by Cesca Major
The noises were coming from the bedroom beyond, her sister’s room. Connie must be at home. Abigail’s mind ran through excuses, ready to pour them out. She’d popped out to the post office to send a letter to Mary, she’d wanted some fresh air, she’d picked some flowers for her bedroom. She hadn’t brought anything back from her outing, so she scratched the last thought. She thought of Richard’s expression as she’d left him and a small smile crept over her face, threatening to expose her secret.
A muffled cry, a murmur and Abigail crossed the landing. She approached the door to her sister’s bedroom quickly, her fingers worrying at the outline of the key in her cardigan pocket, the metal hard through the thin fabric of her top. She was holding her breath, unsure whether to knock, whether to just walk in. She would say she had wanted fresh air, her sister wouldn’t probe. The door wasn’t closed, it stood ajar, a slither of the peach carpet just visible, the bottom of the steps leading to her four-poster bed, which was raised on a platform, like a stage.
Then the sounds changed, became lower, regular, and Abigail realized, with an overwhelming sense that she should not be privy to these things, what she was hearing. She caught herself, one foot suspended in the air, toes of the other on the carpet, heel raised, as the thought struck her. They were on the bed. She could see the top of her sister’s head through the crack in the door; he was bent over her. Burning scarlet, she stood stuck to the carpet, appalled, confused, her heart hammering so loudly she knew she would give herself away. Just before she turned, he looked up, straight at her, straight at her through the crack in the doorway, straight into her.
She stepped back, once, twice, a hand shooting out to balance herself, fled up the second flight of stairs and into her room. Trying desperately not to be heard, as if she could silence everything, eradicate the last few moments. Even when she closed her eyes and lay on her bed, covers pulled up to her chin, she could see them still. She felt her body heat up with the shame. She waited, limbs straight and stiff, for noises, for footsteps coming to her room. He had seen her, what would he do? Throw her out? Send her back to Bristol? Did she want that? She thought of Mary, she’d see her again, but where would she live? What would she do? They had plans to travel, but she needed money, more time. Richard’s face stole into her consciousness, she wouldn’t see him again if she left. She lay there fretting, imagining her door being flung open at any second, Larry dishevelled, throwing her suitcase into the room, instructing her to leave.
Larry left for the town hall in Lynton, a councillors’ meeting he’d mentioned a few days before. Abigail watched him walk down the path, adjusting his hat then closing the gate behind him. She ducked behind the curtain, imagining him looking up and catching her staring. She felt jittery, didn’t want to go downstairs, wanted to hide in this square of bedroom, get back under the covers as if she were eight again and had had a bad nightmare. She wondered if he would be out that evening too. Abigail had heard him returning in the small hours before, clattering into the hallway, a brief clash with the furniture, keys thrown down, boots on the stairs, whispered words, her sister’s weary replies as the door below her opened.
She ached to be able to leave this house, to travel to America. She could find work, she was sure of it, in a big city; there would be opportunities. Another face drifted into her mind and she allowed herself to linger over his features, knowing the more she saw him, the harder it would be to leave. She patted her hair, rolling her eyes at herself in the oval mirror. She would find a way to make things work, she reassured herself, pulling open the bedroom door with a lot more confidence than she felt. Shoulders back, she walked down the stairs, pausing only briefly outside the living room to swallow. She could smell dinner wafting through from the kitchen. Edith had made a casserole.
Her sister was sitting on the chaise longue reading Vogue magazine, flicking idly through the pictures, rotating the page every now and again, squinting at the smaller print. ‘Do you think I should wear my hair slicked back?’ She felt her hair self-consciously. ‘They’re all wearing it like that now,’ she said, holding out the magazine to Abigail.
Abigail, who spent most of the time pinning errant pieces of hair back into some kind of order, did not feel qualified to have much of an opinion. She held out her hand for the magazine. ‘Can I see?’
Connie handed it over and Abigail felt her body relax as she searched her sister’s face, sure that she would be able to tell if she had seen her earlier, if she was waiting to speak to her about it. Even thinking about it caused heat to pump round her body. Convinced she was blushing, she focused intently on the photograph in front of her as if it were a vital document.
‘It’s unusual,’ she said, not really taking it in, her sister’s head on the bed, his eyes looking over at her. She closed the magazine abruptly, Connie cocking her head to one side.
‘You don’t like it.’
‘I don’t mind it.’
They lapsed into silence, Abigail getting up to browse the bookshelves.
Abigail skirted round various topics all evening, found herself unable to focus on her sister’s face for too long, squirming in her chair as unwelcome images seemed to crisscross over the present. The beef casserole filled her up, she pushed the rest to the side of her plate, chased peas around with a fork. She made her excuses the moment she could, a sudden headache, she needed to lie down, and left the room quickly, lay staring at the ceiling in all her clothes, looking up at the plaster moulding wondering how long she would live in the house, whether she would always feel like this.
She woke too early, strange dreams forcing her awake at odd hours, imagining eyes in the corners of the room, people where there was clothing, monsters where there was furniture. Her eyes were bleary, she dabbed beneath them with a sponge of cold water, hid the red rims with brown pencil liner. She drew a careful line around her lips, a neutral shade, and smacked them together. Her made-up face making her seem older, more sophisticated, Abigail could fool herself into thinking that she was ready to face Larry.
She found she couldn’t even look at him, ate her breakfast in silence, her head burning from his eyes on her. The toast was dry, sticky in her mouth; she felt every grain of it pass down her throat.
She looked sideways at her sister’s hands. The manicured nails, neat pink squares, a French polish, busying themselves with the process of buttering her toast. She was talking about the neighbours, she thought they had started planting broad beans in their garden already. She wondered whether they were right to have done so, or whether the weather would turn. She didn’t seem to notice that neither of them were responding. Abigail felt the room was as small as the square of table they were sitting at: no escape.
‘Well we shouldn’t worry about what they’re doing, darling,’ Larry said, ‘and you shouldn’t be peeking over the fence at them.’ She could hear the smile enter his voice, felt her flesh crawl. ‘It’s not nice for people to watch other people without their knowledge – is it, Abigail?’
She heard him, she heard her name in his mouth. Her sister turned, the tiniest puckering of the skin in between her eyebrows: a question.
She looked at her plate, at the yolk bleeding slowly out of her egg, dribbling down the edge of the egg cup. ‘It’s not,’ she said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. And then her eyes were dragged upwards.
He raised his egg spoon at her, the white wobbling on top. ‘No,’ he said with a crooked, closed-lip smile, ‘it’s not.’
IRINA
None of the letters or postcards were dated, many just had rushed, slanted words tripping over each other. They were full of love, teasing, focusing on happy times. Irina found herself drawn to the author, smiling as she read about a day in 1940, three women making a fruit cake ‘to send to Churchill, keep his energy up’. There were two small black and white photographs too, both creased and battered as if they’d been carried around. One showed a room in
a house somewhere, light filtered through thin curtains, two women on a velvet sofa, cheeks pressed together. Another in a garden, an older woman sitting on a bench, her needlework on her lap, a small smile on her lips.
The colour photograph stood out, different from the rest. It wasn’t just the scalloped edges, or that the others were in sepia or black and white. This seemed to be another place, a more formal portrait, a man and two women on a terrace at a delicate wrought-iron picnic table, stone pots filled with lavender around them, a sweep of manicured lawn behind them, a tantalizing hint of the sea beyond. One of the women Irina recognized, from the sofa in the other photograph, her expression different though, eyes deadened, glancing off to the right of the picture, away from the couple on her left. A pretty woman was sitting in a chair, ankles drawn together, a nipped-in suit and patent heels, her hair twisted into a bun, her rosy lips full, winged eyeliner. The man behind her was standing, one hand resting on her shoulder as he looked directly at the camera, his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. His other hand seemed to be reaching to his right, towards the other woman, standing slightly to the side.
Irina frowned at the picture, something strange about the scene. She felt a coldness seeping into her arms and put it down on the workbench, setting it aside for Patricia to take a look at. Patricia loved mysteries, gossip and secrets and she would have a large number of theories about the discoveries.
She was working late on Reg’s carriage-clock case, wanting to get it finished quickly, otherwise he’d be pestering Patricia every day until it was done. He was a regular in the shop, always bringing in bits and bobs. He liked to collect Royal Doulton pieces, so they always set them aside for him to have first option on. He was a big man with a gruff voice but always said thank you, barking it at them both as they wrapped the pieces for him.
She thought he would be about the same age as her father and she wondered then what their relationship would have been like. Her father had a softer voice, used to do all the funny voices when he read to her, used to let Joshua and her sit on his feet and be dragged around the kitchen, even when he was still wearing his smart shoes from work. He had loved to read, she remembered his side of the bed always piled high with books. Would they have found things in common?
She set aside the case, pleased with the job, and shivered as she felt a breeze whistle around her bare ankles. A small window, loose on its hinges, slammed back against the frame. Irina moved across to secure it, glimpsing the patch of garden beyond, the bushes and trees outlined in the light of the moon. Placing the window back on its catch, she turned to pick up the photograph from the bench where she’d left it.
It wasn’t there. Irina stepped across, her eyebrows drawn together, eyes narrowed. She was sure she’d put it on the side. She looked in the drawer again, wondered whether she’d returned it without thinking. She hadn’t. She looked down; perhaps it had blown off the bench in the sudden breeze. On the floor she noticed little flecks of white, flakes like snow scattered under the table. She bent down and realized they were tiny fragments of stiff card, a photograph. She picked one up, recognizing it immediately, half of the man’s face, one eye looking directly back at her. The photograph had been torn into tiny pieces. Behind her the window let out a groan as if something had been released, then smashed back on its hinges again. Irina wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the cold sweep about her and into her, scared now of what she had discovered.
ABIGAIL
Her sister was sitting on the terrace under a parasol reading a magazine. She looked as perfect as the woman on the front cover, her lips neatly pencilled and filled, her eyebrows plucked and combed, her hair falling in soft ringlets over her shoulders.
Abigail couldn’t help blurting, ‘You’re so beautiful,’ feeling clumsy and ungainly as she dragged the other iron chair out to sit on, wiping at an insect that was crawling over the white latticework.
Her sister lowered the magazine onto her lap and shifted in her chair. ‘Mum used to let us both put on her lipstick in her bedroom. Do you remember? She used to wear scarlet red and Mrs Harrison from next door called her names behind her hand.’
‘I don’t remember,’ Abigail said, putting two fingers up to her bare lips as if she could taste red lipstick. The mum she’d lived with during the last few years didn’t wear red lipstick. But then she remembered a day on the Downs long before the war, even before their dad had left them, so she must have been very young. They’d taken a kite up and their mum had been sitting laughing on a picnic rug, her feet curled beneath her, her shoes abandoned in the grass. ‘You’re right, I’d forgotten.’ The feeling smarted a little, the memories jarring.
‘I used to steal out with it in my handbag sometimes,’ her sister admitted, sneaking a small look at Abigail as if she might admonish her for it.
Abigail felt a warmth flood through her, her sister drawing her into confidences, the kind of conversations she used to have in Bristol with Mary, one head next to the other’s feet, staring at the sky, talking about the future, men, marriage, their parents. She smiled in collusion. ‘Mum would have been appalled,’ she said, knowing their mother was always too gentle on everyone ever to have been appalled.
‘The garden looks lovely.’ Abigail gestured, panicking that she was now veering away from their moment, not knowing what she could say to draw her sister further.
The garden did look lovely, it was true. The sloping lawn had been mowed in neat strips of jade and lime, the flowerbeds were bursting with colour, a riot of lilac and fuchsia, clumps of delphiniums and cornflowers spilling over each other, the lavender sticking up proudly in pots. A bee made an unsteady path over to them, pausing briefly before moving on.
‘I’ve never seen you wear any,’ her sister suddenly announced, picking up her magazine and placing it on the table in front of her.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Lipstick,’ she said, a tiny frown breaking up the peachy smoothness of her forehead. ‘Do you even have any?’
‘I suppose I never got into the habit of wearing it, there was none of it around when I took an interest. My friends went through a phase of using beetroot instead, but it tasted dreadful and I always ended up looking like I’d rubbed food dye all over my face.’
Connie’s nose wrinkled at the image.
Abigail couldn’t imagine Connie’s face looking anything other than immaculate. She shrugged. ‘I always feel surprised when I wear it, it seems like someone else staring back at me from the mirror and not the girl who lived through the war and put gravy browning on her legs.’
‘You didn’t!’
‘I did, we all did, and drew lines down our calves. I had a terrible hand and mine were always hopelessly off-centre. I used to make Mary do it, but she was just as useless.’
‘I did miss lipstick,’ Connie mused, ‘but Larry used to bring me home other things, powder without the puff sometimes, that sort of thing.’
Abigail swallowed the urge to tell her it would have been from the black market. She plastered a smile on her face as she thought back to a particular day in their Bristol house. ‘One of Mum’s friends made herself underwear out of RAF silk maps. She rolled up her dress right there in the kitchen to show us and we all fell about laughing.’
Connie giggled softly at this story and Abigail felt that connection sparking again. She edged herself forward in her chair, eager to continue.
Connie gave her a look, her eyes widening as if she had finally noticed her, really noticed her, for the first time since she’d arrived. ‘Let’s do your make-up,’ she said, lightly clapping her hands together, her manicured nails shiny and perfectly trimmed.
‘Oh.’ Abigail sat back in her chair again, feeling excited at the idea. She didn’t normally think too much about her hair or make-up, but her sister’s glossy appearance made her wonder what she might look like. ‘I’d love to.’ She sounded as if she were acce
pting a formal invitation and felt the familiar heat on her neck as if she were about to blush deeply.
Connie stood up, moving towards the French windows. ‘Come on.’
Abigail followed wordlessly, the sudden shock of the inside making her start. She crossed the living room and headed up the stairs, her sister’s calves at her eye line until they rounded a corner and she was left looking at the wallpaper, the mahogany trunk on the landing. Connie had already swept into her bedroom and Abigail felt strange as she approached, hovering in the doorway unable to step across the threshold.
Connie turned, her skirt flaring out. ‘What are you doing? Come on.’ She beckoned her with one hand, crossing the room to pull out a velvet stool at her dressing table.
Abigail was staring at the four-poster bed, images jostling over her sister’s words. She shook her head a fraction, as if she could throw them from her mind to the ground, and swallowed, trying to rouse the same enthusiasm she’d felt out in the sunshine on the terrace. She couldn’t help but cast a quick glance over her shoulder, as if she were half-expecting him to round the corner or pop out from behind the bedroom door.
Connie was frowning at her now, tapping a silver-backed hairbrush on her thigh. ‘You’re so slow,’ she said, her voice a whine.
Abigail was plunged back through time, to the arguments Connie had had with their mum. She’d stood on the periphery, watching as Connie wheedled and twisted until their mum gave in and Connie got her way with a triumphant squeal.
She walked over to the stool and sat down as Connie moved behind her to start brushing her hair, untangling the knots she encountered. Their eyes met in the triptych-mirror, all six pairs focused on each other. The process felt incredibly intimate and Abigail bit her lip, watching her hair shine under the light in the room.
