The Rose Petal Beach Page 22

  10

  Tami

  Fleur is standing in front of the mirror in our bathroom, practising shaking hands with people. ‘Hello, lovely to meet you,’ she is saying under her breath. She’s dressed in a tight, ankle-length t-shirt cotton stretchy dress she’d brought with her. Her wild mass of ringlets is gathered into a low bun that sits at the nape of her neck. The heels she has on make her tower over almost everyone and I’m working up to suggesting she borrow a pair of my flats.

  She reminds me of Anansy and Cora combined. She has Anansy’s exuberance and Cora’s tenacity. I look into her eyes sometimes and see the six-year-old whose mother left; I see a little girl who is still struggling to come to terms with grieving for someone she didn’t really know.

  Although, did any of us know Mirabelle? Honestly. How could she have kept this from me? I opened up to her about my whole life, I told her things I hadn’t told Scott and she hadn’t even shown me anything below the very top layer of who she was. She had a daughter.

  ‘Fleur,’ I say to the girl in my bathroom, who I can’t help but treat like a third child, ‘You can’t wear those shoes. Well, actually, you can. But you’re going to freak everyone out.’

  Today is the funeral.

  It hasn’t taken us long to arrange, I didn’t realise things could get done so quickly. I didn’t want Fleur to feel as if I was taking over but she seemed almost petrified of making a decision. I wanted to talk to her about Mirabelle, I wanted to talk about her life, but we ended up talking mainly about books. She is a voracious reader and loves them because they are her way of escaping from everyday life. She stumbled over revealing that to me, and yet it was obvious she’d needed an escape from her life at home. I read a lot, too, as a child. It was where I learnt about the outside world and decided I wanted to be a part of it. And how I figured out that the sooner I went to work, the sooner I got to leave and be my own person. Anything was better than watching the path of my life being cut out for me in the most pleasant way possible by the last two people on Earth I wanted to hurt, all the while knowing it simply wasn’t for me. I wasn’t going to university if it meant studying law. English, maybe, but not law.

  ‘I think they’re … pretty,’ she says, looking down from her place on top of the mountain where she’s currently residing, and twisting her feet back and forth to afford me a more appreciative view. Fleur did that, a lot, too: pausing mid-sentence to think about what she was going to say. Sometimes it was to put a positive spin on life at home, but other times I think it was to find a word that might fit into this old woman’s ears and would be understood by her elderly brain. The old woman being me, of course. She was acting as interpreter for ‘youff’ culture. And making me feel ancient.

  ‘They’re absolutely divine. But they’re kind of high. I’ve got some Jimmy Choo flats you can borrow if you want?’

  ‘What, real ones?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What, real-life Jimmy Choos? You lie.’

  ‘No, I don’t. They were a present. I hardly wear them, though, ’cos I’ve not had anywhere to wear such expensive shoes.’

  ‘They are not shoes. They are shhoooeess.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I say so. And I can seriously borrow them?’

  She’s being Anansy-like again. Her light brown eyes – the colour contacts that Mirabelle used to wear – are dancing, her body is bouncy and her hands want to clap together in excitement. This is her day, poor kid, I can’t rip that away from her by telling her to blend in a little, no matter how well intentioned or small that act is.

  ‘Actually, no,’ I say to her. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘What, why?’

  ‘Because I think you should wear your shoes. You should stand out from everyone else because you’re not just anyone. You’re her daughter, you should be noticed.’

  ‘You really think so?’

  I nod at her. ‘Yes, absolutely.’

  I hold my hand out to her. ‘Come on, let’s get going.’

  Scott, who can’t avoid the funeral without arousing suspicion among his work colleagues, has taken Cora and Anansy out with Beatrix to get them some food before the church.

  Fleur’s hand slips into mine and she’s in Cora mode: shy, reserved but battling with it to give her the confidence to do something she’s terrified of. I squeeze her hand like I do one of my two when I hold them. This moment reminds me of Cora’s first day at nursery and Anansy’s first day at school. Once I had their hands in mine, I didn’t want to let go. All I wanted was to hold on to them forever because if I was with them, nothing bad could ever happen.

  Fleur

  I’m still a smoker.

  I actually thought for a while that hanging out with Mrs C would turn me. She’s so ‘up for it’ and laidback that I have to keep reminding myself that I don’t know her. And she ISN’T my mother. Her two, Cora and Anansy, are so lucky. She’s just so chilled.

  I mean, there’s some pretty fucked up stuff going on with her and her man, and that’s no lie. She doesn’t want to be anywhere near the dude, and I don’t blame her. I don’t know how long it’s been going on for, but since I’ve been here, he’s not come back before the children are in bed once. In more than a week he’s been out till late, certainly not back before I leave. Some days I go and come back then go again. Mrs C, I really should call her Tami, but I like calling her Mrs C (‘You make me feel like I’m in Happy Days,’ she said to me, ‘And you’re The Fonz. Although I always fancied being Claire Huxtable in The Cosby Show. She was the coolest mother in TV-land, don’t you think?’ When I just looked at her ’cos, you know, I had not a clue what she was on about, she rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘How is it people your age have a way of making me feel ancient just with that blank expression?’). Anyways, Mrs C, she asks me to stay for dinner most days.

  I like eating out, though. Not in posh restaurants, I like buying fish and chips in that chippie near where they live and then I go down one of those big, wide roads with lots and lots of big posh houses, right to the sea. And I sometimes walk really, really slowly back to my B&B, eating my chips with lots of salt and lots of vinegar. I love Brighton. I feel like I belong here.

  Even when it’s a bit cooler, it’s like I’ve come to heaven. You do not need to leave the country when you’ve got the sea right there and all the old-fashioned buildings and all the different people. I can understand why she, Mirabelle, stayed here. It’s an amazing place.

  When I get back to my B&B it’s usually time for Noah to call me. Every night this week we’ve talked for hours. He’s so sweet, just chatting about everything. He’s coming today, as well. At least, he said he was coming, but I’m not sure if he will or not. It might have been something to say because what else could he do when I was telling him about the planning I’d been doing with Mrs C. He couldn’t listen and go, ‘Have fun!’ So he might come. Or he might not. He does seem to be one of those people who does what he says he’s going to do, though. But we’ll see, won’t we?

  He was well impressed, though, when I told him that Mrs C was paying for it. She’s basically planned it all. She didn’t take over or anything, she let me do the talking and when it was obvious I didn’t have a clue she suggested something. Which was always the right thing.

  Mrs C is OK.

  There’s no way she did it. There’s no way on Earth she killed Mirabelle.

  The other day

  ‘You’re Fleur Stuminer, aren’t you?’ the second-hottest man on Earth said to me four days ago. Noah is obviously the hottest. This man was tall and broad, and had a grade one haircut of his black hair that graduated into nothing at the nape of his neck (I saw this when he turned round to look at the house I’d just come out of).

  I didn’t answer straightaway. He was hot, but he might be a bit of a psycho if he knew my name and was waiting for me outside Mrs C’s house. ‘Who wants to know?’ I asked instead.

  He reached into his pocket and got out a small, black leather wal
let which he opened up to show me. It had a white card with his face on it – only a little bit less hot in it – and a police badge on the other side. ‘My name is Detective Wade. I’m investigating the death of Mirabelle Kemini.’

  I don’t like the police. It’s nothing personal, it’s not like I’ve ever known any of them properly, but you know, you just gotta be careful about them. I always think they’re out to get you, fit you up for something. Yeah, they probably wouldn’t, but you never know, do you?

  ‘Mirabelle Kemini is my mother.’

  ‘I know. And I’m very sorry for what has happened to her. We’re doing all we can to find her killer.’

  ‘Couldn’t it have been an accident? I don’t like to think of someone doing that to her.’ She died in the bath, Dad told me. Drowned or something. He hadn’t really known the details and there were some news items in the local newspapers that I had kept but couldn’t face reading quite yet. I had a vague idea that I could contact the police for more information but

  a) I didn’t like the police

  b) I was scared they wouldn’t tell me because I wasn’t old enough

  c) I was worried they would tell my dad I’d been asking and I didn’t know what he’d say about that

  d) I was scared they would tell me and I would totally freak out because I wasn’t old enough

  So I left well enough alone. I would find out things as time went on, you always found out things as time went on.

  ‘From the evidence collected and the condition—no, I’m sorry,’ the policeman said, ‘it couldn’t have been an accident. I’m really very sorry.’

  I felt that pain again, the boom that hurt. I was sure it was my heart but that sounded stupid, that my heart hurt, that it ached when I didn’t feel especially sad. It didn’t really make sense, either. I knew I should be sad that I’d lost ‘my mother’ but I didn’t feel it. I think most of the time I was behaving how I knew I should be acting – quiet, shaken, upset, agonised. Shaken was the only thing I felt properly, properly, you know? I’d never known someone who was murdered before. I knew hardly anyone who’d died – I’d heard about a couple of people who I went to school with who’d died in car accidents but they were names, vague faces from my past. This person I saw two weeks ago. She was connected to me. Someone had deliberately hurt and killed her. That’s why I was shaken. Something that only happened on TV, on the news, in books, happened to someone I knew.

  ‘How much do you know about the Challeys?’ the policeman asked.

  My eyes flicked to the car parked a little way up the road, I think he got out of it and there’s a woman in the front. I couldn’t see in properly, it was just that bit too far away, but she was white with brownish hair. I bet they took their time working out who would get the most information out of me and decided on the man. They were right, of course. He was hot. But he was still a ‘5-0’ as Yasmin calls them. And that question was so a fishing question. He had something to say but he wanted me to tell him stuff, too. I didn’t know what he thought I could give them seeing as I’d been here three days, but I wasn’t telling him anything. ANY. THING. ‘Enough,’ I said.

  He kind of creased up without creasing up. His cheekbones, which you could slice cheese with, stood out as he laughed and lowered his gaze and shook his head. He loved himself so much! He thought he could get away with anything with a smile like that. And, let’s face it, he probably could. Under normal circumstances. But this was not normal. At all.

  ‘All right, let me ask you this, do you know what your mother’s relationship was like with the Challeys before she died?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. He was hinting at something but I wasn’t so dim I’d let him know I didn’t know. That’s not how you found out stuff.

  ‘So you’re seriously OK with being around a man who was arrested for sexually assaulting your mother and has been questioned about her murder?’

  What was it Mrs C said? Oh yes, ‘The police got involved on another matter, which I don’t think you should hear about right at this second.’ I’d been so bowled over by her being nice to me, treating me like an adult and helping with the funeral, that I didn’t actually think to ask her about that. A cold, strange sickness flooded my stomach. No wonder Mrs C slept in a separate room to her husband, no wonder she started to get tense when he was due home, no wonder things were so fucked up in that house.

  ‘I’m not around him,’ I said, styling it out.

  The policeman nodded. ‘You spend time with Mrs Challey?’

  ‘Yes, and the children,’ I told him. ‘She’s helping me to organise the funeral.’

  ‘That’s what I was afraid of,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Have you asked yourself why she’s helping you?’

  ‘I know why – I haven’t got a clue about organising a funeral.’

  ‘I wish she was so altruistic but it’s more likely guilt.’

  ‘Yes, I know they weren’t talking when she died, and Mrs C might feel guilty about that, but people fall out all the time. And the good people feel guilty about it.’

  ‘No, it’s not only that. Just be careful, yeah? Mrs Challey isn’t what she seems.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  He came a bit closer, and then lowered his voice, all dramatic. Anyone would think he was on some kind of spy show. ‘I shouldn’t really tell you this, but we have evidence that Mrs Challey was in the house the night your mother was killed.’ He stopped and waited for a reaction. He didn’t get one. I don’t tend to react immediately to the things people tell me. So he added, for good measure, ‘We think she could know more about your mother’s murder than she is telling.’

  I took a step back, not wanting to listen to his secrets any more. He was clearly chatting nonsense in my ear. What would Mrs C know that she would keep secret?

  ‘Just be careful, Fleur. I’d hate to see anything bad happen to you. And if you hear or see anything that makes you suspicious or scared, just give me a call and we can talk it through.’

  He was asking me to be a spy, to be a police grass. I wasn’t either of those things. There’s no way I would betray someone as nice as Mrs C by grassing her up to the 5-0. But I still took his business card when he offered it to me. And I didn’t tell Mrs C about the conversation. I wasn’t sure why I took the card or why I didn’t tell Mrs C about the conversation, it just seemed at the time the right thing to do on both counts.

  But the more I spent time with Mrs C, the more I realised it was all nonsense. They didn’t bring her in for questioning and you had to spend two seconds with her to know it was stupidness. Mrs C wasn’t a killer. And she certainly didn’t kill Mirabelle. Why would she?

  There aren’t that many people here.

  Maybe fifty? Is that a lot? The place isn’t full, anyway. I did think about standing at the door handing out an order of service, which Mrs C designed and had printed, but I didn’t know half these people. Actually, I didn’t know any of these people and they didn’t know me. Another kick-in-the-face reminder of how separate she kept me from her real life. It’s taken her death to get me into her world. How messed up is that?

  I remember when I was nine I found a birthday card from her that had been thrown in the bin. It said, ‘My darling flower girl. I miss you every day. I’ll see you soon. Love, Mummy.’ I read it over and over because she said she missed me, that she would see me again soon. I still remembered her really vividly back then, so I could picture the way she sat as she wrote it, how the tip of her tongue would have come out to lick the stamp to go on it. I thought how she would have hugged the card to herself before she posted it, so I hugged it back, even though it’d been in the bin and had some bits of toast and cereal on it. I didn’t care. I was hugging my mummy back through the card.

  After I stopped hugging the card, I’d read it again and again and again until I could hear her voice, like melted syrup in my ears, and I could smell that scent of rose water she always had, and could feel the warmth
of her body as she held me close. When I had her there, as real as if she was really standing in front of me, I had to let her go. All over again. I had to put the card back in the bin just as I found it otherwise Dad would see that I’d taken it out and it would hurt his feelings. She had left and he had stayed, it would break his heart if he thought I was wanting her back.

  How can you go from writing cards like that to not telling a single soul about me? How? It doesn’t make sense. A lot of things don’t make sense, though. I just can’t work it all out.

  I turn around to look at the arched wooden door to the church, to see who else is arriving, and there he is. My heart – actually all my insides – turn over themselves. He came. He’s wearing a charcoal black-grey suit and a black shirt and a black tie. He stops in the doorway and looks around the church hall, which is quite light actually, despite all the stained-glass windows showing the stations of the cross, and finds me. His face, which is appropriately serious, softens a little, if you weren’t looking you’d miss it, and the corners of his mouth turn up a bit in a sad-for-you smile.

  I should not be feeling this. I should not have butterflies circling my aching heart like the horses on a carousel. I should be feeling nothing but the pain of having lost her. I want to feel it, I really do. I just can’t.

  I feel myself relaxing as he slips into the seat beside me.

  ‘You all right?’ he asks in a low voice, and presses his cheek against mine, kisses the space below my ear. When he sits back to face forwards, he reaches down and picks up my hand. Carefully, gently, telling me he’s going to stay with me for as long as I need him.

  Ten years ago

  ‘Fleur, we’re going to have to do the candles on the cake, people want to go home soon.’

  ‘I just want to wait a bit longer, Daddy. Please? Just a bit longer. She said she was going to be here so can we wait a bit longer?’

  ‘Fleur, little flower, she’s not going to come. I’m sorry to have to tell you that, but I think something will have come up and she can’t make it.’