I’d never opened the pear drum. The box where the little people lived. In all those years, Elizabeth had never let me.
I suppose I could have sneaked in and opened it anyway, but I’d never dared. Perhaps I’d been too afraid of what I might find. It was only a story, but even now, as I sat there with it on my lap, I still couldn’t bring myself to open it. Even holding it made me feel sick, stomach acid burning up my throat.
As a child of barely six, curious, needy, and desperate to please, not long after Elizabeth had started telling me the story of the pear drum, I’d tried to think of all the things that I could do. To be naughty, to be wicked and evil, a monster in my stepmother’s eyes.
But why? Why did the box – or was it the little people? – demand such a price? Where had the story come from – had Elizabeth made it up? I didn’t think so. Truth be told, I had no idea. My memories of those early days were confusing. And before? It was so frustrating – I’d never really thought about it much, why my memories stopped before the pear drum.
I felt its smooth wooden curves beneath my fingers. Every day after that first day when she showed me the pear drum, she would taunt me, when other people were out of sight. She’d even make suggestions.
‘Tip the table over, go on – that little one, the coffee table, you can manage that. Watch the mugs go flying to the floor!’
I’d scream as the burning hot coffee scalded my arm.
‘Pull your sister’s hair. Give it a good tug. Stronger. Look how it makes her yell!’
It did, but it made her kick me too, till we were rolling on the ground, biting, fighting each other, my tiny fists punching as my big sister tried to pin me down.
‘Take it, Caroline, take the book, tear the pages out. Isn’t it fun? Look at the mess it’ll make! You can write on it too, spit on it, anything you want!’
It was a book a friend from the village had lent her, an expensive ‘coffee-table’ type book, all glossy photographs and artistic prints. When her friend came back into the room, Elizabeth would show her.
‘Look what that horrible child has done. She hates me. She hates everyone! What am I supposed to do with her?’
And her friend would stare at me as if I had sprouted from Mars.
I’d been so naïve, not understanding. The gossip spread. Elizabeth’s devil of a child, always causing trouble.
Until one day, Steph had gone. And I was alone. With my stepmother. And her pear drum.
I put the pear drum back in its crate. I closed the lid and fastened the catch. Then I pulled the blankets and sheets back over every object in the attic exactly as they’d been before, leaving the crate where it was, a shrouded shape amongst many shapes in the middle of the floor in the attic.
I had an early lunch that day, balanced on a kitchen stool, staring out of the window into the garden. I’m not sure I was even aware of the wetness on my cheeks until I reached up with my hand. The clouds were hanging low over the fields with that pregnant grey colour that promised more snow. I felt an overwhelming need to get out of the house, so I pulled on some boots, grabbed a coat and headed outside.
The snow was deep, piled up against the back door, and my feet sank unexpectedly far as I waded out across the lawn. I relished the cold on my hands, my face, numbing my feet. After a few moments, I stopped, looking back at the house. All the windows were lifeless, save for the kitchen where an orange light burned with an unexpected warmth. I could see the table, my artist equipment sprawled out across its width, my laptop, the lid open, the kitchen sink, crockery, one plate, one saucepan, one mug, stacked up on the draining board. My life. In the other rooms there was nothing, the blank glass reflecting only the grey clouds and the white laden trees outside.
I walked on, to the bottom of the garden, the summerhouse to my left surrounded by trees. The brick walls had crumbled with age, the windows partially shattered and overgrown with ivy. The wind blew inside, spiralling leaves and screaming through the glass. It was straight out of Shelley or Byron. But it was too real, too broken. It was like seeing a homeless person lying in a shop doorway. I felt pity and shame, a sense of helplessness and guilt, as if I was somehow responsible for its neglect, something I did not want to face. I turned away, heading down the slope and across the fields, head bowed against the cold.
Elizabeth had hated me, I knew that. She hadn’t told me the story of the pear drum to amuse me, this was no sweet bedtime tale. Her eyes had glittered when she spoke the words. There was an energy in the telling of it, a chanting under-beat in the rhythm of her voice, the repetition of familiar words, vowels and consonants raining down on me like hailstones pelting from above.
How long had it been since I’d thought about all this? I’d consciously put it behind me when I’d left home … home, the word had a hollow ring. It was being here again, in the house and garden, dredging things up, the familiar, hate-filled words seeping back into my head like some foul poison bubbling up from the ground beneath.
After Steph had left, Elizabeth was less restrained. Or maybe as I grew older, I became more aware. Of the vicious tone in her voice, the coldness of her manner, the way her eyes followed me, watching my reaction, waiting for my shoulders to sag, my eyes to drop, my skin to flinch, with each word that fell from her lips. She enjoyed every moment. I came to fear that small room that had once been my father’s study. The leather chair where he’d sat, the paintings on the wall, that monstrous shape festering in the corner of the room. She’d drag me through the door and the whole routine would start again.
‘Stand up straight!’
Drilling every syllable.
‘Don’t you move!’
Every word punching the air.
‘Lift your head, girl!’
As I stood there, frozen to the spot.
Even as she left the room, leaving the door open so she could watch, she’d make me stay, facing the crate, standing for an hour or more, until my knees began to shake, and my legs began to buckle. A punishment. For what?
At the bottom of the field was a set of footprints – a man and a dog, following the line of the hedgerow. I lifted my head, looking further down the field, half expecting to see Craig and his dog. Elizabeth’s dog. Or someone else. I shrugged, I didn’t care, or so I told myself. The field was empty, clumps of snow clinging to the twigs and branches of the hedges, here and there slipping down to the ground beneath.
I walked for an hour, until my breath was rasping, my trouser legs wet through and my feet sodden in their boots. Only then did I turn towards the house, climbing up the field, following my own footprints. I clambered over a stile, almost falling onto the snow on the other side, and there he was. Craig.
The dog barked the moment she saw me, bounding up with her tail waving, jaws open, tongue flopping out and a cloud of warm breath lighting up the air. I drew back, I wasn’t used to dogs.
‘Good afternoon!’ Craig’s voice was warm too.
‘Hi.’
Even to my own ears, I sounded awkward. I stumbled, my foot slipping sideways over a buried rock. I struggled to right myself, cringing at my own clumsiness.
‘She won’t hurt you,’ he said.
Craig reached out to Patsy, hanging onto her collar, dropping to his knees to make a fuss of her.
‘I hadn’t realised Elizabeth had a dog,’ I said.
Patsy sat in the snow obligingly as Craig rubbed behind her ears.
‘You didn’t know her so well.’
It was more of a statement than a question.
But wasn’t it true? I hadn’t really known Elizabeth. Thinking of her with a dog and a pile of pills by her bed gave me a different picture of the woman than the one I’d carried around in my head all these years, and I wasn’t comfortable with it.
‘No, I didn’t,’ I said.
It was too late now, anyway. I was relieved.
‘How come the dog ended up with you?’
‘Patsy? There was no one to look after her after Elizabeth died. Someone had to take her in.’ He looked at me then and I dropped my gaze. ‘She’s a lovely dog; I don’t mind. And she knew me. I wouldn’t be without her now.’
I licked my lips, they were dry and chapped from the cold.
‘How’s the house?’ His tone softened. ‘You settling in okay?’
‘It’s fine.’ I almost snapped the words. Then, after a pause, ‘Thank you for the logs.’
He looked at me, his eyes travelling across my face. I blushed, to my intense embarrassment.
‘You’re welcome. If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to let me know. Neighbours have to look out for each other in weather like this.’
‘Sure,’ I mumbled.
I stepped back. I didn’t want this – for him to be nice, reasonable, attractive. I didn’t want to feel like this. Not after Paul, not here, not anywhere. Paul had taught me that nice was just a front.
Patsy leapt to her feet, tail brushing the snow behind her, eager to set off. Her eyes looked as if she expected us to all walk together. Craig gave her another pat.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Enjoy your walk.’
And with that I launched into the snow, taking a direct line towards the house and not looking back.