by Jess Ryder
‘Oh God,’ I whisper. ‘This is awful.’
‘Breaks your heart,’ Lori says, finally lifting her head.
The stick women with the flicked-up hair and triangular skirts are cowering beneath the stick men, or lying on the floor with red scribbles around their heads. A smaller figure – presumably a child – is standing by herself to one side, looking on. Her black hair is long and wavy and her mouth is turned down to represent sadness. Blue tears are dotted on her face.
A tension inside me gives and I feel myself welling up. ‘This must be what the kids witnessed happening to their mums before they came to the refuge,’ I say.
‘I guess so,’ Lori murmurs, wiping her tears with her sleeve.
‘It’s so shocking, the violence of it … And it was under the wallpaper?’
‘Yeah, a few layers down, so it must come from a good while back.’
I’m transfixed by the images, studying them one by one, trying to piece a narrative together. A little boy or girl must have drawn these pictures. But who were they and when did they do it? I feel myself gripped by their story. I want to know more.
‘I can’t work in here,’ says Lori. ‘It gives me the creeps.’ She stands and picks up the bucket. Her hand is shaking. ‘Sorry, I need a bit of a rest.’
‘Of course – you’ve had a shock.’ She leaves, and I hear her climbing the stairs to her attic room.
I sit down on the bare floorboards, with my back against the opposite wall, just gazing at the drawings, repulsed yet unable to tear myself away. I look again at the little girl with the jet-black hair. She’s standing apart from the others, as if she’s looking on. Somehow I have a really strong feeling that she drew the pictures, that it’s her story being played out.
The room feels icy cold. I sense the ghosts of the house gathering in the doorway, slipping across the threshold one by one and sitting on the bare floorboards, resting their backs against the rough walls. Some of them are holding babies. Others beckon to toddlers to sit down. The murmurs quieten as everyone squeezes together and makes themselves comfortable. They stare up at me expectantly, as if it’s my turn to begin proceedings. In the dim light, the ugly drawings start to flicker and animate. There are so many stories to tell here; who’s going to start?
I find myself going back to my own childhood – I was an only child and yet grew up as one of many, a large, chaotic family of brothers and sisters who came and went, sometimes staying for months, sometimes only a couple of days. Our house was a refuge of sorts, although it never felt like a refuge to me. I was often standing on the edge, like the girl in the picture, feeling like my home was being invaded by unruly, troublesome strangers.
My mother’s lap was never empty; there was always some baby being fed or a crying toddler being comforted. Dad worked during the day, but as soon as he came home, he’d be out in the garden kicking a ball with the boys, or in the kitchen cooking huge dinners. Some of the girls knew how to play nicely, but others were spiteful and rough with my toys. One tore the heads off all my Barbie dolls. After tea, they all squeezed together on the sofas and argued about which television programme to watch, or just bounced around the room, knocking things over and getting into pointless fights.
I had my own bedroom, the smallest one in the house. There were three other large bedrooms with sets of bunk beds, one for boys, one for girls, and another used for emergency cases. My room was supposed to be my private sanctuary, but the foster kids were always barging in. When I was a teenager, the older girls would ask to borrow my clothes and make-up – if I was out, which was often the case, they’d just take them anyway. Things would get ripped or lost. They got told off for that, but were never punished enough in my view.
‘You have to understand, Stella,’ Mum would say. ‘You have a very privileged life. It’s natural for them to want what you’ve got.’
The kids were treated extremely well, but almost every week somebody would run away and we’d have to call the police. The blue lights of the patrol car would flash through my window and there would be shouting matches in the street as the escapees were dragged back into the house. And then there was Kyle, of course, the boy who hit our house like a whirlwind. I don’t want to think about him.
As a teenager, I spent as much time as I could at Molly’s place. We’d do our homework together and often her mum would feed me and give me a lift home if it was dark. She was always going on about what saints my parents were, looking after all those poor kids, giving them so much love and patience. ‘I couldn’t do it,’ she’d say. ‘They’re wonderful people, they deserve an OBE.’ I found it odd that she never wondered why I was always round their house and couldn’t wait to get away from my own.
I pull my arms across my chest and shiver. Remembering the past is difficult. If only more had been explained to me, I think, maybe I wouldn’t have done what I did.
* * *
When Jack comes home several hours later, he finds me in bed, huddled beneath the duvet, still fully dressed.
‘You okay?’ he says. ‘You look a bit flushed.’ He puts the back of his hand against my forehead. ‘You’re hot. I hope it’s not the flu.’
I throw the duvet off and stretch out my legs. ‘No, don’t think so. I just needed to lie down for a bit. Sorry, I haven’t started cooking.’ Recently I’ve been making proper food for him when he comes home, simple stuff I can cook on the hob. It’s part of the unspoken bargain between us. He tolerates Lori’s presence in return for no more ready meals.
‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘I’ll order a delivery. Chinese?’ He takes out his phone and calls the local takeaway, rattling off our usual list of dishes.
I get off the bed and try to plug my brain back into the real world, but I can’t find the right sockets. I’ve been musing about the house’s history for hours, trying to imagine what it must have been like all those years ago. This downstairs room must have been a communal space, I think. I see tatty sofas and stained coffee tables, posters on the walls, colourful rugs on painted floorboards. There are cardboard boxes of old clothes, broken toys, dirty mugs and baby bottles, magazines that have been flicked through a thousand times, ashtrays overflowing with cigarette stubs. Every object looks as if it had a troubled life somewhere else first.
‘Half an hour,’ says Jack, wrenching me out of my fantasies. I blink at him, not understanding at first. ‘The Chinese.’
‘Oh. Right.’
He frowns. ‘You sure you’re not ill?’
‘Lori found something today.’ He twitches slightly at the mention of her name. It’s another clause in our silent contract – pretending she doesn’t really exist. ‘I think you should go and look.’
‘Really? What is it? Woodworm? Dry rot?’
‘No. Drawings. In one of the small back rooms, above the kitchen.’
‘What sort of drawings?’
‘You’ll see.’ He pulls a face. ‘Please. It’s important. I can’t explain; you have to see them. I’ll have a beer waiting for you when you come down.’
He sighs and slouches out of the door like a reluctant teenager. I slip my feet into my trainers and go into the kitchen. I take two bottles of lager out of the fridge and snap off the lids. Jack’s footsteps in the room above make the ceiling quiver.
It’s easy to imagine what this kitchen looked like a couple of decades ago, because nothing’s changed. My eyes pass over the pine cladding, the orange and brown wall tiles, the chipped beige cabinets, the plastic worktop pocked with burn marks and scarred with scratches. I can see women slicing bread and chopping vegetables, stirring large pans of baked beans on the hob. I can hear them chatting and laughing while children run around their feet or tug at their skirts.
‘Jesus, some of those images are horrific,’ says Jack, re-entering. He picks up a bottle and swigs a large mouthful of beer.
‘We think they’re kids’ drawings. They were underneath several layers of wallpaper so we reckon they’re quite old.’
‘T
hey look pretty fresh to me; the colours are really sharp,’ he replies, leaning against the worktop. ‘I wish the food would hurry up. I’m starving.’
‘It really upset Lori. Me too. I can’t stop thinking about what the place must have been like when it was a refuge, what the women had to suffer before they came here, what the children had to witness. Those pictures bring it all home.’
He nods. ‘Literally. We don’t want that kind of violent stuff in our house. Ask Alan to paint over them.’
‘Good idea,’ I say, pleased that he said ‘our’ and not ‘your’, for a change.
The delivery arrives. We grab some plates and take our food into the front room. The sweet and sour chicken is rubbery and the salted squid is too salty, but neither of us comments. Jack tries to lighten the mood by telling me some funny story about a guy at work. I do my best to laugh in the right places, but my mind is still upstairs in the back room. We clear the plates and put the leftovers in the fridge, knowing full well that neither of us will eat them and in a few days’ time they’ll be thrown away. The atmosphere is too polite, too cautious. It’s as if we are strangers being forced to share a bed.
In the morning, he gets up very early. I lie there, still half asleep, dimly conscious of his movements as he disappears to the bathroom, then comes back to dress in the morning dark.
‘It’s okay, I’m awake,’ I say, switching on the bedside lamp. ‘Didn’t sleep very well.’
‘No, you had a nightmare. You were talking in your sleep, I couldn’t make it out. At one point I think you shouted, “Fire!”’ He laughs. ‘Any idea what that was about?’
‘Not really.’ I turn away from him so that he doesn’t notice my pink cheeks. I remember the nightmare only faintly – a mishmash of the present and the past, of this house and the one I grew up in. My parents were in it, and so was the little girl in the wall drawing. She was a foster kid and she was staying in my room, which wasn’t allowed. I think she was scribbling all over my walls and I was shouting at her to stop. The rest I don’t want to think about …
Jack is buttoning up his shirt. ‘I’ve been thinking about those drawings,’ he says. ‘They don’t look old to me; they look freshly done. Are you sure Lori didn’t do them herself?’
I ease myself onto my elbows. ‘Of course she didn’t. Why would she do such a thing?’
He tucks the shirt in. ‘To get our sympathy? So we won’t chuck her out?’
‘That’s ridiculous. They were under the wallpaper.’
‘You’ve only got her word for that. Did she call you as soon as she found them or only once the wall was completed stripped?’
I sit up and fold my arms grumpily. ‘I went upstairs and found her crying in front of them, if you must know. Don’t be so horrible.’
‘Do me a favour, ask Alan what happened.’
‘Alan was in another room. I’m not checking up on her, there’s no need.’
Jack sits on the edge of the bed with his back to me and pulls on his socks. ‘Whoever did the drawings used marker pens; you know the type, they come in a set, black, red, blue, green. I happen to know that there’s a packet in one of the boxes in the other room.’
‘So now you’re saying she stole our marker pens?’
‘I’d just be interested to know if they’re still there,’ he says, lacing up his shoes.
I’m so astonished I don’t know how to reply.
He stands up, then reaches for his jacket. ‘I’m having lunch with some clients, so don’t bother cooking for me tonight. See you later.’ He blows me a kiss, then leaves the room. I hear the front door open and shut behind him. If Lori wasn’t in the house, I’d scream.
It’s still very early, not even seven a.m. Usually when Jack leaves, I snuggle back under the covers and try to catch another hour of sleep, but today I get up and throw on some clothes without washing first. I’m totally convinced that Lori didn’t do those drawings – the hand is clearly that of a child, for a start, and why on earth would she do such an odd thing anyway? I know Jack’s talking rubbish, but I want to be able to prove it to him.
I creep upstairs in my socks, trying not to make the floorboards creak, and tiptoe along the funny L-shaped corridor towards the back bedroom. The heating’s been turned off on this floor, and it’s freezing. I enter the dark room. Outside, dawn is breaking. Its cold greyness makes me tremble.
Switching on the light, I force myself to look at the drawings again. It’s true that the colours are very vivid and the lines look fresh. But the pictures have been hidden beneath paper for years, so they wouldn’t have faded. I trace the triangle of a woman’s skirt with my finger, then press it hard against the wall. No ink comes off; it’s completely dry.
Damp shreds of wallpaper lie at my feet. I crouch down and pick up a bunch at random, sifting through the tiny scraps, turning any larger pieces over to see if the pen left any marks on the underside, or stained the paste. But there’s no conclusive evidence, no proof either way. I stand up and face the drawings again. The little girl with the black hair stares at me accusingly, the mouth that looked so sad yesterday set in a grim straight line.
Who are you? I whisper, holding my breath as I wait for a reply.
A shiver passes through me. I turn away from the wall, run out of the room and down the stairs.
Chapter Fourteen
Stella
Now
Alan’s key turns in the lock an hour later and I walk into the hallway to greet him.
‘Morning,’ he says, stomping in. He’s wearing a pair of new white overalls that make him look a bit like a snowman. ‘It’s like the Arctic out there; the wind off the sea’s so sharp it could cut you in two.’
‘Mmm, it’s very biting sometimes.’ I pause, feeling suddenly awkward. ‘I, er, was wondering if you could do us a favour?’
‘Oh yeah, what’s that?’
‘You know the drawings that Lori found in the bedroom?’
He looks downwards. ‘Sickening stuff … Makes you realise what those poor kiddies must have seen.’
‘I know. It’s shocking. We’d like you to paint over them. As soon as possible, if that’s okay. It doesn’t matter what colour; anything’ll do.’
‘I saw some old paint pots in the shed. I’ll see if any of it’s usable.’
‘Thanks. Or just buy something cheap. I know it’s going to be re-skimmed, but … well, we’d like it covered up straight away.’
‘Fair enough, you’re the boss.’
Lori comes to the top of the first-floor stairs. ‘You’re late, Al!’ she says. ‘I’m up here, waiting for orders.’ There’s a false cheeriness in her voice.
‘Cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss,’ he calls back.
‘You and your cuppas …’ She thumps down to meet us. ‘Morning, Stella. Sleep okay?’
‘Not really,’ I reply, wondering if she heard me walking around the bedroom at the crack of dawn.
* * *
Lori takes some bread out of the cupboard and pops a couple of slices in the toaster. As I watch her moving around the kitchen, as if she’s quite at home, my thoughts drift to my earlier argument with Jack. I’m still furious with him and I can’t leave it alone. I mustn’t tell Lori what he said, of course; she’d be very upset. She seems in a strange mood this morning, as if her thoughts are far away. The discovery of the drawings seems to have affected all of us.
Alan comes in looking for his tea and I leave the two of them to chat. Instead of going back to my bedroom, I sneak into the second large reception room on the other side of the hallway, shutting the door with a quiet click.
I switch on the weak overhead light and go over to the cluster of cardboard boxes piled up in the corner. Some are large, some small, all sealed with brown sticky tape and labelled with their contents: Oven dishes/jugs/Moroccan bowls; Posh glasses/blue vase/Italian coffee set. Jack moved into my flat in London a few months before I bought the house, so now our possessions are all muddled together. There are also a few boxe
s of memorabilia that I took from Mum and Dad’s house. I didn’t want any of the outdated, tatty furniture, so I got a charity to take it away.
I sort through the pile, looking for the box marked Stationery. As I kneel in front of it, I see that the sticky tape has been ripped off and then pressed back over the join. The tape has creased and lost its stickiness in parts. My pulse starts to race as I tear it free, open the flaps and look inside.
There’s some coloured paper, a stapler, boxes of staples and paper clips, a tumbler of biros, a hole punch, plastic rulers, two reels of transparent tape. No marker pens.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I have no positive memory of owning a set of marker pens. Even if Jack’s right, they could easily have found their way into another box. He’s a bit anal about these things, but we weren’t that organised with our packing, surely?
I close the flaps again and sit back on my calves, thinking. I’d feel completely reassured if it wasn’t for the fact that this box, clearly labelled with its contents, has definitely been disturbed. And that Lori slept in here that first night so she would have seen what’s here. Which means that if she wanted to fake some drawings, she’d know exactly where to look for tools. But she wouldn’t do something weird like that – would she?
I decide not to mention my findings – or lack of findings – to Jack unless he asks. It’s late when he gets in, after eleven p.m. He makes a big show of being exhausted and not wanting to talk. I wonder if he’s feeling embarrassed for accusing Lori but doesn’t want to admit it. Either that, or he’s simply forgotten about the drawings.
I can’t forget, though.
* * *
The next day Alan obliterates the images with some smelly magnolia paint he found in the shed, but they are imprinted on my memory and won’t go away. There’s a bad atmosphere in the room and I’m starting to rethink my secret plans for it as a potential nursery. We could redecorate, lay a new carpet, put up new curtains and hang mobiles from the ceiling, but the drawings would still be there, dormant beneath the paint, plaster and paper.