As She Left It (21 page)

“Mummy,
please
!”

Jodie was sobbing, with both her fat little hands pressed on the front glass, but Karen stood, frozen, nothing moving.

“And I know more than you probably think I do,” Opal said. Karen started backing away from her towards the car, and Jodie’s sobs rose and quickened. “Go and see your mother. For God’s sake, before it’s too late. She’s talking. She’s so unhappy she can’t help herself. She needs to see you.” Karen had got to the car now and she opened the door and sank into the seat. Jodie immediately clambered over and wrapped herself around her mother, arms and legs, burying her face and pretty nearly screaming. But she might as well have been hugging a tree. Karen didn’t stroke her hair or rock her, but just stared at Opal until
Opal
, sickened with herself, tore her eyes away. She walked past the car back towards the main road, not looking in as she passed, but saying a soft apology she hoped Karen would hear over the muffled crying.

It was twenty minutes before a Leeds bus came along, but the car still hadn’t appeared by the time Opal climbed on board and took a seat by the window. Maybe there was a different way out of that little scheme of houses somewhere. Or maybe Karen was still sitting there.

TWENTY
-
SEVEN

“
H
IYA,” SAID
O
PAL, WHEN
Miss Fossett opened the kitchen door. “I’m glad you heard me knocking this time. I wouldn’t want to just barge in.”

“Hello,” Miss Fossett said.

“It’s Opal.”

“Opal!” said Miss Fossett. “That’s a pretty name.”

“So’s Norah,” said Opal. “Can I come in?”

Miss Fossett’s face clouded a little.

“I’m not supposed to,” she said.

“I know,” said Opal. “Strangers. Shelley told me.”

“Shelley!” said Miss Fossett, and it was like open sesame. She stood back and let Opal walk in.

The kitchen wasn’t quite as bad as before, but Miss Fossett had been making cocoa, so between the milk that had boiled over onto the cooker top, the sprays of dry cocoa powder over the table, and the wet clumps of cocoa all over the draining board, it was bad enough. Opal looked into the pan at the thick blackened layer coating its bottom.

“Did you get your cup of chocolate?” she asked.

Miss Fossett screwed her face up and shook her head. “It tasted funny,” she said. “I put it down for the cat.” She nodded at a plate sitting on the floor half under the sink that had a dribble of pale pinkish liquid in it, flecked with burnt bits.

“Have you got a cat?” Opal said, thinking what a poor bugger it was if so.

“Smoky,” said Miss Fossett. “We got him when he was a tiny kitten you fed off a spoon, and I used to dress him up in my bonnets and push him in my pram.”

“Your dolly’s pram?” said Opal. She was running hot water into the cocoa pan and wiping up the worst of the dribbles.

“Emerald,” said Miss Fossett. “She had green eyes and red hair. I got her for my birthday.” So Opal lifted the long-gone cat’s dish and added it to the hot water filling the sink.

“Let’s try again,” she said. “Where’s the co— Oh, I see it.” Inside the tin, it didn’t look too good, but she dug around and managed to get enough for two cups without having to use any of the lumps. That would have to do. “Milk in the fridge?” She didn’t look too closely at the shelves, just took a carton out of the door, sniffed it and filled another pan. “So were you allowed to take your kitten to bed at night? Or did you take Emerald with you?” She had been thinking on the bus—as soon as she decided to make up for upsetting Karen by going to Miss Fossett and giving her some of the company she was so obviously pining for—that she should try to get the old lady to talk about the past, the very distant past when she was a little girl. It was easier than she’d been expecting.

“Smoky wasn’t allowed upstairs,” Norah said. “And Emerald’s hair was too pretty to let her get jumbled about. I had my teddy bear. Binks.”

“Because it’s a big house, this, innit?” Opal said. “A little girl could get scared at night in a big old house like this, without something to cuddle.” She was watching the milk beginning to shimmer in the pan and didn’t look around until the silence had gone on for a minute or two. When she did glance up, Miss Fossett had wrapped her arms around her shoulders and was hugging herself hard. She had a sleeveless dress on, baggy and loose in the armholes—it was that hot this summer; even old ladies were wearing clothes with no sleeves—and her little fingers with their horny fingernails were digging deep into her skin, the little bit of flesh so soft her hands seemed to be squeezing right down to her bones.

“Hey,” said Opal. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Milk,” said Miss Fossett in a tiny voice and Opal jerked her hand away from the pot handle as it boiled over again and the foam doused the gas and sizzled on the burner.

“Bugger it,” she said, and Miss Fossett giggled. “There should still be enough for one.” She poured a cup, whisking hard with the spoon trying to make it as nice as it could be, a treat to take the nasty memories away. Or maybe she was just salving her own conscience because she knew she was going to bring them back again.

“Where will we go?” she said. “Where do you sit?”

“In the morning room,” said Miss Fossett. “I’ll show you the way.”

She trotted off along the corridor Opal had glimpsed before, past door after closed door, past large paintings all thick with dust so the people in them looked like ghosts. And there were ropes of cobweb hanging from the lights, reaching like swags to the tops of the picture frames. And the carpet was dark and flat in the middle where feet passed up and down, and only at the edges and in the corners could you see that once it had been red and had a pattern cut into it of swirling leaves. It rustled underfoot as if it was laid over straw or something. Opal couldn’t remember feeling that before.

Miss Fossett had trotted to the front of the house and turned to look back at Opal, waiting.

“The morning room,” she said, sweeping her arm out to the side. She stood against the light coming through frosted glass panels at the front door—or a vestibule, anyway—and Opal could see very soft pale hairs in her armpit. Beside her, lined up behind the vestibule door were three shopping bags on wheels. The first of them was wicker with a curved bamboo handle and black metal wheels. Then a tartan one with black vinyl sides. The last one was made of rucksack material, bright green with a logo and a handle made of chrome with a rubber grip.

“Are these all yours?” Opal said. Miss Fossett turned and looked at where she was pointing.

“All mine,” she said. “I was going to get a new one, but I don’t …
they come now, so I don’t … ” She shook her head as if she had got water in her ears and was trying to get it out again. Then she smiled at Opal. “The morning room,” she said. “Do come in and do sit down. It’s very nice to see you.”

Opal went in, but sitting down wasn’t so easy. Miss Fossett’s chair was set about three feet from a big old television as deep as it was wide, and there was a tray table on casters pushed to one side, holding the channel changer, a pair of glasses, some tissues, and a tube of lip salve. Every other seat in the room was occupied. There were two full three-piece suites, Opal noted looking round, as well as a round table and six chairs set into the corner bay window, and every chair was packed like a suitcase. It wasn’t like stuff just lying around; they really were packed. Linens on one, tablecloths probably, folded to fit the space and heaped up exactly level with the top of the headrest; rolled towels on another, a pyramid of them; and photograph albums—tricky things to heap up that many of, but Miss Fossett had managed it, using the longest thinnest ones to build up the sides and the shorter fatter ones to fill in, like those walls you see out in the country made of stones with nothing holding them together except the skill of the builder. The LP records had defeated her: they were tied together with hairy green string to make blocks and then these blocks had been built up like the photo albums too.

“Mighty me,” said Opal. She was still kicking herself about letting out that one rude
bugger
. “You’re very … organised.”

“Oh, this isn’t mine,” said Miss Fossett, sitting down and pulling her tray table in front of her, so that she looked like a baby in a highchair. Opal put the cocoa cup down on it, and Miss Fossett picked it up in both hands and took a sip. “Lovely,” she said, smiling up at Opal from under a moustache of cocoa froth. Opal smiled back at her.

There was a footstool round the other side of the armchair, one of those leather cubes, so she pulled it out and sat down.

“Whose is it, then?” she said. “All these photos? And the records?”

“It’s theirs,” said Miss Fossett. “All of this. I only come in here to watch the”—she waved her teaspoon, scattering brown drops on the carpet—“the thingummy.”

“The telly,” Opal said. It wasn’t worth saying anything about the teaspoon. The carpet, when she looked closely, wasn’t
actually
patterned under the tea and soup and one patch that she hoped was cheese sauce or maybe curry, but Miss Fossett didn’t do well with getting told off and Opal didn’t want to upset her.

“So where are they?” Opal said. “Going off leaving all their stuff for you to work round!” But that was too sideways on, and Miss Fossett only gazed at her. “Is it your family’s?”

“They’ve gone,” said Miss Fossett. “They died. Father died and then Mother died.”

“My parents died too,” said Opal.

“In the war?”

Opal smiled. “No,” she said.

“My father died in the war. I was away.”

Opal frowned. Away? Shelley said Norah had never left this house in her life.

“When were you away, Norah?” she asked.

“In the war,” Norah said. “Father died in the war.”

“Right,” said Opal. “Were you a nurse or something?” she asked. Miss Fossett put her cup down very carefully and wiped her lips on a tissue, refolding it despite the dark smears, and putting it back down on her tray.

“I’m not supposed to say,” she said. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

“No,
I’m
sorry,” said Opal. “And I’m sorry your mum died too.”

“I nursed her when I came back, but she died anyway,” Norah said. “She had a stroke.”

“She must have been very young,” said Opal.

“Ninety,” Norah said. She tipped her cup right up and sucked out the very last drops of cocoa. Opal nodded. It was hard to follow Norah’s elastic sense of time. She put cocoa down for a cat she’d had decades ago and missed out half her lifetime saying something happened when she was away and then something else when she came back again.

“So after your father died, it was just your mother and you?” said Opal.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it,” Norah said.

“But of course it wasn’t!” said Opal, remembering about the niece and nephew. “You had brothers and sisters, didn’t you?”

“No,” said Miss Fossett. “I was an only child.”

“Me too,” said Opal. Then she frowned again. “But Shelley said you had a niece, Norah.”

“And a nephew and a great-niece and a great-nephew,” said Miss Fossett, delighted again, rolling the words around and beaming just as she had the first time.

“So how was that then? Were they your brother’s children?”

“I haven’t got a brother, I never had a brother, I don’t want a brother,” Norah said, then she drew a breath and started it over again. “I haven’t got a brother, I never had a brother, I wouldn—”

“Or your sister’s children, maybe?” Opal said.

“Oh!” said Miss Fossett. “I wish I had a sister. I would play with her all day and tell her my secrets.”

Opal smiled at her. This was worse than talking to a drunk. “I wish I had a sister too,” Opal said.

“I’m an only child,” Norah said again. “It was Father and Mother and me, and then Mother and me, and now me.”

“Same here!” Opal said. “Just the same. Mum and Dad and me, and then Mum and me, and now just me.” She didn’t mention Steph and her half-brother, Michael, but it made her pause and look at Norah even more closely. Maybe they had that in common too. Maybe Father didn’t die in the war at all. Maybe he went off and left Norah and her mum and married again, and
that’s
how Norah could be an only child with a niece and a nephew.

“And they’re helping you out now, aren’t they?” Opal said. “Helping you clear out your stuff?”

“Father and Mother are dead,” said Miss Fossett. “Father died in the war, when I—Father died in the war and I nursed Mother, but she died too.”

“I meant your niece and your nephew,” Opal said. “They’re helping you clear out the house?” At least, she bloody hoped so. Hope they weren’t just waiting until Norah was at some day-centre and then coming round with a van.

“Clear out the attic,” Miss Fossett said.

“Right, right,” Opal said. “A fox fur and some jewelry and silver.”

“Mother had a fox fur,” said Miss Fossett. “It’s not mine. None of this is mine.”

“Right,” said Opal.

“My things are in my room,” said Miss Fossett.

“Is your bed in your room?” Opal said.

“My bed and my bedside table and my dressing chest and ward-
robe.”

“I’d love to see it,” said Opal. “Is Emerald there?”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Fossett, brightening up at the idea. “We could go and look for her.”

So she pushed away the tray table and got to her feet. There was none of the hauling and groaning you’d expect for such an old lady. She hopped up like a bird and pattered off across the stained carpet to the door. She was part of the way up the stairs before Opal had got up from her perch, shaken the life back into her legs, and followed her.

“Do come upstairs,” she said, making that same sweeping gesture as when she’d shown Opal into the morning room. “If you would like to wash your hands, I can show you where.”

“I’m all right,” Opal said. “Let’s see if we can find Emerald.”

“And Angeline,” said Miss Fossett. “She’s got golden hair and blue eyes and she’s lovely, but Emerald is my favourite.” She was at the landing and she turned and gave Opal a serious look, eye-to-eye since Opal was a few steps below. “I don’t want you to tell Angeline,” she said, looking first over one shoulder and the over the other. “But I think she knows. I gave Emerald the dress with the lace, and Angeline had to wear the plain one. I heard her crying.”