I would read aloud until I noticed she had nodded off, and then I would carefully mark my place and quietly leave the room. She would be most peaceful at these times and I too found the rhythm of the literature somehow soothing.
On the third afternoon after my arrival, I finished the chapter I’d been reading and noticed my mother had relaxed into a stupor. Her face had shrunk; the skin slack around her jaw line, with a yellowy hue. Looking at her there, I experienced a twinge—a tugging at my heartstrings, a slight wincing of my womb. Remorse? Guilt? I stood and stretched, stiff from the cramped seat. I turned around to pull the curtains and darken the room so she could sleep without interruption from stray light or any passing cars outside.
Mother’s room faced out over the quiet street, and a sudden movement across the road caught my attention. A small red and white van with the words Albright Estate Agents had parked in front of the large house opposite us. Unlike our side of the street, with its length of impressively tall Georgian terraces, the opposite side of the road had relatively newer properties. The detached Victorian houses opposite stood in their own generous grounds, each surrounded by mature trees offering further privacy than even the tall wall around each garden could allow.
Discreet and desirable and extremely expensive.
I watched a heavy-set man hammer a For Sale sign into the ground with an impressively proportioned wooden mallet. Half a dozen heavy blows was all it took, and the sign stood proud. He threw the hammer into the back of his van, slammed the door and a few moments later drove away. I stared into the void he had left, populating it with memories.
The house across the road was newer than ours by about fifty or sixty years at a guess. Yet in my whole lifetime I could only remember it as the ramshackle affair it still remained. The paint had always peeled away from the front door. The windows had always seemed thick with grime from the street, and the old-fashioned lace nets were always thick and yellowed. Ivy had grown up the neat red brickwork, turning into a bright burning red during the early autumn. The iron railings, sitting atop a low brick wall were solid but rusted. Moss grew on the roof and a number of shingles had disappeared. I stared at the house now, trying to remember whether it was in a worse state than I remembered or still much the same.
Oakview Villa had been a permanent fixture in my life. I could lie in or on my bed and stare at the house across the road, something I’d done for hours as a child. Later as a teenager when I brushed my hair, or applied make-up, or sat at my desk next to the window, I would often glance across at the house and speculate about it.
I gently pushed my mother’s net curtain aside to take a better look at the house. No movement anywhere, but a thin curl of grey smoke rose into the air above one of the three chimneys. Mrs H was at home then?
Surely it wasn’t possible that she was even alive?
Mrs H.
That was a blast from the past.
I called her Mrs H because I didn’t know her name and because she had always reminded me of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. Not that I’d ever seen the old woman in a wedding dress of course. I doubted anyone alive could have done. In fact, I’d probably only ever set eyes on the woman three or four times in my entire life. So I knew her as Mrs H simply because I’d once caught a glimpse of the interior of her house—just the hallway, really. The highly polished heavy walnut furniture, covered with intricate lace doilies and an array of glass and ceramic decoration, had reminded me of images of Victorian houses I’d seen in history books at school.
I cast my mind back, remembering that day. I’d been playing in the road with Ian. Earlier, we’d seen some older kids playing kerb ball and had been trying to copy the game. Fortunately for us, Park Close hadn’t been particularly busy in those days, and most households only had one car instead of the now seemingly requisite two, so we’d had plenty of space. You threw the ball—a football in this case but a basketball or volleyball would probably have been better—across the length of the road and tried to hit the kerb with it so that it bounced back towards you. If it did bounce back and you caught it, you scored a point. If you missed the kerb and the person across the road caught the ball instead, they won the point.
At one stage the ball had gone horribly awry. I don’t recall now whether I threw it, or whether Ian did, but it bounced over the railings and into Mrs H’s front garden. Ian wanted me to go and get it. I dismissed him as a whiny scare-baby, but truth be told Oakview Villa terrified me too. It was with extreme reluctance that I’d placed my hand on the gate’s latch and pushed it open.
Between the gate and the house there was maybe twenty feet or so of space. Once upon a time all of this had probably been beautifully landscaped. I was eight years old, small for my age and the house loomed large overhead, casting a long shadow and blocking the sun. The grounds seemed impossibly spacious to me, but horribly shadowy. An ornamental path led both left and right, disappearing from my view around each side of the house. Flower beds had been left to die back and plants rotted where they were.
I crept slowly through the gate, certain that making any kind of noise would disturb the occupants of the house and alert them to my illicit presence. The ball had come to rest on one of the larger flower beds, among some tall, dank weeds. I tiptoed to the very edge of the bed, reluctant to stand in the earth despite the already ragged appearance of the garden. I was mindful as always about what my mother would say if I left footprints in the soil after she had weeded. Surely my neighbour would say the same? I stretched out with my fingers, clutching at thin air, stretching with my arms and elongated my torso, stood on the balls of my feet, reaching… reaching.
“You there!”
The shock of the old woman’s voice caused me to lose my balance. I stepped, miring my shoe in mud. Jumping back on the grass, I turned to face the woman. My stomach churned in dread while my hands and arms hung rigid by my side as I stood to attention, ready to be scolded.
“What are you doing there?” she barked at me. Her hair, long and white, had been caught up in an untidy chignon. Strands stuck out at odd angles. She had dressed oddly in a long dark nightdress covered by a lengthy silk housecoat that billowed about her in a sudden breeze.
My mouth worked but no sound came out, so frozen with terror was I.
“Come here,” she called, irritated by my lack of response.
I had to abandon the ball and make my way to stand in front of her. I presented myself at the bottom of the steps that led to her crackled front door and stared up at her. She regarded me through milky eyes, the numerous lines around her face lent her a soft focus, but her hard expression would have sliced through granite.
“What are you doing?” she asked again, leaning heavily on her stick, a twisted branch as old and gnarled as she.
“I beg your pardon.” I repeated the words my mother had taught me for when I needed to apologise. “I was trying to rescue our ball.” I half-turned to indicate Ian, supposedly waiting for me at the gates but he’d scarpered and left me to it.
Damn him.
“I beg your pardon,” the old woman parroted back at me, mocking my turn of phrase. “If it’s in my garden, I would respectfully suggest that it’s not your ball but my ball.”
I wondered if that was something enshrined in British law. Like finders keepers, losers weepers. She was the adult in this situation. She had to know.
I felt my lack of power acutely. I could only bite my lip nervously and nod. My eyes prickled with humiliated tears. Embarrassed to cry in front of this stranger, I avoided her gaze. My eyes dropped from her face to take in the hallway behind her. Now, through the mists of my memory as I stood in my dying mother’s bedroom, I recalled the stuffed birds in domes, and gilt-edged mirrors on the wall, the heavy wood of the furniture and a dark dado rail on the wall.
I could imagine my mother’s horror at having to dust all the knick-knacks. She would despair. How did this little old lady who appeared to live in her huge house all alone manage to keep on
top of all the housework?
And so, yes, a few years later when I read Great Expectations, I recognised the woman immediately as Mrs Havisham, but at this earlier moment of time, she was simply a neighbour. A neighbour who frightened me.
“Hasn’t your mother taught you it’s wrong to trespass on another person’s private property?”
I nodded and cast my eyes to my feet. My right shoe was filthy. On top of everything else, I was going to get it in the neck for the muck if I went home without cleaning it properly.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, my voice barely audible above the sound of an aeroplane flying high overhead.
The woman tsk’ed. “Begone,” she said finally. “Don’t let me catch you in my garden again or you’ll know what for.” She gestured me away. “And close my gates.”
I didn’t need any further encouragement. I shot back out onto the pavement, turned and clanged the tall iron gates noisily closed behind me, ensuring they were both fully latched, then high-tailed it across the road, where Ian was waiting for me on our own front steps.
“Coward!” I pushed him angrily, hard enough so that he fell down the steps to the paved area. He cried, not because I’d hurt him, but because he was a whinging ratbag and he knew it would get me into trouble if my mother heard him.
I sat there on the sunny side of the street, bathing in the bright gold warmth of the day, but miserable because we were now ball-less. Resentment and frustration simmered away inside me, and when Ian plucked up the courage to climb the steps to sit alongside me—rivulets of clear snot running from his nose—I pushed him down the steps once more.
My mother stirred behind me, issuing a small grunt of disapproval.
Or perhaps it was pain.
I blinked the memories away. So long ago. So much water under the bridge.
But Mrs H had been ancient back then. I had been remembering an incident that occurred well over thirty years ago. Allowing for the shortcomings of my ability as an eight-year-old to correctly ascertain someone’s age, I would guess she had to have been seventy back then, that made her over a hundred now.
Well it was feasible, I supposed.
I watched the thin curl of smoke from the chimney and mused on what life was like for her, alone in that house, no-one ever coming or going, waiting to die, just as my mother’s life ebbed away in the bed behind me. We were a trio. My own life seemed to have come to a full stop.
Was this all there was left? I’d entered my forties, now I just needed to wait for death whether that be twenty years or sixty years down the road?
Fun, fun, fun.
Cathy leaned over a notepad at the kitchen table scribbling while I heated a tin of soup in a worn-out saucepan.
I hadn’t found much in the house that was edible apart from endless tins of Heinz soup. My mother favoured chicken. I hated her choice. I’d opted for tomato.
“I’m glad you were able to take the time off from work to be with your mother.” Cathy looked up from her work and smiled at me.
I avoided her gaze and stirred my soup, allowing the silence to stretch out until Cathy had to fill it again.
“Can you stay long?”
I shrugged. “How long will it take?” I meant of course, ‘how long does my mother have before she shuffles off this mortal coil?’.
Cathy understood exactly what I meant. A shadow crossed her face. Fleeting emotion. Disappointment? Fear?
I couldn’t have cared less.
“Not long, I suppose.” Her voice was soft, regretful. Why should she care? My mother surely meant nothing to her. Just one more client she’d been paid to care for.
Perhaps she had expectations of some kind of windfall in my mother’s will. I’d heard about such things happening before, where carers had been left a small fortune and the natural beneficiaries had been disinherited. I stirred my soup violently and it sloshed over the side. I needed to ask my mother whether she’d made a will, and if she had, where she’d lodged it.
I needed the money. And this house—for better or worse—was mine by birth right.
The truth was I had nowhere else to go. My husband—now ex-husband—had allowed me to live on in the house he’d bought before we’d even met for several years after our separation and eventual divorce. Rent free. But recently he’d found a new partner, fifteen years his junior, and when she’d rapidly started dropping sprogs, he’d demanded the house back from me.
Legally I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I’d looked around for somewhere to rent, but misery loves company. Two weeks ago I’d received notice that my role at the sales company I’d worked with for twenty years, had become redundant. I now found myself out of work and out of a home.
When Cathy had forwarded my mother’s letter to me, and included her own note informing me of my mother’s imminent demise, I’d realised with relief that at least I had a home I could return to.
Truth to tell, had my mother been properly alive and kicking, I doubt I would have bothered coming back.
But the situation as it stood suited me fine.
Soon the house would be all mine. I could sell it and move on with my life, go wherever I wanted to go.
Free from the ghosts of my past.
I checked on my mother one last time before climbing up to my little garret in the roof. She was out for the count, snoring gently, pill bottles lined up next to a glass of water on her bedside table. I turned on her night light and closed the door before heading to bed myself.
The low wattage of the lightbulb on the landing burned brightly enough to light the way into my room. Many years before, Ian had been afraid of the dark and so we had always left the landing light on to appease him. The thick olive lampshade, so very late-seventies, still hung in place, although faded now.
I padded across to my window to pull the curtains. The street outside was calm and quiet, no cars passing up and down, nobody walking along the pavements. That stood to reason. While Park Close began as a turning from a main road, it ended abruptly at the side entrance to the large neighbourhood park. This would be closed up at this time of night. The only people walking this route would be those who lived nearer the park. I imagined by this hour most of them would be snuggled under their duvets. I checked the time on the little travel clock on my dressing table. Yes, eleven forty-two. I was late to bed this evening. I’d regret that in the morning when Cathy turned up at the crack of dawn.
The house across the way was shuttered and dark. No lights burned in any of the windows. I spent a few moments staring across, pondering on which of the bedrooms belonged to Mrs H. Was she still in residence? Still alive even? Maybe she slept downstairs. Many old people confined themselves to just one room, didn’t they? They found it more manageable. It would make sense to only heat one room at her age. Or perhaps she too had a carer. I’d have to ask Cathy if she knew anything about the old woman across the road.
I paused, one hand on the curtain. The few street lights around—poorly spaced out—didn’t throw out much light, but I could have sworn I’d seen movement near the front gates.
I waited.
There it was again.
My heart beat slightly faster in my chest.
Was someone trying to break in to Oakview Villa?
Ought I call the police? I’d left my mobile phone downstairs.
I peered out, scrutinizing the shadows. Perhaps I’d seen a cat. Or a stray dog.
Maybe it was kids.
Don’t get involved, I told myself, and yanked the curtains closed.
But as I sat on my bed, the springs creaking beneath me, I experienced a pang of conscience. Possibly it was the thought of the ancient Mrs H lying alone in her bed in that huge old house. Perhaps I could empathise with her plight given the state my own mother was in—whatever—I had to go and check. And if someone was trying to break in then I would be a responsible citizen and alert the police.
I grabbed a cardigan and ran downstairs in search of my mobile phone.
Holding
my phone ready to make an emergency call, I unlocked and opened our front door. The cool air of the evening was a relief after a day shut up in my mother’s stuffy house, and I welcomed the freshness of the wind as it blustered and died then blew again. I let myself out, eyes straining to make out the slightest movement across the road.
Nothing to see.
Theoretically what did that mean though? It had taken me a short amount of time to locate my phone and slip my trainers on. Plenty of time for an intruder to make their way around the rear of the house to break in.
I crossed the road and lifted my hand to open the iron gates.
And paused…
Even in the darkness I could make out a new chain and padlock, gleaming in the subdued light. They had been threaded through the railings and clinched at the reverse. I hadn’t noticed them before, but I suppose they could have been there for a few days. No longer than that I wouldn’t have thought, judging by their shiny newness. Not a hint of rust. Not even a blemish from a drop of rain.
I slipped my mobile into the pocket of my jeans and wrapped my hands around a couple of the iron railings, the rusty surface rough against the smooth skin of my palms, and peered through them, glancing left and right. Nothing to see and nothing to hear. No sense of alarm within the house, in fact no disturbance apparent anywhere.
I shook my head. A wasted trip. I might as well have snuggled in my bed after all.
Dropping my hands, I took a step back, but a sudden movement at the periphery of my vision to the right of the house startled me.
“Who’s there?” I called, the slight tremor in my voice echoing back at me in the night air.
A rustling from the bushes ahead of me stirred the air, but no answer.
The wind gusted and the leaves in the trees overhanging the garden wall shivered and whispered to me. “She” they seemed to say, “Sssshhhhe.”
Midnight Garden Page 2