House of Echoes. Barbara Erskine

‘We’ll cope. Joss.’ His face became serious for a moment. ‘Are you happy about Alice and Joe staying? You don’t want to establish your own territory a bit before they muscle in?’ He searched her face seriously. ‘I know how much this house means to you, love. I do understand how you must feel about it all. If there is any conflict –’

      ‘There isn’t.’ She shook her head adamantly. ‘I need them here, Luke. I can’t explain it, but I need them. It’s as though they represent something solid, something to hang on to – a life belt – from my old life. Besides, I love them. They are my parents. Whatever, whoever Laura was, I never knew her.’ Pushing back the chair she stood up abruptly. ‘I don’t want her taking over my life. I don’t want her to think she can buy my affection – my love – with all this.’ She gestured at the kitchen around them.

      ‘I don’t think that’s what she intended, Joss.’ Luke was watching her, puzzled. Her dark hair had fallen in a curtain across her eyes and she hadn’t tossed it back, a habitual gesture of hers which he loved. Instead it hung there, hiding her face, concealing her expression.

      ‘Luke.’ She still hadn’t looked at him. ‘I walked down to the lake while it was still dark. There was someone out there.’

      ‘Out in the garden?’ He pulled up a chair and sat opposite her. ‘Who?’

      ‘They were calling. For someone called Sammy.’

      He laughed. ‘Probably a cat. You know how sound travels. On a cold, still night, and near water. It was probably someone in the village.’

      At last she had pushed back her hair. She gave him a small lop-sided grin, blowing on her tea. ‘Of course. Why didn’t I think of that.’

      ‘Because you are an idiot and I love you.’ He smiled, still watching her face. She was white with exhaustion. The stress of the last two months had told heavily on her. Preoccupied with the business he had had to leave the organisation of the sale of the house, the packing and the move to her as well as the frequent trips to East Anglia to supervise the opening up of the house and the checks to the plumbing and electricity and although Lyn had from time to time taken Tom off her hands for a few hours to help her, he knew the strain had been enormous. She had lost about a stone and the dark rings under her eyes were gaunt reminders of night after night tossing sleepless beside him as they lay staring up at the ceiling locked in silent thought in the dark before the move.

      ‘First day of the rest of our lives, Joss.’ He raised his mug to clink against hers. ‘Cheers.’

      ‘Cheers.’ She smiled.

      Alice and Joe appeared some half hour later as Joss was strapping Tom into his high chair. ‘Good morning, sweetheart.’ Alice stopped and kissed the little boy on the head. ‘Joss, my love, your father and I have been talking and we’ve decided to go back to town today.’

      ‘But Mum –’ Joss stared at her aghast. ‘Why? I thought you liked it here –’

      ‘We do, Jossie.’ Joe sat down and pulled the teapot towards him. ‘And we’ll be back. We’ve things to do at home, and shopping.’ He wiggled his eyebrows at Tom, who giggled and banged his spoon on the table in front of him. ‘Shopping to do with Father Christmas. We’ll be back, love, before you know it. Your mum needs to rest a bit, Joss. She’s not really up to doing much at the moment.’ He shook his head. ‘And I know her. She won’t be able to sit still as long as she knows there’s work to be done and besides, I think, and your mother agrees with me, that you and Luke need a few days to settle in on your own.’

      ‘But we don’t. We’ve already discussed this, and I want you here.’ She knew she sounded like a spoiled child. With a miserable sniff Joss turned towards the stove and reached for the kettle. ‘You can’t go. Mum needn’t do anything heavy. She can rest here –’

      ‘I think maybe they’re right, Joss,’ Luke said quietly. He glanced over her head at his father-in-law.

      ‘Well, at least Lyn can stay.’ Joss took a deep breath. Picking up a jug of milk she reached for Tom’s beaker.

      ‘No, love. Lyn is coming with us.’ Joe hooked the toast rack towards him. Selecting a piece he buttered it and cut it into strips, putting them down in front of his grandson. ‘We’ve talked it over with her too. She can come back next week if you want her, if she hasn’t got another temporary job by then.’ He sighed. Uninterested in anything academic Lyn had left school at sixteen and drifted from one unsatisfactory temporary job to another. While Joss had stayed on to do her A levels and followed that with a brilliant career at Bristol University and then a teaching post, Lyn, at the age of twenty-eight, with two failed relationships and an aborted attempt at running her own catering business behind her, had moved back in with her parents and resumed her half-hearted trawl through the agencies. Joe shook his head. ‘Then your mum and I will return on the Wednesday after that in plenty of time for Christmas. And we’ll all stay as long as you like to help you get straight.’

      ‘They had it all planned!’ Standing in the coach house later, with Tom’s gloved hand clutched in her own Joss stared at her husband’s back as he leaned over the huge rusting engine of the Bentley. ‘Why? Was it your idea?’

      Luke straightened. ‘No, it wasn’t. But I had the same feeling they did. You need to be here on your own, Joss. It’s important. You need to explore. To get the feel of the place. They know you as well as I do – better, for God’s sake. We all know how special places are to you.’ He walked over to the bench by the wall where already he had laid out a selection of his tools.

      She shook her head. ‘Am I so predictable? You can all tell how I feel before I feel it?’

      ‘Fraid so!’ He chuckled.

      ‘And what about you? What are you going to feel about this place?’

      ‘Cold mostly.’ And uneasy, he was going to say, though he wasn’t quite sure why. The same way Joe and Alice had felt. They hadn’t said anything, but he could see it in their eyes. No wonder they had wanted to get away. ‘So, if you could arrange to have the kettle on in say half an hour, I can come in and thaw out. I want to keep to my plan if I can. Work on the old bus for George Maxim in the mornings, and on the house and garden in the afternoon. That way I can divide my time. Joss –’ He looked suddenly concerned. ‘We weren’t all ganging up on you, love. I promise. Listen, if you think you are going to feel a bit lonely, why don’t you ask that Goodyear woman and her husband over for a meal. They are obviously dying to find out about us and we can do some reciprocal pumping about the house.’

      ‘Right, Tom Tom, let’s start at the top today for a change.’ Two days of unrelenting unpacking and sorting and cleaning later, her phone call made, and her invitation for supper at the end of the week ecstatically accepted by the Goodyears and the Fairchilds at the post office, Joss picked up a duster and broom and made for the stairs, the little boy running purposefully behind her.

      In the attics a series of small rooms led out of one another, all empty, all wallpapered in small faded flowers and leaves, all with sloping ceilings and dark, dusty beams. Those facing south were full of bright winter sunshine warm behind the glass of the windows; those which looked out over the front of the house were cold and shadowed. Joss glanced at the little boy. He was staying very close to her, his thumb firmly held in his mouth. ‘Nice house, Tom?’ She smiled at him encouragingly. They were looking at a pile of old books.

      ‘Tom go down.’ He reached out for her long sweater and wound his fingers into it.

      ‘We’ll go down in a minute, to make Daddy some coffee –’ She broke off. Somewhere nearby she heard a child’s laugh. There was a scuffle of feet running, then silence.

      ‘Boy.’ Tom informed her hopefully. He peered round her shyly.

      Joss swallowed. ‘There aren’t any boys here, Tom Tom.’ But of course, there must be. Boys from the village. The house had been empty so long it would have been very strange if no one had found their way in to explore the old place.

      ‘Hello?’