Greenwich Park

by Katherine Faulkner

  Remember, remember. I remember it all, the scratch of hats and gloves and socks, the hiss of spent sparklers in buckets of cold water. All their friends arriving. The feeling it was a grown-up party, and we were staying up late. One time, we came down the next morning in our pyjamas to a hoarfrost, and the buckets had turned to ice with the sparklers stuck inside. Anna made us eggs on toast, the steam from the boiler pipe blowing clouds over the kitchen window. The kitchen tiles were cold, she brought me green socks to borrow. It’s funny, the things you remember.

  Now, they are dead, their house in ruins. The garden a wasteland of bricks, a cement mixer, tarpaulins. The massive bonfire heaves and breathes and paints the bricks a luminous orange. The heat over the bonfire makes the tall windows seem to wobble, like a circus mirror. It feels like an apocalypse. I look at the discarded cans and cigarette butts that litter the beautiful garden, the rotting fruit from Anna’s beloved pear tree. I wonder what Helen’s parents would think of their children now.

  HELEN

  ‘Where did you get that dress?’

  My words snap like teeth. For once, Rachel has the grace to look embarrassed.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind. It was in your bottom drawer. I hadn’t seen you wear it before – I thought maybe you didn’t like it.’

  ‘What were you doing in my bottom drawer, Rachel?’

  ‘You did say I could borrow something,’ she says. She looks puzzled, as if she doesn’t understand. ‘Remember?’

  For God’s sake. I had said vaguely, once, that she could borrow something. It hadn’t been an open invitation to rifle through my drawers.

  ‘And you left that red dress out for me, the other time, when we went to Rory’s thing,’ she adds, frowning. ‘I thought you’d be cool with me taking something else for tonight.’

  I stare at her. I have no idea what she means about the red dress. I’d never seen that thing before, and even if I had, I would never have dreamed of suggesting she wear it to a dinner at Serena’s house. What is she talking about? But as she fiddles with the hemline of her blue velvet dress, I remember the real source of my fury.

  ‘I know you’ve taken other things,’ I say, a tremor in my voice. ‘I know you took that note from inside my book. That photograph – it was you that stuck it back together, wasn’t it? Why did you do that, Rachel? Where did you even find it?’

  ‘What note? I didn’t take anything from your book. I didn’t stick any photograph back together. Seriously. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Helen.’

  I ignore her. I am shouting. ‘What is this all about? Look, I found your hiding place!’ I point at the hole in the floor. ‘What have you done to my passport, Rachel? Was that some kind of sick joke, cutting my face out?’

  Rachel shakes her head. ‘No, hang on,’ she is saying, looking upset. ‘You’ve got this all wrong. It wasn’t me that did this.’

  ‘For God’s sake, stop lying! I found your hiding place.’ I throw the passport down in front of her. ‘I let you stay here. And this is how you repay me – snooping around? Stealing things? Cutting up my passport? Lying?’

  Rachel holds up the palms of her hands, looks me in the eye. ‘I didn’t take a note from your book, Helen,’ she says slowly. ‘Or a photograph. Honestly. That must have been someone else. Whatever it was about, someone else is on to you – not me.’

  I hear the blood pounding in my ears, still not drowning out the incessant noise of the dehumidifier. On to me? She’s insane. Completely insane.

  ‘Rachel,’ I say, ‘you stole our laptop. You stole my passport – cut up my bloody passport! You stole my mother’s dress …’ I pick up the note from her suitcase, the one addressed to W. ‘So what’s this, then? Is this yours? Or did you steal this as well?’

  She steps closer to me. I remember the touch of her cool hands on my bump that time in the market. The feeling it had given me, like I was teetering over the edge of something. Instinctively, my hands fly to my belly.

  ‘I don’t know what happened to whatever note was in your book,’ she says again. ‘But I can explain everything else. All of this.’ She gestures to the laptop, the passport, the cuttings. ‘Look, Helen. You’ve been good to me. I know you didn’t have to let me stay here. But you need to listen to me now, OK? Because I know other things. Things you really should know. Before this baby comes.’ Then she reaches out, closes her hand over my stomach. ‘I had to wait before I told you – I just had to make sure I understood it all.’

  I flinch, horrified by the feel of her fingers on my stomach, and catch the shelf with the back of my head. A glass vase falls but I manage to turn, pin it clumsily to the wall before it hits the ground. I feel the weight of it in my hands as they close around it. The thick rim, the heavy glass bottom. I think about it, just for a moment. I just want her to be quiet, I think. I just want her to go away. Leave me alone.

  ‘I’m on your side, Helen,’ she says. ‘Trust me, OK?’

  ‘Trust you? After this?’

  ‘I’m serious. You need to listen to me – or we could both be in danger. I mean it.’

  I look at her and, at last, I see her for what she is. A fraud, a meddler. A source of trouble. A thief, in a dress she stole from my dead mother, over-plucked eyebrows and a face of cheap make-up. She is a joke. I don’t trust her. I don’t believe her. I don’t want to hear another word she says. I just want her gone. For good.

  ‘Rachel,’ I tell her, ‘we’re not friends. We never were.’

  Rachel’s mouth drops open, her eyes wide. For once she is speechless, gawping at me like a child.

  ‘I’m sorry. I want you to leave, tonight, and not come back.’

  KATIE

  As I walk through the hallway, my hand finds the wall. I’ve had too much, far too much. I turn towards the kitchen. That’s when the velvet dress catches my eye again. I only see it for a moment. It must be Rachel, heading down to the cellar, following somebody. I can’t see who, and in a split second they are both gone.

  I stare after them. Who was that? Was it a guy? Was it Charlie? The two of them have been together most of the night. What the hell are they planning on doing in the cellar? I feel my body stiffening. I can imagine what Charlie might want to do in a cellar. He likes enclosed spaces. Places that are cool and dark. Come on, Katie. Too stupid. Don’t think about it. Don’t.

  In the kitchen, I find a dirty glass on the sideboard and rinse it to pour myself a glass of water. A large one. Then when I’ve finished it, I pour myself more wine, stumble back to my spot at the end of the garden. It’s nice out here. I light another of my cigarettes – where did they come from? No matter, no matter. I sit on the grass and watch the fire. After a while it starts to swim in front of me, as if it is burning under water.

  A figure emerges from the smoke and darkness. Charlie. He is grinning. I frown, take another drag, determined not to let a smile show on my face, hating the way my heart lifts up in my chest at the thought that he has come to find me.

  ‘All right?’ he says cheerfully. He passes me a beer.

  ‘I brought wine. Thanks.’

  He shrugs, puts the beer on the grass, twisting it into the earth so that it stands up.

  I glance over at Charlie’s clothes. He is covered in dust. My stomach twists. So that was him, going down into the cellar with Rachel.

  ‘You’re a mess,’ I tell him. I brush the dust off his leg. I can hear the slur in my speech, feel the clumsiness of my movements.

  He looks down at his clothes, then back up at me. ‘You’re wearing a dress.’ He grins again.

  I smile without meaning to, look away. ‘I do that occasionally.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ he says, ‘I’ve been down to the cellar. Wanted to see the Grand Designs.’

  He doesn’t mention Rachel. I feel a tightening in my heart. I want to ask but stop myself.

  ‘How’s it looking down there?’

  ‘Like a load of wet concrete. They only laid the foundation
today. Too wet for me to even write my name in. Can I have a drag?’

  I roll my eyes, but pass him the cigarette. He takes it, his fingers brushing against mine. I close my eyes. I long to put my face against his chest.

  ‘I can’t understand why they’re doing it,’ he says.

  I turn to look at him. His voice is different now. Does he sound upset?

  He takes a drag. ‘Dad always said the house was perfect. That it didn’t need a thing. I always thought Helen thought that too.’

  ‘Helen didn’t talk to you? Before they went ahead with the work?’

  He shakes his head, takes another drag of the cigarette.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘She didn’t.’

  The fire crackles in front of us. I study his face in the flames, but I can’t make out the expression on his face. I have never asked him how he feels about the terms of the will. I got the impression it was pretty simple in the end – that Rory would get the family firm, that Helen would get the family home, and that Charlie would get everything else, a sort of cash equivalent. I have sometimes wondered whether he got the raw end of the deal. But for all his faults, Charlie has never been bothered about money.

  ‘Rachel seems nice,’ I say carefully.

  He frowns, looks at me, head tilted to one side.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean she seems nice.’ I pull my jacket around myself. ‘I saw you talking to her, that’s all.’

  Charlie stubs the cigarette out on the tree at the back of the garden.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Oh, do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  We sit in silence for a moment. Charlie cranes his neck, trying to catch my eye.

  ‘Oi.’ He is laughing at me. ‘Come here, will you? I’m cold.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ I say, shrugging his hand off my shoulder. ‘There’s a great big fire right in front of us.’

  ‘I am. I’m freezing.’ He slips his fingers in between mine. Pulls me towards him, forces me to meet his eye. Then he kisses me on the mouth. Despite myself, I smile in the darkness.

  SERENA

  When I walk into the kitchen, Helen is leaning over the sink, gripping its porcelain edge, her face dropped down between her arms.

  ‘Helen?’

  She turns round. A stripe of sweat glistens across her forehead; her eyes sit in deep blue-grey hollows. She looks hot and cold at once; flustered, haunted. When her eyes focus on mine, I realise her pupils are dilated. It is as if she takes a moment to register that it is me.

  ‘Serena.’ She sounds relieved. ‘I didn’t see you.’

  She pulls a shaking wrist up to her face, wipes her nose with her cardigan cuff.

  ‘Are you all right? You’ve got a bit of tree in your hair.’

  I reach out to twist the twig out of the stray hairs on the top of her head. It is extraordinary, Helen’s hair. Such a vivid red. Russet, I think you would call it. Helen looks up gratefully.

  ‘I was in the garden. I thought I saw Monty near the fire. I was trying to bring him inside but …’ A look of confusion crosses her face, briefly, like a cloud passing in front of the sun. ‘I think I disturbed someone. Or rather, two people. Down at the bottom, in the … at the back.’

  I cringe, smile sympathetically. I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Between the fire and the emptying of Helen’s parents’ old spirits cabinet, the party has taken on something of a bacchanalian air. The garden is foggy with bonfire smoke and the smell of weed, the dining and front rooms have become dance floors. Ironically, as parties go, Helen’s has been something of a triumph. People are starting to trail away now, though. Just a few strange characters are still wandering around, slumped in her armchairs, smoking in the bushes.

  I comb Helen’s hair with my fingers, tuck a loose strand behind her ear, like one might do to a child. She seems hardly to notice. She is still staring out at her garden.

  ‘My dead babies are down there, Serena,’ she murmurs. ‘Did I ever tell you that?’

  She didn’t. But Daniel did. The little funerals they held, alone in the rain, clinging to one other. The four tiny packets of ashes they had scattered with their trembling hands among the flower beds. And the four climbing roses they had planted there. One for every missing heartbeat.

  I don’t say anything. Instead, I run my hand up and down her back, from her shoulder blades to the base of her spine.

  ‘I had the most terrible row earlier,’ she blurts. ‘With Rachel. I told her to leave.’

  I glance up at the kitchen clock. It is past one.

  ‘Don’t worry about it now, Helen,’ I tell her. ‘It’s late. Let’s have a drink.’

  She sniffs. ‘Not for me,’ she mumbles automatically.

  Poor Helen. She has been through so much. I turn so that I am standing square on to face her, take her hand.

  ‘Helen,’ I whisper. ‘You are very strong, stronger than you think. Your baby is strong, too. And he is going to be fine. You are not going to hurt him now. Even if you have this glass of wine with me.’

  Helen smiles at me, weakly. But she is surprisingly firm.

  ‘Really,’ she says, looking me in the eye. ‘I’d rather just have a tea. I think I’ll just have a cup of tea and take it up to bed.’

  So, the tea it is.

  KATIE

  When I head back inside the house, it is later than I thought. The music seems to have stopped. The gauntlet of builders’ waste, still-hot embers and broken glass sobers me up. Poor Helen. She was right. It does look like things got a bit out of hand. Perhaps it was thoughtless of me to encourage her to have a party when she is so pregnant. And Charlie should never have invited so many people.

  Serena is the only one in the kitchen. To my surprise, she appears to be cleaning. She has washed up all the glasses, and is wiping the kitchen surfaces down, scrubbing out purple rings of wine. She has piled her long hair onto the top of her head in a scruffy bun and stuck a pair of Helen’s Marigolds on. They look comically large on the ends of her long, skinny arms. She has collected cans and bottles into a green recycling sack. Maybe I’ve misjudged her.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she says, seeing me. ‘I’ve just made Helen one.’

  ‘Thanks, I’m fine.’

  I notice a bottle of what look like headache tablets next to the kettle. I could do with one of those, I think.

  ‘Where’s Helen?’

  ‘Gone to bed.’ Serena smiles, motions at the chaos. ‘Just thought I’d make a start.’

  I nod. ‘Let me help.’

  GREENWICH PARK

  He tells her he will keep watch a while, just to make sure. They don’t want any more surprises. When she leaves him, he hears her moving around in the house, like a ghost. The floorboards creak underfoot. The house straining to keep its secrets.

  When he can’t sit there any more, he turns the light out, and goes and sits outside. He takes the bottle of Scotch. He drinks and waits and drinks until his throat is raw. He is waiting for the morning, as if the morning might bring with it an answer. But the morning does not come when it is supposed to. And it is dark, so dark.

  In the embers of the bonfire, something moves. At first, he thinks it is a fox, or a rat. But then he sees the smooth sheen of feather, black that shines blue in the light, like a velvet dress. Not velvet. Feathers. A raven, come to bury the dead.

  The raven perches on the hedgerow, folds its wings and cocks its head at him against the moon. There is silence. Its eyes are ink black, its feet red raw. A hunchback. Its head moves all the way round. In the background, four roses stare at him, their faces blank and pure.

  He looks at the raven and lifts his glass in salute.

  Nevermore, he says to the raven.

  And the raven speaks back.

  Nevermore, the raven says.

  Nevermore. Nevermore. Cellar Door.

  TEN YEARS EARLIER

  I wonder when the music stopped, and where I can get some water. I need to get up, but I
can’t get up. That’s when bits of my body start to come back. Arms first. My wrists are heavy. I imagine them weighed down by bracelets. Gold and diamonds.

  No, not bracelets. Something warm. Something that is squeezing tight.

  I force my eyes to focus. The sky has gone too. It is different now, wood and a rippled metal, the underside of corrugated iron. And either side of me are boats, but we’re not on the water. The boats are piled on top of each other, their edges long and shiny, painted numbers on the side. I wonder if the person who paints the names is the same. What names? I can’t remember. Can’t remember.

  Then on the walls. Long spoons, giant ones. Not spoons. Paddles? Oars. They are oars.

  It’s so quiet, so cold in here. Yet there is a hot feeling, pressing into me. And only now do I notice the pain, like a red flag in the distance. But as soon as I notice, I can’t not notice. And then it is everywhere, spilling out like ink in water. Starting down, moving all over. It hurts, it hurts. And now, I see his face.

  The face I saw before. The dark fringe, the hooded eyes, watching me. What happened to me? The quiet one is on top of me. The pain is him. The wrists is him. The noise is him. It’s all him. The blanket scratches on my neck.

  Huh. Huh. Huh.

  And behind him, another. A laughing face.

  Huh, huh, huh.

  The panic comes now, replaces the pain. I pull my head up off the ground, but my shoulders won’t follow. My wrists are pinned. I open my mouth. I have to speak.

  Hey, I hear myself say. I mean it as a shout but my voice sounds far away. Like a whisper. It’s all I can say. Hey. Hey.

  37 WEEKS

  HELEN

  The morning after the party I wake with my head heavy and spinning, almost as if I had been drinking last night. I am aching all over, my chest clammy against my clothes. I wonder whether I might be getting the flu.