The Girl Below(105)

“Not all of it, darling,” said Pippa. “Peggy will have bills to pay.”

She held out her hand, but Ari hesitated. “Do you always have to spoil my fun?”

Pippa smiled, and Harold touched her shoulder. “You don’t need to this time,” he said. “I’ll find a way to help out with the bills. I believe it’s probably my turn.”

Pippa looked sharply at her brother, and I thought, for a second, she was going to refuse his offer. But she softened. “Thanks. That would really help.”

The whole time we’d been talking, I had been sitting with the photograph album and a pile of scrap-paper notes in my lap. Now I picked one up and unfolded it. Scrawled on it in curly, old-fashioned script, was a short sentence: “To Caleb, I leave my birdcage.” I unfolded another, written in the same handwriting. “To Harold,” it said, “I leave my photographs.”

“I think Peggy has left a sort of will,” I said. “Look.” I handed Harold and Caleb their bequests.

“Lame,” said Caleb, after reading his. “Those stuffed birds are utterly rank.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” said Pippa.

“No it isn’t,” said Caleb. “She could have left me some coin.”

Everyone was curious to see what was written on the remaining pieces of paper, so I unfolded them and handed them to the various beneficiaries. One or two were for Harold and Ari, plus another for Caleb, before one finally came up for Pippa. “One dress for Pippa—the rest to the Victoria and Albert museum,” it read.

Pippa laughed when she saw it. “So begrudging, to the end.”

“At least you can see the funny side,” said Harold.

“I have to,” said Pippa. “Otherwise I’d slash my wrists.”

One piece of paper was left, and I unfolded it, then read and reread the message, for I could not believe my eyes. “I want Suki to have Madeline,” it said, and then: “She is to be treasured, not left on the curb.”

I showed the note to Pippa, who smiled. “I told you she remembered your name. And how thoughtful of her to leave you that ghastly old thing.”

“Ghastly is right,” I said. “I can’t think of anything I’d less like to own.”

By evening, the black-shawled women had left the villa, but other than to take toilet and tea breaks, none of the family except Caleb had moved from the table. A few hours earlier, he’d stood up and announced he was going to hang out at Yanni’s house where, he said, at least people would be acting “normal.” It was a warm night, the air thick with chirruping cicadas and Saturday-night festivities—unnatural, boisterous sounds, so discordant with our mood. We had all forgotten about the embalmer, about his work, so it was a shock when he emerged in the courtyard to inform us that Peggy, in her coffin, had been laid out on a trestle table and was ready to receive visitors.

It seemed so like her to have kept us waiting until she was ready to make her entrance, and I forgot, for a second, that he was talking about a corpse. We filed in to see her, to stare at her garishly made-up face, a face that looked more alive in death than it had in months. But no one commented on her appearance—it would have been too obvious, too tasteless—and Pippa, Harold, and Ari went to stand wordlessly at her side. Another wave of sorrow engulfed the room, but I felt immune from it this time, and left the family alone to grieve for their loss.





Chapter Twenty-Two


Skyros, 2003





I had a walk in mind, and set off down a steep cobbled street toward the village, but a little way along I was taken aback by the sight of so many people not stricken with grief and turned back toward the villa. I went to bed, wanting only to pass out, but I was overtired and my body trilled with nerves that made it impossible to sleep. My mind was a shambles, overrun with chaotic thoughts of Caleb and coffins and my mother, all of it incoherent. I tried to think of nothing—the insomniac’s meditation—but I was too wired even for that. I had left the others still sitting round the table, but after an hour or two there was a brief flurry of noises—toilets flushing; faucets turning on and off; Elena shuffling past, switching off her halos—followed by the deep hush of collective slumber.

When I was sure they had all gone to sleep, I climbed down from my bed and crossed over to the courtyard door. I’d not heard scraping metal or any other noise, but as I put my hand on the door to push it open I was still apprehensive and held my breath a little, just in case. But on the other side of the door were only the ordinary features of Elena’s courtyard—the olive tree, low white wall, and a dark expanse of sky. No garden, nor anything even to suggest a recent death.