by Adele Geras
‘What?’ Leonora asked, hearing her own heart beating. ‘What was it that Daddy didn’t want me to know?’
‘Oh, he didn’t want you to know anything, dear,’ said Nanny Mouse, as sunnily as though they were discussing nothing more important or interesting than the day’s shopping list. She ticked items off on her fingers one by one. ‘Not about the bruises. Certainly not about how Miss Maude died, but of course you don’t remember about that at all, do you? The Master told me you couldn’t possibly remember. He assured me you didn’t and you’ve never said a word so I suppose he’s right, though I must say I’ve always thought it strange that you could put such a thing out of your mind. Still, it’s a mercy, for who’d want to remember anything like that?’
The air in the small room seemed all at once to thicken and darken round Leonora’s head. She took a deep breath. What was Nanny Mouse saying? She closed her eyes and saw an image on the inside of her eyelids, as clear as any photograph: the lake and something in it, floating under the willows. Something dark spreading on the surface of the water. A skirt, that was what it was. Leonora opened her eyes and spoke to Nanny Mouse in a voice that sounded to her ears not like her own voice at all, but that of a small child, hardly daring to make a sound. ‘Mummy drowned in the lake, didn’t she, Nanny? She was in the water, wasn’t she?’
‘Leonora found her,’ Nanny Mouse said confidentially, as though she were addressing a perfect stranger. She had slipped from recognizing Leonora to not having the least idea who she was. ‘Poor little mite. She’d run down to the lake because everything in the house was crosswise; out of sorts. Dreadful atmosphere for a child, and they never paid her the least mind, you know. Quarrelling all around her and worse. Much worse. I don’t hold with children seeing all that. Never have. My children don’t see such things if I can help it. I told her. I said, what you don’t know can’t hurt you, and I believe that.’
Somewhere, very close to her shoulder but also so distant that it might have been in another universe altogether, Leonora was aware that the camera was still turning, but she could feel the tears starting up again somewhere in her head. She could hear Sean saying something, asking her something. She pulled her attention over to where he was sitting and tried to listen.
‘Leonora, I’ve stopped filming. Are you all right?’
She nodded, not caring, wanting to say, ‘Do whatever you like’, but not finding the right words. All the words she ever knew seemed to have left her and for a second she wondered whether perhaps she’d had a stroke. I’m seventy-five tomorrow, she told herself. I’m old. Maybe this is a stroke. Or some kind of heart attack. She made herself breathe slowly, in and out of her nose, and count at the same time from one to ten. There. That was better.
‘I’m perfectly all right now, thank you,’ she said at last, and lifted her teacup to take a sip of Earl Grey, lukewarm now but still a comfort. ‘Please continue filming.’
‘Tell me about the routines of the house,’ Sean was saying to Nanny Mouse. ‘Did Ethan Walsh have a particular time when he liked to paint?’
Leonora only half listened to the answer. She was somewhere else. She was down by the lake and it was hot and there was her mother, floating on the water, her face all white and her eyes staring. I found her, she thought. I found her and she was all wet and dead and I ran back to the house to get everyone to save her and they couldn’t and then I fainted, and I was wet and cold, and after I went to bed there was nothing but fever and more fever and bad dreams all the time, and pain in my chest, and when I woke up, they told me a lie. They told me my mother had been very ill and had died from her illness and I believed them. Nanny told me and Daddy told me and I believed them because I wanted to. Because I didn’t want didn’t want didn’t want to know that I’d found my own mother with water filling her mouth and dragging at her skirt and making her skin all pruney and white and horrible. I didn’t want to know that, so I forgot it. Pretended I never ever knew it at all. Pretended that she’d died neatly in her bed and I’d never seen her floating in the lake with willow leaves caught up in her fingers. But I remember now.
*
‘I’m so sorry, Sean,’ Leonora said, putting her glass down on the saucer beside her. ‘I think I’m quite recovered now.’
They were in the conservatory, where leaves of plants and branches of small trees formed a canopy of dark green over their heads. Sean had fetched a drink for Leonora and now they sat facing one another in the two cane armchairs. One of the cats – Gus, it had to be – was lying next to one of the gigantic Chinese pots in the corner, slumbering in the warmth. Sean could see that Leonora’s hands were still trembling and that, although she was doing her best to appear in control, she was obviously still trying to come to terms with what Nanny Mouse had been speaking of. He said, ‘I think you’re being very brave. There’s no need for any apology. That kind of discovery would knock anyone sideways.’
‘I’ve always tried not to let things get the better of me.’ Leonora attempted a smile but didn’t quite succeed. ‘With every single thing that’s happened to me – my father’s death, my husband’s death, other things – I’ve always felt that if I could keep my head, everything would be all right.’
‘You don’t mention your mother’s death,’ Sean remarked. ‘That must have been the most traumatic thing of all, for such a young child.’
Tears sprang into Leonora’s eyes. ‘But it wasn’t. That’s exactly why I feel so terrible now. I wasn’t close to my mother. Not close at all. I loved her very much, of course, but I always felt that I could never really get near her. Nanny Mouse was more of a parent to me than she was, and for years and years what I most remember from those days was being ill and missing my birthday. The fact that my mother was gone when I came to myself was sad, of course it was, and it troubled me, but not in a way I could understand. And after a while I seemed to recover. But isn’t it funny? For the last few months, I’ve felt – I don’t know how I can express this – that there’s some kind of darkness in my head, and that if only I could see into it, or over it or beyond it, I’d understand all sorts of things that I’ve never understood before.’
‘Like why it is,’ Sean said, ‘that you seemed to suffer so little from such a dreadful tragedy?’
‘Exactly. Yes, that’s exactly right. It’s as though all my life I’ve been stifling something. Covering it up. And now I feel as though I’ve opened a door into some dark space in my heart or my mind. I’m not at all sure which, but it’s as though I’ve walked into this blackness carrying a candle. I feel as though I’m holding it out in front of me and different things are catching the light.’
Before they’d come up to Willow Court after leaving Lodge Cottage, Leonora had made him drive towards town (‘Anywhere, anywhere, please, as long as I don’t have to face anyone now. I’ll be myself in a moment, I promise.’) while she sobbed like a child, with her handkerchief held up in front of her face, covering her eyes. For several minutes, her crying had been the only sound in the car. Sean hadn’t concentrated at all on where he was going, but stared at the road in front of him with all his attention on the old woman beside him, her anguish. In the end, the weeping had stopped and she turned to him and said, ‘We can go back now, Sean. I’m sorry to land you with all this. By the time we get home I ought to look more or less all right.’
As they drove up to the front door, she’d turned to him and said, ‘Actually, I’m very glad it was you who saw me like that, and not one of my children or grandchildren. Do you mind me saying that?’
‘Not at all,’ he’d replied, quite sincerely. ‘I completely understand. Sometimes this kind of thing is easier to reveal to a stranger.’
‘Actually, I don’t think of you as that.’ She’d smiled at him then, with the full force of her charm back in place: all the coquettishness, all the style. Paradoxically, it was only when he’d seen her crying that Sean understood how brave she was and how much he admired her courage.
‘What do you see
now?’ he asked her gently. ‘In the light of this candle you’re taking into the dark place?’
‘Almost the worst thing of all is what I’ve come to realize about my father. The person I thought he was is nothing but my own picture of him. A childish illusion as it turns out. He was a bully, Sean. I’ve been thinking about him a great deal in the last few days, and I see that my love for him, and I loved him very much, blinded me to all sorts of things he actually said and did, which were at best unfeeling and at worst, cruel. In those days, when I was a child, we were kept out of the way of adults as much as possible, and my father deceived me. That’s what it seems like to me now, after all this time. And yet it’s him I’m weeping for as much as my poor mother. More, even. I feel I’ve lost more where he’s concerned. Isn’t that dreadful? I feel guilty about it, and also guilty about something I’ve discovered in my own behaviour. I hope I haven’t been unkind, but I think I’ve kept things covered up all my life. Protecting people, including myself. I always thought that was for the best, but it isn’t. Not really. You have to know the truth of things, even though sometimes it’s painful and hard to understand. And I hope I can ask you not to speak about this to anyone.’
‘I shan’t say a word. But has it all come back to you, Leonora? Do you now remember everything?’
‘I think so. I can remember running down to the lake. I can see the dark thing on the water very clearly. The next part is still very hazy. I can remember seeing my mother’s face but after that everything is unclear. Did I pull at the skirt and stare into her face? Or did I run up to the house at once and call my father and Nanny Mouse? I can’t bring it back into my mind properly, but it doesn’t matter. Nanny won’t be able to tell me details like that. And I don’t really want to know, Sean. I can imagine. From when little Mark drowned. I did see him. I don’t need anyone to remind me of that.’
She placed one hand over her eyes again, and Sean spoke into the silence that grew between them.
‘Rilla feels responsible, you know,’ he said at last. ‘Because she wasn’t there when Mark drowned.’
‘Does she? Oh, no. I had no idea. How terrible. That is so terrible. Does she still? Oh, God!’ Leonora’s voice shook. She took her hand away from her face and Sean could see how white she was, how deep the shadows were under her eyes. ‘I knew she did at first, but after all this time? Oh, how dreadful, how unforgivable of me. I never knew that. Am I stupid? Don’t tell me, Sean. I know I am. I’m selfish and stupid not to see my own daughter’s pain. Maybe because of my own. You cannot imagine what a terrible time that was. There’s nothing, is there, in the world worse than the death of a child? I blamed myself. And thought Rilla blamed me too, because after all she’d left her child in my care. Mine and her sister’s, and you’d think you could do that, wouldn’t you? You’d think a grandmother and an aunt would be responsible enough to take care of one small child. I’ve never forgiven myself, not really, but Rilla always said, right from the start, that she didn’t blame us. I didn’t realize that that was because she still felt herself to be at fault. Stupid, stupid. Blind and stupid.’
‘Perhaps Rilla hid her pain from you.’
Leonora nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, there’s been a great deal of hiding of things, one way and another.’ She bowed her head and sighed. ‘I’ll have to do something about it, if it’s not too late. I should have spoken to Rilla more frankly. About many things. I always let myself criticize her, when I disagree with things she does, but we don’t really talk. Her way of life is so strange to me, but I shouldn’t let that come between us. I will. I’ll talk to her. I don’t know where I’ll find the right words but I’ll try.’ She leaned against the back of the chair and closed her eyes. For a few moments she sat there and Sean was aware of her gathering her strength together. He felt, ridiculously, that he could almost see the struggle that was going on in Leonora’s mind in the reactions of her body: the twitching of the muscles round her mouth, the way she kept turning one of her rings round and round on her finger, and a trembling that came over her from time to time, as though a sorrowful memory was washing over her body like a wave.
*
‘Rilla? Rilla wake up!’ Beth touched the shoulder that stuck up out of the sheet covering the sleeping body on the bed. Rilla turned over and opened an eye, groaning slightly.
‘God, Beth, must I? I was having such a lovely nap. What’s wrong?’ Rilla’s voice was fuzzy and sleepy and Beth grinned.
‘You only just got up before lunch, Rilla. Honestly! This is what comes of burning the candle at both ends. You’re obviously tired, and we all know why, don’t we?’
Rilla swung her feet to the floor and pushed her fingers through her hair.
‘A little less sarcasm, miss,’ she said. ‘I’d have you know that it was well worth losing a night’s sleep. Well worth it.’
‘Spare me the gory details, please!’ Beth said. ‘And go and wash your face or something. You’ve been summoned. Leonora says would you mind coming to the conservatory.’
She watched as Rilla washed her face and hurried to brush her hair and get back into her clothes.
‘Have I got time to put my make-up on again?’
‘No, you haven’t. You look fine.’
‘I look,’ said Rilla, ‘like a rather plump ghost. And why on earth does she need to see me now, anyway? Do you have any idea?’
Beth shook her head. ‘Not a clue. She just told me she wants to see you and Efe and me for what she called “a quiet chat”.’
‘Right, let’s get it over with then. Whatever it is.’
They made their way downstairs to the conservatory, where the door stood open.
‘Is that you, Rilla?’ Leonora called out. ‘Come in, darling.’
Rilla went in and Beth followed her. Tiny pieces of sunshine made their way into the room through the thick network of intertwined greenery that spread all over the walls and ceiling. Gus was lying in a shady corner, and Efe was there too, taking up most of the sofa. Beth hesitated. Leonora said, ‘Beth, come in. Come in. Shut the door behind you, please. You can sit over there by the window. Rilla, why don’t you take the other cane chair?’
Beth took the hard chair Leonora had indicated. This is bizarre, she thought. Why on earth does she want to talk to us? And why does the door have to be shut? She looked at Efe, who was staring down at his shoes. He hadn’t even glanced up when they came in, but the force of Beth’s gaze made him aware of her and he met her eyes briefly, without smiling. Well, sod you too, then, she thought. If you’re going to be all stiff and unfriendly, you can get stuffed. Before she had a chance to do any more wondering about anything, Leonora spoke.
‘You must all be asking yourselves why I’ve asked you to come in here like this. It’s all rather cloak-and-dagger and I don’t mean it to be, only the house is upside down what with the cleaners and the film crew and so forth and I wanted a quiet word.’
Rilla, right on cue like the actress she was, said, ‘Has anything happened? Is something wrong?’
‘I suppose,’ Leonora said slowly, ‘that something has happened. And something is wrong, but I’m going to try and put it right. Yes, that’s it.’ She smiled, almost triumphantly. ‘I’m going to put it right. I’ve felt for some time that I owe both you, Rilla, and you, Efe, an apology.’
Rilla looked anxious and Beth knew she would have loved to light a cigarette. Leonora was twisting the rings round on her fingers and her hands were trembling slightly.
She said, ‘When I was a little girl, there was something Nanny Mouse used to say to me. I was brought up on it really. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. It was a – what do you call it nowadays? – a mantra. I believed it. I really did. Now I see that what you don’t know can hurt you almost more than any other single thing.’
Efe, Beth could see, was getting bored. She could almost hear him thinking, cut to the chase. What was it with most men, that they needed the abridged version of any story? He was trying, Beth could see, not to make it obv
ious that he’d rather be doing anything other than sitting here with three women, listening to a whole lot of what he’d doubtless call ancient history.
Leonora obviously sensed his discomfiture as well. She looked directly at him and said, ‘Efe my darling, the reason I wanted to see you is because we’ve been keeping something hidden, you and I, for many years. It’s time to talk about it now, Efe. Don’t you think?’
Efe turned white suddenly and clenched his hands into fists.
‘I don’t believe this,’ he spat out. ‘Are you seriously telling me you’ve brought me here for this? After all this time? You’re going to make me tell Rilla?’
‘Tell Rilla what?’ said Rilla. ‘What do you want to tell me, Efe?’
‘I don’t want to tell you anything. Nothing.’
‘If you don’t,’ Leonora said, ‘then I will. I want you to know about Mark’s death. I want Efe to tell you exactly what happened that day.’
‘I know what happened. You told me, Mother. I don’t think we should …’ Rilla’s voice was shaking. Beth looked at her, wondering how long it would be before she burst into tears or ran out of the room.
‘I think we must, my dear. I’ve had quite enough secrets and evasions for one lifetime. This is all my fault, I know, but you must see that I’m trying to put it right. Because I was protecting you, Efe, I hurt my own daughter, and I’ll never forgive myself for that. But I did it because you were so very young, Efe. I thought, he’s a child and his whole life might be ruined, but look what I’ve done. Look at Rilla, Efe. Can’t you see how she’s suffered? How she still blames herself?’
Beth could feel her heart thumping in her chest. Rilla was sitting quite motionless, very upright, with her mouth tightly closed. Leonora was still speaking. ‘And it’s not just Rilla, Efe. It’s you, too. I think that living with this thing, this weight on your conscience, has altered you. I should have encouraged you to tell the truth right from the start, instead of helping you to bury it.’
