I hurriedly boarded the train when it pulled in, but despite knowing no one was behind me, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being followed, and it chilled me to the bone. Was this what my letter meant by ‘haunted by shadows’? I tugged my shawl from my bag and wrapped it around my shoulders.
“Must you wear that!” Ally frantically looked for an empty seat further into the carriage, but finding none, lowered herself stiffly beside me, making sure her arm didn’t touch the preloved, hand-crocheted cream woollen shawl I’d found at the charity shop. “It’s hideous and stinks and it’s not even cold!”
I shrugged and leaned against the window. The knitwear did still harbour the damp smell of the shop, but it had been washed and its soft warmth was comforting.
“I should never have agreed to come,” Ally said.
Her vocal reflection of my sentiment startled me as I was drifting off to sleep. Had I put the thought there or was it truly her feeling? I tried to probe her mind as she reached into her backpack, but she saw me looking, scowled, popped a piece of chewy in her mouth and slipped the pack in her pocket, her resentful mind like a solid wall between us.
“Destiny isn’t really our choice,” I said, stretching and then helping myself to a mint from my own bag. Now too hot, I stuffed the shawl back inside, ignoring the look of relief that flickered across Ally’s face. I lurched down the train to offer a mint to our parents who’d wilted in seats four rows away and they both gratefully accepted.
“Destiny?” Ally directed a death stare towards our parents when I dropped back beside her. “They made us come.”
Maybe they had. Mum would do anything for Dad and truth was Dad spent half his life in England on business anyway. It was his birthplace.
Yet even though I’d never been here, I had the strangest feeling that I had, like I’d just entered some kind of parallel life. Certain things felt familiar, like that musty smell of the underground with its wind-pressured tunnels, and this train ride from London – although the endless ugly buildings rolling past the window stirred no recognition in me. I yearned for countryside to break the artificial landscape.
A taxi finished the journey through over-developed suburbia and a cocktail of pollution filtered through the car’s air-conditioning. Finally, the grey canvas became tinged with green and a turreted stone church appeared ahead of us.
Framed by grass and trees, the church conveyed an air of unassuming grandness, as if the decorative stonework in the graduated tower was too ostentatious for the size of the structure. A moulded arched door had a smaller access cut into it and its familiarity sent a ripple of conflicting emotions through me. How could an ancient piece of architecture make me feel warm and fuzzy inside yet simultaneously chill me to the bone? I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, trying to draw on subconscious memories.
The indistinct image of a silver frame on a mantel between two candlesticks gradually sharpened in my mind. A dark curved clock with Roman numerals stood at one end, but it was the old grey photo of a bride and groom in front of the church door which commanded my attention.
“That’s the church your grandparents married in!” I clasped my hand over my mouth in case I blurted out anything else that I shouldn’t have known.
“How d’ya know that, Katie?” Dad asked. He frowned as he peered behind the front headrest.
“I… er… oh. Just guessing.”
Oak trees spanned a straight path running alongside the church and cast dappled shade over the grey walls. A low stone fence separated the church grounds from the road and the group of girls sitting on top eating icecreams made me feel even more alienated from my new country. Their friendships had probably developed over many years and I wondered if I’d ever have any friends again.
The atmosphere in the car changed as it wove around a one-way system to the council estate. We were nearly there and I sensed that none of us were quite prepared for it. Being in transit we’d been able to hide behind the truth that the journey was one way, half hoping that at any moment we could simply turn around and go back home. Now however, as the properties that comprised the estate crept past, my family’s suppressed private turmoils wrestled to the surface in a mix of bated breath, sighs, fidgeting and stiffened poses.
I stared out one side of the car, then the other. The perimeter of the estate was bordered with houses, the centre choked with blocks of flats. Despite being differing heights, all the buildings had the same ugly pebble-dashed walls and white aluminium window frames. The houses were semi-detached and the only thing that distinguished each pair from its neighbours was the primary-coloured front doors, and the front gardens, all severed by a straight concrete path, some with flowerbeds, some with cut lawns and others with a long weedy mess that matched the grassed areas around the apartments.
I inwardly hoped that Grandad would live in the house with the blue door that had two neat rows of pink standard roses either side of the path, but I wasn’t at all surprised when the taxi pulled up in front of the ugliest block of flats, the one that couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to run the length of the street or sit at a ninety-degree angle to it. The result was a large right-angled collection of broken whitegoods, a three-wheeled pram and rubbish bags currently being shredded by crows.
I hauled myself from the cab and loped up the wide path with my luggage trailing behind me. I hoisted it up the single step in front of the yellow-framed frosted glass double doors, one of which was boarded up.
“Leave the cases there,” Dad called as he paid the fare. “I’ll sort them out after.”
I glanced from him to the message sprayed in red and black paint on the wooden board telling me that Ardo’s reign had been overthrown and Den’s mob now ruled instead, and doubted our belongings would last very long unattended. I dubiously opened the door to be greeted by the stink of wee and an assortment of cooking smells.
“Top floor,” Dad sighed, juggling a multitude of luggage.
I let him pass in front, hoisted my case over the damp, stained area to the side of the door so my wheels didn’t drag through whatever residue was there, and lumbered behind him up the two flights of stairs. After weeks of build-up and a seemingly endless journey, the last few minutes waiting on the doorstep of the top-storey flat were the worst. The splintered blue door was in need of a new coat of paint and the small pane of privacy glass in its centre was grey with dirt. Finally, a fuzzy outline appeared at the end of the passageway and I perched on my suitcase with my back against the stone-flecked wall.
I wished I could visualise Grandad but all I could picture was smelly old Mr Edwards from the end of our street who used to yell at us when we were little if our ball bounced on his front lawn. Booger-flecked hairy nostrils flaring, he’d come at us with an old broom, wearing his stained shirt wrestled around his beer-belly, and spraying saliva and obscenities at us through gappy black teeth. Suppose Grandad was like that!
I jumped up as the door opened to reveal a frail old man imprisoned behind a walking frame; his face seemed sunken around his bent nose, his head bald and shiny. His clothes were thin with age but there was no cruddy shirt, just a holey singlet and shiny over-ironed brown trousers. But it was the toenail peeking through not just a hole in one of his blue slippers, but his grey sock as well, which seemed to pull the guilty weight of my misconception over me.
I averted my gaze across the threadbare maroon carpet towards a pair of lime green doors on the right. The nearest one was closed but the toxic stench emanating through it told me it was the toilet. The door beside it was partially open and quite clearly revealed the edge of a bath.
“Katie?”
Dad prompting me to greet Grandad made me jump.
Hundreds of lines crinkling Grandad’s face made it seem he was laughing. He hunched towards me and squinted as if he couldn’t see too well. His pale grey eyes, one slightly higher than the other, seemed familiar to me. The face they were set in was so old but the eyes twinkled with mischief like they belonged on the face of
a child, someone with energy, life…
And then they widened as if in recognition. And watered.
“Kathy?” His voice was a croak as he struggled with obvious confusion and excitement.
“Er, no. Katie,” I said, hating to disappoint him.
“And I’m Ally,” my sister said.
Grandad looked from me to Ally and back again. His sigh was so deep, filled with such sadness, that my eyes watered too. If he wasn’t so dependent on the frame, I would have hugged him.
“Steady there, Dad,” Dad said, squeezing Grandad’s shoulder. “Getting yourself a bit confused.”
Grandad adjusted his weight to his left side and extended his right hand to me. A static charge connected us as we made contact. And a shadow loomed behind him. I flinched.
“Katie?” Mum said.
Grandad’s hand and the air surrounding him felt chilled in comparison to the warmth of the landing. Was it the lack of sunlight to warm the entrance, or something else, something unearthly? But I dismissed the thought. The few occasions that I’d seen Mum’s parents after they’d died were like that guy from the train, either fleeting grey replicas or shadowy images of the human forms they once were. This thing was something else altogether; too vague to be a ghost.
“Good to see you,” Mum said as I moved aside.
The shadow quivered into the background as she kissed Grandad’s cheek, shrinking and fading until I wasn’t actually sure it had been there at all.
“Can we come in or do we have to stand on the doorstep all day?” Dad asked, smiling.
“Shame to stand there when dinner’s nearly ready.” Grandad sounded choked and I wondered how much trouble he’d gone to preparing a meal for this Kathy person.
“Just leave your case under the coat hooks, there.” Dad indicated a wooden wall rack with four metallic hooks just inside the front door and adjacent to the toilet. A shabby grey overcoat, herringbone narrow-brimmed hat and walking stick occupied three of the pegs.
The stink of mothballs blasted from a tiny bedroom opposite the toilet. Ahead of it and further down the passage, another smell, one I couldn’t recognise, billowed towards us. I wondered if the smoke accompanying it had been the cause of the creepy shadow.
I traced the choking fumes back to the kitchen and rescued a smoking fry pan from the stove. Inside it were four black steaks and a shallow-fried sponge cloth. I flitted about, not really sure where to put it. The table directly opposite and under the window was set with an assortment of odd cutlery and chipped plates. One tiny work surface was covered in junk, the sink drainer dangerously overloaded with a mix of clean and dirty crockery and the sink filled with disgusting red water.
“Oh gawd blimey,” Grandad said, shuffling into the kitchen. “Look at that burnt food! Such a waste in these troubled times.”
“In the sink, Katie!” Dad gasped, bursting in behind Grandad.
An argument from another apartment invaded the kitchen as Dad flung the window open and wafted smoke outside with his laptop case. The pan sizzled in the water and I pinched the piece of steak blocking the drain. As I turned to throw it into the overflowing bin wedged between the washing machine and cooker, something made me sway with dizziness.
“You’re worrying me, Katie,” Mum said as I dropped into the nearest chair.
“I’m sure it’s nothing more serious than a bad dose of jet lag,” Dad said, jostling around her to get back to the passage.
Mum located a loaf in the breadbin on top of the fridge and eyed me thoughtfully as she dropped it on the table. I forced a smile to reassure her that I wasn’t about to keel over.
“Just hungry,” I said eager to ward off whatever herbal remedy would doubtlessly be inflicted upon me.
“I’ll see what I can find,” she said.
Her discovery was limited to a partially wrapped piece of cheese in the recesses of the fridge. From that she hacked off the hardened end and mouldy sides with a blunt knife and wrestled what was left into sandwiches. I tried to subtly slide my plate onto the crowded workbench behind me but it nudged a cup off the edge and my reflex as I caught it gave me away.
“I know it’s not much,” Mum said. “But until I can get organised, we’ll have to make do.”
I pulled a face and Ally lobbed her stale gum at the bin. It thumped onto the wall behind it and dropped onto the carpet.
“Pick that up, Ally!” Mum ordered.
Ally gazed through the window and pretended to eat, but if her sandwich was anything like mine she wouldn’t have been able to. Mine was so chewy it stuck to the roof of my mouth and I dropped it back on the plate.
“Why don’t you have a bit of a lie-down,” Mum said, testing my forehead for fever again.
Dad peered around the kitchen door, my spotty suitcase propped in the passage behind him. “You and Ally can have the bedroom right here.” He nodded at another lime door just visible through the doorway.
“You never said we had to share!” Ally said. “That’s… you… ugh!” She lobbed her food at the plate and it scattered across the table.
“Ally!” Dad scolded. “Might do you good to have some consideration for others. You don’t see Katie complaining, do you?”
I forced a smile as he glanced at me. It sucked that I had to share with Ally, but what other choice was there?
“Creep,” Ally muttered at me.
Mum fussed with one of the cases that Dad had left in the doorway of the end bedroom. “Here,” she said, pressing my pillow and sleeping bag into my arms. “You going to have a nap, girls?”
“Naps are for oldies,” Ally said.
But I was so tired from travelling that I took the two strides from the kitchen to the twin bedroom opposite. Embossed lilac wallpaper in the tiny room clashed with the maroon carpet. The doors on the small freestanding wardrobe were lopsided and a strip of laminate curled away from the edge. Hideous white vinyl headboards on each of the single beds had yellowed and had dark greasy marks in their centres, and the mattresses were lumpy and stained. Between them was a grey bedside table with a window above it. The table and the curved clock that faced the right wall on top of it were both covered in dust.
My steps shrank as I approached it. I knew the clock would have Roman numerals. How could all of this have been so new, and yet one object so familiar? I dropped my bedding on the right-hand bed and trailed my fingers over the mahogany clock case as I sat down.
Tck, tck, tck.
I stiffened; the ticking was so loud when I touched it, yet when I let go, silence.
I wiped my hand across its face again.
Tck, tck, tck.
I recoiled in alarm, not just from the sound but from the clock face too.
The hands pointed to X and III.
A coincidence, surely, although I still couldn’t decide if it was ten-fifteen or ten to three, and with late afternoon sunlight struggling through the grimy window neither seemed right.
I wedged my pillow under my head and curled up on the bare mattress, staring at the dust floating a spotlighted path to the opposite wall. I almost felt as though I could drift into it and be carried off into oblivion. I didn’t remember how I’d left my past lives but maybe that was how it would happen this time – I’d simply fall asleep and my body would disintegrate into dust and my soul would project into another life. With a start, I realised the letter was still in my pocket, undelivered.
But my body, heavy with pre-sleep, refused to move and I fell into heavy blackness.
I jolted awake in unfamiliar surroundings. Ally slept soundly on the other bed yet I hadn’t heard her come in. My sleeping bag, still zipped, was draped over me. The apartment was quiet and in darkness; no one else was awake, so why was I? In the moonlight the clock hands still pointed to X and III.
Still wearing jeans, I struggled into my sleeping bag and tried to get back to sleep.
Flitter, flap, flump.
My nerves prickled at the sounds coming from the ceiling.
“Ally!” I hissed. “Are you awake?”
A spring pinged in Ally’s mattress as she turned over.
“Ally! Did you hear that?”
“What?” She yawned.
I pulled my legs under my chin. What if a giant rat gnawed through the ceiling and landed on my head?
“There, that?”
“Ugh, plftt.”
The window was closed, yet the curtain suddenly billowed inwards and cold wind blasted above my head. The strip of laminate flapped against the wardrobe. A shoe skittered across the floor. The clock started ticking but the sound was virtually lost in the rhythm of my drumming heart.
I didn’t breathe, didn’t blink for fear any movement would draw attention to me as the shadow thickened into view and drifted across the room. I had no doubt now that this thing was a spirit but whereas other ghosts just came and went with little more than a cold shiver, this entity with its lack of distinction filled me with unease.
I tracked its movement as it seeped through the wall to Grandad’s room, then curled up tightly and hid inside the sleeping bag, wishing the night would end.
Phoenix Page 2