The Woman Who Haunted Herself

The Woman by the Boxes Maggie had labelled the box WINTER COATS before remembering that she and Elliot would be moving in June. She looked at the two words in thick black marker, considered crossing them out, and put the pen down. Their winter coats were already inside. Nobody was going to mistake the contents for dinner plates. A strip of packing tape had attached itself to her wrist. She peeled it away and dropped it into the bin, which was full of tea bags, an empty packet of crackers and the paper wrappings from the flowers people kept leaving on the doorstep. There was another bunch on the kitchen table. Maggie had moved it there because Iris had said the hall smelt like a funeral parlour, then had wondered whether it had been an invitation to do something about the rest of them as well. Upstairs, the shower started. Iris had been in the house for a week, although Maggie had to check the calendar to be sure. It was Thursday now. Leah had died the previous Thursday, and the knowledge still presented itself each morning as if somebody had put a new entry in a schedule Maggie hadn't seen. The fact itself was simple. It was the rearrangement of everything around it that Maggie couldn't make hold still. She opened the laptop on the corner of the table. The document was titled IMMEDIATE, a category which had expanded to include the undertaker, Iris's missing science workbook, notifying Leah's electricity supplier, a key for the house, a conversation with Iris's school and finding out whether anybody was supposed to tell the bank. A column headed RESPONSIBLE had been useful for about an hour. Nearly every row now said M or TBC. Her phone rang. The undertaker's number. They had a question about the clothes Leah would be buried in. Maggie put her hand flat on the table and listened to the woman explain what they needed, with the precise gentleness of someone who asked questions like this several times a day. 'I can bring them on Monday,' Maggie said. 'Of course. You don't have to decide today.' 'Monday's better.' After the call she opened Leah's last message, though she knew it by heart: Could you pick up the green jacket from mine if you're going past? The zip's stuck again. There was no reason for the jacket to have acquired the importance of a relic. Leah had owned three others and invariably complained about them all. Maggie left the message on the screen until she heard Iris coming down the stairs. 'Is there any bread?' Iris asked. 'Freezer. Unless Elliot's eaten it in the night. He's developing an alarming relationship with toast.' Iris took the packet out and examined the end slice. Her hair was damp and she'd put on one of Leah's old hoodies, navy blue and stretched at the cuffs. Maggie had washed it once. Iris had asked her not to wash it again unless she had to. 'Grandma Jean wants to know if I'm coming this weekend.' 'What did you tell her?' 'I said I'd see.' Iris pushed a slice into the toaster. 'She's being nice about it.' 'Of course she is.' Maggie reached for a plate, discovered she'd put the clean ones in a box and unpacked the top three before Iris could ask for one. 'You say that like I'm meant to know something.' 'No. I meant that she loves you.' 'I know.' Iris took the plate from her and watched the toaster. 'Everyone keeps explaining who loves me.' Maggie picked up the phone to give herself a moment before answering, but there was nothing on it she needed to look at. 'Sorry. You're right.' Iris sat sideways on a chair and checked something on her own phone while the bread browned. An ordinary fifteen-year-old with two hair ties round her wrist and a faint bruise on one shin. Her mother's death had made her life impossible in several obvious ways; it had also left an irritating quantity of ordinary life in place. She still needed breakfast and clean socks and someone to nag her about chargers left in sockets. The toaster ejected its bread before either of them remembered it was there. 'The school called me yesterday,' she said. 'They'll send the work you've missed, but you don't need to do it all this week.' 'I know. They emailed me too.' 'All right.' Maggie put the school email into a folder on the laptop, where it joined two earlier messages from the same teacher. 'You can ask if you've forgotten something,' Iris said. 'I don't generally need permission.' 'You have asked me the same three questions since Tuesday.' 'Four. The fourth was about your football boots.' Maggie found the email had been saved in the wrong folder and moved it again. She could at least get that right. Iris smiled at that, briefly and without lifting her head. By eleven Maggie had reached the solicitor's receptionist. The family had been given a name by someone Jean knew, and Maggie was relieved when the receptionist understood what she meant without demanding a correct legal term. Both Iris's parents were dead; there was no known court order; everyone was talking, and nobody wanted to do anything that made things harder. Was it all right for Iris to be staying with her aunt? Who could agree to things at school, or sign whatever might need signing? Was there something Leah might have arranged that they ought to look for? 'I'll have one of the solicitors call you,' the receptionist said. 'In the meantime, is your niece safe and being cared for?' 'Yes. Absolutely.' 'Then tell them that when they call. It helps to know the immediate position.' Maggie wrote SAFE beside Iris's name, then stared at the word. It was both necessary and absurd. She put the page in a folder instead of trying to improve it. Maggie had also asked the solicitor's receptionist what counted as proof that Leah hadn't appointed anybody to look after Iris. There was a pause while the woman explained, without making Maggie feel stupid, that it depended on what documents existed and who else might have responsibility already. Jean and Peter knew as little as Maggie did about Leah's paperwork. Thomas had died years earlier; nobody had thought much about formal arrangements while Leah was alive, fit and perfectly capable of telling them all where to go when they interfered. Leah's house needed checking before the weekend. The heating was still running there, the post came through the door and Iris's school shoes were somewhere in the cupboard beneath the stairs. Maggie had been in twice since the death. On the second visit she'd found half a bag of potatoes sprouting in the pantry and had stood holding them, unable to decide whether she was permitted to throw them away. She'd gone home with the potatoes. They were presently in her own cupboard, where they were no less useless. Iris came in looking for a charger. 'Can we go to Mum's tomorrow?' she asked. 'Of course. What do you need?' 'The blue folder from her desk. She put all my football forms in there.' 'I'll find it.' 'I want to come.' Iris was still holding the charger she'd come downstairs to find. She wound its lead around her fingers and waited. Maggie put the folder away. 'All right. We can go together. We don't have to stay long.' 'I've got stuff there. I'm going to have to get it eventually.' 'Yes. I know.' Iris leaned against the worktop, tugging at the cuff of Leah's hoodie until it covered her fingers. She seemed on the verge of another question. Maggie waited, thinking of the solicitor's call and the school and the funeral dress still hanging in the spare room. 'Can we leave the house alone for a bit?' Iris asked. 'I mean the cupboards and the furniture. Not the food. That's probably gone disgusting.' 'We can leave the furniture. I'll ask about the rest.' 'Mum's mug is by the kettle.' 'I'll leave it there.' After Iris went upstairs, Maggie found herself considering the sheer number of instructions she had offered since the previous Thursday, most of them delivered with confidence she hadn't earned. Leah had always been better at telling their mother to stop worrying. Maggie had been better at finding a specialist who could be persuaded to handle the worry professionally. For years the division of labour had served them. At half past six Elliot came home carrying a tube of rolled plans, two portions of supermarket lasagne and the expression of a man who had considered buying wine and sensibly decided against asking whether it would be appropriate. He stopped in the hall at the sight of three sealed cartons. 'Are these from upstairs or downstairs?' 'Yes.' Maggie stepped aside to let him get the food bags onto the worktop. The roll of plans under his arm knocked lightly against the doorframe. He turned one around and found the label. 'I see your systems are surviving.' 'They were designed for a household of two.' 'We've always had a household of two. I've just been hiding my things very effectively.' He set the food down and kissed her on the cheek. Maggie caught the cool smell of rain on his coat and the warm cardboard of the food bags. He was going grey at the temples in a way which made him look slightly more serious than he was. Even after twelve years together, she could usually tell the quality of his day by how quickly he put down what he was carrying. Tonight he carried the plans right into the dining room, then came back for a hug. 'Iris?' he asked quietly. 'On a video call. Some of her team. I couldn't understand a word of it.' 'Good sign?' Elliot took the food out of its paper bag and found that one of the lasagne lids had cracked. He rescued it over the sink. 'Probably. She told someone their passing was criminal.' Elliot went to wash his hands. When Iris came down, the three of them ate at the kitchen table because the dining table was occupied by moving documents. Elliot gave her the nicer piece of garlic bread without mentioning it. Iris prodded the lasagne with her fork. 'Are there mushrooms in this?' Neither adult seemed certain. She ate it anyway. After she'd gone upstairs to call a friend, Elliot spread the plans across the cleared end of the dining table. They were the floor plan and an artist's impression for a flat in Edinburgh, a place they'd discussed so many times that Maggie could find the second bedroom without looking at the labels. It was a little smaller than their current house, with excellent light, high windows and one wall on which there was nowhere sensible to put bookshelves. They had been there twice. The second time they'd spent an hour arguing, with genuine pleasure, about whether the kitchen could support a freestanding island. 'Agent rang,' he said. 'The owner will hold it until next Wednesday if we're happy with the date.' 'June still?' 'Late June. They can give us keys a fortnight early if we pay the overlap.' Maggie studied the rent and the deposit, numbers she'd entered in her own budget the previous month. 'That's a fairly expensive fortnight to store two humans and a sofa.' 'We're paying for a view of the chimneys.' 'The chimneys aren't doing much for us.' 'You liked them.' Elliot had opened the letting agent's photographs on his phone. He held up the picture where she could see the windows they had stood beside on their second visit. 'I liked the windows. You sold me the chimneys as a bonus.' He laughed. It was a well-rehearsed disagreement, part of the small mythology they'd built around the move. The appointment itself was extraordinary: a senior role overseeing the restoration and development of several major heritage buildings in Edinburgh, with authority Elliot would never have been offered where they lived. He'd spent years working towards something of that scale, and Maggie had been proud of him before the offer was even confirmed. There was something for her there too. She could leave a job she'd grown too good at and set up the operations consultancy she'd been sketching for three years. Two conversations in Edinburgh had already progressed beyond politeness. One prospective client wanted to discuss a short piece of paid work in the autumn. The prospect made her nervous in a distinctly agreeable way. Elliot put his finger on the plan. 'We could fit a desk here. In the second bedroom. Proper one, not that plank you've been threatening to buy.' 'I happen to like the plank.' 'I know. You've bookmarked it on three different sites.' For a while they talked about shelving, the movers, the museum's commencement date and whether her last working week should be allowed to overlap with the move. It was the first conversation they'd had in days which belonged recognisably to the life they'd chosen. Maggie felt herself begin to inhabit it again: the unfamiliar streets, a new office of her own, Elliot coming home full of the peculiar problems of a job he finally wanted to get out of bed for. Then he folded the floor plan inwards, leaving the second bedroom hidden. 'Jean rang me,' he said. 'She didn't want to bother you when you had the solicitor to speak to.' 'We're going there next weekend if Iris's up to it.' 'What if Iris wants to stay here? Longer term, I mean.' 'I don't know.' Maggie folded the edge of the letting agent's sheet under her thumb, then flattened it again before it creased. 'I wasn't asking for an answer tonight.' Maggie knew he wasn't, and the unfairness of her relief irritated her. 'I can't ask her to make a decision when she hasn't even buried her mother. I can't tell your people to keep the job open indefinitely either.' 'Nobody's suggesting either of those things.' 'It felt like you were.' 'All I said was what if.' He got up to rescue the documents from a glass Iris had left at the edge of the table. Maggie found a tea towel in the kitchen and wiped the mark down, even though it was barely visible. 'We'll find out what Jean and Peter are thinking,' Elliot said when she returned. 'And what Iris thinks. Then we can work out what we actually have to decide.' 'My preferred order.' 'You usually put the decisions before the people.' 'Only when the people are late.' He gave her a look she recognised as affectionate but unconvinced, and went upstairs to see whether Iris wanted the television. Maggie stayed a little longer with the drawing of the Edinburgh flat. She flattened the fold and moved the page beneath an empty mug so that it didn't curl. Before turning out the light, Maggie checked the email from the Edinburgh contact she had spoken to the previous month. She'd sent over a brief description of how she worked: building useful services out of organisations that had been good at their original jobs and less good at sharing staff, buildings and budgets. The answer had been warm without promising work. They wanted to talk again before Easter. Maggie flagged it and closed the laptop. Elliot returned downstairs for a glass of water. 'You haven't changed your mind about Edinburgh, have you?' 'No.' 'I don't mean about Iris. I mean for you.' She thought about the flat and the promise of learning streets without having been there to witness every local argument about a parking space. 'I really want to go,' she said. 'Which makes me a terrible person to ask anything else of.' He set the glass beside the sink. 'That wasn't what I asked.' 'I know.' 'You don't have to report your motives in advance. You're allowed to want a job.' 'I want your job too. It sounds much more interesting than the problems you bring home now.' Maggie was reaching for the kettle as she spoke and discovered Elliot had filled it already. She switched it on without thanking him for another task he had done. 'Give me six months. I'll find you some different problems.' She was laughing when he left the kitchen. A minute later she heard him calling up the stairs to find out whether Iris had taken both phone chargers. For the evening at least, the demands being made of them were small enough to answer. The woman was standing on the opposite pavement when Maggie looked out late the next morning. At first she assumed it was someone waiting for a taxi. A dark green coat, sensible shoes and a small bag held against her hip. She was elderly, perhaps in her eighties, with pale hair cut neatly above her collar. The house opposite belonged to a retired couple who often had visitors, and Maggie had no reason to think the woman had come for them or for anybody else. Maggie was carrying an armful of collapsed boxes. One slipped against her chin as she moved closer to the window. The woman was looking at the house, head tilted slightly as if trying to read the number. There was a weary patience in her posture, familiar only in the way that elderly women waiting at bus stops could seem familiar. Maggie set the boxes down. She considered going out to ask if the woman needed directions. The pavement was wide, the gate open, and an offer of help would have been ordinary enough. But the woman's gaze shifted towards the window before Maggie reached the front door. Maggie hesitated with her hand on the latch, embarrassed to have been caught staring. A delivery van came slowly along the street and stopped two houses away. The driver got out with a long cardboard parcel and began searching for the correct doorbell. By the time Maggie had opened her own front door, the older woman had gone. She stepped outside. A neighbour was putting recycling into his wheelie bin. Somewhere beyond the corner, a dog gave three sharp barks. The old woman could have taken either turning without Maggie seeing. There was no mystery in it, and Maggie felt faintly foolish standing there with the door open and no shoes on. 'Everything all right?' the neighbour asked. 'Fine. I thought someone might be looking for an address.' 'Probably me. That's what most people are looking for round here.' She smiled, exchanged a complaint about the unreliable parcel deliveries and went back inside. The boxes were still on the floor where she'd left them. Upstairs Iris was playing music through a phone speaker, tinny and much louder than it needed to be, but Maggie decided to leave her to it. She took the marker pen from her pocket and wrote BOOKS on the next carton. For a second she found herself picturing the older woman's face, trying to decide whether she'd seen it at the pharmacy or in the queue at the bank. She could remember the woman's coat and bag more readily than her features. From across a road, she supposed that was hardly surprising. She put the carton with the others and carried on packing.