by Bee Lewis
Dan followed her gaze. ‘What’s up?’
She ran her fingers over the panel. ‘This doesn’t seem right, let me just . . . ah, there it is. It’s a door, well, maybe door is the wrong word. I think there’s probably a recess behind there, where they used to store the coal for the fire. I can just about make out the outline of a keyhole, but it’s gunked up with paint.’
He leaned down to look closer.
‘Hah! Curiouser and curiouser. Do you think there’s some cake or a potion behind the door? I bet there is.’ She giggled. ‘Odds on, I’m right.’ She held her hand out, ready for Dan to take the bet, but when he showed no signs of reciprocating, let her arm drop to her side.
‘Betting is sinful.’
‘Ah, come on, Dan!’ Esther nudged him with her elbow. ‘I was making a book joke. You know, Alice down the rabbit-hole? After all, you’re a writer now.’
‘Non-fiction.’
Esther’s pulse quickened and her blood sang in her ears. An image of a clammy forest, the air stained with moss, flitted across her consciousness and was gone. She breathed in, deeply.
‘Dan, it wasn’t a criticism. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a writer, that’s why we are here. Why we’ve given up our jobs—’
‘Your job.’
‘Okay then, my job. I’d have to cut back on my hours anyway, what with Bump on the way. We’re a team. In this together, okay?’ She smiled when he nodded back at her.
She didn’t say that since Sophie had died, she’d found it hard to be at the refuge. She spent long afternoons in her office, waiting to hear Sophie’s footsteps down the corridor, all the while knowing she’d never hear them again. Even before Sophie’s death, Esther knew her time there was coming to an end. Being apart from Dan made her anxiety worse. She didn’t like not knowing where he was, or what he was doing, and didn’t want to allow herself the time to wonder who he was with. Perhaps she should share these thoughts with him, but even as the thought occurred to her, she knew it would never happen. Dan had closed that chapter of their life and she wasn’t strong enough to attempt a re-reading.
She felt a movement against her leg, just like on the platform. She looked down to where Major Tom sat, waiting for her to notice him. ‘I’ll see can I find something to feed him.’
‘Why bother? You’re just encouraging him.’ Dan scowled at the cat, kicking out with his boot.
‘And you’re just a big bag of fun today.’ She kissed him on the forehead and called the cat, who followed her out of the waiting room and up the platform to the cottage.
As she opened a tin of tuna and forked it out into a bowl, the quietness of her surroundings wreathed around her, igniting her nerves, until the air was perfumed with a heady mix of anxiety and doubt. Somewhere upstairs, a door slammed and she jumped. The noise pulled her back to another house, another kitchen, when she was five years old and unable to make sense of the things her parents did.
This time, it had all happened so quickly. Her mother, Anthea, standing at the stove, cooking dinner. Her father, Patrick, at the table reading the newspaper and listening to the racing results. The smell of the hot oil in the chip pan and the sound of the neighbour’s cylinder mower growling through the grass.
‘Come here,’ he’d said and Anthea had laughed.
‘No, I need to watch this pan.’
‘Come here, I told you.’ Her father laughing, her mother stone-faced.
Anthea signalled to Esther to leave, so she ran upstairs, away from the threats and the blows, and the shouting that would only end with the banging of the front door. It could have been minutes, or maybe hours, and he was gone. Esther heard her mother in the bathroom, splashing cold water on her face, washing away the salty tears that she didn’t want anyone to see.
She had more memories like that one. Yet when she thought about her father, they weren’t the first ones that came to mind.
Her favourite memory was of the day he took her to see the circus. She could remember how his leathery skin felt as she slipped her hand inside his. She hadn’t liked the clowns, their painted faces were the fabric of her nightmares, and he’d held her tight against him, keeping her from harm. His woollen coat had smelled of tobacco and his aftershave, Old Spice. In the interval, he’d bought doughnuts for them both, and they had a competition to see who could eat a whole doughnut without licking their lips. He’d won.
Setting the dish on the floor for the cat, she smiled. He’d loved her, she was sure. So why didn’t he ever try to see her again once he’d left? Was the weight of what he’d done to her too much to carry? She’d asked Anthea about him a few times over the years. Each time, her mother had shut the subject down, refusing to even utter his name. She wished she knew how to contact him, how to make it right between them. If he could see her now, grown, married, pregnant, maybe he’d be able to put the past behind him, the way she wanted to. Maybe he’d feel able to be part of their lives again. After all, he was going to be a grandfather. Anthea would take more thinking about. And Dan – she’d have to find a way of getting him onside too. After losing his own mother, Esther hoped he’d understand why she needed to find her father, but whenever she mentioned him, Dan went straight into protective mode. It was easier not to speak about her father, but it didn’t stop her heart craving him.
Deciding there was no time like the present, that if he was serious about the fresh start he’d been plugging, she closed the kitchen door and made her way back up the platform, determined to make Dan listen to her this time.
Esther returned to the waiting room as Dan was trying to prise open the secret panel with a screwdriver. He swore softly under his breath, unable to get sufficient purchase to lever the door open. There was a sharp crack as the wood splintered and he stopped, as though fearful of breaking the panel completely.
‘Here, let me.’ Esther knelt as best she could beside him and put her hands on the panel. Leaning closer, with her ear to the wood, she thought she could make out a very faint rustling. ‘Shh! I think I can hear something.’ The noise stopped.
Esther listened for a short while, but there was no further sound. ‘I must be hearing things. There’s a bunch of keys in the kitchen drawer. I’m sure one of them will open this.’
He stood and reached down to help her up. ‘A job for later, maybe.’
She took a deep breath, having rehearsed everything she wanted to say. ‘Dan?’
‘Hmm?’
‘I want to look for my father.’ She stilled, shoulders stiff, waiting for the objections to fall.
‘Why?’ He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her.
‘Because we’re having a baby. Because he’s going to be a granddad and I think he should have the chance to be part of that.’
She felt his chest rise and fall against her cheek. Heard his heart beat, solid, steady, strong.
‘What does Anthea think about that?’
‘She doesn’t know. I haven’t told her.’
‘Because you think she’ll be upset?’
‘Yes. But what if he’s changed? Doesn’t he deserve a second chance?’
Dan smiled and kissed the top of her head. ‘That’s what I love about you. Your capacity to forgive.’
She swallowed hard. If she could forgive Patrick, why wasn’t it so easy to forgive Dan?
‘Is it really what you want? What if he doesn’t want to see you?’
It was her deepest fear and in his usual way, he’d homed in on it.
‘Then I’ll know. Once and for all.’
Dan considered what she’d said. ‘I’m not sure, Es. It’s a big gamble and I need you here, with me. There’s so much to do here and I don’t want you getting hurt.’
He dropped his arms and stood away from her, the concern plain to see in his eyes. She decided to play her trump card.
‘If you had the chance to spe
nd more time with your mum, would you?’
‘It’s different. She was ill. You can’t compare the two.’
‘Alcoholism is an illness too, Dan. And anyway, maybe he’s straightened up?’
He sighed. ‘Yes, sure, let’s look for him,’ he paused, then shook his head. ‘We’ll do it together. All I ask is that you wait until after the baby is born. I don’t want any added stress on you before then. We’ve got enough to contend with.’
‘Do you mean that? You’re not angry?’
‘Angry? No, of course not. You are silly, sometimes. If it’s what you really want, then we should do it. I can’t promise it’ll turn out how you want, but let’s give it a go.’ He squeezed her against him again. ‘Let’s go and have some lunch.’
In one short conversation, she felt they’d made more progress than in weeks. She’d been certain he would object to her plan, though she couldn’t articulate why. Perhaps she should cut him some slack and trust him a bit more. Although she was keen to get on with the search, she understood his reasons for wanting to delay. The trouble was that while part of her was happy to put it off; it would give her more time to warm Anthea up to the idea – she knew she wouldn’t be able to wait. She’d need to do things quietly, slowly, so as not to attract suspicion. Especially now that she had a lead.
After lunch, Dan locked himself away in the sitting room, sorting through his books and doing some research. He couldn’t get an internet connection on his laptop, but Esther thought this was probably a good thing. She’d half expected him to ask her to help with unpacking the boxes, but he made it clear he didn’t want to be disturbed. Feeling guilty that she’d managed to get out of unpacking, she decided to explore the rest of the property instead, testing herself to see if any of it could ever feel like home.
She opened the door to the ticket hall. On one side, there was a connecting door to the waiting room, and on the other, a door to the store room. Dan had earmarked this space for meetings and classes, but Esther couldn’t see how that would work without ripping out the counter and ticket windows. The walls in this room were part-tiled, the deep green ceramic tiles still glossy after all these years. The top row of Victorian tiles, moulded in relief, followed a geometric design. He’d told her once, on a visit to the V&A in London, that the style was called Islamic. The Islamic Ceramics. She’d giggled, but Dan had frowned at her, not sharing the joke. The tiling was beautiful, and she hoped he’d incorporated them into the room re-design.
The area behind the counter was crammed with an assortment of built-in shelves, heavy oak cupboards, and free-standing metal filing drawers. She pulled one of them open and was surprised to see an ink pad and date stamp, along with a supply of paper with the British Rail logo on the letterhead. Sure that the ink would have dried out, she slammed the stamp onto the pad, disturbing the dust on top of the cabinet. Then she stamped one of the sheets of paper. The imprint was faint, but just readable: 03 July 1964. What had happened to this place in the last fifty years? Why was it empty for so long? Realising that she hadn’t been interested enough to ask Dan about its more recent history, she felt ashamed of herself. He was the one putting all his faith into this project and she’d simply trotted along behind him, willing to go where he led. No wonder she felt such a disconnect between her old life and their new home.
She reappraised the room. It would make a good office for them once she’d managed to clear out all the clutter. She spotted a Bakelite telephone on the desk in the corner. Some of the items might even be worth keeping – she was sure she’d seen an article in a Sunday magazine about how old phones could be reconditioned to work on modern exchanges. For the first time, she could picture herself sitting at the old desk, with its embossed leather top, doing their accounts and planning courses and events.
With pleasure, she noted that the floor was stone-flagged, made to cope with the heavier foot traffic of a ticket office. Neither of the connecting doors to the other rooms would open and she hadn’t thought to pick up the keys from the kitchen drawer. She decided to go back for them and to see if she could match the keys to any of the locks. As she passed the waiting room from the outside, she felt a sudden urge to go in. She stopped in the doorway, puzzled. The cupboard next to the fireplace was open.
Her first instinct was to call Dan, but checked her runaway imagination, assuming that he must have managed to open the door after all. She shook her head and pulled the cupboard door open wide. Her breath caught as she noticed the scratches on the inside of the door; they looked fresh. She paused before reaching in to the cupboard, steeling herself in case a mouse ran towards her, or worse, across her hand, and was relieved when she pulled out a pile of fusty newspapers and blocky railway timetables. Blowing off the dust, she wiped her hands on her jeans. The oldest timetable dated from 1912 and showed services to Perth, Inverness and Aberdeen. She inhaled their old-bookshop smell, then thought what Dan would have had to say had he seen her. He was right, she supposed, she did need to start taking more care of herself for the baby’s sake.
The newspapers were a bit more interesting, though they mostly dated from the 1960s. At first glance, the stories didn’t seem very eye-catching, but a couple of the papers referred to a typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen. Esther put them to one side, thinking that there might be articles she could frame or put into a scrapbook for visitors to read.
She was about to close the cupboard door when an object at the back caught her attention. She stretched in to reach it and pulled out a heavy wooden disc, about half an inch thick and four inches across, slightly larger than the palm of her hand. The disc was carved on one side with three hares, chasing each other round in a circle, their ears meeting at a point in the centre. She liked the substantial feel of it in her hand, the smooth grain of the wood in relief to the carving. She wondered if it had been used as a paperweight to keep the newspapers tidy, ready for the fire, though it didn’t seem large enough or heavy enough for that purpose.
She traced the pattern of the carving with her fingertips and, though she was not sure whether the source was her or the carving, felt the tips of her fingers start to vibrate. The vibrations grew stronger and pulsed from her fingertips up through her hand. Wave after wave throbbed through her and she felt – no, heard – the rhythm of an arcane language rumbling through her bones. She tried to pinpoint the source, but it seemed to come from deep within the earth, using her body as a vessel.
Though she couldn’t understand the voices, she was transported by their murmurings for a fleeting moment to the mossy forest. She smelled ferns and peaty earth, pine-needles, and pure water running over the gravel in the stream. Shafts of sunlight pierced the gloom and the noise of the forest assaulted her ears, a rising cacophony of insects, birds, creatures, all clamouring for her attention. It was spell-binding and the sound filled her head, pushing aside any rational thought.
Startled, she let go of the carving, sending it clattering to the floor. The vision stopped and she was once more in the waiting room. Trembling, she grabbed the bench seat to pull herself up and sat down, trying to figure out what had just happened. The carving lay at her feet and she was almost afraid to pick it up again. She looked at it, trying to decide what to do. She’d never be able to explain this to Dan in a way he would understand and she wasn’t sure exactly what had happened herself. It was over so quickly, but the scent of the forest lingered in the air and as she turned to follow the last remnants, her eye once more fell on the open cupboard. She had only held the object for a short time, half a minute at the most, but she felt as though it had started a chain reaction deep inside her.
Needing to feel it in her hands again, she reached down and picked up the carving, feeling its warmth from where she’d been holding it. She sat still, focusing on the fleeting image of the forest, trying to conjure it up again, but this time there was no change, no sense of another world pushing at the periphery of her vision. She turned the carving over an
d over in her hands, trying to find an identifying mark, but couldn’t see anything. Gradually, she became aware of something else, something more visceral and urgent. Her leg was nagging at her. She’d tried to ignore the discomfort since she’d woken up, but now it was more insistent. Two days of travel had taken their toll.
Without knowing why, she decided to find a safe place to hide the carving, somewhere Dan wouldn’t find it. She didn’t know how to put it into words, but she felt like the station had given her a gift and, for now, she wanted to keep it for herself. She put the object in her pocket and walked the few steps back to the cottage, trying to bear most of her weight onto her left leg, reaching out with her hand to touch the rough stone wall to steady herself, swearing under her breath at the stubbornness that prevented her from carrying her stick as a matter of course. Dan was in the kitchen, washing his hands as he waited for the kettle to boil.
‘Thanks for opening the cupboard. Did you see what was inside?’
‘Cupboard? Which one?
‘The one in the waiting room.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘I didn’t open it.’
She stared at him. ‘Why does everything have to be such a mystery? Are you trying to freak me out? First you went all weird about the groceries, now you’re saying you didn’t open the cupboard.’
‘I wasn’t “weird” over the groceries. It just seemed like an unlikely thing to happen. That’s all. And it turns out I was right. I didn’t open the cupboard. It might have just swung free on its own. I did try bloody hard to open it earlier, you know?’
Aware she’d snapped, the old Esther – the Esther from a year ago – would have backed down, wanting to make amends and avoid yet another row, but as she put her hand into her pocket and felt the solid wooden carving, all her old resentments flared.
‘And what’s with Mike? Are you sure you don’t know him? You seem awful pally with someone you’ve barely met. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were hiding something.’