“That was all I had time for. Mrs Tilney came to ask what I was doing in reception when I was meant to be vacuuming the stairs.”
I’m not sure what I was hoping for exactly – it’s not like he was going to have written an essay in the Reason for visit box on the check-in form, is it?
Mira’s continuing breakdown of just how majestic she and her star sign are takes us most of the way back to the cottage. I half-listen, because she’s monologuing like she usually does after a solo shift. As I discovered when I started working full-time at Hopwood and was paired with her, Mira needs someone to talk to. Or at. To begin with, that suited me just fine – I didn’t really want to talk anyway, and was happy to let her fill the silence that trailed around after me with whatever she wanted. As the months went by, and I started actually listening to her (some of the time, anyway), I realized I enjoyed being around her – and suddenly we were friends. Real friends. Along with Charlie and Felix – and Barney, because he’s the boss – she’s the only one here who knows about me. About The Incident. I’m pretty sure everybody else thinks I’m just quiet and maybe kind of difficult – “a bit moody”, Mira says – but none of them know. Which is exactly how I want to keep it. I don’t want people looking at me differently, judging me, wondering whether I’m really as crazy as they think I am…
I already do that enough for all of us, thanks.
By the time we make it through the front door and I kick it shut behind us, Mira has not only covered her astrological profile in minute detail, she’s moved on to wondering aloud whether the “high-profile” guest Mrs Tilney announced would be checking into the top-floor suite in a couple of days is Tommy Knight – currently Mira’s favourite actor, and filming in Wells.
“Doubtful. Hopwood isn’t exactly his style, is it?” I mutter, shoving Felix’s muddy boots out of the way as we walk into the kitchen. Charlie’s in the middle of setting the table as Felix pulls plates out of the dresser, passing them to him. They both look over as we come in, Mira still daydreaming out loud about what would happen if Tommy Knight walked into the lobby and saw her standing there…
“What, after he asked you to take his bags up to his room?” I laugh. Mira ignores me, instead dropping down into one of the chairs around the battered wooden dining table.
“Nice to see you, Mira. You staying to eat?” Felix asks.
Mira stifles a yawn, then grins at him sheepishly. “It’s okay if I do? My housemate ate everything in the fridge again,” she adds sadly.
“Of course – you’re always welcome.” Felix hands another plate to Charlie, his fingers gently touching my brother’s.
“How’s that project of yours going?” Charlie says.
I shrug. “It’s not my project. But it’s going.”
“What’s it about?”
“Houses.”
“Houses?”
“Yep.”
“Any specific kind of houses? Or just…houses as a concept?”
“Old houses. It’s very Downton.”
Charlie laughs. “Really?” He looks pointedly at Felix.
“I just spent the last two hours looking up and listing every single National Trust house within a twenty-mile radius, just in case there’s something at one of them that might, maybe, possibly help. Do you know how many of those there are?”
“Quite a lot, I imagine.”
“It’s more. However many you imagine, it’s more.”
“And what was all that for?” Charlie pulls a couple of bowls out of the fridge and slides them along the table.
“It’s something to do with a soldier who died in the First World War. This guest – Hal – his grandfather told him this story that his grandfather told him, about some guy who fell in love with a maid, but he was killed in the war.” I scoop a tiny tomato out of the bowl closest to me.
“Flora!” Charlie takes a seat, reaching across the table to smack the back of my hand with a serving spoon. “No fingers.”
“Sorry.”
Felix clears his throat, slipping into his own chair. “Which houses are you looking at?”
“All of them. All.” I sigh. He waits. “Umm, fine.” I picture the list I ended up with, sitting on the library table alongside the map with a big red circle on it, and my phone’s browser with a million internet tabs open. “Apart from here? There’s Kingsway Manor Hall, Hillwood, Fallowmill House…”
“Wouldn’t be Fallowmill.” Felix shakes his head. “I do a bit of freelance tree work for them, and I can tell you that place has its own story. Gives me the creeps. They’ve got an archive there, though – might be worth a visit.”
Charlie swallows a mouthful of potato salad. “And it’s definitely not Kingsway,” he adds, tapping his fork against his plate. “They’re a Thankful.”
“A Thankful?” I stare at him blankly.
“All the men who went off to fight in the war came home alive, so it was designated a Thankful Village. There’s only about fifty of them in the country – it’s on the village sign, right under the name.”
“That’s what that means?” I realize how stupid I sound even as I’m saying it, but it doesn’t stop me. “I just thought they were, you know, generally grateful for stuff.” Next to me, Mira chokes on a piece of cucumber. I kick her ankle under the table.
“Flora.” Charlie fixes me with a stern look from the far side of Felix. “Honestly.”
“What? I always figured they were just…nice. And I suppose everybody knows that, do they?”
There’s a chorus of non-committal noises from around the table.
“Fine, then.” I stare down at my plate, feeling my cheeks burn in the silence that descends – one broken only by cutlery on plates and chewing. After a while Charlie picks up his bottle of beer. “Well,” he says, taking a swig, “I think it sounds fascinating.”
“You do?”
He has stopped looking so amused and is studiously peeling the label off his beer bottle – very much avoiding my eye. “It’s good to hear you talking about it. This is exactly the kind of thing you’d have been into a couple of years ago.”
“I’m just doing my job.”
“Are you?” He glances at me across the table.
Suddenly Mira yawns again, loudly – then clamps her hand over her mouth and looks around with eyes that are almost as wide as her jaws were a second ago.
“All right.” I drop my fork on my plate and fold my arms. “What’s up with you? And don’t –” I unfold my arms again and point a finger at her – “tell me that you had a rough shift, or you didn’t sleep well or whatever. The truth.”
I refold my arms. It makes me look serious.
Does it? Yes. Yes, I’m sure it does.
Different emotions flicker across her face. Embarrassment, guilt…and finally, something that looks a bit like acceptance. She shrugs. “Okay. I’ve been studying. For a course.” Her eyes lock onto a scratch on the table and don’t budge. “I was going to tell you.”
“A course? What course?”
“Textiles. I was waiting for the right time, but…” She hesitates, and her voice drops. “I want to apply to UWE. Next year. For their fashion course.”
It feels like someone has pulled my chair out from underneath me. The University of the West of England is in Bristol. Mira wants to leave Hopwood?
Why didn’t she say something?
How long has she been planning it?
What will I do if she goes?
Who will I talk to?
“Oh.” The letter. That’s what it was about. She told me it was junk mail.
I know I’m supposed to say something more. Something positive, something encouraging. The part of my brain that Sanjay trained – the bit that tries to keep tabs on the rest of me – kicks the inside of my skull and tells me to sort myself out…But the rest of it – the bit that wants to react, to feel, not sit down and calmly discuss things – that’s the bit in control.
Does my mood match the moment? Is this the right response?
Is this a balanced reaction?
Did I do something wrong? Is this because Mira doesn’t want to be around me any more?
IS THIS A BALANCED REACTION?
Charlie’s eyes flick over to Felix, his lips pressed tightly together. Mira, it dawns on me, is still talking. I haven’t heard a word since she said she was going to apply to UWE.
“…to study pattern-cutting, but I need to make up the points for entry, so I’ve been working on it after my shift.” She clears her throat. “I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
There’s nothing I can say.
Genuinely.
I have to keep my mouth shut, because if I open it, I don’t know what will come out – which bit of me will start speaking. The manic part who talks too fast and says things that I don’t mean…or the sad one, who will rain all over her best friend’s future? I don’t want to be either of them right now.
There’s nothing I can say.
Luckily, Felix is way ahead of me – and he beams at Mira. “Good for you. If that’s what you want to do, you should go for it.”
I stare at my plate.
Between them, Charlie and Mira and Felix fill the silence – talking about her studies, the course she wants to apply for, work stuff…All of it’s just noise. Filling the silence, filling the room, filling the house.
Filling my head.
It’s almost a relief when Mira says she has to get home – to do more studying, I guess. She gives me a hug as she grabs her bag from the sofa.
“I shouldn’t have kept it secret. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to…”
To upset me. I know she didn’t. Just like she knows that’s why I couldn’t say anything when she told me – because what comes out isn’t always what I mean. It’s not always the me I want to be who speaks; the me I used to be. The one who could be a friend, who could go out to see bands, who could go to the cinema, who would lie on the floor of other people’s rooms and laugh. The one who won prizes for projects, who could catch the bus and drop into a seat next to someone and just be.
Now, there’s only Mira.
Soon, there won’t even be her.
I stand in the porch and watch her walk across the deer park, her headphones already in, while above her head the swifts wheel and dance against the pale summer sky to a music all of their own.
“Woah.”
Overnight, the library has been transformed. When I left it yesterday, it did still look like a library. Now, it looks like a hundred filing cabinets have exploded in here. There is paper everywhere. Stacks of it on every flat surface, covering the table, piled on the chairs – even sections of the floor have disappeared. Dotted across the room are cardboard archive boxes, piled two or three high…and in the middle of it all is Hal, his back to the door. Hearing me walk in, he turns suddenly – so suddenly that he almost loses his balance. His hair is ruffled, the fringe pushed to one side and the shorter hair on the top of his head sticking up as though he’s been running his hands through it over and over again.
“Oh. Umm. Hi.” He looks vaguely embarrassed, like I’ve caught him out somehow.
Instead of my housekeeping uniform, which I just sort of automatically wore before, I’ve switched to a pair of denim shorts and a pale blue T-shirt – my present from Charlie last Christmas, with a tiny picture of an old-fashioned film camera printed on the pocket. It’s not the smartest T-shirt in the world, but it’s the only thing I had left in my wardrobe that was clean.
Clothes aren’t a problem Hal has, apparently. He’s wearing dark jeans, expensively soft-looking, and a plaid shirt half-open over a black T-shirt. It’s funny, because it’s similar to Felix’s work outfit, but Hal looks like some kind of model in it (rather than a woodsman escaped from a fairy story, the way Felix does) and it only shows how far apart he is from the rest of us.
“You’ve been busy.” It feels like a safe thing to say…but it’s obviously not, because he frowns and looks at the chaos around him. I tuck my bag into the nearest leather armchair – and just about the only one not piled up with paper. “What do you need me to do?”
He looks from me to the room, and then back to me again.
Fair enough.
Hal picks his way between boxes to the far end of the table and scoops three separate stacks of stuff into his arms, shifting them all to the floor. But he doesn’t just drop them – he lays each one down like they’re made of spun sugar. There’s now a small space on the table. I guess this is where I’m working today.
“Here. I might have found something while I was sorting through these last night. Would you take a look?”
“Last night? How long were you in here?”
“I’m not sure.” He frowns again. “I came back in after dinner, and started looking through the box over there by the fireplace…and I sort of lost track of time.” He shrugs. “Five or six hours, maybe?”
“Five or six hours? After dinner?” Seeing as the kitchen doesn’t even open for dinner till seven o’clock, he can’t have gone to bed any earlier than one in the morning. “This is really a big deal to you, isn’t it?” I find a path to the clear end of the table and I’m about to pull a chair out when I realize he’s beaten me to it. With a sweep of his arm, he offers me the seat. Feeling self-conscious, I sit – and as I do, Hal smoothly slides the chair in under me. There’s something about the way he does it – just like the way he put the papers on the floor – that seems kind. Gentle.
He pulls up the chair next to mine and as he moves, the faintest scent of lemons and something green-tinted and fresh fills the air around us. It reminds me of the woods in the spring, but it’s only there for a moment and then it’s gone, lost under the familiar smell of dust.
“These were in one of the boxes. I think they’ve been moved from somewhere else. Just dumped and forgotten about. There’s no order, and they look like they’ve all been mixed together.” He slides the nearest, smallest, stack of papers into the empty space, fanning them out. Some of them are upside down, some of them are sideways, some of them have got crumpled and folded together.
“Like they were in a drawer, maybe? Or a desk? And someone’s tipped everything into the box?”
He nods. “That’s what I thought. I wasn’t sure they’d be worth the time, but there was something…” His voice fades as he peers at the pages, sifting through them. Some are scraps of paper with notes scribbled on them, some are printed leaflets and fliers. There’s a page from an old newspaper from 14th July 1953, next to a shopping list for some kind of building work and a scribbled-out menu from 1987.
“Here it is.”
Even before he’s smoothed it out on the table, I can tell why it caught his eye.
“It’s the same handwriting!” It comes out far louder than I expected and he flinches. “Sorry. But it is. I recognize it.”
The sheet of paper is old, faded and crumpled, and part of it has either fallen off or been torn away, but the handwriting that covers what’s left is unmistakably the same as on the letter he showed me yesterday.
“I think so too. There’s not much more in this one – but there is a name.”
“There was a name on the last one, wasn’t there? You said it was from somebody called Jane.”
“Yes.” He glances up at me, as though he’s surprised I remember. I meet his gaze, feeling the back of my eyes prickling, until he looks away again. “But this time, it’s who the letter was to. Somebody who must have lived here.”
His finger moves across line after blurry line of grey handwriting, all the way to the top. And there it is.
My dearest Issy,
“Issy? Who’s that?” I look up from the letter. I can’t ignore the rising feeling of excitement buzzing along my fingers, itching its way into my hands.
“I don’t know. I’m hoping the answer’s somewhere in
here.” He waves at the room.
“That’s a lot of somewhere to go through.” I peer at the letter. “I can’t even read most of it, can you?”
“Not much.” He squints at it, wrinkling his nose as he tries to read the faded letters. “Something about the weather…about a cake, maybe?” His lips move silently as he pieces together fragments of words, fractions of sentences, and then: “Albie.”
“Albie?”
“There’s something here.” He taps a finger on a line right at the bottom of the page, directly above the tear. “I’m sure that’s an A – you see it?
I don’t. Even when I squint.
“Look.” He holds his index finger above the page like a pen. His hands are perfectly long and slender – except for the way this one finger is crooked, the tip at a distinct angle to the rest of it. It’s so out of line that I find myself staring, and, of course, he notices.
“What?” But he knows, instinctively curling his hand into a ball.
“What happened to your finger?”
“Nothing. It got broken.” He clears his throat uncomfortably, his eyes darting from the table to the door and back again.
“Ah.” I nod. “It just looks like my brother’s, that’s all.”
He stares at me blankly.
“My brother, Charlie. He’s a gardener. His finger does that exact same thing, from where he broke it moving some rocks a couple of years ago. One fell and trapped his hand. You weren’t moving rocks, were you?” The words come out like a landslide.
Slow down, Flora.
Be normal.
“I wasn’t.” Hal shakes his head…but he uncurls his hand.
“Figures. Because why would you be landscaping, right?”
You need to stop now.
I gulp down the urge to keep talking, to let Manic Flora run her mouth – my mouth – and I swallow all the words piling up on my tongue. The silence between us stretches so thin I can see straight through it…and then, finally, he presses his hand against the page again, tracing the shapes of the letters he thinks he sees.
“Here. A…L…B…I…E.”
It all looks like browny-grey smudges to me, but then he sighs and holds out his hand, nodding towards my own where it rests on the table.
The Pieces of Ourselves Page 5