The House of Canted Steps

by Gary Fry

  He felt the room gather around him, as if the walls were moving slowly yet inexorably towards one another. The sound of Lewis’s phone beeping a tune didn’t appear to have enough space in which to echo. “Go on,” Mark said to Gayle.

  And then, holding her swollen midriff in a cradle of arms, she told him. “We’re selling up. What with the baby due soon, this place is too small. We’re looking for somewhere bigger, a bargain if you have any on your books. Well,” she added, quite businesslike, “do you?”

  He promptly considered the property he’d just been to value. Then the mental distress he’d experienced inside it fell upon him again. But it was this house involved in his disquiet. All his memories of it felt under threat of permanent erasure: moving in, Lewis growing up, even happier times with Gayle. And now his ex-wife was getting rid of the place, discarding it the same way she’d recently dispensed with their marriage. Was she completely heartless?

  But with regard to their disintegrated relationship, Mark knew he was far from guiltless. He realized he’d spent a lot of time at the office, and often deliberately. The truth was that he’d found fatherhood hard, a small if significant part of him remaining distant from the role…and he didn’t know why. That was the reason he secretly respected Justin for taking on someone else’s child, despite wanting to take the man apart after first hearing about the affair.

  Mark and Gayle had both been brought up in stable families, and divorce had been a shock to their systems. They were still suffering its impact, and that accounted for the tension between them. Perhaps that was why his ex-wife had decided to move on. She was seeking a clean break, a new property to load with less sour recollections.

  Despite feeling as if someone was tugging at his guts, Mark could understand that. His new flat bore similar fresh possibilities, after all. Maybe even he and Nina might consider having a child before long…

  “I see,” he said at last, and turned to watch his son trying to get a reception on his phone. A move to a bigger place would be good for the boy, wouldn’t it? And in the event of difficulties, Lewis could always call his daddy on the new mobile to help.

  These were facile responses to the shock of Gayle’s news, but Mark entertained them anyway. The alternative seemed to involve just one thing: telling her about the house Eric Johnson was selling at a bargain price. And for some reason, while staring at his son, Mark didn’t want to mention that—not at all.

  Eventually he added, “I’ll keep an eye on the market. We often deal with some decent properties at this time of the year.” He paused, thought for a moment, and then added with feeble apprehension, “What’s…what’s your budget?”

  In her favor, Gayle didn’t take too much pleasure in announcing a figure far higher than Mark’s own wage could ever finance. “About two-seventy, two-eighty. I’d have to confirm that with Justin, but I think that’s what we discussed the other night.”

  “So it’s a recent decision to move?”

  “This week, actually.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’ve told me so soon.” He hesitated, glanced away. “I trust that’s not just because I’m an estate agent and might help find somewhere suitable.”

  Now it was Gayle’s turn to look at Lewis. She lowered her voice as she replied. “Of course it was. I’m not a complete bitch, you know. And we’re not planning to move out of the area. Justin still has his restaurant. Your access to…to our son won’t change.”

  At that moment, the boy looked up at them. “Mommy, Daddy, I can’t get this to work properly. Can one of you…I mean, can you both help?”

  Then he and Gayle stooped to their son’s side and helped him achieve contact with the outside world. Such was the role of parents, Mark reflected, again sensing this house making him feel claustrophobic, horribly trapped. It was curious how, having sold property for the better part of his life, he’d rarely considered its effect on people’s emotional well-being. A good home could be the difference between prosperity and misery, he thought, but immediately ruled out any supernatural element. Nevertheless, it was surely true that a building’s ethos played a mysterious role in psychological relations, especially among families.

  Ten minutes later, Mark was ready to leave, having dismissed his earlier ruminations as so much bunkum. After kissing Lewis goodbye and being accompanied to the front door by Gayle, he promised to be in touch if any suitable property came onto Addisons’ books. He and his ex-wife even kissed perfunctorily, the first time they’d managed this simple exchange since before their separation. Maybe they were healing. Perhaps it was time for them all to move on.

  The door stuck as he tried opening it, as if the house didn’t want him to leave. But he recalled that it had always swelled in the autumn and that he’d never done anything about that, despite Gayle’s repeated requests.

  “Lewis’s phone’s working now,” he explained, “and I’ve just programmed my mobile and home numbers into its memory. Ask him to call me about staying at the flat over the weekend. It’ll be good to get him into the habit of keeping in touch that way.”

  “Okay,” his ex-wife replied, and there was no hint of facetiousness in her tone this time. She sounded almost affectionate. “And thanks for understanding about our plans. It means a lot.”

  Responding to such uncharacteristic warmth, Mark was momentarily tempted to tell her about the house in Nester Street…but just as the words formed in his mind, he prevented himself from doing so. He found that he needed a little time to think about that property first. Then he replied, “Okay. Look, let’s be friends, shall we? We were never anything less than that, were we?”

  Gayle glanced behind her, at the house she claimed was too small. Then she turned back to him. “For every bad time, there was at least one good one.” She raised her hands, the fingers clasped together as if in prayer. “Here’s to our old home. Let’s hope it’s friendlier to whoever buys it than it ever was to us.”

  Mark nodded and then strolled away along the path. He hadn’t cared for the way his ex-wife had ascribed sentience to the building, as if it and not they had been responsible for the mess of their marriage. After climbing into his car before any neighbor had the chance to hail him, he was glad he’d kept the new house on Addisons’ books from Gayle. He didn’t know why this was so—something to do with Lewis, he imagined—but he was glad about it anyway.

  He gunned the engine and drove on, glancing only once at his previous home in the rearview mirror.

  3

  A small town with an industrial past, Hantley was situated halfway between Leeds and York. The majority of the area’s property had been constructed in the mid to late nineteenth century. Wool from the Yorkshire Dales had been its chief trading product, but more recently a decline in the market had left the district full of disused factories, which property developers were turning into accommodation in the hope of attracting commuters from the two large cities nearby. It was a peaceful place, with low crime statistics and a decent employment record. Mark had lived here all his life.

  The town center was a large market square with shops clustered along several streets. Parking was ample, with a small multistory located behind a large supermarket. At two o’clock that afternoon, Mark pulled his car into a slot and then climbed out, relieved that the most demanding part of his day was over. He strolled in the chill autumn afternoon and looked forward to a quiet spell alone in his office. Later, he’d drive home to his new flat where Nina had promised to cook him a steak. Splendid, he thought, and paced a little faster for the branch of Addisons, where he’d been manager for five years.

  After entering, he saw Jenny seated at reception, typing up a letter with her headset on. Noticing him, she removed the headset and flashed her bewitching smile. “Hi, Mark. How did…it go?”

  He handed her the notes, his digital camera and the key he’d been given. He knew she hadn’t been referring to the property evaluation, but he teased her anyway. “Not bad,” he replied archly. “I think we’ll sell the place q
uickly. The guy wants to put it on the market at an absurdly low price, but who are we to complain? It doesn’t make much difference to our commission.”

  Jenny, who was nineteen and getting married in the New Year, accepted all the stuff, but then—as was a woman’s wont, Mark had learned years ago—started prying into his private life. “I meant with Lewis. And Gayle. Was it okay?”

  His colleague was too lovely to rebuke, and so he said, “Yeah, it went as well as it could, I suppose. A bit…tense, you know, but that’s only to be expected, isn’t it?”

  “Did your son like his present?”

  “He did. Thanks for suggesting it. I think his mother was pleased, too, but you’d have to torture her with hot coals before she’d confess as much.”

  “Great. I’m pleased.”

  Mark nodded, and then decided to change the subject—not that the alternative seemed any less unsettling. He pointed at the notes, the camera and the key situated on the desk in front of Jenny. “The vendor wants a quick sale, so can you process the piccies pronto and get them on the website? And if you can order the leaflets this afternoon, I’d be eternally grateful.”

  “Would such gratitude involve a pay rise?”

  Jenny was a tonic; Mark felt his mood becoming more upbeat by the second. “I can’t promise that,” he replied, striving hard to match her infectious good humor, “but I can offer you the morning off on your wedding day. How’s that?”

  “As long as you don’t mind me wearing my dress when I arrive for duty after lunch—well, the champagne reception, you know.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said, and then retreated to his office at the back of the premises, wearing a strained half-smile.

  After shutting himself inside, he thought: Another one bites the dust. He was referring to Jenny and her imminent nuptials, but knew he was being cruel. Not every romance had to end in strife and misery. He sat at his desk, removed his jacket, and then reactivated his snoozing PC. Beside its monitor, a photo of his parents beamed back. His dad had died about eight years ago. Mark suspected that before he’d moved in with Nina, his mom had enjoyed having her only child live with her. She obviously missed the old man a good deal, and although Mark had always experienced an awkward relationship with him, he thought he missed him, too. At any rate, it would have been good to have received some solid advice during the darker spells of his marital problems.

  But what would his dad have known about that? He and Mark’s mom had been together forty years with rarely a hint of difficulties. His dad had been undereducated, having worked in a factory for most of his life. Indeed, this was what had killed him: during the autopsy, innumerable carpet fibers had been found in his lungs. The company for which he’d worked had absolved itself of all responsibility, employing the most devious solicitor they’d been able to find. All this had happened before Lewis had been born, but Mark would need a psychologist to figure out if there was a connection between his dad’s death and his own paternal reticence and inability to commit to marriage. At least he was beginning to admit his faults, however; he was assured that this was the first step towards conquering them.

  Christ, he’d grown distracted again. Hadn’t he resolved that morning to focus only on his job, losing himself in work? Yes, he had, but something had since gone wrong…and the most bizarre thing was that it appeared to be linked to the house he’d valued earlier. This conclusion was fanciful, of course, but nonetheless felt true. While pacing around in that building, all these problems had grown worse.

  Maybe the thought of visiting his former home later had resulted in tension. Or perhaps this had arisen from Eric Johnson’s odd behavior. Whatever the truth was, Mark couldn’t shake his mind of a bitter sensation. It was as if he’d been infected by something…by a house.

  He chuckled and decided it was time for a dose of the universal panacea: a cup of tea. After checking his emails (there was nothing in his inbox of earthshaking importance), he got up again and strolled back for his office door. And he’d just reached for the handle when the door opened, as if his thoughts alone had caused the movement.

  After looking into the main body of the estate agency, however, he saw Jenny standing there, one hand around the door handle, while her other grasped printed pages.

  “Ooh, you scared me!” she cried, but started laughing, just as he’d begun to. Then she handed him the sheets. “Here are copies of the digital pictures you took. Once you choose the ones you want to use, I’ll upload all the details I’m about to type up onto the website.”

  After the misunderstanding with the door, Mark felt positive enough to pretend to be a ghoul. He stooped, adopted a dishevelled appearance, and then said, “Why, thaaank you, my dear,” rather in the manner of Vincent Price.

  Jenny laughed some more before retreating for the reception area. Mark called after her, saying he’d put the kettle on after dealing with the pictures, and then returned to his desk.

  And that was when his day went horribly wrong again.

  The first few photos—of the downstairs rooms in the Nester Street house—were predictably fine. Here was the kitchen, resplendent with smart units; there the utility room, tidy and clean; and then the lounge, as large as he remembered. But after flipping to the pictures he’d taken upstairs, he could only assume his camera had developed a fault as he’d ascended those canted steps. Half of the images were passable (he’d always taken several snaps of each room in case of problems like these), but what to make of the rest? One—of the master bedroom—looked to be covered in soot, while another—this almost certainly the child’s room—boasted a huge stain against one wall. It looked like the afterimage of a boy or a girl, but was far too red for that to be possible. This stark color appeared to be blended into the wall or to be seeping out its otherwise pale expanse.

  But it was the shot of the property’s exterior that unsettled Mark most of all. He put this one down, glancing again at the photo of his parents beside his burring monitor. No, that was the wrong couple, but there’d once been a familial connection between them and the people in the picture. Indeed, he’d seen a photo only this afternoon of the husband and wife who appeared in this snap.

  The faces in one upstairs window of the Nester Street house were undoubtedly those of Gayle’s mother and father, his former in-laws.

  Mark closed his eyes, rubbed them hard, and then took another look. The more he wanted to believe that the vague images of two faces staring out through the glass were just confusions of light and shadow, the less they seemed to be. Maybe someone unfamiliar with his ex-wife’s parents mightn’t take them for faces at all. But with his intimate knowledge of their appearance, it proved impossible not to see them as such.

  Perhaps he needed a second opinion, one from somebody who’d never met the couple. Without standing to cross his office, he shouted to summon Jenny from reception. She came quickly, snapping open the closed door, clearly responding to the panicky nature of his raised voice.

  “What’s wrong, Mark? Are you okay?”

  “I’m…not sure.”

  He stood and beckoned her towards his chair. After stepping behind his desk and sitting down, Jenny asked, “Well? What am I supposed to be doing?”

  Then he asked her to examine the photo of the property’s exterior and tell him if she saw anything untoward.

  She did so, and about ten seconds later replied, “It needs a lick of paint, I guess. Still, I expect that’s why the guy’s putting it up for two-eighty. That’s very cheap, you know—a bargain, actually. Didn’t we have something similar on the market a few months ago at nearly three-hundred?”

  Mark didn’t answer her question, simply told her to look again at the picture.

  And then Jenny appeared to spot what he meant. “Oh yes,” she said, an uncertain smile in her voice. “It looks like two people up there. But it can’t be, can it? No, it’s just a…just a reflection on the window…or some bits of fabric caught there somehow.”

  “What, floating in midair
?” asked Mark.

  Jenny frowned. “Well, maybe there were two people in the room. Perhaps the guy’s parents live with him. Or maybe his wife’s do.”

  “I went around the whole building, Jenny. I saw nobody other than the vendor. And he was pretty strange, I can tell you that.”

  Jenny shivered, glancing away from the photo. “What do y-you mean?” she asked, her voice developing a tremulous quality.

  All this was irrelevant to the key issue. It was true that nobody had been upstairs when Mark had assessed the building, but his main concern was that the images in the upstairs window resembled his ex in-laws’ faces to a disconcerting degree. He told Jenny about this similarity—no, the identicalness—but then she sought a rational explanation, as most people do when confronted with such uncomfortable phenomena.

  “Right, so it must be what I said—just an illusion. Yes, it’s the way the trees are reflecting on the glass, that’s all.”

  “Jenny, how could branches combine to form two faces like that?” Escalating anxiety had caused Mark to lose his patience, and he’d certainly sounded severe. He could only hope his colleague would forgive him. Nevertheless, he pointed again at the photo and after swallowing heavily, added, “Besides, there’s something else I haven’t told you.”

  She clearly didn’t wish to hear any more; she was nineteen and full of expectations from what she’d experienced thus far as an exciting, promising world. “Well, whatever the truth is, do you want me to use this picture on the website? Or should we do what we always do with the properties that need external work—just put up the interior shots?”

  “The interior shots? Have you seen them?”

  “Not really. I wasn’t paying much attention. I just put the memory card in the USB slot and clicked print. I was expecting you to deal with the rest—that’s how we usually do it, isn’t it?”

  She was babbling and sounded defensive. Perhaps it was time he reassured her. Mark could only assume that a person learned a lot during the ten years between Jenny’s age and his own, even though such material lurked nebulously in the back-brain. He should now employ the sympathetic wisdom that arose from such knowledge.