It was time to tackle the bedrooms. It wasn’t something I looked forward to. Elizabeth’s room was the largest, with a window overlooking the front of the house and its own bathroom. The bed had an expensive-looking quilt and a set of six pillows. Six, for goodness sake, three on each side, one in front of another. On the bedside table were a pair of glasses and two books. Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and a collection of short stories. Beside them was a small china box painted with blue flowers. Inside were yellow pills. I had no clue as to what they were for.
I gripped the black bin bag in my hand and swept up the glasses, the box and a nightdress I’d found neatly folded under the pillows. The books I couldn’t bear to throw away. The next hour went quickly. I dived into the wardrobes and drawers, dragging out every item of clothing, every dress, jacket and blouse, even the underwear – urgh – pants, bras, tights and petticoats; no one wore petticoats any more, did they? Everything I could find I stashed in plastic bags ready for the charity shops of Ashbourne. Her clothes were expensive, formal suits, dresses and matching shoes, respectable and impressive. I could imagine Elizabeth wanting to make an impression, appearances had always been important to her. She hadn’t been short of money then, despite the state of the other rooms in the house.
There were a few more practical countryside clothes too, the kind you might see the Queen wearing as she strode along the Scottish hills followed by a flotilla of corgis. I thought of the dog, Patsy. I’d never seen Elizabeth with a dog. When I’d known her she’d always been a stiff, clean-loving type, not one for mud in her kitchen and a slobbering dog leaping in her face or lolling out of the window of her car.
Her car – there was no sign of it outside. She must have had one, I thought vaguely.
Had she been lonely? After Steph and I had gone? I didn’t believe that. The few times I’d rung up, to check that Elizabeth was okay, she’d never been interested in talking to me. A short exchange and a cold, sharp tone had been more than enough to tell me that she really didn’t want to hear from me. Had it been the same with Steph? And yet, there had been a dog, a warm, living, breathing animal that didn’t talk back, that learned to do what it was told, but thrived on love and attention. It made me think: the dog had been well cared for, you could see that, Elizabeth must have treated her well. Had the dog been her weak spot, her one little indulgence? Had she mellowed in those intervening years?
And what about Craig? Why had he ended up with her dog? Elizabeth’s neighbour stepping in to care for it. Had they gone for walks together? Had she visited his workshop, talking about his craft, or the weather, or the people in the village? Had he fixed her kitchen, arriving each day with a toolbox in his hand to build the cupboards and worktops? Had she watched, as I had earlier, whilst he worked away at them, sanding them down, smoothing the wood, oiling the grain and polishing them?
It made me laugh, Elizabeth admiring her younger neighbour. She’d been sixty-one when she died. Women that age didn’t have lovers, did they? Of course, they did, but Elizabeth and Craig? No, not lovers, I decided. But he’d been kind enough to take in her dog.
The make-up was the worst thing. It was stuffed into a single box on a shelf in the en suite, a room that looked like it had been newly renovated. The shower gleamed with that brand new, never-been-used look, and a strong vinegary smell of freshly applied mastic clung to the surfaces. In the corner by the floor, someone had missed out the grouting between the last few tiles. Elizabeth, it seemed, had died before she could enjoy her new bathroom. It repulsed me, touching such personal things, the eye shadows, the powder compact, the little brushes and sponges she’d used to apply it all.
Then I found the medicines. There was a whole load of them, in one of those posh hatbox kind of bags, designer crocodile plastic, in bright lipstick red. There were pills and creams and tubes of this and that, with various painkillers tucked into the pockets, some of which looked pretty lethal. You could have poisoned a battalion with all that stuff, a much kinder way to go than pitching over a banister. She must have been ill, suffering pain. I didn’t know how I felt about that. I put the medicines in a separate bag for the pharmacist. It wasn’t the kind of stuff you wanted to put in the bin.
I stripped the bed, cramming the bedding into more bags, unwilling to sleep on them, her sheets, her pillows, the very thought made me sick. I was soaked with sweat by the time I’d lugged all those bags down the stairs, piling them up in the dining room.
Already the day was fading. I still couldn’t decide where to sleep. Elizabeth’s room was the biggest, the smartest, with that view over the front and its own bathroom. But it was the last place I wanted to be. Perhaps if it were redecorated? I tried to imagine it art-gallery white, my paintings on the wall and a simple contemporary bed. No chintz, no fuss, no heavy curtains blocking out the light, not one whiff of my stepmother or anyone else.
A crash reverberated through the house. My head swung upwards.
I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, one hand clutching a bin bag. Had it come from the top floor? Or was that the attic? I wasn’t sure. I was reluctant to go up there. Was it an intruder? In this weather? Who’d want to break into the house in the middle of a snow storm, the road was surely impassable by now.
There it came again, another crash and a blood-curdling yowl. I started, unable to prevent the hairs rising on the back of my neck. It sounded exactly like the tom cat that used to pick fights with my neighbour’s cat in London. In this house?
I took the stairs two at a time, following the yowls. They were louder and more intense with each step. Up to the second floor, past my old bedroom, to a door on the right. The attic. I thrust the door open. Something shot past my legs, racing across the landing. I caught sight of a black animal as it leapt down the stairs. I spun on my heels and ran after it. Down both floors. It belted across the hall floor and skidded to a halt at the front door where it crouched low, glaring at me, hissing. I stayed on the last step.
A cat. It was the same cat as before, but not as friendly. The fur down its spine was all fluffed up. It bared its teeth, whiskers lifting, gums whitening as it hissed again. Something had spooked it good and proper. I was spooked too.
I looked behind me but there was nothing, no reason apparent for the animal’s distress. How had it got trapped in the attic? I took a pace forward and it – she? – ran again, scooting through the gap of the sitting room door. I followed just in time to see her dive under the sofa.
I stood for a moment, chewing my lip. Did I really want a cat in the house? To make friends with it? It wasn’t as if I was staying long. I thought of the cat food I’d bought at the Co-op – why had I done that? I walked out of the room and shut the door.
I climbed the stairs, right to the top, till I was standing in the entrance to the attic. The door was open, exactly as I’d left it. There were a few narrow treads, boxed in, leading up to the attic itself. Where the main stairs were carpeted, these were bare and wooden, the walls likewise. It was much darker than the rest of the house. I reached for the light. It wavered, buzzing, struggling to stay on as I took the steps, one by one, my shoes overly loud against the wood.
The attic was right under the eaves. As I emerged into the space I shivered, hugging my arms, a blistering draught tugging at my hair. I peered through the dim electric light which pooled on the floor between the roof beams. A single small window had been cut into the sloping wall, the highest window visible from the drive. It was totally inaccessible from the outside. The window was wide open, snowflakes blustering in.
How had it got open? I looked around, but there was nothing, no one as far as I could see. Just vague shapes, old bits of furniture and tea chests covered in blankets and dust sheets so that they loomed out of the shadows like trolls and goblins lurking in the woods. A gust of wind caught at the window and it slammed shut. The draught pulled it open again. Clack, clack, it went as the casement shuddered. Finally, I had the source of that noise from yesterday. It m
ust have been the attic window all along, slamming in the intermittent wind.
I reached for the handle, relief making me bold. It was real, not some imagined bogeyman. The handle was ice cold, grasping at my skin, burning it, unwilling to release me as I struggled to close it. Looking at the frame, it seemed to me to have been forced. Perhaps a crowbar, or some other tool, bashed or levered against the fitment from the inside till it had twisted and no longer fit. How had that happened?
The window wouldn’t shut completely. Even when I got it to hold firm, the outside air blew through the gap, sucking at my hand. It must have been like that for days, even weeks: everything near the window was wet, or frozen, white as if Jack Frost himself had cast his spell. My fingers trailed along the roof struts, leaving a wet line in the ice.
Day had almost gone. More snow was already smothering the window frame, blotches of white slapping against the glass, too fast for it to melt, too thick for it to slide down. The electric bulb fizzed overhead, blinking on and off like an angry fly attacking a lamp, useless but persistent. I surveyed the space.
I moved forward, avoiding the beams as I edged along the narrow height of the room. Dust flew up from under my feet, sparkling in the bleary light. I coughed, then stopped. What was that? A scratching noise?
I scanned the lumps and bumps on the floor. A few items, too big to be covered, rose from the ground. A tailor’s dummy, a spindle-back chair, newspapers tied up with string. Ice clung to the print and I rubbed it clear, the paper damp beneath my touch. I could make out the headlines. February, 1953: East coast floods cause devastation. Lives lost in bleak winter disaster. The blades of a broken fan moved slowly round, clicking as they did. Had I nudged it by accident? I didn’t think so. What had scared the cat so much it had shot out of the attic like that?
I slid my eyes back across the room. There was a definite movement, a small lump beneath one of the sheets. It twitched and jumped, stopped and jumped again, wriggling towards me.
I reached for a cricket bat propped up against a chair. My fingers tightened around the handle. The lump disappeared, the fabric sinking to a loose fold on the ground. It was quiet, the single bulb flickered on then off, on then off … I was plunged into a fusty gloom.
Something scuttled over my foot.
I yelped.
It stopped, mid-run, right in front of me. A rat, black and greasy, beady eyes glinting in the twilight. It was huge, its fat body bulging over in the middle as it sat back on its haunches, fixing me with its glare. I felt fear sweep over me. I absolutely loathed rats. It was so close, so revolting, so big … I lashed out with the cricket bat, screaming at the thing. It fled across the dust towards the stairs.
‘No! Don’t you go into the house!’ It was a useless cry.
Both hands gripping the bat, I swung it wildly. Thunk! It hit the stairwell, wood splintering beneath. The rat darted out through the doorway, onto the landing. It streaked across the carpet towards my old bedroom. I leapt forward, pulling the bedroom door shut just in time, holding the handle as if the little bugger could have reached up and opened the door. It stared at me, surprised at my audacity. My heart was racing, my breath came in short, staggered puffs and I stood there watching, the skin on my back, my neck, my arms crawling, cricket bat still in hand.
Then the rat moved, turning tail to scamper down the stairs. One floor, two floors, just like the cat, only this time it bounded into the kitchen. I ran after it. The rat skittered alongside the cupboard kickboards, searching for an opening. I slung my bat onto the table and threw open the back door as the rat approached. It sniffed the cold air, gave me one last beady glance and bounced through the gap. I slammed the door shut and stood there, catching my breath.
That was what had scared the cat. A rat, a lone rat trying to live its life, seeking the warmth of the house – all farms had rats. That was why they had cats too. What was wrong with me?
I had a fleeting image of another rat, its yellow teeth chattering in my face. A nightmare from when I was little? I felt my fingers itching for the cricket bat.
I resolved to let the cat stay.
CHAPTER 9
‘Hi, Steph.’
I was in the kitchen, the cool blue light of my laptop shining out across the table. Even a few hours later, I was still shaken after dealing with the rat. I’d lit a candle to cheer myself. The tiny flame danced in the corner of my eye as Steph’s face wobbled and blinked and came into focus.
‘You okay? You sound a bit down.’ Steph’s voice was a surprising beacon of familiarity.
‘Oh. I’m fine, but it’s horrible going through all her stuff.’
Steph nodded. ‘I can imagine. Rather you than me. How’s the weather? We’ve had a great blizzard here in New York. All flights are cancelled. I didn’t get to Miami. The whole place is under wraps, state of emergency and all that. We’re not supposed to leave our homes even to go to the shops whilst it’s like this.’
I nodded. I’d watched the news whilst eating my tea, seeing the reports of a sequence of east coast blizzards in America and how they’d reached us from across the Atlantic.
‘Yeah, it’s a whiteout here too, I won’t be able to drive anywhere for a few days in this, but I’m well stocked up. Craig, my neighbour, has been round with a load of logs.’
‘Has he?’ Steph was smiling, reaching out for a mug of coffee. ‘And?’
‘Oh, he didn’t stay long.’
There was a pause. Maybe Steph was hoping I might fill the silence with more details.
‘I’ve got a cat in the sitting room,’ I said.
It was still there, supplied with a plate of cat food and a bowl of water. I’d have to let it out in a bit.
‘Really?’ Steph sounded distracted, disappointed perhaps that I wasn’t giving up more information about my kind neighbour.
‘Yeah, the cat turned up in the attic. God knows how it got up there.’
I decided not to say anything about the rat.
‘And how are things with your work, are you managing to do some painting too?’
‘Oh, it’s good. My agent’s sent me a new commission for fairy tales and some of the stories are …’ I brought my hand up to cough. I wasn’t sure exactly what word to use, but I didn’t want to admit the effect they were having on me. ‘I’ve got loads of ideas.’
I didn’t mention the book included the story of The Pear Drum.
‘That’s nice.’
My sister sipped at her mug, hands curled around it, clothed in a casually elegant mohair sloppy jumper. There was an awkward silence.
‘Which one are you working on at the moment?’ she asked.
‘The Juniper Tree.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s about a young boy and his stepsister. His father has remarried and the stepmother hates him, wanting his inheritance for her daughter.’
‘Oh right, that sounds familiar. Why are there so many evil stepmothers in those stories?’ Steph leaned back in her seat.
I laughed. ‘This one’s particularly gruesome. The stepmother kills the boy and feeds him to his father.’
‘Yuk! Murder and cannibalism, what happened to happy ever after?’
‘Fairy tales aren’t always what Disney would have us believe. It’s not like my usual commissions, this one’s not really for children.’ I grinned.
Steph laughed. ‘I should think not, from what you’re telling me!’
Later, after the call ended, I started to paint.
The house was quiet, the cat asleep on the sofa, apparently no longer distressed. I glanced outside. The night was arctic clear, the snow sparkling. As I stood in front of the kitchen table, brush in hand, I felt calmer, happier, I was in control with a paintbrush. Time didn’t matter, here on my own, surrounded by nature’s very own blank canvas.
Already I was filling in the purple blue berries and evergreen needles of a juniper tree. The story had so many starkly visual elements. It began with a young woman, desperate for a child, praying
at the base of a juniper tree.
She cuts an apple, but the knife slips, slicing into her thumb, blood staining the snow on the ground.
‘I wish,’ she says. ‘I wish for a child, as blood is red and the sun hangs in the sky.’
A child arrives, a little boy, exactly as the mother wanted, except she does not live to see him beyond a few hours. The juniper tree is her grave.
I sketched out the tree, its branches close and dense. I could feel its empathy for the mother, her love for the baby to come, its grief at the mother’s death.
A new mother arrives, with a daughter of her own. Though the woman hates the boy, her daughter loves him.
The stepmother scowls with distaste. ‘Would you like an apple?’ she says to the boy.
‘Yes,’ he says, surprised that she has offered.
She points. ‘Look inside the chest.’
The boy moves across the room. There’s a wooden crate on the floor, the wood heavy and rough. He struggles to lift the lid and looks inside. But as he leans in, the stepmother slams the lid shut and the boy’s head is cut right off.
I painted an open crate, the boy’s bloodied head staring back at me. I spent time on his face, I couldn’t let it go, his cheeks, his mouth contorted by death. It was as if I’d seen that face. I painted a green apple rolling beside his cheek, his stepsister looking down in horror.
Now the stepmother cooks a meal, a stew for the father home from work.
‘Mmmm, this is very tasty, my dear. But where’s my son? Why isn’t he here to eat?’
‘Oh, he’s gone to visit his uncle, my love. He’ll be back within a week.’
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