Abigale Hall

First published 2016
by Black & White Publishing Ltd
29 Ocean Drive, Edinburgh EH6 6JL

www.blackandwhitepublishing.com

This electronic edition first published in 2016

ISBN: 978 1 78530 028 8 in EPub format
ISBN: 978 1 78530 009 7 in paperback format

Copyright © Lauren A. Forry 2016

The right of Lauren A. Forry to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Ebook by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore

 

 

 

 

To Mom, for giving me the time and space and support to become what I wanted to be.

I owe thanks to many people for many things. These are a few of them. Thank you Jonathan Barnes, Anna Faherty, Judith Watts and the rest of the Creative Writing and Publishing faculty at Kingston University for helping me learn the craft and the business. Thank you Serina Gothard and Hannah Tuson for reading early drafts and later drafts and helping to make it better.

Thank you Sandra Sawicka for your notes and your guidance and for making this a real thing. Thank you Karyn Millar, Campbell Brown and the entire Black & White team for everything you've done to make this the best book it could be.

Thank you David Raynor, Claire Raskind and Jose Rodriguez for giving me amazing opportunities and being all-around wonderful people when I had no idea what I was doing.

Thank you Hyun Davidson for the inflatable mattress, brunch,
The X-
Files
marathons and the years of support, even after I dropped pre-med.

Thank you Jannicke de Lange for being who you said you were. Thank you for being the best roommate, the best collaborator, the best evil twin and the best friend. Thank you to the rest of my Norwegian family: Cathrine de Lange, the first to read the finished version, for being the little sister I never had, and Margaret M. de Lange and Harald J. de Lange for letting your daughter meet people on the internet and welcoming them to your home. Thank you especially for the crabs.

Finally, thank you to the people that have been there from the very beginning: Cherie and Lindsey, for putting me in the laundry basket and including me in your shows; Dad, who thought everything was wonderful; and Mom, for everything.

In a hidden corner of the Welsh countryside, beneath the dark green hills and stretching deep underground, lies a secret. Though few know of its existence, all feel its presence, for above this secret rests a house. One would be forgiven for believing it abandoned. Long grasses choke the overgrown gardens. Boards grey as the old mare grazing behind the rusted gates cover the highest windows. The house sits alone, its crumbling façade a pox on the hills it once commanded.

No one lives there, though a few reside within its walls: a caretaker who tends the grounds, too young for this damnation; a housekeeper who will never be satisfied, not until . . . ; and an old man who sits and thinks round the holes in his mind. If one were at the house now, one would see the caretaker smoking in the carriage house and the old man watching the world with eyes closed. The housekeeper cleans in the cellar. Flames dampen as she throws frocks into the furnace, then grow again to devour the thin fabrics. Next she adds the shoes, undergarments and, finally, the diary. She watches as the fire envelops the journal's pages, the leather cover melting and blistering in the intense heat. Satisfied, she shuts the furnace door, wiping her hands on her apron before ascending the cellar steps and returning to where the old man waits.

‘It's all done. I told you I'd take care of it, didn't I?' She brushes the lint off his shoulder. ‘She was no different than the others, was she? There was no reason to worry. Now, shall you retire until dinner?'

She escorts him through the house, making note of her chores as she goes: light the fire in the bedroom, order more coal for the east wing, scrub the blood from the floorboards. There is much to do in a large house such as this.

The door to the veranda jams as she opens it. A firm yank and the frame yields. This house always yields to her. She leaves the old man there to admire one of his favourite views – the little cemetery in the west. The sun will soon be setting, casting crimson light over the ageing gravestones where another waits, watching.

The housekeeper returns to her wing, leaving footprints in the disturbed dust of the bloodied servants' passage, pausing only to wipe a damp, crimson handprint from the peeling wallpaper. Ensconced in her small office by the kitchen, she settles at her writing desk and produces his familiar grey stationery from its drawer. Upon taking up her pen, she dips the worn quill in a jar of red ink and composes the letter as it has been done so many times before, and as it will be done again. The names are all that change. Tomorrow she will travel to the village and post it. She hates the delay, but all will be taken care of in good time. A few weeks and Mr Brownawell will have his new ward. She smiles as the sharp edge of the envelope slides beneath her fingers.

In the cemetery, as the dimming light casts the house in darkness, the other watches, weeping for those who will join them in the shadows of the dark green hills.

‘One. Two. Three.'

The slow, methodical taps punctuated the air, asynchronous to the beat of the morning traffic that filtered through the single-glazed kitchen window.

‘Four. Five. Six.'

Each pat of the brass door handle, underscored by a whispered number, tightened Eliza's nerves like the winding of a clock. Each pause in between lasted longer than a second, providing a brief respite before the next number dutifully struck.

‘Seven. Eight. Nine.'

She glanced at their grandmother clock, eyes wandering past the singes around the plinth and body before settling on the clock face: half past ten. They would be late, again, but Aunt Bess would need to accept that. There was no such thing as being on time in Eliza's world, only varying degrees of late.

‘Ten. Eleven. Twelve.'

Rebecca, her face wrinkled and pinched in serious concentration as her breathy voice echoed through the small flat like a ghostly whisper, could not be rushed.

In the mirror above the wireless, Eliza spotted a smudge of coal dust on her cheek and scrubbed at it with her thumb until her skin turned red. Behind her freckles, she recognised her mother's round face but none of her beauty. At Rebecca's age, she dreamt of being glamorous at seventeen, like the women in Mother's fashion magazines. There was nothing glamorous about freckles or straight brown hair too heavy to perm. She looked past her reflection and watched her sister. Rebecca would be beautiful at seventeen, Eliza knew. Though only twelve, she already possessed delicate blonde curls that perfectly framed the sharp cheekbones of Father's side of the family. Boys would gawk at her, trip over themselves asking her to the pictures, compare her to the beauties on the screen.

‘Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.'

Eliza wrapped her dishevelled hair in a clean headscarf and turned away from the mirror. She preferred books to films, anyhow.

‘Have everything?' she asked as Rebecca skipped across the room.

‘I think so.' Rebecca checked her bag. ‘Are we going to be late?'

‘Course not, dearie.' Eliza placed her arms around her sister's shoulders and guided her out the door. ‘Just remember, leave Auntie Bess to me.' As Rebecca's eyes flitted to the lock, Eliza checked for herself that the door was secure behind them. ‘Come on then. We may have to run.'

Eliza manoeuvred round the fermenting rubbish that crowded the halls and staircases. With the cool air outside, the smell wasn't so bad today. ‘We can head down through Fieldgate Street to save time. Cut over at Romford. They've started clearing the rubble there. Careful. Watch your step. Good girl.'

The heavy front door banged shut. Eliza grabbed Rebecca's hand as she reached for the latch and dragged her down the steps to the pavement where the queue for List's blocked their path. Rebecca's protests were lost amidst the din of a busy Whitechapel morning. Though Rebecca tried to withdraw her hand, Eliza gripped it ever tighter as they forced their way through the empty baskets and shabby overcoats in the queue.

‘What's the point, he said, if the bomb's just going to kill us all? Only fourteen and he thinks it's the end of the world.'

‘And that's his excuse for stealing, is it? You tell him, it's not the bomb he should be worried about. Nationalisation, now that . . .'

Eliza's coat sleeve caught on a wicker basket. She apologised as she backed into the street, narrowly dodging the number fifteen bus as she and Rebecca hurried to the other side, where the queue for the haberdasher's waited. After inhaling a lungful of exhaust smoke, she paused to cough while Rebecca fiddled with her shoes.

‘Horrid time for it. And with the shortage and all. I'll tell you, it'll be for nought. I've lived through two wars now and there's a third just round the corner. Wait and see.'

‘Oh, don't get your back up. It's only a bit of lace! I've been waiting months for new . . .'

A delivery truck lumbered past, drowning out all conversation. Eliza tried to rush them past the collapsed Anderson shelter on Romford Street, but Rebecca slowed to a near stop.

‘Eliza, wait! I can't keep up.'

‘You can if you try harder.'

‘No, I can't. My shoes are too tight.'

She tried to pull Rebecca along. Every second lost was another second she would have to explain. ‘Well you should've mentioned it before. I could've given you my old pair.'

‘But your feet are too big.'

‘Thanks very much.'

‘I'd flap about in them. They wouldn't be any use at all!' Rebecca stopped and stomped her foot. Eliza took her arm and kept her moving, dodging a man on a bicycle.

‘All right, enough! We'll ask Auntie Bess if she can spare any clothing coupons. Perhaps if we're not so late she'll be kind enough to give them to you.'

‘But you said we weren't late!'

‘We will be if you don't keep up.'

‘It's not me. It's the shoes!'

Already Eliza was behind in the day's chores, which meant after work it would be straight back home, instead of a late meal with Peter. There wasn't time for Rebecca's complaints. Only five minutes from the office, she stopped at the queue for Dyson's.

‘Bread rationing, of all the things. This wouldn't have happened if Churchill were still in charge. My Charlie, he says . . .'

Eliza shouldered her way through the crowd and stopped on a thin strip of unoccupied pavement.

‘Here.' She bent down and untied her shoes. ‘Hurry up. You, too.' Eliza stuffed their handkerchiefs into the toes of her larger shoes and handed them to her sister. ‘Put these on.' Eliza slipped the too-small shoes into her bag while Rebecca laced up Eliza's pair. ‘Better?'

‘A bit. Yes.'

‘Good. We'll switch back when we get there.' They ran to the next street, Eliza ignoring the wetness seeping into her stockings, the feel of the dirt soaking into her feet. It was only a month since the big freeze. Grey snow long pushed into the city's crevices melted in the cool March air, leaving the ground damp and slippery. She could wash her stockings. It would be fine.

After exchanging shoes outside the office, Eliza pushed Rebecca into the building, preventing her from touching the door. The scent of grime and sulphur in the narrow stairwell threatened to choke her. A sweet, smoky odour lingered in the air. Unable to breathe, she felt her pulse quicken. The pressure around her neck made her head heavy as the smell pulled at unwanted memories. When they reached the crowded planning office, she inhaled deeply, savouring the rank odour of fag smoke and old coffee.

Aunt Bess stood halfway across the room, devouring another cigarette and wearing that awful red dress – the one she said brought life to their drab world. Eliza thought it garish. That V-neck brought life only to the bulge in Mr Mosley's trousers.

‘And that lovely floral dress I had, remember? With the pale pink . . .' Aunt Bess stuck the cigarette between her lips.

‘Oh yes,' her co-worker nodded. ‘Yes, with the corseted bodice?'

‘Yes, that's the one. Would you believe a tear, right there . . .' With the cigarette, Aunt Bess pointed to her shoulder.

‘Now how on earth . . . ?'

‘No idea. Think I'd been gaining weight, as if that were possible with the . . .'

‘They should up the butter ration. It simply isn't––'

‘Fair. No, not fair at all. Oh.'

Eliza smiled as she was finally noticed.

‘I expected you an hour ago.' Aunt Bess searched through her handbag.

‘The clock is slow,' Eliza said.

‘Then wind it.'

‘I did.'

‘Well, you're only hurting yourself, aren't you?' Aunt Bess retrieved her tattered ration book and dropped it into Eliza's hands as if ridding herself of a dead rat. ‘Woolworths will be completely out of cooking fat by now and Harriet told me they already sold the last of the rabbit half an hour ago.'

The co-worker, Harriet, crossed her arms and nodded.

‘I don't like rabbit,' Rebecca mumbled. Eliza elbowed her.

‘What did you say, young lady?'

‘Nothing, ma'am.'

Aunt Bess blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Well, I happen to adore rabbit and was very much looking forward to it this evening.'

‘Sorry, ma'am,' Eliza and Rebecca replied in unison. Aunt Bess flicked ash into the tray beside her elbow.

‘Right. Well, Eliza, you'd better leave else it'll be offal again tonight. Rebecca, Mr Mosley needs your help running files to the City. Go on.' She nodded to the office behind her.

Rebecca hurried off while Eliza took her time placing the book into her bag. Aunt Bess sat behind her typewriter, already ignoring her.

‘Auntie Bess?'

‘You have that job of yours tonight, don't you? Cinema cigarette girl or whatever it is?'

‘Theatre usher. Yes, ma'am.'

‘You'll make sure all the food is prepared before you go out?'

‘Yes. Of course. I'll have everything ready, ma'am.'

‘Good.' She stubbed the cigarette butt into the ashtray and fitted a piece of paper into the typewriter. She looked at Eliza, the circles under her eyes the same shade as the soot in the tray. The dress didn't do anything for her at all, Eliza thought.

‘Why are you still here?'

‘I had a question.'

‘There aren't any jobs here. Already told you. Harriet can't even get her bloody daughter one and she worked as a clerical assistant in the war rooms! The daughter, you know. So, there's positively no hope for you.'

‘No. It's not that.'

‘Well, what is it then?' She sighed, pulling another cigarette from the near-empty pack.

‘Rebecca needs new shoes.'

‘Don't we all?' She struck a match and lit the fag.

‘Hers are too small. She's grown quite a bit in the past year . . .'

‘Then use your clothing card and get her some.'

‘The Post Office still hasn't replaced the ones we lost during the move and they said . . .'

‘And that's my problem, is it?' She tossed the extinguished match onto her desk and slumped back in her chair. ‘I'm sorry, Eliza. Really I am. But she'll have to wait. Maybe next month. She can wear your other pair for now.'

‘But they're too big.'

‘Damn it, child, what do you expect me to do?'

‘Miss Haverford?' Mr Mosley, lanky and balding, stood in the doorway of his office. He looked as if God had made him by stretching a short man's skin over a too-large skeleton. His black suit, the same one he wore every day, was short around the wrists and ankles, like it belonged to the skin but not the man.

‘Yes, Mr Mosley.' Aunt Bess smiled, her teeth a muddy brown from her strict tea-and-fags diet.

‘I need those papers on Spitalfields.'

‘Right away, sir.' She rose from her desk. ‘If rabbit's out of the question, find some Spam. I'll only be a minute, Mr Mosley!' Aunt Bess disappeared down the hall, leaving Eliza alone with her open handbag.

Without thinking, Eliza thrust her hands into Aunt Bess's bag, fingers digging beneath the empty cigarette boxes, headache pills and make-up before brushing paper at the bottom. She pulled out an unopened grey envelope and her aunt's clothing card. The envelope she stuffed back into the cluttered bag. The coupon book went into her jacket pocket.

*

The human wall outside their flat had changed faces, but its structure remained the same. With her heavy burlap bags, Eliza forced a path through the fortress of worn overcoats and shouldered her front door open. The trek to the third floor was slow as she navigated round the rubbish. On the first landing, she passed hobbling Mrs Hodgkins, who was struggling down the stairs.

‘Tell you what, child,' Mrs Hodgkins coughed. ‘If these bags here aren't gone by tomorrow, I'll chuck them out myself!'

‘You do that, Mrs Hodgkins, and I'll be right beside you with an armful of my own.'

Mrs Hodgkins' creaking laughter followed Eliza all the way to her door.

She wasted little time preparing the dinner, sparing herself a crust of bread and some margarine for her luncheon. If she was quick enough, there might still be time for Peter to buy her dinner after work. She thought of Peter in his ill-fitting usher's jacket and allowed herself a smile.

With dinner stored in the larder, she pulled the final package from the shopping bags and scribbled a note inside its lid.

Don't
tell Auntie Bess.

Eliza shoved the parcel under their bed, knowing Rebecca would find it during her nightly count. A thump from the floor above caused the books on her shelf to shift.
Peter and Wendy
fell over with a slap. Eliza carefully rearranged it, propping it up with one of Mother's porcelain figurines. Eliza had dozens of books saved from their old house, some still wrapped in brown paper and tied neatly with string. She ran her fingers over the delicate spines, rereading the titles as she checked that all remained in their proper place. As soon as she received her pay this month, she would be back at Foyles adding another to her growing collection. She straightened a dancing figurine so that the woman's outstretched hand fell perfectly in line with the book spines.

The laundry she'd hung in the sitting room that morning was still damp. Nothing dried inside, but it wasn't worth hanging it out the window. It would either be stolen or coated in coal dust. She saw in a magazine that every home in America now had electric dryers. They had everything in America – nylons, chocolate, chewing gum. Mrs Hodgkins received a parcel from her son over there every month. If only they had family there, a friend. Electric dryers. She sighed as she felt the wet sleeve of Rebecca's brown dress. Might as well be science fiction, she decided.

Eliza dropped her hand and took a breath. For the first time that day, there was a moment of quiet. She stood still, surrounded by the dank stench of drying clothes mingling with the fatty scent of cooked bacon. The sound of the cars below crept in through the cracked kitchen window.
Thunk thunk.
There was a crater in the street below. A present from Jerry. The buses could never avoid it.