by Jane Corry
Mum picks up the phone immediately. In my mind, I’m back home. She’ll already have decorated the hall with tinsel woven round the banisters; mistletoe hanging from the central cartwheel light; holly on the pictures going up the stairs, including the pastel portraits of Daniel and me when we were younger. Pretty bits and pieces on the dining-room table to hide the emptiness of the unlaid fifth setting at the table. Christmas decorations waiting for me to come home, because without one child, my parents have nothing.
The weight of my responsibilities hangs in my words. ‘Sorry it’s late but I’ve been working.’
I wait to hear Mum tell me, as she has done before, that I am working too hard. That a new husband needs his new wife to be around more. But instantly, I know before I even hear the break in her voice that something has happened.
‘What is it?’ I croak.
After Daniel, there was a weird relief that nothing awful – nothing truly awful – could ever happen again. It’s a feeling I have heard others voice too. There was a woman on the radio, not long after, who said that when her daughter died in a crash, she knew she didn’t have to worry so much about her surviving son because her worst fear had already happened.
That’s how I felt too until I hear Mum’s voice.
‘Is Dad all right?’ I manage to say.
For a minute, I have a picture of him at the bottom of the stairs. He’s slipped. Had a coronary.
‘We’re not ill.’
Relief washes through me in the form of sweat. Ed, meanwhile, is poring over the woman with the expressionless face, but in such a manner that I suspect he is listening.
‘Then what is it?’
‘Merlin … It’s Merlin. He’s … well, he’s gone.’
I clutch the edge of the table for support. Ed’s hand reaches out for mine. Gratefully I clutch it. ‘He was old …’ I begin.
‘The vet says it looks like his food was poisoned,’ sobs Mum.
‘Poisoned?’
Ed’s face is startled as I repeat the word.
‘How do you know?’
My mother’s voice is choked. ‘We found him in the paddock. There was a note on the stable door.’
A note. My body begins to shake. My chest rises to my throat. The hunger I was feeling when I got home has disappeared.
‘What does it say?’ I ask.
But already I know.
‘It says, “Tell your daughter to drop the case.” ’ Mum’s voice rises with anguish. ‘Is this the one you told us about? The one about the boiler that’s been in the papers?’
Ed is leaning forward, clearly concerned. So much so that he drops his sketchpad.
Slowly, I put down the phone. Not just because of Merlin, who was my last link with Daniel apart from my parents. Nor because of the horror that someone, somewhere, has tracked down my family. Sarah Evans’s uncle perhaps? After all, he’d written the previous note.
No. I’m putting down the phone in shock because Ed’s sketchpad is open, revealing the full truth. I’d assumed the girl with the expressionless face was Carla, waiting to be filled in. Instead, Davina is laughing at me from the carpet with that glorious head of hair thrown back in victory.
18
Carla
Carla didn’t have a birthday party like all the other girls at school. There wasn’t room in the flat, Mamma said. Instead, look what Larry had bought her!
In the hall outside stood the most beautiful pink bike she had ever seen. It was gleaming: almost as shiny as Larry’s car. There was a bell, just as she had requested, and a little basket. And when she rode it in the park, she flew!
‘You are a natural,’ said Larry. But he did not smile as he spoke.
The following Sunday, the phone rang twice in an hour. ‘When I answer,’ said Mamma confused, ‘I can’t hear anything. Perhaps it is broken. You get it next time.’
Carla did. At first she heard nothing either. But just as she was about to put the phone down, there it was. Breathing.
Then her tummy ache started again.
‘I don’t want to go to Lily and Ed’s,’ she mumbled.
Mamma ran her hands through her hair. ‘You are just worried about those phone calls. They are probably from silly children playing games. When you get to your friend Lily’s home, you will feel better.’
She began to cry. ‘I’m not going. I am ill.’
Mamma’s face grew cross. ‘You are a naughty girl. Do you know that?’
Carla was still resting on the sofa when Larry arrived. She could hear them whispering in the hall.
‘Making it up … I am sure of it … always better on Monday … only says she is ill … no temperature … just playing up …’
How tired she felt. Her thoughts began to drift away. At first this felt nice, soothing. But then she thought she heard a far-off doorbell. And after that, a word began to beat in her head as if it had been hidden and was now coming out to upset her.
Murder!
Murder!
That was the evil word she had seen on Lily’s papers. The more she thought of it, the more Carla became convinced that Lily was going to hurt her too. It was God’s will because she had killed Charlie.
‘What is this you are saying?’
Opening her eyes, she saw Mamma looking down at her.
‘You have had a nightmare, cara mia. But it is over now. You must get up. Guess who has come to see you?’
‘Hello, Carla!’
It was Ed.
She’d forgotten how simpatico his eyes were. After all, it wasn’t he who was bad. It was Lily …
‘I was hoping to begin a new portrait today.’ His eyes were really shining now. ‘If it works, I would like to enter it for a competition. With your mamma’s permission of course.’
‘A competition!’ Mamma repeated the word reverently. ‘Do you hear, Carla?’
‘But first I need another sitting.’ Ed’s eyes were searching hers. Pleading. It made her feel big. Important. ‘Do you feel well enough to come over this afternoon?’ He turned to Mamma. ‘I’m afraid Lily has got to go into work again, but I’ll take great care of your daughter. Are you happy with that?’
‘Of course she is,’ trilled Mamma. ‘She was just tired, that’s all.’
Carla nodded. In truth, her stomach ache was not so bad now.
‘Wonderful.’ Ed looked pleased. ‘Let’s get started then, shall we?’
The first thing that Carla saw when she went into num-ber 3 was a new rug on the floor of the sitting room.
‘What happened to the old one?’ she asked, noticing with approval that this one was a pale bluey-green and not a boring brown colour like before.
‘Lily got angry and threw coffee over it,’ said Ed.
‘Ask him why, Carla.’ Lily came out of the kitchen, carrying a pile of papers. Her voice was sharp.
Lily was here after all?
Carla froze on the spot.
Ed laughed, but Carla knew he was nervous. ‘I thought you were going into the office,’ he said quietly.
‘Changed my mind. I’m going to work in the bedroom instead. I lose time doing that journey.’ Lily smiled. But it wasn’t a smile that danced in her eyes. ‘That all right with you?’
‘Whatever suits you best.’ Ed spoke in that very polite way that adults seemed to use when they didn’t like each other very much. Carla had observed that many times on Mamma’s favourite television soap. Lily disappeared into the bedroom.
‘Why don’t you sit down on the sofa, Carla.’
She did as she was told. Trembling. ‘Is Lily going to murder you?’ she whispered.
Ed stared at her and then began to laugh. A lovely warm, throaty laugh that almost made her want to join in. Then he stopped. ‘Why do you ask that?’
Instantly, she felt foolish. ‘Because … because I saw the word “murder” on her homework papers when we were on the bus. And I was scared …’ Her voice began to tremble. ‘I thought she was planning to kill me – and maybe you – an
d …’
‘Shh, shh.’ Ed was sitting next to her now, his arm around her. ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, sweetheart.’
Sweetheart? That’s what Larry called Mamma sometimes. It felt good. As though she was grown up and not a child at all.
‘Lily is a solicitor. She helps to put the world to rights.’ There was a snort as if Ed was disagreeing with himself.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means she tries to help people who have been hurt and to look after people who have been accused of hurting others but haven’t really. Do you understand?’
No, but Carla felt she ought to nod her head anyway in case Ed thought she was stupid.
‘At the moment, my wife is trying to help a man in prison who was accused of murder but is really a good person – or so she thinks.’
‘But why did they put him there then?’
Ed was back behind his easel now, sketching. Carla felt cold without his arm around her. ‘Good question. But she is also upset because her brother’s horse has died.’
Carla made a face. ‘I’m scared of horses. One tried to bite me when we went to the zoo for our school trip.’ Then she remembered the stain on the carpet. ‘Is that why Lily spilled the coffee?’
Ed began rubbing out something on the canvas. ‘No. That’s because I … well, because I did something I shouldn’t have done.’
He sounded so sad that Carla started to jump up to hug him.
‘Please. Don’t move.’
So she sat still again. ‘Can I talk?’
His hand was moving across the page. She couldn’t see it but she could hear it. ‘That’s fine.’
‘I did something I shouldn’t too. I … I chopped up the new Charlie.’
‘Who?’
‘My caterpillar pencil case.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I wanted something better.’
Ed’s hand was moving faster. His voice sounded like it was coming from far away, as though he wasn’t really listening. ‘Well, we all want something better from time to time, Carla. But if we stopped to appreciate what we’ve got, the world might be a better place. Now take a look at this.’
Jumping up, she ran to the easel. There she was! Sitting on the sofa. Her eyes looking straight out. A smile playing on her lips. But her hands! They were twisted together. As though something was wrong, despite her happy face.
‘It shows another side of you,’ said Ed encouragingly. ‘Judges get fed up of chocolate-box paintings. This one, with any luck, might make us win.’
Win? When that happened on television, people became famous! Carla was so excited that when she excused herself to go to the loo, she couldn’t help squirting herself with the perfume on the shelf. She also dabbed on a little of Lily’s lip gloss sitting next to it.
‘That’s a nice smell,’ said Ed, when she returned to her sitting position.
Carla crossed her fingers. ‘It’s just the soap.’ Then, feeling very grown up thanks to the perfume and the portrait, she tried to sit up straight like a proper English lady.
The picture had been sent to the judges of the big competition that Ed had told them about. But it would take them a long time to decide who would come first. ‘We will know by next year,’ he promised, giving her arm a quick squeeze.
Meanwhile, the whole world was in a feverish state of Christmas excitement. Mamma had come to the nativity play where Carla and her new friend Maria were angels. Afterwards, Mamma had cried and said that she wished Nonno could see them because then he might forgive her.
‘Forgive you for what?’ Carla had asked.
‘You would not understand.’ Then Mamma began to weep again. This was embarrassing because they were on the bus on the way home from school on the last day of term. Mamma was in her work uniform, which smelled of perfume.
‘Larry cannot be with us at Christmas,’ she sniffed.
Carla’s heart jumped. Good. ‘Why not?’
Mamma sniffed. ‘Because he has to be with his wife.’
Then the woman in front of them on the bus turned round and gave them both such a nasty look that Mamma began crying even harder. She was still crying when they got home. Maybe, thought Carla as they walked past number 3, her friends might come out to see what the noise was all about.
‘Can we spend Christmas with Ed and Lily instead?’ she asked. Now Ed had explained that Lily was not a murderer, she liked her again. Although not quite so much. She’d upset Ed, after all, and it was he who had drawn her picture.
‘They are going to their own families.’ Mamma’s arm tightened round her shoulders. ‘It is just you and me, my little one.’
Mamma had still not run out of tears by the time that Carla opened door number 24 on her advent calendar. Meanwhile, the Christmas tree which Carla had persuaded Mamma to buy from the market leaned sadly against the wall. Bare.
‘We must decorate it,’ she had pleaded. But Mamma had forgotten to buy tinsel, and besides, they didn’t have enough money. So instead she had hung up her biggest white gym sock.
At the bottom of it she could see now that there were two presents.
‘Larry gave them to us,’ said Mamma.
Then she clutched Carla’s hand. ‘We must go and say thank you to him.’
But it was dark and cold outside. Mamma said that didn’t matter. She would stop crying – ‘I promise, my little one!’ – if only she could walk past the house where Larry lived. So they walked for miles and miles because the bus didn’t come as it was a holiday and drivers need to rest too. Some of the houses they passed were so big that they could have fitted ten of their apartments inside.
And then finally they stopped at a tall white house that went up and up into the sky. Through the window on the second floor shone a light. The curtains were open.
Tears began to stream down Mamma’s face. ‘If only I could be in there, with Larry.’
Carla tried to pull her mother away. ‘Just one moment,’ Mamma said. But she wouldn’t move. Bored, Carla kicked at some leaves while she waited.
‘No!’ Mamma was gasping, her hand to her throat. Carla followed her gaze. In the window stood a little girl, looking down on them.
‘Who’s that?’ Carla asked.
‘It is his child.’
‘He has a daughter,’ questioned Carla with a jolt in her chest, ‘as well as a wife?’
Mamma nodded, her tears flowing faster.
A daughter like her? ‘What happens to them on Sundays?’
Mamma’s arms were shaking so much that Carla had to hold them to keep them still. ‘We are his family then. They belong to the other days. Come, we will go now.’
Together, they made their way back through the streets and past the street lamps and the decorations in other people’s windows. Back to the naked Christmas tree and the two presents in her sock.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Mamma as Carla put hers in the bin without opening it.
‘I don’t want it.’ Her face burned with anger. Larry had to go, Carla told herself silently. He was not good for Mamma. Somehow, she had to find a way to get rid of him. Just as she had done with Charlie.
Even if it was wrong.
I’m glad I’m not dying at Christmas.
It would be too hard for everyone involved.
Bad things shouldn’t happen when the rest of the world is rejoicing.
It makes it doubly hard for those who grieve.
And the memories spoil every Christmas after that.
Is there ever a good time to die?
I certainly never thought it would be like this.
A strange layering of pain and reflection, of recriminations against others, recriminations against myself.
And of course fear. Because I suspect, from the small sounds around me, that someone is still here.
19
Lily
Christmases have always been big at home. ‘Daniel loves it,’ my mother always used to say by way of explanation for t
he ten-foot-high tree and the stack of presents below. We didn’t have a lot of money, but my mother would save up throughout the year. One time, my brother got a Hornby train set which he proceeded to take apart and then put back together again, ‘just to see how it was made’. It took three days, during which he refused to participate in any family meals, including Christmas lunch, because he was ‘busy’.
No one tried to dissuade him. It was impossible to change his mind once it was set. Maybe that’s why, in the early days, Daniel got whatever he wanted. It was only when his wish list became illegal that my parents started to lay down boundaries. And by then it was too late.
What, I wonder, as we wait at Exeter station for Dad to pick us up, will it be like this year? In the past few years, Mum has had a glazed, bright, ‘it’s all right’ look firmly fixed to her face from the second she wakes. It fools no one. Then, when she’s had her third gin before lunch, she’ll start talking about Daniel in the present tense. ‘He’ll love these new lights, don’t you think?’ she’ll enquire, as if my brother is going to come downstairs any minute.
Dad will wear an air of forced resignation. At the same time, he’ll look after Mum with a tenderness that smacks of guilt. When a couple go through a tragedy, they either become closer than before or drift apart. I suppose I ought to be grateful my parents finally chose the former.
It’s cold here, in the station waiting room with the draught blasting through the door. I shiver. And not just because of poor Merlin, who died because of me. Or because of his unknown murderer. (Sarah’s uncle had a firm alibi according to the police, although, as Tony said, he may have put someone up to it.)
No. It’s because sometimes – and you might think this is stupid – I wonder if I’m living up to my name. Lilies stain if their pollen brushes something. The recipient is tarnished with a substance that is difficult to remove. It seems to me that I stain whoever I try to love. Daniel, Daniel’s horse, Ed … Who is next?
Joe?
Don’t be ridiculous, I tell myself sharply.
Noticing my distress, Ed tries to put his arm round my shoulder, but I shrug it off. How does he expect me to react when he’s been drawing the face of the woman he was once engaged to?
