‘Are you all right?’ she said, interrupting my thoughts.
‘Oh – yes. Sorry. You’re Constance Holden?’ I said. My voice tightened. I shouldn’t have come, I thought. Better never to have come.
Constance’s clever eyes looked in my face. ‘You’re here for the interview,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Come in.’ She did not smile, nor offer her hand. She simply stepped to one side.
I went into the hall, feeling sick. I turned to watch her close the door, fumbling slightly with the latch. That was when I noticed her fingers. Her knuckles were swollen, her thumb jutted awkwardly from the side of her hand, and her other fingers didn’t span upwards neatly in the right direction. Her hands looked as if they belonged to someone else, sewn on in a cruel experiment, possessing a mind of their own.
She saw me staring at them, and I looked hastily away at the walls. She had pitted dusky pink against old green furniture, and a low, long shelf on one side of the hall was lined with at least twenty misshapen pots. ‘These are lovely,’ I said, too brightly, gesturing.
‘From the Yucatán peninsula,’ she replied. Her voice was strong, unwearied. Present.
‘Have you lived here long?’ I asked.
‘I’ve owned this house for nearly forty years,’ she said. ‘But I haven’t always lived here.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘Laura Brown,’ I said. The name tripped off my tongue as easily as if it were my own.
Who dusted those pots? I wondered. What would happen if a coat hem knocked one off? Death, probably. My eyes began to roam, drinking in everything I could see. I felt like I was hunting this woman – but clumsily, and she would know exactly what to do to avoid me.
I asked if I could use the bathroom, and Constance pointed with her unruly fingers towards a door under the staircase.
It was just a small water closet, tastefully devoid of any maritime theme. I clicked the lock, and sat on the loo with my head in my hands. The space was dark and gold and velvet, a little room inside tall walls. I sat in this gem of a cubby hole, trying to wee quietly. I had done a crazy thing to get into this house. But I was scared of it. I splashed water on my face and told myself to get a grip.
‘Shall we do this in the front?’ Constance said, after I emerged. She was still standing in the hall, like a guard in her own house.
‘Thank you.’
‘Do you understand what I’m looking for?’ she said over her shoulder, leading me into the front room. The October afternoon light played through the huge bay window. Beneath our feet were Turkish rugs, and around us, the unusually high walls were painted in gunmetal blue. Prints were hung quite higgledy-piggledy; I wanted to examine every one but knew I couldn’t. The armchairs and sofa were covered in velvet roses and looked tired but comfortable.
‘They didn’t tell me a huge amount,’ I said. Constance rolled her eyes. ‘But I’ve read Green Rabbit.’ She stopped in her tracks. ‘It’s—’
‘You’re not a Ph.D. student, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Thank god.’
She looked at me again. My face felt like it had lost a layer of skin. Then she moved to an armchair and lowered herself into it. It partially swallowed her up. ‘Please sit down, Miss Brown.’
‘Laura, please.’
‘How old are you, Laura?’ she asked.
‘I’m thirty-five next July.’
‘A crab?’
I looked at her with surprise. I did not take her for one who had an interest in the stars. ‘I am.’
‘Do you like to hide?’
‘I hope not,’ I replied.
I couldn’t get at her. Constance had got to me first and I didn’t know the rules. I didn’t have any weapons, I didn’t feel bright or sharp or whatever it was I suspected Constance wanted me to be. Constance was too strong, too rude, too used to bending the world to her will. I’d never been spoken to like this by anyone before. The normal rules of politesse clearly did not bother her.
She held up her hands. ‘It’s these,’ she said. ‘Severe osteoarthritis. They keep pussy-footing round the whole thing, so when the girls turn up – and it’s always girls – they don’t realize how much help I really need.’
‘And how much help do you need?’ I said.
She looked at me appreciatively. ‘I live alone,’ she said. ‘There is no significant or insignificant other. I can dress myself. At the moment. As long as the clothes are put together with zips, not lots of little buttons. I can turn on a kettle. Pour a cup. I can open a book, and I can read it. But it’s the neater motor mechanics I’m finding hard. It’s pull-on loafers for my feet these days. Spaghetti bolognese is a fucking disaster. I will probably never peel my own prawns or drink a bowl of soup in public again.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Thank you.’
‘Can you write?’ I asked.
Constance looked at me hawkishly. Then something in her face seemed to give way.
‘Shall I make us a cup of tea?’ I said.
*
She directed me to the kitchen, and I walked through to the back of the house, which opened out into a medium-sized, beautifully designed kitchen that looked onto a small courtyard garden lined with junior-sized fruit trees and large planters full of mint. I opened cupboard after cupboard until I found Constance’s mugs. Her collection belied any sense of elegance and power evident in the rest of the house. They were from the school of the tired velvet armchairs, faded mugs from Cadbury that had probably come with Easter eggs wedged inside them long ago, alongside SAVE THE CHILDREN, SAVE THE WHALE, and I ♥ BIRDWORLD, with an emu on the side who’d seen better days.
‘Are you picking the tea leaves too?’ Constance called.
‘Coming,’ I said, grabbing I ♥ BIRDWORLD.
I returned to the front room bearing her tea. ‘I’ll just put it on the side to cool down.’
She looked at it dubiously. Her hands sat in her lap, and I wondered how often she drank, or ate, in front of others. ‘I’m finishing a novel,’ she said. ‘It’ll probably be the last one I write.’ I felt unease pushing from the middle of my body like a black dove against my ribs. ‘I can type, but very slowly,’ she went on. ‘I hate computers. I prefer to write by hand. But my handwriting’s atrocious. So I’m in a bit of a bind.’
‘I see.’
‘I don’t get up early,’ she said. ‘So I wouldn’t expect you to come in before ten. I have coffee, then I write till one o’clock in the afternoon, stopping for lunch.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t exactly know how this will work.’
‘What’s your novel about?’ I said, and immediately regretted it. I saw it in her face; the displeasure and resignation fighting with the desire to tell me – or to try, at least.
‘Would you be interested in helping me?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And I wouldn’t ask a question like that again.’
She smiled, holding up her hands. ‘Aside from all this boring business, can you manage a diary?’
‘Yes,’ I said.