Flowers for the Dead

Stopping at the top of the stairs, one hand on the bannister, my yellow socks on the blue carpet, I stand and stare. At the door leading to my parents’ bedroom. The room where it happened. I stand and stare and breathe.

Involuntarily, I turn back around. I have to go into town. I need to get some more groceries before the locksmith comes over. Besides, I should also begin investigating. Find out who is still here. Find out where to start.

I collect the sheets I dropped and leave them in the mud room, before I check the cupboards in the kitchen, making a quick shopping list. Then I grab my coat from the mud room and rush back outside. With the grey, bright light in my eyes, I drive back to the main road, allowing it to take me back into the village. The fog has lifted, and I find the short-stay parking lot up on the High Street without any trouble.

I kill the engine, looking through the windshield at the village where I used to play. The narrow stone bridge across the brook is right in front of me. Even sitting inside the car, I can hear the sound of the water rushing down across the stones and into the valley. It used to be our favourite place, this bridge and the brook. It is surrounded by cottages and houses with names, RIVER VIEW and BLYTHE’S COTTAGE and THE OLD DAIRY.

And on the High Street goes, across the bridge up to Cobblestone Snicket, which looks like a house but really is only a façade leading to an old, narrow snicket, an alley with a cute café and an antique shop. Its façade’s been repainted, blue and red now instead of green and yellow. Other than that, it hasn’t changed. Not even the High Street seems to have changed, the small houses of grey stones or white plaster turning grey, the shops and the pub and red parasols packed up for the cold season, sitting amidst gnarled alder trees and bare rowans. I remember my father made jelly from the rowan berries in our garden and put it on the table when we ate game, its taste bitter and tangy.

I realise I missed that taste. I missed the alder trees and the rowans and bright red parasols.

Sitting in the car, I have trouble tearing myself away from the view. Now that I am here, where do I start? Originally, my plan had been to return to the house first, get my bearings, unpack my bags. Go into the bedroom I haven’t entered in nineteen years, see if it would help me remember anything like the nightshade did. But the village is as good a place to start.

Determined, I take a notebook out of the glovebox, a pretty one from Paperchase, and dig into my old handbag, the red leather faded to a pale pink, in search of a pen. I chance upon the USB key in the shape of an astronaut that I bought seven years ago, as well as two dangerously dry chrysanthemums I nicked from the neighbour’s balcony, and an old bright-red lipstick, before I finally find a pen at the very bottom of the bag. Crouching over, I prop the notebook up against the steering wheel and think.

This is where I grew up. This is where I rang the doorbells playing knock, knock, ginger, all up and down the High Street. Everybody knew. Everybody could have done it.

But not everybody was at the crime scene that night. When I came back to my parents’ house, I was not alone. The police were already there, Detective Inspector Walker. He had been called in by my best friends, Anna Bohacz and Teoman Dündar, who had found me. And I have a blurry memory of Jacob Mason’s face, my ex-boyfriend. Quickly, I jot down their names:

Detective Inspector Walker

Anna Bohacz

Teoman Dündar

Jacob Mason

I hesitate as I write Jacob’s name. What was he doing there? We had been friends as children and dated as teenagers, but we had not been on speaking terms for a while at that point.

Tapping the pen against the steering wheel, I keep thinking. Of course, there is also Miss Luca – the school therapist. She wasn’t at the scene, but we went to see her afterwards. We all did, separately of course. Anna, Teo, Jay and me.

I add her name to the list. Then I stare at the pen, the red plastic, a freebie from the London Planetarium. Wasn’t there someone else? There is a shadow at the back of my mind, but whenever I reach for it, it recedes, like a whisper just loud enough that you can hear it, but too quiet to understand what is being said.

Graham would know; I should ask him. There are places I could try visiting, too, retracing my steps of that night: the party at Jacob’s house; the way home from the village through the woods; my parents’ bedroom.

I shiver as I think of the bedroom. As I remember the searing pain, the scent of lavender, of sweat and blood. My parents’ sheets, damp under my bare skin. My dress, torn all the way up to my breastbone.

I can feel my skin go clammy. Quickly, I add a list of places to the piece of paper, my hand shaking so badly I nearly scrawl the letters all over the page.

Detective Inspector Walker

Anna Bohacz

Teoman Dündar

Jacob Mason

Miss Luca, school therapist

Jacob’s house (party)

way home (woods?)

bedroom

*

I’m shaky as I get out of the car. I will have to speak with them. With whoever’s still here. And if there is one person who’ll know, it is Kaitlin Parker.

I walk out of the parking lot, across the bridge and up the High Street, listening to the rush of the water as I hope that Kaitlin’s copy shop’s still there, the one where I interned when we had to get some work experience. Kaitlin was our village gossip. She used to know about all comings and goings in this place. She always wanted to get out of here, but she wouldn’t be the first not to make it.

As I walk, I realise I had forgotten how many flowers there are in the village. They grow in everyone’s front garden, in every window box, even just on the side of the road: roses climbing up the walls of shops and cottages, bushes of marsh orchids growing in front of the Old Dairy, yellow hay rattle and white bogbean peppering the riverbank. Someone must be nursing them, otherwise they would not be in bloom still so late in the year.

I have just passed the bank where I opened my first account when I see it: the copy shop. As I approach, I realise that they have a new sign, bit more modern, but it is still Kaitlin behind the counter – Kaitlin and Anvi.

For a moment, I stop and watch them through the window. It comes as a shock. Kaitlin has grown so fat. Her face is still the same, but it seems distorted, like it has been pushed out into all directions, like dough that’s been rolled out.

Then I see my own self reflected at me in the window and hurry inside.

‘Ey up,’ Kaitlin calls out the moment I walk in. Recognition shoots through me at the familiar greeting, the phrase I have not heard in years. ‘What can I do for you to—’

She doesn’t finish the sentence. I see her small eyes widen as she takes me in. Within moments, her expression turns from naturally friendly to flabbergasted. ‘Hellfire, is that … Linn?’

‘Hello, Kaitlin,’ I say, a little embarrassed. A grin spreads out over her face.

‘Is it really you?’ she says as she comes around the counter. She wears felt. Her brown hair has thinned out. She still blinks far too often, looking at me with her bright-green eyes. ‘Is it really? I can’t believe it. I really can’t. Think I gotta sit down.’ Instead, she grips the counter, staring me up and down unabashedly. ‘Wow! Sorry, I just … Never thought we’d see you again! Now that your parents, God rest their souls …’

‘Yes,’ I say hastily, mouth twitching before I shape it into a grin. ‘It is good to see you. Good to be back. Hello, Anvi.’

‘Ey up, Caroline,’ Anvi says. She always used my full name. Said it was a sign of respect. She is as slim as ever. It’s the first time that I’ve seen her wear a sari, though. It looks pretty, all orange and purple. She is much more collected than Kaitlin, who is still gripping the edge of the counter, looking a lot like she could use a drink. At least Kaitlin’s grinning, though. Anvi, on the other hand, is watching me with what can only be called hostile suspicion. ‘How have you been?’ she asks.

‘Good,’ I say, corner of my mouth twitching into another smile. ‘Very good. And you two?’

‘Great,’ Kaitlin says. ‘Just peachy.’ She has taken out her phone. ‘Sorry, luv, I just got to let Mum know, she won’t believe it when I tell her …’

See? Village gossip.

Anvi is still watching me. ‘Everything is fine. A lot has changed, of course. Not that you would know. But at least the shop is doing well.’

She is dropping the ‘g’s at the end of her words just like Kaitlin. I have missed the way people talk up here. No ‘g’s at the end, no ‘h’ in the front, that dialect that instantly feels like home. Suddenly self-conscious, I wonder if I sound like a Londoner to them. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

We fall silent. It turns awkward as we look at each other, looking for the traces the last nineteen years have left. Wondering if we look as tired, as old, as the person we see standing across from us. Wondering who these strangers are that use the voices, the tics, the gestures of people we once knew. Abruptly, I remember being sixteen and helping print T-shirts for hen dos. An exciting night out in Leeds, in Blackpool. Remember worrying about my braces. Remember how Kaitlin and Anvi were only a few years older than me, really, always fighting behind the curtain in the back of the shop, trying to make ends meet.

This isn’t exactly a boom town. When the weaving loom went out of fashion, everyone who had legs to walk on left the Dales, and that was in the eighteenth century. There’s only 18,000 of us left now. If there is any reason for people to have heard of us, it will be because of Emmerdale. Highly arguable if that’s an honour.

And I left too, didn’t I? Even though I loved it here. The memory comes back to me as unexpectedly, as painfully as the nightshade: the way it felt to live here and love it. Even this copy shop, these two wide-eyed young women, trusting that their community would have need for their business. I remember that Anvi wore trousers even though her father didn’t want her to and how Kaitlin could make amazing cinnamon rolls. I remember the wildflowers in the Dales and how they made me want to be a florist: the small blooms of pink bell heather and the beautiful golden globeflowers. I remember Mum showing them to me, all the way at the back of our garden, where Dad had cut the first line of trees.

She showed me the deadly nightshade too, the dried flowers in her bedroom and the fresh ones in the woods. ‘Kings and queens used them to assassinate their enemies,’ she told me, speaking conspiratorially, as if she was telling me a secret. ‘Ten berries can kill a grown man. And two are enough for a cat or a small dog.’ Their taste is sweet, so sweet you won’t be able to tell, really, if they’ve been mixed into a heavy red wine. I should know. ‘They are called Atropa belladonna,’ she explained to me as she showed me the exact shape and colour of the plant, taught me to tell it apart from the bitter nightshade. ‘That’s from Atropos, one of the Three Fates, the Greek goddess who cuts the thread of everybody’s life. And belladonna means pretty lady; they were used for makeup once upon a time, that’s why. Only this pretty lady is here to kill you,’ she said, and pressed me close to her, both arms around my shoulders. ‘But don’t worry,’ she whispered into my curly hair. ‘Mummy and Daddy will protect you.’

The memory almost makes me choke. Dragging myself back to the present, I pull out the USB key I brought. I did not only spend last night packing: I also updated my CV. I have a little money saved up, but I’ll be needing a job soon. ‘I would like to print something, actually,’ I say, before the silence in the copy shop can turn even more awkward.

‘Aye,’ Kaitlin says, taking the little astronaut off me with her free hand. She is still gaping at me whenever she glances up from what is quickly turning into texting the entire village. ‘Seriously, I can’t believe it! How have you been? How is Oliver?’ Her fingers are sweaty. I flinch. Her eyes widen again. ‘Sorry! Have I put my foot in it? Here I am, just assuming … Last time I talked to your parents, they mentioned that you two … It’s just we don’t get any news of him any more since his parents moved away, I mean with their divorce and all that …’

I laugh it off. To have and to hold, till death do us part. ‘No, it’s fine. We live in Leyton now. I trained as a florist. Oliver went into nursing, he’s a health manager now, he … We have this lovely flat in London, no balcony, but still, I mean, can you imagine finding a flat in London at all – it’s insane.’

‘I bet,’ Kaitlin says as she walks to the computer. Still holding her phone, continuing to type with one hand. ‘Must be down south. Just wait till I’ve told Mum, she won’t believe it, she really won’t, it’s …’

‘So you have come back with him?’ Anvi asks. Her eyes are narrowed. She hasn’t let me out of her sight once.

‘Oh no,’ I say lightly. ‘No, not at all.’

‘Where’s Oliver, then?’ Kaitlin asks. ‘Hellfire, haven’t seen him in nineteen years either, have we?’

I knew they would ask. ‘At a conference,’ I say and can’t help but think of him. What he’s had for breakfast. If the pillows in the hotel are soft enough for him. The blinds dark enough. He will be so busy with his presentation. I wish I could have helped him more, supported him.

I know Oliver won’t realise what’s happened till he comes back. He will be texting me from the conference, trying to call, too, but he knows how I get sometimes, especially when he’s gone: not answering the phone, not texting back. He knows I bury myself sometimes. He’s learned not to push.

‘He is not with you, then?’ Anvi is watching me. Why is she watching me like that?

‘No,’ I say, the moment that Kaitlin makes a pleased sound. Actually, she almost squeals.

‘Oh, CVs? You want to apply for jobs here? It would be so good to have you back, luv! People don’t come back often, you know how it is. Not a lot of jobs. I mean, they do sometimes come back, but usually for Christmas or funerals …’ She peters out. Keeps glancing at her phone. It pings. And pings and pings. ‘See, they won’t believe me! Maybe we could take a photo, for proof.’

‘Yes, definitely looking for a bit of work,’ I say. Trying to sound as casual as I can, even though the words alone are scaring me. I haven’t worked in years, not since 2008, you know? Not a lot of demand for florists since then.

But my training still counts, doesn’t it? They need people, don’t they? That’s what they’ve been saying in the papers, at least, and on TV. Well, in the health sector mostly, not exactly in floristry. Because of Brexit. Anyway, I need to get these CVs sent out. Maybe a florist in Northallerton, or Leeds, or even further north. Maybe in Scotland.

But that’s not what I came here for. ‘So,’ I ask, trying to sound casual as I think of my list. ‘Who else is still around?’

‘Oh, quite some people,’ Kaitlin goes on, obviously in her element. ‘The two of us, of course, we never left, did we, Anvi? Even though we always said we would.’

‘Evidently,’ Anvi says drily.

‘What about the Masons?’ I ask carefully. ‘What about Jacob?’

‘Yes,’ Anvi says, putting as much distaste into the one syllable as she can. ‘He is still here.’

‘Oh, don’t be like that,’ Kaitlin says as the printer starts up. ‘Yes, the Masons still live here, in the same house, too. Though it’s only Jacob now.’ She leans over the counter conspiratorially, motioning for me to come closer. ‘It’s outrageous. He sent his mother to a nursing home a couple of months ago. Barely seventy and already in a nursing home, can you believe it?’

Anvi lets out an angry snort. ‘Instead of caring for his mother at home, where she has lived all her life. It is a disgrace.’

Kaitlin just seems gleeful. ‘Isn’t it just?’ she says, sounding rather thrilled about it. Then her eyes widen. ‘You went out with Jacob for a while, didn’t you?’

‘And Miss Luca?’ I ask, avoiding her question. Anvi is narrowing her eyes at me again. As if she is seeing right through me. ‘I’m just so curious,’ I offer. ‘After so many years.’

‘’Course you are,’ Kaitlin says happily. ‘Antonia Luca’s still around, too. Has her own practice now. She lives on the outskirts of the village, on the corner of Meadowside and Foster Lane. Nice house, that. Number 32.’

As the printer whirrs away, I try to memorise what they’re telling me. I hope I can still find the Masons’ house, hope they haven’t changed it too much. Kaitlin is still fiddling with her phone, in all likelihood preparing to take a photo. They are both so shocked still. Kaitlin’s even shaking a little with excitement; Anvi’s all tense. As if I was a robber. Or worse. ‘Why didn’t Oliver come?’ she asks. ‘How is he doing?’

I will myself not to think about him. ‘Like I said. He is at a conference. Do you still have envelopes, too? Could I get, oh, I don’t know, ten, maybe?’

Anvi hands them to me, then collects my money. ‘It is just such a coincidence, isn’t it? That you and he would both come back to town?’

‘Oliver won’t be in town,’ I say, trying not to let my impatience seep through. I haven’t come here to talk about my husband. My – about Oliver.

‘I do not mean Oliver,’ Anvi says, her voice hard, even as Kaitlin’s camera clicks. ‘You know perfectly well who I am talking about.’

‘I am afraid I don’t,’ I say as I take the CVs that Kaitlin hands me. I feel the little hairs on the back of my neck rise. On my arms. As if a cold draft has come in through the door. From behind the counter.

You know perfectly well who I am talking about. Suddenly, I can’t wait to get out of there. ‘Well, it was lovely seeing you two.’

‘So chuffed that we got to see you, luv!’ Kaitlin says, walking me to the door, obviously happy to see me even if she still doesn’t quite believe it. ‘In a bit!’

Without turning back, I walk out the door. If I walk a little more quickly, nobody has to know. I might be in a hurry. Hurrying to get to the post office before it closes. When do post offices close in a place this size these days? If there’s a post office left at all. I think of where it used to be, by the car park, the back lot where we smoked in secret, and I decide that I might get the groceries tomorrow – there is enough left for a few meals, I’m sure. Anything not to think about him.

He cannot be back.

Teoman swore he would never come back.

THE NEIGHBOUR

The car returns at noon. I am upstairs in the corridor, both arms buried elbow-deep in the second wardrobe, ready to bring out the winter clothes. My summer clothes sit next to me in a pile on the floor, all freshly washed as I listen to the sound of the engine coming up the road.

It is her.

I know it is her.

LINN

The house smells like baking. It is a smell that makes me feel all loose-limbed. All happy, like it hasn’t in years. The locksmith has been by and put a new lock in. And I sent out ten applications. Surely, one of them will work out. I’m a trained florist, did some gardening work as well. Something just has to work out.

Getting ready for bed, on my first night in this house that I was so scared of, I am in the bathroom, a plate of shortbread precariously balancing on the edge of the sink next to me. No cinnamon rolls. I have earned shortbread. As I remove my makeup, I don’t think of silly Anvi and her silly allusions, but of the businesses, their sleek websites. I will have clients. Colleagues. After-work drinks. There might be promotions. There will be money.

I need to reopen my bank account. Put in the money my parents left me, the money that will tide me over in the meantime.

Once the makeup has come off, I bend over the sink and have a drink straight from the tap. The water tastes wonderful up here, clean and fresh, very different from London. I collect it in both hands, then splash it onto my face. Drying my skin off on my parents’ plush towels, I look into the mirror once more. For a moment, it doesn’t even scare me, the prospect of work, of a new job, a new life. That I will have to leave the house every day. That I will be in a place I don’t know, that I can’t navigate. That it might be loud and dirty and confusing and there will be buses with a silly numbering system. Like when Oliver and I moved to London for the first time. It was our second flat; we’d never lived on such a busy street … It was lovely though. Oliver had found it by marching straight into a local pub, getting drunk and then asking everyone in the vicinity if they knew of somewhere that was available. It got us a two-bedroom flat. Not bad. Only one set of keys, the heating working intermittently at best, and a leaky tap, but still not bad.

Now, it does not scare me, the prospect of a new place. No, it actually … it gives me a thrill. Like seeing the shock on Anvi’s and Kaitlin’s faces when I walked into their shop today. Like I couldn’t be overlooked. Like I was really there.

I haven’t felt a thrill like that in years.

It is what bolsters me as I take one last look into the mirror. Take up the plate. Straighten my shoulders.

Then I go into my parents’ bedroom.

The floorboards creak as I cross the threshold. The bed in the centre of the room is still the same, its frame of dark wood, its tall headboard, the small nightstands. The bed almost disappears under all the pillows and blankets. The wallpaper has changed, midnight blue on one wall, a wooden texture on the others. To the right of the bed is a door to the en suite I did not use – it feels too much like my parents’ bathroom still – and on its left a window overlooking the hollow, right above the roof of the front porch.

Carefully, I put the plate of shortbread onto the nightstand on the right. My nerves are fluttering. Have been ever since I decided to sleep up here tonight.

To see if it will trigger a memory.

I stare at the bed. At the spot at its foot, the wooden floorboards in front of it.

That is where I woke up.

Slowly, I pad over there. My dressing gown billows up around me as I lie down. My bare skin touches cold wood, my thighs, the sides of my legs, my panties. I put my cheek to the floor, feeling the cold seep through me, and close my eyes. Ready to remember.

The floorboards creak. Outside, the wind sneaks through the hollow, through the treetops, shaking their leaves, whispering at the edges of the old window frames. The room smells dusty. There is a hint of another scent, but they are both overshadowed by the shortbread, still warm, sitting on my nightstand.

It smells really good, that shortbread.

I sit back up.

Well, this isn’t working.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. Then, out of nowhere, I feel something rise in my throat. A giggle. It comes out before I have even realised what is happening. Goodness, look at me. Crouching on the floor, hoping for some kind of revelation.

I stand up, dust off my nightgown, draw the curtains and return to the hallway to take out fresh sheets. On the way, I fetch my begonias as well, and once I’m back inside the bedroom I put them on the nightstand next to the shortbread. Then I take the nightshade from the pocket of my dressing gown and stow it in the drawer of the nightstand. Making up the bed with the fresh sheets, I realise that I do not recognise them: black flowers climbing across dark blue fabric, a silken touch to them. They must be new. They feel soft on my skin.