The Room Beyond (18 page)

‘It is, isn’t it? Come and take a seat.’

‘Isn’t it extraordinary that there isn’t a number 34?’ She collapsed
into one of the deep sofas. ‘I almost thought that this house didn’t exist and
I’d fallen on the wrong Marguerite Avenue.’

Good old Jessica to notice. ‘I know. I had that problem too the
first time.’

‘Is there a reason?’

‘I don’t know... there’s all sorts of stories. Maybe it was war
damage.’

‘But these roads didn’t suffer, all the houses are Victorian and
pretty much intact. I could try and find out the real reason.’

‘How?’

‘Oh census records, old documents, a bit of digging about. Remember
that old genealogy course I did?’

‘When you found out that our ancestors were a bunch of no-good
criminals?’

‘Yes,’ she said, bubbling up with laughter. ‘It was fascinating
though. I loved it!’ Her laughter simmered down and she gave me a long,
thoughtful glance. ‘So what’s changed with you?’ she asked softly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You seem different. I hardly hear from you. Either they’re working
you like a slave or you’ve met someone.’

‘Not a slave, no. Beth is lovely, very old for her age. Her mother
Eva’s a sort of society princess, too busy partying to have much to do with her.
She’s going out with a Russian oligarch at the moment apparently, although I
haven’t met him. The whole family’s a bit eccentric.’

Jessica’s eyes glistened. ‘So it must be the other thing then,
that’s changed you.’

‘What other thing?’

‘You’ve met someone.’

My cheeks went hot and I tried to look away.

‘Oh I was right!’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

‘Yes. But I wasn’t going to tell you about him yet. It’s early days
and... a bit tricky.’

She gave me a pursed smile and nodded slowly.

‘Well I hope he’s nice.’

‘He is.’

‘And good looking.’

‘Very.’

‘And has a good job.’

‘Um... yes.’

‘He sounds lovely. I can’t wait to meet him.’

I tried to say something back in agreement, but the strangest
feeling of emptiness in my stomach, as if the best party ever was coming to an
end, suddenly stopped me.

‘Jess,’ I said in a quiet voice, glancing for a moment at the door.
‘Would you really be able to find out something about the house? You know,
about the missing number next door?’

That evening I still felt too tied up by my own thoughts to take
much notice of Seb when he came to my room. He kissed me with eager lips, tried
to pull me towards him, but then let go when he felt my resistance.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

‘How did it go with your aunt?’

‘Alright. I told her about you. She asked a few questions, one about
whether you had a good job.’

He paused, his eyes lapping at my face.

‘Look,’ I faltered. ‘I know that you don’t work. And that you don’t
like to be questioned about... anything really. But don’t you think it’s odd
that I have no idea what you actually do?’

‘I don’t do anything.’

‘Then where do you go when you leave this room every morning? Surely
you must go somewhere, do something?’

‘Serena, where is all this coming from? One meeting with your aunt
and now you’re badgering me. You’ve completely changed in one afternoon!’

His face looked grey suddenly, tired and almost haggard. I felt the
urge to comb my fingers through his hair, draw myself closer to his cool skin.

I’m sorry
, I whispered in the recess of
my mind and his answer echoed instantly back to me.

It’s alright
.

‘There just seem to be so many secrets in this house,’ I murmured.

‘Don’t worry about secrets.’

‘I do when they cause a person to hate me.’

‘Who hates you?’

‘Eva.’

He rolled his eyes and threw back his head. ‘Oh I wish you’d just
stop!’

‘How can I when she’s desperate to get me out of this house?’

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I overheard something the other
night. They see me as a threat here, either to be got rid of or kept close. I
don’t know, do you? There was stuff about Sasha and Raphael and money, and me
all wrapped up in it. God, it makes me feel sick! Seb, please, just take my
side. Help me, do something.’

I waited for him to reply but got nothing.

‘Look, maybe you should go for tonight,’ I said, disappointment
grating through my voice. ‘I think I need to be alone.’

I turned my back to him, praying at the same time that he would come
to me, put a hand on my shoulder, explain it all away. But the gamble didn’t
pay off. Instead I heard his footsteps move back towards the window in quiet
retreat. A second later I knew he was gone.

In the empty room a bubble of loneliness seemed to grow instantly around
me. When eventually I managed to lie down on my cold bed it moved with me. It
got in the way of my blankets and laughed at my attempts to sleep.

Beth glared down at her new dress again for the fiftieth time.

‘I really don’t want to go.’

‘I know.’

‘No, you don’t understand. I really really don’t want to go.’

My temperature was rising. ‘Listen, it’s only a birthday party. Children
need to play with other children, particularly at parties. Now, we’re not far
from home, nine houses away to be precise and I’m sure this little girl is very
nice.’

The door swung open and a woman in tight white trousers with smiley
white teeth grinned at us.

‘So you must be Beth from down the Avenue!’ she declared.

Beth offered up her confused, wrinkled up nose expression in
response.

‘Thank you so much for inviting us. Here’s a present for Fifi.’

Beyond Mrs Seddlescombe’s shoulder a tribe of children in bright
party clothes were running around chaotically and doing handstands against the
wall.

‘Oh thanks, do come in. Will you be staying with Beth or would you
prefer to pick her up later?’

Beth shot me a glance, her eyes huge and frightened looking.

‘I’ll stay for now, if that’s alright.’

The house was so different from 36. Although its size and shape felt
almost the same, it had been more recently decorated in glacial pastels and
designer furnishings. A flat screen television peered blankly from the drawing room
wall and speakers in undisclosed places blared out Disney music as children
jumped up and down stuffing sweets and marshmallows into their mouths.

Beth teetered listlessly in the middle of it all and my heart ached
for her. She didn’t even try and play with the others and they seemed to sidestep
her, as if she were someone’s rather uninteresting older sister whom nobody
could be bothered to talk to. Then a woman in lots of pink nylon and a pair of
wings danced into the room brandishing a plastic wand.

‘Hello my little fairies! Who’s coming to play in fairyland?’ she
cried.

‘Meeeee!’ came a unanimous chorus and a tide of children rushed
towards her, sweeping Beth along with them. Suddenly they were all gone.

The glossy-eyed television smirked back at me and I stuck my tongue
out at it. The music had stopped in this room and was now whining on in another
part of the house. A crushed biscuit teetered on the arm of a chair.

Two whole weeks of nothing. Two whole weeks without Seb. I must have
drawn a hundred pictures of him in that time. Not the laughing carefree face I
knew but expressions of hurt, loss, emotions I didn’t even know he had until
they appeared like magic through the end of my pen. I kept trying to build a
brick wall in my mind, somewhere to push even the thought of his face behind,
but those blue eyes just jumped right back out at me every time. I studied my
hands, tried to bend my fingers. Every muscle ached.

‘Can I have a word with you please, Miss?’ boomed a voice.

I looked up to find Mrs Seddlescombe marching through the room
towards me. At the end of her outstretched arm Beth was being dragged along by
the wrist. The woman’s white smiley teeth had completely vanished.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Her lips appeared to be quivering with anger.

‘Corporal punishment? In fairyland? I have an entire room of crying
children in there. I mean I know you’re only the nanny but someone must have
put ideas like that into this child’s head.’

Beth was staring down at the floor, her hair straggling over her
face.

‘She’s... not all that used to other children. I’m so sorry. We’d
better leave.’

‘I should think so. Good Lord! I... I have to get back to them all
now.’

Finally she unleashed Beth’s wrist and almost ran out of the room.

Beth and I said nothing about it on the way home. I couldn’t bring
myself to tell her off and, after all, it was my fault for forcing her to go in
the first place. When we got back Sasha was slouched in the drawing room
reading a newspaper.

‘Pasha!’ whimpered Beth, the tears finally flowing.

‘What is it my little bee?’

She rushed into his arms, burying her face in his neck.

‘We had a bit of a bad time at the party,’ I said, scooping up the
newspaper which he’d tossed to one side. ‘The children didn’t take to each
other too well.’

‘Now now, you just tell Papa Sasha everything and he’ll make it
better. Don’t you cry my little bee, don’t you cry.’

I needed a cigarette. I escaped the room for the bench in the
garden, still clutching the newspaper that Sasha had been reading. It was
folded into quarters, one side covered in fragments of sports news and the
other framing an article with the headline:
Burglary at the V&A
. I
began to read:

A valuable collection of antique Celtic jewellery has gone missing
from archives at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. As the pieces have
not been displayed for over a year, staff at the museum cannot be sure of when
the items actually went missing. They might have been stolen weeks, or even
months ago, making it extremely hard to track down the thieves. The collection,
consisting of many rare silver crosses, is one of a kind...

I drank the words in again:
antique Celtic jewellery... rare
silver crosses...
and remembered that little cross nestling in the dip
between Beth’s collar bones. Raphael’s birthday present to her.

The last time I’d sat on this bench had been that night with Raphael.
The memory of those dark, bruised eyes shot through me, and those lips coming
dangerously close to mine.

I looked over at the fence separating the Hartreve’s garden from
next door and the rendered side of the extension which jutted out behind it. Had
I really seen a wall there instead; an old wall cascading with jasmine petals? Or
had it been a dream?

I tossed the end of my cigarette away and went indoors. Beth and
Sasha had both disappeared from the drawing room. The house felt deserted.

Most beautiful things are stolen; it makes them more captivating.

Raphael’s words on the night of the party, when he’d told me about
the missing Habsburg gems. I pictured us on that motorbike again, inches from
catastrophe and yet glorious in our moment.

I climbed two steps at a time up to my room and found it again at
the bottom of a drawer: the cluster of jasmine buds I’d picked that night. They
were a little yellow and wrinkled up from the way I’d crushed them, but dry now
and still sweet-smelling nonetheless. No, it hadn’t been a dream.

Darkness fell. Beth’s room was empty and it was nearly her bedtime. Further
down Arabella’s office door was closed with no light emanating from behind the
stained glass window. All of them seemed to be gone. I trudged all the way to
the bottom of the house. The drawing room and the library were empty too.

And then suddenly I heard a quiet step behind me. Two cool hands
swept around my face and covered my eyes. I knew their touch instantly.

‘Seb.’

‘We’re alone. Edwards’s taken them all out to cheer Beth up.’

‘I thought I’d lost you.’

‘Come with me.’

My body tingled at the thought of him standing behind me. He coaxed
me forward and I walked blindly into what felt like the direction of the dining
room.

‘OK, ready?’ he asked.

‘Ready for what?’

‘For this.’

He took his hands away and I gasped out loud. The room was full of
coloured paper lanterns, and the candles inside them cast kaleidoscopic rays of
light across the walls of the room.