by A. J. Elwood
I feel a pang at that, remembering my flight from uni, all my possessions hastily shoved into bags. ‘Did you know something of these people, then?’ I ask. ‘Are they your ancestors?’
She doesn’t answer. Instead she says, ‘Doyle thought you could see fairies until you fell in love. Have you ever been in love, Rose?’
I can’t think how to reply and anyway, she doesn’t wait for me. She says, ‘You’re a little different to the others, aren’t you – Rose?’ She puts a peculiar emphasis on the word, as if claiming me somehow, or as if it could mean something other than my name.
Paul’s words return to me. You know what’s different about you, Rose? And his answer: You believe.
But how can I?
I shake my head. ‘I – well, I’m new here.’
‘Such a shame. Still, I expect you’ll soon fit in.’
Something inside me rails against the idea. I picture myself far away, in London maybe, or New York or Paris, in some fascinating job: media or journalism, or being a writer, living in a glass house or tucked away among the trees. And I remember something that Paul had said when he helped carry my bags into his house: Welcome home – only that – but why should it come to me now?
She must see something of my thoughts in my face because she adds, ‘All these bodies. Old, sagging, sinking, smelling. All so physical. Cleaning up after us, is that your ambition, Rose? Is that your dream?’
She gives a condescending smile. It’s easy to see why the other carers don’t like her. But then, they probably don’t see her, not like this. They wouldn’t listen or linger to chat to her. Is that what happened to the girl Nisha told me about – did she listen to Mrs Favell? I could have returned her book now, of course, but I hadn’t expected to be here at this moment. The little volume of poetry is in my locker. I hadn’t wanted to keep it in my pocket, since it spoiled the line of my tunic and anyone might have noticed it. Anyone could have asked what I was doing with it.
I remind myself, defiantly, what Nisha had said about everyone getting a share of Edie’s knitting, but that doesn’t feel quite the same and I suppose it isn’t. And so the urge had stolen over me to conceal it – or was it only that I’d wanted so badly to keep it, that lovely little volume with its touch of skin and enchanting words? I wouldn’t, of course, but it’s almost as if a fairy tale has been given to me to replace all the ones I’ve lost.
‘You’d better get back to it then, Rose,’ she says. ‘Goodness, you are a quiet little thing, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be talking to the residents, helping keep our minds active? God forbid we should all be reliant on my conversation.’
She gets up from her chair, lithe as a girl, and I push myself up too. I don’t allow myself to put a hand to my aching back. I don’t think I could bear the look on her face if I did. I feel I’ve been judged and fallen short, that there was some response I should have given, and I blush. I remember the essays I wrote for my degree: the social significance of turn-of-the-century fiction. But Fenton’s letters feel as if they were formed by an earlier time – and I suppose they were, since he was a grandfather when he wrote them. Still, I know she’s right, that I should have more to say, something interesting. It just all seems so very long ago.
‘Well, they couldn’t have found a skeleton,’ I try. ‘An interesting hoax, wasn’t it? Strange that it didn’t become as famous as the Cottingley pictures.’ Even as I speak, I imagine her sarcastic response. Of course it was a hoax – what did I think, that a fairy skeleton could really exist? I’d stated the obvious, and Mrs Favell has little patience for the obvious.
‘I won’t keep you.’ She replaces the letter in the bureau – which surely must be her own property, so different from the regulation furniture – closes and locks it. She gives me an odd look as she drops the key into a ceramic bowl, alongside several glossy, ripe red apples. Why bother to lock it if she’s going to leave the key so openly? Is it a kind of test? Would the girl who worked here before me have come snooping, to see what she could find? But I’m not like that. Mrs Favell can trust me.
I feel an odd compulsion to bow my head before I walk away, but I resist it. Why does she have such an effect? It’s as if she’s the lady of the manor, summoning and dismissing me as she wishes. I report to Patricia, not to her, and no matter how she might single me out, or why, I don’t need to humour her. I don’t have to ask any more questions. I make up my mind to avoid her as much as I can.
And I wonder why Nisha should have felt the need to warn me to be careful, when something about Mrs Favell demands that all by herself.
5
It isn’t long before I catch Nisha alone. She’s on her break, sipping coffee in the staff kitchen and looking at her watch. Breaks are strictly timed around here. The kitchen is tiny and windowless, situated along a narrow corridor behind reception, accessed via a keycard. The staff office is opposite, which in contrast to the kitchen is a goldfish bowl of sheet glass with a view of nothing but the corridor. Patricia is in there now, sitting at the desk, ready to frown upon anyone emerging from their break even if they’re on time. It’s her view that carers care, always – why would we want time to ourselves? But no one really loiters in here. There isn’t room for loitering. The alternative is to go and sit in the residents’ lounge, where social interaction is encouraged by the careful arrangement of the chairs, but right now, I can’t stand the babble of the television. It’s always turned up too loud, for the hard of hearing who won’t wear hearing aids or can’t get on with them, and I still haven’t got used to it.
Besides, I want to talk to Nisha. I smile and nod at her. I don’t need to look around to see there’s no one else in here.
‘Kettle’s just boiled,’ she says.
I busy myself with finding a clean mug and teaspoon and say in a casual tone, ‘You mentioned the girl who was here before me. Do you mind if I—’
‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’
The clock ticks, too loud and too fast. I can’t be subtle; she’ll soon be gone. ‘Why did she leave?’
Her face swivels towards me. ‘Look, girls are always leaving. Some of them don’t see it as a vocation. They just do it as a job, and you really can’t. It’s never just a job.’
I have no answer to that, and she sighs.
‘It’s a high-turnover kind of place. With Theresa it just went a bit wrong, that’s all.’
‘Wrong?’
‘There was a misunderstanding. I think that’s what it was. Mrs Favell’s not so bad. Theresa thought she’d given her something, a gift, only it got reported missing and there was a big fuss. Patricia wanted to search her locker and Theresa wouldn’t agree, so the police were called, and they found it in there. It all got a bit nasty. Theresa – I liked her, you know? She seemed nice. Not like a thief, but you can’t tell by looking. We do sometimes get those here too.’
I think of the book secreted in my locker and force myself to meet her eye. ‘No, I don’t suppose you can tell. Like you say, it could have been a mistake. Mrs Favell forgot she gave it to her, maybe?’
Nisha mumbles something under her breath.
‘Pardon?’
‘I said she doesn’t forget, not that one.’ She sips her coffee, though she doesn’t look as if she tastes it. ‘I don’t know. Theresa said she gave it to her, but how can you be sure?’
I picture a girl wearing a tunic like mine, leaning against a wall, sobbing. Mandy and Sarah looking on while the police riffle through her locker. Mrs Favell watching too, pressing her lips together so tightly they almost disappear, her eyes bright in the dimness of the corridor, though black – soulless.
‘This gift. Was it a book?’ I ask.
Nisha looks puzzled. ‘A book – what? Who’d want a book? No, it was that necklace she always wears. She said it was taken from her bedside table while she slept.’ She pulls a face. ‘As if anyone could sneak up on that one. She never misses a trick.’
* * *
It’s only a book, I tell my
self as I get through the afternoon, but the thought of it nestled in my locker gnaws at my mind. Everyone knows that Mrs Favell wanted me to read for her, she asked Patricia about it right there in the lounge, so why shouldn’t I have it? I might just have borrowed it for a time. I was only borrowing it – I only wanted to look at it again, perhaps show it to Paul, and then I’d give it back. And Nisha was right. Who would want to steal it?
All the same, I’m glad when the clock says I can leave.
The first thing I do is go to retrieve the little volume of poetry. The lockers are situated in a narrow room behind the staff kitchen, narrowed still further by their metal bulk so that it’s little more than a corridor leading nowhere. I hear voices as soon as I open the door. One of the carers, Sarah, is in there, talking loudly to Mandy about a new wine bar that’s opened in town. She segues smoothly into Coronation Street’s latest plot turn and I smile, not wanting to open my locker in front of them. Sarah pauses when she sees me and stands back against the wall, pointedly making room for me, waiting for me to be gone. She watches as I take the key from my pocket.
I block her view with my body, fitting the key into the lock and turning it. I don’t see why I should worry about what she thinks. I haven’t done anything wrong. Still, I can imagine her expression if she sees the book – something old, its leather and gilding so out of place she would know at once it could never be mine. I hear Nisha’s words again, asking if Mrs Favell has given me anything; mine, reassuring her she hasn’t.
Resentment squirms through me. I know, no matter what excuses I repeat to myself, that they would gossip. They might even tell Patricia, cast it in a bad light. I can’t afford for them to do that, not being new. What would she think? I won’t give them the chance – or the satisfaction.
There are other books in my locker, other paperwork. There’s a staff manual and a Sunnyside brochure, complete with an entry code for when the front door is locked at night – hardly very sensible to print it out, especially if they’re worried about theft, but clearly the convenience outweighed security. There are procedural instructions, care standards, fliers about first aid courses, manual handling, adult safeguarding and others, not forgetting information about the NVQ I’ll have to face if I’m going to stay here, as I so blithely promised at my interview. The little book is wholly out of place, its gilt edges gleaming like treasure in a dragon’s cave. I grab the navy-blue cardigan that’s hanging at the back of my locker and wrap it around the book, feeling like a shoplifter.
‘Settling in?’ Sarah’s voice is loud at my ear.
The cardigan slips from my hands and I catch at it, then let go. The book falls with it and I hope the fabric will cover it. I’m lucky and it does, but the slap of the book hitting the floor is plainly audible.
‘Jesus. Jumpy much? That bad, is it?’ Sarah’s voice is mocking.
My laughter sounds false to my own ears. ‘It’s fine.’ I bend and scoop up the cardigan and the book with it. I half expect a couple of burly policemen to come elbowing their way into the room.
‘If you say so.’ Sarah sounds like she’s trying not to laugh.
I curl my lips into what I hope is a bright smile. ‘Well, see you both tomorrow.’ I let myself out, feeling their gaze on my back until I can close the door behind me. Nisha’s words run through my mind, about those people, the ones who only do this for a job; about thieves; her tale of Theresa.
I step out into the evening. All the colours are intensified with that odd, warm light that presages rain, everything draped in long shadows. I refuse to look back towards the windows ranked behind me. I don’t want to see if anyone is watching me go.
6
The flowers from yesterday are in their vase by the sink, their heads drooping, petals already falling. There’s a note on the fridge: GONE TO PUB WITH MARCUS and a couple of kisses. No big welcome tonight then. Marcus, Paul’s brother, lives a few streets away. If they’ve headed to the White Hart they could be hours – spending money we don’t have. I sigh and shake off the bitterness. Everyone deserves a little fun and it’s not as if we’ll live here for ever; he won’t always have the chance. I make a sandwich and eat it standing between the tiny open-plan kitchen and the ratty beige sofa. I think about Mrs Favell’s gift. It’s a beautiful thing. I find myself thinking it’s a pity she gave it to me outside, where no one else could see – if they had, perhaps I really could have kept it. But had she done that on purpose? Whether she did or not, I shouldn’t have hidden it. I should have made her take it back; tomorrow, that’s what I’ll do.
What was it that made her choose poetry as her gift to me? I think of my mother’s volumes lining the stairs, all those windows onto other places, other lives. I decide that out of everyone at Sunnyside, Mrs Favell must have thought I’d appreciate it the most. Perhaps I should be flattered. Should I even feel some kind of kinship with her?
You remind me of me, Rose.
I remember the sharp gleam of her eyes and shake off the idea. For a moment I almost think I can smell her scent, so like my mother’s, and I pull a face. Tomorrow, I’ll go to Patricia myself. I’ll report Mrs Favell’s attempted gift, get my story in first. That way she’ll know I’m honest. She’ll tell me to give it back and I’ll say it’s already done and she’ll nod and approve. If Mrs Favell is playing some kind of game, that’s checkmate to me.
I find myself rubbing my fingers together, savouring the touch not of an ancient leather book cover but the dry paper of a letter. I picture the sharply slanted handwriting telling of peculiar things, the language of upright gentlemen in darkly furnished rooms, men of respectability and good sense, at least until they decided to believe that fairies could be found at the bottom of a little Yorkshire garden.
You know what’s different about you, Rose?
I smile wryly. Perhaps La Belle Dame sans Merci had us all in thrall. When I’d held the letter in my hand, I too felt half bewitched. Or perhaps Mrs Favell really is reading my mind, feeding me the things I want to hear when I want to hear them. I pull a face at that word, feeding, but it’s the one that feels right.
Perhaps her gift of the poem was a little too apposite. Or perhaps she’s just a half-mad old lady telling of mad things, and my mind is running away with itself, far too eager to fill in the blanks.
I’m not quite ready to return to the Keats; that’s something to be savoured. Instead I step into the lounge, take my laptop from the cupboard and switch it on. I got it for uni and haven’t used it much since updating my CV. It whirrs and the screen lights up and I sit in front of the blissfully silent television, googling Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the fairies. Myriad links appear and there they are: a row of pictures depicting little girls surrounded by strange forms, figments of their imagination come to life.
I think back to a long-ago day, when I’d stood before a similar picture in a museum, my mother at my side. I had gazed at a young girl in a white dress, half smiling, and the little fairy next to her: too big, too clumsy, too flat, holding out a bunch of flowers as lifeless as she. Even as a child I had been surprised that they ever could have fooled anyone, but then, they hadn’t been accustomed to trick photography back then. They were more innocent times. It must have been so much easier to take people in; they trusted what they saw and heard. They hadn’t expected that young girls could have concocted such a lie.
I scroll down the screen. And there, listed on a website of copyright-free texts, is a book that Arthur Conan Doyle had written: The Coming of the Fairies.
I hadn’t heard of it before, although it was hinted at in the letters. I never realised he had gone so far in trying to convince the world to believe. Even his own creation, the relentlessly rational Sherlock Holmes, never would have stood for it. The incongruity makes it even more strange. Doyle surely couldn’t have been serious.
I examine the contents page – ‘How the Matter Arose’, ‘Observations of a Clairvoyant in the Cottingley Glen’, ‘Some Subsequent Cases’ – and catch certain phrases: �
��dancing goblin’, ‘wood elves in a ring’, and ‘I am so glad you like the fairies!’. I dip into the text to discover Doyle expressing his hope that one day special ‘psychic spectacles’ might be invented, making the unseen visible, enabling anyone to see fairies all of the time.
Then I catch the name E. L. Gardner, and everything becomes stranger still. Apparently Gardner believed not only in fairies but in pixies and goblins too. He thought children really could see them and play with them. He’d had one of the Cottingley pictures enlarged and hung in his hall where he could see it every day.
Yet despite it all, there was some attempt at a scientific approach, at rationality. Doyle wondered if the fairies’ colours belonged to a part of the spectrum beyond the ability of the human eye to detect. Hadn’t Fenton suggested something of the kind? He’d said Doyle was turning the light of scientific enquiry upon the ‘unknowable world’. Perhaps in a way, the author wasn’t so very distant from his creation, Sherlock Holmes, after all.
It strikes me that Doyle was also an adherent of spiritualism, that he visited mediums in the hope of contacting deceased members of his family. But it must have been easy to believe in the existence of an afterlife back then, when so many people did. An unbidden picture flashes before me: the residents in the lounge at Sunnyside, the ‘departure lounge’ as someone in housekeeping had called it, and my mother sitting among them, a book on her lap.
I push the image away. Doyle had sought evidence that the world wasn’t bare and desolate and empty, that the afterlife not only existed but could be reached. Perhaps if he could prove that fairies were real, it would be easier to swallow the rest; it would show that life wasn’t quite so soulless after all. He’d wanted to believe.
I open my eyes and am almost surprised to see the bright screen in front of me. The Coming of the Fairies is still there, a real thing – I hadn’t imagined it – and I download the file to read later. Then an idea strikes me and I run a search within the text for Lawrence H. Fenton, then Lawrence, Laurence for good measure and then just Fenton. There’s nothing. I search for Charlotte and Harriet and come up empty each time.
