Page 33 of Beautiful Ugly
“Thanks again,” I say. Neither of them replies, but when I look over my shoulder their big white smiles are still firmly in place.
The people on this island are strange. All of them. I don’t think I’m imagining it.
But maybe that’s what happens when you’re cut off from the real world for too long.
ONE-MAN BAND
The older I get, the less I understand the world and the terrible things that people do to one another. Being an author is like being in a one-man band and I like that aspect of my job. I enjoy the safety of solitude. Other people baffle me these days, and not in a good way. The horror inflicted by humans that Abby used to write about for the newspaper seems even more foreign and strange and disturbing to me now. I find it hard to comprehend that people capable of such things are the same species as us, and it makes me want to run away from the real world even more. I suppose, in so many ways, that is exactly what I have done.
As Columbo and I climb the hill and make our way through the forest, I feel a little bit jealous of my dog. He doesn’t have to deal with a world that is frequently too loud and too awful. His days are almost always the same, and so long as he is fed, and walked, and loved, he is happy. I wish my life were so simple. Still, there is lots to be grateful for, I remind myself. Again. I look forward to retreating to the cabin, a safe place to seek shelter from the madness of the real world. Until I open the door.
Someone has slipped another envelope beneath it.
It has the wordsRead Mewritten on the outside again, and contains another newspaper article written by Abby.
8thJanuary 2019The TimesPage 7
PRIVATE FAMILY FUNERAL FOR VICTORIA SPENCER-SMITH RUINED BY PRESS INTRUSION
Abby Goldman
What should have been a private family funeral for Victoria Spencer-Smith resulted in violence and two arrests yesterday.
The wife of MP Alfie Spencer-Smith died last week, two weeks after her husband’s affair with his secretary was front-page news for several tabloid newspapers.
According to friends of the family, Victoria was hounded by photographers once the news broke. She was followed everywhere, felt trapped in her own home by journalists camped outside, and withdrew into herself, shying away from the support she clearly needed.
She was convinced that her phone had been hacked and felt she couldn’t talk to anyone about what had happened.
Victoria Spencer-Smith took her own life. The coroner’s report said that there was a high risk of further deaths in similar cases if harassment by the British press was not stopped or at least tackled.
It is true that the whole family were pursued after the revelations about her husband’s affair. Even the couple’s teenaged daughter, Alexandra, was followed to school and photographed by the press
It was Alexandra who threw a brick at one journalist, breaking his nose, when she discovered him looking through the family’s bins after the funeral service. The journalist and another photographer were arrested, but it didn’t stop other press camping outside the family’s home again overnight.
Victoria Spencer-Smith’s sixteen-year-old daughter posted an emotional video of herself on social media after the funeral. In the video, which has since gone viral, she cut off her long blond hair in protest, blaming the press for her mother’s death.
I confess I don’t remember reading this newspaper article by Abby before. She always read my books cover to cover, but I didn’t read every single story that she wrote; there were so many. Perhaps, in hindsight, I should have. Maybe then I would understand why someone wants me to see these articles now. They clearly have something to do with her disappearance, I just don’t know what.
SWEET SORROW
One Week Before She Disappeared
ABBY
“Sometimes I just want to disappear. I know I have a lot to be grateful for but I don’t like my life. I want something else. Something different. Somethingmore. And if I don’t do something about it soon, it will be too late. I woke up one day and thought,Is this it?Is this really all I am going to amount to? All I am going to achieve? And I just can’t get those thoughts out of my head. Maybe everyone feels like this. Maybe everyone reaches an age when they can’t help thinking that they should havedonemore,livedmore,beenmore than who they are. I’m not who I wanted to be.”
The woman in black doesn’t say anything, just listens.
Our time is almost up.
“And part of the problem is that I don’t even know whomeis anymore. I used to be so independent. I had ambitions and a life of my own, but it feels as though I’ve been fading since I met my husband. And falling. And I can no longer remember whether I jumped or was pushed. I feel as though I haven’t been in charge of myself or my thoughts or my feelings for years. His thoughts about the world are now my thoughts, as though they were contagious.”
I’m being more honest than I have ever been with anyone and Iworry that I’m making a mistake. The woman’s face is expressionless. It’s impossible to tell what she is thinking.
“If you’re going to tell me that I have a lot to be grateful for, a lot to be happy about, there’s no need. I know that already,” I say, hearing the defensive tone in my voice. “And while I am grateful for all the good things in my life, I’m not happy. And I have to do something to change that. Even if it means leaving my husband. Our lives are so tangled up in each other and that isn’t an easy thing to unpick. I don’t want to hurt him, but I need to fix me. The only way I can have a new life is to leave the old one behind.”
“Do you still love him?” the woman in black asks, finally speaking.