It Could Have Been Her(26)

“You found the IMDb page.”

“Exactly. So, what do you remember about her? Did you stay in touch after filming?”

Natasha nods. “We were friends for a little while, you know, in that weird Londony way of being friends when you’re young. Very intense. We went clubbing a lot. She was much younger than me, only eighteen, nineteen maybe, highly strung, lots of drama: I was always propping her up, getting her home, listening to her woes. Boy woes. Constantly. But that’s what it’s like, isn’t it? Being young? I had a lot more time for needy people then.”

“Did you ever go to her house?”

“Yes. A few times. She lived in a shared flat, I seem to recall. Somewhere in North London. And she was desperate, just desperate, to get married and have kids. She was always chasing someone. Then I went to Australia for a year with Jacob, and Jessamine and I lost touch. I never saw her again.”

“What did you know about her family?”

“Not much. They lived in Hampstead, I think?” She pauses. “Oh, isn’t that where you said…?”

Jane nods.

“Ah, right. So that must mean that…?”

“Yes, the woman I saw through the door could be Jessamine.”

“What did she look like?”

“Barely got a look at her. But fortyish, I’d say.”

“That sounds about right,” says Natasha. “She was six years younger than me or so. Come on, let me show you the film.”



* * *



They go back into the kitchen and Natasha slips a USB stick into the side of her laptop. She clicks on the folder, opens the file, and presses play. The credits roll.

“She was quite good, actually,” says Natasha. “I always thought I might see her in something else. But clearly life took her on a different path. Here.” She presses pause as the first scene opens on the screen. “That’s her.”

A young woman sits curled into the corner of a tatty sofa. She holds a book in one hand, a cigarette in the other. She has mousy blond hair cut into a bob and is wearing a green turtleneck and a brown miniskirt. Natasha presses play again.

On-screen, Jessamine looks up toward the camera and says, “What? What do you want?”

A male voice behind the camera says, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Jessamine says, “Well, now you’ve found me, I suppose.”

She has a neat red mouth, smooth white skin, very wide-set green eyes. She’s beautiful in a way. Not head-turning but quietly striking.

“I got that outfit from an Oxfam shop in Stoke Newington, I recall,” says Natasha. “We wanted her character to be kind of sixties-looking, you know, a bit Marianne Faithfull. I had so much fun shopping for her. And she was a great clotheshorse; everything just looked fantastic on her.”

“Was she nice?”

“Nice?” Natasha pauses and narrows her eyes. “Gosh, no. I wouldn’t say she was nice. But she had something. Something magnetic, you know. You wanted to be around her, even when she was a pain.”

Jane smiles wryly to herself. She is pretty sure that this is exactly what anyone who’d spent time with her in her youth would say if asked.

“Have you ever seen anyone else you made this film with? Since? Anyone you think might still know her?”

Natasha shrugs. “No. Jessamine was the only person I stayed in touch with after making this film. Well, and hubby, too, of course! There!” Her eyes dart back to the screen as a young man appears from the left. “There he is. My Jacob. Wasn’t he beautiful? Gosh, so much hair!”

But Jane can’t take her eyes off Jessamine, those wide-set eyes, that confident glare at the camera, the dips beneath her high cheekbones, the untold story lurking behind her eyes.





chapter twenty-two


NAOMI

I am shown to a room at the top of the house. It isn’t as nice as the rooms in the rest of the house, but it’s a hundred times nicer than the dingy room in a Paddington backstreet where I’ve been raising money to fund my time in London for the past three months. I make the room look as nice as I can with what few possessions I have: throws, a few books, my stripy duvet cover, a couple of plants.

The daughter, Jessamine, who looks about twelve or thirteen, comes up to my room and sits on the edge of my bed.

I smile at her. “Hello,” I say.

She looks at me thoughtfully and picks at the corner of my duvet. “The last au pair got sacked.”

“Oh yes?” I respond, surprised to hear that there had been another au pair. “Why was that?”

Jessamine shrugs and lets the duvet drop. “My mum didn’t like her. I think she thought she was too fun. We played a joke on Mummy, pretended I’d had my ears pierced. She didn’t like it. Daddy drove Sandra away the same day. So yeah, you need to be not fun.”

I nod sternly. “Right. Got it. Don’t be fun.”

She gives me a half smile. “And also,” she says, “my brother is weird. Really, really weird. He thinks he’s a clown.”

“Yeah,” I say, “I noticed that. I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Just ignore him though. He’s harmless. At least I think he is.” She winks at me, and I laugh. I like her. She has a twinkle in her eye. She looks as if she might be a handful, just as I’d been at her age. All the best kids are a handful in my opinion.