A Place for Us

by Harriet Evans

  When Martha went to the bathroom five minutes later, she wondered if she’d hear Daisy snoring, as she was wont to. She even smiled at herself in the mirror while washing her hands. Perhaps Daisy was mellowing in her old age.

  The prickling, uncertain feeling she could never entirely get rid of, that was what was bothering her, not her hip, not those headaches. . . . And suddenly, with a small cry Martha flung open the bathroom cabinet. But she knew what she’d see even before that. The sleeping pills were open, and the bottle was empty.

  Martha pushed open the bathroom door, kicking the towels and sheets out of the way, stumbling as her foot caught on a pillowcase. She fell to the floor, crying out, and then she remembered she was alone: Florence had taken Cat to London, David was gone. Gone. She staggered toward Daisy’s bedroom.

  She knew before she opened the door what she would see. Daisy was lying on the bed, head pulled back, but she wasn’t snoring. Her eyes were half-open, just like when she was a baby. Martha leaned over, her heart pounding so hard she couldn’t hear anything else. She cried out her daughter’s name, over and over. She shook her, but she didn’t move.

  Then she saw the note, in Daisy’s neat, tiny handwriting, splashed with tea.

  Dearest Ma,

  Don’t be sad. I’d already taken the pills when you came in. I’m glad I got to talk to you before I started to go to sleep. I have only done what I wanted to do. I know how to do it, too, I’ve been planning it for a while. One of the reasons the charity sacked me was drugs—heroin. Heroin, yes, I know. Some kind guy from an NGO got me hooked on the stuff a few years ago. You’d expect better from a charity worker, wouldn’t you? But it’s a good way to kill yourself if you know how to mix it, and with what. I’ve picked up a few things along the way, haven’t I?

  I’d run out of things to do, and I wasn’t any good at any of the things I did do. Never was, we all know it, don’t we. And I hate being back here. Dad’s a fake, it reminds me every time what a fake he is. You know I hate how he’s lied about everything. Where he comes from. Where Florence comes from. She’s his bastard, isn’t she? I know she isn’t yours. I remember that summer you went away, and you came back with a baby, and we were supposed to believe it. He had an affair, didn’t he? He lied to you. I know she’s his, he loves her more than me, more than Bill, you can see it.

  I get these bits of rage when I can’t see straight and I want to—I don’t know. Kill something, I suppose. I always felt I didn’t belong here. But then, not anywhere. I tried so many places and I went as far away as I could and it’s just I don’t belong anywhere.

  I can hear you singing “The Sun Whose Rays” as I write this, and I wish you sang more. You used to all the time and now I think you’re sad. Thank you for saying you wouldn’t give me the pills. It makes it much clearer, doesn’t it?

  Ma, can you bury me here, next to Wilbur? In the garden. Wilbur was my friend, and he was my idea.

  Tired now. Please make sure Catherine okay? She

  There it ended.

  She stood in the hot bedroom and looked down at her daughter, face slack, limbs heavy, at rest at last.

  Then Martha went into her bedroom and shut the door. She listened once again. Everything was silent. No one near, no one with her except Daisy. She sat on the edge of the bed, gazing out at her garden, at the neat rows of lettuce, the apple trees in the distant orchard. At the daisy bank, churned with mole holes. Then she stood up and crossed herself, though she had no idea why, or what it would do to help her, and she went outside to the shed and picked up a spade. A time to be born, and a time to die, and I was there at both of them. I love you, Daisy, and I will hold you close now, the way I never could before.

  Martha had learned a lot from her years in the countryside during the war. She knew how to bury old folk and dead sheep, and she’d buried a few Winter dogs in her time. She’d buried Hadley by herself, after he’d been put down after the summer party when he attacked someone. You had to dig a hole so deep nothing else could get to it. And as she was working all that long day, she tried to feel nothing, and when Florence came back from her day trip to London, flushed and happy and obviously up to something, Martha told her Daisy had left.

  “She got an e-mail from the orphanage about a grant that’s come through,” she said, sitting at the kitchen table, sipping the stone-cold cup of tea as if it connected her to something.

  “So she just left?” Florence said. “My God, she really does take the biscuit. She didn’t even say good-bye!”

  “You know Daisy,” said Martha. “It must have been important.”

  “That’s rubbish. She was just sick of being here, that’s all, and no one was paying her any attention. She never changes.” Florence looked at her watch. “Well—I might just make a phone call!” Her face creased into a joyful smile. “I have some work to do.”

  Martha watched her bounce out of the room into David’s study. She followed her and stood in the doorway. “You seem very jolly,” Martha said.

  “Oh . . . it’s nothing really!” Florence said, her mouth twitching. Then she frowned. “Oh . . . Daisy’s Yahoo is still open.”

  “What?”

  “Her e-mail. Looks like . . .” Florence started clicking on the screen.

  “Stop it,” Martha said, realizing something. “Let me. She didn’t have time, she had to leave fairly suddenly.”

  Florence, who was even more in another world than usual, stood up and started scanning the bookshelves, humming to herself.

  “Why are you singing that?” Martha sat down at the computer. She stared at the screen. If she logged out of Daisy’s e-mail, that was it—she’d never get back in again. This way . . .

  “Singing what?”

  “ ‘The Sun Whose Rays.’ ”

  Florence turned round. “No idea. Were you playing it yesterday?”

  Heart racing, blood thumping, Martha opened Daisy’s account details. You have about ten seconds. You have to appear calm. If you take too long, this will start to look suspicious. My account. Reset password online. She clicked on the link. What is your mother’s maiden name? What is your date of birth?

  Martha swallowed. “I’m sorry you missed her,” she said. She had never wanted anything more than she wanted Florence to go away for just a minute. “Love, can you put the kettle on?”

  Florence gave her a curious glance but went into the kitchen, still humming. Martha changed the password to something she could remember, Daisy61, and closed down the application. When Florence returned, she stood up.

  “I’d love some tea if you’re making a pot,” Florence said.

  Martha stared at her. “I’m not, no. See you later.”

  She went upstairs smoothly, and locked Daisy’s door.

  • • •

  The next morning, after Florence had left, Martha dragged her middle child down the twisting staircase, through the kitchen, and outside to the garden. Though she had been painfully thin in life, in death Daisy was heavy, and Martha was old, and she cried as she carried her, because it was undignified, and she had wanted it to be dignified, a proper end to the life of her baby, her baby girl whom she had somehow ruined, broken. She had favored her too much or too little; she didn’t know, but Daisy had never been right, and now that she could finally do something that her daughter wanted for her, it ought to be done properly. In the afternoon sunshine she rolled Daisy into the black sheeting they used on the lawn, and bound her up with plastic ties. Sometimes she had to stop, sometimes pain overwhelmed her and she knelt beside her daughter, crying as quietly as she could; but then she would count to five. Stand up again, pretend she was doing something else. Something mundane.

  All the time she was doing it, Martha had the unreal sense that someone would appear, would find out what she was doing, would stop her. But they didn’t, and she was glad, because she knew it was what her daughter wanted. B
efore the last tie covered up Daisy’s face, Martha steeled herself, stroked her daughter’s forehead, then ran her finger along the bridge of her nose as she had done when Daisy was tiny, to get her to close her eyes and sleep. She covered the body over with earth, and replaced the turf as best she could, trusting that no one would go out there for months, maybe. David wouldn’t be able to walk far when he came home, and no one else was in the garden these days. Cat was gone, and Bill had Karen, and Lucy was grown-up. It was just Martha, and Daisy.

  On sunny days Martha went out to the daisy bank, and sometimes she talked to her. Mostly, she just sat there, quite still, keeping her company. She knew enough to know it was ridiculous to think Daisy would want to hear her prattling on about life. She hadn’t cared when she was alive; she wouldn’t care now. Somehow that made a kind of sense to Martha.

  Martha

  November 2012

  IT WAS KAREN who broke the silence. She stood up, walked over to the sideboard, and poured Martha some red wine. “Here,” she said, and then she crouched down beside her mother-in-law and handed her the glass. She pulled Martha’s neatly pressed handkerchief out of her pocket and gave it to her, and Martha blew her nose, still crying, as Karen stroked her arm, her hand, the back of her neck. “There, there,” Karen said softly. “It’s all right. You did the right thing. You did the right thing.”

  The others watched her without moving, rooted to their seats as though by some kind of magic. Martha’s sobs hung in the heavy, silent air, only the faintest rattle of chase-scene music from Luke’s DVD echoing from the other side of the house.

  Eventually Karen stood up again and went back to her seat. She spread her hands wide and, with a little laugh of strained near-hysteria, she said, “You know, someone has to say something eventually.”

  She turned to her husband, who wouldn’t meet her glance. His eyes were full of tears.

  “I gave her money,” said Florence eventually. “For her school. Last year. And she e-mailed me,” more loudly. “A couple of days ago, Ma. Was—was that you?”

  Martha nodded.

  “You were e-mailing us all?” Florence said hoarsely. “All that time?”

  “Since . . . after Bill and Karen’s wedding.” Martha wiped her nose and stuffed the handkerchief in her pocket. “Not before. She did it all before.”

  “What happened to the money?” Bill said.

  “That’s what you care about?” Martha turned to him. “Honestly, Bill? I tell you this story and that’s what you want to know?”

  Bill said softly, “I was just wondering, that’s all. Ma, it must have been quite a lot.”

  “The charity and the orphanage, they sacked her for stealing. I sent them the money back, in her name, to apologize. And then I kept on sending them money, as if it was from her, from all of us.” Martha shrugged, her hands in her pockets. “I thought that’s what she’d want.”

  “Daisy was out for herself—” Florence stopped. “I’m sorry.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve, and looked from her father to her mother. “This is . . . Ma, this is crazy. Absolutely bloody crazy. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  Martha sat upright. This was the hardest bit of all. “I wanted people . . . to . . . to think well of her. She wasn’t like you two. She found things

  difficult.”

  “I—” Florence exploded, her mouth open, but she closed it swiftly, shaking her head. “We all find things difficult, you know, Ma. That doesn’t mean—you lie, and steal, and cheat, and abandon people, and hurt people, and . . .” Her voice broke. “That doesn’t mean you do those things.”

  “I know,” Martha said. “I know that.” Her fingers touched her forehead, as if buying herself time. After a pause, she looked up at her eldest granddaughter. “Cat?”

  Cat shook her head, her lips clamped together, grimacing. She covered her face with her hands. David reached out to her, stroked her arm.

  “My dear girl,” David said, his voice as faint as a whisper, but Cat said nothing.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Bill said, almost conversationally. “I honestly don’t know what we should do.”

  “Well, I think we should call the police.” Florence looked around the table. “It’s illegal, what you did, Ma, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, don’t, Florence,” said Lucy, speaking for the first time.

  Florence said, “But someone’s going to find out sooner or later. We can’t just leave her there.”

  “We can,” said David. “You can bury someone on private ground.”

  “Not like this!” Florence blinked, her eyes bulging. “Bill, what is it? What’s the term for it?”

  “Disposing of a body and preventing lawful burial,” Bill whispered.

  “Exactly. It’s illegal. You could go to prison. Why—what?” Florence burst out laughing. “This is crazy, it’s just crazy. . . .”

  Lucy turned to her left and pointed her finger at her aunt. “Oh, stop it,” she said. “Have a heart, Florence, for God’s sake. Stop it.” Florence shook her head in disbelief and Lucy paused, trying to think through what they should do next, what happened now. “Does anyone know a lawyer? I think we need a lawyer.”

  Karen said, “I do.”

  Lucy nodded. “Great, Karen.”

  Bill looked at his wife across the table. “Who’s that, then?”

  But Karen looked sadly at her husband, and turned to Cat. “Cat, love. This is a big shock to us all, isn’t it? Why don’t you say something?”

  Cat, who was staring down at nothing, shook her head. Eventually, very softly, she whispered, “I don’t know what to say.”

  Bill shuffled his chair closer to his niece. He put his arm around her. “Cat, whatever it is that’s happened, we’re all here now, aren’t we? It doesn’t change the fact we’re very glad you came back, and that you’ve brought Luke. He’s part of our family, like you, me . . .” His eyes rested on Karen for a moment, then dropped down. The plate was broken where he’d dropped the knife on it. He pushed the two cracked pieces together carefully. “Daisy—she was wonderful, but she wasn’t ever happy. Perhaps it’s . . .” He trailed off.

  “It’s for the best?” Cat laughed. “I don’t know.” Her eyes filled with tears. “What was wrong with her? What’s wrong with me?”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Florence said wretchedly. “Nothing’s wrong with you. You poor darling girl.” She stood up. “I do think we have to call the police.”

  “No.” Karen shook her head. “Let them alone for just a day or two. Then we’ll decide.”

  Florence gave her a sharp look, but said nothing.

  “Who made you the family spokesman all of a sudden?” Bill asked his wife.

  “Don’t, Bill,” she said, brushing him aside with a tired gesture, so small and determined, right hand fiddling with her wedding and engagement rings, turning them over and over.

  “Get out,” he said suddenly. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  Karen stared at him. “Really, Bill? Now?”

  “You two. Not now,” Martha said.

  “Dad—” Lucy held out a placatory hand. “Not now, Dad, if you’re going to—”

  He turned to her and said, “Don’t worry, Lucy sweetheart.”

  “But, Dad, please don’t—”

  “Lucy.” His voice was hard. “Mind your own business.”

  “It is my business!” Lucy shouted, her voice cracking. “This is all my business, all our business.”

  “No,” David cried weakly. “We mustn’t turn on each other. We’re a family, goddamn it. That’s what I did it all for.”

  But his soft voice was drowned out by the sliding of the doors. Karen stood up and Bill turned back to her, grabbing her wrist.

  “All I ever wanted was to make you happy, to make a home with you, our own home away from all this. And what have you done? Why are y
ou here?”

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t be here,” Karen said. “I’ve never belonged here. It’s a shame ’cause I thought I could, but you’re right.” Her voice rose, and she didn’t see the two figures standing in the open doorway. “You’re all so afraid of being honest with each other, telling the truth for once, being open about what’s going on, and this is where it’s got you!”

  “You bloody hypocrite !” Bill shouted, and Martha watched in horror as her son’s expression changed so that he looked quite wild. “She’s pregnant, you know? Three months pregnant! And, you know, I’m not the father.” He jabbed his hand behind him. “That idiot through there, Joe! He’s the father, for God’s sake, and yet I’m the one who’s not been honest!”

  Karen put one hand to her neck, rubbing it, her eyes huge in her small, white face. “Bill, I told you yesterday. It could be his, it might not be. I said I always thought because nothing happened for years . . .” She shook her head. “Not now. Let’s not talk about it now, Bill.”

  “Why not?” Bill drew himself up, tall, his trembling lips pushed together. “Why can’t we?”

  “Dad, shut up,” Lucy said. “Not now.”

  “Of course I couldn’t talk about it to you,” Karen said suddenly, tears glittering in her eyes. “Four years together, and nothing happened. I thought it must be me. You’d already had a kid. And I couldn’t talk to you about it.”

  “No.” He stared at her, agonized. “You could.”

  “Bill, I couldn’t. I tried and I—you know I tried. You have time for everyone else, darling. Not me.” The words stuck in her throat. “And the one time I didn’t—I was reckless—I . . . the one time we didn’t . . . Oh, God. This is a mess. I . . .”