by Shelley Day
When they got to the Beach Hut, Grandma Willoughby banged at the door. It was locked. She pulled a bunch of keys out of her pocket, shoved the big one into the deadlock and flung open the door so hard it banged against the wall and caused the whole place to shudder. Muriel was nowhere to be seen, though it was clear she was living there and was perhaps still about. Ruby went straight through to the new kitchen and gave a grunt of satisfaction before scanning the shelves where Muriel kept all her jars and bottles. The smell turned Stella’s stomach. She could hardly stand to be in there. In the front room, she looked around at Muriel’s taxidermy materials, all laid out neatly. A dead swan hung by its scrawny legs from a meat hook attached to the ceiling, its throat cut and a basin of congealed blood with bits of feathers underneath collecting drips. A dismembered hare was pinned gaping open on a plywood board on the table, its bones in the process of being removed. A bloodied scalpel and an open jar marked Arsenic, POISON sat beside it. Coming through from the kitchen, Ruby cursed, readjusted her hat, picked up a lid and screwed it back on the arsenic jar. She breathed out loudly and threw the jar roughly into the sack she was holding open with the other hand.
Stella followed her into the bedroom. There was no sign of Muriel there either. The room smelt stuffy, of bedclothes that needed changing. The bed was a mess of sheets and blankets and the paraffin heater was on. Ruby turned it off and yanked the thin curtains back on their wires. Grey autumn light seeped into the room and made it look abandoned. Muriel’s little travel clock that she took everywhere was on the bedside table, propped up in its case, saying ten to two and still ticking. In the other bedroom – the smaller room where Stella used to sleep – the bed had been stripped and Muriel’s clothes were strewn all over. The window was open, the curtain billowing. Ruby banged the window shut and screwed it tight. She stormed about, picking up items of clothing and throwing them back down. Grandma Willoughby seemed to be looking for something, but Stella didn’t know what. There was a pair of man-size wellies beside the front door, but Grandma Willoughby didn’t seem to notice those. In the little bathroom she picked up some shaving things and both toothbrushes and threw them into the sack along with the poison.
‘I’ll set fire to the place,’ she said. ‘That’ll fettle her. And Him. Whoever He is.’ Grandma Willoughby knew fine well who He was.
But Ruby didn’t set fire to the place, she just went round grabbing randomly at Muriel’s taxidermy things – the dead swan and the hare included – and stuffed them at arm’s length into the old coal sacks they’d brought.
‘Get that basin emptied out, our Stella,’ she said, kicking the enamel one that was catching the blood, ‘and get a move on.’ Ruby held a sack open with one hand and stuffed things in it with the other, all the while muttering and cursing. Bluebottles, disturbed from the dismembered bodies, buzzed against the skylight.
Stella couldn’t lift up the enamel basin; it was stuck to the floor. When she finally pulled it away, it came unstuck with a jerk and semi-congealed blood splashed over the edge and onto her hand. Her instinct was to drop the whole thing, but she didn’t dare let go of it. She held the basin out at out arm’s length, holding her breath, trying not to breathe in the smell of the blood or feel the touch of it on her hand. It was like in Treasure Island where you’re given the Black Spot and then you die. A horrid feeling swept over her – just for a moment – a horrid, horrid feeling. Then it passed. Stella went into the lean-to and turned on the tap. There was no water. She stood there, helpless. A loud sigh and Grandma Willoughby stomped in, dumping the sack she was carrying at the door.
‘For pity’s sake, our Stella, get your wits about you,’ she said as she snatched the basin from Stella’s hands, now splashing more of its vile contents on the floor. ‘See to it you get that floor wiped,’ she commanded as she wrenched open the back door and threw the whole basin and everything in it outside so it disappeared among the marram grass and dead bracken. Slamming the door shut again, Grandma Willoughby turned the key in the lock, removed it and shoved it deep into her coat pocket. ‘And you can put your face straight, our Stella, or there’ll be Trouble,’ she said.
Stella watched Grandma Willoughby unfold a copy of the Court Order and fix it on the wall above the stove. She fixed it with a nail in each corner and she hammered them in with the thick end of the poker. Then she stuck it round with parcel tape for good measure.
‘Come along, our Stella,’ she said, gathering up the sacks and baskets and boxes she’d stuffed all the paraphernalia in and dumped them on the creaky veranda outside. ‘Come along, and get a move on.’ They left the sacks and baskets and boxes there, leaking blood and formalin. The only thing Grandma Willoughby brought away with her that day was a small Kilner jar with some hateful wizened specimen in. She’d stopped on the way to the car, taken it out of her bag as though she meant to throw it into the hedge, but she hesitated and put it back in her bag. She grabbed Stella by the wrist and pulled her all the way back to the car.
‘That’s that,’ Grandma Willoughby said with finality as she started the engine. But of course it wasn’t. And Stella had to travel all the way home with the congealed blood still on her hand.
The Beach Hut. Stella hasn’t thought of any of that for years. She has the keys for the Beach Hut, but she won’t go there. Not yet. Not with that Frank Fanshaw panting after her, in that way he does.
Clutching the suitcase, Stella wonders why Frank was waiting for her at the boarding house, why Frank wants to go to the Beach Hut, why he wants Stella to go with him.
Stella opens her case and feels around for the envelope from the prison. She pulls out the introductory letter to the social worker. Newcastle upon Tyne Probation Service, it says at the top. She’ll have to ring that Clara up again. Ask for more concrete help. She’s entitled. Marcia said. Entitled. Don’t forget, Stella. They’re expecting you. You’re entitled.
Chapter Eleven
Stella, standing outside the YWCA in Clayton Street, waits for Probation Officer Gareth Davies to show up. It’s cold and she pulls the thin cardy about her, but it’s damp and she can’t get warm. They’d said she could wait inside if she wanted, but Stella would rather wait out here. She shifts from foot to foot, one either side of the little blue suitcase, her bare feet grubby and wet in the gold lamé sandals. It’s October and these shoes are for summer. Marcia should not have let her get away with wearing them. Stella has proper clothes in the case but there’s nowhere to get changed. Plus there’s a part of her that still doesn’t want to put the proper things on, a part of her that wants to keep these clothes on, stupid as they are. Marcia would have understood that, bless her.
On the phone the social worker man said he’d be straight over, but there’s no sign of him. Maybe Stella’s in the wrong place? She might have got it wrong. The place, the time, the date – anything – she could have got something, anything wrong. Stella looks around. No. This is the YWCA. This must be right. This is where she’s meant to be. She’ll wait a bit longer and see if he comes. If he doesn’t come, Stella will make a new plan, decide what to do. Meanwhile, she lights a Number Six – the last of Frank’s. She crumples the empty packet in the palm of her hand and chucks it into the gutter, feeling a surge of guilt. Stella, the kid, in big trouble for throwing litter. She should pick it up, pick it up now, you bend down and you pick that up right now, our Stella. Stella can’t understand why she’s thrown it down, why she can’t pick it up, why she’s acting like a person she knows she’s not. It can’t seem to be any other way. Where’s this Gareth man? Stella’s suddenly not sure she wants to wait any longer in this place.
Stella used to stand right here, right on this spot, on the Wednesdays Grandma Willoughby did her Sittings, and Muriel was allowed to pick her up from the dancing class. Stella half liked those days and half hated them. Muriel was never on time and Stella could never be certain she would come at all. She’d wait and wait, yet she might end up having to ge
t the bus, or walk back to Grandma Willoughby’s by herself. If it was dark or wet, they might send Mr Fanshaw. Stella would much rather walk alone in the dark than go in the car with Frank Fanshaw.
This place doesn’t have pleasant memories for Stella. She could have gone directly to the Probation Office – the receptionist, Clara, had suggested it – but Stella had found herself holding out to meet the Probation Officer at the YWCA. She couldn’t explain it to herself, how it was she found herself doing things she didn’t want to do, saying things she didn’t believe in. But it happened all the time. And now she’s waiting here for the man from the Probation and she’s trying not to think about all those Wednesdays she helped with the preparations for the Sittings – cleaning out the grate, setting the fire with newspaper and kindling, pulling the little green baize card table into the middle of the room, covering it with the starched white cloth, and lining up the pairs of little white cotton gloves along the sideboard. Then, when all that was done, she was allowed to go off to the dancing class, and afterwards, there’d be her mother, come to fetch her home. And Grandma Willoughby and her Ladies might still be at it when Stella and Muriel got back. Or they’d be massing in the passage, doing up their bristly coats that smelt of mothballs, progging in their hat-pins, murmuring insights, nodding, nodding, nodding, another successful session over. Muriel had no time for any of it. She’d drop Stella off, a quick peck on the cheek, and she’d be gone, the garden gate swinging behind her.
Stella remembers little about her childhood, hardly anything compared to Marcia who could, and did, reel off tale after tale of what life was like in the Caribbean before her family brought her to London when she was fifteen. That was 1958, when Stella was only five. Marcia had Stella enraptured with her stories and Stella, hearing them in all their colourful detail, could only wonder how it was that so much of her own past was either only sketched out in black and white, or had been entirely forgotten.
‘Maybe it’s not lost,’ Marcia used to joke, ‘just temporarily mislaid.’ Marcia remembered everything, not just events, but loads of minute detail, before, during and after. Her stories were full of sounds, tastes and smells. They transported Stella far away to distant places and right into the heart of Marcia’s life. Marcia brought the world alive. She brought Stella alive. The sad stories made Stella cry, and Stella wasn’t one for crying.
‘They’re only stories, Stell,’ Marcia would say, rocking with laughter. ‘Don’t believe a word I say! They’re stories, I make them up as I go along… C’mon honey, see the funny side…’
Looking down at her cold feet in the lamé slippers, Stella thinks about her mother. Part of her shrinks from any kind of remembering, but there’s another part that, since she’s been out, seems to want to build up a picture, a more complete picture of Muriel, wants to find out how Stella fits into that picture, if anywhere.
‘Everyone wants to fit in, to find their place, to belong somewhere,’ Marcia said. ‘You can’t spend your whole life on the outside, looking in.’
Sometimes Stella thought she couldn’t wait to grow up, couldn’t wait to take her rightful place in Muriel’s magical shoes. Other times she wasn’t so sure, she was never exactly sure what being grown up might mean for her, beyond a longing for the lovely things. And now, the gold lamé slippers with the kitten heels, the lovely slinky silk dress and the lacy sage cardy – they’re all Stella’s. The little blue honeymoon case. All hers. There was a time when Stella would have sold her soul for those slippers. It’s strange how longing turns inside out when it’s satisfied…
Stella wishes the Gareth man would get a move on. She’s fed up waiting in the cold outside the YWCA. She wouldn’t have worn these clothes if she’d known how cold it was going to be. She wouldn’t have come back to this place if she’d known it was going to drag her backwards and make her remember all the things she preferred to forget.
Let the thoughts wash over you, Stella. Acknowledge them then let them pass, let them go on their way.
But Marcia hadn’t killed a person. Marcia didn’t know what it was like to be stuck in that place where you had killed someone, and that person still had a hold on you like you were stuck to them and they wouldn’t let go and they’d been there so long they were a part of you and they were eating away, eating away all the time inside of you, because that’s what happens when you kill someone, they’re yours forever, you’re tied to them, you can never let go. No, Marcia didn’t know any of that. And when that person is your mother and you can’t work out where it went wrong and why it went wrong and you try and you try, but your memory’s fucked and you’re fucked and there’s nothing makes any sense any more…
Calm down, Stella. The man from the Probation will be here any minute, you don’t want him to think you are some kind of Crazy.
‘Your shadow’s bigger than you are,’ Marcia says. ‘It can be walking right in front of you. But that’s only because the sun’s behind.’
Little Stella, just thirteen, waited here for Muriel to collect her from the dancing class.
Muriel’s always late. Muriel’s always smartly dressed. Muriel, so different from other people’s mothers who wear clothes you never even notice. Muriel stands out, doesn’t like to be the same as anyone, doesn’t like even to be the same as herself.
Little Stella, waiting, plays a game with herself: What will Muriel look like this time? The scarlet lipstick – they colour it with cochineal, made from beetles’ blood – beige trench coat, belted tight at the waist, open at the neck, accentuates Muriel’s breasts and makes men look; Muriel, her head held high, never a hair out of place. Pretending not to notice. Wafts of Muriel, the faintest hint of Nina Ricci. Little Stella, holding the blue suitcase tight between her feet, uses both hands to flatten down her own hair. She needn’t worry. Grandma Willoughby has tied it back tight in a ponytail with a stiff Alice band at the front for good measure. It’s digging into Stella’s skull, pulling her hair at the roots. Stella daren’t touch it for fear of getting her wild hair all over the place and out of control and hell to pay. Stella stands up straight, an invisible string pulls from the top of her head like a marionette. She wishes she were taller. Like Muriel.
Muriel leaning against a grand piano in an up-market nightclub, lights dimmed and candles. She’s wearing a floor-length slinky dress – deep purple and satiny – that clings on Muriel’s curves and falls away in soft folds, trailing behind her across the polished floor. A gesture to the pianist with her long cigarette holder, the sweet, sweet scent of the smoke from the Balkan Sobranie, it curls elegantly towards the ceiling. The pianist, in a dinner suit and a black bow tie, slicked-back hair, shiny, well-defined eyebrows, thin moustache and a faint blue shadow across his chin. He tugs once at each shirt cuff, flicks his tails and takes his seat at the piano. He looks at Muriel. She half closes her eyes and starts to sing in that special husky voice she saves for telephones and parties. The piano plinks in to join her in the fourth bar.
Little Stella, so very proud to have such a mother: elegant, sensual, remote, beautiful. And waiting outside the dancing class that day, Stella had been certain Muriel was soon going to be very proud of her: Stella had been awarded the treasured dancing certificate, has it tucked away safe inside the pocket of the little blue suitcase. Awarded to Stella Moon, it says, Grade One, with Merit. Stella, jigging about from foot to foot, can hardly wait for Muriel to get there.
But that was the day everything turned inside out. Muriel was unusually late, even for her. Stella had begun to wonder if her mother was coming at all, or would it be the vile Frank Fanshaw? Please, God, if you’re real and if you care about me, don’t let it be Frank Fanshaw. Stella had waited and waited. A trolley bus swished by, squeaking on its cables, drizzle visible in the headlamps. An old man shuffled past, wheezing like poor Grandpa Worthy, confined to his bed with emphysema of the lungs, brought on by years down the pit breathing in filth and living in damp. Then there was a woma
n, expecting, enormous, waddling, like poor Mrs Keating, a rattling bag of nerves Grandma Willoughby said, cursing the big Silver Cross pram that blocked the hall at the Boarding House.
That day, when Muriel eventually came striding towards Stella, it was obvious something was wrong. Already she was shouting for Stella to stand up straight, or did she want to end up like Quasimodo? And Muriel didn’t have the trench coat on. Or the lipstick. And her hair was a mess. How could Stella have been so wrong? Muriel’s hair had escaped from its pins on one side and was flapping with wet. With one hand Muriel caught hold of Stella roughly by the wrist and with the other she picked up the case. She pulled Stella across the road to the bus stop. One car had to screech to a halt to let them get by and the driver leaned heavily on the horn. Muriel ignored him. Muriel walked fast along past the shops and all the way to the bus stop, pulling Stella behind her. Stella didn’t dare mention that she needed the toilet. And she didn’t dare mention about the certificate. When they got off the bus, Muriel grabbed at Stella’s wrist again but she let go half way across the road. Stella had to run to keep up, Muriel was rushing so fast back to the house. Stella soon found out why. Back at the boarding house, Muriel’s precious father lay dying.
There’s a young man talking to Stella, he’s touching her on the shoulder, he’s looking into her face and asking if she’s alright. He’s saying his name is Gareth Davies, he’s holding out his hand. Stella has some trouble re-orienting herself. She looks at him. He has black hair and blue eyes with thick lashes. He’s wearing a suit but the tie’s a bit loose and his top button’s undone. Stella has some trouble finding her voice.