Dublin, nine months ago …
W hen I first arrived at the redbrick Georgian house on Ha’penny Lane that cold, dark evening with rain dripping from my jacket, I hadn’t planned on staying. The woman on the phone sounded less than friendly, but I had nowhere else to go and very little money. My journey to Dublin had begun a week previously and from the other side of the country, at a lonely bus stop just outside the village. I don’t know how long I sat at the bus stop, if it was cold or warm, or if anyone passed me by. All of my senses were dulled by one overwhelming urge – to leave. I couldn’t see out of my right eye, so I didn’t see the bus eventually pulling up. My whole body felt numb, but when I slid off the stone wall, my ribs complained. Still, I wouldn’t let my thoughts go back there. Not yet. Even when the driver got down to help me with my suitcase and looked at me as though I had just escaped from a secure facility, I wouldn’t let my thoughts go back there.
‘Where to?’ he asked.
Anywhere but here.
‘Dublin,’ I answered. Dublin might be far enough. I watched the countryside slide past my window. I fucking hated those fields, the small
towns with a school, a church and twelve pubs. The greyness of it, pressing in on me. I must’ve started to doze off, because I jumped, thinking he was on top of me again – my hands protecting my face. I didn’t know what to protect. He was too quick. And when he found the poker, it all fell away from me. Everything. Every hope I had. Every naive, stupid hope. I learned something in that moment; you’re on your own in this world. No one is coming to save you. People don’t suddenly change, say they’re sorry and begin to treat you with respect. They are a jumble of hurt and pain and they will take it out on whomever they can. I had to save myself.
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‘Just a coffee and a toasted cheese sandwich please,’ I said to the waiter, picking the cheapest item on the menu.
I’d had no luck online, so I grabbed a local newspaper and began searching for jobs. One week staying in a hostel and I was already running out of money. That’s when I saw it: Housekeeper. Live-in. I dialled the number and the very next day found myself on the steps of a very grand- looking house, knocking on the glossy black door. Madame Bowden, as I was told to address her, was like no one I had ever met. Like a character from some historical TV drama, she wore a feather boa and diamond earrings. Within five minutes, she had already regaled me with stories of her days in the Theatre Royal, dancing with the Royalettes and acting in some old plays I’d never heard of.
‘People call me eccentric, but then I call them boring, so it’s all relative.
What’s your name again?’
‘Martha,’ I repeated for the third time, following her down the stairs to the basement. She had a walking stick and while she made a big production of it, she seemed agile enough. I guessed that she was probably in her
eighties, but she also seemed timeless – an actress who had chosen a character to be frozen in time.
‘Now, the last girl was very happy here,’ she remarked in a tone that warned me I should feel likewise.
It was so dark, I couldn’t make anything out, save for the half window close to the ceiling, where I could see people’s feet walking past at street level. She flicked a switch using her cane and, following a moment’s blindness from the large bulb in the pendant lamp, I could see a single bed in the corner with a wardrobe on the opposite wall. Beside the door was a small kitchenette and just outside, a door led to a tiny bathroom with a shower. The lino on the floor was curling at the edges and the wallpaper similarly obliged, but I immediately felt a sense of safety. It was mine. A space I could call my own. I could close the door and not have to worry about who might beat it down.
‘Well?’ Madame Bowden asked, arching an eyebrow. ‘It’s lovely,’ I said.
‘Of course it is. What did I tell you.’ ‘So, do I have the job?’
She narrowed her gaze, taking in my dishevelled appearance. I thanked God for what must have been her very poor eyesight, because she didn’t seem to notice my battered face or, if she did, it didn’t put her off.
‘Oh, I suppose so,’ she capitulated. ‘But don’t get carried away, I’m hiring you purely by default. No one else showed up. Can you believe that? That’s the trouble with your generation. Entirely unwilling to do an honest day’s work. It’s all “tikkity-tok” these days, expecting money for nothing.’
She was still talking as she walked away from me and up the stairs. I carefully sat down on the bed and listened as the springs played like a broken accordion underneath me. Still, it didn’t matter. No one would ever find me here. I set the clock for 7 a.m. Apparently my new employer expected a ‘fine dining experience’ in the morning, at which point I was to
conjure a Michelin-star breakfast out of whatever was in the fridge. I would think about that later. I fell into a blessed sleep without even changing my damp clothes or closing the blinds.
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I sat up the minute I awoke. Why was it so bright? Where was I? And why was my alarm ringing? One by one, my mind slowly answered these questions and I looked down at my old jeans and baggy jumper. I wasn’t sure exactly what the uniform was for being a housekeeper, but it probably wasn’t this. I opened my suitcase and pulled out a long, grey knitted dress. I could hardly recall throwing it in there, but some part of my brain must’ve thought to grab things I wouldn’t need to iron. I quickly pulled off my jumper and was just unzipping my jeans when I saw the bottom half of two legs walking in front of the basement window at the side of the house. I held my breath until I saw the boots, brown suede with laces. They weren’t his boots. I watched, holding my jumper over my bra, as they paced up and down and in semi-circles. What the hell was he doing? I felt my anger rise. With no small amount of resistance, I managed to push the window open and stick my head out, with my arms resting on the windowsill.
‘Excuse me?’
No response. I cleared my throat loudly. Still nothing. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I highly doubt it.’
I was surprised to hear an English accent. I had begun to think the feet were not attached to a body at all. I still could not see his face, but already I could read snippets of him. It was something I’d always done, reading people, even though it got me into trouble sometimes. This one seemed distracted, searching, unhappy.
‘What are you doing here?’ I continued my conversation with his shins.
‘I hardly think it’s any of your business. What are you doing here?’
‘I live here!’ I said, wishing I’d pulled the blinds in the first place. ‘So you can do your Peeping Tom act somewhere else.’ My voice was shaking a bit. I didn’t feel up to having a confrontation with a stranger, but I also wanted my privacy. I could hear his boots scuffing the dirt and next thing I knew, he was sitting on his haunches, his face looming in front of me. It didn’t really match the voice at all, which was all sharp edges that you could cut your finger on. There was a warmth in his brown eyes, or were they green? Hazel, perhaps. His hair kept falling in the way. But his features held the quizzical look of someone who would challenge every word you spoke.
‘Did you just say Peeping Tom?’ he asked, clearly amused. ‘Have you time-travelled from the eighties?’
I wasn’t sure which I disliked more, being ignored or mocked. His grin was annoyingly infectious and it revealed some imperfect teeth, which I read as the result of a short-lived passion for sports. Football, I think. Blocking a penalty kick, he’d been hit in the face. I smiled, then immediately stopped.
‘Look, if you don’t stop stalking me or whatever it is you’re doing, I’m going to phone the police.’
He raised his hands in surrender.
‘I’m sorry. Look, my name is Henry,’ he said, offering me his hand to shake.
I stared at it and watched as he sheepishly retracted it.
‘I wasn’t peeping in your window, I promise. I’m … I’m looking for something.’
Likely story, I thought. ‘What did you lose?’
‘Um …’ He looked around him at the waste ground between Madame Bowden’s house and her next-door neighbour, messing up his already
messy hair with his hands. ‘I didn’t lose it exactly …’
I rolled my eyes. He was a Peeping Tom. Or whatever. A perv! That was it. I was about to tell him when he blurted out a word I hadn’t expected.
‘Remains! I’m looking for the remains—’
‘Oh Jesus Christ, did somebody die here? I knew it, I knew there was a weird vibe about this place. I got a feeling as soon as I arrived—’
‘No, no. God no. Not those kinds of remains.’ He stooped his head low to make eye contact with me again. ‘Look, I know this looks sketchy, but I promise you, it’s nothing bad, it’s just difficult to explain.’
For a moment, we said nothing. Him crouching by the gable wall, me half hanging out of the window, standing on a kitchen chair. That’s when I heard the bell.
‘What was that?’ he asked, trying to peer inside.
I looked around and saw a very old-fashioned bell with a wire running away into the ceiling. By the looks of things, I was in my very own real-life version of Downton Abbey. I turned back to him. Henry.
‘Do me a favour. Whatever you’re looking for, go look for it somewhere else,’ I said, and shut the window firmly in his face.
