The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

by Maggie O'Farrell

  Esme turns and wanders up the other side of the courtyard towards the nursery. She pushes at the door, which feels dry and sun-hot under her palm. Inside, Jamila is stirring something on a low stove and Hugo is standing, holding on to a chair leg, a wooden block pressed to his mouth. When he sees Esme, he lets out a shriek, drops to the floor and starts crawling towards her with a jerky, clockwork motion.

  Hello, baby, hello, Hugo,' Esme croons. She loves Hugo. She loves his dense, pearly limbs, the dents over his knuckles, the milky smell off him. She kneels down to him and Hugo seizes her fingers, then reaches up for one of her plaits. 'Can I pick him up, Jamila?' Esme begs. 'Please?'

  'It is better not to. He is very heavy. Too heavy for you, I think.'

  Esme presses her face to Hugo's, nose to nose, and he laughs, delighted, his fingers gripping her hair. Jamila's sari shushes and whispers as she comes across the room and Esme feels a hand on her shoulder, cool and soft.

  'What are you doing here?' Jamila murmurs, stroking her brow. 'Isn't it time for lessons?'

  Esme shrugs. 'I wanted to see how my brother was.'

  'Your brother is very well.' Jamila reaches down and lifts Hugo on to her hip. 'He misses you, though. Do you know what he did today?'

  'No. What?'

  'I was on the other side of the room and he—'

  Jamila breaks off. Her wide black eyes fix on Esme's. In the distance they can hear Miss Evans's clipped voice and Kitty's, speaking over it, anxious and intervening. Then the words become clear. Miss Evans is telling Esme's mother that Esme has slipped away again, that the girl is impossible, disobedient, unteachable, a liar...

  And Esme finds that, in fact, she is sitting at a long table in the canteen, a fork held in one hand, a knife in the other. In front of her is a plate of stew. Circles of grease float on the surface, and if she tries to break them apart, they just splinter and breed into multiple, smaller clones of themselves. Bits of carrot and some type of meat lump up under the gravy.

  She won't eat it. She won't. She'll eat the bread but not with the margarine. That she'll scrape off. And she'll drink the water that tastes of the metal cup. She won't eat the orange jelly. It comes in a paper dish and is smirred with a film of dust.

  'Who's coming for you?'

  Esme turns. There is a woman next to her, leaning towards her. The wide scarf tied round her forehead has slipped, giving her a vaguely piratical air. She has drooping eyelids and a row of rotting teeth. 'I beg your pardon?' Esme says.

  'My daughter's coming,' the pirate woman says, and clutches her arm. 'She's driving here. In her car. Who's coming for you?'

  Esme looks down at her tray of food. The stew. The grease circles. The bread. She has to think. Quick. She has to say something. 'My parents,' she hazards.

  One of the kitchen women squeezing tea out of the urn laughs and Esme thinks of the cawing of crows in high trees.

  'Don't be stupid,' the woman says, pushing her face up to Esme's. 'Your parents are dead.'

  Esme thinks for a moment. 'I knew that,' she says.

  'Yeah, right,' the woman mutters, as she bangs down a teacup.

  'I did.' Esme is indignant, but the woman is moving off down the aisle.

  Esme shuts her eyes. She concentrates. She tries to find her way back. She tries to make herself vanish, make the canteen recede. She pictures herself lying on her sister's bed. She can see it. The mahogany end, the lace counterpane, the mosquito net. But something is not right.

  She was upside-down. That was it. She swivels the image in her head. She had been lying on her back, not her front, her head tipped over the end, looking at the room upside-down. Kitty was walking in and out of her vision, from the wardrobe to the trunk, picking up and dropping items of clothing. Esme was holding a finger against one nostril, breathing in, then held the finger against the other, breathing out. The gardener had told her it was the way to serenity.

  'Do you think you'll have a nice time?' Esme asked.

  Kitty held a chemise up to the window. 'I don't know. Probably. I wish you were coming.'

  Esme took her finger away from her nose and rolled on to her stomach. 'Me too.' She kicked a toe against the bedhead. 'I don't see why I have to stay here.'

  Her parents and sister were going 'up country', to a house party. Hugo was staying behind because he was too little and Esme was staying behind because she was in disgrace for having walked along the driveway in bare feet. It had happened two days ago, on an afternoon so scorching her feet wouldn't fit into her shoes. It hadn't even occurred to her that it wasn't allowed until her mother rapped on the drawing-room window and beckoned her back inside. The pebbles of the driveway had been sharp under her soles, pleasurably uncomfortable.

  Kitty turned to look at her for a moment. 'Perhaps Mother will relent.'

  Esme gave the bedhead a final, hefty kick. 'Not likely' A thought struck her. 'You might stay here. You might say you don't feel well, that—'

  Kitty started pulling the ribbon out of the chemise. 'I should go.'

  Her tone – taut, affected resignation – pricked Esme's curiosity. 'Why?' she said. 'Why should you go?'

  Kitty shrugged. 'I need to meet people.'

  'People?'

  'Boys.'

  Esme struggled to sit up. 'Boys?'

  Kitty wound the ribbon round and round her fingers. 'That's what I said.'

  'What do you want to meet boys for?'

  Kitty smiled down at her ribbon. 'You and I,' she said, 'will have to find someone to marry.'

  Esme was thunderstruck. 'Will we?'

  'Of course. We can't very well spend the rest of our lives here.'

  Esme stared at her sister. Sometimes it felt that they were equals, the same age, but at others the six years between them stretched out, an impossible gap. 'I'm not going to get married,' she announced, hurling herself back to the bed.

  Across the room, Kitty laughed. 'Is that right?' she said.

  Iris is late. She overslept, she took too long over breakfast and in deciding what to wear. And now she is late. She is due to interview a woman about helping in the shop on Saturdays and she is going to have to take the dog with her. She is hoping the woman won't mind.

  She has her coat over her arm, her bag on her shoulder, the dog on his lead and is just about to leave when the phone rings. She hesitates for a moment, then slams the door and runs back to the kitchen, which excites the dog, who thinks she's playing a game and he leaps up at her, tangling Iris in the lead so that she trips and falls against the kitchen door.

  She curses, rubbing her shoulder, and lunges for the phone. 'Yes, hello,' she says, holding the phone and the dog lead in one hand, her coat and bag in the other.

  'Am I speaking with Miss Lockhart?'

  'Yes.'

  'My name is Peter Lasdun. I am calling from—'

  Iris doesn't catch the name but she hears the word 'hospital'. She clutches at the receiver, her mind leapfrogging. She thinks: my brother, my mother, Luke. 'Is someone ... Has something happened?'

  'No, no,' the man chuckles irritatingly, 'there's no cause for alarm, Miss Lockhart. It's taken us some time to track you down. I am contacting you about Euphemia Lennox.'

  A mixture of relief and anger surges through Iris. 'Look,' she snaps, 'I have no idea who you people are or what you want but I've never heard of Euphemia Lennox. I'm really very busy and—'

  'You're her contact family member.' The man states this very quietly.

  'What?' Iris is so annoyed that she drops bag, coat and dog lead. 'What are you talking about?'

  'You are related to Mrs Kathleen Elizabeth Lockhart, née Lennox, formerly of Lauder Road, Edinburgh?'

  'Yes.' Iris looks down at the dog. 'She's my grandmother.'

  'And you have had enduring power of attorney since...' there is the scuffling of papers '...since she went into full-time nursing care.' More paper scuffling. 'I have here a copy of a document lodged with us by her solicitor, signed by Mrs Lockhart, naming you as the fam
ily member to be contacted about affairs pertaining to one Euphemia Esme Lennox. Her sister.'

  Iris is really cross now. 'She doesn't have a sister.'

  There is a pause in which Iris can hear the man moving his lips over his teeth. 'I'm afraid I must contradict you,' he says eventually.

  'She doesn't. I know she doesn't. She's an only one, like me. Are you telling me I don't know my own family tree?'

  'The trustees of Cauldstone have been trying to trace—'

  'Cauldstone? Isn't that the – the...' Iris fights to come up with a word other than loony-bin '... asylum?'

  The man coughs. 'It's a unit specialising in psychiatry. Was, I should say'

  'Was?'

  'It's closing down. Which is why we are contacting you.'

  As she is driving down Cowgate, her mobile rings. She wrests it from her coat pocket. 'Hello?'

  'Iris,' Alex says, into her ear, 'did you know that two and a half thousand left-handed people are killed every year using things made for right-handed people?'

  'I did not know that, no.'

  'Well, it's true. It says so here, right in front of me. I'm working on a home-safety website today, such is my life. I thought I should ring and warn you. I had no idea that your existence was so precarious.'

  Iris glances at her left hand, gripping the steering-wheel. 'Neither did I.'

  'The worst culprits are tin-openers, apparently. Though it doesn't say exactly how you can die from using one. Where've you been all morning? I've been trying to get hold of you for hours with this piece of news. I thought you'd emigrated without telling me.'

  'Unfortunately I'm still here.' She sees a traffic-light ahead turn amber, presses the accelerator and the car leaps beneath her. 'It's been an average day, so far. I had breakfast, I interviewed someone for the shop and I found out that I'm responsible for a mad old woman I never knew existed.'

  Behind him, in his office, she hears the shug-shug-shug of a printer. 'What?' he says.

  'A great-aunt. She's in Cauldstone.'

  'Cauldstone? The loony-bin?'

  'I got a call this morning from—' Without warning, a van swings out in front of her and she slams her fist on the horn and shouts, 'Bastard!'

  'Are you driving?' Alex demands.

  'No.'

  'Have you got Tourette's, then? You are driving. I can hear you.'

  'Oh, stop fussing,' she starts to laugh, 'it's fine.'

  'You know I hate that. I'm always convinced I'll have to listen to you dying in a car crash. I'm hanging up. Goodbye.'

  'Wait, Alex—'

  'I'm going. Stop taking calls while you're driving. I'll speak to you later. Where are you going to be?'

  'At Cauldstone.'

  'You're going there today?' he asks, suddenly serious.

  'I'm going there now.'

  She hears Alex tapping a pen on his desk, him shifting about in his seat. 'Don't sign anything,' he says eventually.

  ***

  'But I don't understand,' Iris interrupts. 'If she is my grandmother's sister, my ... my great-aunt, then why have I never heard of her?'

  Peter Lasdun sighs. The social worker sighs. The two of them exchange a look. They have been sitting in this room, round this table, for what feels like hours. Peter Lasdun has been painstakingly outlining for Iris what he refers to as Routine Policies. These include Care Plans, Community Care Assessments, Rehabilitation Programmes, Release Schedules. He seems to talk permanently in capital letters. Iris has managed to offend the social worker – or Key Worker, as Lasdun calls her – by mistaking her for a nurse, causing her to start reeling off her social-work qualifications and university degrees. Iris would like a glass of water, she would like to open a window, she would like to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  Peter Lasdun takes a long time lining up a file with the lip of his desk. 'You haven't discussed Euphemia with any members of your family,' he asks, with infinite patience, 'since our conversation?'

  'There's no one left. My grandmother is away in the world of Alzheimer's. My mother's in Australia and she's never heard of her. It's possible that my father would have known, but he's dead.' Iris fiddles with her empty coffee cup. 'It all seems so unlikely. Why should I believe you?'

  'It's not unusual for patients of ours to ... shall we say, fall out of sight. Euphemia has been with us a long time.'

  'How long exactly?'

  Lasdun consults his file, running a finger down the pages.

  The social worker coughs and leans forward. 'Sixty years, I believe, Peter, give or take—'

  'Sixty years?' Iris almost shouts. 'In this place? What's wrong with her?'

  This time, they both take refuge in their notes. Iris leans forward. She's quite adept at reading upside-down. Personality disorder, she manages to decipher, bi-polar, electro-convulsive— Lasdun sees her looking and snaps the file shut.

  'Euphemia has had a variety of diagnoses from a variety of ... of professionals during her stay at Cauldstone. Suffice to say, Miss Lockhart, my colleague and I have worked closely with Euphemia during our recent schedule of Rehabilitation Programmes. We are fully convinced of her docility and are very confident about her successful rehabilitation into society.' He treats her to what he must think is a caring smile.

  'And I suppose,' Iris says, 'that this opinion of yours has nothing to do with the fact that this place is being closed down and sold for its land value?'

  He fidgets with a pot of pens, taking two out, laying them on the desk, then putting them back. 'That, of course, is another matter. Our question to you is,' he gives her that wolfish smile again, 'are you willing to take her?'

  Iris frowns. 'Take her where?'

  'Take her,' he repeats. 'House her.'

  'You mean...' she is appalled '...with me?'

  He gestures vaguely. 'Anywhere you see fit to—'

  'I can't,' she says. 'I can't. I've never met her. I don't know her. I can't.'

  He nods again, wearily. 'I see.'

  On the other side of the table, the social worker is shuffling her piles of paper together. Peter Lasdun brushes something off the cover of his file.

  'Well, I thank you for your time, Miss Lockhart.' Lasdun ducks down behind the desk, reaching for something on the floor. Iris sees, as he resurfaces, that it is another file, with another name. 'If we need your input on any matters in the future, we will be in touch. Someone will show you out.' He gestures towards the reception desk.

  Iris sits forward in her chair. 'Is that it? End of story?'

  Lasdun spreads his hands. 'There is nothing further to discuss. It is my job, as representative of the hospital, to put this question to you, and you have duly answered.'

  Iris stands, fiddling with the zip on her bag. She turns and takes two steps towards the door. Then she stops. 'Can I see her?'

  The social worker frowns. Lasdun looks at her blankly. 'Who?'

  His mind is already on the next file, Iris sees, the next reluctant set of relatives. 'Euphemia.'

  He pinches the skin between his eyes, twists his wrist to glance at his watch. He and the social worker look at each other for a moment. Then the social worker shrugs.

  'I suppose,' Lasdun says, with a sigh. 'I'll get someone to take you down.'

  ***

  Esme is thinking about the hard thing. The difficult one. She does this only rarely. But sometimes she gets the urge and today is one of those days when she seems to see Hugo. In the corner of her eye, a small shape crawling through the shadow in the lee of a door, the space beneath the bed. Or she can hear the pitch of his voice in a chair scraped across the floor. There's no knowing how he might choose to be with her.

  There are women playing snap at the table across the room, and in the flack-flick of the cards is the noise of the ceiling fan that hung in the nursery. Oiled, stained wood it was. Utterly ineffective, of course. Just stirred the heavy air like a spoon in hot tea. It had been above her, churning the heat in the room. And she had been twirling a paper bird above
his cot.

  'Look, Hugo.' She made it fly down towards him then up, coming to rest on the bars. But he didn't put out his hand to try to seize it. Esme jiggled it again, near his face. 'Hugo. Can you see the bird?'

  Hugo's eyes followed it but then he gave a sob, turning away, pushing his thumb into his mouth.

  'He's sleepy,' said Jamila, from across the room where she was hanging nappies out to dry, 'and he has a slight fever. It may be his teeth. Why don't you go out into the garden for a while?'

  Esme ran past the pond where the hammock swung empty, past the fleece of orange flowers round the banyan tree. She ran over the croquet lawn, dodging the hoops, down the path, through the bushes. She vaulted the fence and then she stopped. She shut her eyes, held her breath, and listened.

  There it was. The weeping, the slow weeping, of rubber trees leaking their fluid. It sounded like the crackle of leaves a mile away, like the creeping of minute creatures. She had sworn to Kitty that she could hear it, but Kitty had raised her eyebrows. Esme tilted her head this way and that, still with her eyes shut tight, and listened to the sound of trees crying.

  She opened her eyes. She looked at the sunlight splintering and re-forming on the ground. She looked at the spiral gashes in the trunks around her. She ran back, over the fence, over the croquet lawn, round the pond, filled with the glee of her parents being away, of having the run of the house.

  In the parlour, Esme wound the gramophone, stroked the velvet curtains, rearranged the chain of ivory elephants on the windowsill. She opened her mother's workbox and examined the threads of coloured silk. She rolled back the carpet and spent a long time sliding in her stockinged feet. She discovered that she could slide all the way from the claw-footed chest to the drinks cabinet. She unlocked the glass bookcase and took down the leather-bound volumes, sniffed them, felt their gold-edged pages. She opened the piano and performed glorious glissandos up and down the keys. In her parents' bedroom, she sifted through her mother's jewellery, eased the lid off a box of powder and dabbed some on her cheeks. Her features, when she looked up into the oval mirror, were still freckled, her hair still wild. Esme turned away.