Lacey's House

by Joanne Graham

“No family. Not anymore, it’s just me now. I was an only child you see, so after my mother and father were gone there was no-one. And Charlie was the only person I loved, nobody else came close.” She brightened a little, “I do see people occasionally. The vicar pops in every so often for a cup of tea. He’s a lovely chap, bit of a mad old fruit but that’s probably why we get on. And the headmaster up at the local school, he calls round too and asks me to make cakes for whatever school fête or fundraiser they’ve got going on. Not that he comes round only for that, he picks up shopping for me now and then and helps me out a bit. He set up my internet connection for me and showed me how to use the computer so I can order shopping and bits and bobs.”

  I could see her thinking deeply about who else she had in her life, as though she wanted to dispel any impression that she had given of total isolation. But the seconds ticked by and the well came up empty. When she spoke again her voice was smaller, less certain and she glanced around her as if she were making sure no-one could hear.

  “There was Albert. He was my closest friend. After his wife died we used to keep each other company a bit, cook dinner and play cards, that sort of thing. That got right up Martha’s nose that did. I think she thought I was trying to take her mum’s place but that was ridiculous thinking. I’ve never so much as looked at another man since my Charlie died.”

  I explained to Jane that Martha was my landlady before turning back to Lacey. “It must be a bit lonely since Albert died then,” I said. At least now a bit of light had been shed on Martha’s obvious dislike of Lacey.

  “It has been.” She turned and looked towards the open doorway, beyond to the hall, her eyes wide and her movements becoming stiff and stilted for a moment. It reminded me of rust, of clocks winding down.

  “He died here,” she pointed towards the door, “he fell, he fell down the stairs. It broke his head.” Her hand reached up to the back of her head and rubbed it gently. I looked behind me to the open doorway, imagining in the shadows an echo of the lost old man. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him dying here. Maybe a little sad at the thought of it and maybe a little uneasy too. I remembered Lacey’s funny little hop over the foot of the stairs and understood it now.

  “He was such a lovely old chap was Albert. Spent almost his whole life loving the same woman and when she died his own life was a shell of a thing. It’s like he was just biding his time after that, waiting until he could join her. I miss him all the time but I can’t begrudge him that at all, they’re together now. Just like me and Charlie will be one day.”

  If I’d had a brush in my hand then I would have painted her expression, the purity and emotion of it. She looked determined, defiant and again she reminded me of a child who had not yet learnt to hide their true feelings behind an outward pose of calm. I envied her for it and couldn’t help wondering if she would stamp her foot if she got cross, or roll around on the floor screaming if she was frustrated. I wondered if that would make me like her any less and decided that it wouldn’t, it would only add to the rich and interesting tapestry that Lacey unfolded before me.

  Chapter 30 ~ Rachel

  I know now that the barriers that we erect, the walls we build around ourselves to stop others getting in, are nothing more than smoke and mirrors. I always thought I was safe as a child when I hid behind my hair and looked away so no-one could see my eyes. I thought my every action helped weave around me a cloak of invisibility to protect me from prying eyes. Later, when I was wrenched from security and surrounded by strangers, when the family I always wanted was torn from me before I was old enough to understand why, I used silence as a weapon to push people away, to prevent them from getting too close. To me it had seemed a solid, impenetrable thing; I thought nothing could get through. But one puff of air and like magic, the barrier was gone.

  Where did the air come from that left me exposed? Was it the sign on the road from Exeter, or was it Lacey’s story? Perhaps it was both things combined that made me realise it might not be too late to make amends and undo the bitterness and regret.

  In fifty years time would it be me standing where Lacey was, with the past eating into me from the inside? I recoiled from the idea of experiencing for myself the stark loneliness that had been so apparent in Lacey’s eyes. In that moment I wanted little more than to undo past wrongs and to apologise for the way I had behaved. I needed forgiveness and it had been so long since I made any kind of confession.

  After we had walked Lacey home, we sat in the kitchen, lost in our own thoughts,

  “I think that was the saddest thing I ever heard.” Jane broke the silence that hung over the table and stared into her newly poured wine with a frown.

  When I didn’t reply she leaned forward and gave me one of her looks, chin down and eyes peering up through her raised eyebrows. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just the thought of her keeping that inside for all this time and never breathing a word to anyone. It just sounds so lonely.”

  She nodded her agreement and we drank in silence for a while.

  “She reminds me of you.”

  I looked at Jane but said nothing in reply, waiting for her to continue. Her words were discomfiting because they mirrored the thoughts I’d had only moments before.

  “Don’t look at me like that, you know what I mean. You’re pretty tight-lipped about your past. Whenever you talk about it, I always feel a bit cheated, like you’re deliberately missing out the most important bits.”

  “I don’t like talking about it.”

  “Oh I know, that’s my point. Maybe if you stay silent about it long enough people will stop asking and you’ll end up with a story you never shared, just like Lacey.”

  I slurped at my drink a little too enthusiastically and coughed as it went down the wrong way. I knew she was right and felt embarrassed by it. I had never been forthcoming about my past. I still carried the scars from the judgement of others. I still blanched from the scorn in their eyes as they looked down on us care home kids from the lofty heights of the wanted. The more time went by the more difficult it became.

  Jane knew that I had grown up in children’s homes, that my mother had neglected me, that I had been unhappy. But when I talked to her about it, I barely scratched the surface. I didn’t really talk about how I had felt at the time. I had never told anyone about Diane and Richard other than their names and that they had once fostered me. I only ever mentioned them in passing, as though they were little more than an insignificance. Yet they had been so much more than that. I had mourned them for years, as if they had died suddenly and I had been left with the grief of it.

  They had driven me away that day and I sat in the back of the car looking at the curve of their heads, seeing only sky through the windows and the tips of the trees. I felt tiny, afraid, relieved. The leather seat was cracking a little and I picked at it with my stubby, bitten fingernails as I began to worry about the changes ahead of me.

  I pushed my hot face against the plush fur of the pink rabbit that sat on my knee. Diane and Richard had given it to me after I climbed into the car seat. I had clutched onto it as I sat and looked up at them watching me through the door of the car. I felt like an animal in the zoo and despite the warmth on their faces, the obvious delight I could see there, I closed my eyes and tried to shut out a world I didn’t understand. I remember the smell of that toy rabbit, a new clean scent that I buried myself in.

  We pulled up outside a cottage in the small village. I could see the church tower from the driveway; it was closer than I wanted it to be. I didn’t trust graveyards then, every horror story I had ever been told curled from the gravestones like smoke. The cottage, though, looked sweet and welcoming and as I took a step towards it Diane bent down beside me and gently cradled the back of my head with her palm.

  “Your new bedroom is a little bit empty at the moment. It’s got a bed in it but it isn’t painted like a little girl’s room should be. So how about tomorrow we go shopping and buy the
things we need to decorate it just how you would like?”

  I felt excitement bubble up through my stomach and fill the space beneath my ribs until I thought I would pop. The thought of being able to choose, the idea of colour and fabric and newness was overwhelming. I hadn’t even set foot in the house and already I was thrilled beyond measure. Diane reached down to hold my hand. I smiled and held on tight as we walked to the front door.

  I expected my bedroom to be like the inside of a shoe box, bare walls, floors and windows. But it wasn’t. It was painted in neutral tones, with a warm brown carpet that didn’t look and feel like the sandpaper I was used to, and simple pictures of flowers hanging on the wall. The curtains were lacy, frothy things that looked to me like a waterfall tumbling over the glass. The bed was made with a proper quilt, with patterns of squares and diamonds.

  Right from the first, that room felt like home to me, in the proper sense of the word, not a Home where forgotten children were. It felt like somewhere I could be cared for, somewhere I could fit in, and best of all there were no other children there, no-one to be a source of torment. A sense of security crept over me, wrapping around my shoulders.

  The rest of the house was lovely too. Mostly neutral like my bedroom but the cushions scattered around the place, the haphazard rugs and the randomly placed pictures added a softness that I felt myself sinking in to. There were magazines on the coffee table, a half finished jigsaw puzzle on the dining table, slippers tucked beneath the edge of the sofa. Signs that the house was lived in, that the occupants were relaxed, that I didn’t have to worry if I dropped something as I often did. I stood in the centre of the lounge and stared around me, turning slow circles as Diane and Richard stood to one side and smiled.

  “What do you think?” Richard’s voice was as warm and soft as the decor.

  “I think I love it,” I said and heard my voice crack on the last syllable. My eyes grew wet and the tears spilled over. I tried to quickly mop them up with Rabbit, but Diane was beside me in an instant and took the toy from me, replacing him with a clean hanky that smelt of washing powder.

  I tried to apologise, I didn’t want to spoil this moment by crying and being a baby and I was so scared that they would think I was unhappy with them and send me back. Diane took the hanky, wiped at my nose and told me she understood. As she sat me on her knee and rocked me gently back and forth I remember thinking that everything was going to be okay.

  That feeling stayed with me until I couldn’t easily remember a time without it, although it took a little time before I could relax completely. Those first few nights, I wedged a towel along the bottom of the door so nobody could come in while I slept. Eventually, Diane sat me down and told me that I was safe, that I didn’t need to barricade myself in, but if it made me feel happier then she would buy me a bolt for my door. The offer alone made me feel better and slowly the urge to wedge the door vanished.

  As promised, we painted my room. The neutral tones changed to soft pink walls and lilac rugs. I kept the patchwork quilt and the flower pictures. They bought me an easel, which was placed in the corner of the room. There was a tray of paints that looked like a solid rainbow, I loved to look at them, to touch their powdery bright surfaces and see the film left on my fingertips.

  What may have been the most mundane of things for most people became a source of fun for me. Washing up and raking leaves became a pleasure as they earned me pocket money, sweets or kisses, sometimes all three. Going shopping for new clothes was a novelty, one that was always punctuated with a trip to a cafe where we slurped on strawberry milkshakes and ate huge choux buns with fresh cream oozing out of the sides. It would become a routine thing for Diane and me, one that I treasured.

  Richard worked as a manager in a local factory and every day he would head off in the morning leaving Diane and me at home. We would pack a picnic and head off to visit the old castles in the area, climbing among the fallen stones, scrambling about the ruins before sitting down on the sloping ground to eat hard-boiled eggs and juicy oranges.

  For the first time I didn’t feel like a misfit. I was no longer that person standing on the outside looking in. For the first time I felt normal, part of something greater than just myself. I got used to the spontaneity, the affection and the night-time stories before sleep; quickly making the transition from feeling like a visitor to a sense of belonging, as though the house itself could no longer be complete without me in it.

  I started going to the local middle school when the summer was over and I found it easier than my previous experiences. The village was so small that most of the other pupils knew I was fostered but somehow it was more accepted here.

  I had brand new clothes that I had chosen for myself as there was no uniform at my new school. My shoes shone and my hair was neatly brushed. I made more of an effort to look nice because I no longer felt like a stray and Diane would help me to brush and plait my hair.

  I made friends with other children. A little girl called Sophie had just moved to the village too. She was an American, one of the RAF children from a nearby camp and was opposite to me in almost every way, she was blond, blue eyed, chatty and confident. We became best friends, and hers was the first birthday party I was ever invited to. I was so excited I wanted to burst. I ran home and showed Diane the printed invitation with balloons and clowns on the front. She laughed and clipped the invitation into a little frame to put up on my bedroom wall.

  I started to call my foster parents mum and dad. It felt strange at first, like a hard toffee in my mouth that slowly softened against my tongue. The first time I asked if it was okay, Diane’s eyes grew misty. “Of course you can, I’d love that.” She threw her arms around me, squeezing me tight for a little too long until I squirmed in her grasp and wriggled free.

  My days became more and more like everyone else’s family life. I would make mistakes, get told off and run to my room sulking. It was normal, I was normal. The days began to merge into each other and I got used to everything until I began to take it all for granted.

  That first Christmas, we made paper chains and decorated the tree with beautiful lights. On Christmas Eve I got to hang my first ever stocking at the end of my bed. I can’t even remember now what I found inside the following morning, but I remember the excitement of trying to sleep the night before and waiting for Father Christmas to come.

  I remember the piles of coloured paper more than I remember the contents of the presents and I remember sitting down to a proper Christmas dinner with crackers to pull and funny hats to wear. As I was tucked into bed that night, exhausted and full of chocolate, I felt sad that the day was over and I remember that feeling of regret even now.

  It is moments like that first Christmas that stand out in my memory when so many other things have got lost somewhere along the way. The memories that seem to last, are the moments when I began to feel like everyone else, a first sleepover, birthday party, or funfair. All the images roll in to one and seem to take place immediately one after the other, rather than stretched out over several years as they were. In my mind, that first Christmas is remembered alongside the beach holiday and yet the reality is that those events were more than two years apart.

  They took me to Devon when I was eleven. We went for two whole weeks and stayed in a holiday cottage near Dawlish Warren. I could see the beach from my room, could hear the sound of the sea as I drifted off to sleep at night. I loved it there. The sun shone almost every day and we crammed the hours full.

  There were boat trips, sand castles, fairground rides and candy floss. I remember the feeling of my sunburnt skin, the coolness of the cream rubbed into my shoulders, the tangle of my hair after a day of sea breezes and the taste of salt on my lips when I poked my tongue out at Richard for splashing me. Years later I would try to capture it in acrylics but I could never do it justice. The memory had become almost mythical to me, a step outside reality.

  There were other reasons that holiday would stay with me. It was on the last night
that adoption was first mentioned. They asked me how I felt about it, whether it was what I wanted and for a little while I found it hard to speak. In some ways I felt sad because the question reminded me that my place with them wasn’t permanent. I had never really thought up until that moment that it could all end and I could be made to go back. I realised that the thought of being adopted by them was the most important thing in the world. I told them as much.

  “We want that too, Rachel. We’ll phone up next week and see if we can get the ball rolling.” Richard reached across the restaurant table and held my hand. I didn’t want to let it go because I suddenly felt afraid that I might fade away, that I was nothing more than temporary, but I smiled up at him anyway and his smile met mine half way.

  That was the moment that everything changed. I would wonder for years what would have happened if we had not sought the adoption. Would everything have worked out better? Would I have stayed in that little cottage that I thought of as home, with the only parents I had ever known? Maybe it was my fault for being greedy and wanting more than I had. I would torment myself with thoughts like that for years afterwards, wondering what would have happened if only I hadn’t agreed to the adoption.

  I didn’t know that some time before that holiday, Diane had found a lump in her breast and that it was being investigated. I didn’t know that the lump came in the shape of a question mark that was stamped onto my paperwork.

  Weeks after the holiday, when everything was settling back down into a now familiar routine, I came home from school to find two strangers and a flood of tears that had caused devastation to the place I called home. Two grey-faced, grey clothed people, a man and a woman, had washed away the colour from the lounge. Diane rushed to me when I walked in, her arms sliding beneath mine and holding me tight as could be, her wet face pressed against my own which was flushed from running in the strong wind outside. I looked over her shoulder and saw two pairs of eyes looking back at me, bland and expressionless as they prepared to tear my life down with words I wouldn’t understand.