The Ladies of the House

by Molly McGrann

  ‘As you wish,’ Mr Wye finally said, and by the end of the week, Gillies’ stable of madams and whores had become legal tenants in some of the best neighbourhoods in London. It galled him to do it. For a long time after, he made those girls pay. He went through them as if ticking off a list: methodically, brutally. He took them from behind so as not to see their fear.

  Twenty-five years later he stood on the doorstep of the house in the Crescent, feeling their eyes on him. What an old bag Rita was. If he offered her the right amount, showed her his wallet, he bet that she would do it right there on the spot. Once a whore, always a whore, that’s what he said.

  Rita would submit to him, and so would the other one, and the boy as well, Joseph Gribble, son of Sal. The shut door before him would open – every last door, every whore.

  On the train home to Kettering, Mr Wye reviewed his notes. There were twenty houses in all, which made for a considerable estate, even derelict – at least a million each, likely more in the current market. No wonder Marie Gillies was keen to sell up the lot.

  4

  Until then, Marie Gillies had lived an ordinary life. There was the small terraced house decorated in magnolia throughout; the clothes that were the same as other people wore, their colours muted, autumnal even in spring and summer; the meat and two veg for her tea. Life was as she expected it to be. People never remembered her name. Her colleagues regularly forgot her birthday – it seemed that every year there was a last-minute scuffle behind the register, a card produced at the end of the day, signed in a hurry even though she had worked at the Linen Cupboard for more than thirty years. She went to the same cinema every week and the usher – always a spotty man called Greg whose cheeks wept when he shaved – looked at her blankly. The greengrocer barely took her in over a fistful of change; the butcher forgot she liked her bacon smoked, with plenty of fat; the baker never held back the lemon-almond loaf she asked for, only baked on Thursday and always sold out before lunch.

  What was it? She was so ordinary as to be invisible: a short, overweight, middle-aged woman with peering, crepuscular eyes under heavy brows that were stitched together. Her father’s eyes. An obstinate set to her mouth – she had a gummy smile, having softened her molars with sugar. She was not pretty and never had been; a lifetime of thinking she was not pretty had made her decidedly so. She had a habit of sneaking: she stashed sweets and chocolates and crisps in her room, not necessarily things she wasn’t allowed but things she didn’t feel she should have and, feeling that, she took them all the more. It came naturally to her to conceal, sweating in her efforts not to be found out. She looked furtive now, sitting in a chair in the bank lobby. People did not like to look at her.

  It was Saturday morning and the bank was busy. Marie had already waited a good twenty minutes, watching other customers come and go. She figured the cashier had forgotten her. Five more minutes and she would be off – she would leave it, try another day, or perhaps she would not bother at all. She waited five minutes, and another five for good measure. Only as she was gathering her shopping – the buns roofed with pink sugar that her mother loved, a reel of white cotton for mending vests, some wine gums and three gossip magazines full of slimming tips and the latest health warnings – did a young man appear before her. She had seen him a moment before shoving a Mars bar into his mouth. When he smiled, chocolate spittle loop-de-looped his teeth. ‘Miss Gillies?’ He was perhaps twenty-five years old, very slight, with thin hair that curtained his ears. His suit was too big. He wore a shiny tie the colour of plastic babydoll skin and patent-leather shoes, ostentatiously pointed – she didn’t understand the fashion. He was friendly enough, though, guiding Marie down a corridor and into a cubicle with just enough room for a desk and two chairs.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ Marie shook her head. ‘Glass of water?’

  ‘I just want to ask about getting some money. For a holiday.’

  ‘A holiday. How nice. Where is it you’re thinking of going?’

  ‘Italy. With my mother. It’s a surprise for her. That’s why I’ve come on my own.’ Marie pulled some documents from her handbag. ‘I’ve saved a bit, but there’s another account I’ve never used.’ She hesitated; she wasn’t sure how right it was, what she was doing.

  The young man had seated himself, with great flourish, at a computer screen. ‘May I?’ he said, indicating her papers. He tapped with two fingers. The placard on his desk said Douglas Smart. She studied his name, resolved to memorize it, just in case. She had her father’s artful instincts in her, whether she knew it or not.

  Douglas Smart licked his teeth. He couldn’t have been more different from the elderly bank manager, Mr Dagger-Davis, who had visited Marie and her mother at home after her father’s death. That man had been grey, dour, quiet but firm: there was to be no change, he told them, to the way they lived. Everything had been arranged; no detail of their future had been overlooked. There would be a monthly allowance for all the necessities, as there had always been. Every bill – the gas and water, electric, phone, council tax, house insurance, TV licence – would be paid by the bank. If the house needed painting, they should get in touch with the bank. If the roof needed mending, or a ceiling came crashing down, or the pipes froze, call the bank.

  Marie and Flavia had looked at each other. It was to be expected, really, that her father would have gone to such lengths for their care, for he had always been clear about the way he wanted things done. He was very particular. ‘Just so,’ Flavia said when readying the house for his return at the end of a busy week in London. If she didn’t get it right, the weekend would be spoiled. It was a relief when he left for the station on Sunday afternoon and Flavia collapsed into a chair. Sometimes she went off and had a little cry in the kitchen – her red nose gave her away. Then, when she had recovered, and they had eaten their sandwiches, as they did every Sunday evening, and washed their hair, they sat side by side in front of the telly while it dried, Marie with her box of chocolates, Flavia with her sighs.

  Flavia and Marie had always done as Arthur Gillies instructed, both when he was alive and dead. They posted their maintenance requests to the bank, then watched, amazed, as the money appeared in Flavia’s account. They never abused this trust nor changed the way they lived. They did not need much.

  But now Marie thought they needed a holiday. She wished to take her mother back to Italy, the country of her birth, just once before she died. Flavia was seventy-eight years old. It was time.

  ‘This is not what I expected,’ Douglas Smart said, interrupting her thoughts. He looked at his computer screen with a certain wonder, shaking his head, then turned to Marie, looking her up and down as if to compute what he saw.

  She stammered something about a mistake. The trip was an extravagance; she knew that, but she thought they could afford it, if they were careful. They would try to stay with family, and she heard the convents were cheap. ‘I know Mr Dagger-Davis said we must only use the account for the house,’ Marie said. She promised she would save more of what she earned, for she frittered away her wage packet every week.

  ‘I need to speak to someone about this,’ Douglas Smart said.

  Marie gripped her handbag. ‘I only wanted to—’

  ‘Your trip to Italy won’t be a problem. You can have any kind of holiday you want, by the looks of things. Why not buy a villa while you’re there?’ He turned his computer screen towards her.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Marie said.

  Douglas Smart wrinkled his brow. ‘You mean to say you didn’t know about these funds?’

  ‘What funds? What are funds?’

  ‘Funds are money. This is your money.’

  ‘Money?’ Marie needed her specs, which hung around her neck. When she looked at the computer screen, she couldn’t believe it. So many numbers – there were millions. She and Flavia had millions in the bank.

  The next hour passed in a blur. She didn’t recall much of what Douglas Smart said because the top of her head seemed to have com
e off. There was a jet engine in the cubicle with them, circling, wishing to land, drowning all sound with its engine. She tried to compose herself. She smiled, nodding as if she understood the intricacies of the accounts. When she left, she forgot her handbag and shopping and he had to come after her. Marie’s eyes, when she thanked him, shone with tears.

  Her feet knew the way home. She arrived at her own door and somehow the key went in, despite her shaking hands. She stood on Flavia’s flowered carpet, chanting, ‘Toast, toast.’ It was the only thing she could say. Flavia helped her get her coat off. Marie stepped out of her shoes – Flavia took those as well, and there were Marie’s sheepskin slippers on the radiator. She went and sat down at the kitchen table. She was aware of her mother moving in the background, bending and straightening, looking in the oven, resettling saucepans, gliding round the kitchen, her movements smoothed by repetition. She heard Flavia’s knife on the board, smelled toast, then four slices appeared, thick with butter and jam, and a cup of hot, sweet tea slid the length of the table.

  Marie didn’t speak, just ate and drank. Flavia laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Lunch soon,’ she said. Behind her, on the sideboard, stood the cut-glass decanter, still half full of the whisky that had been her father’s tipple, and a bottle of the claret he favoured. Flavia kept both wiped clean of dust, on display, ready to pour. Marie stared at the bottles. She thought that perhaps, for the first time in her life, she could do with a drink.

  Just like the loaves and fishes, the money was. Water into wine – a miracle.

  *

  Flavia cooked always, all week, every meal fresh and hot: fry-ups, soups and casseroles served with fresh loaves; delicious suppers, the meat tender, stewed for hours, or beaten thin and pan-fried at high heat, the breading crispy, light, clean on the tongue, neatly washed down with a cup of tea. Her sauces were intricate, thoughtful, varied – the same but different. The red sauce. The white sauce. Sauces for fish, for white fish, oily fish, pink fish, and for meat: the reduction, the glaze, the gravy gathered. Dripping collected in a pan. Trotters and tongue. Crackling – all kinds of skin. A chicken in half, snapping the wishbone when she split the ribcage, and the parson’s nose: she saved it for herself, for the end of the meal, and ate it whole in one fatty mouthful. Marie liked to gnaw the greasy wings; they divided the heart, poached in vegetable broth.

  On Saturday and Sunday, Flavia’s meal preparations filled the whole of the morning. She got into the habit when Arthur was alive and only home at weekends and holidays. She made him something nice. After he died, she kept the habit. She was up early, laying out what she’d bought on Friday, dealing with the bones herself, chopping, seasoning, flouring; a plate for this, a bowl for that, the old oven warming up, the element ticking. They ate generous roasts of pork and duck and chicken, leg of lamb that was too much for two but somehow they got through it, or a deep, rich game pie, beef Wellington, Lancashire hotpot. Always pudding – a cake, carefully frosted, or trifle, apple tart with custard, tiramisu. Marie usually had a lie-in on Saturday and ate her breakfast while Flavia cleaned the heavy pan in which she’d already fried onions and garlic, the skillet still hot as she scoured it with salt and threw in a handful of water that spattered. Then she oiled the pan again to get on with the meal. Marie licked the cake spoon, or had a go at whipping cream, but always Flavia finished the job, her arm a blur.

  Ever since she could remember, it had always been the same: Flavia and Marie, Marie and Flavia. As a little girl, when Flavia was in the room, Marie had eyes for no one else. She trailed her mother around the house. They were all mixed up together, she and Flavia, devoted – yes, that’s what they were, devoted, with no friends to speak of, the neighbours still keeping their distance after fifty-five years in the same road. Flavia and Marie felt alike about things; they rarely disagreed. They didn’t even bicker. They understood each other. They were hardly separate, rarely apart.

  Marie laid the table with a cloth and napkins, knives, forks, spoons, mugs for their tea. Flavia hung up her apron and patted her hair. There they sat, facing each other. Arthur’s place had always been at the head of the table, the chair with the red cushion, which they still regarded as his chair and avoided sitting in. Flavia poured the tea and said a quick, silent prayer of thanks – Marie saw her lips moving. They ate without speaking, their only noises in appreciation of what went in, chewing with their mouths open to keep the air flowing. They refilled their plates as often as they pleased. They ate until it was all gone, until they could hardly move.

  Then, slowly but surely, Flavia started on the washing-up and Marie dried, both of them belching quietly into their sleeves and apologizing. The work tops were wiped, the floor swept and Marie went off to watch telly.

  ‘You OK?’ Flavia said, following her into the sitting room.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You sick?’

  ‘Why do you say that, Ma?’

  ‘You’re quiet. You sick?’

  Marie shook her head.

  ‘You look pale. You better rest. Work makes you tired,’ Flavia said. ‘You want me run it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The bath. You want me run it?’

  ‘I’m fine, Ma.’

  Always fine, her girl. Ave Maria – that was her lips moving again. Flavia was reassured.

  *

  Marie went into the bathroom and closed the door. It was a relief to be alone. She stood before the mirror. For once she wanted to see herself. Did she look different? Not in her face, but in her eyes: a glint. A match lit down a mineshaft, beginning to climb.

  Flavia was outside the bathroom door. Her shuffle, in slippers, to get nearer. ‘I don’t hear water. You OK? You tired?’

  ‘No. Yes. Yes, I’m tired.’

  ‘I going to watch telly. You come down after your bath.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said yes.’ What else could she say?

  ‘OK.’

  She heard her mother’s hobbling tread on the stairs – her limp, the bad hip, pain she bore silently but with that look of suffering. Then the mug clunking down, a fuss of cushions rearranged. Soon the voices of soap characters, people they didn’t know but who were so familiar, rang out loud and clear. Almost as if they were there.

  Marie left the bath running and went to her room. She paced, thinking about the money. Money that would fill the airless house from floor to ceiling, stacked notes in bank vaults, mountains of money, millions of pounds. Who could she tell? Who would believe her? Even Flavia would say she was mad. It would be her secret, she decided. It had been her father’s secret and now it would be hers. Oh, to be rich, she had often thought, and said it, too. Who didn’t? When she was young, what she would do if she were rich had been a fantasy that filled the hours, always a vision of toys and sweets and a mansion with tellies in every room. As she grew older, the list included a car – the latest convertible – and holidays abroad like she saw in magazines, nice clothes, furs and jewels, the usual things that millionaires bought. Diamond earrings like headlamps. She looked at the rich people who came into the Linen Cupboard and envied them their ease. They didn’t even check to see what things cost, just bought what they wanted and then some. They could afford to be tempted. New pool towels. Egyptian cotton bed sheets. Irish linen stiff as a nun’s habit, the edges whipped with tiny, even stitches.

  She was rich. It was better than beautiful, and Marie would never be beautiful. But being rich made her something. She was worth something. People would look at her and know; they would respect her, value her. They would want her money. Money made the world turn, everyone said so.

  Marie took the length of the room in five strides, the width in three. She crossed to the window and looked out: the sun shone brilliantly.

  It was not that they had ever wanted for anything. They were not materialistic. Flavia’s jewellery was simple – her wedding band, a gold crucifix on a chain, a wristwatch Arthur had given her, the pearl earrings that had bee
n her grandmother’s, yellowed and pitted with age. Marie had expressed no great desire for things while her father was alive – she didn’t dare – and he was not the type to spoil his daughter. For himself, he bought what he needed and nothing more: flannel trousers, polo shirts and jackets the same as every other man, in grey and navy blue, nothing remarkable, although he wore a nice suit for work. He would arrive in his suit every Friday and promptly hand it over to Flavia’s care for the weekend. She would sponge the suit, wash and starch and press his shirt, wipe his shoes and polish them. Then on Sunday, after lunch, when he had slept it off, he would change into his suit and, without delay, say goodbye. There was nothing unusual in him going, so used to it were they; all of Marie’s life he had worked in London. He would walk to the end of their road and catch a bus to the station just as any other person would do – but a rich man wouldn’t. A rich man would have a driver, at the very least a car. They had no car. A rich man would travel the world. Her father never wanted to go anywhere; he only wished to stay at home and eat, nap, stroll the garden. No, there was nothing Marie could think of to show that he’d had money in the bank. The usual things she associated with wealth – giant wristwatches, a big house, a Rolls-Royce – were simply not there.

  But they were rich. They were rich! She whispered it to herself. Her hands were clapping of their own accord. She lurched drunkenly, missing a step. Marie caught hold of the chest of drawers when she landed and it banged against the wall. Felt good. She rocked the chest hard, drawers sucking in and out like waves on a shore. One drawer slid out and crashed down, spilling socks across the floor, and that is when Flavia burst in.

  ‘The bath,’ she cried.

  Marie groaned.

  ‘What the noise about? You hurt? What? You hurt yourself?’

  Marie nodded. She pointed down.

  ‘Too much lunch,’ said her mother. ‘I told you, hot bath. Hot bath feels good. You get in the bath now.’