FRIDAY THE 13TH – APRIL 2018They stand outside the bedroom and wait, impatiently. They will kick down the door if they must.
It has been done before and can be done again, explains the woman on the stairs whose name is Hannah Pass. She has done it herself, without any help from the gardeners, without even a change of her neat buckled shoes. She directs Viola’s attention to the scars in the wood, says the door will never be the same again, which is a shame because much of the interiors are original … different handles but, you know?
‘Sorry,’ Hannah added, ‘I talk too much when I’m anxious.’
She calls out with matronly authority, mouth close to the jamb, ‘Lord Catherbridge! I am asking you very nicely to please open up!’ She turns to Viola then, speaking quietly, ‘Did you actually bring matches?’
Viola looks at her, confused.
‘To burn the place down…’
‘Oh!’ Viola shakes her head. ‘No.’
Hannah tuts, disappointed, and speaks again to the door.
‘Lord Catherbridge! I’m going to give you a count of three and then we’ll break it down like before, do you understand?’
There is a harrumph from within, not a human one, the sound of bedding being moved perhaps, a towel dropping or the pushing over of a pile of clothes.
‘One!’ calls Hannah and, in her head, Viola instinctively adds the requisite -elephant.
Viola had not needed to threaten a fire; mentioning the Eldest Girls was enough.
‘Calm down,’ was Hannah’s response to Viola’s demands on the stairs. She spoke with the kind of sternness that made you feel safe. ‘No one is going to be burning down anything. Well, not yet.’ She had taken hold of Viola by the upper arms, a settling gesture. ‘I am a member of the St Rita’s “Easter Committee”,’ she’d said then.
‘Two!’ Hannah bellows, and there is, perhaps, the shuffling of feet on boards.
‘Easter Committee’ was obviously supposed to mean something – Hannah had emphasised the words, given a pop of the eyes – but Viola didn’t understand the reference.
‘The unusual suspects, they call us,’ Hannah went on. ‘A left-bencher?’
Still, Viola could only blink.
‘I have a daughter, for Pete’s sake!’ She’d thrown her arms wide. ‘She’s in the Fourth Year seniors! Just two years from being sixteen!’
Viola knew then that the woman was on her side.
‘Three!’ All is silence behind that bedroom door.
‘Time’s up!’ calls Hannah, and turns sideways, putting a shoulder to the wood, encouraging Viola to take the same stance, and she does, though after her run across the island she seriously doubts that she has the strength left to break down a door.
‘Put the weight on the back foot,’ Hannah coaches, ‘and then after three we’ll –’
There is a loud scrape – a bolt being drawn back. Hannah and Viola relax their combat poses. The brass handle rotates. In the dark gap appears a reedy man, grey-haired and surprisingly bright-eyed, but the skin beneath those eyes slides down his face like candle wax.
Viola feels the disappointment viscerally, in her gut.
This is the Earl?
This the man who might save them, seize back authority, overrule the Council, expose its abuse of power and stand up for those at the mercy of impossible causes? He is nothing but a feeble old man in a dressing gown. Viola had expected to wake a sleeping giant, one capable of biting chunks from cliffs and pushing islands out to sea.
Hannah speaks to the man cheerfully, efficiently, as if the pantomime outside the door had never taken place, or as if it was entirely normal.
‘Ah, Lord Catherbridge!’ she trills.
‘What is it?’ he bumbles, those bright eyes making a swift assessment of Viola.
‘There’s something very important that you need to do.’ Hannah’s tone drops low, becomes urgent, her faith in Viola’s plan seemingly still strong, so Viola gathers herself, summons all residual hope.
‘You’re needed on the Council, sir,’ says Hannah, setting it all in motion. ‘It’s a matter of life or death.’