by Maria Hoey
“You’re supposed to be with her. Keep her there. Make sure – don’t let her see.”
“She’s fine, I’m coming with you,” said Violet-May.
There was no time for arguing so I didn’t.
At the foot of the stairs to the attic room, I turned to Violet-May and put a finger to my lips. She nodded and I bent down and whipped off my shoes and motioned to Violet-May to do the same. On tiptoe, I darted up the short flight of stairs and stood for a second at the door before reaching out and gripping the knob with both hands. I turned it as slowly as I could, but even then it emitted a rusty little whine and I held my breath before gently pushing the door inward.
The open window was straight ahead and I saw Oliver at once. He was almost dead-centre on the window ledge, crouched again now, head bent and from the small jerking movements of his body, I deduced that he was wheeling his truck to and fro on the ledge. From the sound behind me, I knew that Violet-May had seen him too, but when she reached out and touched me on the shoulder I started in shock and spun angrily to face her.
“Let me,” she mouthed.
I hesitated. She, after all was Oliver’s aunt, while he was in no way related to me. But my hesitation lasted all of a split second and I made my decision. As I shook my head, I remember instinctively putting out both arms as if to physically bar her entry into the room, should she try to push past me. And for a moment, as we stood there eyes locked, I thought she would challenge me. But her eyes dropped first and I turned from her and focused my attention on Oliver. There were, I had realised, two ways of doing it. I could draw attention to myself and try to talk him in, or I could creep up behind him as soundlessly as possible so as not to in any way startle him, then quite literally fling myself forward and grab him backward through the open window. The risk with the former was that at the sound of my voice Oliver might start or worse still, move to come toward me or away from me. With the latter, despite all my efforts, he might hear me coming and jump, or turn to me and in so doing slip or ... or ...
Every new possibility made me want to vomit just thinking about it but there was no time to think any longer and so I made my decision. I took one deep breath and set a foot down as far inside the room as the length of my legs would allow, then I lifted the other foot and brought them both together. And that was how I crossed to him, loping slowly and soundlessly as possible, like an adult playing a child’s game of Giant Steps, until I was level with the desk where I wrote each day. I remember putting my hand down on its edge in an attempt to steady myself, because I was trembling from head to foot and I needed steady hands for what I had to do. I remember that the wood felt solid under my fingers. I also remember that somehow, although I would have sworn that every part of me was focused on the little boy framed in the window, my brain registered that the chair had been moved. Ordinarily it was right there before the desk, but now it had been pulled up close to the window seat. I had a fleeting memory of watching with Grace as Oliver pushed a kitchen chair across the floor, to enable him to climb up and reach the can of raisins. I remember how we had laughed at his ingenuity. While all of this was going through my head, my eyes and conscious mind were fixed on Oliver. I was so close to him now that I could hear him babbling to himself as he played. I was so close that I could see how his little blue sweatshirt had rucked up in the back exposing a stretch of his pinky-white skin and the top of his disposable nappy which rose above the waistband of his trousers. From this angle, his position on the ledge looked even more perilous. All I could see below him was the distance between him and the ground.
If he falls, I was thinking, if he falls.
I took another step toward him and poised myself to spring. In the same moment, Oliver, just as he had done as I watched him from the garden below, attempted to lift the toy and it fell from his hands and plummeted and Oliver let out a disconcerted growl. Everything after that appeared to me to happen in slow motion. Oliver’s arms came up once more, this time in a pummelling motion as he beat the air that had robbed him of his toy. Then, as though to follow the course the truck had taken, his head went down and he leaned forward from the waist. I have no actual memory of moving – one moment I was watching as Oliver canted forward and the next I was dragging him backward through the open window, aware that somewhere behind me somebody was screaming.
“We should have thought of looking in the attic room,” said Violet-May. “Why didn’t we? But you were in your bedroom and it just didn’t occur to me that he might have crawled up there. And then we had to make sure he hadn’t got outside again.”
I was not sure if she was talking to me or to herself but in any case I did not answer her. I was sitting in the armchair by the window of my bedroom, where I had been since I carried Oliver down from the attic room. Violet-May had followed me there and I was aware of her watching me as I sat still holding Oliver. I was aware too that my whole body was trembling – so much so, that when the little boy made a sudden lunge, he almost toppled from my lap, so unsteady was my hold on him.
“It’s probably best if I take him,” said Violet-May and, although I wanted to protest, I could not seem to muster the necessary energy to speak, so I let her take him from me and sit him down on the bed next to her.
“Hi!” said Oliver, but nobody answered him.
I am not sure how long we stayed that way, me on the chair, she on the bed amusing Oliver with a string of beads which she had taken from her neck to appease him after he had tugged at them a couple of times.
After a while she asked me if I would be alright to stay with Oliver while she went and got us some coffee with a dash of brandy. For the shock, she said, and I wanted to tell her that I did not like brandy, but again I found myself unable to turn my thoughts into words. Before she went, Violet-May sat Oliver down on the floor at my feet and I remember looking down at him and how he waved the beads at me and grinned and that was when I burst into tears.
I was still sobbing when Violet-May came back with a tray that held two cups and Caroline tagging behind her, a doll in one hand and a clutch of biscuits in the other.
Violet-May glanced at me quite calmly. “This is why we need brandy,” she said. “Now drink this.”
She held out the tray and I took the mug nearest me. There was, I suspected, a great deal of brandy in it and I wrinkled my nose at the smell.
“Drink it all,” said Violet-May, and I did what I was told.
“And blow your nose.”
She handed me a cotton handkerchief that smelled of the perfume she used, and once again I obeyed her. And that was where we remained, me in the chair, now no longer shaking, Violet-May on my bed, leaning back against the pillows, with both Oliver and Caroline playing together at her feet. She had retrieved her beads from Oliver, having gone out again and returned with books and toys from the playroom. It had made me think of the truck again. I couldn’t help myself picturing it on the ground where it had fallen. I pushed the thought from me but perhaps Violet-May’s thoughts had taken the same path, because she reached out and stroked Oliver’s head.
When she spoke again it was absently, and once again as though she was thinking aloud.
“He must have climbed up onto the window seat.” She looked at me. “The chair, did you see the chair? It was pulled right up to the window seat.”
I did not answer her.
“He does that,” said Violet-May. “Oliver does that when he wants to climb up onto something he can’t reach – you must have seen him do it, Kay?”
Still I did not answer her.
“He uses a chair or whatever he can find and does it that way. That’s what must have happened; don’t you think so, Kay? And, of course, the window was open – it wouldn’t have mattered if the window hadn’t been open.”
“The window wasn’t open when I left the room this morning,” I said.
“Are you sure?” said Violet-May, her eyes fixed on mine. “I mean it must have been. Perhaps you opened it and then forgot about it? B
ut that’s not to say it was your fault, Kay, please don’t think I’m saying it was. Of course it wasn’t. He’s incorrigible, Oliver is incorrigible. He climbs on everything. That’s what happened – he climbed up on the chair and onto the window seat and then out onto the ledge.”
“The window wasn’t open when I left the room,” I said.
“Then perhaps Grace ...”
“Don’t!” I snapped. “Don’t try to bring Grace into this. Grace isn’t here. And I know for certain that I didn’t leave that window open. I’ve only opened it once since I’ve been here, because it’s quite stiff and it doesn’t open easily.”
“Well, then who?” said Violet-May.
She got up from the bed and walked around it and round to the window where she stood for a moment with her back to me. Then she turned around again and looked at me.
“If you didn’t open it and Grace didn’t, then who did?”
I was just about to answer when the door opened and Rosemary came in. Her eyes were bright and her skin had that healthy outdoor glow and I remember wishing I had anything to tell her but what I must.
“Rosemary,” I began, “I don’t want you getting upset because everything is fine now, and Oliver is safe … but he somehow got himself up to the attic room. The window was open and he climbed out onto the sill and ...”
Rosemary’s hand went to her heart and then she was loping across the room to where Oliver sat. He had heard her voice and was looking up at her with his beacon smile, but when she swooped down on him and seized him, the car he was holding slipped from his fingers and he let out a protesting howl. Rosemary ignored him and stood with her back to us, so all we could see was Oliver’s face suffused with the colour of outrage. She must have been holding him too tightly, for which I did not blame her, because Oliver squirmed and wriggled to be free.
Then Rosemary spun round. “How did this happen?” she said. “Where was Grace?”
I remember noticing that her question was directed not at Violet-May but at me. And although her voice was unexpectedly toneless, there was a quality to it which told me she was holding some strong emotion in check.
“Grace wasn’t watching him,” said Violet-May very quietly. “I was.”
Rosemary turned on her sister. “You!” she said and the single word was like a slap.
“Grace said she wasn’t feeling well and went home,” said Violet-May. “Though I have to say she looked perfectly well to me.”
“Oh, please don’t start ...” I said wearily but Rosemary cut across me.
“And you,” she said, “were you there, Kay?”
I shook my head. “I went for lie-down.” It seemed suddenly a shameful thing to admit to.
“It was just me,” said Violet-May. “And I had to take Caroline to the bathroom, so I left Oliver in the playroom playing with his new toy. I shut the door after me, but somehow he got out, I don’t know how. I don’t believe I was gone long enough for him to get up to the attic room, and yet somehow he did that too. Kay says she didn’t open the attic-room window.”
“Kay?” Rosemary turned to me.
“I didn’t,” I said.
“And yet somehow,” said Violet-May, “again I don’t know how, the window was open and Oliver ended up out on the ledge.”
She said it, I remember, like a piece of prose she had been forced to learn by heart, with no variation of tone, no nuance, and no discernible emotion, but as soon as she had finished she dashed from the room.
“Bye!” said Oliver.
Then Caroline piped up. “Olber is naughty and Mummy made Auntie Vilemay sad.”
Rosemary’s face seemed to unset then. She smiled sadly at her daughter, kissed Oliver on his head and, putting him back down on the bed among his toys, turned to me.
“I suppose I’m to blame,” she said. “They’re my children and I leave them alone too much, I know I do. But I find it all so very ... and I feel tired almost all the time. And there’s the noise, so much noise, and sometimes I just need to be alone to think about Justin and Mummy, or just to be quiet and not think about any of it at all.”
“You don’t have to explain, Rosemary,” I said.
I had never seen her look so forlorn, so sad, and it made me almost furious on her behalf that she felt the need to justify herself in this way.
“You’ve been through so much, so very much,” I said. “And you don’t leave them alone, Rosemary, you leave them in the care of other adults. You left them with Grace today, you couldn’t know ...” I stopped mid-sentence.
“No, I couldn’t know,” she said. “But even so, in future I need to ... well, I just need to be more careful.”
And then she smiled at me and I watched as she lowered herself to the bed and lay down on her back next to her children.
“I’ll stay with them now, Kay,” she said, and she closed her eyes.
I stood for a moment looking at her still form, her wet lashes dark against the skin of her cheeks, no longer ruddy from her time outdoors, but pale once more. I did not have the heart to remind her that this was my room, that it was my bed she was lying on. I crept away and closed the door behind me and went to find a place where I too could lie down and be quiet and think as I needed to.
Chapter 26
I had taken refuge in the library and I was still there, slumped in one of the chairs which I imagined were the same ones in which Mr Duff once sat and read his books and took refuge in the past. I lost track of time but was recalled to the present by the sound of footsteps in the hall beyond. I wondered if it was Rosemary, in which case I could reclaim my room so I got up to investigate. I looked into the drawing room but it was empty, then I made my way to the kitchen.
I opened the door on the sound of humming and running water. Grace standing over the sink, her back to me.
“Oh,” I said. “Grace?”
She turned, a colander of lettuce in her hands and I realised I had startled her.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you were Rosemary. But what are you doing here?”
“I’m getting the dinner ready,” said Grace. She put the colander down on the draining-board and turned off the tap.
“But I thought you’d gone home feeling unwell, Violet-May said?”
“I had cramps,” said Grace abruptly. “All I needed was some painkillers and a sit-down, but she sent me home.”
“Violet-May sent you home?”
“Yes, she did, but I’m fine now so I’ve come back to do my work.”
This was so patently not what Violet-May had earlier implied that for a moment I was silent.
“Well, if you’re sure you’re alright,” I said.
“Like I said, I’m fine now. But if you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t look too hot yourself today. Is anything up?”
I thought about telling her – after all, Oliver was her – what exactly was he to her – was there such a thing as a half-nephew? But I decided to leave that to Rosemary or Violet-May.
“Nothing’s up,” I said. “I’m just going to get myself some water.”
“Help yourself,” said Grace. “Where is everybody anyway? This house is like a morgue this afternoon.”
I remember I shuddered at her choice of expression.
That evening I tried to call Robbie but unsuccessfully. All I got was a recorded message telling me that the person I was calling was not available and asking me to try again later. I did, repeatedly, but with the same result. I had known it was probably a waste of time trying to reach him – he had warned me the previous evening that for the next while he would be out of range of phone signals – but I’d had to try. I thought about sending him a text anyway, but decided to wait until the following morning and try calling him again. A text would hardly cut it anyway – what exactly would I say?
Oliver climbed out on 3rd floor window ledge to play with truck. Truck in bits. Oliver in one piece. Kay.
Perhaps I could add a smiley-face to take the edge off.
&nb
sp; The following morning I got up early, and the first thing I did was to try Robbie once more, again without any success.
I decided to make myself useful and got the children up and gave them their breakfast before Grace put in an appearance. Rosemary came into their room as I was getting them dressed, but she looked so awful that I urged her to go back to bed, saying I was happy to look after the children until Grace arrived. She admitted that she had slept very poorly and had another bad headache. After our conversation the previous day, it did cross my mind that in her case “headache” might well be a euphemism for depression brought on by grief and I felt very sorry for her.
I found Oliver, who was still cutting those difficult molars, a real handful and I wasn’t sorry when Grace showed up. Violet-May, whom I had not seen since she had rushed off the previous evening, did not put in an appearance at all, and I had lunch with Grace and the children and then left her in charge while I did a little writing.
Later, on my way downstairs to get the car out to go visit my father, I had a sudden thought and ran back up to lock the attic door. The key had always been in the keyhole but I had never before felt there was any need to use it. Oliver, I knew, had been put down for his afternoon nap. Having grown increasingly fractious during the course of the morning, he had eventually worn himself out and was likely to sleep for some time. But better safe than sorry from now on, I thought, as I dropped the key into my pocket. I had also checked that the window was securely shut. The truth was, during the night, I had found myself wondering if it was possible after all that, lost in the world of my book, I could somehow have opened the window without consciously being aware of doing so. I did lose track of time when I wrote, I forgot to eat, I forgot to get up and move about – as a result I had often come up for air to find that hours had passed and I had cramped muscles or a stiff neck. But for all that, in my heart of hearts I knew I had not opened the window.
