The House at the End of Hope Street Page 15

  —

  Peggy sits at her kitchen table sipping Earl Grey and listening to the radio: a dramatization of the abdication of Edward VIII. She remembers hearing his speech when it first aired in 1936. She was six years old, watching her mother washing dishes. She can’t recall now where her sisters were but remembers the house was silent, except for the radio.

  Today her tarot card is the Six of Cups: the card of simple blessings, family and innocence. Peggy closes her eyes to listen, but instead she’s back in her mother’s kitchen, splaying her tiny hands into starfish on the shiny plastic tablecloth.

  “You all know the reasons which have impelled me to renounce the throne… but I want you to know that, in making up my mind, I did not forget the country or the Empire . . “

  “What does ‘impelled’ mean, Mummy?” Peggy kicked her legs under the table.

  Milly Abbot turned and smiled at her daughter. “It means pushed, or forced. It means he doesn’t really have a choice.”

  “But he does.” Peggy frowned. “He doesn’t have to abandon us, does he?”

  Milly wiped her wet hands on her apron. She pulled out a chair and sat down. “He’s in love with a woman,” she explained, “but she’s not allowed to be queen. And he can’t marry her unless he stops being king. So—”

  Peggy interrupted. “But why can’t he just find another woman to marry?”

  “My dear, I’m afraid you can’t simply choose who you fall in love with. And, when you do, you can’t give them up so easily.”

  “Oh.” Little Peggy stared at her fingers, considering this. It made sense, she supposed. But she still felt she’d been let down somehow, that a grown-up had done something selfish.

  “. . . and he has one matchless blessing enjoyed by so many of you, and not bestowed on me: a happy home with his wife and children…”

  Peggy looked up, suddenly curious. “Are you happy, Mummy?”

  “Yes. I am, very.”

  Because her mother never lied, Peggy knew this was true, but she still wondered. Her sisters—all born exactly two years apart—were forever fighting. And her mother never seemed to do anything but look after everyone.

  “Do you ever want to run away?”

  “Sometimes.” Milly laughed. “But I also know that not everything I want every moment will actually make me happy. This is my circus, I’d miss it after a minute.”

  Peggy regarded her mother with a suspicious squint. “I want lots of different things. How do I know which one will make me happiest?”

  Back in her own kitchen, a song bursts out of the radio and Peggy jumps. Still caught up in the past, she wonders where she is, and where Milly has gone. Unable to summon the energy to stand and switch off the music, Peggy shuts her eyes and attempts to return to 1936, to remember her mother’s answer to the question.

  But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t. It’s gone.

  —

  Greer stands at the bar, polishing glasses. She holds each one for a few seconds over a bowl of hot water, watching the steam fill the paper-thin bulb, then gently rubs the smudges away with a cotton cloth. Every now and then she’s seized by the urge to smash one against the marble counter and watch it shatter. Today she’s wearing a black miniskirt with red leather boots. It’s her power outfit, the thing that will give her the confidence to break up with Blake. It must be done today.

  Greer has finally decided to heed Peggy’s nudging and take action. It’s time to get back to the business of addressing the mess that is her career, and for that she’ll need all her energy. No more white nights and slept-through days. She must focus. She must really apply herself, line up auditions and not stop until she succeeds at something. She should probably move to London and set her sights on the RSC. Greer feels strong. Resolute. This time she won’t cave in to his seductive southern ways, she won’t lose her will to the pull of mind-blowing sex.

  Less than an hour later Blake stumbles in to the bar, out of breath. Nearly knocking over a table on his way to the counter, he stands opposite Greer. She doesn’t look up.

  “Hey, Red.” He gives her his best grin. “How you doing today?”

  “I’m fine.” Her voice is controlled and cold.

  Panic tugs at Blake’s heart. It’s worse than he thought. He’ll have to do some damage control, quickly.

  “I missed you, Red.” He holds out the flowers, red tulips and roses, toward her.

  “You didn’t call.” Her words are sharp as flint. “You haven’t been to the bar in days.”

  “I know, I’m sorry, sweetheart, I had a heap of stuff to sort out. Let me take you to dinner tonight.” He reaches for her hand but she pulls back. “I’ll make it up to you after.”

  “No.” Greer feels tears threatening. She must be quick. “This isn’t… we’re not right—”

  “Don’t say that,” he says, “please, don’t.”

  She hears the crack in his voice and is surprised. He must care more than she realized. For a moment she wonders. Seeing she’s wavering, Blake reaches again for her hand and, this time, she doesn’t flinch away. It is her fatal mistake. As his warmth flushes her skin, Greer’s resolve weakens.

  “Give me another chance.” Blake gently lifts her chin until their eyes meet. “You won’t regret it, I promise.”

  “The flowers are lovely.” Greer surrenders a little smile. “My favorite color.”

  “I know, Red, I remember.” He fixes her with his most alluring smile. And she is trapped, helpless, as he leans over the counter and kisses her so deeply that her cheeks glow, her heart swells and her womb begins to throb.

  —

  Alba lies across her bed, Albert’s pen in her hand, the yellow notebook open, trying to come up with something to write—fiction, not fact. But her mind is completely blank. And she keeps getting distracted, wondering if the private detective has made any discoveries yet. The pen is beautiful, which is something. Letters flow out of it, silky across the page, dark blue on white. But so far Alba has only three sentences. Crossed out.

  Fireworks explode, scattering light like fistfuls of stars. Esme tucks her head under the pillow. Everyone is celebrating in the garden but she escaped hours ago.

  Seeking inspiration, Alba glances up at her books, catching sight of Great Expectations snuggled between North and South and Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Dickens was Dr. Skinner’s favorite author. With a sigh Alba thinks again of that day. The day everything fell apart.

  She found out about Dr. Skinner’s betrayal while sitting in her favorite place on earth: a table underneath a south-facing window in the university library. There she could pretend she was alone in the world with only eight million books for company. A cast-iron radiator fixed to the wall toasted her ever-cold feet when she slipped her toes between its ridges.

  It was Zoë who brought her the news. She snuck up behind Alba and tapped her gently on the shoulder. “Sorry,” she said when Alba flinched, “I didn’t want to disturb you, but I’ve just got something I thought you’d want to see.”

  “Oh?” Alba closed Pitt and Peel: The Legacy of Youth on Victorian Britain and looked at the Journal of Modern History in Zoë’s hand: edition 8312.

  “Your supervisor just published a paper. It’s brilliant.” Zoë nodded at Alba’s notebook. “You know, you must be the only one in here without a computer—”

  “What? But the article—” Alba looked suddenly startled. “What’s the title?”

  “‘Mona Caird and the Marriage Question in 1888: A Revisionist History.’”

  “Really?” Alba wondered if Dr. Skinner had been meaning to surprise her with it. She took the journal and flicked through its pages until she found the title in bold and, underneath, the author’s name: Dr. A. Skinner.

  One name. Alone. Single.

  It must be a mistake. She stared at the black letters standing out aga
inst the white page, trying to suppress her rising panic. Perhaps this article was a precursor to the real one, perhaps Dr. Skinner had written it to prepare for their joint paper so that it would have the impact it deserved. Entirely forgetting Zoë, Alba began to read. Although she was an extremely fast reader with a nearly photographic memory, it took her two hours to read the article’s ten pages. Ten pages of what would now be known to the world—at least the world of academic historians—as Dr. Skinner’s brilliant revision of Victorian marriage mores in the late nineteenth century. It was a perfect, word-for-word account of her initial notes, crafted into elegant, brilliant paragraphs that followed every line of her reasoning exactly.

  When she’d finished reading, Alba stayed at the desk, still holding the magazine, staring at the wall. Her world had turned on its axis, tipping so far that she could no longer see straight. And Alba sat there, until the library closed at ten o’clock and a concerned Zoë had to ask her to leave.

  —

  Carmen kneels in the dirt, carefully scooping out handfuls of soil with her fingers. Twilight sinks slowly into night, but the sky is still light enough for her to see by. Carmen wishes she’d never done it, wishes she had never brought it with her to England. It was a stupid mistake. And then it started to smell so strongly of Tiago, of sex and cigarettes, that it began to choke her. So Carmen tried to get rid of it, and burying it seemed the most sensible option. Though of course it hasn’t worked.

  The midnight glory was the first plant Carmen saw when she came to the house. Its nearly black flowers reminded her of Tiago, how everything around him turned dark, so it had seemed appropriate. And she thought, once she buried the last piece of him, that she could get on with her life, that she could forget. But it’s just the opposite, and now he’s poisoning everything around him.

  As Carmen digs she prays to a Catholic God she no longer worships that she’s doing the right thing—not burying her problems but facing them. She thinks of the night it all went wrong, the night their love turned sour. Tiago had invited Carmen up on stage to sing a duet with him, something he wanted to serenade her with. But when she sang, the audience fell silent, totally enchanted. And when she stopped they cheered so loudly, begging for an encore, that Tiago couldn’t hear himself singing his part. He stared at her. A light had flicked on inside Carmen, one he’d never seen before, not even when they made love. But it went out the moment she saw his face. That night he slapped her, warning her not to take on airs or think she was anything special to anyone but him. Carmen never sang after that. Indeed, she hardly ever left the house again.

  “Foda!” Carmen’s knuckles hit the box and she winces, pulling her hand out of the ground and rubbing away the pain. She glances up at the sky and the black shadows of the trees as the last patch of light slips away. She doesn’t have any more time. Carmen wraps her fingers around the wooden edges of the box and pulls it out of the soil. She places it next to her on the grass, hurriedly fills the hole, stamps down the dirt, spits on it, then turns back toward the house with the box in her hand.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning Carmen wakes feeling lighter than she has in years. And she knows, before she even opens her eyes that, for doing as it asked, the house has given her a gift. She has no idea what it is, but she has a sense of where. Slipping out of bed, Carmen pads across the room, steps into the corridor and hurries into the living room. And there, by the bay windows overlooking the front garden, stands a baby grand piano.

  She walks to it slowly, postponing the moment of joy, savoring every juicy second. She slides her fingers along the smooth golden wood, sending sparks of excitement through her hands. Carmen smoothes the back of her nightdress and sits on the black leather bench. The moment she touches her fingers to the keys she begins riffing chords, jumping octaves, speeding up and down the notes.

  At last she stops, her hands held in midair as a shaft of sunlight slips across the wood. She stares at the line of dust motes that dance in and out of the light, mesmerized by the way they move. Gradually a memory rises up inside her, a flicker, the shadow of a dream. And as she starts to play again, Carmen sings a song remembered from long ago. And then she thinks of Alba, knowing what she has to do now.

  —

  “I need help.”

  “With what?”

  “Writing,” Alba admits. There isn’t any point in keeping her desire a secret anymore, since she can’t seem to do it anyway. And today is the first of July. She can’t wait for too long; in six weeks she’ll never see Stella again. This thought brings tears to Alba’s eyes and she blinks them back.

  “Well, okay. What do you want to write?”

  “I don’t know.” Alba holds the pen between her fingers, clicking the lid. “I wanted it to take my mind off… things. But it’s not really working.”

  “That’s because you need some inspiration first,” Stella says. “You need to live a little. You need to get into mischief, fall in love…”

  “Mischief?” Alba repeats, as if the ghost is speaking a foreign language she’s not sure she wants to learn. “Love?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did you do that, then?” Alba shifts the subject. “When you were alive?”

  “Oh, absolutely.” Stella smiles. “All the time.”

  Alba snaps on the pen lid with a triumphant click. “You said you couldn’t remember anything.”

  “Did I?” Stella asks, unabashed. “Well, maybe some of it’s starting to come back to me now.”

  Alba sits up. “Like what?”

  “Just things.”

  “What things?”

  “You don’t want to hear debauched tales of my misspent youth. It’s all too sordid. It’d shock you.” But Stella smiles, knowing it’s time.

  “Please,” Alba says, “stop teasing me.”

  “Oh, all right, then.” Stella feigns a sigh of surrender. “So, I grew up rather like you, amidst a great deal of material wealth but very little love. I was sent to Cheltenham Ladies’ College just after my sixth birthday—”

  “Really?” Alba’s surprised at the coincidence. “I was eight.”

  “You were luckier than me, then. God, how I hated it, I ran away a dozen times. I was an only child ’til I was nine, then I came home one day to a baby sister. My parents hadn’t said anything. It was a bloody shock, to say the least.”

  “Did you like her?”

  “No.” Stella laughed. “I wanted to kill her. Once, I tried to smother her with a pillow, and I would have if her nanny hadn’t walked in.”

  “Oh.” Alba thinks of her half siblings, how they must have hated her even more than that. She wonders when they found out the truth. She wonders if she’ll ever dare to speak to them again.

  “Exactly,” Stella says. “But, luckily, Beth was a rather forgiving sort of girl and we made friends, until I loved her more than anyone else in the world. She was twelve when I died. She still looked for me around every corner and in every room, poor thing. But of course I wasn’t there, I was here.”

  “How did you die?”

  “Drugs, drink… all very clichéd, I’m afraid.” Stella shrugs. “But then it was the sixties, all the cool people were dying that way.”

  “You died here, in the house?”

  Stella nods. “Pills. Like Joplin and Monroe and Morrison…”

  “But I thought…” Alba thinks of her mother and takes a deep breath. “Peggy said the house helps everyone—”

  “With a few tragic exceptions, remember?” Stella says. “Well, I was one of those.”

  “But,” Alba whispers, “what, how… ?”

  “I wanted to be a singer,” Stella says. “Not a star. I just dreamt of writing songs and singing them. In clubs and cafés, that sort of thing.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t have the guts I suppose. I didn’t think I was go
od enough to start with and I didn’t try to be any better. Maybe I was just lazy or terrified, or both.” She sighs. “So instead I fell in love with a few musicians, and followed them around the country and listened to them play and let them write songs about me, and pretended I didn’t know when they were fooling around. And I pretended to myself that it was good enough, that it was a life close enough to the one I really wanted. It wasn’t until I found myself here that I knew it wasn’t.”

  “So why didn’t you change, when you came here?”

  “Like I said, I was one of those exceptions. I didn’t—”

  “But why couldn’t the house help you?” Alba’s voice starts to crack. “I thought it was supposed to take care of people, I thought it was supposed to help.”

  “It does its best,” Stella says. “But it can’t save everyone. It shows people the way, it gives them a little nudge now and then, but the house can’t do everything. And some people don’t have what it takes to be happy. It’s not an easy thing, you know. It takes great courage and determination, to keep looking for light in all the darkness of life.”

  “And you didn’t have it?”

  “No, not then, I didn’t,” Stella admits. “But don’t worry about me. I had my chance, and it was a good one. I didn’t suffer massive deprivations or diseases. I had a pretty comfortable time of it, all in all. Just like you. That’s why I’m a perfect example for—”

  “Me?” Alba frowns.

  “Exactly,” Stella smiles. “Most of my misery was self-inflicted, too, so—”

  “Hey! That’s not—”

  “Fair?” Stella interrupts. “Harsh, perhaps, but entirely fair. You didn’t have the best childhood, admittedly, but it wasn’t hideous. And you’re all grown up now, so it’s up to you to decide if you’re going to at last let go of all that and get on with your life.”

  “But,” Alba protests, “you just said it wasn’t easy.”

  “Not for some, true. Not for Sylvia and Dorothy”—Stella nods at the ceiling—“and the one in the tower.”

  “Who?” Alba’s frown deepens. “Peggy?”