The Unquiet House (6 page)

When she tried the iron ring set into the door it swung open. She had an image of herself walking in on the middle of a service and rows of people turning to look at her – but there was only a shadowy vestibule with short stone benches on either side. There was a noticeboard, though, and she leaned in, propping the door open with one foot so she had light enough to read by.

There were requests for help cleaning, for cake-baking in support of a coffee morning, a thank-you to a group who’d been round to clear the gutters. In the middle was a notice:
Next Service
, it said, and there was something about the vicar being ill, and in large black letters, next Sunday’s date.

No service today, then. Emma leaned in further and tried the inner door. It would be good to look around when nobody was there; she wasn’t planning on going next Sunday. It was locked, however, and she stepped out again into the bright air, closing the outer door quietly behind her – odd how churches engendered quiet in people, even when they were empty. She turned towards the path and that was when she saw the bench.

It sat next to a path that led around the front of the church and up through the graveyard. It looked old but solid, made of stone that had darkened where the morning damp lingered. Large clear letters were carved deeply into the backrest. She went closer, and read:
O taste and see that the Lord is good. Psalm 34:8

The corner of her mouth twitched.
Taste and see
. She had a sudden image of the local children, their tongues sticking out, trying to lick the letters. She looked along the path and saw that there was another bench like this one, a short way along. It was set into a space between the gravestones and grass was growing thickly around its base. Like everything else here, it appeared to
be sinking into the earth. It looked quiet, peaceful, a good place to sit and look up at the trees and let time pass. She walked to it and read:
Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, rejoice. Philippians 4:4

There was another, further down the path, this one facing the back of the church.

Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Jeremiah 32:27

She had expected inscriptions in memory of husbands and wives, the beloved so-and-so, but this was sweet, a nice thing to do. As she walked, she remembered having to sing hymns as a child in school. ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, or her then-favourite, ‘Lord of the Dance’: something about dancing with the devil, an odd one for children perhaps, but she had liked the tune.

The next was,
Nothing shall by any means hurt you. Luke 10:19

She smiled. It was an odd collection of verses and she wondered how on earth they had been chosen. It looked as if they’d been set here at different times. She had reached the end of them, though: the path ended with a last irregular stone and then there was nothing but the graves spreading away, with trodden-down grass marking the walkways between them.

Then she saw there was one more after all.

A rougher path led between the headstones to the boundary fence, beyond which she could see the grey mass of Mire House. The last bench was close to the edge, positioned underneath an overhanging yew tree so that it was almost lost in shadow.

She stepped onto the grass and her feet sank into the soft ground at once; she would be leaving a trail of footprints as she
edged between the memorials of people long gone. She wanted to see the view from the bench. Looking behind her, she would be able to see everything, the whole graveyard and the church nestled among it all, peaceful, sleeping.

When she stood in front of the bench and read the words, she frowned. She bent, sweeping the lettering clear of dead needles that had fallen from the tree, but the letters were cut clear and tall as the rest and their meaning did not change:
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Matthew 27:46

She hugged herself, suddenly feeling colder. There was a twinge inside her – a feeling like loss – and she swallowed it down. She forced herself instead to focus on
why?
– who would have carved such a thing? Why had they chosen it? It was from the Bible – it must be, the chapter and verse were written there – but it was a hard sentiment to use in such a way.

If not for those words, this would be a lovely place to sit. The bench faced her own house; from this position she could see straight through the gaps in the trees at the edge of the garden. But to sit here, knowing those words were at her back, somehow wouldn’t be the same. She wished she could reach back through time and understand. Perhaps it was only meant in some educational way; they were the words meant to have been spoken by Christ on the cross, weren’t they? In a moment of despair, of loss that must be borne before everything changed. Perhaps it was meant as a reminder of that sacrifice, or maybe – and the thought made her lip twitch – it had been a mistake, they had instructed the stonemason using the wrong verse number and he had etched it into the thing anyway. But she had no way of knowing why it was there; it was just a shame it was so bleak.

She couldn’t push from her mind the image of a lone figure sitting hunched on the seat, despairing and desolate – but still, it was a beautiful place and she was lucky to be living next to it. There was surely no need to ever feel desolate in a place as lovely and comforting as this.

When Emma opened the door to the cupboard she could smell the stale scent of tobacco, stronger than ever. She covered her hand with the bin bag before using it to lift the hanger, feeling the weight of the suit. She had half-expected it to be gone again when she came back, but no, it was still there. She found herself wondering once more if Charlie had been playing some trick – or even if he’d made a mistake; perhaps he’d thought she’d wanted to keep it after all, and had hung it in here earlier in the day. But neither explanation felt likely. She wrinkled her nose as the scent of unwashed skin reached her. She stuffed the clothing down into the bag and twisted the top around, trying to shut that smell inside, but it was no good; it was in the air now too.

She headed downstairs and rather than just leaving the bag in a corner, she went out through the kitchen and thrust it straight into the wheelie-bin, pressing it down between the other sour-smelling rubbish.

Then she gathered her cleaning things from the kitchen and went back upstairs. Her footsteps sounded loud now that she was alone, echoing through the house and into all the empty spaces.

She would clear out the cupboard properly, clean it and make it hers. She’d hang a second rail below the first on which to place her clothes. It wouldn’t take long. First she rummaged through some boxes, extricated her radio and tuned it to a morning show. The music was bright and cheerful and a little too loud – she’d need it that way, to hear it in the cupboard – and she went inside and began to replace the musty smell with that of bleach. She scrubbed dark spots from the shelves, revealing faded white paint. It started to look better at once. And then she stopped. She could hear another sound beneath the strains of the music: steady thuds, like the echo of footsteps. She listened. The tune segued into the DJ’s patter. In the spaces between the words there was nothing; only the house, breathing around her.

When she went back to work she could see her own breath, rising in a white mist, although she didn’t feel cold. Then there came a soft thud. After a moment came a second, so faint she wasn’t sure she’d heard it, and a loud skitter that made her heart leap. Something scraped against the wall just outside and the cupboard door slammed closed behind her.

Emma whirled, clutching the cloth tightly against her chest, her eyes staring, and she didn’t breathe. The beating of her heart was almost painful. Inside the cupboard it was almost pitch-dark, with only a faint glow coming from around the doorframe. Every fibre of her being was intent on listening. She took a breath that caught in her throat, chilling her lungs. She put out a hand and touched the door but she didn’t try to open it. She only waited as the music tailed off then a voice rang out, loudly, making her jump once more. It was only the DJ, only the radio. There was nothing else, no other sound, though it
felt
as if she
should be able to hear something else. She turned and saw only a dark space behind her. She forced a deep breath. Something must have fallen in the room outside, or one of the boxes had overbalanced, that was all. She didn’t need to be afraid. Mire House was her
home
.

Footsteps
, she thought.
It had sounded like footsteps, at least until that awful clatter
.

She put her hand to the door handle and pushed. It didn’t move.

Emma frowned. She tried again, harder, and felt the mechanism give, but it wouldn’t press. She pushed outwards instead, and the door rattled in its frame, but it did not open.

She took a deep breath.
Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t be
fanciful.

She must be trying to open it the wrong way. It was an old house and things didn’t necessarily work the way she was used to. She tried to move the handle again, upwards this time, then down, and then any way at all. It still didn’t move and she strained harder, gripping it with both hands, then banging into the door with her shoulder. She stopped, found herself opening her mouth to call out, then closed it again. Someone had come into the house and come up the stairs and heard her in here and they were here now, holding the handle from the other side. It must be Charlie, playing another joke. She’d left the front door unlocked, and the back. That had been stupid. Why on earth had she done that? Especially after what she thought she’d seen in the night.

She let go of the handle and stepped back. Her hand was shaking. She bent and looked at the strip of light under the door, then, quietly, she knelt and pushed her face as close to the floor as she could.

She thought she could see something partially blocking the light, but she couldn’t get low enough to see it properly. She stood again, knocking her head against the shelf and bit her lip. She didn’t want to cry out – she wasn’t sure who might hear her. She grabbed the handle again, quickly, as if to take someone by surprise, and jerked on it, but it still didn’t move.

She stepped back, breathing hard. Who the hell would do this? Some joke this was, sneaking up on someone in their own house – a woman, on her own – and scaring her.

‘Who’s there?’ Her voice was sharp, although she’d meant for it to be louder. ‘Who is it?’

As she listened the music changed to some seventies thing: Marc Bolan singing T. Rex’s ‘Metal Guru’.

She banged on the door, hard, the blows wrenching her shoulder, but she didn’t care, and when the door didn’t open she did it again, harder. Then tears came, fucking
tears
, but she blinked them back.
Charlie
, she thought. She didn’t know why, only that his name was there: someone she could go to for help, or someone who would play tricks, put a dirty old suit back in her room as if to say, there: that’s the real owner, come home again. She didn’t know which Charlie he was.

She grabbed the handle and wrenched hard on it, bruising her palm, and this time it came free. She gasped in spite of herself and pushed, and something outside rattled against the base of the door. The door gave a little further and then it stopped. She hammered on it this time, hard,
blam-blam-blam!

There was no sound from the other side, only the radio going on and on, though the tone of the music seemed to have changed.

‘Let me out.’ Emma’s voice didn’t waver: good. She didn’t want to betray her fear, didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. Who was it, anyway? What the hell gave them the right? She gave the door a kick for good measure and again it rattled but it did not open.

‘
Shit
.’

Emma could feel her hand resting against the wood. It was still shaking. Her knees felt shaky too; she wanted to sit down. She looked behind her, into the dark, as if she would find some answer there, but it did not come. She looked back at the door. It no longer felt as if anyone was there. It didn’t feel as if anyone was going to help. The house was empty and it was hers, only hers. And her parents couldn’t come to her, full of concern at the noise she’d made. There was no one here she knew, no neighbour or friend to look in on her. She couldn’t shout through the ceiling to bring Jackie and Liam. There was only the church with its quiet graveyard and no one there – and anyway, even if she could shout loud enough, she’d put on the radio – the
radio
, for God’s sake – just as if she’d wanted to drown out her own calls for help.

She remembered the dreams she’d had before she’d come to Mire House, the ones in which she simply disappeared, with no one to miss her or look for her, and she curled her hands into fists. There must be someone she could contact. She reached for her back pocket and found it empty. Where had she put her mobile phone? She peered around but it was still dark, so she ran her hands across each shelf, finding only cold dampness where she’d already cleaned and dry dust where she hadn’t. Then something cool and smooth brushed against her wrist.

She grabbed for it, whatever it was, but she didn’t recognise the shape. It didn’t feel right: it was almost silken against her skin but it was too slender and she couldn’t think what it was. Then she leaned closer and
smelled
it, and now she knew. She swept her arm across the shelf and it clattered into the corner, sending up a stronger waft of that rich, dried scent, the tobacco scent, and she cried out, a despairing wail that made her suddenly think of the bench in the churchyard.

My God
, she thought,
my God …

No. Emma, pull yourself together
.

She breathed in deeply, leaned towards the door and said, ‘Tell me who’s there.’ She forced herself to speak steadily. ‘This isn’t funny. Open the door, now.’

Nothing happened; no one replied. She rattled the handle, then frowned and lowered herself to her knees again. She pressed her face into the musty-smelling carpet, trying to see under the door, and then she
did
see, in her mind’s eye: the boxes she’d stacked against the wall, the paint roller leaning against the skirting, the new clothes rail. She squeezed her eyes closed. She knew exactly what had happened.