Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  ‘I hope so.’ His eyes lingered on her ringless hands, then turned suddenly malicious. ‘The owners stipulated very clearly that they preferred a couple to take care of the place.’

  ‘Of course.’ She held his gaze, but was suddenly tense. She hadn’t planned on having to face an interrogation this soon. When she had answered the advertisement for a caretaker, she had lied easily about her marital status. And Mrs Cavendish’s references were glowing, bless her heart—especially considering they had never met, and the old lady was only doing her mother a favour. She should probably feel guilty for lying, but truth be told, she was simply relieved that there hadn’t been more of a background check. It was explained to her that the previous caretaker—a single guy in his twenties—had used the house as his personal playpen. A couple was therefore considered to be more suitable for the job; a husband and wife team undaunted by the idea of living on the property itself. Not too young that they would indulge in wild parties, not too old that they couldn’t reliably take care of such a big house.

  She suddenly realised that Edwards was staring at her, his eyes fixed on her chest. She looked down. She was braless and it was chilly. Lifting her head, she drew her lips away from her teeth in a narrow smile. She kept her eyes locked with his as she deliberately pulled the T-shirt provocatively close against her body so that the fabric stretched taut across her breasts. Climbing the steps slowly, moving her hips with an exaggerated swing, she glanced back over her shoulder. His expression was ill at ease. She had managed to unnerve him. Good. Asshole.

  At the top of the steps she paused. The porch area had not been swept in a long time and was matted with dirt and dried leaves. The front door was tall and it stood slightly ajar. Through the gap a weak ray of sunlight fell inward. The light was so pale it barely pierced the gloom, allowing her only to see that the floor was made of black-and-white marble in a finely executed pattern of squares.

  But as she stood there, the sunlight at her back, the half-open door in front of her, the thought came to her mind that the house she was about to enter was weary. This was a house sorrowful at having its solitude disturbed, a place where the rooms must remain unvisited, the windows and doors locked. And she hesitated, feeling like an interloper, a trespasser.

  But the next moment Edwards had brushed past her. He stretched out his arm and the door opened wide beneath the weight of his hand.

  The hallway into which she stepped would have been magnificent in its day. It still had a splendour to it, despite the maimed fireplace, the graffiti on the walls, the shabbiness of the carpet on the wide steps leading upward. Neglect and vandalism had left their mark, but the ceilings were lofty, and delicate the wrought-iron filigree of the staircase.

  ‘How long has the house stood empty?’

  ‘Almost nine years now.’ Edwards was looking at her warily. She must have really scared him; he was keeping well away from her. Probably afraid she’d pounce.

  ‘That’s a long time.’

  ‘We did have a caretaker living on the premises last year.’ Edwards rolled his eyes. ‘But he had to be booted out. He turned the house into a kind of dance club, even charging for admission. The property suffered considerable damage in the process.’ Edwards pointed to the ceiling. ‘We lost a chandelier. Some of the books in the library were destroyed. It finally persuaded the owner to sell. As I’m sure you know, Paradine Park is to be turned into a spa and health facility.’

  She did know. She also knew that the new owners, Americans, had recently become painfully aware of the muscle of English Heritage when their drawings and proposals for Jacuzzis and steam rooms got bogged down in a sanity-destroying maze of permissions and planning applications. Paradine Park dated from 1720 and was listed. The process of gaining the necessary permissions promised to be laborious. In the meantime the house was standing empty, easy prey for vandals and burglars. Ergo, a caretaker was called for. Or, rather, caretakers.

  Well, here she was. Without the all-important husband, to be sure. But maybe she’d be able to keep that knowledge to herself for a while longer. If not—well, she travelled light. It wouldn’t be that much trouble to lift up anchors and go.

  ‘We’ll start in the drawing room.’ Edwards turned a drop handle on one of the two slim inner doors and pushed it open. As in the hallway, there was a formal grace to the proportions of this room. But it felt cold and held only a few pieces of furniture. An enormous sofa covered in a tea-stained fabric with a pattern of overblown roses faced the fireplace. To one side of it were two wing-backed chairs with the fabric on their arms rubbed thin and shiny. Dirt on the windowsills. Ash in the hearth. No rugs on the floor, but a mangy-looking zebra skin with bald spots lay prostrate in front of the fireplace.

  The only thing in the room that appeared fresh and without a layer of dust was the painting above the mantelpiece. A painting of a family: father, mother, teenage girl, and two younger boys. The woman was beautiful in a languid-looking way with fair, upswept hair and almond-shaped, light-blue eyes. One slender white hand rested on the shoulder of the boy, who was sitting cross-legged in front of her. The resemblance between mother and son was immediate. The boy had a thin, ascetic face and the same pale eyes. Seated next to the mother was the girl, a teenager. Compared to the wan beauty of her mother, she seemed like a tomboy, her hair cut boyishly short and the frilly blouse she was wearing quite wrong for her. She had obviously inherited her colouring from her father. Burly, with wide shoulders, he had dark hair and eyes, and sported a neat beard. He was the only one of the group standing.

  But it was the last member of the group who held Justine’s attention. Whereas the other figures seemed posed and rather lifeless, the artist had managed to capture the energy of the second boy, who was also sitting with legs crossed, staring directly out of the canvas. The young face was strangely hard and the wide mouth obstinate. The eyes seemed to follow you wherever you were in the room. And the eyes were remarkable. They were burning.

  ‘Who are they?’ She stopped in front of the picture and looked up at it. But from this close, the texture of the oil paint seemed coarse and the figures flattened.

  ‘The Buchanans. The original owners.’ His tone of voice was repressive as though it was none of her business.

  ‘And they haven’t lived here for nine years.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened to them?’ She could sense he found her persistence irritating.

  ‘All I know is that they left the house very suddenly. Almost overnight.’ He turned away abruptly. ‘The dining room is through here.’

  Another large room, this one with a long, oval mahogany table and chairs upholstered in Regency stripes. Against one wall was a heavy-looking ball and claw sideboard. On top of it resided yet another hideous piece of Victoriana; a centrepiece made of tarnished brass, depicting improbable palm trees dripping with glass prisms.

  The ceiling in this room was painted. She tilted her head back and stared up at it. A trio of plump shepherdesses with staffs clutched in dimpled fists, their expressions chocolate-box innocent, smiled down at her. They were huddled together against a fantasy backdrop of light-blue sky and white, gilt-edged clouds. A large yellow stain in the middle of the ceiling told of water damage. It had spread across the face of one of the pink-cheeked girls, turning her complexion sallow.

  ‘You’re American?’ Edwards’ voice dropped slightly at the end of the sentence, making the question sound almost like a statement.

  ‘No.’

  ‘The accent. I thought—’

  ‘No.’

  Although it was an easy mistake to make; her accent confounded even the London cabbies. Her birth certificate stated that she was born in Bromley, Kent; a UK citizen. But of course it said nothing about her childhood and being dragged all over the world in the wake of peripatetic Sam, her brilliant, exasperating father whose prim demeanour and formal manners masked the soul of an adventurer. Copenhagen, Tokyo, Sydney, Kuwait City and finally New York. The American
accent had proved the most insidious and had turned her vowels slightly liquid.

  She sensed Edwards was waiting for her to volunteer more information, but she did not feel like indulging his curiosity.

  But he tried again. ‘So where’s home?’

  Where’s home?

  For a moment she just stared at him. And she felt almost lightheaded all of a sudden, as though he had struck her a glancing blow. But still, it was an innocent question. Where was home?

  Home was where Jonathan was.

  But Jonathan was dead.

  Edwards was looking at her strangely. And suddenly she felt immensely tired and the inside of her mouth tasted stale. She wished he would leave.

  ‘Let’s finish this, shall we?’

  His neck and back stiff and hostile, he walked out of the room ahead of her. Turning left through a smallish doorway, he continued down a long passageway leading to the kitchen area at the back of the house. And now he was talking in short clipped sentences, his voice curt, explaining about boilers and generators and keys. She nodded and let his words flow over her. Tomorrow would be enough time to sort out all of that.

  The kitchen was long, narrow and primitive, as was so often the case with these grand English houses. But at least it had a fridge and a fairly modern-looking cooker. Leading off the kitchen was a short passage with a low ceiling. At the end of the passage was a narrow door, which she assumed would give access to some kind of larder. But as Edwards opened the door, moving a dusty curtain to one side, she realised it was not the larder after all.

  This room was one of the reasons she had wanted the job. It was a darkroom. One of the original family members, she was told, had dabbled in photography.

  The room was very dirty and had obviously not been used in a long time, but someone had given some real thought to the design. The floor was filthy but the tiles were non-slip. The room was not large but was clearly divided into a wet and a dry zone, and there was a tap and more than enough worktable space. What looked like an old print drum for colour was pushed underneath a shelf holding an array of dusty measuring jugs and grimy trays and three safelights. She thought back to the picture in the drawing room and wondered who had been the photographer in the family. Not the mother. She did not seem like the type who would want to get her beautiful hands dirty with messy solutions.

  ‘This is great.’

  ‘Your bedroom is on the top floor,’ Edwards responded impatiently. He had not stepped into the room. In fact, as he looked around him he seemed repulsed, even though there was nothing inherently distasteful about the room.

  As they walked back toward the entrance hall, he waved his hand in the direction of a closed door leading off to the right. ‘Through there is the library. It holds a valuable collection of books that has already been catalogued and sold. The collection will eventually be crated and shipped to Japan. I trust you will treat the books with care.’

  She bit back a retort and followed silently as he led the way up the wide central staircase. The crimson carpet underneath her feet was spotted. But when they reached the top landing she stopped and turned around, and for a moment she imagined what it must have been like in the days when the house was still alive; the windows sparkling, the brass fittings glowing, the clean smell of polish in the air. And a family would walk down this beautiful sweep of staircase every morning to meet for breakfast under the gaze of three merry beribboned girls floating in a sky that was always blue. A privileged existence, an elegant life lived in an elegant house. A house left to itself almost overnight. What would make one abandon such a house?

  ‘Most of the upstairs rooms in both wings of the house are now unfurnished.’ Edwards’ voice echoed strangely.

  They were walking down a long corridor past two rows of closed doors. The passage itself was gloomy, but at the very end of the corridor was a tall arched window and above it an oculus. In the gathering dusk the small round window sat in the wall like a white eye.

  ‘How many rooms in the house?’

  ‘Thirty-one.’ He permitted himself a small smile. ‘One for every day of the month.’ He opened a door and switched on the light. ‘This will be your room.’

  From what she had seen of the rest of the house, she had expected another sad room showing the ravages of neglect. But the room was a surprise. It was very large and airy with white-painted floorboards and ivory-coloured ceilings. Wallpaper, rather charmingly faded, hugged a white panelled dado with simple mouldings. The two bedsteads, the table and its chair, as well as the chest of drawers, were of pine and also painted white.

  On one bedside table was a small bronze statuette of a cowboy on horseback. Two red honeycombed quilts made a splash of colour on the beds and bright blue rugs lay scattered on the floor. The effect was fresh and winsome.

  She looked at the wallpaper, the white-painted furniture.

  ‘This used to be the nursery?’

  He nodded. ‘The bathroom is at the end of the passage. There are extra blankets and fresh linen in the cupboards and you’ll find a phone next to the bed. The phone bill will be forwarded to you at the end of the month.’

  She walked over to the window. The view from here was not of the front lawns and its avenue of trees. This window looked out onto a large courtyard.

  ‘What’s in there?’ She pointed to the single-storey detached building on the other side of the courtyard directly opposite. It was built of the same sandstone as the rest of the house but seemed to be a later addition. A trim clock tower sat squarely in the middle of the roof. In the uncertain light the clock face was merely an off-white disc against a grey sky and she was unable to make out the time.

  ‘That building’s now used mostly for storage space. The owners…’

  His voice trailed off and she turned her head to look at him inquiringly. His eyebrows were high up on his forehead and his eyes were fixed on the hand she had used to pull the curtains to one side. She had stretched out her arm to its full length and the sleeve of her shirt had moved down to expose her wrist.

  Keeping her eyes on his shocked face, she smoothed the sleeve until the cuff reached the palm of her hand. ‘You were saying?’

  He blinked, coughed. ‘Storage space. Yes. Storage. Many of the original pieces of furniture are stored in those rooms.’ His eyes flicked down to her wrist again.

  She followed him as he walked out of the door and continued swiftly down the passage and stairway. In the entrance hall he pointed to a manila envelope on a mahogany console table.

  ‘In here are the keys for the house. Most of them are labelled. May I remind you that the gardeners come in on Fridays.’ He reached inside his jacket and extracted his wallet. ‘My card.’

  He was looking at his watch now, resentfully mumbling something about traffic and the rush hour and suddenly—for a brief moment—she felt sorry for him as he stood there with his thin hair combed across his gleaming scalp, his smudged glasses perched on top of his button nose. His collar seemed limp and his suit ill-fitting. A grotty job, this, and now she’d made him late for supper. She pictured a complaining wife at home, truculent teenagers camped out in front of the TV. The house filled with the smell of mince and mash.

  He looked at her with weary dislike. ‘Any problems, ask your husband to call me.’

  Turning his back on her, he ambled awkwardly down the steps. As he walked past the MG, he gave the small car a disapproving glance. She watched as he carefully unlocked the door to his Volvo estate and settled himself behind the wheel. Without looking in her direction again, he reversed his car and started to drive slowly down the avenue of trees. Halfway down he switched on the headlights. The tree trunks glimmered. The tail-lights of the car glowed orange. And then he was gone.

  • • •

  THE BOX holding her photographic equipment was heavy and she staggered under its weight as she carried it into the house. Because she had left London in a hurry, she checked the contents to make sure she hadn’t inadvertently left anything behi
nd.

  After she had unpacked her clothes, she realised she was hungry. The sun had disappeared completely by this time and the house was dark. The windows at the end of the passage seemed to float in the gloom. Unable to locate the light switch in the darkness, she walked slowly down the staircase, using the balustrade to guide her.

  The kitchen was truly not an inspiring place and the bare light bulb dangling from the ceiling did not add to its charm. The cupboards were free-standing and with a new lick of paint they might acquire a cottagey charm, but at the moment they seemed merely tacky. Opening the doors, she found them stuffed to overflowing with cooking utensils, pots and pans, and several different dinner services. The number of champagne glasses was quite amazing—six entire shelves filled with flutes.

  She rummaged around until she found a thick glass tumbler. There was no ice in the freezer and she made a mental note to herself to do something about that the next day. Rinsing the glass under the tap, she half-filled it with Johnnie Walker. Doughnut in one hand, Black Label in the other, she walked out of the front door and sat down on one of the stone steps.

  She breathed in deeply. The darkness was soft and the air scented. The house may have become blighted by slow decay, but someone was still taking pride in the gardens. She had noticed upon her arrival the sheen of the freshly trimmed grass, the abundant flowerbeds, the geometrically precise maze with its perfectly clipped hedges.

  She looked straight ahead of her to where the wide expanse of lawn was broken by an artificial lake. Earlier today the sun had turned the water red. Now the surface of the lake was only a bruise in the darkness. And it was quiet. So quiet she could hear her thoughts whispering inside her head.

  A large cedar tree stood close to the house, its giant branches black against the lesser blackness of the sky. From one of the branches—motionless—hung a rope swing with a tyre. It would have supplied hours of pleasure to the children of this house. In her mind she could hear their screams of delighted terror, see their small bodies tense with excitement as they swung ever higher. In a garden like this, life would seem a blessing. Every apple in the orchard without blemish. Every day an unexplored delight. The future vast, and limitless the choices to be made, the possibilities to be savoured.