ONE NIGHT, ABOUT a week before the end of the holidays, I was lying on my bed listening to Polly and Isobel quarrel again over Peter’s pearls, when I came across a story in True Murder that I recognised. It was an article about the Ellbergs, Polly’s neighbours in Washington. She had told us that Mr Ellberg had murdered his family on the Fourth of July: his family and their dog, a red setter named Frisbee. Polly had said Jacinth Ellberg had been her best friend. But according to the magazine, the Ellbergs hadn’t lived in Washington. They’d lived in Chicago, in a house by a lake. And there wasn’t a Jacinth; there was a Jacob, a ten-year-old boy shot through the head with a bullet from his father’s gun.
I closed the magazine quickly. Polly had lied. In order to claim she had touched a dead body? I curled up in bed with Miss Fielding’s shawl, sucking its fringe of tassels to help me think. If I’d been Polly I would have changed their names, so no one would ever know that I’d lied. But why had she pretended to know the Ellbergs when she couldn’t have done? As far as I knew, she had visited New York and Boston, but never Chicago. And the Ellbergs had had a son, not a daughter. If Polly had lied about Jacinth, what else had she lied about?
‘I’m not going to go,’ Isobel was saying, ‘until you take that necklace off.’
Since Peter’s departure, they’d quarrelled constantly about Peter’s gift to Polly. It was as if the onset of puberty in her daughter had inflamed Isobel’s sensitivity, bringing the rivalry between them to the fore. But now the rivalry was laced with venom. The argument always began in the same way. Isobel would insist that Polly remove the pearls before going to sleep, and Polly would refuse. She said she was never going to take them off, which wasn’t true, because she removed them for her bath. Isobel stood over her daughter, trying to persuade her to give her the necklace for safekeeping, while Polly stubbornly held her ground.
‘I’m not going to go,’ Isobel repeated, ‘till you take that necklace off. If I asked Ajuba, she’d do as she was told. I know she would, because she’s sensible.’
‘Leave her out of this,’ Polly retorted.
That night, determined to break her daughter’s defiance once and for all, Isobel sat down on Polly’s bed, folding her arms. ‘I’m waiting, Polly.’
It was going to be a long evening for all of us unless she conceded to her mother’s request. After twenty minutes’ silence, Polly slowly unfastened the necklace, dropping it in its velvet case.
‘Satisfied?’ she asked.
Isobel gave a slow smile. ‘Thank you, darling. You deserve a kiss for that.’
Polly turned away, so Isobel kissed me goodnight instead, her lips as cold as marble.
Even after all these years, I find it hard to describe what happened that night. Although there were only three of us in the house, I became convinced that there were others among us. What I lived through was agonisingly real at the time.
Teasing a tassel of Miss Fielding’s shawl, using it as a comforter, I heard the house stretching itself and yawning. I heard its breathing, its sighs. And at midnight, counting the chimes of the grandfather clock, I sensed ghosts from the past treading the floorboards outside. There were two of them, one with a slow dragging step, the other firmer, quicker. They walked up the corridor towards the rose room. I heard their cries and whispers. Or was it Mrs Venus again? Gathering the shawl around me, I pulled a pillow over my face.
While Polly lay sleeping, I yearned for my mother’s arms to cradle me once again. I fondled the shawl, my fingers following the pattern of embroidered roses: Miss Fielding’s roses. They writhed beneath my fingers. Tossing from side to side, I wondered when I would see my mother again. When would I hear her laughter? I wondered how I could possibly have sensed her presence in Isobel. I thought of Isobel in the rose garden, a maggot in my mango. I thought of her tears, her face merging with my mother’s, her incandescent rage. And then I remembered the babies in Miss Fielding’s trunk.
I found myself gasping for air. Why had Polly lied? Why had she lied to me, her best friend? Of all her friends I would have kept her secret. All the questions I wanted answered became tangled up with thoughts of my mother and Isobel, and the horror of Miss Fielding’s trunk, so that by the time the bedroom door swung open, I was in a state of acute distress.
But I saw her. Believe me, I did. I saw Isobel step in the room and walk over to Polly’s bed. I glimpsed an expression on her face that has never left me. Her eyes bright with anger, Isobel stared at her daughter. She wanted obedience and Polly’s resistance had infuriated her. I saw her holding her daughter’s necklace and, opening her mouth wide, drop the pearls inside, swallowing them completely.
I shut my eyes. Only after hearing the rustle of Isobel’s nightdress as she closed the door did I open them again.
Then it seemed that the room itself was alive. I heard a groan and a baby crying, a jug emptied of water, hands washed and the muffled voices of women talking. And then a scream of terror, and a sobbing I shall never forget. A woman was heartbroken, her lips wet with the bitter salt taste of surrender. The tighter I clung to the shawl, the more vivid my waking dream became. Then, gasping for breath again, for control of my senses, I flung the shawl away. Leaping out of bed, I ran over to Polly.
She seemed impervious to any sound in this world or the next.
‘Polly,’ I called, shaking her. She half-opened one eye. The woman had stopped crying, and so had the baby. ‘They’ve stopped,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Didn’t you hear them?’
‘Hear what?’ Making a space for me in her bed, Polly allowed me to get in.
‘I heard a baby and a woman crying,’ I told her. ‘And I saw things.’
‘Sure,’ she said turning over. ‘Freddy Kruger lives.’
She was on the verge of falling asleep again when I decided to ask her about Jacinth. I didn’t want to be the only one awake. I didn’t want the shadows to reappear.
‘Polly, why did you lie about Jacinth?’
She was immediately alert. ‘Who says I lied?’
‘True Murder says there wasn’t a Jacinth. She was Jacob Ellberg from Chicago, and you’ve never been to Chicago.’ I was beginning to feel better, talking about facts recorded in print for the world to see.
‘So I’m a liar, am I?’ In the darkness I could feel Polly’s eyes cutting into me.
‘You could have told me. I wouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Aj, why don’t you go sleep in your own bed?’ She might as well have suggested that I buy a one-way ticket to hell. I was too frightened to sleep on my own.
‘I won’t tell, Polly,’ I pleaded. ‘I promise I won’t tell.’
‘Well, shut up then!’ With that, she turned over and pretended to sleep.
In the morning, when she discovered her necklace gone, I told her what I had seen.
Isobel was at the dressing-table mirror when Polly ran into her bedroom. I hesitated by the door. Standing behind her, Polly scowled at her mother’s reflection. ‘Where is it?’ she demanded, holding the empty necklace case in her hand.
Isobel smiled. She knew her daughter well. She must have been waiting for Polly’s entrance. I heard her say in her clear, distinctive voice: ‘How many times do I have to tell you, Polly? You should knock before you come in here.’
‘I want it back!’
‘I told you –’ Isobel began in an all-knowing tone.
‘I haven’t lost it. You’ve stolen it.’ Polly flung the velvet case at her mother’s feet. ‘You always want what I’ve got,’ she cried, ‘but you can’t have it. He gave it to me, not to you. And it’s you he’s leaving. He’s not leaving me.’
‘Polly, please calm down.’ Isobel swung round to face her daughter.
‘You can’t take him from me!’ Polly shouted.
‘I’m not trying to. Let’s try and discuss this sensibly, shall we?’
But Polly was in no mood for discussion. Something vital was at stake, something to do with her father. She retorted: ‘Daddy says I’m wonderful!’
Turning to the mirror again, Isobel started brushing her hair with quick strokes. Her voice remained steady. ‘Of course you’re wonderful,’ she affirmed. Catching Polly’s eye in the looking-glass, she continued smoothly: ‘Have you asked Ajuba about your necklace?’
Polly hesitated. She stood very still. ‘Peter says I’m nothing like you.’
‘Ajuba may have borrowed it, you know, darling. I’d ask her if I were you.’
Incredulous at her mother’s suggestion, Polly stared at her wide-eyed. ‘No wonder he hates you. Peter’s right. You’re a bitch. You’re a bloody, fucking bitch!’
Turning quickly, Isobel struck her daughter. I ran back to our bedroom, hearing Polly close behind me. Isobel, immediately sorry, ran after Polly. But Polly bolted the door.
I sat quietly on the firm wooden bed beside hers. When I saw Polly’s face, I was glad that in a few days’ time we’d be back at school again. She held a hand against her cheek and wept with fractured sobs that seemed to tear her apart. I couldn’t keep the sympathy out of my eyes. She greeted it with anger.
‘She says you took it.’
‘I didn’t take them. I didn’t take them!’ I cried.
‘Promise?’ Did she really doubt me? A hint of cunning crept into her eyes.
I crossed my heart, saying the words: ‘Cross my heart and hope to die!’
‘You’ve got to promise something else,’ she said in a tone suggesting that if I dared cross her, I’d live to regret it. ‘I want you to promise not to tell about Jacinth.’
There it was. She didn’t trust me. She didn’t believe I could be loyal of my own volition, unless she had something against me: the necklace she knew I hadn’t taken.
‘I promise not to tell about Jacinth,’ I agreed.
‘So we’re best friends again?’
‘Sure,’ I said, remembering Theo’s advice. ‘Of course we’re best friends.’
I was a fly caught between mother and daughter. They had me in their web.