‘Who are they?’ asks Leo and something in his voice says that he’s not sure whether they’re real people or not.
‘They’re statues,’ I say. ‘But I don’t know who of. Aren’t they beautiful?’
‘Are we allowed to touch them?’
‘Probably. I would have thought so. But we can’t because of the pond. The pond’s too big.’
‘I can swim.’ Leo has a twinkle in his eye.
‘I know you can but that pond is probably heaving with slime and diseases. Seriously, you must be very careful near the water. Really.’ I pat the bed beside me so he can hop on. ‘What time is it?’
We’re not in any rush so we spend the next few minutes figuring out the time on the big face of Leo’s watch. It’s not quite 7 a.m. At home we would be listening to a familiar soundtrack now. There would be movement from the flat upstairs – nothing from the Pearsons next door yet – it would be far too early for them. Below us, cars would be starting to choke the main road by our block, a popular rat-run for commuters. There would be shouts, and buses, and the wail of sirens.
I expected this place to be as silent as it was last night but it isn’t. Birds fly in and out of the eaves above my window, screeching like insistent and unanswered phones. They’re a blur but I don’t think I’d know what sort they were even if they sat still long enough. I know a pigeon from a chicken, and a sparrow from a starling, but I’m very much a city girl. There are other noises too, the trees rustle gently in the wind and bird song pours in from every angle. On the warm air, the burr of a tractor engine reaches the window, someone out and at work early. Someone with work to go to.
Leo and I are going to have to fill the days of this long still summer. Before I was made redundant, the six-week break was an urgent rush of everything we needed to get done ahead of the new term. This autumn will be different but I have no idea how, or where. I had thought that perhaps they’d need some help in the museum – I could see myself as a tour guide, knowledgeable and bossy, a bit funny – but according to Araminta there will be no museum.
‘I’m hungry.’ Leo always wakes up hungry.
‘Shall we go and find the kitchen? Then you can make some cereal.’ I had the foresight to bring a carton of UHT milk – I knew we were coming beyond civilisation. Leo won’t notice the difference if I let him have a special occasion cereal, drenched in sugar coating. The kitchen boxes are stacked up in my bedroom, the one with the bowls, cereal and spoons in is clearly marked.
‘Is the kitchen in the house?’ Leo asks.
‘I bloody hope so.’ I swing my feet out of bed.
I pull on the same clothes as yesterday, jeans and a T-shirt. Leo has already dressed himself with one of the flamboyant outfits he packed in his overnight bag. His shirt is orange and floral, underneath a waistcoat with a plaid silk front.
‘Nice Thursday kind of clothes,’ I say.
‘Thank you.’ Leo has lovely manners; everyone says so. And a complete disregard for sarcasm.
I let Leo lead the way along the corridor. He’s excited and slaps his palms on his thighs in anticipation: I wish I felt the same.
We find our way out of the flat easily enough and we’re back in the long corridor that leads to our little set of rooms. If claustrophobia had a smell, the unstirred damp of this passageway is the one it would choose.
‘It’s down here.’ Leo starts off down the corridor at a pace and I might as well trust him – he’s got as much idea of where the kitchen is as I have.
‘Hold on,’ I say. I put the breakfast things down on the floor while I check my jeans pockets. ‘I need to find the number for the alarm. We might set it off.’ The scrap of paper is still there and I chant the numbers under my breath in case I need them in a hurry. There were times in my life when remembering a four-digit code wouldn’t have been a challenge: this isn’t one of them.
‘I could dive under the alarm.’ Leo waves his arms about, an adventurer warding off any dangers. ‘I can stop it.’
‘And you’ll knock the paintings off the wall if you carry on like that. You’ve got to be careful. We can go mad when we get outside.’ I give him the cereal box and the milk carton to keep his hands busy and close to his body. ‘You take these and I’ll carry the cups and bowls.’
‘It’s a long way.’ Leo doesn’t want to carry anything.
‘It is, but when we get there you can have breakfast. I hope we haven’t missed it.’ We go down the same staircases we came up last night and back into the hallway. There must have been plenty of balls and weddings in this room once upon a time, with brides and debutantes coming down these stairs in cascades of satin and silk. Leo and I make a rather poor apology, although he’s done his best to dress for an occasion.
Several doors lead from the hall. There is the huge heavy door we came in through last night, even more impressive from the back with its iron bolts and long black hinges. The key is noticeably missing and the idea of being locked in makes me uncomfortable.
‘Let’s see if we can find another door and get into the garden.’ I keep my voice light but it is trapped in this huge hall, stifled by the fact we couldn’t get out if we wanted to. The door I pick opens on to another little corridor. At the end I can see the outside world clearly visible and still real on the other side of the back door. It is the ordinary half-glazed back door of any house, a three-bed suburban semi somewhere. It looks as out of place as we are.
We creep down the half-lit corridor; Leo is silent now and I feel like a burglar.
The door on my right is ajar and I peer in. It’s a kitchen of sorts but I think it might be part of the museum. The room is enormous and work surfaces run all the way round apart from under the window where a gleaming white porcelain sink straddles two scrubbed wooden draining boards, and in the middle of the far wall where an impressive old range squats, immovable and ancient.
I gesture for Leo to follow me in. Whether it’s part of the museum or not, there’s a big kitchen table in the middle and we can sit there to eat our cereal.
The work surfaces are all white enamel, scratched with age and the elbow grease that years of cooks must have used to clean it. The edges are blue where they curl over onto the wooden cupboards below. It must be the best part of a hundred years old – I’ve never seen anything like it. I knock lightly on the surface to check it’s really made of metal. It is.
Pots and pans hang on the wall and from the clothes airer on the ceiling: there are jelly moulds and vast copper tureens, shined and buffed ready to feed a hundred hungry dinner guests. Huge spoons and ladles hang from a row of hooks by the cooker like something from a fairy tale. These are the very tools you’d use to cook Hansel and Gretel.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Oh, Araminta, good morning. I didn’t expect to see you this early.’
She looks at the cereal box I’ve just taken from Leo; the very worst of pink marshmallow and tooth rot, and I swear her lip curls. ‘So I see.’
‘I’m making the breakfast.’ Leo beams at her with his disarming smile. ‘This is birthday cereal.’
‘He usually has to have a healthy breakfast unless it’s his birthday.’ I’m talking too fast because Araminta makes me nervous. It’s like I’m back at school, being reprimanded by the headmistress.
‘It looks very . . .’ She swallows. ‘. . . tasty.’
‘Have you got a bowl, Mrs Minta? Would you like some? There is nearly a whole boxful.’ Leo offers her the box and I want the kitchen to open up and swallow me.
‘I’ve had my breakfast, thank you, Leo.’
I attempt to lighten the mood. ‘This kitchen is amazing. How old is it?’
‘It was all completely refurbished in 1918,’ says Araminta. ‘When Colonel Hugo married.’
‘So it’s part of the museum?’ It starts to make sense. I run my fingers along the work surface. The whole thing is in incredible condition. The nicks of knife cuts and the odd missing flake of enamel are testament to the work that must have
gone on in here back in its heyday.
‘Not at all, it’s the kitchen. The public have no access.’ She gives me a look which shows that she thinks ‘public’ ought to include me. ‘All Colonel and Lady Lyons-Morris’s meals were made in here right up until they passed away.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, though I didn’t know Richard’s grandparents and have no idea how Araminta may have felt about them.
‘The range was replaced in the 1950s.’ Araminta says it as casually as if she were telling me that the wallpaper was done last week. That still makes it seventy years old.
‘Does it work?’ I ask.
‘Perfectly.’ She walks across the room and opens the door of the tall fridge. ‘The fridge didn’t arrive until the 1970s. They used the larder and the garden ice house until then.’
Araminta clearly knows a lot about the place. She’s also definitely in charge.
‘Can I have more?’ Leo has finished his first bowl of cereal. He’s managed to keep the milk in the bowl and any extra bits that have fallen on the table have been scooped up and into his mouth.
‘Half a one,’ I say. ‘Is this the kitchen Leo and I will use?’
‘Yes,’ says Araminta, and I’m sure she and I are both aware that she doesn’t bother to add, ‘Make yourself at home.’
I wonder how on earth I’m ever going to work the cooker but, for now, I’m not going to show any fear. ‘Smashing. Is there some cupboard space for our things?’
‘I’ve cleared this one for you.’ She bends down and opens one small cupboard on the side of a wooden dresser. It will just about fit four tins of beans and a packet of pasta.
I nod. ‘And our plates? Cups and stuff ?’
‘Everything you will need is here.’ ‘Here’ is a dresser full of exquisite china. Every plate faces forward with a little bowl, saucer and teacup arrangement in front of it. The pattern is pale green and intricate. ‘This service was made for your husband’s great grandfather.’
‘It’s lovely.’ I feel like laughing at the absurdity of it. ‘It’s lovely but it’s not really suitable for us to use.’ By ‘us’, I mean Leo.
‘Every generation of Lyons-Morris has used it since then.’ Araminta bows her head at the gravity of it. The gravity I imagine when I think of Leo and her precious plates is a different sort.
Araminta has been arranging dainty pieces of cheese and ham on one of the china side plates. She takes it out into the corridor and opens the back door. I can hear her calling a cat or something.
‘You feed your cat cheese?’ I try to make light conversation, talk about something that might make her happy.
Even before she answers, I know. I think of the shiny red fur, the healthy plump softness with the life knocked out of it.
‘I feed a little fox.’
I scramble to change the subject before Leo loses interest in the cereal. I feel physically sick. ‘Do you have far to come to the museum?’ I ask her, praying that the answer will be yes.
‘I live here,’ Araminta says and smiles without moving her cheeks. ‘My apartment is down the hall from yours. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a museum to open.’
We have navigated away from the fox, from the accident, from what – effectively – is a lie.
Leo, clearly sensing that I’m distracted, pours himself another bowl of cereal.
Chapter Four
From: Simon Henderson
To: Cate Morris
Subject: More things in heaven and earth, Horatio
Mail: Well done. It must have been so hard packing up your old life and arriving in such a very strange land. There’s so much to love about Hatters but I admit it’s an unusual place. I first went there when I was about 18, when I first met Rich, and I fell head over heels in love with it. It’s probably responsible for the fact that I spend most of my life underwater sucking microscopic bugs into high-tech pooters. There are some crazy things in the collection.
Secondly, I’m glad you’ve arrived – even if you’re not (yet). Hatters was very much a part of Rich – as hard as he kicked against it – very much a part of who he was. I miss him a lot this evening, thinking about you guys, so I’m having a beer, watching the sunset, and wishing we were all at Hatters together. No one knew the secrets of that place like Rich, although you did have to winkle the information out of him with a stick. I learnt a lot about Rich by being there – I think you will too.
Kisses to Leo, hugs to you, you’ll be grand.
Sx
I only see Simon’s email because my phone is in my hand as I scroll through correspondence looking for the solicitor’s direct line. Her PA fudges for a while but I don’t give in. I can hear the steel in my voice that warns I’ll call all day if necessary.
‘So, do forgive me if I sound a little bit hysterical, Susan, but we discussed the ins and outs of this place right down to the phone bill and you neglected to mention that it was a shared house.’
‘It’s not a shared house, per se.’ Susan is on the back foot. ‘But there are aspects of the accommodation that are shared with Ms Buchan.’
‘Aspects?’ I keep my voice low and, I hope, threatening. Beside me Leo is lining up his DVDs in the bookcase. ‘Not that shelf, Leo, that’s where the books go.’ I try to whisper away from the phone so that Susan doesn’t hear me being nice.
‘Glad to hear you settling in,’ she says cheerfully.
‘Settling in is over-generous.’
‘It’s early days.’
Leo drops a whole box of DVDs and they shoot across the rug. It’s enough to put him off the task completely and he stomps out of the sitting room. I can only hope he stays in the apartment while I sort this all out.
‘So you knew Ms Buchan lives here: Araminta lives here. Who is she?’
‘As far as I can see from the details of the Trust, she’s a former employee turned family friend. She looked after Richard’s grandfather and then, after his death, she stayed on to take care of the place.’
‘Have we been suddenly transported to the eighteenth century? Hold on a moment, please. Leo?’ I can hear him moving around in the bedroom. We have to be careful, he could be lost for hours in this warren of a place.
‘I haven’t met Ms Buchan personally,’ the solicitor continues, ‘but I’m sure she’s very nice. She’s been with the family for decades and Colonel Hugo’s will was very firm about her keeping her place there until she no longer requires it.’
‘Until she retires?’ I try to keep the triumph out of my voice. Araminta must be past retirement age now.
‘Until she, not to put too fine a point on it, dies. She has a right to remain in perpetuity. Although it doesn’t pass on to her descendants.’
‘Does she have descendants?’
‘I don’t believe so, no.’
*
When I catch up with Leo he’s lying on his bed looking miserable. Everyone from his old school gave him cards when he left. He’s covered in them like a blanket, an eiderdown of memories.
‘Shall we work out whose is whose? Do you remember who they’re from?’
‘This is from Dean.’ Dean’s card, on floppy white paper, has two complicated gaming characters on it. The yellow one has a big ‘L’ on his front, the other – head to toe in red – has a ‘D’. ‘I can’t play TimeQuake properly now. Not without Dean.’
‘You can play online. And you’re going to make new friends soon.’
‘You always tell me to get off the computer, always, and I don’t want new friends. I want old friends. And my old house.’
Leo has been with his friends since nursery, most of them. And we’ve lived in the flat for as long as he can remember. After Richard died, when we were completely lost, we still had all that. I want that too. I had thought about day trips back to London, liaisons with friends – we could easily drive there – but we need to get used to our new lives first.
Leo starts to cry.
‘Come on, mate.’ I put my arm round him. ‘What about finding the way to the ga
rden? We were going to do that earlier.’ Even as I say it, I’m wondering how I will move him all over again in a month’s time. I am going to have to tackle the subject, to speak to Araminta about it. There is a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Leo jumps up and grabs his trainers. His misery is forgotten, the world is brimming with opportunity. I so often wish I was Leo.
We retrace our steps to the kitchen. I bring down the perishables that we had upstairs and I put them on one of the empty shelves in the fridge. For all Araminta’s territorial attitude to the kitchen, there isn’t much in here. The bright yellow bulb shows up milk, a loaf of white bread in a sweaty plastic wrapper, the cheese and ham the fox won’t be eating any more, and clean white wire shelves: there’s plenty of room for us to stake a claim. I’ll use the same tactics with the dresser cupboard later on too.
We go back through the door we saw first thing this morning, green shoots and curling flowers framing the sunshine glowing in through its window. I allow myself a tiny uplifting of my spirits. The sunshine is beckoning, the garden looks bright against the cool shade of the corridor. This is the summer I had imagined for us.
The grounds are magnificent. The statues I could see from my window when I woke up are straight ahead of us on the wide sloping lawn. From upstairs, I couldn’t see the slope of the garden and that the lawns roll down towards the small lake, that the trees are carefully planted, architectural against the perfect carpet of grass. I look around at the trees I know from London parks or children’s books: oak, monkey puzzle, sycamore, aspen, a few more and then I run out – it would need a trained eye. Richard knew his trees, and birds – sometimes birdsong too. In time, he might have passed their names on to Leo.
‘Is this a park?’ Leo asks. ‘Are there swings?’
‘It’s our garden.’ My voice is wide with wonder, and more than a little doubt. ‘Shall we go and see if there are swings?’
The house is behind us. The back is less ornate than the front and, somehow, seems bigger and more real for that. The facade has balconies and pillars. This is different; vast and utilitarian. There are so many windows, all set squarely in the brickwork, all of them identical except some are larger than others. The sun catches on the roof and, for a moment, I’m dazzled. When I take my hand from my eyes, I see it – a glass dome rising from the centre of this, otherwise traditional, country house. I walk backwards to get away from it and fit more of the dome in my eyeline. It rises up from the house like a bubble.
Where We Belong Page 4
