As She Left It (34 page)

So it
was
him in her bedroom and he
had
run next door when Sanjit disturbed him, but why was he copying the bed? The photograph with the threatening note, the cat with the knife in it—those things made some kind of sense if he was trying to scare her, but why would he copy her bed? That was madness. That couldn’t really be happening. She was losing touch with what was real. She was losing her mind. She blundered down the stairs, out into the yard, the lane, the yard next door, and he stopped the saw when he caught sight of her.

“What are you doing?” Her voice sounded hoarse in her ears as if she’d not spoken for days.

“Sorry, love,” he said, pushing his goggles up onto his head making a white path through the red dust stuck to his brow. “Aye, I suppose it’s getting a bit late for all that noise.”

“But what are you doing?” Opal said. “Are you making a bed?”

“I’m making half of one,” he said. “The other half’s missing.” Opal felt the ground shift underneath her feet. “Are you all right?”

“But you shouldn’t know that,” Opal said. “You had no right to be in my house, and you had no right to be snooping around my bedroom copying my bed. What are you doing to me?”

“
Your
bed?” said Franz Ferdi. “I’m not copying your bed. What are you on about?” He took his goggles off completely and pointed into the open door of his outhouse. “I’m copying that bed there, love. Making the other half of it anyway.”

Opal turned round and peered into the dark interior. There, leaning against a blanket tacked onto the wall, was the headboard, six feet high, five feet wide, roses and chrysanthemums and funeral plumes. She turned back to face Franz Ferdi.

“Did you get that from Billy and Tony?” she asked him.

“Who? Here, you need to sit down, you look right peaky.”

“Why is Martin’s bed in your outhouse? Nobody’s bed should be in there.”

“How do you know about Martin?”

“It’s not right. It’s filthy in there.”

“It’s not great, I’ll give you that. Look, love—”

“
The outhouse, the outhouse, the hold your nose and shout house,
” Opal mumbled. Franz Ferdi put his head back and laughed a laugh that rang out across the yard and echoed back from over the lane.

“I haven’t heard that for donkey’s years!” he said. “
Hold me by my left hand, flush me down the muck pan
.” He turned—“Hey!”—and rushed forward, but he was too late.

Opal had slithered to the ground before he could catch her, knocking her head hard against the stone flags just inside the outhouse door.

FORTY
-
TWO

I
T WAS A SMELL
that came back first, even before her eyes fluttered open: the smell of damp stone and standing water, the smell of mice and rusting metal, and darkness and secrets and … sweat. She opened her eyes.

“Lay still,” said Franz Ferdi’s voice. “Don’t move too quickly.”

His work shirt was bundled under her head, stinking sharply of fresh sweat and the oily perfume of new sawdust.

“Promise me you won’t move while I get you a drink of water.”

“Promise,” Opal said. And she kept it, lying flat on her back staring up at the outhouse ceiling, the undersides of the tiles overlapping on top of the beams, just the same, just the same, and it made her pull her knees up to her chest and hug them hard, rocking on the stone flags even though it bruised her backbone every time she moved.

“Here, love,” said Franz Ferdi, kneeling down beside her with a cup in his hand. “Hutch up a bit and drink some of this down. Then tell me what’s the matter. It can’t be as bad as all that.”

“Did you find the notes?” Opal said when she had swallowed two mouthfuls of water and held her breath until she was sure it would stay down. But Franz Ferdinand only frowned at her, so she struggled to her feet, using the headboard posts to haul herself upright. She gripped one hard and twisted, feeling it start to shift right away.

“Blimey O’Reilly,” said Franz Ferdi. He came over and stood right behind Opal. “I never even noticed that. That graining is absolutely perfect.” He ran a nail over the join that was almost invisible until you knew it was there.

“My bed’s good at catching people out,” said Opal. “It’s got form.” She lifted off the top part and there, inside the brass-lined compartment, was a folded piece of paper just like the other two.

“How did you know this was here?”

“Wait a bit,” Opal said and started on the other one.

“And why d’you keep saying it’s your bed?”

Opal unscrewed the second post and took out the last piece of folded paper.

“Not this half,” she said. “Come with me.” And she led him into her house and upstairs to her bedroom. Or rather he led her, holding her elbow, steadying her, helping her move in a straight line even when the pounding in the back of her head threatened to topple her. He let go of her at the bedroom doorway.

“Now, how in the name of Christ did you get the other half of Auntie Norah’s—”

“
No way
. You’re Norah’s nephew?”

“Did Sarah sell you that bed?” he said. “Did she hide
notes
in it?”

Opal hesitated then.

“Sorry,” she said at last. “I know it’s your family and it’s not very nice. But Norah wrote those notes when she was a little girl. I’ve had two of them for a month and I’ve been trying to find the other two. I’ll burst if I don’t read them.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “It’s not my family anymore.”

“Huh?”

“We’re divorced. She’ll take the walls down round the old girl’s ears, and I can’t do a thing to stop her.”

“Ahhh! Right!” said Opal. “You’re Sarah’s
husband
!”

“Ex,” he said emphatically.

“Norah said it: a niece and a nephew and a great-niece and a great-nephew. And I couldn’t work out why Shelley—that’s Norah’s neighbor—didn’t know the nephew! But that’s you and Sarah and your kids, right?”

Franz Ferdi’s face puckered up. “That’s right. Two kids.”

“And they were supposed to visit you, weren’t they? But they didn’t come?”
He’d bought games for them to play with and everything
, she thought. Plastic toys that he’d smashed to bits with a hammer.

“She’s told me if I try to get power of attorney with Auntie Norah or tell anyone what’s going on in that house, I’ll have to go to the courts for visitation.”

“Is that why you moved here?” Opal said. “To be near Norah?”

Franz Ferdi gave her a screwy look, one eyebrow up and one down.

“I moved back to Leeds to be near the kids when Sarah moved here.
She
moved to be near Norah. Soon as she found out the state Norah was in, she was in like Flynn.”

“I know!” said Opal. “At least, I worked out she must be. Only that was when I thought she was no relation at all. And she really moved here to … She told me she didn’t want to move the kids’ schools.”

“She tells people a lot of things.”

“She seemed really nice,” said Opal.

“Oh aye,” Franz Ferdi said. “Whenever there’s a divorce it’s always some poor suffering woman and some bastard hurting her. And you can tell I’m a bastard, by the way, because who else would choose to live on Mote Street and expect his kids to come visiting here?”

“I can’t
believe
you’re on Mote Street,” Opal said, missing the point completely. “Right next door to me. And this bed.” She knocked her knuckles against it. “It went all the way to Northallerton. To Clay-
pole’s.”

“Yeah, she’s careful not to use the same place twice.”

“And I only found it because I was lost.” Then she looked back at him and shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re right here.”

“I’m here cos I couldn’t afford to be anywhere else. Little kids disappearing keeps the price down just lovely. How about you?”

“And Sarah really gave you a hard time just for that?” She couldn’t help the thought that was seeping in at the back of her brain: if she ever chipped away at the concrete behind her outhouse door, this guy would never see his children again.

“She said if Finn and Charlie were here overnight, she’d not sleep for worrying.”

“Shows she’s got a heart,” Opal said. “Once she knows the whole story about Norah, she’ll never just chuck her in a council home.”

“The whole story?”

“The notes,” said Opal. “At last. All four of them.” She got up, swaying a bit and feeling the back of her head pulse with pain, and brought her two folded notes back to the bed and opened them.

South:
because bad things happen to little girls

East:
when someone finds this after I am gone

He was reading them over Opal’s shoulder.

“God Almighty,” he said.

“It was Martin,” said Opal. “Her brother.”

“Bloody hell, how do you know?”

“Because Norah won’t even admit she had a brother most of the time. Won’t even say his name. And it was all hushed up, whatever he did to her. She was just kept at home, as if she had done some kind of disgusting thing. Shelley said it—she was like a prisoner.”

“That was the way back then,” Franz Ferdi said. “Poor old Norah. No wonders she’s so … ”

Opal was unfolding the other notes.

North: S
he will be punished for what she has done

“Where does that fit then?” Franz Ferdi said. Opal opened the last one.

West:
who do what Norah says she will do to me.

MWF. 1st August 1939

She shuffled them first one way and another until they could both read the message as plain as day.

S
he will be punished for what she has done when someone finds this after I am gone because bad things happen to little girls who do what Norah says she will do to me.

MWF. 1st August 1939

“Martin William Fossett,” said Opal. “He was eight when he wrote that.”

“Kids,” said Franz Ferdi, and his voice sounded unsteady. “It might be nowt.”

“But she did it,” Opal said wonderingly. “She did what she said she would. It’s true.”

“How d’you mean?”

“He died when he was twelve.”

“Of what?”

“It was all hushed up,” Opal said. “A scandal, but they dealt with it in the family, and Norah was kept locked up at home and she doesn’t even admit she ever had a brother unless you catch her just the right way.”

“But you don’t know it for sure,” Frank said.

“I just assumed … poor little Norah saying sorry, sorry, sorry. I never thought for a minute she had something to be sorry
for
. Like you just said.”

“Some poor suffering woman?”

“And some bastard hurting her. You just said it, and it’s true.”

“Auntie Norah?”

Opal shook her head.

“That’s another thing I can’t work out. Sarah and you both say Auntie Norah, but if Norah’s only brother died when he was twelve, how can she be anyone’s auntie? I used to think maybe her dad had left and got married again and had a new family—like mine did—but I saw his gravestone and he did die during the war, just like Norah said. When she was away.”

“Away where? You said she’d been in the house her whole life.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Opal. “That’s right. That’s what Shelley said. Oh my God—Shelley! I left a message on her phone saying Sarah was no relation and she was stealing Norah’s stuff.”

Franz Ferdinand started laughing. “She is! I hope Shelley gives her what for. And if she wants to prove she’s a relation, she should produce this famous family tree my ex-father-in-law was working on all those years, that suddenly disappeared without anyone seeing—” He stopped talking and cocked his head. “Visitors?” he said.

Opal’s front door had slammed open again.

“Opal?” Zula’s voice came up the stairs.

“Up here,” Opal called.

Zula arrived, panting, and then plunged forward with her hands out to grab Franz Ferdinand’s neck.

“Get away from her, you animal!”

“No!” Opal threw herself in front of Zula, elbowing Franz Ferdi’s middle. “Zula, I got it wrong. It’s fine.”

“Eh?” said Franz Ferdi, rubbing himself.

“Sorry,” Opal said. “Zula, Franz Ferdinand is nothing to do with the knife or anything.”

“Franz Fer … ? It’s Frank,” he said.

“Frank, right,” said Opal. “Sorry. I only knew FF, and I—”

“Francis Findlay,” said Franz Ferdi. “That’s bad enough.”

“Are you
sure
you’re okay, Opal?” Zula asked again. She had come forward and was staring hard into Opal’s eyes.

“Probably not,” said Franz/Frank. “You need to go to the hospital. You need looking at for concussion.” He stood and held his hands out for Opal.

“That’s what I came to tell you, Opal,” Zula said. “Pep just phoned. He says if you want to see Fishbo, you better come straight away.”

FORTY
-
THREE

“
C
ONCUSSION?”
O
PAL SAID, AS
the van pulled away. “Do you really think so?”

“You’ve been talking a load of bollocks, love,” Frank said.

“Well, yeah, but that’s not just since I bumped my head, is it?” said Opal. “Just like how it’s not all Alzheimer’s with Auntie Norah. Not nearly.” Then they were quiet again. “I knew there something up with her prayer book,” Opal said, at last.

“Yeah? Not the praying kind?”

“No—well, that too, yeah—but it was the writing. It was nothing like the writing on the bedpost notes, and it never occurred to me. Plus the question of why a dad wouldn’t write a dedication in his daughter’s present instead of her having to write her own. That makes sense too now. I just thought he must have been one of those don’t-care dads.” She glanced at Frank from the corner of her eye. “Sorry. There it is again, eh?” He said nothing. “Man, that really hurt when I looked out of the side of my eye.”

“Shut them,” Frank said. “Rest them. Don’t want you keeling over on Fishbo’s deathbed. The nurses don’t allow it.”

Opal wanted to say she thought he must be a great dad, but didn’t know how to put it, and didn’t know, now she’d met him properly, if he was actually that much older than she was, didn’t want to offend him. And even thinking about it was making her feel sick—dads and brothers and Fishbo, Cleora and Steph and Sandy, and Norah going away and—