Chapter One

A Sort of Homecoming

 

 

Higher Crawbeck, Salford, 16th October 2016

 

THEY DROVE OUT of Manchester across the River Irwell into Salford, where Collarmill Road began sloping uphill in a long straight line, all the way to Crawbeck.

Dad drove. Mum sat between Alice and him; Alice looked out of the window as tinned-up council houses and bleak low- and high-rise flats swished past.

“Ugh,” said Mum. If she hadn’t been going grey, the two of them could have been sisters: the same short black hair, pale skin, roundish, small-boned faces and wide blue eyes behind huge spectacles. “What possessed you to move here, Alice?”

“It’s nicer further up, Mum.”

“Even so.”

“I used to live around here when I was a student,” Alice said. “You remember. It was nice, too.”

“Alice.” Mum frowned and sighed. “Sweetheart, I know you’ve been through a lot, but you can’t go back. Living in the past won’t do you any good.”

“You know you could have stayed with us,” said Dad, thankfully before Mum could regurgitate more half-baked psychobabble from one of her lifestyle magazines.

“I need some space, Dad. Some time to myself.”

“I would have thought that being on your own’s the last thing you’d need, after –”

“Richard,” said Mum, and Dad subsided, grumbling.

Alice could have said with equal truth that much as she loved her parents, she could never live with them again; their well-meant fussing would drive her mad. But there was such a thing as too much honesty. She’d learned that the hard way, with Andrew. “It’ll keep me busy,” she said. “It’s a fixer-upper. The last owner rented it out to students. I’ll do it up myself, work with my hands. It’ll be just what I need to take my mind off things.”

Dad grunted, Mum sighed, but they said no more, so Alice looked back out of the window as the dull surroundings gave way at last to Crawbeck’s faded grandeur. There were terraced streets here too, of course, but bigger, more ornate buildings – villas and three-storey townhouses – testified to what the district had once been, especially along Collarmill Road itself.

The ground rose higher; to the left Alice saw Manchester’s rooftops, through the trees that grew along the roadside. “Well, this isn’t too bad,” conceded Mum. A Chinese takeaway swept by on the right.

As they neared the top of the road, a line of old, thick trees, their leaves only beginning to rust and fall, rose up ahead like a wave.

“Oh,” said Mum. “Well, that is nice.”

“It’s called the Brow,” said Alice. “Looks over Browton Vale.”

“Never mind the sightseeing,” said Dad. “Where is this place?”

“Here, Dad. Just on the right.”

They climbed down out of the hired van, stretching tired limbs.

“God,” Dad said, peering at the road. “Look at this, Ann! Cobbles.”

Collarmill Road carried on another hundred yards or so before ending sharply at the edge of the Brow, but ahead of where they’d stopped, the tarmac surfacing vanished and gave way to cobblestones.

“And look at that, Dad.” Alice pointed, knowing it would interest him. “See? The old tram tracks.”

“So they are.” Dad put his hands on his hips. “Don’t see that every day.”

“Never mind that now,” said Mum. “Oh God, Alice, is this the place?”

She was pointing at the house they’d parked outside. “Yes, Mum.”

“What were you thinking? Richard, have you seen this?”

The house was semi-detached. On one side lay a builder’s yard; on the other, another house of identical build. Three stories high, with black and white eaves above the lone gleaming eye of the attic-room window, it was built of red brick and loomed above a small but wildly overgrown front garden. The garden path’s concrete slabs were cracked and sprouting weeds, and the gate’s blue paint was peeling from the rotten wood. “Oh God,” said Mum again, “and those windows are filthy.”

“They’ll clean up,” said Dad. “Place looks sturdy enough. That’s what matters.”

“But it’s a big place, Alice. It’s for a family, not –”

“Ann,” Dad said. Mum stopped.

“I told you, Mum, I want somewhere with a lot of space. I like to wander about.”

“You’ve got outside for that. What’s that place, just up there?”

“Browton Vale.” Alice tried not to grit her teeth; even at forty-two, her parents could still make her feel like a sulky teen.

“What’s wrong with that for a walk, then?”

“Because – Mum, because sometimes I’m not going to want to go outside. Some days I just want to stay indoors.”

“You can’t do that forever, Alice. What about getting a job?”

“I didn’t say I’d be like this forever, Mum. Just for now. Anyway, walking around helps. I’d go mad cooped up in a little flat.”

Alone in a house there’d be no people; even in the worst weather, you couldn’t guarantee that on Browton Vale. She could rarely settle or rest, not unless she’d tired herself, but she wanted to be left alone. Just her, and her grief. Self-indulgent, maybe, but for now it was what she needed.

“Besides,” she said, “it’ll keep me busy. I told you – it’s a fixer-upper. You won’t know the place by the time I’m done.”

Light flickered across the upstairs windows. Most likely a bird flying over the tree-tops, but for a moment it was as if two huge eyes had blinked and turned their half-amused gaze on the tiny figure that had dared voice such a challenge.

 

 

THE FRONT DOOR pushed a rustling heap of post up against the wall. There was a narrow hallway, with the front room and a ground-floor bedroom off to the left; it dog-legged around the staircase to the kitchen.

“Pongs in here,” Mum said. “You want to get the window open, give it all a good airing.”

“Yeah, okay, Mum.” The air was stale, but it was also October and getting cold.

“Shall we get started, then?” said Dad.

“Okay.” Alice handed Mum a carrier bag.

“What’s this?”

“Electric kettle, jar of Nescafé, sugar and a pint of milk.”

Dad laughed. “Someone planned ahead.”

“Didn’t get me any mugs, though,” said Mum.

“They’re in the last crate I loaded into the van. Come on, Dad.”

Outside, Dad opened the rear doors. The van was full of translucent plastic crates; here was everything Alice still owned in the world. It seemed excessive, cluttered – and at the same time, ridiculously little to show for a life.

She cleared her throat and pointed. “Kitchen stuff’s in that one.”

“Right-o.” Dad took one end, she the other. He grinned. “And a one-two-three, heave –”

It was that phrase that did it, that and the grin; Dad was in his sixties now, grey-haired and balding, growing a paunch, but when she was little and he’d been lean and tanned with a full head of black hair; he’d said the same thing, grinned the same grin, before sweeping her up in the air as if she’d been a toy. Alice lifted when he did, managed to walk backwards down the drive without tripping over the kerb or the uneven path, but in her head he was still holding her aloft, making her soar and swoop through the air while he imitated the growl of aero engines. The best dad in the world, she’d put in one of his birthday cards – not daddy, because that was babyish, but dad.

But then there were the other memories, the ones that surfaced as she stepped back over the threshold into the hall. Dad on the sofa with no tie and his collar undone, flopping like a slack-stringed puppet, lips loose and drooling, while Mum screamed and shouted at him, pointing at the brown envelopes on the coffee table.

Alice hadn’t touched alcohol until her mid-twenties because of that, because of the fear and disgust the word drunk awakened in her. But there were worse things than drunk. There was the pounding on the front door and the ogreish bellow through the letter box; there were bills in red and Mum crying at the kitchen table, holding her tight and trying to tell her not to worry, but only worrying Alice more.

There had been the time, when Dad wasn’t at home, that the front door had been kicked in – the sturdy, reliable old wooden door that had kept the world outside, suddenly smashed inwards, splintered and crumpled and hanging off one hinge. A huge man in a donkey-jacket had stepped through, clutching a pick-axe handle; another, smaller, smoother, in a pin-stripe suit, had followed.

Alice wasn’t vain, but she’d been used to strangers smiling at her; everyone said she was a pretty child. But the big man had just glanced at her as if she was nothing, then looked away again, and the Pinstripe Man had looked her up and down with a nasty little smirk. She’d been about eight at the time.

Mum had been shouting; the Pinstripe Man had screamed at her to shut up. He’d screamed some more things as well, but Alice hadn’t really heard them. He’d been shouting too fast and she’d scuttled backwards into a corner, hands over her ears to blot out the sound.

The men went at last and Mum had hugged Alice to her breast. They’d both been crying. Mum had a black eye and a split lip. That night, when Dad got home, they’d packed their bags and driven off to stay with Mum’s sister on the coast.

“Alice?” She blinked. Dad looked back at her over the crate. “Where are we putting this, love?”

“Sorry, Dad. The kitchen. In the corner so it’s not in the way. Should be everything you need in there, Mum.”

“Right you are.”

Alice followed Dad back outside. That long-ago night hadn’t been the first or last time such a thing had happened, but it had been the worst. Soon after, though, Dad had started going to AA meetings, but it had been years before they’d no longer had to struggle financially, before they’d been able to start saving.

“Where does this one go?”

“Put them in the downstairs bedroom for now,” she said. “Plenty of space for them, and there’s that many rooms I don’t know what needs to go where yet.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. But if it’s not done tonight, I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back out and help you.”

“I’ll manage, Dad. It’ll –”

“Keep you busy?”

She laughed. “Yes. That.”

She’d kept herself busy for years; reading, studying, until she was at university, taking a physics degree. That was when she’d met John. She didn’t want to think about John now. After that, she’d cared about one thing and one thing only, and that had been hunting down a job that would pay the most, help her save, that would make sure that neither she nor her parents, if she could help it, would ever have to worry about money again.

And then she’d met Andrew, and in due course, Emily had come along. But she didn’t want to think about them either.

 

 

“MUM. MUM. PLEASE. Don’t do that. Just don’t, please.”

Alice shouldered past Mum and snatched the photos from the mantelpiece.

“Well excuse me, Alice, I was only trying to help.”

“I know, I know, I just –” Alice hugged the pictures to her chest, felt her voice crack. “I just can’t look at them right now.”

“You’ve got to face it at some point, love.”

“I know, I know I do. I just can’t at the moment. Even seeing a picture...”

Mum spread her hands. “All right. All right. It’s up to you. Now are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

“I’ll be fine. I mean, I’ll be okay.” She wondered if that was true, or ever would be. She told herself it had to be.

But you didn’t expect to outlive your child; of course there were parents who carried on after such a loss, who coped, worked, lived somehow, but there was no knowing for sure what went on behind their eyes. A dead child tore a piece of you away. The wound might heal, but something would always be missing, something hard and dead left in its place.

They hugged her goodbye, muttered “see you soon,” and then got back in the van. Mum waved as they drove off into the dusk. Alice waved back, until the red tail-lights were gone, then shut the door, locked it and cried.

She sat curled up against the door for a while, sobbing, till she heard a floorboard creak – that, and felt someone standing over her, leaning down to look. She started, opened her eyes. It was dark, but streetlight spilled in through the glass panes in the front door to show an empty hallway. She got up and fumbled for the light switch. The unshaded bulb clicked; nothing. Imagination, nothing more.

Alice breathed out and went into the kitchen, wiping sore eyes on her sleeve. The cooker wouldn’t be here until tomorrow; she had some packets of freeze-dried noodles that she’d only need hot water to prepare, but found herself craving something more substantial.

The Chinese takeaway would only be a short walk, but it would mean going out. She’d have to get a grip, sooner or later. But for now she’d rather stay indoors.

She switched on her laptop, plugged the dongle in, logged onto Just Eat and found a place that delivered: hot and sour soup, salt and pepper ribs, sweet and sour chicken and egg fried rice. She ordered, paid with her debit card, shut down the computer and got up.

Now she paced. She wandered up and down the hallway, in and around the front room, kitchen and the ground-floor bedroom jammed full of crates. The front room was bare except for the armchairs and sofa, the floorboards filmed with dust. She went upstairs. Two bedrooms and a tiled bathroom on the first floor; two more bedrooms at the top.

The top bedroom at the front was the one whose window nestled under the eaves; the attic room, she’d called it. It was like all the other rooms: empty, with bare dusty floorboards and an unshaded bulb hanging from the ceiling. She flicked the switch, but the room stayed dark. She walked to the window, peered out into the night. Streetlights gleamed on tarmac and cobbles, turned trees to silhouettes; below, Collarmill Road sloped down towards the city.

Floorboards creaked; she gasped, then clenched her fists. Just the house settling. She’d have to get used to it, to live here.

As she stepped back, the dead lightbulb flashed into life, turning the window into a mirror. Alice cried out, spinning round.

But, of course, the room was empty. The lightbulb flickered and went out again. Shaking, she crossed to the switch and flicked it a few times, but the bulb showed no further signs of life.

She left the room without looking back, pulling the door shut, and went downstairs, heart still drumming in panic.

A trick of the light, nothing more. At most, the very most, it was her treacherous wounded mind that had made her see – if only for a snatched second – ranks of children standing behind her. Well, in a couple of weeks it would be Halloween. Season of the witch, and of ghosts. But there were no ghosts. There weren’t. Even if she sometimes wished there were.

In the front room, she curled up on the armchair, dug a book out of her shoulder bag and leafed through it, not registering a single word on any page, until her meal arrived.

 

 

SHE WATCHED AN old film on her laptop – a comedy she hadn’t seen in years. Andrew hadn’t liked it, and time to watch movies on her own had been hard to find after Emily was born. That thought occurred to her early on in the film and brought with it a sudden surge of pain, but she forced herself not to think about Emily, or Andrew. Instead she focused on the film, wondering as she did what other long-denied past pleasures might await rediscovery, and how far, if at all, they’d compensate her for her loss.

After the film, she dragged her folding camp-bed upstairs, followed by her sleeping-bag, pillows, some folding metal steps and a spare light bulb – she’d made a point of packing several of those.

In the attic room, she replaced the broken bulb. The previous owners had left a pair of curtains; she pulled them shut, then undressed. This was her home now; she couldn’t allow herself to fear this or any other room. She hesitated before turning off the bedroom light, but the landing light was on, as was every other light in the house. She’d have to get used to the dark here soon, but for tonight, this first night, she’d allow herself that one small indulgence. She climbed into her sleeping bag and zipped it up.

 

 

ALICE DREAMT SHE stood on a bare hillside, under a grim sky. It was daylight, but the clouds were thick and heavy, black with rain. Below her, something moved. She couldn’t see it clearly, but it was big, with a pelt of black, bristling fur. She was already turning away when it roared; after that, she was running.

It was behind her. As she neared the summit she knew there was no outrunning this, that her only salvation would be – what?

There was something she had to see. She didn’t know what, only that it was here at the top of the hill, and that if she could see it she’d be safe.

But she couldn’t. And then there was a roar, and a terrible shadow fell upon her.

 

 

ALICE WOKE, BUT only briefly; she was asleep again in seconds, barely even opening her eyes.

In any case she lay facing the wall, and didn’t turn around. So she didn’t see the small figures that stood beside her bed, watching her until dawn’s first light came to drive them away.