And then the stories had ceased. She had looked ten feet high in the bedroom doorway, Medusa hair flying, incandescent with fury. But why, Mother, why? Why would you never talk to me about Viola?
'I loved her,' said my mothers voice.
The hair on the back of my neck bristled. Her face was still turned away from me. Had I spoken aloud? Was she talking in her sleep?
'You loved Viola?' I asked, keeping my voice low and my hand still in hers.
'Yes… loved me too.'
'Then why-why couldn't we talk about Viola, you and I?'
The papery fingers tightened a little.
'I had to keep you safe.'
'Mother I am safe; I'm here with you.'
She stirred; her head turned slowly towards me. Her eyes did not open; her expression remained calm.
'Then talk to me now,' I said after a pause. 'About Viola-' but what could I ask her? My mind had gone blank. 'Tell me-did she always live at Staplefield?'
Unease crept over her face. I sat very still and waited until her expression grew calm again.
'Viola wrote stories. Tell me about them.'
'Ghos' stories. She wrote ghost stories.'
The voice had grown more animated. Her eyes flicked open, stared directly at me, and closed again.
Then she said something that sounded like, 'one came true'.
'Did you say, one came true? How? What do you mean?'
No answer.
'Mother, what came true?'
Her grip on my fingers tightened. Her eyelids fluttered, her breathing quickened. Again no answer.
'Mother, who was the woman in the photograph I found? Was it Viola?'
Her eyes shot open, glaring.
'NO!' It came as a hoarse shriek. She sat bolt upright. The unseeing eyes settled on my face.
'Gerard? Why are you here?'
'Mother, come back-you're having a bad dream-'
'You shouldn't be here. She'll see you- '
Her face was convulsing again.
'Mother, wake up!'
Recognition came back. She sank down amongst the pillows.
'Gerard.'
'You were dreaming, Mother.'
She lay silent for a while, breathing harshly.
'Mother-what did you mean, in your dream, she'll see you?'
A quick, uneasy glance.
'How did you know?'
'You were talking in your sleep.'
'I dreamed you were asking me questions, like you used to when you were-what else did I say?'
'You said-you said the woman in the photograph wasn't Viola. Who was she?'
She didn't reply. A different kind of horror was creeping into her expression. As in that moment when you still can't believe you could possibly have done something so appalling. The gas left full on, a child alone in the house.
'Gerard, I'm very tired. I want you to take me back to my room now.' She spoke the words stiffly, through a mask of dread.
'Is the pain very bad?'
'Yes.' But it didn't look like physical pain. We made our slow way up the hall.
'Gerard,' she said when I had settled her into bed, 'bring me the kitchen steps.'
I looked at her, nonplussed.
'The kitchen steps. In case-in case I need to get up.'
'Mother, you've got the buzzer, how can they possibly help-'
'Just bring them.'
'If you insist. But you must promise me-'
'Gerard!'
Bewildered, I went to fetch them: three aluminium steps with a vertical handle to grasp as you climbed up.
'Thank you, dear. Leave them next to my bed-table.'
Her bed was still where it had always been, its headboard centred against the boarded-up fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling cupboards had been built into the alcoves on either side of the chimney. Her bed-table was on the right-hand side of the bed, nearest the door.
'Mother, if there's anything you want me to get down for you-'
'No, dear. What I'd like, if you're not too tired, is for you to make us some more of that nice vegetable soup. I'll have a sleep now. Close the door as you go out.'
She did look utterly exhausted. Reluctantly, I left the room. For several long minutes I hovered outside the door. Not a sound. I eased the handle open and looked in. She was breathing heavily through her mouth. I stood there watching for what felt like many minutes more, but she did not stir.
Something must have alerted me, because I was already through the kitchen door and running when the crash came. I found her on the carpet beside the overturned steps. The topmost cupboard door was half open.
At the hospital they told me she had a depressed fracture of the skull, just above the left eye. All they could do was put her on a drip and wait to see if she recovered consciousness. I sat beside the bed with her hand resting in mine and talked to her as the nurses came and went and the night hours crawled by. Once or twice I thought her dry, rice-papery fingers twitched very slightly in response. Towards morning I must have dozed off, for without any perceptible interval I became aware that her hand had grown colder, and that the only sound of breathing in the room was mine.
A week after the funeral, I was sorting through the papers in the study. The furniture had not altered since my father had died: a five-drawer olive green army surplus filing cabinet, a very small three-drawer desk and a wooden chair filled the entire space.
I was still on leave. Friends from the library would phone and ask if they could call by, and I would make them tea or coffee and agree that it must be very hard for me having been so close to my mother, and what a wonderful person she had been, and feel guilty about counting the days until I could be with Alice.
All of my mother's clothes and shoes had already gone to the goodwill shop. The books were packed and stored. As soon as probate was granted, I would put the house on the market. I had worked my way from the front rooms, starting with my mothers bedroom, right through to the sunroom, without finding a single fragment of her thirty-four years in England. But something of her would be making the return journey. I had decided to scatter her ashes-her cremains', as the funeral director insisted on calling them-at Staplefield. I was trying to persuade Alice to be there too, but she thought this was something I should do alone
On returning from the hospital, I had gone straight to my mothers room to find whatever it was she had died trying to reach. But there was nothing in the top cupboard except the dust of years and the desiccated shells of millipedes. Each of the enclosed alcoves had a wardrobe-style door from floor to head height opening on to hanging space, and a smaller rectangular door to the high cupboards above. The high cupboards were simply enclosed storage boxes. I looked in the one opposite, but that too was empty. I found nothing on the floor or under the bed, and nothing but clothes in the wardrobes on either side. Or in the bottom drawer of her dressing-table, where I had seen the photograph, and later 'Seraphina'; I had found it unlocked and empty. If she had managed to remove anything from the cupboard before she fell, she must have swallowed it.
I had deliberately put off opening the filing cabinet in the study, saving it until last; so long as I hadn't looked, I might still find something. There were papers here all right. Masses of them. My father had evidently filed every piece of official correspondence he had ever received, receipts for every bill he had ever paid; and my mother had followed his example religiously. Thirty-six years of electricity bills, stamped and receipted and filed in strict chronological order. A folder full of notices dating back to 4 January 1964, warning the householder that the supply of electricity would be interrupted on such and such a day. Ditto for water and council rates, insurance, tax returns, car service, registration, driving licences, medical bills. Receipts, instructions, guarantees, and full service history for every appliance they had ever owned. All of my old school reports. On and on. It looked as if the only papers my mother had not kept were personal letters, assuming she had ever received any. Or anything that might indicate she had ever lived anywhere but Mawson.