‘I remember seeing your sister in all of those teen magazines back when I was at school and thinking she was a princess.’ The very image springs to mind, braces and crimped hair, the height of 2000s fashion, and I remember Elizabeth Cavendish so clearly, painted as the hot new socialite, the envy of young girls across the globe. ‘I had no idea.’ I breathe, my chest heavy, any words of reassurance or sympathy tied up in the lump in my throat.
‘It’s incredible how quickly people can forget someone who no longer has something to offer them.’ He sighs. ‘Her friends stopped visiting, Mum and Dad stopped inviting her to things, work let her go. She was never “hidden away” as such, just the more she was losing her memory, the more her world forgot about her.’
‘I’m sorry, Arthur.’ Instinctively, my hand moves to his shoulder and he gives me a grateful smile in return.
‘I’ll see you in the morning?’ is his reply. I’m sure he’s heard plenty of sorries in his time, and none of them make a wink of difference. Nodding my head, I step onto the garden path, and he retreats into the night.
‘Wait, do you know your way home?’ I call into the darkness, struck with the thought that only hours ago I had lost him and had convinced myself he’d ended up as roadkill. Surely in the thickness of night, his odds of finding his way are even worse.
‘I’ll figure it out.’ His voice floats through the darkness and soon even his booted footsteps grow quieter and quieter until they disappear entirely.
Moments ago, I was dying to burst through the front door and withdraw into the comfort of my childhoodbedroom. But now, I still stand in the front garden, staring into the distance where he left, mulling over his words. Why would he tell me? Why would he be so vulnerable when we’ve done nothing but bicker?
Because she isn’t a secret. He isn’t ashamed of her. I’m sure he’d tell half the village about her if they asked. But they don’t ask; no one does.
Slipping through the front door, the first thing I can smell is food. No matter what meal my grandparents have decided on that evening, their food all smells the same, like boiled vegetables and the distinctly meaty smell of my grandfather’s compulsive need to have a slice of bread slathered in beef dripping with every meal. The hallway is lit by a lamp on the telephone table, left on for me, and I know that just at the end of the corridor my tea rests under a plate on the kitchen table. They must have gone to bed hours ago. They never know when I’ll be home, but they always know I come eventually. So they make sure I never go without.
I look at myself in the mirror by the stairs. I have my grandmother’s hair, deep, dark, and threaded with white. Dyeing it is an option, I know, but there’s something about sharing her hair, her eyes, seeing her image in my own, that doesn’t make me ashamed of the way I look. Generation after generation of people falling in love has given me this face, this smile, and this body, so I don’t think a little grey hair is much to be concerned with.
This house hasn’t changed much either. The patterned carpet has seen decades of spilt drinks, the wallpaper is littered with the mucky fingerprints of the childrenthat have grown up and left, photographs cling to every surface, and though some of them are older than me, they are never forgotten about long enough to gather dust, and toys that were grown out of years and years ago still clutter the cupboards and spare rooms. This is a home that has raised generations.
I used to dream about seeing a world outside of these walls. I got so caught up believing that there is more to life than my grandad’s tools scattered across the sideboard, everyone knowing my business even before I did, or my grandmother’s ugly calendar that holds the names and birthdays of every friend we’ve ever had. I thought that’s what you were meant to do: outgrow your family home, move away, start again, be a person entirely of your own. But I am not an individual; I am a sum of all of them. I am a part of this house. I am, and will be, remembered in every part of their lives.
Hearing Arthur’s story, learning of his sister, makes these too familiar walls just that little bit more precious. It’s a privilege to have a place that holds a memory of its own, which I could walk through blind without tripping over a single action man or rogue doily. Though she got divorced twenty years ago, Mum’s wedding photos still line the stairs proudly. ‘Never be afraid of a memory. Even if it turned sour, it once was sweet, and was once a reason for you to smile.’ That was always Nan’s reasoning for it, though Mum always said it was just that she had a soft spot for my dad, and Grandad had spent half a year’s wages on her dress, so there was no way he wasn’t keeping at least something from his investment.
On my walk up to bed tonight, I savour each step a little more than normal, take note of things I used to pass without a second glance, and crawl under my duvet with a heaviness in my chest. Perhaps I can afford to cut Arthur some slack.
Chapter 13
Beatrice
The next few days after Arthur’s arrival in New York pass relatively smoothly in comparison to his first two days. Despite being at least ten minutes late for his shift on the farm every morning, and irritating me at the bar without fail every night, he seems to be getting the hang of things quickly. It’s been four days since he opened up to me about his sister, and those four days have passed between us without another word about her. Though plenty has been said about him.
‘You’ve been rather up close and personal with the Cavendish boy, Beatrice.’ Barbara looks at me down her nose. ‘Don’t you fancy sharing him with the rest of us?’
‘Now now, Barb—’ Tracy slides in beside me at the bar ‘—you’re sounding jealous. The boy is young enough to be your great-grandson.’
Barbara puffs out her chest at the landlady’s insolence but stays silent.
‘You’re more than welcome to him, Barbara.’ I laugh as I speak, picturing Arthur’s face if anyone left him alone in her clutches. ‘That would mean you’d have to work for Ms Riches though.’
Barbara rolls her eyes. Their quarrel has spanned fifty years and is so petty that no one, even the two women involved, can remember what it was about. ‘I’d rather drink from your drip tray,’ she murmurs.
‘You did. Can’t you remember? New Year’s Eve 2015 when I told you I couldn’t serve you anymore.’ Tracy loves winding her up, and she grins even harder as Barbara flushes the same colour as the Batemans’ beer mats.
‘Aye, I can. What sort of part-timer closes the bar early on New Year’s Eve?’
‘It was four in the morning, Barb.’
The old lady puh-puhs with a flick of her wrist and I can’t hide my laughter.
‘How’s the boy been getting on down at the farm, Bea?’ My grandparents sit together at the bar, both of them nursing the same drinks from over an hour ago, and my nan clutches her glass so tightly as she trembles that I’m sure the bubbles in it are from it boiling, not fizzing.
Arthur hasn’t ventured over to the Big Apple yet today; perhaps I worked him a little too hard on the farm. I feel the tightness of my own thighs and the painful ache of my arms from carting milk pails back and forth down the cow shed.
‘He managed to spill more milk than he collected, and I’m pretty sure he was 95 per cent cowpat by the time we called it a day.’ I shake my head, trying to comprehend how someone can be quite so terrible at farming, but all of the old ladies still coo as though the thought of him covered in faecal matter is something adorable.
‘His dad was never much the farming type,’ my grandad pipes up, his bitter shandy swilling around in the bottom of his glass. ‘He was always running around in his leather jacket, too much hairspray in his hair, causing a ruckus.’
