“I could do with a nice read, you know? Something relaxing. The kids are really sulky at the moment. And Paul is, well...” She trailed her words away. “You’re lucky, not having anyone else to worry about.”
“It might be nice to have someone,” Martha mused, as she surveyed her bags and boxes and the dragon’s head. “What were you going to say, about Paul?”
“Oh. Nothing,” Lilian mumbled. “I thought you liked living on your own, that’s all.”
Martha chewed the side of her thumbnail and didn’t reply.
Lilian and Paul had been married for twenty years. In the same year they walked down the aisle, Martha moved back into the family home to help their parents out. Only intending it to be for a short while, they grew more and more reliant on her. She’d ended up caring for them for fifteen years, until they died.
Sometimes, she still glimpsed her father in his armchair, his face set in a wax-like smile, as he requested his slippers, his supper, the TV channel switching over, his copy of The Times, a glass of milk (warm, not hot).
Her mother liked to crochet small patches, which she made into scarves and bedspreads for a local residential home. Martha’s later memories of her were inherently linked to Battenberg-like pink-and-yellow woolly squares.
Lilian helped out sporadically, when her other family commitments permitted, but her efforts amounted to bringing magazines, or reams of wool, around for Mum. She’d sit with Dad and read his beloved encyclopedias with him. She, Will and Rose might set up a family game of Monopoly, or watch Mastermind on TV.
The day-to-day domestics, the help with hair washing, the administering of painkillers, trips to the doctors, outings for coffee mornings to the church, cooking and cleaning fell to Martha.
“Now, why are you calling?” Lilian asked.
Martha reached out for the book. It looked smaller now, less significant. “There was a parcel waiting for me at the library tonight. It was propped against the door.”
“My Cecelia Ahern?”
“No. It’s an old book, of fairy stories, I think.” Martha read the dedication again, her nerve endings buzzing. “Um, I think it belonged to Zelda.”
“Zelda?”
“Our grandmother.”
“I know who she is.”
An awkward silence fell between them, so thick Martha felt like she could touch it. Images dropped into her head of sitting at the garden edge with Zelda, their heels kicking against the cliff. “Don’t you ever wonder what happened to her?”
“We know. She died over thirty years ago.”
“I’ve always felt that Mum and Dad didn’t tell us the full story, about her death—”
“Bloody hell, Martha.” Lilian’s voice grew sharp. “We were just kids. We didn’t need a coronary report. You’re far too old for fairy tales, anyway.”
Martha’s shoulders twitched at her sister’s spiky reaction. You’re never too old for stories, she thought. “I’ll bring it to the library tomorrow,” she said, her voice growing smaller. “If you’re passing by, you can take a look. There’s a dedication inside, but there’s something odd about it.”
Lilian didn’t say anything.
Martha added, “It’s the date—”
The phone receiver rattled. “I have to go now.”
“But, the book—”
“Look,” Lilian said, “just stick it on a shelf and forget about it. You’ve got loads of other stuff to do. I’ll see you soon, okay?” And she hung up.
Martha stared at the phone receiver and listened to the hum of the dialing tone. Her sister sounded more stressed than ever and she hoped she wasn’t overdoing things. She made a mental note to finish Will’s trousers as soon as possible, to try to put a smile back on Lilian’s face.
Snapping the battered book shut, she told herself that her sister was probably right. After all, she was the successful sibling, the one with the good job, luxury bungalow and two great kids. And Martha had pressing things to do, like feeding Horatio’s fish and watering his plants. The school might want the dragon’s head back soon.
She reached out for her Wonder Woman notepad and opened it up, and red dots of lateness seemed to glare at her like devil’s eyes. She should select what to do next, complete the task and mark it off with a neat green tick. But her thoughts kept creeping back to the book. She couldn’t stop her brain ticking with curiosity and disbelief.
Although her nana might have written the words and dated the dedication, there was something terribly wrong.
Because Zelda died in February 1982.
Three years before the message and date in the little book.
3
Beauty and the Beast
Betty, 1974
Betty had recently switched from buying best butter to margarine. She could feel the floorboards through the small hole in the sole of one of her beige court shoes, and her favorite navy polka-dot skirt was missing a button. She now snipped her own wavy bobbed hairstyle into shape.
It made sense, to her, that she should look for a part-time job. But her husband, Thomas, was a traditional man. He believed that he should be the breadwinner and that Betty should look after their home and two daughters, Martha and Lilian. It meant that money was often in short supply in the Storm household.
Thomas also preferred the girls to read educationally. He had recently acquired a set of twenty encyclopedias from a work colleague, and he liked the family to look through them together in the evening.
So Betty didn’t tell him about the new book she’d bought. With its handsome forest-green cover and gold embossed lettering, she hadn’t been able to resist the copy of Beauty and the Beast. She had loved the story when her mother, Zelda, used to read it to her, and she was sure that Martha would love it, too. Sometimes, it really was easier to keep things to herself.
Thomas had returned home early from work that afternoon and was taking a nap in his chair in the dining room. His copy of The Times was spread out on the lap of the black suit trousers he wore for his accountancy job, and which he also wore outside work. The room smelled of the freesias he bought for her each Friday.
Betty studied his face to make sure he was definitely asleep. Straining to reach up on top of the kitchen cupboard, she slid the book from its hiding place and tucked the pink-and-white paper bag under her arm.
She trod softly around her husband, and as her skirt brushed his fingers, he gave a loud snort. Betty froze on the spot, her body stiff. She deftly moved the book behind her back and held her breath, waiting.
The cuckoo clock ticked and Thomas emitted a small snore. Betty held her pose a while longer before she crept out of the room and closed the kitchen door behind her.
“Are you okay, Mum?” Martha raised her head. She lay on the rug on her stomach, scribbling down a story in her notepad.
“Of course, darling,” Betty said, with a smile. “Just trying not to wake your dad.” She stood and gazed at her two daughters for a few moments. They made her heart swell, and she marveled at how different they looked from each other.
Lilian was asleep, curled up on the chair. At four years old, she hadn’t yet outgrown her afternoon naps. Her fine blond hair shone like a halo in the afternoon sun and she had peach fuzz for skin.
Martha was the opposite. Her unruly hair never shone or lay flat, and Betty braided it into a fat plait to try to keep it under control. Four years older than Lilian, Martha loved to lose herself in reading and writing stories. Lilian was more pragmatic, like her father. She listened to fairy tales with a furrowed brow, announcing that Cinderella’s glass slippers would break if she danced in them and that mice could not turn into horses.
Betty stooped down and ran her hand down Martha’s plait, giving the end a playful tug. She slid the book out of its bag and presented it on the flats of her hands.
A smile spread across Martha’s face. “Is it for me?” she asked.