by Penny Grubb
Then footsteps sounded from the corridor outside. Quickly, she slid the bell push back into place and resumed her seat.
As the door opened and two women walked in, Eliza woke with a start.
‘Ready for tea, Eliza pet? Did you not go out, after all?’
‘No,’ Annie replied. ‘We decided to stay in and chat, today. We’re going out tomorrow, instead.’
‘Not tomorrow,’ said Eliza. ‘You tire me with all your talk. Come next weekend. I’m not used to all these visits.’
Annie stood up and bent over Eliza’s chair as though to kiss her goodbye. With their faces only inches apart, she hissed, ‘Tomorrow. And have May’s papers ready. I’ll do as I said. You’ll see them burn.’
She quelled a moment’s unease at confirming her promise. There could be a lot of paperwork to digest, but she had confidence in her ability to speed read and retain anything of interest.
As Eliza went to protest, she murmured, ‘Tomorrow or never.’
As Annie made her way back across town towards her flat, she reflected that it didn’t seem like a Saturday night. She had nowhere lined up to go. There would be options on her answer-phone, but her head was full of her cases. Then it occurred to her that it was like a Saturday night after all – a Saturday night of a few years ago, when all three of them were up to their ears in work and barely had time to surface to take a breath. But no, it had been different back then. There had been an optimistic feel of work queuing; of riding a wave. This Saturday was just a glitch. A few bits of cases with tight deadlines that happened to coincide.
She had promised to get back to Ron Long to give him an appointment time for Monday, but she wanted more time to think through how she would deal with him and his wife. She would ring tomorrow. There was no real chance that she’d forget, but just in case her subconscious tried to duck her out of it, she lifted down the outsize red pin from the top of the cork board and pinned up a scrap of paper on which she scrawled Ron Long’s name. Red-pinned. No chance of forgetting him now.
As she turned to fill the kettle, she remembered the fancy-dress competition, the letter she’d rammed in the drawer. Eliza was rock solid on childhood memories, but shaky on more recent events. Annie’s mind seemed to operate on the opposite track, yet for some reason, she couldn’t keep the blasted horse competition thing in her mind. It was so completely irrelevant to anything else in her life, but she must be in touch. Saturday afternoon would have been perfect. Everyone would have been out in the yard or the fields. The house would have been deserted. Too late now. Still, Sunday afternoon would be just as good.
She considered red-pinning the woman’s letter along with Ron Long, but it went against the grain to red-pin more than one thing at a time. It would feel like a concession to failing powers, and Annie was determined that not only was she in her prime, she was on the verge of striking out in a whole new direction. The blasted horse woman and her nagging would be something she’d be pleased to leave behind.
Chapter 25
Annie woke early. The pale morning light streamed in through the windows, crisp and clear, a reminder that May and Eliza’s wartime traumas had played out under this same sky. They might have driven down this street in the wartime blackout, May at the wheel, Eliza with her nose pressed to the windscreen.
Annie slipped out of bed, determined to be at the residential home as early as was compatible with Sunday morning visiting. If Eliza had anything for her, she must find it before the day was out. Whether or not she unearthed anything useful, there was a frisson to knowing that she would uncover secrets today. She would burn May’s childhood scribblings and take the weight of the promise from Eliza’s shoulders, but as she burnt the pages, she would scan them and find out what all the fuss was about. Over the years she had perfected the art of speed reading small type, smudged print, scrawled handwriting, whilst pretending to look elsewhere. Once, she had unearthed key information by reading text backwards through a mirror. May’s neat, round hand would be child’s play and Eliza need never know.
How bad could May’s secrets be? Presumably Eliza hadn’t shown her the worst that was in there, though she’d pulled out something she considered bad enough that Annie would understand. May’s adolescent outbursts would seem worse to someone Eliza’s age.
Eliza’s memory for recent events was bad, but with just the right prompting, the story would come out, piece by piece. That passing mention of the post arriving was something she would explore. And maybe Eliza would recall something, an odd comment, an anomaly about one of the letters. Annie would tease the information out of Eliza’s mind and learn what it was that Donna had seen.
The woman who opened the door greeted Annie with, ‘Eliza’s all ready to go. She’s been wondering where you’d got to.’
Eliza was not only in her hat and coat as before, she was in a wheelchair with a patterned woollen blanket tucked round her legs. The woman carer bustled in behind Annie with a man in a white tunic.
‘We’ll help you out down the back way,’ she told Annie. ‘There’s a step.’
They took charge of the wheelchair and manoeuvred Eliza out of the room. As Annie followed them into the corridor, she heard Eliza say, ‘Stop at the office. I want my attaché case from the safe.’
‘Your attaché case, Eliza? Are you sure? Why would you want that out in the garden?’
Annie allowed herself a smile as she recalled her futile search.
‘Never you mind what I want it for,’ Eliza snapped. ‘You just go and get it. And you … the girl. Bring that carrier bag from by the washstand.’
Annie spun round and returned to Eliza’s room where she picked up the bag containing the brandy, the water, the lemon and the thermos flask. She wondered if the ice would have remained solid.
Once they were outside, the carers withdrew and left Annie and Eliza alone. The grounds at the back of the home were more extensive than Annie expected. Half an acre or so of hilly lawns and bushes rambled back towards a line of trees.
Annie pushed the chair down towards a small wooden summerhouse that the carers had pointed out as a pleasant place to sit, but when they reached it, Eliza said, ‘Carry on down that path. There’s a gardener’s hut.’
The corner Eliza led her to was the hidden engine room of the garden. A rotting heap of detritus smouldered gently. Just the other side of a chain-link fence, half-a-dozen large bins stood in line. Annie wrinkled her nose at the sickly sweet odour of decay that mixed with the tang of the smoke.
‘This is where we need to be,’ Eliza said.
Annie looked curiously at the locked attaché case that had been slung over the handles of the wheelchair.
She stopped at a low stone wall where she could sit.
The hidden corner heightened the feel of wrongdoing; of schoolchildren sneaking forbidden substances on to school grounds, scared that a teacher would appear and confiscate their things, but that was absurd, echoes of early memories. These were grown men and women who had every right to do as they pleased with their lives. Maybe more so now they were on the final stretch.
Annie thought back to the things Eliza had said about May’s gang. A childhood venture, disbanded after a few years. She wondered at it being so precious to May that she’d kept its mementos her whole life.
‘This gang of May’s, why did she disband it in 1934? What happened?’
‘She said they were a useless bunch. Silly little cats, the lot of them. She had a point. And of course, there was war talk in the air.’
Again that anomaly that Eliza referred to them as though she hadn’t been a part of it, yet her knowledge of May’s notes had felt to Annie like a well-embedded memory not the patchwork recall of something more recent.
‘Now, I want you to get a fire going in that metal cage thing. There’s a lot to get through.’
Annie stood up and inspected the structure. It was a tall box fashioned from stout metal mesh, blackened and charred. Its purpose was clearly to contain burning material,
leaves maybe. She dragged it upright, checking the direction of the breeze and making sure the structure was stable on a flat area of bare earth.
‘Push my chair nearer,’ said Eliza, ‘so I can drop the papers in.’
‘No,’ said Annie sharply. ‘You agreed I could glance at the dates so I can see they’re all from the 1930s.’
‘Oh yes, I remember.’ Eliza barely pretended to be convincing. ‘I promised May, you know.’
‘And I promised you I’d burn the papers.’
Annie lifted the attaché case from the back of the chair and helped Eliza to balance it on her knee. ‘Now let’s get started. Give me some papers and I’ll get the fire started.’
‘I want you to start the fire first. There’s some wood over there. And some twigs for kindling.’
As Annie began to pull the bits of wood together, she asked, ‘When did you join May’s gang?’
‘I was too young to be a member of the Jawbone Gang. I told you.’
There was something behind the words, just as there had been before. Eliza had opened the case now and was riffling through the papers. Annie stood up and glanced across.
Eliza caught the movement and quickly pushed the papers together. May’s writing was familiar to her from the pages she’d read yesterday, but Eliza had uncovered a sheaf of papers in a different hand altogether. Yet still familiar. It took a moment to place the memory. Yesterday. The pad on top of the chest. It was Eliza’s writing. It had been the briefest of glimpses but the paper looked no different from May’s diary pages.
How many times had Eliza claimed not to have been in May’s gang? A few too many. Annie thought back to the way Eliza had formed her answers.
‘So you were never a member of May’s gang?’
‘I told you, I was too young. May disbanded her Jawbone Gang. I had nothing to do with it.’
Annie looked closely at Eliza as she said, ‘Not May’s Jawbone Gang. May’s other gang.’
Eliza’s eyes opened in a flare of surprise and Annie knew she’d found what the old woman had been trying to hide from her.
Eliza recovered quickly and gave a small shrug.
‘Tell me about the other gang.’
‘You said the Jawbone Gang. That was the agreement. If I told you about the Jawbone Gang, you’d burn the papers.’ Eliza clutched the attaché case to her.
‘I will,’ Annie reassured her. ‘I said I would and I will, but I still want to know.’
‘Get that fire started then.’
‘I need some paper. I can’t get the twigs to catch.’
Eliza tutted. ‘What do you think the brandy’s for? Douse the wood and get it going before some busybody comes out making trouble.’
Annie pulled the bottle out of its bag. ‘I wish you’d said. I could have brought paraffin. And at least give me the pages I read yesterday to help get it going.’
She wasn’t sure brandy would burn hot enough to allow the wood to catch, but she crumpled the half-dozen pages Eliza passed to her and dribbled some of the spirit on to them before setting them beneath the twigs and lighting them from underneath the mesh.
She watched the flames flare up and die down, but they caught hold without needing further help. Then she looked at Eliza. The Jawbone Gang was a red-herring the old woman used to avoid taking about the real secret, whatever it was. She’d used it to explain her last conversation with May. Probably they’d talked about the old Jawbone Gang, but they’d talked about something else too. And been through some other paperwork. Donna had both seen and heard them.
Eliza might once have been a match for her, but age and lack of mental stimulation had taken her edge. Annie would play her gently until the full story came out. And if the incriminating papers still existed and Eliza tried to slip them in amongst May’s old diaries, they would not escape Annie’s eagle eye.
The wood was fully alight now. The bottom of the metal cage glowed red and embers dropped down on to the earth below. Somewhere close, a church bell chimed rhythmically. Apart from the crackle of the flames, there was little noise. Just the occasional rustle of a light breeze high in the trees.
Eliza handed Annie sheaves of pages half-a-dozen at the time. Annie scrunched each one in her hand, reading it as she did so and then tossing it into the flames. Eliza seemed to be going in order. The dates, starting in September 1930, paraded in front of Annie’s eyes.
Thursday, 4th September 1930, Saturday, 6th September 1930. Thursday … Saturday … Thursday … Saturday… There was an occasional break in the pattern, but the comments attached to the dates remained banal:
We met at the tree … Just 4 of us today … It is church later.
Now and again, the tone changed as the adolescent fury in May burst forth:
I hate them all … I wish I was an orphan like the boy … Die. Die. Die.
Now and then, Annie’s gaze strayed to the curve in the path that led back to the house, sure the curl of smoke must be visible from there. Would anyone come to investigate? She wished Eliza would speed up and either pass more papers at once or pass them quicker. It would take all day at this rate.
‘It’s quite chilly sitting still out here,’ Eliza said.
‘Then let me have the case. I can get them burnt far more quickly.’ Annie was determined not to let Eliza talk her way back inside before the job was done.
‘No, I want to do it this way.’
As she spoke, Annie saw Eliza’s hand move to her chest. For a second, she thought the old woman might be ill, then saw that she held a plastic disk that was on a chain round her neck. Eliza had brought an alarm with her. Annie was glad she’d spotted it, but pretended not to have noticed. It meant Eliza could summon help.
It was time to bring her back to her last conversation with May. In all likelihood, the information Annie wanted was completely unimportant to Eliza; so unimportant that no trace of it might be left in her memory. She scanned the paper in her hand. The dates had crept into the spring of 1931.
‘You remember the last time you saw May – it would have been a few days after her eightieth birthday party – can you tell me again what you talked about?’
‘I’ve told you already. You seem to want everything again and again. Wheel me nearer to the fire so I can feel the heat.’
Annie did as she was asked and Eliza passed her another bundle of paper.
‘Can you remember who else was there that second time?’
‘No one. I had to let myself in. I was there a good while. One or two people came in and out as I remember. The post came. Someone made us a cup of tea. Whoever it was made sandwiches for May. I remember that. I thought that’s not much for lunch, sandwiches, but they might have made some for me, all the same.’
‘What happened when the post came?’
‘It came through the door. Or … no, did I have to answer the door to someone? There might have been a parcel too big to go through the door. I really can’t remember. We had that cup of tea soon afterwards, I think, because I moved an envelope out of the way.’
This felt promising. The post arrived when they were on their own. Then someone, surely Donna, made tea. Annie would like to bet that May and Eliza had discussed something that had come in the post. Donna had overheard them, maybe read over their shoulders when bringing the tea, but she’d seen them with the locked box and made the wrong assumption.
‘Did you talk about anything that came in the post?’
‘I can’t remember that we did. She was asking me to burn the papers. I wasn’t thinking about anything else. She would insist on reading from them. She couldn’t see well enough, you know, but she read from them all the same. Can you imagine? And I don’t think that box had been opened in years. I was worrying about how much there was and how long it would take me to get it all on the fire.’
Eliza stopped abruptly and looked at the papers Annie was scrunching and tossing into the fire. Annie deliberately speeded up, in case Eliza suspected that she was reading the papers more fully
than had been intended.
‘It’s cold,’ Eliza said. ‘Give me some brandy.’
Annie pulled a cup from the carrier bag and poured in some spirit. ‘Water?’
‘No, no. Neat. Fill it up, girl. I’m not a child.’
Annie handed over the brimming cup. The old woman took a sip and, apparently satisfied, passed over the next batch of papers.
‘Will you turn the chair so I get the heat on this side? I’m chilly down my back, but I’ll catch alight on my legs if I’m not careful.’
Annie jumped up and manoeuvred the chair as Eliza wanted. As she did so, Eliza said, ‘There isn’t anyone coming from the house, is there? They don’t like residents setting fires.’
As Annie turned to look back down the path, there was a sudden movement from the chair.
Her heart lurched.
A whumph … a spray of sparks … Had Eliza thrown herself into the flames?
Before she could gasp in a breath, Eliza slumped back in the chair, breathing hard.
‘What the…?’
A thick wad of paper sat in the bottom of the metal cage, flames beginning to lick its edges. In the fraction of a second it took Annie to turn, Eliza hurled her cup into the heart of the fire. A burst of purple flame mushroomed upwards.