I had been with them in their house above the bird shop for two months and Lily Millington had been dead two weeks when I was invited one night to visit the parlour after dinner.
I was very worried as I made my approach, for I had seen, by now, what happened to children who displeased Mrs Mack. The door was ajar and I pressed my eye up close against the gap the way I had witnessed Martin do when Mrs Mack was entertaining one of her ‘business associates’.
The Captain was standing by the window overlooking the street, intoning on one of his favourite subjects, the epic winter fogs of 1840: ‘Totally white, it was; ships, like ghosts, colliding in the middle of the Thames.’ Grendel was stretched out along the sofa; Martin was hunched over, biting his nails on a three-legged footstool; and Mrs Mack, I saw at last, was ensconced in her winged armchair by the fire. For some time she had been engaged of an evening with a secret stitching project, telling anyone who asked about it to mind their own business ‘or else I’ll mind it for you’. The project, I could see, was across her lap now.
I must have pressed too hard upon the door, for it swung open with a rude creak.
‘There you are, then,’ said Mrs Mack, shooting a knowing glance at Martin and the Captain. ‘Little pitchers and their big ears.’ She dragged her needle through the fabric with a final triumphant flourish and then snapped the thread with her teeth and secured the end. ‘Come on, then, let’s have a look at you.’
I hurried to her side and Mrs Mack unravelled the item on her lap, shaking it out to present a dress, more beautiful than any I had worn since outgrowing those that my mother had kept so carefully mended when she was alive.
‘Turn around, then, girl, arms in the air. Let’s see how it fits.’
Mrs Mack undid the button at the top of my smock and then pulled it over my arms and head. It was not cold, but a shiver went through me as the fine dress slipped into place.
I couldn’t understand what was happening – why I was being granted such an extravagant and beautiful gift – but I knew better than to ask. Tiny pearl buttons snaked up the back to the nape of my neck and a wide satin sash of the palest blue ribbon was tied around my waist.
I was aware of Mrs Mack behind me, her warm laboured breaths, in and out, as she undertook to put the whole ensemble to rights. When she was finished, she spun me back to face her and said to the room, ‘Well?’
‘Aye, she’s a pretty one,’ the Captain coughed around his pipe. ‘And with that sweet little toffee voice – we never had one of them before. She’s a right proper little lady.’
‘Not yet she’s not,’ came Mrs Mack’s pleased reply. ‘But with a good bit of polish, some etiquette lessons, and a curl or two in the hair, she might just pass for one well enough. Doesn’t she look a picture, Martin?’
I met Martin’s gaze, but I did not like the way he stared.
‘What about the pockets?’ said Mrs Mack. ‘Have you found the pockets?’
I slipped my hands down the sides of the skirt, my fingertips finding the openings. They were deep – in fact, I could not find the bottoms unless I sacrificed my arms. It was like having carry bags stitched within the petticoat of my dress.
I was perplexed, but evidently all was as intended, for Mrs Mack laughed crowingly and exchanged a glance with the others. ‘There, now,’ she said, with a lick of feline satisfaction. ‘Do you see that? Do you see?’
‘There, now, indeed,’ said the Captain. ‘Well done, Mrs Mack. Well done. She looks a right treat and there’s none would suspect a thing. I predict a mighty windfall. Doesn’t everybody want to help the little girl who’s lost her way?’
My visitor stirs at last.
I do not think I have ever had a visitor so reluctant to rise and start the day as this one. Not even Juliet, who used to cling to the last few minutes when her children were already up and racing, before they finally came in to drag her to her feet.
I will move closer to the head of the bed and see whether that helps. It is as well for me to know. Some of them are insensitive and I can brush right by them and fail to raise a shiver. Others notice me without the slightest of prompts, like my little friend during the time of the bombs and planes, who reminded me so much of Pale Joe.
And so, a test. I will just shift up the bed now, nice and slowly, and see what happens.
What happens is this:
He shivers and scowls and lumbers out of bed, shooting daggers at the open window as if to punish the breeze.
Sensitive. And it is just as well to know; I will simply have to work around it.
It makes my task harder, but in some way I am pleased. My lingering vanity. It is always nice to be noticed.
He removes the earplugs that he wears when he sleeps and heads towards the bathroom.
The photograph of the two little girls has found a new home on the shelf above the small sink, and after he finishes shaving, he pauses and lifts the image from its place. He could be forgiven anything for the look that crosses his face when he studies that photo.
I heard him speaking to Sarah again last night. He was not as patient as he had been previously, saying, ‘That was a long time ago; there’s been a lot of water under the bridge,’ and lowering his voice to a slow, calm tone that was worse somehow than if he’d shouted: ‘But, Sar, the girls don’t even know who I am.’
Evidently he convinced her of something, for it was agreed that they would meet for lunch on Thursday.
After that phone call, he seemed unsettled, as if the victory were one he hadn’t planned on winning. He took a bottle of ale outside to one of the wooden picnic tables that the Art Historians’ Association has arranged on the grassy clearing near the crabapple tree, overlooking the Hafodsted Brook. On Saturdays the area is filled with visitors trying not to spill the trays of tea and scones and sandwiches that they’ve purchased from the cafe, which now fills the old barn where the schoolgirls used to stage their concerts. During the week, though, all is quiet, and he cut a lonely figure, shoulders tight and balled as he drank his beer and watched the gunmetal-grey river in the distance.
He reminded me of Leonard another summer long ago, back when Lucy was on the verge of handing over the house and its administration to the Association. Leonard used to sit in the same place, a hat low down across one eye and a cigarette permanently on his lip. He carried a kit bag rather than a suitcase, neatly packed, everything in it that he thought he would need. He had been a soldier, which explained a lot.
My young man is off to the kitchen now to start the water boiling for his cup of breakfast tea. He will move too quickly and slop some over the bench and curse at himself, but not with any real malice, and then he will take a few deep slurping gulps, leaving the rest to sit and cool in its mug, forgotten on the windowsill while he has his shower.
I want to know why he is here; what he does with the shovel and whether the photographs relate to his task. When he heads outside again, with his shovel and his brown camera bag, I will wait. But I am becoming less patient, less content to observe.
Something, somewhere, has changed. I can feel it, the way I used to be able to tell when the weather was turning. I feel it like a shift in atmospheric pressure.
I feel connected.
As if something or someone out there has flicked a switch, and although I do not know what to expect, it is coming.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Summer, 2017