House of Silence (34 page)

‘Hattie—’

‘Then I started to drop things into the cot.
My teddy. My shoes. The jug of water from the bedside table... I
remember throwing things into the cot, trying to
bury
Alfie.
I think he was crying, but it might have been me, I don’t remember.
One of us must have been crying, because Daddy came rushing into
the room and picked me up. He took me away, out of the room. He
wasn’t angry with me, he was just frightened, I think. Or upset. I
couldn’t tell. He put me to bed. He sat with me and held my hand
and said everything would be all right, he would sort everything
out.’ Hattie’s expression changed as another memory came to her.
‘He called it a
mess
. He said he would “sort this mess
out”.’

‘And he did,’ Rae said softly. ‘Freddie
sorted it all out. At least, he thought he did.’ A calm had settled
on Rae and she reached for her daughter’s hand. As Hattie let her
take it, she noticed Rae’s agitation was gone. Her eyes were
focused now, clear, but infinitely sad. When she finally spoke her
voice was quite steady. ‘The next day, Alfie was gone, wasn’t
he?... Do you remember that?’

‘Yes. Daddy told me Alfie had been taken to
hospital. He’d stopped breathing. Daddy said Alfie’s lungs had
never been strong and they weren’t working properly. Then a few
days later he told me Alfie had died and gone to Heaven... None of
that was true, was it?’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘But I believed him. I believed him until I
heard my sisters talking in the garden. They were talking about
what
really
happened. Then I realised... I killed him,
didn’t I?’

‘No!’ Rae clutched at Hattie’s hand. ‘You
didn’t! Dear God, forgive me—’

‘I killed my baby brother while he lay in
his cot. I suffocated him. Or I crushed his skull by dropping
things on him. Which was it? I want to know what I did, Ma! I want
to know just how evil I am. You’ve all protected me long enough. I
killed a baby. I drove you mad with grief. I broke up your
marriage. And I drove my father away. No wonder you hated me!’

‘Hattie, stop! I can’t bear it! Stop this at
once!’ Rae threw back the bedclothes and struggled out of bed.
Staggering as she made her way across the room, she lurched towards
an armchair and clung to it until she regained her balance. Turning
her head, she addressed Hattie over her shoulder, gasping, her
words coming in short bursts. ‘Stay there. You hear me? You’re not
to move. I have to fetch something. Something you must see.’

Rae tottered across the floor, opened the
door to a dressing room and entered. Hattie heard a groan and the
sound of something being dragged across the carpet, then the sharp
click of two metal catches. There was a long exhalation from Rae,
followed by silence.

Panic overwhelmed Hattie and she ran to the
bedroom door. She’d grasped the handle and was pulling the door
open when Rae’s voice - strange, high, unrecognisable - said,
‘Hattie, don’t go... I have something to show you.’ Hattie froze in
the doorway, her back towards her mother.

‘Look... Please look, Hattie.’

She turned. By the dim light of the bedside
lamp, Hattie saw her mother’s bent figure, standing at the end of
the bed. She was cradling a baby wrapped in a shawl.

Gwen

I stared at Viv - open-mouthed, for all I know - as I
struggled to take in what she’d said. After an eternity, Marek got
up from the kitchen table and made a pot of tea. The rattle of
spoons and the clink of crockery sounded deafening to me. He set
mugs in front of each of us and sat down again. I was sitting
beside Viv now and studied her profile. It was such a strong face -
devoid of beauty, but there was integrity there, a fundamental
honesty. This was a plain-dealing woman, surely someone you could
trust. Yet she was party to a lifetime of lies, party to the
destruction of her sister’s mind, nearly her life.

I thought of Hattie asleep in her room and
wondered if I should go up and check on her, but at that moment,
Viv started to speak again.

‘If you’re to understand what happened -
what we did and why we did it - I have to go back a long way. A
very long way. Back to Rae’s childhood... She was an unwanted
child. My grandfather thought little of anything other than his own
status and material possessions. Children fell into the latter
category. He was a successful businessman and he wanted a son to
train up as his successor. But he got Rae, an only child. She was
christened Rachael, but she was always known as Rae. She believed
that was because her father liked to imagine her as the son she
should have been... You might think that as Rae herself had
suffered from this dreadful sexual discrimination, she’d be the
last person to perpetrate it herself.’ Viv looked up at Marek with
a faint smile. ‘But it doesn’t work like that, does it?’

Marek shook his head.

‘Rae desperately wanted a son. As a young
married woman she thought it was her last chance to redeem herself
in her father’s eyes. If she presented him with a grandson, she
would be forgiven, her life would somehow be validated - not just
in her father’s eyes, but in her own. You have to remember that in
those days - I was born in 1957 - equality of the sexes was a new
and not very popular idea. It was still very much a man’s world.
The birth of a son was something to boast about and the more Rae
produced daughters - four in a row - the more she felt the pressure
to produce a son. It was the thing she’d always wanted - wanted to
be
and wanted to
have
. And it was the thing she
believed she never would have. Until she fell pregnant with
Alfie.’

‘So there
was
a baby!’

Viv turned to me, her expression grave. ‘It
depends on your point of view. There
was
a baby, for Rae.
But legally, Alfie never existed.’

‘I don’t understand—’

‘Gwen,’ Marek said, very softly. I turned to
look at him but his gaze was fixed on Viv. ‘Go on.’

‘Rae and Freddie were thrilled about the
pregnancy. Hattie had been yet another disappointment - Rae made no
bones about that - and she was forty-three. This was her last
chance and she knew it. She had the best medical care and she
charmed - possibly even bribed - an obstetrician to tell her the
sex of the baby. It was a boy. Well, you can imagine... Rae worked
herself up into a frenzy of anticipation. She kitted out the
nursery as soon as she found out. She bought blue baby clothes. She
decided on the name Alfred, after Freddie, and the baby was known
as “Alfie” when it was just a bump. Rae was so proud of this
pregnancy. She put on maternity clothes long before she needed to.
I simply don’t know how to convey to you how much this baby meant
to her. Well, perhaps I don’t really need to try. I just have to
tell you that when she lost the baby, she lost her mind.’

My voice was a whisper. ‘She
miscarried?’

‘Yes. At twenty-three weeks. That’s too
early to qualify as a stillbirth. Legally, Alfred Donovan never
existed. But Rae gave birth to a perfect baby boy, too immature to
survive.’

‘If he was perfect, why did she miscarry?’ I
asked.

‘That was the most tragic part... Rae fell
downstairs, here at Creake Hall. She fell down the hall staircase,
from the landing to the stone flags below. She fell because she
didn’t see there was a toy on the stairs - a little wooden horse on
wheels that Hattie was forever dragging around behind her. I
imagine Rae didn’t see it because she was dressed in her billowing
maternity wear, like a galleon in full sail. She wouldn’t have been
looking down at her feet. She must have trodden on Hattie’s little
horse, slipped and then fell. She was on her own when it happened,
but she screamed the place down and Freddie and I came running. I
think Hattie was there too - standing at the top of the stairs,
looking on. But I don’t think she knew she’d caused the accident.
None of us knew then. And when we’d worked it out, no one said
anything to her. She was only six. It was just an accident. A
tragic accident...

‘Rae stayed in hospital for a week. We
didn’t dare to put the cot or baby things away. I realise now we
should have done that - it might have helped - but I was
twenty-two. All this was outside my experience. Freddie didn’t know
what to do either. He was grief-stricken, naturally. He was waiting
for a lead from Rae, or from a doctor. He didn’t tell Hattie that
Rae had lost the baby or why, because he didn’t want her to feel
responsible. He told her Rae had had to go to hospital because the
baby was coming early. His idea was that we would break the news to
Hattie gently, when the time was right. She was his only child and
he was very fond of her. It really didn’t seem such a bad idea at
the time. She’d been terribly upset by what had happened. She’d
thought Rae was going to die, so we were trying to reassure her.
Protect her, in fact. But when Rae came home she talked about Alfie
as if he’d
survived
, as if he was in the nursery, asleep!
She talked like that in front of Hattie, so there was no way we
could tell her that Rae had lost the baby. The poor child would
have been so confused. We fudged it by saying Alfie wasn’t well and
had to be protected from germs, so Hattie couldn’t see him. Then,
when I could finally face going into the nursery - Freddie asked me
to put away the baby’s things - we discovered that Rae had found an
old doll...‘ Viv faltered and took a sip of her tea. ‘I think it
was one of Fanny’s. One of those squishy baby dolls. Quite
realistic, actually. Rae had dressed it up in the blue baby clothes
and put it in the cot. She’d tucked sheets and blankets around it
and placed toys at the end of the cot. It was...
heartbreaking
.

‘I told Freddie and he confronted Rae, but
it was useless. She was living in a world of her own where Alfie
hadn’t died. The proof was lying in the cot in the nursery... We
didn’t know what to do. Nor did the doctors. We all agreed she
shouldn’t be forced to confront the reality of her situation. She
wasn’t a well woman, mentally or physically, and her GP thought
this could be a natural process, a form of grieving. His policy was
to wait and see, give Rae time to come to terms with her
loss...

‘So that’s what we did. Freddie moved the
cot into Rae’s bedroom so Hattie wouldn’t see it and she was
forbidden to visit him.’ Viv gulped down her tea, which must have
been cold by now. ‘You know, I think that was the beginning of
Hattie being shut out, sidelined by everyone. She was the only one
- apart from Rae - who didn’t know the truth and she was the only
one who wasn’t preoccupied with Rae and her mental infirmity. We
forgot about Hattie and left her pretty much to her own devices. I
can see that now. I should have taken better care of her and let
Freddie look after Rae. But it was very hard for me. My mother had
gone mad!
I
was frightened too. And there was no one for me
to turn to. No one at all. Freddie wasn’t my father and he wasn’t
exactly a tower of strength, kind though he was. My sisters looked
to me for guidance.
Everyone
did.’

‘It was a lot for a young woman of
twenty-two to deal with,’ Marek said.

‘Yes, it was. And I didn’t make a very good
job of it.’

Marek shook his head. ‘You acted for the
best, Viv. With compassion. For Rae. Freddie. Hattie. Everyone. You
just couldn’t see the big picture. Not until it was too late.’

She looked at him and smiled gratefully.
‘That’s not much consolation when you discover your little sister
has spent her whole life believing she’s a murderer.’

‘But why
does
Hattie think that?’ I
asked.

Viv sighed and appeared to brace herself.
Staring down into her empty mug, she said, ‘Hattie must have
overheard a conversation I had with my sisters... The family wasn’t
coping with the pretend baby. Rae was, but we weren’t. And I knew
it was only a matter of time before Hattie found out there was no
baby, just this pathetic doll. There was no sign of Rae snapping
out of it, as the doctors had hoped. On the contrary, Alfie seemed
to become more and more real to her. She’d give us progress reports
on feeding and broken nights! Things came to a head when we found
Hattie alone in Rae’s bedroom. Freddie had heard her crying and
he’d gone in and found her hurling things into the cot, crying and
shouting at the doll. She was hysterical. That’s when Freddie
decided to put a stop to it. He had to choose between his daughter
and his poor mad wife. And he chose Hattie... He confronted Rae
with the truth. I wasn’t there but I heard the fallout from several
rooms away. It was pitiful... The cot was removed. The baby clothes
and toys were put away. He allowed Rae to keep the doll on
condition that no one ever saw it. I don’t know what she did with
it. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she still has it
somewhere.

‘Freddie told Hattie that her brother had
been rushed into hospital, that he was very ill and might not
recover. After a few days Freddie broke the news to her that Alfie
had died. She appeared to accept this. Accepted it very readily, in
fact. I think I see why now... If she’d actually heard what was
said in the garden... And if she’d only heard
some
of it...
Yes, I can see now how Hattie came to think she’d killed Alfie...
She must have thought we were protecting her, that the story about
Alfie dying in hospital was just a cover-up.’

‘What exactly
did
she hear, Viv? Can
you remember?’

She turned her head to look at me. ‘Oh, yes.
I can hardly bring myself to tell you, it’s so appalling... Hattie
must have overheard us plotting. Plotting shock tactics, out of
sheer desperation!’ Viv was struggling now to control her voice
and, as if reading their mistress’ mind, the two terriers in front
of the Aga raised their heads and looked up at her. One of them let
out a high-pitched whine and trotted over to Viv, who bent down and
fondled his ears absently. ‘Hattie must have heard us planning to
use her as a way of making Rae accept Alfie was dead. If Hattie
believes she murdered Alfie, then she can’t possibly have heard
everything! But she must have heard enough to—’