“Well, okay.” Martha fell quiet for a while, trying to work out how to approach the subject of their nana.
“Great. Well, it was good to speak to—” Lilian started.
Realizing she was about to hang up, Martha raised her voice. “Wait. Don’t go. I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Can you join me for dinner this evening?”
“Really? At the house? Can you even find your dining table? What’s the occasion?”
“I’ve been invited somewhere and I’d like you to join me.”
Lilian hesitated. “I think this is the first time you’ve ever invited me to do something social.”
“Sorry.”
“I think I’m free. Where is it?”
Martha wound the telephone wire around her wrist in a bracelet and then back again. She tried to rehearse words in her head but they jumped around. She knew that saying this wouldn’t be easy, and she just had to go for it. “I know you said to leave the old book alone, but I couldn’t do it. I found the date of the dedication was correct. Nana published the book and did sign it, in 1985.”
Even though Lilian was over a mile away, Martha felt the air chill between them.
“What does that have to do with dinner?”
“I’ll try to explain,” she said with a swallow. “Owen Chamberlain, at the bookstore, traced another copy to Monkey Puzzle Books in Benton Bay. The owner, Rita, found it in a very odd way. Two ladies did a reading in the street and left it behind.”
“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”
Martha took a deep breath. She screwed her eyes shut, preparing herself to tell the next part of the story. “I found out that one of the ladies was Zelda, Lilian. Our nana is still alive.”
She paused, thinking that she might hear a gasp or a “What?” from Lilian, but the only sound that came from the other side of the phone was the clunk of her sister’s rings against the receiver.
“Um, did you hear what I said?” Martha asked after an unbearably long few moments.
“Well, yes,” Lilian snapped. “And it’s absolutely ridiculous. Zelda died years ago. We both know that.”
“We thought we knew.” Martha waited a while longer. The quietness was strange, like they had both entered a large church and were trying not to make a sound. When her sister didn’t speak, she began to babble. “I met up with her, Lilian.”
“You did what?”
“I was going to tell you about it, before I went to Benton Bay, but I had to go, there and then. It all seemed so surreal. But she was there, Lilian. I found her. I didn’t recognize her at first. I mean, it’s been so long—”
“It can’t be her.”
“She has the missing tooth. Do you remember the toffee apple at the fair? I went to her house, then we met at the fairground in Benton Bay. It’s definitely her.”
“I told you to leave all this alone.” Lilian’s voice was strained, like she was trying to squeeze on board a packed train.
“I know. I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad at me.”
“I don’t know if I’m angrier with you, or at her.”
Martha frowned. “Why would you be angry with Nana? Our parents told us she’d died. Why on earth would they do that?” Her voice pinged up a notch. “I looked after them for fifteen years and they never said a thing. They must have known all that time. Do you know what’s gone on?”
Martha heard scratching, perhaps Lilian’s fingernails against her chin, or in her hair. She waited until her sister’s words flooded out.
“Look, I’ve just looked at my diary, and I am doing something tonight. Paul mentioned his friend might call round. I hope he doesn’t expect me to cook anything, because it’s not fully confirmed yet. I don’t even know who she is. I mean, I expect it’s a her. He seems to associate with women freely these days...”
Martha tried to decipher what Lilian was talking about and why. There seemed to be a huge disconnect in their conversation. “So, you can’t make it tonight?” she confirmed.
“No. And I don’t think that you should go, either.”
She sounds like Dad when he told Mum not to do something, Martha thought.
“Some things are better left in the past, Martha,” Lilian said. “Zelda wasn’t a reliable person. It’s very strange to hear she’s alive, after all this time, but it’s unlikely she’s still got all her marbles intact. She could tell you anything, and you wouldn’t know if it was the truth or not.”
“She’s told me very little. That’s why we should both go to dinner. You can meet her. We can ask her things and try to find out what’s gone on.”
“I’m very sorry, Martha,” Lilian said shortly. “I don’t think I want to know. It’s been such a long time and, well, I want to spend time with Paul. Things are rather tricky between us at the moment...”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“Some things are easier to keep to yourself. You don’t want everyone to know.”
Martha felt her stomach dip. “But I’m your sister.”
“I know.” There was a noticeable pause before Lilian spoke again. “Look, just be careful with Zelda. Some things aren’t what they seem.”
A strange realization began to creep over Martha. Perhaps it was sisterly instinct. “Did you know about any of this?” she asked. “Did you know that Nana might be still alive?”
The question heralded Lilian’s longest silence yet. The cuckoo popped out of the clock and sang twelve times as Martha waited for her response.
“I didn’t know that Zelda was still alive,” Lilian said finally. “But I did know that she didn’t die in 1982.”
* * *
Lilian’s last words made Martha’s stomach turn over. Her hand shook and she tightened her grip on the receiver. She longed to question what her sister knew, but she could tell from her clipped tone their conversation was over. Martha offered to tell her how the dinner party went, and Lilian replied with a muted, “Okay.”
Martha decided to try and blank her sister’s words from her mind. She would find out soon enough, for herself, that evening. She couldn’t imagine how and why Lilian might know something like that and not tell her.
She concentrated on moving and looking inside more of the boxes, picking up speed as she removed them from the stack. She rummaged through the contents quickly, and she soon grew sweaty with her face turning red.
She was going to the dinner party, whether Lilian liked it or not.
19
Balloon Head
In the early afternoon, Martha had just finished drinking a cup of tea when the doorbell rang. She felt a little spaced out because, after her conversation with Lilian, all she had managed to eat for lunch was a slice of toast. Wiping her hands on a pot towel, she opened the door.
Suki stood there, her arms weighed down with shopping bags. Her bump poked through her open coat, and her nose was pink from the wind. “I thought we could take a look at that dragon,” she said, raising her bags by an inch.
Martha instantly reached out and tugged them off her. “You should not be carrying those in your condition. The ligaments in your back can relax during pregnancy, making you more susceptible to injury.”
“It’s not like I’m weight lifting.” Suki shrugged. She stepped inside and slipped off her coat. She circled a hand over her stomach. “This baby is heavier.”
Martha couldn’t prevent herself from flying into organizer mode. “Sit down and I’ll make you a drink,” she said. “The sofa is the most comfortable seat, not the wooden chair. I’ll move some boxes. Do you have enough cushions for your back? I’ll get you a coffee. Is caffeine okay when you’re pregnant?”
Suki held up her hands in surrender. “I’m here to try out papier-mâché, not for butler service. I’m not very thirsty.” She held onto her belly as sh
e maneuvered herself down onto the floor. After reaching up and taking the dragon’s head from the crates, she set it down on her lap. “Things are looking tidier in here,” she said. “Have you had a sort out?”
Martha nodded, then narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes.”
“Well, okay. I decided that I couldn’t wait any longer for my sister to help me look through the boxes, so I made a start.”
“Good for you. It looks much better.” Suki pulled her bag towards her and took out a large plastic bowl. She sprinkled gray powder into it and poured in water from a bottle. Taking a wooden stick, she gave it a stir. “This is how you make the papier-mâché. Stick your hand in. It feels like clay.”
Martha knelt down beside her and rolled up her sleeves. She reached into the bowl. The mixture felt rather pleasing, cool and soothing to her fingertips. A sense of calmness washed over her as she pressed the mixture, feeling it squish and move.
Suki tilted and examined the dragon’s face. “I think I’ll glue a small piece of card over the hole in his cheek, then apply the papier-mâché over the top of it.” She took a scoop of the mixture and began to spread it out under the dragon’s eye using her forefinger. “I remember doing this at school.”
“Me, too. We glued strips of newspaper to a balloon, then popped it and turned it into a head.”
“Yes. And stuck wool on for hair.”
They grinned at each other, at finding a common experience.
Suki took a moment to reposition her dress over her bump with the heels of her palms. “Do you have any children, Martha?”
Martha fell quiet. It was a question that made her want to retract her head like a tortoise. She stretched out her neck and gave her throat a brief stroke.
As a younger woman, she’d always imagined her life with children in it. She’d never pictured an alternative.
There’s still time, she used to tell herself when she reached thirty-seven, then thirty-nine and forty-one. But as she got older, so did her parents. As their health got worse, their dependence grew greater.
When she turned forty-two, Martha started to have a recurring dream that temporarily replaced her one about drowning. In it, she daubed on scarlet lipstick, went to a bar and sat on a high stool, sipping a margarita. A man would stroll in, usually looking a lot like Joe, and join her. After a few drinks, they’d slip away to his place for a night of torrid passion.
But then she’d wake up. She’d hear Thomas coughing or Betty flushing the toilet and she’d come back down to earth with a thud.
As she got out of bed to help them, her cheeks would be fiery with shame. However, she’d also feel a kernel of longing, because a huge part of her wanted to try out the dream for size, in real life. She was more likely to have a child through a one-night stand than by meeting and starting a relationship with someone.
She hadn’t heard her biological clock ticking, as such. It was more a landslide sensation as her hopes slipped away.
When a doctor informed her that she was entering an early menopause, Martha finally laid her hopes for a family to rest. She dedicated herself fully to looking after her parents. Her dreams of seducing a stranger subsided, and the one about struggling in the sea returned.
“No. I never married,” she told Suki, hearing the regret in her own voice. “Though I almost did, once...”
Suki nodded empathetically. She dabbed and patted the dragon’s ear. “Ben and I nearly did, too, before it all went wrong. I could see our future together so clearly, like it was a photo, but not filtered and posted on Instagram yet. Now I wonder why I was so blind. I think he was always too repugnant to commit, but I chose not to see it.”
Martha wasn’t sure if she meant reluctant instead, or if she had used the correct word.
“What’s your story, Martha? What happened to you?” Suki asked.
Martha hadn’t talked about Joe since they split up. His was another name that her dad didn’t like mentioned in the house.
In her mind, though, she could still see her ex-fiancé’s ruffled mousy hair, the goofy grin that belied his fierce intelligence. She felt his hand in hers, and it still surprised her to wake up and find that she wasn’t in her twenties and he wasn’t beside her.
“You’ll probably spend our wedding morning darning socks for someone else,” he used to tease.
He was the opposite to her, a calm, chilled man who let worries and stresses flow over him like a trickling brook. And she was the one who scurried, made lists and was forever busy. He encouraged her to be the person she wanted to be.
As she traced her fingers over the papier-mâché, smoothing out the lumps and bumps, she found herself wanting to tell Suki more about Joe. It was suddenly important that this young woman knew her as someone other than Martha, volunteer librarian, laundry-doer and dragon head–rescuer.
She wanted to say his name out loud, to remind herself that he had existed, once.
“We lived together in a small cottage, just over a mile from here,” she said. “It had the tiniest rooms and was always cold, whatever the season, so we had to wear lots of layers to keep warm. But it was ours and we loved it. We were happy with the simple things in life—paddling in the sea, eating fish and chips on a bench in the drizzle, or an evening at home watching TV wrapped in a blanket.
“We’d been together for four years when we booked a church for our wedding. We didn’t want a posh ceremony, or anything fancy for our reception. We were happy with pie and peas and pickled red cabbage, served in the church hall.” Martha felt her eyes shine as she talked, but the sparkle faded when she thought about the next part of her story.
“Then my dad got sick. He’d always been pretty active, but he slowed right down and had difficulty walking. He went for tests and was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. It meant he couldn’t work.”
Suki shook her head, her lips tight. “Oh, I’m so sorry...”
“He’d never liked the idea of my mother having a job. So there wasn’t any money coming in to the house. Joe and I helped them out financially, all we could, but we were saving for our wedding. Joe always felt like he’d done something wrong because Dad wouldn’t speak to him properly, but it was just his way.
“Anyway, while Dad was going through his tests, Joe was offered a job in New York. He was a journalist and a friend asked him to work on a new newspaper out there. It was an amazing opportunity, for both of us. I was working in a bookshop at the time, and I was ready to try something new.”
Martha swallowed as a wave of regret swept over her. She had to take a minute before she carried on. Spotting a small gash under the dragon’s chin, she pointed it out to Suki.
“I couldn’t leave my parents behind, though. Dad was depressed after his diagnosis and Mum was wearing herself out, looking after him. She wanted to find work, but he wouldn’t listen. So I suggested that Joe should fly out to America first. He’d find us a place to live and get settled in. We’d postpone the wedding, so he could concentrate on his new job. I’d join him as soon as I could. It’d give Dad longer to see if he felt better, and Mum could secretly look for work. It all sounded so, um...” She struggled to find a word.
“Feasi-bubble?”
“Yes, feasible. But Dad didn’t improve. His condition worsened and some days he was in a lot of pain. Mum found it hard to cope with him, so I ended up staying longer.”
She looked down as she remembered her mum gripping her wrists, her neck all sinewy. “Please don’t leave me alone here, Martha,” Betty had pleaded. “Not while he’s like this. Promise me. You can go to Joe when things get better.”
And Martha made her promise.
“But, you did join Joe eventually?” Suki looked at Martha expectantly.
Martha wiped her hands on a piece of tissue. “I flew out to see him for a few days, and he showed me all these amazing sigh
ts, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. It was like we’d never been apart. But I could see things had already started to change. He talked about our future, but I was worried about my parents. They needed me more than Joe did...”
“Couldn’t your sister have helped out?” Suki brushed at a smudge of papier-mâché that had dried and whitened on her cheek.
“Lilian had just got married and Joe waited for me, for over a year. But we only saw each other that once in New York. His job made it difficult for him to come home. Eventually, we both realized that I wasn’t going to join him, and we put things on hold.”
She gave a small sniff. Her words started to stick in her throat. “After a few months, Joe met someone else and she fell pregnant straight away. He married her instead of me.”
She took a small ball of papier-mâché and squashed it between her thumb and forefinger, briefly imagining how her life could have been so different. If only she hadn’t tried to be the perfect daughter. If only she had been braver. She’d have had the foundations in place for a different life, but she let them crumble.
“Well.” Suki sat back on her heels. She gave an indignant sigh. “It just shows that Joe wasn’t the right person for you.”
A lump swelled in Martha’s throat. Her eyes filled with tears, blurring her vision. “I know that he was the right person. I just had to make a choice. I did my best to please everyone.” She gritted her teeth to try to stop the flood of emotion that was threatening to overtake her.
Don’t have an outburst and show yourself up again, she told herself.
“You always try to please everyone else, rather than yourself,” Suki said.
Martha pressed the dragon’s chin too hard, her finger pushing through the fresh mush. She stared at the hole, then blindly around the room. “Sorry, I’ve damaged your repair.” She attempted to stand up.
Suki placed her hand on her arm, the weight of it pulling her back down. “Don’t worry about that. I’m so sorry, Martha.”
The Library of Lost and Found Page 15
