by Gayle Curtis
Shivering, she went in and quickly moved the old heavy curtain that hung behind the door. It snagged as she’d opened it, giving her a momentary trapped feeling. Once she was on the other side of the curtain, she stood with her back to the large hall. On seeing the staircase, the memory of her father was all too clear – that brief moment of shock on his face, the blankness in his eyes that had slowly eclipsed any sign of life.
She reached out and tried the light switch, turning it on and off a couple of times. She had not expected it to work but to her surprise it did. She wondered why her mother had continued to pay for the electricity when she hadn’t lived in the house for quite some years.
The light was dim even though the bulb hung far below the grubby shade. It reminded her of a photographer’s developing room. The wind pushed the door closed behind her and her heart was pounding in time with the rattling window panes. There was a strange smell in the air – of long ago gravy dinners, cigarettes and embers from logs burnt away.
Cecelia opened the door to her left and walked into the sitting room. It was just as it had been when she was a child. There were two tatty mustard-coloured sofas which had always reminded her of the Viennese biscuits her mother used to make when she was a child. There were also two dark green velour armchairs at the end of the room situated by the large bay window.
The patterned carpet swirled in front of her, making her feel slightly dizzy. She stepped further into the room and noticed that the seventies wall lights and Anaglypta paper were dusty with dirt, as though they had been sprinkled with black pepper.
The sun began to peek through the grey clouds and was filling the room with light. Cecelia walked over to the window and looked out across the patchwork blanket of fields.
Her phone began to ring, startling her in the shadowy chill of the house. It was Samuel, wondering where she was. It was half-day closing at the bookshop on a Wednesday and she knew he’d be expecting her home early, suffocating her with his concern.
She lied and told him she was rearranging the shop and that she’d pick up some dinner on the way home. Their conversation was strained, stilted, as communication had been between them for some time. They were just two human beings sharing some sort of life together, but he was more interested in her than she was in him. She always seemed to have her back turned towards him.
As she put her phone in her coat pocket she looked back out of the window, her eye catching movement just beyond the garden and across the first patch of fields. A figure was standing on the edge of the closest ditch. She moved nearer to the window, squinting to try and get a better view. It was a woman, she could make out that much. Cecelia thought she looked like Yvonne, but she knew that wasn’t possible. She ran out of the sitting room and up the stairs – all memories of Roger now vanished – and down the long corridor leading to the bedroom directly above so she could get a better view from the window there. The figure hadn’t moved and Cecelia was even more convinced that the woman looked like her mother. How she remembered her from old photos, rather than how she looked these days. Her shoulder length brown curls were blowing in the bitter wind and she was wearing an outfit that Cecelia remembered very well, a royal blue turtleneck and a tweed skirt. Cecelia was transfixed by the figure, frightened to turn away in case she vanished. She could have sworn she was looking back up at her through the window from the field below. She ran back to the corridor and then into each room that gave a view of that particular part of the fields. The woman appeared in every window pane, just standing and staring at the house.
Cecelia lifted her hand to touch the cold glass and the figure outside raised hers tentatively, as though in response to a wave. Cecelia’s fingers slipped down the window. It was her mother, she just knew it, but that wasn’t possible – Yvonne was in hospital. She put her finger up to signal for the woman to wait where she was and left the room. She ran downstairs and out the front door and continued around the back of the house, stopping abruptly when she reached the grass. She frantically looked up at the windows and then back in the direction of the fields, but the figure had gone. Cecelia turned on the spot, looking around her in case the woman had moved towards the house, but she knew that was ridiculous. The fields were bleak and sparse and the ditches were far too deep for anyone to get across in a hurry. Maybe she’d been seeing things.
Cecelia wrapped her arms around herself to shut out the cold and tried to rub some comfort into her limbs. It had been a difficult few weeks one way and another and her sleepwalking episodes were beginning to merge with her reality, making her feel unsure of true events. Grey clouds passed across the sun, making it overcast until the sun’s rays burst through the perforations. Tepid raindrops landed on her face and she shivered as she smelt the all too familiar steely freshness of the rain that had depressed her so much as a child.
Wandering back into the house she began to feel strangely uneasy. She went upstairs to look out of the windows to see if the figure was there now that she was back inside. It was as though the panes of glass might be carrying a moving picture of the past. In her mind everything in the house was exactly how it had always been except it all looked much older, more tired and shabby.
Walking into the last bedroom she’d been in, she stared out of the window. She scanned the fields but they were empty and still, apart from a gentle shower that was beginning to trickle down the windows, distorting her view. She became aware of her handprint on the window and traced it with her finger. That was when she noticed the much smaller handprint next to hers. Steam from the outline was still visible on the pane. She turned to look around the room, suddenly unnerved. She took in the dusty floorboards, the faded yellow floral duvet which lay across a chipped iron bedstead with no mattress. Apart from an old squat 1940s wardrobe in the corner, the room was empty and echoic.
She turned back to the window again and gasped loudly as the sight of her own reflection in the window startled her. Her feet suddenly felt like lead weights and she stayed still as she allowed her heart to calm. She frowned at the tiny handprint, quite faded now, but still visible next to hers on the window. The carcass of a large moth lay on the sill along with various flies, reminding her of death and his cloaked darkness.
Out of the corner of her eye Cecelia was sure she’d glimpsed movement across the fields again, although it was becoming harder to see with the gentle rain, and leaning forward she peered through the window. As her eyes focused on the glass of the window she became aware of the reflection of another face just behind hers. She let out a scream as she spun around and saw the bedroom door slam.
Her feet stuck to the spot, her skin prickled and her heart felt as though it was gripping the bars of her ribcage. Pressing her hand to her chest she took some deep breaths, trying to calm herself and quell the sickness rising in her throat. She felt trapped and wanted to get out of the house, but didn’t dare move from the room. The light was beginning to fade and she wanted more than anything to be back in the safety of her own home.
After a few moments she decided to brave the bedroom door. She convinced herself that she was tired and more overwrought than she’d realised, and explained away the slamming door as being caused by a draught.
Tentatively she opened the door, her hands shaking. She stepped into the corridor feeling as though her legs didn’t belong to her body. Looking both ways down the empty corridor she made a run for it and pelted down the stairs, straight out of the front door. She looked behind her the whole time as she fumbled with the lock.
Getting into the car, she flicked the central locking immediately, telling herself again she was being ridiculous. She turned the key in the ignition and sat for several moments waiting for the car to heat up. She’d gone to the house in search of answers. The green suitcase still haunted her dreams but she had struggled to stay in the gloomy farmhouse long enough to search for it. The last few years had been filled with other traumas, making it difficult for her to concentrate on the past for any length of time.
Staring up at the large building, she remembered the now blurred stories from when she was a child, the fear still painfully real. Her understanding of what had happened was far more prominent now she was an adult and had a child of her own.
As she scanned the house she realised she’d left the hall light on – she could see it glowing brightly through the tiny window above the front door as the darkness from outside became deeper. She turned the car ignition off, preparing herself to quickly go back into the house and flick the switch. She couldn’t risk a house fire, whatever her feelings about the place, but everything was telling her not to go back in. She felt sick with the dilemma.
Unclicking her seatbelt, she pulled the handle on the door, releasing the central locking. She paused before opening the car door defiantly. She stopped as her foot touched the gravel and she saw the light in the window disappear, as though someone had gently extinguished the glow from the entire house with a large blanket. She pulled her leg back into the car, slammed the door and locked it once again. Turning the key in the ignition she drove away, telling herself the rain must have caused a power cut. She checked her rear-view mirror, watching the house curve away from her as if it was moving scenery. She slammed on the brakes too late as her car ploughed into a little girl standing on the driveway.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ava turned out to be a good subject for Sebastian’s artwork. He now found the faults in her frame to be interesting. He could be rough with her – contort her into all sorts of positions, even hurt her at times – but she seemed to like it, as he tried to adjust her skeletal form, pressing his thumb along the ridges of her bones, feeling them beneath her skin as he moulded her into positions for him to draw.
‘Put the cotton wool up your nose, I’m just about ready.’ Sebastian was on the floor measuring and cutting pieces of linen for his work.
‘Won’t the powder fall into my eyes and mouth?’ Ava was completely naked and lying on a decorator’s sheet on the floor.
‘Keep them shut. I want to print the natural line of your features. I’m trying out some new colours instead of my usual black.’
‘You’re very serious when you’re working aren’t you?’ Ava stood up and began to wander around his room, looking at the pictures, the linen pieces he’d already produced.
‘The shoulder blades didn’t really work did they? I think you should stick to hands and faces, they’re such an interesting subject, don’t you think?’
Sebastian didn’t answer her; he rarely spoke when he was concentrating. He liked spending time with Ava – she was good company in the main, and she enjoyed posing for him while he sat in the bath, although she usually ended up in there with him.
That said, Ava wasn’t Cecelia and she never would be. They were similar in hairstyle and eye shape, but Ava was much taller and willowy, despite her lopsided body. There had always been a slight inhibition to Cecelia; even though she never had a problem wandering around half-naked when they were at the farm, there had been a shyness Sebastian had found endearing. It was always apparent when he was focusing on her from an artist’s perspective.
Ava was all too ready to pose and never volunteered to sit naturally. For the first five minutes of their sessions she acted as though she’d turned up to a modelling shoot. It always took him a while to settle her down, stop her pouting, get her to close her legs and reveal a little less, but once she relaxed he enjoyed the company. That was as long as it was on his terms and she didn’t just turn up unannounced. This could put him in a bad mood for the rest of the evening as he was still used to a structured timetable.
‘You don’t talk about your sister much,’ Sebastian said when they were both sat in the bath together later that night.
‘Neither do you.’ Ava sipped her wine and placed it on the bath rack Sebastian used to lean his sketch book on.
‘There’s nothing to say about her, that’s why.’
‘I can see how much you love her, regardless of any hostility.’
‘I never said I didn’t. It goes without saying; she’ll always be my Cecelia.’
‘When Imogen and I were younger, we thought it was weird that you were twins.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sebastian poured some more wine from the bottle.
‘It sounds funny saying it now but it was because you were a girl and a boy. We didn’t know different gender twins existed. Silly, isn’t it?’
Sebastian watched droplets of water run down her warm skin to the top of her breasts floating in the milky water.
‘I can see why you’d think that.’ He laughed. ‘We were fascinated at how you could be mirror twins. Especially Cece. She started telling people we were mirror twins too.’
This made them both laugh. ‘She was a sweet little girl. I remember when Imogen and I frightened her in that old war bunker. We never saw her again after that . . .’
‘I never thought we’d be apart, you know . . .’ Sebastian was staring absently into the water, seeing Cecelia laughing as he chased her along the corridors at the farmhouse. Then he saw her standing in the hall, the .22 rifle by her side.
Ava pulled her arms forward as though she was going to embrace herself. ‘I do know, yes.’
‘Why did your sister kill herself?’
Reaching forward for her glass, Ava gulped her wine, refilling it immediately.
‘Lots of reasons really. I suppose you never know what finally tips someone over the edge. We’d been in a few foster homes; most of the people who ran them were nice, kind. As kind as someone could be when they had unruly adolescent strangers in the house. Then we were separated because there wasn’t room anywhere for both of us. It was terrible – we hated living apart. Imogen wasn’t as lucky as me and went to a place where one of the foster parents abused her. Sexually. She didn’t tell me until later when social services found us a place where we could be together.’ Ava reached down to the floor and opened another bottle of wine. ‘I wanted to kill him when I found out. Really kill him, I mean. The anger was so bad it burned inside me. It was as though I wouldn’t be able to breathe if I didn’t let it out, you know?’
Sebastian nodded. ‘What happened to him? Was he caught?’
‘No. The bastard died . . . he fell asleep pissed one night, choked on his own vomit.’
‘That’s one less paedophile to worry about . . .’
‘Actually, Imogen didn’t see it like that. It tortured her more that he’d died, like he was out of her grip and there was nothing she could do about it. She told me afterwards that the only thing that comforted her, helped her to sleep at night, was imagining how she would kill him. Every night she would think of a different way. She lost it after that and I spent years pulling her back onto the raft.’
‘Everyone deals with trauma differently.’
‘Yes, so now you can see that I know how you felt all those years ago. I know what it feels like to want someone dead.’
Sebastian was silent. He was slightly irritated that she should compare her story to his. ‘Did you find her?’ he lit a cigarette.
‘Who else do you think it would be?’ she said as though he was stupid. ‘I knew she was going to do it. I came home from work every day with the anticipation of finding her, and every day I felt grateful she was alive, elated if she was smiling. It really teaches you to appreciate every moment.’
Sebastian spluttered slightly on his wine, wiping his mouth with the back of his forearm. ‘It was quite recent then? In the house you’re in now?’
‘Yes. Just three years ago . . . I won’t ever sell it. People think it’s weird that I’ve stayed. But she’s there with me.’
It was after hearing that last sentence a sudden realisation dawned on Sebastian. ‘I can’t imagine losing Cece.’
‘Yes you can. You just can’t bear to think about the pain it would cause you. I had no option but to explore it because it was inevitable.’
‘Do you think you’ll ever come to terms with it? Such a hu
ge loss.’
Ava took the refilled glass from his hand. ‘I don’t want to “come to terms with it” as you put it. If I stop grieving for Imogen, I’ll lose her altogether.’
Sebastian thought about this long after Ava had gone home. He envied the clean, perfect memory she had of her twin. She was no longer around to tarnish Ava’s memories of her. Some people were better off dead.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cecelia slowly stepped out of the car and looked at the child curled up on the track.
‘You’re not real, you’re not real. You are not real . . .’ she whispered over and over again as she pulled herself out of the car and around the bonnet as though she was on the edge of a tall building. Crouching down she reached out to touch the small, still body lying in front of her. Everything was familiar about her – clothes, hair, size, age; her daughter, her Lydia.
Cecelia couldn’t bring herself to touch her. She closed her eyes for a few moments, expecting the child to have disappeared when she opened them again. But she was still there, lying on her side, eyes blank. Cecelia stood up, walked a few paces and turned around, only to be faced with the same scene.
‘Stop it!’ she screamed, pulling at her hair, smacking the side of her head with the heel of her hand. ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’ She sat down on the gravel track and sobbed into her knees, pulling them tight into her chest as she had when she was a child. Tears subsiding, she looked up only to discover that the figure in the middle of the unmade road that she thought was Lydia was in fact a deer. Wiping the snot from her nose, she pulled herself forward and sat up, gasping deep sobs as she crawled forward and threw herself onto the large dead beast, its body still warm.