Wavewalker Page 10

  I’m so sorry my darling, we’ll never find another Deb, I will comfort you all I can.

  And the second, a much more formal card from a neighbour just saying,

  We were all terribly sorry to read about Deb.

  If we can help at all, please let us know.

  Saz was just starting to replace the cards when she heard the front door slam downstairs. She shoved the cards back into the drawer and hurried out of the room, quietly closing the door behind her. She stood frozen on the landing for a couple of seconds wondering which way to go – upstairs to Caron’s studio or downstairs to greet whoever had let themselves in. Maxwell North’s voice came up the stairs.

  “Caron? Are you home?”

  Saz clenched her fists and answered, forcing herself to walk calmly as she called out, “No, she’s had to go to the gallery. Can I help?”

  Max stood at the bottom of the stairs, going through his mail piled on the hall table, he was engrossed in a letter and didn’t even look at Saz until she was within three feet of him.

  “No. I was just hoping to have a chat with her, you must be the new assistant, I’m Dr North. Sorry we haven’t met before – I’m terribly busy, haven’t been home for most of this week. I’m on my way to a meeting right now, just passing…”

  Max finally looked up from his mail and Saz was more than a little surprised to see the recognition in his eyes. He smiled.

  “Oh Molly, it’s you. How’s the swimming training coming on?”

  Saz groaned inside and planted a smile on her face.

  “Ah – great. Yeah, it’s fine, thanks Dr North.”

  Max nodded and picked up his briefcase to put his letters into it.

  “Did you tell my wife that we’d met, Molly?”

  “No. No I didn’t. Should I have?”

  Max closed his briefcase and continued to smile pleasantly.

  “I don’t know. I guess it depends why you’re here. Why are you here?”

  “Ah – to help?”

  “Help who?”

  “Well, Caron of course.”

  “But she told me her new assistant wanted to know more about art – about which she also says you seem to know absolutely nothing. So maybe you’re really here to help yourself, yes?”

  “Kind of, I mean if you look at it like that. Yes I am. To help myself know more.”

  Saz could feel herself turning bright red under North’s unflinching smiling gaze, her neck was straining from having to look up at him and she hoped he couldn’t tell quite how nervous he was making her. With a mental note to herself to stop being so soft she remembered her mother’s story about how school bullies were always cowards at heart and decided that North was likely to have her bleating out the truth in seconds if she didn’t take control of the situation, so she smiled back at him and turned to walk downstairs to the kitchen.

  “I must say I’m impressed at your feat of memory Dr North, I can’t imagine how you do that. I wouldn’t have thought that even I was that memorable. I was just about to make a cup of coffee, would you like one?”

  North’s smile dropped and he stared back at her.

  “No, thank you. I’d rather you answered my questions. Which came first – me or my wife?”

  Saz turned and leant against the banisters.

  “I can’t say for certain, I mean I knew I was doing the art course already, but when I did the weekend Process, everything just seemed to fall into place.”

  She grinned at him, “I’d acknowledged I was scared about starting in September, so I decided to do something about it. Look for an artist to help, get involved. A friend told me about the found objects – for the installation. So I brought Caron my frying pan. Then I saw the article about her and I’d already seen how busy she was, so it occurred to me that maybe she’d take me on. Just to help with the exhibition. And she did. It was simple. Everything seemed to follow so easily after I did the Process. What was it you said? Take the step and the path will appear? Well, it did.”

  Max looked at her, obviously still a little suspicious, but not quite able to argue with what seemed to be one of his own success stories standing right in front of him.

  “And you didn’t find the need to tell Caron that you’d met me?”

  Saz shook her head,

  “To be honest Dr North, as I said, I’m stunned you even remember me. And I didn’t want to seem as if I was sucking up to Caron – through you I mean. I actually really like her work and I thought it might be a bit off to come in to see her and then start praising you.”

  Max smiled again, apparently put at ease with a big dose of flattery, he picked up his briefcase and walked to the front door. With his hand on the doorknob he turned back to Saz, no smile at all now.

  “You know Molly, I’m really glad that the weekend Process was so beneficial to you. But hey, if you’re lying, you can be sure I’ll find you out. And if you are – I will find you. Is that clear?”

  Saz looked back at Max, she too had stopped smiling.

  “Sure Dr North. Whatever you say.”

  Ten minutes later, when her hands had just about stopped shaking, Saz opened the door to the most tedious upholsterer she’d ever encountered – the only upholsterer she’d ever encountered – who talked to her for what seemed like the whole afternoon about the best ways to dismantle a sofa and who was still there when Caron came home an hour later, leaving Saz no time at all to look through the rest of the house. She went home that night with an even greater curiosity about Caron, a growing grudge against Max and more knowledge about the secret life of the sofa than she thought was truly decent.

  CHAPTER 18

  By the time Saz finished her last day’s work for Caron she knew more about Deb Mitcham than she could ever have hoped for. She had roped in her tame policewomen friends for added backup. Judith and Helen had been together for almost seven years and Saz, like most of their friends, found their constant vacillation between being either passionately in love or on the brink of breaking up fairly infuriating – if only because she could never be sure if both or just one of them would turn up to dinner when invited. They were however, able to access information Saz could never find by herself – and they also brought very nice champagne whenever they did make it over for dinner. Following a great deal of subtle digging they were able to let Saz know that not only had Deb lived in the house with the Norths, she’d died there too. On a hot night in August, twenty-seven-year-old Debra Mitcham had killed herself by cutting her wrists. Lengthwise, the right way. She’d wrapped herself in a winter quilt, which had quite effectively soaked up most of her blood. Maxwell North had found her at about four in the morning and had immediately alerted the authorities but, as a doctor, he could confirm that she’d already been dead at least an hour. She’d cut her wrists with North’s specialist razor – “a fine shave for refined gentlemen”. She’d lived in London for five years and with the Norths since 1984, where she’d been gainfully employed as an assistant to them both and had, by all accounts, seemed happily settled. According to the policewoman who’d interviewed her, Caron North had been devastated, but as Carrie remarked to Saz, “Well, even if they weren’t shagging, she’s not going to be too happy to have all that blood over her carpet, is she?”

  That night, Saz asked Caron if she could take her for a drink, “To thank you for this past week.”

  To her surprise Caron did exactly as Molly had predicted. Turned down the suggestion of the pub and told Saz to open the bottle of champagne in the fridge. Three hours and two bottles of champagne later, and again, fulfilling Molly’s prediction, Caron North was fairly drunk and Saz was, with not a little feeling of regret, almost completely sober. She finished a mouthful of her smoked salmon sandwich.

  “I have a friend who used to live round here. She said there was an Australian girl staying with you, I thought she meant Kirsty, but she said this was years ago.”

  Caron nodded.

  “Yes, there was.”

  “Did she use
to work for you?”

  Caron nodded again and poured the last of the wine into Saz’s glass.

  “I’d rather not talk about her Molly, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sorry – I just heard something, and I wondered …”

  Caron ran her finger around the top of her glass until it began to sing.

  “You know, this is really interesting. Max said you were snooping. But I told him you couldn’t be.”

  She looked up at Saz.

  “He was right wasn’t he?”

  Saz put down her glass and looked directly at Caron, as honestly as she could manage.

  “Kind of. But not snooping on him, or you. For Deb … Deb’s friends. For one of Deb’s friends. I met this Australian girl at a club and she said … we got talking … and she said she couldn’t believe Deb had killed herself… “

  “I saw her. I saw her dead. I know she killed herself. It was a long time ago. I can’t believe you’re bringing this all up …“

  “I know, I’m sorry. But I told her, this girl, that I’d done the course, Max’s course I mean…”

  “He told me.”

  “And I said, if you took me on, I’d try to find out for her. Find out about Deb.”

  Caron stood up and took their empty glasses to the dishwasher, her grip on the glasses was white knuckletight.

  “I see. And what should I do now, Molly? Now that you’ve been in my house and touched my things and my work and all under false pretences?”

  She turned around and flopped down until she was sitting on the ground, leaning against the dishwasher and looking up at Saz. She was crying.

  “What should I do now? You’ve come in here. You’ve lied to me, taken advantage of me and brought up past things that I’d hoped were safely put away. What shall I do?”

  Saz got off her chair and knelt on the floor beside Caron. She tried to reach out to comfort her but the older woman shoved her away.

  “Look Caron, I’m really sorry. I have liked working with you. It hasn’t all been lies. Um … was she, Deb … was she your lover?”

  Caron glared at her, “You really are pushing it now, aren’t you? Just get out before I have you thrown out, go on, go. Get the fuck out of here.”

  When Caron finally stopped screaming and crying Saz held her close, stroking her hair, the two of them sitting among the shards of shattered glass.

  “Fuck, I really am sorry Caron. I had no idea, I mean … Christ, I don’t know what I mean. I never intended to upset you like this. I’m really sorry. Please, listen to me, it would be really good if you didn’t do anything. Don’t speak to Dr North about this. Not yet.”

  Caron didn’t answer so Saz pressed on.

  “You have no reason to, but if you could just trust me, if you’ll just hang on for a little while, I’ll … oh shit, I don’t know, I’ll do something.”

  Caron sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

  “Very eloquent. You sounded a lot more convincing when you were lying.”

  “Yeah well. As I said, I’m sorry.”

  Caron pulled herself up and leant against the table.

  “Molly – is that your real name?”

  “No. Sorry again.”

  “Right. I … ah … I’m quite interested in what happened to Deb myself. I would like to know too. I…”

  Her voiced petered out and she started to cry again, then with a shudder she seemed to pull herself together. As Saz later remarked to Molly, it was like seeing the stiff upper lip in action.

  “I really don’t even want to think about this right now. My exhibition is very important, it is all I care about. I have to be in control. I’ll give you ten days. Sort of a reciprocal arrangement, after all, I’ve just had ten days of your time. If you cannot adequately explain yourself by then, I will tell Max everything and we will have you arrested and charged with … I don’t know, but there must be some charge that covers lying and cheating and getting into someone’s house and life under false pretences. Now get out. If I don’t hear from you, rest assured, I will find you.”

  “And I left with my tail between my legs.”

  “Sorry babe, so my plan wasn’t foolproof.”

  “Not proof for this fool anyway.”

  “Do you think she’ll say anything to Max?”

  “I’m not sure. But they hand out remarkably similar threats. Before I fucked it all up by asking about Deb she did talk a bit about them. About her relationship with him. It sounds like they really do lead completely separate lives, different friends, different interests. Or at least that’s what she said, but then again, she could have been lying. She certainly sussed that I was.”

  “Ten days huh? It’s not long.”

  “No, I know. And I don’t even know where to start.”

  “I do. This arrived while you were out. It’s addressed to you but I opened it anyway.”

  Molly got up from the table and shoved a large unstamped envelope in front of Saz. Inside was a return ticket to San Francisco, a map of the city, a card with a gift shop name and address on it and one thousand dollars in cash. Molly sat down beside her.

  “I didn’t think your mystery woman had this address.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Can you find out about the shop from here?”

  “Helen or Jude could try, but it might take a couple of days for them to do it discreetly.”

  “Well I’m afraid you can’t wait that long.”

  “Why not?”

  “Look at the tickets. The flight leaves first thing in the morning. Your bag’s packed and I’ve put petrol in the car so I can take you to Gatwick.”

  “I love you Molly, you know that?”

  “Prove it. I want a lot of presents on your return and I want a lot of you – right now.”

  Saz did as she was told.

  CHAPTER 19

  By the mid-1980s Maxwell North’s career had done far better than even he had dared to hope for. The boy who had “run away from home” at twenty-seven was hugely successful and widely respected, with practices spanning the Atlantic. He had a beautiful wife and beautiful homes. That his marriage was a sham and that his work meant he was almost never in any of his lovely homes, mattered not at all. Maxwell North was successful, but far more important than his own life, the Process was successful. The Process worked.

  When Anita had left him to live with John and taken Jasmine with them, he had been happy to agree to her stated belief that the little girl was probably John’s child. After a year or so he convinced himself that she was John’s child anyway, that his relationship to her had been that of a father figure. Not a father but a carer. Just as he cared for all the other people in the House. After all, sorrow and trauma were for others, the Process could heal them of their pain, but Max was the creator of the Process and had no time for any grief of his own. In Max’s mind the Process always came first and anything attempting to stop that would be dealt with – as severely as necessary.

  The first time had been easy. Michael was practically alone, even within the House, even with Chris as his lover. In the early days he had caused a slight hiccup and then been removed – like a successful surgical operation. Michael’s parents had never even tried to trace him, happy to accept that their son, the good all-American boy they’d determined to raise, was lost to them and readily believing Max’s story of Michael’s departure. They let Michael out of their lives with relief. And Max accepted their dismissal of their own child with even greater relief.

  To Max, Michael’s death made perfect sense because Max believed in the Process. Believed the Process was the way – the healing future – and he was starting to produce results that showed the same. Someone threatening to tell the world that the House in San Francisco had not always been so successful, had not always run along the perfect lines that Max proclaimed and the many psychology and sociology thesis writers who had studied the House attested to – that someone was against the Process. That someone was stopp
ing the work. Those someones were stopped. Just as Deb had to be stopped.

  Max’s marriage to the British furniture heiress had made all the papers in the late seventies, it was a match made in heaven – at least for the writers of the tabloid papers. Beautiful young British artist marries dashing not quite so young American doctor. Actually it was a marriage made in Max’s ideal scheme of things. He and Caron had met through mutual friends, liked each other fairly well and were intelligent enough to know that they could work for each other. After a first dinner Max had sussed that Caron was gay and, well aware that her contacts in the British establishment would do him good, he immediately proposed marriage. When Caron had stopped laughing Max explained exactly what he meant by marriage, adding that he expected the two of them would find enough in common to allow them to get along, that he expected nothing of her sexually and, as her parents would no doubt pressure her into marriage eventually, it might as well be him. The next week Caron completed the Process and four months later they were married in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral. Over the ensuing years their mutually assisted careers flourished and they developed a good partnership, just involved in each other’s lives enough to make the story work, just separate enough to live the lives they’d planned. They slept in the same bed when they were at home together, they ate together and they knew exactly how far to go with each other. Both of them had occasionally had lovers and when, after seven years of marriage, Caron had asked Max how he felt about her young Australian girlfriend moving in with them, there had been no hint of dissent. Max moved into the spare room – which was, of course, Deb’s room whenever there was company – and Deb became a part of their lives. Max and Deb got on well, Deb working for them both as their housekeeper, for Caron as her PA and occasionally helping Max. It was a system that worked for all three of them, and if Max sometimes resented Deb’s intrusion or Caron was very occasionally threatened by a slight fear of Max’s need for power, neither of them was prepared to rock the boat. Neither of them had any desire to swim alone in uncharted waters. Deb however, was a great surfer and had no fear of sharks.