I loved the rough, salty wind coming off the ocean, sand blowing in my hair and clothes. The noise of the sea excited me. I admired the birds too, the waders with their orange heads dipping in and out of the rock pools.
My brother informed me they were oystercatchers and set about chasing them. When I protested, he laughed, took himself off in search of other victims – other birds to frighten and small creatures he could torture.
The first time I ventured down to the beach by myself I was eight. My brother was nowhere to be seen; my mother was unwell and had taken to her bed. It was the maid’s day off. For a few precious hours, I found myself unsupervised.
It was a brooding day and had I been older I might have shown more sense. From the edge of the garden where an oak tree grew, I could see the tide was out, see the oystercatchers stepping daintily at the edge of the shore. The beach belonged to them and as I scrambled across the shingle to the sand, for a while it was as if it belonged to me too.
After twenty minutes the sky clouded over and without warning, a storm blew in from the sea. I fled the beach as fast as my legs would allow. As I ran up the field, out of breath and struggling, the clouds darkened and rolled over me. Rain streaked down, sounding like tiny stones on my head. Drenched in an instant, I blundered up to the garden, a sense of dread overcoming me.
Turning for the house, my hair flat against my head, my unease deepened. Darts of apprehension stabbed at me, a black-winged bird at the back of my mind. At the side of the house, the trees marking the periphery of the garden were all at once starkly black and made of midnight.
‘Where have you been?’
He stepped from between the trees, barely touched by the rain now soaking me to my skin. At ten years old, my brother was already arrogant and unpleasant.
‘Playing truant, my sly sister? I saw you down on the beach.’
‘I wasn’t doing anything wrong.’
He smiled his snake-eyed smile. ‘The sea isn’t for sly little girls. If you aren’t careful, it will scoop you up and drown you. Sea monsters will drag you to the bottom of the ocean and feast on your scrawny body until your bones are all that’s left.’
Seeing my terror, it fired his enthusiasm for taunting me.
‘Sly things should have a care they don’t get eaten,’ he said before striding away through the lashing rain.
From that day I feared the sea and refused to go to the beach again. In my dreams it began to speak to me, filling my head with foreboding. I would wake in the middle of the night from dreams of sea monsters and drowning.
Six
In spring, the sky was a space so big Verity thought it must stretch all the way to heaven.
When she wondered what might lie on the other side of the hills, she tried not to think about why it made her feel so restless.
Other than going to London a few times, the Pryce sisters had hardly been anywhere. Allegra had taken them to north Wales once. It was a disaster. Meredith came down with chickenpox and Allegra swore she would never take them on holiday again.
The sheltered nature of their lives made little impression on Meredith who, in spite of her insistence that nothing exciting ever happened to them, had no real ambition to go anywhere else. Neither of them were the sort of girls who needed other people. They were wild and rare and when they were alone together, their voices sounded like snow falling.
Until recently, it had seemed enough.
Verity watched her sister scampering across the pebbles toward the rock dragon. Meredith negotiated the stones like a hare, barely faltering.
From the first time they’d heard Mared tell the story, they’d been enchanted by the idea this was the spot where the last dragon in Wales had died. The cliff was her body, Nain said. The submerged end her head and as she died, her tears turned to pebbles.
Meredith came to a stop. ‘Verity!’
‘In a minute.’ Verity huddled on the shingle by a rock pool, her hands wrapped inside the sleeves of her jumper. The mirror-glinting water shivered as a chilly breeze blew across it.
Meredith turned and ran back, leaping and calling. She reached Verity again, panting for breath and pulled on her sister’s arm. ‘Please, Verity, come to the dragon with me.’
‘You go. And don’t be too long. I’m cold. This was a bad idea.’
‘For someone who’s supposed to love the beach, you’re a bit of a disappointment, you know. I only suggested it to please you.’
‘I know you did and it was really nice of you, only it’s absolutely freezing, even for me.’
‘Do you think it’s going to snow?’
‘I do and then I don’t. It’s April, it’s spring already…’
‘I know but it snowed when I was born. It would be brilliant!’ Meredith’s eyes shone. ‘I’m desperate for snow, aren’t you?’
‘I’m desperate not to be cold.’
Meredith put her arm around Verity’s shoulder, rubbing her back. ‘I’ll warm you up and then we’ll go back.’
Huddled together, they gazed at the sea, the swish of it at the lip of the shore. Above them, a perfect mackerel sky spread like a great scaly fish.
‘Sky-fishing,’ Meredith said. ‘It is beautiful here. I can see why you love it so much.’
A boat appeared on the horizon, a flash of a distant sail.
Meredith shaded her eyes. ‘Where does the sea end?’
‘Ireland.’
‘Imagine if you were in a boat and you went on forever, not getting anywhere. Just rowed and rowed in your little boat.’
Verity shivered. ‘Or swam.’
They were forbidden to go into the sea. The undertow was dangerous and Allegra made sure they stayed out of the water. As a result, they hadn’t learned to swim. Meredith didn’t want to – she was scared of water. Verity quite liked the idea of becoming a selkie, like the ones she read about in stories: women who had to shed their skins to live on the land but who were forever bound to the ocean.
Meredith picked up a shell, turned it over, dropped it in the rock pool. ‘I do love the beach; I just love the wood more, which is perfect. We each have a special place.’
‘And Nain’s blue garden is for both of us.’
‘Nain’s garden is only for us.’
‘Yes.’ Verity rubbed her hands together. ‘Have you noticed, the waves sound like the wind through the trees in the wood? And when we’re in the wood, it’s the other way round?’
Meredith said she hadn’t and tilted her head to one side. ‘Oh yes, so it does.’ She pointed. ‘Look at the oystercatchers. Aren’t they sweet?’
The tide was on the turn; the line of the sea where it broke against the sand a frill of greenish-grey. Verity watched the birds at the shoreline searching for whelks and limpets. Further out only the line of the horizon showed where the sea began. The water and the reflected sky shimmered from the outside edges making the whole of it transparent, the sea-light constantly changing and elusive.
Verity supposed it was what attracted her mother, made her want to paint it.
Meredith dragged Verity to her feet. ‘Okay. You win. It’s freezing. Let’s go.’
As the dark enfolded the house and the moon rose, the moths came, drawn to the glow of Meredith’s determined heart, her luminescent hair. Fast asleep in a restless dream she heard a sound that may have been a song and could have been the whisper of a ghost. Moths fluttered against her skin and the air became as thin as spider web.
In the morning, when she woke up, she threw back the bedclothes and found a moth caught in a fold of the sheet.
‘Hello, my pretty, what are you doing in my bed?’
Cupping the fragile creature in her hands she padded across the floor to the window, reached out and watched as it flew away on tissue-paper wings.
Seven
Verity lingered in her bedroom, reading.
In the room across the landing she heard her mother moving about, agitated, opening drawers; now and then swearing.
Wha
t frame of mind would she be in today? Allegra’s moods were as mercurial as her love. Her mother’s belittling of her was something Verity had become accustomed to. She wasn’t desperate to have her small achievements acknowledged, only puzzled as to why they so rarely were. She suspected it had something to do with her father, who had broken her mother’s heart. The space he left behind was dark and ragged. Now and then Verity thought her mother’s sorrow meant she couldn’t help fill that space with the daughter who looked like him.
She crossed her fingers.
Here’s hoping. When she isn’t depressed or we haven’t aggravated her, she forgets even my faults.
‘My girls,’ Allegra would say, as if she had won her daughters, like prizes.
Then we’re perfect.
Meredith burst into the bedroom.
‘Don’t bother knocking or anything.’
‘Oh, don’t be so grand.’ Meredith plonked herself down on Verity’s bed. ‘Waking up is usually a right pain, only today I’ve had the most dazzling idea. You’ll love it.’
No I won’t. I’ll hate it. Your eyes look like Catherine wheels.
‘You know what I said yesterday, about wanting to be a writer. Well, I’m going to start practising. I mean, you’re right; you can’t just be a writer. You have to begin somewhere and learn the ropes. It’s my plan to stop us having to get married. I’ll write books and make a fortune and we can live here forever and not have to look for husbands.’
She looked so pleased, Verity couldn’t help herself. ‘You’re mad as a bat, Meri, but I love you.’
‘I know you do. And you’ll love me more when I tell you my plan. Why don’t we both write something? Ghost stories, so I can write about the mad girl and you can write whatever you like. We can compare notes and you can help me improve.’
Verity’s heart sank. ‘You’re kidding, yes?’
‘Unlikely. I never kid about anything.’
You are the best and cleverest fibber I know.
‘I don’t want to be a writer, I’m happy being a reader.’
‘That’s your problem, Verity. Allegra’s right. You have no ambition.’
You have no ambition, darling. Look at Meredith and take a leaf out of her book. You need to make a bit of an effort, doesn’t she, Meredith?
Stung, Verity said, ‘You don’t know what I want and neither does she.’
Meredith’s eyes shone with excitement. ‘Yes, I do. You want to be happy. We both do so listen, it’ll be brilliant: a competition to spur me on, mostly to find out if I’m any good at it.’
‘You’ll be fine on your own.’
‘You won’t fob me off like that, Verity Pryce. I need you to be involved. You said it was a crisis.’
‘I said nothing of the sort.’
‘You said we were ignorant and stupid and we’d have to find husbands.’
‘No, you said that.’
‘Oh, what does it matter who said what? The point is there’s no way I’m letting either of us get married!’ She rolled onto her stomach. ‘You’re really good at spelling and you know about grammar and that kind of thing.’
‘You read all the time; you know as much as I do.’ Verity shoved Meredith away.
‘No I don’t. I never take any notice of those over-doing words.’
‘Doing words, you idiot; they’re called verbs.’
Meredith made a rude noise. ‘You’ve read Enid Blyton; you know exactly what I’m talking about.’
In spite of herself, Verity laughed out loud. ‘You are the most ridiculous, irritating, clever sister ever. Now, get off my bed!’
‘So you will?’
‘It’s a crazy idea. I don’t want to write some dull story about ghosts.’
As if Verity hadn’t spoken, Meredith carried on. ‘I’m going to write about her – Angharad – the mad girl. Only what if she wasn’t? Remember what Nain said? It wasn’t nice to call her mad because no one knew the truth.’
‘That’s the whole point, surely. We don’t know anything about her.’
‘Who says we have to? We can guess and make it up.’ Meredith grinned. ‘How do you think real writers do it? They use their imagination.’
‘I’m getting bored now, Meri. And you’re being a pest.’
‘There’s no need to be nasty.’ Meredith picked at the quilt. ‘In any case, it’s educational. I thought you’d approve.’
Laying her book to one side, Verity slid out of bed. ‘I’m going to get dressed now, so can you please get out of my room?’
‘Now who’s the boring one? You’re boring and bourgeois.’
‘And you sound like her.’
‘She doesn’t mean it.’
‘Yes, she does.’ Verity opened a drawer in her dressing table. ‘She means every word. It doesn’t matter. Now please, Meredith, leave me alone while I get dressed.’
Verity fished in the scummy water for the last bits of cutlery.
Meredith, her head on her arms, lolled on the table.
‘Please, Verity, can we? Go on, it’ll be a laugh.’ Her voice was muffled against the wool of her cardigan sleeve. ‘We can regale each another with deathless prose.’
‘Idiot.’
‘I’m not though. Remember what Nain told us? If we close our eyes we can be whoever we want.’
‘And you reckon that’s all it takes to be a writer?’
‘It’s a start.’
‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘It might.’
Verity felt her grasp on the argument slipping away.
‘I still don’t see why you can’t write a story by yourself,’ she said. ‘You already know far more words than I’ve heard of.’
‘It’ll be no fun on my own.’
As the water spiralled down the plughole, Verity turned to face her sister. ‘If I agree, will you promise to let me phone Nain and tell her about the sewing box? After all, it is her house and her things. It’s about respect.’
‘All right. Yes.’ Meredith answered with the kind of swift response Verity knew meant that at a later date she could deny knowledge of any such agreement.
‘If you mean it,’ Meredith said, ‘then you’re on. And you tell Nain to swear she won’t tell Allegra.’
‘Okay. Only I get to write whatever comes into my head.’
‘Yes, so long as it’s a ghost story.’
‘Deal.’
In the middle of the night, needing the lavatory, Verity paused outside her sister’s bedroom. From the other side of the door she heard murmuring.
Is she talking to herself? Talking in her sleep?
It wouldn’t be the first time.
The murmur stopped and not even a cobweb stirred. Shadows shifted throughout the house. Verity returned to her room and as she fell asleep they billowed and furled like no one was watching.
Gull House was a dismal place.
Throughout the rooms, the light was obstructed, swallowed by heavy curtains. The air was weighed down by the scent of polish and diligence. Looking glasses created tricks of light: distorted reflections. Under the high ceilings, formidable furniture and vast paintings dominated the rooms. Huge plants in bulbous china pots graced the drawing room and tasselled cushions the size of pillows lay piled on window-seats where no one sat. In gloomy bedrooms sat canopied beds as big as boats. My father’s study, in the tower room, housed an ornate desk taking up most of the space.
And, overlaying it all, the faint smell of cigars; a hint of spoiled food, the result of a cook with few skills and less imagination. My mother’s fragrance, lily-of-the-valley, always struck me as stale too; it had a touch of death about it.
Ghosts of course, can’t smell anything…
Mama wore sombre clothes and was never seen without her jet earrings, as if she were in perpetual mourning for some dead relative. The tap of her heels on the wooden floors, alternating with a cat-like pad as they crossed a rug, announced her presence in the same way my father’s brash pronouncements proclaimed his.
It was the secretive tread I feared … my brother’s furtive footfall.
Are you brave enough?
It wasn’t hard to anger him. A petulant child, my brother looked for reasons to be provoked. Most of the time, I struggled to recall what it was I had said to anger him, only that I had and must bear his taunts and pinches, and worse. He was tall and despite a wiry frame deceptively strong. He had large hands like the fat, skinned paws of an animal. They might break a pheasant’s neck at a stroke and crack the shells of walnuts as if they were made of porcelain.
He would endeavour to deliberately trip me so I fell painfully against the furniture. Outside, he would barge into me causing me to stumble and land on the gravel. He would pretend to help me up, clasping my wrists so hard he left bruises on my skin.
I once overheard Cook saying to one of the maids it was no wonder the young master wasn’t popular; what with his lies to the mistress and his sneaking around behind her back. When the maid said she’d heard worse, my skin turned to gooseflesh. I turned away, reluctant to know what could possibly be more terrible.
Knowing I wasn’t the only one affected by my brother’s unpleasantness was small comfort.
Present
The elegant door, its blue salt-worn to grey, still takes my breath away.
It’s a thing of beauty, this door, and even with the paint peeling, the shape of it remains insanely lovely. It sits in the stone façade of the house like a picture my mother might have painted. At the top, set into the ornately curved frame, is a small window adorned with stained glass flowers. The curve continues out to the side and in it more small sections of glinting glass sit like jewels.
The steps leading up to the door are bowed and worn, the result of countless feet stepping on the stone. Toadflax creeps down the edges, green and purple lace. The shapeless expanse of old gravel is overgrown with dandelions and chickweed, distorted into something no longer cared for. Around me the garden stands forlorn, given over to thistles and molehills and shabby weeds. I try and recall where the chicken house used to be and can’t. Nain had a fondness for Cream Legbars: friendly, lazy hens that laid blue eggs.
Snow Sisters Page 4
