‘You don’t remember Daddy.’ Caroline, teeth bared. ‘You’re too young.’
‘No, I’m not. I remember what he smelled like and Gordon smells the same.’ Joanna, defiant, not blinking.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Caroline, scornful, as the finger of memory poked her in the back and forced her down the well-trodden path to times with her father … the paper bags of sherbet pips he’d dig from the pockets of his coat that smelled of typewriter ink and London trains when she cuddled him … home from the pub at the end of their street on Sunday evenings, sucking humbugs to disguise the smell of ale, the two of them humming along to Sing Something Simple on the radio. Robin Jameson was born on Valentine’s Day, wore checked sports jackets with leather elbow patches, and his hair was glossy with Brylcreem. He was thirty-two when he drowned. And was she worth dying for? Caroline doubted it, and supposed her pretty little sister would have been a far worthier sacrifice. Bright and special, it wasn’t difficult to see why everyone preferred Joanna; if Caroline was honest she preferred Joanna herself. But it was easier for her, four years Caroline’s junior – she wasn’t troubled by unwanted changes in her body or bothered about whether Dean Fry liked her or not. No – Caroline regarded her sister – Joanna wasn’t the least confused as to where she fitted in.
‘Anyway,’ Caroline said, back in the now. ‘How d’you know what Gordon smells like?’
‘I sit on his knee.’ Joanna lifted her other arm, used it as a visor.
‘You sit on his knee ? When? I’ve never seen you.’ Caroline was horrified.
‘When I go to Mrs Hooper’s and she’s late back from church.’
‘I sit on his knee too,’ Ellie said.
‘Yuk! ’ Caroline scowled. ‘I wouldn’t let him anywhere near me – he gives me the bloody creeps.’
‘Carrie! ’ Joanna, eyes wide. ‘You’re not supposed to swear. Mum said.’
‘Like she gives a sod.’ Caroline skimmed a hand against a foxglove as tall as she was.
‘Yes, she does.’
‘You can kid yourself if you want, but I know different.’
‘Why are you being so horrible? It’s not my fault we’ve been sent here, that Mum did what she did.’
‘Did I say it was?’ Caroline glared at her. ‘Anyway.’ She seized hold of Ellie’s other arm, loath to be left out. ‘For your information, I like it here. I like being far away from everything.’
And they were. This somewhere, which their mother referred to now and again as ‘the back of beyond’, suited them fine. For there were no abandoned places where they came from; London living meant it was impossible to get away from people. But in Witchwood, with its abundance of secret nooks, you could hide away for days, weeks, if you needed to. And if there was one thing Caroline and Joanna wished for most of all, it was to hide. Life under the scrutiny of neighbours and the concern of teachers since their mother’s cry for help had been suffocating; all they wanted was to be left alone, to be allowed to be normal. But things were never going to be normal, were they? Not since Robin Jameson left them behind on the beach with his wire-rimmed spectacles tucked into his sandals.
‘Don’t go using language in front of Dora, she don’t like it,’ Joanna warned in a tone copied from her teachers, but only because Ellie was beside her – she wouldn’t have dared ordinarily.
‘Huh, tell me what she does like?’
‘She likes Gordon,’ Joanna tittered, showing her neat row of milk teeth. ‘She’s always in a good mood whenever he comes round.’
Caroline grinned blithely, forgetting the taunt from a boy at school who said her front teeth looked like a pair of hankies on a line.
‘Mummy says your auntie’s got the hots for Gordon,’ Ellie said, and the three of them collapsed into a fit of giggles.
‘You coming in, Ellie?’ Joanna asked once she’d recovered.
‘I can’t.’ Ellie looked down – her scuffed roller skates suddenly interesting. ‘Daddy said I’m to stay away from Gordon.’
‘See .’ Caroline swooped on the subtext. ‘I’m not the only one who doesn’t like him.’
‘Oh, don’t go, stay,’ Joanna pleaded.
‘No, I’d better not.’
‘We won’t tell.’
Ellie sucked on her bottom lip and thought about it. ‘No, it’ll make Daddy cross.’
‘But you said you liked Gordon?’
‘I do like him – it’s Daddy who doesn’t, not me,’ Ellie defended herself.
‘Why? Are you frightened of him, your father?’ Caroline, deliberately provocative. ‘Does he hit you?’
Ellie squinted through the sunshine and declined to answer.
The sisters didn’t move. With the sun dropping low over their backs they listened to the receding whoosh , whoosh of Ellie’s wheels. A rattle of rooks from above; a sound virulent enough for the house sparrows caught in the coil of honeysuckle by Pillowell’s front door to flee.
‘Funny her dad don’t like Gordon.’ Joanna splintered the spell.
‘No, it’s not.’ Caroline, her eyes glued to Ellie as she skated away through the trembling green. ‘Gordon’s weird – playing with her like that at Mr Hooper’s funeral? It’s not normal.’
‘Gordon’s loads nicer than Ellie’s dad is – he’s scary.’
‘No, he’s not; Ian’s nice. And anyway, what would you know? You’re only a kid.’
‘So are you.’
‘No, I’m not!’ Caroline, indignant. ‘Liz says I’m a young woman now.’
They turned their attention to their lengthening shadows, to the breeze pickpocketing the treetops. Dora had lots of callers. It wasn’t something they were used to; people rarely visited their mother. Yesterday it was the reverend’s turn, eating all Dora’s pink wafers and dropping crumbs down his front like the confetti he won’t permit in his churchyard. Rushing in on them sitting cosy-close, it stunned the sisters into silence, unsure why he was there, neither of them comfortable with the way he looked them up and down.
‘It won’t be the vicar again, surely?’ Caroline juddered at the memory of Dora putting away his side plate unwashed. The pretty National Gallery serviette, with its voluptuous Rubens’ nudes he’d wiped his mouth against, to be used again and again. ‘Right dirty old sod, him. Just because he wears a dog collar. I know what the bastard’s up to.’
Joanna winced under the weight of Caroline’s imprecating. ‘You don’t like anyone much, do you?’
‘Can’t trust no one, that’s why. You’ll learn soon enough, when you grow up.’
Hot and tired – it took energy being introduced to new people all the time. But no matter how lumpy their legs were from nettle stings and insect bites, their clothes soiled from playing outside, they must come forward to be presented; they must make an effort to smile and answer questions politely. A bit of a joke their great-aunt may be – a flash of her giant pink knickers flapping like flamingos on the washing line – but she was a stickler for manners. Hovering in the heat of the porch with the cobwebs and peeling paintwork, the sisters peered into the subfusc of Pillowell’s front-facing rooms, half expecting to see the phantoms of Dora’s relatives come rustling through in crinoline skirts. Poker-straight Victorian women with faces they’d come to know from the photo album, stepping about the Persian rugs in slippered feet. But there was nothing, and no sign of Gordon or Dora either. They must be in the sitting room round the back.
Accompanied by the lethargic buzz of summer, the sisters unhooked the side gate and squeezed along the path. They stopped to press their noses to the damask roses growing along the south-facing wall, wanting the tickle of petals on their sunburned cheeks. The roses and the lawn were the only things tended to nowadays; long gone – Dora’s old photographs of the garden were testament – were the bee-loud borders that, when their great-grandparents holidayed here, were awash with colour. Since Dora inherited in the late seventies, nature had been left to its own devices much as Caroline and Joanna were. Stuf
fed with verdant shadows, heavy as foliage, Pillowell Cottage and its unruly garden echoed the claustrophobic feel of this corner of Gloucestershire.
Identifying the smell of cut grass, they saw the compost heap had been recently added to.
‘Dean’s been,’ Joanna said when they stepped in through the kitchen door, swapping the outdoor smells for whatever Dora was cooking in the oven for their dinner. They saw his empty beaker turned upside down on the draining board. ‘We must’ve missed him.’
‘He could still be here.’ Caroline, ever hopeful, scanned the kitchen surfaces for clues. But aside from the chopping board heaped with redundant onion skins, there was only a dead bluebottle, the debris of melting ice cubes and slivers of lemon – necessary accoutrements for Dora’s evening gin and tonics – and nothing more of Dean.
‘Don’t worry.’ Joanna, seeing her sister’s sagging expression, wanted to lift her mood. ‘He told me he’s going to ask you out soon.’
‘You what ? He said that!’ Caroline, all smiles again. ‘When? When did he tell you?’ Fizzing with excitement, it didn’t occur to her to ask why a lad of eighteen would entrust his romantic intentions to her nine-year-old sister.
‘Yesterday, I think. I was helping Liz with the chickens.’
‘And, what? He just came out and said it?’ Caroline could barely contain herself. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
There wasn’t the time to answer. The sisters, aware of the rumble of conversation coming from the sitting room, edged out into the hall to listen.
‘Imogen? Well, yes, of course I’ve seen her. In London. Not here. I haven’t been able to tempt her back here for … ooo , how many years is it?’ It was Dora’s vaguely foreign accent the sisters identified first. Blurry from her usual aperitif, it curled up through Richard Clayderman’s Love Collection she’d set to play on the turntable.
‘Ten.’ It was Gordon Hooper who provided the answer.
‘Really? That long.’
‘Yep, that long. Have you ever tried to persuade her to visit Pillowell again? She rather liked Witchwood, as I remember.’
‘Of course I have, Gordon. Imogen knows she and the girls are always welcome,’ Dora was quick to interject, and Caroline and Joanna imagined a flourish of the black lace fan.
‘But you say you see her. What, fairly often?’
‘Oh, yes. She comes to Bayswater. Although, when I think about it, she’s not been for at least a year, certainly not since Lion died.’
‘Lion ?’
‘Imogen’s father. My brother.’
A brief pause.
‘But you know’ – Dora again, her tone wistful – ‘the poor thing’s not been right since dear Robin drowned. She took it so very, very badly.’
‘I’m sure.’ Another pause. ‘Perhaps she’ll come to Witchwood this year. As you’ve got Carrie and Jo staying with you.’
‘Oh, I doubt it, Gordon. We can’t possibly understand the state she’s in. I’ve been telephoning the clinic but they say she isn’t up to taking calls— Oh, cooee – is that you, girls?’ Dora’s voice interrupted itself. ‘Guess who’s come to see us.’ A fruity chuckle that made the sisters’ toes curl inside their jelly sandals. ‘He’s got something for you.’
‘Do we have to?’ Caroline hissed, desperate to be alone with the joyous news Joanna had just given her. She wanted to be free to moon about Dean and all they were going to do together. ‘Can’t we just pretend we didn’t hear and sneak up to our room?’ Upstairs, the two bedrooms and generous-sized bathroom shoved under the eaves was a space in which she could breathe and daydream. Not down here with Gordon Hooper and his sugared smiles and spooky eyes.
‘You do what you want. I want to say hello.’ Joanna bounded away with a puppy-like eagerness.
Dallying on the threshold: Joanna bashful, Caroline aggrieved. Dora beckoned them into the room filled with the peppery tang of Gordon’s aftershave. Something far more troubling to Caroline than the green light dribbling in from the trees.
‘There you are, come on … come on. No need to be bashful.’ Dora let go another spice-filled giggle.
Ellie was right, the sisters thought as they observed the object of their aunt’s affections sipping from a tumbler, a lilac-coloured cigarette between his elegant fingers, blowing bracelets of smoke into the room. She definitely had the hots for him.
‘Goodness me!’ Dora, louche as a tabby cat on her pink chaise longue, had flung off her Dr Scholl’s, and the fan, just as the girls had visualised, fluttered like a blackbird at her throat. ‘Look at the state of them, Gordon. Look how filthy they are. Oh –’ another flirty flurry of the fan – ‘you’re like a pair of didicoys; whatever would your mother say?’ The gin and tonics obviously dispensed with, Dora slurped from a large wine glass that, when she pulled it away, left an arc of red on her upper lip.
And Gordon did look, stealing from one little girl to the other in that unflinching way of his. Joanna looked straight back, happily giving him a willing smile. But Caroline, instinctively throwing the dark of her eyes elsewhere, watched the flapping distress of a huge moth which had alighted on a lamp, its shadow flickering against the wall.
Gordon saw it too, and rose from his seat to scoop it gently in his hands to tip it outside. ‘It’s wonderful you’re able to give them so much freedom. More fun than London, isn’t it, girls?’ he said, and, sitting down again, handed them the large carrier bag that had been waiting at his ankles.
Dora smiled as he lolled back in one of Pillowell’s stout leather club chairs and made a steeple with his hands beneath the fine line of his jaw. She liked the way his large onyx ring, another eye, blinked coldly in the lamplight and, seeing his attention had been seized by her shambles of a garden, twisted away, as he had done, from the chatter, the rustle and rip of wrapping paper, to share in the multiplying midges caught in the last shards of orange sunshine as it was swallowed by the dying day.
‘I’m so pleased, they’re every bit as lovely as I remember them being before the shop assistant wrapped them.’ Gordon dropped his thoughts into the diffused lighting of the room. ‘I’ve a weakness for lovely things,’ he said, almost as an apology. Dora thought of Lillian, of her concern about Gordon’s fondness for spending more than he earned. About the only thing he’d inherited from his father who, twice bankrupt, had no qualms about plunging his family into a state of near-ruin time and again.
The hobby-horses were indeed beautiful. Mounted on long wooden poles with wheels, their heads of soft chenille felt real to the touch. Caroline, despite being a little too old for her toy, was fascinated with the dramatic palomino sporting a fine leather halter. Joanna, equally spellbound with her black-headed one, waved it through the languid air and made its Christmas-red bell sing.
‘Go on, girls,’ Dora shrieked her encouragement. ‘Give your Uncle Gordon a nice big kiss to say thank you.’ Behaving in her usual haughty way, she lurched forward over her comfortable middle and pushed them towards him. Gordon bowed in his seat to receive them: a king to his subjects, Dora thought wistfully, as the girls did as they were told and planted kisses on his surprisingly bristle-free cheeks. Gordon missed the way Caroline scrubbed her mouth with her sleeve, but Dora didn’t, and an unexpected fury sprouted inside her.
‘Good manners cost nothing,’ she barked, ripping open a packet of Twiglets. ‘Say sorry immediately, or you can go to your room.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Dora.’ Gordon was unperturbed.
Dora nodded through her crunching, but she wasn’t happy, fearful Caroline’s display of insolence would reflect badly on her. Then, with no preamble, Gordon, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Joanna, scooped her up around the middle, hobby-horse and all, and plonked her on his knees with such unexpected boldness, it made Dora gasp.
‘Ahh , now isn’t that nice,’ she cooed at her neighbour’s grown-up son cuddling her little niece. ‘What a lovely picture you two make.’ Buzzing with romantic notions learnt from books, experiencing little in reality, i
t didn’t cross Dora’s mind that there could be anything darker going on here. But Caroline was on to him. Carrying her toy, her long face fixed in solemn intent, she rescued her defenceless sister from this sinister houseguest.
‘Come on, Jo – let’s go and play outside.’ And she prised Joanna’s tubbiness from Gordon’s grasp. ‘I’m calling my horse Beau Geste.’
‘Ooo , how clever of you – that’s perfect.’ Dora clapped her hands in appreciation. ‘I loved that book as a kiddie. Who wrote it … ? Who wrote it … ?’ Mind turning, unable to release the name.
‘P.C. Wren,’ Caroline informed her coolly.
‘What a clever girl you are.’ Dora, proud. ‘Isn’t she clever, Gordon?’
‘You what?’ Gordon, reluctant to release Joanna, lifted his pale eyes to Dora and made her blush.
‘Isn’t Carrie clever for coming up with that name for her horsey ?’
‘What are you going to call yours?’ he asked Joanna, who was cuddling up to him.
‘Black Beauty.’ Joanna smiled.
‘All right, all right.’ Dora clapped her hands again, wanting to move things on. ‘You two go and play for five minutes, then bath and supper. All right?’ A mock frown for the benefit of her male companion, to show she was capable of organising two little girls. ‘Are you staying for supper, Gordon? You’re very welcome. I’ve made a goulash, it’s simmering in the oven,’ Dora offered as Joanna slid from his knees and raced out into the lowering dusk with Caroline.
‘What a lovely idea,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll go and fetch my mother.’
And a final look at the sisters – a swirl of giggles on the blue-dark lawn – meant he missed Dora’s glazed look of disappointment.
The sound of an imagined sea pervaded Caroline’s dreams. Nightmares of her father, his dead-fish eyes slipping below the waves before anyone could reach him. Draped in the mellow glow of moonlight, her face creased from the pillow, she let the smell of washing powder hurl her back to Camden and her mother’s eyes that were raw as onions from the years of crying Caroline blamed herself for.
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