The Cottingley Cuckoo

by A. J. Elwood

  Take more care of it than the other.

  I still feel the sting of her words. I want to tear the letter to pieces; I can’t wait to read what it says.

  17th September 1921

  Dear Mr Gardner,

  I dare say you did not expect another letter so soon after your own, but I could barely contain myself until your visit, which we now anticipate as a fixed event on the 21st. I have news to impart that would not wait, for we have triumphed – I have before me two photographs of the fairies!

  I hope I do not delude myself when I say they are far better than any of us could have hoped. Some would say they are more nebulous and uncertain than those of Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, but I think in some peculiar way that has become their strength.

  In the first you see the stream, with the little rock where I found the body. Do you make out the darting lights before it? Look closely and you will see tiny forms within – there is the merest suggestion of legs and arms, and the most brilliant points of brightness, you see, are in the form of wings. If you could only see their colours! Perhaps their brilliance is something connected with the speed of movement – although then every hummingbird must carry its own halo, so these must be quicker still.

  The second shows my dear little Harriet. See how rapt she is about the sprite just approaching her from below! She looks almost afraid. She is a tentative little thing – but her fascination is plain. And the figure is clearer yet than in the first. Indeed, I believe it might even be the same pippin-faced fellow I saw before, though I cannot be certain of identifying individuals from among them. Indeed, I must hold the photograph close to my face to see the detail; I am afraid I have quite belied the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, for I have somehow mislaid my magnifying glass.

  Still, I believe I can make out the fairy’s form clearly enough, though to be sure, his movement has rendered it a little indistinct. Harriet was rather frozen in place, and so you see quite plainly her fair curls and long-lashed eyes, so like her father’s. Along with these prints, I have also enclosed some photographs I took of the little skeleton. You may imagine how impatient I have been whilst I had them processed – I heard that Mr Wright has a darkroom under the stairs, but I have none, and had to send them out.

  I dare say you will find the images of the skeleton the most interesting, not only for their clarity, but for the fact that you will have seen nothing like it in the whole course of your enquiries. I long to hear your response – though I am now caught up entirely in the thought of finding again the living creatures, for how gay and gladsome they look, engaged in their darting and dancing!

  What the photographs lack in definition they make up for, I think, in the expression of that movement. Though of course your expert, Snelling, referred to some movement in the Wright photographs, I confess – and I trust you will not be offended – I found it difficult to detect. In these, it is unmistakeable. They are redolent of life.

  Another difference is in the size of the little beings. In the previous photographs they appear to be about seventeen or eighteen inches high. Perhaps the girls were fortunate to meet with a higher order of fairy? These are much smaller, but very bright.

  It is quite the stir in our household, and we are impatient to share our joy in the matter with the world at large. Do you really think Sir Arthur will be unable to come? Perhaps, with Harriet to accompany him, he might even glimpse the fairies himself! I am certain he would be thrilled by their presence, as we all are.

  My daughter-in-law in particular is seized with fairy fervour, and often wends her way down to the glen. I should add that she took the enclosed photographs of the living fairies herself. I would have liked to have done it, but my old legs are less nimble of late, and I often remain at the house to keep company with Harriet whilst her mother plays the detective for us all.

  Alas, I did not see the fairies this time. The descriptions and indeed the photographs are Charlotte’s, though the excitement is my own. It scarcely surpasses hers, in recent days. As I said, she has quite thrown herself into the project. She will sit by the beck for an entire morning or afternoon, staring through the camera lens and waiting for a glimpse; and though the weather is turning rather chill, she says she does not feel it.

  She had also of late grown desirous of borrowing my key to the outhouse, and would stand staring at the little skeleton for hours together, but she began to worry that something would happen to it, or that it might be ‘stolen away’. I am sure, having kept silence on its existence with all outside the family save yourself and Sir Arthur, it is safe enough, but she has persuaded me to take it into the house. She placed the box under her bed herself, and says its proximity is a great relief to her.

  To be entirely open and honest, I am somewhat relieved that she no longer feels the need to constantly open the box and gaze at it. I have done so on only one further occasion, to take its photograph. Is it not a peculiar object? The decay has progressed no further, and it remains quite intact, as you will see.

  But soon you may examine it for yourself. I anticipate the day. We shall not cease until then to obtain further evidence, but I am certain we already possess such that the world will fall before all your arguments.

  It will be, as Sir Arthur so eloquently put it in his momentous article in The Strand, an epoch-making revelation.

  Sincerely yours,

  Lawrence H. Fenton

  PS. It is interesting you say in your last that Elsie Wright also referred to the fairies being ugly, though it seems she witnessed some kind of transformation from beauty to ugliness all in an instant. I had thought that Harriet’s use of the word could only be the insignificant outburst of a child. It is hard to imagine such beauty as the fairies possess dissolving to its opposite. But good and evil exist in all men, and so perhaps it is with these little beings. Perhaps it is only that they wear the honest reflection of their inner thoughts and feelings on the outside, rather than hiding them within, as we do! Harriet might merely have glimpsed some little aversion to our disruption of their lives, which would seem reasonable enough, since we were present at the passing of the tiny maid. That would explain, I suppose, how beauteous Charlotte has thought them since – they have forgotten all, as the mayfly forgets its mortality and flits gladsome in the sunshine, and are quite restored.

  8

  Iread the letter twice. I don’t have time and hope I haven’t been missed, but I can’t resist. If my phone wasn’t shut away in my locker, as per regulations, I’d photograph it. I brought it to the only place I could think of to gain a little privacy – I’m in the loo, hoping no one else comes in. So far, they haven’t.

  How very strange the letter is, how redolent of another life, another time. I wish I could have met the writer – to know, at least, that he was real. I wish I could believe in the words, slanting in beautiful cursive across the page. How lovely, then, the story would have been.

  And yet there are no photographs with the letter, no proof they ever existed. Perhaps Mrs Favell has them, and withheld them – is that why she put this into my hands? Does she want to taunt me with the possibility, to enjoy making me ask for them? After her behaviour over our card game I know her to be capable of it. It was just so bald; so vindictive. I try telling myself it was really Edie’s daughter that had earned her frustration and she only wanted Edie to see the truth. Or that Mrs Favell has some reason for her bitterness, that she’s alone in the world and not as content with that as she likes to appear. People think their offspring will look after them. So glad I never troubled over it. I have no concept of what her life was like before Sunnyside, how difficult it might have been. She might have been forced to be strong, to eradicate all signs of weakness to get where she wanted to be. In some odd way, she might think she’s helping me to do the same. Maybe she thinks she was helping Edie.

  This letter could be her way of making some apology. I almost wish, if it meant I could see the photographs too, that she’d said worse and been more sorry.

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nbsp; I can imagine the pictures so very clearly. I see a young girl with widened eyes, her lips parted with wonder – or is it fear? Her face is frozen but somehow I can’t read her expression. Her grandfather had wanted to believe her fascinated, but had he only seen what he wanted to see? It’s interesting that he had thought the Cottingley photographs lifeless; so that wasn’t just the impression of my more modern and jaded eye. And yet he had believed in the truth of his own pictures, in their life, their movement, their reality. But he hadn’t even seen them being taken at first hand. The photographer had been his daughter-in-law: Charlotte.

  It is easy to picture her too, although that makes me uncomfortable, for somehow she has my Charlotte’s face. I see her eyes, so coldly blue, staring down at a dusty, tiny skeleton, coffined in a wooden box. Enchanted by it, even obsessed. Was that the start of whatever had changed her? Was she so entirely caught by – what? Magic? Curiosity? The desire for something more?

  Is that why Mrs Favell has shown this to me – because beneath her coldness, she shares some of those feelings?

  I cast my eyes over the letter a third time, greedy for its words. After this, I might never see it again. She gave it to me in front of everyone but that doesn’t mean I can keep it, or that I should. I’ll take it back to her as soon as I’m done here. If anyone asks about it, I can say it was a mistake and that I’ve returned it. A part of me hopes she won’t be in her room when I do, that I can leave it on her night table and quietly creep away. It isn’t that I don’t have questions. I just don’t expect any answers, nothing that isn’t a tease, some new way for her to feel superior.

  For now I remain motionless. Then I hear the ladies’ door open and the sound of footsteps. They don’t go into a cubicle but stop where the mirrors must be. I know I can’t stay in here any longer.

  It’s Mandy in front of the mirror. She’s applying mascara; she wears too much, despite the regulations calling for minimal makeup. They all do, her and her friends, an insignia of their pack. She looks up and sees my reflection, gives a toss of her head in acknowledgement.

  I match her look and wash my hands. As I dry them she says, ‘All right, are we?’

  She sounds offended at my silence, as if she hadn’t been silent too. I smile and tell her that everything’s fine.

  ‘Getting on all right with the dragon lady?’

  It’s the first time she’s asked and I await her mocking expression, but it doesn’t come. Instead she smiles, and it looks like a real smile, almost apologetic. Have I passed some sort of test just by turning up day after day? I remember it was she who sent me to Mrs Favell in the first place. Maybe she’s only being nice because we’re alone, and she’ll be back to her sly looks the minute she’s with her friends. Still, there’s warmth in her eyes, and something else: maybe even guilt.

  ‘She’s okay,’ I answer. ‘I mean, she’s a little difficult. I’m not sure what to make of her some of the time. But I think we’ll get along.’

  ‘She’s an old bag. I heard what she did to Edie.’

  ‘I’m sure she didn’t mean it.’ I don’t know why I’m defending her. If I liked Mandy more, if I trusted her, I don’t suppose I would be; it’s not as if I really believe it myself.

  ‘Of course she did.’ Mandy slips her mascara into her pocket and turns from the mirror, looking at me face to face. ‘Look, I’m sorry if she’s difficult. I know we threw you in it a bit. If you need some help—’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Her face closes up and she gives a single nod before walking out of the room, leaving me alone with my reflection. My face looks thin. I’m pale and I look tired and closed off, and I force a smile, smoothing down my hair, which is determined to tuft into spikes. At least Mandy didn’t notice the letter sticking out of my pocket, its aged paper out of place against the crisp blue. And it won’t be there much longer. I’m taking it back, right now.

  I walk through the residents’ lounge to the stairway, my keycard held in front of me, a shield against unwanted interruptions, but I don’t need it. The door is propped open, as it often is – it saves time and hassle when the residents lose their entry cards or forget they’re supposed to use them. I ignore the wide passageway leading to the ground-floor rooms and head up the stairs, each riser carefully marked along its edge to help prevent trips and slips. As I go, the air seems to darken. There is the sense that something has come awake: that I am being watched.

  I shake my head, stepping into the first-floor corridor. The walls, painted with the same job-lot of peach paint as the rooms, are adorned with the kind of bland pictures that might be found in a cheap hotel, but it still doesn’t feel right. I walk along it and stand in front of room ten. The bedroom doors don’t lock – it wouldn’t be safe if there was a fire or other emergency – but it strikes me that, although we sometimes find the wrong resident in the wrong room, no one ever wanders into Mrs Favell’s by mistake.

  Is that because they all feel what I’m feeling now?

  I pause before giving a little knock, waiting longer than usual – for what? – and then push open the door. It looks as if I’ve got my wish: the room is empty. I walk into this space that’s so clearly meant to look like it might be a room in someone’s home and yet doesn’t, not really. There is the neatly made bed, the blunt-edged wardrobe, the peach walls, only the shining bureau out of place – and my own reflection, caught for a moment in the mirror set upon the chest of drawers. Then, with a start, I see her. She is here after all, standing in the corner, perfectly still. Her gaze is fixed on the garden, or further than that, on the woods that lie beyond.

  Without turning she says, ‘You haven’t yet told me what you think.’

  I can’t make out what her tone portends. ‘No,’ I force myself to answer, ‘I suppose I haven’t.’ With a stab of spite I wonder if she means what I think of the letters, or of her.

  Then she says, ‘Oh, never mind that. I don’t care about such things.’

  ‘What do you—’

  ‘I think you know, dear.’ She turns to me, painting a bright smile across her features. I suddenly remember wondering what she would look like smiling. Now I don’t want to see it any longer. It’s as if vindictive thoughts and bad spirit are hiding just behind her stretched lips, the tips of her teeth. And what is she trying to suggest? Whatever game this is, I’m not playing.

  ‘He wanted you to stay here, didn’t he?’ she says.

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Your – significant other, I believe you’d call him. Your amour, your knight-at-arms.’

  That silences me. I haven’t spoken of Paul to anyone here, even at my interview, other than to acknowledge the fact of his existence. ‘How could you know that?’

  She smiles again and this one isn’t so nice, though it suits her better. ‘Oh, it’s in your eyes, dear. The longing to escape, the desire for other things – different things. There had to be something keeping you here. There had to be something that brought you back.’

  I have a sudden image: not of Paul but my mother, though her face is blurry, seen through tears; mine, not hers. She’s reading me my favourite story, Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’, and I’m crying. Sobbing in fact, because the mermaid gave up everything, just as she was supposed to do, for love, to find her handsome prince, but in the end he didn’t love her back.

  I blink. I don’t know why I’m seeing this. It almost feels as if she’s showing it to me; as if Mrs Favell could be in any way connected to my mother, as if she could exist in the same world. The cloying scent of lily of the valley hits my nostrils and I want to be sick.

  But Paul does love me, I think fiercely, and I don’t know why.

  Mrs Favell smirks. Your amour, your knight-at-arms.

  Another image: Paul pausing on the doorstep to wave a hand, not just at the house but the terrace, the street, the whole God-forsaken town in the dead end of nowhere: Welcome home, as if it’s some kind of treasure, as if any of it matters.

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bsp; Is he the prince in my fairy tale? If so he’s in the wrong place and the wrong time: at the beginning instead of the end.

  I open my mouth to reply, not sure what I’m going to say. What I find myself murmuring is, ‘It’s not for ever.’ I’m not even sure what I mean. This job? This place? Or do I mean Paul?

  Her lip twitches with amusement.

  I take a deep breath, ready to remonstrate. We’re encouraged to talk to the residents, but about their lives, not our own. None of this is her business. None of it is hers.

  ‘Of course not, dear.’ Her voice is mild and she turns to the window, so that all I can see is the curve of her cheek. It’s as if she’s no longer interested.

  I try to defuse my anger. We’re supposed to have patience, we who work at Sunnyside. We’re supposed to care, having endless wells of kindness, sharing memories and dreams, sharing – an image again: curled up around a book, but instead of my mother it’s Mrs Favell sitting in her place and I blink it away.

  I shift my feet, wishing I could show her. I wish I could walk out right now and never come back. Sunnyside is nothing to me, or it will be. It’s an in-between place, a nowhere place. I won’t let it get its claws into me, with its burbling television and clink of cutlery, the rattle of jigsaw pieces in a box, the rolling of a die. The stink of adult shit and failure and giving up.

  ‘You should learn how to give up hope, dear.’

  Her words are so odd they’re like a shock of cold water. I’m not even sure I really heard them.

  She turns to me and she isn’t smiling. Her eyes are sharp and they have a brightness I can’t look away from, though there’s no warmth in them, no humanity. She doesn’t mean well and I know that and I shouldn’t have spoken to her, not of Paul, not of anything connected to my life. I shouldn’t even have thought about him in front of her, or my home, or my mother, where she could read all of it on my face.