‘You just… leave, Vesta. People do it all the time.’
‘“People” aren’t nearly seventy. With no money and almost no savings, and the only thing they’ve got that’s of any value at all is a secure tenancy. If it weren’t for the secure tenancy, I would have left years ago.’
He’s silent for a moment, thinking. ‘So in a way, it’s been a prison, not a blessing?’
She starts, as though this is the first time she’s ever thought of it. ‘Well. God… Stupid, isn’t it?’
Hossein shrugs. ‘Most of us are. It’s human nature, to stay. Change frightens us because we don’t know what will happen. You see it all the time in countries that are being held hostage as much as people. Most people have to get to a point where they don’t have a choice before they’ll change something. I read once that we’re more afraid of change than we are of death, and I can believe it.’
She looks at him shyly, this man who’s crossed the world. ‘Where would you be, if you had a choice?’
He sighs. ‘I’m tired, Vesta. Tired of being sad, tired of being afraid for the future, tired of waiting to know what’s going to happen next. It’s not a place I want particularly. It’s just peace. Peace and quiet and a tomorrow I can predict. It’ll be good when I get my residency and I can go back to work. Work’s good for the soul.’
‘That’s all I’ve had,’ she says. ‘At least, that’s what I thought I had. And I know what you mean. I’ve felt sort of… pointless since I retired.’
‘And you? If you had a choice, if you could go anywhere? Be anywhere?’
‘Oh, that’s easy. Ilfracombe. I’d be off to Ilfracombe like a shot.’
‘Vesta? Hello?’
Collette’s voice, coming from the flat. They sit forward and peer towards the house. ‘In the garden,’ calls Vesta.
She appears at the kitchen door: wearing a jacket and jeans, sports bag over her shoulder. ‘Your door was open,’ she says. ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s okay,’ says Vesta. Strangely, her home invasions have made her more, rather than less, careless about security. She no longer feels there’s much point, when people seem to come in with such ease anyway. ‘What can I do for you?’
She comes up the steps and they see that she’s got biker boots on. Full armour, ready for flight. She arrives on the lawn and drops her bag on the straw-dry grass in front of them. Psycho starts at the sound, and shoots off into the bushes.
‘I came to say goodbye,’ she says, and they see that her eyes are red from crying. ‘I’m off.’
‘Off?’
Collette nods and looks away. ‘Can you say goodbye to Cher for me? I can’t find anyone and I want to get moving.’
Hossein jumps to his feet. ‘No,’ he says. ‘You can’t!’
Vesta sees the blush that rises to her cheek, the refusal to meet his eye. Oh, look, she really likes him, she thinks. I hadn’t realised that he liked her, though. How blind can you be?
‘What’s wrong, love?’
She hesitates and eyes Hossein, clearly unsure how much to say. Eventually, she just forces a gay little laugh out and goes: ‘Oh, nothing. You know me. Always on the move.’
‘Where are you going?’
Again, the hesitation. ‘Oh, you know,’ she says, eventually. ‘I thought I’d just go up to Victoria and see what’s on offer.’
‘You’re going away away? What about your mum? Collette, has something happened?’
‘Oh, look,’ says Collette, ‘it’s not like she’s got the first idea who I am. She won’t miss me. I’d sort of made my mind up to go when – you know -’ she gestures towards the empty shed ‘- everything happened. But now… itchy feet, you know? What can you do?’
Something’s happened, that much is obvious. Collette looks like she’s seen a ghost. Like her ghosts might be catching up with her. ‘It’s almost dinnertime,’ she says. ‘Where are you going to go?’
Collette lets out a sigh. ‘Transport runs most of the night,’ she says. ‘Might as well sleep on a bus and get a head start.’
‘I thought,’ says Hossein, ‘we were all going to sit tight for a bit.’
‘Yeah, well,’ says Collette. ‘Nobody actually knows I was here, do they? It won’t make a lot of difference if I bugger off again.’
‘Collette, has something happened?’ asks Vesta. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No,’ says Collette. ‘I just fancy a change of scene.’
‘Is it your old boss?’ asks Hossein. ‘Has he found you?’ And the bravado goes out of her like the air from a pricked balloon and she turns to Vesta, shocked.
‘You told him.’
‘Yes. I did.’
‘Jesus,’ says Collette, and drops down on the grass beside her bag. ‘So much for secrets.’
‘I told Cher as well,’ she says.
‘When?’
‘Around the time you told me, Collette.’
‘What? And did you tell anyone else? How about them next door? How about them? The greengrocer, maybe? How about the bloke in Flat One? I’m sure he’d like to know so he can keep his door locked.’
‘Sorry,’ says Vesta, but she doesn’t sound it. ‘It’s not like either Hossein or Cher is going to go to the police with the info, is it? And frankly, if there was going to be people turning up on the doorstep looking for you, I’d rather people knew what to expect.’
‘Fuck,’ says Collette, and slumps. ‘Well, thanks. Thanks a lot.’
‘You’re welcome,’ says Vesta, and Collette shoots her a look of pure evil.
‘I can’t believe you did that. What am I? Bambi?’
‘Sorry,’ says Hossein. ‘I shouldn’t have shared that I knew. She swore me to secrecy.’
‘Yeah,’ she sneers. ‘Well, secrecy’s obviously a big thing around here.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ asks Vesta.
‘No! No, I don’t want a cup of tea! What’s that going to solve?’
A reasonable question. Vesta’s been drinking tea every hour of the day since the Landlord died, and she still feels as though her heart’s been sprained.
She gets off her deckchair and heads for the house. ‘I’ll get you one. We could both do with a refresher, anyway.’ I’ll leave them to it, she thinks. She’s cross with me right now. Laying whatever it is she’s upset about at my door. If anyone’s going to get through to her, Hossein will manage it. He can talk to her through her soft spot the way I just can’t.
She steps in through her kitchen door, and her own ghosts swoop back in to haunt her. To all intents and purposes, the kitchen is back to normal. Better than normal, if anything, for Hossein has managed to restart the pilot light on the gas cooker, which went out some time in the 1990s, and has changed the washers on the sink taps so that they no longer drip. But she can hardly bear to be in here. When the bathroom door is open, she keeps having flash memories of the Landlord, squatting face down in the toilet. When the door is closed, she hears someone moving behind it. Using the bathroom is close to agony. She used to love a long bath with a book; now she scuttles through hasty showers, and has to close her eyes and hold her breath when she sits down on that toilet seat.
She puts the kettle on and fills the watering can at the sink, so she can water her herbs while it boils. It’s just an excuse to get out of the room. It’s unbearable, she thinks. I can do this now, but what happens in the winter?
In the garden she can hear the low murmur of voices. It sounds like Collette has at least calmed down enough to talk.
All my life, she thinks. All my life I’ve lived here, and now it’s spoiled. All the memories – all the Mum making cakes, the laundry days and the pegging out, Dad coming home in his butcher’s coat and his straw boater and chasing me round the garden with his cleaver, pretending to be an ogre as I shrieked with half-joy, half-terror, the looking after them as they got ill, the I-love-you deathbeds – all painted over in black by one single moment. I know it’s early days. I know I’m still in shock and I’m scared about what will happen next, what will happen when they find him, but I feel as though it will never be the same again. What if I’m eighty-five, all alone here, all these people long gone, and I’m still dashing in and out of the bathroom like the hounds of hell are on my tail?