The effect is so powerful that Constance and Verity are left speechless and confused. They inch forward to the centre, where the largest of seventy paintings hangs on the wall in a majestic, gilded frame. The sisters are portrayed in profile, facing each other, and clearly, a tear streams from the corner of each of their eyes. Old tears, profuse with layered paint, give the impression of active tears, still falling. Above the sisters’ heads their aureoles are also thickly layered and finished with moon gold, a gold leaf that gives the golden shade a hint of pinkish brown – and will never tarnish. There are no crucifixes in this painting; instead, three-hoop fede rings extend from various points in the aureoles. They shine so finely.
The paintings are emotive, striking at the heart with pathos while at the same time offering hope with the sisters’ smiles, glimmering through their tears.
‘Happy tears.’ A man’s voice whispers behind them.
‘Auntie Connie. Auntie Very,’ he says.
The sisters turn. He stands in the pink fog, his dark-red hair shimmers in soft streaks of light. Eyes filled with emotion, he smiles.
‘I thought I would never see you again. So I painted you over and over.’
The sisters feel his arms around them. Constance places her hand on his rose-gold chain. Time stops completely, and now, in his embrace, their soft sobs contain a world of joy.
Ava and Willa, who have discreetly stepped out of the gallery, have lost any awkwardness.
‘You have made my aunts … God, I can’t talk. Wait a minute.’ Ava blinks. ‘You’ve made them so happy, Willa.’
‘They deserve to be happy. So does he.’
‘You must care a great deal for him.’
‘Yes, I do.’ She adds, ‘Like I would care for a dear brother.’
‘I see,’ says Ava, a flush of pink in her cheeks.’ Is this the first time you’ve been to the Tate since … well, since it was the penitentiary?’
Willa nods. ‘It’s strange to think you know about that. I don’t even know if I should be embarrassed. I really wasn’t guilty of anything.’
‘Of course not! I apologize. I don’t mean to pry. I handle all of Aunt Constance and Aunt Verity’s affairs now, and I would never break their trust. I’m the only living member of our family who knows. We’ve had a system in place since, well, since my aunts changed. Those of us who have known have always adhered to a strong familial duty.’ Suddenly pensive, she adds. ‘And love.’
‘Then you know that while Rafe was with your aunts I was here, right on these premises, in this swamp.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I don’t know how you’ve managed to survive it. Mentally, I mean.’
‘I almost came back to watch them knock it down. But I didn’t have as much freedom then.’
‘It is quite amazing that Rafe is showing here. His identity isn’t known, is it? Not to anyone at the museum?’
‘God no. They think they have a Banksy,’ says Willa.
* * *
It doesn’t seem at all strange to sit by the fire on a snowy night in December with the boy, who by some miracle has grown into a sane, talented man. The sisters and Rafe don’t attempt to catch up, but rather allow their shared memories to lead them where they may. There is talk of the cries of monkeys, and the sweat of fevers, shared tears for Bertie, and missed opportunities without blame. There are things left unsaid for now, the haunt of the want of suicide, the cruelty of one woman, and the gnawing aches when they could not find the arms of comfort. As they promised Elísabet, the sisters hold tight to their recent enlightenment. It is not yet time for another long-overdue reunion.
Two hours pass in a flash. Willa and Ava, who have been talking in the kitchen peek their heads into the sitting room to offer tea. Yes, please, comes the response, they are famished.
‘Oh forgive me, Ava! We’ve been so selfish,’ Verity says. ‘Please come in and meet Rafe.’
Ava steps forward to him. ‘I hardly know what to say,’ she says. ‘“It’s a pleasure to meet you” sounds so ridiculous when I’ve heard so much about you. But it is. A pleasure. A great pleasure.’ She wonders why she rattles on.
Rafe stands and takes her hand, half shaking it, half holding it, embarrassed by his awkwardness.
‘I am pleased to meet you, too. Thank you for being so attentive to them.’
Willa arrives with a heaving tray of food.
‘I just robbed your fridge,’ she says.
They nibble on cheese, pâté, smoked meats and fish, olives, bread and chutneys and salad. There’s cake, chocolate tarts, and tea, pots and pots of tea. Every few minutes the Fitzgerald sisters catch each other’s eye, and what passes between them is an acknowledgement that they stayed the course, the course of love – a long-tested, aged love. Lawless House is effervescent with love tonight. Its very walls throb with it. The fire spits out flames of love.
They talk late into the night. The old clock in the sitting room that once belonged to Averil Lawless strikes midnight, and the night turns over to the 17th of December. For the first time in many a long year the sisters will not take that fraught walk to St Martin’s Gardens later in the day. Their boy is home.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Early in the morning, a few days after the reunion, Willa folds laundry in the kitchen. The snow has cleared, leaving damp patches on the patio’s flagstones. She has chosen this hour to begin the ruse, while Clovis is still lazy and cross with sleep. Here she comes, wrapped in her cashmere dressing gown.
‘It’s cold. Turn the heat on, Willa.’
‘Here’s your coffee. And pastries.’
‘Aren’t I lucky that I can still eat croissants and never gain any weight?’
‘Yes. Lucky, that.’ Willa folds more towels, then says, ‘You know, the strangest thing happened at the market a few weeks ago.’
‘I’m sure. All things are strange to you.’
‘I thought I saw one of the Fitzgerald ladies.’
Clovis doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Ha! That is strange, considering they’ve been dead for over a hundred years.’
‘Hmm. Yes.’ Willa pauses and scratches her head as if she’s thinking very hard. ‘At the time, you said you read about their deaths in the paper. Which paper was that, do you remember?’
Now she has Clovis’s full attention.
‘I think it was The Times, or maybe it was The Illustrated London News, or maybe …’ Clovis pauses, her voice takes on that familiar edge when she is taut and defensive. ‘Maybe I read it in one of the hundreds of London’s papers at the time.’
‘Well, I only ask because I searched through many of the London news publications during that year, that month exactly. It is amazing how many papers are archived at the British Library,’ Willa shakes her head in wonderment, ‘just amazing. And I found no record for those sisters. Isn’t that odd?’
‘Indeed. Amazing. But not surprising.’
‘And even more amazing is that there is no record of their death. What do you think of that Clovis?’
‘Not much.’
‘Oh, and did you see this?’
Willa holds up The Guardian’s culture section. One of Rafe’s paintings is splashed across the front page with the headline: An Anonymous Success.
‘He brings danger to us with that egotistic display.’
And with that Willa nearly falters. Her mission is for Clovis to be threatened by her, not Rafe.
‘No, he doesn’t. He covers his tracks and he’s good at it, too. They’ll never trace the works back to him.’
‘They had better not.’
‘After I saw – or thought I saw – one of the Fitzgerald sisters, it kind of jarred my brain, you know? Kind of set things off. I started thinking about poor Mrs Mockett – what was her name now? Nora, that’s it.’
Clovis brushes the crumbs off her lap and noisily scoots her chair back. She walks to the window, where she stands with folded arms.
‘I always thought her death was so, oh I don’t know, strange, I guess,�
�� Willa continues. ‘She was such a careful and precise lady. How many times had she crossed Commercial Road by then – I don’t know, hundreds? Thousands? I wondered at the time, and whenever I think of her, I still wonder if she might have been pushed.’
Clovis blinks as the black crow on the patio looks for its breakfast, poking its head in moss-covered cracks.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Oh, I know, I know, stupid of me. Silly, dumb Willa.’ She picks up the stack of laundry just as Finn enters the kitchen, murmurs a good morning and retreats upstairs. Then she waits, she waits an eternity for Clovis to knock on her door. But Clovis doesn’t come. Finn goes back to his conservatory and she can hear the presence of Clovis’s silence in the kitchen, digesting her innuendos.
While Willa packs her bag for a day at the market, Clovis finally climbs the stairs, but she doesn’t even pause at Willa’s door. Anxiety, Willa’s old, unwanted friend, crawls into her gut. She sits on her bed and rocks. How will I ever perform the next phase if I can’t even wait patiently? She remembers to breathe slowly and deeply, and eventually the rocking stops.
She wraps up in her coat and a fur hat, grabs her things and prepares to leave for the day, none the wiser as to the effect of her performance. Just as she opens the front door, Clovis calls her name and comes downstairs again, still in her dressing gown.
‘It’s been a while since our last session. Perhaps tonight? You look as if you could use a little de-stressing.’
Willa heaves her bag higher on her shoulder and summons an even voice, ‘It’s late night at the market, Christmas shopping hours, I won’t be home till midnight.’
‘Oh, all right, some other time,’ Clovis says, equally measured.
Willa nods and makes to go, then stops and turns around.
‘I’m not at the market tomorrow. What about tomorrow night?’
Clovis shrugs. ‘Sure.’
Willa waits until she has turned the corner to Tooley Street before she texts Finn. When he acknowledges her message, just for good measure, and because every moment for the next twenty-four hours must be played perfectly, she tears her mobile apart and throws it in a bin.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Willa closes her eyes at the first notes of the glass armonica. She thinks of knobs on taps and mentally turns them to the off position. The music in her head stops. She evokes images of samples of her new work, replacing the tones that once held her captive. She imagines sewing shadows on their faces, thick eyebrows and dark lashes, embroidering them into recognizable women on fine silk, muslin and cotton organdie. They are the women of her life: the girls from the orphan asylum, the female prisoners in Millbank, the working women of Limehouse, London’s lost prostitutes found on every corner, the women in her study courses. She will never run short of subjects. She calls upon them now to help her.
She places the jade cicada in her pocket so that when Clovis finds it she will feel secure that Willa is still the same superstitious girl with no mind of her own.
Downstairs in the sitting room Clovis continues to play as Willa takes the first steps down to the reckoning.
‘Sit down, Willa.’
Clovis lowers her voice to a perfect, peaceful pitch.
‘Close your eyes, allow the music to relax you.’
Clovis plays for a few minutes longer, taking more time than usual before she quietly stands. She places a chair in front of her subject, spreads her legs a bit and places them around Willa’s knees.
‘Relax your forehead. Let it go, Willa. Take a deep breath and let your shoulders drop. Good. Let the chair support your weight. Excellent.’
Willa feels the heat of Clovis’s hands as she makes passes over her head. Then she slips her hand into her pocket and holds the cicada in her sweaty fingers. She can almost feel Clovis’s attention move to her pocket.
‘There is nowhere you need to be, nothing required of you.’ Her voice is softly soothing and more coaxing than ever before. ‘You can totally and completely relax. And sleep. Sleep deeply.’
Willa’s head drops forward.
‘Willa, can you hear my voice?’
A pause.
‘Yes.’
‘I want you to relax even more deeply. And sleep very, very soundly. But you will still hear my voice and follow my instructions. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Lift your right arm.’
Willa takes her hand out of her pocket and raises her arm high over her head. Clovis glances at the old ship’s clock on the wall. She won’t give another instruction until Willa is in excruciating pain. She waits. Minutes pass.
Willa’s arm trembles.
‘Now, lower your arm.’
Her arm floats down.
‘Stand, Willa.’
The chair creaks as Willa slowly leans forward and comes to standing.
‘Raise your right arm.’
She does.
‘Good. You’re doing so well. Now stand on one leg, your right.’
She easily balances on her right leg.
‘Listen carefully, Willa, there’s a pole in front of you. It stands securely and is much taller than you. I would like you to dance for me. Just like girls do in the films. Hear the music, see the strobe lights, reach out to the pole and dance.’
Willa tilts her head like she’s listening for music. She squints and then she nods to a beat. Her shoulders sway, followed by her hips and pelvis. She reaches out and grabs an imaginary pole and swings around it slowly, in rhythm to the music. She has nothing to lean against, nothing to take her weight, but her body adjusts as she wraps her arms around an imaginary pole. Her back arches, she lifts a leg and slides it down, making the impossible seem possible. Then Willa gyrates more suggestively. Her head tilts back and she moans as if in ecstasy.
Satisfied that Willa isn’t faking a trance, Clovis stops her.
‘Very good, Willa. Sit down again.’
Willa gropes for the chair with her eyes still closed.
‘Take a moment to relax even deeper.’
Willa’s breathing returns to normal.
‘Tell me, did you see one of the sisters Fitzgerald?’
‘Oh, yes, mistress,’ Willa’s voice regresses fully, returning to that of a young servant.
‘Good. And tell me also, did you tell anyone other than me that you thought you recognized one of the Fitzgeralds?’
‘No, mistress.’
‘No one? Not a soul? Not Rafe? Or Finn?’
‘No, mistress, not a soul.’
‘Why not, Willa?’
‘’Twas embarrassed, mistress.’
‘Why, Willa?’
‘They might think I was a bit barmy.’
‘And tell me, do you really believe it was a Fitzgerald?’
‘Oh, yes, mistress. I’m certain of it. She’s alive and well.’
‘Good.’
Clovis places a pen in Willa’s hand and a notebook on her lap with a sheet of letter-sized paper on top.
‘Just two more things to do, Willa, before you’ll wake refreshed. I’d like you to sign this piece of paper.’
‘Yes, mistress.’
Guided by Clovis, Willa scrawls her signature.
‘There. Good girl. We’re almost finished.’
Clovis takes a phial out of her pocket.
‘I’m going to give you a few drops of medicine now. You’re to drink it all up. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, mistress. Drink it all up.’
‘That’s right.’
Clovis removes the top of the phial and places it in Willa’s hand. Slowly, she raises the phial to her lips and then tilts the glass and drinks until all the liquid is gone.
Clovis sits perfectly still, waiting for a reaction.
Willa’s body goes slack, then she begins to slip from the chair. Clovis makes a move to catch her, but stops and allows Willa’s body to fall to the floor with a loud thud.
Clovis kneels down to take her pulse, which,
in Willa’s favour, is naturally weak-feeling. She plans to move Willa into her bedroom revealing a case of suicide, supported by the signed note. Easy. Simple.
The sound of the door opening catches Clovis off guard. Finn is not due home for hours. And yet here he stands in the doorway with Owen Mockett at his side.
‘Thank god you’re here. She’s just collapsed. I found her like this. Look, the phial is empty.’ Clovis thinks on her feet.
Finn and Owen hold out their hands for Clovis to see the phials in their palms. Then they open them and toss them back like shots of whisky.
For one wild moment Clovis thinks they too have committed suicide. Then Willa sits up. Clovis looks from Willa to Finn and Owen who are still standing, angry and accusing.
‘What … what is going on here?’ she spits.
‘Willa, all right?’ Finn asks.
‘Alive and well.’ She snatches the letter from Clovis.
‘Perhaps you’d like to read them my forged suicide note?’ Willa asks Clovis.
Clovis’s knees buckle, the chair catches her.
Finn and Owen form a barricade in front of the door.
‘Your night has only just begun,’ Finn snarls at Clovis.
‘Mockett,’ she entreats him.’ Owen. What are you doing?’
Owen throws a copy of Henrietta Martin’s letter at Clovis’s feet.
‘What is this?’ he says.
Clovis snatches it up. ‘Oh, this again?’ She laughs as she reads the letter, a strange and unsettling laugh that will remain memorable to everyone in the room, the way a terrible nightmare is recalled with a slice of terror, until finally it fades away.
The sound of footsteps at the door interrupts Clovis’s hysteria.
Grim and determined, Stefán and Margrét enter the room.
‘Oh. You,’ Clovis says with rancour. ‘The Lord of Iceland and his hag servant, Margrét the Lonely. Yes, I saw it in your eyes the night you brought the boy to me. Lonely as an assassin. Get out of my house.’
Clovis tries to part the group but falters as a shadow darkens the doorway. She attempts to conceal her confusion but the face of the woman who runs her fingers through her short hair, and steps forward in front of the group, is like a punch to the gut. That no one else is surprised is not lost on Clovis and in a quick stroke she recovers.
The Parentations Page 41