The Forever House, page 3
A bowlful of cereal in hand, I walked into the garden to free my nose of the smell, sitting to eat a mid-afternoon breakfast on the bench Jason and I had placed against the south-facing wall. The garden lay a wilderness of tall grasses, heavy with seed-heads. Occasional spikes of foxgloves reached pink and white above the gently moving mass, flagging the last vestiges of island borders. There’d been no island borders marked in the garden drawn on the plaster, no foxgloves, either, just regimented rows of round-faced flowers standing as small radiant suns on top of tiny sticks.
I scanned the area to the overgrown privet at the back, trying to orientate myself with the drawing. My rational self insisted it was a child’s depiction of a garden, not a direct copy, but I still felt a need to look for a swing’s concrete base.
It took nearly an hour, but they were there: two crumbling blocks which would have supported the wooden posts.
~~~
Early the next morning, I opened wide all the doors and windows on the upper floor in an attempt to get a through draught to dissipate the lingering smell. It wasn’t too bad when I ventured back in after breakfast. At least my eyes no longer watered. I didn’t study any of the pictures I’d uncovered. Today my focus was solely on the window wall, on its glossed, papered surface I’d been so careful not to chip. It was coming off, and if it took the plaster with it, then I’d deal with it.
It was an appallingly difficult job as I’d known it would be, and within the hour my fingers were throbbing and my wrist tender from forcing the scraper into the slits cut into the surface.
Over an adjournment for coffee, it dawned on me I was using the wrong tool. The long-handled scraper had been Jason’s, coveted, almost cherished, as his and his alone. With a new blade screwed into place, I climbed the steps and restarted at ceiling level. Two-handed and with a scalpel-sharp edge, gaining the necessary purchase was easy. Into a sweeping rhythm, it was akin to shaving the rind from cheese. I didn’t take it down to the skirting but moved the steps along the wall allowing the stiff curls of glossed paper to break free beneath their own weight.
As expected, the plaster gave way to gritty render. One width further I realised I was uncovering a blocked-up window. No wonder the single window was small, was set along the wall out of balance with the room’s proportions. Originally there had been two. That was why the wall had been papered and glossed before being papered again – all to save on skim plastering. I couldn’t condemn, I might have to do something similar if I couldn’t engage a plasterer at short notice.
To my surprise the render soon returned to plaster, and I enthusiastically carried on until I met the open window. It was tempting to pull the paper free into the reveal, but when the blade began to grate on render again I called a halt. It was past lunchtime and my shoulder was complaining as much as my stomach.
Down in the kitchen I switched on the kettle and dragged back the ring-pull on a tin of Mediterranean Tuna and Couscous, giving it a stir with a fork while the teabag steeped. Opting for a comfortable chair, I carried lunch into the lounge, and between mouthfuls I hit the television channels. It seemed I’d missed the news on every channel, leaving a choice of game shows, reality buys or opinion pieces. I keyed in the number for Classic FM, only to hear a woman singing at a pitch high enough to shatter glass. I returned to the silence of the room.
There’d been no messages left on the house phone, I’d looked as I’d passed, and while I sipped my too hot tea I opened my mobile to check for texts or calls missed.
Nothing.
This was no good. I needed to ring someone and let it be known I was ready to rejoin the wider world.
Alison sat at the top of my contacts. I wavered, then took a breath and pressed the key. It rang once, twice— I composed myself, ready for voicemail.
‘Hello?’
Her actual voice caught me unawares, the level of noise behind her confusing me.
‘Alison? It’s Caroline.’ I wanted to sound light but knew I was forcing it. ‘How are you doing? I just thought I’d give—’
‘Carrie! How wonderful to hear from you.’ Her tone lowered. ‘How are you doing, Carrie? Bad time, isn’t it? I should have rung, I do apologise, but you know how busy life is.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I gather from the noise. Where are you?’
‘Waitrose. I’m about to go through checkout so I need two hands. Sorry to make it so short, Carrie. It’s just… bad timing. Speak later, promise. Bye now.’
The connection cut and I sat there like a stuffed toy with a grin embroidered on its face. And then the emotion welled and all I wanted to do was Skype my little Guardians of the Universe, hug them, physically hug them. Have Dominic hug me.
It took a while to pull myself together. I had to dab my eyes so I could see clearly enough and then I texted Dominic to ask for a photo of the boys in their helmets. A bright snap. Not a posed photo. I didn’t receive a response; I wasn’t expecting one. Goodness knows what hour it was there. There was never a good time.
The rest of the afternoon was spent clearing the glossed paper down to the skirting. Starting at the height of the undercoated patches, I found the plaster itself had been glossed down to the floor. There would be no scrubbing this away to reveal pictures drawn beneath. This had been meant to be permanent.
~~~
The following morning I took my breakfast coffee upstairs to walk the bedroom walls. With the sun not streaming through the window until the late afternoon it was easier to discern the drawings. I wanted to smile at them, tried to smile at them, but the knowledge of the screw holes in the outside of the door kept dampening my fragile mood.
Instead, I crossed to the window to inspect the reveal, flicking a fingernail at the loose paper curling away from the wooden frame. Granular render fell free to scatter on the sill. Too dry a mixture, I decided. I might as well just pull the paper away, render and all. It was going to have to be chiselled back to the brick to offer a firm base for re-plastering – if a plasterer was available.
Looking through the smeared glass, I brought the wilderness of garden into focus, my mind overlaying the view with the indistinct lines of a child on a swing amid regimented rows of flowers.
I turned to assess the wall of drawings. Jason would have said it was ridiculous to engage a plasterer for just one wall. He’d have been right, of course; of course he would. I swallowed my now cold coffee and left to retrieve my work clothes.
As expected, one judicious tug of the paper and the render came with it. Having a bucket ready, I dropped the larger pieces inside. It was the pink that caught my eye, a folded wedge of faded paper adhering to the render by a crease. I knocked it free and the bulk of it fell to the sill, a single layer fluttering after like a ripped wing. I stared at it, at the imprint through the thin paper, pulled off my glove and cautiously turned it over. Turned it round.
feri.
My heart thudded. It was a child’s writing, I was sure. The child who’d drawn the pictures? Who else could it be?
Dropping both gloves on the floor I wiped moist fingers down my jeans and carefully eased open the paper, wincing as it split along its multiple dessicated creases. Whoever had folded this had been determined.
I didn’t dare to try to lay it flat, the attempt would dismember it, so I left it buckled on the sill while I slid fractured squares into position to complete the jigsaw. The spelling was almost phonetic, the punctuation non-existent, but I soon got my eye in.
der tuf feri fank uoo for sikpens mi besist tresur...
I smiled, thinking of how I’d eased a crying Dominic with tales of the Tooth Fairy, of slipping a fifty-pence piece beneath his pillow when he’d finally fallen asleep.
...wil hid from Jak maak im lik me
plis
I read it again: Dear tooth fairy, thank you for sixpence, my bestest treasure. Will hide from Jack. Make him like me please.
My smile was overtaken by a sense of unease. Was Jack the smiling boy drawn by the door? Was the writer the unsmiling girl? A little girl locked in this room with nothing to draw on except the walls?
I squeezed tight my eyes, holding in the moisture threatening to fall. What was the matter with me? This was a 1920s house, the children long ago grown to adulthood and flown to have children of their own. It was a hundred years ago. They would both be long dead. I was only like this because of losing Jason; only like this because Dominic and my little Guardians of the Universe were so far away. I had to get a grip.
As the first tear slid free, the soft weight of a hand settled gently on my shoulder, a breath against my cheek as Jason bent close.
Car-rie... dar-ling... it’s only—
I turned on my heel to march through the wisp of memory as I headed for the door. This wasn’t any only. There had been too many onlys. This was a child’s plea for help.
I returned from the kitchen with a plate and gently slid the jigsaw letter from the sill, securing it in place with cling-film for its journey down the stairs. The paper was so fine the plate’s pattern showed through, overwhelming the faded pink and obscuring the jagged lettering. I could see parallels with the way paint had obliterated the drawings. Or had tried to. I needed a white plate.
One was residing at the back of a kitchen cupboard, in an unopened box stored from our house move, or perhaps from the last three moves. It was one of the few remaining heirlooms from my mother. She’d used it as a drip tray for a large houseplant which I’d taken over when we cleared her bungalow. I’d kept the plant for a while, until it had finally been discarded in the usual contents rationalisation Jason and I undertook prior to each relocation. Her plate I’d hung on to. Its glaze was a creamy-white, long fractured into a mosaic of fine lines which, if I focused hard enough, I could detect through the thin pink paper. The fact that they were there enhanced, rather than detracted, from the child’s spidery writing. When I thought about it, the plate and the letter to the Tooth Fairy would likely be of a similar age.
I didn’t return to the bedroom straight away, didn’t want to leave the letter in case it might somehow float away from me, despite the cling-film.
Instead, I took an early snack-lunch and made myself a strong coffee to wash some sense into my brain. The questions kept coming, though. What sort of family imprisoned their child? Why did she want Jack to like her? I was sure it was a she, a her, sure it was the unsmiling girl in the drawing of the family, the girl with the unsmiling mother. Why had the mother allowed her daughter to be locked away? Was that why she had been drawn not smiling?
On a whim I set down the cup and picked up my phone to take a photograph. And then I went upstairs to photograph each of the drawings close up, and then the full width of the walls. Behind me, the single window demanded attention.
Who writes a letter to the Tooth Fairy?
A child who is desperate.
A child who is desperate might write more than one.
I flew downstairs to return with a torch and the jemmy.
Chapter 5
Most of the loose render came off with the wallpaper, and it would have been the wallpaper the child eased back, posting the letter into the gap between the inner and outer walls where the plaster had crumbled. The render, I reasoned, had been a later addition. It didn’t put up a fight.
There wasn’t much of a cavity, about half the width of one in a modern house. I had no idea what, if anything, now tied the inner and outer walls together, but there was certainly a draught. One wrong move with the jemmy and I’d have an extra window, so I laid the metal bar on the floorboards and took up the torch.
Pressing my cheek to the glass, the narrow beam showed plenty of fluttering cobwebs, all covered in white mortar-dust. Thankfully, the cobwebs didn’t seem to have any residents. The draught was surprisingly strong, though, the cavity acting like a chimney. I wondered if anything had been forced upwards, but the angle was too acute for me to see. I needed a mirror. Down the stairs again.
My shoulder-bag dutifully gave up a make-up mirror, but in my hand even it looked too large, and before returning upstairs I rummaged through Jason’s tiling tools for a cutter.
The mirror was too big, but once scored and gripped between two pairs of pliers it broke cleanly. The fine-nosed pliers I used as a handle, managing to manoeuvre the oblong of silvered glass and the tip of the torch into the space.
There was nothing to see above except strings of waving web-threads. I inverted my hands, inserting the beam below the mirror and angling it downwards. A blob of white caught my eye and I stared at its reflection wondering if I was willing a flutter of folded web to be more than it was. But there was a distinct corner, I thought there was a corner, and then the web moved in the air current and was gone, to reappear with the next wave.
My heartbeat rose dramatically. I had caused this chimney-draught and now I was liable to lose a second folded letter. It was about a foot or so down, clinging to an extruded lump of mortar between bricks. Short of jemmying the entire inner wall onto the bedroom floor, how was I going to reach it? Would a garden cane work?
Halfway down the stairs I realised I needed the modern equivalent of a feather duster. And I had one – with an extendable handle.
Its microfibre head looked too bulky, but it would sweep up everything in its path. I was desperate not to lose the letter and couldn’t see another way; I certainly couldn’t get the barbecue tongs down there.
Holding my breath, I again angled the mirror, and with a quick thrust inserted the duster horizontally. Grit fell in a shower of tiny hail, tinkling all the way down the long drop to the foundations. I peered into the mirror. The web holding the paper still clung to the wall. A sigh of relief, a lick of dry lips, and I swept the duster down in an arc, pulling it up and out of the gap into the bedroom. Grit pattered onto the floorboards and I released my breath to suck in another.
Had I caught the letter?
The duster was covered in powdery cobweb pieces, some mere threads, some grey lumps. I didn’t try to rip any free, but turned the duster slowly, searching. And there it was, partly hidden in the microfibres.
Even before I drew it free, I knew it wasn’t a folded letter. It was too fine, as delicate as a butterfly’s wing. I could have believed that’s what it was except for the sharp angle of its corner.
Sweeping grit from the sill, I set it down beside the glass and wiped my grimy fingers down my thighs. I really should wash my hands; I really needed a pair of tweezers. I didn’t move, just stared at it. Not a letter but a single folded square of one. And not a mark of writing on it. My hopes sank. Despair flooded in.
Closing my eyes, I took a breath and held it. I was being irrational, I knew I was, and I chided myself for being so stupid.
Reaching in my jeans’ pocket for a tissue, I dabbed my eyes and gazed at the gap in the wall I’d created, feeling its rush of air cool my face. The render would have had to come off anyway, I reasoned. I would cut a piece of cardboard to block the hole until a plasterer could be hired. I needed a coffee, and the solace of an iced bun, or more likely a lone biscuit. A trip to the supermarket was well overdue.
Giving a final sniff, I reached for the solitary piece of paper. In lifting it between thumb and finger, it slid against itself. There wasn’t one square, but two. As I separated my fingers the pieces adhered. Never had I been so conscious of my grubby finger-pads and the oils on my skin. I headed for the stairs, sheltering the papers with my other hand as if carrying a flame. I definitely needed tweezers.
Set beside the pink paper of the letter, the two squares of white were flimsy indeed. I wondered if they were from some sort of packing, not tissue paper but something used in a similar way. With tweezers to hand I turned each square. They were the same size as the folded squares of the pink letter, and I studied that again, not the wording but focusing on which squares were blank. There were three, in a line after the word plis. Yet the folds hadn’t been concertinaed on themselves, but onto the paper above. I needed a light-box.
The table lamp from the lounge shone too brightly so I replaced its bulb with the lowest rating we had. Using the tweezers, I picked up the first square.
idgin
I jolted. Not writing but the faint impression of writing. The paper had been folded when it had been written on. With trembling fingers I lifted the second to the light.
kt in
I stared, willing myself to see more. I should be able to discern more. I tried to think, to work it out: both had been folded across a word. I used the magnifier, looking for marks along the broken crease. Was that the top of a long stroke? A t perhaps; an f? No, there would have been a cross line. A d? Another d? didgin? What phonetic word finished with didgin? Was it pigeon? What was kt in? Something in. Had she had a pet? A bird? Surely not a pigeon. Perhaps it had come to the window. In my mind I could see it cooing, her reaching out to it, could see it turning and flying away free whereas she was trapped in that bedroom.
This was silly; I had to stop. Emotion was welling again. I was going to make myself ill. What on earth would Jason have said?
I dropped a teabag into a mug and while it was steeping I attempted to photograph the pale squares, photographed them alongside the pink letter. I had no idea why I was doing it, the impressions certainly wouldn’t show, but it felt as though I was doing something. I had a need to feel that I was doing something.
Carrie, you need to go upstairs and finish—
I swung round.
Jason wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t. I stared into the empty space, my chest heaving. Quietly, very quietly, I said, ‘I’m not touching that room again, not until I’ve discovered what happened to her.’
Walking through to the utility room, I turned the key in the rear door and let myself out into the garden. The air was warmer outside. I sat on the bench gazing over the gently waving grasses, at the clusters of seeding weeds and the foxglove bells poking above. The afternoon sunshine was warm, the breeze gentle, and eventually I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.
