Chapter 5 Zoe Spring 2025 #2
Zoe sits up as Sara brings out a narrow box which she hands to her.
But when Zoe opens it, she realises that it doesn’t contain jewellery.
There’s just a tiny brown envelope, the sort that people would have received their weekly wages in.
When she opens it she finds a large iron key.
Nothing else. Zoe frowns and looks at the envelope.
It’s marked Kai. How odd. Kai. She’s never heard of a Kai. Is that even a name?
Sara cranes her neck to look and Zoe hands her the box and envelope. She holds the key up to the light. ‘I don’t recognise it, do you?’
Sara shakes her head. Zoe holds it to the door of the armoire, but the key is far too big. Likewise the dressing-table drawer. In her pocket is the key to her mother’s bedroom and that’s far smaller than this one.
‘Maybe it’s one of the doors downstairs,’ says Sara. ‘It looks really old so it may be from when the house was built.’
Zoe slips the key into her pocket. She takes the ladybird out of its box and pins it to her dungarees. It’s actually very pretty. Nobody would know that it was worth anything – she doesn’t look horribly pretentious in it.
‘I love the ladybird, Zoe,’ says Fiona later, when they’re back in the kitchen having a cup of tea. The day seems punctuated by tea; she hasn’t drunk so much in her life.
‘There’s all sorts of funny things up there,’ says Zoe. ‘I’ve put them out in case you want anything. Sara’s chosen a bird brooch.’
‘Look,’ says Sara, thrusting the drooping lapel of her blouse forward. ‘Isn’t it pretty?’
‘I remember Mum wearing it,’ says Steph. ‘It was one of her favourites, wasn’t it?’
‘While you were upstairs, the solicitor called and he’s coming round tomorrow to talk us through the will,’ says Fiona, looking at a notepad.
‘Thanks for doing that, Fi,’ says Zoe, smiling at her older sister.
Fiona smiles back. ‘We need to get this sorted,’ she says.
‘And I’ve been in touch with the crematorium.
They’re going to liaise with the church.
They’ll give the ashes to them a few days after the funeral for the interment.
They’ll add her name to Dad’s stone. We need to decide on the wording.
Something like Beloved Wife, Mother, Grandmother and Friend? Then her dates of birth and death?’
‘Yes, we could do,’ says Sara. ‘Steph? Zoe?’
‘Perhaps we should look at all the options,’ says Zoe. ‘There’s no rush, surely. She’s only just died.’
‘Well, I do want to get it all sorted out,’ says Fiona, tapping her pen on the side of the laptop.
‘Let’s have a look over supper,’ says Steph, glancing at Zoe.
‘Good idea,’ says Fiona. ‘Now I need to call the caterers. I was going to use the same firm who did Dad’s wake, unless anyone has any objections?’
No one says anything. ‘Great,’ says Fiona. ‘We need to think about clothes too. I presume nobody has black dresses here?’
‘Isn’t that a bit old-fashioned now?’ says Steph, looking at Zoe again.
Zoe likes them looking at her to answer questions about their mother. ‘I think Mum was quite old-fashioned really. She’d want us all in black – and the rest of the funeral is very traditional.’
‘Perhaps we should go into town to buy some. I’ll add it to the to-do list. I need to go into town anyway, to buy some clothes.’ Fiona looks down at the creased tie-dye t-shirt Zoe gave her that morning.
‘How are we going to pay for this?’ asks Zoe. ‘I have a tiny bit of savings that we could use but it’s not going to cover that much.’
‘That’s okay, I understand,’ says Fiona. ‘I’m happy to pay myself and then we can sort it out afterwards. We can speak to the solicitor about it tomorrow.’
‘Okay, thanks, Fi.’ There’s such a relief in Fiona taking charge.
‘We found a very weird thing in the safe along with all the jewellery,’ Sara says, looking at Zoe. ‘There was an envelope, with a key in it. Show them, Zoe.’
‘A key?’ says Fiona.
‘Yes, a large iron key. Very old-looking. The writing on the envelope was definitely Mum’s. She’d written a name on it. Or at least I think it was a name.’
Zoe takes the key out of her pocket and lays it on the table. ‘Look.’
‘What was the name?’ says Fiona.
Zoe screws up her face. ‘I left the envelope upstairs. What was it?’ She looks at Sara. ‘Kai, that was it. K-A-I.’
‘Kai.’ Steph gasps.
Zoe turns to look at her.
‘I’ve never heard of a Kai,’ says Fiona, frowning. ‘Mystery keys in envelopes is like some sort of Agatha Christie novel.’
‘I doubt we’re going to find a body in the library,’ says Sara laughing, and then suddenly stops and looks down.
‘Steph?’ Zoe says. ‘Does Kai ring a bell?’
Steph is pale. ‘No. No, it doesn’t,’ she says. She slurps the last of her tea and stands up, turning her back on them to wash up her mug at the sink. ‘Not at all.’
Milly
1988
Overnight, the bruise has changed from a shocking red to a purplish black, starting at my temple and working its way around to my right eye.
I press on the centre just to the side of my eye.
There’s something enjoyable about the stab of pain.
I look haggard. There’s no other word for it.
My whole face seems to sag back at me in the bathroom mirror.
Too tired to hold itself up. There are deep grooves bracketing my mouth, matching the tiny lines splaying out from my eyes.
Paul comes up next to me, spitting out toothpaste into the basin. ‘I feel like I’m visibly ageing,’ I say. ‘I look much older even than yesterday. I’m not sure the bruise is doing much for me.’
He rinses out his mouth, looking at our joint reflection. ‘You look as beautiful as you always do.’ He turns to face me, cradling the left side of my face and presses his lips on my mouth. I feel myself relax under his touch.
He draws back and angles my face to look at the bruise, his lips pursed. ‘She didn’t mean to hit you,’ he says, his eyebrows drawn together.
‘Of course not,’ I say, swallowing. ‘It was an accident.’
‘Yes, an accident,’ he says. ‘If I thought she’d done it deliberately, I’d .
. .’ He shakes his head. ‘It’s lucky that she caught you with the used paint can and not the full one or it would have been so much worse.
’ He pushes my hair away from the side of my face.
‘But the bruise will go. In a couple of weeks you won’t even remember it was there. ’
I look back at my reflection, my right eye somehow shrivelled by the weight of the bruise. How will I ever forget this? Paul stares at our reflections. After a while he says, ‘I don’t think she would have hit you if you hadn’t got in her way.’
‘No,’ I say.
‘You put yourself in harm’s way yesterday.
You tried to physically stop her. You’re shorter than her now, more slight.
You can’t confront her like that. You’re only going to get hurt.
I know I said we need to be more firm, but let me do that.
She won’t hurt me, even if it was an accident. ’ That word, accident.
‘Yes,’ I say. It all feels wrong. What if Paul felt that Steph did it deliberately?
What would he do? ‘Perhaps we could lock the front door to stop her going anywhere? I’m so worried about the risks that she’s taking.
Going out late at night, sometimes staying out overnight, with people we don’t know, doing God only knows what.
I’ve read about animal libbers in the newspaper.
They’re criminals. We should be bolting the doors and windows to stop her. ’
And P. I need to find out who this P is.
Paul takes a deep breath. ‘You know if we did that she’d find a way out. I know full well that she’s been climbing down the drainpipe from her bedroom. I think the only reason she didn’t do that last night was because she had the paint cans with her.’
I feel suddenly cold. ‘She’s been climbing down the drainpipe?’
He nods.
‘How do you know?’
Paul shrugs, and reaches for his comb, dragging it through his hair. ‘It’s pulled away slightly from the bracket and there have been footprints in the flower bed beneath it.’
‘Oh.’ I don’t know what to say. Why didn’t I know? ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I didn’t want to worry you. But I’d prefer we allow her out the front door if she’s going to go rather than her feeling she has to climb out in secret. It’d be safer.’
An image of Steph falling out of the bedroom window into the flower bed, lying with a broken leg, or worse, flashes across my mind. I shudder. ‘Yes, you’re right.’
‘I just need to be more on alert. Stop her before she gets near the door.’ He kisses me, smooths down my hair and walks back into the dressing room.
I look back at my face. The light has dropped out of my eyes.
They seem flat. Over the past few months, I’ve felt the tension rising with Stephanie; she’s seemed to be taking bigger and bigger risks.
But I never dreamed she would hurt me, even by accident.
She is such a complicated person, so difficult to understand at times.
At least she wasn’t out too late last night.
She got back at ten thirty, which still felt too late for a fourteen-year-old to me, but compared to recent weeks, it was positively early.
It’s funny how your expectations can change so dramatically.
I’m still no closer to finding out who P is.
She’s becoming more and more closed. I know she’s always with the animal rights lot, but I never know what she’s doing specifically, what she’s thinking.
That’s the frightening thing about having children.
They start off inside you, part of you. Then after they’re born, it’s a gradual separation.
Day by day, they move further from you. Until one day, they may still be living in the same house as you, you love them and you’re still responsible for them, but they’ve become virtually a stranger.