“I couldn’t just let her fly to Thailand on her own.”
“I get that. And I also get that Willa wants that girl to be her sister. But it was impossible to tell anything from that photo. You’re really going to fly halfway round the world on account of one inconclusive photo and the word of some girl you don’t know from Adam? How does this complete stranger have any idea what Laika would look like now? What if it’s a giant hoax? Also—think about this, Robyn—what if by some miracle it is her? How the hell does someone who’s been abducted end up begging in Thailand? And, more importantly, why the hell would Willa even believe that? And if by some remote possibility that really is Laika, and she knows who she is, then you do get that she is choosing to be out there, right? She’s choosing not to come home. And if that’s the case, what’s going to happen when you two turn up out of the blue? Have you thought about that? Like I said, the best way forward would be to call the police.”
“But Cat—”
I turned, running a hand through my hair, my loyalties torn between Willa and Cat. Willa was going. And I couldn’t let her go on her own, there was just no way. Or could I? Should I? Everything Cat had said made good sense, and, hell, of course I knew there were a thousand reasons why Cat wouldn’t want me to go. If I went, I would be letting Cat down, badly. But, if I didn’t, if I changed my mind now, if I told Willa she was on her own, where would that leave things? I’d probably never see her again. How was I meant to choose? My eyes fell on the pile of painting equipment stacked neatly against the wall: our own week’s plans flung out of orbit. At least we could leave the painting for another time.
“Can we—”
She cut me off. “You’re clearly going,” she snapped. “We can talk about us when you get back.”
***
A week later I let myself back into a flat that smelt new and different, bright and alien with the sharp tang of fresh paint. I found Cat in the tiny spare bedroom, working at her drawing table.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” Cat looked up and held my eyes. I hung by the door, feeling grubby. Everything felt wrong. Eventually Cat said, “So it wasn’t her, then.”
“No. She did look like her, though.”
“How would you know?” Her voice was stony.
Jet lag fogged my brain. I grabbed for something, anything to say.
“And she wasn’t really begging. Well, she was, but not because she was in any genuine need. They call them begpackers, apparently. They’re just cheapskate tourists who want total strangers to fund their trips. Turned out the rest of that sign had a smiley face and make our dreams come true.”
“Right.” An uncomfortable silence filled the small room. For a long time she looked at me. Finally Cat said, “I’ve had a lot of time to think this week.”
“Don’t say it.” My voice came out in a rush.
“Say what?”
I was going to lose her. “Oh, Jesus, Cat, I’m so, so sorry.”
“Are you? Because I don’t want to spend my life with someone who’s completely wrapped up in somebody else.”
I felt like I was falling. “Nothing happened.”
“Pah,” she said. “That you feel the need even to mention that is pretty telling. Anyway, that’s not the main point. If you’re not fully present in this relationship, I need to know. Now.”
“I couldn’t just let her go on her own.”
“I get who you are, Robyn. I know you’d drop everything to help out a stranger, let alone a close friend. But—” She paused. “It’s pretty obvious that Willa is, or has been, more to you than that. I need to know where I stand. And you need to decide who I am to you or that’s it. I’m not playing second fiddle.”
Our two worlds hung, suspended like threads. I loved Cat, wholeheartedly, and, in that moment of nearly losing her, I knew it without a fragment of doubt. Cat, who worked hard and played hard and lived her entire life with honesty and conviction. Cat, who could always find the right words when it mattered, who could dance like a disco queen and laugh like a drain. Cat, who was candid and honest, and who desired me—desired us—in ways that were open and wholehearted and real. And I loved her, everything about her: everything she stood for, everything she was. She was the person I wanted to be with, and not just now. She was the person I wanted to be with for my whole entire life.
***
I never told Willa how close I’d come to losing Cat that time, but something changed in me after that. Some cardinal thing that had stayed with me for so long—stalked me, haunted me—quietly slipped away. I opened my hand, and let it go. From that point on, everything would be about Cat. So when Willa continued to invite me down to Sussex to stay, I told Cat I wouldn’t go at all unless she came too. Admittedly, it took a bit of persuasion, but finally she agreed.
So we both went. Willa and Bianka, her mother, were waiting for us at the train station at Lewes, standing together by a silver convertible, both of them dressed in tank tops and shorts. Her father was away again, somewhere or other, Willa had said, sounding offhand; it would just be us four.
The car roof was down, and on the way to the house I sat in the back with Cat, wearing mirrored shades and feeling for all the world like some kind of minor rock star as we whipped along the lanes, laughing like loons and all of us singing along to “Freedom” as it blasted from the CD player.
“Mum’s a George Michael super-fan,” Willa shouted above the music. “When we were little she used to sing us Wham songs in the bath, using the shower attachment as a microphone. She literally cried when they split up.” Bianka laughed. It was amazing. She looked exactly like Willa, just older: she had the same slender frame, the same smile, the same gray eyes and almost-red hair.
In time we turned into a private estate, waiting first for a metal barrier to rise and then driving slowly past huge houses, until eventually we pulled up at a pair of high metal gates. Bianka pressed a button on some gadget and they swung open. We’d arrived.
***
That house truly shouldn’t have come as such a huge surprise. Like everyone, I’d seen news footage of the place, the shadow of a helicopter circling a large white mansion and garden, its flickering blades moving over a glistening sapphire pool. I’d known it was going to be big. But the inside was something else. We followed Bianka and Willa through a heavy set of dark oak doors, arriving in a huge entrance hall that felt more like a museum than a home, where beautiful things were arranged on polished tables in such perfect order that I half expected to see small cards giving the date and provenance of each object and little don’t touch signs beside each thing. The difference in temperature from the warm day outside was remarkable too. Inside it felt—chilly. And not just physically cold either. Glacial.
“Wow,” I said, my voice sounding too loud as it bounced off glass, porcelain and marble floor tiles. I lowered my voice. “This is”—I cast about for a word—“incredible.” Lowering my voice, I said, “Amazing.” I rubbed my arm, aware that my skin was prickling into goose bumps.
“Come through to the garden,” Willa said, her voice as quiet as mine.
We followed Bianka and Willa through that hall in a strange sort of hush. Bringing up the rear, I hefted my bag further up my shoulder, for fear it might brush against some priceless heirloom. I had the strangest sensation of being watched, and, in some respects, we were. A quick glance toward the ceiling revealed the fixed gaze of security cameras in almost every corner, and on almost every surface there were framed photographs of the man I knew must be Willa’s father, in which he was mainly posing with various well-known faces: politicians, actors, celebrity chefs. After Laika disappeared, I remember seeing Willa’s dad on the TV during press briefings, looking awful, turbulent and grim. Now I could see what he must usually look like: a solid combination of conviviality and steel, something like a statesman, perhaps. Formal, certainly. They certainly had formal taste.
Through one doorway was a drawing room with a massive stone fireplace, above which a giant photograph showed Willa and Laika standing stiffly beside their parents, positions they’d clearly had to hold for some time: Laika and her dad weren’t even smiling. Other walls were hung with florid oils of stags and pheasants, all bearing the wild-eyed expressions of creatures who just knew they were about to be shot. From the hall we went into a vast kitchen with carved Baroque-style cupboards and trippy marble work surfaces, and finally into a conservatory tall enough to house real palms. Cat turned to me and mouthed Fuck. The entire place looked as if it had come straight out of the pages of some glossy magazine.
Bianka unlocked a set of French doors and we stepped out on to a wide stone terrace, overlooking a huge garden which I guessed must end at the distant line of rhododendron bushes that grew as thick and tall as trees. It was only then that everyone started talking in normal voices again.
***
Once Cat and I had got over our astonishment, the four of us had a lovely afternoon. Bianka made us a salad, and, as we ate on the terrace, I began to realize she was exactly the person Willa had described: funny and generous and genuinely interested in the two of us. I liked her a lot. The time passed easily, so we must have already been there for a couple of hours when the gates to the road silently pivoted open and a large, black limousine started crawling up the curve of the drive.
Willa said, “Oh,” and Bianka, without saying anything at all, jumped up and rushed into the house.
