In Your Silence

by Grace Lowrie

  Her latent existence was apparent in nearly every room of the house, and not only in the flowery wallpapers and furnishings. She hadn’t been able to resist keeping for herself some of the ‘treasures’ she found, rather than selling them on. Everything from Japanese Cloisonné vases to blown-glass Christmas baubles – she had quite a collection and it was still growing, because Gregory kept bringing things back for her, even though she could no longer appreciate them. Her coats hung by the back door; her favourite perfumed soap adorned the lip of every bathroom sink; and her reading glasses sat on a side table in the drawing room – as if she’d recently popped out, rather than died fifteen years previously.

  But it was her bedroom which Gregory maintained as a real shrine to her. It was through these things that I’d garnered everything I knew of Cornelia Sinclair; I had no clear memories of my own, and Gregory’s grief was so great that he rarely spoke about her. Sometimes he would wander in here in the middle of the night to sleep on her bed or touch her shoes, or whatever else it was he did, in order to feel close to the love of his life. I was fairly sure he conducted relationships with various other women while he was abroad; living, breathing ladies who bought him ties and cuff-links and aftershave, and knew nothing about me at all. But no matter how long he stayed away, he was always, eventually, inevitably, drawn back to this room and the emotional hold Cornelia had over him. It couldn’t be a healthy way to live, especially for a man not yet forty, but that was Gregory.

  Carefully I leafed through the pile of books beside her bed – five in total; two lame romance novels (I’d read them out of curiosity), a buyer’s guide to inlaid Indian furniture, a true crime book about missing children, and a hard-back collection of photographs of fifties Hollywood actors. In each book a page was neatly folded to mark her place, but there were no passages underlined and no notes written in the margins – no dates or numbers worth trying on the safe.

  Gregory had long since removed any letters, papers or diaries from the room, assuming they’d ever existed. Whether he had kept or disposed of such items I had no idea – maybe they were in the safe? But with none of Cornelia’s personal correspondence to look through, I was running out of options. Running an eye over her clothes, accessories, toiletries, make-up and jewellery, I refamiliarised myself with it all without moving anything. Cleaners were banned from this room and Gregory liked everything to be kept as she left it, right down to the used handkerchief on the dressing table.

  There had only been a few exceptions over the years. On my eighteenth birthday Gregory had gifted me a few pieces of Cornelia’s jewellery; a diamond tiara with matching necklace, bracelet and earrings. It was a complete set, in mint condition, and worth a fortune to be sure, but for the most part they lived in a box in my dresser. I’d never been invited to any public occasion where I might wear them, and the earrings were no use to me whatsoever since my ear lobes were not pierced. Would Mrs Daly accept diamond earrings as payment to keep her silence?

  Hearing the van approaching I peered apprehensively out the window, and sagged with relief at the sight of the empty passenger seat. Liam had abandoned me for almost two weeks; first he’d stayed away and then he’d brought that stupid boy along with him. I’d monitored their progress from the safety of the house as they worked their way around the grounds, but not once had Liam attempted to make contact with me; not even to say hello. But then what had I expected? With all the friends and family he had, he didn’t need my company the way I’d come to depend on his. To him I was of little consequence. Maybe I should just try to forget about him altogether.

  Quietly unlatching the front door, I sat down on the top step while he lifted a deadly-looking selection of loppers and saws out of the back of his van and deposited them in a rusty wheel barrow. But upon seeing me, he abandoned his tools and approached, his boots crunching on the gravel, his eyes locked on mine. At the foot of the steps he stopped.

  ‘Morning, Melody,’ he said softly.

  I tried to smile, but my heart wasn’t in it.

  After a few beats of silence he dragged his gaze away from mine and looked down at the palms of his hands. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’

  I hesitated, surprised by his request, but then I shuffled over to one side and he climbed up and seated himself beside me. His T-shirt-covered bicep was warm where it brushed my shoulder. We sat in silence for a while, listening to the birds singing in the trees and I had an urge to cry; I couldn’t bear the thought of losing this; of losing him.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.

  It was an innocuous sentence; three ordinary words, but at that moment they meant the world. An ugly sob burst from my mouth and I threw my arms around his neck, hiding my face against his chest. It was an awkward embrace; my body twisted at the waist, my arms stretched upwards and my legs squashed against his thigh, but as he wrapped his huge arms around me and held me close, I’d never felt better.

  ‘I’m sorry I was away for a while,’ he said, his voice emanating from his body and rumbling through mine. ‘My brother injured his leg and I had to help out with that side of the business until he was back on his feet...’

  Once I was sure my tears had stopped, I pulled away from him and wiped my eyes and nose on my sleeve. There was a damp patch left behind on Liam’s chest which made me smile. He glanced down, following my eye line, and then smiled too with a shrug. Reaching inside my dressing gown pocket I pulled out a blue ballpoint pen and wrote on my palm: Ask me something. He read the words in silence before returning his warm hazel eyes to mine.

  ‘I don’t know where to begin. I don’t want to be rude, or nosey.’ I shook my head and urged him on with my eyes. ‘OK, but, for example, it’s rude to ask a lady her age...’

  I quickly scribbled: 21, you?

  ‘Thirty-two,’ he said warily. I smiled but he still looked uneasy. ‘And... you’re Sinclair’s wife?’

  Is that what he’d thought all this time? I stared at him a moment before shaking my head, pushing up my sleeve and writing along my arm: Gregory is my father.

  I studied his face as he read my words, but he didn’t seem reassured – quite the opposite in fact – as he returned his gaze to mine he looked alarmed. ‘Your biological father?’

  I nodded, but his expression didn’t change. What? I mouthed.

  ‘Nothing... it’s nothing, I’m surprised that’s all... he doesn’t look old enough...’

  He turned away from me, looking off into the distance and I wondered what he was thinking. Was that it? Just two questions? Was that all he wanted to know about me? I’d prepared myself for the Spanish inquisition and should be relieved to get off so lightly, but I was disappointed by his apparent lack of interest.

  I scrawled: What are you working on today? And nudged him with my elbow to draw his attention.

  The tension faded from his face and he smiled. ‘I thought I’d make a start on the rose garden. Did you know it was originally designed by the famous French landscape architect, Édouard Marcel, in 1878?’

  I raised my eyebrows and smiled, instantly warmed by his enthusiasm.

  ‘It was much bigger when it was first created – much grander than it is now – I think it must have been scaled back at a later date to reduce the level of maintenance required; maybe during one of the wars. Anyway, I’ve found a plan of it; look...’ From his pocket he withdrew a folded piece of A4 and handed it to me.

  The photocopied plan showed a neatly laid out formal garden – a complex but symmetrical pattern of intersecting lines, triangles and circles.

  ‘First I need to clear all the weeds out, prune back the surviving roses, topiary and box hedging, and mow all the lawned areas around it. But then we can have a look; see if we can find any evidence of the lost parts, what do you think?’

  I beamed back at him, having written one word on the edge of the photocopy: Awesome.

  He laughed in response, hooking one arm around me and gently squeezing my shoulder as he rested his head on top of mine.
I loved being included by him, close to him, and it was unexpectedly gratifying making him laugh. For once someone was laughing with me, rather than at me, and it made me tingle all over with pleasure.

  ‘I should get on.’ Releasing me and rising to his feet, he re-pocketed the plan, offered me a big strong hand, rough with callouses, and helped me up. ‘Come and find me when you’re ready – I can give you a lesson in pruning roses if you like.’

  As he wheeled his barrow full of tools round to the side of the house and disappeared from view, I hugged my gown tighter around myself; not because I was particularly cold or self-conscious, but because I missed him already.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Hanging out with Melody again, was a joy. She was a peculiar sight to behold in what looked like a belted Victorian petticoat, a pair of plimsolls, an eighties sun-visor and a smart, tailored set of leather gloves, but she was a quick learner and naturally green-fingered – instinctively distinguishing between the plants and the weeds, and pruning the roses with neat, confident snips of the secateurs. I found her company intensely comforting, and not simply because of her restful silence.

  Admittedly I didn’t miss Olly’s constant stream of chatter, but Melody and I had been working together for two days now and we communicated frequently. In order to make conversation, she’d threaded a spiral-bound notebook and a pen, onto a length of pink ribbon which she wore slung across her body like a handbag. Every now and then we would pause for breath and she would make a written observation, or pen a query for me, or respond to one of mine.

  Amongst other things I’d learned that she’d always lived at Wildham Hall, had been home-schooled there and had never had access to a TV. But she enjoyed books, violent movies and music videos, and had a job working from home as a proofreader. She wrote that she was grateful for any excuse to get out in the garden because staring at printed words for long periods made her eyes sore. Her handwriting was beautiful – neat and curly, with an almost calligraphic feel to it – but her use of words, her ‘voice’ was not nearly as delicate as I’d imagined it to be. She was blunt, honest and to-the-point, and not just because she had to write everything down. She clearly knew her own mind, and now that we’d made friends she was no longer afraid to express it – which was refreshing and often funny.

  Extricating herself from a rose bush, Melody flung her secateurs down on the grass, peeled off her gloves and studied her fingers with a frown.

  ‘You OK?’

  She quickly wrote something and I set aside the loppers I was carrying and moved closer to read where she’d written: This one’s a prickly bugger. A small smudge of blood was left behind on the paper, as if proving it.

  ‘Yeah it’s a rugosa – they can be particularly vicious,’ I said, taking her hand in mine and scrutinising her punctured fingertips. ‘You don’t have to do any of this, you know – I’m the one getting paid to do it.’

  Snatching her hand back she scribbled something else onto the pad where it rested on her jutting hip and then angled it towards me with a grim expression. It read: You’re not getting rid of me that easily.

  I smiled. ‘I’m not trying to get rid of you, I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.’

  We made eye contact and for a moment I was lost in the grey depths of her irises. What was she thinking? What was this thing between us? Was it my imagination or was this evolving into something deeper and more potent than friendship? Whatever it was it made me nervous, but she looked away and changed the subject by writing: Who’s your hero?

  I took a subtle breath of relief. ‘That would have to be my dad. He’s retired now, but he’s a plumber by trade; hard-working, honest, fair. He pretty much raised Lester and me single-handedly, and he’s always been a great role model, not just for us but for other boys in town too. He used to coach rugby at the school.’ I hoped she wouldn’t ask about my mother. ‘What about you; who’s your hero?’

  Ellen Ripley.

  I stared at her. ‘As in the film Aliens?’

  She nodded.

  ‘The fictional character...?’

  She nodded and I tried hard not to laugh while she jotted down an explanation: What! She’s a strong woman – brave, smart and selfless – and she doesn’t have to act like an egotistical macho man to save the day.

  ‘Hmm, I don’t know, she’s pretty butch...’

  She falls for Hicks and tries to be a mother to Newt – she’s still a woman – but a strong one.

  Melody looked infuriated, which made me want to wind her up more, but I refrained. ‘You’re right – I’ve never thought about it like that before. Good hero,’ I admitted, and she smiled, satisfied.

  As she began to pull her gloves back on it occurred to me that Melody was probably motherless like me, and perhaps hadn’t had many ‘real’ female role models in her life. The realisation was sobering.

  ‘Just so you know – not all men are egotistical.’

  She looked up at me in surprise and then, before I had a chance to move, she rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to my cheek. It was a slow, lingering kiss that caught me off guard, filled my nostrils with her scent, chased the blood to my groin and left me light-headed. And when she drew back and looked at me there was no trace of innocence in her expression – she was deliberately flirting with me.

  I stepped back away from her, rattled by the look in her eyes and unsure what to do or say. My natural instinct was to scoop her up in my arms and kiss her, properly, on the mouth; I’d wanted to for days, weeks, even. But I couldn’t.

  Technically I was dating someone else – I’d taken Bridget out for dinner at the weekend – and anyway, I was still haunted by the scene I’d witnessed between Melody and her father, my boss. Admittedly I’d missed the beginning of their conversation, but whichever way I replayed it in my mind, something wasn’t right about the way he’d looked at her. Now that I had some understanding of the life Melody had lived – isolated from the outside world and starved of human contact – my suspicions about her father were growing. I feared that he might be abusing her, and until I was convinced otherwise, I would not take advantage, no matter how much I wanted her.

  Turning, I stooped down to pick up the almost empty bottle of water we’d been sharing. ‘I’m just going to go and refill this so that we don’t get dehydrated,’ I said, backing away.

  Slowly she nodded in acknowledgement, but I could tell by the look on her face that she was puzzled by my behaviour. Without meaning to I was almost certainly giving her all kinds of mixed signals. Hell, I’d never felt more conflicted in my life. Cursing under my breath I told myself to get a grip as I walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I was ready and waiting for Mrs Daly the moment she put her key in the lock of the back door. Perched on top of the tumble dryer I had a height advantage, a clear view of the room, and two separate escape routes available to me if necessary. After all, wasn’t that Sun Tzu’s advice in ‘The Art of War’ – hold the high ground and wait for your enemy to come to you?

  Armed and prepared I was ready to fight to keep my relationship with Liam under wraps. Though, admittedly, I was unsure exactly what that relationship was. Yesterday I’d kissed his cheek by way of a thank you, but once I was there, touching him with my mouth like that, it became difficult to pull away. A friendly peck on the cheek almost became something else, something more, and I know he felt it too, even though he walked away. Regardless, I was ready to do battle; to protect what we had; do whatever it took to keep seeing him.

  Mrs Daly jumped when she saw me but recovered quickly, her lips pressing into a hard line of disapproval as she wiped her shoes on the mat and set down her bag.

  ‘Got something for me, have you?’

  With a jerk of my chin I gestured to the note I’d left on the counter, and waited while Mrs Daly deliberately took her time retrieving her reading glasses from her handbag and putting them on.

  ‘I can’t get hold of any cash...’ she said, reading m
y words aloud, ‘... but take these, I’m sure you can get a good price for them.’ Flipping open the folded handkerchief beside the note, she cast a beady eye over the neatly laid out pair of earrings. They glinted as they caught the light. ‘Real diamonds are they?’

  I nodded.

  ‘What’s to stop me getting accused of stealing them?’

  I held another, pre-prepared sheet of paper out to her, and she took it grudgingly. ‘These have been in my possession a long time – Gregory won’t miss them,’ she read out. ‘Thought this through, haven’t you,’ she muttered under her breath.

  With claw-like fingers she hastily folded the hankie into a tight package around the precious stones before stowing it deep inside her handbag. ‘This is a good start... ’ she said, preparing to leave the room, ‘... but it’ll take more than some old jewellery to buy my silence indefinitely.’

  Her predictability made me smile as I thrust my final note in her direction. She hesitated, eyeing me with unconcealed loathing as she debated walking away, but eventually curiosity got the better of her. Snatching it from my fingers she read my final statement in silence:

  Breathe a word about me to Gregory or anyone else and I will point out the silverware that has gone missing from the dining room – you will be fired and almost certainly arrested.

  Her face paled and she scrunched the paper up in her fists with irritation. ‘Fuck you,’ she muttered, dropping my last note on the floor and marching out the door without further comment.

  Her inability to meet my eye told me everything I needed to know. I’d got her. At the end of the day Gregory would always take my word over hers and we both knew it. She could have the earrings – they were no use to me anyway – and keep the candlesticks and whatever else she’d stolen in the past. I’d even let her keep her job for now – better the devil you know – but her power over me was gone for good.