by Cesca Major
Irina gripped the edge of the table, feeling a fizz that they had come one step closer to learning more.
Bill seemed to recover then, staring at the names again. Andrew looked at Irina, head cocked to one side as she went to open her mouth to speak. Then her mobile started to trill, letting out the familiar ringtone that meant her mother was calling. It filled the small bar, jarring the peace.
She went to answer it, apologizing as she pulled it from her bag. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, drawing it to her ear. She would just tell her she’d call her back. Her mother hated it when it went to answerphone, left stilted messages punctuated with short sighs. Irina didn’t want her to feel ignored, felt a wave of guilt she hadn’t even told her she’d gone away for a couple of days.
‘Hi, Mum, I’m sor—’
‘Is that Miss Woods?’
The caller had a low Mancunian accent, unfamiliar, and caused Irina to frown into the phone and look up at Andrew, making him pause, hand moving to hover over her forearm, his eyebrows knitted together in a question.
‘Yes,’ she said slowly, worry churning her stomach so that the lemonade seemed to swirl about in there. ‘This is she,’ she continued in an absurdly polite voice. This is she?
‘This is Brighton General Hospital. I’m calling on behalf of your mother…’
ABIGAIL
She didn’t like to spend time in the house at all now. She was always looking for signs that Larry was there: the double chimney smoking, his boots propped up by the door, fresh mud on the boot scraper, the smell of pipe smoke, the sound of Beethoven on the gramophone, a silhouette beyond the curtains. Sometimes, though, there would be no signs and she would convince herself the house was empty: a draught pushing through the empty hallway, the floorboards swept and clean, pictures hanging straight, lamps unlit, no keys on the silver plate. Then he would appear, in a doorway, as if he’d been waiting, his face red with some kind of energy behind his eyes, as if he was about to burst with the anticipation of it.
She would double-back, one palm up on the side of the door, remove her hat with shaking hands, shrug her coat off, sucking in her breath as he came and helped her, slowly pulled at the sleeves, leaning over her as his hands skimmed her, almost touching, his smell in her nostrils, his breathing filling the hallway, obscuring any other noise.
She would stay by her sister when she was there, glued to her side so that Connie would sigh and brush at her, trying to increase the gap between them. Abigail would blunder after her when she left a room, fabricate reasons for wanting to help. She longed to be back in Bristol, longed to feel free.
She could feel Richard’s pull, seductive, a rope slowly coiling around her ankle, dragging her deeper into the village, calling her down the hill, away from the house to the harbour walls, the idling boats, the water slopping against the side, the taste of salt on her lips, the wind biting at her face in snatches. They would meet now at the bottom of a road where the two rivers met, colliding into each other, spilling over rocks. She would collect things from their walks and keep them in her pockets: a pressed leaf, the ribbon she’d been wearing, the handkerchief he’d given her. She felt their outlines as she sat at the dinner table, Connie eating in silence opposite, Larry always watching, and she would return to her day with him.
She felt guilty as she pressed down with the pencil on the latest letter to Mary, hasty and pathetic, repeating their earlier plans for Mary to come to her. She had stopped talking about America though, seeing Richard’s face as she shut her eyes. She sent countless letters filled with nothings, licking the envelope, listening to them drop into the letterbox crawling with ivy at the end of their road.
She wanted to take the last plea back the moment it was out of her hand, the lightness in her empty palm sending a shot of guilt through her. Mary couldn’t come there; Abigail didn’t want her in the house. She reviewed her hasty scrawls, the hinting at things that seemed to lurk in the corners of the house, not able to really outline what it was she was so afraid of but knowing Mary would worry if she knew.
She walked slowly back up the hill to the house, its windows looking out over the sea, the trees, bursting with new buds and leaves, dancing in the sunlight, obscuring the lower end of the garden from view. She automatically put her hands on her thighs on the steep part, ready for the ache in her legs, barely there these days. Around the corner, the cliff edge, where, if you leant over, you could make out the jumble of grass and rocks that plunged into the sea. She thought of her mum’s grave left untended in Bristol, pictured the wind battering it from every angle, withered flowers long dead, an empty patch as others visited those alongside her. She moved closer to the edge, peered down, reeled back, her breath leaving her body in one enormous gasp.
Larry was in her room when she stepped inside, standing hunched over the dressing table. She jumped, making a noise, sharp and high, enough to make the muscles in his shoulders twitch. He didn’t turn round, moved his hands slowly over the contours of the wood, one finger inching over the surface.
He turned then, slowly, mouthing the word ‘Beautiful,’ as he looked at her, one palm flat on the dressing table so she wasn’t sure which he was referring to.
‘I’ve been walking.’ She gabbled the sentence, the words tripping over each other so that they barely made sense.
‘Close the door,’ he said. The same expression, the same precise speed: assured.
She didn’t want to close the door, hovered by the gap, the brass doorknob marked with thumbprints over time, her hand folding over it, her eyes shutting briefly. She wondered if she could call out, would her sister be here? She knew she wouldn’t be. Could she simply leave, walk quickly down the stairs and out? But where would she go?
‘Close the door. The draught,’ he repeated, adding a laugh, a quick snatch.
Her feet were glued to the ground, her shoes impossibly heavy.
‘Let me look at you,’ he said.
The light from the window behind him meant she couldn’t read his face. She swallowed, pursing her lips, wondering if he could see her throat working, her chest rising and falling.
He made to walk towards her and perhaps it was this that made her step across to him, one, two, her eyes unblinking as if she were lost in some trance.
He held out both arms to her then and for a flash she recalled her father, a memory from years ago in Bristol, she must have been four or five, he had held out both arms to her, twirling her round in their garden at home. He’d left that afternoon, a suitcase in one hand, a woman waiting in an automobile outside. She hadn’t seen him again.
She was in front of Larry now, standing, quivering imperceptibly, shoulders tense, her fingers rubbing at their neighbours, the rest of her body still. He had undone a button from the top of his shirt and underneath his paisley necktie she could see individual strands of hair, fine and brown, poking out. His Adam’s apple moved up and down as he swallowed, his tongue moving over cracked lips.
‘That’s better.’ His voice dropped a level, softer now as he put a finger under her chin and tilted her face towards him.
Abigail leant backwards, her neck shifting right, not wanting to look him in the eye, her palms dampening, feeling her eyes roll. The smell of sweat and polished wood overwhelmed her. She couldn’t avoid his gaze much longer, turned to stare straight at his pupils. He was so close. His breath was warm on her face, stale smoke and something acidic underneath it. She flinched and he cupped her chin.
‘I wanted a good look at you,’ he said, his other hand leaving the dressing table to hold her around her waist, pull her towards him so that she was thrust against him, feeling the whole weight of him, his cotton shirt, a roll of stomach, the buckle of his braces digging into her hip. Her body stiffened, straining not to touch him. She was scared now as to what he wanted to do with her; she felt him stir, the shock of him making her curve her back.
He tutted slowly, showing yellowing teeth, laughing softly as he said, ‘Naughty girl, don’t wriggle, stay still.’
His breath again, seeping into the pores of her face. She could see a scar, tiny, cutting across his left eyebrow. She focused on the mark, tried to take herself away from this scene. If she did what he wanted, he would leave her; if she stayed here like this her sister would come and find her, she would help her.
Without warning he released her, spinning her round so that she faced the wall: a fading watercolour depicting a hunt in a gilt-edged frame, the hounds sniffing along the grass, men on horses, thighs rippling with the effort of holding onto their charges, one leaping over a line of bushes. The image swam before her so that she felt washed into it, as if she might suddenly hear the huntsman’s horn, the call to the hounds that there was a scent to pick up, the fox shivering and terrified, racing to escape their pounding after it.
She remained facing away from him, sensed his body still close, the gap between them small. She reached out a hand to the bedpost, took a tiny step away from him. Nothing. He didn’t call her back, she could hear him panting a little, his breathing heavy.
‘Whore,’ he whispered.
The knuckles of her hand tightened on the post, bile rising in her throat as the word crawled over her.
‘You think I can’t tell what’s in your filthy mind. Be sure that I don’t tell your sister.’
Her mind ran through every moment they had been together, feeling panicked, palms clammy now, the room closing in, so hot and small, and just him. How had her behaviour made this happen? Mary had told her once before; she’d been smiling, staring directly at a man, challenging, and Mary had told her not to always be as bold. She had brought this on herself. What would Connie say? Would she throw her out? Where would she go?
Footsteps. She clenched and then a rush of air, the door clicking shut, his boots on the carpet, muffled, an even pace down the staircase. She rubbed at her arms, felt her skin crawl, wanted to seize the water jug on the top of the chest of drawers and pour it all over herself as she stood there.
‘Abigail.’
Her sister’s voice, light, lifting at the end in a question, floated from the bottom of the stairs.
She swallowed, trying to find a reply, her throat like sandpaper.
IRINA
The one time she’d left her mother, the one time she hadn’t told her where she was headed and this happened. She felt a deep sense of shame creep over her, the contents of her stomach bubbling in panic as they headed back up the clifftop railway in silence. Everything that had felt so magical and exciting that morning seemed to have dulled and slowed. The railway seemed to dither, the water taking forever to fill up so that Irina was tapping her foot and looking up the cliff as if it might be quicker to climb it herself.
‘Hey,’ Andrew said, holding her elbow and steering her over to the metal terrace, ‘it’s going to be OK, we’ll get there by tonight.’
She noted the ‘it’s’ not the ‘she’, and the fact that he couldn’t reassure her made her feel even worse. She had the same sense of overwhelming hopelessness as she’d had all those years ago, standing looking at the house, the horrific realization sinking in. She felt her breathing quicken, the start of a panic attack. She couldn’t feel the air going in, her head lighter as she gasped at the air; it wasn’t going into her lungs, it wasn’t helping. Andrew’s voice melted into the background and the colours around her seemed to fade as if there was a dial someone had turned down. Her legs wobbled and her head just screamed that she needed more air. She had left her alone, and this had happened.
Andrew steered her over to a seat in the carriage, the other passengers no doubt looking on as she was instructed to put her head between her knees. She felt his hand circling her back, closed her eyes. They left the carriage with her leaning on him, her face red, her eyes blinded by the sudden colours. They walked slowly to the B & B, Andrew looking down at her, speaking to her in a steady, low voice, one hand hovering over her shoulder. She wanted his hand on her, reassuring, she wanted to feel his touch. That thought made her feel worse. So you’re thinking about a man while your mother lies in a hospital two hundred miles away. She deserved this; she realized then that she’d been waiting for this day. That it felt somehow inevitable that she would be left alone, not have a chance to even say goodbye, to say all the things she needed to say.
She couldn’t stop herself thinking back to that day all those years ago, the scenes she’d replayed over and over in her mind since. She and her mother in the cake shop, loading the enormous cake into the car, singing together as they drove back to their house. They never sang in the car after that.
She would be entering another hospital, recalled the last time she’d done that. She remembered the ambulance, sitting in the back of it as they’d tended to her face, her mother wringing her hands in the doorway, looking inside at Irina, back at the house behind. Her asking after Joshua again and again, her mother crying, being lowered to the floor as her legs collapsed beneath her. Her asking after her dad; it was his birthday, she told them. A fireman bending to talk to her mother; he’d taken his yellow helmet off when he was speaking, he didn’t have a lot of hair. Irina remembered feeling that he’d know where Joshua was, expected him to appear in the sliding door of the ambulance, fascinated by it, wanting them to press the siren so the lights flashed and the noises came on. He never appeared in the doorway of the ambulance and they had taken her to hospital, her face covered in dressings, the pain starting to tear at her; they gave her injections and then everything went dark.
The journey back seemed to pass in a fug of old memories, panic, questions, faces. Andrew played Radio 2. Every now and again his hand left the gear stick, wavered inches from her leg before returning; she had seen it as if it were not attached to him, as if they were two other people in a car going somewhere else, somewhere lovely.
He dropped her straight at the hospital, pulling up and putting the handbrake on, cranking it urgently. It had been a five-hour journey, her neck was sore, her backside numb from sitting frozen in the passenger seat.
‘Shall I come in? I’d like to,’ he said, leaning across as she stepped out of the car.
She looked back at him, wanting to direct her anger somewhere, wanting to get rid of the hurt she was feeling. If they hadn’t gone to Devon… He’d been so adamant they should go, she’d been swept along, and look how it had ended. She had left without a thought for anything else.
She blustered a response. ‘No, I don’t think…’
‘I’ll drop your bag in and—’
‘No, don’t. I’ll get it now,’ she said, moving to the boot to fetch it. She returned with it slung over her shoulder. ‘Thanks,’ she muttered, trying not to look at him, as if they’d had a row. This was how they’d always left things. Him trying to talk about it all, her batting him away. She slammed the door harder than she meant to. His face, tinged with hurt, was the last thing she saw before she turned to walk up the steps to the hospital, through the sliding doors into reception, relatives and friends waiting in plastic bucket seats, charts and signs indicating where people should go. As the doors closed behind her, she looked back outside, but his car had already gone.
ABIGAIL
She had made her way back to Richard’s cottage, a haven. The relief of walking down the hill to Lynmouth, turning the corner, passing the Rhenish tower, watching the water lash at the rocks beyond, seeing the village winding away and up the valley, the river meandering in between the buildings, a babble behind, a man in glasses and a cap fishing from his balcony at the back of his house. She wanted to linger in the small square of garden, chat with his neighbours over the fence, sit on the bench with his father playing draughts and drinking glasses of cold water.
Beth was there as she arrived, sitting on a rug in the front garden, her baby swaddled in layers in her arms, her
son roaming around on a search for snails.
‘Mama, mama.’ He looked up from squatting in the middle of the flowerbeds.
Beth smiled slowly, her face pale but content. ‘Don’t trample the flowers, George.’
‘Not ’ramplin’.’
Abigail moved across to the fence, feeling lighter already, giggling as she saw George watching in fascination as he followed a snail trail with one finger. He looked up at her, blowing his fringe out of his eyes with a puff, then scrabbled backwards to the safety of his mother on the rug.
‘I’m sorry.’ Abigail laughed, realizing she had scared him away.
‘You’re not normally shy, George,’ Beth chided. ‘That’s Abigail. Say hello to her.’
He hid behind his mother.
‘Are you well?’ Beth called over. ‘I’d get up, but…’ She shrugged from her spot on the ground, a light laugh.
‘No, don’t, you definitely have your hands full.’ Abigail looked at the little boy, his feet turned inwards, dressed in corduroy shorts and a shirt. ‘What were you looking for, George?’
He paused, a quick glance at his mother, who nodded encouragement. ‘Go on.’
He took a step towards her, not quite meeting her eye. ‘Snails.’
‘Ahhhh,’ Abigail said, peering over the fence and down the wooden boards. ‘I bet you’ll find one if you keep looking.’ She scoured the panels, pretending to search. ‘Is that one?’ she asked in an innocent voice, gratified that George had trotted over on unsteady legs to crouch down and stare.
‘Where? Where?’
‘I think he just disappeared behind that pot.’ She giggled as he turned his intense gaze on the terracotta pot spilling over with rosemary. ‘How are you coping with the two of them?’ she called across, watching Beth reach a hand out to tuck the blanket in.