The Book of You: A Novel (9 page)

I grow calmer as we walk. We don’t talk about what happened in the park, as if something so ugly and embarrassing is best forgotten now that we are back in civilization. We hardly talk at all, beyond the minimal and polite things strangers disclose. Our breaths puff out in frozen clouds. So does Bruce’s.

But then he politely suggests that maybe it’s time for me to look for a new boyfriend, and when I tell him once more that you are not my boyfriend, I can barely stop myself from crying again.

The man saw you. He saw the tail end of what you did to me in that park. And even he isn’t sure of what he saw. He is nice, but even he thinks that perhaps it really was just a lovers’ quarrel. Even he considers the possibility that your account is the true one.

When we reach my house, I rub the top of Bruce’s silky black head to say good-bye. “Thank you, Bruce. You’re very kind and good.” The man smiles. I tickle the soft folds of fur beneath Bruce’s snout.

The man stands at the bottom of my path and watches as I walk to the door and open it. Then he rushes home to his wife and baby. And I rush straight into the hottest shower I can bear, where I scour off every trace of you.

Afterward, what I want most is to swallow some sleeping tablets and crawl under my covers. But I don’t. As usual I force myself to pick up the black notebook. I make myself put down every detail of what you did to me tonight, though it is the last thing I feel like doing. I have no concrete proof of what happened in that park. But I write it all down as if it were a story. Perhaps the leaflets are not completely useless after all. They have taught me that a time will come when the story matters a lot. And I already know that every story has a true name. I wish this story’s name could be different, but nothing will change it. This story is
The Book of You
.

Wednesday

C
LARISSA WAS IN
the jurors’ cloakroom. The smell of her shampoo was especially strong; she’d lathered and rinsed and repeated three times. She studied herself in the looking glass, surprised her face could be so pale despite her having scrubbed it so hard the night before. She half expected to see his fingerprints on her throat, but there was nothing; she’d even checked the back of her neck at home with a hand mirror. It occurred to her that he had exercised quite deliberate control over the amount of pressure he applied.

Her phone signaled an email, startling her—she’d meant to switch it off. It was from Hannah. They’d been taking the same evening Pilates class for the past year. Hannah wondered where Clarissa had been the last few weeks, and whether she’d like to go for a drink after Thursday’s class.

I want your friends to be my friends.

Rafe had targeted Rowena. Maybe he’d hurt Hannah. Maybe he’d already got to her and would be waiting in the pub with her if Clarissa turned up.

She emailed back that she wouldn’t be able to make it to the class anymore, and was busy tomorrow night. Then she switched off the phone, knowing he’d isolated her even more. He’d done what he set out to do. It was all in the leaflets.

She was washing her hands again when Wendy came in. Wendy was twenty-three and had shown Clarissa pictures of her boyfriend. She met him for lunch each day and proudly took his shirts to the dry cleaner’s, enjoying the new game of playing house. Clarissa had silently shaken herself for the shot of jealousy that went through her heart.

“Look.” Wendy was clutching the center of her skirt. Her white-blond, straight-as-straw hair fell over her pretty pink face. The navy polyester was sliced to the top of her thighs. “It’s one of my office skirts. I need to run into work after court today.”

Clarissa knew that Wendy was a secretary for a software company.

“I’m thinking that slash wasn’t originally part of the design,” Clarissa said, glad to be reminded that catastrophes could sometimes be of a relatively mild and easily reparable order.

“I caught it getting off the bus.” Wendy tried to smile. “The defendants will love it. I don’t think they get too many treats.”

Clarissa moved away from the one hand dryer that actually worked, though she wanted to put her whole freezing body beneath the stream of hot air. She rummaged for her hand-sewing kit, assembled by her mother in a bag made from scraps of poppy-and-daisy-patterned fabric. Wendy peered at the contents as if they were instruments for performing brain surgery. “I can mend it for you,” Clarissa said. There was self-interest as well as kindness in the offer; needlework always calmed her, and she liked Wendy.

Five minutes later they were in the quiet area. Wendy was in a chair. Clarissa kneeled on the blue carpet before her, stitching from the top of the gash toward the hem.

She was trying to ignore the fact that her fingers were stiff and her arms were aching from the way he’d gripped them. The skin on her wrist was patchy and red and tender, as if he’d given her an Indian burn with his leather gloves. She’d deliberately chosen a top with long, fitted sleeves to hide the marks, though she’d made herself take a photograph of them early that morning. It had seemed a futile thing to do, but she’d reasoned with herself that even if the image proved nothing on its own, it might help later as part of a larger picture.

Robert walked in, raising a mildly quizzical brow.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Wendy said, laughing.

He sat down and opened a book, his eyes studiously glued to the pages.

Clarissa tried to concentrate on the skirt and not look too much at Robert. She reached for the scissors.

“Any other hidden talents,” Robert asked, “aside from being a couture seamstress?”

She couldn’t stop herself from replaying Rafe’s voice.
I know your hidden talents.

“Just the one.” She snipped the thread. “But I’ll be showing at London Fashion Week. Under a top-secret label.” She smoothed Wendy’s skirt and stood up. “Done. Fifteen-minute repair.”

She couldn’t stop asking herself why he was wearing the gloves. She couldn’t stop herself imagining the most frightening reasons.

“I want to know the label,” Wendy said. “I’ll auction my skirt as a Clarissa original.”

She couldn’t stop wondering, over and over again, what she might have escaped.

“My secrets die with me,” she said.

The usher appeared to check if they’d finished, and Wendy hurried over to talk to him.

She couldn’t stop reminding herself that he’d only touched the surface of her. She couldn’t stop trying to convince herself that she had washed him all away.

She knew Robert had deliberately hung back so he could walk with her up the stairs to Court 12. “How can I find out your secrets?” he said with a quiet smile.

She couldn’t stop letting him poison everything else; she had to stop that.

“I’d probably hand them all over, for you,” she said lightly. “But you mustn’t ever say I didn’t warn you. Some of my secrets aren’t very pretty.”

“I might have a few skeletons in my own cupboard,” he said.

S
PARKLE’S BARRISTER WAS
covered in acne and made Clarissa think of a bullying schoolboy. “The very day of your police medical exam, you went and met Mr. Sparkle. Why would you leave a place of safety, the police station, to meet this supposedly violent and terrifying kidnapper you’d just escaped?”

“Patronizing git,” Annie muttered, quite discernibly.

W
HY DID YOU
go and meet Mr. Solmes in the park?

That’s what Clarissa would be asked if she went to the police and complained.

You wouldn’t have gone alone to that park unless you wanted to see him. He came to the public gallery the day before to visit you, and you spent time with him afterward. You had dinner with him and your best friend the previous week. Clearly you are very well acquainted.

That’s what they would say.

You were never in any danger, and you know it. You were even seen holding hands. You know very well that Mr. Solmes never threatened you. You were a willing participant in that conversation. You said yes multiple times to Mr. Solmes’s requests; then you changed your mind without bothering to communicate this to him. Now you’re out for revenge. You have since refused all of Mr. Solmes’s reasonable attempts to reach an amicable understanding.

She’d already spent enough time in Court 12 to know how it worked.

Mr. Solmes tells us that you have recently started to take sleeping pills. Clearly you are not stable.

They’d say that, too, with no mention of how Mr. Solmes came by the information, or what was driving her to take them.

You were unsteady on your feet. When you slipped, Mr. Solmes intervened to prevent you from falling and injuring yourself. For that—and the barely detectable mark on your wrist which resulted from his catching you—you rewarded him with false allegations of assault and attempted kidnapping. No good deed goes unpunished.

That’s how they would conclude.

M
ISS
L
OCKYER SHOOK
her head in weary disagreement. “The police wanted me to go. They said to act normal, not to let Sparkle suspect I was helping them. And I needed drugs.”

Sparkle looked like he was trying to suppress his laughter in church.

“It’s certainly true that you had the police eating out of your hand.”

“They were kind to me, yes.” She swallowed hard. “Go ahead and make something dirty out of that, too. You lot are good at that. It’s not hard for you to do with me, is it?”

It’s not hard for them to do with anybody, Clarissa thought.

Wednesday, February 11, 12:50 p.m.

Annie and I are wandering through the outside market during lunch. I am sipping coffee. Annie is eating a hummus sandwich from the deli stall. I have bought a bottle of organic grape juice. Annie has bought a pot of clotted cream, an apple cake, and a huge trout.

“Get some steak,” Annie says. “You look like you could use some iron.”

“The locker room’s going to smell just lovely, Annie. I won’t tell anyone who’s to blame.”

“Oily fish is good for kids.”

I can’t help wrinkling my nose. “If you can make them eat it. Those googly eyes will freak them out. I hope you’ll decapitate it first.”

Instead of the exasperated nudge I expect in response, Annie leans toward me. She speaks in a low voice. “That man keeps staring at you. The one by the butcher’s stall.”

I know it is you before I turn to look. My eyes are on you for only a few seconds. I tear them away as if frightened that they will meet yours and I will be turned to stone. But I take in your navy UCLA sweatshirt, your jeans, your dark trainers. I take in the fact that you are not wearing the leather gloves.

“Do you know him? Do you want me to leave you to talk to him?”

“No. God, no. Please don’t leave. I don’t want to talk to him.” I don’t realize that I am clutching Annie’s arm until she loosens my fingers, though she places her hand over them, gently, for a few seconds.

“He looks mean, Clarissa. He looks angry. He’s glaring at you. He looks—I don’t know—as if he’s trying on purpose to look intimidating. Kind of like the defendant who smacked and punched Miss Lockyer and burned her earring. What’s his name again?”

“Godfrey,” I say.

“That’s the one. Except that your man’s much better at being menacing.”

“He’s
not
my man, Annie. Please don’t ever say that.” I glance at my watch, a mere ritual, as if ordinary gestures have power, but I don’t take in what it says. “We’d better get back.”

“He’s following us. Who is he?”

“Someone I used to know. Don’t look at him. Ignore him.”

Telling others can strengthen evidence and provide corroboration, thereby increasing the likelihood of a prosecution.

My voice is very quiet. “I might—at some stage—I might need you to say you saw him here. Would that be okay?”

“Of course.” Despite my command, Annie keeps checking behind her. “And if you ever need to talk . . .”

“Thanks.”

But I can’t drag Annie into this. Annie has enough problems of her own. Battling with her estranged husband over arrangements for their little girl, who is only six. Struggling not to let herself become obsessively jealous of the younger woman he left her for.

When Annie tells me these things, I think of Henry’s wife and feel sick. Partly from remorse. And partly from dread that Annie would see me as the enemy if she knew and slam the door on our embryonic friendship.

Annie is nothing like Henry’s wife, but she shares her talent for giving dirty looks. She’s aiming one at you one right now, and that pleases me. Annie is doing more than she can imagine for me, just with that look.

I think of Rowena and how you fooled her, how you got her on your side. But Rowena was at a disadvantage. You infiltrated her. You were wearing your mask all the time with Rowena. You got under her skin and set her up before she could see what you really are. Annie’s first glimpse of you is in your monstrous form, your real self. To my great relief, she clearly doesn’t like you one bit.

F
URIOUS, JUMPY
G
ODFREY
made Clarissa think of Rumpelstiltskin. His barrister, Mr. Harker, had a faint Irish accent. Mr. Harker’s thin face was kind, perhaps even sympathetic.

“I do not dispute any of your evidence, Miss Lockyer,” he said.

Miss Lockyer was startled; she bowed her head slightly and seemed about to cry. Was she really not going to be attacked again? Could this man really be saying he believed her?

“Pathetic.” Annie began her loud whisper as Mr. Harker sat down. “Was that mind-numbing lecture on the unreliability of memory supposed to pass for Godfrey’s defense?”

Clarissa could only answer with a baffled half smile. She hadn’t taken in a word of it. She’d been too busy replaying the lunchtime encounter with Rafe. It was his display of the UCLA sweatshirt that was niggling her. Despite the biting cold, he hadn’t worn a coat. She was certain it was because he’d wanted her to notice the sweatshirt. It must be some kind of trophy, full of special meaning for him.

She couldn’t recall any mention of his having been a student at the University of California, or of his teaching there, or even of his ever visiting Los Angeles. In truth, though, he could have done any of those things. She knew so little about him, really: a circumstance she was glad of—she hated having to force herself to learn more. There was a message in that sweatshirt—she was sure of it—but one she couldn’t yet read. In the meantime, he was enjoying the power of whatever the secret was.

S
HE COULD HEAR
the phone ringing as she fumbled with her keys. She tracked the sound into her sewing room, peeking behind the door and peering into the corners before entering. There it was, on her cutting table. The battery was low, she saw, as she answered the call from her mother.

She was walking through the kitchen, filling the kettle and putting it on the oven, her head bent toward her shoulder to hold the phone.

“You sound distracted, Clarissa.”

She was in the living room, picking up the stacks of sewing magazines and art books she’d left on the wooden floor her father had sanded and restored for her. She was placing them on the shelves he’d built for her, alongside the volumes of complete fairy tales by the Grimms, Perrault, and Andersen that he’d read to her when she was a little girl. She had read them again and again since, endlessly fascinated, and thought that they were not at all for children.

“Can you stay still for a minute and listen to me, please?”

Her mother had covered the sofa for her. Crimson roses the size of Clarissa’s fists weighed heavily upon their curling burgundy stems. They were scattered over a background the color of dried blood. Clarissa fell onto it.

“Are you looking after yourself properly?”

The subtext of this question was her grief about Henry. “Yes. Of course. You taught me well.”