The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy (28 page)

As if I had said something to this effect, she laughed. ‘The heat is
there, and nothing you can do is going to stop it.’

So instead I gave in to the fieriness of it. I felt the slippery film on my skin and tight prickliness below and the dryness of my throat and the white at my eyes. I was not an old woman who didn’t want to be hot; instead, I was the heat. It is only a small difference but I slept.

‘Are you feeling a little better now?’ asks Sister Mary Inconnue. The light has gone and a cool wind plays through the curtains. I can hear the leaves of the tree. ‘I know it has been very jolly in the last few days,’ she says. ‘All these greeting cards. All this activity and so on. But perhaps you’d better get back to your own letter, dear heart.’

Murano clowns

I
KNEW
it was you, Harold, who broke into the brewery. I knew it was you who’d smashed Napier’s glass clowns. I’d have guessed even if I hadn’t been there, but I was. I saw everything.

After David’s funeral, I found it hard to leave the brewery at night. More specifically, I found it hard to return to my flat. I invented reasons to stay out: I watched the same film several times on the trot. I took walks along the quay (though I was careful not to look at the bench where David and I had sat together and I had given him my mittens). Anything to delay that moment when I steered the front door open with my key and saw David’s empty chair. Even though you were back at work, Napier had not sent us out on any drives. I was relieved. I wasn’t ready to be alone with you.

One night I tried to work late. I’d found a box of old account books and even though they were ten years out of date, I told myself I needed to go through them. I’d been alone in the building for a few hours maybe, not even looking at the numbers in front of me, absorbed in thoughts of my own, when something gave a crack downstairs. The noise brought me to the present and I realized I was sitting in almost-darkness. The only light was a wash of silver coming from a full moon at the window.

I listened but there was no further sound. I tried to concentrate on my work.

It came again. The noise. A dull knocking against an internal door. A tap, tap. Someone was trying to break into a locked room.

I slipped off my shoes and moved in silence. The concrete walls of the corridors were dark and cold against my fingers, almost damp. I continued as rapidly as I could in the direction of the stairs. Every time the building gave a creak or bang, I was startled. As I neared the well of the staircase, a torrent of light from the ground floor poured into the blackness. I was in full view now and it was hard to see anything else. I took the stairs one at a time. I had to swallow my breathing before it hit the silence.

I heard sobs. Your sobs. From the wetness of the sound, and the abandonment and the tiredness too, I could tell you’d been crying a long time. I knew exactly where to find you.

Quickly I moved away from the light of the staircase, towards Napier’s locked office. The ground beneath my feet changed from hard tiles to carpet. The walls were now wood-panelled. Turning the corner, I saw you. I stood to one side.

You were rattling at Napier’s door handle, beating the panels with your fists, kicking them with your foot. Sometimes you pressed your head to the door and leaned there, worn out with grieving. Other times, you jumped back and only flailed at the door. Then you must have had a new idea, and you took a few backward steps in order to charge at the door with the full weight of your shoulder. The door gave a splitting crack and you flew out of my vision, into Napier’s office. I crept closer.

For the first time I could make out your face, though the moon at the window was curtained with cloud.

You were more animal than man in fawn. Your mouth was stretched into a scream, and shadows cast deep gouged-out lines in your forehead. You held your hands above your head in fists and you moved in
disjointed swaggers up and down the room. There was no logic to your movement. It was as if your grief didn’t know where to put itself. The cloud outside passed away from the full moon and Napier’s glass clowns glittered briefly, stirred to life. I caught sight of them the same moment you did. I cried out to stop you but it was too late. You didn’t hear.

You lifted two of the glass figures. One in each hand. You held them high, the way a parent pulls up a child on a swing so that the child will get the full swoop, and then you hurled them towards the ground. They smashed at your feet and you picked up another two, another two. You didn’t stop until all twenty of them were gone. You stamped on them. You kicked them. And all the while, you roared.

I didn’t stop you. How could I? You didn’t want to let your son go gently. You wanted to rage.

Besides, you were in a place of your own. After a few moments of this wild thrashing, you stopped very suddenly and took in what you’d done. Caught in the cold flood of moonlight, you buried your head in your hands.

I was about to step forward when you staggered towards the door. You passed right by me. We were almost touching, Harold. Your foot was by my foot. Your hand was by my hand. But you lumbered past me as if I were no more than another part of the wall. I smelt the drink on you. As I heard you crash out of the building, I moved to Napier’s window. You passed like a shadow across the brewery yard. You paused once and glanced back up at the window, and, not seeing me there, you got into your car.

I swept the pieces into one place, trying to make the best of things. Then I returned to my office and waited for the morning.

*

When Napier entered the building and saw the damage, he screamed. I tell you this because you weren’t there. You won’t have heard him crash through the building. He fired the cleaner before I could get to him. Gangs of reps quickly began to scour the brewery. It was as though you could be safe or innocent only if you were actively on the lookout for the one person who was not. There were whisperings in corners. Whisperings on stairs. At least one suspect was escorted from the canteen for questioning and emerged later from the yard holding his arm.

I kept a lookout for you all morning. As soon as I caught sight of your car, I hurried down to meet you. Do you remember this?

I said, ‘Something happened at the brewery. It was in the night.’ I pulled at your sleeve because you couldn’t even stand straight. I didn’t dare go the whole way and hold your hand. You lifted your eyes to mine. They looked like two lychees. They were that raw and that fragile.

I said, ‘Are you listening? Because this is serious, Harold. It’s very serious. Napier won’t let it go.’

Fear whitened your face. Your guilt was stamped all over you. Your tie hung loose round your neck like a necklace. Your top shirt buttons were undone. And your hands. Harold, you hadn’t even bothered to wash or plaster them. What were you thinking of? They were covered in nicks and cuts. And it dawned on me that of course you wanted Napier to find you out. You were back because you wanted him to see you and do his worst.

‘Go home,’ I said. ‘Let me deal with this.’

‘You don’t understand.’ Your words were barely audible.

‘You shouldn’t be here, Harold. It’s too soon. Go home.’

Slowly you turned your back on me. I watched you make your way along the wood panelling, bumping it sometimes with your shoulder as you lost your balance, your knees weak, your head low. You muttered something I didn’t hear. I wish I had called out to you as you moved away. Goodbye. Forgive me. I love you. But I didn’t know this was the last time. I was certain I would see you again.

You turned the corner and – snap. You were gone from me. I took a deep breath and headed towards Napier’s office.

The mystery man

T
HREE DAYS
ago, the Pearly King failed to appear. A parcel was delivered but he was not in his chair to open it.

‘I have sad news,’ said Sister Philomena.

‘Aw no,’ groaned Finty. She began to cry. ‘No, no. Not him. No.’

‘A true gentleman,’ said Mr Henderson.

This morning we were sitting with several of the volunteers in the dayroom when the sound of hooves clip-clopped into the silence. A horse-drawn glass hearse passed the window and drew up beside the
DO NOT PARK HERE
sign. The black horses were adorned with purple plumes. The hearse was glass-domed, so clear that it sparkled in the summer sun. It was packed with white wreaths. The undertaker got out and fed the horses something from his pocket.

‘Well, I never,’ said one of the volunteers.

Finty watched with her hands to her mouth.

During the course of the morning, many mourners arrived to thank Sister Philomena and her team at St Bernadine’s. There will be a procession from here to the church, where the Pearly King will be buried. The nuns tried to look after the guests in the garden, but it began to rain, and what with the vigil leaders blocking the pavement outside and all the new patients and their families in the private rooms, there was no space for anyone except in the dayroom.

The nuns brought tea, and the mourners talked loudly. They were dressed in the style of the hearse. Feathers and black veils and top hats
and morning suits. The first they knew about the Pearly King’s illness was when they got the news he had died.

‘Why didn’t he say? Why didn’t he tell us?’ said a woman with a voice like a growl whom we assumed to be one of his daughters.

‘He didn’t want us to worry,’ said one of the men.

It turned out that the Pearly King had told his friends and family he was holidaying in Malta.

‘I loved the fool,’ said Finty.

She has not worked on her banner.

It was my fault

‘Y
OU DID
what?’ Napier screams. The veins stick out in his neck like purple rope. I am standing at one end of the room. He stands behind his almost-empty desk. Between us lie thousands of coloured glass pins. He hasn’t allowed Sheila to touch them. Until he finds the culprit, no one is going home.

I grip hold of my handbag. My head throbs. I am exhausted with the lack of sleep. ‘I am saying it was my fault.’

He screams again. He slams his fist on the desk. ‘The clowns? My mother’s glass clowns?’

‘It was an accident.’

Napier turns the colour of cream cheese. ‘It is the only thing I have of hers.’ He snatches something from his desk, and a moment later it is shooting towards my head. I duck, and whatever it is smashes into the wall opposite, landing with a thud on the floor, where it spins several times and then falls dead. A heavy glass paperweight. I wonder how you missed that?

There is an onslaught of abuse. He calls me many names. They froth and spit from his mouth as he takes off and paces the room with his fingers clenched stiff. He can’t keep still. When he releases that right arm of his, it will jab out and punch me. I’ve never been hit by a man. But I will bear this. I will do it. An eye for an eye.

I speak slowly. ‘I stayed on late, doing paperwork. I delivered it to your desk before I left the building. But my foot slipped. And I fell. I am sorry. I am so sorry.’

I can’t stop saying it. I don’t know who I am talking to any more.

Napier pauses. He twists to face me. He remains still, giving the calm smile of the powerful, and flicking dust from the shoulders of his jacket. I have no idea which is more terrifying, his stillness or his fury.

‘You slipped?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you broke every one of my glass clowns?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what? You stamped on them? You trod them into the ground?’

I can’t look at him. I can only repeat what I’ve already said. ‘It was an accident. I am so sorry.’

Napier advances closer. He reeks of sweat and smoke. He is almost touching me. ‘If you weren’t a woman, I’d fucking tear you apart.’ He speaks through his pointed teeth. ‘Get out. I never want to see you again. Do you understand? I don’t want to hear you. I don’t want to smell you. I don’t even want to pass you on the street. Understand me? Leave tonight if you know what’s good for you.’

He lifts his hand and I flinch, anticipating a blow, but he bows his head and grips the chair beside me. His knuckles turn bone white as he shakes.

‘Harold Fry’s job?’ I whisper. My pulse is in my mouth. ‘Will he keep it?’

Napier gives a sigh like a snarl. I wonder if he’s about to throw another heavy object, though in truth there is little left. Not unless he picks up the chair or hurls the table. Then, without moving his head, he grunts, ‘Get out.’ The words are tight, squeezed from his throat.

As I walk away, the floor cracks and pops beneath my feet. I am
reaching for the door when I notice the splintered hole in the doorframe where you ripped the lock open with the force of your shoulder. Just as I touch it, Napier stops me with one last question: ‘You didn’t do it, Hennessy. Did you?’ My spine freezes over.

I close the broken door carefully behind me. It is like marking the end of a sentence with a silent full stop.

I fetch my handbag from my office. I say goodbye to Sheila. What will I do next? she asks. I tell her I need to find Harold Fry.

That is the last time I see the brewery.

There was a woman once who visited my sea garden. She was in Northumberland on holiday with her husband and she was taking a walk along the clifftops while he played a round of golf. It turned out the couple lived near Kingsbridge and knew the brewery. She had a kind face, I remember that, very soft eyes, and I believe she thought she’d upset me. ‘No, no,’ I said, wiping away tears. ‘It’s just a long time since anyone has talked to me about the brewery. Please, stay.’ I served tea in the green cups and we sat on cushions on the stone boulder. She mentioned Napier too. A motoring accident, she said. And it struck me as strange that you must have known all these things, while I didn’t.

She sipped her tea. ‘Such a kind man,’ she murmured.

For a moment I thought she was referring to you. My teacup trembled in my hand.

‘I knew his mother, Agnes. He couldn’t do enough for her.’

‘Are you talking about Napier?’