by Laura Powell
The following night, when Mr and Mrs Eden are snoring, Betty looks inside every bedroom (except theirs), under every bed and opens every wardrobe in case Mr Paxon has stowed himself there ready to silence her. She creeps downstairs and checks again that the doors are all bolted. She is about to turn in when the Dansette winks at her from the sideboard. She winks back. She switches it on and it bleats out the tune that she and Mother danced to, only it sounds bleaker today.
Betty raises her arms. She juts out her left hip, then her right hip. She jiggles her shoulders and rolls her head until her eyes blur and her face sweats. The song ends with a start and Betty flops onto the floor, exhausted. Someone coughs. Mr Eden stands in the doorway, his arms folded across his brown dressing gown. Mrs Eden is next to him wearing peach silk and pencilled eyebrows, lowered in a frown.
‘Have a little sleep, Betty,’ says Mr Eden.
Another night and another red morning pass. People still trickle in and out of the hotel but they are quieter than usual. Mrs Eden’s nasal voice grates above them all. That woman talks through her nose, never mind looking down it. That’s what Mother said once.
‘You’re right, Mother.’
Betty switches on the Dansette for Mother. She drops the needle onto the record. It crackles and the same Tutti Frutti song plays again and again. She pirouettes and dances and weeps. The Dansette weeps too.
‘A wop bop a loo a lop bam boo,’ she sings, so loudly her throat might have ripped in two.
She picks up the needle and plays the song for the ninety-second time.
The Dansette won’t work. Mrs Eden said it died of exhaustion. Betty could die of exhaustion too. She hasn’t eaten since that cucumber sandwich days ago. She nibbles a hard pear and some broken crackers that she finds in the larder. They are difficult to swallow. Her throat is too dry.
She crawls back to the Dansette but it is still dead so she makes her way upstairs and trails her hand over Mother’s makeup bottles and furs. Mrs Eden had said that they’d have to be packed away after the funeral. ‘Not if you’re packed away first,’ Betty had replied, but Mrs Eden had pretended not to hear. Betty had laughed. She threw back her head and cackled because Mrs Eden was wrong: Betty would never let Mother be packed away.
The day of the funeral arrives and Hotel Eden is a kaleidoscope of black. Mr Eden’s tie is ink black and Mrs Eden wears a dull charcoal hat with net covering her face. It is the sort of net that Mr Forbes once used to bundle up his chickens.
‘What’ll happen to his chickens when he’s in court?’ Betty asks Mrs Eden.
‘Pardon?’
‘To Mr Forbes’s chickens?’
Mrs Eden shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot.
‘I don’t know Betty. But his trial is over; you know that.’
‘Because he’s innocent.’
‘Come on, the cars will be here soon.’
‘He’s innocent. He didn’t do it. Mother loved him.’
‘That girl’s talking nonsense again,’ whispers Mrs Eden to Mr Eden. ‘I think she needs a doctor.’
‘I can hear you. And I don’t need a doctor, I just need Mr Gallagher.’
She shouldn’t have said that and she is relieved when they ignore her. She will keep her promise and never tell a soul. He will be back for her soon, and for Mr Forbes.
Mr Eden arranges an armful of lilies on the back seat of his motorcar.
‘You can put them by the headstone when we get there,’ he says and climbs into the driver’s seat.
Betty watches the row of cars waiting to follow the hearse. Or the grand car, as Mr Eden calls it. Betty is pleased that Mother gets a grand car and lots of eyes on her. She’ll like that.
The grass is wet around the grave pit. A big brown box is lowered into the earth. Gallagher still isn’t in the crowd; she checked. He will come though. A man wearing a white robe says a prayer. Mrs Eden cries. Mother hates Mrs Eden. She will hate Mrs Eden crying too. ‘I’ve no time for that green-eyed woman,’ that’s what Mother says, even though Mrs Eden has brown eyes. Mother’s eyes are a beautiful ice blue.
Betty wanders off to find the nearest tree; it is an oak. She presses her head against its trunk and lets it take some of her weight. The heaviness has returned but she has hardly eaten so shouldn’t she be losing heaviness? Maybe she should have a nap on this branch. Would this be a good place to sleep, Mother? She tries to hoist herself up but her arms are weak as butter. Mr Eden appears then. He smiles gently.
‘Time to go home,’ he says.
‘Where’s home?’
Mr Eden rubs his chin. Grey stubble pricks through the pores.
‘You need to shave,’ she says to be helpful.
‘Hotel Eden,’ he says. ‘It’ll always be your home.’
‘Thank you.’
Because that’s what you’re supposed to say to people who are trying to be kind – and he sounds kind, but she doesn’t really feel thankful. She feels nothing apart from heaviness.
‘You’re looking more like yourself today Betty.’
‘Am I? Who did I look like yesterday?’
She wishes she hadn’t said that because he is going to reply that she looked like Mother yesterday. She braces herself.
‘Don’t be cheeky. We were very worried about you.’
‘Were you?’
She leans against the tree trunk again. She isn’t sure how much longer her legs can support her body; it seems to be made of steel. Steel, and they live in St Steele. It makes her laugh. Mr Eden doesn’t laugh. He looks at her strangely, as if she has turned into a cat.
‘What happens when you put steel in fire?’
‘We’ll get through this.’
‘Would I melt? Melting would be a painful way to die.’
He is too busy steering her to the car to answer. His warm hand rests on the cold small of her back as they weave through the parked cars, the gravel crunching under their feet. It is the same way Gallagher steered her through that fishing village. She catches a noseful of Gallagher’s smell too. She turns and plants her lips on his lips. They land half on them, half on his sandpapery chin. He jumps back. Her lips burn, but not in a good way.
‘What are you doing? You mustn’t do things like that,’ says Mr Eden, in a voice that sounds angry and sad at the same time.
It is the wrong voice. Where is Gallagher? Betty starts crying. Mr Eden looks at her in a confused way. He glances back over his shoulder, as though considering whether to escape, but instead he stops beside a car and opens the door for her. Betty lies across the back seat. Even lying down, she is heavy.
‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be made of air?’
Mr Eden taps his finger on the steering wheel, the way Gallagher did when they stopped for the cows.
‘Moo,’ sighs Betty sadly.
That’s what she did to get rid of the cows. She had energy inside her then. Mr Eden taps his finger faster. He only stops when Mrs Eden puffs over to them, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief and saying something about the wind making her tear ducts leak. Mr Eden drives back to Hotel Eden. No one speaks.
The whole of St Steele crams into the hotel for the funeral reception. Betty’s dress is too tight and the fabric is scratchy. She crawls upstairs on her hands and knees and pulls on her nightdress instead. She considers lying down but she can’t: Mother lay on that bed last. Her silhouette is probably still printed on the sheet.
Betty slopes back downstairs and finds herself by the front door as more visitors pour inside. Some of them look at her with soft eyes but no one speaks to her. Mrs Eden has probably told lies about her to scare them, just as she did about Mother.
Some years ago, she had overheard Mrs Eden saying that Mother was a dangerous man-eater. When Betty argued that Mother was absolutely not a cannibal, Mrs Eden had turned very pink and shooed her out of the big room. Betty hadn’t told Mother; upset Mother made her upset too.
She watches the mill of bodies. She thinks that she sees Mary among them so sh
e wriggles through the crowd and hides herself in the kitchen. It is safest there, with the back door as an escape route and the utensil drawer full of weapons. Agatha Christie would love that utensil drawer; she could kill someone in sixteen different ways using Mother’s rolling pin alone. Betty counts the ways.
Some of the visitors squeeze into the kitchen too so Betty settles herself in the larder. She sits on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest and tracing her finger in a pool of spilled brown sugar. She draws out Mother’s name and Gallagher’s name and the giblet baby’s shape. Then she closes her eyes and counts the days since Mother went off. There are twelve of them at least. Yes, time has skidded on, the kitchen floor has dried, someone has even swept up the broken glass, but Mother is still gone. Betty hugs her knees tighter and that moment the larder door swings open.
‘What are you doing in here?’ says Mrs Eden. ‘Come into the big room. And put on some clothes for goodness’ sake, or you’ll catch a death.’
‘Let her be,’ says Mr Eden in a hushed voice, appearing behind her.
‘It’d be nice if you served the teas,’ continues Mrs Eden.
Betty doesn’t answer.
‘Don’t be rude,’ snaps Mrs Eden.
‘Where’s my letter?’
‘What letter?’
‘The sorry letter from Mother.’
‘I don’t know anything about a letter.’
‘Do the policemen have it? I want my sorry letter.’
‘Shush, Betty.’
‘Ease off her, love,’ whispers Mr Eden.
‘Don’t indulge her.’
‘But the poor girl’s in shock.’
‘It’s her mother’s funeral and it’s a daughter’s duty to serve the guests.’
A daughter’s duty? Betty struggles to her feet. She walks into the big room and makes for the table in the corner where the tea set is laid out. She stands behind the table and when people ask, she pours tea into their cups without looking at them. When they don’t ask, she still pours it. The saucers fill with tea too and so does the dish of wafers. The tablecloth and the cuff of her nightdress drink up the tea too. Mr Eden takes the teapot from Betty and guides her back upstairs.
‘What you need is a good night’s sleep,’ he says.
‘What about a daughter’s duty?’
He watches her sadly as though he is about to cry, as though this is his mother’s funeral. He pulls back the bed covers for her. She looks hard but Mother’s shape isn’t there. Mrs Eden has probably ironed it away.
‘I haven’t had a funeral for my giblet,’ she sighs.
He lingers in the bedroom doorway still watching her. It is the way she supposes a father might watch his child, but she has never had a father so it is difficult to tell. He comes back in and tucks a loose bedsheet under the mattress, making her warm finally.
Mother used to warm her too: in the thick of winter, she would tuck the blankets tight around Betty and position the hot water jar at the foot of the bed, all the while singing the words ‘Betty boo boo’ and blowing her warm wine breath over Betty’s face. It was comforting, apart from the time Mother forgot to bung the hot water jar. Boiling water sloshed out and scalded Betty’s feet. Her feet blistered and she had to hobble around Hotel Eden for a fortnight after that – she couldn’t even manage the walk to school – but none of that mattered because at least Mother had tried.
‘You can stay here for as long as you like. This is your home,’ says Mr Eden.
She thanks him.
‘Nonsense, don’t thank me, Betty boo.’
She winces. Don’t call me that, she wants to say. It is the name Mother gave her; it is disloyal to Mother to let anyone else use it. It is also all she has left of Mother, now that her smell and her shape have dissolved, but Mr Eden is trying to be kind so she says nothing.
Mr Eden closes the door. The bedroom is dim. Long shadows stretch across the walls. Mother’s smell returns faintly, but only her wine breath and not her perfume. Betty sits bolt upright.
‘Mother?’
There is no answer. Mother must be here, invisible and listening to her.
‘You didn’t need to say sorry,’ she whispers.
Maybe Mother is an angel now; angels know everything. Betty can’t stay in here. She closes the bedroom door firmly behind her and is about to cross the landing when her eyes fall on Gallagher’s old bedroom. She touches his door handle. It is cold. It hits her: what if he never comes back? No, he must. He will. They are sweethearts. It is his duty.
She remembers her own duty and tiptoes back downstairs. She catches sight of her wild hair and crumpled nightdress in the hall mirror, but there isn’t time to tidy herself up or she will miss her duty, so she heads straight for the big room. She pauses at the door, gathering the strength to push through the crowd to the tea table. Mrs Eden is laughing with the greengrocer’s wife. Joan is giggling and wagging her finger at Richard. Betty is furious. She wants to scream at them all to scrub the smiles from their faces because Mother has gone. But then she spots him.
He is standing alone, framed by Mrs Eden’s head and the fishmonger’s shoulder. His mouth is moving in slow careful circles but, when she strains to hear his voice above the others, it sounds like long underwater burps, the way she supposes the devil himself must speak. His slitty eyes have long bags beneath them and he has sprouted even more grey hairs since she saw him last. He turns and meets her eye.
‘Him,’ she finds herself bellowing.
She points at Mr Paxon. Everyone falls silent and looks at her.
‘It was him,’ she shouts. ‘He killed them all.’
She waits for someone to grab him by the throat, but they are staring at her instead: they are staring at her as if she has blue scaly skin, or as if she has morphed into Mother, or as if she herself is the killer, while Mr Paxon stands there calmly, slurping his tea.
Chapter 18
Fifty years later
‘You must leave,’ says John Gallagher again.
Mary listens to the nurse’s shrinking footsteps. The room becomes unbearably hot. It stifles her. Heat seems to radiate from the walls and permeate the carpet. She presses her forehead to the window and lets the cold soak into her skull and through to her brain. She wills it to run down her whole body and freeze every nerve because she hasn’t a clue what to do or say next.
I’ve come about Nigel Forbes and what we did all those years ago. That’s what she should say. Do you think about it often – do you regret it?
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she says instead, turning away from the window. ‘Or a newspaper? I could fetch one.’
She hopes he will agree to the newspaper, it will give her time to gather herself, but he just looks quizzically at her. His right eyebrow lifts. She remembers that eyebrow, the funny wormy one with a life of its own that leapt up and down and crawled over his face like a caterpillar while the other stayed still. But she shouldn’t think of him with such familiarity.
‘I’ll just dry those,’ she says, nodding at the pair of damp glasses that the nurse left behind.
She walks around the bed towards them.
‘You’re not here to dry cups or buy newspapers,’ says John suddenly, as though he has only just registered what she said. He pauses to choose his final word with care. ‘Mary.’
She blushes.
‘You don’t need to call me that.’
‘That’s who you are now, isn’t it?
It doesn’t sound accusatory or probing or even like a question, just a hard bald fact.
‘Come and sit here,’ he continues softly.
She doesn’t want to sit; it is difficult enough to stand still. She has to concentrate very hard because, if her legs had their way, she would be bouncing and fizzing and leaping around the room. She pushes the tea towel inside the second glass and twists it.
‘Sit down,’ he says again. ‘Let’s talk properly.’
She ignores him and pushes on. Then both glasses are dry and t
here is nothing to busy her hands with, so she folds the tea towel once, twice, a third time. She glances at the winged armchair that he wanted her to sit on and wonders whether his wife sits on it often, whether he has a wife at all. She had asked Holly to look up his name on her computer once, before she had found out about his dementia from that newspaper letters page, but Holly had forgotten and she hadn’t asked again in case Jerry found out. She sighs and perches on the edge of the armchair.
‘There,’ says John with a small sigh, as though it were he who had sat down.
‘I came here about—’ she begins. ‘You might remember that years ago I…’
‘Tell me something about your life,’ he says gently.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘About your life now.’
Her hands tremble. She really could be fifteen again, for was that not what he asked her on the seafront at St Ives all those years ago? The day slides back to her with surprising clarity, or a version of it that has prettied itself with time. Everything is sharply pixelated: the sea is a bright turquoise, the seagull’s feathers are flecked white and grey, and he looks down the lens of her camera with the same hypnotic expression that he wears now.
‘I’d like to know a little about your family, your work, what interests you.’
‘I’m married,’ she finds herself saying. ‘My husband Jerry works in advertising; he’ll be retiring soon. I’ve a daughter, Cath. She lives around the corner with my son-in-law and granddaughter, Holly. She’s going to university in September. She wants to be a historian; she’d be good at it too.’
He smiles at that.
‘An academic,’ he says.
‘She’s very bright but not at all precocious,’ says Mary, faster. ‘She even won a competition for her essay on Etruscan art, of all things. And only seventeen. You’d like her, I think. And you’d like Jerry. He’s… he’s Jerry.’
She stops. She has betrayed herself. How would she know who or what a stranger would like? She knows him nowhere but in her head. She has never known him.
‘I’m not here about me,’ she says briskly. ‘You’re right, this isn’t about pleasantries.’