The House of Whispers

by Anna Kent

  ‘Then I got bored driving and flew up to Cairns,’ Grace continued. ‘I spent some time in Port Douglas, and saw the rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef. Things that I’d only ever seen on TV. It was amazing. And what about you? What have you been up to?’ She looked around, as if my life had been contained within the walls of the house while she’d been out adventuring. ‘Well, you got married, I guess. To be honest, I never thought you’d actually meet anyone. Or at least let anyone get close. Such a prickly thing you are. Used to be.’

  I looked down at the table and smiled. ‘He’s called Rohan. He came to my exhibition – four years ago?’ The one she’d helped me arrange but then… all that stuff had happened, and she left before it opened.

  ‘So he’s into art?’ she said, and I was grateful to her for glossing over the fight; the cold email she’d sent telling me she was leaving. So that’s how we’d play it: as if nothing had happened. But who was forgiving whom?

  ‘Yeah. He’s really supportive. In fact, he’s been pushing me because I actually have another exhibition coming up and I haven’t painted anything yet.’

  ‘You’ve got another exhibition? How come?’

  ‘You mean, without you?’ I asked, arching my eyebrow and giving a little laugh. ‘Maybe I’m good.’

  ‘You are good. Of course you are. That’s not what I meant at all.’ She stopped abruptly. ‘But you were saying you haven’t painted anything yet?’

  ‘Well, not anything. I haven’t painted anything significant for a while now. I do some volunteering, actually.’

  I traced the grain of the table with my finger and waited.

  ‘Oh?’ she said. ‘What sort of volunteering?’

  So I told her about the hospice; what I did there. ‘I love having the chance to try and make a person’s last weeks, days or hours, the best they can be,’ I said. ‘Sometimes it just means being there, holding a hand, or listening. Sometimes I sit in silence and that’s all that’s needed but, if the patient has a bit longer, I try to find out if there’s anything worrying them and help to resolve whatever that is.’

  ‘In what sort of way?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Tying up loose ends mainly: I make phone calls; I contact family and find lost friends. I make connections – anything to give the patients peace before they die. I’ve just painted a portrait of a dog for a guy who was missing his dog, though—’ my voice broke, ‘we lost him today.’ I paused while I gathered myself, then carried on. ‘I can’t bear the thought of anyone dying with unfinished business.’ I didn’t tell her that my volunteer work tended to spill over into my life as I sleuthed away on the computer at home – something Rohan was always chiding me for. ‘The fact that I’ve done my best makes it more bearable for me when the patients I’ve grown close to do finally pass,’ I said, ‘because that’s basically how it ends for all of them. But it brings me a lot of peace.’

  Grace shrugged. ‘Whatever floats your boat. So, the painting?’ she said. ‘You said you were painting again?’

  ‘Oh yes! Well, suddenly I got inspired and I’ve done two in the last few weeks!’ I laughed, still full of the wonder of having good paint on a canvas. ‘I think it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be a series.’

  Grace nodded. ‘Landscapes again?’

  ‘No. Portraits.’

  She tilted her head. ‘I can’t wait to see them.’

  Would I really be able to show her? Did I dare? I got up to check the oven. ‘I’ve done a roast chicken, by the way,’ I said, ‘I hope you’re hungry,’ and Grace pulled a face.

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I should have told you. Eek. Awkward.’ She winced.

  ‘What?’ I said, oven gloves on.

  ‘I don’t eat meat anymore. Haven’t for a long time. I’m a pescatarian.’

  ‘Really?’ I laughed. She had to be joking, of course she was joking, but she was shaking her head, her hand over her mouth and suddenly I was back in our student digs on her twentieth birthday. For a nanosecond, the old hurt flared, raw and angry, but I shoved it back down. I should have asked. Any decent hostess would have asked.

  Grace and I had moved out of Halls for our second year, both of us overjoyed at the thought of having more privacy. Sharing a bathroom and kitchen was a torture I could no longer endure, so I’d found a student accommodation building that allowed me to rent a decent studio with facilities and a whole load of extras like WiFi and laundry. Grace was able to take a single room in the same block – given I cooked for her most of the time, there seemed no point in her wasting money on a kitchen, and the arrangement worked well: my studio was just about large enough for us both to eat and relax in but she had her own space for sleeping.

  We’d been living there for a couple of months when she turned twenty. Things were still good then, both of us relishing the freedom of having a little of our own space after the cramped university Halls. I still felt I owed her after she helped me turn my life around and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the quiet domesticity of cooking for her in my own place. Honestly, I think she liked it too.

  Turning twenty sounded like a big deal to us back then: it was the beginning of a new decade; the first one since hitting double figures what seemed a lifetime ago and, maybe I brought it on myself, but I felt that the responsibility to make Grace’s birthday special sat squarely on my shoulders. She’d often mentioned the lengths to which her parents had gone for her past birthdays and I didn’t want her to be disappointed just because they weren’t there. I’d set my alarm for an hour before I knew she’d come over for breakfast and smothered the studio with birthday banners and balloons. Then I’d gone back to bed and waited for her to knock.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she’d exclaimed on seeing the decorations, her hand clamped over her mouth. ‘You did all this for me?’

  ‘Happy birthday,’ I said, smiling and shy. ‘You’ll have to wait till tonight for your present, but let me make you a coffee.’

  She tapped away at her phone while she drank her coffee, birthday messages pinging in, then it was time for lectures and she was gone. I didn’t have much money after paying the rent, but my gift to her was going to be a surprise – a special, home-cooked dinner, just like her mum would have given her: a roast, with all the trimmings.

  After my own lectures, I went to the supermarket and hauled back my supplies. While she was still out, I made a soup, then I stuffed the chicken and parboiled the potatoes. I glazed the carrots and trimmed the beans, then I prepared two of Grace’s favourite chocolate melting-middle puddings to serve with ice cream. When it was time, I put the roast in the oven, added the potatoes and carrots and dithered about making everything look ‘just so’.

  I didn’t have a dining table, so I dragged my desk into the centre of the room and set it as best I could and then I sat back and waited for her to come home. When she didn’t turn up at her usual time, I called her. Multiple times. I turned off the oven and opened the Prosecco. When I’d finished the bottle and the chicken started to dry out, I went to her room. From the lifts, I heard the pulse of music, the laughing, the shouts. I didn’t need to go to her door to know she was having a party. A party she hadn’t invited me to.

  It was my fault, really. I should have told her what I’d planned. How was she to know?

  ‘God, I’m so sorry,’ Grace said, squashing up her face. ‘I just don’t. The meat industry. The planet.’ She fake-gagged, her eyes rolled up and her tongue stuck out. ‘I just can’t do it anymore. Look, don’t worry about me. I’m sure you’ve got something I can have – I’m easy to please, some pasta or something, or beans on toast – or maybe just the vegetables, but, please, you’ve gone to all this trouble, you eat the chicken. Don’t let me stop you.’

  And so I carved the chicken and heaped Grace’s plate with roast potatoes and green beans – no gravy – and we sat and faced each other at the table. I looked at her plate.

  ‘It doesn’t look very interesting. And this was supposed to be a celebration,’ I said, standing
quickly and spinning around so she couldn’t see the gleam of tears in my eyes. ‘Let me order you a pizza. There’s some arty place around here that does vegan pizzas. I think you can even have a cauliflower base if you’re gluten-free too? They deliver really quickly, or I can run out and get it. It’s not far.’ I pulled open the drawer that housed our takeaway menus and pulled out a handful.

  ‘Really?’ Grace perked up then looked back at her plate. ‘But no, this is fine. Sit back down. We can have the fancy pizzas another night. You’ve gone to all this effort. The least I can do is eat it. And I’m sure you’ve done dessert, right?’

  ‘Chocolate fondant,’ I said. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely.’ She forked a dry potato and put it resolutely in her mouth. ‘Yummy,’ she said. ‘You always did do a great roast potato.’

  I’d drunk the whole bottle of Prosecco and half a bottle of red wine by the time we finished dessert; I could feel the flush in my cheeks, the giddiness of the hit. Grace was telling me at length about the jobs she’d held in Australia – the places she’d travelled, the people she’d met – but I wasn’t really listening: I was distracted by the Australian twang that softened the edges of her words; the inflection that rose slightly at the end of each sentence as she talked. She really liked the sound of her own voice. Always had. I shoved my chair back, piled the dishes in the sink and squirted washing-up liquid over them.

  Grace interrupted her soliloquy. ‘Don’t do that now. I want to see your work.’

  I fell still, my back to her, the breath wheezing out of me like an old bagpipe as I squeezed my eyes shut.

  ‘Come on, Abs,’ she cajoled. ‘It’s me. I was the first person ever to see your art, remember? That very first painting?’

  I turned to her, only half my lips smiling. ‘How could I forget?’

  I hadn’t intended to show Grace my work at university. Art was my therapy; the landscape an intimacy between me and the canvas. I kept it hidden and I told Grace never to look. But one night, way later than I ever expected her to knock, she burst through the door while my canvas was exposed and I froze, heart hammering. There was nowhere to turn; nothing to do but let her see it.

  Grace also stopped in her tracks. She tried to hide her reaction, but I saw her stiffen and swallow. Her gasp was barely audible, but it was there. As the door clicked shut behind her, she opened her mouth.

  ‘Wow,’ she breathed. She took a step closer, unable to tear her eyes from the canvas. Her mouth fell open as she looked from me to it, examining the horror of the scene. ‘Really, wow. Oh my God, Abs. This is unreal.’

  And then she found more words and, all the while she spoke, she was giving me this look – a look like she couldn’t believe that little old Abigail, the stuffy Management student, had painted something so raw, so compelling. So horrific.

  She shook her head. ‘This is it, Abs. This really is your thing. Shit. You’re amazing. I’ve never seen stuff like this. It’s incredible.’

  But then everything changed as the doctor in her had taken over. She knelt down in front of me as I sat on the bed, and took my hands gently in hers.

  ‘Abs, where this came from, do you want to talk about it?’ she said, her eyes fixing onto mine, trying to see into my soul – and I could have told her. I could have told her that it came from the same place as did my nightmares, my grief, my shame, and my constant wish to die. And, for a glorious, heady moment I teetered on the brink of confiding in her – in saying the words out loud that might relieve the pressure inside me; words that could release me. I teetered on the brink of a world where I no longer carried this secret. Yes, for a moment, I fantasized about telling her, but to do so would change everything.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said.

  Grace let my hands drop and shook her head. ‘What goes on in that mind of yours?’

  I looked away, squeezing tears behind my eyelids. If she chose to see, she’d have an idea, because it was right there on the canvas. That’s what went on in my head. Relentlessly. Twenty-four/seven. I’d painted the contents of my head and it had been an epiphany: the feeling of relief was as if I’d been bursting to go to the bathroom and then I finally had. That sort of release. It had, temporarily, eased the pressure inside my head, and I had the same feeling now while I was painting the portrait. I knew that when I was up there in the attic, I wasn’t myself: I was channelling something that came from another dimension – it came through me and out onto the canvas – and I knew it had to come out because, if it stayed inside me, it would rot me from the inside out.

  ‘You know, you were lucky to have me as a friend at uni,’ Grace continued, her smile languid. ‘I think I can talk about this now as enough time’s passed, but you do know that, if it wasn’t for me, you’d have become a raging alcoholic, don’t you? Do you remember how much you used to drink?’ She raised an eyebrow and I thought with shame of the empty bottles in the recycling bin out the back.

  ‘Jesus, Abs,’ Grace said. ‘You could drink any guy under the table. I often came home and found you passed out on the sofa. I’d take you to bed and lie you on your side so you didn’t choke on your tongue. Many times, I slept on your tiny sofa because I was worried about you drowning in your own vomit.’ She drummed her nails on the table. ‘Also, without me, you’d be dead.’

  She looked at me and I lowered my gaze as a hot flush swept through me. Grace was the only person who knew about that. There was too much to say, and I couldn’t say any of it.

  ‘But anyway, I digress,’ Grace said after a pause. ‘If it weren’t for me pushing you that night, you’d never have painted anything. Do you remember that? When I said, “Why don’t you just paint – if it’s what you want to do so much?” I don’t know why you’d never thought about it.’ She laughed. ‘So, yeah, if it wasn’t for me, you’d probably never even have had that exhibition. You’d be managing some blue-chip business somewhere. You’d be some suited and booted company-bot, unsatisfied and bitter. You probably wouldn’t even have met the “wonderful” Rohan, so you’ve got me to thank, for that, too.’ She laughed and pointed her finger at me. ‘I’m right, and you know it!’

  She doesn’t mean to be so… hard, I told myself. But she had a point. Everything she said was right. Out of everyone, it was she who deserved to see my work.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, and Grace’s eyes snapped back to me, as if she hadn’t actually expected me to say yes. She stood up and held out her hand.

  ‘Key, please.’

  Silently I took it from my jeans pocket and handed it to her and, equally wordlessly, she turned and left the kitchen but, as I heard the stairs creak under her feet, dread flooded my body, ice-cold and suffocating. I launched myself after her.

  ‘Grace! Stop! It’s not ready! Come back!’

  ‘Too late,’ she sang, and I heard the lock click. I dashed into the attic after her. The two finished portraits were on easels, angled away from the door to best catch the light. I thought Grace would go straight over but she stopped abruptly on the threshold of the studio, her open mouth reminding me of that time she first saw my painting.

  ‘This is where you paint?’ she exclaimed. She moved further in, turning this way and that as she absorbed the size and space of the room. She took in the flowers stencilled on the walls then went over to the boxes shoved into the corner.

  ‘Are these yours? They look old.’ She poked a finger at the dusty cardboard.

  ‘They were here when we bought the house,’ I said.

  ‘What’s in them?’

  ‘Old stuff. Clothes. Dolls.’

  ‘Oh, how interesting. I’d love to look through them.’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  ‘I will. But first, the famous paintings.’

  I watched as she went over and studied the canvases. What would she think?

  In the second picure, the girl was older, around twelve, I’d say, on the cusp of puberty. And she was still happy: her skin was clear, her eyes still bright, but there was an edg
e of seriousness about her now, her clothing more subdued, her smile more self-possessed; a hint of what might be to come. She looked steadily out of the canvas at us, almost quizzically, as if we’d disturbed her from studying, or reading or thinking. The background, too, was muted – it wasn’t as obvious as a colour change, more a lack of light – an omission rather than an addition – but the sense that came from the canvas was one of oppression; of a cloud, of a shadow hanging – of a threat. I wondered if Grace would pick up on that, but, no, as she took in the paintings, her hand was over her mouth and she was laughing. I looked at her, confused.

  ‘I knew it!’ she snorted. ‘Of all the things in the world you could paint, I just knew you’d pick me!’

  Twenty-Four

  Later that night, I sat in bed pretending to read until I heard Grace close her bedroom door, then I shut my own door. The evening hadn’t gone as I’d hoped. I was angry with myself about the chicken, and Grace’s reaction to my paintings hadn’t been what I was expecting. I’d thought she would be flattered that I was painting her – ‘grateful’ might be a stretch too far – but it never occurred to me that she would assume she’d be the subject. I’d forgotten how hurtful she could be. How she would stamp all over my feelings as if she owned me; as if she had no idea how badly her words could wound.

  The evening had been just how it used to be.

  By the middle of my final year at university, I’d come to dread the sound of Grace’s footsteps in the corridor; the sound of her perky knock on my door. I fantasized about hiding in my room and not opening the door. I’d realized that I liked being on my own; I liked my own ‘quirky’ (her words), ‘alcoholic’ (seriously?) company. I was increasingly finding Grace to be entitled and arrogant, always expecting me to be there for her; always expecting groceries to have been bought, and food cooked; always making snide comments. Maybe I’d created a rod for my own back with the cooking, but it was a situation I didn’t feel I could easily back out of. Every time I thought about not preparing dinner for her, I’d pictured her coming home after a long day learning how to save people’s lives and saying in that chirpy way she had, ‘What’s for dinner?’ and I ended up cooking enough for her anyway – I mean, God, it wasn’t such an effort to throw in a bit more, was it? I went around in circles: resenting it, then telling myself it wasn’t a big deal. Though clearly it was. Maybe the problem was with me, not her. I was a soft touch. I should have put my foot down a long time ago.