This window overlooks the back garden, which is vast, with a shed and a greenhouse. I can see Lewis piling rubbish into a wheelbarrow, his back bent, his breath steaming. Right at the back of the garden, poking through the trees, is an ugly wooden structure that might once have been a tree house. I imagine Kathryn playing there as a kid. I wonder if she was lonely in this big house with its huge garden, no brothers or sisters to play with. I’m an only child and I was never lonely. But then it was always just me and Mum. We were a team, a unit. Self-contained and all the happier for it.
I go back through to the bedroom, unpack my clothes and put them away in the ivory French-style wardrobe and chest of drawers. I resist the urge to bung them all into one drawer, as I would have done at the flat. I pull out a framed photograph of me and Mum at the beach, taken a year ago. Before the cancer diagnosis. I hold it for a while, remembering our holiday in Devon and wishing I could go back to that time when everything was simpler, then place it on my bedside table.
I fill my bottom drawer with the snacks I’d bought on the way here. All my favourites: Cheddars, Oreos, a packet of Penguins and a couple of cans of Sprite. I know my meals are catered for, but I do love my snacks. And I don’t feel comfortable helping myself to whatever Elspeth has in her cupboards.
I take my sponge-bag into the bathroom. It’s small but well equipped, although I can’t help the little thud of disappointment that there’s only a walk-in shower and no bath. It’s my way of relaxing, although it used to drive Mum mad when I was a teenager and my bath bombs left a coloured ring. Still, a shower is good and, more importantly, I won’t have to share this bathroom with anyone else. Courtney could spend hours in the morning faffing with her hair extensions and her fake eyelashes and self-tanning cream. I finger one of the plush grey towels. Everything has been thought of, right down to the White Company room spray sitting neatly on top of the cistern.
I open the cupboard under the sink and shove my cosmetics bag on the lower shelf. I’m about to close it again when something glints in the corner, catching my eye. It looks like a balled-up chain. I reach for it. It’s old, tarnished, the chain in knots, but at the end is an oval locket. I try to open it, but age has made it stick together and I almost break one of my fingernails trying to prise it apart. I place it on my bedside table instead. I’ll ask Kathryn about it later. It must have belonged to the girl who was here before.
I can hear footsteps outside my room and Kathryn calls through the door. ‘Are you ready? Mother is asking for you.’
‘The room is lovely, thank you,’ I say, as I follow her along the landing.
‘That’s down to Mother. She likes everything to be just so. You’ll learn that about her.’
‘Right.’
‘And you’ve got the floor to yourself so at least it warrants some privacy,’ she says, walking down the stairs. She keeps talking about privacy as though the house is full of people, but as far as I’m aware it will be just me and Elspeth at night. We reach the next floor where I assume the other bedrooms are. It looks like there are four off the wide landing, but I don’t get the chance to be nosy before I’m ushered down the next flight of stairs.
Elspeth is perched upright in a high-backed chair in what Kathryn calls the sitting room but I call a lounge. She gets up when she sees me and rushes over, embracing me like she would a long-lost daughter. She has to bend down quite a bit. She’s at least four inches taller than I am. ‘Una! It’s so lovely to see you! I do hope you’ve settled into your rooms okay.’
My rooms. I want to giggle. I feel like I’m in Downton Abbey.
And then she turns to Kathryn, as if noticing her for the first time, and her expression darkens. ‘What are you still doing here? You can go now.’
I can’t help but flinch at her cutting tone. I can tell Kathryn’s hurt, although she’s doing her best to hide it. Her shoulders are pulled back and her chin juts as though to ward off unkind words. She stalks off, without saying goodbye to either of us, and closes the door firmly behind her.
‘Thank goodness she’s gone. She’s such a kill-joy,’ says Elspeth, straight-faced but with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes. I want to laugh at her forthrightness, while also feeling slightly appalled that she is speaking about her daughter in that way. My mum would never have talked about me like that behind my back. ‘Right, come on, let me show you around.’ She takes my arm and leads me through the house. She’s surprisingly sprightly for an older lady who needs a companion and carer, and I wonder again why she’s hired me. Is she just lonely? But how can she be, with Kathryn always hanging around?
She shows me the library at the back of the house, with built-in floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with books, mostly classics – there’s not a Danielle Steele or a John Grisham in sight – large French windows and a terrace with steep steps that lead down to the garden; the snug – a small, square room with squashy sofas where her grandsons usually spend their time when they come over; and the kitchen, which is down another flight of stairs, and takes up most of the lower ground floor, apart from a small room that Elspeth calls her ‘study’. I notice none of the rooms has a TV and I’m grateful for the one in my bedroom.
‘The kitchen is a recent addition,’ Elspeth says, staring at the units lovingly. They are beautiful, hand-crafted, according to Elspeth, and painted in dove greys and soft beiges, with a limestone-tiled floor and doors leading on to the garden.
I wish my mum could see all this. She’d hardly have been able to believe it. The only thing that strikes me as a bit strange is the lack of photographs. The house I grew up in was full of family shots of me, Mum and Gran, of me in all my stages of growing up, Mum and her closest friends, holiday snaps. Even in the flat I shared with Courtney we had photos on the walls and in frames on the sideboard, strips of silly ones taken in booths stuck to the fridge. Here, there’s artwork on the walls, painted landscapes and a few line sketches, one of which looks familiar, but nothing to show the family. Not even her grandsons.
We’re just about to leave the kitchen when we hear a cheery ‘Hello!’ behind us and a large woman in her late sixties with tight grey curls and the biggest boobs I’ve ever seen is bustling over to us. ‘Just had to pop out for some eggs,’ she says. ‘Still want quiche for lunch, Elspeth?’ She doesn’t wait for an answer as her gaze sweeps over me. ‘You must be the new girl! I’m Agatha. Everyone calls me Aggie. I’m the cook.’
I just have time to introduce myself before she’s talking again. ‘Now, shoo, out of my kitchen. I’ve got lunch to prepare.’ She turns away from us and starts washing her hands at the huge Belfast sink.
Elspeth links arms again. ‘Let’s get our coats and explore the garden,’ she says gleefully, as though she’s just announced we’re off on a cruise.
‘Just be back in time for midday,’ Aggie calls over her shoulder, like we’re two kids.
We go upstairs to fetch our coats and then I follow her through the library – marvelling again at the bookshelves: my mum, an avid reader, would have loved them – and out of the French windows. The lawn is crisp with dew and our breath steams in front of us, but Elspeth huddles against me.