‘August!’ Isla called from upstairs.
August leapt up from the sofa where he’d undoubtedly been snoozing, then clutched his lower back with a wince. ‘That woman,’ he muttered as he hobbled to the bottom of the stairs. ‘She’ll be the death of me, I’m sure of it.’
‘August!’ Isla shouted even louder, and came to the banister on the landing above. ‘You were asleep, weren’t you?’ she asked, catching sight of her bedraggled, squinting brother climbing the stairs.
‘No,’ August said through a yawn.
‘You’re infuriating,’ she said, matter-of-factly.
‘You’re annoying,’ he retorted without even looking at her.
It was a routine they’d played out many times over the years. Isla poked her tongue out at him, August poked his out at her, and just for a moment they regressed to their childhood years and forgot their real ages of forty-seven and fifty-two. Isla couldn’t help but smile at her silly older brother.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘These boxes won’t pack themselves, and Uncle Eddie keeps popping the bubble wrap.’
There was little Evie could do while her daughter was buzzing about the house trying to get Eddie and August to behave, but despite her family not being able to see her, she enjoyed spending time in their company. They sat in her old bedroom, emptying cupboards and drawers and talking and laughing, and Evie laughed along with them. Together Eddie and August found many new ways to annoy Isla, but her brilliant debating skills always defeated them, and sheepishly they’d turn back to the task at hand. They found belongings Evie ached to hold once more, and others that she couldn’t even remember owning; they kept almost everything she wanted them to keep but also chose to hold on to things Evie would have thrown away in a heartbeat.
‘What about this?’ Isla pulled out an ornate lamp. A miniature statue of a woman was leaning against the lamp’s stand, her flowing dress draped off one shoulder, almost revealing all. One wrist was pressed against her forehead, as if she was about to faint; the other hand rested saucily on her hip, and she had a come-hither look in her eyes.
‘Keep it?’ suggested Eddie with a shrug.
It was now almost nine o’clock in the evening and seventy-five-year-old Eddie was getting tired so his answers were becoming more and more half-hearted.
‘Really? I don’t remember seeing it around the house … ever,’ said August, eyeing the lamp.
‘No, me neither, but Mum must have kept it this long for a reason,’ Isla pointed out.
‘I hated that lamp,’ Evie said, even though none of them could hear her. ‘Aunt Esme gave it to me, and I hid it so well that I’d forgotten about it until now!’
‘Keep it, then. But I’m not having it!’ August said, refusing to take it from Isla as she tried to pass it to him.
‘Well I don’t want it!’ Isla said, now wishing she wasn’t the one holding it.
‘Look, if you think Mum would have wanted us to keep this … thing, then that’s your call. But I am not going to be the one taking the God-awful thing home!’
The sound of a car on the gravel in the driveway interrupted the siblings’ quarrel. August got up and went to the window. Isla looked at the lamp and huffed as she slid it into a box marked with her own name, and Evie couldn’t help but smile with affection for her daughter.
‘Dad’s home,’ August said with a furrowed brow, beckoning Isla and Eddie over to the window. Evie followed, unsure if she wanted to see what they were seeing. She knew that her death, even though it wasn’t a surprise, would have taken its toll on her husband. He’d loved her and taken care of her until the end, and watching him look up at the house and see three faces at the window instead of four made her wish she could reach out to him. But that would have been selfish, because Evie had no secrets to share with him. She had told her husband everything in life and so had no need to reveal anything to him in the afterlife.
‘Come on. We’d better go and make sure he’s OK,’ Eddie said, and ushered them downstairs.
He opened the door to greet Jim.
Jim Summer looked weathered and worn now, but he was still as handsome as the day he’d married Evie, and he’d lost none of his charm either.
‘Hello, all,’ he said, just as he used to every time he walked through the door, although lately it had been with much less gusto.
‘Hello, Dad,’ Isla said, greeting him with a kiss on the cheek. August simply hugged his father with closed eyes and a held breath, and Eddie shook Jim’s hand firmly.
Hello, Jim, whispered Evie, hoping he’d hear, though she knew that of course he couldn’t.
‘How was she?’ Isla asked.
‘Quiet.’ Jim’s expression changed quickly to that of a person who’d just got a paper cut. ‘I hate leaving her alone.’ A sob escaped before he could cover his mouth, and August rushed to put his arms around his father again and hold him upright before his old, rickety legs caused him to stumble. ‘I’m fine. I’m fine,’ Jim reassured them. He patted August’s back, took a deep breath and collected himself.
‘The cemetery is lovely and peaceful, and you can visit as often as you like. We all can,’ Isla said, and it was only then that Evie realised Jim had been to her grave. Tears rolled down her cheeks without her being aware of them.
‘I know. I’m being silly. I’m just tired. I think I’m going to call it a day.’ Jim gave everyone a smile to let them know he really was going to be OK, but their eyes were still worried.
‘Here,’ Isla said. ‘Let me help you.’ She took her father’s hand and helped him climb the stairs.
‘Did they behave today?’ Jim asked, squeezing his daughter’s hand.
‘Do they ever?’ she said with a sigh, and Jim laughed. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to help us go through her things?’ she continued. ‘We’re worried we’re throwing away things we should keep.’ Isla opened the door to the spare room, and Evie could see Jim’s possessions scattered about. He’s been sleeping in here, she thought.
‘It’s more likely that you’re keeping things she would have thrown away,’ he said. He knew her so well. After fifty-four years of marriage, how could he not? ‘No. I can’t. I trust your judgement. Besides, I’ve already got everything of hers I wanted to keep.’ He walked slowly into the spare room and carefully plonked himself down on the bed.
‘OK,’ Isla said reluctantly, not wanting to leave her father alone with his grief.
‘I’m fine, Isla. Really. Just … missing your mother, that’s all.’ He smiled. ‘Mind you,’ he looked around the room, eyeing every corner, ‘knowing Evie, she’s probably still here somewhere, trying to make sure we’re all doing OK.’ He smiled to himself, and Evie laughed with him, feeling more present and alive than she had in a while. She knew Jim could feel her near, and she was glad about that.
‘You’re probably right,’ Isla said, feeling a little surer he would be all right for tonight. ‘You get some sleep.’ She closed the door slowly, not quite yet wanting to leave him in his own company, but knowing deep down that he was stronger than the rest of them combined, and that he really would be fine. Evie slipped out of the room with her.
Isla had never been a troublesome child, but she had been feisty, stubborn and seemingly always ready for an argument, which meant that letters from school were sent home every now and then about her tendency to talk back to teachers. While Evie tended to August’s creativity, Jim homed in on Isla’s need for debate, and taught her how to structure her arguments so that she’d never lose, much to her older brother’s dismay. August couldn’t bear that his little sister, five years his junior, could outsmart him by the age of seven. Evie would raise her eyebrows at Jim across the dinner table, to which Jim would simply shrug, but after dinner he’d ruffle Isla’s hair and congratulate her on a calm and reasonable execution of her case for why she should be allowed to stay up just as late as August. Isla grew up loving discussion and asking a million questions just to understand things better. Although she was very much Ji
m’s protégée, Evie made sure she taught the little girl compassion, love and tolerance; all the things her own mother had never taught her. Their relationship was built on all these qualities, but most of all it was based on honesty. At least Isla thought it was.
The moment Evie had accepted Jim’s proposal, she’d made a vow never to talk of her old life again. Her flat, her drawings and Vincent were in the past, and it served no purpose resurrecting them and hurting all over again, so she had simply buried it all and denied its existence entirely. So when Isla’s inevitable artistic streak manifested itself in drawings all over her school books when she was sixteen, Evie started to panic. She avoided long conversations with her daughter for a whole week before Jim found her at the dining room table holding one of Isla’s drawings that had slipped out of her school bag.
‘She’s good, isn’t she?’ he said, sitting down across from Evie.
‘She is.’ Evie nodded, stroking the drawing with a finger.
‘As good as you were.’
She held up a hand to stop him talking about things she wanted to forget.
‘You draw Horace for her all the time,’ Jim said tentatively, hoping not to upset her.
‘That’s different. All mothers draw with their children, but this …’ Evie set down the sketch and put her head in her hands.
‘You’re worried that if she keeps drawing and nurturing this talent, it’s going to feel more and more like you’re lying to her,’ Jim said, and Evie looked up through her fingers and nodded. ‘Then talk to her.’
‘No,’ Evie snapped, and Jim looked taken aback. ‘I’m sorry. Sorry. I just … I can’t open that door. I just can’t.’ Evie’s voice wobbled and she took a deep breath to stave off the burst of emotion she felt in her chest. ‘I want her to be whatever she wants to be, and if that is an artist, then I will completely support that, but … I’ll need your help more than ever to hide that part of my life. If I tell her about how, all those years ago, I worked as an artist at a newspaper, or about how hard I fought to keep that career alive, one thing will lead to another and I’ll have to tell her everything. And I can’t, I can’t relive it all again, I can’t relive losing …’
Jim had leapt up from his seat and walked briskly around the table to hold her before she fell apart. With her face pressed against his blue knitted sweater vest, she took a few deep breaths, inhaling his scent, and it calmed her.
‘OK,’ he said, lifting her chin to see her face. ‘Then we hide it, but be prepared. I know that girl only too well, and if she sets her mind to being an artist, then nothing is going to stop her.’
‘Then I will happily sit back and quietly live vicariously through her.’ Evie smiled, and Jim leaned down to gently peck her on the lips.
Isla hadn’t grown up to become an artist. She’d listened to her heart and gone to law school, becoming the first female head of Snow and Summer Ltd, and the first person to run the firm completely on her own. She was part Snow and part Summer, and what with August having no interest in law and Evie’s brother having no children of his own, she happily succeeded Jim and ran the business better and more fairly than anyone before her. Edward Snow and James Summer Senior had no say in the matter, as they’d both passed away when August and Isla were children. Eleanor Snow followed shortly after her husband, but Jane Summer had lived into her nineties. After the death of her husband, she had become a completely different person, and had wholeheartedly agreed that Isla should take over the firm.
Although Isla had become a lawyer, her love of art had never gone away, and she drew and painted in her spare time, but she could never understand the look on her mother’s face when she presented her with a new painting. She always looked so wistful, and perhaps even a little scared. Isla hated that look so much that she eventually stopped showing Evie her work, believing that her mother didn’t think she was any good. That belief had stayed with her, and it made both of them sad.
Evie followed Isla down the hallway to the room she’d occupied as a child. When she opened the door, Evie slipped in behind her and stood looking around. She and Jim hadn’t changed anything about the children’s rooms when they’d moved out. Isla had always been headstrong and rather tomboyish, yet her colour of choice had been pale pink, and she’d insisted on as many objects as possible being sparkly or covered in jewels. Now Evie looked around at the pink-and-cream striped wallpaper and the glittery curtains. Little fake jewels shone out at her, gleaming from every nook and cranny, and her daughter’s eyes shone back, full of sorrow. Isla ran to her bed and flung herself down on it as she’d done when she was a child, throwing a tantrum. She buried her face in the pillow and let her tears fall into the fabric. Evie looked on from the end of the bed, where she used to sit and watch her daughter sleep after she’d put her back to bed after a nightmare.
‘I’m still here, Isla,’ she whispered. ‘I always will be.’
Isla fell asleep after mere minutes of sobbing, and Evie hoped it had something to do with her being so close. Now was her chance.
‘Isla.’
Isla’s eyebrows knitted as she recognised her name, even in sleep.
‘Isla, my brilliant daughter. You are so clever. You always knew there was something wrong with me, something I was hiding from you, but you trusted me so much that you never questioned it. Thank you for letting me keep my secrets. I thought I was being brave hiding my past from you, but really I was just a coward. I didn’t want to hurt any more. I wish you had asked me questions so I would have been forced to confront what I never had the courage to face in life, but in death … it turns out you have no choice but to stand up to your biggest demons, so my advice to you would be to get it over with while you’re still alive and kicking.’ Evie laughed at herself, and Isla relaxed into her laugh, just as she used to relax into Evie’s warm hugs. ‘But now, my darling girl, it’s time you knew everything, so here we are. There’s a box, Isla, a shoebox in my old flat. Jim … your father has the address. Under the rug in the living room there’s a loose floorboard, and underneath that you’ll find the box. In the box … well, you’ll just have to have a look but I promise you things will become clear once you find it, but you need to promise me one thing. Look after them for me, OK? Look after them better than I did.’
Evie stood, brushed her skirt down and tiptoed closer to her sleeping child. Tentatively she stroked a few strands of Isla’s hair away from her face, and when Isla didn’t move, she leaned down and placed a kiss on her forehead. As soon as Evie’s ghostly lips touched her daughter’s skin, Isla sat bolt upright.
‘Mum?’ she yelped.
Evie gasped, but the gasp seemed to suck her backwards across the room, and her vision faded. She was being dragged out of the living world for a second time.
Evie found herself thudding across the basement floor. With a very inelegant roly-poly, she landed face down at Lieffe’s feet.
‘Well?’ the little Dutchman asked impatiently.
Evie had had every breath beaten out of her on impact, so she merely pressed the tips of her thumb and index finger together to make a circle. That was all Lieffe needed to see. He picked up a cup of tea he’d made ready for her return, and placed it carefully on the floor next to her face.
9
magic
All the blood rushed to Isla’s head. She was sure she hadn’t been alone in the room just a moment ago. She’d felt another presence, gentle and calming, felt it so strongly that she’d been startled awake. However, when she’d awoken, she’d found the room empty. She rubbed her temples and laughed at how silly she was. Unlike her brother, she’d never believed in ghosts and ghouls, and while August often cowered in the dark or jumped at shadows, Isla slept soundly and never faltered. She looked across at the pink swirly clock on the wall and saw she’d only been asleep for a few minutes. She was still very tired, her eyelids heavy, so she took advantage of not having woken up fully and sank back down on to her pillows.
In her dreams, Isla found herself floa
ting through a black sky, shards of glass suspended in the air around her. They glinted and sparkled in the moonlight, and some of them were so clean and clear that she could see her own reflection, but she wasn’t her forty-seven-year-old self, her blonde hair turning grey and her skin starting to wrinkle. She was eleven again. She looked down and saw that her hands were covered in paint and coloured chalk, and her pink trousers and pale green top were smudged with colour too. Even the ends of her hair had been matted and meshed together with dried acrylic.
The glass started to vibrate with a warm tinkling noise and suddenly all the shards whizzed off, flying past her in one direction, careful to avoid piercing little Isla. All the slivers danced around each other in the sky like birds and Isla was mesmerised until one by one they started to take formation. It seemed that each piece slotted in with the next: a jigsaw puzzle made of glass. The final shard skipped about, teasing her, before it took its place with the rest, then the creases and cracks between each piece filled in until it was one clean sheet of glass – a window that shimmered. As Isla applauded, her reflection started fading, steadily at first, and then all at once she was gone. The glass was growing cloudy and the shining surface became rough. The edges curled, and Isla realised that the glass had turned to paper. But why? she thought and it was then that a black dot appeared on the centre of the blank page. A single black dot but then it became a curved line, like someone invisible was drawing it in front of her. She followed the line as it swirled and skated around the page until it took the familiar shape of her mother’s drawing of Horace in his waistcoat and monocle.
On the Other Side Page 16