Deborah Crombie - Necessary as Blood

A retired academic with no children of her own, Erika had taken a special interest in Toby and Kit, and the boys considered her family-a courtesy grandmother. They saw Erika, in fact, much more often than they saw Gemma’s or Duncan’s parents. Toby’s dad, Rob, had walked out on Gemma when Toby was an infant, and Rob’s parents had cut off all contact, thereby helping their son avoid paying maintenance for Toby. Good riddance, as far as Gemma was concerned.

And as for Kit, his maternal grandparents had proved even more difficult. After a failed attempt to gain custody, they were allowed only supervised visits with Kit, and so had stopped making any effort to see their grandson. Kit’s relationship with his grandmother had been unpleasant at best, abusive at worst, and if he missed his grandfather, he never said. He had quickly become attached to Duncan’s parents, and was fond of Gemma’s, but his relationship with Erika was special. They were in many ways kindred spirits, despite the differences in age and background.

When they reached the house in Arundel Gardens and rang the bell, Erika answered immediately, beaming at them and brushing back the snow white hair escaping from its usual twist. She wore a flowered pinny and had a smudge of something on her cheek. “Ah, kitchen help,” she said. “What good timing.”

“Are you making something for us?” Toby asked as they followed her into the hall.

“No. I’m having a guest for dinner, and the entrée must be something very French. It’s too hot to use the cooker, so I’m making a seafood salad, and I thought Kit could help me with the calamari.”

“What’s calamari?” said Toby.

Kit wiggled his fingers at him. “Squid.”

“Ooh, yuck,” Toby pronounced, but the smell of garlic, lemon, and fresh herbs coming from the kitchen made Gemma’s mouth water.

“I can do squid,” Kit added with relish. “You disembowel them.”

Laughing, Erika said, “Well, before you start your operation, I have a little treat for you both, just some things I picked up at the market yesterday.” From a shelf, she fished an antique double-decker bus for Toby, and for Kit, a book, its cover stained and musty. Looking over Kit’s shoulder as he opened it, Gemma saw that it was filled with beautifully detailed, colored zoological drawings. Kit exclaimed in delight and leaned down to kiss Erika’s cheek.

“It’s brilliant,” he said. “Where did you find it?”

“One of the stalls on Portobello Road itself. Lucky this one didn’t fall into the hands of the print dealers,” Erika added, touching a finger to the book. Many old, and sometimes rare, editions containing botanical or zoological drawings were bought in job lots by the print dealers, who cut them from the books and matted them to sell individually.

“These are lovely, Erika,” said Gemma, “but you’re spoiling the boys.” For a moment she regretted leaving them, even for the few minutes it would take her to visit Charlotte at Betty Howard’s-she had little enough time with Kit and Toby as it was. But she couldn’t get little Charlotte Malik’s face out of her mind, and she had made Charlotte a promise that she had to keep.

“And who better to do that?” Erika countered with a twinkle. “When I get fish gutting in return?”

“You’re very cheerful today.” Gemma eyed her affectionately. “You said your menu had to be French-would your guest by chance be French, as well?”

“A little something for my friend Henri, yes,” Erika admitted, smiling. “Now, if you will run your errand, I’ll make tea in the garden when you come back. And I think you promised ice cream? Perhaps you could pick some up.”

Leaving the boys in the kitchen, she walked Gemma to the door. “This is very sad, about the little girl,” she said quietly. Gemma had told her a bit of Charlotte’s story over the phone. “But children are very resilient, and she is in good hands.”

“Erika…” Gemma paused on the threshold. “Do you think a child that young understands what death means? If she should ask me…”

“Yes, that might be difficult. You don’t know her references. Were her parents religious?”

“I don’t know.” Gemma considered what she’d been told about Naz and Sandra, and what she’d seen in their house. “I’m inclined to think not.”

“Then I think I would wait and see how she makes sense of it. She might surprise you.”

Gemma turned into Portobello Road at Elgin Crescent, stopping a moment to look up the hill. The street, baking in the late-afternoon heat, seemed alien in its Sunday-afternoon emptiness. The arcades were shuttered, the stalls down, and the pubs seemed to be doing only desultory business. Even her friend Otto’s venerable café in Elgin Crescent was closed, it being his rule that Sunday afternoons were reserved for time with his daughters.

There was something about the deserted landscape that appealed to Gemma; for a moment she felt as if she owned the street, in all its cheerful and slightly Mediterranean tattiness.

She turned and walked north, down the hill, and turned into Westbourne Park Road. Betty Howard and her son, Wesley, lived in the same flat Betty’s parents had first occupied in 1959, fresh off the boat from Trinidad. Betty and her husband, Colin, had bought it from the slum landlords who had once owned it, and had brought up their six children in it. But Colin had passed away a few years ago from an early heart attack, and Wesley’s five older sisters were grown and gone.

Wesley liked to tease his mother, saying he only stayed because he couldn’t afford the rent on his own place. But while that was as true for Wes as it was for any young person in London, Gemma knew that he worried about his mum and didn’t like the idea of leaving her on her own.

Reaching Betty’s building, she pressed the buzzer for the top-floor flat, and when the door released, climbed the stairs. Betty opened the door just as Gemma reached it, holding her finger to her lips.

“She’s asleep, poor love,” Betty said quietly, giving Gemma a quick hug. She wore her usual bright headscarf, today in turquoise, with just a little graying hair showing against her dark skin. “It was the oddest thing,” she went on as she led Gemma into the sitting room. “When Mrs. Silverman left, the little thing, she cried and cried. Not even Wesley could comfort her. Maybe she’s not used to our dark faces.

“Then she spied those fabrics in the corner. She went right to them, burrowed in like a mole, and was out like a light. I took her little trainers off without waking her. Will you look at that?”

At first glance, Betty’s sitting room seemed a chaos of color and texture. But a closer inspection revealed that the first impression was deceptive, a product of many things occupying a small space. A multitude of clear plastic boxes held collections of buttons, feathers, braiding, sequins, and spools of thread. The sewing machine, a new and expensive model, sat on a table at the front window, where Betty could overlook the street as she sewed. As well as her work on costumes for carnival, she made slipcovers, drapes, Roman blinds-“Anything that can be stitched together”-as she liked to say. Her father had been an upholsterer and had taught Betty to sew as a tot. She’d left school at sixteen to work for a milliner and had been proudly following the family tradition ever since.

Looking where Betty pointed, Gemma saw the bolts of cloth stored between the sofa and the window. There were silks and taffetas in rainbow hues, heavy brocades and satins, gauzy nets, and one roll of gold lamé.

Charlotte had indeed burrowed in between the bolts, pulling a fold of the shimmering gold cloth over herself like a blanket. Only her curls showed at one end and her stockinged feet at the other.