‘That’s all you care about. Getting caught or not. I care about us.’
Us. Just the word makes me feel repulsed. ‘Of course I care about… us.’
How I wish I could return to that night at Benirràs and the split second before I took Bianka’s hands, lacing my fingers in hers. I wish with all my might that I could undo it.
‘I think whatever happened between us is very secondary to the situation that happened after,’ I hiss.
‘You were the one who placed us in that absolutely insane situation by doing what you did. And now, you and I are bound together.’
‘Bound by what? It never happened, and that’s how I intend to live,’ I say. ‘We agreed,’ I add. Bianka doesn’t speak for a long while and I know I was right to return her call and attempt to diffuse the situation. ‘Listen, let’s get together this week, I’ll try to move some stuff around in my diary. I’ll text you tomorrow, I really want to see you.’
Eventually, after agreeing that I’ll definitely make it happen this week, not next, I manage to get off the phone. I’m mentally exhausted and shaken up by the conversation. I stay here in my bedroom for a long while, remembering my own gaze in the mirror at Can Xara, when I truly realized what I’d done, that I’d murdered Maxime. Could I do it again? I almost laugh out loud at the sheer insanity of even entertaining this thought, but only almost, because there is an underlying seriousness – would I rather go to prison for Maxime Dubois-Joseph’s murder, losing my family and absolutely everything else, or would I kill Bianka to keep her quiet? There is no doubt in my mind that I would get rid of her.
But only if I have to.
I breathe a sigh of relief and head back downstairs to the living room. Linda and Anette fall silent again as I enter.
‘We’re out of wine,’ says Anette, meaning she’s out of wine, as my glass is still full and Linda’s not drinking.
‘I think we’re going to have to call it a day,’ I say.
‘What’s going on?’ asks Linda, concern etched across her face. ‘Where were you?’
‘Oh, just in the bathroom. I’ve been feeling a little queasy.’ Anette and Linda exchange a pointed glance. I’m so tired. Tired of acting and performing and achieving and pretending and masking and lying. The girls leave and I trudge upstairs heavily, stepping out of my dress and crawling into bed. I’m exhausted but I need to know more about what the police are saying about Maxime’s disappearance. I go to the Ibiza Live Facebook group and find the post toward the top of the page.
Police appeal for information in baffling disappearance of Ibiza holidaymaker, reads the headline.
It remains unclear whether French national Mr Maxime Dubois-Joseph has voluntarily or involuntarily disappeared, and whether he went missing on Ibiza or shortly after having left the island. Dubois-Joseph is last believed to have been at Els Horizonts in Port de Sant Miquel on Thursday June 24th, likely in the company of friends. Police are interested in speaking to anyone who may have observed, or been in the company of, Mr Dubois-Joseph on the night in question. There is no suspicion of foul play at the present time, but the young man’s family are growing increasingly concerned for his well-being after being unable to establish contact with him since the 24th. Dubois-Joseph had spent a week at his parents’ private property, and according to witnesses, numerous parties had taken place during this time.
I scan the big international news sites, from BBC to VG to The Guardian to El País to Dagbladet, but there is nothing more. Not yet. I don’t for a moment doubt that it will come.
*
The next morning I wake before six and am in the makeup chair at the TV studio in Clapham by seven. I have been invited here to take part in a panel discussing the government’s official dietary outlines, which in my opinion amount to slow suicide: Want to die? Eat this.
Usually, this is the kind of thing that gets me really excited – I’m good at debating and am competitive enough to want to change the opinions of my fellow panellists, as well as the audience’s. But today I don’t feel right; I have a terrible headache spreading out from the base of my skull, and the swelling on my cheekbone from when I fell in Ibiza is strangely more tender now than when it first happened. I bite my lip as the makeup artist, an annoyingly talkative girl with an impressive number of facial piercings, spends a long while on the area, firmly dabbing a silicone-based concealing agent over the top of it, then blending it to give the illusion of smooth, unblemished skin.
All I can think about is Maxime, and where he is at this moment. What does he look like by now? And his parents – what are these days like for them? Stop it, I tell myself. I’m not going there. I was doing so well. This shouldn’t change anything. When they move on from my face to my hair, I return to Google to see if anything new has come up but, still, there is nothing. I hope it will just go away, that the police will stop looking when nothing suggests foul play. But my hands still shake as I finish getting ready.
*
‘We’re rolling,’ says the producer, giving us a thumbs-up.
I’m on camera, sitting on a high yellow leather chair, wedged in between the two other panellists, a man who works for a British oatmeal company and a woman who works to promote healthy eating habits in young people. Both naturally hate me.
‘The problem is when someone like you, who is a trained medical professional, spreads lies, because you’re in a position of trust,’ says the man, his face red with indignation before we’ve even properly started.
‘Excuse me – spreads lies?’
‘The diet you are promoting to vulnerable people has repeatedly been linked to elevated cholesterol, strokes, heart disease, and bowel cancer.’
‘I’m sorry, but this is simply untrue. If it were true, why would a ketogenic dietary approach be used extensively in treating epileptic patients? It’s because it regulates insulin response and actually cures insulin resistance, which is the main cause of obesity and a wide host of lifestyle-related cancers.’
‘It is also directly in breach of the government’s dietary guidelines—’
‘Which are wildly outdated.’
‘Isn’t it morally wrong, though, to promote a diet that is financially inaccessible to a large portion of the population?’ he asks, and at this both the host and the woman next to me nod sagely.
‘I agree that this is a real problem, but shouldn’t governments be working to make the food that truly nourishes us more accessible for everyone by subsidizing food prices, rather than funding big pharma medicines that treat symptoms that arise as a result of a poor diet?’
Both the host and the woman nod at this, too. I’m smashing it, like I always do. The man says something in response but I don’t catch it, because suddenly, I spot Bianka in the crowd. She’s sitting in the front row, wearing the garish red trouser suit she wore the first time we met, and she is staring straight at me, a wild look in her eyes. I squint to see her better in the bright glare of the spotlights, and shift in my seat to lean forward a little. As I do, my angle of view changes slightly and I see that it’s not Bianka at all, but a slight young man with a yellow baseball cap I mistook for Bianka’s light blond hair.
‘Charlotte? Umm, Charlotte?’
The audience titters.
‘I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?’ I feel the beady eyes of the so-called experts on either side of me, the air of superiority and perhaps pity. They must think the lack of carbohydrates has prevented oxygen from reaching my brain.
‘I said, do you not think that it’s harmful for your thousands of young followers to be told that a regime as restrictive as the ketogenic diet is the best way to eat?’
‘Why would the truth be harmful?’
The man says something else, some mumbled old crap about people having had grains as the main staple of their diet for thousands of years and why would European life expectancy be so high if bread was so very terrible? When it’s my turn to speak again, I completely lose my train of thought and stammer an inarticulate half-sentence about the diminishing quality of grains and the overuse of pesticides, because I’ve spotted Bianka in the crowd again and this time, it’s definitely her. She’s sitting to the side of a pillar, her hair piled on top of her head, scrutinizing me with a sarcastic little smile on her face. I crane my neck and lean across the woman next to me to get a better view. She coughs uncomfortably and shifts in her seat. But again, it’s not Bianka.
‘Right,’ says the host. ‘Okay, I think we’ll round off there. The debate will continue in our online chatroom.’
Being backstage is an awkward experience and I rip the microphone from my cheek and hand the transmitter to one of the technicians before storming out and down the long bare corridors to the elevator which will take me down into the parking garage.
