Closed for Winter

by Georgia Blain

  In the darkness, I get up and cross the dividing line to her side of the room.

  Her bed is still there and I pull the cover back, revealing the mattress.

  This was where she lay.

  And as I put my head on her pillow, I remember.

  Hearing her come in through the window. Watching her get into bed. Tiptoeing across in the still of the night and lifting the sheet. The warmth of the small space that she made for me, the softness of her breath in my hair, the weight of her arm across my waist.

  It was all right. She was home.

  And I would curl my body into hers and close my eyes.

  But that was then.

  With my knees to my chest and my eyes open, there is only the chill of the bed. And as I lie there remembering, I wish she would come back.

  I wish she was with me now.

  22

  Did she often come home late? they ask us later. Was there any reason for you to be alarmed?

  Sometimes it is just Dorothy they ask, sometimes me, sometimes both of us together.

  I try to explain. I try to tell them about my sister, but I feel that I am betraying her. She didn’t do what she was supposed to do, I begin to say. And then I stop myself.

  They wait for me to continue.

  I do not want to say these things. I do not want to tell them that she often broke the rules.

  It was different, I try to tell them. Something was wrong, I try to say. But I am not sure if we knew that then, or whether it was only later that we could say that we knew.

  The glass is cracked. Diagonally. From corner to corner. And from beneath it, my father’s face looks up at us. He is twenty-three. Young and handsome. Staring straight at the camera. Staring straight at me looking down at the smashed glass in horror. Staring straight at Dorothy who does not look at the photograph, but at my mouth and eyes, lurid with colour, realising that she has made a mistake. It is not Frances standing there wrapped in her dressing-gown, but despite now knowing that she was wrong, she is still flushed with what she thought she had seen.

  Where is she? she asks.

  I shake my head and tell her that I don’t know.

  Has she gone out?

  I shake my head again.

  She pulls me to her, ripping the dressing-gown off, rubbing at the lipstick, the eyeshadow, the lashes with a tissue. Smearing them, scrubbing them until I am red raw, shaking me. Hair next, and she brushes with a vigour that rips at my scalp, through the knots.

  I told her to stay with you. Just one simple thing I ask her to do. But not even that. She won’t even do that. And it is not so much to ask. Not much at all. Rip, rip through my hair so that it flies out in great waves of static.

  I am standing perfectly still. Not crying. Because it would take an idiot not to realise that there is trouble now, and it may fly in any direction.

  And you, she slaps me hard on the back of the leg, you must never, ever do this again. Do you hear me? Never. She shakes me again, then pulls me close, tight, so that I can smell her perfume and the sour sweetness of a distress that I know. I am wrapped in her arms, not able to move and not able to breathe, until she pushes me away again and looks around the room at the mess of make-up on the dressing-table, the gown crumpled on the floor and next to that the photograph, smashed.

  I’ll clean it up. My voice is small and scared, wanting to appease, but before I have even finished speaking she is out in the hall, and I hear her, checking the bedroom, bathroom, lounge, kitchen, sunroom, calling Frances’s name, over and over.

  She’s not here. I am running after her as I speak.

  She does not listen. She is at the back door, then out across the yard, to the gate, where she shouts again, Frances! louder this time, oblivious to the sly peeks of curious neighbours from behind curtains and screen doors.

  I can only watch until she turns, defeated by the silence that meets each of her calls, to where I am waiting for her on the steps.

  Silhouetted in the purple dusk, she walks towards me. Her high heels slip on the pebbles so that she seems to sway drunkenly as she makes her way to where I sit, arms clutched around my knees.

  She lights a cigarette and the match sizzles. She lets it fall, charred black, next to her feet. Dainty feet with blood-red toenails. (I could have been a dancer, you know.) In her sandals, her arch is accentuated. I am staring at it. She has her head in her hands and sees nothing. Her cigarette is burning, unsmoked, between her fingers, trails of ash falling to the steps, until it is down to the butt. She stubs it out on the cement.

  There is a sprinkler in the next-door garden. It is ticking as it circles. Every few seconds, a sparkling spray of water splashes over our fence and onto the line where my towel is hung. I watch it, hoping Dorothy will not notice. I have seen her fury over this before.

  Did she bring you home from the beach?

  I shake my head.

  Did you wait for her as you were told? There is anger mounting in Dorothy’s voice again, and I find that I am inching away, until I am pressed against the peeling paint on the iron railing. A large flake drops onto my thigh.

  Did you?

  I nod. Not wanting to cry. Not now.

  Did she take you down there in the first place?

  Yes, I tell her, relieved that that at least had happened as it was supposed to.

  What time?

  Just after you left. My head is down and my words are mumbled.

  And you haven’t seen her since?

  I shake my head, not trusting my voice.

  So where is she? Did you look for her? Ask her friends? See anything at all? She does not wait for my answer. She pulls herself up and heads back into the house. I follow her, racing to keep up, into our bedroom.

  She is kicking through all of Frances’s things, looking for something, anything, some trouble other than this. She turns, wide-eyed, to face me. She is gripping the bottom of her work uniform with her fingers, screwing it up into a tiny ball, staring at me but not seeing me.

  Please, I tell her, she’s just gone somewhere.

  In the kitchen, she lights another cigarette. She sits at the table and I watch, anxious that the burning end is going to light her hair. But it doesn’t. Each time it gets close, she takes another long inhalation, the tip glowing bright and the ash crumbling to the floor.

  We do not talk. Not a word, until Dorothy stubs out the butt. She takes her hands away from her face and looks up. Her mascara has run, black-rimmed eyes and faded cracked lipstick, and behind her the kitchen clock clicks into place, 6.45, the numbers bright in the darkness.

  I’m going to go and look for her, Dorothy says. On the beach.

  I want to go with her but she tells me I have to stay, to be here in case Frances comes home. She does not look at me as she talks, but rummages, distracted, through her bag, to find her car keys.

  They are on the table. I push them towards her.

  She takes them without glancing up, out the front door, and it slams shut, echoing down the hall to the kitchen, where I sit alone and watch the clock. 6.55.

  Outside it is night now. It has crept in unnoticed, across the rows of rooftops, to where the day slips, red and splendid, into the ocean. The lights on the jetty flicker once, twice, before turning on and streaking the sea silver, the only markers for miles.

  The sea laps. Quiet. Broken by a splash of a night-time swim, the rustle of the long grass and the squeak of sand underfoot. Cool, dark and soft.

  Another day has ended.

  I am waiting in the kitchen, swinging my legs, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, too short to reach the floor. I am drawing a picture of myself on the corner of the newspaper, and I am trying to convince myself that it is okay.

  This is what Frances does. She comes home late.

  There is nothing to be worried about.

  23

  Martin is a punctual man.

  If he says he will meet me at six, he is there at six. This is the way he is.

>   I am also punctual. Elise is like me, he tells people, never a minute late.

  It is not an attribute of which I am proud. I once told Jocelyn that I try to be late, but it seems to be an impossibility. I delay until the last possible moment, but when that last moment comes, I panic, I rush and I am on time. I cannot help myself.

  Jocelyn laughed. She did not understand. She is always late. We go to a play together and she arrives seconds before it starts, out of breath and apologising. I have been waiting, agitated, anxious that she will not make it. She always does. It is just that the car broke down, she lost her keys, she lost track of time; she has an endless array of reasons.

  Martin told me he would be here at five.

  I am waiting for him in the kitchen. I do not want to look at the clock again. I know he is late but I do not want to know how late.

  The first night Martin took me out for dinner, he arranged to meet me at seven. I was at the restaurant five minutes early. He arrived seconds later.

  I was nervous. I could not imagine what we would find to discuss. I remember crumpling my serviette in my hands. I remember reading the menu three times and seeing nothing, nothing at all. I remember wishing the evening would be over so I could go home.

  Martin talked. I cannot recall a word he said, but I remember listening. And when I realised that that was all I would have to do, I was relieved.

  Later, when I was at home, I panicked. I lay awake, worrying I had bored him. I wished I’d had stories to tell, comments to make, anything other than my silence.

  But Martin did not seem to mind. Three days later, he asked me out again.

  And I remember thinking that perhaps this could work, perhaps it was enough. He could talk and I could listen, both of us fulfilling the other’s need, neither of us demanding anything the other could not give.

  I light Dorothy’s heater and smell the sweetness of the gas for a few seconds before the pilot catches. It is cold in here. Damp and cold, and I can feel the evening chill creep under the sunroom door.

  I tell myself I will not call him for another half hour.

  But I pick up the telephone and as I am about to dial the number there is a knock on the back door.

  He stands with my bag in one hand and a bunch of flowers in the other.

  For Dorothy, he says, in case there is any confusion.

  I ask him in and he hesitates. It is only for a moment but it is long enough for me to notice.

  He sees the pile of papers on the floor and shakes his head. I wait for him to speak. I wait for the words I have come to expect: She really should get someone to clean these out for her. On a regular basis. It’s ridiculous and probably dangerous. If a fire started, the whole place would go up in flames. Pronto, followed by a click of the fingers to emphasise the point.

  But he is silent.

  He puts my bag on the floor and walks straight down the hall. Dorothy, he says as he approaches her door, his voice loud in the quiet. At least he has not called her Dot, or Dotty.

  How are you? Her door is open and he walks straight in.

  She does not answer.

  I tell him she is probably asleep, knowing full well this is not the case. She is pretending. Eyes closed, not wanting to register Martin’s presence, at all. For a moment he looks at her, lying there in the darkness of her room, and then tells me he should get going, his voice a whisper now.

  Please, I say and I nod my head in the direction of the kitchen.

  I believe I know Martin well. You cannot be with someone for as long as we have been together without having some knowledge of who they are. I usually know what he will say and what he will do. I know his gestures, I know the cough he has when he wants to get attention, I know the way he cleans his glasses when he is hot, I know the way he twists his father’s ring on his little finger when he is nervous, I know the coarse black hair that has started growing on his shoulders, I know the way he worries about this but does not want anyone to know, I know the way he fusses about his tie being straight when he gets ready for work in the morning, I know the stories he tells when he wants to impress. I know all of this and more. But lately I do not think we know each other at all.

  He is agitated. And it scares me.

  He sits at the kitchen table and plays with Dorothy’s scissors, turning them over and over in his hands. He shifts the papers to one side of the table. He does not look at me.

  Martin is a man who believes everything can be articulated. When I find I have no words, he does not understand. But now he does not know what to say and I am the one doing the talking. I tell him I have missed him. My words sound false, but I know they are true. When he was not here, I did miss him. I start putting his flowers in a vase and I keep talking. More than I usually talk. I do not know what I am saying. I am trying to pull apart the silence, puncture holes in it, until it is no more.

  He puts the scissors down and looks up at me.

  I do not know that look.

  He tells me he is going away. There is a conference, he says. Next week. I am leaving tomorrow.

  The flower stems are sticky between my fingers. There are too many for the vase. I do not know what to do with the rest. They lie on the kitchen bench, great clumps of colour, so bright that it hurts to look at them. I am surprised he chose them. Martin buys jonquils and tuberoses, pale flowers. He buys them for me and the smell fills his mother’s house. Overpowering in its sweetness.

  I will be away for a week, he says.

  I do not know why he is telling me this. He picks the scissors up again and then puts them down. He stacks the clippings neatly, straightening the edges of each pile. He rests the paste on top of one and the scissors on top of the other.

  It is in order. It is then that he can tell me.

  And in the silence of my mother’s house, he speaks the words I have been expecting but had not expected.

  I think you should move out, he says. While I am away.

  I am throwing the carnations I bought for Dorothy into the bin. Clearing another vase for the rest of his flowers. The water is putrid. I toss it down the sink and start picking at the rotten stems that have stuck to the inside of the china. They are glued to the side.

  Do you understand?

  It is still outside and from the kitchen window I can see that the sky is clear. If I sat on the beach now, I would be able to see all the stars. Thousands of them smattered across the black night sky.

  Can you say something?

  I fill the vase with fresh water and leave it on the windowsill. I open the window wide and let the night air in. Cool and fresh. From behind me, I can hear him pushing his chair out. I know it will lift the lino, tearing the hole even wider.

  It was Frances who first made that hole. I remember. Pushing her chair back with her hands on the table, pushing it back and ducking underneath, out of reach of Dorothy who was leaning forward to slap her. I cannot remember exactly what she had done. There was always something.

  My fingers are numb. Numb from the winter cold.

  For God’s sake, he says. If we can’t even talk about this, what is the point?

  I close the window as he opens the back door behind him.

  I turn around and he has one foot on the steps. One foot out the door.

  Wait, I say but I do not know whether I have spoken out loud. Wait, I say again, but it is too late.

  He cannot hear me. Not the faintness of my voice above the sound of the pebbles beneath his feet. Not the feebleness of one word above the squeak of the gate as it swings shut.

  I am whispering to myself. Over and over.

  Wait, I am telling him. Wait.

  But it is too late. He has gone.

  24

  Dorothy does not cry.

  I believe she is proud of the fact she never cries, but when I say this, I am only guessing. It is not a matter we have discussed. I just know I have never seen tears in her eyes, not even when she learnt that Franco, my father, had died.

  We were eat
ing dinner when they came to tell us. At least, that is what I think we were doing, but I do not know whether I can actually remember the events or whether my knowledge is not, in fact, knowledge, but only a half-truth.

  There were two of them. Two men who had worked with my father on the lines. They may have been his friends, or simply foremen on the job. It was Frances who showed them in, and they stood awkwardly, too large for our kitchen, shifting from foot to foot, until, in their clumsiness, they just talked. Straight to the point. In front of all three of us.

  I pity them now. It is not a job I would be capable of doing.

  As they spoke, I stared at my plate and Dorothy stared out the window. Neither of us uttered a sound. It was Frances who broke the silence with her singing. Softly at first, a whisper under her breath that slowly built as a breeze builds until there was no denying its existence, the same tune, over and over again.

  I believe she would have kept on singing, singing until her voice reached a shout, if Dorothy had not slapped her. I can remember how she sounded. I can remember how loud she was.

  But the song was broken by the sting of Dorothy’s palm. The sting on her cheek that made me lift my head, and upon doing so, I saw the tears.

  My sister was crying and it was something I had never seen her do before.

  The men who worked with my father told us they had to leave. Their voices were loud in the silence that followed Dorothy’s slap. They told us they had a train to catch and they headed towards the door. I do not blame them. I, too, would have left as quickly as possible.

  Dorothy did not move. She stayed as she was, staring out the kitchen window.

  Frances pushed her chair back. I did not dare look at her. I just waited until I heard the bedroom door shut, and then I followed her.

  She was sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees. I could not see her face, but I knew.

  When she finally looked up, her eyes were still red.

  It’s my fault, she said, and I did not know what she meant.

  I did it, she said, and her words made no sense.

  I did it because I wanted it. I wanted him dead.