Now that I was about to go, all I wanted was to lie down next to her and wait to be found. I drew the sheet back from her face and stroked her forehead.
‘I love you,’ I whispered. ‘I always will.’ My tears fell onto her face and ran down her cheeks as if she were crying too. I bent down and pressed my lips onto hers, then pulled the sheet back over her. I looked down at Bernard, lying crumpled on the floor.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly, and left.
The streets were sticky with heat and full of people acting strangely, as if they were all drunk. Men in uniforms grabbed women, swinging them around by their waists and kissing them. The women didn’t seem to mind, laughing and kissing them back. Someone had wheeled a piano into the square around the corner and a man thumped out dancehall tunes on it while a girl in a red dress sang and people danced on the grass in couples. The prostitutes were there, smiling real smiles that nobody had paid for and the air was thick with the sound of car horns and laughter.
I stumbled past the celebrations with my pillowcase over my shoulder, up through Soho, past the crowds in Oxford Street and across to Euston station. Soon I was sweating and my shoes had begun to rub. No matter how often I swallowed, my mouth was parched, as if I were all dried up from too much crying. The only thing to do was to keep walking. I passed groups of girls with flowers in their hair, laughing and calling out to soldiers. I stared for a moment at a blonde girl winding herself around an older man. Tears welled up in my eyes and I turned away, sickened.
As the sun beat down, my skin became tight and sore. I didn’t care. I wanted it to burn, to blister and scar, so that what had happened that day would be etched into it forever. I walked on, not knowing where I was going, only that I must get as far away from the flat as I could. At the end of a long street, I came to a fork in the road. I looked at a sign on the building at the corner and when I saw what it said, I knew it was where I must go. Kentish Town. In the middle of the dirty city on this, the worst of days, it offered some hope of going back to the very beginning, to the countryside, to green fields, deep water and happiness.
I limped up the road. My legs were heavy, as if I were dragging behind me the bodies of everyone who had died. When I reached a street that was almost entirely destroyed, I stopped. It was deserted, with no party, no flags, no bottles of beer and no dancing. Even the birds were quiet. A few houses were still standing. I chose one at random and pushed at the garden gate. It came off its hinges and fell to the ground. I walked over it and up the path to where the front door had been. I stepped into the hallway and climbed the stairs. In a bedroom I found what I was looking for, a wardrobe in a corner with the key still in its lock. I squeezed in and closed the door behind me. I curled myself up into a ball and, at last, fell asleep.
Twenty-Seven
THE CHILD WAS ALWAYS WITH ME NOW, THE ONE WHO NEVER lived, the one I left smeared on the sheets in the little flat in Soho. The sound of children laughing and shouting in the schoolyard behind the house became unbearable, setting off a refrain in my mind that I couldn’t silence.
The child you murdered would have done that. It would have run about. It never got the chance.
Whenever I woke the ghost was there, staring at me with pale eyes that never blinked. Its face was dreadfully blank, without a nose or a mouth. Its translucent skin showed bones and a tangle of veins, the shadow of a liver and a heart that beat in horrible time with my own.
After Rose and I talked about David, the thing wouldn’t leave me alone. That night it began to twist and squirm, great shudders of pain passing through its hideous body. I watched in sickened fascination, unable to tear my eyes away from it. It whined at me, pestering me to confess.
Tell her. Tell her what happens when you hide it away. Tell her how it rots and sours inside you, how it infects your very soul. Tell her what you did to me. Tell her what you did to Grace.
I fought the little beast with all the strength I had left.
‘I wouldn’t know how to say it,’ I muttered, but I knew it wasn’t true. I’d been telling myself the same story all my life.
The creature’s taunts rang in my mind all through the night. For once I could put something right. I could make amends. But it would mean sacrificing my secrets, telling her the whole shameful mess of it. I imagined Rose’s face as she heard what I had to say. I would disgust her like I disgusted myself.
But I didn’t want Rose to be like me, shutting off possibilities, avoiding the worst and with it the chance of anything better, not daring to speak and being left in silence, fearing a refusal and ending up alone. She needed a family, a family of her own to make her happy after I was gone. By the morning I had decided to tell her, all of it, from the beginning to the end, leaving nothing out.
I waited until evening. It was a long day. I knew that once I’d told the truth to Rose, the secret that had shaped my life would be gone. There would be nothing left. I felt a dreadful, hollow loneliness. As the hours passed, I began to ache all over, until all I could do was lie still with my eyes closed, bracing myself against the pain. My mouth was parched and my lips had begun to blister. Each breath was like swallowing fire. A knot of heat in my throat grew quickly. My tongue swelled, crowding my mouth.
It was going to happen, I thought. I wouldn’t even have time to say goodbye.
Just then a cool spray of water touched my skin, running over my lips like rain on scorched earth. I heard Rose’s voice, tender with concern.
‘Nora, can you hear me? Open your mouth.’
The water was a wonderful mist, bringing me back to life. She sprayed again and I stretched my mouth open wider. I knew that it was time to speak, time for the evidence against me. I didn’t want absolution. I had given up on God when he took Grace away from me. My last confession was for earthly reasons only.
She sat straight and still as I spoke, her eyes never leaving my face. At first, I stumbled and slipped over the story, struggling with the unfamiliar experience of revelation. But soon my words began to tumble out, spilling into the silence of the bedroom. I told her everything, saying it all for the first and last time. With each word I felt lighter, as if I were releasing myself, inch by inch, from the sticky web of memory that had trapped me for so long, washing myself clean with the stream of secrets that poured out. I talked and talked and at last, in the early hours of the morning, it was done. I was free of it. My story had come to an end.
Rose’s face was wet with tears.
‘You understand, don’t you?’ I said. ‘Try to be happy. Talk to David. Tell him what you feel.’
She nodded.
I risked a final question. ‘And your mother?’
Her brow furrowed.
‘Will you promise?’
She bent and pressed her lips to my cheek.
‘I promise,’ she said, and I knew I had done what I could to make things right. I knew that I could leave her.
I am weightless, rid of the secrets that tied me to the past. The Menace has become a mercy, the thing that will set me free.
Nothing matters any more. This room is my world, my refuge, my sanctuary. Someone is tucking in soft sheets. Someone is stroking my forehead, smoothing back my hair.
I am a child again and Ma is here. I feel her warmth as she curls around me, her arms holding me safe. I see her eyelashes, long and dark against her cheeks. I smell carbolic soap and sweat. I taste her tears as she kisses me goodbye in the schoolyard.
Now I am floating in the lake and the water is lapping over me, caressing my skin. A soft breeze tickles the hairs on my arms, making them rise to salute the sun. I feel velvet ferns brush my legs, and a minnow wriggle past. Grace’s fingers slip into mine and we laugh, our voices entwining as the wind carries them up to the sky.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my family and to my grandmother, without whom this book would not have been possible.
Thanks also to Alberto Masetti-Zannini for always knowing when it’s time to leave the country; Sam
Brookes for being there from the start; Ceri Smith and Jessica Lovell for the weekly super-visions; Flavia Krause-Jackson for her tenerezza infinita; Lucy Rix and Justine Cottle for their honesty and insight; Beth Crosland and Graham Broadbent for the oak tree chats; Diana Klein, Paul Lawrence, Heidi Ober, Annalisa Picciolo and Molly Webb for reading and listening; Stena Paternò del Toscano for never being surprised to find me in her house; Sheyam Ghieth for hosting on two continents; Ali Jay for keeping me cheerful, Rod Heyes for keeping me fed and watered, Sandra Lovell for keeping me sane, and Barbara Keating for keeping me solvent; Diana King and Marie Sansom for their staying power and Bernard Lovell for his memories.
I am very grateful to my agent, Caroline Wood, for her endless encouragement and tenacity.
Days of Grace Page 26