The Parentations

by Kate Mayfield

  A soft knock on the door and Rafe opens it a crack.

  ‘Willa?’

  He wants to go to her, to hold her, but her boundaries with him are clear. Sometimes she makes him feel so lonely.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  Sure?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’m going now.’

  She nods.

  Now, alone in the house, her grief scares her. She closes Jonesy’s door softly, as if his spirit sleeps there still.

  In her room, strings of lucky acorns dangle from a nail head that juts out from an exposed beam. She rips them off the nail and crushes them with her heel; the stubborn, hardest ones enrage her.

  She lifts the lid of a small, wooden box packed with miniature dented tin hands – to ward off the evil eye – and spills them onto the floor. Her heel comes down and she stomps until they are broken, the fingers splayed and distorted. Glass beads she once wrapped around Rafe’s neck for protection, she smashes to smithereens.

  ‘You do not do your job,’ she accuses them.

  Her arm sweeps over the windowsill knocking the rabbits’ feet, the tiny horseshoe amulets and the shells and pebbles to the floor. The magic bones of toads and frogs she crushes with her fists. On she goes until she destroys every token, every charm she has ever owned. All but the jade cicada, litter her room.

  The bolts of fabric standing in the corner anger her. The clothes and fabric rationing has been lifted, but the beautiful lace, the heavily floral and bright cloth that blazon her room do nothing to lift her.

  In the days following, she continues to pat the doorknob in her newly bare room, her fingertips tap the empty windowsill and she counts ceaselessly. But these routines and patterns begin to agitate her. When her hands are this itchy she wants harder work. Clean. I need to clean.

  Downstairs in Finn’s annex, Willa attacks the dust covering the eccentric collection of furniture with one of her old cotton chemises. Her mind wanders to the other night, when they brought Jonesy home so battered and bruised. How long had he had the phial? Wouldn’t he have told her? How was he able to leave his bed to retrieve it? She supposes he could have kept it hidden under his mattress. She puts her back into dusting the slats of a roll-top desk.

  Clovis. Perspiring from the work and her suspicion, she pauses. No, she thinks, Clovis would never … And yet, here is one amongst them, an immortal who is dead.

  She leans against a table upon which rests two volumes. Odd ones these. A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson, 1775. She randomly opens one of the hefty volumes.

  Mortal. 1. Subject to death; doomed sometime to die.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ she says.

  Willa closes her eyes, opens the book to another page and points her finger.

  Parentation. Something done or said in honour of the dead.

  Her scream, high and hysterical lands on Finn when he steps into the annex.

  ‘Willa?’

  She turns to him, wild-eyed, with the dictionary in her hands, still open to Parentation.

  ‘He wasn’t supposed to die. Please Finn, we have to do something for Jonesy … to honour him.’

  They are silent on the journey east to Wapping, a quartet in black. Willa is scorched with Jonesy’s absence, felt more acutely confined as she is in their single-car cortege in the east London traffic.

  Finn parks near the Town of Ramsgate pub. Along the side of the old building they walk the tight, ancient passage to the precarious, dilapidated Wapping Old Stairs.

  The seagulls scavenge on the foreshore at low tide. Remnants of previous centuries lie scattered at their feet. The river meanders here, and where once the sugar ships were welcomed at Stepney Marsh, the river bends around a community that survived the Blitz, where wages have risen and almost everyone who works at the docks and factories can afford a television and a car. Not even Clovis can look across the Thames and fail to be astounded by the power of time.

  Jonesy’s sandals have left ghost prints on the Old Stairs where he once waited to greet his straw-headed sailor at the end of a voyage. Rafe holds a Chinese urn filled with his ashes. He lifts the lid and scatters a portion of Jonesy into the lapping water. Willa adds an armful of bright pink peonies. Finn almost drops the urn when he sees a small piece of bone protruding from the top of the remaining ashes. Tossing a portion, bone fragments and all, he then offers it to Clovis.

  Reluctant, and with an awkward distaste, Clovis empties the last portion. But Jonesy will not go so easily. The breath of the Thames works against her, lifting Jonesy’s dust and billowing it back into his mistress’s face and hair. It enters her mouth. She spits and rages, while straggling peonies trap her feet. Black-headed gulls swoop down beside Clovis to fight over a fish carcass, their conversation quarrelsome and loud. She is trapped by dead things.

  ‘I need a drink,’ she shouts, retreating to the stairs.

  ‘Just a minute,’ Finn says to her.

  ‘It stinks here and I’m cold,’ she says, but she stops and turns back.

  ‘We’ll catch up with you.’ Finn motions for Rafe and Willa to go on ahead.

  ‘I’m sure you told us that you knew exactly how many phials we had. I remember how specific you were,’ Finn says.

  Clovis shrugs. ‘I must have missed one. He obviously hid one from me.’

  ‘That day, when you collected them from us, you were satisfied that every delivery was accounted for.’

  ‘As I said, I must have miscalculated. Let’s go.’

  Unspoken suspicions trill in the dank air. The tide washes in fast. With each great, slosh of brown water, the mud grows thicker. Clovis is quick to climb the slimy stairs.

  No. She is not so careless, Finn thinks. His feet broker small agreements with the stones of the foreshore as the remains take flight on the Thames, the parentations of Jonesy Ling concluded.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  ‘Sometimes, I feel my bones jangling when I walk the streets of London. I catch an image of myself and all I see is a skeleton and wonder if everyone else sees the same,’ Constance says to her sister.

  ‘You’re tired. Let’s go home.’ Verity takes her arm.

  The sisters lumber along amid the evidence of decay, in their bleak return from St Martin’s Gardens. Another year of disappointment leaves a bitter aftertaste.

  ‘I really didn’t expect to see him today,’ Constance says, unconvincingly. ‘Perhaps he believes his lying mother and thinks we’re dead.’

  ‘Never mind, sister. You’ll feel differently next year.’

  ‘Will I? I don’t know.’

  The desolate landscape of Camden Town mirrors their dragging skeletons. Earlier in the year the last horse-drawn cargo travelled on the canal, bringing an end to a way of life forever. Small factories, foundries, and all the supporting trades fall obsolete. Families packed up and moved out of the area to find work elsewhere.

  Constance and Verity traipse down the high street where the facades of the dirty, blackened, old buildings still suffer the wounds of bomb damage, where shops are boarded up and vagrants display cupping palms. Everyone, everything is weary of time.

  When they make the final turning into their street, the bridge that once crossed the canal at Gloucester Road appears as a strange folly. Under its arches where the boats once navigated towards the Cumberland Basin the soil and rubbish are piled up so high that it rises almost as tall as the bridge. Below its arches, the garden of Lawless House overgrows like a deep wooded dell.

  Lawless House is in disrepair. Its famous and long deceased architect was more celebrated for his designs than for the quality of the build. It is the reason that James Fitzgerald sits in his car awaiting the return of his great aunts. He cannot remember how many greats are attached to their names. When he made the obvious decision to join the eponymous law firm, for the law runs through his blood thick and fast, his dying father Theo anointed him with the great family secret, just as Theo’s father Percy had anointed him. That he must keep
such an outrageous secret from his wife and children is not really very difficult, for his family are practical people, even the little ones, and they would certainly never believe him. He wouldn’t care to worry them over his sanity.

  James keeps the sisters as safe and secure as it is within his power to do; as safe as each generation of Fitzgeralds are wont to do. His aunts insist on paying him an exorbitant amount of money for his services, and he lives at peace with it now. Besides, he has five children to feed, clothe and educate. Ah! Here they come now. Good Lord, how Verity can possibly see in those dark glasses on a sunless December afternoon is beyond him.

  Then he notes their slow ambles and their demeanours. They are flattened once again. Year after year he is witness to the crushing disappointment they endure.

  Gathering his briefs and papers into his case, James greets the sisters and offers his condolences. He realizes this is damned bad timing on his part.

  ‘James. You should have let yourself in,’ Verity tells him.

  Constance wrestles with her keys and shakes the gate in a small fit of temper.

  ‘You know I’m not comfortable doing that,’ says James.

  After they’re settled in the drawing room, he broaches the subject in the only way he knows. He’s a straightforward man, without flourish.

  ‘Your house is literally crumbling around you.’

  ‘Well, great. Just bloody great,’ Constance mutters.

  ‘You really have no choice, I’m sorry to say. It will be an upheaval and you will have to move out temporarily but it is dangerous for you to continue to live here.’

  ‘This is always a taxing day for us.’ Verity glances at her sister.

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry to have only added to it. Aside from your disappointment today … Are you all right, Constance? You seem, I don’t know …’ He changes tack. ‘Please, don’t let this house business unsettle you. I’ll oversee everything. You’ll have no worries over the expense. All of your finances are extremely healthy.’

  ‘Good, good.’ Constance takes an old, clay pipe out of the drawer, throws a pack of tobacco down on her writing desk and proceeds to fill it. Verity goes to speak in protest but clamps her mouth shut.

  ‘Constance. I don’t mean to belabour it, but are you quite sure you’re all right?’ James asks.

  She coughs a bit and thumps her chest.

  ‘God, I miss tobacco.’

  ‘I think this change will do you the world of good,’ James says. ‘I’ll leave you now to ponder. We’ll speak next week about timings and I’ll make enquires about a house to let in close vicinity.’

  Approaching them, hefty and endearingly affectionate, James embraces both sisters and squeezes their hands.

  ‘I am terribly, terribly sorry for your disappointment today.’

  ‘Thank you, James,’ Constance says.

  Verity turns to her sister after James leaves. ‘You’re so pensive, Constance. I’ll heat up the pottage.’ Her voice trails off into the kitchen.

  ‘None for me.’ Constance stands by the windows.

  She looks out onto the neglected garden. James is right. They should do something about it, who knows what or who has claimed it. The thing is enormous and its gnarled trees and creeping vines look as if they might crawl towards the house and strangle them. The house speaks to her; both day and night it cries for attention and mourns the absence of laughter and life. She is weary of its demands, just as she is weakened by constant disappointment.

  Verity brings her a bowl of the special pottage.

  ‘I can’t eat it.’

  Even the bowl, the same one from which Rafe once ate, upsets her today. She lets it sit untouched.

  ‘I think it may be time, sister.’

  ‘Time for what?’ Verity places the needle on a record. ‘Time for what?’ she asks again.

  ‘We don’t even know what he looks like. Turn that thing off, please. We’ve been searching for so long. We comb the streets of London for red-haired men, young and old. I don’t look at a man without a glance at his neck. He may have lost his chain. Perhaps he dyes his hair, just as we sometimes do. We watch the news, read the papers … what are the odds? What are the odds, Verity? I suddenly feel very foolish and every bit my age.’

  ‘We are never in sync with this, are we?’ Verity replies. ‘I’m not thinking of dying right now. It’s this house; it’s making you morose. We must do as James says. Secure it, freshen it up, get the gardeners in. You’ll feel renewed.’

  ‘No, it’s not the house. I need a sign, something, anything to give me a little hope. The smallest hope would satisfy me. We’ve failed at every attempt to follow Benedikt. He’s never going to lead us to the Fowlers. Let’s face it – we’re lousy detectives. London has beaten us; the immensity of it has swallowed us whole. We’ve been chasing a ghost. A lovely ghost of a boy.’

  ‘Constance, we mustn’t give up.’

  ‘I’m not giving up, it’s not a matter of giving up … I’m tired. Oh. Oh, it’s coming. Damn. Lemons, please sister. The sleep is coming.’

  ‘Thank God for that. I’m glad. You’ll feel better when you wake.’

  Later in the evening, while her sister is lost in the wilds of a dreamless sleep, Verity begins a fast. Only water will pass her lips for twenty-four hours. The next morning, she sets off for Mass, which she attends everyday while on her mission for a miracle. She clasps her rosary and prays the joyful, luminous, sorrowful and glorious mysteries. Each night for two weeks she falls to her knees, entreating the saints for a sign.

  By the end of the two weeks, she chants holy words in every breath she exhales. She prays for patience while she waits for Constance to wake and then, mindful that Constance always craves it after her sleep, Verity bolts out into the streets to purchase ingredients for a fish pie. She is dashing around single-mindedly, thinking of several stops she must make, when she passes the picture framer’s shop. Her attention is captured by a glint of yellow. She stops. Then she sees it in full. Her hand flies up, covering her gaping mouth. A wave of heat races to her face. She crosses herself and enters the shop wherein she gesticulates wildly, conducts a brief conversation and then turns back towards home as fast as she possibly can.

  Her breathless run is futile. Two hours she must wait. She paces, thinks of phoning James, decides against it, and makes a tray of cheese and bread, for there will be no fish pie today. She prays, lights candles, brews tea, and finally takes the tray of food upstairs and sits by Constance’s bed and waits, nibbling on bread crusts.

  Finally, Constance stirs.

  ‘Goodness, Verity. What are you doing?’

  ‘Sister, you must dress at once. Here are your drops. Stuff this bread and cheese down and then we must go. I have prayed and prayed and now my prayers have been answered. Hurry, sister, hurry.’

  They are soon amongst the busy afternoon foot traffic of Park Street. Verity throws words at Constance so fast that she can scarcely understand. The greengrocer’s queue impedes them before they turn onto the high street. Verity talks a streak.

  ‘And he will not sell it. But of course you will make him change his mind. We must work out the provenance.’

  ‘You haven’t yet told me what it is! Slow down so that—’

  Constance, still unsteady from having just come back to the world, seizes Verity’s arm, and a distorted cry escapes her lips.

  A painting rests in the corner of the framer’s front window. The rough, thick-red background strikes her with a masculine force, bold and dramatic. Then the halos: delicate, flowing with spirit and searching, moving through the piece, radiant in yellow, clench her heart.

  ‘It’s his. Isn’t it, sister?’ Verity asks.

  ‘Yes, yes. Of course it is. It bloody well is his.’

  ‘Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you have ever beheld?’ Verity asks.

  ‘Perfect, absolutely perfect.’

  ‘You must speak with the owner. Don’t weep!’ She pushes Constance forward. ‘It w
as a gift from his daughter, he says it’s not for sale. Go on, you try.’

  They learned it was purchased from the South London Gallery. Oddly, there is no signature, and when the framer’s daughter questioned the gallery’s director she was surprised to learn that the artist wished to remain anonymous. And no, the framer would never sell it; though she didn’t pay a fortune for it, it was the first gift his daughter had ever given him.

  Later that night the sisters plot with a new focus on museums, galleries, and bohemian enclaves. It’s not that they had failed to haunt the creative spaces of London; rather, they failed to seek the obvious. They will hurl a new, studious eye to his nine years of paintings, which embellish every room of Lawless House.

  The sisters are still awake when the moon disappears and gives way to dawn.

  ‘I will never let you down again,’ Constance says.

  ‘Nor I you, sister.’

  The creatures that crawl through their garden slink back into the overgrowth and hide from the weak, winter sun. The blackbirds warble warnings that things are shifting at Lawless House.

  LONDON

  1978

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  The breath of stall workers rises in the five o’clock dark of a Saturday morning at Camden Lock. They orchestrate their pitches and the covers won’t come down until midnight. The hour reminds Willa of her life before the advent of electricity, when she rose before dawn to light the fires and draw water. She luxuriates in electricity, it is her favourite invention.

  Standing apart from her stall, she worries over the grubby hands that handle her garments, for she’s not allowed to interfere. The workers have no clue that the fine treasures they handle are hers. An underground man through and through, Finn keeps Willa out of the public eye.

  Since Jonesy’s death Willa suffers dark spells that come in ferocious waves. Two years ago Rafe and Finn devised a plan to get her out of the house, to give her some relief from Clovis. They encouraged her to go through the trunks of clothing she had collected over the years and select enough for a stall at an emerging north London market.