Come Away With Me

by Sara MacDonald

  It has been a perfect day and I don’t want it to end. We lie on our backs under a ceiling of wavery branches that cast flickering light and shade over our prone bodies.

  ‘This is the life,’ Tom murmurs. ‘How loud and clear birds sing through closed eyelids.’

  ‘Mm,’ I say. ‘So they do.’

  My mobile phone goes. ‘Bum,’ I mutter and leave it. I thought I’d switched it off. In a second it goes again. I leave it.

  ‘I bet you can’t resist seeing who it is.’ Tom yawns and stretches.

  I root in my bag and find the phone. ‘It’s Danielle.’ I listen to the message: Jennee. Please answer. This is important. Ring me back as soon as you can. Please.

  ‘She says it’s important,’ I say, dialling.

  ‘Of course.’ I scan Tom’s face for irritation. Her phone is engaged. Danielle does have a knack of interrupting us. My phone vibrates in my hand.

  Tom winks at me. ‘Persistence pays.’

  ‘Danielle?’ I say.

  ‘Jenny, get yourself over to me as fast as you can. I am between Putney and Richmond. You can get a tube to Putney East.’ She is practically incoherent with excitement.

  ‘No way!’ I say. ‘It’s Sunday afternoon and we’re lying peacefully in the park. I’m not moving.’

  ‘Jenny, you will regret this if you do not come. Please, do this for me. You have to come and see this.’

  ‘What? What’s so important?’

  ‘I have found the perfect house for us. Believe me, I have.’

  ‘Near Putney! You must be out of your mind. Houses over there are way out of our league.’

  ‘It is the house of my godmother. She is ill and has to sell. Please come. Just trust me and come.’

  Her excitement is catching. I waver, my eyes on Tom. He is watching me, sits up and gives a mock sigh. ‘Where have you got to be? We can fetch the car.’ He takes the phone and Danielle gabbles instructions.

  Half an hour later we are swishing through the easy Sunday traffic towards Richmond. Tom has put the hood down and I have a really good feeling as we drive over Battersea bridge.

  Danielle is waiting for us like a child outside the front door of a beautiful but battered house in a wide, tree-lined road. She runs down the white steps and hugs us both. ‘Thank you. Thank you for coming.’

  Tom and I look up at the perfectly formed casement windows, at the Virginia creeper curling over the warm yellow stone. We stand quite still, our bodies close, and feel each other shiver, as if some benign ghost has moved softly between us in a moment of excited recognition.

  Inside Flo, who has also had to drop everything, is talking to Danielle’s godmother. She is an attractive Frenchwoman who has multiple sclerosis and has been forced to live on the ground floor. She has reluctantly decided to go back to Paris to be nearer her family. She pours us wine, wheels herself down into the garden. Her love for her home is obvious. I see her hands tremble as she tells us she can no longer afford such a large house. ‘It is crumbling round me. It needs much love and attention. I will only sell to those who have a feel, a respect for the space and the age of the building.’ She is watching Tom move silently in a circle taking in the house, a bemused look of enchantment on his face. She says to me wistfully, ‘Your man reminds me of a lover I once had just after the war, he too fell in love with this house at first sight. He moved in to paint it and did not leave for six years. Danielle, take them upstairs. Show them all the rooms.’

  Danielle too is watching Tom with an expression I cannot read. ’Worth leaving the park?’ she asks him in the hall.

  He grins. ‘Yes.’

  The house seems enormous after our flat. Enormous, beautiful and mind-blowing in its possibilities. The four of us walk around in a daze of longing. I think, Oh, how we could fill this light and space. I see each room transformed in my mind from the formal very French decor to light, neutral colours so that the house could just be itself and breathe and exist in its own right.

  ‘What’s the asking price?’ Tom enquires, breaking the spell.

  Danielle quails and prevaricates. ‘Well, it is cheaper because of the run-down condition and Marie will not sell to a developer. These houses rarely come on the market for long. As a business proposition…’

  ‘How much, lovey?’ Flo persists.

  Danielle whispers the price, not meeting our eyes, and our dreams hit the wonderful once polished floors with a crash. We are silent. Then she says defensively, ‘I think to myself, before I ring you both, that if something is right there is always a way to find the money. We would have to make a business plan, go to the bank. We do have a viable growing business.’ She looks at me for help.

  It is horrible for me to be the practical one for once. ‘It would be mad to stake all we have on a house, Danielle, however wonderful. We would be selling our souls to the devil. This is how people go under. We don’t have this sort of money.’ As I am saying this I feel a sort of panic at the thought of anyone else living here and Danielle hears it in my voice.

  We are standing on the landing and I move away into one of the large bedrooms on the first floor. It must have been Marie’s once. It is huge and airy, with three great windows looking out on to the wide street. From here I can see the trees in the park. I turn and look at the fireplace, still intact, and up at the intricate cornicing. The others have gone up to the second floor and the room is very still. Dust motes dance in the evening sun. Tears come to my eyes. I stand and experience a strange falling away, a sudden terrible wistful sadness that feels unbearable.

  I walk slowly out of the room and cross the landing into a smaller room that looks out on to the side of the garden. A tree makes patterns across the walls as it moves in a breeze. I sit on the small single bed. I know suddenly that I will live here and I shiver violently at the absolute knowledge of this. My mouth is dry, and I run down the stairs and ask Marie if I can get myself a glass of water. I drink it at the sink as I stare out into the trim garden.

  Behind me, Marie in her wheelchair says, ‘Someone just walked over your grave? It was the same for me when I first saw the house. You will live here, this I know.’

  I turn to see if the old lady is doing a sales pitch, but her face is gentle, sad too. ‘A house is a place where we do so much of our living and loving; play out our losses and tragedies. No wonder it absorbs into its very walls the essence of ourselves, gives out to us other lives as well as our own. I believe that the past and future are as one really, it is just that we are too feeble to comprehend time. You felt your own life for a second in the heartbeat of the house ready to absorb your life with all its joys and sorrows, did you not?’

  I stare at her and nod, choked. I look up and Tom is standing in the doorway. He holds out his hand to me. ‘Flo says will you come to the top of the house.’ He grins at the old lady. ‘I don’t think you are ever going to get us out of here, Marie.’

  She laughs. ‘Is he your lover?’ she asks provocatively, knowing full well that he is.

  Tom clamps his hand over his mouth. ‘This’, he says in an outraged voice, ‘is my dear little sister.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Marie says, wheeling herself to the fridge for more wine. ‘You make a sweet couple.’

  ‘Sweet!’ Tom mutters as we run up the stairs. ‘I’m extremely glad my soldiers can’t hear me described as one half of sweet.’

  ‘Just look at this, Jenny,’ Flo says at the top of the house. There is a huge room with a skylight in the roof, obviously once an artist’s studio.

  ‘Someone has knocked several small rooms into one,’ Danielle says. ’One of Marie’s numerous lovers, I should think.’

  I stare in wonder. ‘Workroom!’ I whisper.

  ‘Workroom,’ Flo and Danielle echo.

  We stare at each other. ‘Somehow we’ve got to do it, girls. We’ve got to have this house,’ Flo states firmly. Danielle and I grin at each other. Flo ignores us. ‘What we’ve got to do now is go away and think long and hard about how it might be p
ossible.’

  We say goodbye to Marie, who has the insouciant air of someone who knows we will be back. We make for the river. We badly need food and more wine. As Danielle and Flo talk, I am conscious that Tom has gone very quiet. Flo puts a hand on his arm. ‘Dear boy, are we boring you?’

  Tom comes from somewhere a long way away. ‘I was just thinking. I have an idea, too tenuous to voice yet, that might help you. Can I come back to you?’

  Flo laughs. ‘Indeed you can. I too have an idea, girls, that is gently percolating.’

  ‘Good,’ Danielle says. ‘I can’t decide whether we ought to ring Terry at this point for advice or if he will behave like a typical accountant and veto our mad schemes.’

  ‘Let’s leave him out until we have a business plan,’ I suggest. ‘I don’t have one single idea in my head for conjuring money from nowhere.’ I look at Danielle. ‘I suppose we could try to sell our bodies to the rich embassy Arabs at the end of the street.’

  ‘Pff!’ Danielle says dismissively. ‘What would we then do for fun?’

  THIRTY-SIX

  Danielle, who had been looking out for Ruth, opened the door before she had time to knock. ‘I was worrying that you would get lost because we are right at the end of the street. Well done, you found us.’

  They kissed twice on each cheek and Danielle led the way into a large flagstoned hall with an impressive staircase leading upstairs. As she entered Ruth felt a leap of excitement.

  Danielle took her into the room on the left of the staircase. It was a large sitting room, opulently furnished and obviously for clients. ’We will have coffee,’ she said. ‘And I will explain the set-up before we go up. Flo is joining us in a moment. I have asked our accountant to come in to go over the financial side of the business with you this afternoon. He will also explain what we are able to offer you, if you decide to work with us.’ This was Danielle in work mode. She was playing it exactly as Ruth would have done herself: straight into business. It was better for both of them to remain professional today. It made it easier for Ruth to refuse the job without embarrassment, if necessary.

  An Asian girl brought in coffee and croissants, and placed them on a round table in the window.

  ‘This is Molly,’ Danielle said. ‘She is very talented and comes to us part-time.’ Ruth smiled at her. She was extremely beautiful.

  Flo came into the room and greeted Ruth warmly. As they drank coffee, both women explained their working day to Ruth. Much was familiar. Ruth had been involved with clothes and designers for most of her working life, if not the expensive and exclusive end of the market.

  Danielle explained that she and Jenny were commissioned by chain stores and that they also designed for select shops as well as taking on private commissions. Chain stores were their bread and butter, but their growing success was in designer labels and selling abroad, mainly to Italy.

  ‘If you take the job, you will meet Paolo Antonio. We do a lot of business with him.’ She glanced at Flo. ‘We had plans to sign up with him under a new label exclusively for the Italian market. We were having lunch with Paolo Antonio that terrible day Tom and Rosie were killed. Afterwards, we lost the heart for it all.’ Danielle shrugged in her very French way. ’Pff! I am a little unsure what is going to happen now because it was Jenny’s designs he was really interested in. Even so, I still travel to Milan to sell all the time and this is one of the jobs I would hand over to you so that I can concentrate on designing. Right.’ She stood up abruptly. ’Let us go upstairs.’

  Flo was watching Ruth. ‘Would you be happy to travel, Ruth?’

  ‘I’d love it!’ Ruth said and thought she sounded too eager. She knew what they were thinking and added, ‘Adam is used to me travelling, although I haven’t done much just lately.’

  As they reached the stairs Flo said, ‘You go ahead with Danielle. I’m slow. I have to take my time up three flights of stairs these days.’

  Ruth realised as they climbed that the house was in fact two houses.

  Flo said behind her, ‘When the house next door came up for sale we knew we had to have it. It had been used by embassy staff. Only two of the downstairs rooms and the kitchen had been looked after. It was in an appalling condition, which is how we could afford it. We were limited in what we were allowed to do because the properties are listed. In the end we just took down a wall on the middle floor between the houses.’ She stopped to get her breath, leaning on the banisters. ‘We made another large workroom and offices, and two separate flats. One is Danielle’s and the other one we rent out.’

  ‘The workrooms are Flo’s domain,’ Danielle said. ‘She runs them like a matron in an English boarding school, kind but firm. Nothing escapes her. She sees everything and anyone who doesn’t pull their weight or produces shoddy work is out in a flash, with a sweet smile.’

  ‘What on earth would you know about English matrons or boarding schools?’ Flo snorted as she reached the top of the stairs.

  ‘I do not know. I pinched this saying from Tom.’

  ‘Did you, now!’ Ruth saw the fondness flit across Flo’s face for the dead man.

  Flo’s office on the third floor, with its huge noticeboard filled with orders and snips of material, was immaculately tidy. In the workroom she was introduced to each girl by name. Most were Asian, but the banter was pure cockney. The room was light and cheerful, with a kitchen and a rest area with soft sofas and a sound system if the girls wanted to play their music. Ruth was impressed.

  They left Flo and returned to the first floor. Danielle said, ’Students apply to us when they leave art colleges or university. We take on one graduate for a year. They start by making the tea and generally helping out. By the time they leave us they have learnt to put their training to practical use. We emphasise the importance of cut and of studying closely the ever changing market trends. We foster any flourishing talent and we like to make them feel part of the team and encourage them to put their own ideas forward for our commissions. They learn quickly that it is very hard work and luck before they can either expect to earn good money or be recognised.’

  Danielle guided Ruth into another sitting room. ‘The first floor here was Jenny’s and Tom’s, although we all seemed to end up here with Jenny and Rosie, especially when Tom was away.’ She turned to the window, her back to Ruth. ‘With Flo’s help we all took turns to look after Rosie. She seemed to belong to all of us.’ Danielle’s husky voice trailed away.

  ‘It must be so sad for you and Flo. You obviously loved her very much,’ Ruth said lamely.

  Danielle turned and Ruth was taken aback by the pain in her eyes. ’I adored her. I was the bad Catholic godmother who does not believe in God, but I swear at her christening to look out for her all her life. I could not do this. No one could. You know, she was the happiest child. She loved everybody. She was always laughing. She should not have died. She should not be dead.’ Danielle sat down abruptly on the sofa and her sudden anger was startling. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You are angry, Danielle?’ Ruth sat too, awkwardly, on the edge of a chair.

  ‘Yes, I am angry.’ Danielle opened her eyes. ‘If you do dangerous things, if you mix with dangerous people you do not take your child with you. You do not risk your child in even the smallest way just because you wish for a day out with her.’

  Ruth was shocked. ‘How could Tom possibly have known someone was going to put a bomb under his car? He was on leave, he wasn’t in uniform.’

  ‘He forgot to look under his car. He was trained to do this from Northern Ireland. He always looked under his car. I used to laugh at him. I used to think he was being melodramatic or doing it to impress: the tough soldier. Yet the one time he should have checked his car he did not do it. I blame him. Naturally, I blame him. He had his baby with him.’

  Ruth said quietly, ‘Danielle, a bomb can be small enough to be triggered by a mobile phone. You know this from the London bombings last year.’

  ‘A bomb is
not too small to be detected, even if it can be activated by a mobile phone.’

  ‘Tom was a human being. He wasn’t on duty. He was just having a happy day out with his daughter.’

  Danielle smiled bleakly, embarrassed suddenly. ‘I am sorry. Let us leave this conversation.’

  Flo came in. ‘Can I get you a drink, Ruth? Lunch is all ready in the kitchen.’ She darted a quick glance at Danielle and Ruth was unsure if it was a warning.

  ‘I am going to have a glass of white wine,’ Danielle said.

  ‘I’d love the same,’ Ruth said. ‘Can I use your loo?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’ Flo led her across the landing.

  There was an open door to a bedroom and Ruth glanced in. It was so obviously Jenny’s room. There was an exquisite handmade quilt on the double bed, which had all the hallmarks of Jenny. Ruth paused at the doorway.

  Flo said, ‘It’s very silly, but Danielle and I cannot shut the door on Jenny and Tom’s room. It is so final, we just can’t do it. We need to feel that Jenny will be back any moment. I think I see and hear Jenny and Tom lying in that bed with Rosie between them, giggling, as Tom sings her silly nursery rhymes.’ Flo sighed. ‘My dear, don’t take too much notice of Danielle. She is still grieving. She simply idolised Rosie and spoilt her rotten, and she did not approve of what Tom did for a living. The bathroom’s just here.’

  ‘Where did Rosie sleep?’ The words came out before Ruth could stop them.

  ‘The door next to Jenny’s room. We keep it locked. Jenny wanted everything to stay just as it was. My dear, we really mustn’t get gloomy. I’ll go and get us all a drink.’

  God, Ruth thought as she shut the bathroom door. No one can move on. It’s unhealthy. No wonder Jenny doesn’t want to come back to this house. Tom and Rosie’s ghosts are kept alive everywhere.

  ‘In here,’ Flo called as she came out of the bathroom and Ruth walked into a spacious kitchen where Flo had laid lunch on a large battered pine table.

  As they sat down Danielle lifted her glass. ‘Thank you for coming all this way to see us, Ruth.’