When I woke up, Connie was standing over me. The light outside had faded to dusk, and the tentative, concerned expression on her face surprised me. ‘Ah, she’s awake,’ she said. ‘Deborah’s here.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve been asleep for three hours.’
I sat bolt upright. ‘Three hours?’
‘You were under an enchantment,’ said Connie. ‘Or periods do that to you. I can never sleep like that any more. The young are so lucky.’
‘Oh, god,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be silly. Pizzas don’t take long. Come and meet Deb.’
*
I followed Connie into the front room. Deborah was standing by the mantelpiece. She was short, in her sixties, I thought, and her bright hard eyes gave little away. She was wearing a huge grey shawl, and her face was subservient to a pair of large green-framed glasses. Her hair was a tufty crop, sympathetically tinted, and she had a lot of expensive-looking perspex jewellery in assorted abstract shapes which hung round her neck and clicked on her fingers. She looked like an owl and was round like one too.
‘Deb, this is Laura. She’s my angel,’ said Connie.
‘Hello, Deborah,’ I said, moving towards her. I was still groggy, but realized I would have to think on my feet. ‘I’m Laura.’ I shook her hand.
‘The new assistant,’ said Deborah, looking up at me with a not particularly friendly smile. ‘Are you an angel, or a devil?’
‘Ignore her, Laura,’ said Connie.
Deborah shook my hand and assayed my face closely. ‘Would both of you like a glass of champagne?’ I said.
‘Yes, please,’ said Connie.
‘No wonder Con likes you. Go on then,’ said Deborah. ‘Why not?’
I left them and went to the kitchen to pour the champagne. I took a few deep breaths, leaning on the kitchen counter, and when I came back Deborah was still by the mantelpiece, unwinding the shawl from her body. ‘It’s such a giant thing!’ she said, billowing it out. ‘Like a bloody picnic blanket. Davy bought it for my birthday. The dog’ll only cover it in hairs.’ She folded it in a neat rectangle on the side of the sofa. Connie excused herself and the door to the understairs loo clicked shut.
‘How is she, then?’ Deborah said to me. ‘Hasn’t frightened you off yet?’
I laughed. ‘Not at all. I love working for Connie. I’m very lucky.’
‘Connie thinks she’s the lucky one,’ said Deborah, sitting down with her glass of champagne. ‘The previous one only lasted a week, so you definitely have the magic touch.’
‘The previous one?’ I said.
Deborah gave me a bland smile. I felt embarrassed, that I should be so naive to think I was the first of my kind, that because Laura’s life had begun the moment I crossed her threshold, so had Connie’s. Connie’s life had been lived many times over compared to mine, and Deborah’s words made me uneasy. I pictured a ghostly line of assistants past, lured in, all failing to live up to some undefined, impossible task.
‘Oh well,’ said Deborah with a wave of her hand. ‘You’re here and Con likes you. That’s all that matters. How did you find out about the position?’
My heart began to pound. ‘I was sent here by my recruitment agency,’ I said.
‘Ah, yes. My assistant, Rebecca, was dealing with them.’
‘They said Connie needed some help around the house and with her work,’ I said quickly, in the hope she wouldn’t ask me what they were called, knowing there was one flimsy Gmail account between me and a police cell. The thought of not just having to explain my lies, but to push the spectre of my mother into the laps of these women, was too much to bear.
‘It’s so exciting that Connie’s writing a new novel,’ I said, desperate to change the course of our conversation. ‘After all this time.’
‘I know,’ said Deborah, frowning. ‘But her hands aren’t good.’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ I said. Deborah looked at me sharply. ‘She says it’s about responsibility.’
Connie appeared again at the door. ‘What’s about responsibility?’
‘The Mercurial, apparently,’ said Deborah. ‘According to your angel.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Connie, sitting back down in her old armchair, as if she wasn’t about to break a thirty-year hiatus from publishing a word. ‘I told Laura that it’s about responsibility,’ she went on. ‘But that’s not all of it. I want to tell you the plot, Deb. OK?’
‘OK,’ said Deborah.
‘There’s a woman. There’s always a woman,’ said Connie, giving Deborah a wry look. ‘She’s called Margaret Gillespie.’
‘Good name,’ said Deborah, taking a judicious swig of champagne.
‘It’s London, 1626,’ said Connie. ‘Margaret’s husband is a devout Calvinist Puritan, so she sails with him to Massachusetts on a ship with their daughter, Christina. They join a colony there called Peabody. It’s a real place. But Margaret’s husband dies, and disease affects the entire colony, killing nearly half of it. She survives, as does Christina. Their life is hard. I wanted . . . dirt,’ Connie said, folding her arms, and tucking her hands away, even as she expanded upon her inner world. ‘They shouldn’t be there in the first place, of course. But the man who drove them there is gone and they don’t have the means to return. I wanted to write about what it means to love someone at the cost of yourself. Whether it’s a good thing. Whether it’s the point of everything. I think that propensity sometimes cripples Margaret. Love as difficulty. Now I don’t want to be predictable, and people will say I’m being predictable, but there’s an obnoxious presence.’
‘An obnoxious presence?’ I repeated.
‘The obstacle,’ said Connie. Her eyes were shining. ‘He’s a brute, under his guise of religious conviction. Davy Roper, Christina’s new husband.’
‘Davy?’ said Deborah. ‘That’s my son’s name, Con.’
‘I know,’ said Connie equably. ‘I liked it. You don’t mind?’
‘No, I suppose not,’ said Deborah, with a weariness in her voice that suggested she was quite used to this kind of thing.
‘Davy is a bomb for Margaret and Christina,’ Connie went on. ‘He’s a junior member of the colony elders, but he’s on the up. Behind closed doors, he beats and rapes Christina. He even tries to beat Margaret to keep her in line, because she doesn’t like the fact that he married her daughter. Margaret’s beginning to bridle at her isolated status as an unprotected widow, and she and Davy often lock horns. She always argues with her daughter about Davy. She wants Christina to leave him, but Christina won’t do it. Because Davy’s their veneer of respectability. Then he starts spreading rumours about Margaret, and people become suspicious.’
‘Why do they believe him?’ I said.
Connie looked at me. ‘Why would they not? He’s one of the authorities. He’s a man. Margaret’s an outsider. And she’s a good cook,’ Connie went on. ‘Which means she’s good with herbs. So, Davy starts with his rhetoric. How did her husband really die? he asks the community. How did all the others in the colony really die? What are all those bits of dried bark and mushroom hanging in Margaret’s cabin? Is she flirting with the name of witch?’ Connie paused, taking a breath. ‘When Christina becomes pregnant,’ she said, ‘Margaret offers to her that she can get rid of the child if she doesn’t want it to have a life like they have under Davy. Christina decides she does not want the child. Margaret tries to help her. And then it all goes wrong.’