‘Horace!’ she laughed in her high-pitched eleven-year-old voice.
The cat’s ears pricked up.
‘Horace?’ Isla gasped.
The cat stretched out his paws in front of him, and then skidded to the bottom left-hand corner of the page and pointed to the empty space in the centre. The black dot appeared again, and this time it turned into a cartoon of a little boy dressed like a cowboy. Once he’d been fully drawn, he drew a toy pistol from his belt and the words BANG! BANG! appeared beside him as he pretended to fire his gun. He ran to the bottom right-hand corner, and the black dot appeared in the centre once more. One by one, more and more cartoons appeared. A stern mother. A happy couple. A mean-looking boss. A goose with an angry expression. The page became crowded with pencil sketches until only a tiny space in the middle was left bare. A few moments passed before the black dot returned, but this time it was not a drawing that followed. Instead, a signature appeared, a tiny, modest signature belonging, without a doubt, to the artist.
Evie Snow
All the drawings turned to look at the signature and silently they showed their appreciation to Isla’s mother for bringing them to life. The people applauded, the goose flapped its beak open and shut, silently squawking, and Horace gave a low bow with one paw resting on his waistcoat over his heart. Eleven-year-old Isla’s eyes widened, and suddenly she found herself staring up at her pink bedroom ceiling, no longer feeling small and nimble but heavy and tired.
She was awake. Back to reality. Back to being forty-seven.
But something was different. The dream had seemed so real. Isla even patted her clothes, searching for paint marks, but she was still in her clean clothes from the day before, and the pink swirly clock told her she’d slept for eight hours: it was almost nine in the morning. She groaned. She definitely didn’t feel like she’d slept for that long.
Isla showered, changed and made herself feel more presentable, but all the time the sketches she’d seen in her dream chased each other round and round along the outside track of her brain. The boss chased the mother, trying to pinch her bum; the mother chased the couple, wagging her finger in disapproval; the couple chased after the boy as he tried to pull the goose’s tail; the goose waddled after Horace, who enjoyed outsmarting them all; and poor Isla chased after them, trying to find the answers to her swarm of questions.
August was the first to realise there was something amiss.
‘Dear sister. Your head is in the clouds today,’ he mocked in a silly Shakespearean voice. He tiptoed around her as she washed up her breakfast dishes. ‘Your head is never in the clouds,’ he continued when Isla didn’t respond, his voice now tinged with concern. He yanked the wet butter knife off her, splashing water over them both, and pointed it at her playfully. ‘Who are you and what have you done with my smelly sister?’
Isla laughed and took the knife back and continued to wash the hardened egg yolk off its ridges. ‘I didn’t sleep well, that’s all,’ she said, staring at the shiny surfaces of the bubbles in the sink and thinking how they looked like the clear sheet of glass in her dream.
‘Is Mum’s ghost haunting you too?’ August said, only half joking.
A plate slipped out of Isla’s hand and clattered into the sink. Luckily, it hadn’t broken, but water sloshed up and out in a great tidal wave and splashed over her cosy pink slippers.
‘Argh!’
August stared at her soaking feet for a moment before bursting into laughter. ‘What’s got you spooked?’ he said once he’d composed himself.
‘You said too,’ Isla said, spinning to face her brother. Her voice came out more harshly than she’d intended. ‘What did you mean, is her ghost haunting me too?’ The water was quickly sinking into her socks, so she sat down and slipped them off in a huff.
‘It’s silly really,’ August said, now feeling sheepish. He’d not spoken about what had happened with the dream and the bird to anyone other than his Daphne, and he probably wouldn’t have shared it with her had she not been there to witness the majority of it. But he was so very grateful that she had been there, because their marriage was now as good as the day they’d said their vows. ‘I—’ He paused, grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and took a bite. As he chewed, he thought about how he was going to word this strange story.
‘Go on,’ Isla pushed.
‘I had this … dream.’
Isla felt her heart clang against her ribs. ‘A dream?’
‘It’s going to sound silly, but I could hear Mother’s voice telling me about this … this bird. I could see it flapping its wings, and when I woke up, it didn’t leave me alone.’ He could feel the story spilling out of him like ink from a pen. ‘It was like the bird was inside my head until he appeared. I mean, really appeared.’
‘The bird?’ Isla said, fearfully.
‘Yes. This little blackbird, except he wasn’t a blackbird at all! He was a white dove, but Mum and a man she was once in love with had covered him in love notes. The bird would fly back and forth between them when they were apart, carrying the notes they’d written on its wings.’
Isla just stared at him.
‘I know it sounds crazy. But wait …’
August ran from the room and darted upstairs to where his suitcase lay. He dug around under clothes and underwear until he felt the familiar shape of the notebook. When he reappeared in the kitchen, Isla was still in exactly the same place, holding the exact same expression.
‘We saved the love notes. Read it. You’ll feel closer to her if you do.’
Isla took the book in silence, but couldn’t bring herself to open it.
‘Isla?’ August was concerned at how pale she’d become.
‘I’ll be back later.’ Isla slid out of the kitchen chair and started to pick up pace towards the stairs. ‘Is Dad awake?’ she called over her shoulder.
‘I think I heard him moving around up there. Why? Isla, what’s going on?’
But Isla was already up on the landing, heading towards their father’s room. She knocked on the door, feverishly.
‘Dad? Dad! Are you up?’ She listened closely for an answer, but nothing came. ‘Dad!’ she called, her voice rising.
The bathroom door opened and her father stood there in his striped pyjamas with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth.
‘Whatever is the matter?’ he gurgled through foaming toothpaste.
‘I need Mum’s address. Her old address,’ she clarified when she saw his bushy eyebrows pull together.
Jim suddenly felt faint. He held on to the door frame with his spare hand.
‘Dad?’ Isla rushed to him just as he lost his balance and started to fall, the toothbrush landing on the floor and splattering paste across the wood. She caught him before he hit the ground and kept him upright using all of her strength. ‘August!’
Jim came to almost immediately, and after a lot of fussing from August and Isla, he felt steady enough to get himself dressed. He met his children downstairs where they both sat whispering to each other in concerned tones but they fell silent when Jim reached the doorway and came into their sight.
‘Don’t stop on my account,’ he said, feeling embarrassed that he’d shown his elderly fragility in front of them.
‘Dad, I have a question. Well … I have many questions,’ Isla said. August’s notebook rested open in her lap.
‘About?’ Jim walked carefully into the room, making certain every step was sure and steady.
‘About Mum and … her life before us,’ August said, taking the book from his sister.
Jim’s next step faltered and he had to try very hard not to lose his balance before his foot touched the floor again. He took a deep breath. ‘I see.’ He finally reached the armchair opposite the sofa and cautiously inched himself into it.
‘I … found this,’ August fibbed, not wanting to bother his father with his improbably odd tale. ‘It’s a notebook filled with notes. Love notes, to be specific. From Mum to—’
‘Vincen
t?’ Jim said with a slight smile.
‘Yes,’ Isla breathed. ‘How did you …?’
‘I met him once. Only briefly. Nice chap. Loved your mother dearly.’
‘I can tell,’ August said, passing the book to his father.
Jim flipped through the pages, enjoying seeing Evie’s handwriting. When he spotted words only she used, like ‘flollopy’ and ‘twerp’, the gap in his heart that Evie used to fill ached.
‘You didn’t just … find this, did you, August?’ he said shrewdly.
August was stunned and silent.
‘You met Little One,’ Jim continued as though they were having a perfectly normal conversation. He looked up from the open pages, warmth radiating out of them. August looked more than a little confused, so Jim carried on. ‘The blackbird that isn’t a blackbird. Your mother always called him Little One. Again, I only ever met him once, but Evie told me all about him.’
That was all the invitation August needed. He launched into the tale of how awful things had been with Daphne, about the dream he’d had and how Little One had appeared and fixed everything.
‘It felt like Mum was watching over me, and now …’ August’s eyes shifted to Isla, who was looking at her father hopefully.
‘And now I’ve had a similar dream. A dream that felt so real and so familiar, like … It felt like Mum was trying to tell me something.’
Jim closed the book gently and rested his lightly shaking clasped hands on its cover. ‘And what do you think she was saying?’ The tone of his voice had shifted. He sounded sceptical, less willing to help, and Isla felt panic rise into her throat.
‘She said she lived somewhere after she left her parents’ house and before she got married. She left something there that she wants me to find. The dream I had was all about glass that turned into paper and … and drawings that came to life, and—’
‘I’ve heard enough.’ Jim held up his hand and Isla held her breath. August leaned slightly to his left against Isla’s shoulder to let her know he was on her side. ‘You are meddling in things you shouldn’t be meddling in. Your mother’s life before us was her business. Not ours. Respect her decision not to tell you about it and stop digging up her past. I just … can’t bear it.’ He put his head in his open hand, not wanting his children to see the tears in his eyes, and gently waved them away with the other. He didn’t mean to be dismissive or cruel, but he felt too weak to haul himself out of the chair, and he needed a moment to himself.
August took his sister by the arm, but before they reached the stairs, Isla turned back to her father.
‘Whatever she asked you to keep secret, Dad, she’s now asking me to find. All I need is that address. That’s all. You don’t have to have anything further to do with it. Please just … think about it. I want to know her like you knew her.’
Jim sat for a long while thinking and reading the notebook, wallowing in a past he’d not been allowed to talk about for a very long time, although he’d thought about it often. They’d never seen Vincent again, and whether Evie thought about him or not, she never mentioned it, but Jim wondered most days where Vincent was, and how he was, and whether he’d ever found someone else and lived a happy life. He had always hoped he had. But now Jim was lost. He’d kept Evie’s past locked away at her request, and now it seemed her ghost was haunting his children and convincing them to find the key he still kept hidden.
‘Oh Evie. What do I do?’ he whispered just as he drifted off to sleep in the armchair by the fireplace.
‘Something’s not right,’ Evie said. She’d been lying on her back on the basement floor for some while, only sitting up for swigs of tea from her mug. ‘I haven’t felt anything yet.’ She had been bracing herself for the tightening and vibrating in her chest that would ultimately leave her feeling lighter, but it had been a considerable amount of time since she’d arrived back in the building, and … nothing.
‘Patience, Evie. Sometimes it takes a little while for the living to get the message,’ Lieffe said.
‘No … it’s something more than that. It’s …’ Evie knew it wasn’t her daughter holding things up. Isla might have a lawyer’s head on her shoulders, but there was a bit of magic about that girl that would definitely latch on to what Evie had whispered to her. Isla would have wanted to see it through to the end, even if she found nothing. No, it wasn’t Isla. But if not her, then who?
‘It’s Jim.’ Evie sighed and took a large gulp of tea.
‘What about him?’ Lieffe asked, taking a smaller sip of his own.
‘Jim’s a Summer. He may have been different from his parents, he had an imagination but it was always just make believe. It could and would never be real. He’s the only one who has my old address.’
‘So …?’ Lieffe felt lost.
‘I made him promise he would keep my past and everything in it a secret. He’s not parting with my address because he thinks that is what I would have wanted. Oh Jim.’ Evie felt touched that he was guarding her secrets so well, but she had to make him realise that she needed his help in a different way now.
Come on, Isla, she wished with all her heart. Win him over.
Isla found her father asleep in the armchair. She lit the fire to keep him warm as the afternoon turned to evening and the air in the spacious house became chillier. She sat herself down opposite and watched him sleep. Even unconscious, he found a way to look worried, and Isla wondered if her mother was haunting his dreams too. He must have sensed her there, as he started to stir, and eventually his eyes flickered open.
‘Isla,’ he said, his mouth sticking.
‘Dad.’ She smiled at him. ‘Listen, about what I said earlier …’
Jim hoisted himself up in the chair, his creaking joints protesting. ‘Isla,’ he said with a slight warning tone to his voice.
‘I know Mum must have asked you to keep this a secret, otherwise you wouldn’t be fighting it so hard. But if you give me the address, whatever I uncover will stay in the family. I won’t even tell August if you don’t want me to. I’ll pretend I found nothing, if I do find anything at all. But I just have this … this feeling. There’s something I’m supposed to go looking for, I just know it.’
Jim could feel himself giving in. Everything he’d kept locked away in his head was pushing against its cage, bending the bars a little further each time.
‘There’s something Mum left for me at that old address that she wants me to have.’
That was all she needed to say. The memory of the box of glass poured itself through the keyhole in Jim’s mind, free at last.
‘I don’t know why I’m doing this,’ he said.
‘Doing what?’ Isla asked, a slender eyebrow raised.
Jim closed his eyes and let the memory seep down into his chest, where his heart opened its mouth and called out. His silence unnerved Isla, but within a minute, there was a flutter of wings outside.
‘Follow that blasted dove and discover what you will.’ He smiled, defeated.
Isla turned to the window. Sitting on the sill was a pure white bird, who she could have sworn was smiling.
‘Don’t ask me how. I’ve never been able to figure it out, but your mother had a word for it.’
‘And what was that?’ Isla asked.
‘Magic.’
10
apartment 72
The building had long been abandoned. Its exterior had been consumed by green weeds that had grown out so much that each balcony’s foliage was entangling with the next. Windows had been shattered, and fresh, smooth paint had been replaced by dull, cracked flakes speckled with moss. But even though it was dilapidated and falling apart, Isla thought the building still had character. Like looking at a photograph of an elderly person from when they were younger. You could still now see that same youth in their eyes, even though their body had withered over the years. She wondered if she was putting her safety at risk by entering the building, or if she’d even be able to find a way in at all. One of the glass doors at th
e entrance had been shattered, and she considered the fact that there might be squatters living inside. She hoped this wasn’t the worst idea she’d ever had, but she knew she had to try, at the very least.
As she stepped through the broken glass, she was glad she’d thought to switch her court shoes for trainers before she left. The foyer was dark, and she could smell the mouldering damp patches that were steadily climbing the walls. The only thing that seemed somewhat complete was the light fixture in the centre of the foyer. It was an exceedingly modest chandelier – if you could call it that at all – but even so, it shone through the dust and had yet to be vandalised like most of the furniture had been. There were marks in the dust where chairs had once stood, the wallpaper had graffiti all over it, and various rude words had been carved into the woodwork. Clearly the lift was out of service, and even if it had been in full working order, Isla wouldn’t have chanced it. She looked at the stairs. The carpet had been eaten away by mice, but the steps themselves looked sturdy enough.
‘Seventh floor, here I come.’
There was nothing unusual about the building and nothing that made Isla feel she should be scared, but it had an atmosphere she just couldn’t explain. She felt like the place had died before its time, that its life and joy had been taken from it before it had had a chance to really make something of itself. She could almost hear music and laughter coming from behind the apartment doors, and picture people leaning over the banisters to call down to each other, and the idea that this had been a community where everyone had been fond of each other and invited each other round for tea warmed her soul. She hoped it really had been like that in her mother’s time. However, seeing the building now with its broken windows and its vandalised walls, sadness followed the idea that it had once been so loved.
By the time she reached the seventh floor, Isla had to sit on the top step to regain her breath. On second thoughts, if the lift had been working, she would have taken it. After a minute, though, she jumped up. Her breath was still short and her thighs were burning from a longer workout than she’d had in years, but she was so close now, and couldn’t rest easy knowing she was only footsteps away from where her mother had once lived.
On the Other Side Page 17