Kitabı oku: «The Second Sister», sayfa 4
The boy moved again, reaching towards me. That was a mistake. His fingers only managed to brush my wrist before Ted grabbed the boy’s arm and hit at his face. I don’t know if Ted’s childlike blows really sent the boy to the ground, or if the boy threw himself there to try to get Ted in trouble. But there was no mistaking the blood and tears and snot smeared over the boy’s nose and mouth.
Ted ignored the boy’s screams and sobs, coming from somewhere near our feet. He touched my hand and said, ‘Don’t cover it up.’
It was only a few seconds before a teacher was at Ted’s side to scrape the mean boy up and drag him and Ted off to the headmaster. Ted looked over his shoulder as he moved, and I only vaguely noticed that Sadie had returned to my side to put her arm around me. All I could think about was Ted, and how glad I was that he could see me take my hand away from my chin.
That night, when you asked about my first day of school, I told you about Ted and the boy and my birthmark. ‘Your magic is in it,’ you said, kissing it.
The birthmark has faded now. It is almost invisible. A mottled pink shadow the size and shape of a small strawberry.
When it first started to diminish, not long after Ted’s fight with the boy, I worried that my magic would dwindle away too.
‘The magic goes more deeply inside you,’ you said. ‘It grows more powerful because it’s hidden so nobody knows it’s there. It’s your secret weapon.’
Remembering this, it strikes me that Ted has now been in my life for longer than you. So has Sadie.
I try to reassure him. ‘There are guards everywhere in that hospital, Ted. Nurses. Syringes full of tranquillisers. Thorne must be drugged up to his eyeballs anyway as part of his daily routine, to keep him sluggish and slow and harmless.’
‘Nothing can make Jason Thorne harmless. You know better.’
‘They wouldn’t let him have a visitor if they didn’t think it was safe. They are constantly assessing him.’
‘There’s a gulf between what counts as safe behaviour for Thorne and safe behaviour for ordinary people.’
‘He will need a long record of good behaviour before they let anyone near him. Not a few hours or days. I’m talking years of observing and treating him – they’ll be confident that he’s capable of civilised interaction. They know what they are doing.’
‘Nice to see you put your faith in authority figures when it suits you.’ He slings his bag over a shoulder. ‘Luke will be hurt if you get his hopes up.’ He starts to walk away but then he halts and turns. ‘Have you thought about what it would do to him if something happened to you? There are real dangers.’ He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them with a jerk of his head, as if he does not really want to. ‘The women are waiting. This conversation is over.’
‘This conversation has only just begun.’
‘You need to stop stirring things.’
‘Stirring things is exactly what I want to do. It’s what I should have done long ago. The ten-year timer is about to go off.’ I push past him, determined to have the last word. If he has anything further to say, it will have to be to my retreating back.
Trick or Treat
The women shift around to make the circle wider and create an empty space for Ted on the grass beside my towel. Ted nods thanks and drops into place, saying hello.
This is the second time he has come to help the group – the first time was last month. The police think it is a good thing for officers to do volunteer work in the community, and I made sure that the women were all happy for him to join us.
‘I want to thank Ted for being here. He has come on his day off to let us kick and punch him, which is extremely kind.’ To my relief, everyone laughs, including Ted, who is doing a good job of pretending that we are not furious with each other.
I always worry about making jokes, even though the women and I agree that we must. Telling jokes is a way of defying the things that were done to them. They are all here because they have been victims of sexual assaults and they are determined not to lock themselves away forever in the aftermath of what happened to them.
‘Ella’s been beating me up since we were four,’ Ted says, and they all laugh again, though my laugh is a half-hearted mask for sadness and guilt, as well as fury and distrust. He and I both hear the complex history behind this comment, including our recent argument, though thankfully they cannot.
Ted leans over to unzip his duffle bag, then pulls out what looks like a puffy astronaut suit. His predator costume. It is navy blue, a poor mimicry of a man’s jeans and T-shirt. Only his forearms and hands remain bare – he will need to use those hands. He stands up, talking as he steps into the suit, and the others stand up too.
‘Here’s the thing,’ Ted says. ‘It’s not about size. Ella’s barely eight stone but she can floor a man more than twice her weight.
‘Slap an assailant’s jaw, he will smile. Punch his stomach, he will laugh.
‘But jab his throat, he’s going to clutch it with both hands and his eyes will water. Hook your thumb into his nose or mouth, he won’t move for fear of your tearing his flesh.
‘So you don’t hesitate. You fight as hard as you can. You give me everything Ella taught you. You can’t hurt me in this suit and I’m wearing protective shoes as well as the helmet over my head and face. So kick – I can see you all obeyed Ella’s instructions to wear trainers and they can’t do me any damage. Punch. Push. Scream. Stomp. Keep it going. Make noise. I am not going to hold back when I attack, so you are going to need to work hard. If your moves work on me, you can bet they are going to work on an assailant.
‘The idea is muscle memory. If you can go through the motions physically, really fighting, then you are going to have the confidence you can do it. Your body is going to remember what to do.
‘I want you awake,’ Ted says. ‘Not afraid. Awake. That is the point of all this.
‘The thing about policemen is we know how scumbags think. Today I am the scumbag. Ella will talk you through the scenarios. But first, she and I are going to enact a new threat and response, so you can see what she wants you to work towards.’
I say his name in surprise. We had not agreed we would do this. We didn’t when he came last month. But he only shoots me his hard villain look, which actually makes a shot of fear go through me.
He continues to talk to the women without pause, clearly not prepared to allow any interruption. ‘You need to promise not to laugh once I’ve got this zipped up. I know it’s Halloween but this is not my costume.’
And of course they do laugh as soon as he says this, because Ted has disappeared into the suit. But his head – that serious mouth, those green eyes, that ruffled hair – are all still visible as he cradles the giant silver helmet in his huge hands. He is a stuffed man, a creature made of dough. When he moves, he makes me think of a life-sized toy space explorer making his way through a gravity-free atmosphere.
‘I’m going to be a bad guy,’ he says. ‘And I am going to approach you in lots of different ways, giving each of you a turn to fight me off. The best thing you can do is to avoid being in a dangerous situation. Avoid being in a position where you need to fight. I want you to deal with me with that in mind. But everyone here knows that avoidance is not always possible. Ready, Ella?’
I move towards Ted, not wanting to look reluctant in front of the women, but it feels like I am dragging myself through mud.
‘You’re in your bedroom asleep,’ Ted says. ‘It’s the middle of the night and you’re woken by an intruder.’
One of the women gives a little gasp in the background.
‘I haven’t gone through this kind of situation yet.’ My whisper is a low hiss that I am pretty sure the women cannot hear. ‘You know how fragile some of them are. We normally do the role play and talk it all through before a session so they’re prepared. I – they – don’t like surprises.’
‘Better for them to see how it works while you’ve got me here.’ Ted pulls me by the hand into the centre of the circle as they watch. ‘I hate wasted opportunities.’ There is an edge to his voice but the others cannot hear it. They must be thinking that this is what we have rehearsed and planned. ‘Practice is always better than theory alone.’ He points down at the grass.
‘Fine.’ I lie down and curl up on my left side.
‘Close your eyes,’ he says. ‘I’m putting the helmet on now. Don’t make me wear it any longer than I have to.’
‘Don’t tempt me.’ The grass is tickling my left cheek and I am trying hard not to scratch it. There is a small pebble beneath my hip and I am not sure how much longer I can ignore it.
Ted puts on the giant silver helmet, which is lined with shock-absorbing material. He zips himself the rest of the way into the suit. His eyes are not the jewelled green of emeralds. They are the earthy green of moss, one of my favourite colours, and I wish I could see them but I can’t. They are hidden beneath two squares of reinforced plastic that look black from outside.
A hand slams onto the ground only inches from my head. Ted is screaming, ‘Wake up.’ His voice is as muffled and scary as anyone’s can be. He is grabbing my right shoulder and rolling me onto my back, pinning both of my arms down and pressing me onto the grass with the full weight of his body. Everything is in slow motion and my ears are buzzing and the sun is dazzling. One of the women cries out.
I have been turned to stone. Every trained reflex I have is paralysed. All that I have practised is dead. Is this what he really wants to do? How he really wants it to be?
I disappear from the park. I am somewhere else, in a city by the sea, and it is almost ten years ago, the last time Ted and I were lying in this position. And I want him on top of me, in this narrow single bed in this rambling old house that seems to come out of a dream and is full of twisting corridors and hidden bathrooms and seemingly vanishing loos as well as multiple other inhabitants I hardly ever see. Whenever he is able to visit, we spend all the time we can in this basement room, pressed against each other, the ocean in our ears. He is so beautiful as we kiss, his expression so soft and blurred, as if our kissing is all there is in the world, and he is lost in it, lost to himself. His eyes are closed but mine are open, wanting to see, unable to look away from his face, which I have loved since I first saw him in the playground sixteen years ago. He seems half asleep and half in a trance. All the time we make love I look at him, not knowing that this is the last time we ever will. Not knowing that as we kiss and I watch him, at this exact moment, you are vanishing.
There is a hissing in my ear, bringing me back. There is grass beneath me and sky above me and the scent of honeysuckle all around me though I am not sure how that can be possible and all I can think is that you loved honeysuckle.
There is a voice spitting questions and commands. Are you scared? Spread your legs. Were these the last ugly words you ever heard? There is a man squirming his feet between mine and using his knees to try to force my legs apart. There is a pebble bruising the small of my back, reminding me where I am.
But still I cannot move. There are women’s voices and they are saying my name over and over again, as if urging me to do something, but I cannot understand what it is. I cannot think who they are.
There is a horror-film face above mine and I do not know who it belongs to. I hear my name. It is not a question, and even though it is still in that same strange voice, it is not said with hatred. Even beneath its static fizz there is a note of concern that brings me back and I remember that the face is behind a mask and it is Ted’s face and I am glad I cannot see his expression. I am glad his murky green eyes are hidden beneath the tinted visor, and his hair is beneath the helmet so that I cannot be reminded of what it felt like ten years ago when I last cupped his head in my hands and pulled it towards me.
He is inching my knees farther apart and I am trying to keep my legs as fixed as marble but it isn’t working. My name is getting louder but Ted isn’t saying it. My name is a screamed chorus of female voices and it isn’t coming from me but it goes through my bones like an electric shock and jolts me and jolts me and jolts me awake.
I let out a grunt and roll onto my left side, taking Ted with me, taking him by surprise and in one continuous motion kneeing his upper thigh once, twice, three times in quick succession. He is crouching now, coming at me again, and I am sitting up with my legs bent in front of me. I raise a leg and kick him hard in the face again and again, until he falls onto his back. I scoot closer to him and bring my heel down on the helmet-shaped cage that covers his mouth and nose. Again it is once, twice, three times. Always the magic number three. My movements are controlled and exact. The impact is precisely as I wish it to be.
He is completely still. Everything is silent. Slowly I stand up, knees bent, looking all around me, holding my hands in front of my face for protection in case he pops back up.
‘Ted?’ I say.
He sits, pulls off the helmet, gives his head a shake. When he speaks this time, there is no hint of the muzzled villain. ‘Each and every one of you is going to be that good by the time she finishes with you,’ he says to the women.
I offer a hand and he takes it to pull himself up. ‘Then reward me,’ I say, so quietly that only Ted can hear. ‘Tell me what was on her laptop.’
‘What you need to emulate in Ella,’ he says to the women, ‘is that she never gives up.’
I pick up my towel and thrust it at him to mop up the sweat. ‘Too right.’
That snaps him back. He is beside me again. His mouth is near the side of my face so that his whisper whistles right down my eardrum. ‘If you meet Thorne you’re going to need to practise every move there is. And not just the physical ones. He’s an expert at the mind fuck.’ He turns to the women, restored to his usual relaxed and friendly stance. ‘So. Who wants to beat me up next?’
Friday, 4 November
Small Explosions
I am driving away from Bath, where I now live and you used to live. I am driving away from the city that you and I love, to the house in the countryside that our parents brought both of us home to as babies. They will never leave it. They want you to be able to find them. We all want this.
It is only midday, but the dense branches of the trees on either side of this rural lane meet and tangle overhead, plunging me into near darkness for what seems to be an endless stretch. For many miles, I do not pass another car. There are still no cameras along this winding lane. There are still no mobile phone masts. This is the road you made your last known journey on, and it would be all too easy to intercept somebody along it.
He could have moved you under cover of woods, or over one of the many tracks, or through fields on some sort of farm vehicle. He could have got you into a building and hidden you. He could have wound along this narrow lane, then accessed the large road that circles this land before speeding you into another county.
I am working so hard to imagine the different possibilities I nearly overshoot the turning to our parents’ village. It is a turning you and I have made countless times, and one I normally navigate on autopilot. I force myself to look around me more carefully, though I know this landscape so well it is the place I must always go to in my dreams. The old church and graveyard. The pub. The closed-down schoolhouse Dad converted several decades ago, now occupied by our parents’ closest neighbours.
Five minutes after the nearly missed turn, I am sitting with Dad at the same scrubbed kitchen table you and I used to do our homework on. Your son uses it the same way these days, though not right now, because he is in school eating the sandwiches Mum packed for him. She and Dad and I are about to have some private bonding time over the lunch she has cooked for us, and is currently putting the finishing touches to.
I start with the easier thing. ‘Luke wants me to take the doll’s house,’ I say. ‘He wants to have something Miranda loved when he’s with me.’
‘I’m not sure Miranda loved it as much as you did,’ our father says. ‘Though she knew how much it meant to you.’
‘Really?’ I am seriously surprised.
‘Miranda loves it.’ It is our mother’s usual correction of tense. ‘She knows how much it meant … But your father is right.’ She puts a bowl of broccoli on the table. ‘Cancer cells hate broccoli,’ she says.
‘They do,’ I say. ‘Can I take the doll’s house, then?’ I say. ‘Seeing as you both agree that I love it most.’
‘I suppose so.’ She touches our father’s bristly orange head, flitting away from the subject as she does. ‘Only your father has a full head of hair at his age. And not a speck of grey. Look at him and then at his friends. Your father is still handsome. It’s because I take such good care of him.’
Dad laughs. ‘You certainly take good care of me, Rosamund.’
Our father’s head still looks as if it is topped by a scouring pad that has rusted to dull copper. When Luke was six he drew a picture of Dad as one of the creatures from Where the Wild Things Are, snaggle-toothed and goggle-eyed. He drew another picture around that time, of you and me, in imitation of Outside Over There. How can I have forgotten this? I file the memory away, so I can remind Luke that there is a story of a sister searching for her lost sister. And finding her. He made me read him those exquisite books so many times I still know them both by heart.
‘I’m with Mum,’ I say.
‘It’s your mother who hasn’t changed a bit since the very first time I saw her.’
‘Yeah. Dancing that poor man to death during the Giselle rehearsal. Don’t say you weren’t warned, Dad.’
‘Very funny, Ella.’ But she is smiling. ‘Your sister tells the same joke.’
‘I was supposed to be working,’ Dad says. ‘Building something last-minute for the set. But the only thing I could see was your mother. She stood out from all those other Wilis. I nearly fell off my ladder, twisting around to watch her.’
How many times has our father told us this romantic tale? One of his tricks for pleasing Mum, who never tires of it. You used to circle your throat with your thumb and index finger and pretend to mock-choke yourself whenever he did.
‘I love this story,’ I say. ‘And ten months later, Miranda was here.’
‘Yes,’ Mum says. ‘Yes she was.’ She closes her eyes and reaches out a hand. Dad grabs it.
‘Your mother was an enchantress, Ella, from the first time I saw her,’ Dad says.
Mum brushes the compliment away. ‘Your father was the real enchanter,’ she says. ‘The three of us lived among the dust and rubble as he turned a crumbling old wreck of a house into the beautiful thing it is now.’ She gestures her arms slowly out, a ballerina on the stage showing us the world. ‘He made all of this for his family.’
‘You are both magical,’ I say, imagining you closing your eyes, yawning widely, and fainting your head sideways into your cupped hand with a slapping noise.
‘What could the police have been doing with Miranda’s things for the best part of a decade?’ I try to sound casual, despite my abrupt change of subject. I pick up my water glass and lift it towards my lips before realising it is empty.
‘Letting them gather dust in a store cupboard somewhere,’ our mother says. She gives me her sharp look as she sits down. She knows where I am headed. She scoops fish pie from the casserole dish and onto our plates with studied grace and care. ‘Eat your lunch,’ she says.
‘But why finally give them back now?’ I say.
Dad fills my glass from the jug Mum has already put on the table.
‘They probably wanted the space for more recent cases.’ Mum can’t stifle a laugh when Dad signals with a wordless frown that she hasn’t given him enough fish pie, though he has four-times the bird-like quantity she took for herself.
‘They made a big show of victim’s rights when they returned the box, saying it was important that families had their loved ones’ belongings returned as soon as was practicable,’ Dad says.
‘A decade is hardly soon,’ I say. ‘Do you think the timing means anything? So close to the ten-year anniversary, and the new stories about Jason Thorne?’
‘I don’t want you thinking about Thorne, Ella. It simply means that they’d forgotten about Miranda’s things until now.’ Our mother puts more food on Dad’s plate. ‘It’s a mistake to credit them with any plan. It’s all coincidence.’
Dad’s eyes bulge. ‘It’s a confirmation that she no longer matters to them. They put the data into their fancy predictive analytics and the computer tells them where to focus their energy and funds, where the future dangers and risks are. Finding Miranda at this point in time isn’t likely to save someone else. She will be at the bottom of their list.’
‘Where did you get that term, Dad? Predictive analytics?’
‘Ted. He doesn’t like it much either.’
‘It’s just that – I wondered if one of you asked for her things?’ I am searching for any flicker of a reaction from either of them. ‘Maybe if one of you wrote to the police? I can’t make sense of what else would have prompted this.’
‘I certainly didn’t,’ our mother says. She pops out of her chair and turns her back on us to root around in a cupboard.
Dad stares down at the table, moves his glass an inch. His cheeks flush. He looks up and catches my eye before hastily shovelling food into his mouth.
Mum is still facing away, mumbling. ‘Where is it? – Nobody in this family ever puts anything in the right place.’
I mouth the word, ‘Why?’ but Dad shakes his head in warning, a single slow movement to one side and back. When I get him alone I will find out.
Although bonfire night isn’t until tomorrow, somebody in the village is already playing with fireworks. The first burst makes our mother whirl away from the cupboard clutching a grinder filled with black peppercorns. She huffs in irritation as she sits down. ‘Probably some truanting kids.’
‘Yes. Probably.’ Dad watches me lift my glass in the silent toast to absent loved ones that he and I always make. I am looking at your empty chair as I do this. Only Luke ever sits in your chair. Mum and Dad and I always take the places we have occupied for as long as I can remember.
‘You can’t have the box, Ella,’ our mother says. ‘How many times do I need to repeat myself?’
‘Why can’t she have it?’ Our father reaches out a hand but she leans out of reach. ‘Rosamund?’ He stretches farther, until his fingers brush hers.
‘It’s not the box,’ she says. ‘Ella is losing sight of her priorities.’
‘Excuse me, but I am in the room. You don’t need to talk about me in the third person. And I don’t need predictive analytics to see where our priorities lie.’
‘Reviving all of this will lead nowhere.’ She gives our father’s hand a brief squeeze before she slowly rises, her lunch barely touched.
‘Can you say what you mean please, for once, Mum, in plain English? It’s obvious that something’s bothering you but it’s not fair if you don’t tell me what it is.’
‘This isn’t good for Luke.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘Talking about his mother stirs up his feelings. Don’t forget that he’s only ten years old. I realise he is mature for his age, but don’t treat him like a grown-up.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t treat him like a baby.’
‘How dare you speak to me like that, young lady?’
‘I dare because I’m not young and I’m certainly no lady, that’s how.’
There is another explosion. A plate slips from her hand and lands in the dishwasher with a clatter, but doesn’t break. ‘Damn,’ she says. Your mouth would fall open, to hear her swear. If you were here, the two of us would cackle and mockingly scold her and threaten to wash her mouth out with soap as she used to threaten us, though she never actually went through with it.
Dad holds his hands out to both of us. ‘Can we please start the afternoon over? I don’t usually get my two best girls on their own.’
Our mother looks like she is about to slap him. Or cry. ‘Three best girls. You have three.’
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. That was careless but you know I never forget.’
She wipes her eyes. ‘I do, Jacob. Of course I do.’
‘We’re all on the same side here,’ he says.
I nod in agreement and say, ‘Yes.’ Then I say, ‘I’m very sorry, Mum. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. I need to be more understanding and careful.’
‘Be careful of yourself and be careful of my grandson.’
‘I’m always careful of your grandson.’ I try to hand her Dad’s empty plate but she snatches it from me. ‘I thought we promised each other to be open. Always. To share worries and information. We agreed that would be safest. We agreed that sticking our heads in the sand was the dangerous thing. That it was emotionally dangerous to do that and very possibly physically dangerous too.’
‘Every new development needs to be evaluated. There is no single rule that can apply to all of it, Ella,’ she says.
‘I thought it was just a box of stuff that the police think is irrelevant.’
There is another explosion outside, which earns the window a death glare. ‘Why can’t they wait until tomorrow night?’ She is still terrified of fireworks. You and I were never allowed near them, and she finds reasons to keep Luke away too. I know this would make you furious. I know I need to change this. Don’t let her coddle him, Melanie. Don’t let her ruin him. That is what you would say.
I catch Dad’s eye. ‘Are you afraid of what I might find in the box, Mum?’
‘No. Because there’s nothing there. What I am afraid of is raising Luke’s expectations. Of churning up his feelings about all of this. Of frightening him.’
‘Your mother makes a good point.’
‘He’s ten now. The impetus is coming from him. We can’t ignore it.’
‘You make a good point, too,’ he says. Our father is still the family peacemaker.
‘Always the diplomat,’ I say.
‘I do my best. You and your mother don’t always make it easy.’ But he is smiling, as if this is how he likes it.
Our mother stands behind her empty chair. ‘It is not good for your soul, Ella. You’re already too churned up. Remember how you were when it first happened. I don’t want you falling apart again.’
‘I’m not going to. I haven’t come close to that for over seven years.’
‘More like six,’ she says.
‘I’m much, much tougher. I am not the person I was then.’
‘I liked that person,’ she says.
‘People need to change.’
‘Not as much as you have,’ she says.
‘I’ll tell you anything I uncover. We promised each other we’d do that and I will. I’ll share anything and everything. Even if it’s dangerous.’
‘Especially if it’s dangerous,’ Dad says.
‘What about Saturday morning?’ She picks up my plate, slots it into the dishwasher. ‘Do you really think someone was watching the two of you?’
‘Possibly. But do you see how I really do tell you everything? Even the stuff I know will come back and bite me? Most likely it was some random walker out early. It’s doubtful they could even see us through the trees.’
‘Whatever you said to Luke that morning obviously disturbed him.’
‘I don’t think that’s true. Or fair. And he was so happy about the doe. He keeps going on about it being magical.’
Dad looks solemn, which is not a look he readily does. ‘Ella checked the footage from the outside cameras before she left for Sadie’s party. There was nothing, Rosamund. But I did report it to the police.’
‘I’m sure that pushed us right to the top of their predictive analytics list,’ she says.
‘I think we’ve talked enough about this,’ Dad says. Mum glowers. It isn’t often he shuts her down. ‘Luke and I will bring the doll’s house and the box tomorrow night,’ he says. ‘His consolation prize for missing another bonfire night.’ I didn’t think anything could make Mum’s glower deepen, but this last comment does.
I am frightened of our father trying to move the doll’s house with only Luke to help. It is far too large and heavy. I think of the tiny satellite of malignancy in his spine, shrunk down and kept dormant by the injections they give him each month to suppress the male hormones that the prostate cancer cells love. Our father’s bones have weak points, but he refuses to act as if this is the case.
‘Leave the doll’s house for now,’ I say. ‘I’ll come for it another time. Just bring Luke and the box.’
‘No need,’ he says. ‘Luke and I can manage a doll’s house.’
Our mother shoots me a sharp shrewd look that our father cannot see.
‘Thanks but no.’ I manage something more concrete. ‘I need to clear some space for it first.’
What our mother says next is at odds with the small thumbs up she gives me behind Dad’s back. ‘I won’t be coming with your father and Luke tomorrow.’
‘I wish you would. We can order in pizza. Luke would like that. It would be fun.’
‘I’ll eat pizza.’ Our father quickly turns to her. ‘If your mother doesn’t mind.’
‘You do what you like, Jacob.’ It is her martyred voice, the one that used to make you scream. She turns to me. ‘You’re not going to sneak Luke off to a fireworks display?’
‘I wouldn’t do something like that behind your back.’
‘I let you take him out for Halloween on Monday even though it was a school night.’ She makes it sound like this was the most extraordinary concession. ‘Luke says you made a wonderful Catwoman. He was proud.’
‘My everyday clothes,’ I say.
