The Charmer

by Mandasue Heller

  Two reception rooms branched off on either side of the front door, both large, with tall, bay-fronted windows. There were dust sheets draped over the bulky furniture, and everything smelled musty and neglected. Wrinkling her nose, Maria made a mental note to have everything valued. If it was worth anything, it could get sold. If not, it would go on the bin wagon. The sooner the place was cleared out and aired, the better the prospect of a quick sale.

  There was a dark dining room with yet more dust-sheeted furniture, and an enormous kitchen with a long marble-topped table, a deep butler sink, and a dusty black cooking range. The window looked out onto a vast jungle-like garden, and there was a glass-panelled door leading to a dead-plant-riddled conservatory.

  Making her way upstairs, Maria was pleasantly surprised. In contrast to the gloom of the lower floor, the landing was warm and bright, thanks to the stained-glass windows at either end of the landing, which cast a lovely muted rainbow over the area.

  Four bedrooms led off the landing, the smallest of which was bigger than Maria’s whole flat. They all had built-in closets and fireplaces, and the master had a small en-suite bathroom.

  In contrast, the family bathroom was huge, beautifully decorated in deeply glazed blue and green tiles, and had an ornate claw-footed bath suite. No shower, which was a shame, but it would be easy enough to install one.

  If she were planning to stay – which she wasn’t.

  Back out on the landing, Nigel opened a door which Maria had assumed to be a cupboard. She was surprised to see that it concealed a narrow staircase.

  ‘There are two attic rooms,’ he said, waving her to go up ahead of him. ‘They were servants’ quarters originally, but I don’t think they’ve been used for a very long time. Miss Davidson must have used them as a storage area, because there are lots of boxes of clothes and jewellery, and what have you. It all belongs to you now, of course,’ he added, conscious of his voice booming in the uncarpeted space. ‘I’m sure you’ll have fun sorting through it.’

  He smiled, getting a pained look in return from Maria. The last thing she wanted was to nose through Elsie Davidson’s belongings. There was no telling what she might find.

  Looking around thoughtfully, Nigel said, ‘These could so easily be converted into studio flats if you decide that you don’t want to live here. With a little investment, you could make a tidy income letting the house as separate units. We manage a similar property for a client who lives abroad. I could show you the books if you’re interested.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Maria replied vaguely.

  Nigel seemed genuine enough, but she had a sneaking suspicion that he would try to dissuade her or obstruct her if she told him that she wanted rid of the place – and she really couldn’t be bothered with the hassle.

  ‘Right, I think I’ve seen everything I need to see,’ she said, making her way back down the stairs. ‘When can I sign everything?’

  A little thrown by the abrupt way she’d brought the tour to an end, Nigel clattered down the stairs behind her.

  ‘I can have all the relevant forms ready by early this afternoon. If you’d like to come into the office at around two, it shouldn’t take too long.’

  Maria checked her watch. It was only ten, and her train wasn’t until five.

  ‘Two’s fine,’ she said. ‘Shall we go?’

  Letting her out, Nigel reset the alarm and locked the door – trying his damnedest not to notice how brilliantly the sunlight picked out the gold in her hair as she preceded him down the path to the car.

  Gazing out of the car window as they set off, Maria contemplated the events of the last week. Everything she’d had planned for the future had been flipped on its head and turned inside out. She’d inherited a large amount of money, and an amazing house – a fact that was finally beginning to sink in now that she had actually seen it. But it was a bitter-sweet legacy, because the part that was missing was the family.

  Jolted out of her thoughts when they took a sharp left, she felt the blood drain from her face when she realised where they were heading. Nigel had taken the back roads through Withington that morning, but he seemed to have opted for the less congested route back into town – directly past the Merrydown Estate.

  Unprepared for re-entering the territory of her youth and facing the memories that might evoke, a sickly churning started up in her stomach. She wanted to yell at Nigel to change course, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it for fear of making herself look hysterical. Then, suddenly, the dark outline of the flats loomed into view.

  Maria stared straight ahead when they stopped at a red light alongside Jacob House – the outermost of the concrete giants that made up the estate. She could hear her breath rasping shallowly in her chest as the dark shadow of the past blanketed the car like a cold dead hand. In the life-flashing-before-you way of the drowning man, a thousand memories flitted across her mind’s eye. She’d experienced the best and worst times of her life here, and her every action and reaction since had been a direct result of that.

  But wasn’t this the best opportunity she would ever have to face and conquer those demons? She would never have come back of her own accord, but now that fate had brought her here . . .

  Holding her breath, Maria forced herself to turn and look at Jacob House, fully expecting a bolt of lightning to snake down and smash it into a million pieces, bringing the whole thing down around her head and burying her alive – just as it had so many times in her sweat-soaked nightmares.

  Nothing happened.

  The dull grey eyes of the old concrete man looked sadly back at her, his voice whispering ‘Welcome home’ on the softly stirring breeze. It hit Maria in the chest with the force of a punch, bringing tears to her eyes.

  ‘Stop!’ she cried, when the lights turned to green and Nigel pulled away. ‘Please . . . I need to get out.’

  ‘What, here?’ Whipping his head around, Nigel stared at her as if she’d gone mad. ‘Do you know how dangerous it is?’

  ‘Probably not as bad as it used to be,’ she retorted, her chin jerking up defiantly as she struggled to unbuckle the seat belt.

  ‘Don’t be fooled by the clean-up,’ Nigel warned, his gaze darting every which way as he reluctantly slowed down. ‘It’s only cosmetic. It’s still the same people.’

  ‘People like me, you mean?’ Raising an eyebrow, Maria gave him a challenging look. ‘I was born here, don’t forget. And I’d probably still be here if my mum hadn’t been killed.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Nigel blustered, pulling up to the kerb. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. And I know that most of the people are basically decent, it’s just that, well, I’ve, um, had a couple of unpleasant experiences around here. My last car was taken off me at knifepoint, you see . . .’ Trailing off, he gave an embarrassed shrug, his scarlet cheeks making his hair look almost ginger.

  Sensing that he would never have revealed such a painful and humiliating experience if he weren’t genuinely concerned for her safety, Maria released her irritation in a loud sigh.

  ‘I’m sure that was terrible,’ she said kindly. ‘And I appreciate your concern, but there’s really no need to worry about me, Mr Grayson, because I haven’t got anything on me that’s worth taking.’ Getting out, she smiled before closing the door. ‘I’ll be fine – honestly. I just need to walk around and see what’s what.’

  ‘Please be careful,’ Nigel urged, lowering the window part-way. ‘And it’s, um, Nigel, by the way. No need for the formality.’

  ‘Nigel it is, then.’ Still smiling, Maria shoved her hands into her pockets and waited for him to move off.

  No need for the formality, indeed! She’d never met a more starchy, stiff-necked man in her life.

  Crossing over the road when he’d gone, she walked slowly down Backhouse Lane – or The Border as it had been known by the residents on the Merrydown and the Greenwood: the identical estates it separated.

  The Greenwood had been levelled now, and a new estate had been bui
lt in its place, made up of rows of bland red-brick houses, with glossy black fences, puke-green doors, and tiny burglar-proof windows sporting council-issue nets. All very neat and tidy, but with zero atmosphere – as if character had been abandoned for the sake of uniformity.

  The Merrydown hadn’t been demolished yet, but that was obviously on the cards. Every flat was empty, and there was a real air of desolation and abandonment about the place with all the doors standing open and most of the windows smashed.

  No dirty-faced kids yelling and screaming as they raced around with their stick-swords and bin-lid shields . . .

  No teenagers loitering in the stairwells, loading too much weed into the spliffs they were learning to roll – badly . . .

  No old-timers on the balconies, dancing drunkenly in the twilight to Lovers’ Rock, sharing white rum and hazy memories with their homies from the Islands . . .

  Maria felt the ghostly gaze of the past following her as she reached the end of The Border and continued on towards town. Everything had changed too much. There was nothing left to remind her of the years she had shared here with her mother but the pictures in her head.

  Coming to the narrow pedestrian bridge straddling the dual carriageway up ahead, she leaned her elbows on the metal handrail and blinked rapidly to hold the stinging tears at bay. Crying wouldn’t change anything. Time moved forward, never back, and there wasn’t a thing you could do but accept that.

  Sighing heavily, Maria looked glumly down at the traffic streaming past below. This was the reality of life, she decided. Forget all that mushy sentimental memory nonsense. None of that really meant anything. People came and went, lived and died, loved and hated. But at the end of the day, they were always alone. Life was just a relentless flow of strangers passing through the same space. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, years apart . . . On and on . . . Over and over . . . Never really connecting, or—

  ‘’Scuse me.’

  Startled out of her thoughts, Maria turned around. There was an overweight woman standing behind her, one hand on the push-bar of a shopping-laden pram, the other gripping the hand of a dirty-faced little girl.

  ‘I hope you ain’t thinking of jumping?’ she said, as if she wouldn’t really give a toss either way.

  ‘God, no!’ Maria said quickly, shocked that anyone could think such a thing about her. ‘I was just reminiscing.’

  ‘Only if you was thinking of it,’ the woman went on as if Maria hadn’t even spoken, ‘don’t. It ain’t high enough to kill you, and none of these bastards round here would get you an ambulance.’

  ‘I’m not going to jump,’ Maria insisted.

  ‘If you say so.’ The woman obviously didn’t believe her. ‘Wanna move, then?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Squashing herself up against the railings, Maria gave an apologetic smile. ‘Bit narrow, isn’t it?’

  Muttering something under her breath, the woman pushed her load past. A few steps on, she turned back and gestured with a nod at Maria’s handbag which was hanging loosely over her shoulder, unzipped and clearly displaying the contents.

  ‘Do yourself a favour and fasten that before someone knifes you for it,’ she said, adding ominously, ‘Fact, I’d piss off home before the gangs come out, if I was you. They’ll clock you for an outsider straight off. You’ll get mashed.’

  ‘I’m not an outsider,’ Maria replied, zipping up her bag. ‘I was born here.’

  ‘You?’ the woman snorted, looking at Maria’s clean clothes and nice hair. ‘Come off it.’

  ‘Honest,’ Maria said, aware that she was roughening her tone of voice to bring herself down to the woman’s level. ‘It was years back, mind. I used to live over there.’ She nodded towards the flats.

  ‘On the Merrydown?’

  ‘Yeah. Brook House.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ Narrowing her eyes, the woman pulled the pram back up the slope to her. ‘Knew the Stokeses then, did you?’

  ‘Linda and Frankie?’ Amazing herself with the speed with which the names slid from her tongue, Maria smiled. ‘God, yeah! Lin was my mate.’

  ‘Was she, now?’

  ‘Yeah . . . and their Frankie was my first boyfriend.’ Pausing, Maria grimaced sheepishly. ‘Well, not really my boyfriend, but I did have a major crush on him. All the girls did, but I used to pretend I was going out with him and warn them off. Do you know them?’

  ‘Should do. I’m Lin.’

  ‘You are not!’ Maria squawked, bringing her hand up to her mouth and giving her old friend a surreptitious once-over.

  They were the same age, but Lin looked closer to forty-one than twenty-one. She was fat and scruffy, with her dull brown hair scraped roughly back off her spotty forehead, and her thick legs were covered in scabs.

  ‘I don’t remember you,’ Lin said, blatantly looking her over.

  ‘Maria Price.’

  ‘No shit?’ Lin’s face opened as recognition set in. ‘Maria Price! Yeah, I remember you. Your mam got snuffed by that drunk driver outside the brewery. Shit, that was a while back . . . How long ago was that?’

  ‘Ten years,’ Maria said, not wanting to dwell on that particular episode. ‘So, what happened to the gang? What’s everyone doing?’

  ‘Jeezus, where do I start?’ Lin scratched her head and looked skyward, narrowing her eyes as she struggled to remember. ‘Sue moved to Ardwick not long after you went. Then Cathy’s mam and dad split up, so they moved to Gorton. Oh, and remember Janice? Well, she run off when she was fourteen, to live with some old bloke she’d been shagging.’ Pausing, she shrugged. ‘The rest of us are still around. We don’t hang out all that much now, but this pair takes up most of me time.’

  Pair?

  Maria shot a glance into the pram. Having assumed that it belonged to the little girl, she was surprised to see a baby nestled among the budget packs of toilet rolls, Pot Noodles, and oversized cans of dog food.

  ‘That’s Ant’ny,’ Lin told her proudly. ‘Spit of his dad, which is a shame, but at least he’s got my nose so he won’t grow up a complete minger. This is Keely.’ She yanked on the little girl’s hand. ‘Her dad was Jeff Tully from our class – remember him?’

  Frowning as she tried to think, Maria had a sudden vision of a spotty kid with big ears. ‘Yeah.’ She smiled. ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Lin informed her flatly. ‘OD’d before she was born.’

  ‘Christ, that’s awful.’

  ‘No, it ain’t. He was a selfish smackhead bastard.’

  Trying not to react when Keely’s tongue snaked out to mop up a trail of snot that was dribbling out of her nose, Maria said, ‘So, how old are they?’

  ‘She’s three, he’s seven mumf,’ Lin said, reaching for the baby’s dummy which had fallen out of his mouth and stuffing it back in. Straightening up, she patted her pockets. ‘Aw, shit, I’ve left my fags at home. You haven’t got a spare one, have you?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Unzipping her bag again, Maria took out her cigarettes and handed one over. Lighting one for herself, she wasn’t surprised that her hands were shaking. This was so weird – like stepping out of a time machine to find that everything has changed except you.

  ‘What happened to Vicky?’ she asked. ‘Is she still around?’

  ‘Yeah, course.’ Lin inhaled deeply. ‘She moved up to Denton after she had her first kid, but she couldn’t hack it so she come back. She’s over on The Skids now.’

  Maria was surprised to hear that – and not in a good way. The Skids was an older block of flats behind the park, where the glue sniffers used to congregate in the bin cupboards with their stinking plastic bags. The kids on the estate had avoided it like the plague, terrified of the sniffers going off on mad paranoid rants, laughing hysterically at whatever whacked-out hallucinations they were having. There had been a rumour going round just before Maria left that the boggle-eyed head cases had found an old man dead in one of the flats and made a barbecue out of him on the stairs. Way too crazy.

  ‘I’d have thoug
ht they’d have knocked that down by now,’ Maria said, giving a little shudder.

  ‘Nah, it’s still there.’ Lin sneered. ‘They offered me a flat there when me mam kicked me out, but I told them to stick it. I’d rather have slept rough – pregnant or not. I’ve got me own house now,’ she informed Maria proudly.

  ‘Really?’ Maria said – as if she actually cared.

  ‘Yeah, behind the church,’ Lin said, leaning comfortably back against the railings and crossing her scabby legs. ‘I’m waiting on a transfer at the minute, though, ’cos it might as well be made of fuckin’ cardboard the way the roof leaks when it’s raining. But at least I’ve got a garden. I’d die if I was stuck up the top of that block, like Vicky and her four.’

  ‘Four?’ Maria gasped. ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘No, why? What’s up with that?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m just surprised, that’s all.’

  ‘I take it you haven’t managed to get caught yet, then?’

  ‘No!’ Maria shook her head, only just managing to keep a look of sheer horror off her face.

  ‘No fella,’ Lin surmised, nodding sympathetically. ‘Ah, well, don’t worry. I’m sure your turn will come soon enough.’ Finishing her cigarette, she flicked it over the railing and straightened up with a sigh. ‘Oh, well . . . best get a move on. I’m dropping these round our Frank’s so I can have a bit of time to myself. Can’t have a piss in peace without one of ’em banging the loo door down these days.’

  ‘Your Frankie’s still around, then?’ Maria asked, feigning nonchalance as a fluttery feeling stirred in her stomach.

  She hadn’t been lying when she’d said she’d had the biggest crush on him. Frankie Stokes had been cool, with his long hair, his dragon tattoo, and the flashy BMX bike he’d nicked off some lad at the park and resprayed silver. He’d been a proper bad boy, and all the girls had wanted to be his girlfriend.

  But that was then, Maria reminded herself. If he’d changed as much as his sister had, he was probably big, fat, bald and toothless by now.