Alison Moore - The Pre-War House and Other Stories

‘There are buses,’ said Kath.

‘They don’t run out here at night though,’ said Marilyn.

‘No,’ said Kath, ‘they don’t.’

While Kath was loading the Tupperware and crockery into the dishwasher, Marilyn said to Heather, ‘Nina’s a difficult child. She runs away. Someone always brings her home, but it’s frightening, she’s so young. Kath keeps telling her she mustn’t do it, that one day something bad will happen to her. It’s a beautiful spot — you can’t tell in the dark but in daylight there’s a breathtaking view — but it’s dangerous. There’s a steep drop down to the river, and the traffic goes so fast on the road. There was a flasher once — that was years ago, but still. And it’s only months since a local girl went missing.

‘She makes nuisance calls to strangers and taxi companies. There have been acts of vandalism. I’m astonished actually,’ she said, ‘to see nothing damaged. There’s usually a broken window or mirror or picture frame, crayon on the walls.’

So, thought Heather, Marilyn had invited her here to observe the child, to offer a professional judgement. Could she not have been told that? She might have come anyway.

‘Kath finds mice laid out on her doorstep, and other small animals, dead ones, or as good as dead.’

‘The work of a cat, surely?’ said Heather.

‘They don’t have a cat.’

‘A neighbour’s cat?’

‘They don’t have neighbours, not for miles. And besides, these mice have not been killed by a cat.’

‘Is it necessarily Nina though?’ asked Heather.

‘Well,’ said Marilyn, ‘that’s another thing. Nina says it isn’t her; she says it’s another little girl who breaks things, makes these telephone calls, kills the mice. Kath had another little girl, before Nina, but she died. Nina says it’s her.’

‘You think it’s a ghost?’

‘No,’ said Marilyn, ‘it’s definitely Nina. But she blames a ghost. She often wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.’

‘They sometimes do,’ said Heather, ‘at this age. They have night terrors.’

‘She wakes up bruised.’

Heather, standing, said to Kath, ‘May I use your bathroom?’

Kath looked at her for a moment, as Heather had once looked at schoolchildren when they raised their hands and requested the freedom of the empty corridors, before nodding.

‘Up the stairs,’ said Kath, ‘and straight ahead. Straight ahead,’ she repeated as Heather left the room, ‘when you get to the top.’

The hallway light was off again and Heather climbed the stairs in the dark. Holding her hands out in front of her, in front of her face and her chest, she found the bathroom door. She opened it, feeling for the pull cord, the light.

Looking in the mirror over the sink while washing her hands, she noticed the Rawlplug-stuffed screw holes around it, a different shade of paint, the shape of another mirror which had once hung there.

Leaving the bathroom, she saw that she was outside a room on whose door brightly coloured letters spelled out ‘NINA’. The door was slightly ajar, the light from the bathroom spilling into the room, and Heather, pushing the door further open, saw the little girl in her bed, the head of blond hair which was indeed like Kath’s. She regarded the room, a lovely one, with crayoned pictures on the walls, books on the shelves, an animal theme on the borders and curtains, and teddies by the girl’s pillow, watching over her while she slept. She realised that this was the room she had seen from outside, whose light she had seen go out.

She went in, leaving the door standing open for the illumination. She stood by Nina’s bed, looking down at this five-year-old girl who looked quite peaceful. She looked around. She could see nothing torn or broken in the room. Turning back to the bed, she lifted, very carefully, one side of the duvet, looking at the girl’s arm, which was bare beneath her cap sleeve. She inspected the other side too. She moved to the foot of the bed and peeled back the bottom of the duvet, peering at her legs, her shins. There were bruises, but children did get bruises. Heather wasn’t sure that there was anything unusual. Covering the child up again, Heather retreated to the door. Before she closed it she glanced back, her heart leaping into her throat when she saw that the girl’s eyes were wide open, that she was watching her go.

She had just returned to her place on the sofa when the front door opened. Even in the living room, they felt the cold coming in from outside. They heard a man’s voice hissing, ‘Who the fuck is here? Whose fucking car is that?’ They heard the whisper of Kath’s reply but not the words. ‘They’ve parked in my fucking space,’ said the man. ‘I’ve had to park on the fucking road. Some fucker’s going to crash into me.’

Heather turned to Marilyn. They were alone in the room but still Heather mouthed her question silently: Who’s that?

Marilyn shook her head, widened her eyes, shrugged, as the man strode into the living room and stood in front of them with a takeaway pizza box in his hands.

‘Have you had a nice evening?’ he said. ‘Have you had a nice dinner?’

He turned his head sharply away from them then, towards the door he’d just come through. Putting down his pizza box, he marched back into the unlit hallway. Heather saw the little girl crouching on the stairs in her nightie. The man put his foot on the bottom step. ‘Get up,’ he said, through his teeth, ‘the fucking stairs.’ And then they went, this man and this girl, up the stairs, observed by Heather and Marilyn.

Heather, creeping back into the hallway, saw that Kath had vanished. There was a smell of urine, which reminded her of her mother’s residential home, although they masked it there. She pictured her mother sitting alone in her bedroom, or in her armchair in the lounge, watching the local news on the television with the sound turned down, clutching the mobile phone which Heather had given her. It frightened her mother, this mobile phone. ‘But,’ Heather had said, ‘now you can text me and I’ll text you or call you right back.’

Going into the kitchen, finding Kath, she said, ‘Would you mind if I just used your phone?’ It was there on the wall between them, its tangled cord hanging down.

‘We had it disconnected,’ said Kath. And Heather recalled the mention of prank phone calls, and the taxi companies which presumably no longer bothered to come to the house.

There was heavy footfall on the stairs and the man came into the kitchen, glowering at both of them.

‘We should go,’ said Heather. ‘Then you can get your car off the road.’ She returned to the living room and said again, to Marilyn, ‘We should go.’ Usually, she would have added, ‘It’s getting late,’ but it was not.

Marilyn was already on her feet, had made a move towards the door to the hallway, but was now standing still. She seemed frozen.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Heather.

‘I’m just going to —’ said Marilyn, and she made her way into the hallway, pausing on the stairs before climbing slowly up towards the bathroom, leaving her sentence dangling.

Heather waited alone in the living room, picking up her coat and putting it on, picking up Marilyn’s coat, picking up their bags. When Marilyn came down the stairs again, Heather met her in the living room doorway, smelling again the urine in the carpet.

Marilyn spoke, but so quietly that Heather could not hear her.

‘What?’ she said. She noticed Marilyn’s pallor and wondered if she was feeling sick. She began to lead her back into the living room, to sit her down. Marilyn was resisting, opening her mouth to say more, but at that moment there came from outside the sound of an explosion of glass.