Rachel Bennett - Little Girls Tell Tales

Out in the hall and up the stairs. Here were more reminders of Beth, her face smiling from almost every framed picture on the wall. But there were also reminders of Mum. The wallpaper was her favourite shade of green. There were ring marks on the pale wood of the lowermost three stairs, where she’d rested her cup of tea while she’d chatted on the phone to my aunt for hours. After Mum moved out, we could’ve changed the wallpaper or sanded the stairs, but again Beth had talked me round. ‘It’s charming,’ she’d said. ‘Gives the place character.’

After I’d opened the curtains in the two upstairs bedrooms, I went into the study and sat down. There were no blinds in here because the dormer window was such an awkward shape, and the sun hit the room squarely at this time of day, gradually warming the dusty air. I rolled the chair into the rectangle of sunlight and closed my eyes.

The house was too big for me on my own. Together, me and Beth had filled the rooms, but now I was too aware of the echoing hardwood floors and high, cavernous ceilings. It’d turned out Beth was right – we could’ve used more clutter. It might’ve disguised the hard edges of the house that I’d never noticed.

But I knew I could never move. For a start, there was no way I could afford anywhere half as nice. The house was still in Mum’s name, but after I was signed off work, she quietly stopped asking me for rent. My benefit payments covered the utilities and my daily expenses. I knew exactly how lucky I was. Not everyone in my position could live somewhere so lovely.

Lucky. My mouth twisted. Lucky me, to be living in a beautiful house in a beautiful location, where every little thing reminded me of what I’d lost.

I’d taken a week off before and after the funeral. Then my doctor had signed me off for another week. My employers had been understanding; how could they not? They’d told me to take as much time as I needed. Maybe they would’ve thought twice if they’d known how long I genuinely needed to recover. Like maybe forever. Eighteen months later and here I was. Still not whole.

In fact, if it wasn’t for Mum I’d probably never leave the house. It was a ten-minute journey into Ramsey, where Mum lived in her conveniently pokey flat. I made the drive once a week, every Sunday afternoon, combining it with a visit to the supermarket. I stuck to the routine for the same reasons I made myself draw the curtains each morning. Because it was too easy to sink. I had to keeping kicking my legs, at least a little, if I wanted to stay above water.

It frightened me how simple it was to give up. Although my employers had told me they’d keep my job open, in case I ever came back, I’d long ago accepted I wouldn’t return. I’d felt nothing but relief when I’d finally admitted it.

Since then, the house had become a sanctuary, despite the constant, unavoidable reminders of Beth wherever I looked. It was the one thing that rooted me to the world. I tidied, I sorted, I tended the garden. The garden in particular never failed to calm me. Here, the influence of my mother was strongest. Mum had planted these flowers, tended these beds, pruned these saplings. I would smile at the smallest things, such as the chicken-wire still wrapped loosely around the trunks of the fruit trees to guard against marauding wallabies.

‘A garden’s a promise you make to yourself,’ Mum would say. ‘You’re promising you want to be here to see it grow.’

It made me sad Mum couldn’t visit more often to see the garden growing. Every couple of months, I would take her for an outing, driving her back to the house so she could visit the garden and the curraghs. Those trips had been more frequent before Beth died, of course. Everything had declined since then.

I got out of the chair in the study and went back downstairs. Time for another cup of tea before I got dressed. I checked the doormat automatically and breathed a silent sigh of relief to see there was no post that morning.

After that I changed the bedsheets, hoovered the bedrooms, and put the bedding in to wash. That took me until lunchtime. After lunch, when the washing machine had finished, I hung out the sheets, in time to catch the sun at its warmest. Then I worked quietly in the garden. I spent a considerable amount of time tying up the honeysuckle at the side of the house, which had exploded into a million trailing shoots, each determined to burrow its way into the gutters or drainpipes. I loved the honeysuckle, but between it and the clematis at the opposite side of the house, I was fighting a constant battle for control.

Maybe that was the attraction of the garden. Mum had been smart to encourage me to spend as much time as possible with my hands in the dirt. As if she’d known I’d someday need this to occupy my mind and my hands.

I’d just come inside to make my fifth cup of herbal tea when the doorbell rang.

I washed my hands quickly and wiped them on my jogging pants as I went to the door. It was half past four on a Thursday afternoon. I wasn’t expecting any callers. But answering the door was an accepted part of life. I didn’t want to become the sort of person who hid from the outside world.

As I approached the door, I saw a letter lying on the mat, and my stomach dropped like a lead weight. I recognised the plain Manila envelope with the sloped handwriting on the front. It must’ve come while I was in the garden, unless … unless it’d been delivered right now, by the person outside.

Through the frosted glass of the upper half of my front door, I could see the fuzzed outline of my visitor. They rang the bell again, then cupped their hands to peer through the glass. I was sure they saw my shadow.

‘Rosie?’ the person called. ‘Rosie, you there?’

The voice was muffled, but I recognised it.

I snatched up the envelope from the mat and dropped it facedown onto the phone table before opening the door.

‘Rosie,’ my brother Dallin said with a smile. ‘Hi! How are you?’

I took a bit too long to answer. I blinked several times, as my brain processed this shock, on top of the unpleasant nausea provoked by the arrival of the envelope, before I remembered to smile back. ‘Dalliance,’ I said. If he could use childhood nicknames then so could I.

Dallin laughed and swept in to hug me. I was taken by surprise but didn’t try to stop him. Over the past couple of years, I’d become used to people hugging me, whether I wanted them to or not. Plus, it gave me another moment to deal with the fact that he was back, suddenly, inexplicably.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’ I asked into his shoulder.

Dallin pulled away, although he kept hold of one of my hands. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I should’ve called. I’ve got a million excuses why I didn’t.’

I kept the smile on my face. Yes , I thought. I’m sure you do.

‘Here.’ Dallin took a step back. ‘This is Cora.’

I’d been so fixed on Dallin I’d barely noticed the woman who hovered awkwardly nearby. She looked as if someone had stapled her feet to the floor to keep her from fleeing. As she made eye contact she flickered a smile. It looked like she’d coached herself to smile at strangers. Honestly, that made me warm to her. It looked like we both knew the difficulties of social interactions that everyone else took for granted.

‘Thank you for this,’ Cora said, with another flickering smile.

I frowned, but Dallin was already leaning past me to look into the house. ‘Wow,’ he said, ‘the place is going great. I love the … those, y’know, those flowers there.’

He was pointing to the vase of sweet peas I’d placed on the phone table. ‘You should come in,’ I said, standing aside, because that’s what was expected of me.