by Shelley Day
Stella finds herself pulling the cardigan about her, though it too is thin and wet and it reveals more than it conceals. Marcia was right. She should not have come back here. She should have gone straight from the coach into a B&B and so on to the Probation, like Marcia had made her promise. She shouldn’t have been such a pig head. But it’s too late now. She’ll have to make the best of a bad job. Act normal. Take control. Come on, Stella. You know how to handle this creep.
‘You still haven’t said what it is you’re after,’ Stella says, standing up now and looking Frank in the eye.
Frank lights another cigarette.
‘You smoke too much.’
Frank exhales smoke slowly.
Stella sighs, picks up a brass candlestick from the mantelpiece, rubs it on her sleeve and puts it back. She picks up a ceramic spill holder. ‘This,’ she says, ‘you brought from Skegness. I remember. You had a dirty weekend with your floozy, and you brought this back.’ It’s Stella’s turn to snigger.
‘That floozy, so-called, happens to have been your mother,’ Frank gives Stella a satisfied smirk. ‘Come to think of it, Muriel would have been about the same age as you are now, when she got started. Ha! Now there’s a thought!’
‘You’re a liar, Frank Fanshaw. I can’t say as you’ve changed.’
Stella’s going to have to ride this one out. There’s no way she can get to the front door, not now.
‘Funnily enough,’ Frank says, ‘I was just thinking the very same thing about you. Great minds think alike, eh?’
Stella looks around the room. Frank follows her gaze.
‘Everything’s still here,’ he says, ‘Whatever it was that caused old Ma Willoughby to do a moonlight, she didn’t trouble to take much with her. Pretty obvious to me that one’s gone to meet her maker…’
‘It’s like the Marie Celeste,’ Stella interrupts. She walks over to the cupboard under the stairs and rests her hand on the round brass door handle. It feels cold and inert. It can’t be… but it is. Could the handle be moving, turning against her palm? Stella snatches her hand away and stares down at the doorknob. Just an ordinary brass doorknob. Perfectly still. Stella looks at her palm. Just an ordinary palm.
‘Who? Who? Who are you talking about?’ Frank is insistent, ‘What was that you said? You said a name before you drifted off onto Planet Stella.’
For a few moments nothing makes sense. Stella continues to stare at the handle on the cupboard door, but nothing is moving.
‘Oh…I’m sorry, what was I saying? Yes, yes, the Marie Celeste,’ Stella struggling to pull together her thoughts, ‘The Marie Celeste. It was a ship. A mystery ship, found floating on the sea, the dinners half eaten, the drinks half drunk, all the people – the crew and everybody – vanished...’
‘Old wives’ tale, that,’ says Frank, ‘a lot of old baloney.’
‘It’s true. It’s a true story, Frank, an unsolved mystery.’
‘Well, old mother Willoughby’s no mystery, she’s snuffed it, that’s what I reckon.’
Stella will not rise to that bait. The old fool knows no more than she does. If he did, he’d have said.
‘D’you want something to eat?’ Frank nods towards the back kitchen window sill, where Stella now sees he has some provisions stacked up. ‘I’ve got some left of a loaf and half a tin of pilchards…’
How long has he been here? How long is he figuring on them staying here?
‘Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want anything. You have what you like.’
‘Oh, anything I like, is it?’ Frank titters. ‘You sure about that?’ He rubs his hands together.
Chapter Six
Stella is still standing by the cupboard under the stairs. She is completely aware of her resolve not to go near that cupboard. Yet here she is, standing right next to it, her hand reaching out towards the door. Suddenly she grabs hold of the handle and wrenches the door open so hard it bangs back on its hinges, releasing the most horrible smell into the room. The smell is pungent, herbal, sour, but there are volatiles – ether, chloroform, formalin – and there’s something sulphurous, and there’s the smell of something dead in there, something long dead and rotting.
‘Christ almighty, the stench coming out of there…’ Frank gasps, getting to his feet and covering his nose and mouth with his hand. ‘Shut the bloody door, for God’s sake!’
But something’s stopping Stella from closing the door. Like she can’t close it, won’t close it, she doesn’t know which. She’s holding the door wide open and is just standing there, leaning forward, straining to see inside.
‘For fuck’s sake, Stella, shut the bloody door.’ Frank sounds genuinely alarmed. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing. There’s good reason why that door’s kept locked… I would’ve thought you of all people…’
‘It’s not locked now,’ says Stella. ‘It just came open. Honestly, I hardly touched it.’
‘That’s the whole damn point.’
‘I swear I hardly touched it…’
‘Get away from there, I’m telling you. There’s poisons in there. And Christ knows what else. What the hell old Mother Willoughby – God rest her soul – was wanting with all them poisons I’ll never know, but that’s what’s in there, and you’d be best getting that door shut Stella and leaving it shut.’
‘You said “God rest her soul” – are you saying my grandmother’s dead, then?’
‘I’m surmising. Open your eyes, girl. Why else would the place be all boarded up if the old stick hasn’t popped her clogs, eh? Now shut the door. There’s a good girl. Let’s leave all that where it is.’
‘She’d only just be eighty. She could have gone away somewhere.’
‘I’m not answering any more of your questions till you get that door shut. I mean it. Or do I have to get up and do it myself?’
Stella makes no attempt to close the cupboard door. Frank strides across the room, gets behind the cupboard door, gives it an almighty kick and it slams shut. But Frank’s no sooner sat down in the chair again than the door’s sprung back open.
‘Would you shut that fucking door, for Christ’s sake, Stella?! And put the fucking catch on.’
Stella’s made him angry now, Stella and the cupboard. Stella should know better than to make Frank angry. She tries to shut the door but it keeps springing open. The catch won’t hold. Maybe it’s broken, but it looks alright.
‘Remember Baby Keating?’ Stella says out of the blue, apropos of nothing. She hardly remembers the baby herself and has no idea why Hedy Keating’s abducted infant should suddenly come into her mind again. The police had spent ages tracking down Hedy’s estranged ‘husband’, but hadn’t found the baby. Frank is silent. ‘Do you remember Baby Keating, Frank?’ Stella repeats, ‘Dunno why he suddenly came into my head, but he did.’ Frank’s still not answering. Why’s he not saying anything? Stella turns and looks at Frank. He looks peculiar. ‘What’s up with you, all of a sudden?’ she says, ‘Are you ill?’
Frank sits down, elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. Stella comes over and puts her hand on his shoulder. He shakes his head and pushes her away. He can’t be crying. Surely he can’t be crying. Why is he making those noises? He seems to be having trouble getting his breath.
‘What’s the matter? Shall I fetch a doctor?’
Frank shakes his head again. ‘Just let me alone. Let me alone. I’ll be alright in a minute.’
Stella backs off. She’s never seen Frank like this before, she can’t make sense of the sudden change – unless he’s ill, unless he’s about to have a heart attack or something.
‘Open the window,’ he says, breathless.
Stella could leave now, while he’s poorly – he won’t be able to follow. But doing that doesn’t seem right. It’s not right to leave someone who’s been taken ill. Even when that someone is Frank Fanshaw.
; Stella opens the back kitchen window. ‘Is that better? Your face is the wrong colour. It’s gone all grey.’
‘It’s them smells. From that cupboard,’ Frank says after a while. ‘They’ve turned my stomach. I told you, they’re poisons. I told you, you should shut the door and keep it shut.’
So Frank’s getting back to his normal self. She’d never have guessed he’d be so scared of a few smells from a stinking old cupboard.
‘I can’t smell anything now,’ Stella says, ‘I could before, but it’s faded…’
‘Shut the bloody door, can’t you?’ Frank’s yelling now, getting to his feet. He looks to Stella very unsteady. ‘Can’t you do anything right? I told you to shut the bloody door.’ Frank staggers across the room and slams the door shut himself and before it can come open again, he wedges one of the chairs under the handle and kicks it into place. He slumps back down in the chair.
‘Pass the tabs,’ he commands.
Stella takes one for herself and passes the box to Frank. No point in antagonising him.
‘What did you say you wanted to see me for, Mr Fanshaw?’
‘Frank,’ he says, ‘why’s it suddenly “Mr Fanshaw”? I told you, the name’s Frank. You’re a big girl now.’ Frank’s gripping his cigarette so tightly he can hardly get a draw on it. ‘There’s something you’ll be interested in, that’s all,’ He shrugs, ‘How about it?’
‘How about what? What might I be interested in?’ Frank Fanshaw hasn’t changed one bit. Stella knows exactly what he’s going to say next. He seems to have completely recovered. She should have taken the chance and run while he was acting the sick man. ‘I came here to see my grandmother. She’s not here. So I’m not staying. I’m going elsewhere…’
‘Ask me nicely, there’s a good girl, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.’ Frank is fiddling with the cigarette lighter, flicking it on and off.
‘The Zippo,’ Stella says, ‘you’ve got the Zippo.’ She reaches out to catch hold of the lighter in Frank’s hand, but Frank snatches it away and holds it just out of her reach. ‘That’s not yours,’ Stella says, ‘that was Grandpa Worthy’s.’ She’s not going to play Frank’s stupid games.
‘Aye,’ he says, ‘Any objection? I found it upstairs. Amazing it still works. Nice one. Always fancied a Zippo. Dear to buy, these are.’ He flicks the lighter on and off a few times more, then puts it into his trouser pocket.
‘You’ve no right helping yourself to stuff that’s not yours.’
‘It’s mine now,’ Frank says. ‘Finders keepers.’ Frank pats the outside of his trouser pocket in a gesture that makes Stella wince. ‘Ask me nicely, like I said, and I’ll tell you everything I know. I might even show you,’ he adds, ‘if you’re specially nice.’ He puts a pointed finger under Stella’s chin, but she moves away before he can tilt her head up and make her teeth crash together.
‘I read all about you in the papers,’ Frank says, ‘Yeah, you were famous. Stella Moon’s little hour of fame.’
Frank Fanshaw pretending to be nice is worse than Frank Fanshaw being naturally nasty.
‘Nobody at the work would believe we were acquainted,’ he went on, ‘or that a slip of a lass like you could do a murder. But then I described how I’d…how I’d come to know your mother, and what a nasty bitch she was…’
‘Don’t you say that,’ Stella interrupts. ‘There’s no need to say that.’
‘Oh, I should know better than to speak ill of the dead, should I? Well, missy, let me tell you. I don’t give a piece of shit about the dead. And I don’t give a piece of shit about your bloody mother. I happen to know first-hand what a bitch Muriel was, so don’t come all high and mighty on me. There’s no law against speaking the truth.’
‘What do you know about the truth? You wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and smacked you in the gob.’
‘Oh, touchy-touchy all of a sudden, are we? OK. What’d you go and kill her for then, if she wasn’t a bitch? The papers all said you said...’
‘Shut up, will you?!’ Stella jams her hands against her ears. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here with you anyway. You’re weird, you are. You always were weird. God, when I think…’ Stella grabs her little suitcase and goes towards the door. ‘I’m going,’ she says, ‘and I’m not coming back. I’d rather sleep on the streets than spend another minute in this stinking hole.’
Frank jumps up and pushes in front of Stella, standing with his back against the door, his arms outstretched across the opening.
‘Not so fast, missy,’ he says. ‘Frankie hasn’t finished yet.’
‘Well, Stella has.’ Stella tries to push past him but he stands his ground. ‘Let me past,’ she says.
‘I’ll let you past when I say, not when you say. Who the hell do you think you are?’
‘For Christ’s sake…’
‘That’s right, you’re going to need Christ before I’m finished with you, you little bitch, you nasty little murderer! What kind of person is it that kills their own mother, eh? I ask you, what kind of person is it who goes and does something like that?’ Frank prods his finger in front of Stella’s face. She can smell his breath again, and feels droplets of his spittle landing on her face.
‘What is it you want?’ Stella says, backing off, ‘I haven’t got anything. I’ve no money, nothing…’
‘I don’t want bloody money! What makes you think I want money?’
‘Well, what do you want?’
‘I told you, there’s something I have to talk to you about. It’s in both our interests. Trust me.’
‘Something? Like what? Why not just say it here and now and get it over and done with? Then we can go our separate ways. I want to get on with my life, Frank. I mean that. I actually just want to get on with my life.’
‘Look, Stella,’ Frank says, ‘a lot’s happened. You and me, we’re on the same side. We shouldn’t be fighting. We’ve got to trust each other. Or we’re both in the shit.’
‘It’s you that’s fighting. I’m not fighting.’
‘Come with me to the Beach Hut and I’ll explain. You have to see for yourself,’ Frank says. ‘We’ll go up to the Beach Hut and get it all sorted out.’
Stella is suddenly very weary. She’d intended to get started on a whole new life. And instead…this. More of the same. More of the bloody same.
‘Tomorrow,’ she says, ‘tomorrow, when it’s light. We’ll go to the Beach Hut. But please, get out of the way of the door. I’m all in. Let’s just leave it for now. I’m absolutely dropping.’
Chapter Seven
That first night, in the cold of her grandmother’s abandoned and derelict lodging house, Stella spends crouched on the stairs drifting in and out of sleep. Frank is somewhere on the first floor, probably in his old room, but Stella didn’t know where, and is too weary to care. He’d smirked as he locked the porch door from the inside and shoved the key back into his trouser pocket. He’d gazed at Stella for a long moment before trudging up the stairs. She’d kept her eyes closed, her breathing steady and her arms round the suitcase.
Frank may not have realised it, but Stella was ready for anything. Then he was gone and Stella spent a long time listening to him pacing about upstairs, back and forth, back and forth, like he couldn’t settle either, not until the early hours. Something was eating him. Stella didn’t know what. She was thirsty, so thirsty, but there was no water to be had and she had to get used to it. No electricity, no light, no nothing except the smell of the past that seemed to renew its intensity with every pacing footstep of Frank’s on the floor above.
Morning, and here’s Frank standing beside Stella on the stairs, shining the torch into her eyes.
‘Wakey, wakey,’ he says, his hand nudging into her shoulder.
Stella flinches and stands up, her back stiff, her neck aching. Strategy in place after the long night.
&nb
sp; ‘Can’t you pull some of these boards off, Frank?’ she says in a small voice, ‘Let some light in?’
Frank shakes his head. ‘Not a good idea, missy,’ he says, ‘not a good idea at all.’
‘But this dark’s depressing.’
Frank shakes his head again. ‘People will see. We don’t want all and sundry nebbing in now, do we? Seeing that we’re in here. They’ll have you back inside for breaking and entering.’ Frank laughs. ‘And bang goes your parole! There’s no point anyway,’ he adds, ‘we’re off to the Beach Hut. Remember?’
‘Well, the back, then,’ Stella says. ‘Pull the boards off at the back. Nobody can see in there. Go on, Frank, please – for me. I’m getting claustrophobia. And I’m not on parole.’
‘Alright. Have it your way.’ Frank sighs. He clumps down the rest of the stairs and opens the door of the room that was Ruby Willoughby’s.
‘Not that one,’ Stella says. Too late. Frank’s already gone in, he’s opening the sash and banging at the plywood board with his fist.
Stella stays standing in the doorway, another threshold she doesn’t want to cross. It’s important to sound normal and act normal. But now she’s breathing in her grandmother, breathing in rose water, rouge, laudanum.
‘You’ll need more than your fist,’ Stella manages to say, still hovering in the doorway. Is Grandma Willoughby dead? How could she have died without Stella knowing, without her having some kind of feeling?
Frank has produced some tool from his pocket. It’s the Swiss Army knife, and he’s prising the board off the window with it. The plywood cracks and splits, and eventually gives way. When the pale morning light comes in, Stella has wandered into the room and is staring at the bed she used to share with Grandma Willoughby. It’s covered by a large sheet of the sort decorators use, but it’s all stained and there are clusters of rodent droppings piled up in the dips.
