Don’t lose it. I must stay calm. I need to get out of this situation alive.
Suicide. That’s what they’ll say it was. Just like the other girls.
I hear a laugh. It sounds manic. Taunting.
And then a figure steps out of the fog, clamping a hand across my mouth before I’ve had the chance to scream.
Part Two
* * *
26
Willow, March 2019
There’s something going on in this house. They try to hide it from me, but it’s evident in the whispered discussions I hear them all having with each other. The old woman, the cold fish of a daughter and that cook from the kitchen. They do it when they think I’m not listening. Not that I am listening. I couldn’t give two hoots what they’re wittering on about to each other. This is a short-term thing for me. Just to get some cash before I decide what I really want to do with my life.
It was Arlo who told me about the job. It was advertised in the local newspaper at the end of February. I think it was mainly because he was fed up with me dossing down with him in his manky bedsit in Weston-super-Mare while I did the odd shift at the local café. ‘Willow,’ he’d say, putting on that serious big-brother expression whenever he was about to give me a lecture, ‘You need to have direction,’ as though he had some high-flying career when really he was driftwood, the same as me. He must have been moaning about me to one of his mates down the pub because they told him that a friend of a friend had seen this job advertised. Something like that, anyway. Arlo tends to waffle on a bit and I was only half listening because I was in the middle of watching reruns of Line of Duty on Netflix. Anyway, I decided to go for it. A live-in position, in a grand house with my own bedroom away from my brother’s stinky feet and foetid flat, is a plus point. And the money was really good for a carer role.
I’m apparently younger than their previous employees. This was told to me rather sniffily by the daughter, Kathryn, at the interview, as though youth is something to be embarrassed by. I’m twenty, love, I wanted to say. I’m hardly a child. And I have experience of caring for people. I was training to be a nurse at one point. I did the first year at university and everything. And I’m telling you, training to be a nurse is hardcore. They should be getting big salaries for what they have to put up with, honestly – all those long night shifts and bedpans and cleaning old men’s private parts. Yes, I did it all and I’m not embarrassed to say I couldn’t hack it – although, of course, I omitted to say that at the interview. I didn’t want them to think I couldn’t stick at things. I just went on about a bereavement and lack of money forcing me to leave, which was a bit of a white lie, but it got me the job.
So here I am. Two weeks in and already counting down the days until I can hand my notice in. Still, the job’s a doddle, really. It didn’t take me long to work out there was nothing wrong with the old woman. She just wants a bit of pampering and companionship. She can get to the toilet by herself, thankfully. And I make her laugh. I like that. I like to see her throw her head back so that her throat goes all crêpy and she properly belly-laughs. It’s like, in that moment, she forgets she’s some posh, stuck-up pensioner. It’s the most honest I’ve seen her. And when I came she didn’t look like she’d laughed for a long time. There’s a sadness about her blue eyes, too, as though she’s lost many people in her life, and I can relate to that. Not that I’ve lost many people. Just a few important ones. Just enough to make me feel as though I’m adrift in the huge rough ocean that is my life.
I don’t think I’m the cleverest person in the world – probably one of the reasons why I didn’t pass my first year of nursing. But I believe I can read people, that I’m tuned in to them and can sense what they’re feeling. And, in a weird way, I feel like that about Elspeth.
The daughter, on the other hand, I don’t feel attuned to her. She’s got a barrier around her so strong it’s like a forcefield.
I’m allowed Wednesdays and Saturdays off, and apart from those days – when her daughter stays to cover me – I’m expected to be on hand 24/7. Not that I’ve got any friends in Bristol anyway. I’m not really familiar with the place, although I enjoy exploring on my days off. I quickly realize that Clifton is the posh part, with its Georgian houses, boutique-style shops and upmarket cafés, which are very different from the one where I worked in Weston-super-Mare. It’s fun at first, accompanying Elspeth on her excursions to the hairdresser, or to the shops she owns. The other day I had to take her to a council meeting – something to do with the funding she raises for impoverished artists. Sometimes she just likes me to take her for a walk, and Clifton is beautiful in the spring, with the cherry blossom lining the pavements, like confetti, and the smell of flowers in the air. I love spring – it’s like a fresh start. A renewal. Everything wakes up, like Sleeping Beauty, after a long sleep, blinking and marvelling at the sunshine with the birds singing and the smell of cut grass.