Mum's the Word

“Great balls of fire,” Miss Rumpson said.

My sentiments exactly. The place was a combination of the Old Curiosity Shop and Alice's Wonderland. As far as the candle could see were hand-painted leather trunks and marble columns and statues and clocks and silk screens and feather fans …

But no Mangé Meeting.

“Well, m'dear, if that doesn't beat all!” Miss Rumpson's voice bounced off gilded mirrors and under japanned tables. “There's a coffin down here.”

Had I not gained so much weight I would have leaped into her arms. “Wh … Where?”

Following the trail of her finger I saw a coffin, snuggled into a space between a Victorian love seat and a tallboy.

I didn't expect any body to be inside, truly. It had come to me in a flash that the collecto-maniac responsible for loading up this room must have bought the coffin from an undertaker having a going-out-of-business sale. The lid groaned—or was it Miss Rumpson? We would surely find the space used for storage of a different kind. Sheets was my guess. Those won't-wear-out ones that have to be ironed.

Wrong! I couldn't breathe—partly because Miss Rumpson was clutching my throat. Someone lay against the white satin pillow.

Someone I recognized.

I dream I am a child again, coming to Merlin's Court for the first time. No … that isn't quite the way it is. My grown-up self watches, off-stage, as ten-year-old Ellie is driven in that magical vehicle of childhood—a taxi—through the village of Chitterton Fells. The shops and houses, now steeped in twilight, are of classic Christmas card design. Look, there's the amputated Roman arch, and yes … the wavering moonbeam of coast road.

Child Ellie is wearing her blue-and-gold striped school blazer. The badge of her Panama hat heralds the motto of St. Roberta's:
Life Is Strife
. Her plaits are tied with bows the size of giant moths and her face is an all-over smile.

Does that make her sound an appealing little moppet? Sorry, the truth is that she is fat. Poor dear, she was born fat. And really there was no excuse. Her parents lived thin and productive lives. Aunts, uncles, and cousins were respectable in size. And the family tree revealed only one obese antecedent—Augustus Wentworth Grantham, 1784–1863, who was forced into exile after unlacing his stays at a regimental dinner. Not another blot on the record until I, Giselle Simons, weighed in. Giselle! I know my parents chose the name as a sort of magic talisman against the inevitable. My first word was chocolate.

Peering through the shadows of my dream, I remember all those years of shelling out blackmail money to my low-cal
cousin Vanessa. Anything to retrieve damning photos of Child Ellie in varying poses of indecent exposure. Short sleeves, short socks … shorts. Destroying the evidence had become vital after I went on a diet at age twenty-seven and won. Days, weeks of complacency had followed wherein I was sure I had bumped off the Before version. But every once in a while Child Ellie would creep up behind me, tap me on the shoulder, and cry, “I'm still here!”

The taxi zigs around a bend in the road and Child Ellie winds down the window to sniff the scenery. Don't lean out too far, Child Ellie. The cliff sheers down like a bird shot from the sky. The taxi nears the top of the hill. Here stands St. Anselm's Church, walls the colour of pumice stone. The moon is its halo. A weary congregation of tombstones and trees that writhe as though wringing their hands at the wickedness of the world.

Child Ellie smiles. Anyone would think she had never smelled the sea before, never heard it break in white-foamed rushes against the cliffs, never savoured its Alka Seltzer taste, nor seen a gull cresting the wind. What blithe optimism! What wanton vulnerability! She lunges through the window, arms flung wide to embrace the moment. But all is well. She doesn't fall. The window is a tight fit.

The taxi glides through sagging iron gates onto a gravel drive riddled with weeds. Look … there is the old chestnut spreading its moon-dappled cloak upon the lawn … and there the lodge, a cobbled house with a brass plate on the door: Cliffside Cottage. The taxi slows, then moves on. Then suddenly the maternal ancestral home is in sight: Merlin's Court. Her breath catches. It's exactly as Mother had described it. Still, nothing could have prepared her for this Grimm's fairy tale castle complete with moat, ivied walls, turrets like witches' hats, and best of all, a portcullis.

A place of pure magic. Ah, but I know what Child Ellie does not. A wicked wizard, Great Uncle Merlin, reigns within the castle walls. Picture him now, chomping on his toothless gums. Nightcap a-bobbing, he rubs fleshless hands together at the merry prospect of a child being left in his keeping. How touchingly naive of her parents to decide a holiday at the seaside will do her a world of good, while they sail off to America to prospect for fame and fortune.

The taxi rounds a final curve. While I am wondering how soon before I wake up, Child Ellie disembarks. Witness a flash of stout legs. Socks rolled into doughnuts at the ankles. I want to pull them up for her, straighten her bows, warn her. But she is headed for the moat bridge. Will it collapse under her thudding hopscotch? The immortal words of Aunt Astrid knell in my ears. “All cannot be blessed with beauty, grace, and charm, Ellie.” Certainly not. After giving so generously of those blessings to Aunty's darling daughter Vanessa, God ran short. “But one can always strive to excel at something other than mediocrity, Ellie.”

“Thank you, Aunty.” Child Ellie might always be picked last for school games, but she would walk a tightrope across the Alps for a jelly bean.

Watch out! She almost goes over into the moat. A curtain twitches hopefully at one of the countless windows, then falls. Oh, no … Child Ellie has left her suitcase in the taxi, now vanishing into the blackness of time. But does her smile dim? Never! She discovers that the gargoyle beside the heavily studded castle door is a doorbell. A yank of the tongue, the mottled yellow-green eyes roll around in its head, and a deep ringing is heard.

Silence.

Child Ellie's chubby fists pound the door. “Uncle Merlin! It's me, Ellie! Mummy and Daddy said you and I would be good for each other. They don't believe you are bonkers. I am to be a little breath of fresh air, blowing away the cobwebs. Your life will gain new meaning when you help me grow gaunt and beautiful by not letting me have seconds … pardon me, thirds.”

Silence.

“Standing here on the step like this, I can't help wondering if Mummy and Daddy decided I was old enough to travel on my own because they were scared.”

Wind laughing among the trees.

“Surely, Uncle Merlin, you're not having a last minute charge round with the Hoover, are you? I've sworn on birthday and Christmas presents not to comment on the squalid state of the house. Believe me, I don't mind in the least if you do your washing up once a year rather than once a day.”

Has she caught the attention of the silence?

“Uncle Merlin, you may be interested to know that I intend to be a house decorator when I grow up. Dried flowers need not look dead these days; and I know—from reading
The Wickedest Girl in the Class
—how to remove stubborn stains. Even blood.”

Thicker silence.

Did the time draw near for me to wake up? But my eyes won't open.

“Uncle Merlin, perhaps I have come at an inconvenient time. Should I …?”

With the appalling suddenness of an animal striking, the castle door flings inward. Legs moving pell-mell, Child Ellie is swept by an invisible force into the cavernous hall with its flagstone floor and peekaboo staircase. Cobwebs sway in tattered banners from the lofty ceiling. Moth-eaten fox heads grin from walls marbled with damp. Dead flowers, bunched into funeral urns, give off the odour of decay. In this house only the dirt is alive.

“Be nice, Uncle Merlin. Stop playing hard to find. I promise not to start screaming if you have come down with some hideous deformity since Mummy and Daddy last saw you. Cross my heart, I think werewolves are sweet. But if it makes you more comfortable, feel free to slip a bag over your head. Oh, crikey! Why there you are, naughty uncle!”

Child Ellie's brain is not overweight. She is addressing a rusty suit of armour, stationed against the banister wall. Not Uncle Merlin. Lifting the visor, she inquires within. No one home. But never say die. Our metal knight has an identical twin standing to attention a few yards away. Bother! He isn't hiding any fugitives either.

“Uncle Merlin, I'm warning you—I'm going off you in a hurry.” She digs into her blazer pocket for the friend that never fails—a bar of chocolate. Restored, she blunders about some more. She pokes her nose through the banisters, she checks a mound of formless debris, she opens doors that go nowhere.

Time is running out. I try to enter the dream.
“Pssst!”

“Listen to me, Ellie,” I try. “You don't need to find Uncle Merlin. I can tell you how it really was on that
holiday. No electricity. Cold baths. Everything mildewed—including the food. And always that sense of something refusing to let the house rest. But I did come to realize that Uncle Merlin was not the monster of your exuberant imagination.”