Life Class

by Allan, Gilli

  ‘He’s no more my friend than he is anyone else’s.’

  ‘Not even Dominic’s coming,’ Fran continued. ‘Not that I expected he would; he’s far too shy.’

  ‘Come with me then, if you have such low expectations of this lunch. I just didn’t think you’d want to.’

  ‘No, it’s OK. The table’s booked. We told The Old Sheep Shearer twelve, but the number’s already down to nine without me dropping out as well.’ She looked away to where Rachel was loading her things into her car. Fran waved and called out, ‘See you there in a minute.’ Then she turned back to Dory. ‘I just hope the house lives up to your expectations.’

  ‘Unlikely. It’ll be too big to be suitable, and, like you said, it’s probably not the “witch’s house” either, so I won’t be able to put that little ghost to rest. You’ll be able to say, “I told you so” to your heart’s content.’

  As she drove, she didn’t need to consult the estate agent’s directions. Her brain buzzed with memories of the morning. The final session of the term had been fascinating, and she’d particularly enjoyed the lyrical way Stefan talked about his subject. So why was Fran being so touchy? Her sister’s attitude smacked of dog-in-the-manger – she didn’t want the attention, but she didn’t want Dory to have it either. Why?

  Bull’s Hill wound upwards, bordered on both sides by open land, with grazing cattle in some of the fields. There were only a few houses along the lane; a cluster near the bottom and the one she was making for, more than halfway up the hill towards the common. A shiver – was it memory or presentiment? – crawled up her spine. The hillside grew increasingly wooded as it neared the plateau of the common. The house she was going to was invisible behind trees. It was this hidden-ness that had made the place so mysterious to her and her childhood friends, and which had prompted their trespass. But perhaps Fran was right, it wasn’t the same one. There couldn’t be just one house in this vicinity, below the crest of the hill. The glossy photograph on the specification, lying on the passenger seat next to her, gave her no clues. On that day, nearly thirty years ago, they had entered the grounds behind the house. She had no idea what the ‘witch’s house’ looked like from the front.

  There was the wide driveway just before the cattle grid, the ‘Murrells’ board planted in the verge next to it. Two gates were served by this entrance. Only the lower gate, the one next to the ‘sale’ sign, stood open. No confusion there, then, she thought as she made the turn. A long drive and then … Confronted by the ‘here and now’ reality of Kitesnest House, all speculations about her childhood incursion were temporarily forgotten. Another car was already parked on the forecourt. She pulled up behind it.

  The house was shabbier than it looked in the photograph, and where the picture had been cropped on the left, she saw the tiny cottage that adjoined it. Dory had known it wasn’t a detached property. Her sister’s reaction to the house being a semi had been typically dismissive. But since then, a kind of selective amnesia had afflicted her. Set back from the frontage of the main house, this small cottage, which the other gate at the entrance must lead to, looked sadly rundown. Crouched under its corrugated roof it could easily have been dismissed as a lean-to, rather than a separate dwelling. By contrast, the L-shaped barn, set to the right of the house, was bigger than she’d expected.

  ‘Mrs Seymour? I’m Kevin Lansdowne from Murrells. Welcome to Kitesnest House. It’s a great vista, isn’t it?’

  She shook the young man’s hand, taking in the sharp suit, his close-shaven jaw, and the short, spiky hair. The insistent chemical aroma of cologne stung her nose.

  ‘Wow! The specification doesn’t do it justice,’ she agreed, wondering if drawing her attention to the view was a distraction technique. ‘It’s far more spectacular in real life. Particularly the way it’s framed by the trees.’

  ‘Could probably do with some judicious lopping,’ Kevin Lansdowne said, then looked stricken, as if suddenly realising he’d contravened rule number two in The Good Estate Agent’s Guide Book. Dory smiled at the young man,

  ‘Anyone considering a house like this needs to be aware of what they’d be taking on,’ she said, hoping to reassure him he hadn’t blown it.

  As soon as they were inside, Kevin pointed out the ‘dual-aspect’ this and the ‘well-proportioned’ that, and in each room read out the precise dimensions from his clipboard down to the last millimetre. Everywhere, clunky Victorian furniture and dark wood panelling lent a fusty, depressed air. Yet the main rooms were large, with tall sash windows, still with the original internal shutters. Even the hallway – a wide, lofty room with a graceful staircase which twisted back on itself at a mezzanine landing – was made gloomy by the panelling.

  The only element of decoration that enlivened the atmosphere were the sculptures. In each of the three front rooms, stylised figurative sculptures were randomly placed. Three of them were apparently angels, the rest were young men frozen in movement – running, jumping, throwing, twisting – with muscles stretched and limbs extended.

  No more than a metre high, the three winged figures were imbued with an infinite poignancy; one strained upwards as if leaping into the air, another seemed wounded and falling, the third lay prone and crumpled. ‘This is the kitchen,’ Kevin said, as if there could have been any doubt. She had followed him under the arch formed by the turn in the staircase, through to the back of the house. The ceiling was low and beamed. Cracked brown vinyl covered the floor. An ancient, food-scabbed oven was slotted between brown melamine units. Brown glazed pots were lined up along the top of the brown wall units. As if in sympathy with its surroundings, she noticed the kitchen sink was stained brown too – presumably by years of coffee and tea dregs. Several empty pizza boxes were crushed into the top of an open waste bin. A repressed shudder travelled down her spine.

  Kevin had already moved on to the room on the other side of the back door, used as an all-purpose living room, judging by the jumble of furniture. As in the kitchen, the ceiling was low and beamed and the square window had a very deep sill. Again Kevin spoke about the generous dimensions of the room. Everything was relative. On paper maybe, but because it was so crowded, its generous proportions were camouflaged.

  ‘As you can see, it would be very feasible to amalgamate these rooms into a kitchen-breakfast room,’ Kevin said. ‘And the store room off the far side of the kitchen could be converted into a utility.’

  The mismatch between the front and back of the house was mirrored upstairs. Having ascended a second steep staircase leading up from the back hall of the house, Dory followed Kevin from the first small landing into a large, old-fashioned toilet and bathroom above the kitchen. There was evidence of occupation here too, in the disintegrating soap glued to the basin and the splattered mirror. A beaker, holding toothpaste and a few splayed toothbrushes, stood on the deep windowsill alongside some toiletries. A threadbare turquoise towel, hung carelessly over the side of the bath, contrasted queasily with the curry-coloured suite.

  ‘Yuck,’ she said, wondering why someone, who apparently wanted to sell their house, didn’t take a bit more trouble in presenting it. Just de-gunging the soap and folding the towel would have taken no time or effort. Kevin looked a little affronted.

  ‘The specifications do say the house is in need of modernisation.’

  ‘And some!’ Dory agreed. Kevin turned away, as if he felt enough time had been spent looking at the bathroom. He opened another door. Dory followed him in. The double bed was rumpled – trainers were not quite pushed beneath it and a few items of men’s clothing lay carelessly on the duvet. Another turquoise towel was thrown over a chair. Books and magazines were piled on the bedside table and the floor beside it. A couple of abstract paintings hung on the white walls. Given the bare masculinity of the room, a large painted wardrobe, decorated with flowers and curlicues, seemed out of place. Kevin turned away and opened the door opposite.

  ‘And this is a box room. From its appearance it’s currently used as a general dump
ing ground.’

  At first glance the room across the landing did indeed look full of junk. Kevin did not linger, but Dory paused. Amongst the quantity of miscellaneous clutter was evidence that someone might be camping in here. It had a definite musky scent and she thought she could see the corner of a sleeping bag, and something in black denim beneath a pile of magazines. A few LP sleeves – whoever had vinyl in this day and age? – and CDs were scattered across the floor. She glanced at the nearest one; the cover art depicted a mahogany red mountainscape. On it were two names, Lost Legion and Death or Glory. She’d no idea which was the band and which was the album’s title. On the wide windowsill, only a couple of metres away, was a tray on which a collection of miniature figures was arranged, but it was impossible to reach without tripping or treading on something. A spaghetti tangle of wires was mixed up with more valuable items – a game console and several computer games. She glimpsed an image of knights and dragons on the label of one.

  ‘Is the back of the house older than the front?’ Dory mounted further steps to join Kevin on the top landing. ‘It seems the front was added on to an older building?’

  Kevin looked at his clipboard. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, frowning, apparently unable to find a definitive answer in the paperwork. ‘Could be, I suppose. I’ll ask. It’s something I should know.’

  The upstairs front rooms were twins to the rooms downstairs, with the same tall windows. According to Kevin, the smaller windows to the sides gave the rooms a dual aspect. Amongst the traditional bedroom furniture, both contained more of the unusual painted variety she’d seen elsewhere in the house. But the primary use of the room over the dining room seemed to be as an office.

  The room above the drawing room had a sterile, chilled atmosphere. The high double bed had a folded plaid rug draped over the bare mattress. Checking on the “aspect” from the side window Dory could see the corrugated roof of the little cottage, encrusted with moss and lichen, where it abutted the main house. Grass and weeds and even what looked like the remains of a bird’s nest clogged the join. She decided not to mention this to the young man in case it seemed like nitpicking.

  Back on the wide landing, Kevin tried to open the glazed door that led out onto the balcony. He tried every key on the tagged ring without success. ‘That door will have to be oiled … or something,’ he said eventually, flushing. ‘OK. It’s a big house with an unusual layout, but there are three good-sized bedrooms. As you saw, the two at the front are large and very feasible for en suites. Plus there’s the one at the back and the additional box room, which could be used as a nursery …’ Nursery? Was she giving out broody signals without realising it? ‘Or a walk-in wardrobe. Or it could be knocked through to make a top-of-the-range bathroom.’ He looked at the trap above his head. ‘And you could always put extra bedrooms in the roof space. It’s high pitched so it’s very feasible for a loft conversion. Do you want to look?’

  ‘No, no!’ She spoke hastily to forestall him; he’d already taken hold of the stepladders. ‘Not this time, thanks. Don’t suppose I’ll be needing extra bedrooms.’ At that moment, Dory regretted her sister wasn’t with her; they’d have exchanged glances and had a good giggle later about the ‘very feasible’ young man. Instead, she nodded soberly. ‘But I’ll bear it in mind. Why is the owner selling?’

  ‘It’s an executor’s sale, I believe,’ Kevin said. ‘The householder was an old …’

  ‘Woman?’ Dory blurted.

  ‘Um … man.’ Kevin looked down at his clipboard again. ‘Though there must have been a woman involved at some time. It’s the son selling up.’ Pleased with his joke, he gave a smile. ‘Doesn’t want to live here, too big for one …’ Kevin tailed off, and flushed again. ‘Um, not everybody … well, he’s an artist …’ He tailed off, as if to say the vagaries of artists couldn’t be accounted for.

  Again, Kevin looked at his clipboard. ‘Right, that just leaves the coach house.’ Dory liked this upgrading of the outbuilding. The boss at Murrells would do well to take a tip from his employee and rewrite the specification. ‘Coach house’ sounded infinitely superior to ‘barn’.

  The shorter arm of the L-shaped barn was used as a garage. As they walked round to the long arm, Kevin said, ‘This part of the coach house has been used as a studio by the artist. He’s a sculptor.’

  ‘Are those his sculptures inside?’

  Not finding the answer to her question on his clipboard, Kevin shrugged. ‘I expect so, anyway,’ he added, as he pulled open one of the tall double doors, ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit chaotic in here … oh, not anymore, he’s tidied up.’

  Outside, Kevin retreated to his car, giving her a few minutes to look round on her own. Instead of returning to the house, Dory followed the sidewall of the barn where a ladder was propped beside a pile of pruned creeper. At the back, she stood for a moment, looking up the wooded slope towards the common. The wind swayed the branches; a few stray sycamore seedpods spiralled down. She began to walk.

  Here and there, sections of fence indicated the boundary between the back gardens of the two houses, but it soon petered out completely. For much of the time the only sound was her steady breaths of peat-scented air and the crackling of the leaf litter and beech mast underfoot. As she weaved her way between saplings, she was momentarily startled by the sudden creaking flurry as a pigeon flew up through the canopy overhead. Could this really be the property she, Fran, and their friends had entered over its back fence?

  Steadily climbing, pushing her way through the undergrowth, she eventually arrived at the far boundary. Beyond it was what looked like common land. Admittedly there was nothing particularly memorable about this area of rough grass; a trodden path meandering through it, but within a hundred yards was that steep incline. Though a little less precipitous than it had appeared when she was eight, she had no difficulty in identifying it now. The grass stains on her bottom had caused a big fuss when her mother had spotted them. She hadn’t dared add to her mother’s ire by telling her what else they’d got up to.

  The woods had seemed to go on forever. At last, in a patch of sun near the back of a house, a whirligig clothes airer leaned drunkenly, its lines hanging in droopy loops. A woman in a pink housecoat emerged from the side of the building. There was a small, fat dog trotting at her feet. Suddenly, the dog was barking. The woman was shouting. ‘Who’s there?’ She’d grabbed a witches’ broom and, holding it like a weapon, advanced towards them.

  Then Dory was running, clambering, stumbling – chest fiery and tight. Brambles and nettles whipped her shins, fallen branches laid traps across her path, a maze of briar snagged her clothes. The witch’s voice shrieked after them, “Little buggers!” Breaths came in gasps. She tripped and staggered, pushing on through the endless, unfriendly jungle. The shouts faded. The witch wasn’t chasing them anymore.

  They slowed and stopped. They were safe. But what was that? Dory’s heart gave a scary jolt. Someone was standing beside a tree. He blended in with the background; she’d only seen him because he’d moved, a flash of white as he looked over his shoulder. He turned back towards the tree, head bowed. After a moment he stooped and picked something up, before turning to face them.

  The boy, looking neither curious nor angry to find a gang of girls in his wood, simply stared at them, as if waiting for an explanation. Even now Dory could recall his pale face and solemn dark eyes. A canvas bag was slung diagonally across his thin chest, a branch gripped in his hand like a staff. His other hand was cupped.

  ‘Are you the witch’s son?’ someone asked.

  The boy looked puzzled. ‘No. What witch? My mother’s dead.’

  ‘Who are you then? Robin Hood?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t live here,’ he said. Dory saw her sister’s look of disdain. At their age – and he had to be as old as Fran – they were still comfortable inhabiting a world where reality and fantasy overlapped, but even she knew the difference.

  ‘Is this your house?’ Emily asked. He nodded.

>   Dory wanted to ask about the mad old woman, but as she was one of the youngest there she felt shy.

  ‘What are you doing?’ another of the girls asked.

  ‘Just looking … collecting things.’

  ‘What, leaves? Are you going to make leaf prints?’ Fran interrupted.

  ‘What are leaf prints?’

  ‘Didn’t you see Take Hart on telly last night?’

  ‘We haven’t got a television.’

  This was a deprivation beyond the sisters’ experience. ‘Poor you!’ Fran looked at him pityingly. Dory might not be as old as her sister but she didn’t like her tone. The boy wouldn’t want everyone feeling sorry for him. Even though he didn’t have a TV he might be interested to know about it.

  ‘Take Hart is a programme about how to do art,’ she explained. ‘It’s got lots of ideas in it. Tony Hart … the man who does it … had loads of different leaves and he was painting them different colours. Then he pressed them onto paper and made patterns. It looked fun. I’m going to try it.’

  ‘I’m going to be an artist when I grow up,’ Fran butted in.

  The boy turned his gaze to Dory’s sister again. Desperate to regain his attention, and yet somehow knowing it would sound lame to copy Fran, Dory surprised herself.

  ‘I’m going to be a vet,’ she announced, the idea born of the moment, influenced by her other favourite TV programme.

  Emily agreed. ‘I want to be a vet, too.’

  ‘When I grow up I want to be a typewriter,’ Becky announced.

  Fran gave her a withering look. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked the boy, but he ignored her and instead stared intently into his hand. ‘What’s that? What have you got?’ she demanded. His fingers closed.

  ‘It’s a skull. You might be interested if you want to be a vet,’ he said to Dory. ‘It could be a rat, or maybe a squirrel.’ She stepped forward, but her sister half barged her aside, so she could look first.