The Unquiet House

by Alison Littlewood

  She heard a dull sound through the glass and she touched the pane with her fingers. She knew it must be cold but she didn’t really feel it. There was a car passing in the lane outside. A small blue car with a man driving and a young boy pressed up against the passenger window. For a moment he looked up at her before he turned away, straightening in his seat. She wasn’t sure if he had seen her. Out there, time was passing; in here, it stood still. Time didn’t steal the things she loved. In Mire House, things lingered: it had been built to last.

  The old man was standing behind her, by the wall, smoking his pipe. She had begun to see him more and more often and she was no longer afraid of him. Get out, he had said to her once, and she had thought of it as hostility. Now she was no longer sure; perhaps he had only been trying to warn her, after all. She had been frightened of him when she had thought of him as someone else’s ghost, unconnected with her; now he was her own.

  Still, he hadn’t explained and wasn’t welcoming. Sometimes, his expression even reflected those words back at her: Get out. But whenever Emma considered the possibility of leaving, she reminded herself of the day she had stood in front of the mire and seen the white light in front of her, the glimpse of the death she had thought was waiting for her there, and the way she had turned away from it; the longing for more time. Now she had all the time she wanted. She was here: she was alive. Perhaps it was as good a place as any.

  When she looked outside again, there was someone she knew standing in the garden. He was looking up at her and for a moment he seemed to be staring directly into her eyes, but no, he glanced around and she knew he had seen only a reflection of the sky shining back at him. He turned to the woman at his side and took her hand. He was holding something in the other – it looked like a sprig of yew.

  It was Frank and his mother. Emma frowned. Why had they come? It felt like a reminder of some other time, another place, one that made a vague longing rise within her again, something a little like pain. Her frown deepened, becoming a scowl. It wasn’t fair; it wasn’t right. They shouldn’t have come here where they didn’t belong. They shouldn’t have come here knowing they could simply walk away again.

  She turned from the window and walked down the stairs, slowly and steadily, running her hand along the rail. She remembered thinking once that it would be a little like this, that she’d walk down these stairs wearing some silken gown, like a lady. Like a lady of the house.

  She could hear Frank and his mother outside, talking to each other just as if they knew everything about the place. She could hear it in their tone, the casualness, the presumption. Then she heard them say her name and with a frisson she realised they thought they knew everything about her: who she was, what she would have wanted. She heard that phrase now: What she would have wanted, the woman saying it to her son, just as if they had ever even met – and there was a soft rustle of something being set down on the step.

  Emma reached out a hand towards the door. She hadn’t tried it before and she didn’t like to touch it now. She closed her eyes, trying to listen, and when she opened them again she was right in front of their faces. She was standing on the top step, just outside the door. The man and the woman in front of her did not react. They showed no sign of having seen her.

  Frank was wearing his grey jumper again, and he wore an expression to match. He glanced up once more, nervously, as if he thought he could see in at the windows from where he stood. His mother was holding his arm. She was a little more stooped than when Emma had last seen her, and she shifted now as if she was catching something of her son’s disquiet.

  ‘We wish her well,’ Frank intoned, as if murmuring some ritual.

  ‘We wish her well,’ his mother repeated.

  He tucked her arm a little tighter under his own and for a moment they just stood there, staring at the house, their eyes focused on the door. Emma glanced down. They had placed the sprig of yew on the step below the one on which she stood. It had been freshly cut; she could smell it, a sharp, not altogether natural smell. She could sense its poison.

  The woman looked down at it too. ‘It’ll ’opefully ’elp ’er cross,’ she said. ‘It’ll ’elp her get wherever she’s going.’

  Emma scowled. Help her cross where? She wasn’t leaving. She wasn’t going anywhere. This place was hers. Hers.

  Frank nodded. His eyes were pale and weak, his hands whitened where they curled over his mother’s, as if he was gripping a little too tightly. Emma stretched out a hand towards them, without quite touching their skin. She could feel their warmth and somehow that was worse than anything else: their warmth, their touch, and longing rose within her. Tears pricked at her eyes. She withdrew her hand and touched her cheek. It was cold. Cold.

  She shook her head. Why had they come here? She had been happier before. She hadn’t thought about other places in so long, other possibilities, of the touch of a hand upon hers.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the old woman said.

  Emma started. She had thought she was speaking to her, but no: she had pulled away from her son and turned to face him.

  ‘I was angry,’ she said, ‘when you said you saw something in this place. I’m sorry. It weren’t that I din’t believe you. It were just that I were afraid. I din’t want it t’ be true.’

  ‘Mum, it’s in the past.’

  ‘But if I ’adn’t—’ She paused. ‘I thought it were all ower by then, you see. This place – it ’as a way of ’olding onto things. It dun’t let ’em pass.’

  Emma stared down at the yew at her feet.

  ‘Now ’er last relative’s gone – the last of Antonia ’Ollingworth’s, I mean. The woman who she thought ’ad took everything from ’er: that’s ’er line finished, I reckon. So it must be ower now, in’t it? She’s ’ad ’er revenge.’

  Frank opened his mouth to speak, but she cut in once more. ‘So she’d not be thinkin’ of me any more, would she? Of us, the way I ’elped Mrs ’Ollingworth. The fact that – that I went on an’ she didn’t. For – for being part of a future she never ’ad. For – ’oping.’

  ‘Of course not, Mum. Don’t get upset. It’s in the past.’

  This place, thought Emma. It has a way of holding onto things. It doesn’t let them pass.

  ‘But there’s more, Frank. I’d tried not to think on’t, but – it were me, you see. When Antonia sold up and left, it were me. She’d talked me into starting agin, an’ – well, in a way, I did the same. She thought she should stay ’ere, and it were me as said – I told ’er she ’ad a choice. I said if she ’ated the place so much, she should leave. Some of us never ’ad much of a choice of what we did, but she ’ad one and it were me as said she should use it. And that’s why she left when she did, why she got away – escaped from this place. Do you think it remembers, Frank? Do you think it remembers that?’

  ‘Mum, please—’

  ‘We should’ve done something, Frank. We should have teld that girl, soon as we knew – told ’er to get out an’ all. Soon as you said she’d come to live ’ere, we should’ve done something. We shouldn’t ’ave let it be.’

  Emma listened and she knew that it was true: they should have done something. They should have helped her, warned her somehow. They could have saved her from all of it. She clenched her fists at her side and found herself stepping forward, across the sprig of yew lying useless and dead at her feet. Anger took her, and something else: a wild, insane jealousy. They were warm. They had life.

  ‘But Mum, we didn’t know.’ Frank’s voice faded to a whisper. ‘When I saw ’er, in’t church – she weren’t real. They said she were already—’

  ‘They could’ve been wrong, Frank.’

  ‘Aye. Mebbe.’

  ‘It’ll ’elp her cross.’

  ‘Mebbe.’

  ‘We should’ve done summat anyroad. This place – it in’t right. It’ll never be right. We should’ve found a way. We knew.’

  Emma drank in those words. She was greedy for them. She was greedy for their warmth
. They should have helped her.

  This time when she stretched out towards them, her hand trembled. She was barely conscious of her actions; she only watched as her fingers curled into a clawed, grasping shape as she reached for the old woman’s shoulder.

  The touch, when it came, was a shock of ice. The woman’s whole body convulsed. The breath hissed from her and she pulled away and staggered. If it wasn’t for her son, she would have fallen. He caught her, grasping her arm tightly once more, calling her back. The old woman’s eyes were bulging from her head.

  ‘What is it, Mum? Mum?’

  She shook her head. She looked almost funny now, her face blanched, her mouth opening and closing, opening and closing. Emma watched as she gasped at the air, drawing in a deep whistling breath, and then she leaned in towards her and stared directly into her eyes.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then she grasped at her chest, her thin fingers scrabbling against her coat. It seemed a long time before she began to breathe regularly again, in-out, in-out, and she patted at Frank’s hand until he eased his grip.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘It’s nothing, Frank. I’m fine. It was nothing – it must have been nothing.’

  Emma smiled. The touch on the woman’s shoulder had stayed with her, a splinter of ice she cradled, sensing the promise it held. Now she turned to Frank. He was still fussing over the old woman, just as if he could help her, just as if she wouldn’t soon be gone from him; as if she wouldn’t be called to where she really belonged.

  Emma tilted her head. The woman belonged at this house; they both did. She could see that now. It was as if some pattern had become clear, its lines stretching down through the years and ending here. They needed one last piece to be put in place before it was complete. And she was the one who was supposed to do it. Frank and his mother were bound up with the house and it with them: they were a part of it. And it meant she didn’t have to be alone, not ever. It didn’t need to end with her. There could be others; the house could have life after all.

  The house was built for love, but love never came to fill it.

  After a moment she reached out and she grasped Frank’s shoulder.

  Now you must do your best.

  And she would. She would. She would do her best for the house. She would try to fill its empty rooms and echoing corridors and that other space, the one inside her, the one that was empty too: abandoned. Forsaken. And at last she knew why the house had called to her, why she’d entered its cold rooms, seen the dust hanging in the air, the doors that swung open onto darkness, and yet she had loved it at once, had felt connected to it even though she had never seen it before.

  She looked into Frank’s eyes. He met her gaze and his was full of pain. It was full of fear. He shook his head and she smiled as he pulled away. He turned from her and the house as if he could banish them from his mind – from his future – and he helped his mother down the steps, hurrying her down the driveway as if he thought they could leave it behind them.

  Soon, Emma thought. Soon.

  She turned to go back inside, kicking the sprig of yew away as she went. She already felt a little warmer than she had before, a little lighter. The rooms in front of her already felt a little less empty.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Emma awoke, or thought she did. She had heard something, a sound that was louder and closer than the usual creaking of the house, the footsteps of its ghosts. It came again, the slamming of a car door, the grinding of feet on gravel.

  She went to the window. A car was parked on the driveway. It was small and rather battered, and someone was standing beside it. She recognised him at once. The sun was rising and it caught his hair, which was untidy and a little too long. It was Charlie. He was alone. As she watched, he went to the boot and pulled out an overstuffed rucksack.

  For a moment she wondered if it was really him, but then he looked up at the house and she saw that it was. His eyes were clear and guileless and a little sad. He put his hand into his pocket and withdrew it holding a key; then she lost sight of him, but she heard the rattle of metal in the lock.

  When she went downstairs she found him standing in the hall, looking around at the dark corners with a blank expression. She stood near the bottom of the stairs, but she didn’t need to be cautious; he didn’t see her or hear her or even sense she was there. He didn’t appear to be afraid any longer. He put down his bag and went towards the drawing room, pausing on the threshold, looking inside. She wondered what it was that he saw.

  After a while he shook his head and turned to go up the stairs. She followed him as he went, slowly stepping onto each tread. When he reached the top he surprised her by entering not the master bedroom, but hers.

  He went inside and just stood there, looking at the narrow door. He stayed there for a long time. Emma stood behind him; she no longer wished to see the expression on his face.

  He whispered something, so brief and quiet she couldn’t make it out, but she felt a rush of warmth for him. She had doubted him and suspected him, and all the time he had simply been caught in the tide, being manipulated by the dark woman who had started it all. Now he was free: he was a young man who had done nothing – no, not nothing; he had come to visit Emma just because they were connected somehow, just because of something in their distant past. He had worked with her and talked with her and laughed with her. He had held her once, putting his arms around her and soothing her fears. She found herself smiling at him, though a part of her was a little sad too: she found herself wishing there could have been more.

  She remembered the kiss they’d shared, warm and good. She would have liked to know him better – the real Charlie, not the way he had been when she thought he’d come back to her and found only her beneath his face, the woman clothing herself in his bones and skin and flesh.

  He pulled something from his pocket, a crumpled sheet of paper, and he straightened it out. It was a letter, densely typed with an official-looking crest across the top, signed with a flourish of ink. She stood close by his shoulder, without touching him, examining it. She stared. She should have known as soon as she saw him standing in the driveway, as soon as he produced the key.

  Charlie had inherited Mire House after all. He had come home.

  For a moment she didn’t know how she felt. She froze, staring down at the letter, and then she stepped back into the corner of the room. She saw that the old man who had stood at the end of her bed was there again. She could see him only dimly, the white curl of smoke from his pipe rising against the walls, and he looked at her without smiling and he shook his head.

  She turned away from him to find that Charlie was gone. She could hear his footsteps, though, moving down the corridor. She went out and saw him coming out of a doorway and entering the next room, and the next. She followed. He didn’t stay long in any of them but she saw his expression; he was looking at the walls with an appraising look, a considering look. It was as if he was already wondering what colour to paint them, as if he was making plans.

  It was her house. Hers.

  It was as if she was seeing two versions of Charlie as she followed him around the corridors of Mire House: someone who was almost her friend, almost something more – and her Charlie, the dark woman’s relative, not by marriage but by blood, the last of her line. Now he had inherited and it was his house. He would live here and be happy, just as she had no doubt intended. The house that had passed from her grasp had been returned to her and her own, for always. Emma could almost sense her triumph. And then it struck her: Charlie’s kiss. Had that really been him? She could remember the touch of his lips on hers, their warmth, the way it had recalled all the feelings she’d suppressed: the sense of life. And she remembered his touch on her shoulder. It had been cold. Cold.

  When he kissed her – that had been after she had become trapped in the narrow room. After Charlie had come back – but it hadn’t been Charlie. Would he have kissed her at all if he hadn’t been influenced by the dark woman? Did he ev
er even have feelings for her? The kiss – it might have been nothing but mockery. And she had clung to it, her moment of connection, and it hadn’t even been real. How the dark woman must have laughed. Emma clenched her fists.

  Charlie reached the stairs once more and began to go down them, placing his feet so very carefully on every step. She reached out towards him, her hand wavering, almost, but not quite, touching his back.

  He reached the hall and looked around once more, just as if he hadn’t seen it already, as if it wasn’t his. The grandson of Clarence Mitchell, who had gifted her this place, not out of love or family connection but out of revenge for something that happened before she had even been born. He’d intended her for this place, chosen her for its own before he’d even met her or known her.

  Slowly she smiled. She had been meant to be trapped here, for always, in an empty existence, watching as the last of the woman’s line moved in and was happy and lived. It was her last revenge, willed down through the years, passed on through her cold touch until there was no one left to receive it.

  But Emma was here. Her story wasn’t finished. She didn’t have to despair; she didn’t have to fade.

  She pictured herself reaching out and seizing Charlie’s shoulder, imagining the expression on his face as he felt the ice of it, the promise it held.

  She remembered the way she had worked with him, side by side, Charlie whistling or humming some tune under his breath. She had liked him then. She remembered the way she had run to him when she’d been afraid, the way his arms had wrapped around her body. It had been good. She hadn’t felt alone any longer. Now she didn’t need to be afraid; perhaps it was time for other people to be afraid of her.

  She began to smile. Downstairs, Mossy and Tom had come out from wherever they’d been hiding. She could hear them running about the hallway, playing some new game. One of them – Mossy – had started to sing.