‘No. Absolutely not. The fact is, I wish more than anything that I’d struck Jorkin in the Garrick. Absolutely the next best thing is you doing it for me without asking.’
‘I know I get carried away a bit,’ Linda sniffed. ‘But what sometimes people don’t realize is that I’m—’ She struggled now against her feelings, fielding the tears that suddenly rolled down her cheeks. ‘I’m completely on their side.’ She wiped her eyes and adjusted her apron. ‘So you will tell me if I do anything you’re not happy about, won’t you? Because I’ll just go. I won’t make a fuss.’
Belinda smiled reassuringly and patted Linda’s hand. She wanted to mention the expensive cake-stand; she wanted to mention that she really, really didn’t like fish. But now she knew how feeble Linda’s confidence was, now she knew how easy it was to hurt her feelings, she simply couldn’t bear to do it.
Over the next few days Jago’s genetics research led him nowhere, especially after Laurie Spink assured him personally that despite the journalistic dash and verve of the article ‘Ten Ways to Tell if Your Grandparent is a Clone’, scientifically it was less than watertight. Thus, even if Stefan exhibited all ten of the detailed tendencies, such as incontinence, deafness and a greedy appetite for cakes and puddings, the signs could not be wholly relied on.
But if the muddied waters of clone technology might take a while to clear, Jago was sure at least that Stefan was not teaching at Imperial. That lie at least was uncovered. For, over a period of three days, Stefan was observed to board a bus each morning, cross the river in approximately the right spot, but then hide away in Habitat in the King’s Road, drinking coffee and reading English-language reference books, whose pages he would mark with sticky tabs. Sometimes he had a cookie; sometimes a Danish pastry. Then he would stroll to the college in the afternoon to do part-time work as a lab assistant. And that was it, save for the bus home, and more reading. The dossier presented after a week by young Tanner, a rather supercilious graduate trainee in Features, was depressingly slim. Double-spaced, and on one side of the paper only, it still amounted to just one page.
Jago waved it irritably. ‘So what happens after six thirty?’ he demanded. They were alone in his office, and he had shut the door.
‘At home, of course,’ Tanner scoffed, and ran a hand over his fashionably shaven pate. He couldn’t think of much else to say. His ambition was to make his name one day in investigative reporting, and he couldn’t see how tracking harmless Swedes for maniac executives fitted in. Tanner’s father, chairman of the board of the Effort’s parent company, expected more for him than this.
‘All right, tell me. Did you notice anything odd about him?’
‘Mm, one thing.’
‘What?’ Jago was breathless.
‘Kept turning round. Seemed to think he was being followed.’
Jago rolled his eyes. You couldn’t bawl out Tanner, he knew that. He was too well connected. This useless boy could get him sacked. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You’ve done all you can here, Tanner. Now I want you to go to Sweden.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘I want you to dig some dirt in Malmö.’
The boy sighed. ‘Do I have to? Oh, what a bore.’
‘You don’t seem hungry for this job, Tanner. I have to say that. This could be an enormous story. Impostors, cloning, Sweden, what more could you ask?’
Tanner shrugged. ‘Been offered a stint on Fashion, actually. The editor rang Daddy. It’s just that my sister is the youngest designer ever at Christian Dior, and he wants a piece on it.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Five.’
‘Damn. That’s a fucking good story! Damn.’
Tanner smirked. ‘I’ll come back to the clone, though.’
‘You will?’
It was hard for Jago to be patient with this irritating upstart, but at the same time utterly necessary.
‘Why not?’ said Tanner. ‘Where is Malmö, anyway? Sounds ghastly.’
‘No idea. Get an atlas.’
‘An atlas,’ repeated the boy. ‘Any atlas?’ He surveyed Jago’s office with the curled lip of someone who would certainly redecorate before he moved in.
‘Any atlas with Sweden in it.’
Tanner didn’t move.
‘Try the library.’
‘Right.’
He started to leave, but Jago pulled him back. ‘You haven’t breathed a word of this to anyone?’
‘Of course not.’
Tanner sighed deeply, but only when fully out of earshot. ‘What a stupid, stupid man,’ he said to himself. ‘I wonder if Daddy could do something about him?’
When Maggie finally phoned Belinda, ten days after the encounter with Noel, she interrupted a pleasant Sunday morning scene. Mother, Stefan and Linda were finishing a large, lazy breakfast while Belinda had slipped away to her study to make notes. Linda and Mother were admiring the style supplements together; Stefan basked in a dressing-gown that had been thoughtfully warmed in the airing cupboard. Occasionally, however, he popped to the window to check for lurkers with notepads.
‘What’s wrong, Stefan?’ asked Mother. ‘That’s the third time you’ve looked outside.’
‘Oh, nothing,’ he said airily. ‘There’s not a soul out there, no one to hear my prayer. Ha ha.’
Should he mention the youth who had followed him home three nights this week? Once, in the Habitat café, the strange, bald-headed boy had actually approached him and asked whether he’d just eaten a cookie or a pastry. ‘A cookie,’ he’d told him, watching the boy write it down in large fledgling shorthand. ‘With nuts.’ Since Friday, thank goodness, the boy had desisted. But when the phone rang, Stefan was still glad to see Linda answer it. It was astonishing how quickly they had all come to rely on her.
‘I’m afraid she’s working at the moment,’ she said to Maggie. ‘But I’ll be glad to help if I can. No, I’m afraid Mr Johansson is busy too.’
She replaced the receiver. ‘It was Belinda’s friend Maggie,’ she explained. ‘She rang off.’
‘Hooray,’ said the others, callously.
Any observer of this scene would have noticed that it took place in a spacious new dining room, painted a fashionable ochre, but formerly the dark, dusty book-dump that had served as Belinda’s office. For Linda had not been idle in the intervening week. Spotting that one of Belinda’s spare bedrooms was well suited for a study, she had promptly disposed of its furniture, removed its threadbare carpet, brought in a carpenter and a couple of strong lads, and gently transplanted Belinda to the first floor, where she had the benefit of better light and excellent shelves, and was permanently removed from the annoyance of the telephone. Thoughtfully, Linda installed for her a coffee-machine and a couch, and a cunning two-way baby-listening device so that Belinda could call for attention downstairs without all the bother of rising from her desk.
‘What are you working on?’ Linda asked her, every day. And Belinda would excitedly read her a bit from her analysis of Nabokov’s Despair, and Linda would marvel at Belinda’s brilliance and then bring a plate of thickly buttered muffins. No bill had been presented as yet, except for the amounts expended on equipment. Linda had decided to move in, however – an arrangement that suited everybody, especially with Mother suddenly moving in as well.
‘Look what your mother bought me!’ Linda said on the second Saturday, holding up a navy suit from Betty Jackson. ‘I’ve never had anything so beautiful! You don’t mind, Belinda? I mean, she’d have bought one for you if you’d been there. She got me this Estée Lauder foundation as well.’
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Belinda replied. In fact, she considered it miraculous that Linda shared Mother’s interest in expensive tortured cloth and coloured, perfumed grease. It removed from herself the unbearable pressure to look smart and fashionable; it liberated a very needy (and misunderstood) aspect of her nature that hankered for elasticated waists and roomy cardigans. Here was a consequence of hiring a new cleaning lady she had
certainly never anticipated when she formerly argued the cause of Mrs Holdsworth. She looked at Linda’s tight little suit and shuddered. Tight little suits induced claustrophobia in her. She wanted to rip constricting garments with gardening shears while screaming, ‘Let me out of here.’
It was now too late to tell Linda about the fish, unfortunately. But aside from the nice little trays of cod, prawns, bouillabaisse and goujons Belinda was silently tipping down the loo in between indulging in the ample and enjoyable snacks, she felt no praise was high enough for Linda. It was quite true. Wherever she had a vacuum, Linda went right ahead and abhorred it. Just like a force of nature. Linda really was, as she had said at the outset, completely on her side.
Thrown entirely into her work, moreover, Belinda was serenely happy. She had yearned all her life for such a release from daily cares, for hours on end to read and write, uninterrupted by the requirement to do anything manual, social, culinary or selfless. Ahead of her stretched an endless string of Virginia Woolf’s pure and rounded pearls. Viv phoned; she was told nothing about it. Maggie phoned; ditto. Belinda honestly didn’t care. Linda took care of breakfast, dinner, tea and sympathy. And what a bonus that she seemed to enjoy it! Belinda had always felt guilty at making Mrs Holdsworth do the housework; with Linda, she felt she was doing her a favour; she was helping Linda to be fulfilled simply by accepting everything she did.
Meanwhile, Linda also continued to show astonishing initiative. For example, after a week, a woman from the Today programme on Radio 4 phoned, asking Belinda to take part in a short discussion about making scenes in public places (the Garrick story had spread). But, blissfully secluded upstairs, Belinda knew nothing whatever about it.
‘What shall I do?’ Linda whispered to Mother, with the receiver pressed against her chest. ‘Exposure is useful to a writer, isn’t it?’
Mother made a noise. A sort of ‘tch’. ‘Belinda always says no to that sort of thing. She won’t even do book signings. If you ask me, she has a horror of the mob.’
‘No,’ agreed Linda, ‘I don’t suppose she’d do it.’
She pulled a face at Mother, who suddenly had an idea. ‘You do it, Linda.’
‘Me?’
‘In my opinion, you’ll do it better than she would. Besides, it was you who hit Jorkin.’
So Linda agreed. And the next morning, without mentioning it to Belinda, went by BBC car to Broadcasting House and by general consent acquitted herself magnificently.
Not expecting visitors, since none had come in fifteen years, Mrs Holdsworth was surprised when Viv Ripley came to see her on the second Friday. Viv had heard Linda on the Today programme and been outraged. She had tried to phone Belinda six times. ‘They said she was Belinda on the radio!’ she explained to Jago. ‘She’s impersonating Belinda on the public airwaves! She’s only been working there a week and look what she’s done!’
‘You’re obsessed,’ said Jago.
‘No, I’m not. I care about my friend.’
‘You’re not just sore Linda left?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are. You’re jealous as hell. Giving up your job was insane.’
So she had sought out Mrs Holdsworth, and was now taking tea with that lady in her council flat in Battersea, where the smell of boiled sprouts filled the room to a height of five feet. Viv discovered that if you stood up and tipped your head back you could, in fact, inhale air smelling of something else. But unfortunately you couldn’t spend a whole visit pretending to admire the Artex swirls on the ceiling.
‘So, if you still have access to the house, Mrs Holdsworth,’ she said, ‘you could see what Linda is getting up to. I would pay you handsomely.’
‘How handsomely’s that, then?’ Mrs H, sitting down, lit a Dunhill menthol from a flat green box, an accessory curiously out of keeping with her general eschewal of all things debonair.
‘Fifty pounds now, and fifty more when you’ve reported back. Just think. You could buy a new scarf straight away.’
Mrs Holdsworth looked offended. ‘What’s wrong with my fucking scarf?’
‘Nothing at all. I just meant you might like another one.’ Viv felt she wasn’t getting anywhere. She tried a new tack. ‘I’ll come clean with you, Mrs Holdsworth. I am not only Belinda’s concerned friend, I am also Linda’s probation officer.’
The old woman took a deep drag on the cigarette, and narrowed her eyes. Viv was indeed a much better liar than Jago. The woman was wavering.
‘Bleeding probation officers don’t give you fifty quid.’
‘Linda is a dangerous woman, Mrs Holdsworth. Surely you noticed?’
‘I’ll tell you what, she unplugged my Hoover.’
‘Exactly.’
And so it was Sunday morning now. The Johanssons were happy in their well-organized new home; Jago and Viv were scarcely speaking; Mrs Holdsworth was boiling sprouts; and in Malmö, Ingrid Johansson watched the horizon through a barred window, and hummed tunelessly. Meanwhile Maggie was sitting grimly in her flat with the curtains closed while Noel rang her doorbell and rapped at the letterbox. The fateful role-playing moment had clearly arrived.
Rap, rap. Ring, ring. Rap. Ring.
‘It’s me,’ he called. Rap, rap. ‘It’s Leon!’
Maggie curled her feet under her, and tried to concentrate on Bridget Jones’s Diary. She grimaced and put it down. It was a book she never could get on with somehow. She’d had it open at the same page for three solid years.
‘Open up,’ continued Noel, cheerfully. ‘I know you’re in there. Nyow, nyow!’
‘Piss off!’ she shouted.
She had decided to have nothing to do with this experiment of Noel’s. Let her problem take twenty years to sort out; Noel’s short-sharp-shock technique was all too clearly a smokescreen for base motives. ‘Full transference’ was what he wanted from Margaret, he said. It was an ominous phrase. Call her a weary old cynic who’d been sleeping around too long, but she felt sure the energetic exchange of body fluids would be bound to come into the full-transference process somewhere.
‘Go away, I’m reading Bridget Jones’s Diary,’ she called. ‘I happen to have located a very funny bit, actually.’
But he knocked and rang until her patience ran out and she opened the door – only to be flattened by the full whirlwind force of Noel’s impersonation. Despite herself, Maggie was impressed. The only time she’d seen anything like it was at a Stanislavsky summer school, when the group had been advised to imagine themselves as experiencing nuclear fission while at the same time taking barbiturates.
‘Did you miss me?’ he said, bursting through the door in a cataract of luggage. Kicking a suitcase across the room, he plonked down a flight bag, a duty-free carrier, a lap-top briefcase and a large fluffy toy in the shape of a red racing car. ‘Present from Oshbosh. Do you like it?’
He sat down, ran a hand through his hair, and gave her a wide grin. She had to hand it to Noel. As an act, it was terrifyingly good. The toy had a price in dollars on it, and there were old, dog-eared Grand Prix stickers on the suitcase. Stanislavsky would have wept with joy. She suddenly remembered how huge Leon was – the man now perched awkwardly on her sofa was, like Leon himself, constructed on far too big a physical scale for her flat. His legs were twin telegraph poles. His shoulders under his leather jacket were like beach balls. She expected her furniture to crumple under his weight, like a child’s chair under a gorilla. She eyed a bowl of fruit on the coffee table, and prayed he wouldn’t peel himself a miniature banana.
‘Look, I know I wasn’t great,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve come to make it up to you. The truth is, I’ve been thinking about you all week long at Oshbosh, I couldn’t get you out of my mind.’
Maggie pursed her lips. Yes, it was a good act. He looked like Leon and sounded like Leon, and even dressed like Leon. There was just one problem: this speech of devotion wasn’t remotely reminiscent of Leon’s personality.
‘Why don’t you say something?’ he a
sked. He grabbed the duty-free bag and produced a bottle of Cognac. ‘For you,’ he said.
Maggie frowned as she took the bottle. When did she tell Noel about the Cognac? Leon had finished it off without asking, and said, ‘I’ll buy you another one.’ But she hadn’t remembered it until now.
‘Tell you what,’ she said at last, hardly able to look at him, ‘how about you go away and leave me alone?’
He looked wounded. ‘Oh, come on, Maggie. I said I was sorry.’ He crossed his enormous legs and hugged his arms across his enormous chest. Was he wearing padding?
‘Hey, I can’t have been that bad.’
‘I mean you,’ she said firmly.
‘What?’
‘Just go,’ she said. Her histrionic gesture towards the door was somewhat undermined by the big red fluffy racing car she clutched to her chest, but she still meant it. ‘I’m flattered you should go to all this bother. But honestly, just go.’
He gathered his things sullenly, hunching his shoulders protectively, like a bear who’d been smacked on the nose. He had to stay true to character, she supposed. She felt quite sorry for him.
‘Look, I’m off for a month of stuff,’ he said, as he gathered his things. ‘Boxing in Las Vegas, tennis in Germany, basketball in Sweden. Can I call you sometime? Or when I’m back? I’d really like to.’
‘I can’t stop you,’ said Maggie. Noel was a very cruel person, she was realizing. When you know how needy for affection a person is, you shouldn’t tease them this way.
‘Look, I really like you,’ he blurted. ‘I think I love you.’ He touched her arm.
‘Don’t.’
He cupped his hand and moved it to her shoulder. Then he stroked her face. ‘You’re lovely,’ he said. ‘I never met anyone like you.’
‘Don’t,’ she whimpered.
‘Why?’
‘Because you don’t mean it.’
‘You’re very hard, Maggie. Come to Malmö in March.’
‘Oh please, stop it. How can they play basketball in Malmö in March? They’d slip over on the ice.’