Bitter Orange

by Claire Fuller

  ‘My mother is dead,’ I said to the doctor. Mrs Lee folded her arms.

  ‘Are you certain she’s passed away?’ he asked, as though I were in the habit of telephoning and giving such news. I laughed. I had no doubts that she was dead from the way the skin on her cheeks hung from the bone, from the flies that had reached her although I’d kept the windows closed, and from the smell that no amount of washing with the flannels had erased. The doctor came, took one look and called the undertaker’s. He told me I should have telephoned him sooner, but there was sympathy in his expression and he must have known that now I was alone. He prescribed pills to help me sleep, but I didn’t take them: I had no trouble sleeping.

  On the roof, Peter said, ‘Sometimes that’s for the best. When they’ve been ill for a while, if they’ve been suffering.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s what Fran means,’ Cara said, staring at me until it seemed that her eyes had pierced me: a thousand tiny pinholes letting in the light, exposing everything.

  ‘She was bedridden.’ I dragged my eyes from Cara’s. ‘She hadn’t left the house in ten years.’

  ‘Did you look after her on your own?’ Cara asked casually. She stretched out her fingers and stared at her hand, as if examining her nail polish. There was a tiny black line on one of her knuckles. She held it up to me. ‘Thunderfly,’ she said. The insect’s rear end curled, the same action as a scorpion, and then it was gone. The light had turned odd, yellow like the film that kept shop-window displays from spoiling.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I did everything. I cooked for her, helped her to the lavatory, washed her.’ I took a gulp of champagne and thought about telling them how it had really been in that claustrophobic room in Dollis Hill.

  ‘She didn’t have any friends or relations?’ Peter said.

  ‘A couple of old friends, but no one who could help out. There was only me.’ I lay back on the blanket and we were all quiet for a long time. I closed my eyes. I had loved her though; I omitted to tell them that I had loved her.

  Cara’s voice woke me, but this time she was shouting, not singing along to Simon and Garfunkel. ‘I’m not allowed to leave you, remember? We promised each other.’

  ‘But that was years ago,’ Peter said in his calm voice.

  ‘And what? That means it doesn’t count?’ Cara was still shouting.

  ‘No, of course, of course. But we’re together now, here, aren’t we?’

  She staggered upright and knocked over the half-full bottle of champagne with her foot. I struggled to rouse myself from the fug in my head as the drink frothed out over the tablecloth and the remains of the salmon. ‘Bloody hell,’ Peter said. ‘Do you know how much this bottle is worth?’ He reached for it, while I tried to move the food and mop up the wine, my hands not quite connecting with my brain.

  ‘Cara!’ I heard a small voice calling from a long way off. ‘Cara! No.’

  Peter and I, both on our hands and knees, stopped tidying and looked behind us. Cara was at the very lip of the roof, her toes over the edge, her body swaying. The voice came again as I scrabbled up, crushing a paper parasol with my knee, my shoes slipping on salmon and mayonnaise, and I fell forward to grab hold of Cara, just as Peter was doing the same. A man, far below, jumped off his bicycle when he reached the gates, letting it drop before he ran towards the house. It took me a second to recognize Victor with his hair loose, and wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

  We were all standing on the edge that day, at the very rim of the precipice, staring into the void. Something inside us wanted to see what it would be like to jump, just to find out what would happen, an actual physical lurch that seemed so possible, except we all knew that once we had jumped there would be no way back.

  I had thought I would like living life to the maximum, I had thought I would enjoy being unconstrained and reckless, but I learned that it is terrifying to look into the abyss.

  Cara didn’t fall. We grabbed her, Peter and I, and pulled her away from the edge. All three of us crashed backwards, a sprawl of arms and legs, Cara’s dress torn, a red welt across Peter’s neck, my left hand scraped to match my right. I don’t remember us climbing through the attic window, although we must have – leaving the crushed remains of our picnic and the blue and gold crockery up on the roof.

  We found Victor in the entrance hall, too polite to go further into the house uninvited. ‘Are you all right?’ he said to Cara. ‘I was worried you were going to …’ He looked at Peter for confirmation. ‘… fall,’ he finished.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Peter said to Victor, his voice frosty.

  ‘What were you all doing up there?’ Victor said. ‘It didn’t look very safe.’

  ‘We were having a picnic.’ I went forward, forever the responsible girl who owns up in front of the headmaster. I was irritated with Victor for the things he had said the day before and I didn’t understand why he’d come again.

  ‘Isn’t it a nice day for a picnic?’ Cara said, smiling. She was fiddling with the earrings Peter had bought her and I had a sudden ludicrous worry that Victor would ask her where she got them and how Peter could afford them.

  Peter had put an ironwork table and three chairs on the portico, and I realized they were the ones from the photograph in the book I’d taken from the library. He went to fetch one of the old packing cases from the basement for a fourth seat and Cara went off to make tea. The light was still a sickening yellow, like it might be the end of times.

  When Victor and I were alone he bent his head, his Jesus hair falling forward, and whispered, ‘You didn’t tell her, did you? About the young man?’ I frowned at him. ‘The young man who jumped from the gallery in the entrance hall,’ he said.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘It’s just I thought that might be why Cara was about to jump.’

  ‘She wasn’t about to jump,’ I said. ‘She and Peter had been arguing. It was nothing. She was getting some air. It was very close up there on the roof.’

  Peter arrived then with the packing case and Cara came back to ask if Victor took milk and sugar, apologizing that she didn’t have any biscuits, saying that if she’d known he would be coming she’d have made some little chocolate-dipped orange madeleines because she had picked three oranges from the bitter orange tree. She described in detail how she would have beaten the eggs if she hadn’t used them all for the mayonnaise, how she would have made a batter with them and the juice of the three oranges, and folded in the flour if she had remembered to buy more, and how it’s most important to let the batter sit for an hour or two in the fridge before it’s piped into the mould. She apologized for not having any dark chocolate that she could melt and dip the cooled cakes into. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that inside the oranges were probably dried up and useless.

  Victor sat at the table, looking as though he already regretted coming over. We made a half-hearted effort to talk about the temperature and whether there was going to be a thunderstorm. Peter sat with his arms folded: cross, I supposed, that religion had intruded upon his tea table. Cara returned once more, saying she was sorry but we didn’t have any milk, so would the vicar like a slice of lemon instead. When she had gone again, Victor put his hand on the top of his head. ‘Good God! I completely forgot why I came.’

  ‘Not more peacocks’ eyes?’ Peter said. I hadn’t realized he’d noticed the work we’d done in the blue drawing room.

  Victor stood and pulled an envelope from his jeans pocket. ‘A telegram! I happened to be in the post office when it arrived and there was some argument about the delivery boy or the postman cycling all the way out here to deliver it, and I offered. I thought another ride out to see you, Miss Jellico, would be nice.’ I knew he was checking up on me, but I wasn’t grateful. I didn’t need anyone to take care of me.

  Before he could hand over the telegram, Cara was there with a silver tray, the Lynton coat of arms etched on the surface, which the teapot only half obscured. ‘We haven’t any lemons, I hope that’s all right. I forgot
that I used them in the mayonnaise and that’s on the roof with the rest of the salmon and potatoes, although I don’t suppose you’d want mayonnaise in your tea in any case.’ Only she laughed.

  ‘It’s quite all right. Thank you.’ Victor thrust the envelope forward, moving it in the space between Peter and me, and while I was thinking it was odd that the telegram should be addressed to us both, Peter took it and opened it.

  He looked ill, his face pasty. ‘Christ Almighty,’ he said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Victor said. ‘Bad news?’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  Cara ignored Peter and the telegram, and poured the tea into the cups. She was smiling but her hands were shaking.

  ‘It’s Liebermann. He’s on his way over.’

  ‘Here? From America?’ I said, without thinking. Peter stared at the teapot. I took the telegram out of his hands and read it. ‘What day is it today?’

  ‘Tuesday,’ Victor said.

  ‘No, the date.’

  ‘Twenty-sixth.’

  ‘Of August?’

  ‘Yes, August. Is that a problem?’ Victor looked from one to the other of us.

  ‘He’ll be here tomorrow morning.’

  Peter continued to stare without saying anything.

  ‘Haven’t you finished your reports?’ Victor asked. ‘Surely he’ll give you a few days’ grace?’

  I thought of the furniture in the rooms upstairs – the writing desk, the beds and mirrors, the glassware and cutlery, the mahogany dining table and the rug and chaise longue – as well as the missing Reynolds, and the Egyptian cat I hadn’t seen since the day we opened the Museum. I remembered how we hadn’t done any washing-up for at least a week, and how the empty wine and champagne bottles that we had started collecting almost as keepsakes now lined the edges of Cara and Peter’s sitting room. I thought about the clothes, the Italian cardboard buildings, and the bear. It would be impossible to put it all back and tidy up before tomorrow morning. Would Mr Liebermann be able to work out what had been going on? I thought about my few sketches, my basic measurements of the bridge and the follies, my watercolours of the orangery, the rough notes I’d written for my report.

  None of us said anything, although Cara was smiling. Victor stood and said, ‘Well, thank you for the tea. I should be getting back.’

  Cara and Peter didn’t look up or acknowledge that they had heard him.

  ‘I’ll show you out,’ I said.

  Beside the gates, Victor put his bicycle clips on without looking at me.

  ‘Thank you for coming with the telegram,’ I said.

  ‘Actually, that was just an excuse.’ Victor picked up his bike; it was heavy and old, black with a little pocket hanging off the back seat, a lady’s bike with the chain covered and no bar across the middle. It was clean and rust-free, and I could picture him spending his Saturday mornings with it upside down in the vestry. ‘The real reason I came was to tell you I’ve decided I’m leaving the Church.’

  I was ashamed for not having been kinder, for not listening. I wondered if it was too late to make amends. ‘Oh, Victor. I’m sorry. I could come over later … or tomorrow … or when Mr Liebermann has gone.’

  ‘Whenever you feel you have the time.’

  He pushed the bicycle out of the gravel and on to the avenue. ‘Victor,’ I said and put out my hand, but he had gone too far from me. He had his legs either side of the bike and was ready to push off before he turned back.

  ‘As I said yesterday, I don’t think this is a good place for you. I think you should leave. Go back to London, or somewhere else.’

  My sympathy and guilt were replaced by defensiveness again. ‘I don’t see how you believe you have the right to say such things.’ I would have gone on if I could have found the words fast enough, but Victor cut me short.

  ‘Because I thought you and I were friends, Miss Jellico. And that’s what friends do, look out for each other.’ He pushed off and I watched him go, steering around the holes, giving a little pedal now and again to help the bike along.

  22

  When I got back to the portico Cara had gone, the teapot and cups left on the table. Peter was disappearing into the rhododendrons. I called to him and he stopped to wait for me, and together we ducked under the yellowing leaves. Neither of us mentioned that we were leaving Cara on her own.

  Nothing moved and the air was oppressive. I would have welcomed the threatening thunderstorm.

  ‘Maybe there’s enough time to put everything back,’ I said, knowing it was hopeless. ‘Or we apologize. Just say we’ve been using some things for a while, borrowing them.’

  ‘And the reports we should have almost finished?’ Peter said. He ran a hand through his hair. ‘And the things I’ve been flogging?’ It was the first time he had admitted what he had been doing. ‘But it’s not just that. Not even the things I’ve sold have touched the debt I’m in. Two wives are bloody expensive.’ I didn’t point out that he wasn’t married to Cara: it wouldn’t have made any difference.

  We walked beside the lake and crossed the bridge. Even there we didn’t pause, but continued single file along the far bank, the grass flattened where we had trodden it down over the summer.

  ‘Cara went upstairs to squeeze the oranges she picked,’ Peter said. ‘They’re all the food we have left in the house until she goes shopping.’

  ‘If she manages to get any juice out of them she’d better mix it with plenty of sugar,’ I said, wondering what we would eat for dinner. I was hungry.

  ‘I’m going to have to take her to London again to see a doctor,’ Peter said.

  ‘Because of Dermod?’

  ‘Because of everything.’

  ‘It does seem like an awful quirk of fate – a terrible coincidence for there to have been another boat accident.’

  ‘What?’ Peter said.

  ‘She told me what happened. About the boat sinking, losing everything and Finn drowning. It must have been horrible for you. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the noises she said the cows made – like human children crying.’

  ‘What? Wait.’ He stopped on the path, turned. ‘She said there was a boat and that it sank?’

  ‘Well, yes. She said you were going to Scotland, although apparently she thought you were all on your way to Italy.’

  ‘No, Franny. No. There was no boat. We got on a plane and we did go to Italy.’

  ‘Italy,’ I repeated.

  ‘Italy,’ he said firmly.

  ‘I don’t understand. What about the cows?’ I said lamely, unable to comprehend this different version.

  ‘The ones that sounded like crying children?’

  ‘Yes! She said she dreamed about it for years afterwards.’

  ‘That was her mother’s story,’ Peter said. ‘When their house in Ireland – Killaspy – was set alight she heard the horses in the stables. She was sent to the end of the drive to wait until the fire was put out. But she heard the horses. They sounded like human children. For years the crying would wake her and she’d have to look out of her bedroom window to check for flames. She told me the story herself.’

  ‘There was no boat? You didn’t go to Scotland?’

  ‘Later. Later we went to Scotland.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Peter stared over the lake and began walking again.

  ‘Why would she lie to me about it all?’

  ‘Because … because she’s worked you out, Fran. She knows you’ll believe her, lap it up. She’s a damn good storyteller and all she needs is an audience. If she tells the story well, you’ll think she’s someone different than the person in her head. Who wouldn’t want to rewrite their past, if it means it will change their future?’ The path widened and we went side by side. He didn’t look at me while he spoke; I thought he must be reminding himself of what had happened. ‘When I’d saved enough money, I bought us plane tickets to Rome – the three of us: me, Cara and Finn.’ He walked fast, making me take extra lit
tle steps to keep up with him. ‘Finn was three months old. I booked us into a hotel, and Cara was so excited, amazed to be finally in Italy. We went out to celebrate, had a few drinks, a meal. She wanted to see everything, taste it all. And Finn was like her too – his huge eyes taking it all in. It was late when we got back to our hotel. Even that was beautiful to her – I don’t think she’d ever stayed the night in a hotel before. I loved seeing her happy for once, but I was tired and we argued. I don’t remember what about now. She started running a bath, and I’d had enough, so I went out to a bar. We didn’t have a proper bath in the house we’d been renting in Ireland, only a tin one in front of the fire. And when I came back, she was asleep in the bath. She’d had the baby in her arms and she’d fallen asleep, and he had slipped into the water and drowned.’

  ‘Oh, Peter.’ I stopped, but he was striding ahead. He picked up a stick and hit at the tops of the bulrushes along the bank, the male flower-heads bending and swaying and sending their clouds of yellow pollen eddying into the still afternoon.

  ‘She keeps talking about heaven and hell, and wanting to know where Finn is now. It’s all a load of rubbish. The boy is dead.’ He choked on the words, and then gathered himself together. ‘And she goes on and on about it being a virgin birth.’

  When I caught up with him, I said, ‘Are you sure it wasn’t?’

  He looked at me as if I were mad. But for the first time amid all the lies and half-truths, I wanted to make up my own mind and stop being led one way and then another. That Finn had no father, the most nonsensical story of them all, seemed to have a nugget of truth, a glow about it, that if polished well enough would shine through.