by Ann Troup
Instead of badgering Lena for answers she was convinced the old lady didn’t have, Edie had walked into the garden in the middle of the square and had slowly paced the perimeter path, trying to make sense of all that she had found out that evening and wondering why Lena was being visited by the giant. It seemed that Sam had some rather dubious friends.
After two laps of the garden she found a bench, still structurally intact but one arm of it scorched by fire as a result of a particularly determined vandal. The bench had a small brass plaque attached in loving memory of somebody or other. Edie couldn’t tell who – not only was it getting too dark to see, the name had been gouged at with something sharp so that it could no longer be read. It seemed symbolic somehow, in this place the memories of what had gone before were being systematically obliterated by the unrelenting efforts of the square’s new residents.
‘Sad state of affairs isn’t it?’ The voice surprised but didn’t startle Edie. ‘Do you mind if I join you for a moment? I think this is the only intact bench left in the garden, all the rest are in a terminal state thanks to the efforts of our local youth.’
Edie nodded at the elderly, statuesque man and watched as he folded his length onto the bench. She recognised him as the man from Dolly’s funeral, the one who Lena had labelled a gossip. At this juncture Edie considered that a little local gossip might prove useful.
‘I’m Lionel, Lionel White, pleased to make your acquaintance Edie.’ He extended a thin hand, which out of instinctive politeness Edie took. The handshake was brief, warm and showed an unexpected grip for a man so old.
‘You know my name? I know we met briefly at the funeral, but we didn’t exchange names.’
He nodded and using both hands leaned his upper body weight on the bamboo walking stick that he carried. ‘I do, you are the subject of the local gossips I’m afraid. The ladies at the lunch club were full of Dolly’s funeral and the reappearance of the long lost niece, and you are too young to be Rose. There are worse things to be notorious for in this neck of the woods.’ He said it with a chuckle, pointing across the square to where a car had just slowed by the kerb so that a scantily clad, stick thin girl could ply her trade through its open window.
Edie followed his gaze. ‘When did it get so bad? I don’t remember the square being this… this… well, squalid.’
Lionel returned his hand to the top of the stick and gently rocked it back and forth in a silent rhythm that seemed to denote some internal symphony that was playing out for him beyond his consciousness. ‘Have you ever cut open an onion, only to find that though the outer layers feel firm and fresh, some of the inner layers have started to rot? I think this place is much like that – it started to decompose from the inside a long time ago. It only takes one bad apple to infect the barrel.’
Edie smiled, there was nothing like a good fruit and veg analogy to get a conversation flowing. ‘Have you lived here long, Lionel?’
It was Lionel’s turn to smile. ‘Longer than I care to remember, which is far too long for anyone to have to think about. I did spend a few years away, but home is always where the heart is.’
Edie was surprised that she didn’t remember him, she thought she knew all of the old neighbours. ‘You must have known my family then, and Mrs Campion from next door.’
‘Oh yes, I knew them well. Your uncle was a great friend of mine when we were young. And yes, I know Lena, but she chooses not to know me. We haven’t spoken for sixty years or more.’
‘Oh?’ Edie was surprised, she imagined that these two stalwarts of the square would have clung together, being creatures of increasing rarity. She was gratified to hear that he had known her uncle and that at least someone had been a friend to poor Dickie.
‘Ah, now you want to know why – don’t you? I should have learned by now not to sow so many seeds of curiosity in the young. Answering for the past is always somewhat tarnished by the application of retrospect, it rather dulls the facts I find. Suffice it to say that our mothers did not get on, mine was something of a God-fearing woman and Lena’s was not. But times were hard then and I suppose people did what they felt necessary to get by. Anyway, there was a feud, and it has perpetuated.’
‘I’m beginning to think that the history of this square is a lot darker than any of us thought. If certain people are to be believed.’ Edie said, thinking of Matt and his tale of terror.
Lionel paused in his rocking, the stick perfectly perpendicular to the ground. ‘Is that so, what makes you think that?’
‘Do you know Matthew Bastin?’ Edie asked, figuring she might as well talk this through with a stranger, maybe someone removed from the situation would have some kind of perspective that might settle the matter for her.
‘I know of him of course, it would be hard to live on this square for all these years and not know the name Bastin.’
‘Well he’s sitting in the kitchen of Number 17 as we speak, and has been trying to convince me of his father’s innocence, and my family’s guilt. It’s rather hard to stomach to be honest.’
Something sparked behind the old man’s eyes and he turned to fully face her. ‘Really? How intriguing. What has made him so convinced of that?’
Edie sighed and told the old man about Matt’s ‘evidence’. As she talked his eyebrows seemed to rise higher and higher and a look of amusement was accompanied by a wry smile.
‘All very interesting, and I suppose as hypotheses goes it’s feasible, but even if it were true it won’t un-hang his father. What do you think he hopes to achieve?’
Edie shrugged. ‘Some kind of vindication I suppose. I can understand that, but I didn’t come here to have my family history re-written, especially in ways that will make them go down as the ones that got away. I just want to clear the house and move on.’
Lionel nodded. ‘I’m sure you do, but unfortunately once said, once a thought is inserted, it’s rather difficult to shake off I’m afraid. There will be no moving on until this is settled.’
Edie agreed, a worm of misery had begun wriggling in her gut and was making its presence felt. She had enough of her own past to put to bed in a bid to ‘move on’ without this.
‘I know.’ Lionel said, with a tap of his stick on the floor. ‘You should visit me for a cup of tea tomorrow morning. I’d invite you now, but I’m a creature of habit I’m afraid and my evenings are taken up with my boring little routines. We’ll get the albums out and revisit the history of the square, see if we can’t put this tale of woe to bed. I took rather an interest myself years ago and I have a file of all the cuttings from the papers. Why don’t we see what we can piece together to put your mind at rest?’
Edie had decided that she rather liked this old man. His quirky indifference to the matter was quite refreshing, yet his willingness to help her was endearing. ‘I’d like that, thank you.’
He stood, using the cane as leverage while he hauled his long, thin frame up from the bench. ‘Then I shall see you tomorrow morning, half past ten. I live at Number 27, ground floor flat. Don’t be late, I am a creature of habit remember and I abhor tardiness.’
Edie nodded her agreement and bid him goodbye. She watched as he walked away, along the path and out of the garden and noticed him raise his cane in salute to a car which had stopped to allow him to cross the road. Once he was out of sight she contemplated going back to the house and facing Matt and Sophie. She ought to feel more angry and more shocked that Sophie had betrayed her trust and more indignant about Matt’s accusations… Sometimes she thought she had lost the capacity to feel at all – even when words of objection came out of her mouth they seemed to come of their own volition, no depth of feeling powering their path. The last time she had discussed this numbness she had been told that she was probably suffering from depression and ought to go to the doctors and get some Prozac. If the person concerned had known what that meant to someone like Edie, a woman who had been weaned on the effects of mental illness, they might not have been so flippant. All those years of livin
g with her mother’s fragile mental state had made Edie fear a diagnosis more than she feared her own feelings, or the lack of them. Numb was good, numb was safe, and it didn’t need a label or a pill to cure it.
As she walked back to Number 17 she felt a thrill of disgust for herself, what kind of woman wasn’t horrified by the implication that her father had been a murderer? The kind of woman who saw the insinuation as just another ‘thing’ to deal with, another unpleasant item to be disposed of and ticked off the list before she could move on. If she felt anything at all it was frustration that Sophie and Matt had unwittingly put another obstacle in her way. On her approach to the front door she quietly ignored the voice in her mind that was asking the pointed question, so you want to move on, you want the path to be clear, but what are you moving on to Edie Byrne?
***
As the front door slammed shut behind an indignant Edie, Sophie and Matt exchanged glances. The big revelation had not gone well, and Sophie hadn’t expected it to. She hadn’t expected to get caught red-handed either and was surprised at how bad she felt for letting Edie down. The part of her that some people might label as pride was dictating that she should pack her bag and ship out of the square, in fact ship out of Winfield altogether and put the whole sorry place behind her. The run in with Johnno and the thing with Edie were two good reasons to do just that, except she had nowhere to go and no money to get there. She thought about going home, back to her mother’s place, then thought again – she would rather face Edie’s disgust and disappointment that contemplate going back there. In fact she would rather go back to sleeping in doorways and begging than go back to a place that could only loosely be termed as a home.
She looked at Matt. It was all his fault really. Except it wasn’t, it was hers. If she hadn’t been such a nosy little mare and gone snooping like she had, Edie would be none the wiser. Still, it didn’t matter whose fault it was. ‘Well I hope you don’t mind lodgers mate, because if she kicks me out, you’re going to have to put me up.’ she said to him.
Matt peered at her across the table and took another slug of the cheap whisky. ‘She won’t kick you out, she’s not that type.’
‘Oh, you know that for a fact do you? On account that you and her are such great pals I suppose.’ she said, aware that it had come out as a sulky, snide comment unlikely to win his sympathy.
Matt leaned over the table, ‘She won’t kick you out because she needs you here, not just to help clear it out, but because she needs company. Especially now. She isn’t going to want to deal with this on her own, Sophie.’
Sophie wasn’t so sure, Edie struck her as a woman who was used to dealing with things on her own, mainly because she’d always had to. ‘Yeah, well, we’ll see, but don’t be surprised if I turn up on your doorstep.’
Matt raised his eyebrows, ‘Well if I’m not home you can always break in and help yourself I suppose.’
Sophie scowled at him. ‘I will if I have to. Anyway, why do you think she came back so early?’
Matt shrugged, ‘Date didn’t turn out so well? I don’t know, does it matter?’
Sophie had to admit that it didn’t, she wasn’t particularly keen on Sam, even more so now that it was obvious he had influence over the likes of Johnno. Edie was better off as far away as she could get. It was a shame they couldn’t both walk away from Winfield and never look back.
The sound of Edie’s key in the lock made them both start and exchange worried glances, there was no telling what mood she would be in when she reached the kitchen. Sophie felt her heart begin to pound in anticipation of where she might be staying the night if Edie hadn’t calmed down.
Matt stood as she came in; Sophie was almost convinced that he was going to stand to attention. That thought and the jumble of nervous tension writhing about in her gut almost made her giggle, but one look at Edie’s sombre face halted the reaction. ‘You all right?’ she asked, unable to bear the tension any longer.
Edie didn’t answer, but walked across the room and filled the kettle before placing it on the old stove and lighting the gas under it with a pop that bounded across the room and made Sophie jump, despite the fact that she’d been expecting it. Matt just stood there watching Edie like he’d been dumbstruck.
Eventually, after rinsing out the teapot and washing the cups, Edie turned to them. ‘So Holmes, Watson – did you unearth any more skeletons in the family closet while I was out, or are we done here?’ She looked first at Matt, who had the grace to blush and then at Sophie, who was too mortified to react at all.
‘I’m sorry Edie, it was never my intention to upset you with all of this.’ Matt said, his mouth open to go on as Edie’s next words cut across him.
‘It may not have been your intention, but you surely knew that it would upset me, yet you went ahead anyway and sucked Sophie into it, too. I have no idea whether you’re right or wrong Matt, but you can’t possibly expect me to relish the prospect of finding out. Don’t you think it was difficult enough for me to come here and deal with this mess without being presented with the prospect of my family being involved in some ancient murder case? If you’re such a great detective, tell me why Dolly re-mortgaged the house, tell me where the money went and tell me what’s so fascinating about this damned hovel now that they’ve all gone? Clearly no one took any interest when they were alive, so why now?’
‘Believe me, I tried. Dolly wouldn’t even open the door to me, the most I ever got was a quick glimpse of her through the net curtains.’ Matt said.
‘Well, how surprising? I’d have thought she’d have laid out the red carpet and baked scones in anticipation of being accused of murder.’
The look of indignation and defiance on Edie’s face was almost as funny as the look of incredulity on Matt’s. To Sophie they looked like an old married couple having a spat.
‘I think I’d better go. My apologies for having upset you.’ Matt said, his tone terse and defensive.
‘I think that would be a very good idea.’ Edie replied, her tone equally terse.
Sophie felt a sense of panic begin to rise; for some reason, with Matt still there she felt protected from the consequences of her actions. ‘What about me, do you want me to go too?’
Edie rolled her eyes. ‘Oh for God’s sake Sophie, don’t you think there’s been enough drama for one day? Of course I don’t, you don’t have a home to go to, he does.’ She turned to Matt, ‘I’ll show you out.’
‘I know the way.’ he said, ignoring Sophie completely and making for the hallway. Edie followed him down towards the front door and bolted it behind him. When she came back to the kitchen she locked and bolted the back door too. To Sophie it seemed like a symbolic gesture, as if by locking the doors Edie thought she could protect herself and the house from more than just physical intruders.
Edie moved around the kitchen, clearing things away, wiping down surfaces so ingrained with the dirt of neglect that they were impossible to clean, but she didn’t speak. Sophie had never felt so lonely or so bereft, she’d thought herself a tough nut and able to cope with anything, but Edie’s silence was unbearable. ‘Edie, I’m really sorry’ the words came out as a pitiful squeak.
Edie paused what she was doing and sighed. ‘Let’s not dwell on it. I know you didn’t mean any harm, and I’m sure all this skulduggery is very exciting to you and I might have felt the same at your age. Just remember, these people were my family and though I might have to accept that they weren’t quite who I thought they were, it doesn’t mean that we can’t treat the whole thing with some respect. That includes not doing the dirty on each other, OK?’
Sophie nodded, she supposed that she was so used to having a rotten family it hadn’t occurred to her what it might be to have one sprung on you.
‘Anyway, I’ve had enough for today, I’m going to bed. I made you some hot chocolate, I’ll see you in the morning.’
After Edie had gone to her makeshift bed Sophie took the hot chocolate and wandered up the stairs to her own bed in
the little white room with the rotting floorboards and the ghosts of the past.
***
Lena fumbled for the mobile phone that Sam had bought for her, she didn’t like the blessed thing, it seemed to do everything except make phone calls, and she would never get used to this texting lark. She could have used the landline, but could never for the life of her remember his number and though she had it written down somewhere she wasn’t in the mood for hunting around. Of course he wouldn’t pick up, he never did, no doubt he was doing something far too important to take a call from his mother. She left a message, terse and uncomfortable at the prospect of speaking to a machine. ‘Sam, it’s your mother, Pascoe’s been here looking for you, whatever you’ve done you’d better sort it quick.’ She ended the call, slipped the phone into her pocket and went to secure the house, wondering whether what she was locking out was worse than what she was locking in. These days her own thoughts seemed far more menacing than what lay beyond the front door.
Chapter Fourteen
At precisely ten twenty-five a.m. Lionel White laid out a tea tray using his mother’s best china, a starched and ironed tray cloth and the silver sugar tongs that had proved to be such handy little things over the years. It had been some time since he’d had a visitor and it was nice to make an effort for someone other than himself.
The night before, after his serendipitous meeting in the communal garden, he’d spent a happy few hours gathering together his photograph albums and his cuttings file – it had been a while since he’d relished looking at those. Now that he had someone to share them with, an air of excitement had coloured his morning and he found himself feeling happy. Life brought few pleasures these days, but company was one of them so when the doorbell rang at precisely ten-thirty he felt a huge sense of satisfaction, he liked punctuality and was immensely pleased that he had not lost his ability to judge character. Edie Byrne was as predictable as they came, and it gratified him greatly.