Page 29

O nce Simon had left, Rose began the redecorating.

She realised she should have started the previous day, when Sam offered to help.

But Rose hadn’t felt like starting then and today Sam was working.

It seemed odd anyway, to have someone you barely knew, doing something as dreary as strip walls and paint them.

Besides, Simon had been stomping round the place complaining about everything.

Sam might be a proper friend one day, but not if she had to deal with relative strangers’ sibling discord.

And that was worse today too. Before Simon took his temper elsewhere, he’d asked her to make notes from his last recording, but playing back his thoughts on her unreasonableness had resulted in a blazing row.

Rose wished she had something, preferably his phone, to stamp on but the only fragile thing to hand was the cello so heaving a sigh, she dressed in old clothes ready to decorate.

She wondered where to start. It was a shame she’d decided to leave the bathroom to professionals, she could have done with some tiles to chip and smash. She had a choice of the slow, caressing cleaning down of more walls or the savage stripping of wallpaper. No brainer.

It was just as well Simon was tidy. Rose dragged the furniture into the middle of the room, climbed on the bed to remove the lampshade and fetched the steps so that she could take down the blinds.

A movement outside made her pause. Was Emmeline prowling around again?

If she was, there were no polite words left.

Rose opened the window and leant out. Something was in the fields just beyond the hedge, a cat or something.

Nothing as bulky as a middle-aged woman with a handbag.

Rose went to close the window again, but the day was warm and stuffy, so after a moment’s hesitation she left it open.

Looking towards the forest and wondering if Simon was there beyond the fence; or whether Sky was peering down, Rose shook her head and turned back to the walls .

The yellow of the stripes looked unhealthy and unwholesome, like tobacco stained fingers. The wallpaper must have been up some time, or had been badly hung, regardless of what Mr Higgins had said. It was peeling just by the door-frame and there was a slight tear.

It seemed like a good place to start but it proved impossible to get the scraper into the corner.

She set up the steamer and started the slow glide up the walls.

The smell of old glue and damp dusty paper filled the room.

The yellow stripes faded and the white stripes darkened.

Even without the scraper, paper started to drop in sticky ribbons.

Rose started on the more stubborn areas, flaying the wall of its covering, flensing under the stripes, eviscerating where the glue held to invisible lumps and crevices.

After a while, the odour and heat made Rose feel sick. She went back to the window and put her head outside to clear it. The rummaging thing beyond the hedge had gone. The forest looked empty. There weren’t even birds in the fields.

Is it lonelier here than it was in the city? All I do is sit in a room, waiting, waiting. Nothing happening. Wondering when life will start.

Rose turned to look at the wall. The side of the room opposite the locked cupboard with the cage inside was stripped but for the area near the door frame corner. Coils of wet dirty paper lay curled on the floor. Streaks ran down the exposed wall which had once been painted an ugly green.

Why am I doing this? she thought, it’s Simon’s room and he doesn’t care.

She thought about just leaving it as it was.

Clearing away the evidence, putting the furniture back, walking out and shutting the door.

With a vague swipe, Rose started on the last pieces, where the tear was, where the loose part peeled away from the wooden casing around the door.

Despite the laceration and the apparent looseness, the paper was more firmly stuck than the rest had been.

Rose had to steam it over and over, stabbing at the sodden stripes with the scraper.

She wondered how hard it would be to fill the holes she must be making.

The last piece came off and the wetness started to dry.

Rose peered at the space where the paper had once been loose yet so hard to remove.

On the wall by the door were symbols and words written in pencil.

‘Looking for a portal to another world?’ said a voice from the window.

Rose jumped and swore. Spinning round, she stood glaring and armed with the scraper, to find Rob standing outside.

He leaned back a little, hands raised .

‘Whoa – don’t attack. I just wanted to know if you were OK for the rehearsal later. Only your doorbell doesn’t seem to be working.’

Rose lowered the scraper.

‘Still looking scary,’ said Rob. But he’d leant forward to peer into the room.

‘Bloody men,’ said Rose.

‘What have I done?’

‘Existed.’

Rob pointed at the fake cupboard.

He looked round at the cupboard and frowned. ‘That built-in wardrobe is a bit of a monstrosity. If you’re in a temper, why didn’t you smash that up first?’

Rose glanced at the cupboard and shrugged. ‘It can wait, I felt like wielding something sharp.’

‘OK, well presuming that’s not strong enough to kill me with, any chance of you coming over for a coffee or letting me in for one? Or am at risk of an attack to the jugular?’

Rose looked at the scraper and the wall.

‘It’s struggling with paper, can’t see how it could slit your throat. Probably couldn’t cut through cheese.’

‘You’re looking twitchy.’

‘I think I’ve found some hieroglyphics.’

There was silence. Rose turned to see Rob leaning back again, biting his lip.

‘Sorry,’ she grunted. ‘I’m just … it’s just not been a good week and I hate decorating and I don’t know what these are, but they’re giving me the creeps.’

Rob exhaled. ‘Can I come in and look at them?’

Rose looked round the room, the bed shoved up against the false cupboard, the dresser in the middle of the floor, strips of wallpaper in soggy heaps sticking to the carpet and dusty skirting board. Did the cupboard look realistic enough?

‘Please tell me you’re not worrying about the state of the place,’ said Rob.

‘Oh go on,’ she answered. ‘Come to the patio door.’

She let him in, and locked the door again.

‘You can leave the patio door open,’ Rob said. ‘No one’s going to get in. We’re in the middle of nowhere.’

‘You’d be surprised. Emmeline was creeping about the other day. Said she’d walked here. I was outside, next thing I know she was in the hall poking about.’

She stepped into Simon’s room and pointed at the marks on the wall. ‘It’s weird really, the paper looked loose, as if it had been lifted, but it didn’t want to budge. I mean, none of it has come off without a fight, but this bit was almost part of the plaster.’

‘And you say Emmeline was in here.’

‘Well, in the hall.’

‘As in, that’s where you found her or that’s the only place she could have been?’ Rose paused, closing her eyes to remember.

‘I don’t know, there might have been time for her to get in here, but it’s ridiculous to assume she could peel paper, write symbols and stick it down again.

Besides, why would she? Snooping I can believe.

Scribbling on walls? I wish I’d never started in this room.

Simon would be happy sleeping in a shed. ’

Rob exhaled heavily again.

‘Do you think she got in any other room or just this one? Have any others got wallpaper?’

Rose wondered if everyone was going to be obtuse this weekend.

She thought back to meeting Emmeline in the house and worked out how long she’d been wandering round the outside, assuming Emmeline had somehow sneaked round the other way.

Besides, it would take a few moments to prise up the wallpaper, write and stick it down again with…

spit? It was hard to imagine she was wandering around with glue in her pocket.

It was easy to imagine her spit could be like resin.

‘I don’t think she’d have got any further and the only other room with wallpaper is the spare room. She’d be lucky to get in there, it’s chaos.’

‘Not your room?’

‘No, mine’s just paint effects and frilly curtains.’

For a moment, she wondered if he was going to ask to see it.

Really , she thought, I’m too old to feel coy about a man in my bedroom, especially one who’s only interested in the walls.

But she didn’t want him to forever picture her in an 1980s boudoir surrounded by pink like the little girls’ aisle in a toyshop.

If he was going to picture her anywhere, it would be nice for it to be vaguely sophisticated.

Rob took his phone out, appeared to think for a moment and then took a photograph of the markings.

‘Have you got anything more vicious than that scraper?’ he asked. ‘Because you need to dig those symbols out of the plaster. I’ve got a claw hammer that would do it, want me to help? ’

‘I can destroy my own wall, thanks,’ snapped Rose. ‘and I’m in the mood.’

‘OK, OK, but once you’ve done that and you’re ready, come over for a coffee because I want to show you something. And don’t leave the bits of plaster in the house either. The bins get collected later, bung them in that.’

He scanned the room again, frowned at the cupboard and left.

Seriously? thought Rose, have I got to do as I’m told by every man that passes through?

Still, looking at the wall, she shivered, and went to get a hammer.

Half an hour later, clean and tidy, Rose locked up, dropped a bag of broken plaster in the bin, walked across the road and rang Rob’s doorbell.