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Every corner is thick with cobwebs, dead flies, moths, and God only knows what else. Living in a modern city, we forget that the countryside is alive with insects. My father always reminded us not to remove cobwebs from doorways and windows because they trapped bugs. But surely, even he didn’t mean to cultivate so many layers of the grey stuff.
The shower is covered in mildew and silt. I pull the curtain aside, and it comes off in my hand sending a cloud of dust over me. All over me.
Genius idea to walk in here naked, wasn’t it?
It takes a while before the taps can be persuaded to produce water that isn’t rust-brown. Since I have no cleaning products with me, shampoo will have to double as bathroom cleaner. I use one of my T-shirts and most of my shampoo before the shower cubicle is fit for human use. And when I say human use, I’m obviously talking about a cold dribble of water washing off the worst of the mud and dust and cobwebs that cling to my hair. Some people swear by cold showers and cold-water swimming; it’s supposed to invigorate and stimulate. Ninety seconds is all the stimulation I can take before I give up and step out of the shower.
My phone is ringing, in spite of the dip it had in the puddle outside. I find it under the pile of dirty clothes, the screen flashes, MUM. I put her on speaker while I dig into my suitcase for a dry towel.
“Darling. I’ve been trying to call you for an hour.”
“I was in the shower.” I speak from inside the towel while I rub it over my head to dry my hair.
“For an hour?”
“Ah no…” I am tempted to invent an excuse, but my mother’s radar is better than anything NASA has. “I had a bit of an accident on Catcher Lane.”
“How can you have an accident in a place that doesn’t have cars?”
“Some woman knocked me into a ditch full of muddy water.” I continue to rub warmth into my skin with the now dirty towel. I will need to find a hotel, hopefully one with endless hot water and a laundry service.
“Hal, darling, you’ve not been there a couple of hours, you already managed to get in trouble with a woman?”
I laugh. “Actually, it wasn’t really her fault, she was just clumsy.”
“So?” Her voice grows serious.
I know this voice. She’s waiting for me to tell her about the house. I play for time, hopping on one foot as I pull on dry jeans.
“Hal? What is it?”
I may as well tell her the truth; she’ll get it out of me anyway.
“The house is empty. I can’t see any of our furniture and antiques, nothing but dust and cobwebs.”
“I knew that,” she says impatiently.
I pause halfway through pushing my arm into my jumper. “What do you mean?”
“Well of course. I saw it after the funeral.”
When word came of my father’s death, I’d been in Japan and couldn’t be reached. My sister had just had a miscarriage, so Mum went to the funeral alone. A depressingly poor send-off with only her, the vicar, and four other people.Four. To bid farewell to a man who’d lived all his life here. As soon as it was over, she got on the ferry and left. Or at least that was what she told us.
“What happened to our stuff? No matter how the people hated us, surely plundering our house was going too far.”
“They didn’t. It was your father. He’s been selling things for years.”
“He can’t have sold everything.”
“Darling, how do you think he lived, no one would employ him. I tried to send him money, but he refused. He always insisted we needed every penny I earned.”
My eyes scan the upstairs again, and the evidence now seems obvious. The trundle bed my father slept in, the cheap bedroom furniture. Even the bathroom would not have got so bad from just two years of neglect. Everywhere, I see signs of my father’s slow decline.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“What would have been the point?” She sighs. “Why do you think I didn’t want you to go?”
It’s all gone? I stare around me. Thousands of pounds worth of antiques. It was worth a lot more than the house itself and I’d been relying on the proceeds from selling our furniture. I need to rethink this.
