Birmingham Friends

by Annie Murray

  She saw the pavement was wet and felt touched. Had he wanted her to see it at its best? The windows were still drying and behind them she could see the furniture: on one side a round table and chairs, a vase of dried teasels on the table, on the other a sturdy chest of drawers topped by a swing mirror, a rocking chair beside it.

  ‘It looks really impressive. And I like the name. I expected something more twee.’

  ‘Yes. Easy trap to fall into with this sort of stuff. Not really me, though.’ He talked fast and she saw he was nervous, more than she was. After all, he had asked her to come here.

  ‘Trouble is, people keep coming in and asking me if it’s getting better.’

  She frowned. ‘What?’

  He thickened his Brummy accent. ‘The pine.’

  Anna exploded into laughter. Jake’s dry humour confirmed why she had come. Talking to him had made her happy and uplifted after the past gloomy weeks. Such a relief after Richard.

  ‘Come in. I’ll show you round.’ He stood back to let her through, his huge hands holding the door. It felt strange being suddenly alone with him, but there was a gentleness about him, about those hands, which made her trust him.

  The shop was surprisingly big inside and extended up to the second floor. She followed him round, their shoes sounding on the bare boards. The downstairs was arranged carefully, without preciousness, so that items could be seen at their best. Painted wooden cats sprawled over some of the surfaces, and there were vases and stacks of wooden picture frames. Anna walked slowly among the dressers and cupboards, bedframes and chairs, touching smooth wood and admiring.

  ‘D’you do it all up yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘A lot of it needs attention of some sort,’ he said. ‘Most of them are painted when I get them. Look at this – this one was in a right state when I got it.’

  He showed her an elegant wardrobe with carved patterns on the doors. ‘Look at the texture in that.’ He stroked the smooth surface. ‘It’s like bringing something to life again. This was covered in brown paint, would you believe – I mean imagine painting wood like that brown . . .’

  She followed him up to the second floor. ‘The top’s my flat, well, hardly more than a bedsit really, but it does me fine. There’s space for Elly when she comes. This floor’s more for storage.’

  The rooms up there were crammed full of chests of drawers, bedframes packed tightly together in rows, stacked chairs, their legs in the air. A large table was roped upside down to hooks on the ceiling.

  ‘It looks as if you’re torturing it,’ she said.

  Jake laughed. ‘I get a bit carried away with the buying. But people often choose stuff from up here. I think they enjoy it being a bit chaotic. I don’t follow them around or anything.’

  Downstairs, he showed her his little office which opened into a small yard at the back and had once been the kitchen. On the desk in the middle of the room were an old Adler typewriter, piles of duplicate books, a calculator and all sorts of bits and pieces, tins and nails, rubber bands and wooden drawer knobs.

  ‘How did you get into doing this?’ she asked him.

  ‘Took a degree in philosophy.’

  She wasn’t certain for a second if he was serious. ‘I’ve got a degree in history so I’m a history teacher. Bit predictable in comparison, I suppose.’

  ‘Thing is – what do you do with a degree in philosophy? I started off selling a few oddments out of a van. Did it from home. I got hooked on it really and it grew from there. Before that,’ he added lightly, ‘I had a successful career selling insurance.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? I can really imagine you doing that!’

  ‘I see you don’t believe me.’

  Anna perched herself on the corner of his desk. ‘Does that kettle work?’

  ‘Has been known to. Why, d’you think you’re going to get a drink as well?’ His grey eyes were full of amusement. He filled the kettle. ‘It’d be nicer up in the flat, but I’m afraid I can’t take you up just in case anyone comes in. You haven’t got to rush then?’

  ‘No. I’ve no plans. I’m still cleaning Mom’s house but I’m taking my time over it. Actually I’ve just resigned from my job.’

  Jake looked at her steadily. ‘Wow. Big decisions.’ Again she found herself grateful to him for not overreacting.

  She looked back into the shop. ‘I only wish I could buy something off you, but I’m already saddled with two houses and I really need to get rid of things.’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘Mom’s, and our house in Coventry.’

  ‘With your boyfriend?’ He leaned towards the old brown kettle to hear if it was heating.

  ‘Ex-boyfriend.’ She paused. ‘How long have you been on your own?’

  ‘Year and a half nearly. What about you?’

  ‘I left him a month ago. But to be honest I feel as if I’ve been on my own a lot longer. He keeps trying to get in touch but I can’t face it. I’m trying to avoid him. Cowardly, really.’

  He watched her, seriously. ‘That’s rough.’

  ‘Yes. But I know it’s the right thing, in the end.’

  His eyes searched her face for a moment and she wondered with a certain amount of panic whether disclosures were about to follow, his marriage, what had gone wrong. But he looked down, pouring milk from a carton. After he’d handed her her coffee he leaned up against the old worktop.

  ‘What did you think of Olivia’s little display last night?’

  ‘Display?’

  He watched her face for a moment as if unsure what to say next. ‘How long have you known her?’

  ‘Barely any time at all in fact. But in another way I’ve known about her all my life. She was a friend of my mother’s until they – ’ she searched for a way to describe what had happened ‘ – fell out. Years ago. She didn’t see Olivia after that.’

  ‘What did they fall out about?’ He put his hand to his forehead. ‘Sorry. I don’t want to put you on the spot. Only tell me what you want to, of course. It’s just, there are probably things . . . Do you know much about Olivia?’

  Anna sighed. ‘If you’ve got all day, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘I actually know almost nothing about her, except a little bit through Krish. She and your mom – were they close?’

  ‘Very. Mom loved her.’

  ‘And she wanted you to see her?’

  ‘I think – yes, I’m sure she did. She said she understood that I’d want to make contact. But she told me to be careful.’

  ‘But why didn’t you see her while your mother was still alive.’

  ‘Because she told me Olivia was dead. All my life I believed she was killed in the war.’

  Jake made a sound, an outward breath, half whistle. Anna hesitated. She wanted to talk about this, to share it. And she trusted Jake.

  ‘You have to understand that Olivia’s life has been, well – difficult. But she was living with us for a time when I was born. She was in a very bad state at the time. When I was about three months old she tried to drown me in the bath.’

  ‘My God.’ Jake stood upright suddenly. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Mom wouldn’t have made it up.’

  ‘Aren’t you – I mean, what the hell d’you feel about that?’

  ‘I don’t know what to feel. I don’t remember it of course, not directly. I only found out about it a few weeks ago.’

  ‘And you only met her for the first time this week?’

  She nodded. ‘Now I’ve met her I can’t work out what to think about her.’ She paused, looking out through the open door into the little yard. There was a neat stack of old doors covered in chipped paint, leaning against the opposite wall. ‘One minute I feel drawn in, sort of . . . infatuated almost, by her. I don’t know if this sounds crazy to you? Then she turns suddenly and she’s frightening. I don’t know why. It’s something in her face. It just flashes across. Then she’s charming again and I can’t work out whether I’ve imagined it, that I’m reading things into it because I know ab
out her past. You don’t really think she’s dangerous, surely?’

  ‘Only to Krish.’

  ‘Krish? But they’re so close. Seeing them together’s like the mutual admiration society.’

  ‘This is why I said I needed to talk to you.’ He put his head on one side. ‘Why d’you think I hang out with someone like Krish? He’s fifteen years younger than me, and in many ways he’s a complete pillock.’

  ‘I had wondered. I don’t know – he worked for you. I just thought you were friends.’

  Jake gave an ironic laugh, shaking his head so that his thick hair shifted on his shoulders. ‘Friends? Not exactly. I think I’m Krish’s – resort. Refuge. He’s all over the place is poor old Krish. Olivia talked me into having him here to work, just like she more or less talked him into a place at college. Not that he’s not bright, but he didn’t get the right grades and it’s certainly not the course he would have chosen. Science is actually his thing. They turned him down and she appealed – twice. Wrote letters, went down there, crusading. Eventually they gave him a place at the last minute because someone else dropped out. That was all going on while he was working here. He was OK to have around, I must say.’ Jake looked embarrassed for a moment. ‘I wasn’t in too good a state myself at the time, and someone else working here was welcome. Otherwise I was alone all day, and up in the flat at night. I hadn’t done it up then either and it was grim. Krish can be a laugh when he’s not saying something crass or ridiculous.

  ‘Anyway, after a while he started talking, confiding in me. He found it very hard I think. It made him feel so disloyal to her. Since then I’ve been a sort of surrogate something-or-other to him. For some reason, I feel responsible for him, as if he’s a child.’

  ‘I suppose that’s how my mother felt about Olivia.’ Anna picked up an old Strepsil tin from the desk and fiddled with it. Something hard rattled inside.

  ‘Krish needs to get away from her. She’s got such a hold on him. It’s hard to explain. He’s terrified of her – the emotion she can work up. And the atmosphere there gets very weird at times with all her boys . . .’

  ‘The lodgers?’

  ‘Have you wondered why they’re all still there through the summer holidays? Olivia never has female lodgers. Always these boys. They come and go every few weeks or months, depending on how long they stay the course. Whether they react as required.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ Anna asked, not certain she wanted to hear the answer.

  ‘Well, it varies, I think. What she wants is for them to depend on her, to take over their lives. Did you see Ben the other night? She’s set herself up as mother confessor to him. The guru. From what I gather he’s got the most miserable family. Doesn’t want to go home. Ditto Sean. He’s the one in the biggest tangle with her, poor bloke. Like someone nailed to a log. Did you see the state of him? The reason he acts like a servant in the house all the time is because he gets his rewards later – if he’s been a good boy.’

  Anna let out a gasp. ‘No – oh no. That can’t be . . . That’s horrible.’ She felt tearful. All her hopes of Olivia were sliding away so fast. ‘Not that – not still?’

  ‘Still what?’

  Anna took in a long breath. ‘She was – promiscuous. To put it mildly.’

  ‘She has to control people. Theo’s an interesting one, though. She made a big mistake there, I reckon. He’s a really good thing in that household at the moment. Lightens the place up no end. But my guess is she’ll get nowhere with him at all. He may make jokes about his family, but in the end Theo’s got a strong core in him. He’s got values, roots. That’s no good to Olivia. She needs floaters like poor old Sean. People she can bend like straws and take over.’

  ‘Jake, are you absolutely sure about this?’

  ‘Absolutely. She’s malignant. There’s no other word. Krish knows it’s happening, except he tries to blank it out most of the time. You can’t warn them. They’re supposed to be adults. They come because they want to. And Olivia can be a darling. All small and defenceless and tempting in silk robes. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Sean, but he can’t go on like this much longer. I mean the house varies a lot depending on who’s there, but Krish says it’s never been as bad as it is at the moment.’

  Anna put the tin down and went over to the door, leaning on the frame. She felt slightly queasy. ‘God, I can’t believe it.’ She searched Jake’s face, tears rising in her eyes again. ‘When I saw her – so lovely-looking in her big house, with all these people around her, I really thought she’d managed to get her life together. That’s the worst of it, that I know there’s something really nasty in her, but I still feel it’s not her fault and I want to protect her.’

  ‘Look,’ Jake said. ‘I’d really like to know more about her. Properly I mean. You know Krish knows virtually nothing about her past. Why don’t you come round this evening? I’ll cook something.’

  She saw it had cost him a certain nerve to ask. ‘I’d love to, but I can’t tonight. I said I’d go there at teatime. She wants me to stay the night.’ She felt suddenly panicky. ‘I don’t know if I want to be alone with her.’

  ‘Would it help if I came round? I can get a mate of mine to close up for me. I’ll come over and see Krishna.’

  She felt hugely relieved at the thought. ‘It’s all silly, I’m sure. But I would feel safer with you around.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be there.’

  Chapter 34

  ‘There are things I need to know.’ Anna found herself rehearsing in the car on the way to Olivia’s house. ‘Things you owe it to us to be straight about.’ In this odd, contorted household, she thought, the only course she could take was honesty and directness. At least, that had seemed a good idea when she was at home. Tell me what I need to know and I’ll go. We owe each other nothing. She imagined sitting opposite the icy woman she had encountered that morning, coolly asking questions.

  Then she thought of the reality of those questions: Was my mother’s lover the father of your child? Why did you try to murder me when I was a baby? And the conversation became inconceivable. Hardly questions to be tossed out over tea and cakes.

  She parked the car, this time closer to Olivia’s house. Her watch said four-fifteen. She should have left earlier. Walking to the house, overnight bag in one hand and a white cake box balanced on the other, it occurred to her that Olivia ought to be more nervous than herself about any conversation they might have. Perhaps she had things she needed to get off her chest. With this encouraging thought that everything might not be up to her, Anna went to the house.

  Sean answered the door, looking pale and miserable.

  ‘You’re late,’ he remarked.

  Anna felt irritation mingled with her pity for him. ‘You the butler?’ she asked lightly, and immediately regretted it.

  She became aware of the sound of the piano behind him. She had no idea what the piece was. It was fast and passionate and hearing it brought up her flesh in goosepimples.

  ‘Is that her?’ she whispered.

  Sean’s white, pitted face shifted to the nearest thing she’d seen to a smile. ‘She’s bloody fantastic, isn’t she?’

  ‘Should I go through?’

  ‘Yes. She’s waiting for you. Just sit down and wait till she’s finished. She doesn’t like being interrupted.’

  Anna slipped into the long room and sat on one of the easy chairs behind Olivia, the box of cakes on her lap. The room looked beautiful, her roses in a vase on the table and the breeze wafting the coloured silks at the window. Once more, Olivia had changed. The harsh look of the morning was gone and now she had a softer, more relaxed appearance: a white blouse with a wide, frill-edged collar and a full skirt in panels of red, green and gold. The back view of her, with her hair loose, was of someone much younger. She leaned her body into the music, playing with every part of her, not just her hands. Watching, Anna saw her complete absorption and concentration and knew that the beauty of it was what Kate had seen when they were
girls together. By the time Olivia drew to the end of the piece and played the long, last chords, Anna was seeing in front of her the young Olivia, before the war, before Arden, even before she began listening at doors, or being locked behind them. She saw into the sadness of Olivia’s life, and the death of her friendship with Kate seemed suddenly far more terrible than the loss of any bond with a man: far worse than the end of her relationship with Richard, or Kate’s with Douglas.

  As the music stopped there was a discordant jangle from the doorbell which made Anna jump. She heard Jake talking to Sean and felt jarred by it. His arrival was wrong. She didn’t need help. Olivia was lovely, tender, sad. Anna wanted nothing more now than to talk to her alone.

  Olivia twisted round on the piano stool. ‘I knew you were there. I felt you.’

  ‘That was so good,’ Anna said, wiping her eyes.

  ‘You’re crying, ’ Olivia said softly. ‘I used to be able to make Katie cry with my music too.’

  ‘Oh, Olivia,’ Anna cried, letting the tears run down her face. ‘Why did it have to happen – you and her?’

  Olivia was beside her in a second, gentle, sweet-smelling, her arms round Anna, stroking her cropped hair. The cake box slid to the floor. ‘My darling Anna, my dearest.’ And Anna held her too, feeling the small lightness of her, and thought she would choke with sadness.

  ‘I’ve wanted to hold you for so long,’ Olivia said. ‘When you were a little baby I cuddled you so much. I felt as if you were mine. I knew one day you’d come to be with me whether Kate wanted you to or not.’

  Anna pulled away and looked up into her face. Both their cheeks were streaked with tears. ‘But I wasn’t yours. And you tried to drown me.’ She found her voice growing shrill. ‘Why did you do that to me?’

  Olivia withdrew her hands, her face stony. ‘She told you.’

  Anna sat in silence, waiting.

  ‘I was – not well. You know that, don’t you? She told you that? I was destructive. It wasn’t me.’ She looked into Anna’s eyes. ‘Can you forgive me?’