The Stranger in Our Home

by Sophie Draper

  It smelt stale as I entered. I snapped the switch on the wall. The hallway was instantly familiar, the smell, the clock, the objects around me. The walls were lined with paintings, scenes of rural Derbyshire, the crags at Mam Tor, a pheasant stalking a field; it was all as I remembered, except somehow different. There was a space on the wall marked by a dirty grey outline where a picture had once hung and the hall table with its two drawers was thick with dust – even the cut-glass bowl that sat on top was grimy with dirt. How long had it been like that? Longer than the six or seven weeks since Elizabeth’s death in the middle of October. The house mouldered in genteel neglect and I felt a prickle of unease; my stepmother had been fastidious in her housekeeping when I was younger.

  Two rooms led from each side of the hall and a wide staircase hugged the back elevation. A tall window overlooked the stairwell and my eyes were drawn to the banister above. Its richly polished wood curved up to the first and second floors. A patterned rug sprawled on the stone floor beneath, a rust-red stain at its centre. I felt my chest contract. Why hadn’t someone taken it away? It was a stark reminder of the manner of my stepmother’s death.

  I wondered how she’d fallen. With a piercing scream, or a silent thud? They’d said it had been an accident. Had it been a sleepless night blundering in the dark? No, hadn’t they said morning? I couldn’t imagine how someone could fall over a banister. They’d also said there’d been signs of excess alcohol in her system. When had Elizabeth started to drink? I tried to feel sympathy for her, gawping at the stain, fascination and horror holding me still, the rug a simple testament to Elizabeth’s death.

  I moved forwards, snapping on all the switches I could find, flooding the house with light, determined to chase away the ghosts.

  An hour later the Aga in the kitchen creaked as heat seeped into its old bones. A table dominated the room, perfect for painting. I slung my last box onto the wooden worktop. Fishing out the contents – tubes, brushes, small tins and cloths – I lined them up like precious toys, spacing out each item. Next came the laptop, phone, dongle and printer, juggling cables until they trailed across to the sockets and my emails filled the screen. A welcome connection to the outside world. Not quite so alone.

  I returned to the hall. All my possessions stood in pathetic isolation, dwarfed by the grandeur of the house and the triple-height ceiling over the stairs.

  In the sitting room I found Laura Ashley florals, scented candles and a TV. This was where my stepmother sat, on the big sofa, her favourite blanket neatly folded on its arm. I snatched it up, striding from the house to dump it in the bin. Adrenalin fired in my veins. I swept through the entire ground floor, harvesting photos, magazines and papers, soap and towels, even a stray cardigan from the kitchen, still smelling of her – I held it between my fingers and dropped it into a black bin bag as if it were contaminated.

  I had to drag the rug from the hall out the front door. It was a heavy wool and felt as if a body were rolled up inside. The thought was almost comical, except it made me nauseous. I felt guilty, as if it were my fault, as if I’d killed Elizabeth myself and was now removing the evidence. It made no sense, but the feeling was there, with every item that I found, soiled by her touch, her scent, her sweat, her very blood.

  The purge had only started, but it was enough for now. The rest, including upstairs, would have to wait. I scrubbed my hands, ate the remains of a pot of salad, fetched my duvet and climbed onto the sofa. I tried to sleep, lying there too aware of the size of the house, the emptiness of the rooms above my head, the wind whistling at the windows outside and the clock ticking in the hall.

  The cat was there again in the morning, sitting on the window sill outside. Behind her hung a pall of winter mist. She watched me through the glass. I pretended not to notice. Her head turned as she tracked my movements, her eyes blinking with curiosity. I scrounged a cup of coffee from a jar in the kitchen, standing in the midst of more of Elizabeth’s stuff, things I’d missed the night before – a basket of unwashed clothes, newspapers, scribbled Post-it notes stuck to the fridge – the kind of clutter that fills every house. I sighed. I’d had no actual plan for the day, but now I set to work, once more focusing on the ground floor.

  I couldn’t face upstairs, the bedrooms on the first floor – Elizabeth’s, Steph’s – and my old room on the top floor. Not yet. As I worked, I didn’t want to think of Elizabeth, so I tried to remember Steph instead. In the hall, I paused to look up the stairs.

  She’d been a girly girl. Not like me. Her dressing table with its big mirror had been her pride and joy, crammed with make-up and brushes, hair tongs and all the paraphernalia of beauty. I might have been younger than her but even when I was older I never knew what to do with all that stuff. I wanted to paint real pictures, not myself.

  ‘Caroline!’

  A voice fired across my thoughts. A memory of her voice. Elizabeth. Sharp and cultured and authoritative. I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, dithering about going up. My hand was on the polished balustrade, and I could clearly remember that voice, calling me from the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Come here!’

  I’d been in my room, right at the top. Maybe seven or eight years old? I’d put my book back onto the bed and slid reluctantly from the covers.

  ‘Caroline!’

  I was wearing only knickers and a vest as I stood at the top of the stairs, my short bare legs pale white against the shadows of the upper floor. Elizabeth was on the landing below, outside her bedroom door, silhouetted against a blaze of yellow sunshine. Steph was in her bedroom, opposite Elizabeth’s, sitting at her dressing table. She was applying eye shadow and the door was open so she could hear every word.

  ‘Come here, Caroline!’ Elizabeth again.

  I descended the stairs until I was standing right in front of her, rubbing the sweat on the palms of my small hands against my thighs, as I always did when she called me to her.

  ‘Look at you. Can’t you even be bothered to get dressed?’ Elizabeth snorted.

  She seemed so tall and elegant and I stood there not daring to look up.

  The slap whipped against my face, throwing my head backwards. It brought tears to my eyes, the sting of it burning on my skin. Elizabeth bent down to look at me, her face within inches of my own. She spoke loud and slow, as if I was particularly dim.

  ‘Get … dressed …’ She turned away. ‘You disgust me, Caroline.’

  My hand had reached out for the banister, my fingers too small to meet around the wood. I glanced up and Steph caught my eye. I could feel my cheek stinging. Elizabeth was still within earshot and Steph hadn’t said a word, her blue eyes watching me as I climbed the stairs again.

  My stomach growled. I’d scarcely brought any provisions from London. I needed food, so I decided to check out the village shops. Perhaps it was also an excuse to get out. The car bumped along the lanes and I parked alongside the village green, sandwiched between an old Ford Escort and a gleaming black and silver motorbike.

  Larkstone wasn’t exactly a thriving commercial centre. Eight miles north of Ashbourne, it was too off the beaten track to be particularly touristy, but it had a pub, a Co-op and a butcher’s. I wondered if I would recognise anyone, or more likely if anyone would recognise me. It had been ten years since I’d left for uni. As I walked along the street, I saw roads and terraced cottages juxtaposed by uneven pavements. An old-fashioned but familiar lamppost stood on the corner by the Co-op, black paint peeling from its length. Still lit, a flare of white highlighted the mist that floated around it. That lamp had obsessed me; I’d sketched it over and over again when I was at school. Even later, when I was at uni, I would draw it from memory; there was something about the shape of it, the repeated glass, the cracks in the panes, the state of decay. I dragged my eyes away from it. Villages had a way of holding onto the past in this part of Derbyshire.

  I went to the butcher’s first. The shop had the dull metallic stench of animal flesh, the counter laid out with nea
t folds of fat sausages, blood pooling beneath the steaks, bacon piled high.

  ‘Hello!’ I said.

  The assistant looked only a little younger than me.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Er …’ I stood there mulling over what to get. Even the bacon rinds were perfectly aligned to show the stamp printed on the skin.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the assistant said, ‘but do I know you?’

  I looked up. Perhaps she knew me from school but I didn’t know her. I struggled to picture faces from the playground.

  ‘Maybe,’ I replied. ‘I used to live here years ago. Up at Larkstone Farm when I was a kid.’ I didn’t know why but the words came reluctantly to my lips.

  ‘Oh.’ She fell quiet. Then, ‘I’ll be right back.’ And she disappeared through a door to the rear of the shop.

  I lifted my head, annoyance prickling. A man appeared, a large stained apron covering the expanse of his belly. He was followed by the assistant and the two exchanged glances as they entered the room. Did they know me? They must have known Elizabeth. Had they seen me at the funeral? The other faces there had been a blur, my thoughts mostly concentrated on Elizabeth and Steph. The woman stepped back to allow the man to take over.

  ‘We’re closed,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  I was taken aback. It seemed unlikely that the butcher’s would be closed at this time of day, with the door open and inviting.

  ‘Phone order,’ the man said. ‘We’ve got a large phone order. You’ll have to come back later or go to the supermarket.’ He nodded towards over the road.

  He was clearly lying. What on earth? I stood there, dumbfounded.

  ‘Um, sure.’

  I left the shop and turned back to look through the window. The butcher and his assistant were talking. The woman lifted her head towards me and there was something about her expression. I felt a flush of embarrassment, like I’d been caught stealing. Anger swept over me. Closed, really? What was their problem?

  I crossed the road to the Co-op. A small queue gathered at the desk. I lowered my head, flipping up my hood, still aware of the heat on my cheeks. So much for company, now I felt the need to hide. I picked up a basket and headed down the aisle; it didn’t take long to choose what I wanted. As a last thought, I grabbed a couple of tins of cat food and made for the till.

  ‘Hello, Sheila, two packets of your usual?’

  The assistant was addressing a middle-aged woman in front of me. She turned to pluck two cigarette boxes from the shelf behind her.

  ‘Thanks, Em,’ said the customer. ‘And a book of stamps.’

  ‘First or second?’

  ‘Oh, second will do. Have you heard? We think we’ve found it.’

  I wondered what it was.

  ‘Yes, Pete was in a minute ago. Crying shame.’ The assistant opened the till, fishing for the stamps.

  ‘The sheep must have got run over last night. Some idiot driving too fast.’

  I winced. A sheep hitting a car would have been nasty, for both parties.

  ‘Pete’s really angry, he loves his animals.’ The woman opened her purse.

  ‘Where did he find it?’ The assistant seemed to have forgotten about payment. There was a shuffling of feet behind me.

  ‘Outside Elizabeth’s house.’

  The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up.

  ‘Well I suppose that makes sense, he’s got the field opposite, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’ The woman sighed, clutching her purse. ‘But the body was hidden in the verge – took a while to find it. Not much left of it either – the foxes had already had a go. Pete’s gone to fetch the trailer to shift it and ask his brother to help. But he’s annoyed with himself. It must have escaped the night before. Normally Elizabeth would have spotted it and given him a call.’

  ‘Well, she couldn’t have done that no more,’ said the assistant. ‘Twenty-one pounds seventy, love. Isn’t the house still empty?’

  There was the chink of money and a rattle as it was stashed away in the till.

  ‘Pete said there was a car outside first thing this morning. Reckon one of the daughters has finally turned up.’

  ‘Really? Which one? The flashy one or the nutcase?’

  I felt my ears burn, humiliation flooding my body. I lowered my head, fingers pushed deep into my jacket pockets. What was wrong with these people?

  ‘Don’t know, the car’s a bit crap, Pete said. Perhaps it was that car which hit our sheep?’

  I ground my teeth. What right had they to make that assumption?

  ‘Oh, well, tell that lovely husband of yours how sorry I am when you see him.’

  ‘Sure. Thank you. See you tomorrow.’

  The woman lifted a hand and left. I presented my basket and waited patiently. The assistant ignored me as she scanned the items but threw me a look when she got to the tins of cat food. My eyes dropped and I paid the bill as quickly as I could.

  Back in the car, I pulled over when I got to the bottom of the drive to the house. On the roadside, they’d said. I told myself I needed to see what I’d been accused of, but perhaps the truth was that I’d always been drawn to the macabre, the visual trickery of the surreal, an artist’s fascination for the biological structures behind our physical façade. My car eased onto the verge and I stepped out.

  The wind had picked up, with a bitter edge, bending the trees on either side of the road, already twisted and contorted from years of exposure on the hill. My hood whipped down and my hair caught in my eyes. One of the poppers on my coat was broken and I had to grasp the folds of it over my chest to keep the flaps from bursting open.

  There it was. The feet were visible through the long grass and a tangle of briers growing in the hedge. It was just about recognisable as a sheep. The head was intact, but the body had been badly damaged, not just by a car. Entrails splayed across its woolly coat and something had tugged and pulled at the flaps of skin. The eyes were wide open, bulging from the skull, and its tongue lolled uselessly between its teeth. I couldn’t help but think of my stepmother, how her body must have looked lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs. I tried to push the image from my mind, gazing at the animal. Judging by the state of it, that hadn’t happened today.

  I thought – what if it had been me? Yesterday, as I’d arrived? I’d been tired those last few miles, not particularly alert. What if I’d hit the sheep myself? No, I didn’t believe that. I would have felt the impact. And there was that car behind me. The driver would have noticed too. Surely, he’d have reacted if either one of us had hit an animal that big.

  I reached out with my foot, giving the carcass a nudge. A bevy of flies rose up from the body, flying in ever decreasing circles before settling down to their business again. I felt my stomach flip. It was disgusting. But a sheep was just a sheep, wasn’t it? Another animal bred for consumption, its death inevitable one way or another. Like all of us, I thought.

  I looked around me. I saw the last few leaves hanging on the trees, great piles of damp and blackened vegetation heaped on the verge below. I saw the remains of a pheasant cleaved to the tarmac further down the road, berries that clung shrivelled and inedible, rejected even by the birds. Already I’d alienated my neighbours without doing anything wrong at all. The strange looks at the butcher’s, the assumption of my guilt over this sheep, made without a shred of proof, and the vague gossip about Elizabeth’s two daughters.

  ‘The flashy one or the nutcase,’ they’d said – I certainly wouldn’t describe myself as ‘flashy’.

  I’d only just arrived, after an absence of ten years. Why would they say that about me? I felt a sense of helplessness. Already it was as if I’d never left. This was meant to be a fresh start, wasn’t it?

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘Caro? Is that you?’ It was Steph’s voice on the phone, distant and contorted.

  ‘Hi Steph, how are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine, fed up with this weather, that’s all.’
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  It had been raining in New York, apparently.

  ‘But at least I’ve got a trip to Miami coming up – for work,’ she continued.

  ‘When do you go?’

  ‘Day after tomorrow.’ Steph sounded harassed. ‘Early flight. Which means an even earlier cab to the airport. It’s only for a few days though.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Miami sounded very glamorous. You didn’t get business trips like that with book illustration.

  ‘Everything okay with the house? You got in alright?’

  ‘Sure, yes. It’s a bit cold and damp, you know.’

  ‘Well, yes, I s’pose. Been empty for a while.’

  Steph paused. Somewhere in the background I could hear movement. Then she spoke again.

  ‘Listen, I’ve spoken to the lawyer. I’ve told him I don’t want any of it.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ I felt a stab of guilt. Steph had said she was well off, but still … ‘I mean, the house must be worth a fair bit of money and some of the things here are antiques. There’s all Dad’s old stuff too, you know, books and pictures – from when we were little. Don’t you want some of that? It’s your inheritance as well.’

  ‘No. No, thanks. I’ve moved on and I don’t want anything that reminds me of those days. Anyway, how would I get all that stuff over to the States? It’s like I said, Sis, I don’t need the money. Really.’

  Sis. It felt good hearing her use that word, after so many years of silence.

  ‘Well, it’s very generous of you.’

  In truth, I was delighted. I’d been penniless for years, scarcely managing on the fees from my work. It had been a mistake moving to London. Whether I stayed or sold up, to have a home, rent-free, even the prospect of a modest independent income, was amazing. Life-changing stuff. I hadn’t thought Steph really meant it, but now it was clear that she did.

  I didn’t linger on the guilt. She didn’t need the money, she’d said. You could see it in her clothes, the make-up, no cheap brands there. And the house hadn’t been her home for almost twenty years, had it? It was her choice. Still, I asked one more time.