The Dictionary of Lost Words(53)

‘Don’t worry, lass,’ Mabel said. ‘Got a few weeks yet. Most people don’t notice what they don’t expect to see.’

Lizzie spoke for me, a measure of my fear apparent in her voice. ‘But if you can tell, Mabel …’

‘Ain’t no one ’ere with my particular – what should I call it – expertise.’

‘You have children?’ I could barely hear my own voice ask the question.

Mabel laughed, her blackened gums ugly and mocking. ‘I ain’t so stupid as that,’ she said. Then she lowered her voice even more. ‘There are ways not to ’ave ’em.’

Lizzie coughed and started picking up various objects on Mabel’s table, showing me one and then another and asking if I liked them. Her voice was louder than it needed to be.

Mabel held my gaze. Then, in a voice that carried to the flower stall and beyond, she said, ‘What can I interest you in, lass?’

I played along, picking up the unfinished figure of Taliesin and turning it over in my shaking hand. I barely saw it.

‘One of me best, that one. But it ain’t quite done,’ Mabel said, reaching for it. ‘Reckon I’ll ’ave it finished after lunch, if you want to come back.’

‘Time to go, Esme.’ Lizzie took my arm.

‘I’ll keep it tucked away so no one else buys it,’ Mabel said as we turned to leave.

I nodded. Mabel nodded back. Then Lizzie and I left the market without finishing the shopping.

‘Will you come in for tea?’ Lizzie asked when we got to Sunnyside. The senior assistants all worked a half-day on Saturday, and I’d often kept Lizzie company in the kitchen while I waited for Da.

‘Not today, Lizzie. I thought I’d go home and hang a few decorations as a surprise for Da.’

When I got home, I climbed the stairs to Da’s room and again stood in front of Lily’s mirror. It wasn’t my belly that Mabel had noticed; it was my face. I peered into the glass, trying to see what she had seen, but the face that stared back was as it had always been.

How was that possible? It must have changed year to year, and yet I could not see it. I looked away from the mirror then glanced back quickly, trying to catch a glimpse of myself as a stranger might. I saw a woman’s face, older than I expected, her eyes wide and brown and frightened. But I saw nothing that told me she was pregnant.

I went back downstairs and wrote Da a note. I was dress shopping, it said. I’d be home around three with pastries for afternoon tea.

I cycled back to the Covered Market. When I arrived, I was out of breath – more than usual. A familiar boy came to where I stood and offered to lean my bicycle against the nearest wall. He’d keep an eye on it, he said. His mother nodded from her stall, and I nodded back. Did she see something in my face? Is that why she told her boy to help? I looked in at the market – the clamour only added to the chaos in my head.

As I walked among the shops and stalls, I felt I was drawing every eye. I needed to act normally. I went from one stall to another, recalling Tilda and the others as they practised backstage; the rehearsal was never as convincing as the performance. I wondered if I was convincing anyone.

By the time I arrived at Mabel’s stall, my basket was full. I handed her an apple.

‘You need to eat more fruit, Mabel,’ I said. ‘Keep the catarrh out of your chest.’

She exaggerated her rotten smile so I could see the deficit of teeth. ‘I ain’t eaten an apple since I was a lass ’bout your age,’ she said.

I put the apple back in my basket and pulled out a ripe pear. She took it and pressed her thumb into the flesh. If she rejected it, there would be a bruise by the time I got it home.

But she didn’t reject it. ‘A treat indeed,’ she said, wrapping her gums around it and letting the juice run down her chin. She wiped it with the back of a rag-wrapped hand, removing days of grime from one small area of skin.

‘Mabel,’ I began, but the words wouldn’t come.

Mabel’s cracked lips softened as they sucked on the flesh of the pear. I felt myself flush, and the nausea I thought was over returned in a sickening wave that made me lean against the edge of Mabel’s crate.

‘That Lizzie won’t approve of what yer plannin’, ’ she said, her voice low.

It was a truth I’d been arguing with for days. Lizzie refused to hear me when I said I couldn’t have a child. The plainer my words, the more she would handle the crucifix around her neck. Like her faith, it was always there, hidden and quiet and personal. But in the past week, she hung onto it like it was the only thing keeping her from Hell.

It judged me, that crucifix, and I hated it. I imagined it twisting my words and whispering its translation in her ear. We were in some kind of tug of war, with Lizzie in the middle. It was not a contest I wanted to lose.

‘I reckon Mrs Smyth might still be in the trade,’ Mabel whispered, while picking up random objects as if to show me their worth. ‘She was an apprentice, so to speak, when I was in need. Be an old hag and good at it by now, I’d wager.’

A trembling began in my hands and worked its way along my limbs until my body was shivering with it.

‘Breathe normal, lass,’ Mabel said, holding my gaze with hers.

I held onto the crate and tried to stop taking the air in gulps, but the shivering continued.