The Last Night

by Cesca Major

  She drew the heavy plum curtains across, glimpsing the empty high street beyond. She thought back to the boy from earlier and felt a sharp pang in her chest. Running a hand along the trunk, she shook her head. She had promised herself that today was not a day for going back over things, she shouldn’t give in to the constant desire to linger on the past.

  Pepper snuck around the kitchen door and wound herself round Irina’s legs until she bent to pick her up. Her soft fur tickled Irina’s face as she moved through to the kitchen. She spooned out food for her, then opened the fridge for some eggs to make an omelette, automatically twisting to turn on the radio so that voices crammed into her galley kitchen with her, removing herself from her head. She stirred the mixture slowly, hearing the sizzle of the pan, chopped the parsley quickly and neatly, fingers tucked under. The heat from the pan filled the air with a warm cloud. The voices were arguing, a familiar comfort as she loaded up her plate, poured herself a drink and propped herself up on the bar, the stool scraping along the wooden floorboards. She focused on their words, followed the debate with half-hearted nods, a mouthful of omelette on a fork. When she was finished she switched off the radio, picked up her book from her bag and moved back through to the living room, pausing as she did every night to look at the photograph on the mantelpiece. Four of them, all smiling. They had been in an ice-cream parlour in Tenby.

  She couldn’t remember the booth in the parlour, she couldn’t remember the flavour she chose, she couldn’t remember posing for the photographer. Perhaps a waiter her dad had summoned over? She couldn’t remember her mother pulling her towards her, her dad throwing an arm over her shoulder and around her brother. She couldn’t remember if they said ‘cheese’. She did remember the car journey down, and listening to her new Walkman; it was yellow and black and she’d gone everywhere with it. Joshua sat next to her, mouth tight with concentration, both hands on the plastic wheel stuck to the back of their dad’s seat. He made engine noises, so she had to twist the volume up; he beeped his plastic horn loudly and begged their dad to do the same. She remembered her mother swivelling round from the passenger seat, telling him to quieten down, a big smile on her face as she said it, so Joshua would laugh and carry on.

  She blinked once, a finger hovering in the air ready to trace the familiar faces; she snatched it back. She forced herself to turn away and curled up in her favourite armchair, upholstered in light pinks and yellows and so large she could tuck herself into it entirely. Surrounded by bookshelves crammed with well-worn favourites lined up and stacked on top, in every available space, she breathed out slowly and focused on her book, the words dancing in front of her for a second, her eyes flicking upwards to the photograph, then back to the page, then settled into the routine.

  MARY

  She couldn’t shake off the last look, Abigail – drawn and pale – stepping onto the coach, a man in a flat cap and brown trousers lifting her suitcase up onto the rack, her bewildered face in the window, one hand up to rest on it as the coach drew away, her image blurred as Mary let the tears fall.

  For the last few years it seemed Abigail and her mum had become her family. Mary was drawn to the small terraced house, her whole body relaxing as she turned into the street, eyes resting on the painted door, the glow of the windows either side, the smell of a casserole as she stepped into the corridor with its chintz wallpaper. The gentle laughter coming from the front room, abandoned knitting, plumped cushions, well-worn books left lying around. They’d crowded around the fire in winter, listening to the radio, falling into companionable silence. It had seemed like home, unlike her cold bedsit with stockings drying over the back of a chair, mismatched furniture and a single faded photograph of her father before it all. Noises from her flatmate below – a student who seemed to spend his days playing jazz, shrieks punctuating the silence, muted giggles and hushing so that their ancient landlord wouldn’t appear – made her feel all the lonelier.

  Everyone asked after Abigail in the pub. She’d appeared more colourful somehow in that setting. The fug-filled air fuller as she chatted and laughed with the customers. She could charm anyone, even Ken the landlord, scrubbing furiously at the bar, rushing round to flick fruitlessly at her stool, offer a hand to help her up, raised eyebrows from the semi-circle of men behind him. Abigail teaching them absurd new card games before their shifts, sitting at the upright piano banging out songs, hopelessly out of tune and yet perfect, filling the bar with noise.

  Now she had gone, the terraced house had new occupants, a young family, flushed and happy looking, a baby in a pram outside, a mother sitting on the doorstep with a half-smile on her face. Abigail would have liked them, would have bent over the pram to fuss and coo at the baby with its plump cheeks and tiny fists. Mary had waved at Mrs Brent who lived next door, swallowing her hello as she turned away, not wanting to face this new reality.

  She wondered then what Abigail was doing, whether she was eating ice-pops and lounging around in striped deckchairs. She imagined Devon was ten degrees warmer, everyone living on the beach, trousers rolled up, spotted handkerchiefs on heads as they felt the sun on their backs. Could she see the sea from her window, could she hear the gulls, watch the ships passing? Abigail’s sister had always seemed impossibly glamorous. While they were roaming around, hair barely combed, grass stains on their skirts, Connie had been a composed and prettier version. Her wedding photograph that had stood in the centre of the mantelpiece in Abi’s house showed a grown-up in lace and make-up. She wondered what the house was like and imagined it to be impeccably tidy and spacious.

  Mary sat on the harbourside, legs dangling down into the nothingness, the walls streaked with dried-out seaweed, the smell overpowering for those not used to it, forcing a besuited passer-by to cover his mouth and nose with his handkerchief. She was part of the bustling life of the port, the smeared dockers who came into the pub with salt on their skin, speckling their arms with white, their hair stiff with it, sculpted into clumped peaks.

  For a moment Mary felt an ache for the loss of things, wanting to be sitting at the bottom of Abigail’s bed again playing cat’s cradle with wool as they swapped gossip and dreamt about the exciting lives they were going to lead. Now she’d been left alone and their talk of travelling the world together seemed ridiculous, impossible. She pictured Abigail morphing into her sister, meeting new friends, forgetting Bristol and Mary. It would take Mary an age to save the money she needed, and even then she felt uncertain; without Abigail’s confidence she felt lost. She swallowed, slapping the side of her calf as something bit into her, knowing this was probably it for her and that she would never leave.

  ABIGAIL

  Her sister lived like a movie star, her bedroom a fairy tale: paisley curtains, the hems stitched with delicate gold thread, a Windsor armchair in the corner and a careful spray of magazines fanned out on a low glass table. The four-poster bed with a canopy stood imposingly in the centre of the room. Raised on a platform, two carpeted steps leading up to it, it took Abigail’s breath from her. She wanted to rush across the room and fling herself down on top of the quilt, plunge her head into the goose-down pillows and look out over the tops of the trees to the blue beyond.

  ‘It’s breathtaking! How do you ever leave it?’ Abigail said in a reverential whisper.

  Was it a flicker of uncertainty that crossed her sister’s face then or something she imagined?

  ‘I was allowed to design it myself,’ she said, drawing her hand along the dressing table in the corner, littered with pots and brushes and creams.

  ‘Well you’ve done it brilliantly.’ Abigail was gratified to see her sister blushing at the compliment in the triptych-mirror.

  ‘Sometimes I’ve been… Well…’ Her sister was smoothing an eyebrow. ‘I’m glad you’re here, that’s all,’ she said, turning to look at her.

  For the first time since her mum had died Abigail felt a swell of relief, a little puncture in the hurt
so that some of the blackness was released. ‘I miss her,’ she said, her voice cracking, her eyes filling with tears. So many tears recently; they seemed to spring up without warning.

  ‘You must, of course,’ her sister said, returning to the triptych-mirror.

  Abigail felt her body stiffen at the words. Did Connie not miss her too? Did she not remember the meals she’d made, the noses she’d wiped? She had hand-sewn a thousand tiny beads onto Connie’s wedding dress, sitting beneath a lamp, straining her eyes late into the night. Abigail had barrelled in to find her after a nightmare, her mum soothing her forehead as she curled up next to her on the sofa.

  Connie placed one hand on her stomach, her fingers splayed as she stood, embarrassed perhaps by Abigail’s tears that were falling so freely. ‘Come on now,’ she chided, neatening a row of brushes in front of her, not meeting Abigail’s eye in the mirror.

  ‘Why did you not come?’ The sentence spilled out before Abigail could stop it.

  ‘Hmm…’ Connie was frowning at a blemish on the glass.

  ‘The funeral, why did you stay away?’

  For a moment it seemed Connie’s face dissolved, eyes drooping, a light gone from them. ‘I wanted to, I asked, but he…’ She knocked a brush off the dressing table, bent to pick it up. ‘Oh, silly me.’ The high laugh, the words said in a sing-song voice, a lipstick smile plastered back on her face.

  Abigail stepped forward, needing to hear her answer, the hurt of the past few weeks blocking her throat, stoppering her voice. She was frightened she would start to shout and then there would be no stopping.

  ‘Well we can’t idle about here all morning, best get on,’ her sister said. She chattered all the way to the door, bustling Abigail out of the room as she did so.

  Abigail was propelled along, her confidence ebbing away as she found herself back in the corridor, the gleaming staircase ahead of her, her sister already moving away down the stairs, calling to Edith about polishing the bedroom.

  IRINA

  The two delivery men wore black T-shirts and weary expressions. Irina had forgotten it was arriving today, until she heard Patricia’s click of annoyance as the van stopped, half on the pavement, half on the road, prompting a cacophony of horn-honking. They carried it through the shop, pausing halfway to lower it and clear a wide enough path through to the workshop.

  The piece was covered in a dust sheet and Irina wondered what she had taken on, feeling the familiar thrill she experienced before any job. Her New York client had a wonderful eye for beautiful pieces. She directed the men to a space in the corner of the room where she had laid a sheet on the floor and they placed it there slowly, a drawer sliding forward so that the handle could be seen poking at the cloth.

  The men lingered, perhaps in the hope of being offered a mug of tea, and Patricia had to bundle them back out to their van. A line of cars was skirting it slowly and there were annoyed glances from drivers, knuckles strained on the steering wheels.

  Irina turned towards the dust sheet, tentatively reaching out a hand to unveil it. She pulled it back, snagging it on a corner so that she had to reach around and free it. The lights in the room buzzed and flickered for a second, making her glance up.

  ‘What is it?’ Patricia asked as she swept through the beaded curtain, heading for the kettle and flicking it on.

  ‘A bureau,’ Irina said, her eyes drinking in the details as she moved around it. It was made of mahogany, from the Georgian period she would say, and it had pigeonhole drawers and smaller rectangular drawers beneath them. She carefully lowered the writing desk, jumping as Patricia walked up behind her.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  Irina frowned, feeling along the edges of the wood. The smell of old paper, damp wood and a faint whisper of another scent underneath, something familiar.

  ‘It doesn’t look too major. The leatherette needs replacing, it needs to be cleaned, another layer of polish, some of the pigeonhole drawers need attention.’

  Her fingers explored the surface of the wood: scratches on the top, the splintered edges of the unpolished wood underneath bubbled and uneven. Her hand traced the corners, rounded and smooth, into the middle of the piece; the handle of the drawer was made of brass, grubby and unloved. She felt further along, inch by inch. A shot of pain in her hand, sharp, like a bite and she snatched it back, clutching it to her chest, her fingers curled into themselves, protective.

  As she stared at the bureau a sudden unease settled over her; she was pleased then at the interruption of the kettle switching itself off, a faint cloud of steam making a pattern on the mirror above it. Irina squinted, her brain slow to catch up with what she was seeing. For a second she was certain she could make out a face through the steam, faint, impossible. Her head snapped back to look at the bureau standing sentinel, waiting for her. Back to the mirror, just a circle of steam. She stared, not wanting to take her eyes from it, seizing on Patricia’s offer of a mug of tea, accepting it in a too-loud voice.

  ABIGAIL

  She found the quiet unsettling. The swooping screech of a seagull punctuated the stillness, which made her pull the covers up so that only her face peeked out. She lay on the bed, the sheets warm, straining to hear the noises she was used to in the morning – the rumble of motor cars over the cobbled street by her house, the whistle of the milkman, the chink of the bottles as he unloaded them from his cart. Instead it was the gentle wash of the sea somewhere below, the sleepy start in the village.

  She should be getting up, ready to help her mum in the kitchen and make the soup for their lunch, but of course all that was over now. She felt her chest tighten. What would she do now? Who was she now? She had heard them last night in their room a floor below, muttered voices no doubt asking the same questions. She wouldn’t be a nuisance but she would need money, to claw her way back to the city. She and Mary were going to America. It seemed an impossible idea now and the thought made her shiver.

  She heard footsteps on the stairs beyond the door, steady, slow, heavy on the bare wood, echoing in the confined space of the hall. They paused for a moment and she imagined someone on the other side of the door. Seconds passed and Abigail realized she was holding her breath. The footsteps lingered, then back down the stairs, one, two, quick and decisive.

  Abigail got up, removed a sheaf of paper to write to Mary, tell her everything about her arrival, the village, try to ease the loneliness. Thinking of her face made tears prick at the back of her eyes and she looked up to the ceiling, blinking slowly.

  She perched on the small chair by the window, the sea stretching into the distance, iron-grey and covered in a low mist, her pen in her mouth, lost in the past. Mist seemed to cling to the clifftop beyond, sticky on the tree tops, not wanting to let go just yet. The jutting rocks spilled down the side to the beach below, the shingle a mix of purples and greys. She could just make out a couple of figures walking along the front.

  A knock at her door and her sister pushed her way in, already looking preened and pressed and ready for the day. Abigail felt vulnerable in her threadbare dressing gown and worn slippers. She pulled the thin cotton around her body, shivering in the draught from the door. The pen dropped to the floor and she bent to pick it up.

  Connie looked around the room, the rumpled bed, clothes erupting from the leather bag.

  ‘I thought we could walk into the village.’

  Abigail nodded and stepped over to the bed, self-consciously tugging on the covers, smoothing them down with her hand.

  ‘Leave that. Edith will do it later. Come on.’ Her sister laughed, walking across to pick up Abigail’s jacket, blue cotton in an old-fashioned shape, found in a flea market in Bristol beloved by her mum.

  Connie sniffed, her cheeks powdered, lines barely there. ‘You could do with a couple of things and it’s been ages since I’ve had the excuse to shop for anything new. You’d think clothes w
ere still rationed round here, the way they patch and darn everything.’

  Her sister’s voice was different from her memory of it. Lower, with altered emphasis on the consonants, as if the vowels were often missing.

  Abigail didn’t want to admit she had hardly any money; she and her mum had had to be so careful, setting aside the month’s money for the rent and food. They’d been saving to buy a television set. Her mum had been swept along in Abigail’s enthusiasm for it, even though she was perfectly happy to sit and listen to the wireless herself. Abigail felt a stab of guilt, wished she could rewind time, let her mum make up her own mind, not give in so easily.

  ‘We have money,’ Connie said as if she were rifling through Abigail’s thoughts. ‘We’re family.’ She turned to pat her hair in the mirror.

  ‘I better…’ Abigail indicated her dressing gown, vowing to wake up earlier the next day and be ready. She felt wrong-footed, absurdly young and unsure of herself. She had to adjust to this new her, setting aside confident Abigail who had reassured Mary, cajoled her mum.

  Connie left and Abigail had a quick splash in the bathtub in the bathroom next door, her teeth clenched from the shock of the cold. She stepped into her old clothes, noticing, as if she had new eyes, the repairs, the loose thread, another hem not quite fixed. Buttoning her skirt and twisting it round to the back, she tucked in her blouse, rolling her eyes at herself in the small square of mirror, feeling ridiculous for her careful scrutiny. Poking her tongue out at herself, she felt better, a laugh escaping through the window startling a bird that had been resting on the drainpipe above. She watched it soar away, out and down. The mist had lifted slightly and she almost imagined she could see south Wales; she looked right, blowing a kiss to Bristol.