Hold My Hand

by Serena Mackesy

  I'm in solitary confinement, she thinks. I'm a Prisoner of War.

  She's crossing the drawing-room on her way to the Big kitchen – where there is, sometimes, a loaf of bread in the breadbox, some marrow jam in the pantry, when the phone starts ringing. Lily jumps at the sound, starts to scamper back the way she has come in case her jailor appears. Realises, as she reaches the door, that she's been mistaken in her assumption of Blakemore's whereabouts: that she is, in fact, emerging from the study. She spends so much time in her bedroom now, alternately sobbing and cursing behind the locked door, that Lily is surprised to find her out of it. Has a split second to decide what to do: be found and risk another burst of random wrath, or hide.

  She hides. Dives in behind a floor-length curtain and holds her breath.

  The phone rings on. She hears Mrs Blakemore pass her hiding-place, hears her mutter: “all right. All right. Keep your hair on”. The slippers scrape across the floor. They sound oily, sludgy; as though their wearer has trodden in something wet and not bothered to clean it off.

  She reaches the hall. Lily hears the tinkle as she lifts receiver from cradle. “Rospetroc House?” she announces, slowly, grandly.

  “Tessa!” she cries.

  “Mah-vlous, darling!” she cries. “Keeping the old home fires burning! And how is school?”

  She listens briefly. Lily watches her finger a greasy lock which trails loose from her bun. Mrs Blakemore has given up the hairbrush. Relies, instead, on an ever-growing army of hairpins, to which she adds each day as she notices an errant strand. So much for my nits, thinks Lily. There must be maggots in there by now. “Good, good,” she says, “now what train are we expecting you on? I can't wait to see you. Hughie's coming on the 17th, and Mr Varco's promised me a goose.”

  She hears the scratch of the distant voice, then a gasp. Then Mrs Blakemore is in tears again. “You can't,” she says. “Tessa, you can't.”

  Scritch scritch scritch goes the voice.

  “But I… Tessa, how can you do this to me? Do you know what he's done? Do you understand? How can you be so…”

  “…”

  “Disloyal,” she breaks across the stream of explanation. “You are disloyal.”

  She plucks at the hairpins. Slumps against the hall wall as though the strength has gone from her legs. “I've done everything,” she wails. “Everything. I've sat here – I've waited for you… I could have… My God. And you betray me. You think he –”

  A strange noise escapes her throat: animal, lost. Tessa is silent at the other end, shocked, wordless.

  Mrs Blakemore rolls against the wall, dents the plaster with the receiver. “Ay-ay-ay-ay…” she keens. “What will I do? What will I do?”

  Lily catches sight of her face. It is waxen, drawn, the eyes wide and staring. She shrinks back behind the curtain, hides herself away.

  Scritch scritch scritch.

  She hears a whoop of indrawn breath. And when the woman speaks again, her voice is cold. “Well,” she says, “you've made your choice, then. I don't know what I've done to you, but…”

  Scritch scritch scritch.

  “You always were your daddy's little girl,” she says. “Weren't you? I suppose I should never have put faith in you. Well. I hope you have a lovely time.”

  Scritch scritch scritch.

  “But it's not just for leave, is it?” says Mrs Blakemore. “That's what you don't understand. That's fine. You can all leave. I don't care. You and your filthy father: go and be with him, then. See if I care. At least I've got a son. At least I still have a son.”

  Lily hears the next word. “Mummy!” cries Tessa, all the way from Wantage.

  The voice which comes now is cracked and hateful. Lily peeps out to see that Mrs Blakemore is upright again, is pounding the wall with her fist.

  “No! Too late! Too late! You've made your bed. I hope you enjoy lying in it! Nasty, ungrateful little girl! He'll leave you! He'll leave you, Tessa! He's done it already and he'll do it again, but don't think you can come back here. Don't think I want you! Don't think that, ever! You will not be –”

  She stops. Holds the receiver away from her ear and looks at it, an expression of surprise on her face. Presses it back to her face. “Tessa? Tessa?”

  Tessa is gone.

  Bawling, Felicity Blakemore crosses the drawing-room and stops in front of the drinks tray. She has nearly emptied the cellar, her father's cellar, with no replenishing stocks coming across the channel, but there is still port, and Armagnac from the last century, loved and turned and conserved for special occasions for over fifty years and now coming in very handy while the rest of the world goes dry. She sobs out loud, lips wet and shapeless as she picks up the bottle. She has become a grotesque, a gargoyle.

  With shaking hand, she pours the best part of a quarter-bottle into a cut-glass snifter, raises it to her lips. Drains it. Sways as she swallows, clutching the glass to her chest.

  “Nonononono,” she says. Fat tears course down her face, drip from her chin. “Bastard,” she says. Throws the glass into the fireplace.

  Lily is frozen behind the curtain. She must not find me, she thinks. If she finds me, sees that I've heard…

  “Waaaah,” says Mrs Blakemore. Picks up another glass, fills it again and stumbles over to the sofa. Slumps, feet planted flat on the floor, knees spread as though she were milking a cow. “Betrayed,” she says out loud to walls and silent spectator. “I didn't do anything. What did I do? What did I do?”

  She doubles over, clutches her stomach. Another sob rings out through the room. “Alone. Alone. Dirty little bitch. Dirty little bitch, I'll kill her. I wish she was dead.”

  Lily feels the hairs prickle on the back of her neck. She doesn't know if Mrs Blakemore is talking about Tessa, or herself.

  I have to get out of here. I have no choice now.

  She waits until Mrs Blakemore has fallen asleep on the sofa, until her snores ring out through the house and drown out the sound of her movements.

  I'll get my bag. It's packed anyway. I don't need much.

  She tiptoes across the room. Mrs Blakemore is lying on her back, mouth open, one arm tipped over the side of the sofa, knuckles trailing on the rug. Lily can see the tramlines of varicose veins tracing their way up her legs, disappearing beneath her nightdress. One slipper dangles from bent toes. She is dribbling.

  What happens? she wonders. How does someone become like this? Her mother used to pass out, sometimes, but never like this. Her mother at least had the decency to be dressed when she drank herself insensible.

  This time I'll go across the fields. I'll keep away from the roads, cut across the moor. No-one goes on the moor in the winter. No-one will find me. If I get far enough away before night, I'll be all right. There are sheds on the moor, for sheep and stuff. I can spend the night in one of those. I'll get some bread, and some milk, and I'll run 'til I'm over the brow of the hill. I'll keep going south – I know where south is – 'til I hit the sea, then all I have to do is turn left and keep walking.

  She creeps up the stairs to the attic, surveys her suitcase. It's in an even worse state than when she arrived here; it's been thrown several times, dragged and sat on. The left-hand corner of the lid has split altogether. It won't last another journey. It'll be a hindrance, not a help. I'll wear what I need, and carry the rest in a cloth. Like a runaway. Like a proper runaway.

  She is filled, suddenly, with optimism. That's what I've been doing wrong. I've been travelling too heavy, attracting attention to myself. Of course they've been noticing a child with a suitcase: anyone would. If I take things in my pockets, and a few bits wrapped up, they won't notice me. It's not like I've got a lot to leave behind. If I'm just a child walking along, they'll not bother to ask questions. There are loads of strangers about in the countryside these days. The only ones they're suspicious of are the ones they think might be Jerry spies.

  Lily tips out the case, and strips off her outer layers of clothing. It'll be cold out there. She's n
ot stupid. She's been dressing against the cold all her life. She finds her second vest, her gym pants, the two pairs of stockings the Board issued her with back in May when the sun was shining. Puts them on, puts shorts beneath skirt, jersey over blouse, cardi over jersey, like a queer mismatched twin-set. Perhaps I should lift some pearls to go with it, she thinks. I could sell them when I get to Portsmouth: give us something to live on for a bit. Smiles at the conceit and dismisses it. Pulls socks over stockings and squeezes her feet into her t-bar sandals.

  Mum'll be glad to see me, she thinks. That's why she's not been. They've lost my papers and she don't know where I am. She's probably been worrying herself sick, not knowing what has happened to me. I'll go and bang on the door and she'll take a minute to come cause she won't know who it is, and she'll open up and when she sees me her face will go all wobbly and she'll start crying the way she cried when she saw me off at the station. And she'll say how much I've grown and she'll throw her arms out and forget all about the neighbours looking, give me a hug right there in the street for everyone to see.

  She takes the sandals off again, carries them down the stairs so her tread is light and quiet. Goes along the corridor and down the dining-room stairs, so she doesn't have to pass the monster on the sofa again.

  In the scullery, discarded and forgotten coats hang on the back of the door. Tweed coats for shooting and woollen for city wear; saved for the possible needs of visitors who never come. She knows that there will be cast-offs of Hugh's in among them; too small for him but large enough for her padded body and unlikely to be missed. Lily feels her way through their musty, doggy roughness. Decides, eventually, on a coat of Harris tweed, long enough to cover her knees, not so long or so new that it will be obviously stolen. Hanging on a hook, she finds a large woollen headscarf. Lays it flat on the floor and tips her meagre belongings – her pencils and sketchpad, a single, crumpled and blurry photograph of her mother and a handful of boiled sweets conserved from the ration – into the middle and ties it loosely, corner to corner.

  She probably won’t even notice I'm gone for a few days, she attempts to convince herself. I've managed to keep out of her way for at least a day at a time before now. I can get a good head start while she sleeps off her hangover.

  She tiptoes into the pantry, opens the bread bin and finds a half loaf of heavy Utility bread. On the shelf, a small lump of Cheddar. It is covered in mould. Lily takes it down, scrapes the mould off with the butter knife. Wraps the remainder in a piece of discarded jam muslin and pops it into her pocket. She cuts away half of the loaf. To take the whole of it might attract attention. On the floor, in cardboard greengrocers' trays stacked one on the other, cooking apples from the orchard beyond the pond, harvested and laid up while Mrs Blakemore still had a few of her marbles. They will be sour, she knows, and hard to digest, but the will be better than nothing. Lily slips four into her woollen satchel.

  It is half-past noon, and the sky is already beginning to change. She glances out of the window, looks for ominous signs in the clouds. Perhaps I should take a knife, she thinks. Yes, perhaps I should. A knife would come in useful. I don't know what for, but nobody runs away without a pocket knife. She creeps through to the kitchen with her parcel. It's warm in here; the range kept going by deadwood from the copse, keeping the heart of the house beating even if its soul has long since fled. Lily shuffles across the tiles, eases the top drawer by the sink open and looks inside. Something sharp. None of this silver, though I could probably sell the silver later. But I need something that will really cut. I need something that will get me out of danger.

  “Hello,” says a voice behind her.

  Lily, sharp intake of breath, whips round. Mrs Blakemore stands in the dining room doorway, one hand on the door frame propping her up as she sways. Her hair is crushed down on the left side of her head, loose and dangling on the other. She looks Lily up and down, contemplatively. Licks her lips, smacks them together.

  “So,” she says. “Planning on leaving as well, were you?”

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Mr Benson has a pale complexion – the anaemic look of someone who doesn't eat enough protein – but it's raging purple now. He stands amid the chaos and his hand is bunched into a fist,

  “Will you –” he bellows, “Keep your bloody KID under control?”

  She feels momentarily breathless. “It wasn't – I don't think… it can't have been…” she begins.

  “Don't even try,” he says. “I don't want to hear it.”

  The room is horrendous. Horrible. Flashes of the state it was in after the Terrys left come to her, but this is worse. It's so – unexpected.

  She looks down at Yasmin, who clutches her skirt, mouth agape. She can't have done it, she thinks. She's been with me all the time…

  The cupboard hangs open again. Inside, she can see the contents of the Bensons' suitcases jumbled on the floor, tumbling out through the door onto the carpet, clothes and shoes and bags, a laptop and a video camera, covered and coated and powdered into obliteration.

  On the window seat, scattered as though thrown with some force, the constituent parts of a Blackberry.

  A vase, blue glass, has been smashed against the wall. Among the shards, Mrs Benson's low-key, discreet jewellery collection.

  The tester ripped once again from its hooks.

  The whitewashed wall despoiled with red-brown, blood-coloured lipstick. GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT.

  “I – when did this happen?”

  “Well I don't know,” he snarls. He is chewing gum; tendons stand out in his cheeks with the force of his gnashing. “We came back and it was like this.”

  “I didn't do it,” says Yasmin.

  Where have I heard that before?

  “It wasn't me,” says Yasmin.

  “Well, who else could it have been?”

  I am caught between Scylla and Charybdis. Face the probable truth, find a way to make reparation, or stand up for my daughter, protect her from injustice and be rightly hated by these people, maybe face the sack: these are my choices

  Benson swings round to fix his eyes on Bridget.

  “You?”

  “Don't be – don't be absurd!”

  “Well,” he says.

  Mrs Benson is sitting on the windowsill. She wears brown suede boots and a beige wool sweater-dress.

  Looks like that's all you're going to be wearing for the foreseeable, thinks Bridget briefly, spitefully. Feels instantly guilty as she sees the devastation on the woman's face. Even dowdy people love their clothes. The colourless feel random destruction as deeply as the florid.

  “It's unbelievable,” she says. “Why have you done this to us? This is our honeymoon. What on earth have we done to… deserve this?”

  She has reason to be upset, after all, even if she is chucking accusations unfairly. There must be thousands of pounds worth of stuff heaped up here. Most of it ruined.

  “We've been out all day,” stutters Bridget.

  “Well, who else would it have been?”

  She counts: one, two, three. “I have no idea. I'm sorry it's happened. Obviously it's extremely distressing, but I haven't been here and nor has my daughter.”

  She feels a tug on her dress. Glances down at Yasmin and pulls her closer to her side. Did she do it? Can she have done it? I haven't been with her every single minute of the day. There's been the odd moment when I've had to be absorbed in the domestic. She could have… no, stop it, Bridget. She's your daughter.

  “So you're saying that – what? The Piskies did it? That we've had burglars who didn't steal anything or damage anything anywhere else in the house, just came up here to tear one room apart?”

  “I don't know.” She looks around her. Liquid foundation has been sprayed across the walls, across the bedspread, the empty bottle thrown, dripping, onto the armchair. “I'm sorry, but I don't know. I'll do everything I can to… straight away. It's… I don't know how this happened.”

  “Well it's obvious to me,”
he says.

  Bridget clasps Yasmin's hand, squeezes it. It is hot, stiff in hers. “I understand that. But I can assure you I know nothing about this.”

  He turns away. Surveys the devastation. Turns back. “You'll lose your job over this,” he says. “I'll make sure of it.”

  She feels the blood rush to her cheeks.

  Chapter Fifty

  “It's got to stop, Yasmin! It's got to stop!”

  Her voice is louder than she intends, furious with the rage of panic. Yasmin is curled up in the corner of her room, squashed against the walls like a small animal anticipating death. Tears stream down her face. I should be wanting to comfort her, thinks Bridget, but I can't, I'm so angry.

  “How can you do this to me?” she howls. “Don't you understand? It's not me you're doing to, it's us! We are going to be homeless, Yasmin! In the middle of winter with nowhere to go and no job – how could you do it? How could you be so…?”

  Yasmin's voice comes in a bellow itself. “I didn't! I didn't!”

  “Well, someone did! And it wasn't me! You've got to stop it, Yasmin! You've got to stop doing these things and you've got to stop lying! What's got into you? You never used to tell lies!”

  “I'M NOT LYING!”

  Yasmin's voice shatters in a heartbroken crack. “Why don't you believe me? You never believe me, Mummy! I'm not lying! I don't lie! I never tell lies!”

  Bridget is lost for words. Doesn't know what to do. All those years, protecting her, trying my best to bring her up well despite everything that was in our way, and now… where did this come from? Why is she so angry? Is it something to do with Kieran? Some acting-out? Is she angry with me, punishing me for taking her away?

  “Well, maybe we should talk about it later,” she says eventually, “when you've – when we've both – calmed down. But you're going to have to do some thinking, Yasmin. I can't just believe you, you know. Someone did it, and I know it wasn't me.”