Demo (16 page)

Well, Julian, what d'you think? Shall we stay? Hmm? What's your opinion? Nothing to say for yourself ? What, nothing at all! Lettuce worked its soporific magic, has it? Mr McGregor will catch you, if you're not careful. She waggled it till its ears flopped from side to side. If you're not very, very careful. She set the toy down on top of the laptop. Look after this for me, will you. I won't be long.

When Laetitia went in, her mother was sitting with her feet tucked under her on the sofa, whisky glass in one hand. Smoking!

Since when did you start smoking, Mother?

Since I was nineteen actually, darling. If you want to know. Her mother was staring at her with something close to defiance, chin up, looking her straight in the eye. If it's any of your business. She leant forward and flicked a column of ash into a cup on the table in front of her. A china cup! It looked like one of her wedding china sets, the one from Nanny Rosenthal. A strand of her mother's hair dipped in her whisky glass as she pulled herself upright. She took it out and sucked it. It hung like a rat's tail when she let it go, a darker shade of dark gold than the rest, and she tilted her head back to look at Laetitia, waiting for her to say something. Daring her.

Laetitia sat in the armchair nearest the door and leaned forward. My room is lovely, Mother. Thank you. It's not what I was expecting.

Her mother looked at her, took a swig of whisky. Drew on her cigarette. Said nothing.

How did you manage to get all that done in such a short time? The bathroom too. It must have taken a humungous amount of organization. Must have cost you a fortune.

Her mother shifted her buttocks on the sofa, remained silent. Her eyes were down, staring into her glass.

At last she looked up and faced Laetitia. I do try, you know.

I know, Mother, I know. I'm sorry. It was such a shock to come home and discover my room had been translated into a bathroom.

Do you really like your new room?

Laetitia studied her mother's face. The little pads under her eyes were pink and puffy. She'd been crying. Yes, Mummy, I really do like it. Thank you. And I love the laptop.

She blew out through her nose. That was your father's idea.

Daddy? I thought you said he wasn't involved.

How could I have afforded to do all that on my own? On my income? Her voice was raised now and her neck was flushed and mottled. How could I possibly —

OK, Mother, OK. Look, I
really, really
like it. I love the colour. And the desk. The bookshelves. And thank you for arranging all my books and my clothes.

Oh, I didn't do that, dear; the removal firm did.

You got a removal firm in to move my things from
my
room to one a few yards along the landing?

Well, the designer wouldn't do it. We
were
on a tight schedule, you know.

God, Mother…

Laetitia could see her teeter on the edge of taking umbrage again. Instead she set her glass on the table, stubbed her cigarette out in the cup, turned to Laetitia and attempted a smile.

I am so glad you like the room, darling. I'm hugely relieved. What about the trunk? Do you like it too? That
was
my idea.

What trunk?

Laetitia's trunk.

What?

Laetitia. Your namesake, Laetitia. Your father's great-greataunt on his mother's side.

What are you talking about, Mother?

Your father
must
have told you about
her
. Surely. The great free thinker in the family? The great Free Radical? Her mother was waving her hands out from the centre of her chest, as if presenting the woman on stage. The Great-
great
GREAT Aunt Laetitia!

No, he hasn't. Laetitia didn't want to get into what was clearly another fertile region of marital discord.

And I didn't see a trunk. It crossed her mind that her mother might have lost the plot completely; been tipped over the edge by whisky and a surfeit of interior decorating.

Go and take another look. It's beside the futon. There's a lamp on it. It's just the right height for a bedside table when the futon's down. Oh, and you'll find your bedding in the cupboard opposite your room.

Right.

Her mother was reaching for the whisky bottle again, as Laetitia went out.

It was in the corner next to the futon as her mother had said, smaller than the picture conjured up for Laetitia by the word ‘trunk'. She'd imagined some great curved-top chest with metal bands running across it and big studs and a huge hasp at the front with an ancient padlock. Like a pirate's treasure chest, sitting at the bottom of the ocean, encrusted with barnacles. But this was small. Laetitia took the lamp off and
set it on the floor. It had a flat top. And it seemed to be made of leather, not wood. More of a suitcase really, with thicker leather corners riveted on. Had she seen it before? A vague memory teased at the back of her mind. She kneeled and lifted it out of the corner onto the futon. It was heavy for its size. Full of bricks maybe. Not a body anyway; it was too small for a body. Laetitia had a quick flash of a severed head – Great-great whatever Aunt Laetitia's head – locked away in her trunk for a hundred years, green and mouldering with staring eyes. A grisly discovery.
A twenty-five-year-old West London woman yesterday made a grisly discovery in her newly decorated bedroom. Her mother, under heavy sedation, said: ‘We had no idea Aunt Laetitia was in the trunk. We thought she was in the family vault.' A forensic anthropologist will today examine the remains to rule out foul play.
She used the old trick her father had taught her to banish horrible visions and nightmares: make a funny story of it. Implicate Mother. The dead hare, blood seeping from the fur on its side.

Laetitia shifted the cushions out of the way and put her hands on top of the trunk. In the light now, she could see the letters L. G. almost rubbed off. Laetitia. Laetitia what? What did the G stand for? She'd have to ask Daddy. She ran her hands over it. It felt almost warm to touch. Not like something hauled up from the crypt. The attic! That's where she'd seen it. The attic at Wellwood, in the far corner; the pile of boxes and suitcases and things near the grimy skylight. Strange she'd never thought to look in it then. But then her aim had always been to rummage quickly in the dressing-up box, choose her costume and get the hell back down the steps, before they got her. Whoever
they
were. The
they
that lurked in the attic and the barn and all the other dim spidery places round the house. And actually, once her father had overruled her mother and brought the dressing-up box down to the
nursery, she never ventured up there again. Not that she could remember.

There were two catches on the front of the trunk, brass apparently. A keyhole under each, also brass. No key as far as she could see. She touched the catch on the left, felt about for a way to release it. There was no give. The one on the right looked identical. She traced the edges of it, eased her finger-nail underneath, pressed the brass circle that surrounded the keyhole. Nothing. Had her mother kept the key? A way to force Laetitia to ask for it?
Oh, I'm terribly sorry, darling. How silly of me. Here it is in the ice bucket.
She wouldn't put it past her. Her knees were getting sore on the wooden floor. She pushed the trunk over on the seat of the futon and sat next to it. Then she saw them. Fixed to the side with masking tape, two small keys on a brass key ring with some kind of round fob the size of a fifty-pence piece.

Sorry, Mother.

The tape came off easily, left a faint scuff on the leather surface. She scratched at it with her nail to remove any sticky residue, rubbed her fingers together till the little pellets of gum dropped off. Two keys. She looked at them lying in her palm. And some sort of medallion. With writing round the edge. Pretty well rubbed smooth, but perhaps decipherable. Later. One key was dulled brass with dark pockmarks, the top formed like a three-leafed plant. Trifolium. Trifoliate. A clover leaf. Or a shamrock? The ring went through a hole in the middle leaf. She turned it over and examined the other; it was made of some kind of grey metal, had a plain flat round head with a rim like a coin, and a soldered loop at the top for the key ring. Two different keys. One for the left lock and one for the right? She laid them side by side on her palm. No, the tiny shafts and the ends looked the same, cut for identical locks. Forged. How were keys made in the late great Laetitia's day?
Filed by hand, most likely. By the blacksmith. Or the locksmith. Some kind of smith anyway. Laetitia, Laetitia. So, that was where her name had come from. Not plucked after all from
Tatler
's list of the most popular girls' names in 1977. Hardly
popular
, darling.
Distinguished.
What only the
best
families were calling their female sprogs. Two other Laetitias in her year at school; one in the year above. The four Letties. Or the four Titties, depending on whose gang you were in. None of them liked the name. Though it was better than some. Lalage, the babbling brook. Drusilla, for God's sake! Portia. Better than all the Dianas and Fionas. The night Laetitia Latimer was expelled, Mary Underwood singing:
Last night there were four Titties; tonight there'll be but three…
Jokes about three-cupped bras.

She got up, set the keys on the glass desk, looked at her CD player. It was jammed into the second shelf, the one set high enough to accommodate her art books. The turquoise LED numbers pulsed into life when she switched on the power. She ran a nail along the edges of her CDs. God, alphabetical order here too. By composer for the classical stuff; by band or artist for the pop. She pulled out Bach's Cello Suites and stuck it on. The sombre bowing swelled into the room, lapped at the edges of the furniture, sloshed about in the corners. Fit accompaniment, Laetitia. She picked up the keys, went back to the trunk and knelt in front of it.

The fancy one, the clover leaf, was the one she tried first. She fitted the key into the left-hand lock. There was some movement, but rusty, a scraping sound; it didn't give. Not even when she wiggled it minutely, ear to the trunk like a safe breaker. Plangent notes rained down on her. She took out the key, looked at it, fitted it in the other lock. The same. It moved, but only slightly, a scratchy noise. Turning harder could break it. The mechanism might be freed by some WD40,
if there was any in the house. Or olive oil,
faute de mieux
. But this would mean getting tied up with Mother again. The Gordian knot.

She sat back on her heels and let the cello work her over like a Swedish massage. Her hair-shirt irritation was gone but the back of her neck had grown stiff. She rolled her head in time to the
Allemande
. Reached round and palpated her neck when the
Courante
took off; played the top of her spine like a piano. Did some stretches to the slow
Sarabande
, sat back down on her heels. Breathed.

The other key. The plain one. Dangling at the moment from the right-hand lock. She removed the clover key, inserted the plain round one. The mechanism gave in one smooth click and the catch flew open. Was this some fairy-tale test of character? Deep curtsies from Bach's music, and the quick, light steps ran rings round her. She put the key in the other lock; its catch gave way too, with a mousetrap spring. You dancer! As Danny Kilkenny was wont to say. Jiggety jig! The plain one does it. The hard-working, plain girl, dressed in grey, kind to her father and the crone at the door. The fancy girl, haughty and vain, a bodkin in her poor father's heart. Laetitia pulled out the key, hooked her forefinger through the ring, held it up and examined the two keys hanging together. They looked identical at the business end. No discernible difference. She let them drop with a noisy jingle onto the desk beside the laptop. A mystery.

OK. The lid ought to open now. So what was stopping her? Her hands were resting on the leather top on either side of the letters. L. G. L. She traced it with her finger. G. The letters were old-fashioned as well as faded, a defunct typeface. Like nineteenth-century newspapers. Like
The Times
reporting on the Boer War, or some such distant event, when the metal letters came from a compositor's tray and were set in rows to
make up the words for printing. L. G. Laetitia. Laetitia what? Garbo, Gulbenkian, Gardenia? Gilgamesh, Gilfeather, Ghirlandaio? Gabriel, Golightly, Gaddafi? Geranium, Geronimo, Guerlain? Maybe just plain George? Laetitia George. Gordon, Godard, Grant. Gramsci… That would certainly consign her to black sheep status in the family. Laetitia Gramsci. No, not Gramsci. It lacked euphony. Letisha Gramshee. Sounded slurred. As if a drunk were saying it. Her mother after a session with the decanter. Aunt Laetitia would certainly have a more harmonious name. Bound to. She moved her hands down to the released catches; pinged them twice; pulled them down till they almost clicked home again. Almost.

Her thumbs could just about squeeze in under the edge of the lid. Slowly she eased it up. It was heavy. Heavier than it ought to be if it were only leather. The inside of the lid felt soft. Velvet? She peered in through the crack. It was dark in there. But there was nothing shaped like a severed head or mutilated limbs, as far as she could see. No bones. She breathed in deeply. A smell of old leather and older paper hit her. No rotting flesh. She opened the lid fully till it leant against the back of the futon.

Oh.

There was hardly anything there at all. A few papers. So how come it felt so heavy? She put her hand in and riffled through the things at the bottom. Just some old papers, fragile and yellowing. A small piece stuck to her nail with static electricity. She peered at it, sat up on the futon beside the trunk. Nothing. There was nothing on it. Fly away, Peter. She waved her hand and the fragment fluttered down behind the bed. There was a small book with a leather cover, smooth to touch. She took it out and set it on the seat beside her. Some envelopes. She picked one up and felt inside. A letter in this one. In them all, by the looks of things. Some quite fat.