The House at the End of Hope Street

by Menna Van Praag

  “You want Earl Grey or English Breakfast?” Carmen interrupts Blake’s thoughts and he looks up, then remembers to smile.

  “I’ll drink whatever you’re drinkin’.”

  “Milk?”

  “Black, plenty of sugar.”

  Carmen drops the tea bags into cups.

  “After two years, I’m finally starting to understand the English obsession with tea,” Blake says. “Down south we love ourselves some iced tea, but it’s so stifling down there most of the time that we don’t go in for the hot stuff. But anyway, you aren’t English.” His gaze lingers on Carmen’s hands, her hair as it falls over her face. Carmen watches the kettle, waiting. Stella watches them both.

  “In Portugal,” she says, “we drink tea usually just for fever or flu.” She pours boiling water into their cups. “But here is different, here I like it.”

  “I like it too. You got any cookies?”

  “I think so.” Carmen opens the cupboards again and rummages around. Blake fixes his eyes on her bottom, the strong curves of her thighs. She tips some slightly stale ginger biscuits onto a plate and sets it on the table next to Blake’s cup. Then Carmen sits down next to him, cradling her cup of tea.

  Stella floats across the floor to stand between them. She studies the American with narrowed eyes. She can see right through him, past his dazzling smile, his seductive words and straight into the heart he strives so hard to keep far from prying female fingers. She sees that he hasn’t let himself love a woman since the day his mother left. From that day he hasn’t shed a single tear, or slept a single night through without waking.

  Stella’s fingers skim the air an inch from Blake’s neck and he shivers.

  “Do you feel that?”

  “Sorry?” Carmen looks up.

  “The chill in the air.”

  Carmen shakes her head. Stella looks closer into Blake’s heart, so broken that shards stick through his chest, creating heartbreak all around him. She runs her finger along his spine, watching as his muscles twitch. She knows what he’s feeling now, because she’s making him feel it. Everything that he’s always striving so hard not to feel, everything he suppresses with sex: longing, despair, fear… Stella stands behind Blake as this cocktail of emotions sinks into his bones, deep into the marrow, until they are so brittle they could snap.

  Suddenly Blake pushes his chair away from the table. He glances around the kitchen, at the photographs of all the women on the walls, now terrified they are about to leap out of their frames and attack him.

  “I’m so sorry, sugar.” He chokes on the words. “I, I… , there’s somethin’ I’ve gotta sort out. I’ll see you later.”

  Carmen frowns. “You don’t finish your tea?”

  “No, sorry, another time.” He shakes his head, edging toward the door. And is gone.

  —

  It’s three o’clock in the morning. Greer sits inside her wardrobe wearing a T-shirt and short black taffeta skirt and clutching a bright pink minidress to her chest. At times like this her couture always brings her comfort. When she’d walked into the house, long after midnight, she’d felt the presence of Blake, so sharp and strong that it had driven her straight to her clothes. Now he won’t leave her: his smile, his touch, his unreachable heart. And whenever she tries to replace him with happier thoughts, he is replaced only by Lily. Her daughter would be almost Alba’s age now. Waves of sadness wash over her as she wonders what Lily would have been like. The idea of adoption, something she discussed with the ex-fiancé, returns but Greer pushes it away. She knows it’d be a struggle to be approved. She’s single, broke, works in a bar and, in less than a month, will have nowhere to live. She can barely support herself, let alone another human being.

  —

  The desire to be a writer, to create fiction instead of rehashing fact, is one Alba has held hidden in the depths of her heart since she was a child. After being admitted to King’s College she suppressed it completely, allowing herself to read only novels relevant to her historical study: all the Victorians and their European counterparts: Balzac, Dumas, Flaubert, Goethe and the like.

  But despite this willpower and focus, Alba has always secretly loved fiction more than fact. She didn’t cry over the death of Darwin’s daughter or the millions killed by the Great Plague, but sobbed buckets at the fates of Emma Bovary, and Beth in Little Women. She loves books more than life and, for that very reason, she never tried to write anything of her own. Who was she, after all, to think that she could create something brilliant and beautiful, something that wouldn’t simply be a waste of the paper it was written on? Alba never dared to dream it was possible. Instead she buried the longing deep in her soul where it wouldn’t trouble her too much. But now it’s risen again. Stella’s suggestion won’t leave her alone. Finally, this morning, Alba thinks—Why not? She might just give it a try. What, after all, does she have to lose? Nothing, except her heart, and there’s not much left of that anyway.

  Alba sits up in bed and rubs her eyes. Thousands of books blink back at her. But they’ve changed. They’ve shifted around and reshelved themselves. They must be misbehaving, she thinks. Perhaps they know that their historical facts are no longer needed. Curiosity gets Alba out of bed. Then she sees her mistake. The books haven’t moved, they have been replaced. The histories and biographies of great Victorians have become the novels they read: Wuthering Heights, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, North and South, The Picture of Dorian Gray… Alba walks across the room to study the titles on the opposite wall. This time they are plays from the same period: The Cherry Orchard, Peter Pan, A Woman of No Importance, Pygmalion, The Woman in White… then poems: Tintern Abbey, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Ozymandias, La Belle Dame sans Merci, The Maid of Athens…

  Alba’s alarm clock beeps. She hurries back to her bed to turn it off—and there on the table is a note, the words curling across the paper in black ink:

  Take one step back and two steps forward.

  She reads it twice, then once again, but still doesn’t understand. Alba pulls a moth-eaten cardigan off her bedpost and slips it over her pajamas. She’ll have to ask Stella. Opening the bedroom door, she sees a bright yellow notebook on the floor. A lurid color, like radioactive egg yolks. Alba fingers the pen in her pajama pocket, then picks up the notebook and walks slowly toward the stairs. Reaching the first step, she stops. On the wall is a photograph she’s never noticed before.

  “Emmeline Pankhurst.” Alba smiles at another of her historical heroes. The suffragette nods at the notebook. “I see you’re about to embark on an adventure.”

  “I don’t know,” Alba says. “It’s just something I wanted to do a long time ago. I don’t even…”

  “Hardly so long ago, you’re still a teenager, a tadpole.” Emmeline laughs. “You’re far too young to give up on yourself or life yet. And my own experiences should certainly teach you never to give up at the first hurdle. Or, indeed, the second. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes, I’ll bear that in mind.” Alba smiles. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Emmeline says. “Anytime.”

  A few minutes later when Alba opens the kitchen door she hears her mother’s butterfly song and stops in her tracks.

  “Well.” Stella materializes in the sink. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Very funny.” Alba sits at the table. “But I did just meet one of my idols. I can’t quite believe Emmeline Pankhurst just gave me life advice.” She smiles.

  Stella eyes the notebook. “So are you going to start writing now?”

  Alba ignores the question. “The song you were singing just now, the one I heard the first night I came here, how do you know it?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Come on, I know you do. Why won’t you tell me?”

  But Stella jus
t smiles.

  Alba scowls. The mystery of the ghost and the particulars of her life gnaw at her like an Agatha Christie novel with the final pages ripped out. She’s been searching for Stella’s picture in the hope that it might yield clues. She’s also been searching for a photograph of Miss Christie. Alba has a theory that, when the author disappeared for eleven days in 1926, she came to Hope Street. She just needs to find the photo to prove it.

  “Why are you here?” she persists. “Why have you been here all these years?”

  “I told you—I was waiting for you.”

  “Yes, there is that great mystery, but I mean, I wasn’t born until twenty-three years after you died. So, for all that time, how did you even know I was coming and why—”

  “I told you.” Stella interrupts her. “Time isn’t the same for me as it is for you. Waiting isn’t the point. When I died I wanted to be useful. So I hung around here to help out until you showed up.”

  “But why?” Alba frowns. “Why me?”

  “Well, now,” Stella says, “if I just told you, what would be the fun in that?”

  —

  Charles Ashby had been searching for stamps when he found the letters. His wife’s office was open. He strode across the room, disgusted by the mess: papers strewn everywhere, piled up and sandwiched between books. He wasn’t interested in looking at any of it, but when he found a locked box in her desk drawer, he was suddenly intrigued. No one kept secrets from Charles Ashby. At age five he was the first of his friends to uncover the true identity of Father Christmas and was singlehandedly responsible for disillusioning his entire class. He was the only one who knew about all his father’s affairs, the first to discover his mother’s drinking. And if his wife had a locked box, he would be the one to open it.

  Twenty minutes later, after he’d found the key, he sat in her chair and read her letters. Charles reflected that, if the box hadn’t been locked, he would never have known. Now, although he cared that his wife loved someone else (he still loved her despite his own infidelities), he would have overlooked it if not for the other discovery. It didn’t take Charles long to realize, the date on the last letter being Alba’s seventh birthday (along with the fact that he’d had sex with his wife only once the year that she conceived), that Alba wasn’t an Ashby at all. And having his wife cuckold him was one thing, but raising another man’s child was something else altogether. He simply wouldn’t stand for it.

  As he sat and considered his options, Charles contemplated making the scandal public but, considering his own innumerable indiscretions, quickly decided it wasn’t an option that favored him. He thought of the address on the last letter, of visiting the bastard and beating the hell out of him. But being a tall, skinny man, Charles never courted physical violence, and with no idea what Albert looked like, he wasn’t really prepared to risk a confrontation. After a few hours of musing on the matter, Lord Ashby came up with the perfect plan of retribution: one that ensured himself maximum gain and minimum pain, and his wife just the opposite.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I only know his name,” Alba explains. “And that he lived in a remote Scottish village for sixteen years, and used to be a teacher.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “I have these letters.” Alba pushes the shoebox across the desk. “But they’re personal. They don’t have any information that’ll help you find him.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” The detective takes the box and opens the lid.

  “I went looking for him in Inverie,” Alba says, “but he’d left four years ago and no one knew where he went. Or maybe they did and just wouldn’t tell me. Either way…”

  “It doesn’t matter,” the detective says. “I’m quite sure I won’t need to go there. But if I do, you’ll cover all expenses, in addition to my time. Are you fine with that?”

  Alba nods. She still has the rest of her student loan fund and nothing else to spend it on. Of course, in five weeks she’ll have to find a new place to live and something to do with the rest of her life, so there is that to consider. But for now finding her father is all that matters.

  “It’s a shame you don’t have a photograph,” he says, “or a bit more to go on. But I’ll do my best and we’ll see where it takes us.”

  “And you’ll give me weekly updates?”

  “Yes. Or call you as soon as I get anything concrete.”

  —

  Yesterday Albert lied his way into King’s College, then tracked down and interrogated Alba’s former supervisor about her whereabouts. Dr. Skinner was suspicious and obtuse, claiming to have no idea where she could be, claiming to hardly remember Alba Ashby at all.

  “I don’t know. One day she just up and left—”

  “Two months ago,” Albert said, “April thirtieth was the last day I saw her.”

  “Yes, something like that. Must have cracked under the pressure. Quite a few of them do. Probably went running home to mummy—”

  “No.” Albert suppressed an overwhelming desire to knock Dr. Skinner down. “She didn’t do that. Her mother is dead.” It was the first time he had spoken the words out loud. They tasted black and bitter as soot.

  “Well, then, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere else to be.” And with that, Dr. Skinner had turned and walked away, leaving Albert standing on the stone path next to the lawn, seething with a fury he’d rarely felt before, a sadness he knew only too well, and wondering what the hell he was going to do now.

  —

  Carmen heaves her weight against the chapel door and falls through the doorway. Excited laughter floats toward her as she runs down the aisle to Nora and Sue, skidding to a stop in front of the altar, pausing for a split second to cross herself, then joining them. “Sorry I am late,” she gasps, catching her breath. “Stuck at work, I run all the way.”

  “Oh, don’t worry…” Nora smiles.

  “. . . we haven’t started yet, we’ve been too busy…” Sue giggles.

  “. . . planning our television debut.” With this, Nora lifts her arms toward the chapel ceiling, then takes a deep bow, dipping her head toward her toes, as far as her girth will allow. “Oh, dear,” she splutters, “I’m stuck.” Nora waves a chubby hand toward Sue. “Help me.”

  “Come here, you silly diva.” Sue steps forward and lifts Nora so she’s upright again.

  Carmen drops her bag onto the nearest pew. “Television?”

  “Yes.” With a flourish, Nora hands Carmen a piece of paper. “There’s a televised talent contest coming to Cambridge…”

  “. . . we’re seizing the opportunity for fame, fortune,” Sue declares, “and, in Nora’s case, public humiliation—”

  “If you remember rightly,” Nora says a little frostily, “my Queen of the Night went down a storm last year.”

  “Yes, a thunderstorm that sank your ship.” Sue giggles. “If only you hadn’t insisted on wearing that helmet with the horns, I think you might not have been laughed off the stage—”

  “Yes, well, that’s not quite how I remember it,” Nora huffs. “Anyway, I’m sure she gets the idea.”

  “No, not really.” Carmen stares at the press release. The show is on July 21, ten days before she has to leave the house. And that’s assuming she’s allowed to stay all of her ninety-nine nights, which is only if she digs up the midnight glory tonight. The thought sends a shot of panic through Carmen. “We are really doing this? But, it is only three weeks away. This is a bit crazy, nao?”

  “Not entirely,” Nora replies. “It’s an opportunity. A very remote one, yes…”

  “. . . but this year you’ve inspired us to try again.”

  “Me?” Carmen looks at the two women, wide-eyed.

  “But of course,” Sue says. “Without you we’re just two fat ladies on a stage.”

  “Speak for yourself. I lost t
wo pounds last week,” Nora declares. “And I’ve got a fabulous idea for a costume this year, lots of silk and taffeta—”

  “I predict a fiasco,” Sue sighs, “but it’s bound to be fun. You will join us, won’t you?”

  Carmen is about to shake her head when the last shafts of sunset shine through the stained glass. Squares of colored light fall on her face, lighting her up like a Christmas tree, and something inside her stirs. Despite everything that happened with Tiago, despite her memories and her fears, she wants to feel that excitement again, the pure, unadulterated joy of standing onstage and singing to an audience.

  “Sim.” Carmen nods. “Okay, I will.”

  —

  Blake Walker has a sixth sense about women. He knows when they’re still madly in love and when they’re on the verge of giving up. Halfway across town he feels Greer’s decision to finally dump him. And he can’t let her. No, if he has to swim all the way to Savannah, he’ll be the one to leave first.

  Blake lifts the female arm draped across his torso and places it back on the bed. He glances at her face, the long dark hair spread out like a fan on the pillow, but can’t remember her name. Barbara? Bridget? Something beginning with B. Or possibly G. It doesn’t matter. He went home with her only to get Greer and the Spanish singer out of his head.

  Looking at the alarm clock on the girl’s bedside table, he curses. He’s an hour late. He slips out from under the duvet and, quickly pulling on his jeans and T-shirt, ducks out of her bedroom and into the street. He runs to The Archer, pausing only to nip into a newsagent’s and buy Greer the best bunch of flowers they have.