The Cottingley Cuckoo

by A. J. Elwood

  I frown. This must be the book that Lawrence had hoped to be included in; there surely couldn’t be another. Had Doyle realised that the skeleton, if nothing else, was a hoax, and made the wise choice to ignore it? If only he’d done the same with the Cottingley photographs, his reputation would have been intact. Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths wouldn’t have spent their lives being plagued by questions that must have been increasingly hard, perhaps even painful, to answer.

  And yet a little bit of magic, one that had entranced so many, would have vanished from the world.

  For a second I picture Charlotte Favell, a sly smile marring her features, bending over cream-coloured paper, her elegant hand dipping a pen into an inkwell, smoke-coloured letters flowing across the page. But why would she write such things? It was too elaborate an invention. And I remember there was another book referred to in the letters: The Science of Fairy Tales.

  I discover that too is real, and freely available, since it was written in 1891. I click ‘Download’ and it appears on my desktop, an artefact from the past materialising in the present by the wonders of technologies not dreamed of when they were written. Would that too have seemed like magic?

  As I close down the various search windows, a familiar word snags at my eye.

  Sunnyside.

  My mind flashes back to my application letter – Would love to work in a caring environment – and I remember googling the home. But this is different. There is the name Doyle, together with the word asylum, and I click on the link, following this new path. I find something so surreal it’s almost like another fairy tale.

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it transpired, was born into a family who liked to paint fairies. His uncle, Richard ‘Dickie’ Doyle, was celebrated for his pictures and they were immortalised in a book, In Fairyland. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, had different fortunes. Frustrated by the demands of his job and the need to support his family, he retreated into alcoholism and the fantasy world created by his art. Eventually he was committed to an asylum that he dubbed, somewhat ironically, ‘Sunnyside’.

  A self-portrait appears on the screen, showing him surrounded by little figures, engrossed in tormenting him – are they fairies or demons? It’s hard to tell the difference. I stare at it. Is his asylum the same as my Sunnyside, now a care home? But it can’t be. That wasn’t even the real name of his institution, and anyway, it was situated in Montrose. It’s a strange coincidence and nothing more, even if it feels as if some dark, twisted magic is at work – but isn’t that what coincidences are, really?

  It might not even be a coincidence. It might be the very reason Mrs Favell chose to live there. I shake my head at the unlikely idea. Who would choose a place to live just because of its name?

  I think of the stories I like to tell Paul, about our home by the sea, or in a great city, or in a forest. I realise that none of those have names, not really. I don’t even know where any of them are; they’re everywhere and nowhere. Do I really have belief – or do I only have stories?

  I dwell on it while the light fades outside the window, wondering what it would have been like to have such a sense of possibility; to really think that little faces might be peeping from the shrubbery beyond the glass. Then comes a loud bang, knock-knock, and I half jump out of my seat. A face presses up against the window – pale but human-sized, the mouth distorted into a leer, the tongue practically licking the pane, and I realise it’s Paul. He’s back, he’s drunk, and he thought it would be funny to surprise me. I laugh, though my heart flutters as if something as small and fragile as a wren is trapped within my ribs.

  I go to let him in and he grabs my waist, spinning me around. His kiss is clumsy and I push him off.

  ‘Wine,’ he announces, brandishing the bottle he’s brought back with him, a hunter with his spoils. Distantly, I hear the tuneless singing of other revellers expelled from the Hart. I close the door against it and he plants another wet kiss on my forehead, grabs my hand and pulls me into the kitchen, starts rattling through a drawer for the bottle opener.

  He’s distracted by something on the countertop. ‘What’s this?’

  It’s the book, small, old, out of place and beautiful. I have no memory of leaving it there.

  He sets down the bottle and opens it at the ribbon marker. ‘“Alone,”’ he says, ‘“and palely loitering.” Not any more, love. How was work?’

  ‘Fine,’ I say, not wanting to talk about it. It would take too long to encompass it, to make him understand how I feel. Anyway, none of it matters; the job won’t be for long. It never was meant to be permanent.

  I smile as he hands me a too-full glass and clink it against his. The wine is rich and sweet, better than usual, and I smile wider. He grabs me around the waist again and nuzzles in close. He smells of beer and, faintly, of man-sweat.

  ‘Palely,’ I hear between the kisses he plants along my neck, ‘loitering.’

  I laugh for real this time. Even drunk, he can always make me feel better. His arms are around me and they are strong and I lean against him.

  ‘Take me to bed,’ he says, gruff and low, his stubble brushing my cheek, ‘and read me poetry, you sexy bitch.’

  The next minute I’m on the bed but it’s him who reads me poetry, bursts of it between kisses that taste of wine. He enunciates each word as if it’s the last, grabbing my questing hand, then both of them. He holds them in one of his, inclining his neck to read the better, as if I’m getting in the way of his recitation. I can hear the beginnings of too-loud music booming through the walls from next door, but for once I don’t care; I’m caught up by the words, as seductive as his hands, and by the laughter that dances in his eyes.

  ‘She look’d at me as she did love,

  And made… sweet… moan.’

  He punctuates these words by making appreciative noises against my neck, then moves to undo the zip of my work tunic.

  ‘And sure in language strange she said –

  “I love thee true.”

  She took me to her elfin grot,

  And there she wept, and sigh’d full sore,

  And there I shut her wild wild eyes

  With kisses four.’

  He leans over, flutters gentle kisses against my eyelids, each in turn, and then again. He draws back, holding the book in one hand, forcing the spine wide, and I want to tell him not to damage it. But I’m always too careful, with books and probably everything else, and I kiss him instead, nipping the lobe of his ear between my teeth. He makes a show of tearing himself away, wiping his lips on the back of his hand to murmur, ‘Sweet… moan.’

  I laugh. He tosses the book aside and I snatch for it, too late, and hear it land on the floor. I tell myself it’s safe enough and close my eyes again; it’s as if his words have pushed it all away, Sunnyside with its staff and their cold looks, the girl who was fired, and her: Mrs Favell, banished, just like that.

  A fading rose fast withereth too.

  He murmurs the words; it almost doesn’t seem like his voice and I feel the slightest brush of something on my cheek. My eyes flicker open to see him gazing down, not into my face but at my arm. For a moment he wraps his hand almost all the way around it, gazing down at the tattoo between his fingers. I squirm away from his grip and instead he kisses the rose painted there, and then my lips, and everything recedes again until it’s dark and we’re spent, and he reaches out for the lamp, hits his wineglass and sends it plummeting to the floor.

  I sit bolt upright and lunge after it. The glass hasn’t smashed; it’s lying on the carpet, only a smear of liquid remaining inside. The book is lying next to it, splayed open with the pages downward. I pick it up and it’s too heavy, I feel that at once, and I know it’s ruined before I see the pages crimsoned with wine, darkening at the edges to the colour of old blood.

  ‘Sorry, love.’ Paul tucks his chin into my neck and his hair brushes my shoulder. The bass thrumming through the wall is louder now, but he doesn’t seem to hear it. I push him off. He’s waiting f
or me to tell him it’s all right, but I can’t. I’m suddenly furious. I jump up from the bed, all of it returning: Mandy’s stares, Nisha’s words, and most of all, Mrs Favell’s withering smile.

  ‘It’s just a book, love.’

  I turn on him. ‘It’s never just a book.’ He should know that. He should know how I feel – yet how can he? Still, I walk around the bed and grab the first cloth that comes to hand – or perhaps I choose it to spite him. I dab at the pages with Paul’s shirt, but I know it’s useless. Nothing will get rid of the stain.

  The book is ruined. I bring it to my face and can no longer smell the old pages, the passage of time; there is only stale alcohol and the trace of Paul’s aftershave. There’s no way I can give it back to Mrs Favell now. And I feel sad, not only because the option has been taken from me, but because it was such a beautiful thing, and mine for so short a time, and so very quickly spoiled.

  7

  Under the watchful eye of Sandra, the Activities Coordinator who comes into Sunnyside twice weekly, I shuffle a well-worn pack of cards. I’m not quite sure how it happened but I’ve got both Edie Dawson and Mrs Favell at my table, one smiling, one not. We’re playing rummy, which Sandra proclaims to be inclusive, stimulating and fun. It’s not an especially difficult activity to organise I shouldn’t think, but she took one look at Mrs Favell’s face at the suggestion of cushion catch – inclusive, good for dexterity and fun – and that was that.

  I deal the cards. Edie nods as if I’ve done something clever and Mrs Favell slides her cards towards herself, holding them close to her chest, giving them an appraising glance. She looks at me in much the same way and says, ‘I do hope you enjoyed the book.’

  I jump in my seat. I somehow hadn’t expected her to mention it in front of anybody else and I wonder if that’s because I genuinely thought she’d been setting me up for trouble. I feel relieved, then anxiety bubbles through at the memory of what happened to her gift.

  ‘My mother gave it to me.’ She picks up an unknown card and places a diamond on the discard pile with a sharp snap.

  An image: Paul holding the book in one hand and me in the other, reciting from its pages and laughing over the words. I shake my head and murmur something about how generous she is. Edie’s focused on the table, already befuddled. I don’t think she’s really listening.

  ‘It was very valuable.’ She raises her head and stares into me.

  She knows. I don’t know how, but she does. I shrivel under her look, trying to persuade myself she can’t possibly, that’s it’s just a way she has of giving the impression she sees everything. It’s a consequence of her superior, brusque manner, something bred into her, a demeanour she’s had many years to perfect.

  ‘Why don’t you get rid of your heart, Mrs Dawson?’ Mrs Favell’s tone is clipped. She doesn’t call Mrs Dawson Edie, like everyone else. She doesn’t really call anyone by their first name, I realise – except, perhaps, me. On the other hand everyone calls her Mrs Favell, even the manager. Not Charlotte and certainly not Char, Lottie, or God forbid, Charlie.

  ‘Oh,’ Edie says, fumbling to pick up Mrs Favell’s discarded card before casting away one of her own, ‘I’m slow – a bit slow. More used to my knitting.’ She nods at me over her half-moon glasses.

  ‘She’s never coming back, you know.’

  Edie hears that all right. We turn to Mrs Favell, both wearing the same expression of dismay.

  ‘Your daughter’s glad to have left you behind. They all are, don’t you know, after a time. People think their offspring will look after them. So glad I never troubled over it. Some would say I miss out, not having constant visitors, but it’s scarcely any different, and I saved myself a world of bother.’

  Edie’s mouth trembles.

  ‘Of course your daughter’s not glad,’ I say, patting Edie’s hand. Her skin looks dry but it’s as soft as draped silk. ‘Don’t you listen.’

  ‘It’ll be the fees next.’ Mrs Favell, usually separate, usually silent, will not shut up. ‘Too expensive here. Who knows where you might end up? Some places are awful. It’s not as if they can go and look them over first. They’ll have talked about flying you out there, though not for long.’ Her eyes go distant, as does her voice. ‘Why linger, like this?’

  ‘Mrs Favell,’ I say, unused to challenging her, ‘that’s unkind, and uncalled for.’

  ‘The truth often is,’ she says. She throws down her cards and they land in a fan across the table, muddling what’s been played and what hasn’t. ‘I think I shall go and read what remains of my books.’

  ‘She doesn’t know those things.’ Edie’s fingers grasp at my arm, her grip weak, her skin so very soft and vulnerable. ‘Does she? She can’t know.’

  Her eyes are unfocused and tears are welling, running down her cheeks. I’m horrified, then angry. What was Mrs Favell thinking? A part of me knows she was telling the truth, that she’s perceptive – perceptive and unkind, even cruel – and for a moment I hate her.

  I pat Edie’s hand again, feeling helpless. Another tear spills over and rolls onto her cheek. She’s rocking herself, her eyes unfocused, looking at – what? I wonder if there’s anything so awful as someone old and alone being in pain – and I suddenly realise she might die this way, sorrowing over a daughter who never comes, wishing for a grandchild she never sees, all the gentle lies she shielded herself with stripped away.

  The thought is unbearable, but I swallow it down and murmur useless words of comfort. I tell her it’s nonsense – I suggest that it’s all lies, although I do not use the word. I don’t know if Edie’s convinced; she doesn’t look at me. It takes me a minute to realise that Mrs Favell is standing by the door, having turned to look back at us. There’s no remorse in her eyes. They’re cold, like everything about her. She wanted this. She’s enjoying it.

  Lies. I can taste them on my tongue. They feel hopeless in the face of the truth.

  As if summoned by my gaze she strides back across the room, leaning over the table and resting her bony knuckles on the chaos of playing cards. She’s not looking at Edie, isn’t concerned with her any longer. ‘Life decisions,’ she says. ‘We make them or we don’t. No point in crying over them when it’s already too late – is it, Rose?’

  I’m too flummoxed by her words to respond, and anyway she’s gone, stalking off with her flowery scent and her pearls and her blouse, which today is the softest, sweetest pink.

  Across the room, Sandra pushes herself up from her table, watching Mrs Favell leave. She opens her mouth to call out but Mrs Favell’s expression must stop her because she shrugs at me as if to say, ‘What can you do?’ Then she sees Edie rocking herself over the ruined game, sees her tears, and lets out a concerned sound. She starts across the room to sort out the new girl’s table, which somehow seems to have become a terrible mess.

  * * *

  I don’t see Mrs Favell again until lunch. For the rest of the morning I spend as much time as I can with Edie, bringing her biscuits and orange juice and tea, which all sit beside her, untouched. I’m being extra kind to her and she knows it. It isn’t helping. She keeps giving me smiles without any life in them and she’s just as blank as she eats, swallowing the mouthfuls of chicken I cut for her, the soft-boiled cabbage and mushy potatoes. Her gaze is somewhere else, on the other side of the world perhaps. I wonder if I could reach her daughter on the phone. I could get them talking, cheer her up, but when I ask Nisha about it she pulls a face and shakes her head, as if she’s tried all that already and found it hopeless.

  I had half wondered if Mrs Favell would be too ashamed to come down for lunch, but of course she’s no such thing. She marches in, heads straight to my table and stops in front of me. She holds something out. I notice that her hand, unlike so many of the residents’, doesn’t shake. The object she’s holding is a letter. I recognise the handwriting at once.

  ‘You wanted this,’ she says, loud enough for everyone to hear, and conversations cease. The scrape of cutlery falls silent. Fac
es turn towards us, blurred shapes all around, and I can’t look at them. There’s only the letter, and her words, hanging in the air.

  She thrusts it towards me and I take it. I open my mouth, wanting to explain to everyone that I didn’t ask for this, didn’t even want it, but the truth is, I do want it. I gather myself to say, ‘Of course, I’ll read it to you later, if you like.’

  She cuts me off short. ‘Take more care of it than the other.’

  Then she walks away, and just like that, the murmuring of voices begins again. Plates are gathered in. Plastic aprons rustle. Somewhere, a fork or a knife falls to the floor. It’s too late to protest and I’m left holding the letter. I can see from the first few lines that it’s a new one, just for me this time, something I can read alone. I wonder why she gave it to me this way. At least she can’t accuse me of stealing it, but the way she spoke – you wanted this – made it sound as if I’d asked her for it, even coerced her. And her, an old lady. Is that what people will think? Is that what she wanted them to think?

  Suddenly I know they will. It’s what they’ll choose to think, despite my protest about reading to her. Everyone must know she doesn’t really need me to do that. And I never did report her gift of the book. Now I can’t. Patricia will want me to give it back, and how can I? There would be an even worse fuss.

  I start to set down the letter, seeing just in time the pool of liquid spreading across the table where Edie has spilled her juice. The cup is still in her hand. She’s shaking worse than ever and I reach out and steady it for her. She’s never been this bad, not that I’ve seen. I don’t suppose she’ll be able to knit anything today. She won’t manage the needles. I place her cup on the table and she stares as it slides around in the moisture. She doesn’t watch me slip the letter into my pocket. I can’t bring myself to fold it and it juts from my tunic like an accusation.