The Last of the Stanfields

by Levy, Marc

  “Miss Verdier, is that you? Are you back already?” called a voice from over in the next room. May froze, paralyzed with fear. Then, without making a sound, she lowered herself carefully to the ground and curled into a fetal position under the desk, hidden from view. She stayed completely motionless, listening to the approaching footsteps. The door creaked open and Mr. Stanfield poked his head into the office.

  “Miss Verdier?”

  He found the office empty and spotless, as usual. Mr. Stanfield scanned the room, not giving the typewriter a second glance, which was lucky considering that Miss Verdier—clearly the epitome of orderliness—would never have left on a break with a sheet of paper still in the roller. Mr. Stanfield shrugged. “I must be hearing things,” he mumbled, and closed the door.

  After he left, it took May several minutes to get her hands to stop shaking, but her whole body was trembling, too. She had never been so terrified.

  The incessant ticking of the clock on the wall brought her back to reality. Ten minutes left at most. Ten short minutes to type out the second name and the fake PO box, all while keeping perfectly quiet. Then: replace the paper in the stack, slide the stack back in the drawer, lock the drawer, remove the lockpick, and escape the sprawling manor before the secretary got back. May was behind schedule. She should have already been back with Sally-Anne, who must have been losing her mind at that very moment, out in the parking lot . . .

  Concentrate, goddamn it! You don’t have a second to lose.

  May began typing, one key after another, wincing at the tapping noise of each letter hitting the page. If the old geezer heard keys rattle or the bell ring again, there was no way he would be satisfied with just a quick little once-over like the last time.

  There, done. Turn the roller, slip out the paper, put it exactly as it was within the stack. Keep tapping the papers until they’re packed perfectly tight—do it down on the carpet to keep totally silent. Next, slide the neat little stack back into the drawer, push it all the way in there, just where you found it. Easy now, easy. Close the drawer. Turn the lockpick and don’t even breathe; just listen for the sound of pins clicking into place. Ignore your throbbing temples, the sweat on your brow. Just one more millimeter to go. You can do this, you have to do this . . .

  Be cool, May. Be cool. If you can’t get the lockpick out, you’re done for.

  After a few attempts, May succeeded, slipped the pick out, and clenched it in her clammy palm. She slid the tool into her pocket and used the tissue to wipe the sweat from her hands and forehead. If the butler saw her sweating, he would surely suspect something.

  May slipped through the connecting door into the small study, straightened her jacket, and exited out into the long corridor. Every step felt like an eternity, with May praying she wouldn’t cross paths with anyone. She reached the staircase and began the climb down, treading lightly to avoid any attention. All the while, she tried to keep calm and measured in the event she ran into the butler and had to explain that she could wait for Miss Verdier no longer and would have to come back another time.

  But her luck held: the foyer was deserted. May reached the service door and stepped outside, her heart still hammering inside her chest. Sally-Anne hadn’t budged an inch, watching from the very same spot astride the Triumph. For an awful moment, May thought her legs wouldn’t move another step. But they did, carrying her all the way to the parking lot. Sally-Anne handed May her helmet. May mounted the motorbike, the engine roared, and they were on the move again.

  As the bike rounded the sharp curve once more, they passed Miss Verdier’s Ford on its way back to the estate. Sally-Anne caught a glimpse of the driver, all fresh, aglow with a naughty little smile on her face. She matched it with her own devilish grin, albeit for entirely different reasons.

  6

  ELEANOR-RIGBY

  October 2016, Beckenham

  We had already been sitting around the table for a half hour and Maggie had yet to announce her engagement to Fred, the strapping young lad who ran a gastropub in Primrose Hill.

  Michel couldn’t have been more thrilled. First of all, he got to watch our father be so happy and excited he could hardly sit still, all fidgety, barely eating. The fact that Dad wasn’t ravaging his pizza meant he had a lot on his mind, and Michel knew it was because he must have been wondering if he had been wrong about Maggie marrying Fred. But Michel was relieved that it seemed our father was wrong, because the engagement had been worrying him the whole way over. He didn’t actually like good old Fred as much as he had claimed. Fred made Michel uncomfortable. There was something about his kindness that felt forced and insincere. Michel detected an underlying sense of superiority that was off-putting.

  Michel had enjoyed the food at Fred’s pub, but his appetite for food was nothing compared to his ravenous appetite for books at the library. Michel knew nearly every title by heart and had memorized them alphabetically, which perhaps wasn’t all that extraordinary considering it was his responsibility to sort them into the proper order to begin with. Michel enjoyed his job at the library, where silence reigned. He couldn’t have found a more tranquil place to work. Most library visitors were pleasant enough, and helping them find what they were looking for as quickly as possible gave Michel a proud sense of purpose. The only part that bothered him was seeing the books sitting abandoned on the tables at the end of the day. On the other hand, if library visitors were less messy, Michel would have less work to do. It was very logical.

  Before the library, Michel had worked in a laboratory, a position he landed after receiving high marks in his final exams at university. Michel had a knack for chemistry, and the periodic table of the elements felt like a second language to him. Yet his promising career quickly came to an end when his enthusiasm for experimenting with all the endless combinations of chemicals at his disposal became a safety issue. Dad had howled at the injustice and cursed Michel’s narrow-minded employers, but there was nothing to be done. After a period of seclusion at home, Michel decided to get back to work. He connected with Vera Morton, manager of a small local library, who told Michel she was willing to give him a chance. He solemnly vowed to never let her down. The speed and accessibility of the internet had caused library attendance to drop to the point where a whole day might go by without anyone walking through the door. Michel took advantage of the time to read, mainly works on chemistry and biographies.

  As I quietly observed my father throughout the meal, Maggie delivered a constant stream of nonsense that certainly didn’t justify hogging the spotlight. Her blabbering didn’t sit well at all with Michel, who suspected she had the jitters about the impending announcement that he was dreading. When Maggie sat down across from Dad and took his hand in her own, Michel interpreted the out-of-character move as an attempt to reassure him. Maggie certainly wasn’t the touchy-feely type. Every time Michel went to hug her, she would make a fuss and accuse him of smothering her. Michel was careful not to, and had concluded that it was just a strategy to cut short any physical contact. Because logically, what kind of sister wouldn’t want to hug her own brother?

  Maggie’s show of affection caught Dad off guard, and he held his breath and waited for the big news to drop. Maggie getting engaged was a given, of course. What had Dad on the edge of his seat was when the marriage would take place.

  “Okay, darling. That’s enough. If I listen to you babble for one more minute, the anxiety might kill me. Tell us: When’s the big day? If you ask me, three months would be ideal. Two per month is reasonable, since as you know they’re not so easy to shed at my age!”

  “I’m sorry,” Maggie replied. “But what are you talking about?”

  “All the pounds I’ve got to lose to fit into the old dinner jacket!” our father exclaimed, slapping his belly.

  I looked to Maggie, but she seemed equally perplexed. Michel swooped in to save the day.

  “He means: for the wedding. The dinner jacket for your wedding,” he explained with a sigh.

  “T
hat’s why you called us all here tonight, isn’t it?” Dad said, smug and satisfied. “Where is the old chap anyway?”

  “Who’s that?” Maggie asked, once more looking to Michel.

  “Good old Fred,” he replied drily.

  “Okay. I say give it a half hour, and if you two are still talking nonsense, we’ll take you to the hospital,” said Maggie.

  “Good lord, Maggie, we’ll be taking you to the hospital if you keep on like this. What is up with you? Forget the whole thing. I’ll just wear my suit. It always was a bit large for me, so as long as I can keep my breathing to a minimum, I should be able to close the jacket. Though it is brown. They say you shouldn’t wear brown to a wedding, but I’ll tell you what else they say: desperate times call for desperate measures. After all, this is England, not Las Vegas, so if we don’t have time to get all our ducks in a row, that’s just the way it is, and we can leave it at that.”

  Once more, my sister and I exchanged a dumbstruck look, until the sheer absurdity of the moment made me burst out laughing. It was an uncontrollable fit that soon proved contagious. Dad was the only one to hold out, but he never could resist a good case of the giggles and was soon in stitches with the rest of us. By the time Maggie managed to catch her breath, sighing and wiping the tears from her eyes, Fred’s unexpected arrival caused everyone to burst out laughing once more. Good old Fred’s bewildered look was the icing on the cake.

  My father cleared his throat. “So, how about you tell me just what we are doing here if the two of you aren’t getting married?”

  The word made Fred freeze halfway through taking off his jacket. Maggie saw his worried eyes and blurted out, “Don’t worry!”

  “Dad, everybody . . . We are gathered here for the sheer pleasure of being together,” I interjected, trying not to sell it too hard.

  “As far as reasons to gather, that one is far more commonplace,” Michel stated. “From a statistical point of view, so I’ve been told.”

  “I don’t see why we couldn’t have done this at home,” Dad grumbled.

  “Well, we would have missed out on all these laughs,” Maggie insisted, and then went in for the kill. “Can I ask you a question? Was Mum well-off when you met her?”

  “At seventeen?”

  “No, later. When you got back together.”

  “Not at seventeen, not at thirty, not ever! She didn’t even have change to get the bus from the railway station when I picked her up . . . you know, when we reunited,” he added, choosing his words carefully. “Just think, if your mother had been a few pence richer that night when she got off that train, she might have never even called me. You know, it’s high time I confessed something to you kids. Fred, since you’re not officially part of the family yet, I’d ask that you keep it to yourself.”

  “Confess? Confess what?” I asked.

  “If you save the questions till the end, you’ll find out. Children, your mother and I may have somewhat embellished the circumstances under which our relationship was rekindled. Truth is, your mother did not just miraculously reappear, hopelessly and desperately in love with me, after being spontaneously struck with the epiphany that I was her one true love, despite that being how we may have described it, from time to time.”

  “Always described it, every time,” Michel corrected.

  “Fine, every time, I grant you that. Truth of the matter is, when your mother came home to England, she didn’t have anywhere to stay. I was the only person she knew around here. She looked up my name in the telephone directory from a phone box. This was before the internet, mind you, so that was the way we found people back in those days. Donovans were few and far between in Croydon. The only other one in the whole damn phone book was a sixty-eight-year-old woman—never married, no children, for those of you keeping track. Anyway, you can imagine my shock at hearing your mother’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “It was the end of autumn, but already cold enough to chill you to the bone. I remember what she said like it was yesterday. ‘Ray, you’d have every reason to hang up on me right here and now, but you’re all I’ve got, and I just don’t know where else to turn.’ What in the world does one do when a woman says, ‘You’re all I’ve got’? I knew at that very moment that destiny had brought us back together, this time for good. I leapt into the Austin—yes, indeed, the very same one parked outside right now, don’t give me that look, it’s still running just fine, thank you very much—and went to pick up your mother. Now, I’ve every reason to believe it was the right choice, seeing as I’m lucky enough to find myself thirty-six years later sharing a hysterical pizza night with my three wonderful children and my not-quite-yet son-in-law.”

  Silence. The three of us siblings exchanged looks around the table until Dad cleared his throat and declared, “Maybe it’s time I took Michel home.”

  “Wait—why did Mum say you had reason to hang up on her?” I cut in.

  “Some other time, sweetheart, if you don’t mind. Stirring up all these old memories takes its toll on me, and I prefer to leave tonight on a happy note, such as our little giggle session, rather than open up a can of worms.”

  “So, the first time you got together, when you two were teenagers, she was the one who left you?” I insisted.

  “He said another time,” Maggie jumped in before our father could respond.

  “Yes, exactly,” Michel chimed in. “But it may be . . . more complicated than it seems,” he added, pointing a finger in the air, as though hoping to snag his thoughts out of thin air before they fluttered away—one of his many peculiar habits. Everyone waited quietly, as always, for Michel to complete his thought.

  “While Dad did express a preference to say no more on the subject this evening, ‘some other time’ could imply that he might be willing to reconsider, as long as it’s . . . some other time.”

  “Yeah, thanks, we got it, Michel,” Maggie said.

  With everything crystal clear, Michel rose from his chair and put on his trench coat. He kissed me on the cheek, gave Fred’s hand a flimsy little squeeze, and then pulled Maggie in for a tight hug. Desperate times called for desperate measures, after all. Michel whispered his congratulations into her ear.

  “Congratulations for what?” my sister whispered back to him.

  “For not being engaged to Fred,” Michel replied.

  On the way home in the Austin, not a word was exchanged between father and son until they pulled up to the curb outside Michel’s place. Ray reached to open Michel’s door, then stopped to look his son right in the eye and spoke in a voice as gentle as could be.

  “You won’t tell them anything, will you? Understand: it should be me who tells them. One day.”

  Michel looked right back at his father.

  “You can sleep easy, Dad. No need to open up a can of worms. I’m pretty sure fishermen buy them in bags nowadays, anyway. I’ll verify that tomorrow at the library.”

  With that, he hugged his father and slipped out of the Austin. Ray hung around a few moments, waiting until his son had safely entered the building, before starting the engine and driving away.

  7

  ELEANOR-RIGBY

  October 2016, Beckenham

  I stood up from the table and left the kitchen, opting to give Fred and Maggie their privacy. After the couple had been holed up in there for a solid ten minutes, I decided it was time to leave. I entered to find Fred drying glasses with a tea towel and Maggie sitting on the counter with her legs crossed, puffing at a cigarette near the window. My sister offered to call a taxi for me, but I politely declined, explaining it would cost a small fortune to get home from Beckenham. I’d be better off taking the train home.

  “I thought you were going to Dad’s,” Maggie said with a sneer. “Decided not to stay at his place?”

  “I thought he might want to be alone tonight. It forces me to revisit my London life, anyway, which has been long overdue.”

  “Well, I think you’ve got the right idea,” Fred offered, with
a clap of his hands. “Beckenham, Croydon . . . too far out in the sticks.”

  “Whereas Primrose Hill is too far from the sticks, not to mention way too posh,” replied Maggie, flicking her cigarette butt right into the dishwater, where it landed with a hiss.

  “I think I’ll leave you two to whisper sweet nothings in peace,” I said with a sigh, slipping on my jacket, but my sister stopped me.

  “Fred would be delighted to drop you off at the station, what with his awesome car and all. Or, Fred, why not take her all the way to London? Then you could spend the night in your precious little Primrose Hill.”

  I flashed my sister an admonishing look. How could she be so nasty and still be the one with the boyfriend, whereas it seemed that I, being nothing less than kindness incarnate, was doomed to be single forever? Just one more mystery to unravel.

  “You want a lift, Elby?” Fred offered, but Maggie snagged the tea towel he was folding straight out of his hands and threw it in the washing hamper.

  “Insider tip: nobody but Michel is allowed to butcher my sister’s name like that. She hates it. Anyway, I need some air, so I’ll walk her to the train.”

  Maggie grabbed a sweater and led me by the arm out into the street. The streetlamps washed the pavement with an orange glow, illuminating row upon row of modest brick-built Victorian houses, mainly two, and never more than three, stories high.

  As we crossed the junction into the shopping district, everything became brighter and livelier. Maggie waved to the Syrian owner of the twenty-four-hour corner shop. There was a launderette next to a kebab joint, followed by an Indian restaurant that could seat no more than two at a time. A former video store was entirely boarded up and covered with posters, most of which had been ripped to shreds. Ahead, we plunged back into darkness as we strolled along the gates of a park. Soon after, the air was filled with the metallic, urine-smelling odor of the platform, which cleared as we entered the station.