As She Left It: A Novel

by Catriona McPherson

  But Opal couldn’t stop thinking about how spry she was for a woman her age, whatever that age might be. If her brother had those good genes too, he might not be dead yet. And he had a daughter, Norah’s niece. And a granddaughter too.

  So Opal would search the empty rooms and the attics and find the other half of that bed if it was there and put the whole note together and—if Martin was still alive—she would take it and she would … but probably the bed would be gone or the man would be dead or he might be as wandered as Norah was now and not understand if everyone got angry. And what would be the use of dragging it all out now? Could Norah still learn, at her age, with her old brain about as sharp as a marshmallow sinking into a cup of cocoa, that she wasn’t a bad girl and she didn’t have to say sorry?

  Worth a try, Opal told herself, worth a damn good try.

  TWENTY-NINE

  THAT SATURDAY—THE SEVENTEENTH OF July—was the hottest day yet, the hottest day ever, since records began. Opal woke at five o’clock with the sun already throbbing in at the bedroom window and the air still thick and damp from the heat of the day before. She went for her bus and no one in the queue had a jacket over their arm or an umbrella folded up along the top of their handbag. Everyone—even the men—was wearing sandals. And out at the store two of the assistant managers were putting up parasols next to the doorway. Round in the warehouse, Dave and the supervisor from Wet Fish were dragging an open-front chiller on a trolley towards the flap doors.

  “This is one of the turkey chillers,” Dave said. “Email from Head Office. It’s going to the door for water. We’re to fill it with chipped ice off of Fish and hand out bottled water.” He was caught, Opal thought, between feeling thrilled at the drama and being troubled by the notion of giving away something people would buy by the barrow-load anyway.

  “Whole bottles,” said the Wet Fish supervisor. He was already in his white coat and trilby. “Not like samples. Not plastic beakers like a tasting.”

  “Because we asked them, to be sure,” Dave said. “Whole bottles. For free.”

  That was the start of the day’s madness. The barbecue hordes came early. Usually it was gone eleven before they started drifting in, tattooed and topless, filling deep trolleys with charcoal and Polish lager. But that day the first of them arrived before nine and some of the very first bought all of the ice, then the later ones wanted to know where the chipped ice in the open front chiller by the door had come from and why couldn’t they get some too. And one of the assistant managers had to be beeped to come and explain that it wasn’t edible ice and couldn’t be used in drinks, but then Charlotte had a mother complaining that one of the girls giving out the water had said to her little boy that he could have a scoop of it in his empty slushy cup and he’d eaten the lot. And there was no cream in the ten o’clock delivery—none at all—double, single, whipping, clotted, even Chantilly.

  And then the UHT and aerosol cans ran out and everyone who had picked up strawberries on a twofer started putting them back again. Only hardly anyone bothered to go back and dump them with the rest of the strawberries; they just shoved them onto the nearest shelf and the store started to fill up with cartons of sweating strawberries. And Kate and Rhianne, detailed to seek them out and bring them home, couldn’t do it because the warehouse boys had brought out more and there was nowhere to put them, so they got stickered down and piled up in Reduced but that only started the whole strawberries-and-cream!, but-they’ve-no-cream-so-put-back-the-strawberries cycle all over again until, as Rhianne said: “I’m starting to recognise some of these buggers. This is the third time I’ve moved the carton with that big one like Santa’s nose.”

  And just when it couldn’t get any busier or noisier or grumpier, a crow flew in the front door and started swooping up and down just above the Special Boards, setting them swinging, making everyone who’d ever seen The Birds put their arms over their heads and scream.

  “So how’s your friend?” Kate said to Opal in the canteen. She was rolling a cold can of ginger beer around her neck like a massage wheel.

  “Huh?” Opal said.

  “Norah,” said Kate. “The one with the family trouble so you couldn’t come out last night.”

  “Not so good,” Opal said. “She just sits and watches the same video over and over again. She hardly leaves the house now.”

  “Sounds like she needs help. What happened to her anyway?”

  “Her dad died when she was a little girl and her mum died a few years ago too and her brother … well, he was a total creep. A real weirdo. He was the one that needed help, not that he got any.”

  “Typical,” said Kate. “Is he still around then? Is she stuck with him?”

  Opal gathered up her plate and glass onto her tray, wiped up the spilled salt with her crumpled napkin, and stuffed it inside her sandwich carton.

  “She won’t talk about it. Sometimes … Well, sometimes she won’t even admit she ever had a brother.”

  “Sounds like the right idea. Change the locks and forget all about him.”

  “Nah,” said Rhianne. “I think it’s better to get it all out in the open. Doesn’t matter how far down you shove all that stuff, it comes back in the end. Like the strawberries.”

  “Right,” said Opal. “That’s what I keep saying. That’s why I’m trying to help. It’s not just for the sake of interfering.”

  She truly believed it too. What downside could there be from Karen and Margaret being reunited even if Craig was never found? And Fishbo back in the bosom of the Gordon family? That was a no-brainer too. Norah’s story told at last, even if Martin was dead and gone? Absolutely.

  But—Opal flipped through the next batch of lists on her pick and saw FF Gilbert—whether or not to try to cheer someone up with grocery jokes if they only ended up crying even harder? Who could say.

  When she started picking, though, she saw that he didn’t need her cheering him up this weekend. He was having visitors. As well as his white bread and frozen dinners, today he had ordered cocoa-pops, string cheese, mini-Twixes, and fruit shots. But what was going on the bread, Opal couldn’t say. He’d ordered half a dozen eggs and a punnet of cress, but no kids like egg sandwiches. He would probably have some mild cheddar left from the week before, but he didn’t have any chutney or ham to go with it, and plain cheese sandwiches were going to be too dry for whatever kids were little enough to drink fruit juice shots, weren’t they? So she put in a pack of clown-face luncheon meat and a jar of tomato chutney and called it a day.

  And after that it was just another two hours of trudging up and down the aisles, keeping out of the way of the hot and possibly drunk barbecuers as the second wave of them came back for more burgers and chicken after they’d burnt the first lot, only to find out there were none left, and no salad left either and for sure there was no ice and the best-deal lager packs were long gone and the rotisserie only had ham knuckles and stuffing balls until at last she could go home.

  She walked home, with an ice lolly in one hand and a can of Fanta in the other, because the bus was full and everyone on it, looking out through the windows, had boiled pink or roasted brown faces and plastered-down hair. And some of them were fanning themselves with the free paper, and she couldn’t face the stale air and her legs sticking to the seat, and if one more person told her it was too hot for them and they’d welcome a shower of rain, she would personally provide them with a shower of Fanta.

  As she turned into Mote Street, she thought her day was done. It had hardly started.

  THIRTY

  THAT DAY, THE HOTTEST day, would also be the longest day she had ever lived through, the one that changed everything from something in Opal’s head that she could stop any time she chose, to something outside her, all around her, that there was no turning back from no matter how she tried.

  First off, Pep Kendal knocked on her door. She was still opening windows, back and front, upstairs and down, both doors—she even opened the yard gate to see if that would help get the air
moving—and she had the shower running cold and the kitchen taps running cold water into the sink too, anything to get the temperature down, all thoughts of her water rates driven out by the thumping and pulsing heat and the dread of spending another night like the last one.

  “Opal?” he shouted in through the open door. “You there, love?”

  “Pep?” she shouted downstairs. “Come in. I’ll be right with you.”

  “You in the shower, love? I’ll come back.”

  “I’m not,” she said, arriving at the bottom of the stairs. He was halfway across the living room. “I’m just running cold water. It’s like a bloody sauna upstairs.”

  “Aye well, since you mention it,” Pep said. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt that looked as if it was made out of dishcloths and—Opal could hardly believe it—short trousers. They weren’t shorts; they were definitely short trousers, creases down the fronts and turn ups at the bottoms and they were the brown of a used teabag, but they only came down to the tops of Pep’s knees. Opal tried not to look at his calves, pure white under the pelt of dark hair and knotted with veins, and she felt grateful that he had socks and shoes on; she didn’t want to see the feet on the end of those legs.

  “Since I mention what?”

  “You said you wanted to help Fishbo. Don’t suppose you’re free tonight, are you?”

  “Saturday night?” said Opal. “Course I am.”

  “Only I want to bathe him.”

  “Whoa, hang on.”

  “Give over,” said Pep. “I can manage that on me own. What I want you to do is change his bed while I’ve got him in there. See what you can do to freshen up his room. He won’t stand for me meddling with it when he can see me, and I don’t want to leave him on his … well, you’ll understand when you see him.”

  “Change his bed and tidy his room?” said Opal. As hot and stale as her own little house was, she could hardly imagine what it would be like in Fishbo’s bedroom, where he had been lying, coughing, sweating, throwing up a bit, and probably smoking too, despite the coughing, for nearly a week now. And then she thought of him having to be there, so she relented. “Go on, then. You hose him off and I’ll muck him out. But is he no better then? Have you had the doctor back in?”

  “Coming Monday,” said Pep. “If he makes it that long.” He tried to make it sound off-hand, but his mouth kept moving after he closed it again. “Never thought I’d say it, but I’d give anything to hear him sing ‘Moon River’ for four hours straight now.”

  “It can’t be that bad,” Opal said. “It’s a chest infection? And he’s got antibiotics, yeah?”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Pep said, letting his breath go in a long hiss. “Look, I better get back over, love. Do you want to have your tea first or are you coming now?”

  “Now.” If she had to strip Fishbo’s bed of sickness, she’d rather get it over with and eat after. If she could eat at all.

  She did understand when she saw him, staring at him from his bedroom doorway, unable to believe he had got that way in just a week. He was a colour no human being should ever be—sort of khaki—and the skin round his mouth was broken and sore-looking, his hands so dry they were ashy and, although his brow ran with droplets of sweat, his cheek when she touched it felt cold.

  “Mr. Fish?” she said.

  “Baby Girl,” he said, and that was enough to set off a bout of coughing. Pep came forward and sat him up a bit and he curled over into himself, pressing a hand against his chest and trying to keep the cough as shallow as he could, his lips spread wide. “Heek, heek, heek,” he went, and Pep caught Opal’s eye. They could both hear the scrape of the cough, just whipping the top edge of whatever filled his chest, not shifting it, just gently tickling. “Boahhh!” Fishbo sank back against his pillows and closed his eyes again.

  “Maybe he should be in hospital,” said Opal.

  “No!” It was gravelly and faint, but no one could doubt how firm he was.

  “You’ve got two nights until the doc comes back, old friend,” said Pep. “Try that ‘no’ on him and see where it gets you.”

  “Jest a touch of cole,” said Fishbo. “Jest need some rest and I’ll be good as new.”

  “Right,” said Opal. “Okay, Mr. Kendal. You take him away and I’ll dig in.”

  Pep mimed shushing, but Fishbo wasn’t listening anyway and made no reference to the fact that Opal Jones was standing in his bedroom as Pep worked his arms under the bedclothes, gathered Fishbo up, and lifted him, letting the blankets drop away. The movement disturbed whatever monster it was that had made its home in his chest, and it rattled and rasped as they left the room.

  “I’ve drawn a cool bath for you,” Pep said. “And I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  “You leave me be,” Fishbo said, and after he had spoken there was a clapping sound in his throat, as if a bubble of something strong and gummy had burst there.

  “Don’t get agitated,” said Pep. “I’m going to wash your hair and then you’re goin’ to lie and soak. I’m not scrubbing the rest of you.”

  “You leave my hair be.”

  “—just about ready to crawl off your head and go to the bath on its own, anyway—”

  “—years since you had enough damn hair to wash.”

  And then they were out of earshot, and Opal closed the door.

  How long would it take one boiling-hot, tired-out old man to strip, bathe, dry, and dress another one—half an hour? Longer if he was trying not to joggle him and set that nightmare of a cough off again. And he’d said a soak. All in all, Opal reckoned she had time for her chambermaid routine and then plenty time left for the real reason she had agreed to come.

  She stripped the blanket off the bed and shook it hard out of the window, but there was no shifting the smell of cigarettes (and worse) out of it. She’d take it over and run it through her machine. She could put it out on the line overnight and it would be dry by morning. Fishbo could have the fleece throw off her couch until then.

  Next, the sheets. Opal was an old hand at stripping a bed without uncovering the bottom sheet, without seeing anything she might not want to see. She bundled both sheets and the pillow case into a ball and put them, with the blanket, on the landing. She turned the mattress and then hesitated. She didn’t want to shout through the bathroom door and she didn’t want to go raking in Pep’s cleaning cupboards without asking. Well, it would give her a chance to get the first load of washing on.

  Five minutes later she was back from her house again, with her hoover, carpet freshener, a bottle of lemon cleaner, a couple of bin bags, and a roll of kitchen towels. Vonnie Pickess had seen her—she was hovering behind her fly curtain—but Opal had put her head down and scuttled over the road before Mrs. Pickess thought up something to say.

  She sprinkled carpet freshener on the mattress and all over the floor, sprinkled a bit on the clean linen Pep had left on the dressing table for her to use, puffed it up the curtains too, then left it to sink in while she emptied the ashtrays—three! She tipped the wastebasket full of tissues into the bin bag with her head turned away, dropped every newspaper and magazine, fag packet and matchbook, every junk mail envelope and empty tissue wrapper in on top of them. She tied the bin bag and put it on the landing. There was a slow and quiet sloshing sound from the bathroom, like the noise of a walrus in the shallows or something. Opal drew back, making sure she closed the door.

  Back in the bedroom, she squirted lemon cleaner on every newly bare surface, into the waste bin, all over the mirror and the window, up and down the fireplace of pinkish-brown tiles, and the piece of painted hardboard that covered over where the grate had been. Then with a fistful of paper torn off the roll, she started wiping.

  “Bloody hell,” she said to herself. “No wonder his lungs are a goner.” The swipes of the towel left tracks in the decades of tobacco and hair pomade, and (to be fair) traffic dust from outside and (to be honest) plain old honest-to-god filth. It was like nothing Opal had ever seen. Or at lea
st—she thought this to herself as she scoured the fireplace tiles that weren’t not pinkish-brown after all, but pink, pure and simple, the pink of Germolene or cheap baby dolls, the pink of waterproof plasters, what people called “flesh-coloured” before they got a single clue—what it reminded her of was those magic painting books she used to get from the newsagents on a Saturday when she was tiny. The ones where you dipped a brush in plain water and soaked the picture and all the colours sprang out; magic right enough when you were three. She used the whole roll of towels and she had forgotten about the window. The lemon cleaner was starting to congeal there in the warmth of the evening sun. Opal looked around and then made herself a pad of tissues, rubbed it with them, picked off the bits that sloughed away and stuck to the glass, then remembered what Mrs. Pickess had told her. But she couldn’t face reopening the bin bag to get a piece of newspaper out again. She slipped her top off, rubbed the window dry with it, and put it back on. Bloody Mrs. Pickess was right about newspaper then. A cotton tee-shirt was no substitute for it. The window was worse than ever. But she was wasting precious minutes now. Never mind smeared windows, it was golden thread time.

  She looked around. Where would Fishbo keep papers? Old addresses, letters, that kind of thing. She opened the cupboard in his bedside table, but there was only a tower of magazines in there. She couldn’t help herself, even though she didn’t really want to know if the mags were that kind, but it was okay: on the cover of the top one was a picture of Louis Armstrong with his trumpet at his lips, and Opal could tell that it was the same magazine all the way down.

  And in the drawer on top, there was only more cigarettes, more matchbooks, a watch and a spare watch strap, a couple of odd little keys, and a small clay pipe—a Popeye pipe—that Opal had never seen Fishbo using.

  Next, the chest of drawers. The bottom drawers were filled with cardigans, knitted tank tops, long-sleeved vests, and long-legged pants. In the middle were summer shirts and short vests, pants that were a bit more normal—but only a bit. And in the top drawer were socks—really terrible socks, black nylon washed without any softener so they were stiff and crackly and all with a row of white pillies along the tops of the heels where they rubbed against his shoes. As well as the socks there was a pile of folded and ironed handkerchiefs, the ones Fishbo always had to mop his face when he was onstage. She was glad he’d graduated to tissues for his cough. Imagine having to wash the hankies after he had used them now! She fingered one of the smooth white squares and felt the embroidered initial. EG—Eugene Gordon. He hated that name, but he had it embroidered on his hankies? Not FG or even just F? She looked quickly down through the pile. Nope. EG, it was. Or GG sometimes. Fishbo might be Fishbo in every other part of his life but he was Gene or Eugene Gordon on his hankies, and it made Opal smile.