Nell knew better than to pull into the driveway of Number 17. She stopped the car so that Agatha’s door lined up with the front gate. Agatha had a straight line of view from where she sat to the front door. ‘The front looks the same,’ she commented.
‘Hmmm. Well you and I both know it’s not the front that has the problem,’ responded Nell. She leaned forward, hugging the steering wheel. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘It was a dumb question. Sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault, Nell. I know it’s not your fault.’
‘We’re going to keep trying, Agatha, really we are.’
Agatha shrugged.
Nell got out and went to the boot. Agatha waited another few seconds, looking at the closed front door. Why she was expecting a warm welcome home greeting, she didn’t know. She had never had one before, so this wasn’t going to be any different.
The sound of the car boot shutting was enough to jolt her into action. She opened the car door and got out. Taking the suitcase from Nell, she moved to the front gate and stood. Nell was just behind her.
‘You don’t have to come in,’ Agatha said.
‘Yes, I do. You know that.’
Agatha did know that, but in a way, she just wanted to hear Nell say it.
They walked up the short path to the front door. Agatha knocked and waited. There was no response. No sound of anyone coming to the front door. She put her hand into her pocket and got out a key. She unlocked the door and slowly opened it.
Stepping inside, Agatha could tell instantly that the change that was meant to happen, that she was promised would happen, hadn’t. Some of the piles from near the front door had been cleared away so that the door could now fully open however the remainder of the hallway looked the same. The musty, dank smell hadn’t been swept away either.
Agatha turned her body sideways, sandwiched by two high piles of newspapers and junk mail, and shuffled along. Nell was right behind her.
From the floor to the ceiling, pile after pile of newspapers, not only ones delivered to their house, but others that had been scavenged, waited to be read, something that would never happen. A couple of years ago, when she was smaller, Agatha would look at these paper walls and they seemed so high. Now as she stood taller, she could see them for what they really were.
Several sidesteps along, she came to her bedroom door. It was shut. She looked at Nell who leant forward and whispered, ‘I made sure this was looked after, well, as best we could. You’ll see.’
Agatha opened it and stood in the doorway. Her small bedroom had been rearranged. The bed had been moved to the other side, near the window, and the old cardboard boxes of clothes she had left behind had been removed. She could see the carpet and the walls. She stepped inside and put the suitcase down. Along one wall were plastic tubs, stacked five high. She turned to Nell. ‘And these?’ she questioned.
‘I did say we did the best we could. We did manage to get the stuff sorted and the things she had to keep got put into tubs. I know it’s not what you wanted but it’s getting closer. We’ll keep working on it.’
Agatha shrugged. She scolded herself for having expectations, not high ones, just any.
‘We better go and find them. They’ll be pleased to see you.’ Nell’s voice sounded hopefully, but Agatha knew it was false hope.
‘I know where they’ll be. Where they always are. You don’t have to stay.’
‘I want to make sure you are going to be okay, before I leave.’
‘If that’s what you really want then you shouldn’t have brought me back.’ Agatha’s quip was sharp, and she instantly regretted it. Nell had no more control over this situation than she did.
Back in the hallway and a few steps along to the sitting room, Agatha soon saw why Nell had said that not much had changed. The room was past being cluttered. It was full of stuff, more than when Agatha had left. Her mother’s way of coping with the panic.
Agatha turned her body this way and that as she weaved over to the sofa. Even her little spot that she sat at one end of the sofa had been covered with the spreading mound of various plastic containers. There were blue and white ones, some with decorative sides, some that belonged in a takeaway shop rather than on the sofa. Containers within containers. Plastic shopping bags of plastic containers. Agatha looked around before picking some up and moving them further along the sofa, reclaiming her spot.
The sitting room was filled, mainly with vases and plates but other things were starting to pile up. Her mother had inherited a full set china dinner plates from her grandmother, years ago, and then an aunt had given her a pair of antique vases on their wedding day and the plates and vases had later begun this pile. Agatha despised op shops. They would sell one or two pieces of china and then the hunt would begin to build a set, something her mother could use or sell for profit. What had evolved was a room full of odd plates and vases that would never form a complete set, that would never be sold.
Leaning against the walls were wooden display cabinets that, now full, had boxes placed on top, that were then filled with more and more plates and vases. A few feet away from the sofa, stood the television; it too covered in precariously placed stacks of plates. Coffee tables of assorted sizes and heights stood on top of each other, acting as makeshift housing for boxes and plastic bags of crockery, bought and not even unpacked. There were other things too. Bags of clothes, baby clothes, a pile of shoes filled the deep drawers of a
