As She Left It: A Novel

by Catriona McPherson

  “How did you know this was here?”

  “Wait a bit,” Opal said and started on the other one.

  “And why d’you keep saying it’s your bed?”

  Opal unscrewed the second post and took out the last piece of folded paper.

  “Not this half,” she said. “Come with me.” And she led him into her house and upstairs to her bedroom. Or rather he led her, holding her elbow, steadying her, helping her move in a straight line even when the pounding in the back of her head threatened to topple her. He let go of her at the bedroom doorway.

  “Now, how in the name of Christ did you get the other half of Auntie Norah’s—”

  “No way. You’re Norah’s nephew?”

  “Did Sarah sell you that bed?” he said. “Did she hide notes in it?”

  Opal hesitated then.

  “Sorry,” she said at last. “I know it’s your family and it’s not very nice. But Norah wrote those notes when she was a little girl. I’ve had two of them for a month and I’ve been trying to find the other two. I’ll burst if I don’t read them.”

  “Go ahead,” he said. “It’s not my family anymore.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re divorced. She’ll take the walls down round the old girl’s ears, and I can’t do a thing to stop her.”

  “Ahhh! Right!” said Opal. “You’re Sarah’s husband!”

  “Ex,” he said emphatically.

  “Norah said it: a niece and a nephew and a great-niece and a great-nephew. And I couldn’t work out why Shelley—that’s Norah’s neighbor—didn’t know the nephew! But that’s you and Sarah and your kids, right?”

  Franz Ferdi’s face puckered up. “That’s right. Two kids.”

  “And they were supposed to visit you, weren’t they? But they didn’t come?” He’d bought games for them to play with and everything, she thought. Plastic toys that he’d smashed to bits with a hammer.

  “She’s told me if I try to get power of attorney with Auntie Norah or tell anyone what’s going on in that house, I’ll have to go to the courts for visitation.”

  “Is that why you moved here?” Opal said. “To be near Norah?”

  Franz Ferdi gave her a screwy look, one eyebrow up and one down.

  “I moved back to Leeds to be near the kids when Sarah moved here. She moved to be near Norah. Soon as she found out the state Norah was in, she was in like Flynn.”

  “I know!” said Opal. “At least, I worked out she must be. Only that was when I thought she was no relation at all. And she really moved here to … She told me she didn’t want to move the kids’ schools.”

  “She tells people a lot of things.”

  “She seemed really nice,” said Opal.

  “Oh aye,” Franz Ferdi said. “Whenever there’s a divorce it’s always some poor suffering woman and some bastard hurting her. And you can tell I’m a bastard, by the way, because who else would choose to live on Mote Street and expect his kids to come visiting here?”

  “I can’t believe you’re on Mote Street,” Opal said, missing the point completely. “Right next door to me. And this bed.” She knocked her knuckles against it. “It went all the way to Northallerton. To Clay-

  pole’s.”

  “Yeah, she’s careful not to use the same place twice.”

  “And I only found it because I was lost.” Then she looked back at him and shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re right here.”

  “I’m here cos I couldn’t afford to be anywhere else. Little kids disappearing keeps the price down just lovely. How about you?”

  “And Sarah really gave you a hard time just for that?” She couldn’t help the thought that was seeping in at the back of her brain: if she ever chipped away at the concrete behind her outhouse door, this guy would never see his children again.

  “She said if Finn and Charlie were here overnight, she’d not sleep for worrying.”

  “Shows she’s got a heart,” Opal said. “Once she knows the whole story about Norah, she’ll never just chuck her in a council home.”

  “The whole story?”

  “The notes,” said Opal. “At last. All four of them.” She got up, swaying a bit and feeling the back of her head pulse with pain, and brought her two folded notes back to the bed and opened them.

  South: because bad things happen to little girls

  East: when someone finds this after I am gone

  He was reading them over Opal’s shoulder.

  “God Almighty,” he said.

  “It was Martin,” said Opal. “Her brother.”

  “Bloody hell, how do you know?”

  “Because Norah won’t even admit she had a brother most of the time. Won’t even say his name. And it was all hushed up, whatever he did to her. She was just kept at home, as if she had done some kind of disgusting thing. Shelley said it—she was like a prisoner.”

  “That was the way back then,” Franz Ferdi said. “Poor old Norah. No wonders she’s so … ”

  Opal was unfolding the other notes.

  North: She will be punished for what she has done

  “Where does that fit then?” Franz Ferdi said. Opal opened the last one.

  West: who do what Norah says she will do to me.

  MWF. 1st August 1939

  She shuffled them first one way and another until they could both read the message as plain as day.

  She will be punished for what she has done when someone finds this after I am gone because bad things happen to little girls who do what Norah says she will do to me.

  MWF. 1st August 1939

  “Martin William Fossett,” said Opal. “He was eight when he wrote that.”

  “Kids,” said Franz Ferdi, and his voice sounded unsteady. “It might be nowt.”

  “But she did it,” Opal said wonderingly. “She did what she said she would. It’s true.”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “He died when he was twelve.”

  “Of what?”

  “It was all hushed up,” Opal said. “A scandal, but they dealt with it in the family, and Norah was kept locked up at home and she doesn’t even admit she ever had a brother unless you catch her just the right way.”

  “But you don’t know it for sure,” Frank said.

  “I just assumed … poor little Norah saying sorry, sorry, sorry. I never thought for a minute she had something to be sorry for. Like you just said.”

  “Some poor suffering woman?”

  “And some bastard hurting her. You just said it, and it’s true.”

  “Auntie Norah?”

  Opal shook her head.

  “That’s another thing I can’t work out. Sarah and you both say Auntie Norah, but if Norah’s only brother died when he was twelve, how can she be anyone’s auntie? I used to think maybe her dad had left and got married again and had a new family—like mine did—but I saw his gravestone and he did die during the war, just like Norah said. When she was away.”

  “Away where? You said she’d been in the house her whole life.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Opal. “That’s right. That’s what Shelley said. Oh my God—Shelley! I left a message on her phone saying Sarah was no relation and she was stealing Norah’s stuff.”

  Franz Ferdinand started laughing. “She is! I hope Shelley gives her what for. And if she wants to prove she’s a relation, she should produce this famous family tree my ex-father-in-law was working on all those years, that suddenly disappeared without anyone seeing—” He stopped talking and cocked his head. “Visitors?” he said.

  Opal’s front door had slammed open again.

  “Opal?” Zula’s voice came up the stairs.

  “Up here,” Opal called.

  Zula arrived, panting, and then plunged forward with her hands out to grab Franz Ferdinand’s neck.

  “Get away from her, you animal!”

  “No!” Opal threw herself in front of Zula, elbowing Franz Ferdi’s middle. “Zula, I got it wrong. It’s fine.”

  �
�Eh?” said Franz Ferdi, rubbing himself.

  “Sorry,” Opal said. “Zula, Franz Ferdinand is nothing to do with the knife or anything.”

  “Franz Fer … ? It’s Frank,” he said.

  “Frank, right,” said Opal. “Sorry. I only knew FF, and I—”

  “Francis Findlay,” said Franz Ferdi. “That’s bad enough.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Opal?” Zula asked again. She had come forward and was staring hard into Opal’s eyes.

  “Probably not,” said Franz/Frank. “You need to go to the hospital. You need looking at for concussion.” He stood and held his hands out for Opal.

  “That’s what I came to tell you, Opal,” Zula said. “Pep just phoned. He says if you want to see Fishbo, you better come straight away.”

  FORTY-THREE

  “CONCUSSION?” OPAL SAID, AS the van pulled away. “Do you really think so?”

  “You’ve been talking a load of bollocks, love,” Frank said.

  “Well, yeah, but that’s not just since I bumped my head, is it?” said Opal. “Just like how it’s not all Alzheimer’s with Auntie Norah. Not nearly.” Then they were quiet again. “I knew there something up with her prayer book,” Opal said, at last.

  “Yeah? Not the praying kind?”

  “No—well, that too, yeah—but it was the writing. It was nothing like the writing on the bedpost notes, and it never occurred to me. Plus the question of why a dad wouldn’t write a dedication in his daughter’s present instead of her having to write her own. That makes sense too now. I just thought he must have been one of those don’t-care dads.” She glanced at Frank from the corner of her eye. “Sorry. There it is again, eh?” He said nothing. “Man, that really hurt when I looked out of the side of my eye.”

  “Shut them,” Frank said. “Rest them. Don’t want you keeling over on Fishbo’s deathbed. The nurses don’t allow it.”

  Opal wanted to say she thought he must be a great dad, but didn’t know how to put it, and didn’t know, now she’d met him properly, if he was actually that much older than she was, didn’t want to offend him. And even thinking about it was making her feel sick—dads and brothers and Fishbo, Cleora and Steph and Sandy, and Norah going away and—

  “Hey! Hey,” Frank was reaching over across the middle seat, shaking her and she opened her eyes and looked at his arm, seeing bluebirds that weren’t really there. “You were moaning.”

  “I had a nightmare.”

  “I’m definitely getting you looked at,” Frank said. “Here we are.” He swung the van into the hospital gates and headed for the car park.

  “But Fishbo first,” said Opal. “Just in case.”

  “Baby Girl,” said Fishbo, lifting his eyelids about half an inch for about half a second, as if they were made of lead. He was wearing another oxygen mask over his face and it was hissing so loudly she had to bend close to hear his croak of a voice over it.

  “Mr. Fish,” she said. “How are you feeling?” She took hold of one of his hands, cold and stiff.

  “Cuttin’ loose,” he whispered. “Shaking the dust off my heels and breakin’ free.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “Let him speak, love,” said Pep Kendal, who was sitting in a chair on the other side of the high bed. He looked just about as tired as Fishbo and twice as grey.

  “Can’t they help you?” Opal said. “What is it anyway?” She could hear her voice rising and getting shaky. She knew she shouldn’t cry, should stay calm for him, but … Mr. Fish!

  “Streptococcal pneumonia,” said Pep Kendal. “Both lungs.”

  “But you can’t die of pneumonia,” said Opal.

  “Cain’t say they owe me!” said Fishbo. “I done wore these lungs out, blowin’ that ole horn.” He spread his lips as far as they would go under the mask, the old beaming Fishbo smile.

  “Pep,” Opal said. “Can I have a minute on my own?”

  Pep looked as if he wanted to say no, but he also looked as if he needed to lie down on a row of chairs and sleep for a week, so in the end he got up and left them.

  “One minute,” he said, pausing at the door. “And don’t you upset him.”

  Opal listened to the hiss of the oxygen for a moment or two once they were alone and watched the double hitch of Fishbo’s bony chest as it rose and fell.

  “I spoke to Cleora,” she said. Once again, Fishbo’s eyes fluttered. “She sent you her love.”

  “Me?” Fishbo said.

  “You,” said Opal. “Eugene Gordon. She sent all her love. And she said you’ve got a new great-grandson. What was his name … ? Travon.”

  “Ayyyyyy, Baby Girl. What you been at, huh?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Eugene Gordon is long gone.”

  “I know, but she still loves you.” Where’s the harm, Opal thought, in letting him think that now?

  “Eugene was my brother, but he’s gone on ahead of me.”

  “You’re … George?”

  “I’m George. Cleora is a fine woman and if she’da been mine, I’da hung on to her.”

  “Why did you pretend to be Eugene?” Opal asked. There was nothing but the hiss of the oxygen for a long, long time. Then at last he drew in a hard, hurting breath and spoke.

  “Eugene had a license,” he said.

  “For what?” said Opal.

  “Drive cab,” said Fishbo. “No use to him back home, and I needed a job. Man’s got to live.”

  “You …” Opal stared at him. “The crash? You didn’t … ? I don’t believe you.” Fishbo lifted one eyelid just enough to let a slit of light show.

  “You wanna believe I left Cleora, Samantha, and Little George?” he said.

  “No,” said Opal.

  “Cain’t have both,” Fishbo breathed. “Pick one, Baby Girl.”

  “No,” said Opal again. “You’re confused, that’s all.”

  “Thass right,” said Fishbo. “I’m confuse. And iss all over now.”

  Opal waited to see if he meant it literally, but in a second or two, he was speaking again.

  “You still there, Baby? Iss dark in here.”

  “I’m here, Mr. Fish.”

  “I wann you play, hear me? Mooon Reeeebahhhh. Play for me.”

  “I haven’t got a trumpet,” Opal said. “And the nurses would probably kill us both.”

  “He doesn’t mean now, you daft lump,” said Pep’s voice from the doorway. “He means at the funeral. He’s been going on and on about it. That’s why I asked Zula to bring you.”

  “Right,” said Opal. She turned back to the bed. “You have got a deal, Fishbo,” she said. “I’ll play.”

  Pep was wiggling his eyebrows at her and so she stood, kissed Fishbo on his cheek to one side of the mask and then on the head where it wasn’t so crowded, and went back to the waiting room.

  “What are you doin’g here?” she said, when she saw them all. Vonnie Pickess was sitting between Margaret and Zula, in her blue print dress with her white cardi folded on her knee.

  “I’ve known that man since before you were born,” Mrs. Pickess said. “Who put you in charge? I was here when it was your mother too, you know, which is more than I can—”

  “Come on with you both,” said Margaret. “This isn’t the time. Hang on and you can have a proper punch up at the wake.”

  Opal laughed in spite of everything, but she could see Franz Ferdi—Frank, she would have to start calling him—giving Margaret an odd look as if he couldn’t quite fathom her.

  “Will you come round to casualty now, Opal?” he said. “If you’ve said your goodbyes.”

  “In a minute,” said Opal. “I need to talk to … ” she looked at the three of them sitting there “ … all of you really.”

  “I’ll just … ” said Frank and walked away.

  Opal sat down opposite the three women and leaned back very slowly. Her head felt as if it would split right down the back so she leaned forward again.

  “I could understand why you didn’t wan
t to tell the police when Craig went missing, Margaret,” she said. “You and Denny and Karen would have been up in court. Maybe in jail. But I couldn’t understand why Zula kept the secret. Until now.”

  “What are you talking about, Opal my soul?” said Margaret. “Mr. Gilbert said you had a bang on the head.”

  “George Gordon,” she said, and she saw Zula stiffen, “didn’t have a driving license, and he caused a crash. And you covered it up. So years later you didn’t want the police poking into everyone’s past and finding out that Eugene wasn’t really Eugene. Is that it?”

  “That’s it,” Zula said, exhaling loudly. “We had our five boys to think of. If Sunil and I had been tried and convicted, what would have happened to our boys?”

  Opal nodded and then winced. “But what about you, Mrs. Pickess?” she said. “Why did you buy my mother’s brandy?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mrs. Pickess, but her hands were twisting her folded cardigan as if she was kneading dough.

  “Vonnie?” said Margaret, turning. Mrs. Pickess didn’t meet her gaze, and Opal didn’t blame her.

  “Two of my pals from Tesco at Roundhay are willing to swear that you did,” she said.

  “She was an addict,” Mrs. Pickess said. “It was a kindness, really.”

  Opal waited. Margaret waited, staring at Mrs. Pickess, her damp eyes enormous behind her bifocals. Zula waited too, but she was thinking furiously, couldn’t hide the fact that she was.

  “She was better off after a drink,” Mrs. Pickess said at last. “When she sobered up, she started all kinds of nonsense. On and on about that blessed outhouse.” Opal felt her insides shift. Zula put her hand over mouth. Margaret just kept staring, but her jaw was trembling now. “‘Poor little kiddie, locked in the outhouse’,” she used to say. She used to say she wanted to tell someone. She was going to tell someone.”

  “Whose outhouse?” Margaret said.

  “Mine,” said Mrs. Pickess. “And I chased him out. Margaret, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve prayed for forgiveness. He was hiding in there, and I chased him away. I had just given it all a coat of fresh emulsion and he’d gone in and scuffed it.”

  “Right!” said Opal. She put her hands against both sides of her head to stop the pounding. “He was covered in paint! You thought if they found him in my mum’s outhouse, they’d know he’d been in yours.”