Losing Nicola

by Susan Moody

  ‘Some German lieder,’ said my father. He began to sing softly, ‘Muss i denn, muss i denn . . .’

  ‘I’d love to hear some Bach,’ said Orlando.

  ‘Yes, but . . . I think this is not the right occasion for Bach?’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Orlando, although Callum had just wound up the gramophone and put a Victor Sylvester record on the turntable.

  ‘I think it is more of a dancing party than a concert.’

  ‘It’s a bit-of-everything-party,’ Orlando assured him.

  ‘We shall see,’ said Sasha. He smiled at me. ‘And if there is to be dancing, I hope I may dance with the birthday child.’

  ‘Girl,’ said Orlando. ‘She’s a girl, not a child.’

  Sasha bowed again, one hand on his heart. ‘I apologize, Miss Alice. Of course you are not a child, not any more.’ To Orlando, he said, ‘Your sister tells me that you are a gifted musician. What instruments do you play?’

  Orlando shrugged. ‘Piano, of course. Violin. Oboe. I’m thinking of taking up the flute next term.’

  ‘If you already play so many, I think this should not be hard for you.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘He can play anything,’ I said.

  Mr Elias sighed. ‘I should like to be as talented as you.’ I was amazed that a grown-up would talk as an equal to someone of Orlando’s age.

  ‘Thank you,’ Orlando said. As the notes of a quickstep began to fill the room, he grabbed my hand. ‘Please excuse me – we know this tune. Come on, Alice.’ He swept me away.

  ‘Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow,’ I whispered, under my breath. Although I was hopelessly arrhythmic with anyone else, I loved to dance with Orlando, who seemed able to bend his body to mine so that instead of being two people, we were one.

  Out in the garden, lit by the candlelight streaming across the lawn, I could faintly see Julian and Nicola, dancing together. She stood so close to him there was no space between their two bodies, and while I looked, I saw him bend towards her and she lift her mouth to his.

  Kissing! What did that feel like? If Mr Elias kissed me, would it be nicer than the damp sweaty touch of Julian’s mouth, earlier that summer? Over Orlando’s shoulder I saw my father dancing with my mother, his hand high on her back, his head held in a rigid and formal way which only emphasized the fluency of their movements. Before the war, perhaps Fiona had danced like this, with boyfriends from University, or with my father, foxtrotting through the Schwarzwald, or swaying at a Spanish fiesta, fluttering a fan, throwing back her head in laughter.

  The record came to an end and Orlando bowed in the way we’d been taught, then slipped away to rewind the gramophone and put on another record. Then Sasha Elias was in front of me, holding out his hand, his green-speckled eyes warm.

  ‘Miss Alice, may I have the pleasure of the next dance?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What a lovely evening we are having’ he said. ‘It was very kind of your mother to invite me.’

  ‘We’re very glad you were able to come,’ I said formally,

  ‘We used to dance in my family, too. In the old days. My mother would play the piano and my sisters would clap in time.’ He smiled. ‘My aunt Lena loved to dance the tango with my father.’

  I tried to visualize this German household, the father with a gold watch stretched across his waistcoat, mother with her hair up and a long tea-gown, the two little girls in low-waisted dresses with big bows holding back their hair, like the illustrations in my copy of The Secret Garden, the aunt with a rose between her teeth.

  ‘I’ve never danced the tango,’ I said.

  ‘Then one day I shall teach you,’ he said.

  Nicola came towards us. Her mouth looked crushed. Against the far wall, I saw Mr Yelland was watching her, his expression hostile.

  ‘Alice has promised to have the next dance with me,’ said Sasha, smiling at her. ‘Might I have the honour of the one after that with you?’

  She looked him up and down. ‘I don’t think so.’ Turning away from him, she said over her shoulder, ‘Unless you promise to wear handcuffs.’

  I hoped he didn’t understand what she meant, but he did. He flinched, paled. ‘This is a very discourteous girl,’ he said quietly. ‘Also – I hope you understand – not a truthful one.’

  ‘I know that.’ I burned with shame and indignation. How did she dare to be so rude, and in someone else’s house, too? At someone else’s birthday party. Looking at the lines of distress around his mouth, I knew that I would never willingly speak to her again.

  Another record started up. Mr Elias held out his hand and I slipped into his arms. He held me close, pressing me against him, and whirled me around. My heart beat almost painfully against the silk of my frock. When the music ended, he held my hand and gave a stiff little bow. ‘Thank you, Alice.’

  There was a sudden commotion out in the garden. One of Callum’s friends appeared at the French windows. ‘There’s a chap out here says he wants to speak to a Mrs Enid Edwardes, whoever that is,’ he said. ‘Seems a bit the worse for wear, actually.’ Behind him, we could hear some confused shouting, raised voices, the crash of breaking glass.

  ‘Who’s Enid Edwardes?’ I said to Orlando as we crowded towards the windows.

  ‘Ava,’ he said, and my heart sank. Why did the brutish husband have to return today of all days?

  Outside, Nicola was crouched in the corner of the hedge, though I didn’t understand what she was doing. Edwardes suddenly turned on her. ‘You didn’t say there was people here, you little slut,’ he shouted, swinging a fist.

  My parents pushed between us. ‘What the hell has that wretched little whore been up to now?’ my father said, his voice low. It was a shocking enough question, especially given that he never used bad language, at least, not in front of us.

  Sirens screamed distantly. At the sound of them, Edwardes swung round. ‘I’ll get even with the lot of you,’ he yelled. He lurched towards Nicola. ‘And as for you, you’ll get what’s coming to you.’

  ‘Can’t fucking wait,’ she said.

  I gasped. I’d never heard that word spoken before, though I’d read it, knew what it meant. But to have this girl using it, and in front of my parents . . . it crossed my mind that she might be drunk.

  ‘That’s more than enough from you, Miss,’ my father said angrily. ‘You’ve caused enough trouble already.’

  The idea that whatever was going on in the garden was somehow Nicola’s fault, was even more startling than my father’s swearing. We were not used to children being able to precipitate events, or manipulate the adults around them. On the whole, knowing ourselves to be powerless, we did as we were told.

  I could hear Ava sobbing somewhere behind me, and Orlando’s voice soothing her.‘Come on, everybody,’ my mother called. ‘Supper is served. Everything’s ready, just go and help yourself.’ She stopped me. Pulled me to her side. ‘Happy birthday, Alice,’ she said. ‘I hope . . . nobody’s spoiling things for you.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No. Honestly.’

  She smiled apologetically. ‘I should have listened to you. Not insisted on inviting that frightful girl.’

  There was a surge of movement as people crowded towards the dining room, I looked back. Nicola was still standing by the hedge, staring from the darkened garden. For a moment, she looked baffled and lonely. Behind her someone must have called her name because she turned, looked mildly surprised, pasted a smile onto her mouth and nodded.

  ‘Just a minute,’ she said.

  SEVEN

  The morning after the party, the house was peaceful. The rest of the evening had passed so uneventfully – apart from some kind of skirmish at the side door I was too busy to investigate – that by morning I had almost forgotten Nicola. Perhaps it was easier to do so; otherwise I should have been forced to accept that she had deliberately attempted to sabotage my birthday party. Knowing I wouldn’t need to see her again, I felt nothing but relief. Very soon we’d be return
ing to school, and after that, I would never come back to Glenfield House.

  Now Orlando leaned across the breakfast table and with a solemn nod, indicated that today was Blackberry Day. Swelled with importance, I nodded back. Gravely we gathered our kit together: Wellington boots, long-sleeved tops, gloves, walking stick, paper bags, punnets, bowls. Only Ava, keeper of preserving pans and Kilner jars, knew that we would be returning later, laden down with fruit and made preparations accordingly: cooking apples to be purchased, two picnic lunches to be prepared and packed into our father’s khaki canvas army knapsack, along with a bottle of water, some sandwiches and four digestive biscuits. As formal as though we were about to undergo an initiation ceremony or an ordination, we got onto our bikes and cycled down the drive.

  We trawled our sites, desultorily picking only the very biggest and ripest. We had perfected our technique over the past few years. Grasping our walking sticks, we used the curved handle to pull branches into reach. Carefully, we plucked the shiny black fruit and dropped them into our paper bags. Once they were full, we transferred them to our punnets. By midday, we had already filled our bike baskets and cycled back to Glenfield to unload our haul into Ava’s waiting pans.

  The house was still quiet, which was unusual. My brothers and their guests weren’t up yet. The PGs and my parents had gone about their various businesses. We took two more biscuits from the tin in the larder and cycled back again, anticipation sparkling through our veins. The morning’s crop had been merely the prelude to the main event. Dumb with expectation, we laid down our bikes on the edge of the road, picked up our equipment and began the easy clamber up to the top of the cliff where the Secret Glade waited for us, a bountiful treasure trove, a dazzling hoard of berried wealth. We started to pick from the outside, saving the inner part with its circle of grass as the crowning achievement of our day’s endeavour.

  I’d kept faithfully to my promise not to tell Nicola about the Secret Glade, but was nonetheless apprehensive. I’d mentioned it to Charles, and he could have passed the information on to Julian, who might possibly have told her. The thorns were thick and vicious; the bushes, as far as I could see and to my great relief, were untrampled. We settled into our picking rhythm.

  Reach, pull, pick, drop.

  Reach. Pull. Pick. Drop.

  The world contracted from sea, sky, sun, horizon, to a narrow prospect of thorn, stem, leaf, berry. The boughs were heavy with fruit, but we knew that on the inner side of the circle of bushes lay the real treasure. We could see the untouched strands waiting for us, fleshy with fruit, lushly black, glisteningly ripe. Our bowls were filled and refilled with nature’s bounty.

  ‘Looks like a bumper crop this year,’ Orlando said.

  I nodded in agreement. ‘Fiona will be pleased.’

  Reach. Pull. Pick. Drop.

  I scratched my inner arm on a hidden bramble spray, and stopped to suck out the soft bramble pins. Reach. Pull. Pick. Drop.

  Orlando finally decreed that it was time to enter the virgin heart of the Secret Glade. Shoulders hunched against the bramble barbs, oblivious to the scratches and the nettle stings, we pushed our way through into the little patch of dandelioned grass.

  Reach, pull, pick, drop.

  Reach. Pull. Pick — Oh . . . God!

  Both of us stopped, mouths open, flushing with fear. Something lay there on the grass. Impossible as it seemed on this normal, ordinary sunny day, we were staring in horror at a body.

  God . . .

  Simultaneously, our throats acid with bile, we retched, then gave another horror-struck look. Our baskets fell from our fingers, the berries spilling over the ground like tiny nuggets of coke.

  ‘Holy God!’ whispered Orlando.

  My mind erupted in a cacophony of sensations: screams stifled, throat gripped, blows falling onto resistless flesh. And fear, purple-bright and poison-green, black as pain. The air of this secret place was thick with terror. I gave another wincing glance, my stomach heaving, and looked directly at violent death.

  As I clutched at the sleeve of Orlando’s rough fisherman’s sweater, there was no doubt in my mind. I knew about blood, and murder. My parents’ bookshelves were filled with green-backed detective novels. Looking at the crumpled heap lying to one side of the grass, I realized how antiseptic words were, how completely inadequate to convey the essence of this heart-stopping reality.

  Woodpigeons clattered in a nearby copse of sycamore trees. Gulls shrieked. Further away, I could clearly hear the chewing sound of the sea on the pebble beach. The bitter odour of crushed dandelions filled the air; blood smeared the grass. A faint sweetish odour lingered among the leaves. The scent of death, I thought.

  The body lay half on its side, like a piece of garbage thrown carelessly away. Had the killer carried it here, tossed it between the brambles before fleeing? Is that all she had been to him, a piece of garbage to be discarded when done with? Or had she arranged to meet someone here? Someone who was at the party?

  I cleared my throat. ‘Or- Orlando . . .’

  ‘What?’ His voice was as tentative as mine.

  ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’

  ‘I think she must be.’

  ‘Do you think it . . . it happened here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Somebody must have seen whoever it was. There’d be blood on them. There’d must have been, blood and . . .’

  ‘Shut up!’

  The face was battered beyond recognition. Teeth showed through the torn cheek, white bone under the blood. The mouth had been split by blows from a fist. We could see that the body was that of a young girl. The skirt, short, navy-blue, was torn, raised to the waist, revealing thin bruised thighs. There was no underwear. The fleshy triangle at the base of the stomach was flecked with fine brown fuzz, where the pubic hair had begun to grow. The white blouse was ripped; one small breast was visible.

  In those years after the war, there was little money about for clothes. One or two outfits for every day, one for Sunday best, one’s school uniform. I knew that the navy-blue skirt had been run up on the sewing machine by the victim’s mother, that the blouse was purchased last week from the general clothing store in the little town. I’d seen them both only the night before.

  ‘It’s . . .’ I tried to get the word out but couldn’t.

  ‘It can’t be.’ The expression on Orlando’s face was hard to read. Horror and disgust, shock, fear.

  I forced my fist against my mouth. Nicola. Oh God . . . Don’t throw up. Don’t. My lips trembled.

  With sudden clarity, I noticed details which, afterwards, I realized I could not possibly have seen. The blue veins leading from Nicola’s tiny wrists up towards her arms. The roughened skin near her right-hand thumbnail. A mole at the back of her neck. A pulled thread at the third buttonhole of her blouse.

  Was it because I had observed Nicola so minutely over the previous weeks that I could see them now? Or was it simply that shock had sharpened my vision?

  ‘Nicola,’ Orlando said loudly, as though hoping she was asleep. ‘Nicola . . .’ His voice faded away

  And to my surprise, I found that, once given identity, the thing lying on the ground was less potent. Young though we were, death had been a constant in our lives, either through absence or from effect. The dead were never going to come back. The war had left gaps, forever marking those left behind. Standing fearfully on the rough, sun-streaked grass, I understood that those gaps were abstract.

  This was real. This was not death, but Death. This was how it might have happened to father, brother, husband, cousin, this tearing of flesh, this pounding, this blood, this hideous non-existence.

  ‘Do you think she could possibly be still alive?’ Normally the more dominant of the two of us, Orlando seemed to have shrunk inside himself.

  ‘No.’ I bit my lip. ‘At least, I don’t see how she could be. Not like that . . .’ I gestured at the torn face, the blood.

  ‘We ought to check whether . . .’

>   ‘I can’t.’

  ‘We should, we must . . .’

  Cautiously Orlando stepped towards the slight body on the grass, over the soft slime of crushed fruit. Gagging with fear, breathing as shallowly as a reptile, I tiptoed after him, stood with my knees against his back as he knelt beside her.

  She lay on her side, almost tucked under the fountain of bramble sprays, invisible unless you entered the thorny barrier they made. It was nearly September and the bushes had already begun to turn autumnal, red-edged. Small long-legged spiders climbed among the leaves. I could see one on her hair, another on her leg.

  Orlando reached out a shrinking, juice-stained finger and warily touched her shoulder.

  Not warily enough.

  The small body fell backwards so that it lay face up. An open, blood-glazed eye glinted between strands of hair. The legs seemed wider open now, spread. I could see more blood on her thighs, marked with purple bruises, and the mortifying display of her private parts, whorled like a rose. This moment settled into my mind like a stain, permanently inked, indelible.

  Whatever doubts he might have had before, Orlando couldn’t avoid seeing now that she was truly dead. ‘She’s . . . she’s cold,’ he said huskily.

  I reached out a hand but I couldn’t touch her. She’d been my friend, my enchantress, my lack of ease. I envisaged my fingers denting her flesh, leaving themselves imprinted on her body. I would never be able to wash away the feel of it. Intimations of mortality enlaced me. Solemnity. Something which once had been so singularly vital, so full, it had seemed, of maleficent energy, was definitively absent and would be so forever.

  Suddenly there was movement among the bushes. Twigs cracked, bent tendrils whipped back. Was someone there, was someone watching us, and if so, who? The murderer? The police?

  Both of us whirled round but could see nothing. I thought of shoe prints among the crushed blackberries, of tell-tale fibres left at the scene of the crime, a dropped button. I thought of a madman come back to the scene of the crime, ready to murder again.