I sat on the bed, dizzy from Maggie and all these people coming and going. Maggie’s house was beginning to seem like an institution, like the places I had come from. Bernadette and Leila sounded like the Ugly Sisters. I was frightened of them both.
I smiled at her. ‘I really won’t be any trouble.’
On the mantelpiece in the front room there was an old photograph of my mother and Aunt Maggie as children, sitting on a wall eating ice-cream cones. Next to it was a picture of Maggie when she was about eighteen, tall and beautiful in a black ballgown. There were also postcards of cities, Venice, New York, and others I didn’t know, of domes and towers.
‘I’m going to have words with my sister about the way they’ve turned their backs on you. I shall call her now and tell her I’ve got you in my house.’
I grabbed Maggie’s arm. ‘Please don’t tell them I’m here. Did you tell them I was coming?’
‘Not yet. It was going to be a surprise. I thought I’d invite them down, and when they saw you again, they’d realize how stupid they’ve been. They’d be able to see you again but I’d be here to keep things safe.’
‘But they don’t want to see me. I don’t want to see them.’
‘Isabel, it’s not as simple as that. You don’t have to like them any more but we need to make sure your future is secure. You know, your parents have got quite a bit stashed away, in premium bonds and savings, and probably other pots of money I don’t know about. The house won’t be worth much but it will be something, and it’s your entitlement. I’ll be damned if you don’t get that when they go.’
Maggie clamped her jaw shut and her nostrils flared.
‘I don’t think I want their money. I’d rather find a job and earn my own. I can look after myself, or I will be able to when I’ve decided what I’m doing.’
‘You say that now but you won’t in a few years’ time when it turns out they’ve left it all to the donkeys on Bridlington beach. You might go to university one day, or have kids of your own, and they’ve got the money to pay for it, damn them.’
‘Please don’t invite them.’
I don’t know why I felt this so strongly, only that I did. One day I might want to see them again, but not now. I was empty. I had nothing to show, nothing to give them. I didn’t want to go back to the town again or have anything to do with the people who lived there. If that included my own parents, it was too bad.
‘All right, Isabel. I’ve kept secrets before and I’ll do it again. You can always change your mind later. Why ever did you drop out of school and go on that slave-labour YOP scheme thing? You didn’t really want to work in a supermarket, did you?’
‘It’s YTS now. It’s a bit different.’ I didn’t know what the difference was. ‘I didn’t want to go to college. I didn’t pass many exams, anyway. The supermarket seemed like a safe place to be. A girl in my class had disappeared – you remember Julia – and things seemed very dangerous. I just wanted to be somewhere normal and safe.’
‘You can do better than that now. Wouldn’t you like to go to university and become a teacher?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What about some kind of catering course? You could end up with your own restaurant or hotel.’
Maggie prodded me as she said this. Clearly she was pleased with the idea so I tried to show enthusiasm. I opened my mouth but the right words didn’t come.
‘There isn’t really anything I want to do.’
‘So you want to do nothing?’
‘No, I don’t want to do nothing either.’
‘Well, if you don’t want to do anything and you don’t want to do nothing, what are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. Something. I used to dance. I think I might like to dance again.’
‘Professionally? You’d have to get moving. I’m sure it’s not too late, though.’
‘No, maybe not professionally. Just something to do.’
‘Leave it with me.’
I was a little worried that she had too many plans for my life. I wanted to have adventures and do wonderful things. I just didn’t know what they were yet. It would be easy to be swept away by Maggie’s energy and ideas but I must try to hold fast.
Maggie hit herself on the forehead and tutted. ‘Hell’s bells and buckets of blood. I’ve just remembered I promised to meet George and he’s not on the phone so I can’t cancel him. He lives round the corner so I’ll pop over and explain the situation. You help yourself to anything you need and I’ll be back in an hour at the most.’
And then Maggie left.
When Maggie lived on the moors, a few streets away from us, people considered her eccentric. Her house was different from other people’s. It was more colourful, and she filled it with fabrics and sculptures from her travels. She had moved back to the village after years abroad, not to be near us but because she loved Wuthering Heights and had romantic ideas about the countryside. She didn’t try to fit in. Some people in the neighbourhood thought she was a bit above herself. My mother always said it was a good thing that Maggie moved to London. There was more space for her to roam.
The front door opened and shut. No one spoke and the footsteps didn’t sound like Maggie’s. I swallowed, rolled over and pressed myself into the back of the sofa. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello?’ came a female voice in return. A tall woman with long, drab hair stood in the doorway. She was about forty. She raised her eyebrows at me.
‘I’m Isabel,’ I said. ‘Maggie’s niece.’
‘Right. I’m going to my room. It’s just through there.’ She pointed to a door beyond the kitchen that looked as if it ought to lead to a utility room.
‘Oh.’ Tears welled. I kept my eyes open until they subsided.
The lodger stopped in the kitchen to put the kettle on.
‘I was thinking of having a cup of tea,’ I said, trying to be brave. I hovered in the kitchen doorway. ‘If there is any.’
‘I have my own food in my own cupboard. I suppose you’ll be sharing Maggie’s stuff’ She didn’t look at me as she spoke but put a teabag into a cup.
‘Where does Maggie keep her teabags?’ I looked around at the cupboards and jars. The kitchen was neat. There were long shelves with matching spice jars. Above them were white china pots that might have contained tea or coffee.
The lodger reached above my head, pulled one from a shelf and put it on the counter in front of me.
‘Thanks.’ I opened it and took out a teabag.
The electric kettle began to boil. I opened the fridge and found a carton of milk. ‘Is this Maggie’s?’
‘We share the milk – it goes off too quickly otherwise – but we don’t share anything else.’
‘So I can use this milk, then?’
‘But I’ve only put enough water in for me.’
The lodger made her own tea, then put the kettle down, showing some consideration by turning the handle towards me. I noticed that her hands were ingrained with dirt. Her right index finger was black from the nail down to the knuckle. I refilled the kettle and made myself a cup of tea. The lodger disappeared into her room.
I went back to the sofa and waited for Maggie. My head ached and I sipped the tea slowly. Then the lodger’s door creaked and a shadow appeared in the kitchen. She began to scrub her hands at the kitchen sink. I could see her elbow going back and forth. She scrubbed with vigour and for some time. She huffed and muttered under her breath. Then she dried her hands on the tea-towel and came to the doorway. Her face was hard and scaly. Purple lines spread from her eyelids to her leathery temples. I wanted to take a pumice to her skin and slough off layer after layer till a real face emerged, raw and pink.
Bernadette continued to wring her hands. I found myself rubbing my own hands gently together.
‘I’ll sit here with you for a while,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ve got nothing else to do.’
‘Me neither.’
‘Did Maggie say wh
en she’d be back?’
‘Not really.’
‘How long has she been gone?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe about three-quarters of an hour.’
‘I’m Bernadette.’
‘I know. I’m Isabel.’
‘Yeah. You told me.’
‘Have you lived here long?’
‘A couple of months. Actually, I don’t live here. I just come for a couple of nights a week to keep warm and dry. I won’t stay for ever but there’s no alternative so I’ll be here as long as your aunt will have me.’
‘I’ve come down from Yorkshire.’
‘Me too, a long time ago. I’m from Doncaster.’
‘You don’t have an accent.’
‘No. I went to a posh school. I used to be posh.’
She laughed. Her mouth opened wide and a drop of blood appeared on her lower lip where the skin had chapped.
I had run out of things to say. I listened desperately for Maggie’s car but she didn’t come.
‘Don’t be scared of me, Isabel. You needn’t think I’m dangerous.’
‘I’m not.’ I smiled, to show that I was not scared, and folded my arms. ‘Are you really in hiding?’
‘Yes, sort of’
‘Why?’
‘I have debts, you see. I didn’t become homeless because I had no family or friends, or job. I had the lot.’ Bernadette put her hands on her thighs and gazed at her nails. ‘I was married and we had a nice house with three bedrooms and a big garden. We had dogs too. But I lost everything. Gambling debts, and we’re not talking about a few thousand quid. I’ll never be able to pay that money back. The people who want it will always be out there. If I reappear, they’ll kill me.’
‘That’s awful.’
‘My own fault.’
‘Do you have a job?’
Bernadette shook her head. ‘Not any more. There’s no point. I used to be an opera singer.’
‘Really? Can you still sing?’
‘I don’t think so. I mean, no. I haven’t looked after my voice and I wouldn’t want to. I don’t even sing in my head, these days. Not hardly at all.’ She took a swig of tea and dabbed her fingertips at the corners of her mouth. ‘What about you? Are you just visiting or what?’
‘Yeah. Wanted to experience life in London for a little while.’
‘It won’t be worth it. You’ll wish you hadn’t come.’
‘I’ll make the most of it.’
‘If you think so. How old are you? Fifteen?’
‘Eighteen.’ It sounded like a lie to me because I wasn’t used to it yet. ‘It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago.’
‘Happy birthday. I’m off to lie down. My back’s bad tonight.’
I went upstairs and ran a bath. On a shelf a glass jar was filled with balls of oil. I dropped a red one and a green one into the water, then wondered if I was allowed to use them. I reached in and tried to take them out again, worried about upsetting Maggie, but they were soggy now and fell apart between my fingertips. I climbed into the deep, oily water and stared into the jar, the winking spheres of colour. For the first time in more than a year, I wondered what had happened to Julia Smith.
Maggie returned with a Chinese takeaway. We sat together on the sofa to eat.
‘So, sweetheart. Did you meet Bernadette or has she been in her lair all evening?’
‘She came out for a little while and we had a chat. She told me about her gambling debts.’
‘It’s such a mess. Bernadette isn’t her real name. It’s just one she uses to get round. I think it was her grandmother’s. I would have chosen something nicer if it were me. There are so many to choose from and people almost always get it wrong. If I could choose my pen name again, I wouldn’t be Eva. That’s my middle name because I had to choose in a hurry. I’d be Sophia or Anastasia. Now, Isabel, what name would you like to have?’
‘Julia,’ I said, before I’d had time to think. I sipped cold water and wondered why I had said that.
‘That’s a nice name. Still, Isabel’s better.’ Maggie pushed rice around her plate with a fork. What we need to do is get you a nice boyfriend.’
‘Is it?’
‘Leila was younger than you and I found her a lover very quickly. That was how she got her confidence. She never looked back once she’d met Tommy. It only lasted a few months but the miracle had happened by then.’
‘What was he like?’
‘A very handsome man, the first one. There were a few others and then, maybe seventh or eighth, she met a man from – another country and went to live with him. Her personality returned, you see, with the right man. She was a live-wire, all right, just needed a little help to get going.’
‘But I’m real. It will be harder.’
‘Not necessarily. Not if you use Leila as an example to guide you. You two have more in common than you think.’
‘I had my first good night’s sleep in more than a year. Not that I slept right through the night. I woke several times to feel how warm the bed was, to run my fingers over the vase and clock on the bedside table, to hear the traffic on the main road and know that I was safe.
Leila had moved to New York to get on with living another chapter, but her presence was strong in Maggie’s house. I slept in her bed, read books in the shop that had her name scrawled in pencil inside the cover. Maggie persuaded me to do things I was scared of doing – going out and making friends – always by telling me that Leila had done it first so of course I could do it. There was a pink mug in the kitchen with big black letters that said ‘Leila’. It became my own.
As I noted before, I did not tell Maggie that I would be here today as it seemed too complicated. But there was another reason I did not tell her. Maggie and I fell out a couple of years after I went to stay with her. It was not a terrible fight and we have always stayed in touch but are not as close as we used to be. I am sure that this was at the back of my mind when I decided not to tell her that I was coming today. Now that I look back, I see that I was wrong to make such a fuss over a small disagreement. Her behaviour seems perfectly understandable now. She knew I had no one else and she wanted me to be all right.
At the time, though, I found her enthusiasm oppressive so I ran off to Turkey. Before I left, I accused her of lying about Leila. I thought she had been playing games with me, creating the imaginary girl not for her book but as a way of telling me how to live. Maggie didn’t argue, she let me believe what I chose. I can only be grateful for that now, and if I see her, I should like to apologize. I know that she will tell me straight away that it doesn’t matter at all. I was young, she will say, and my feelings were easy to understand. But we are in the same country now, for a day at least, so why should I not talk to her? I will call her in the morning and apologize. And in a minute I’ll take a break from Owen and Julia to read one of Maggie’s books.
It’s funny that Mete has mixed up Leila’s name with Bernadette’s. I have sometimes done it myself – I met them on the same evening, in a sense – and for me they share the same space. I must have conveyed this to Mete when I told him about them both. Perhaps it was I who confused their names, for when I told him, just last week, that Maggie’s old lodger was coming to visit us, he said, ‘You told me about her before. Her name was Leila.’ I got the giggles as I tried to explain in Turkish and then English how the mind of my aunt works, and who Leila was, or was not.
I remember other people’s words better than I remember my own. I still hear Maggie speaking. Here and there I remember my replies quite clearly but mostly I am reconstructing my words from what I believe I was thinking. Perhaps I make myself sound too weak. Perhaps I was not such a weakling as I tend to think I was. For example, I also remember myself as being very small, about five feet tall. But I am now nearer five foot five or six. I can’t have been six inches shorter at the age of eighteen, can I? I am misremembering, possibly because of what happened afterwards. Where Maggie is concerned, everything is confusing.
– v
–
She couldn’t sleep. She lay on her back, straight and rigid as a dart, and felt the muscles in her arms and legs twitch and niggle. Beside her, he was curled up and soft.
‘Can you hear that?’ She nudged him.
‘Eh? Can’t hear anything. I was almost asleep.’
‘We need to fix the tap in the bathroom. It’s dripping.’
‘What’s that?’
She couldn’t understand why he didn’t hear it tap-tapping. ‘The drip. I said the drip’s tapping.’
He laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Did you hear what you said? You said, “The drip’s tapping.” You mean the tap’s dripping.’
‘Oh, so clever. Well, it’s the same thing anyway. I wish I had some earplugs. And this lumpy old bed is so uncomfortable. I should probably sleep downstairs on the sofa.’
‘What? Is it the pea under the mattress, Your Highness?’
‘Ha.’
‘Sweetheart, you’re very tense. Are you sure I can’t come with you tomorrow? You’d be more relaxed. We could take my car and share the driving.’
‘This is something I need to do alone, if you don’t mind.’ She had never told him the full story. He knew about Isabel, the main part of the tragedy, but not her own role in it. ‘Did I ever tell you about my Turkish lover?’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘I wonder what happened to him.’
‘What makes you wonder that now?’
‘He wanted me to live with him in New York. I could have gone. I could be living in New York now. Isn’t that strange?’
‘But you didn’t want to. If you’d wanted to go, you’d have gone. We make these choices for ourselves, even if later we wonder how.’
‘No. I’m glad I stayed here and I’m glad I met you but, still, it’s a life I could have had that I didn’t.’
‘I’m not sure I need to hear about your ex-lovers, especially while we’re lying in bed together.’
The Missing Person's Guide to Love Page 15
