She moved then, quickly and purposefully, going first to the cabinet in the corner where she kept the drinks and pouring a generous vodka and tonic and then back to the table. Now. There was no more time for all this nonsense. She would now sort out all that rubbish, find whatever it was Dolly had hidden there, pay off the Westpark’s debts and sell it and get on with living. Just like that. She whispered it into her drink as she settled herself, cross-legged on the floor in front of the long low table. Just like that. Magical.
The papers, with which she started, still told her nothing. She went through page after page, re-reading some of them several times, but still they revealed nothing. Just bills and records of transactions; none of it significant as far as she could tell. The really important documents, those that related to the Westpark and the money owing on it, were with Friese. He’d told her that, showed her some of them. These seemed to be irrelevant rubbish. But she did not discard them, simply replacing them in their piles, securing them with their original rubber bands, setting them to one side, as the afternoon sun slanted across the floor wheeling slowly from one side of the room to the other. Lunch-time came and went, and she ignored it, not feeling hungry. The phone rang at about two o’clock. Theo probably, calling from Bristol where he’d had to go to see a Country and Western group. She just let it ring, sitting there on the floor and staring at it until it stopped, and then returning to the piles of paper spread around her.
It wasn’t until three o’clock that she decided that the papers held nothing of any value. Not as far as she could tell, anyway. Which meant the newspaper cuttings and the photographs. Their turn had come.
She started with the photographs. The one of Dolly that had so upset her the first time she looked at it now sat and stared back at her and had no impact at all. There she sat on her stool, gazing blankly out of the crumbled gloss of the photograph, her mouth in that silly cupid’s bow pout, her plucked eyebrows arched in an eternity of surprise, and it did nothing at all to Maggy. She almost laughed aloud, holding it in her hand and staring down at it. Was it this that had made her feel so ill, that afternoon last week? Crazy!
She put it aside and picked up the next, and this one made her mouth crease a little. It was of herself, sitting on a long bench, wrapped in heavy knitted pantaloons and a thick knitted coat, so bundled up that she seemed not to have a neck at all, like one of those potato men she used to make out of a box full of plastic noses and hats and crossed eyes and silly mouths. The child in the picture looked anxious and startled as though the camera had frightened her, and as surely as if she could actually remember it happening, Maggy knew she had cried bitterly the moment after the picture was taken. But of course she couldn’t remember, for she had been far too young. On the bottom, in Dolly’s scrawl, was written, ‘Margaret Rose Dundas, September 1942. Weight 23 lbs. Twelve teeth.’ A year old. She’d been a year old.
The next pictures were very similar, taken barely three months apart, each with the date carefully noted, her weight, the state of her teeth, and on a couple of them a careful record of the fact that she had had her diphtheria innoculation, and had been vaccinated against smallpox. A loving mother’s record of her baby; that was all they were, and Maggy fanned them out in one hand and stared at them and wanted to cry suddenly, wanted to weep for the dead child she held between her fingers.
The next photographs were different. Groups of people, sometimes in front of the house in Brixton, sometimes out in some open place or other, hair blowing in the wind, squinting into the sun. People standing in stiff rows, or in muddled little clusters with their arms about each other. People who looked familiar and yet who meant nothing at all to her now, in their odd clothes, dresses all the wrong lengths, hair styles too fussy, jackets and trousers crumpled and dated.
But she was in all of them; Maggy herself. A child in arms in the first ones, sometimes held by a woman, peering grinningly over her shoulder, sometimes sitting on a broad male shoulder and in each of them she looked the same, laughing, her hair curled and bedecked with bows, her dresses frilled and ridiculous.
And then the Creffield Road house began to appear as background to the groups, the familiar stained glass in the front door and the chipped front path, and now she saw herself standing, usually in the middle of the group, with someone’s hand on her shoulder. But she wasn’t laughing now. She was scowling or staring straight-faced at the camera while everyone around her was grinning and waving.
The people in the pictures were familiar ones now. There were two women in a lot of them, always standing side by side, always as straight-faced as the child Maggy, staring into the distance with wooden expressions, their shoulders very tense and their hands awkwardly by their sides. The Miss Readers, she remembered, and wanted to laugh aloud at the memory of them. They had lived in Creffield Road for years, and never spoke to anyone, going silently through their lives, nodding politely as they passed you on the doorstep, appearing on the dot of time for every meal and wordlessly eating vast quantities of food and then disappearing back to their room at the back of the house. The Miss Readers. She hadn’t thought about them for years.
She turned the photographs over and there, on the back, was more of Dolly’s scrawling childish writing. Each one’s name was there, in careful order. Miss Mary Reader. Miss Lily Reader. Mr Jim Codling. Mr Ted Hornby. Miss Ida Guthrie. Miss Margaret Rose Dundas. Mr Ivor Baillis –
She turned the photograph over again and stared at the picture of Ida and felt a sharp jolt under her ribs. That face, Ida’s? She looked at it again, and shook her head almost as if to clear it. A girl, just a girl, no more than – oh, twenty-three or four, with a heavy fringe over her dark eyes, and a look on her face of, what? She was smiling politely, the way people do for photographs, but there was something behind the smile that Maggy couldn’t quite get hold of, and then she thought – watchful. She’s watching out for something –
The pictures went on, over and over again the same thing. The people who had lived in Dolly’s boarding house, all that time ago, each of them with their names painstakingly spelled out, each with the date noted at the bottom: 1949, 1950, 1951. That was a joky one, 1951; they were holding up a banner, two of the men, with the words ‘Festival of Acton’ drawn on it in uneven print, and another of them had a placard which read, ‘Come to the Dolly Dundas Dome of Discovery!’
It was the 1950 photograph that made her stop. She had passed it over at first, but when she went through the pile again – for they had all been tied together – she spotted it. It was an unusual photograph in that Ida wasn’t in it – she was in almost all of the others – and Dolly was. She stood there with her hands tucked into the elbows of two men, and all three of them had their right legs stuck out in an imitation of a high kick. The man on Dolly’s right was tall, the tallest of the three, with a lot of thick hair which looked oddly modern because it was quite long, and a face split with a huge grin that showed irregular teeth. He seemed to be very happy, staring gaily into the lens of the camera; and it was hard to tell how old he was. Young? Not really. Old? Definitely not old. Vaguely thirtyish maybe. The one on Dolly’s other side was different, though. Also grinning widely, there was something mocking and remote about his expression. Something that said, ‘Look at these babies! I’ll play the game to amuse them, but don’t think I’m enjoying it –’ But he was young, obviously young, barely twenty if that. Smooth face, tight flat muscles, young, young, young –
On the back Dolly had written the names, as usual, very carefully. ‘Mort Lang. Dolly Dundas. Andy Kentish.’ And the date. August 1950.
Maggy had seen all that the first time she had looked, and thought fleetingly – Mort. That rings a bell – and then passed on. But on this second look she saw there was writing on the front of the photograph as well, and she sat and looked down at the faint characters that were written there, and then, after a moment, got to her feet and went and stood by the window. It was still mid afternoon, and the August sun was strong, flooding
the white room with brightness, but she felt the need for more light so pressingly that she wanted to lean out into the open air, and stare at the photograph there.
The writing on the front of the photograph was smaller, much tidier than the words that were on the back and Maggy thought – this is recent. She wrote that only a little while ago. And didn’t know how she knew that, but was certain she was right.
‘Morty knows a lot,’ the words said, written small enough to fit into the part of the picture that was his trouser leg. The words were written one above the other, tidily. ‘Morty knows a lot.’
And leaning on the window sill, the hot air on her face and the stink of petrol coming up at her from the Crescent below, Maggy remembered.
Coming home from school on an afternoon when it has been raining is the best sort of coming home there is. The streets smell good, the dry wet smell that comes after the first rain. Or the wet dry smell. She sings inside her head as she walks along. The wet dry, the dry wet. She likes words like that. Like bitter sweet, sorry sad, good naughty. Wet dry, dry wet.
The privet hedges are good too. You take a leaf and fold it in half, carefully so as not to break it, and you tear out little pieces and if you’re careful enough, you finish up with a face that smiles at you, or scowls at you, and either way it’s good because it’s yours and you made it. You can make a whole family, a whole classroom, a whole world of people out of privet leaves, if you’re careful.
The house is quiet when she gets there. There is Ida somewhere in the kitchen. Margaret Rose knows that, because Ida is always in the kitchen in the afternoon. She stands in the quiet hall and thinks about Ida. If she asks in the right way Ida will give her a biscuit or a sandwich or something else to tide her over, but she has to ask in the right way. Sometimes Margaret Rose is in the mood for that, but mostly she is not. Ida always on about the right way to ask is Ida complaining about her and about Mummy, and that is not something Margaret Rose likes. Today she will not ask in the right way. ‘Cow. Bitch. Mare,’ says Margaret Rose under her breath and feels good about Ida. Bad words make good feelings.
The house smells strong. It smells of disinfectant and polish and cooking. Margaret Rose likes the smell but always pretends she does not, because it is a smell that Ida makes. Mummy’s smells are the sort she says she likes, the smells of perfume and being hot. But she does really like disinfectant and polish and cooking.
Up the stairs one at a time. Both feet on each step. One at a time. Mummy does not know she is coming because she is early. She remembers suddenly that she is early because of Miss Lichter being ill and the children being sent home early, and this is funny because she will surprise Mummy and that will make her laugh.
The bedroom door is closed. Everybody’s door is closed, the Miss Readers’ and Mr Willis’s and Mr Kentish’s, but they are always closed. Mummy’s is not supposed to be closed. Another surprise. She will open it softly, softly and jump and shout.
She opens it softly, softly, first putting her leaf people carefully down on the floor, and turns the knob, slowly, lowly and pushes the door slowly, slowly. Then she jumps in and shouts, ‘Hooray!’ very loudly.
The bed is full of people. Not just Mummy making her bump, which is her with the covers over her and fun to jump on but someone else who is also making a bump under the covers and the bumps are heaving about and seem to be more than two, there is so much heaving about.
Margaret Rose stands still after she shouts and stares and the bumps become small and stop heaving about and Mummy is staring at her with her mouth open, just an open mouth in a head sticking out over the covers and Mort is staring at her with his hair in his eyes and shouting, ‘Get the hell out!’ and Mummy says something and Margaret Rose can’t hear and he shouts again and Margaret Rose turns and runs out of the door and goes into the Miss Readers’ room and stays there until she sees them through the window walking up the road, and then she slips out. All the time while she is in the Miss Readers’ room she hears Mummy calling her and Mort calling her and she does not answer. When she comes out she goes to look for her leaf family on the floor outside Mummy’s door and it is gone, all the leaves are gone and there were five of them. Then she cries a lot and shouts and cries some more and they say she is ill and put her to bed with soup on a tray. No one says anything about Mort and Mummy in bed.
Mort is nice. Mort waits for her coming home from school and gives her chocolate cakes from the baker’s shop on the corner, and iced buns and apples to tide her over and who cares about Ida? He tells her stories and plays games with her and is very nice. Mummy says nothing and Ida says nothing and Morty is nice. He is putting her to bed one night. Mummy is out, somewhere out, and Ida is clearing up after supper. The Miss Readers are in their room and the others are in the dining room shouting and laughing and Morty is putting her to bed. She is laughing and rolling about in the bed in her viyella nightie, pulling the covers with her to make it like a sea of covers, sheets and blankets all over the place, and he is chasing her all over the bed as she rolls and kicks her legs and when he catches her he accidentally on purpose tickles her and she shrieks and can hardly breathe and it is wonderful. And then Mummy is there at the door and shouts and now it is Margaret Rose who stares at her with her mouth open, her head sticking out of the covers, and Margaret Rose who shouts, ‘Go away!’ and then there is a lot more shouting and Mummy is hitting Mort, hitting him with both her hands and kicking him with one foot and shouting and shrieking so that everyone comes running, except the Miss Readers of course who never do anything, and Margaret Rose is crying and so is Mort.
Mort has gone away and Margaret Rose doesn’t know where and never asks. And no one says. Andy is still there, though. It used to be Mort and Andy and Mummy, and now it is just Andy and Mummy. Margaret Rose hates Ida more than ever, now.
Maggy closed the window, carefully, leaving just enough room at the top to let some air in, and went back to the table, the photograph in her hand. Her hands were trembling a little, and she moved the photographs about a little, tidying them, trying to stop the shaking that had spread to deep inside her. It was absurd, really absurd, after all this time, to get so agitated just by remembering something. Wasn’t it?
Morty knows a lot. What the hell did it mean, anyway? Knows a lot about what? The money, the whatever it was that was going to sort out the Westpark’s problems? Maggy looked down at the photograph again, at the happy grinning face under its mop of dark thick hair, the wide uneven teeth. Morty knows.
‘I’ll have to find him.’ She said it aloud and then felt silly, but the words repeated themselves inside her head. I’ll have to find him. Ask him. Even though I haven’t seen him for almost thirty years, I’ll have to find him. Morty – Mortimer, I suppose. Mortimer Lang. But where the hell do I look?
8
The smell in Dolly’s room was so heavy that it made her feel that she was absorbing it through her skin, not her nose. Perfume, of course. Lots of that. And old coffee and caramels and a deep mustiness that was old things. Old clean things, clothes that hadn’t been worn for years, scarves and gloves rolled up in drawers, handkerchiefs and belts and bags.
She was feeling strung up and alert, almost high. Deciding to come here at all had been the first jolting thing she had done. She had sat there in her flat as the long summer day died into its twilight and thought about looking for Morty, finding out what he knew about what she was looking for, why Dolly had sent her to him, and had known all along she’d have to come here. But actually planning – that had come late, while she was eating the cottage cheese her daylong hunger had at last driven her to find in the fridge. Then she’d been able to shower and go to bed and sleep easily, grateful to have made the decision.
And it had stuck next morning, and now, here she was, standing in Dolly’s room on the top floor of the Westpark, absorbing the smell and listening to the sounds from the other side of the heavy door.
It had been absurdly easy to get in here unobserved. She had wa
lked in past the milkman, cheerfully clattering his way down the front steps, and gone straight up the stairs, unseen by the night porter who was sitting in the office behind the reception desk, probably sleeping away the last hour of his work shift, and let herself into Dolly’s room with the key that Ida had dropped on Theo’s desk that morning at the Jump office, and locked the door behind her. Now she could stay here all morning, all day if she liked, and no one would know. Ida no longer had any way of getting in, and anyway, no need to; there was no cleaning to be done, no maintenance work in a dead woman’s room.
She took a deep breath and looked round. The curtains were drawn, but enough of the early morning light filtered through to show the contents of the room. It was odd, really odd; she hadn’t been in here for the past three years. But it looked exactly the same. There was the bed with its heavy silky counterpane and thickly quilted eiderdown; it had been old-fashioned for years, one of Dolly’s most prized possessions, and now it looked as modern as tomorrow; mauve satin and thirties design was very in this year.
Reprise Page 9