Property of a Lady(12)
I think one of the police searchers must have wound up the old grandfather clock while they were searching the house for the missing girl. It seems slightly whimsical of them, but you can never tell.
The clock stands in the corner, and it’s ticking wheezily to itself as I write this. It’s a florid, quite ugly, piece of Victoriana, but the ticking is rather a companionable sound.
It was at this point Nell knew she could not read Alice’s diaries here, not in this room with the clock ticking scratchily to itself, and not in this house at all.
With extreme care she folded the papers into her bag, got up from the dusty floor, and went out.
FIVE
It was several hours before she was able to read the diaries. Beth was home from school at four o’clock and wanted to do her homework before her permitted television time. At some stage in the next few years she would no doubt become recalcitrant, listening to incomprehensible music and rebelling against every kind of authority, but at the moment she was seven years old and diligently bent over a page of sums. Nell supervised the sums, agreed they were boring, but explained they could come in useful, then sat with Beth to read the allotted chapter of a book for next day’s reading class.
It was eight o’clock before Beth was finally in bed, with the array of fuzzy animals who kept her company and the curtains left slightly open.
‘So I can watch the moon go over that tree before I go to sleep,’ she explained. ‘Then I can say goodnight to the moon an’ he can say goodnight to me, then everything’s safe.’
‘You’re safe anyway,’ said Nell, wanting to hug the small figure tightly to her, but knowing Beth would shy away as she nearly always did from any physical demonstration.
Tonight though, Beth did not immediately lie down. She looked at Nell from the corners of her eyes and said, ‘I s’pose nobody can get in here? While I’m asleep?’
‘No, of course not.’ This sounded slightly worrying. Nell sat on the edge of the bed, prepared to talk about it as much as Beth wanted. ‘We’re absolutely safe. All the doors are locked.’
‘What about that, um, thing. The rhyme?’
‘What rhyme?’
‘The one about the dead man knocking on the door.’
Something cold and extremely unpleasant prickled across Nell’s skin, but she said, as lightly as she could, ‘Darling, that sounds horrid. Where did you hear that?’
‘I can’t remember. But the dead man knocks on the door an’ there’s a spell that means all the locks open, on account of it being a dead hand that’s knocking.’ Beth was huddled against the pillows, hugging her knees, not looking at Nell. In a small, scared voice, she said, ‘I thought – s’posing Dad tried to do that? I’d want him to come back, but not – um, not as a dead person knocking to come in.’
Nell thought, oh God, if he came back I wouldn’t care what he was – just half an hour with him would be enough . . .
She said, ‘Beth, darling, dead people never come back. Never. And if Dad ever did, he wouldn’t come in a scary way. I promise you he wouldn’t. What he might do is be in a really nice dream, where he’d tell you he loved you and missed you.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Beth, having considered it. ‘I think I’ll go to sleep, in case he does that tonight, shall I?’
‘That’s a really good idea. Don’t forget to say goodnight to the moon.’
‘I’ll wait until he’s over that tree,’ said Beth. ‘G’night, Mum.’
Nell left the low landing light on for Beth and went down to the sitting room. The house was a shop in the main street, with a large flat on the first and second floors. She liked it very much; she had looked at a number of different areas to find the exact right property. She needed to go on working – partly for the money, but also for her own sanity – but she also wanted to be at home when Beth finished school each day. Living over the shop solved that.
The ground floor had two deep bow windows for displays, with the shop behind it and a tiny office. Upstairs was a long L-shaped living room, part of which overlooked the main street, with a kitchen behind. The second floor had three bedrooms and a bathroom.
Nell washed up the supper things, thinking about what Beth had said. The dead man knocking on the door. That was an eerie concept, however you looked at it, and whatever your beliefs. She might have a word with Beth’s teacher tomorrow, to make sure there was no macabre local rhyme doing the rounds in the playground. Older children sometimes deliberately scared younger ones.
For now, though, she would light a fire and curl up with Alice Wilson’s diaries. It was still a delight to have an old-fashioned fire, although it was a bit of a nuisance to have to sweep out the ashes next morning. But tonight she would enjoy the crackling flames. She poured a glass of wine, curled up in the deep sofa, and reached for the yellowing pages.
Alice Wilson’s diary: Charect House, 10.30 p.m.
The old clock’s ticking quietly away to itself in the corner, and I’m not sure that it’s quite as companionable as I thought. In fact, a couple of times I’ve felt like hurling something at its smug, swollen face to shut it up. But here’s a curious thing – twenty minutes ago I approached it with the intention of stuffing my scarf into the works to stop the mechanism, but when it came to it I couldn’t. I can’t explain it – but when I bent down and unlatched the door and saw the pendulum swinging to and fro, I was seized by such a violent aversion that I couldn’t even touch it.