The Peacock Emporium, Page 30

It was his paralysis that gave her a kind of strength. She left him there, and set about organising the coffee, washing up, wiping the surfaces of his already orderly kitchen, tidying with a mild madness, as if by doing so she could impose order on the night. And then, emerging from the kitchen, she sat down beside him, handed him a sweetened coffee, and waited for him to speak.

  He said nothing, lost somewhere inaccessible.

  'You know what?' she said quietly, as if she were speaking to herself. 'Jess was the one person who seemed to like me for who I was. Nothing to do with my family, with what I had or didn't have. She didn't even know what my maiden name was for months.' She shrugged. 'I don't think I even worked it out till tonight, but she didn't seem to think I was a problem. Everyone else does, you know. My family, my husband. Myself, half the time. Living in the shadow of my mother. That shop was the one place I could just be me.'

  She smoothed an imaginary crease in her trousers. 'I've been standing in your kitchen telling myself Jess is gone and the shop is gone. Everything. Even saying the words out loud. But the weird thing is, I can't make myself believe it.'

  Alejandro said nothing.

  Outside a car door slammed and the paving stones echoed with the sound of footsteps, of murmuring voices, which slowly receded.

  'I'll tell you something funny. For a while I was envious of her. Because of the way you and she got on,' she said, almost shyly. 'Jess had that way with her - you know? She got on with everyone. I thought I was jealous, but jealousy is the wrong word. You couldn't be jealous of Jessie, could you?'

  'Suzanna--' He lifted a hand, as if to stop her.

  'At one point tonight,' she continued, persistent, determined, 'I thought it was my fault. What happened. Because I made her stay late. But even I know that's the road to madness--'

  'Suzanna.'

  'Because if you look at it simply, I made her stay. I put her in the path of that van. Me. Because I left early. I can choose to see that, or I can choose to tell myself that I couldn't have done anything to change what happened. That if it was Jason, it would have happened another way. Perhaps some even worse way.'

  She blinked back a tear. 'I'm going to have to believe that, aren't I? To keep any kind of sanity. To be honest, I'm not sure how well it's going to work.'

  'Suzanna--'

  Finally she looked up.

  'It is my fault,' he said.

  'Ale, no . . .'

  'It's my fault.' It was said with certainty, as if he had knowledge of something she didn't understand.

  She shook her head wearily. 'This wasn't about either of us in the end. You know as well as I do that this was about Jason. Whatever he did was his decision, his fault, not mine, not yours.'

  He didn't seem to hear her. He had turned away from her again, his shoulders bowed. Watching him, she felt an encroaching unease, as if he were on the edge of some great abyss that she couldn't see. She started to speak again, compulsively, quickly, not sure what she was going to say even as she said it. 'Jess loved Jason, Ale. We know that, and we did everything we could to try to persuade her away from him. She was determined to make things work. Look, we were at her house not a week ago, weren't we? There was nothing you could have done. Nothing.'

  She didn't know whether she believed her own words, but she was determined to lift something from him, desperate to force some glimmer from him, something like anger or incomprehension, anything other than this black certainty. 'You think Jessie would want you to think like this? She wasn't confused. She was pretty clear about what she thought was going on. And we trusted her judgement. She wouldn't have thought for one minute that this was anything to do with you. She loved you, Ale. She was always so pleased to see you. Look, even the policewoman said good people always try to blame themselves . . .'

  His mouth was set in a grim line. 'Suzanna--'

  'It's not your fault. It's stupid going on like this.'

  'You don't understand--'

  'I do understand. Nobody understands more than me.'

  'You - don't - understand.' His voice had become sharp.

  'What? That you have a monopoly on misery? Look, I understand you saw it happen, okay? I understand that you were there. And, believe me, the thought of what you saw will haunt me. But this is not helping. It's not going to help either of us.'

  'It was my fault--'

  'Ale, please--' Her voice wavered. 'You've got to stop saying that.'

  'You are not listening to me!'

  'Because you're wrong! You're wrong!' She said it with a kind of desperation. 'You can't just--'

  'Carajo! You've got to listen to me!' His voice exploded into the little room. He stood up abruptly and walked to the window.

  Suzanna flinched. 'Are you saying you drove the van? You beat her up? What?'

  He shook his head.

  'Then you've got to--'

  'Suzanna, I bring bad luck to everyone.'

  She stopped, as if to make sure she had heard him correctly. 'What?'

  'You heard me.' His face was turned away from her, his shoulders rigid with contained fury.

  She moved towards him. 'Are you serious? Oh, for God's sake, Ale. You didn't do this. It's not about luck. You mustn't--'

  But he interrupted her, one hand raised. 'You remember Jess asked me why I became a midwife?'

  She nodded dumbly.

  'It doesn't take a psychoanalyst, you know. When I was born, I had a twin. A little girl. When she was born, she was blue. My cord had wrapped itself round her neck.'

  Suzanna felt the familiar internal lurch. 'Did she die?' she whispered.

  'My mother never recovered from it. She kept her cot up, bought clothes for her. She even opened a bank account for her. Estela de Marenas. It still exists, for what it's worth now.' His voice was bitter.

  Tears welled in Suzanna's eyes. She tried to blink them away.

  'They never said it was me. Not to my face. But the fact is that she haunts my house, my family. We are all suffocated by her absence.' His voice quietened: 'I don't know . . . Maybe if my mother had been able to have another child . . . perhaps . . .'

  He rubbed at his eyes, and anger crept back into his voice: 'I just wanted some peace, you know? I thought, for a while, I had found it. I thought by creating life, by giving life, I could make it - make her go away. And instead I have this thing, this fantasma following me around . . . I must have been a fool.' He looked at her. 'In Argentina, Suzanna, the dead live among us.' His voice was slow now, with the controlled patience of the teacher, as if explaining to her things she could hardly be expected to comprehend. 'Their ghosts walk among us. Estela lives with me always. I feel her, a presence, always reminding me, always blaming me . . .'

  'But it wasn't your fault. You, of all people, should know that.' She took his arm now, wanting to make him see.

  But he kept shaking his head, as if she couldn't understand what he was saying, lifted his hand to push her away. 'I don't even want to get close to you, don't you understand?'

  'It's just superstition--'

  'Why won't you listen?' he said despairingly.

  'You were a baby.'

  There was a long silence.

  'You - were-just-a - baby,' she insisted, her voice choking. Then, slowly, she put her coffee on the table. She leant forward and tentatively placed her arms round him, feeling his body rigid against her, desperate to lessen some of what he felt, as if by sheer proximity she could shoulder part of it herself. She heard his voice from somewhere by her hair.

  Then he pulled back and she felt her own resolve stagger under the visible weight of his grief, the pain and guilt in his eyes. 'Sometimes, Suzanna,' he said, 'you can do harm just by existing.'

  Suzanna thought of her mother. Of white horses and sparkling slippers in the moonlight. Briefly, infected by the night and the madness, she wondered whether she contained her mother's soul, whether it was this that so disturbed her father. She tilted her head, her voice cracked with new grief. 'Then . . . I'm as guilty as you
.'

  He took her face between his hands then, as if he were only just seeing her, lifted his bandaged hand and wiped her cheek, once, twice, with his thumb, unable to stem the flow of tears. Frowning, he brought his face to hers, his eyes so close that she could see in them the flecks of gold, could hear the uneven tenor of his breath. He paused, and then slowly placed his lips on her skin where the tears had been, closed his eyes and kissed the other side, making their salty path his own, winding his hands into her hair as he tried to kiss them away.

  And Suzanna, her eyes tightly shut, lifted her own hands to his head as she wept, feeling his soft dark crop, the bones underneath. She felt his mouth upon her, breathed in the antiseptic echo of the police station and his old leather jacket, and then her lips were on him, searching for his with a kind of urgency, a desperation to obliterate what had gone before. Listening to her own words, as they echoed in the silence around her, the furious, misplaced spirits circling around them as they embraced.

  I'm as guilty as you.

  Twenty

  It took the building company two days to make safe the front of the shop, for the surveying team to make their official assessment of damage, and another three for the work to begin on rebuilding. (The insurance company hadn't quibbled: apparently in cases of severe structural damage it was accepted that repairs should be made as swiftly as possible.) Although the door frame had been severly damaged, the brickwork surrounding it and the windows partially knocked away, the initial more dour assessment involving RSJs and several months' closure had proven overly pessimistic. It was two more days before Suzanna was allowed in to begin the laborious process of cleaning up.

  During this time, a halting, irregular procession of people had come bearing flowers, small posies, bouquets, Cellophane-wrapped, which they placed outside the police tape. Many found it easier to mark Jessie's sudden end with a floral tribute than the trickier business of words. At first there were just two, tied forlornly to the lamp-post on the day after the accident, their messages making those who stopped to read them exchange glances and mutter sadly about the unfairness of it all. Then, as the news spread through the town, the flowers came in greater numbers. The local florist struggled to keep up, and they formed a cluster, then a floral carpet outside the shop.

  It was as if, Suzanna thought, her own grief had been mirrored in that of the town. The weather had reverted to blue skies and balmy temperatures, the fair had made its biannual visit to the common, and yet there was no joy in Dere Hampton's atmosphere, no gaiety in the bustle of the market square. A small town felt ripples, which might go unnoticed in the city, like a tidal wave. And Jessie, it seemed, had been known by too many people for the shock of her death to pass swiftly. The local newspaper made the story its front-page news, careful to say only that a twenty-eight-year-old local man was being questioned by police. But everyone knew: those who knew her and those who claimed to know her speculated on a relationship that had now become common property. Emma Carter's headmaster had twice appealed for local reporters to leave the premises. Suzanna had scanned the reports, and observed in a detached way that her father would be pleased they had only referred to her as Peacock.

  In that first week she had come to the shop twice, once in the company of the detective sergeant, who wanted to talk to her about security arrangements, and once with Neil, who had remarked repeatedly that it was 'unbelievable. Just unbelievable.' He had tried at one point to talk to her about the financial implications for the shop and she had screamed obscenities at him until he left the room, his hand like a shield over his head. She knew her reaction had been about guilt. Which particular kind, she could not tell. Now she had been given the keys and permission to clear up, even to start trading again. But standing in the steel-framed doorway, flanked by her boarded-up windows and holding the sign that Neil had made for her, which declared her 'open for business', she wasn't sure where to begin. It was as if this were a job for Jessie, as if the only possible way to approach it was with her, giggling over trivialities as they wielded brooms and dustpans together.

  Suzanna bent to pick up her damaged sign, which someone had propped neatly against the door. She held it for a moment. The Peacock Emporium was her shop. Hers alone. The sheer impossibility of the task ahead overwhelmed her and her face crumpled.

  Behind her, someone coughed.

  It was Arturro, his body blocking out the light. 'I thought you might want some help,' he said. He was holding a toolbox in one hand, and tucked under his arm was a basket, containing what looked like sandwiches and several bottles of cold drinks. She felt herself collapse a little, imagined briefly what it would be like to let herself be enveloped by his huge, warm arms, to sob against his apron, still infused with the cheese and coffee aromas of his shop. To have, just for a moment, the comfort of that solidity. 'I don't think I can do this,' she whispered.

  'We have to,' he said. 'People are going to need somewhere to come.'

  She had stepped in through the door then, not taking in what he had said. Within a couple of hours, she understood. Despite its unwelcoming exterior, despite the obstacles of floral arrangements and police cones outside, the shop was busier than it had ever been. In the absence of anywhere else, it had become a focal point for those who had known Jessie, those who wanted to share their feelings at her having gone. They came for coffee, to cry surreptitious tears at the remnants of the display she had made, to leave gifts for her family and, in a few less altruistic cases, simply to gawp.

  Suzanna had no choice but to let them.

  Arturro had positioned himself behind the counter, and took charge of making the coffee, apparently trying to avoid direct conversation. On the couple of occasions that people had spoken to him she had watched him become progressively more uncomfortable, blinking hard and busying himself with the coffee machine. Suzanna, with glazed eyes and the peculiar sensation of operating from the inside of a bubble, cleaned up, answered queries, commiserated, collected the pastel-shaded cards and stuffed animals destined for Emma, and allowed people who were seemingly blind to the chaotic nature of their surroundings to fulfil an unstoppable need to talk, with choked voices, about the general niceness, blamelessness of Jessie, and in fierce, accusatory whispers about Jason. They talked in speculative tones about Alejandro: they had heard how he had tried for twenty minutes to save her, about how he had been found, covered in her blood, wedged half under the van himself as he tried uselessly to revive her. Those who had lived nearby talked of how he had been pulled away, fists flailing and shouting incoherently in Spanish, from the half-stunned Jason, as he realised his efforts had been in vain. They sat, and wept, and talked - in the way they once had to Jessie.

  By the end of the day Suzanna was exhausted. She was slumped on a stool as Arturro moved around her, tidying chairs, nailing the last of the shelves into place. 'You should close now,' he said, slipping his hammer into his toolbox. 'You've done enough. You know there will be more tomorrow.'

  Through the open doorway the Cellophane-wrapped flowers glinted in the afternoon sunlight, some sweating under the plastic. She wondered whether she should get them out to allow them to breathe. It felt somehow like an intrusion.

  'You want me to come again?'

  There was something in his voice . . . Suzanna's mind cleared briefly and she turned to him, her face agonised. 'Oh, God, Arturro, I've got something awful to tell you.'

  He was wiping his hands on a dishcloth. What could be more awful? his expression said.

  'Jess - Jess and I,' she corrected herself, 'we were going to tell you . . . but . . .' She wished she could be anywhere but there. 'The chocolates, the ones that Liliane got so upset about. The ones you sacked the boys over. They were from us. Jessie and I sent them to Liliane so that she would think they were from you. We wanted to get you together, you see. Jess - she thought - she said you were meant for each other . . .'

  It seemed almost ridiculous now, as if it had happened in another life, to other people, as if its fri
volity were part of another existence. 'I'm so sorry,' she said. 'We meant well, honestly. I know it sort of backfired, but please don't think badly of her. She just thought you would be happy together. She was going to tell you the truth but - but something happened and . . . well, now it's down to me. I know it was stupid, and badly thought out, but I encouraged it all. If you want to blame anyone, blame me.' She didn't dare look at him, wondered even as she spoke whether she should have told him at all. Yet he had been so good, so generous. She could not have made it through the day without him. The least he deserved was the truth.

  She waited, fearful, for the legendary explosion that Mrs Creek had described, but Arturro continued to pack the last of his tools into his toolbox, and closed the lid. Then he placed a hand on Suzanna's shoulder. 'I will tell Liliane,' he said, swallowing. He patted her, then walked heavily towards the door and opened it. 'I'll see you tomorrow, Suzanna.'

  She closed up at half past four, then walked home, lay on her bed fully clothed and slept until eight the next morning.

  Alejandro hadn't come. She was glad. There was only so much she could cope with in one day.

  The funeral was to be at St Bede's, the Catholic church on the west side of the square. Initially, Cath Carter had told Father Lenny that she wanted a private service, didn't want everyone gawping and speculating on her daughter's untimely end, not with the police investigation still ongoing and all. But Father Lenny, gently, over a period of days, had told her of the strength of feeling in the little town, of the numerous people who had asked him whether they could pay their respects. How it would help little Emma, in the circumstances, to see how much her mother was loved.

  Suzanna sat in front of her dressing-table, pulling her dark hair back into a severe knot. Father Lenny had said the service would be a celebration of Jessie's life, and that he did not want it to be a sombre occasion. Suzanna did not feel like celebrating, and this was reflected in her appearance. Her mother, who had said she would be coming with her father, as much for Suzanna as Jessie, had lent Suzanna a black hat. 'I think it's important that you do what you feel is right,' she said, laying a hand against Suzanna's cheek, 'but formal is never inappropriate.'