Eve touched the soft pile of airmail letters, flimsy, bunched together, hidden away. She could see the address written in a careful hand.
Mr Arnold Brannigan
C/O Rosdaniel Post Office
Co. Wicklow
Ireland
Placing the box on the coffee table, she sat down. Shame flushed through her. Whatever was contained in those letters, he had never intended her to find them. Although the mahogany box belonging to his grandfather was not the safest hiding place, there was no doubt Arnold had tried to conceal something from her.
She sat, her hands tightly gripped on her lap, staring straight ahead.
Shuddering, feeling cold, she knew in her heart that the box contained a ball of trouble which, once released, could never be tidied away. Much the same way as Arnold had hidden the level of their debt to the bank from her, this was just another hurdle he left for her to climb on her own. Her head thumped; a sharp pain was piercing up the back of her neck. Sometimes the dread is worse than the actual, so she reached to take out the bundle of letters, but stopped herself, unable yet to take on board the grief she surely was about to open up.
After his death, she had searched every inch of the library, his desk and even the outside shed where he liked to potter, desperate for clues. One day she went up in the attic and rummaged, not exactly knowing what she was looking for, but wanting to know and understand why her husband had taken his own life, to see if there was a secret she knew nothing of. In the guest room, she looked in various boxes and sorted through a pile of old newspapers in case anything was slipped between the pages, but she never saw the mahogany box, tucked in the corner behind the folds of brocade curtains never pulled across or back.
Arnold had never intended her to find these letters. Maybe she should lock up the box, put the find out of her mind. In the days after his death, she was desperate for answers, any answers, any clues, but now she felt more resentment at the surprise intrusion in her life.
But how could she ignore the letters? Not knowing their contents could lead to hours of dangerous speculation or worry haunting and stalking her. Her fingers extended, she made to reach for the box, but stopped herself, sinking back in the armchair, her breathing heavy.
Connie had brought the box almost immediately after finding it. Nervous, she gave Eve a long-winded explanation. She was clearing out a guest room at Ludlow Hall for Bill and got a lot of empty cardboard boxes from Michael Conway’s shop to store all the bits and pieces along with antique boxes in the room. Not sure if she should ask Eve if she wanted anything, Connie decided to put everything in storage until later. She pulled up the windows to air out the room, setting to work, carefully placing ornaments and antiques in the boxes marked Tayto and Flahavan’s. It was when she was finished and shutting one of the windows that she saw the dark mahogany box tucked in the corner, a black damp stain around it, the corners of the wood discoloured by condensation.
She shook it, but it gave nothing away. Distracted by the dirty wet patch on the window, she grabbed the spray, wiping stains along with the dirt and water from the glass and windowsill.
Moving next to the bedroom furniture, she polished the solid mahogany until it gleamed in the afternoon light. When she saw the delivery van arrive with the new mattress, she ran downstairs to the front door, scooping up the box as she went. As she waited for the delivery men to struggle upstairs with the mattress, she fiddled with the box, trying to prise it open. Securing a knife from the kitchen, she pushed the steel edge in the small slit of the lock, hoping to click it open, but it did not budge. Putting different pressures on the lock, she had almost given up when she thought of the strange-looking key she had come across in the first few days at Ludlow. It was still in Arnold’s desk at the far end of the dance studio.
The key was stiff in the lock, but it fitted. As she turned it, the lid of the box sprung open. Squashed inside were a bundle of airmail envelopes, plain white envelopes underneath. Connie eased out the bundle, turning it over in her hands, before quickly returning it to the box and turning the key to lock it.
She knew she must give this to Eve, but worried what it might do to her friend. However, not to hand over the box would be the worst thing. Once the delivery men left, she snatched up the box and the car keys and left the house, locking the back door behind her. When she got to the car she stopped and took a deep breath, arguing in her head whether she was doing the right thing. But how could she look Eve in the face again if she did not rush the letters to her? Turning on the ignition, she steered down the avenue, still unsure if she was doing the right thing.
Eve had been surprised when she saw Connie at her front door.
“Is there something wrong? You don’t look well.”
Connie, feeling agitated, stepped into the room, struggling to find the right words.
“I found something. A box. I wasn’t sure if I should show it to you, but when I opened it there were letters. I had to come straight over . . .”
Eve put her hand out as if to stop the flow of words. “Steady on, Connie, I am only hearing a jumble of words. The last time somebody looked like you do now, it was Arnold telling me that we owed millions to the bank.” Her voice was light, and she laughed at her own memory, but she stopped abruptly when she saw Connie’s discomfort. Catching Connie by the elbow, she guided her to the armchair by the window.
“Deep breaths, start over,” she said kindly.
Connie smiled, outlining in a low, quiet voice how she found the box, before turning the key and showing Eve the contents.
“They are not for me to open,” she said. Placing the box in Eve’s hands, she got up to go. “Call me if you need me, I will come straight back.” She let herself out.
Eve reached in now and took out a bundle of airmail letters, leaving the conventional vellum envelopes at the bottom of the box. Two photographs were stuck against the side of the box. She picked up the colour prints. Her heart tightened: Arnold, holding a baby who was not James. He looked relaxed, smiling, happy, the baby asleep, content in his arms. The other photograph was a typical family pose: man, woman with the child in the middle, except the man who looked like a father was Arnold.
Slowly, she took one of the airmail letters and unfolded it.
San Remo
145 Central Park West
July 30, 1972
My Dearest Arnold,
Now that you are gone, I cannot sleep or settle to anything. Tell me you are coming soon again to be with me. My friend Maryann says I am crazy, but I told her she does not know the love between us.
Hurry back to me, my darling. When I am with you, the whole world is right; when you are away, so many things disturb me.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to be at Ludlow Hall with you. What a fine time we would have together. Mr Kalowski says his restaurant is not the same without the two of us sitting at his window seat. He said beautiful lovebirds always bring in good business.
Hurry back, my darling.
All my love,
Ros
xxx
Eve scrunched the letter in her hand. Pain pulsed through her, strangling her brain. She wanted to scream, but there was no sound. She picked up the next letter.
San Remo
145 Central Park West
November 24, 1973
My Dearest Arnold,
Thank you for coming to be with me after the birth of our lovely boy. That you came after suffering such a tragedy shows the sort of man you are, and I am deeply grateful.
I hope Eve likes the dress I picked out for her. I really think it was the nicest of the three sent over by Regina at Bloomingdale’s. My wish is that it brings some comfort to Eve at this terrible time for you both.
That you took such joy in the birth of our baby boy and allowed me to call him Arnold Edward fills me with pride. I miss you so, but I promise I will bring up our son, Arnold Edward Carter, to be a fine man like his father.
Eve dropped the letter, unable to continue to read the words of love between this woman and her husband. He had left her days after the birth and death of James to celebrate the birth of his American son. In the moment it took her to realise why he had left her so rapidly as she grieved, she hated the man she once called her husband.
That he had conducted an affair, with correspondence routed through the local post office, made shame sweep through her, but that was secondary to the anguished pain she felt on discovering that he had abandoned her for his mistress, so soon after the death of James.
She could never forgive that.
Pain flashed through her; her head was heavy. She was not sure if she was crying, but she must be. She did what she always did when she could not cope: she rang Michael Conway.
“I have to let the evening rush at the shop go before I can lock up. I won’t be able to get a stand-in at this short notice.”
“Okay.”
“You understand, Eve, don’t you?”
“I understand,” she said, quickly putting down the phone.
Doubling up, she thought the pain now that Michael could not come to her was as bad as Arnold’s historic betrayal.
She was lying on the couch when she heard a light tap on the door.
“I had to wait for May Murtagh to pick between Coke and Diet Coke, but I closed up straight after that. I am sorry, Eve, it is only when I put down the phone I realised you didn’t sound yourself. What is wrong?”
He reached over with his handkerchief and wiped her face gently. She could only point him to the box, the letters thrown across the floor.
Michael collected up the letters and stuffed them back in the box.
After a few minutes, she spoke.
“He had a second family in America. Did you know any of this, Michael?”
He did not answer, but bowed his head.
She jumped up. “You knew and you never told me.”
“Eve, I heard a rumour. I had my suspicions. What could I do with that?”
“What are you saying? That everybody was laughing behind my back? You let me carry on like a fool. How long, Michael, how long have I not known?”
“Eve, you are not being fair. How could I tell you what was only a suspicion?”
She stared at him and through him, the pain in her heart so big she thought it would envelop her there and then, choking the life from her.
“It was up to Arnold to tell you,” Michael said, his voice trembling.
Eve walked to the front door and opened it wide.
“Get out, get out.”
Her voice was low and firm. He knew not to argue with her. As he passed, he reached out to touch her cheek with his hand, but she pushed him away, pulling off her ring and pressing it into his hand.
As soon as he stepped over the threshold, she threw herself at the door, making it bang shut. Tears washed over her, the loss dragging her down. Which was worse, she honestly did not know: the past or present deception, the husband or the lover.
She saw Michael walk down the path, lingering, hunched at the gate. Sitting on the edge of the couch, she was not sure what she should do. There was no need to read the rest of the airmail letters; she had no desire to do so either. Closing the box, she noticed the two plain white envelopes, with Arnold’s name and address at Ludlow Hall typed on them.
Slipping one letter from the envelope, she scanned down through it. Her head buzzed with tension as she reached for the second envelope, a few printed paragraphs delivering devastating news. What she would do with this information she was not sure.
Time slipped by. The room became darker. Her mind was blank, her brain numb, the marks of her nails deep in the palm of her hand. A sheet of pain lodged on her chest, and water dripped from her eyes, wetting the soft collar of her blue silk blouse. Curling up into a ball, the last two letters fell to the ground beside her, after floating from her grip.
How long did she stay this way? She only knew the phone rang, the sound of it twirling through the rooms, bouncing off the walls, filling her head. When the doorbell buzzed, she shrank back in the chair, afraid to answer it, worried she would show too much pain of what had befallen her. She was afraid, too, it was one of the women from the Ludlow Ladies’ Society. Razor sharp, they would detect immediately her well of pain and create a commotion.