There was a sudden breath of wind that shifted the branches above me and I wondered what you would have said if you had been there, whether you would have teased me or got cross or said something encouraging, or just put your arms around me and said nothing. Then I told you about the strange things that had happened, the disappearing evidence. I know what you would have said about that. You always wanted to know how things worked. When you didn’t know, you found out. Even once when we had been to the Hampstead fair, you had got into conversation with a sinister tattooed man who ran one of the merry-go-rounds and he had shown you the gears and the machinery underneath. And as I told you all that I realized I had to know, even if I died at the moment I knew. It didn’t matter, as long as I knew, as long as I could tell you.
I looked up at the branches. Yes, they really were standing out more sharply against the greying sky.
Chapter Thirty-one
I sat on the sofa in Fergus’s living room. Jemma had left the house for the first time since Ruby’s birth to go a few hundred yards down the road for a cup of coffee with a friend, but leaving enough instructions for a week’s absence, and I had come round with croissants and freshly squeezed orange juice for Fergus. There were Babygros over the radiators, congratulation cards and flowers on every surface, and a buggy in the corner. Ruby’s Moses basket lay at my feet, with its downy snuggle of crocheted blankets, but I held Ruby on my lap, her soft head on the crook of my arm, her little bag of body slumped against me. Her eyes were closed and her lips puffed slightly with each sleeping breath she took. I needed to look at her puckered old-woman’s face, smell her musky breath, feel how her hand gripped my middle finger firmly, as if she knew she could trust me.
We had talked about broken nights, miniature nails, eye colour, stork marks, the shape of her nose, the shell of her ear and upturn of her nose.
‘Who does she look like?’ asked Fergus.
‘Not you,’ I said, staring at her features. ‘But she’s got Jemma’s nose and mouth.’
‘Everyone says that.’
‘Maybe your chin,’ I said doubtfully, because he seemed to want me to spot a resemblance.
‘No. She’s got Jemma’s father’s chin,’ he said.
I smiled at him: dear Fergus, Greg’s best friend, father of my goddaughter. ‘This was what I needed,’ I said.
‘Are you all right, Ellie? You seem – I don’t know – very thoughtful. A bit subdued.’
‘I don’t mean to. I’m fine, Fergus. Weary. I didn’t sleep very well. Actually, I came round to tell you that I think I’m going away for a while. I’ve been a bit mad, haven’t I? I feel more peaceful now.’
‘Do you?’
‘I think so. The stages of grief.’
‘If there’s anything I can do…’
‘You already have.’
‘What a ghastly time this has been for you.’
I smiled at him and looked down at the baby in my arms. ‘There’s been one light in all the darkness. A new life among the deaths.’
It would soon be dark again. So much darkness and so little light. I went to Gwen’s house and she let me in. Daniel was there, too, wearing Gwen’s stripy apron and covered in flour. ‘He’s decided to make pasta,’ said Gwen, proudly.
He led the way into the kitchen. There was flour on the floor, the work surfaces and the table. Bowls sticky with dough were piled in the sink and clothes-hangers draped with long strips of gunk hung from the backs of chairs. Two large pans of water were boiling on the hob, filling the room with steam.
‘Do you want to eat it with us?’ Gwen asked.
‘I don’t think so. I’m sure it’ll be delicious.’
‘Have a cup of tea at least.’
‘One cup and then I must go.’
‘Busy?’
‘Busy in my head.’
Daniel picked up one sagging strip of pasta dough and dropped it into the boiling water.
‘Are you using your car at the moment, Gwen?’
‘Not that I know of. I never use it if I can help it. It stands there from one week to the next. I’m thinking of selling it.’
‘If she does need it, she can use mine instead,’ said Daniel, hurling another strip into the pan and jumping back as water splashed over the rim. ‘This isn’t looking quite the way I imagined it would. They’re disintegrating.’
‘Can I borrow it? I’m insured to drive any car. I was thinking of going away.’
‘Where to?’
‘I don’t know. Just for a few days.’
‘But it’s Christmas.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Don’t go away on your own. Come and stay here, Ellie.’ Gwen seemed close to tears.
‘That’s really lovely of you but I need to go right away. Not for long. I’m sure you understand.’
‘As long as you know that there’s always…’
‘I do know. I’ve always known.’
‘Of course you can take the car. Take it now.’
‘Really?’
‘No problem.’
‘I’ll be very careful of it.’
I drove Gwen’s car home and parked it outside the gate, then let myself into the house. It was so empty, so silent, so cheerless. I wandered from room to room, picking up objects and putting them down again, running my finger along shelves to collect dust. Perhaps I would move. After I came back from wherever I was going, I would put the house on the market.
I came to a halt in the chilly living room where I closed the curtains. I decided I’d light a fire to brighten it up. The basket already contained pieces of kindling and some tightly screwed up pieces of paper. We’d got into the habit of doing it with used envelopes, letters we didn’t need, scraps of paper. Greg used to talk about identity theft and that it was better than buying a shredder.
I collected a bag of coal from my work shed, then set to work, although I’d rarely lit a fire before – that had always been Greg’s task. I made meals, he made fires. I laid several of the homemade fire-lighters in the grate, then arranged kindling in a wigwam over the top before striking a match and holding the flame against one of the twists of paper. It caught quickly on the dry kindling and I immediately felt the comforting warmth on my face. I sat cross-legged in front of the fire and began to toss the little screwed-up pieces into the flames and watched as they were consumed. Some I unrolled and read. Articles in six-month-old newspapers seem more interesting when you’re about to throw them on the fire. Mostly there were useless old envelopes and letters offering to lend us money or telling us we’d won some in a competition. It struck me that these were the last traces of Greg’s ordinary daily life that were left in the house, the rubbish that surrounds all of us. I was about to toss another into the flames when something caught my eye.
It was just a fragment of handwriting scrawled on the edge of the paper but it looked familiar and I couldn’t think why. I untwisted the paper and smoothed it out.
It had the office letterhead – Foreman and Manning Accountants – but above that, in her flamboyant calligraphy, was written: ‘I’ll ring you about this – Milena Livingstone.’ And underneath the letterhead, in a different ink, a name was written over and over again. Marjorie Sutton, Marjorie Sutton, Marjorie Sutton… About twenty signatures running down the page.
I sat on the floor and held the paper in both hands, staring at it. What did it mean? The message was in Milena’s handwriting. There was no doubt about that. After my days in the office, I knew it as well as my own. And it was on a piece of paper from Greg’s office with Milena’s name on it. It was the thing I had been looking for all this time, the connection. And I was more confused than ever. Why was Marjorie Sutton’s name written on it over and over again? And what was it doing here?