As She Left It (22 page)

“These are dolls, right?” Opal said.

“Yes,” Miss Fossett nodded. “But I can still understand them when they talk to me.”

TWENTY
-
EIGHT

T
HAT, AS FAR AS
Opal was concerned, was just a bit too Bates Motel for her liking. Added to which the staircase was dark and the spaces in between the fancy bits on the banisters were just about choked right up with cobwebs like they’d been sprayed for Halloween and, all in all, Opal decided that if when they got to Norah’s room, “Emerald” and “Angeline” had their heads missing or turned round to the back or damaged in any way (or any part of their bodies really, but especially their heads), or if they were doing anything except sitting propped up on a shelf like dolls should, she was going to run away and never come back again.

Miss Fossett was heading towards the back of the house, down a few stairs and round a corner and all of a sudden there was no carpet, just dark brown lino and a door that looked as if it had been made for her. Opal didn’t have to stoop—she was only five three—but it was the smallest door she’d ever walked through.

“Here we are,” Miss Fossett said. She trotted over and stood beside her bed, smiling but standing up very straight like she was ready for inspection.

Opal looked around the room. It had a ceiling that dipped down at the edges, and there were black bars over the outside of the window. It must have been the maid’s room or something.

“This is yours?” she said, wondering how many empty rooms they had gone past.

Miss Fossett nodded, and Opal looked at the painted bed, white with little gold paint droplets along the edge of the headboard like a necklace, one big teardrop shape in the middle. The bedside stand had a gold-painted handle to its single drawer and the dressing table—the dressing chest, Miss Fossett had called it—had more of the droplets round the mirror.

“It’s really pretty,” she said. It was, but it was puzzling too.

“Thank you,” said Miss Fossett.

“And it’s very tidy.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Fossett again, although she sounded troubled this time, and she put her head down. But Opal meant it. She hadn’t believed a word of that downstairs about all the stuff being “theirs,” but there were no piles of records and bales of tablecloths up here. There was a hairbrush with a comb stuck in it on the dressing table and there was an old-fashioned kind of a little book on the bedside table, soft-looking with leather covers, too small for a Bible. A prayer book, maybe.

“But it’s very small.” Opal figured that the footboard with the secret compartments (plus its headboard that had to be at least as big) would fill this little room to bursting, if it even got through the door. Maybe the bed wasn’t Norah’s at all. Her mother’s? How old could those pieces of paper be? But looking at the door she saw that it had a bar lock, like a bathroom would have, and she thought surely a little girl wouldn’t sleep in a room where she could lock herself in. Not one with bars on the window too and an open fireplace. That just wasn’t safe.

“Norah,” she said, “has this always been your room?”

Miss Fossett shook her head. “It’s the nursery,” she said. “We were in here when we were tiny, before we had our own big rooms beside Mother and Father.”

“Right,” said Opal. “Who’s
we
?”

“Sorry,” Miss Fossett said. “Sorry.”

“When did you move back here?”

“Sorry.”

“Was it when you came back? After you’d been away?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Norah said, the words getting faster and higher again.

“Do you know what I’d love?” said Opal, clapping her hands. “I’d love to see your other room. The big one.”

“I’m not allowed to go in there,” Miss Fossett said.

“Yeah, but you could show me the door,” Opal said. “I’ll just have a peek.”

“I can’t go in. They told me I wasn’t allowed to.”

“No, but you just point to the door,” said Opal. “And then you wait downstairs. When I come down, I’ll put the circus tape on.”

“Oh yes!” said Miss Fossett. “We can watch my circus tape.”

And she was off again. She got to the head of the stairs and started tripping her way down them, slightly sideways on, one-two-three and one-two-three like a schoolgirl.

“Hey, hang on!” said Opal. “Which one is your old bedroom?” Norah’s head was only just above the level of the upstairs floor, but she turned and looked through the banisters.

“Dusty,” she said. “I’m not allowed to dust.”

For the first time, Opal wondered if Norah was capable of having someone on. “Not allowed to dust” sounded about as likely as “not allowed to eat vegetables,” which she herself had tried on Steph one of the first times she visited Whitby. She could remember Steph and Sandy laughing at her and the tears filling her eyes.

“Which one, Norah love?” she said, and Miss Fossett pointed one of her skinny little fingers with the dry soft skin and the horny nails before she turned and scampered away.

Opal walked over to the door she’d pointed at, grabbed the handle, and turned. The creak sent a shiver across the back of her neck and she had to tell herself it was a summer evening in the middle of Leeds and there was no one in the house except a little old lady and her. She put her head round the door and then opened it up completely and stepped in, gawping.

It was empty. Totally empty. Not so much as a square of carpet on the floor. The fireplace was very fancy with green and white tiles all around, and the window was hung with nets and paper blinds and stiff shiny curtains covered in green and white jugglers or minstrels or something. They looked completely ridiculous in the blank space, like wedding dresses at a funeral, Christmas trees on the beach. But at least it was an answer. Opal knew exactly the kind of over-the-top furniture that would look at home in here.

But where was everything? Well, she knew what had happened to some of it, mixed up and cut adrift, washing up at Claypole’s and fooling everyone, even experienced bidders. But the rest?

“Where’s all your stuff?” she said to Norah when she got back to the morning room. “Your big bed.”

“I haven’t got a big bed. I’ve got a beautiful little bed. White and gold and fit for a princess. Mother bought it for me.”

“Yeah, but the one you had before?” said Opal. “Is it in the attic? Did you give it to your niece maybe?”

“She can’t have my bed!” said Miss Fossett. “Where will I sleep?”

“Not the gold and white one,” said Opal. “Don’t worry.”

“Where will I
sleep
?” said Miss Fossett. “I’m not supposed to go in the other rooms. I’m not allowed to.”

“Sorry,” said Opal. “Maybe I meant someone else’s. There are a lot of bedrooms, aren’t there? Your mum and dad’s for a start.”

“Please don’t give my little bed away. I got it for my birthday and I never sleep anywhere else, ever ever ever.”

“Did you take it with you when you went away?” Opal said.

“To Filey?”

“Was it Filey you went to?”

“Every summer. We go with Mother, and Father comes and takes his holiday.”

“And who’s
we
, Norah?”

But Miss Fossett only blinked. “Mother and Father and me.”

“Right,” Opal said. “Okay. You win. I’ll put your circus tape on for you, and then I’ll have to go. But I’ll come back again and make you some cocoa another day. Have you ever had cocoa with marshmallows on top?”

“On top of the cocoa?” said Miss Fossett, her eyes looking quite like two marshmallows—round and pink—as she took in this amazing idea.

“I’ll bring some,” said Opal. “And I’ll do a bit of dusting upstairs too, if you like.” She was fussing with the remote now, trying to work out the video and she hadn’t realized, but she’d started talking to Miss Fossett as if she wasn’t really there, or as if she was a cat or a baby. “See if I can get things sorted out for you. Track down some of these incredible vanishing beds of yours.”

“Not mine,” said Miss Fossett. “I’ve got my bed.”

“Right,” said Opal. “Not too big and not too small but juuuust right. Ah! Got it. Forward play.”

“Goldilocks,” said Miss Fossett. She was pulling her tray table over in front of her chair again, settling in.

“Just about,” Opal said.

“Who’s been sleeping in
my
bed?” Miss Fossett said. She was staring at the screen where the penalties for showing the tape on oil rigs and in prisons were scrolling by.

“You tell me, Norah,” Opal said. She put the remote on the tray table and stood behind Miss Fossett’s chair, noticing that she had put her thumb in her mouth. “You tell me.”

Miss Fossett took her thumb out again with a plopping sound.

“Martin,” she said and her voice was slack and dreamy as she gazed at the screen. Fireworks were bursting all over it and then came
BILLY SMART PRESENTS
picked out in fizzing flares against a black background. Opal could hardly let enough breath go to ask the next question.

“Who’s Martin, love?”

“My brother.”

Opal came back around the side of the chair and crouched down. Miss Fossett blinked and refocused as Opal’s face took the place of the firework writing in front of her.

“Where’s Martin now?” But Miss Fossett shrank back in her chair and jerked both her slippered feet straight out in front of her, knocking Opal backwards.

“I haven’t got a brother, I don’t want a brother, I never had a brother.”

“I know, I know,” said Opal picking herself up again. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,” said Miss Fossett.

“Look, Norah, horseys,” said Opal, pointing at the television. “Look, clowns. And remember I’m going to make you cocoa with marshmallows soon.” Norah was still whimpering, the
sorry
s making a shushing sound under her breath. “I’ll make it for you and Emerald and Angeline. Hmm? Would you like that?”

But it took another five minutes before she settled down and Opal thought it was safe to go. She paused at the bottom of the stairs and then shook her head. Never mind Norah, she
didn’t think
she
could take any more today. She let herself out and walked slowly along the tunnel to the garden door.

So. Norah used to have a big bedroom with a great big bed. And she had a brother. And then she got a little bed and she moved to a room where she could lock the door and decided she didn’t have a brother and never had one and didn’t want one either. Who could blame her?

But Opal couldn’t stop thinking about how spry she was for a woman her age, whatever that age might be. If her brother had those good genes too, he might not be dead yet. And he had a daughter, Norah’s niece. And a granddaughter too.

So Opal would search the empty rooms and the attics and find the other half of that bed if it was there and put the whole note together and—if Martin was still alive—she would take it and she would … but probably the bed would be gone or the man would be dead or he might be as wandered as Norah was now and not understand if everyone got angry. And what would be the use of dragging it all out now? Could Norah still learn, at her age, with her old brain about as sharp as a marshmallow sinking into a cup of cocoa, that she wasn’t a bad girl and she didn’t have to say sorry?

Worth a try
, Opal told herself,
worth a damn good try.

TWENTY
-
NINE

T
HAT
S
ATURDAY—THE SEVENTEENTH OF
July—was the hottest day yet, the hottest day ever, since records began. Opal woke at five o’clock with the sun already throbbing in at the bedroom window and the air still thick and damp from the heat of the day before. She went for her bus and no one in the queue had a jacket over their arm or an umbrella folded up along the top of their handbag. Everyone—even the men—was wearing sandals. And out at the store two of the assistant managers were putting up parasols next to the doorway. Round in the warehouse, Dave and the supervisor from Wet Fish were dragging an open-front chiller on a trolley towards the flap doors.

“This is one of the turkey chillers,” Dave said. “Email from Head Office. It’s going to the door for water. We’re to fill it with chipped ice off of Fish and hand out bottled water.” He was caught, Opal thought, between feeling thrilled at the drama and being troubled by the notion of giving away something people would buy by the barrow-load anyway.

“Whole bottles,” said the Wet Fish supervisor. He was already in his white coat and trilby. “Not like samples. Not plastic beakers like a tasting.”

“Because we asked them, to be sure,” Dave said. “Whole bottles.
For free
.”

That was the start of the day’s madness. The barbecue hordes came early. Usually it was gone eleven before they started drifting in, tattooed and topless, filling deep trolleys with charcoal and Polish lager. But that day the first of them arrived before nine and some of the very first bought all of the ice, then the later ones wanted to know where the chipped ice in the open front chiller by the door had come from and why couldn’t they get some too. And one of the assistant managers had to be beeped to come and explain that it wasn’t edible ice and couldn’t be used in drinks, but then Charlotte had a mother complaining that one of the girls giving out the water had said to her little boy that he could have a scoop of it in his empty slushy cup and he’d eaten the lot. And there was no cream in the ten o’clock delivery—none at all—double, single, whipping, clotted, even Chantilly.

And then the UHT and aerosol cans ran out and everyone who had picked up strawberries on a twofer started putting them back again. Only hardly anyone bothered to go back and dump them with the rest of the strawberries; they just shoved them onto the nearest shelf and the store started to fill up with cartons of sweating strawberries. And Kate and Rhianne, detailed to seek them out and bring them home, couldn’t do it because the warehouse boys had brought out more and there was nowhere to put them, so they got stickered down and piled up in Reduced but that only started the whole strawberries-and-cream!, but-they’ve-no-cream-so-put-back-the-strawberries cycle all over again until, as Rhianne said: “I’m starting to recognise some of these buggers. This is the third time I’ve moved the carton with that big one like Santa’s nose.”