The Last Night Read online

  She backed away, towards the stairs to her flat, reaching behind her for the handle of the door, not wanting to turn around. It opened and she stepped through, quickly taking two stairs at a time to her apartment. The light and heat hit her immediately, the lingering smell of toast from breakfast, the cat limping out to greet her with curious green eyes. She leant back against the apartment door, trying to focus on these things. She hadn’t imagined it though; she could have sworn she hadn’t left her phone near the edge. She had heard a noise. She hadn’t imagined it, she repeated to herself, marching through and turning on the television, throwing herself into her chair and paying particular attention to the comforting voices of the Sunday breakfast-time presenters, cooking up something for the viewers.

  ABIGAIL

  They said goodbye to Beth and Tom at their gate, promising to drop in on them another time. Then they walked up the path to the cottage. Abigail wiped her hands on her coat, her throat dry. Richard glanced at her, a line forming between his eyebrows. ‘Abigail Lovatt, are you nervous?’ he teased.

  ‘No, I’m fine. I…’ She glared at him through narrow eyes. ‘Stop looking at me like that.’ But she couldn’t hold the expression, her mouth lifting into an unwilling smile as he took her hand gently in his.

  ‘He is going to adore you,’ he assured her, another hand on her back guiding her down the path.

  Old stones practically hidden by clumps of grass, top-heavy flowers drooping over themselves, signs that the garden had perhaps once been tended but large patches now out of control, strawberry plants peering hopefully from beneath an apple tree, the hard round balls of apples a while away from being ready. Abigail couldn’t imagine a lovelier square of garden: modest, colourful, unfussy.

  Richard opened the door and she couldn’t help glancing at him briefly. A quick swallow and she stepped inside.

  ‘Dad,’ Richard called, steering her into a room on the right. ‘You’ll need to get the best tea things out…’

  She found herself stumbling over the compliments the moment she got inside. It was a lovely garden, she wasn’t blessed with green fingers, the cottage was enchanting, how nice to hear the rivers running either side, how calming. Perhaps it was the presence of the wheelchair in the corner of the room, the man in the winged armchair, his lips caught in a rounded ‘O’ that soon morphed into a smile, his legs folded carefully beneath him, smaller than the rest of him.

  Abigail stepped forward to shake his hand. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, showing tanned, muscular forearms, a scar running along the length of one that she would later learn had happened on a fishing trip.

  ‘I’m Abigail, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’

  He cut her off with a quick, ‘Martin. And the pleasure is all mine. Do sit.’ He indicated an armchair opposite and Abigail sat.

  Richard had moved through to the kitchen and Abigail could hear the sounds of china and teaspoons as she sat, hands folded into her lap. He returned trundling a trolley into the room and stopping it by his dad.

  ‘That’s a very smart set,’ Abigail said, taking in the teapot with its intricate pattern painted onto fine bone china.

  Martin poured her a tea. ‘It was Maisie’s,’ he said, glancing at the pot. ‘Her best. We always get it out for visitors, but we haven’t had many of them in a while. She’d hate to see we weren’t still using it.’

  ‘I’m very honoured,’ Abigail said, holding the saucer reverentially in her hand, a lump forming in her throat, her eyes drawn to the sepia portrait of what must have been Maisie, Richard’s mother, on the mantelpiece. Her hair was in combed-down waves, eyes dancing in the picture, and she wore a straight skirt and suit jacket; one boy was standing behind her, a hand resting on her shoulder, and her arm was looped around a younger unmistakable Richard, who leant in, head resting on her hip.

  Abigail wondered who the boy was standing behind them in shorts and braces, the same-shaped face as Richard, chin tilted up as if he was trying to look taller. Martin saw her looking and indicated to Richard to bring the photograph down. It was placed in his hands and the two men’s eyes met for the briefest moment, Richard dropping a hand on his father’s shoulder before taking up his tea, the tiniest wink making Abigail feel like he had put his hand on her too.

  ‘She was lovely looking,’ Martin said, his mouth twitching as he drank in the photograph. ‘And kind. It’s a rare thing, to be truly kind, to truly put someone else first. That was Maisie, falling over backwards to help other people.’

  Abigail felt suddenly inadequate. Had she ever been truly kind? She pictured Mary back in Bristol, in that bedsit, reddened as she wondered again how she could have left her on her own. Had she always thought of her mum first? Could she have spent more time helping her in the house?

  ‘She had a mouth on her too, Dad, remember. She could put us in our place if she thought we were getting out of line.’

  Martin’s mouth lifted. ‘I’m not saying the woman wasn’t a she-witch at times.’

  Richard shook his head, smiling. ‘Dad.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the time you were both locked in your room after eating her WI sponge. Never heard such cursing! The ladies would have been shocked.’ His whole face crinkled at the memory, a low rumbling laugh emerging as he replayed that day in his mind. ‘Oh I miss her,’ he said, looking at the photograph again. He paused, his voice dropping a fraction. ‘I’m glad she never knew,’ he said and Abigail knew he was talking about the other boy in the photograph.

  Richard settled back in his chair, the tiny china cup making him seem like a child playing with a tea set, one finger poking out awkwardly as he sipped from it.

  ‘And you, Abigail, Richard tells me you live with your sister and her husband…?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Connie and Larry Cowley,’ Abigail confirmed, his name sticking in her mouth, his face in her mind then, crowding into the room with her as if he were watching over a tea cup too. She put her cup down quickly, the china clinking, the remnants slopping.

  ‘Don’t know them, but Richard tells me they live in one of the fancy houses up on the clifftop.’ There was no malice in his voice, no chip on his shoulder as he said it. ‘You must get great views over the bay.’

  Abigail smiled as she knew she should, felt her lips stretch over her teeth. ‘Yes, it’s a lovely house. My bedroom window looks out on the sea, you can look right across to Wales on a clear day.’

  ‘Richard won’t much like the sound of that. Scared of the water.’ He shook his head. ‘Only fisherman in England who’s afraid of the water.’

  ‘Dad!’ Richard’s neck was reddening as his Dad chuckled again.

  ‘Happened when he was younger, fell in a pond head first. I had to scoop him out by his ankles, covered in weeds and spluttering half the contents out on the grass.’

  ‘Quite an image.’

  ‘He looked at me, all big eyes, so large you could see all the whites round them, one straggly weed still draped over one of them, and he told me solemnly, “I don’t want to do that again, Dad.”’

  Abigail laughed at the thought of the younger Richard covered in weeds, enjoying him shifting in his chair as his father spilled this childhood story.

  ‘Dad, we need to talk about which stories you’re allowed to tell,’ he protested, but he couldn’t keep down the half-smile.

  ‘The girl needs to know what kind of man you are,’ Martin said, sipping at his tea and leaning back again.

  Abigail settled in the chair, her whole body unfurling in the warmth of the square room with its simple figurines and framed photographs, an oak dresser in one corner, and listened to the two men, back suddenly in Bristol with Mary and her mum as they teased and giggled about tiny fragments of memories, moments they had shared. She didn’t want the teapot to end, took her time sipping at cold dregs to prolong it, had a s
econd helping of the malt loaf Martin had made, watched the hands of the carriage clock as they moved steadily, unstoppable, around the face. She would have to leave. Connie would wonder where she was and she couldn’t keep lying about the long walks in the forest, on the moors.

  Richard stopped her from clearing the crumb-covered plates and empty cups, loading up the trolley with their things. She lingered in the doorway, a goodbye to Martin.

  ‘Come again, anytime,’ he said, lifting his hand.

  She nodded a thank you, moving towards the front door, the narrow corridor suddenly smaller with Richard standing behind her, one hand on the small of her back as he guided her out. She felt the spot white hot and wanted to turn and lean into him, bury her head in his chest and stay there in that house. She felt her breathing quicken as she reached for the door, not trusting herself to speak.

  Outside, the path was slick with raindrops, the day darkening, the clouds heavy above the village. In the window next door she could see Beth jiggling the baby in her arms as she laughed at something Tom said, standing at the sink with his sleeves rolled up. She looked at them, an urge to be part of a similar scene a sharp pain in her stomach.

  ‘I’ll see you soon,’ Richard said in a low voice, perhaps embarrassed to be heard by his father. ‘I’m glad… Well, it’s been good to have you round the house and maybe, well…’

  He pulled a hand through his hair as he rattled on, his nervous patter giving her confidence to smile, reach up and drop a kiss on his cheek.

  For a moment he rested a hand on her hip and then softly pushed her away. ‘Back to the big house.’ He grinned, redness stealing up his neck.

  ‘Back to the big house,’ she repeated, the words heavy on her tongue.

  IRINA

  She stood before the bureau, appraising it. Patricia was next door and the sounds of her heels on the shop floor, the intermittent noise of the till opening and closing, the occasional snippet of a laugh or a sentence grounded Irina. Everything was as she had left it, the drawers lying on newspaper, the insides exposed. She bent down, ready to run a hand along the bottom edge of the panel again, to find the thing she had discovered before.

  It was a small shape, not quite circular. She shuffled forward on her knees now, her head moving deep inside the bureau, the light lost as she scanned the interior. It was a sort of keyhole, a small disc of wood with a single groove in the middle. She wondered if she could insert something into it, force it open. She felt a frisson of excitement unearthing something like this. No one would know from the outside that the disc was there; she wondered what it might open if she managed it.

  She crawled backwards, making skid marks in the shavings of the workshop floor, her palms coated in dust. Fetching her smallest set of screwdrivers from the side table, she ducked back inside, inserted one into the gap and tried to jimmy it round. It slipped and she tried a slightly bigger one, needing it to fit into the groove so she could turn it. It slipped over it hopelessly and she didn’t try again, didn’t want to damage it.

  As she searched for something smaller in the tool box, she imagined she could hear chatter, sounds, the blare of a ship’s horn. She could almost feel the bureau giving off an energy, vibrating as she approached it with the next screwdriver. This one fitted neatly into the slot and she moved the wood around, the disc turning ever so slowly to the right, pointing now to three o’clock rather than midnight. The disc released and she was left with a circle of wood poking out half an inch. She held onto it and slowly slid out a small compartment, a drawer that was cleverly hidden in the bottom panel of the desk, long and deep but no more than an inch or so wide, like a hollow plank of wood.

  Items inside it slid forward, forcing Irina to grab the little drawer with two hands before it tipped onto the floor of the workshop. It wasn’t heavy, just unexpected, and she carried it over to the workbench. Switching the desk lamp on above her, she took a breath, realizing she had been averting her eyes from the contents. Forcing herself, she looked down at the drawer.

  It seemed unremarkable in many ways and yet she experienced the same unease as she went to sift through the contents, the same feeling that this drawer had meant something to someone and they were somehow watching her do this, were waiting for her to do this. She felt the room hum with the possibilities of what she might find, as if the walls were holding their breath, as if the shadows were jostling to look over her shoulder, and the bureau, now with another empty gap, something removed, like a war wound, the pulsing centre of it.

  ‘Irina…’ Patricia burst through the beaded curtain and looked at her.

  Irina started, eyes wide as she looked up.

  ‘Reg wants you to fix his carriage-clock case again. I’ve told him you’re working on an important commission, but he needs it quickly and he won’t give up.’

  ‘You know I’m standing right here, Pat,’ Reg called from the shop.

  Patricia turned to call back through. ‘If I ask nicely, Reg, it might happen.’

  Irina couldn’t catch Reg’s response beyond some mumbling, directed at Patricia no doubt. They had known each other for years, went to whist evenings together.

  ‘Yes, of course, tell him Friday. Friday, Reg!’ She called out the last bit.

  ‘Friday,’ Patricia repeated, bustling back through to the shop. ‘Hear that, Reg? You’re lucky.’

  The interruption had given Irina the confidence to focus on the secret drawer in front of her. She needed to discover more about the bureau; she couldn’t remember ever having been affected by another item in this way before. It had taken over the workshop, its presence expanding in the small space, suffocating her, overwhelming her focus so that it was all she thought about. This small pile could help her move on, help release her from its strange grip.

  She drew out a small stack of postcards and letters, a couple of old photographs. The movement triggered a wave of scent and it was as if she knew the smell from another time. Some were tied with a purple slip of ribbon, others were loose; they were all in the same hand, all seemed to be undated. There was also the stub of a receipt, a handkerchief, a shell in a perfect spiral, a key attached to a key-ring made of a threepence piece. Irina tried the key in the lock but it was too big; she felt her shoulders fall with the disappointment. Lastly she drew out a colour photograph with scalloped edges, a posed portrait, three people in a garden. The bottom of the drawer seemed to be coated in a thin layer of powder, granules of something crisp and white scattered and collecting in the corners and edges of the wood. She smeared a finger along it, feeling the tiny bumps on the surface.

  Laying out the items, she breathed out slowly. A sudden certainty that she was meant to find these things. One of the postcards was of a sandy bay, still water, a fishing boat in the distance and behind the curve of beach a hill rising out of the picture, buildings perched crookedly up the cliffside. Letters in the top right spelt the name of a place Irina had never heard of. ‘LYNTON’, the postcard announced. She turned it over in her hand, expecting to see a scrawled message, ‘wish you were here’ salutations, but instead she saw the words ‘Forgive me’ written in the centre. Frowning, she stared at the two words, feeling her spine stiffen as she set the card to one side.

  She examined the key-ring and the shell, both ordinary-looking items. It seemed strange that they’d been secreted away, as if they were enormously valuable. Irina picked up the handkerchief. It was a gorgeous piece of lace, with a delicate square border, something they would sell in the shop. In the corner it had a large letter sewn into it, an elaborate ‘A’. She unrolled it fully and then frowned. The middle part of the lace was damp. She looked back at the drawer, which was bone dry.

  She wondered again if she’d been meant to find these things, whether something had led her to that drawer and its contents. She looked again at the handkerchief, the small spot of water slowly seeping to the edges, and felt her arms prickl
e.

  ABIGAIL

  She stepped up to the front door, twisting the key as slowly as she could, hearing the latch turn, cringing as if it had echoed round the valley. She pushed open the door, one palm flat on the wood as she slipped around it, nudged it gently back into place. The house seemed to breathe in and out around her, a distant sound, a footstep? Was it just the wind? She wriggled out of her coat, pausing as she reached up to place it on the hook.

  She moved down the hallway, careful to keep her steps light, tucking the key into the pocket of her cardigan, determined to get back to her room before anyone could find out where she’d been. She didn’t want to tell her sister, felt that Richard was her secret.

  Poking her head around the living-room door, she frowned to herself. The furniture stood like sentries looking out to sea, the French doors bolted, the white lace curtains tied back, framing the scene. Through the glass Abigail could see the empty terrace, the lawn and the bushes at the back that seemed to melt into the water beyond. The sea was a cloudy grey, the horizon indistinct as fog suspended over the surface of the water inched its way to shore. For a brief moment Abigail wanted to rush round, check all the windows were shut, block the misty fingers from entering. She loathed the thick fug that distorted shapes and lay on top of things like a dull blanket.

  A scuffle, something scraping on the wooden floorboards upstairs and Abigail froze in the stillness of the hallway. Her eyes darted behind her, over to the staircase, its wide chestnut banister polished to perfection, the smell of beeswax stronger the higher you climbed. She put her foot on the bottom step, looking up, as if she could see round the turn in the staircase, see through walls. She decided to dart up the stairs quickly, soft and fast, as she imagined a hare might flee from a predator. The stair runner helped hide the sound and she made it to the carpeted landing slightly breathless, righting herself.