As She Left It (3 page)

“
Mooooon Reeeeebah
,” he sang. “
Wider dan dee miles
.”

“Fish!” Pep barked at him. “You know the deal.”

“That’s the worst of letting him finish with ‘Moon River’,” said Mr. Hoadley. “It could be days now.”

“Might as well ask my blood to stop flowin’ in my veins,” said Fishbo.

“Could be arranged,” Jimmy D shouted from inside the back of the van. Still complaining, the old men filed into the house and closed the door.

Opal slid the window back down and leaned her head against it. How could it be that they were all still here? Thirteen years, half her lifetime. She’d been to hell and back—well, Whitby—and yet here they all were as if it was yesterday. Just as she left them. People who knew her. Knew her mother was a drunk and her dad had walked out and she’d not been home since she was twelve. So much for being alone in a crowd in the big bad city.

But she couldn’t go back. To her old pals at the Co-op coming round with their questions; Jill at the salon and her sympathy; Steph and that look she always had on her face. Baz, the scumbag, most of all.

She had to stay in Mote Street. Those seven brown envelopes she’d got at Steph’s house that day, they were a sign that it was meant to be.

Back in her bedsit, away from Steph’s scorn, she had laid all seven envelopes out on the floor and knelt in front of them. The address was copied out in the same handwriting on the front of each:

Miss O. Jones
c/o 7 Upgang Close
Westcliffe, Whitby
YO21 3DT

It wasn’t her mum’s writing, even though—she flipped one of the envelopes over—the sender’s address was Jones, 6 Mote Street, Leeds. It had made her heart jump up high into her throat, hardening like bubble gum spat into cold water, imagining her mum making these parcels for her, filling them with mementos and gifts for after she was gone. But Nic would never have spent—she peered at the label—three pounds forty-eight on postage, seven times over, and a brand-new envelope each time too, one that hadn’t been through the post already with the old address scribbled over.

Holding her lip in between her teeth, Opal worked her thumb under the flap of the first one, and ripped it open.

Not junk mail, but no video of her mum’s dying wish either. No velvet roll of diamonds passed down the Jones line through generations, no sepia photographs of flappers and soldier boys, no treasure map, no magic beans, no safe deposit key, no ransom note of pasted newsprint letters—nothing that Opal had ever dreamed or dreaded finding. Just endless letters for Nicola, all opened out flat, envelopes gone. From the gas and the electric, the coal man and the hospital, the poll tax and the phone, the dole and the insurance and the housing assoc—

Opal blinked. Those letters—seven of them from the housing association—were addressed to her.
Miss O. Jones,
and her name had been gone over in highlighter pen.

They were from a woman called Sally Smith at West North West Homes (Leeds), which she knew was what the council was called now it was sold. Opal skimmed through them: condolences, advise, notification, warnings—endless guff about the tenancy, like it was any of her business. As for the rest … She looked at a gas statement and an electric, and her eyes widened. They weren’t reminders and red reminders and threats. These letters were receipts. Even the coal was paid, as far as Opal could tell, which must have been a nice change for the guy after all the years of Nicola trying to settle her debts with anything but money.

But who the hell was paying Nic’s bills? And why did Sally Smith and the whole of the rest of West North West Homes (Leeds) think that Opal still lived in Mote Street? She looked at the last letter again, read it properly this time, and saw what it would mean. Then her attention snagged on something else she had missed before: the date in black numbers in the middle of the last letter, highlighted in yellow was 11 June 2010. Today. Opal blinked. This was the last day. She looked at her watch. It read 16.51, and she thought it was slow.

She leapt over to stand beside the window, where the signal was best, and keyed in the number—Sally Smith’s direct number—waiting for it to ring and the recorded voice to tell her the office was closed for the day.

“Transfers,” said the voice.

“Hello,” said Opal. “It’s Opal Jones.”

“Uh-huh?” said the voice.

“You wrote to me?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Seven times,” Opal said.

“And what was this in connection with?”

“The house in Mote Street?”

“Number?”

“Six.”

“I meant the case number, flower. It should be on the letter.”

Opal had let the paper slip out of her hand, and she knew if she bent to pick it up she’d lose the connection.

“It’s umm … ” she said, trying to read it upside down where it lay on the floor.

“Oh, hang on, here it is,” said the voice. “It’s right here on top of the pile. You’ve cut this a bit fine, haven’t you?”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll send you out an appointment letter,” the voice said, sounding as if she was going to have to write it in her own blood. “Get you in to sign up. Mind you answer this one.”

“Sorry,” Opal said again.

“Right.”

“And sorry you won’t get the house back too. If you wanted it. For someone else, I mean.”

“Six Mote Street?” Opal could hear the curl in the voice, and she remembered Steph’s face from an hour ago. “You’re welcome to it, flower. Nobody’s exactly queuing up to move
there,
are they?”

So here she was. And it would be okay. Because even at twelve, Opal had been good at hiding. Mrs. Pickess and Mrs. Joshi and the rest of them didn’t
really
know her and wouldn’t have believed it anyway.

In fact, it might not be so bad. Opal raised her head and looked over the road towards No. 3. If the Joshis and Mrs. Pickess and Peppermint Kendal and the Mote Street Boys were still here, was it stupid to hope … ? The net curtains covered the windows. And they were thicker than Mrs. Pickess’s nets. The house looked blinded by them. Impossible to see inside. Impossible to know who lived there.

Then movement at the edge of her vision made her turn and squint down to the corner again. She blinked and put her hand flat on the glass. It was a tiny little woman, thin as a stick, nylon shopper in hand, almost-finished cigarette in mouth, orange tabard fluttering in the warm evening breeze.

Opal leapt across the bedroom floor, clattered down the stairs, sprinted across the living room, and threw the front door wide.

FOUR

“
M
ARGARET!” SHOUTED
O
PAL, BOUNDING
across the cobbles like a puppy.

Margaret Reid let out a screech like a demon. “
Aaaiiyee
!” She threw her cigarette down on the pavement and opened her arms. “Opal Jones, as I burp and fart! I cannot believe it. Is it truly you?” Her accent, fifty years after she had left Ireland as a bride, was Meath and Leeds curdled together, and Opal let out a clear peal of laughter like a bell as she threw herself into Margaret’s arms and hugged her.

“The size of you!”Margaret said. “Have you been stood in a bag of peat all this time? You’re a giant, Opal.” Opal held on and hugged even harder, drinking in the cocktail that took her back twenty years to when she sat on Margaret’s lap for stories: pink floor soap and Elnet hairspray, setting lotion and chip fat, nicotine and a hard day’s work in a nylon overall.

“But where had you put yourself? Why were you not there for Nicola’s sendoff? I couldn’t believe it.”

Opal hesitated, but before she could answer, Margaret gasped, making herself cough.

“Lay me down dead!” she said. “What am I thinking? Opal, my soul, I’m so sorry for the loss of your dear mother. You’re in my prayers.”

At last Opal drew back, so she could look Margaret in the eye.

“For real?”

“Jesus, no!” said Margaret. “If I prayed for you, black sinner that I am, you’d be struck by lightning for sure.”

And so Opal managed to dodge the question of where she had been when Nicola, her own dear mother, had been laid to rest—or turned to ash actually—never mind where she had been for the thirteen years beforehand.

“And how are you, Margaret?” she said. “Still working, anyway. How many jobs have you got now? And how’s Denny? Is he at the track? Have you still got your dogs? I haven’t heard them.”

Margaret walked backwards and rested her bony bottom on the painted windowsill of her living room. Her eyes, magnified behind thick glasses and always a bit watery (whether from the smoking, the Elnet, or the floor soap, who could say), were glistening and glittering now, fat tears trembling against her lower lashes.

“Margaret?”

“You don’t know?” Margaret said. “You never heard what happ-
ened?”

“No,” said Opal, faltering. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“Oh, you’d know if you knew,” Margaret said. “Your mother never told you?”

“We didn’t … What is it?”

“And maybe your father didn’t
want
to tell you. It’s nothing for a child to hear.”

“I’m not a child now,” said Opal.

“Come inside.” Margaret lowered her voice. “Only don’t go jumping in the air and cursing when you see Dennis, mind.”

Opal shook her head, not understanding, and Margaret fitted her key in the lock and opened the door.

“Here I’m back, Dennis, my soul,” she said, “and you will not guess if you live to be Nancy who I’ve got with me.”

“I heard through the window,” said Dennis. “Opal Jones has come home.”

Margaret’s living room was right through the front door, right off the street like Opal’s own. She followed her in and turned, peering towards where his armchair had always been. Then the smile froze on her face, and she was sure he must have noticed in the split second before Margaret slammed the door and shut the sunlight out again.

The Dennis Reid she remembered had a blue car and a moustache and two greyhounds called Bill and Ben. He worked in a mattress factory and kept sweeties in one pocket, dog treats in the other, and he used to pretend to mix them up all the time.

And maybe that man was still in there somewhere, but around him, in the last thirteen years—and it must have taken all thirteen, surely—had grown another man. A hulk of a man, a mountain. He was wedged, lapless, into a two-seater settee, beached there; legs splayed wide but still packed hard together, a broad expanse of hairless bloated ankle showing between his trouser hem and slipper top; arms like gammons, elbows pushed out by the bulging ring of his girth, hands—inflated surgical gloves, white and shining—resting dully on the wooden arms of the couch, fingers—uncooked sausage fingers—hanging down.

“Hiya, Mr. Reid,” Opal said, shocked out of friendliness by the sight of him.

“Cup of tea?” said Margaret. She was hopping about, putting her bag away, getting her fags and lighter out of her pocket, patting at her hair as she peered into the mirror over the fireplace. “Come on through, Opal, and we’ll let himself be in peace.” But when the kitchen door was closed, her routine flagged, and she gave Opal a look of pure misery as she sank down into a seat at the kitchen table and clasped her hands together on its top.

“What happened to him?” Opal whispered. “Is this the thing you thought I’d have heard?”

Margaret shook her head. “There was a tragedy here on Mote Street, Opal,” she said. “Ten years ago this summer. Feels like a lifetime and feels like the blink of an eye.” Margaret shook a cigarette out of the packet and lit it. “Ten years of shame and sorrow. Killing Dennis there. And killing me.”

“Shame,” Opal said, picking on the only word that didn’t fit with her idea of a tragedy.

“Remember my daughter, Karen?” Margaret blurted it out, startling Opal. She nodded. “And her husband, Robbie?”

Opal nodded, less certainly. She didn’t remember Robbie Southgate. Didn’t want to.

“Remember Karen and Robbie’s little lad?”

“Craig?” said Opal, brightening. “Of course I do.” Craig Southgate was the first baby she had ever been trusted to carry about in a shawl or wheel up and down in a pram, and she had spent the last summer before she left Mote Street watching out for Karen dropping him off and then hotfooting it over to the Reids’ to ask if she could take him.

“He’s gone,” Margaret said. “Disappeared.”

“Ran away?”

“Ten years ago,” Margaret said. “He was three.”

“
Taken
?” said Opal. She hadn’t thought about Craig Southgate once in thirteen years, but she could see him as if he was standing in the kitchen beside her. She was imagining reddish hair cut in a short back and sides, tiny teeth like white kernels of corn clenched hard together when he smiled, head tipped right back, like Michael used to do. Margaret hadn’t spoken. “Do you mean he was taken?” Opal said again.

“That’s what they said. The Mote Street Snatcher. All over the papers it was.” Opal watched her take a deep drag, hold it inside her, and then let it out through her nostrils, like a dragon. She had only known Margaret as a grownup while she herself was a child, and she wasn’t used to this swimmy feeling of being the one who should think of things to say. She spoke very gently.

“Margaret? You said ‘shame’.”

“Aye,” Margaret said.

“I can see the tragedy and the sorrow … ”

“It was all in the papers,” Margaret said again. “Toddler vanished. Snatched in minutes flat. Never seen again.” She took another drag, let it out through her mouth this time, blowing it so hard out of her down-turned lips that the jet of smoke kicked back off the tabletop in rolls.

“There’s no shame in that,” Opal said. “That would make people sorry for you, not make them—”

Margaret was shaking her head. “They don’t know,” she said. “People left flowers and sent cards, Opal. People sent
money
. They don’t know.”

Opal didn’t want to ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “Know what?”

“And if I don’t tell
someone
I’ll run mad with it pressing on me.” Margaret lifted her head and turned those magnified, headlamp eyes on her.