The House at the End of Hope Street

Chapter Twenty-five





A toast!” Peggy lifts her glass and waits for Alba, sipping lemonade, and Carmen, Nora and Sue, all drinking champagne, to join her. “To a beautiful song and a beautiful singer.”

“The best we’ve ever heard,” Sue cheers.

“Hear! Hear! my dear.” Nora gulps down her drink, then offers her empty glass to Peggy, who tops it up again with a smile.

The two ladies stand side by side, beaming delightedly at Carmen.

“The best night of my life,” Sue says. “Even including my wedding night.”

“Which one?” Nora nudges her. “Second or third?”

“Oh, hush,” Sue giggles, “you know very well Bernard had performance anxiety, but he well made up for it in other areas.”

“Yes, I remember,” Nora says, “such gentle hands—”

“No.” Sue looks horrified. “You promised me you didn’t . . .”

“And I didn’t,” Nora smiles, “at least not in real life. But one can’t control the imagination.” She lets out a satisfied sigh while Alba frowns, looking a little shocked.

Carmen watches the two women with an ache in her chest. She can’t tell them she’s leaving. She can’t explain why or say good-bye.

“It really was beautiful,” Alba turns to Carmen. “I, I . . . Thank you.” And even though she can’t find any other words than these, Carmen smiles and nods to show she understands.

An hour later they are standing on the pavement, all rather tipsy except for Alba, ready to part. Carmen can’t look directly at anyone or she knows she’ll start to cry. She hugs Alba extra tight when they part and kisses Peggy, who whispers in Carmen’s ear, reminding her to have faith and to simply keep walking until she finds her way.

—

Alba is giddy with joy. Hearing her song being sung to the nation by the most beautiful singer she’s ever heard will forever be on her very short list of phenomenal experiences, second only to her first date with Zoë. She wishes her father could have witnessed it live. Albert has invited her over for a late supper after the event. They sit together on his sofa eating fish and chips out of newspapers on their laps. Alba tells Albert everything and he listens intently with absolute delight and enormous amounts of pride.

“The song was beautiful,” Albert says, for the hundredth time, “so very beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Alba says softly.

They sit in silence while the flickering television plays repeats of Carmen’s song.

“Do you like my flat?” Albert ventures, discarding a half-eaten chip.

“Sure,” Alba says, “it’s nice.”

“Not too small?”

Alba eats another chip, rather thrilled at the decadence of a TV dinner. After a childhood of suppressive suppers around a sixteenth-century oak table, sitting on the sofa eating fish and chips gives her a sense of illicit delight. “Nope,” she says, “seems fine to me.”

“We could sit in the kitchen.” Albert offers, embarrassed at not being able to offer his daughter the comforts he knows she grew up with.

“No, it’s fine,” she says. “I like it.”

“So.” Albert peels a strip of batter off his cod. “So, I was thinking . . .”

“Yes?” Alba looks up.

About to ask, at the last moment Albert folds. “Well, um . . . tell me more about this girl you want me to meet. Stella, yes? You had an aunt called Stella, you know. Your mother’s sister—”

“I did?” Alba asks, confused. But both her parents were only children. She’d grown up without aunts, uncles or cousins. At least, that’s what she’d always been told. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Albert says. “Her name was Stella. She was older. She died when Liz was a little girl. I remember her telling me . . .”

And then all the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fall into place.

Her mother: Elizabeth. Liz. Beth. Stella’s sister, Beth.

Of course Ella was Stella, as a child might say the name when she is learning to talk, a nickname that stuck. How did Alba miss a clue like that? Poirot would be most disappointed.

“I can’t believe it.” Alba laughs. “I can’t. She’s my aunt! My aunt. Of course. I can’t believe I didn’t . . . They even look alike. And the things they said . . . Oh, my goodness. I can’t . . . it’s incredible, so incredible.”

“Wait.” Albert frowns, now slightly confused. “If you didn’t know about Stella, how do you know what she looks like? I don’t understand.”

Alba shakes her head, unable to explain yet. So that was Stella’s secret. She can’t quite believe it, can’t believe she didn’t guess. She starts to laugh.

Still puzzled, Albert opens his mouth to ask why Alba’s laughing but, to his shock and slight dismay, the question he’s been rehearsing for the last few weeks blurts out instead.

“Alba, would you like . . . would you like to live with me?”

Alba stops laughing and smiles. “Yes.” She says it so fast it rather takes her by surprise. “I’d absolutely love to.”

“Really?” Albert says. “You would?”

Alba nods, quite unable to believe her luck. Right now she can’t imagine anything she’d love more. And, now that the problem of her impending homelessness has been taken care of, Alba can’t wait to get back to Hope Street and interrogate Stella.

—

Greer is lying on her bed, unable to sleep. She’s still trying to ignore the sewing machine, but it won’t let her. It sits on the dressing table, gold letters glinting in the moonlight, even after she’s closed the curtains and switched off the light. She’s found a temporary job as a waitress along with a dingy room to live in, a roof over her head while she waits to start the teaching course and prepares applications to adoption agencies. She doesn’t know how long it will take, or what she’ll have to do to be successful but, as she stares at the ceiling now, Greer knows she’ll do whatever it takes.

There’s a sharp knock on her bedroom door and before Greer can sit up or say anything, the door opens and Peggy shuffles in with a cup of hot chocolate.

“You missed a beautiful show,” Peggy says. “Carmen was quite breathtaking. You really should have come.”

Greer scowls. “I was asleep.”

“No you weren’t, dear,” Peggy says. “I’ve brought you a drink.”

“I don’t want one, thank you.” Greer knows she sounds a little rude but doesn’t really care. It’s ten o’clock and she could have sworn her door was locked.

“It’s topped with cream and laced with liberal amounts of rum. I’ve just had one myself, it was quite delicious. Anyway, I hope you don’t mind the interruption, dear.” She eases herself onto the bed next to Greer. “But I didn’t imagine you were doing anything productive.”

“Well, I . . .” Greer takes the cup Peggy places in her hands.

“Exactly.” Peggy smiles. “I know what you’re up to and I’ve come to tell you not to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Now don’t play dumb with me, young lady.” Peggy raises an eyebrow. “The house is heaping gifts of inspiration upon you and you’re stubbornly and stupidly ignoring every last one.”

“That’s a little unfair.” Greer frowns. “I’m being realistic.”

“Oh, tosh!” Peggy snaps.

“Well, hold on now.” Greer sits up straighter, abandoning the hot chocolate to her bedside table. “That’s a little harsh—”

“Not at all,” Peggy retorts. Every now and then she has to get a little tough with a particularly stubborn resident, one who won’t pay attention to the more subtle signs, and in all honesty she rather relishes it. “If it’s right for you then it’s possible. You’re not eighty-two, you’re not even forty. You’ve plenty of time to live the life you want, without compromising anything.”

Greer’s frown deepens. “Having a child is what I want, more than anything. I know I can be a wonderful mum, and it’ll make me happy—”

“Yes, no doubt,” Peggy says, “for a time, at least. But when your child needs to learn about her own heart, what will you teach her? To give up one herself, to sacrifice what she wants?”

“No, I won’t, because she, or he, they won’t have to. I’ll tell them that.”

“But she’ll have seen you do it,” Peggy says. “And children are sharp little buggers you know. You can’t simply say one thing and do another—”

“Really?” Greer leans forward to regard the old lady more closely. “Is that true?”

“Of course.” Peggy nods, shifting a little uneasily under Greer’s gaze. “And when she grows up and leaves you altogether, what will you be left with then? A mother who’s given up on herself is the worst sort of role model—”

“Really?” Greer says again. She looks into Peggy’s eyes and, as her landlady glances away, Greer is greeted all of a sudden with a flash of insight. During all her days of recent self-reflection a sense of intuition has been growing more strongly inside her and now she sees something she can’t back up with evidence or reason but something she knows, quite clearly, is true. “So you, the landlady of this marvelous house, the role model to all the women who live here, the mother-figure, essentially—”

“Now, wait here,” Peggy protests, “this is not—”

“Oh no, I rather think this is about you,” Greer interrupts. “You, as my . . . my surrogate mother are telling me not to give up on my life because that would be setting a bad example to my child. But then isn’t that exactly what you’ve done?”

A flicker of sorrow passes over Peggy’s face. It’s gone in a second but Greer sees it and now she’s absolutely certain she’s right. She has no idea where this sudden ability to see into people’s souls has come from but she knows, unequivocally, that she can trust it.

“You’re being a little hypocritical, then,” Greer says softly. “Don’t you think?”

—

A little drunk on celebration cocktails and euphoria, Carmen wanders through the streets of Cambridge. It’s a perfect night, cloudless and full of stars. The moon is full and the air is warm; it brushes Carmen’s face as though stroking her cheek. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do now and the terror of being adrift and alone, not allowed to return to Hope Street, is only slightly tempered by the lingering thrill of the show and the song.

She stops for a moment to gaze up at the silhouette of King’s College, its turrets and towers lit by the moon, marble against the dark purple sky. How can the world be so beautiful, she wonders, but so painful, all at once? For another hour, with the ring still hot in her pocket, Carmen meanders along streets and through parks, just as she did before she found Hope Street, stopping sometimes to look at things she loves: the Bridge of Sighs, punts tied up along the river waiting for tomorrow’s tourists, the golden grasshopper clock, the chapel in Clare College . . . She memorizes each one, imprinting them in her mind like photographs so that she’ll never forget. And just after midnight, though Carmen never knew where it was, she finds herself crossing the park in front of the police station. She stands on the pavement, looking up once more at the moon. Her cheeks are wet. Not with tears of sadness, but relief. Carmen takes a deep breath.

She releases one last, long note of song into the air, and then walks inside.