Lily's House Read online

  “Which bowl would you like for your peaches?” Lily, her chin on her hands in that gesture that makes her look like a contented cat, watches as I sit snug and peaceful in the dining alcove, smushing my boiled egg shell into the crusts of my soldiers so I won’t have to eat them.

  “The one with the bird on the bottom. I always have the one with the bird on the bottom.” A moment of panic. “Have you still got it?”

  “Of course I’ve still got it. I’m not like your mother, you know, I don’t break my crockery. I only wanted to make sure you still liked that one.” And then the eggshell and the crusts are whisked away and replaced by a bowl of peaches swimming in a luxurious bath of syrup, which I carefully conserve so that when the bird on his branch of dogwood are revealed, I can lift the bowl to my mouth and slurp it down in a long rich series of swallows. This was how Lily was always, indulging you with syrupy birds on sprays of wild roses, so you never realised until afterwards how sharp the thorns were. And besides, it was true; my mother did break a lot of china.

  Back into the sitting room, where the curtains need washing and the furniture wears grey coats of dust. Lily was ninety-five; it’s not surprising her standards slipped. Was she too poor, towards the end, to pay for help, or just too stubborn? Thank God the gas and the electricity are still on. I flick the switch on the immersion heater so we can have a bath later, and then rummage between the kitchen and the pantry to see what I can add to our supplies to create a meal.

  “Have you texted Dad?” asks Marianne as I stare blankly at the tins in the pantry, and I flinch with guilt because I’ve totally forgotten to let Daniel know we’ve arrived. “It’s all right, you’re busy, I just know he worries. I’ll ring him. And then I’ll come and help you.”

  So many girls her age would rather shave their heads than traipse hundreds of miles by an assortment of trains in the company of their mother, to clear out the house of a deceased elderly relative who they never met and were barely aware even existed. Marianne begged to come with me. “You can’t go by yourself,” she told me. “I can help. Let me come too.” And then, as the Midlands raced past in a grey smear, her sudden sweet confession: “Mum, is it all right that I wanted to come because I’m interested? But I’ll help too, of course I will.” If honesty can be a fault, then Marianne’s compulsion to get things absolutely, scrupulously clear – even if the truth might make her look bad – falls into this category. She’s curled on the William-Morris-looking sofa with the elegant wooden legs, her phone to her ear, chattering away to her dad, her discarded shoes neatly side by side on the floor. Of course I’ll text Daniel anyway, he’ll want to talk to me too, but perhaps I can wait a few more minutes.

  I wonder if I dare brave the bedrooms.

  The feel of the round black wooden door handle. The way it turns the opposite way to all the others. The keyhole beneath. I remember it all. About to push the door open and cross the threshold, my body is possessed by the ritual, and – feeling ridiculous but unable to stop myself – I kneel down on the mossy carpet.

  “Why do you always do that?” Lily, shaking her head in bafflement, laughing at me as I bounce to my feet and give her a beaming smile.

  “I’m checking to see if the key’s still in the lock.”

  “But why do you do it from the outside? Why not check when you get inside?”

  Instead of answering, I pull her head down so I can kiss her. I love her, but I don’t want even Lily to know that I’m checking to make sure that, as long as the key remains on the inside of the lock, no one can see through the keyhole into my room while I sleep.

  “And you promise you won’t ever lock the door?” Lily says, as she always says, the words as much a part of the ritual as the kneeling and the peering.

  “I promise,” I say with a theatrical sigh, and then I’m in my room, mine even though I only live in it for a few weeks a year, and there is my bed made up with heavy white sheets, a thick brown blanket and a dusty-pink eiderdown, my fat pink lamp on the bedside table, and the book I left behind on my last visit waiting like an old friend; and when I turn around to close the door, there are shells strung over the door frame wait to catch any nightmares before they can reach me, and the porcelain cats with their round eyes and strange coiled tails and the pelican with the fat yellow beak stare back at me from the shelves above the chest of drawers.

  By some strange necromantic act of housekeeping, my room is exactly as I remember.

  SO SO SORRY I couldn’t text as soon as we arrived. There was no signal until we got here. We made it. Although you probably know that because Marianne’s just got off the phone to you. Xxxxx

  So glad you’re all right. I was a bit worried :( No signal at a train station??? I thought you were in Cornwall not Borneo xxxx

  I know it sounds daft but it’s right down between two hills. And the train was a bit late. Didn’t Marianne get hold of you? I thought I saw her talking to someone.

  She did but it’s not the same as hearing from you. I miss you, you know.

  I know, I know. I should have thought. Sorry again.

  Have you found the voodoo doll yet?

  ???

  The voodoo doll of me. You know, the one she made to try and stop me marrying you

  Oh come on, she thought you were all right

  She hated me on sight and you know it

  Well she’s dead now anyway and we’re still married, so you win.

  That’s true. So what’s it like?

  Like home. Like a nightmare. Like being lost. Like being found. Like every treacherously lovely dream of my childhood coming true.

  Dusty and shabby and old. You’d hate it.

  Not if I was there with you I wouldn’t. I’d get a giant skip and help you throw out junk all day, then fuck your brains out all night and write a million songs about how much I love you. You should be here with me. I need you xxxxx

  I can’t believe Lily’s chosen to die now, in the month when Daniel’s music career is finally about to become a paying proposition. At the station this morning, we held hands through the train window like newly parting lovers. It’s been seventeen years but he still looked every bit as pretty as when we first met, his hair as fair, his mouth as endearingly expressive, his eyes as large and green. I tried not to be embarrassed by the smiles of the other passengers. At every change and every stop I texted him to assure him of our progress.

  I can’t throw anything out till it’s valued. And if it’s worth anything we’re selling it, not binning it

  See, this is why you’re the one who goes out to work at a proper grown-up accountancy job and I’m the musician. I’d chuck the lot and run for the hills.

  So when are you coming home?

  About a week. We did talk about this, you said you’d be all right for a week.

  When are you seeing the registrar? And the funeral director? Have you got appointments for everything?

  Yes, day after tomorrow, back to back, it’s on the list, we really did talk about this remember? Look, let’s not go over it again, it’s boring. Tell me about your day. How was rehearsal?

  God, great I think. They like the new songs. Well, they all do apart from Mac but he hates new stuff on principle.

  This seems reasonable. The only time I’ve seen Mac smile was when Marianne brought him a cold beer after the jam session that ended with them all agreeing (with varying degrees of enthusiasm) to form Storm Interference.

  And you uploaded the footage from the Rockwood gig?

  I look like a dickhead in it, do I have to?

  People need to see you’re not just five blokes in a garage. That’s the only gig you’ve got footage of so it needs to go up. Show the world you can make a crowd scream. Besides, you look gorgeous. :)

  Okay, you’re probably right. About not being five blokes in a garage, I mean. I’m standing by the dickhead thing.

  But such a good-looking dickhead.

  God I miss you. Why are you there and not here again?

  Ru
n away to claim our fortune, remember? It’ll be worth it when we bank the cheque.

  The sitting room has the mustiness of abandonment. I force the sash window upwards, savouring the salty, polleny air. Back on the sofa, my phone blinks with light.

  So you’re still happy about it? About the new band and everything, I mean? You really think it’s going to happen?

  Of course I am, you know I am. It’s so cool. This is your year, I can feel it.

  I know it’s real if you say it. If you believe in me then I know it’s true. I love being married to you. You always know what’s going to happen

  I should tell him again this is nonsense, but I don’t have the heart. A seagull perches speculatively on the window-ledge and peers beneath the sash, watching me with quick little jerks of its head. I flap my hand at it. It blinks and turns its head, checking if I look different when viewed from a different angle, but doesn’t move.

  It’s going to cost a bit to get us started though

  That’s okay. Once Lily’s estate’s settled we will have money

  Still can’t quite believe it. Say it again please

  My pleasure. Once Lily’s estate’s settled WE WILL HAVE MONEY

  :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

  How much will it come to? I don’t know yet exactly, but it’s going to be more than we’ve ever had in our lives. Enough that Marianne can have shoes that don’t fall apart after a month. Enough to pay Daniel’s share of the band’s set-up expenses. Enough to finally get us out of the succession of rented houses and into the cool white rooms and sculptured spaces Daniel’s always dreamed of building. Maybe even enough so Marianne will stop sleepwalking, no longer haunted by the nightmares that force her bolt upright, screaming and flailing in terror.

  And you’ll quit work and we’ll take Marianne out of school and you’ll teach her at home and you’ll both come with me everywhere and travel the world and I’ll look after you for ever xoxoxoxoxox

  Will any of this happen? Or have twelve years of fitting in stray gigs around his parenting duties blotted out his chances? Music is a young man’s game. Thirty-five this year; has he missed his moment? And what will happen if he has? What will become of him then?

  No, I won’t do this again. I’ve already been round this loop, assembled the evidence, reached my conclusion and committed my support. Storm Interference, formed for less than six weeks, is already attracting attention. They all like each other (apart from Mac, who doesn’t like anyone). They’re creating new work together. This is it, the break, the moment.

  And now, miraculously, we have money to pay for equipment and recording fees and whatever else Daniel needs. Perhaps Lily’s died at the perfect moment after all.

  Right, I’ve got to go. Microwave’s pinging

  What are you having?

  Freezer Roulette. I think it’s chicken curry but I’m not sure

  Yep it’ll be chicken curry, there’s a couple in there. There’s some goulash as well, and some chicken in pesto, all the things you like

  God, you’re good. I’d starve without you. I love you xxxxx

  I love you too xxxxx

  For myself and my daughter, there’s tomato soup in the pantry and a loaf of bread that I’ve lugged halfway down the country. Marianne is so tired she can hardly finish her soup. Against her protests, I run her a bath. She has that sallow transparent look I associate with a long night of nightmares ahead. Maybe I shouldn’t have let her come. It was selfish to give in to her begging, but the truth is I desperately wanted to bring her, as a companion, and as a shield against my memories. Behind the door of the little mirrored cabinet, Lily’s toothbrush sits bereft beside her toothpaste and her tube of Steradent tablets.

  Of course no one would have come to collect Lily’s toothbrush, or fill an overnight bag with a clean nightdress and her green silk dressing gown. Marianne and I are her last living relatives, and I didn’t even know she was ill until Daniel took the phone call. What was she wearing when the ambulance crew collected her? Was she dressed, or in her nightclothes? They would have spoken in that slow way she hated, big gestures and exaggerated smiles, and they would have wrapped her in a red fleecy blanket of the kind she resolutely despised. Perhaps one of them held her hand. Would she at least have had her teeth in? She hated being seen without her teeth. Marianne is hovering behind me.

  “Sorry,” I say, so she knows I know she’s there. “Just stuck on the load-screen.”

  She perches against the bath and picks up the verdigris duck that stands on the black-and-white-tiled floor, running the chewed and raggedy ends of her fingers over the rough texture of its back and feeling the shape of its smiling beak. She’s a compulsive fiddler. “Is it like it was when you were little?”

  Beneath the grime, indifferent to the musty air, the duck still stands tall and lean like an Indian Runner duck, its beak open so it looks as if it’s laughing. The store of Pears soap still sits on the top shelf of the cabinet. The wooden bath tray still holds the white soap dish with the rose in the bottom, and the pink Bakelite nail brush in the shape of a pig, which I thought for years was a grown-up bath toy. (‘You mean, your mother doesn’t have a nail brush in the house?’ Lily, slightly overdoing her incredulity.) All the signs and signifiers of my childhood, grown old and sad with neglect. My heart hurts. I don’t want to be here.

  Marianne scrabbles in the bath tray and finds the flannel – dried stiff but neatly folded – then drops it again. The duck lies in her lap. I know what she’s going to ask, because it’s the logical thing to want to know.

  Why didn’t we ever visit her? What happened?

  The question perches on her fingertips and I wait, wait, wait for it to take flight. Maybe she can see how much I’m dreading it. After a minute, she puts the duck back in its spot beside the bath and stands up.

  “Where should I put my dirty clothes?” she asks instead.

  With Marianne tidied safely away into the room that used to be mine, the monitor installed so I’ll know if she cries out or sleepwalks, I’m ready to face Lily’s bedroom. The huge windows (in need of painting now, perhaps even replacement) look out over the sweep of the lawn, the formal flowerbeds, the towering shrubs, and the sunny plot by the boundary wall where Lily once grew herbs. It’s a beautiful view, but it was never the point of this room for me. All I wanted was to try on Lily’s things.

  First the jewellery, which – jackdaw that I am – still calls to me with a siren song. Lily kept her rings on the slender curved neck of a solid glass swan that I coveted almost more than the rings themselves. As a child, I crammed them on in stacks, admiring the weight they gave to my gestures, the flash as they caught the light. Decades later, I caress the swan’s back and then touch the blood-dark ruby, the square inky sapphire, the huge art-deco aquamarine, the twists and twines of gold and silver and platinum, topped by the heavy hoop of rose-cut diamonds that my heart yearned for most of all.

  Next I would delve into the wardrobe, which was always faintly disappointing. Lily’s house was so much like a dream that I wanted to believe she spent her days draped in silks and velvets, old-fashioned dresses like the illustrations from my Ladybird fairy tales. Lily’s cardigans and tea dresses, her cream leather shoes with the sensible heel, her hats for going to church in, were never what I was hoping for, but I tried them on anyway, just in case. An adult now, I open the wardrobe and disturb the cool soft folds, scented with violet and lavender.

  Are you here, Lily? Are you watching me? Do you know I’ve come back to you at last? And what are you thinking?

  I climb into her bed, wearing one of her dainty nightgowns because I seem to have forgotten my pyjamas, too tired to think about changing the sheets. I tumble into sleep wondering if this deeply personal invasion will anger Lily’s spirit. But instead Lily stands by my bed, puts my book on the nightstand and tucks me in. The gold-white silk of her hair, let loose from its neat bun and falling around her shoulders, caresses my cheek as she presses her lips to my face and I feel the v
ibration of her voice against my cheek. I’ll always love you best, she tells me, in words I feel, but will never hear. The gentlest of kindly hauntings.

  Chapter Two – Lily

  I’m six years old, and my father’s been taken away by the train. I won’t see him again for five weeks, a stretch of time so huge it feels like for ever. I’m aware I’m supposed to be sad about this, but I look up at the tall bony woman beside me, her white hair gleaming in the sun, and sigh. Lily’s expression tells me she knows exactly how I’m feeling, and she feels it too.

  On the way back up the hill, a long-haired cat waits on the wall, its squashed fluffy face impatient and eager, its gaze fixed on me. When I hold out my hand, its mouth opens pink and wide. It wipes its nose against my finger and presses the length of its back against my hand. Then it jumps off the wall and sprawls across the warm tarmac, exposing the pale soft fur of its belly.

  I sit down to devote my full attention to it, knowing I’m allowed now, because I’m with Lily. No one will tell me I’ll get my dress dirty. No one will mention germs. No one will tell me all the ways in which dirty dresses or germs make more work for them. I can sit on the path and talk to the cat as long as I want, and when I’ve finished there’ll be roast chicken for lunch. Lily leans against the wall, and takes a pinch of leaves from the bush that grows from the stones.

  “What’s that?”

  She holds out the crushed green needles between her fingers. I inhale the scent.