Greyfriars House

by Emma Fraser

  Still speaking quietly, Georgina gently removed Charlotte from Edith’s arms and passed her over to Olivia. ‘Take her back to your room. I’ll see to Edith.’

  Olivia knew then she had no choice but to leave Greyfriars.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Charlotte

  1984

  The sun was sinking, casting the room in shadow, by the time Mum finished speaking.

  ‘I was really frightened,’ she whispered. ‘After the episode in the nursery I became more convinced than ever that there were ghosts, or spirits – call it what you will – haunting Greyfriars and that whoever it was wanted me gone. It all seems so unlikely now. It seemed unlikely then but I couldn’t convince myself it was just a feeling no matter how much I tried. Sometimes I thought I was losing my mind. And then when I found Edith with you – the look on her face – the way she clutched you – I was more scared than ever. It was easier in the end to leave…’

  It was almost impossible to imagine Mum being so scared. She’d always appeared fearless to me.

  ‘Of course I wasn’t myself back then,’ Mum continued. ‘I was down. I loved your father and I’d made a terrible mess of things. I was worried about you too. You were all I had left of Ethan and I couldn’t bear for anything to happen to you.’ She twisted the bedcover between her hands. ‘All I do know is that I had to leave and that I felt a huge sense of relief when it was time for us to go. There were too many memories, too many ghosts – real or in my head. If I were going mad, I knew I could trust Agnes to protect you.

  ‘I wrote to Agnes and gave the letter to Georgina to post. Agnes wrote back by return. She would very much like come to live with me in Edinburgh. And so it was settled.’

  Her voice dropped and I could tell she was tiring.

  ‘It was strange leaving Greyfriars again, this time with a baby in my arms, and in many ways I was sad to be going. But there was no time to brood, not with Agnes travelling with us.

  ‘She was beside herself with excitement. She’d never left Balcreen village, never been to Glasgow or Edinburgh – or even to Inverness. The furthest away she’d been was to Oban.

  ‘I remembered the house – this house – only vaguely from when I was a child. But at least it was familiar and I decided not to sell it if I could avoid doing so. It was far too large for three people but given I wouldn’t have to pay any rent, and because I still had some savings I thought we could manage for a while.

  ‘On the journey down, Agnes and I made plans. We would shut the rooms we didn’t need, heat the few we did. Agnes would look after you and take care of the house, while I tried to find a job. However much I wished I could pick up my studies where I had left off I knew it was impossible. Pretending to be married by wearing a ring was one thing, applying to university and having to prove it with a marriage certificate, quite another. Of course I’d no choice but to tell Agnes the truth and that I’d never been married. She was shocked and surprised but otherwise said it didn’t matter to her one way or another.

  ‘Although there wasn’t rent to pay, I still had to find the money for food, heating, for clothes for you, for myself and, despite Agnes’s protestations, she had to be given some sort of a wage. My allowance had stopped as soon as I’d come into my inheritance and my savings wouldn’t last for long.

  ‘I wasn’t qualified for anything. Agnes said I could stay at home while she looked for work but I knew she would never be able to bring in enough to keep us all.

  ‘Finding a job wasn’t as easy as I had hoped. They’d ask if I had children and whether my husband was happy for me to work and when I admitted I wasn’t married, they’d look at me in disgust before shaking their head. Then my luck changed. Every day I used to leave you with Agnes and go to the library to look through the job adverts in the newspapers. I couldn’t afford to buy them. One day, the head librarian, Miss Walker, approached me. She had just lost an assistant who had left to get married and she wondered if I’d consider the position.

  ‘I told her I was a single mother, but luckily Miss Walker was always ahead of the rest of the world in the way she thought. She said we could keep that to ourselves and as long as I continued to wear my ring, no one, as far as she was concerned, need be any the wiser. We both owe Miss Walker a great deal. The pay was poor and it was a good thirty-minute walk away, but I had access to all the books I could ever want to read and the salary was enough, if I were very careful, to support us all.

  ‘They were happy years. Initially I regretted I couldn’t send you to St Michael’s until I remembered how unhappy I’d been there, so I sent you to the local school. When you got older, Agnes used to bring you to the library and you would sit there, engrossed in a book, until it was time to go. By the time you were eight your general knowledge was phenomenal.’

  Those days came back to me in a heady rush. The silence, apart from the ticking of the clock on the wall or the whispered discussions between librarian and customer.

  I loved the order. All the books with their spines facing out and always in the right place. When I’d had enough of reading, I’d prowl the shelves making sure each book was in the correct position. I was so good at it, it became my job. Was that where my obsession with order had begun?

  Above all, I loved the books, their smell, the joy of having so many to choose from. Each book a new world to step in to. I read indiscriminately, Mum never vetoing my choice. Whether it was Enid Blyton, Dickens, Dostoevsky or reference books, I read them all with equal enjoyment. I’d sit at the large table in the centre of the room, occasionally glancing up at Mum at the desk as she dealt with a query. She’d give me a quick smile before going back to helping the customer.

  ‘It was the best place in the world.’

  ‘Your appetite for reading was always voracious. Miss Walker noticed it too. She’d read English at Cambridge and thought it was exactly the right place for you. Between us we decided you would go. We agreed I would give you extra lessons in history and philosophy and discussed the literary greats with you, while she would tutor you in mathematics and science. We didn’t know what you would do, we only knew you were destined for great things.

  ‘Sometimes I worry that we – I – you were my responsibility after all – pushed you too hard.’ She gave me a rueful look. ‘With hindsight I realise I wanted you to have the future that I couldn’t. I expect I’m not the only mother who tries to live out her broken dreams through her child. I often wondered, especially lately, if I did the right thing?’ She looked at me anxiously, seeking reassurance.

  ‘I’m very grateful you did push me, Mum. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for all the time and effort you put into educating me.’ I was horribly aware of how stiff I sounded. I took her hand. ‘Thank you.’

  Mum’s too-pale face coloured. ‘You are very welcome.’

  An awkward silence fell. I should tell Mum I was sorry and that I loved her, but the words stuck in my throat. Habits of a lifetime were difficult to change. Three little words and I couldn’t say them – no matter how much I felt them. I blinked away the tears that burned behind my lids and swallowed to ease my aching throat.

  But Mum wasn’t finished. ‘I think something’s troubling you – and not just what’s happening with me – am I right?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Please, Charlotte, tell me. I want to know.’

  Mum had shared so much with me, was it fair that I didn’t share some of my life with her? I realised now that by keeping stuff from her I wasn’t protecting her, I was shutting her out.

  ‘I’m worried I might have got someone off I shouldn’t have,’ I admitted.

  ‘Not Mrs Curtis?’

  ‘No. A rapist.’

  ‘Is there anything you can do to put it right?’

  I sighed. ‘Not without sacrificing my career.’

  ‘Oh, Charlotte, there’s more to life than work. I wish I believed you were happier.’ She held up a hand when I started to protest. ‘I don’t think there’s
much joy in your life. When did you last do something just for the sheer fun of it? Promise me when I’m gone, you’ll try and find more joy. Seize life! Take risks! Let yourself go sometimes and do something crazy. Not everything has to be perfect. You don’t have to be perfect.’

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about her words – whether I was hurt, or indignant.

  ‘I’ll do my best, Mum. I promise.’

  I wasn’t convinced she believed me. ‘What about Georgina and Edith? Did you hear from them again?’ I said, wanting to move the conversation back to Mum.

  Mum looked disappointed. I knew she longed for me to confide more. ‘Not until that letter. You, Agnes and I were so settled and happy here, Greyfriars and my aunts faded from my thoughts.’

  ‘It was only when I started putting my affairs in order that I realised we’d never formalised the arrangement about the houses. I still owned a share in Greyfriars and the aunts still owned the larger share of this house.

  ‘Since that getting that letter I’ve been thinking. I’d been selfish not thinking of my aunts. They were still living at Greyfriars, more than thirty years later. It didn’t make sense. I regret not doing more to keep in touch. I wonder now whether Edith had – what do they call it now? Post-traumatic stress disorder – shell shock as it was called when I was young.’

  It was the aunts who should feel bad, not Mum.

  Everything about Greyfriars seemed so improbable – ghostly visitations, two strange aunts, one of whom might have PTSD – a house cut off from the rest of the world. It still didn’t explain what help they wanted now or why they’d exchanged their share of the house in Edinburgh for Mum’s share of Greyfriars. Although they had never made it official, it had clearly been their intention.

  Kerista Island and Greyfriars had to be worth something. But surely relatively little compared to a large house in Edinburgh. Perhaps it was an act of great kindness to my mother – or guilt that they hadn’t done more for her? In which case, why encourage her to leave Greyfriars all those years ago when Mum, on her own and with a small baby, needed them most? But to be fair, that wasn’t quite right. They hadn’t forced her to go and she hadn’t been on her own. Agnes had been with her.

  Agnes, so much more than just our housekeeper, had been part of my life for as long as I could remember. At least until I’d gone away to university at which time she’d gone to live with her married daughter in Inverness. And all these years I’d never once wondered how Agnes had come into our lives. She’d always simply been there. Neither had I ever thanked her properly for everything she’d done for Mum and me. Without her help, Mum wouldn’t have been able to go out to work, I might not have spent so much time immersed in books, might not have had so much time to spend on my studies – everything that had come together to get me to Cambridge.

  Agnes was one of three amazing women who had loved me and cared for me and, apart from Mum, the one who had given up the most – perhaps even more. Until now I had never thought about how fortunate I was. I might not have grown up with a father, but I had been blessed to have been brought up by two women, three if I included Miss Walker, who had loved, nurtured and cared for me. There was nothing that would ever have made them turn away from me. And how had I repaid them? By becoming so wrapped up in myself, I’d barely given them a thought. I was in my thirties and I’d only realised this now. I was deeply ashamed.

  ‘They’ve never asked me for anything until now and I think they might need my help. I can’t go, but Charlotte, please promise you will in my place. It was such a happy house once and it could be again. I have few regrets in my life but that is one of them. Don’t you think if there is a way of putting something right, we should? I can’t do anything about it now, but you can – for me.’

  And of course, what else could I do but agree?

  In the last two weeks of her life Mum faded rapidly. In books and films when someone is dying it is usually depicted as rather beautiful; a slow, gentle slipping away, a graceful decline as the loved one gets thinner and paler until, with some last heartfelt and meaningful words, the loved one closes their eyes for the last time. It’s not. It’s a desperate gasping for breath, a horrible rattle, as the soul clings on. In the end she couldn’t walk, barely left her bed, and even talking for more than a few minutes exhausted her. She spent more and more time asleep and all I could do for her was bathe her forehead, hold her hand, and just be there. The doctor came once a day – the nurses twice – but I never left Mum’s side. I was frightened but I couldn’t let her down. I had promised Mum she would die at home and I couldn’t break that promise. Agnes came whenever she could and was a constant and comforting presence – a hand on my head, a squeeze of my shoulder, countless cups of tea left at my elbow.

  The only time I left the house was to walk Tiger. If ever left on the wrong side of Mum’s bedroom door, she would whine until I let her in. I think she knew.

  Despite the morphia, sometimes Mum cried out with pain and time and time again I wondered whether to have her admitted to hospital – but she had loved and cared for me the whole of my life and I needed to do the same for her.

  I moistened her lips with a small sponge the nurses had given me. I brushed her face with my fingertips, reciting poems I knew she loved, humming lullabies she’d once sung to me. I talked to her – remembering childhood holidays out loud: trips to the seaside, castles, villages. And when I couldn’t think of anything to say, when the voice dried in my throat, I just held her hand. As Mum slipped away from me a little more each day, part of me splintered apart. She had been the one to hold me together. Soon, she was so thin it felt as if she could float away from me. She slept for longer and longer periods and when she was awake, she was reluctant to eat so I spent hours feeding her sips of milk. I needed to keep her alive and tethered to me for one more hour, one more day, one more week.

  One morning I opened the window so Mum could hear the sound of the birds singing – at least I hoped she could.

  ‘“Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep.”’ Mum’s voice came from the bed, strong and true.

  I whirled around to find her eyes on me, bright and clear.

  ‘Oh Mum,’ I wailed.

  ‘It’s time for me to go, Charlotte. I don’t want to leave you, you know that, but please, let me go.’

  ‘I can’t, Mum. I’m not ready.’ I would never be ready.

  ‘But I am, Charlotte.’ Her voice was hoarse, every word clearly an effort.

  ‘“When you awaken in the morning’s hush…”’ She whispered the lines of the poem she loved. ‘“I am the swift uplifting rush…”’

  ‘“Of quiet birds in circled flight”,’ I added my voice to hers and she smiled. As always we were communicating best through words others had written.

  ‘“I am the soft stars that shine at night”,’ Mum continued. In her own gentle way she was telling me that she would never truly leave me.

  I stumbled over to the bed and took her hand. She squeezed mine with a strength I thought she was no longer capable of. I knew in that grasp she was trying to transmit all the love she felt for me.

  ‘I love you too, Mum,’ I said. Why had it taken me so long to say those three words? When her gaze held mine I knew what she was asking.

  ‘It’s okay, Mum. You can go. It’s all right, you can go.’ It would be my final gift to her.

  In those last hours, when the gaps between each laboured breath grew longer and I knew it wouldn’t be long, and worried that she was frightened, I lay down next to her and gathered her in my arms. Her body weighed nothing, her fragile shoulder blades like bird wings and I didn’t want to hurt her. I told her that I loved her, that I promised to do more with my life, that she mustn’t worry, I would be happy. That she could go.

  The sun was setting in a blaze of colour and I was holding her, when she sighed and took her last breath.

  I buried Mum four days later, and three days after that, I left for Greyfriars.

&nb
sp; Chapter Twenty-Three

  The leaves were falling from the trees in earnest and the evenings cooling when I drove to the west coast, Tiger upright in the passenger seat beside me, her nose poking out of the window.

  At some point I’d have to decide what to do about her. Agnes had two of her own, and a London flat was no place for a dog. But I couldn’t bring myself to return Tiger to the shelter. Mum would never forgive me. It was one more decision to put off until later.

  Thinking of Mum brought a fresh tidal wave of grief. I thought I was prepared for her death. I was wrong. Over the last weeks I’d become accustomed to storing up anecdotes and little bits of news and gossip to tell her. Now when I thought I must tell Mum something, I’d realise she was gone and I’d be bowled over by grief again. I felt dazed as if there was a wall between me and the rest of the world.

  I’d written to my great-aunts, telling them of Mum’s death and saying that I would be coming in her place. Georgina had replied saying how shocked and distressed she was, they both were, to hear of Mum’s passing, and how sorry they’d been not to be able to attend her funeral. But they were pleased I was coming and would arrange for someone to meet me at eleven o’clock on Friday morning, at the end of the road leading to Kerista and take me across.