by Sarah Jasmon
A faint rustle from behind made her turn. It was a latecomer, sliding cautiously into a seat right at the back. Charlie had never seen her before, but gained the impression of a solid, older woman, her face shaded by the brim of her best hat. There was something comforting about her presence. Then the minister was asking them to read something from the service sheet, and Charlie felt Eleanor give her a reproving look. By the time she looked round again, the woman had gone.
SIX
Eleanor passed on the news that the house was to be sold a week to the day after the funeral. They were in a café (My treat, we could both do with some time out), sitting in silence, watching the rain batter down on the windows. Charlie was wrapped up in what on earth she was going to do next. Travel again? She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to jump back into that. Anyway, she’d need to save, unless she waited until she and Max sorted out what was happening to their house. And she’d need somewhere to live in the meantime. She stirred at the froth of her coffee, wondering what Eleanor was about to say. Maybe she’d be expecting her to volunteer to care for Hugo. In the general weirdness of the past month it had become almost normal to share the space with him. Though ‘share’ was the wrong word. With that unspoken pact, they still inhabited it at different times. At least, she assumed they had the same intention.
‘How are things with you and Max?’
Charlie put down her spoon. That wasn’t the opening she’d expected. Eleanor’s tone was casual, which usually meant she was hiding something. ‘He knows I’m here.’ She’d had to call him in the end, to tell him about Britta. ‘I told him not to come.’ The words sounded unnecessarily defiant. He’d offered to drive up, of course he had. He was well brought up, after all, knew how you were supposed to behave. He’d sounded reluctant, though, and Charlie had been quick to say the funeral was just for close family. She didn’t want to think he was feeling sorry for her.
‘Did he say I spoke to him?’ Eleanor fiddled with the sugar, lining the little paper sachets up in alternate colours. ‘I wanted him to know he’d be welcome at the funeral.’
‘Oh.’ Charlie wasn’t sure how she felt, about Eleanor talking to him, about Max not mentioning the offer. ‘At least he knows we’re all on the same page then.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Eleanor changed her pattern to a zigzag, then scooped them all up and tipped them back into the bowl. ‘I should have checked with you. I always liked Max, you know.’
Charlie said nothing. This clearly wasn’t what they were here for.
‘Do you know what’s happening between you two yet?’ She glanced up. Charlie could feel her face closing in, becoming defensive, blocked. ‘Sorry, none of my business. Look, what exactly are you planning next?’
The question didn’t come as a surprise. It was what Charlie had been trying to work out for weeks. ‘I don’t know.’ Charlie let her head fall back. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’
Eleanor drank the last of her coffee and pushed the cup to one side. ‘We’ve had an offer for the house. I had a call today. Someone wants to buy, cash. Had his eye on it for years, apparently.’ She twiddled with the handle, turning the cup from side to side.
‘Oh. Right.’ Don’t make it all about you, Charlie was telling herself. She needed to see it as a positive, a nudge from the universe telling her it was time to jump. ‘A good offer?’
‘Pretty good. The estate agents keep saying we could hold out for more, but to be honest, I don’t think anyone’s got the energy to play games.’ Estate agents. Everyone else knowing. How had she missed this going on? Eleanor was still talking. ‘The thing is, it could happen within a couple of weeks. The buyer’s very keen, and without a mortgage of course …’ She waited, presumably to give Charlie the chance to nod wisely at this piece of luck. ‘Dad’ll come and stay with us, the girls can share for a bit.’
‘That’ll be tight.’ Eleanor’s house was a small stone terrace, bought before they had children. Don’t be upset. You have no right to be upset. You don’t even like the place. Except she should have been asked what she felt. That was fair to think. She bit down on her mouth, lips drawn in between her teeth. After a moment, she was able to carry on. ‘Is there even enough space for two beds in Martha’s room?’
‘Well, the thing is—’ The change in Eleanor’s tone made Charlie look up. There were spots of colour in her cheeks that hadn’t been there before. ‘It’ll only be for a few weeks. We’ve put an offer in on a house, a bigger one, with an annexe for Dad.’
‘So much going on.’ She felt the urge to get out, to walk away from it all. But that didn’t work, did it? Look where it had got her last time. ‘It’s a great idea,’ she said instead, trying to inject enough enthusiasm into her voice. It sounded like a terrible idea. Was it her job to point this out? ‘Are you sure? It’s, well …’ She shook her head. ‘It’s a surprise, that’s all.’
‘I would have said something before, but we thought we should wait until it all went through.’ Eleanor spoke quickly. There was an edge to her words, as if she’d been expecting more of a fight. ‘We really don’t have enough room at the moment. The girls will be needing more space, a garden. It’ll solve all sorts of problems. And we’ll make sure it’s reflected in Dad’s will. You won’t lose out.’
Charlie waved that away. She really didn’t want to think about money. The obligation, the responsibility. And there was something else nudging at the edges of her mind: that not benefitting from the house, from anything Hugo had to offer, would give her a sense of freedom. ‘I’d better get a move on with finding somewhere to live. Job hunting as well.’ She caught sight of Eleanor’s face. ‘It’s OK, I need to do it.’
‘It’s not that.’ Eleanor sounded impatient. ‘There’s something I should—’ Her phone began to buzz, leaping along the tabletop in little sideways hops. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, what now?’ She turned away as she answered, her words clipped. ‘Yes, it’s me. What is it?’ There was a pause, and Charlie saw her sister’s eyes squeeze shut. Annoyance or tears? ‘Are you sure? Why? It’s just that I’m here with … Oh, never mind.’ She stopped to listen to whatever was being said at the other end. Her voice became tighter still. ‘I said never mind. But why can’t you—?’ More words, unsatisfactory ones if the tautness of her mouth was anything to go by. After a minute more, she ended the call and stuffed the phone into her bag. ‘Look, I’m sorry, we’ll have to go. Jon was supposed to collect the girls today, but something’s come up at work.’
The house sale was agreed, and Eleanor descended into a frenzy of planning and sorting. And it was all right. Charlie found that she could pack and sort and nod at ideas without it meaning very much. She had no connection, not to here, not to anywhere. Whenever Eleanor asked her how she was getting on, she made some reference to looking for vacancies – in jobs and housing – but in actual fact she couldn’t make herself do anything about it. Mostly it felt as if she was pushing against a wall of lethargy. How did you make a decision like that, of where you wanted to go and what you wanted to do? And if there was no need to go anywhere in particular, the choice of everywhere made the decision impossible. If she thought about it too hard, the impossibility of ever finding anything was too much. It was easier to shut off, to refuse to accept delivery. Then there came moments of absolute calm, when she could feel with certainty that something would turn up. It wasn’t something she could explain, so she kept on nodding at Eleanor’s enquiries. Yes, there were some possibilities. Yes, she was sure she’d find something by the time they had to leave.
They were into the beginning of April, and Charlie had been back home for a month, the longest month of her life. A timeless month, outside the bounds of any calendar. Charlie had taken a carload of bags to the charity shop a couple of villages along. There was a surprising amount to get rid of, considering the deliberate minimalism of the house, and they were trying to spread it over a number of destinations. It was her first visit to this particular shop, anyway, and a string of bells chimed as she pu
shed open the door. A woman came out from a back room. She seemed slightly familiar, though that happened to Charlie a lot, half recognizing a face without being able to put a name or connection to it. She hadn’t wanted to get involved with any catching up or recollections, though, and generally found a blank response made most people decide they didn’t know her after all.
‘I’ve got some donations,’ she said now, holding up the two binbags she’d brought from the car. ‘There are some more outside as well.’
‘Lovely, thank you so much.’ The words came out pat, a well-rehearsed response. ‘I’ll take them to the back.’ She took one in each hand, dropping them inside the open doorway of the stock-room and coming back for the next load almost before Charlie was inside.
There was a rack of reduced items at the rear of the shop, and Charlie changed direction just as she was about to leave. The big woollen jumper she’d found on the first night was still her only warm layer, and a month or so of continuous wear was leaving its mark. She began to browse through the hangers of assorted knitwear, aware of the woman’s eyes on her. What did she think, that Charlie was going to sneak something under her top? Without thinking too hard, Charlie unhooked an oversized sweatshirt and a long, chunky cardigan and took them to the till. The woman took some time to examine the labels for errors before entering the information in the ledger open before her. The figures were typed into the till with heavy presses of her forefinger. Charlie idly noted the heavy brown colouring of the woman’s coarse, bobbed hair, the powder thickening the lines of her skin. She had reading glasses with gold-flecked plastic frames hanging from a beaded cord, lifting them in front of her face to check the till display before letting them drop. She put on a professional smile. ‘Seven pounds ninety-eight, please.’
Charlie felt in her pocket for her purse. It was made from faded black cotton faced with the bright geometrics of Thai embroidery. As Charlie unfolded it, fiddling with the zip, which was inclined to jam, the woman spoke.
‘Aren’t you Britta’s daughter?’
The zip came open with a jerk and a handful of coins rolled out onto the counter. ‘Yes.’ Charlie let the money settle. It wasn’t the first time someone had asked about her mother, of course. There’d been the woman at the Post Office, one or two awkward neighbours who’d clearly felt under obligation to say something.
‘It was such a shock,’ the woman said, helping to collect the coins together. ‘She was such a great help in setting up the shop. She talked of you often.’
‘Sorry, she worked here?’ Charlie was too startled to cover up her surprise.
‘Oh yes, every Wednesday afternoon.’ The woman stopped, looking over to the door as if expecting to see Britta walk through. ‘I know it was difficult for her, getting away, but she never missed a Wednesday. Until the end of last year, that is. She stopped coming then.’ Her voice dropped so that her next question was more of a whisper. ‘I did wonder if that was when she started feeling poorly?’
‘I don’t know. I was away.’ Charlie didn’t even know that her mother had been helping in the shop, let alone how she’d been feeling. Because she didn’t know anything, had never tried to know anything. A surge of guilt made the words come out sounding clipped and offended.
‘Of course you were.’ The woman reached across and touched Charlie’s hand. ‘It’s a shock, losing your mother, whatever your age,’ she said. ‘And so suddenly. It must be very difficult for you.’
Charlie felt her own fingers tighten on the woman’s hand, aware of the smooth slip of rose-scented cream, the pressure of crowded rings. For a moment, it was like holding on to a rescuer, and she suddenly wanted to blurt it out, how she couldn’t cry, how none of it seemed real. And had her mother really talked about her?
‘I hear the house has been sold?’ The woman dipped her head, inviting confidence. ‘To a man from London, they were saying.’
For a second, Charlie felt almost hypnotized into answering. Then the shop’s bells gave their tremble of ringing as someone else entered, and she slipped her hand away. ‘I’m not sure where he’s from, to be honest. I’ve not met him.’ That was probably still too much information. The story would be going around that the younger girl didn’t want the house to go, that there was something fishy about the buyer. Gathering up the jumpers, she gave a quick smile, nodding also at the newly arrived customer. Was that really true about her mother coming to help in the shop, or had it been a ploy to get information? As she left, she glanced back to see the two of them watching her go, their heads nodding. Would it be odd for them, going through the donations? Maybe they’d take keepsakes for themselves, or put together a memorial rack, hung with the softly neutral layers and textured scarves. Charlie almost wished they’d had a bonfire, with its sense of a cleansing ritual. It was only as she got into the car that she realized where she’d seen the woman before. At the back of the chapel, wearing a hat.
The weather since the funeral had been unpredictable, with savage episodes of rain sweeping through without warning. One caught her as she got out of the car, and she came in shaking herself like a wet dog. Martha and Poppy were sitting at the kitchen table in unusual harmony, surrounded by a litter of paper and felt-tips. Martha gave her a small wave. Poppy didn’t look up. In here, things looked much as they always had. In the rest of the house, gaps were spreading, meeting up, taking over.
‘Where is everyone?’ Charlie asked, crossing the room to make an exploratory scan for any sounds in the house. She stopped behind Martha’s chair. ‘This is good. Is it the pony you were riding last week?’
‘They’re in there.’ Martha answered her first question with a roll of her eyes as she tilted her head towards the living room. She was still in her school uniform, her plaits in their end-of-the-day state of disarray. Charlie tucked some of the loose strands back in as she listened. ‘Talking and talking. Mummy says there’s still a lot to sort out.’ Martha paused for a moment, adding a ribbon to the pony’s tail before looking up with a conspiratorial grin. ‘Stay with us? We’ve got chocolate fingers to keep us quiet.’
Charlie gave her a hug. ‘I might take you up on that in a minute, but I’d better see what’s going on.’ She reached for one of the biscuits. ‘Make sure Poppy isn’t eating them all.’ Poppy, her face smeared with chocolate, continued to ignore them.
Eleanor was sitting by the coffee table, a handful of pictures fanned out on the surface in front of her. There was a shoebox on the floor as well, holding more loose photographs. Jon slouched on the sofa next to her. He was in his work clothes, a crumpled suit jacket draped over the back of the sofa and his tie loosened around his open shirt collar. As Charlie came in, she caught him looking at Eleanor, something very close to contempt in his expression. He shifted his gaze to her as she moved towards them, the look replaced by an ironic smirk. It made her feel oddly complicit.
‘Where did you find these?’ she asked, avoiding Jon’s eyes. She squatted down next to Eleanor, picking a photograph out of the box. It was from Eleanor and Jon’s wedding, a snap rather than a formal picture, taken just as the family group was breaking apart. Charlie’s main memory of the day was being constantly nagged by Jon’s mother. Catherine – was that her name? – had done most of the planning, clearly appalled by the lack of interest from Eleanor’s parents. Charlie had been sixteen, torn between disdain for anything as stupid as a wedding and a hidden, guilty pleasure in how she looked. Her bridesmaid’s dress had been deep raspberry, its chiffon pleats clingy and sophisticated, or so she’d thought then. The photo had caught her scowling at something Jon’s mother was saying in her ear. Behind them, Eleanor was trying to herd everyone into position and Jon was checking his watch. Hugo stood to one side, gazing into the distance as if he had nothing to do with any of it. There was no sign of Britta. Charlie, in a deliberate response to everyone’s strictures, had drunk too much champagne and ended the day snogging a tall, gangly boy, some cousin of Jon’s.
She reached for another print. The colours
seemed overly faded, the hairstyles faintly ridiculous, as if the wedding had taken place decades before. It was almost half of her lifetime ago, she realized with a jolt, the thought followed by another even more unsettling realization. If she hadn’t left last year, there would have been more wedding photos here. Her and Max, posing on the rustic bridge next to the lake. A hundred guests consuming wittily themed cocktails and canapes, crowding into the photo booth and leaving cheerful wishes in the happiness jar. Maybe that had been the problem, thinking that she could get away with such an ostentatious display.
‘Mum had them under the bed in the spare room. I’ve no idea who took them.’ Eleanor bent down to look at the picture in Charlie’s hand. It was of her in her wedding dress, her stomach a barely discernible bulge. That was why the wedding had happened so fast. Such a short time ago, yet from another world. Eleanor had lost the baby anyway. Charlie put the photo aside. They’d never talked about it, a weird hangover from a time when those sorts of things hadn’t been discussed. Though that was more of an excuse than a reason. Now, Charlie wondered, questions flitting through her mind. Had Eleanor regretted the domino effect of events? Presumably not, because she and Jon had stuck in there, and three years later Martha had come along. She picked up another shot, this one of their parents, standing stiffly side by side.
‘My God, did anyone enjoy that day?’ The words came out unbidden, and she screwed her eyes shut in mortification. It was her sister’s wedding she was talking about.
‘Jon’s mum did.’ Eleanor didn’t seem to mind. She took the photo with a shake of her head. ‘What are we going to do with them?’
‘Martha and Poppy’ll love them one day. Can you stick them in your loft for the time being?’
‘Oh no, not the loft.’ Jon’s voice was unexpected. Charlie turned in response, half registering how Eleanor took no notice. ‘Lofts should be visited on a regular basis, so that dead wood can be pruned to leave space for new growth. Isn’t that right?’ He addressed his final remark at Eleanor, in a tone that wasn’t at all amused.