‘Sorry, Aunt Maud,’ he said. ‘I’m not up to fixing that kind of damage. It must have taken a fair whack from something. There’s a man you can ask for at the ironmongers behind Partridges. He would come out here for five shillings.’
I think that Fatkins realized what he had said as soon as the words left his lips. He drove the van away that afternoon with a load of damp aprons and a wallet that was ten shillings light.
As soon as Fatkins was gone, Maudy clouted me round the back of the head. The extra money hadn’t made her forget about me winding Henry up and she had had work to do, she said – those aprons wouldn’t hem themselves.
She had just sat down when there was a knock at the door. ‘If it’s the constable, come looking for Clarence again,’ she shrieked, ‘I’ll—’ But it wasn’t, it was a woman, a posh woman with a confused look all over her pretty face.
We cleared off quickly. If a posh woman came to our house it was usually the school-mistress come to find us or a churchy do-gooder, so we waited in the yard for Maudy to send her packing, but she didn’t and soon the sewing machine was whirring again and it didn’t take us long to forget to be quiet and start screaming and running about the yard. Then Maudy called me in and made me speak to the lady all polite and get her some water. She was pretty and smelled nice and there were no bibles or schoolbooks.
So you think I’m an idiot for not seeing it – that Emma Marks the madwoman from the lido and Emma Marks the grand house visitor were one and the same. But let me tell you that the Mrs Emma Marks that visited us that day was very different from the woman at the lido. She had nice clothes and a pretty face and smelled sweet, like lavender. She had none of that staring-eyed and ice-cream-running-all-over-her-hands-type-madness, not one bit. And the funny thing is that Maudy seemed to like her too. She was all laughter and jokes and chatting like I had never seen her before and once Emma had gone, Maudy even hugged me. The whole thing was very strange, but I knew better than to ask questions. Then Maudy did something that she had never done before – she bunched up her skirts and skipped off singing. And it was then that I realized something was very wrong.
9
Emma
George’s decorator fellow, Mr Tuttle, arrived on Wednesday, as promised. He came on an old bicycle, ‘Tuttle and Son, Master Decorators of Missensham’ stencilled on a rusty plaque which swung from the crossbar. I watched from the doorway as he dismounted shakily, trying to keep hold of a rickety ladder cricked under his arm. He was a thin man, with legs bowed like bananas. He was certainly as old as George, maybe older, but his weather-beaten complexion made it hard to tell.
I had seen the bicycle around Missensham for many years; it was certainly hard to miss when it passed me on the lanes with its squeaking wheels, but it was even harder to miss when it was slung in the hedge by the Red Lion. Still, it was only the rich who hired decorators and, even if Mr Tuttle was not quite a master decorator, I wondered what Audrey would think if she saw the bicycle in my driveway.
Mr Tuttle dropped the ladder to the ground and, one by one, began to take paint pots out of the panniers, each time cursing and grabbing the small of his back.
‘Hello, Mrs Marks,’ he called. ‘How are you these days? Keeping well? And Mr Marks?’
I had never actually met Mr Tuttle before, but answered that my husband and I were both very well and then enquired politely after his own health.
‘Mustn’t grumble, Mrs Marks,’ he said, changing his mind and putting the paint back into the panniers. ‘Shall we start in the lounge?’
‘The garden gate, Mr. Tuttle, I think that is what George wanted to have fixed first of all.’
‘Oh don’t you worry, Mrs Marks. I know what I’m doing there – a new hinge. No, Dr Marks was quite clear in his instructions, yes, now what was it? The rooms, yes inside the house, now that’s what you’ll need to show me.’
I watched in silence as Mr Tuttle paced the lounge, his bowed legs exaggerating his careful steps. He swayed slightly and steadied himself on the mantelpiece. I remembered what George had told me in his briefing the previous evening – to be patient with Mr Tuttle – he was an old man and had a neurological condition that made him unsteady on his feet. This was then followed with a long explanation about the electrical excitability of neurons and how damage from trauma could leave them disconnected and misfiring and I started to imagine thousands of microscopic nerve cells like electric cables with severed ends, the exposed wires spitting lightning bolts as they writhed around in the cranium searching for a connection. Personally, I could smell liquor on the man, but that was George – always looking for the most complicated medical explanation.
Mr Tuttle laid a metre rule along the mantelpiece, marking the end with a shaking finger, and jotted in his notebook with a pencil stub. ‘Another lovely day, Mrs Marks.’
I opened my mouth but he continued as if his own agreement was enough.
‘So much sunshine. Such a nice ride over here. Dropped in to see my boy on the way, Mr Tuttle Junior, he’s nearby you see. Loves this kind of weather.’
‘He lives on the Sunningdale Estate?’ I said encouraged, if a little surprised. ‘Will he be working alongside you at Little Willow?’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, nodding. ‘Loves this kind of weather, he does.’
I started to realize that I was not needed in the conversation.
Mr Tuttle continued jotting in his notebook. ‘So much sunshine, such a nice ride over that I—’ He stopped abruptly and looked up. ‘What are your plans for this room, Mrs Marks?’
I was surprised by the question. I hadn’t thought about it at all, but it was such an obvious question for a decorator to ask, I don’t know why I hadn’t given it any thought. ‘I-I don’t know, really,’ I said.
Mr Tuttle tucked his pencil behind his ear. ‘Well, I must admit I was a bit surprised to be called out to Sunningdale Estate, Mrs Marks, these houses are barely ten years old.’
I nodded, not sure what to say. I knew that I should probably claim that I wanted to keep up with some fad or trend but I didn’t have a clue what was in fashion. I imagined Audrey, pacing the room in her yellow pleated hat and waving her arms at the walls and curtains trying to imagine what she would say. In the end I just shrugged. ‘You must think us very extravagant, Mr Tuttle.’
‘Not at all, Mrs Marks,’ he said. ‘It’s good to get work in a depression, and on the Sunningdale Estate too. Lucky really, you see my son is nearby—’
‘Yes, you said so.’
‘Though, at the moment, I’m not getting much work of this level. Or at all in fact.’
‘Really?’ I said wearily.
‘I’m mostly clearing blocked drains and sweeping chimneys, this type of thing’ – he swept his hand round the room – ‘it will be nice to work on the Sunningdale Estate for a change.’
‘A change,’ I echoed, excitedly. ‘That’s what Geor—, that’s what we want. To have a new start,’ I said, remembering George’s speech. ‘Out with the old and in with the new, that kind of thing.’
‘Very good, Mrs Marks.’ He hesitated and fiddled with the pencil behind his ear. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, this room, as it is now is’ – his eyes glanced up at me but then darted away as if he didn’t have the courage to look me in the eye – ‘is perhaps more suited for an older gentleman. Now, I know an old bugger like me don’t know much about the latest trends, but Mr Tuttle Junior – he knows about this estate, nearby you see – now he could tell you what’s in the fashion. Something new, now what’s that fancy word that the youngsters use – moderne, well I don’t know about all that, but surely a change would mean something bright and cheerful.’
‘Yes!’ I said, my mood brightening. ‘Cheerful, definitely cheerful.’
He nodded, pleased by his own suggestion. ‘Well, maybe you can start by telling me how this room is used at the moment?’
I smiled, relieved that he had given me an easier task. I thought hard, looking first at the armchair i
n the corner. I thought of George, sitting there as he always did, flicking through the newspaper, a glass of sherry on the mantelpiece. Then there was the wireless on the sideboard, and again there was George, shouting at the disembodied voices: the sham of Baldwin’s new government, the idiotic cricket umpires and the bloody French causing problems again. There was the sofa, empty of visitors, the cushions gathering dust. Then there was the seat in the bay of the window, where I would sit, my body twisted towards the glass and my elbows on the sills. I saw an image of myself staring endlessly out across the road, my eyes following each person as their legless torsos sailed past over the privet hedge, a little part of me hoping that each would stop, maybe have a reason to call in – for a voice outside to call my name or for friendly shoes to crunch on the gravel. But that seldom happened and I was left with only the drone of the wireless, the footsteps on the pavement always fading to silence.
‘We use it for entertaining,’ I said.
*
We did the same for every room in the house – Mr Tuttle asking the same questions and me giving vague answers to each, a string of wishes and lies as I was forced to imagine George and myself fading in and out like ghosts.
There was the dining room where we sat at opposite ends of the table, absent guests marked by empty chairs. We would eat in silence but for George’s customary compliment of the meal, the same words no matter what I put in front of him, his jaw working slowly, his eyes never leaving the plate. Always the same remark whether the mutton was tender and the eggs creamy or whether the cabbage was cooked to a pulp or the custard had skin: ‘Excellent meal. Good work, darling.’
There was the kitchen, where I would stand, hunched over the gas ring, stirring bubbling pots, hypnotized by the steam until the vegetables boiled dry. The worktop where I would knead dough until my neck ached and my knuckles were sore, tears of self-pity running down my cheeks. And the basin, where I would stand with my hands in soap suds until the water ran cold, staring out of the small window over the garden’s large, empty lawn.
There was the unwelcoming hallway, where George would rush on Saturday as soon as he heard the clank of the letterbox, eager for any new distractions that the postman may bring. He would brush past a photograph on the wall – Mr and Mrs George Marks as newly-weds on Brighton Pier – a souvenir framed lovingly but hung somewhere it could be hurried past without even a glance.
There was the bathroom where I would lay in the tub with nothing but my thoughts until the water became cold. The cabinet with no face powder or lipstick, just shelf upon shelf of medicine – chlorodyne, aspirin, surgical spirit – where George would curse as he rummaged through the jumble of packets and bottles, unable to find anything to soothe his wounded back.
There was the guest room that never received guests, the bed made in anticipation. Flat sheets and square corners, towels folded on the back of the chair, but the blankets cold and musty with mildew.
And then there was our bedroom. And it was here that I turned to Mr Tuttle and smiled, a kind of embarrassed smile, not because of what happened in a married lady’s bedroom but because of what did not. He looked away quickly and for once I was glad that he never looked me in the eye.
I went to the window and pulled back the curtains. I could just see to the crossroads, with the war memorial in the centre, the tall stone cross throwing a long shadow over the road. On one side was the dirt track to the farms of Evesbridge and to another was the road that led to the old town with the village green, canal and station. Then there was the road to the lido that led all the way to Oxworth and the London suburbs beyond it. It was a view I had gazed idly upon for ten years now.
‘A change,’ I said again. ‘I think we definitely need a change.’ Mr Tuttle nodded and I followed him out on to the landing.
‘Well the work shouldn’t take long, Mrs Marks.’ Then he stopped. ‘We seem to have forgotten this room, Mrs Marks,’ he said, putting his hand on the door handle. ‘May I—’
‘Oh, I’m afraid we keep that room locked, Mr Tuttle,’ I said quickly.
He took his hand away slowly. ‘That’s a shame, Mrs Marks, it must have a lovely view over the garden.’
‘Oh, but it’s a very small room, Mr Tuttle,’ I said.
He put his hand on the handle again.
‘Really, Mr Tuttle, we have no interest in redecorating that room.’
Mr Tuttle’s face froze and I realized that I must have shouted. I opened my mouth to apologize, but he just nodded.
‘Very well, Mrs. Marks, very well.’ Then he stopped at the top of the stairs. ‘It’s a shame though, Mrs Marks, I expect a room like that was intended as a nursery; a child’s bedroom.’
‘Oh, I believe it was a nursery at one point, Mr Tuttle,’ I said. ‘It was decorated for the arrival of a baby. But that was all a very long time ago.’
10
It was a very small room, that much was true, but it was bright. And back in the summer of 1926 it still had the faint odour of paint and sawdust, the glue from the builders’ stickers a faint outline on the windowpanes. The walls were a pale yellow, warmed by the low evening sun. Lambs had been painted round the window frame, their legs thin and gangly as they gambolled over grass daubed with red poppies. I remember running my hand over the paintwork, the swirled clots of red- and green-ridged brushstrokes hard under my fingertips. My hands were still swollen back then, my nails polished and my wedding band still bright on my finger.
I opened the top drawer of the sideboard. Inside were squares of white muslin, all folded neatly, and other things – tiny sleeves, hems, buttons, pompoms – which I dared not look at. A rocking horse watched me through glassy eyes. It was a fine one, large with a dapple-grey rump and a flowing mane, the curve of its neck and the spread of its legs frozen in mid gallop, the saddle bare and expectant. Against the far wall stood a cot, empty and stripped, the bare wooden slats casting streaks of shadow.
There were gifts too, dear little items made with care but rushed to be given while there was still a reason to; a knitted rabbit, a rag doll, a lace bonnet and a counterpane embroidered with violets, the fabric puckered where the name had been stitched in haste.
I looked away quickly, glancing out the window and over the empty garden. Things looked so different since I had been rushed to hospital all those weeks ago. The time I spent away seemed just a blur of light and noise, of wet sheets, shiny metal, numb limbs and the dull fog of sedative.
But in those weeks the garden had changed; the firm young shoots of the pansies had now bloomed and wilted away; the daffodils and crocuses had sunk back into the earth; and the grass was now yellow and wispy. The big flowers had taken over, sucking all the life from the lawn, the swollen heads of chrysanthemums and hyacinths drooping onto the lawn, their petals tarnished and rusting.
Before the hospital, I had stood in this room with George, folding the squares of muslin and swaddling into the drawer, placing toys on the shelf, talking, planning and laughing even. But now I stood alone with my thoughts; my belly was now shrunken but the scars were still fresh. I had made it back from the hospital, but she had not. I remained in the nursery until the light faded, deaf to the last birdsong of the day, the rumble of cars on the road and the whistle of the lamplighter.
When the clock struck the hour, George arrived home from the hospital. I listened to the drone of the new Austin idling on the driveway, there were a couple of slammed doors and hushed voices, then a final burst of the engine and the click of the latch. George’s familiar footsteps were followed by another’s and then some muffled words and the creak of the stairs. A woman stood on the landing, watching me through the doorway, a tiny bundle cradled to her chest. It was the midwife, the moon-faced woman who had accompanied me as I sat in the white room with the incubator. She handed the bundle to me but it was cold and lifeless – just the supplies I had taken with me to the hospital; a baby’s nightshirt and bonnet and a couple of nappies and towels folded inside a woollen swaddling sheet �
� as if the baby inside had vanished.
I put the bundle on the bed and unwrapped the layers of swaddling. I folded the nightshirt and tucked it away in the drawer with the towels, bonnet and nappies, finally smoothing the swaddling back over the top. All the time the midwife watched in silence. Although the day was ending, she was still in uniform – the red-lined cape, sash and leather bag – a professional still on call, even though she was no longer needed here.
Then I found something, tucked between the folds of swaddling. It was a small photograph – a grey image of a newborn lying on its back. The face was round, like that of any baby, the scalp haloed by a lace bonnet, the eyes and mouth just furrows in the plump flesh. The head was tilted slightly to show the left cheek – black marks cast on grey skin, four tears, the highest smudged over the cheekbone.
The midwife nodded and put her hand on mine. She did not say a word but her face now wore the same strange expression that I had seen at the hospital – the raised brow and distant eyes – the expression that I could not quite read. Then she turned her back and was gone, leaving only the creak of the stair behind her.
I stared at the photograph. Was I looking at Violet’s last moments? The baby’s eyes were closed but the lids were smooth, with no bunching of the skin. The face seemed placid, with no hardness of muscle. Had the image captured sleep or something more sinister? Was I looking at life or death?
I got up wearily and tiptoed onto the landing, the lambs and poppies fading into darkness behind me. Downstairs there were whispers, my name repeated over and over in hushed conversation.
I waited until the dark shape of the midwife had slipped out into the twilight and the door locked behind her, then I crept down the stairs, into the lounge and perched on the window seat.
I could have shown George the photograph then. I don’t know why I didn’t, but when I saw him coming towards me, I just folded it into my pocket.
The Liar Page 6
