‘I don’t know.’ The words left my mouth too quickly and she frowned at me.
Jack was still studying the mantelpiece. ‘It’s breaking and entering, although there’s no sign of him doing either.’
‘That might be because he’s still in here.’ I stood, but my legs felt as though they hadn’t agreed to go along with it, and so I lowered myself back again. ‘Perhaps he hasn’t left yet. Check the other rooms. Make sure.’
I could hear Jack walking around the flat and opening doors.
Elsie was watching me. I tried to find something in her eyes, something my fear could lean on. The second thing about Elsie is that she always knows the right thing to say, and I waited for her to say it. ‘Everything’s going to be fine, Florence,’ she said. ‘If it is him, then at least he’s made his first move. We’ve been through worse, haven’t we?’
I nodded. We had. Much, much worse.
‘But if it is him,’ I said, ‘there’s one thing that really bothers me.’
‘What’s that?’
I waited for a moment before I answered. ‘Who on earth did they bury in 1953?’
My question still sat between us when Jack reappeared. He said, ‘All clear,’ and pulled out one of the dining chairs.
‘Perhaps you’ll believe all the other things now,’ I said. ‘Perhaps instead of doubting me, you’ll help me find some evidence before they send me off to Greenbank.’
‘No one has ever doubted you.’ Elsie reached out, but I held my hands on my knee.
‘The sandwiches!’ I’d only just remembered. ‘Do you believe me about the sandwiches now? There are some in my bag,’ I said. ‘Get rid of them. Wrap them in something and put them in the dustbin, before they hurt someone.’
Jack reached over for my bag, which sat at the far end of the dining table. ‘This?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You do it. Just get them out of there. I don’t want to touch them.’
He opened the bag and stared inside.
‘Well, go on then,’ I said.
He still stared. When he finally did reach in, he didn’t pull out any sandwiches. I knew what it was going to be; I knew what it was going to be before I even saw it.
It was the elephant.
I sat in the armchair with a cup of sweet tea Jack made before he left, and which had almost certainly grown cold, because I could see slivers of brown clinging to the sides and trying to escape the china. There was a brush of sweat on my forehead, and I knew there was the ladder in my tights from catching my leg against the sideboard, because I could feel it grow each time I moved. There was still an energy in the flat, though, wandering around and looking for somewhere to land. We were alone, Elsie and me, and the room had grown dark around us. My eyes struggled to find the edges of the furniture amongst all the shadows, and the shapes changed as the day disappeared.
‘Shall I put the light back on?’ I heard her say.
I didn’t reply. I’d switched the lamp off the minute Jack went. I’ve no idea why, it just felt safer somehow. Less obvious.
‘How about the wireless, then?’ she said. ‘Do you fancy a bit of company?’
I couldn’t turn my mouth into an answer.
‘You used to love music. The first time you came round for tea, we had a conversation about music. My mother was there, do you remember?’
I looked at her.
‘My other sisters were with us, too. You remember Dot and Gwen?’
‘I remember their faces,’ I said.
She smiled at me, and I smiled back.
‘That’s all that matters, Florence. Why don’t we try three things? Why don’t we start with Gwen?’
After a little while of trying, I could feel my mind untether itself and drift back.
‘Spent all her time in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘Always knitting. She knitted you a scarf, didn’t she? And Gwen was the only one who could get through to your mother, most of the time.’
‘She was, she was. Now what about Dot?’
‘Never stopped moving. Always busy. Always involving herself in something. Didn’t she get married and move away?’
‘She did,’ Elsie said. ‘You’re doing really well, Florence.’
‘It’s the names.’ I frowned into my hands.
‘Names don’t really matter, do they?’
‘I don’t suppose so. I’ve just never been very good at them.’
I haven’t. My mind has never enjoyed holding on to them. Even when I was younger, I would be told a name and straight away it would slip through the gaps and disappear. Elsie had so many sisters, it confused me right from the outset.
Elsie, Gwen, Beryl and Dot.
It sounded like Elsie’s mother had been working her way through a piano keyboard.
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.
Perhaps there would have been an F next, but Elsie’s father left for the war and returned as a telegram on the mantelpiece. Her mother was convinced they’d made a mistake, and she would roll her eyes and tut at the telegram, as though it was deliberately trying to trick her into early widowhood.
‘How can they be sure it’s him?’ she said to her sister, and to us, and more often than not to an empty room. ‘How do they know?’
No one had the answer, even though they looked very hard for it in the ceiling and the floor, and in each other’s eyes. No one ever looked straight at Elsie’s mother. It was too dangerous. It was like spinning a wheel and not knowing quite what you were going to get. And all the time, the telegram sat in the letter rack on the mantelpiece and watched. But whether Elsie’s father was dead or not, there would now only ever be four of them and they all had to accept the fact there was never going to be an F. At least, not until Elsie found me on the bus. The first time she brought me home for tea, we all sat around the kitchen table and she shouted, ‘We have an F! We have a Favour!’
Everyone was silent. Even her mother.
‘We’re a keyboard now, don’t you see? Every good boy deserves favour.’ She pointed to each of us in turn.
‘What about me?’ said her mother. ‘Where do I fit in?’
Her name was Isabel.
‘I don’t know,’ Elsie said. Beryl glared across the table. Even Gwen shook her head very slightly.
‘And Charlie. What about your father? What will he say when he hears about all this?’
We all looked at the letter rack in silence. I didn’t dare swallow, because I knew the noise it made would be loud enough to wake the dead. Even her father (if her father was, in fact, actually dead).
Instead, I pushed away the piece of Victoria sponge I was eating, dabbed at my mouth with a napkin and said, ‘Well, Mrs Colecliffe. Charlie is a C, and Middle C is the most important note on a keyboard. Without it, none of the other notes would even exist.’
Her mother beamed across the kitchen table. And from that moment on, everyone was nice to me.
I watched Elsie, now, as my mind told me the story.
‘Every good boy deserves favour,’ I said. ‘Your mother liked me, didn’t she?’
‘Of course she did. We all did.’
‘Dot and Gwen?’ I said. ‘They liked me?’
‘You know they did.’
‘Even Beryl?’
There was a pause, and she knew I’d heard it. ‘As much as Beryl ever liked anyone,’ she said.
I traced the pattern on the armchair with my finger. Backwards and forwards along the lines, always trying to find the place I started from. ‘I think about Beryl a lot,’ I said. ‘All the living we’ve done since. All that life she never got to have.’
The air left Elsie’s chest, but no words left with it.
My finger still followed the pattern, and I found my way back to the beginning.
‘We can’t let him get away with it,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to prove who he is, before it’s too late.’
6.39 p.m.
They need a letter, the council. There’s a new Basildon Bond in the sideboard, and as soon as I’m back on my feet, I’m going to pull it out and write one.