Adam Nevill - House of Small Shadows

‘In these situations, Kitten, I always extend my imagination into their perspective. Use your imagination and it’ll take the sting out of Edith’s bite. Edith is very old, lonely, surrounded by relics of a world and of people she loved who are long gone. She’s clearly always revered what her uncle left behind. It’s what she’s protected and curated, on his bizarre instructions, I might add. That is clear from what you have told me. And we can safely assume that old Mason was pretty disturbed by the time he took his own life. She would have been in that house during the great patriarch’s end. God knows what kind of shock and trauma his suicide inflicted upon her. But she stuck it out. No wonder she’s half crazed. Maybe even frozen in time, from that period.’

‘Then she needs a doctor, help. A social worker. Not a valuer.’

‘We both know none of those types would even make it through the gate.’

‘Then me being here feels wrong.’

‘Then look at it another way. From what you have told me, she’s also endured a long imprisonment. Mason pretty much confined his niece to that house. And still does, even though he’s dead. Imagine what Mason’s treasures have deprived Edith of. The freedoms, liberties, opportunities we’ve taken for granted, as our right. Edith won’t have known any of it. But you can bet she’s spent most of her life thinking about the wider world, resenting it while desiring it. And it would be reasonable for Edith to now despise her uncle’s work, even while she covets it. She’s broke and needs to sell it all. So what has her life been for? I’ve seen this happen, Kitten. At their end, some people experience a terrible revelation. But we must hold her hand while she goes through this. I think that is what she is asking you for. She wants to share all of this with you before she says goodbye to it, for ever.’

Catherine was no analyst, though she’d known a few, but now Leonard put it like this, she wondered if the Red House was smouldering with a resentment that had become something much worse. Futility was a powerful force, as well she knew.

‘Maybe. This helps, Boss. Thanks. But I still have to go back and sleep over. It’s like willingly going to bed to have an awful nightmare.’

‘If it’s too much, just say the word and pull out. I won’t think any less of you. We can try and persuade her to let me in, even if she has her heart set on you. Your well-being must come first. I’m a businessman, but I fear you might not be ready for this job. And I feel wretched for talking you into it. I got carried away when you told me about the Mason pieces. It would be a glorious end to my career. I’ve been selfish.’

‘Don’t feel bad. I can’t… The last thing I want is for my dysfunctional private life to interfere with my work. You know that, Boss.’

‘Yes, but we all have our limits.’

‘I’m not there yet. I had a wobble last week. A big one. But I also know this is too good to let go of. Let me try another day. See if I can at least photograph everything and then I’ll pull out. Maybe tomorrow night.’

‘You sure?’

‘I think so, Boss.’

‘But the next time we go together.’

‘OK. I better get back. There’ll be hell to pay if I’m late for dinner.’

Catherine’s expectations about formal dining at the Red House were confirmed.

Feeling awkward and as breakable as the crystal she sipped from, she sat tense and uncomfortable on her chair, determined to make this the last meal she ate in the oppressive dining room. Because this was a feast to be endured within a thick, uncomfortable silence that made looking at each other across the table unbearable. Neither of her hosts appeared to have the strength to endure the meal, and she wished they hadn’t bothered with staging the performance.

The wall lights were not turned on. Four candles in holders, around which silver serpents were entwined, lit the table but only partially illumined the surrounding room. Catherine wanted to be enchanted, but the mournful silence and wretched faces of her companions made her feel so self-conscious she began to feel irrational and worried she might say something foolish.

From the little she could see there was something masculine about the dining room, a touch of its former master, with ruby-red and river-green wallpaper, designed with a miniature version of the geometric design she had seen elsewhere in the house. Dado rails remained along all of the walls. Oil paintings hung high from horizontal rods of polished brass, each picture depicting an age-darkened still life of rustic breads, grapes, game, fish, and birds with limp necks beside thin knives laid upon metal plates. A frieze around the top third of the walls featured a vine heavy with fruit.

But at least she’d had the foresight to change into the only dress she had packed. A decision she congratulated herself on as Edith had also dressed to eat. Her host’s ivory gown of embroidered silk concealed her entire body save her gloved hands and colourless face.

‘Ms Mason. It’s extraordinary to see such a fine gown still in existence, let alone being worn.’ This was the first time anyone had spoken since Catherine had been shown into the room, and her voice sounded phony and irritating within the grand space.

‘It belonged to my mother.’ Edith just about smiled, and what little of a smile appeared on her lipless mouth was an effort to maintain before she quickly returned to a preoccupation with a matter unshared. Her eyes were cloudy and her arms limp. If she leant any closer to the table, she’d be face down in her soup.

At least the food provided a temporary distraction from Edith. There was a delicious home-made vegetable soup, two small pheasants with new potatoes, a cheese soufflé, a plum pudding with fresh cream, a sweet white wine, and a burgundy.

The meal must have been prepared for Catherine, because Edith did no more than blow on a spoonful of soup and push at her pheasant with a heavy silver fork. Though at one point, Catherine suspected she had seen Edith pressing the side of a piece of bread with her tongue. But she never took a bite. Edith’s thin hands could barely support the weight of the cutlery, and it looked like she’d forgotten how to hold it. Perhaps Maude spooned food into her mouth when they were alone.

After her pretence of eating, and then an exaggerated dabbing at her mouth with a napkin, Edith finally closed her eyes and seemed to just switch herself off. She slept soundlessly with her head bowed, while Catherine nervously slipped tiny pieces of the food into her own mouth, trying not to clink the plate. She swallowed some of the food unchewed.

The coils of artificial hair on top of Edith’s head spoiled Catherine’s appetite before she reached the dessert. She suspected she could smell the piles of grey hair: a sickly floral perfume and the camphor of aged fabric kept from moths. She also wondered if a window was open because she detected an odour of damp in the room, like moist vegetation or cold, wet earth. Surreptitiously, she peered around her chair to trace the odour. The windows were all closed.

But she discovered that the mantelpiece above the great black marble fireplace displayed the source of the loud iron ticking. And she knew at a glance the clock was early eighteenth century. A timepiece set between four marble statues with a Greco-Roman theme. There was a bust of a man with a mean, arrogant face, perhaps a Roman emperor. This was set beside a sculpture of a muscular man being throttled by a serpent. Two willowy female figures, supine upon stone couches, faced each end of the room.

Mason and his sister, Violet, had probably eaten every meal here, year after year during their long occupancy of the Red House, sat at either end of the table like her and Edith were now. But had they been so silent, perhaps running out of things to say to each other?