Henry once left her hiding for hours. Left her alone, trapped, panicked. He made me part of it, again. I was small. I must have been-Caroline was still alive. Earlier that day she’d been wheeled outside to the terrace. She had one of those grand old wicker wheelchairs. No gray NHS metal and plastic for her. It creaked as it rolled along, fine spokes glinting, but Henry said it was Caroline that creaked, because she was so old and mummified. I knew it was nonsense but even so, each time I heard it, I would think of papery skin tearing; of hair that would crumble to dust if you touched it; of a tongue gone stiff and woody in a shrivelled mouth. We were never made to kiss her, if we didn’t want to. Mum saw to that, and thank goodness.
By then she was mostly bedridden, but it was a fine day and we were all there-Clifford and Mary, my parents. She was wheeled to the table, presented with her lunch on a tray that slotted into the frame of the chair. The housekeeper brought out the soup in a white china tureen shaped like a giant cauliflower, and there were potatoes and salad and ham on the table. I was told off for dipping my fingers into the melted butter at the bottom of the potato bowl. Meredith helped Caroline to eat, sometimes feeding her the way you feed a baby. Meredith frowned as she did it; pinched her lips tightly together. Caroline’s hair was thin. I could see her scalp through it and it did look papery. The conversation went on around her, and I kept my eyes carefully on my plate. Only once did she speak up and, though her voice was louder than I expected, the words crept out ponderously.
“Is that man Dinsdale still alive?” She dropped her fork as she spoke, as if holding it and speaking were too many things to do at once. It clattered loudly, down onto the paving slabs.
“No, Mother. He’s not,” Meredith answered, and I burned with the knowledge that there were in fact many Dinsdales, alive and well not two hundred meters from where we sat. I knew better than to speak at the table. Caroline made a small sound, high and wavering, which could have been anything. Satisfaction, perhaps. “I believe his son is, however,” Meredith added.
“Can’t you get rid of him, child?” Caroline asked, and I was as puzzled to hear Meredith called child as I was outraged at the question. Across the table, Henry smirked, kicked me in the shin.
“No more than you could,” Meredith countered.
“Travellers,” Caroline mumbled. “They were meant to go. They were meant to move on,” she said.
“They go. And then they come back again,” Meredith muttered. “And sadly there is very little I can do about it.” At this Caroline went still. An unnatural pause, as if she was going to say something else. Everybody at the table waited, but she did not speak again. Meredith folded her napkin crisply onto her lap, began to serve herself with salad. But the frown stayed, knitted between her brows, and when I looked at Caroline she was staring out across the lawn, eyes boring into the far trees as though she could see straight through them. Her head wobbled on her neck, and from time to time her hands would twitch involuntarily, but that far, pale gaze never wavered.
After that lunch we children were sent to have an afternoon nap-because I was small and cross, Henry had been rude at lunch, and that left Beth with nobody to play with. Henry instigated the game. He hid first, and we found him at length in the attic room, behind the same crumbling, burgundy leather trunk I have so recently rediscovered. We stirred up motes of dust that flashed and swirled in the light from the eaves, circling slowly. I found a peacock butterfly, wrapped in spider webs and as mummified as I feared Caroline to be. I clamored for it to be my turn to hide, but Beth had found Henry first, so it was her turn. Henry and I knelt at the bottom of the stairs, shut our eyes, counted.
I don’t think I could count to a hundred at that age. I was relying on Henry, and he normally counted one, two, miss a few, ninety-nine, a hundred; so after what seemed a long time, listening to the housekeeper clattering dishes in the kitchen, I opened one eye to check on him. He wasn’t there. I looked up and saw him coming down the stairs. He smiled nastily at me, and I cast my eyes around. I did this instinctively, whenever I found myself alone with that look on Henry’s face. In case help was at hand. My heart pounded in my chest.
“Is it time to find Beth yet?” I whispered at last.
“No. Not yet. I’ll tell you when,” he said. “Come on, then, come with me.” He used his fake-nice voice, a high pitch that he also used to trick the Labradors. He offered me his hand and I took it unwillingly. We went into the study; he put the TV on.
“Is it time now?” I asked again. Something was wrong. I made for the door but he put out his leg, blocked me.
“Not yet! I told you-you can’t go and look until I say it’s time.”
I waited. I was miserable. I didn’t watch what was on the TV. I looked at Henry, at the door, back again. What’s time, when you’re five years old? I have no idea how long I was made to wait. It must have been over an hour, and it felt like an eternity. When the door creaked open, I ran to it. My father came in, asked where Beth was. He studied my anxious face and asked again. Henry shrugged. Dad and I went all over the house, calling. On the top floor corridor we heard her-banging, and faint sounds of distress. The final set of stairs, up to the attic, had a cupboard underneath, an iron key in the lock. Dad turned it, lifted the latch and Beth tumbled out, her face pale and streaked with dirt and tears.
“What on earth?” Dad said, gathering her up. She was breathing so hard that her own sobs half choked her, and her eyes stared out in a way that frightened me. It was as if she had closed herself off from me, from the world. Fear had made her hide inside her own head. The cupboard was cramped and cobwebby, and the light switch was on the outside. Henry had turned it off and turned the key in the lock while I kept my eyes closed and assumed he was counting. Left her alone in the dark with the spiders and no room to turn around. I knew all this, I told my dad, and he demanded the truth from Henry. Beth stood behind him, unnaturally quiet. There were pale patches of dust on her knees, grazes on the heels of her hands; something had caught a lock of her hair, pulled it out of her Alice band in a sagging loop.
“It was nothing to do with me. I’ve been down here all the time. We got bored of looking for her,” Henry shrugged, swinging his legs to and fro with excitement although he managed to keep his face straight. Beth had stopped crying. She was looking at Henry with a bright hatred that shocked me.
It’s mid-afternoon and I am upstairs, wedged onto the window sill in my bedroom. My breath has steamed up the glass, obscured the view, but I am reading so it doesn’t matter. More of Meredith’s letters to Caroline. I am surprised that Meredith kept them all-that she stowed them away with Caroline’s things, as a record of their troubled relationship. Letters belong to the recipient, I know, but it would have been easy, and understandable, for her to destroy them after her mother died. But perhaps she wanted them for exactly what they recorded. The fact that she tried to have another life, even if she failed.
Dear Mother,
Thank you for the card you sent. I can only say that I am as well as can be expected. I have my hands very full with Laura, who has recently started walking and has consequently taken to running rings around me-it is nigh on impossible to keep her out of mischief. Her particular passion this week is for mud and worms. I have an excellent nanny, a local girl called Doreen, who has a calming influence on the child-and on me, I must say. Nothing seems to fluster her, and in these troubled days, that is a virtue indeed. I have given your invitation to return to live with you at Storton Manor a great deal of thought, but for the time being I intend to remain in my own home. I have the support of my neighbors, who have proved themselves most sympathetic in my hour of need. Many of the local women have sons and husbands away fighting, and each time the much dreaded telegram arrives a contingent is dispatched to make sure that there is food in the house, and the children clothed, and the wife or mother still breathing. I dare say you would not approve of the social classes mingling in this way, but I was greatly moved to receive just such a visit myself when word of Charles’ death got about. I went to London last Friday, to collect what belongings of his remained at his club and offices. You would not believe the scenes of devastation I witnessed there. It was enough to chill the very heart of me.