The exes, p.14
The Exes, page 14
‘I just thought it was a nice period feature, like the radiators,’ she says.
‘And that bloody wallpaper. I’m not an interior designer. I’m a builder!’
He pushes past her and leaves the room. She hears his steps vibrate on the staircase down to the front door which he doesn’t actually slam but closes firmly.
James chooses this moment to walk downstairs and raises his eyebrows at Holly. ‘Oh dear, a clash of aesthetics?’
‘You can’t wait to stick your oar in, can you?’ she says with some venom because he is loving her discomfort. How she wishes she could talk to Spencer about the row, but he’s staying away while his rooms are being plastered. She looks at the mess of twisted metal and shattered ceramic on the floor and feels like banging her head against the wall. Restoring Penumbra House and living with competitive men and those bloody sheets of paper appearing on her doormat are testing her to the limit.
In the evening she feels thoroughly miserable about her fight with Ray and knows she won’t feel better until they patch up their differences. She goes down to his flat and knocks gently.
When he opens the door, he looks at her severely. ‘Yeah?’
‘May I come in?’
He jerks his head towards his sitting room, and she follows him in there. He doesn’t ask her to sit down.
‘Maybe I overreacted,’ she says.
‘Maybe you did!’
She takes a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Ray.’
‘You leave the decisions about what’s safe and what’s unsafe to me.’
‘I will, of course I will.’
‘I’m about to have my dinner,’ he says.
‘I’ll leave you to it then.’
At the door, she feels they haven’t cleared the air enough. He is still simmering.
She stops and looks back at him. ‘Ray, I really appreciate everything you are doing in the house.’ She flees before he can say anything else.
Chapter Twenty-Five
MAY
PENUMBRA HOUSE
* * *
Holly stands in the hall her head in her hands. Her chest has gone into violent spasm. She tries to hold her breath and count to twenty to stop the insistent hiccups. The latest instalment was on the doormat first thing, and her mind is reeling from its content.
BRITTANY NOVEMBER 1987
I smelled the smoke before I saw it. I had been in the village to see the cheese man who brings his van on Wednesdays and parks by the church. I had bought Pont l’Eveque and a slab of Beaufort which Jacques and Emmanuel both like. As I got nearer, I saw smoke and flames rising from the top of my garden. I ran up the garden and Rabbit’s hutch was engulfed in flames. Emmanuel was sitting cross-legged and watching as if in a trance.
‘Where’s Rabbit?’ I screamed at him.
‘Rabbit was a prisoner. I let him go,’ he said calmly.
‘He’s a pet, you stupid boy. He won’t survive in the wild.’
I scanned the garden frantically. I saw Emmanuel’s hands were sooty.
‘How did the fire start?’
He didn’t answer; he was watching the flames intently, fascinated, trance-like. I felt the heat on my face. It was too late to put out the fire. I shouted at him to go inside and wash his hands. I hunted for Rabbit everywhere, along the brambles at the top of the garden and into the field which lay beyond. I walked all the way to the copse beyond the field. I prayed Rabbit had broken for freedom and was hiding where no bird of prey could swoop down and kill him.
I returned home feeling sick and shaken and more distraught by Rabbit’s disappearance than I would have imagined possible. Emmanuel was sitting in the kitchen and had helped himself to the cheese. There were black finger marks on the slab of Beaufort. He looked up at me with that same strange light in his eyes. He wasn’t upset at all; his look was defiance.
‘I told you to wash your hands. Do it at once.’
He scraped his chair back from the table and I had to resist the urge to smack him. I have never smacked him.
In the evening I was raking out the embers when I found the bones of a rabbit in the ashes. I vomited in the garden. Emmanuel is a monster.
I passed a sleepless night. There is only one option. Emmanuel must go to boarding school at once. I phoned Jacques at his house, something I rarely do in case Severine answers. He sounded tense and I told him I will not wait till the new term begins. Emmanuel goes away now. I did not add how I can hardly bear to look at the boy’s face.
* * *
This child, Emmanuel, burned his rabbit to death; trapped in a locked hutch. It is unspeakable, unbelievably cruel, the worst. Holly’s heart hurts. She wants to tear all the pages up and never look at them again. Is it possible for a child be a psychopath?
Holly paces through the house and says to herself, I must accept that I inherited Penumbra House because Lillian hated her son. She looks at the cupboards on either side of the fireplace and shivers. It’s as if the house holds some of the pain and sadness of Lillian’s life. Her aunt had good reason to fear Emmanuel. He was a child who liked to hurt animals and that is the sign of a psychopath.
Holly looks at the pages in her hand. The way the pages are being cut out with deliberation and posted through her door also seems weirdly obsessive, the work of a person who is unhinged but also on a mission, someone who has calculated that the drip, drip, drip of this awful information will destabilise her and make her want to get as far away from Penumbra House as possible.
Her need to confide in someone about this tortured family drama is getting stronger by the day. Usually she shares her troubles with Laura but can’t seem to do it this time. Is it because of the shame Holly feels that she has a weird cousin who does the most hateful things?
She is the beneficiary because of a buried secret in her family; mental illness. Emmanuel’s warped personality.
Somehow to reveal all this to Laura would be too painful. Her friend knows how much she’s staked on her new life in the house; her great project that promised so much. Maybe there is some pride mixed in there too. It’s hard to admit she’s made a mistake.
What more is there to come from Lillian’s journal? This was written in 1987, thirty-two years ago. What kind of a man has Emmanuel grown into? If he still lives, he’ll be a dangerous man who will want to punish the person who got his inheritance.
It is Spencer she would like to confide in. Maybe he could help her make sense of these awful revelations. But should she take the leap? Or must she carry on keeping Lillian’s awful torment a secret?
Barry is peering down at the soil when she brings him his mug of tea.
‘Nature never wastes anything,’ he says.
She follows his gaze.
‘Slugs eating fox shit.’
Two long slugs are grazing on a mound of wet excrement. He raises his eyes and catches her disgusted but fascinated expression. She cannot drag her eyes away. The slugs are feasting!
‘I’ll get more slug pellets,’ he says.
He shovels up the shit and the slugs and deposits them on the compost heap at the top of the garden. She hands him the mug of strong tea and a plate with two digestive biscuits. He takes off his gloves and sits on the bottom kitchen step. He’s told her he prefers to take his tea break outside. The first time he came she had put four biscuits on a plate, and he had eaten two. The next time she put three biscuits out for him, and he had eaten two. So now this is what she gives him.
‘This means we have a fox in the garden?’ she asks.
‘More than one, I’d say. Can’t mistake that smell.’
He dunks a digestive in his mug. ‘Ever hear any screaming in the garden at night?’
She looks at him and remembers. ‘The first week I moved in I did. The most awful blood-curdling cries. It woke me up.’
‘Foxes mate in January and the female will scream. Males do too, to mark their territory. And we have rats in the garden.’
‘What charming wildlife we are blessed with,’ Holly quips.
She sees how Barry’s dogged ferocity against the thorns is proving ever more effective, and a larger space is emerging by the wall. She walks over and places her hand against the old bricks which are warmed by the sun.
‘It catches the sun here. I’ll buy a sun lounger; in fact, I think I’ll treat myself to two.’
‘That blackberry bush at the top of the garden doesn’t fruit anymore,’ he says.
‘That’s a shame.’
‘I’ll pull it up.’
‘OK.’
He’s eaten his two biscuits and finished his tea. He puts his mug down and pulls on his gloves.
‘It used to fruit well,’ he says, and he trudges up the garden.
She thinks about his comment about the blackberries as she rolls the recycling bin onto the street. Rita, his wife, only came to Penumbra House in March and April. How did Barry know the bush fruited unless he came to the garden in the autumn?
All the houses on the street have tall side gates leading to their gardens, all except Penumbra House. It’s possible to access the garden at any time so maybe Lillian told Rita she should help herself to the blackberries? But should she put up a gate with a lock? The house stood empty for eleven months a year for decades. Anyone could wander into the garden. Someone might have got into the house too. Then again, with Hazel and her husband on watch, was that likely? Holly will talk to Ray about installing a side gate.
On the street she sees Hazel with Trisha, her neighbour from the other side. Trisha is a woman who favours ethnic prints and is keen on crafts. Today she is clad in a full-length colourful kaftan with wooden beads around her neck. Hazel and Trisha are close friends, and they walk over to Holly as she positions her bin for collection.
‘How’s it all going?’ Hazel asks.
‘Good, on the whole. We’ve had a few setbacks.’
‘That’s to be expected,’ Hazel says.
‘The house was so neglected. I hope my aunt would like what I’m doing.’
‘I’m sure she would, and I would love to see how it’s coming along,’ Trisha says.
‘You’d both be welcome to pop over and take a look. Maybe next week? How about Monday evening? Come for a glass of wine and see for yourselves the progress we’re making.’
They’re pleased and agree to come on Monday. Max comes out of the house and throws an empty paint tin into the skip.
‘Have you met Max? He’s painting my rooms,’ Holly says.
Hazel and Trisha greet him, and Holly watches him turn on the charm.
‘We’re looking forward to seeing what you’ve achieved on Monday,’ Trisha says to him.
‘Holly’s rooms are a challenge because of their height, but I’m happy with how the sitting room is turning out,’ he says.
He is giving both women the full blaze of his attention and Trisha begins to play with her wooden beads. Fair enough, Holly thinks, he needs to meet people to get more work.
‘See you on Monday,’ she says, and leaves them chatting with Max on the street. She had invited Hazel and Trisha over as the least she could do after their having to put up with living next door to an abandoned house for decades. She knows her aunt was not a good neighbour.
Chapter Twenty-Six
PENUMBRA HOUSE
* * *
Holly sees Ray standing on the front path smoking a roll-up. He is surveying the house. She still regrets their run-in, isn’t sure he has completely forgiven her yet and joins him outside.
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ she says.
‘Some of the brickwork needs repointing. See those patches under the ground floor windows.’
‘Let’s do it.’
‘The brickwork is worth looking after.’
‘The façade is fine, isn’t it? I don’t like how the name looks though.’
Several houses in the road have their names painted in gold on the fanlight, and these look elegant. The letters here are painted thickly and ‘P e n u m b r a’ is inscribed in a semi-circle above the word ‘H o u s e’. It isn’t elegant at all. It is just emphatic.
Ray shrugs. ‘It’s only a name, Hol.’
‘I don’t like the way the letters are painted so thickly in black.’
He glances at her, and she guesses he’s struggling to understand why she finds this a problem. She recalls his comment that he is no interior designer. ‘If we scraped the black paint off and repainted in gold letters it would look nicer.’
‘We can, but that will have to wait.’
‘Of course, not a problem, just a thought,’ she says.
Ray is key to achieving the renovation and she very much wants them to be friends again.
Her huge and gracious sitting room is nearly finished. The room looks as lovely and elegant as Holly hoped, but her pleasure in the room is dimmed. She hasn’t been feeling well for a while and suffers headaches, bouts of dizziness and an exhaustion she can’t shake off. It doesn’t matter how much she sleeps; she’s tired most of the time. This beautiful room deserves to be shown off and Hazel and Trisha are coming on Monday.
Holly heads down to Ray’s flat, and he makes mugs of tea for them. His leather three-seater sofa fits the back wall, and his sound system dominates the alcove. Ray still plays CDs, and these are stacked in two towers. He has unpacked all his boxes and painted his sitting room cream and the room is almost an exact replica of the sitting room at his London flat. She sinks onto his sofa, yawns and, leaning her head back, fights the desire to stretch out and close her eyes.
‘What’s up, Hol?’
‘I’m feeling tired all the time. It’s been a few weeks. Could it be the paint?’
‘Unlikely, unless you’re super-sensitive.’
‘I’ve never been sensitive to paint before. You painted my bathroom in London. It was tiny and yet I had no ill effects.’
He grins at her. ‘You couldn’t swing a cat in there.’
Is he remembering their getting together at that time? She recalls how she longed for his daily visits and tried to think up other decorating jobs to keep him near her.
‘Did Max get the paint from the supplier on London Road?’ Ray asks.
‘Yes, he had it mixed there.’
‘They’re reputable. Are you keeping the windows open during the day?’
‘There’s plenty of air circulating in the rooms and I wedge the sitting room door open at night. It doesn’t even smell much.’
‘Must be something else making you poorly. Are you stressing about the renovation?’
‘I wasn’t. I’ve been happy how well it’s going. All thanks to you. But the dead seagull and the brick through the window has stressed me.’
‘Stop brooding on that. Some people are just plain envious.’
‘You think someone’s targeting me?’
‘No, not personally. It’s a case of spite against a big house. House envy. When I bought my new van, some arsehole keyed it all down one side. Ruined my pleasure in it.’
‘Some people are so poisonous.’
Should she tell Ray about the pages on her doormat? They’re the true source of her stress and unease. Or would telling Ray make her feel even more strongly she is losing control of her life and her dream project is slipping away from her.
‘Maybe you need a change of scene. I’m off fishing this weekend and that’s the best tonic. Are you getting down to the seafront?’
‘I haven’t left the house much for the last few days,’ she admits.
‘Get yourself down there and blow away the cobwebs. I’d join you, but I’m in the middle of doing the figures.’
He is getting local jobs as well as overseeing the house, and his coffee table is littered with invoices and receipts.
‘Good advice, kind sir,’ she says.
She’ll follow Ray’s advice and get a bus to the seafront and walk from the functioning pier to the ruined one.
The bus stop at the bottom of her road shows a bus coming in four minutes. A bus pulls up on the other side of the road and Max gets out. He crosses to her side.
‘Hi, Holly, I’m ready to start on your bedroom,’ he says cheerily. ‘Shall we move the furniture into the sitting room? I assume you’ll be sleeping in there?’
She wavers. She doesn’t feel like walking back to the house and missing her bus. She has a powerful urge to walk along the beach and experience sea breezes on her face.
‘Sorry, Max. I’m getting the next bus. Can it wait?’
‘I’d like to prepare your bedroom for painting, you know. Tell you what, give me your key and I’ll shift the furniture and set the room up ready for tomorrow. I’ll leave your key with James or Ray when I’m done.’
She hesitates, fighting her reluctance to part with her keys. But Max wants to get on and it’s not fair to waste his time. She unzips the pocket in her bag and takes out the keys.
‘I’ll be gone for a few hours. Maybe text me when you’re leaving.’
‘Will do.’
On the bus they pass the pound shops and nail bars of London Road, before reaching the Old Steine Garden with its ornate fountain. She gets off and watches seagulls bathing in the fountain’s spray. They look joyful as they swoop and splash in the water; almost like they’re playing.
It is a weekday and yet there’s a crowd of day-trippers at Brighton Pier stopping to watch the street artists doing their acts. She heads away from the noise and crowds towards the Hove end of the beach which she prefers. Here the promenade widens and there’s plenty of room for the dog walkers and rollerbladers.
She slows down as she approaches the ruined West Pier and sits on the pebbles. Watching the waves roll in and out induces a meditative state in her. She lies down, managing to get comfortable on the pebbles, her bag as her pillow. The clouds drift slowly above, their shapes reminiscent of landforms. As a child she would lie on her back in her dad’s garden and watch the clouds change shape and wonder how it would feel to lie on a cloud.
