The House at the End of Hope Street

Chapter Sixteen





Peggy can sense what’s happening with her girls, how events have taken a sharp downward turn, but she knows that intervening right now, especially with regards to Blake and Greer, will do no good. Sometimes a surrogate mother has to know when to step back and let her kids learn their own lessons. So instead she thinks of herself and Harry.

Whenever she misses him during the week, she arranges a rendezvous in the bathroom. A decade ago, Harry bought a flat around the corner, the bedroom window of which overlooked her bathroom. Of course the other inhabitants of Mill Road Mews, in the absence of need or invitation, can’t see the house at all. Unfortunately, buying the flat didn’t halt Harry’s campaign for cohabitation. Sometimes he hangs homemade posters in his windows with Come To Me written in letters two feet tall. On their anniversary he writes Marry Me, not bothering with a question mark, but leaving it as a statement of interest, a declaration of intention.

When she’s feeling frisky Peggy performs a little striptease at her bathroom window. Nothing very risqué—she wouldn’t want to give Harry a heart attack—just a suggestion of what’s to come on Sunday. For his part, Harry would gladly risk a coronary. What better way to go, after all? But he looks forward to these teases enormously. He is so in tune with the rhythm of Peggy’s heart that he’s always ready and waiting just before she appears at the window.

Peggy can’t now pinpoint the exact moment she must have fallen in love. Unlike Harry’s almost instantaneous tumble down the rabbit hole, her feelings crept up gradually. For their first anniversary they returned to the cinema to celebrate, watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Peggy thought the film dreadful, but refrained from saying so when she saw Harry with a tear in his eye at the end. That was the moment she first loved, although she’d refused to fully admit it to herself until now. Having never known real love before, she has taken a while to recognize it. But she recognizes it now.

—

“How are your lyrics coming along?” Stella sits cross-legged at one end of the table, elbows balanced on her knees, cupping her chin.

“They aren’t, really,” Alba admits.

“How long until the show?”

“Two and a half weeks.” Alba puts down her pen. “I’m not sure I can do it.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Stella says. “Have you heard from the private dick yet?”

Alba shakes her head, caught by a sudden longing for her father. She wonders if she’ll ever find him. Then she thinks of her mother. “Please tell me about the song you were singing the night I came,” Alba says. “How did you know it? I’m going to keep asking until you tell me, so it may as well be now.”

Stella smiles at Alba’s tone, at the new injection of strength and determination. “All right then, yes. I heard it in the air, on the breeze.” Stella tells a half-truth. “I heard your mother singing that night. The recently departed are easy to hear.”

“But she didn’t die that night; it was a week after I came here.”

“No, that was when Charlotte called you,” Stella says, “but that wasn’t when she died. She walked into the woods to take the overdose. They didn’t find her for five days.”

“No,” Alba says, “that’s not true, they didn’t tell me that, it can’t be—” Shock and disbelief shiver through her body as if she was walking barefoot on ice.

“They didn’t tell you a lot of things, though, did they?”

“I don’t believe you.” Alba forces the words through her frozen lips. “How do you know?”

“The dead know a lot more than the living,” Stella explains. “It’s one of the perks.”

“I don’t believe you.”

But they both know that she does. Alba thinks of all the secrets her siblings have kept from her, she thinks of the father she never knew was hers and the one she thought was. Charles Ashby was hardly a model dad. In fact, he was so rarely home when Alba was young that it had taken a few weeks for her to realize he’d gone for good, though many months passed before anyone actually confirmed it. Her brothers were traveling in Europe and her sister found her in the playroom. An hour after she broke the news, Alba was still asking questions.

“He isn’t coming back,” Charlotte had said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“But where has he gone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why’s he not coming back?”

“I told you, Al, I don’t know.”

“But he didn’t say good-bye. Won’t he come back to say goodbye?”

“That’s not how it works. You just have to accept it, okay?” Charlotte said. “That’s how life is. It doesn’t always go the way you want it to.”

“Where’s Mummy? I want to see her.”

“She’s resting.” Charlotte sighed. “I already told you.”

“No, she’s not. I went to her room. She’s not there. I waited until dark.”

“Yes, well, she went to have a little rest in a hospital.”

Alba held her breath. She knew what hospitals were for.

“Is Mummy going to die?”

“Oh God, no.” Charlotte laughed. The sound spun out of her mouth in gray curls, collecting in clouds above Alba’s head. “Of course not. It’s not that kind of hospital. She’s . . . unhappy, they’re going to help her. We’ll visit her next week, so you can see her then.”

“Are you going back to school at the end of the summer, like last year?”

“Of course I am.”

“So, who’s going to look after me?”

“Well, it’s been decided that this year you’ll come to Cheltenham with me.”

Alba frowned up at her sister. She hated school, hated the teachers and the other pupils, and the only saving grace of the one she went to now was that she could run home when the day ended and be in her bedroom in ten minutes. Then at four o’clock their cook would bring her tea and homemade ginger biscuits. She didn’t imagine that this new school would have better teachers and students, ones who wouldn’t treat her like a leper, and this one she wouldn’t be able to run home from.

“Don’t expect me to watch out for you, though,” Charlotte said. “You’ll have to learn to take care of yourself, okay?”

Alba nodded, wishing her mummy were there. Because even though Elizabeth hadn’t talked for months, didn’t respond when Alba hugged her, didn’t stroke her hair or sing the butterfly song anymore, Alba still wanted her. Right then she would have given anything for a hug, heartfelt or not. Because a hollowed-out mother was better than no mother at all.

—

“This is nice.” Greer smiles. “We’ve not been out in public for ages. I was starting to think you might be hiding me.” They’re sitting in Blake’s favorite restaurant, and to celebrate the occasion she’s wearing her favorite outfit: a turquoise velvet version of the iconic Marilyn Monroe dress, along with red slippers.

“Hiding you?” Blake returns her smile, his tone light, nonchalant. “I like to be discreet, is all. So,” he quickly shifts the subject, “you’re looking particularly ravishing tonight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more delicious-looking female.”

“Thank you.” Greer blushes. She wonders if it’s too soon to be talking about the future, about maybe moving to London, about what he wants to do with his life and whether or not they might do it together. He’s been so attentive since she nearly broke it off, but for all his honeyed words and gentle caresses, Greer still senses she has to tread very softly with this subject. She bites into a tiny potato and chews slowly. “Hey, do you still want to write something for me to star in?”

“What?”

“Don’t you remember?” Greer asks, tentatively. “You said you might.”

“I did?” Blake pours them each a little more wine. He’s been with Carmen nearly every night since that first time in the wine cellar—in parks, in alleyways, on benches. He can’t call what they do making love, it’s far too ferocious for that. They meet, f*ck, then part, and he can’t get enough of it. He’s in no danger of falling for Greer now.

“I don’t remember,” Blake says, a little confused. “But yeah, sure, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I’d love to read some of your work,” Greer ventures. This is another subject she’s been longing to broach. She’d been waiting for him to offer but doesn’t think he will. “I didn’t want to ask, but . . .”

“Oh, right.” Blake nods, cutting up his steak. “Sure.” Then he remembers. The writer line is something he sometimes uses in the early stages of seduction. It sounds sexy and the women never last so long that he has to worry about them actually wanting to see his nonexistent work. Until now.

“I bet it’s great,” Greer says. “I wish I could write, then maybe I’d have done a one-woman show and starred in that, instead of having to audition for everything else, along with five hundred other likely candidates.”

“Don’t worry, Red,” he says carelessly, without looking up, “I’m sure it’ll all figure itself out.”

“Do you think so?”

“I surely do.” Blake swallows his steak. He’s never been with a woman like Carmen before, someone who kisses as if she wants to bite off his tongue, who touches him as if she’d rip the skin from his bones given the chance. She’ll never look him in the eye and won’t cuddle afterward, not for a minute. And every time they have sex it is like she’s shaking him awake.

“So.” Greer is as careful as if she’s stepping on glass. “Do you think you’ll ever . . . ?”

This time Blake listens, not hearing the words she actually says but the ones he knows she wants to say: love, marriage, babies. The Holy Trinity. Waves of Greer’s longing hit Blake across the table and, with a twinge of guilt, he looks up. He wishes she were made of stronger stuff so she wouldn’t hurt so much. He doesn’t want to hurt her, and it’s a shame that he must.

To soften the blow he’s about to give, Blake offers Greer a piece of himself he’s never offered anyone before. “You know—” He pauses, pulling the words up from the deep well he’d long ago dropped them into. “When my mama left, my father locked himself in the restroom for three days. The noises he made, I’d never heard noises like that before, like . . . the sounds of hell. When he came out he told me, ‘Your mom’s gone and she’s never coming back.’ And that was the last he ever said of it. I cried ’til I threw up, every night for a year. And when I stopped I promised myself, I promised myself that I’d never let it happen to me again.”

Greer gazes at him. “God, I’m sorry—”

“It’s not that.” Blake stops her. “I’m trying to tell you, I won’t let myself . . . Do you see?”

She thinks she does, but it’s not what she wants to hear. “No, not really.”

“I’ll never marry,” Blake says, sorry that he has to spell it out so crudely. “I’ll never have kids.”

In the silence Greer grips her fork so tightly that her fingernails cut into her palm.

“Do you understand?”

Greer nods.

—

Alba spends the rest of the evening with Carmen, listening to her play, writing down words that float into her head along with the notes. The living room walls silently shake in appreciation of the music and, during a particularly splendid piece, all the lights in the house flicker on and off, then blow a fuse at the crescendo. Carmen plays for hours without stopping. Sometimes Alba puts down her father’s pen and closes her eyes, letting herself be carried away with the music, drifting, soaring and falling, entirely forgetting herself. Two sentences drift into her head, perfect and complete. She writes them down, then reads them to Carmen, who smiles and nods and continues to play. At eleven o’clock, when the phone rings in the hallway, it’s Alba, having nipped into the kitchen for a bedtime hot chocolate with cream (Peggy’s influence), who picks up. “Hello.”

“Hello. Is this Peggy Abbot?”

Alba stiffens. It’s her brother Edward. What should she do? Put the phone down. Hang up and flee. “Hi, Ed.”

“Al?” Edward says, relieved at the sound of his sister’s voice. “Is that you?” It’s taken him weeks to pluck up the courage to call, knowing that she’ll ask questions that will unravel all the secrets he’s been struggling to keep.

“Yes,” Alba says. “How did you know my number?”

“Charlotte gave it to me.”

The phone line is silent. All Alba can hear is static and she wonders if Edward’s hung up. “How did Charlotte get the number?”

“Your landlady called up a week before Mum died to say you’d moved in,” Edward says. “Didn’t you ask her to?”

“Yeah,” Alba says, because it’s easier that way. “Yeah, I did. How’s my little niece?”

“Tilly’s okay. She still cries for her mother most nights. I’m afraid I’m a poor substitute. I never learned much about being a good father.”

“I’m sorry,” Alba says, and she is. “I miss her.” And she does.

“Perhaps you could visit us in London sometime,” Edward says. When she doesn’t respond, Alba hears him take a quick breath. “Al, we need to talk.”

“What’s wrong?” Alba feels a shot of panic in her chest. “Is everyone okay?”

“Well, Til and I are coping. And, apart from being a couple of prats in need of heart transplants, Charlie and Lotte are still alive.”

Alba smiles. “So, what is it?”

“I want to see you, Al,” Edward says softly.

“Okay.”

“It’s nothing urgent. I just thought . . . I have some things to tell you, about our family, about our—my—father. You ran away before we could talk about it all. I thought maybe you’d have questions I could answer.”

Alba thinks of her mother’s death, the disappearance of her original father, and her biological father still at large. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I do.”

—

Alba sits on the edge of the bath, notebook in hand, reading the first few lines of her lyrics to Sylvia Plath and Dorothy Parker, who listen from their vantage points on opposite walls. She didn’t want to, but they’ve been asking every day how her writing is progressing, so eventually Alba succumbed.

“Not bad,” Dorothy says. “You have potential.”

“She’s overly critical,” Sylvia says. “You have a natural flair, but you need to be bolder. Your writing is too tentative, you care too much for the reader—”

“Which will kill you quicker than anything,” Dorothy interrupts. “The eyes of others are our prisons; their thoughts our cages.”

Alba frowns. “Really?”

“Dismiss that warning at your peril,” Dorothy says. “Literature is strewn with the wreckage of writers who have minded the opinions of others.”

“You must be completely alone when you write,” Sylvia adds. “Cast out everyone else from your mind so you can sit down and write the truth.”

“Okay, all right.” Alba nods, scribbling down their thoughts, still unable to believe she’s getting writing tips from her two literary heroines.

“But all this is moot if you’ve never been in love,” Dorothy says. “To write about love you first need to know it.”

Alba bites the end of her pen and glances at the floor. “Well, I, um . . .”

“Go out and live,” Sylvia says. “Then come back and write about it.”

“I thought writing was all about imagination,” Alba protests. “I thought—”

“Poppycock,” Dorothy snaps. “If you pass the rest of your life in this bathroom, you’ll never find anything worth writing about, nor the talent to do it.”

“Well—”

“She’s right,” Sylvia says. “You won’t be able to write anything true until you’ve felt it first. And I’m afraid it doesn’t seem as if you’re very willing to do that.”

“Hold on,” Alba says through gritted teeth. “Now, I’ll very gratefully take literary advice from you, but not life advice. I hardly think either of you is qualified to give it, since you killed yourself”—she nods at Sylvia—“and you tried to.” Alba nods at Dorothy before striding to the door. “So, thank you and good-bye.” And, with that, she’s gone. The bathroom door slams behind her, shaking every photograph on the walls.

“My, my, that was fun.” Dorothy laughs. “I think our girl is starting to get some fire.”

“Yes,” Sylvia says, her teeth still rattling, “though I do worry about her, I’ve never known anyone so scared to feel anything.”

Five minutes later Alba’s sitting in the kitchen reading her lyrics to Stella. When she’s finished Alba looks up, her heart in a holding pattern, waiting for Stella to speak.

“I like it. It’s a good beginning. Now you just need a little more—”

“Life experience, yes,” Alba snaps. “I know.”

“Especially since you’re writing about love, but you’ve never actually . . .”

“Felt it.” Alba sighs. “I know.”

They sit in silence until Alba nods nervously, biting a fingernail. “What’s it like?”

“True love will rip your heart right open and knock you for six.” Stella smiles. “But you’ll also feel safer than you’ve ever felt in your life.”

Alba considers this, still biting her nails.

“No.” She shakes her head at last. “I don’t think so. Not me.”

“Oh, yes,” Stella says. “I promise you will. Even you.”