1985
She woke up
surrounded by white and dove-grey, the colours of November as she called
them. She still had nothing to put on
her walls, having only settled in this apartment just this month. Barbara liked the stark austerity of her
surroundings. It was a small bachelor in
an older building. She felt as though
she’d been drugged, then shuddered at the thought as she sank back into her
pillow. She still hadn’t found work, but
that remained the least of her concerns.
She had done nicely in the out of court settlement, and if she invested
it carefully, she could survive if somewhat frugally for the rest of her
life. She wondered if Rafael was up to
his old tricks. She hadn’t anticipated
encountering him yesterday, just after leaving that boy Stephen in Chino’s coffee-shop
yesterday. They looked alike,
Rafael, at thirty-something with the first signs of grey appearing in his hair,
while Stephen seemed barely twenty, like older and younger versions of the same person.
She felt a
chill run through her body at the thought of those two ever meeting.
She had just had a dream about her ex-husband, Randall. She could remember none of the details,
except that they had been sitting in a boat together.
She got out of
bed and had a long leisurely bath. She
still wore her famous hair long, though now she tied it back and
concealed it under her sweater. The three
years of her life that she'd spent on Parisian and Milanese cat walks, and on the covers of the most
prestigious fashion rags in the business had permanently jaded Barbara. She dressed plainly and simply now, usually jeans with a sweater. Perhaps she had retained some of the modesty and decorum she had learned in the
convent in the Netherlands, She didn't last very long as a nun. She still had nightmares about the aborted child,
about Father Damien, who was the child’s father, as well as Hans, and Rafael. But last night she dreamt about Randall, and
it wasn’t a nightmare. She was perhaps
making some progress? It was Rafael who
had “discovered” Barbara at a party when she was just over thirty, making her
one of the oldest, and most successful models in the industry. For three years, until she was nearly
thirty-four, she fooled every camera known to humankind. In the mornings a handsome but already aging
woman would face her in the bathroom mirror, but on the catwalks and on the
magazine covers were shown an image of such youth and beauty as soon made her
famous, wealthy and usually feeling very threatened and terrified.
She enjoyed
while reclining on top of her bed a breakfast of toasted multi-grain with
Robertson’s ginger marmalade thickly spread, and a cup of Viennese coffee. She had no plans today. She knew that she was still recovering, from
loss of career, loss of child, loss of faith, loss of husbands, loss of career.
As she turned thirty-four it became clear that she could no longer fool the
camera. With the help of that British
priest she had successfully proved in the court of law that they were indeed a
coven of devil worshipers set on destroying her. Hans, her second husband, and his partner in
the nether-world Rafael, paid her handsomely for her silence, then both disappeared. And then she saw him, yesterday, just as she
was leaving Chino’s. He was across the
street, entering the lounge of the Miramar Hotel. She knew he had seen her. Today she would have to find Glen and tell
him everything.
It was still too
cold for late November, though Barbara like everyone else was glad to see the
end of that dreadful cold snap. On the
grassy slope surrounded by trees grazed like feathered cattle the same flock
of Canada geese. There were about
twenty, and with them, standing out like a token angel a smaller white snow
goose.
She went out to the water’s edge where the half
tide left a shining wet strip of sand. She frightened a flock of
sandpipers, and watched a great blue heron stalking in the tidal water. She did this every day. She seldom had anywhere to go. It was as though she had already retired,
though she was barely forty. Her psychiatrist
had already told her that hers would be a lengthy recovery, that she should
from now on be very gentle with herself.
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