Sing me to Sleep

by Helen Moorhouse

  “Windows could do with a clean,” remarked Rowan suddenly and Bee jumped a little.

  She had been absorbed in herself, in retracing the life she had here with those little memories, those little scenes. She hadn’t expected her stepmother to speak, much less to break the silence with something so banal. A flash of irritation ran through Bee at Rowan for breaking the spell of the moment but it was also mixed with an odd glimmer of gratitude to her for somehow normalising this strange momentous event. The new phase. The final stage of Bee’s education, her degree in Art completed at the new university in Taunton and now her Master’s in set design to be undertaken at Weatherall’s Art and Design College in nearby Chelsea. It had been Ed’s suggestion for her to move back into Pilton Gardens. Makes sense, he’d said. For someone to make use of the house, to breathe life into it again, keep it occupied while living practically next door to college. All provided she could find someone suitable to share with, of course.

  “What time did the others say that they’d get here?” Rowan continued, fiddling with the lock on the garden doors. The sound of them opening made Bee’s stomach leap a little at the familiarity of it. Something so ordinary – just a small clicking sound. But it released another flood of memories. How many summer mornings had started with her turning that key first thing, as soon as she had got up and slipped into shorts and T-shirt? How many mornings had she heard the door make that self-same sound before running outside into a new summer’s day when she was small. Pushing her doll’s pram outside or in later years pelting out to read a Harry Potter on a deckchair underneath the plum tree at the furthest corner away from the house. In an instant, she could smell it. The fresh aroma of a day already warm. She could feel the heat warm her skin, hear the bees in the rosebushes as vividly as she could hear her stepmother’s voice.

  Bee cleared her throat before replying, taking a moment to make sure that the words would come out in an even tone, without the wobble of emotion that she felt sure her voice would take on.

  “Sasha said that it would be after work – she finishes teaching her classes at four. She’s driving over with some of her stuff and her boyfriend’s coming over with the rest later,” she managed.

  Rowan gave a barely perceptible tut of annoyance at the mention of Ed’s niece’s boyfriend. They had been very clear that Pilton Gardens was to be shared by the three girls only – that no boyfriends were to be allowed, but twenty-seven-year-old Sasha and her Aaron had been together since their schooldays and it was more or less a given among the Mycrofts that it was only a matter of time before they’d marry. It was highly likely that Sasha would not be a long-term resident of Pilton Gardens.

  “And what about Matilda?” continued Rowan, taking a step onto the decking just outside the back door, peering down the garden, at the covered garden furniture and the overgrown bushes and flowerbeds, with a furrowed brow.

  Bee snorted. “You know what she’s like – so eager to move in that she’s taken the day off work at the café. I’m surprised that she wasn’t sitting outside in that beaten-up Mini when we got here!”

  Rowan smiled and rolled her eyes pityingly. “Poor Matilda,” she remarked, two words that still seemed to run together naturally. She stepped back inside, leaving the back door open to allow the warm breeze from the garden blow through. A butterfly fluttered behind her, made to fly indoors and then thought better of it, changing direction at the last moment.

  “To think of what that poor child has been through,” Rowan tutted. “And here she is, so excited about finally making her own way in the world. I really hope she can hack living away from home.”

  Bee rolled her eyes at the familiar refrain. Poor Matilda. “Matilda will be absolutely fine,” she snapped. “Everyone thinks that all that neglect by Vicky has made her vulnerable but it’s made her the complete opposite. She’s as hard as nails. And so excited about finally going to university – even if it is to study Chinese. But more than that, she cannot wait to get away from living with her mother – finally.”

  The mention of Vicky sent a worried frown across Rowan’s face. “I really hope Vicky doesn’t see this as her chance to get a foot inside the door here. Your dad would go nuts. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s tried to move in.”

  Bee noticed the strong hint of the West Country in her accent, again seeing her out of context. The thought struck her that maybe Rowan hadn’t ever been meant for this house – that she was never meant for anywhere other than Judith’s Acre.

  “I think there’s a whole side to Matilda that you don’t see, Rowan,” Bee replied softly. “I think that she’d build a barricade at that front door before she’d let her mother move in with her again and, besides which, won’t this give Vicky the freedom that she so craves to start her life as a trucker chick alongside Hairy Brian or whoever the Bloke of the Month is?”

  Rowan giggled, the sound of her laughter unexpectedly loud in the silent house. “Sometimes I really think your father was adopted, do you know that?” she remarked, rubbing her hands together and striding back across the living room to glance into the kitchen. The Shaker units, which had been so up to date when they had lived here, were outdated now that the fashion in kitchens was for hard, gleaming plastic and chrome.

  Bee grinned at Rowan’s remark. It wasn’t the first time that any of them had made that observation, including Ed himself.

  Rowan busied herself by systematically opening and closing each of the cupboard doors, the washing machine, the oven, checking them all.

  Bee joined in by groping behind the toaster to find the plug for the fridge which had been left open to air. She popped the plug into a socket. There was an instant hum and a glow as the light came on and Bee closed the door firmly.

  “Wonder how he’s getting on?” she said.

  Rowan glanced down at her watch. “He’s in that meeting right now,” she remarked and looked at Bee, her face contorted in a mock expression of nerves.

  “Do you really think they’ll commission a full series?” asked Bee tentatively. It was one thing that they were entirely in unison on, she knew. Possibly the only thing. It would change Ed’s life if the Star Junior channel were to broadcast Lila and Vulpo. “I mean it’s brilliant, isn’t it?” she continued, her tone confident. She truly thought her father’s creation clever and funny, with an appeal to adults as well as children. “I mean Claudia’s younger kids adore it, don’t they? And they’re just the right age.”

  The reference to Claudia’s daughters reminded Rowan to arrange a trip to Cambridge sooner rather than later. For something to keep her busy as much as anything else. It would be odd with Bee away in college full time. While studying in Taunton, she’d driven home most nights, where Rowan made sure to have a hot meal waiting for her and her laundry done, despite Bee’s protestations that she just wanted to stand on her own two feet. Rowan would need something else now besides her work to keep herself occupied – since she had taken on the two staff to work full time at the renovated studio at Judith’s Acre, she had found herself less and less hands-on with Corkscrew Cards.

  “We’ll just have to keep everything crossed, won’t we?” replied Rowan softly. She smiled broadly at her stepdaughter. “Right, then, shall we start to get stuff in from the jeep and get settled? I promised your dad we’d meet him for lunch in town after his meeting and then get us on the road home.”

  Bee frowned. “It’s such a long drive. Are you sure that you won’t stay tonight? I’m sure that Sasha could be convinced to stay at Aaron’s and you could take her room – which is your old room, after all.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, Bee,” Rowan said firmly, pulling the dust sheet off the kitchen table and revealing the battered pine underneath. “I mean, we can’t keep your dad away from Godiva any longer than we have to, now can we? She’d pine!”

  Bee smiled back at the thought of the pot-bellied pig that followed Ed about the farm like a puppy. “You mean he’d pine!” she giggled.

  “That’
s true!” responded Rowan, standing still for a moment and glancing around her reflectively.

  “No, no – this house is a girl-pad now,” she smiled. “You three girls don’t need fogies like us about. I’m sure you’ll all have unpacking and stuff to do tonight. Order a pizza, get a bottle of wine – christen the place. You’ll have enough hard slog to do when college starts.”

  Rowan suddenly looked directly at Bee and caught her eye.

  “Start your life proper,” she said quietly. “Away from home. All the opportunities and the chances are there for the taking. Make this place your home again and start over.”

  Rowan smiled, but Bee couldn’t help but notice that the corners of her mouth were turned down slightly.

  “And be happy, Bee. You’ve only got one chance – so just be happy,” she said, in a voice that Bee knew was tinged with regret.

  Chapter 45

  September 2019

  Jenny

  I’m a watcher again.

  For a long time, I wasn’t . . . what? Wasn’t what – sentient? Awake? Aware? Active?

  Whatever it’s called, I feel as if I have been awoken from a deep sleep with a jolt – like someone has poured water over my face, or shouted loudly in my ear or switched on a hundred radios and a hundred TV sets at full volume and roused me into an instant state of glaring awareness.

  It’s that unsettling, that disconcerting.

  Bright colours are so bright, light is blinding and sound deafening. It must be how a bewildered newborn feels. Startled, terrified, overwhelmed, curious.

  It’s a sensory attack – all of everything, all at once. And I am the one being born again – does it mean that in the space between I was properly dead? Is that what dead feels like? The nothing of deepest dreamless sleep?

  The only thing that I do know is why I have awoken, why I’ve been reborn. And how odd that the person who is responsible for my rebirth is the person that I gave birth to in the first place.

  I’m not entirely sure how it has all come about but she is here again. My Bee. My wonderful child, the substance of my soul. No longer a child skipping down the stairs, singing to her doll, her red curls bouncing as she moves – but a woman, laden down with knapsacks and books and heaven knows what else. Grown now, with no need any longer for my protection, you would think. But that doesn’t matter. Just because she shouldn’t need it doesn’t mean that I won’t give it. Surely if proof were needed then this is it – proof that my reason for still being here is because of her – to take care of her, to protect her – to pay her back for the childhood that I stole from her with my selfish stupidity.

  And so I sit again by her bed at night and watch her sleep, and wait by the front door for her to return, and worry and care and wonder and feel anxious until I hear her key in the lock at night.

  And revel in the sheer exhilarating joy of her presence, so close to me once again. My baby. My child. My daughter.

  My beautiful Bee. Come back to me.

  Chapter 46

  May 2020

  Bee

  Bee yanked her hood up as vigorously as she could and even went so far as to daringly pull it down in front a little to conceal the top of her face, instantly causing the small police drone to zoom closer to her. She frowned, walked a little faster. She was in no mood to co-operate with the London Metropolitan Police this evening. She couldn’t remember the last time she had walked home through the city without the air buzzing with the remote-control drones, which hovered everywhere, fitted with cameras to keep close watch on the streets. Made you long for good, old-fashioned, intrusive, sneaky, quiet CCTV, she thought to herself.

  Mind you, she could also see the advantages. Street crime – in particular the violent rioting that had come to symbolise summer in London’s suburbs for the past four or five years – had reduced radically. Muggings, knifings, random assaults, public drunkenness, verbal abuse and gang activity had all but vanished in the areas where the drones had been initially trialled, causing the LabCon government to introduce them throughout the entire Greater London area, and plan for their introduction in all major towns and cities by 2022.

  Tonight, however, as she made her way back to Fulham in the evening sunlight, she wanted to be alone, longed for privacy, yet knew that none was to be found, especially at Pilton Gardens.

  It was Sasha’s fault, of course. At the start she had been fine – well, tolerable – but it hadn’t taken long before she’d started asking Bee to ask Ed, their landlord, to make improvements to the house – a small shed for storage, a new power shower – perhaps the kitchen could be upgraded? Soon, there was a new demand every other day, which Bee resented bitterly. As the eldest of the cousins, Sasha thought it was her business to oversee, to take care of the others. She saw herself as a self-styled mother, the lady of the house – which only Matilda tolerated, blissfully unaware of any underlying politics, so happy was she in her newfound state of independence, her ruddy cheeks permanently glowing. Bee, however, felt that Sasha had no business behaving like this, particularly as she couldn’t shake the sense of ownership of Pilton Gardens that she felt. After all, it had been her home for fourteen years.

  She knew that if she went back there now, Sasha would be holding court, with Aaron, who was a man oblivious to everything except football and the fast-becoming-obsolete fossil-fuel-run cars; Aaron who spent four or five nights out of seven in the house, loudly sipping tea and crunching on crisps; Aaron who Sasha hypocritically refused to buy or rent a property alone with until they were married. Bee was already counting down the days until the wedding, even if there was another year to go.

  Sasha’s dad would be there too, of course. Mike, the general handyman and dogsbody. Hen-pecked after years with Sasha’s mother Betty, who, when her own children and those of her siblings had eventually reached adulthood, had somehow switched from being helpful to being plain interfering, her hands idle and itching for a face to wipe or homework to oversee. Mike’s current constant presence at Pilton Gardens was because of an attempt to install a Universal Household Control system – at Sasha’s demand, naturally. Doing it on the cheap, Mike had spent three nights so far trying to install the system through the old house alarm. So far, he had succeeded only in getting the OmniVac to start its nightly clean before anyone had gone to bed and they had spent three evenings with the device whirring around their feet, banging repeatedly up against them as it detected the dirt on their shoes as something it should clean up. To top matters off, Mike hadn’t succeeded in disabling the actual alarm system and it had rung out for an hour during the night, bringing three police drones and two Community Co-Operation cars with it. Bee had stayed in bed throughout, her pillow pressed firmly over her face, counting to ten over and over.

  Tonight, she knew that Betty was due round for her weekly catch-up, plus it was probable that Sasha’s annoying brothers – Tyler, Marcus or both – would have joined Aaron on the sofa, guffawing loudly at the TV and salivating at the possibility of Betty’s coconut cake, which Bee hated. It made her blood boil to think of them all. Why Sasha couldn’t just go round her mum’s and keep her family there, where they belonged, she didn’t know. So much for Vicky trying to move in – she hadn’t darkened the door once, whereas Betty practically left a toothbrush.

  Bee longed for them all to leave. Just to leave her alone in her house. Where she felt safe. Where she felt – she knew it sounded stupid – looked after, somehow. Nourished and loved and protected. Returning to Pilton Gardens had sparked something in her that brought her back to childhood. And this she couldn’t really understand.

  To Bee, her childhood could be marked out in three phases. Death of mother, Crippling Depression of Father, Usurpment of Mother by Just-Tolerable Conniving Hippy Stepmother. There were other lesser parts too, of course – her father’s troublesome, interfering family which was unfortunately the only family that she could ever remember having, and then things like the bullying she’d participated in at school, the difficulty in makin
g friends except of the wrong sort. It had hardly been the stuff of warm, fuzzy memories, she acknowledged.

  So why then did the house where she had experienced all of that feel like such a cocoon for her? And why did Sasha’s invasion feel like such an utter, unforgivable intrusion?

  An electronic female voice suddenly boomed through the air. “Please remove your hood. Under London Metropolitan by-laws, concealment of the face is not permitted. We are grateful for your co-operation.”

  Bee sighed and begrudgingly did as the drone bade her. More intrusion. By something that looked like a bloody toy helicopter. However, she knew the consequences. A young man in her class had refused to remove his scarf from around his nose on a cold day at Camden Market the previous winter and within moments of the drone issuing a third warning, a police car pulled up beside him and he was taken in for questioning. Another of the new rules allowed that: Suspicion of Hatred, Incitement and Terrorism it was called. The police tended to avoid using the unfortunate acronym but everyone else did.

  Her hood down, the drone receded and Bee continued her walk in the ensuing silence, fumbling after a moment for her headphones. She tended not to wear them too often as it made it difficult to hear the drones approach and she disliked being taken by surprise by discovering one hovering overhead if she found herself on a quiet street. They were meant to be for the protection of all citizens but she could never quite be sure if they were there to keep her safe, or to ensure placid behaviour by making people feel suspect at all times.