The Sisters Mortland

by Sally Beauman

  “If you say so.” She frowns. “I tried to talk Stella out of this, you know. She wouldn’t listen. She has a thing about these attics. She claims they have good vibes—because the nuns slept here, I guess. This is where she stayed when we first came back to the Abbey, did you know? I think it was this very room—though it’s hard to tell, they all look the same. She locked the door and stayed here for a whole week. We used to come and tap on the panels and leave little presents outside.”

  “What kind of presents?”

  “Offerings. We wanted to tempt her out. Her favorite things—flowers, fiction, and food—that was my idea.” She makes a wry face. “So Finn brought books, and Maisie brought bluebells—and I brought food. I laid a tray with a lace cloth. I made tiny sandwiches, with the crusts cut off—Stella liked that sort of thing then; she lived on sandwiches. Oh, and a tot of whiskey—American whiskey. Jack Daniel’s, I think it was.”

  “Stella doesn’t drink whiskey—of any kind.”

  “I know. But my father did. I thought that might help. Something must have worked. She came out eventually.”

  “Why did she do that? Why lock herself away?” I turn to look at Julia. I think of Colonel Edwardes, and a fly buzzing. “Was it grief?”

  “Maybe. It’s hard to tell, with Stella. It might have been fear—she could see the way the future was shaping up, I suppose. Maybe she read it in one of her books—maybe that’s what someone did in one of her books. It’s more than possible. Who knows why anyone does anything? I hate explanations, don’t you? They’re such a drag.”

  She moves off to explore a built-in cupboard under the eaves; she opens the door, closes it again. She’s taken some trouble with her appearance, I notice, glancing at her covertly. Julia looks beautiful whatever she’s wearing, but when she makes an effort, as she has now, the effect is bewildering; you can’t believe she’s real. Sometimes I think beauty’s like a deformity: It can be hard to see beyond it to the person inside. Her abundant tumbled hair is washed and fragrant. It lies across her smooth golden shoulders in ripe, wheat-colored coils. She’s wearing a long, loose, pale blue dress with thin straps, one of her Haight-Ashbury flower-child dresses; its color intensifies the bluebell darkness of her eyes. All three sisters have eyes this color. The dress is almost, not quite, transparent. It suggests the body beneath it. I look away.

  Why does she wear so many bracelets? I think. She’s wearing four, five, on each slender golden arm. They’re Navajo silver and turquoise, with strange, indecipherable runic signs cut into the metal. They were a gift from that useful friend of a friend at Berkeley, the friend whose letters she now ignores. Every time she moves, these squaw bracelets slide against her wrists; they chink and clink against one another. Even when I’m not looking at her, I can track her movements: There’s a faint tintinnabulation, like very distant, or imagined, bells.

  “So, tell me what you’ve been doing today,” she says, and she’s closer than I’d realized.

  “Stop creeping up behind me, I’m trying to fucking paint, Julia.”

  “I can see that. Sorry.” She brushes her hand across my bare back. I flinch away. “You’re doing well. Only two more walls, another coat, and three more rooms. Why, you’ll be finished in no time. Would you like me to help you?”

  “In that dress? I don’t think so, do you?”

  “I could always take it off.” She touches my back again. She runs one cool finger across my shoulder muscles. “How brown you are,” she says.

  “Cut it out, Julia. I’m not in the mood. I’m hot, I’m tired, I stink of sweat—”

  “I like that. It smells fresh and manly. It gleams. You look like a gladiator.”

  Now I know she’s taking the piss. I say: “Julia, give it a rest, okay? I’ve got a splitting headache, and I’ve had a fucking shitty day. I’ve cleaned about fifteen million windows, and I’m two pounds richer. According to your calculations, that should last me about five seconds in London. Now go away.”

  “Ah yes, London. What I said this morning. That’s one of the reasons I came up here. I’m contrite. I actually am sorry. I’ve been regretting it all day. It was wrong of me, I shouldn’t have said it—and I don’t know why I did. Except…”

  “Except what?” I turn to look at her. I can’t read her expression. I seldom can.

  “Oh, you know.” She shrugs. “I was annoyed with Lucas. That annoyance spilled over onto you. Also…” She pauses. “You said I was lazy. That made me angry. Because I’m not. We just go about things differently, you and I. I’ve been working on my escape plan for over a year. Now everything’s in place, and there’s nothing more I can do till I get to London. I’m just resting before the final push. Amn’t I allowed a holiday?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Besides, I can see you don’t like me—so sometimes I think, Let’s see what reaction this gets. Forget it, it’s not important.” She holds out her hand to me; the bracelets shiver down her arm with a tiny jangling sound. “Apology accepted? Friends, Dan?”

  “Well, let’s not go too far,” I answer, but I shake her hand anyway. Her grip is cool and firm; she laughs. I don’t trust her, but the hate, all that hate, it’s suddenly evaporated. “I should apologize, too,” I begin, and then hesitate. There are some things that, oddly, it’s easier to ask Julia than it would be Finn. Finn is deeply reticent; she shies away from questions of any kind. Do you love me? for instance—that’s a question she resists, especially now. Whereas with Julia you can ask anything, and the answer’s usually truthful—direct, anyway.

  “I was told something about your father today,” I say. “Something I never knew. Something Finn’s never told me, something I’m not even sure she knows.…”

  Julia has become very still. All expression has been wiped from her eyes. “About how he died?” she says. “It’s bound to be. You’d better tell me.”

  And so I do. I tell her about the windows, and Colonel Edwardes, and that dank house that stinks of loneliness and something worse. I tell her how I couldn’t stand to take his money, how I stood outside, how I walked back along that endless dusty road.

  As I speak, Julia’s dark blue eyes never leave my face. I think now—looking back now—that it’s then Julia makes up her mind. I think she came up to these attics with a plan, and—during my halting speech—she decides to go through with it. All my instincts tell me that, but I can’t understand why, and—I don’t trust hindsight—I can’t be sure.

  “I wonder where Edwardes got his information,” she says in her cool way when I’m finally silent. “It upset you, I can see that. You shouldn’t let him get to you, Dan. He’s a disgusting, malicious man. You should just grind people like that under your heel and walk on by. That’s what I do.”

  She pauses. For one moment there’s a shadow in her eyes, then she’s back in control. I think, Does she ever lose control, Julia?

  “His version isn’t accurate, anyway,” she continues. “But it’s not entirely wrong, either. It wasn’t a razor. My father wouldn’t have done that to Stella, even when he was at his lowest point. No, he drove the car out to some quiet place in the mountains and attached a hose to the exhaust pipe. The cops found him. Gramps identified him.”

  “Does Finn know?”

  “Yes. But she can’t remember it as clearly as I do. She hardly remembers New Mexico. Just isolated incidents—she remembers Stella crying, and Maisie’s being born. She remembers going to see Daddy at that last clinic, but not much more. She was barely nine. I’m two years older than she is. That makes a difference, I suppose.” She pauses. Those dark blue eyes rest on my face, assessing me. “I wouldn’t raise this with Finn, if I were you,” she continues. “In fact, if you’ll take my advice, I wouldn’t press Finn about anything, not at the moment. Whatever you think—or feel, Dan—bide your time.”

  “I don’t need your advice about Finn,” I reply stiffly, though I know she’s right. You cannot push Finn; you have to wait—and wait—until she comes to you.
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br />   “Have it your own way,” she says without rancor. “And say nothing to Maisie. Be very careful about that. She believes the TB story. She doesn’t—and she mustn’t—know.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’d never say anything that would hurt or damage her. I like Maisie. I’m fond of her. I always have been. You know that.”

  “I do know that,” she replies, and to my astonishment, she leans forward, raises herself on her toes, and kisses my cheek. That blue scent… it’s like diving into water. “Such muscles,” she says, resting her cool hand on my arm, smiling, drawing away. “So strong.” She frowns. “You look magnificent, Dan, you know that?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “No. I mean it. Leave this, put that brush down, will you? There’s something I want to show you. That’s the main reason I came up here, and I’d nearly forgotten. A secret. You’re not going to believe this. Come with me.”

  I look at her uncertainly. I watch her silver bracelets slide along her arm as she raises it. She backs away a few steps and turns; her thonged sandals slap against her heels. “Come on,” she says. “It’s exciting. Really. You need to see this.”

  And she beckons to me.

  I put down the brush. I wipe my paint-stained hands on my jeans. I pull on the discarded shirt, and I’m buttoning it up as I follow her along the corridor and through an anteroom. We pass the door to the Squint and descend some stairs. As we enter the library, with two of its tall windows wide open and those motherly stone angels looking down at us, one of the many clocks chimes. It’s six p.m. Soon Finn will be home.

  Julia has darted ahead of me. I follow more slowly. I pass the cobra table and the lionskin. I glance out of the windows. Maisie and her grandfather are in the cloister below; he’s slumped in a deck chair; Maisie, trowel in hand, is scraping more random post holes in the grass. I see her sit back on her heels, look up, and gaze intently at the air. Her lips move; she addresses the invisible; she smiles, then bends again to her task.

  The light is softening; a swallow passes overhead. I turn away from the window, to find that Julia is now in the far corner of the room; she’s fumbling with the paneling to the side of the fireplace wall. She’s looking for the panel that slides back, the one where stairs lead down to an ancient blank wall.

  “Goddammit, how do you open this thing?” she says. “It seems to have stuck.”

  “No, it hasn’t. Let me do it. What is this, anyway? What do you want to show me? There’s nothing down there, you know that—just stairs that don’t lead anywhere.” I cross to her side and press the hidden catch. With a creaking sound, the panel slides back. There’s a waft of stale, damp air from the shadowed space beyond.

  “Come on—you have to see this.”

  “See what? I don’t understand. This had better not be some stupid trick.…”

  Julia glances over her shoulder and smiles. She steps through into the small, dark landing space at the head of the ancient hidden stairs. I hesitate and then follow her. When we’re both inside, Julia touches something on the wall. The panel slides back into place, and we’re on the other side of it, in absolute darkness, our bodies pressed together in a space the size of a grave. There’s a silence. I feel an instant shaming fear—Gran used to threaten to lock me up here as a child. It was the punishment I feared most of all. She’d drag me, whimpering and pleading, to this panel, and she’d whisper tales of nuns, of errant nuns who were walled up at the foot of these stairs and left to die in the dark. How did they die? How long did it take? Was it a slow suffocation, or did they cry out for weeks while they starved? Listen: Hear that scratching sound? That’s them, scratching and tearing at the stones. They’re after you, Danny. Their fingers are bleeding. They’ve ripped their nails. Think of that! Nothing but bones now, and still trying to get out after five hundred years.

  I draw in a breath of musty air. I can smell Julia’s blue scent. I feel slightly dizzy. I still don’t understand why I’m there. Peering into blackness, disconcerted and unsure, I’m expecting Julia to produce a torch from nowhere. I’m expecting the unlikely: Julia is about to show me a marvel, a loose stone with a religious treasure behind it, a pectoral cross, some tiny relic, or some scratched ancient inscription she’s found. She moves slightly. I hear her bracelets chime as she raises her arm; my body reacts a second before my brain does—and then I understand.

  “Don’t move,” Julia says in a low, unsteady voice. “Don’t move suddenly, Dan. There’s just room for two people here. I don’t want to lose my balance. If I do, I’ll fall down the stairs and break my neck—and that’s not my intention.”

  “I hope you know how to open that panel again,” I say—and my own voice sounds unsteady, too, and strange to me. “I hope you know, Julia, because I don’t.”

  “I do know. I’ve been practicing all afternoon.”

  “Have you now?” I say, and I think it’s that word practicing that’s fatal. It’s so shameless. It’s said with such cool amusement. It’s filled with suggestions and possibilities, and my mind takes five dizzying seconds to explore them all. That’s when time stops. That’s when I start wanting her, and wanting her urgently, when I didn’t want her five seconds before.

  I lean my weight slowly and deliberately against her, so she’s pressed between my body and the wall. I have her trapped. She’s six inches shorter than I am, she’s slender; I’m far stronger than she is: I could do anything—she’s powerless now. My cock stiffens against her, and a shudder goes through her. I feel for her throat and tilt her head back; I rub my thumb across her lips. She gives a small moan.

  “You said you had something to show me,” I say, still in that voice that isn’t mine. “Well, I have to tell you, Julia, I can’t see a fucking thing in here. I can’t see the stairs or the wall or you. You could be anybody.”

  “Not anybody.” I feel her lips curve in a smile. “I’m not a man. I’m female. And I can tell you’ve noticed that. Give me your hand. There are other ways of seeing, and this is the best one. I’m blind, you’re blind. Touch me, Dan.”

  She guides my hand between her legs. She’s wearing nothing under the dress. She’s wet, wonderfully wet. I think, This isn’t happening, then suddenly she’s scrabbling at my shirt buttons, fumbling at my jeans, and I want that cool hand of hers around my cock, want it so much, want it so urgently, that I can’t think, hear, or see. I feel for her dress, and then her breast is under my hand. I cup it in my hand. I put my mouth to it.

  “This is what I was thinking about upstairs,” Julia says.

  “Was it? Was it?” I say, kissing her mouth, and then my fingers slip inside her cunt.

  She gasps and moves against my hand. “Today, yesterday, all summer. You’ve been thinking about it, too, don’t deny it,” she replies.

  She makes a sighing sound and shudders. She slips her fingers inside my jeans. I feel the cool clench of her hand as it closes around my cock. “No, Julia,” says the man I’ve turned into, as her touch flashes from groin to mind. “I’ve never given you a second thought.”

  “You will after this,” she murmurs, and I feel her soft, wet mouth open under mine. Then she makes a sliding movement, so for a lurching second I think she’s fallen, and next she’s on her knees, with her soft mouth around my cock, and—no one’s ever done that to me before. I’ve read about it, I’ve heard about it, I’ve imagined it, but it’s the dark ages in rural England, and as far as I know, only tarts do that kind of thing; it’s so forbidden, so transgressive, the only way you’re ever going to experience it is to pay for it. I hear myself groan. I can’t believe the urgency of the pleasure. I’m going to come, feeling for her breasts in the dark, stroking her nipples hard, her lips and her tongue giving me all that illicit pleasure. But just when I’m at the edge, and she judges it well—when did she learn that, Christ, who taught her that?—she draws back and stands, so my body’s rubbing against hers and her mouth that smells of me is on mine. “Fuck me, Dan,” she says. “I’m on the pill. It’s safe.
Welcome to paradise. Pretend I’m Finn if you must. I don’t care.”

  And I do fuck her. I fuck her standing up against that wall in the dark, my jeans half-on, half-off, my shirt buttons ripped, her dress rucked up round her waist, those silver bracelets of hers cutting into the skin of my buttocks as she guides me into her and shudders and cries. I fuck her against a wall, a knee trembler, the boys at school used to call it, and I’ve never done that before, either. Always it’s been lying down, missionary position finally achieved after hours of persuasion and pleading, weeks of lead-up, a fortnight just to get as far as undoing the brassiere, two weeks more to touch the underpants—outside only; give it six weeks and with luck, with the generous girls from the village, you might get a hand job. At Cambridge, forget it. There has to be an engagement ring on the finger before they’ll show you their stocking tops. The best I’ve known is intercourse, a snatched act accompanied by guilt, fear, falsity, and condoms. I think, So this is the Californian way, is it? This is what they mean by free love? And, Oh my America, do I feel free. Free of frustration, of confusion, of conflict and consequences; free for the very first time. I think: We’re up against the altar wall. I think: Is this what she does with Lucas? I think: At last. I think nothing, nothing, nothing. I slam her up against the stones, and I fuck her hard in a way I’ve never fucked before, or knew you could, and—I never knew this was possible, either—Julia fucks me back, we’re both fucking. This isn’t a favor that’s being granted, and there’s no price on this act. Julia is as frantic as I am. This is something we both need, both crave.

  I don’t think of Finn once. Not once. It’s Julia’s breasts, cunt, mouth—and it’s Julia’s name I cry out when I come.

  Then there’s a winged silence, broken only by our breathing, by her small, half-stifled moans, and by the noises of our bodies, wet, pressed together, both of us shaking, my semen running down Julia’s thighs as I withdraw. I kiss her open mouth. I trace her face in the dark. It’s wet, I can’t tell if it’s sweat or tears. In the dark, invisible to each other, we find each other’s hands.