The Stranger in Our Home Read online

  How long had it been since I’d thought about all this? I’d consciously put it behind me when I’d left home … home, the word had a hollow ring. It was being here again, in the house and garden, dredging things up, the familiar, hate-filled words seeping back into my head like some foul poison bubbling up from the ground beneath.

  After Steph had left, Elizabeth was less restrained. Or maybe as I grew older, I became more aware. Of the vicious tone in her voice, the coldness of her manner, the way her eyes followed me, watching my reaction, waiting for my shoulders to sag, my eyes to drop, my skin to flinch, with each word that fell from her lips. She enjoyed every moment. I came to fear that small room that had once been my father’s study. The leather chair where he’d sat, the paintings on the wall, that monstrous shape festering in the corner of the room. She’d drag me through the door and the whole routine would start again.

  ‘Stand up straight!’

  Drilling every syllable.

  ‘Don’t you move!’

  Every word punching the air.

  ‘Lift your head, girl!’

  As I stood there, frozen to the spot.

  Even as she left the room, leaving the door open so she could watch, she’d make me stay, facing the crate, standing for an hour or more, until my knees began to shake, and my legs began to buckle. A punishment. For what?

  At the bottom of the field was a set of footprints – a man and a dog, following the line of the hedgerow. I lifted my head, looking further down the field, half expecting to see Craig and his dog. Elizabeth’s dog. Or someone else. I shrugged, I didn’t care, or so I told myself. The field was empty, clumps of snow clinging to the twigs and branches of the hedges, here and there slipping down to the ground beneath.

  I walked for an hour, until my breath was rasping, my trouser legs wet through and my feet sodden in their boots. Only then did I turn towards the house, climbing up the field, following my own footprints. I clambered over a stile, almost falling onto the snow on the other side, and there he was. Craig.

  The dog barked the moment she saw me, bounding up with her tail waving, jaws open, tongue flopping out and a cloud of warm breath lighting up the air. I drew back, I wasn’t used to dogs.

  ‘Good afternoon!’ Craig’s voice was warm too.

  ‘Hi.’

  Even to my own ears, I sounded awkward. I stumbled, my foot slipping sideways over a buried rock. I struggled to right myself, cringing at my own clumsiness.

  ‘She won’t hurt you,’ he said.

  Craig reached out to Patsy, hanging onto her collar, dropping to his knees to make a fuss of her.

  ‘I hadn’t realised Elizabeth had a dog,’ I said.

  Patsy sat in the snow obligingly as Craig rubbed behind her ears.

  ‘You didn’t know her so well.’

  It was more of a statement than a question.

  But wasn’t it true? I hadn’t really known Elizabeth. Thinking of her with a dog and a pile of pills by her bed gave me a different picture of the woman than the one I’d carried around in my head all these years, and I wasn’t comfortable with it.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ I said.

  It was too late now, anyway. I was relieved.

  ‘How come the dog ended up with you?’

  ‘Patsy? There was no one to look after her after Elizabeth died. Someone had to take her in.’ He looked at me then and I dropped my gaze. ‘She’s a lovely dog; I don’t mind. And she knew me. I wouldn’t be without her now.’

  I licked my lips, they were dry and chapped from the cold.

  ‘How’s the house?’ His tone softened. ‘You settling in okay?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ I almost snapped the words. Then, after a pause, ‘Thank you for the logs.’

  He looked at me, his eyes travelling across my face. I blushed, to my intense embarrassment.

  ‘You’re welcome. If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to let me know. Neighbours have to look out for each other in weather like this.’

  ‘Sure,’ I mumbled.

  I stepped back. I didn’t want this – for him to be nice, reasonable, attractive. I didn’t want to feel like this. Not after Paul, not here, not anywhere. Paul had taught me that nice was just a front.

  Patsy leapt to her feet, tail brushing the snow behind her, eager to set off. Her eyes looked as if she expected us to all walk together. Craig gave her another pat.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Enjoy your walk.’

  And with that I launched into the snow, taking a direct line towards the house and not looking back.

  CHAPTER 12

  ‘Briscoe, Williams and Patterson. Can I help you?’

  ‘Hi there, can I speak to Gareth Briscoe?’

  It was two days after my walk across the fields. I hadn’t ventured out since then, nor even done much painting. The commission was something I’d been avoiding, snatches of the story of the pear drum drifting through my head. Instead, I’d concentrated on clearing the house. But each object, each corner of the house seemed to only reinforce the details of the story, a set of pans in the kitchen, an apron in the laundry, a dog-eared Victorian postcard of two children.

  I was in my new bedroom, a headache building behind my eyes, my fingers clutching the phone. I was cold, despite just having had a warm bath.

  ‘Hold on, please.’

  The woman sounded breathy and eager to please. There was a click and the line switched over to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons blasting optimistically down the phone. The music was interrupted by a deep, slow voice.

  ‘Hello, Gareth Briscoe speaking.’

  ‘Hi, it’s Caro Crowther. I’m the stepdaughter of Elizabeth Crowther.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Crowther, I remember. How are you? How can I help you?’

  ‘Has there been any progress?’

  I bit my tongue, I was prevaricating, and I must have sounded desperate, as if I couldn’t wait for this whole probate thing to be dealt with. I knew it would take time, but the truth was one particular question had been weighing on my mind.

  ‘Well, it’s only been a few days, Miss Crowther. Papers are being drawn up and I’m in correspondence with the investment funds. At the moment, I have no further news for you. But I can promise you that I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything.’

  He sounded impatient. My teeth had begun to chatter, the cold once more overwhelming me – why was the house always so cold?

  ‘I understand.’ I knew I must have sounded a bit frantic but I couldn’t help myself. ‘But what if this goes on for months? I’m not sure I can stay here that long.’

  I reached out to drag a blanket from the bed and wrap it around me.

  ‘You don’t have to stay there, Miss Crowther. We can employ a clearance company. It’s common practice with deaths where there’s no close family. Ultimately, the estate will get distributed. It’s my job to make sure that everything is properly accounted for, that your full inheritance is gathered together. We don’t want to rush into things, do we?’

  Rush into things? Didn’t sound like there was much chance of that. But leave the house and its contents for someone else to sort through? And the pear drum? I was sure I didn’t want that. Why was that? Besides, where was I going to go? I had no home anywhere else. Having taken the decision to come here, I was stuck, wasn’t I? At least until the estate was settled.

  ‘I’ve started to go through stuff, collecting things for charity. That is okay, isn’t it?’

  My real question – it had come to me as I was sorting – what if I got rid of it, the pear drum? Would that somehow transgress the terms of probate? Could I legally destroy it, dump it, right now?

  ‘That’s fine, Miss Crowther, quite acceptable. As long as it’s only clothes and personal items that have no worth. You can’t arrange to sell anything yet, or otherwise dispose of anything of value. Furniture, antiques and the like must remain in the house until we get the go-ahead. I already have a rough list.’

  My heart sank. His estate agent, or val
uer, had already done their job. Did Briscoe know about the pear drum? I had a hunch it was very old and probably very valuable. My sister knew about it. What would she say? I didn’t want to ask.

  ‘However,’ Briscoe continued, ‘whilst the estate is unresolved you’re free to live there, as I told your sister. I understand you’ve given up your lease in London?’ He didn’t wait for my reply. ‘And if you’re struggling for money, I might be able to arrange for a small allowance. Technically it would be a loan, but we would simply repay it from your inheritance when probate is given. Have a think about that.’

  ‘I will. Thank you. But surely there’s something we can do to speed things up?’

  How long did I have to live with that awful thing in the house?

  ‘Not at the moment, we just have to wait.’ He coughed, a rough, nervous kind of cough. ‘Miss Crowther …’ for the first time, Briscoe seemed unsure of himself ‘… is everything okay?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you alright, Miss Crowther? You sound … I’m sorry, I don’t want to speak out of place, this must be a very difficult time for you.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I mumbled.

  How could I tell him? That until matters were resolved, it was like living with a malevolent ghost. I didn’t know what I wanted to do – to live in the house or sell up. It was hard to picture myself living here with the whole house infused with Elizabeth’s existence and the pear drum still sitting in the attic. I swallowed. My emotions were all over the place.

  ‘I see. Good. Is there anything else, Miss Crowther?’

  ‘No, that’s it, thank you Mr Briscoe.’

  That evening it snowed again and the lights went out. There was another power cut and the boiler was on the blink again. I found the torch, some candles and matches. It soon looked quite festive downstairs with a few small flames dancing on the shelves, but it was too dim to continue clearing the house.

  I went through all the rooms checking the radiators but they were ice cold, including the one in my bedroom. I returned to the sitting room and lit the fire, resigned to another night on the sofa and no TV. Even my laptop and phone were useless after a couple of hours, with nothing to charge them up by.

  I propped myself up on the floor in front of the fireplace, leaning against the sofa. I’d found a bottle of whisky in one of the cupboards – I contemplated it, whisky was a bit out of my league. But it was there and, hey, why not? A bit of Dutch courage, I thought – I knew I had to get on with the commission too and I thought it would take my mind off the pear drum.

  I poured myself a glass, my hands fingering the printed pages of the fairy tales, neatly stacked in a pile by my side, leafing through until I found a story that caught my eye. I started to read.

  A sister and brother are in a garden. They must be rich because the garden is full of fruit trees, apple, pear and cherry, green leaves filtering the sun. As the sister reaches up to pick some cherries, the brother watches. His eyes follow her soft white hands curved around the fruit. He steps up behind her, slipping his arm about her waist, pressing into her body.

  ‘Sleep with me, Sister.’

  I took a slug of the whisky. The taste of it made me almost choke but its heat curled in my belly.

  ‘No!’ she says, her head twisting away from him.

  The young man is furious. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why do you think, Brother!’

  She pulls free, spilling the cherries onto the grass at her feet. They scatter like drops of blood from a wounded animal.

  I poured myself another glass of whisky. The amber liquid clung to the sides of the glass, glowing in the candlelight as I gave it a thoughtful swirl.

  The next day the brother tries again, spinning his sister around, pushing her against a tree. He catches hold of one of her hands, holding it against his cheek.

  ‘You are so good, so sweet. So perfect!’

  He nuzzles her neck, holding her hand.

  ‘Sleep with me,’ he whispers in her ear.

  ‘No. No! I will not, Brother!’

  ‘Then I will ask our father that we should marry!’

  And he does. The father is horrified, but the son is persistent and persuasive.

  ‘Think, Father, if we marry, if we have a child between us, will he or she not be the most perfect of children, a pure-bred, with no risk of some disease brought in by an outsider?’

  My glass was already empty, so I poured another one, my head pleasantly muzzy as I sank down onto the rug.

  The father agrees. When the daughter hears the decree, she is distraught, begging her father, her brother to reconsider, but to no avail. She descends into the kitchens, seeking out the cook, holding out her hands.

  ‘Take them,’ she says. ‘Cut them off, my hands. Then I will no longer be perfect and they will think me mad and they will not marry me to my brother.’

  The cook wields the knife and her hands fall to the ground, two perfect silk white flowers.

  I looked up from the page, reaching out for the bottle, tipping it to see how much was left.

  I thought of Paul, the way he’d changed after I moved in with him, his ugly attempts to control me, my daily routine, my food, my clothes. I’d thought it was concern for me at first, but it turned into something else. Was that my fault? I thought of the other men that I’d met – not many – who had touched or approached me. Steve, a co-worker from the days when I was a student in Manchester, working in a bar.

  He hadn’t liked it when I’d said no, when he’d whispered rude suggestions in my ear and I’d slapped his hands away and ignored him. I’d felt sick. What right had he to assume I wanted his hands on me, or to hear those words? He’d got worse, cornering me in the back room. He’d pressed his body against mine, one hand on the wall by my head, the other sliding over my breast. I’d felt revulsion like a physical wave sweeping through my body, tarnished by his touch. I’d knocked his hand away and kicked his shins, but he just reached back, pressing closer, grinding into me, smiling.

  ‘You little flirt!’ he’d said, his foul breath hot against my ear.

  He only let go of me when one of the other women came into the room.

  Now I was ‘irresistible’. He groped me whenever he could, even with the other staff watching, like he had the right. Everyone knew. I’d swear at him and push him away, always looking over my shoulder before going into the stock room or out the back on my own. Then I was a ‘cold bitch’, unnatural and unwomanly. Even the manager seemed to collude with him, winking when he saw us fight.

  I lost my job in the end. I was getting desperate. The manager said we had a ‘personality clash’, that he had to choose between us. He needed staff who could get on, who were friendly with the customers, smiley, happy, whatever it took to sell drinks and give the bar the right atmosphere, not cold like me.

  Maybe I was cold, trapped inside my own inadequacy, incapable of intimacy. Maybe that was why I always made the wrong choices, why I always ended up alone. My own pathetic fault.

  I found my work as an artist absorbed me. And I’d thought London would be good for me too. All those people, so many things to do, a buzzing world of art and culture. At first, when I got there, I hid from them all, hardly ever went out or connected, apart from what was necessary for work. I painted at home; I couldn’t afford a studio or even to join a collective. It was much easier that way, not to take a risk, not to let people judge me the way they had here at Larkstone. I felt ashamed of my own cowardice – was this how I wanted to live? I’d been such a fool, playing it safe for too long. You couldn’t live like that. Not live. When was I going to wake up? To get brave? To live the way my pictures were? Vibrant, sensual, exciting – unapologetic!

  So then I started to reach out. I plucked up the courage to go to exhibitions, to force myself to meet people. My new-found confidence was fragile when I met Paul. He knew that, he liked it. It meant I was more focused on him.

  I craved his company at first. Happy to abandon all my plans to meet
with my new friends after I moved in with him. I was so pathetically grateful for his attention, and he was so charming, so nice.

  But Paul didn’t stay like that. He became more forceful, frustrated as he put it, wanting more than I was willing to give. Maybe after that first anniversary after I’d moved in he relaxed, stopped being on his best behaviour. Maybe he got fed up with the way I had taken over his flat. My drawings, my clothes, my stuff. He started shouting at me, undermining me in front of others, treating me like another thing that he owned.

  ‘You’ve never been one for studying, have you, Caro? But she’s a lovely artist, I think it’s wonderful to have a hobby like that. Especially for a woman.’

  By then I was too caught up to walk away. You have to love someone warts and all, don’t you? But he knew how to press my buttons, to get a reaction.

  We rowed once about my going to an event without him. It was a British Council presentation for artists thinking about participating in an international exchange. Harriet was bursting with enthusiasm and had asked me to go along. I told her I wasn’t interested for me, but I’d go to keep her company.

  When Paul found out, he wasn’t happy. He was used to me always being there at his beck and call, doing what he wanted to do. Perhaps he thought since I worked from home, that that was my role. He slammed the door shut before I could pass through, grabbing my elbow, pushing my head sideways against the wall. My face was crushed, my eyes wide open and I felt pain shooting up my arm.

  ‘You take one step through that door,’ he said. ‘And we’re through.’

  He leant against my body, his breath hot against my skin, spittle slapping against my cheek.

  I don’t know why I didn’t stop it then. Walk away. It was like I expected it, deserved it. I wasn’t good at friendships, I’d barely dated anyone for longer than a week until Paul. Here was someone who wanted me, we had a future, didn’t we? I’d never thought that might happen; I wasn’t the glamorous type, the kind of woman most men went for. This was just Paul in a particularly bad mood, he hadn’t been like this before.