The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  Esme is breathing deeply. 'A length of ... of cloth,' she holds her hands apart, as if imagining it between them, 'green ... maybe wool.'

  The four of them stare at her for a moment. The orderly makes a small, impatient noise; the man turns to leave.

  Iris says, 'Are you sure it's not here?' She goes over to the box and looks into it. Then she picks up the fallen things one by one. Esme watches her and her expression is so hopeful, so desperate, that Iris cannot bear it when she realises that there is indeed no green cloth here.

  Esme sits on a chair, shoulders slumped, staring into the middle distance as Iris signs a form, as the orderly gives her the address of the hostel to which she has agreed to drive Esme, as the social worker tells Esme that she will come and visit her in a couple of days to see how she's getting along, as Iris folds the blue check dress and wraps the single shoe, the handkerchief and the watch into it.

  As she steps out into the sunshine with Esme, she turns to her. Esme is drawing the back of her hand across her cheek. It is a weary, resigned movement. She isn't looking at the sun or the trees or the driveway ahead of them. The tortoiseshell comb is gripped in her hand. At the bottom of the steps, she turns to Iris, her face full of confusion. 'They said it would be there. They promised they would put it in there for me.'

  'I'm sorry,' Iris says, because she doesn't know what else to say.

  'I wanted it,' she says. 'I just wanted it. And they promised.'

  Esme leans forward to touch the dashboard. It is hot with the sun and vibrates slightly. The car goes over the humps in the driveway and she is thrown up then down in her seat.

  She twists round suddenly. Cauldstone is being pulled away from her, as if reeled in on a string. The yellow walls look dirty and smudged from this distance and the windows reflect nothing but sky. Tiny figures toil back and forth in its shadow.

  Esme turns back. She looks at the woman driving the car. She has hair cropped in at the neck, a silver ring on her thumb, a short skirt and red shoes that tie round her ankles. She is frowning and biting the inside of her cheek.

  'You are Iris,' Esme says. She knows but she has to be sure. This person looks so oddly like Esme's mother, after all.

  The woman glances at her and her expression is – what? Angry? No. Worried, maybe. Esme wonders what she is worried about. She thinks about asking her, but doesn't.

  'Yes,' the woman says. 'That's right.'

  Iris, Iris. Esme says the word to herself, forming the shapes inside her mouth. It's a gentle word, secret almost, she hardly needs to move her tongue at all. She thinks of blue-purple petals, the muscular ring of an eye.

  The woman is speaking again. 'I'm Kitty's granddaughter. I came to see you the other—'

  'Yes, yes, I know.'

  Esme shuts her eyes, taps out three sets of three on her left hand, scans her mind for something to save her, but finds nothing. She opens her eyes again to light, to a lake, to the ducks and swans, right up close, so close that she feels if she leant out of the car she might be able to run her hand over their sleek wings, skim the surface of the cool lake water.

  'Have you been out at all?' the woman is asking. 'I mean, since you went into—'

  'No,' Esme says. She turns over the comb in her hand. You can see, from the back of it, the way the stones are glued into small holes in the tortoiseshell. She'd forgotten that.

  'Never? In all that time?'

  Esme turns it back, the right way up. 'There was no pass allocation for my ward,' she says. 'Where are we going?'

  The woman shifts in her seat. Iris. Fiddles with a mirror suspended from the roof of the car. Her fingernails, Esme sees, are painted the emerald green of a beetle's wingcase.

  'I'm taking you to a residential hostel. You won't be there for long. Just until they've found a place for you at a care home.'

  'I'm leaving Cauldstone.'

  'Yes.'

  Esme knows this. She has known this for a while. But she didn't think it would happen. 'What is a residential hostel?'

  'It's like ... It's a place to sleep. To ... to live. There'll be lots of other women there.'

  'Is it like Cauldstone?'

  'No, no. Not at all.'

  Esme sits back, rearranges her bag on her lap, looks out of the window at a tree with leaves so red it is as if they are on fire. She has a quick shuffle through things in her head. The garden, Kitty, the boat, the minister, their grandmother, that handkerchief. Their grandmother, she decides, and the department store.

  Their grandmother had said she would take them into town. The preparation for this expedition takes up most of the morning. Esme is ready after breakfast but it seems her grandmother has letters she must write, then she needs to consult with the maid about tea, then the threat of a headache casts a shadow over the whole outing, a tincture must be made and allowed to draw, then consumed, and the effect waited upon. Ishbel is 'resting', their grandmother has told them, and they must be 'quiet as mice'. Esme and Kitty have walked up and down the paths in the garden until they were so cold they could no longer feel their feet, they have tidied their room, they have brushed each other's hair, a hundred strokes each, as directed by their grandmother, they have done everything they could think of. Esme has suggested a clandestine visit to the upper floors – she has spied a staircase going up and she has heard the maid talking about an attic – but Kitty, after some thought, said no. So now Esme sits slumped at the piano, sounding out some minor scales with one hand. Kitty, in an armchair beside her, begs her to stop. 'Play something nice, Es. Play the one that goes daa-dum.'

  Esme smiles, straightens her back, raises her hands and brings them down in the first, emphatic chord of Chopin's Scherzo in B flat minor. 'I don't think we're ever going,' she says, during a rest, timing it with a nod.

  'Don't say that,' Kitty moans. 'We will. I heard Grandma say she couldn't bear the shame of people seeing us dressed like beggars.'

  Esme snorts. 'The shame, indeed,' she mutters, as she brings her fingers down into the crashing chords. 'I'm not sure I'm going to like Edinburgh if it's considered shameful not to own a coat. Maybe we should run away to the Continent. Paris, perhaps, or—'

  'We might never leave this house,' Kitty says, 'let alone get to—'

  The door flies open. Their grandmother stands on the threshold, resplendent in a fur-trimmed coat, a capacious bag gripped in one hand. 'What,' she demands, 'is that dreadful racket?'

  'It's Chopin, Grandma,' Esme says.

  'It sounds like the Devil himself coming down the chimney. I won't have such a noise in my house, do you hear me? And your poor mother is trying to rest. Now, get yourselves ready, girls. We are leaving in five minutes.'

  Their grandmother walks at a fair clip. Kitty and Esme have to break into a trot to keep up. All the way she mutters under her breath, about the various neighbours they pass, that the sky looks like rain, the pity that Ishbel couldn't come with them, the tragedy of losing a son, the paucity of the clothing Ishbel has provided for them.

  At the tram stop, she turns to look them over. She gives a gasp and clutches her throat, as if Esme has come out naked. 'Where is your hat, child?'

  Esme's hands fly to her head, feel the spring of her hair. 'I ... I don't...' She glances at Kitty for help and notices with amazement that her sister is wearing a grey beret. Where did she get it from and how did she know to wear it?

  Their grandmother lets out an immense sigh. She turns her eyes up to the sky and mutters to someone or something about trials and crosses to bear.

  They are taken to Jenners of Princes Street. A man in a top hat holds the door for them and enquires, 'Which department, madam?' Mannequins waltz and twirl in the aisles and a shopgirl accompanies them across the floor. Esme tips her face back and sees balcony upon balcony, stacked on top of each other like the quoits on the ship. In the lift, Kitty feels for Esme's hand and squeezes it as the doors open.

  The paraphernalia is astounding. They are girls who have spent their lives in nothing m
ore than a cotton dress, and here are liberty bodices, vests, stockings, socks, skirts, underskirts, kilts, Fair Isle sweaters, blouses, hats, scarves, coats, gaberdines, all, seemingly, intended to be worn at once. Esme picks up woollen combinations and asks where they go in the baffling order of things. The shopgirl looks at their grandmother who shakes her head.

  'They are from the colonies,' she says.

  'Sign here.' The man behind the reinforced-glass screen of the hostel counter pushes a registration book towards her and gestures at a pen.

  Iris picks it up but hesitates, nib poised above the book. 'Shouldn't it be her?' she says, through the screen.

  'What?'

  'I said, shouldn't it be her?' Iris points at Esme, who is sitting on a plastic chair by the door, a hand gripping each knee. 'She's the one who's staying – shouldn't it be her signature?'

  The man yawns and shakes his newspaper. 'Same difference.'

  Iris examines the scrawls in the book, and the pen, which is held to the wall by a chain. From out of the corner of her eye, she can see a teenaged girl, slumped on another chair. She is bent in concentration over something, her hair hiding her face. Iris looks more closely. With one hand, the girl holds a biro and on the other arm she is circling every mole, every mark, every bruise in blue ink. Iris looks away. She clears her throat. She is finding it hard to think straight. She knows she needs to ask something, get some kind of clarification, but has no idea where to begin. She has an overpowering urge to call Alex. She would just like to hear him speak, to say to him, I am here in this hostel and what should I do?

  'Er ... I...' Iris begins. She puts down the pen. She wonders what she is about to say. 'Can we see the room?' is what comes out.

  'What room?'

  'The room,' Iris repeats, gaining conviction now. 'Where she'll be sleeping.'

  The man lets the newspaper drop to his lap. 'The room?' he raps out. 'You want to see the room? Hey!' He is leaning back in his chair, calling to someone, 'Hey! There's a lassie out here wants to see the room before she signs in!'

  There's a gale of laughter and a woman's head appears round the door.

  'What do you think this is?' the man says. 'The Ritz?'

  There is more laughter but then, without warning, he stops laughing, leans forward over the desk and barks: 'You!'

  Iris jumps, startled.

  'You!' He stands up now and raps on the reinforced-glass screen. 'You're banned. Get out.'

  Iris turns to see a woman with a head of heavy, bleached hair and a grimy bomber jacket sidling past the desk, her hands deep in her pockets.

  'You know the rules,' the man is shouting. 'No needles. It says that on the door, plain as day. So get out.'

  The woman eyeballs the man for a long moment, then erupts like a roman candle, gesticulating, shrieking a long and voluble string of curses. The man is unmoved. He sits down and raises his newspaper. The woman, with no recipient for her anger, turns on the teenager with the biro. 'The fuck are you laughing at?' she shouts.

  The teenager shakes the hair out of her eyes and looks her up and down. 'Nothing,' she says, in a sing-song voice.

  The woman steps forward. 'I asked you,' she says menacingly, 'what the fuck you are laughing at?'

  The girl raises her chin. 'And I said, nothing. Or are you deaf as well as wasted?'

  Iris glances across at Esme. Her face is turned to the wall, her hands over her ears. Iris has to step over the teenager's rucksack to get to her. And when she does, she takes her arm, picks up her bag and guides her out of the door.

  Outside on the pavement, Iris is wondering what she has done, what she's going to do now, when Esme suddenly stops.

  'It's OK.,' Iris begins, 'it's OK, you don't—'

  But she sees a strange expression steal over Esme's face. Esme is looking up at the sky, at the buildings, across the road. Her features are illuminated, rapt. She turns one way, then the other. 'I know where this is,' she exclaims. 'That's...' she turns again and points '...that's the Grassmarket, down there.'

  'Yes.' Iris nods.

  'And that way is the Royal Mile,' she says excitedly, 'and Princes Street. And there,' Esme turns again, 'is Arthur's Seat.'

  'That's right.'

  'I remember,' she murmurs. She has stopped smiling now. Her fingers grip the edges of her coat together. 'It's the same. But different.'

  Iris and Esme sit in the car, which is parked at the side of a street. Esme is pushing the seatbelt into the lock, then releasing it, and every time she releases it, she lifts it close to her face, as if examining it for clues.

  'Hospital,' Iris is saying, to the remarkably unhelpful woman at Directory Enquiries. 'Cauldstone Hospital, I think. Or "Psychiatric Hospital"? Try "psychiatric"...No? Have you tried just "Cauldstone"?...No, one word ... Yes. C-A ... No. D. For – for "damn"...Yes, I'll hold.'

  Esme has abandoned the seatbelt and has pressed the hazard light button on the dashboard. The car is filled with a noise like crickets. This seems to delight Esme, who smiles, presses it again, switching it off, waits a moment, then switches it on again.

  'Really?' Iris says. 'Well, could you try just "hospital"?...No, not any hospital. I need this one, specifically. Yes.' Iris feels incredibly hot. She is regretting the jumper under her coat. She reaches out and covers the hazard button with one hand. 'Could you please not do that?' she says to Esme, then has to say, 'No, no, I didn't mean you,' to the Directory Enquiries woman who, magically, has managed to locate the whereabouts of Cauldstone on her system and is asking Iris if she wants Admissions, Outpatients, General Enquiries or Daycare.

  'General Enquiries,' Iris says, sitting up, enlivened now. This nightmare is nearly at an end. She will ask Cauldstone where she should take Esme next or, failing that, return her to them. Quite simple. She has more than done her duty. She hears the connection, a ringing and then a list of options. She presses a button, listens, presses another, listens again and, as she is listening, she realises that Esme has opened the door and is getting out of the car.

  'Wait!' Iris shrieks. 'Where are you going?'

  She shoves at her own door and stumbles from the car, still holding the phone to her ear – it seems to be saying something about how the offices are now shut, how the opening hours are between nine a.m. and five p.m. and that she must call back within those hours or leave a message after the tone.

  Esme is walking speedily along the pavement, her head tipped back to look up. She stops at a pedestrian crossing, which is beeping, the green man flashing on and off, and stoops to peer at it.

  'I'm in the Grassmarket with Es – with Euphemia Lennox,' Iris is saying in as calm and assertive a voice as she can muster while sprinting along a pavement. 'The hostel you sent us to is simply not satisfactory. She couldn't stay there. The place is completely unsuitable and full of – of—She can't stay there. I know this is my fault because I discharged her but,' she says, as she catches up with Esme, grabbing a fistful of her coat, 'I'd like someone to call me, please, as I'm bringing her back. Right now. Thank you. Goodbye.'

  Iris hangs up, out of breath. 'Esme,' she says, 'get back in the car.'

  They drive away from the Grassmarket, south, away from the centre, grinding their way through the rush-hour traffic. Esme sits in her seat, turning her head to see things as they pass: a churchyard, a man walking a dog, a supermarket, a woman with a pram, a cinema with a queue outside.

  As Iris turns the car into the driveway for the hospital, Esme's head snaps round to look at her. 'This is—' She stops. 'This is Cauldstone.'

  Iris swallows. 'Yes. I know. I ... You couldn't stay at that hostel, you see,' she begins, 'so we—'

  'But I thought I was leaving,' Esme says. 'You said I was leaving.'

  Iris parks the car, pulls on the handbrake. She has to resist the urge to press her forehead against the steering-wheel. She imagines it would feel cool and smooth against her skin. 'I know I did. And you will. The problem is that—'

  'You said.' Esme shuts her eyes, sc
rews them up tight, bowing her head. 'You promised,' she says, almost inaudibly and, with her hands, she is crushing the material of her dress.

  She won't get out. She will not. She will sit here, in this seat, in this car, and they'll have to drag her, like last time. She breathes in and she breathes out and she listens to the shushing noise of it. But the girl walks round the front of the car, opens her door, reaches in to pick up the bag and she puts her hand on Esme's arm and the touch is gentle.

  Esme releases her hold on her dress and she is interested in the way the material remains bunched up, pulled into peaks, even though her fingers have gone. The pressure on her arm is still there and it is still gentle and, despite it, despite everything, Esme knows the girl – this girl who has appeared from nowhere and after so long – has done her best. Esme does realise this and she wonders for a moment if there is a way to communicate it. Probably not.

  And so she swings her legs sideways and, at the sound of the gravel under her feet, she finds she wants to cry. Which is curious. She pushes at the car door to shut it and that gets rid of the sensation – the satisfying clunk of it swinging to. She doesn't think she doesn't think she doesn't think anything at all as they walk up the steps and into the hall and there is the marble floor of the entrance hall again – black white black white black – and it is amazing that it is unchanged, and there is the drinking fountain with the green tiles, set into the wall, she'd forgotten that, how could she have forgotten that because she remembers now her father stooping to—

  The girl is talking to the night porter and he is saying no. His mouth a round shape, his head swinging, back and forth. He is saying no. He is saying, not authorised. And the girl is gesturing. She looks tense, her shoulders hunched, her brow creased. And Esme sees what might be. She shuts her mouth, closes her throat, folds her hands over each other and she does the thing she has perfected. Her speciality. To absent yourself, to make yourself vanish. Ladies and gentlemen, behold. It is most important to keep yourself very still. Even breathing can remind them that you are there, so only very short, very shallow breaths. Just enough to stay alive. And no more. Then you must think yourself long. This is the tricky bit. Think yourself stretched and thin, beaten to transparency. Concentrate. Really concentrate. You need to attain a state so that your being, the bit of you that makes you what you are, that makes you stand out, three-dimensional in a room, can flow out from the top of your head, until, ladies and gentlemen, until it comes to pass that—