by Jack Lewis
And then, in a second, he was gone.
She rubbed her eyes. She was dimly aware of Trev talking to her, but she couldn’t hear the words. A chill spread through her, locking her in place. Had she really seen that? Was she tired? Hungry? There had to be something wrong with her.
“I don’t want to stay here,” she said. She blurted the words out.
“We don’t have any choice,” said Trev, putting his arm around her.
She couldn’t get the image of the man out of her head. It couldn’t have been real. It was just a split second, quick enough to be a trick of her brain. And yet…
“Found something!” said a voice across from them.
Scarlett turned to the staircase, where she saw Ruby.
“This can be Pluto,” she announced. She had one hand on the bannister. In her other hand was a marble.
“You know Pluto’s a dwarf planet?” said Trev.
Ruby grinned. “You already told me, Dad!”
Scarlett turned away from them. She didn’t feel like she had full control over her expression, and she didn’t want Ruby to see her like that. She couldn’t get the man’s face out of her thoughts.
Trev turned to look at Scarlett. “Here’s the deal,” he said. Then he stopped. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah, just a headache. Go on.”
“Okay, so we get the tradesmen to do the hardest jobs. I’ll do the rest, but we’ll create an invoice and bill my time to the trust. That way, we can just pocket the money. Then we’ll sell the house and get the hell out of here. I don’t like the place any more than you.”
“I don’t know, Trev. I hate it, but it feels wrong to sell it.”
“So what do we do? We can’t afford to live here, and you despise the place anyway. You remember what we always spoke about back in the flat?”
“What?”
“About the bar,” said Trev. “Remember? We buy a unit in town. Fill it with neon lights. Have jazz bands playing. I’ll sit behind the bar and serve customers and drink whiskey, and you can play the beautiful hostess.”
Despite herself, she smiled. “I don’t think that was quite what we decided on.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “You’d run the bar and play the charismatic barman with a dark past, and I’d open a restaurant. We’d buy a unit next door and knock it through.”
He poked her. “But you can’t cook.”
“And you’re not charismatic.”
“Come on, Scar. We can do it. That was always the dream. Let’s make it happen.”
Chapter Thirteen
For the next few days, the quiet of Gawthorpe was shattered by the pounding of hammers on metal, and the clanging of boots as the workmen walked along the scaffolding in the lobby. Every so often, one of the workers would comment on how ‘bloody beautiful’ the house was.
Scarlett supposed that most people would be thankful to live in a house big enough that scaffolding could be erected in the lobby. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but she just couldn’t think that way. It had been hard enough after Jane died. The house stayed in mourning for months, and her parents barely said a word to Scarlett.
In some ways, an unrelenting quiet suited her. There was a time, back in their flat, when Scarlett hated noise. She remembered when their boiler had broken. After days of calling him, their landlord had finally arranged for an engineer to fix it. The man had arrived just after lunch.
Scarlett had just returned from a twelve-hour shift, and she wanted to sleep more than anything in the world. She remembered grimacing at every noise the engineer made, angry at his intrusion on the few peaceful hours she got.
It didn’t affect Trev. He was between jobs at the time, and they decided to save on nursery fees by having him stay at home to look after Ruby. Scarlett couldn’t help but feel some resentment that he got to stay at home with their daughter while she worked every shift she could get. But like most resentments, it was left unspoken. It ate away at her instead, gnawing on her insides until she was too numb to even consider voicing it.
Where was the resentment now? Was it still there? She supposed that throughout a marriage, resentments grew and then died. Maybe it was best that they were never aired. Plenty of people got through the years never voicing what bothered them.
Now, though, far from being annoyed with the sounds of the workers, she was glad of them. It gave her a break from the silence of the house. It made it feel more lived in, and less like a mausoleum. It was like how old people kept a TV on in the corner because the noise made them feel less alone.
Scarlett was in the kitchen fixing a sandwich, when she heard the sound of metal smashing onto the floor. Someone shouted, and then a flurry of footsteps pounded on the floor.
She ran out, went through the dining room and then into the lobby, where she saw one of the tradesmen on the floor. He sat up, dazed, and he had a cut across his forehead. Just next to him, the scaffolding lay on the floor and the metal bars crisscrossed each other.
“Jesus, are you okay?” she said, walking over to him.
One of the other tradesmen ran into the lobby. He was the foreman. While the others had been pleasant, this man had hardly said a word to Trev or Scarlett. He spent more time puffing on cigarettes at the front door than he did working, and Scarlett had asked him to move away when Ruby had run through a plume of smoke.
“Bloody hell, Len,” he said. “What’s happened, you daft sod?”
The worker on the floor rubbed his head. When he pulled his hand away, his fingers were smeared with blood.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” said Scarlett.
The foreman shook his head. “I’ll take him to A and E. It’ll be quicker. What happened, you big lug?”
Len’s senses didn’t seem to have fully returned to him yet. “It just collapsed. It happened too quick.”
“You secured it, didn’t you?”
Len nodded. “Of course I bloody secured it. We’ve been working on it for days. A joint must have come loose.”
By the time Trev joined them, the workers were leaving. Scarlett tried to explain what had happened. As she did, the foreman took Len out to the van outside the manor. As they left, he shot Scarlett a dirty look, as if it had been her fault.
Chapter Fourteen
It wasn’t until the next day that they heard from the tradesmen again. Trev was on the phone with them for twenty minutes. Scarlett was in the living room with Ruby, watching as her daughter tried to build a house from a deck of cards that she’d found. She could hear Trev’s voice in the lobby, his volume increasing as the conversation went on.
Finally, the sounds stopped, and she heard his boots pound on the floor as he walked toward the room. He opened the door, and a draught blew in and collapsed Ruby’s house.
“Dad!”
Trev looked at Scarlett. “They’re not coming back,” he said.
She stood up. “Is he hurt?”
“Len needed stitches, but he’s fine. But they don’t want the job. The pillock wouldn’t even explain why, just that they’re not coming back.”
“So what now? We couldn’t find anyone else.”
Trev shrugged. “I’ll just have to try doing it myself.” He walked over to Ruby and kneeled next to her. “What do you think, Rubes? Reckon your old man can do some DIY?”
Ruby put her finger to her chin and thought about it. Finally, she shook her head. “No,” she said.
“Scar?” said Trev.
Scarlett couldn’t help but grin. “Think I’m going to have to side with the kid.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” said Trev. “When I fix this place up, you can make your apologies.”
True to his word, Trev spent the next few hours in physical labour. He wanted to try and restore some of the panelling in the lobby, but looking closer, he informed Scarlett that most of it had started to rot on the inside. It seemed to be a common theme in Gawthorpe. The house had been built solidly enough, but
it was centuries old.
“I’ll have to rip it all out,” he said. “Then I’ll order new panelling and invoice the trust for it.”
“It doesn’t seem right,” said Scarlett. “We’re lying.”
“This is your money, Scarlett. Think of it as compensation for the years where they turned their backs on you. They knew we were on our own, but they didn’t do a thing to help.”
After that, Scarlett entertained Ruby while Trev traipsed in and out of the house, each time taking with him a bundle of panels that he’d ripped from the wall. He told her that he was making a pile in the estate grounds, and that he’d burn it all at some point. The house was full of wood that he needed to take out; broken chairs, cracked wardrobes, snapped tables.
She went to the front door and looked at where he was taking it. It was across the estate and near the lake. Too close for her liking, even though it made perfect sense to burn things near a large expanse of water.
She thought about her dream. The pyre near the lake. Flames wrapping around the wood like hot vines. The wood Trev had assembled didn’t resemble the pyre in her dream; that one had been, for want of a better word, perfect. It had looked like it was made for the purpose. This was just a heap of old furniture.
“I don’t want you lighting fires, Trev.”
“What am I supposed to do? We can hardly pay for someone to come take it, can we?”
“I’ll carry it to the tip piece by piece if I have to.”
He shook his head. “The tip’s ten miles away. What’s got into you?”
While Trev stripped the walls, Scarlett went upstairs and started packing some of the things in the rooms into boxes. Part of her job had already been done, since Dad had ordered things to be cleared away before his death.
There were boxes and cases in most of the rooms, containing a collection of objects from books to clothes to antiques. The only thing missing was a reason for doing it. Dad had never been a guy who liked order, and he definitely didn’t come to the west wing. There was no reason to clear it out. She wondered if he was preparing to sell it.
With the west wing finished, she knew what she had to do. She tried putting it off every way she could think of; she made a sandwich, asked Ruby if she wanted to play, tried to find Trev to see if he needed help. With all alleyways closed, there was only one way to go.
She was just going to have to suck it up. It was only a collection of rooms, after all. The whole house was nothing but bricks and wood arranged in a certain way. The only meaning a house and its rooms could ever have was the one that you gave it. So why did the idea of walking down the east wing make her feel cold?
With that in mind, she walked onto the east wing for the second time since they’d arrived, and the second time in a decade. She decided to be strong. Ever since she’d left home, she’d seen no reason to face her past. She would need to look part of it in the eye now, at least. The quicker everything was packed up, the sooner they’d sell the estate.
The floorboards protested at the weight of her feet. The house had always been like that. Even when she was a kid and weighed seven stone, the wooden treads would groan as she passed over them. Keeping her hands at her sides, she walked toward the first door on the left and then stopped.
This was her old room, but it was different. Her bed was gone. There were tiny holes in the wall from where she’d had pinned up posters, despite Dad forbidding her.
Even years later, she could mentally rearrange the furniture and make it look just like it used to. She could picture it as if had been back then. When she opened her eyes, it was just a bare room with cold floorboards.
It seemed that after she’d gone, her father had set to removing every trace of her. What had they done with her stuff? Had they packed it in a box and shoved it somewhere where they couldn’t see it? Scarlett knew from experience that ignoring something didn’t make it disappear, and that was especially true with memories.
In the corner of the room, a set of cupboards was built into the wall. She walked over, opened them, and was hit with a musty smell. Piles of towels sat folded on top of each other. This, at least, was a trace of familiarity, because Scarlett remembered these towels being here before she left. A detail overlooked by Dad.
An idea struck her. A memory of hidden secrets. Could it still be here? For the first time since arriving, she felt curious.
She crouched down. She picked up the bottom pile of towels and lifted them out. Feeling with her fingers, she gripped the edge of the wooden panel at the back and pulled it out. She then reached inside, almost putting her full arm in the hole, and she found what she sought.
The metal was cold to the touch. It snagged on something, almost as if it didn’t want her to pull it out. Truth be told, Scarlett wasn’t sure if she wanted to see it, either. All the same, she carefully tugged at the chain and dragged it out of the cupboard.
It looked as it always did. A silver necklace with a red gem fastened onto it. It was the prize she’d promised to give Jane. Seeing it now, and touching it, made her well up. It brought back the lapping of the water, the feel of the wind on her face. The scarf pressing on her eyes and blotting out the world.
She put the necklace in her pocket and left the room. She didn’t know what she’d expected to happen when she found it. Did she think she’d break down in tears? That she’d hear her sister drowning, spluttering as water filled her mouth and went down her throat?
The necklace was just an object. This was just a house. Memories were merely images the brain held on to, and nightmares were complete fabrications. Feed a fever, starve a cold. Feed your fears, get nightmares. She decided that she’d starve whatever hold Gawthorpe house had over her.
Feeling a renewed strength, she left her old room and then walked to Jane’s. She had to see it. Whatever feelings it brought up, she’d have to face them.
She paused in the doorway. Gripping the handle, she knew what she’d see when she opened the door. Jane’s room would be untouched. Of course, it would be. She was the untarnished girl, after all. Taken before her time, before she had a chance to do what any adult did and dirty herself. Taken from under the eye of the daughter and drowned. In the middle of their misery, mum and dad had never stopped to think that Scarlett would have some of her own.
She pushed open the door and stepped back.
Chapter Fifteen
Jane’s room was as it always had been. A bed positioned in the corner on the right side, always tucked against the wall because that was the only way she’d sleep. Part of the wall near the window was marked with little horizontal lines from where Dad had charted Jane’s growth. There was a stain on the carpet, wide and red, from a cup of juice that had met its demise.
But then, she saw something different. On the east wall, above markings that showed where a bookcase once stood, something was scratched into the wood. Its outline was jagged as if it was done with a knife that wasn’t sharp enough.
Circles within circles. The ward against evil spirits. Scratched into the wall at eye level, as if done by a child. And then, on the floor, something else. Scarlett almost couldn’t move, but she forced herself to crack the ice that gathered on her skin. She kneeled and picked up a small object that had caught her eye.
It was a pebble. The surface was the grey colour of shark skin, and someone had drawn on it using nail varnish. It had to be Jane. It was probably Scarlett’s nail varnish that she’d used. Mint green. Not the classiest combination, but she’d never quite gotten the hang of colour coordination.
The markings on the pebble were different from the circles, but Scarlett wondered if they had the same intention. These were three little lines of varying length. They didn’t touch each other. She put the pebble in her pocket.
She had to leave the room. All this talk of markings and spirits, it just felt wrong. Especially when she was in Jane’s room. Despite how cold her body was, a suffocating heat made her head pound. She felt as if her throat was closing.
; The draught of the hallway helped somewhat, but she felt a sense of unease with her sister’s room behind her. It was as if, unwatched, anything could loom in the shadows. She closed the door and walked to the end of the hall, to where the draught seemed strongest.
It was only when she stopped that she realised she’d walked closer to it.
The metal door. A six-foot sheet of steel that had no place in a family home. A door that rarely opened. And now there was a noise coming from inside.
She looked away. Tried to focus on something else. Had she really heard a noise coming from behind the metal?