Lilian's Spell Book

by Toby Litt

  ‘I could do some dusting,’ said Mrs. Forster. ‘Downstairs.’

  ‘It’s our house,’ I shouted, ‘not yours. Now, get out!’

  Mrs. Forster looked as though she had something else to say, quite a lot, but instead she very slowly pulled the plug from the socket, pressed the button to wind in the cable and carried the hoover out of the room. I went to follow her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘We just need time to settle in.’

  ‘That’s quite all right, Mrs. Jonson,’ she said.

  She looked almost ill. Her whole body was shaking as if she were about to have a fit.

  ‘I will come back at one o’clock,’ she said.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said.

  Mrs. Forster turned and walked down the stairs. She was sobbing. It seemed, one way or the other, I was making everybody cry today.

  Once I’d got her into the darkened bedroom, Mary calmed down within seconds. This made me feel even more guilty. I heard the front door open and close – a resonant bang in the echoey hall. Immediately, I felt better. I’d never been in the position of an employer. What was it like when you had to fire someone? Someone who really needed the job? Someone with a family? I didn’t think I could do it.

  Shaky, I went outside and told Peter what I’d done.

  ‘It’s the right thing,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve offended her forever,’ I said. ‘She’ll never like me.’

  ‘She’ll respect you more, for standing up to her.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Jack.

  Peter explained.

  ‘Hurrah!’ shouted Jack. ‘Ding, dong, the witch is dead!’

  ‘Jack,’ I said. ‘She’s not a witch.’

  But I was so relieved that I burst out crying myself.

  The house felt better, that evening. Peter filled a couple of pans with water, and I made bangers and mash with carrots. Already I was worrying about what I could cook for Matthew and Gracie.

  After dinner, we all settled down to watch one of the films Peter had bought. Appropriately enough, it was The Wizard of Oz. I’d forgotten how scary it was. Jack kept saying he was fine, but whenever the flying monkeys arrived he went and stood over in the doorway – as if they might burst out of the screen, and he might have to make a run for it.

  Myself, I was most affected by something else. It was the way Dorothy kept saying the word ‘home’ with such passion. I grew more and more uneasy. This house was the home we were giving our children. Was it the right one? Shouldn’t we be bringing them up somewhere we knew was absolutely safe? But where might that be?

  Mary had fallen asleep in my arms, so was easily taken upstairs and tucked up. Jack was tired, and went to bed without complaining. I tried to read him some of Local Ghost Makes Good, but he wasn’t interested – mostly because the main character was a girl called Lizzie, but also because very little seemed to happen. We had only got as far as a scene set at the village fete before Jack told me it was boring and asked me to stop.

  As his eyes fluttered and then fell asleep, I flicked quickly through the rest of the pages. Lizzie looked just like a younger version of Elizabeth from the painting – in fact, that’s what I’d been expecting the whole book to be about, Elizabeth the friendly ghost making good. Little Lizzie did live in big old house that was obviously based on the New House, but the ghost turned out to be of a kindly old man – a kindly old man remarkably like Mr. Gatward. In fact, his name was Mr. Atwood.

  Although they lived in the big house, Lizzie’s parents, as well as being a bit nasty and never listening to her, had no money. They would have to leave the house the day after Midsummer’s Day, if something didn’t happen. The Dad was only interested in fixing up their old car. And the Mum did nothing but cook.

  The illustrations weren’t all that good. The figures were stiff and for page after page not a lot really happened. Mr. Atwood told Lizzie about some treasure that was buried under the garden of the house. There was some business to do with a sundial, and waiting for the sun to be in the right place. Finally, at noon on Midsummer Day, in the middle of her parent’s farewell party, Lizzie does something clever with the sundial, unearths the casket of gold coins – which looked as if had probably been left there by a bunch of very lost pirates – and saved the day.

  They all got to live happily ever after in the house, with Mr. Atwood as part of the family.

  I put the book aside and went through into the bedroom.

  ‘Right,’ said Peter. ‘Let’s talk.’ He was sitting on the edge of the four-poster bed. I knew I must look as out of place in this house as he did.

  ‘I’d like a shower,’ I said. ‘Then we can talk. Can you put it on for me?’

  Peter gave me a look like I was suffering from some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder – as if I was freaked out by touching things other people touched, though this was the opposite. If it was me that touched them, they became a problem.

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  I carried a towel through into the bathroom. The water was running, hot and steamy behind the shower curtain. I was relieved to see that it didn’t just shut off when I crossed the threshold.

  ‘Let me get in,’ I said.

  I undressed more carefully than usual – folding everything up and placing it on the floor. I felt self-conscious – as if I were taking my clothes off in front of someone for the first time. Peter gave me a kiss, a bit like the one in the library. He’d seen me like this enough times before, but he still seemed to like it.

  ‘Vixen,’ he said – just one of our silly couple-jokes. ‘Are you okay now?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, though I wanted him to stay.

  He went back into the bedroom.

  ‘You have your ways,’ he said as he went. ‘You definitely have your ways.’

  I hadn’t touched water, or water hadn’t touched me, for over twenty-four hours. I felt grunky, and wanted to wash my hair thoroughly a couple of times.

  I got under the shower, which was on very full, and ran my fingers through my hair a couple of times. I was expecting that fantastic feeling of relief and release, when the jets hit you in the face and your skin starts to tingle. The showerhead made a shhhing sound. The hot water rained into the white bath then swirled around and down the plughole. That fantastic feeling wasn’t coming, though – and, after a moment, I realized my hair was still dry, completely dry. Although it was impossible, this is what was happening: I was right under a running shower but wasn’t getting wet! Not just my hair, none of me. My feet, too, were dry. When I looked down to check, I saw the water running past my toes, over my toes, but just not wetting them.

  I gave a yelp that must have sounded quite comic.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Peter shouted through.

  ‘Give me a moment,’ I shouted back.

  The plug was one of those old heavy black rubbery ones. I put it in the plughole. Then I sat down.

  The water level rose, covering me up to my ankles, then my calves – covering but not touching me.

  Although the water was now all around me, it was as if it was refusing to touch me.

  My eyes told me the water was hot, because the bathroom mirror had steamed up, but my skin told me nothing. No heat was getting through to me. I couldn’t even feel air touching me, beneath the surface of the water. It was the weirdest feeling – I suppose like being a body in a vacuum. We’re so used to having the air around us that we don’t even feel it.

  I swished my hands through the water, like I would to make bubbles in a bubble bath for Jack. They made not even a ripple. Somehow, the water parted in front of my fingers and rejoined behind them – without being disturbed.

  ‘Damn it!’ I said.

  I tried to make a big splash with the flat of my palm. Nothing happened – my hand disappeared under the smooth surface. The only thing I can compare it to is when they have lasers and smoke in a nightclub, and the lasers make a horizon that you can stick your fingers through, play with the shadows. B
ut however hard you hit it, however much you want to, you can’t move the line where the laser is.

  In a way I can’t really explain, I felt abandoned. It was just like when I heard my mother had died. Something had given up on me, some force for good in the universe. I started to cry, and the tears ran down my cheeks. I could feel exactly where the edges of the lines were.

  Suddenly, I became very frightened. If the water could do this, what else could it do?

  I screamed.

  Chapter 20.

  Peter came running.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, before he was through the door.

  And as soon as he came in sight of me, the water around my body got wet and the shower started to hit my head. It was like being slapped in the face.

  ‘No!’ I shrieked.

  This should have been the fantastic feeling moment, but now it felt horrible – even though it was completely normal.

  ‘What?’ Peter asked.

  I was in bits – weeping, shaking.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, turning off the shower. He reached under my arms and pulled me out and hugged me tightly to him. ‘You’re fine,’ he said. He said it again and again, so I knew he wasn’t sure if it was true.

  ‘Am I?’ I asked. ‘Am I?’ I was starting to doubt my own sanity.

  Peter picked me up and carried me into the bedroom. Of course, this made me remember him picking me up on the beach in Brighton when I twisted my ankle – a holiday before the kids were born. This memory, along with thoughts of my mother, kept me sobbing for a good five minutes. Peter knew better than to ask me questions. He just held me, and waited until I’d calmed down.

  This must be what it’s like to be Jack, I thought. This is what it’s like then Peter’s being your comforting father.

  In the end, I got my breathing under control. The sobs started to space themselves out a little more. It was so good to feel the softness of Peter’s t-shirt down my side, and the tickle of his hair against my cheek. The worst thing about the not-touching water had been the sense of isolation – like I wasn’t part of the physical world any more. I wanted more of Peter. I wanted these sensations to intensify so that they could protect me.

  I lifted my head until we were face to face, then I kissed him. I kissed him more passionately than at any time since those first few times, after we’d started sleeping together, when I wanted to tell him how much I loved him without ever actually saying it aloud – in case he didn’t feel the same way. Since then, I had wanted him often enough, and never stopped desiring him. But right now I truly needed him.

  He understood. He completely understood.

  ‘One second,’ he said, and checked on Jack – then closed the door between our room and his. Mary was fast asleep in her cot.

  I hurried to get under the covers as Peter toed off his socks, pulled his t-shirt over his head and pushed down his jeans.

  We kissed for a few moments more, side by side, then I pulled him so he was on top.

  When he entered me, I was already gushing wet. I wanted to be the water all around him, warming him, caressing him. But I also wanted to be me and in my body – I wanted to grip him as tight as I could – to run my nails down his back, to hear and feel his ragged breath in my ear, to give him pleasure.

  Afterwards, we fell apart, exhausted.

  I cried again, but in a completely different way.

  My mouth was full of thick spit. My head was spinning with delight.

  I turned towards him and told him I loved him. He looked at me with great tenderness and said he loved me.

  Another moment.

  ‘What just happened?’ Peter asked.

  ‘I should think that was pretty obvious,’ I said. ‘I didn’t fake it.’

  ‘No,’ he said with a smile. ‘Before that.’

  I propped myself up on one elbow, to face him. ‘If I tell you,’ I said, ‘you promise not to send for the men in white coats.’ I was trying to keep things happy.

  ‘Absolutely no chance of that,’ he said. ‘They’re madder than anyone.’

  As well as I could, I tried to explain. Apart from the odd hmm and really, Peter didn’t say anything. Then, when I’d finished, he said, ‘You have to admit, that does sound quite…’

  I was waiting for the word mad.

  ‘..hard to believe,’ he said – getting out of jail.

  ‘But you do believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘I believe that’s what you felt.’

  ‘Until you came in, I was completely dry. Didn’t you notice that my hair wasn’t wet through?’

  ‘No,’ said Peter. ‘I didn’t. You happened to be screaming at that moment. I thought you were being scalded.’

  I waited for him to find some way of going on, going back.

  ‘Are you afraid?’ he asked. ‘If what you’re saying is happening really is happening, does that make you afraid?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘It’s not like anything I’ve experienced before. It’s uncanny.’

  ‘Do you think it’s a bad idea we came to this house?’

  ‘It isn’t about what I think, Peter,’ I said. ‘I’m not making anything up – ’

  All the good feeling we’d created with the sex was evaporating, fast.

  I asked him directly, looking in his blue eyes: ‘What’s your explanation for what I felt?’

  ‘I don’t have an explanation,’ he said, and looked away. ‘But you’re asking me to believe something that’s very difficult. It’s against everything I’ve believed before.’

  ‘I’m asking you to believe what I say.’

  Peter was quiet for an unnerving amount of time. He had always been such a sensible, rational man. What he liked best in the world, apart from his family, were little technical computery things he could fiddle with and fix. Often, when he’d worked something out, he’d come and try to explain it to me. I’d always tried to understand what he was saying, and be interested in his work, but the language he used didn’t really get through. Interface. Modulate. Sub-routine. Now it felt like I was doing something similar to him - asking him to understand a world that obeyed different rules to the ones he knew, and not just chemistry and physics. The problem was, I didn’t understand those rules either. I didn’t have a clue.

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I do believe what you say. Now, what do you want to do about it? Shall we get a plumber?’

  I hadn’t laughed so hard at anything in years. Peter joined in, too – even though he’d been serious when he said it.

  ‘I mean, a really good plumber,’ he said.

  ‘Out here?’

  ‘This is probably where they’ve all gone,’ he said. ‘Retired on their millions.’

  ‘To deal with the spooky water.’

  Peter stopped laughing.

  ‘If you think it was a mistake,’ he said, ‘we can always move back.’

  ‘I’m scared,’ I said, ‘but I don’t feel in danger. I feel like there’s something I’m too much of an idiot to get.’

  ‘You’re not an idiot,’ Peter said. ‘You’re just a bit of a freak.’

  I tried to hit him, playfully, but he grabbed my wrist. It had always annoyed me that he was so much stronger than I was. Once or twice, when I’d got really angry, especially after Jack was just born, I’d tried to slap him. He’d always caught my hand in mid-air. But he’d never, ever been violent towards me.

  ‘Let go,’ I said.

  He did, straight away.

  Suddenly, with the excitement over, at least for the moment, I felt very tired – which, of course, was when Mary decided to wake up.

  I could have fed her in the bedroom, but I needed the excuse to go downstairs. There was someone I needed to check in on.

  From the hall, I turned on the lights in the dining room. Then I stepped inside, to confront Lilian.

  Chapter 21.

  At first, I thought someone had crept in and stolen the painting. In the place where it should have been, in the middle of the gilded fra
me, there was a big, blank, off-white space. But when I moved forwards, and looked from a different angle, I saw that this was because the light was reflecting off the surface of the painting more brightly than usual – because it was wet, the whole thing, glistening wet, as if someone had just pulled it out of the sea.

  The water, now I could see it more clearly, appeared to be streaming from top to bottom of the painting, very smoothly, but when I looked down I saw that the parquet of the floor was totally dry. It was as if the water was being squirted out of the top of the frame and perfectly absorbed again at the bottom.

  I wasn’t even for a moment worried that the painting would be damaged. This wasn’t normal water. This wasn’t a normal painting.

  Instead of afraid, I felt incredibly excited.

  ‘Look,’ I said to Mary.

  Then I reached up with my forefinger to touch the surface of the canvas. It felt wet, just as I’d expected – nothing more than wet. I pulled my finger away and, without thinking, sniffed the tip. No unusual smell came to me. I touched my forefinger and thumb together. The water, which had already almost evaporated, felt no more slimy or sticky than ordinary water. Finally, I touched my finger to my tongue. No taste.

  I stepped back. The sight was fascinating – like something one of those clever contemporary artists would do: take an old painting and put special-effects on it to make a scandal. Only these weren’t special-effects. And I wasn’t scandalized. I was delighted – childishly delighted.

  Going forwards again, I put my fingers and thumb all together on the painting.

  The water ran down them, a trickle on each, and then joined at my wrist into a thicker flow. This continued down to my elbow, down to my shoulder. It felt more like an animal than water – like the uncoiling tail of something definitely alive. The flow went under my t-shirt and across the top of my chest. It was exploring. I was cradling Mary with my left arm, head in the crook, feet near my hand. The water was heading towards her. It came out onto my left shoulder, and turned down. It was almost at her head.