I cricked my neck looking up at the loft hatch. I needed a pole or a stick. Something to push against the loft hatch which I hoped would then unlock and open down on hinges, like our one at home. I couldn’t find anything at the top of the stairs.
I wasn’t tall enough to reach the hatch, although I might have been able to balance on the top of the banisters and reach up. I didn’t fancy that. Horrible images shot through my mind.
I dragged a chair out from the study bedroom and stood up on it. I was able to push against the hatch, but it didn’t swing down. It just pushed up a few inches. It was one that needed to be pushed up into the loft, rather than one opening down. I needed something taller.
It took me twenty minutes to find a ladder. Stashed away in a corner of Richard’s garage, behind an old plastic sheet, a large metal step ladder spattered with lumps of dried paint. The paint colour didn’t match that of the house, so I wondered when it had last been used. I didn’t want it to collapse under me. The metal felt cold as I carried the ladder upstairs.
As soon as I stepped onto the first rung the ladder shook. Or perhaps it was me.
Either way, it didn’t feel very safe, particularly being so close to the edge of the staircase.
The loft hatch was not as heavy as I thought it would be. I pushed it up with both hands and slid it away from the opening into the attic. Slowly I moved my head into the darkness. My right shoulder nudged against a switch just inside the hatch. I flicked it down. A single light bulb hung from the rafters, lighting the entire space with bright light. The taste and smell of dust filled my nose and throat. A dryness hung in the air. My head and shoulders invaded Richard’s private attic.
There was remarkably little to see. The entire floor area was boarded. It was almost another room. A dozen or so large boxes took up less than a quarter of the loft space. A few other items took up perhaps another quarter. A sparse loft to go with the rest of the house. The first things you stepped on in our loft at home were Christmas decorations. Pulled down at the end of November, chucked back up again at the beginning of January. Old clothes that didn’t fit either Michael or Rose were bagged up and slung in a gap, until all the gaps were filled. No light, and the itchy, raspy fibres of insulation floating around the space waiting to attach themselves to your skin, or for you to breath them into your throat and lungs.
My guess was that no one had been in the loft since the move. Everything looked as though it had been placed neatly down and just left there. Perhaps it had even been the removal men.
If I had felt childlike and excited by adventure before I opened the loft hatch, now I was positively fizzing. My stomach felt as though it was full of bubbles and my eyes had lost all their soreness from earlier. The boxes before me became presents. All for me. The only dilemma being which one to open first. And I could take as long as I liked. No one else was waiting to open theirs. I didn’t have to share.
A fold-down metal loft ladder lay level with my left ear. I pulled the end of it and backed down the rickety step ladder, which was now shaking twice as much as when I had first climbed onto it. I moved it out of the way and stepped onto the sturdier loft ladder. My heart was spinning. My jaw ached as I suppressed excited laughter. I had to remind myself that Richard was desperately ill in hospital and that I was trespassing into his private life. My heart stopped spinning and a more business-like feeling came over me.
I walked over to the non-boxed stuff first.
The most obvious thing was an old bicycle. I had no idea how it had got up in the loft. Or why it was there. Not rusty, but definitely old. A black metal frame, with silver brake handles and pedals, as shiny as chrome. Despite the taste of dust in my mouth, there was none on the bike. It could have been put there yesterday. The brown saddle had been marked by the years and the tyres hung away from the rims. A pump rested between the upper and lower parts of the frame. A wicker basket attached by leather straps around the handlebars. It was a woman’s bike. I gripped the handlebars and pulled on the brakes with my fingers. They squeaked as they moved. Had my mother used this bike? Was this how she got to the library? It seemed odd that Richard had kept the bicycle, but no photographs. It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any pictures of his second wife either. Perhaps he just wasn’t one for memories.
A black box, tatty and worn, lay behind the bike. Not cardboard, but solid. Specifically made to hold something specific. It was heavier than I expected. I undid the catch and lifted the lid. An old gramophone record player. One with a silver trumpet speaker and green baize on the turntable. Cranked by a handle. The record needle as thick as my mum’s knitting needles. I pushed the handle into the hole at the side and wound it up. The turntable creaked a bit, but still turned.
Two old table lamps to the side of the gramophone. Their bases wrapped in towelling. The creamy shades sporting brown stains; What looked like an old tent bag, with a tent inside, lay among a few rolls of spare carpet. As I hadn’t noticed carpet anywhere in the house, I wondered if it had been left by the previous owners. Maybe the bike too, then. Maybe my mother hadn’t ridden it to the library. Hadn’t taken it down to the bay at Cawsand, her lunch clattering around in the wicker basket.
And suddenly I felt a great aching in my heart. What had she hoped for? That young woman. What had she hoped for her children? Family days on the beach? Gritty sand getting into their food as they played? Splashing about in the waves? Her girls. She would have thought about their future. Before the madness took her. Before she even became aware of what was inside her. She would have mapped out a life for her girls. How she would tell them about being good. Being virtuous. Always brush the sand and salt out of your hair at the end of each day. She would tell her girls about woman things, when they were old enough. She would put all her love into them. Give them everything of her.
And she did. Everything she didn’t know she carried. Pumped from her body into theirs. Into mine. Into my sister’s?
But how could giving us up have been the right thing to do? Knowing what she had passed on. Surely she should have kept hold of us. Kept us with her so she could protect us. Not pass us onto someone else, with our madness lying dormant, waiting for the time when it wakes up and ruins our lives.
But she had no choice. We were taken from her. She had no say in the matter. The decision was already made. For me it was made before I was even born. Before I breathed the air of this world my future had already been decided for me. Signed and documented by Janice Ward. While I was still being carried by my mother. Still in the protection of her body. And even there my future was being decided for me. The madness in her flowing into me. Just a speck inside her. And a speck when I came into the world. Everything about me already decided.
My tears splashed onto the wooden loft boards. I put my arm on the bike and leaned into it. Buried my head on my arm. I wanted to save her. Somehow go back and save her. Make her dreams come true. Let her have that life she longed for. Her and her girls, Emily and Christine. The three of us on the beach. Laughing and loving. Waiting for my father to come home from work. Telling him what we had done. How much we had played and loved.
Could we have stopped the madness from taking hold? Would Emily and I have filled her with so much love that there wouldn’t be any room for the madness inside her? Would it have dissipated? Been smothered by the love? What if she had kept us? It might have saved her.
But what about the other girls? The girls in my mind. The dead girls. And the dog. Maybe they are me and Emily. Maybe that’s what I’m seeing. Us being killed. Us being sent away from the mother and father that love us. Murdering our family and dropping us off the edge to be looked after by someone else. It’s not real murder. It’s not a real attack. It’s us. Me and my sister. Forced to leave our family. Forced into the darkness of the unknown. But what about the dog? Maybe we had one.
I shook my head clear. Wiped the tears from my eyes and took deep, dusty breaths. Up in the rafters cobwebs trembled. Outside the wind blew across the roof.
&nbs
p; A small, brown vinyl case lay on the floor. The only object that seemed to have a layer of dust on it. I opened the clasp and peered inside. Dozens of old records. The size of singles — 45rpm. Plus a booklet. Linguaphone — The entire French course. My heart went out to Richard. How hard he tried for my mother. Working so hard on his business, trying to learn her language. Desperate to give her the stability she had lacked from her own family. And for what? His children lost, then his wife.
I flicked through the language records. So old. So basic. Had my mother touched these? Had she played them for him? Helped him out if he struggled? Had she disagreed with any of the speakers? I clicked the lid shut.
The boxes loomed behind me. It was time to start on them.
Folders and papers. Yellow, green, pink and buff. Some faded. Some a little worn. Folders full of my father’s business records. Patient records, old diaries, appointment sheets, financial information. Practically everything in the boxes was to do with business. The non-boxed items, the bike, the gramophone, the small pile of miscellany — that was the personal stuff. The boxes were business. My heart sank. I had hoped for more. Hoped for a trace of his life before. Her life. A thread, or jigsaw piece to add to the puzzle.
Dozens and dozens of folders. All marked up in date order. Only two boxes contained folders from before my mother died. The colours of the folders slightly more faded than in the other boxes. Less folders in the boxes too, more loose papers. Presumably less business at the beginning.
I wondered why Richard had said there might have been a picture of my mother up there. Or had he simply forgotten what was up there? It all seemed to be mostly business stuff. I pulled everything out of one of the two boxes, sat down on the dusty boards and piled the contents on the floor in front of me. I had time. I wasn’t going anywhere. I would go through each document, every folder. I would search for Amelie.
I fingered my way through page after page. Mrs Davenport; Mr Richards; Penny Crowcher; James Beldin …. All patients of my father. Their addresses. Dates of birth. All personal information. What work Richard had done on their teeth. How much they paid for it. Some of these people would certainly be dead now. All would be older than me. A snapshot of a time past. The dental habits of strangers from more than a quarter of a century ago. A cold chill found my neck.
It took me twenty minutes to go through the first box. I put everything back in, just the way it had been. Then emptied the contents of the second box.
I could see the wooden edges of something sticking out from the pile of folders and papers, about half way down. My heart somersaulted but I ignored it. I started at the top of the pile. Worked my way through the papers. The nearer I got to the wooden edged thing the more my stomach grew lighter. It seemed to lift me off the floor. Float me up to the roof. I forced air down into my stomach. Extended it using muscles and air to push it out. Two pages away now, and I knew it was a wooden frame. A photo frame. One page. I could see something through the last page. An image. My thumb and forefinger touched the corner of the last page. Pinched it tight and pulled it away from the photo frame.
My insides grew heavy. Everything pulled me down. The photo frame started shaking. My hand was already on it. Already gripping it. I couldn’t stop the shaking. I spluttered. Coughed a weird sound out. I tried to gain control of my facial muscles. They were stretching through extraordinary smiles to tortured grimaces. Eyes wanting to clamp shut, mouth wanting to shout to the world. I lay back on the floor. A cloud of dust sprang up around my head. I held the photo frame, my arm extended, and focused in on my father. He looked the same. Younger, of course, but the same. I knew it was him. A happy look of confidence, even as a young man. I could see the power in his eyes. I recognised the church behind him. St Andrews church in Cawsand. The church where, just a few short years later, my mother — the woman on his arm — would be buried.
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