by Sue Wallman
Poppy smiles and I feel a burst of happiness. Warm kitchen, Amigos. I could hug Jakob.
Baz stands up, his ears raised. He can hear someone coming. It’s the person I least want it to be:
He’s wearing awful jeans, even worse than Elaine’s, and a strangely shiny burgundy jumper that’s too tight, in a shrunk-in-the-washing-machine way rather than a muscle-bulging way. “Morning,” he says. “I’m looking for my binoculars. I know I brought them in from the car yesterday. They’re in a black case. You haven’t seen them, have you?” He makes circles with his forefingers and thumbs and brings them up to his glasses as a visual prompt. As if we don’t know what binoculars are.
Poppy shakes her head, Ivy looks around vaguely, as if there might be a black case next to the juicer, and I ignore him.
“They must be somewhere,” he says. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and wanders into the lounge.
“Of course they’re somewhere,” I mutter. “Sorry about him.”
Poppy is staring at me. I hope she’s not going to ask about Steve and Mum’s relationship or whether I like him, or in fact anything about him at all.
“Tatum snores,” I say. It’s the first thing that comes into my head.
It brings a smile to Poppy’s face. “Are you going to let her be an Amigo?” she asks.
I make a horror-face without thinking, and Poppy laughs.
There was a big row once about us not letting Poppy be an Amigo when she kept barging in on us in the attic. We ended up telling her that she could only be one when she was a teenager. It felt like a sufficiently long way off.
I say, “We’ll have to see.”
SEVEN
Auntie Gabs is next into the kitchen. She’s dressed but yawning, her hair held on top of her head with an enormous clip. “Good morning, everyone,” she says. She gives Steve a more welcoming smile than he deserves as he wanders back in. “Did you all sleep OK?”
Everyone says yes, except for Poppy who tells her mum about the ghost, while Ivy makes her mum a cup of tea, then stirs the milkshake vigorously, clacking the spoon against the glass.
Steve stops looking for his lost binoculars on the coat hooks and listens to Poppy’s description of the ghost.
Auntie Gabs rubs her forehead, as if she has the beginning of a headache. “Oh, Poppy, I’m sorry I didn’t hear the walkie-talkie. I’ll check the volume on it. Promise me you’ll try it again if you need me?”
Her attention turns to what Poppy’s had to eat, and Ivy gives Poppy the milkshake and the glittery straw, and Auntie Gabs takes away the cereal without saying anything. Poppy picks up the straw and dunks it in the yellow liquid, pulls it out and licks the end. She’s only eight, but I’ve heard of really young children having eating disorders.
Jakob chomps down the rest of his sandwich, goes into the larder to find one of the silver straws for New Year’s Eve, cuts it with scissors to make a pair of fangs and acts out being a vampire. This involves grabbing me and pretending to suck blood from my neck. Next he waggles his arms around and goes towards Poppy’s milkshake.
“Let me suck up your lifegiving juice,” he cackles, staggering over to the table. He dunks his head down so the straws dip into the glass.
“Watch out. The table’s wobbly,” says Ivy, attempting to hold it steady. It lurches, the glass crashes over, and the yellowy liquid spills rapidly in two directions. We all shriek and stand, scraping our chairs back as it drips over the edge of the table on to the floor.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” says Jakob, nearly tripping over Baz, who’s come to lap it up. “I’ll get a cloth.”
Ivy uses kitchen towel and dishcloths to soak up the milkshake on the table. “Ew. There’s so much of it,” she says.
“It’s no problemo for me to mop the floor,” says Steve. He seems to know where the mop’s kept. “Nobody got soaked, did they?”
I feel cold wetness seeping through my left slipper, but I don’t need Steve to fuss over me or take it to the airing cupboard to dry off.
“Look, Baz is making paw prints round the kitchen,” says Poppy with delight as he scampers back and forth through the liquid as if it’s an irresistible outdoor puddle. She places a tea towel on the floor and manages to coax him on to it to dry off his paws, while Steve hurriedly mops. When calm is restored, the two of them high-five each other with unnecessary loudness.
Mum appears, then Elaine and Marc and somebody makes a large cafetière of coffee, and we Amigos do a word search with Poppy as she nibbles round the edges of a cereal bar.
Marc comments on the wine bottles lined up by the back door from last night, and Jakob looks up from the word search and says, “I’ll put them in the recycling.”
Ivy gives me a what’s-he-up-to look, and he flashes us a half-smile as he slips his feet into his mum’s squelchy shoes, and scoops up the bottles to take them to the recycling crate in the covered wood store. We hear the smash of him lobbing the bottles into the crate above the noise of the adults’ conversation, and then it goes quiet for a bit. He returns with a flushed face from the cold, looking very pleased with himself.
“Come over here,” he hisses, beckoning us over. “The paper recycling hasn’t been emptied for ages. There are loads of local newspapers.”
“Oooh,” says Ivy, giving him the thumbs up.
“I need a hand taking the crate up to the attic,” says Jakob.
“I’ll do it,” I say to Ivy. I look for shoes to put on. Steve’s trainers are the only ones available to me, neatly positioned with the laces tucked inside. I’d rather wreck my Christmas slippers further. “Let’s go,” I say and we slip out together up the path.
The crate of Pinhurst and Riddingham Gazettes is heavier than it looks. We take an end each and shuffle back along to the front door, damp soaking through to both feet. The newspaper on top is about the local council turning down planning permission for a block of flats.
“I hope there’s more interesting stuff underneath,” I say.
“What have you got there?” asks Elaine as we come back in.
“We need newspaper for a project,” I say.
“Don’t make too much of a mess in the attic,” says Marc. Like he ever goes up there.
Jakob and I keep moving through the kitchen to the corridor, my slippers making footprints on the old wooden flooring. At least they’re not milkshake ones. Ivy follows us, helping us on the stairs.
As we go past my bedroom, Tatum emerges in her turquoise coat.
“Morning. What’s that you’ve got?” she asks.
“Hi,” says Jakob. He indicates for us to put the crate down. “I’ve made a brilliant discovery! Local newspapers. Potential information about Alice and Rose. We’re taking them up to the attic.”
“Jakob, I love you!” says Tatum. “Wow. That’s so good. That’s going to be perfect.” She pulls her phone from out of the coat pocket and films a few seconds of the crate, leafing through the papers with her spare hand, and holding one up that says Human Remains Found in Pinhurst. She says, in a totally new, melodramatic voice, “Finding information was hard without easy access to Wi-Fi, but we discovered just what we needed: local newspapers.” When she’s stopped recording she says, “Don’t start without me. I’m going to make a cup of tea and bring it up.”
“We discovered?” says Jakob quietly after Tatum’s gone.
I roll my eyes.
“Hmm,” says Ivy, “and that voice.”
We carry the crate with difficulty up the steep attic stairs and dump it on top of the rug, and I collapse on my sofa – well, mine and Jakob’s now that Tatum has temporary ownership of Jakob’s. “My back hurts,” I moan.
We wait fifteen minutes for Tatum, not concentrating on any conversation we start because it’s hard to think of anything other than the papers there in the middle of the three of us. I go through some ballet warm-ups, holding on to the back of the sofa for a barre, and Ivy and Jakob test riddles out on each other.
I’m
the one who cracks. I take the first paper, and leaf through it rapidly.
Ivy shrugs and joins in, and by the time Tatum comes upstairs the three of us have a pile of five newspapers which have relevant information in, and I’ve been down to my room to get some paper and a pen. I carry on writing things we know so far at the top of a piece of paper.
“Nooo,” Tatum says, dragging out the word. “I wanted to film the sorting. Why didn’t you wait? I asked you.”
“Sorry,” says Ivy. “You took too long.”
“I was forced to listen to Poppy’s story about Jakob spilling a milkshake and Baz rolling in it. Something like that anyway,” says Tatum.
“We wanted to get on with it,” I say without looking at her. “You can recreate the sorting if you want to.”
Tatum sighs loudly. “Yes, I’ll have to. I’m trying to create a narrative. Jakob, stand there and pull out papers from the crate.”
Jakob does as she says.
“Work those cheekbones,” I say.
Tatum directs her shoot while I doodle round the edge of my piece of paper out of shot and occasionally glance across at Ivy when Tatum’s voiceover is particularly excruciating.
Finally we get down to the actual articles. What we learn is:
•In the few minutes before her death, Alice Billings told the matron at a nursing home in Pinhurst (called Silverways) that there was a body buried in the garden of her old house.
•When the police investigated, the body of a young woman was discovered.
•The body is believed to be that of Alice’s younger sister, Rose Strathmortimer. It is thought she died in 1958, aged sixteen.
•A local resident, who declined to be named, said Alice told him Rose had moved to Switzerland in the summer of 1958 to be a lady’s companion. Later he was told that Rose had lost touch with the family following a broken engagement.
•At the time of the death, Alice was living at Roeshot House with her husband Doug, a senior partner at Billings and Billings accountancy firm. Doug died in 1961 and Alice never remarried. They had a son, John, who is in the music business and lives in America. He is said to be shocked at the news but was unavailable for comment.
•The Gazette is awaiting the results of tests that will confirm the cause of death.
There’s also an article about Alice winning prizes for her gardening and being involved with local charities. We pore over the photo of her being presented with a trophy for the most fragrant rose in show at the Pinhurst Flower show in 2010. She has short white hair and a cardigan with daisies on it, and she’s smiling.
“It’s no coincidence Alice loved growing roses, is it?” I say.
“Question is,” says Tatum, “was she doing it because she wanted to remember her sister, or was it a private joke?
“That’s sick,” says Jakob. “Let me look at that photo of her again. She looks so normal.”
Tatum records herself reading out the list, but when she’s on the part about Alice’s son John being unavailable for comment, Elaine shouts up the stairs that we need to get dressed for the Chandler’s Hill walk.
EIGHT
Once we’re dressed and ready, we’re desperate to go outside to film the grave in daylight. We don’t want to wait for the adults to find their walking socks and appropriate footwear, or confer with Gabs about her getting a head start with tonight’s meal since she’s insisted on staying behind.
We say goodbye to Poppy, who’s cutting out paper people, the sort who hold hands when you open them up, and tell the adults we’ll take Baz and meet them outside. Ever since Baz saw Ivy with his lead, he’s been circling us in a frenzy of excitement. He rushes out of the back door and we run after him, laughing at his craziness. As we come out of the side passage and see the front garden, the atmosphere changes. We’re in sight of the place where Rose was buried.
We stick together. I’m nervous: what if something was left behind? I know the police will have taken everything they dug up away in evidence bags, and Clive will have checked it over afterwards. Things can be missed, though, and I think of the essence of Rose, seeped into the ground. We stand solemnly next to the large rectangle of fresh earth. We fall silent until Baz walks on it, sniffing, and we shoo him off it, embarrassed by his disrespect and worried he might begin digging, or lift his leg to pee. He sits by Poppy and does ugly dog-coughing instead.
I was expecting there to be something here to acknowledge Rose – a bunch of flowers, or a candle – but that probably wouldn’t set the right holiday vibe.
“Why would you bury a body in the front garden?” asks Jakob. “You’d risk being seen by someone coming up the drive.”
“The layout of the garden might have been different,” I say.
“I bet the garage wasn’t here in 1958,” says Ivy.
“It’s barely here now,” says Jakob, surveying the dilapidated building with its missing roof tiles and dented metal door that doesn’t hang straight. We’ve been in the garage a few times, but only via the side door. It’s like a junk shop inside.
“Look!” I say. “That’s a rose, isn’t it?” Covering the side of the garage are prickly stems, leaf less, skinny and brown, like a sprawling sort of skeleton. “This doesn’t seem like a private joke. It seems like a not-wanting-to-forget her sister thing.”
I’m aware of Tatum standing close, holding her phone towards me.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Are you filming me? That’s not fair. Warn me first.”
She stops. “I thought we all liked the idea of a documentary? I need natural footage.”
I look from Ivy to Jakob.
“You need to tell us,” I say. “We don’t want to look stupid.”
“I can edit stupid stuff out,” says Tatum. “But OK.” She waits a moment, then says in a slow, exaggerated way, “I’m going to film a short segment now.” She lifts her phone. “Filming in five, four, three, two, one. This is where Rose Strathmortimer was laid to rest in 1958 in circumstances that remain unclear. Was she buried in a rush or was it done carefully? Was it at night or in full daylight? Who was there?” She pans round and I look away. “Okaaaaay. All done.”
We stand in silence, wiggling our feet around, aware now of the temperature. The clomping of boots along the side passage sounds eerie until we see Elaine, Marc, Mum and Steve emerge. At first I think Mum and Steve are holding hands, but they just happen to be standing quite close to each other. Steve has his binoculars round his neck.
“Looks like Steve found them, then,” says Ivy.
“Huh?” asks Tatum.
“Steve’s beloved binoculars. He’s a birdwatcher,” I say. “Don’t go there.”
Elaine shouts to us, “Stop being morbid, move away from there. There’s nothing to see.” She marches over anyway, with the other three, who are curious but don’t want to look as if they are.
“Imagine,” Marc says, “knowing your own sister was buried in your garden and not telling anyone your whole life. How could you keep that a secret?”
We spent most of yesterday evening imagining this. I think of the photo of Alice smiling at the flower show. She must have found a way of pushing it to the back of her mind, and getting on with her life.
“She must have hated her sister,” says Ivy.
“But if she properly hated her, she wouldn’t have said anything,” said Jakob. “Or was she sticking two fingers up to the authorities?”
“Let’s not dwell on it,” says Elaine. She looks at her watch. “It’s none of our concern. We should get moving.”
“We’ll probably never know the story behind it,” says Mum.
Tatum looks as if she’s about to tell her that we plan to find out as much as we can, but I widen my eyes and do a shake of my head, to say Don’t involve the adults.
We head off down the driveway. As usual the adults lead the way, and the Amigos drag along behind. I see Poppy watching us through the blinds at the kitchen window. I give her a wave and she waves back.
Steve attempts to hang back to walk with me, but I slow almost to a standstill, discussing with Jakob the last series we binge-watched. It takes a while for Steve to take the hint, but he gravitates back to the adults and Elaine’s loud conversation about black mould in her washing machine.
We take the scenic route to Pinhurst, taking a footpath across a couple of the fields. Near the pub in the village there’s always a good signal, and if we’re in range we can hook up to their free Wi-Fi. We tell Tatum they haven’t changed their password since we went there for a meal several years ago, and her eyes light up.
“Can we stop?” asks Tatum. “I want to check my phone.”
“Two minutes tops,” says Marc. “This is a walk. We’re enjoying what the countryside has to offer.”
Those of us under forty check our phones while the adults moan about phone addictions. I have an excited message from my friend Sofia telling me she finally got off with Dan last night at her drama club, the boy she’s fancied since she joined. I tell her how pleased I am, but wonder to myself how it’ll impact our friendship. Will she still have time to hang out with me? There’s a text from Dad – How’s R House? I could do with a slice of Marc’s lemon cake right now. Love from me and Amber x
Mandarin and chocolate, I reply. The casual way he’s forgotten the flavour of the cake upsets me.
“Let’s look up Alice Billings and Rose Strathmortimer,” says Tatum.
I look over her shoulder. There’s no more information than we already know, except a reporter has been looking up Alice and Rose’s family and discovered that the Strathmortimers were an aristocratic family who were left in “financially reduced circumstances” after Alice and Rose’s father made some bad investments and died young.
There’s the sound of a car slowing down and I glance up to see a four-by-four with a trailer of logs stopping by the adults. It has Pinhurst Properties in large letters across its side. Clive leaps out and checks with Marc that the boiler’s still working, and says he and Evan are off to rescue some holidaymakers who’ve locked themselves out of their cottage, and then they’ll deliver some logs to Roeshot House.