Caro could have escaped after it happened. She had money, she could have gone abroad. But you’d know she wouldn’t, if you knew Sukey. Caro wouldn’t be able to leave her, even though she was the one who’d killed her. They found Caro in a barn just a few fields away from the cottage. She’ll been writing and writing and there were sheets of paper all round her, mostly about Sukey. Then she’d swallowed some sleeping-stuff she took, and left a note to say why she’d killed herself. But she was still alive. She’ll taken too little and it had only made her sick. After that she was too weak to move, and she hadn’t anything else to kill herself with. They said in the paper she was too weak to escape, but I don’t suppose she even wanted to. She must have seen the men coming over the fields through the barn door. Perhaps she tried to run then, but she couldn’t.
I saw those fields, when Sukey and Caro had both gone. I went up there the next summer, after it had all died down. It was late on in June, and there was clover in the grass. The grass was tipped with red and purple and silver. I stood by the bank and smelled the grass and the sweet air blowing. We were so high up. There were short, steep little fields, and sheep. That was when I saw them, Sukey walking through the grass as if she was walking on water, smiling at me, walking and walking as the grass rippled around her, but never coming any closer. And Caro down by the field-gate, crying after her, her feet trapped in the grass. And then it was over and Sukey never reached me. That was when I knew I’d have to go away from everything that reminded me of Sukey and Caro. Keep my head down, not read the newspapers, start a new life. But it never works, not really. Some things burn themselves into you; you can’t lose them even if you want to. I could close my eyes now and see them again. But I won’t, not now.
I hope they didn’t try to make Caro identify Sukey. They must have had to carry her back over the fields – she can’t have been able to walk. Still, in a way Caro’d got what she wanted. No one else was going to get Sukey now, ever. It was summer, and there was a heatwave in Manchester. Even in the Lake District it must have been warm. I remember counting the days, thinking of the green fields, and Sukey’s pump, and the little garden. Her poor head was all caved in. There’d’ve been flies buzzing round…; They got worried down at the farm when Sukey didn’t come for the milk. They’d have taken it up to the cottage for her, but she’d told them she liked the walk. She loved that walk in the early morning, on her own. It was like the beginning of the world, she wrote to me. And then she’d asked them at the farm to bake extra bread in the next batch, because she was expecting a visitor. Maybe that was what did it.
‘Oh, Caro, darling, Enid’s coming on Saturday, just for a few days. I can’t wait for her to see the cottage, can you? Perhaps she’ll help you with the vegetables.’
What Caro did next I still don’t want to imagine. It’s not so much the way she battered Sukey, but her going and fetching the poker to do it with. It means that she must have thought about what she was going to do, and yet she still did it. But perhaps it wasn’t like that. Perhaps it was all very quick and Caro just snatched up the poker. I’d rather think that. Sukey wouldn’t have known much. She’ll have thought it was a joke, just for a second.
‘Why, Caro’ – smiling and trying to calm Caro down, the way she did – ‘don’t be silly, darling.’
But this time it didn’t work. I suppose Sukey might have had a second or two to know that, to know that it wasn’t going to work. But I’ve never seen Sukey frightened, so I can’t picture it.
I didn’t go to her funeral. It was delayed, because the police had her body. And Caro was coming up for trial. Her family and the doctors and lawyers they paid tried to make out she was off her head and couldn’t stand trial, but that didn’t wash. It was very quiet, Sukey’s funeral, it said in the newspaper. Family flowers only, so I didn’t send anything.
If you want the truth, I was frightened to go. What if Caro said something? What if she tried to make out I’d been there in the cottage? That I’d had something to do with it? Even though the police thought Caro was a murderess, she was still more the kind of person they’d believe than I was. I wouldn’t have put anything past Caro. And I thought that me going to the funeral might be just the thing that would start her off thinking about me, if she got to hear about it. The police go to funerals, don’t they, when someone’s been murdered? Just to see who turns up. So I never said goodbye to Sukey. I still can’t believe that they put her in a box and under the earth and left her for the rain to fall on her. It’s ridiculous, when I know more people who are dead than alive.
Anyway, Sukey’s family wouldn’t have wanted me there. I’d’ve just been part of the scandal as far as they were concerned. She had a sister who lived in Scotland, with three tiny children. The Honourable this and the Honourable that. She’ll have come, but not with the children. I expect they kept it all from them. I wonder if they know now? Or won’t anyone know, once I’m dead?
Nadine knows. I must tell her all of it.
I did go to the Manchester Ladies one last time. The bombing had started. An incendiary fell flat in the street in front of me one night when I was going home. That was before I got called up and they put me in the Land Army. So I did live in a little cottage in the end, just like the one Sukey rented, though getting up at dawn is more like the end of the world than the beginning when you have to do it every day. I wasn’t hurt by the incendiary. I stood looking at it as if it was a coal that had fallen out of the fire, then a warden ran past shouting at me, and shoved me into a doorway.
It was curiosity that made me go back. I didn’t expect to find anyone I knew. Sukey was dead, and Caro’s trial was over by then. They didn’t hang her, though they might have done. They still hanged women. Ruth Ellis was the last, and she was a long time after Caro. It sounds terrible when you say it flat out like that, doesn’t it? Hanging. You can’t think of it in connection with a person you know. Even when it’s a person you hate. All sorts of doctors gave evidence. Caro’s family would have paid for them. I think they thought they’d get her off completely, or get her put into some sort of rest-home, but they didn’t. The prosecution made out Caro had dragged Sukey into a life of vice and then murdered her. Then the defence said the exact opposite: it was Sukey dragging Caro, who was younger than her, and impressionable and easily led. I remember every word of it. I bought the newspapers each morning and evening, and cut out the account of the trial and put it away. I’ve still got it. Evidence. But even the defence and the doctors couldn’t manage to make out that Sukey’d murdered Caro. So what they agreed in the end was that Sukey and Caro had both dragged each other down, and so in a way the murder was a sort of punishment for both of them. They made it sound as if Sukey deserved to be murdered. And the jury swallowed it, or most of it. It was obviously a crime of passion, and they didn’t really want to look too closely at what kind of passion it was between two women. It all had to be written up in a very roundabout way in the newspapers, so that you had to guess at what was meant. It made Sukey and Caro sound quite different: sordid and furtive. You could hardly tell when they were talking about Sukey and when they were talking about Caro, because they said the same things about both of them. Good family, sheltered upbringing, beautiful, popular, high society…; dragged down to a life of vice…; The hint was that they’d both become what used to be called ‘sex-slaves’. It was easier for them to look at it that way than to believe that Sukey was happy. But I won’t think about that now. And as for what they wrote about the Manchester Ladies – it would have made a cat laugh.
Caro was imprisoned for manslaughter. She came out in the end, then she went abroad. Oh, yes, I always followed her from the newspapers. She’s dead now.
When I went there in the war there was still the little plaque outside the club, THE MILLICENT SOWERBY ASSOCIATION FOR LADIES, but the door was all boarded up. You couldn’t see through into the building, but I’m sure there wasn’t anything there any more. No mirrors or bathrooms or chaises-longues. No laughter or
games of cards and five-pound notes on the floor. All vanished like a genie’s palace. Just space. With the war and the bombing, clubs were closing down everywhere. But I think the Manchester Ladies had gone before the war started. There was such a scandal – you wouldn’t credit it these days. It might even’ve got closed down because of the court case. I don’t know. The police were always closing places down then, for vice.
Caro didn’t name me. My name didn’t come out in the trial at all. For a long time I wondered why: she could have had her revenge if she’d wanted it. Everything else came out. You might think that was because she didn’t want to drag me into it – me being so young – but I don’t think that was the reason. I’ve thought about it for a long time now. It was because she didn’t want anyone else to know Sukey’d loved me. She didn’t want to make it seem as if I’d been important to Sukey. That was one word they never wrote in the newspapers: love. It would have made a quite different story.
So I just stood there and looked at the plaque. It wasn’t raining that day, for once. It was quite nice, with soft small clouds in a pale sky. I thought of Sukey in the taxi, then I said, ‘You’ve won, Millicent Sowerby,’ and walked off, because I didn’t want anyone staring at me. But they had better things to stare at, with the war on. The trial was a nine-days’ wonder, and a couple of years later if you’d said ‘Manchester Ladies’, no one’d’ve had any idea what you were talking about. There was the war, so we soon had other things to talk about.
It’s still not the full story, though. I’m as bad as the newspapers. They wanted everyone to hate Sukey and I want everyone to love her. Sukey cold and stiff. Sukey on her back on the carpet on the stone floor, with her head in the fender. But her arms and feet were perfect. Caro never touched her body.
You can’t make murder pretty. Perhaps Caro was right, that’s where it gets you, wanting everything. I can still feel Sukey in my fingers. Soft and warm and quick. But she was hard too,
There she goes again. That one downstairs with Kai. Laughing. Out loud, she doesn’t care. Why should she? She knows Nadine’s not here. And I’m nothing. She reminds me of Caro. Maybe she’s right and it doesn’t matter if I hear them. I’m not much of a witness. If she looked at my record she’d feel she was safe enough. Knows when to keep her mouth shut. That’s me.
‘Oh, Caro, Enid’s coming on Saturday. Poor darling, it’ll do her good to get out of Manchester for a couple of days. I’ll get some cream from the farm – we’ll have to feed her up a bit. I expect she’s frightened of cows, wouldn’t you think, darling?’
I know that little bubble of laughter, laughing at me, at Caro, at the rain, at the whole world. I still want to scream out and warn her, though she’s been dead for more than fifty years, ‘Sukey, don’t laugh!’ I don’t know if I’m really trying to warn her, or if I want to scream at her because I’m angry too. I’m still angry. Then Caro’s shadow crosses the room so fast Sukey doesn’t even see it. The last thing she hears is the poker hissing down on her head. And Caro laughing. It was easier for the jury to think Caro was out of her mind, but I don’t believe it.
Let that one downstairs laugh. I shan’t say anything to Nadine. You can’t make murder pretty and you can’t tidy it up either, any more than you can tidy up love. I’ll tell Nadine that.
Fifteen
The cottage, morning, June 1938. The early mist’s clearing – look, it’s nearly gone. A few streaks of it wisp up and dissolve as I watch. The fells look like a horse after a gallop, with steam coming off its flanks. I wonder if we could ride here? Caro would like that. What a day it’s going to be. What bliss not to be in Manchester, or London, or anywhere but here.
Caro’s left the bucket under the pump. I plunge my arms down into it, lift handfuls of silky water to my face, sluice my arms. Nothing matters here. An old cotton dress, my hair brushed back, my feet bare. Yesterday we sunbathed naked in the shelter of the wall. Caro had to lie in the shade, with her white skin. Her special redhead’s smell comes out when her skin’s hot. She had her eyes shut against the sun. Coral nipples, blue-white breasts, deep-dented navel. Her hair is exactly the colour of the fronds of a sea-anemone. Moving in and out, sucking…; poor Caro. I ought to find a sea to put her in – a cool green sea with caves and seaweed where she could hide from the sun, flicking her tail. She shouldn’t have been left here on dry land where there isn’t any shade.
Look at my arms! But I don’t care if I go brown as a gypsy. I would hate to burn, like Caro does. I want to soak up the sun until there’s no winter left in me. The air here smells of hay and sheep-droppings, and warm stone. But the inside of the house is always dank and dark, even though it’s so hot. You can smell the meat-safe. And there’s too much polish on everything.
My little Enid is coming. I nearly told Caro last night. And then I thought I would wait. As soon as she knows, she’ll watch me to see if I’m thinking about Enid, waiting for her, wanting her. Enid would think nothing of walking up from the farm carrying her own suitcase. She’s like a little pony, with her long hair flapping and her funny little dusty brown face. And those eyes, light as water. She doesn’t wait and watch me…;
Caro’s never had a child. Imagine a baby being born out of Caro. What a fight that would be, and who’d win, I wonder? Odds on Caro any day. But no baby’s ever going to get the chance, I know that, darling. You don’t need to give me one of your fierce looks. She doesn’t like it that a baby’s been where she’ll never be, no matter how hard she tries. Actually inside me. It’s different, making love to a woman who’s had a child. Everything’s been used. Ralph noticed the difference after I had Johnnie. ‘Not so snug any more, Sukey darling.’ I know what Caro thinks when she sucks my breasts. Someone’s been here before me. Well, it was a long time ago, darling. The nurse used to bring Johnnie in much too late, after he’d been screaming for hours. Such nonsense, all those rules. She said it would spoil him if I fed him before the four hours were up. Poor Johnnie would be so angry with me. Dark red in the face, sweating, eyes tight shut. He’d crowd my nipple into his mouth, then he’d break off for one last sob. He’d stare up at me with those big wet navy-blue eyes. But it was the nurse’s fault, not mine. Johnnie always smelled of potatoes when they’ve been boiled too long and they fall to pieces and the cook tries to push the bits together. And you have to send them back.
Silly Caro. What difference does it all make anyway? She’s always asking questions. Do Ralph and I still sleep together? Does he ever come into my bedroom? Ralph has his own life, I tell her, and I have mine. I couldn’t manage the spare, but I did produce the heir. And that was the end of that.
It wasn’t quite, of course. Nothing ever is. It’ll happen on a summer night when it’s too hot to sleep and Ralph comes home after a party. I like him black and white and tanned and just a tiny bit rumpled. He might ask me to help him with his cufflinks because he can’t manage them. I might suddenly notice his wrists. Ralph has nice wrists. He sways and we laugh. I smell champagne, and whisky, and something else.
‘You smell of one of your girls,’ I say.
‘Speaking of girls, how’s Caro?’ he asks, freeing one hand, sliding a finger down my spine.
Caro says that Ralph is a monster. Isn’t it true that he knows the Mosleys? He goes to their house, doesn’t he, Sukey? I daresay. I don’t know where Ralph goes. House-parties, trips to Bayreuth and Venice, weeks and weeks in London. Everyone laughs when I say I’d rather be in Manchester. And now I have my Enid, my pony, so strong and so silky. Ralph always goes back to his own room afterwards. The bed’s suddenly cool and I hear the curtains flutter. I stretch out my legs and lift up the sheet and let it billow back down on me. Bliss.
Evening. ‘Caro…;’ I say. She looks up. We’re in the parlour. When two people sit in the ugly little tapestry chairs their knees almost touch. The sun never comes round to this side of the cottage. The windows won’t open and the room smells stale. But Caro wanted to come in out of the sun because she had a headache. She’ll
had too much sun. Her face is puffy and her eyes are red. There’s a fly by the window, kneading the pane with its legs, trying to get out. It doesn’t know that the windows don’t open. I ask Caro if she’d like to go upstairs and lie on the bed with the curtains drawn to keep out the light. But she says no, it’s stifling up there under the roof. It’ll be cooler outside, I say, what about putting chairs under the apple tree? No, she says. No. The fly rasps against the window. I want to walk up to the hayfield.
She lies back, shuts her eyes. I know she wants me to touch her. I stand and say, ‘I’ll just go and get things ready…;’ not thinking about what I’m saying. Caro’s eyes snap open.
‘What do you mean, get things ready?’ she demands. ‘I’ve peeled the potatoes. There’s cold lamb in the larder. I’ve put muslin over it. There’s no need for you to do anything.’
I can’t imagine eating cold lamb. Fatty, congealed stuff. I hate the way meat smells on your breath in summer.
‘I’ll go up and look at the spare room,’ I say. ‘To see if Hannah’s dusted it. Perhaps the bed needs airing…;’
‘Why?’ she cracks out at me like a pistol-shot. Both eyes are fixed on me now, reddened and wary.
‘Well, darling, I’ve asked Enid if she’d like to come up for a couple of days. On Saturday. I thought it would be such bliss for her to get out into the country. You know how hard she works, and it’s awfully unhealthy for her to be stuck in Manchester all summer. She’s looking pale.’
The eyes glare. ‘If she comes, I shan’t stay.’
‘Oh, Caro darling, really. Don’t be absurd. We can’t have all this again.’
Caro heaves herself up in the chair. A clumsy movement – it must have hurt her head. A dull red tide creeps up her face, and her eyes go slitty. Where have I seen that look before?