The Winter Children (28 page)

She walks quickly to the door they left by, and finds herself in another of the dark linking passageways. ‘Dan? Cheska? Where are you?’

Standing stock-still, her little candle flame flickering valiantly and illuminating the patch where she is, Olivia strains to hear voices but there’s nothing. A rush of fear climbs up
inside her but she quickly controls it. They are playing a joke on her. She mustn’t panic; they’re watching and laughing from somewhere nearby. And they can’t have gone far.
They agreed to stay on the ground floor after all.

If I turn around and walk back the way we came, I’ll be at the great hall and that means I can easily find my way home.

Annoyance starts up inside her.

This is just like Dan when he gets together with Jimmy and Stevie. He would never do this to me if it weren’t for them. They’re such a bad influence on him.

‘All right,’ she says loudly, certain they are hiding somewhere close. ‘Very funny! You’re completely spooking me out, if that’s what you want! Could you come
out, please? I don’t much like being on my own here in the dark.’

She waits, listening out for a stifled giggle or a whisper, but there’s nothing. A blanket of complete silence seems to have fallen over the house. She feels uneasy, pressed in by the
dark. Where have they gone? Why can’t she hear so much as the tap of a shoe on stone, or the distant boom of Jimmy’s voice? They are definitely hiding.

‘I don’t think this is very friendly at all!’ she says, her voice trembling a little. ‘I’m feeling a bit picked on. Please come out.’

Again she waits and still there’s nothing. She is aware of the vastness of the house around her, empty room after empty room, and the cosy cottage with the sleeping children and the warm
kitchen seems very far away. Her imagination supplies a sudden ghastly image: a ghoul, a demon, approaching her, its mouth stretched in a silent scream. It’s a ridiculous bit of fantasy,
she knows that, but even so, she turns to hurry back the way she came, intending to run through the long stretch of rooms all the way back, when she hears a noise. Ahead of her, down the passageway, there’s a distinct thump and the sound of footsteps.

There they are!

Relief rushes through her and she sets off in pursuit, hurrying forward into the darkness, listening as hard as she can for more giveaway sounds of where the others are. When she reaches the
end of the passageway, there’s another door that stands open and leads into another passageway, this one running across. She can turn left or right. ‘I’m coming!’ she calls.
‘Where are you?’

Listening hard, she thinks she hears a sound to her left, and turns down that way. The candle flame flickers and drags in the draught as she strides down the corridor in a little slice of light,
the dark pressing close all around her.

Where are they?
Panic is rolling around her stomach, making the ends of her fingers prickle and her heart race.
This is horrible, horrible. How could they do this to me?
She longs
for their familiar presence, the safety in numbers. She’s always considered herself a rational person, but she can’t help the power of her imagination, and the nasty pictures it’s
feeding in her mind, the legacy of fairy stories, ghostly tales, and horror films.

Why didn’t I turn around when I had the chance?
She suddenly sees how stupid it was to go on, and turn off the path she knew.
Where am I?
She has a horrible feeling that if
she goes back the way she came, she might miss the doorway back into the front of the house. A dry sob of fear starts in her throat and she forces herself to be calm. She is still moving forward,
still straining for the sound of the others, unable to believe that they really have deserted her like this, or that they are not looking for her.

Another thump, louder this time.

She gasps and stares ahead into the darkness as far as her candle will let her. Now she doesn’t know whether to continue on or turn back. Then footsteps echo in the darkness ahead.

‘There you are!’ she cries, relief flowing over her. ‘This is the most horrible practical joke anyone has ever played on me, I hope you know that!’ Her voice sounds
strong in the silence, and she tries to make it normalise the situation. ‘Some thanks for cooking your dinner, I must say!’

There’s no answer. She starts to walk briskly as though by acting as if she isn’t frightened, she won’t be. But soon, she slows. There is silence again. The footsteps have
vanished.

Olivia stands still again, the nightmarish feeling returning. For a moment she was able to persuade herself everything was all right, but here she is, still stuck in the horror of being alone at
night in a vast and empty house, abandoned by Dan and the others. She looks about, sensing that the house around her has changed: there are no more elaborate panels or carved window shutters. The
walls are covered in peeling paint and a couple of large institutional pipes travel along it. The floor is tiled, she realises. Then she sees a faint, glimmering light to her right, the first she
has seen that isn’t her own candlelight. She is looking through a door. It’s closed but there is a glass pane in it and the light comes from further in. Half unthinking, she pushes at
the door and it opens stiffly. She advances slowly, her candle flame now guttering wildly in the breeze that rushes up the corridor.

Where is that light coming from?

The corridor echoes with her footsteps as she walks on the tiled floor, drawn irresistibly forward by the light. A chamber lies ahead of her, she can see that now, and at the top of it are
narrow windows. It’s from them that the light is coming. The moon must be out, and providing the silvery light that floats in through the windows. Now she is standing at the entrance of the
huge room, trying to make out what is in its heart of blackness. She starts to move forward, confused by what she can see, as the room seems to be in layers of some kind, with another wall towards
the back of it but sunk down below the floor level. She frowns.

What is it? What’s in there?

‘You!’

The booming shout resounds off the walls and makes her shriek, and in her fright, she drops the candle, which hits the floor and fizzles out at once. Olivia spins round to see a figure holding a
torch, the dazzling beam trained straight at her, blinding her so that she cannot see who it is.

It shouts, ‘What the blazes are you doing here?’

She screws up her eyes against the glare. ‘Please, I can’t see!’ Fear and confusion whirl through her, but she also knows, at least, that it’s no ghoul beaming a torch in
her face and shouting. It’s not the spirit world way.

The light is dipped. She blinks hard to regain her vision and as she does, the figure moves towards her and resolves itself. She knows it.

‘William,’ she says with relief. ‘Thank God.’

‘What are you doing here?’ the old man demands. ‘It’s the middle of the bloody night. You’re all wandering around like a bunch of loonies. I thought there were
vandals in the house. I sent them all back to the cottage where they belong.’ He mutters to himself. ‘Half drunk, with a load of candles in my house. Fools.’ He looks up at Olivia
again, his face craggy in the shadows produced by the torchlight. ‘They were in a tizz about losing you. I said I’d find you. How did you get yourself here?’

Olivia glances around the room, now less frightening than it appeared when she was alone. ‘What is this place? What’s in the middle?’

‘This is the pool room,’ William says roughly. ‘It’s empty now. It should be left as it is. Don’t come here, do you understand? Don’t let the kiddies come
here. Stay away, for God’s sake. It’s not safe.’ He swings the torch beam back to illuminate the way out. ‘Now come on. Let’s get you home.’

Francesca feels that quite enough fuss has been made over Olivia. It’s a damp squib end to the evening when they all have to sit waiting in the kitchen while William goes to find her, Dan
in an agony of guilt and Jimmy apologising for a prank gone wrong.

‘It was only going to be for a minute,’ he says, suddenly sobered. ‘I wasn’t to know she was going to go haring off.’

Dan can’t sit down; he’s pacing around. Katy is soothing everyone, putting on the kettle for restorative cups of tea while Stevie goes outside for another cigarette, and Alyssa and
Dave get their things together. Their cab is waiting in the driveway, the engine having already been idling for twenty minutes.

Francesca sits at the kitchen table and watches, disappointed that the dinner has ended this way. The impact of her house has been lost. They won’t remember the grandeur and the
wonderful atmospheric effect of candlelight on old stone. They’ll recall it as a place where Olivia got lost, and feel sheepish about their part in it. ‘Please all come back another time,’ she says loudly. ‘You ought to see it in the daytime to get the full effect.’

‘We’d love to,’ Alyssa says, well wrapped up in her black coat. She leans down to kiss Francesca’s cheek. ‘Amazing house. See you very soon, darling. Let’s
meet in London when you’re back there, yes?’

‘Of course.’ She accepts Alyssa’s kiss, then Dave’s. Then they move to Dan to ask him to apologise to Olivia for not waiting, and to give her their love. They leave in a
flurry of goodbyes while Katy brings over mugs of tea, putting one down in front of Jimmy with a look of fond scolding.

‘Poor old Olivia,’ she says, sitting down. ‘I think you’ve all been very mean.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Katy,’ Francesca says coldly. ‘No one meant for her to get lost. She should have come back the same way instead of disappearing off into a place she
has absolutely no knowledge of.’

Katy raises her eyebrows but stays good-humoured as she lifts her mug to her lips and blows gently across the surface of her tea. ‘All the same,’ she murmurs, ‘I’m glad
it wasn’t me.’

The door opens and Stevie comes back in, a smile on his broad face. ‘Look who I’ve found,’ he says, and behind him is Olivia. She is a little breathless but smiling, with only
a faint air of reproach. Francesca feels a surge of irritation: here she is, the heroine again. Such a wonderful meal, such a lovely cottage, such beautiful children.

But this is my house. I decorated this cottage, it’s all my work. And those are my children!

She feels something inside herself harden, something that up until now has remained pliable, flexible and feeling. Now she will stop trying. It’s almost a relief.

I’ve had enough of her taking my life.

As the others crowd around Olivia, exclaiming, showering her in apologies and asking how she is, Francesca stays back, still sitting at the table and observing. Olivia has all the attention as
usual, revelling in it, pretending to be modest.

‘Thank goodness for William,’ she is saying. ‘I was about to walk head first into an empty swimming pool, like an idiot!’

‘Where is he?’ Dan asks. ‘I want to thank him.’

Oh, for crying out loud, don’t bring that old man into the house. I don’t want to see him.
Francesca is the only one who knows the extent of the fight to evict William from
the estate, and the way he’s steadfastly refused to go, with the power of Preserving England behind him. They seem to think he has some right to be here, because of the service he gave the
house in the years when it stood empty. They are of the opinion that he should continue working if he wants to, even though he’s in his seventies at least.

‘He’s just outside,’ Olivia says. But when they look outside the back door, he has gone.

‘What was he doing wandering around at this time of night?’ Francesca says with a laugh. ‘He’s like an old ghost himself.’

‘He thought someone was in the house without permission.’

‘They were,’ says Francesca. ‘Him!’ She laughs again and there is a tiny silence among the others. Then Katy puts a cup of tea into Olivia’s hand.

‘Well, we’re all jolly glad he was. And now you’re back safe and sound, so that’s all right. Alyssa and Dave had to go – they said thank you and lots of love – and now we have to get on our way too. It’s almost one o’clock in the morning. The hotel will be wondering if we’re ever
coming back.’

‘Yes,’ Dan says. ‘I think we could all do with turning in. Children don’t care what time you went to bed. They always want to get up at the same time, no matter
what.’

Francesca looks over at him, but he is attentive to Olivia and, she suspects, is determined not to catch her eye. He’s been giving her the cold shoulder ever since she got here. Perhaps he
thinks she hasn’t noticed, but she has. He doesn’t flash that smile at her, or ask her opinion on things, or engage in the old banter. He’s making it plain that if she
doesn’t behave, he’ll withdraw his affection from her.

Fine. Have it your way. But it’s a dangerous game, Dan. You’ve given me too much power to piss me off. We’ll see what will happen . . .

Francesca sleeps badly, tossing and waking before sinking back into sleep, sometimes too hot and at others too cold. It’s probably the whiskey, she thinks, when she is wide awake at six
thirty. She hardly ever drinks spirits and mixing it with wine was not a good idea.

She lies in bed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about Olivia. She knows that nothing has so far been said about when she, Francesca, might be leaving. It’s a delicate subject, as this is her house after all.

But they’ll be within their rights to ask soon. And I can’t keep staying on for no reason.

The thought of leaving the children fills her with dread. They have become the twin suns of her existence, almost as though her whole world revolves around them. She thinks of them constantly
from the time she wakes until after they are in bed, and she is sure that they are responding to her differently. Something inside them recognises their link to her, she is sure of it. Only
yesterday Stan came up crooning at her, ‘Teska, Teska,’ and held up his arms for a lift and a cuddle.

Children just don’t do that with virtual strangers. They can feel the connection. They know it. It’s inevitable.