“A first edition?” Richard said. Flora and Nan made eye contact and smiled.
“Richard,” Gil said, as if he were teaching a five-year-old. “Forget that first-edition, signed-by-the-author nonsense. Fiction is about readers. Without readers there is no point in books, and therefore they are as important as the author, perhaps more important. But often the only way to see what a reader thought, how they lived when they were reading, is to examine what they left behind. All these words”—Gil swung his arm out to encompass the table, the room, the house—“are about the reader. The specific individual—man, woman, or child—who left something of themselves behind.” With Richard’s help, he opened the book and revealed a paper napkin lodged in the pages. It was folded into a square—yellow and brittle with age. Flora looked over his arm. The napkin had an emblem on the front with an M in the middle, and underneath in an ornate font, Hotel Mirabelle, Salzburg. Below that some handwriting.
“Suzannah, room 127,” Flora read aloud. With her knife she spread egg yolk over the now crustless toast and ate it together with the bacon, using her fingers. Nan tutted.
“A whole story is contained in those three words,” Gil said, stroking the text with his thumb as if to pick up some smell or particles of Suzannah. “Did she write her own name and room number, or did a man overhear it?”
“Maybe he visited her in room 127 and had to pay for her services,” Nan said.
“Or perhaps it wasn’t a man who visited her, it was a woman.” Flora raised her eyebrows again at her sister.
“I’d rather know the truth, though,” Nan said. “I’d like to know what really happened.”
“Not knowing is so much better, isn’t it, Daddy?” Flora said. Gil took his eyes off the napkin and looked at her as she continued. “I don’t want to discover that the writer was actually the chambermaid and Suzannah was just a guest in room 127 who needed fresh towels. Or that room service got Suzannah’s request for eggs on toast but couldn’t find the order pad.”
Gil was slow to answer, looking down at his uneaten bacon.
“Daddy?” Flora said.
“Perhaps,” Gil said. “But I’m beginning to think it’s better to know, one way or the other. It’s taken me a long time to realise, but I don’t think it’s good to have an imagination that is more vivid, wilder, than real life.”
“But you’ve always said we should hope and imagine. You can’t just suddenly change your mind.” Flora sounded petulant.
“I agree with Nan,” Richard said. “Better to live with the facts even if they are mundane.”
Gil closed the book, put it on the table, and Nan turned back to the sink. Richard, oblivious to the atmosphere, picked up Queer Fish and flicked through it, stopping at a different page and holding it open. “What about this doodle? Black biro, obscenity rating unclear. A man, would you say?”
Gil took the book again and inspected the drawing of a cloud with fish falling from it. Frowning, he said, “You’re catching on quickly. Yes, definitely a man.”
Flora folded her arms, said nothing.
Chapter 18
THE SWIMMING PAVILION, 10TH JUNE 1992, 4:30 AM
Dear Gil,
Annie died yesterday. It was unclear whether Nan or Flora was responsible, but there was a terrific noise from their bedroom (wailing and shouting) and, when I ran in, the skeleton was on the floor, most of its ribs in bits, the skull in several pieces like a broken teacup, and the teeth scattered. Nan said she’d hung Annie on the back of the door and that Flora, knowing the skeleton was there, had thrust the door open against the side of the wardrobe and then stamped on the bones. It sounds too vicious an attack even for Flora, but she was wearing your greatcoat and heavy boots, seven sizes too big for her. Whatever happened, Flora was in there kicking and shouting while Nan wrung her hands and asked if we could glue Annie back together. I knew she was past repairing. Flora stopped her noise and said, “Daddy will be able to mend her.”
She ran outside to your writing room and we watched her standing on the top step, beating on the stable door with her fists.
“Daddy! Daddy! Annie’s bust!” (Bust—where did she learn that word?)