In the Spider's House

by Sarah Diamond

  ‘It sounds like she was pretty annoying,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘I thought so. Oh, she was a sweet-looking little thing, even though she was always as shabby as Bernadette and the rest—but, in a funny sort of way, that made her even more annoying. Like a squeaky little cartoon hamster you just couldn’t get rid of. I don’t know, maybe she was lonely, wanted friends outside that awful family of hers. She certainly couldn’t have found anyone much further removed from them than Rebecca Fisher.’

  A long, mutually reflective silence extended for some seconds before the sound of the front door opening cut through it. Loud masculine voices filled the room unexpectedly, coming rapidly closer. ‘You ought to come out with the kids more often, Dad,’ said one, and another said, shyly and rather evasively, ‘Well, that’s as maybe.’ Then the speakers were entering the kitchen: a red-faced man in his mid- to late-sixties, a fortysomething man who had to be Melanie’s husband, a couple of little boys.

  ‘Hello, kids,’ said Melanie. ‘Good game, was it?’

  ‘Not bad.’ It was the father who answered—both children were looking at me with a dubious and somehow dehumanising expression, as if I was a squirrel they’d found perched on the kitchen table. ‘Wolves won, but it was a good day out.’

  A brief silence, in which I saw that squirrel-look on the old man’s face, too. I was about to introduce myself, when Melanie did. ‘This is Anna Jeffreys, the writer I mentioned.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. You’re writing a book about Rebecca Fisher, aren’t you?’ Again, it was the father who spoke. I nodded, murmuring assent. ‘Sounds interesting. Make a good book, that case would.’

  ‘Thanks. I hope it will.’ I had an idea that he thought I was writing a true-crime book, but had no impulse to set the record straight. Suddenly I felt very out of place here, as if I was intruding on a private family Saturday. ‘I’d better be off, anyway,’ I said quickly, ‘I’ll miss my train. Thanks very much—you’ve been a lot of help.’

  ‘No trouble. Really.’

  I rose from my seat, wondering how much else I’d have found out if our interview hadn’t been terminated like this. I realised how unprofessional it would look to ring back tomorrow or the day after: Excuse me, sorry to bother you again, but I just remembered I forgot to ask. And I had no specific questions left to ask her, just the all-important details that you stumbled across while talking.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ I said. ‘Would you mind telling your friends about my research? If any of them knows anything about Rebecca or her parents, I’d really appreciate it if you’d give them my number.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Melanie. ‘I don’t think I’ve got it.’

  I smiled polite, relieved, embarrassed goodbyes at the strangers in the kitchen as I walked with Melanie into the hallway, where I wrote my number down on her telephone pad. ‘It’s really kind of you,’ I said. ‘I’d be glad of any information I could get.’

  Out of the house, I checked my watch and saw with a shock that my convenient excuse had been very close to the truth—I was in genuine danger of missing my train, which left in half an hour. But even the real threat of being marooned here overnight couldn’t make me go back to that family and interrupt their conversation with a request to call a taxi; the prospect dragged far too much of the past behind it. Hurrying back towards the town centre, sheer luck took me past a taxi rank, and I jumped in a cab, hoping like hell I didn’t reach Teasford station just in time to see my train pulling out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  IN THE EVENT, I caught the train with bare moments to spare and heard the guard’s whistle shrilling as the doors swung shut behind me. I sat by a window, looking out at the changing scenery as it flew past. Bare fields. Industrial parks. Cars on distant motorways. Anonymity. The day’s events replayed in my mind as if on fast-forward. There was so much more to discover, I realised; all I’d really found that day were more questions that needed to be answered. And I thought about the enigmatic Mrs Fisher, and her too-ordinary husband, and pitiful little Eleanor Corbett—that sweet, haunting, gap-toothed photograph in Agnes’s album, the loveless emptiness of the world she’d inhabited.

  Don’t worry about them, I told myself, all that matters is Rebecca. But suddenly that felt wrong. It was all about Rebecca, every last detail. Nothing was irrelevant; the key to her true self could lie in any of it. Her best friend. Her classmates. Above all, her family…

  My thoughts veered abruptly to Melanie’s kitchen, the way I’d felt as the front door opened and the voices came pouring in. How I’d had to get out as quickly as possible, seeing them together and knowing I didn’t belong here any more, embarrassingly aware that I was interrupting a family’s pleasant Saturday afternoon of togetherness, laughter and in-jokes; knowing that my presence made everything self-conscious and subtly strained. It was far from the first time I’d had that feeling, and I knew perfectly well where it came from. It was irrational but only too explicable if you knew what to look for; a kind of nightmare flashback that took me straight back to my childhood home. Talking with my mother in the kitchen there, tasting the illusion of cheerful normality before the front door opened, and everything changed in an instant.

  ‘It’s such a relief things have all worked out so well for Kay,’ I’d overheard my maternal grandmother telling a friend once. I’d been nine and at her house for the day; she’d thought I was out in the garden. ‘We were so worried about her after she had Anna, even thought perhaps we should have let her have the abortion, like she wanted to at the time. Still, it just goes to show, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Look how happy they all are, since she married that nice Bill…’

  My mother’s child by a previous relationship—on the surface, that description was as good as any. I had a stepfather, two half-sisters and one half-brother, nothing that would raise eyebrows in the street or jeers in the playground, nothing that plenty of other kids didn’t have themselves. But when I observed or read about apparently similar family set-ups, they seemed to come from another world, a casual democracy of birth and circumstance, where all the children were equally loved and wanted by their parents. It couldn’t have been further removed from my own life, growing up; my mother could try as hard as she liked to treat all her children the same, but she just wasn’t that good an actress, and, when we were together as a family, it was painfully obvious to all of us where her real priorities lay. Sometimes I could feel the weight of her guilt, and it made me feel guilty myself. How hard she tried to bring me out of myself when we were alone together. How, when it was just the two of us, I could feel life changing tantalisingly into the way life ought to be.

  ‘You shouldn’t spend so much time up in your room, all on your own, love. It’s not right. I worry about you, sometimes. You don’t have to be left out of things here. You know, your stepfather loves you very much, and—’

  The front door opening. The sincerity in her eyes flickering, awkward, divided. My stepfather coming in with Tim and Emily and Louise, all laughing together. The tiny and unmissable change in atmosphere as they came into the kitchen and saw me at the table. Too polite to be dismay, too kindly to be rejection. Something elusive, virtually indefinable.

  I was the difficulty in an easy life. The complication in a straightforward one. The only thing in a big, suburban, conventional family home that wasn’t supposed to be there.

  In the red corner, an unwanted and entirely uncharacteristic teenage pregnancy that only parental pressure had made Kay Jeffreys carry to term, then keep. Not even the offspring of a boyfriend, just an older boy whose attentions she’d been too flattered to turn down, who’d led her further than she’d ever been before one night, and hadn’t wanted to know her next morning. The result of that one date, if you could call it a date, was a child nothing like her in looks, personality or anything else—a child who’d come close to destroying the placid, prosperous future she’d been heading towards from the day she was born. Stigmatised single-motherhood in the house she’d gr
own up in, neighbours gossiping, parents interfering in everything from feed times to brands of nappy. Undoubtedly the darkest years she’d ever lived through, years she’d look back on and shudder…

  And, in the white corner, three planned and wanted children, products of the wonderful, unexpected marriage her parents had thought she’d never make with an illegitimate two-year-old in tow. Fathered by the man she loved, nice, affectionate, conscientious Bill Arnold, who’d even been willing to take on another man’s child for her sake, to try his best to be a good stepfather. Children whose looks and temperaments resembled one another’s, his and hers in equal measure, whose early years she’d look back on with a comfortable, nostalgic smile. Children from the life she should have led uninterrupted, if only a moment’s impressionable madness with the school heart-throb hadn’t sent it veering in a different direction. If only she hadn’t conceived me.

  Three children who should have been there, versus one who certainly shouldn’t. No matter how hard we all tried to pretend, there wasn’t much equality about that. Far from being my mother’s child by a previous relationship, I’d grown up feeling more like a child who’d been adopted, where one adoptive parent hadn’t particularly wanted you in the first place, and the other had rapidly tired of the idea when it was too late to go back. Growing up in a stranger’s home, trying to stay out of the way as much as possible, knowing that your very presence made things awkward…

  Sitting and gazing out of the window, I thought about Rebecca, and how she’d been adopted herself. Found myself restlessly wondering how it had been for her; whether she’d felt that bone-deep isolation, whether the velvet hair bows and gold jewellery had camouflaged an alienation akin to my own. As the train trundled into Dorset, I looked out at lush, undulating greenery bathed in early evening sunlight, beyond the faint ghost of my reflection in the glass. And, for a second, I saw Rebecca’s face there in place of mine, that notorious photograph from front pages and true-crime books—the large, pale eyes, the delicate cameo features, and the enigmatic little half-smile that could have meant anything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ON SUNDAY, Carl and I drove to Poole Tower Park and watched an action thriller he’d proposed and I hadn’t objected to. We held hands, shared popcorn, laughed and chatted as casually as we’d done in Reading. When the film was over, we went for dinner in a nearby restaurant. On the surface, everything between us was back to normal, and neither of us mentioned Rebecca’s name all day.

  Still, all the time, part of me was distracted by her. I could feel her mystery gnawing away in a distant corner of my mind, and struggled to ignore it. In a way, it was a relief when Monday morning came and Carl left for work, and I was free to acknowledge the extent of my growing fascination. It had become so heightened as to feel utterly personal, impossible to share. Especially now it was tied in with certain other things—Mr Wheeler, Socks’ death—and lived so closely alongside my fears that it seemed to have caught their sickness.

  It was easy to track down the number for East Lancashire Social Services, less so to be put through to their Children and Families division. After endless strangers had played pass-the-parcel with my call, an irritable-sounding woman came on the line. I asked her if they’d still have their area’s adoption records from the 1960s, presented my credentials as a published author, and explained my interest in Rebecca Fisher. She sounded more than a little dubious, but didn’t imply that my request was out of the question.

  ‘If you’d like to call back in a few hours’ time,’ she said, ‘I’ll try and find out if we can help you.’ I thanked her and hung up, then realised with some dismay that I hadn’t asked for her name.

  I went out into the back garden to take the washing in and saw Liz across the fence, wispy-haired and gardening-gloved, pruning the roses that ran up a trellis by her back wall. Looking round, she smiled, raising a hand in greeting. ‘Hello, Anna. Isn’t it a lovely morning? It’s shaping up to be a beautiful summer—I’m sure the weather wasn’t anywhere near this good last year.’

  As always since Socks had died, I couldn’t help wondering how much of her practical good humour was a show, whether, deep inside, she was as devastated as she’d been when we’d buried him. I had a momentary longing to reassure her that she didn’t have to act, that seeing her true feelings wouldn’t make me respect or like her any less. But social embarrassment stopped me, underscored by a humiliating sense of presumption. She certainly didn’t need me as a confidante; she had family, friends, any number of people who were closer to her than I was. It was better to keep things on the surface, out in the sunlight, the peace.

  ‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Think I’ll come and sit out in the garden after I’ve brought the washing in.’

  I did, about ten minutes later, having lugged a folded-down sun lounger out of the shed. I set it up nearby, alert for lurking spiders. Liz’s voice drifted over the fence again.

  ‘I haven’t seen you for a while, dear—what have you been doing with yourself?’

  ‘Oh, just this and that, really. You know.’ Beyond the research I didn’t want her to know about, there seemed to be nothing whatsoever to say. I racked my brain for something to give my life detail and colour in her mind, to stop it looking empty and dull. ‘A friend of mine’s coming to stay this weekend—my best friend, really. We were at university together in Reading, and we both got jobs there after graduating.’

  ‘That is nice. I expect you’re looking forward to seeing her again.’ Liz spoke comfortably—she’d set her pruning shears aside and moved towards the fence to chat. ‘Doing anything in particular, are you?’

  ‘Nothing special. Just hanging out, really.’ I was, I realised, looking forward to Petra’s visit intensely—it coloured everything in my voice and manner, an honest enthusiasm I hadn’t felt for anything but research in some time. ‘I thought I’d show her round the village, but there’s no set agenda. We’ll just see how we feel at the time.’

  ‘When’s she coming down?’

  ‘Early on Saturday morning. She’ll be going home on Sunday evening.’

  ‘That is a stroke of luck—I was going to invite you and your husband, but I’m more than happy for your friend to come as well. We’re having a bring-and-bake sale at St Joseph’s in Wareham on Saturday evening—it’s a WI event, Helen and Muriel are going to be there. I’m sure you’d all enjoy yourselves.’

  Damn it. I found myself wishing I’d invented a packed itinerary for the weekend, with every split second accounted for.

  ‘I know it’s in a church hall, but it won’t be at all religious,’ Liz went on, ‘not in a stuffy way, anyway. There’s always wine and nibbles at our events, and the people are all very nice. Of course, I wouldn’t expect you to stay long—it stands to reason you’ll want to catch up in private, when you haven’t seen each other for a while. But you’re more than welcome to pop by.’

  At first, cold duty had told me we’d have to put in a showing, but, as she spoke again, something altogether warmer and less grudging brought me to the same conclusion—she hadn’t extended her invitation out of a conscious desire to ruin our weekend, she’d just thought we might like to go. ‘That would be lovely,’ I said, smiling. ‘We’ll look forward to it. What time does it start?’

  ‘Half past five. You know where St Joseph’s is, don’t you, dear? It’s just up the road from the library.’ I nodded. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you there,’ she went on briskly. ‘Better get back to my roses, anyway. I’ll leave you to sunbathe in peace.’

  Lying back full-length on the lounger, the curt snip-snip of her pruning shears across the fence sounded oddly clear and loud. The sky was a luminous field of pure blue, and shadows lay sharp, black and perfect on the grass. It was hard to believe that anything truly disturbing existed in the world on a day like this, with Liz’s reassuringly solid and mundane presence in the next garden. As I closed my eyes, brightness seemed to filter through my eyelids as through paper. I reminded
myself to call the council back at around three, setting an alarm clock in my mind.

  My second attempt at reaching the Children and Families division was, if anything, even more tortuous than my first had been. Bizarrely, I found myself put through to Housing, then Finance, then back to the central reception desk. At last I was greeted by a man who sounded as cheery as an enthusiastic youth worker. ‘Children and Families. You’re through to Nick Jones.’

  I thought I’d have to go through the whole story again, but, as soon as I mentioned my name, he cut in. ‘Say no more. A colleague told me about you earlier. You were interested in the Rebecca Fisher file, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Of course, if it’s confidential…’

  ‘It’s not. It would be, if what happened, hadn’t happened—but as it is, it’s firmly in the public domain. A lawyer could probably do a better job of explaining, but I don’t suppose you’re that interested in the clauses and caveats.’ He laughed an easy, professional laugh. ‘To be honest, I’m surprised we haven’t had more enquiries about her over the years. I’ve been working here since the mid-Seventies. To the best of my knowledge, you’re the first writer who’s ever rung up to ask about her.’