Her Living Image (12 page)

My dear Carolyn,

Your father and I are worried sick about you. Please you must ring us up as soon as you get this to tell us if you are alright. I will be waiting by the phone. I was so upset and shocked when I
came to the hospital and you were gone I could of died. I did not sleep a wink last night for worrying about you and if you are alright.

I know you were down when in hospital but you will feel a different girl when you get home again, I know you will feel better. I’m sure it would be better for you to be in your own room in
your own home again with your Mum and Dad who love you to look after you, than amongst strangers. Please please please my darling girl come home you are breaking your mother’s heart.

Mum & Dad

Carolyn put the letter down on the arm of the chair. What had she done? For days (was it weeks? she had no idea of the date) her mother had been worrying about her. Every time
it had crept into Carolyn’s head, she had pushed it out again. Night after sleepless night, her mother had been thinking about her, while Carolyn slept deep black sleeps and tried to keep her
head empty. She began to cry, both at her own guilt, and at the awful net of her mother’s concern which was coming down over her.

“What are you playing at?” the Meg-voice in her head cried. “Living in this dirty house with weird people, with nothing to do, no plans, what are you playing at?”

She didn’t know. But her mother’s letter introduced into her head again that debilitating pressure she had felt in hospital – the feeling which was the opposite of sitting in
her watch-tower and gazing at the sky. Suddenly the door banged open, and Bryony burst in.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she shouted. “What have you done with my jam jars? It’s incredible – you didn’t even ask me. You can fucking well go and bring
them back again.”

Keeping her head lowered, Carolyn made for the door, and hurried out to the dustbin. She picked up the first box of jars and went back to the room. Bryony was sitting on the sofa glaring at
her.

“Why are you so obsessed with cleaning?” asked Bryony. “And throwing stuff away? Don’t you ever stop to think? Why d’you think those jars’re here?
Doesn’t it occur to you that they could be used again? Oh no – throw it away, never mind when the whole of the earth’s covered in rusty cars and broken glass as long as my little
house is spick and span.”

She stamped out of the room. Teeth gritted, Carolyn went and fetched the other two boxes. Then she took her letter up to her room. Bryony had effectively dried her tears.

She stayed in her room all day, going down at quarter-past six to telephone her mother. Over the exclamations and tears at the other end she mechanically repeated her message.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your letter till today. I’m sorry, I’ve been ill. I couldn’t ring you. I’m better now Mum, I’m fine, don’t worry.
I’ll come and see you on Saturday. I’ll come and see you on Saturday, Mum. I’m sorry.”

Clare came to her room later that evening.

“Why didn’t you come down to supper?”

“I had a letter from my Mum.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. I found it in the TV room. It came ages ago.”

“Oh God – oh Caro, I’m sorry – I don’t know how that could’ve happened.” She paused. “Yes I do – I guess one of the others picked it up and
it was just an unfamiliar name. I’m terribly sorry. What does she want?”

Carolyn looked down at her hands. “Me to go home.”

There was a silence.

“D’you want to?”

“Bryony does.”

“Bryony? Why?”

“Because I threw away her jam jars.”

Clare started to laugh. Then she said, “Well you could’ve asked her.”

“I didn’t know anyone was saving them. They were filthy. They must have been there for years.”

Clare nodded. “Bryony recycles them.”

“She what?”

“Keeps them to use again.”

“What for?”

“Oh – jam, or pickles, something like that.”

“Does she make jam?”

“No. Not yet.”

“She hates me.”

“No she doesn’t. She’s just – maybe she’s jealous.”

“Why?”

“Because – I don’t know. I don’t know why. What are you going to do about your Mum? You don’t want to go, do you?”

Carolyn got up and walked to the window. “I don’t know. I’m going to see her on Saturday.”

Clare didn’t speak. Carolyn turned to her. “I mean – what am I doing really? I’m not doing anything here – and it’s making her upset that I don’t go
home. Bryony hates me – I suppose I should go.”

Clare shrugged. “Up to you. But you’re not going to know what to do at home any more than you do here, except for what your Mum bullies you into. And Bryony’ll come round.
She’s very territorial. She’s angry because I didn’t consult her before you came.”

There was a silence.

“I don’t mind what you do. If you stay here, though, you eat. I’m not having an anorexic on my hands. Come down now, and feed.”

The next morning Carolyn stayed in her room and read, dipping in and out of Clare’s books and staring out of the window, feeling surprisingly content. In the evening there seemed to be a
lot of noise and excitement downstairs. Carolyn went down to tea slowly, feeling apprehensive. As she went into the kitchen it seemed to be alarmingly full of people and commotion, though when she
sat down and worked them out it was only Clare, Bryony, Sue and the kids, and a strange man in a duffle coat. Sue and Bryony were busy cooking, and the kids were chasing each other round the table,
squealing and pushing chairs in each other’s way. The table was pretty, with a red cloth and a pot of golden chrysanths in the middle, and all the places neatly laid. There were bowls of
salad, vegetables, sauces and pickles, and things she did not recognize. Carolyn noticed that there were little green tissue-wrapped parcels by all the places too. She was confused. Was it a day
she had forgotten? Not Christmas, yet – what was it? She wished she could go back upstairs.

Clare put a glass of wine into her hand and smiled at her, opening the door to show the strange man out. Carolyn sipped it awkwardly. Sue and Bryony were carrying dishes, from the oven to the
table, filling the table with steaming food. When Clare came back everyone took their places. The children started to clamour for different kinds of food. Clare was talking to Bryony about the
leaflets the printer had brought (that man?).

“Yes, you can start,” Sue told Robin. “We’ll leave the presents till after, shall we?” she appealed to Clare.

Everyone helped themselves to food. The conversations buzzed on around Carolyn: the new worker at the Refuge, Bryony’s dealings with a woman called Margaret. Carolyn kept her face down
over her plate, picking over the unfamiliar food. She recognized curry, but not the strange things which accompanied it, a pale beige paste with a dusty yet lemony flavour, and bits of cucumber
chopped up in a bitter white sauce.

In the middle of this strange house’s celebrations she felt much more of an outsider than she had done sitting on her own in her room. Sue filled her glass.

“OK? You look a bit stunned.”

“I’m – I didn’t – what’s this for?”

“Oh, I thought you knew. It’s our house birthday. It’s the date Bryony and Clare moved in, but not the same year. Bryony moved in two years ago, then I came with the kids, and
a year later to the day, Clare moved in. Bryony thought of a house birthday – to celebrate the household.”

Sue filled her mouth with houmus and chewed silently for a moment. Clare and Bryony were arguing excitedly about something.

“Caro?” Carolyn looked up at the quiet tone of Sue’s voice. “Clare said you might be thinking of leaving. If you – well, as far as I’m concerned I’d
like you to stay. If you want to –” Sue turned back to give Sylvia some unnecessary help with her food.

When everyone had finished the plates were cleared and Clare produced a big chocolate cake with two candles, sending the children wild with excitement. There was much relighting and blowing out
of candles, and finally the opening of the presents. The children were first. They each had a big rainbow packet of felt pens, and a Dinky car. They began to race each other around the edge of the
table, making loud zooming noises. Carolyn watched Bryony pick up her green parcel and shake it. She tore the tissue paper off and held up a little polythene envelope, with two silver fist-in-a-bag
ear-rings inside. Carolyn noticed that everyone was watching Bryony, and Bryony smiled and threaded the ear-rings through the holes in her ears, and they must all have a look and comment. Carolyn
shrank from opening hers. Then it was Sue’s turn, and she opened up a shimmering square of silk scarf, which had been flattened to the size of an envelope and now expanded and billowed across
the table like the sail of a brilliant ship. Clare unwrapped her package quickly, and three small screwdrivers fell out. She burst out laughing, and jumped up and hugged Bryony, who was laughing so
much that she couldn’t catch her breath and had to be thumped on the back. The noise and excitement in the room was deafening. Carolyn’s face ached with smiling, trying to join in. Now
Sylvia picked up Carolyn’s present and waved it under her nose. Carolyn took it quickly and inserted her index finger under one of the flaps of folded-over, Sellotaped paper. In her
nervousness she used too much force, and her hand, released by the tearing of paper, flung out and knocked over the wine. Everyone jumped up and ran about moving things and mopping up. Carolyn was
near to panic. Putting the parcel down and making herself breathe calmly, she unpeeled the paper and took out two flat paper envelopes – packets of seeds – and a little wooden block
with wire on it. It was a mousetrap. She turned it over in bewilderment. Clare was laughing.

“I – th–thank you,” said Carolyn, not knowing what to do.

“I’m sorry about that,” said Clare, still laughing, leaning across the table to her. “It’s just me being silly. I figured out –you know that noise in your
room – that ghost or whatever you thought it was –”

Carolyn sat rigidly still, appalled that Clare was talking about this in front of the others.

“Well it’s a mouse – it must be – you know, under the skirting board. I thought you might think it was funny, to catch your spook in a mousetrap –”

Carolyn smiled automatically and ducked her head down to study the seed packets, waiting for them all to start talking again. It was a joke, she realized, they were being kind to her;
celebrating, welcoming her. Sue’s kindness – Clare’s kindness –the meal itself, confused her, sharpening her awareness of the differences between herself and them, but
making her want to belong. She envied them the sense of occasion and togetherness that they had.

When she went up to her room that night she sat in her chair not listening for ghostly rustlings, but to the rise and fall of their conversation downstairs, punctuated with bursts of laughter.
And finally, as she went to bed, she heard them singing softly, shushing each other and giggling, as one clear voice (Sue’s, she recognized) carried on the melody.

Next morning it was Friday. One day till she went home. Outside the sky was cold and steely. The house, after Sue and Sylvia had taken Robin to school, was quiet. She could
hear the wind in the chimney. Carolyn paced her room. The sense of pressure was mounting. She should have taken Clare up on her offer of going to work with her one day. She should have done
something to keep herself distracted. Idly she picked up her packets of seeds. Wallflowers and Slipper Flower. She turned them over.

“
Calceolaria
(Slipper Flower). Half-hardy. These attractive flowers are generally grown for greenhouse decoration, but
C. Rugosa
is useful for bedding outdoors in the summer.
Sow in the greenhouse from December to February, harden off in April.”

Something in that reminded her of Clare and she stared out of the window, frowning, as she tried to think what it was. Hadn’t Clare been repairing a greenhouse when she fell? Where was it?
Carolyn leaned to the far side of each window, but there was no greenhouse to be seen. If there was one she could plant these seeds.

She put on her anorak and went down to the TV room. The french windows were damp and warped in their frames, and she had to heave with her shoulder against the door to get one open. She stepped
out on to a narrow cement path. There was a biting wind from the right which made all the dead winter stems rattle and rustle feverishly. Shivering, she pulled up her anorak zip and turned to the
left. Under and among the brambles was litter of all kinds, half bricks, broken bottles, sodden sweet papers. In front of her was a heap of bottles in the soggy remains of an old cardboard box
– presumably also being saved by Bryony. She made her way as best she could along the overgrown path, following the house wall. When she turned left around the corner of the house, a
dilapidated building came into view. It was more sheltered on this side. She walked towards it, pulling back and ducking under the prickling runners of a giant bramble that had overspread the path.
Close to, she saw that the building had a brick base, up to about three feet, and a metal framework above it. The door faced the path. She pushed it open; it was an old wooden house door drooping
on one hinge. It stuck, only a third open, wedged on broken glass on the floor. She eased herself in.

The place was wrecked. Broken glass lay scattered over the cement floor, along with pieces of brick, broken flowerpots, dead leaves. Above her the metal framework of the roof made an unbroken
tracery of lines against the grey sky, but many of the panes were cracked or broken, or entirely missing. Where had Clare fallen? She half expected to see bloodstains. Along either side of the
glasshouse at waist height ran a wide ledge, littered with broken glass, old flowerpots, a bucket and tins full of slimy green water, clods of dried earth. There were dried sticks and brown leaves
everywhere. As she stepped, slivers of glass cracked and crunched beneath her feet. Using a wide piece of wood as a scraper, she cleared the glass and rubbish from a section of ledge, and sat
down.