Lily's House

by Cassandra Parkin

  Daniel is always telling me I need to relax and let the little things go. I stand in the kitchen and think about the row we almost had, about whether it’s okay for Daniel to take jobs that only pay him in burgers and tickets to see other musicians, and whether we can afford a yurt rather than our usual second-hand family-sized tent. I think about the deceptions Marianne and I have practiced on him recently, deceptions meant to save his feelings. I wonder if lying to your husband about everything you’ve said and felt and done for nearly a week is one of the little things, or the big things.

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Lily

  I’m sixteen years old and it’s raining, so I’m hiding out in the pantry. I’ve stolen half a packet of biscuits, several slices of ham, the long-haired cat (now rather old and battered) from down the road, a pair of nail scissors I found in the bathroom cabinet and Lily’s hairbrush. Now I’m dividing my time between eating the biscuits and brushing the cat, which fell on the ham as if it hadn’t been fed in months and is now reluctantly submitting to a good grooming. Its response to the hairbrush flip-flops between bliss and loathing, and I have to keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn’t scratch me in one of its periodic transitions to fury.

  “You’ll feel so much better when you’re all finished,” I tell the cat, as it grabs at the hairbrush and gnaws wildly on the handle. “No, that’s my hairbrush. Give it back now. Thank you. No, no biting… no biting… that’s it. Good cat. Good cat. Now keep still while I cut this lump out. That’s it. Good, good cat.” As its tangled coat grows smooth, the cat grows calmer, until it slowly collapses onto my feet, its paws padding at the air, claws sliding in and out, eyes half-closed.

  The pantry door opens and Lily glances in. I swallow my mouthful of biscuit, hide the hairbrush behind the potatoes, sweep clots of fur behind me and wonder if I’m going to be in trouble, but the look on her face tells me she’s just amused.

  “I thought you’d be in here,” she says. “Why do you like it so much? I see that poor old cat’s still on the go. Did it follow you?”

  “I tried to shoo it away but it didn’t work.” What actually happened was that I ran down the road in the rain, scooped the cat from beneath its usual shrub and held it under my coat, where it obligingly stayed, warm and purring against me as I smuggled it inside.

  Lily looks at the cat severely. “Have you been brushing it? It looks cleaner.”

  “They don’t look after it properly,” I say. “It was all knotty. Long-haired cats need brushing every day, they can’t look after themselves. And it feels thin as well.”

  “So you cleaned it up?”

  “Someone’s got to. If I lived here, I’d steal it.”

  “You know, Jen, it’s against the law to steal people’s pets.”

  “Well, then it’s a stupid law. Stupid laws should be broken.”

  “Wouldn’t you worry about getting into trouble?”

  I shrug. “I’d make sure I didn’t get caught.”

  Lily laughs. “That’s my girl. Can you pass me that little vase from the bottom shelf? No, not that one, the thin one. Thank you, my darling.”

  The cat, put out by Lily’s arrival, trots out of the pantry. In the kitchen, Lily fills the vase with pansies. The water in the vase quivers slightly, and when I put my hand on the table I feel a tremor in the wood. It’s an old house, Lily told me once. Its bones creak. Don’t worry, it’s only a lorry passing outside. The petals of the pansies tremble with raindrops. On the table beside the pansies, Lily’s gardening gloves cradle a handful of spiny-looking things like conker shells.

  “Don’t touch those,” Lily warns. “That wretched datura is growing thorn apples again. I don’t want the birds eating the seeds.”

  “Would birds eat them if they’re poisonous?”

  “Of course they would. Have you ever seen a bird skull? They have barely any brain at all. There, that’ll do nicely.”

  I follow Lily into the living room and watch her put the vase in front of the photograph of Margaret.

  “It’s her birthday,” she explains, as naturally as if Margaret will be dropping by for afternoon tea and cake. The cat creeps under Lily’s feet, begging to be noticed, and she bends down and ruffles up the fur along its cheek.

  “What was she like?” I’m not all that interested, I’d rather be playing with the cat, but I sense Lily would like to say more.

  “She was very sweet,” Lily says. “And she always loved animals, especially cats, like you. I took this on her wedding day.”

  Margaret’s soft dark hair and small face are framed with a white veil. She looks cripplingly shy.

  “She was so sad when he died,” Lily continues. “They weren’t well suited I thought it might be a relief, but—” her fingers gently rearrange the pansies. “So I insisted she needed a new start, somewhere by the sea, where she could be happy again. We had to borrow to buy the hotel, and she was afraid it would fail. I bullied her into it really. And then we only had one summer before she died. I sometimes wonder—”

  This startles me. I’ve never seen Lily be anything other than sure of herself.

  “But she was happy? Once you’d moved, I mean?”

  “Oh yes. She loved the sea. She walked down to look at it every single morning, even in the season. She’d get up extra early to see what it was doing before we had to start the breakfasts.”

  “So you were right, then, weren’t you?”

  “Was I? I don’t know.”

  “Of course you were. She spent her last few months happy. It was the right thing.”

  “Do you think so? It must have been the right thing, mustn’t it? If a person’s heart is weak, it wouldn’t make things worse to move somewhere new, would it?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, because I don’t know, and then, “I mean, of course it wouldn’t. It’s like a…” I’m going to say a bomb going off, but manage to stop myself. “Like a clock running down, isn’t it? They don’t stop sooner because they’re in a different room. In fact, maybe it even made her live longer because she was happier.”

  “Maybe it did.” Lily looks heartened.

  “Sometimes,” I say, bolstered with all the confidence of a successful cat-kidnap and the invincibility of sixteen years of life, “you have to be a bit bossy and firm with people. Otherwise everyone talks about how awful things are but nobody gets round to sorting it out. You can’t sit around and watch everyone be miserable when you know you could fix it for them. Somebody’s got to be in charge.”

  Lily is looking at me with a curious intensity.

  “My lovely granddaughter. When did you get to be so wise?”

  I feel embarrassed, so I pretend I haven’t seen her and instead bend down to stroke the cat, which has stretched itself out long and contented beneath the sideboard. As long as I’m here, I decide, I’ll collect the cat every morning and bring it up here to brush it. Maybe its owners will be shamed into doing a better job of taking care of it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three – Thursday

  A second night of not-sleep. After three hours of staring blankly at the ceiling, I give up and crawl out of bed, throw on some clothes and, my heart hammering with guilt, creep downstairs and run down the road to the all-night supermarket. Leaving Marianne alone while she sleeps is another thing Daniel wouldn’t like me doing, another item on my list of things I must remember not to mention. Halfway back up the hill, carrying what feels like my own body weight in sugar, I’m suddenly convinced Marianne has left her bed and stumbled, confused and frantic, down the stairs. But when I fling myself in through the front door, the hall is as peaceful as when I left it. Lily’s front door is still closed. Marianne is fast asleep, cocooned in her sheet, the blankets crumpled in a heavy heap around her feet. From the warm space behind her knees, the tabby cat regards me with a suspicious gaze.

  Radiant with exhaustion, I shut myself in the kitchen and ladle thick jugfuls of red-black juice with Lily’s pint jug. I weigh out the sugar, a pound to a pint, and stir o
ver a low heat until it dissolves. I turn the oven on low and fill it with Lily’s store of jars, hoarded as carefully as if there’s still a war on. My favourites were the ones that once held Roses Lime marmalade, because of their intricate shape. I turn up the gas, put two saucers in the fridge to cool, and skim off the foamy lilac scum that rises to the surface. I don’t even know why I’m doing this, it’s a ridiculous thing to do. What could anyone do with all this jelly?

  That’s what you said about the cake, says Lily. And the cake got eaten, didn’t it?

  But this is different, I tell her. I must look insane. Thank God there’s no one here to see. This is enough to last all year.

  That’s the point, my darling. To make enough to last until next year. Remember to stir it. You don’t want it to burn.

  I turn back to the stove and stir around and around, tracing out crosses and shamrocks and figures of eight, enjoying the viscous weight that drags at my spoon. I take a saucer from the fridge, drop a teaspoon of liquid onto it and wait a moment for it to cool. When I push it with the spoon, it wrinkles. Encouraged, I dab at it with my finger, then shudder and wipe it off again. It looks like a clot of half-set blood.

  How could you let James near you? I ask. Was it… because you were… lonely? Was it my fault because I never came to see you after…? Lily looks at me gravely. Please. Tell me. I can’t sleep until you tell me.

  You can’t sleep, my darling, but that’s not why. None of that matters now. You need to stop thinking about the past and concentrate on the future.

  You keep saying that but I still don’t know what you mean.

  Don’t worry. You will. That jelly’s ready for pouring now. Her hand against my cheek is like a blessing. And when it’s done, you’ll sleep.

  “You let the cat in last night,” I say to Marianne as she stands in the kitchen doorway, and she looks at me with a sleepy, guilty smile. “It’s all right. She can visit. As long as you don’t feed her.” Marianne yawns and mumbles something at the same time, stretching as she does so. “Speak English, girl.”

  “Would it count as feeding her if I gave her little bits of ham out of the fridge?”

  “Why? Have you been giving her little bits of ham out of the fridge?”

  “Maybe just once or twice. She looked so hopeful.” Marianne strokes the cat’s long back, not looking even faintly sorry. The kitchen still smells of boiled fruit and sugar. Twenty-one jars of slowly cooling bramble jelly are lined up on the worktop, as pretty as well-cut jewels. The fruits of insomnia.

  My lack of sleep manifests as ravening hunger. I take eggs and bacon from the fridge and begin cooking an enormous breakfast. At some point today, Marianne is going to suggest that we take some of the jelly down to James Moon. What will I say when she asks? Lily, I think again, gnawing at the thought like a bone, how could you?

  The smell of toast mingles with the sprinkles of hot fat from the frying bacon. Marianne looks into the pan with pleasure and rummages in the cutlery drawer for knives and forks. I’m already looking forward to the crisp salt of the bacon combined with the smooth oiliness of perfectly fried eggs.

  The trick is to cook them slowly, Lily tells me over a long-ago breakfast in the alcove. I’ve just told her how different her fried eggs are to my mother’s: undersides brown flecked with black, and raw-looking jelly on the top. And you have to make sure the frying pan is really clean, Lily adds, her face dreamy and innocent. My mother’s pan was crusted with what she claimed was the non-stick coating. I slide two eggs onto Marianne’s plate.

  “Will you be busy today, Mum?”

  “Why? Do you have a plan?”

  “I was thinking I might go down to the beach. I’ll go by myself, you don’t need to come. And I can text you when I get there and when I’m coming back so you know I’m all right. And you could always ask Mr Moon to keep an eye on me. He swims every day so he’s bound to be there.”

  “You really like him, don’t you?”

  “He’s nice.”

  “He’s the rudest man I’ve ever met.”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t mean any of it. He’s nice underneath it.”

  Can she possibly know, in some deep way, what he is to her? I think of how she is with Daniel’s parents, patient and polite, as if being nice to them is a piece of homework she’s been set. Adoring her, Daniel’s parents try to bridge the distance between them with presents, days out, sleepovers. The last time Marianne saw them was for two nights in half-term. They took her to the cinema, then for dinner, and to a local zoo for an animal-encounter experience the next day. When they brought her home late on Thursday, she kept her bright delighted smile plastered to her face until the front door shut behind them. Then she leaned against me and I felt the deep breath go right through her body. “Gran and Grandpa are lovely,” she said, “but, oh, Mum, it’s so nice to be home again.”

  And now she sits opposite me at Lily’s breakfast table, eating bacon and plotting how to spend time with an old man she met a week ago.

  “Marianne. We need to talk about this.”

  “I’ll be fine, I really will. I won’t go in the sea if it’s rough. And I’ll wear my watch and I’ll only stay in for the time you say I can. So if you say I’ve got to come out after ten minutes, I will, even if I’m not cold. It’s waterproof and everything, I checked in the bath last night.”

  “It’s not the water, sweetpea, it’s… Mr Moon. I need to tell you something about him, and I’m trusting you to be sensible about it.”

  Her eyes are very dark and anxious as she watches me to see what I’m going to say.

  “You see, I found something in Lily’s things,” I say slowly.

  “I know he was Lily’s… boyfriend? Is it still a boyfriend when you’re old? It’s all right, Mum, I think it’s sweet.”

  “It’s not that, chicken. It’s… Look, you know he used to be married?”

  “Oh. So he was cheating on his wife? With Lily?”

  “Actually, it was worse than that. He – well, there’s no easy way to say this, really – he used to hit his wife. Quite often. And very hard. Lily used to hear the screaming through the floor.”

  The room has turned very cold. I feel as if I’ve crushed something small and precious.

  “But he’s nice,” Marianne falters.

  “He might seem nice, but that’s what Lily heard. She kept a sort of diary of it, she even called the police a few times. And… and I went to see him yesterday and I’m afraid he admitted it. I’m so sorry.”

  “But,” Marianne says, “maybe it was a mistake? Sometimes people make mistakes, don’t they? And they can be forgiven. And maybe his wife made him angry. Maybe she upset him and he couldn’t help himself.”

  “Don’t say that, Marianne. No one ever deserves to be hit by someone they love. Not ever, not for any reason. Do you understand me?”

  “I’m sorry, Mum, I didn’t mean to make you cross, I just—”

  “It’s all right, I’m not angry, I just want you to understand. This is really important. Are you listening? It’s never all right. There’s never an excuse.”

  “But—”

  “No. No buts. That is never, ever okay. It doesn’t matter what they say afterwards or how sorry they are. It’s not okay.”

  “But, Mum—”

  “But nothing. That’s what he did. And that’s why I don’t want you spending any more time with him. Do you understand?”

  “But he’s nice,” Marianne says again. “It might have been a mistake. And anyway, he doesn’t have a wife any more. She died.”

  “We’re not discussing this. Eat your bacon.”

  Marianne spears a large slice of crisp bacon as a tear rolls down her cheek.

  Damn it, Lily, I think to myself. What were you thinking?

  I invite Marianne to come into town with me, and then as an alternative I tell her she can go to the beach by herself, as long as she promises not to go swimming or to talk to Mr Moon. But she prefers to stay at home, reading quie
tly in her room and hoping for a visit from the cat. Her face is pale and reproachful. To my surprise, I’m as upset as she is. I’d begun to feel a reluctant tenderness towards James Moon, who loved Lily so much more successfully than I did. But no longer. There’s no place in this world for a man who hits his wife.

  I’m tired, and it takes me a while to make sense of the conversation with the estate agents. Eventually we all manage to understand that I’m still considering my options with regards to Mrs Pascoe’s property and that yes, they do indeed have a lettings division, and they would be very willing to meet with me to talk further. Yes, I have a phone number, but they can’t call me on it. Texts only. Why is that? I give the boy my best patient look, watch him turn crimson, then feel mean for teasing him.

  Is there any way I could be wrong about James? Could there be a justification for what he did? I’m surprised by how badly I want to have made a mistake. We’d begun to build a friendship of sorts. An awkward spikey argumentative friendship, held together mostly by Marianne’s earnest desire to steal his cat, but nonetheless, there was a connection there.

  Some people are so charming they don’t have to bother with being nice, Lily tells me. Do you know anyone like that, my darling?

  I can’t trust her any more. I always thought she was a good person, on the side of the victim not the bully. And now I find out her man friend was a wife beater, and yet she loved him anyway, welcoming him into her house and her life and maybe even into her bed.

  But you don’t understand, Lily says.

  I turn away. I don’t want to listen.

  When I get back, the cat’s asleep on the sofa with her paws over her eyes. Marianne sits beside her, idly stroking the tight curve of her head. I should put her out again, but I don’t want to upset Marianne any more than I already have. She has dark shadows under her eyes and her gaze is troubled. Desperate for something to do, I go to the linen cupboard, then to Marianne’s room to strip the sheets off the bed. Halfway through the job, I stop and stare down at the floor.