Touched (12 page)

Back at the house, the stains, smell, dampness slammed into her with all the force they ever had, ganging up on her, taunting her. She leaned against a wall as a rush of nausea hit her, filling her mouth with saliva, and she ran to the lavatory. The sun blazed on to the ceiling and highlighted the mapping of madder stains, urine-dark streaks, bubbles and furry outcrops. She even thought she saw the shape of a small bristle of hair beneath the paintwork on the arch. She wanted to get out of this house, she thought, and deliberately thumped upstairs. A hush of voices stopped, a billow of air, a shuffle of footfall. Where? Where? It stank up there. She burst into Bob's room, into Eva and Caroline's, knocked on the walls everywhere, pushed them, looked up at the ceiling, and saw nothing, nothing but distortions of air and light. She heard them again. She smelled
Je Reviens
.

She glanced at her watch, the one Mrs Crale had given her, an elegant ladies' watch, more delicate and tasteful than anything else she owned. That woman had always outclassed her, and they both knew it. She sidled down her garden path keeping a lookout for Greg who would probably come home for lunch, and within a few minutes, there he was. She glanced back up at the house. She couldn't go in there without him.

‘Greg!'

‘Mrs Crale!'

‘Greg. Please.'

‘What is it, darling?'

‘Please. Please. Come in. Please come upstairs. It's not right.'

‘You're all flustered,' he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. ‘Come along, Mrs Crale, this can't be so bad.'

‘You mustn't call me that,' she said urgently. ‘Please.'

‘Why ever not? It's your name, isn't it? You shall be Lady Crale, then. The Honourable Rowena. “She walks in darkness, like the night.”'

She turned to him. He lifted her hair from her forehead, and she shivered.

‘What's not right, sweet Rowena?'

‘The house. The noises. The leaks. The . . . oh, Greg. I hardly know how to say . . . This is Bob. Bob, this is our kind neighbour, come to help us look for – where the leak is. Can you play with your train?'

‘Yus.'

‘Good boy,' she said, and she handed him a biscuit in passing.

She pointed. The stairs were still now, merely a slight tensing of light visible on the upstairs landing. He strode up there and she followed, grateful.

Gregory walked slowly round the two bedrooms, the boxroom and bathroom on that side of the house. He looked up at the ceilings. Then, hoisting himself on to Eva's clothes trunk so Rowena winced, he stretched his head out of the window and elevated himself on to the frame to look along the roof.

‘It's as I thought. There's a skylight there and a small amount of space that's not accounted for,' he said, brushing down his shirt and returning to the landing.

‘Oh yes, it contains an old water tank,' said Rowena.

‘Couldn't that be leaking?'

‘Apparently it's all sealed off.'

‘There are “noises”?'

‘Oh,' she said. ‘Yes. Noises. I can't really explain . . .'

‘I can hear nothing.'

‘No.'

The air was warm and still up there with Gregory beside her, blissfully peaceful. He kissed her, very quickly, on the lips. Freddie did not exist. Sunlight spread in tree-patterned undulations on the walls. Bob made choo-chooing sounds downstairs and a small trail of
Je Reviens
swam through the warmth.

‘Hmmm,' said Gregory.

He started to press the walls, tapping and pulling at the tongue-and-groove Rowena had been so proud of when Pollard had installed it to cover unsightly bulges in the plaster and grace the corridor with a modern touch. He kept on, the scent of his warm skin and the faint perspiration of effort reaching Rowena as she leaned against the wall, in the sunshine, happy to be there, stilled, soothed, watching him. He went on for some time.

‘See this,' he said, pointing to the beading where the corridor turned a corner. ‘There's something . . .
Here
. See . . . I think this beading covers it. Yes. This gives a little. Look, the end of the wood is placed flush against the beading, but—' He pushed against the tongue-and-groove, then pulled at it, and opened a section that swung out like a stable door.

‘My God,' murmured Rowena.

A choke of heated fetid air hit her with a
whump
. She felt an instant punch of nausea, there in the hot sunshine. The air was sour with old life, breath, bedding; with traces of custard, Dettol, and an undertow of
Je Reviens
that followed. Rowena gagged. There was a suggestion of mutton fat, or tallow, of old sealed-in human habitation. Dust poured in agitated whirlpools, sucked on to the landing.

‘My Lord,' said Gregory.

Rowena swayed a little.

‘Are you all right, darling?' he said.

She hung her head. She shook it.

‘I'll fetch you water. Hold on, Rowena.'

The smell settled, then rose again, and she sank carefully to her knees. She sat very still and let herself open her eyes.

From the floor, she could see a section of a small shelf that she recognised as having belonged in Mrs Crale's room, with a bevelled mirror on top. And there in the dust and sun dazzle was her mother-in-law, looking startled, terrified, an emaciated face with shocked milky eyes and mouth in a mirror.

But there wasn't. Quite clearly there wasn't. It was the light over the dirty surface of the glass, and the smell, thickened by the heat, which immediately brought back in intensified form the presence of the old Evangeline Crale.

‘Oh, Greg,' she moaned, a thin stream of saliva filling her mouth.

‘What is it?' he said, taking the stairs two at a time with a glass of water. ‘Drink this.' He crouched down beside her and held her shoulders.

‘I am going mad.'

‘No, you're not, darling.'

‘Oh, Greg. I don't know . . .'

‘Let me go in there.'

He helped her to her feet, then he ducked and disappeared under the section of wall above the tongue-and-groove panelling. ‘Come in. Careful of your head,' he said.

Still shaking, warding away the sick image of Mrs Crale's face, she followed him. There behind the wall was a miniature Victorian room.

She gaped. Sun poured in a vigorous beam from the skylight, a bar of dust at her feet, the corners in shadow. She felt momentarily dizzy.

‘My word,' he said. ‘I can't believe this. What is it?'

She shook her head, her face close to his. There was barely space for both of them. The excess of dust, the rank heated air, made it hard to breathe.

‘It must have been an airing cupboard once,' he said. ‘Look, there's the sealed-off plumbing for a tank. But by Jove—'

Three slatted shelves ran alongside one wall of a room barely bigger than a large cupboard. The lower two shelves appeared to have functioned as small bunks, padded with lumpy layer upon layer of old linen, eiderdown, yellowing lace pillow, patchwork, dimity, bolster. The top shelf housed a battered jigsaw of crammed-in possessions. This airless tribute to a past era was lined with a faded floral wallpaper almost obscured by sconces, samplers, watercolours, framed miniatures, the floor carpeted with a chrysanthemum-splashed oriental rug, worn through at its middle.

‘My God, I'm a little faint,' said Rowena.

‘I'm not surprised, darling,' he said, holding her. ‘This is . . . this is a time warp.'

‘This must – this must —' she said, but she was too queasy to talk. She swallowed. ‘This must have been my mother-in-law's,' she said eventually.

‘What did she
do
here? Immure herself? Hide priests? Refugees?'

Rowena shook her head, barely able to talk.

A stiff buttoned chair with clawed feet stood in a corner, piled to its antimacassar with dust-strewn tins that Rowena recognised with a shudder of recognition advertised Mrs Crale's favourite foods – Jacob's crackers, custard powder, fish paste, New Berry Fruits and shortbread. Lace, crewelwork, jewellery, candlesticks and ornaments filled all surfaces, a row of china-faced Victorian dolls lining one shelf, a pair of porcelain dogs guarding the door. There was barely room to stand. The glass in the skylight showed a mess of old fingerprints in the dust. Brass light fittings were attached to wall and sloping ceiling; a clutter of ammonites, ink wells, dust-draped dried flowers laced with cobweb were piled on a washstand. Books were stacked in rows at the bottom of each bunk. A stained chamber pot Rowena didn't want to look at closely lay under the piled-up lower bunk. The dust and close air made her want to retch. She did. ‘Sorry,' she murmured.

‘I have never seen anything like it,' said Greg slowly. ‘What is this? A crazy antique shop?'

Rowena started. In a corner behind the one small chair sat a bird in a domed glass display cabinet. She stared through the bar of illuminated dust into the shadows. It was the same type of bird as the pet of Mrs Crale's that had recently died, a canary, but it was badly stuffed so its poor body was lumpy and listing, its eyes non-existent. There was an area of condensation on the inside of the glass. Rowena let out a small murmur as she caught the dead-bird smell that had met the damp in the sitting room after the wall had fallen, but she knew it was in her imagination, and she looked up at Gregory, willing him to take charge.

‘It is remarkable. The secrets you keep, Mrs—Lady Crale.'

‘Greg, please,' said Rowena, taking in a big breath. ‘Please let's not tell Douglas. It will upset him. His mother seemed a bit . . . strange . . . increasingly as the years have gone on, when she still lived here, and this is very disturbing.'

‘Disgusting, really.'

‘Yes,
disgusting
.'

‘Let's just shut it back up,' said Gregory in the gung-ho manner Rowena found so appealing.

‘Yes. Yes, please do. He'll start banging around it, accusing Pollard of being incompetent, getting the new builders to investigate. I think he'll find it terribly upsetting, evidence of her . . . mental disturbance. Obviously the leak's not coming from there.'

She found she was speaking fast, trying to keep away the agitation, the thought of Mrs Crale's face.

‘No, there is no radiator or tap in there. It's like a doll's house. Meets an old people's home. It's Miss Havisham. It's—'

‘Less romantic. It stinks,' said Rowena with a shudder.

They went back downstairs and stood in the sitting room. Behind her back, the shadows gathered, and the water on the quarry tiles glinted in the light. Bob was playing with it, staining his shirt grey, and she snatched him up. She knew the other boy would tug at her mind once Greg had left, would be there with his needs and love.

She was being persecuted, Rowena thought, and a wave of indignation hit her. The room above would be rank in the sunshine, abandoned as it had been for how much time? With the amount of dust in there, it could have been years. It was evidence of madness, she mused. The old lady had become loopy.
Evangeline
, she thought. Poor touched Evangeline. How much madness was there in the family, then? Douglas was so sensible. But an old lady who could have hidden herself in a cupboard, recreating her childhood in dotage, was clearly unwell. Rowena felt a new sense of righteousness that soothed the guilt, yet had a simultaneous premonition that it would jump out at her once more, and catch her round the throat.

‘Oh God. I want to get away from here,' she murmured, and looked at Gregory, who was frowning up at the ceiling with its stains. He was beautiful, daring, heedless, she thought, and she needed him to rescue her from the damp and the shadows and the half-sensed boy, the lost girl, and this house and herself. Through the despair, a shiver of desire took her. It was sunny outside. The sky was a raging blue.

‘I need to get out.'

He glanced at his watch. ‘Come to the power station with me.' He held her tighter.

She gazed at him.

‘Come on, poor Bob's barking in the car. He's probably roasted.'

‘The dog's called Bob?'

‘Like your son. Come on. Where will you leave boy Bob?'

‘I can't leave him!'

A momentary expression of impatience crossed his face. ‘My secretary will look after him. She will be very suspicious. Good. He can play with the dog. Bob and Bob bobbing.'

‘You're so silly!'

‘Come along.' He twined his fingers with hers, pressed his lips to her knuckles.

‘Let's make a run for it. I'm parked near the hedge. If anyone sees us, I'm giving you a lift to Elstree.'

Outside, the dancing roar of sunshine hit them; she was dizzy and she laughed as he hoisted Bob and helped Rowena into the car.

‘Bump bump bump,' said Bob, running his hand over Bob the dog's back.

‘Yes, we think it's something at the station giving him lumps,' said Gregory cheerfully. ‘He runs like a lunatic round the fields all day, slurps God knows what in the water, then comes back and hits the floor like a corpse.'

Rowena turned her head back, almost as a ritual, a talisman, and looked at the house. The sun glanced off the skylight. She was relieved to be leaving it.

‘He'll probably turn green,' said Gregory, and revved the car and span along the horse-chestnut-arched road out of the village. ‘
One
day,' he said, ‘she will be replaced by an E-Type Roadster. And we will dine together at the Dorchester, then park where no one can see.'

AT THE POWER
station, Gregory handed his jacket to his secretary and issued some instructions, taking a call in impatient tones before he sat down. Rowena watched him through the window of his office as he swung on his chair behind an oversized desk and poured himself a drink. She sat outside, pretending to read a magazine. Once, just once, he turned in her direction as he spoke on the phone and looked directly at her, his eyes holding promise, rebellion, intent.