The House with Nine Locks, page 8
It was a Saturday. Adelais had arranged everything with her father. He had promised to buy flowers and chocolates, and they were going to make a birthday breakfast as soon as Adelais’s mother appeared. Adelais got dressed early, fetched the coat from its hiding place under her bed and took it downstairs. The sun was shining outside and a welcoming smell of fresh coffee rose up to meet her.
She found her father sitting at the table, a vase of flowers in front of him, staring into space. He had combed his hair and shaved, and put on a clean shirt.
‘Is Mama up yet?’ Adelais whispered.
The coffee pot on the range was boiling over. She grabbed a tea towel and removed it from the heat.
‘Mama’s gone out.’
‘Out where?’
Her father looked at his hands. ‘Sister Angelika’s ill again. Mama’s gone to help out.’
Adelais had never laid eyes on Sister Angelika. She imagined she was old and sickly, but all she knew for sure was that when her mother went to visit her, she usually stayed away for hours. Sometimes Adelais couldn’t help hoping Sister Angelika would either get better or die.
‘Where is Sister Angelika? Where does she live?’
‘Molenberg, I think.’
Molenberg was less than three kilometres away.
‘When will she be back?’
Her father got up. ‘She didn’t say.’
He gave the Virgin Mary an unfriendly glance and left the kitchen without waiting for coffee. Adelais heard the door of his workshop close behind him. She wished she had come down earlier. That way her mother would have seen the coat. She could have worn it to Sister Angelika’s. Even if she did have to spend most of her birthday visiting a sick person, at least she would have known about the present and what it meant.
Adelais put the coat on the table and waited for her mother to come back. She read an old newspaper and a magazine that she found in the kitchen drawer. In the magazine she read that an American film star called Cyd Charisse had insured her legs for $5 million, and that she had suffered from polio as a child. A photograph showed her dancing with Fred Astaire in a dress slit open to the waist.
Adelais’s mother did not return that morning, or that afternoon. It was not until the following morning that Adelais finally found her.
‘The coat’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘But you can’t spend this kind of money on me.’
From her tone, it was obvious she meant it. Adelais found herself explaining that the coat was second-hand, that it hadn’t cost very much at all, that you could still make out the stain on the lining, that it was only the buttons that were new: things that were all true, but which she had never planned to say.
Her mother smiled, the way people smiled when they were being brave, and said that in that case, it was a wonderful gift. All the same, when Adelais thought about it, what she mostly felt was guilty, as if the coat had been stolen.
‘Where was your mother going yesterday?’ Saskia said.
They were sitting in the gloom of the Eldorado on Veldstraat, watching High Society with subtitles.
‘She was visiting a sick nun in Molenberg.’
They were at the interval. An usherette in a gold-braided jacket was selling cigarettes and sweets from a tray. Being a Sunday matinee – tickets half-price – business was slow.
Saskia offered Adelais one of the sugared almonds she had brought from home. ‘I meant yesterday morning.’
‘So did I. Why, did you see her?’
Saskia sucked noisily on her sweet. ‘Yes, but not in Molenberg. I saw her at the railway station. We were meeting my aunt.’
‘The Sint-Pieters railway station?’
It would have been a sensible question, if there had been more than one station in the city.
‘I saw her get on a train to Brussels. Going that way, at any rate.’
‘It must have been someone else.’
Saskia shook her head. ‘No. She was dressed like she was going to Mass. I said to my papa, “Look, there’s Mrs de Wolf,” and he said, “So it is.” We would have said hello, but, well …’
‘Well what?’
Saskia shrugged. ‘She didn’t look like she wanted to talk.’
The lights went down again. On the screen, Grace Kelly was walking around a swimming pool in a white swimsuit. Her legs looked as nice as Cyd Charisse’s, if not as long.
‘What time was this?’ Adelais whispered.
‘About nine o’clock. I would have stayed in bed, but it was sunny and I was bored.’
Adelais tried to focus on the film. Her mother must have changed her mind about visiting Sister Angelika and gone to Brussels instead, or maybe her father had misheard. This was the most likely explanation, Adelais decided, even if, as far as she knew, no one in the family had set foot in the Belgian capital for years – not since her father’s job with the clock collector, and the night he had returned to Sint-Amandsberg, filthy and starved like a prisoner.
Saskia plucked another sugared almond from the bag. ‘Wasn’t it your mother’s birthday yesterday?’
Adelais’s sweet was still in her hand. ‘Yes.’
‘And she didn’t tell you she was going to Brussels?’
‘I didn’t see her.’
‘When did she get back then?’
‘Late.’
‘See? If she’d only gone to Molenberg, she’d have been back in no time.’
Adelais found she did not want to talk about her mother any more, but Saskia had a way of getting ahead of her that made it seem pointless to call a halt.
Saskia settled deeper into her seat. ‘It’s suspicious, isn’t it?’ She was holding a sugared almond between her incisors, so that she sounded like she was drunk.
‘What do you mean?’
Someone behind them went shush.
Saskia bit the almond and shrugged. ‘You said things were funny at home.’
Music struck up. Now Grace Kelly was on a yacht, singing about love with Bing Crosby. Adelais pretended to listen. A minute ago, there had simply been a miscommunication. Now her mother’s birthday absence was connected to everything that frightened her, everything in the past few years that had changed for the worse.
After a couple of minutes, Saskia leaned over. ‘You know what we have to do?’
‘What?’
‘Follow her. Next time she says she’s going to Molenberg to visit this nun.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘It’s the only way. You want to know, don’t you?’
‘It’s not … She’d see me.’
Saskia nodded. ‘That’s why I’d have to do it. She wouldn’t recognise me, not if I wore sunglasses and a hat. It might be fun.’
The person behind them went shush again, louder. This time Adelais was glad. Saskia was being ridiculous, letting her imagination run away with her. Maybe in her family it would be all right to sneak around after her mother or father, but in any normal family, in Adelais’s family, it would have been wrong, simply wrong. If they hadn’t been in the cinema, she would have said so. Instead she let the matter drop, hoping that by the time the credits rolled they would both have forgotten about it.
‘How’s Sister Angelika? Is she going to get better?’
Adelais had not been meaning to ask the question. It had slipped out, like a little fish darting between her fingers. She had been lying in bed with the covers up to her chin waiting to go to sleep, when her mother had looked in to say goodnight. It had clouded over in the afternoon and now raindrops were tapping against the windowsill.
‘Sister Angelika?’
Adelais nodded. ‘You went to see her yesterday.’
‘How did you—’
‘Papa told me.’
Adelais’s mother reached down and stroked her hair. Adelais could not see her face. ‘She’s fine. You don’t have to worry about her.’
‘Is she in hospital?’
‘No. She’s at home.’
Adelais shut her eyes. ‘In Molenberg?’
‘Yes,’ her mother said. ‘In Molenberg.’
With that, she kissed Adelais on the forehead and closed the door.
THIRTEEN
On the Saturday after St Nicolas, Adelais climbed onto the Netley and cycled as fast as she could to the telephone box at the corner of Schoolstraat. There hadn’t been time to dress properly or brush her hair. She had thrown a coat across her shoulders and gone out as she was, her feet bare inside her shoes. It was not yet nine o’clock and the streets were quiet. She crossed the main road without stopping.
The telephone box was occupied. A woman in a striped cloche hat was holding the receiver in one hand and a small dog in the other. She saw Adelais, took in the stick and the pyjamas, and hastily finished her call.
It was Saskia who answered.
‘Mama’s gone out,’ Adelais was still out of breath. ‘She was dressed like she does for Mass.’
Saskia yawned. ‘Is it Sunday?’
‘It’s Saturday. She had on the coat and everything.’
‘The coat?’
‘The new one.’
‘I thought it wasn’t new.’
‘As good as.’
‘Where was she going then?’
‘That’s the point. To Sister Angelika again. She left ten minutes ago.’
There was a long pause on the line. Adelais heard the sound of pages turning – the pages of a magazine. As far as Saskia was concerned, the subject of Mrs de Wolf and her secret excursions was no longer exciting, it seemed.
‘What are you going to do?’ she said finally.
Adelais began to shiver. The woman with the dog and the cloche hat had hurried away because she thought Adelais was mad. Standing outside a telephone box in a coat and pyjamas was the kind of thing mad people did. ‘Nothing, I just thought … It doesn’t matter. Goodbye.’
‘You don’t want me to follow her? There’s a train leaving for Brussels in … twenty-two minutes. I could make that.’
Saskia had been flicking through the pages of the railway timetable.
‘Yes. Yes, go.’
‘All right. If you’re sure you want me to.’
Adelais wasn’t sure. She didn’t like being kept in the dark. It was like being shut out, and that was what she hated most of all.
‘I just don’t want you to blame me,’ Saskia said.
‘Blame you?’
‘It’s something Mariëtte said.’
Mariëtte was the second oldest Helsen daughter. Saskia said she was the prettiest and had always enjoyed the widest choice of suitors. It hadn’t stopped her choosing badly.
‘What did she say?’
‘She said once you know something, you can’t go back to not knowing it. And sometimes you wish you could.’
Aux Quatre Vents was quiet for a Saturday. Hendryck the barman put on the jukebox and hummed along as he swept the floor, the limp sliver of a cigarette between his lips.
Once, years ago, someone had told Hendryck that he resembled Clark Gable. He had been trying to capitalise ever since. He had slicked hair and a Rhett Butler moustache – and his own teeth, which put him one up against the original. On the other hand, he was wiry and cave-chested, and had a bald spot that was almost as big as a monk’s. Still, he had old-fashioned manners which he had learned working in the hotel trade, and a knowing smile for every female customer who walked in the place. When he talked to Adelais, which was not often, it was usually about some film they had seen. Hendryck loved films – all kinds of films, even the French ones they showed at the Savoy, and the German comedies that played at the Ideal.
‘Did you know, Grace Kelly’s films are banned in Monaco?’ He had already seen High Society twice. ‘Her Prince Charming’s just banned the lot of them.’
‘Prince Rainier? Why?’ Adelais was behind the cash desk, doodling and watching the clock. She had promised to call Saskia at six. Every time she thought about it, the knot in her stomach tightened.
‘I suppose he doesn’t like the idea of the common folk gawping at his wife. Either that or her leading men make him jealous.’ Hendryck chuckled. ‘I mean, Cary Grant? Next to him, Rainier looks like a bus conductor.’
The record changed on the jukebox. A string orchestra struck up a sentimental tune. As he swept, Hendryck’s footsteps began marking out a rhythmical pattern across the dance floor.
‘What do people do in Monaco?’ Adelais said.
‘Show off and lose money at the casino. Monaco only exists because rich Frenchmen want somewhere to hide their money. It’s one huge piggy bank.’
Adelais had a piggy bank, except that hers was a China tabby cat, lying on its side with one eye open. At that precise moment, it contained thirteen francs and seven cents.
‘Who are they hiding it from?’
‘Tax collectors, of course.’
Adelais had read about tax collectors in the Bible. In St Luke, they were the ones who beat their breasts and were humble before God. ‘What about rich Belgians? Where do they hide their money?’
‘Don’t you know? That’s what Luxembourg’s for.’
‘Have you been there?’
Hendryck laughed. ‘Of course. I have millions in a numbered account. I only work here for fun.’
Adelais watched him dance on with his broom. In spite of his wiry frame and his bald patch, he looked quite graceful. ‘Is that a waltz?’ she said.
‘Can’t you tell? Three beats to the bar.’
‘I don’t know about dances.’
‘You should learn. Dancing takes you to another world, if you do it right.’
Adelais looked at the clock again. It was dark outside, but there were still twenty minutes to go. ‘I’d like that,’ she said.
Hendryck stopped sweeping for a moment and fixed her with a stare. ‘If you can put one foot in front of another, mon amie, you can learn to dance.’
Adelais called from the telephone box at the end of the Kongostraat. The light inside the box was dim. Adelais could hardly make out the numbers on the dial. The phone at the other end rang and rang, but nobody answered.
The wind blew litter along the deserted pavement. People said the docks were a bad area, but Adelais had never seen any trouble, except drunks getting into arguments with each other. All the same, she felt vulnerable, lit up inside a glass box, like a mannequin in a department-store window. She began to wish she had called from the bar.
She waited five minutes and tried again. Still nobody answered. She did not want to go home yet. She wanted to know what had happened. The thought of going to bed without hearing from Saskia was unbearable.
She decided to wait a little longer at the bar. Her hand was on the handle of the folding doors, when she heard rapid footsteps approaching. Someone rapped on the glass, making her jump.
‘There you are. I thought it was you.’ It was Saskia, wearing a beret and a raincoat, her face a pale yellow oval.
‘You scared me,’ Adelais said.
Saskia cupped her ear against the glass. ‘What?’
Adelais grabbed her stick and went outside. Saskia had never come down to the bar before. Adelais didn’t remember telling her where it was.
‘There’s such a thing as a telephone book,’ Saskia said. ‘Anyway, I didn’t want Pa listening in. I don’t think he’d be very happy with me.’
‘Your pa isn’t in. Nobody’s answering.’
Saskia shrugged. ‘They must have gone out to dinner. Talking of which, I’m starving.’
They found a kiosk on the Hageland Quay. Saskia bought blood sausage and chips and sat with Adelais under the plane trees, eating out of a paper bag. Adelais wasn’t hungry.
‘I didn’t recognise her at first. That coat’s very smart, and she’s definitely lost weight. It was the hat that gave her away. She needs a new one.’
‘Where was she?’
‘On the platform. It was busy. I wouldn’t have seen her if she hadn’t walked right past me.’
‘She took a train?’
‘Same one as last time.’ It was cold enough that Saskia’s breath made clouds in the air. Adelais’s brace felt cold and heavy around her leg. ‘There were stops at Aalst and some other place. I was terrified she was going to get off before Brussels. I got off the train both times, just to be sure I hadn’t missed her.’
‘She didn’t see you?’
‘I stayed one carriage back the whole way. It was harder once we got off the train. Not so much cover.’
Adelais began to feel sick. It had to be the smell of the blood sausage, or the stale fat in the fryer, mingling with the rank water of the canal. Once you know, you can’t go back to not knowing.
‘Where did she go?’
‘She bought flowers in the station, a winter bouquet. You know the ones: red leaves and berries, and little white flowers. I suppose it was a gift for someone.’ Saskia held a chip upright between finger and thumb, as if unsure if it was suitable for eating. ‘I was a bit surprised at that.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to buy flowers for sick people?’
‘Yes.’ Saskia bit the chip in half. ‘I was more expecting her to be on the receiving end.’ She held out the bag.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Still, my pa says anything goes these days. You can buy flowers for a man and it’s not odd any more. They do it in Spain, and Russia. Of course, it’s always all right when it’s a woman.’
