The postman calls, bringing me a seed catalog and a package from Amazon. I notice that the dog is sitting by the gate, waiting.
“Something nice, I hope,” the postman says, nodding at the package.
It’s the novel I had preordered, published now and in my hand. I place it among Alice’s books on the sitting room shelves. A flicker of regret runs through me. Once there was pleasure in receiving a parcel containing a book; no more time left for reading now. I wonder what the college will do with all these books, who they will sell Alice’s house to, whether Bert will regret giving me the Mayfair apartment as part of the divorce settlement. He always loved it. I could have left it to him, I suppose, but then Helen would get her hands on it. In any case, there is little so quickly forgotten in life as a generous act.
Taking a last look around Alice’s house, I feel very calm. I won’t bother sweeping up the broken vase, making the bed, or dusting. I will not put myself to tidying at all. Let them wonder about the grime, so out of character for me, about the shards on the floor; let them muse over my little scribbles on the bedroom walls, quotes about injustice. Let them wonder.
I slam the front door behind me, and the dog, still patiently waiting for me, perks up, stands to attention. I walk through the patch of garden to the pavement and drop the keys down the nearest drain. The little god of mischief in me, Loki, come to life, delighting in the games I play.
As I walk through the village, the dog follows behind, stopping when I stop, as though we are playing some childish game. The sun is up, and as I pass the surgery I turn to look back at him and glimpse my shadow on the pavement. He doesn’t seem to cast one. Curious.
I amble slowly, taking my leave of the village, silently saying goodbye to the dark row of almshouses and to the stone eagle that sits atop the old vicarage, its beak honed by the wind. I remember the face of the boy who clipped the pub sign with his cricket ball, in the days when children played in Cold-Upton’s streets. The chip is still there all these years later. I pass the shop and think about how charming it was when I was little, long before Agneta’s time. No café then, and fresh-baked bread every morning. Mother would hand over her list, and the lady behind the till would give me a free sweet. That stopped when Gloria began to toddle; one free sweet was good for business, two a touch too openhanded.
I trail past the long stone wall in front of the churchyard and recall balancing on it as a child, arms outstretched, pretending to be a tightrope walker. Gloria tried to copy me, as she did in everything, and fell off. What a fuss was made of such a tiny wound, what a hugging and kissing, what a spoiling. The memory of it puts me in mind of the sly glance she gave to me over Mother’s shoulder that day as I watched her being coddled. Like the cat that got the cream. That was the day the child who was Gloria stole away the child in me.
As I turn into Pipits’ drive, I see Mrs. Lemmon walking toward me, fiddling with the zip of her anorak. She seems as surprised to see me as I am her. What is she doing here on a Sunday morning?
“Oh,” she exclaims. “I have just locked up and put the alarm on.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll put it back on when I leave.”
“I’ve cleaned up in there best that I can,” she says, nodding toward the house. “So much dust. I wonder if it will ever settle. Didn’t want Mrs. Bygone coming back to worse than when she left it.”
“No, we can’t have that,” I say.
Well, clearly she is hinting for me not to make a mess. Stupid woman, what right does she have to advise me on anything? She will be out of a job when I have done my work—a fact I don’t regret.
“I am bringing a birthday card for Gloria,” I say. “And a present, of course.”
I indicate the bag. “A surprise for her when she gets home.”
“Aren’t you cold without a coat?” she asks. But I don’t bother replying.
She’s looking at my feet now, frowning. I follow her gaze and see that I have put on mismatched shoes, one brown, the other black.
Now, how did that happen? What was I thinking?
“I don’t know where my head is these days,” I say. “Now look, Mrs. Lemmon, would you do your best to encourage that dog away? It must belong to someone in the village, don’t you think?”
“What dog?” she asks, looking around.
“Never mind,” I say. “You go home. I’ll take care of things here.”
The woman isn’t with it at all. How can you not see what is in front of your eyes? It wouldn’t surprise me if she is a little drunk.
I watch her walk to the road, watch her until she reaches the box hedge where she turns toward the village. The top of her head bobs above the hedge for a bit, then disappears from sight. I listen for her footsteps to fade, then I put my bag down by the door and head to the garden.
I sit on the damp earth by the buddleia, and explain to Mother what is going to happen. This is all her fault: she got things wrong, was too trusting to see through Gloria’s tricks. But I am going to put things right at last, clear up the mess she’s made.
“It won’t be like falling down a rabbit hole, not knowing what to expect at the bottom,” I say. “That was always your way, wasn’t it? Such bad planning. My way will allow no uncertainties, only resolution.”
On my way back to House I do a bit of deadheading. I tighten the loosened ties on the Albertine arch, spilling over with buds, pull out the weeds in the strawberry patch so that when the fruit comes, it will have space to spread out and ripen in the June sun.
* * *
IT IS QUIET IN the hall. I say hello, and the clock ticks with kindly comfort. “Here you are. Here you are,” it tells me.
I walk around the house opening doors and windows, letting the light flood in. A through breeze should whisk the flames nicely. Mrs. Lemmon has not done much of a job cleaning, to be honest. There is dust everywhere. Never mind, though, Pipits glows despite the dust, wounded but more beautiful than ever.
I can tell that House is happy, hear its murmurings of pleasure as along with me, it prepares itself. I chatter to it as I go about my business. In the drawing room, I drag the fire basket forward and add a dozen firelighters to the logs inside it. I use the bellows to get the flames going. I pull the Indian rug into the grate and place it close to the blaze. Before I know it, it has sopped up the flames and begun to smoke.
The candles placed around the room look so pretty, sweetly glowing. I have arranged some on the window ledges so that the curtains will catch, others on the tables beneath the tapestries that hang on either side of the fireplace. One each under the pair of fringed lampshades, and, just for fun, I set a little tableau on the sofa table: four thick perfumed candles, neroli and frankincense, the birthday card propped against them, already singed with flame, along with the back of the sofa.
I had plans for the kitchen, but what remains of it will be hard to ignite, since it is an empty space. The stove lies in bits on the floor, waiting to be reassembled. Sheets of blue plastic are tacked over the missing windows, and the plaster on the new wall is still wet.
I make four attempts to set fire to the edge of the rag rug in the hall that Fi made as a present for Gloria, but it won’t catch. The fabric just melts. So typical: man-made fibers, cheap as chips. It occurs to me that I should have brought petrol or some accelerator to help things on their way. Well, too late now.
As I head for the stairs, I turn and see through the open drawing room door that Mother’s chair has caught fire, fallen over, and turned into a rolling orange ball. Flames have begun gobbling up the curtains, licking at the walls. Soon they, too, will take the stairs, reach Mother’s bedroom, eat up Noah’s cot and his mobile, wipe out the hateful mural that caused me such pain. The flames look so pretty, like deer leaping at play. How I love bonfires. This one will be the biggest, the most beautiful I have ever made.
With paper and matches and the last of the fire lighters, I set a neat little fire under the mahogany stool on the first-floor landing. I f
eed it with pages torn from a book chosen at random off the shelves there; some old tome of Father’s on land management. It’s ablaze in no time. Smoke is swirling around my feet.
In my bedroom I take my clothes off and sit on the edge of my bed. I can feel a pleasant heat on the bare soles of my feet as they rest on the quivering floorboards.
“Don’t be afraid,” I tell Pipits. “Nothing can part us now.”
I open my flask and drink down the laced tea that I made earlier. I may have been too generous with the medication—the brew is very bitter—but I wanted to be sure it would work quickly. The chocolate helps, but the swig of gin I gulp down afterward leaves my mouth tasting of metal. I settle myself under my patchwork quilt. The scent of it is familiar and comforting.
“Speak to me,” I say, and Pipits does.
* * *
I’M GETTING DROWSY, DRIFTING into the dark. I feel as though I am melting from the inside out. My head feels heavy, and the world is tumbling, dipping up and down. I hang on to my quilt, suddenly fearful of falling into space. And then my bed begins to spin like one of those cup and saucer rides at the fairground. Around and around I go, hearing from far away what sounds like lions roaring. How can that be?
I must be having one of those dreams, where you know you are dreaming but you don’t wake. The lions come swaggering into view, their greedy yellow eyes wide open, and then two people come walking fearlessly through the pride toward me: Mother in her mink coat, with her arms crossed against me; and Alice, still ill, shaking her head, mouthing something that I strain to hear. I can hear my heartbeat, and a booming sound, and then my dream is washed away by a tide of muddy waves beating on a blood-red shore.
I must give in, let go. Someone is calling me back, though, calling from far away in a grating, insistent voice. I know that it isn’t Pipits; our voice is one and the same now.
“Betty? Come on, Betty, wake up. Stay with me.”
There is a harsh chemical smell, and suddenly I am hanging over the side of my bed vomiting, my throat raw with the force of it. Some person, big and shadowy, has come through my window and is looming over me.
I wake in the ambulance with a piercing pain in my lungs, everything hurting. A woman is pumping my chest with her hands. I attempt to push her off, but I can’t seem to move. They are taking me away, saving me, they think, but they are wrong. Take me back, I scream at them. I must go back. But I cannot hear my voice. I smell roast meat, and my saliva tastes burnt. “Hold on,” says a disembodied voice. “The pain will ease in a moment.” Then, something cool on my arm, and I feel a pumping pressure there before I black out.
19
IN THE HOSPITAL I drift in and out of sleep. Even with the oxygen, breathing comes hard. The skin on my chest is tender, bruised where the woman in the ambulance attempted to inflate me. Everything hurts. I cough up black sputum.
They tell me I am lucky, that I could have died from the smoke inhalation alone. The burns I sustained while being carried out of the house are only second-degree. I am meant to be grateful for that. Apparently, I had grabbed onto the scaffolding that was shoring up the front of the house, and the fireman had to prize me off it.
“It was red-hot,” the nurse who never stops talking says now. “Red-hot metal. Lucky you weren’t wearing clothes; they would have bonded to your skin. Nasty, that.”
There are clusters of blisters on my face, maps of them on my legs, and my bandaged hands hurt like hell. I haven’t looked in a mirror yet, although I’m told there is nothing there that won’t heal.
Gloria and Henry hang around the hospital. Always one of them on duty. They are full of concern, selfless as always.
Henry was there when I first woke.
“Pipits,” I croaked. “What has happened to Pipits?”
“Don’t worry about that now,” he said. “Think about getting better first.”
How is it that I am here, and he is standing at my bedside, ruddy cheeked, unharmed, telling me not to worry? I couldn’t hold back the words. “Tell me, you fucking stupid man. Pipits?”
He went white and screwed his eyes up as though I had hit him. I guess he thought I was going to lose it. I have history, after all.
“It’s completely gone,” he said flatly. “Nothing but rubble and ash, hard to believe how horribly everything has been destroyed.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, we have lost everything, Betty.”
“Everything but me,” I say.
“Yes, we should be thankful for that,” he says.
* * *
IT’S GRIM BEING SAVED. Pipits is gone, and I’ve been left behind. It’s not the way it should have been. Nothing is as it should have been.
“The police want to talk to you, Betty,” Henry says. Do I detect accusation in his voice?
“What about?”
“About the fire, of course. How it started. What you were doing in our house while we were away. Not that we mind, of course. That sort of thing.”
“It’s nobody’s house now,” I say, and turn from him.
The police visit me in the hospital, accompanied by a nasty little man who calls himself a fire investigator. Their questions come fast, and they repeat them at intervals, as though trying to catch me in a lie. But I stick to my story.
Apparently, they know that there were candles all over the house. They are clever about that sort of thing these days. I tell them I wanted to surprise Gloria. That I thought it would be nice for her to arrive home to the fire glowing, with me there to celebrate her birthday with her.
“I am her sister,” I tell them. “Of course I wanted to celebrate with her.”
“Rather a lot of candles for that, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, do you think so? But that is what we do these days. Candles everywhere. It was meant to be festive. I wanted to surprise her.”
“So you placed the candles around, and then you went upstairs to bed?”
“I hadn’t meant to go to bed. I was feeling cold, so I went to my room to change into something warmer.”
“Your room?”
“Well, my room when I lived there. I still have some clothes there.”
“But you went to bed instead?”
“I don’t know why I lay down. Maybe the smoke got to me. I can’t remember undressing. Can’t remember much, to be honest.”
“And the fire lighters? You took them into the house, didn’t you?”
I wonder briefly if they can really tell. Fire eats everything, doesn’t it?
“Yes, I thought it would be cheering for them to come home to a nice warm fire. I didn’t know if they would have any fire lighters in the house. I knew that I wouldn’t get a fire going without them. The chimney in that room doesn’t draw well. Never has.”
“And you had been drinking quite a lot that day?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Blood tests confirm alcohol and drugs in your system.”
“Well, I had taken my prescriptions, if that’s what you mean. I was feeling unwell—I had pains in my chest, rather more so than usual—and the painkillers didn’t seem to be helping, so I thought a shot or two of alcohol might help to ease things.”
“And the drugs? What do you take them for?”
“Codeine for the pain, Temazepam for stress.”
I have no idea if they are going to take this line of questioning any further, and I don’t much care. Pipits has gone without me. It’s a bitter blow.
Grief takes people in many ways, I know. It has set a brick in my heart. I am angry with fate and furious with Mrs. Lemmon, who took it upon herself to save me.
Gloria has explained that Mrs. Lemmon thought I was behaving so oddly when she spoke to me that she just had to return to see if everything was all right.
“The house was ablaze by the time she got there,” Gloria says, shuddering a little. “She called the fire brigade, but it was too late to save it. We were lucky that they were able to save you.”
??
?Behaving oddly?” I questioned. “What on earth does she mean by oddly?”
“Well . . .” Gloria hesitates, as though debating with herself about whether or not to report what Mrs. Lemmon has told her. “Apparently you were wearing a cocktail dress, and the shoes on your feet didn’t match. And you were seeing things that weren’t there.”
“What things?”
“A dog.”
“Oh, him. He was there, all right. But he’s clever at disappearing when the need arises.”
Gloria is on her psychotherapy box, all concern, her voice low and syrupy with sisterly concern. She tells me that she and Henry have moved into Alice’s house, and that they can’t wait to look after me there when I’m released from the hospital.
“You don’t mind, do you, Betty? It seems the perfect solution for the time being. We had to get the locksmith in; so much lost in the fire, things we haven’t even thought about yet.”
She tells me they have had a set of keys made for me, as though I am the guest now.
“You will have to get someone in to fix the cracks in the ceiling,” I say. She looks confused.
“I haven’t noticed them,” she says.
“Well, you were never very observant about such things.” I meant my words to wound, but she takes them as a tease and laughs.
“Betty,” she whispers, putting her head close to mine, “what is that writing on the walls all about?”
“Oh, nothing much,” I say. “I was getting ready to paint them. It was just a bit of fun.”
“What color?” she asks pointlessly.
“What?”
“What color were you going to paint the walls? We could do it for you.”
“Yellow,” I say. “Yellow like the sun.”
* * *
A HOSPITAL PSYCHIATRIST HAS been to see me. Obviously Gloria has opened her mouth. He knows my story, knows about the Beachy Head episode. I bet she has mentioned the mismatched shoes and the bloody dog that everyone seems to think is a figment of my imagination.