Little Face (21 page)

Charlie nodded. A proud woman like Vivienne would not wish to
be reminded of her life's failures. Charlie felt that way about most of the men she'd been involved with: Dave Beadman, a sergeant from
Child Protection, who, when the condom split, said, `Don't worry, I
know where the abortion clinic is. Been there before!' Before him, an
accountant, Kevin Mackie, who was, as he put it, `not into kissing'.

Charlie had always mistrusted people who stayed chummy with
their exes. It was unnatural, sick even, to tolerate the tepid, watereddown presence in your life of what was once love or lust, to save the
detritus washed up after the wreckage of a romance and call it friendship. Simon was different. He was not Charlie's ex. He's my never-tobe, she thought sadly, and therefore much harder to get over.

Failed relationships. They affected everything that came after them,
like radioactive accidents. They poisoned the future. Which reminded
her of something she had not yet covered, something that might
explain, directly or indirectly, why Alice had vanished. `Why did you
and Laura Cryer separate?' she asked David Fancourt.

Monday, September 29, 2003

`HE'S CALLED HER Mrs Tiggywinkle since the first moment he saw
her. It's more than a nickname. She was-is-Mrs Tiggywinkle. But
this other baby, he calls her Little Face. He knows she isn't Florence.
And I heard him call himself "I" when he was talking to her in the
night, when he didn't know I was listening. If he was talking to Florence, he would have said "Daddy".' I know I should speak more
slowly, that a less manic delivery would make me sound more
rational, but I have waited so long to say all this. I can't stop the
words pouring out.

Simon and I are in Chompers. As I rant, he eyes me awkwardly
across a polished wooden table. He is nervous. He traces the grain of
the wood with his index finger. Noise blasts out all around usmusic, laughter, conversation-but I hear only the silence after I have
spoken, Simon's silence. His hair is clean, freshly combed. His denim
shirt and black trousers look brand new, even if they do not go particularly well with each other or with his brown shoes. I don't know
why the ensemble doesn't work, but the first thing I thought when he
walked in was, `David wouldn't be seen dead in that outfit.' I find
Simon's bad dress sense endearing, almost reassuring.

`I'm afraid that doesn't prove anything,' he says after a long pause.
His voice is apologetic. `Plenty of parents give their children more than
one nickname, or one replaces another. And for your husband to describe himself as "I" is normal as well. He might refer to himself as
"Daddy" most of the time but "I" occasionally.'

`I don't know what I can say to convince you, then. If my word isn't
enough.' I am numb with misery. He is not on my side. I can't rely on
him. I consider telling him what happened to me this morning, after my
long, uncomfortable sleepless night. I had to beg for my clothes, to be
allowed to use the bathroom. Eventually David unlocked my wardrobe
and selected a dress he knew was too small for me, a horrible fitted
green thing I haven't worn for years. `You shouldn't have let yourself
get so fat while you were pregnant,' he said.

I was desperate to use the toilet. I did not have time to argue with
him, so I squeezed awkwardly into the dress. Once I was in it, I felt an
even greater pressure on my bladder. I might have lost control at any
moment, and David knew it. He laughed at my helplessness. `It's
lucky you didn't have a natural birth,' he said. `Your pelvic floor
muscles wouldn't have been up to the task, would they?' Eventually,
he moved aside and let me leave the room. I ran to the bathroom, got
there just in time.

I cannot bring myself to tell Simon about David's little tortures. I am
not prepared to share my humiliation with him, only to hear him say
that David's cruelty does not prove Little Face isn't Florence. I am still
wearing the horrible green dress. David wouldn't give me the key to my
wardrobe, so I couldn't get changed. Vivienne wouldn't have believed
me if I'd told her. She'd have believed David, when he said, as he would
have, that I'd locked the wardrobe myself and lost the key, that I was
going mad.

Looking so awful in public makes me feel ashamed. I am sure
Simon would pay more attention to what I'm saying if I were wearing
clothes that fitted properly. But I am not, and Simon also believes
David.

`I find it hard knowing what to think,' he says. `I've never met anyone like you before.' His face is not exactly as I remembered it. I forgot, for example, how wide his lower jaw is, and that his bottom teeth are wonky, with some jutting out in front of others. I'd memorised his
uneven nose, but forgotten the texture of his skin, the wide pores and
slightly bumpy, roughened area around his mouth that makes him look
weathered and tough.

I ask him what he means.

`Everything tells me I shouldn't believe you ...

`Sergeant Zailer, you mean,' I said bitterly. I still have not forgiven
her for the compassionless way she dealt with me at the police station.

`Not just her. Everything. You're asking us to believe that a stranger
or strangers entered your house while your husband and daughter were
sleeping, and swapped your daughter for another baby without your
husband hearing anything. Why would anyone do that?'

`I never said it was a stranger!'

`Or else your husband was involved somehow, and then deliberately
destroyed all the pictures of Florence so that no-one could prove anything. But again, why?'

I told him I had no idea, that just because an explanation was not
immediately accessible, that didn't mean there wasn't one. Stating
the obvious to someone who is supposed to be intelligent, who should
know better, makes me want to scream with frustration.

`No babies have been reported missing, and you've got a history of
depression.' Hearing my indignant gasp, he said, `I'm sorry. I know
your parents had just died, but still, from our point of view, you
count as someone with a history. The simplest explanation for all this
is that you're suffering from some sort of . . . '

`Trauma-induced delusion?' I finished his sentence for him. `But
that's not what you think, is it? However hard you try to believe that,
you don't. Which is why you're here now.' Perhaps if I tell him what he
thinks, he will start to think it. I am desperate enough to try anything.

`Normally, in any other case like this, I wouldn't be here.' Simon's
expression was pained, as if he was disappointed in himself.

`So what's different?' I demand, impatient. He is more interested in
his own motivation than in Florence's or my safety.

`My instincts tell me to trust you,' he says quietly, looking away. `But
what does that mean? It's a contradiction, isn't it? It's doing my head
in, to be honest.' He looked at me then, as if wanting encouragement
of some kind.

Finally, a sliver of hope. Maybe I can talk him round, persuade
him to help me, no matter what sneery Sergeant Zailer says. `It's like
me and homeopathy,' I tell him, forcing myself to sound calm. `I
know the theories behind it and they sound like nonsense-you'd
have to be a fool to believe that anything so outlandish could work.
And yet it does. I've seen it work, time and time again. I trust it completely, even though logically it sounds like something I could never
believe in.'

`I went to see a homeopath once. Never went back.' Simon studied
the fingernails on his left hand.

I don't care I yell inside my head. This isn't about you! Instead I say,
`It's not everyone's cup of tea. The remedies can sometimes make
your symptoms worse at first, which confuses a lot of people. And then
there are bad homeopaths, who prescribe the wrong thing or don't listen to you properly.'

`Oh, Dennis was a good listener. It wasn't him that was the problem,
it was me. I got cold feet about talking to him. In the end I chickened
out and never even told him why I'd come.' Simon brings his story to
an abrupt conclusion, saying, `It was a waste of time and it cost me
forty quid.'

I understand that I am not to ask any further questions. In his own
stilted way he is trying to confide in me, but he will only go so far.
Good. The sooner he shuts up, the sooner we can get back to Florence.
I am about to ask if he will do something to help me, finally, when he
says, `Do you like your job?'

Who cares about my stupid, stupid job? `I used to. A lot.'

`What's changed?'

`Going through this.' I make an all-encompassing gesture with my
hands. `Losing Florence. I don't have the same unwaveringly positive view of people that I used to have. I'm afraid I might be too cynical
now.'

`I don't think you're cynical at all,' said Simon. `I think you could
help a lot of people.' This, like a lot of what he has said, strikes me,
suddenly, as peculiar. He talks as if he knows me well, when in fact this
is only the third time we've met.

I don't want to help strangers, not any more. I want Simon to help
me and Florence. Maybe cynical is the wrong word. Maybe selfish is
what I have become. And my last thread of patience has just snapped.
`Are you going to look for my daughter or not?' The words slip out,
sounding more accusatory than I want them to.

`I've explained ... '

`I wanted to bring Little Face with me today. Did I tell you that? I
wasn't allowed.' I am too exhausted to stop my resentments pouring
out. My nerves feel as if they are rattling under my skin.

`Alice, calm down...'

`If David and Vivienne really believe Little Face is Florence, you'd
think they'd want me to spend time with her, wouldn't you? You'd
think they'd see it as a good sign, that I wanted to take her out with
me. Well, they didn't! I was forbidden.'

My disappointment was so acute, so piercing, I couldn't contain it.
I had so looked forward to being alone with Little Face. I had imagined myself slotting her car seat into the Volvo and setting off with her
changing bag in the boot, packed full of nappies, wipes, milk and a
spare babygro. She would probably fall asleep in the car. Tiny babies
usually do. Every so often I would adjust the rearview mirror to try to
catch a glimpse of her features-her thin, shell-coloured eyelids, her
half-open mouth.

`Vivienne said I was trying to substitute Little Face for Florence,' I
tell Simon, weeping. `She says it's not a good idea for me to get too
attached to her. She said letting me take her out was a risk. As if I'd
hurt a defenceless baby!'

`Alice, you've got to try to calm down, get some perspective on this,' says Simon, patting my arm. Vivienne's words were almost identical.
Everyone is so good at sounding perfectly reasonable. Everyone
except me.

`Put yourself in my position,' Vivienne said. `You're saying one
thing, David's saying another. I have to consider the possibility that
you're lying, Alice. Or that you're ... not well. Don't look so hurtyou must be able to see that it's a hypothesis that's difficult for me to
avoid. How can I allow you to take the baby out on your own? You
must know from your own experience that even the tiniest of fears can
grow and become all-consuming. I'd be sick with worry if I let that
baby out of my sight.'

`If she's my baby, I should be able to take her wherever I want!' I yell
at Simon. I am aware of heads turning at other tables, but I don't care.
`Well? Shouldn't I?'

`When you're a bit calmer, I'm sure ... '

`They'll let me? No, they won't! And I can't take her anywhere
unless they let me. They'd easily overpower me. Even Vivienne on her
own is stronger than I am, thanks to the machines in this bloody,
bloody ... place!' I wave my arms around. I hate everyone and everything. `She has to make all the decisions, every single one. The cot,
nearly all of Florence's clothes. She reserved a place for Florence at
Stanley Sidgwick without even asking me what I thought about it!'

`But ... that's insane. Already?'

`Oh, yes! While I was pregnant, she did it. Not a minute to waste!
You've got to register them before birth or they don't stand a chance
of getting a place. And there's a five-year waiting list, as Vivienne never
ever stops telling me. Silly me, thinking Florence could just ... exist for
a while, without any pressure to ... achieve!'

`You should try to calm down.' Simon clears his throat. `David isn't
... hitting you or anything, is he?'

`No! Haven't you heard a word I've said?' David would never hit
me. I almost say this. Then it strikes me that I have no idea what he is
capable of. I don't think he has either. He is not like Vivienne, whose ideas and actions, irrespective of whether one agrees with them or not,
are based on rationality. With Vivienne there are rules, guarantees.
There is consistency. She is like a dictator in charge of a country, or a
Mafia boss. If you love and obey her, you can have every privilege
imaginable.