The House at the End of Hope Street

Chapter Seventeen





He’s here.”

“Where?”

“In Cambridge.”

Alba looks at the private detective, incredulous. He’d called that morning and invited her to his office. “No, he can’t be, are you certain?”

“Of course I am. He lives on Gwydir Street. Number twenty-one.”

Her world is spinning. The green-striped wallpaper blurs. She closes her eyes. Her father lives less than a mile from Hope Street. They could have passed on the pavement. She might have seen him.

“He’s an English teacher. Has a part-time job in a bookshop on King’s Parade too.” The detective sits back in his chair. “He has strange habits; spends most of his time walking around, waiting outside certain places for hours. Still. I expect—”

“King’s Parade?” She went there months ago, the cashier told her to read . . . Him. It was him. And then, all of a sudden, it hits her. “Oh God. It’s not a coincidence that he’s here, is it? It can’t be. I just—”

“It’s not unheard of.” The detective shrugs. “Occasionally parents who abandon their children will find them again and move to be close to them. I’ve seen it before.”

“But how did he know, how did he find me?”

“It’s easy. If you’re ever in the paper, if you make the news, it’ll most likely be on the Internet . . . Everyone’s an amateur detective nowadays. Fortunately most people are thick as two short ones, no offense, so I’m not out of a job just yet. Anyway . . .”

“But what should I do now?” Alba whispers. “What will I say?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something,” the detective says. He’s always a little uncomfortable when his clients threaten to get emotional. “Start with hello. Go from there.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Tears cloud Alba’s eyes and she swallows.

The detective fixes his own eyes on the piles of paper covering his desk. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Now, my next client’s due any minute now, so . . .”

“Yes, sorry.” Alba forces herself to stand, though the room seems to be spinning.

“Ms. Ashby?” says the detective, stopping Alba as she reaches the door. “Good luck.”

—

“You’ve got to give her up. It’s time to let go.”

Zoë sighs, staring at the computer, refusing to look at him.

“And I’m not saying it ’cause I want you so desperately,” Andy deadpans. “I’m totally over us now. It took a lot of therapy, grief counseling, prayer; but I’m finally okay.”

“Shut up.” Zoë giggles. “You’re an opportunist and you know it.”

“You think so little of yourself, eh? Sounds like someone else needs therapy. I’ve got my counselor’s card.” He pretends to reach into his pocket.

“Stop being so pathetic.”

“Pathetic? Moi? Pot. Kettle. It’s been, what, two years?”

“Three years, four months . . .”

“You know the minutes too?” Andy laughs. “You are seriously screwed.”

“Of course I don’t. Shut up.”

“Why the hell haven’t you just asked her out?” Andy leans against the pile of books they’re supposed to be cataloguing. “You don’t even know if she . . .”

“What?” Zoë interrupts. “Plays for the other team, bats for the other side, swings the other—”

“I was going to say, ‘is attracted to spineless, blue-haired pixies.’” He shrugs. “But whatever.”

“‘Spineless’?” Zoë scowls. “Have a little sympathy. You’ve obviously never been rejected, never had your heart stamped on.”

“No.” Andy grins. “I can’t say I have. But then I am a love god. You know, I could probably cure you of your little problem, if you gave me half a chance.”

“Hey.” Zoë swivels around in her chair to face him. “Are you saying that my—”

“No, touchy. I meant your hideously heavy crush on that bookish midget, not your particular brand of sexuality.”

“Oh.” Zoë huffs. “Well, anyway, don’t call her that. She’s lovely.”

“She must be. You’ve been celibate for practically a decade.”

“I haven’t.”

“Have you had sex since you fell in love with her?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Well then,” Andy says, returning to the computer. “I rest my case.”

—

Albert must find Alba again. If he can’t find her himself, he’ll sell his signed first edition of A Moveable Feast and hire a private detective. If only he could knock on every door in Cambridge, if only he could put up posters. But of course he can’t. He has to keep himself a secret from Alba—he has to keep his promise. Even though her mother is dead, it’s still not his place to destroy her memories, to tell her what she might otherwise never know.

Albert sips his second glass of vodka and thinks about the night Alba was conceived. It’s the memory he’s visited most often over the years, so much so that he no longer remembers what was real and what he’s imagining. Was the wallpaper sky blue and Elizabeth’s dress deep red and dotted with roses? Were her nails painted to match her dress? Or are those details he has added? He’ll never know.

What Albert knows for certain is that, at the time, he had no idea he was creating his only daughter.

It was the second anniversary of the day they met. Albert rented a cottage in Brighton for the weekend. Elizabeth told her family she was visiting a friend in London. It was the first time they’d spent an uninterrupted forty-eight hours together. They walked along the beach, crunching stones beneath their bare feet, getting tiny pebbles caught between their toes. They stood in the sea, kissing as the cold water soaked their clothes. They sat in restaurants, holding hands across the table, forgetting to pick up their forks and actually eat anything. They walked along the pier, watching the waves pulling back and forth in the gaps between the wooden slats beneath their feet. When the sun went down they looked out at the ocean as the horizon turned pink, orange and red. They walked hand in hand back to the cottage, their faces lit by the flashing lights of fairground rides and casinos, and made love until morning.

That night Albert pretended Elizabeth was his, that he could let her go and she’d come back to him. He lay in the dark and stroked every inch of her as if he had all the time in the world. He gave her soft kisses, whispered her name until it was all he could say, until his mouth couldn’t make sense of the word anymore. Usually, in their stolen afternoons together, she napped afterward and he loved to look at her. But that night he slept when Elizabeth did, pretending that they could take their time for granted. If he’d known that it would be their last night together, he would have stayed awake. But of course he didn’t.

When they met again after that weekend it was always during the day and only for a few hours at a time. Elizabeth quickly started to show and had to begin telling the great lie, a lie that included sleeping once more with her husband. Secretly Albert hoped that Charles wouldn’t be fooled, that he’d divorce his wife and allow them to be together. Sadly, and rather surprisingly, when he was given the news Lord Ashby experienced a sudden surge of devotion brought on by impending fatherhood and hardly let her out of his sight. So, in the snatched hours Albert shared with Elizabeth after that, he could only close his eyes and remember what it had once been like to hold her as though she was his forever.

—

Peggy kneels in her garden, plucking dead flowers off plants and pulling out weeds. It’s the eighth of July. The sun is high in the sky and hot on her back. Perhaps she should put on sunscreen, but what does it really matter now? In the corner of her eye she catches sight of her beloved black roses. The day they first blossomed, nearly twenty years ago, Peggy felt overjoyed to have created something so beautiful. Now she focuses on the dusky velvet petals until all she can see is darkness, death, suicide and murder, which reminds her of that mystery writer, the one who enjoyed extolling the virtues of matrimonial bliss. But, being as yet untouched by love and filled with the ignorance of youth, Peggy hadn’t listened.

Agatha Christie had stayed in the house for a week back when Esme was in charge. Years later she returned for a surprise visit, interrupting Peggy having afternoon tea in the downstairs kitchen. So they sat together, eating chocolate cake and sipping Earl Grey tea.

“Oh dear, I’m sorry,” Agatha said after her cup slipped out of her fingers and spilled tea across the table. “Old age is embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry.” Peggy mopped it up and poured her another cup.

“If you get a chance you should marry an archaeologist. I don’t suppose there are too many to go around, but it’s the best sort of husband to have. The older a woman gets, the more he’s interested in her.” Agatha laughed.

“I’ll remember that when I’m in my seventies and looking for a lover.” Peggy smiled obligingly. “Cream?”

“Absolutely, thank you.”

“So,” Peggy said, “why are you back?”

“Well . . . my days in this house were some of the most significant of my life, I appreciated every one of them.” Agatha glanced down at her plate. “I think I’m starting to lose my grip. Words often escape me, plots are more difficult to remember. I’m starting to wonder how many more books I’ll be able to complete before I lose . . .”

“I see.” Peggy nodded. “And what are you working on now?”

“I don’t know yet.” Agatha tapped the side of her head and her helmeted coiffure of curls quivered. “These little gray cells, it’s up to them.”

Regarding the old woman carefully, Peggy dipped her finger into the cream and slowly licked it off. “You’ll be fine for another fifteen years,” she said. “You’ll write another ten books or thereabouts. I’d have to check upstairs to be certain, but I think so.”

“Ah, the infamous tower.” Agatha smiled. “A very intriguing matter, all in all. I confess I tried to sneak in once but that damn door refused to budge.”

“Yes, I’m afraid it won’t open for anyone but me.”

“Oh well, some mysteries remain unsolved.” Agatha sat back in her chair. “Another decade of books, then? That does lift my heart a little. So, tell me, how are you enjoying life as a landlady? It’s surely a lot of responsibility for someone so young.”

“Well, I’ve already been here ten years,” Peggy said, “so I’m quite used to it, and I’ll be here until I die, so—”

“A lifetime without marriage or motherhood?” Agatha sighed. “Well, if you want my advice, ditch your duty and find yourself that archaeologist. You’re not the queen, you can abdicate without anyone kicking up a fuss.”

“It’s not like that.” Peggy stuck her finger in the cream again. “I want to do this, it’s not only a duty, it’s an honor. And it’s not without its compensations.”

“Oh, well.” Agatha sipped her coffee and shrugged. “I see good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that’s still no reason not to give it.”

Peggy returns to her black roses. She hadn’t met Harry then, when Agatha had come to visit. So what could she know of love and marriage? What does she know now?

—

When Charles Ashby found out about his wife’s affair and her love child, he wanted to rip out her heart. He was hurt, though he’d never admit it. Also, Charles was certain he’d never been cheated on before, and the humiliation threatened to overwhelm him, to push him beyond rationality. But deciding he’d rather spend the rest of his days living a privileged life than rotting in jail, he came up with a plan that would instead drive his wife to rip out her own heart.

That Elizabeth had never stopped loving Albert was clear enough. Now that Charles looked back over the last eight years he could see the signs: the way she sometimes gazed at Alba as though remembering something else, how she spent endless hours staring at nothing with a secret, sorrowful smile on her face. The fact that she’d named the damned girl after him. It was hardly the child’s fault, of course, but that didn’t stop Charles hating her with the same passion with which he now hated his wife. Her bright blue eyes weren’t his, nor her black hair. Indeed, her coloring was so opposite to her blond, brown-eyed siblings he couldn’t believe it hadn’t made him wonder before. Pure ego and pride, probably; he simply never thought Elizabeth would stray, though he’d given her every reason to.

Charles planned his disappearance with precision. He thought about all the possible consequences and accounted for them. The first thing he felt certain of was that, once he was gone, Elizabeth would reply to Albert’s letter. She would call him back and they would spend the rest of their days in unadulterated bliss. Unless, of course, he never received her letters, and so never replied. Then, not only would they be separated, but Elizabeth would believe Albert no longer loved her. And that, Charles guessed, would go halfway to breaking her already fragile heart.

Being several miles from the village, Ashby Hall had its own post box and Elizabeth would use it, just as she’d always done, of that he was certain. And so, one morning, Charles went out to meet their postman, a middle-aged Scot who’d worked the same route for the last twenty years and would no doubt continue doing so until he died. With a check for ten thousand pounds, Charles bought assurance that no letters going to, or coming from, Inverie would ever reach their destination.

Then he just had to take care of the children.

Since she’d given up her lover for their sakes, to ensure their clueless father would continue to clothe and feed them and subsidize their overpriced educations, Charles imagined that, were he to turn them against her, it might be enough to finish her off. In her depressive episodes, Elizabeth would cry for hours if she ran over a rabbit on the road, so just think how she’d react if three of her four children suddenly stopped loving her.

One evening he took Charles Jr., Edward and Charlotte into his office and told them that their mother had betrayed the family, that she loved another man—that Alba wasn’t really their sister. He told them that for those reasons he was leaving. He was going away and never coming back. But they must never tell Elizabeth or Alba. It was their secret. It would be their duty, as the only true Ashbys left in the house, to hate these interlopers, the ones responsible for the dissolution of their family. And he promised he’d keep in touch, as long as they kept his secret.

The final parting gift of Charles Ashby to his wife, the thing he hoped would break her mind as well as her heart, was a letter to the police telling them he feared his wife meant to kill him. He knew she’d never actually go to jail—which was a shame—since they’d never find a body. But the stress of it all, the interrogation, the malicious gossip, the cruel press, the lifelong suspicion might just be enough to send her right over the edge.

—

For the first time in her life, Alba takes more than five minutes choosing what to wear. In two hours she’s tried on six black sweaters, three white shirts, ten navy T-shirts and four pairs of faded jeans. The books strewn across Alba’s bed watch her procrastinate, flapping their pages impatiently. After she decides on the black sweater with the least number of noticeable holes, and the darkest pair of jeans, a dozen books open and snap shut a few times, applauding the fact that she’s finally dressed.

An hour later she’s standing outside iron gates looking up at the words Park Street Community College on a sign high above her head. She watches the teenagers shouting in the playground, thinking they look like hardened street kids who know much more about life than she does. It’s a long way from the sheltered, uniformed students of Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Alba tightens her grip on the letter in her hand. Then she takes a deep breath, pulls herself up to her full height of five feet, two and a half inches and strides through the gates and into the playground.

“Excuse me.” Alba stops a fairly normal-looking boy and addresses him in what she hopes is a friendly yet confident tone. “I’m looking for Mr. Mackay’s classroom, do you know where it is?” The child just stares up at her. “Do you have any idea? Or perhaps you could just point me in the right direction?” Alba waits but is only met with the same blank stare. Alba gives up and keeps walking.

Once inside she wanders through the corridors, hoping no one asks why she’s prowling around a secondary school, hoping the school isn’t too vast and contains no deserted corridors where she might be cornered by a gang of knife-wielding teenagers. A bell rings. Instantly the halls are flooded with frantic bodies, their high-pitched voices and squeals setting Alba’s nerves on edge. Being surrounded by hundreds of children, scuttling past her like scorpions, makes the hairs on the back of her neck twitch. She stiffens and pushes through the crowds.

At the end of the corridor a door stands ajar and, though she can’t explain how, Alba knows this is the one. This is his door. When she reaches the classroom she sees his name etched on the wood:

MR. MACKAY

11A

Alba stares at the letters, until they start to swim in front of her eyes. Just then the door opens, hitting her in the face.

“Ouch!” Alba stumbles back, rubbing her nose as a young girl runs off, laughing. A man steps into the corridor and, for a moment, Alba’s vision is compromised and she can’t see him. At first, he doesn’t see her.

“Oh goodness, oh dear, I am sorry, are you—”

Then Alba looks up and Mr. Mackay stares at her. And Alba stares at him. She’s studied every one of the photographs the private detective took and knows every line of his face, every inch of him. But she still can’t believe that he’s really standing before her.

“Oh,” he gasps. “Oh, my . . .”

Alba blinks a few times and focuses on her father. He is short and stocky with gold-rimmed spectacles and a mop of messy brown curls. He’s only a few inches taller than Alba and when she looks into his eyes she sees they’re exactly the same as her own. She glances at his clothes: cheap polyester shirt and tie, gray cardigan with holes at the cuffs, polyester trousers frayed at the edges.

His bright blue eyes, wide behind his glasses, are slowly filling with tears. A dark mist comes off him in waves and his pain is so vivid, so substantial Alba could reach out and touch it. The memory of layers and layers of broken glass rises up and, all at once, she sees her father raw, broken, flawed. Alba feels a surge of panic flood over her and suddenly it’s all too much too soon.

Albert reaches a chubby hand out toward her. “Alba.”

His words are royal blue and dark red: sorrow mixed with obsession.

Alba stares at her father, and he stares back at her. Then she turns and runs.