As She Left It (29 page)

“Just us two though?” she said, nodding at Mrs. Pickess’s door. “Where is she, in fact? Not like her to miss something.”

“Church,” said Margaret. “Where we should all be.”

“I didn’t know Mrs. Pickess was one for church,” Opal said. “Mind you, she dresses like it and she’s a big enough misery.”

“She’s been going ten years,” Margaret said.

“Ten years, eh?” said Opal.

“I took it she went to pray for Craig when she started,” Margaret said. “I never talked to her about it, but I’ll own it touched me. I should be kinder to her really. On her knees, praying for my little lost boy.”

Opal said nothing. She could believe that Craig disappearing might have had something to do with Vonnie Pickess getting religion, but she wasn’t so sure it was Craig and Karen, Margaret and Denny, that Mrs. Pickess was praying for. (Except, if it was Franz Ferdi threatening Opal with old photos and following her, what did Vonnie Pickess have to pray for?)

“Margaret?” Denny’s voice came through the open window. “Are you ever coming in here and tell me how he’s doing?”

“I’ll get my vac and stuff and meet you in there,” Opal said and, by hurrying, by throwing into her mop bucket everything she could possibly need and wearing the mop across her shoulders like she was a milkmaid, she did it in one trip and was in Fishbo’s bedroom with the wardrobe pulled half over the door before Margaret arrived. Because no matter what Margaret said about trumpet spit, the paramedic—he wasn’t a van driver; he had a stethoscope on—had said “chemical irritant,” and Opal owed it to Fishbo now more than ever to do something good for him in the time he had left, however little that might be. And now she was sure that Pep hadn’t warned her off with that photograph through her door, there was nothing to stop her.

“I’ve shifted the furniture,” she called through the door at Margaret’s timid shouting of her name. “I want to get this place done first, and then we can divvy up the rest of it after.”

“Okay, my soul,” Margaret called back. “I’ve just seen the bathroom anyway, dear God in heaven, so I’ve plenty to keep me busy.”

Opal unwrapped the tissue from the frame on top of the pile. It was a photograph; she had known it would be. A posed studio portrait of a very beautiful young girl, with the hairdo of a film star in old black-and-white movie times, if there had been black film stars back then. She was smiling broadly, just short of grinning, and there was a light in her eyes that seemed to suggest she wasn’t far from laughing out loud. Opal studied her, her painted-on eyebrows, her cupid’s bow mouth (also painted on, and a good quarter-inch inside the real edges of her mouth, the rest of her lips covered with makeup and powdered down). Fishbo’s childhood sweetheart, most likely. Or it could be his sister, she supposed, but why would a sister be twinkling and giggling that way? She turned the picture over but there was nothing written on the back of it, so she laid it aside and unwrapped another.

A family group this time. Two stony-faced, middle-aged parents and a range of children from their twenties down to one who was still a baby. A grandchild maybe, or a big surprise. The beautiful film-star girl was here, one of the oldest ones, looking less well-groomed in this picture but just as happy. She was holding one of the smallest ones, and standing between two of the other eldest children. Opal studied their faces and gasped. One of them was definitely Fishbo. It was hard to say which, the family resemblance was so strong, but one or the other, it had to be. Hilarious, flattened-down hair with a center parting and a collar and thin tie that was almost as funny, but no mistaking him: the broad shoulders poking his jacket out as if it was still on a hanger and all the rest of his clothes just draped over his skin-and-bone figure, the same at twenty as he was today. Again she turned the picture over, but this time she was lucky. The names were on the back.

Eugene Sr., Isabella, Eugene Jr., George, Samuel, Samantha, Cleora, Little George, Little Samantha. 17 May 1960.

Opal flipped it back and forward a bit, trying to work out who was who, but the main point was that Little Samantha and Little George were babies then and they would definitely be alive today, even if the rest were gone. Then she frowned. There couldn’t be two brothers called George and Little George, could there? Or two sister Samanthas. She didn’t think so, although she supposed things could be different in New Orleans from how they were here. But probably that meant that Little George in Cleora’s or Isabella’s arms was a grandchild.

The next picture added another piece to the puzzle. Cleora wasn’t a daughter of the family at all, because here was a wedding picture of her standing beside George, Eugene at his elbow as best man and looking even more like him in their identical formal suits. Cleora was beautiful in a lace dress that pressed her figure in at the top and then spread like a tutu to her ankles and showed off slim, pretty feet in high-heeled white sandals. A flower girl that Opal thought was the sister Samantha was slightly out of focus on the other side as if she was moving when the camera clicked, scratching at her tight satin dress maybe or just squirming, hating to be dolled up that way and asked to stand still.

Right. So Fishbo had two brothers and a sister and at least one niece and nephew. Probably more if Samuel had met a Cleora of his own or if Samantha had got over her dislike of tight satin and had her own wedding day.

Opal listened and could hear Margaret singing in the bathroom, her voice growling on the low notes and soaring out of all control on the high ones. Was it a hymn? Opal cocked her head. Michael Bublé. She smiled and went back to the pile of papers that waited under the picture frames.

She meant to go right past the
Evening Posts
—they would tell her about life here in Leeds and it was New Orleans she needed to study up if she was ever going to find them, but she couldn’t help herself. Craig Southgate’s face stopped her dead, and she couldn’t move past it without looking. There was Karen, Robbie at her side, divorce forgotten for the moment. Opal felt a lurch when she looked at Robbie Southgate. In her real memory of him he was just a voice and a pair of jeans, but there was his face and hairstyle and the little bluebird tattoo on his forearm; she had forgotten he had that. And she thought he should have rolled down his sleeves so it didn’t show in the picture; it was just wrong to have it displayed that way. For a sliver of a moment, Opal thought about why that might be, then her mind scuttled away, kept moving, fast and light, never stopping until the thought was a distant smudge far behind her.

THIRTY
-
SEVEN

A
ND THERE ON ANOTHER
front page were Margaret and Denny, Margaret with darker hair and fewer lines and Denny unrecognisable. Or rather the Denny that Opal would have recognised anywhere instead of the man he was now. They were looking into the camera with stricken faces—she checked the date; it was less than a week after Craig had gone, and so the whole Reid family must have been reeling between grief and worry and the secret they had just begun pressing down. All of them except Robbie, that is, and right enough he didn’t look like the rest of them. He stood tall and glared at the camera with a look of pure righteous anger in his eyes that made Opal shiver even ten years on. She didn’t look at his arms, didn’t want to see.

Then there was the paper she couldn’t account for even though she skimmed right through every page before moving on.

And the reviews for the band. She flicked through them.

Until there was only one
Evening Post
left. From 1970 it was. March 1970 and there in the double-page section right in the middle of the paper, where a montage of photographs was gathered, she saw three familiar faces, all beaming: Fishbo, George, and Cleora standing on a dockside, dressed in thick winter coats and with hats on. She blinked and read the caption: “Yorkshire lads and lasses! Eugene, George and Cleora Gordon, jazz trio, arriving at Hull after sailing from Kingston. ‘By ’eck, it’s good to be ’ome’.”

Opal could only stare. Three of them? Fishbo’s brother and sister-in-law had come with him? From Kingston? Were they still here? Was Fishbo lying in hospital gasping for breath and wishing for family when some of his family was a phone call and a quick car run away? She couldn’t begin to imagine why that would be.

Opal bundled up the newspapers—all those copies of the
Daily Gleaner
—and put the tissue paper back around the photos. She quickly hoovered the mattress and reset the sheets then dragged the wardrobe away from the door and looked around. Let Margaret think that was her best shot at gutting a bedroom, she decided. She couldn’t spend any more time in here without it looking dodgy. So she just picked up the few tissues he’d used overnight and left.

Margaret was on her knees scrubbing herself out of the bathroom door, out of breath and pink in the cheeks, like a young girl.

“Are you all right?” she said, craning over her shoulder at Opal. “You don’t look well.”

“I’m fine,” Opal said, but her voice was husky and her eyes were filling.

“You look like fine’s cousin that doesn’t get on with him,” Margaret said.

“Maybe that driver was right after all about the Shake-n-Vac,” Opal said.

But Margaret would have none of it, just set Opal to work in the kitchen saying that hard work cured most things and cabbage water helped with the rest of them. And she was still going at the frying pan with a Brillo pad—onto the third one—when Big Al rat-a-tatted on the back door and walked in.

“Hello, lovey,” he said. “What’s the news from upstairs then?”

Opal only stared back at him.

“Fishbo,” Al said. “Any better?”

Margaret came powering into the room, still holding her scrubbing brush in one hand. She had lit a cigarette, Opal saw.

“Jesus, Mary, and who’s the other fella,” she said. “I was supposed to call you and it flew right out of my mind. He’s in hospital, Al, he’s off to St James’s in an ambulance with Mr. Kendal. I was supposed to call you all.”

“I thought he was on the mend,” Big Al said, patting his pockets until he found his phone. “Thought the grog was working.” Opal shrank at the words, but Big Al had turned away and noticed nothing. “Jim?” he said. “Aye, I’m there now. No—listen, don’t come. The old fart’s only gone and ended up in Jimmy’s. Pep’s there now. Can you go round and … Aye, that’s what I were thinking. No, there’s no use, they don’t let you have them on. Mucks up the machines. You get round, and I’ll call Hoadley.”

He hung up and dialled again. One button, speed dial.

“Jimmy D’s only round the corner,” he said to Margaret and Opal while the phone rang. “When did he go in?” But then the phone was answered and he turned away again.

“Now then, H,” he said. “You’ve not to get in a state, right? Is Stella there? Right, well, I’m going to tell you summat and don’t take on.”

Opal and Margaret exchanged a look then. They all really cared about Fishbo, this bunch of men. Big Al was talking like he was giving bad news to a loved one. And when they heard the raised voice coming over the phone, a squawk of fear, they knew that Mr. Hoadley (who Opal had always thought was the very strangest of a pretty strange bunch) was just as rocked on his heels as the rest of them.

“I will, I will,” said Big Al. “He is. I’ve already called him. He’s on his way. Aye, well, you could. Or come here and wait for him with me. Come here, H. We’ll wait together.” He put his phone back in the breast pocket of his Hawaiian print shirt and blew out a big sigh, puffing his cheeks, rolling his eyes, rubbing his hand on his trousers as if he had been gripping the phone tight enough to get sore.

“I hope Pep’s got some beers,” he said. “And summat to eat wouldn’t go wrong.”

Margaret opened the fridge and clucked her tongue. “Slim pickings,” she said. “He’s not been thinking on shopping, with Fish so ill. And it
would
be Sunday night too.” Then the house phone rang, and Big Al went to answer.

“It’s Pep,” he called through to the kitchen. “He’s on his road home.”

“How’s—” Margaret and Opal both shouted.

“Stable. Critical,” he called. Then into the phone, “How can he be both?”

“Can I go and see—” Opal said.

Big Al shushed her and listened to Pep on the other end of the phone, then he shook his head. “ICU,” he said. “No visitors except family.” He turned away. “They’re cleaning. Aye well, I’ll tell them. Okay. But hang on for Jimmy and he’ll run you over. H is on his way too.”

He hung up and came back to the kitchen door.

“Doesn’t sound too good,” he said. “No visitors except family! What’s a man like Fishbo supposed to do then? Talk to the wall?”

“Did Pep tell them his family’s in Louisiana?” Margaret said.

“Kingston,” Opal said. She spoke softly, but Big Al heard her. He rolled his eyes and smiled.

“Pep said to stop cleaning and start cooking. He said he hasn’t eaten a bite since yesterday and not a proper meal since Thursday teatime.”

Kingston
. Inside her head, the word was deafening.

Margaret was still standing in front of the open fridge. She bent down and peered in as if she might still see something she’d missed before.

“Men!” she said. “How can you not even have a bit of bacon to save your life?”

“Don’t look at me,” said Big Al. “My wife buys bacon by the ton.” He patted his front, making a solid smacking sound. “This isn’t just the wind blowing up me shirt, you know.”

“I’ll go to Zula,” said Opal. “She’ll help out, I’m sure she will. With the food anyway, not so sure about the beers.”

“What? Are you kidding?” said Big Al. “Sunil likes his pint. That end garage of his is like a cash and carry.”

She reeled out of the door and stood in the yard, shaking. Kingston. There was only one Kingston that Opal had ever heard of. The one that people left in the Sixties to come to England. And it wasn’t in Louisiana. If she looked at all those copies of
The Daily Gleaner
up there in his wardrobe, she knew she’d find it was printed in Kingston, Jamaica, and it would be full of birth, marriage, and death announcements for the Gordon family who lived there.