by Daisy Pearce
Inside it is dark, soft light coming through the gaps in the tiles. The whole place is strung with cobwebs and dust, long vines of ivy snaking through the cracks in the brickwork. There is the cord of wood that Frankie had chopped before I’d arrived, covered in a tarp. Beyond that are stacks of boxes, soft and water-stained. I open the nearest one and a slew of old 45 singles slither out onto the floor. As I move forward my foot nudges something and I bend down to look closer. It’s a stack of videotapes, four in total. They are carefully labelled. I carry them into the sitting room, pulling the one labelled ‘Marigold! Series 1-2’ from its sleeve.
The theme music is as I remember, that same piano rising and falling, that jolly English voice chiming, ‘It’s time to meet the Marigolds!’, but when the title card comes up it reads Two and Six and there we are, Frisky number one and the five of us children waving at the camera. There’s my on-screen sister Bonnie, a girl I can’t remember, goofy-looking, wild hair tied up in a scarf. A different girl then. The mother is an actress I don’t recognise and so is Mikey. Joey was right. I press my hands together and realise I am shaking. What’s happening to me?
My phone is ringing and ringing and ringing. The morning sun is too bright. I reach my hand out from beneath the covers and pull the phone back under.
‘Stella, I am sorry, I am so, so sorry.’
‘Marco? Where are you? Are you here?’
‘Oh, baby. Oh, Stella.’
‘Marco, what is it? You’re frightening me. Where are you?’
His voice sounds panicked, almost breathless. He is pacing, I can tell. I sit up.
‘I need you not to worry, honey. I need you to promise you won’t worry.’
‘Marco, for fu—’ I check myself. Swearing doesn’t suit you.
‘I don’t know how it happened, I swear.’
I wait. My heart has picked up a neat little rhythm in my chest, running hard.
‘About a week after you – you went into hospital I lost my phone. Only for a day or so. Do you remember?’
I tell him no, I don’t.
‘I just thought I’d left it at the office. I wasn’t too worried. In the end I found it down the side of the sofa at your flat. It was barely hidden at all. I was surprised I’d missed it the first time because I thought I’d looked there. I thought I’d looked everywhere.’
‘Go on.’
‘I just – I want you to know – okay, so. Okay. Do you remember those photos we took?’
I close my eyes. I remember. Of course I do. But I thought he’d wiped them.
‘I’m so sorry, Stella. I don’t know how this has happened. I meant to delete them, I swear I did. But listen, it’s just going to be one of those things, you know? People will talk about it for a few days and then—’
‘I can’t believe I let you talk me into taking them.’
‘You hardly needed much persuading.’
I stare out of the window to the cliffs and the sea. Glassy sinuous waves rolling to shore. ‘Are they going into the papers?’
‘They’re already there. Printed today. Alice called to warn me. I mean – they’ve pixelated them. You can’t see everything.’
‘Well, then that’s okay then, isn’t it? You didn’t take any pictures of my face.’
A pause, so slight. An intake of breath.
‘Marco, you promised—’
‘Listen, after your second drink you were willing to do anything. You said you didn’t mind. I mean, I thought you were enjoying it.’
I try to think back. The memory of that night is dense and blurred. How strong were those drinks he was making?
‘Fuck,’ I say, forgetting myself, forgetting to mind my language. ‘Fuck.’
‘I thought I ought to tell you before you saw them yourself. Got a nasty surprise.’
‘Carmel,’ I say flatly.
It was Carmel. It must have been. I can even remember telling her about them. She’d tsked and pretended to be shocked but I know Carmel. She’s unshakable. I, however, am not, and now I feel a seismic shift inside me, the collapse of everything I thought I knew and trusted. Marco sounds doubtful.
‘I don’t know, honey. Does she need the money that badly?’
‘Paris is expensive.’
‘And after your overdose made—’
‘It wasn’t an overdose; I keep telling you. Why now though? Why wait all this time?’
‘I suppose your profile has been raised just enough after your overd— your hospital visit – to make these pictures more profitable. More lurid.’
‘What’s the headline?’
‘Oh, don’t. Don’t do this to yourself.’
‘I want to know.’
I hear a rustling over the line. ‘Uh – “The Honey of Honeypot Lane”. Underneath that it says, “Katie Mari-Bold Is All Grown Up”.’
‘I’m so embarrassed.’
‘Don’t be. You look beautiful. Scratch that, for a woman your age you look amazing.’
I don’t know what to say to that so I say nothing.
Before he hangs up he asks, ‘Are you mad at me?’
‘I don’t know, Marco. I don’t know. I need to think.’
I toss the phone onto the floor and bury my head into my pillow and scream and scream.
I don’t leave the house that day. I want to cocoon myself indoors. I pull all the blankets from the cupboards and pile them onto the sofa where I sit eating yogurt and watching old reruns of Friends. Marco calls and calls. Joey Fraser leaves me three voice messages, and I do not listen to a single one of them.
Frankie turns up, calling through the letterbox. ‘I know you’re in there,’ he shouts. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ I think of him waiting outside his truck for a mangy stray dog that would die without his help. ‘I’m a persistent bastard,’ he’d said. He arrived at ten fifteen and when I look out of the kitchen window a little after one o’clock he is still out there, reading a book, sitting in the garden. Next to him is a small package of sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper. I sigh. I can’t go on like this. I know that. He looks up when I open the front door.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi!’ He lifts his hand but does not stand up. Instead he goes back to his book.
‘What are you reading?’
He lifts the cover to show me. Stephen King. An old one, by the looks of it. Well read.
‘Is it good?’
‘Yup. Do you like him?’
‘I prefer the films.’
I sit next to him on the bench. The old stone is cold.
‘You shouldn’t hide away. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘It hurts.’
Frankie nods.
‘It’s the betrayal. She was meant to be my best friend. She was meant to be one of the good guys, you know?’
‘I know.’
‘I mean – what would they pay? A couple of hundred quid? I’m nearly forty. I haven’t been on television since 1993. I’m hardly newsworthy. I would have just given her the money. Double the money. I’d have found it somehow. She just needed to ask me.’
Frankie scratches his beard absently.
I look at him askance. ‘Have you seen the pictures?’
‘I have, yes. Jim Kennecker shoved them under my nose. You made his day.’
‘I can’t face anyone in this town ever again.’
‘You can and you will. Hold your damn head up. You’ve done nothing wrong. Here.’ He is holding something out to me. A bar of chocolate.
‘What’s this?’
‘Happy Halloween.’
I feel myself lean in closer to Frankie and rest my head on his shoulder. He puts his arm around me and squeezes once, briefly.
‘Thank you,’ I tell him. ‘Thank you, Frankie.’
Chapter 21
I sleep most of the afternoon and wake that evening into pitch-darkness, my eyes rolling open like a ventriloquist’s dummy. I’m still on the sofa and my bones are cramped. I stretch, wondering what the time is. Blue, wh
o has been sleeping on my legs, has disappeared. The wind presses against the house, causing the rafters to creak and moan like a galleon. I sit upright instantly. I can hear something. Movement. I stand up, listening. There is a scratching sound, like nails against the window. Outside, the bone light of the moon, silver-blue. I hear movement, the soft rustle of clothes, shuffling footsteps. I move forward, trying to peer out of the window but there is just the dark garden and the trees. I stand, waiting. The room is cold and a draught blows about my ankles.
‘Blue?’ I whisper quietly.
I creep into the kitchen, afraid to turn on the light, afraid to be alone in the dark. The back door stands open, just a little way. There are no footprints this time, just that ghostly cold. I am unable to remember if I’d locked it before I’d fallen onto the sofa but there is a good chance I hadn’t, a very good chance. Even though I have not taken the pills for a week I’m still forgetful, my head full of ghosts. I cross the kitchen silently and pick up a knife from the table. It is a sharp one, a boning knife with a twelve-inch blade. I press it to my side and turn to face the stairs, pooled in darkness. Upstairs then. My heart pulses thickly. It is in my neck, my wrists, the backs of my knees where the skin is tissue-thin. I’m exposed like stripped wire. I sniff. I can smell cologne, something expensive. Something which might be described as smelling like clean water. I tighten my grip on the knife. Overhead, a thud like something being dropped and rolling over the floorboards, a door creaking. I begin to climb the stairs.
There are two things I’m sure of by the time I reach the top. One, it’s a man. Two, he’s in the bedroom.
Joey Fraser, you bastard.
I am breathing quietly, alert to every sound, every movement. I hear the bedsprings creak and imagine him crawling over it, searching for me, hands spread like ghost-white stars. I pull the knife up and hold it two-handed, rounding the doorway. There is a figure there, in front of the window, his back to me. I do not think he has heard me. I can see he is wearing dark clothes, hood up so his face is obscured. His hands are cupped against the glass as though he is looking for something in the garden. Looking for me, maybe.
I run at him. I am holding the knife out in front of me and just at the last minute he turns, flinging one arm up in front of his face, shouting out, swearing. I bring the knife across in a sweeping arc, and it sinks into his sleeve just below the crook of his arm. As he turns I see his face, contorted with terror.
‘Marco?’
A woman is behind me in the doorway, screaming. Her voice rings like a bell, it hurts my ears. Marco is staring at me in disbelief.
‘My God, Stella. You’ve stabbed me.’
We are in the kitchen. I have a bowl of tepid water and a rag and am pressing the wet cloth against the wound in his skin, the one I have made, seven inches long. It is not deep but there is more blood than I expect and when I wring out the rag the water turns a dusky pink. Marco is giving me a plain, hard stare, and I can feel myself shrinking. I apologise again.
Aunt Jackie is making tea at the counter. She is pale with shock. She’d been in the bathroom as I’d crept up the stairs and hadn’t seen me until I’d driven the knife into Marco’s forearm in the darkness. She wouldn’t come near me until Marco had taken the knife from my hand, even when I kept saying, ‘I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it.’ Even when I clumsily tried to hug her she’d moved backwards a little, out of my reach.
‘I just don’t get it. What were you thinking?’ She puts a cup in front of me.
‘I didn’t know it was Marco. How could I have done?’
‘Who else did you think it would be at this time of night in his own home?’
‘I’m sorry. I said I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming down?’
He winces and pulls his arm away. ‘I tried. You haven’t been answering your phone. Please stop doing that.’
I twist the rag in my fingers, worried.
‘I let the dog out, Stella,’ Jackie says, sipping her tea. ‘I can’t bear them. Even the smell of them gives me hives.’
‘Where did you get that dog from? I jumped out of my skin when I saw it.’
‘It’s Frankie’s dog. I’m looking after it.’
I press the wet cloth to his skin again.
‘Can’t he look after his own dog? Stella, seriously. Stop.’
‘It’s just a favour I’m doing him,’ I say quietly. I’m shaking myself, a little. Adrenalin, I suppose.
Jackie reaches over the table to Marco and touches his arm. ‘Should you get stitches? Do we need to take you to the hospital?’
‘I just need a drink. I think we both do. Get my bag for me, will you, Stella?’
I return with his holdall, the black one with the leather straps. He pulls a bottle of wine from the top and looks at me apologetically.
‘You don’t mind us drinking, do you?’
‘No, of course not.’ I do, of course. It’s a bottle of Cru Beaujolais. It was what he used to bring over to mine on our nights in. We would drink it in bed and watch terrible made-for-TV films. I pour him and Jackie large glasses. Just the smell of it makes my throat ache with longing. She takes it from me with a strange, wary look. I ask if they’re hungry and take out some bread and cheese and butter wrapped in parchment paper, as yellow as a spring daffodil. I’m trying to make things nice, make things normal. Jackie asks if I’ve got any pasta, snapping her gum between her teeth. I tell her I don’t.
‘Notice you don’t have any fresh fruit either.’ She points at the empty fruit bowl. ‘Amazed you haven’t got scurvy.’ She circles my wrist with her thumb and forefinger, tutting. ‘You’ve lost weight, not eating properly. Are you sleeping?’
I nod. I squeeze her hand and tell her it’s good to see her. She nods back and I notice tears in her eyes.
‘I’m so worried about you, Stella. Marco too.’
‘Oh, Jackie, no, I’m fine. Please don’t worry. I’m coming out the other side now, you’ll see.’
She pulls a face which tells me she finds that hard to believe. It’s a face which reminds me she just saw me stab my boyfriend in the arm. I think again of that bloodied knife in the sink, and my stomach rolls. I don’t remember where it came from. I don’t remember seeing it here before.
‘I know you’ve been through a lot, love—’ Aunt Jackie begins.
‘Look, let me look for a plaster or something. I’m so happy to see you both. I’ve been feeling so much better recently – I’ve taught myself how to build a fire, I’ve been taking walks on the beach. You and Doctor Wilson were right, Marco. I needed the break. I needed the silence.’
‘I feel like I’ve been neglecting you. It must be so lonely down here.’ He puts his large hand on my head and turns me so I am facing him. ‘Things will be different soon, I promise. I just need to tie up a few loose ends.’
‘You haven’t caught the sun.’
‘What?’
‘On the phone, you said it was hot. When you were at the airport.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘I thought you’d be tanned.’
‘I was indoors most of the time, Stell. It was a business trip. Are you sure you’re all right?’
I see the look that passes between him and Jackie and twist the rag so hard my fingers turn white.
‘Stella – what have you been doing to yourself?’ Aunt Jackie says, pointing at the back of my hand, the one the chicken scratched, my skin there stippled with cuts. I withdraw my hand slowly beneath the table.
‘I am fine,’ I tell them both carefully. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. Not anymore.’
‘You still sleepwalking?’
Marco has pulled out an old first-aid kit from beneath the sink and is clumsily taping gauze over the wound. I look from him to Jackie, my smile as brittle as frost. I ignore the question.
‘You want to know something weird? I found some old Marigold! tapes.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘The strangest thing. There was
a pile of them in the woodshed. Can you imagine?’
‘The day we first arrived here, do you remember what I told you?’ Marco asks me. ‘This is my parents’ holiday home. We’ve been coming here for Easter and Whitsun holidays since I was ten years old. I’ve no doubt they held on to everything. I was thirteen when Marigold! came out. They recorded every episode for me. They also recorded every episode of the Antiques Roadshow and you’ll probably find those tapes in there too. They never threw anything away.’
I think of the old records slipping to the floor and nod. Jackie is looking at me over the rim of her glass.
‘Marco thought it would be nice for us all to be together,’ she says. ‘Maybe we can talk about the wedding?’
‘Of course. I’d love that.’
Marco smiles at me. Then he says, ‘I know how hurt you must be about those pictures in the paper. For the record, I’m furious.’
‘He wants to sue,’ Jackie says, not without a small thrill of excitement.
‘Sue who? Carmel? She doesn’t have anything. Besides, you can’t sue her.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because—’ She’s my friend, I want to say, but somehow the words get lost.
‘Oh, I meant to tell you – Doctor Wilson gave me two more bottles of your pills. They’re in the bag.’
And my heart lifts. No, it soars. Thank God. More pills, more numbness, more lovely, lovely, oblivion. I give him a genuine smile, rich and warm. I am saved.
‘Can I have them now?’
He laughs and finishes his drink.
‘Sure.’
I seek them out, careful not to look too keen, too greedy. My chest and heart hurt with the longing for them. It is a physical pain, a needle in the chest. I wonder if this is how my dad felt as he heard the thundering hoof beats, the roar of victory. I no longer care. I lovingly cradle the bottle as I walk to the bathroom and tip two pills into my hand. I am greedy for them. Just as I am about to take them I think of Frankie taking off his wedding ring, the way the exposed skin had been pale against his summer tan. A white circle about his finger, a ghost band. Like wedding rings encased in ice, slipping from fingers. That image, it stays with me past eleven, past half past, my back pressed against the wall and the pills in my hand.