Page 21 of We Live Here Now

28

Emily

Mrs. Carmichael has a face like a withered walnut, but her silver hair is set nicely and her clothes are clean and bright. I expected her to be stick-thin, but her middle is wide and her heavy bosom rests on the waistband of her skirt. She looks like a retired schoolteacher and it’s hard to recognize the woman from the newspaper report, so glamorous and daring, in this old woman in front of me now sitting in an armchair by a large window.

“Hello, Fortuna. Thank you for seeing me.”

She doesn’t answer or even look at me.

“The gardens here are lovely.” I look out the window as she’s doing. “Do you go and sit out in the summer?” Her dark eyes, raisins in her elderly face, don’t move and her mouth stays firmly shut. Sweat prickles at my hairline. Is this what it was like for Freddie and my friends when they visited me when I was in a coma? Did they sit beside me, talking inanely until the words—very quickly, no doubt—dried up? “Can I get you anything, maybe? A glass of water?”

She still doesn’t answer, but her eyes turn to me, suspicious, and I look around, awkward.

On the shelf and table are several framed photos. There’s one of her when she was maybe in her late sixties, still beautiful, with a man I presume is Gerald, who’s thin and vaguely ill. It looks like they’re on a cruise. In another, maybe a decade earlier, they’re sitting at an outside table in a restaurant, tanned and smiling and happy, on holiday.

Behind it, I see the photo that was in the news report, taken onthe drive at Larkin Lodge. It’s sharper and crisper, and they’re both absolutely gorgeous in it. He’s dark and handsome with a devilish smile and she’s in a kimono, looking entirely bohemian with a scarf in her dark hair as she lounges on the bonnet of the car he’s standing beside.

I hold up the picture. “You must have loved him very much.”

There’s another picture of Gerald placed on top of a wooden batik box at the back of the display. It’s an odd photo to have framed, and I take a closer look. He isn’t smiling but staring, angrily, into the distance. The kind of photo that’s taken without the subject’s knowledge. I lift it up and the lid of the box comes away with it. Superglued together maybe. Why would anyone do that?

It takes me a moment to realize what I’m looking at inside.Mementos.But it’s a collection of the strangest mundane objects. A tie. A comb with hair on it. A tennis sweatband. Is that a scrunched-up pair of underpants? What kind of things are these to keep? A watch or a wedding ring I would understand. But this stuff? It’s not even clean. I can see a sweat stain on the wristband and I dread to think of the state of the Y-fronts. Why would anyone choose these things to remind them of their husband?

“I don’t know you,” she says suddenly, staccato words like tiny, dry twigs snapping. “Why are you here?”

“I’m Emily. I live in a house you used to own. Larkin Lodge. I wondered if I could ask you some questions about it.”

“Larkin Lodge was a long time ago.” Her wary eyes don’t move from my face.

“I know. But I didn’t have anyone else to go to.” I hesitate for a moment and then bite the bullet. “This will probably sound stupid, but sometimes I feel like the house might be haunted. I wondered if you ever experienced anything strange there too? Noises? Smells? A bad feeling?”

Her eyes widen enough for me to see the cracks of tiny pink veins in the yellowing whites. One hand flutters to her throat.

“There are no ghosts at Larkin Lodge.” She purses her lips. “Gerald died of cancer.”

“Oh, of course. I didn’t mean him. I just wondered in general if you ever heard anything strange.” I pause. “Especially coming from the top-floor bedroom.”

Her expression hardens, unfriendly, but not before I see a flash of surprise, and then something else. Secrecy? Guilt, perhaps? Whatever it is, she shuts down.

“You need to leave.” She’s suddenly cold. “I don’t want you here. There are no ghosts in Larkin Lodge.” One hand goes to her throat again, then pulls at a strand of her hair, an anxious tic.

“I’m so sorry if I’ve upset you.” She won’t meet my eyes, looking back out the window, and she’s drawn into her chair as if to put as much distance between us as possible. “That wasn’t my intention.” Is it me that’s upset her? Or was it the mention of the upstairs room that did it?

“Go away now,” she snaps, and her hands tremble against the arms of the chair as her fingers begin to tap against them, as if she’s building to some sort of episode.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat, backing away to the door. “I’m sorry.”

I’m almost out of the room when she speaks again. Quietly. To herself.

“I found it, but I didn’t use it. I put it back.”

“What did you find, Fortuna?” I look back at her, my heart thumping.Find it.

She’s staring through the window with such dread, and I feel awful for coming here, even though my skin is prickling with the electricity of what she’s just said.

“Gerald died of cancer,” she repeats, and then sinks back in her chair, and I can see she’s closed off. I won’t get any more out of her unless I push hard, and that would most likely cause an anxiety attack as Mrs. Marshall warned, and I don’t want to upset her like that. I also might want to come back another time.

There are no ghosts at Larkin Lodge.Her words echo in my head as I get back in the car to drive home. So why do I feel like she meant the exact opposite? And what did she find and put back? And the way she reacted to the mention of the upstairs bedroom. She had abad feeling about it too, I know it. Despite her upset and having no clear sense of what’s going on in the house, the visit has given me a sense of validation. Thereissomething wrong with the top floor.

---