‘How old was she then?’
‘Eighteen. She’d just left school and was due to go to university at the end of the summer... in fact, that’s what the row was about. Somewhere along the line Angela had changed her mind about university. Actually, what she claimed was that she had been forced into applying by Mum and Dad, and that she had suddenly realised that she didn’t want to study law at all...’
‘Law? She told me she studied fine art at Kent.’
Lee nodded sadly. ‘Figures. She’d always wanted to pursue art, but Mum and Dad thought she’d have a better chance in life if she studied something more vocational. She had a really good mind - she was far more intelligent than me - but she didn’t care much for “practical” matters, as she put it. She loved to paint and draw, and she had some talent too, but Mum and Dad persuaded her to apply for a law degree. It was only afterwards that all the resentment came out. Angela came home one day saying that there was no way she was going to study law, even though she’d secured a place at Sussex, and if she couldn’t do what she wanted, then she wouldn’t go to university at all. Mum and Dad were very upset; they claimed that her mind had been poisoned, that she’d been influenced by one or other of her “hippie boyfriends” as Mum used to call them. But all Angela would say was that she’d made up her mind. There was a terrible fight that seemed to last all day. At one point she turned on me; what sort of sister was I who wouldn’t support her at a time like this? I tried to keep a low profile, but Angela wanted to drag me into the fray. I didn’t think I was in a position to say anything much; besides, we didn’t get on all that well. There’s only fifteen months between us and Angela always believed that as I was the eldest, I’d been given free reign to do as I pleased. She thought I was Mum and Dad’s favourite. It wasn’t that way at all, it was just that, whereas I got on with them, Angela was always battling with them. She was convinced that Mum hated her - they were always arguing about something - and that neither of them ever approved of anything she did. She saw me as Miss Goody-two-shoes, and often made me feel guilty, simply because my relationship with Mum and Dad was much less trying. There was more than a little envy - quite uncalled for. Angela was smarter, more attractive, more talented and a good deal more popular - especially with the boys - than I ever was. Anyway, the argument just got more and more heated. Suddenly, without any warning, she rushed up to her bedroom, packed a bag, and stormed off. She must have known what was going to happen and prepared everything in advance, including stashing away the jewellery and the books. It was awful.’
‘So where is she now?’
‘You tell me. You saw her last.’
‘You mean you don’t know where she lives or anything? You haven’t seen her since then?’
‘Well, that’s not strictly speaking true. I did meet up with her about eighteen months ago. It was just a brief meeting in a café. She wrote to me at university - it was my final year - saying she desperately needed to see me. It was all very cloak-and-dagger. I was to come alone, I wasn’t to tell Mum and Dad, all that sort of thing.’
‘What did she want?’
‘Money. She was in some sort of trouble - she wouldn’t say what exactly, although I gather it had something to do with the man she was living with...’
‘She was living with someone?’
‘From what I could gather, yes. I wasn’t allowed to ask too many questions. It was a dreadful meeting; Angela looked terrible - thin, grubby, pale - and I begged her to contact Mum and Dad. I told her there’d be no retribution, that they’d help her in any way they could, that they still loved her, but all she did was sneer. She was like a complete stranger to me. Anyway, I gave her a hundred pounds - that’s all I could afford, and even that was stretching things a bit - and promised her I’d say nothing to Mum and Dad. We’ve had no contact since.’
‘Where did this all take place? In London?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘She didn’t go to Kent then?’
‘What, to university you mean? No. As far as I could tell at that time she was living in a squat somewhere in North London, but she wouldn’t say where. As to how she was getting by, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t think she had work - certainly nothing above board - and to be honest, I didn’t want to think about it too much. The thought of what she might be up to only upset me.’
‘I can’t believe this - any of this!’
Lee reached across and put her hand on my arm. ‘What was she doing in India, Michael? How did you meet? How well do you know her? I can tell you’re very fond of her, but... tell me how she is.’
I told Lee the whole story; how we met, that we had become involved, that I was in love with her. I left out the episodes concerning Liana’s bizarre outbursts, but explained about her sudden change of heart with regard to travelling, and how we had decided to return home. I also related what Liana had told me of her background. Lee sat quietly through most of this, although every now and then she would shake her head as if to say, “No, that’s not true either”. There was no younger brother, no friend Anne, no university life. Lee herself, of course, had never been mentioned.
It wasn’t until I had all but finished telling her everything that I realised how angry I had become. At some point I had risen to my feet and begun pacing around the room. I had become oblivious to my surroundings, caught up in trying to make sense of what I had been told. It was only just dawning on me that Liana had gone, disappeared, and that I had no idea where she was. These unhappy realisations interfered with my train of thought, and I found myself breaking off half-way through a sentence or just swearing out loud as the truth slowly sank in.
I tried telling Lee about the last few days in Benares, about how happy Liana had been about returning home, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult to talk coherently. By this point I was virtually shouting, each sentence peppered with choice curses of the sort I would not usually use in front of my closest friends, let alone a complete stranger. This must have been terribly embarrassing for Lee, but she said nothing and continued to listen attentively. As my anger intensified I began to babble; I knew I wasn’t making sense any more, but it didn’t seem to matter. Words began to pour out now in a ceaseless torrent; bits of story, half-formulated ques- tions, ill-considered profanities.
It was absurd, but I had lost all control of what I was saying. I knew I should not be behaving this way in front of Lee, but I could not help myself. Once again, a sense of helplessness overwhelmed me as I became aware that I was out of my depth, struggling to understand what was happening.
Throughout this Lee remained silent; she seemed to understand what I was going through, or at least realised that I was not in full command of what I was saying. Eventually the words dried up and, fatigued by my outburst, I sat down once more on the sofa and closed my eyes. I was too tired and too embarrassed to look at Lee; I wanted to let her know that I wasn’t some kind of nutter, that I wasn’t about to do anything dangerous or frightening, but I didn’t have the will. So I just sat there with my eyes closed, exhausted and on the verge of tears, wishing that someone or something would come along there and then to make everything better.
And in a strange way, it did. Because after a moment or two, I felt the gentle pressure of Lee’s hand on mine, and when I opened my eyes, she was sitting beside me, nodding slowly. I knew then that I did not have to explain anything to her.
Having established that I was all right she went off to the kitchen and came back a few minutes later with two mugs of coffee.
‘I don’t know what to say to you, Michael. I’ve no idea where Angela is. I don’t know how long she’s been calling herself Liana or why. I don’t know what she was doing in India, or how she managed to get the money to go there. I don’t know why she gave you this address, and I don’t know why she didn’t contact you. From what you say, the two of you became very close. But you must realise, Michael, that she was never the easiest or most well-balanced of people. There was always a rebellious, slightly wild streak in her, and without knowing what’s happened to her in the last few years, there’s no way of knowing what she’s up to or why. If I could help you, I would, but...’ Her voice trailed off into nothingness.
I tried to piece together the spurious bits of information that Lee had given me. I thought back over the last month, searching for clues, but nothing gelled, nothing made sense. The most beautiful woman I had ever met, a woman that I was profoundly in love with, who I believed was in love with me, had walked out of my life as suddenly and mysteriously as she had arrived, and all she had left behind was a trail of question mark.
The last time I went down to The Sanctuary - nearly six months ago - to pick up Liana and bring her back to London, one of the staff, Doctor Jerome, took me to one side and asked to speak with me. Jerome is a very charming chap, intelligent and caring, and I’m always pleased to talk with him as he seems to take a particular interest in Liana. He is always encouraging her to paint more and, I seem to recall, he even bought one of her pieces a couple of years ago. Jerome believes, like myself, that it’s good for Liana to live in London part of the year, although he thinks the pressure this places me under is injurious to my health, and would rather it was only three months instead of six. Like I said, he has a caring nature.
On this occasion he invited me into his office, sat me down with a mug of tea and asked about my most recent travels. I had, in fact, just returned from Nepal, so I entertained him with a few stories about trekking in the Himalayas and getting busted in Kathmandu. Jerome has never travelled outside Europe, and like so many people I meet, would love to visit Asia; so I haven’t the heart to tell him that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I’d rather lie than destroy someone’s dreams (and put myself out of a job).
We chatted amiably for a while, and when I asked about Liana, the good doctor informed me that all was well, but he was a bit concerned about one thing. Apparently Liana had spent several weeks with her sketch pad making what she called “preliminary drawings” for a large watercolour, which never materialised. There was nothing particularly unusual about that; Liana often failed to follow through her initial ideas.
However, what surprised Doctor Jerome was that, instead of keeping these initial drawings as she normally did, they were discovered, ripped up, in a waste paper bin. Jerome was disturbed by this as it was quite out of character. He took the shredded drawings and taped them back together again. No mean feat, he explained; a bit like doing half a dozen jigsaw puzzles, when all the pieces had been jumbled together and there were no guide pictures. Why had he bothered? I asked. He wasn’t sure, all he knew was that Liana never destroyed her own work; even partially completed pieces - scribbles, sketches, cartoons - had some value to her, and she always kept them. When he had finished reconstructing Liana’s pictures, he was even more disturbed. He asked if I’d mind taking a look at the sketches.
There were six pictures altogether, all done in pencil on white cartridge. Jerome had done a fine job of putting the pieces back together, and I could see it must have taken him hours.
The first picture was a self-portrait - at least, that’s what I would have called it - although it was unlike anything of Liana’s I had seen previously. Liana’s image stared straight out of the plane of the paper, full-face. She had managed to capture that wondrous line of her cheekbones, those clear, almond-shaped eyes, her pretty, pert nose. It was a good likeness in all respects, save one; the face was divided straight down the centre, as if cloven in two by an axe; the two parts were separated by a distance of just a quarter of an inch. It was most odd.
The second picture was rather more of a caricature, and showed a family scene; Liana’s family. Her sister Lee was standing on a pedestal to the left of the picture, decked out with wings and a halo. The parents were shown kneeling before Lee, her mother in a grovelling position, her father standing. The depiction of Liana’s father was particularly cruel, as the man was standing with his trousers around his ankles, clutching hold of his shrivelled penis, his tongue hanging out. He was also sporting a long tail and a pair of nascent horns which sprouted from his forehead. In the far left hand corner, gagged and bound, was Liana. The setting was recognisably the family home. This was the least elegant and subtle of all the pictures, and had evidently been executed very swiftly and in some anger.
The third picture also had something of a cartoon-like quality about it, although rather more care had been taken with it. It showed a grown man with a beard and long hair, imprisoned inside a giant bottle of Scotch. He was bashing his fists against the inside of the glass, his expression pained, the liquid reaching up to his lower lip.
The fourth picture was of the same man, a side-on view this time. The man was completely naked and fully erect, and his arms were reaching outside the frame of the picture, as if he were grasping something out of view. His face was contorted in a violent sneer. In many ways, this was the most disturbing of the pictures, as it seemed to ask many questions and left much unsaid.