Free The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

get into all the fissures. I would ideally like to be rid of them, give them to a younger family member, say, as a wedding gift, a fine present they would make, but he likes them there. He takes a glass at dinner, only one, two on a Saturday night, and I must fill it only half full because it needs to breathe, he said, and I said, I've never heard such nonsense in all my life, wine can't breathe, you dunderhead, this last part said under my breath, of course, because it doesn't do to—
    —and Mother said she must cut her hair, all of it, to the chin. But Esme wouldn't have it. Mother got out the pudding bowl from the kitchen cupboard and what did Esme do but take it from her and hurl it, smash, to the floor. It's my hair, she shouted, and I'll do as I please. Well. Mother couldn't speak, she was that angry. You will wait until your father gets home, Mother said, and her voice was still as ice, just get out of my sight, go off to school. The bowl in pieces all over the stone flags. Mother tried to—
    —I wasn't to go to school. It wasn't done, a girl my age. I was to stay and help with the house, to go on calls with Mother. It wouldn't be long, she said, before I was married myself. And then I'd have a house of my own. With looks
like yours, she said. So she took me about their acquaintances and she and I went to tea and to golf parties and church socials and suchlike and Mother would invite young men to the house. There was a time when I wanted to take a secretarial course. I thought I would have been good at the typing and I could have answered the telephone, I had a nice voice, I thought anyway, but Father maintained that the right thing was—
    —when I left I thought of the bed, our bed, empty, every night. Don't get me wrong, I was happy to be married. More than happy. And I had a beautiful house. But sometimes I wanted to go back, to lie in the bed we'd shared, I wanted to be there on her side, where she'd always lain, and look up at the ceiling but of course—
    —what was it she found so funny about Mrs Mac? I forget. There was something and Esme used always to try to bring it into conversation while we were there. I used to have a pain from trying not to laugh! It made Mother cross. You are to behave, Esme, do you hear, she used to warn, as we arrived at Mrs Mac's gate. Mrs Mac's mouth was always full of pins and you had to stand on a low stool to be fitted. I loved it. Esme hated it, of course. The standing still was harder for her. It's never as nice as you imagine it's going to be, she said, when she got her wine dress. I remember that. She was sitting on the bed with the box before her and she held it up by the waist. The seams aren't straight, she said, and I looked and they weren't but I said, of course they are, they're fine, and you should have seen the look she gave me—
    —terribly cold, I am. Terribly. I have to say I am not entirely sure where I am. But I don't want anyone to know this so I shall sit tight and perhaps someone will—
    —what I call a button. That was it. She loved that more than anything and would put on the voice and pick up something, always something very ordinary, and say, now this is what I call a spoon, this is what I call a curtain, because Mrs Mac would look up at you as you stood there on the special stool and say, now, in here I'll put what I call a button. It used to make Mother so cross because we would both laugh and laugh. Don't mock those less fortunate than yourselves, she would say, with her mouth pursed. But Esme loved the way Mrs Mac said it and I always knew that she was waiting for it, every time we went there, and it used to make me very—
    —someone in the room. There is someone in the room. A woman in a white blouse. She is pulling the curtains shut. Who are you, I say, and she turns. I'm your nurse, she says, now go to sleep. I look at the window. What I call a window, I say, and I laugh and—
     
    When Iris arrives at Cauldstone, the social worker or