“Mighty me,” said Opal. She was still kicking herself about letting out that one rude bugger. “You’re very … organised.”
“Oh, this isn’t mine,” said Miss Fossett, sitting down and pulling her tray table in front of her, so that she looked like a baby in a highchair. Opal put the cocoa cup down on it, and Miss Fossett picked it up in both hands and took a sip. “Lovely,” she said, smiling up at Opal from under a moustache of cocoa froth. Opal smiled back at her.
There was a footstool round the other side of the armchair, one of those leather cubes, so she pulled it out and sat down.
“Whose is it, then?” she said. “All these photos? And the records?”
“It’s theirs,” said Miss Fossett. “All of this. I only come in here to watch the”—she waved her teaspoon, scattering brown drops on the carpet—“the thingummy.”
“The telly,” Opal said. It wasn’t worth saying anything about the teaspoon. The carpet, when she looked closely, wasn’t actually patterned under the tea and soup and one patch that she hoped was cheese sauce or maybe curry, but Miss Fossett didn’t do well with getting told off and Opal didn’t want to upset her.
“So where are they?” Opal said. “Going off leaving all their stuff for you to work round!” But that was too sideways on, and Miss Fossett only gazed at her. “Is it your family’s?”
“They’ve gone,” said Miss Fossett. “They died. Father died and then Mother died.”
“My parents died too,” said Opal.
“In the war?”
Opal smiled. “No,” she said.
“My father died in the war. I was away.”
Opal frowned. Away? Shelley said Norah had never left this house in her life.
“When were you away, Norah?” she asked.
“In the war,” Norah said. “Father died in the war.”
“Right,” said Opal. “Were you a nurse or something?” she asked. Miss Fossett put her cup down very carefully and wiped her lips on a tissue, refolding it despite the dark smears, and putting it back down on her tray.
“I’m not supposed to say,” she said. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” said Opal. “And I’m sorry your mum died too.”
“I nursed her when I came back, but she died anyway,” Norah said. “She had a stroke.”
“She must have been very young,” said Opal.
“Ninety,” Norah said. She tipped her cup right up and sucked out the very last drops of cocoa. Opal nodded. It was hard to follow Norah’s elastic sense of time. She put cocoa down for a cat she’d had decades ago and missed out half her lifetime saying something happened when she was away and then something else when she came back again.
“So after your father died, it was just your mother and you?” said Opal.
“I’m not supposed to talk about it,” Norah said.
“But of course it wasn’t!” said Opal, remembering about the niece and nephew. “You had brothers and sisters, didn’t you?”
“No,” said Miss Fossett. “I was an only child.”
“Me too,” said Opal. Then she frowned again. “But Shelley said you had a niece, Norah.”
“And a nephew and a great-niece and a great-nephew,” said Miss Fossett, delighted again, rolling the words around and beaming just as she had the first time.
“So how was that then? Were they your brother’s children?”
“I haven’t got a brother, I never had a brother, I don’t want a brother,” Norah said, then she drew a breath and started it over again. “I haven’t got a brother, I never had a brother, I wouldn—”
“Or your sister’s children, maybe?” Opal said.
“Oh!” said Miss Fossett. “I wish I had a sister. I would play with her all day and tell her my secrets.”
Opal smiled at her. This was worse than talking to a drunk. “I wish I had a sister too,” Opal said.
“I’m an only child,” Norah said again. “It was Father and Mother and me, and then Mother and me, and now me.”
“Same here!” Opal said. “Just the same. Mum and Dad and me, and then Mum and me, and now just me.” She didn’t mention Steph and her half-brother, Michael, but it made her pause and look at Norah even more closely. Maybe they had that in common too. Maybe Father didn’t die in the war at all. Maybe he went off and left Norah and her mum and married again, and that’s how Norah could be an only child with a niece and a nephew.
“And they’re helping you out now, aren’t they?” Opal said. “Helping you clear out your stuff?”
“Father and Mother are dead,” said Miss Fossett. “Father died in the war, when I—Father died in the war and I nursed Mother, but she died too.”
“I meant your niece and your nephew,” Opal said. “They’re helping you clear out the house?” At least, she bloody hoped so. Hope they weren’t just waiting until Norah was at some day-centre and then coming round with a van.
“Clear out the attic,” Miss Fossett said.
“Right, right,” Opal said. “A fox fur and some jewelry and silver.”
“Mother had a fox fur,” said Miss Fossett. “It’s not mine. None of this is mine.”
“Right,” said Opal.
“My things are in my room,” said Miss Fossett.
“Is your bed in your room?” Opal said.
“My bed and my bedside table and my dressing chest and ward-
robe.”
“I’d love to see it,” said Opal. “Is Emerald there?”
“I don’t know,” said Miss Fossett, brightening up at the idea. “We could go and look for her.”
So she pushed away the tray table and got to her feet. There was none of the hauling and groaning you’d expect for such an old lady. She hopped up like a bird and pattered off across the stained carpet to the door. She was part of the way up the stairs before Opal had got up from her perch, shaken the life back into her legs, and followed her.
“Do come upstairs,” she said, making that same sweeping gesture as when she’d shown Opal into the morning room. “If you would like to wash your hands, I can show you where.”
“I’m all right,” Opal said. “Let’s see if we can find Emerald.”
“And Angeline,” said Miss Fossett. “She’s got golden hair and blue eyes and she’s lovely, but Emerald is my favourite.” She was at the landing and she turned and gave Opal a serious look, eye-to-eye since Opal was a few steps below. “I don’t want you to tell Angeline,” she said, looking first over one shoulder and the over the other. “But I think she knows. I gave Emerald the dress with the lace, and Angeline had to wear the plain one. I heard her crying.”
“These are dolls, right?” Opal said.
“Yes,” Miss Fossett nodded. “But I can still understand them when they talk to me.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
THAT, AS FAR AS Opal was concerned, was just a bit too Bates Motel for her liking. Added to which the staircase was dark and the spaces in between the fancy bits on the banisters were just about choked right up with cobwebs like they’d been sprayed for Halloween and, all in all, Opal decided that if when they got to Norah’s room, “Emerald” and “Angeline” had their heads missing or turned round to the back or damaged in any way (or any part of their bodies really, but especially their heads), or if they were doing anything except sitting propped up on a shelf like dolls should, she was going to run away and never come back again.
Miss Fossett was heading towards the back of the house, down a few stairs and round a corner and all of a sudden there was no carpet, just dark brown lino and a door that looked as if it had been made for her. Opal didn’t have to stoop—she was only five three—but it was the smallest door she’d ever walked through.
“Here we are,” Miss Fossett said. She trotted over and stood beside her bed, smiling but standing up very straight like she was ready for inspection.
Opal looked around the room. It had a ceiling that dipped down at the edges, and there were black bars over the outside of the
window. It must have been the maid’s room or something.
“This is yours?” she said, wondering how many empty rooms they had gone past.
Miss Fossett nodded, and Opal looked at the painted bed, white with little gold paint droplets along the edge of the headboard like a necklace, one big teardrop shape in the middle. The bedside stand had a gold-painted handle to its single drawer and the dressing table—the dressing chest, Miss Fossett had called it—had more of the droplets round the mirror.
“It’s really pretty,” she said. It was, but it was puzzling too.
“Thank you,” said Miss Fossett.
“And it’s very tidy.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Fossett again, although she sounded troubled this time, and she put her head down. But Opal meant it. She hadn’t believed a word of that downstairs about all the stuff being “theirs,” but there were no piles of records and bales of tablecloths up here. There was a hairbrush with a comb stuck in it on the dressing table and there was an old-fashioned kind of a little book on the bedside table, soft-looking with leather covers, too small for a Bible. A prayer book, maybe.
“But it’s very small.” Opal figured that the footboard with the secret compartments (plus its headboard that had to be at least as big) would fill this little room to bursting, if it even got through the door. Maybe the bed wasn’t Norah’s at all. Her mother’s? How old could those pieces of paper be? But looking at the door she saw that it had a bar lock, like a bathroom would have, and she thought surely a little girl wouldn’t sleep in a room where she could lock herself in. Not one with bars on the window too and an open fireplace. That just wasn’t safe.
“Norah,” she said, “has this always been your room?”
Miss Fossett shook her head. “It’s the nursery,” she said. “We were in here when we were tiny, before we had our own big rooms beside Mother and Father.”
“Right,” said Opal. “Who’s we?”
“Sorry,” Miss Fossett said. “Sorry.”
“When did you move back here?”
“Sorry.”
“Was it when you came back? After you’d been away?”
“Sorry, sorry,” Norah said, the words getting faster and higher again.
“Do you know what I’d love?” said Opal, clapping her hands. “I’d love to see your other room. The big one.”
“I’m not allowed to go in there,” Miss Fossett said.
“Yeah, but you could show me the door,” Opal said. “I’ll just have a peek.”
“I can’t go in. They told me I wasn’t allowed to.”
“No, but you just point to the door,” said Opal. “And then you wait downstairs. When I come down, I’ll put the circus tape on.”
“Oh yes!” said Miss Fossett. “We can watch my circus tape.”
And she was off again. She got to the head of the stairs and started tripping her way down them, slightly sideways on, one-two-three and one-two-three like a schoolgirl.
“Hey, hang on!” said Opal. “Which one is your old bedroom?” Norah’s head was only just above the level of the upstairs floor, but she turned and looked through the banisters.
“Dusty,” she said. “I’m not allowed to dust.”
For the first time, Opal wondered if Norah was capable of having someone on. “Not allowed to dust” sounded about as likely as “not allowed to eat vegetables,” which she herself had tried on Steph one of the first times she visited Whitby. She could remember Steph and Sandy laughing at her and the tears filling her eyes.
“Which one, Norah love?” she said, and Miss Fossett pointed one of her skinny little fingers with the dry soft skin and the horny nails before she turned and scampered away.
Opal walked over to the door she’d pointed at, grabbed the handle, and turned. The creak sent a shiver across the back of her neck and she had to tell herself it was a summer evening in the middle of Leeds and there was no one in the house except a little old lady and her. She put her head round the door and then opened it up completely and stepped in, gawping.
It was empty. Totally empty. Not so much as a square of carpet on the floor. The fireplace was very fancy with green and white tiles all around, and the window was hung with nets and paper blinds and stiff shiny curtains covered in green and white jugglers or minstrels or something. They looked completely ridiculous in the blank space, like wedding dresses at a funeral, Christmas trees on the beach. But at least it was an answer. Opal knew exactly the kind of over-the-top furniture that would look at home in here.
But where was everything? Well, she knew what had happened to some of it, mixed up and cut adrift, washing up at Claypole’s and fooling everyone, even experienced bidders. But the rest?
“Where’s all your stuff?” she said to Norah when she got back to the morning room. “Your big bed.”
“I haven’t got a big bed. I’ve got a beautiful little bed. White and gold and fit for a princess. Mother bought it for me.”
“Yeah, but the one you had before?” said Opal. “Is it in the attic? Did you give it to your niece maybe?”
“She can’t have my bed!” said Miss Fossett. “Where will I sleep?”
“Not the gold and white one,” said Opal. “Don’t worry.”
“Where will I sleep?” said Miss Fossett. “I’m not supposed to go in the other rooms. I’m not allowed to.”
“Sorry,” said Opal. “Maybe I meant someone else’s. There are a lot of bedrooms, aren’t there? Your mum and dad’s for a start.”
“Please don’t give my little bed away. I got it for my birthday and I never sleep anywhere else, ever ever ever.”
“Did you take it with you when you went away?” Opal said.
“To Filey?”
“Was it Filey you went to?”
“Every summer. We go with Mother, and Father comes and takes his holiday.”
“And who’s we, Norah?”
But Miss Fossett only blinked. “Mother and Father and me.”
“Right,” Opal said. “Okay. You win. I’ll put your circus tape on for you, and then I’ll have to go. But I’ll come back again and make you some cocoa another day. Have you ever had cocoa with marshmallows on top?”
“On top of the cocoa?” said Miss Fossett, her eyes looking quite like two marshmallows—round and pink—as she took in this amazing idea.
“I’ll bring some,” said Opal. “And I’ll do a bit of dusting upstairs too, if you like.” She was fussing with the remote now, trying to work out the video and she hadn’t realized, but she’d started talking to Miss Fossett as if she wasn’t really there, or as if she was a cat or a baby. “See if I can get things sorted out for you. Track down some of these incredible vanishing beds of yours.”
“Not mine,” said Miss Fossett. “I’ve got my bed.”
“Right,” said Opal. “Not too big and not too small but juuuust right. Ah! Got it. Forward play.”
“Goldilocks,” said Miss Fossett. She was pulling her tray table over in front of her chair again, settling in.
“Just about,” Opal said.
“Who’s been sleeping in my bed?” Miss Fossett said. She was staring at the screen where the penalties for showing the tape on oil rigs and in prisons were scrolling by.
“You tell me, Norah,” Opal said. She put the remote on the tray table and stood behind Miss Fossett’s chair, noticing that she had put her thumb in her mouth. “You tell me.”
Miss Fossett took her thumb out again with a plopping sound.
“Martin,” she said and her voice was slack and dreamy as she gazed at the screen. Fireworks were bursting all over it and then came BILLY SMART PRESENTS picked out in fizzing flares against a black background. Opal could hardly let enough breath go to ask the next question.
“Who’s Martin, love?”
“My brother.”
Opal came back around the side of the chair and crouched down. Miss Fossett blinked and refocused as Opal’s face took the place of the firework writing in front of her.
“I haven’t got a brother, I don’t want a brother, I never had a brother.”
“I know, I know,” said Opal picking herself up again. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,” said Miss Fossett.
“Look, Norah, horseys,” said Opal, pointing at the television. “Look, clowns. And remember I’m going to make you cocoa with marshmallows soon.” Norah was still whimpering, the sorrys making a shushing sound under her breath. “I’ll make it for you and Emerald and Angeline. Hmm? Would you like that?”
But it took another five minutes before she settled down and Opal thought it was safe to go. She paused at the bottom of the stairs and then shook her head. Never mind Norah, she didn’t think she could take any more today. She let herself out and walked slowly along the tunnel to the garden door.
So. Norah used to have a big bedroom with a great big bed. And she had a brother. And then she got a little bed and she moved to a room where she could lock the door and decided she didn’t have a brother and never had one and didn’t want one either. Who could blame her?
As She Left It: A Novel Page 17