The House at the End of Hope Street

Chapter Five





My m-m-um.” Alba stumbles over the word, hardly getting it out. “My mum, I don’t, I can’t . . . I have to go home.” This awful fact falls on top of the unbearable one, crushing Alba’s chest until she’s taking little gasps of air, barely able to breathe.

“Oh, love.” Stella looks at Alba, broken again so quickly, her whole world crashing down upon her. But with a gift of foresight such as only the dead and clairvoyant possess, Stella knows Alba must be allowed to feel her grief, must dive headlong into despair, before she can emerge again, her spirit deeper and richer than before. She knows that if she lifts Alba’s pain now, it’ll only postpone her healing. So she can do nothing, except stay so Alba is not alone.

“She’s dead,” Alba says softly. “She killed herself. She finally did it.” She sits in the kitchen doorway and leans her head against the wall. It softens in response, gently holding her.

Stella knows there are no words to say. Nothing will do, or fit, or make anything better at all. The only thing to be done is something she can’t do. She wishes with every fiber of her non-beating heart, that she could hold Alba in her arms now.

“Will you come with me?”

Alba looks up at Stella, who gently shakes her head. “I can’t.”

“Why, why not?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t leave the house, the kitchen . . .”

“Yes, but, are you sure?” Alba feels tears stinging her eyes. “Have you tried?”

Stella nods. “I’m sorry.”

“I can’t go alone,” Alba chokes, “I just can’t . . . ‘

“I know you’re scared,” Stella says softly, “I understand and I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t.” Alba’s voice is sharp now. “You don’t have any idea, any idea at all. They’re awful. They hate me. They’ve always hated me.”

Quietly Alba begins to cry. Not for the loss of her mother, which hasn’t sunk in yet, but for the fact that she has to face them. And that the one friend she wishes could hold her, can’t.

—

Alba catches the earliest morning train to London, makes the connection to Aldershot and waits outside the station for her sister. Biting her fingernails and rubbing her red eyes, Alba absently observes the chattering commuters swirling around her, their conversations a rainbow of colors. When Charlotte finally screeches along the road Alba sees flashes of silver lightning snapping from her tires just before the car turns the corner.

“Ouch!” Alba glances down at her raw thumb she just bit and tastes blood on her lip.

When Charlotte gets out of the car, they don’t hug. For a tiny, fleeting moment Alba thinks they might, but instead her sister just reaches out a delicate bejeweled and manicured hand to take the small bag Alba grips in hers.

“Is this all you have?” Charlotte is carelessly dressed with the utmost care. Every piece of her outfit has been meticulously put together, precisely planned for maximum effect. And all of it, from the ivory silk shirt to the sky blue jeans and scuffed brown suede boots, cost more than Alba’s entire wardrobe, indeed probably more than all her worldly possessions. This was true even when they were children. As a teenager Charlotte would have her black hair trimmed in the London salons and pick her couture from the Mayfair boutiques. Ten years after her, Alba cut her own hair and wore boy’s clothes found in the village charity shops.

“I didn’t . . .” Alba shrugs. “I didn’t know how long I’d be staying.”

“It’s always wiser to over-prepare,” Charlotte says, throwing the bag into the boot of her BMW, “or you risk being caught short.”

Alba nods, wondering if her perfectly prepared sister has ever actually been caught short or unprepared for anything. She doubts it. As they drive Alba closes her eyes and pretends to sleep. At last, when she hears the car’s tires crunching on gravel, she turns her head to look out of the window. They speed down the long driveway, passing through fields of flowers and sheep, and Alba feels her chest tighten, squeezing all the blood out of her heart. A moment later the family home comes into view, an overblown Victorian doll’s house with forty windows, eight chimneys (one for each wing) and a wide flight of stone steps leading up to a double oak door flanked with pillars.

Alba misses Hope Street so sharply it hurts. It is the home she dreamed of as a little girl. Somewhere soft and loving, where the walls breathe, the garden hides your secrets, the inhabitants lift your spirits and the kitchen soothes your soul. Not a drafty mansion with dozens of sparsely furnished, freezing rooms and windswept corridors that never end. As a child Alba wished for a house the size of a shoebox, with everyone always within reach, so that when she cried or called out somebody would come to comfort her. But since she never had it, she learned to live without, to pretend she preferred to be alone. And Alba’s been doing it for so long now, she nearly always believes it to be true.

As they drive Alba remembers the last time she baked biscuits with her mother. She was six years old and it was three o’clock in the morning. Elizabeth Ashby, dressed for dinner in a silk gown, woke Alba, carried her to the kitchen and sat her on the table amid a mess of flour, eggs and sugar.

“What are we doing, Mummy?” Alba rubbed her eyes.

“We’re making your favorite, sweetie, gingerbread men.”

“But it’s nighttime. I have school in the morning.”

“We’re having a midnight snack. You love them, remember?” Great puffs of flour filled the air as Elizabeth frantically stirred the ingredients. “We’ll eat them together, won’t that be fun?”

“Yes, Mummy.” Alba had nodded. “It’ll be fun.”

Charlotte brakes to a halt at the stone steps, spitting gravel at the feet of Alba’s oldest brother, Charles. He glances down at his shoes then looks up, flicking his hand in a half-wave, while walking around to the back of the car.

“Hello girls.” Charles opens the boot and lifts out Alba’s bag. “Pleasant trip, I trust, under the circumstances?”

Alba holds her breath, begging herself not to cry, then pushes open her door. Charles waits at the steps until Alba reaches him, patting her shoulder so quickly Alba wonders if he touched her at all.

“Did Edward bring Tilly?” Alba asks, thinking that her niece’s soft little cheek pressed against hers might be the only thing to get her through this agony. “I miss—”

“Left her in London with the nanny, thank God.” Charles walks toward the stone steps.

“Bloody dreadful traffic on the M11.” Charlotte slams her door and the sports car shudders. “Can’t stand queuing for hours for no discernible reason.”

“Cook isn’t happy she’s had to hold dinner,” Charles calls out, taking the steps two by two, “though she’s only clanging pots, not throwing them. Out of respect for Mother, I believe.”

And sure enough, Alba can see flashes of electricity striking the air around the kitchen in the east wing: long, spiky snakes that crack up into the clouds. The colors are so bright, so vibrant it surprises her. She thought the sadness of her mother’s death would have clouded her sight again, but it now seems brighter than ever before.

“Oh, hell,” Charlotte sighs, “I suppose we’d better get a move on.”

As her sister strides after Charles, Alba follows, taking each step as slowly as she possibly can. She knows that even the family tragedy won’t stop the interrogation about her career. Her heartless siblings, with the exception of her brother Edward, softened by fatherhood and the loss of his wife a year ago, won’t be shedding tears that might dampen their curiosity. So Alba will eventually have to tell them what happened, though she won’t tell them why. Because, apart from anything else, they’ll never believe her.

—

That afternoon Greer sits on the floor of her wardrobe, surrounded by discarded dresses. Carmen stands in front of the mirror, trying on a blue silk trouser suit while Peggy perches on the bed in a cream linen shirt and skirt emblazoned with bright purple orchids.

“This is so fun,” Peggy giggles. “I’ve never felt so fancy, like I should be out courting with a man on each arm.”

“Try this.” Greer holds out a dark red poodle skirt to Carmen. “Tight tops set off by big belts and flouncy skirts, that’s your thing. Perfect for your figure.”

Carmen discards her trousers, slips on the skirt and smiles. “Perfecto.”

“So, my dear.” Peggy turns to Greer. “Apart from playing dress-up, have you given any thought to what you want to do with your life?”

Greer gives a nonchalant shrug, not in the mood to delve into her angst about acting and her seemingly bleak future in general. “I’ve an interview with Carmen’s boss on Saturday.”

“Well.” Peggy smoothes her skirt. “That might do for now, but I think, since you’re here, the house probably has bigger plans for you than that.”

“Oh?” Greer says. “And will you tell me what they are?”

“No, my dear.” Peggy smiles. “I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work like that.”

—

Alba shuffles through the east wing of Ashby Hall, shivering. She can’t sleep and she’s starving—not that she wants to eat, her stomach is too full of sorrow. She refused dinner with Charlotte and Charles, pleading a migraine, knowing they wouldn’t settle for the simple reason of grief. For an Ashby mustn’t be buckled or broken by emotion, an Ashby must be strong. She imagines them downstairs, plowing through Cook’s four courses, drinking until they can’t feel anything anymore.

As Alba turns a corner along the corridor the clouds part and her way is lit by moonlight. She sees the door, exactly as she remembers it, painted blue: the shade of a muted spring sky, her mother’s favorite color. It stands out against all the ancient oak that lines the walls and shapes the ceilings, the only painted door in the whole of Ashby Hall, a gift to Alba’s mother from a grateful husband on the birth of their first child: Charles Ashby IV.

Alba places her palm on the wood, her pale fingers made marble by the moonlight, and stares at the door as though trying to see through it. She wonders if it’s been opened since her mother’s death and if, indeed, this was where she died. The siblings haven’t explained the circumstances yet, and she hasn’t asked, hardly sure whether or not she really wants to know.

A cloud drifts across the moon. Alba’s hand disappears and the corridor is dark again. In the blackness she feels herself starting to fray at the edges, her molecules drifting off, evaporating, dissolving . . . She could be eight years old again, standing outside her mother’s bedroom door, pleading with her to stop crying and come out and play. Then Alba hears that song again, the one she heard the first night at Hope Street. Alba presses her ear to the door, but then the tune changes to another she knows, one about all the colors of the rainbow. Another memory rises up. She’s lying on the grass in a field, under an oak. Her mother lies next to her, singing that song. Alba can hear her own voice, young and bright. “Look.” Her tiny hand points up at the tree. “It’s breathing, Mummy, bright yellow like buttercups.”

“The color of inspiration,” her mother says, “and youth.”

“Yes,” Alba laughs. “Yes!”

“What other colors can you see, my darling?”

Alba sits up, glancing around the field. “That bird is singing dark green,” she says. “The tiny one in black, he’s complaining.”

“Maybe someone stole his worm.”

“I can’t understand what he’s singing, Mummy.” Alba frowns. “That’s what Dr. Doolittle does.”

“Quite right,” her mother smiles, “so what else do you see?”

But just as Alba is about to answer, the memory lets go and leaves Alba standing alone in the silence. A slip of light now shines from underneath the door and slowly she pushes it open. The room is exactly as she remembers: sparse and bare, with sky blue walls, wooden bed, wardrobe and rocking chair by the single long window. On the chair, Alba thinks she can see her mother, rocking back and forth, twisting her hands in her lap, muttering the same sentence to herself over and over again.

The words are too soft for Alba to hear and the light too dim for her to see their letters, so she creeps a little closer, stepping across the wooden floorboards with great care so they won’t squeak. When she’s only a few feet away Alba stops, seeing what her mother says before she can hear her. The words are royal blue, the color of sorrow.

“Where are you? Why did you leave me? I need you. Please, Ella, please come back, I need you, I need you now.”

Alba frowns. Who on earth is Ella?