Читать книгу The Secrets of Sunshine - Phaedra Patrick - Страница 16

The shadows cast by the setting sun made the crumbling white bricks of Angel House look almost pretty. The 1920s building had originally been built as commercial offices for a detergents company and was named after its most popular cleaning fluid, Angel Liquid. It had been converted into apartments in the 1990s and retained its name.

Mitchell and Poppy lived at the top of the building in the eaves, where the ceilings sloped at acute angles. The roof slates soaked up the heat in summer, turning the place into a sauna, and in winter it was as cold as an igloo. The landlord described it as a penthouse, but it was more like an attic.

Mitchell started to rent the apartment four years ago as a weekday base away from home to be closer to his job at Foster and Hardman Architects. Work had been difficult to come by in the rural area he, Anita and Poppy lived in, and Anita wanted to remain close to her job teaching art at a local school, and her friends. They’d both lost their parents before Poppy was born, so these connections were important to her.

Mitchell was initially reluctant to stay in the city, but Anita assured him it was a more sensible option than commuting four hours a day. His work contract was for only eighteen months, and he’d be home three nights out of seven.

He initially liked that the apartment was uncluttered by family life. There were no piles of books and clothes on the stairs, or lipstick marks on towels or toys littering the floor. He could go to bed when he wanted, at 8 p.m. with a book or after a late-night movie. He discovered Minecraft on his iPad and sat up for hours crafting virtual bridges and buildings.

He often had to work over the weekends, too. At these times, when he and Anita didn’t see each other for up to a fortnight, they wrote letters to each other.

He wished he had shared her same eloquence for words. Her joie de vivre shone through in each letter she sent him, and his heart leaped when he found them waiting for him in the lobby or in his mailbox. Poppy sent him crayon drawings and small notes, and her handwriting flourished from the extra practice.

In return, Mitchell’s letters were practical and concise to prevent the stresses of work showing through. As his workload increased, the passion for his job faded, and so did his words home. But the money was good, and he was doing it for his family to have a better life. The foundations he laid now would strengthen their future.

Mitchell prayed to himself that the Angel House lift was going to be working, or else there were five flights of stairs to climb to the apartment. He just wanted to clamber into bed and go to sleep so he could be productive at work the following day. He could ask around to try to find out what happened to the woman in the yellow dress and put his mind at rest.

A fresh wave of exhaustion hit him when he saw Carl, the live-in concierge, mopping the chequered floor of the lobby. Carl was occupying the role to cover for his uncle, who was looking after a poorly relative overseas. In Mitchell’s opinion, Carl was overly keen on his new job. He greeted the residents too eagerly, with a big smile and many questions. In his mid-twenties, Carl’s hair was butter yellow and he wore a white shirt and tie underneath his khaki overalls. He could often be found folding origami shapes out of coloured paper.

‘Evening,’ Carl said, looking grateful to have someone to talk to. He rested his arm on top of his mop. ‘You two are out late. Do you have school in the morning, young lady?’

Poppy gave him a tired smile. ‘Yep.’

Carl reached into the breast pocket of his overalls and passed a tiny green paper crane to her. She cupped it gently in her hands. His eyes then swept down to Mitchell’s socked feet. ‘Why are you carrying your shoes, Mr Fisher?’

Mitchell flexed his toes, too fatigued to reply properly. He groaned inwardly as he saw the Out of Order sign on the lift.

‘I have a letter for you.’ Carl darted eagerly across the lobby towards his tatty oak desk. He moved a few origami frogs to one side and picked up a pink envelope. ‘A lady on the third floor asked me to give you this. Is it your birthday?’

‘No.’ Mitchell reached out to take it, but Carl kept it pincered to his chest.

‘I can see hearts through the paper,’ he said. ‘Very romantic.’

Mitchell whipped the envelope from Carl’s grip. He placed a hand on Poppy’s back and urged her towards the door to the stairway. ‘Thank you.’

Carl called after him, ‘I have another letter here, too, Mr Fisher. This one’s for me. I wonder if you could just—?’

However, Mitchell had already opened and closed the door behind him. He looked up the stairs spiralling above them.

Poppy glanced back towards the lobby. ‘I think Carl wanted you to look at his letter, Dad.’

‘Why would he want me to do that?’

She shrugged a shoulder. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Well, I’m sure he’ll find someone else to do it,’ Mitchell said as he mounted the first step.

After reaching the apartment, Mitchell panted as he unlocked the door. Even though the sun was almost down, the apartment was still baking hot. The small rooms were sparsely furnished, with stripped wooden floors. He’d bought the bare minimum of sleek Scandinavian-style furniture to kit the place out. In his sitting room, there was a three-seater sofa with a textile print featuring block-printed stags, and a coffee table that looked like a tree stump with rings in the wood. In Poppy’s bedroom, there was a shiny white bed, desk and wardrobe that he’d hastily bought and assembled from Ikea.

When Poppy dropped her schoolbag on the floor of the hallway, pieces of paper pinned to corkboards on the walls fluttered like butterfly wings – recipes, an exercise itinerary, Poppy’s school timetable and the diary of their activities he’d planned for the school holidays. Whenever Mitchell thought of new plans of action, he wrote them out neatly and pinned them here. After Anita died, he’d become obsessed with planning his and Poppy’s lives. There was a beauty to structure, like mortar between bricks, holding things together.

‘That’s not the right home for your bag, is it?’ he said.

Poppy picked it back up, huffing as if it was really heavy. She pushed it onto its allocated labelled shelf in the storage cupboard. ‘Okay?’ she asked blearily.

‘Good. A tidy house is a tidy mind, even though it’s technically an apartment.’

‘Yes, Dad.’

The handwriting on the pink envelope was indigo, with large looping letters. Mitchell opened it up and winced when he saw the hearts on the card that Carl mentioned.

Dear Mitchell,

My name is Vanessa and I live on the third floor. I hope you don’t mind me writing to you, but I saw you online, on the local news, and recognized you from our apartment block. What you did is totally admirable. Bravo, you!

If you’d like to pop over for a bottle of vino or coffee sometime, feel free to knock on number 25.

Love,

Vanessa xx

Poppy peered at it excitedly over his shoulder. ‘That’s nice of her.’

‘It’s kind of weird,’ he said. ‘How does she even know my name?’

‘Maybe from Carl?’

Mitchell felt prickly at Vanessa’s attention. She’d put two kisses and used the word love.

He often thought he’d been born in the wrong era and belonged to a more old-fashioned time instead. He couldn’t understand why hooking up with someone you’d only just met was called getting lucky. What was lucky about having a stranger in your home and being intimate before you even knew their surname?

He’d been on only a few dates since Anita died and throughout them he felt as if he sweated guilt through his every pore.

He knew Isobel through work, and she was obsessed with Spain. They’d met for tapas and, although the dishes of food were tiny, Mitchell couldn’t eat a thing. Isobel didn’t notice and devoured his portions anyway.

Beatrice was an intellectual. She wore black-framed glasses that made her look like a 1950s scientist. Her favourite word was existentially and she had learned her periodic tables at the age of seven. She said Anita’s death was lamentable and, at the end of the night, invited him back to her place.

Mitchell still felt ashamed that he’d succumbed to her offer.

After eighteen months without Anita, his body had ached to be close to someone else. He wanted the comfort of listening to another person’s breathing as they slept beside him, even if it was for only a few hours.

Afterwards, in bed, he and Beatrice talked sleepily about their favourite seasons and things they liked to do on Sun days. But a voice in his head told him he shouldn’t be here, that it was far too soon.

After napping for a while, Mitchell had sat up in bed and pulled on his shirt. ‘Sorry,’ he said into the darkness of the early morning. ‘I have to dash. I had a lovely time.’

‘Me, too,’ Beatrice murmured with a smile in her voice.

Mitchell paused, wondering what the etiquette was here, if he should ask to see her again. But Beatrice spoke first. ‘Please make sure the front door is closed properly when you leave.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘It sticks sometimes.’

‘Sorry,’ Mitchell whispered, stubbing his toe against her bed as he slipped out of her room. And when he hurried away from Beatrice’s apartment, he said, ‘Sorry,’ once more, this time to Anita.

Now he gripped Vanessa’s card in his hand. ‘I won’t go around for coffee. She might be a serial killer,’ he joked at Poppy, trying to get her to agree. But she shook her head at him very slowly.

‘She might just be lonely, Dad,’ she said. ‘Like you.’

Mitchell stared at her for the longest time. ‘How can I be lonely when I have you?’ he said and kissed the top of her head.

Later that night, Mitchell moved stiffly around Poppy’s bedroom, putting her books away, reminding her to put her worn clothes in the laundry basket and to choose her clothes for the next day. As she changed into her pyjamas in the bathroom, he picked up his favourite family photo of him, Anita and Poppy at the top of Conwy Castle. Poppy had insisted they climb each of its towers, and afterwards they’d rewarded themselves with huge ice creams.

After Poppy finished cleaning her teeth in the bathroom, she jumped up onto her bed. ‘Hop on, Dad,’ she said, and Mitchell placed the photo back down.

Poppy’s bedroom had ceilings that met in a point, so it resembled the shape of a tent. A large window built into the slope of the roof opened outwards, so she could stand on her bed and poke her head and shoulders through it.

They stood on the bed next to each other and looked out of the window at the night sky and the twinkling lights of the city. Laughter rang from the late-night cafés below, and at the edge of the silvery rooftops a pigeon lay huddled in the nearby gutter.

After they’d breathed in the night air for a while, Mitchell said, ‘Come on, Pops, it’s bedtime.’

She walked her fingers along the warm roof slates. ‘I miss our garden.’

‘This is kind of outside space,’ Mitchell said, his eyelids growing heavier.

‘I could make daisy chains, and friends came over to play.’

‘I loved it, too, but we go to the park. You see your friends at school.’

‘It’s not the same.’ She dropped down to her knees on her bed and sat with her head bowed. She picked up her floppy black cat, the last toy her mum had bought for her. ‘Can we go home one day, Dad?’

Mitchell shut his eyes and felt the same way. He missed their house and how Anita’s bras tangled up with his socks in the laundry basket. She sang when she smoothed new sheets onto the bed. He wished he could lounge outside on warm evenings and drink cider with her again.

He shut Poppy’s window, leaving a small gap, and sat down on the bed beside her. He took her hand in his, knowing the city apartment wasn’t ideal for a young girl. ‘I couldn’t afford to pay the rent on the house with only my wage coming in, especially after I switched jobs. Plus, living here I get to spend more time with you.’

She cocked her head and played with the bow around the cat’s neck. ‘One day, I’ll get a job. Then I’ll buy our old house,’ she said with a wobble in her voice.

It was his impossible dream to buy one, too, and he turned off her main bedroom light. ‘Come on, Pops, it’s been a long day. You get some beauty sleep.’

‘I’m beautiful enough. Mum says so.’

‘And I agree, but you still need to sleep.’

Poppy turned and lay on her side. When she pulled her sheet up over her nose, her eyes shone with tears.

‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ He dipped his head closer to her.

She gave a small sniff. ‘Will the woman you helped be okay?’

‘Yes, she’ll be as right as rain,’ Mitchell said, trying to convince himself as well as Poppy. He picked up her plait and gently brushed the end of her nose with it. ‘I left her with a doctor.’

She peered up at him. ‘What’s her name?’

‘I don’t know. I wished I’d asked her. But look, get some sleep and we’ll chat in the morning.’

She was quiet for just a second. ‘Was she pretty?’

Mitchell cleared his throat. ‘I didn’t notice.’ But in his head, the woman smiled at him on the bridge and he saw the sunlight kissing the tip of her nose. He thought of Barry’s words, not to invite drama into his life, and knew it was good advice. He tugged Poppy’s sheet down to expose her face and her words tumbled out.

‘I thought you weren’t coming to get me from school. You said you’d never be late, but you were, and Mum did the same thing…’

Her words made him sway. ‘The woman was in danger, and I was there.’

‘I know, but…’ She swallowed a sob.

Mitchell gathered her into his arms and they sat together in the dark. He held her until she grew drowsier and heavier in his arms. When her breathing slowed, he kissed her forehead and helped her settle under the covers before he stood back up.

As he moved away Poppy said quietly, ‘No one saved Mum.’

Her words felt like a thump to his gut, and he gripped the door-frame. ‘People tried to…’

He waited for her reply, but it didn’t come as she drifted off to sleep. His footsteps were leaden as he walked back to his own bedroom and fell onto his bed, fully clothed. He took Anita’s sealed lilac envelope out of his bedside drawer and held it to his chest, still unable to open it.

After pulling out his notepad from under the bed, he clumsily took the top off his pen. He propped his head up with his hand and began to write.

Dearest Anita,

Something happened today and I wish you were here, so I could talk to you about it. I helped a lady who fell, but I wasn’t there for you…

His words stopped as a fog descended on his brain. Mitchell pushed himself to write more, but could only manage two additional words.

Love always

Then the pen slipped from his fingers, and his eyes fell shut as he slipped into a deep slumber.