The Last Night

by Cesca Major

  Mary nodded. Abigail could see she was trying not to worry about the moment she’d be left alone, trying to be strong for her.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I should have stopped you coming,’ Abigail said, feeling the guilt twisting her stomach, wishing things could be simpler.

  Mary put a hand over hers. ‘I want to be here.’

  Abigail gave her a watery smile. ‘Me too.’

  ‘Well,’ Mary said, getting up and turning towards the house, arms folded as she assessed it, ‘tell me what I need to know.’

  Abigail pulled herself up, feeling the sun on her back. ‘The taps don’t work but there’s a well at the bottom, but you’ll have to boil the water. Richard has a small gas heater and I’ve found a couple of saucepans and things. I’ve left tins in the cupboards, not much, but I can bring you up fresh bread from the village and keep you supplied. Long enough for us to make a plan.’

  ‘Ah yes, Richard…’ Mary tipped her head, amusement in her eyes.

  ‘He’s been… Well, he’s…’ Abigail trailed off, not sure how to describe Richard, feeling a warm glow in her stomach as she said his name.

  Mary nudged her and laughed.

  Then Abigail really was back in Bristol, before her mum died, and anything seemed possible. For the first time in an age she felt her shoulders lighten, as if she had set down a great weight.

  ‘Come on then, city girl, I better explain things a little better.’

  IRINA

  She followed Bill back up the high street, towards The Rising Sun. Below them to their right, some hopeful soul had lined up striped deckchairs along the grassy bank next to the river. Irina was too caught up in Bill’s mood to take in anything more. He was walking with purpose, headed straight to a building opposite the harbour. She was right behind him, shrugging her handbag strap back over her shoulder, her mind full of questions.

  He indicated a staircase to the left of the building and stood to let her move past him and up them. Irina pushed open the door at the top, struck by the smell of wood and furniture polish as she stepped inside. She could have been back in the shop.

  They walked into a small rectangular room lined with old newspaper prints and posters. A large model of the village in a glass case dominated the centre of the room. It was incredible, so many intricate details on display, roads, houses, locations marked out on it, the green hills and trees surrounding it. People moved around the display, reading the words below the model, pausing to watch an old newsreel playing on a television set in one corner. Irina looked around at Bill; he’d removed his hat and was staring at two plaques on one wall. She moved over to join him, slowly scanning the names, many with the same surnames, ages written next to them, a realization building.

  ‘Oh.’ She felt the breath leave her body as she understood what she was looking at.

  Bill shifted around to look at her. ‘It’s a memorial hall to remember that night. I haven’t been in here for a while.’

  Irina touched his upper arm as she moved away from him. She circled the room, other visitors nodding at her as she passed them. She sat and watched a loop of newsreels, the images all in black and white but no less shocking. She read the newspaper articles collected in a folder, studied the model, recognized some familiar places, confused by the layout at times, realizing how much must have changed. Bill hadn’t left his spot, was waiting for her to move back over to him, pushed his glasses back up his nose as she approached.

  She gestured at the door and they left in silence, crossing the road and making for a bridge over the river, both instinctively needing space, somewhere to sit and reflect. They settled themselves on a bench just before the bay curved away from them, Wales clear in the distance, a navy silhouette ahead of them over the sea.

  ‘So now you know,’ he said, eyes on the horizon, a sad smile as he turned to glance at her, seeming older suddenly, the bags under his eyes more obvious, his shoulders drooping.

  ‘It must have been terrible.’

  Bill nodded slowly. ‘Terrible. It took years for the village to recover. So many people left.’

  ‘Not you.’

  Bill gazed at the curve of bay, at a family sitting on towels eating sandwiches. ‘Not me, no. It’s always been home.’

  ‘So you think “A”, Abigail, was caught up in it all?’ She realized as she said it that she hadn’t seen Abigail anywhere on the plaques.

  ‘Did you see the name at the bottom?’ Bill asked. ‘“An Unknown Woman”?’

  Irina nodded. She had spotted the words, wondered briefly how it was that someone hadn’t been identified. The spot where her age should have been written had been left blank, just two dashes where the numbers should have been. ‘I thought it might have been a tourist.’

  Bill nodded. ‘It might have been, and some think it was, but…’ Irina turned to look at Bill as he went on, twisting his cap in his hands. ‘Well, the body washed up some miles away and was hard to recognize, but this woman, a very smart sort, married to a councillor, she was convinced. I remember her, that day, looking at the body. She said it was her.’

  ‘Abigail?’ Irina whispered.

  Bill nodded. ‘Abigail.’

  ‘I don’t understand, why did no one believe her? Surely someone else could have identified her too.’

  ‘Well this woman’s husband was there, thought she was wrong, and others were missing too, it was tourist season… It wasn’t like now, Irina, with DNA tests and more. No one else came forward, no one was sure, so she was buried with the others up in Lynton. But I never forgot that woman’s face. She was certain.’

  MARY

  Mary found the silence disturbing at first: no neighbours, no chatter, no buses, no bicycle bells. The moor stretched out behind the house, mist stealing over the fields, animals silhouetted in the early-morning light. The birds nesting in the trees at the bottom of the garden, swooping for twigs, a caw and a flap if she tapped on the glass, watching them fly up and away.

  Bristol had never been quiet, Bristol had been full of children playing hopscotch in the street, bounding down the cobbled roads, sellers moving door-to-door, men bustling along the harbour, crowded into the pubs, spilling into the streets holding tankards and making noise. She hadn’t noticed the hubbub of traffic, the distant sound of a ship’s horn or the hundreds of footsteps marching places until they were gone.

  Now she felt as if the whole world could have sunk into the sea and she was the last woman alive, walking over the moors, face flushed, her hands brushing the top of the grass. She built fires in the evening and tried to hum and talk aloud to fill the silence, had never been one for reading, unlike Abi, who had spent days with her nose in a book. She found an old croquet mallet in the shed, and a ball, and batted it across the lawn back and forth, rain coating her arms as she played on, desperate to be moving. She wanted to be angry at Abigail – the start of their grand adventure and she was stuck in a wet corner of north Devon waiting for what? Then she thought of Larry, knew she needed to stay, to help Abigail.

  She had only been there a few days and yet it felt as if she was the witch in the cottage in the forest, ageing and gnarled. She jumped on Abigail when she arrived with bread and supplies, desperate to hear her news and fill the house with their voices. She couldn’t visit every day, so when she was there it felt like heaven, as they curled up on the sofa together, their voices chattering. Yet every time Mary outlined a new plan, a new chance for them to leave, she felt Abigail withdrawing, not wanting to meet her eye, something tying her to the village.

  The rain was insistent today, driving her inside, stuck on a sagging settee making shapes out of a discarded load of newspapers, folding and tearing and propping them up on the floor around her so it looked as if she was making paper companions.

  Getting up to boil more water, she heard a noise and ducked down by the sink, one eye on the garden. Abigai
l always came in from the side path, she knew Mary wouldn’t want to be startled and so she’d whistle or call her name.

  This was different. A cough, foreign and loud, forced her to dart her eyes around the kitchen for something she could protect herself with. A muddied trowel sat on the table and she snatched at it, emerging from the kitchen holding it aloft, the figure in the garden leaning over a patch of earth to her left. ‘Who are you?’ she called in the most authoritative voice she could muster, as if she wasn’t the one encroaching. She wondered for a second if this man owned the house and she would be turfed out.

  The figure yelped and tumbled straight into the nettle patch, scrambling back out, eyes all white, one hand to his chest. ‘What the…? Who…? Jesus… Sorry…’

  Mary lowered the trowel. The man was around her age, good-looking, with ruddy cheeks and green eyes, flecks of yellow in the irises.

  ‘Richard?’ she asked, Abigail’s description in the flesh.

  The man’s eyes widened and he scrambled to his feet, trying to seem relaxed, perhaps, as he walked towards her. ‘I am. And you are…?’

  ‘Mary.’

  ‘Mary!’ His face broke into the most enormous grin. ‘Mary, you seem a very long way away from Bristol.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said, her heart not quite settled in her chest. She reached up and tugged her fingers through her hair in a makeshift comb.

  ‘And do you always creep up on unsuspecting visitors ready to brain them with a trowel?’

  She realized she was still holding it aloft, smiled shyly as she brought it to her side. ‘You would have been perfectly safe. I would have been hopeless, I really loathe the sight of blood.’

  ‘Well that’s a relief,’ he said, holding out a hand to her.

  She took it, unable to stop smiling at him as he let out a low rumble of laughter. It seemed to fill the garden.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘I’m not sure, the days seem to merge now. I arrived on the fifth.’

  ‘And you’ve been staying here?’ he asked.

  She nodded, worried then that he would be angry.

  His eyes widened a fraction before his expression returned to normal. ‘Well you must be wanting to see the village a bit. Is Abigail here?’ He peered round her as if Abigail might emerge from the house.

  ‘No. She tries to come as much as she can, but it’s hard…’ Mary hesitated, wary of being indiscreet, feeling a loyalty well in her chest.

  ‘Let me fix a few things here and we can get down to the village. I imagine you could do with a break from the place.’

  ‘I…’ She had been cooped up in the cottage for days and the thought of a trip to the village below with its quaint shops and rolling sea was too much to resist.

  She smiled at him. ‘I’d love that, let me get my coat.’

  They talked all the way down into the village, Mary feeling guiltier with every step. Abigail had made her promise she would stay in the cottage until they’d decided what to do, was desperately worried Larry would find out and ruin things. Richard was pointing out shops and pubs, asking her questions about Abigail when they were younger, laughing at her stories, aglow when she told him more.

  He took her to the line of cottages they’d walked past on that first day. The three of them tucked neatly next to each other, the sound of both rivers surrounding them. Clematis hung over the latticed porch on her left, a woman stopping to nod at Richard, a brief pause, forehead wrinkling slightly before smiling at her, a baby in her arms.

  ‘Hi, Beth,’ called Richard, tipping his hat at her.

  She gave a sleepy, slow wave, bending over to peer at her baby swaddled in a blanket.

  He turned around to face her, the front door behind him. ‘This is us. You’ll stay here for now,’ he said, nodding once, his mouth set in a thin line.

  Mary looked up at him sharply. ‘No, I couldn’t. I…’ She felt thrown, flapping one hand to her chest.

  ‘You can’t stay up there, it’s not safe, you’ll get ill. The weather’s been terrible and there are holes in the roof.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Of course you can, just while you visit.’

  ‘I won’t be up there much longer, we’re leaving soon, it won’t be long.’

  He stopped then, mouth loose, jaw dropping. When he spoke, his voice was quieter, the energy ebbed away. ‘She hasn’t said anything.’

  ‘She didn’t want anyone to know,’ Mary explained, panicking now. She shouldn’t have come, he’d tell people, Larry would hear and she’d have to leave. ‘Please, I….’

  ‘Where are you going to go?’

  ‘Exeter. We can share rooms there and—’

  ‘But why?’ It exploded out of him at first, then he hushed the second word, aware of his neighbour peering round at the voices. Richard couldn’t hide the hurt on his face, his mouth turned down, his eyes dulled. A line emerged in the middle of his forehead as he looked at her.

  ‘She’ll have to explain it to you herself,’ Mary said, refusing to be drawn on that secret. She wouldn’t betray Abigail.

  He seemed to accept that, sighing as he turned back around to push open the front door. ‘Watch the step there,’ he commented as she followed him. ‘It’s me, Dad. We’ve got a visitor.’

  Martin was sitting at a table in the window, the light cutting across the wooden surface, highlighting the dots of dust suspended in the air.

  ‘This is Mary,’ Richard said, pulling out a chair for her to sit in.

  It was wonderful to feel the warmth of the room, to sit and smell chestnuts and furniture polish. She became conscious of her own appearance, tangled hair and hand-washed clothes.

  ‘Mary.’ Martin inclined his head, the smallest of lines creasing his brow as he looked back at Richard, his mouth half-open.

  ‘She’s a friend of Abigail’s,’ Richard explained. ‘And she needs somewhere to stay.’

  RICHARD

  He hadn’t felt like this before, this strange bubbling anger that seemed to simmer in the pit of his stomach, leaping and burning as he saw her pick her way down the path towards him, edging round the puddles that were ebbing from the day before.

  She stopped in front of him, wary, as if she were a fox he had caught in their garden, staring him down before she scampered off. She tried to smile at him, one side of her mouth lifting, but he cut her off.

  ‘Mary is staying with us.’

  She hadn’t expected that, her eyes widening so that he could see all the whites around her irises. ‘Mary? But—’

  ‘I went to the cottage the day before last. She couldn’t stay there.’

  Abigail had changed colour, a blush creeping from the neck of her cardigan up to her face. ‘I didn’t know where else she could go.’

  ‘To your sister’s,’ he said, throwing his hands up. ‘There must be, what, six, seven bedrooms in that house and you keep your best friend in a leaky cottage with no heating, no way of cooking for herself.’ He could feel his face distorting as he spoke, his lip curled. Had he been so oblivious to this selfish streak in her? That she would hide away her best friend, not share all the comforts of their home. He thought of Mary then, her unwashed hair, the water boiling on the stove, the dust swept into corners, some semblance of order being created.

  ‘I couldn’t… I didn’t…’ Abigail’s chest was heaving, words jumbled and incoherent, her eyes not able to hold his for long.

  ‘It’s absurd. She looked utterly bedraggled and you were just going to keep her there, not take her up to the big house, afraid to have her embarrass you in front of your smart sister, I suppose?’

  He could feel the bubbles leaping into his throat, his voice louder, teeth clenched as he looked at her, waiting for answers, to understand. She remained stubbornly silent. This girl who
he thought had such a generous heart, who wanted to make the world a more joyful place, she was a lie. She stood there now, dumbly, arms by her side, no explanation, no excuses. Then the real truth, the fact that stung the most, spilled out of him before he could stop it. ‘You were going to leave without saying anything?’

  It made her flinch. ‘Richard, I wasn’t… I didn’t… We had to…’

  It stung, the pain of hearing her squirming, unable to deny it because it was true.

  ‘Were you going to let me know? Leave a note perhaps? I thought…’ It was his turn to stumble now, choke on the words he couldn’t form. ‘I thought we were planning a future.’

  Tears sprang into her eyes and he stood there, fists clenched at his sides, waiting for her to respond, to deny it, to throw herself at him and tell him she was never going to leave. It was a hideous mistake; Mary had been wrong. She stayed there, her eyes lined with unshed tears. She took a breath, looked up at him.

  ‘I would have told you. I have to leave, we have to.’

  ‘But why?’ Richard didn’t want to beg, didn’t want to plead. A part of him wanted to apologize, to persuade her to stay, to propose to her, to do something that would mean she wouldn’t leave, that he hadn’t glimpsed his future only to discover it was make-believe and with a woman who didn’t exist. The larger part of him was telling him to turn around, to return home, to leave her there and not look back.

  It had begun to rain, to spit; a cloud like a blackened bruise lingered over the tops of the trees and soon there would be a downpour.

  ‘Do you really have nothing to say?’

  Tiny droplets were clinging to her hair, to her eyelashes as she stepped forward, one hand up on his chest. The rain became heavier and she shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. For another second he prayed she would deny it all, it was a terrible misunderstanding.

  ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ she whispered and he was unsure if she was crying or if it was the rain. Then, without warning, she turned and walked straight back up Mars Hill, head down, into the wind, the rain making her dress stick to her legs as she went. And he was left there, looking after her, seeing the girl he loved leave him.