Perched on the barren windswept eastern coast, the house had no neighbours, bar the wildlife hopping through the fallow fields. Taking a gulp of the bracing coastal air Anita unloaded her car. Her overstuffed briefcase in one hand, balanced out her overnight bag in the other, she started the ascent to the heavy oak door.
Alan Gates opened the door, his dour face lightening as he took in her age and condition, although it did little to improve his manners, “Miss Cassatt, I had expected you somewhat earlier. Sadly I have a prior engagement I must attend, so there’s no time to show you around, but I’m sure you can work it out. One of the bedrooms upstairs has been prepared for you and there are provisions in the kitchen. I shall be in touch tomorrow to check on your progress.” Nudging a rusty chain tied to the railings, he smiled, “There was a dog, but it hasn’t been seen since the old man died. You probably won’t see it, but, you know, best to keep an eye out… now you’ll have to excuse me as I really am running quite late for my game.” With an obvious leer and without Anita uttering a single word, he struggled into his coat and stepped from the doorway to the driveway and into the only other car there, a high-end low-slung red sports car; the type favoured by men of a certain age the world over. It too looked like it had fought a losing battle on the gravel roads, with a large stone chip on the windscreen.
Anita watched the pompous lawyer manoeuvre his beast down the drive until it vanished from sight, nerves crowding in on her. Just as unpleasant in person as he had been on the telephone. She turned and entered the house, stepping in front of an audience.
An audience of eyes, immortalised in portraits clustered on every wall. Oil paintings, sketches, watercolours. Every permutation of portraiture hung on the walls of the foyer. Hung haphazardly, no rhyme nor reason to the display. No cohesion or system.
Anita allowed the solid door to shut behind her, her breath trapped in her lungs. She turned as if on a carousel, overwhelmed by the task ahead and by the hundreds of pairs of eyes following her every move.
Shaking off nudges of apprehension settling on her shoulders, and leaving her bags in the entrance, she set off to explore the house, and, more importantly to find a toilet. Every wall she passed was papered with portraits. Some exceptional, most ordinary, a small number childlike in their simplicity. Anita peered at the signatures as she explored the house, pausing at one which she knew was a Thomas Fairland. She’d get round to it eventually, but made a mental note to make it one of the first she catalogued.
Thankfully the one room devoid of portraits was the old fashioned toilet, her relief immeasurable. She didn’t fancy sitting there with a dozen pairs of eyes judging her.
That bit of business taken care of, she started to unwind, her level of concentration improving now she could genuinely focus on the art surrounding her. Dust motes swam drunkenly on weak shafts of sunlight marking the way she’d come. Back in the entrance hall, she checked her phone, she needed to ring her mother to tell her she’d arrived safely. Her mother hadn’t wanted her to come all this way on her own, “I hope they’re making this worth your while” had been her exact words. No service. Hardly surprising being this remote, but still she felt a prick of panic. Not being able to use her phone would be a reality check but her mother would never forgive her. They had an unwritten rule she’d ring her mother whenever she arrived somewhere. She frowned as she considered the state her mother would be in now. The lawyer had disappeared before she could ask if there was any phone service at all, or wifi. She’d figure it out and then she’d have to work out a way to placate her mother.
Deciding that getting settled in before nightfall would be a better use of her time, she picked up her bags and made her way up the ornate staircase, the light layer of dust on the wooden riders the only indication that the house was empty. It had yet to acquire that peculiar smell of decay which envelops an empty home, as if the carpets were composed of stagnant mould and the curtains a haven for desiccated moth carcasses. It would come to this house soon, ss soon as the hot water was switched off and the power cut. The winter storms would buffet the slate roof tiles, and broken tiles would welcome in the winter snow and any animal seeking refuge.
Shaking those thoughts from her head she made for the only open door in the hallway, her bags weightier with every step. It was clear it was hers, with towels laid out on the bed and a note addressed to her on the Victorian dressing table. Dropping her bags in the middle of the floor, she cast her eye over the room.
The visible patches of wallpaper were old and faded, the corners peeling back from the crumbling plaster. The rest of the wall was hung with art. Not all portraits; it would have made it impossible to sleep if it were. Here in this room at least the majority of pieces were stormy seascapes, with vicious waves plucking hapless ships from the crests of waves, drawing them down into the murky depths to an unknown fate. Not uplifting, but not the stuff of nightmares.
The note as succinct as the lawyer, not even a greeting, just straight into an itemised list of things she could and couldn’t do. Parts of the house which were off limits and arrangements for the packers and movers. Most of it she’d ignore, she was here to do a job.
Her eyes slid to the only portraits in the room, a series of four, they’d been hung in a semblance of age order and framed in identical gilt frames. Each showed a child; different children but of the same stock, with bright blue eyes and wheat coloured hair, with the youngest girl slightly different, her eyes a dark brown, her hair less blonde, but a face still cut from the same cloth. Such unusual subjects for portraiture, not the usual sullen faced men in starched suits or military dress. Almost modern in appearance, frames older than the paintings. Their faces looked as though smiles were as rare as winter sun and as fleeting. The sadness in their eyes had been exquisitely captured by the artist, although Anita wished they hadn’t been quite so skilled. She preferred children to be happy, to have a childhood such as she had, with loving parents and buckets of joy.
Turning her back on the portraits, she unpacked her toiletries and sleepwear. Sleep beckoned and the drive had sapped all her energy but she needed to finish her circuit of the house to get an overall feel of the task at hand. It wasn’t just the art that needed to be catalogued but the contents of the house as well — the furniture and decorative pieces, although the rest of the team would be here to help with those later.
The temperature had dived south since she’d arrived. The winter sun set quickly here. She shrugged into a cardigan before investigating the rest of the house. The dust motes had gone, settling into hidden nooks and crannies, gathering their strength for tomorrow.
In the half light, the hall appeared longer, the doors more foreboding, reminiscent of back alley entrances to places of ill repute. Anita squared her shoulders, brushing off such foolish notions and grasped the chilled brass handle of the next door, surprised when it turned easily, swinging open, revealing another bedroom. The same pastel pink wallpaper obscured by a conglomeration of portraits mixed with landscapes, and yes, even some hunting scenes. Wild eyed hounds racing across an open field, a fox shown in the distance, his terror palpable. Beautifully rendered but too terrifying for most. It would sell well in London.
Another made up bed, in preparation for her colleagues she presumed. She didn’t envy whoever got to sleep in here. Instead of children on the walls, there were a variety of men. Each portrait capturing a different time; a Victorian stiff upper lip, a Regency era toff, a labourer in the fields, glaring at the artist and daring him to paint his portrait. Their eyes the brightest part of every portrait, capturing the essence of their humanity, more than any public speech could portray, indeed more than the subjects thought they would ever reveal to anyone. Anita shivered. It was a rare skill to capture someone’s essence in a portrait, yet at first glance these portraits had been done years apart, centuries even. Tomorrow, tomorrow she’d examine them, no point jumping to just yet.
Easing her way along the hallway opening door after door, each room a cooki
e-cutter version of the previous one, only the artwork differentiating the rooms from each other. The portraits growing darker in tone and subject. The furniture too changing to heavier pieces, more manly in appearance. Gone were the feminine dressing tables with elegantly turned feet, replaced with functional pieces. Designed for use, not aesthetics.
The last door opened not to a bedroom but to a staircase leading up. Up to the turret room she’d spied from the impressive driveway. She expected it would deliver spectacular views of the coast and the countryside surrounding the desolate house. She paused, her hand hovering above the polished bannister. She pulled away and examined her hand, odd that the dust hadn’t made it this far. Anita laughed, of course, the lawyer would’ve been here keeping an eye out for her. Why wouldn’t you sit somewhere with a view? That’s where she would have waited instead of in one of the formal rooms downstairs, with hundreds of pairs of eyes watching her every move. Her stomach rumbled. Turning her back on the staircase she closed the door. Tomorrow she’d have her coffee there and that would give her something to look forward to, to keep her mind occupied during the long night in this old house. “Stop it,” she said aloud, chastising herself. “Let’s get something to eat.” And she marched off to hunt out the kitchen to see what the smarmy lawyer had provided for her. Expectations weren’t high.
Humming to herself in the kitchen, she neither saw nor heard the turret staircase door open. There was nothing to be seen, not from the bottom of the stairs.
Chapter 4
After a quick supper, Anita fell into bed exhausted from the long drive and the realisation of the enormity of the task ahead of her. As she slept, darkness dominated the room and the shadows crowded in on Anita, watching but not disturbing. Morning came as quickly as the night had fallen the day before, so, with the sun cresting, the shadows slunk back to their corners and the frigid air dissipated as the first rays of the sun hit the thin glass.
Anita had burrowed deep under the covers, the chilled air caressing her exposed skin, her dreams punctuated with shadows and half seen faces, turning, just as she reached them.
The dawn delivered a chorus of birdsong. With the sun, Anita woke, knuckling the sleep from her eyes, stretching, her muscles sore from the long drive and an uncomfortable night. She hadn’t slept well; the house creaking and moaning through the night, every crack sounding like an intruder on the stairs, before creeping heavy-footed along the hallway, pausing outside her room. Still, she must have dozed off, the last vestiges of her dreams slipping velvet-like from her subconscious.
From the warmth of her feather quilt, Anita’s eyes drifted to the children on her walls. Two boys and two girls, the girls younger. The… wait, the youngest child, the girl in the short-sleeved white dress, Had the tilt of her head moved? Her eyes. Now they were looking at her? Anita shook her head, she was imagining things. What an idiot. Today she’d concentrate on these paintings or she’d never sleep tonight.
Throwing back the covers, she shivered in the morning air, purposely avoiding the frank stares from the children on the wall, she gathered together her toiletries and clothes for the day ahead, the children behind her silently judgmental. Despite them being rendered in oil, she felt uncomfortable disrobing in front of their frozen gazes, so, slinging on a dressing gown, she padded down the hall, her night terrors fading as her adult sensibilities took over.
The bathroom was as dated as the rest of the estate, the bathtub a coffin for moths and midges, their pale grey bodies decaying in the aged porcelain. Of a shower head, there was no sign. Anita rolled her eyes. In this day and age you’d expect every house to have a shower. No one wanted to wallow in their own filth. Unlike the toilet, the bathroom had pictures on its walls. She took each of them down putting them out in the hall. Regardless of the potential damage to the art from water and steam, having portraits in a bathroom was peculiar and she wasn’t going to get naked in front of a gaggle of strangers.
Turning the taps rewarded her with a far away gurgle of functional pipes. If hot water failed to materialise, she wouldn’t stay here. She couldn’t stand feeling dirty. Anita considered herself as average as the next person, but she couldn’t abide being dirty. Even as a child, she’d driven her mother mad with her insistence that any dirt on her hands be washed off immediately. If tomato sauce dripped down her front, it rendered her clothes only suitable for the washing machine. As she’d aged, she’d tempered her phobias but unfettered access to hot water was still non-negotiable.
Hanging her clothes on the generous hooks, she tried not to check on the water temperature. Her skin already crawling at the thought of working with the filth of the previous day still on her skin. To her immense relief, steam filled the old room, fogging the mirror. The clanging of the old pipes changing to the soothing sound of running water.
Shrugging off her robe, her skin prickled at the sudden cold, before testing the water with her toe. Satisfied she slid into the rising water, sloshing it over her goose-pimpled skin. As the temperature of her skin began to match that of the bath she reviewed her feet wiggling at the end of the porcelain tub. Void of polish, her toes were a pretty accurate representation of her life. Basic. Sensible. Boring. No point in applying polish when there was no one to appreciate the effort. She kept the hair on her legs, and elsewhere, tamed, an ingrained personal hygiene habit borne from teasing she’d endured during school swimming sports, for the dark hair protruding from places society dictated it shouldn’t. She’d sobbed on her mother’s shoulder that night, blood running freely where she’d nicked herself half a dozen times trying to wield a razor to rid herself of her hair. The memory of the blood swirling down the drain as her mother gently washed it away had stayed with her. It wasn’t the only time in her life she’d watched blood running from her body, rinsed away by the cleansing water.
Her toes sank under the steaming water and she turned the tap off. The sudden quiet punctuated by the occasional groan of the old water pipes, their job done for the moment. Steam rose from the still water, swirling on unseen draughts, into corners long forgotten by whomever did the cleaning.
Anita closed her eyes, this job could be the making of her career. Cataloguing art was more than listing the title and the artist, every sentence she wrote needed to be as nuanced as the art itself. She had to capture the essence of the art in her words, as accurately as the artist had depicted his or her subject. Rarely did she see work by female artists, probably because their efforts were deemed more hobbyist than professional. She’d written her thesis on just this subject, but she still obsessed about it. Where were all the women artists? She tried to attend solo exhibitions by female artists but they were few and far between. She sank under the water, immersing herself under the silent waves. Eyes closed, safe, she didn’t see the condensation on the brass door handle disappear as if someone had just grasped the handle.
Chapter 5
Bathed and dressed, Anita made her way downstairs to the generous kitchen. She’d been surprised the night before at the quantity of food the lawyer left for her. The eggs, fruit and fresh bread a welcome surprise. The ancient refrigerator held salami, a quart of milk and a small block of cheese, enough to last the week as long as the rest of her team brought more provisions with them.
She wrestled the stovetop into life through trial and error to fry some eggs. She was more a microwave and takeout girl, but the scent of eggs frying always sent her tastebuds into overdrive. Her mother had never bothered teaching her how to cook. And she’d never had the need so didn’t miss it. You couldn’t butcher the frying of eggs. Get-togethers with girlfriends were usually over a Thai takeaway; dinners with potential partners were at restaurants — she hadn’t wanted to scare anyone with her nonexistent culinary skills, not that anyone hung around long enough for it to matter. Dinner at her parents always a Sunday roast which her father insisted he cook. Fried eggs were an acceptable breakfast, lunch and dinner dish. Add some sliced salami, a hunk of cheese and voila, a gourmet meal.
; While the eggs were frying she checked her phone again — a habit. Still showing no service, she put it back in her pocket. There’d be somewhere she’d pick up a signal. There always was.
Hunger sated, she looked for the dishwasher. No dishwasher. Ah well, there had to be a downside to the perfect job. Piling the dishes in the sink, she washed her hands in the sudsy water mingling with the egg smears on the heavy chinaware. She’d do the dishes later, after lunch. Or, to be honest, after dinner. No point doing more washing than she needed.
Hands clean and dry she wandered around the cavernous halls taking in the art clustered on the walls. There was a hell of a lot more than she’d appreciated last night. Around every corner an occasional table threatened to clip her ankles and rickety plant stands adorned random alcoves, the planters filled with half dead fairy ferns and a botanist’s dream collection of rare orchids. Most beyond salvation now but some looked like they could pull through given some water. Anita had foresworn caring for any living creature after the prolonged death of her cat and she avoided house plants for the same reason. She didn’t want the responsibility. A foreign sense of guilt stole upon her as she passed plant after plant, the guilt sent her scurrying back to the kitchen to fill a jug. She’d water the ones which looked salvageable. She couldn’t imagine the lawyer running round the house doing this. Maybe the estate was paying for a housekeeper to keep things running until the sale was completed?
Pouring a little water here and a dash of water there, she fancied she could hear the grateful sighs of the ferns, akin to the joyous sounds of a marooned sailor at the first splattering of rain, as he caught raindrops on his swollen tongue. She imagined those sounds following her around the house as she refilled the jug several times over, her satisfaction at this menial task magnified by the idea of saving lives.
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