The Sisters Mortland

by Sally Beauman

  Next to a gleaming utility room, I find, Julia keeps a quaint notice board. Attached to it are umpteen Post-it reminders, all arranged neatly under the heading “ACTION.” I read: “Perpetua—take Tom Maths coaching.” “Juanita: Floor polishing! Dry cleaning! Laundry! Call Vet! Call Window-cleaner!” “Perpetua—please declutter Tom’s cupboards!” I add a Post-it of my own. I write: “Julia, beware! Your husband’s thinking of leaving you.”

  I put it at the top, marked “Immediate Action,” then have second thoughts and scrunch it up. How to get rid of this incriminating evidence? Eat it, perhaps? No, I bury it deep under eggshells in the sweetly clean bin, inside a deodorized rubbish bag. Then I’m back at that notice board fast, because pinned to that board there are photographs. I inspect them closely: There are several of Nick and Tom, and they don’t look recent. There are several of daughter Fanny, and they can’t be recent, because she looks much as she did when I last saw her nine years ago—clever, bespectacled, and censorious.

  “Hi, Fanny, how’s life treating you?” I asked, drifting across the room at that christening party, blind to forty other guests, aware only of dazzling Finn, who was nearby, talking to Nick and her exhusband, Lucas.

  “Better than it’s treating you,” Fanny replied. “That’s your fifth glass of wine in half an hour. I counted.”

  Just what I need, I thought: an observant eleven-year-old. I said: “Fanny, you’re right. But I’m nervous.”

  “You’re always nervous. Don’t be. Stop obsessing about Finn and talk to me. I liked that Nicey-Spicey ad, especially the dancing clove. It was truly excellent.”

  “Thank you, Fanny. ‘Obsess’ cannot be an active verb. How’s school going?”

  “God, I hate you,” she replied. “You are a total tosser.”

  Exit Fanny. Puberty really does do the strangest things to people. I stare glassily at the notice board. Umpteen pictures of Julia, including one of her with Lucas at the opening party for his retrospective… and then, at last, the grail I’ve been searching for. It’s in the corner, almost hidden behind that flurry of Post-its: a photograph of Finn.

  I knew there had to be one—she and Julia are sisters. I look at the woman Finn’s become. She’s cut her beautiful hair—that’s the first shock. Her hair is cropped as short as a boy’s; it’s tousled and bleached by the African sun. She’s wearing loose khaki shorts and a T-shirt; her long bare legs are tanned; she’s thinner than I remember, and Finn was always slender. Does she look older? I can’t tell, she’s wearing dark glasses.

  She’s with a group of black children; their liquid gaze is fixed anxiously on the camera lens—who took this picture? They’re in a somewhere-nowhere, a patch of scrub—in Botswana or Mozambique or Ethiopia or wherever it is that Finn is currently stationed. Finn abandoned her Cambridge literature course when she married Lucas. After the loss of their child and the divorce, she returned to education. She took a degree, then a doctorate in, of all punishing subjects, agricultural economics. Since she left England nine years ago, she’s been working for an acronym—and I can never remember which, I’ve got a block on it. Could it be WHO?

  She’s an expert in subjects I don’t understand, such as irrigation, water purification, bilharzia, immunization programs, UN grant aid, and third-world crop policies. She does good. She works in places I’ve never been, has never remarried, and sends me cards with robins at Christmas. I don’t know where she is, and I don’t know who she is, not anymore—and that enforced ignorance (it’s not my fault, she doesn’t answer my letters) really hurts, it actually hurts. My chest aches. Examining that picture, I’m finding it hard to breathe. Love and loss hit you in the heart region, I discover. They constrict the aorta: I must remember that when next conversing with cynics.

  My Finn has gone—the photograph finally makes me understand that. When I think of Finn, when I dream of Finn, when I wake up sometimes from hot dreams and kind imaginings and believe for a blessed moment in the dark that she’s there, that I can touch her, I’m communing with ghosts. For I imagine Finn, see Finn, as she was twenty years ago or more, a golden girl who dared anything. Now she’s a woman, with a doctorate, cropped hair, and a different ID. She has moved on; I’ve regressed. No wonder she doesn’t answer my letters, carefully worded and appropriate though they are. Why bother answering pleas from a middle-aged fourteen-year-old?

  I nick the picture. I can’t believe it will be missed, and I don’t care if it is. I need it more than Julia. I pocket the picture, flee back to the kitchen, and—still no sign of Nick, what on earth is he doing?—I decide I’ll make the coffee.

  There’s nothing as delightful as instant: none of my beloved and sustaining Nescafé. There is an espresso machine, however. I’m a technophobe: I approach it warily. It has more twiddly knobs, valves, and levers than a life-support machine. It has international diagrammatic instructions designed for three-year-olds. It would be easier deciphering Linear B or the Enigma code, but eventually I get the hang of it. I insert water in one promising orifice and Organic Free Trade Handpicked-at-Dawn in another. I press a few buttons, and things start happening. Houston, we have ignition. Substances suck, gurgle, and burp in a promising way—and then, behind those noises, I hear others. I hear a chugging sound, and then, shit, there’s a rattle as the front door opens.

  Nick has also heard the taxi draw up, that’s obvious. He’s down two flights of stairs and back in the kitchen before Julia’s got her key out of the lock. Home early. Caught red-handed. We don’t need to say anything—we’re both aware of our predicament. “Julia starts the new series tomorrow—it’s on location, she’ll be picked up at six,” Nick says in a low voice as I drop into the SAS crouch and move fast toward the stairs. “I’ll call you then. I leave for the hospital about six-thirty. That’s not too early?

  “No more pills, Dan,” he continues as we scale the basement stairs. “No dope, no alcohol, no nothing—then first thing tomorrow we’ll sort something out. Give me your word?”

  “I promise. Absolutely. I swear. I haven’t got any stuff left, anyway.”

  Nick and I, a two-man team on a dangerous mission. Should have maintained radio silence, I think. Will Julia have caught the sound of our lowered voices? You bet she will. She’s a one-woman AWACS.

  The encounter occurs in the hall. It’s brief. There’s just time for Julia to give an annihilating smile and kiss my cheek. “Dan—what a lovely surprise,” she cries. “You’re not leaving, are you?” Perfect aim: a full burst of ammo straight in the face. Five seconds—and I’m outside on the doorstep. She didn’t miss a beat.

  The door closes, and I walk away, eyeing the other houses in this prosperous terrace. It was a decaying slum of rooming houses when Nick and I shared a flat nearby; now every fanlight signals gentrification aggressively. I get halfway along the mournful street—and then I remember my briefcase.

  Did I leave it in the hall or the kitchen? I slink back to Nick’s house. I hesitate on the steps. I spend a lifetime gazing sourly at the two lollipop bay trees in pots—slipping a bit there, Julia. I’m about to knock on the door of doom when, in the front basement area directly below me, a sash window is thrown open and, on a blast of warm air and nicotine fumes, Julia’s voice floats up.

  “You left him alone?” she demands. “Are you out of your mind? I can’t breathe in here. The whole house stinks of cigarettes—I smelled it the second I walked in. Well, thanks, Nick—he’s been snooping around, opening my cupboards, moving all the stuff on my notice board. How could you bring that man to my house? Tell me you kept him away from Tom, at least.”

  “He didn’t even see Tom. I was talking to Tom, that’s why I left Dan alone. Tom had a nightmare again, and I was upstairs ten minutes at most. Calm down—this is ridiculous.”

  “Where did you meet him? I don’t bloody believe this. Did you arrange to meet him?”

  “No. I bumped into him in Piccadilly. I’d just left the hospital, and I was on my way to Hatchards. There’s a book I ne
eded.”

  Interesting, I think, leaning over the railings, eavesdropping avidly: So Nick can lie. And lie well—a nice veering from the truth, uttered without the least hesitation. Why didn’t he want Julia to know he’d been at Lucas’s retrospective? Why was the deception so smooth? Surely honorable Nick did not make a practice of lying to Julia? But then Nick had lied about the gallery visit to me, too, I realize.

  “But why bring him here? Nick, how could you?You know what he’s like. He smashes things and trashes things and contaminates everything.…”

  “Julia, he’s down on his luck, he’s out of work, his father’s recently died, and he isn’t well. He hadn’t eaten in days, or slept, by the look of it. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake—I wouldn’t be well if I was coked up to the eyeballs. I’m sure he fed you some sob story—he’s very good at those. Why can’t you see through it? He was always a two-faced shit. He’s a horrible man, and he was a horrible boy, too—following Finn around like a cringing puppy, sucking up to Gramps and Stella, living in that disgusting dump with that old witch of a grandmother. Always on the cadge, both of them. She nicked stuff—food, clothes, writing paper, you name it. She was bloody brazen. She had a thing about books—I caught her once, in the library, with an armful of them—and you know what she had the nerve to say? She said Gramps had given her the loan of them. Christ, the bloody woman couldn’t even speak English, let alone read it.”

  “It’s called being poor, Julia. You can hardly blame Dan for his grandmother’s failings.”

  “Yeah, yeah—check the silver, that’s all. Check you’ve still got any alcohol left. You can be certain he won’t have left empty-handed. He’ll have nicked something, I know it. Oh, I see you’ve fed him. Great. That’s just great. Have his table manners improved? Or does he still hold his knife like a pen and talk with his mouth full?”

  “For Christ’s sake, keep your voice down. You’ll wake Tom again.”

  “I’m upset, fuck it. I hate to think of him here. I warn you: The next time you want to play the Good Samaritan, think again. Just don’t let Dan into your life, because everywhere he goes he creates mayhem and misery. Always has done, always will. Ask Finn. Remember Maisie. If Maisie had spent less time talking to him, if he hadn’t filled her head with all his crappy stories, that accident would never have happened.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Whatever was wrong with Maisie—and there were a lot of things wrong—it had nothing to do with Dan. Maisie was ill. Face facts, Julia.”

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter what he did to me, either? What about that ad campaign? That was a perfect example of dear Dan’s technique. That bastard set me up. I was a laughingstock for months. And he spread rumors about me—horrible, vile rumors.”

  “There were rumors about you before then. Let’s at least try to be accurate.”

  “Then be accurate about him, for once, because if you weren’t so bloody blind, you’d see him for what he is. He’s a devious, silver-tongued arriviste—a common little toad. He’s a troublemaker. He’s on drugs. And I will not allow him near my son. That’s final.”

  “He’s Tom’s godfather. And he’s my friend. My oldest friend.”

  “So drop your precious friend. Everyone else has.”

  “Maybe I prefer not to follow the herd. Let’s leave it there, shall we?” Nick replies. His tone is cold.

  There is a fraught silence. “Christ, you can be a sanctimonious pain in the arse,” Julia snaps, then, “What’s that noise?” she says on a new note of panic and suspicion.

  And there is indeed a background noise, I realize—a rattling, fizzing, whistling noise that has been brewing under and behind the marital argument. Now it’s too loud to ignore. Sounds of movement and consternation float up from the basement. There is, suddenly, a powerful whiff of molten coffee beans. Julia gives a cry of alarm. A Vesuvian grumbling and rumbling can be detected. Houston, we have a problem.…

  The espresso machine erupts. It actually blows up. The explosion is loud. I wait there on the steps until I’m certain there’s no injury to life or limb, then I creep mournfully away.

  It doesn’t matter about the briefcase, I decide. It was only a prop—and it was empty anyway.

  [ fifteen ]

  The Love/Sex Quandary

  I creep home. I creep all the way along Upper Street, mourning Gran, who nicked food for me, who nicked books for me. We had one book in our cottage, the Bible. In the library at the Abbey, there were two thousand—Maisie and I once counted them. I finger the photograph of Finn in my pocket. I creep across the road at the Highbury and Islington roundabout—now there’s a place to go under the wheels of a ten-ton truck: It’s quite difficult not to.

  I commence the weary trek across Highbury Fields, which do not resemble the fields of my childhood. These onetime pastures have shrunk over the centuries. Now they’re reduced to a small, ill-lit urban park intersected with erupting tarmac paths; the grass is covered in dog shit. There are notices every two yards telling people not to do things: not to skateboard or cycle or let their dogs off the lead or allow their dogs to foul the environment. Do not murder, mug, or molest—they’ll be adding those any day now.

  On the corner below my house is a small lawless group of youths in hooded tracksuits. These hoodies are always there; they ebb and flow, their numbers fluctuate, but basically they’re always there. It’s difficult to say what they’re up to—and I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time watching them these last few weeks, since, apart from making calls no one returns, or contemplating razor blades, or rewriting my CV, I’ve got bugger-all else to do. They’re possibly dealing; maybe they’re just hanging out. One of them—I think he’s the boss man, the ringleader, and I think he’s called Malc—has recently acquired a flash mobile, the kind all those yuppie bankers use. It’s the size of a brick, and it’s kept permanently plugged to his ear. Who’s he talking to?

  I’m making progress with Malc. My street cred’s improving. He used to give me the glare, but now he just looks. This afternoon, in an optimistic mood, on my way to the Wunderbar fiasco, I raised a hand as I passed and said, “Hi, Malc.” Whereupon he lifted a fist and said, “Yo, man.” It was the first time he’d acknowledged my existence. He was the first person to address me in five days. I was grateful.

  I’m a fast learner. “Yo, Malc,” I croak now, approaching crabwise in the sepulchral light, wondering if Malc & Co. are going to render the rope and the razor blades superfluous. Malc makes an animal sound, and his hooded friends—just think of them as monks, I tell myself—his hooded friends all crack up. They start slapping one another’s palms and making ribald gestures and laughing. Malc has said, “Gorra vizier,” which takes a while to translate. But eventually I work it out. I have a visitor.

  Very funny, Malc. Luckily, although I’m constantly in demand—life’s one long party, what with the milkman calling once a week and the refuse men always knocking on my door—I’m not in the mood for late night callers anyway. What I’m really in the mood for is putting my head in the gas oven. Julia affects me like that. It’s not too cheering to eavesdrop, hear no good of myself, and be reminded of how uncouth I was, how leprous I am. I want to go back and knock on her door and say, I’ve changed, Julia. Unwise. I walk on. I have that now familiar ache in my chest cavity.

  I walk on the few yards to my house. My very large house, bought in a moment of speed-induced insanity; my dilapidated house that I paid too much for eight seconds before the housing market began to crash; my unrenovated house that was the height of desirability two years ago. My house—a five-story reproach for hubris. A mortgage the size of the third world debt; soaring interest rates, behind on the repayments… repossession is threatened, which will at least ensure that I get rid of it. I’m facing bankruptcy, but that’s okay. I’ve been bankrupt in more important ways. I can deal with it.

  Next to the gate is the latest for sale sign. One of the many neighborhood maniacs has a
grudge against such signs. He’s mounting a crusade against them. As soon as they’re erected, their posts get the chop. This one had lasted twenty-four hours—a record. Now it’s been axed; it’s propped against the garden wall, and—what is this? I really do have a visitor. I stop and stare in disbelief. Sitting on the wall, unfazed by late night London hazards such as Malc and crew, is a young woman. A girl, a pretty and attractive girl, insofar as I can tell by streetlight. She’s dressed like an exotic urban warrior. Her demeanor seems chaste and thoughtful.

  “At last,” she says, rising from the wall. “I’ve been waiting over an hour, Dan.”

  She sounds faintly aggrieved. I have never set eyes on this girl. Did I make an appointment with her? Not possible. Apart from doctors, funerals, and Wunderbar, my life has been an appointment-free zone for a year now. She’s mounting the front steps behind me; she’s somehow insinuated herself through the front door. I close it on the jeers and cheers erupting from Malc and crew, switch on the hall light, and examine her.

  She returns my gaze steadily in a myopic way. She shows no inclination to help me out; but eventually, slowly, and with a wincing reluctance, a memory does begin to filter through. It’s vague—it’s vaguely worrying. Last encountered at a club or a party at least a hundred years previously. There were epilepsy-inducing flashing lights and booze and coke by the bucketload. There was trance, house, and techno. I’ve a nasty feeling there was dancing—I’ve an even nastier feeling that I danced. Then she was dressed like a nymph; tonight it’s an erotic kickboxer. Even so, yes, I recognize her. It’s the amyl-nitrate girl.