by Yaba Badoe
According to Beth, her mother’s reaction to the news was violent. Belinda Bradshaw had considered herself a close friend of Isobel, and after her initial disbelief and tears, her anger was incandescent. ‘Bloody, bloody men!’ Belinda had cursed, glaring at Beth’s father. ‘It was his fault. That bloody man was to blame.’
‘Hell hath no fury . . .’ Charlie Bradshaw began, then, seeing the rage on his wife’s face, he got up and slipped out of the room.
‘Mummy says Isobel flipped because of Peter,’ Beth relayed to us in Exe. We were preparing for Polly’s funeral the next day. The whole school was going. Afterwards my father and Nina were taking me to London for a short break. I wasn’t looking forward to any of it.
‘You can’t blame Peter for what Isobel did,’ I replied, instantly protective of Polly’s father. I still have the silver bangle he gave me; and once in a while I meet up with him in a disreputable after-hours Soho drinking club he belongs to.
Maria agreed with me; Peter wasn’t to blame. But because it was Maria who had made us aware of problems in the Venus marriage by her revelation that her mother was having an affair with Peter, Beth let rip at her.
‘I suppose your mother wants him back in her bed,’ she said sarcastically.
‘Get yourself a brain, Bradshaw,’ Maria sneered. ‘If everyone went about murdering because their husbands left them, there’d hardly be any children left in the world. We’d all be dead, wouldn’t we?’
Maria was polishing her outdoor shoes for the church service, and as she exhaled on them before rubbing them vigorously, I saw tears in her eyes.
The logic of her argument was an unsettling one. And even though Beth, who until then had always been optimistic, interjected that grown-ups didn’t usually go around murdering children, the knowledge remained that we were acutely vulnerable in a world controlled by adults.
‘Do you think dying hurts?’ For some reason, Maria addressed her question to me.
‘I don’t think so,’ I replied, though of course I was ignorant of the truth. But the thought that Polly might have died painfully, fighting for breath, was too horrifying to contemplate.
I found myself wondering what would have happened if I had spent the night at Graylings, as Polly had asked me to. Would Isobel have murdered me too? Or would she have allowed Polly to live, killing only herself? I wouldn’t have minded that. I wanted Polly alive again. I hadn’t been completely at ease with Isobel for a long time. She was too like my mother.
For the hundredth time, Maria exclaimed, ‘How could she do it? How could she kill Polly?’
It was the question on everyone’s lips. But for Beth and me, perhaps hardened by our exposure to True Murder and a summer spent puzzling over the contents of Miss Fielding’s trunk, the Venus tragedy, although shocking, was not extraordinary. It was as if our discovery of the babies in the attic had been a warning of a greater calamity to follow; as if Polly, with her obsession with death, had spent her months at school preparing for a murder, not knowing it was to be her own.
I said as much to Beth after Lights Out. Maria had moved into Polly’s bed, and at night Beth and I slept together.
‘We asked the wrong questions,’ I whispered to her. ‘You see, the babies were a warning, Beth. But we were too close to see. We didn’t hear what they were telling us.’
She whinnied and then said: ‘Dead babies don’t talk.’
‘They do if you listen hard enough. They were trying to tell us that what happened to them was going to happen to one of us . . . to Polly.’
‘As if.’ Beth lay trembling beside me.
I was no longer frightened of what had happened. My discovery of Polly’s body had pushed me beyond fear into a knowledge of darkness that had permeated the marrow of my bones. I thought nothing could ever frighten me again. I had reached a stage of acute sensitivity in which other people’s thoughts and emotions merged with mine, and Malone and Leboeuf were with me constantly, ensuring my safety. I thought nothing could touch me again. I had forgotten about the faces in my mother’s mirror.
At last, Beth asked a question that I realised she’d wanted to ask for ages. When her trembling ceased, she said: ‘What did she look like dead, Aj?’
I closed my eyes and thought for a moment, and as Polly’s dead face surfaced behind my eyelids, I described it. ‘She looked as if she’d seen something horrible and was furious that she couldn’t tell us about it.’
I would never forget that face, or the pressure of Beth’s hand on mine as she asked me a final question.
‘Aj, do you think Polly’s trying to tell us what she saw?’
I told her that I thought she was. After all, Polly and I were blood sisters. We were inseparable, even in death.
25
ALTHOUGH MARIA RICHARDSON and many of the adults present wept freely at the funeral, Beth and I remained calm. It seemed to us that our endless discussions of the summer term, our macabre meetings in the Glory Hole and Polly’s relentless questioning of us had been a rehearsal. We each believed – as Mrs Derby shepherded us into a small village church with a star-spangled ceiling and Mrs Venus’s coffin appeared, followed by Polly’s – that we now understood the lessons of the summer: we inhabited a brutal, dangerous world and would never be safe. But while we were young, we were less safe than the others – the adults.
We stood side by side, bound together by our love for each other and our bond with Polly. Beth’s friendship with Polly was coming to an end, but my own feelings for Polly were entering a new phase. We had tied ourselves to each other through the exchange of blood. Perhaps the call of grief had infected my mind, but it seemed to me that Polly’s presence in my life was stronger in death than it had been before. Watching her coffin moving down the aisle to the altar, I smelt a trace of orange cinnamon on my breath: Polly’s scent. And turning around to see people staring at me, I caught a glimpse of gold and scarlet. How else could I explain Peter Venus’s inconsolable grief, which intensified on seeing me in the congregation?
‘Trust your gut,’ Malone and Leboeuf had told me. So I knew. I knew, instinctively, that I would see Polly again. I was learning to live without my mother, but Polly was life itself.
My father and Nina arrived late and squeezed down the pew to sit beside me. Nina attempted to take my hand but I refused to touch her. I would never like her and I wasn’t going to start pretending now.
My father and Nina had come to take me away for a short holiday. Their arrival in London, precipitated by a call from Mrs Derby, had apparently steeled Pa’s resolve to remove me from school. He believed that having me living with them, in daily contact with Nina’s affection, would revive my well-being, dispelling the accumulation of misfortune I had accrued over the years. He blamed my ability to attract disaster on Mama’s excessive hysteria and my bad luck at meeting the Venuses. Pa had somehow managed to expunge his own part in my story, reinventing himself as a benevolent benefactor in a more stable future.
Thankfully, on one point at least, Nina and I agreed: I should remain at school. Though sympathetic towards me, my stepmother was heavily pregnant and absorbed, as most mothers-to-be are, by her child. The truth was that I wasn’t a priority to her. I’ve been led to understand that very gently, very persuasively, Nina wore Pa down with arguments suggesting that remaining at school in Devon would be in my best interest. She was right. I was determined to remain close to Mrs Derby and Miss Edith. I believed they held the key to my sanity. I knew that until I could understand what had happened to Polly and the babies in Miss Fielding’s trunk, I would never be at ease with myself. And I liked Mrs Derby much more than I did Nina.
Nevertheless, counting the thoughts streaming through Nina’s head at Polly’s funeral, absorbing her mood of impending maternal bliss, I was aware that she was moved by the ceremony and that she found my calm detachment throughout disturbing. What did she expect? Tears? I had shed all my tears long ago. I was exhausted by other people’s thoughts, their inner voices reverberating
in my mind. I wanted to go to sleep for a long time. I wanted to be with Polly.
When the coffins were carried from the village church into the steady drizzle of a grey January afternoon, Peter and Theo, weeping openly, followed. Nina and Pa, his protective hand on my shoulder, led me to the graveside with other well wishers. Many of them were wiping tears from their eyes, and as the vicar intoned the final words of the burial rite and the coffins were lowered, Nina started crying as well. She found Theo and Peter’s grief overwhelming. It was certainly distressing, but I had seen far worse, having witnessed Polly’s murder and discovered her body, and their tears left me numb. I wanted Polly. I wanted my best friend alive again. Half-supporting each other, Peter and Theo threw earth on the coffins, followed by a single white rose from each of them.
Then Peter walked towards us and stopped in front of me. Trying to hold his emotion in check, he cried: ‘Forgive me, Ajuba. Please forgive me.’
I wanted Polly. I wanted her so badly that had I been alone I would have crawled into her coffin with her.
Expressing his condolences, Pa led Peter away. I suppose they had a lot to talk about. After all, both of them had had wives who had killed themselves rather than live without them. Mama, however, had forgotten to take me with her.
The funeral was over and the mourners were going their separate ways when Nina approached the Derbys. She was giving them a date on which I would return to school when Miss Edith, in a black astrakhan coat, drew Mrs Derby aside. The Bradshaws had stopped at the church gate. It seemed they were waiting for Miss Edith to join them.
‘Did the child talk to you?’ Miss Edith enquired. ‘I told her that she should.’
The events of the past weeks had aged Miss Edith. Her lips were blue with cold and, walking with a stick, she made her way very carefully along the shining cobbled path, slippery with drizzle. Sarah Derby took her by the arm, guiding her to the Bradshaws. ‘Yes, she did,’ she replied. ‘But I didn’t believe her.’
‘I didn’t want to believe her.’ Miss Edith stopped a few yards from Belinda Bradshaw, observing her impatience to be gone. She smiled. Belinda had offered her a lift so she would have to wait for her.
Intensifying her grip on Sarah Derby’s arm, Miss Edith asked: ‘Do you think she’s going to be all right?’
In the moments before the question was answered, they both looked over at me. They were concerned with what I was experiencing behind my calm demeanour. They didn’t realise that standing to one side I could hear their thoughts trickling to the rhythm of their voices. They had no idea how deeply I absorbed the sensations passing between them. But there’s nothing wrong with me, I wanted to tell her. I had never been more lucid. It was then, I think, that I realised how much Miss Edith liked me and I grasped that with time and persistence on my part, and help from Malone and Leboeuf, one day I would understand how Polly’s murder was linked to Miss Fielding’s trunk.
‘Will she be all right?’ Miss Edith repeated.
‘I think so,’ Sarah Derby answered at last. ‘I certainly hope so.’
The two women parted, looking at me once again. I turned, catching a glimpse of scarlet and gold. They had caught sight of Polly standing behind me. I smiled, knowing that soon I would see Polly as well.
26
IT IS AFTER Polly’s funeral and I am staring out of a hotel window near Victoria station. Outside it is raining hard, and the rain, solidified by sleet, drums against the windows and runs down like angry snakes. It reminds me of torrential downpours in Accra, when Tawiah, running from room to room, would cover the mirrors of our house on Kuku Hill with my mother’s cloths. To keep us safe, she would say. To keep the spirits of our enemies away from our reflections. I wonder what Tawiah is doing now and if it’s raining in Ghana, whose mirrors she is covering today.
It’s unusual for it to rain so heavily in England, though the greyness of the pavements and the buildings outside, made greyer still by the weather, is not so unusual. Perhaps Mama was right. Perhaps the end of the world is coming and one day very soon we’ll meet in heaven. If heaven exists, that is. I don’t really care. Nothing is as it was before. Yet I can’t help wondering if my mango tree is still alive. And if it is, is it bearing fruit? Or has a colony of fruit bats devoured it as my mother foresaw?
For three days I’ve been sleeping in a small room adjoining Pa and Nina’s larger one. During that time I’ve tramped through innumerable strange houses in south London with Nina. We’ve gone from Clapham to Tooting, Putney Bridge to Chelsea, and none of the houses or apartments we’ve visited are as nice as Graylings. I’ve kept my opinion to myself but I suspect my indifference has shown. I am bored; deeply bored with the stultifying tenor of Nina’s thoughts and feelings. All she can think about is the baby in her womb and the house she wants to live in: its size and the shapes and colours of the rooms. In this regard, she is as demanding as Isobel. She knows what she wants and refuses to settle for anything less.
Poor Pa. I wonder if he realised what he was getting into when he married a Senegalese Executive Administrator: a term that I’ve discovered is a glorified title for a secretary. Executive Administrator indeed! Mama was a qualified nurse. She spoke English much better than Nina does. And she read books. I’ve never seen Nina reading a book. She flips through magazines, glancing at models parading in clothes she can no longer wear. I know Nina doesn’t read, because she can’t spell very well, and she hasn’t a clue about African capitals. Only last night I asked her what the capital of Morocco was. She couldn’t tell me. She didn’t know the capital of Algeria either. Or Tunisia.
Nina: the new Mrs Benson who wants me to call her Mama. I would rather slice out my tongue. I am my mother’s daughter. None the less, I’m trying my best to behave, to make the world a better place by passing through it. I’m biting my tongue, attempting to say the right things. Yet I know that I’m letting Pa down. I can’t help myself. Take last night, for instance.
The four of us were having dinner downstairs: me, Pa, Nina and the infant inside her, the son Pa wants so badly. He hasn’t even been born and yet already he has their cloying, doting attention.
The child started kicking and Nina, a glass of water in her hand, quickly put it down. She closed her eyes. Before a single word passed between them, Pa stretched out his hand, found the place where Nina hurt and rubbed it. His son must have reciprocated his touch. Pa laughed, saying to Nina: ‘Little me.’
‘And a bit of me too,’ she replied. ‘Don’t forget that, Michael.’
I coughed. Nina put a hand on my arm. I shrugged, pulling away while Pa, trying to draw me into their circle, grinned. ‘You’re going to have a little brother soon, Ajuba.’
Nina tweaked my ear. I wish she’d stop touching me, fondling me, putting pomade in my hair, saying how nice it is and how pretty I am. I wish she’d stop trying to be my friend.
‘Are you looking forward to meeting your brother?’ Pa persisted, folding Nina’s hand in his, rubbing it against his thigh.
I didn’t know what to say, but when I spoke, I knew I’d stumbled on the words Mama would have chosen: the words that hurt stepmothers and errant fathers the most. Smiling at Pa, I said to Nina: ‘I don’t suppose anyone’s told you, but I had another little brother once, Nina. And a little sister. A long time ago before my Pa met you. Babies can die before they’re born. And sometimes they die soon afterwards because witches kill them. It makes mothers go crazy. Isn’t that so, Pa?’
They didn’t smile again after that. They couldn’t, because Pa got annoyed and said something about calling the new Mrs Benson ‘Auntie Nina’ if I couldn’t call her ‘Mama’ as they’d asked me to. He said that in our culture we don’t address adults by their Christian names. It’s considered rude.
‘Is it the same in your culture, Nina?’ I enquired.
‘Ajuba!’
‘Go easy on her, Michael. Give her time. That’s all she needs. Lots of love and time.’
Jeez, she makes me want to puke! I won
der if it’s raining as much in Devon as it is in London. I wish I was back at school. I’d feel safer at school away from Nina. I’m counting the days till I go back. But before I go, there’s something I have to do. I’ve got to do it. I’ve got to.
It’s simple really, looking into a mirror – if you’re not me, that is. But I’ve got to do it. Just a moment ago, as I watched Nina putting on lipstick at her looking-glass, she beckoned. I turned and ran. She doesn’t know that I don’t like mirrors. She doesn’t know how much they frighten me.
There’s a mirror in this room where I’m sleeping. It’s in a dark corner attached to a dressing-table. Once I’ve bolted the door, I’m going to look at it. I don’t want Nina coming in and interfering while I’m doing what I’ve got to do. Though the size she is, I’m surprised she can still walk.
Locking the door, I turn towards the mirror. I’m convinced Mama and Tawiah were wrong about mirrors. The way I see it, it isn’t your enemies who come to you through them, but your friends. Why else would they want to talk to you?
Why can’t I look at the glass? Why am I staring at pads of hotel stationery instead? After all that I’ve seen, why am I still such a coward?
I will look. By dint of sheer willpower, I force my gaze upward to a point on the right side of the glass. My own reflection in the centre is of no interest to me. I look at the empty space on the right, determined to see what I want to see; willing it to happen.
Slowly, like a figure forming in mist, she surfaces, and I touch the cool mahogany of the dressing-table to stop myself reaching out. If I move towards her, I know she will disappear.
The glass clears, revealing the face of a pale, angry child, her eyes flashing blue in a stormy sky. She wears the sweater she wore in Isobel’s portrait for Peter, but there is little mischief in her expression today. It is sullen, vengeful, more defiant in death than in life.