The Woman at Number 24

by Juliet Ashton

  Sarah quailed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Look, this financial adviser guy is going to think you’re playing a late April fool’s joke when you tell him what you earn and that you want to double your mortgage.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll—’

  ‘Sarah, this is my profession. Trust me. You need a Plan B or Leo will have all the power and you’ll have to move out.’ Jane dipped her head to look at Sarah’s lowered eyes. ‘Don’t hide! If you can face the zombie of Southwold you can face this. That’s better,’ she said as Sarah smiled wanly. ‘Plan B is either you go back to being a child psychologist, thereby earning more and having a decent shot at upping your mortgage . . .’

  ‘Nope,’ said Sarah, short and far from sweet.

  ‘Right then. You can’t or won’t leave Mavis, so we’re on to Plan C. I’ve had a little chat with a contact of mine. An estate agent. Shush!’ ordered Jane as Sarah opened her mouth. ‘Hear me out. This guy’s a local. Very select clientele, all filthy rich, not generally looking for a home, but for properties to add to their portfolios. They snap up lots of little gems, period flats in good postcodes. When I told him of a fabulous small flat at the top of my house that wasn’t even on the market yet, his eyes lit up. He has the perfect prospective buyer, apparently. Looking for a property to rent out. No names, all very hush-hush. Your flat would suit him down to the ground.’

  ‘It suits me down to the ground,’ said Sarah sulkily, drawing a face in some spilled sugar.

  ‘My contact is very interested. Very. I told him there was a proviso. That the buyer would have to allow the vendor – that’s you, by the way, bug-a-lugs – to stay on as a tenant.’

  Sarah sat up at this curveball. ‘But I can’t afford the fancy rents landlords expect.’ In Merrion Road, unless you were on benefits like Lisa or a lifelong resident like Mavis, rents were higher than the average mortgage repayment.

  ‘We talked about that. If you’re willing to discount the asking price, then perhaps we can negotiate a discount in the rent.’

  Sarah appreciated that ‘we’.

  ‘You’d be able to stay at number twenty-four, look after Mavis, get pissed with me, and have a few pennies left at the end of the week.’ Jane sat back, pleased with her scheme.

  Sarah tried to like it, tried to see the positives, but couldn’t shake the thought that renting again after gaining a toehold on the property ladder would feel like going backwards.

  She chewed her lip; a habit she’d had as a child that was making a comeback. That ladder was slippery, but as a single woman with no family support she needed to try and keep her grip on it.

  Jane said into Sarah’s silence, ‘Leo’s going to be on your back when you kick him to the kerb. You need to be prepared.’

  ‘I know . . .’ Sarah felt an urge to defend Leo; old habits die hard. ‘He’s been patient, you know. It’s over a year since we split up.’

  ‘You mean it’s over a year since he waltzed off with that sex-bot! I wouldn’t call it patient, I’d call it guilt. Leo’s been having his cake and eating it: current wifey in his bed, sexy ex on the floor above. Just watch – he’ll start piling on the pressure.’

  Sarah had never shared Helena’s sly story about needing Flat A for a nursery. Old suspicions flared up, clogging up Sarah’s mind. I need to finally divorce properly from Leo. The flat was all that connected them. It was a big step. But hey, I’m getting used to those. ‘OK. Let’s do it.’

  ‘I’m glad you said that.’ Jane wiped her brow with an exaggerated gesture. ‘I’ve booked a viewing for next Thursday.’ She squinted at the bill, ignoring the expression on Sarah’s face and changing the subject. ‘If I were you I’d communicate with Leo through lawyers. Wash him right out of your hair.’ She ferreted for change in her purse. ‘He’s a—’

  ‘Leo’s everything you’re about to say and more,’ Sarah sighed. ‘But we were happy once. I need to tell him to his face that our whatever-it-is is over.’ Sarah still couldn’t bring herself to call it an affair. ‘It’ll be a relief not to feel guilty about Helena any more.’

  ‘She didn’t feel guilty about you!’ Jane was outraged, but calmed down to add, ‘Which makes you the nicer person. So you win, I suppose.’

  ‘I don’t think anybody wins,’ said Sarah.

  *

  There was a premonition of autumn in the garden, like a rumour whispered in Sarah’s ear.

  When Una saw Tom at Mikey’s house, she sped up. Sarah relinquished the child’s hand and hung back.

  Ethereal and fair with pearly skin, Camilla was at Tom’s side, her head on his shoulder.

  As if somebody’s glued her ear to his jacket, thought Sarah sarcastically, wishing somebody would glue her ear to Tom’s jacket.

  ‘Una!’ said Tom. ‘I was just about to introduce Cam to Mikey, although we shouldn’t really get him out because he’s nocturnal and it’s dayti— oh, OK.’

  All self-respecting six-year-olds are indifferent to rules. Una reached in for the snoozing hedgehog and embraced Mikey as if they’d been parted for years. With a grin, she presented him to Camilla, who seemed unsure of hedgehog etiquette. Mikey’s nose lifted in her direction, his one good eye shining.

  Taking a step back, Camilla said, ‘Ooh, um, hi.’

  Una pressed Mikey on her, but Camilla backpedalled frantically, almost losing her footing. ‘Urgh, no, they’re full of fleas!’

  ‘That’s a myth,’ said Tom and Sarah, both of them startled by the echo, looking at each other.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ Camilla demanded of Tom, looking upwards as if the sight of Sarah might damage her eyes.

  ‘Living, Cam. She lives here.’ Tom nodded at Sarah. ‘Hi.’ He was polite.

  ‘Hello.’ Sarah was also polite.

  ‘Una and I are off to the corner shop,’ said Sarah, keen to get away.

  Una’s disgruntled displeasure lasted only as long as it took to promise her a Curly Wurly. The child looked over her shoulder as they walked back to the house and shuddered.

  Sarah looked and she shuddered too. Not with disgust – she’d seen grown-ups kiss before – but with longing.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Notting Hill, W11

  This calendar is FREE to valued customers!

  Tuesday 6th September, 2016

  A FALL INTO A DITCH MAKES YOU WISER

  Sarah was serious about many things. Loyalty. Truthfulness. Peanut butter ice cream. Friendship was serious. Family, with its power to heal and harm, was deadly serious.

  Love was top of the pile. It touched everything, and changed everything it touched.

  Love didn’t have to be of the romantic variety; love fuelled Sarah’s devotion to what was left of Mavis’s future. It was the driving force behind her feelings for Jane, her tenderness towards Una, even her ambivalent interactions with Lisa.

  Love left its fingerprints all over her father’s memory; it rose off the page each time she re-read his letter to remind herself that she was good enough, that there was beauty everywhere.

  Love was at the bottom of her mother’s rage.

  Love wasn’t pink for Sarah. No harps. No cherubs. Love was monumental, and unchanging. That’s why she’d found it so hard to disengage from Leo, even when they had nothing left.

  The way Sarah felt about Tom was elemental, part of the natural world. She and Tom – Sarah felt nervous pairing them in her mind – were chiselled in stone. Hard but magnificent. Durable. Constant.

  Leo was persistent; Tom was invisible. One cornered Sarah on the stairs at all hours of the day and night; the other spent most of his time out of number twenty-four altogether.

  Sarah supposed Tom was at Camilla’s as she dodged Leo, avoiding the inevitable conversation. She fobbed him off, backing away as she told him about the viewing booked for the flat.

  ‘Yes, but, darling . . .’ Leo’s eyes had tried desperately to communicate. ‘There’s other stuff to sort out.’

  ‘Is there?’ Sarah had looked innocent as she
made her escape. A handwritten note landed on her doormat. Dashed off, shakily written, it wasn’t signed.

  Dearest S

  I can’t stop thinking about you. Are you still mad at me? Sod the flat, darling. Do what you like with it. Just confess to me that you want me like I want you. Please, please let’s be alone together.

  Destroy this obvs!!!!!

  Sarah read its paltry lines over again, marvelling that she’d been satisfied with such morsels. Cocksure Leo thought he still had the upper hand.

  Pushing her hair back into a ponytail, Sarah surveyed herself in the mirror that now hung on her bedroom wall. A mirror attached to a wall at the correct height still felt novel. The revamped flat was a constant revelation; like the homely secretary who takes off her specs, it had revealed its true, lovely self.

  There was still some way to go. As Sarah flicked off the lights and left, she heard the ancient plumbing hiss. A job for whoever buys the place, she thought, trying to be glad to hand over such a tedious project, but deep down she was possessive even of the worn-out water pipes.

  ‘As it’s September,’ said Mavis, ushering Sarah in, ‘I made something hearty. Hope you like shepherd’s pie.’

  Peck got there first. ‘Stupid! Stupid!’

  ‘Watch it,’ murmured Sarah as she passed the cage. ‘Or it’ll be cockatoo pie next week.’

  Mavis had tethered her wiry hair into a bun; Sarah was touched by this evidence of ‘making an effort’. She was on good form, with none of the crankiness or lack of focus or physical instability that Gan at St Chad’s had warned of.

  The weekend had been a low point. Mavis had skulked behind the chain on her door, refusing invitations to come out, muttering that she needed to be alone. ‘Let me be!’ she’d snapped, her face congealed into sourness. Sarah had stood outside for a few minutes, debating with herself – was this, she wondered, the beginning of the end? She’d noticed Mavis’s wild hair and dressing gown buttoned up all wrong.

  No dressing gown today; Mavis was as presentable as she could ever be, and humming contentedly as she manhandled the pie out of the oven.

  Over dessert of apple crumble – the nearest thing to a cuddle a cook can provide – Peck bounced on his perch, inviting them and the rest of the world to get stuffed, put a sock in it, stick it up their bum, et cetera.

  ‘He’s getting worse,’ sighed Mavis.

  And so are you. The ‘bad’ days would, at some point, outweigh the ‘good’. ‘Maybe the RSPCA can rehome him.’

  ‘Peck and I are a pair. Some promises one has to keep.’ With counterfeit innocence, Mavis said, ‘Tom and his young lady knocked on my door earlier.’

  Sarah had decided that her need for Tom, even though it permeated every cell of her body, down to the split ends of her hair, wouldn’t cripple her. Instead, she welcomed it as a sign of life returning to her extremities. She closed her eyes, the slight nausea she’d woken up with that morning returning, telling a story all of its own. Massaging her tum, she willed the discomfort to recede.

  ‘She’s in love, poor what’s-her-name.’ Mavis had loyally contrived to forget Camilla’s name.

  Or is it the motor neurone disease?

  ‘Tom, however,’ said Mavis, ‘is showing no signs whatsoever of being in love.’

  ‘You’re biased, Mavis.’

  ‘There’s a click, rightness, when people find each other. Tom and his girlfriend are well suited, but it’s not special.’ Mavis patted crumbs from her sleeve. ‘Nothing to give you sleepless nights, at any rate.’

  ‘I’ve missed that boat, Mavis.’

  ‘Tom isn’t a boat.’ Mavis leaned on her knuckles and rose. ‘Coffee, yes?’

  ‘Please.’ Sarah closed in on herself as the gentle noises of coffee preparation wafted from the hellhole kitchenette. Her inner thoughts were repetitive again, just like they used to be when she was still smarting from the divorce.

  The thought process was circular and went like this: yes, it was good that Tom wasn’t married. But it was bad that she’d treated him like a low-down hound. It was very bad that he was in a relationship with a woman who was nuts about him. It was very, very bad indeed that Tom seemed to be keen on the woman.

  And so on. And on and on and on.

  There was no way to step out of this loop. Sarah had already tried the magical kiss that solves everything in Disney cartoons. It had ruined what was left of her dignity and driven Tom deeper into his new lover’s arms.

  A suspicion niggled at Sarah, that if she squared her shoulders and really went for it, she might wrestle Tom back from Camilla. But I don’t want to be that person. Sarah longed for clarity, for purity. If Tom really wanted her, he’d make it happen. Adultery hadn’t worked out for Sarah before, and she was reluctant to try it again.

  Leaning back on her chair, she noticed a black shape lolling in a corner. ‘I’ll take out the rubbish for you.’

  ‘That’s kind,’ called Mavis.

  The bin bag tore on the front step, vomiting trash over Sarah’s feet. A dainty heel appeared just as she bent to gingerly pick up sopping kitchen roll and fossilised teabags.

  Camilla gave a tiny shriek. ‘Careful, Tom, careful!’ she said over her shoulder, as if the eggshells and potato peelings constituted grave danger.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ muttered Sarah.

  ‘Let me help.’ Tom’s boots joined Camilla’s kitten heels. He bent down, his hair almost brushing Sarah’s face, to round up a recalcitrant box that had escaped.

  Shivering at the almost-touch, Sarah took the small package from him. Shut out from the couple’s nice ordinary happiness, she kept her head down and said, ‘Have a great evening.

  The stars hung low over the house, and the growl of traffic on Kensington Park Road hinted at things to do, people to see. Here I am, thought Sarah, picking up rubbish.

  The smell of coffee met her in the basement. ‘Just the way you like it.’ Mavis pushed the small cup towards her; like all its comrades it didn’t have a matching saucer.

  Sarah took her seat slowly, her eyes fixed on her hostess. ‘Mavis, I know.’

  Peck wheezed, and rattled the bars of his cage.

  Still as a waxwork, Mavis said nothing.

  ‘I know,’ repeated Sarah. ‘It’s going to be . . .’ It would be crass to tell a dying woman that everything would be ‘OK’. ‘We’ll get through it.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Mavis challenged her. ‘I’ve been so careful.’

  ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘I beg to differ,’ said Mavis under her breath.

  Sarah tossed the cardboard packet Tom had handed her onto the table. ‘Rilutek, Mavis. Your Rilutek. It helps with the symptoms of your motor neurone disease. You can’t just throw these tablets away. You must take them.’

  Mavis reached for the box, turned it over in her hands.

  ‘From now on,’ said Sarah, ‘I’ll take care of you.’ It was a huge promise, but it was easy to make. ‘Just like you took care of your sister.’

  Mavis put down the tablets. She tapped them once with her finger. ‘These aren’t mine.’

  Sarah was gentle. ‘Your name’s on them.’ She pointed to the printed sticker. ‘See? Mavis Bennison, twenty-four Merrion Road.’

  ‘Mavis Bennison was my sister.’

  ‘You’re confused,’ said Sarah. ‘You’re Mavis.’

  ‘I’m not in the least confused, dear. I do not suffer from motor neurone disease. I am not Mavis. I set foot in this house for the first time eight months ago. I’m Zelda Bennison.’

  The hairs on Sarah’s arms lifted. ‘This is a delusion, Mavis. Let’s sit quietly until you feel better.’

  ‘Here I am, confessing at last, and you don’t believe me?’ The woman with two names stood up. ‘Mavis, my sister, is dead. I know, because I killed her.’ She fetched a bottle of whisky from a shelf and set it down on the table. ‘We’re going to need this.’

  The shot of whisky rattled Sarah’s sinuses. ‘You really thi
nk you’re Zelda?’ she said eventually.

  ‘I know I’m Zelda!’ Whoever she was, she was exasperated. ‘Why not let me talk, dear, and see what you think when I’m finished. Deal?’

  The Mavis Situation had distorted completely. Perhaps it’s now the Zelda Situation. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘There’s the “why” of it, and then there’s the “how”. I’ll start with the “why”.’

  Another sip of whisky for them both. They regarded each other with carefully composed faces. Suddenly, the old lady opposite Sarah had become a stranger. Either she was Mavis and she was in an unreachable land of make-believe, or she was Zelda and she was a murderer.

  I don’t know what to call her.

  The woman Sarah knew as Mavis took a deep breath, as if she stood on a diving board. ‘It’s not common knowledge that Mavis and I were twins. We were never dressed alike, even as children. Similar in every physical regard, we were polar opposites in personality. As if the gods played a trick on us.’

  Their parents’ glacial indifference, she said, might have pushed the little girls together, but the Bennison girls were never close. ‘Mavis was born angry. I tried. I would have loved a confidante. But she rejected me. And all of us.’

  Mavis duelled with nannies and pinched her twin black and blue. ‘Hard to believe when you only knew Mavis in her bleak years, but as a child she was full of energy. All of it negative, unfortunately. If there was nobody around to torment, Mavis raged at the mirror. The luxuriously appointed family home was a bed of nails. ‘Mother and Dad led their own lives. We had the status of expensive pets. Granny lived with us. Well, she was in the same house, but locked away, a source of shame as she descended into what my parents called madness, but would now be diagnosed as frontotemporal dementia. She was shown no kindness. Mavis and I spent our childhoods plotting our escapes. From our parents, from the memory of poor Granny.’ The woman closed her eyes. ‘From each other.’

  The whisky glowed like plutonium in Sarah’s stomach.

  ‘I left home the moment I could.’ This woman who claimed to be Zelda gave a first-person version of the biography Sarah knew from the back covers of the Chief Inspector Shackleton novels. ‘I had no qualifications. How I got a job at Faber and Faber publishing I’m not sure, but they took a chance on me and I started at the bottom, once I’d learned to type. Badly.’