Zoë has often thought she ought to try to do something useful with her pain, like channeling it into a bestseller. But whenever she tries, she can’t get past page one. Because when she writes it down, it’s the same tale shared by a hundred thousand others, not worth the waste of paper or ink. So instead she absently fills the little hearts with A’s.
Admiring her handiwork, Zoë thinks of another “A” in her life, her colleague Andy, with whom she had a rather strange encounter last summer, one that momentarily knocked Zoë out of the monotonous ache of her own unrequited love. It began when Andy accidentally brushed against Zoë’s breasts in the rare-book room while reaching for a first edition of Salomé. He apologized, laughing, expecting Zoë to slap him. But she didn’t. Instead she shocked herself by kissing him. Bemused by it, but never one to reject a pretty girl, Andy shrugged and kissed her back. It was an interaction they repeated once or twice a week for three months, until the students returned at the end of the summer and the library was too crowded to risk such encounters. After which they never touched or spoke about it again.
Zoë can’t say she actually enjoyed it. It was an experiment, a foray to the other side. And even the shock of sexual experimentation didn’t stop Zoë from thinking about the one she loved. For, even while she had allowed another “A” to touch her lips, Alba Ashby remained firmly lodged in her heart.
—
The desire to run the hundred and fifty miles back to Hope Street wraps its fingers around Alba’s heart and squeezes hard. She shivers with that fever all night, and the next day she doesn’t go down to breakfast, lunch or dinner. Whiffs of color float up to her room but she blows them away. She hears Charlotte, Edward and Charles arguing over funeral arrangements—their words black and spiked as they drift past her window. Alba wonders what her mother would have wanted.
Since visiting Elizabeth’s bedroom, Alba hasn’t slept well. She wonders who Ella was, why her father left and why her mother went mad. She stares at memories on the ceiling: random pictures passing like a reel of film haphazardly spliced together. In an odd way she feels closer to her mother now than she did when Elizabeth was alive. Hardly surprising, perhaps, since Lady Ashby spent the last decade of her life lost inside the mazes of her own mind, a labyrinth she could navigate only alone. So, even with her special sight, Alba couldn’t see the directions to find her again.
Now, in the dark, Alba picks and chooses what she wants to remember—the moments Elizabeth wasn’t manic or depressed. Reading bedtime stories together, holding hands while they walked around the garden, lying in the fields, skipping along the sand, searching rock pools for limpets and crabs… Alba’s siblings rarely step into these memories, so she can enjoy her mother alone.
The day her father left was the start of losing her mother for good. But now she’s finding her again, conjuring up Elizabeth’s smile, her frown, the way she could look at ordinary things as if it was the first time she’d ever seen them. As milky moonlight seeps through the curtains, Alba’s heart is so full of her mother it’s as though she can not only see her but reach out and touch her. It’s not until Elizabeth speaks that Alba realizes she’s really there, sitting at the end of the bed.
Quite the opposite of her daughter, Elizabeth is tall and willowy, with long curly blond hair the color of sunlight. She wears a fitted white dress splashed with poppies that reminds Alba of Stella.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” Elizabeth says softly, “but first you must stop hiding out here.”
Sleep-deprived, Alba thinks that perhaps she’s dreaming, or having a particularly vivid memory. Either way, she has no idea what to say. A decade’s worth of words swell inside her and slowly subside.
“Please, my love.” Elizabeth pats Alba’s feet beneath the bedsheets.
Alba nods, tears spilling down her cheeks. Now she knows why the colors were so dazzlingly bright when she first came to Ashby Hall, because they’ve been infused with her mother’s spirit, her faith, by the one person who cared about what Alba could see.
“Oh, Mum,” she whispers at last, “I’ve missed you so much.”
Chapter Eight
Because Alba and her siblings were the only guests at the funeral, the village church was quite empty; the vicar’s words bounced off the walls and there was nowhere to look but at the coffin covered with calla lilies. Charlotte had been in charge of the floral arrangements, so everything was extremely tasteful, though Alba managed to sneak in a yellow tulip, Elizabeth’s favorite, at the last minute.
Alba watched Edward cry, silent sobs that floated into the air in gray clouds. She knew he must be thinking of his wife’s funeral a year earlier, and wished she could find the courage to hug him now as she hadn’t been able to then. Charles and Charlotte were the same as always, cold and withdrawn, treating her like an unstable mental patient since her outburst. It probably seemed strange to them, then, that Alba didn’t shed a single tear. But she couldn’t, even for appearance’s sake, because she was so happy at seeing her mother again, and would have felt quite odd crying for a woman who spent the funeral sitting next to her in the pew singing along to every hymn.
It was only when they buried her, when the last clod of earth dropped over the coffin, that Elizabeth Ashby’s ghost disappeared. But she has returned to Alba in dreams so vivid she might as well be awake. And most wonderful of all, her mother is talkative, happy and sane. They walk through the grounds of Ashby Hall, Elizabeth in her poppy-splashed dress, her words shining gold, glistening in the light, every day brighter and closer to the color of Stella’s conversations.
“I’ve always loved these gardens,” Elizabeth says. “It’s where I came to be alone, before you, when I had three young children, when it all got to be too much. Nature is always so peaceful, so perfect.”
“I can’t imagine you five years older than me with three kids,” Alba says. “I can still barely look after myself. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look after anyone else.”
“Well, perhaps one day you’ll feel differently.” Her mother smiles. “When you fall in love you might want children of your own.”
Alba frowns. She wonders if her mother knows more than she’s letting on. They sit in silence, Alba plucking daisies in the grass, then discarding them. She still hasn’t told her mother about Dr. Skinner, about the betrayal and heartbreak, failing her MPhil, losing her scholarship and, of course, her biggest secret of all. She wonders if Elizabeth already knows and she’s just waiting to be told, the way she used to wait for Alba to confess to things as a little girl.
But it’s Elizabeth who speaks first. “You couldn’t have saved me. You do know that, don’t you? I was always hovering on the edge. And when Charles left there were… complications that just tipped me over it.”
What? Alba wants to ask. What happened? But she waits. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry you were so sad.”
“I know, love,” Elizabeth says, “me too. But more than anything I’m sorry I wasn’t a better mother to you.” She sighs and, for a moment, she seems about to say something else, but instead she stands and together they walk on in silence, over hills and through woods, stopping to look at flowers: wild roses, honeysuckle and hollyhocks. They follow the tracks of foxes until they disappear, and listen to birdcalls: doves, magpies, sparrows and the distant bleats of sheep. Alba longs to hold her mother’s hand and squeeze it tight. Instead she turns and looks at Elizabeth, at her blue eyes and blond hair, at her smile and her white dress splashed with poppies, staring until the memory is imprinted forever.
—
Peggy has never been a reader. She can’t focus on words floating in front of her on a page, and prefers films. Her knowledge of these, thanks to Harry, is great indeed. Sometimes they watch them in bed on Sunday afternoons, and on special occasions they return to the cinema. Her favorite film to date is Kind Hearts and Coronets and she’ll never forget the day she met Joan Greenwood, who
played Sibella.
The actress visited on the occasion of Peggy’s fifty-fourth birthday. She was rehearsing a new play, she said, and wanted to see the house again, to remind herself of details she’d forgotten from her stay nearly twenty years earlier. The house rule permitted residents to return only if they hadn’t stayed for their full ninety-nine days the first time. And since Joan had spent only a month when she was thirty-one, Peggy could allow her back. They sat in the kitchen upstairs, eating slices of birthday cake. At least Joan did, while Peggy just poked at hers with a fork.
“Would you care to talk about it?” Joan asked in her famous drawl, sending a little shiver of excitement through Peggy. How could she unburden herself to a film star? But she spent so much time taking care of strangers that sometimes she just wanted to blurt out everything to passersby in the street.
“It’s just,” Peggy mused, “I’ve been thinking, about things, choices…”
Joan waited, sipping her tea.
“I’ve never been in love,” Peggy said. “I’ve never let myself. Because, if I’m not allowed to marry, then what’s the point?” As soon as she said it, Peggy realized how strange it sounded. She waited for the questions about why she wasn’t allowed to marry, or let a man live at Hope Street, but Joan said nothing. Peggy gave a little sigh of relief, knowing that she’d picked the right person to unburden herself to.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m missing out,” Peggy continued. “But then I never want to leave the house. And, if that’s the price I have to pay, I suppose it’s all right.”
“We all have to make choices,” Joan said. “Since we can’t have two lives, only one. But, most of those choices we make fresh every day, not just once. So, if you regret something, if you want to change your mind, you usually can.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Peggy said. “The only problem is when you don’t know what you want.”
—
Alba is bumping along in the backseat of Edward’s brand-new Beetle, gripping the door handle in an effort to squeeze against Tilly’s empty car seat and avoid accidentally knocking into her sister. Charlotte stares stolidly ahead, in a huff because they haven’t taken her Mercedes. She hasn’t traveled at a speed of less than a hundred miles an hour since the day she passed her test, and claims Edward drives more slowly than their dead grandmother.
“Why are we taking this little thing?” Charlotte sniffs, “you’ve got an Audi.”
“It’s in the garage,” Edward says through clenched teeth, “as I told you this morning. Twice.” He glances in the mirror, trying to catch his little sister’s eye, to check he’s not upsetting her.
Drifting away from her siblings’ fighting, Alba closes her eyes and sees Dr. Skinner’s face. She tries to block it out, but can’t. Her defenses are down. Thoughts mill around her mind with a force of their own, pushing into her personal space like unwanted guests at a dinner party. So Alba surrenders to the dark brown hair and brown eyes, the smile that fools you into thinking its owner is pure and true, not a conniving, cunning snake who’d steal your thoughts as soon as look at you. Alba opens her eyes again, staring into the bright sunshine until the image floats away.
“Stop worrying,” Charles says from the front seat. “We’ll make it and, if we don’t, Stone will wait for us.”
“Unless he’s due in court,” Charlotte says.
“Oh, do shut up,” Edward sighs.
And so it goes for the next hour, until they reach London. It’s the first time Alba has ever had occasion to visit their solicitors, the most prestigious firm in the city, but she knows the Ashby family have been clients of Stone & Stone for well over a hundred years; they pioneered one of the first divorce cases in Britain when the seventh Lord Ashby claimed, fraudulently as it turned out, that his wife had been unfaithful with his brother.
As they park and hurry along the streets, Alba lags behind a little, unable to suppress a niggling sense that something is wrong, that she shouldn’t be going with them. When they reach the solicitors’ offices she stops on the pavement with an overwhelming feeling of dread.
“It’s a bloody miracle we’re not three days late.” Charlotte sweeps past the rest of them, striding through the sliding glass doors of Stone & Stone.
“At least we made it here in one piece,” Edward retorts, “instead of ending up in a twenty-car pileup on the M4.”
“Shut up, both of you,” Charles snaps. He reaches the front desk and aims a smile at the pretty redheaded receptionist. “We’re here to see Mr. Stone.” His voice is soft and smooth as golden syrup. “We have an appointment at noon.”
—
Tiago is still visiting Carmen’s dreams, refusing to let her forget him. Sometimes she dreams of the good, sometimes the bad, but it always leaves her shivering in a cold sweat. Tonight she dreams of their first duet. Six months after they met, Carmen had woken early to find him sitting at his piano. She had stood in the doorway watching him, completely and utterly captivated. It seemed to her that he wasn’t sitting at the piano but floating a few feet above it, carried on the waves of his music.
She walked across the room and sat down at the piano beside him. Tiago began to play her favorite piece, Mozart’s sixth quartet, and she played along with him. He shifted to the first of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and still she followed, despite the fact she’d been learning for only a few months. Then Tiago stopped. He began to play a piece of his own. As the notes floated through the air Carmen felt as though Tiago were tying ropes of silk around her waist, tethering her so she’d never be able to leave. That was the night he asked her to marry him; and when Carmen said yes, it was the happiest moment of her life.
A few hours later Carmen sits at the kitchen table, red-eyed and yawning, nibbling her way through a packet of chocolate biscuits, gulping down black coffee. The house is silent and still, so quiet in fact that she’s a little unnerved. Pots and pans sit in the sink, waiting to be cleaned. Carmen glances at the copper frying pan balanced on top, about to topple. With a shiver, she thinks of Tiago, of blood and bones and beatings, worrying about how safe she really is.
Just then the door bumps open and Peggy shuffles in, wrapped in her patchwork dressing gown, her wild white hair even messier than usual.
“Morning,” she mumbles, passing by the table, focusing on the floor.
“Ola.” Carmen looks up, surprised. “Why you up so early?”
Peggy shuffles to the fridge. “I need cream. And coffee.”
“I make it.” Carmen stands.
“Oh, you’re a dear.” Peggy slides into the nearest chair. “Four sugars, please.”
“So, why you up so early?” Carmen flicks the kettle on.
“Give me a moment to join the living,” Peggy says, “and I’ll tell you.”
They sit in silence as the coffee boils, until Carmen hands Peggy a hot mugful. Grateful for the absence of a tarot card, she gulps mouthfuls and then, with a happy sigh, wipes her lips. “Perfect, thank you, pet. Now,” she says brightly, all traces of tiredness gone, “I have a favor to ask. I’ve a chum who runs a choir, an amateur thing. They’ve got some sort of performance coming up, probably just in a village hall full of deaf pensioners. Well, she needs another voice and I told her I know just the one.”
Carmen stares at Peggy with wide, disbelieving eyes. “A serio?”
“Oh yes, entirely.” Peggy grins, taking another gulp of coffee. “Do you think I’d get out of bed before six, just for a joke?”
“But… I don’t sing with other people to watch,” Carmen says. “Not yet, no.”
“Oh, I think you can.”
“Your friend, who is she?”
“Well, yes, I suppose ‘friend’ might be stretching it a little,” Peggy admits. “It might’ve taken me a while to find her, but she’s real enough.”
Carmen thinks of that fateful duet with Tiago, scared that if she
sings in public again, somehow he’ll hear. Peggy digs into the pockets of her dressing gown and hands Carmen a note. She takes it and slowly reads aloud:
Courage is mastery of fear—not absence of fear.—Mark Twain.
“It came to me this morning,” Peggy says, “but I believe it was meant for you.”
“Who is Mark Twain?” Carmen asks, unconvinced.
“He was a great American writer and lover of my great-great-aunt Anne, or so she’d have us believe. She had an affair with him and with Faulkner. Allegedly.”
“Oh, sim,” Carmen nods, though she doesn’t understand at all. She fingers the note.
“It’s vaguely possible, I suppose. Anyway, she loves to quote them every chance she gets, just to remind us all. You know, dear,” Peggy says, “courageous acts can be a good way of exorcising demons.”
Carmen, hearing the change in her tone, glances up, alert.
“I know you’re running away,” Peggy says, “but you can’t run forever. You have to dig up what you buried. Its spirit is too strong for the house to suppress. I’m afraid you’re going to have to deal with it yourself. And quickly, before it’s too late.”
Carmen looks at the old lady as though she’s seen a ghost. She shouldn’t be surprised that Peggy knows. She doesn’t want to ask, Too late for what? But since those are the only words in her mouth, she can’t speak. It’s a long, dark moment before she finally nods.
—
Greer has caved. She’s said yes to the charming American. He has finally worn her down. Not that it took very much, she has to admit. Now she sits inside her wardrobe, swamped by dresses: silk, satin, velvet, cotton and lace. Plain, colorful, short, long, casual, chic: every conceivable look for every conceivable occasion. And Greer has to pick one. She lies down, closes her eyes, sticks her hand in the air and points. Then she opens her eyes and follows her finger.
The House at the End of Hope Street Page 8