February 2018
The sky was granite grey as I pulled into Truman Close, a cul-de-sac on the other side of the village, comprising eight semi-detached houses, probably built in the early Seventies.
It was clear which house belonged to Marcus McCutcheon. The woman at the tearoom had been right about the gnomes – they edged his path as though on guard, and seemed to be watching me as I hurried towards the front door. I was being ridiculous, but there was something about gnomes that made me anxious. I felt sure they all stood statue-still when my eyes were on them, moving when I looked away.
I reached the front door, sucked in a breath, and knocked three times.
A small dog yapped, lunging at the frosted glass panel so hard I thought it might knock itself out. Eventually the door was opened, and through a gap of six inches, a pale, freckled face appeared. ‘Hello.’ He looked to be in his late fifties, with a receding faded-ginger hairline.
‘I’m looking for Marcus McCutcheon,’ I said, over the dog’s bark.
‘Trudy, shh,’ the man said, agitated, sharp. ‘Yes, that’s me. What do you want?’
‘Oh … well …’ I stuttered. ‘Hi.’ I lifted my hand in a wave, and swallowed hard before continuing. ‘The thing is my name’s Rachel Hogan. I’m James and Isabella Hogan’s granddaughter.’
‘Ah, I see.’ He opened the door wider, and gestured for me to enter. ‘I’ve been expecting you. You’d better come in.’
‘You have?’ I stepped back.
‘Well, not today, obviously,’ he went on, straightening his cardigan. He gave a small, strange laugh. ‘But I knew you would come one day.’ He stared into my eyes. ‘People always want to know about their past, don’t they? Discover who their family were – what they were like?’
‘Do they?’ I stepped into the house, and he closed the door behind me. Trudy sniffed my feet and looked up at me with chocolate-brown eyes, before trotting away down the hall.
‘Come through,’ Marcus said.
I followed him into his lounge, feeling wary. He was a stranger, after all, and more than a tad eccentric. Under his cardigan, he wore a crisp white polo shirt over smart, turquoise trousers. His leather slippers looked expensive.
Patio doors stretched across the far wall, and a well-maintained garden opened up behind the glass, where yet more gnomes had taken over. Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes, a Goosebumps novel I’d read as a kid, flashed through my mind, making me shudder.
‘Coffee?’ Marcus asked, and I jumped.
‘Please.’
He headed into the adjoining kitchen, where the dog was now curled up in a tartan basket. I turned back to the window, unable to pull my gaze away from those bloody gnomes. I’d never dreamt there were so many types. Some were fishing by a fishpond, others stood by the gate waving signs giving mixed messages: ‘welcome’ and ‘halt’. Under a tree, seven or eight were meditating, and vampire gnomes were perched on the branches.
‘Sugar?’
I jumped again – far too anxious. ‘No, thank you.’
Moments later he brought through mugs of coffee, and placed them on coasters on a marble coffee table. ‘Sit. Please,’ he said, dashing back to the kitchen and returning with a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits.
I removed my damp coat, and sat down on the sofa. He took the chair.
‘So you’ve noticed my gnomes,’ he said. ‘Bit of an obsession of mine.’
‘I can see that.’ I glanced again out of the window, promising myself it would be the last time. Why did they freak me out so much? ‘If I’m honest, I’ve always had a bit of a gnome phobia.’
He furrowed his forehead, and I knew he was put out. ‘My wife loved them.’
‘I’m sure lots of people do. Take no notice of me.’ I waved my hand apologetically. ‘I’m just being silly.’
‘We had half a dozen before the accident, and since then I buy a few each year in her memory. I bring them home and show her.’ He nodded to a framed photograph on the wall. His late wife looked about my age in the picture, with short, dark hair. She was wearing a black and white checked dress.
‘She had a lovely smile,’ I said.
‘Yes, yes she did.’ He looked at his hands, turning his wedding ring around his finger several times. ‘I realise collecting so many gnomes might seem a little strange.’
‘No. No, not at all,’ I lied. It had been over thirty years since his wife died, and yet, as I watched him sip his coffee, I couldn’t help feeling desperately sorry. Sorry that life had never been the same since his loss. Sorry that it seemed he’d never moved on. Sorry that my grandparents had been the reason for that.
‘I remember your mother,’ he said, putting down his coffee.
‘You do?’
‘Yes. Laura. Not well, but I liked her. I thought once we might … well, that never happened.’
I felt my neck tingle. The conversation felt awkward. I thought back to the newspaper cutting. ‘So you have a daughter who survived the crash,’ I said, to change the subject.
‘Yes, Yolanda. She wasn’t so keen on your mum, I’m afraid. She got it in her head that Laura might replace her mother.’ He ran his finger around the neck of his collar, a shaft of red crossing his cheeks, and I imagined for a moment him married to my mother – and me, as a child, trying to explain away my peculiar stepfather to my school friends.
‘But I told Yolanda more times than I care to remember,’ he went on, ‘that no one could ever replace her mum.’
I looked around for a photograph of his daughter, and my eyes fell on a child of about six or seven in a green school uniform, with a heavy honey-blonde fringe. There didn’t seem to be any recent photos.
‘She moved to London to study media and design, and ended up staying, as so many do. She has her own shop in Islington: “Yolanda’s Heaven”.’
‘I have a friend who owns a salon in Islington.’
‘Really?’ He raised his brows. ‘It’s a small world, isn’t it?’
‘I guess so,’ I said.
‘Yolanda’s doing well, she tells me. Says she loves her work – her life.’ He let out a sigh, and I knew he was suddenly somewhere else. ‘When she was little she wanted to be a ballerina, or an actress like Julia Roberts. I don’t see her much, but that’s my fault. I should make more of an effort. Trouble is I hate leaving this place, and Yolanda is always so busy.’ He took another swig of coffee, looking at me over the mug. ‘How is your mother?’
‘Unwell,’ I said, through a lump rising in my throat, unsure how much to tell him.
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He shook his head, and a pause followed, broken only by him lifting the plate. ‘Why not have a biscuit?’ he said.
I took one and bit into it, a cascade of crumbs sprinkling my top. ‘I don’t suppose you remember where my mother used to live?’ I said, my mouth full.
‘You don’t know?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘She lived in the big house on the edge of the woods in Laurel Road, near the lake. The building looks so out of place, you can’t miss it. I’m not sure who lives there now. Your mother moved away years ago, just after the tragedy.’
‘The tragedy?’ Was he referring to the car crash?
‘Yes. Although I’ve seen your mum a few times over the years.’
‘You have?’
‘Mmm …’ The doorbell rang, and Trudy skidded across the kitchen floor and hurtled towards the door, yapping. Marcus rose, and smoothed his trousers. ‘That will be Sue. We’re off to The Jester for lunch,’ he said, and scooted off.
No, no, no, stay and tell me what tragedy – was it a child? When did you see my mother?
I stood up, desperate for him to carry on talking. But by the time I’d caught up with him in the hall, he’d opened the door and was deep in conversation with a woman in her fifties with pink-tipped hair.
He paused as I reached his side. ‘We’ll catch up another time, Rachel,’ he said.
‘But … the tragedy? I …’
‘I’m off out now,’ he cut in, assertive. ‘We’ll talk another time.’
I slipped into my coat. ‘OK … well I’ll leave you to it,’ I said. And knowing it was time to go, I pushed past them.
‘I’m sure we’ll meet again, Rachel,’ he said, raising his hand as I raced past the gnomes.
***
As soon as I saw the house where my mother once lived, I knew I’d seen it before. But however much I searched my head, that was where the memory ended.
I got out of my car and approached to see the blinds at the windows pulled down, and I sensed, even before I rang the doorbell, nobody was home. And even if they had been in, my mother sold the house nearly thirty years ago.
I walked around the back and onto a patio, and peered through the cracks in the vertical Venetians, more to provoke memories than anything else, but it was impossible to see.
I turned to take in my surroundings. The heavy rain clouds and tall trees gave it a sombre feel, and the silence, aside from the wildlife, was tangible. I imagined my mum here when I was a baby, and could almost feel the loneliness suffocating her.
An overgrown path leading to the lake pulled me towards it. I pushed my way through the hedgerow, avoiding puddles, and as I reached the water’s edge, something moved behind me. I froze for a few moments before turning to see a deer strolling away from me. I pressed my chest, feeling my heart hammering under my fingers.
The peace, now the deer had gone, was breath-taking. It was a setting I recognised from some of my mother’s paintings. In fact, the dense, dark clouds pressing down on the lake could have been brushstrokes on one of her canvases.
A sudden memory of a splash, a cat struggling to breathe, Mum rushing to pull it out of the lake.
Unexplainable tears filled my eyes, and I choked them back.
‘Rachel, what happened?’ It was my mum’s voice, and I could see her wrapping the cat in her cardigan, holding the bedraggled animal to her. ‘Did you push him in? Did you push him? What the hell is the matter with you?’
Oh God, what the hell had happened here when I was a child?