A Place to Lie

by Rebecca Griffiths

  A scrape of furniture and the door to the vestry opened behind them, making them jump. They’d assumed they were alone, and panicking, thinking they needed to replace the book before there were questions – questions none of them wanted to answer – they dived from the pulpit and charged back down the aisle, and once Caroline had returned the book to its bed of bird droppings with far less drama, raced out into the sunshine. But in their mad rush to get away, Caroline dropped the Polaroid: something she realised as the church door thudded shut, trapping the murmuring voices of a man and a woman there wasn’t the time to turn around to see.

  ‘Why was there a photo of me in that book?’ Ellie, round-eyed and pale, stared out on a world no one had prepared her for. ‘I don’t remember it being taken – I don’t understand.’

  When the children left the church, silence was restored. Setting aside the red tartan blanket he’d been folding, Reverend Timothy Mortmain stepped into the aisle. With muddied turn-ups and twigs in his hair from his yomp through the trees, his soft-soles slapped against the muffled serenity of his domain.

  He’d been watching the children from the depths of the woods, and then from the shadows provided by his vestry door. Such a shame the younger two seemed put off by the macabre contents of the book, unlike the older one, who’d been back to the church many times since Dora first showed it to her and her sister. He might not mind the intrusion so much if the younger ones came with her. They really were such pretty little girls.

  Present Day

  Once inside her sister’s old flat, Joanna locks the door and secures the bolts Dora would have fitted years ago. She bends to gather the post from the mat and hears Caroline’s neighbour moving around above. Robert, Richard … Roger ? Roger the Lodger? Joanna isn’t good with names. Not that he was ever her sister’s lodger; Dora’s parents had the house converted and sold off the top and bottom floors. But such a nice man, she wonders if she should have invited him and his wife in for a cup of tea. Maybe Yvonne knows more about what was going on with Caroline than her husband, maybe Caroline confided in her about this man she said she needed to keep tabs on; but it didn’t sound as if the poor woman was very well, so perhaps it’s better not to pester them.

  Turning her attention to the flat’s interior, the telephone is the first thing she sees. Its sinister red eye winking through the gloom. She spots the brown leather scabbard with its swastika emblem on the table beside it. Missing its blade, the thing had done more than enough damage; she asked the police to dispose of it even though it was doubtful they would have returned it to her. Sifting through the pile of junk mail and unopened letters, Joanna finds a flier for her recent concert at the Wigmore Hall. Quartered and creased and kept safe from unforeseen draughts by a potted fern. You kept this? She picks it up, her lips bunching with emotion. She hadn’t really believed the neighbour, but supposes she must have meant something to her sister if she held on to it.

  Peering at the thumbnail-size screen on the telephone, she sees there are nine missed calls. Listening to her own messages that she left Caroline, things she should have told her sister when she was alive, Joanna hears others from Jeffrey Morris at the rescue centre, informing Caroline that they’d had ‘some bloke in asking after her, that he was wanting to know when she was next in’, and imploring her sister to please return his call. Another from Caroline’s GP surgery, voicing concern that she hadn’t been in to collect her prescriptions. And one from a Sue Fisher, from St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, saying she was a ‘wee bit worried’ that Caroline had missed another appointment with her at the clinic, and if she could ‘please get in touch’.

  Joanna jots down the number when it’s given, presses it into her mobile.

  ‘St Mary’s Psychiatric Clinic, Sue Fisher speaking.’ A woman answers almost immediately.

  ‘Oh, yes. Hello.’ Joanna transports the voice, via the handset, to the window, picking up a pair of brass opera glasses remembered from Pillowell along the way. ‘I’m Caroline Jameson’s sister – Joanna Peters?’ She tapers her introduction into a question. ‘My sister was seeing you. You’ve left telephone messages for her.’

  ‘Aye, hello,’ Sue Fisher replies, and after a brief pause, ‘I was very saddened to hear what happened to Caroline, please accept my condolences.’

  ‘Thank you. Yes, it’s been awful. Erm, I was wondering, perhaps … ’

  ‘Would you like to come and see me?’ the voice offers.

  ‘See you? Well, um, yes. Yes, I would.’ Joanna, flummoxed, hadn’t expected the invitation to come this readily. ‘That’s very kind of you, if you’ve the time.’ Getting an appointment at her surgery in St Albans is near on impossible. But, she supposes, this is different, and Joanna hopes that, unlike doctors, this Sue Fisher will be able to disclose things about Caroline a GP never could.

  ‘I think we need to talk,’ The Highlands accent assures, ‘I’m sure there’ll be much we can discuss.’

  ‘Yes, there’s loads I don’t understand, and maybe you could help.’ Joanna, borderline gleeful. ‘Were you Caroline’s psychiatrist?’

  ‘No, I was her mental health nurse,’ the woman explains. ‘Your sister was referred to me by her psychiatrist … now, give me a wee second … ’

  Joanna hears Sue Fisher swap the receiver to her other ear, the clunk of an earring against the shellac handset and sounds of pages being turned. Nosing between a gap in the heavy brocade curtains, she surveys the rooftop view of Bayswater that came with this large, two-bed flat. Unaware of the latter state of her sister’s mental health, she had no idea Caroline had been receiving psychiatric help: her thoughts as she looks down to the pavement filmed in thin winter rain.

  ‘Tomorrow.’ Sue Fisher: definite and final. ‘I can do eleven-thirty tomorrow.’

  Doing a room by room, Joanna, aware of the hollow sound her heels make as they strike the dark polished floorboards, draws back the curtains and instantly changes the dimension of the flat. Far more spacious than she remembered, with its huge mirrors reflecting the seemingly endless rooms opening on to one another, but she can tell at a glance that Caroline never bothered to modify the place; the bathroom, plain and functional, doesn’t even have a shower. The taps squeak and drip, the pipes bang; they are going to have to spend a fair amount renovating if they’re to get the good price Mike is banking on. Wandering around, still in her coat, she strokes the chenille head of Caroline’s hobby horse. Faded and fraying, it leans against the door of the master bedroom. Seeing a white wisp of her breath, she claps her hands together for warmth. No central heating either. She makes a quick appraisal of the plug-in radiators and electric fires scattered throughout. And despite loving the feel of the place – the subdued tranquillity transfused with the chalky London light pouring in through its large sash windows, the Persian rugs of mulberry, bronze and plum – she wonders if it’s going to be possible to stay overnight.

  Dragging her gaze from a curtain of cobwebs clinging to the far ceiling, she scans the room, recognises various pieces of furniture from Witchwood, the odd knickknack and curio squeezed in here and there. No sign of the chaise longue and miniature tables with their velvet drapes, but there are plenty of tasselled lamps and oil paintings. Understandable Dora wasn’t able to part with anything – enshrined in family history, it would have been too much of a wrench – but Caroline should have sold it off, made a fresh start. A constant reminder of that particular pocket of time wouldn’t have been any good for her.

  An inspection of the kitchen cupboards and fridge informs Joanna there is nothing to eat. She considers her cupboards at home – the well-stocked larder and freezer – and deduces Caroline can’t have bothered cooking herself proper meals. From the state of the microwave and the contents of the swing bin, it looks as if she lived off ready meals, chocolates, cakes and ice cream. Returning to the expansive living room, she scans the shelves of books – Dora’s, not Caroline’s – written in languages she doesn’t understand. Her aunt, a polyglot, was a surprisingly cl
ever woman; Caroline too – she should have finished her A-Levels and gone to art college, because like Dora she had a gift, a gift she squandered. Joanna looks about her in despair; she had no idea how much stuff there was to sort through and questions whether the Salvation Army couldn’t be persuaded to take the lot, and she and Mike donate the money to charity.

  Talking herself into at least removing the most personal of Caroline’s belongings, she makes a start with the escritoire, another item of furniture evoking memories of her great-aunt’s summer home. The first thing she lands on is Mrs Hooper’s snow globe. Dusty-topped, but otherwise in perfect condition. She swirls it through the air and watches the white flakes settle on the magnified world with its perfect little family. ‘You were naughty to take this,’ she says to her dead sister as she guides it inside her holdall, folding it into the soft layers between her woollens to keep it safe, intending to return it to Mrs Hooper, although when, she doesn’t know. The idea of going back to Witchwood is deeply unsettling, and up to now it’s a place she’s managed to avoid. But, Joanna supposes, she’s going to have to face it at some point, if only to establish the state Pillowell Cottage is in, and whether they can sell that too.

  What she finds next, tugging open the top drawer, is a gold ring with a large blue gemstone. Topaz, she guesses, slipping it on to her middle finger, admiring the way it snares the light. Dora’s? She supposes it must have been; her aunt owned many beautiful things, all of which were left to Caroline. Deeper inside the drawer, filtering through sticky-tipped biros, toffee wrappers, bank statements and half-empty bottles of Stop’n Grow, the clunk of something heavy. A brooch this time: beautifully ornate with a deep-red stone and something she thinks she recognises. She pins it to the collar of her coat – Caroline’s things belong to her now, don’t they?

  Delving further, she finds a set of keys with a handwritten tag reading: Pillowell . What she also finds, pocketing the keys, are several notebooks. Cracking one open, dark thoughts crowd her mind as she attempts to unravel the spill of what she supposes are the warped contents of her sister’s dreams, but with the writing largely illegible, she will have to devote considerable time to get to grips with it. A fatter notebook, its cover the same William Morris design that papered the walls of Dora’s holiday cottage, contains more ramblings until the writing becomes tighter, the biro marks darker where the nib has been forced so hard it nearly rips the paper. Joanna deciphers dates and times underscored as SIGHTINGS that begin in early autumn and go right up to her sister’s violent death in late December. A shudder when she pictures the knife Caroline armed herself with, and to push the upsetting feelings away, she flicks through the pages and uncovers the most lucid writing so far. Cohesive sentences describing Witchwood and a faceless couple in a lane at dusk, picnics in the woods … A memory of the abandoned one they found with Ellie that afternoon near Drake’s Pike, but hadn’t known what it meant. Is that what Caroline is describing here, she wonders, turning more pages. But just when it seems to reach a crucial reveal, with tantalising promises of dirty secrets … filthy lies , it runs out of steam. The letters making words that would solve the riddle, loop back on themselves in the margins and are lost to her.

  She attempts to close the drawer, but something jammed at the back stops her. A large scrapbook. She carries it to the sofa and sits down for a proper look. What Joanna finds is page after page of neatly spaced and carefully glued-in newspaper cuttings and fliers documenting her piano-playing career. A record that begins with a picture of her cut from the Evening Standard when she was awarded her music scholarship aged ten. Then the photograph the BBC took when she won her section of the Young Musician of the Year in 1997. Joanna presses a finger to her sixteen-year-old face and gulps back tears. She had no idea Caroline cared enough to do this and thinking she could have meant this much to someone she’s not seen for a decade comes as a shock. The meticulous logging of reports and reviews of what appears to be every performance she’s given in the UK and Europe would have taken real dedication, she realises; even Joanna doesn’t keep a record of all she’s done throughout her twenty-year career. And look, there are tickets dating back to the late-nineties from the South Bank, the Wigmore Hall; Caroline must have been coming to her London recitals too – she must have been sitting in the audience.

  Deeply moved as she is by this show of sisterly love, this isn’t the whole story; it isn’t how Joanna feels about her life. The glitz and glamour, the showering with flowers – Caroline, she remembers sadly, had fewer flowers at her funeral – she appreciates how it must have looked to her sibling, who from what she can make out, now she’s inside her home, led a pretty lonely and unfulfilled existence. But the reality, like most things, is always a diamond-faceted thing, and Joanna would have gladly tilted the flaws to the light for Caroline to understand the bigger picture. Talked about the sacrifices she’s needed to make, the lengthy hours of piano practice she must apply herself to each day – days that, after repeating the same phrase over and over, push her to the brink of insanity. The months of touring, the string of airports, hotels, living out of suitcases, miles from her family. All things she would have happily confided in her sister. Yes, she’s been lucky in all she’s achieved and is grateful for it, but it has its downside – things are nowhere near as picture perfect as they’re being portrayed in these images.

  Midway through the chronicling of her prolific musical career, something stops her turning the pages. Sandwiched between Joanna – spot-lit, in long black dresses – is a collection of grainy photographs cut from various newspapers four years ago. Appeals made by the Gloucestershire Constabulary for information on the whereabouts of a Freya Wilburn, aged eight, missing from her home in Cinderglade.

  ‘Why would Caroline have been interested in this?’ Joanna says out loud. But her mobile, vociferous from her handbag, forces her to abandon her question and answer it.

  Summer 1990

  Cecilia Mortmain had cats: two narrow-skulled Siamese that slinked like aristocrats from room to room. A source of constant fluidity on her periphery, they tiptoed along an imaginary path that ran up and over the spine of a settee, the coffee table heaped with library books, and the Turkish rug from a long-ago holiday. Graceful as ballerinas, they were nothing to do with her husband. As with her, he barely noticed their existence, except to complain of hairs.

  Beyond her window the sky was a freaky cartoon-blue. She drained the last of her tea and watched a lone cloud drift aimlessly across it. Positioned, as usual, at her high look-out post, Cecilia contemplated the listing tombstones that like St Oswald’s perpendicular frontage and soaring spire were smothered in ivy. Saw – along with the smattering of sheep that shouldn’t be there, and Frank from the shop thigh-deep in nettles wielding his strimmer – the plot her husband had reserved for her beneath the Judas tree. Refusing to dwell on her own mortality, she dragged her gaze back to her cats. The seal-point and chocolate-point, which, like her, rarely breathed fresh air, circled her legs as sharks do their prey. Until three dark shapes snagged her eye-line and made her look outside again.

  Ellie Fry and the Jameson sisters. Cecilia saw them happily skipping inside St Oswald’s less than twenty minutes ago. The transformation, when they scurried back outside, alarmed her. Clearly upset by something, she watched their pale faces emerge from the shade of St Oswald’s porch. Had her husband done something to them? Timothy said he was heading to church after they’d lunched together. Perhaps it was the elegantly heeled Lillian Hooper? Cecilia hadn’t seen her, but from the muffled breath of the organ earlier, she was definitely inside. Tilting forward in her wheelchair, rucking the Burberry rug she needed over her knees despite the soaring temperatures, she saw that Ellie Fry looked close to tears, and her dimpled smile was totally extinguished.

  The children separated off: Ellie back to the pub, the sisters to Dora Muller’s crumbling holiday home. Then it was her daughter, Amy, Cecilia was looking at. Showing off her fabulous curves in the leather cat-suit Ceci
lia’s sister, Pippa, gave her from her wardrobe. Arm in arm with Dean Fry, they emerged from the dark mouth of the woods just as the Jameson sisters vanished. Dean, louche as ever beneath his mop of girly curls, spun her daughter by her waist, and Cecilia watched them kiss. Seeing her daughter happy made Cecilia happy. She’d had a wretched year that began with her best friend being killed in a hit and run. Then Philip Norris, her boyfriend of two years, dumping her. Although, Cecilia suspected, their split had more to do with Timothy warning him off. Amy had been inconsolable, but look at her now, throwing her head back and laughing. This was Dean’s doing, she smiled, hoping her husband – who took against the boy immediately – didn’t go spoiling things for Amy again.

  Timothy used to kiss me like that, she thought, gazing down on them. But be careful, Amy, your father isn’t the man he once was. Her warning steamed the glass. Best not let him catch you. But why not enjoy yourselves – she argued in her head in a way she could no longer do with her husband – when your lives could be snatched away at any moment. She should know: look at what life had handed her. Cecilia nodded to herself, liking the sensation of her petal-pale hair: sinuous and flowing down her back. At least her debilitating condition hadn’t robbed her of that. Small pleasures. Timothy had no idea, pestering her to cut it, saying it wasn’t proper for a woman in her late-thirties; but she flatly refused, it was all she had left of her original self.

  Amy and Dean sprung apart when the wooden doors of the church creaked open. ‘In the nick of time,’ Cecilia sighed through the dust motes, scattering them like seeds. Dean, hands in pockets, and whistling as if to beckon the world to his feet, withdrew from the frame. Cecilia prayed the fliers in St Oswald’s porch would waylay her husband long enough for Amy to slip away unseen also. Interestingly, Timothy’s attention had been grabbed by something, but not the parish noticeboard. What absorbed him looked like a square of black-backed card, possibly a Polaroid, but tucked swiftly away into the folds of his vestments, Cecilia couldn’t be sure.