The Woman at Number 24 Read online

  Such reserve is unusual. Despite her aristocratic bearing, Bennison is open with journalists, laying out the facts of her life with honesty and humour. On being childless, she tells me, ‘I dislike the term. I’m not childless, that implies a lack. Charles and I chose to live a life dedicated to work, to each other, to travel. We were family. It was more than sufficient.’ She pauses and glances down at her hands, a glittering ring on each finger. ‘I do so loathe talking about him, and not to him.’

  A childhood in Plymouth, the daughter of a successful businessman – ‘He imported iron. Dull but profitable.’ – and a titled, socially prominent mother, Bennison grew up ‘utterly ignorant of what it means to be loved’. Her parents, who appear in her 1998 autobiographical essay for this newspaper, were distant, outsourcing their childcare to an ever-changing squad of nannies and housekeepers. She wrote in that piece about growing up with ‘a madwoman in the attic’.

  Bennison places the cold glass against her temple. ‘My maternal grandmother suffered from something I now know is called frontotemporal dementia. It’s rather like Alzheimer’s. My parents were ashamed, and now I’m ashamed of them. My poor granny was locked away on the top floor, and discussed in whispers. We could hear her sobbing. She had no idea where she was, or who we were. Some love would have helped; it always does. But no. Mother and Dad swore us to secrecy. My sister Mavis takes after her, apparently. Mother would say, “One day you’ll go the same way.” Not particularly helpful, don’t you agree?’

  Her mother’s parenting style has been a rich source of inspiration, notably for the mother in Mantled in Mist, and the unforgettable anti-heroine, Marianne, in The Mustard Seed. Before, Bennison has referred to her as a ‘cold statue, lovely but alien’, and today she remembers, ‘Mother cringed when our little hands came near her frocks, and Dad referred to us both as the pests, as in “Doo put the pests to bed so we can relax.”’ Her sister, claims Zelda, ‘fought back, tiny fists pummelling, demanding love from them both. I scribbled my stories, and dreamed of the day I could leave their comfortable, cold house.’

  When I ask about Mavis, Bennison’s only sibling, she asks wryly, ‘The ghost sister? That’s what journalists call her. Not I.’

  Is she still alive, this spectral figure who turns up in so many of Zelda’s books, including the best-selling Climbing Rose?

  ‘As far as I know. There was contact, sporadically, but now . . .’ For the first time, this sure-footed woman falters. Words are her slaves, but she looks flustered trying to explain. ‘Mavis and I are very different. I tried to keep the connection taut. Neither of us attended our parents’ funerals, which sounds cruel, but it would have been hypocritical. I found love with Charles and that made me receptive, helped me recognise friends. But Mavis chose a solitary path, keeping the world at bay. That world included me. She turns up in my novels because I dream about her, you see, and I write about the ethereal, lonely woman who visits me at night.’

  Sometimes, I venture, you have the Mavis character bumped off.

  ‘You’re not the first reader to remark on that. It’s not wish-fulfilment, I assure you. It serves the plot, that’s all.’

  And not even a teeniest part retribution for her sister’s withdrawal?

  ‘Perhaps a teeny-tiny part. But no more than that. If either of us was going to kill the other, I feel certain I’d be the victim, not the murderer.’

  I don’t believe her for one moment.

  Tell Me What to Do is published by Simon & Schuster (£12.99)

  Sarah fed Mavis a rice salad flecked with vegetable jewels, and a platter of cold meats.

  ‘This bread’s very good.’ Mavis tore off a chunk. ‘Did you make it?’

  ‘God, no!’ Sarah, jittery since The Old Church, giggled at the thought of herself doing such a thing. ‘I’m no domestic goddess.’ She paused in her mission to extract the red peppers from her rice, wondering as she did so why she’d added an ingredient she disliked to her own dish. ‘Do you make bread?’

  Mavis chewed for a moment, her eyes on her plate. ‘Um, no,’ she said finally and not very convincingly.

  This reticence was typical. Their conversation eddied in pleasant circles until Mavis would close down, refusing to offer some commonplace detail. When Sarah asked, idly, if Mavis had ever been to Ireland, Mavis took an age to answer, finally offering a vague, ‘I’ve been to lots of places.’

  Mavis: international woman of mystery.

  It was self-evident that Mavis had a life pre-number twenty-four, but until the recent glasnost, Sarah had imagined her as part of the building’s fixtures and fittings, cursed to live in the basement forever.

  Reading about the Bennison sisters’ childhood had brought Mavis into focus. Young Mavis had been grown without love, like a neglected plant in a greenhouse.

  Sarah remembered the part about Mavis fighting her parents, fists flying, desperate for a reaction. To be touched. To be valued. When Sarah had worked directly with children at the clinic, she’d met many, many little Mavises. Her heart contracted every time, and it did the same now, looking at the ex-child opposite her.

  We’re all just children at heart; a bit taller, that’s all.

  ‘Room for a little lemon syllabub?’ Sarah had put down her paintbrushes in order to whip together cream and sugar and wine and lemon zest, and the result pleased her. As she brought the chilled glasses to the table, Mavis looked her up and down. ‘You’ve dressed up for me, dear.’ Mavis had, as usual, dressed very much down.

  ‘Not really.’ Sarah frowned, as if she applied careful eyeliner and pinned up her hair every night.

  ‘I like the glittery blouse.’

  ‘It’s not really glittery.’ Sarah looked down at the new, loose, definitely glittery top.

  Mavis, puzzled, opted not to take it further and wielded her spoon like a scimitar over the dessert. ‘Mmm, exquisite. You’re too good to me, Sarah, dear.’

  ‘It’s nice to be civilised once in a while.’ The improvised table was covered with a quality linen cloth, left behind by Leo. The glasses matched, the cutlery sparkled; Sarah had made an effort. ‘Usually I sling something in the microwave.’ She’d thrown away the Confucius cartons in the Great Tidy Up before Mavis arrived.

  ‘Living on one’s own,’ said Mavis, ‘it’s easy to forget the niceties.’ She laid down her spoon. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Leo.’

  ‘What about him?’ Mavis wasn’t the only trickster at the table.

  ‘Down in my dungeon I have little to do, but I hear and see a great deal, and most of all I sense.’ Mavis leaned across the table, the collar of her nylon blouse flaccid in the heat. ‘I worry about you, dear.’

  ‘Why?’ Sarah laughed.

  ‘Because the hanky-panky with Leo can’t end well.’ Mavis’s eyes, so disconcertingly bright in her grey complexion, impaled Sarah. ‘You’re fretful. He’s shifty. Something’s going on.’

  ‘There’s no point fibbing to you, is there, Mavis? Things have gone a little too far. I didn’t mean to . . .’ Sarah stopped herself: no adult can use that excuse. ‘He was mine first. I know that’s feeble, but surely I have some rights over him?’

  Mavis shook her head of wiggy white hair. ‘No, Sarah, you don’t. You’re bad at this, and you’re up against a seasoned competitor in Helena. Do you really want to put Leo to the test? Could you bear it if he had to choose between you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sarah nodded vehemently. ‘Because then I’d know.’ Sarah had decided to hope. She’d decided to trust. I know Leo, she thought. Inside out. Better than Helena knew him; Sarah felt guilty for ever believing Helena’s silly fable.

  There was love between Sarah and Leo; they could patch it up, make all the seams safe again. ‘We have unfinished business, Mavis. Leo’s as drawn to me as I am to him.’

  Mavis’s look said I could say a lot more on the subject but for now I’ll hold my peace. Instead she said, ‘When I worry about you, I’m also worrying about my own sad and sorry self, Sarah. I couldn’t easily
do without you now.’

  ‘Snap,’ said Sarah, surprised by how much she meant it.

  Sarah was pushing forward on two major fronts, both of which would mean moving out. If she and Leo rekindled their marriage, they couldn’t possibly live in the same house as Helena. If he spurned her again, Sarah would have to move out as planned. The countdown, which had been muffled since she and Leo made love, boomed in her ears. The walls around her, the floorboards beneath her – all were temporary.

  Sarah walked Mavis home, down through the layers of the house, each door the seal on a secret or two, and noticed that Mavis was even thinner than usual. As if she was fading into the pre-war decor of Flat E.

  ‘Bugger orf!’ bellowed Peck as Sarah walked away.

  The hotel cocktail bar felt like a place where only good things could happen. Shoes made no noise on the silk carpet. The reflections confronting Sarah in the mirrored walls were of her best blurred self. The staff – each of them movie-star handsome – whispered, as careful of her comfort as the most devoted nana.

  Sarah felt herself relax in the golden lighting. Each surface was strokeable, the glassware exquisite, the seating plush. It wasn’t somewhere she’d have chosen, but now that she was here Sarah let herself be seduced by Mayfair.

  Sipping a Prosecco, she looked to her phone for company. A gossip page vomited Ramon Kaur’s name immediately. ‘Currently being comforted by a hot US reality star after the death of his much older wife.’ Sarah’s lip curled. As if ‘much older’ was all there was to say about a woman like Zelda Bennison. The great writer was fresh in her grave but her duck-lipped widower was already being ‘comforted’ by a woman half his age.

  Love is a dance of changing partners. The music shifts. We whirl faster or slow down completely.

  A man at the bar – about her age, tie undone – raised his glass to Sarah. She smiled back, then resolutely avoided his eye. All those bedrooms above their heads, all those room-service trays and satin bedspreads; hotel bars were on a knife-edge, places where things could turn sexual very fast. She stared into her drink and wondered if this had been a terrible idea.

  The phone’s beep made her jump. Sarah read the text sadly but without surprise.

  A thousand apologies, my dearest darling! I can’t get away from the ball and chain! Have some champagne on me! xxxxx

  Leo had wanted to meet at the Old Church again, or failing that, her flat. His intentions were clear. The sex had been nostalgic and exhilarating. It had been too powerful: Sarah couldn’t do that again without some sort of promise, some flag of hope. She’d insisted they meet somewhere grown-up, public; saying yes to Claridge’s, she’d been too blinded by the glamour for it to register that hotels are adulterers’ playgrounds.

  Sarah wanted Leo, but not just for panting interludes. Sex confused the issue; it was already established that Leo would do anything for an extra-marital bonk. Only love – the real, true, unvarnished thing – had the power to drag him back from the scented quicksands of Flat B.

  She’d rehearsed a speech. Long, detailed, it could be condensed to this: ‘no more sex until we’re a couple again’. Beating Helena fair and square would make victory all the sweeter.

  Dressed up with nowhere to go, Sarah ordered another Prosecco. All that awaited her at home was a blank wall; I can paint just as well tipsy. On a sudden caprice she typed a website name into her phone.

  smithlifeline.co.uk’s banner headline was still bright; Sarah half expected it to be covered in cobwebs, but nothing ages on the internet.

  It made sense to close down the site, but just thinking that felt treacherous. On the virtual outcrop, Smith was still herself, sparkling and irreverent. The beaming, wonkily beautiful face at the top of the page grazed Sarah’s heart. She traced the zigzag shapes in Smith’s cropped hair, remembering how they’d shaved off her mane once the radiotherapy kicked in. They’d cried and giggled in the bathroom, holding up peroxide hanks, wondering if they could stuff cushions with it, eventually turning quiet as the buzzing clippers finished the job.

  The content beneath the ‘About’ tab had been rejigged endlessly, Sarah and Smith sloshing wine over the keyboard as David Bowie belted out in the background. Finally they’d agreed on the vital few lines. Sarah still hated the double exclamation marks Smith insisted on.

  Smith is my friend. She’s loyal and funny and the best company, but you have to like getting into trouble!! I knew Smith was kind and honest, but I had no idea how brave she was until she was diagnosed with a grade 4 brain tumour, specifically an astrocytoma, just two months ago.

  This disease is relentless. Smith’s friends are facing the fact that she has about three years to live. We are determined to do all we can to extend her life (and her quality of life) and we’re asking for YOUR donations to help.

  Groundbreaking research by world renowned Dr Sebastian Vera in Santiago could be a lifeline for Smith. Dr Vera is a controversial but distinguished oncologist who is trialling a new and radical treatment called antineoplaston therapy, which you can read about here.

  Sarah tutted: that link still didn’t work.

  We need your help!! It will cost £10k to send Smith to Chile – every penny counts!!

  Head over to our ‘Get involved’ page to discover how YOU can be part of Smith’s amazing journey!!

  Number twenty-four hadn’t rallied around. All Sarah got from Helena was a rolled eye. Mavis didn’t even break step when Sarah tried to enlist her in the hall. Lisa and Graham were locked into their shoot-’em-up of a relationship.

  The donation graphic inched up, heartbreakingly slow. Leo had given the first donation, but with the proviso that Sarah didn’t talk about the campaign at the dinner table. ‘It’s Smith who’s got cancer, darling. You can’t have it for her.’

  The breakthrough had involved baked beans.

  How or why Sarah decided to bathe in beans was still hazy, but somehow she found herself in her own bath, up to her chin in Heinz’s finest, giving a shaky thumbs up to a photographer from the local paper.

  Perched on the loo, Smith had hunched over, breathless with laughter. Scurrying around buying up baked beans – it had taken almost two hundred tins – and then opening them all and tipping them in had exhausted her dwindling energy capital.

  ‘Are you cold?’ asked Smith as the photographer clicked away.

  ‘Freezing!’ Tomato sauce in Sarah’s gusset was a new and wholly unwanted sensation. Leo had refused to kiss her for days afterwards: ‘You smell like a cafe breakfast.’

  Sarah clicked through to her blog post titled ‘Beanz Meanz Smith!’ and saw that she’d jokingly quoted Leo, even though the comment had hurt.

  Money began to trickle in; Sarah and Smith watched the cartoon thermometer rise and rise. Locals carried out their own stunts, inspiring those farther afield. The website’s chatty updates reached a small town in the States, an oil rig, a woman who used to teach Sarah in primary school. They opened their hearts and their purses, many of them motivated by their own brush with cancer. Some got in touch to say how much they appreciated the language Sarah used; she’d been careful not to describe Smith as ‘battling’ cancer. It was a disease, not a foe, and the brave didn’t necessarily win.

  All the while Smith changed. She grew smaller, paler, and retreated inside herself more and more. An inveterate partygoer, she stayed indoors. A lover of talk, she sat silent.

  But she still found the vigour to be a friend. Sarah remembered a night when the dark sky had pressed down hard on the roof of number twenty-four, a night when she’d expected Leo home after work but he was nowhere to be seen and she couldn’t face ringing his phone and hearing, yet again, the click as it switched to answer mode.

  I knew, thought Sarah, amazed at how easy it had been to wrap herself in denial. In my heart I knew he was having an affair. Sarah stared up at the bar’s gilded ceiling, reassembling her memories. There’d been other nights Leo had gone AWOL, but she’d suppressed thoughts of them. Because they didn’t
fit with the nostalgic PR her broken heart was spinning?

  That night she’d flown downstairs to Smith. There’d been a break in the clouds over Flat C; Smith was feeling a little brighter, her energy levels on the rise. When she opened the door, she wore a bright scarf wrapped around her naked head, the tassels dangling around a face that popped with the artificial colour of lipstick and blusher. She was gaunt, but game; a flash of her old hale and hearty self showed in her eyes.

  ‘What’s up?’ Smith had known immediately something was wrong.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. You’re going out.’ Too late, Sarah remembered that Smith had been looking forward to this evening for days on end. An old flame had reappeared, said he found her baldness ‘sexy’, and asked her out for a drink. Such events were rare in Smith’s calendar as her body gave up on her.

  ‘What,’ repeated Smith firmly, ‘is bloody well wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. Well, just Leo. I can’t get hold of him. Bit worried, that’s all. In case he’s ill or something.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Smith knew that Leo wasn’t ill. She knew that Sarah knew he wasn’t ill. They’d both been dancing around their suspicions, neither of them willing to be the first to say ‘affair’. She shrugged off her jacket, a musty patchwork affair, and threw her keys onto the coffee table. ‘This feels like a The Good Wife kinda night.’

  The Good Wife was their go-to when they felt down; they’d been known to devour four episodes on the trot.

  ‘You have a date.’ Sarah picked up the jacket and held it like a maître d’. ‘Come on. I know you like this guy.’ She didn’t say that Smith deserved some fun, because it might sound patronising and Smith was violently allergic to being patronised.

  ‘You know what, I’d rather stay in.’ Smith whipped off the scarf. Her scalp looked pale and vulnerable. The lipstick suddenly seemed wrong, and garish.

  ‘No, absolutely not, come on.’ Sarah had ruined Smith’s last gasp at a social life.