If she’d only known, that was all she’d had to do all along. The garden quivered. Walls sprang up. The porch, bags and boxes disappeared. The snow ceased to fall, held at bay by a ceiling with cobwebs in two corners. She was sitting on the floor of a River Room that was not her own. Before her, on a dusty sideboard, stood a Folly in need of a polish. It was as dismal a room as a room can be, and not much warmer than it had been outside, but she knew every stick of furniture in it, every ornament, every picture, drawing and poster, and the carpet, the curtains, the lampshades. Her own River Room had been like this until quite recently, though never as dowdy or dusty or unpleasant-smelling. She got to her feet, removed her snow-rimmed slippers, wriggled toes that felt about to drop off. Breathing on her hands, she gazed about her with a leaden heart, and said, aloud: ‘And he said it was the same.’
Day Six / 9
Liney’s approach to snowball warfare was haphazard in the extreme, yet effective enough, and it wasn’t long before the one-sidedness of the conflict cut through Alaric’s reserve. Then he responded in kind, running this way and that to head her off or avoid her, crouching – as she did – behind trees and bushes. When accurately targeted, Liney squealed horribly, rallied, rushed at him, unleashed her next volley, and galloped away like a demented giraffe, legs flying in all directions at once. Like her, he shouted as he ran and ducked and wove, if rather less piercingly. It was over two years since he’d last let himself go like this.
Day Six / 10
From the cold dreary River Room, Naia stepped into the cold dreary hallway viewed minutes earlier through the letterbox at the far end of it.
‘Hello?’
Her voice, fragile with dismay, felt its way timidly into gloomy corners and met nothing but silence. Suddenly the house felt almost hostile. She was an intruder. She shouldn’t be here. She knew it, the house knew it, and she wished that she’d stayed away, but her curiosity was not yet assuaged. The staircase that rose to her left was sorely in need of a polish. She’d never expected to see that stair carpet again, and the lofty wall up which the staircase ran was the same tired green theirs had been before they got the decorators in. She knew all the pictures on the wall, but almost every one was slightly crooked, unlike their counterparts and newer pictures at home. She reached up to adjust the nearest one. Dust flew off the frame and stung her eyes.
Adjacent to the stairs was one of the two doors to the Long Room, so called because it spanned the entire width of the house. She pushed the door back, nervously. At home this was one of her favorite rooms, light in summertime, cozy in winter, with French doors opening onto the broad expanse of the south garden. The room that met her eyes was a sad mockery of the one she loved. Rugs were rucked up, curtains hung badly, furniture had been nudged out of alignment, newspapers and magazines looked as though they’d merely been dropped in passing. At the end of every day her mother would go round straightening things, thumping cushions back into shape, ironing out rumpled material with the flat of her hand. Here the cushions were squashed and badly creased, and nothing – nothing – was straight.
Naia drifted the length of the room to the big fireplace. Even there, comparisons remained unavoidable. At home the old oak mantelpiece was dotted with small mementoes from various outings and holidays. This one’s mementoes had been supplanted by half a tube of mints, a box of Swan Vestas, a couple of packets of fuses, a loose ball of string, and a screwdriver. The Westminster clock was still at the centre, but it was either broken or hadn’t been wound up lately: its hands were frozen at five-twenty. The hearth was even more hideous than the mantel, all screwed-up bits of paper and spent matches, while the grate was a mass of dog-ends. Naia had stood before this very fireplace less than an hour ago, enjoying its glow, feeling its warmth. During seasons in which extra heat was not required her mother filled the hearth with dried flowers, meticulously-arranged. Here, no flowers, no fire, just a sooty grate full of cigarette stubs. Her father used to smoke, but he’d given up shortly after Mum came home from hospital. His idea, no one else’s; he’d persuaded himself that he owed it to her not to smoke around her while she was unwell, and had never taken it up again. Here there’d been no such incentive.
She went back through the room to the door she’d entered by, returned to the hall, and started upstairs. She no longer called out. The oppressive silence made her uneasy. She felt watched, by the house itself. With every upward step she felt sorrier for Alaric and angrier with his father – her father in a way. She was certain that anything his dad did hers would have done or failed to do in the same circumstances. And she had to ask herself how she might have responded if it had been her mother that had died. Would she have let everything go like this? Would she have just moped around and let her world fall apart? She liked to think she wouldn’t, but how could she be sure? Would anyone ever be the same if their life was thrown so cruelly off track? Track. Railway line. That was what had started all this. A crack in the line. Such a small thing, but what a result. A train hurled skyward, carriages twisted and crushed, small injuries to many, fatal ones to others, Alaric’s mother among them. A crack in the family line. A crack that widened and deepened, day after day, until… this.
There were five doors on the landing at the top of the stairs: the three bedroom doors, the box room’s and the bathroom’s. She went straight to the corner bedroom, the room she occupied at her Withern Rise. Although she had no doubt now that she was alone in the house, she couldn’t help but tap on the door. When this elicited no response she opened it, and immediately wished she hadn’t. In her version of this room she’d had trouble finding space for all her stuff in recent years. She could have moved to the third bedroom, which was larger, but she would have missed her views of the river from one window, the south garden from the other. She kept her room reasonably clean, reasonably tidy – she wasn’t obsessive about such things – and tried to make it interesting in various ways. She liked to feel when she entered it that the room not only welcomed her but couldn’t possibly belong to anyone else. Clearly Alaric didn’t have similar feelings. His room was messy, shabby, unfriendly. Drawers had been left open, clothes were slung any-old-where, the bed was unmade. There were chocolate wrappers on the floor.
She went back along the landing, to the bathroom, and felt physically sick when she looked in. Horrible smell, mean little bits of soap, dirty towels bunched on the towel rack, smeared mirror, torn plastic shower curtain, hairs rimming the bath, plug dangling from a piece of brown string. She left quickly.
In the guest bedroom there were signs of occupation – undeniable but rather peculiar signs. It smelt pleasanter than the other rooms, but artificially so, and an attempt had been made to tidy it, though whoever had made that attempt seemed to have no sense of order and even less taste. The articles of rather outlandish attire that hung from the rail at one end looked as if they belonged either to a mad woman or a drag artist. A large patchwork bag leant against a turquoise suitcase covered with butterfly stickers, and the bag – shapeless and made up of clashing patches – had one handle larger than the other.
She saved the master bedroom for last. This should have been the most elegant room in the house, but there was nothing elegant here. It smelt of stale sweat, cigarette smoke, dirt. The curtains were carelessly drawn. The duvet and pillows were grubby. On the floor, randomly scattered, were several pairs of scuffed shoes. There were two overflowing ashtrays, an empty whiskey bottle, and, sticking out from beneath the bed, a pile of men’s magazines. This last appalled her as much as anything she’d seen so far. Her father, drooling over pictures of naked girls fiddling with themselves for the camera; girls not much older than herself. She kicked the magazines further under the bed and stared forlornly about her. At home this was a beautifully coordinated, ultra-cozy bedroom; the only deliberately old-fashioned room in the house, with parlor palms and jardinières, lacy shawls draped along bamboo screens, old postcards in little silver frames. Under one of the windows there was a padded seat
on which her mother liked to curl up and read. In the brighter seasons the window was shaded by the shifting fronds of the mature willow beyond. It felt like company, her mum had said more than once. Her dad had never seemed to mind that his bedroom wasn’t remotely masculine. Gazing at this shoddy clone of that infinitely calm attractive room, Naia understood why for the first time: he didn’t care what it was like – or what became of it.
A massive burr walnut wardrobe took up much of one wall. It being a precise duplicate of the wardrobe in her parents’ room, Naia knew that it contained three compartments. She pulled back the left-hand door to reveal a disarray of badly-hung jackets, trousers and shirts. Two of the shirts were frayed at the cuffs. One of the lighter ones had a tidemark round the inside collar. The narrow middle part of the wardrobe, over which the two doors met, was equipped with a number of shelves and shallow drawers. This was where her mother put clean underwear and hankies, interspersed with fragrant little bags of herbs or lavender. The central section of the present wardrobe contained no fresh linen, no fragrances, just bundles of dirty clothes and inconsequential odds and ends.
Naia gripped the handle of the right-hand door, Alaric’s mother’s side, but paused before opening it, dreading what she might find within. She found only a tangle of empty hangers on the rail, and on the floor, among balls of fluff, a pair of small brass binoculars. She closed the door with haste and went to the stool before the marble-topped wash-stand that Alaric’s mother – like hers, still – had used as a dressing table. She set her elbows on the grey, white-veined marble, and her chin in her palms, and stared into the oval Victorian mirror on the wall above it. The dismal face in the speckled glass might almost have been Alaric’s. How he must resent me, she thought. All that I have compared with everything he’s lost. She lowered her eyes, unable to look at that wounded, accusing face any longer. She’d always loved the things Mum kept on the marble-top: small cut-glass scent bottles, decorative hat-pins in a velvet cushion, mother-of-pearl combs, a tortoiseshell hand mirror, boxes and trays for rings, bracelets, trinkets. Nothing very valuable, but all very pleasing to the eye. There were none of these things here. They’d surrendered their place to a clutter of felt-tipped pens, torn tickets, mouth sprays, coins, a couple of dog-eared spy novels. It was all so... ugly. Like the rest of the house. Ugly, cheerless, cold, unwelcoming.
‘This isn’t my house!’
Alaric’s words on realizing that he’d stumbled into a more cherished version of his home. What a shock it must have been for him. She couldn’t blame him for being so desperate to get away. But to this. To this! There must be something I can do, she thought. There has to be something.
Then it came to her. The something.
She got up at once, and started.
Day Six / 11
Liney had been simmering something alarmingly pungent in the largest saucepan she could find. ‘Gives me more burn room,’ she said to Alaric, who was still as suspicious of her sense of humor as he was unconvinced of her culinary expertise. When she estimated that it was ready she put a bowl in front of him and one in front of herself at the other end of the kitchen table.
He sniffed the bowl. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s called soup. Try it.’
‘After you,’ he said.
‘Be bold, nephew. You might be pleasantly surprised.’
He sampled it. When he looked up his eyes were very wide.
‘I’ve never tasted anything like it.’
She smiled broadly. ‘New recipe.’
‘Where from?’ And when she tapped the side of her head: ‘Oh, that explains it.’
He took another dutiful sip in case some of his taste buds had been faulty. No, they’d all been on full power. He put his spoon down.
‘Sorry.’
Liney tasted hers. Her face too adopted a pained expression. ‘There’s a lot of goodness in it,’ she said by way of compensation.
‘I’m sure. It’s the flavor I have a problem with.’
He abandoned the bowl and went to the freezer. He found a pizza, unwrapped it, put it in the microwave. Liney, several slurped mouthfuls into her soup, said: ‘This is quite disgusting.’
‘Share my pizza if you like,’ he offered.
‘I meant the kitchen,’ Liney said. ‘The entire rotten house. How could he have let it go like this?’
When he’d finished eating, Alaric headed upstairs. On the way he noticed that the banister felt unusually smooth; then, in the bathroom, he lifted the toilet seat and saw a rare swirl of disinfectant around the bowl. The bath and basin had been attended to as well, and the little slivers of soap had been replaced by a new bar from the cupboard, and the towels had been straightened, the bath mat draped neatly over the side of the bath, while the old shower curtain had been hooked up in the three places where it had come away months ago. All this he put down to his aunt, though he couldn’t think when she’d found the time. They’d been snowballing in Withy Meadows till early afternoon and it hadn’t been like this before they went out. As if to claim responsibility for the transformation Liney, half-heartedly accompanied by Tom Jones, started belting out Sex Bomb in the kitchen. He couldn’t help a small laugh as he strolled along the landing to his room.
An hour later he was lying on his bed, swaddled in his duvet, music belting from his earphones. The music soundtracked thoughts which, wherever they wandered, returned constantly to the other Withern Rise, and the voice from the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t hear the door open because of the music, and he didn’t see it open because his eyes were closed. The first he knew that he was no longer alone was the hand on his shoulder. His eyelids jumped. Liney was leaning over him.
‘I did knock,’ she said as he tore the headset off. ‘Couldn’t seem to make myself heard. I just wanted to let you know how impressed I am.’
‘Impressed?’
‘When I looked in Ivan’s room yesterday I thought it had been visited by terrorists. Imagine the shock when I went in just now to start tidying it. The bathroom too. When did you do all that?’
‘I haven’t the faintest what you’re on about.’
Liney grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t grass you up. Wouldn’t want the old man making it a regular assignment, would we?’ She went to the door. ‘I’m vacuuming the landing. I’ll do in here afterwards if it’s all right with you.’
She closed the door and the noisy old vacuum started up outside. He listened as it faded into the distance, buzzed around for a while along the landing, and starting back. When it thudded against his door demanding to be let in he sighed but admitted it, jumping back as it snapped at his ankles like some cantankerous beast. He slipped past Liney and made for his father’s room. He pushed the door back. The shoes previously scattered wherever they’d been kicked off now stood in a neat row under the window, the ashtrays had been emptied and wiped, the dressing table was clear of all the rubbish, the curtains had been straightened. The room even smelt better. And she thought he’d done all this? The woman was even more off her head than he’d imagined. She must have done it herself, in her dr…
Oh. He’d got it.
And was outraged. But quietly.
Day Six / 12
Naia had been very pleased to discover that the way back was not only easier than the outward journey, but pain-free. All she’d had to do was put one or both of her hands on Alaric’s Folly and think of home, and the room faded and she was in the garden. Her garden. The last leg was even less difficult. Want to be inside the house bad enough – and she did, it was cold out there – and there you were, in whichever room the Folly happened to be in.
But shortly after her triumphal return she again became downcast at the thought of the differences between her life and Alaric’s, and what had caused them. She spent much of the afternoon and early evening drifting from room to room, picking things up, turning them over or round, putting them down again, as though taking some sort of mental inventory. She couldn’t help thinking that her posit
ion and his could so easily have been reversed. If they had been, it would be she who lived in an unheated, cheerless Withern Rise, with just one parent and an unpromising future. Fifty-fifty. So close. It might have gone either way. And it went both, in the same instant. She’d been lucky, so very lucky, and had never realized it. Till now.
Day Six / 13
Evening. When the hall phone rang it was Naia, passing, who grabbed it.
‘Hi, Nai. It’s me.’
‘Well, well,’ she said coolly.
‘How’s the weather?’
‘Wintry.’
‘Here too. Snow’s coming down harder than ever.’
‘I suppose you’re with Kate,’ Naia said.
‘Kate? Not now, but we had dinner together. That’s why I’m ringing so late. Sends her love.’
‘Huh!’
‘Sorry?’
‘So you should be. Mum!’ she yelled, hoping to deafen him. ‘Your husband’s on the phone!’
She banged the receiver down on the hall table and flounced into the Long Room, where she threw herself on the couch and started flipping through the TV channels. A few minutes later Alex entered and perched herself precariously on the big bean bag beside the coffee table, where she was bringing the family album up to date. She’d started the album when carrying Naia, and several of the early pictures showed her in a maternity dress with a bump. She was very selective in her choice of pictures for the album and she displayed them in strict sequence, with dates, captions, the odd humorous note. She liked each page to look different, which meant varying the shape and size of the prints as well as the layout. She kept scissors and a small guillotine handy for this.
The Realities of Aldous U Page 6