The Cottingley Cuckoo

by A. J. Elwood

  ‘I knew you’d like it,’ she says. Her voice has softened and I wonder who she was before she came here, whom she might have had in her life. A husband? Children? There haven’t been any visitors so far and I can’t picture her with anyone, but how would I know?

  ‘Rose. What kind of Rose, I wonder?’

  Alarm crackles through me, a sudden electrical charge, and I wonder what it is about her tone that makes me so overreact.

  ‘Goodnight, sweet Rose.’ Her voice is neutral once more, cooler, even cold. ‘I shall most certainly see you anon. Pleasant dreams.’

  * * *

  The car park is almost empty. The staff ratio is lower at night and most of the others who work days, as well as any visitors, have already gone. The light is almost gone too, having drained from the world while I fetched my bag and put on my coat. When I start the engine, my car’s headlights highlight a patch of hedge, each tiny leaf casting its own black shadow. For a second I imagine diminutive figures dancing in its depths, peering out with eyes that are too dark and blank, and I don’t know whether to laugh or shudder. I try for a smile but that little patch of light somehow makes me feel alone and it quickly fades.

  I sense the depths of the woods at the back of the building, the fields stretching away beyond them. But I am headed the other way, through the indifferent town with its hard roads, houses full of strangers balancing meals on their knees while their televisions flicker. I remind myself of the future and suddenly I can’t wait to get home. I picture Paul in the doorway, grinning at me. The two of us huddled up on our sagging sofa while I tell him stories: how one day, we’ll have a big house made almost entirely of glass, with a swimming pool in the garden and a view of the sea. Or an old farm in France, with sunshine every day and goats for fresh milk. Or my favourite: a house in a forest, a turret reaching up amid the branches, a circular room lined with shelves where I’ll keep my mother’s books.

  I can almost hear his voice, his stubble tickling against my cheek: You know what’s different about you, Rose? What I love about you?

  I never answer. He does that himself, and his answer varies, but his meaning never does. Sometimes he uses the word dreams, or perhaps visions, but mostly he says: You believe.

  And I do. Someday we’ll be out of here. I almost made it once and I will again. I remember Mrs Favell, her failure to smile. Is she the only one who recognises the truth – that this is temporary for me? That I’d sat there in my interview and told the manager all the words she wanted to hear, so that I can earn the money to get out? Yes, I’d relish the chance to support the residents. I’d love to work in a caring environment – I really do care. I’m sure I’d fit in at Sunnyside.

  But who would stay here if they didn’t have to?

  For now, I do have to. I imagine Mrs Favell’s sneer at the sight of our tiny terraced house; at Paul, with his long hair and arms more tattooed than mine; his irregular work, helping a mate shift unwanted furniture or labouring on building sites. Her disdain would surely make me hate her after all. We’re doing okay. At least I got off my backside and found gainful employment. Paul may not be all that driven, not yet – steady jobs never ran in his family – but I reckon that, with a little time and my influence, he’ll change.

  I think of the other girls. I bet Mandy isn’t fretting over what she’s done today or what so-and-so said or what anyone thinks of her. She’s probably bitching about the new girl, laughing about how we’d marched down the stairs together, Mrs Favell and I hand in hand like film stars going in search of champagne and finding only bowls of Weetabix. I grin and feel better. Sod Mandy. She’s probably never believed in anything in her life. I picture her fifty years from now, still at Sunnyside, still doing all the same things, until finally she gets old and simply moves in.

  I let out a huff of laughter as I turn into our street and see the light shining from our front room. Before I’ve braked fully to a stop the door opens and Paul spills out, his shaggy hair loose to his shoulders, his arms dark with tattoos and strong as a wrestler’s – and I see that his hands are full of flowers, bright points of colour plucked from our sorry patch of garden.

  He waits while I park our ancient and battered Fiesta between the van belonging to the painter and decorator next door and a shiny saloon that probably belongs to someone just passing through. He opens the car door for me, all gallant, and I jump out and there are kisses and he puts the flowers into my hands. There’s the big massy head of a hydrangea alongside limp daffodils and sagging tulips, a frayed stalk of ragwort nestled among the rest, all the petals drooping and damp and smelling faintly of petrol. I tell him I love them.

  As soon as I’ve put them in a vase and Paul’s throwing dinner together, I go and sit halfway up our narrow flight of stairs, which is narrowed further by the books stacked along the side of each tread. There’s no space in our house for bookshelves, not yet. I run my hands over the worn and battered spines, pushing aside the guilt I’d felt earlier, the memory of my mother’s anger about my tattoo. These are the things we had shared; the books Mum had loved, the ones she introduced me to the moment I could read them. All of the dreams, the visions, are still here: orange-clad paperbacks, black-trimmed classics, tiny volumes of poetry almost lost among the rest.

  Mum did most of her dying when I was away, in silence and in secret. She had so wanted me to be free.

  But her books remain. I lean against their spines and close my eyes. When I was tiny, I would curl up on her knee while she read fairy tales to me, the first stories we shared together, that were ours. Even before I open my eyes again to scan the titles, as I have so many times, I know I will not find any fairy tales at all and I wonder again where they have gone. Did they vanish into the air? Were they somehow stolen from me? Was the memory even true, or only a sweet fiction I tell myself? Of all the possibilities, the one I can least believe is that she would have thrown those stories away.

  I remember that, now, I am to read to Mrs Favell. How very odd that she and I will be the ones to share stories together.

  But then, don’t they call old age a second childhood?

  3

  It feels like I’ve been at Sunnyside forever as I undo the buttons on Reenie Oram’s cardigan and re-fasten them. She’d made a good effort but matched them with the wrong holes, bunching it up in front of her. The manager pointed it out, telling me to straighten it before visiting time, concerned about who might see, what conclusions they would draw. It’s better than the mop-and-bucket duty I’ve spent all morning doing, a consequence of being the new girl.

  When I finish I smile, knowing that Reenie will keep staring into space with her pale and watery eyes, and she does, but it seems important to smile anyway. There are flashes that make me think her mind is still working: a sudden glance, a grasp at my hand. I wonder what she’s seeing now. Family? Times gone by? Whatever it is, she keeps it locked inside.

  There’s another of the carers going about the residents’ lounge, straightening the mismatched chairs with their wing backs and high seats and plastic covers, setting a walking frame neatly aside, drawing back the vertical blinds from the French windows to brighten the room. Nisha has been here a while. She’s not entirely one of the clique and has a bright smile and a readiness to laugh that makes everything a bit lighter. She doesn’t seem to feel the weight of the manager’s frown or the atmosphere hanging in the air like an exhalation of this place: the sense of giving up, of loneliness that is never really dispersed by the false enthusiasm of let’s-try-to-keep-interested or let’s-play-a-game.

  Nisha is admiring Edie’s knitting, held out in her shaking hands. White wool shines in the sunlight streaming in, bright and clean as innocence. I imagine soft new skin, tender little feet kicking, tiny hands enclosed by that softness. I’m glad Paul can’t see my thoughts. The first time he mentioned kids, I laughed; I honestly thought he was joking. We’re not in that place yet. We need the house first, we need to see what lies across the ocean or through the forest or on
the other side of the world. We need to see it all.

  ‘She never visits,’ Nisha says at my shoulder, and I jump. At first I don’t know what she means and she nods towards Edie. ‘She knits herself senseless – see her knuckles? Arthritis. It must be so painful for her. She keeps saying her daughter’s having a baby, like she’s forgotten the kid must be years old now, because she’s never seen it. They live in Australia. They never have been back.’

  I look again at the snowy whiteness falling from Edie’s hands. ‘What does she do with it all? Does she post the clothes to her?’

  Nisha pulls a face. ‘Too expensive. She gives everything to the staff, whether they’ve got kids or not. You’ll probably get something at some point. Most of it goes through the local Oxfam, I expect. She might as well unravel it and start again.’

  I feel a stab of alarm at what Paul would say if I turned up at home with a pair of bootees, then Nisha flicks her eyes towards the stairs and says, ‘Has she given you anything?’

  She doesn’t say whom, but I know at once. Mrs Favell doesn’t like to come down in a morning, not unless she’s going out for a walk. Sometimes she doesn’t have breakfast; she eats an apple in her room and then reads, away from the overly loud television, which is currently belting out some inane morning show. She’s not that dependent. She needs less support than anyone here. It was as I suspected, she never did need me to read to her, and I still haven’t worked out why she asked me. To have a look at the new girl I suppose, the fresh blood, new meat. It’s a pity in a way, because I long to hold that letter in my hands again, to touch something from a world so completely removed from this.

  I shake my head, though there’s something about the way Nisha asked the question I can’t let go. ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘Is she likely to?’

  I regret my form of words at once. It makes me sound like a gold-digger waiting for gifts, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

  Leaning towards me, she lowers her voice. ‘The girl who was here before you – there was a lot of trouble. Just be careful.’

  I want to ask what happened but just then the manager, Patricia Stott, comes in, and we start tidying away the piles of magazines and disarrayed board games, making space to put out tea trays when visitors arrive. Patricia is a stout woman of fifty or so, her eyes veined with tiredness but still vital, still darting about with swift certainty. One of the residents told me that over the years she’s had two husbands, four children and a whole pack of rescue dogs, and I imagine her organising them all with the same brusque efficiency. She glances at me, checking I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, and sets down the pills she’s carrying, already sorted and labelled with names and room numbers. Nisha hurries off to help distribute them, making sure everyone has cups of orange juice to wash them down. She casts a sharp look over her shoulder at me – bidding me to secrecy, or something else?

  I realise that Mrs Favell has come in. She stands in the doorway surveying the room, pearls gleaming at her neck. Her hair, like Patricia’s, is swept into a bun, but unlike Patricia’s there are no stray hairs floating about her face. She’s holding a book, though it’s tiny and I only notice it when the gold foiled edges flash back the light.

  It’s obvious that something sets her apart. There’s no sense of distraction about her, no staring into space, not a moment’s vagueness. I wonder again that she needs to be here, just as her gaze lights on me and she beckons.

  ‘A walk,’ she says as I approach. ‘Fresh air. Just the ticket, yes?’ She gestures towards the French windows with her book, which I see is old, no name visible on its black leather cover. She tucks it away in one hand and reaches for me with the other, her fingers slender, gripping my upper arm tightly. I should be starting on the teas but Patricia doesn’t object so I don’t either.

  I’m not sure if I’m supporting her or being led as we step onto the path that edges the building. A bird trills, high and out of sight, and the world is suddenly sharp slices of sunshine and shade. The garden isn’t that large – Sunnyside’s not purpose-built and it’s clear from the mismatched brickwork that it’s been extended a couple of times, encroaching on the lawns to make room for more residents on the ground floor. There are still plenty of benches dotted around. I half expect to see little plaques set into them marking the death of someone’s aunt or grandmother, like in the park, though I suppose no one wants to think about such things here. There’s a nip in the air, the faint memory of winter, pricking the hairs along my arm. Mrs Favell doesn’t seem troubled by it. She stops suddenly, standing in shadow, only the tip of her shoe crossing into sunlight. She closes her eyes and breathes in, long and deep.

  ‘Are you all ri—’ I begin, but her grip tightens and I fall silent.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ she says.

  I try to listen. From somewhere comes a child’s brief shout. A distant engine starts up and a door closes. Closer still are the television’s meaningless prattle and a guffaw of laughter – that’s Jimmy Rees, one of the jollier old men. He calls me ‘flower’ and I thought it was because of my name before I realised he calls everyone that, including the postman.

  ‘That’s a skylark,’ she says, ‘and the wrens are nesting in the azaleas. Caterpillars are eating the leaves. Do you hear them?’ There’s an almost dreamy look on her face, though her eyes remain closed.

  Surprise – even alarm – jolts through me. Is this why she’s at Sunnyside? No one’s told me she’s losing her faculties, but maybe it’s true. How can she expect to hear caterpillars? It isn’t possible, but her focus remains, her posture rigid, her expression serious. I actually find myself listening, looking up at the sky, but I see only contrails, the ghosts of other people’s journeys. I can’t see the bird, not now. I can’t even hear it.

  When I look back at her, she’s waiting for me. Her lips are pressed into a line so thin they’ve almost vanished, her cheeks sucked inward, her eyes filled with as much amusement as contempt. She holds something out: her book. I reach for it, thinking she wants me to read to her again – no letter this time, more’s the pity – and she says, ‘This is for you. A gift.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, drawing back from her. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘You will,’ she says. ‘It’s an important poem. I want you to read it.’

  ‘Well, I’ll read it to you now,’ I say, gesturing towards a seat. ‘Then we can pop it back in your room. It’s a lovely book.’

  ‘Of course it is. That’s not the point. It’s for you.’ She thrusts it towards me again and I hear the echo of Nisha’s voice. The girl who was here before you – there was a lot of trouble. Just be careful.

  ‘I really can’t.’

  ‘You remind me of me, Rose.’

  I start. What can she possibly mean by that? How can she compare the two of us? I’m nothing like her. I realise she’s gripping my arm just around my tattoo, as if to underline the difference between us. I try to keep my distaste from showing and instead answer her earlier question again. ‘I don’t think it’s allowed. I’m new here, you see.’

  She gives an amused tsk, as if to say, Do you think I could have forgotten?

  ‘No such rule. Oh, for heaven’s sake – read it to me then.’ She marches to one of the benches and sits primly, crossing her legs at the ankles. I wonder if she went to one of those schools, back in the day – finishing schools or etiquette, establishments for young ladies, something like that. She nods at the space beside her and I lower myself into it, wondering what exactly happened to the girl before me.

  This time, when she holds out the book, I take it. I’m no longer certain the cover is plain black: there are hints of other colours trapped within it, blues and purples and greens swimming in its depths. The binding is even softer than I’d expected – it feels as tender as skin and for a moment I think of Paul. Last night we’d had sex, taking our time after a hastily put-together dinner. He hadn’t closed his eyes. He looked into mine while he ran his hands down my body, as if taking measure, memorising the way
it felt for when he awoke and I’d be gone. I almost feel his fingertips on me again and I shiver.

  ‘Read it,’ she says again. Her lip twitches as if she knows what I’m thinking about and I redden as I open the page at a silk ribbon bookmark.

  ‘“La Belle Dame sans Merci”,’ I begin, hoping the whole thing won’t be in French, and I realise it’s by Keats: a famous poem, one I might have studied, though I’d come home before that module began. The Beautiful Lady without Mercy. It’s a poem about fairies.

  ‘O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

  Alone and palely loitering?

  The sedge has withered from the lake,

  And no birds sing.’

  She jabs a finger towards a stanza lower down. As I read, she continues to do so, making me stumble, making me jump ahead, leafing through the wafery pages.

  ‘I see a lily on thy brow

  With anguish moist and fever dew,

  And on thy cheeks a fading rose

  Fast withereth too.

  I met a lady in the meads,

  Full beautiful – a faery’s child,

  Her hair was long, her foot was light,

  And her eyes were wild.

  I made a garland for her head,

  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

  She looked at me as she did love,

  And made sweet moan.

  I set her on my pacing steed,

  And nothing else saw all day long,

  For sidelong would she bend, and sing

  A faery’s song…

  She took me to her elfin grot,

  And there she wept and sighed full sore,

  And there I shut her wild wild eyes

  With kisses four.

  And there she lullèd me asleep,

  And there I dreamed – Ah! Woe betide! –