The Room Beyond (8 page)

‘Are you alright?’

‘Hmmm, I think I’m getting one of my headaches.’

‘Headaches? I didn’t know you got those.’

Her cheeks felt cool and clammy.

‘Come on let’s take you home.’

Beth didn’t utter a word for most of the journey back. Her hand felt
small and limp and she rested against me in the bus like a wilting flower, so
vulnerable that I clung on to protect her from being crushed. But by the time
we got to Marguerite Avenue her hand began to respond to my grasp again. It
felt warmer, more full of blood too. When we were just a few houses away, she
released herself altogether and galloped past the last few houses to her own.

‘Number 30!’ she squealed back at me.

‘Well done, you are good at reading your door numbers.’

‘32!’

‘Even better! How did you get to be so clever?’

‘34!’

The ribbon in her hair had untied itself so that the two ends
streamed behind her like tails on a kite.

‘No Beth! There isn’t a 34, it’s missing. You’re nearly right, but
your house is actually...’

‘36! Yes I know that!’

She was still running, the ribbons skirmishing behind her in the
breeze. She must have made a mistake although my feet began to move faster
nonetheless. Number 30, yes. Then 32. And after that... only one house left, 36.

Beth swung herself to a stop on the last corner railing of the terrace,
the ribbons finally deflating. The extreme paleness had gone from her face and
there was now the faintest blush of rosiness again across each small cheek.

‘We’re home now,’ she gasped. ‘Let’s go in, I’m thirsty!’

1892

The brougham clattered to a halt outside the railings and a
tatty-looking boy hopped down. Jane’s cases were already waiting at the bottom
of the stairs.

‘Jane, your carriage is here!’

‘I’m coming.’

Miranda crossed her arms and then uncrossed them again. Her foot
tapped with a life of its own against the floor tiles.

‘I think I’ve got everything,’ said Jane, clutching a handkerchief
to the side of her face as she descended the stairs shakily. ‘Ah it still
hurts; my whole face feels as if it’s been trampled on.’

She did look a little wan and her hair had been tied back rather
shoddily, but her eyes glimmered brightly enough.

‘Well then perhaps you shouldn’t travel. Not yet anyway,’ said
Miranda.

‘No no, I’ve overstayed my welcome with this illness as it is. You
must be keen to get rid of me.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’ll call the boy in to get your bags.’

‘Yes do, but before I leave I’d rather like to have a word with you
please.’

Jane swept her eyes from one end of the hallway to the other as if
in search of spies and then craned her neck towards her.

‘Now, as our own mother is dead I feel it my obligation as a woman,
and of course as your sister, to talk about what happened at that dinner party
last week. As you know I’ve been far too ill to discuss this with you until
now.’

The handkerchief had disappeared and suddenly Jane was looking
awfully healthy.

‘Yes,’ Miranda replied. ‘It’s quite extraordinary how quickly your
cold came on after that night...’

‘But you have been at the forefront of my mind and I have to tell
you that I’m extremely concerned.’

‘Concerned? About what?’

Jane pulled a pair of grey gloves out of her pocket and carefully
drew them over her fingers.

‘I think that Mr Whitestone, your husband, enjoyed Mrs Eden’s dining
room antics a little too much the other evening.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you that Tristan has a
roving eye and I think that as his wife you need to learn how to rein him in a
little better. There, I’ve said it. Now come on! Help me with my things.’

Miranda clenched her fists so tightly that her fingernails dug into
the palms of her hands.

‘No.’

Her voice felt dry and husky. Jane paused and turned back round.

‘I’m sorry dear? Come, surely you’re not upset. I’ve given you my
opinion, that’s all I have to say on the subject.’

‘Yes and that is all you will say on this subject and on any other
for that matter.’

‘Are you alright my dear?’

‘Not really. I’m afraid I don’t take too kindly to being insulted in
my own home.’

Her sister’s eyes bulged so forcefully back at her that they seemed
in danger of breaking free from her face and Miranda fought back a sudden
irresistible urge to laugh.

‘Are you... sniggering at me?’ Jane stammered.

‘I have to ask, do you really have a cold or was it something you
just made up so that you could stay and witness the aftermath of that hideous
dinner party?’

‘Have you gone mad?’

‘I don’t really blame you because, after all, Mrs Eden behaved like
a Soho slut and my husband, as you noticed, seemed to enjoy every minute of it.’

‘Miranda!’

‘But not much has happened since, has it? I have to applaud your
patience; five whole days of waiting for nothing in return. You must have been
awfully bored.’

Jane screwed up her face in a way that brought back Miranda’s worst
childhood memories of being a younger sister.

‘You say nothing’s happened!’ she spat. ‘So tell me, why has your
husband moved his desk up to that empty servants’ room at the top of the house?
What does he do up there all day? Why hasn’t he been going to work? The two of
you have barely exchanged a sentence since that night although I wonder whether
that’s anything new from what I’ve seen.’

‘So you have been spying on me.’

‘Oh my dear sister. I don’t have to spy on you to see that your
marriage is a disaster.’

‘Better than no marriage at all, don’t you think?’

Jane’s face turned pale and all at once that puffed up lividness
seemed to drain out of her. Miranda felt the cold shudder of regret.

‘I think you give marriage a little too much credit.’ Her voice, no
longer indignant, seemed to tremble under the weight of some great burden. ‘All
that I have seen of marriage is misery and deceit.’

‘But mother and father...’

‘Oh stop wrapping things up in this great fairy tale in your mind. You
have no idea what went on between them and it seems you have little clue about
your own state of affairs.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘Do you know about what
your husband really got up to in India?’

Miranda arched her back to pull away a little.

‘Your Tristan got into so much trouble out there that he had to
leave. Yes, you see I listen to the talk.’

‘Stop now.’

‘You think he married you out of love? Well either you’re a fool or
he’s a jolly good actor.’

‘Enough!’ Miranda unpeeled herself from her sister’s shadow and
lunged for the door. ‘Why are you doing this? Why? Stop blaming me. Stop...
punishing me. Because that’s what you’re doing, still doing, isn’t it? You have
no sisterly concern for me, please don’t pretend. We both know where all of
this is coming from. Now leave, please. Leave me alone.’

She kept her eyes lowered but felt a rustle of air as Jane passed by
her.

‘You always have to bring it up, don’t you?’ came her sister’s icy
voice. ‘If you’d only stopped dwelling on the past then you might be better
equipped to conduct yourself properly now.’

Miranda closed her eyes and pictured Jane climbing into the
carriage; her chin set determinedly, a few tendrils of her grey hair come loose.
And then she listened to the carriage wheels start up their clatter along
Marguerite Avenue until they merged into the noise of the city beyond.

The clock in the hallway began to chime. Ten strokes; he’d be here
soon. She waited for her hands to stop shaking and then took up her sewing,
seating herself in the usual place by the window to wait for him. It was
overcast outside; spots of rain were starting to make black blotches on the
pavement.

Rain’s bad luck on a wedding day.

The servants had whispered it outside her bedroom door on that very
morning. She’d heard their words as she stood peering at the reflection of
herself in all her finery, flowers in her hair.

It had rained all day; not quite torrential but in a grim determined
manner like a factory machine at work. June weddings were supposed to be full
of sunshine and flowers, not row upon row of grim faces in a damp old church.

She looked up from her sewing and spotted him only a few houses away.
Even after two years of watching him come and go, the man’s extraordinary
physique still made her want to gape open-mouthed.

He approached swiftly as always, with those huge rhythmic strides of
his. Six foot five at least, with the physique of a crane fly; the oddest
looking man that she and perhaps anyone else had ever seen. Today he wore a
scarlet velvet suit and a long cloak of some deep purple cloth, the usual
medley of charms and bottles hanging about his neck.

She lowered her eyes, studying his approach from under her lashes,
and just at the last second looked up to greet the whisper of his smile and the
subtle nod of his head. He strode on and she waited, as she always did, for the
sound of his three sharp knocks on the door of number 36. Perhaps this time Mrs
Eden would let him in.

The door opened. She heard the muffled sound of his voice, anxious
but never pleading and then the sound of the closing latch. Rejected again. One,
two, three, and there he was... striding back down Marguerite Avenue once more.
No time for a nod or a smile now; his emaciated features set in a frown and
then nothing but the back of his head with its long thinning mesh of hair.

‘Who are you, strange man?’ she whispered against the window pane. ‘What
brings you back to this place week after week?’

Mrs Hubbard was far from pleased with the recipe.

‘It’ll turn thick, like plaster,’ she said, with a wary shake of the
head.

But Miranda felt the flutter of triumph. ‘It’s just the most perfect
cauliflower soup; exactly as I remember it. Father loved this! It was his
favourite, and mine.’

They ladled it out, but Tristan was nowhere to be seen.

‘Oh dear. And I thought
we
were running late.’

‘I can go up myself to knock for him,’ suggested the cook.

‘No that’s alright. He doesn’t like being disturbed as it is, so
it’s probably better if I go.’

Miranda skimmed the tips of her fingers up the coils of banister. Up
and up. It was like living in a lighthouse, or climbing up a helter-skelter in
a fairground. She hardly ever went beyond her own bedroom now. So many rooms
and nothing much to put in them. And then at last the little door right at the
top: a bleak maid’s door, not even painted.

‘Tristan, supper’s ready!’

There was no reply. A cold chill brushed against her face.

‘Are you alright?’

She tried the handle but the door was locked. And there was that
chill again.

‘Come down when you’re ready.’

She retreated back downstairs to the concerned lines of Mrs
Hubbard’s face.

‘It’s setting already ma’am. You won’t be able to get a knife
through it if it’s not eaten in the next five minutes.’

‘Mr Whitestone has been delayed I’m afraid. Try the best you can to
water it down, I’ve no doubt he’ll be here soon.’

Forty minutes later Tristan loped into the dining room. His shirt collar
was rather dishevelled and he had an absent look in his face.

‘What’s that smell?’

‘The jasmine plant outside.’

‘Close the window. You know I hate it.’

‘It is closed, it’s very pungent that’s all. How was your day dear?’

He slumped down at the table without an answer and Mrs Hubbard
bustled in, the lines on her face now resembling contours on a map.

The soup had gone badly wrong: one part grey dishwater to two parts
gelatinous lumps. It now gave off a putrid smell that made Miranda’s stomach
lurch.

Tristan lifted his spoon and then tossed it back down again. He
hadn’t combed his hair and she could smell the liquor on him.

‘I’ve been rather concerned about you this past week,’ she said. ‘It
can’t be good for your health being stuck up there in that poky little room all
day, especially when you have such a lovely library down here. And are they not
missing you at work? Surely you must have meetings to attend? How is the office
able to function adequately without you there?’

He shot her a smile as cold as blunt glass. ‘Please don’t meddle,’
he said.

‘Oh, no my dear, don’t interpret my words wrongly. It’s only natural
that I should care.’

Tristan prodded curiously at his soup. ‘What is this in my bowl?’

‘Cauliflower soup. I do hope you like it; it was cook’s recipe when
I was a little girl.’

He prodded it again and then tasted a morsel with the tip of his
tongue.

‘I read in
The Times
today that there have been all sorts of
troubles at the docks. Perhaps you’re the person they need, darling, to go and
sort it all out. Oh!’

One sharp strike of his hand and his bowl skimmed across the table,
spewing the soup all over the cloth. Little grey hillocks of cauliflower
steamed everywhere.

‘Perhaps I’m mistaken but I thought I asked you not to meddle in my
affairs.’

‘I’m sorry, I...’

‘On and on and on. I seem to hear nothing but the grating whine of
your voice. You have a house, a husband, your ridiculous circle of friends. What
more do you want of me? I permit myself one small space in this vast house of
ours; one small corner for my own private use.
Surely I can call this space
my own
, I told myself. But no. Oh no! You choose to grumble and whine even
about that.’

He pressed his thumb down against his nose, pushing it into his face
until it went white.

‘You have a snout Miranda. Not pretty is it? Now get it out of my
affairs!’

A long sliver of saliva clung to his bottom lip and he brushed it
away with the back of his hand.

The soiled tablecloth sneered up at her. She tried to rub away at
the soup with her napkin, but the oily stains just got larger and larger.

‘Stop that,’ he muttered.

Her hand collided with a glass and a sticky puddle of wine now
merged cloudily with the spilt food.