The House With Old Furniture E-Book

Helen Lewis

• Herausgeber: Honno Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The ghosts of a century's worth of secrets and betrayals are coming home to Pengarrow... Evie has lost her eldest son, Jesse, to gang violence. Leaving the house he grew up in is pulling apart the few strings left holding her heart together. Only the desire to be there for her younger boy, Finn, impels Evie to West Wales and the ancient house her husband is sure will heal their wounds. Days later, Andrew is gone – rushing back to his 'important' job in government, abandoning his grieving wife and son. Finn finds solace in the horse his father buys by way of apology. As does his evasive and fearful new friend, Nye, the one who reminds him and Evie of Jesse... Evie loses herself in a dusty 19th century journal and glasses of home-made wine left by the mysterious housekeeper. As Evie's grasp on reality slides, Andrew's parents ride to the rescue. It is clear that this is a house they know. They seem to think they own it, and begin making changes nobody wants, least of all Alys and her son, Nye, the terrified youth who looks so like Jesse.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title PageDedicationChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-ThreeChapter Twenty-FourChapter Twenty-FiveChapter Twenty-SixChapter Twenty-SevenChapter Twenty-EightChapter Twenty-NineChapter ThirtyChapter Thirty-OneChapter Thirty-TwoChapter Thirty-ThreeChapter Thirty-FourChapter Thirty-FiveChapter Thirty-SixChapter Thirty-SevenChapter Thirty-EightChapter Thirty-NineChapter FortyChapter Forty-OneChapter Forty-TwoChapter Forty-ThreeChapter Forty-FourChapter Forty-FiveChapter Forty-SixChapter Forty-SevenAcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorAbout HonnoCopyright

Chapter One

I don’t want to leave. I’m being ripped from the rock I cling to. A whirlpool of change drags me down, pulling me to the very bottom of its vortex.

I want to stay. I need to stay, clinging to all the memories made here, ensuring they remain sharp and deeply etched. Because if I go who will say – remind people even – that this is where we had our first row, over there in the corner of the garden is where the snowman you built stood for two weeks, and round that corner where the tarmac cracks you came off your bike, you still had the scar ten years later, that little white smile on your kneecap.

“They’re here!” (I knew they would have to be eventually.) “Have you seen the size of the truck?” Finn runs through me and out of the door to greet the vast removal lorry. I almost smile. This is the most alive that I’ve seen him in months. He needs to escape the weight of sadness pressing down on our home; he needs to restart his life somehow. The lorry will block the road. I hear the neighbours tutting already.

So today we have to go, the tide has finally overwhelmed us and pushes me forward into the future, leaving nobody behind to mark the memories, the special, ordinary places we’ve been; no blue circular plaques mounted by the door to announce that Jesse Wolfe flew his kite for the first time right here.

See, it says it here in the diary: April 12 2010, MOVE. I’ve spent the last four months bypassing April, only writing in dates for May or March, birthdays, anniversaries, school breaks up, school restarts. Rhythmical things that always happen whatever our postcode – a postcode that’s always been TW, maybe the numbers swap themselves around but I’m always TW, that’s all I know.

“It’s massive – have we got enough stuff?” Finn shouts from the gate. He’s bought into the propaganda, how this will be a new start, the possibility of puppies and horses to ride because we’ll have so much space – space unmarked by Jesse. And time, time with his dad, time to go surfing together and coasteering. Promises, promises, all gobbled up by Finn. Has he thought how he’ll miss his friends, I wonder, and the everyday things that are always here that he doesn’t even see until they’ve gone, like Willow and her café (“Here Finn try these, just made a batch, what d’you think?”) and Gloria the crossing lady, the curry house at the bottom of our road, perfect for Saturday nights in, broadband, download speeds – and everywhere, in everything he touches, a trace of Jesse… He jogs back up the path, tugs at my sleeve. “Come on, they need our stuff.” I don’t want to see. I don’t want to look, maybe then the lorry can drive on, block some other road. But it’s too late. I can see it out of the corner of my eye, it’s there. Finn crashes back downstairs with a box as big as him. “Here’s my stuff!” He’s shouting at an army of tattoos.

Those tattoos will want tea. “White loads of sugar love.” I reach into the space the kettle sits in, it’s gone, sugar dissolved, fridge sterile, unplugged. Our lives are boxed, labelled, stacked and waiting. Could I grab Finn now, hide away from the boxes, the tattoos; the traffic jam in our road? I think I sound mad, sound sad. I am.

“We’ll start with upstairs, all right love?” He already smells of stale sweat – it’s only 7.30am. He has a cartoon Mr Incredibles-gone-to-seed physique; I imagine him as a Dave – Big Dave, can move a piano, solo. He stamps upstairs – the grit on the soles of his shoes crunching into the stair treads. Each of his thudding steps scours out more of our presence. There are six coats of varnish on each of those steps, which makes them shine beautifully in the sunlight. We spent a whole weekend painting them together, foolishly, Andrew starting at the top, me at the bottom. Andrew spent most of the day marooned upstairs playing with Jesse in his nursery, over and over they played the music box that made Jesse laugh. I can hear the tune now tiptoeing downstairs. I wonder if the new owner will appreciate the scuffed boot marks. “What d’you want us to do with this lot, love?” His bellow makes me jump.

He’s in Jesse’s room.

“Leave it, leave it!” I chase his boot marks up the stairs. “Come out, please come out.”

“Keep your bloody hair on!” Big Dave mutters past me, “You best tell us where we can go. Need to be out of ’ere by 12 – 12.30 latest, don’t forget.” I nod sorry and yes I’m up to speed on the time issue. I back into the no-go zone shutting the door. Sitting in the middle of Jesse’s floor I pick up his T-shirt from the pile of dirty clothes he left, ball it up to my face and inhale. With eyes shut I’m sure, certain, that I can still smell him, he’s still in there, still in here. I have no idea where to start, what is required of me. The door opens slowly, with great care, great caution.

“I brought boxes and…” A pen-stained hand passes me tissues. Finn sits beside me quietly, leans his head on my shoulder. “Jesse’s looking forward to the new house, he wants the big room.”

I want to scream, “Don’t say his name!” I want to hold Finn and never let go.

“Ouch, Mum, don’t squeeze so hard!”

I know that every night he comes in here, sits on Jesse’s bed and tells him about his day, the things that Jesse’s mates have done or said on face-space, the little injustices that I have dealt him. And he asks Jesse what he should do, how does he beat Luke at the hundred metres, what’s senior school like – is Mr Hawks really that strict? I shouldn’t listen, but I can’t tear myself away, I can hear Jesse’s replies as much as Finn can, I’m sure of it. And when he finally leaves Jesse’s room, the shrine that I have kept for us, he wipes at tears.

“Love you.”

“I know. Can I do his pens-n-stuff, Mum?”

“NO!” The word has burst out of my mouth before I can swallow it away; it’s slapped Finn’s face so hard his eyes are prickling. I take a hard long breath, holding till it hurts, we must take the shrine with us, carefully piece by priceless piece. “Sorry. Good idea Finn. Label the box though, don’t forget. Make sure it says Jesse.”

It takes six boxes to hold everything Jesse owned, touched, in his room. To me that doesn’t seem enough to hold sixteen years of life. I want more boxes to throw my thoughts and memories into – we’ve even packed his bin with the screwed-up homework, the inky mess from badly behaved pens, the torn school tie we argued about…

“If you think I’m buying another tie, think again. You can explain to Mr Hawks, that’s your fifth this term and your mum won’t get you another.”

“Whatever,” Jesse grunted, bored like a Catherine Tate caricature. He slammed the front door so hard it bounced back.

“Shut the bloody door,” I’d shouted. What kind of sentence is that to follow you to school? I shake my head, make my brain a snow globe so none of the thoughts can settle and suffocate me. I move the boxes onto the landing. I don’t want the stale-sweat tattoo men in here; they’ll squash what’s left of Jesse.

“You want to take this old carpet?” I would take the paper off his walls if I could move it in one piece. “Yes,” is all I manage.

The removal men devour the Jesse boxes. They move too quickly, carry too much, the top box falls, I haven’t stuck it down properly and the bin explodes, spewing crumpled paper.

“Hey, this is just rubbish!” the guy shouts, annoyed. I snatch the box back, stand the bin up. To me it’s Ming, it’s Spode, priceless. All the brave-face tape I glued myself together with when I got up this morning breaks. I know I’m shouting at this man. I see he can’t understand why he needs to put these boxes back. He wants to be angry, to tell me to fuck off but he’s getting cash in hand at double time. Finn is frightened. Andrew arrives two hours too late.

“Everything all right?” Andrew only ever asks this at the point of crisis, when nothing, not one atom of the universe is all right. It has a twang of annoyance, a why-can’t-you control-yourself ring to it. I walk away, leaving him to his removal men. Finn has collected up all the precious crumpled treasure from the landing and is carefully repacking the “Jesse’s things” box.

Time is running out. Twelve o’clock is sneaking closer.

It feels like we’re deserting. Maybe we should have done this at the dead of night. It would have felt more authentic. Andrew is ironing and smoothing out problems; like Finn, he can’t contain his excitement. He’s itching to start our “new life”.

“Happy?” He’s holding the tops of my arms and I can tell by the squeeze that he doesn’t want to know my true answer. He makes it sounds like more of a command: hit your jolly switch now. Pack away your troubles. Forget all about it. Count to ten and start again. I realise my staring is confusing him, but I can’t believe that this is the person I have travelled through this year-long horror with, this whistle-while-you-work man. “Too late for second thoughts, come on, pack the last few things and we can get cracking.” I pull hard from his grip; walk away, leaving him in the echo-chamber living room. The front door is irresistibly open; my feet don’t want to stop so I walk on out. I have no idea where they are taking me until I reach the park, the bench: Jesse’s place.

The After Place: after the row over the night before, after the first party, the first home late, always I found Jesse here. Sitting on this bench, kicking old fag butts and dust. And after Jazzy, their first break-up, his first broken heart, the only chance he had at heartbreak. I sit at one end to make space for his memory, there won’t be these places in our “new life”, places where Jesse was, where he is. I can feel his warmth coming up through the graffiti-gouged wood. His gum might be stuck under one of the planks I’m sitting on. He will have sat here and spat on the ground, boys do. There are blades of grass that have grown up through his saliva. I can’t leave while he is still so fresh, so part of everything. Andrew doesn’t understand, won’t understand. He is glued to counselling guidelines, moving on, moving forward.

I am rooted to my home. I can’t leave our child, leave all these places where he grew, these parks and streets that were his backdrop. I can look at the seesaw and watch him bounce up and down, and the roundabout where I can see him now, eyes closed, sitting in the middle then stumbling off like a drunk roaring with laughter at his crazy, lurching world. I come here every day to rewind, to relive the past, a past Andrew doesn’t see. I can’t leave. Andrew can.

And there, way across the picnic lawns, then the rugby pitches and the far wild grassland, my first, real home – Nana’s house. It watches, broken and crumbling, sewn on to the edge of Marble Hill Park. With my eyes closed I watch her watching us, Jesse and me. I took him there so many times, and sat in the tangled garden telling him the fairytales that I made my childhood into, a total fiction that he adored. “Tell me more Mummy, more…” So I conjured up the magic potions Nana and I made together that turned nasty people into angels and pumpkins into coaches. She stands at the garden fence as she did every day waiting for me to come home from school. She waves goodbye. “Safe journey, Evie,” she whispers, then turns and makes her way back up her garden to put on the kettle.

Andrew’s voice travels across the open parkland. I can’t hear what he’s calling, just his angry sound. I don’t have to hear the words: I know them, Alice-in-Wonderland-white-rabbit words: “We’re late, we’re late for a very important date.” Jesse smirks, giving me the strength to open my eyes; he melts from beside me into the air, the trees, the dust at my feet.

Andrew’s run out of patience. “Evelyn!” My mother used to snap my name off in full when she was angry.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I’m coming. I just had to say goodbye.”

“To a bloody bench?”

“Yes to a bloody bench, and to the park and the fucking swings.” The “fuck” was unnecessary but it did at least change his tone; stoke his anger. He’s easier to fight angry. “What’s the point of all this Evie? We’ve talked about this – you agreed to this – you said you wanted this, for Christ’s sake.” Actually he said I wanted it – he said I agreed to it. I just went along for the ride, said nothing, did nothing, hid and hoped it would all go away. “Stop being so selfish. Finn is waiting and the removal guys. Owen from—” I mute him, getting up from the bench, and snatch a brave daisy sprouting in the dust.

“Bye,” I whisper. A breeze rustles paper leaves, let’s pretend its Jesse waving us off. Andrew’s Blackberry rings, he’s back in demand, the space for last-minute fears disappears.

It’s quarter to twelve, ping. Time is up.

We walk back up the road to the house. Our life sits swallowed up by an articulated Red Dragon. It says it’s in safe hands, it says it right across the length of the lorry, Red Dragon Removals: You’re in safe hands. The “safe hands”, Big Dave and his crew, sit on the kerb drinking coke and chewing pasties from Willow’s café. The café is just round the corner, most mornings it’s wrapped in a scarf of hungry commuters. Willow runs it, the girl I sat beside the first day at school, stood beside the first day at ballet, stood behind in the sixth-form show. It was her dream, the café, the food, feeding people, so I shared that too. I made cakes, sometimes just ones for lunch but there were special orders as well, towers of icing and tiny little flower buds, sugar sculptures I could spend a lifetime spinning, and then I made the pasties. I used to make them every morning; traditional, curried or vegetarian. They sold out by nine o’clock. “I need two of you,” Willow always chuckled. It’s been a year since I made a pasty, since I made anything. I think of Willow baking on her own, singing along to all our Abba tunes, dancing by herself.

Fearless pigeons peck the pastry confetti at the removal men’s feet. “Time to go…” is written in the air, in the dust on the windows, across the faces of Andrew, Finn, Big Dave and his safe hands. I have to do my “one last time” thing, Finn holds onto my arm to make sure I come back out. The house has become just a building – the home has been removed from it. Our steps echo in the hallway, the living room has glitter air; dust motes sparkling in the sun’s beams. The kitchen doorway is dented with a height chart of memories, I run my hand over the new-bike-for-Christmas gouge that’s so deep the wood has splintered, a slither slides into my finger tip, the pin-point pain intensifying the memory. In panic I wrap my fingers around the wooden frame pulling to see if it will come away with me. Will I remember all these things, these tiny small details of our life without it there as a reminder?

It’s stuck. It stays.

Standing at the foot of the beautiful shining stairs, my feet stall. I can’t place them in the dusty prints of Big Dave. Too many rooms, too much life lived up there. Babies made, nurseries repainted into teen pads, dens, private keep outs. Arguments that burst into flaming rows doused and soothed away, a life cycle of two becomes three, four, becomes three, finally stops spinning. Someone else’s history can be written on our walls because ours has been taken down, rubbed out. Finn tugs, I walk out backwards, eyes never leaving the top stair. I really can see Jesse, he’s still standing there in a sloppy melting school uniform that slides from his shoulders, hangs from his hips.

“Don’t worry, Mum, he’ll come.” Finn tries to reassure me.

“You think so?”

“Course.”

Andrew is sitting in his snarling new 4x4. He does that watch-checking thing at twenty second intervals. Big Dave and his eight-wheeled red dragon roar into life, Finn and I stand in the road to wave them off.

There’s a car sitting at the end of the street, it’s trying not to be there, squeezed up tight to the kerb. I recognise them, her watch checks synchronised with Andrew’s. The people who offered the asking price. She measured our windows, wanted bits of our furniture that weren’t for sale because she liked our taste. She had those Barbie nails with tappy white ends, her kitten heels made the same sound as her fingertips. Eventually, she told us, Jesse’s room would have to be the nursery; her husband shrank a little further as he followed her. I wonder if legally our house is now theirs.

“Time to go, guys,” Andrew shouts out of his window.

“Coming,” I reply, taking a deep steadying breath, the fumey air carries a deep hit of burnt garlic. The Indian is starting early today. The thought of curry lurches my stomach. The smell claws the inside of my nose, making a bitter taste. I want to spit.

“They’ve burnt the korma,” I say to Finn (korma is his favourite, passanda for Jesse. I used to have the biriani, but I have Jesse’s passanda now, otherwise the order looks all wrong.) Finn frowns, uncomprehending.

“What korma?”

“Can’t you smell it, that burning smell?”

“You’ve lost it, Mum. Come on, Dad’s about to blow.” Turning our back on 34 Basset Gardens, we walk towards the car. A man-sized schoolboy nods as we pass him, his uniform the same as Jesse’s was.

“See ya, Finn,” he grunts and catches my eye, not sure what to say. There are two more boy-men and a girl imitating a goth-prostitute in the same uniform standing on the other side of the road watching us, watching Andrew in the car.

“Is it lunch time or something at school, at Jesse’s old school I mean?”

Finn shakes his head. “Think they’ve come to say goodbye,” he mutters.

“Goodbye? But we don’t know them, do we – do you?”

“They know Jesse.”

Four more teenagers amble down our road, they stand awkward and silent. Finn nods behind me to the other end of Basset Gardens: there are more of them, too many to count in a glance.

“Guys…” Andrew’s past impatient.

“Wait Andrew, just a minute. Look.”

He sees the uniforms ahead of him and filling his rearview mirror. “It’s a bloody riot! This place is going seriously down…”

“Shh. They’ve come to say goodbye.” I nod across the street: the goth-prostitute gives a small shy wave. I don’t know what to say, which words to choose: See ya, goodbye, thank you.

“Thank you,” I whisper up and down our road. “How did they know we were going today, Finn?”

“It’s posted on Jesse’s wall.”

“His wall?”

“It’s a computer thing, Mum, you won’t get it.”

The computer thing – I do get it.

Andrew revs up his monster as if a quick getaway is needed. The curtains at number 13 twitch in anticipation. I watch in the side mirror as we pull away. It seems as if a black wave follows behind us and I’m sure that there, surfing down the middle of it, is Jesse.

Chapter Two

She so doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get any-fuckin-thing, not computers, not me, not movin’, not Dad – most of all not me. It was all OK before – well almost, I mean she drunk, got all loud and lairy, then woke up messy sometimes, but now … now Dad’s the invisible man and she’s … she’s rubbish. Like yesterday she was makin’ tea and spilt the peas, they went everywhere – and that’s her, bits of Mum everywhere. She sat there in the mess, not movin’, not even cryin’ – might’ve been another one of her blackouts, an’ I thought, I don’t care! Get up and be my mum again! It’s not just Jesse that’s gone, he’s taken them all with him. Left me here alone, where everyone mopes about because we’re all too sad to do stuff anymore.

So the thing I don’t get is this movin’ right. Isn’t it like runnin’ away? Everyone knows what happened, they all know Jesse’s dead, so what’s the problem? OK, get a new house here, in a new road, one without a Jesse’s room maybe, but, like, go away, really away, I mean who knows anyone in Wales? I don’t. And they can stick learnin’ Welsh, or rugby. I guess there, though, no one’s gonna keep asking how I am, how I’m feeling. No one there will know about Jesse, or give a shit about me.

The only thing that’s quite cool is everyone sayin’ goodbye and stuff, cos nuffin else about the stupid idea is. I mean I lose my brother so my parents think that losing everythin’ else – like my friends and a place in the U11s’ squad is going to make everythin’ all right – dim or what. Anyhow, I now have 856 friends on facebook which is 302 more than Luke. I mean do they even have internet in Wales? Cos I have 856 people to message and I’m not writin’ postcards. Bet you can’t even download a film or anything. Wonder who Luke will be partners with in PE – wonder who I’ll be partners with.

Shit! You should see the size of the lorry they’re gonna move all our stuff in. It’s definitely gonna block the road.

“Mum, they’re here!” I gotta go see this.

Chapter Three

I check my wing mirror again. The uniforms have gone.

“What are you looking for?” Andrew is edgy, in a middle-of-a-work-crisis mood.

The reflection of the final black shape dissolved around the last service station. I was just trying to decipher its outline, certain it was Jesse-shaped when Finn asked: “Leigh Delamere, is that French? It sounds French.”