It was nearly eleven o’clock on the night of her birthday and, in her bare feet, Callie stepped delicately around the plastic bags and piles of books in Brenda’s tiny spare room and tried to work out which suitcase contained her make-up remover and night cream.
She needed to get this faceful of make-up off. To brush her teeth. To scrub the day clean from herself.
Her skin itched with the desire to be clean. Then, she wanted to fall into the single bed covered with a simple white duvet and sleep. Forever. Like Sleeping Beauty, except there would be no prince kissing her awake.
No prince at all.
No husband.
Nothing but an aching emptiness in her heart. She couldn’t cry – not because crying would make her make-up slide down her face, but because if she started to cry, she wasn’t sure how she’d manage to stop.
How long ago had it been since she sat in the chair in the hairdressing salon, drinking coffee and thinking about the party.
Years ago: that’s what it felt like.
Feeling like an addict desperate for the fix of her special remover oil and some rich face cream, she shoved and pushed the cases, wrenching them open and then shoving them to one side when they weren’t the right one. The packing had been so haphazard. Callie had just watched Brenda do it, too numb to help.
There was barely any space in the tiny spare room for all the suitcases, so Callie tried to stack them on top of each other as she searched. She had slowly managed to half pack one at home before Brenda had taken over, ripped things from the wardrobe and stuffed it all into the old cases at speed. Not the Mandarina Duck leather suitcases, she’d said and Callie, who’d sat slumped on the floor of her and Jason’s dressing room, still in her charcoal party dress but with her Manolos off, had seen a look exchanged between Brenda and the female police officer watching them.
Nothing was said but Callie understood because Brenda had explained it to her brusquely in a brief moment alone: it might be better if she took nothing valuable. Nothing that might be the proceeds of a crime which was being investigated.
‘What do they think Jason’s done?’
‘Not sure,’ whispered Brenda. ‘Something dodgy.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Callie.
‘So where is the lord and master, then?’ asked Brenda. ‘The Fraud Squad come when there’s fraud. Did you ring the lawyer?’
Callie had rung Jason’s personal lawyer many times but there was no answer.
‘Probably done a runner too,’ Brenda had snarled and began packing.
‘I can’t get my husband’s lawyer on the phone,’ Callie had said to the female police officer in the dressing room. ‘I don’t know anything about any of this . . .’ she added helplessly.
Despite her shock, Callie could sense the other woman’s disbelief and the words not spoken.
We’re here with a search warrant, Mrs Reynolds. How could you not know you were in trouble, Mrs Reynolds? How could anyone be that stupid?
Brenda had bypassed the wardrobes with the expensive evening dresses, designer suits, handbags worth the price of a small car and shoes lined up with exquisite care, but had swept out the lingerie drawer.
‘No resale value in this,’ she’d said calmly, stuffing it all into a squashy case. She’d taken the ordinary clothes: jeans, plain trousers, sweaters, the expensive little camisoles Callie loved, cardigans, her old leather jacket, the everyday things Callie wore around the house like her yoga pants, and a couple of very plain black dresses and matching shoes.
Court shoes they used to be called, Callie had thought blankly. To be worn in court?
She’d felt the nausea rise up but, somehow, it backed down into the pit of her stomach. Brenda had told her to get her creams and potions, but the only thing Callie’s shaking hand had reached for was the old make-up case under the sink with her Xanax in it. She’d stashed it in her handbag, unable to do anything else. It was a big handbag, expensive, but old. Worth money in a resale shop? Was this how she was to pack? Only take what would not be worth anything?
Brenda scooped up books, phone chargers, photos, the pile of Callie’s vitamins, her face creams, all the personal bits and bobs on her dresser.
The Loewe, Bottega Veneta and Dior handbags sat in her wardrobe in their dust bags, polished and perfect.
All the while, she tried to empty her mind, because if she allowed herself to think, it would allow her to remember that Jason was gone, leaving her with this.
As Brenda swept back into the bedroom, Poppy sat on her parents’ bed, pretty face reddened with crying, watching the TV with the headphones as if she could somehow block out what was happening.
Brenda had already dispatched Poppy’s friends and had packed up everything Poppy owned at high speed. A motley selection of bags sat ready and waiting.
Poppy wouldn’t look at her mother since she and Brenda had come in to break the news.
‘What have you done?’ she’d screamed at Callie, mascara cascading down her face as if she was auditioning for a horror movie, while Brenda was ushering her confused friends out and Callie and Poppy were left alone.
‘Nothing,’ protested Callie.
‘You must have! Where’s Daddy? He can fix it. You can’t,’ Poppy screamed and then cried again, until her face was transformed horribly with make-up, but she wouldn’t let Callie help her take it off.
‘Get away from me!’ she’d hissed.
‘Please, darling . . .’ Callie had begged, trying to hold her daughter, to comfort her, but Poppy screamed some more, until Brenda had marched in and slapped her on the cheek.
At that, Poppy had collapsed against Brenda, sobbing in her arms, while Callie had stood to one side, devastated. How could she fix this when she didn’t know what to fix?
The police had let Callie and Poppy go – with their limited belongings, no computers, no papers – in Brenda’s car with a pal of Brenda’s coming with another car to haul the suitcases.
From the safe, with two police officers watching, Callie had taken her passport and Poppy’s, but had been told she was not to leave the country. Jason’s passport was gone, as was the wodge of cash he always kept in there. Callie had said nothing about this being missing. The safe was quite empty, apart from their passports and her jewellery in the leather cases.
‘Can you tell me what’s going on?’ she’d said as they left to the police detective in plain clothes, the one who’d spoken to her first.
‘This is a criminal investigation into your husband, Jason Reynolds, and we are searching this premises.’
‘Crime? What sort of crime?’ Callie could barely ask but she had to.
‘Large-scale fraud,’ he said bluntly.
‘But who could he defraud?’ asked Callie, bewildered.
‘Investors in his property business, abroad and here.’
Some of the investors were people they knew. The policeman had to be wrong.
Jason wouldn’t commit fraud. He was honest. He was no white-collar criminal.
But he was gone, wasn’t he? Wasn’t that proof of something?
‘We will need to talk to you over the next few days,’ the detective had said.
‘We can’t get one now, but she’ll have a lawyer present,’ said Brenda.
‘Good plan,’ he said evenly.
‘She doesn’t know anything about any of this, you know,’ Brenda said, ‘but then I guess you know that.’
The policeman said nothing.
Callie stood mutely as Brenda asked one final question: ‘Are the bank accounts frozen?’
‘Yes.’
Brenda had played the radio in her car on the way to her home, and she’d shoved in a Carol King CD when the news came on.
‘I hate this music,’ said a voice, the old Poppy resurfacing for a moment from the back of the small car where she sat surrounded by black plastic bags and cases.
‘I love it,’ said Brenda cheerfully, then whispered to Callie: ‘I can’t turn on the radio in case of a news report.’
‘Is it on the news already?’ Callie was stricken.
Brenda shrugged as she turned a corner, driving them away from the glamour of their part of the city to the bohemian style of her own. ‘Who knows. It won’t take long for some smart-arse to connect the dots and find you at my place, though. You need a bolt-hole or else you’ll be facing the press.’
Callie didn’t answer. Where was Jason? What had happened to make him run?
At Brenda’s, the three of them hauled in the bags and cases, then Brenda brought Poppy up to the office-cum-box-room at the front of the house. From downstairs, Callie could hear them.
‘If we push the desk against the wall, you can turn the sofa into a bed,’ Brenda had said.
From Poppy, there was nothing: no anger at the size of this room which was the size of her en suite bathroom at home.
‘I don’t have Netflix, I’m afraid, but there’s reasonable Wi-Fi and there’s Sky on the TV downstairs.’
Then, there was sobbing and Callie imagined Brenda holding Poppy in her arms and murmuring comforting things.
Callie should be doing this, but Poppy hadn’t even so much as glanced in her mother’s direction since they’d left the house. Refused to hug her. It was as if she blamed Callie for everything. And why not? Callie thought. Callie had not stopped this happening.
‘You OK in here? I’ve got camomile tea downstairs,’ Brenda said to her, appearing at the door to the spare room, which was marginally larger than the study.
‘That would be lovely,’ said Callie, stopping her search. ‘I can’t find my creams or stuff. I want to . . .’
‘Yeah, take the face off.’
Brenda shoved things around and found a small suitcase. ‘In here. I brought as much as I could. Even got the retinol cream. Dermalogica will go out of business if you stop buying. Plus,’ her eyes twinkled, ‘I got some of your jewellery.’
‘You did what?’
‘Hey, you’ll need every penny,’ Brenda said. ‘I doubt if Jason ever paid anything but cash up front for anything in his life. No trail of receipts.’ She opened the case and handed a black leather case to Callie. ‘Here. The pearls, the gold Cartier tank watch, some diamonds. The big stuff is in the safe, but fuck it, you need some collateral, things to sell at some point.’
‘It’s going to be sorted out, Brenda,’ said Callie fiercely. ‘I won’t need to sell anything. Jason will fix it. This is all a—’
‘Mistake? Yeah, right,’ said Brenda, her voice as caustic as acid. ‘If it’s a mistake, why isn’t he here fixing it now? Because this is no mistake, Callie. You and Poppy are on your own. You’ve got me, and Evelyn too, I imagine, because she’s decent to the bone, and Mary Butler in Canada, but that’s it. So get used to it and start thinking clever. Tomorrow, we’ll find out if you can take stuff from the house – you need a lawyer for when they talk to you. But right now, we’ve got enough.’
Alone again, Callie wiped off her face, tears mingling with the cream. She felt strangely numb. There was a dreamlike quality to this whole evening. Like a bad movie that had somehow stuck in her brain to be replayed in her REM sleep. Yet she didn’t want to think too much about it because, if she did, she would come back to the inevitable: if Jason was a fraud, how had she not known?
When she’d rubbed on moisturiser, pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt and tied her hair back with a band, she stood outside Poppy’s room and knocked, but there was no reply. She might bring up a cup of hot chocolate to her daughter and try again in a few minutes.
‘I’m sorry, Brenda,’ she began when she reached the kitchen.
‘No, I am. I’m giving you the tough-love treatment right now and it’s probably too much.’
Everything that had happened was too much, Callie thought, but no point in saying that.
Brenda sat at the small table in the kitchen, her three cats in three different cat beds. There was a scent of tobacco in the air, a small Japanese teapot and two little cups on the table, along with an opened wine bottle and two glasses. Soft jazz music played in the background.
‘Seriously,’ said Callie, ‘thank you for everything. I’m still a bit shell-shocked. Maybe sleep will sort me out.’
There was silence. Neither of them believed a good night’s sleep would do much, but still, it was something you said, Callie thought. Sleep. Hot tea with sugar. Kindness. None of which could take away the fact that Jason had run off, leaving her with this trail of disaster.
‘Is Poppy coming down?’
Brenda shook her head.
‘She blames me,’ said Callie, pouring herself some tea and trying not to let her hands shake too much.
Joe, the marmalade cat, uncurled from his bed and began to weave around Callie’s bare ankles.
‘You’re the only one who’s left to blame,’ Brenda said, shrugging. ‘Shitface went off and left you both, so there’s nobody else to pin it all on.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t call him that,’ Callie said automatically. ‘We don’t know what’s happening.’
‘He left when the police were at the door – that’s what happened. You and Poppy would have been on the street tonight if I wasn’t there. Your bank accounts have been frozen. You couldn’t have rented a hotel room with credit cards attached to frozen accounts. So yes, I think Shitface about sums it up.’
Callie was too shocked to be angry, but clearly Brenda was channelling enough anger for both of them. She abandoned the camomile tea and poured herself some wine.
‘What do I live on if our bank accounts are frozen?’
Brenda shrugged. ‘They want Jason. He’ll be on an arrest warrant now and they have to track him down. Freezing the accounts is what they do.’
‘But what about Poppy and me?’
‘I’d love to ask fucking Jason that,’ said Brenda.
‘I still don’t believe it,’ said Callie staunchly. She finished her glass of wine, went to the sink and rinsed it out. ‘He wouldn’t do this to us!’
Brenda closed her eyes. ‘He has, Cal. He has. I am so sorry for both of you.’
‘But why?’ Callie knew she was about to cry and she didn’t want a tear-stained face, not when she had to go into Poppy’s room. ‘He loves us.’
‘People are complicated, Cal. He loved the lifestyle, didn’t want to give it up when the economy tanked. Went over to the dark side? Who knows.’
‘But us? What about us?’ Callie said.
‘I don’t have an answer.’
Callie finally said it out loud: ‘How did I not know? You seemed to know.’
‘Jason adored you and he protected you,’ Brenda said finally. ‘I’m wiser, I saw between the cracks. I’ve had my suspicions for the past couple of years, but what could I say to you? “Do you think the business is no longer legitimate?”’
Callie shuddered. She wouldn’t have believed it, and if she’d talked to Jason, he’d have fired Brenda.
There was silence. Brenda lit a cigarette and Callie got to her feet.
‘You have hot chocolate anywhere?’
Brenda opened the correct cupboard, and Callie made speedy hot chocolate in the microwave.
She couldn’t talk anymore. Didn’t want to hear anything else that could hurt. To imagine that her husband would just abandon her and Poppy to the police was too hard to bear because it meant she’d been wrong about him all along. That he hadn’t been a safe harbour.
And if he wasn’t, what sort of idiot did that make her? Because she should have known.
Upstairs, Callie knocked on Poppy’s door. There was no answer. She pushed in past the suitcases and found her daughter curled up on the sofa bed with her headphones on and tears dried on her face.
Callie put the mug of hot chocolate on the floor, sat down on the sofa bed and Poppy allowed herself to be pulled into her mother’s embrace.
‘Mum, what’s going to happen?’ sobbed Poppy.
Callie held her tight, relieved that Poppy had let her guard down finally. ‘I don’t know, honey, but I know Daddy’s going to fix it. He loves us, loves you so much, like I love you. It’s going to be fine. You wait and see.’
‘Promise?’ said Poppy, hiccupping because she’d cried so much.
Callie hesitated a beat. She couldn’t say that she really had no idea if things would be fine. She was terrified things would be the opposite, but Poppy was just a kid. She had to be handled gently, not hurt with a lightning bolt of harsh reality. ‘Promise,’ she agreed, scared she wasn’t telling the truth.
She found her daughter’s make-up remover and gently cleaned away the layers of make-up until, once again, Poppy’s fresh fourteen-year-old face was revealed. Sorting through the bags, she found pyjamas and the small cuddly toys that Poppy still kept on her bed. Callie arranged them carefully, then pulled the covers back.
‘I’ll fix your pillows, sweetheart,’ she said softly, ‘and then have your hot chocolate.’
Like a small child, Poppy dutifully got into bed, held on to her favourite soft toy, a much-loved and grimy bunny with a once-pink velvet ribbon round his neck, and hugged him.
Callie leaned down and, taking Poppy’s face in both hands, kissed her daughter on the forehead. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘It will be fine.’
Was she lying? she wondered as she left the room, turning off the light.
In the spare bedroom, Callie took out a Xanax and swallowed it with some water. She needed to be able to sleep, and if she didn’t have some help, she’d just lie there thinking, imagining the worst.
Although, the worst had already happened, hadn’t it?