It gives me more strength to see Dad. I turn away from the window and face the middle of the room again. I look around at all the pictures crammed in here. There are tiny black-and-white
photographs of people in oval frames over the fireplace. On the walls there are larger photographs of houses in Madeira and London. Dad told me that the Thomas-Fulfords had several homes in
addition to Weston. And dotted around the wallpapered walls are pencil drawings and oil paintings of various members of the family.
There’s even one of Lady Eleanor as a little girl.
‘She was pretty then,’ I say, before I can help myself. I swear I hear a snort. Kind of like a horse, but fainter. I move away from the wall and back into the room.
Something moves with me.
It’s not something I can see.
It’s a smell.
It’s like lavender but mixed with perfume so strong and acidic that I nearly keel over. I sniff my own wrist to check that it’s not me, although I know full well that the body spray
I got from Superdrug smells nothing like that, and then I hunt all round the room looking for air fresheners and bowls of potpourri and sniffing the furniture to see if it smells of some weird
polish or something. But the smell just gets stronger and stronger where I am until it’s like I’m standing in the middle of some moving tornado of scent.
‘Get a grip,’ I say to myself. ‘It’s just a smell. Smells can’t hurt you.’
I glance out of the window to see where Dad has got to and my heart leaps with relief when I see him pounding up the lawn towards the arch at the side of the house.
While I’m looking at Dad, the smell moves.
I follow it.
It moves over to Lady Eleanor’s writing desk and hovers in the air over her chair. The air in the room hangs heavy and hot. It’s like the room is getting smaller and darker and
stuffier and the ceiling is moving down to try and squash all the air out of the room. My head is pounding now, like a migraine or something, and my heart keeps doing funny flutters in my
chest.
Then it goes.
Just like that. The smell lifts and disappears and the room seems to get brighter and lighter again.
I walk towards the door with my heart pounding and I try as usual not to look sideways in the tiny mirror on the panelling just inside the door as I go past it, but I swear I see both my own
profile go past and then another taller one close up behind me.
My neck prickles with ice.
‘Dad!’ I yell as he comes through into the entrance hall, opening the big front door and allowing sunlight to flood over the parquet floor. ‘You’re back!’
Dad grins.
‘Well, I live here,’ he says. ‘Of course I’m back! Are you ready for today, Tabs?’
I’m not sure what I’m ready for at the moment but I smile and link my arm through his. My heart starts to calm down a bit.
‘Bring it on!’ I say.
The house changes with all the people rushing about.
I’m in the grounds outside and I’m looking up at the front of the house, like I did on the very first day we came here.
More press have turned up so there are loads of bored-looking men with cameras hanging about smoking on the steps to the manor.
I stare up at the shuttered windows on the first floor. Since Sid left, things only get done at the last moment and usually by some sort of relief security guard drafted over from another of the
council’s buildings.
The house looks down on me. Sometimes I swear it’s about to speak.
The walls gleam white in the sun and the glass windows that line the verandah sparkle through their stained glass colour panes.
Groups of birds chatter and swoop in the bushes at the sides of the house and there’s the sharp click of croquet balls at the back and the roar and rush of traffic piling up outside on
Weston Drove.
It all seems so normal.
The house looks stripped of character today, like a square white cake plonked down on a green iced base.
It’s like – the more people pour in and out of the doors, the less the house has its personality any longer.
I think what it’s like in the evenings when all the visitors have gone and I shudder and get up from the old flight of steps on the circular front lawn.
Time to help Dad again.
It’s kind of good that there are all these people knocking about. I reckon nothing will happen whilst there are so many loud modern bodies all over the place, filling up the grand rooms
and the huge entrance hall with noise and gaiety.
Dad gives a speech to welcome the mayor and then people descend on the buffet lunch in the dining room in front of the cases of Chinese lions. The room looks so beautiful that for one short
moment I feel pleased to be living in the manor – but that doesn’t last long.
‘Tabs, I’d like you to show the mayor and his guests around the house, please,’ says Dad.
I stop with a sausage roll halfway to my mouth.
What?
‘No, I can’t,’ I stumble. ‘I don’t want to go upstairs.’
Dad smiles at the mayor with this big fake ‘What can I do about my daughter?’ look and then pulls me off by the arm into a corner of the hall.
‘You’ve got to stop this nonsense,’ he says. ‘The mayor is our distinguished guest. You’re to take him round the house, and that’s that.’
I can see that any more argument would be pointless, so I drag my feet back into the dining room and put on my polite smile.
The mayor and his four guests follow me into the drawing room, where I point out the valuable Wedgwood collection and the unusual porcelain lamps, and then into the entrance hall where they gaze
up at the portraits of Sir Charles and Lady Thomas-Fulford and admire the beauty of the half-sisters, Lucinda and Rose.
I reach the foot of the staircase and for once I don’t go all cold, so I take a deep breath and take slow, creaking steps up to the first-floor landing, talking all the way about the
things Dad has taught me.
I show them Lady Eleanor’s bedroom and the guest bedroom next door. I even manage the library, without passing out or smelling anything weird.
Then I reach Sir Charles Thomas-Fulford’s bedroom and I’m looking forward to showing the visitors those weird bell pulls by the bed and the special lever for shutting the bedroom
door without getting out of bed . . . but I can’t.
The door’s closed.
I push it and twiddle with the doorknob but I can’t shift it.
‘Never mind,’ says the mayor, polite as ever. ‘We can still enjoy the other rooms.’
I turn away from the door but as I move back towards the mayor there’s a loud groan.
It’s coming from inside Sir Charles’ bedroom.
I look wide-eyed at the visitors but they’re chatting amongst themselves.
There’s a clunk somewhere near the door.
The door swings open about an inch and then stops.
‘You need to get someone to look at that!’ says the mayor. His party all laugh.
I take them inside with my breath held. But everything in there looks the same as normal, so I explain about the shaving mirror and let them enjoy the views out towards the back lawns.
We go through to the two servants’ bedrooms that are on the same floor as the grand bedrooms and, like all visitors, the mayor comments on the fact that it was pretty unusual for servants
to have bedrooms so close to their mistress and master and I nod and smile, and all the time I try not to look out at the croquet lawn outside or think about bells or smells. It must be working
because actually our tour of the rooms upstairs and even the poky rooms in the top-floor attic goes without a hitch, and by the time we get back to the first-floor landing and I stop them by the
grandfather clock to tell them a bit about it, I’m starting to think that perhaps Dad is right and I’ve been a bit over-imaginative lately. I’m thinking that I ought to try and do
something nice for him later when a woman rushes up to our group and heads straight into the servants’ toilet on this floor. She doesn’t catch my eye but I get a whiff of her strange
odour and I reckon she’s one of the catering staff cos she smells of kitchen cleaner and meat and isn’t dressed like the other visitors, so although that toilet is not usually open to
the public I guess that this is a special occasion. I ignore her and then I continue talking to the mayor and his guests just outside, answering their questions about the house.
When I’ve finished ten minutes later the toilet door is still firmly shut but one of the mayor’s party is shifting from leg to leg and looking pointedly at the door.
‘Is there still somebody in there? Do you think they’ve collapsed?’ says a lady in a violet suit with black-rimmed glasses. ‘Perhaps we should knock?’
I nod and tap very softly on the door, and then a bit louder when there’s no reply.
‘Why don’t you go downstairs and use the visitor lavatories there?’ I say, because the guest is looking as if he’s about to burst.
I watch the party go down the dark staircase, chatting amongst themselves and I feel proud of myself for a moment.
I gave a talk about the house and people enjoyed it.
And nothing happened, more to the point.
Except I’ve maybe got an unconscious member of staff on my hands now.
Dad’s given me one of his walkie-talkies so I press the button like he’s shown me and after a moment or two he comes bounding up the stairs in his usual way, two at a time.
‘Dad, you’ve got lipstick on your cheek,’ I say.
Dad laughs and wipes it off.
‘Never mind that,’ he says. ‘What’s going on up here?’
I point at the door of the servants’ toilet.
‘You shouldn’t really let people use this,’ sighs Dad. ‘It’s part of the visitor exhibit.’
I roll my eyes.
‘Dad, there is a LADY stuck in there,’ I say. ‘She might be ill. Or dead. Could you please stop telling me off and DO something?’
Dad knocks twice on the door but there’s no reply. ‘Stand back,’ he says, just like men do in films. Then he runs at the door and kicks it open with his boot. The door flies
open with a bang, hitting the wall inside.
There’s nobody there.
I go in and look up at the window.
It’s tiny, only big enough for a cat to squeeze through and not a solid-looking woman.
Even Dad looks a bit confused.
‘Are you SURE that she went in there, Tabs?’ he says.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘She was in a hurry.’
‘Well,’ says Dad. ‘She must have somehow got out again without you seeing.’
‘Not possible,’ I say. ‘I was standing right here all the time. And how do you explain the door being locked from the inside?’
I can see Dad struggling to explain this one, but his radio crackles into life again and it’s Dawn telling him to come back downstairs. So he bounds off again and I follow because I
don’t want to be left up here with all the empty four-poster beds and the library.
For the rest of the afternoon I hand round plates of sandwiches and top up glasses of wine and champagne and I watch Mum making a big effort to talk to guests. I admire her pale-pink lip gloss
and her shiny brown bun and the way that she’s managed to dress in a floaty lilac top and leggings and still look a million times more classy than Dawn with her flashy lipstick and tight
top.
Dawn is over in the corner of the dining room by the Chinese lions surrounded by the press from the local paper.
Dad keeps looking over at her with a sour expression on his face.
I’m pretty sure Mum sees.
After a while she excuses herself and goes back to the flat where Ben has been left locked in on his own with me checking him every half hour and to the safety of her sleeping pills and
bedroom.
By six o’clock the guests have all gone and the caterers have come in to clean up the mess. Dad supervises them and I go back to the flat to tell Ben all about the afternoon.
He listens with his eyes wide, as usual. He’s too little to be trusted at these posh events. There’s always the risk that he’ll charge into somebody’s legs and cause them
to drop their food or hide behind a chair and leap out, giving some old man a heart attack.
‘There’s a lot of stuff going on here, Ben,’ I say after I’ve told him about the guests. ‘A lot of stuff that I don’t understand.’
He tucks his little hand into mine and we watch some rubbish reality TV programme about people learning to be opera stars until Dad comes back in much later to cook us omelettes for supper. Mum
surfaces and gives us a tight smile and skirts around Dad without touching him or talking to him and surely she must be able to smell what I smell?
Perfume.
Dad smells of Dawn’s perfume.
That night my father sleeps on the couch.
J
ake comes to visit.
Mum says it’s OK so I spend all Friday morning getting ready in my bedroom.
I really want to make more effort with Jake now. I feel like I’ve been taking him for granted and Gemma agrees. So I’ve texted him loads this week and he’s replied to most of
them.
I look at my pale reflection and lank hair in the mirror and something in me kind of snaps.
I’m fed up being tired and stressed and anxious.
I reach for a red dress that Mum bought me but that I haven’t yet worn. It’s short and flippy and has two spaghetti straps. I put on black ballerinas and then I reach for my make-up
case and add a bright red lipstick and dark eyeliner.
I dry my hair upside down until it stands out in a dark blonde cloud around my head and then I survey the results in the mirror.
A different sort of girl stares back at me.
Tabitha, definitely. Not Tabs. Not today. I look about five years older than usual.
I top the look off with some mascara and spray shine stuff all over my head and then I float into the lounge for Mum’s approval.
‘Oh!’ she says, looking a bit shocked. Then she sees my expression and smiles.
‘You look nice, Tabitha,’ she says. ‘I like it when you make a bit of an effort with your appearance. Very striking.’
I glow. It’s not often that Mum praises me these days.
Ben giggles so I know I must look kind of OK.
Dad pops back at coffee time.