The Room Beyond (25 page)

‘Mrs Whitestone,’ he said with a solemn voice, elevating his long
angular body from behind the desk. ‘My deepest condolences. I really do wish
you had let me come to you.’

‘I am well aware of that, but I prefer to be out of the house as
much as possible. Keeping busy is the best thing for me.’

‘Naturally.’

Miranda fought back a tickle in her throat. It really was a very dry
room and Mr Fairclough a very dry sort of man.

‘Now that the funeral is over with I wish to discuss two urgent
matters with you,’ she continued. ‘Naturally there will be much more to
consider presently, but at the moment I have some pressing concerns that simply
can’t wait.’

‘Of course,’ replied the lawyer. ‘How can I be of assistance to you
Mrs Whitestone?’

‘Ah, funnily enough you have just unconsciously fallen across the
first point which I intended to raise with you: the issue of my name. I would
rather not be known by that surname, Whitestone, anymore you see. I never
really liked it in the first place!’

Mr Fairclough raised his eyebrows.

‘From this point on I would prefer to be known as Miranda White. It’s
not my real name, I know, but it feels comfortable. So from now on I would much
rather be referred to in all manners by my new name, Mrs White. I’m sure I can
leave the whole legalistic side of that in your capable hands.’

Mr Fairclough raised his eyebrows even further. He seemed to be
about to speak but then scratched a private note down with his pen instead.

‘The second reason for my visit concerns the house in Marguerite
Avenue. I want to get rid of it, as quickly as possible.’

‘I see. You would like me to assist you in its sale.’

‘Absolutely. There’s very little money left and I certainly don’t
need to live in anything so large and ostentatious. It also carries with it some
very painful associations.’

‘Why of course it does. Now that your husband has gone.’

A ray of sunlight fell across the desk revealing a swarm of dust
motes spiralling through the air.

‘If only it were that simple,’ she replied. ‘If only it were that simple.’

It was nearly evening by the time she made it home from Mr
Fairclough’s office. A familiar figure was standing in the doorway of number 36.
She’d already spotted him from some way off; he was wearing vivid purple today.

‘I heard about your husband,’ said Walter Balanchine with a solemn
face.

The windows of Lucinda Eden’s house were open; the sashes had been
freshly painted.

‘The house looks as good as new.’

‘Lord Hartreve has given it to his nephew’s family. We’ve done our
best with it, it was in a deplorable state.’

‘Mrs Eden went to France. I think I can tell you that now.

His eyes looked dull and sad. He nodded. ‘Yes I know, I followed you
to Dover that night. I had men tracking her across the Channel but her husband
was too canny for all of us. They kept moving on and on until we finally found
her in Leipzig.’

‘What condition was she in? Well I hope?’

He shook his head this time. ‘They found her in her grave. She’s
dead.’

‘Oh no!’

‘She died the same night as your husband. Isn’t that strange?’

Miranda crept rather than walked back into her house, her gloved
hands clutched at the base of her stomach. The hallway seemed to have got
larger for some reason and the natural daylight just wasn’t getting to it, even
when she did leave all the doorways to the rooms open.

‘I’m back now,’ she murmured into the still air and a shadow swept
across the floor, making it even darker.

‘Home again.’

Serena’s Story

I woke to a pitch-black room. The Manor was quiet, the hallways
empty. Downstairs the lamps had been turned down low and nothing was stirring
in the drawing room apart from the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. But
a bit further along, just past the dining room, the low murmur of voices wafted
towards me. A pool of light flooded out from beneath the kitchen door. I pushed
it open.

‘Hello! How’s your headache?’ asked Raphael. His eyebrows were
raised in interest but his face was unfathomable. They were all playing cards
around the hefty kitchen table.

‘Oh... much better I think. Is Beth alright?’

I directed the question at Eva, but her eyes twitched instantly away.

‘She’s fine,’ Raphael answered. ‘We put her to bed a while ago. Wild
with excitement about tomorrow of course. Hey, are you going to come with us to
Midnight Mass? Mum’s staying behind so you don’t need to babysit.’

‘Really? Alright then.’

Arabella was gazing glassy-eyed at me from across her cards, Edward
scratched his nose thoughtfully and played his hand.

It’s a funny feeling, only the mildest tingling up the spine. But
sometimes you simply know when a group of people have just been talking about
you behind your back.

Venturing out into the night we were all so bundled up in coats and
hats and scarves that it felt as if I’d been incorporated into a gang of
thieves. The black air tasted of hay and wood smoke and I stuck close to the
crowd, just in case Raphael tried to approach me again. But he didn’t seem that
interested in coming near me, pacing on ahead instead, entrenched in black. You’d
hardly even know that he was there.

The fuzzy whiteness of the lodge cottage gradually came into view. I
couldn’t keep my eyes off it. As we passed it by I brushed my hand against the
old stone walls. They left a dry chalky residue on my fingertips. The cottage
fell behind us and a moment later the church door sucked us in.

The church was almost full and our party had to split up to find
seats. There was just enough space for one person to squeeze in right at the
back and I grabbed it. The priest looked even colder than the rest of us: he
had a number of scarves wrapped tightly about him and a bright red nose which
he mopped with a yellow-looking handkerchief.

‘Good evening everyone and a very Happy Christmas to you all’, he
began, wiping his nose again solemnly. ‘Before we begin our midnight service
there is something very sad that I am compelled to draw your attention to. As
many of you know, the painting of Jesus feeding the five thousand on the east
side of the nave has been a beautiful and constant part of our St. Mary’s life
for more than three hundred years. Unfortunately, only two days ago, it went
missing.’

A unified gasp travelled across the congregation. Heads turned and
necks craned to catch glimpses of the empty patch of wall.

‘Yes, I can see the shock in your faces. It is a very sad thing. Very
sad indeed. If anyone knows anything regarding the whereabouts of this precious
object, then please do not hesitate to speak to me about it, in confidence, at
any time. Right, let us move on and remember that this is Christmas: the
glorious celebration of the birth of Christ. Please turn to page number 34 in
your hymn books for
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
.’

Standing almost right at the front of the congregation, and next to
Eva, I could just about see the back of Raphael’s head, bobbing from side to
side with the force of his singing. A sickening feeling rose up from my stomach
- I was already itching to get out and by the time the closing notes of the
hymn had faded away, I was back in the night air, on my own.

The walls of Miranda White’s house were old but solid. It was a
charming little place, almost Hansel and Gretel like, with wooden gables and
oversized chimneys. Who had this woman who once lived there been; a servant
maybe to the Hartreve family?

Scrambling around the cottage in the darkness wasn’t easy and the
back walls were heavily overgrown with nettles and brambles. But I just managed
to cling on with the tips of my fingers to the edge of one of the window frames
at the back, pulling myself across.

The windows themselves were clear and the faint glow of the church
just hinted through from the bay at the front, bathing the entire interior with
dappled light. All the internal doors must have been left open although, as far
I could make out, there didn’t seem to be any doors hanging from the frames at
all.

There was nothing else in there, just the faint outline of the
wooden carving I’d seen earlier in the day.

The sound of singing piped up again from inside the church:

‘In the bleak midwinter...’

Yes it was rather bleak, and cold. And if I stayed out any longer my
nose was in danger of turning as red as the priest’s.

‘Oh it’s just you Serena.’

Arabella was hovering in the hallway when I tried my best to slip
back in through the Manor’s vast, creaking doors. Her voice seemed flat, quite
sapped of its usual chirpiness, and for the first time I noticed that there
were cracked lines around her lips. Her lipstick had bled into them and the
rest of her make-up looked caked and old.

‘Yes, just me! Are you alright?’

‘Oh fine.’ And then she smiled sadly. ‘This house doesn’t agree with
me I think. Too many chills... and troubles.’

Her eyes looked moist, she wobbled a little as if she’d been
drinking.

‘Try and get some sleep. It’s gone midnight now and we’re supposed
to forget about troubles on Christmas Day.’

‘Really?’ She tilted her head towards me appealingly; uncannily
similar to Beth.

‘This family of mine,’ she chuckled at last and walked away as if
I’d disappeared from sight.

The next morning a large thud at the end of my bed prized me out of
sleep. It was accompanied by a:

‘Gloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooria! Hosanna in excelsis!’

‘What
are
you wearing?’

Beth looked twice her usual size, wrapped up in every dress, jumper
and cardigan from her suitcase as well as tights, leggings and a shawl of
Arabella’s which she’d tied sari-style about her on top of everything else.

‘The heating’s given up in my bedroom. I nearly went blue. Hey, it’s
Christmas! Now who does this look like? “Ding Dong Merrily on High...”’ She
sang it in a way that made her eyes bulge and her neck look as if it was trying
to eat her chin.

‘Very naughty!’ I laughed.

‘But it’s just like Uncle Rupert isn’t it? Go on, say it is.’

‘Yes, you’re very clever. But don’t do that in front of anyone else.
Shall we go and see what Father Christmas has brought for you?’

Present unwrapping was accompanied by a chaotic breakfast fry-up.

‘Attention all! Who’s for sunny side up and who’s for easy over?’
yelled Fiona from the kitchen.

‘Isn’t it
over easy
Mummy?’ Estella laughed. She was pulling
on a new furry hat from Eva. ‘Oooh lovely, I’m not taking this one off today.’

Everyone dashed about with tousled hair, kissing and thanking each
other. All apart from Arabella, who remained slouched in a chair wrapped up in
a kimono and hugging an untouched mug of coffee to her chest. She looked dazed
and hung-over.

‘A present for you,’ said Raphael, handing me a bottle shaped gift,
wrapped up in red paper.

‘Thank you. I always like receiving books at Christmas.’

‘Oh I’m glad. Just make sure you don’t get drunk when you’re reading
this one.’

He clasped his hands behind his back as if to reassure me that he
wasn’t coming any closer.

‘Sorry about the other day, I was wrong to force you like that.’

He was the young man in the black and white photograph again:
charming and rather captivating. Not the man on the motorbike, or the one who’d
chased after me the day before.

‘OK. But don’t do it again.’

‘Breakfast is served!’ announced Edward, striding in in his brand
new apron. It had a picture printed on the front of it of a turkey sunbathing
on a tropical island whilst balancing a cocktail in its wing; a present from
Beth. ‘I don’t know why you’re all laughing at me! I think I look extremely
handsome in this.’

After breakfast the morning sunshine suddenly slunk away behind foreboding
clouds. Droplets of rain began to spatter at the windows and the shadows loomed
in.

‘Damn, the heating’s failed altogether now,’ said Rupert, marching
in, hands frustratedly on hips. ‘Can’t make the bloody thing start up again.’

‘And how much will that cost us to fix?’ asked Arabella through
tight lips.

‘Arabella,’ said Edward in a voice heavy with warning.

Rupert pretended not to have heard. ‘I’ll get as many fires going as
I can,’ he said, hurrying out again.

As the morning wore on Arabella’s mood seemed to have become
infectious. Before long Robert, Eva and Raphael were also sitting despondently
in chairs, hugging layers of clothing around them.

‘What’s that?’ I asked Beth.

She was curled up under the Christmas tree, flicking through a new
book she’d been given, tongue poking out to one side.

‘It’s my Christmas present from Pasha. He’s been trying to find this
book in English for me for ages because I always liked the story so much when
he told it to me.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘
Papa Sasha and the Little Orphan Children
. It’s about this
man who helps all the poor children in Moscow. We think it’s a funny story
because he’s got the same name as Pasha, I mean Sasha. Our Sasha!’

‘Is that why you started calling him Papa Sasha, Beth, because of
this story?’

‘I think so. He liked me calling him that so much that he started
giving me presents for it. So I carried on! And then the two words got mixed
together into Pasha.’

The door suddenly opened and we all looked up as Aunt Fiona wandered
in with a worried expression on her face. ‘Looks like the oven’s on the blink
too,’ she said quietly. ‘Anyone ever barbecued a turkey before?’

For the first time in hours Arabella calmly rose to her feet, left
the room and slammed the door violently behind her. After a few moments of
stunned silence Raphael went too, followed by a more hesitant looking Edward, a
pipe clutched between his teeth.

‘Shall we go and make some sandwiches?’ Estella asked Beth. ‘I think
we could all do with a bite to eat.’

‘OK.’

They left and I disappeared quietly from the room for a wander in a
bid to keep warm.

Great Christmas. Suddenly the dried up turkey and mindless
television watching with Jessica felt heavenly. Once again I relived
yesterday’s scene with Raphael; it came back to me like a dull tooth ache. I
could still feel the imprint of his hands on me and those words that turned my
bones even colder than they already were:

You can see things Serena, things that you shouldn’t
.

I hugged myself, the air had gone stale. Where was I exactly? I’d
been wandering through the corridors, too busy to pay much attention to which
way I’d been going. The air had turned dim and even when a set of light switches
turned up they did nothing when I flicked them on. Most of the light bulbs had
blown or weren’t in the sockets at all.

A door appeared to the right. Its brass handle felt cool and sticky;
unpolished and unused. The door swung open and a brick wall stared back at me.

A faint throbbing started in my ears. I turned back from where I
came, trying to retrace my steps, but there were so many turnings and if
anything it was getting even darker. I grappled with shaking hands along the
walls for light switches. Nothing. Just darkness and damp old plaster walls, so
soft that I could actually squash dents in them with my fingers.

But then, in the distance, came the sound of voices. I shuffled in
their direction and they got louder. It was a woman talking mostly, at great
speed and almost shrieking at times. Closer still and I realized it was
Arabella. The outline of another door floated towards me. I dived for its
handle and a room appeared.

‘It’s fucking ridiculous! Those country bumpkins, screwing up the
inheritance, that idiot son of theirs making a mess of it all. Raphael, you
were born to run this place, why don’t you see that? You have the brains, the
authority, the bearing. Why are you wasting your life? How you could have shown
your face at that church last night... I just don’t know. ’

She was yelling so hard at Edward and Raphael that they hadn’t even
seen me enter. I’d come into a sort of double length drawing room that narrowed
into an arch at the middle. They were right at the other end, Arabella
thrashing her arms about with her back to me and the other two on either side
of her. I turned to go but found myself hovering instead. Just the idea of
having to return to that darkness, that dank maze...