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‘Sterling, I… ‘ Malory began, sipping rum to steel herself for condolences and comfort, letting out an audible sigh of relief as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of his room, and she took in the stillness of his frame. He was still passed out. Unsurprising, she supposed, at ten in the morning.
‘You what, mother?’ He slurred from underneath the blankets.
‘I thought you might want some help.’
‘I guess I’m a valet short right now, but that’s a bit weird, even for you.’
‘Not with getting dressed, you ass.’ She hissed, downing her glass and setting it down on the dresser, cursing as she realised there was now no one to silently remove it.
‘Well what, then?’ He said, stumbling out of bed and into yesterday’s trousers with the grace of a three-legged giraffe.
‘Since the funeral was yesterday-‘
‘I don’t know if I’d call that a funeral. Jesus, mother, there weren’t even enough of us to be pallbearers.’
They had been a ridiculous party, huddled at the front of the chapel; a (still glamorous and sexy) older woman, Sterling, and a twitchy man Malory could only assume had been Woodhouse's dealer.
‘In any case, you should deal with his things.’
Sterling stopped dead in his fumbling tracks but said nothing.
‘I know he-‘ The words of consolation literally caught in her throat.
‘Yeah, well.’ Sterling replied, reaching for a bottle under the bed and swigging generously from it, inviting no further conversation.
‘God I could really use some Eggs Woodhouse right about now.’ He said glumly.
‘We’ll advertise.’
‘Might even get one without a habit this time. I can stop locking up the silver.’
‘Sterling Malory Archer, I raised you better than to trust staff with your valuables.’
‘Well you let one of them raise me, so, there’s that.’
Her hand balled into a fist but they’d rehearsed this argument too many times to waste their breath, and he was upset. She was generous enough to allow him at least one outburst.
‘I am going to Woodhouse’s room.’ She said, unclenching her hand.
‘He had a room?’
‘And I am going to start sorting through it. Join me when you feel able to help.’ Malory finished, leaving the room and making her way to the small, nondescript door at the end of the hall, the only one in the apartment she’d never deigned to enter before. It was as small and bare as she’d expected it to be, lessening her task, though it left an uncharacteristically bitter taste in her mouth to see what sparse remains such a long life could leave.
There was a bed, more akin to the unyielding cots she’d shared, many years apart, with Father Theophanes as she fled her way across the Aegean, and with a charming novice at Wadi el Natrun after her little mishap at Suez – monastic, in short, was the word she was looking for to describe it. There was nothing underneath it save old syringes which she avoided, nose wrinkling in distaste, and various bags. She he supposed she could save them up for when she finally cracked and cajoled Pam into an overdose. The small desk and book case were similarly bare, aside from a couple of chemistry books she passed over in pointed silence, and a collection of guides and memoirs of Tangiers.
These she paused to leaf through, surprised that his time there had apparently been so memorable, though, she now realised, she had no idea how long he’d been there before the night she’d burst into his bar, and then over it.
She set them aside and passed over several volumes of Catullus and the Greek poets, their frontispieces all bearing a florid ‘From Reggie’, with no more than a raised eyebrow, moving over to the wardrobe. Its contents seemed, at first, no more interesting than the rest, neatly pressed and starched rows of black and white, until she noticed the biscuit tin on its floor, half-concealed behind the solitary pair of shoes. She had not realised he’d owned two pairs, but she assumed they hadn’t buried him just in his socks, not that she’d gone to the chapel of rest and checked.
She pushed them aside hastily and brought the box out, prising the stiff lid off. The thing was pitifully empty, embarrassing even the small size of the container though they would have looked even sillier in a photo album – the contents could easily have been kept between the pages of a book. She picked up the first, an old, square, black and white photograph, a lumpen and stern-faced pair, glaring out at her, understandable given the hideously English-looking beach they appeared to be sitting on. She took these to be his parents, a small scribble on the back confirming this and dating the thing a good thirty years earlier. A positively Edwardian example of a school year, small and hopeful, containing, surely, Woodhouse himself, though despite her best efforts she couldn’t tell which one he was. A portrait of an obvious queen in First World War uniform followed, and similar photos of a few other men, followed by a couple more of Tangiers itself dated a few years apart. The next three, to her surprise, were of Sterling as a child; one at a party with his peers. She didn’t recognise a single one. The other two were in a park she’d never taken him to herself. On all three were written ‘my boy’, to Malory’s great displeasure.
There was now only one left, and she nearly dropped it in shock to see a youthful Woodhouse arm in grinning arm with Sterling.
No. Not quite Sterling; a fair bit shorter, a little slighter, but near enough to send shivers down her spine.
‘Myself and Dicky, August 1927’
She read on the obverse, before turning it back and staring at it more intently, remembering from the awful tattoo on her son’s shoulder that Dicky was Woodhouse’s brother. The resemblance was still shocking with a more critical eye, and even Woodhouse’s piercingly pale eyes were beginning to look a little too similar for comfort. She laughed softly to herself, safe in the knowledge that this little flight of fancy could be nothing more than just that.
After all, she hadn't even been to Tangiers before Sterling was born. No, she now recalled, she had, but only once, when Savio Mascalzone had had Enrico murdered. She’d driven from Rome to Naples, blinded by tears as she sped through the night, and boarded a ship going anywhere, to stop herself from murdering half of SIOS and destroying European peace in the process. Even now her heart caught in her throat at the memory of it, and she sat down heavily on the narrow bed, breathing deeply and swigging from her glass.
The boat had been in fact bound for Tangiers, though she’d only been slightly aware of that for the entire journey or her short stay there. She remembered the disapproving stares of fellow travellers. She remembered a broken man behind the bar in some seedy place or other, a drunk, as entirely consumed by grief as she was herself, a perfect mirror and solace, though she was so far gone herself she had only ever remembered him as a pair of shoulders slumped over a bottle. She began to feel nauseous.
Surely not.
How had she thought it was blind luck, as she’d fled through the city, driven by labour pangs and fear for her life, that she’d ended up falling through the right doorway into a bar empty except for a man who, without so much as a question, saved her life and Sterling’s? Luck? It was no such thing, she realised now. It was faint memory.
Surely not.
The man had closed up the bar that very day and agreed – no, not agreed, offered, to move half way across the world to help her. She’d chalked it up at the time – quite understandably – to her personal charms. Besides, she hadn’t wished to delve too deeply. After all, help was hard to come by for someone in her position. But Woodhouse had given up his entire life for Sterling.
Who would do that?
‘My boy’
Malory felt the crack of glass under her hand, followed by the burn of alcohol mixing with her blood. Cursing loudly, she threw the rest of the glass onto the floor and wadded the sheet on the bed into her cut.
‘You alright?’ Sterling said, appearing in the doorway hardly any more dressed than she’d left him.
‘Yes! I’m fine. Just a little accident.’ She hissed, suddenly desperately aware of the photograph lying next to her. ‘Actually, no. Go and get me a glass of water. And some vodka.’
He turned to go but he noticed the open biscuit tin beside her and paused.
‘Now, if it’s not too much trouble.’ She shrieked at him, though it was too late. With icy dread she saw his glance fall on the photograph, and his eyebrows quirk in surprise as he saw what she had seen.
‘Sterling.’ She said, too loudly, standing up and trying to crowd him from the room. ‘Sterling, please.’
She grabbed his wrist but he merely shook it off, stepping past her to pick up the thing. She stood rooted to the spot, watching him stare at it for several seconds. He finally turned around, the blood drained from his face. He looked completely bewildered as he held the picture out to her, eyes pleading for an explanation.
‘Mother?’