The house was owned by schoolteachers who were moving south. It had been very untidy when I had called to take details a few days before, but I’d assumed they would tidy up when they knew prospective purchasers were coming—I’d never known a seller yet who hadn’t.
However, when we went in, the place was a tip. Heaps of clothes lay on the stairs to be taken up, the remains of breakfast was still on the kitchen table and there were years of ground-in dirt on the tiled floor.
“This is disgusting,” Mrs Naughton expostulated indignantly.
Her husband nudged her, embarrassed, but she refused to be silenced. “It smells!” she claimed.
After a brief glance in the lounge, which looked as if a hurricane had swept through it, Mrs Naughton refused to go upstairs. “I dread to think what the bathroom must be like. I couldn’t possibly live here.” She made for the door.
Seconds later, I found myself shaking hands again and apologising for the state of the house. They drove away, Mrs Naughton in high dudgeon, and I returned to my car. I had expected the view to take at least an hour but it had been over within a few minutes.
I drove out of the estate and was about to turn right towards Liverpool when I remembered that the St Osyth Trust, where Alison lived, was only about five miles away. On impulse, I turned left in the direction of Skelmersdale. I’d tell George the Naughtons had taken their usual lengthy time. “I’m normally very conscientious,”
I told myself virtuously. “I rarely take time off.
I’m never ill.”
It was months since I’d seen my sister. I preferred to go “without Mum, who frequently made a big emotional scene, patting and kissing a mystified Alison who had no idea what all the fuss was about.
The sky was growing darker and it began to drizzle. I hated driving with the windscreen wipers on, and it was with relief that I turned off the narrow, isolated road into the circular drive of the gloomy redbrick mansion.
The big oak trees bordering the grounds at the front had shed their leaves and a gardener was leisurely raking them into little heaps on the lawn. Round the side of the house, a bonfire smouldered reluctantly. I parked in the area reserved for visitors. Perhaps because it was Monday, I appeared to be the only one there.
The heels of Flo’s shoes clicked loudly on the polished wooden floor as I went over to Reception where a woman was typing. She looked up questioningly. “Can I help you?”
“I’ve come to see Alison Cameron. I’m her sister.” I felt uncomfortable. The woman, Evelyn Porter, had worked there for as long as I could remember, yet she didn’t recognise me because I came so rarely.
“Of course. I should have known. Alison’s in the lounge. She’s already got a visitor. You know the way, don’t you?”
I nodded and turned to go, when Evelyn Porter said, “I should warn you that Alison’s a little upset today. We had to have the upstairs redecorated—it was in a terrible state, and the painters are in her room. Alison can’t stand her precious things being disturbed and you’ll find her rather agitated.”
The lounge was built on to the rear of the house, a sturdy conservatory that went its entire width, filled with brightly cushioned cane furniture. I paused before going in, praying it would be Trudy who was visiting, not Mum. Trudy’s car hadn’t been outside, though, and Mum couldn’t fit in the bus journey to Skelmersdale between finishing work and being home in time to make my father’s tea. During the week he monopolised the car it would have been fixed quick enough when he needed it himself, assuming there’d been anything wrong in the first place.
To my pleased surprise, when I opened the door I found Declan, who was supposed to be at work, alone in the lounge with Alison. “What on earth are you doing here?”
He stood up and hugged me. “Hi, Sis. You’re the last person I expected to see.”
We stayed in each other’s arms for several seconds. It was only when I saw him that I remembered just how much I loved my little brother, though he was several inches taller than me now. “Declan, love, you’re thinner than ever,” I said. I could feel the bones protruding from his neck and shoulders, and I remembered the violence meted out to his puny body by our father. I gave him an affectionate push and turned to my sister. “Hallo, Alison.
It’s Millie. I’ve come to see you.”
Over the last few years, Alison Cameron had grown into a beautiful young woman. She’d always been the prettiest of us three sisters, but now she was breathtaking.
Her eyes were large and very green, like a luminous sea in sunlight, the lashes long and thick, several shades darker than her abundant ash-blonde hair, emphasising the creamy whiteness of her flawless skin. Her condition was only evident in the movements of her lovely body: stiff, clumsy, lacking grace.
“Hallo, hallo, hallo.” Alison flicked her long fingers in front of her eyes. “You want to go upstairs.”
She meant, “I”. “I want to go upstairs.”
“Sorry, luv. You can’t,” Declan said gently. “Your room’s being painted a nice new colour.”
I kissed the smooth, porcelain cheek, but Alison didn’t seem aware of the gesture. “It will look very pretty when it’s done, darling. Then you can spread all your lovely things out again.” She kept her talcum powder, hairslides, toys and other odds and ends in neat rows on the bedside table and window-sill, and was always deeply distressed if anything “was put in the ‘wrong place.
“You want to go upstairs.”
“Later, darling, later.”
Alison looked at the floor, avoiding eye-contact.
“Come in thing with wheels?”
“I came in my car, yes.”
“You go in thing with wheels.”
“You’ve been in a car? Whose car, darling?”
“I think Trudy and Colin took her for a drive yesterday,”
Declan whispered, when Alison shook herself irritably and began to flick her fingers again.
I had never been able to comprehend what went on in my sister’s mind, although one of the doctors had once tried to explain it to Mum. It was something to do with mind blindness, the inability to perceive another person’s emotions, which was why she sometimes laughed when our mother cried. Poor Mum was unable to accept that Alison wasn’t laughing at her. My sister just wasn’t aware of tears.
“Would you like to do a jigsaw puzzle, luv?” Declan suggested. “The woman brought some in before,” he said.
“Thought they might calm her down, like.”
But Alison was looking out of the window, where a narrow line of smoke was drifting upwards from the bonfire. She had an uncanny, inexplicable ability to do the most complicated jigsaws in a fraction of the time it would have taken most people.
Declan and I looked at each other. As far as Alison was concerned, we might as well not be there.
“You know,” Declan said softly, “I used to think me dad was responsible for the way Alison is. I thought he shook and slapped her so hard it damaged her brain. I envied her something rotten. I always hoped he’d do the same to me so I’d be sent here, too.”
“He did more than shake and slap you, Dec. He leathered the three of us regularly.”
“You had it the worst, Mill. You were the oldest, and he seemed to have it in for you more than the rest of us.”
I made a face. I seemed to have caught the habit from Bel. “Maybe there was something about me that drove him over the edge,” I suggested lightly.
“Still, it didn’t damage our brains. We all stayed quite normal.” Declan grinned. “Least, relatively normal. Mind you,” the grin disappeared, “there’s still time for one of us to snap. I’ll end up behind bars if I stay in that house much longer. I swear one day I’ll kill the bastard because of the way he treats Mam. He hasn’t given her any money in weeks. It used to be the horses, now it’s that bloody lottery. Yet you should hear him moan if the food isn’t up to scratch. He nearly hit the roof when we got a reminder for the electricity bill, as if she could pay everything out of the fifty quid a week she earns and what I hand over for me keep. He called her a lazy bitch and said it was about time she got a full-time job. If she did, there’d be hell to pay if his meals ‘weren’t ready on time.’
Declan’s soft, rather feminine voice was rising, and I noticed that his hands, long and white like Alison’s were gripping the arms of the chair, the knuckles taut. His gentle face was drawn and tired. I leaned back in the chair and sighed. My brother’s unhappiness was painful to watch and it was to avoid that pain that I kept as far away from my family as I could. I almost wished I hadn’t come or that Declan hadn’t been there. “Why don’t you leave, Dec?” I pleaded. Then there’d only be Mum for me to worry about.
“As if I could leave Mam on her own with that bastard.”
“You can’t stay for ever, love.”
“I’ll stay as long as I have to.”
I got up and walked down the long room to the coffee machine provided for visitors. The light was on, which meant the machine was working. “Fancy a coffee, Dec?” I called. Alison remained fascinated by the smoke.
“Please.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked, when I returned with the drinks. “You’re supposed to be at work.”
Declan recovered his good humour swiftly. His knack of making a joke of things that would have driven another person to despair was impressive. Dad’s belt had broken once in the middle of a thrashing. “Never mind, Dad,” he had said chirpily. “I’ll get you another for Christmas.”
“I lost me job.” He smiled. “I got the sack three weeks ago.”
“Mum never said!”
He shrugged his delicate shoulders. “That’s because she doesn’t know. She gets dead upset every time I get the shove. No one knows except our Trudy. I’ve looked for other work, Millie, honest, but I can’t get anything. I’ve got no references because I’ve never held a job down long enough. The thing is, all I know is labouring and I’m not up to it.”
“Oh, Dec! What do you do with yourself all day?” I felt hurt that he had confided in Trudy and not in me. I was his sister, too. I wanted, reluctantly, to help.
“I wander the streets, go to the Job Centre, call on Trudy, then go home for six o’clock so Mam thinks I’ve been to work. This is the third time I’ve come to see Alison, but it means hitching lifts and last time I had to walk all the way back.”
“You should have told me.” I would have given him the key to my flat, where he could watch TV and help himself to food.
“I didn’t think you’d be interested,” Declan said, which hurt more.
“I’ll have to go soon,” I said. “They’ll be expecting me at the office. We don’t seem to be doing much good here.” I made a quick decision. “Look, I’ll take you into town and you can go to the cinema—Leaving Las Vegas is on at the Odeon. When I finish work, we’ll go back to my place for a meal. I’ve got pizza in the freezer.”
Declan’s big green eyes sparkled. “Great idea, Sis. I’ll ring Mam and tell her I’m working late or she’ll want to know how I met you. The pictures are out ‘cos I’m skint.
I give Mam all I get off the social, but it’ll be nice to look round the shops. I haven’t been to town in ages.”
It was even worse than I’d thought. “What have you been doing for money all this time?” I asked, dismayed.
“Trudy gives me the odd few quid, but she doesn’t want Colin to know what’s happened. She reckons he’s had enough of the Camerons.”
Despite Declan’s protests that he didn’t want to scrounge, I insisted he take all the money I had with me, twenty pounds.
A woman in a white overall came in to ask how Alison was. “She doesn’t want to know us today, do you, Sis?”
Declan chucked his beautiful sister under the chin, but she remained as unaware of the gesture as she’d been of my kiss. “Slippers,” she muttered. “Slippers, slippers, slippers.”
“The builders are just packing up for the day so we can put her things back in place. They’ve only got the ceiling to do tomorrow. Would you mind if I took her upstairs? I think she’ll feel happier once she knows everything’s back to normal. Next time you come she’ll be fine.”
Well, as fine as she’ll ever be, I thought sadly. I watched Alison being led away, oblivious to the presence of her brother and sister.
When it came down to it, I was no good at telling blatant lies. I couldn’t bring myself to tell George that the Naughtons had taken ages viewing the house when it wasn’t true. “I hope you don’t mind, but I went to see my sister. She only lives a few miles away. It was a spur-ofthe-moment thing.”
“The one in the home?”
“That’s right.” Sometimes I forgot George knew things about me that no one outside my family did.
“No problem,” George said easily.
“I should have let you know on the mobile.”
George laughed. “I said, no problem. You could get away with murder in that dress, Ms Millicent Cameron.
What prompted your folks to call you that, by the way?”
“It’s after a singer my mother liked, Millicent Martin.”
“Oh, Lord!” he groaned. “I liked her, too. Does that show my age?”
“Very much so, George,” I said gravely, getting my own back for his comments on Flo’s frock.
We grinned at each other amiably, and George said, “I was wondering where you were. Mrs Naughton telephoned to complain to a higher authority about the state of that house. I’ll give the vendors a ring tonight, suggest they tidy up, but be prepared to warn people in future, just in case.”
I hung up the keys and went over to my desk, aware of how close I’d come to blotting my copybook with George.
It was my job to prepare a list of properties to advertise in the local press and I was gathering together details to feed into the computer when I became aware that Diana, whose desk was next to mine, was crying quietly.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee were out, and Oliver Brett was in George’s office. June, the receptionist, was on the phone, her back to us.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. The woman’s eyes were red with weeping.
“It’s my father. I don’t know if I told you he was ill. It’s cancer of the stomach. A neighbour’s just called to say she found him unconscious on the kitchen floor. He’s been taken to hospital.”
“Then go and see him straight away. George won’t mind.”
“Why should I?” Diana looked at me mutinously.