The One I Was (16 page)

She came into the pantry, eyes almost bulging, and picked up the vase, as though the peacock feathers might be hidden inside its depths. ‘He’s playing jokes on me. Where’s he hiding?’ She ran to the full-length doors that housed the old larder and pulled them back. ‘Where are you, you devil?’

‘There’s nobody in here, Smithy.’

‘He must have gone upstairs.’

‘We’d have seen him go past us,’ I said.

‘Then he’s still down here, hiding.’ She looked at Andrew. ‘You mind the steps, so he can’t slip out. Rose come with me.’

But she marched me out of the pantry and we walked from one basement room to another, opening dusty doors and closing them. Cathal was nowhere to be seen.

‘She must have imagined it,’ Andrew whispered as we went back upstairs, leaving Smithy standing in smouldering silence in the pantry.

In the classroom Cathal greeted us as though nothing at all had happened earlier. ‘Geography until lunchtime. We’re going to look at different climates in the British Isles and their effect on types of farming.’

He drew a map of Britain on the blackboard in what seemed like a few easy lines and curves. I noticed that the bottoms of his cords were damp from the snow outside.

‘Look at your geography books and the atlas, if necessary, and write me a paragraph on each of the following areas’. He wrote them on the board:
East Anglia
,
The West Country
,
The Lake District
. He walked to the door. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’

Andrew and I were not in the mood. I managed to scribble something about hills making it hard to use combine harvesters in the Lake District, and lack of rain meaning grass wouldn’t grow to feed cows in East Anglia.

Andrew flicked through the pages of the geography text book. He snorted. ‘Daft cattle! Look.’

He showed me the photograph. One of the cows had stuck its neck through a fence and the other one was observing it with gums pulled back so it looked as though it was laughing at its companion.

‘Stand up.’ We hadn’t heard Cathal coming in. He towered in the doorway, his face tight.

Andrew stood, looking puzzled.

‘What did you just call me?’

Surely it was obvious from Andrew’s blank expression that he didn’t know what Cathal meant? But I did.

‘He said “daft cattle”.’ I held up the text book to show him the cows.

A half-smile flickered over Andrew’s face. ‘Oh, you thought I said –’

Cathal was in front of him in a few strides. ‘Don’t you dare!’

‘I didn’t say that, I –’

Cathal banged the desk so hard that pencils and pens jumped off it. ‘I know boys, sonny, I know them very well. I know what they’re like and I won’t stand for cheek. Understand?’

Andrew blinked. ‘Yes.’

Cathal took a step back. ‘Lessons are over for today. Finish your work later on.’

We wandered out, too shocked to say much to one another. Smithy gave us searching looks when we came into the kitchen, but didn’t ask why we’d finished early.

Cathal returned just before lunch. ‘Rosie,’ he said, poking his head around the drawing room door where I was hanging the latest Christmas cards. ‘You’re doing a great job there.’

I nodded, trying hard not to make eye contact.

He sniffed. ‘Smells like vegetable soup for lunch. Shall we?’ He stood back to let me through the door first. Cathal could be so polite, as though his only wish was for you to feel comfortable. Perhaps he was sorry about his loss of temper this morning.

Smithy narrowed her eyes as we came into the kitchen. ‘Why did the children finish early?’

‘We’re now in the Christmas break.’ He poured himself a glass of water. ‘As of this lunchtime. Rose and Andrew, you’re at liberty.’ I wondered whether that meant we didn’t need to finish the geography.

‘So you’ll be writing them reports?’

‘You have a very outdated, formalistic view of education, Smithy.’

‘Miss Smith, to you.’

‘Miss Smith.’ The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. ‘Nobody ever try to make you a missus? Ah well.’

‘That’s that.’ She untied her apron. ‘I’ve had enough. I know what you’re up to.’

‘Oh Smithy.’ Mum was making calming motions with her hand. ‘I’m sure –’

‘He didn’t mean anything, you’re going to say.’ Smithy hung the apron on the peg behind the door. ‘There’s none so blind as those that cannot see, Clarissa.’

Mum turned white. She started to say something, but Smithy held up a hand.

‘It’s just not right, what’s happening here.’ She nodded at Cathal. ‘It’s not what your mother would have wanted, for you or your children. I’ve stayed on to try and look after you all, but it’s pointless if you won’t pay attention.’

‘Smithy, it’s not for you to tell me how to lead my life.’

‘No? Who else will if I don’t?’ She looked at Andrew and me and her eyes grew softer. ‘Perhaps it is just me. Perhaps I’m old-fashioned. But this isn’t what I’m used to. Strange men moving in and throwing their weight around. Shouting at children. Playing practical jokes.’

Mum looked at Cathal. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what she means.’

‘There were no peacock feathers down there, Smithy,’ I said. ‘Honest.’

Cathal was now watching Mum intently, hardly seeming to notice Smithy at all.

‘Marcy wanted me there for Christmas anyway. And she’s still on at me about moving in. They could do with my help.’

‘But Smithy –’ Mum’s face was growing paler by the second.

‘I’d like to go tomorrow, if that’s all right. That way I can help them get ready for Christmas. You don’t need to pay me for this week as I haven’t given proper notice.’

Mum looked as though Smithy had struck her. We’d all forgotten that Smithy wasn’t really family. She worked at Fairfleet. For money.

*

It only took Smithy the rest of the day to pack up her life. How was it that someone who’d lived here for so long had so few possessions, filling only a large suitcase, a cardboard box and a holdall? After breakfast the next day Smithy brought her things down with Andrew. She pointed at the holdall.

‘I can take that with me on my bicycle. Marcy’s husband will drive over for the box and suitcase.’

‘Smithy, you can’t cycle in all this snow. If you really feel you have to go now, let Cathal drive you.’ Mum was very pale this morning.

‘I’m happy to cycle.’ She put out her hand to Mum in farewell. ‘The plough’s cleared the main road. Goodbye, Clarissa. You take care and don’t let …’ She shook her head.

‘Oh Smithy.’ Mum embraced her. ‘I wish you’d stay. Have a good rest over Christmas with Marcy, but come back in the new year.’ She released her reluctantly. ‘This is for you.’ She handed her a cheque.

‘That’s too much.’ Smithy tried to pass it back to her.

‘I’ve paid you until the end of February. It will give you time to think.’

Smithy placed the cheque in her holdall. ‘Goodbye Rose.’ She hugged me as well. It was like being embraced by an oversized coat hanger with the coat still hanging on it. She let me go and held out a hand to Andrew.

‘Take care of your mother.’

Mum, Andrew and I watched from the front door as she cycled down the drive, using the car tracks and making slow and upright progress on her old-fashioned black Raleigh, the holdall strapped to a carrier on the back. She wore a black coat and beret and looked like a large dark insect against the snow.

‘I need a drink.’ But surely Mum still wasn’t supposed to be drinking?

‘I’ll pour you a sherry,’ Cathal said, retreating back into the house. No mention of having one himself. But he’d been fiddling around with the decanters, I remembered. I couldn’t think about that now, though. My concentration was still on Smithy as she cycled down the drive. I was unable to avert my eyes until she turned into the lane, out of sight.

19

Smithy had been a servant, not a member of the family. I reminded myself of this harsh fact as I stood in the kitchen where she’d been such a fixture all those years ago.

But the reminder still didn’t sit right, not now, not even to the adult me. She’d been part of us, part of Fairfleet, a house she’d dusted and polished and vacuumed and cherished. I’d returned here myself in a similarly ambiguous position to hers. Benny’s nurse, close to him but not family.

I ran lightly upstairs and picked up the pile of Benny’s laundry I’d left outside his door. The key to the basement was kept in a jar in the kitchen, just as it always had been.

At the basement door the key turned easily in my hand. I hesitated. Still time to abandon this plan. I told myself not to be ridiculous. Nobody could lock me in. I was no longer the calm professional in her early forties.

I was twelve, going on thirteen, again.

No I wasn’t. I forced myself to return to the present, to the adult me. The only other person in this house was a very sick elderly man, bedbound upstairs. Nobody could imprison me down there.

‘I’m doing this for you, Mum,’ I whispered, pushing the basement door open.

I was doing it because I’d failed so completely to help her before. More than failed. And there must have been a moment before the very end when I could have told her more directly what I feared, forced her to confront Cathal, told her that Smithy was right to suspect him.

*

Do something about it
, I’d wanted to scream at my mother as Smithy went.
Stop her from leaving. Smithy’s prim and proper and snobbish and she hates anyone moving an ornament a quarter of an inch out of position. But you know she’s right about Cathal.
Again that little bit of hidden memory about Cathal inside me had seemed to flash for an instant so that I felt I could retrieve it. Then it was gone again, dissolving in my fingers.

I didn’t quite know what to do with myself now that Smithy had gone. I went back into the kitchen, still smelling of the cleaning fluid she used to wash the floor; stared at her apron, still hanging on the peg behind the door, at the dishcloth neatly folded over the taps. I put on my coat and went outdoors, standing by the lake, staring at nothing. It was too cold to stand still, so eventually I walked on, finding myself by the oak tree where the unused planks of wood still lay buried under the snow.

‘He’ll never finish it.’

I jumped at Andrew’s voice.

‘No?’

‘The hospital just rang. Mum has missed an appointment.’

The hospital. Again the memory vibrated in my mind. But it wasn’t the hospital itself. I looked at the clear blue sky. It had been clear and blue that day, too, but hot. Mum and I had sat in a bench in the shade, waiting for Granny to collect Mum’s prescription. And something else had happened on that bench, something apparently insignificant. We hadn’t been alone.

There’d been a man on the bench too. Reading a newspaper, but not so interested in the paper that he hadn’t paid attention to what Mum and I said. I remembered his eyes on me,
full of concern, even though we were perfect strangers. He’d listened to every word. I broke into a run towards the house.

‘Rose?’ Andrew ran after me. ‘What’s up?’

‘I know why Cathal wanted to come here. It wasn’t just chance.’

‘What are you talking about?’ He tugged at my sleeve, trying to stop me, but I ploughed on through the snow.

‘Cathal. He was at the mental hospital, back in summer. He overheard us talking about Fairfleet. And about Mum’s tablets. He knew she was ill.’

Andrew looked doubtful.

‘He read that newspaper article about Granny dying. There was a photo of the house.’

He let me go. I reached the house, kicked off my boots, made for the stairs, was reaching for the door handle to Mum’s room when I heard it: deep, rhythmic breathing from inside, slightly disjointed. Not one person; two people. Someone gasped. I stood still, listening.

‘So you feel better about things now, Clarrie?’ Cathal said eventually. ‘My poor darling. You’ve been through so much.’

‘I don’t know,’ Mum said. ‘We should get up, the children –’

‘Are safely outside, playing in the snow. And that meddlesome old woman isn’t in our hair any more. We’re free, Clarrie. Free to make plans.’

‘I suppose so.’ Mum sounded faint. ‘I feel so sleepy. I don’t want to rush into things. We need to think it all through.’

‘Indeed we should. But now you need to rest, sweetheart.’ I heard him move towards the door.

I shot away down the landing to stand behind my own partially closed bedroom door as he came out. He looked like a big, sleek, powerful cat this morning. His clothes looked smarter these days, too. Perhaps Mum was buying them for him.

He turned as he reached the stairs. ‘Rosie?’

I shrank back into my room. It reminded me of how it had been that first day he’d been here, when I’d caught him scrutinizing the base of the blue vase and he’d known I was observing him.

Cathal stood at the top of the stairs, stiff-backed, frowning. He looked at the window above the stairs as though reassuring himself that I was still outside with my brother. He seemed to reassure himself because he carried on downstairs.

I lay down beside my bed and crawled underneath it. I hadn’t done this since I’d been a tiny child, playing hide and seek with Andrew. I felt safer here. For the first time I could admit something to myself.

I was scared of him.

20

Mum limped downstairs for breakfast the next morning. She sat at the table looking almost puzzled, as though there was something she wanted to say but couldn’t quite think what it was. Cathal buttered her toast and poured her a cup of coffee.

‘We need food.’ She sounded exhausted. ‘I should write a list, go through the cupboards. Smithy used to tell me when we ran out of things.’

‘I’ll manage the shopping,’ Cathal said. ‘Goodness me, I managed for myself for so many years, I’m quite able to sort out these domestic details.’

‘And Christmas is so close now.’ She put a hand to her head. ‘I need to wake up properly and sort things out.’

‘Leave it all to me.’

I thought of asking if I could go with him to the supermarket. It had been weeks since I’d left Fairfleet. Even crowded supermarket aisles and harassed shoppers stocking up on Christmas goods would be a change. But something about Mum, her weakness, her sense of confusion, made me anxious not to leave her.