Paint Me True (21 page)

“I understand. Really.” She didn’t look like she was mocking me.

“You
understand?
Oh gee, you just beat a woman within an inch of her life-”

“Me?
Me?
Oh no, no, no.” She burst out laughing.

I folded my arms across my chest.

“Do I look like someone who could do that kind of damage? I mean, look at how small I am.”

“Who did it, then?”

She took off her sunglasses and rested them on the top of her head. Her gray eyes searched my face. “You really don’t know?”

“Just answer my question.”

“Paul, honey.”

“That is a lie. He was the perfect husband. She loved him more than anything.”

“I believe the second part. She did love him more than made sense.”

“You can’t possibly think I’ll believe that he beat her.”

“Well, let’s be logical about this. I couldn’t have done it. Look at how small I am, and she and I haven’t had much contact over the years. My brother, now, was an alcoholic temperamental little boy, just like our father.”

“Or... or... you could have gotten someone else or...”

Louisa dug into her pocket and produced her keys. She separated one from the rest and held it up. “Johnny gave me this. Had the copy made with money from his allowance and had me promise him I’d always have it on me. If he ever needed anything, he’d shine a torch out his window on a little mirror that would reflect it at our house.”

A torch was a flashlight. I remembered the flashlight on the windowsill. “John, my cousin, John?”

“Yes.” She looked me straight in the eye.

Louisa’s gaze was steady. She saw the change in my features, but she didn’t gloat over it.

“Do you know how to reach him? Or his sister?”

“Why don’t you and I go for some tea? I know a place nearby.”

“I... dunno...”

She gestured at the nurse’s car in the driveway. “Nora’s being cared for. I assume they have your number?”

I nodded.

“It doesn’t need to be a long chat. Come with me.”

T
he place Louisa knew was a little bed and breakfast with a cafe that served cream tea. I felt out of place with my barely dry clothing and hair still up in a makeshift bun, but Louisa moved with confidence and soon had us seated on two comfy chairs with a small table between us. The elderly woman who brought us our tea seemed to know her well, because she didn’t utter a word, just set down the pot.

“Thank you,” said Louisa.

“Scones?”

“Please.”

I looked at the teapot dubiously.

“It’s red tea, dear,” said Louisa. “Not real tea. Though if you’d like something else, we can order that.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“I miss tea. This is the closest I can get.” She poured the deep mahogany colored liquid into my teacup. “So, right. About your cousins. Yes, of course I can get in touch with them. What would you like me to tell them?”

“I just need to talk to them. It’s important.”

“Suit yourself.” She got out her cellphone and pressed a key. Only one, I noticed. She had the number on speed-dial.

I heard the other person’s jubilant, “Auntie Lou!” A man’s voice.

“Hello, dear... Yes? Well I’ll check my email when I get home. Are these new pictures or the ones with the twins eating potato salad? Right… Listen, I’ve got someone here who wants to speak to you very badly. Her name’s Eliza and she’s your cousin, from America... Yes, that Eliza. Sweetie, just let her speak to you. She’ll keep it short.” She passed the phone over to me and folded her hands primly on the edge of the table.

I put the phone against my ear as if it were made of spun sugar and liable to disintegrate if I squeezed too hard. “Hello?” I said.

“Hello.” The man’s voice was guarded.

“Listen... there’s no easy way to say this.”

“Just say it, then.”

“You need to come visit your mother.”

“Why is that?”

“She’s dying.”

Louisa clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

I turned to one side and did my best to keep my voice steady. “I’m so sorry. She wouldn’t go in for any tests or anything and I-I finally got her to, but it was too late. Way too late.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Cancer. You know, the family curse?”

“Sorry?” He genuinely didn’t know.

“Look, can you come immediately? She doesn’t have much time left.”

“Let me have the phone,” said Louisa.

I passed it back.

“Listen, dear, I’ll book you all a train. Tell me when you can leave and I’ll book it... Don’t start with me. Tell me when you can leave... Right, call me when you’ve done that. I’m putting more money on your phone. Go talk to Bea. Hurry now. I love you.” She hung up.

I tried to piece together what I’d heard. “You’re paying his train fare and for his phone?”

“I help however I can. He’s got
no
money. Works as a binman and lives on a council estate.”

It took me a moment to translate that. He worked as a garbage man and lived in government housing. “What? Why?”

“Because his mother cut him off is why.”

“My aunt-”

“Is proud as a peacock. But who am I to judge? I never understood much about her. See, I thought it was a religious dispute, but then you show up at our ward and scupper that whole idea.”

“Excuse me?”

“I thought Nora didn’t like Mormons.”

“Is John a Mormon?”

“Of course he is.”

“Wait, what?”

She blinked at me owlishly. “Right, I suppose you wouldn’t have a clue. Yes, Johnny’s a Mormon. He was just ordained a high priest, and Keeley’s thinking over whether or not to put papers in for another mission. She served in Haiti last time and found it such a growing experience. But first she’s going to finish her masters.”

“Her masters?”

“I think I’d best decide on how to tell this story and just tell it, or else it’ll come out in jumbled bits and make no sense at all. Right... so do you believe me that Paul was a monster who beat his wife?”

I didn’t want to answer that.

“Fine, well, he was. And one day when he and Nora were having a monstrous row, two men knocked on the front door. Johnny was the only one who heard it and when he answered, the men explained that they were Nora’s home teachers, and they asked if they could help him with anything. He asked if they’d take him home with them.

“I lived out a ways back then, so you can imagine my surprise when I came home to find Bruce Babcock on my front stoop. I didn’t know him at the time, but he explained he was a counselor in the bishopric of the ward and he asked if I’d be willing to tell him a few things about the family. We sat out in my front garden and I told him what there is to tell, how there’s been drink and violence going as far back as I knew, how my dad beat my mum so bad she committed suicide-”

“What?”

“My dear, I am not of goodly parents. No one in our family is. It’s why I never dared have children of my own.”

“So what did the Church do for my cousins?”

“I wouldn’t know the full extent of it. I imagine they talked to Nora and my brother. They got the children some sessions with a counselor, maybe the parents too, I don’t know. The ward put together a rota of babysitters, willing to look after the children at a moment’s notice without asking questions, provided there was never a mark on them, and there never was. Nora managed to keep them safe in that respect.

“And I went to visit my niece and nephew when they were being babysat by ward members. It was sneaky of me, I know, but I was afraid that if I contacted Nora, she wouldn’t want me around them. We bonded at once, those children and I. People began to bring them to church every week and I went too, just to see them at first, but then I saw so many other things. Take Johnny, for example. He’s from a long line of abusive, alcoholic men. It’s not just Paul and our father. His father wasn’t much better. Things like that become a matter of course in a family and it seems like it’ll never end. I ended it by not having children, but Johnny did one better. He’s got a lovely family. One generation and look at what he’s done.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It doesn’t always work out, but people can do it.”

“Your family have a story like that?” She perked up.

I shook my head. “My dad’s been a Bishop and is now a Stake President. People came to us sometimes, when I was a kid, to thank him. I heard a lot of stories like what you describe with John.”

“Oh, well, I’d just thought that if your family was like that, perhaps I could understand Nora, but I fear she only was ever interested in the money and the house and all that.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think these things tend to be more complicated. But that’s why you tried to buy her off so that she wouldn’t marry Paul?”

“I tried to save her life and she was horrid to me. She’s still horrid to me, even after all I’ve done for her.”

“I thought you two didn’t talk.”

“Not usually, no, but whose front door did she drag herself to when Paul beat her so bad she couldn’t even walk? Mine. That was after Bruce and I were married, so it was just ‘round the corner. And who helped her get on a plane back to America right then and there? Me. We got her to A&E to get her stabilized and then off she went to New York. She didn’t want to go to Utah, but she hinted that she would after she got more treatment. I couldn’t believe it when she was back with Paul six months later.”

“How many times did you help her get out of the country for medical treatment?”

“Well, just the once, really. The next time I told her she had to help herself, and she cursed me for it. She wasn’t beaten as bad. She turned her children over to another ward member and left for a few weeks. The children hadn’t been out of their home five minutes before they came and asked to stay with me. My house was where they always ran when they were scared. I love those two darlings as if they were my own. I never thought I could have a family like that - I know they aren’t mine. They’re Nora’s, but I thought that any child I had would end up like my father or my brother.”

“And John gave you a housekey?”

“Right, yes. He gave it to me so that he could feel safe. We rigged up a mirror on the back garden fence so that he could signal us any time. We promised we’d come get him, no matter what. I didn’t spend a single night away from my house for ten years, just in case that little one needed me.”

“So did you pick up the mail and feed Pip a few weeks ago?”

“Yes, that was me. I found Nora unconscious on the floor and called the paramedics too.”

“And let them in?”

“Right, yes.”

“How did you know?”

“Well, the usual way. I always peek into the house when I walk past. It’s an old habit, even though Paul and the little ones are gone. That night, her little dog scratched at the window when he saw me and barked and barked. He was so upset, I knew something was wrong. But tell me now, do you believe me? I wouldn’t hurt your aunt, difficult as she is.”

Her account fit all the facts. The only discrepancy was that it required me to believe that Nora had lied to me about Paul. “So how is Keeley these days?” I asked. “Her brother’s got no education but she’s doing a masters degree?”

“She applied for scholarships and bursaries and got them. Johnny’s not done well with all that. He married young and has his children, whom he loves. I support them as best I can. Keeley is doing quite well, though she’s very guarded in her personal life. Doesn’t like to date. But she and I get on like old chums.”

“And she and John don’t talk to Nora?”

“Unfortunately, no. It’s not how I would have things, but Nora doesn’t believe that. Thinks I stole her children from her. I fear she doesn’t talk to them because she thinks she’d also have to talk to me, not that I make a habit of forcing myself on her-”

“Except when you go in the house uninvited – not that I’m angry about the first time. You helped get her to the hospital. But trying to break in a couple of days ago? Not cool.”

“Right, fine. Perhaps I do pry a bit more than necessary, but no one tells me anything. What is this about Nora dying from cancer?”

“She’s past the stage when it’d be treatable. It took me a couple weeks to get her to have the scans she needed. She refused them because she didn’t want anyone to see her old scars from all the years of abuse.”

Louisa pressed her mouth into a thin line. She picked up a scone off a plate that had arrived sometime during our conversation – I’d been too preoccupied to notice when – split it in half and put it in front of me. “So he finally did it,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“My brother. I thought when he got killed in a car accident that his reign of terror would be over, but no, even dead he managed to kill Nora.”

“I guess so.”

She looked across at me. “I am very, very sorry.”

“Can we call Keeley?”

“Right, yes.”

Again she hit just one key on her cellphone, and again I heard an, “Auntie Lou!”

“Hello dearest... well, I’m going to have your cousin tell you that... Eliza, from Amer- yes her... Just let her talk to you, sweet. I’m going to pass you over.”

Again I took the phone in my hand and pressed it to my ear. “Hello?”

“What is it, then?”

This was most definitely a female relative of mine. She didn’t beat around the bush. “Your mother’s got cancer. You need to come see her before it’s too late.”

“My mother?”

“Yes.”

“Right...”

“Listen, have you ever been tested for the BRCA mutation?”

“What’s this?”

“Something we need to discuss. It’s killed a lot of women in our family, so I speak from experience. No matter how you feel about your mother, you need to see her one last time. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

In the silence that followed, I wondered what my cousin looked like on the other end of the line. All the pictures I’d ever seen of her were from when she was a child with her light brown pigtails and gap toothed grin.

“Please come,” I said.

“Put Lou back on.”

I passed the phone back and again Louisa told my cousin that she would pay for train fare.

As she hung up the phone, I said, “Nora made me her sole heir.”