The Housekeeper

by Suellen Dainty

  Jake shot her a furious glance. “Sorry I’m such a letdown to you and your politically correct friends. More like the Stasi, if you ask me.”

  I turned on the radio, and we drove back to Wycombe Lodge accompanied by the gloomy crash and bang of a Mahler symphony.

  “A bit of a mix-up,” I told Emma cheerily that evening. “For a minute Jake’s form teacher got confused and thought that I was you. Anyhow, she wants you to call her, said she’d left a message.” Emma blinked in her bewildered way. “Oh, yes, she did contact me. I forgot about her. I’ll put it on my list.”

  25

  Psychological scars have a memory all of their own. It’s called the truth. If a person has a fear of abandonment, it’s probably because they were abandoned.

  —Rob Helmsley, Madhouse: The Life and Times of Rowan McLeish

  Through all this time, I kept writing. As I burrowed past other memories, more came trailing up. I became intrigued by the concept of memory; where it began and how reliable it was. For a while I stopped watching detective series on TV and began my own online investigations. I spent the better part of a week reading articles and papers by Elizabeth Loftus, an American academic who’d spent her life studying memory. I watched her TED talk, admiring the way she calmly explained why she’d concluded that memory wasn’t the most accurate recording device. She’d conducted studies in which a childhood memory of being lost in a shopping mall was suggested to a group of people and one quarter of the group then believed it to be true, although it was completely false.

  Other people believed they’d nearly drowned as a child or been attacked by a vicious dog just because the memory had been suggested to them. There was Jean Piaget, the beaming beret-wearing, pipe-smoking Swiss psychologist who died in 1980, the same year I was born. He believed someone had tried to abduct him from his pram when he was being taken for a walk by his nurse. Piaget vividly remembered every detail: the man trying to grab him, the nurse beating him off, their eventual escape. The Piaget family was wealthy, so it made sense. But when he was about fifteen, the nurse, who’d left the family many years before, wrote to confess that the story was a complete lie. She’d made the story up to ingratiate herself with the family, but after becoming a member of the Salvation Army, she came clean and offered to return the valuable watch given to her by the grateful parents.

  All this made me doubt my own memories. Were they only imaginings, examples of Elizabeth Loftus’s false memory syndrome? But all the studies I’d read about involved suggested memories, false recollections that had been planted by another person. No one had suggested anything to me. I’d never been in therapy for my dreams to be interpreted as childhood memories, and there were no family friends to suggest things might or might not have happened. Everything had begun with the photograph of Kinghurst Place that Rob had produced during dinner soon after I’d started working for them. I’d looked across at that house and that strange tune, the one that wouldn’t let go, had started up in my head.

  I couldn’t make sense of it. Not that that stopped me writing more and more each day. I got into the habit of keeping my notebook and pen in my back pocket as I worked my way through the house.

  The haunted look on her face as she sits alone all day and all night, calling out her own name. Marianne . . . Marianne . . . like she’s trying to hold on to herself. Then she nurses me in her arms like a baby. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she weeps, and I run outside to pick wild strawberries from the hedge and make her a mud cake. But when I take it to her, she has disappeared. Everyone has disappeared except for the man with the carved face who bangs saucepans together all the time. I’m scared of him, but he teaches me to count. One day. Two days. Still she doesn’t come. Three days. I eat windfall apples and hard bread. Four days. Five days. She is back! Her face is covered with blue patterns like lace. But she’s blinking and her knee is jumping. There’s that rotten smell like something inside her is waiting to explode, and she leaves me again, even though she’s sitting right beside me. The other man tells me to get lost, but I won’t. He slaps me hard, and I run away, right up to the roof again, where no one can find me.

  As always, I turned to Jude, my beloved stalwart provider of psychological stabilizer wheels. “One thing’s for sure,” she said. We were walking back to her house after an early screening of an incomprehensible art house film. I’d told her about my latest notebook entry, the verses I’d found in the recycling bin, and the faint indentations that I thought might be the letters of my mother’s name.

  “You couldn’t make it up if you tried. But what it all means is another matter altogether.” She hitched her bag onto her shoulder and stopped abruptly. “Look at me,” she said, grabbing my arm and putting her face right in front of mine. “It’s a bit weird and fantastical at the moment, but it will make sense one day. It has to.” She laughed. “You can’t go on like this forever, cleaning up other people’s mess and scribbling in that very nice Smythson notebook I gave you. Maybe I should blame myself for all this. It might never have happened if I’d given you a scarf.”

  I couldn’t help joining her laughter. By now we were outside her house. She unlocked the door and stood in the hall. “Shall we stay here one minute and listen to this rare and beautiful sound?”

  “Absolutely. But what exactly is that?”

  Jude exhaled. “Sleeping children accompanied by noise of telly being watched by babysitter as husband toils away in Berlin again. Bliss on a stick!”

  We stood for a moment in the dim silence before going downstairs. Jude snapped on the lights and opened a bottle of wine. I watched her move about the kitchen, gathering glasses and plates of salad, putting everything on the table in her elegant way. One of the pastry chefs in the Chiswick restaurant, annoyed that Jude wouldn’t go to bed with him, had called us a pair of emotional lesbians. I wouldn’t have gone that far, but her friendship was my Northern Star, the constant in my life.

  “Thank you,” I said as she handed me a glass. “Not just for the wine, but for everything. You give me so much, so much more than I give you in return. Your friendship makes me very happy and I’m so grateful for it.”

  “Good,” she said. “Me too.” Jude was always brusque in such moments. “Now, drink up and give me more inside stories of your adulterous employers.”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Well, nothing much anyway.” I gave a brief account of my evening with Emma, the church in Southall, and the incident at Jake’s school.

  “I knew it.” Jude slammed her glass on the table. “Every time I see you, the web of that place and those people gets more complicated. So now, you not only still have the girl crush on Emma, you’re also impersonating her at Jake’s school. Also you think Jake is in the grip of some fundamentalist religious sect. And just after you realize you fancy Rob, you find him hard at it with the family friend! Oh, and I forgot. You’ve been promoted to chauffeur as well. I’m telling you, get out of there while you’ve still got some remnants of sanity left!”

  I nodded. Both of us knew she was right, but also that I wouldn’t leave. Not yet. I was too enmeshed with their lives. After everything that had happened, Wycombe Lodge was still the place where I wanted and needed to go every day.

  Nothing had been mentioned about Jake or the meeting at the school. Emma seemed to have let go of the topic entirely, just dropped it and let it skitter off. Rob did his usual morning perambulations around the dining room and then ambled off to his office or into the city. He appeared to have forgotten about our kaffeeklatsches altogether and I didn’t want to remind him. I wasn’t sure if he even knew about Jake’s problems at school and I didn’t ask. Only Lily was forthcoming during my evening visit to drop off her laundry.

  “Everything gets to him,” she said. She spoke like a village elder. Sometimes I thought she was the only sensible person living at Wycombe Lodge. “It’s like he needs another layer of skin or something, and he doesn’t help himself with all that ultra-right-wing religious stuff.”

&
nbsp; “Maybe that’s what he believes.” I handed over a pile of jeans and T-shirts. “Maybe we should respect that.” I thought of my night at the church, the way the preacher controlled her audience. I didn’t agree with Jake’s views. But I recognized his need to belong somewhere. He didn’t fit in at his school and he no longer seemed to fit in with his family. “Has anyone tried to talk to him about it? You never know, he might be pleased.”

  “It’s not that kind of school,” said Lily. “We’re not that kind of family.”

  I didn’t ask what she meant. I didn’t want to listen to her criticize her mother. I might have put down my laundry basket to hear criticism of Rob, but not Emma. Jake’s door was shut. I gave a perfunctory quiet knock and walked straight in, expecting the usual empty room. He was kneeling by the side of the bed, his hands clasped. His head was on the pillow. Something about the curve of his back and the angle of his head scared me. I found myself beside him, stroking his neck, his blond hair soft under my fingers as neatly paired socks and folded jeans tumbled onto the floor.

  He whipped around. “What are you doing?” His face was scarlet as if I’d caught him watching porn.

  “I’m sorry. You looked so sad and I was frightened that something bad had happened.”

  He stood up, kicking a cushion under his bed. “Like what?” His voice was wavering. “Like I’m going to get expelled for how I think? A guy in my class came to school completely drunk and they let him sleep it off in the infirmary. I’m not doing that. I’m not out there preaching to anybody about anything. I just want to be able to be who I am and believe what I believe. Is that so difficult?”

  “It shouldn’t be,” I said. “But do you really believe that being gay is wrong? Can’t you see the discrimination in that point of view? The way it breeds hatred?”

  Jake made a sound somewhere between a snort and a sob. “It’s more complicated than that. I can’t explain it properly.”

  “The meeting at school, your parents and the teacher, what happened?”

  “Nothing. They didn’t have the meeting. Something about Mum’s schedule and Dad’s book. They’ve arranged a date after the book is published.”

  “So you’re safe until then.”

  “That’s just it,” he said. “I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel safe at school or here for most of the time. There’s only one place where I feel safe.” He didn’t need to elaborate.

  “But—” I wanted to say that he could feel safe with me. Jake cut me off with a swipe of his hand.

  “I’m fine. Just leave me alone.” There was nothing left for me to do except retreat downstairs with my washing basket. Jake needed help, at the very least someone who tried to understand him. Yet every time I thought this, and I thought it often, there was the whisper of disloyalty to Emma, who had the time to drink wine with me but not to talk to her son. Still, after the book was published, perhaps everything would be different.

  Each day was two minutes shorter than the one that went before. In the morning, the wan, gray air carried the threat of frost. The sun, when it appeared, was pale, like something spent.

  Siggy waited for me in the hall every morning. It had taken almost a year of me dragging him across to the park or down to the river, stopping to encourage him to sniff lampposts and clumps of leaves, to enjoy the whole delightful business of being a small thoroughly spoiled dog. It had worked, and he had taken to trotting beside me with purpose. He’d even found a playmate in the park, an equally spoiled miniature poodle walked by an impassive Filipina maid. But for all this, his heart still belonged to Emma.

  One Thursday night, she rushed downstairs to lay the table and light the candles. Her hair was still damp at the ends and there was that familiar woody scent about her.

  “The last thing I want to do is go out after dinner,” she said, holding a pair of shoes in one hand and a camera in the other. “But duty calls. One of Rob’s things where I’m expected to tag along.”

  “You’ll probably enjoy it when you get there,” I said.

  “I doubt that.” She put the camera on the counter and slipped on her shoes, then grabbed a stick of carrot from the chopping board and nibbled around the edges of it like a rabbit before throwing it into the sink.

  “What’s for dinner?” she asked.

  “Spinach and ricotta lasagna. Lily and I made it yesterday after school. It tastes better the next day.”

  “Really?” said Emma. She didn’t sound convinced. “Lucky Lily, having you as a cooking teacher. I wish I could cook,” she went on. “I mean, I’ve tried, but I just can’t. Maybe one day . . .”

  She picked up the camera and turned it over in her hand. It was black, with lots of silver buttons, and looked expensive. “We got this for Lily’s birthday last year. All these things that you give children that cost a small fortune. You think they’re about to take up a new hobby, or discover a talent they never thought existed, but actually . . .”—she switched on the camera and the lens popped out with an efficient low whir—“. . . they use it for a day or so and then leave it to gather dust at the back of their cupboard. I should take it for myself. She’d never notice and I could do with some more shots on my website.”

  “I never take photographs, even with my phone,” I said. “I always forget and then it’s too late.”

  Emma pointed the camera towards the garden. Click click. Siggy pricked up his ears. Click click. She moved the vase of autumn foliage I’d picked that morning from the center to the edge of the table. Click click.

  “Your turn now,” she urged. “Come on, apron off.” I hated having my photograph taken, but she insisted. “You look so good through this lens. OK, smile.”

  I tried to grin in a casual photogenic kind of way. “Great,” said Emma. “Now, a serious expression. You look so good. All your cheekbones are highlighted.” Click. Click. Click.

  “But I don’t have any cheekbones,” I said, getting back to the carrots and potatoes.

  “Just one more,” said Emma. I looked up, blinking at the sudden flash.

  After dinner—Emma effusive about the lasagna without actually eating any of it—she and Rob left in a taxi. Lily and Jake helped clear the table. “Would you like to cook something one day with Lily and me?” I asked. “Name your dish, and we’ll try it.”

  “Uh, maybe a bit later on. I’ve got a lot of homework at the moment.” He had the same startled look on his face as he did when I surprised him in his bedroom.

  “Sure,” I said, biting back disappointment. “Anytime.”

  He disappeared upstairs. “Everyone is making his life hell at school,” said Lily. “But he doesn’t help himself. He won’t listen to me, so there’s nothing I can do.” She put the leftover lasagna in the refrigerator.

  “But you need to keep trying,” I said. “Everyone needs to do that.”

  “If you say so.” With that, she was gone. There was the sound of her footsteps clattering on the staircase, then her bedroom door closing with a bang. Downstairs, the house held its usual silence. I walked through the empty rooms, straightening cushions and piles of books in the sitting room and poking through some papers Rob had left on his desk. Nothing of interest.

  I went back into the kitchen and through the side door to pull the garbage bins out onto the pavement. No recycling bags this week. Rob must have finished the book. I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or disappointed. Probably both. Jude was right. I should leave Wycombe Lodge and find a job in another restaurant where fifteen-hour days would keep me too tired to think. Just move on, let things float by.

  26

  The Chinese word for crisis consists of two brushstrokes. One means danger. The other means opportunity. Work to recognize the difference. Be brave!

  —Emma Helmsley, “Taking the Moment,” October 28, 2016

  My phone buzzed and I fished it out of my bag. Three missed messages from Jude, the first before 9 a.m. An odd time for her to call, smack in the middle of the nursery school run, accompanied by inevit
able tantrums about the wrong-colored lunch box or a tangle in Amelia’s hair. Jude was time management in motion in a restaurant kitchen, but a complete ditherer in her own home (something she and Emma had in common). Probably a misdialed number, I thought, or one of the twins had found her phone and played with it. The next call, an hour later, was probably to say not to take any notice of the first call. But the third?

  I rang back immediately, not waiting to listen to her messages. “What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong? Is it the twins? I can come right now if you need me.”

  Silence. Never a good sign. “It’s that man and that woman,” she spat out. “I warned you.”

  I thought of Anton and the woman who’d replaced me. “What have Mr. Fancy Chef and his new lover done now?”

  “Not him. Not her.” There was an exasperated puff of air. “Your boss, the one who could do no wrong until you caught him having sex with his best friend. The one you were kind of in love with, not to mention the girl crush on his wife. The one you’ve been covering up for.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Hang up and google Rob Helmsley. Then you might want to call me back.”

  The computer in the study always took far too long to start. Colored, whirling circles appeared in corners and stubbornly refused to move, often for minutes at a time. But the Internet connection was still better than the one on my phone, so I sat and waited.

  What was Jude talking about? I imagined some kind of tabloid scandal, that someone had got wind of his affair with Theo. Tabloids loved to prick the façade of a family and see who bled. I pictured Emma at work, Fiona fielding telephone calls and emails; Jake and Lily at school with everyone sniggering around them.

  Finally the computer spluttered into life. I typed in Rob’s name. There was nothing recent in news. I clicked onto his website. Next to a photo of Rob looking earnest and intellectual, there was an image of a book cover with the gray and gloomy Kinghurst Place in the background. Superimposed on it was a photograph of McLeish with his heavy-lidded dark eyes staring out below the title. The book was called Madhouse. Each letter was printed in a different shade of neon.