The Woman at Number 24

by Juliet Ashton

  ‘Surely the faster we went, the less pain for you?’

  ‘Aw.’ Sarah was all innocence. ‘You did it for me?’

  ‘Things have worked out, haven’t they?’ Leo fidgeted. This wasn’t going how he planned.

  ‘Have they?’ In theory, sharing a house was civilised, modern; in actuality, Sarah’s nose was daily rubbed in the happiness Leo had found without her.

  She and Leo had been everything to each other. He’d never got along with her friends. ‘The noise, darling, when you all get together and shriek!’ Sarah had pointed out his sexism, but bit by tiny bit she’d shifted position, until she saw less and less of those strong women. Texts and emails crossed in the ether: ‘It’s been ages!’; ‘Must get together!’ Even the strongest thread has its breaking point. She’d buried herself in marriage; for all she knew, those friends had needed her desperately. As much as she wanted to, Sarah couldn’t turn up now, needy and weepy.

  Phoning her mother had been out of the question; why invite an up-to-date list of her shortcomings? Her father would have helped, but Death leaves no forwarding address. Sarah could piece together what he’d say from her patchwork of memories. Even if he was, as her mother insisted, a hound, he’d have been on Sarah’s side. She blocked her ears to another of her mother’s mantras: ‘You wouldn’t hero-worship him if he was still alive, believe me.’

  Back in the here and now – Sarah had become proficient at slipping back and forth through slits in time – she handed Leo a wallpaper stripper.

  He looked at it blankly. ‘So we’re actually . . . ?’

  ‘What else are you here for?’

  He didn’t answer for a moment. Cogs seemed to whirr inside his head. At last he accepted the stripper, chewing at the inside of his cheek.

  Attacking the hall wallpaper side by side felt like the reprise of an old song. They’d spent hours on such tasks before the split. Almost touching, Sarah and Leo lapsed into personalities they’d shed last summer. He teased her. She reacted. He laughed. She pushed him.

  The bare shape on the wall grew. Sarah shied away from examining the frisson she felt in the enclosed space, preferring to simply enjoy it for a few selfish minutes.

  She hadn’t appreciated the beauty of the everyday when they were together: there was a lesson in that, an exhortation to live in the moment. When Sarah was finally over Leo, she’d try and apply it.

  Or, she thought, when we get back together.

  That was the first sighting of the comet in her sky. Flashy and boiling with sparks, it drowned out what Leo was saying, and he had to repeat himself.

  ‘I said working in this bloody hall in this bloody heat is like being in bloody prison.’ Leo leaned back, pushing away the curls that flopped over his forehead.

  ‘What are you in for?’ Sarah, excited by the daring of her own subconscious, persevered with the faded greens and greys of the stubborn pre-war wallpaper. ‘Murder?’

  ‘I got life for strangling a cockatoo in cold blood.’ Leo mimed this very act. ‘That bird’s a bastard. I swear it sits by the window and waits for me to come along. It told me it was sick of the sight of me this morning.’

  ‘Peck has issues.’

  ‘So has his owner.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Sarah recalled the times they’d both mocked Mavis. ‘She’s changed.’

  ‘Don’t pretend to like that nightmare of a woman. You used to impersonate her for me.’

  Guiltily, Sarah remembered her party piece. ‘I didn’t know her then. She’s tricky, prickly, but she’s trying. I think.’

  Bored of Mavis, Leo asked, ‘What are you in jail for?’

  ‘Me? I’m innocent,’ said Sarah piously.

  ‘They all say that.’

  Sarah was far from innocent; she was spending time with Leo under false pretences. She didn’t want his help with the wallpaper; she wanted him near her.

  He was, she thought, my husband first.

  As a mitigating circumstance it was feeble. ‘I might book a few days in Rome next month,’ lied Sarah.

  ‘Ah, Roma,’ said Leo, as she’d known he would. He turned to Sarah. ‘The Hotel Raphael.’

  ‘Our room was all white.’ Like the sheer drapes around their honeymoon four-poster, Sarah had been light as a breeze, made of nothing, with Leo’s eyes on her. Presumably the same home movie played in his head; their slow lovemaking in the violet Roman dusk. Lust sanctified. Their skin scorched and tender.

  ‘The church bells,’ said Leo.

  She’d lain in his arms, listening to them toll in the dark. ‘Do you remember the amazing sunsets?’

  ‘I remember it all,’ said Leo.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Mostly I remember the never-ending conversation.’ Leo leant back on the past. ‘We talked about everything, didn’t we? I knew if you were having your dreadful period pains, if your mother had picked a fight with you, if you needed a hot chocolate to put you right again.’

  ‘Even married people don’t discuss everything.’

  ‘We did.’ The look of uncertainty was rare for Leo. ‘Didn’t we? Name one thing we didn’t talk about.’

  ‘Helena,’ said Sarah. ‘Or more, specifically, you and Helena having se—’

  ‘Well, obviously we didn’t discuss that.’ Leo punched her gently on the arm. ‘Smith!’ he yelped, like a bright boy with the answer to Teacher’s question. ‘We never discussed your friend, did we?’

  Stung, Sarah found she had nothing to say. His callousness surprised her. Leo had been jealous of Smith, but surely even he could understand Sarah’s pain at not being allowed a proper farewell? She took the wallpaper tool out of his hand. She felt him go still, waiting for whatever move she chose to make next. ‘Does Helena know you’re here?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said jauntily. He laughed. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I just heard your front door. She’s home.’

  ‘Shit.’ Leo looked at his watch. ‘Right. Better dash. It’s been real,’ he laughed, kissing her hurriedly, fraternally, on the cheek.

  As Leo let himself out, Sarah was freshly annihilated, as if he’d abandoned her all over again.

  Chapter Five

  Notting Hill, W11

  This calendar is FREE to valued customers!

  Tuesday 21st June, 2016

  DO NOT REMOVE A FLY FROM YOUR FRIEND’S FOREHEAD WITH A HATCHET

  It was too new to be a tradition, but all traditions have to start somewhere; as they sifted, side by side, through the flyers and bills on the post table, Mavis had said to Sarah, ‘Tuesday already, Sarah. My turn to cook tonight.’

  One of Sarah’s new roles at St. Chads was to take lunch orders and collect them from a nearby sandwich bar; some of her workmates couldn’t overcome their awkwardness at asking the longest serving counsellor for a filled wrap. Sarah enjoyed doing it; not only did the guys in the sandwich shop flirt with her – and, it had to be said, every other female customer – but everybody at St Chad’s was glad to see her when she went round distributing the baguettes. Food is a basic, wonderful way to communicate.

  Perhaps not all food. The prospect of dinner down in Flat E didn’t excite: Sarah had never seen anything but the finest ready meals in Mavis’s shopping bag.

  Nodding at the parents and carers as they arrived with children, calling their designated therapist, manning the signing-in book – all of these tasks gave Sarah pleasure. The simple rhythm of the day was soothing. Sitting back, tapping her teeth with a pencil and looking out at the tree planted by a local councillor on St Chad’s forecourt, Sarah felt a sense of peace that had been lacking for some time.

  Her duties were straightforward. There was no grey area. It was important work, and it needed to be carefully done, but if she made a mistake all that happened was that a client waited an extra five minutes or the accounts department didn’t get their sandwiches.

  Nobody tried to harm themselves, or sobbed, or was sent home to a dangerous adult. While the blank inside her remained, Sarah co
uldn’t work directly with children.

  She greeted the little ones kindly, put them at ease, but she forbade herself to wonder about their cases. Only when her own ex-clients turned up, surprised and delighted to see her out front, did her resolve falter. Then she’d watch their backs recede as they walked down the corridor, each walk so idiosyncratic, each one of them carrying a burden. Trained to help, she also had a deep need to help; her feet felt nailed to the reception carpet as she fought the urge to follow ‘her’ children.

  *

  The hall wallpaper was gone. The woodwork was glossy white. A corner of her domain had become sellable. At seven, Sarah lay down her brush, civilised her appearance and set off on her three-minute journey to her dinner date.

  Wondering which Mavis would greet her – Dr Jekyll or Miss Hyde – Sarah didn’t recognise the click-clack of Helena’s heels coming up the stairs until it was too late to turn back.

  The cartoonish flash of teeth from Helena was empty. During the divorce Sarah had demonised her rival as a scheming she-wolf. Since then, she’d downsized the insults, in an effort to downsize her own anger, which was, of course, far more corrosive to Sarah than it was to Helena.

  Bringing up the rear, like the Duke of Edinburgh escorting the Queen, Leo shouted, ‘Darling! Hello!’ as they passed.

  ‘Hello yourself.’ Leo had visited twice more; Sarah knew something Helena didn’t know. The reversal was sweet.

  As Mavis’s door swung open, a sixth sense made Sarah look up. Way above her, Leo leaned over the bannisters and blew her a kiss. Sarah reached out to catch it – this was an old habit; its revival filled her chest with helium – but a small hand got there before her.

  ‘Come in.’ Mavis pretended to stow the kiss in a pocket of her baggy pinafore dress.

  ‘You stupid old cow!’ roared Peck.

  ‘Forgive my lodger,’ said Mavis wearily.

  ‘Cow! Cow! Cow!’

  Sarah caught his eye, the frosty white feathers on the cockatoo’s head fanned out into an impressive crest. ‘Fool,’ he croaked, claws rattling as he staggered about the floor of his cage.

  ‘What does Peck eat?’ Sarah wouldn’t have been surprised to hear ‘souls’, but the answer was fresh fruit and vegetables. His spotless wrought-iron mansion was far more homely than the narrow hallway piled high with newspapers that gave way to a square room so dark it could have been a mine. The wet velvet smell of mould clung to everything, the spores dancing down Sarah’s throat.

  ‘Make yourself at home, dear,’ said Mavis, without irony. Sarah noted that pretentious ‘deeah’ again, and thought of Mavis’s sister, a wealthy powerful woman. The difference in the siblings’ situations had been profound; it was astonishing that Zelda Bennison chose to die in Flat E.

  Disappearing to the kitchen, Mavis left Sarah on a chair with a ripped seat at a Formica dining table.

  ‘Shut up! Shut up!’ screeched Peck.

  ‘I hope you like fish,’ called Mavis.

  ‘Stupid tart!’ said Peck.

  ‘Love it!’ Sarah girded her loins.

  ‘Stupid fathead!’ bellowed Peck, bringing to mind another coarse voice. Sarah’s mother used to welcome her daughter home from school with: ‘You could look pleased to see me! How come your father’s such an idol when it’s me that puts up with your miserable gob day after day?’

  Mavis interrupted Sarah’s mother. ‘Eat up, dear.’

  On a Pyrex plate sat a glistening slab of coral-coloured salmon, surrounded by a salad of asparagus and watercress, with baby potatoes nesting in the leaves.

  ‘This smells amazing.’ Sarah hoped her surprise didn’t tip over from ‘appreciative’ to ‘rude’. ‘Is that ginger?’

  ‘And soy, plus a kiss of garlic.’ Mavis, her naked, corrugated face wry, asked, ‘Why, dear, what were you expecting?’

  ‘Nothing, no, it’s great.’ Sarah, flustered, tried a mouthful and then another and the ambrosial dish was all gone.

  ‘More?’

  Sarah liked that word. ‘Please!’

  Dessert of poached pear was sparse but ladylike.

  ‘It makes a change to be cooked for,’ said Sarah.

  ‘I used to love being in the kitchen, but now . . .’ Mavis’s face twitched and she collected the plates, moving arthritically towards the kitchen. Instinct warned Sarah not to leap up with offers of help.

  Aid isn’t always welcome. Sarah recalled helping Smith into the cab to the airport. Smith’s irritation at needing support had curdled their goodbye. There’d been the same suppressed sigh whenever Sarah tried to help with making the bed or putting away groceries. Sarah remembered the firm ‘No!’, the burning eyes.

  A snapshot flashed into her mind, a fragment of memory. A bright day. A taxi pulling away. The back of Smith’s head. Sarah’s desire to race after the vehicle like a dog. Neither of them knew that the credits were rolling over their movie, that they’d never see each other again.

  Standing, Sarah shredded her fingers. Six months was the blink of an eye. The past was an anteroom into which she stepped far too often; she was summoned back by Mavis calling from the kitchenette.

  ‘Do you have room for a glass of dessert wine?’

  ‘I always have room, Mavis.’ Sarah had never tried dessert wine, shying away from its twee connotations, and her first sip was cloyingly sweet. The second was honeyed, and she got with the programme, savouring its slow warmth.

  ‘You’re sad,’ said Mavis, with the same peremptory tone she’d once used to say ‘You’ve put on weight,’ when Sarah passed her in new jeans.

  ‘I am, a bit.’ This honesty was new: hiding her emotions was a tic engrained in Sarah’s childhood, when any hint of melancholy would provoke a tirade about ingratitude and you-don’t-know-what-I-go-through-for-you. ‘I’ve been thinking about people who’ve gone.’

  Mavis held up her glass in a silent toast.

  ‘Mavis, I’m sorry. That was insensitive.’

  ‘Not in the least. We all share the sadness of loss. Unless we never love. And that would be an even greater loss.’

  A little late, Mavis’s heart had been jump-started. Why had she chosen to hide her compassion until Zelda’s death? Something dark must have happened to the young Mavis to make her bury herself in the basement of number twenty-four. Sarah said, ‘I was thinking about Smith.’ How much Mavis knew, Sarah wasn’t sure.

  ‘Smith?’ Mavis looked confused.

  ‘Smith.’ Mavis’s confusion confused Sarah. ‘My friend in Flat C. Before the Royces.’

  ‘Yes, yes, Smith. No need to talk to me like a child.’

  Sarah’s professional expertise was with patients at the other end of life, but she identified Mavis’s gruff assertion as typical of a dementia sufferer. She wondered how long they’d been happening, these lapses, when facts dropped out of view and Mavis had to grapple for clues about things she should know.

  ‘Smith. Flat C.’ Mavis nodded as if everybody in the world knew of the famous Smith in Flat C. ‘You and he were friends.’

  ‘He?’ Sarah leant forwards, as if there were eavesdroppers who might notice Mavis’s blunder. There was only Peck grouching to himself, the sound warped and tantalising, like an argument heard through a wall. ‘Mavis, Smith was a “she”.’

  ‘Of course.’ Mavis’s laugh was unconvincing. She tapped her glass with a gnarled nail. ‘Blame this,’ she said. ‘I remember Smith. Flamboyant girl. Carried a guitar everywhere. But not awfully good at it.’

  ‘That’s her.’

  ‘Do you remember,’ asked Sarah casually, ‘that day she and I were staggering through the hall with that statue and you were furious with us?’

  ‘Of course.’ Mavis coughed self-consciously.

  You don’t remember at all.

  The statue, an armless Roman beauty, had been languishing outside a garden gate with a note saying “Please take me!” taped to her flaking bosom. Smith, who could never resist a freebie, begged Sarah to help her cart it home.

&n
bsp; A big girl, the statue was heavy: more than once they almost dropped her. Laughing so hard at the absurdity of carrying a naked woman through Notting Hill didn’t help. First Smith got the giggles, then Sarah was infected, and they’d have to stop and rest until the laughter died down, only for it to start up again when they caught each other’s eye.

  Mavis – ever alert in those days to sounds of human enjoyment – scurried up from the basement as they groaned their way across the scruffy hall. ‘Don’t drop that!’ she’d barked. ‘You’ll scuff the floor.’

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Smith to Sarah as they hunched over their cement hostage. ‘Mustn’t scuff this beautiful floor.’

  ‘What’s that, madam?’ Mavis had been imperious. ‘Speak up!’

  Letting the statue down gratefully, Smith had caught her breath and said, ‘Mavis, this beautiful lady looked so lonely we just had to bring her home. Don’t you think she’s pretty?’

  ‘Load of old tat,’ grumbled Mavis.

  Smith had never reflected Mavis’s bad temper back at her. Sarah only realised this now; Smith always spoke to her politely, calmly.

  ‘I like her, Mavis, and she’ll make a nice quiet flatmate.’

  ‘She’s filthy,’ Mavis had persisted.

  ‘None of us’d look our best if we were left outside and forgotten about.’ Smith had managed to find Mavis amusing. Sarah remembered wishing the old lady would leave them to it.

  Now, in the Smith-less present – I really miss those breezy high spirits – Mavis said, ‘Do you want this kiss I caught?’ Mavis blinked artlessly as she reached into her pocket. ‘Or shall I throw it in the bin?’

  The idea of Leo’s kiss – even a make-believe one – in with fish scales and pear peel made Sarah frown.

  ‘Sarah, you must be aware that Leo has only lent you this kiss.’

  ‘You can’t borrow love, Mavis.’

  ‘Hmm, love.’ Mavis’s woolly eyebrows met. ‘Peculiar, wispy beast. It lands. It stays. It scampers off.’