The Parentations

by Kate Mayfield

  ‘Oh heavens. It’s you!’ Constance gasps.

  The woman smiles at them.

  ‘Who, Constance?’ Verity asks.

  ‘Benedikt.’

  Elísabet begins to speak, but Constance rises from her chair and shakes her head in disbelief.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Constance says. ‘Under the water … swimming …?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her eyes brim with warmth. ‘My name is Elísabet. Thank you for taking such great care of my son.’

  ‘Your son? I don’t understand,’ Verity is confused.

  ‘Oh yes, sister,’ Constance says. ‘I see it so clearly now. I think I recognized it that terrible day at the Serpentine.’

  Elísabet clasps Constance’s hands. ‘I can never repay you for what you did for him. What you both have done for him.’

  Constance is studying Elísabet’s face. ‘You’re … her sister … aren’t you? Clovis Fowler is your sister.’

  Elísabet nods.

  ‘You are much more beautiful than her,’ Constance says.

  ‘That villainous woman,’ Verity says.

  ‘And the Fowlers? They’re unaware that you and Benedikt are one and the same?’ Constance asks.

  ‘Yes. And they mustn’t know, yet.’

  ‘My God. All these years …’

  ‘Tell us. Please. Is he safe?’ Verity asks.

  ‘You must know where he is …’ Constance can scarcely breathe.

  ‘I do, and as of three days ago he was working long hours in his studio, for which I have again to thank you. You nurtured and saved his spirit from the long years he faced, many in misery.’

  ‘How? How could you possible stay your distance all this time?’ Verity asks.

  ‘For his safety. Isn’t it the driving force behind motherhood? To always protect them?’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ Constance says. ‘Nothing short of extraordinary.’

  ‘I’m sure you have many questions,’ Elísabet continues. ‘And you will see Rafe soon, but plans are laid and we must continue to protect him for a while longer.’

  In the remaining hours of the afternoon there are moments when Constance and Verity feel they have stepped into a surreal world. Here they are in Iceland, of all places, as they listen to Elísabet, Stefán and Margrét’s astonishing histories. Ava sits between them, her presence a calming influence. Honoured that she is included, and while cognizant of all that is being spoken, of all plans laid, another part of Ava twists a persistent thought: might Stefán one day lead her to the pool? For she is certain now. Her desire is solid.

  Too soon it is time to return to London. The sisters learn that their old friend Owen Mockett is still alive and soon to fall prey to the long sleep with no phial to use upon waking, hence the urgency.

  ‘I apologize to have put you in harm’s way, but the sleep will overtake me any minute now and I cannot travel,’ Elísabet says.

  ‘None of us is able,’ Stefán adds. ‘If it’s any consolation, we’ve never had any issue or problem with our passports. They are each created by the same person.’

  ‘One day soon we will meet on less stressful terms.’ Elísabet has held her emotions in check, but falters for a moment at the sisters’ departure.

  Once again at check-in, Ava arranges their return flight. The ticket agent studies their passports.

  ‘But you’ve just arrived?’ he comments.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. But unfortunately, my aunts have just been informed of a family emergency.’

  The ticket agent looks past Ava to the two women dabbing their noses with tissues, genuinely struggling with their emotions.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ he says. ‘Let’s get you on the next flight to London.’

  They hardly speak on the flight home. There is much to assimilate, and they agreed that there isn’t enough privacy to confer safely. Every so often the three women turn their heads on the headrests and smile at each other with utter joy, touched by their unbelievable turn in fortune.

  Late that night at Lawless House, Constance sorts through the day’s mail.

  ‘What’s this then?’ She reads quickly. ‘Good lord! It’s a personal invitation to Tate Britain and it’s handwritten and signed by Willa Robinson! An invitation to a private viewing of a new exhibit.’

  ‘How very odd. So it was Willa I saw at the market,’ Verity says.

  ‘The young woman you mentioned today in our meeting?’ Ava asks.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so, though I never knew her surname,’ Constance says.

  ‘How extraordinary. May I go along?’ Ava asks.

  ‘Yes of course, we shall all go. It will be a nice distraction while we wait for Elísabet and Stefán to implement their plans.’

  ‘Well, as I’m the only practising Catholic in this house, I’m going upstairs to offer prayers of praise and thanks,’ Verity says.

  Constance and Ava exchange smiles.

  ‘Are you staying the night, Ava? You know you’re always welcome.’

  ‘No, thank you Aunt Verity, I have work to do in chambers.’

  ‘You work too much.’ Verity trails up the stairs.

  ‘You look worried,’ Ava says to Constance.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Elísabet and Stefán … They’re extraordinarily organized and well resourced. And they’re extremely cautious. My tuppence, but I don’t think you should worry,’ Ava offers.

  ‘Yes, all true, but there is an element to their plan that is an impossible wild card. You have no idea, Ava.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Clovis Fowler.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  It occurs during a stroke of serendipity; Finn insists that an auspicious pull of December’s gibbous moon grants anything that yearns to be aligned a single, perfect moment to do so.

  Willa arrives home late after a long, cold day at Camden Market and a further three hours spent at her current studies. Night courses are her purlieus, where she slowly builds her endurance. If her long life has afforded her anything, it has been time to catch up, to have a better understanding of her own strengths and weaknesses. She might have benefited from seeing a counsellor, but the perils of revealing any one of her many secrets was too great; a slip of a century would court ruin. And there was another danger, that of placing herself in the hands of yet another stranger. Although a therapist may be completely trustworthy and lack any ambition of dominance, the risk was one she would not take. And so the short courses, in rooms in which she sat with anonymous others, were her painstakingly trodden paths to strength.

  One course after another, lacing around the night rooms of London, she puts herself back together until finally she can remember the face of her father again. Small things, like the shadows that darkened his eyes, and the gap from a missing incisor. Then the pang of remembrances hit her full force – how much she had been loved and valued, and the bitter circumstances in which her ailing father had no choice but to leave her in Lambeth. The memory of loss became almost unbearable when she allowed it to emerge, until, after nights of silent weeping, she began to feel better, stronger, and yet lighter, relieved of a heavy yoke.

  At her current six-week course she probes the psychology of criminals, to understand why people commit the crimes they do. It’s hard for her to sit still in class because her mind explodes with revelations and insights. Criminals, no matter how cunning and precise, make mistakes. It may take years, but eventually a crack will appear, she learns. Never before now has she dared hope that Clovis Fowler’s tight skin of invulnerability might be broken, nor entertained the idea that one day, Clovis Fowler might make the slimmest error.

  Willa towel-dries her hair as she wends her way through the hallway on the first floor to the separate stairs that lead to her attic room. She passes the alcove, where a glass and wooden display case sits beneath a small round window. Soft, recessed lighting falls on the shelves inside the case, where a selection of Jonesy’s puppets is displayed. She notices that the head of one of
the puppets is ever so slightly off-centre. Her pulse quickens. She remembers when Jonesy carved the wolf in man’s clothing; a menacing grin spreads from his exaggerated, red-painted mouth. She hears someone coming up the steps and quickly moves on to her room with her heart seemingly thumping out of her chest.

  She and Finn have checked the puppets before, in fact, several times. But of course that means nothing. They’re certain that Clovis constantly rotates her hiding places because after all, a house is a limited space. She dares not check the puppets again until Clovis is safely away from the house. And she mustn’t get her hopes up. Maybe she knocked it loose when dusting. But oh mighty hell, could this be the error, the little slip?

  The rain wakes her after only three hours of sleep. It beats against the window as if it is telling her a fast, furious story. There’s no way she’s going to the market today. Downstairs, Clovis is slamming the portafilter against the steel basket, emptying the thing with enough force to kill a small animal.

  ‘Willa! Come down here and fix this.’

  ‘Be right down.’ She clenches her jaw.

  Downstairs, Clovis stands at the kitchen window that offers a dark clouded view onto the small patio garden.

  ‘I cannot believe I have to go out in this. Finn, why can’t you take the car?’

  ‘I have a big auction today. A heap of money at stake,’ he mumbles.

  ‘You can do that from anywhere.’

  ‘Not from the driver’s seat, I can’t.’

  ‘Willa!’ Clovis calls again.

  ‘I’m here. I’m here.’

  Willa first cleans up Clovis’s mess, and then fills the portafilter with coffee. Clovis pulls on her Wellies.

  ‘Will you be at the market today?’ Clovis asks.

  ‘No. I’m working here.’

  ‘Come along with me to have the tyres rotated and the oil changed.’

  ‘I can’t, I’m working on something new and …’

  ‘It can wait. I’d really like to do some shopping.’

  Willa places the espresso cup and saucer on the table.

  ‘I really can’t.’ She says firmly. Let this be the beginning.

  Finn looks up from his papers, but Willa won’t meet his eyes, frightened she may give away too much. He retreats to his conservatory with no desire to enter the fray.

  ‘Very well. Perhaps we should review your commitments outside the home. You may be taking on too much. It disappoints me that you can’t fulfil your duties to me today.’

  Ah, there is that hateful ‘Mistress voice’ again. Willa scrubs the counter, willing herself not to display any reaction, to remain calm and patient. She focuses on the toast crumbs and the grounds of coffee that Clovis has carelessly flung about. She waits for the blissful moment when Clovis and her wellies are finally out of the door.

  When the car speeds away Willa watches the clock for a full five minutes. Then she runs upstairs, opens the display-case doors and carefully lifts the wolf puppet off the shelf. Sitting on the floor she removes the head and probes the small opening of the torso. Her fingers feel glass. She wants to scream, to call for help, to shout that she cannot do it. But instead, she takes a deep breath and lifts the phial out of Jonesy’s puppet. There is another.

  ‘Finn! Finn! Come quick. Finn! Hurry!’

  All the puppets are filled with phials.

  Less than a minute later, which feels like an eternity, Finn is bounding up the stairs, phone in hand.

  ‘I’m on the phone with a client, what the hell do you—”

  Willa sits with her legs crossed, her arms raised at her sides, palms up, with a phial in each hand, like a Tibetan monk chanting for world peace.

  Finn drops his phone.

  They look at each other, astonished, for an achingly long moment until Finn Fowler erupts with an enormous, strange cacophony of sounds.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ he manages to say.

  Willa never expected this day to arrive, and now that it has she is surprised that she feels quite calm.

  ‘Phone Rafe. Don’t let on or he may have an accident trying to get here, but tell him to come at once,’ she says.

  ‘Yes, yes. Quite fucking right.’ He does an odd little jig.

  They have very little time. The plan they have honed over the years, turning it over and over in their heads, is now unbelievably in action. The chore of replacing all the phials with a liquid that perfectly resembles the authentic liquid is painstaking. Years ago, Mockett recreated the exact colour, with a tinge of iridescence. His experiments weren’t all for naught.

  When Rafe arrives he is of no use to them. He’s shaking so badly he can’t be trusted with the delicate glass. Finn suggests that he keeps watch for Clovis to return. She shouldn’t be back for at least a couple of hours, but it has long been her habit to return early to try to catch them off guard.

  Now Willa works quickly to put the puppets back together. Placing them exactly as they were is of monumental importance, she tilts the fox’s head perfectly.

  ‘Rafe, take the phials to your studio. Can you find a good hiding place where they’ll be safe?’

  ‘Of course. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Okay. Time to be brave, Willa,’ Finn says.

  ‘I feel I’m ready. I really do. Will you call Mockett?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes, exactly right. Will do. And of course Benedikt, I’ll write to him immediately and post it in his box when Clovis is next out of the house. Rafe, you should go now. Your big evening is nearly here. Are you ready?’

  ‘I am. I’m nervous, but I’m ready.’

  ‘Good. I’m damned sorry that London won’t see your name.’

  ‘I’m happy lurking around in the shadows. Honestly. It’s where I’m most comfortable.’

  ‘I wish that Jonesy could be here now,’ Willa says.

  ‘We all do. Well done, Willa. I’m sorry I bit your head off,’ Finn tells her.

  ‘Never mind, I’m … I’m so happy!’

  Then Rafe and Finn witness something remarkably rare – Willa’s face brightening the room with her smile.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  ‘Goodness. How smart you both look,’ Ava tells them.

  The sisters are without disguises tonight. Constance sports a deep lavender, velvet trouser-suit. Her hair, which she wears long and loose, shines strikingly white. Slight touches of make-up enhance her refined features.

  Verity’s lapis-blue, pleated sheath dress accentuates her willowy figure. Her hair is short again, lending her an androgynous look that serves her needs.

  ‘If your mother could see what a beautiful, sophisticated woman you have become. Your father spoke of her often and shared his photos of her. You have her colouring; the same dark hair and sea-green eyes.’ Constance says to Ava.

  ‘Sometimes I can’t remember the details of her face.’

  ‘You were so young,’ Constance tells her. ‘I wish we could have met her. It’s difficult, not meeting the rest of the family. But then we are grateful for you, Ava, and all of your family who have helped us.’

  ‘Our family,’ Ava corrects her. ‘You are our family.’

  In the warmth of the car a chatty driver who won’t take the strong hint that they wish to watch the snow flurries in silence, finally turns his attention to his satnav.

  ‘I actually don’t know why we’re doing this,’ Constance muses. ‘You know I’ve not been back to Millbank since …’ she glances at the driver, ‘well, not for a long time.’

  ‘I forgot about tonight. I can think of nothing but our meeting with Elísabet.’ Verity says.

  ‘I’m just happy to be away from chambers. London is beautiful when it snows,’ Ava says.

  ‘London is always beautiful,’ the sisters echo.

  The last of the day’s visitors are making their way out the doors of the museum while others are just arriving for one of the Tate’s special evenings of free events. Constance pauses on the steps that lead to the sprawling, historic building with it
s cold and stony Edwardian character, conscious that a temple to art replaced the site of abject misery.

  The women enter the glazed door to the vestibule where a striking spiral staircase sweeps down from the floor below them in the centre of the rotunda. There, standing alone, is Willa Robinson.

  ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t cry,’ she says to the women.

  The sisters take her hands, a sensation with which Willa is not entirely comfortable, but she resists drawing away.

  ‘Dear, dear girl,’ Constance says. ‘How very well you look.’

  ‘Willa Robinson.’ Verity takes a step back. ‘Astonishing.’

  ‘Please, let me introduce you to our niece, Ava Fitzgerald.’ Constance turns to the young woman standing beside her.

  ‘Pleasure to meet you. Are you … changed as well?’ Willa asks.

  ‘No, no I’m not. It’s lovely to meet you.’ Ava struggles to keep her voice even. A shock courses through her at the girl’s youthful appearance. And then another, at the depth behind the eyes in her young face.

  There is so much to say, but now is not the time.

  ‘I’ve invited you here for a very special exhibition.’ Willa is exceptionally composed. ‘It’s not open to the public yet. It’s sort of a preview before the preview. Please, follow me.’

  Willa leads them through the grand corridor on the main floor and then stops at one of the exhibition rooms. On the side of the doorway a simple sign reads: THE SISTER SAINTS.

  A thick, pink light permeates the room like the thickest Limehouse fog.

  ‘Come.’ Willa motions to the three women.

  They follow her into the exhibition room to a scene that staggers them.

  Ava gasps. ‘Oh my God. It’s … it’s … both of you. You’re … everywhere.’

  They stand encircled by the paintings that hang on the walls. There are more suspended from the ceiling. Paintings that explode with the vibrancy of deep, thick reds and luscious pinks. Rings of yellow, and gold circles of light dance above the heads of the two women in the paintings, the same women in each rendition. In several paintings, shards of silver protrude from thick layers of paint. On closer scrutiny they are discovered to be delicate silver crucifixes. The glistening silver reflects the sisters’ white hair.