‘If there’s ever a mix-up or misunderstanding in communications, Mr Cater’s ready to pounce,’ says Lou. ‘Instead of drawing attention to it nicely, he’ll write in indignantly, cc-ing everyone from the head to the chair of the board of governors. It’s like he’s just waiting to dump his disapproval all over us, you know?’
‘I didn’t warm to him either,’ I tell her. ‘Before he lied to me, even. His manner was off-putting and unpleasant.’
‘Yes, it is, generally.’
‘What about Yanina?’
‘Hard to know what kind of person she is. Superficial, would be my guess. She’s friendly and smiley on the surface, but you can sort of tell it doesn’t go very deep. It’s more like she uses friendliness and charm as currency, to reach whatever her goal is at any given time. You know, the weirdest thing of all …’ Lou breaks off with a shake of her head.
‘What?’
‘Everything you’ve told me: Mrs Cater being the same person as your friend Flora, Yanina pretending to be Jeanette, the Toby and Emma lie, the older Thomas and Emily who live in Florida with their dad … it’s all so utterly creepy and beyond the bounds of normal behaviour, but … no part of it shocks me. I don’t disbelieve any of it. It was sort of a relief when you told me all those things.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I’m trying to work it out.’
Next to us, a girl with blonde curly hair in bunches starts to cry. Her mother leans across the table and says, ‘Jessica, you’ve already had one. You’re not having another. It’s bad for you.’
Lou says, ‘I ought to find your story implausible from start to finish. I ought to be horrified, but … in a strange sort of way, everything you’ve told me feels right. All the suspicions I’ve had about the Caters and what might be going on … they’ve never been ordinary. I’ve never thought, “Oh, maybe Mr Cater’s sleeping with the nanny and Mrs Cater’s furious about it.” I think I’ve always known, deep down, that something was really wrong, but not known that I knew it. Or not let myself know I knew it because it was too big and horrible. Does that make sense?’
I nod.
‘But, like, at the same time, I don’t see how it can be true? I had no proof of anything. And if my intuition about it was so strong, how come none of my colleagues agreed with me that there was a problem?’
‘Intuition isn’t something most people have time for,’ I say.
‘I suppose it’s easy for me to say this now, but I do think I knew. Two things, really: that the behaviour I saw, however unusual, wasn’t half as odd as whatever was behind it. The cause.’
I wonder how much she’s allowing what I’ve told her to distort her memory of what she used to think. ‘What’s the second thing?’ I ask.
‘That the explanation, whatever’s really going on with the Caters, must be something so strange that I couldn’t ever imagine it,’ Lou says. ‘No matter how hard I tried.’
15
‘It makes quite a difference,’ says Pam Swain, as I smooth away a hard knot beneath her left shoulder. Many people would say, ‘Ow!’ or make distressed noises, but not Pam. She can handle my pressure. She’s used to it. ‘It’s funny, you wouldn’t think I’d notice, with me lying face down for the hour, but the purple’s definitely more soothing and relaxing than the white was.’
‘It’s not purple, Pam,’ I say mock-sternly. ‘It’s aubergine. Remember?’
‘Yes, sorry.’ She laughs. ‘Aubergine.’
‘I still love it – though I was worried I’d hate it as soon as I’d put down the paintbrush. But it works because it’s deep in a soft way. Not bright.’
‘That’s it exactly,’ says Pam.
She’s fifty-nine, a nurse at the Rawndesley General Infirmary, and she’s been coming to me for two years. Like so many of my clients, she’s become a friend. Rarely do I give a massage in silence. All my regulars like to chat – probably because my massages aren’t the kind that allow clients to zone out and nod off. The aim isn’t inner peace or pampering. My work is about increasing flexibility and removing chronic pain. If you want someone to rub pretty-smelling oil into your back while a bland Sounds of the Ocean CD plays on repeat, I’m not the massage therapist for you. I don’t apologise for any of this; I advertise it upfront, and my work diary is full of people