by Sarah Rayne
After Margot had washed up, her mother thought that after all she might fancy something light. Soup and some toast, perhaps. And if Margot happened to have baked some of those nice fruit scones … She did not want to be any trouble, but it had all been such a terrible ordeal, and at her age …
It annoyed Margot when her mother represented herself as old, because she was only a bit over fifty, which was not very old at all. You saw lovely people of Mother’s age, and older, on television, and there were two women who worked in Margot’s office who were in their fifties, and who were modern and smart and lively. But Margot’s mother had let her hair turn pepper-and-salt grey and never had it properly styled, and she wore shapeless, porridge-coloured cardigans and skirts. She had embraced old age a good twenty years too early, although Margot supposed that living with Lina and the past would make anybody do that.
The following day, Marcus said thoughtfully to Margot, ‘You know, I didn’t expect the old girl to die so suddenly. She went downstairs to look at the photo and the newspaper cutting again, I suppose.’
‘I suppose so. Marcus – couldn’t we go away now? Be free of this house and all the past immediately? Mum would be all right on her own, wouldn’t she? We’d come to visit and make sure she was all right. But—’
He spread his hands ruefully. ‘Can’t be done. I told you – there’s no money. Even if I get a half-decent job after my degree, there won’t be much spare cash for ages. If we’re going to live in any reasonable comfort, we need to be able to sell this house. We need Ma’s savings, and whatever Lina left her, as well. Don’t look so shocked, you know it’s true. And I’m not going to live in poverty, even for you.’ He touched her cheek with a fingertip and leaned forward to drop a kiss on her cheek. His hair fell forward and brushed Margot’s face, and she wanted to touch it so much it almost hurt.
Tomorrow would be Marcus’s last day, which meant Margot would have a perfectly good reason for suggesting the two of them go out for a farewell meal in the evening. Her treat, she would say, speaking casually, as if it did not matter very much either way. She thought Marcus would be glad to go out for a couple of hours, away from the dismal atmosphere of this house, away from their mother who was having to be given cups of tea and bowls of soup at regular intervals, together with an assortment of pills. She would certainly refuse to go out to a restaurant. She was currently reminiscing about Lina’s life, and she had already disinterred the ghost of Lina’s father, whom she had never known, and had picked over the details of Christa Klein’s murderous villainy. Marcus said most of the details were from their mother’s imagination, because nobody knew the truth about Christa.
Margot thought she would take Marcus to the bar where the office people went – it had recently opened a small restaurant, and she would book a table. Perhaps those suspicious girls would be there and they would see Marcus and think he was her boyfriend, and be jealous.
She began to imagine little pieces of dialogue between them at the table – what she would say to Marcus, and what he would reply. There would be soft lights, maybe even candlelight, and attentive waiters.
Marcus might not want to drink very much because of driving, but there was no reason why he could not get a bit drunk when they got home. There was a bottle of wine in the sideboard – it had been there for years, and Margot could put it out without him seeing before they left. Somewhere, she knew, there were some nice wine glasses that had never been used – she would look them out and wash them – and there was bound to be a corkscrew somewhere.
How about background music? Mood music, people called it. Margot spent a long time turning the radio dial to find a suitable station. It was important not to choose one that had loud, bouncy adverts; she did not want a jingly ad for home insurance or cut-rate holidays spoiling the atmosphere.
They would be relaxed and happy from their evening out. Marcus would open the wine and pour a glass each for them, and they would drink it seated together on the settee. It was a pity there was no firelight, but Mother could not be doing with coal and ashes and scraping out cinders. But the gas fire was pretty good and, with the radio on, the belching sound it made when the room got warm would be scarcely noticeable.
Beyond this, Margot was trying not to think. It was important to remember that what she was imagining was forbidden. She clung to the word obstinately. Forbidden.
She had no experience of what it felt like to make love or to be made love to. It was ridiculous and shameful to have reached this age and still be a virgin, but at least there was the consolation that no one knew. And there had been biology lessons at school, and occasionally the girls in her office would gigglingly describe a raunchy night with a boyfriend, or tell how one of their husbands had come randily home from the pub and embarked on a marathon bedroom session. So Margot knew what the mechanics were.
When she thought about them in connection with Marcus, she was alternately terrified and excited.
Margot experienced a mixture of disappointment and relief when Marcus said he could not afford the time to go out that evening. He had an essay which had to be handed in on Monday, and he had to work on that. Also, he would need to make a very early start in the morning, to be in time for a lecture. French conversation, he said. He was doing quite well with French, which he was taking as his second language and which could be very useful later on. They could just have something here, couldn’t they? Margot could cook something, couldn’t she?
Margot said at once that of course she could, and going out had only been an idea. There would be another opportunity. Marcus smiled and said, Yes, there would, and perhaps he ought to spend this last evening with Ma, anyway.
‘You understand, don’t you? Well, you always do.’
Margot did understand. She knew that she and Marcus understood one another perfectly.
After he left next morning, she sat in her bedroom for a long time, staring through the window at the garden with the thick old shrubbery that blocked so much light.
With Lina’s death, half – perhaps more than half – of the hatred that tainted this house had been removed. But what about the other half? Would that one day be removed? If so, it would mean she could leave this house, and she and Marcus would be together. It would mean that finally they had shaken off the ghosts.
But it seemed that the ghosts were closer and more substantial than either Margot or Marcus had known. And they were in this very house, waiting to be brought into the light.
FIVE
It was a good three months after Lina’s death that Margot’s mother said, with an air of brave resignation, that somebody should sort through the things in her room. There were probably papers in the desk in there – well, no, not a will, of course, because no will had ever been made. Lina had made this house over to her years ago, said Margot’s mother.
‘And there’s her piano. I don’t know what we ought to do about that. Neither of you were ever interested in learning, and in any case I couldn’t have afforded music lessons. I always disliked that room – dreadfully gloomy, I thought it – although Lina sometimes went in there. And now the piano will be gathering dust, and I daresay the wires will start rotting. I hate to think of it.’
‘I expect there are people who buy pianos,’ said Margot, who hated the piano with its macabre links to Lina. ‘And I can go through the desk and throw things away.’
‘Oh, you couldn’t do that on your own,’ said her mother at once. ‘You wouldn’t know what to keep and what not to. We’d better ask Marcus to come for a weekend. You can call him, can’t you? Using the phone gives me a headache nowadays.’
The prospect of having Marcus home brought the familiar surge of delight. Margot’s mind flew ahead, seeing the two of them shut away in Lina’s bedroom, sorting through the contents of her desk. There was no knowing what they might find, and it would be an intimate thing to do. He would be here for two whole days, so there might be a Sunday afternoon walk on the heath, and Margot might even try to set up that
candlelit dinner again – Mother could easily be persuaded to go up to bed early.
Mother said they must make the house particularly welcoming and comfortable for Marcus, because he did not come home very often, and his last visit had been such a sad one. And she was not one to complain, but she did think Margot had let things go a bit. The paintwork could do with washing down for one thing, and the sitting-room curtains would benefit from being washed. The dining-room ones might as well be done at the same time. And it would do Marcus good to have some specially nice, home-cooked food, as well; everyone knew students lived on junk food.
All of this effectively meant that Margot would wash paintwork and get curtains cleaned and cook the specially nice meals, because her mother would not do a hand’s turn for the entire weekend.
But it was worth it. Marcus enjoyed the food Margot had cooked, and he had brought some wine. Margot had one glass, and Mother took a small sip of hers, screwing up her face with distaste, saying she could not understand why people liked the stuff. In the end, Marcus drank the remainder of the first bottle, and nearly all of the second one. It did not make him drunk or slurry or embarrassing; it made his eyes brilliant and his hair flopped forward over his forehead.
By the time Margot had washed up and their mother had told Marcus about her health, it was after ten o’clock before they finally went up to Lina’s bedroom.
‘I’m not going to be much good at sorting through old papers now,’ said Marcus. ‘I’ve had far too much to drink. In fact I’m seeing everything through a fuzz, and you’ll have to help me up the stairs.’ He laughed, and put his hand out, pulling Margot against him to support him. He smelled of clean skin and clean hair and masculinity.
Lina’s room was in darkness, but Margot closed the curtains and switched on the bedside light before opening the old-fashioned roll-top desk.
‘There won’t be anything much,’ Marcus said, sitting on the bed and watching her. ‘Even if the old girl did have anything of interest, she’d have hidden it, like she hid that photograph and the newspaper article in the music room.’
The music room. To smother the memories, Margot said, ‘Mother wants to get rid of the piano. She says it’s never going to be played.’
‘Shouldn’t think it is.’ He lay back on the pillows, his hands linked behind his head
Margot began sifting the desk’s contents, but it was almost immediately clear that Marcus was right; there was nothing of any interest in the desk, and certainly nothing of any value. Some old calendars – goodness knew why Lina had kept those – and one or two mail-order catalogues from which she used to order all her clothes.
‘I told you there wouldn’t be anything,’ said Marcus, when Margot finally closed the desk. ‘Let’s go to bed.’ He put out a hand to her.
Margot felt as if something had squeezed all the breath from her body.
Let’s go to bed …
He meant that they should both go to their separate beds in their own bedrooms, but there was a moment when his reaching hand closed around hers very firmly indeed. But of course he was simply wanting her to help him up off the bed, and this was nothing more than a brother wanting his sister’s help, because he had had too much to drink.
He got off the bed a bit awkwardly, and put an arm round her waist, leaning heavily against her. ‘You’ll have to help me to bed, I think,’ he said, laughing.
Out on the landing, a faint smell of the roast lamb from their meal earlier lay greasily on the air. Mother had said lamb was a fatty meat; she wondered at Margot choosing it and it was to be hoped Marcus had not become a vegetarian.
Margot, with Marcus’s arm still around her waist, the two of them making a somewhat uncertain progress along the landing, had the bizarre thought that if tonight was to be the night when she was finally going to Marcus’s bed, it was a pity if it was to an oily background of cooling roast lamb. It was an even greater pity that she was wearing run-down house shoes and an old sweater which had bobbled a bit in the wash.
But at least the clock was chiming midnight, and midnight somehow held its own romantic aura. It went hand-in-hand with moonlight and soft music from an invisible orchestra playing one of the old romantic songs. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing to the strains of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’.
This was a ridiculous way to think – it was starry-eyed pre-teen thinking, and none of it bore any resemblance to the reality. Not that there was actually going to be any reality, not tonight, not ever. But being so close to Marcus sent the familiar shiver through her.
And then a light went on in the bedroom at the far end, and their mother’s voice called querulously out to them not to stay up all night poring over Lina’s papers; didn’t they realize it was midnight and people wanted to sleep.
Marcus grinned, and removed his hand from around Margot’s waist. ‘I think I’m all right from here,’ he said. ‘Shocking to get pissed in your own home, isn’t it? First night back, as well. Night, Margot.’
‘Goodnight.’
When Margot finally fell asleep, her dreams were confused. They were mixed up with old photographs of brooding German castles, and with the image of the man who had been the dear and beloved father of Lina … Margot could almost believe she was hearing Lina now, stealing downstairs to brood over the photographs while the house slept. She could hear the soft footsteps on the stairs …
Footsteps.
She came up out of sleep to the realization that someone really was going down the stairs. There was nothing remarkable about that, though, and if Marcus or Mother had gone downstairs for something – a drink, a book – they would move quietly so as not to wake anyone. Margot prepared to go back to sleep, but then she heard the familiar slow creak of the music-room door being opened.
At this, she got out of bed, slid her feet into slippers and went softly down to the hall. Shadows lay across the hall floor like questing fingers – were they the same shadows that had oozed forward on the night Lina died? The music-room door was slightly ajar. Marcus had switched on the small lamp, and he was kneeling by the piano. The lid of the tapestry-covered piano stool was open, and he was going through its contents.
He heard her at once; he turned sharply round, then, sounding relieved, he said, ‘Oh, it’s only you. I thought it might be Ma. Come in and shut the door, but be quiet about it. It doesn’t really matter, but I’d rather she didn’t know what I’m doing.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m not quite sure.’ He still looked a bit drunk, but he was no longer unfocused or unsteady. ‘There was something we said earlier – about the old girl not leaving anything for us to find in the desk. It stuck in my mind, and I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it.’
Margot said in a whisper, ‘We said if there was anything she wanted to keep secret, she’d have hidden it somewhere no one ever looked—’
‘—like she hid the photograph and the newspaper cutting. Exactly. So I thought it was worth checking this room. She was the only one who ever came in here, wasn’t she? The tapestry stool’s the obvious hiding place, but there doesn’t seem to be anything apart from old music.’
Margot said slowly, ‘What about the piano?’
‘The piano? How would you hide anything inside a piano? Oh, wait, does the front come off somehow?’
‘I’m not sure. Or – does the top lift up?’ said Margot. ‘Like a lid?’
‘Does it? Yes, you’re right – it’s hinged.’
He grasped the piano’s top, and began to ease it upwards. It was a small piano – Margot thought it was what had once been called a cottage piano – and the top was reluctant to give way at first, as if it did not want to yield any secrets. But Marcus persisted, and it suddenly came free. He pushed it back against the wall and peered inside.
‘Black as the devil’s cave. Can you get a torch? I daren’t switch any more lights on in case Mother sees.’
Margot sped out to the kitchen for a torch. When she came back Marcus was pee
ring into the piano’s depths. ‘I’m afraid to touch anything without seeing what I’m actually touching,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to twang any of the strings.’
‘Mother sleeps through most things.’
‘She wouldn’t sleep through a cacophony of piano-string twanging,’ said Marcus, then grinned. ‘I must be sobering up. I couldn’t have said cacophony if I was still pissed, could I? Did you close the door? Oh, yes, you did. OK, shine the torch downwards into the piano’s guts. Can you see anything?’
‘Only wires and strings.’
‘That’s all I can see, too. And I don’t really think …’
It was then that he drew in his breath sharply, and it was then that Margot saw the paper that was stuck to the inner side of the piano – immediately behind the music stand.
‘Christ al-bloody-mighty,’ said Marcus. ‘Have we fallen into a gothic romance, and not noticed it?’ He looked up at her, and his eyes were no longer liquid from the wine, they were blazing like sapphires with excitement. ‘Is this going to be the ancient document that tells the truth about all that crap from the past – Lina’s murdered father, and Wewelsburg and Christa the killer?’
Margot said, ‘You’re getting carried away. It’s probably the receipt for the original purchase of the piano, or the address of the man who tunes it.’
‘Don’t be so sodding down-to-earth. This is a cobwebby document that hasn’t seen the light of day for years, and it could be anything.’ He was reaching for the paper, slowly and cautiously, trying not to disturb the piano’s mechanism, but a faint thrum came from the wires – not music exactly, but music that might be struggling to be born. Margot looked nervously towards the door.
‘I think,’ said Marcus, ‘that it’s glued to the wood, because I can’t get it free … Oh, no, wait, there’s a drawing pin holding it in place. I hadn’t seen that. Tilt the torch there – no, there …’
