‘For God’s sake,’ she grumbled, half irritated, half worried. She turned and let her legs dangle down the hole, and was about to put her weight back on the ladder when she felt two hands go tight around her ankles. She let out a cry and clung on to the rim of the manhole.
‘Stop kicking!’ Annabel cried. ‘I’m trying to guide you back to the ladder, you idiot.’
‘Where the hell did you go?’ Grace demanded, heaving herself back into the attic space.
‘There was a strange noise coming from your bedroom. I was having a look, but it stopped.’
‘What kind of noise?’
‘Sounded like scratching.’
‘Bloody hell, don’t tell me I’ve got a mouse to deal with on top of everything else.’ Grace poked her head out of the attic, upside down. ‘Is Millie all right?’
Millie was munching on a biscuit, but stopped, astonished at the sight of her mother’s disembodied face. ‘Boo!’ Grace said, and her heart soared at Millie’s smile, so she did it again, and again, while Annabel looked on, shaking her head. After a few repetitions Millie went back to her snack.
‘You’re such an idiot,’ Annabel said. ‘Are you coming down or what?’
Grace frowned at her. ‘You don’t get off that lightly. I’ve got boxes to pass to you.’
Annabel ran a hand over her forehead. ‘For God’s sake, Grace.’ She looked at her perfectly manicured nails and sighed. ‘Come on then.’ She held her arms out for the first one.
Grace pushed the box to the hole in the ceiling, and had trouble fitting it through the gap.
‘I can’t manage that!’ Annabel shrieked.
Grace tried to keep the exasperation from her voice. ‘Yes you can. Just step onto the ladder and balance it on the steps as you pull it down.’
A moment later she heard Annabel cursing and the box bumping hard down the stepladder. She hoped there wasn’t some priceless antique in there. She got back across to the rest of the containers and began hauling the next one over.
‘How many of these are there?’ she heard Annabel call.
‘Just a few,’ Grace lied, but then Annabel’s head popped up into the attic space. She looked around and her face fell. ‘Oh Jesus,’ she said.
Grace crossed her fingers and hoped her sister wasn’t about to bail on her. Annabel glared at her, eyes narrowed, and muttered, ‘There’d better be lots of wine tonight,’ as her head disappeared again.
Grace smiled and grabbed the box closest to her. The cardboard that formed the lid had been cut into corners and folded down. As she pulled on it by one of the top flaps, it came open and she found herself looking at a handful of loose photos.
She took them out and shone the torch on them, leafing through, stopping at one of a child sitting alone on a lounge-room floor – in the seventies, judging by the garish decor in the background. It was a young boy, his body almost side on to the camera, but his face looking directly at the lens with a surprised smile, as though someone had called his name. He was only about three or four, but there was no mistaking who it was, and Grace felt a painful stab in her chest.
She put the photo to the back of the group she held, and looked at the next one. It was Adam again, in front of a terraced house, his arms around his mother. She wore a long dress and a headscarf, and you could see from the bony sticks of her wrists and the cavernous spaces of her collarbones that she was frail. The cancer must have been advanced by then, Grace thought. Adam would have been around seventeen. His face and frame were thinner than Grace had known, but other than that his outward appearance hadn’t altered much over the next two decades. Her heart went out to the boy in the photograph. Only a year or so after it was taken he had been an orphan to all intents and purposes, living with his grandparents over the summer before he headed off to university.
Her arms felt heavy as she flicked through the rest of the pictures, before she looked back at the photo of Adam and his mother. Rachel had both arms around her son, while Adam had one arm draped casually across his mother’s shoulders, his body towards the camera. What had they been feeling back then? It was impossible to tell from one photo. Or was it? For despite Rachel’s smile, she held Adam tightly, as though he were a ballast in the middle of a raging storm, and if she gripped on long enough she might secure him to her. She appeared to be a woman who knew exactly what the future held. Whereas Adam looked like an uncertain young teenager posing for a picture.
‘Grace, are you still alive up there?’
She snapped out of her daydream and returned the photos to the box. She would set the personal memorabilia to one side, and sort through it all at once. She didn’t want to spend too many days sifting through painful reminders of things that were irrevocably gone.
6
Grace’s fingers were stiff with cold as she steered Millie’s pushchair down the hill, with Annabel trudging beside her. At the bottom, they crossed the small stone bridge and headed for the next incline. ‘This is the pub,’ Grace said as they passed a two-storey whitewashed building, its chimney puffing grey smoke into the frigid air. ‘Those are old workers’ cottages, back when they had a brickworks here.’ She pointed towards the tumbledown buildings in a row some distance away, and then indicated the hill ahead of them. ‘Meredith lives in the house up there.’
They could just make out high grey-stone walls. ‘You didn’t tell me we were lunching with the lady of the manor,’ Annabel said. They began the climb towards it, Grace’s arms straining from the effort as she pushed Millie ahead of her. As they drew near, the house towered above them. It was set back from the road at the end of a short gravel driveway, and formed an L-shape, a single-storey building to their left abutting the double-storey house. Four large sash windows were visible at the front, set out in a square, while trailing ivy had formed an arch over the door. A pristine burgundy four-wheel drive was parked by the entrance.
‘This place is impressive,’ Annabel said as they reached the drive. ‘Why do you think they built it here, on its own?’
Before Grace could reply, a frantic barking began from inside. The door swung open and Grace found herself staring into Meredith’s steely grey eyes. Grace was about to speak, when a large black dog bounded out from behind Meredith and launched itself at her.
‘Pippa, come here,’ Meredith commanded, and Grace watched in admiration as the dog immediately scampered back to her owner. Meredith took hold of Pippa’s collar and guided her inside, then reappeared a moment later and held the door open for them. She stood straight-backed, as though she had learned to balance a pile of books on her head at a young age and had never forgotten the pose. She hadn’t gone for the looser soft perms popular with the older women Grace knew; instead, her hair was close-cropped to her head in a pixie-style, and it suited her, highlighting her bone structure, strong lines that would never change underneath the creases of her pale skin.
‘Hello Meredith,’ Grace said, her warm smile fading a little as Meredith studied her. Grace was sure that on previous occasions Meredith had been affable, but the woman before them exuded a polite coolness, little more. Don’t judge her too hastily, she chided herself. Remember, she’s recently lost her husband. She felt a surge of empathy.
‘Hello, Grace, it’s nice to see you again,’ Meredith replied, holding out a hand and shaking with a strong, firm grip.
‘This is Annabel,’ Grace said, as they also shook hands.
Meredith glanced at the pushchair. ‘And this must be Millie.’ She knelt down to look under the shade. ‘Hello, little miss.’ Then she straightened again. ‘Well, come on in.’
They were shown along a hallway, past a wide staircase and a few closed doors, before they finally walked into a vast, high-ceilinged room. ‘Wow,’ Annabel breathed, echoing Grace’s reaction.
In the centre, a huge square table was set for lunch, silver and glassware shining atop a pristine cream tablecloth. A three-piece burgundy leather suite was arranged in one corner, and the furniture was all a matching, gleaming mahogany. But what had really caught their attention was the vast picture window that ran from ceiling to floor on one side, framing a panoramic vista. Before them lay an endless tract of moorland, the unbroken stretch of earth drawing the eye further and further away in search of focus. There was little to find except for the occasional
