‘Well, I’m ever so sorry to tell you, but Ruby’s been gone a long time. Must be twenty years at least now.’ Miriam had adopted a more conciliatory tone, as if she had consciously decided not to speak ill of the dead.
‘Oh well, never mind. I’m sure I’ll enjoy my stay anyway.’
‘I’m sure you will’ Miriam agreed with a degree of warmth that Elaine hadn’t been expecting after the mention of Ruby.
To her surprise Miriam leaned forward and patted her on the hand, ‘None of us can help our family, can we?’ she said. ‘But you seem like a nice girl. Anyway, I must get on, Esther will be wanting her tea and God knows what Brodie’s been up to since I’ve been gone. Well, here’s your key, and don’t forget I’m across the way if you need me.’
As the curious little woman waddled away, her floral apron flapping against her legs, Elaine was reminded of Jemima Puddle-Duck and found that she was smiling at the comparison.
*
Despite the fact that it really did have roses around the door, the cottage wasn’t quite the bucolic idyll she had imagined when she’d booked. It wasn’t so much how it looked; it was quaint enough, even twee in places, right down to the wood burning stove in the inglenook and the horse brasses over the mantel. Now that she was alone with the mismatched furniture, the chintz and the ticking clock it all felt slightly oppressive, as if the cottage was waiting for her to do something that would bring it to life. Though the wind buffeted the windows and forced the trees outside to look as if they had to bow and pay homage, it wasn’t cold enough to light a fire, so she cast around for another way to drive the shadows out.
The place needed light, it needed noise and it needed movement. She found a radio in the kitchen and tuned it in to Radio 4. Voices flooded the two rooms and she felt herself begin to relax. Having filled the kettle and set it on the stove to boil she was happy to discover that Miriam had been kind enough to leave milk in the fridge and tea and coffee in the cupboard. She switched on a couple of lamps, letting puddles of light the colour of orange squash illuminate the gloom. Satisfied, she hauled her bags upstairs and into the whitewashed bedroom.
By the time she’d put her toiletries in the bathroom and had wedged that damned clock in a cupboard, she felt as though she had made a dent in the moribund atmosphere. Hiding the clock had established the fact that she would mark her own time in this place. It had felt like a small act of rebellion, and left Elaine feeling stupidly victorious at taking matters into her own hands. She laughed at herself for being so pathetic and settled herself onto the sofa where she toasted Jean with a cup of tea. ‘Cheers Mum, sorry about the rough journey, but we’re here now. I’ve brought you home.’
Jean lay still and quiet in the boot of the car, fortuitously unaware that she had been wrapped in a cheap plastic bag (a fact that would have offended her sensibilities no end) or that she had been returned to the last place on earth she would have chosen for her final resting place.
Brodie Miller shivered, a movement that seemed to rattle the very bones of her small frame. Miriam asked her if someone had walked over her grave. Brodie replied that if that was true it felt as though they had decided to hang around and perform act one of Riverdance on it.
Miriam speculated that Brodie might be coming down with something and foisted a mug of honey and lemon on her then sent her upstairs to bed with a hot water bottle, just in case. Neither remedy had arrested the strange feeling that had entered her bones, but both had provided a good excuse for her to remove herself from the unnerving presence of her Great-Aunt Esther.
Esther’s unrelenting beady-eyed stares, her wrinkled puckered lips and that thing she did – pinching and plucking at the arm of her chair with her spindly fingers – were all driving Brodie spare. So much so that she would have faked a cold long before if she’d thought it would get her off the hook so easily. Being in the same room as Esther was awful, it was like being eyed up by a hungry witch. Esther had a way of stripping you bare with her eyes, which bothered her no end. Especially because she suspected that Esther saw things which Brodie would prefer she didn’t.
Smug with relief at her easy escape she settled onto the creaking bed and peered out of the window. Her room was the only thing she had instantly liked about Hallow’s Cottage. The fact that she was up in the eaves and could see the world below from the comfort of a warm bed pleased her no end. Whoever had built the place, God knows how many hundreds of years ago, had been forced to put the window near the floor to fit it in so it felt like a vantage point, somewhere she could observe unseen.
Since arriving at the cottage she had spent many hours lying there watching the windswept trees perform their strange and urgent ballet, bowing this way and that, as if beckoning towards the big house beyond. Brodie had only glimpsed Hallow’s Court, too unsure of this place yet to want to venture further into something that already felt like a time-slip. It was unsettling enough to have been foisted on these unfamiliar relatives with no warning to either party. Miriam was nice enough, Esther downright scary – but the whole Downton Abbey set-up was frankly weird when you were fifteen and freaked out already. Exploring Hallow’s Court at close quarters wasn’t high on her list of priorities at that time, despite the urgency of the leafy invitation. She had to admit that the big house beyond the trees did intrigue her. It housed a family with such ancient origins that their centuries-long occupation of the land had given the place their name. Hallow’s End served Hallow’s Court and vice versa. Brodie felt quite proud that she had worked out the significance of the apostrophe in the village name. It meant that the place belonged, that it had sprung from some feudal right bestowed by an archaic ruler. It meant this place was really old and had been spawned by the presence of the Hallow family. Imagine that, owning the land and the people who lived on it? Of course it wasn’t like that any more, but it was still weird, the idea that a place could be born from someone’s name. The problem was that the whole concept made you feel like you had to be part of it, be encompassed by all the oldness and sucked into the history. Brodie had grown up on a council estate where the only things that made you belong were a lack of money and the lack of any ambition that might get you out. The concept of wanting to embrace the place you lived was entirely alien to her.
The thought of how freakish it all was provoked a gobbet of anxiety, which forced her to fumble for her mobile phone and scroll down the contacts list until she found her brother’s name. It was necessary to send a text asking him to call her; she didn’t have much credit. No one had thought to give her any money in the melee which had ensued when her mother had been taken to hospital. The memory of that day made her shiver again. She could imagine little worse than coming home from school to find her mother lying in a sea of spilled pills, vodka and vomit. Actually that was a lie, what was worse was having to come home and see it again, and again, and again.
She was relieved when a few minutes later the phone began to vibrate in her hand. ‘Tone, thanks for ringing back. I’ve got no credit.’
‘No probs Squidge, what’s up?’ Tony asked, his voice tinny and more distant than she would have liked. It felt like he was a million miles away.
‘Nothing really, just wanted to speak to someone, you know,’ she said, her voice cracking as the unbearable worm of misery wriggled, causing her lip to wobble and a tear to bulge ominously at the corner of her eye. She hated herself for being so weak.
‘Awwww, Squidge! Don’t cry, I know it’s crap, but it won’t be for long. As soon as I can get leave I’ll come and get you, OK?’
‘OK’ she said,