by Clare Clark
‘Really? On your own in this house, where she actually died?’
‘Just go away,’ he blurted, the words out before he could stop them.
Jessica shrugged. ‘Fine. But don’t shout at me. It’s Father’s stupid idea to take you to Ellinghurst, not mine.’
Downstairs she trailed after Phyllis as her sister gathered up dirty glasses. She hated funerals, she decided. She wished they could leave. She knew Eleanor did too. Her mother had barely talked to anyone, just stared out of the window with her cheeks sucked in. Her father on the other hand had insisted on talking to everyone, even the old Suffragette ladies with their moustaches and their skirts made of horse blankets.
‘You could help too if you wanted,’ Phyllis said.
Jessica picked up a half-empty teacup and followed Phyllis into the back parlour. The room was crowded with books, stacked in piles on the table in the window and on the mantelpiece and the piano and the fender stool and in the corners on the floor. Phyllis nudged the books on the table to one side and put down her tray of dirty glasses. Jessica added her cup to the pile, then idly picked up a book, glancing at the spine.
‘You’d have thought someone might have tidied up,’ she said. When Phyllis did not answer she sighed. ‘Oscar’s refusing to come to Ellinghurst. He says he wants to stay here. Don’t you think that’s a bit creepy?’
‘I think it’s exactly what I’d want if I was him.’
‘He can’t stay here by himself.’
‘Then maybe one of us should stay with him.’
‘One of us? Do you really think Father would agree to that?’
‘For God’s sake, Jess, Oscar’s as good as family.’
‘I wish someone had told him that before he tried to slobber all over me.’
A woman in an apron sidled up to Phyllis, muttering something about more whisky. Phyllis nodded. ‘I’ll see to it. Tell Father about Oscar, would you, Jess? We should see what can be arranged.’
Jessica nodded absently, peering out of the window into the small square of garden at the back where a few leafless plants straggled in pots. It was impossible to believe that she had begged to come and live here, that she had imagined Clapham to be the answer to her prayers. No wonder Mrs Carey had never invited any of them to visit. Except Phyllis, of course, and then Phyllis was always so busy being good she never noticed anything. It made Jessica think of the houses one saw from the train as one neared Paddington Station, not quite as run-down perhaps, at least here the windows were unbroken and there were no strings of ragged laundry to get dirty again before it was even dry, but it had the same makeshift feeling, the rooms too small and the walls too thin. And so crammed with stuff! Jessica half expected a shopkeeper to sidle up to her, murmuring prices.
‘I don’t suppose you’d let me hide in here with you?’
Jessica turned around. The gentleman was old, perhaps as old as her mother, tall and broad in an elegantly cut suit. His hair was thick and winged with silver. In one hand he held a glass, in the other a bottle of whisky.
‘Emergency measures,’ he said. ‘I’m not very good at funerals.’
‘I don’t think anyone is good at funerals.’
‘I don’t know. The Women’s Legion out there seem to be having a whale of a time. I suppose if you’ve been a Suffragette you learn to take your pleasures where you can.’
Jessica smiled.
‘Drink?’ he asked. When she shook her head the man sloshed three fingers of whisky into his glass and put the bottle on the piano. Then he came to stand next to her in the window. He did not introduce himself. He smelled nice, of leather and cigars and an unobtrusive woody cologne.
‘Even Sylvia’s most staunch defenders would have to concede that she hadn’t the least aptitude for gardening,’ he observed.
‘Didn’t your nanny ever tell you it was wrong to speak ill of the dead?’
‘And what about the dead plants? Look at that poor—whatever that brown thing is along the back wall there. Dead as a doornail.’
‘It’s a clematis. That’s what clematis look like in March.’
‘How do you know that? Are you a farmer?’
‘Yes, I’m a farmer. I farm clematis.’
‘Very shrewd. Everyone will always need clematis eggs.’
Jessica laughed.
‘I have to admit,’ he said, ‘I always thought of farmers as an unsightly lot. Not that I ever go to the country, you understand, but one hears things. I appear to have been misled.’
‘Are you flirting with me, Mr . . . ?’
‘I’m trying. I’m not sure it’s entirely successful but I am trying. Lovely girls expect it, don’t they?’
‘Do they?’
‘You’re no help. I shall have to go and find another lovely girl and ask her. The trouble is there are so exasperatingly few of them, particularly at funerals.’
‘Perhaps you go to the wrong kind of funeral.’
‘Lovely and heartless. Now that’s an even rarer breed.’
‘Better than ill-mannered and drunk.’
He laughed. ‘How about lovely and heartless and ill-mannered and drunk? If you can manage all that and a few exaggerated facial expressions, you can forget the clematis. You’re nine tenths of the way to being a bona fide film star.’ He lowered his voice confidentially. ‘You do know that’s why men love film stars, don’t you?’
‘Because they’re ill-mannered and drunk?’
‘That helps. But mostly because their expressions are so blessedly unambiguous. We men are simple creatures. Idiots, really. It’s unreasonable to expect us to work out for ourselves how a girl is feeling. We need her to make it easy.’ He brandished his fists, his face contorted in a grimace. ‘Angry.’ Then he gasped, a dying swan, the back of his hand pressed tragically against his brow. ‘Sad.’ He shrugged. ‘I’d like to see a law.’
‘A law obliging girls to pull faces?’
‘Precisely. Title cards too, while we’re at it. And an orchestra. Life’s significant moments should come with a rousing score. That way one would never miss them.’
‘That isn’t very reassuring.’
‘On the contrary. One would never make a mistake again.’
‘And what about the girls who couldn’t pull faces? What would happen to them?’
The man sipped his drink thoughtfully. ‘They’d have to be disposed of. Humanely, of course, but the law’s the law. An example must be set.’
‘Help. Then I shall have to practise.’
‘You shall. You’ll need lessons, of course. If I can be of any assistance . . .’
‘I think I can manage.’
‘Ah, but can you really? Show me your “I’m wildly, absurdly in love with you” face.’
‘My what?’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Your life’s at stake. Show me.’
Jessica laughed awkwardly, rolling her eyes. ‘I shall do no such thing.’
‘But it’s easy.’ Seizing her hands, he sank to his knees. She gaped at him, too startled to laugh, as he gazed up at her, his face slack with adoration. Then, shrugging, he stood, dusting the knees of his trousers. ‘I’d strongly advise lessons. I shan’t be able to do a thing for you otherwise, come the revolution. Perhaps we should discuss it over lunch.’
‘Lunch? I don’t even know your name, Mr . . . ?’
‘Cardoza. Gerald Cardoza.’
She hesitated. He smiled at her, his eyes on hers as though he could read every thought in her head. To her mortification Jessica could feel herself blushing.
‘Jessica Melville,’ she said.
‘Jessica. “And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true.”’
‘What?’
‘Never mind. So, Miss Jessica Melville, do you absolutely loathe the Savoy?’
15
The teapots were empty, the plates of sandwiches mostly crumbs, and still people lingered. Oscar ached for them to be gone. All afternoon he had shaken people’s hands and repeated the same phrases, ov
er and over: thank you and you’re very kind and it was good of you to come, until the words were nothing but blobs of sound without any meaning. He gazed blankly at Godmother Eleanor as she bore down on him, the emerald in her lapel glaring at him with its cold green eye.
‘Help me find Jessica, won’t you?’ she said. ‘I told her quite plainly we were to leave by half past at the latest.’
Sighing impatiently she flung open the door to the back parlour. Two figures were outlined in the window. One was a man, the other his mother. She was laughing, her head thrown back, and something inside Oscar turned over and then she turned and it was not his mother at all but Jessica who had never resembled her in the least. Oscar pressed his fingers against his temples. He could not understand why it kept happening, why he kept making the same mistake.
‘Eleanor,’ Jessica said smoothly. ‘Do you know Mr Cardoza?’
‘What on earth are you doing, hiding away in here?’ her mother demanded.
‘I was looking for a book. Ah, here it is.’ Jessica snatched a volume from the arm of the sofa. ‘Mr Cardoza is an old friend of Mrs Carey’s. From her Suffragette days. Mr Cardoza, this is my mother, Lady Melville.’
Mr Cardoza smiled and held out his hand. ‘How do you do?’
Eleanor considered him. Then, placing her hand in his as though it was something unpleasant she meant him to dispose of, she turned to Jessica. ‘Find your father. Now. Tell him we leave in five minutes.’
‘Eleanor, please,’ Jessica admonished. ‘Mr Cardoza, have you met Oscar Greenwood, Mrs Carey’s son?’
‘My deepest sympathy,’ Mr Cardoza said. ‘I was very fond of your mother.’
‘Thank you.’ Mechanically Oscar shook his hand.
‘Your father,’ Eleanor said icily.
‘It’s time I was going,’ Mr Cardoza said. ‘Lady Melville. Mr Greenwood, thank you. It was a beautiful service.’ Then, with a private smile at Jessica, he gestured towards the door. ‘Miss Melville?’
Smiling, Jessica swept out of the room, Mr Cardoza in her wake. Eleanor folded down the corners of her mouth like an envelope. Then, without a word, she followed them.
People stood in the hall in their coats, saying their last farewells.
‘You’re so kind,’ Oscar said, again and again. ‘Thank you. Thank you for coming.’
Sir Aubrey shook Oscar’s hand. He looked very old and weary, the skin pouched beneath his eyes. ‘I only wish I could persuade you to come with us.’
‘Don’t worry, Father,’ Phyllis said. ‘Mrs Mulley will take care of everything.’
Mrs Mulley was the local woman that Mrs Doyle from next door had suggested to take care of the funeral tea. A widow, she lived with her sister in a flat in Balham. When Phyllis had asked if she might be able to stay she had agreed on the condition that she could go home and fetch some things.
‘If she comes back,’ Sir Aubrey said.
‘Of course she’ll come back.’
‘I’d rather we waited to be sure. Then we can give you a run back to Roehampton on our way.’
‘Don’t be silly, Father. You’re late enough as it is.’
‘Then at least let me give you the money for a taxi.’
‘I don’t want a taxi. There’s a bus that goes almost all the way.’
‘A bus? Phyllis, darling—’
‘Aubrey, for the love of God,’ Eleanor snapped. ‘Can we just go?’
Jessica stood on tiptoes and pressed her cheek to Oscar’s, kissing the air by his ear. Her skin was soft and very warm. Then they were gone. Phyllis and Oscar stood alone in the hall, side by side. Someone had left a plate on the hall table. Phyllis picked it up. Then, gently, she put her other hand on Oscar’s arm.
‘Well done,’ she said. ‘You did it.’
The tears massed in his throat, behind his nose and eyes, a force like a fist against the back of his face. He turned his head away.
‘Come here,’ she said and she put her arms around him, holding him like a child. The top of her head barely reached his chin. He put his hands over his face. He was not crying but somehow the tears slid between his fingers and down into his cuffs, and his body shook.
‘I know,’ Phyllis said softly. ‘I know.’
They stood there together for a long time. Then Oscar took a deep breath and pressed the tips of his fingers hard against his eyeballs.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Don’t be.’
‘You don’t have to stay, you know. I’ll be quite all right.’
‘I know. Shall I make some tea?’
Oscar shook his head. ‘Where will she sleep?’
‘Mrs Mulley? She says there’s a bed in the box room, is that right?’
‘It’s hardly more than a cot. She should have my mother’s room.’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘She won’t catch anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. They even sprayed the mattress.’
‘That’s not what I meant. I just thought . . .’
‘What did you think?’
‘That it’s too soon. Her room, all her things . . .’
‘They burned her clothes. They took them away and burned them.’
‘Oh, Oscar.’
‘It’s not as though she’s going to need them.’
Phyllis put a hand to her forehead. ‘Let’s have some tea,’ she said.
He could not look at her. The thought of sitting down, of drinking tea, it made the blackness surge up in him, an uncontrollable force like the force pulling on the edges of the universe. He twisted round, his hand finding the handle of the cupboard under the stairs. He threw it open, ripping coats frenziedly from their pegs and hangers.
‘What does any of it matter? Let’s just get rid of all of it.’ He thrust his mother’s mackintosh cape at Phyllis, then her astrakhan coat with the fur collar. The coat had been expensive but she had said it would last her a lifetime. It turned out a lifetime was not so very long after all.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take them. I’ve no use for them. Or these.’ He pulled familiar items from shelves and cubbyholes: a travelling rug, a Chinese parasol, a pair of worn leather gardening gloves, stiffened into hands, shoving them at Phyllis. She stared helplessly at the pile in her arms.
‘Oscar,’ she said.
‘And these.’ He swept a pile from the upper shelf—a rabbit fur stole, a fringed shawl, a gauzy scarf patterned with peacock feathers—and bundled them into a ball. ‘Take them. Take all of them.’ Bending down he rummaged wildly in the bottom of the wardrobe, pulling out an umbrella, galoshes, a tennis racquet in a wooden press, a pair of walking boots encrusted with mud. When he dropped them chips of earth skittered across the tiled floor.
‘Oscar, stop.’
‘Why? She’s dead, isn’t she? What possible use does she have for them now?’
‘Don’t put yourself through this, not today. Please. Maybe in a few weeks . . .’
‘She won’t be any less dead then.’
Reaching up he swept his hand roughly across the top shelf of the wardrobe. Something fell out. He bent down and picked it up. His mother’s Best Straw. He held it in his hands, the brim sharp against his palms. He could feel his knees shaking. A tear slid down his cheek.
‘Oh, Oscar,’ Phyllis said. Cupping the side of his face with her hand, she wiped the tear away very gently with her thumb. Oscar closed his eyes. He put his hand over hers, pressing it to his cheek. Then, standing on tiptoes, Phyllis kissed him lightly on his other cheek. He could feel the warmth of her breath against his skin.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured.
Oscar inhaled the clean smell of her hair. Somewhere in the house he could hear his mother clattering dishes and singing to herself.
As I walk along the Bois Boolong, with an independent air,
You can hear the girls declare, ‘He must be a millionaire.’
You can hear them sigh and wish to die,
You can see them wink the other eye,
/> At the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.
Oscar let go of Phyllis’s hand. Instead, he gently cupped the back of her skull, feeling the smallness of it, the way the curve of it fitted into his hand. Her eyes were palest grey but very bright, like water reflecting the sky. She did not say anything. She did not need to. She just looked up at him, all of her and all of himself held like water in her clear light eyes. Her hands crept up to encircle his neck, her thumbs smoothing the hair above his ears. Oscar thought of perfect numbers, which are the same whichever way you look at them, because they are the sum of all the whole numbers that divide them, and all the time in the kitchen his mother sang ‘The Man Who Broke The Bank at Monte Carlo’.
Closing his eyes, he kissed her.
The peal of the doorbell startled them both. They pulled apart like two people waking up, blinking at each other in the half-light. Without her in his arms Oscar felt unbalanced, unsteady on his feet. Phyllis started towards the door but he caught her hand. Her mouth was like a crushed flower, the edges blurred from kissing. He pulled her towards him again. There was another long ring on the doorbell, then the round shape of Mrs Mulley’s face sliding into focus in blue and red as she pressed her nose against the etched stained glass of the front door.
‘We have to let her in,’ Phyllis murmured.
‘Not yet,’ he implored, but she had already slipped from his arms. She opened the door. Mrs Mulley bustled in, a grip in one hand and a basket with a cloth over it in the other. Her hat was dark with rain.
‘I was wondering if you was even in, what with the hall light off and all.’ She took off her hat and shook it. ‘If you’d’ve told me straight off it’d take me that long there and back I’d never’ve bothered. Half an hour I must’ve waited for the bus, and others in front of me twice that to judge by the queue of them, and when it finally came it was that crowded I wasn’t sure the conductor’d even let us on.’ And she sighed, subsiding inside her wet coat like a punctured tyre.
‘Well, you’re here now,’ Phyllis said and she took the old woman’s basket from her and led her down the corridor towards the kitchen. Oscar leaned against the wall, closing his eyes. He was so tired. Without Phyllis’s arms around him he could feel himself dissolving, the particulars of skin and bone and hair evaporating into a veil of dust no more substantial than his own shadow.
