‘Tell your dad he can just heat up the chilli on the stove. He’ll need to leave it bubbling for a few minutes,’ Liz went on, smoothing the crumples from her dress. ‘We can bring some more another time if you like.’
‘Here, take these,’ added Mike, rising and passing Shannon the packet of biscuits. ‘I shouldn’t have any more. My wife says I’m fat enough as it is.’
On the way out, he ruffled Liam’s hair. ‘You’re a big boy now. You help your sister as much as you can.’ Then he grinned at Conor. ‘And you be a good boy, too. No more stamping on phones!’
Shannon and the two boys followed the visitors to the door, perhaps to be certain that they really were leaving, and as Liz stepped outside she noticed again the neat flowerbeds that she’d seen on the way in.
‘Who does the gardening?’ she asked, pointing at the brightly coloured blooms.
‘That’s me sister,’ Liam replied proudly. ‘She loves flowers. She grows ’em from tiny little seeds.’
‘How clever!’ Liz turned back to Shannon. ‘You must have green fingers.’
‘They’re pink!’ Liam cried in a ‘durr, silly’ kind of way.
‘I mean she’s really good with plants. Not everyone has the knack. I just need to look at a house plant and it seems to wither and die.’
Shannon shrugged, as if praise meant nothing to her, but just for a moment her eyes lit up and for the first time Liz thought that she could detect the merest hint of a smile.
5
THE GIRLS’ FIRST night at Polgarry Manor wasn’t a great success. After phoning Matt to say that they’d arrived safely, Bramble was too scared to search for the kitchen, so she and Katie went to bed hungry. It then took them ages to drop off and Bramble woke frequently, alarmed by the unfamiliar creaks and groans of a strange house and missing Matt’s strong arms around her.
If he were here, he’d get up to investigate the noises. He’d scout around in a masculine sort of way, checking corners and behind doors, before coming back to reassure her that all was well. But there was no Matt, only Katie beside her in the big double bed, and she was terrified, too. They huddled beneath the covers, whispering quietly, until they finally nodded off, only for some new sound to frighten the living daylights out of them all over again, so that by the time morning arrived they were exhausted and unable to get up.
The main topic of conversation in the wee small hours was what on earth to do about the housekeeper. She quite clearly considered herself a fixture at Polgarry and perhaps intended to live out the rest of her days here, but Bramble neither wanted nor could afford staff, least of all hatchet-faced Maria.
‘You’ll have to ring the solicitor and tell him you don’t need her,’ Katie said firmly. ‘There’s no way you can pay her, and anyway, we don’t want her snooping around the place, frightening us out of our wits. Besides, she doesn’t seem to do her job very well. Everything’s a right mess.’
‘It’s true,’ Bramble agreed. ‘But I don’t particularly want a row with her. Maybe she’ll just leave of her own accord when she realises I’ve got no money.’
It was almost ten a.m. when they finally stirred, and Bramble lay there quietly for a while, her eyes still closed, until there was a rap on the door and Maria stalked in, uninvited.
‘Good morning, Miss Bramble, Miss Katie,’ she said, quite unperturbed, it seemed, by the girls’ unconventional sleeping arrangement. She walked quickly over to the two giant windows, one at the end of the bed, the other several feet away on Bramble’s side, and pulled the cords sharply to open the floor-length gold curtains. Instantly, showers of dust flew out, catching the sunlight and scattering around the room like talcum powder.
‘Bless you!’ Katie said when Bramble sneezed, and they both giggled; they couldn’t help it. But Maria remained stony-faced.
‘Your breakfast has been waiting for you since seven o’clock this morning in the dining room,’ she said curtly. ‘Will you be wanting it or shall I clear it away?’
‘Er, sorry, we’re c-coming,’ Bramble stammered. She’d like to laze a while longer but wouldn’t dare. If anyone was the boss in this extraordinary relic of a place, it seemed it most definitely wasn’t her.
When Maria left, Katie put on a sort of East German accent and said, ‘Ve have vays of making you eat,’ before bursting into gales of laughter. Bramble told her to shut up, before dissolving herself.
Finally, after wiping the tears from her eyes, she leaped out of bed to peek at the view from the window, which she hadn’t been able to observe last night in the gloom. Resting her hands on the wooden frame and taking a deep breath as she gazed out, she thought that she’d never seen so much empty space, nor anything quite so beautiful.
They were perched on a headland, looking out over an unkempt garden filled with overgrown shrubs and bushes and broken statues, and surrounded by a low, fragmented wall. Behind it, green fields dotted with purple, yellow and white flowers swept away to the cliff edge, beyond which, as far as the eye could see, stretched the turquoise ocean, sparkling like polished glass in the early-morning sunshine. Far off, a big grey ship was making its way lazily around the promontory, leaving a foamy path in its wake, while seagulls circled overhead, wheeling and crying. There wasn’t a soul to be seen.
‘Oh my God, it’s amazing!’ Bramble exclaimed. ‘Come and see!’
She dashed to the other window, which looked out over a different aspect – perhaps once a more formal part of the garden, if you could call it that, for nature had run riot. Wide stone steps led down to a gravel path and then a large patch of land divided into two sections by rusty metal railings, with unkempt flowerbeds on either side. At the far end of the left-hand section lay the remains of a brick gazebo, now covered in ivy and missing its roof, while a broken sundial took pride of place in the middle of the garden on the right.
Unloved the grounds might be, but ugly they were not, for in amongst the weeds and chaos flourished rambling pink, red and white roses and a host of other flowers whose names Bramble didn’t know, which tumbled over crumbling benches and raced up walls. On closer inspection, she realised that in the centre of the gazebo garden what she’d thought was mossy grass of a slightly different colour than the rest was, in fact, a rectangular pond covered in dark-green weeds, and presiding over it was a disused stone fountain shaped like a voluptuous mermaid who was missing her head.
The whole scene reminded Bramble of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, which stood silent and unvisited for a hundred years until the prince arrived. There were parts of Polgarry’s gardens that you would, no doubt, have trouble finding your way through, so thick and dense were they with growth, and Bramble wondered when they’d last seen the flash of shears’ blades or the snip of some secateurs. Not for a very long time.
Katie joined her at the window and made a whistling sound. ‘It’s nicer in the sunshine. I hardly even looked out when we came before, did you?’
‘We’ll see if we can find a lawnmower,’ Bramble said, more to herself than her friend. ‘If not, we’ll buy a new one.’
‘It’ll take more than a bit of mowing to tidy that lot up. It’s like a jungle. I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
But Bramble waved a hand dismissively. ‘We’ll do it gradually, not all in one go.’
After that, she swung around and surveyed the interior of the Chinese Room, which they picked last night as it seemed marginally less creepy than the other room. It was so called, no doubt, because of the silk wallpaper, painted duck-egg blue and decorated with tiny pink blossoms and exquisite birds, only it might have been there since Queen Victoria’s reign, given its dirty, faded state.
Gold-framed oil paintings hung on the walls, depicting severe old ancestors with dead eyes and granite expressions. In one corner was a giant wooden wardrobe, and next to that, a dressing table with a bevelled mirror and glass heavily foxed with age. There were table lamps with oversized shades on either side of the bed, and now that it was light Bramble was able to see the dirt
settled between the thick pleats. She wouldn’t dare to close the royal-blue curtains around the four-poster bed, for fear of unleashing another shower of filth, and she resolved not to sleep here another night until she’d washed, dusted, polished and vacuumed the place clean.
‘We’ll make a list of things to do today while we have breakfast,’ she continued. ‘C’mon, we’d better hurry up and get dressed or Maria will be on the warpath.’
There was an eerie hush as they descended the giant wooden staircase, followed, it seemed, by the eyes of countless subjects in gloomy portraits on the walls, and when they reached the marble-floored hallway, they gazed around, unable to remember how on earth to find the dining room.
They half-expected Maria to emerge, apparition-like, and point them in the right direction, but no one came and there was nothing for it but to try the various doors and hope for the best. The first one led to a long corridor, at the end of which lay the square kitchen with small windows overlooking what might have been a kitchen garden, now overgrown with weeds and lined with broken greenhouses with cracked glass roofs and doors hanging off their hinges.
Inside the kitchen was a white porcelain sink, a black iron Aga and a cumbersome fridge that wouldn’t look out of place in a museum. At least the place seemed clean; the black and white tiles on the floor were well-scrubbed. When Bramble peeped next door, she saw another double sink and wooden draining board, an extraordinarily ancient washing machine and what looked suspiciously like an instrument of torture.
‘What’s that?’ she squeaked to Katie, who was right behind her, sticking close.
‘I think it’s a mangle for drying wet laundry. There was one like it at that stately home our mums used to take us to.’
Bramble eyed the metal contraption doubtfully. ‘Do you think Maria still uses it?’
‘Probably. Look!’
She glanced up to where her friend was pointing, and noticed a wooden pulley suspended from the ceiling from which hung several pairs of long-legged beige knickers. Her shoulders started to shake and she only just managed to stifle the snorts and gurgles.
‘Quick, let’s get out of here,’ she said, stumbling for the exit with Katie hot on her heels.
Back in the hall, they chose another door, which led, this time, through a series of smaller rooms into a giant drawing room with French windows looking on to the terrace and, beyond, the metal railings that Bramble had seen from her bedroom. Sunlight streamed in, making her blink, and it took a moment or two for her eyes to adjust enough to register the grand piano at one end, the impressive marble fireplace, the faded chaise longue and two intricate tapestries, one depicting female figures bathing by a river, surrounded by rocks and trees, the other a white heron in a wooded landscape with buildings on the horizon and a large house, not unlike Polgarry, on the hill.
Above the fireplace hung a mirror, and to the right was a painting much like the others in style, only smaller, and Bramble went for a closer look. It was an oil painting depicting a stern young woman in profile against a featureless backdrop of broken brushstrokes in black, yellow and white. She was wearing a dark dress and had a loose bun on the top of her head from which a coil of chestnut hair, tinged with auburn, had escaped and was running down the side of her pale cheek.
‘I wonder who she was,’ Bramble commented, and speculated on the fact that she and this strange lady, like all the other crusty characters around the place, might in some way have been related.
Katie shrugged. ‘Some second cousin four times removed? Her dress isn’t particularly grand. She must have been a long way down the Penrose pecking order. Come on, we’d better hurry up.’
They hastened through another, smaller reception chamber into a big, square, wood-panelled space with a long rectangular table in the centre and windows looking out on to a lawn, now more of a meadow strewn with wildflowers. Maria was standing very upright in front of a heavy sideboard, on which Bramble could see two lidded, antique silver breakfast dishes, a toaster and a jug of orange juice, and the table was laid with silver cutlery, linen napkins and pots of jam.
‘Will you require a cooked breakfast?’ Maria asked crisply. ‘The eggs and bacon have gone cold, but I can make more if you wish?’
Bramble’s tummy rumbled at the prospect of hot food, but she shook her head.
‘We’ll just have toast and cereal,’ she said, eyeing a jar of something that might be muesli. ‘And some tea – if you don’t mind?’
‘As you wish,’ Maria replied, before sweeping out, leaving the girls to tiptoe nervously about, pouring cereal and toasting bread in the wobbly old toaster, which popped up noisily, making them jump.
‘We’ve got to stop being on edge,’ Katie said crossly. ‘We’re not trespassers. This place is yours; you can do whatever you like.’
But still, they found themselves whispering as they ate, and they jumped again when Maria returned with a pot of tea.
‘Shall I prepare luncheon at one? Lord Penrose always had luncheon at one and dinner at seven.’
‘Yes,’ they chorused without even looking at each other.
‘I assume that you will wish me to continue with the usual menu?’ Maria added. ‘But if you would prefer to make changes...?’
‘Oh no, just the usual please,’ Bramble replied swiftly, before hesitating. ‘That is... do you need some money? For the food, I mean...’
Her voice trailed off and she felt stupid and incompetent, wishing that she’d had lessons in how to behave with staff. She hadn’t exactly needed skills like that back home.
‘Lord Penrose made suitable provisions for your first few months,’ Maria answered coolly. ‘He paid my salary up until the first of February next year, as well as the heating and lighting bills, and I have enough money for food for the period, too. After that, it will be your responsibility.’
Bramble was astonished and would have liked to ask more, but the housekeeper vanished again, leaving her clueless. The idea that the old man had planned in some way for her arrival seemed quite extraordinary. What had made him assume that she would move to Polgarry at all? She might well have decided to get the place off her hands as quickly as possible.
Still, it was a tremendous relief to know that their basic needs would be covered for six months, even if it did mean putting up with Maria, and the girls toasted the unexpected good news with cups of tea. After that, they set about writing a shopping list of cleaning products, because they didn’t fancy asking the housekeeper for whatever was in the cupboards, and as soon as they’d finished, they hopped in the car and headed for the supermarket, relieved to get away from their oppressive surroundings.
It didn’t take them long to locate the nearest store, and after stocking up on bleach, polish and the like, they discussed checking out the local pub until they realised that it would make them late for ‘luncheon’. Back at the manor, they eyed with some trepidation the fresh array of serving dishes on the dining room sideboard, both wishing that they had the courage to tell Maria they’d rather sort themselves out.
There was chicken in thick, unappetising-looking gravy, cabbage and overboiled carrots and potatoes, with sponge pudding for dessert. Bramble did her best to eat up, thinking that she should be grateful for not having had to prepare the meal, but yearning all the same for the good old days of filled jacket potatoes and sandwiches.
Afterwards, stuffed to the brim, they decided to postpone the spring clean until a little later and explore the grounds instead. Leaving by the front door, they took with them the big bunch of old iron keys that they’d been given. They skirted around the perimeter of the grounds before venturing into the garden that they’d seen from their bedroom, with the gazebo, pond and headless mermaid fountain.
Now, standing by the water, raking desultorily through the thick weeds with a stick and admiring the dragonflies buzzing across the surface with their bright-blue bodies and gossamer wings, Bramble suddenly felt exhausted, as if she could sleep for a week. The hot sun was beat
ing down on her back and the bees were humming lazily in the scrubby lavender bushes behind.
‘I bet the gardens were really lovely once,’ she commented. ‘You can imagine ladies in fancy gowns and big straw hats promenading with their parasols, can’t you?’
Katie nodded. ‘And children in funny costumes playing hide and seek, and gentlemen playing croquet on the lawn. It’s a shame old Lord Penrose didn’t look after the place. It must have been rather sad watching it crumble around his ears.’
Bramble peered into the murky water, looking for fish, but there were none. They’d probably been suffocated by the rampaging weeds. A robin on the rose bush opposite cocked its head at her inquisitively, but soon flew off to a gnarled tree branch a little way away, where it flapped its wings cheekily as if to say, ‘Ha ha, you can’t catch me!’
‘I want to clear the pond out and do some pruning,’ Bramble announced suddenly. ‘That’ll be our first project after the bedroom. It’ll be nice to be able to use one section of the garden at least.’
Pushing open an iron gate that led to another walled area consumed by overgrowth, they soon found an orchard of plum and greengage trees laden with ripening fruit. They plucked a few sweet plums and ate them, wiping their sticky hands on the long grass, before venturing towards a large tumbledown shed in one corner and trying the door, which opened. It was dark inside and full of cobwebs, and it smelled musty. Most of the space was taken up with gardening tools and a ride-on lawnmower the size of a small tractor.
‘I wonder if it works,’ Bramble commented.
‘Doubtful,’ said Katie. ‘Probably hasn’t been used for years.’
‘We could get it fixed? There must be someone round here who can do that sort of thing.’
‘Another job to add to the list,’ Katie added wryly.
Having closed the shed door, they wandered into the uncultivated fields beyond the manor gardens, where the grass reached almost up to their knees, before making their way towards a wooded area in the distance. It was hot and humid, and once they’d gained the shade at last, they paused for a moment to catch their breath, relieved to be out of the sun. After that, a rough path took them through a tangle of silver birch, ash and holly before they arrived at open sky once more. Ahead lay grass, rocks and, finally, a sheer drop and the ocean. Bramble gasped for the second time that day.
Tremarnock Summer Page 6