Fic: Exhibit A
Exhibit A
by minnow_53
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: PG-13/R
Warnings: Some violence; non-magic AU.
Summary: A key witness recounts the events leading up to a murder trial.
Thanks: To westwardlee for the beta and also to astra_argentea.
Prompt: My bed is covered yellow - Oh Sun, I sit on you
Oh golden field I lay on you
Oh money I dream of you
More, More, cried the bed - talk to me more -
Oh bed that taked the weight of the world -
all the lost dreams laid on you
- from "My Bed is Covered Yellow" by Peter Orlovsky
This is a repost of my rs_games fic for Team AU, with a link to the original post here.
Exhibit A
Everything has a voice, if you only know how to hear it; and every voice has a story to tell. This is mine.
I was created eighteen months ago in a factory near London, one of three hundred ‘handcrafted’ double bedspreads. We came in four colours, yellow, red, blue and green. I was, and am, yellow, a deep, almost golden colour, like buttercups in spring.
When we were finished, our seams stitched securely, we were packed in plastic bags labelled Buckingham Crown Counterpanes and sent to various retailers, where we sold for £65, mid-range in those days, leaning towards expensive. I, and three of my blue sisters, went to a Victorian terrace house in Crystal Palace which was being converted into flats. As the brightest, I was chosen specifically to lighten up the basement flat.
It was certainly gloomy, though I liked the bedroom at once. It overlooked a garden, which was dusky when I arrived in January, with a thin sprinkling of snow. Later, when the snow melted, yellow daffodils peeped through the earth, and I felt as if I’d come home, to a place where my kin lived.
The flat was let at the beginning of March, and that was how I met Sirius.
I first saw him when the landlady showed him round. She skirted over any potential problems, like the risk of flooding in winter and the dim rooms, and emphasised the garden and the space.
Sirius actually stopped dead when she ushered him into the bedroom. ‘I like the yellow,’ he said, and he smiled, that beautiful, dazzling smile that I grew to love. He was like sunshine himself; and when he moved in he sang as he unpacked.
He was rather old-fashioned, my Sirius. He may have been living in a rented flat, but I got the impression he came from a wealthy family, a family that still honoured the old traditions. Though I later found he was twenty-three, he sometimes seemed older; his possessions, I should say, made him seem older. He had a silver-backed hairbrush, real silver, which he used a lot on his glossy black hair. His handkerchiefs were monogrammed SB, and as a handcrafted item myself, I could see that these were far finer than I, of purest Egyptian cotton. When he went to work in the morning, he wore suits that had obviously been made for him, and silk ties. Even his jeans looked expensive.
But there was nothing of the spoilt, rich boy about Sirius. His dreams were crisp and golden, of summer mornings, fresh-minted coins and a boy with fair hair, whom he dreamed about frequently. He changed his sheets every Sunday and washed me every couple of weeks or so. When it was warm, he hung me up to dry in the garden, and I used to peep into the sitting room and see him working at his computer, a pair of black-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose, his papers stacked neatly on the desk. When he took me off the line, he always ironed me on the rickety ironing-board provided by the landlady. After that, he’d considerately make an effort not to lie on me for a couple of days.
Sometimes, when he was in bed, he watched films on a small television on the chest of drawers. They were usually grainy black and white, and featured shrill, pretty women with American accents who generally ended up dead. I grew to enjoy those films too, and looked forward to TV evenings.
I wondered at first why he never brought a girl home. He was such a wonderful-looking man! I’d have thought the women would be flocking around him. Indeed, in his first week in the flat, the pretty ground-floor tenant came down several times on the pretext of borrowing sugar. Perhaps he had a childhood sweetheart, I decided. Maybe she was away at university: I gathered from some of Sirius’s telephone conversations that he had only recently graduated himself. However, though he often lay on top of the bed when he spoke on his mobile, I never once heard a girl’s voice responding.
The mystery was solved a few weeks after he’d moved in, when he came home very late one Friday evening. I could smell whisky on his breath, a mellow, honeyed scent, and he was laughing a bit, a low laugh that could almost have been termed seductive.
‘Okay, the bedroom’s definitely the best room,’ he said, and another man replied, ‘Isn’t it always?’
‘When you’re there, yes.’ Sirius’ voice was unusually soft. He sounded at ease with this other man, the way one sounds with an old friend.
He didn’t turn on the overhead light, but fumbled his way across the room to the bedside lamp. If one can switch on a lamp with a flourish, Sirius did, and then announced, ‘Voila!’
I was glad that neither man could feel me staring, because stare I did.
Sirius’s companion was about his age, with a smiling, sweet face and brown hair. He looked just like the fair-haired boy in Sirius’s dreams, except for the fair bit; but no doubt, if one was smitten, one would dream of him with brighter hair, and his hazel eyes would become a purer blue. He wasn’t anywhere near as beautiful as Sirius, but then nobody was. He was nice-looking, though, and he was gazing at Sirius as if Sirius were the sun and centre of the universe, which I heartily approved of.
But really I didn’t get to see much of him, because he and Sirius were sitting on the bed, and he was saying, ‘I’ve missed you. You can’t imagine. You really can’t.’
‘Can’t I?’ Sirius said, with just a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
‘No. It’s been hell, and you understand that I haven’t been able to get away.’
‘I understand all right. But never mind that now. Never mind. D’you want a drink?’
If I could have spoken, I would have said, ‘I think you’ve had enough,’ and that was just what Sirius’s friend said, only he said, ‘I think we’ve had enough.’ I liked him even more after that.
Then, he and Sirius were lying on the bed, kissing, but I caught a glimpse of gold, a glimpse that disturbed me for some reason. It must have disturbed Sirius too, because he said, ‘Take that off, Remus. I hate you wearing it when you sleep with me.’
‘I hate wearing it at all,’ Remus said. Something clinked on to the bedside table, and then the two men were quiet for a while, lying with their arms round each other in the lamplight. I could sense many things going on between them: love, lust, frustration and a deep, underlying misery that somehow contrasted with Sirius’s sunshiny smile and clear, pure dreams. No doubt there was some mystery here, but after warming to Remus, I suddenly wished he’d go away, and not bring whatever complications beset him into Sirius’s life.
Of course, I am only a bedspread; I am no oracle, nor ever have been. In spite of my misgivings, the two men slept peacefully, and, as always, Sirius dreamed of bright and gentle things, of shimmering lakes and sunlit forests.
The morning was bright and sunny too. Sirius was up early, and brought a pot of tea on a tray back to bed, poking Remus in the ribs.
‘Hey, you. Wake up. ’
Remus rolled over and looked at Sirius blearily. ‘You tosser. This is going to be my only chance of a lie-in for the next few years.’
‘You should have thought about that earlier, shouldn’t you? And I’m sure you’ll manage to get away again. Soon. It will have to be soon.’ He put down his cup of tea and suddenly started kissing Remus fiercely. I was worried that the tea was going to spill all over me and stain me permanently, but Sirius obviously thought of that too, and stopped for a moment to put the tray on the floor.
Afterwards, everything was quiet, and I could feel the release of tension as strongly as I had felt the tension itself. I almost fell asleep myself, but concentrated on making myself as light as possible, so as not to put more weight on Sirius and Remus as they lay there.
Eventually, I heard a mobile. It wasn’t Sirius’s; Sirius had a song I really liked, which he called his ‘Plushgun ringtone’. I used to hope the phone would one day ring long enough for me to hear the whole thing. But this was an unpleasant sound, like a siren. Remus woke with a groan, rolled out of bed and groped for his jacket lying crumpled on the floor.
‘Hello? Yes, yes I’m going to be back later.’
The voice at the other end was definitely female, unlike any of Sirius’s interlocutors, and it sounded shrill, faintly hysterical. I strained to hear what it was saying, but the woman, whoever she was, was speaking far too fast.
When the call was finished, Sirius said, rather coldly, ‘So. What was all that about?’
‘I have to go home.’
Sirius thumped his fist on me, so hard that I shuddered. ‘Shit. You said you’d be here for two nights. ’
‘Well, that’s what I thought. But the baby has a cough, and I can’t just abandon them. She’ll make my life a misery for ages as it is. I’ll have to get up at night for at least a week now.’
‘Serves you right,’ Sirius said. And then, he said, ‘I’m sorry. That’s unfair.’
‘Not really,’ Remus said, and then there was an awkward silence, and then Remus sat on the bed again, sighing, and Sirius put an arm round him and said, ‘You’re going to have to do something about the situation sooner or later.’
‘You don’t need to tell me.’
Again, they were silent for a while, and then they kissed reflectively, if a kiss can be reflective. This one certainly seemed to be.
I wished I could have asked what was going on! I longed to know who ‘she’ was and why Sirius and Remus, who were obviously so much in love, couldn’t just be together. But I am a patient soul, young though I may be, and had all the time in the world to wait for the answers.
After Remus had gone, I waited for Sirius to strip the bed and put me and his sheets and duvet cover in the washing machine. Instead, he got back under the duvet and sniffed the sheets. I wasn’t sure at first what he was doing; he just lay there with his face buried in Remus’s pillow. I thought for a minute he was crying, but he wasn’t, just breathing very deeply, as if he were trying to take the essence of Remus into his own body. He didn’t change the sheets that day either, but slept in them for another week.
And the day after we were all laundered again, Remus came round. I heard his voice over the intercom asking, ‘Sirius? Are you there?’ Sirius was in the bedroom sorting through a pile of books, and he immediately rushed to open the door.
I could hear them in the sitting room. Remus said something about ‘her mother’; his voice was happy and excited. ‘A whole weekend! We haven’t had so long together since school.’
So they were childhood sweethearts! I could just imagine them at school, Sirius protective and Remus looking up to him like a big brother, the way I looked up to my red brothers when we were waiting to be sold. I could see them in the playground, kicking a football around perhaps, and Sirius joking about being signed for Arsenal.
I heard them shuffling around in the kitchen, presumably making a cup of coffee. Then, Remus laughed at something and they came into the bedroom, both dishevelled, as if they’d been kicking that metaphorical football around the flat as well as their erstwhile playground. Sirius rarely looked less than immaculate, and I was amused to see him with his hair messed up and his shirt crumpled.
Even though they seemed happy enough, again I sensed that slight edge of desperation in the way they were almost staring at each other, as if this was their last chance to memorise each other’s faces. Sirius’s hand was actually trembling as he reached out and pulled Remus down on to the bed. I felt myself overwhelmed by the weight of them, the physical weight and whatever was between them that made them so intense and sad.
‘You know,’ Remus said, a bit later, ‘there never was a time I didn’t want us to be together.’
‘I know,’ Sirius said, and they were silent for a long while.
*
After that, Remus rarely came over for more than a few hours, though in the summer he managed another weekend. He and Sirius stayed up late in the sitting-room, and I listened to them talking and laughing through the open bedroom door as they played poker. Around midnight, everything went quiet, and I heard something fall, with a tiny metallic clatter, on the sitting-room floor.
They slept until eleven the next morning, and Sirius yawned and said, ‘I’m surprised that wife of yours hasn’t called.’
‘Thank God.’ Remus was lying with his head on Sirius’s shoulder, staring up at the ceiling. He looked utterly relaxed.
Sirius hesitated. ‘I’d like...I’d love to meet her. ’
Remus tensed slightly and began to plait the small fringe at the top of me. I wished he wouldn’t! I’ve hated being pulled at ever since one of my threads got tangled during the manufacturing process. ‘What brought that on?’ he asked. ‘I’ve always thought you wanted to stay as far from her as possible.’
‘Well, it might be interesting,’ Sirius said, with that slight drawl I’d noticed when he had some ulterior motive. Remus obviously noticed it too and said acerbically, ‘Interesting how? So you and I can nudge each other and wink because she hasn’t got a clue?’
‘Mainly to prove she really exists,’ Sirius said. ‘I sometimes wonder if you haven’t invented a wife so nobody’ll know that you’re the last person who should ever be married.’
Remus heaved himself off the bed. He was naked, and I was a bit taken aback at how thin he was: you could see every rib. If he did have a wife, she certainly didn’t look after him very well! I could understand why Sirius might think he was lying.
But Remus flushed and said, ‘D’you think I’d make it all up? D’you think I wouldn’t be here with you if I could be? I wanted a child, that’s all. Someone to keep me alive when I’m, when I’m...’
Sirius pulled him down again. I thought he’d be angry, but he cradled Remus’s head and murmured, ‘Please, please don’t say it. You won’t die. I won’t let you.’
‘You can’t stop me,’ Remus said with a bitterness at odds with his kind, open face.
‘I can,’ Sirius said. ‘I’ll pretend I’m a magician, and I’ll wave my wand so everything will go away.’
‘I wish.’
‘What amazes me is that you took the risk,’ Sirius said. It seemed a callous remark, but Remus didn’t take offence, or not as far as I could tell. He even laughed, though not very humorously. ‘There wasn’t much risk at all. Dora’s perfectly healthy. Anyway, I’m not here to discuss my family.’
They kissed for a while. They kissed very quietly, very drily, which was a relief; I’m not fond of slobber, which makes me feel all sticky and dirty.
Sirius was thinking furiously; I could sense his concentration. He was obviously aware that he couldn’t just go to Remus’s house and say to his wife, ‘Hello, I’m Remus’s boyfriend,’ or whatever he’d call himself. I could see he wanted to: he had quite a little fantasy about her opening the door to him and crumpling in a faint at his feet.
‘Tell you what,’ he said eventually, bounding out of bed. ‘We’ll have a party.’ He pulled me off the bed - I was pretty well all on the floor anyway - and wrapped me round his torso. ‘A housewarming party. It’s a bit belated, but nobody’s going to complain. I could ask some of the people at work. And a few of our friends from school. I’m still in touch with Martin.’
‘Martin,’ Remus said, ‘is a complete waste of space.’
Sirius took me off and twirled me round, like a bullfighter’s cloak. ‘Martin is living with an actress. You probably know her. She’s in Eastenders.’
Remus said, ‘I never watch Eastenders.’
‘Yeah, but I bet Nymphadora does.’
If Sirius hadn’t thrown me down carelessly as he spoke, I’d probably have thrown myself. What an unusual name! Was Nymphadora also an actress? I imagined her as a pre-Raphaelite beauty, with electric red hair, dressed in a green gown. I have never been fond of the colour myself, after one of my green brothers called me ‘garish’.
‘Oh, God, that reminds me,’ Remus groaned, ‘I dropped my ring. I can’t go home without it.’
They got up and dressed, Sirius making helpful suggestions. ‘It must have rolled under the dresser. Or maybe it’s still on the table.’
Remus laughed. ‘Your physics sucks, you know that? It’s somewhere under the sofa, unless it’s walked off by itself.’
They went into the other room, where Sirius put on the CD player, though not, unfortunately, the song I liked so much. I thought I heard them dancing, or perhaps their feet were just tapping on the floor as they looked for this missing ring. I lapsed into my own fantasy about them holding each other close, Remus’s hand on Sirius’s shoulder, Sirius nuzzling Remus’s shiny brown hair... Though Sirius used his silver brush obsessively, I had developed something of a fetish for Remus’s hair, which he washed frequently, or at least whenever he was coming here. I was especially taken with the lemon smell, a yellow smell, as clean and sharp as a smell could be.
If I’d had feet I would have been dancing too. It was good to hear music in the flat - it made me feel happy, optimistic. Nymphadora would be routed, rush away with her red hair in flames, and Remus and Sirius would be together forever. I lay in a pleasant daze until Sirius came in and put me back on the bed again, positioning my edges a precise two inches from the floor.
*
I was as excited about the party as Sirius, but also a bit disappointed that I’d miss it. Still, I reasoned, I would hear the guests through the bedroom door, and no doubt coats and bags would be piled on me, or perhaps not coats, in the middle of August, but certainly bags. And I would hear the music I enjoyed so much.
However, on the evening of the party, Sirius came in and pulled me off the bed, without a by-your-leave! He obviously found the pink tapestry sofa that came with the flat a bit old-fashioned, like something his grandmother might own, and was using me as a throw.
I nearly rumpled myself in my excitement! Luckily I didn’t, because Sirius was as precise as ever, and would have noticed if one of my corners had been a bit off-centre.
The dining table was now piled with food, and the room smelled warm, of pastry and dips and anticipation. The French windows were open to the garden, and Sirius had hung Chinese lanterns in the trees, though presumably they wouldn’t be lit until dusk. There were also more bottles than I’d ever seen in my life before, though to be fair I hadn’t had much truck with bottles: bottles with clear white liquid, with red liquid, and a few of a pale yellow wine that I obviously found especially attractive. These were in buckets of ice, which I thought would have to be replenished a few times, because it was such a hot day.
The first guests came around eight; a bunch of people from Sirius’s office, I assumed, because they mentioned the boss and working late and how awful the canteen was, but you could always run it off afterwards.
Next, Martin and his actress girlfriend arrived. I was amused to see that she looked exactly as I’d imagined Remus’s Nymphadora, with long, curly red hair. She was wearing a golden dress that I approved of, and she said to Sirius, ‘I like the throw.’
Sirius said, ‘You should see what’s underneath! Why do landlords always have such crap taste?’
‘Oh, I know!’ the girl said. ‘I once had a bedsit with purple walls and an orange carpet. I couldn’t change it, because the landlady’d just redecorated and she was so proud of the place.’
Then, the intercom buzzed, the Lupins came in, and the atmosphere subtly changed. Or maybe it didn’t - people were drinking and laughing, and everyone seemed happy enough. But I suddenly felt heavy and tired. If I’d been human, I would probably have broken out in a sweat. As it was, I could have sworn I turned a shade darker.
The first thing Remus said was, ‘Sorry, mate. We had to bring the baby. The sitter let us down.’
‘That’s okay,’ Sirius said. ‘He can sleep in the bedroom. ‘
‘He’s staying with me,’ Nymphadora said rather sharply, and wheeled round so she was directly in front of me.
I’d like to say she was witchy or threatening, but she wasn’t. In fact, if I’d been forced to choose a wife for Remus on looks alone, Nymphadora was precisely the woman I would have picked. She was small, delicately built, with brown hair a shade darker than Remus’s, a heart-shaped face and big grey eyes. Her eyes were actually very like Sirius’s. They could have been related, though obviously they were not. She looked very young, about sixteen, though she was probably the same age as Remus and Sirius. At any rate, she seemed far too young to be carrying a very large baby in a sling. His head was flopping on to her breast, and he was fast asleep.
‘At least put him down, Dora,’ Remus said, rather tiredly I felt. ‘You can’t lug him round all evening. D’you want me to bring in the car-seat?’
‘No!’ snapped Nymphadora, so loudly that I thought she’d wake the baby, but he slept on.
‘Okay, okay,’ Remus said. ‘Sorry about that, Sirius.’ He handed him a bottle. It looked expensive, and probably contained that amber whisky the two men seemed so fond of. ‘Anyway. Dora, this is my old school friend, Sirius. Sirius, this is Dora.’
Sirius said, ‘How do you do?’ and they shook hands. It was all very civilised, and I wondered if Nymphadora had any idea that her husband was in love with Sirius, and vice versa. Perhaps she’d wormed it out of Remus somehow. I could imagine him explaining that this was a school thing, that boys often slept with each other when there weren’t any girls around. More likely, he hadn’t even mentioned it.
Unlike the other women at the party, Nymphadora had not bothered to dress up. She was wearing a knee-length grey skirt and a grubby tee-shirt which the baby had obviously thrown up on a couple of times. She smelled sour, and I thought how unpleasant it must be for Remus to share a bed with her. No wonder he preferred Sirius!
When the introductions were out of the way, Nymphadora sank down on to me with a resigned sigh. She felt far heavier than she looked, possibly because of the baby, but I also sensed there was lot on her mind. I would have been sorrier for her if she’d made an effort to wash and to dress nicely. I was all for natural scents, but there was a limit.
Remus went to the table and fetched a big glass of the golden-yellow wine for her. ‘Have a drink, sweetheart. You’ll feel better.’
‘You always seem to forget that I’m breast-feeding,’ she said, shaking her head, and Remus, uncharacteristically, snapped, ‘Forget that for one evening! He can have a bottle later.’
Nymphadora shrugged and took the glass from him. Before she could even take a sip, Sirius came up to Remus and said, ‘Come and help me light the lanterns,’ and the two of them went out to the garden, leaving her sitting there alone.
If I’d been her I’d have drained that wine in one go, but she didn’t touch it, just put the glass carefully on the floor. When she sat up again she was clutching something in her hand.
I actually went cold: an almost impossible feat for a bedspread designed to keep people warm! I could feel a chill around me, and everything seemed very dim and silent, though of course it wasn’t. The lanterns were now glowing in the trees, there was a steady hum of chatter, and a faint smell of weed drifted in from the garden. The music wasn’t too loud, so people could talk, but it was loud enough, and Sirius had even played my beloved ‘Plushgun ringtone’ song a couple of times.
Nymphadora squinted at the small, golden object she’d picked up, then slipped it into her bag. Though the moment had passed, there was something ominous about the gesture.
Remus and Sirius came back in then, glanced at each other, and apparently made a huge effort to stay at other ends of the room for the rest of the party. Not that there was much rest of party for Remus, because Nymphadora got up around eleven and they both left.
I was still on the sofa, so I have no idea what sort of night Sirius had. He staggered through the sitting room late on Sunday morning, and went back to the bedroom with a glass of water and a pack of aspirin. He didn’t re-emerge until early afternoon, with an armful of bedclothes for the washing machine.
I assumed I too was to have a wash after the previous evening. I could still feel the imprint of Nymphadora on me, and I felt rather tainted by that insalubrious tee-shirt of hers.
Sirius dressed, and went out to the kitchen. I could hear the intercom, and then Remus’s voice, rather urgent, calling ‘Sirius? Can you let us in?’
I don’t know if Sirius registered the ‘us’ but I did. I tried as hard as I could to get through to him, to beg him not to incriminate himself, not to say ‘Hey, Remus!’ in his happiest voice as he usually did, and maybe he understood me somewhere in the depths of his mind, because he just said ‘Coming’ and went to open the door himself. A few minutes later, he ushered Remus and Nymphadora into the sitting room.
I felt trouble looming the second I saw their faces. Remus had a strange, shut-in look, the antithesis of his usual expression, and Nymphadora was tight-lipped and grim. I had thought her pretty the evening before, but now her eyes were as cold and hard as stone, and I found her just a bit frightening. Silly, really: what could she have done to me? Pulled out my threads one by one?
The baby was nowhere to be seen. Sirius, who seemed a bit edgy, asked, ‘So, where’s Edward?’
‘Teddy,’ Remus corrected and Nymphadora said at the same time, ‘He’s with my mother.’
I wondered, rather inconsequentially, why she couldn’t have left him at her mother’s instead of bringing him to the party, but obviously nobody was going to raise the subject.
‘Do sit down,’ Sirius said, gesturing towards the sofa, but they both remained standing. ‘Coffee?’
‘No thank you,’ said Nymphadora. ‘We’re not here for a social visit. We’ve, well, I’ve come about this.’
She held up a gold wedding ring. ‘I found it on the floor in here last night.’
‘Oh, goodness!’ Sirius laughed. I noticed how tightly he was gripping the back of a chair. ‘That must belong to one of the previous tenants. I’d better let the landlady have it.’ He held out his hand.
Nymphadora ignored him. ‘It’s a bit weird, you know, because Remus lost his wedding ring about ten days ago. I was really upset! I put it on his finger in church when we married and he hasn’t taken it off since.’
‘Shame,’ Sirius said. He managed to infuse genuine regret into his voice.
Remus said, ‘Don’t sweat it, Sirius. The bloody ring is inscribed. She knows it’s mine. I’ve explained to her how I came over for a drink and I must have been fiddling with it, and it fell off.’
‘That’s right. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal. ’
‘Neither do I,’ Nymphadora said. ‘So why has Remus made such a secret of it?’
‘Sweetheart.’ Remus put an arm round her shoulder. ‘I knew you’d be upset. You made such a fuss when I lost it in the first place. It hardly seemed worth bringing the subject up again.’
‘I’ve often wondered,’ Nymphadora began, then looked down at the ground. She actually seemed to be blushing. ‘You two. You’ve been friends like forever, haven’t you?’
‘Since playgroup,’ Sirius said. ‘He pulled my Lego fort apart, and I whacked him with a toy train. Happy days.’
‘D’you really remember that?’ Remus asked. ‘I don’t.’
Sirius said, ‘Of course not. It’s one of those anecdotes your parents trot out when you’re a kid.’
There was a long pause. The Chinese lanterns were still hanging on the trees outside, forlorn and shabby in the bright sunshine. The flat looked forlorn and shabby too, with bottles still on the table and dirty glasses and plates everywhere: Sirius hadn’t even started to tidy up. Even with the French windows open, the room smelled of stale alcohol, and no doubt I smelled stale too. I wished, I just wished, that Remus and Nymphadora had been delayed, and given Sirius time to add me to his pile of dirty washing and get the machine on! Then, I’d be whirling round in warm suds, not sitting here listening to this acutely uncomfortable scene.
Nymphadora was now leaning against the sofa, as if for support, and her hands felt very hot on me.
‘I gather that you’re gay,’ she said to Sirius, in an unnaturally shrill voice. I could imagine how it embarrassed her to say it, but I think she also felt a little bit vindictive and wanted to embarrass Sirius even more.
If he was embarrassed, he didn’t show it. He just smiled and said, ‘So? It’s not a crime.’
‘But adultery is!’ Nymphadora said fiercely.
Remus said, ‘Adultery isn’t actually a crime, sweetheart. It’s more of a religious issue.’
‘It’s still wrong! You two are sleeping together, aren’t you?’
Sirius and Remus glanced at each other and fortuitously both rolled their eyes and shrugged at exactly the same time. It would have been sweet and funny if the scene weren’t so fraught. They were so obviously a couple, and Nymphadora could hardly have failed to register the bond between them.
‘I wish we lived somewhere where they’d stone you both to death!’ she said. ‘You deserve it. Filthy perverts! And God knows what diseases Sirius has given you and you’ve given me.’ She burst into tears.
The thing that happened next, which I subsequently called The Incident, happened very quickly. Sirius lunged at her, and grabbed her shoulders and I think she kicked out at him, but then I was sure he pushed her, pushed her down as she struggled, so she banged her head on the woodblock floor; I thought it banged once, and then again, until she was lying absolutely still. It was a bit like one of those black and white films Sirius watched late at night, the gangster movies, where the girls screamed just before the screen went blank.
‘Shit,’ Sirius said. ‘I haven’t really hurt her, have I? Come on, Nymphadora, get up.’
‘She was asking for it,’ Remus said savagely. I got the strong impression that he wanted to kick her and was restraining himself. But he didn’t manage to restrain himself from going over to Sirius and putting his arms round him. The two men stood holding each other close, not speaking, not moving.
Nymphadora didn’t speak or move either. Eventually, I noticed blood seeping on to the floor from the back of her head. It smelled heavy and cloying, and if I had been able to I would probably have thrown up.
When they’d taken her pulse a few times, and Remus had shaken her, quite gently, Sirius started to laugh. ‘This is a joke, right? I tell you, Remus, when she comes to, you better just divorce her. I don’t know how you put up with two years of the woman.’
‘Hey,’ Remus said, taking Sirius’s hand. ‘It’s okay. You didn’t mean it. She provoked you.’
‘But how can she be dead? I just wanted to shut her up!’
‘I’m sure a coroner would tell us how,’ Remus said, and he also laughed, a bit raggedly. ‘I’m sure we’ll find out the full facts when we’re called to the inquest. Or to court.’
‘Not ‘we’,’ Sirius said. ‘It was me. I pushed her.’
‘So what are we going to do?’ Remus asked.
Sirius thought for a moment. ‘Well. We should ring an ambulance and explain what happened. See if anyone can help her. Then, the paramedics will call the police, after which I’d better find a really good solicitor and hope I’ll manage to get another job some day. When I’m out of prison, that is.’
‘When we were dropping Teddy off earlier,’ Remus said thoughtfully, ‘Dora was already pretty wound up. I could tell her mother that she went off in a huff. She has been very moody recently. And luckily, we came here in her car. You and I could drive her somewhere, as far away as possible. Where she won’t be found in a hurry.’
‘We’ll have to move her.’
Sirius took one of the big black rubbish bags waiting to be filled with empty bottles and together he and Remus carefully manoeuvred Nymphadora’s body into it. I was intensely relieved that they hadn’t used me to wrap her in, so relieved that I found the moment almost hilarious. I realise now that I must have been in a state of delayed shock, like the two men.
It took them a while, and then Remus said ‘Fingerprints,’ and Sirius dug a pair of leather gloves from a drawer in the dresser. Like all his possessions, they were obviously expensive, and Remus eyed them. ‘Sure you want to use those? They may get a bit dirty.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sirius said. He then seemed to notice the bloodstain on the floor, and went to the kitchen, returning with a couple of cloths and a bucket of soapy water. ‘Remus. Help me here.’
They knelt on the floor and scrubbed the stain away. The room smelt cleaner then, less oppressive, and I was pleased about that, but also horribly apprehensive. No doubt Remus and Sirius were feeling even worse.
After they’d left, all I could think about was my favourite song, the ‘Plushgun ringtone’, and the line ‘Stay here, touching you, touching the light in your eyes that keeps coming back.’ It reminded me of the way Remus and Sirius looked at each other, as if they simply couldn’t help their feelings for each other spilling out, and for some reason I felt immeasurably sad.
*
Sirius came back alone. He went to the row of bottles and selected the one Remus had brought the night before. The seal was still unbroken, but he opened it and drank a long draught straight from the bottle.
He took me off the sofa and put me on the table, then sat slumped on the sofa for a while. Eventually he stirred himself, got up and put the abandoned pile of laundry into the washing machine, and then came back to get me and added me to the wash.
The following day, I was back on the bed, and no doubt Sirius had cleared up all the detritus from the party. The flat felt clean and orderly, the way I liked it, but of course nothing could ever be orderly again; not really.
I dozed over the next few days, hoping perhaps to wake up and find it had all been a bad dream. I didn’t realise that I’d been waiting for the intercom to buzz until it actually did; if I’d had a heart, it would have leapt. Remus hadn’t been round since The Incident, and I could hardly wait to see him again. Or rather, I could hardly wait for Sirius to see him again.
But the voice on the speaker was harsh and peremptory. ‘Police. We need to speak to Sirius Black.’
I heard heavy footsteps and some talk from the sitting room. Though I tried as hard as I could, the bedroom door was closed and the only words I could distinguish were ‘car’ and ‘fibres.’ At least I thought I heard them, but possibly I was only filling in, though I remember my fringe standing on end at the word ‘fibres’, so that must indeed have come up.
As I have said already, I am no oracle, but I had a sense of the inevitable when I heard the floor creaking, and three pairs of footsteps marched into the bedroom. Or rather, the two police officers marched, and Sirius followed them, very pale but with his head held high.
The taller officer zeroed in on me at once, and said triumphantly, ‘I think we’ve found it.’
‘Hang on a minute, Sergeant,’ the other man said. I got the impression he was of higher rank.
Sirius said, ‘I wish you’d explain to me what you’re talking about.’
The sergeant took out a notebook and read, ‘We asked any members of the public who purchased a yellow Crown Buckingham bedspread between last December and this March to come forward. On January thirty-first of this year, a Mrs Eleanor Davies bought such a bedspread for the basement flat at 20 Corrigan Street, SE19. This flat, Mr Black. As we told you, Mrs Nymphadora Lupin was found dead in her car with fibres from this bedspread on her clothes.’
The short one said, ‘We gather that you know the deceased woman.’
Sirius said, rather weakly, ‘I don’t exactly know her, Inspector. She and her husband came to a party here about ten days ago. I was using the bedspread as a throw, and she sat on it. No doubt some fibres did get on to her somehow. I don’t see why two police officers should need to come and tell me.’
‘But you do know Remus Lupin?’ the inspector asked.
‘We’re old friends, yes. He did tell me his wife had been depressed. And she went off in a temper on Sunday. He’s been very worried about her.’
‘Well,’ the sergeant said, ‘he had every reason to be.’
Sirius was unconsciously drumming his fingers on the chest of drawers. ‘I’m very sorry about this. I’m sorry to hear Nymphadora’s dead. But you’re barking up the wrong tree. I explained the fibres.’
‘It would seem to me that most women would change their clothes and underwear between a party on Saturday night and a drive on Sunday afternoon,’ the inspector said. ‘In fact, we had a warrant to search her home. We found similar fibres on the skirt she allegedly wore to the party, and on laundry in a hamper.’
I thought that must be quite an unpleasant job! And I was a bit indignant to think of parts of me clinging to Nymphadora, dead or alive. I would have thought a handcrafted bedspread would be rather sturdier than that. For the first time ever, I felt less than proud of my pedigree.
As if he could read my mind, the inspector added, ‘You must understand, sir, that these are microscopic fibres, more like specks of dust. It’s taken us close on a week to get a positive identification. ‘
‘If you ever think of killing someone,’ the sergeant said, ‘you want to keep them away from any fabrics less than three years old.’
‘Or any fabric at all,’ the inspector said.
‘Have you talked to Remus about this?’ Sirius asked. The police officers glanced at each other.
‘Yes, we have. Apparently, he and his wife dropped in here on Sunday, so his wife may have picked up the second set of fibres then.’
Sirius seemed to sigh with relief. ‘Of course! I’d completely forgotten. Yes, she left something behind after the party, I think. They weren’t here long. ’
‘Funny you didn’t mention it, sir,’ said the inspector. ‘Any more than you mentioned the spot of refurbishing you did on the living-room floor.’
I’d obviously missed that part of the interrogation, seeing it was in the other room, but of course the floorboards were definitely a bit lighter where Nymphadora’s blood had been scrubbed away.
‘I have absolutely no motive for harming a woman I didn’t even know,’ Sirius said stiffly, and the inspector said, ‘I’m sure we’ll find one, sir, when we’ve talked a bit more. Mr Lupin’s mobile records show that until Sunday August twenty-fourth, he spoke to you at least twice every day, and texted you frequently. I’m curious as to why he suddenly stopped, unless of course you decided to speak on your mobile, or the landline.’
Sirius said, ‘We didn’t. You can check my telephone records. I imagine he didn’t ring because he was so worried about his wife. And if you want to know how I know, we met for lunch a couple of times during the week. We often do. Anything wrong with that?’
The sergeant put on a pair of transparent gloves, took me off the bed and folded me, then placed me in a plastic bag that reminded me of my first home. ‘We’ll be taking this bedspread, if that’s all right. Your landlady made a bit of a fuss about compensation, but as this is now a murder enquiry she doesn’t have much choice. And we’ll drop you at the station to make a full statement.’
I was relieved that the police car didn’t use its siren. Siren sounds always reminded me of Remus’s ringtone, and the way that first conversation with Nymphadora had somehow spoiled everything.
*
For the next few weeks, I lay in my plastic bag in a safe at the police station. I passed the time by imagining that Remus and Sirius were finally together and happy, living in the flat with me. I imagined them dancing to my song, and Sirius singing along with ‘I like you, maybe I'm just like you.’ I imagined them in the bed, which must look very dull and naked without me, holding each other close through the night. Sometimes, I assumed that everything must be over and they’d forgotten all about me; but I kept the faith nonetheless.
I also wondered if this was what it was like to be dead. Perhaps Nymphadora too was lying in a permanent state of semi-consciousness, with darkness all around her. She must miss her baby the way I missed Sirius - I felt sorry for her when I thought about that.
On the fifteenth of October I was removed from the safe and my plastic bag was tagged Exhibit A, and dated. I would have found this more exciting if I’d had a better idea of what was going on. I was driven to a huge space that the policemen called a courtroom and placed on a table, at which point I understood that there was to be a trial.
At first I found it quite hard to follow, with all the lawyers proclaiming and posturing, but eventually I got the gist. Sirius was accused of killing Nymphadora Lupin on Sunday August twenty-fourth. I, it seemed, was a silent witness for the prosecution, much as it galled me. There were other exhibits, including some grisly photos of a wrecked car and Nymphadora’s injuries, which I tried not to look at, plus the grey skirt she’d worn at the party and a couple of cheap mobile phones. Worst of all, that fateful wedding ring was winking at me from across the table. If I squinted, I could actually read the inscription: Dora to Remus, June 27th.
In his opening speech, the prosecution lawyer started off by stressing the relationship between Remus and Sirius. Though he meant to be incriminating, I felt he painted a really lovely picture of them. ‘These two young men have known each other for twenty years, and been lovers for at least seven,’ he declared. ‘Unfortunately, their feelings for each other proved too strong for either to end the relationship when Mr Lupin married two years ago.
‘The marriage between Nymphadora and Remus Lupin wasn’t a love match, and this was made clear to the victim. Mr Lupin suffers from cystic fibrosis, which means his life-expectancy could be greatly diminished. He wished Ms Tonks, as she was then, to have his child, though his condition is genetic. In fact, because many sufferers are infertile, he went to some trouble to have treatment in order to conceive naturally. Ten months ago, the couple had a healthy boy, who is now in his grandmother’s custody.’
I had no idea what cystic fibrosis meant, but it sounded nasty.
‘According to Mr Lupin, they had a deal. Mrs Lupin was to have his baby, and then at some stage, when Mr Lupin died, she would have a house and a reasonable amount of money, and be free to marry again.
‘Unfortunately,’ the barrister continued, ‘while Mr Black, the defendant, was aware of the marriage and the reasons for it, Mrs Lupin had no idea that her husband was seeing another man. And Mr Black was undoubtedly jealous that she had a greater claim on Mr Lupin than he did.’
Sirius was in the dock, looking much the same as usual, if a bit thinner. He was wearing an expensive suit, as always, and one of my favourite ties, in honey-coloured silk. I noticed a woman in the public gallery with very similar sculpted features and grey eyes, probably his mother, next to a younger man who could have been his brother. I was glad his family were supporting him. His mother also looked very affluent, and wore a necklace of creamy pearls that set off her pale complexion.
When the opening speech had ended, a policeman I hadn’t seen before gave evidence. He read from the logs recording Nymphadora’s disappearance. ‘We received the first telephone call reporting Mrs Lupin missing at five forty-five in the afternoon on Sunday August twenty-fourth. The husband seemed very anxious. He said his wife was possibly suffering from post-natal depression and had recently been behaving quite worryingly. Mrs Andromeda Tonks, the victim’s mother, confirmed that her daughter had been stressed and unusually weepy.’
He took the jury through the finding of the body. ‘On August twenty-seventh, a member of the public reported a yellow Volkswagen, registration number LJ06 BSV, crashed into a tree in Epping Forest. The woman in the driving seat was not wearing a seat belt. Our first impression was that this must be an accident or a suicide, and the pathologist in his initial examination observed potentially harmful contusions on the woman’s forehead, where her face had slammed into the steering wheel. However, the full examination proved that these contusions were more recent than the injury at the back of her head, which would certainly have proved fatal, and the pathologist concluded that the woman at the wheel was dead before she was put in the car. The woman was identified as Nymphadora Lupin, and the time of death was narrowed down to between two and four the same afternoon she was reported missing.’
At midday, the court broke for lunch, and a couple of police officers escorted Sirius from the courtroom. He was escorted back just before the afternoon session, which was taken up with a forensic scientist speaking of blood-spray patterns. He showed a photo of the scrubbed floor at the flat, and enumerated the cleaning materials that had been used. ‘However, scene of crime officers found traces of Type O Rhesus positive blood on the skirting boards and under the dresser. DNA testing has confirmed that it was Mrs Lupin’s.’
I was astounded! Remus and Sirius had cleaned up really well, or so I’d thought.
The court adjourned for the day after that, but my turn came the following morning, when I was taken out of my bag and held up in front of the jury. I tried to make myself as small as possible, because I felt so ashamed! If it hadn’t been for me, Sirius mightn’t have been here, as the forensic scientist, a woman this time, made very clear.
‘Fibre evidence can be every bit as strong as DNA markers,’ she said. ‘Every bedspread or carpet comes with its own signature from the factory where it was manufactured and the particular dye and materials used. If Mrs Lupin’s clothes hadn’t picked up these tiny fibres, the case would have taken far longer to solve.’
I felt a lot more comfortable when I was folded up and put away again. And the next piece of evidence, though damning, was at least interesting to me.
The two cheap mobiles on the evidence table turned out to contain voicemails between Remus and Sirius during the days after The Incident. Presumably, they wanted to leave their regular mobiles clear.
‘Fortunately for us, voicemails are easy to retrieve,’ the police witness said. His voice was dull and monotonous, and I was worried he would recite the messages himself, but instead he played recordings to the jury. Even though the matter was certainly deadly serious, I could hear the slight smile in Sirius’s voice when he said, ‘It was wonderful seeing you at lunchtime! I was so worried this, this problem would come between us. I thought you’d blame me for everything.’
Remus answered, ‘Never,’ and then said, ‘Even if they find her. Even if they find out. It’s not going to make any difference.’
‘They’ve found the body,’ Remus said in his next message. ‘But there’s no way they’ll link her with you, and there’s certainly nothing incriminating here.’
‘I love you, man,’ Sirius said, putting on a slight American accent to defuse the intensity of the statement. However, I could almost feel myself turning red. I glanced at the jury-box, where the middle-aged housewife and younger woman both seemed as enraptured as I was. Even the dull policeman looked a bit glum at Sirius’s subdued ‘Bye. See you soon.’
And then came the last message. ‘Sirius? It’s urgent! I couldn’t get to you earlier. I had to admit that we were there on Sunday.’
After that, the mobiles had apparently been seized by the police. I was sorry. I could have listened to the voicemails forever.
I couldn’t say the same for the testimony of the pretty ground-floor tenant who had once made a play for Sirius. She told the court that she’d heard raised voices in the basement flat that Sunday afternoon, and a woman screaming. While she was speaking, Sirius sat with his head in his hands, as if he didn’t want any part of the proceedings.
The prosecution closed with an expert witness armed with a soft, weighted ball. He demonstrated in front of the jury, dropping it lightly on the floor to show the impact of a hard surface on a human skull if a person fell naturally, and then the increasing impact as more force was applied to the ball. I found this a fascinating study, I must say. Still, although I didn’t want to, I kept thinking about Sirius pushing Nymphadora down, her head banging and banging again on the ground, and the look on his face.
Remus was the first witness for the defence, and I felt a bit fluttery when I saw him. He seemed rather more relaxed than Sirius, though still very pale and tired. I supposed it must have been hard to go to all that trouble to have a child then have the child taken away.
He took the oath in a clear, confident voice. I noticed him glancing at Sirius: their eyes met, and Sirius smiled. I could have sworn Remus mouthed, ‘Trust me.’
Before the defence could even begin, the prosecution lawyer got to his feet and said to the judge, ‘Surely you can’t allow Mr Lupin’s testimony? He’s also been charged in relation to this crime.’
‘He’s not going to deny it,’ the defence lawyer said.
‘That’s not my only objection,’ the prosecution lawyer said. ‘Isn’t this the equivalent of a wife testifying for her husband? I’d say that the friendship between Mr Lupin and the defendant would invalidate anything he has to say in Mr Black’s favour.’
The judge ruled that Remus’s testimony could be heard.
The defence lawyer took over again, and said, ‘So, Mr Lupin. Firstly, I want to confirm that you freely admit your involvement with the case.’
‘Yes, I do. I pleaded guilty to concealing a body. I was given a suspended sentence.’
‘‘Did you make any sort of bargain?’
‘No. Because the deal was that I should appear for the prosecution, which wouldn’t have been honest of me. The defendant is totally innocent of murder or manslaughter.’
‘And you know that how?’
‘Because I was there. I saw exactly what happened.’
‘What did happen?’
‘My wife attacked Sirius. She flew at him and started to hit him.’
‘So Mr Black was in fact trying to defend himself?’
‘That’s right. Well, it was more of an accident, actually. Sirius put up his hands, Dora lashed out at him, and so Sirius stepped back, understandably. Dora slipped, and she obviously fell at a bad angle. But Sirius didn’t kill her. I don’t think he even touched her. If anything, she brought it on herself.’
The prosecutor started his cross-examination by saying, ‘You tell us your wife attacked Mr Black. Now, I believe that Mrs Lupin was five foot two and weighed a hundred and three pounds. Mr Black is what? Six foot? And I imagine he weighs in the region of a hundred and seventy. ’
‘Dora had a very fiery temper,’ Remus said. ‘She used to scratch and bite.’
The younger woman on the jury giggled nervously, and the prosecutor gave her a filthy look.
The final witness was Sirius, who was subdued but so tense that I could almost see a jagged outline around him. He reminded the jury that he had also pleaded guilty to concealing a body. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I am not guilty of any other charges. Dora suddenly went for me, I swerved and she fell. Yes, Remus and I panicked, and we’ve both admitted it. I can’t tell you how sorry I am we acted so irresponsibly in the heat of the moment. We were both very shocked. One minute we were all chatting, the next Dora was lying unconscious on the floor.’
‘How did you feel?’ his barrister asked in a hushed voice, and Sirius replied, ‘I felt terrible. I should have stood my ground and caught her.’
He looked and sounded as sincere as I’ve ever seen him, and I wasn’t surprised when he was acquitted.
*
After the trial, I, with the rest of the evidence, was bundled up and taken back to the police station. Eventually, the landlady, Eleanor Davies, came to collect me. The sergeant on duty made her sign half a dozen forms, and she did so, impatiently. ‘I’m certainly not letting an expensive bedspread moulder here!’ she told him. She took me first to her own house, where she washed me in her machine on the hottest setting. I felt downright faded afterwards, and there was a tightness in my threads that had never been there before.
Winter was coming on again, and without me, the bedroom in the basement flat looked cold and bleak. Mrs Davies clucked and said, ‘You’ll have a job cheering up the flat this year!’
But Sirius’s silver-backed brush and television and clock were still there, and when I heard his key in the door after work, I felt quite faint: and more so as Remus was with him. Sirius noticed me at once, and he may have smiled, though obviously I didn’t have such good associations for him. Some of the light had gone out of him, but when he and Remus lay on the bed together I thought that perhaps everything would be all right.
They spoke mainly of the house they were buying together, and how happy they were going to be.
‘I can’t wait to get my hands on that garden,’ Remus said, and Sirius ran his fingers down Remus’s spine and said, ‘We’ll have to get the rooms decorated first.’
During the night, I lay awake listening for ghosts, but Remus and Sirius slept soundly in each others’ arms, their dreams indecipherable.
They left just before Christmas. It was too much to hope that they’d ask the landlady if they could take me, and of course they didn’t, though Sirius folded me neatly on the stripped bed. While they were taking out the cases, Sirius’s mobile rang, and I heard my song for the last time, all the way through until ‘Sunday came and went so quickly’. I couldn’t get the line out of my mind for quite a while.
So, that’s my story, though it doesn’t have a proper ending. I still think of Remus and Sirius, of course. I like to imagine them in their house, Remus planting marigolds and tulips in the garden, Sirius painting the walls inside, swathe after swathe of fresh paint covering up grime and imperfections in the plaster. I like to think the sun casts a golden glow over their bed every morning, and follows them from room to room during the day.
The new tenants of the basement flat are a more conventional couple, a red-headed girl and her boyfriend, who has messy black hair and glasses. I gather they’re both students at the London School of Economics. They’re not very interesting, really. Still, they’re all I have now, and for their sake I shall endeavour to be the very best bedspread I can. I may be a shade paler than I used to be, but I can still brighten up their bedroom and keep them warm at night.
Maybe someday I’ll have a story to tell about them too, though it probably won’t be a very exciting one.
End
AN: The Plushgun song Just Impolite can be found on YouTube here.
by minnow_53
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: PG-13/R
Warnings: Some violence; non-magic AU.
Summary: A key witness recounts the events leading up to a murder trial.
Thanks: To westwardlee for the beta and also to astra_argentea.
Prompt: My bed is covered yellow - Oh Sun, I sit on you
Oh golden field I lay on you
Oh money I dream of you
More, More, cried the bed - talk to me more -
Oh bed that taked the weight of the world -
all the lost dreams laid on you
- from "My Bed is Covered Yellow" by Peter Orlovsky
This is a repost of my rs_games fic for Team AU, with a link to the original post here.
Exhibit A
Everything has a voice, if you only know how to hear it; and every voice has a story to tell. This is mine.
I was created eighteen months ago in a factory near London, one of three hundred ‘handcrafted’ double bedspreads. We came in four colours, yellow, red, blue and green. I was, and am, yellow, a deep, almost golden colour, like buttercups in spring.
When we were finished, our seams stitched securely, we were packed in plastic bags labelled Buckingham Crown Counterpanes and sent to various retailers, where we sold for £65, mid-range in those days, leaning towards expensive. I, and three of my blue sisters, went to a Victorian terrace house in Crystal Palace which was being converted into flats. As the brightest, I was chosen specifically to lighten up the basement flat.
It was certainly gloomy, though I liked the bedroom at once. It overlooked a garden, which was dusky when I arrived in January, with a thin sprinkling of snow. Later, when the snow melted, yellow daffodils peeped through the earth, and I felt as if I’d come home, to a place where my kin lived.
The flat was let at the beginning of March, and that was how I met Sirius.
I first saw him when the landlady showed him round. She skirted over any potential problems, like the risk of flooding in winter and the dim rooms, and emphasised the garden and the space.
Sirius actually stopped dead when she ushered him into the bedroom. ‘I like the yellow,’ he said, and he smiled, that beautiful, dazzling smile that I grew to love. He was like sunshine himself; and when he moved in he sang as he unpacked.
He was rather old-fashioned, my Sirius. He may have been living in a rented flat, but I got the impression he came from a wealthy family, a family that still honoured the old traditions. Though I later found he was twenty-three, he sometimes seemed older; his possessions, I should say, made him seem older. He had a silver-backed hairbrush, real silver, which he used a lot on his glossy black hair. His handkerchiefs were monogrammed SB, and as a handcrafted item myself, I could see that these were far finer than I, of purest Egyptian cotton. When he went to work in the morning, he wore suits that had obviously been made for him, and silk ties. Even his jeans looked expensive.
But there was nothing of the spoilt, rich boy about Sirius. His dreams were crisp and golden, of summer mornings, fresh-minted coins and a boy with fair hair, whom he dreamed about frequently. He changed his sheets every Sunday and washed me every couple of weeks or so. When it was warm, he hung me up to dry in the garden, and I used to peep into the sitting room and see him working at his computer, a pair of black-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose, his papers stacked neatly on the desk. When he took me off the line, he always ironed me on the rickety ironing-board provided by the landlady. After that, he’d considerately make an effort not to lie on me for a couple of days.
Sometimes, when he was in bed, he watched films on a small television on the chest of drawers. They were usually grainy black and white, and featured shrill, pretty women with American accents who generally ended up dead. I grew to enjoy those films too, and looked forward to TV evenings.
I wondered at first why he never brought a girl home. He was such a wonderful-looking man! I’d have thought the women would be flocking around him. Indeed, in his first week in the flat, the pretty ground-floor tenant came down several times on the pretext of borrowing sugar. Perhaps he had a childhood sweetheart, I decided. Maybe she was away at university: I gathered from some of Sirius’s telephone conversations that he had only recently graduated himself. However, though he often lay on top of the bed when he spoke on his mobile, I never once heard a girl’s voice responding.
The mystery was solved a few weeks after he’d moved in, when he came home very late one Friday evening. I could smell whisky on his breath, a mellow, honeyed scent, and he was laughing a bit, a low laugh that could almost have been termed seductive.
‘Okay, the bedroom’s definitely the best room,’ he said, and another man replied, ‘Isn’t it always?’
‘When you’re there, yes.’ Sirius’ voice was unusually soft. He sounded at ease with this other man, the way one sounds with an old friend.
He didn’t turn on the overhead light, but fumbled his way across the room to the bedside lamp. If one can switch on a lamp with a flourish, Sirius did, and then announced, ‘Voila!’
I was glad that neither man could feel me staring, because stare I did.
Sirius’s companion was about his age, with a smiling, sweet face and brown hair. He looked just like the fair-haired boy in Sirius’s dreams, except for the fair bit; but no doubt, if one was smitten, one would dream of him with brighter hair, and his hazel eyes would become a purer blue. He wasn’t anywhere near as beautiful as Sirius, but then nobody was. He was nice-looking, though, and he was gazing at Sirius as if Sirius were the sun and centre of the universe, which I heartily approved of.
But really I didn’t get to see much of him, because he and Sirius were sitting on the bed, and he was saying, ‘I’ve missed you. You can’t imagine. You really can’t.’
‘Can’t I?’ Sirius said, with just a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
‘No. It’s been hell, and you understand that I haven’t been able to get away.’
‘I understand all right. But never mind that now. Never mind. D’you want a drink?’
If I could have spoken, I would have said, ‘I think you’ve had enough,’ and that was just what Sirius’s friend said, only he said, ‘I think we’ve had enough.’ I liked him even more after that.
Then, he and Sirius were lying on the bed, kissing, but I caught a glimpse of gold, a glimpse that disturbed me for some reason. It must have disturbed Sirius too, because he said, ‘Take that off, Remus. I hate you wearing it when you sleep with me.’
‘I hate wearing it at all,’ Remus said. Something clinked on to the bedside table, and then the two men were quiet for a while, lying with their arms round each other in the lamplight. I could sense many things going on between them: love, lust, frustration and a deep, underlying misery that somehow contrasted with Sirius’s sunshiny smile and clear, pure dreams. No doubt there was some mystery here, but after warming to Remus, I suddenly wished he’d go away, and not bring whatever complications beset him into Sirius’s life.
Of course, I am only a bedspread; I am no oracle, nor ever have been. In spite of my misgivings, the two men slept peacefully, and, as always, Sirius dreamed of bright and gentle things, of shimmering lakes and sunlit forests.
The morning was bright and sunny too. Sirius was up early, and brought a pot of tea on a tray back to bed, poking Remus in the ribs.
‘Hey, you. Wake up. ’
Remus rolled over and looked at Sirius blearily. ‘You tosser. This is going to be my only chance of a lie-in for the next few years.’
‘You should have thought about that earlier, shouldn’t you? And I’m sure you’ll manage to get away again. Soon. It will have to be soon.’ He put down his cup of tea and suddenly started kissing Remus fiercely. I was worried that the tea was going to spill all over me and stain me permanently, but Sirius obviously thought of that too, and stopped for a moment to put the tray on the floor.
Afterwards, everything was quiet, and I could feel the release of tension as strongly as I had felt the tension itself. I almost fell asleep myself, but concentrated on making myself as light as possible, so as not to put more weight on Sirius and Remus as they lay there.
Eventually, I heard a mobile. It wasn’t Sirius’s; Sirius had a song I really liked, which he called his ‘Plushgun ringtone’. I used to hope the phone would one day ring long enough for me to hear the whole thing. But this was an unpleasant sound, like a siren. Remus woke with a groan, rolled out of bed and groped for his jacket lying crumpled on the floor.
‘Hello? Yes, yes I’m going to be back later.’
The voice at the other end was definitely female, unlike any of Sirius’s interlocutors, and it sounded shrill, faintly hysterical. I strained to hear what it was saying, but the woman, whoever she was, was speaking far too fast.
When the call was finished, Sirius said, rather coldly, ‘So. What was all that about?’
‘I have to go home.’
Sirius thumped his fist on me, so hard that I shuddered. ‘Shit. You said you’d be here for two nights. ’
‘Well, that’s what I thought. But the baby has a cough, and I can’t just abandon them. She’ll make my life a misery for ages as it is. I’ll have to get up at night for at least a week now.’
‘Serves you right,’ Sirius said. And then, he said, ‘I’m sorry. That’s unfair.’
‘Not really,’ Remus said, and then there was an awkward silence, and then Remus sat on the bed again, sighing, and Sirius put an arm round him and said, ‘You’re going to have to do something about the situation sooner or later.’
‘You don’t need to tell me.’
Again, they were silent for a while, and then they kissed reflectively, if a kiss can be reflective. This one certainly seemed to be.
I wished I could have asked what was going on! I longed to know who ‘she’ was and why Sirius and Remus, who were obviously so much in love, couldn’t just be together. But I am a patient soul, young though I may be, and had all the time in the world to wait for the answers.
After Remus had gone, I waited for Sirius to strip the bed and put me and his sheets and duvet cover in the washing machine. Instead, he got back under the duvet and sniffed the sheets. I wasn’t sure at first what he was doing; he just lay there with his face buried in Remus’s pillow. I thought for a minute he was crying, but he wasn’t, just breathing very deeply, as if he were trying to take the essence of Remus into his own body. He didn’t change the sheets that day either, but slept in them for another week.
And the day after we were all laundered again, Remus came round. I heard his voice over the intercom asking, ‘Sirius? Are you there?’ Sirius was in the bedroom sorting through a pile of books, and he immediately rushed to open the door.
I could hear them in the sitting room. Remus said something about ‘her mother’; his voice was happy and excited. ‘A whole weekend! We haven’t had so long together since school.’
So they were childhood sweethearts! I could just imagine them at school, Sirius protective and Remus looking up to him like a big brother, the way I looked up to my red brothers when we were waiting to be sold. I could see them in the playground, kicking a football around perhaps, and Sirius joking about being signed for Arsenal.
I heard them shuffling around in the kitchen, presumably making a cup of coffee. Then, Remus laughed at something and they came into the bedroom, both dishevelled, as if they’d been kicking that metaphorical football around the flat as well as their erstwhile playground. Sirius rarely looked less than immaculate, and I was amused to see him with his hair messed up and his shirt crumpled.
Even though they seemed happy enough, again I sensed that slight edge of desperation in the way they were almost staring at each other, as if this was their last chance to memorise each other’s faces. Sirius’s hand was actually trembling as he reached out and pulled Remus down on to the bed. I felt myself overwhelmed by the weight of them, the physical weight and whatever was between them that made them so intense and sad.
‘You know,’ Remus said, a bit later, ‘there never was a time I didn’t want us to be together.’
‘I know,’ Sirius said, and they were silent for a long while.
*
After that, Remus rarely came over for more than a few hours, though in the summer he managed another weekend. He and Sirius stayed up late in the sitting-room, and I listened to them talking and laughing through the open bedroom door as they played poker. Around midnight, everything went quiet, and I heard something fall, with a tiny metallic clatter, on the sitting-room floor.
They slept until eleven the next morning, and Sirius yawned and said, ‘I’m surprised that wife of yours hasn’t called.’
‘Thank God.’ Remus was lying with his head on Sirius’s shoulder, staring up at the ceiling. He looked utterly relaxed.
Sirius hesitated. ‘I’d like...I’d love to meet her. ’
Remus tensed slightly and began to plait the small fringe at the top of me. I wished he wouldn’t! I’ve hated being pulled at ever since one of my threads got tangled during the manufacturing process. ‘What brought that on?’ he asked. ‘I’ve always thought you wanted to stay as far from her as possible.’
‘Well, it might be interesting,’ Sirius said, with that slight drawl I’d noticed when he had some ulterior motive. Remus obviously noticed it too and said acerbically, ‘Interesting how? So you and I can nudge each other and wink because she hasn’t got a clue?’
‘Mainly to prove she really exists,’ Sirius said. ‘I sometimes wonder if you haven’t invented a wife so nobody’ll know that you’re the last person who should ever be married.’
Remus heaved himself off the bed. He was naked, and I was a bit taken aback at how thin he was: you could see every rib. If he did have a wife, she certainly didn’t look after him very well! I could understand why Sirius might think he was lying.
But Remus flushed and said, ‘D’you think I’d make it all up? D’you think I wouldn’t be here with you if I could be? I wanted a child, that’s all. Someone to keep me alive when I’m, when I’m...’
Sirius pulled him down again. I thought he’d be angry, but he cradled Remus’s head and murmured, ‘Please, please don’t say it. You won’t die. I won’t let you.’
‘You can’t stop me,’ Remus said with a bitterness at odds with his kind, open face.
‘I can,’ Sirius said. ‘I’ll pretend I’m a magician, and I’ll wave my wand so everything will go away.’
‘I wish.’
‘What amazes me is that you took the risk,’ Sirius said. It seemed a callous remark, but Remus didn’t take offence, or not as far as I could tell. He even laughed, though not very humorously. ‘There wasn’t much risk at all. Dora’s perfectly healthy. Anyway, I’m not here to discuss my family.’
They kissed for a while. They kissed very quietly, very drily, which was a relief; I’m not fond of slobber, which makes me feel all sticky and dirty.
Sirius was thinking furiously; I could sense his concentration. He was obviously aware that he couldn’t just go to Remus’s house and say to his wife, ‘Hello, I’m Remus’s boyfriend,’ or whatever he’d call himself. I could see he wanted to: he had quite a little fantasy about her opening the door to him and crumpling in a faint at his feet.
‘Tell you what,’ he said eventually, bounding out of bed. ‘We’ll have a party.’ He pulled me off the bed - I was pretty well all on the floor anyway - and wrapped me round his torso. ‘A housewarming party. It’s a bit belated, but nobody’s going to complain. I could ask some of the people at work. And a few of our friends from school. I’m still in touch with Martin.’
‘Martin,’ Remus said, ‘is a complete waste of space.’
Sirius took me off and twirled me round, like a bullfighter’s cloak. ‘Martin is living with an actress. You probably know her. She’s in Eastenders.’
Remus said, ‘I never watch Eastenders.’
‘Yeah, but I bet Nymphadora does.’
If Sirius hadn’t thrown me down carelessly as he spoke, I’d probably have thrown myself. What an unusual name! Was Nymphadora also an actress? I imagined her as a pre-Raphaelite beauty, with electric red hair, dressed in a green gown. I have never been fond of the colour myself, after one of my green brothers called me ‘garish’.
‘Oh, God, that reminds me,’ Remus groaned, ‘I dropped my ring. I can’t go home without it.’
They got up and dressed, Sirius making helpful suggestions. ‘It must have rolled under the dresser. Or maybe it’s still on the table.’
Remus laughed. ‘Your physics sucks, you know that? It’s somewhere under the sofa, unless it’s walked off by itself.’
They went into the other room, where Sirius put on the CD player, though not, unfortunately, the song I liked so much. I thought I heard them dancing, or perhaps their feet were just tapping on the floor as they looked for this missing ring. I lapsed into my own fantasy about them holding each other close, Remus’s hand on Sirius’s shoulder, Sirius nuzzling Remus’s shiny brown hair... Though Sirius used his silver brush obsessively, I had developed something of a fetish for Remus’s hair, which he washed frequently, or at least whenever he was coming here. I was especially taken with the lemon smell, a yellow smell, as clean and sharp as a smell could be.
If I’d had feet I would have been dancing too. It was good to hear music in the flat - it made me feel happy, optimistic. Nymphadora would be routed, rush away with her red hair in flames, and Remus and Sirius would be together forever. I lay in a pleasant daze until Sirius came in and put me back on the bed again, positioning my edges a precise two inches from the floor.
*
I was as excited about the party as Sirius, but also a bit disappointed that I’d miss it. Still, I reasoned, I would hear the guests through the bedroom door, and no doubt coats and bags would be piled on me, or perhaps not coats, in the middle of August, but certainly bags. And I would hear the music I enjoyed so much.
However, on the evening of the party, Sirius came in and pulled me off the bed, without a by-your-leave! He obviously found the pink tapestry sofa that came with the flat a bit old-fashioned, like something his grandmother might own, and was using me as a throw.
I nearly rumpled myself in my excitement! Luckily I didn’t, because Sirius was as precise as ever, and would have noticed if one of my corners had been a bit off-centre.
The dining table was now piled with food, and the room smelled warm, of pastry and dips and anticipation. The French windows were open to the garden, and Sirius had hung Chinese lanterns in the trees, though presumably they wouldn’t be lit until dusk. There were also more bottles than I’d ever seen in my life before, though to be fair I hadn’t had much truck with bottles: bottles with clear white liquid, with red liquid, and a few of a pale yellow wine that I obviously found especially attractive. These were in buckets of ice, which I thought would have to be replenished a few times, because it was such a hot day.
The first guests came around eight; a bunch of people from Sirius’s office, I assumed, because they mentioned the boss and working late and how awful the canteen was, but you could always run it off afterwards.
Next, Martin and his actress girlfriend arrived. I was amused to see that she looked exactly as I’d imagined Remus’s Nymphadora, with long, curly red hair. She was wearing a golden dress that I approved of, and she said to Sirius, ‘I like the throw.’
Sirius said, ‘You should see what’s underneath! Why do landlords always have such crap taste?’
‘Oh, I know!’ the girl said. ‘I once had a bedsit with purple walls and an orange carpet. I couldn’t change it, because the landlady’d just redecorated and she was so proud of the place.’
Then, the intercom buzzed, the Lupins came in, and the atmosphere subtly changed. Or maybe it didn’t - people were drinking and laughing, and everyone seemed happy enough. But I suddenly felt heavy and tired. If I’d been human, I would probably have broken out in a sweat. As it was, I could have sworn I turned a shade darker.
The first thing Remus said was, ‘Sorry, mate. We had to bring the baby. The sitter let us down.’
‘That’s okay,’ Sirius said. ‘He can sleep in the bedroom. ‘
‘He’s staying with me,’ Nymphadora said rather sharply, and wheeled round so she was directly in front of me.
I’d like to say she was witchy or threatening, but she wasn’t. In fact, if I’d been forced to choose a wife for Remus on looks alone, Nymphadora was precisely the woman I would have picked. She was small, delicately built, with brown hair a shade darker than Remus’s, a heart-shaped face and big grey eyes. Her eyes were actually very like Sirius’s. They could have been related, though obviously they were not. She looked very young, about sixteen, though she was probably the same age as Remus and Sirius. At any rate, she seemed far too young to be carrying a very large baby in a sling. His head was flopping on to her breast, and he was fast asleep.
‘At least put him down, Dora,’ Remus said, rather tiredly I felt. ‘You can’t lug him round all evening. D’you want me to bring in the car-seat?’
‘No!’ snapped Nymphadora, so loudly that I thought she’d wake the baby, but he slept on.
‘Okay, okay,’ Remus said. ‘Sorry about that, Sirius.’ He handed him a bottle. It looked expensive, and probably contained that amber whisky the two men seemed so fond of. ‘Anyway. Dora, this is my old school friend, Sirius. Sirius, this is Dora.’
Sirius said, ‘How do you do?’ and they shook hands. It was all very civilised, and I wondered if Nymphadora had any idea that her husband was in love with Sirius, and vice versa. Perhaps she’d wormed it out of Remus somehow. I could imagine him explaining that this was a school thing, that boys often slept with each other when there weren’t any girls around. More likely, he hadn’t even mentioned it.
Unlike the other women at the party, Nymphadora had not bothered to dress up. She was wearing a knee-length grey skirt and a grubby tee-shirt which the baby had obviously thrown up on a couple of times. She smelled sour, and I thought how unpleasant it must be for Remus to share a bed with her. No wonder he preferred Sirius!
When the introductions were out of the way, Nymphadora sank down on to me with a resigned sigh. She felt far heavier than she looked, possibly because of the baby, but I also sensed there was lot on her mind. I would have been sorrier for her if she’d made an effort to wash and to dress nicely. I was all for natural scents, but there was a limit.
Remus went to the table and fetched a big glass of the golden-yellow wine for her. ‘Have a drink, sweetheart. You’ll feel better.’
‘You always seem to forget that I’m breast-feeding,’ she said, shaking her head, and Remus, uncharacteristically, snapped, ‘Forget that for one evening! He can have a bottle later.’
Nymphadora shrugged and took the glass from him. Before she could even take a sip, Sirius came up to Remus and said, ‘Come and help me light the lanterns,’ and the two of them went out to the garden, leaving her sitting there alone.
If I’d been her I’d have drained that wine in one go, but she didn’t touch it, just put the glass carefully on the floor. When she sat up again she was clutching something in her hand.
I actually went cold: an almost impossible feat for a bedspread designed to keep people warm! I could feel a chill around me, and everything seemed very dim and silent, though of course it wasn’t. The lanterns were now glowing in the trees, there was a steady hum of chatter, and a faint smell of weed drifted in from the garden. The music wasn’t too loud, so people could talk, but it was loud enough, and Sirius had even played my beloved ‘Plushgun ringtone’ song a couple of times.
Nymphadora squinted at the small, golden object she’d picked up, then slipped it into her bag. Though the moment had passed, there was something ominous about the gesture.
Remus and Sirius came back in then, glanced at each other, and apparently made a huge effort to stay at other ends of the room for the rest of the party. Not that there was much rest of party for Remus, because Nymphadora got up around eleven and they both left.
I was still on the sofa, so I have no idea what sort of night Sirius had. He staggered through the sitting room late on Sunday morning, and went back to the bedroom with a glass of water and a pack of aspirin. He didn’t re-emerge until early afternoon, with an armful of bedclothes for the washing machine.
I assumed I too was to have a wash after the previous evening. I could still feel the imprint of Nymphadora on me, and I felt rather tainted by that insalubrious tee-shirt of hers.
Sirius dressed, and went out to the kitchen. I could hear the intercom, and then Remus’s voice, rather urgent, calling ‘Sirius? Can you let us in?’
I don’t know if Sirius registered the ‘us’ but I did. I tried as hard as I could to get through to him, to beg him not to incriminate himself, not to say ‘Hey, Remus!’ in his happiest voice as he usually did, and maybe he understood me somewhere in the depths of his mind, because he just said ‘Coming’ and went to open the door himself. A few minutes later, he ushered Remus and Nymphadora into the sitting room.
I felt trouble looming the second I saw their faces. Remus had a strange, shut-in look, the antithesis of his usual expression, and Nymphadora was tight-lipped and grim. I had thought her pretty the evening before, but now her eyes were as cold and hard as stone, and I found her just a bit frightening. Silly, really: what could she have done to me? Pulled out my threads one by one?
The baby was nowhere to be seen. Sirius, who seemed a bit edgy, asked, ‘So, where’s Edward?’
‘Teddy,’ Remus corrected and Nymphadora said at the same time, ‘He’s with my mother.’
I wondered, rather inconsequentially, why she couldn’t have left him at her mother’s instead of bringing him to the party, but obviously nobody was going to raise the subject.
‘Do sit down,’ Sirius said, gesturing towards the sofa, but they both remained standing. ‘Coffee?’
‘No thank you,’ said Nymphadora. ‘We’re not here for a social visit. We’ve, well, I’ve come about this.’
She held up a gold wedding ring. ‘I found it on the floor in here last night.’
‘Oh, goodness!’ Sirius laughed. I noticed how tightly he was gripping the back of a chair. ‘That must belong to one of the previous tenants. I’d better let the landlady have it.’ He held out his hand.
Nymphadora ignored him. ‘It’s a bit weird, you know, because Remus lost his wedding ring about ten days ago. I was really upset! I put it on his finger in church when we married and he hasn’t taken it off since.’
‘Shame,’ Sirius said. He managed to infuse genuine regret into his voice.
Remus said, ‘Don’t sweat it, Sirius. The bloody ring is inscribed. She knows it’s mine. I’ve explained to her how I came over for a drink and I must have been fiddling with it, and it fell off.’
‘That’s right. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal. ’
‘Neither do I,’ Nymphadora said. ‘So why has Remus made such a secret of it?’
‘Sweetheart.’ Remus put an arm round her shoulder. ‘I knew you’d be upset. You made such a fuss when I lost it in the first place. It hardly seemed worth bringing the subject up again.’
‘I’ve often wondered,’ Nymphadora began, then looked down at the ground. She actually seemed to be blushing. ‘You two. You’ve been friends like forever, haven’t you?’
‘Since playgroup,’ Sirius said. ‘He pulled my Lego fort apart, and I whacked him with a toy train. Happy days.’
‘D’you really remember that?’ Remus asked. ‘I don’t.’
Sirius said, ‘Of course not. It’s one of those anecdotes your parents trot out when you’re a kid.’
There was a long pause. The Chinese lanterns were still hanging on the trees outside, forlorn and shabby in the bright sunshine. The flat looked forlorn and shabby too, with bottles still on the table and dirty glasses and plates everywhere: Sirius hadn’t even started to tidy up. Even with the French windows open, the room smelled of stale alcohol, and no doubt I smelled stale too. I wished, I just wished, that Remus and Nymphadora had been delayed, and given Sirius time to add me to his pile of dirty washing and get the machine on! Then, I’d be whirling round in warm suds, not sitting here listening to this acutely uncomfortable scene.
Nymphadora was now leaning against the sofa, as if for support, and her hands felt very hot on me.
‘I gather that you’re gay,’ she said to Sirius, in an unnaturally shrill voice. I could imagine how it embarrassed her to say it, but I think she also felt a little bit vindictive and wanted to embarrass Sirius even more.
If he was embarrassed, he didn’t show it. He just smiled and said, ‘So? It’s not a crime.’
‘But adultery is!’ Nymphadora said fiercely.
Remus said, ‘Adultery isn’t actually a crime, sweetheart. It’s more of a religious issue.’
‘It’s still wrong! You two are sleeping together, aren’t you?’
Sirius and Remus glanced at each other and fortuitously both rolled their eyes and shrugged at exactly the same time. It would have been sweet and funny if the scene weren’t so fraught. They were so obviously a couple, and Nymphadora could hardly have failed to register the bond between them.
‘I wish we lived somewhere where they’d stone you both to death!’ she said. ‘You deserve it. Filthy perverts! And God knows what diseases Sirius has given you and you’ve given me.’ She burst into tears.
The thing that happened next, which I subsequently called The Incident, happened very quickly. Sirius lunged at her, and grabbed her shoulders and I think she kicked out at him, but then I was sure he pushed her, pushed her down as she struggled, so she banged her head on the woodblock floor; I thought it banged once, and then again, until she was lying absolutely still. It was a bit like one of those black and white films Sirius watched late at night, the gangster movies, where the girls screamed just before the screen went blank.
‘Shit,’ Sirius said. ‘I haven’t really hurt her, have I? Come on, Nymphadora, get up.’
‘She was asking for it,’ Remus said savagely. I got the strong impression that he wanted to kick her and was restraining himself. But he didn’t manage to restrain himself from going over to Sirius and putting his arms round him. The two men stood holding each other close, not speaking, not moving.
Nymphadora didn’t speak or move either. Eventually, I noticed blood seeping on to the floor from the back of her head. It smelled heavy and cloying, and if I had been able to I would probably have thrown up.
When they’d taken her pulse a few times, and Remus had shaken her, quite gently, Sirius started to laugh. ‘This is a joke, right? I tell you, Remus, when she comes to, you better just divorce her. I don’t know how you put up with two years of the woman.’
‘Hey,’ Remus said, taking Sirius’s hand. ‘It’s okay. You didn’t mean it. She provoked you.’
‘But how can she be dead? I just wanted to shut her up!’
‘I’m sure a coroner would tell us how,’ Remus said, and he also laughed, a bit raggedly. ‘I’m sure we’ll find out the full facts when we’re called to the inquest. Or to court.’
‘Not ‘we’,’ Sirius said. ‘It was me. I pushed her.’
‘So what are we going to do?’ Remus asked.
Sirius thought for a moment. ‘Well. We should ring an ambulance and explain what happened. See if anyone can help her. Then, the paramedics will call the police, after which I’d better find a really good solicitor and hope I’ll manage to get another job some day. When I’m out of prison, that is.’
‘When we were dropping Teddy off earlier,’ Remus said thoughtfully, ‘Dora was already pretty wound up. I could tell her mother that she went off in a huff. She has been very moody recently. And luckily, we came here in her car. You and I could drive her somewhere, as far away as possible. Where she won’t be found in a hurry.’
‘We’ll have to move her.’
Sirius took one of the big black rubbish bags waiting to be filled with empty bottles and together he and Remus carefully manoeuvred Nymphadora’s body into it. I was intensely relieved that they hadn’t used me to wrap her in, so relieved that I found the moment almost hilarious. I realise now that I must have been in a state of delayed shock, like the two men.
It took them a while, and then Remus said ‘Fingerprints,’ and Sirius dug a pair of leather gloves from a drawer in the dresser. Like all his possessions, they were obviously expensive, and Remus eyed them. ‘Sure you want to use those? They may get a bit dirty.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sirius said. He then seemed to notice the bloodstain on the floor, and went to the kitchen, returning with a couple of cloths and a bucket of soapy water. ‘Remus. Help me here.’
They knelt on the floor and scrubbed the stain away. The room smelt cleaner then, less oppressive, and I was pleased about that, but also horribly apprehensive. No doubt Remus and Sirius were feeling even worse.
After they’d left, all I could think about was my favourite song, the ‘Plushgun ringtone’, and the line ‘Stay here, touching you, touching the light in your eyes that keeps coming back.’ It reminded me of the way Remus and Sirius looked at each other, as if they simply couldn’t help their feelings for each other spilling out, and for some reason I felt immeasurably sad.
*
Sirius came back alone. He went to the row of bottles and selected the one Remus had brought the night before. The seal was still unbroken, but he opened it and drank a long draught straight from the bottle.
He took me off the sofa and put me on the table, then sat slumped on the sofa for a while. Eventually he stirred himself, got up and put the abandoned pile of laundry into the washing machine, and then came back to get me and added me to the wash.
The following day, I was back on the bed, and no doubt Sirius had cleared up all the detritus from the party. The flat felt clean and orderly, the way I liked it, but of course nothing could ever be orderly again; not really.
I dozed over the next few days, hoping perhaps to wake up and find it had all been a bad dream. I didn’t realise that I’d been waiting for the intercom to buzz until it actually did; if I’d had a heart, it would have leapt. Remus hadn’t been round since The Incident, and I could hardly wait to see him again. Or rather, I could hardly wait for Sirius to see him again.
But the voice on the speaker was harsh and peremptory. ‘Police. We need to speak to Sirius Black.’
I heard heavy footsteps and some talk from the sitting room. Though I tried as hard as I could, the bedroom door was closed and the only words I could distinguish were ‘car’ and ‘fibres.’ At least I thought I heard them, but possibly I was only filling in, though I remember my fringe standing on end at the word ‘fibres’, so that must indeed have come up.
As I have said already, I am no oracle, but I had a sense of the inevitable when I heard the floor creaking, and three pairs of footsteps marched into the bedroom. Or rather, the two police officers marched, and Sirius followed them, very pale but with his head held high.
The taller officer zeroed in on me at once, and said triumphantly, ‘I think we’ve found it.’
‘Hang on a minute, Sergeant,’ the other man said. I got the impression he was of higher rank.
Sirius said, ‘I wish you’d explain to me what you’re talking about.’
The sergeant took out a notebook and read, ‘We asked any members of the public who purchased a yellow Crown Buckingham bedspread between last December and this March to come forward. On January thirty-first of this year, a Mrs Eleanor Davies bought such a bedspread for the basement flat at 20 Corrigan Street, SE19. This flat, Mr Black. As we told you, Mrs Nymphadora Lupin was found dead in her car with fibres from this bedspread on her clothes.’
The short one said, ‘We gather that you know the deceased woman.’
Sirius said, rather weakly, ‘I don’t exactly know her, Inspector. She and her husband came to a party here about ten days ago. I was using the bedspread as a throw, and she sat on it. No doubt some fibres did get on to her somehow. I don’t see why two police officers should need to come and tell me.’
‘But you do know Remus Lupin?’ the inspector asked.
‘We’re old friends, yes. He did tell me his wife had been depressed. And she went off in a temper on Sunday. He’s been very worried about her.’
‘Well,’ the sergeant said, ‘he had every reason to be.’
Sirius was unconsciously drumming his fingers on the chest of drawers. ‘I’m very sorry about this. I’m sorry to hear Nymphadora’s dead. But you’re barking up the wrong tree. I explained the fibres.’
‘It would seem to me that most women would change their clothes and underwear between a party on Saturday night and a drive on Sunday afternoon,’ the inspector said. ‘In fact, we had a warrant to search her home. We found similar fibres on the skirt she allegedly wore to the party, and on laundry in a hamper.’
I thought that must be quite an unpleasant job! And I was a bit indignant to think of parts of me clinging to Nymphadora, dead or alive. I would have thought a handcrafted bedspread would be rather sturdier than that. For the first time ever, I felt less than proud of my pedigree.
As if he could read my mind, the inspector added, ‘You must understand, sir, that these are microscopic fibres, more like specks of dust. It’s taken us close on a week to get a positive identification. ‘
‘If you ever think of killing someone,’ the sergeant said, ‘you want to keep them away from any fabrics less than three years old.’
‘Or any fabric at all,’ the inspector said.
‘Have you talked to Remus about this?’ Sirius asked. The police officers glanced at each other.
‘Yes, we have. Apparently, he and his wife dropped in here on Sunday, so his wife may have picked up the second set of fibres then.’
Sirius seemed to sigh with relief. ‘Of course! I’d completely forgotten. Yes, she left something behind after the party, I think. They weren’t here long. ’
‘Funny you didn’t mention it, sir,’ said the inspector. ‘Any more than you mentioned the spot of refurbishing you did on the living-room floor.’
I’d obviously missed that part of the interrogation, seeing it was in the other room, but of course the floorboards were definitely a bit lighter where Nymphadora’s blood had been scrubbed away.
‘I have absolutely no motive for harming a woman I didn’t even know,’ Sirius said stiffly, and the inspector said, ‘I’m sure we’ll find one, sir, when we’ve talked a bit more. Mr Lupin’s mobile records show that until Sunday August twenty-fourth, he spoke to you at least twice every day, and texted you frequently. I’m curious as to why he suddenly stopped, unless of course you decided to speak on your mobile, or the landline.’
Sirius said, ‘We didn’t. You can check my telephone records. I imagine he didn’t ring because he was so worried about his wife. And if you want to know how I know, we met for lunch a couple of times during the week. We often do. Anything wrong with that?’
The sergeant put on a pair of transparent gloves, took me off the bed and folded me, then placed me in a plastic bag that reminded me of my first home. ‘We’ll be taking this bedspread, if that’s all right. Your landlady made a bit of a fuss about compensation, but as this is now a murder enquiry she doesn’t have much choice. And we’ll drop you at the station to make a full statement.’
I was relieved that the police car didn’t use its siren. Siren sounds always reminded me of Remus’s ringtone, and the way that first conversation with Nymphadora had somehow spoiled everything.
*
For the next few weeks, I lay in my plastic bag in a safe at the police station. I passed the time by imagining that Remus and Sirius were finally together and happy, living in the flat with me. I imagined them dancing to my song, and Sirius singing along with ‘I like you, maybe I'm just like you.’ I imagined them in the bed, which must look very dull and naked without me, holding each other close through the night. Sometimes, I assumed that everything must be over and they’d forgotten all about me; but I kept the faith nonetheless.
I also wondered if this was what it was like to be dead. Perhaps Nymphadora too was lying in a permanent state of semi-consciousness, with darkness all around her. She must miss her baby the way I missed Sirius - I felt sorry for her when I thought about that.
On the fifteenth of October I was removed from the safe and my plastic bag was tagged Exhibit A, and dated. I would have found this more exciting if I’d had a better idea of what was going on. I was driven to a huge space that the policemen called a courtroom and placed on a table, at which point I understood that there was to be a trial.
At first I found it quite hard to follow, with all the lawyers proclaiming and posturing, but eventually I got the gist. Sirius was accused of killing Nymphadora Lupin on Sunday August twenty-fourth. I, it seemed, was a silent witness for the prosecution, much as it galled me. There were other exhibits, including some grisly photos of a wrecked car and Nymphadora’s injuries, which I tried not to look at, plus the grey skirt she’d worn at the party and a couple of cheap mobile phones. Worst of all, that fateful wedding ring was winking at me from across the table. If I squinted, I could actually read the inscription: Dora to Remus, June 27th.
In his opening speech, the prosecution lawyer started off by stressing the relationship between Remus and Sirius. Though he meant to be incriminating, I felt he painted a really lovely picture of them. ‘These two young men have known each other for twenty years, and been lovers for at least seven,’ he declared. ‘Unfortunately, their feelings for each other proved too strong for either to end the relationship when Mr Lupin married two years ago.
‘The marriage between Nymphadora and Remus Lupin wasn’t a love match, and this was made clear to the victim. Mr Lupin suffers from cystic fibrosis, which means his life-expectancy could be greatly diminished. He wished Ms Tonks, as she was then, to have his child, though his condition is genetic. In fact, because many sufferers are infertile, he went to some trouble to have treatment in order to conceive naturally. Ten months ago, the couple had a healthy boy, who is now in his grandmother’s custody.’
I had no idea what cystic fibrosis meant, but it sounded nasty.
‘According to Mr Lupin, they had a deal. Mrs Lupin was to have his baby, and then at some stage, when Mr Lupin died, she would have a house and a reasonable amount of money, and be free to marry again.
‘Unfortunately,’ the barrister continued, ‘while Mr Black, the defendant, was aware of the marriage and the reasons for it, Mrs Lupin had no idea that her husband was seeing another man. And Mr Black was undoubtedly jealous that she had a greater claim on Mr Lupin than he did.’
Sirius was in the dock, looking much the same as usual, if a bit thinner. He was wearing an expensive suit, as always, and one of my favourite ties, in honey-coloured silk. I noticed a woman in the public gallery with very similar sculpted features and grey eyes, probably his mother, next to a younger man who could have been his brother. I was glad his family were supporting him. His mother also looked very affluent, and wore a necklace of creamy pearls that set off her pale complexion.
When the opening speech had ended, a policeman I hadn’t seen before gave evidence. He read from the logs recording Nymphadora’s disappearance. ‘We received the first telephone call reporting Mrs Lupin missing at five forty-five in the afternoon on Sunday August twenty-fourth. The husband seemed very anxious. He said his wife was possibly suffering from post-natal depression and had recently been behaving quite worryingly. Mrs Andromeda Tonks, the victim’s mother, confirmed that her daughter had been stressed and unusually weepy.’
He took the jury through the finding of the body. ‘On August twenty-seventh, a member of the public reported a yellow Volkswagen, registration number LJ06 BSV, crashed into a tree in Epping Forest. The woman in the driving seat was not wearing a seat belt. Our first impression was that this must be an accident or a suicide, and the pathologist in his initial examination observed potentially harmful contusions on the woman’s forehead, where her face had slammed into the steering wheel. However, the full examination proved that these contusions were more recent than the injury at the back of her head, which would certainly have proved fatal, and the pathologist concluded that the woman at the wheel was dead before she was put in the car. The woman was identified as Nymphadora Lupin, and the time of death was narrowed down to between two and four the same afternoon she was reported missing.’
At midday, the court broke for lunch, and a couple of police officers escorted Sirius from the courtroom. He was escorted back just before the afternoon session, which was taken up with a forensic scientist speaking of blood-spray patterns. He showed a photo of the scrubbed floor at the flat, and enumerated the cleaning materials that had been used. ‘However, scene of crime officers found traces of Type O Rhesus positive blood on the skirting boards and under the dresser. DNA testing has confirmed that it was Mrs Lupin’s.’
I was astounded! Remus and Sirius had cleaned up really well, or so I’d thought.
The court adjourned for the day after that, but my turn came the following morning, when I was taken out of my bag and held up in front of the jury. I tried to make myself as small as possible, because I felt so ashamed! If it hadn’t been for me, Sirius mightn’t have been here, as the forensic scientist, a woman this time, made very clear.
‘Fibre evidence can be every bit as strong as DNA markers,’ she said. ‘Every bedspread or carpet comes with its own signature from the factory where it was manufactured and the particular dye and materials used. If Mrs Lupin’s clothes hadn’t picked up these tiny fibres, the case would have taken far longer to solve.’
I felt a lot more comfortable when I was folded up and put away again. And the next piece of evidence, though damning, was at least interesting to me.
The two cheap mobiles on the evidence table turned out to contain voicemails between Remus and Sirius during the days after The Incident. Presumably, they wanted to leave their regular mobiles clear.
‘Fortunately for us, voicemails are easy to retrieve,’ the police witness said. His voice was dull and monotonous, and I was worried he would recite the messages himself, but instead he played recordings to the jury. Even though the matter was certainly deadly serious, I could hear the slight smile in Sirius’s voice when he said, ‘It was wonderful seeing you at lunchtime! I was so worried this, this problem would come between us. I thought you’d blame me for everything.’
Remus answered, ‘Never,’ and then said, ‘Even if they find her. Even if they find out. It’s not going to make any difference.’
‘They’ve found the body,’ Remus said in his next message. ‘But there’s no way they’ll link her with you, and there’s certainly nothing incriminating here.’
‘I love you, man,’ Sirius said, putting on a slight American accent to defuse the intensity of the statement. However, I could almost feel myself turning red. I glanced at the jury-box, where the middle-aged housewife and younger woman both seemed as enraptured as I was. Even the dull policeman looked a bit glum at Sirius’s subdued ‘Bye. See you soon.’
And then came the last message. ‘Sirius? It’s urgent! I couldn’t get to you earlier. I had to admit that we were there on Sunday.’
After that, the mobiles had apparently been seized by the police. I was sorry. I could have listened to the voicemails forever.
I couldn’t say the same for the testimony of the pretty ground-floor tenant who had once made a play for Sirius. She told the court that she’d heard raised voices in the basement flat that Sunday afternoon, and a woman screaming. While she was speaking, Sirius sat with his head in his hands, as if he didn’t want any part of the proceedings.
The prosecution closed with an expert witness armed with a soft, weighted ball. He demonstrated in front of the jury, dropping it lightly on the floor to show the impact of a hard surface on a human skull if a person fell naturally, and then the increasing impact as more force was applied to the ball. I found this a fascinating study, I must say. Still, although I didn’t want to, I kept thinking about Sirius pushing Nymphadora down, her head banging and banging again on the ground, and the look on his face.
Remus was the first witness for the defence, and I felt a bit fluttery when I saw him. He seemed rather more relaxed than Sirius, though still very pale and tired. I supposed it must have been hard to go to all that trouble to have a child then have the child taken away.
He took the oath in a clear, confident voice. I noticed him glancing at Sirius: their eyes met, and Sirius smiled. I could have sworn Remus mouthed, ‘Trust me.’
Before the defence could even begin, the prosecution lawyer got to his feet and said to the judge, ‘Surely you can’t allow Mr Lupin’s testimony? He’s also been charged in relation to this crime.’
‘He’s not going to deny it,’ the defence lawyer said.
‘That’s not my only objection,’ the prosecution lawyer said. ‘Isn’t this the equivalent of a wife testifying for her husband? I’d say that the friendship between Mr Lupin and the defendant would invalidate anything he has to say in Mr Black’s favour.’
The judge ruled that Remus’s testimony could be heard.
The defence lawyer took over again, and said, ‘So, Mr Lupin. Firstly, I want to confirm that you freely admit your involvement with the case.’
‘Yes, I do. I pleaded guilty to concealing a body. I was given a suspended sentence.’
‘‘Did you make any sort of bargain?’
‘No. Because the deal was that I should appear for the prosecution, which wouldn’t have been honest of me. The defendant is totally innocent of murder or manslaughter.’
‘And you know that how?’
‘Because I was there. I saw exactly what happened.’
‘What did happen?’
‘My wife attacked Sirius. She flew at him and started to hit him.’
‘So Mr Black was in fact trying to defend himself?’
‘That’s right. Well, it was more of an accident, actually. Sirius put up his hands, Dora lashed out at him, and so Sirius stepped back, understandably. Dora slipped, and she obviously fell at a bad angle. But Sirius didn’t kill her. I don’t think he even touched her. If anything, she brought it on herself.’
The prosecutor started his cross-examination by saying, ‘You tell us your wife attacked Mr Black. Now, I believe that Mrs Lupin was five foot two and weighed a hundred and three pounds. Mr Black is what? Six foot? And I imagine he weighs in the region of a hundred and seventy. ’
‘Dora had a very fiery temper,’ Remus said. ‘She used to scratch and bite.’
The younger woman on the jury giggled nervously, and the prosecutor gave her a filthy look.
The final witness was Sirius, who was subdued but so tense that I could almost see a jagged outline around him. He reminded the jury that he had also pleaded guilty to concealing a body. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I am not guilty of any other charges. Dora suddenly went for me, I swerved and she fell. Yes, Remus and I panicked, and we’ve both admitted it. I can’t tell you how sorry I am we acted so irresponsibly in the heat of the moment. We were both very shocked. One minute we were all chatting, the next Dora was lying unconscious on the floor.’
‘How did you feel?’ his barrister asked in a hushed voice, and Sirius replied, ‘I felt terrible. I should have stood my ground and caught her.’
He looked and sounded as sincere as I’ve ever seen him, and I wasn’t surprised when he was acquitted.
*
After the trial, I, with the rest of the evidence, was bundled up and taken back to the police station. Eventually, the landlady, Eleanor Davies, came to collect me. The sergeant on duty made her sign half a dozen forms, and she did so, impatiently. ‘I’m certainly not letting an expensive bedspread moulder here!’ she told him. She took me first to her own house, where she washed me in her machine on the hottest setting. I felt downright faded afterwards, and there was a tightness in my threads that had never been there before.
Winter was coming on again, and without me, the bedroom in the basement flat looked cold and bleak. Mrs Davies clucked and said, ‘You’ll have a job cheering up the flat this year!’
But Sirius’s silver-backed brush and television and clock were still there, and when I heard his key in the door after work, I felt quite faint: and more so as Remus was with him. Sirius noticed me at once, and he may have smiled, though obviously I didn’t have such good associations for him. Some of the light had gone out of him, but when he and Remus lay on the bed together I thought that perhaps everything would be all right.
They spoke mainly of the house they were buying together, and how happy they were going to be.
‘I can’t wait to get my hands on that garden,’ Remus said, and Sirius ran his fingers down Remus’s spine and said, ‘We’ll have to get the rooms decorated first.’
During the night, I lay awake listening for ghosts, but Remus and Sirius slept soundly in each others’ arms, their dreams indecipherable.
They left just before Christmas. It was too much to hope that they’d ask the landlady if they could take me, and of course they didn’t, though Sirius folded me neatly on the stripped bed. While they were taking out the cases, Sirius’s mobile rang, and I heard my song for the last time, all the way through until ‘Sunday came and went so quickly’. I couldn’t get the line out of my mind for quite a while.
So, that’s my story, though it doesn’t have a proper ending. I still think of Remus and Sirius, of course. I like to imagine them in their house, Remus planting marigolds and tulips in the garden, Sirius painting the walls inside, swathe after swathe of fresh paint covering up grime and imperfections in the plaster. I like to think the sun casts a golden glow over their bed every morning, and follows them from room to room during the day.
The new tenants of the basement flat are a more conventional couple, a red-headed girl and her boyfriend, who has messy black hair and glasses. I gather they’re both students at the London School of Economics. They’re not very interesting, really. Still, they’re all I have now, and for their sake I shall endeavour to be the very best bedspread I can. I may be a shade paler than I used to be, but I can still brighten up their bedroom and keep them warm at night.
Maybe someday I’ll have a story to tell about them too, though it probably won’t be a very exciting one.
End
AN: The Plushgun song Just Impolite can be found on YouTube here.