The phone calls were no longer the worst. This was the worst. Having a client turn up on the doorstep in full view of enquiring neighbours. Somebody who would demand an immediate answer. Somebody who could see she was a twenty–five year old woman, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, cribbing answers from her father’s black book.
She opened her eyes but scowled to compensate for any implied civility. “You shouldn’t be here. Who told you the address?”
“I was given it by a family friend. I can see that I should have called ahead.” He nodded vainly, seeking her agreement. “You helped my friend a few years ago. They said you were the right people to contact. And I have something...”
“Who?” She could have killed him with her stare. “I need their name.”
“What? Who gave me your details? John Delaney. From Mobberley. He said that...”
“Look,” she spread a hand flat toward the man, “Pimlico Associates aren’t taking on any new cases.”
“Won’t you at least listen? Somebody has died and I just need...”
Edith slammed the door and locked it with maximum prejudice. She collapsed at the foot of the stairs, head between her knees. It was worthless crying again. She’d tried that already. It didn’t do any good.
The letterbox clattered. A business card wafted to the ground. She snatched it up determined to throw it away immediately. ‘Samuel Faircote. Managing Director. Faircote Paints.’ She flipped it over. On the back Samuel had biroed, ‘If you change your mind. Please.’
She bent the card double and stuffed it into her jeans pocket.
The mirror caught her again. Eyes on the edge of tears.
Then she heard the sound.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Who was that?”
The voice shot from the dark as soon as Edith shuffled into the room, summoned by his banging on the floor. Her chest tightened. She tried not to swallow. It was never easy at the best of times. Now wasn’t the best of times. Worst still, he was invisible, she was an open book.
After months of living in the deepest, total darkness he no longer looked with his eyes. He saw every little sound that she made. The brush of her jeans upon the wall when she leant up by the door. The swiping of loose hair behind her ears. He could hear her fidget as she lied.
All she knew was that somewhere in the gloom, maybe sat in his chair or maybe lying on his bed, was her father. People wanted to speak to him, to meet with him, to have him working their case. Yet here he was, holed up in the dark of his bedroom, incommunicado. Since the accident only Edith had exchanged more than a few words with him.
It had surprised her to learn how much in demand her father was. It would surprise him how much she had turned away.
Ben Pimlico had woken from his accident with a brain-splitting axe of a headache. Then the fun began. Doctors drowned him in morphine, adding sweats and hallucination to his agony. He writhed in his bedsheets for endless days. Begging. Pleading. Demanding that somebody just bloody well shoot him and get it over with.
Wheeled into a private room to spare other patients his suffering, even his own daughter alternated her compassion with flights of distress. Only when his body, exhausted from the constant torment, passed into unconsciousness masquerading as sleep, could she bear to spend a night at his bedside.
In her vigil she had lain a cloth over her father’s eyes to stop the sweat which ran from his brow even as he slept. By quenching the light, even only the soft night-time lights of a sleeping hospital, she had inadvertently saved him.
The morning found him rested, calm. The torture was over.
It began anew the moment the blindfold was lifted.
Once replaced there was no temptation for either to raise it again in curiosity. The light must be kept out at all costs. The revelation of that night led to his darkened bedroom in Timperley. Eighteen months later he was its prisoner.
No light. None. His bedroom had been plunged into the deepest and blackest darkness. The windows irrevocably shuttered, sealed and double sealed. Light fittings left empty to avoid catastrophe. No electronics with screens, all LEDs diligently removed. Not even a bare match.
A second door had been added to the room so that Edith could enter—only one door open at a time—and tend her father for all his needs. A lightlock to keep out the world of light beyond.
He still needed to be fed. His clothes laundered. His commode emptied. Hot water, soap, and towels for him to wash. She provided it all. She provided everything. Even company on the rare occasions that he asked for it. Solitude at all other times.
Apart from her, only the uninterrupted whisper of a bedside radio tied his existence to the outside world. Otherwise she kept him in the dark in as many ways as possible.
“There was nobody at the door, Dad.”
“It must have been somebody, sweetheart, I could hear it.”
“It was just the postman.”
“Listen,” he pointed to the radio in the dark, pausing as an additional gesture, “it’s Woman’s Hour on Radio 4. The postman doesn’t come til after it’s finished.”
She rolled her eyes, confident that it was one of the few expressions her father hadn’t yet learnt to hear. “I mean, it was a delivery man.”
“Package for me, then?” He taunted her privately with outstretched hands, wondering how long it would take to wear away his daughter’s defensiveness. “Or for you?”
She slid down the wall to sit on the carpet. Knees hugged as her shield.
“Good,” he smiled to himself, “it’s easier just to tell the truth.”
“Dad, who’s John Delaney?”
“Hmm...” He honestly couldn’t remember. Names used to come to him in a flash. Old friends and near strangers alike were recalled at the slightest prompt. Not so much since the accident.
“From Mobberley.”
“Ahh...” Still couldn’t remember. It must have been an old case. He would have to think about it. It would come eventually. “Is that who was at the door?”
“No, but he’s given out our address. The man at the door wanted to speak to you about his problem.”
“Good! That’s good!” Hands clapped together excitedly. “Did you get his details?”
“He left a card.” The folded business card an angular pimple in her pocket. She withdrew it and played with it between her fingers. It would have been better to deny having it, or have thrown it away at the first opportunity. “But that’s not the point, is it? Nobody should be coming round here bothering us. You’re not well.”
Ben shrugged expressively. He couldn’t understand that he was invisible to his daughter. “Go speak to him, get the facts and bring them back here.”
“What? Wait, why?”
“I need to work, sweetheart, I’ve been too long stewing in this room. I’ll lose my touch at this rate. I’ll be no good when I’m ready to get going again. Can’t put it off any longer.”
She glowered at the likely spot where her father sat. Maybe he could hear her teeth grinding. She stopped immediately, contenting herself with silent dissent. Dad was delusional. There was no way he would ever work again. Since coming home he had never left the safety of his bedroom. Not for even a minute.
‘Maybe,’ he had begun around the anniversary of his accident to think about the future. ‘Soon,’ he had proffered a little later. Months had been filled brave talk and endless ‘when’.
A few weeks ago, while bringing his dinner, she left one door of the lightlock ajar while opening the other. She heard her father stifle a moan before she managed to shut the door properly.
It was no mistake. She learnt what she wanted to know. She hoped her father had too.
He had reached an existence in his black box of a bedroom which was tolerable to him and workable for her. There was no progress with his condition, only ways to make his situation more comfortable, most of which she was happy to provide. He could have had a phone. Old style with no screen or flashing lights; enough to make call by k
ey tone alone. But he would discover she had been refusing clients. It wasn’t something he needed to know.
Beyond that there was little substance to offer. Getting out the room a mere fantasy. How would he ever manage to go out into the world and not instantly find himself crippled with pain? Could he even bear the night, with the moon and streetlights?
His illness was permanent, unending. It was his condition, his situation. His new normal. It would last the rest of his life.
Unlike his money.
“Dad, I think you should take it slowly. Maybe spend a little bit longer getting better. Just to be sure.”
“Nonsense!” He stiffened in his chair at her rehearsed lines. “Look, I’ve had enough time to recover, people have given me space to get better, and now they’re coming back because they need me. I can’t turn them away, sweetheart, you don’t know how important my work is to the people I help.”
“I don’t think...,” she was unable to break the truth to her father. So many had been turned away already. It must have been hundreds. He could assume whatever reason he wanted for the dearth of new cases. Were it not for Samuel Faircote, he could have kept on assuming.
“What don’t you think?” He didn’t want her reply, even if she had one. “Get out there and make yourself useful. Go to this fella and find out what he wants. Just take down the details and bring them back to me. Tell him I’ll look into his case soon.”
“Yes, Dad.” She opened the inner door and slouched from the room. Wasn’t she useful enough already?
“Oh, and slide me something in to eat for dinner. I don’t fancy starving.”
“Is that your dinner?”
Edith sat atop a brick wall on Wilbraham Road in Chorlton munching away at a sausage roll. Half her body was hidden inside a long green parka, her legs stuck out like matchsticks in skinny black jeans. Strangers often mistook her for a teen rather than the twenty–five-year-old that she was. Strangers also failed to recognize that Sunny, with straight blonde hair and self-assuredness, was her sister. The hair came from straighteners and a bottle, which Sunny would freely admit. The self–assuredness from their father, which she would have been loath to acknowledge.
“Yeah, it’s my dinner.” Edith chewed unselfconsciously, stopping to grin at her sister, flakes of pastry round her mouth. “It’s all I can afford.”
“I don’t get what Andrius sees in you.” Sunny leant on the wall with her elbows. She gazed into the supermarket car park beyond to avoid the sight of her troughing sister. “Even so, I’m sure he can afford to feed you better.”
The time on her mobile said five past twelve. The auction house opened at one and the journey would take half an hour. There was always time for her sister, but today that time was specifically fifteen minutes. It wasn’t fair, she knew that. Not after what she had put Edith through.
After years of working with their father, Sunny simply disappeared. Four years they hadn’t spoken. Nor seen one another. Edith didn’t even know if her sister was still alive. All she knew was that when Sunny finally returned she had no time for their father. And that neither could bear losing their sister again.
“I don’t know what Andrius sees in me either, just so you know. It’s a mystery.” Edith paused. A bus roaring by temporarily rendered conversation impossible. “Even so, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s just...a friend. He doesn’t mean anything to me. Honestly.” She bookended her lie with a shrug, an admission of failure to convince even herself. “I thought you didn’t approve of him anyway?”
“I don’t. He’s sleazy. I can’t believe you haven’t figured that out yet.” Sunny turned round and hoisted herself onto the wall to sit next to Edith. There was a special voice when she was giving sisterly advice. “I see guys like him all the time at the auction house. They’re loaded and just want things to own, to have, to admire. You should hear the way they talk about the stuff they buy. They want to know how good it will look in their house. Whether people will understand how much it cost them.” She raised her eyes to meet her sister’s. “Does he even love you?”
“Andrius wants me for a collector’s piece, then?” Edith hid the truth with a joke. Andrius loved her, he had told her so. Multiple times. And he excused her shortcomings whatever they were. They had met at university. He had seen the good and the bad; Edith in all her glory. Nothing had dissuaded him.
When they first met neither expected the eventual outcome. Unpretentious beers in the student union were not a romantic start to a great love affair. She was as relaxed with Andrius as with any of her friends, not thinking that a smart and handsome guy would ever want her. He had his choice of girls. Could he have expected to fall for somebody who wouldn’t usually draw a second look?
Edith smiled to herself.
“You know, let’s not talk about it now,” Sunny glimpsed at the time, “you said you had something to ask me.”
“Two things,” Edith scrunched the paper bag into her pocket, then raised two fingers. This was her great plan, cooked up ten minutes after her father’s order. “I don’t need both, just one or the other.”
“Get on with it.”
“Can you lend me some money?”
Sunny rolled her eyes and breathed in. “You mean give you some money? I won’t be getting it back will I?”
“Not any time soon, no,” Edith shook her head, “and I need quite a bit. I had to pay a bill this morning. Nearly six hundred pounds. I put it on my overdraft.”
“Christ, Edith! Is there no money left in Dad’s account?”
“Nope. He’s no better either. He’s not going to work any time soon. Probably never. And I can’t get a job while looking after him. Not a proper job, at least.” Edith laid the groundwork for her second question. Sunny would happily say no to both unless one was forced with the prospect of the other.
“I don’t have that kind of money to spare, I really don’t. I give you money as it is for looking after Dad, and that’s as much as I can afford.”
“But you’re both working?”
“Fred’s only on post–doc pay and I’m not even on that at the auction house.” Sunny sighed. “Look, it’s our money, not Dad’s. We’re trying to save for a deposit for a house. We’ll have to leave Chorlton just to get anything decent.”
Edith leapt down off the wall and beckoned Sunny to follow her. Away from the wall outside the supermarket and away from the main road. The side road was quieter, better for what she had in mind. Tall Victorian terraced houses looked down upon them but most were empty in the middle of the day. A moment passed in thought.
How best to phrase the question? Edith was no longer sure how she felt about her father’s order. If she had enough money to carry on she would have ignored him. Lie to him, tell him the client backed out. Or just refuse point blank and let him impotently rail against her for doing so. The money seemed less likely than a moment ago. Though the other option, the second request, seemed even less likely.
It was preposterous that their father could work in his state. It wouldn’t be enough for her to bring him the details of the case. He couldn’t do anything with it. There was no way for him to solve the thing while sat in his bedroom. Another order to her would follow the first, then a third and a fourth. She would have to follow the case through.
Sunny had worked with Dad, why couldn’t she? If Sunny refused to speak with Dad, and Dad was unable to do anything on his own, then the opportunity was Edith’s. If she wanted it.
“Can I borrow your car for a few days?” Edith shifted the weight of her body from one foot to the other.
“Sure,” Sunny wrinkled her brow at the innocence of the request. Both she and Frederick usually took the bus and tram to work anyway, “what do you need it for?”
“To run a case.” Edith let her gaze drop. It was better for what came next not to be looking into her sister’s eyes.
“A case? A case case? Like one of Dad’s cases?” Sunny stepped forward until she was uncomfortably close. Her face pushe
d into her sister’s averted view. “Is Dad getting you to work for him?”
“Dad is taking on a new case.” Edith pursed her lips. “But he’s not well, you know?”
“And...?”
“He’s asked me to start it for him. I don’t think he’s going to be able to...I mean...”
“And you said no, right?”
“I kinda agreed. I didn’t say no.” Edith finally her sister’s stare. “I don’t want to do it, but we’ve got no money.”
“Oh, fuck off, Edith!” Sunny pulled away and threw her hands in the air. “Don’t lay that shit on me. You knew exactly how I would react, didn’t you? Is this how you were going to screw me for cash? You know I don’t want you getting involved in that bullshit.”
“I know.” Edith had been warned off by Sunny ever since her teens. At first with simple statements of how dangerous it could be as she lacked the necessary training, which had only made her want it more. Then, just before Sunny disappeared, with clear, unambiguous, but unexplained threats, ‘I’ld rather you were dead than see that happen.’
Sunny shut her eyes and measured her breaths in silence. It did little good.
“Can’t you just marry Andrius? Then you’ll have as much money as you need. Or even just leave Dad? It’s not as if he deserves you. Let somebody else deal with the bastard.”
“Dad’s not a bastard! He’s ill! I can’t abandon him. I’m his daughter.”
“Yeah, well, so am I, and look at me.”
Sunny turned on her heel and stalked off toward the tram stop.
Edith watched her walk along Wilbraham Road for a short while. Then she ran after her.
“I could always take Dad’s Jaguar, then you couldn’t stop me.” Edith caught Sunny at the top of the steps down to the tram platform and blocked her way.
“Do it.” Sunny shrugged and pushed Edith aside. A few steps down she continued her answer. “Go on, try it. You can’t drive it. It’s knackered. It has been for years.”
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