‘Sitting down.’
‘I’ll go and check on her.’
The men stand around the plastic sheeting, hands on hips. ‘Right,’ says Thomas, ‘we’d better get on with it, then.’
While the women have been on their foraging mission, they have levered the Landlord into the bath and washed him down with the shower hose. The operation has only been a partial success, as the bath is draining so slowly that he wallows in four inches of filthy water, but his face and torso, stripped of its covering, are relatively clean. He gapes at the ceiling, his arm flopping down the side as though it’s been stripped of its bones. He’s pale, like a mushroom grown in a cellar, the skin below his collar line near-white and spongy. A bluebottle, awoken from its slumbers, buzzes lazily over his head, looking for an orifice to enter. Hossein bats it away.
From the front room, Cher can hear the murmur of voices. She follows the sound. Some part of her feels that moving the body is somehow man’s work. She’s surprised by how sanguine everyone seems to be now the decision is made. The Landlord is no longer the Landlord: already he’s a bulky object that needs moving, a problem that needs to be got under control before the dawn brings out the neighbours, what passed for his soul long passed from his body. But she no more wants to lay hands on that mozzarella flesh in death than she did in life, and the sight of it makes her skin crawl.
In her front room, surrounded by the piled-up mementos of her life, Vesta sits on the edge of her settee, stiff and pale. One hand holds a glass of brandy, the other sits loosely in Collette’s as she stares at the air. Collette is speaking, and Cher pauses in the doorway, unsure if she should interrupt.
‘… look after you, Vesta. It wasn’t your fault. You’ll be okay, I swear. We’re going to clear this up and nobody will be any the wiser.’
‘You’re very kind,’ says Vesta, distantly, like the Queen receiving her thirtieth bunch of daffs of the day. ‘You’re all very kind.’
Are we, though, thinks Cher. Is it really because we care about Vesta, or because we don’t want people up in our own business? The only person here I can think of who doesn’t have a reason to cover this up is Thomas, and God knows what he’s hiding while he plays good neighbour. I love Vesta. She’s been like a nan to me, but if I thought she was going to get me taken back into care I’d drop her and run in a heartbeat. And that one, there: the fact that she’s on the run from someone, somewhere, that she’s hiding – it couldn’t be more obvious, now I see it, than if she was wearing an orange jumpsuit. And Hossein’s still months off getting his asylum application waved through, and God knows the Daily Mail’s on the hunt for foreign troublemakers. We’re all out to protect ourselves, in the end. None of it’s really about Vesta.
Vesta buries her nose in her drink and swallows an inch down in a single go. Behind her, Cher can hear grunts of exertion. ‘Go left,’ says Hossein. ‘No, my left. It’s caught on the cooker. No, no, go back, then lift it.’ She steps into the room.
Vesta and Collette look up like kids caught stealing sweets. Their faces relax when they see that it’s her. ‘How are you doing, Vesta?’ she asks.
Vesta pulls a face that’s somewhere between tears and laughter. ‘Oh, you know, dear, I’ve been better.’
‘They’re moving him now,’ she says. ‘He’ll be out of here in no time.’
‘You’re so kind,’ says Vesta, automatically. ‘You’re all so kind. I should be helping, really. I shouldn’t leave other people to clean up my mess.’
‘It’s okay, Vesta,’ says Collette. ‘They’re big strong boys.’
‘But really,’ says Vesta, and makes a move as if to stand up. ‘I’ve never asked anyone to do my dirty work in my life. I’m not starting now.’
Collette puts a strong arm on her shoulder, and holds her down. This is so weird, thinks Cher. Tomorrow – later today – I’ll wake up and I’ll think it’s all been a dream. Roy Preece dead on the bathroom floor. It feels like a dream already.
‘Maybe you should come up and stay in mine, tonight,’ says Collette.
‘Oh, no, I couldn’t,’ says Vesta, still talking on autopilot, clinging to an independence that has vanished. ‘I wouldn’t want to intrude.’
Collette looks sharply up at Cher and gestures her away with her free hand. Leave me to it, the look says. You’re not helping. It’s all I can do to keep her under control.
‘It’s not an intrusion, Vesta,’ she says as Cher goes back to the men.