The Four Last Things

by Taylor, Andrew

  Poor Jenny Wren. Who better than Eddie to know that patterns repeated themselves? Sometimes he thought of his father and wondered what had happened to him when he was young; and so on with his father’s father and his father’s father’s father; and back the line went through the centuries, opening a vertiginous prospect stretching to the birth of mankind.

  Even as a child, Jenny Wren had been marked out as a failure. Fat, clumsy and desperate for love, she carried her self-consciousness around with her like a heavy suitcase handcuffed to her wrist. Her children, Eddie learned later from Mr Reynolds, had been taken into care. And after the third one was born, Jenny Wren plunged into a post-natal depression from which she never really emerged.

  She lived in Hackney, in a council flat on the fourth floor of a tower block. On that morning when her father was putting the finishing touches to Angel’s fitted wardrobes, she took a basket of washing on to her balcony. Instead of hanging out the clothes, however, she leant over the waist-high wall and stared down at the ground. Then – according to a witness who was watching, powerless to intervene, from a window in the neighbouring block – she lifted first one leg and then the other off the ground and rolled clumsily over the wall.

  Characteristically, the suicide attempt was a failure. Though she dived head first on top of her cerebral hemispheres, the fall was partly broken by a shrub. She did a good deal of damage to herself – a badly fractured skull and other broken bones – but unfortunately she survived. A week after the fall, Mr Reynolds returned to 29 Rosington Road to finish off the wardrobes.

  ‘Jen’s in a coma. May never wake up. If she does, there may be brain damage.’

  Angel patted his hand and said how very, very sorry they were. She and Eddie had sent flowers to the hospital.

  ‘How’s Mrs Reynolds coping?’

  ‘Not easy for her. The chaplain’s been very kind.’ The shock had made Mr Reynolds less talkative, and everything he said had a staccato delivery. ‘Not that we’re churchgoers, of course. Time and a place for everything.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to carry on with the wardrobes?’ Angel asked. ‘I’m sure we could find someone else to finish off. You must have so much to do. We’d quite understand.’

  ‘I’d rather keep busy, thanks all the same.’

  Halfway through June, about six weeks after Jenny Wren’s fall, the first little girl came to stay at 29 Rosington Road.

  Chantal was the daughter of an English investment analyst and his French wife. The family lived in Knightsbridge, a long stone’s throw from Harrods. Chantal was the third child and her parents did not pay her much attention, preferring to hire nannies and au pairs to provide it instead. Angel had first noticed her at a birthday party for one of Chantal’s school friends; at the time, Angel had been acting as a relief nanny for the school friend’s younger sister.

  Despite frequent temptation, Angel never took one of her own charges. ‘Only stupid people run unnecessary risks,’ she told Eddie when they were preparing the basement for Chantal. ‘And they’re the ones who get caught.’

  Chantal’s father was black and she had inherited his pigmentation. (Angel despised people like Thelma who were racist.) They dressed her in white dresses, which set off her rich dark skin. She had a tendency to giggle when Eddie played games with her. Occasionally Angel acted – in Eddie’s phrase – as Mistress of Ceremonies. But he did not think she enjoyed the games very much.

  Human beings were such a mass of contradictions. Although Angel was wonderful at looking after children, and skilled at making them do as she wanted, she seemed not to like playing with them.

  Eddie had a wonderful time for two weeks and three days. One morning he woke to find Angel beside his bed. She was carrying a cup of tea for him, a rare treat. He sat up and thanked her, his mind already running ahead to the treats planned for the day.

  ‘Eddie.’ Angel stood by the bed, adjusting the knot that secured her robe. ‘Chantal’s gone.’

  ‘Where? What happened?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, don’t worry. But I took her back home last night. Back to her mummy and daddy.’

  He stared at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because I knew you’d be upset. I knew you’d hate having to say goodbye to her.’ She paused. ‘And she wouldn’t want to leave you.’

  Eddie felt his eyes filling with tears. ‘She could have stayed with us.’

  ‘No, she couldn’t. Not for ever and ever. There would have been all sorts of difficulties as she grew older.’

  Eddie turned his face towards the wall and said nothing.

  ‘Think about it.’

  Eddie sniffed. Then a new problem occurred to him. ‘What happens if she tells her parents about us, and they tell the police?’

  ‘What can she say? All she’s seen is our faces. She doesn’t know where the house is, or what the outside looks like. She only saw the basement. Besides, the police aren’t going to try too hard. Chantal’s back home, safe and sound. No harm done, is there?’

  ‘I still wish I could have said goodbye.’

  ‘It made sense to do it this way. We didn’t want tears before bedtime, did we?’

  ‘Maybe she could come and stay with us again?’

  Angel sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘No. That wouldn’t be a good idea. But perhaps we can find someone else to come and stay.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. But no one who lives in Knightsbridge. The police look for patterns, you see. They try to pinpoint the recurring features.’

  For Katy, they travelled up to Nottingham and rented a flat there for three months. Katy was an unwanted child who escaped from her foster parents at every opportunity and wandered the streets and in and out of shops.

  ‘Looking for love,’ Angel commented. ‘It’s so terribly sad.’

  Suki, their third little girl, had a stud in her nose and a crucifix dangling from one ear; she belonged to some travellers camping in the Forest of Dean. Angel said that the mother was a drug addict; certainly Suki smelled terribly, and when they washed her for the first time the bath water turned almost black. (This was the occasion when Suki bit Eddie’s hand and screamed like a train.)

  ‘Some parents shouldn’t be trusted with children,’ Angel used to say. ‘They need to be taught a lesson.’

  She repeated this so often, in so many ways and with such force, that Eddie thought it might amount to part of a pattern, albeit one invisible to the police.

  On Sunday the first of December, after Lucy’s bath, Angel spent the rest of the morning reading to her in the basement. At least, that was what Angel said she was doing. Eddie was both hurt and angry. Angel had never been possessive with the others: she and Eddie had shared the fun.

  To make matters worse, he wasn’t sure what Angel was really doing down there. The soundproofing made eavesdropping impossible. After a while, Eddie unlocked the back door and went into the garden.

  It was much colder today. The damp, raw air hurt his throat. He could not be bothered to fetch a coat. He walked warily down to the long, double-glazed window of the basement. As he had feared, the curtains were drawn. The disappointment brought tears into his eyes. His skin was burning hot. He leant his forehead against the cool glass.

  The movement brought his head closer to the side of the window. There was a half-inch gap between the frame and the side of the curtains.

  Scarcely daring to breathe, he knelt down on the concrete path and peered through the gap. At first he saw nothing but carpet and bare, white wall. He shifted his position. Part of the Victorian armchair slid into his range of vision. Lucy was sitting there. All he could see was her feet and ankles, Mickey Mouse slippers and pale-green tights, projecting from the seat. She was not moving. He wondered if she were sleeping. She had seemed very tired in the bath, perhaps because of the medication.

  At that moment Angel came into view, still wearing her white robe. Round her neck was a long, purple scarf, like a broad, shiny
ribbon with tassels on the end. Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving. As Eddie watched, she raised her arms towards the ceiling. Eddie licked dry lips. What he could see through the gap, the cross section of the basement, seemed only marginally connected with reality; it belonged in a dream.

  Angel moved out of sight. Eddie panicked. She might have seen him at the window. In a moment the back door would open and she would catch him peeping. I just came out for a breath of fresh air. He straightened up quickly and glanced around. There was enough wind to stir the trees at the bottom of the garden and in Carver’s beyond. The leafless branches made a black tracery, through which he glimpsed Mrs Reynolds on her balcony. Eddie shivered as he walked back to the house.

  Mrs Reynolds watches me, I watch Angel: who watches Mrs Reynolds? Must be God.

  Eddie giggled, imagining God following Mrs Reynolds’s movements through a pair of field glasses from some vantage point in the sky. According to Mr Reynolds, his wife had become a born-again Christian since Jenny Wren had sent herself into a coma.

  ‘It’s a comfort to her,’ Mr Reynolds had said. ‘Not really my cup of tea, but never mind.’

  Eddie opened the back door and went inside. The warmth of the kitchen enveloped him but he could not stop shivering. He went into the hall. The basement door was still closed. He pressed his ear against one of the panels. All he heard was his own breathing, which seemed unnaturally loud.

  Clinging to the banister, he climbed the stairs and rummaged in the bathroom cupboard until he found the thermometer. He perched uncomfortably on the side of the bath while he took his temperature. It’s not fair. Why won’t she let me in the basement too? He took the thermometer out of his mouth. His temperature was over 102 degrees. He felt strangely proud of this achievement: he must be really ill. He deserved special treatment.

  He found some paracetamol in the cupboard, took two tablets out of the bottle and snapped them in half. He poured water into a green plastic beaker which he had had since he was a child. The flowing water so fascinated him that he let it flood over the rim of the beaker and trickle over his fingers. At last he swallowed the tablets and went into his bedroom to lie down.

  Alternately hot and cold, he lay fully clothed under the duvet. He thought how nice it would be if Angel and Lucy brought him a hot-water bottle and a cooling drink. They could sit with him for a while, and perhaps Angel would read a story. Nobody cares about me. He stared at the picture of the little girl which his father had given his mother all those years ago. Very nice, Stanley. If you like that sort of thing. A little later he heard his parents talking: dead voices from the big front bedroom; perhaps they were not really dead after all – perhaps they were watching him now.

  Eddie drifted in and out of sleep. Just before three in the afternoon he woke to find his mouth dry and his body wet with sweat. He dragged himself out of bed and stood swaying and shivering in the bedroom. I need some tea, a nice cup of tea.

  He found his glasses and went slowly downstairs. To his surprise, he heard voices in the kitchen. He pushed open the door. Lucy was sitting at the table eating a boiled egg. Angel was now dressed in jeans and jersey; her hair was tied back in a ponytail. As Eddie staggered into the room, he heard Lucy saying, ‘Mummy always cuts my toast into soldiers, but Daddy doesn’t bother.’

  She stopped talking as soon as she saw Eddie. Angel and Lucy stared at Eddie. Two’s company, three’s none.

  ‘What are you doing in the kitchen?’ Eddie said, his voice rising in pitch. ‘It’s against the rules.’

  ‘The rules aren’t written in stone. Circumstances alter cases.’ Angel stroked Lucy’s dark head. ‘And this is a very special little circumstance.’

  ‘But they never come in the kitchen.’

  ‘That’s enough, Eddie. How are you feeling?’

  Thrown off balance, he stared at her.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’

  ‘How did you know I’m ill?’

  ‘You should try looking at yourself in the mirror,’ Angel said, not unkindly.

  ‘I think it’s flu.’

  ‘I doubt it: probably just a virus. You need paracetamol and lots of fluids.’

  Eddie sat down at the table. Lucy looked at him, her spoon halfway to her mouth, and to his delight she smiled.

  ‘Finish your egg, dear,’ Angel said. ‘It’s getting cold.’

  ‘I don’t want any more.’

  ‘Nonsense. You need some food in that little tummy. And don’t forget your Ribena.’

  Lucy dropped her spoon on the table. ‘But I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Come along: eat up.’

  ‘I’m full.’

  ‘You’ll do as I say, Lucy. You must always finish what’s on your plate.’

  ‘Mummy doesn’t make me when I’m full.’ Lucy’s eyes brimmed with tears but her voice was loud so she sounded more angry than afraid. ‘I want Mummy.’

  ‘We’re not at home to Miss Crosspatch,’ Angel announced.

  Eddie laughed. He would not usually have dared to laugh, but now the boundaries were shifting. After all, he was not entirely sure that this was really happening. It might be a dream. At any moment he might wake up and see, hanging on the wall by the door, the picture of the little girl which his father had given his mother. The girl like Lucy.

  ‘You’re really not yourself, Eddie.’ Angel walked into the hall. ‘I’m going to take your temperature.’ Her footsteps ran lightly up the stairs.

  Lucy pushed the toast aside with a violent movement of her right arm. The far side of the plate caught the plastic cup, which slid to the edge of the table. Ribena flooded across the floor.

  For an instant, Eddie and Lucy looked at each other. Then Lucy slithered off her seat and ran for the door – not the door to the hall but the door to the garden. Eddie knew he should do something, if this were not a dream, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to stand up. In any case, it wouldn’t matter: they kept the back door locked when they had a little girl staying with them.

  He watched Lucy twisting the handle and pulling. He watched the door opening and felt cold air against his skin. Only then, as Lucy ran into the garden, did he realize that she really was outside. He was aware, too, that this was his fault – that he had unlocked the door when he went out to look through the basement window at Angel and Lucy. Seeing Mrs Reynolds on her balcony had made him forget to relock it when he came in. Angel would blame him, which was unfair: it was Mrs Reynolds’s fault. He stood up, propping himself on the table.

  Angel took him by surprise. She ran across the kitchen from the hall, the ponytail bouncing behind her, and out of the back door. Eddie heard a crack like an exploding firework. There was another crack, then a pregnant silence, the peace before the storm. He let himself sink back on to his chair.

  It was almost a relief when Lucy began to cry: jagged sobs, not far from hysteria. Angel dragged her inside, kicked the door shut and turned the key in the lock. Angel was pale and tight-lipped.

  ‘Very well, madam.’ Angel was holding Lucy by the ear, her nails biting in to the pink skin. ‘Do you know what happens to naughty children? They go to hell.’

  Eddie cleared his throat. ‘In a way, it’s not her fault. She’s –’

  ‘Of course it’s her fault.’

  Lucy pressed her hand against her left cheek. The sobbing mutated into a thin, high wail.

  ‘Perhaps she’s tired,’ Eddie muttered. ‘Perhaps she needs a rest.’

  Angel pushed Lucy away. The girl fell against a chair and slid to the floor. She stayed there, half-sitting, half-sprawling, with an arm hooked round a chair leg and her head resting against the side of the seat. Ribena soaked into the skirt of her dress.

  The crying stopped. Lucy’s mouth hung open, the lips moist and loose. Fear makes children ugly.

  ‘It’s all right, Lucy.’ Eddie sat down on the chair beside hers and patted Lucy’s dark head. She jerked it away. ‘You’re a bit overexcited. That’s all it is.’

  �
�That’s not all it is.’ Angel tugged open the drawer where they kept the kitchen cutlery. ‘She needs a lesson. They all need a lesson.’

  Eddie rubbed his aching forehead. ‘Who need a lesson? I don’t understand.’

  Angel whirled round. In her hand was a pair of long scissors with orange plastic handles. She pointed them at Eddie, and the blades flashed. ‘You’ll never understand. You’re too stupid.’

  He looked at the table and noticed the swirl of the grain around a knot shaped like a snail. He wished he were dead.

  ‘If they do wrong,’ Angel shouted, ‘they have to pay for it. How else can they make things right?’

  Eddie examined the snail. He wanted to say: But she only spilled some Ribena.

  ‘And if they don’t want to, then I shall make them.’ Angel’s face was ablaze. ‘We all have to suffer. So why shouldn’t they?’

  But who are ‘they’? The four girls or –

  ‘Come here, Lucy,’ Angel said softly.

  Lucy didn’t move.

  Angel sprang across the kitchen, the scissors raised in her right hand.

  ‘No,’ Eddie said, trying to get up. ‘You mustn’t.’

  With her left hand, Angel seized Lucy by the hair and dragged her to her feet. Lucy screamed. Oddly detached, Eddie noticed that there were toast crumbs and a long stain of yolk on the green Laura Ashley dress.

  Angel pulled Lucy by the hair. Lucy wrapped one arm round a table leg and screamed. Angel pulled harder. The table juddered a few inches over the kitchen floor.

  ‘Angel, let her go. Someone might hear.’

  Lucy squealed. Angel yanked the little girl away from the table. She towered over Lucy, holding the scissors high above the girl’s head.

  ‘No, Angel, no!’ Eddie cried. ‘Please, Angel, no.’

  9

  ‘But that those phantasms appear often, and do frequent Cæmeteries, Charnel-houses and Churches, it is because those are the dormitories of the dead …’