Dead to Her

‘I thought I’d surprise you for lunch.’ She ignored Keisha and tried to smile at Jason. ‘Elizabeth told me where you were.’

‘I thought Marcie couldn’t make it?’ William said to Jason, who hurriedly got to his feet to pull out her chair. She barely moved as he kissed her on the cheek. Contain yourself, she thought. Don’t show weakness. Not where this gloating pig-in-shit stranger can see you.

Keisha’s hazel eyes, perfectly made up, naturally, darted sharply between Marcie and Jason. Could she pick up on the tension between them? She looked beautiful. A low V neckline in her cream sleeveless pantsuit accentuated her bust and the red sash tied at the waist made her look slimmer than she probably was and Marcie once again felt her own beauty fade in comparison.

‘Thank you, darling.’ She took her seat, as did Jason. His white shirt was open at the top button, showing a slice of his tanned, strong chest. A little but not too much. Why didn’t men fade like women? How did they get to retain some allure that wasn’t couched in ghosts of a tighter skin and past glory? How come they got to stay sexy or in fact, for a while, get sexier? Maybe that was the root of her problem. She felt her space in the group being erased. She’d been the youngest for so long. It was what she had, that quiet envy of their friends, and now it was being stripped from her by this confident younger usurper.

‘Sorry, Marce,’ he said. ‘I thought you were at the Mission with Virginia today.’

‘I was. But I was done so figured I’d find you for lunch. And here you are.’

‘Well, that’s great.’ William signalled over a waiter who poured Marcie the dregs of a bottle of Chablis before disappearing off to fetch another. They were having a good time it seemed.

‘The Mission?’ Keisha said. ‘So you’re a missionary kind of girl?’

So that’s who’d been drinking most of the wine. The barbed innuendo was obviously lost on William, who answered for Marcie. ‘It’s a food kitchen. Free lunches for the poor. Virginia organises it with the church. You help out there quite a bit, don’t you, Marcie?’

‘Beats going to church. And probably does more good.’

The waiter reappeared and she ordered a small chicken salad as he topped up her glass. Maybe Jason didn’t have an ulterior motive. She did usually do a later shift at the Mission than she’d done today, so it was natural for him to say she was busy. But still, every fibre in her being screamed that Jason hadn’t wanted her here.

‘Billy says everyone in this town loves God as much as they love a good time,’ Keisha said.

‘I’m not from here.’ Marcie was being snippy, she couldn’t help herself.

‘Bad morning?’ Jason asked. She ignored him.

‘You’re one of us now, Marcie, and no fighting it,’ William said. ‘You’re family. Part of our congregation. And anyway, everyone believes in some version of God. Don’t try to tell me otherwise. Nothing wrong with a little church-going. It balances the soul.’

‘I guess,’ she said.

‘But now that you’re here, you can help with my dilemma. Keisha’s trying to persuade me to go back to work.’

‘Bored already?’ She looked her nemesis in the face for the first time and smiled. They all laughed as if she were joking. Friends together.

‘No, of course not.’ A flash of dark eyes. The sting had hit home. ‘But you know what they say, driven men die when they retire.’

‘Thanks, honey!’

‘I’m being serious. You read about it all the time. Six weeks out of the office and then dead on the golf course. Anyway, I can’t imagine you sitting around doing nothing all day, though I’m sure we could find something to pass the time.’ Keisha gave William’s hand a squeeze, but her eyes darted to Marcie’s.

And what will you be doing all day if he goes back to work? Marcie wanted to ask but didn’t. That would put her on dangerous ground. Her one attempt at work had turned into a money pit, and Jason had snapped at her over her spending on the new house last week when the interior design quotes came in.

‘I like the idea of being a housewife,’ Keisha continued. ‘Preparing dinner for when you get home. Sweet tea out on the porch. Dinner parties with y’all. That kind of thing.’

‘Y’all can cook?’ asked Marcie, barely hiding the disbelief in her voice and mimicking Keisha’s attempts to be cute.

‘Ha! We’ll make a Southern belle of her yet, won’t we?’ William said, slapping Jason on the back and ignoring Marcie’s barb. He sat up straighter, all testosterone now with the thought of an adoring little woman waiting at home for him, and Marcie fought the urge to laugh out loud. Oh, she was good, this English gold-digger. Make it all about him when it was obvious she wanted him out of her hair as much as possible.

‘It’s true, I have missed the buzz of work,’ William said. ‘Not at first, but recently.’ He sipped his wine, thoughtful. ‘I could do a couple of days a week.’

‘No way you could,’ Jason said. ‘Before you know it, you’d be in every day, stressed as all hell and going home late to a pissed wife and a burnt dinner and a credit card she’s maxed out to punish you.’

Marcie stared at him, incredulous. Where had that outburst come from?

Jason laughed, suddenly aware of how sharp he’d sounded. ‘Unless you’re as lucky as me.’ He wasn’t fooling anyone, and Keisha glanced over at Marcie, her look a blend of humour and victory. Marcie forced her whole body to stay relaxed, as if his words had washed over her into nothing.

‘It’d take some spending to max out my credit cards, Jason.’

‘True.’ Jason gave William a rueful smile. The edge in the atmosphere softened but Marcie had definitely heard some bite there. What was the matter with him?

‘But that’s a thought for another day,’ William said. ‘Right now I’m enjoying being home and settling back in with my lovely new wife.’

‘We missed you while you were away.’ Marcie took another sip of her wine. It was going to her head, the small salad she’d ordered yet to arrive. Elizabeth had been right about the service here. Had anyone truly missed William? she wondered. Unlikely. It had all been so miserable in the months before he left. Eleanor slowly dying, elegantly at first and then getting oddly confused about things when it spread to her brain. Crying about Lyle as if he’d only recently died rather than over a decade ago. Then that awful day – my pearls my South Sea pearls where are my pearls – incessant and endless and so upset, hands fluttering, eyelids twitching, until Jason and Elizabeth finally found the necklace out by the pool house.

Iris would wheel her around the club like some reminder of all their mortality while the men played golf, everyone pretending it was going to be fine when it wasn’t. Even William started to shrink away from her towards the end, as if her impending death was contagious, flirting with some waitress at the club to cling to life. Yes, he’d been heartbroken when Eleanor died, but he’d also been relieved, and when he took his grief to Europe for the year, that had been a relief for everyone else. They could get on with living their wonderful lives. Maybe that’s why Iris and Noah had taken to Keisha. No one wanted miserable William back. Although, for Marcie at least, that would have been preferable to him returning with her.

‘Shall we get another bottle?’ Keisha asked. ‘It’s so lovely here.’

‘Not for me, I’ve got my car,’ Marcie said. She’d had too much already.

‘Lucky you. I can’t drive that big thing Eleanor had. I’m used to something smaller. Something nippy.’

‘Why don’t we go and choose you a car this afternoon?’ William took her hand. Marcie snorted quietly behind her own wine glass. Keisha was so blatant and William ridiculous for not seeing through her. How could a clever man be so stupid? They deserved each other.

‘I’ve got a few things I should do back at the office. Or,’ Jason said, before looking over at Marcie, no hint of the black cloud of moments ago. ‘I could play hooky and spend the afternoon with my own gorgeous wife.’ He winked at her. ‘A little siesta?’

She laughed and her heart melted. Even more so when she caught the downturn in Keisha’s mouth. Disgruntled. Heat flushed between her thighs, as much from her small victory as from the idea of an afternoon in bed with her handsome husband.

‘We’re lucky men, Jason Maddox,’ William said, holding his glass up to toast this moment of male pride.

‘Amen to that.’ Jason clinked and they both drank. Despite the sudden lift in her mood, Marcie had never felt more like a trophy. Bought and paid for rather than won.

The sex they had that afternoon was wild and urgent. Aggressive and mutually demanding. Nothing was off limits, like in the old days of illicit thrilling meetings in hotel rooms. They were absorbed in each other, the heat and the wine and the late-afternoon decadence bringing out the beasts in their blood as they laughed and panted and bit and wrestled. By the time they had finally finished, she stank of him and he of her, and they were filled with the taste of each other. She ached deep in her muscles, but it was a pleasant pain, a reassurance that her marriage was fine. He wasn’t bored. She wasn’t bored.

Jason rolled onto his side and up on one elbow, gazing at her for a long moment, not studying her body, but looking her right in the eye.

‘What?’

‘I need you to be her friend.’

Goosebumps prickled across Marcie’s skin. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Keisha.’

‘I know who you mean. But why?’

‘This business of wanting William to go back to work. Change her mind.’

She was fully alert now, all sense of relaxed joy evaporating like the dregs of a glorious dream. Was this what the afternoon together had been leading up to? Sex was a woman’s tool – had it just been used against her?

‘He was supposed to be gone for a year.’ Jason’s eyes had moved away from her, staring out towards the French windows at the far end of the bedroom, focused on something she couldn’t see. The chessboard of his mind moving pieces around.

‘So?’ She needed more information.

‘I started making a few changes already. I don’t want him coming in and trying to keep us as stagnant as we are. When I buy him out – if he doesn’t change his mind on that – I was going to reach out to Bardon and Briggs in Atlanta. See if they still wanted a merger with us. It would be a massive step forward.’ He paused. ‘And make a lot of money.’

Her heart pounded in her chest so hard it echoed in her ears and throbbed in her hot feet. Was this why he’d been distant? Because of work? Was it why he’d been making such a fuss of Keisha too? To get her on his side? Of course, of course, of course. It all made sense now. She had been a fool. It was all Jason, being his ambitious self.

‘You never told me any of this.’

‘It’s delicate. Yes, William verbally agreed he’d retire and I’d buy him out, but I know him, he’s doubting his decision. If he sees I’ve started making changes – well, you know how he can be about change. He likes that we’ve always been a boutique partnership, as if it’s a hundred years ago and nothing exists outside of the South.’ He chewed his bottom lip, thinking. ‘I’m going to work on him from the inside. Take him to Charleston or Atlanta for a late bachelor party. I’ll get Elizabeth to find somewhere he’ll love. Vegas, maybe. Show him how he could be spending his time. You work on her. Be her friend.’

It was Marcie’s turn to be thoughtful. ‘She’s using him, you know that, don’t you?’

He shrugged.

‘You don’t care? You’re one of his closest friends and she’s a gold-digger. All that stuff about a car at lunchtime. And the money he’s spending on her. She’s probably in his will by now. Shouldn’t you warn him?’

‘She is in his will. He drew up the changes this morning with Brody. When they got back, she signed a post-nup, in case they divorce, but he’s leaving her pretty much everything if he dies. If I try to warn him about her, he’s going to turn on me and all my work plans will be screwed. No one likes to be told they’re being stupid. Let his gorgeous wife be a distraction for now.’

‘Is that why you’ve been flirting with her?’ Marcie asked.

‘I haven’t been flirting with her.’ He bristled and she felt her regained shield of confidence crack again. He must have seen something in her expression because he relented. ‘Well, maybe a little, but only to keep her on our side.’

Too late, babe, Marcie thought. The denial came first. There’s always guilt in denial.

‘Just do it,’ he said, pushing back the sheet and striding naked to the bathroom. ‘For me.’

10

Marcie didn’t have to reach out to make the first move. Elizabeth had called to say she was going to show Keisha a few of the sights and asked if Marcie wanted to come along. Want was a strong word, and it was turning out to be a long, hot morning.

They’d done the Davenport House, where Elizabeth pointed out various supposedly interesting details of history and Keisha and Marcie had trailed behind, listless, both obviously bored by the commentary. It might have made Marcie warm to the young woman if everything she said didn’t seem to be related to Jason. So, how long have you been married? Did you know his first wife? He must work long hours, how do you keep busy? Don’t you want children? Does he stay away much? I have to come and see your new house. Jason said at lunch that it’s amazing. You must be so happy.

‘Yes I am,’ she’d answered. ‘Blissfully so. We both are.’ Keisha had faltered at that and changed the subject. God, she was so obvious. And only just married. What was that old saying? Someone who marries for money earns it. Did Keisha really think she could get away with a flirtation on the side?

She was messing with the wrong woman if she thought she could pull the wool over Marcie’s eyes with this sugary sweet routine. It might work with the others, but Marcie wasn’t filled with that ingrained, unspoken racism born in the blood of their wealthy, classist generation that made them fall over themselves to be nice by way of embarrassed apology. Marcie wasn’t like them. She saw Keisha for what she was – a serpent in their midst. But she’d play along for now.

As they strolled through the quiet squares, scented with citrusy, honey-sweet magnolia perfumes, pausing en route to gaze up at wrought-iron balconies on beautiful painted houses and the pretty old-fashioned street lamps under the boughs of Georgia oaks, Elizabeth seemed so enthralled by the quaint charm she may as well have been a tourist rather than a late middle-aged woman who’d lived here all her life. Savannah sure was a beautiful city, Marcie knew that, but she wondered how it compared with the hustle and bustle of a cold place like London. An alien land no doubt. Keisha didn’t strike her as someone who’d travelled beyond Europe a lot. There was too much city grit in her eyes. Marcie’s used to have it too.

‘What’s that stuff?’ Keisha was looking up.

‘Spanish moss,’ Marcie said. ‘It’s everywhere in Georgia.’

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Elizabeth joined in. ‘So gothic against the architecture.’

‘I guess.’ Keisha didn’t sound convinced. ‘It gives me the creeps. They’re like the kind of cobwebs that would come at the end of the world. Shrouding everything.’

‘Maybe that’s appropriate. After all, this is a city of live oaks and dead people, that’s what they say. Which brings us to our next location on the tour,’ Elizabeth continued, breezily.

‘Colonial Park Cemetery,’ Elizabeth said as she led them through an arched gateway. ‘Opened around seventeen hundred and fifty, so pretty old for the States. There are hundreds of gravestones here but about ten thousand buried bodies, so do the math on that one. Those with the stones are the lucky ones. There’s a mass grave for seven hundred yellow fever victims, and we’re probably standing on some other residents; in fact they spread right out under the streets.’

Keisha didn’t look too impressed as she took in the vast space of tended lawns, paths running through them, littered with scattered gravestones. The heavy heat had driven sensible people inside, and Marcie could see only a solitary visitor, a large black woman with umber hair sitting on a bench in the distance, her walking stick beside her, under a wall of old grave markers. Keisha’s mouth pursed. ‘Is this where Eleanor is buried?’

‘Oh no, there’re no new graves here. Eleanor’s in Bonaventure with Lyle, God rest that boy’s soul. Eleanor was born to end up there, if that doesn’t sound too strange. It’s so full of beauty and grace, same as she was. A lot of the old families have plots and mausoleums, bought up years ago. That’s a place you really should visit – not Eleanor’s grave, if it makes you feel too uncomfortable – but the cemetery. This one has historical significance, but Bonaventure has a life of its own, if you’ll excuse the pun. So much atmosphere. People come from all over to wander through it. So peaceful. And the monuments and statues are definitely to see.’

‘Not for me,’ Keisha said. ‘I don’t like to spend time with the dead.’

‘That’s a shame. It’s quite the wonder. I like to go sometimes and just sit and think. I’ve seen Zelda there too on occasion. All walks of life are welcome in Bonaventure. Death is a great leveller, isn’t it?’

‘Does your family have a tomb there too?’ Keisha asked and Elizabeth let out a tinkle of amused laughter.

‘No dear. My family isn’t originally from this part of the South. And we’re not really mausoleum people.’

Marcie could imagine. Elizabeth had a mother somewhere – she’d gone visiting her for a while when William was in Europe – but her father’s grave was probably in some gaudy cemetery, like those ones that advertise ‘a whole afterlife package’ on late-night TV.

‘I don’t think I need to see any more gravestones,’ Keisha said as Elizabeth’s phone began to ring. ‘My Auntie Ayo says it’s bad luck to disturb a dead man’s bones.’ She smiled, but there was a definite sense of unease in her confidence. A crack in her armour, perhaps.

‘Then let’s go and wander along River Street and see the Waving Girl statue. There’ll be more of a breeze there too and you’ll love the cobbled street and all the stores and restaurants. But oh my, the steps. With those shoes you’re wearing we may need to ride the elevator down. Just let me get this – it’s William.’ Elizabeth smiled apologetically, turning away to answer and leaving the two women standing in awkward silence as she talked behind them.

‘God, I need a drink,’ Marcie muttered eventually.

‘Hell yes.’ Keisha flashed a grin at her, and Marcie was once again struck by her youthful beauty and she ached with envy for that power. She’d been as glorious as Keisha at that age. Before she’d started to fade.

‘So sorry,’ Elizabeth said, tucking her phone back into her sensible purse. ‘I’ve got to go run an errand for William that can’t wait. Virginia and Emmet are at the house and he’s organised a late lunch for y’all, so Marcie, why don’t you drive Keisha back and I’ll meet you when I’m done? I’m so sorry to cut our tour short. We can pick it up another day.’

‘Can’t wait,’ Keisha said, droll, and much as Marcie didn’t like her, she almost laughed.

Marcie watched as Elizabeth bustled off, untouched by the humid heat, and then pointed down the street. ‘My car’s about five minutes away.’ They started to stroll, Keisha’s hips rolling confidently with every stride. Even the way she walked made Marcie feel inferior, awkward. Be her friend, Jason had said. Like it was that easy. Men knew nothing about the tricky waters of mutual mistrust women swam in. After a few minutes’ awkward silence, Marcie forced herself to talk. ‘I take it you’re not a great fan of museums and history?’

‘Am I that obvious?’ Keisha asked. ‘I’ve lived in London since I was five years old and never made it to the Tower of London. Only seen it from outside.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess that must seem pretty ignorant.’

‘Oh, I’m the same. I’m all about the present and the future, not the past.’ It was pretty close to the truth, Marcie thought as she led them into Wright Square. ‘You’ve moved to the wrong city if you don’t care about history though. “The most haunted city in America” is on the tourist advertising. And apparently this is our most haunted square. Jason brought me down here one night when we first met and we picnicked at midnight. It was very romantic.’ Jason. My husband. Never to be yours. Keisha needed to learn that Marcie wasn’t the sort to give up her possessions easily, that she was a force to be reckoned with under her newly acquired demure exterior.

‘Why’s it haunted?’ Keisha asked. ‘Who by?’

‘The first woman executed in the city was hanged here for murdering the farmer who employed her. She was Irish. They left her up there for three days after she was dead.’ She gazed up at the trees. ‘The story goes that Spanish moss doesn’t grow here because it won’t grow where innocent blood has been spilled.’

‘She didn’t do it?’ Keisha asked.

‘Who knows? Probably. Maybe he deserved it. Anyhow,’ she continued, ‘tourists say they’ve seen her spirit running through here looking for her baby. But then if you believe everyone who says they’ve seen a ghost here, there’d be more dead people on the streets than live ones.’

‘Don’t you believe in ghosts?’ Keisha asked.

‘No,’ Marcie said. ‘No, I do not.’ She paused. ‘Only the ghosts of our past selves, and even they stop breathing when we do.’ She hadn’t meant it to sound so weighty, but she noted Keisha’s face tightening. Marcie had put her past in a box where she could control it. It looked like Keisha carried hers inside. What secrets did she have?

A deep, throaty chuckle from behind cut between them, the sound like a sudden breeze in the still air, and both women turned. An elderly black woman with umber orange hair was standing behind a bench to their right, in the leafy shade of the overhanging trees. Laid out across the wooden seat were various trinkets and candles, as well as little charm bags, like Marcie had seen in New Orleans. Marcie stared. The woman was tall, over five eleven, and with the barrel of fat around her stomach she appeared vast and formidable. How had they not seen her as they strolled past? Marcie frowned. She looked like the woman who’d been sitting in Colonial Park Cemetery, but it couldn’t be the same person. She couldn’t have gotten here so fast and set up her things.

‘Ghosts,’ the woman said, slapping her thigh and laughing harder, wiping her eyes, before looking up at them. ‘Ghosts indeed. Ghosts you may be, but I can see you,’ she said. She raised one hand and pointed a fat finger. ‘I see both of you, light and dark and dark and light. All your secrets. I see all to come, and I see what will become of you. I dreamed you. Oh my,’ she laughed again, shaking her head as if in wonder at something. ‘Ghosts right here. Oh my.’

She picked up her cane from where it rested against the bench and gripped it, the handle carved like a snake’s head, before banging it against the ground three times. The oddness of the movement made Marcie shiver, and beside her Keisha had stiffened.

‘Oh my,’ the old woman repeated, before turning and starting to stroll in the opposite direction, abandoning her wares and leaving the two women staring after her.

‘Well, that was … odd,’ Marcie said, eventually.

Keisha was staring at the items laid out on the bench as if one might leap up and bite her. ‘She sounded like she knew you. Knew who we were. What was she talking about?’

‘I have no idea,’ Marcie said. ‘I guess that shit is her sales pitch. Freaks people out and then gets them to part with their money for all this trash.’

‘It’s not trash,’ Keisha said softly, eyes scanning the objects.

‘Well, if it isn’t, why did she walk off and leave it here? Maybe she’s drunk.’

‘Maybe.’ Keisha didn’t sound convinced and her eyes darted over to where the woman was strolling away. Was the new Mrs Radford afraid?