“Yessss!” says Bridget out loud, punches the air. Small triumphs. The flat will begin warming itself soon: she tried one of those last-ditch hopeless acts of the despairing last night, and went round the whole place turning the radiators on in the hope that they would warm themselves by willpower alone. Hopefully Yasmin will sleep on in her cocoon of curtains, leave her time to explore their new domain.
The house is unchanged, it seems, since her visit two weeks ago. In the dining room, she notices that the line of china figurines on the dresser has been turned inwards, so that they stare out at her from the mirror which forms its back. It gives one a nasty feeling, the sight of these frozen faces, tiny shoulders hard and unforgiving. Their eyes, like those of a good portrait, seem to follow her as she crosses the room.
A tumble of bedclothes lies at the bottom of the dining room stairs, thrown there by her predecessor in preparation for laundering. Pure cotton, she notices – her heart sinking at the thought of all that ironing – and sprinkled now with the coating of the dust that lies on all the surfaces. How long since she left? It looks like it’s been an eternity. She churns the pile with a toe, kicks it further into the corner and goes on through the house.
In the drawing room, on the gargantuan teak coffee table, a dozen mugs and wine glasses, their contents dried to stains with sitting. Two ashtrays overflow onto the wooden surface. A half-burnt log lies in a bed of ash. Cushions lie scattered and squashed as though the house’s occupants had merely gone to bed after a big night rather than packed up their suitcases and driven back to London. The mugs have had milk in them. Even in a room the size of her old flat, she can smell their yoghurty must. She finds a tray – sticky, with ring-marks bleached into the wood by bottle bottoms – on the side table, clears everything onto it. No point in leaving something as vile as this lying about when there's a dishwasher near at hand. If nothing else, she can at least put them out of her eyesight.
In the scullery, she rifles in the undersink cupboard and finds a roll of black bin-liners, a quarter-pack of Persil and a can of spray starch. Something, at least, to be going on with until Wednesday. Presumably there are stocks of cleaning stuff somewhere, but she's damned if she's found them yet. Anyway, at least she can do a rinse cycle on the dishwasher and get the bin up and running. She tears a bag off and takes it through to the kitchen.
The bin is already running. Another couple of days, and it would be doing it literally. When she lifts off the chrome lid, the stench is enough to drive her back a couple of paces, force her to take the Lord's name in vain.
“Jesus God,” she says. Gulps, gags.
Despite the cold, the smell is vicious. The bin is halfway full. She glimpses a chicken carcass, green, nestling on a bed of blueish, orange-streaked fur before she slams the lid back down.
Bridget scurries across the room, slams the cold tap on full and grips the cold china edge of the butler's sink while her stomach does its best to rip its way out of her body via the navel. She gags, once, twice, feels a chill sweep down her upper arms. Her tongue seems to have doubled in size, to be blocking her airways. She coughs, from the diaphragm. The chill has been replaced by a fine sweat, now.
She bends down, takes a deep draught from the tap. Delicious well-water, soft and peaty.
“Christ, that was close,” she says out loud. Turns back and looks at the bin as though it were a troll in the corner. She'll have to do it at some point. But not until she's fully prepared. How can someone just leave a house like this? This Frances must have been a total slut. Total. I’d never leave a house like this for someone else to find. I even scrubbed down my skirting boards when I left Streatham, and that was for the building society. She must have been a total slag.
Or she left in a serious hurry.
She eyes the fridge. It hums gently beside the bin, getting its temperature back down after the power outage.
Don’t let there be food in it.
Of course there's food. People always leave food at the end of short-term rentals. It’s a form of tip. Often the only form of tip. And anyway, the vegetable basket under the sink contains potatoes, carrots and an onion, all sprouting, all blackening; it was obvious there’d be food elsewhere.
What have I let myself in for?
Crossing the room feels like crossing the Steppes on the way to battle.
Bridget pulls down a sleeve and holds it across her face. She's had enough nights without electricity to know how quickly a fridge can turn. Especially when it contains…
Milk. The remains of some salad vegetables, little more than an auburn sludge in the drawer. Phosphorescent bacon. What was once pate, probably, but is now merely something that lurks.
I think that might have been trifle.
Oh, god, no. It’s fish pie. Oh my god.
Whatever is in the freezer, it’s melted, collapsed, melded together, frozen again. Whatever, it’s black and faintly viscous. She slams the door, leans against the top. Breathes.
She knows already what the dishwasher will contain. Doesn’t put herself through the ordeal of verifying it. Simply checks that the door is firmly closed and sets the dial to a full-heat pan wash. Even if it is empty, the machine itself will benefit from a cycle, after sitting unused for so long. But she’s pretty certain that it isn't: that whatever has been left in there will take more than one cycle to become safe.
I'll buy a face mask in Wadebridge. Food, bedclothes, fan heaters, face mask, washing powder. Wellington boots. Rubber gloves. Disinfectant.
She takes another drink from the faucet, waits while her churning stomach comes to a rest. Goes to see what other horrors the house holds.
Soap rings in the bathrooms. Mildew on unaired shower curtains. Carpet slightly crunchy underfoot. A window sill full of dead flies in the pink bedroom. Frances must have been letting things go long before she left. There are signs everywhere: dried flowers on the landing whose predominant colour scheme is dustbath grey; fingermarks by the light switches. The door to the attic lies slightly ajar. She pushes it to, makes her way up the corridor. Glances in at the bedrooms as she passes them. Not too bad. Quilts stripped back, hanging over bed-ends; pillows stacked on chairs. Some of the mattress protectors look like they've seen a bit of use, but there's nothing here a bit of Oxi-Action won't shift. This’ll be okay. Once I’ve got the first dreadful push over with I’ll be able to –
She stops dead in the door of the final bedroom, the one at the end of the corridor, just before the door to her own flat. It’s the room with the four-poster: the one which must always be claimed by the alpha couple when they arrive because it has the obvious look of a master bedroom about it.
“Good God,” she says.
Someone’s had a riot in here. It looks like someone’s gone down to the village and brought back a gang of bored teenagers and a couple of gallons of scrumpy. The tester is ripped from its hooks, and has been thrown across the back of an upturned armchair. Curtains hang crazy from a sagging pole. Someone's taken a vase and simply thrown it into the middle of the bed. The mattress is stained, from the looks of it irrevocably, where the contents – melted, blackened arums and a couple of pints of brackish water – have landed and been left to lie. Bedclothes lie heaped on an upended armchair. A portrait has been knocked off its hook: hangs diagonally, its surprised subject teetering over a chest of drawers, cast-plaster frame chipped and scratched.
In the far corner, a door hangs open. She didn’t notice it, when she was doing the tour with Tom Gordhavo; unpanelled, it is covered with the same paper that decorates the walls, has a handle of glass. Beyond, the space yawns pitch-black. It’s a cupboard of some sort, dug into the thick outer wall of the house. She steps over, peers inside.
Black. Damp-smelling. You wouldn’t want to store anything that might decay, in here. The sort of cupboard where they lock children in mid-Victorian novels. Bet there are spiders, too.
She closes the door. Now she is looking, she sees that there are bolts on it, top and bottom. She s
hrugs, shoots them, turns back to survey the devastation.
What do I do here? Nothing I can do, really, except perhaps clear up that vase. I’ll have to show it to Mr Gordhavo before I do anything, or he’ll be blaming me for the damage.
Outside the door, she catches the scutter of running feet. Someone – someone small and light – is running down the corridor, into the depths of the house. Bridget checks her watch, is surprised to find that almost an hour has passed since she got up. Yasmin must have woken and come through the flat door looking for her.
“That you, darling?” she calls.
The footsteps stop. Silence.
“Yas? I’m in here. In the big room.”
Silence. Yasmin is listening. She can feel her listen. It’s unlike her not to speak. Yasmin is a great talker.
“Yasmin?”
She goes toward the door, pauses just before she goes through. Something stop her from going out. She stops, listens. It’s quiet out there. No movement, no rustles. Maybe I’m hearing things. “Yasmin?”
Someone giggles.
Bridget leaps through the doorway, hits the carpet, fingers splayed like a leaping lion.
“Boo!” she shouts.
The corridor is empty.
Chapter Fourteen
I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it. I feel – invaded. There’s no other word for it. Invaded. My house will never feel clean again. It’s as though she’s brought the war with her. I might as well have a house full of Nazis. Worse. At least a Nasty would have the self-respect to be ashamed. This one – my God, I open up my home and not an ounce of gratitude do I receive. Not even the tiniest bit of embarrassment.
God knows what else she’s brought with her. Syphilis, probably, and consumption. It’s quite obvious what the mother does for a living. We’ll all be going down with nameless diseases carted in from the Portsmouth docks. There have never been lice at Meneglos school. Never. We’ll be a laughing stock.
“Disgusting,” she says out loud. “You’re disgusting.”
Lily Rickett, hair tangled and sticking out from her head like a bird’s nest, glares at her from the other side of the scullery. Her cheeks are livid with colour, but despite the foregoing ten minutes’ manhandling, there is no sign of tears. Lily doesn't cry. Hasn’t since she was five years old. Crying, she has discovered, gets you nothing, apart from a slap round the ear, most times. “Give it a rest,” she says.
“Come here.”
“No.”
“Come here, Lily.”
“No. You’re not coming near me with that thing.”
Felicity Blakemore glances down at the nit comb, a mat of ripped-out follicles wound round the metal teeth. They look like the pelt of some feral animal. They look, in fact, exactly like the sort of thing that would come from the head of this feral child. How do people manage to bring their children up wild like this, in this day and age? She hasn’t noticed that she has been gripping the comb so hard that her palm is indented with two dozen sharp little pinpricks.
“Come on,” she says. “This is all your fault in the first place. If you hadn’t imported nits into this house –”
“Come one step nearer,” says Lily, “and I’ll bite you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I mean it.”
“It has to be done. You can’t walk around like that for the rest of your life. I’ve already had to do it to the others, thanks to you.”
“Yeah, well,” says Lily, “bet you didn’t try and rip their hair out by the roots while you was at it.”
She feels a surge of rage. “Well, they didn't give their – parasites – to everybody else.”
“How d’you know? Why you blaming me? Coulda been any of ’em. I’m not the only kid in this house, you know. Coulda been one of your precious kids.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What?”
An eyeballing pause. Faced with such naked insolence, Felicity Blakemore struggles to hold on to her training. Has to wait and grit her teeth before she voice is controlled enough to speak again.
“The others may not come from the best walks of life,” she says, “but it is quite evident that there is only one of you who has never been familiar with soap and a flannel. Now, come here. The sooner you do, the sooner it will be over.”
Lily folds her arms, glares out her defiance. “No.”
“If you won’t do it voluntarily, I shall have to make you.”
“Go ahead. Like to see you try.”
“Very well,” she snaps. Shoots the upper bolt on the garden door, out of child’s-arm-reach. Lily makes a lunge for the kitchen door, but too late. Felicity Blakemore has her skinny arm in a grip of steel, swings her round behind her as she calls.
“Hugh! Hughie, come here a moment!”
Lily flails and kicks uselessly at her jailor. “Get off! Get off get off get off!”
The door is pushed open and Hugh appears. “Hullo!” he says. He’s only four years older than Lily, but he’s already almost twice her size. A lifetime of chips and dripping has left Lily small and pale in comparison with her peers.
“Hold this child,” orders his mother.
“With pleasure,” replies the son. He enjoys a bit of rough-and-tumble. Always has. He had already garnered a reputation for toughness at his Prep school which stood him in good stead when he went up to Eton last year. He stands, meaty hands on chunky hips, and cons his houseguest. “Giving you trouble, is she?”
“Apparently she thinks she’s too good for the nit comb.”
“Right,” says Hugh. “We’ll see about that.”
“Please,” says Lily, a little too late, “it hurts.”
“Well perhaps,” says Mrs Blakemore, “you should have thought about that before you brought lice into this house.”
Even Hugh can see the faulty reasoning behind this statement. But he’s at an age where the stupidity of adults is more useful than contemptible, and he lets it pass. “If she doesn’t want her hair combed out,” he tells his mother, “there is an alternative.”
It takes a moment for the statement to sink in, then Lily dashes for the outside door. Jumps for the bolt, fails, jumps again, then turns, teeth bared, back pressed to the wall. Like a cornered rat, thinks Mrs Blakemore. In the stables, when we set the terriers on them.
Hugh crosses the flags in two strides, is on the girl like a ferret on a rabbit. Lily plummets sideways against the sink, kicks out with naked feet, screams like an angry ape. The ferocity of her self-defence is enough – almost – to make him lose his grip. But then, blood up, he tightens up again. He’s had plenty of practice – on his sister, on the village boys, on the younger pupils at school – and he enjoys the fight. Enjoys, if he were to admit it, physical confrontation more than anything else in the world. It makes him feel strong, vital, alive. And in the last year or so, another element has been creeping in to his enjoyment.
“C’mere,” he says.
She scratches at his face, receives instant punishment with the back of a hand. “Stop it!” he hisses. Gets a wrist in each hand and hauls them backwards into a full nelson. And now she’s panting and wriggling, bent double, and he is looking triumphantly at his mother. Only he and Lily know that the struggle, the animal smell of her, has given him an immediate and urgent adolescent erection.
“Good boy,” says Felicity. “Good. Now, you just hold her there while I fetch the scissors.”
She’s bony in his grip. Her body heaves as she pants, rubs inadvertently against him. “Bastard,” she says. With a mother like hers, she knows all too well what it is that’s pressing into her buttocks. “Dirty bastard.”
Hughie smiles. “You'd know all about dirty bastards,” he says, emphasising the final word. “If you’d bothered to have a wash, ever in your life, you wouldn’t be in this position.”
“Oh, but I would,” she says. “You’d make sure of that, wouldn’t you?”
He’s annoyed. Tugs at her arms until she squ
eals at the pain, then pulls her harder against him to show her who’s boss.
Hughie likes having evacuees. Once you’re at the top of the pecking order, your ambitions have to turn to extending the number of people below you.
His mother comes back, comb in one hand and kitchen scissors, sturdy for cutting up the carcasses of dead birds, in the other. Lily, catching sight of her, bucks hard against her jailor, kicks out in futility.
“Now, don’t struggle,” says Felicity Blakemore. “Struggling will only make it worse.”
Chapter Fifteen
It’s not that they’re unfriendly, exactly. More – silent. If this were Streatham, she knows that the silence would mean that the staff were checking them out as potential shoplifters, but here… Bridget thinks the middle-aged woman behind the till is more interested in whether she’s holiday or home. It’s not worth wasting much breath on someone who will never come back, after all.
She can’t help thinking of The League of Gentlemen as she finds herself the subject of such scrutiny. It’s a local shop, for local people… the phrase keeps circling her head as she circles the shelves. Meneglos is not a centre of culinary greatness, of that much she is certain. If the village has been invaded by second-homers, they must go up to Padstow or Port Isaac for their polenta and sun-dried tomatoes, because there is nothing here that you wouldn’t find in the average school kitchen. Then again, there’s nothing here that Yasmin would refuse to eat, which is something of a bonus. And nothing with an eat-by date that actually requires attention. Even the fish, five miles from the sea, is tinned: tuna in brine and two types of sardine.
She wanders the aisle – there is only one, with a fridge to the right and a display stand of postcards teetering in the middle – and looks at what’s available. Yasmin, her eye caught immediately by a display – well, pile – of clotted cream fudge, stays by the door, huge eyes drinking in the child-snatching prints of puppies and kittens which decorate the boxes. Probably, thinks Bridget, thinks there are actually kittens nestled in among the sugary treats inside.
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