by Sarah Hilary
His books and boxes burnt brightest, all that ink and paper, coils of colour coming through the smoke as it swelled into the street. The panes in the garden room cracked like gunshots. The fire spread fast, racing up the polished rail of the staircase, leaping from room to room. I imagined I heard the dull creak of the mirror at the foot of his bed before its glass exploded, his sketch of me curling to a feather of ash, gone in seconds, a puff of black to join the rest.
We stood in the street and watched.
Up and up, the fire pushed. Coiling to the top of the house, retreating from the cold tiles of the box room before bursting into my attic, leaping to lick at the amber walls.
I saw it all, in my mind’s eye. The brass camels stayed standing as their tapestry desert caught light, their hard bodies turning crimson with heat. Each pane in the Tiffany lamp chinked free, the tissue paper swallowed in a single fiery bite. Flames ran across the floor and up the walls, varnish sizzling, old theatre programmes curling and falling in hot spots of flame to pierce the beautiful rug over and over again. Downstairs, the Japanese bowl cracked inside its silk box, the chip of ivory blackened and burnt.
Outside, the police moved people back, back. Shouting warnings as the windows began to burst, throwing daggers of glass down into the street.
From the door of Hungry’s, Gilbert watched, the fire striping its reflection across his broad face.
Further up the street, I was sure, Bradley closed the cheese shop, drawing down the shutters to keep the smoke from blowing inside and laying waste to his stock.
Starling Villas burnt until its narrow face turned black, and all the rot inside was gone. We stood together and watched, Robin and I, smelling of smoke and flames. I reached for his hand and he surrendered it, our fingers fastening into a single fist.
39
The flat was waiting when Meagan got home from London, litter on its walkway, damp squatting inside. The flat and the boy, Darrell, wanting a cup of tea and a cigarette.
‘You stink of fires,’ he said.
‘So would you,’ Meagan told him, ‘if you’d been where I’ve been.’
‘To a bonfire?’ Cocking his head at her. ‘Where’s your druggie friend?’
‘Taking a trip.’
He laughed as if she’d made a joke, and followed her into the flat. She didn’t try and stop him. In the kitchen, he wandered to the stove, fidgeting with its dials.
‘Knock it off,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t you know how easy it is to start a fire?’
He threw her a look. ‘Are you going to puke?’
A stone thrown through the window, they’d deserved that much. Was it her fault the back door was unlocked? That was Nell’s doing. A little fire then, to smoke her out. But fire has a mind of its own, just like the sea, you can’t make it do your bidding.
Meagan’s hands shook as she remembered how fast it’d taken hold at Starling Villas.
Darrell was watching her. ‘What you got there then?’ Nodding at the parcel under her arm.
‘Fruit cake.’ She showed him the tin. ‘You can have a slice if you like.’
The cake had been standing out on the table, asking to be taken. She never was able to resist the girl’s cakes, and she was owed, wasn’t she? Just desserts – would Darrell find that funny?
Where’s your druggie friend? On a trip with that rich bitch, gone for good this time. He’d called her, dialling his number on the phone she’d taken from him. They were headed for Dubai, where Carolyn Wilder had friends, and property. Joe was happy, he said. Then he’d said goodbye and Meagan had pushed the phone back into her pocket. Her broken toe told her rain was on the way, a long hard winter on its heels.
‘Get the plates,’ she told Darrell. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘Nah, you’re all right.’ He pulled a face. ‘That stuff sticks in my teeth.’ He circled the table, looking bored. ‘How come you went away?’
‘I had business.’ She put Nell’s cake on the table, her hands shaking. ‘But I’m back now.’
She needed a proper meal inside her. The train journey had made her faint and queasy, all she’d eaten all day was a corner of the cake. She needed a strong cup of tea and a proper helping, a big slice of cake on a china plate. The kitchen was smaller and dirtier than she remembered. The damp put a dull pain in her throat. She reached for the table, feeling its tackiness, shutting her eyes for a long second, feeling her age in every inch of her body, toes to teeth.
‘I’ll be off, then,’ Darrell said.
‘Stay for a bit.’ She was scared suddenly, no good reason for it. ‘Why not?’
‘Nah, you’re all right.’ He was at the door, folding his coat around his skinny torso.
He’d taken something. Her handbag? Her purse?
She called after him, ‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ but he was gone.
Footsteps on the walkway, running. Then she was alone in the flat, in the quiet.
She took a plate from the cupboard and a knife from the drawer. The cake smelt good, of rum and almonds. Say what you like about Nell Ballard – Nell with a K – but she could bake a cake.
Meagan cut a fat wedge of it and settled herself in a chair, to eat.
40
I’d said I could never go back, but a week after fire tore through Starling Villas, we caught a train to Wales. The fire investigation team were still at work, but Robin’s insurers had released emergency funds. He’d bought matching rucksacks, paying for the train tickets in cash.
We sat at a table seat, sharing sandwiches and wine from plastic glasses with peel-off lids. A strange meal, romantic in its way, but I couldn’t manage more than a mouthful.
‘Have mine.’ I passed the glass of wine across the table, reaching for a bottle of water. ‘It’s ages until we get there, we should try and sleep.’
Robin nodded, settling himself with his head propped to the window. He was worn out with the talking and paperwork, answering the fire team’s questions, arguing with the insurers.
Two little boys raced down the aisle of the train.
‘Slow down!’ Their mother trailed behind, hands full of shopping bags.
Robin’s face was pinched shut with tiredness. He’d lost everything. There was no longer a house hidden on the street where Joe had bartered for drugs. The fire took it all, but I didn’t believe in its cleansing power. We weren’t free, Robin and I. We were just homeless. Smelling of smoke and ashes, of London and the destruction we’d left behind. My destruction. Nell with a K.
After we escaped the fire, I told him so many of my secrets, unable to stop them spilling from me as we shopped for toothbrushes and clothes. I talked of sofas in London, of Brian and the masseuse, even the Shunt Lounge and Mr Intercity. No matter what I said, Robin didn’t get tired or sick, didn’t say, ‘Enough, that’s enough,’ but there was still one secret I hadn’t shared, or one suspicion. I reached a hand inside my coat, waiting for the slippery sensation to grip again at my insides.
‘Rubbish.’ A woman was making her way down the aisle, dressed in the uniform of the train staff, hefting a large white bin liner. ‘Any rubbish.’
Robin leaned to hand her the empty wine glasses and sandwich boxes, smiling his thanks before settling back to sleep. She looked at me, but I shook my head, ‘Nothing, thanks.’
I watched her move down the aisle, hips swinging to the train’s rhythm, tidying as she went.
Starling Villas was gone, after all my hard work. A pang of loss made me take my hand from my stomach to grip at the table’s edge. Robin cracked open an eye, worry working the muscle at the side of his mouth. I shook my head at him. ‘I’m fine, go back to sleep.’
A trolley service would come soon, waking him a second time.
I’d meant us to eat the fruit cake I’d baked, but the cake and its tin were gone in the fire. There was nothing left of what I’d planned in that desperate hour when I’d thought the pair of us deserved no better. All the evidence was burnt or washed away.
Wi
th my beeswax and brass polish, I’d made his house shine from top to bottom. To rid the old house of its creaks and groans, I’d worked petroleum jelly into every hinge and loose floorboard, soaking the same into teacup rings on tables, and lipstick stains on bedsheets. In the garden room, I’d sprayed tar to keep the rot from his plants. Wax and petrol and tar.
I’d made everything in the house flammable.
I did that, Nell with a K. Death Knell.
Except – the fire was an accident, they said, almost certainly an accident. No one was to blame. By concentrating all of my attention on Robin’s face, I was able to hold the guilt at bay, just.
Across the aisle, a blonde woman stood to let a teenage boy slide out of the seat beside her. She watched him as he idled his way to the buffet car before she sat back down, the swing of her hair like Carolyn’s. The boy wasn’t like Joe, though. No one was like Joe. Not even Joe. I’d told a story of the sort of boy he was and everyone believed it, even Meagan. Even Joe. Believing he was to blame, that something was missing inside of him, just as Meagan had always said. I was responsible for Joe – the boy he’d become after Rosie’s death. That was my doing. But he was out of my reach now, safe with Carolyn. I hoped she’d take care of him.
Further down the train, a man sat alone in cheap dark clothes. I’d been aware of him since we boarded. It’s what life teaches us, with or without the aid of someone like Meagan Flack. Beware of men, alone or in packs. Fill your fist with keys, be ready for anything. Be afraid. No one teaches us the same rules about women, but perhaps they should. I think they should.
Under the table, Robin’s leg was slack against mine. He was sleeping and I should do the same, on such a long journey.
I settled my hand back under my coat, nestling my head to the wing of the seat, letting the rock of the train draw me down into a dream of keys on a chain with an egg-shaped charm, a gift from Robin. In the dream, he’d hidden the keys in the house and I couldn’t find them, digging through dirt in the garden room, under the rubble and soot left by the fire, pulling things up from the ashes – a half-melted hairbrush, perfume in a grenade-shaped bottle, a ruined snowshoe – but still I couldn’t find what I wanted. Then Robin returned and put the keys into my hand as the charm split apart, a tiny pink and black bird staggering from the broken shell to peck at my palm.
‘It’s all right. Nell?’ He reached for my hand. I let him take it. ‘You were dreaming.’
A baby was bawling in the next carriage.
I listened to the jag of its crying, wondering if it was hungry or tired or scared. Meagan said babies never cried without a reason. You could always make them stop. If all else failed, there was Calpol, or a drop of something stronger. You could always find a way. Me, she meant. I could find a way to make them stop.
On the train, the sound rose and fell, without ceasing. My throat was hot and full, Robin’s hand slack around mine. After a time, I slipped free of his grip.
Later, the train windows began to fill with the light that said we were nearing the sea.
I watched Robin sleep and I knew – we could never be together. This was a long goodbye, that’s all. I’d been afraid to take the trip on my own, and he’d said he wanted to understand. Not just about what happened to Rosie, but about his work and its consequences. It wasn’t that I couldn’t forgive him, or even that I could never be entirely sure he wasn’t playing a long game with me. It was simply that I’d outgrown him, somewhere between the fire and here. Tonight, though, we would be together. We’d kiss in whatever shabby place we found for the night, a roadside motel. I’d take his face in my hands, and he’d hold me at the waist. It would be a little sad, and a little frantic. We’d smell the smoke on each other’s skin and remember how it burnt down before us, his beautiful house and his books, the Japanese bowl I’d refused to take from him. We would talk a little, perhaps, about what we’d lost when we lost our home. The motel’s sheets would be slippery like the sensation inside me, which I tried to catch with the curl of my hand. Afterwards, we’d lie side by side in the patchy darkness, each of us listening to the other’s breath, pretending to sleep.
We took a taxi from the station, before walking the final mile to Rosie’s resting place. It was just as I remembered, the sky stretched broad above our heads. Robin didn’t speak. His stride matched mine. We were two tall shadows on the ground, backs huddled by our rucksacks. I could taste copper coins in my mouth.
‘There!’ I pointed, unable to keep the excitement from my voice.
The lake looked so small, no bigger than a pool. They’d done a better job of fencing it off so that no one could reach it but I knew where to climb through, pulling Robin with me.
Kneeling at the lake’s shore, I rested my hand on the water until it settled enough to give back my reflection. The shallows were stagnant and chalky-white but further out it was a deep emerald green, tilting towards me. Clouds shuddered across the sky. I couldn’t feel the water under my palm, only the flexing of the lake’s skin, the same temperature as mine.
Far below, too far to dive, was our drowned village where fish swam in and out of letterboxes and crayfish scratched, seaweed flying like flags from the church spire. In the house on the corner where the sea urchins lived, I imagined Rosie lying with her toes curled tight, one thumb wedged firmly in her mouth. Her eyes were shut but as the shadow of my hand fell through the water, she smiled, bubbles carrying the smile to where my hand rested, pricking my palm in a kiss.
I shook my hand from the water and straightened, shedding my coat, tugging my T-shirt over my head. ‘Let’s swim.’
Robin eyed the lake doubtfully.
‘It’ll be warm,’ I lied. ‘The water holds on to the heat.’
Stripping to my underwear, I threw my clothes behind me, close to the spot where I’d been sleeping, two years ago. Not looking to see if Robin was coming, I walked into the water, twisting my hair into a knot to keep it out of my eyes.
The lake was shockingly cold.
I pushed on, sweeping it behind me with my hands. When it reached my waist, I shoved with my toes at the stiff, stubby shore then took a deep breath and ducked beneath the surface, pulling the water towards me until I could swim.
As the lake deepened, I dived, lengthening the new muscles in my arms and legs, stronger than I’d ever been thanks to Starling Villas, my three-storey workout.
Down, down into the lake, opening my eyes to air streaming past, swimming the way I always swam, down as far as my lungs would take me. Not panicking as I had two years ago when I woke to find Joe kneeling in the shallows. He’d reached for me but I’d pushed past him, shouting her name, running into the water until it was deep enough for me to dive in.
As soon as I was under the water, I saw her.
It looked as if she was showing off in her new bikini, twisting and turning, sequin earrings flashing. I followed their flashing, down, down, down. Her hands were over her head, fingers starfishing for mine, bubbles breaking, blurring her face. Rosie, my little Rosie. Inside the lake, in my memory, she’s six forever. Her face washed free of its ugly scowl, a sweet band of baby fat around her neck.
Robin needed to believe the best of me, just as he needed me to believe the best of him. Neither of us was a monster, not now. The squirming in the pit of my stomach might not be his child. The slippery sensation might be guilt, the same as always; Rosie could have found this new way of haunting me. Because I’d told myself I could have reached her, even as my lungs were crushing and my breath fading out. I could have kicked harder, fought the water with everything I had. Except Joe was up there. I had a choice, that’s how it felt in that moment – I could reach her or return to him. I’d convinced myself I’d had a choice, but of course it wasn’t true. I had no air left in my lungs. I’d have drowned with her. I know that now, but it was different then. Then, it’d felt so good to turn back, to think about the big breath I was about to take. I was so light and free when I was out of the water, in his arms. Weeping, the pair
of us, weeping and shaking. Joe’s hands in my hair, his mouth on my neck.
‘It was me,’ he sobbed. ‘I gave her Calpol last night like Meagan said, to help her sleep so we could— She must’ve been sleepy still, not strong enough to swim—’
I kissed him, to make him quiet.
Because I knew it wasn’t Joe who made Rosie’s warm milk every night, or the little cakes she loved. It wasn’t Joe who knew where Meagan’s sleeping pills were kept and wanted him to herself, because he made her feel free and light. I was the one who’d put the pills into her milk and cakes, so she would sleep while I was away with Joe. Night after night. The pills on their own had never harmed her – I’d been so careful with the dosage – but Joe had given her Calpol on top, without telling me.
‘You should’ve told me about the Calpol.’ Fear made me fierce. ‘Meagan will blame me.’
Meagan didn’t care, I knew that. Not about me. She would let me shoulder the blame along with everything else, and she’d do it believing I’d never get better, never find my way back, because people don’t change. She’d throw me to the wolves, without a second thought. But not Joe. She loved Joe, would do anything to protect him. If she believed him guilty, she’d do anything at all. I had to convince her that he was the one responsible for Rosie’s death. The one in need of Meagan’s protection.
Joe’s shadow at the surface of the lake, a darkness in the water above me.
Rosie, sinking, the bright flashing of her earrings fading from sight. My hands reaching for her, fingers opening and shutting.
That’s inside me, forever. My empty hands, the weight of her, just out of reach. Even when I blank what happened from my mind, my body remembers. The choice I made, what I failed to do. How light I felt coming up from the lake, and how free.
How can I live with what I did? Carry this burden?
I need to choose, again. To swim even deeper, further than my lungs can stand, until my fists are filled by the jag of rocks at the bottom of the lake where no light reaches, into the caves where Rosie could be waiting. Or to turn back to where Robin is standing at the shore, searching the water’s surface, trying to stay calm.