I walk up to it, tracing my fingers around my parents’ faces, the grief bubbling inside, almost unbearable.
‘Were they happy here?’ I murmur to Aunt Hope. ‘They looked happy.’
She looks into my eyes a moment. ‘I think they were, yes.’ Then she heads towards the large kitchen as I follow. The white marble floor tiles are now filthy; the pine units streaked. Aunt Hope pulls the sheet off the marble island in the middle of the kitchen, dust making us both cough.
‘Tea?’ she asks, pulling a travel kettle from her bag. I can’t help but smile, typical of my aunt, always needing a cup of herbal tea wherever she goes. I often wonder if that’s all she eats, too, she’s so thin.
I try to peer out of the grimy French windows, catching a glimpse of the willow tree.
‘Still have lots of sugar?’ my aunt asks.
‘Yep.’
She shakes her head with disapproval, heaping three spoonfuls into my tea.
‘You could do with some sugar yourself. You’re looking really thin,’ I say.
She waves her hand in the air like she always does when I bring up her weight.
‘So,’ I say, getting the necklace out and dangling it between my fingers. ‘Recognise this?’
She looks over her shoulder at it. ‘Nope.’
I examine her face. I can’t tell if she’s hiding something from me. She sits down across from me and we sip our tea in silence, the necklace lying between us.
Sometimes it’s better if we’re quiet, that way there’s no chance of an argument brewing. The argument we had before I moved out was the worst. She’d always told me the reason she didn’t have many photos of Mum from when they were young was because she’d lost them all. But on my sixteenth birthday, I’d crept up to the loft and found a photo album. Inside was a photo of Mum sitting in the sun, tanned pretty face tilted up to the camera, black hair piled on to her head with a red halter-neck top on. On the back was the year: 1974. Mum would have been thirteen. I flicked through the rest of the album, noticing blank sections that suggested photos had been removed.
When I’d shown the album to Aunt Hope, she’d said some must have fallen out. I could tell she was lying. We argued bitterly – she was holding bits of my mother back from me and I couldn’t forgive that. In the end, I packed all my things and stormed out of the house, staying with an older girl I’d met at swimming classes. I still saw my aunt, working at her café at weekends and in evenings, and we settled into a strange relationship, half aunt and niece, half manager and employee. When I handed in my notice after getting a job as a lifeguard in Brighton, she’d wished me good luck. ‘You know where I am if you need me,’ she’d said.
Since then it’s just been a case of popping in for birthdays and at Christmas, and the occasional phone call. I guess I’ve preferred my own company over the years. Coming back to Busby-on-Sea and seeing my aunt just brings back too many memories, not just of my parents but also those sad empty years after they passed away.
I study her thin face over the rim of my cup, take in the lines around her pale grey eyes that seem more pronounced than last time I saw her, the pinch of her lips, the pale shade of her skin.
She’s definitely getting older.
After we finish our tea, she stands up. ‘Well, we can’t sit here and sip tea all day, can we? How about we tidy the place up a bit and you can have a think about what you want to do?’
We spend the day in awkward comradeship getting cleaning supplies from the local shops and ringing around local handymen to get some broken windows sorted. By the time darkness falls, we still haven’t finished the last room: the living room, a long room divided by a pretty alcove with plaster-clad butterflies around its edges. One part of the room used to be dedicated to the TV and sofas; the other to all my toys. I remember winter nights with the fire roaring, the three of us snuggled up watching TV or playing games.
It’s cold and draughty now, dust and spider webs clogging the walls. The once thick rug I used to love is dirty with dead flies and mud.
‘Shall we just stay here?’ Aunt Hope suggests. ‘We can work into the night, get it out of the way. There are clean sheets in storage.’
I peer up at the ceiling. It’ll be strange staying here again, the first time since my parents died.
‘I presume you’ll be wanting to get away again?’ my aunt continues as she examines my face. ‘If we leave now, it might mean another whole day of clearing up.’
I take a deep breath. ‘Alright, let’s stay.’
Aunt Hope helps me roll the rug up and we place it in the hallway. We then scrub the dark wooden floorboards, both seeming to take comfort in the repetitive nature of the task.
‘Your mum loved these floorboards,’ Aunt Hope says after a while. ‘Your dad wanted to get a posh carpet but she insisted on stripping these down and restoring them.’
‘Yeah, she used to get annoyed when Dad pulled me along the floorboards on that rug. But then she’d join in after a while.’
My aunt wipes a grimy hand across her forehead, leaving a dark streak behind. ‘Put this in the bin bag, won’t you?’ she says, handing me the filthy rag she’s been using. I pull the bin bag in the corner of the room towards me and go to throw the rag in. But something catches my eye, an envelope with my name on it. I pull it out. It has the cottage’s address on it, a postal stamp from a few days before.
‘What’s this?’ I ask.
‘Just some junk mail.’
‘But it’s addressed to me, why would I get post here?’ I say. ‘And why would you open it if it was addressed to me?’
Aunt Hope shrugs. ‘I didn’t notice your name on it.’
I open the bag wider, sorting through the rubbish until I come across what looks like an invitation.
To Willow,
You are invited to a private viewing of
Niall Lane’s next exhibition:
The Charity Collection, a Retrospective and
Commemoration.
10th August 2016
7pm
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery
Beneath the text is a beautiful photograph of a tree that appears to be underwater with an etching in the bark.
I look up at my aunt. ‘This is the same symbol that’s on the necklace. And have you seen what this photographer called his collection? What’s this all about, Aunt Hope? Is there something you’re trying to hide from me?’
‘Oh, you’re so dramatic, Willow. There’s nothing to hide.’
‘But why would you throw the invite away?’
She shrugs. ‘It was yesterday, too late for you to go.’
I squeeze the invitation in between my fingers in frustration. Deep breaths, Willow, deep breaths. ‘How is this photographer connected to Mum?’
‘He was just some kid who had a thing for her a long time ago,’ my aunt says, dismissively waving her thin hand in the air.
‘What do you mean a thing?’
‘Your