The Beloved by Alison Rattle Page A

his chair with his papers before him and his brow furrowed in concentration. But of course his chair is empty. I drift into the room and run my hand across the pile of papers on his desk. I hold it there for a while, imagining Papa’s hands shuffling through the pages only hours since. There is an empty glass on the desk too. I pick it up and hold it close to my face. I see the trace of sticky lip prints on the rim. Papa’s lips. I press my mouth to the glass. A last kiss. But I feel no comfort. I place the glass back on the desk, and as I leave the room I whisper,
I’m sorry, Papa
.
I am sorry for my wickedness. I never meant for you to die.
    I hear noises and voices coming from behind the door to the front parlour. I do not want to go in. I cannot face them all. I stand outside, hesitating, one hand on the doorknob. I want to go back to my room. I want to go back in time, to before any of this happened. If I could, I would be a small child again and I would try to be who they wanted me to be from the very beginning. Then maybe Papa would still be here. But I can’t go back in time. I know that. The very best I can do is to change. I have to be the person they want me to be now. That other person, the other me, is no good. She hurts people. She made Papa die by wishful thinking.
    I take a deep breath and close my hand around the doorknob. But before I have the chance to turn it, the door is pulled open from inside. I jump back. It is Eli. Relief crosses his face when he sees me. ‘I was just coming for you,’ he says. ‘We have been waiting. Mr Gibbs is ready for us.’
    I swallow hard. ‘I am ready, too, Eli,’ I say.
    The light in the front parlour blinds me for a moment. The room is ablaze. There are candles on every surface and an oil lamp burning in the centre of the table. I peer into the light and I see a bespectacled man standing in front of me. He is fiddling with a large contraption, a box on long spindly legs. ‘This is Mr Gibbs, Alice.’ Eli introduces me. I nod to the man. There are beads of perspiration dancing on his forehead. ‘Ah, good,’ he says. ‘We are all here then?’ He gestures for us to move to the other side of the room.
    I see Mama at once. She is standing stiffly with a black half-veil shading her face. And then I see Papa and I start to tremble. He is sitting in a high-backed chair with a large bowl of gaudy roses on a table at his side. The light of the candles shine harshly onto his face and his skin is grey and stretched. I stop and look to Eli. ‘Go on, Alice,’ he says. ‘It is all right.’ But Papa’s eyes are wide open and he is staring at me. Eli gently pushes me forward. As I move closer, Papa’s eyes look stranger still, like the eyes of the china doll that sits upstairs on a shelf in the old nursery.
    Mr Gibbs begins to fuss around us. He arranges Mama so she is standing behind Papa’s chair, then he directs Eli and me to stand either side of Papa with our hands placed upon his shoulders. ‘Yes, yes. That’s good. That’s good.’ I am squashed next to the bowl of roses. But even the thick sweetness of them, combined with Mama’s powdery lavender scent, cannot disguise the stench of old bacon that is rising from Papa. My hand sits on his shoulder, my fingertips trembling against the velvet of his lapel. Mr Gibbs adjusts Mama’s skirts. He suggests that Eli puts his free hand in his trouser pocket, and he asks me to move an inch closer to Papa. ‘Perfect,’ he says. He returns to his box and bends down to peer through it. ‘Now,’ he says. ‘I would ask that you all remain perfectly still until I tell you otherwise. Exposure will take about ten minutes.’
    And so we stand, this little family of ours, while Mr Gibbs captures our likeness forever.
    It is hot in the room. My skin is prickling in the heat and I can feel Mama’s quick, shallow breaths