His and Hers

I know what is waiting for her inside that house, because I go there all the time.

I even had my own key cut.

Not that either of them knew.

Her

Tuesday 10:10

I should have known it would be like this.

There is a pile of unopened mail behind the door, making it difficult to open. I close it behind me as soon as I’ve managed to squeeze through the gap, but discover it’s just as cold inside the house as it was out on the street. My eyes try to adjust to the gloom – it is difficult to see – but the thing I notice first, and most, is the smell. It’s as though something has died in here.

‘Hello?’ I call, but there is no answer.

I hear the familiar murmurs of a television at the back of the house, and don’t know whether to feel happy or sad about it. The roman blinds are all down, with just a sliver of winter sun trying to backlight their elderly cotton edges. I remember that they were all homemade, over twenty years ago. I try the light switch but nothing happens, and when I squint up into the darkness, I can see that there is no bulb.

‘Hello?’ I call again.

When nobody answers a second time, I pull the cord on the blind to raise it just a little, and am engulfed in a cloud of dust, a million tiny particles dancing in the beam of light that floods the room. I turn to see that what was once a homely lounge is now empty, except for cardboard boxes. Lots of them. Some are stacked precariously high and leaning to one side, as though they might topple over at any moment. Each has been labelled with what looks like a thick black felt-tip pen, and my eyes are drawn to the box in the farthest corner that says ANNA’S THINGS.

Coming here always feels wrong, but none of this feels right.

It doesn’t make any sense – my mother would rather die in this house than leave it – it’s something we used to frequently argue about before we stopped talking altogether. My hands start to shake, just the way they did when I lived here. Not that any of that was her fault; she didn’t even know. I was a different version of myself then, one that I doubt many people would like or recognise. Home is not always where the heart is. For people like me, home is where the hurt lives that made us into who we are.

My mother was always fond of boxes, but not all of them were real. When I was a little girl, she taught me how to build them in my head, and hide my worst memories inside. I learned to fill them with the things I most wanted to forget, so that they were locked away and hidden in the darkest corners of my mind, where nobody, including me, would ever look. I tell myself the same thing I always do when I come here:

You are more than the worst thing you’ve ever done.

I feel a familiar pain in the back of my head, which starts to throb in time with my heartbeat. It’s the kind of fast-accelerating agony that can only be cured with alcohol, and the need to do so takes over everything else. I reach inside my bag and find a half-empty blister pack of painkillers. I pop two inside my mouth, then search for a miniature to wash them down with.

They’re not as hard to come by as they used to be – miniatures – and I no longer have to steal them from flights or hotels. I have my favourites: Smirnoff vodka, Bombay Sapphire gin, Bacardi and, for a special sweet treat, Baileys Irish Cream. But quality Scotch tends to be my number one choice, and there are a wide variety of those available in teeny-tiny bottles now – even with next-day delivery online. All small enough to fit discreetly inside any pocket or purse. I twist the lid off the first one I find in my bag, and drink it down like medicine; vodka this time. I don’t bother popping a mint afterwards. Parents know their children, even the bad ones.

‘Mum!’ My voice sounds just the same as it did when I was a child when I say her name.

But there is still no answer.

‘Plenty big enough for the two of us’ was how she described this tiny cottage when I was still here. As though she had forgotten that there used to be three of us living in the house. I can still hear her saying it now inside my head, along with all the other lies she told to try to stop me from leaving.

It’s a brick-built Victorian two-up two-down, with an extension tagged on the end like a twentieth-century afterthought. Our house always used to look like a nice home, even when it stopped feeling like one. Not anymore. I squeeze past the stacks of boxes, until I reach the door that leads to the rear of the building. It squeaks in protest when I open it, and the smell is considerably worse. It hits the back of my throat, and I gag when my mind speculates on what might be causing it.

I pass the stairs, walk through what still resembles a dining room – despite the boxes on the table – and do my best not to trip over anything in the dark. I spot Mum’s old record player on the dresser in the corner, covered in a thick layer of dust. Even when I tried to introduce her to cassettes and CDs, she insisted on sticking with vinyl. I caught her sometimes, dancing around the room with her arms held out, as though she were waltzing with an invisible man.

I reach the kitchen, turn on the light, and my hand automatically comes up to cover my mouth. Dirty plates coated in uneaten food, along with half-drunk cups of tea, litter every available surface. There are a couple of lazy-looking flies, buzzing around what might once have been a microwaveable lasagne. It is not like my mother to eat ready meals. She rarely ate anything we didn’t grow in our own garden, and would rather go hungry than eat fast food.

The smell is a little overwhelming now. When I manage to look up from all the filth and mess in the kitchen, I see the glow of the TV out in the conservatory right at the back of the house. It’s the place where she always most liked to sit, with the best view of her beloved garden.

I see her then, sitting in her favourite armchair in front of the television, a bag of knitting on the floor by her side. My mother always preferred making things herself: food, clothes, me. Years ago, she helped me knit a Harry Potter scarf for Jack. It was strange and surreal to see him still wearing it today.

I take a step closer and see that she is smaller than I remembered, as though life has made her shrink. Her grey hair has thinned and there are hollow shapes where there used to be rosy cheeks. The clothes she is wearing look dirty and too big, and the buttons on her cardigan are done up incorrectly, so that one side of the white bobbled material looks longer than the other. It’s covered in faded embroidered bees, and I remember buying it for her a long time ago – a last-minute birthday present. I’m surprised she still has it. I glance at the TV screen and see that she has been watching the BBC News Channel, as though hoping to catch a glimpse of me in the background. I knew she did that, but to see it makes me feel even worse than before.

She isn’t watching now.

Her eyes are closed and her mouth is slightly open.

I take a step closer, and memories I locked away a long time ago start to stir. I shake my head, as though trying to silence them before they get too loud. It isn’t just the mess in the kitchen that stinks, it’s her. She smells of body odour, piss, and something else I can’t quite put my finger on. Or am choosing not to.

‘Mum?’ I whisper.

She doesn’t answer.

Memories are shapeshifters. Some bend, some twist, and some shrivel and die over time. But our worst ones never leave us.

‘Mum?’ I say her name a little louder, but she still doesn’t answer or open her eyes.

I have rehearsed my mother’s death in my imagination for years. Not because I wanted her to die; it was just something that happened from time to time inside my head. I don’t know whether other daughters do that too – it isn’t the sort of thing people talk about – but now that it might be happening for real, I know I’m not ready.

I reach out, then hesitate before touching her hand. When I do, her fingers are icy cold. I lean down, until my face is next to hers, trying to see whether she is breathing. Despite the pills, the pain in my head is so bad now that I briefly close my eyes, and it feels as though I fall back in time.

I hear a scream and it is several seconds before I realise that it is my own.

Him

Tuesday 10:10

My own memories of this place in the past invade my present.

I watch Anna stand outside the house she grew up in, and it’s as though the years fall away and I’m seeing a little girl. I could get out of the car right now and stop her, but I don’t. Sometimes you have to let things play out, no matter how unpleasant. I already know what she is going to find inside, and I feel horrible about it. I also know that she has her own key, but watch as she bends down to take the spare one from under the flowerpot, before disappearing behind the peeling front door.

The cottage used to be beautiful, but, a bit like the woman inside, it has not aged well. Anna’s mother was a woman who knew how to make a house a home, and it was always by far the nicest cottage on the lane. Picture perfect. At least on the outside. People used to actually stop and take photos because it looked like a doll’s house with its pretty little garden, window boxes and white picket fence. Nobody stops to take photos of it anymore.

But, back then, she was so good at cleaning, tidying and making a place feel cosy, that she did it for a living. Anna’s mum cleaned for half the village for over twenty years – including the house where I live now – and she didn’t just clean. She’d buy scented candles and flowers and leave them in people’s homes. Occasionally she’d bake a batch of brownies and leave them on the kitchen table. She even babysat my sister from time to time too. Sometimes, it was just the way she made the bed, or plumped the pillows, but you always knew when Mrs Andrews had paid a visit. She was never short of work or references.

I wait in the car. When nothing happens, I wait a little longer, but then the familiar mix of boredom and anticipation distracts me, and I get out to stretch my legs. I walk along the street, keeping an eye on the house, then stop to examine Anna’s Mini. There is nothing out of the ordinary about it – aside from the garish red colour – there are no dents, no marks, no scratches. I don’t even know why I’m doing this. I guess sometimes in my line of work – as well as in life – you don’t always know what you’re looking for until you find it.

And then I do.

I see a pay-and-display car park ticket with a familiar National Trust logo on the floor of the passenger seat. Discarded and slightly crumpled, the small square of printed white paper doesn’t seem like anything of significance at first. I know she parked outside the woods this morning – I was there, I saw her. But I’m surprised that anyone in the media would have paid any attention to the parking meter, given the circumstances. I’m sure the National Trust was far more concerned with a body being found on its property, than a few people forgetting to pay and display.

I stare at it a while longer, without knowing why, as though my eyes are patiently waiting for my brain to catch up with what they have seen. Then I check my watch before looking back at the ticket one last time. The date. It isn’t today’s. I push my face right up against the car window, squinting inside until I am absolutely sure of what I see. According to that little square of black-and-white paper, Anna visited the car park where the body was found yesterday.

I look up and down the street as though wanting to share this information with another human being, to have them verify that it is real.

Then I hear a woman scream.