The Haunting of Harriet (20 page)

“So they think I’m losing it, do they? Well, there is nothing wrong with my mind. This is my land, Beckmans land, and no one is going to carve it up like a Christmas goose. I won’t sit back and watch them wreck the place. Over my dead body! I never signed anything over to anyone. Huh, as if I would, barmy or not!” She snorted with indignation and flounced off to the sanctuary of her room. Soon the sound of Harriet singing at the top of her remarkable voice resounded through the much relieved house.

The property had indeed been sold, all legally overseen by Harriet’s solicitors. For the time being work was being done only on the surrounding land. Each morning at some ungodly hour, Harriet was woken by the din of earth-moving equipment knocking down walls and causing general havoc. Bulldozers crashed through regardless of the destruction left in their wake and teams of rowdy men with their jeans hanging down below the point of decency dug, hacked and laboured, creating a mud-bath out of Eden.

At first Harriet hid away in wilful ignorance of what was happening to her beloved home. Then one night she retaliated. Armed with a pair of stout wire-cutters she attacked the invidious chain-link and discovered the sweet taste of revenge. Each night she ran her one-woman vigilante army to halt their progress. She became expert in sabotage, destroying engines, slashing tyres and siphoning diesel, generally impeding the building work. Deep down she knew she was no more than an irritant, a flea on the back of the animal she wanted to destroy; but after a few months it became a game that Harriet enjoyed playing. The original reason for the war was forgotten and she became immersed in the battle to outwit her main protagonists. Tweedledum and Tweedledee arrived regularly to survey and assess the damage. Harriet derived great satisfaction from witnessing their frustration and distress. They assumed it was down to local vandalism, which it was. The police quickly lost interest, leaving Harriet free to continue her wrecking game unimpeded. It was when matters became personal with the tyres of his Jaguar being slashed that Tweedledum opted not to appear on site in person, which rather took the fun out of it for Harriet.

Despite nearly a year of intensive battle, the development was completed. All was quiet once more. The coach house and the orchards had given way to six detached mock-Georgian houses, and new families moved in, unaware of what had vanished to make way for them. Harriet adjusted remarkably well and quickly. She never left by the front door these days, so the only difference was that her daily tour of the garden was considerably shorter. The perimeter shrubbery had gone, devoured by the new gardens next door. Now as a survival technique she saw only what she chose to see. In her mind’s eye Tom’s handiwork was all around. She did not notice the grass was knee-high and the terrace covered in moss and weed. The nut tree had grown enormous and saplings grew unchallenged where the squirrels had planted their hoard. All the paths had vanished, covered by thick green moss and grass and the wisteria occupied half of the side terrace and much of the upstairs rooms. The red brick wall with its arch was covered in summer with scented roses. She did not see the withered vines in the greenhouses because to her they were full of the ripeness of summer and the hives still buzzed with activity and sweetness. The lawn swept down to the lake in straight stripes of light and dark and the ruin of the burnt out boathouse stared back complete across the water.

Then a simple knock on the door changed everything. Her reason for clinging on so tenaciously made sense. The entry of the Jessops had transformed Harriet’s life, propelling her into the twenty-first century, where she had been living life in their slipstream ever since. It had never been so vibrant, so full of shared joy. So why, even now at the age of seventy-five, was she still asking the same questions? If fate had not finished with her, it had better get a move on. She was not getting any younger. She laughed at the thought of being asked to question her own existence. Was she really being told she had not lived all those years of emptiness? All that battling to protect Beckmans from destruction, was that a figment of her imagination? How dare anyone suggest such a thing? According to Mel she had ceased to exist thirty-five years ago. Harriet threw back her head and laughed. Life was many things but it was real, of that she was certain. Harriet took herself off to the Tudor room. It had been a funny old day, a busy day full of memories and surprises. Tomorrow was Liz’s birthday and work would start on the boathouse. “Ah, well, life goes on,” she said out loud and guffawed as she realized the irony of her remark.

L
iz had gone up to bed oblivious of the drama unfolding downstairs. She fell into a delicious, dreamless sleep the moment her head hit the pillow. Being woken by hefty twins landing on her stomach a few hours later did not stop her from feeling fully refreshed and raring to go. Questions that had plagued her for years no longer hovered around her brain nagging her for answers. She knew where she was going and her journey was charged with a sense of purpose. It was the same feeling she had felt on the night of the millennium, only this time it came with an urgency that had been absent then. This was her time. She was on the brink of something new. The twins were nearly ten now and the main house was complete. The garden was looking good and was at last under control. Today work was about to start on the boathouse and hopefully by the end of the summer it would be finished. That just left the Fourth Room, which no longer confused her. It was her room now, it had accepted her at last and she would do it proud.

Edward cooked a birthday breakfast comprising mainly toast, as all the bacon and eggs had been scoffed the night before. Next on the agenda was the ceremonial opening of the presents. Jenny was particularly excited about hers, but insisted it be opened last. James gave his mother a sable paintbrush as usual and The Pote half-presented her with a bone, which he immediately snatched back. There were theatre tickets from Edward and a book on famous gardens from Mel. At last it was Jenny’s turn. She had been hunting for months for a suitable and affordable gift. Her diligence had paid off: in the back of an antique-cum-junk shop she had found exactly what she wanted. Liz held the flat oblong package in front of her. She shook it, sniffed at it and prodded it, before carefully unwrapping it.

“The lady in the shop said she had some others that were much better and older. One was dated 1670, imagine. But it was a bit scruffy and very expensive. Anyway, I liked this one best. It’s that song you’re always humming so I knew you’d like it. And it was a lot cheaper. Look, it’s signed 1939 so it’s still an antique.” Jenny leant over the arm of Liz’s chair, waiting for her mother to open her present. Liz tore at the wrapping. Inside the purple paper was a framed picture. Liz took it to the light for a closer look. The simple wooden frame held a small sample of stitchwork. The letters of the alphabet, both upper and lower case, had been embroidered around the text “Happy little bluebirds” and it was illustrated with an enormous rainbow whose abundant colours were upside-down and over which small, blue-coloured birds were flitting. It was not very accomplished but had enormous charm and a quirky quality that made it unique. Liz loved it immediately. “It’s perfect, Jenny, and I know exactly where it should live.”

“But that’s not the best bit, Mummy. Take the back off. You’ll never believe it!” Jenny dashed forward to help speed things up.

Tucked between the backing card and the sampler was a small black-and-white snapshot of a shy-looking man and a little girl. The child’s smile lit up the picture. Her cheeky beaming face, surrounded by a halo of wild thick hair, exuded utter happiness as it grinned from ear to ear and peered into the upturned face of the man on whose shoulders she was perched. The age difference implied that it was grandfather and granddaughter, but something told Liz it was a father and his child. Its tatty crumpled state left no doubt that this was a much loved image, one that had been visited time and time again. As she replaced the treasure she remembered a small picture of herself and her own father taken at Brighton. They were not dissimilar.

“Goodness, Jenny, has this been hidden there all this time? Do you think this is the little girl who embroidered it? Look, there’s something written on the back: ‘To my little nightingale’. She must have sung this to him. Oh, Jenny. You are so clever to have found it.”

“You haven’t spotted it yet, have you?” Jenny’s impatience was laced with incredulity.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?” her mother asked.

“You’ll have to find it yourself.” Jenny smiled that infuriating crooked smile of hers. “It’s truly amazing!” She was bouncing up and down, beside herself with excitement.

Liz scoured the photo but all she could see was a dog-eared picture of a man and a child. The two figures were obviously in a garden. The man held the child high on his shoulders and they were laughing, looking into each other’s eyes, oblivious to anything around them. The photo was hardly bigger than an inch and a half by two. Liz held it close and peered hard. This time she looked beyond the main subject. The figures took up most of the shot, but behind them one could just see a stretch of immaculately striped lawn sweeping down to some water. On the far side of the water was a building. It was tiny, but there was no mistaking it. It was the boathouse.

Everybody agreed it was an incredible find. Liz was overjoyed. Since last night she felt as though all the cares and doubts she had been harbouring had been blown away. Now this amazing coincidence confirmed her belief that everything was about to fall into place. It was such a stroke of luck. Jenny could have picked up any old sampler from any old shop, but to find this particular one was a miracle. Clutching her treasure, Liz marched across the hall to the Fourth Room. Pushing a pile of junk to one side she cleared a space in front of the inglenook then with great care she hung her precious sampler where it belonged; on the bird-shaped hook. This was just the beginning. While work was going on outside she would clear this room of its clutter and transform it into a quiet sanctuary; a place in which to dream.

Harriet slipped her arm around Jenny. “Thank you, my darling. How can I repay you?”

“You can teach me to sing!” was the child’s reply. Harriet had two pupils and two friends. At last her destiny had a nucleus: Jenny was taking centre-stage.

Until now, Jenny had been content to explore and discover the physical world, a world filled with doing. The earth, the sky, everything around her, not to mention her own body, this had been more than enough to contend with. Now in her tenth year her receptive mind was developing as rapidly and noticeably as her physical self. Her young brain was ripe to explore abstract thoughts; to perform mental gymnastics, which were proving equally exciting as running, climbing or swimming. At school everything was labelled and divided into boxes, which frustrated her. Maths, History, Geography, Science, they were all treated as separate subjects, yet they had to be connected if her world was to make any sense.

One night she lay awake with the thread of an alarming dilemma unravelling in her head. She was trying to imagine what it would be like to have been born without a birthday. She imagined being told she would have to wait to be born because there was no time slot for her. With this conundrum tying her brain in knots she burst into her parents’ room.

“If this is now, when does it become then?” she asked. Liz pretended she was still asleep. Once Jenny got hold of an abstract idea she worried at it like The Pote with a bone.

“Not now, darling, please. It’s the middle of the night. Come back in the morning.”

“But that will be the future and I need to know now, while it is still now. Right now, before it’s the past.” She was shaking her mother in an attempt to wake her.

“Go to sleep, kid.” Edward’s foot pushed at her from beneath the duvet. “Go! Now! Or you won’t have a future.” He turned over and tried to ignore her.

“So what’s the difference between the past and the future? Do they swap places if you turn around?” Jenny waited. She was standing on the bed now, looming over her father, with her hands placed firmly on her hips. “Daddy, I really need to know. Are they fixed like West and East? Is there a magnetic time pole?” She was tugging at the duvet now.