The Actuality Read online

  With that final lonely thought, Evie switches her primary functions to standby and closes down.

  4

  A loud crash – a brief avalanche of sound from the garden – brings her to consciousness. The wind has built in strength. Because of their altitude, in winter, even despite the sheltering wall, it is capable of mischief and destruction. Maybe a trellis has blown down or a shrub been uprooted. Once one of the massive stone pots that stand at each of the four corners of the lawn was tipped onto its side and rolled like a giant medicine ball across the grass.

  She lies still, continuing to listen, but apart from satisfying her curiosity, there is no reason to investigate. She is only partially recharged and her skin is in rejuvenation mode – the tingle lulling her. She will stay where she is.

  Then there is another crash and a muffled curse.

  Well?

  Simon’s sudden return jolts her into full alertness. ‘You’re here!’ she says, trying to conceal her relief. She feels a pleasant warmth flush her chest. Followed fast by resentment that he chose to punish her for so long. That he gets away with bullying her.

  You’re just going to ignore it?

  She focuses on the distant sounds.

  There are people out there. People in the garden.

  ‘It could be Daniels?’

  Yeah, probably putting out the bins. It’s four in the morning! Putting out the bins is Daniels’s euphemism for going outside to smoke.

  ‘What should I do?’

  Get out of bed, for one. When she still does not move, he adds in a voice that echoes around her head like a klaxon, Get up now!

  Being away has not improved his attitude. She can tell he’s scared and is now making her so.

  The corridor is quiet, but the sounds from outside are louder now that there is one less door to penetrate.

  ‘Where should I go?’ It is all probably nothing, but he has her so alarmed that she just wants to hide.

  Go to the music room. We can see what’s what from there.

  She runs down the hall to the door and reaches for the handle. Quietly, he says, open it quietly and slowly. The limit of his advice.

  The air in the music room is still and cold. She stops in the doorway. In the darkness, the tall windows provide a panorama of the night garden. A hovacar sits on the lawn at an angle with one corner propped on the wall of the pond. Its doors are retracted and a light on its roof sends an icy beam scything through the shrubbery to cast a nightmarish web of shadows crawling over the ceiling.

  ‘It’s the police,’ she whispers, reading its side . . . She knows nothing much more about them than that their purpose is to protect. ‘Everything is all right.’

  Simon is keeping quiet.

  ‘It is all right, isn’t it?’

  I’m not sure. This is all completely new to them both. If he was really intended to be her guide, and not just an uninvited gatecrasher as she sometimes imagines, they should have made him better informed and less just opinionated.

  Men in uniforms and helmets, hunched over rifles, emerge from the shrubbery onto the path and everything is now beginning to look not really all right at all.

  The four-foot high mermaid, who until now has perched on a rock to provide the fountain, has been knocked over by the hova and is lying face down in the water.

  *

  Daniels lets the police into the kitchen through the outside door. He must have been asleep in his chair again – in the winter reluctant to relinquish the heat from the oven for the chill of his bed.

  She listens from the music room doorway. The police think they are responding to a call but are strangely unable to say who made it. They want to speak to Matthew, but Daniels explains that he is poorly and asleep and reminds them tersely that it is not even dawn. He invites them to return in the morning. Despite their bold manner of arrival, he seems to have the better of them as if they know that their credentials are weak, but they will still not leave without a room-by-room check – ‘Just to make sure everything is all right’.

  ‘What are you checking for?’ Daniels asks. Even through the wall, she can hear his anxiety.

  ‘Intruders,’ the policeman replies flatly.

  ‘Intruders? What intruders? There aren’t any intruders.’

  ‘From the streets.’

  ‘From the streets? How could anyone have got in here from the streets? We’re thirty-five storeys up.’

  ‘They get in everywhere. How many live here?’

  ‘Just Mr Davenport, myself and . . . Evie.’ She picks up on his hesitancy to include her. Maybe for police purposes she doesn’t really count.

  While they continue to speak, the kitchen door opens and a pair of the black jackets crowd their way down the hall. The elbow of one brushes right through the Tibetan vase, causing it to vanish and re-emerge upside down and flat, as if printed on the wall.

  ‘Who is Evie?’ The conversation in the kitchen continues.

  ‘She’s a relation of Mr Davenport.’

  Evie slips away from the music room door and looks around urgently but there is nowhere here for her to hide.

  The policeman enters. His rifle is wedged into his shoulder as if he may have to at any moment shoot.

  On seeing her he comes to a stop. The gun barrel is tilted down at her and only inches from the daisy chain embroidery stitched across the chest of her nightdress.

  What do I do? she asks Simon, petrified.

  Act normal. If you can.

  ‘Miss?’ the policeman says, his voice, buried behind the chin of his helmet, amplified by a helmet speaker. He slants the gun away. ‘Everything all right here?’

  Just – act – normal, Simon repeats, giving each word emphasis.

  ‘Yes,’ she murmurs, unable to look at him directly. Terrified like this, she is ironically at her most human.

  He gazes down at her. The blue light from the cruiser parked in the garden strobes the tinted visor of his helmet, revealing for a second a pair of blood-shot eyes. A red dot pulses on the camera attached to his shoulder padding. The lens pans the room, whirring at speed past her, then sluggishly returning to settle on her face where it hovers without blinking, filming her staring eyes.

  5

  The police come again the following morning as promised. This time they arrive by the elevator and there are just the two of them. Evie has been told to stay out of sight, which is fine as she is still shaken by the night’s events. She listens through her door as they are admitted into the hall by Daniels and led to the library. She can hear the effort in his voice to be courteous.

  ‘What an amazing space,’ one of them says, a woman, on observing the garden through the window from the doorway. ‘I heard about it from the guys who came earlier, but without seeing it for yourself, you’d not believe that something like this could exist anywhere any more, let alone all the way up here. As she enters the room, she gasps again, taking in the double-height space with the ornate circular skylight. ‘It’s like a stately home in the sky.’

  Evie hears Daniels take in a tray of coffee – she can smell also that he has made pastries, trying to win them over big-time. ‘Oh, no sign of austerity here I see,’ the woman says loudly. Evie can almost feel him wince every time the woman opens her mouth and he shuts the library door behind him with an irritated thump.

  After another half hour, Daniels comes to her room. ‘Evie,’ he says, ‘they want to speak to you.’ He sounds apprehensive and immediately she becomes so herself. ‘They say they just want to ask you some questions about what you may have seen. If it comes up, you must answer that you are Mr Davenport’s niece.’

  ‘Why?’ she asks.

  ‘Because that is what he told them.’

  ‘Why did he do that?’ She is sensitive about being denied – what Simon, knowing how to push her buttons, refers to mischievously as her ‘Evelyn complex’.

  ‘He was trying to make things easier for them to understand. He said that you came here as a small child a
fter his sister died, so there’s not much that they can quiz you about that they don’t already have an answer for.’

  Maybe there isn’t, she thinks, but why such a complicated set of lies? She is nervous that they want to interview her – no one has ever done that – but even more so she is uncomfortable about not telling the truth.

  ‘You okay?’ Daniels asks.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she says, trying to bury her unease. She involuntarily touches the ribbon in her hair, to make sure it is still in place, and glances down at the old skirt and blouse under an ancient cardigan with darned elbows she is wearing and then below that at her black woollen stockings with holes in the toes.

  ‘Maybe some shoes are in order,’ he says gently, as if her lack of footwear is the most she has to be concerned about. She can tell that, underneath, he is worried that she will not be able to get this story her husband has concocted right.

  You’re going to mess this up, Simon says as they cross the hall. You’ve never been able to act and they’re completely wrong to put us in this situation.

  ‘I will not mess up,’ she whispers back, but wishes she could believe it to be so. The combination of their lack of assurance, his and Daniels’s, is devouring her confidence.

  The library, with its view of the garden, is filled with morning light. Matthew sits in his chair in the corner, the one beneath the lamp that he uses for reading. He appears stronger today and has dressed for the meeting in a tweed suit with a cream shirt and a woven tie. Attired like this, he could be the landowner of a country estate. However, the shirt is an old one and the neck is too wide, giving him the appearance of a man who has shrunk while still trying to preserve his dignity. He smiles at her oddly as she enters. He is as anxious about her as the others. They all think I’m going to let them down, she thinks.

  The two police officers are on the sofa. If they are even police? They are nothing like the uniformed team from the night before but an oddly-matched pair in civilian dress.

  The woman is in a grey dramatically flared trouser suit with a high stiff collar which extends above her ears. Her face is dominated by a sharp nose and she perches upright in her seat like a bird of prey. The man is in a pea-green all-in-one with reflective piping down the seams of the legs and arms. He sprawls in the corner, thighs spread, sinking into the cushions, the grubby soles of his red plastic sandals flipped over and on display. It would be an odd way to dress, even in summer – even she, who knows next to nothing, knows this.

  Evie crosses the parquet and comes to a stop in front of them, not sure what to do with herself, as, despite the size of the room, there is only this group of seats, and they are all taken.

  They are all looking at her, including her husband and Daniels, who remains beside the door. Should I say something? she asks Simon. Being the centre of attention from so many people is terrifying. The sunlight through the glass dome above warms her face. It is like being under a spotlight.

  No, let them begin. Easy advice to give. But she feels fairly alone here and anything is something.

  ‘So, you are Evie,’ the policewoman says, as if her presence is to clear up an inconvenient mystery, like in an old-style whodunnit. ‘We’ve heard all about you.’

  Evie nods, wondering what she can mean by this, and feels her anxiety mount.

  ‘I understand that you are Mr Davenport’s niece,’ the woman continues.

  ‘Yes,’ Evie says. She is so worried about putting a foot wrong, she can barely think. Why does her husband prefer to pretend her to be what she is not?

  ‘And how long have you lived here with Mr Davenport?’

  She tries to calculate. If she came here as a small child then that would make her . . . but what age is a ‘small child’? Five or six? Nine or ten? She needs to come up with an answer.

  ‘Since your parents died, I’ve been told,’ the woman continues.

  ‘Since my parents died,’ Evie repeats, not sure whether she should feign sorrow or whether that would just make them more suspicious.

  ‘In a hova collision,’ the woman adds. ‘Mid-air, at high speed apparently as well, very sad, too many reckless drivers and usually without insurance.’ She frowns. ‘Evie, you are a lucky girl to have such a kind uncle in Mr Davenport. This is quite a paradise to have grown up in.’ She glances towards the garden, which, although bare, is burnished with a golden glow. ‘Most orphans don’t get to live in such a lovely home.’

  ‘I guess not,’ she says. The mention of orphans makes her recall her husband’s early gift to her of a collector’s edition of Jane Eyre – feeling very much at that moment like Jane herself being interrogated by her aunt.

  ‘And where did you go to school?’

  School? In her panic, Evie’s mind fills with an image of plainly dressed girls in the hall at Lowood – Jane’s school in the Brontë novel. If only she’d used her plentiful time to read more widely. How many hours has she spent gazing into space, rather than educating herself? She glances over to her husband but he is staring at his knees. She thinks of saying that she didn’t go to school, which is of course the truth, but fears that will lead to even harder questions. The silence is oppressive. ‘Lowood,’ she murmurs, loathing herself for not being able to do better. Ashamed by her failure after all these years to even start to patch up her ignorance of the outside world. The seeds of early curiosity smothered by the lack of any opportunity to visit it.

  Oh dear, Simon says and Matthew draws breath. She is falling short of even their minimal expectations.

  ‘Lowood? I haven’t heard of it – is it outside the borough?’ the woman asks cheerily.

  ‘It’s a boarding school,’ she murmurs. If the streets down there are as bad as Daniels tells her, then the rich, kind Mr Davenport would surely send his precious niece somewhere better. ‘It was very good,’ she says, feeling the temptation to fill the silence. ‘I had lovely teachers, who taught me amazing things.’

  ‘How nice for you,’ the woman replies. ‘It sounds like you did better than most. It is sadly the case that in many schools, girls are being prepared for nothing more than the production line or domestic servitude. I hope all the commotion last night didn’t interrupt your sleep.’

  ‘No,’ she says, mechanically, finding a question at last which is simple to answer and coming up with one of Daniel’s platitudes. ‘It’s better to be safe than sorry.’

  ‘Exactly. And this visit is just to follow up, to make sure that no one has seen anything suspicious.’ The woman is talking down to her, she is certain of it; it is easy to recognise because it is something she is used to.

  Shall we tell her about the hovacar? she asks Simon inwardly, hoping he will say no, but not wanting to make the decision alone.

  No, we’ll keep that to ourselves, he murmurs, his tone sounding far from certain.

  ‘I’ve not seen anything suspicious,’ she says quietly, trying to come across as if she isn’t concealing anything, which is much harder when one is.

  The woman stares at her quizzically, her head slightly on one side, while Evie shuffles from one foot to the other. She thinks the woman is about to announce that she has seen through all her lies, but instead she sighs and looks down.

  ‘Well, I think we’re done,’ she says. ‘Now that we’ve met everyone, we can be on our way.’

  Evie breathes out, a wave of relief washing through her.

  The woman collects her bag from the floor and lays it on her lap. ‘So, tell me Evie,’ she says as she searches inside, ‘what are your plans?’

  ‘My plans?’ She dropped her defences too soon. This was meant to be over.

  ‘For when you leave?’

  Leave? What is she asking?

  The policewoman glances at her companion who slouches more deeply still. ‘I was only thinking that as a young woman, you’d be wanting at some point to make a life of your own. Build a career . . . Who knows, one day get married and even, if you are lucky and I know it’s not so easy these days, have a
family.’

  She may be trying to trick you, Simon says.

  The woman waits for her reply.

  What do I say? She can’t answer that none of these options are a possibility for her.

  I don’t know, but come up with something, she’s staring at you like you’ve a spring loose.

  Behind her, Daniels shuffles his feet and the doorframe creaks against his back.

  ‘I don’t ever want to leave,’ she murmurs in a rush, tangling her words in the effort to get them out. It is a surprise she is intelligible at all.

  ‘No?’ the woman says. Her lips form a ring and she makes a hollow laugh. ‘Never! It’s really as good here as that! Well! Congratulations to Mr Davenport,’ looking across at him, ‘I think he should win a prize. Maybe he’ll let us all move in.’

  Daniels shows the police out and while he waits, arms folded, watching the door to the elevator slide across, Evie walks slowly to the threshold and stands in the doorway gazing out. The lobby is windowless, carpeted and anonymous, mysterious to her – the foreshore of an unexplored land. She has never gone further than this point, has been prohibited from doing so from Day One.

  Daniels turns and, seeing her there, gives her a small, sad smile, the meaning of which is unclear, before ushering her back inside.

  ‘How did I do?’ she asks. She has been hoping for reassurance and an explanation as to what is going on, and his gloom makes the need even more pressing.

  ‘Great, you did great.’ He walks down the corridor towards the library and closes the door behind him, before she can follow him in.

  She listens with her ear to the panel but Daniels and her husband are the other side of the room and talking too quietly for even her to hear.