2008 - Recipes for Cherubs (6 page)

The last thing she’d eaten had been half a slice of toast and after that she couldn’t remember. Of course, she should have eaten the picnic lunch Sister Matilde had given her but she’d dumped that on the train.

The train that had brought her here to Kilvenny. Kilvenny! She opened her eyes, remembering with a shudder that she had spent the night in an attic bedroom in Shrimp’s Hotel.

Early sunlight was streaming through the sash window, a myriad of dust motes swirling in the dank air, as if she were in the middle of a hazy dream. It wasn’t a dream, though, and downstairs that horrible, dirty-faced Aunt Ella would be prowling around amid the cobweb curtains and dead mice. Hastily she pushed back the musty counterpane, got unsteadily to her feet and looked down at herself in dismay. She had slept in her school uniform and it was crumpled and smelt of sweat. Her legs were a mess, criss-crossed with bloody scratches from when she’d fallen from the swing, her white cotton ankle socks stretched out of shape and streaked with grime.

The room was a tip. A pile of mildewed clothes lay abandoned in a heap on the floor next to the bed, and a discarded shoe, nibbled by mice, lay in the far corner.

She needed to get out of this filthy hole as quickly as she could before she caught something. There would be all sorts of germs lurking in a place like this. Mange, smallpox, TB or even diphtheria. She must wash straight away; she couldn’t possibly go out in the daylight looking like the wreck of the
Hesperus
. Sister Lucy said that cleanliness was next to godliness.

There was a small sink with a cracked mirror above it and she looked at her face, shocked at the sight. Her cheeks were dirt-streaked, her eyes puffy and ringed with bluish smudges of exhaustion and dried tears. She turned on the tap with difficulty, listened in dismay as water gurgled through the pipes and set up a terrible clanking. Without warning rusty water gushed into the sink, spattering her clothes, while the pipes shuddered and squealed in protest. She struggled to turn the tap off, opened her suitcase and looked at all the new clothes her mother had sent. She lifted up an orange T-shirt and a matching pair of shorts. She couldn’t possibly wear shorts; her legs were still far too fat.

She found a fancy satin frock and stuffed it back into the suitcase angrily. Didn’t her mother know she hated frocks? She tossed a pink gingham brassiere and suspender belt back into the case with disgust. She didn’t need any of those ridiculous things. That was the best thing about not eating; you could turn back the clock of growing up and go back to being a child. No wobbling bosoms to be kept under control; she even had to hide the ration of sanitary towels that Sister Rose handed out every month, because she didn’t need them now.

She chose a skirt which came down past her knees, a baggy T-shirt and a pair of plimsolls, pulled a brush through her hair with difficulty, repacked her case and closed it.

Opening the bedroom door, she listened for movement downstairs. All was quiet. Hopefully Aunt Ella was still asleep down in the stinky kitchen, hanging from a hook in the ceiling by her feet like a bat.

Catrin made her way along the gloomy corridor, pushing open doors as she went and looking in. All the rooms on the attic floor looked as if they had been servants’ rooms; they were simply furnished and painted cream, although the walls were stained with green mould and the curtains hung in shreds at the grimy windows.

She went silently down the narrow staircase, careful where she put her feet so as not to make a noise. On the next floor down there was a wide corridor with lots of rooms opening off on either side, and she supposed these must have been the bedrooms where the guests had stayed. She opened a door and glanced inside. There was a large double bed with a moth-eaten counterpane, the grubby sheets turned back ready for someone to climb into bed. There was a chest of drawers, a huge wardrobe and a small writing desk. By the pretty tiled fireplace there was a seating area with two high-backed chairs with faded pink velvet upholstery, and a low table. On the windowsill there was an oil lamp, and a trapped moth fluttered weakly against the glass bowl in an attempt to escape.

It must have been a lovely room once, when the linen was clean and the furniture polished, but now it gave her the shivers. She went out into the corridor and walked to the far end, where a stained-glass window let in the light, dispelling some of the gloominess.

To her left there was a narrow corridor partly shielded by a threadbare green chenille curtain. A sign on the wall said
PRIVATE.

Catrin pulled back the curtain gingerly and sidestepped the resulting fall of dust. There were four doors leading off the passage and a servants’ staircase at the far end. She looked into three of the rooms, long-neglected bedrooms, dust-filled and dingy like all the others.

The last room she went into was quite unlike the others. It was a bedroom-cum-sitting-room, spotlessly clean, with highly polished furniture and a strong smell of beeswax. The bed linen was freshly starched and the sheets turned neatly back. Carefully ironed anti-Macassars had been draped over the backs of the chintz chairs, and a vase of wild flowers stood on a side table next to an open book.

The fireplace was laid with screwed-up paper and kindling, and logs were piled in a wicker basket. It was as though someone might appear at any moment, set a light to the fire and settle down to read. There were framed prints on the wall, mainly scenes from around Kilvenny in the olden days. There was an oil painting of a woman in a startling blue dress. She had the loveliest of faces, with thick dark hair swept up into a glossy coil and a blue-fringed bejewelled scarf tied round her forehead. Catrin ran her finger gently across the woman’s cheek, brushed the teardrop that trailed from her eye. It was such a realistic teardrop that she could imagine it slithering down the woman’s cheek and dripping on to her blue bodice.

There was a pretty painted clock and an oval mirror with a surround made from seashells, and three photographs lined up on top of a bookshelf. One was of two small girls outside the Fisherman’s Snug, their faces almost completely hidden by floppy sunhats. Another was of two very smart young men wearing army uniforms. A third photograph was facing the wall. Catrin turned it round. It was of her mother when she was younger, standing outside the front door of the hotel, posing for the camera. Catrin glared at it. How smug her mother looked. She had to admit that she was very photogenic even back then; everyone said that she took a marvellous photograph. And didn’t she just love pouting and preening for the camera? As soon as anyone brandished a camera she was ready. If you opened the refrigerator door and the light came on, Kizzy would strike a pose. Catrin was the opposite. She hated having her photograph taken because she never managed to smile at the right moment and usually looked as if she was grimacing.

Her mother must have been about eighteen when the photo was taken. She was wearing a tight-fitting dress with a pretty scalloped hemline just below her knees. She looked so happy, so full of herself, like a Hollywood starlet.

Catrin replaced the photograph and allowed herself a sour smile. Aunt Ella didn’t think her mother was wonderful, though, did she? At least there was one other person in the world who didn’t think Kizzy Grieve was the bloody bee’s knees.

She crossed to the window and looked down into the overgrown gardens of the hotel. There was a weed-clogged tennis court with a sagging net, and beyond that a half-empty swimming pool covered in a thick lid of slime.

It must have been beautiful here once. She imagined the sound of a tennis ball being hit, the splash of water and a shriek of delight as someone jumped into the pool. Why couldn’t she have come when it was like that, instead of when it was all ruined and horrid?

A creaking made her spin round. The door of an enormous wardrobe door was opening slowly, the clothes hangers rattling ominously, and an overpowering stink of mothballs wafted around her. She shrank back against the wall. What if it was the ghost of dead Aunt Alice clambering out of the wardrobe to see who was sniffing about? She was rigid with fear and sure she could hear someone or something breathing heavily inside the wardrobe. Mother of God. What should she do? Sister Lucy said one must always keep calm in a crisis, yet Sister Lucy always flapped and grew flustered at the smallest upset.

She pressed her lips together to hold back a rising screech, eased herself slowly past the open wardrobe door. She glanced quickly inside but all she could see was a pile of old clothes moving in the draught.

A clicking and a sudden squawk made her heart leap out from behind her ribs and she screamed fit to bust.

All night Ella had been restless, drifting in and out of a fitful sleep. She had dreamt that Alice had come back to Shrimp’s. She had seen her walking briskly across the sunlit, manicured lawns, calling out as she hurried towards the hotel.

Ella had run out of the house towards her, but Alice walked straight past her and marched into the house calling a name that Ella couldn’t make out.

She had followed Alice up the stairs and along the corridor calling to her, but Alice merely glanced back once and Ella had seen the look of pure joy on her sister’s face. Ella raced behind her, opened the door to Alice’s room, stepped inside and stood transfixed. Alice was standing in front of the painting of
Woman and Child
, staring at it fixedly. As Ella put out her hand to touch Alice she had, as if by magic, climbed into the painting and disappeared. Ella had stared in disbelief. It was a conjuring trick. There was no sign of Alice, just the woman in the old painting by that Italian artist her father had so loved. She crept up to the painting and saw with a shock that the woman’s face had changed into Alice’s face. Alice looked out at Ella with that guileless expression of hers and then, as she opened her lips to speak, her face had blurred and the painting had returned to its former state.

Ella came to with a start. At first she thought the bells of Kilvenny church were ringing, but then she realised one of the bells was jangling noisily in the pantry. It was probably an impatient guest, maybe wanting a tea tray or a hot-water bottle. She got to her feet, pushed back her tangled hair, stumbled into the pantry and looked up at the row of bells.

Her hand flew to her neck. The bell was being rung in Alice’s room. Maybe Alice had come back after all.

Catrin threw back her head and laughed, more with relief than mirth. The doors on the cuckoo clock flew open one last time and the bird gave a strangled ‘Cuckoo.’

God almighty. That bloody bird had frightened her to death. She inched towards the wardrobe, shoved the door shut and stepped out into the corridor, where she came face to face with her aunt. Catrin flinched. Ella was a far more frightening sight than a silly old cuckoo and a rickety wardrobe. Ella looked at Catrin through narrowed eyes, her face white and pinched beneath the layers of grime, eyes bright with madness, hair billowing out like Strewelpeter’s.

Ella pushed roughly into the room then looked back accusingly at Catrin, who was watching her worriedly.

“I thought I heard the bell ringing, thought Alice had called me,” Ella said, looking suddenly crestfallen.

“I’m sorry. That was my fault. I accidentally pushed the bell press by the window.”

“Someone up here was screaming as if a murder was being committed.”

“That was me, too. I’m sorry but I was scared when the cuckoo flew out of the clock. It gave me such a fright.”

Ella sat down heavily in one of the high-backed chairs and put her hands to her face, covering her eyes. For a moment Catrin thought that she was crying but then she stood up, shook her head and regained her composure.

“How silly of me. I was sleeping, you see, when the bell rang and I was startled. Then I heard the screaming.”

There was an uneasy silence in the room except for the ticking of the clock.

“What were you doing in here?” There was a sharp edge to Ella’s voice.

“I was on my way downstairs. I just wanted to have a peep at the place before I leave. I was trying to imagine it as it must have been in the old days, that’s all.”

“It was very lovely,” Ella said, a dreamy look coming over her face. “You should have been here when we had the summer ball. There were coloured lights strung out all along the terrace, piano music and people dancing on the lawns.”

For a moment Catrin imagined her mother waltzing in the garden, enjoying everyone’s admiring glances. How she would have loved that. Catrin would have hated it and found a quiet spot to hide in. She couldn’t bear people staring at her, especially since she’d started to grow up.

“Why did you think Alice was ringing? You said last night that she was dead.”

“Alice
is
dead. You’re too young to understand. When you’re alone so much you start hearing things, things that aren’t really there. You know, sometimes I think I can hear her walking about up here.”

Catrin eyed her warily. A floorboard moved beneath Catrin’s feet and the wardrobe door creaked ominously.

Pull yourself together, Catrin Grieve
. That’s what Sister Lucy would have said. Once you let your imagination loose, you gave in to fear. Sister Lucy was full of daft sayings.

Sister Matilde was quite the opposite. What was it she’d once said? Something about imagination being part of the human soul, a restless and unbridled longing to create worlds anew.

She’d give anything to speak to Sister Matilde now. She must ring the school as soon as possible and then get the first train back to London.

“Would you like some breakfast before you leave?” Ella asked. “I could serve you some in the dining room. There’s a very fine view from there.”

Catrin looked away in embarrassment. What was wrong with this woman? She was talking as if Catrin were a real guest and the hotel was still open. She seemed to flit between the past and the present as if she wasn’t sure where she belonged.

Catrin pressed her hand against her stomach to muffle the rumbling that the mention of food had triggered. She ought to eat something. She had to be careful that she didn’t go too long without food in case she fainted and got carted off to the doctor. It was a balance that she’d almost got the hang of now.