A Nest of Nightmares

THE NEST

We found the house on the third day of hunting. It was in the country outside Cheltenham, half-a-mile from a small village: a tall, solid house standing on its own in an expanse of flat, weedy lawn surrounded by hedge.

I switched off the engine and we went on sitting in the car, staring up at the house, caught. The roof looked dilapidated, and the house had obviously stood empty for some time, but the yellow stone it was built of seemed to glow softly in the sunlight.

‘Imagine living here,’ Sylvia said softly.

‘We could,’ I said.

‘Remember how we used to play we were the Brontë sisters? In a lonely old house on the moor.’

‘You could go for long walks,’ I said. ‘I’d have tea waiting for you by the fire when you came in.’

She laughed, a brief, rich sound of uncomplicated pleasure.

‘Let’s go in,’ I said, and we got out and followed the broken paving stones to the door.

‘How old do you suppose it is?’ Sylvia asked.

I shrugged. It was a simple, solid, stone box with a tile roof. For all I knew of architecture, it could have been twenty years old, or two hundred.

‘I hope it’s really old,’ Sylvia said. ‘There’s something about an old house . . .’

The key turned stiffly in the lock, and we stepped into a narrow, rather dark entrance hall. Rooms opened to the left and right and a steep staircase rose directly ahead. My skin prickled. Sylvia touched my hand. ‘It feels . . .’ she said, very softly.

I nodded, knowing what she meant. It felt inhabited, or only very recently vacated – not like a house which had long stood empty. That made me cautious, and I left the door open behind us as we entered on our tour.

It was shockingly dirty. The two front rooms, large kitchen and tiny lavatory at the back; three bedrooms, and a bathroom upstairs were all filthy with litter. There were newspapers, empty cans, bottles, cigarette butts, contraceptives, food wrappers, indistinguishable scraps of clothing, dead leaves and twigs, and chunks of charred wood lying everywhere. But none of the windows were open or broken, there was no graffiti scrawled on the dirty walls, and no signs of a squatter’s rough habitation. It was all just rubbish dumped or abandoned there for some unknown reason. And yet I couldn’t lose the feeling that someone was living – or had been, until our arrival – amid all the mess.

We were together at first, touring the house, but somewhere along the way I lost Sylvia. I retraced my steps but could not find her. Outside, clouds had moved across the sun and the rooms were full of shadows. Once I froze at the sound of paper rustling in a corner. My skin crawled at the idea of the vermin that might be lurking there. I called Sylvia’s name but there was no reply.

I went outside, but she wasn’t waiting for me there; the garden was empty. A loud cawing drew my attention to the tall beech trees which stood close beside the house. Half a dozen rooks were perched low in one tree, but at my look they all flapped heavily away.

‘We’d have to get the roof fixed,’ Sylvia said from behind me.

I started and turned and saw her standing in the doorway. ‘Where were you?’

‘There’s a big hole in it. Somebody covered it with plastic, but it’s all shredded now – from the wind, I guess. Rain or anything could get in. The attic floor is all covered with – ’

‘I didn’t know there was an attic.’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘I didn’t see any stairs.’

She walked down the path to join me. ‘There aren’t any stairs. The loft door is in the ceiling of my bedroom.’ She giggled shyly. ‘Well, what could be my bedroom. There was a box there, so I used that to climb up on, and then hauled myself up. Old monkey Sylvia.’ She flexed her arms.

I could imagine Sylvia doing just that: seeing a trapdoor and pulling herself up through it without a thought for the consequences, without a fear. Headfirst into the unknown. It made me shiver, just to think of being in that dark, dank space beneath the roof.

‘I suppose it would cost a lot to fix a roof,’ Sylvia said, staring up at the rapidly scudding clouds.

‘That’s probably why the price of the house is so low,’ I said.

‘Is it?’

I nodded. ‘It’s the cheapest of all the ones we’ve looked at.’

‘And the best.’

‘You know what it is,’ I said. ‘It’s the house we always dreamed of, as kids. The big, old house in the English countryside.’

‘Chez Charlotte and Emily,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’ll bet it’s cozy in a gale.’

‘It is a little isolated,’ I said. That suited me, but Sylvia, I thought, liked parties and people, the bright lights of cities.

‘That’s what I want,’ Sylvia said. ‘It’s perfect. I need a change . . . I’m sick of cities, and city people. And I like England. I can see why you stayed here.’

I smiled slightly. She had been here barely a week. ‘All right. Shall we hire someone to give us the bad news about the roof and the plumbing? Shall we make an offer?’

‘Yes,’ said Sylvia. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’

I want to make it clear that the house was Sylvia’s idea just as much as mine. At first she was even more enthusiastic than I was, impatient to get things moving to ensure that we had a house of our own by Christmas. She expressed no doubts, no serious reservations during all the negotiations. I did not bully her, or push her into something she did not want to do. Although I was the one who first suggested we take the money from the sale of our mother’s house and, instead of dividing it in two, use it to buy one shared house, Sylvia seized upon my suggestion eagerly. It was not I, but she who said – I remember it distinctly – how nice it would be to live together again, and how cozy we would be in our little nest in the country. I do not understand how it all went wrong.

We weren’t able to get the roof fixed right away, but the local carpenter and his brother rigged a tarpaulin over the hole to keep us snug and dry. Sylvia went up into the attic to supervise, despite my assurances that it was unnecessary and that the men should be left alone to their work. I stood outside in the rare, blessed sunshine and watched the activity on the roof. I couldn’t hear anything Sylvia said, but every now and then her clear laugh floated out on the breeze. I could hear the men, for all the good it did me. The heavy, foolish way the younger one was flirting with Sylvia made me prickle with embarrassment. Fortunately, stretching a tarp over a hole is no great job, and even though Sylvia invited them in for a cup of tea afterwards, we didn’t have to endure their clumsy society for long.

And yet, after they had gone, a stifling silence dropped, as if the tarpaulin had fallen in on us.

‘All cozy and snug now, aren’t we, Sylvia?’ I said, forcing the cheer.

She looked from the clutter of cups and saucers down to her hands in her lap and began to twist her ring. It was the mate to mine, a platinum band set with rubies. They had been our mother’s, the guard-rings she had worn on either side of her diamond wedding band.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

She shook her head swiftly, then said in a rush, ‘Oh, Pam, what will I do here?’

I almost laughed. ‘Do? Why, whatever you want. This is our home now. There’s plenty for both of us to do, to fix it up, and in the spring we’ll plant a garden. We can grow our own vegetables.’

‘That’s not what I mean. We’re so much on our own out here. We don’t know anyone. How will we meet people?’

‘In the village,’ I said. ‘At church, in the pub, in shops. People are friendlier in the country than they are in London – it will be easy. Or we could have people come to visit. The house is big enough for guests.’

She still looked doubtful, brooding.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘You’re not having second thoughts now. It’s too late for all that. The house is ours now. You’ll love it here – just give it a chance.’

‘It’s just . . . it’s such a change from what I’m used to . . .’

‘But that’s what you said you wanted. And after Mother died whatever you did would have been a big change. How do you think you’d like living all by yourself in Edison? That boyfriend of yours wouldn’t have been much help.’

‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘I left him, didn’t I? That’s over.’

‘I’m just trying to point out that you could be a lot worse off than you are. Think how miserable you would have been if you’d let that affair drag on. What could he offer you? Nothing. He would never have left his wife, so you couldn’t hope for marriage, or any kind of security – ’

She glared at me. ‘I never wanted security from him. I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t trying to get him to marry me. It wasn’t security I wanted – he gave me something else. Adventure, a feeling of excitement.’

‘Oh, excitement,’ I said. ‘That’ll do you a lot of good.’

‘I don’t expect you to understand. After mother died I felt I needed something else . . . he wasn’t enough. That’s why I came here. And it’s over, so why do you keep bringing it up?’

She stood up, gathering the tea things together with a noisy clatter. As I watched her I wondered if she would ever, without me, have summoned the nerve to break up with her lover. I remembered how she had been at mother’s funeral, how dazed and helpless, sending me those blue-eyed looks that begged for rescue. In moments of crisis she always turned to her big sister for help, and was grateful for my advice.

I remember, as clearly as if it had happened yesterday, an incident from our adolescence. We’d gone down to the drugstore as we often did, on an errand for our mother. Ready to leave, I had looked around for Sylvia. I found her at last in the shadow of a hulking, black-leather-jacketed boy. My immediate inclination was to go, and let Sylvia find her own way home. Boys, especially boys like that, made me uneasy. Usually they ignored me, but they were always hovering around my little sister, drawn to her blonde prettiness and easy charm.

Then Sylvia caught sight of me, and the look she sent was an unmistakable cry for help. My heart beat faster as I approached, wondering what on earth I could do. As I reached her side she said, ‘Oh, gee, I’ve got to go – my sister’s waiting for me.’ She took my arm and – I didn’t even have to speak to the monster – we were away.

Outside, safe, she began giggling. She told me how awful he was and how nervous she had been until she saw me. ‘He’s dropped out of school, imagine! And he wanted to take me for a ride on his motorbike – I couldn’t think how to say no, how to get away without making him mad. Then, thank goodness, you were there to save me.’

I basked in her praise, believing that I had saved her from some awful fate. But only a week later I saw the horrible black leather jacket again: Sylvia’s arms were tight around him as she sat on his motorcycle, and on her face was a look of blissful terror, beyond my saving.

On Christmas Eve I went looking for Sylvia. Upstairs all was dark, but still I called her name.

‘I’m in here.’

Surprised, I went forward and found her sitting in her bedroom.

‘All alone in the dark, Sylvia?’ I switched on the bedside lamp.

‘Don’t.’ She held up a shielding hand. I saw that she had been crying, and I sighed. There was a chair situated oddly in the centre of the room. I moved it closer to the bed and sat down.

‘You’re not doing yourself any good, Sylvia, sitting alone and crying. Anyway, he’s not worth crying over.’

‘How would you know? You never met him.’

‘I know enough from what you told me. The facts speak for themselves: a married man, who couldn’t even be bothered to come to mother’s funeral, to be with you when he must have known how much you – ’

‘God, I wish I’d never told you! Can’t you ever leave me alone, let me make my own mistakes?’

‘If you really want to go back to him, I won’t stop you.’

‘You know it’s too late.’ She stared down at her lap, looking like a sullen child. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to. I wasn’t crying about him.’

I felt embarrassed and full of remorse. Of course. It was Christmas Eve – her first not spent with mother.

‘Come on,’ I said gently. ‘You’ll only make yourself feel worse, sitting up here alone. Come downstairs and help me decorate the tree. We always used to do that on Christmas Eve, remember? I’ve got a fire going and I thought I’d make some mulled wine. We’ll put the Christmas Oratorio on – would you like that?’

‘All right,’ she said, her voice dreary. ‘But in a minute. Just give me a minute alone.’

I hesitated, hating to leave her in such a mood. Her hand went out and switched off the light.

‘Sitting alone in the dark,’ I said. ‘Well.’ I stood up and moved uncertainly towards the door. ‘You always used to be afraid of the dark.’

She gave a heavy sigh. ‘Not for years, Pam. And it never scared me half as much as it did you.’

I left without answering. I was surprised, and a little shaken, to discover that she knew that about me. I had always been terrified of the dark. Even now a residual uneasiness lingered. But my own fear had always meant very little to me beside my obligation to protect my little sister. I had been her scout and protector, going ahead of her into darkened rooms to turn on the light and make certain no monsters lurked. I remembered the night my protectorate had ended, when Sylvia had turned on me, screaming, ‘Leave me alone! Leave me alone! You never let me do anything! I’m not a baby, I’m not scared!’ To prove it, to free herself from my loving care, she had rushed headlong, alone, into the terrifying dark.

On Christmas Day Sylvia vanished. It was to be the first of many such disappearances, although I didn’t know that at the time. I had no particular reason for searching for her, but finding her room empty made me curious and I went on a circuit of the house. I hadn’t heard her go out, and looking out of the window I saw that the car was still parked in the drive, and there was no one in sight. I went upstairs again, thinking that somehow I had missed her, but still the rooms were empty. In her room I found a straight-backed chair in an odd position, almost blocking the door. I had my hands on it to move it when I happened to glance up. The loft door was directly overhead.

I stared up, wondering. ‘Sylvia,’ I said loudly. ‘Sylvia?’

Footsteps sounded, so close over my head that I winced. Then the door clattered open and Sylvia’s head, the fine hair all tangled rat-tails, swung out and smiled. ‘Hi.’

‘What are you doing up there?’

‘Cleaning.’

‘On Christmas Day?’

‘Sure, why not?’

‘Well, it doesn’t sound like much fun.’

‘I got bored with reading. Anyway, I thought I’d better get it cleaned up before the roofers come.’

‘There’s no rush. We won’t get anyone out to fix the roof until after the holidays.’

‘I know. I just felt like doing it. Okay?’

‘I thought we could take a walk.’

‘Not right now.’

‘It’s lovely out.’

‘Great, you go for a walk. Maybe I’ll be finished when you get back. Have fun.’ Her head swung up out of sight and the door – really nothing more than a flimsy piece of wood – came clattering down to close me out.

Having suggested a walk, I now felt obligated to go for one, but I was not in a good mood as I set out. Sylvia wasn’t being fair, I thought. It was Christmas, after all: a special, family holiday. We should celebrate it by doing something together. Was that really asking too much of Sylvia? I argued it out with her in my imagination as I put on coat, hat, boots, and gloves, and by the time I had reached the road she had apologised and explained that cleaning out the attic was by way of being a present to me.

It was a cold, clear day and the air tasted faintly of apples. Since the ground was not too muddy, I soon left the road and struck off across the fields. I was travelling to the east of the house, up a hill, and the exertion of climbing soon had me feeling warm and vigorous. When I reached the top of the hill I paused to catch my breath and survey the countryside. Our house was easily picked out because it stood away from the village, amid fields and farmland, and my eyes went to it at once. The sight of it made me smile, made me feel proud, as if it were something I had made and not merely bought. There were the yellow stones of my house; there the bright green patch of the untended garden; there the spiky winter trees standing close to the east wall, like guardians.

I squinted and pressed my glasses farther up my nose, closer to my eyes, unable to believe what I saw. There was something large and black in one of the trees; something that reminded me horribly of a man crouching there, spying on the house. Absurd, it couldn’t be – but there was something there, something much bigger than a rook or a cat. Something that did not belong; something dangerous.

I fidgeted uneasily, aware that if I ran down the hill now I would lose sight of it. It might be gone by the time I reached the house, and I might never know what it had been. If only I could see it better, get a better view.

Perhaps it was only a black plastic rubbish bag tossed into the branches by the wind and caught there.

As I thought that, the black thing rose out of the tree – rose flapping – and half-flew, half-floated toward the rooftop. And vanished.

Lost against the dark tiles? Suddenly I wondered about that tarpaulin. How tightly was it fixed? How easily could it be lifted? Could something still get in through the hole in the roof? Something like that horrible, black, flapping thing?

I thought of Sylvia alone in the attic, unsuspecting, unprotected. I moaned, and stumbled down the hill. I kept seeing things I didn’t want to see. Something horrible looming over Sylvia. Sylvia screaming and cowering before something big and black and shapeless; something with big black wings. I would be too late, no matter how fast I ran. Too late. As I ran across the empty winter fields towards the house the tears rolled down my cheeks and I could hardly catch my breath for sobbing.

‘Sylvia!’ I could scarcely get her name out as I burst in the house. I felt as if I had been screaming it forever. ‘Sylvia!’ I staggered up the stairs, catching hold of the flimsy rail and foolishly using it to haul myself upward. ‘Sylvia!’

I could hear nothing but my own ragged breathing, my own voice, my own thundering feet. I stood in her room, too frightened to mount the chair and push open the door. ‘Sylvia!’

Above me, the board clattered and was pulled away, and Sylvia looked out, flushed, angry, concerned. ‘What is it?’

I caught the back of the chair and held it. Finally I managed to whisper, ‘Come down. Now. Please.’

She frowned. ‘All right. But I wish you’d tell me . . .’ Her head drew back and her feet came down, flailed a moment, then found purchase on the chair seat. She let herself down and pulled the door shut after her.

I caught her arm. ‘You’re all right?’

‘Yes, of course I’m all right. You look awful. What’s wrong?’

‘I saw something . . . from the hill . . . I was looking down at the house and I saw it. Something big and black, crouching in the tree where it shouldn’t have been. And then it flew towards the roof. And then I couldn’t see it anymore, and I thought it might have got in, through the hole, you know.’

She regarded me uneasily. ‘What must have got in? What did you see? A bird?’

I shook my head. ‘Something bigger. Much, much bigger. Like a man. It flew, but it wasn’t a bird. It couldn’t have been. Not an ordinary bird. It was huge and black and flapping. I was afraid. I knew you were up in the attic, and with that hole in the roof – you said yourself, anything could get in. Anything. I saw it. I was so afraid for you.’

‘I think you’d better sit down and rest,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’ll make you some tea.’

‘You didn’t see anything? Nothing came into the attic?’

‘You can see I’m all right.’

‘You were alone? Nothing came in?’

She led me out of the room and I followed her downstairs, desperate for reassurance, wanting to hear her say that there had been nothing in the attic with her. Instead she said, ‘I don’t understand what you think happened. Tell me again what you saw.’

I was silent, trying to remember. It was suddenly difficult to sort out fact from fantasy, the reality of what I had seen from the terrifying vision which had obsessed me while I struggled back to the house. Sylvia threatened; Sylvia engulfed or embraced by something, by someone . . . ‘I don’t know,’ I said at last. ‘I saw something. I don’t know what it was.’

The Monday after Christmas I went to Cheltenham to pick up some material for curtains – and went alone. Sylvia wasn’t interested in going, although I had planned the trip as a treat for her.

‘We could make a day of it,’ I said. ‘Do some shopping, have a meal, see a film – whatever you like.’

Sylvia only smiled and shook her head.

‘Why do you want to stay here alone? What will you do while I’m gone?’

‘What makes you think it will be anything different from what I do while you’re here?’

I hadn’t meant that at all, but her words awakened suspicion. ‘Please come,’ I said. ‘It’ll do you good to get out of the house.’

She smiled. ‘I’ll take a walk. That’ll get me out of the house. It’s a nice day for it. I haven’t really explored the neighbourhood yet.’

And so I drove away on my own, feeling uneasy. Once in Cheltenham I had no urge to linger. I bought the material, filled the petrol tank, and drove back home without stopping for so much as a cup of coffee.

The house did not feel empty when I came in. Sylvia might have gone out for a walk, I knew, but I went through the house quietly, looking for her. I was on the upstairs landing when I heard the sound; I’m sure it would not have been audible downstairs. The sound came from the attic, directly overhead. It was a rustling, scrabbling sort of sound, with the occasional small thump, as of something moving around. I stopped breathing and stood still, staring at the featureless white ceiling, so low I could almost have reached up and touched it, to feel the movements on the back of my hand. The scrabbling sound gradually retreated as I listened, and finally stopped.

I bolted down the stairs and out of the front door. It would have to come out through the hole in the roof – I was sure of it. I might see it on the roof or in the high branches of the tree nearest the house. I would be able see what I had seen from the hill, and this time, perhaps, I would recognise it. It would have been a reward to see anything, even a rook, but although I circled the house, craning skyward, I saw nothing that moved against the dark roof or the pale sky. Finally I gave up and went into the house.

Sylvia was in the hall. I wondered how she had managed to slip past me. She looked flushed and slightly out of breath.

‘Your shirt-tail’s out,’ I said.

She smiled vaguely and stuffed it back into her jeans.

‘Did you have a nice walk?’

‘Mmm, lovely.’ She drifted away towards the kitchen.

‘I heard something just now. In the attic.’

She stopped and looked back at me. ‘When? I thought you just got back?’

‘I did just get back. I went upstairs to look for you and heard something moving in the attic. So I went outside to see if there was anything on the roof.’

She went on looking at me.

I shrugged, admitting defeat. ‘I didn’t see anything.’

She turned away. ‘You want coffee or tea? I’m going to put the kettle on.’

‘Coffee. Thanks.’ I watched her walk away from me.

It proved remarkably difficult to get someone to agree to come out and fix the roof before March. In this part of the world, it seemed, one booked roof repairs farther ahead than wedding receptions or holidays. I complained about it to Sylvia, who was indifferent.

‘So what? There’s no rush. There’s that tarp over the hole to keep the rain out.’

‘That was supposed to be a temporary thing,’ I said. ‘And what if it’s got loose? We’ve had some windy nights. It might be flapping free, letting things in.’

She looked at me with a little half-smile. ‘Do you want me to go up and check that it’s still in place?’

‘Up on the roof, you mean?’

‘I can see it from the attic. I can touch it, for that matter.’

I shrugged. ‘Well, I could go up into the attic and see for myself.’

‘Of course you could.’ She looked back down at her magazine, smiling to herself. She was curled up in one of the two matching armchairs I had arranged on either side of the wood-burning stove. The ruby chips on her finger glittered as she turned a page.

‘Do you know, I’ve never actually been into the attic?’ I was certain, as I asked, that she knew.

‘Well, you’re not missing much,’ she said calmly. She continued to read, and I paced the room, which I’d made comfortable and appealing with carefully selected furniture, dark brown curtains, and a beige carpet. I wondered if she knew that I was afraid of the attic – that dirty, dark place where something might lurk. She seemed so cool . . . But then maybe I was imagining things. Maybe she had nothing to hide. I should go up to the attic and see for myself, settle my mind and end these fantasies. But at the thought of climbing up there, poking my head up into the unknown darkness, my knees went weak and there was a tightness in my chest. No. There was no need to go up. If anything ever came into the attic, Sylvia would surely tell me, and ask for my help, just as she had at our mother’s grave, and a hundred times before.

The grey winter days dragged slowly by. It seemed always to be raining, or to be about to rain. I drew up lists of the improvements we would make in our house, the things we needed to buy, the vegetables and flowers we would grow in our garden.

Sylvia’s disappearances became more frequent. Sometimes she claimed to have been out for a walk – yes, even in the rain – and sometimes that she had been in the house all along. I had to be careful. She was suspicious of my questions, and I didn’t want to provoke her. Let her tell me all, in her own good time. I never mentioned the attic, or the sounds I heard at night. I pretended that I noticed nothing, and I waited.

And then one night I woke and knew that something was wrong. It was late: the moon was down and there was no light. The darkness lay on me like a weight. I got up, shivering, and wrapped myself in my dressing gown. As I stepped out of my room I could see that Sylvia’s door was shut and no light came from beneath it.

She’s asleep, I thought. Don’t disturb her.

But even as I cautioned myself I was shuffling forward, and my outstretched hand had grasped the doorknob. When the door was open I could see nothing in the blackness, and there was no sound. I reached for the light switch. Squinting in the harsh light, I saw that Sylvia’s bed was empty.

I leaned against the door frame, blinking miserably at the undisturbed bed. She hadn’t even slept in it.

Then I heard the noise.

There was someone in the attic. The sounds were soft but unmistakable, the sounds of movement. Floorboards creaked gently, rhythmically beneath a moving weight, and there was a jumble of softer sounds as well. I held my breath and listened, struggling to make sense of what I heard, trying to separate the sounds and identify them. I closed my eyes and held tightly to the door frame. Above me, the soft sounds paused, continued, paused, continued. Was it: cloth against flesh, flesh against flesh, a struggle, an embrace, a sob, a breath, a voice?

I snapped off the light and the loud click made me shudder. They might hear. I scuttled out of the room, back through darkness to my bed, terrified the whole way that I would hear the wooden slide of the trapdoor and the sound of something coming after me.

The door to my room, like the doors to all the other rooms, had a keyhole but no key. I pushed my bedside table against the door, knowing it was no protection, and huddled on my bed, shaking. I wiped the tears off my face and listened. I could hear nothing now, but I did not know if that was because of the location of my room, or because there was nothing more to hear. I took the edge of the sheet into my mouth to keep from making a sound and tried not to think. I waited for morning.

But it was some time before morning when I heard the motorbike on the road below the house. Listening to the approach, the pause, and then the sound of it roaring away again, it struck me that I had heard that same sequence of sounds outside the house more than once before. As I puzzled miserably over that, I heard the front door open.

Fear and sorrow drained away, leaving me empty, as cold as ice. I heard Sylvia climbing the stairs. I knew that laboured, guilty tread well, having heard it many nights when she was in high school, sneaking home late from her dates.

I met her on the landing.

‘Pam!’ Her face whitened, and she moved a little backwards, hand clutching the stair rail as if she would retreat downstairs.

‘We’ll have to get that roof fixed,’ I said calmly. ‘No more excuses. It can’t wait. I don’t care what it costs, if we have to get someone to come all the way from London, whatever it takes, we can’t go another day with that hole in the roof.’

‘What?’

‘Anything could get in,’ I said. ‘You said so yourself. Anything could get in. Or get out. Come and go, day or night. It’s an easy climb from the roof down that big beech tree.’

Sylvia gave me a cautious, measuring look, and took my arm. ‘Pam, you’ve been dreaming. I’m sorry I woke you. I was trying to be quiet. Now go on back to bed.’

I pulled away. ‘I didn’t dream those sounds. You can’t fool me. I didn’t dream your empty bed. What were you doing up there?’

She exhaled noisily. ‘I was out.’

‘Yes, I heard you come in. That’s always your excuse when you disappear – you were out. Out for a walk, even in the middle of the night. I know where you really went, and I’m sick of your stories. I want the truth. I want to know what’s going on up there.’

Sylvia’s face was hard. ‘I don’t care what you want. I don’t care what you think. I don’t have to tell you anything. I don’t have to explain myself to you.’ She pushed past me, into her room, and closed the door.

I said, ‘You think I’m afraid to go up there, don’t you? You thought I’d never find out. Well, you were wrong.’

She did not answer, although I waited, and finally I went back to my room. Through the wall I heard the faint sounds of Sylvia moving about, then the snapping of a light switch, and then only silence. I listened for the rest of the night, but she didn’t move again. Only her bed creaked occasionally, as she turned in her sleep.

When the sky turned pale and grey morning lit the room I dressed myself in jeans, pullover, and boots. As an afterthought I pulled on a pair of heavy gloves and hefted a flashlight in my hand like a weapon. I knew that if I thought about what I was going to do I would be too frightened to go on. I had to do it, not for myself, but for Sylvia.

She didn’t stir when I entered her room. I stood for a moment, looking at her sleeping shape humped beneath blankets, remembering her anger. All our lives I had helped her, and she had rarely been grateful. But I didn’t need her gratitude. I wanted her safety.

There was no way to enter the attic other than headfirst, and with difficulty. I set the chair below the door and hesitated, sweat trickling down my back at the prospect of pulling myself up, defenceless, into the unknown. Finally I went ahead and did it, climbing onto the chair, lifting aside the lightweight board that served as a door, and then, wriggling and straining, hauling myself up through the opening as quickly as I could.

I found myself in a low, dim, dusty space piled with litter. Covering the floorboards thickly were leaves, twigs, fragments of board and brick, scraps of paper, dust, soil, and dead insects. Just the sort of place I hated most. If Sylvia had cleaned up, I could see no sign of her work. I switched on the flashlight and pointed it around, wishing the light had a purifying as well as illuminating power. I played it on a huge heap of rubbish which must have piled up and remained untouched for ages. Bits and pieces of it were recognisable within the mess as fragments of newspaper, food wrappings, and cloth. There was so much of it that I wondered dazedly if the previous owners of the house could have been so far gone as to use their own attic as a rubbish dump.

A rubbish dump. That’s what I thought, shining the light at it. Bits and pieces blown in through the hole in the roof or deliberately left by tenants. Bits of newspaper, cloth, wood, and cardboard plastered together with mud and hay, twigs and leaves, and bits of string to form a coherent whole.

Rather like a nest.

But it was huge. It couldn’t be. Why, it was nearly as tall as I was, and wider than my bed. What kind of animal –

Ridiculous. And yet, now that I had thought of it, I could not stop seeing the big pile as a nest, a shelter of some kind. There was a pattern to it: it was a deliberate construction, not a random pile at all. Something or someone had built it.

Feeling sick at the thought, I stepped closer, holding my light before me. I was hoping that, if I saw it more clearly, or from some other angle, the illusion of structure would collapse. I began to circle it.

Then I found the entrance. My attention was drawn by a white cloth, the brightness of it startling against the mottled grey-brown of everything else. As I bent down to take a closer look, I saw that it was lying half-in, half-out of a narrow, moulded entranceway. My light showed me a short, narrow crawl-space which took a sudden, sharp turn, cutting off visual access to the interior. It was big enough for me to enter on hands and knees, but the idea was too horrible to consider.

Feeling like a coward, but unable to force myself on, I grabbed hold of the white cloth and pulled it free.

I looked down at what I held in my hands. It was one of Sylvia’s nightgowns.

Somehow, I got down out of the attic. I stood in Sylvia’s room, my heart pounding hard enough to make me sick, and I watched her sleep, and I did not scream.

The pest control man agreed to come out that very day. I suspect he pegged me as an hysterical woman, but at least he was willing to drive out to the house with his full arsenal of traps and poisons and see what might live in the attic.

He was a big, beefy, red-faced, no-nonsense sort of man, and I wondered how his composure would stand up to the sight of that nest in the attic. He stared, stolid and faintly contemptuous, and I struggled to describe what I had seen.

‘What sort of thing would build such a nest? And in an attic? What could be living up there?’ I asked him.

He only shrugged. ‘I’m sure I couldn’t say. I’ll have a look.’

I had roused Sylvia before his arrival. Now she stood by and said nothing as this solid, sensible man climbed into the attic. My nerves were singing; I couldn’t bear to be so close to her. Abruptly I turned and went away downstairs where I could sit and shake without having to explain myself. I had wadded up Sylvia’s nightgown and thrown it on the floor while she still slept. I had not been able to confront her with it, and she had not mentioned it to me.

When the man came down out of the attic his manner was unchanged and he gave his ponderous, practical report.

‘You do have mice, and spiders. An old house like this, with the fields so close, it stands to reason. You might want to get a cat. Good company they are, too, cats. I saw no sign of rats, so you can be easy on that. You want to get that roof fixed, of course, and clear up all that mess. I can put down poison and traps . . .’

‘I don’t care about mice,’ I said sharply. ‘What made that nest, that’s what I want to know. You’re not telling me it was built by mice?’

‘Stands to reason they’d nest there,’ he said.

‘I’m sure it does. But what built that huge nest in the first place?’

He looked a shade uncertain. ‘Maybe you’d like to come up and point it out to me. Maybe I don’t know which nest you mean. Maybe I missed it.’

‘You can’t possibly have missed it! It’s huge – I’ve never seen anything like it. Five feet tall, at least, and made of twigs and straw and mud and bits of old newspaper and – ’

‘You mean that heap of rubbish? Shocking the way it’s piled up, isn’t it? It’s because of that you’ve got the spiders and the wood-lice and everything.’

‘It’s not just a rubbish heap,’ I said patiently. ‘It’s a nest. The nest. If you’d looked at it properly you would have seen that it didn’t just grow, it was put together as a shelter, with an entranceway and everything. If you were doing your job, you should have seen that. You just left it?’

He gave me a blank, steady look. ‘It’s not my job to clean up other people’s rubbish. Not very pleasant sorting through it to see what might live there, but I poked my stick in and turned it over and stirred it around. That’s how I know about the mice and all. It’s no wonder you’ve got them, a mess like that. You need to get it cleaned up. Hire someone, if you don’t fancy tackling it yourself. Once you’ve got that lot cleared away and the roof fixed you won’t have any trouble.’

I recognised the sort of man he was. If he couldn’t understand something, then for him it did not exist. There was probably no way I could get him to see what I had seen. Well, it didn’t matter, and I agreed with his advice. ‘Could you recommend someone to clear it away for me?’

‘I do have a nephew who does the odd job,’ he said. ‘Since you ask.’

The nephew came out that same afternoon to do his work, as did a team of roof menders for a preliminary survey. Getting the roof mended took a full week and more. It could be done no faster, no matter how I stressed the need, no matter what bonuses I promised. Winter days were short. They told me they would do the best they could.

During this period, when the house was always full of workmen, Sylvia and I barely communicated. She went out, most days, and did not tell me where she went. But these were not like her previous disappearances, and so they did not worry me. I saw her go out through the front door every time, and saw her walk down the road and turn towards the village. She did not return until after dark, when the house was empty and still again. I saw those days as a precarious interval: once I had made the house safe there would be time to talk, opportunity to mend the rift that had come between us.

Finally it was done. The roof was fixed and the house was whole again. Sylvia and I sat in the warm front room that evening, each in an armchair with a book. I couldn’t concentrate on mine; I looked around, admiring the harmony of the room, the warm conjunction of colours and furnishings, all so carefully chosen.

Sylvia said, ‘You’re happy here.’

I smiled. ‘Of course. Aren’t you?’

She didn’t answer and I wished I hadn’t asked. ‘You will be,’ I said. ‘Give it time.’ I hesitated, and then added, very low, ‘I did it for you.’

‘I know how much this house means to you,’ Sylvia said. ‘And you’re happy here. This is your place. I wouldn’t expect you to give it up just because I . . . you wouldn’t have to pay me back, even though it was half my money.’

‘What are you talking about? ’

‘I mean if I was to go away.’

‘But why should you?’

She shrugged and shifted in her chair. ‘If I . . . stopped wanting to live here.’

‘Have you?’

‘If I was to get married. You wouldn’t want my husband to move in here with us?’

‘No, of course not.’ The idea made me tense. ‘But why talk about that now? It’s not likely to happen for years. Is it? There’s not someone now . . . someone you want to marry?’

She sighed and fidgeted and then suddenly glared at me. ‘No. There isn’t anyone I want to marry. But someday, maybe, I’ll meet a man I do want to marry. And then I’ll want to go away and live with him. That fantasy we had as children would never work, you know. We’re not going to marry two brothers and all live together in one house! Someday I’ll want a house of my own – ’

‘Then what’s this?’ I demanded. ‘This is your house. You can’t go on waiting for your life to start with your husband. You’re not a child, you’re grown up and you made the decision to come live here with me. This is our home; we have an equal responsibility for it. If you’re not happy here, then we can sell it and move somewhere else. We’re not trapped. Only a child would talk about leaving like that, as if the only choice you can see is between running away and staying. Just tell me what you want, and we’ll work together for it.’

‘Maybe I want something you can’t give me.’

‘Oh? And what’s that? Excitement? True love? What is it you want?’

‘I don’t know,’ she muttered, suddenly unable to meet my eyes.

‘Well, if you don’t know, I certainly don’t. You can’t go through your life expecting other people to solve your problems for you, and give you what you want, you know. You’ve got to accept responsibility for your own life at some point.’

‘I’m trying to,’ she said softly, staring into her lap.

‘Sylvia, please tell me about it. I’ll try to understand, but you must give me the chance. Don’t blame me too much – I was trying to help. I wanted to save you.’

She stared at me. ‘What are you talking about?’

I wanted to scrape that fake innocence off her face with a knife. I wanted to slap her, to hurt her into honesty. These lies, the unspoken words kept us apart. If she would only confess we could begin again, start clean.

‘The attic,’ I said, watching her like a hawk. I cleared my throat and began again. ‘Now that the roof has been fixed, and all that garbage cleared out, we could use the attic as another room. You could buy some paints and make it your studio.’

‘Why do you keep going on about that?’ she cried.

‘Going on about what?’

‘About my painting! As if I did!’

‘You used to. You were very good.’

‘I never did.’

‘Now, Sylvia, you know – ’

‘All I ever did was take an art class when I was fourteen. Because I had to do something, everyone did, and if I didn’t find something of my own I’d have had to take dancing classes with you. That’s all it ever was.’

I’d let her evade the real issue long enough. ‘But what about the attic?’

She threw herself out of her chair. ‘Oh, do what you like with it! I don’t care. Just don’t fool yourself that you’re doing it for me.’ She was on her way out of the room as she spoke.

‘Sylvia, wait, can’t we talk?’

‘No, I don’t think we can.’ She didn’t look back.

Later that night, after I had gone to bed, I heard Sylvia moving around restlessly in her room. Then I heard the soft, unmistakable clatter of the attic door.

I held my breath. She was safe; I knew she was safe. The attic was clean and bare and utterly empty, and the roof was intact. But I had to know what she was doing up there. Since she wouldn’t tell me, I would have to find out for myself. I rose from my bed and went onto the landing, where I could hear.

I heard her footsteps, light and unshod, making the softest of sounds against the wood floor. She was walking back and forth. Pacing. First slowly, then more quickly, almost in a frenzy. She began to cry: I heard her ragged, sobbing exhalations. She said something – perhaps called out a name – but I could hear only the sounds, not the sense of them. The cold air on the landing made me shiver, but I worried more about Sylvia, barefoot and in her thin nightdress in the unheated attic. I longed to go and comfort her, but I knew she would reject me. She needed time to adjust, time to accept what I had done for her. Finally I went back to bed, leaving her to her lonely sorrow.

It was mid-morning when I awoke, and the room was filled with sunlight. My heart lifted with pleasure. It would be a beautiful day for a long drive in the car. There was a ruined castle not far away that Sylvia would love. We could take a picnic lunch with us.

When I had dressed I went to her room and flung open the door. ‘Wake up, sleepyhead!’

The words rang embarrassingly in the empty room. I saw that the bed had not been slept in.

My heart thudded sickeningly and I tasted something bitter. If, after all my care –

Then I had a sudden, sane vision of Sylvia, exhausted and sleeping alone on the floor of the attic, worn out with crying. I went up to fetch her.

But the attic was empty. Or nearly. Something glittered on the bare boards and I saw that it was Sylvia’s ring, her half of the pair our mother had left us. I knew how much Sylvia had cherished it. She would never have lost it, never left it behind carelessly. But there it was, and Sylvia was gone.

I searched the house and found that she had taken away a bag of clothes. She had left no note.

The day passed and faded into night, but Sylvia did not return or call. Had she been seduced away, kidnapped? She hadn’t said anything about leaving. She must mean to come back, she must.

As the days blended one into the other in the still, silent house, I asked myself again and again why she had gone. I asked myself how I could have prevented it, and I found a hard answer. By trying to keep her, I had forced her to go. I had been too severe, too self-centered. I had held her too tightly, refusing to let her have any life of her own. She was a woman, not a child, and her rebellion was natural. I had driven her away.

‘Maybe I want something you can’t give me,’ she had said. But what she wanted was so horrible! The memory of that dark, filthy den in the attic, her discarded nightgown shimmering whitely against it, still sent a shudder through me. I would not, could not, follow her there. Our childhood fantasy of marrying brothers had never seemed more impossible.

But why couldn’t we both have what we wanted? Why did I have to live without her? Understanding more now, I was willing to give more, even to share her, if she would only come back. I would no longer try to change or bind her; I would leave the attic, and her life up there, strictly alone. She could bring her husband, or whatever he was, to the house and I would not interfere. If only I could tell her so. If only she would give me another chance.

One day I went up to the attic with the toolkit and set to work on the roof. The hammer did no good at all, and I broke my knife and screwdriver against it. Finally I went down to the village and bought an axe. I was soaking with sweat and rain and my hands were bleeding before I was through, but I got it done at last. The new hole was even bigger than the old; quite big enough for anything to get through. I stuck my head out, scaring off a couple of rooks who had come to examine my work, and I looked around at the heavy grey sky and the bare trees, searching for something large and black flapping on the horizon. I saw nothing like that. The rain ran into my eyes and I retreated.

We hadn’t been in the house long enough to acquire much in the way of rubbish, but I took the old newspapers and magazines we’d been saving to recycle, and the bag of garbage from the kitchen, and carried it all up to the attic. Working fast in the gathering dark and cold rain, I raked up a sackful of dead leaves and twigs from the garden, and picked up broken branches from beneath the trees. Still it wasn’t enough, so I took the axe to a couple of chairs, tore the stuffing out of my pillows, and scissored up a few old clothes.

It’s a start, anyway. A sign of my goodwill. All I can do now is wait. And so I do, lying in Sylvia’s bed every night, listening for noises from above.