The Last Night

by Cesca Major

  Then she went in, wiped under her eyes with a finger where her mascara had marked shadows, splashed her face with water. She squeezed some toothpaste onto her finger and moved it around her mouth, pausing as she looked at the medicine cabinet, tempted to open it, to snoop, then chiding herself. He could live how he wanted; she had left him, she reminded herself.

  The cream linen was ironed and smelt of detergent, the pillows plumped and comforting. She wriggled under the covers, pulling the duvet right up around her shoulders and chin, and turned on her side. The alarm-clock numbers and outline of the lamp were the last things she remembered before falling asleep.

  He had left for work by the time she’d woken up, a note on the kitchen table: ‘Stay as long as you like, A x’. One of her fingers traced his initial. The note was kind, easy, and she imagined he was there saying it to her.

  ABIGAIL

  She hovered at Connie’s side as she instructed Edith to clear the summerhouse of cobwebs, scrub down the outdoor furniture for them – the wrought-iron chairs were filthy. She studied her sister’s face, the peachy cheeks with two spots of blush as if she were one of her old china dolls, the swoop and curl of her eyelashes, her bow mouth puckered now in a line as she watched Edith leave the room with the tea things. Abigail thought she might never go.

  She opened her mouth to speak, to tell Connie what she had found, that she felt Larry had known, had been in her room, had done it. The glassy-eyed stillness of the little bird was imprinted on her memory. Her sister looked at her, raising an eyebrow at her open mouth. She shut it again, bit her lower lip, went to sit on the chaise longue, changed her mind and stood again, one fist clenching and unclenching.

  Connie had moved across to the window seat, gazing out on a charcoal sea, angry layers of cloud piled on top of each other seeming to weigh down the sky with rain and sadness.

  ‘Maybe I spoke too soon.’

  Abigail was a moment late in her response, unaware her sister was talking about the weather. ‘Did you?’

  ‘The garden furniture,’ Connie said, an irritable flick of her hand at something unseen on her cardigan. ‘We won’t be sitting outside if it rains.’

  Abigail struggled to concentrate, aware she sounded vague. ‘Oh, you’re right.’

  They lapsed into silence, her sister’s calmness at odds with the hammering in Abigail’s chest. She had to say it, had to tell her, couldn’t really understand why she was putting it off.

  ‘Connie…’ She took a small step forward, lifted a hand, the palm facing upwards.

  Her sister turned a little in the seat to look at her, the tiniest of lines between her eyebrows.

  ‘The bird’s dead,’ she started. ‘It died. Well, it didn’t die, it was killed.’

  Another line emerged on Connie’s forehead as she tried to follow what Abigail was saying. ‘How gruesome.’ Her nose wrinkled in disgust, giving Abigail the strength to continue.

  ‘No, you don’t understand. The bird was killed, her neck was snapped backwards.’

  ‘Don’t be so ghoulish, Abigail. I feel quite unwell just thinking about it.’ She placed a hand on her stomach, rubbing it rhythmically. ‘I hope you got rid of it.’

  Connie didn’t get it. Abigail realized she hadn’t spelt it out and she needed her to listen. She approached the window seat, bending her knees so that she was at her sister’s eye-level.

  ‘He did it,’ she whispered, looking over her shoulder as if at any moment he might appear in the doorway, then loathing herself for having done so.

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’ Her sister’s light laugh tinkled around the living room. ‘Don’t be absurd, of course he didn’t.’

  ‘I’m not making it up,’ she insisted.

  Connie rolled her eyes. If it hadn’t been for the briefest of pauses, Abigail might have thought that she really didn’t believe her, but it had been there, a fraction of a moment, enough for her to realize that Connie knew exactly what he’d done.

  ‘You’re being ridiculous, Abigail. Larry loves animals.’ Her voice was false, a little higher in pitch than normal, her eyes now looking out again over the sea as a roll of thunder could be heard in the distance. ‘You’re imagining things.’

  Abigail felt a spurt of anger and straightened up, standing over Connie as her voice quivered. ‘He broke its neck. Are you really going to keep pretending? Do you not care?’

  Connie didn’t turn round but said simply, ‘I think I’ll go and lie down now if that’s all.’ She rose and left the room, scurrying past Abigail as if she might be chased by more words.

  Abigail’s head dropped onto her chest and she felt the breath leave her body. As the rain fell in fat, bold drops outside, she wondered why Connie would want to ignore things, realized then that she was completely alone.

  IRINA

  In the stark morning light she felt a little foolish, as if the feelings of the night before had been blown away by the new day, with its hint of sunshine, people driving through the streets to work, the chirpy buzz of breakfast television. She picked up her mobile and cardigan, looked around at the apartment. She added a line under Andrew’s note. ‘Thanks’ seemed like an understatement, but she didn’t know what else to write. The whole way back to Petworth, his face drifted into her mind until she had to physically shake her head to stop it. He had just been kind; she didn’t need to read more into everything.

  She didn’t stay long in her apartment, topped up the water and spooned food out of a tin into the bowl for the cat, who had licked yesterday’s efforts clean. The rolling sound of the boiler as she ran the hot water, the last drops from the tap, the kitchen clock loud and insistent. There were no other noises, nothing for her to feel jittery about. She showered and changed her clothes quickly, throwing on overalls already faded and spattered with old varnish, oily blobs in different sizes. They smelt faintly of turpentine and dust, reminded her of past jobs.

  Downstairs, the new leatherette arrived in the post and Patricia signed for it, directing the delivery man to the back with clicks and pointing so that he appeared, disgruntled and awkward, through the beads. She would be able to stick it down with glue, having cleaned the frame around it first, but for now it remained in its packaging, propped against the wall next to the ramshackle pile of off-cuts and planks of wood that Irina used for repairs.

  She made a start on the two lopers the desktop rested on, pulling the wooden struts out and down to clean. As she wiped the surfaces with a cloth soaked in white spirit, she felt the narrowest line along the edge of one of them and then the tell-tale bump of what could only be a hinge. Frowning, she realized that the loper might itself contain another secret compartment and, looking on the other side, noticed a tiny keyhole cut into the wood.

  Reaching behind her to the wall, where various tools hung on hooks, she selected a small screwdriver that might be able to turn the lock. The key was no doubt long gone. The screwdriver turned pointlessly, unable to catch anything and keep hold of it, and Irina breathed out in frustration. She tried a slightly larger tool, also with no luck. Then, almost smacking her forehead like a cartoon character, she remembered the key she’d found in the other drawer. Bending down to rummage quickly for it, she drew it out as if she were unsheathing a great weapon.

  She placed it in the lock, her hand trembling slightly, her fingers feeling fat and clumsy around the tiny key. But it worked, it turned; there was a small click and Irina felt the lock shift. Taking the edge of the wood in one hand, she lifted it up. The whole top of the loper, a mere quarter-inch thick, if that, lifted away and inside was a line of grooves etched into the wood. Thick enough for coins. There were nine grooves in all, running down the length of the loper, and they were all empty. Apart from the last one, near the back. Irina pulled out the loper without a thought. There was something in there, resting in the groove. She brought it out and held it up to the light, tu
rning it slowly around as she examined it. She held her breath, squinting as she took in every minuscule scratch and scuff. It was an oval brooch with a purple background and a cream silhouette of a woman in relief. It looked so delicate sitting in the palm of her hand.

  She looked back at the loper, opened and plundered, and placed the brooch back in the groove, closing the top carefully and locking it after her. Lifting the loper back into the side of the bureau, she puzzled at her find. All these objects secreted around this innocuous piece of furniture. She wondered what it all meant and whether anyone knew they were there. Had her American client known about the trove of things she would uncover? She moved across to pull down the other loper, expecting to see the same hole, the same hinges, but there was nothing there at all, just a straightforward block of oak in need of a thorough clean and polish to restore it to its former condition. As she placed it back inside, she wondered what else the bureau was hiding and whether she had been meant to receive it, whether it had found her. She felt as if she was being given a dozen clues with no idea where to begin.

  ‘A brooch?’ Andrew repeated when she spoke to him later that day.

  She’d rung him on the way back to the workshop after lunch; she wanted to say a proper thank you for the night before. He sounded pleased to hear from her.

  ‘Inside the loper,’ she confirmed.

  ‘What’s a loper when it’s at home?’

  ‘The thing the desktop rests on when it’s pulled down. They look like chair legs, sort of, but they stick out of it, facing you.’

  ‘What, and it was like another secret drawer?’

  ‘Sort of. It was for coins, I think – originally, that is. It looked like a clever hiding place for them. You could hardly tell there was anything there, the person that designed this thing made sure of that.’

  ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘It’s oval, a cameo brooch, no more than an inch long with a silhouette of a woman’s profile. There’s a hallmark on the back.’

  ‘So who did it belong to?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I sent another email to my client but got the same out-of-office reply. It doesn’t look particularly expensive, it’s not quite a diamond ring.’

  Irina closed her eyes, embarrassed to have made reference to a diamond ring. Andrew didn’t say anything either and she wondered if he’d noticed, or whether he was just thinking about what she’d told him.

  ‘This is all becoming weirder and weirder,’ he said, seemingly unaffected by her blundering comment, or hiding it well. ‘Send me a photo of the back of it, the mark.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, distracted by another thought, something that had been playing on her mind. ‘Do you know, it’s funny, but I feel as if I was meant to find that brooch. There was no need for me to search there, I wasn’t really thinking about it, I just knew there might be something there, as if someone was directing me to it.’

  ‘Do you think…?’

  He didn’t say it, but Irina knew he wanted to talk about the woman she’d spoken about. She didn’t have an image of her fixed in her mind, but she felt real. Irina was more and more sure she was seeing the same person: the face in the steam, at the window of her flat, in the workshop. Today she was more sure she was seeing her for a reason; the woman was trying to tell her something.

  Andrew’s reply came, his voice a little higher than normal. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  ABIGAIL

  She waited there all morning, feeling ridiculous and exposed as villagers walked past her, casting glances at the girl on the bench. She stayed on the same page of her book for half an hour, scanning the faces, craning her neck to peer up the high street as people spilled in and out of shops. Tourists were flocking to the village now for the summer months. ‘Honeymooners’ paradise’ they dubbed it and everyone seemed to be eating bags of fudge, licking at ice-cream. The wind was warm today, blowing in from sunnier climes, and she had taken off her cardigan, could feel the sun on the nape of her neck, her hair twisted into a bun, her arms covered in freckles already.

  Then she saw him, walking along the opposite bank, chatting with a man his age in round spectacles, waving him off and turning to look out across the sea, then picking his way onto the shingle and almost out of view. She hurried then, her book quickly closed, the page forgotten, tripping as she got up, her shin bruised on the bench, a sharp sound out of her mouth that caused a passing woman to look up.

  She crossed the bridge, had lost him; he’d dipped out of view, his dark brown hair and wide shoulders no longer visible. He couldn’t have gone far. She sped up in her heels, a brisk walk, heart pumping. She knew she looked absurd, she could feel sweat pooling underneath her arms, the sun blazing high above her, her palm damp as it clutched her cardigan.

  She saw him from the promenade, on the wet sand a hundred yards ahead. She sank into the stones, the rounded, broken shells, lumps of grey, tumbling over each other, impeding her in her heeled shoes as she made awkward progress down to the water’s edge. He was skimming stones, watching them bounce once, twice, trip along the water and out of sight. She wondered if he knew she was looking, smiled at the thought. He’d thrown his jacket down on the shingle, his shirt coming untucked from the waistband of his trousers, billowing out in the breeze, his shoes and socks off, trousers rolled up, sand sticking to the hairs on his legs.

  ‘Very impressive,’ she called out, sitting herself on the beach, feeling the gentle bump of the pebbles as they shifted under her weight, warm to the touch.

  He turned towards her, his hair lifting in the wind, the dark strands sweeping over his forehead as he moved towards her, leaving squelching footmarks in the sand that quickly filled with water.

  ‘Come and show me how it’s done then,’ he said, an eyebrow raised in a challenge. He didn’t seem surprised to see her; familiar and confident, he didn’t seem to have changed at all. She felt a flicker of hope that she hadn’t ruined things completely with her sullen mood that day on the clifftop railway.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly,’ she protested, ‘it would just embarrass you.’

  He threw himself down on the shingle beside her, his face flushed and tanned. He looked exotic today, his skin hinting at travel and spices. He seemed full of life, itching to throw stones, run through sand, shoes off. She couldn’t help laughing, giddy with the feeling. She felt an immense relief when she was with him, that she could be herself, not the coiled version that sat nervously on the edge of a single bed, looking out over a grey sea. With him she was Abi: toothy smiles, bold laughter, teasing and jokes. She felt as if she was with Mary or her mum back in Bristol, giggling over the everyday things, her chest light with friendship.

  He lay back on the stones, his toes wiggling into the sand, disappearing from view. ‘Perhaps best. You look like a girl with a good arm.’

  ‘I shall take that as a compliment,’ she said, stroking her arm with one hand.

  ‘It was meant as one,’ he said, shutting his eyes.

  ‘Did you just lure me here to show me how marvellous you are at throwing things?’

  ‘I didn’t lure you anywhere, you followed me.’

  She felt her whole face flood with heat, ready to make her excuses, to deny it, but he continued, eyes still shut.

  ‘I’m so pleased you did. I was about to come and knock on your door, ask your chaperone for a meeting, force you out of there, like Rapunzel.’

  She exhaled quickly, not sure if he was teasing and so glad he hadn’t appeared at the house. ‘I don’t have long enough hair for Rapunzel.’

  ‘Well, someone stuck in a tower.’

  ‘I also don’t have a chaperone.’

  ‘You should have.’ His mouth twitched. He opened the eye nearest to her, tilting his head to the side. ‘I love this bit of beach. Shall we walk along it?’

  ‘Alright then,’ she said.
>
  ‘First you must remove your shoes.’

  ‘It’ll be cold,’ she protested, embarrassment flooding through her. Ridiculous to feel embarrassed at baring her feet.

  ‘It’s hardly cold and they’ll get ruined if you don’t. Second option: I carry you, but I’m not sure we’d make it very far.’

  ‘How rude.’

  ‘That’s not a slight on your weight, only my inability to act like a strong man.’ He made a pathetic gesture with both arms, as if he were trying to lift something enormous with both hands, and she giggled.

  ‘Fine.’ She relented, raising both hands in the air. ‘I shall remove my shoes.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He sat up, then sprang to his feet, perhaps sensing that she was fumbling a little with the straps on her shoes and wouldn’t appreciate an audience.

  The leather felt slippery in her fingers; clumsily, she pulled them off and then stood in stockinged feet. ‘Turn around,’ she said, reaching up to unclip her stockings and roll them down. She felt scandalous doing so and peeked over her shoulder for any passing walkers.

  She wiggled her toes into the sand, feeling the damp grains seep between them. It was heavenly after the sticky heat of the day and she exhaled loudly, sighing in appreciation. Rolling up her stockings, she balled them into her fist.

  ‘The whole village will probably drum me out, but I am ready for walking,’ she said, spinning on one foot and walking towards him. The sunlight made his white shirt dazzle and his skin seem a darker brown. ‘Come on, strong man.’

  They walked along the shoreline, leaving footprints in a trail behind them. The blue sky was streaked with wispy clouds skittering past the sun; a thicker, bruised layer of cloud sat mulishly on the horizon, making the water duller, lurking as if at any moment it could rise up and take the good weather away. Up ahead, trees obscured the road that ran down from the clifftop. Abigail imagined herself looking down at them both from that height. Tiny insects walking on the sand, specks of people. She bent down to pick up a shell shaped in a perfect spiral, the browns and greys washing together, the surface smooth.