As She Left It (35 page)

“Hey! Hey,” Frank was reaching over across the middle seat, shaking her and she opened her eyes and looked at his arm, seeing bluebirds that weren’t really there. “You were moaning.”

“I had a nightmare.”

“I’m definitely getting you looked at,” Frank said. “Here we are.” He swung the van into the hospital gates and headed for the car park.

“But Fishbo first,” said Opal. “Just in case.”

“Baby Girl,” said Fishbo, lifting his eyelids about half an inch for about half a second, as if they were made of lead. He was wearing another oxygen mask over his face and it was hissing so loudly she had to bend close to hear his croak of a voice over it.

“Mr. Fish,” she said. “How are you feeling?” She took hold of one of his hands, cold and stiff.

“Cuttin’ loose,” he whispered. “Shaking the dust off my heels and breakin’ free.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Let him speak, love,” said Pep Kendal, who was sitting in a chair on the other side of the high bed. He looked just about as tired as Fishbo and twice as grey.

“Can’t they help you?” Opal said. “What is it anyway?” She could hear her voice rising and getting shaky. She knew she shouldn’t cry, should stay calm for him, but … Mr. Fish!

“Streptococcal pneumonia,” said Pep Kendal. “Both lungs.”

“But you can’t die of pneumonia,” said Opal.

“Cain’t say they owe me!” said Fishbo. “I done wore these lungs out, blowin’ that ole horn.” He spread his lips as far as they would go under the mask, the old beaming Fishbo smile.

“Pep,” Opal said. “Can I have a minute on my own?”

Pep looked as if he wanted to say no, but he also looked as if he needed to lie down on a row of chairs and sleep for a week, so in the end he got up and left them.

“One minute,” he said, pausing at the door. “And don’t you upset him.”

Opal listened to the hiss of the oxygen for a moment or two once they were alone and watched the double hitch of Fishbo’s bony chest as it rose and fell.

“I spoke to Cleora,” she said. Once again, Fishbo’s eyes fluttered. “She sent you her love.”

“Me?” Fishbo said.

“You,” said Opal. “Eugene Gordon. She sent all her love. And she said you’ve got a new great-grandson. What was his name … ? Travon.”

“Ayyyyyy, Baby Girl. What you been at, huh?”

“Sorry.”

“Eugene Gordon is long gone.”

“I know, but she still loves you.”
Where’s the harm
, Opal thought,
in letting him think that now?

“Eugene was my brother, but he’s gone on ahead of me.”

“You’re … George?”

“I’m George. Cleora is a fine woman and if she’da been mine, I’da hung on to her.”

“Why did you pretend to be Eugene?” Opal asked. There was nothing but the hiss of the oxygen for a long, long time. Then at last he drew in a hard, hurting breath and spoke.

“Eugene had a license,” he said.

“For what?” said Opal.

“Drive cab,” said Fishbo. “No use to him back home, and I needed a job. Man’s got to live.”

“You …” Opal stared at him. “The crash? You didn’t … ? I don’t believe you.” Fishbo lifted one eyelid just enough to let a slit of light show.

“You wanna believe I left Cleora, Samantha, and Little George?” he said.

“No,” said Opal.

“Cain’t have both,” Fishbo breathed. “Pick one, Baby Girl.”

“No,” said Opal again. “You’re confused, that’s all.”

“Thass right,” said Fishbo. “I’m confuse. And iss all over now.”

Opal waited to see if he meant it literally, but in a second or two, he was speaking again.

“You still there, Baby? Iss dark in here.”

“I’m here, Mr. Fish.”

“I wann you play, hear me? Mooon Reeeebahhhh. Play for me.”

“I haven’t got a trumpet,” Opal said. “And the nurses would probably kill us both.”

“He doesn’t mean now, you daft lump,” said Pep’s voice from the doorway. “He means at the funeral. He’s been going on and on about it. That’s why I asked Zula to bring you.”

“Right,” said Opal. She turned back to the bed. “You have got a deal, Fishbo,” she said. “I’ll play.”

Pep was wiggling his eyebrows at her and so she stood, kissed Fishbo on his cheek to one side of the mask and then on the head where it wasn’t so crowded, and went back to the waiting room.

“What are
you
doin’g here?” she said, when she saw them all. Vonnie Pickess was sitting between Margaret and Zula, in her blue print dress with her white cardi folded on her knee.

“I’ve known that man since before you were born,” Mrs. Pickess said. “Who put you in charge? I was here when it was your mother too, you know, which is more than I can—”

“Come on with you both,” said Margaret. “This isn’t the time. Hang on and you can have a proper punch up at the wake.”

Opal laughed in spite of everything, but she could see Franz Ferdi—Frank, she would have to start calling him—giving Margaret an odd look as if he couldn’t quite fathom her.

“Will you come round to casualty now, Opal?” he said. “If you’ve said your goodbyes.”

“In a minute,” said Opal. “I need to talk to … ” she looked at the three of them sitting there “ … all of you really.”

“I’ll just … ” said Frank and walked away.

Opal sat down opposite the three women and leaned back very slowly. Her head felt as if it would split right down the back so she leaned forward again.

“I could understand why
you
didn’t want to tell the police when Craig went missing, Margaret,” she said. “You and Denny and Karen would have been up in court. Maybe in jail. But I couldn’t understand why Zula kept the secret. Until now.”

“What are you talking about, Opal my soul?” said Margaret. “Mr. Gilbert said you had a bang on the head.”

“George Gordon,” she said, and she saw Zula stiffen, “didn’t have a driving license, and he caused a crash. And you covered it up. So years later you didn’t want the police poking into everyone’s past and finding out that Eugene wasn’t really Eugene. Is that it?”

“That’s it,” Zula said, exhaling loudly. “We had our five boys to think of. If Sunil and I had been tried and convicted, what would have happened to our boys?”

Opal nodded and then winced. “But what about you, Mrs. Pickess?” she said. “Why did you buy my mother’s brandy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mrs. Pickess, but her hands were twisting her folded cardigan as if she was kneading dough.

“Vonnie?” said Margaret, turning. Mrs. Pickess didn’t meet her gaze, and Opal didn’t blame her.

“Two of my pals from Tesco at Roundhay are willing to swear that you did,” she said.

“She was an addict,” Mrs. Pickess said. “It was a kindness, really.”

Opal waited. Margaret waited, staring at Mrs. Pickess, her damp eyes enormous behind her bifocals. Zula waited too, but she was thinking furiously, couldn’t hide the fact that she was.

“She was better off after a drink,” Mrs. Pickess said at last. “When she sobered up, she started all kinds of nonsense. On and on about that blessed outhouse.” Opal felt her insides shift. Zula put her hand over mouth. Margaret just kept staring, but her jaw was trembling now. “‘Poor little kiddie, locked in the outhouse’,” she used to say. She used to say she wanted to tell someone. She was going to
tell
someone.”

“Whose outhouse?” Margaret said.

“Mine,” said Mrs. Pickess. “And I chased him out. Margaret, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve prayed for forgiveness. He was hiding in there, and I chased him away. I had just given it all a coat of fresh emulsion and he’d gone in and scuffed it.”

“Right!” said Opal. She put her hands against both sides of her head to stop the pounding. “He was covered in paint! You thought if they found him in my mum’s outhouse, they’d know he’d been in yours.”

“Margaret, I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Pickess said again.

“How could they find him in your mother’s outhouse?” Margaret said.

“Because that’s where he was,” said Zula. “That’s where he’s been all this time.”

Opal nodded. “And because you believed that, you gave her the stuff to fill in the floor. And when she’d died you kept an eye on the place, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t want bailiffs poking round,” said Zula.

“And you tried to make sure I came back so that new people wouldn’t come and dig it up again.”

“We’d have bought it if you hadn’t come.”

“And you did it on the quiet so that no one would know you were involved. And you told me time and again that you would help if I ever started working on the place. Right? But can I ask you something? Why did you think he was in there?”

“Because he was,” said Zula. “He is. Like Vonnie said. Nicola talked about it all the time. The kiddie in the outhouse. Locked in. ‘All the blood,’ she used to say.”

“Oh, Lord, so she did,” said Mrs. Pickess, and she put her hands over her face and started rocking.

Margaret was shaking now as if she was holding onto a pneumatic drill. Her heels rattled against the floor and her arms shook at her sides.

“Craig,” she said. “In your mother’s yard? All this time? Little Craig?”

“He isn’t,” said Opal firmly. “He never was.” Her head felt like a peeled egg, just a membrane holding it together and like it would burst any minute. “The kiddie in the outhouse with all the blood? That was me.”

“Ladies?” One of the auxiliaries had been watching them from the nurses’ station. “Is everything okay? Are you feeling ill, love?” They all looked at her to see which one of them she was talking to.

“Just upset,” said Zula. “Tired out.”

“Do you want me to ask how your … ” she ran out of words, looking round the four of them wondering what relation they could all possibly have in common.

“Although Opal here needs to go and have a check for concussion, don’t you, my soul?”

Opal put her hand up to the back of her head and felt the lump there. Then the auxiliary nurse did the same and her eyes widened.

“You better had,” she said.

“I’ll take her.” Frank was back, with four plastic cups of tea. “Save one of those for Mr. Kendal, eh?”

But when they were on their way, walking through the corridors, following the painted lines that showed the route, Opal started arguing.

“It’s not concussion,” she said. “It’s not my head, it’s my brain. Listen, can we just sit down and I’ll try to tell you?”

So they got another two plastic cups of tea from another machine and sat on a windowsill on a long empty corridor and Opal tried to tell him: about Gene and George Gordon, about Friday night not Saturday morning, and the little boy who hid in vans and outhouses and got paint on himself, and the brandy and the concrete and the kiddie in the outhouse who wasn’t Craig Southgate at all—it was her, Opal Jones.

“Only … God, I can’t explain it. I know it was me, but all I can remember is Robbie’s arm with the bluebird tattoos. I’ve been having nightmares about them.”

“Who’s Robbie?” said Frank.

“Craig’s dad. My mum’s boyfriend. But there’s something I’ve forgotten.” She shook her head, frustrated.

“Hang on, love,” said Frank. “Are you saying Craig Southgate’s dad did something to you in your outhouse that you can’t remember? Or that he made you promise not to tell? You need to go to the police. They need to find that little boy’s body, for his mum and his granny’s sake, and if you know that his dad was the kind of man who’d—”

“No, no, no,” said Opal. “That’s not right. It’s not what you think. Even Karen Reid said her ex-husband would never hurt Craig. Hurt any kid, really. She was so angry with me for even saying his name.”

“So what is it that happened then?”

“I can’t remember, but it wasn’t when I was tiny. It was just before I left and went to Whitby. I was twelve. It was a few years before Craig went missing. How can I not remember something that happened when I was a great big girl of twelve?”

“A great big girl of twelve?” said Frank and there were tears in his eyes. “Opal, love, listen to yourself. What are you saying? My Charlie’s twelve, and she’s a baby.”

“Can we go and see Norah?” Opal said. “I’m so sure if I talk to her, I’ll remember what it is I’ve been trying so hard to forget. I know I sound crazy. But Norah sounds crazy too half the time. I think she could help me.”

FORTY
-
FOUR

S
HE WAS IN THE
morning room, tucked up in her chair with the tray table pulled in front, watching her circus.

“You!” she said. “And you too! Both together.”

“Hiya, Norah,” Opal said. “Yes, both together today. And I bet you can’t guess where I’ve been since I was here earlier on. God, was that really today? It feels like a week ago.”

“I’m not allowed to bet,” Norah said.

“I’ve been down to St. Michael and All Angels,” Opal said. “I went to see Martin.”

“Sorry,” said Norah. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

Frank shifted from foot to foot, and Opal knew what he was thinking. It was a long time ago, no way of knowing what really happened, and this sweet little thing would melt a heart of stone. But Opal had been a sweet little thing once too, and she wasn’t so easy to fool as him.

“He died, didn’t he?” she said.

“I haven’t got a brother,” said Norah.

Opal signalled to Frank to move out of view behind the armchair and she moved too, leaned over the back and waited a moment or two while Norah watched the screen.

“How did he die, Norah?” she said.

“A rope,” Norah said.

“Were you there?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Norah said. “I was only playing.”

Opal heard Frank catch his breath, and she held her hand out to him to keep him quiet a little longer.

“Is that why you went away?”

“I didn’t go away,” Norah said. “Martin went away. And he never came back, ever again. I haven’t got a brother, I never had a brother, I don’t want a brother.”

“But you were away when Father died, weren’t you?” Opal said.

“
They
sent me away,” Norah said. “It was them.”

Opal looked down at the top of her head, wondering what to ask next. There was no point in saying 1943 and 1945 to Norah, trying to talk about when Martin died and then her father. But it occurred to her that she didn’t know how old Norah was. If she could tie Father dying or Norah’s trip away from home to an age in her girlhood, maybe Norah would remember.