by Sophia Tobin
The dinner gong sounded. It was only then, with Polly looking up at him in concern, her tail wagging, that something crumbled within him. Last night had not been a dream: he had lived it, and there was no going back now, and no erasing it with the most fervent of prayers. The clock on his mantelpiece chimed the hour, and he felt the house thick with the ghosts of his family, and his regrets. As Polly leapt onto his lap, he covered his face with his hands.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
1941
Jonathan and Livy parted at eight, going out into the grey morning dishevelled and bruised, still brushing dust and glass from their clothes. Things looked different in the light, clearer, and colder. Jonathan told her he needed to call on an acquaintance, and asked her if she minded going back alone. She shook her head. She had lain awake, seen things run across the shadowed ceiling as the dawn filtered in through the torn blackout.
As she turned away, fastening the top button of her coat, he caught at her wrist, but she smiled and said goodbye, kindly. She knew that regret was written across her brow – there was no use hiding it. He was, of course, unreadable, his green eyes steady and distant as he put on his hat and strode towards Piccadilly.
She caught a bus, and found herself praying that the Mirrormakers’ Club would be there when she got back. She couldn’t shake the prayer from her lips; for variation, she began the Our Father, which brought memories of school assemblies and distant Sundays. Her memory was suddenly clear. Perfectly restored and, like the morning light, too bright. It crowded upon her: the smell of lamb and mint sauce on the table on Sunday. The dull prickle of cold in a train carriage with all its windows open. The touch of a lover. The shipwrecked things she had forgotten raised out of the water of memory, glittering in the morning light. She fretted the handle of her handbag through her hands rhythmically, like a rosary, as though she were counting her prayers, but they were indiscriminate.
The landscape of Cheapside had shifted overnight; she walked past another shop gone, blown like a faulty light bulb, leaving its socket behind, and she felt the thud of the alarm in her stomach, in her chest. When she turned the corner and saw the Club still standing, she almost bent double and wept, but her discipline – newly remembered – kept her upright. As she approached the familiar façade, she noted new scars. Some men were cheerfully and efficiently putting scaffolding up to support the south-west corner, and they called to her.
‘Hello, lovely.’
She nodded at them, but did not say anything.
‘Pretty girl like you, give us a smile.’
‘Morning, morning. Been a naughty girl, have you?’
Tight-lipped, she hammered on the front door. The men laughed, and she could feel a blush rising traitorously in her face. She put a hand to her lips, wondering if any trace of her lipstick remained and if it was smeared. She had not so much as glanced in a mirror.
The door opened. It was Peggy. As she looked at Livy’s appearance, her face set in some new and disturbing expression.
‘Hello there,’ said Livy.
‘No Mr Whitewood?’
Livy felt everything stop. Felt Peggy’s knowledge enter into the gap of the night. How foolish she had been to think the other woman would assume something innocent. ‘No.’
‘You’d best come in.’ Peggy opened the door, let her pass, and then shut it hard and locked it. ‘The water’s off but I saved you a tiny bit from the tank if you want to wash. Your young man was here early this morning. He’s been looking in the archives and charging around the depths of the Club. Bill gave him the keys.’
Livy stopped rubbing her eyes. ‘Mr Taylor?’
‘Who else?’ Peggy held her gaze for a moment. ‘He’s arranging a proper burial for that body. But I said to him it’s probably a Roman or something. They’re always digging up all kinds of things around here. Anyway, he’s still around here somewhere. I lose track of him. I wanted to ask Mr Whitewood’s opinion about it all.’ She paused. ‘Will he be coming back today?’
‘I expect so.’ Livy kept her head down, and slowly followed Peggy across the Stair Hall, and down the stairs into the vaults.
‘I’ll draw you some water,’ said Peggy. ‘Do you want a little vinegar? It’s for the best, if you need to wash . . .’ She lowered her eyes, and blushed. ‘There. What kind of world is this to bring a little one into?’
Livy felt unsteady, but knew that the truth was the only way forwards. ‘A little vinegar would be helpful, thank you,’ she said.
‘I’ll go and get it. Then I’ll make us a cup of tea.’
Washing helped Livy to wake up, but she still felt as though her head were full of cotton wool when she went out to have the tea.
Peggy looked at her for a long moment. Then she went to a drawer in the far corner of the room, opened it and took out a scarf. Gently, she put it around Livy’s neck. ‘There’s a mark,’ she said. ‘Best keep it covered.’ She poured the tea.
Livy wiped away a stray tear with the heel of her hand, and sniffed. ‘Where’s Bill?’
Peggy looked hard at her. ‘He’s working. I need to talk to you.’
Livy began to cry then. ‘No. Please, Peggy, no. Don’t be harsh to me. It’s too much.’
‘I’m not being harsh. I’ve been young too. We were at war when I was young, and I did just what you have done.’ A rosy colour infused her cheeks. ‘And you’re not to speak to Bill of this, by the way.’
‘Of course I won’t.’ Livy took a gulp of the scalding tea.
‘So I know in principle why this has happened. And I saw the way Mr Whitewood looked at you. But I didn’t think you would fall for it, a clever girl like you. And I cannot see why you have. He is married, Livy. It is just plain wrong.’
Livy began to sob. Peggy stared in astonishment at her, doubled over in that bright dress. Her dark hair dusty. Her skin so pale. And how she wept. As though her heart were breaking. Peggy had never seen her like this; she had not seen her broken open. ‘Sweetheart,’ she said. And then saw the glitter on her. ‘Is that glass on your hair?’ She reached out.
‘Don’t cut yourself.’ Livy caught her hand, and squeezed it. ‘I’ll get it out later. I should have picked it out when I washed, but I couldn’t face it.’ She looked up at the housekeeper, choking on a sob. ‘Please forgive me. Please say you don’t think badly of me. Please.’ Her voice rose in volume.
‘Calm down, now. I’ve said too much. Hush, hush, I will leave you alone.’ She reached out, put her hand gently onto Livy’s back. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Livy wrapped her arms around Peggy, and buried her face in her shoulder. Smelt the soft, talc-floral scent of her. Peggy was someone who always smelt the same; who always knew how to fold a jumper correctly, and to cook a sauce. Only now, when she felt the slight tremor in Peggy’s arms, did Livy wonder how much effort it must have taken the woman to be so strong.
‘Why do I not know the things you know?’ said Livy, looking up at her. ‘I should know these things, and yet I can never do them as you can. I tangle things.’
Peggy cradled her, let her cry, and stroked her hair, glass and all. ‘There, there,’ she said. ‘Give it time. Do not worry. One day you will be a comfortable old housewife just like me.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Livy. ‘I can’t see it. I will always live in chaos and uncertainty. I am bad. It’s in my nature. I know that now.’
‘No, no, no,’ said Peggy. And she held Livy in her arms as though she were the most precious thing in the world. She rarely held anyone in that way, for she had never had her own child, and she and Bill were not affectionate. The warmth of Livy in her arms unlocked something; the mercy seemed to flow from her. All the accumulated years of patience, and suppression, and devotion, and duty. Peggy felt more like herself in that moment than she ever had. ‘When I speak to you of this,’ she said carefully, trying to keep her tone prosaic, as though speaking of household accounts or the price of potatoes, ‘please believe that I am trying
to protect you.’
Livy nodded, and drew a tremulous breath. Peggy took Livy’s face in her hands, and wiped the just-fallen tears with her large thumbs. ‘You look different,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how. But your face has changed. And for the better. A good cry helps things sometimes. Now, chin up.’ Livy blew her nose on her handkerchief, and smiled. ‘Good. Things aren’t lost yet, my sweetheart. Now go and find your Mr Taylor, who is tearing around this place unchecked. Now he is a nice young man. If I were twenty years younger . . .’
‘Can’t I go and sleep?’ said Livy. She wasn’t sure if she could face Christian.
‘No. You cannot.’
‘I don’t have the strength.’
‘Yes, you do. You spoke to him a day or two ago. You can speak to him today.’
‘You don’t understand. I remember. I remember everything.’
Peggy stared into Livy’s hazel eyes: wide and vivid, the iris ringed with a colour that looked like fire. And just as she had all those months before, when Livy had come to the front door, Peggy ran out of words.
*
In the Stair Hall, a layer of dust floated through the air like a shade, catching what light there was. Livy watched it fall and dissolve, then began to climb the staircase and took the left branch. She went to the Hide, that room which had been used by Miss Hardaker before the war. She thought, for a moment, she could smell her perfume in the locked-off air, and stroked the bright length of the day dress she had chosen for her. Livy looked at the room as though she had never seen it before: the Victorian desk, the shelving and cabinets, the two tall windows which looked out onto bombed London.
She left it quietly, and returning to the landing, glanced into the Dining Hall, the lower parts of the windows with their stained glass now covered by boarding. Bill had been busy. There were no echoes of music or dancing, the large space deadened, something absent. There was no sign of the light she had once seen there. It was empty. She turned right and walked down the landing to the anteroom between the Committee Room and Red Parlour, and stood there: to her right, through the doorway, she glimpsed the white patch where Jonathan had smashed the face of the cherub. To her left, the shredded Red Parlour. She walked into the Red Parlour, and turned a full circle. As she stared at it, it gave away a breath of plaster from the ceiling. Then she heard footsteps: distant, in the Stair Hall, echoing off the marble.
A quadrille, she thought. A man in pursuit of a woman. She thought of the words Henry had written in his notebook.
I propose the Red Parlour to be a more feminine space, for here is where any ladies will take tea after balls and entertainments, having withdrawn from the gentlemen. I propose that the space be not as robust as the decoration in, for example, the Dining Hall.
It is to be delicate, floral, with shells – in short, a French style which, though I know may not be popular with the membership, is nevertheless more appropriate for ladies and their delicate sensibilities.
Christian appeared in the doorway, and Livy realized the distant footsteps must have been his. His hands were in his pockets. His outline was suddenly familiar to her: the ruffled hair, and the broad shoulders. The quiet voice, every inflection known to her.
‘Morning! I’ve been looking at some records.’ He spoke hurriedly, nervously, and did not wait for her to respond. ‘Bill let me in and gave me the keys. I suspect he’s rather glad that I’ve taken that body off his hands, so to speak. I’ve spoken to the vicar of St Anne’s and he will come and say some words over the hole. With the building as it is, it would be dangerous to start disturbing things.’
She nodded. It was good to talk of normal things. ‘You’re just going to leave it there?’
‘For now, yes.’ He wouldn’t look at her properly. ‘There are rather more pressing problems to face. When the war is over, when the Club is properly shored up and rebuilt, the body can be moved then. For now, the resources are needed for the people who are living and dying today, tonight. You should see the bomb damage maps. Bill was right. We need to care about the living.’ He paused, and when he spoke it was clear that he was saying something which he had bound himself not to say. ‘Where were you last night? With Whitewood, I gather. Peggy’s face was a picture, when I asked where you were this morning.’
‘I’d rather not talk about it.’
A half-smile of disappointment. ‘I see.’
‘No, you don’t. It didn’t matter at all.’ She felt rather desperate. ‘Will you show me the moat? We talked about it before.’
He frowned. ‘If you wish.’
She thought of the Hide; its tall windows and dark shelves, its light and its darkness. Chiaroscuro, she believed Caravaggio had called it, that contrast between bright light and shadow. She and Christian had looked at one of his paintings in the National Gallery, before the war. She remembered that now. Light, dark. She wanted to speak to Christian about it, but for the first time in months she saw that he was not open to her, and did not wish to talk. She sensed that he was closing himself off, as they had closed up the service rooms in the Club, one by one. It rather frightened her: the laying of dust sheets, the turning off of the lights.
She tried to stay bright and businesslike. ‘If you’ve looked on the plans, do you know what that room off the landing was, originally? The Hide?’
‘The Surveyor’s Room. It’s the one Dale-Collingwood intended for himself.’ He glanced at her. ‘You know that Bill doesn’t like going in there?’
‘No? Why?’
‘He says he saw Miss Hardaker in there, the day after the accident. He said she was sitting in the chair, and that she turned and gave him a terrible smile. That’s what he said: terrible.’ He took in the look on her face. ‘Yes,’ he said, and his voice had an edge. ‘You’re not the only person who sees ghosts, you know. Who’s been broken by this whole bloody business.’
He went past her, wordlessly. Onwards. As she followed him, Livy glanced back at the Red Parlour, its feminine white and gold blown to pieces. In the Hide, Henry had planned the last details of the building. And now it was being taken apart piece by piece, like the people who lived within it.
*
Livy followed Christian through the kitchens at the back of the Dining Hall. Left unused and in darkness since the beginning of the war, it was a part of the building she had hardly ever visited, and at its unfamiliarity she was reminded of its scale, its many hiding places. They went down an unfamiliar set of backstairs and into the very depths of the building, then through a door which he unlocked. Down a corridor she had never seen before, through a bathroom and then out through a small hatch in the wall. He paid no mind as she scrambled through. In the earthy darkness, she kept her eyes fixed on the shape of his back. As they turned the corner they saw light, and the bars of the scaffolding.
‘This is the moat,’ said Christian, putting his arm out to halt her. ‘Do you remember? We saw it on the plans. Early form of damp-proofing; separating the sodden earth from the building. Only on the plans it was meant to run the whole way round, at the same width, but it narrows here. Strange. And then – the bombing happened, and part of the moat, at the narrowed section, collapsed. It’s best if we stay back here.’
He turned on a torch and she saw, from a distance, a white shape.
‘Remember that?’ he said.
She swallowed hard. ‘The skull.’
His voice was bereft of emotion. ‘Exactly. The explosion sheered off the end of the coffin. I’m not an expert of course, but I’d say from the size it’s probably the skull of a woman. Although, I suppose, men were smaller in the past too. I went a little closer before and saw the arm bone. There’s a delicacy to it.’
‘Did you tell the City Police?’
‘Of course. They say they’ll send someone round at some point, but they’re not that interested in someone who’s so long dead.’
‘Peggy thinks they might be Roman.’
He smiled; in the past, she thought, he would have laughed. ‘No, no. Not h
ere, not in this part. It’s highly irregular. Someone put her here. A mystery. We might have to look in the archive a little more – see if they mention when the moat outline was changed.’
Livy felt short of breath, her throat tightening in the darkness. ‘Can we go back up now? I don’t want to stay down here.’
He helped her out of the hatch this time, holding out his hand to her as she stepped out, but releasing it immediately afterwards. She felt both his closeness and the distance between them, as they went upstairs. He took her a different route, so they came out into the Stair Hall, emerging from the ring of service rooms. He had left his hat and coat tucked into the V-shape of the carved marble bannister at its terminal, and now he put them on, his back to her.
Livy’s sense of helplessness intensified. ‘Are you going?’
He settled his hat on his head; still he could not look her in the eyes. ‘Yes.’ His movement, his tone of voice, was too final.
‘You will come back?’
Finally, he looked at her: those dark eyes, whose emotions she could read so easily in the past, now walled up to her. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But I have things to say to you.’
‘I don’t think you do. I have waited—’
‘Yes, you have, and I am grateful—’
‘But perhaps you’re right. You wanted a new life, and I keep trying to drag you back to the old one. It seems to me you made a choice, last night.’
‘No. I didn’t.’
‘I’m not blaming you. It’s not as if you even know . . .’
‘I didn’t make a choice.’
He put out his hands: the wounded and the whole. A ‘stop’ motion. ‘Please, Livy. I don’t have the strength.’