I’d pictured myself going back into the sitting room, picking up my tea, and listening to ‘Homeward Bound’, the track now playing on the CD. So how come my foot was now on the bottom step of the staircase? I looked up at the narrow treads, the carpet wearing thin, and I wondered what happened once the staircase turned right and disappeared. The chintzy lemon wallpaper, with its flamboyant trails of rhododendron, was beginning to fade where the sun ate away at it at various times of the day. But at the top of the staircase, where there was a constant shadow, the green of the leaves was still vibrant and bright.
I convinced myself that I was going up to have a closer look, to really appreciate the depth of colour, but I didn’t even stop. My feet just seemed to lift themselves up onto those last three steps, the ones you couldn’t see from the hall, and into the room with the open door.
The double bed and small wardrobe were enough to fill the room, but opposite, in the alcoves either side of the chimney breast, were tall chests of drawers. I swear I could still smell the pine scent emanating from the furniture, each piece its own shade of orangey-brown.
The sunlight filtered through a gap in the thin curtains, casting a sliver of light across the room. I moved around the bed, the floorboards creaking as I went, and sat on the floor in front of the chest furthest from the window.
The bottom drawer felt heavy, so I lifted the weight up and off its support as I slid it out. It was full of ornamental boxes and decorated trinkets. The nerve fibres in my hands tingled as my clumsy fingers struggled with the clasp on the wooden jewellery box that was just begging to be opened. There were little milk teeth laid carefully on a red velvet cushion, the white enamel having yellowed over the years, and two name-tag bracelets bearing Adam and James’s names. Guilt washed over me as I caught sight of a pair of tarnished, silver men’s cufflinks, presumably Jim’s, and I slammed the top shut. I leant my head back on the mattress, my folded limbs trapped between the chest and the bed. What the hell was I doing? This wasn’t me. This wasn’t what I did. I’d allowed this woman to turn me into someone no better than her. Of all the terrible things she’d done, I would not allow her to change the very foundation of me: to distort the values and morals my parents had worked so hard to instil. I placed the box back inside the drawer, tilting it to make it fit. I jumped as it dropped heavily onto its back, its underside staring outwards, revealing a hidden compartment underneath.
I looked at it for a while, remembering the mantra I’d just recited, and willed myself to ignore it. ‘Close the drawer,’ I repeated out loud, in the hope that hearing myself actually say it would stop me from doing what I already knew I was going to do. I carefully lifted it back out again and slid the bottom section backwards. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, some old bones or something, so it was an anti-climax to find nothing more than an old inhaler, the type I’d seen a girl at school with. Molly, I think her name was. I would never forget watching her collapse in PE, just after we’d been told to run around the field twice to warm up for netball. We thought it was a joke at first, but then she’d started wheezing and clutching at her chest. I hardly knew the girl, but I couldn’t sleep that night, and almost cried when they told us in assembly the next morning that she was going to be okay.
I didn’t know Pammie suffered from asthma, but perhaps it was Jim’s, I reasoned. People find the oddest mementoes comforting. There was something beneath it, a cutting or a picture, and I carefully lifted the inhaler out to get a clearer view. My eyes snapped shut, as if desperately trying to stop themselves from sending the message they’d already received to my brain. I tried to retract it, battling furiously with myself to eradicate the image before it reached the part of me that recognized it. But I’d seen it and there was no way it could be undone. Rebecca. Smiling out at me, with the man she loved by her side. The missing photo from the album.
‘Hey, I’m back,’ Adam called out from downstairs.
What the hell was he doing here? He’d only been gone half an hour. I dropped the box, the inhaler falling out into the drawer, and I scrambled furiously to pick it up and put it all back. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, pumping extra energy through my hands, making it almost impossible to do even the simplest thing without shaking.
‘You here?’ he said. I could hear the creak of the floorboards as he walked through the hall to the kitchen. ‘Em?’
If I could just stop my hands from trembling I could get it all back in position. I could make out his footsteps coming into the hall, and there was only one place for him to go from there. A burning acid tore through my chest and my throat constricted violently as it struggled to hold it down.
‘Hey, what you doing up here?’ he asked, reaching me just as I sat on the edge of the bed, my foot slowly closing the open drawer he couldn’t yet see.
‘I . . . I just . . .’ I faltered.
‘Jesus, Em, you’re deathly pale. What’s up?’
‘I . . . I came over a bit funny downstairs, a migraine or something, so I brought myself up here to lie down.’ I patted the pillows under the embroidered bedspread, still untouched and perfect.
‘Oh,’ he said, not noticing. ‘How do you feel now?’
‘A little better, but I think I just sat up too quickly when I heard you calling. You were quick. Is Pammie okay? I hope she’s not going to mind me being up here.’
‘She’s not back yet, I need to go and get her in a couple of hours. Do you feel up to a sandwich or a cup of tea?’
‘Sorry, you’ve left Pammie there?’ I asked tersely.
‘Yeah, she doesn’t like me going in with her.’
‘But you went in with her last time.’
‘No, I did the same then, as well,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t want me to see her like that, all wired up and whatever else they do. Silly really, because I’m sure that’s when she needs me most, but she’s adamant she doesn’t want me in there.’
‘But . . . last time . . . you told me about the other ladies, how they were all chatting to one another?’
‘That’s what she told me,’ he said, not understanding for a second the implication of what he was saying. ‘No doubt to make me feel better about not going in. Apparently, they’re all on their own, they don’t encourage accompanying visitors because it’s only a small room and there’s just not enough space.’
‘So where does she go when you drop her off?’ I asked, my mouth moving too quickly for my brain to keep up. ‘Where does she go?’
‘To ward 306, or whatever it is.’ He laughed. ‘I don’t know. I just do what she says and take her to the main entrance.’
‘So, you don’t go with her past that point?’
‘What is this, Em?’ he asked, still half laughing, but a tension was beginning to seep in.
I needed to sit, be quiet, and think. My brain felt like it was going to explode with all this new information bombarding it from every angle. The inhaler, Rebecca’s picture, and the image of Pammie walking straight through the hospital and out the other side, clogged up any sense.
‘You really don’t look well,’ said Adam. ‘Why don’t you lie back down and I’ll go and make a cup of tea.’
‘I can’t,’ I said, feeling suddenly compelled to get out of there. ‘I need to go. I need some fresh air.’
‘Whoa, hold up,’ he said. ‘Just take it slowly. Here, take my arm, I’ll help you back down the stairs.’
‘No, I mean – I can’t stay here.’
‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ he said, his voice a little louder. ‘I’ve got to go back and get Mum in a bit, so just have a cup of tea and calm down.’
‘Drop me back to the station when you go. I’ll get the train home.’
‘That’s crazy,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to go all the way into London and back out again to Blackheath. That doesn’t make sense.’
I knew it didn’t, but nothing made sense anymore. After everything she’d done, I’d given Pammie the benefit of the doubt, and was fully prepared to put everything behind us and get through her treatment together, as a family. But this? This was something entirely different, something that I couldn’t even begin to contemplate.