The Stranger in Our Home

The last thing I wanted to do was to get down on my hands and knees and scrub Elizabeth’s blood from the stone floor.

I decided to distract myself. I turned out the drawers of the hall table, emptying leaflets, maps and business cards onto the floor, kneeling to rifle through them. The business cards were illuminating: Dave’s TV aerials, Ashbourne Window Cleaners, Larkstone Butcher’s. So, Elizabeth had been a regular at the butcher’s? Not really a surprise, but did that have something to do with their apparent snub to me? I shook my head. I pushed the papers and cards into a pile to throw away.

There was a knock on the door. I started, not expecting visitors in this weather, well, in any weather for that matter. I clambered to my feet, scooping the papers into my arms. I unbolted the front door and opened it cautiously.

My eyes widened. It was Craig. I kept the door half shut in front of me.

‘Hello?’

His jeep was parked on the drive behind him, with a trailer full of logs, huge tyre marks in the fresh snow.

‘Log delivery,’ he said cheerfully.

‘I didn’t order any logs.’

‘No, but your mum did. Before she died.’

‘She wasn’t my mum.’ It was all I could think of to say.

‘Oh, yes, right, sorry.’

I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His weather-worn face was framed by a thick grey scarf and the upturned collar of his jacket.

‘Well, she ordered and paid for them in October and I never got the chance to deliver them, given what happened. So, I thought I might as well deliver them now that you’re here. You’ll be in need of them in this weather. We’re about to get snowed in. Have you had a power cut?’

‘Yes.’

I supposed it must have happened to him too if both houses were on the same line.

‘Hmm, thought so. It’s back on now, but it’ll go again, always does. I’m guessing these logs will come in handy.’

I stood there, papers from the clutch in my arms drifting to the floor.

‘Well, come on, I can’t stay here too long or my car will get stuck on your drive.’ He lifted his hands, catching snowflakes floating in the sky. ‘And then you’ll have to invite me in! Do you want them or not?’

‘Paid for, did you say?’

‘Yup.’

‘Okay.’ I gestured to the wall to the far side of the driveway. ‘Can you pile them up under there, please.’

‘Sure thing, ma’am!’

I grimaced as he turned back to the trailer.

I disposed of my papers and watched him from the safety of the sitting room window. It felt mean not helping him, but for the life of me I couldn’t bring myself to join him, to talk to him. It had only been a couple of months since … I hadn’t spoken to Paul and the thought of interacting with any man after … Craig wore a path across the snow, to-ing and fro-ing, neatly stacking logs. He moved with a sure-footed smoothness, bending, lifting, reaching. My eyes couldn’t resist following the lean line of his body. He was a strong man, practical, you could see it in the way he moved.

But I’d always felt uneasy with the physical, outdoors type of man. Those like Angus, the man I’d crashed into. I winced at the memory. He’d been the epitome of everything I disliked, brawny, aggressive. I was more attracted to the intellectual, creative type, wasn’t I? Like Paul. But look where that had got me.

I had moved in with him after about a year. He’d seemed impatient by then, anticipating the closeness our relationship had brought. I was intoxicated, eager for the next stage in my life. Here was someone who wanted me, loved me. He hadn’t said those words, not quite yet, but I wasn’t mistaken by the way his eyes followed me, the pressure of his hands upon my arm in the street, the way he rang me every day. It was like it was a relief to him when I moved in. He’d driven to fetch me from my old digs. He looked surprised at the amount of stuff I had – there were a few suitcases with clothes and shoes and the like, but mainly it was boxes filled with painting gear, paints and brushes and folders overflowing with my work. He’d scowled when he saw all that piled up in his flat; his place was always neat and strictly ordered. But he knew I worked from home, he’d been to visit me many times, so he must have known what to expect, surely? I had my eye on a corner of his dining room, by the window that faced north. The light was bright but unheated, perfect for what I needed. I’d mentioned it and he’d nodded absent-mindedly. I’d got it so wrong. As I was to discover.

So why did I now find myself watching Craig?

No, this man was different, I realised, from both Angus and Paul. I didn’t know what to make of his kindness, not just the logs but the stacking of them too. I resisted the urge to offer him a mug of tea, to be grateful, friendly. What was he after? Was he checking me out? Or had he decided to keep his new landlady sweet? The thought hovered in my mind.

A little while later, he knocked on the door.

‘All done. There’s enough there to see you through a good few weeks. It’s well-seasoned wood, so you can use it straight away.’

He’d put some plastic sheeting over the top. He followed my eyes and nodded.

‘That’ll keep it dry. By the looks of things, we’ll be snowed in for several days. They never clear this road, it only comes to you and me, then loops round the hill to the other side of the village. It’s not worth their time. Have you got plenty of food?’

I dipped my head. We’d been snowed in so many times – Elizabeth and Steph and I, and later just Elizabeth and I. It came with living in this house. To most kids it would have been exciting, the thought of all that snow and no school. But it had filled me with dread, the long days with nowhere to go, hiding in my bedroom, trying not to be noticed, to not get into trouble. To avoid Elizabeth.

The winter when I turned eleven had been particularly bad. The snow blew in great drifts through the hedges and filled up the lane. Out the back of the house the entire garden had been buried under four feet of snow – reaching half way up the back door to the kitchen. At the front it was even worse – the car had been buried completely and the wind blasted a layer of snow against the windows so that you could scarcely see through the glass. There was no way I was getting into school, even on foot.

Steph had left two years earlier and it was just me and Elizabeth in the house. She’d sat in the sitting room by the fire most of the day and I’d kept to myself upstairs on the top floor. After Steph had gone, Elizabeth had stopped cooking a sit-down family meal. She’d eat on her own on a tray in the sitting room, leaving a meal for me to eat in my room. Now, with the snow, it was like someone had flipped a switch. For the first time she told me to cook for myself. I was old enough now, she’d said. All day, every day, and I didn’t speak to a single person, living off baked beans and cereal until the milk ran out, then it was cheese and biscuits and anything I could scrounge from the fridge. There was no radiator in my room and it was so cold that I wore fingerless gloves and a triple layer of jumpers, sitting under the blankets in my bed by the window, tracing the myriad star shapes of the frost flakes that grew on the inside of the glass.

It was then that I’d got frightened. What if the snow never melted? What if the snow queen flew down from the North Pole and breathed ice on the whole house, turning it into a giant iceberg marooned in a sea of white? What if the noisy geese that migrated in autumn returned early to break chattering and gobbling through the windows to steal all the rest of our food? What if I awoke to hear the wolves howling hungry in the distance and came down to find my stepmother frozen solid to the sofa, a human block of ice? How would I get out, how would I eat? Who would ever come looking for me?

But it wasn’t like that now. I wasn’t a frightened, over-imaginative child. And the house was mine, I could roam each room to my heart’s content, enjoy my solitude and the time to paint. Thanks to Craig I had a huge pile of winter fuel and could sit in front of a roasting fire, and I’d seen plenty of tins in the cupboards.

‘Caro?’ he said quizzically.

‘Yes,’ I said, coming back to reality. ‘Oh, I’ll be fine.’

‘I’m that way,’ he pointed north. ‘About five minutes on foot. You have any problems, you call me, okay?’

He pushed a business card into my hand. Atherton Woodcrafts and Log Supplies. There was a picture of a log fire, a kitchen and a web address.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘No problem,’ he replied.

I clutched the card in my fingers. He was smiling and the warmth of his expression made me feel ungracious. I knew I’d been rude before. All he’d done was honour a purchase Elizabeth had made before her death – what was wrong with me? I tried to think of something to say, something more friendly.

‘How’s your dog?’ I said.

‘Patsy? She’s at home, having a snooze. Well, bye then.’

He loped back to his jeep, turning towards me before climbing in.

‘And she’s not my dog,’ he said. ‘She was Elizabeth’s.’

Before I could respond, he’d got into his car. As he drove away, the swirling snow dropped like a curtain behind him.

CHAPTER 8

Later that evening, I sat by the fire enjoying my new logs. The flames spat and crackled and I watched them dancing green and yellow as sparks disappeared into the chimney. The soot clinging to the stack glowed, colours flaring and fading like shooting stars in the night. As the heat began to build, I couldn’t help but feel encouraged. It was more than the heat, it was the sense of home a fire brought to a room, even here in this house, where I’d been so unhappy as a child. It wasn’t the house, I reasoned, it was the people who lived in it.

I felt Craig’s card in my pocket. I pulled it out. Atherton Woodcrafts and Log Supplies. I decided to look it up on my phone.

There was a picture of Craig, sleeves rolled up, presumably in his workshop. Beside him was an old-fashioned woodturning lathe. It looked a bit like a trestle table but with an upstand and wooden arms that held the piece being worked on. A large wheel led via a drum belt to a long pedal beneath. I could imagine it turning as the pedal thumped. For a moment it reminded me of the pear drum. On the wall behind were shelves laid out with a host of tools and a large lavender bush nudged up against the window.

‘Kitchens, furniture and joinery. Logs supplied by arrangement,’ said the strap line, ‘Specialist in hand-crafted oak.’

I almost envied him. I worked with paper and paint, pictures from my head. He worked with solid wood, creating tangible, functional objects. From the photo galleries that followed, some of the furniture looked very beautiful. I felt a softening in my attitude; he was someone who worked with his hands, who created things like I did. And he’d taken in my stepmother’s dog, how many neighbours would do that? I chewed the inside of my cheek. It hadn’t seemed to occur to him to offer to give it to me, but then what would I do with a dog? I’d never had any pets, had never wanted one. I wasn’t good with animals.

I realised then that I was avoiding the real tasks, faffing about with hall table drawers and distracting myself with speculation about the house and Elizabeth. This wasn’t a holiday, I had a job to do. In fact, two. I set the printer going, churning out a full copy of the commission text. Tomorrow, I would do some sorting in the house first, then later I’d paint. Painting had always been my reward.

When I was thirteen, the school took us to the art gallery in Derby. We were deemed old enough to explore the different floors of the gallery on our own without the teachers, as long as we stayed in groups of at least three or four. I hung around with a group of girls whilst the teachers were in sight, but once the staff had wandered off, the girls turned on me and shooed me away.

‘Can’t you find your own friends?’ said Kathy Taylor.

‘Why don’t you go to the prehistoric room on the first floor – you’ll be amongst your own kind there!’ Paula March and Susan Pritchard sniggered behind my back.

I was more than happy to abandon them. I climbed the stairs to the first floor, meandering through the galleries till I came to a room marked The Joseph Wright Gallery. Here the walls were painted a dramatic dark grey. Huge paintings in heavy gilt frames hung all around me and the lighting was dim to protect the artwork. I felt enclosed, as if I’d walked behind a curtain to a hidden space, a sequence of scenes in a theatre, each picture peopled with actors playing out a story. In one, a woman in eighteenth-century dress leaned over a man prostrate on the ground. She was partly turned away, one hand held up as if to ward off an assailant. In another, a seascape showed black cliffs towering to left and right, the centre lit up like a scene viewed through a telescope, the oppressive walls of rock giving way to pale silver water and a tiny boat, miniscule figures clinging to the deck.

On the furthest wall was the biggest painting, a blurring of russet browns and red. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw the scene of a family gathered round a kitchen table, several adults of different ages and two girls. The elder held her sister as if to comfort her, the younger child’s head turned away in shock. The table was filled with scientific instruments, poles and jars and rubber tubes, their purpose unclear. The faces of the onlookers were lit from beneath and the candlelight flickered in their eyes, throwing shadows on their skin. It took me a while to figure out what was going on.

I read the label. An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. Now I understood. The bird was trapped in a bell jar and a wild man with long hair gesticulated to his audience. His other hand wound a handle on the box beneath the jar and the bird had its wings splayed and beak open as if it were gasping for air. No wonder the two sisters – I assumed they were sisters – looked so distressed. The scientist was demonstrating a vacuum. With each turn of the handle he was starving the bird of oxygen.

I stood mesmerised. Each detail was painstakingly accurate. But the story was told by the contrasting light. Colour, shade, light and dark playing out the drama. I wanted to reach out and touch the painting, to feel the brush strokes that had created such a work. My eyes darted from one face to another, reading their reactions, each character, each object, each shade of colour contributing their own notes, like a symphonic piece of music.

I knew then what I wanted to do. I was going to paint. I wanted to tell a story with the same skill and flair. To channel the emotions that I felt, to observe and interpret and shock and please. I felt the buzz of it fill me with hope.

I drew, I read and learnt and practised and painted in every moment of the day. At the house, Elizabeth had no idea. She had no interest in whatever it was that preoccupied me. She never came into my room. I smuggled the materials back from school and the art teacher turned a blind eye to my thefts. I think she’d guessed what it was like for me at home. Slowly my efforts improved and I developed my own particular darkly curious style.

I rose early, the next day. It was still snowing. Outside was pristine white, thick snow covering every surface. The road, hedges and fields were indeterminable, rising up to meet a similarly white sky across a non-existent horizon. The trees hung out their arms in petrified silence, white giants riveted to the hillside like they’d been caught out in some fantasy game of Freeze Tag. There was a childish joy in seeing all that virgin snow; even the sheep in the field opposite the drive were just frozen white blobs huddled near the gate close to the feeding rack. I lingered at the window.

It was time to tackle the bedrooms. It wasn’t something I looked forward to. Elizabeth’s room was the largest, with a window overlooking the front of the house and its own bathroom. The bed had an expensive-looking quilt and a set of six pillows. Six, for goodness sake, three on each side, one in front of another. On the bedside table were a pair of glasses and two books. Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and a collection of short stories. Beside them was a small china box painted with blue flowers. Inside were yellow pills. I had no clue as to what they were for.

I gripped the black bin bag in my hand and swept up the glasses, the box and a nightdress I’d found neatly folded under the pillows. The books I couldn’t bear to throw away. The next hour went quickly. I dived into the wardrobes and drawers, dragging out every item of clothing, every dress, jacket and blouse, even the underwear – urgh – pants, bras, tights and petticoats; no one wore petticoats any more, did they? Everything I could find I stashed in plastic bags ready for the charity shops of Ashbourne. Her clothes were expensive, formal suits, dresses and matching shoes, respectable and impressive. I could imagine Elizabeth wanting to make an impression, appearances had always been important to her. She hadn’t been short of money then, despite the state of the other rooms in the house.

There were a few more practical countryside clothes too, the kind you might see the Queen wearing as she strode along the Scottish hills followed by a flotilla of corgis. I thought of the dog, Patsy. I’d never seen Elizabeth with a dog. When I’d known her she’d always been a stiff, clean-loving type, not one for mud in her kitchen and a slobbering dog leaping in her face or lolling out of the window of her car.

Her car – there was no sign of it outside. She must have had one, I thought vaguely.

Had she been lonely? After Steph and I had gone? I didn’t believe that. The few times I’d rung up, to check that Elizabeth was okay, she’d never been interested in talking to me. A short exchange and a cold, sharp tone had been more than enough to tell me that she really didn’t want to hear from me. Had it been the same with Steph? And yet, there had been a dog, a warm, living, breathing animal that didn’t talk back, that learned to do what it was told, but thrived on love and attention. It made me think: the dog had been well cared for, you could see that, Elizabeth must have treated her well. Had the dog been her weak spot, her one little indulgence? Had she mellowed in those intervening years?

And what about Craig? Why had he ended up with her dog? Elizabeth’s neighbour stepping in to care for it. Had they gone for walks together? Had she visited his workshop, talking about his craft, or the weather, or the people in the village? Had he fixed her kitchen, arriving each day with a toolbox in his hand to build the cupboards and worktops? Had she watched, as I had earlier, whilst he worked away at them, sanding them down, smoothing the wood, oiling the grain and polishing them?

It made me laugh, Elizabeth admiring her younger neighbour. She’d been sixty-one when she died. Women that age didn’t have lovers, did they? Of course, they did, but Elizabeth and Craig? No, not lovers, I decided. But he’d been kind enough to take in her dog.

The make-up was the worst thing. It was stuffed into a single box on a shelf in the en suite, a room that looked like it had been newly renovated. The shower gleamed with that brand new, never-been-used look, and a strong vinegary smell of freshly applied mastic clung to the surfaces. In the corner by the floor, someone had missed out the grouting between the last few tiles. Elizabeth, it seemed, had died before she could enjoy her new bathroom. It repulsed me, touching such personal things, the eye shadows, the powder compact, the little brushes and sponges she’d used to apply it all.

Then I found the medicines. There was a whole load of them, in one of those posh hatbox kind of bags, designer crocodile plastic, in bright lipstick red. There were pills and creams and tubes of this and that, with various painkillers tucked into the pockets, some of which looked pretty lethal. You could have poisoned a battalion with all that stuff, a much kinder way to go than pitching over a banister. She must have been ill, suffering pain. I didn’t know how I felt about that. I put the medicines in a separate bag for the pharmacist. It wasn’t the kind of stuff you wanted to put in the bin.

I stripped the bed, cramming the bedding into more bags, unwilling to sleep on them, her sheets, her pillows, the very thought made me sick. I was soaked with sweat by the time I’d lugged all those bags down the stairs, piling them up in the dining room.

Already the day was fading. I still couldn’t decide where to sleep. Elizabeth’s room was the biggest, the smartest, with that view over the front and its own bathroom. But it was the last place I wanted to be. Perhaps if it were redecorated? I tried to imagine it art-gallery white, my paintings on the wall and a simple contemporary bed. No chintz, no fuss, no heavy curtains blocking out the light, not one whiff of my stepmother or anyone else.

A crash reverberated through the house. My head swung upwards.

I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, one hand clutching a bin bag. Had it come from the top floor? Or was that the attic? I wasn’t sure. I was reluctant to go up there. Was it an intruder? In this weather? Who’d want to break into the house in the middle of a snow storm, the road was surely impassable by now.

There it came again, another crash and a blood-curdling yowl. I started, unable to prevent the hairs rising on the back of my neck. It sounded exactly like the tom cat that used to pick fights with my neighbour’s cat in London. In this house?

I took the stairs two at a time, following the yowls. They were louder and more intense with each step. Up to the second floor, past my old bedroom, to a door on the right. The attic. I thrust the door open. Something shot past my legs, racing across the landing. I caught sight of a black animal as it leapt down the stairs. I spun on my heels and ran after it. Down both floors. It belted across the hall floor and skidded to a halt at the front door where it crouched low, glaring at me, hissing. I stayed on the last step.

A cat. It was the same cat as before, but not as friendly. The fur down its spine was all fluffed up. It bared its teeth, whiskers lifting, gums whitening as it hissed again. Something had spooked it good and proper. I was spooked too.

I looked behind me but there was nothing, no reason apparent for the animal’s distress. How had it got trapped in the attic? I took a pace forward and it – she? – ran again, scooting through the gap of the sitting room door. I followed just in time to see her dive under the sofa.

I stood for a moment, chewing my lip. Did I really want a cat in the house? To make friends with it? It wasn’t as if I was staying long. I thought of the cat food I’d bought at the Co-op – why had I done that? I walked out of the room and shut the door.

I climbed the stairs, right to the top, till I was standing in the entrance to the attic. The door was open, exactly as I’d left it. There were a few narrow treads, boxed in, leading up to the attic itself. Where the main stairs were carpeted, these were bare and wooden, the walls likewise. It was much darker than the rest of the house. I reached for the light. It wavered, buzzing, struggling to stay on as I took the steps, one by one, my shoes overly loud against the wood.

The attic was right under the eaves. As I emerged into the space I shivered, hugging my arms, a blistering draught tugging at my hair. I peered through the dim electric light which pooled on the floor between the roof beams. A single small window had been cut into the sloping wall, the highest window visible from the drive. It was totally inaccessible from the outside. The window was wide open, snowflakes blustering in.

How had it got open? I looked around, but there was nothing, no one as far as I could see. Just vague shapes, old bits of furniture and tea chests covered in blankets and dust sheets so that they loomed out of the shadows like trolls and goblins lurking in the woods. A gust of wind caught at the window and it slammed shut. The draught pulled it open again. Clack, clack, it went as the casement shuddered. Finally, I had the source of that noise from yesterday. It must have been the attic window all along, slamming in the intermittent wind.