The Telling

rage at my own incompetence, and scrubbing the unused bottles, putting them back into the sterilizer, and starting again; all the time I’d been wearing sunglasses on cloudy days, pushing the pram around the park, the scar pressing itself against my jeans; all the time, this house had stood, gathering desiccated flies, the air drying in the sunshine, the spider plant dying in the bathroom. The soap splitting into cracks. The lampshade gathering dust on its bones. The static growing. Waiting.
    There was movement outside. The shock was almost physical. An elderly woman came out of the front door of the cottage across the street. Until that moment I hadn’t seen a soul. I wiped my cheeks with my fingers and turned to watch her.
    She had a bucket in her hand. She had that old-lady stooped carefulness. She set the bucket to one side of the step, then knelt down, took a scrubbing brush from the bucket and knocked it against the side. The curve of her back to the street, she rocked back and forth as if in prayer, the flesh-coloured soles of her slippers vulnerable and tender. She dipped her brush into the bucket, tapped it, and started scrubbing again, this time with tiny circular movements, as if cleaning a large tooth, the action making her jiggle on her haunches as she worked. Then she got up stiffly, and emptied the bucket into a road drain, and the suds spilled back on to the tarmac like spat toothpaste. She was wearing a navy cardigan, a knee-length skirt. She looked up, and looked straight up at the window where I sat. She raised a hand and waved.
    Not to me.
    I knew it. I knew she wasn’t waving to me. There was someone else in the room. Standing just over to my right, just out of my line of sight. I could feel it in my flesh. A young woman, younger than me, needing to be noticed. If I just turned my head a fraction, she’d be there.
    I glanced around.
    Sun blared through the far window. The door on to the landing stood ajar, and a dim strip of space beyond. No one. I got up from the bed. The mattress creaked, eased itself back into shape. I stood there in the sunshine, breath held. Listened. Nothing.
    I moved over to the bookcase, set a hand on the upright. I had an image of myself as a child, clinging to the side of a swimming pool, children’s shouts bouncing off the surface of the water, water glittering, and Mum in up to her chest, hair in soaking ringlets, smiling encouragement, outstretched fingertips just out of reach.
    The room was filled with empty, dusty sunshine. Prickling silence.
    I drew a breath; I could have sworn to it: the silence shifted. As if another breath had been drawn, as if someone anticipated me and was about to speak. My body fizzed with adrenaline. I let go of the bookcase, took a step into the sunshine. I don’t quite know how, but the air seemed to change, to soften, to lose its charge. There really was nothing. I pressed my eyes with the heels of my hands, ground at them. I glanced back out of the window. The street was empty: the old woman had gone and the suds had trickled away. I had to know what she had seen. If she had seen what I had felt.
    I ran down the stairs and walked straight out of the house, letting the door slam behind me. I crossed the street to the cottage. The door knocker was a curled brass fist, cold and smooth and solid in my hand. I knocked and stepped back off the doorstep. I had left footprints behind in the damp.
    I heard footsteps approaching and fixed a smile on my face. The door opened. I didn’t know what I was going to say. It was stupid coming over: I should have thought it through. How could I ask? The old woman opened the door, smiling. Then her expression faltered. She looked at me, studying my features, her brows pinching.
    ‘Hi,’ I said uneasily. ‘I’m Rachel; I’m the Clarkes’ daughter.’
    ‘Is your mum with you?’
    ‘No,’ I said.
    ‘It must have been you then,’ she pulled a self-deprecating face. ‘My eyes aren’t so good any more. I’m Jean, Jean Davies. Come on in. I’ll make some tea.’
    She turned away, expecting me to follow. I went in across the blue- and blood-coloured lino tiles, into the dark hall. I’d have to face it, again. The telling.

 
     
     
     
    WILLIAM STEPHEN WORE THE FAMILY CHRISTENING GOWN, and howled when the water dripped on to his head, a sure sign of the Devil leaving him. I stood as godmother, and swore to renounce the Devil and all his works. There was a jar of bluebells on the