They wait their turn, delivering their orders one by one to Antonio, their waiter, who scribbles pencil across notepaper as they speak. They say nothing as he collects menus from each of them, snapping them shut in his hands before sliding them beneath his arm.
‘Good to see you again,’ Antonio says with a bow.
There is a murmur of thanks as they watch him sweep away, heading through the bustling restaurant towards the kitchens at the back of the Italian restaurant.
Alone again the subdued silence returns, descending upon them like a heavy mist lowering upon the horizon. Now, without the life raft of the menus and food ordering to cling to, they are stranded at sea - and the Love family flounders, slowly sinking into an abyss of silence.
Thirty-six years they’ve been visiting Bellio’s to celebrate the families special occasions: birthdays, anniversaries, promotions - Jonathon’s and his sisters, of course, never hers. Over thirty-six years and endless, endless evenings out like tonight she has endured this silence, their disinterest in her.
Every year, each celebration, Susie promises herself this time she won’t struggle to fill the awkward emptiness. She promises her husband, Jonathon, that tonight she won’t ramble on ridiculously about everything and anything. But now, sitting here she’s fighting the wall of silence, the table of blank faces avoiding her gaze and she feels it building inside of her- she has to speak, to say something, she has to.
She should ask about the garden, their holiday, or their optician appointments, anything…
‘Have you had a nice birthday, Tom?’ She asks her father-in-law whose seventy-fifth they are celebrating.
Tom nods, his eyes not reaching hers. ‘Lovely,’ he says shifting in his chair away from her. ‘Ellen baked me a smashing cake.’
‘That was nice of her.’ Jonathon squeezes Susie’s hand beneath the table as Ellen, his sister, launches into a story about the cake she has made.
Like a chick hatching from its shell, the family awakens and beginning to paddle, begins their swim back to shore. Only they don’t take Susie. They leave her afloat, treading water, until in time she will slowly sink beneath the surface.
‘Remember that awful cake Jonny made when he was ten? Ellen asks.
Joan, Susie’s mother-in-law laughs and her teeth droop. She giggles and shoves them back in to place. ‘The burnt one?'
Tom smiles. Ellen giggles. Jonathon nods. Susie forces a smile.
‘Oh and the time…’ Joan begins.
Finally their meals arrive, bringing with them a welcome distraction from the conversation that excludes Susie, and the clatter of knives and forks.
‘Hey, remember what Jonny used to,’ Ellen says mouth full.
‘Remember when,’ Tom starts.
‘And what about,’ Joan says.
‘Don’t forget,’ Ellen laughs.
Susie watches Antonio gliding towards their table where he hovers and smiles at her. ‘Everything all right for you?’ He asks.
Thirty-six years in the shadows and tonight she’s sinking.
‘No.’ Susie stands and lowers her napkin to the table. ‘Not really,’ she says.
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One. And two. And three. And four.
She rubbed gloved fingers against her drooping eyes and glanced around at the narrow bed, the washbasin, the worn sofa, alert to their presence.
And five.
Ignore them. This was what they wanted.
And six.
Her chest tightened as if an anaconda had coiled its length around her body, trying to extract all remaining life from its prey. Her breath came in short, rasping gasps against the screeching silence.
And seven… seven. And… eight.
Air battled to reach her lungs, stinging as it inched through her bronchial passages. If only, if only she could have stood and moved across to the window to straighten the heavy black material when the sun rose earlier. But it had not been possible. Far too risky being so close to the light.
And nine.
The shadows had loitered, biding their time. Now they could smell her weakening; could taste her fear.
And ten.
What harm if she looked for a few seconds; checked just once? It would calm her. No, too dangerous.
And eleven. And twelve.
What if she… No. Dr Entwistle said last Friday she must not give in.
‘Recovery will take time, Isabelle and you need to fight the panic attacks.’
He didn’t know what he was asking her to do. Dr Entwistle did not understand the power, the devious ways of the shadows. No one could. Andrew certainly had not and they had been married for twenty years. In that time he had never understood them or even believed they existed. In the end, he had simply divorced her and married someone else.
‘How,’ she’d asked, adjusting dark shades to sit high upon the bridge of her nose, ‘How am I supposed to fight them?’
And thirteen.
The anaconda loosened its grip a fraction and she inhaled stale air from the room. It rushed to her head, leaving her as dizzy as if she’d downed too much champagne. Not that she’d had a drink for some time; she rarely went out. The risks now were too high to contemplate. The sun was so powerful, what with climate changes, and everyone’s skin showing the damaging effects. Blemishes and moles all over the place, and people taking silly chances with their own lives, wearing t-shirts and shorts, summer dresses with no backs to them. Builders who worked outside, wearing no protection at all. Each week, she struggled to attend her appointment with Dr Entwistle, whose practice was only six minutes and eighteen seconds from her bedsit when you walked briskly; a total of 1,136 steps, if you counted.
Isabelle glanced at the alarm clock on the mantelpiece. In seventeen minutes it would be time for the next section of her day. In the meantime, there were seventeen minutes to get through…
And fourteen. And fifteen. And sixteen.
Her eyelids wilted.
And seventeen.
Seventeen had been her age when she first met Andrew. The shadows were mere background murmurs then. He’d been at the beach with friends and he teased her for being dressed in so many layers of clothes, sitting beneath an umbrella on the sunniest bank holiday of the year. He’d worn navy trunks, his shoulders red with sunburn and splattered with freckles; far too many to count.
And eighteen. And nineteen. And twenty. And twenty-one. And twenty-two.
They married and she began to count them, memorizing the decorative patterns on his skin. Soon she began to hate them, to fear them, believing she could see them change and develop beyond her control.
‘Of course, it’s foolish to believe that we ever control such matters,’ Dr Entwistle had told her during their initial appointment.
But she could, she did; she had to. Skin should be clear, and smooth and pure, and safe.
And twenty-three.
The appointment had been her last hope of rescuing her marriage.
‘Too little, too late,’ Andrew had said. He had moved in with his new fiancée and she had rented this room. Still, even now she could draw from memory the map of his skin; his scars, his moles, his freckles and yet… yet, she could no longer remember how his face transformed when he smiled.
And twenty-four.
The urge to inspect her body was increasing. Six minutes remained. When the alarm finally went off she would have one minute to collect her sunglasses from the plant stand beside the door, place them on, count to twenty and then it would be time to…
Isabelle jumped, startled by the loud bang upon her door. Her heart began to thump. Her head spun, vision blurring when she learned forward to glance at the clock. No, she wasn’t mistaken, she wasn’t. Still over five minutes to go. Why had someone banged on her door in that way? It couldn’t be Beryl; she knew to tap once, and lightly.
It was bad news. It had to be. Bad, bad news. She rocked back and forth on the sofa. Pressure was building in her head. It felt as if her brain was being compressed in a vice, tighter and tighter and tighter.
The knock came again.
‘Hello?’ It was a man’s voice. ‘Hello?’ he repeated.
The shadows were playing tricks on her. No one knocked on her door. There was a sign which clearly requested that no one, NO ONE touch her door under any circumstance.
‘Isabelle?’
The man knew her name.
This was not in her schedule. Her day was drifting from its carefully managed segments of time and that meant, that meant anything could happen.
‘Isabelle?’ the man’s voice continued. ‘I understand you don’t know me, and that you don’t accept visitors. Only Beryl sent me. I’m Simon, her son. She may have mentioned me?’
Had Beryl mentioned Simon? She couldn’t be sure. Her mind wandered when Beryl spoke.
Isabelle took another look at her alarm clock. Two minutes to go until Beryl knocked to deliver her daily shopping and jug of fresh water from the kitchen. That meant in fifteen minutes she would be allowed her morning cup of tea.
‘Can you hear me?’
She rocked back and forth.
‘You’re early,’ she said. ‘Beryl comes at 10.30.’
‘That’s what my watch says, 10.30 on the dot,’ Simon told her. ‘It’s why I knocked when I did.’
She shook her head.
‘There’s one more minute,’ she called. Ripples of nausea were coursing up from her stomach. She was going to be sick.
And twenty-five. And twenty-six. And twenty-seven.
‘Isabelle, what should I do?’
‘Knock again,’ she said. ‘Knock again.’
‘Now?’
‘No, not now! In forty-five seconds.’
And twenty-eight. And twenty-nine. And thirty.
The alarm clock buzzed and Simon rapped his knuckles against her door once again. She rested back in the chair, closing her eyes. She was safe. It was time to stand, to move. Her legs wobbled beneath the weight of her body as she shuffled towards the door, snatched her shades, put them on and began to count. Only when she grasped the handle did she remember that Beryl would not be waiting on the other side.
‘Is there a problem?’ asked Simon eventually.
‘You’re not Beryl,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘You… you’re not in my schedule.’
‘I’m sorry about that, but Mum insisted I come instead of her. She fell yesterday afternoon, she’s sprained her ankle.’
No Beryl…
‘Mum wasn’t sure if you had anyone else to deliver…’ he faltered, ‘…well, your daily supplies.’
‘But I don’t need anyone. Beryl comes.’
‘The trouble is she won’t be able to, not for a few days.’
Isabelle frowned.
‘She has to. Beryl always comes.’ She turned, resting her back against the door, gradually allowing the rubbery muscles of her legs to give way so that she slid down into a sitting position on the floor. Beryl was always there when she needed her. She had taken care of her since she and Andrew were married, after they advertised for a housekeeper when the panic attacks began to overshadow her life. After the divorce she’d continued to come each morning at the same time without fail.
‘I don’t want to speak out of turn,’ Simon continued, ‘or distress you further.’ He coughed and waited a few seconds. ‘Only my brother and I are concerned about Mum. She’s getting on you know, and we worry it’s too much for her, taking two buses to get over to this side of town each day.’
Isabelle rested her head upon her knees, aware of her heartbeat reverberating through her chest. She put two fingers to her neck to check her pulse. It was racing. Sweat bubbled up across her forehead. Why couldn’t he stop talking and go so that she could open the door, collect her shopping and get on with her day?
And thirty-one. And thirty-two. And thirty-three. And thirty-four. And thirty-five. And…
‘She doesn’t like to mention it herself but she’s really ready to retire.’
The anaconda slithered towards her again and wound its way around her body, squeezing out any remaining breath. Her toes tingled, then her shins and her thighs, then the tingling pressure moved up through her stomach. She gasped for air, choking on the saliva that hit the back of her mouth.
‘Are you okay in there?’ Simon called.
‘Go,’ she panted.
‘What about your food and water?’
‘Just…’ she wheezed, ‘just go.’
And… and thirty-five. And…
‘Can I call anyone? Your doctor?’
Thirty-six.
It felt as if she were no longer in her own body but floating high above it.
‘Please,’ she said.
andthirty-seven.andthirty-seven.andthirty-seven.andthirty-seven.andthirty-seven…
Isabelle’s legs were numb. She lay paralyzed on the floor. She was dying. Would die here, alone. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to drift downwards, surrendering herself to the shadows who cradled her within the icy warmth of their embrace, whispering to her all the while.
Tears came.
Years ago, she had lain on the floor with her sister, Maria. She had cried then, too; small, stifled sobs against the sound of her parents arguing in the next room. She could hear the thump of her father’s fist against the door, the wall, and her mother.
‘They’ll divorce you know,’ Maria had said. She was four years older and knew everything about life.
‘Really?’ Isabelle hadn’t known what divorce was, but Maria’s serious face told her it was not good.
‘We’ll probably be sent to an orphanage.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A home for kids with no parents. It’ll be horrid. I bet we’ll be separated from each other.’
Worry wormed its way through her young body. Maria was everything to her; she relied on her.
‘I don’t want to go,’ she said, her face crumpling.
‘Sssh… we don’t want to disturb Mummy and Daddy…’
‘I’m scared.’
‘You’re always scared.’
They both rested their cheeks flat against the hessian carpet and stared at one another.
‘Tell me a story, Ma…’
Maria groaned.
‘Okay, I’ve a really good one for you today. It’s about a woman who died on the toilet.’
‘Died?’
‘Yeah, remember last week when I pretended to die, and lay on the floor and didn’t move for an hour? Well, that’s dying, only you never move,’ she leaned her face closer, ‘ever again.’
‘I don’t like this story.’ Isabelle had had a nightmare after Maria died, and Mummy had shouted at her for waking Daddy.
‘It’s a funny story, you will. This woman…’
‘What woman?’
Maria pulled a face.
‘It’s not important. Just shut up and listen. This woman is really old, she’s sort of thirty or forty-ish and has like a million freckles all over her body and she goes to the bathroom one day, sits down on the toilet –’ She stopped and sat up.
‘What happens?’
‘She scratches a big brown freckle on her shoulder and she pees and… she dies.’
Isabelle sat upright too and pulled her knees beneath her chin.
‘She pee’d and died?’
‘Cos she touched her big, hairy freckle,’ said Maria, ‘and now she’s dead forever. No one found her for days and she was stuck on the toilet still scratching it, only her body had turned cold and hard.’
'So you die if you scratch freckles?’
‘Yep.’
‘What if you touch by accident?’
Maria grinned.
‘You still die.’
Isabelle had glanced down at her arms and legs, at her own freckles.
‘You’d better be careful, Izzie,’ Maria laughed. ‘Really careful.’
She did. She did have to be careful. But she hadn’t been. Dr Entwistle had tried to put a stop to it and she should never have trusted him. Her mouth was dry when she swallowed, her body heavy as she gingerly moved her legs to test them. They were working again, and she slowly eased herself on to her feet and ripped off her gloves, her hands clammy as air touched skin.
Adrenaline coursed through her now and in a single swift tug she pulled her roll neck jumper over her head and crouched beside her bed. She reached beneath it and pulled out her box, her mahogany security box. She took the chain form her neck and pushed the key into the lock and opened it. With careful movements she lifted out her magnifying glass, her head torch, her scissors, tweezers and nail clippers and positioned them on the bed. She removed her notebook from the base of the box and flicked through the pages and pages of patterns. Charts of people’s skin; her own throughout the years, then Andrew’s, Beryl’s, Dr Entwistle’s, Maria as a child and adult and other people who had wandered in and out of her life.
Isabelle turned to a fresh sheet, wiped the magnifier with her jumper, pulled down her tracksuit bottoms and inch by inch inspected and measured each freckle, each blemish, scar and mole on her body, recording the details with a diagram sketched in her notebook.
Two freckles would need to be removed today. An offering to the shadows. She dabbed on tea tree oil and punctured her forearm with the nail clippers, blood spurting as she gouged layers of skin to destroy the circular brown stain; ripping it apart, removing all trace. Blood trickled along her arm and she covered it with a plaster before she began the removal of a freckle from the top of her right thigh.
She breathed deeply once the surgeries were complete, and smiled. Her body was clear and smooth, pure and safe once more. She felt drained but calm as she cleared away and got dressed again in her black roll neck jumper, tracksuit bottoms, socks and cotton gloves and tugged the sheets on the single bed from their tidy corners. And then for the first time in two weeks, three days and nineteen hours she flopped down into bed, body spent, and lay still beneath the covers.
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Buried deep inside, knots of irritation had become aggravated and were niggling at him.
In the kitchen downstairs, he could hear Vera already crashing about with baking pans. Another day. George glanced around the bedroom at the fading wallpaper and threadbare carpet.
He should get up.
Downstairs, Vera had the electric whisk at full throttle, which meant the creation of his birthday cake was underway. He was too late. Reaching across the bed to grab a pillow, he placed it across his face, and groaned in to its feathery softness.
That meant he wouldn’t be allowed in the kitchen for some time. Not for his morning cup of tea, and certainly not for a bit of breakfast.
‘It’ll do you good to go without,’ Vera would undoubtedly assure him if he peered his head around the kitchen door to plead for a slice of toast.
Never once, over the years, had he been brave enough to admit that if anyone could do with a bit of ‘going without’ it was her not him.
He had met Vera during the war and his memories of that time were hazy. Their romance had been brisk, he remembered that much, and founded upon a sense of jubilation at simply being alive. And Vera had seemed practical and homely, with a skill for creating a hearty meal out of wartime rations.
George lifted his face from the pillow. It had gone silent downstairs, he’d better get up. Perhaps a wash and shave would put the world to rights. If not, at least his girls and the grandchildren would be arriving for his birthday party in a few hours, and that was something to look forward to.
The bathroom mirror confirmed how he was feeling. Although the Doctor had said last month that for a man of nearly eighty he had better health than most.
‘Must be the love of a good woman,’ the Doctor had joked.
Vera had smiled proudly. While he had nodded, ushering his wife out of the surgery.
‘Didn’t I tell you that cutting cake out of your diet was the best thing for you? Your cholesterol’s never been so low.’
George eased the car from the entrance of the car park and on to the main road.
‘I told you, didn’t I, George.’
‘You did.’
‘Wait till I tell Marjorie. She said, what harm could a piece of cake do,’ Vera plucked a handkerchief from her coat sleeve and gave a tentative blow. ‘Saturated fats,’ she said with another blow, ‘she just doesn’t understand.’
Over the years, Vera had taken control of his life. He took his medication and vitamins when she told him too. He drank water, restricted alcohol, walked a mile a day, and slept a solid seven and a half hours each night. While Vera managed his diet, limiting this and that as he followed her siren call, ‘you’ll thank me when you’re eighty…’
Now, here he was, eighty…
Once the girls, and grandchildren arrived for his party he felt brighter. The house less empty and hollow. Their snug sitting room bustled with chatter and excitement, as Leslie, their eldest, cleared space on the coffee table for Vera to place the birthday cake. It was a chocolate cake, his favourite, with butter cream dripping along the edges.
‘Cake’s lovely, Mum,’ Susan said.
The children gathered closer as she served, tiny fingers poking at the icing, until Vera slapped them away.
‘You forgot, Dad?’ Leslie said.
Susan giggled. ‘You can’t forget Dad on his birthday.’
George smiled.
‘Oh, your father’s not having any cake.’
‘Your not?' Susan frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Well I… ’ he started.
‘Cholesterol,’ Vera interrupted.
‘But you said it was down.’ Leslie looked puzzled.
‘It was last month, but you can’t be too careful,’ Vera said.
‘Dad?’ Susan questioned.
‘It’s okay love. Your mother’s right. Probably best if I don’t.’
He felt the happiness of the afternoon deflate, aware of his daughters’ disappointment of him.
‘Why are they always in such a rush?’ Vera demanded, as the girls screeched away.
He’d shrugged, heading into the kitchen, where piles of washing up lay in wait for him.
By bedtime his irritation had plunged into despair. Vera was already in bed, her pudgy face shiny with night cream.
‘Blasted pillows,’ she said. ‘For heaven’s sake, George hurry up and re-arrange these pillows for me will you, they’re uncomfortable.’
George remembered the awkward silence earlier as the girls and their children scrambled into their cars and driven away. That was uncomfortable
‘What a lovely birthday party,’ Vera said, once he was sat on the bed beside her, plumping her pillows against his lap.
‘Would have been nice to have a slice of cake.’
‘It's for your own good.’
He nodded, once.
The knots of irritation began to rise up, and up, hovering like bile in the back of his throat.
He breathed deeply, and reached forward to re-position the pillow.
‘George?’ Vera’s eyes widened as he rested the pillow down across her face and held it there, while her arms fought, thrashing against him. Her screams muffled.
Life carried on around us. The sun shone brightly, glimmering its warmth. The black birds chirruped. While in our garden tree branches sagged, the scent of roses diminished, and flowers drooped in despair. Wasps and butterflies murmured their discontent at the dwindling pollen and flew on by.
Above us, dense grey clouds began to appear, floating up from the chimney, puffing out our upset. Whilst the Cotswold stone, which warms and protects us, paled visibly under the shock. Our inner wiring sparked then faded. Windows misted, and damaging cracks seeped across walls like wildfire. While I, the foundation of the house, buckled and quivered beneath our grief.
Lost in our thoughts, we strived to remember a different time, the day our family had arrived. How overjoyed they had been to find us, even though back then, we were a mass of bare floorboards and chipped walls, our internal wires disconnected.
‘Oh Simon, I love it,’ Lindy gushed as they ambled around, their voices echoing within our hollowness.
We held our breath.
Simon wrapped his arms around his new wife. ‘I do too. Let’s call the estate agents and put an offer in.’
‘Our first home,’ Lindy whispered.
And so, we came alive again.
Over the months Simon and Lindy sprinkled laughter throughout our rooms, gently restoring and teasing our neglected shell back to life. Allowing us to feel pride, to disregard the belief that we were worthless.
Soon we began to blossom. They fixed the internal wiring. Our walls were smooth and colorful once more. The floorboards sanded and varnished. Velvet curtains hung from the windows, antique tables and chairs sat proudly in our rooms, and a freshly painted summerhouse sat nestled snugly in the garden.
We were a home at last; we had become whole.
Over the years, Simon’s office became a nursery when Benjamin was born, and the spare room the same when Samantha followed. How we loved to have the children run amongst us, hiding within our nooks and crannies. We thrived within their squeals of laughter, enjoying the contented peacefulness on their faces when they returned home in their parents arms to our welcome embrace. We braved their growing tantrums at bedtime, smiled patiently at smudgy handprints pressed against us, and happily faded beneath Lindy’s bleaching wipes.
In our contentment, we didn’t see trouble looming.
We noticed their increasing arguments, but told ourselves with Lindy back at work and Simon traveling more, it was understandable. Month after month the shouting increased, doors slammed more frequently, and the children tiptoed around. We did our best to protect them; we shone and bloomed, and kept ourselves healthy. But it was pointless. They no longer noticed us.
Eventually we lost them: Simon moved out.
Lindy stayed behind with Benjamin and Samantha, and we tried to comfort them. But gradually, we lost them too. Now they moved around with pale faces and sad eyes – while we struggled, living with the knowledge that we simply hadn’t been enough.
‘We need to sell the house,’ Simon said on one of his visits. ‘I’ve contacted the estate agent and my solicitor. They’ll be in touch.’
The solicitors letter arrived, bringing with it the news that our joy over the years had become our irony. Our value and worth had risen. All the time, love and energy they had invested in us had made us valuable and now neither Simon nor Lindy could afford to buy the other out.
Simon arrived one evening, looking disheveled and tired. ‘We can’t go on like this,’ he said.
Lindy frowned. ‘I know. We need to make a decision.’
‘The solicitor suggested this thing, a drop-dead date.’
‘A what date?’
‘A drop-dead date.’ Simon paused. ‘Apparently, it’s for situations like ours. If we can afford to pay the mortgage a couple more years, we wait and make a decision then.’
‘Two years is a long time.’
‘What other choice do we have? We won’t get a good price if we sell now and if you stay here, it’s better for the children. Then, if neither one can afford to buy the other out, or nothing’s changed, we’ll have to sell.’
Lindy gazed around, as if assessing us. ‘Then I guess that’s what we’ll do.’
So we waited, stuck in this sea of uncertainty. The children grew, becoming unruly. Simon rarely visited, and Lindy cried less. While we faded a little more each day, still dreaming that they would come back to us, to those who loved them, as they had once loved us.
We sensed the change coming before it arrived. Now we had become the battleground, invaded with boxes, the comforting smell of our family vanishing beneath the all-enveloping power of bleach. And Simon and Lindy stalked around packing, cleaning and closing us.
Whilst we watch and wait, our tree branches sag, flowers wilt, the internal wiring sparks and I, the foundation, begin to shudder, crumbling with the ache we feel inside.
Finally, the last boxes are sat beside the front door. The curtains are drawn closed and our lights dimmed one final time.
They survey us, remembering happier times.
Simon shrugs. ‘So, I guess that’s that.’
‘Yes,’ Lindy says, blinking away tears. ‘That’s that.’
He closes our front door and turns the key. Lindy trails fingertips along the rise and fall of our Cotswold stone. They glance sorrowfully at us one last time, each saying a silent farewell.
Good-bye, we say, and then they are gone.
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