by Shelley Day
‘Nice bed for you there,’ says Frank, ‘just like old times, eh?’
Stella hadn’t intended to think of old times and she’s not going to start now. She goes back towards the door, but Frank is pulling off the top sheet, letting it fall to the floor in a cloud of dried droppings and dust. Underneath, the paisley patterned eiderdown is good as new. But the air’s old and full of dust, dust that accumulates in thick woollen blankets, starched cotton sheets, feather pillows, dust that accentuates the absence of a person.
‘There you are,’ Frank says, ‘a lovely comfy bed, all made up. All nice and ready.’
In the unaccustomed light, Stella looks at Frank and sees him as if for the first time: a man grown older than she remembers him, his face gaunt and veiny. A grubby checked lumberjack shirt bulges round his swollen belly, his trousers are stained, greasy and shapeless – he’s obviously been sleeping in them. He stinks of sour sweat. It’s hard to believe this is Frank Fanshaw, the self-confessed ladies man who prided himself in looking dapper. His hair, once slicked and dark, has gone grey, thin, lank, and there’s more than a week’s worth of greying bristle over half the mottled skin of his face, the face of someone fond of a drink. Is that what’s happened? Is that why he lost his job? It’s hard to imagine that Stella had been so afraid of him. But back then she was just a bit bairn. He was a man. He had the authority that men had: big, bullying, overpowering, men who couldn’t stand not getting their own way. He had to have what he wanted, like a spoilt kid. Only kids don’t have that kind of power, do they, the power to demand? Kids don’t even have the power to make themselves heard, let alone the power to say No.
Now Stella observes a frailty about Frank, a neediness she hadn’t realised was so close to the surface. Either she’s changed, or he has. Frank Fanshaw is no longer the monster Stella once took him to be. He’s nothing but a pale, pathetic copy, a sad, lonely old man. But Stella must not let down her guard. Sad old man he may be, but right now he’s got the power.
Frank Fanshaw has never belonged – not here, not anywhere – that’s why he’s never had enough to lose. Just one of Ruby Willoughby’s lame dogs. Muriel had never approved of Stella living in a household full of Ruby’s misfits, but there was nothing she could do after Stella was made a Ward of Court and Muriel was declared Unfit to look after her own daughter. In her turn, Stella had made the best of it. She’d had to learn how to handle the lonely men who came and went through Ruby’s doors. They weren’t all like Frank, and he was the only one who’d stayed any length of time. But it was through Frank that Stella learned how not to rock the boat.
Frank stares at Stella, like he always did. She avoids his rheumy eyes and sees now he’s a man who got himself lost a long time ago. She looks at his hands, those big, reddened, callused hands. Those hands that grabbed her and gripped her and held her. Hands that pushed her head down and held it there and kept it there until she thought she would be sick. Now they’re the hands of someone desperately clinging onto the thinnest of ledges.
What does he want? Surely he’s too old and weary to be thinking about sexual favours. His hands are filthy, his nails bitten to the quick. On his feet, the same old cracked and dusty black boots, steel toecaps showing through where the leather has worn away, laces kept together with knots. Stella takes it all in: she could almost feel sorry for him. But she won’t forget he’s got that Swiss Army knife, and who knows what else. Stella knows Frank well enough to keep that in mind, to remember he doesn’t like his desires thwarted. He’s told her often enough, the one thing he can’t abide, people not doing what they’re told. He’s a big man. Stella needs to be wary, needs to find out what he wants, why he’s come to this derelict place. She forces herself to look directly into Frank’s eyes. They’re bloodshot and yellowing, like the nicotine stains on his fingers, like his filthy teeth.
‘Just what is it you’re doing here, Frank?’ she says, ‘I really don’t understand why you’re here, of all places. Haven’t you got a life of your own to go to?’
Stella has said the wrong thing. As soon as the words leave her mouth, she knows she’s said the wrong thing.
‘A life of my own?’ Frank sounds incredulous. He snorts briefly and shakes his head. ‘My God. You people. You just don’t get it, do you?’
‘Get what, Frank?’
‘How the hell do you expect me to have “a life of my own” – as you put it – after what your precious bloody grandmother did to me? After what your filthy bitch of a mother put me through? You’re unbelievable, you lot, you really are.’ Frank slumps down on the bed and sits with his head in his hands. ‘I hope Ruby Willoughby rots in hell,’ he says after a few moments, ‘which is better than she deserves.’ Frank splutters something else but Stella can’t make out what it is.
‘You’re not making much sense, Frank,’ Stella says. She’s not sure if he is angry or crying or both or neither.
‘Why am I here, you ask. Because here is as good a place as anywhere, that’s why.’ He bounces a few times on the bed. ‘Mattress good as new,’ he says, patting a place next to him, ‘Howay, bonnie lass. C’mon, try it.’
He’s changed his tune. That’s what he does, that’s how he puts you off guard. Stella’s remembering it all now. She truly should not have risked coming back to this place. Frank shuffles further back on the bed, puts his head on one side, patting the space beside him.
‘While we’re here, might as well make the most of it, eh, bonnie lass? What do you say, eh?’
The thin October light in the room now strikes Stella as eerie. But no, she must not think like that. It’s daylight out there. She needs to be practical. The street lamp in the back lane is still on, so it must be very early. Stella goes over to the dressing table – Grandma Willoughby’s since she was a girl. Stella sits down on the stool and tilts the mirror back a bit so she doesn’t have to look into it.
Stella Moon is afraid of mirrors. She knows how they can swallow you up.
Every night without fail, Grandma Willoughby sat Stella down in front of this very mirror to brush her hair a hundred strokes, not one more, not one less. Stella’s tightly spiralled, flame-red hair was a curse, she said, nothing but a curse. A cross she would have to bear forever and the least she could do was keep it clean, keep it brushed, it would be fatal to let that ugly mop get the upper hand. A hundred strokes, every night, then the whole lot done into tight plaits piled up and fastened on the top of Stella’s head with as many Kirby grips as it took to keep them in place. The roots pulled and ached all night, but that was a small price to pay, according to Grandma Willoughby, to stop that awful hair taking over. Stella always had to grope her way to the stool with her eyes closed for fear of catching sight of her reflection in the mirror. Or worse than seeing herself was the chance that the mirror would be blank, that it would be empty, that there would be no reflection in there at all. So Stella kept her eyes tight-closed. Impatient as always, Grandma Willoughby pushed Stella down onto the stool by her shoulders and began brushing with long strong strokes.
‘One, two, three, four…count out loud, our Stella, one hundred times…five, six, seven, eight…’ One by one, Stella counted the strokes, certain that at any moment she could be sucked into the mirror and transported to whichever hateful place it is that mirrors take you. Stella’s hands gripped tightly, one on either side of the stool. When Grandma Willoughby insisted Stella opened her eyes and stopped being stupid, Stella became an expert at opening them but seeing nothing. She discovered that all you need to do is look into the middle distance; everything is out of focus and, after a short while, it’s all one single blur.
Now Stella straightens up the mirror, her eyes wide open. She knows Frank is sprawled across the bed behind her, his belt undone, his right hand moving rhythmically inside his trousers. But she doesn’t see him. He thinks she’s watching him but she’s not. Instead, it’s Marcia – Marcia’s face – Marcia that looks out at her
from the mirror. Stella hears Marcia’s voice, a soft voice, almost a whisper, ‘You alright, hon?’
On the dressing table – focus, Stella, focus. Grandma Willoughby’s hairbrush, its spiral of bristles, the worn wooden handle, varnish peeling off, a few grey hairs. Stella picks up the brush, pulls her hair free of the elastic band and begins brushing, one, two, three, four. The lavender and rosewater smell of her grandmother fills the room. Five, six, seven, eight. A musty, scalpy smell from the brush. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Her grandmother’s left hand resting on Stella’s shoulder.
Frank’s moans bring Stella back to the present. She puts the brush down and backs away from the mirror. She needs to say something. Act normal.
‘Has my grandmother died, then? How come nobody told me?’ Stella turns and looks directly at Frank, who is now propped up on his elbows on the bed, his erection obvious inside his trousers. He rubs his palm on his crotch in a circular motion. She moves towards the door. She remembers the porch door is locked from the inside. He has the key in his trouser pocket.
Frank pats the bed again, undoes his flies, exposes his penis.
‘Howay,’ he says, touching himself, ‘never you mind about the old lady, we’ll find her after. Just you come on over here. Come on. For old times’ sake. Make an old man happy.’
‘Leave it out, Frank,’ Stella shakes her head. ‘Do it yourself. Looks to me you’re pretty good at it.’
Stella, still standing in the doorway, can’t quite believe how easy it is to stand up to him. But she’s on her guard still.
‘All that’s in the past, Frank,’ she hears herself say, as if from far away.
‘You know how to make an old man happy, bonny lass, don’t pretend you’ve forgot…’
Frank shuffles his trousers down so his erect penis is fully exposed. He puts his hand around it and pulls back the foreskin. She knows it’s the wrong thing to do but she looks away.
‘Don’t, Frank,’ she says. She can smell its ugly, filthy smell from where she is standing. She closes her eyes and breathes without breathing, the same old sick feeling welling.
‘Ah, now I get it,’ Frank nods, ‘seven years down among the women turned your head, has it? Now, I don’t mind that, I don’t mind that at all. In fact...’
‘Leave it out, I said. I’m not that child any more. I stopped being that child the moment I killed my mother.’
Stella’s hand is resting on the door. She could slam it shut and lock it from the passage side before Frank could even get off the bed, he’d be tripping over, his trousers round his ankles. Stella could get away, she’d have to smash the glass in the porch door and climb through, but she could do that, make a run for it. He’s clearly still after the sordid stuff – she’d be better off getting away while she can. But no, he’s moaning, he’s finishing. She doesn’t look. She hears him fumbling with his clothes, zipping himself up.
‘You shouldn’t have looked the other way,’ Frank says, shaking his head. ‘You know that’s bad. Frank likes Stella to see what he’s doing... Frankie likes little Stella to watch. But the naughty girl was looking the other way. The naughty girl might have to have her bottom smacked… Frankie’s going to have to think what to do about that.’
Carry on as normal, Stella. As if everything was totally and completely normal. It’s the only way.
‘How do you find out if somebody’s died, Frank? There must be a way…’
‘Old Mrs W? As it happens, I knocked Mr Cohen Thursday,’ Frank says, doing up his belt, ‘but I’m none the wiser. Said he didn’t know where she’d gone. One minute there, the next, vanished. “Looked like a death, I’m sorry to say,” was what the man said. A few weeks after, the council comes and puts these boards up, and them bits of glass along the back wall. They do that, apparently, when somebody’s died. Or so Mr Cohen said.’
‘Oh. What about the Carsons? Did you ask Mrs Carson?’
‘Old bag told me to mind my own business. Slammed the door in my face. Stinking old crone. Who does she think she is?’
Stella will tread carefully. Frank doesn’t like being shut out. Especially doesn’t like women getting the upper hand.
‘Frank,’ she says, ‘see if you can get that board off the back kitchen window?’
‘Aye. If it’ll make you happy. But we’re not staying long, mind. Beach Hut. Remember.’
He hasn’t got a clue, has he? Stella shrinks as he comes towards her, but all he does is tousle her hair as though she’s six again.
‘This house must be somebody’s,’ Stella says, standing back for Frank to go through the door, ‘if my grandmother’s died. Or maybe she’s sold it. I wonder whose house it is now?’
Stella can’t believe her grandmother is no longer alive. She would have known. Surely.
She lingers a moment longer in the doorway and looks back into the room. From this safe distance, she dares to look at the big oak wardrobe, with its full-length mirror, the diagonal crack right across the glass. Stella made that crack. She made it the day her grandfather died. Stupid kid, she thought she could hide in a crack in the mirror and no-one would find out what she’d done.
Marcia. It’s going wrong. It’s all going wrong. This isn’t how it was meant to be. This isn’t what you meant for me.
Follow Frank into the back kitchen, Stella. Then get away as soon as you can. Leave the past alone. Leave this house alone. Go away and never come back. Do things right, like Marcia said.
In the back kitchen, Frank has opened the window and is using the tool to lever off the board.
‘Ah, light,’ he says, ‘that’s better. This place was giving me the heebie jeebies. Starting to give me the creeps. Like old Ma Willoughby’s watching through the walls.’
‘How about getting us something to eat, Frank?’ Stella says, ‘I don’t much feel like going out, not just yet. I must look a right sight.’ Stella puts her hands to her head and tries to flatten down her half-brushed hair.
‘The Beach Hut,’ he says. ‘You said we could go to the Beach Hut.’
‘Can we go in a bit?’ Stella says, ‘I’m starving. Get us something to eat first, Frank? I’ll tidy myself up while you go. I don’t want to go out looking like this.’
Frank wrenches the last of the board free from the window, turns and looks at Stella. The light falls on her thin, pale face, her hair half brushed and all over the place, Muriel’s faded clothes hanging off her. She’s far too thin, a proper little waif. To think, that little thing’s got it in her to murder somebody.
Stella thinks she sees a change in Frank’s face. But no, he’s not to be trusted. Be careful, Stella.
‘Anything to oblige,’ Frank says, putting the tool back in his pocket and wiping his hands on his trousers. ‘I’ll go and get us some breakfast. Then Beach Hut, right?’
‘Right. Get Vienna buns and butter and a bit of ham and... some pease pudding. My God, Frank, I didn’t realise till now how much I’d missed all those. And something to drink. Orange juice,’ Stella says, her voice suddenly light. ‘Not the squash, the real stuff. Have you got money? I’ll pay you back, I can pay you back.’ She’s really starving now she comes to think about food. And so very thirsty. ‘Go on, Frank, be as quick as you can, before I starve to death. I’ll make us a fire, I’ll warm the place up. It’ll be cozy, like old times,’ she says. She rubs her hands together like an excited child. Frank will want to please her.
But the minute he’s gone, Stella reaches into the cupboard under the stairs, right there above the door and unhooks the secret key. There’s a second bunch of keys there as well. She takes those too. She picks up the suitcase, looks around, undoes the lock on the porch and lets herself out of the house. Before the door slams shut behind her, Stella is running across the road.
Chapter Eight
Stella is jittering from foot to foot at the bus stop, praying the bus comes before creepy Frank
Fanshaw comes back with the food and twigs she’s done a runner. What an idiot, falling for that cheap little trick. Or else he’s desperate. For what? Sex? Surely not only. He’ll come looking for Stella, bound to. That’s what he’s like. Hates people having one over on him. But it all depends what he wants, and Stella hasn’t worked out what that is. He’s been acting restrained; not normal for him and therefore dangerous. He’s let her get away once. There won’t be a second time. She needs to get well away.
Frank Fanshaw is the past and he can stay there. Stella Moon is moving forward – moving forward in her new life. She will put Frank to one side and concentrate on more important things. Focus. Hurry up bus.
Main thing: Grandma Willoughby. Find out what’s happened: when she died – no, whether she’s died. Maybe she hasn’t died at all. Anything could have happened in seven years. Ten, if you count the three before, when Stella was in the convalescent place and the children’s home. Grandma Willoughby is the only family Stella’s got, anyway. You’d think she’d have got used to being without her grandmother, after all those years. She had got used to it. She’d been coping fine. It’s just this coming back to Newcastle, stirring everything up. And Frank being at the house, with whatever unfinished business, and him trying to rope her in, pull her back to the very place she thought she’d got away from. She’d never expected he’d be there, not in a million years.
Stella, you need to focus on practicalities. Don’t start letting memories get the better of you. So before Grandma Willoughby: accommodation, get that sorted.
Stella is starting again, doing things by the book, like she promised Marcia. She’ll go to the Probation. Number one priority is the probation/accommodation. That Clara who answered the phone when Stella rang from London said she could definitely get her a hostel place. Not ideal, but it’d do for now; it’ll have to do, better than a kick up the arse. Here comes the 61. That’ll get her into town. Away from the horrible house. Away from Frank Fanshaw.