by Lucy Dawson
A pocket full of posies.
A-tishoo, A-tishoo – we all fall down.’
Twenty-One
Claire
I wake suddenly and reaching for my phone on the floor, squint at the time. One a.m. I try to turn over quietly on the airbed but it groans with every move. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach and realise I’m going to have to get up and hunt for a tampon. Rolling off the mattress as quietly as possible, I get up and, shivering, make my way across the landing to the family bathroom rather than Rosie’s en suite. Thankfully, I find them in a box by the sink, and once I’ve sorted myself out, head back towards Rosie’s room, passing our bedroom on the way.
The light is still on. Confused, I go in to find Tim asleep but with the book still in his hand. I start to remove it but he jumps awake.
‘It’s just me. I’m sorry!’ I say quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’
We both pause as we hear light footsteps running down the stairs.
‘Bugger,’ I sigh. ‘I’ve woken her. Hang on, I’ll be right back.’
I walk out onto the landing. She would bloody get up the second I’m not in there and go looking for me. Never mind the three hours I’ve put in on an inflatable mattress on the draughty floor. But when I stick my head back round her door, she’s already jumped back into bed.
‘Rosie?’ I whisper, but she doesn’t answer – just pretends to be asleep.
‘I know you can hear me. I’m just going to finish what I was saying to Daddy, then I’ll come back to you, OK?’
She snores for an added sense of conviction. This is a relatively new thing – the pretending to be asleep game. I roll my eyes – and go back to our room to find Tim is up and pulling on some pyjama bottoms.
‘She’s fine,’ I say. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’ll go in with her now. You stay in here and get some rest.’
I glance longingly at our bed. ‘Are you sure?’
He nods. ‘Go for it.’
He shuffles out as I quickly click the light off and clamber into the warm dip left by his body. Sighing with relief, I burrow under the duvet. The house is so silent, it’s almost a relief when it starts to rain outside, slowly getting heavier and heavier until it’s blowing in thwacking gusts against the window, making me feel safe to be inside. Thank goodness Adam filled the gap around the window with that putty. Slowly the rain subsides and settles into a gentle pattering, which quickly lulls me to sleep.
I wake up at just gone eight, a whole hour later than normal, and head through to Rosie’s room to find her sitting up in her bed watching the iPad, Tim lying on the airbed next to her staring up at the ceiling.
‘Morning!’ I smile, and Rosie doesn’t look up from the screen and, while Tim glances at me, he doesn’t speak as he rolls off the mattress, gets up and walks out of the room.
Frowning, I let him go, and turn to Rosie. ‘You all right darling? Sleep well?’
She doesn’t answer me either.
‘ROSIE!’ I practically shout; she jumps and looks up. ‘Sorry, Mummy! What did you say?’
‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Yes, thank you!’ She flashes me a quick grin and goes back to Vamperina, or whatever it is she’s watching.
I turn and head off to find Tim, who is stood in the bathroom splashing water on his face. He looks terrible – puffy eyed and baggy skin. One of the first times I’ve seen him look much older than me.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘You haven’t slept a wink, have you? I should have stayed on the mattress; I’m lighter than you. It’s more comfy for me.’
He reaches for a towel and buries his face in it. ‘You’re right, I haven’t really slept.’ His voice is muffled but then he re-emerges. ‘Not because of the mattress though. I woke up at 2 a.m. feeling like someone was watching me. Actually standing over me, Claire. I could see the shape of the body, but because I was on the floor, I couldn’t put a light on or anything. I reached up for Rosie’s lamp, on her bedside table, and nearly knocked everything off. When I switched it on, there was no one there. No one at all – but I know, I know someone was in that room with us.’
My early morning optimism drains away from me completely. ‘Sweetheart, that’s not possible,’ I remind him. ‘All of the locks have been changed. No one except us has keys. It may have felt like someone was there, but—’
‘It didn’t feel like it – they were there. Don’t look at me like I’m mad. I’m absolutely certain of it. The figure was looking down at me. I thought I was going to die, I was so frightened. I was actually too scared to go back to sleep after that.’
‘No one can get in – and Father Mathew blessed the house yesterday. You felt so much better, remember? Why didn’t you come and find me?’
‘I didn’t want to leave Rosie on her own, not even for a second. What if the figure had come back? What if it had hurt her, or taken her?’
‘“Taken her”?’ I repeat incredulously.
‘I know how that sounds now, in daylight – but in the middle of the night it all felt very different, believe me.’
‘Sure, I can see that.’ I put a steadying hand on his arm. ‘Why don’t you have a shower while I give Rosie breakfast, and we’ll work out what we’re going to do, OK?’
He swallows and nods.
I give him another encouraging smile, and leave the room – but the truth is, I’m out of ideas now. I don’t know what to do about Tim’s paranoia. I didn’t feel a single thing out of the ordinary last night – and I slept fine. I go back into Rosie’s room and walk over to the window to pull the curtains.
‘Can you leave them, Mummy?’ she looks up briefly. ‘I like it darker.’ She points at the screen.
‘Just for one more minute. It’s not good for your eyes to watch it like you’re in a cinema. Rosie, can we pause the iPad?’ I reach over and touch the screen. ‘So did you really sleep OK last night? No nightmares or anything?’
‘I was fine,’ she says. ‘I woke up when Daddy walked around a bit, but then I went back to sleep.’
‘Daddy was walking around the room?’
She nods. ‘I saw him.’
‘It was definitely Daddy?’
She frowns. ‘I think so, did you come in?’
‘I swapped with Daddy. I was in here when you went to sleep, remember?’
‘Oh yeah!’ She laughs. ‘Can I have the iPad back on now?’
Not exactly a reliable witness. I let her get back to the screen and look around. Nothing is any different than it was last night. I absent-mindedly close the wardrobe door that has drifted open, but it won’t shut properly. Something is in the way. I open it to push back whatever hanger is sticking out, from where I hung up Rosie’s dresses yesterday, but something lying on the bottom of the wardrobe catches my eye. It looks like a board game – I can’t really see in the gloom and bend to fish it out. An arc of letters sits over a line of numbers. A smiling sun and an angry moon reside in the top corners, two five-pointed stars like the ones on the wooden beam downstairs are positioned in the left and right bottom corner. Finally, my eyes scan over the words ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Good bye’.
I am looking at a Ouija board. In my daughter’s wardrobe.
‘Rosie,’ I say slowly – then raise my voice, ‘Rosie! I’m just going downstairs to make a cup of tea. Will you tell Dad when he comes out? If you want him, he’s in the bathroom, OK?’
‘OK,’ she says, not looking up from the screen.
I march downstairs into the kitchen. Grabbing the matches from the kitchen drawer, from where I placed them carefully yesterday next to some candles in case of a power cut now that we live in the country, I stride out into the wash room – the old pub urinals, I suddenly remember Eve telling me – and slide my bare feet into my cold wellington boots by the back door.
Turning the key, I gallumph angrily out through the courtyard breathing in the damp, very cold air, turn left and squelch across the grass, sodden from the night’s heavy rain. Once I
reach the far end of the garden by the barn and the apple tree, where there is a compost heap, the pile of cut back branches I remember seeing on it are way too wet to burn – they actually have drips hanging from them. I walk over to the barn and peer in through the French windows to see if there’s any newspaper or rubbish I can shove under the board instead, to make it catch, but start when I see Adam is there. He looks as equally surprised to see me as he turns round, flattened up against the glass in my PJs staring in.
To my embarrassment, he wipes his hands on a cloth, comes over to the door and opens it. ‘Morning.’
‘Hi.’ I self-consciously cross my arms over my braless chest. ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ I say quickly. ‘I didn’t realise you’d arrived.’
He looks at his watch. ‘Am I too early? I figured you’d be up with Rosie anyway so anything after eight was probably OK. Sorry. Would you like me to go again?’
‘No, it’s fine. I was just going to have a bonfire. Have you got anything that needs burning?’ I try and smile brightly, but it’s obviously a completely ridiculous thing to say.
‘Er, I have got some rubbish, yes, but…’ he scratches his head and looks around him, obviously not sure where to start. There are lots of canvases stacked against the wall wrapped in blankets and a couple of large boxes containing yet more throws. ‘I’m starting to pack everything for the exhibition in London,’ he explains absently, ‘I don’t like to use bubble wrap, it’s expensive and not very eco-friendly.’ He looks back at me. ‘Sorry, I’m not trying to be rude, but are you really having a bonfire now, in your pyjamas at 8 a.m. on a Saturday?’ He laughs. ‘It’s just it’s a bit wet for it – you might struggle to get it going, I think?’
I glance over my shoulder, expecting Tim to appear round the corner at any second, looking for me, but no one is there. ‘I need to burn this.’ I turn the board over to reveal the symbols.
‘Oh!’ His eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
‘I found it in Rosie’s bedroom this morning. In her wardrobe.’
‘OK,’ Adam says carefully. ‘That’s not great.’
‘Not really, no – and if—’
Before I can continue, I hear Tim calling worriedly: ‘Claire? Are you out there? Claire?’
‘Shit!’ I exclaim, panicking.
‘Here – just give it to me. Quick. I’ll get rid of it,’ says Adam, holding out a hand and beckoning with his fingers.
‘Are you sure? Thank you so much!’ My relief is huge as I pass it to him.
‘It’s fine. I understand. You go.’
I’ve already turned to hurry back to the kitchen when he calls after me: ‘Claire?’
I stop and twist back to face him, arms crossed again.
‘It was definitely in the wardrobe, in Rosie’s room?’
I nod and start to walk back across the lawn, waving cheerfully to Tim as I come round the corner. ‘Hi love! Just needed a breath of air to clear my head. Shall we have some breakfast?’
I’m cross to find myself thinking, as I slip my boots back off in the washroom, that Adam has just seen me with no make-up on and unbrushed hair.
I’ve just attempted to burn a Ouija board at the bottom of the garden. Not looking pretty while doing it – for some bloke I barely know – ought to be the very least of my worries, frankly.
‘Let’s go for a quick stomp, shall we?’ I say brightly, as we’re finishing up breakfast.
‘Haven’t we got quite a lot to do?’ Tim ventures, and Rosie looks between us uncertainly.
‘Yes, we have, but I think it would be an idea to have a change of scene.’ My tone doesn’t invite disagreement. ‘A walk would do us all good.’
‘Can we go and get Badger first so he can come too?’ Rosie asks eagerly but slumps as I shake my head.
‘We won’t be gone long enough for that, darling, and there might be sheep. I thought we’d just go up to the hill fort, get some air and come back. Oooh! Look – your binoculars are on the side there, that’s handy! Why don’t you bring them and see what we can see? We’ll park at the cricket club?’ I look at Tim. ‘Let’s go and blow away the cobwebs! Come on!’
It is absolutely bloody freezing at the top and unnervingly gusty. I have to gasp to catch my breath at one point and I hold onto Rosie tightly, almost worried the poor little scrap is going to be snatched from my hand like a dandelion seed and blown away forever into the fields stretching out below us.
‘This is a fort from a long, long time ago called the Iron Age,’ Tim shouts over the roar of the wind. ‘That’s what all of the banks and ditches are for: to stop people getting into this stronghold – which was a sort of little village – at the top where we are now. A very beautiful queen was born up here too! She was called Guinevere and she married a king called Arthur. Some people think she was able to do magic!’
Rosie’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘Real magic?’ she yells.
Tim nods. ‘She was a sorceress, which is like a girl wizard. Actually, I think it was someone called Morgan le Fey who was the sorceress, and she didn’t like Queen Guinevere.’
‘So she was a baddie and the queen was a goodie?’ Rosie has to cup her hands so he can hear her.
‘Rosie, our house is down there,’ I interrupt. ‘See if you can find it!’ I pass her the binoculars and point them at the town in the distance. She looks politely but then hands them back to me and turns to Tim. ‘What did the baddie girl wizard do, Daddy?’
‘Well…’ Tim widens his eyes dramatically, holding out his hand, ‘let’s start walking back and I’ll tell you.’
Delightedly, Rosie runs to him and they head across to the path, disappearing out of sight as they make their way back to the car.
I linger and raise the lenses myself, looking first across to the town, then out over miles of Shropshire countryside. The clouds are scudding across the sky so quickly, it’s almost like watching a sped-up film – the passing of time feels palpable here; there’s a restless energy in the earth and on the wind. These ramparts have stood for thousands of years and will be here long after I’m gone… but this sudden and unwelcome confrontation with my own mortality – one day I will have no choice but to leave Rosie – physically jolts me and I have to force the fear away.
Instead, I concentrate on the view, taking one last look beneath me. Queen of my castle and a kingdom I don’t want. I don’t know I’m going to do it – but I scream suddenly. The sound is completely lost on the buffeting air. No one hears.
There is nothing for it but to turn and begin the walk across the exposed flat settlement and return back to the house.
We put on the TV for Rosie and light the fire in the big sitting room as clouds begin to gather on the other side of the window – making it dark enough to need to switch the lights on, even though it’s not yet lunchtime. I watch the flames leaping in the grate as we start to unpack in silence alongside each other, and realise that would have been a far more logical solution to my Ouija problem. Except didn’t Tim say it’s not a good idea to burn them in the house? I exclaim aloud at such a ridiculous thought. It’s a piece of bloody card – what am I talking about?
Tim looks up, holding a handful of books. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ I shake my head. ‘Sorry. Deep in thought.’
He nods briefly and turns back to the box. He’s clearly got his mind on other things too. He’s still adamant he saw a figure; someone in the room, watching him and Rosie sleep… I think he’d pass out completely if he knew what I’d found in the wardrobe, too. He’d never set foot in here again.
There’s no doubt Isobel Parkes wants to believe she is not as other mortals: stars carved in the beam downstairs, that stupid bit of candle, the shouting and collapsing, the floaty voice. She freaked me out enough to have me running out of the house the day we moved in and I thought she was upstairs; I hold my hand up to that – but I’m wiser to her act now. I get that she doesn’t want to live in the real world – maybe it scares her too much, I don’t know an
d I’m not sure I care – but the important thing is, she’s not actually magic, and there is no physical way she can be getting into the house. I’ve changed all of the locks. In fact, I have no proof whatsoever that anyone else was in the house with us last night.
Even the Ouija board – that Adam will have got rid of by now anyway – is hardly evidence. I can almost hear the police: ‘people leave the strangest things behind when they move. It happens all the time. Isobel doesn’t mean any harm, Ms Waters. It’s just her way. You’ll get used to her.’ The board has probably been in the house all along and I just haven’t noticed it until now. The newspaper cutting on the carpet, the nasty little paintings on the wall – they could all have happened before the locksmith arrived. So why can’t I just put Isobel from my mind? Why does everything keep returning to her?
‘You think I’m making all of this up as an excuse to move out of this place, don’t you?’ Tim says suddenly.
I look at him in surprise. ‘No. I was thinking about Isobel, actually. Kooky, witchy little Isobel.’ I hear the malice in my voice and it surprises me as much as him.
‘That’s not kind,’ he says slowly. ‘She’s been through a lot.’
I throw down the cushion I’ve just unpacked. Haven’t we all? And why’s he defending her anyway? I’m starting to feel very out of sorts indeed and I don’t want to say something I regret. ‘I think I need a break and a cup of tea. Do you want one?’ I glance at Tim, who silently shakes his head and carries on.
‘No, thank you, Claire,’ I say pointedly, because I’m pissed off – but unfortunately I only make myself sound very petty, and like I’m talking to a five-year-old rather than my partner, which makes me even crosser.
‘I’m genuinely frightened – I wish you could see that,’ he says quietly.
‘So you keep saying.’
I leave him with that thought and march through into the small sitting room. ‘Come on!’ I say bossily to Rosie who is tucked up on the sofa, happily watching an Aladdin DVD. ‘Screen break. We’re going out in the garden.’ I hold a hand out. ‘I’m going to have a quick cup of tea and you can have a go on the swing.’