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A little while later, he knocked on the door.
‘All done. There’s enough there to see you through a good few weeks. It’s well-seasoned wood, so you can use it straight away.’
He’d put some plastic sheeting over the top. He followed my eyes and nodded.
‘That’ll keep it dry. By the looks of things, we’ll be snowed in for several days. They never clear this road, it only comes to you and me, then loops round the hill to the other side of the village. It’s not worth their time. Have you got plenty of food?’
I dipped my head. We’d been snowed in so many times – Elizabeth and Steph and I, and later just Elizabeth and I. It came with living in this house. To most kids it would have been exciting, the thought of all that snow and no school. But it had filled me with dread, the long days with nowhere to go, hiding in my bedroom, trying not to be noticed, to not get into trouble. To avoid Elizabeth.
The winter when I turned eleven had been particularly bad. The snow blew in great drifts through the hedges and filled up the lane. Out the back of the house the entire garden had been buried under four feet of snow – reaching half way up the back door to the kitchen. At the front it was even worse – the car had been buried completely and the wind blasted a layer of snow against the windows so that you could scarcely see through the glass. There was no way I was getting into school, even on foot.
Steph had left two years earlier and it was just me and Elizabeth in the house. She’d sat in the sitting room by the fire most of the day and I’d kept to myself upstairs on the top floor. After Steph had gone, Elizabeth had stopped cooking a sit-down family meal. She’d eat on her own on a tray in the sitting room, leaving a meal for me to eat in my room. Now, with the snow, it was like someone had flipped a switch. For the first time she told me to cook for myself. I was old enough now, she’d said. All day, every day, and I didn’t speak to a single person, living off baked beans and cereal until the milk ran out, then it was cheese and biscuits and anything I could scrounge from the fridge. There was no radiator in my room and it was so cold that I wore fingerless gloves and a triple layer of jumpers, sitting under the blankets in my bed by the window, tracing the myriad star shapes of the frost flakes that grew on the inside of the glass.
It was then that I’d got frightened. What if the snow never melted? What if the snow queen flew down from the North Pole and breathed ice on the whole house, turning it into a giant iceberg marooned in a sea of white? What if the noisy geese that migrated in autumn returned early to break chattering and gobbling through the windows to steal all the rest of our food? What if I awoke to hear the wolves howling hungry in the distance and came down to find my stepmother frozen solid to the sofa, a human block of ice? How would I get out, how would I eat? Who would ever come looking for me?
But it wasn’t like that now. I wasn’t a frightened, over-imaginative child. And the house was mine, I could roam each room to my heart’s content, enjoy my solitude and the time to paint. Thanks to Craig I had a huge pile of winter fuel and could sit in front of a roasting fire, and I’d seen plenty of tins in the cupboards.
‘Caro?’ he said quizzically.
‘Yes,’ I said, coming back to reality. ‘Oh, I’ll be fine.’
‘I’m that way,’ he pointed north. ‘About five minutes on foot. You have any problems, you call me, okay?’
He pushed a business card into my hand. Atherton Woodcrafts and Log Supplies. There was a picture of a log fire, a kitchen and a web address.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘No problem,’ he replied.
I clutched the card in my fingers. He was smiling and the warmth of his expression made me feel ungracious. I knew I’d been rude before. All he’d done was honour a purchase Elizabeth had made before her death – what was wrong with me? I tried to think of something to say, something more friendly.
‘How’s your dog?’ I said.
‘Patsy? She’s at home, having a snooze. Well, bye then.’
He loped back to his jeep, turning towards me before climbing in.
‘And she’s not my dog,’ he said. ‘She was Elizabeth’s.’
Before I could respond, he’d got into his car. As he drove away, the swirling snow dropped like a curtain behind him.
CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_2cd003f6-f5d6-5fad-a45a-ba2e992ac616)
Later that evening, I sat by the fire enjoying my new logs. The flames spat and crackled and I watched them dancing green and yellow as sparks disappeared into the chimney. The soot clinging to the stack glowed, colours flaring and fading like shooting stars in the night. As the heat began to build, I couldn’t help but feel encouraged. It was more than the heat, it was the sense of home a fire brought to a room, even here in this house, where I’d been so unhappy as a child. It wasn’t the house, I reasoned, it was the people who lived in it.
I felt Craig’s card in my pocket. I pulled it out. Atherton Woodcrafts and Log Supplies. I decided to look it up on my phone.
There was a picture of Craig, sleeves rolled up, presumably in his workshop. Beside him was an old-fashioned woodturning lathe. It looked a bit like a trestle table but with an upstand and wooden arms that held the piece being worked on. A large wheel led via a drum belt to a long pedal beneath. I could imagine it turning as the pedal thumped. For a moment it reminded me of the pear drum. On the wall behind were shelves laid out with a host of tools and a large lavender bush nudged up against the window.
‘Kitchens, furniture and joinery. Logs supplied by arrangement,’ said the strap line, ‘Specialist in hand-crafted oak.’
I almost envied him. I worked with paper and paint, pictures from my head. He worked with solid wood, creating tangible, functional objects. From the photo galleries that followed, some of the furniture looked very beautiful. I felt a softening in my attitude; he was someone who worked with his hands, who created things like I did. And he’d taken in my stepmother’s dog, how many neighbours would do that? I chewed the inside of my cheek. It hadn’t seemed to occur to him to offer to give it to me, but then what would I do with a dog? I’d never had any pets, had never wanted one. I wasn’t good with animals.
I realised then that I was avoiding the real tasks, faffing about with hall table drawers and distracting myself with speculation about the house and Elizabeth. This wasn’t a holiday, I had a job to do. In fact, two. I set the printer going, churning out a full copy of the commission text. Tomorrow, I would do some sorting in the house first, then later I’d paint. Painting had always been my reward.
When I was thirteen, the school took us to the art gallery in Derby. We were deemed old enough to explore the different floors of the gallery on our own without the teachers, as long as we stayed in groups of at least three or four. I hung around with a group of girls whilst the teachers were in sight, but once the staff had wandered off, the girls turned on me and shooed me away.
‘Can’t you find your own friends?’ said Kathy Taylor.
‘Why don’t you go to the prehistoric room on the first floor – you’ll be amongst your own kind there!’ Paula March and Susan Pritchard sniggered behind my back.
I was more than happy to abandon them. I climbed the stairs to the first floor, meandering through the galleries till I came to a room marked The Joseph Wright Gallery. Here the walls were painted a dramatic dark grey. Huge paintings in heavy gilt frames hung all around me and the lighting was dim to protect the artwork. I felt enclosed, as if I’d walked behind a curtain to a hidden space, a sequence of scenes in a theatre, each picture peopled with actors playing out a story. In one, a woman in eighteenth-century dress leaned over a man prostrate on the ground. She was partly turned away, one hand held up as if to ward off an assailant. In another, a seascape showed black cliffs towering to left and right, the centre lit up like a scene viewed through a telescope, the oppressive walls of rock giving way to pale silver water and a tiny boat, miniscule figures clinging to the deck.
On the furthest wall was the biggest painting, a blurring of russet browns and red. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw the scene of a family gathered round a kitchen table, several adults of different ages and two girls. The elder held her sister as if to comfort her, the younger child’s head turned away in shock. The table was filled with scientific instruments, poles and jars and rubber tubes, their purpose unclear. The faces of the onlookers were lit from beneath and the candlelight flickered in their eyes, throwing shadows on their skin. It took me a while to figure out what was going on.
I read the label. An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. Now I understood. The bird was trapped in a bell jar and a wild man with long hair gesticulated to his audience. His other hand wound a handle on the box beneath the jar and the bird had its wings splayed and beak open as if it were gasping for air. No wonder the two sisters – I assumed they were sisters – looked so distressed. The scientist was demonstrating a vacuum. With each turn of the handle he was starving the bird of oxygen.
I stood mesmerised. Each detail was painstakingly accurate. But the story was told by the contrasting light. Colour, shade, light and dark playing out the drama. I wanted to reach out and touch the painting, to feel the brush strokes that had created such a work. My eyes darted from one face to another, reading their reactions, each character, each object, each shade of colour contributing their own notes, like a symphonic piece of music.
I knew then what I wanted to do. I was going to paint. I wanted to tell a story with the same skill and flair. To channel the emotions that I felt, to observe and interpret and shock and please. I felt the buzz of it fill me with hope.
I drew, I read and learnt and practised and painted in every moment of the day. At the house, Elizabeth had no idea. She had no interest in whatever it was that preoccupied me. She never came into my room. I smuggled the materials back from school and the art teacher turned a blind eye to my thefts. I think she’d guessed what it was like for me at home. Slowly my efforts improved and I developed my own particular darkly curious style.
I rose early, the next day. It was still snowing. Outside was pristine white, thick snow covering every surface. The road, hedges and fields were indeterminable, rising up to meet a similarly white sky across a non-existent horizon. The trees hung out their arms in petrified silence, white giants riveted to the hillside like they’d been caught out in some fantasy game of Freeze Tag. There was a childish joy in seeing all that virgin snow; even the sheep in the field opposite the drive were just frozen white blobs huddled near the gate close to the feeding rack. I lingered at the window.
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 must 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 (#ulink_12cf03cd-d999-54e1-ba8e-cd59f6e325ca)
‘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.’
