Fragile

by Sarah Hilary

  ‘Forty minutes.’ He nodded. ‘Of course.’

  Back in the kitchen, I caught sight of myself in the window above the sink, hollow-cheeked and dark-eyed. From the flat look on my face, I might have been born and raised in captivity, in this house. I turned away, taking a bottle of wine from the rack, slotting it into the fridge to chill.

  A movement at the window brought my head back around.

  The fat pigeon sat there, cocking her eye at me like Bradley in the cheese shop, ‘You’re new,’ recognizing Dr Wilder’s slave as clearly as if I wore a yoke and bridle.

  In the afternoon, he vacated the library for the sitting room, allowing me an hour to dust the spines of his books, and to polish his desk with a block of beeswax. Each drawer in the desk had an ornate brass handle, a perfect excuse to linger. One drawer wasn’t shut, so I opened it in order to smooth the passage for its runners. Another excuse. The drawer was full of papers; why did that not surprise me? A slim box rested on top, its lid loose. I took it from the drawer. Inside was a paintbrush and a black dish with a stone etched in Japanese characters. Another stone sat alongside, with a loop of blue thread fastened to it. A paperweight? I dredged the information from a recess in my brain, nights spent reading library books at Lyle’s in defiance of Meagan’s mockery. It was a calligraphy set. The ink stone silked black onto my fingers, smelling of soot and far-off places. I traced the characters on the paperweight with my fingertips, wondering what message they held. My chest was hot and tight. The box moved me, in a way I’d not anticipated. I repacked the stones in the drawer, not wanting to be caught red-handed a second time in as many days.

  One of the envelopes marked Private and Confidential was sitting out on his desk. I slid my thumb along its broken seal, peeping inside, glimpsing a royal coat of arms and the word ‘Court’, before a sound in the hall made me jump.

  I returned the envelope to its resting place, hurrying to finish the task of dusting his shelves. The boxes got in my way, nearly tripping me twice, as if they’d moved by themselves in the time it took to polish the brass handles on his desk.

  Dr Wilder wasn’t in the hall. The sound I’d heard was the post being delivered. I collected it from the mat. Another envelope, for his eyes only. Dr R. Wilder JP. I made a new promise to myself, to find out what was inside one of these envelopes. There was no such thing as useless information, Meagan Flack was right about that much.

  As supper was cooking, I changed into my black dress, putting my hair up. I was coming back down the stairs when a key grated in the front door. It froze me, panic slipping up my spine.

  Dr Wilder was in the library, bent over his books. Who then was on the other side of the door? The grating stopped then began again, as if a different key was being tried in the lock. I gripped the banister so hard it hurt my fingers, catching a flash of myself from above, standing at bay. Ready to run, my black dress clinging to my curves and the slim muscles in my thighs. Who was it? His old housekeeper, back to challenge me? Who else had a key, whom did he trust enough for that? I was the only one, surely. But I hadn’t even been here a week. What did I know about him really, what did either of us know about the other?

  Light shoved its way inside the house.

  The woman that followed was small and neat, bright gold hair swinging above the collar of her black satin coat. Just as I remembered her from the nightclub, her cat’s face looking satisfied and curious at once. In her early forties, but very well preserved. She wrested the key from the lock, the struggle showing in every line of her body. Dressed all in black, expensive, putting my Max Mara castoff in its place. Her coat was a piece of sculpture with its narrow waist and flared hips. Her hair moved as she did, a bell of hair, perfectly cut and coloured. High black heels, stockings. Some women find heels more comfortable than flat shoes; I hadn’t believed that, until I’d seen her stealing Joe from me. She moved the same way now, effortlessly. Her face turned towards the light, showing her skin cool and smooth, eyes flickering as they found me on the stairs, blanking for a second before coming into sharp focus.

  ‘You’re here already!’ Her voice was like her skin, creamy.

  The silver satin gown belonged to her. I could see it clinging to her slim hips. I’d known, of course, as soon as I’d found it in his wardrobe. I was right I was right I was right. But even so, I was shocked. She scared me. I hadn’t thought it would feel like this, seeing her face to face.

  It’s just me, now. In the Villas.

  That’s what he’d told me.

  ‘Robin said you were starting this week.’ She dropped her key into the bag she carried. ‘I’m Carolyn.’ Her smile ate me up. ‘Carolyn Wilder. Robin’s wife.’

  10

  The council estate was crawling with schoolkids. Not just teenagers bunking off, little kiddies too. Meagan watched them from her window, weaving about on their bikes or standing in gangs, huddled around whoever had the smartest phone. They all wore the same black padded coats, whatever the weather, hair greased flat to their heads. One or two had the glassy look Joe Peach wore after the first wave of trouble died down, before Nell launched her final offensive. Meagan knew that look, how expensive it was. The kids on this estate were the same as Joe, needing a sniff or a smoke. Pills, if that was all that was on offer. She’d made sure to get herself a prescription for anxiety and another for insomnia; if the worst came, she could sell the tablets on the estate. Keep them from kicking in her windows, at any rate. Pills had kept Joe quiet, and plenty of others too.

  ‘Doing your bit for community relations.’ She lit a cigarette. The boy from the Spar who took her smokes – he was the one she’d sell to, if she got to choose. He had Joe’s eyes, tiger’s eyes.

  On the estate, the huddle parted enough for her to see a yellow-haired tot in their midst, propped in a grimy pushchair. Someone’s sister? Or daughter? Lots of the lads down there were old enough to have kids of their own. Odd not to see Granny in tow, often just a strip of a lass herself, looking bewildered by the speed at which her life was running through her fingers. The tot in the pushchair was sucking on a bottle of purple juice, rotting her teeth on her drug of choice. Where were Children’s Services when they were needed? Poking their noses into foster homes, that’s where, because it was easier than getting off their arses and doing any real work.

  ‘What we don’t understand, Mrs Flack,’ wearing a pained expression, ‘is how Rosie Bond came to be out on her own at that hour of the day.’

  That’s not all you don’t understand, she’d thought at the time. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, love. She’d fought to keep it that way, since the damage was already done.

  No one took less pleasure in Rosie Bond’s disappearance than Meagan Flack. She didn’t bake cakes or make dresses but she knew how to keep kids safe, prided herself on it. Pride didn’t come easily; she’d grown up with a man who thought it meant lowered voices and a raised hand. But there’d not been one teenage pregnancy under her roof. More than you could say for Felicity Barrow or Dilys Morgan. Kids came and went, but enough of them stayed. Like Joe would’ve stayed, if they hadn’t shut her down. It began as a review, an inspection.

  ‘Emergency inspection,’ they said. ‘Serious case review.’

  She’d been vetted back at the beginning, so thoroughly they knew her knicker size and lavatory habits, and reviewed on a regular enough basis ever since. This was different, though. Because of what’d happened that summer, two years ago now. Because of Rosie.

  The Bond Baby, Social Services called her when they first brought her to Lyle’s. She came in screaming, a fat lump of a thing, red-faced, fists waving. It wasn’t until she’d cried herself to sleep that you saw what a beauty she was. Golden and pink, well-named. Two years old but she ruled the house from the off, using her blue eyes to get what she wanted and when that didn’t work, using her lungs. She’d a scream that could loosen your teeth. It was why her parents wanted shot of her after they’d ruined her with their fussing, dressing her like a gypsy
bride. Some of it stuck, too. Rosie was forever climbing in front of mirrors with her lips pouted, admiring herself. ‘Little madam,’ Meagan called her.

  Nell fell, badly. She’d always been good with the little ones. Most of them loved her and those that didn’t, needed her. Nell needed to be needed. When Rosie climbed into her lap, patting at the girl’s face the way she did at the mirrors, Nell would tell her how pretty she was and how special, how much she loved her. And Rosie would purr like a kitten. That’s how it was, at the beginning.

  Something about the Bond Baby had needled at Meagan from the off. The thorn under the rose, her old ma would’ve called it, pricking at her tough hide. She couldn’t shake the memory of the pram in the park, that golden baby, and how Nell had looked at her. That fool of a father bouncing on his toes, demanding her approval even after he’d shut her out. Nell loved Rosie, no doubt about it, but love could twist you in knots. Love could turn you inside out, make you sick and selfish and vicious. Look at the kids who came to Lyle’s. Look at Nell, thrown over by Florence Ballard for the new man in her life.

  ‘Little madam kept me awake last night. What’s she mithering about now?’

  Nell was putting out cereal bowls for breakfast. ‘Her teeth are hurting.’

  ‘So’re mine, after last night.’ Meagan lit her cigarette. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Nell hated her smoking in the house, but she had the measure of Meagan’s mood. She fetched the cereal boxes from the cupboard. Rosie’s highchair was at the head of the table next to Nell’s place so she could feed Rosie while eating her own breakfast. Rosie’s third birthday was coming up but she liked to be spoon-fed. Twelve-year-old Nell was baking a cake in the shape of a fairy castle.

  ‘You’re ruining her.’ Meagan slitted her eyes. ‘Making a rod for your own back.’

  ‘She’s little. She needs a lot of looking after.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ Meagan was spoiling for a fight. It took her that way after a sleepless night; the bruising tension in her jaw only knew one way out. ‘That I’m not pulling my weight?’

  Nell retreated to the other side of the table, taking her time with the spoons. She tucked her chin in, making herself smaller. Her hands shook slightly, spoons tapping together.

  ‘Well?’ Meagan demanded. Her palms itched to slap the girl.

  ‘I just meant she’s a baby. I like looking after her, it’s no trouble.’

  ‘Look at you! Up all night, late for school. I’ll have Social on my back for that, you wait and see.’ It rankled how the girl kept laying the table as if she could cope better than Meagan, as if she was better. ‘I’m keeping an eye on the china, you know. I’ve not forgotten those smashed plates and that baby mug you broke into bits.’

  Nell’s hands faltered, her face flickering. She looked up at Meagan then away, eyes darkening, lips turning white.

  Meagan should’ve stopped but the meanness was between her teeth, like a string of old meat. ‘I’ve not forgotten that baby, any more than you have. She’s like her, is Rosie. Could be her twin.’ She curdled her mouth. ‘I’m watching you, lady.’

  ‘I’d never hurt Rosie.’ Nell took a breath that sounded like a sob. ‘I love her.’

  ‘I saw you.’ She flicked ash. ‘Brushing her hair. That’s what set her off, last night.’

  ‘It – snagged in the brush.’ Nell’s eyes were black buttons in her face. ‘She’s got so much hair, it gets knotty. I was getting the knots out.’

  Meagan snorted. ‘You’ll never get the knots out of that one. She’s too greedy and ungrateful. She’ll suck the life out of you, if you let her.’

  Nell went to the fridge for a jug of milk. She set it on the table, keeping her fist around the handle. Meagan could see she wanted to throw her words back at her, about who was sucking the life out of who, around here. She didn’t dare, though.

  ‘She’s a bottomless pit.’ Meagan turned the cigarette in her fingers. ‘Got you dancing to her tune with that bloody cake and its turrets and towers! You’re a fool.’ She tapped her foot on the tiles. ‘I thought you were smarter.’ Tougher, was what she meant. Nell had been a tough nut since the pram in the park. Rosie was making her soft. It’d do her no good in the long run. Kids like Nell needed to be tough to survive. ‘She’ll eat you alive, if you let her.’

  ‘She’s just a baby.’ Nell released the jug’s handle, stepping back to study the table.

  Everything was in place, ready for the kids to come down and eat their breakfast before school. Princess Rosie in her throne, pouting for the next mouthful, and the next. Nell smoothed her hands at her school skirt until they stopped shaking.

  ‘Babies grow up,’ Meagan warned. ‘I was a baby once.’ She sucked at the cigarette. ‘You need to shape yourself, lady. You’re getting soft.’

  Two years later, those words came round to bite her. When Joe turned up on her doorstep, and Nell fell head over heels all over again. They made an odd triangle, Nell and Rosie and Joe. Like a family with an absent father; Joe was never quite there. He needed Nell, like Rosie did. Needed her to make his bed and bring him blankets and squeeze the oranges his social worker left behind, handing him the juice in a tall glass. Of course he fell for her too. It was the fight that did it, those fists and feet on the first day. He fell in love with the girl who’d defend her patch at any cost. Joe needed a champion.

  ‘God help anyone,’ Meagan said, ‘who comes between Nell Ballard and the thing she loves.’

  On the estate, the kiddie in the pushchair had thrown her bottle on the ground. A growling came out of her, like a motor starting up. Meagan remembered that noise bouncing off the walls in Lyle’s as Rosie worked herself up over nothing. She’d shout for Nell, ‘Get yourself down here!’

  Once Joe joined the house, it took Nell longer and longer to get herself down the stairs to deal with Rosie’s tantrums. It was like the boy had flicked a switch inside her, turning her from a little mum back into an adolescent girl. ‘I’m watching you two, lady!’ Only she wasn’t, not properly.

  All she saw was Joe taking Nell’s protection for granted, another one set to suck the life out of her. Rosie sensed the threat, plain as day. Four years old, and greedy with it. Whenever Nell had a pound to spend it was Rosie who got a bag of sweets or a bracelet. Joe didn’t want presents (unless they came in pill bags) but he wanted Nell to himself. When the summer came, it was worse.

  ‘Come to the lake, Nell. Please.’ Turning those tiger’s eyes on the girl.

  That’s when Rosie would suddenly develop a stomach ache. ‘I want my mummy!’ meaning Nell.

  Joe hissed at the child. Meagan could smell the animosity in the house, like ammonia. Then Rosie changed tack, welding herself to Joe’s leg instead of Nell’s.

  ‘I love you, Joe.’ Pouting up at him. ‘You’re my daddy.’

  After that, it was the three of them. A love triangle, you might call it. Meagan called it that, looking back. Knowing what she did about love, how it turned your guts into a tangle of greed and jealousy. Of course she couldn’t use those words after Rosie disappeared, when the emergency review reared its head. She couldn’t talk about the strange shape the three of them made, and how she’d failed to put a stop to it. But she snapped to attention soon enough, seeing how the review was going to do for her. No Nell to keep things ticking over. No Joe to smile and say how great Meagan was, how life at Lyle’s had saved him. Because Joe was the problem. He was with Rosie when she went missing. Nell, too. Meagan couldn’t tell the case workers that, could she? Leaving a six-year-old in the care of teenagers made her look worse than useless. So she covered for them, making it clear they were to cover for her in return. Scared out of their wits, the pair of them. Nell shaking, Joe spaced out like he’d taken something. Meagan searched the house every other day for anyone else’s pills, or for knives – anything that might come back to bite her. Except she hadn’t thought of death, had she? You couldn’t search for that under pillows or in the backs of cupboards. Soon
as she heard the police cars, she knew it was up. No more Lyle’s, no more money. The best she could do was dodge charges. She’d covered for the pair of them, but it hadn’t stopped that little bitch doing what she did.

  On the estate, the kiddie was bawling in her pushchair. Tipping over, trying to reach her dropped bottle of juice, hand outstretched, fingers starfishing. None of the others took any notice, busy on their phones.

  Watching her, Meagan remembered another kiddie from years ago. A girl she’d gone to school with who’d tripped on the pavement walking home, hit her head and died from it.

  That’s how easy it was to kill a kiddie.

  You took your eyes off for a second, and it was all over.

  11

  Three of us now in Starling Villas.

  Carolyn Wilder and her husband, and me. They were in the sitting room, where I’d been instructed not to disturb them. They’d go out, Carolyn said, for supper. I was to find a way to preserve the meal I’d cooked; surely it could be frozen for later in the week. Wasn’t that why I was here, to make myself useful?

  ‘I’m assuming you’re resourceful.’ The switch of a smile, a flash of her perfect teeth. ‘Yes?’

  It had taken her less than a minute to establish this new world order, as I’d stood frozen on the stairs. Crossing the hall, high heels tapping at the tiles I’d scrubbed, instructions reeling off like ticker tape in her wake: ‘Freeze the supper, won’t you? We’re going out.’ She only stopped speaking when she reached the library, opening the door and disappearing inside.