The Last Night

by Cesca Major

  The room was too hot, the window stuck in place. The whistle and howl of the weather tore through the trees and around the house. She wanted to open the window and thrust her head out into it, see the curtains billowing with energy, hear the sounds of the sea rousing her, the distant calls from birds high up on the cliffs forcing her to face each day. Instead she lay in the sticky semi-darkness, living out the past in her mind, sheets tucked up to her chin.

  Connie had been distant with her since the coffee morning, running errands without her, making calls in the village. She thought back to the attic bedroom they had shared in Bristol all those years ago, the window seat looking out over the Downs, the games they had played as the last embers in the fire glowed, their podgy ginger cat stubbornly refusing to move from her spot in front of it, the whispered card games as their parents slept on next door, hushed giggling as they slapped the cards down in triumph or misery. They had spent hours on that window seat together. Why couldn’t she recapture that closeness? Why couldn’t they sit and play games and talk of nothing?

  She thought of Mary then, missed their chattering nonsense, lying on the Downs on a picnic rug as they made daisy chains and pretended to be princesses with daisy crowns, laughing at each other, reading books, swapping gossip, giggling behind pages as men walked past in bowler hats. She missed telling her things, sharing secrets, memories from the war days, which still felt like a strangely golden time spent in a crowded room of women, days with a purpose and an energy about them. Writing letters to her wasn’t the same, but they filled the endless hours and she wanted to make things vivid, pour her heart into them. Mary’s, when they arrived, were horribly absent of detail, the rounded letters careful on the page; she imagined Mary self-conscious as she stuck out her tongue and bent over the sheet.

  She ached for her mum, the lonely pain of wanting someone to listen, to hold her, to rest a forehead against hers and tell her the melancholy would pass. She missed her mum’s scent, a mixture of soapsuds and herbs, she missed watching her work, the peace as she was bent over a dress that needed darning, some shorts that needed the hem taken up. Her face relaxed, just the delicate lines on her forehead as she focused on the work on her lap.

  She left the house with all these thoughts chasing each other, faces merging, overlapping, making her eyes sting. The weather had eased but the rain still clung to the leaves and branches, the smell of the bark, the mud on the ground overwhelming everything else. She stumbled half-blind down the path to the bottom, wrapping her coat around her, still cold beneath the layers. She wandered through the village, past the shops, deserted outside, benches collecting pools of water, rain dripping from the drainpipes in a rhythm, past people hurrying, scarves knotted under their chins, a quick glance and nothing more.

  Richard emerged from a cottage on a patch of land between the two rivers, shrugging on a jacket as he called out her name. She thought she saw a face in the downstairs window, just for a second. When she looked again it had gone, disappeared into the murk of the room behind the dull glass.

  ‘Wait up,’ he said, as if they had arranged to meet, as if she had strode off without him.

  She felt thrown into a panic, wiping quickly at her eyes, pushing her shoulders back. He seemed to be talking to her from a distance, his mouth moving but her brain too slow to keep up.

  ‘You haven’t heard a word I just said,’ he commented, a half-smile creeping over his face. Then he looked at her, serious now, his green eyes darker, his thick eyebrows lowered, his mouth a line as he stated, ‘You are not alright.’

  This statement, his confident gaze, the first person to notice and see it, tipped her over the edge. The tears that had been lingering behind her eyes leaked out slowly and she made a pathetic attempt to rub at them with her coat sleeve, horrified. ‘I’m sorry… I’m… Please ignore me, I…’

  ‘Come on,’ he said, marching ahead of her and throwing a look over his shoulder. ‘You need to follow me.’

  They walked together up Watersmeet Road, away from the houses, following the curve of the East Lyn river. Richard was quiet now, walking a short pace ahead so that Abigail had to make little catch-up footsteps to keep up. His eyes were on the mouth of the valley ahead, the trees rising up on either side so that you had to crane your neck to see the tops. His cheeks were flushed pink as he turned to check she was following.

  They neared the river, turning left past a row of cottages, their miniature windows facing onto the street, their doors opening almost straight into the road, the narrowest of pavements to walk along. Abigail could make out a sitting room, a doll’s house standing against a wall, a crucifix on the wall of a dining room, a face peering round from an armchair. She kept following him, up to where the cottages ended and the road veered to the left.

  ‘Here,’ he said, motioning to the bridge a little further on.

  She frowned, wondering whether following him had been a sensible idea. She was new to the area and didn’t want to pick up a reputation. She knew how easily it could happen, had watched as girls became topics of conversations on doorsteps, stories whispered behind hands, gossip that raised the eyebrows of the listener. She had been silly to let him get this far, no doubt he thought she was fair game, she knew what they might think of someone from the city, someone like her.

  She was about to turn back, went to speak, when he turned down onto the bridge and beckoned her with a hand, as if she was an animal, wary and unwilling.

  She was curious now, wondering why he had brought her here, to this point. She wanted to laugh, to lighten the mood, but his expression seemed to stifle the sound before it could get out. He gestured to the river below and pointed up the valley, where the water pounded down past rocks, penetrating every part of the gulley, racing around stones, throwing up showers, bubbling with energy, constant, always flowing.

  He had to raise his voice to compete with the noise. ‘I come here when I feel like you do, when I just want to yell it out.’

  She frowned at him, caught out that he had seen right through her. She had been in just that sort of mood, wanting to scream and kick the wall in her frustration. She felt the familiar anger bubble to the surface again as she stood, swallowing once, getting herself back under control.

  Then she watched as he turned away from her, leant over the edge of the railing, his head and shoulders tipped forward, his mouth suddenly open.

  ‘You get it out!’ he screamed, making her take a step backwards. Her mouth dropped open as he carried on. ‘You just yell it out. The river takes it.’

  She could barely hear him over the hubbub of the water below and when he stopped she walked towards him.

  Putting both hands on the railings, she looked down at the river, at the relentless charge of the water as it poured over rocks and around boulders. The noise seemed to grow with the same spit and hiss, droplets thrown up, lingering in the air before falling back into the river to be flushed beneath them. She felt energized just watching it, felt her body get swept up in the shout of it.

  Richard had turned towards her, was leaning over to cup his hand round his mouth. ‘Try it,’ he said in her ear. His breath was warm. She felt herself blush. She was going to refuse, she was going to turn around and go back, but there was something in his face, something utterly innocent. He was willing her to have a go and her resolve melted.

  Standing on the first rung of the railings, she lifted herself off the ground, her hands gripping the top rung, the metal cold and rusting in her clenched hands. She felt the wind whistle around and past her, throwing her hair back. She opened her mouth, pictured her mum, sewing under the lampshade in their living room, the armchair now empty; Mary, her face when she left her; her sister, their differences; Larry, the house, her room now, the village, the feeling of smallness, of losing herself; and she screamed it at the water in shouted gasps, over and over she yelled it.

  She forgot hers
elf, where she was, clinging to the rungs of a bridge at the bottom of a valley. She screamed hoarse, snatched sentences and let the river have them, absorb them, run on with them, battering them against the stones in its path, shattering them on the rocks into tiny manageable splinters of memory.

  Then she heard a new noise, his shouts as he joined her, both of them standing on the rungs of the bridge, shoulder to shoulder, their mouths thrown open as they wailed at the water and let the river have it.

  They seemed to stop at the same time and she stepped back onto the bridge, turning her body so that her back leant against the railings, her chest rising and falling from the effort. She looked down through the village to the sea, which seemed impossibly flat and calm. That was where their thoughts had ended up? Were her words being found by fishes in the Bristol Channel? The thought made her giggle, then laugh, and her whole body felt lighter.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, turning towards Richard. He brushed a hand through his hair, tiny droplets clinging to the hairs on the back of his hand.

  He shrugged. ‘Makes you feel better, don’t it?’

  ‘What do you shout about?’ she asked, knowing she was being bold but unable not to wonder. This boy–man, who seemed so open, his face wide and generous. She knew he would probably bat the question away. He paused, pulling a hat out of his coat pocket and tugging it down so that his fringe tickled his eyelids. She was used to the sound of his voice now, sentences spilling over one another, but he opened his mouth and shut it again.

  She was about to turn away when he finally spoke. ‘Feeling helpless… You know, like things can’t be stopped. And my dad, he’s not good and it’s hard sometimes, you want to shout at someone and the river doesn’t seem to mind…’

  She nodded then, sorry for the darkness that had crossed his face as he mentioned his dad’s illness. ‘What’s wrong with him? Your dad?’

  ‘It’s his legs,’ he said, not divulging more.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Me too.’

  They looked down the river in silence and then with a smile he offered her his arm. ‘Come on then, Your Majesty, let’s show you some of the best places in the village. They do the finest chips in Devon down by the sea wall.’

  She took his arm without really thinking about it, hers looping through his at the right height, his body reassuring as they departed the bridge, leaving their shouts and words in the water.

  He bought a newspaper cone filled with chips, steam rising from the top, the smell divine, and they moved across to a bench overlooking the water, side by side enjoying the quiet burble of the village around them as they ate.

  ‘I feel bad for the people in the photos when I eat them.’

  ‘I don’t think the queen will mind – she seems awfully nice, don’t you think?’

  ‘She does,’ he agreed, popping a chip in his mouth and laughing through it. ‘She’s a fancy one, like you.’

  She grinned at him, wiping grease from her mouth with a napkin. ‘And don’t you forget it.’

  He leapt off the bench, screwing up the newspaper and throwing it into the centre of the bin. ‘How could I?’

  And then he was off, a cheeky chap winking at her as if they hadn’t shared anything of meaning. But something in his eyes, something had shifted, as if he could see inside her head. She felt a warmth spread through her stomach that she had shared that with someone. The day would always smell of batter, vinegar and him.

  IRINA

  Irina drove without thinking, pulling the car up next to the stone arches on the lower promenade and paying the meter. The sun was bright now, the greenery on the back wall bold, curved shadows on the promenade from the arches. She stepped across the road, walking towards the beach, her hair tickling her face before she tucked it behind an ear. The tide was out now, sunken footsteps along the shore, a couple sitting on a rug further along, wrapped up and reading.

  She always missed them the most after seeing her mother, wondered how life might have turned out if they were still all together. She wondered if her mother ever shared things with others, whether she spoke with friends, Brenda perhaps? When Brenda was talking about her husband, what did her mother say in return? Didn’t Brenda ask where her family were now? Irina wished she could discuss these things. She wondered why she didn’t.

  They’d got close to talking once. They’d been clearing out her mother’s last flat and Irina had found a box. She’d thought it impossible that there could still be things from their life back then, but it had been sitting on the top of an old chest of drawers, smeared with finger marks. It contained one familiar item.

  Her mother watched Irina turn it over in her hands. ‘It was in my handbag – you know how he was always hiding things,’ she’d said, her voice rusty, as if she’d forgotten how to talk about him.

  Irina moved over to it in a trance, reaching out her hand, needing to touch it. She hadn’t thought about it in years, but Joshua had loved it, had moved from room to room with it hanging limply at his side.

  She traced the face of the familiar Ninja Turtle action figure, remembering Joshua’s delight at the thing: Michelangelo, pizza-lover, the joker. He’d sit with it at meals, resting the toy on its back, nunchucks frozen in bent plastic arms, the drawn-on smile, one eyebrow permanently raised. He’d take it in the car, hold it to him when he slept, as if it were a talisman to ward off evil. Her mother had found it in her handbag afterwards. So it hadn’t been in the house.

  Irina imagined his other belongings, scattered on the blue-and-white-spotted rug in his room – cars, pieces of Lego, Panini football stickers – the condition they’d be in. The image made her blink, rub at her eyes.

  Don’t do this, Irina.

  She walked, relishing the taste of salt on her lips. She hadn’t realized where she was headed until she found herself looking up at the line of hotels along the seafront, lingering over the large white facade of a Georgian townhouse, watching couples, arms thrown around each other, children pulling miniature suitcases, bumping them up the steps with two hands, all checking in to spend the weekend together. She’d been here before, with Andrew.

  They were staying in a suite on the top floor. The living room had enormous double sliding doors leading to a balcony with a picnic table and they’d eaten breakfast that morning listening to the sound of the waves below them, croissant flakes littering the table and sticking to their lips, a brimming cafetière now half-empty and going cold. It was going to be a scorching day and Irina had felt excited as she pulled on a purple maxi dress, shaking out her hair. For a second the livid scar seemed to disappear, her face nothing but lips and teeth and bright eyes. A bare-chested Andrew passed her, kissed her on her shoulder and looked back at her in the mirror with a grin before slapping her bottom.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, spinning around and batting him.

  He stopped her hand and pulled her into him, his body damp from the shower. Tilting her chin, he bent to kiss her, encircling her body in his arms.

  ‘Right,’ he said, drawing back and clapping his hands as if he were a schoolboy. ‘Let’s go.’

  They were heading down to the beach and Andrew had promised to build her a castle fit for a princess. She knew he would begin it, get distracted and spend the rest of the day on the rug they’d brought, reading his book, her head resting on his chest as she read hers, every now and again muttering about heading off to rent paddle boards, before falling asleep in the sunshine. They would watch swimmers, toddlers with armbands splashing in the shallows, kayakers idling like insects in the water.

  There was more of a breeze that day and Irina had pulled her cardigan on, sitting up, hugging her knees, her feet sunk deep into the sand that tickled her toes. Andrew had fallen asleep, his book resting over his face. The anonymous snoozer. She smiled as he roused himself, calling from behind the book, ‘I know you’r
e staring at me,’ then lifting the book and opening one eye. ‘Ha! Knew it. I can feel it.’

  She laughed, not denying it and picked up his hand to kiss it.

  It had been a wonderful week and she hadn’t wanted to return to their lives just yet; the shop could wait for a while longer. Patricia had packed her off with a raised eyebrow. She liked Andrew, ever since he’d once complimented her on a new cardigan. She thought he had an ‘open face’. Irina had almost enjoyed having the spotlight on her as Patricia lumbered around the topic, bringing her over an antique ring set with topaz and announcing in a loud voice that she thought it would make an excellent engagement ring. Irina had laughed and moved through to the workshop, the smile still on her lips as she sharpened her tools, on automatic, her head full of him.

  She hadn’t realized she’d been following the boy with her eyes for the last few minutes. He had the same frame as Joshua, but when he turned, his face was all wrong, his eyes wider apart, his colouring a little fairer, his hair darker, more caramel. His laugh, though, that was the same; explosive, excitable. He was tugging on his mother’s hand, wanting to show her something at the water’s edge; he was insistent, bent double and pulling at her with both hands while she pretended to resist, giggling at him in her too-large sunhat and then relenting and taking his hand.

  Andrew was sitting up next to her, watching them both too. Then he turned to face her and said in a low voice, ‘Tell me about him.’

  At first Irina pretended she didn’t know what he meant. She tore her eyes away from the pair and went to pick up her book.

  ‘Reena…’ he said, one hand on her arm, a gentle reminder he was there.

  A laugh bubbled out of her, once, strangled and distorted.

  The boy at the water’s edge looked up, frowning in her direction before his attention was back on whatever was on the sand. She kept her eyes staring straight ahead, the sea a glittering mass of silver and blue, the horizon blurring before her. ‘Don’t, Andrew.’ It was a warning, issued with a half-smile frozen to her face.