A DAUGHTER’S RETURN
Belinda Arkall, Belle to most, gathered together her dusters and polish and placed them by the vacuum cleaner at the foot of the narrow stairs leading to the attic, then called out to her husband Bill.
‘It’s getting late Bill. I think we should make a start.’
‘Give me five, Belle, I’m just off to lock the shed for the night, then I’ll slip out of my garden gear and come up. It reeks a bit from digging in that horse manure, where I’ve cleared the summer stuff from the veg patch. Never too early to turn it over and let the frosts break it down for next spring.’
‘Well don’t be too long about it. And bring the vac up with you; it’s too heavy for me to cart up these stairs. I’ll get on with the polishing.’
Belle felt her arthritic knees creak as she climbed the stairs to the highest room in the old Victorian house; originally a maid’s quarters, cold and isolated from the rest of the building. The musty smell of being shut up for a year hit her as she lifted the simple black iron latch and stepped through the door into a small square room, partitioned from the rest of the loft space, with its single bed, a washstand, a pot cupboard and two chairs; a comfy upholstered one with beechwood arms and one that was little more than a pine stool with a back nailed to it.
There was also a tall, dark mahogany wardrobe, not very wide, with one mirrored door in the middle, a large drawer in the base, and a high carved cornice around the top. A prize dust catcher that, Belle thought. Bill always had to clean it as she wasn’t tall enough and refused to stand on the rickety stool-chair. She’d tried once and if Bill hadn’t been there to catch her, she would have come a right old cropper. As it was she fell right into his arms and he swung her around saying, ‘I always knew you’d fall for me one day, my Tinkerbell’, and started to dance around the floor, as if she wasn’t dizzy enough already. So, Bill had lugged the folding kitchen steps up, but she still couldn’t see over the cornice and Bill just sighed, ‘Leave it to me, luv.’
The only natural light came from a small sash widow set high in the gable end of the roof, above the bed, so any maid would have had to stand on the bed to open it for ventilation. Bill could just reach it if he stood on tip toe and stretched his arm up but could never open it more than a crack before it jammed, and that had to do to air the room for a special guest. Like tonight.
Belle had already wiped out the wash bowl and the chamber pot in the cupboard and polished the washstand when Bill appeared with the vacuum.
‘I don’t know where all this dust comes from,’ Belle muttered, ‘considering the room’s been empty all year.’
‘Well it doesn’t look much to me,’ says Bill, ‘I don’t see why all the fuss, just for one night. Not considering where’s she’s coming from.’
‘Typical man. Shame on you, you know I like it spick and span for her. Aways have, though there was a time she didn’t want me in and out of her room. Afraid I’d pry into all those little secrets a young teenager has. As if I would, even though I was tempted often enough.’
‘And succumbed a few times as I remember. What about the photo of young Peter next door that you found under her pillow and all the questions you asked her. Very personal ones.’
‘I was only trying to look after my baby. Make sure she wasn’t being led astray by the lad – he was nearly three years older than her.’
‘More likely the other way around, from what I remember.’
‘Bill! How could you. She wasn’t a bit like that. She always wrote about girlie things in her diary.’ Belle blushed as she said that, for she knew Bill would explode.
‘What! You read her diary? That’s going too far. When was that? That was really mean of you, spying on the little innocent. You never told me you did that, or I’d have put my foot down. Stopped you.’
‘It was only the once, Bill. When she was thirteen. She’d left it lying open on top of the pot cupboard. You know how she always liked this room best even though you’d decorated the bedroom on the floor below so nicely. Her private space she always said, though she used the other bedroom whenever she had a sleepover with schoolfriends.’
‘Probably came up here because it was further away from you,’ grumbled Bill. ‘And why shouldn’t she have some privacy. Good job you didn’t get to read her private words when she was older.’
Belle blushed even more. Tears filled her eyes.
‘But I did Bill. I should have seen then that something wasn’t right. When she was sixteen. When she was going out with that awful Ricky, off the estate. Him and his red spider printed bandanna around his shaved head, tattoos all over him, earrings, nose ring and a stud through his tongue – and from what I read, something in his navel and something further down that makes me cringe.’
‘He wasn’t that bad. Might have looked a bit rough then, but isn’t he a chief inspector of police, now, dear. You can’t just judge folk from how they dress. She probably saw the real man underneath all that.’
‘Well she certainly did see underneath all that, from what I read. But I couldn’t say anything because I wasn’t supposed to know.’
‘Now, Belle, don’t go blaming yourself how things turned out. He had nothing to do with it. She’d ditched him after two weeks. Now let’s get on with getting things ready for tonight.’
Belle and Bill gave the room a thorough cleaning, Bill opening the sash window for some fresh air, Belle making up the bed with freshly laundered bedding, They went back downstairs, Belle with all her dusters and polish, Bill bumping the vacuum down, two or three steps at a time; even he found it heavy now he was older. Then they had a simple tea of beans on toast, both a little nervous of their daughter’s arrival. They always felt this way even though they knew it would be no different from usual.
Six o’clock the doorbell rang out. Bill stood up and went to open the front door.
‘Trick or treat Mr Arkall?’ It was the children of the family who’d moved in next door earlier in the year. Nice couple, kept their kids off the street mostly, taught them manners, and sometimes offered to bring things back from the shops now Belle’s arthritis was slowing her down.
‘Oh, it’s you two. Carly and Tim, isn’t it, though I hardly know you under that witch’s hat and behind the skeleton mask.’
‘Yes, yes it’s us,’ they chorused. ‘Trick or treat?’
‘Now let me see, let me remember,’ Bill said slowly, putting a puzzled look on his face. ‘I have to do a trick, do I, and you’ll give me a treat. Is that it?’
‘No, no, Mr Arkall. You have to give us a treat or we will play a trick on you,’ piped up Carly.
‘Oh, of course, how silly of me. I’ll see if I can find something, I know I’ve got a tin of prunes somewhere, or would you prefer some pickled sprouts?’
‘Yuk!’ cried Tim. ‘You’ve got to give us something nice, not horrible sprouts. I hate them.’
‘Well, just wait there. I’ll have a proper look.’
Bill turns back inside, and Carly calls out to him, ‘Mrs Arkall has a tin of chocolate biscuits in the kitchen. She gave us one yesterday.’
He returns carrying two little bags of sweets and biscuits that Belle had filled in the morning, in readiness.
‘Here you are then,’ he says, ‘is this what you’re after?’
Two little faces lit up, not that you could really tell that behind the witch’s make-up and the skeleton mask. Carly is only eight-and-a-half and Tim nearly seven and both delight in anything sweet.
‘And here’s a little extra, to spend tomorrow,’ says Bill, as he hands them two pound coins he’d polished to a shine the night before.
‘Thank you Mr Arkall,’ they chimed brightly, with Carly adding, ‘and Mrs Arkall, too.’
Shutting the door behind him, he went back to Belle, who was watching the evening news. When that finished she went upstairs to change and put on a little make up, while Bill had a quick wash and shave, raising his eyebrows when she called out, ‘And not too much of that aftershave, please, it smells the house out.’
At nine o’clock they both climbed the stairs to the attic room. Belle sat in the comfy chair and Bill perched on the stool chair, both feeling the chill of night air coming from the sash window. Bill reached across to take Belle’s hand in his and wait. This was the hardest bit. Not knowing for sure if she would come, though confident she would.
There was a soft whistle of wind, and the room grew icy. The single light, in its pale yellow mob cap shade, suddenly dimmed, blacking out the room, then slowly began to regain its glow. And there she was lying in her bed, asleep. Carolyn. Their daughter. Their only child.
Belle got up from her chair and stepped towards the bed, looking down at the sleeping figure.
‘You’re so beautiful, Carolyn, when you sleep. So pure, so calm, the way I’ll always remember you.
Carolyn stirred, Belle looked at Bill and both gave a little shiver of fear.
‘It’s best you sleep on, Carolyn, no need to wake, it’s just your Mum, Belinda, and your Dad, Bill. We want you to rest. We pray for your inner peace, so that you may always rest.’
Carolyn gave a soft, low groan; her eyes flicked open. ‘Help me, Mum, I can’t take any more of the pain. I’m so sorry Mum. You shouldn’t have to suffer this. Leave me alone.’ Her voice got stronger. ‘Go away. I don’t want you to see me like this. Nor Dad. Let me burn in Hell if I must. I just want to die; to escape my sordid life forever. I should never have brought this on you.’
‘There, there, Carolyn, hush now, we love you, we want to be with you, don’t send us away, we’ll help you through all this, it was an accident, you didn’t mean to hurt anyone.’
Belle remembers these words from the first day Carolyn asked to be carried up to her attic room and to be left to herself. Three days after the accident.
Carolyn suddenly sat up, glared at her mother and roared, ‘Get away from me you evil bitch. You’re always messing with my life. Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t wear that, your skirts too short, you’ve too much make up, you look like a tart. Well Mum I was a tart, and you drove me to it, meddling with my life, telling boys not to come around anymore, telling teachers to spy on me, getting that policeman friend of yours to come around and lecture me. ‘Don’t want be seeing you down the station,’ and all that. Well, he taught me about things I didn’t even know; which streets and bars to avoid, so that’s where I went; that’s where I got the money. And I hated it. Even more than I hate you. But I was trapped in a life I didn’t really want.
‘I killed him, Mum. I killed him. I didn’t mean to, but I did. If it wasn’t for me he’d still be alive. I deserve to die; I deserve to die as he died. And you drove me to it.’
Belle was in tears, hearing this year after year has not made it any easier, only compounded her own guilt. Guilt at reading her diaries, at interfering with her life, not letting her have her way, not allowing her to grow up learning by her own mistakes, like she had. But she had only wanted to protect her precious child.
‘I’m sorry love, I never meant harm, I only wanted to keep you safe, to cherish my beautiful girl, love you as only your Dad and I can. Can’t you forgive me just this once, so that you might rest in peace. You can’t break my love, our love, please don’t break my heart any more than it already is.’
The light is beginning to flicker. The night outside is the dark and dank end of an autumn day, yet there is a bustle of activity that Belle and Bill are deaf to, along the street below.
‘Can I go to the party, Mum? I promise to be back by midnight.’
Carolyn was now sitting on the side of her bed, dressed in a low cut red top, midriff bare, miniscule black leather skirt, and thigh high red boots. Belle bit back the words she would have said before and simply nodded her head.
‘Of course dear. Enjoy yourself. It’s only once a year.’
The bulb in the light flashed and died, leaving them in the dark. Bill reached for the torch he’d brought upstairs and placed under the stool-chair and the beam showed only the two of them and an unruffled bed.
‘I’ll fix the light in the morning,’ Bill said, and reached up to close the sash window. Then, shutting the attic door behind them, they both walked down to the bedroom below, overlooking the street. Amongst the people milling around, some in Halloween costumes, they saw a small group of teenagers strolling towards the end of the street. They watched them until they disappeared around the corner, one in a red top, black skirt and red boots.
They remained silent as they returned to their living room, each still trembling, trapped in their own thoughts, where Bill poured himself a generous measure of whisky and offered to make Belle a cup of strong tea. Which she gratefully accepted.
It was eleven years since Carolyn returned from hospital, her broken body still not healed, her broken mind leaving her in turmoil, her life draining away. She had survived the crash that killed the driver beside her. The man she didn’t know. The man she’d met in a bar. The man who’d been so lewd and suggestive of things she would never be prepared to do. She just wanted to get out of the car. Walk home if necessary. But he wouldn’t stop, so she had grabbed the steering wheel to steer it into the hedgerow and it ploughed straight through into the solid trunk of an oak tree in the field behind it.
The hospital did all they could, but after three days sent her home, patched up and bodily alive. But still in pain, her mind destroyed. She asked to be carried up to her attic bedroom, where three days later Belle found her still and lifeless, a bottle of painkillers clutched in her hand. Empty.
The next Halloween, Belle had heard strange noises in the attic, opened the door to an icy chill and saw her daughter lying there. She called down to Bill. The following year they were prepared and hopeful. And every year since. Though they never dare tell a soul.