The Girl at the Window

by Rowan Coleman

  Will looks up at her, blinking.

  ‘I’ve already got one,’ he says. ‘Granny Unity. She’s my dad’s mum, and she lives in Putney.’

  There had been several long talks about going to live with Unity after I realised I couldn’t keep the flat on alone. I’d thought of it, me and Will in her big, sunny garden flat. She’d cook and nurture us, take care of us, shower us with the love and kindness that she always had, almost from the moment Abe first brought me home to her. So why weren’t we there in her warm embrace, heads on her shoulder? She’d wept as we’d left this morning, and Will had twisted in his seat and pressed his hands against the rear-view window, crying for her.

  ‘Don’t take what’s left of my boy away,’ Unity had begged me last night. In the end, only the truth reassured her, as crazy as it sounded.

  ‘I’m going back to the place where I first found him,’ I told her. ‘And I know it will be so much more difficult than if I stayed here with you, and I know it’s hard to understand, but, somehow, I feel like he’s there, waiting for me. It’s not for ever, Unity, it’s just something my heart needs to do.’

  And that was the truth: I needed home. I needed Ponden more than I ever had, this one magical place in the whole of the world that healed any hurt, soothed any harm, just like a whispering mother. The absence of it had always been part of my life from the day I left, a background hum of longing, the other joys in my life blotting it out. But in the last few months it has called to me, singing out in the dark. It was the one place in the world where I felt I might know something like peace again, not only for myself, but for my son.

  There was something else, too: there was Ma. I’d asked her to let me come home because I wanted to give Will a break from London life and a change of scene, and because I needed Ponden. I’d expected … Honestly, I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t her swift acceptance. And the other reason I’d come back to Ponden was for Ma. Maybe Ponden could heal us, too.

  ‘Well, now you’ve got two. I’m Granny Mariah,’ Ma said to Will, bending stiffly forward, extending a hand towards him. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, William. Did you know that every generation of Heaton men that have lived in this house has been called either Robert or William? Your grandfather, he was a Robert.’

  ‘Yes.’ Reluctantly, Will briefly shakes her hand. ‘Mum just told me – and I’m not a Heaton, I’m a Heaton Jones.’

  ‘You’re a Heaton first,’ Ma says, ‘so you’re a Heaton.’

  ‘Ma …’ I wanted time, time to talk to her about how to talk to Will, how to handle him, but Ma always has her own agenda.

  ‘I know who I am.’ Will returns his attention to the dog, and Ma’s expression is one of mild amusement.

  ‘A Heaton first,’ she mutters.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say quickly, before Ma can say something else to Will. ‘Thanks for letting us come. I know it must be … disrupting, after having the place to yourself for so long.’

  ‘What else am I going to do?’ Ma’s eyes roam over my face, as if trying to discern any trace of the girl I once was. ‘You’re blood, after all. I made up your old room for you both; there’s your old bed and a mattress. I don’t sleep up there nowadays – roof’s a wreck – but that room’s OK if it don’t rain. There’s bread, cheese, butter, bacon in the pantry, if you’re hungry.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Will says.

  ‘You get settled, then. I’ll make you a sandwich.’ Ma pushes herself off from the table towards the door, and for a moment I’m worried she will topple.

  ‘Ma, I can do it …’

  ‘You won’t know where anything is.’ Ma waves me away. ‘Do as you’re told and take your stuff up.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, and it’s like being fifteen again, having to force myself to drag out every awkward word. ‘I spoke to the electric people; they said the power will be back on today or tomorrow. You owed them quite a lot.’

  It’s not a subtle dig, to point out that I’m settling her debts for her with what meagre savings we have, but I can’t stop myself saying it anyway.

  ‘In the meantime …’ Ma gestures at three candle stumps, wicks blackened and broken and a battered box of matches.

  Mab lifts her head off the floor in weary protest as Will stands up.

  ‘Everyone says my dad is dead,’ he says, looking at Ma. ‘But he isn’t, I know he isn’t.’

  ‘Fair dos,’ Ma says, but Will isn’t done.

  ‘Granny Unity says you are a racist and that’s why you didn’t want Mum and Dad to get married. And if you are racist that means you hate me too, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Will …’ My instinct is to step in but it’s the wrong one. I’m so proud of the stalwart line across his shoulders, the refusal to look away, his raised chin. My little boy, eight years old, and already there are ever more minutes of the day I can’t make safe for him, battles that only he can fight – and worst of all, he’s already used to it.

  ‘Now then,’ Ma says, ‘the boy deserves a direct answer to a direct question.’ She turns to Will, fixing him with her pale china-blue eyes. ‘I never hated your dad. I thought he was a very fine man, just not the man for my daughter. I had my reasons. And your mum, she had hers. We fell out over it. But I can tell you this, Will, it had nothing to do with your dad being black. Nothing at all. I’m many things, but I ain’t one of them, and if you ever meet one round here, I’ll take my stick to them, do you hear me? I won’t have that vile filth near me or you. You are my grandson, and you are welcome here. And there aren’t that many that are. Just know that.’

  ‘Mum said you weren’t a racist,’ Will says. ‘She said you were just nasty. I wanted to check.’

  ‘Happen I am nasty,’ Ma replies, with a shrug that says, ‘nothing more to add’. ‘I can’t help who I am, now can I? You can hate me for that if you like.’

  This time it was Will’s turn to shrug.

  ‘You like dogs,’ he says. ‘Anyway, my dad’s not dead. He’s coming home, I know he is.’

  ‘Happen you’re right, son,’ Ma says mildly. ‘After a life living in this house I’m inclined to think that death isn’t quite the dead end that everybody says it is.’

  And for the first time since we left London, Will smiles.

  Ponden 1654

  Praise Be to His Greatness that delivered me to this Place that has given me shelter and food, and safety when I was lost and lived as one of the damned. Praise be to His Glorious name forever, for His salvation and for my friend and brother, Robert Heaton, who, so that he may not forget his own schooling, now denied to him, took to showing me my words and letters that I might know a little of the books that are kept within this great house.

  These words I write are my gift to dear Robert, these words that I will gather here, in the glory and gratitude of my Lord God, that mark down the tales of our lives and how we are Blessed by His mercy to have come to one another over many great and wicked miles.

  I was likely no more than nine years of age when I first came to Ponden Hall, though I was small and underfed, so may be older.

  The war was two years won, but even so, soldiers still walked abroad the land, taking what they could with force and violence. Many folk starved, even in this great county of Yorkshire where so much is taken in tax and levies. Poor have no respite, no help but what the Parish may afford them, which is precious little. And so it happened that my own mother sold me on the roadside to my master and father, one Henry Casson, may God forgive her.

  He who had once been a paid soldier from across the border did not make a kind father, rather he was a man most cruel and evil in his intent.

  Long days we travelled, days when he called me sometimes daughter, sometimes dog. From house to house we’d go, and he’d take and steal in word and deed, with not a care for the harm he left after him. Until, after some very bloody trouble on the road, trouble which I dare not speak of, we came to this place, Henry Casson aware that the mistress was presumed a widow, her husband not return
ed from war. Here he contrived to stay.

  On that first day I was much afraid of what he would do, trying to hide myself in the shadows and smoke that had gathered there as I watched him sitting at the great table, in the shadow of a towering dresser, talking with Mistress Anne Heaton. As before, he called himself my father, and me a motherless girl. He told her that she needed the protection of a strong man to care for her and her properties, make sure all is done that is right by her.

  His voice could be very kind, when it had a need to be.

  It was then that Robert Heaton first found me, cowering against the wall, and told me not to be afraid, that the maid, Betty, would have buttermilk in the kitchen for us.

  ‘I am Robert Heaton, master of this house,’ he told me on that day. ‘I am twelve years of age and you are welcome in my home.’

  The milk was warm and sweet, the fire good, and I praised His Glory for bringing me these moments of comfort. For all the days and nights that I had followed Casson, not knowing what else I might do but die, I had never troubled my master with disobedience. But on this day, seeing how this house was good, decent and God-fearing, I sought to go against Casson and warn Robert of the danger that sat up at his table.

  ‘My name is Agnes; I do not know my age and that man is not my father,’ I told him. ‘I do know that he means to marry your Mother. He means to stay here forever or for as long as it will serve him.’

  Even as I write this now, with my words so few and so clumsy, I see the great grief and loss in my Robert’s face.

  ‘Father went to the war and didn’t return,’ Robert told me, ‘and Mother cannot manage alone.’

  ‘She should try,’ I told him, with every ounce of strength that a girl of so few years and such little import could muster. ‘Tell her she should try.’

  On that day Robert took my hand and promised me that as long as I stayed at Ponden Hall he would protect me from all harm. Dearest Lord, I bless You for the gift of his protection and care, and the words that are now becoming mine, even though I am only poor and low-born, and I vow that I shall only ever use them in the praise of Your Glorious Name.

  And that my friendship and loyalty to Robert is such that it will never be broken or ended, but instead, an eternal loving regard that will endure for all time.

  Agnes Casson, for I do not know what name was previously mine.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A creak on the floorboards, a breath against my cheek, the palm of Abe’s hand smooth and warm on my back, the scent of him; for a few seconds I feel calm, and safe and then …

  Opening my eyes, I stare hard at the curtainless window, concentrating on screwing back the grief tight inside my ribcage. Every morning it’s the same, the shock and the loss renewed with every rising sun.

  The last traces of the night sky, just visible through the laced vines of the ivy that has half overgrown the window, are ebbing away outside, evolving into a perfect royal blue. I’ve slept much later than I meant to, although I don’t know how, on this worn-out carpet, with the loose boards creaking and shifting underneath me all night.

  Will’s small bed is empty; he must have gone to the bathroom. Peeling myself off of the floor is a laborious process, stiff muscles and mismatched bones sing out in complaint.

  ‘Will? You OK?’ I call out. The air seems to flinch around me, as if unused to hearing voices, and I sympathise. When I was a child I lived with silence for hours, sometimes; I relished it. As an adult I spend much of my time alone, with nothing but the sound of whispering books. Silence has been a companion, something that spins outwards from my own closed mouth, protecting me within its confines. Ma has been here alone for a long time, silent for a long time, and her silence has crept into every crevice of the house, muting it.

  ‘Talk to me,’ I whisper into the chill air. ‘I miss you.’

  And the room that was once my kingdom talks back, with a host of memories, each one clamouring to be heard. Once, long before I was born, this room was twice as wide and twice as long, a grand and important library, the finest for miles around, lined with bookcases that are still partially intact. But for all of my childhood this fragment of a lost room was mine and the books that lined the shelves my freedom. It’s strange to see the place where I felt so happy, so warm and content, with fresh adult eyes. And so profoundly moving, feeling the echoes of that child all around me. Even if the sky-blue paint I chose to match the view outside my window is peeling, and a thick layer of sticky dust coats every surface, it’s still just as magical to me – although I’ll admit the gaping great hole in the ceiling almost succeeds in taking the shine off.

  At some point, a deluge of water must have brought a large part of the plaster down, leaving a jagged black hole right above my head and, beyond that, a small, ragged gap in the roof tiles.

  ‘No one’s taken care of you for a long time.’ I speak to Ponden as naturally as I always have, passing conversation with a dear friend. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long, but I am back now. I’ll fix things while I’m here, get you back on your feet again.’

  Today, that feels possible.

  Last night, as I lay under the hole in the ceiling, so bone-tired I could have slept on stone, I caught a glimpse of something glittering right up in the exposed eaves of the house. As my eyes adjusted to the deep velvet of the night, I realised it was a single star twinkling above my head, its light a traveller through time, making its way from somewhere deep in the galaxy over thousands, maybe millions, of years; the ghost of a star that might not even be burning any more, travelling all this way to be seen and remembered just by me. And I knew that, whatever might be waiting for me in the fathomless days ahead, it didn’t seem so frightening because that light had travelled all this way with no expectation of being seen, and yet, in this small corner of the universe, my eyes were there to see it. And that gives me hope; it gives me hope that there are beautiful things that I cannot yet see, but which will one day reveal themselves to me. So I kept my eyes on it until sleep took me away, knowing that even though it’s no longer visible in daylight, it is still there.

  Getting up off of the floor, I wander about, unpacking some of our things, folding Will’s clothes onto the bookshelves. I need a watertight place to keep my kit from the Lister James museum, where I had worked in the archives until … until I had to take a break from preserving, tracking and recording every single item that was held there, old and new. I had an idea, half-baked, to search out all the old family documents, many of them stuffed into that great dresser downstairs, and make a proper Heaton archive out of decade upon decade of discarded admin. But that was before I saw the state of disrepair the house was in; it seemed I’d be spending my savings much quicker than I planned, but at least one day it would all be for Will.

  Where was Will?

  I call out his name once again, tugging open the stiff door and walking over to the bathroom. He isn’t in there.

  ‘Dear Ponden,’ I say very politely, ‘please tell me, what have you done with my son?’

  At the end of the hallway, the oldest part of the house stands facing outwards, sentinel against the ages. A great stone lintel holds the original door that was made for it five hundred years ago in its gentle grip, and the door swings open, just enough to allow a slice of sunrise to cut through the gloom. Of course, this would be the room that an eight-year-old boy would hide in; it’s the room with the ready-made den in it, after all, and Will would have no idea of the importance of that particular find, other than it invites adventure the moment you look at it.

  ‘Will, are you hiding in there?’

  A whirlwind of dust motes dance in its light like a shower of sparks as I open the door; wood creaks and whispers.

  The room is exactly as I last remember seeing it, empty except for the infamous four-hundred-year-old box bed, the closeted bed, no less, that Emily Brontë wrote into Wuthering Heights, and the window she imagined the ghost of Cathrine Earnshaw’s bloody hands smashing through, too. Today it
looks more like the room you might find Sleeping Beauty in, the morning light cast into shades of green, filtered through the trees and vines that have grown up far too closely around the house, giving the room the feel of a silent glade in a leafy forest. The door to the bed is drawn shut and there is no sign of Will.

  ‘Will?’ I call his name. There’s no reply, but I can sense him. Sense his movement and mood, so I tread very carefully. ‘So, this room is pretty cool, right? This is the room that makes Ponden Hall really famous, because once, a long time ago, a very famous writer called Emily Brontë visited Ponden Hall all the time to use the library here. It’s this room, and that bed you’re in, that she describes in her novel, Wuthering Heights. So that’s pretty cool, isn’t it? To live in a famous house that people all over the world have visited, even if it’s only in their imaginations.’

  I wait, he waits. The room waits, watchful.

  At last the door of the box bed slides open and Will’s tousled head appears, his face creased with deep sleep.

  ‘What am I doing in here?’ he asks me, blinking. ‘This isn’t where I went to bed, is it?’

  ‘Hmm,’ I say. ‘I think that means that Ponden likes you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Will shakes his sleepy head, blinking in the light. ‘How did I get here?’

  ‘Following your dreams, I suppose,’ I tell him, climbing into the box bed alongside him. His breath has misted the deep, stone-set square window that the bed is built around, and I reach out to touch the family Bible that rests open on the windowsill. ‘When we first moved into our London house you’d sleepwalk a little bit, but then you grew out of it. I guess that change of scene brought it back.’

  ‘I don’t like change,’ Will says forlornly.

  ‘Not even this bed?’ Smiling, I press my palms against the dark wood. ‘When I was a kid, this would be my ship, my flying saucer, my jet, my playhouse …’

  ‘It’s just a bed. A stupid bed in a cupboard,’ Will says. ‘Why would anyone want to sleep in a cupboard?’