‘Is it true that your mother would be dead now except Doctor Ramsay saved her life by pumping out the inside of her stomach?’
‘No!’ Eleanor slammed shut the lid on the crayons and tried to get up, but sank down. She couldn’t leave. ‘That’s stupid. You can’t die from cheese. We had some for lunch.’
‘Well, that’s what my Mum said and she’s not stupid.’ Alice bit back tears.
‘She was wrong.’ Eleanor didn’t see what Alice had to cry about.
‘That’s rude. How could she be wrong?’
‘She is. That’s all.’
‘The whole village knows. She said that’s why your mother stays in bed. It’s called dee-presh-shon.’ Alice was speaking faster, and it seemed to Eleanor that Alice’s mother – the source of this secret – was in the room too, in step behind her daughter, nodding all the while to show how right she was. ‘She tried killing herself by holding her breath until she was dead. That didn’t work so she ate cheese and then drank her medicine.’
‘She’s not always in bed.’ Eleanor’s hands were limp and dutiful in her lap.
‘She’s in bed now!’ The ruler cleaved the air with a swipe. ‘How do you know she’s not dead right this minute?’
Eleanor saw the black crayon. It lay inches from Alice’s feet. She addressed it in a whisper:
‘She’s tidying her bedroom. She’ll be down soon.’
These were the ‘open sesame’ words. At the possibility of the approach of Mrs Ramsay, Alice laid down the ruler and said she had to leave; she was already late. She was supposed to be staying for tea under Uncle Jack’s tree. Eleanor was not keen to remind Alice of this and willingly watched her go. Alone with the Judge, Eleanor rose unsteadily to her feet and picking up the black crayon she slotted it into the gap in the box.
After Alice had gone Eleanor had run up to her Mum’s room. Isabel hated to be disturbed, especially when she had a headache. Eleanor stopped outside the door and, with her ear pressed to the wood, listened.
There was no sound.
Downstairs Lizzie had started dinner, singing lustily to a tinny Tom Jones on her transistor. These were noises in her home that Eleanor loved, but now she required silence. Gina must have gone to muck out her horse and Lucian was still out. There was no sound from her father’s study further down the corridor. She inched the doorknob round. With a loud clunk she fell forwards into the room. She had forgotten it was impossible to go into her parents’ bedroom quietly, the door was warped and could only be banged shut or shouldered open with a clatter. Her mother complained every time they came down, but nothing that was broken or faulty at the White House was mended unless it brought things to a halt.
‘For God’s sake. Who’s that?’ The voice groaned from beneath the bedding. The mound moved slightly.
‘Only me.’
‘Who’s “Only Me”?’
‘Elly.’ Eleanor just stopped herself from saying ‘your daughter’. The Cheese Secret had made her mother a stranger. ‘Just came to see if you were ali…if, if, you wanted anything…’
‘Can’t you all leave me alone, must you all constantly barge in?’ Her mother always said this even if she had been left alone for hours. ‘First Gina, then…’
‘What did Gina want?’
‘Oh, Eleanor! What do you want?’
‘Do you need a cup of tea or a drink? It’s nearly after the Yard Arm.’ Their special joke, but her mother groaned and, extracting her hand from under the blanket, flapped feebly at the door.
‘It’s the afternoon, Elly. Push off!’
Eleanor wandered disconsolately up to the playroom, thumping a rhythm on the banister as she climbed. She swung open the front of the doll’s house. It made a snapping sound and stuck half way. Alice said the hinges were rusted and the door was wonky. The dusty furniture had been tossed back into the rooms any old how. She had not touched it since she met Alice. Now she picked up each piece and returned it to the right room. She straightened the tiny bedspread and laid the sitting room rug beside the bed. She hated stepping on the freezing floor in the mornings during winter holidays. She dragged the bed over to the window so the sun would shine on the pillows first thing. Her mother said sunshine made her happy and, when she didn’t have headaches, she loved sunbathing best of all.
Eleanor had lied when she told Alice they had eaten cheese for lunch. They had beans and fish fingers. Alice must have realised this because she had eaten lunch with them.
Eleanor had shunted the green sofa against the sitting room wall. In the big house the sofa was in front of the fireplace and was the best place to be in winter apart from by the kitchen stove. Her mother always lay on it when she was out of bed. Eleanor would sprawl on the thick rug in front of the fire and lean back against the sofa as she watched figures dance and leap in the flames. Sometimes her Mum would run spider fingers on the back of Eleanor’s neck, tracing messages that made her shrug and duck. Isabel liked to torment. She would nudge Crawford with her foot until he spat at her and blow on the back of Eleanor’s head until her skin tingled, while singing made-up songs that made them all laugh uneasily.
Isabel Ramsay had been on the rug the night her family returned from the Lewes fireworks last November. Eleanor had been overjoyed to see her downstairs.
Isabel lay sprawled on her side, an arm across the carpet, and the other bent underneath her in a way that Eleanor thought must give her pins and needles. She didn’t get up when they burst in whooping and shouting, pink cheeks stinging from the icy winds. Lucian and Eleanor were jumping like the mad firework that had zipped and dipped and made them giggle for ages after. Gina had been appalled. Her siblings were embarrassing. It was rare for Lucian to side with Eleanor and this had added to her joy.
When she saw her Mum, Eleanor mouthed to the others shut up and did giant hopping steps towards her.
One side of Isabel’s face was flushed purple from the fire, which although only glowing, was still boiling hot. Her jumper had pulled up at the back revealing a strip of white flesh and the black strap of her bra. As Eleanor got closer she discovered her Mum wasn’t asleep. An eye was open and watched something horrible in the fire without blinking, like one of Crawford’s birds. She was about to speak to her when there was a roar like a tornado whirling in from the garden. The living room door crashed against the wall shattering the convex mirror behind. A shower of splinters glittered and flashed in the firelight.
Eleanor could think only of how her father never let anyone near the mirror, which was his dead mother’s. He acted like even looking in it wore it out. She had gazed down at the broken glass. It would be impossible to put it back together. Then she was spun off her feet as a great creature blundered past her shouting something about room to breathe. She grabbed at the mantelpiece to keep her balance. It was then she saw the puddle on the floor in front of her Mum’s face. A thin thread of sick hung from her lips, from which all the colour had gone.
Her Dad was suddenly there, kneeling down on the floor beside her Mum, but Eleanor knew it was too late. She was dead. Later she would merge the memory of her mother sprawled on the floor with the grainy black and white image of the dying Senator. As her Dad bellowed at the children to get out, Eleanor had wanted to assure him none of them had broken the mirror or done anything to their mother. But before she could form the words an arm went around her, warm hands guiding her away as a soft whispering in her ear said things she couldn’t hear properly but that made her feel better.