Star snatched her hand back as if I were fire. ‘What do you mean?’
I smiled. ‘You know …’ I said teasingly.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said rapidly. ‘And if you listen to stupid gossip, then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.’
I gaped. ‘What? I only meant that you told me you knew nothing about the flat, when you clearly do.’ I nodded at the open doorway opposite.
Star glanced over. ‘Oh.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘Then why am I an idiot?’
‘I didn’t mean it.’ She smiled hurriedly. ‘I’m sorry. I was just … It doesn’t matter. You’re not an idiot. You’re the opposite.’
‘But what gossip? What do people say?’
‘Nothing.’ She glared at me, daring me to pursue my line of enquiry, and I realized that we were at an impasse.
I nodded. ‘Okay. So tell me about the flat.’
She looked back at it and her body sagged. ‘It’s the landlord’s, all right? And I’m supposed to clean it. That’s my job.’ She waggled her head to indicate the irony of the final phrase.
‘So why didn’t you tell me yesterday?’ I wondered what the gossip could be, what people would have dared to say about Star.
She pulled a face and tugged at her apron. ‘Cleaning, all that housewife stuff: it isn’t good for my image, do you know what I mean?’
She caught my eye, and we both smiled at the same time, and our truce tightened. ‘That’s funny,’ I said, ‘I was just thinking that you belonged on a yacht.’
‘Oh, that’s nice.’ She sighed wistfully. ‘We could sail out into the ocean and dive for pearls. Johnny could steer the boat for us.’
‘Mmm,’ I grunted, pleased she’d included me in her daydream but irked she wanted Johnny there as well. ‘I’d always imagined the landlord to be that sort of wealthy tycoon – you know, yacht, permanent tan, beach house in Rio. I had no idea he lived downstairs.’
‘Oh.’ She nodded at the doorway. ‘The landlord doesn’t live there. He – er – just comes to stay every once in a while. Keeps an eye on things. Luckily, he doesn’t come very often.’ She winked.
‘Then who’s been driving me nuts with that awful whistling?’ When Star frowned, I added, ‘It’s definitely coming from the flat.’
‘I think you’ve already gone nuts. There’s been no one in the flat for weeks.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Perhaps it’s mice.’
‘Whistling mice?’
‘Or – I don’t know. The wind. Yes, it’s probably that. You know what old places are like: full of holes.’
‘Listen.’ I indicated the telephone plinth. ‘Thanks for speaking to my mother. For telling her – I mean, for not telling her – I mean, reassuring her, okay?’
Star shrugged. ‘No problem.’
‘I’m just … not in the mood for speaking to her right now, that’s all.’
‘Hey, none of my business.’ She looked down at me as unspoken words hung in the air.
‘And I don’t care about any … gossip, or whatever it was, whatever people have said.’ All the same, I yearned to know the details. Perhaps another time.
‘Good,’ she said fiercely. ‘I knew you were better than that.’
‘If you say so,’ I replied, and on impulse I leaned towards her and pressed my lips to her smooth cheek. ‘Thank you.’
‘Oh!’ she said, surprised. She gripped the edge of the banister. She indicated the open door to the flat and smiled uncertainly. ‘I’ve – erm – got to get on. See you later, alligator.’
And then she was gone, the door closing behind her with a thud. I continued on up the stairs, the memory of Star’s cheek still imprinted on my lips. I let myself into the kitchen, made myself a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich, and I’d been sitting at the table for fifteen minutes listening to the crackle from Radio Luxembourg on Susan’s transistor radio before I remembered I still hadn’t picked up the shoes.
I moulded crumbs back into dough with my fist. The thought of going back to Dockie’s room made me shudder, with his rotten smell and his tales of brain injuries and boarding houses, all wrapped up inside an old man with holes in his socks and his mind. The whole thing made me feel unutterably sad, and I was relieved he’d mentioned returning to Dublin, away from any place I could help him.
All the same, I had stolen money from him: two pounds five shillings to be precise – or four if I took one back for the gas meter. Stealing from an old man with a handicap – I’d actually done the reverse of a good turn. I drank the last of my tea, remembering that he had oodles of cash and I had none, and he’d never notice, and – well, it was done now, for better or worse.
Thinking of that – For better or worse, for richer or poorer, all of that – reminded me of the copy of Northanger Abbey Dr Feathers had lent me, and I reached into my handbag for it. Maybe tomorrow I would ask Mrs Hale all about it; if she’d known Robert Carver, what he’d been like, why somebody had scratched a belief in his innocence into the underside of the windowsill.
The book was an old hardback, in a much-worn green material, cracked at the spine and with loose pages that tried to flutter out when I opened it. There was a line drawing on the front of a young girl, and the title caressed the cover in what had once, I supposed, been a gold colour but was now a dull brown.
However, none of this interested me. Neither did the contents of the book; or, at least, not as much as the inked scrawl that covered the flyleaf at the back. The handwriting was perfectly neat, in a calligraphy I had never managed to achieve, but the words themselves darted about the page in a random order, like butterflies:
One floor below, the doorbell rang in three harsh bursts, but I ignored it. I went to the underside of the windowsill and found again the protestation of Robert Carver’s innocence. I squinted at the words etched into the wood, trying to work out if it was the same handwriting, but there was no way of telling for sure.
The doorbell rang again. I took the book with me as I opened the kitchen door and stepped out on to the landing. From here, I could see nothing but the central stairwell disappearing to the ground floor, but I heard footsteps cross the tiled hallway and the crunch of the door being opened. Distantly, Star’s voice spoke.
I went as quietly as I could into the bedroom. The place smelled musty from the night-time breath of three pairs of lungs, still lingering and mingling with the damp bubbling through the walls. I shut the door behind me and tiptoed towards the nearest window, from where, beyond the balcony, I could see the whole of the street.
Parked in front of the house was a long-nosed white car with beady-eyed headlamps. I sat heavily on Val’s bed, squashing her soft toys. It all depended on Star, I supposed, and how much she understood that I definitely, most certainly, was not at home to callers, especially ones in white sports cars. I wondered if I could just refuse to answer the door if he knocked, and then I thought that he was only bound to come back.
Yet the idea of talking to him stuck in my throat. Don’t want to, I thought, like a child. The front door crunched shut again, and I stood up, watching the street, hoping I’d see him appear. I held my breath.
Yes. There he was, with his slick hair, twirling keys in his hand. I could even hear the faint jingle of them from up here. At the gateway to the house he stopped and turned, and I stepped backwards away from the window and from view. I listened for the sound of the car door opening and closing, and then the roar as the engine started. I watched it dart down the hill, and breathed out again.
As I stood there in the silence of the room I heard the whistling once more.
My thoughts skidded to a halt, and I strained my ears to listen.
Yes. It was the same grating, off-key whistle as before. It travelled through my bones from somewhere else in the house, making me shiver.
Holes in the walls, Star had said. Perhaps she was right and it was only the wind making the noise, because it certainly wasn’t coming from the ground-floor flat a
ny more. If anything, it was coming from just outside the door, and it was a lonely, pitiful sound, similar in tone to the desperate crying I’d heard yesterday.
I walked to the door and opened it, one ear cocked for the direction it was coming from. Yet now I was in the hallway, the sound was fainter. I shook my head and was about to go back inside the flat when I noticed the package just outside the door.
It was a thick paper bag with string handles, and as I picked it up I saw the legend on the side: Lady Lucinda Boutique.
There was a click as a door below me closed, and I thought of Star darting up the stairs to leave it here, gathering my secrets like desiccating leaves. I took the bag inside the flat and put it on my bed, my stomach knotting as I removed the box inside, opened the lid and saw, nestling among sheets of tissue paper, a pair of white, thick-buckled sandals in a size three.
There was a label attached to the string handle. I turned it towards me and read: Rosie – happy belated birthday. Reckon you’ll look a proper little sexpot in these! Harry xxx
I collapsed backwards on to my bed, my head resting against the chilly windowpane, my feet trailing to the floor.
Tomorrow, I thought. I would deal with everything tomorrow. I brushed my right hand across the bed cover, and it collided with Northanger Abbey. I drew it towards me and opened it to the back flyleaf, holding it above my head and reading again the various versions of a name, feeling oddly soothed by the repetitions: Lizzie Carver, Mrs Robert Carver, Mrs Elizabeth Carver, E. F. C.
I could still hear the whistling, and it grated on my teeth. I elbowed the box of shoes on to the floor, where it fell with a satisfying clatter. Nothing matters, I thought to myself, concentrating on the names in the book and thinking of Robert Carver and a girl who imagined herself married to him, remembering a time when I’d done the same thing with another name, scribbled in pencil in the margins of my diary, my cheeks burning now with the shame of it: Mrs Harold Bright, Mrs Rose Bright, R. C. 4 H. B., over and over and then rubbed out so fiercely I’d scored a hole in the page, and gone to bed, dreaming of things I had no right to be dreaming about at all.
6
1924
The weeks passed, and as June blended into the deeper warmth of July, Helmstone revealed itself to me in slow bursts of colour, from the weather-gnarled fishermen gutting sprats on three-legged stools outside their arches, to the young shop girls queuing excitedly outside the enormous dance halls that flung fast jazz from their temple-like doors. As summer blossomed, the population of the town swelled accordingly, packing out the guest houses that lined the front and thickening the promenade and beach. All movement slowed, so that one ended up ambling in a shoal of humanity, buffeted by the tides of holidaymakers who joined and left the swarm, laden with picnics, parasols and the constant anxiety of the Englishman away from home.
I occupied myself in helping Alec with his nascent Hall of Fame, which appeared to be coming on much more slowly than I’d imagined, sketching odd views as they occurred to me, and avoiding Mrs Bray. This last was not so difficult, as since that first hideous skirmish in the dining room she had absented herself for every meal except breakfast, and was indeed out of the house most of every day. I remarked to Alec that it was almost as if she had a job, to which he roared with laughter and said he’d believe a hundred unlikely things before that.
I had also been seeing a great deal of Lizzie Feathers and, over the weeks, she had overcome her nervousness. In fact, she was fairly forthright at times with her opinions. She was also, naturally, quite undeserving of the lascivious thoughts I entertained about her while sitting side by side in the cinema. I knew I was wrong to have these thoughts; and yet, as they came unbidden, I let them run their course.
One blue-skied, mid-July afternoon, we went to a showing of Faint Hearts over the Amazon, and as Lizzie watched the screen, rapt in the action, her hands clutched in her lap, I watched her – or rather, the shape of her breasts beneath her blouse. Her bosom was large, and I had spent many happy hours at night imagining it unsheathed. My fantasies were informed by the French photographs passed around under the desks at school, and so doubtless were not particularly representative of the average female form, but they were all I had to go on.
Afterwards, standing on the steps of the Regal Picturehouse, I had the odd, out-of-kilter sensation that often comes from sitting in a darkened room for several hours and then emerging, squinting, into bright sunshine. Lizzie was still deep in the world of the film. ‘Wasn’t he just the most handsome thing you’ve ever seen?’ she said in a hushed voice as we climbed down the steps, referring, I imagined, to the jumped-up lead actor and, I also imagined, not requiring a reply from me. I had no idea what the film had been about as I had been looking at Lizzie during the entire picture, but this was never really a hindrance where Lizzie was concerned.
We repaired to a tea room in the old quarter of the town, a maze of alleyways known locally as the Snooks, packed with tiny shops where antiquarian booksellers plied their trade, shoulder to shoulder with jewellers and chocolatiers. I bought Lizzie a slice of cream cake and we sat at the counter in the window, watching the day-trippers pass by.
‘You’re still coming to Father’s dinner party next week, I hope?’ She sectioned off a piece of cake with a glinting fork and folded it between her lips.
‘I daren’t miss it,’ I said. ‘Whenever I’ve met him it’s all he’s spoken about.’
She shook her head and pulled a wry, adult sort of expression that I supposed she was trying out. ‘He’s driving Mother round the twist. He’s most worried that Mr Bray won’t come. I suppose he thinks he’s the cherry on the top.’
I smiled, although I could understand Feathers’ point of view. Alec would lend a certain glamour to what would otherwise no doubt be a terribly dull evening. Merely the fact that he was from London seemed to infuse him with a raffish, debonair quality in the eyes of the Helmstonites who knew him.
‘I’m sure Alec will be there,’ I said, although I could quite equally imagine him changing his mind at the last minute.
‘Father wants to smooth over rough ground with him, you see.’ Lizzie’s eyes narrowed, and she said in quite a different tone, ‘I wish that girl wouldn’t keep looking at you.’
‘What girl?’ I turned, suddenly intrigued; at the other end of the counter were two overly thin females drinking tea and talking in loud, affected voices. However, whichever girl it was to whom Lizzie was referring, they both appeared to be interested only in themselves. I shook my head and turned back. ‘Rough ground, you said?’
A frown clouded Lizzie’s brow. ‘She obviously thinks she can have any man she wants, and never mind if he’s with someone else already. They’re probably laughing right now about how grossly overweight I am.’
We had had similar conversations like this previously, each time plunging me into a state of confusion, although I had by now developed a strategy for such an occurrence. I privately thought Lizzie utterly deluded, but I had learned that to suggest such a thing was to invite hours of conversation on the matter. ‘Firstly, you’re not fat,’ I said, ‘and secondly, I don’t find those sorts of girls attractive in the slightest, as well you know.’
The frown lifted slightly. ‘But they’re so thin. And, you know, completely fashionable.’
I glanced at them again. ‘They look like scrawny chickens to me,’ I said, which in all honesty I did not exactly think, but it cheered Lizzie up no end and so I was able to return to the subject of Alec and the rough ground to be smoothed over.
‘Well, according to Father, he was quite a tearaway when he was younger,’ said Lizzie, allowing a smile to creep on to her lips, especially once the girls had left without a backward glance and she was able to relax.
‘He was,’ I said. ‘Spoiled to death by my aunt, no doubt. I’m sure he terrorized the town when he was here for the summer vacs. It’s all right; he had the same reputation in our family too.’
Lizzie held out her smeary, lic
ked fork to me, a question on her face, but I shook my head.
‘Father was always going next door to complain about him, and then raging to us that the boy was “completely undisciplined”.’ She puffed out her bosom in a passable mimicry of her father. ‘Although I don’t suppose your cousin has particularly fond memories of him.’
I shrugged. ‘Alec forgives everybody. I’m quite sure he deserved any dressing-down he got, and I’m sure he knows that too.’
‘Well, Father wants to mend any broken bridges. Especially as …’ She tilted her head to one side. ‘As we’re neighbours, I suppose.’
I thought privately that if Alec had not inherited Castaway and a sizeable amount of money from his mother then Dr Feathers might have left those bridges broken. Then again, maybe I was being prejudiced against the bumptious fool.
Afterwards, I walked Lizzie along the seafront to show her the Hall of Fame. She had been begging me for weeks to give her a tour, but Alec had made me promise to wait until it was at least in some sort of presentable condition.
The door was open, and the sound of hammering came from inside.
‘Hello?’ I called, sticking my head in, and the carpenter emerged, scratching his chin.
I had met him before, and he smiled easily enough and said, ‘You’re Mr Bray’s mate, ain’tcha?’
‘I’m his cousin,’ I said. ‘And his artistic advisor.’
That sounded idiotic now, but the carpenter simply stood back and said, ‘You taking the young lady to have a look round?’
‘If that’s all right.’ I stepped over the raised door frame and held out my hand to Lizzie to follow.
The carpenter pulled his tobacco tin from his top pocket. ‘You take your time.’ He winked at me in an extremely seedy manner.
I led Lizzie into the entrance way of the Hall of Fame, which now boasted a fresh coat of paint and the beginnings of a turnstile. ‘Oh, how exciting,’ she said. ‘I say, who’s that?’
She pushed through the turnstile and inspected the royal family, peering up the King’s nose as if a beetle had got stuck there. She turned uncertainly to me. ‘Lenin?’
The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House Page 11