The House of Whispers

by Anna Kent

  ‘And did you do anything about it?’

  ‘I feel terrible now for not paying more attention, but what could I do about it? I was on the other side of the Atlantic. I messaged her. I gave her a bit of a hard time about it, but that was it. I’m her husband, not her keeper. She knew she’d stuffed up. I didn’t need to add to that.’

  Thirty-Four

  Maybe it was the visit to the old flat and all the memories that stirred up, but I couldn’t sleep that night. Eventually I gave up trying and went up to the attic to paint. I was on the fourth portrait now, and Grace was, again, older but I was experimenting with a different style for this one: I was distorting the face a little, blurring it, as if she were looking up at me from under moving water. I didn’t want it to look as if she were drowning; she was very much alive. Rather, I wanted to make her look as if she were trapped in this other dimension; this subaquatic world of dark greens and hazy turquoise, of weeds and light diffused through opaque water; as if the current were carrying her, her face drifting this way and that like the underwater weeds of a river, her hair streaming all round her, leaving you wondering if she’d escape, or if she’d drift away forever, getting smaller and smaller.

  I painted in bursts, thinking and painting, smudging the colours onto the canvas using my fingers as much as the brushes, smearing my DNA with the paint. By the time the buttercup yellow of the morning light slid through the slats of the attic blinds, changing the tone of all I’d achieved in the night, the painting was largely done and, despite the fact that Grace would have left for work, I realized – with a stiffening of the hairs on my neck and that jolt of sixth-sense awareness we all sometimes get – that the house was not empty.

  I crept down the attic stairs, silent as a ghost, my feet noiseless on the carpet. I stopped on the landing and listened to the walls, to the ceiling, to the bricks and the wood that made up the frame of the place that protected me. What or who was it hiding? There was no sign of Alfie but, even so, I sensed the inhale-exhale of breath; I sensed life. I crept into the bedroom and took a shoe from the wardrobe. With that in my hand, I slipped down the stairs, every fibre of my being listening and then I heard it: footsteps, clear as a bell, from the kitchen, and then the unmistakeable tone of my mother-in-law’s voice.

  ‘Nah, beta,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t look as if she’s been in here this morning.’

  I pushed open the door and faced her, shoe still in my hand. ‘Meena?’

  She twirled to face me, her scarf swinging with the movement, her eyes large as she looked me up and down. ‘Abigail! You are here! Why you didn’t answer the door? I’ve been ringing and ringing! Rohan told me to come in and check you are all right! We’ve been worried about you…’ she trailed off as she looked me up and down. She spoke quickly into the phone, ‘She’s here. I’ll call you back,’ and clicked off the call. ‘Are you all right? What happened?’

  I shook my head, my eyes squinting against the bright sunshine of the kitchen. With the sun coming through that window it must have been up a little while. ‘Nothing. I was in the attic.’

  Meena swept her hand towards me. ‘But… what?’

  ‘What?’ I said looking down at the nightshirt and robe I’d worn all night. ‘It’s paint,’ I said, realizing she was looking at the stains on the front. ‘What are you doing in the house?’

  I was suddenly aware of my lack of sleep, and the floor swayed under my feet giving the feeling I was walking the deck of a rolling ship. I put a hand to the counter to steady myself. My mouth, I realized now, was parched. Meena pointed her nose into the air, sniffed and frowned, her brow furrowed.

  ‘Have you been smoking?’

  ‘No?’ But I could smell the stale fug of cigarettes too. ‘It must have been Grace. I’ll have a word.’

  ‘Please do. It’s not healthy. Anyway, as I said,’ Meena continued, ‘I was ringing the doorbell so many times and you didn’t reply, so Ronu suggested I let myself in. To check you were okay.’ She had the dignity to flush – faintly, but I saw it. No one had told me she had a key. Her eyes slid to an expensive-looking bouquet of flowers propped up on the table. ‘And to give you these.’

  I looked at them, reluctant to admit their beauty and let her score a point.

  ‘What are they for?’ I said.

  ‘Your birthday. Today?’

  ‘Oh, I… thank you.’ Shit. My birthday already? Sweat broke out all over me and I swayed. I could feel the dampness rank under my arms and I hoped Meena couldn’t smell that, too. My heart stamped out one of those flurries it did when I stopped drinking after a heavy night: clip-clippety-thump. Clippety-thump.

  ‘I need water,’ I said, grabbing a dirty glass from the counter and filling it from the tap. I drank greedily and nausea washed over me. I put the glass down and held the sink top for a moment until it subsided. I rubbed a hand across my forehead and it came away wet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said when I’d gathered myself. The only way to deal with Meena was to bow down. ‘I was up all night painting. I couldn’t sleep. I’m sorry I didn’t hear the door.’

  Meena tutted. ‘And what’s with your cat miaowing?’ She tilted her head. ‘He sounds frantic. Is he okay?’

  We both looked up the stairs from where I now noticed panicky miaows were coming.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s unlike him. He usually comes to see visitors…’

  We both went up to the landing. The miaows were coming from the bathroom. As we got closer, I could hear the sound of claws scratching at the door. As I opened it, Alfie rocketed out and my nostrils flared. In the bath, three shiny brown slugs of excrement lay in a yellow-green puddle. Meena’s jaw clenched and she turned abruptly.

  ‘Looks like he got locked in,’ I said. ‘Poor baby. He must have been there all night. I don’t know how that happened.’

  I did, though. I could picture exactly how it happened. Grace.

  Alfie circled the hall, mewing and mewing, shouting at me; his miaow catching and extending like an accusation: I was locked up! Where were you? I followed as he led the way downstairs, tail twitching, then I changed his water and squeezed a sachet of wet food into a saucer, all the while trying not to gag at the smell. Alfie started eating before the dish even touched the floor.

  When I was done sorting out Alfie, I stole a glance at Meena. Her face was serious.

  ‘Abigail, sit down,’ she said, pulling out a chair for me and my legs folded gratefully. Meena looked at me and I held her eyes until mine burned and I squirmed. ‘Tell me,’ she said, looking at me as if she could see the organs and sinews, the flesh and blood inside me. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘What do you mean, “what’s going on”?’ I said.

  ‘I mean exactly that. Drinking. Smoking. Locking up the cat. Not hearing the door. What’s going on with you, Abigail?’

  I closed my eyes. Meena wouldn’t go until she was satisfied. I had to play along. ‘I’m sorry. My friend Grace’s staying. I’ll tell her not to smoke in the house. We’ve stayed up a few nights talking.’ I looked at the empty bottles on the counter. ‘Alfie must have got locked in the bathroom by accident. As for me, I’m painting a series for a gallery exhibition,’ I said slowly. ‘That’s what’s going on. I’m sorry I forget things and don’t hear the door.’ I gave her a weak smile.

  Meena sighed. ‘This isn’t about the dinner you missed. I haven’t come here to tell you off.’ She sighed again and pushed her hair back. ‘I’m worried about you.’ Her eyes moved to the empty vodka and wine bottles I’d chucked into a box on the floor – I hadn’t got around to recycling them yet. I hadn’t taken the rubbish out either. Now I noticed, the bin was overflowing, with cigarette packets poking out from a lid that wouldn’t close, and piles of dirty glasses and food-encrusted dishes lay not only in the sink but on the draining board as well, along with some olives, well past their prime.

  ‘Grace’s here,’ I said. ‘It’s not just me.’

  Meena’s lips were a flat line. ‘Is everythin
g all right with your friend?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What then, Abigail? I sense something isn’t right.’ She closed her eyes, her palms facing up on the table and breathed in and out as if she were a medium, trying to feel something that patently wasn’t there.

  ‘Everything’s good,’ I said. ‘I’m just busy. And tired.’

  We stared at each other and then she picked up her phone. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you tell your husband that because he’s been beside himself trying to call you today to wish you a happy birthday.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t see any missed calls,’ but as I said it, I realized that my phone was here on the kitchen counter, and had been all night.

  ‘Eight times he tried,’ Meena said, pressing a button on her phone. ‘Plus the messages. Here, speak to him.’ She thrust her phone at me and I put it to my ear.

  ‘Abi?’ Rohan’s voice came down the line, strained and thin. ‘Thank God. What happened? Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine!’ I got up and paced the kitchen, uncomfortable with Meena listening to the call but aware that I had to take it in front of her. ‘I’m so sorry I missed your calls. I was painting and my phone was in the kitchen. What time is it there?’

  ‘Just gone four thirty in the morning.’

  ‘Shit. I’m really sorry… have you…’ Been up all night? was what I needed to ask, but I didn’t want to know I’d caused him a sleepless night. ‘I’ve done some amazing work,’ I said. ‘I can’t wait to show you.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it, Abs. I’ve been counting the days till I see you.’ A pause. ‘You must be really into your painting.’ I was still sweating, my hand clammy on the phone.

  ‘I’ve been consumed by it,’ I said. ‘I barely know what day it is.’ It felt as if my voice was coming from somewhere else; someone else speaking. ‘I’ve been so busy. I’ve pretty much finished the fourth painting. I was up all night.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re being productive,’ Rohan said. ‘I was really worried you wouldn’t have anything for the exhibition.’

  ‘Well, I will now. I’m aiming for nine or maybe ten in the series and, if I can keep on at this pace, they should be done in time.’

  ‘Fantastic.’ His voice was warm. ‘But please, baby, keep your phone with you and just send me a text if you’re busy. I understand. I get it. But I never want another night like last night. Okay?’ He wished me a happy birthday, asked if I was doing something with Grace later, and I hung up the call a few minutes later.

  Meena was sitting at the table, staring into space.

  ‘I think it’s the house,’ she said randomly, drumming her fingers on the table. ‘I’ve always said there’s something about this house. A spirit, maybe.’

  She looked up at the ceiling as if she could see the wisps of ghosts traversing the plaster; ectoplasm stuck to the window panes and I stifled a sigh of impatience, wanting nothing more than painkillers and my bed.

  ‘Don’t you feel it, Abigail?’ she said. I didn’t say anything, and Meena carried on. ‘Maybe you don’t. But my family, from my mother’s side, we were always sensitive to these things.’

  I shrugged. Rohan had taught me not to indulge Meena’s spiritual-slash-fanciful side, not because he didn’t believe in it, but because once Meena got an idea about something, she snowballed, and I could see where this was going.

  ‘Do you remember when Mili was pregnant?’ Meena asked and I closed my eyes to hide an eye-roll: dear God, here we go again. We all knew the story she was about to tell: it was family lore, along with the time when she left a newsagent’s moments before it was held up by armed robbers. ‘She hadn’t done the pregnancy test,’ Meena said, ‘but I guessed she was expecting because I felt the extra aura in the room.’

  She touched her hand to her chest. ‘I can feel something again now,’ she said. ‘I always told Rohan not to buy an old house, but he wouldn’t listen, would he? Hmm? You never know what’s happened in a house like this. All the people who lived here. All the people died right here, within these walls.’ She shuddered. ‘Under this roof. All that energy.’ She stared into the middle distance again, as if she could see through time.

  ‘Energy never dies,’ she said to the kitchen, and her voice took on a trance-like tone, as if she were speaking to spirits themselves. ‘It might change form, but it never dies. Sometimes it gets trapped.’ She turned and looked meaningfully at me. ‘You sit here all day, alone, painting, Abigail. You open your brain, your heart and your soul to forces we can’t see or understand. You receive instruction from another plane. And this is how it works – this is how the good paintings come to you…’ My hackles rose at that. Did my mother-in-law really think I had zero talent without the input of some extra-terrestrial energy? ‘But sometimes things you don’t want will come in, too.’

  Meena’s nail fretted at the surface of the table, the oak distressed by a designer rather than years of use, and she sucked in her cheeks. I picked up my water and took another sip to hide my impatience. I would never admit it to her, but I felt the energy, too. I felt the shell of the house pulsing with it: it was the energy that had made me want to buy the house in the first place. I knew that the house wanted me here. It had chosen me – but I would rather pull out my own fingernails than tell Meena that.

  ‘I have a very strong feeling about this place,’ Meena continued. ‘There’s unhappiness here. Something bad.’

  I knew her well enough to know what she was picturing: something dark and brooding that skirted the house, breathing on us all, wisping its way around us and inside us like a macabre fog; something too ethereal to put into words. If I wasn’t careful, she’d be here before I knew it with a group of friends burning sage and chanting, and I didn’t even have Rohan here to stop her. I snapped to attention.

  ‘No. That’s ridiculous. I don’t feel it at all. Look!’ I pointed at the ultra-modern kitchen, at the new floors. ‘It’s all new. Nothing old is here anymore. Any spirits are long gone.’

  But Meena got up and started opening the cupboards. For a moment I thought she was actually looking for ghosts behind the cereal bowls.

  ‘Where’s your salt? Proper sea salt, not this table salt.’ She flicked her fingers as if sprinkling salt on food.

  ‘What do you want salt for?’

  ‘There’s something wrong with the energy in this house and I’m going to fix it.’

  Really, I could do without this right now. ‘With salt?’

  ‘Yes, and lemons. It might help. If not, we will think again. Now, do you have lemons?’

  ‘Help yourself,’ I said, pointing lamely to the fruit bowl where a couple of dull lemons sagged.

  Meena bustled about, finding a knife and the chopping board. She cut the lemons, arranged them in saucers and sprinkled salt on them.

  ‘Right, I’m going to leave these around the house. Please don’t move them. I’m also going to sprinkle some salt around the doors and windows. I learned this from my mother – Ronu’s nannima – she did it every time we stayed in a hotel or overnight anywhere, she’d scatter salt in the corners of the room and at the windows and doors and we were never troubled by spirits.’

  My chin was resting on my hands. It seemed to ease the pounding in my head. My eyes were heavy. ‘What?’

  Meena sighed. ‘There are many things in this life that we don’t understand, Abigail, but trust me on this.’ She cocked her head. ‘Anyway, shouldn’t you be at the hospice today? I thought you went every Tuesday?’

  Shit.

  Thirty-Five

  By the time I got to the hospice, I was over an hour late for my shift. I’d spent the journey there alternating between hope – I was painting! She’ll understand! – and dread, unsure which was the more realistic option but the moment I pushed through the door and saw Moira look up from the drinks cart that I should have been pushing from room to room and shake her head, I knew which way things would go. Still, I tried. Throwing my coat behind the nurses’ st
ation, I went to take the cart from her.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Moira. I…’

  She cut me off. ‘In the office, Abigail,’ she said, so I slunk over to the small room at the far end of the ground floor. There, I ran my hands through my hair. In my rush to get Meena out of the house and get here, I hadn’t showered, neither had I bothered with make-up. Sitting waiting, I turned the selfie camera on my phone onto my face to check my appearance and recoiled from what I saw: dark circles under my eyes, lank hair, sallow skin, the beginning of jowls. It’s just the angle. It’s the camera, I told myself as I snapped back to the home screen and rubbed my finger across my front teeth, trying to polish off some of the fuzz that remained from a night – or more? – unbrushed. Moira didn’t come for ages – she must be finishing the drinks before attending to me, and quite rightly. But I was so tired… I leaned my head back against the wall. I just needed another vodka. That’d sharpen me up.

  ‘Abi.’ Moira’s voice was brisk, a call to attention as she brought a swirl of busy energy into the room. ‘Wake up.’

  My eyes snapped open and, as I focused, my hand went up to wipe the dribble I could feel gathered at the corner of my mouth. My body bolted forward to attention.

  ‘Moira. I’m so sorry. I was painting and I was up all night. I lost track of the days.’

  She stood there in front of me, her hands on her hips; she may be diminutive in stature but her entire body brimmed with authority.

  ‘It’s not good enough, Abigail. I’m sorry.’ She glowered at me and I shrank before her. ‘It’s not the first time this has happened, is it? It’s one excuse after the other with you these days, isn’t it?’

  I closed my eyes in acquiescence. Since Grace had arrived, I’d become slack.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on in your life,’ Moira said, ‘but you need to sort it out before you come back here. I need to be able to rely on my volunteers – to have them turn up when they’re supposed to and do the jobs they’re supposed to do. That’s all I ask. This isn’t a hobby, Abigail. It may be a volunteer position, but I need you to be professional in your conduct.’