by Ann Bennett
‘Nonsense. I’ll come over early. Six-ish? I promise I’ll be gone before nine, though, so you can go to bed.’
After they’ve rung off, she dials the number on the card Jacqui Tennant had given her. It rings for a long time. She’s about to ring off, but finally a gruff male voice answers. She explains that she needs an estimate for some renovation works. He asks about the house and for her address. When she says the name of the house there’s a long silence. She begins to think he has ended the call.
‘Alright,’ he says finally in a grudging voice. ‘I’ll pop over tomorrow if you like. Late afternoon. See what’s what. But I’m fully booked for the next couple of months, mind. Won’t be able to start until well after Christmas.’
‘That’s fine. I can be getting on with decorating the rooms that don’t need any structural work. I’ll see you tomorrow then.’
He rings off without saying goodbye. Sarah frowns, puzzled at his reaction, but quickly puts it out of her mind.
She gets up from the table. Having mentioned the decorating to the builder has made her think that there’s no time like the present. She needs to get on and at least paint some of the rooms, get rid of that dirty old wallpaper which seems to harbour the past in the layers of filth that have accumulated over the years. But where to start?
The house is so cold outside the kitchen that she pulls on her coat, but still shivers as she lets herself into the passage. She wanders around the ground floor. The living room and dining room are papered with a floral pattern in varying shades of sepia. If she half closes her eyes, the colour doesn’t seem too bad, even approaching neutral. Maybe she could live with those for a while? She opens the study door and ventures inside, averting her eyes from the bureau on the far wall. The wallpaper on three of the walls is dark brown, covered in a diamond trellis pattern of dull pink roses. The paintwork is brown too, chipped and scuffed, clashing with the black marble of the fireplace. One wall is papered in plain dark brown, though. That looks newer, as if it’s been decorated more recently. Even that wall though is scratched and scuffed in places where furniture has been moved. Perhaps this is the place to start? It would be good to get rid of this dreadful gloomy colour. Then perhaps the room won’t feel so full of ghosts. She glances again at the old desk. It will be difficult to decorate around it. She might be able to move it into the middle of the room herself, or perhaps she’ll be able to persuade the builder to help her.
She quickly scribbles a note, listing what she’ll need. She’d noticed a builders’ merchant on the small business park on the edge of town. She switches off the electric fire in the kitchen, lets herself out of the back door and crosses to her car. Glancing nervously up at the coach house she pauses. There’s that movement again in the window.
She takes the coach house steps two at a time, turns the key and gives the door a great shove, aware that her heart is hammering. She steps inside. All is silent and still for a few seconds, then from nowhere a pigeon flies straight at her, beating its wings in panic, squawking.
She lets out a cry as the bird flaps towards her, narrowly misses her and hits the wall behind her with a dull thud. It falls to the ground at her feet, stunned.
‘My God,’ she stands there shaking, taking deep breaths, trying to make her heart slow down.
‘You poor thing,’ she breathes, bending down and picking the bird up. It’s surprisingly heavy. Its head flops to one side, eyes half-closed, its neck broken. Its body feels warm as she carries it outside and across the courtyard. She doesn’t know what to do with it. She sets it down on the lawn, feeling shaken. She’ll bury it later, when she comes back.
* * *
It’s almost noon when Sarah returns to the house, the car boot full of decorating materials, a spade wrapped in brown paper lying on the back seat. It’s starting to drizzle as she unwraps the spade, eases the dead pigeon onto it and carries it carefully to the overgrown border beside the garden wall. She buries the bird quickly and efficiently, determined not to let it cast a shadow over the day.
She’s impatient to get on with the decorating. She unloads the car and takes her portable radio through to the study. She tunes it to a station playing West Coast rock. She needs something as far away from what would be playing on the sound system at Taste as possible.
She fills her new bucket with warm water, spreads a plastic groundsheet over the carpet, and standing precariously on a chair, begins to soak the wall above the fireplace with water, then to scrape the paper off methodically. It isn’t easy, the paper is practically welded to the wall, but Sarah persists. She gets into her stride, scraping away vigorously in time to the rhythm of Hotel California. It feels good, doing something practical at last, like the start of a long journey to restore the house to its original glory. After half an hour, though, her arm is aching and her shoulder begging for a rest.
She gets down from the chair and runs a hand across her brow. It’s getting dark outside. She switches on the light, a weedy single bulb hanging from a cord. Perhaps the other walls aren’t quite so unyielding? She runs a hand across the wall opposite the fireplace to test it, and as an experiment scrapes a little of the wallpaper away. It comes away more easily here and, encouraged, she attacks it with renewed energy. There’s no need to even soak it. Soon about a square metre of plaster is exposed. She stands back to admire it.
Even in the dim light she can see something is protruding, a horizontal line along the wall, raised, about a metre wide. Curious, she takes the scraper and chips away at the plaster. A few millimetres below the surface, a ridge of wood emerges. She carries on chipping, revealing the top of a doorframe. The plaster comes away in chunks, falling on the groundsheet in dusty piles. She works methodically, and the outline of a door quickly appears. It must be a cupboard. It isn’t high enough to be a proper door.
It’s dark outside by the time she’s chipped away enough plaster to attempt to open the door. There is no handle, so she slides the paper scraper between the frame and the door. She has to run the scraper up and down repeatedly to remove the dust and plaster before there’s some movement. Nothing is going to stop her now.
At last the door comes open with a splintering, cracking sound. Plaster and dust fall from the crack as she manages to get her hands inside and tugs it open revealing the inside of a good-sized cupboard. Sarah peers tentatively inside, afraid that spiders might crawl out at her. There are dusty cobwebs in there, but as far as she can see, no live occupants. There are two shelves, a few objects on each, covered in black dust.
The largest object is round and heavy. At first Sarah can’t make out what it is. She sets it down on the floor and dusts it off with a cloth and gasps when she realises. It is an elephant’s foot, complete with toenails, hollowed out, a brass dish inside, stained black by the stubbings of cigars.
There are around a dozen models of Indian gods and goddesses. Some look to be made of ebony, others jade. Sarah can’t remember their names, but she knows they’re Hindu gods. There’s a set of whisky glasses and a cut glass decanter too. All full of dust and cobwebs. At the back of one of the shelves is a gentleman’s cane. Sarah turns it over in her hands. The handle is made of tortoiseshell and the cane itself bound with plaited leather. In a small square box sit two sparkling cufflinks, and beside that an old-fashioned gold watch and chain, with an engraved lid. It is dull with age. She dusts it off and peers at the inscription.
To Ezra, with heartfelt thanks, your devoted friend, Charles Perry.
Fifteen
Connie
‘Dear God,’ breathes Connie, bowing her head, closing her eyes, ‘who passeth all understanding. Forgive me, dear Lord, for my weaknesses when I was young. Forgive me for not acting when I should have done, for passing by on the other side, for having let others suffer through my own inaction. It is I who suffers now. But you know that, don’t you, dear Lord in your infinite wisdom. Please God, hear my prayers.’
It is impossible for Connie to kneel down to pray nowadays. It feel
s odd, sitting here in the nursing home, in her cramped and cluttered room in the reclining chair, her leg propped up in front of her, closing her eyes and praying to God like this twice a day.
It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like proper prayer. Throughout her whole life she has knelt to pray. She can’t remember a time, until her fall a few months ago, a single morning or evening, when she didn’t get down on her knees on one of the little embroidered prayer cushions at home, bow her head, close her eyes and pray to the Lord. Sometimes, in recent years, when things had been preying on her mind, when she couldn’t rid herself of the guilt or shame of how she’d acted when she was young, she’d spent whole evenings in prayer or Bible study. Evie had never asked her why, but deep down inside Connie realises that Evie must have guessed. Evie seemed to approve of Connie’s piety at those times. She’d join her during those long sessions, a comforting, steady presence by Connie’s side, intoning the prayers they’d learned as children.
Now, in her room at the nursing home, Connie worries that doing it like this doesn’t count as proper prayer. God might not be able to hear her properly. And then there’s that other nagging worry: what would Father think? Would he disapprove? She picks at her cardigan nervously as she tries to imagine what he might say. She can hardly bear to contemplate how angry he’d be if he knew what she was trying to tell God now. She’s not sure whose wrath she fears most; that of God, or that of Father. Even though poor Father has been lying in a cold grave for thirty-odd years.
Nobody in the home seems to bother much about God. They don’t have communal prayers. Let alone twice a day, as Father had insisted upon in the orphanage. On Sundays, most of the old folks just vegetate in the day room watching TV, in various states of semi-consciousness. Why don’t they realise that they should spend more time praying to God now than ever before in their lives? That they will soon be called to be with Him? That they need to make their peace with Him before that happens?
She squeezes her eyes shut, fearing deeply for them, ‘Dear Lord, forgive them. For they know not what they do.’ Of course, some of the younger, more mobile residents go in the minibus on Sunday mornings along to St Mary’s Church in the centre of town. St Mary’s is Church of England, but that can’t be helped. The Baptist church closed down years ago, not long after Father died.
As she watches them discreetly from the front window on Sunday mornings, making their slow and painful progress out to the vehicle to be helped on board by the staff and driven away, she catches sight of Elsie and Marjory in the group and wonders if she should go too. Now she can walk quite well with the Zimmer frame it would be possible. But would Father mind if she went along with the others to that church that she’s never before set foot in? Surely he couldn’t object? It’s still a house of God, after all, even if it isn’t the one reflecting the true Holy Path. But still, she’s not sure. She chews on a nail nervously. Oh, if only Evie were here to advise her. To remind her of the right thing to do.
She opens her eyes. It’s useless. She can’t pray properly with all these unsettling thoughts buzzing around in her head. And anyway, she hasn’t got to face that dilemma today. Today isn’t a Sunday. It’s a normal weekday. A Thursday, in fact. Sometimes she loses track of the days, they’re all so similar, but this week is different. The day before yesterday was an important day. It was the day that Cedar Lodge was finally sold.
Peter had come to tell her at lunchtime that the sale had gone through, and that the young woman, Sarah Jennings, had collected the keys from Country Squires and was already at the house. Connie had clutched at her shawl when she’d heard those words. She’d known they were coming, but it was still a shock.
Peter was still angry with her when he came to see her that morning. It was probably because she’d remembered the deed that Father had signed, and for insisting that because of the deed the sale to the developers couldn’t go ahead. She could tell that by the brusque way he’d spoken to her, the way he’d avoided her eyes.
But it was hardly fair for him to reprimand her about it, was it? She’d caught him out and outwitted him, old and befuddled as he might think her. She’d remembered the deed Father had signed, and remembered too that Peter himself had told her it was his duty to get the maximum price he could for the property. He should feel ashamed of the way he’d behaved. She sighs heavily. She’s not going to say any more about it, but if Peter’s grandfather was around, if Father was around, Peter would have a lot of explaining to do.
What exactly is Peter up to? Him and that slippery customer, Jonathan Squires? It doesn’t feel right; she knows they’re in it together. But it is so difficult now, she’s so alone. No one to help her, and those who are meant to be looking after her interests are trying to trick her. She huffs as she thinks about Peter, always dressed shabbily, his shoes unpolished, his dirty blond hair uncut, flopping into his eyes. She’d seen his wife once; a lot of makeup and expensive clothes, such a contrast to Peter it was scarcely believable that they were man and wife. It suddenly occurs to her that Peter could be in financial difficulty with an extravagant wife and three children at private schools. Perhaps that’s what lay behind the rush to sell the house to developers.
Her hands begin to shake and she feels for her filigree locket and the comforting touch of the cool silver key between her fingers. How dare Peter and Jonathan Squires conspire to sell the house to developers, to have it knocked down? Father would turn in his grave if he knew. It was bad enough having to leave it as she did, without a chance to put things in order, to tie up loose ends.
It is some comfort at least that Father’s papers are safe in the basement at Cartwrights. Soon, when she’s strong enough, she will ask Matron to arrange for her go down there to check through them. Make sure there’s nothing left that Father wouldn’t want anyone to see. She begins to breathe heavily again, thinking about those papers. They are such a worry. Is Peter to be trusted with them? What if he were to go through them? There is no knowing what he might do. But can she actually face going through them herself? She knows she must. She must face those demons before it’s too late. But the thought fills her with dread.
She tightens her grip around the necklace, holding it in her fist now. How different things would have been if she’d been strong all those years ago. If she’d at least tried to make a stand. Her own life would have taken such a different course. And what about all those others whose lives Father had power over back then? Not the orphans, but the others. The ones who were never spoken about. They were the ones she’d let down.
It’s true, she’d tried to do it more than once. She’d practised what she planned to say in front of the mirror upstairs, mouthing the words silently so that Evie and Mother wouldn’t hear. But her courage had always failed her at the last minute. She would get to the door of his study, her heart beating fast, and hover there on the threshold. The very sight of his back, the great intimidating bulk of his presence, would make her knees turn to jelly. She would stand there wondering, trying to glean from the way he sat what sort of mood he was in. Would he be in his charming mood; the one he was in when he preached on Sundays, or led assembly in the orphanage, when she would gaze around at the adoring looks on the children’s faces as they listened, their eyes shining. Or would he be in one of his brooding moods, liable to bursts of anger? Both were equally frightening. Each time she tried to muster the courage to challenge him, she failed. The words would freeze on her tongue. They sounded so… so outrageous that she could never bring herself to utter them.
She’d tried too, with Mother and Evie. How she’d tried! It was not easy with Mother. Mother would not brook any challenge to Father. Not one question, not even a curious look. Evie was similar. Pious and strict and unyielding, especially as she grew older. Even after Father died, when Connie had tried to show her the box of letters. Even then, with the truth staring her in the face, Evie didn’t want to know.
‘Put them back, Connie,’ she’d said, her eyes wide with outrage and disap
proval. ‘They are Father’s private papers. He would be very angry indeed if he knew you’d looked at them. I don’t want to know what they say. Put them back where you found them and we’ll never speak of the matter again. I mean it, Connie.’
There was no one else to talk to. At least not at that time. No one in the whole wide world. She’d had to bear the knowledge and the suspicions alone. But God knew, in His infinite wisdom. God must have known what went on. How would Father have dealt with God when he met Him face to face? The thought makes sweat break out on her brow.
There’s a gentle knock at Connie’s door. Matron appears.
‘Connie, my dear, I have a visitor for you.’
Connie looks up, confused, her mind taking its time to swim to the present. Not Peter again, surely? What does he want this time? Connie can’t face him today. She draws herself up in the chair and pulls her shawl tightly around her.
‘I’m not feeling very well, Matron.’
‘Really, Connie? You were fine at breakfast.’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘Alright. I’ll ask the lady to come back another time.’
‘Lady?’
‘Yes. It’s a Mrs Jennings to see you. She’s in reception waiting.’
‘Oh!’
‘Are you feeling well enough to see her, Connie?’ Matron asks smiling.
‘Yes. Yes Matron. I think I am. Please show her through.’
The young woman appears carrying a huge bunch of flowers.
‘Lilly of the valley,’ Connie says, surprised. ‘My favourites! How did you know?’
The young woman smiles, a row of even white teeth. She’s dressed casually in jeans and a navy sweater, but she somehow manages to look smart. How old would she be? Connie wonders. It’s hard to say, everyone looks so young now. Thirty? Thirty-five perhaps? She has beautiful dark hair with a natural bounce that tumbles around her shoulders, and smiling brown eyes. Her skin glows as if she has just come into the warmth from the freezing cold. She seems to fill the drab room with energy and vitality, and for the first time for a very long time, Connie’s spirits lift.
