Judi James - Naked Angels

Grandma Klippel was difficult company. Despite living alone she still carried on as though she had a house full of people, minding all her manners and dressing properly for dinner. Maybe she did it for Mrs O’Reilly and Evan. Evangeline had never dressed up for dinner before, except at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Now she did, though, because Grandma Klippel insisted on it. She also insisted Evangeline sit up straight all the time and she corrected her grammar when she said something wrong.

They said prayers before they ate and more prayers at night. Mrs O’Reilly told Evangeline her grandmother had been a regular at the church along the coast for many many years. That was how they met, Mrs O’Reilly said; she tended the flowers there and Grandma Klippel played the organ on Sundays and did good works during the week. She’d stopped going since Evangeline came to live with them, though. The day before she’d left for Boston was the last day they’d seen her there for prayers. The priest came to the house several times for visits, but Grandma Klippel had never once set foot in that church again.

Evangeline began to wonder how Darius ever grew up so normal.

‘Did Darius live here when he was a child?’ she asked her grandmother over breakfast.

The old lady always looked surprised when she spoke, as though she’d forgotten she was there, and she always paused a long while before answering, too.

‘He most certainly did,’ she told Evangeline.

‘Did he mind the sea?’

‘Mind it? He loved it. It was his passion – sailing, swimming, fishing for crabs down by the old rocks.’

She touched Evangeline on the arm. ‘Darius was a very special child, dear. Very talented. Very beautiful. So was your mother. You have a lot to live up to, you know. You have to be special too, Evangeline. Better than all the other children. It would please me so much. Do you understand?’

Evangeline looked thoughtful.

‘Is that why Darius wants us to move back out here again?’ she asked. ‘Because he misses the sea?’

The old lady sniffed. She had blue veins and brown spots on the backs of her hands and sometimes you could see her wrinkles through her make-up.

‘Darius is not coming back here, Evangeline,’ she said slowly. ‘They have gone, dear, all of them. My son, your mother. The baby. Even the dog. I’m sorry.’

‘Gone where?’ Evangeline looked at her boiled egg and the toast that Mrs O’Reilly had cut into strips. The egg was hard in the middle and dented when she poked the bread into it. Also there was no salt, there never was. For some reason Grandma Klippel would not have the stuff in the house. If you wanted salt you got it outside all right: salt on your face that the sea-spray spat up, salt on your mouth if you forgot to keep it closed, and salt caked onto just about everything that lay in the sea’s path.

There was a long silence before Evangeline looked up.

‘Gone where?’ she repeated.

Her grandmother dyed her hair, she was sure of it. When you dyed white hair chestnut what you got was orange. False teeth and dyed hair. The old lady’s hair was the colour of pine pollen.

‘Gone … away,’ Grandma Klippel replied. Her mouth was tugging at the corners again. Evangeline just stared, even though she wasn’t allowed to. The tickle of fear had started in the back of her throat. She wanted to go on eating egg but the tickle wouldn’t let her.

‘How long for?’

Grandma Klippel sighed. ‘For ever. I’m sorry.’ Evangeline nodded. A sliver of yolk managed its way down the back of her throat after all.

‘Are they on holiday?’ she asked.

The old lady shook her head.

‘They just went, dear. You must understand that they are not coming back. Ever. They just had to go away, that was all.’

‘Without me?’ It had to be asked. The yolk was slipping back up again, like snot. ‘Without you.’ ‘I won’t see them again?’ ‘No.’

‘But I was good!’ It came out choked, like a wail.

Grandma Klippel closed her eyes. ‘Then you’ll just have to be better,’ she whispered.

Then all the egg and all the tears and all the snot seemed to well up and ooze in Evangeline’s throat at once, so that she didn’t know if she wanted to cry or be sick, and she choked and hiccuped but she could suddenly neither breathe nor see.

Her grandmother stood up.

‘No tears at the table,’ was what Evangeline thought she heard her say. Maybe she was scared she’d make a mess on the white linen tablecloth.

The fog came down the following night and it stayed for a week or more, rolling mournfully around the house and making the sunsets look as though the whole sky was on fire.

When Evangeline stood on the back porch in the evening the sea’s voice was muffled, though its smell was sharper than ever. It smelt of decay, despite all the salt. She imagined it heaving with dead fish, wood from sunken boats, empty quahog shells and a gull’s corpse that floated on the tide with one filmy eye turned towards the sky that it could no longer soar about in.

The fog was so heavy her hair got wet just standing there and she had to dry it by the fire when she got inside again.

She was going to look for her parents once the fog lifted. There was no doubt about it, Grandma Klippel was wrong and the sea was wrong. Nobody went away like that. Nobody left little girls alone, it just didn’t happen. Someone had made a terrible mistake and it was up to her to sort things out. Maybe her teachers could help if she could just get back to her school. Or a policeman. Darius had always taught her to go to the police if she ever got lost while she was out.

She didn’t go to her own school any more. Grandma Klippel said it was too far away and sent her to a small private place a mile up the coast instead. She missed her friends – even Ewan Raw-meat Goodman. The new kids acted almost as though they’d been told not to speak to her. Her grandmother had her booked in under a different name, too. Evangeline Cooper – it had been her grandmother’s surname before she’d married Mr Klippel, the owner of the local bank. Walter Klippel had died so long ago there were no pictures of him in the house, just a chair Evangeline’s grandmother never used because he’d sat in it a lot.

Then one night, when the fog was at its thickest, Evangeline heard a noise like a dog howling and she knew it had to be Patrick. The waiting was over; they’d come back at last. She felt mad with her parents as well as pleased they were back. She opened her window full out and the howling grew louder, and even though it sounded as though it came from miles away – from another country, almost – she just knew he was telling her they were on their way and she would not have to wait much longer.

Excited to the point where she was leaping on the spot, she decided to go down and meet them. Pulling a big warm jumper on over her nightgown and an old pair of boots onto her feet Evangeline ran out of her room and down the landing, yelling to her grandma as she went.

‘They’re here! Grandma Klippel, they’re here, they’re outside somewhere, I heard them, I heard Patrick howling, they’re here!’

Everything was right all of a sudden. The world stopped tipping crooked and straightened out at last. She didn’t care who she woke with her shouting, she was just relieved that the waiting was over. Her legs worked like pistons and she took off down the stairs without once needing to grip on to the banister.

‘They’re here, I heard them!’ Opening the front door was a problem but it was her time at last and she knew she was on a roll, so the catches slipped back without too much fumbling and then the cold wet air hit her face and made her laugh with relief.