by Elaine Chong
I recount the conversation to Silvio when I arrive home, but he shakes his head in disbelief and tells me that there has to be a sensible explanation for all this madness.
I’m just not convinced. “What sensible person would scribble out the faces of their children on an old holiday photograph?”
“Perhaps Julia is mistaken,” he says. “Perhaps it’s just … how do you say … discolouration. Old photographs … they don’t stay nice.” He wags his finger at me. “That’s why your mamma took them off the wall.” He wrinkles his nose and makes a face, which leaves me in no doubt that he’s about to express his dislike or disapproval of something. “It’s the weather in this country. So cold and damp. We have a big cellar at Bocca Felice. Can we use it to store food? No! In Italy, we keep everything nice. It’s cool, it’s dry. Perfetto! In England, impossibile!”
“But the photographs aren’t being stored in a cellar.”
He shrugs. “Garage, cellar … it’s all cold and damp.”
“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain why Mum took them down in the first place.”
He bestows on me a look of benevolent pity, draws me into an affectionate embrace then kisses my cheek and says in a gentle voice, “I know your mamma, Ricardo. There will be a reason for this. Old people … when they are ill … they get confused sometimes, and she had a big operation; she had anaesthetic. When my uncle Beppe was in hospital, just like your mamma he had … how do you say? … allucinazione.”
“Hallucinations?”
“Yes. He saw the Holy Ghost!” He throws back his head and laughs. “He is accountant. He still cooks the books for his brother Emilio.” He points a finger at my head. “The brain is still working fine.” He kisses the other cheek. “Why don’t you just ask her why she did it when you see her tonight?”
So, that’s what I decide to do.
At the hospital, the long, green corridor is busy, peopled with anxious-looking visitors rather than members of staff at this time of day. The expression on their faces is mirrored on my own. I don’t want to ask my mother why she’s storing the family photographs in the garage, but I know it has to be done if I’m going to be persuaded that she isn’t suffering from dementia.
She looks up from reading a magazine when I walk onto the ward. “Richard! I wasn’t expecting you. This is a lovely surprise.” Her eyes are bright and there’s colour in her cheeks, and when I bend over the bed to kiss her, she hugs me tightly and there’s warmth and strength in her embrace.
“Wow! I can see a real improvement in you,” I say.
“Well, they insisted I get out of bed this morning and use the walking frame. I hate to admit it, but I actually feel much better for it. It’s nice to get a bit of independence back even if it’s just to take myself to the toilet.”
“I can see you feel better.”
“They also insisted I sit in the chair after lunch. They’re very bossy.”
“They’re only doing their job.”
She frowns suddenly. “Whose side are you on?”
The question surprises me. “I’m always on your side, Mum. Always have been, always will be.”
The frown gradually fades, but I note that it isn’t replaced with a smile. She says, “They keep talking about discharging me, but I’m not ready to go home yet, Richard.”
“That’s okay,” I try to reassure her.
“It’s not okay because I don’t actually have a choice in the matter and neither do you. As soon as they decide I’m ready to go home, I’ll be loaded into the back of an ambulance and that’ll be it. It’s all very well the Department of Health throwing around terms like ‘bed-blocking’, but they seem to forget they’re talking about vulnerable, elderly people often going home to an empty house with no one to look after them.”
Her face is now flushed with righteous indignation, but it only underlines the impression that, while she might still be physically recovering from the surgery, in all other respects she’s back to her old, combative self.
“You won’t be going home with no one to look after you,” I say. “That’s why Julia’s here.”
My mother looks aghast at me. “You can’t be serious?”
“Why not?”
“I know your sister better.”
“But she is here, Mum,” I say.
“Where is she?”
“She’s staying in a hotel in London at the moment. But that’s because you’re still in hospital. She went to the house this morning. We’re going to get everything organised so you can go home and have someone staying with you until you’re back on your feet properly.”
“And this ‘someone’ is Julia?”
“Yes.” I don’t know why I choose this moment to ask, but I find myself saying, “When she was at the house, she noticed you’d taken down all the family photographs. We were wondering why you did that?” My mother freezes and the colour drains from her face. “You do remember doing it then?”
“Of course, I remember.”
“So…?”
She looks away. She doesn’t look embarrassed, and I think to myself, Silvio was right: she did have a reason for doing it.
Watching her compose her thoughts before she answers, I see her gentle, hazel eyes harden and I’m suddenly aware that whatever answer she’s now preparing isn’t necessarily the truth – after all, she spent years concealing from everyone around her the real nature of her relationship with my father.
At last she says, “After your father died, I left everything as it was, didn’t change anything in the house really.” A wry smile emerges. “I even left his study exactly as he left it and I can assure you that wasn’t a tribute to his memory.”
“I don’t imagine it was,” I say.
She goes on, “It was and still is our family home.” I open my mouth to interrupt her and point out the error of this statement, but she lifts her hand to stop me. “Of course, I found out after he died that he’d left the house to this Miriam girl, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still my home, and still the place where you and Julia grew up. There are lots of lovely memories in the house and that’s why I didn’t want to change anything.”
“So what? You changed your mind?”
“After Aggie died,” she says carefully, “I realised we never know what’s waiting around the corner for us. I could live to be a hundred years old, but I could also be struck down suddenly by some awful illness, so I thought: I’m going to make the house mine – while it is still mine.”
“I assume an explanation for the photographs is going to be forthcoming at some point.”
“Good grief! You sound just like your sister,” she snaps.
“So?”
“I’m going to have the house redecorated. I took down the photographs, wrapped them in brown paper and put them in a box in the garage.”
“But what about everything else?”
“Well, I’d only just made a start before this fall happened.” Her eyes meet mine almost defiantly. I can see her thinking, ‘Challenge me if you dare.’
At that moment a bell sounds somewhere on the ward, and everyone begins to move.
“I think it must be time for you to leave,” she says guilelessly, and pats my hand.
“I think it is.”
“You’re such a dear, coming to visit me. I know you’re busy with work.” She hesitates. “I really do appreciate Julia coming back here. I know she’s busy with work like you. It’s just that … I know Julia better than anyone. She only agreed to help when you told her about the will, didn’t she?”
“I couldn’t possibly say,” I tell her, and I gather her into my arms once again.
A knowing smile creases the corners of her mouth. “Give my love to Silvio. Oh yes, and can you thank Sarah for sending in the magazines for me please? I can’t concentrate for long, but they do help to pass the time.”
Lenora
I’ve always been a good liar. I think it comes from being the youngest in a large family. Yo
u don’t get much attention when there are siblings who have come before you and gobbled up your parents’ patience and forbearance like greedy little ducklings. By the time I came along, my mother either ignored my bad behaviour with a wearied sigh or dragged me roughly to sit on the naughty step at the bottom of the stairs with dire warnings if I moved ‘so much as an inch for the next thirty minutes’. In some ways, she was ahead of her time in her child-rearing methods – most of my friends got the belt or the slipper. I hated the inactivity and the sheer boredom of it, and in the winter, it was freezing cold in the unheated hallway. As a consequence, I learned from a young age to talk myself out of the naughty step punishment, usually by giving a less than honest account of what had happened.
I hated lying to Richard though, but I couldn’t tell him the truth, or at least the part of the truth which explained why I’d removed the family photographs from the walls of our home – I’m certain that he wouldn’t have believed me anyway.
It started with the wedding photograph on George’s desk in the study. I rarely went into the room, but I’d noticed that the door, which was usually kept shut, was open again and again. At first, I thought there must be something wrong with the catch and when I opened the door wide enough to take a proper look at it, I noticed that the photograph was lying face down. I assumed that Maggie had cleaned the room and forgot to put the photograph back as it should be and of course I set it straight. Two days later, I found the wedding photograph lying face down on the desk and Richard’s graduation photograph on the floor. The glass in the frame was unbroken and the hook on the wall still fixed firmly into the plaster.
For the next few weeks, framed photographs of our family found their way onto the floor, turned upside down and once or twice hidden amongst rubbish in a bin. Of course, by that point I was already afraid that Aggie had come back to haunt me. When I discovered my favourite holiday photographs with the faces of the children blacked out like something in a horror movie, I made the painful decision to remove all of them to the garage for safekeeping.
I decided to talk things over with our local vicar, Edward Feering, after Sunday Service. I couldn’t think what else to do. We were standing just inside the dark porch because it was raining, so I couldn’t clearly see the expression on his face when I asked him if he believed in ghosts, but what followed was a torturous conversation.
“Do I believe in ghosts?”
“Yes. Do you think it’s possible to be haunted?” I asked him.
He gave me one of his infuriating, little, self-conscious chuckles. “Obviously I believe in the Holy Ghost.” I think I must have given him one my slightly scornful looks in return because he quickly went on, “But as for visual manifestations of the dearly departed … well, the bible’s pretty clear on the matter.”
“What does it say?”
“There are various passages, but the overall view is that when people die, they go to heaven … or hell, I suppose.”
“So, what are ghosts?”
“Hard to say really … never seen one myself … and it depends who you talk to, at least within the church community.”
This wasn’t at all helpful.
“I’m a bit confused here, Reverend Feering,” I told him. “Are you saying that ghosts categorically do not exist?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Like I said, it depends who you talk to, and I’ve talked to people inside and outside of the church, who are absolutely convinced they’ve experienced some kind of haunting activity.” He threw up his hands in a gesture of baffled inconclusion. “Is it an evil spirit? Is it a memory of someone somehow captured within a landscape – you know, the old stone tapes thing?”
I didn’t know.
He put his arm around my shoulder and drew me out of the porch and into the rain. “I really don’t know where you’re going with this, Mrs Oakley, but if you’re experiencing things that you can’t explain then you’re probably better off speaking to your GP. I know it’s hard to hear, but maybe you’re becoming a bit confused … you know, memory playing up … think you’ve put your glasses down in one room and find them somewhere else … catch a glimpse of someone you know and then realise that it’s somebody else.” He gave an awkward laugh. “It happens to all of us in the end.”
I wanted to hit him over the head with my umbrella.
He shuffled back into the warmth and solace of his lovely church, and I was forced to return to my haunted house with my question unanswered.
Julia
I was dragged into consciousness this morning by the sound of the phone ringing loudly on the other side of the room. In my dream state, I was in the throes of an almighty argument with Jian. We were standing in his apartment – well, he was standing. I was crouched behind the sofa because he was hurling whiskey glasses at the wall behind my head. I could hear someone ringing the doorbell and I knew (because you can know when you’re dreaming) that Colin was on the other side of the door. The ringing went on and on and then my brain finally worked out that the sound was real and wasn’t part of my dream.
I flung back the cover and staggered across the room to the phone.
“Hallo?”
“Mrs Crane?”
“This is Julia Crane,” I croaked.
“I have a call for you. Hold the line and I’ll put it through.”
I lowered myself onto a chair and waited. It seemed to take forever but it was probably no more than a matter of seconds before a different voice repeated the question. “Yes, yes, this Julia Crane,” I said irritably.
“I’m sorry, have I woken you, Julia?”
The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Okay, you’re going to have to tell me who you are,” I said. “I’m afraid my brain isn’t yet working on Greenwich Mean Time.”
“It’s Jason. Jason from Castle Glass. I called your office and the girl there – I think she said her name was Connie – she told me you were in London. I tried calling your mobile, but you weren’t answering.”
“Jason? Where are you?”
“I’m in Norwich but I thought it would be nice to meet up. I don’t think Dad and I have seen you for about four years.”
Phillip Glass and his son, Jason, had been supplying me with antique glassware for nearly twenty years. Phillip had started the business many years before that. He told the same anecdote over and over again: that when he was first looking for premises, he’d chanced upon an empty building with space for a showroom and a workshop in Castle Street – a stone’s throw from Norwich Castle. He said he knew it was an omen of good things to come. A Castle within a castle. I liked him a lot and we’d maintained a friendly business relationship for two decades although in recent years it was Jason who called me when they had something come in that they thought I might like.
Jason went on. “We’ve just had a real find at a small local auction: Victorian cranberry glass. Decorative mostly. Dozens of pieces, though. All in mint condition.”
“I’m not actually here on business,” I told him.
“That’s fine. We could still meet up if you’re free?”
I arranged to call him in a few days’ time when I had a better idea what I was going to be doing. “If I have time, I’ll come up to Norwich on the train. The cranberry glass is still really popular although more and more people are drinking wine these days and looking for nineteenth century cut glass. Singaporeans have money and know how to spend it.”
“Well, that’s good for both of us. I’ll wait to hear from you,” he said.
As soon as I put down the phone, I knew I was going to have to call Connie, and now that I’m showered and dressed and have a healthy breakfast inside me, I’m ready to give her a piece of my mind.
“Glück Glass. How can I help you?” Connie’s voice simpers down the line.
“You can help me by not giving out personal information about my travel plans,” I bark back at her. “I’ve just had Jason Glass call me at the hotel. Who else have you told where I’m staying?”
>
“Ohh … Mrs Crane … so sorry … Mr Crane said, go ahead.”
“Mr Crane? My husband? He was at the gallery?”
“Yesterday. But it’s okay, he just wanted to use the computer in the office.”
Just use the computer. This doesn’t sound good. In fact, this sounds absolutely terrible. I do a quick mental recce of the documents, which might be lying on my desk. I can’t think of anything incriminating, but I have a secret internet bank account. If Colin had the password, he could look at my statements, and that wouldn’t be good. I know I haven’t written it down anywhere, but it wouldn’t take much imagination to crack the code.
I try to sound casual when I ask Connie, “Did he say what he wanted? Was he looking for something specific?”
“He closed the door.”
My heart skips a beat. Now I know I’m in trouble. Of course, I’m angry – how dare he shut himself in my private office and look at my computer – but I’m also a little bit scared, and it isn’t because I think he’s going to find anything I don’t want him to see. It’s because he thinks he’s going to find something that will confirm what he fears – that I’m having an affair. If he’s actively looking for evidence, then how long will it be before he pays someone to look for things, he can’t access himself? It won’t take long for the right person to discover what I’ve been hiding for eight years.
I know I have to tell him myself, but I want it to be on my terms. I want to choose the place and the time. I don’t want him ferreting around my office for clues and confirmations, so drastic measures are going to have to be employed.
“Listen to me very carefully,” I tell Connie. “I want you right now … as soon as you put down the phone … as soon as the shop is empty of customers … I want you to turn off all the lights in the gallery, pull down the shutters and put the ‘Closed’ sign in the window.”
“You … you want me … you want me to … to lock myself in here, Mrs Crane?” she splutters.