Two for Sorrow

by Nicola Upson

  Marta held up her hands in apology. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like a Victorian parent scouting for a suitable daughter-in-law, but are you really so surprised that I don’t want to dwell on things that are over and done with? My whole past is dead, Josephine. There’s no one left to testify to the person I’ve been for most of my life—no parents, no lovers, no children. Lydia is the longest connection I have, and I’ve only known her for two years.’

  ‘That sounds quite liberating to me—you can be anyone you want to be.’

  ‘It’s not liberating, it’s terrifying. It’s almost as if I never existed, because my whole history died with the people I loved. I used to think that was the peculiar hell of the very old, you know, to be the last of your generation; now I know how easily it can happen. I want someone who can testify to my future, not my past. Is that really so unreasonable?’

  ‘No, of course it isn’t, but if Lydia is the longest relationship you have, why not try to make it last?’

  ‘Because everything’s come to pieces in my hands, Josephine. How could I inflict that on her?’

  Josephine couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow. ‘But you’re happy to inflict it on me?’

  ‘You’re different—you can take it. Lydia’s not as strong as we are—she glosses over things. It’s a useful talent to have and I love her for it, but it’s no good in the end. She just hands me a plaster and sings while I bleed; you amputate the arm and tell me to get on with it.’

  It was an insightful comment, and Josephine was reminded of why she admired Marta’s writing. ‘So you do still love her?’

  ‘Yes. Not in the way I love you, but I still care about her.’

  Josephine remembered what Mary Size had said about Marta’s needing something to rely on, and she knew in her heart that it wasn’t these extremes of emotion and snatched hours spent with her. ‘Then put the pieces back together, Marta,’ she said quietly, hoping that the sadness didn’t show in her voice. ‘The way you love me won’t help you do that. There are only so many limbs you can lose.’

  Marta sighed impatiently. ‘You make it sound so straightforward. Apart from anything else, why should Lydia even think of taking me back after everything that’s happened?’

  It was the first hint of acquiescence, and relief was the last of the emotions which Josephine felt. ‘Coy really doesn’t suit you,’ she snapped. ‘Of course she’d have you back. Surely you’ve read her letters?’ Her jealousy took her completely by surprise, and she realised suddenly that many of her reasons for bringing the couple together were utterly selfish: as long as Marta was with Lydia, there was no danger of losing her completely. ‘Anyway, it’s not up to me to tell you to make a go of it with her. I’m just saying don’t make me a reason not to.’

  ‘But you are. Damn you, Josephine—my head tells me to go to Lydia, but still I cling to this ridiculous dream that you and I might have a future together. I never dreamt when I started that bloody diary in February that by November I’d still be incapable of looking at anyone else because of you, but it’s true. Even then, I thought that seeing you would be a kill-or-cure method. That’s all very well, but you forget that sometimes those methods do actually kill.’ She drained her glass and rubbed her hands across her eyes. ‘You got me through prison, too, but if I’d known then what I know now—what your coming here today has taught me—I think I’d have turned my face to the wall and given in.’

  ‘What has it taught you?’

  ‘That there’s no such thing as pride any more. I used to think that my feelings for you were all or nothing, that if I ever had the guts to declare myself to you, I’d also have the strength to walk away. I meant what I said, you know—if the answer was no, I vowed I wouldn’t bother you again.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now?’ She put Josephine’s glass down and took both her hands. ‘Now I think that just to be in the same room as you is adventure enough, that your friendship would be more exciting than most people’s love. All my good intentions left me the minute I set eyes on you today, and I know that even if I tell you to go now, sooner or later I’ll come crawling back like a spaniel begging for any crumb you might throw me. I know that my love for you will make me lie my way into your friendship, that I’ll deny the very fact of its existence just for the joy of seeing you.’ She looked away, suddenly self-conscious. ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it? I don’t want you to change at all, but I’ll become whatever I have to just to be near you—I’ll even be your friend.’

  ‘Don’t you think there’s more permanence in that, though? If we were lovers, you’d soon get tired of it.’

  Marta laughed scornfully. ‘You think I only want you because I can’t have you? That’s really not worthy of you, Josephine. I’m forty-four, but even when I was sixteen I didn’t confuse those issues. I’ve told three people in my life that I love them, and each time I’ve known that it would always be true, no matter what happened. I meant it when I said it to Lydia, and I mean it when I say it to you.’

  ‘But Marta, you can’t go around collecting lovers—that’s not worthy of you.’ Josephine looked at her in disbelief and pulled away. ‘If you’re always going to love Lydia, I don’t quite see where I fit in.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. I was just trying to convince you that this isn’t about a cheap conquest. And anyway, if it’s about fitting in, I have no illusions about the fact that I’ll have to fit in with you. I know you have a life. I know you have responsibilities. I look at you sitting there and I know that whatever we do or don’t do, you’ll have to go away some time. If you stay the night, morning will call you back to Cavendish Square; if you stay a week, you’ll still go eventually, and I’ll be left longing for you to return.’

  ‘And you really want that sort of life?’

  ‘I want you. If you come with that sort of life, then so be it. I can accept that.’ Marta sat as close as she could without touching her, and Josephine had no doubt that she realised the power of that restraint. ‘If you’re holding back because you really don’t want me in your life, then go—I won’t stop you again. But don’t do it for my sake. This sort of thing doesn’t happen very often, Josephine, or with many people. If we ignore it, we’re missing something splendid, and I think you want it as badly as I do.’

  ‘How can you have any idea of what I want if I don’t know myself?’

  ‘Because we’re alike, you and I. We both want peace and freedom. The only difference is that I believe you can find them in another human being—that we can find them in each other—and you’ve yet to be convinced.’

  ‘And you think you can convince me, I suppose.’ Josephine stood up and put her empty glass down on the table. For once, Marta seemed to have no arguments left; defeated by Josephine’s resolve, she sat staring into the fire, saying nothing. ‘Well?’ Josephine asked impatiently.

  Confused, Marta looked up. ‘Well what?’

  ‘Do you think you can convince me? I don’t want to be right about this, Marta, so if there’s the slightest chance that you can prove to me what you say you can, then what are you waiting for?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Marta spoke hesitantly, scarcely daring to believe what she was hearing. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m not. I’m not sure about anything, and the more we talk about it, the less sure I become.’ Fear made Josephine antagonistic, and she took Marta’s hand to soften the words. ‘It’s going to kill us, all this talking,’ she said. ‘We analyse everything and it’s one of the things I love about us, but there are times when that isn’t necessary, and perhaps this is one of them.’ The truce had been so long in coming that Josephine was reluctant to place any more obstacles in its way, but she spoke anyway. ‘I need to know that you meant what you said, though—about understanding my life and not changing anything. If you’re just saying that, and you’re going to come to me in a week or a month or a year and want more, then I should leave now.’

  ‘A year?’ Marta g
rinned wickedly. ‘If you’re giving me a year, this must be serious.’

  ‘Don’t joke about it. This has to be between you and me, and no one else.’

  The grin faded, and Marta looked at her for what felt like an age. ‘I was right,’ she said eventually. ‘They are grey.’ Gently, she touched Josephine’s cheek, just below her eye. ‘I’m not joking, Josephine. I know this isn’t a competition, but you’re not the only one who’s vulnerable. We both need to be sure of what we’re doing.’

  For the first time, Josephine recognised how much Marta stood to lose by loving her, and somehow the fact that their bond was based on a mutual fragility gave it strength. ‘I’m sorry. That was selfish of me. It’s just …’

  Marta interrupted her. ‘I know what it is. You need to be safe, and I understand that. But this isn’t Inverness, Josephine. It isn’t the West End. What happens between us, in this house, has nothing to do with anyone.’ She smiled and stood up. ‘Wait here—I won’t be long. I don’t have to lock the doors, do I?’ Josephine shook her head, and listened as Marta’s footsteps faded. When she came back a few minutes later, she stood at the door and held out her hand. ‘Come on.’

  The bedroom was a beautiful, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house. Marta had lit a fire, and the flames threw a muted reflection on to the mahogany of the bed, turning the wood an even richer red. The only other colour in the room came from a painting on the far wall, an oil of a village street which reminded Josephine of somewhere in France she had visited as a girl. Everything else was white, and there was a stillness about it which seemed to underline Marta’s promise to her of peace. Suddenly unsure of herself, Josephine walked over to the window and looked out into the darkness; Marta’s reflection stared back at her, vague and insubstantial in the lamplight, and she put her hand up to touch it. The glass was cold beneath her fingertips.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Josephine nodded. ‘None of this feels very real, though. It sounds ridiculous, but I’m half afraid to turn round in case you’re not there.’

  Marta kissed the back of her neck. ‘Where else would I be, now I’ve gone to all this trouble?’ She took Josephine’s hand and led her over to the bed. Slowly, they undressed each other. Transfixed by the curve of Marta’s back as she leaned forward, by the way her hair washed over her shoulders, Josephine was forced to acknowledge a need which had been suppressed for more years than she cared to remember. They lay down together and Marta pulled her close, kissing her hard as she became more aroused, then gently guiding Josephine’s mouth towards her breasts; as Josephine felt the nipple harden against her tongue, she had to fight the rush of her own desire to prevent her from hurrying anything about this moment. Aware that the first time would always be special, she explored Marta’s body inch by inch, tenderly stroking her skin, then allowing her hand to move softly across her pubic hair. Her touch—hesitant at first—grew more urgent, and she heard Marta whisper her name with a longing that both moved and frightened her. For a moment, she tried to deny the emotional impact of what was happening, but, as Marta cried out and pressed against her, Josephine knew it was useless to pretend that the joy she found in their bond was simply a physical attraction.

  The strength of her feelings took her completely by surprise. Struggling to make sense of them, she ran her fingers back across Marta’s stomach and traced the contours of her breasts, noticing that her skin was flushed with desire. Marta kissed her fingertips one by one, then turned and took Josephine in her arms; her hand moved lovingly down Josephine’s body, and Josephine felt a combination of exhilaration and safety which she had never thought possible. Her instinct was to close her eyes and submit all her other senses to the joy of Marta’s touch, but it was impossible: Marta’s gaze held her as steadily as the arm around her shoulders, and she couldn’t have looked away even if she had wanted to. She lifted her hand to Marta’s cheek, a silent apology for having doubted her, and Marta drew her closer as she came, softly kissing tears from her face and neck. In the peace of the moments that followed, Josephine wondered how she could ever have believed Marta to be dangerous.

  For a long time, they lay together without speaking. ‘What are you thinking?’ Marta asked eventually.

  Josephine glanced away, reluctant to answer. ‘You don’t want to talk about the past.’

  ‘I’ll make an exception. You look so sad.’ She tried to keep her tone light, but it sounded forced and unconvincing. ‘Is it someone you’ve loved and lost?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Josephine kissed her. ‘What more could I possibly want than this? No, it’s not my past I was thinking about—it’s yours, and what you had to go through when you were married. I can’t bear what he did to your body, how he must have hurt you.’

  ‘It’s my mind he fucked with, not my body. That’s where the real scars are.’ She smiled sadly, and ran her fingers through Josephine’s hair. ‘And even they’re fading. Every time you look at me like that, he takes another step back.’

  Josephine found it hard to believe her, but she didn’t argue; if Marta wanted to convince herself that her past could recede so easily, she wasn’t about to disillusion her, but she doubted that the memory of her husband—and in particular the things he had driven her to do by separating her from her children—would ever allow Marta to live her life entirely without shadows. ‘Even so, I can’t imagine that Holloway is the best place to lay your ghosts,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know; at least I had plenty of time to think about what happened. I remember wondering if that was why I loved you—because you understood, and you gave me the only connection I had with the daughter I’d never known.’ She smiled, ‘It didn’t take me long to realise there was more to it than that, but you met Elspeth before she was killed and that made you precious to me, regardless of anything else. I tried to get in touch with Elspeth’s adoptive mother,’ she added hesitantly. ‘I wrote to her from prison, but the letters came back unopened. Then when I got out, I went up to Berwick to see her.’

  ‘What happened?’ Josephine asked softly.

  ‘Nothing. I couldn’t do it. There was a little park at the end of their street, and I sat for hours trying to find the courage, but I couldn’t even go to the door. In the end, I just caught the train back again.’ She rubbed her hand angrily across her face. ‘If I’d given up so easily on other parts of my life, things might have been very different.’

  Josephine caught Marta’s hand and wiped the tears away more gently. ‘What did you want from her?’

  ‘I told myself I wanted to know about Elspeth’s life,’ she said. ‘I had some bizarre notion that sharing the loss of a child might bring us together, that we could help each other, but really that was nonsense. I wanted forgiveness, Josephine. Actually, more than that: I wanted someone who mattered to hold me and tell me that what happened to Elspeth wasn’t my fault. I must have been insane. Why would that poor woman lift a finger to comfort her daughter’s killer?’

  ‘You didn’t kill Elspeth, Marta.’ She said nothing, but Josephine felt her body stiffen in an effort to control her tears. ‘And she was your daughter, nobody else’s.’ The words were a trigger for Marta to submit to her grief. Her sobs—raw, violent and intense—shook them both, and Josephine clung to her as if she could somehow absorb some of Marta’s pain into her own skin, desperate to help but at a loss to know how. Coming so soon after their closeness, it was a shock to her to realise that a degree of separation would always exist between them, regardless of love: no matter how well she grew to know Marta, she would never understand what it was like to lose a child. It was a lesson which all lovers had to learn, she supposed, different in each case but carrying a universal sense of regret; even so, Josephine had not expected to be faced with it quite so early in their relationship.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Marta said at last, following her thoughts. ‘You must wonder what the hell you’ve got yourself into.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing, Marta. And you have nothing
to be sorry for. You’ve apologised enough.’ As the night went on, they made love again, and this time the intensity was replaced by a tender assurance which seemed to Josephine to hold its own excitement, if only because it hinted at a past and a future. Afterwards, she lay awake for a long time, her body pleasurably tired, her mind weary with guilt at having unlocked in Marta a grief which would be with her long after Josephine had returned to Inverness.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Celia Bannerman opened the leather carrying-case carefully, and took out its contents one by one: a tape measure and a two-foot rule first, followed by a roll of twine and some copper wire, a pair of pliers, two leather straps, a white cap and, of course, the rope. She was surprised to see a bundle in the corner of the bag, wrapped in what looked like a baby’s shawl. It wasn’t something she remembered packing, but she took it out anyway and laid it on the table. Satisfied that everything was in order, she turned to fetch the prisoner but her exit from the cell was blocked by two men in suits who stepped quickly towards her. Before she realised what was happening, her hands were clasped behind her back with one of the straps and she was swung round and led from the cell. The rope which she had laid on the table only seconds before was somehow now hanging from the ceiling in a chamber at the end of the corridor, and she felt herself pushed inevitably towards it. She tried to speak, to explain that she was the warder and not the prisoner, but it was no good: a white hood was pulled over her face and she began to suffocate, choking on the cloth which moved in and out of her mouth as she tried to gasp for air. Someone shoved a bundle hard into her hands, then, when she could bear the suspense no longer, she heard the sound of a lever being pulled and felt herself falling.

  She sat up in bed, trying to breathe calmly until the panic of the dream subsided. It was hard to say which was worse: the long hours spent lying awake, or the short snatches of sleep, when thirty years of denial and suppressed fear came back to haunt her with twisted versions of her past. Someone had once told her that to dream of the gallows was a prophecy of good fortune, but nothing felt further from the truth; whenever she dropped her guard, the images took advantage of an exhausted mind to play themselves out like disjointed scenes from a film which should never have been made, and she fumbled for the lamp on her bedside table, praying that the night was almost over. It was only 3 a.m.