The House Across the Street Read online

  ‘Perhaps he’ll confess all,’ Katy said.

  ‘I somehow doubt that,’ Charles said. ‘I’d love the opportunity to interview him and get to the bottom of what made him how he is. What I learned about him from his aunts, and Deirdre too, was fascinating. And then you said he could be kind, and you don’t think he knew how to kill you. All such compelling stuff to me!’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to think about him any more,’ Katy said firmly.

  Charles smiled and stroked her cheek. ‘No, I don’t suppose you do. It was tactless of me to talk about him. Besides, I’d much rather talk about us.’

  ‘Us?’

  He smiled at her puzzled expression. ‘There I go again, speaking out loud without thinking it through. It’s just that ever since you went missing I haven’t been able to think of anything but you. I kind of hoped you might have been feeling the same. But I suppose staying alive was the only thing on your mind?’

  ‘Actually, you did flit in and out of my mind quite a lot,’ she admitted, blushing furiously. ‘You took my mind off the possibility of dying of hunger.’

  Charles grinned. ‘Now there’s a first! No one has ever claimed that of me before.’

  Katy giggled. ‘There can’t be any “us” for a while. I’ll be back in Bexhill, waiting for my ankle and arm to heal. That’s going to take about six weeks or so.’

  ‘I can come down there at weekends.’

  Katy’s heart leapt with joy. ‘I’d like that, but I doubt you’ll enjoy being around my mum. She’s hard work.’

  ‘I can stay in a guest house and call for you, even push you around in a wheelchair. Please don’t put up obstacles!’

  ‘I’ll try not to. I suppose I’m afraid you’ll get bored waiting for me to get back to normal.’

  He leaned closer to her on the bed and put his arms around her. ‘I want to help you recover. Not just your ankle and arm, but the whole of you. No one gets abducted like that, locked in a room in fear of their life, and just returns immediately to how they were before. That’s why you need to be with your parents, have the security of your home, and know that you can talk it over with me whenever you feel the need. It might take six weeks, or six months, but I want to help you through it.’

  Katy leaned into his shoulder; it felt so good to be close to him. In just the same way as she had managed to forget her misery in the cellar for short periods by thinking about him, she could now quell the feelings of panic by breathing in his smell of soap and cedar aftershave. She hadn’t told anyone, not the nurses or doctors, about these moments of panic. She felt if she did admit to experiencing them, the moments would just grow longer and stronger.

  A policewoman who came to talk to her soon after she came round, after being in theatre, asked if Reilly had raped her.

  ‘He wasn’t like that,’ was how Katy had answered. She sensed the woman didn’t believe her, and thought Katy was denying it because she was embarrassed. But Reilly really hadn’t made any sexual overtures. The time he slept on the bed with her, when she’d been ill and vulnerable, he didn’t even attempt to cuddle her. Yet in some strange way that made his violence towards her worse.

  But then he hadn’t abducted her because he wanted a woman, only because he had to prevent her exposing him. Then he was stuck with her, and didn’t know how to get rid of her.

  She kept thinking about the day she escaped. What would he have done to her if she hadn’t attacked him? Might he have come up with some way of killing her? Or would he have just left her there, once again – unable to kill her, yet unable to let her go, either.

  He was a puzzle, and she would probably never get the answers to all her questions about him.

  Did that mean she would never be free of him?

  19

  ‘How wonderful to be going home at last.’ Katy sighed happily as her father drove along Shakespeare Cliff towards Folkestone.

  It was a beautiful, cloudless day, the sea below the cliffs on her left reflecting the blue of the sky as if telling them spring was almost here. Here and there they saw almond blossom, banks of crocuses, daffodils and camellias in full flower. But the sunshine was deceptive, and it was still very cold.

  Wearing her own clothes again felt good, too. She’d always liked the black-and-white striped polo-necked sweater her mother had picked out, and the black slacks hid her plaster cast. But it felt very odd to be wearing only one shoe. Just a woolly sock over the other foot.

  ‘It will be great to get you home,’ Albert said, smiling at her. ‘Your mother has been in a delirium of baking for days. She’s made enough cakes to hold a street party. But maybe we’d better throw one, as everyone has been calling to ask how you are.’

  ‘They just want to know the gruesome details,’ Katy said. ‘Funny that they didn’t come calling to offer support when you were arrested.’

  ‘Now, now, don’t be like that,’ Albert reproved her. ‘It’s been good for your mum, she actually chats to other women now. Besides, there are lots of people in our road who are genuinely fond of you.’

  Katy wasn’t convinced, but she let it drop; her father was one of those people who saw the best in everyone.

  ‘How are things between you and Mum now?’ she asked him. ‘And I want honesty, please.’

  ‘Much better,’ he said. ‘She can’t change overnight, but she is trying. I wish I could unlock whatever it is inside her that makes her so –’ he stopped, perhaps unable to say the word.

  ‘Difficult? Savage? Unreasonable?’ Katy suggested. ‘Pick any one you like! But I intend to get to the bottom of it. I shall be like a dog with a bone. They sent a psychiatrist to see me the other day. I got a few good pointers from him.’

  ‘What did he ask you, then?’

  Katy shrugged. ‘How I felt about Reilly, was I having nightmares about him? All the usual stuff. So I asked the psychiatrist what might have happened to Reilly that would have turned him from taking good care of his younger siblings into becoming a wife beater and eventually a murderer. The shrink said he felt it was hatred of his mother, and then he saw the women in his life turning into her. But I can’t see that that makes sense. Charles said Deirdre was a gentle, quiet woman, she wasn’t a drunken floozy. Anyway, nothing that shrink said explained why Reilly wanted to kill Gloria and Edna.’

  ‘Presumably just because they’d taken Deirdre away from him? Even though it was his behaviour that drove her away in the end. So what good pointers did you get that might apply to your mum?’

  ‘She never talks about her childhood, does she?’

  ‘She can’t talk about anything in her past. I’ve tried to get her to, but she changes the subject. And if I keep on, she gets angry.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to try and make her talk to me about it.’

  ‘Good luck with that.’ Albert made a little snigger. ‘I’ll keep out of the way, in the shed, while it’s going on.’

  He was silent for a little while and then sighed. ‘There is something, Katy. Something big. But it isn’t my place to tell you; she’d never forgive me. But I think you’re right, it is time to pull the skeletons out of the cupboard. Tomorrow I’ll be at work all day, so it might be a good opportunity. But please don’t be angry with me if it all goes pear-shaped.’

  Katy felt a rush of pure delight as she got home. The front garden was bright with daffodils, and the big camellia growing against the house wall was covered in bright red flowers.

  The door opened before her father had even turned off the ignition, and her mother darted out, her broad smile a joy to see. She opened the passenger door. ‘It’s so good to get you home,’ she said, with all the warmth she normally lacked.

  ‘I’ll just get the wheelchair out of the boot,’ Albert said.

  Katy wasn’t surprised to see her father had made a little ramp to get the wheelchair over the threshold; he had always been good at thinking of everything. She managed to do a one-legged hop from car to chair, and he wheeled her in.

  ‘Your fathe
r said he thought you’d rather sleep upstairs,’ Hilda said, once Katy had been wheeled into the kitchen.

  ‘Yes, I would. I can go up and down on my bottom. But I only need to do it once a day, as we’ve got the downstairs lav.’

  ‘Will you be able to get in there?’ Hilda looked doubtful.

  ‘Of course I will. I can hop with the one crutch. Stop worrying about me. I’ll soon get used to it.’

  ‘Well, I must say, I wasn’t keen on bringing your bed down here,’ Hilda said, proving she hadn’t changed that much, she was always one for order. ‘Now, tea and cake, and then you can tell me any news. Has the chest infection gone now? Does your ankle – or arm – hurt?’

  ‘Chest all better, and just twinges now and then in my arm and ankle. I just hate the plaster; it’s so hard to sleep with it at night.’

  ‘It must be,’ said Hilda, looking hard at her daughter. ‘You are still very pale and thin, but your face looks a lot better, and the remaining bruising should fade soon.’

  Katy thought she looked a fright. Other people might try to convince her she looked fine, but she had every colour of the rainbow around her eyes, from purple through to yellow. But she had promised herself she wasn’t going to moan about it. After all, she was lucky to be alive.

  But that night she didn’t feel lucky. First hauling herself up the stairs on her bottom, then hopping into the bathroom, only to find she’d left her toothbrush in the bedroom. Another hop back there, then the return to the bathroom to clean her teeth. After that, back to the bedroom, by which time she felt exhausted.

  Once in bed, the leg plaster caught on the sheets and scraped against her other leg. Then her plastered arm made it impossible to lie on her right side. She was forced to lie on her back, and the prospect of spending at least another five weeks like this was hideous.

  Once she’d turned out the light, the memories surfaced. The smell of that cellar, the cold, the hunger and the fear. She felt every blow Ed inflicted on her, and couldn’t help but remember the mad look in his eyes. Yet there was the gentler side of him, too. He’d been so kind when she was ill – in fact, she’d thought they had turned a corner and he would let her go.

  But it wasn’t just the ordeal in the cellar that concerned her. She longed to be able to have a bath, to wear something pretty. To be able to walk outside alone.

  To be normal again.

  It was the following afternoon before Katy tackled her mother. Hilda wasn’t one for sitting down during the day. She kept herself busy cleaning, polishing, washing, ironing, cooking and washing up. Katy had learned from an early age that nothing deterred Hilda from her routine. Even if she had a cold or sickness, she battled on regardless.

  But after they’d had lunch of home-made French onion soup, and the washing-up was done, Katy asked Hilda to come and sit with her by the fire.

  ‘I’ve got some ironing to do, and I must pop down to the Home and Colonial for some cheese,’ she said, twisting her hands nervously, as she always did when someone asked her to do something unexpected.

  ‘The ironing can wait, and by tomorrow you’ll need more from the shops than just cheese,’ Katy said. ‘Now sit down, Mum, it’s important.’

  Hilda perched on the edge of the sofa, her hands clasped in her lap.

  ‘Sit back and relax, Mum. You look like you are here for a job interview.’

  ‘What is so important?’ Hilda snapped. ‘Is something wrong with you?’

  ‘Not me, Mum, it’s you. Back in hospital you promised me we’d talk, and today we are going to do just that. I want you to start by telling me where you grew up and about your parents.’

  She saw her mother’s face tighten. She didn’t want to talk about anything other than the recipe for her fruit cake or the fact that the spare room could do with new curtains.

  ‘There’s nothing much to tell,’ Hilda said with a deep sigh. ‘My parents had a smallholding near Salisbury. They grew vegetables and kept chickens. We sold the goods in a little shed by the gate.’

  ‘Brothers, sisters?’

  ‘I had an older brother, Richard, but he died when I was twelve. Something wrong with his liver. My folks never got over it.’

  This was a major bit of news, and Katy wondered how anyone could keep such a thing to themselves for years.

  ‘Did your parents make you feel guilty that you were healthy?’

  Hilda looked thoughtful rather than cross at the question.

  ‘Yes, I suppose they did. They needed Richard, you see, for the heavy work, digging and stuff. I felt they thought I had no use, even though I did the weeding, fed the chickens and looked after the bedding plants we grew from seed and sold in the summer. As soon as I got home from school, I had to work.’

  ‘How did that make you feel?’

  Hilda frowned and looked hard at Katy. ‘Feel? When I was a girl no one cared how you felt. You didn’t expect them to.’

  ‘Maybe so, but how did you feel?’

  ‘Put upon, I suppose. I used to daydream about having a life where I could go for walks, lie around reading books, wear pretty clothes and have lots of friends. I didn’t really make friends, because I never had any time to be with them.’

  ‘And did your parents keep on and on about Richard dying, to the point where you wished it had been you who died?’

  Hilda looked astonished at that question. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.

  ‘I know that sounds harsh, but was that how it was?’ Katy asked.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ her mother said, somewhat reluctantly. ‘I felt I didn’t count for anything. Sometimes I wished I could get sick so they’d make a fuss of me.’

  ‘So when did you leave school, and what did you do then?’

  ‘I left school in 1929. I was fourteen. I worked three days a week as a laundry maid for the Colridges, they had the big house in the village, and the rest of the time I worked for my parents. But my mother died suddenly in 1931; they said it was a heart attack. She used to get herself very worked up about the Depression. Things were getting tight for everyone, men losing their jobs and such, but it wasn’t going to make our lives change much. My father was always telling her that we’d never starve, as we grew our own food and sold enough to buy anything else we needed. But she was a worryguts. Always had been.’

  ‘I’m sorry. So you were left with just your father? How was that? You were too young to be without a mother.’

  A tear trickled down Hilda’s cheek. ‘It was awful. He used to go down the pub every night, and sleep half the day. I had to try and keep everything going on my own. He didn’t do anything. We had no money for chicken feed, so he sold all the hens and drank that money away. With no eggs to sell, and gradually fewer and fewer vegetables to eat or to sell, we were done for. He was so nasty to me; he demanded the money I earned doing laundry and he just drank it away. Often he hit me, too. Finally, when he hadn’t paid the rent on the property, we were evicted. Mrs Colridge felt sorry for me and took me in as a maid of all work. She had got rid of most of the other staff because times were hard for her and her husband, too. So it was just me doing everything in her house.’

  Katy felt she’d been handed the answer to much of her mother’s odd attitudes. The penny-pinching, the disapproval of drink, and her inability to relax. She put her hand over her mother’s and squeezed it. ‘No wonder you don’t ever talk about those times,’ she said. ‘It must have been so grim.’

  ‘It was better with the Colridges than being with my father,’ she said. ‘At least I was well fed, living in a decent place, and no one shouted at me or hit me. In fact, Mrs Colridge was quite kind. She relied on me, she was a very weak woman.’

  ‘And your father?’ What happened to him?’

  ‘He drank himself to death.’ Hilda spat that out, revealing she was still bitter towards him. ‘He tried to get money from me a few times, but I didn’t earn much and I wasn’t going to give it to him for drink. He was found dead in the woods, just before war bro
ke out. Living like a tramp, filthy dirty, a real disgrace.’

  Katy understood now why her mother had such high standards of cleanliness, of order and self-restraint. But she wanted to know the ‘big’ thing her father had mentioned, and so she needed to move Hilda along.

  ‘That must have been so awful for you, Mum,’ she said. ‘So humiliating and sad, too. Did you move away then to do war work?’

  If Hilda felt she’d been cut short on the subject of her father, she didn’t show it.

  ‘Yes, I enrolled for war work and I got sent to a factory in Southampton.’

  ‘So you were twenty-four then. What did you think of factory work? It must have been strange after living in a quiet village?’

  ‘I liked it. I was earning good money, I had other girls for company, and we were all away from home so we had a lot in common. The work was repetitive, noisy and dirty. We were making small parts for tanks, planes – all sorts, really. But we’d go to dances on a Saturday night, and I liked sharing a house with other girls. I was the one who always cleared up.’

  Katy smiled at that. She could imagine her mother taking on the role of housekeeper. ‘What about romance? Any boyfriends?’

  ‘There were a couple of lads, but I was too shy to be comfortable with them. I wasn’t pretty, either. I felt awkward.’

  ‘We all feel like that at first,’ Katy said. ‘I was terrified at my first few dances. I used to tell Jilly I wasn’t going to any more parties. So what changed for you? You met Dad and everything was fine then?’

  ‘What’s behind all this? Why are you interrogating me?’

  Katy was alarmed at her mother’s aggressive tone. She had thought it was all going so well.