strangle her.
What are-if you don't mind my asking-what are the chances of Florence and Alice being found safe and sound?'

`I'll do my best,' said Simon. `My best is better than most people's.
That's all I can say.'

Briony smiled, seemed to relax a little. `And is your worst worse? Or
also better?'

A therapist question if ever Simon had heard one. He was damned
if he was going to answer, or even think about it. `Would you have
liked to have a closer friendship with Alice?' he asked, wondering
whether Briony's jealousy could have affected her view of the situation.
Did she resent Vivienne's influence because she wanted to dominate
Alice herself? Perhaps Alice had had plenty of time on her hands, but
had used Vivienne as an excuse. She too might have found Briony's
company exhausting.

`No, I was quite happy with mine and Alice's relationship. But it
annoys me to watch people being stupid, especially intelligent people.
Alice should have stood up to Vivienne and insisted on having a life of
her own.' Her tone challenged Simon to disagree.

`Did you tell her that?' He wondered what it would be like to
receive therapy from somebody so opinionated.

`No. She's not the sort of person you can be overly familiar with,
you know? She has ... boundaries.' That's what I like about her,
thought Simon. Though `like' was such a weak word, one step up from
`tolerate'.

`She's quite a private person in many ways. Like, in the couple of
months before she went on her maternity leave, something was definitely bothering her. Unless it was just nerves about impending parenthood. But, somehow. . . '

`What?' Simon scribbled in his notebook.

`I don't think it was only that. In fact, I'm sure not. The last time I
saw her, I could tell she was considering confiding in me about something.' Briony Morris grinned suddenly. `I can be quite a mind-reader.
For example, I know you're thinking, how come a harridan like her
can be a touchy-feely therapist by profession. Right?'

`I was under the impression that people in your sort of job were sup posed to be non-judgemental,' said Simon, scorn underlining the last
word. How could you be a force for good in the world unless you used
your judgement? Simon hated the sort of flabby-minded empathy
peddled by most of these quacks, the assumption that everyone was
equally deserving of compassion and consideration. Bollocks. Nothing
would ever shake Simon's conviction that life-every day, every hourwas a battle between moral salvation and the abyss.

Briony surprised him by saying, `All the emphasis on positive, calm
feelings in the world of alternative health and therapy is just nonsense.
We all have negative feelings, we all have people we hate as well as
people we love. You can't achieve true emotional freedom unless you
recognise that the world consists of bad as well as good things. I love
westerns, me. I like it when John Wayne shoots the bad guys.'

Simon smiled. `So do I,' he said.

`You see, Alice would hate that,' said Briony. `Actually, if I had to
criticise her, I'd say she's a bit naive. She's so kind and generous, she
sees good in people even when it's not there.'

`Like Vivienne?'

`I was thinking of David, actually. Her husband. Alice is always trying to make out he's deep and sensitive, but quite frankly, I think the
lights are on but there's nobody home.'

`What do you mean?'

`He's one of those people who, no matter how many times you meet
him, no matter how long you talk to him, you never feel you're getting
to know him any better. I've met people like that before, personally and
professionally. Sometimes it can be a defence mechanism-they're
scared of anyone getting too close, so they hide behind a shield that noone can penetrate. And then some people are just plain shallow,' she
concluded. `I'm not sure which David is, but put it this way, I saw no
similarity between the man I met several times and the man Alice used
to talk about. None whatsoever.' Briony shrugged. `I sometimes wondered if there were two Davids that swapped back and forth without
anyone knowing.'

Simon looked up, startled.

`What? Did I say something wrong?'

He shook his head.

Briony played with her hair. `Will you let me know as soon as
there's any news?' she asked.

`Of course.'

`I can't stop thinking about Florence, poor little mite. Do you think
... ?' Her words ran out. It was as if the mere act of asking a question
reassured her, even when she couldn't think of anything new to ask.

Simon thanked her for her time and left. Two David Fancourts. And
two babies. No matter what Charlie said, he knew that nothing would
now stop him from looking at the Laura Cryer case files as soon as he
had the opportunity.

Sunday, September 28, 2003

THE PHONE RINGS while we are eating dinner. We are all desperately
grateful. Suddenly we can breathe again, and move. Vivienne marches
into the hall. David and I lean in the same direction, wanting the news
faster than we can get it.

`Yes. Yes,' says Vivienne briskly. `Friday? But ... I was hoping you
might be able to fit us in sooner than that. It's an urgent matter, as I
thought I made clear. I'm willing to pay more if you can see us immediately. Today, or tomorrow.' She has spent the whole morning making calls to private hospitals. I could have insisted on arranging the
DNA test myself, but I need Vivienne's support, and I will only get it
if I don't challenge her authority. I wonder if she senses how desperate I am to have her as an ally.

`All right. It doesn't look as if I have much choice,' she says
coldly. I press my eyelids tightly shut. Friday. Nearly a week. I
don't know if I can stand it. When I open my eyes, my uneaten
lemon meringue pie spins in front of me, garish yellow goo and stiff
white foam. I managed to swallow about a quarter of my shepherd's
pie before a twitching in my throat told me I couldn't risk another
mouthful.

David finished all his food. I could tell Vivienne was surprised. He
ate more quickly than usual, making a big show of scraping the food
off his plate and into his mouth, to demonstrate that he wanted this family meal-time to be over as quickly as possible. He and I haven't
looked at one another since we sat down at the table.

Vivienne appears in the doorway, her arms folded. `Friday morning.
Nine o'clock,' she says, her voice deadened with disappointment.
`And then another two days before they can give us the results.'

`Where?' I ask.

`The Duffield Hospital in Rawndesley.'

`I don't need any results,' David mutters angrily.

`One of you is going to have a lot of explaining to do,' says Vivienne.
`Why not admit you're lying now, save us all the agony of a week's
wait?' She looks at David, then at me. `Well? You can't both be telling
the truth.'

Silence.

`My photographs of Florence were deleted from my camera before
I went to Florida. Which means it must have happened in the hospital,
on the day Florence was born, because I went straight from the hospital to the airport. Whoever did it knew what was going to happen.'

Mandy was in the hospital. And her boyfriend. And Vivienne
didn't go straight from the hospital to the airport. She went to
Waterfront in between, to take Felix to his snorkelling lesson. I do
not dare to remind her of this. There is no point. It proves she is
wrong about a minor detail, not that I am telling the truth, not that
I'm as sane as she is.

I wonder what she did with her camera while she was at Waterfront.
Was it with her all the time, in her handbag? Did she put it in her
locker, for safe-keeping? I know the key lives behind the reception desk
most of the time, and in any case, there must be a master key. In theory, any of the Waterfront staff could have broken into the locker and
tampered with the camera. But I know what Vivienne would say: the
health club staff worship her, and would never dream of violating her
privacy. Besides, how could they possibly have anything to do with any
of this? It is inconceivable.

`Well? Alice? David? Is anybody going to say anything?' Vivienne wants one of us to own up. I want David to tell her that I'm right, that
the baby in the house is not our daughter. Little Face. I wonder if I can
call her that. I have to call her something. The phrase `the baby', with
all the distance it suggests, breaks my heart.

Felix's puzzled stare burns into me across Vivienne's enormous
mahogany dining table. The four of us always sit in this precise formation: Vivienne and David at either end, metres apart, me and Felix
in the middle, facing one another. The dining room is my least
favourite at The Elms. It has dark purple flock wallpaper on all four
walls, navy curtains and a dark, polished wooden floor that can't have
been sealed properly, because in the winter cold air blows around your
legs while you eat.

On the walls there are framed black and white photographs of
Vivienne's adored parents and Vivienne herself as a child. Her mother
is a small, plump woman with sloping shoulders and her father is tall
and athletic-looking, with bulbous eyes and a moustache that conceals
his upper lip. Neither of them is smiling in any of the photographs. I
have always found it difficult to believe that these are the same loving,
indulgent people Vivienne talks about so warmly. `They bought me two
of everything,' I remember her telling me. This was so that her friends,
when they came to the house, could play with one set of toys and it
wouldn't matter if they ruined them; Vivienne had her duplicates, her
`real toys', safely stashed away.

`Have it your own way,' she says icily. `I'll find out the truth soon
enough.'

Never mind you, I think impatiently. It's the bloody police who need
to find out the truth.

`What is the baby's usual routine?' Vivienne asks. `Is she likely to
stay asleep now?'

Routine. The word makes me want to weep. She's a baby, I scream
inside my head. Vivienne expects everyone to operate according to a
strict timetable, even newborns.

`Which baby are you talking about?' says David. `Oh, sorry, do you mean Florence? She has a name, you know.' I have never heard him
speak to Vivienne like this before. I spent most of my pregnancy wishing that he were able and inclined to stand up to her. I know he was
as taken aback as I was when Vivienne showed us the letter from Stanley Sidgwick Ladies' College, confirming that a place had been reserved
for Florence in their lower kindergarten year for the January after her
second birthday. I willed David to say thank you but no, to tell Vivienne that we didn't want Florence to attend any school or nursery fulltime until she was quite a lot older. He said nothing. Nor did he
object when Vivienne insisted on paying all Florence's school fees
herself.

`I won't tolerate unpleasantness,' she says now. `I want to make that
clear to both of you. Until this matter is resolved, we will all behave
like civilised people. Is that understood? David, answer my question.
What is the child's routine?'

`She'll sleep all night, but she'll wake up twice for bottles.' He is the
obedient little boy again.

`I want to feed Little Face tonight,' I blurt out. `David always does
the night feeds and ... I want to ... ' I can't say it because it's too
painful. I am desperate to do all the things mothers do, to freeze
small blocks of pureed vegetables in ice-cube trays, brush each new
tooth as it appears, sing lullabies, hear myself called `Mummy' for the
first time. I clear my throat and continue, looking at Vivienne. `I hope
that, wherever Florence is, some woman is looking after her and will
keep her safe until I find her. I want to do the same for the baby
upstairs. If I can't be a mother to my own daughter, I want to at least
do the best I can to take care of the baby I've got.' My eyes fill with
tears. `The way you looked after me when my mother died.'

Because that is Vivienne's appeal. When you are under her wing, she
makes you feel that the harsh blows of life cannot touch you. When
David and I were engaged, my car was photographed by a speed
camera. It was going at eight miles an hour over the legal limit, and I
received a notice of intended prosecution from the police. With a carefully worded letter, Vivienne made the whole unpleasant business
disappear, just as she did when my credit card company froze my
account after a misunderstanding about a payment. `Leave it to me,'
she says, and the next thing you know, your troubles have vanished as
if by magic.