Lacey's House Read online

  Later, when I saw the village from this vantage point again, I would see the things that had been missed that first time. The more modern, box-like houses that added to the tail of the comma, the telegraph poles and wires, the cars that lined the winding streets. Yet even years later if I closed my eyes and pictured the view, it always maintained the rose-tinted perfection of that first time.

  Chapter 7 ~ Lacey

  When had it all began with her and Albert? She couldn’t quite remember but it was long enough for their meetings to have become routine. There was nothing between them but friendship and they were both more than happy with that. Both of them had experienced what it was like to be loved, Albert in the traditional sense and Lacey for a tragically short time, but for them it was enough.

  When Albert’s wife had developed a headache he had thought nothing of it, she had been plagued by migraines most of her life. He had held her tight and persuaded her to have an early night, he made her hot chocolate, tucked her in, turned off the light and watched television for an hour before he joined her. Her breathing was light when he went to bed and he had kissed her soft cheek before drifting off himself. When he woke up the next morning she was cold and still beside him and from that moment, he had blamed himself. He had bumped into Lacey at the graveyard and they had found a strange kind of unity as they stood in their separate grief. His guilt about the night his wife died, and the loneliness and silence in which Lacey lived her life had bonded them together somehow.

  They would meet once or twice a month, always in Albert’s house. Sometimes they would play cards and always they would eat together. It wasn’t much but it filled a gap, especially for Lacey. She wondered if he knew that he was often the only person she would speak to, she wondered if he knew that it was those evenings, those brief moments that held her in the present and gave her a measure by which she noticed time passing. She wondered how she would cope now without him to hold her feet on the ground.

  It had been a normal evening; they played gin rummy, which Albert had won. He had said that she seemed a little dreamy and it was true. There had been a sense of mist in her head, as though reality had taken a little step backwards and all her senses were dimmed and vague. It happened sometimes. They had laughed a little, in the sad and slightly sombre way that those who share losses do, they had drank some wine and they had sat in comfortable silence for a time.

  Lacey had grown tired and felt herself drifting. Albert had smiled at her drooping eyes and told her to get herself home to bed. She stood to get her coat, she turned to say goodbye and after that her memories blur, a chalk smudge on dark paper.

  She can’t remember beyond that moment, she can’t remember leaving Dove Cottage, she can’t remember getting home.

  “What about the following morning, Lacey? Can you remember what happened then?”

  She startles at the voice that pulls her out of her head and back into the room with bare walls and no windows. She had forgotten they were there. She shakes her head a little as though trying to dislodge a fly, a buzzing thought. The policeman thinks she is saying no, that perhaps she is in denial.

  “It’s okay, Lacey, take your time.”

  She wants to ask him how it can be okay, how any of this can be okay, when her friend lies dead and she can’t remember how it came to pass.

  She can’t remember if she is guilty of his murder.

  Chapter 8 ~ Rachel

  Tearing my gaze away from the scenery I returned to the car and continued my descent into the valley, following the road towards the largest part of the village. The letting agent had sent a map with the cottage circled on it as well as written directions. I knew from them that Apple Tree Lane was near the top end of the long curving sweep of Winscombe, leading onto the fields that lay parallel to the road I had travelled in on.

  The lane proved easy enough to find, a dirt road that began between two old oak trees, forming a natural, tall arch where their upper branches whispered against each other. My little car bounced along the dry, red-tinged earth, straddling the central strip of grass as I made my way slowly towards the house.

  Up ahead I saw the roof of the removal van, and my heart skipped a beat. Leaving the car on a grassy patch of ground on the opposite side of the lane, I hesitated, feeling suddenly reluctant to pass through the gate in the hedge. I didn’t want the sense of relief at finally being here to fade; I felt an urge to stay this side of the hedge, to remain in ignorance of what awaited on the other side. What if the house was not what I hoped? What if the agent’s description had been wrong or exaggerated? Uncertainty gripped at my ankles, stalling my steps until I found it hard to move and simply stood there in the middle of the lane, trying not to peek over the hedge as my lower lip caught between my teeth.

  It seemed like hours that I stood there, trapped between my past and my future. When I finally plucked up the courage to move past the squeaky, wrought iron gate and looked at the house for the first time, the relief poured from me. The white painted walls and wooden framed windows looked like they belonged in a different time. Clematis grew over the wooden porch; an apple tree spread its branches over the lush grass that in turn had covered the edges of the curving stone path that led to a stable door. Wild flowers filled the borders with glorious colours and sporadically dotted the lawn where they had taken seed.

  In the corner of the garden, a pergola nestled beneath climbing roses, so overgrown that the seat was shaded and barely visible. Everything about it seemed picture perfect and I was moved beyond thought. I stood for a moment, slowly turning as I took it all in, fatigue draining through my feet into the cool, verdant ground.

  “We’re all finished, love.” I turned to smile at the ruddy face of the removal man. “Do you wanna just check everything’s okay before we head off?”

  “No, its fine thanks, I’m sure it’s all in order.” I wanted to be alone with the house, to have no-one present when I walked through the front door for the first time and introduced myself.

  The doors slammed and the engine belched into life, billowing acrid smoke that rose in a cloud. I watched as the removal van squeezed its way back down the narrow lane, high branches on both sides of the little dirt track bending as it passed.

  I paused for a moment to glance again around the beautiful, wild garden that surrounded my new home, feeling the long grass moving against bare ankles as trees laden with blossom showered confetti into the breeze. It was the sort of garden that would be a haven for wildlife, a haven for me. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply before stepping towards the front door.

  I had wanted a hiding place where I could run from my grief and shut out the world for a little while. Until that moment I wasn’t sure if I had actually believed I would find it, I had been wary of hoping. Hope was too often a prelude to disappointment; the hope that my mother would find me, the hope that I could stay with Diane and Richard, the hope that one day soon I would hold my baby in my arms. Hope was the first falling domino.

  Chapter 9 ~ Lacey

  She can hear a clock ticking. It is above her somewhere, to her left and each little tick that it makes seems to be removed from the others by far more than a second. She does not look, she has no desire to see how time has warped and twisted inside this room. She does not want to drown in the sand of the hour glass.

  She rocks back and forth a little, her fingertips pressed into the skin above her eyebrows, her eyes tightly closed. She hears material shift as the people opposite her become restless against her silence. A throat clears, fingers tap and she tries to push the sounds away as she searches her mind for an answer to his question.

  “Ms Carmichael, do you need anything?”

  She notices the lack of concern in his voice. Perhaps he too is trying not to look at the clock, trying to avoid the passing seconds. He knows that here, in this room, time is a limited thing and that when it runs out she no longer has to speak, she no longer has to stay. She murmurs something against her wrists that he doesn’t hear clearly
.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t catch that, could you repeat it please?”

  “I said, frontal lobes.” She giggles, a spontaneous sharp sound that lacks humour and bubbles away into a sob that catches in her throat. She twists her hands around, presses the ball of her palm into her eyes as though trying to push the tears back in. In that moment she doesn’t see the exchange of concerned glances between the two detectives.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m a little emotional today.” She sniffs, rubbing her sleeve across her eyes and nose before clasping her hands together beneath the table.

  “When I woke up this morning it was still dark and I had a headache. Too much wine maybe, or not enough sleep. I looked for my bag, to find some painkillers and realised I didn’t have it. I must have left it at Albert’s. So I laid back down and waited until a more reasonable time to go and get it. Albert liked his lie-ins.”

  She didn’t say that as she had lain there it felt like her head was splitting open. She didn’t tell those two expectant faces that this kind of headache always followed one of her blackouts, or that parts of the previous night had fallen forever into a void. She didn’t tell them that there was part of her that believed it possible that she had done what she was accused of. She had no way of knowing if she had or hadn’t. The lost parts never came back.

  “What time was it when you got up again?”

  This came from the woman detective. Lacey was surprised by her voice. It was rough, husky, as though she smoked too many cigarettes. It didn’t sit right with the deep eyes and the long lashes.

  “It was about nine o’clock. I must have fallen asleep again because Peachy woke me up. He’s my cat. He came and sat on my chest, he always does when he’s hungry.” She gives a half smile. “It’s a good job I don’t need lie-ins, I’d never get away with it.”

  The smile dies away quickly as though doused with a bucket of water, because she remembers and the pain is a sharp thing that steals her breath away.

  “I made myself a cup of tea and decided to go and get my bag while it was cooling down. It would give me an excuse not to get stuck talking for too long, my head... you know?” Her voice breaks and she stops speaking. Too many thoughts crowding through her head all at once. The guilt that she was being selfish in not wanting to talk for too long, that it had been a conscious decision that she would be quick; as if friendship should be hurried, as if there were nothing there to savour. And the memory, the thing she can remember too clearly, the scene that she stumbled across. Her eyes open wider and she covers her mouth with her hand as if she cannot bring herself to say it, because if she speaks the words, lets them out, they become true, they become real and she can’t take them back.

  “Take your time, Ms Carmichael,” the detective says and the very words make her want to speak quicker because she knows he doesn’t mean it, she can hear it in the sigh that chases his voice.

  “I don’t know what time it was that I finished making the tea and left the house. It was all quite normal you see and I never really pay much attention to the clock anyway.” Her eyes flick upwards and to her left as if they want to betray her, to prove her wrong. They stop short of staring at the hands. She wouldn’t remember them anyway.

  “I knocked a couple of times and there was no answer so I tried the door. Albert is like me, he can’t get into the habit of locking it when he goes out.” She winces at the present tense. It hangs over the table, a solid thing that is out of place and uncomfortable in this room where everyone knows the end of the story.

  She falls silent. There are no sounds from the corridor, no sounds from the room apart from the clock; the rest of the world has disappeared. If she opened the door now would there be nothing beyond it but mist and echoes? She fights the urge to try. She becomes still, so very still and the two people opposite her can barely see her chest rise and fall as she breathes. On some level she hears them, the metal hands she will not look at, ticking past the minutes but she is not really there anymore, she is not in this space, in the chair opposite the two people who must decide whether or not to keep her here. She is somewhere that no longer exists, she is in yesterday and she sees her hand lifting to open the door.

  Chapter 10 ~ Rachel

  I closed my eyes and stepped through the doorway, breathing in deeply as I went. The house was dusty, and yet beneath there was a scent of polish and care. It felt warm and comforting on my skin and I savoured it for a moment before I opened my eyes.

  From where I stood I could see all the way to a second stable door at the back of the house. The stairs began near the back door, the banister unpainted wood like the floor in the hallway. The living room was small with an open fireplace that I couldn’t wait to curl up in front of. When my paintings were unwrapped and hung in there it may look a little crowded, but I never had mastered the art of minimal décor so that was just fine with me. In that moment the room looked haphazard and chaotic with boxes and pieces of furniture scattered everywhere, but it was easy enough to see beyond that, to see the potential.

  The dining room would be perfect for a studio and I fell instantly in love with its beautifully square shape, its windows on three walls allowing it to get the best of the day’s natural light. My fingers twitched at my sides as I fought the urge to reach out for the containers from which would spill out my livelihood.

  I knew from past experience that if I started now I would still be standing in front of the canvas at dawn with bleary eyes and right now I didn’t have the time for that luxury. I would have to leave unpacking this room until last or the rest of the boxes would sit around gathering dust until the final stroke of acrylic was drying.

  The garden to the back of the house was smaller than the front. Surrounded by hedges it contained an old shed that had seen better days and several empty flower beds covered in black plastic. I had never owned a garden before. A couple of herb plants and miniature roses on the windowsills didn’t count. I couldn’t believe the space and relished the thought of spending time outside where no-one could see me. The idea was in sharp contrast to memories of the many flat dwellers that filled the green spaces in Moseley.

  The kitchen was something of a disappointment. After the lovely wooden floors of the hall and dining room, the cheap brown lino looked out of place. But despite its cosmetic flaws the room was large with ample space for a table to compensate for turning the dining room into a studio.

  The stairs were steeper than I was used to and bowed slightly in the middle, making me feel as though I was slightly drunk as I walked up them. They were old and several of the treads creaked. In the bedrooms I glanced at the boxes piled high and decided that other than locating the one that had sheets and curtains in, I was doing nothing else upstairs today. I could take my time over it and there was something comforting in that thought. There was no rush to get things done.

  After a cursory look in the bathroom – more seventies decor and a hand-held shower – I went back down to the kitchen. Finding the box marked ‘emergency’ I prised it open and removed the kettle, teabags, mugs and milk, which I sniffed at to make sure it hadn’t gone off in the back of the hot van.

  Sitting on the front doorstep with a steaming mug in my hand I breathed the clean air in deeply. I let my thoughts wander, losing myself in the petty details of all the chores to come. I wondered where I should place my scatter cushions, where my rugs would go, what curtains should go where. In the moments that I stopped thinking, I worried whether I had done the right thing. Sitting here miles from the city I knew, miles from anything familiar, I finally felt a hint of the hesitation that I had ignored for so many months. I didn’t want to think about my reasons for moving or the thought that, maybe, I was simply being a coward and running away. I didn’t want to consider that I might have made a mistake. So I shut it out and reached for the practical instead, hoping that for a little while I could keep my subconscious at bay.

  Chapter 11 ~ Lacey

  It was the smell that she noticed fi
rst. It wasn’t overpowering or strong, it was barely even noticeable below the scent of the soap she had used that morning. But she knew what this space normally smelled like and it was the difference that she noticed, that sense of something slightly changed.

  The house felt empty, as though it was waiting for the return of the energy that sustained it, that kept it warm. She had been alone for long enough to know what that felt like. She turned to leave, not wanting to stay where she was unobserved, uninvited. It was the shoes that stopped her. Harmless as they were, the sight of them screamed a warning, nudging the memory of a conversation they had once had.

  “Why do women have so many pairs of shoes?” He had asked her, as if she was typical of her gender, as if she could speak for all women everywhere, instead of being outcast, invisible.

  “I have no idea. Why do they have so many pairs of shoes?” It was like a joke, the way he had asked it. She wondered if there would be a punch line.

  “I was hoping you could answer. I’ve always wondered about that. I have one pair, what’s the point of having more? I do, after all, only have the one pair of feet!” And they had laughed a little before the conversation had moved on to other equally unimportant topics, the way it often did.

  And now she stood there just inside the open door, staring down at Albert’s one pair of shoes. Her skin grew cold; she wanted to turn but was equally afraid to look away. Albert would not have gone anywhere in bare feet. She stared hard at the brown brogues and took in the shine of them, the style of them, the area where they had worn around the heel. Her peripheral vision disappeared until she stared down a tunnel with those shoes at the end. The fear grew and hammered painfully against her chest. She wanted nothing more than to run and not look at things that she didn’t want to.