Rose leaned her forehead against the window and breathed hard on the glass, fogging it up. From the little radio behind her, tinny voices serenaded the joys of a white Christmas. But when the small patch of mist cleared, all she could see outside was darkness and rain, the muddy puddles reflecting the Christmas lights from the living room across the courtyard. She had her own electric candles on the windowsill, a cheap set with two bulbs faltering and one wreath missing. Not up to her sister’s usual high standards, so no wonder it had been consigned to this room-in-progress, half-finished with bare plaster on the walls and two of the sockets nothing but wires sticking out. A fitting place for the prodigal child, she thought wryly, for whom the fatted calf would be withheld as long as she persisted in her prodigality.
She gave herself a little shake. That was unnecessarily bitchy thinking. This wasn’t where she was meant to have been staying. She should have slept, as usual, in her brother-in-law’s cosy study, easily converted into a comfortable bedroom by simply folding down the sofa. Her sister Jane had improvised admirably to accommodate the difficult circumstances, and had apologised a thousand times for the poor substitute. Knowing her sister, it probably was literally keeping her awake at night to be forced to go against her hospitality instincts in this way. It seemed that all the time Rose had spent defending her family to Alex – “they’re lovely people, really! Usually so welcoming. And I’m sure they’ll love you when they get the chance. It’s just been a shock for them, they’re a bit old-fashioned…” – she had been repressing her own feelings of bitterness and rejection, which were only now getting the chance to surface.
Restlessly, she paced from the window to the other side of the room, then back again, like a chained dog. Then stopped herself. As she knew from previous visits, the floors of her sister’s home, which spilled over from the original modest farmhouse into a series of converted farm buildings, creaked intolerably loudly, allowing you to pretty much track the movements of every occupant. Then she remembered that this new room and its ensuite toilet were off in their own small wing, the latest expansion project for her sister and brother-in-law, inexhaustible home improvers. She was actually closer to the neighbouring farm than to her family; the old barn she was in straddled the property line, a holdover from the days when the individual holdings had been part of one big estate. She doubted Mr Johnson was going to be bothered by her pacing though, his half of the barn was a neglected shell and his own elegant house was much further off. He had, however, been furious at the conversion works so close to his land and had succeeded in legal measures to pause them while planning permission was reconsidered. Hence the unfinished state of the rooms, left as they were when tools were downed. Jane had been beside herself in disbelief at her neighbour’s recalcitrant attitude. “He’s normally such a Christian man!”, she said. “I can’t believe it”. Rose, who had been on the sharp end of Mr Johnson’s Christianity, bit her tongue and said nothing. She couldn’t imagine the council would go so far as to insist the conversion be ripped out so close to completion, but technically no one was supposed to be living in the barn while the dispute was being resolved. Luckily Mr Johnson wasn’t the sort to drop by for a cup of tea at the best of times, and the current situation made it highly unlikely that he would happen by and discover the space was being occupied. That Rose was the occupant would only drive him to further heights of righteous rage. Twice unclean, she thought wryly.
Another saccharine melody started up on the radio, and Rose gritted her teeth. She could turn off the radio, of course. But it would be far worse to hear the echoing emptiness of the half-built wing around her, underscored by the faint sounds of merriment further off in the main house. The most wonderful time of the year? Bleak midwinter would be more like it. If only she could ring Alex. Just the thought of hearing that warm voice, the concerned tones followed by gentle jokes to cheer her up, made tears spill over her cheeks. In the hurry to pack, she had left her charger behind, and her phone battery hadn’t lasted much beyond the time it took to bring Alex up to speed on the dreadful turn of events. None of the chargers here were compatible with her ‘fancy device’, and there was little chance of borrowing a phone from her family to make a call just for the sake of cheering her up. Martyred comments about the cost of international calls would be the excuse, but the underlying reason would be the basic truth she had tried to ignore for so long. Her family, loving, close-knit, adamant believers in being there for each other, could not come to terms with the fact that their daughter had fallen in love with another woman.
Rose had tried to explain it to Alex, aware of what it must look like to an outsider. Bigoted, small-minded religious zealots, rural yokels who were behind the times. She had experienced these reactions before from her university friends, and it had hurt her deeply. How to explain to such proudly liberated people, passionate about women’s rights, that her mother was a happy housewife? That she had promised to obey her husband and left all the financial decisions up to him, yet at the same time her father respected her mum above all others. That her family genuinely feared that her sexual preference was the first step down a slippery slope that would lead her to ruin, something to rescue her from just as her friends’ families would have jumped in to rescue their daughters if they had got addicted to heroin or joined a cult. That love could mislead people just as easily as hate.
That was what made it so terribly hard for her. Malicious bigots she could have left behind her in an instant, but to forgo her family’s love was unthinkable. She was stuck in an uneasy limbo between two worlds, proud of both who she was now and where she had come from. The battle to find a place for her sexuality in her own strong religious beliefs had been so hard-fought that she bitterly comprehended how challenging it was for her family to do the same. While she respected their heartfelt faith, she had nothing but contempt for certain members of her parents’ religious community who had worn their ‘deep concern’ for Rose as a mask for their delight in someone else’s downfall. Including Mr Johnson, who had cornered her on her previous visit and solicitously recommended conversion therapy for ‘her spiritual and moral ailment, so distressing to her poor mother and father’. Her family at least had drawn the line at that; if not actually accepting her relationship with Alex then stopping short of actively condemning it. Or Rose herself. She remained welcome at home, ‘her friend’ remained a subject to be cautiously skirted round, especially when children were present. But Rose was patient. Wait and give it time, they would surely come round.
A wave of breathless dizziness overwhelmed her, and she sat down suddenly on the mattress. Her pyjamas were stuck to her back with old sweat, and she wished she could take a shower. The ensuite toilet, though surrounded by precarious piles of tiles, was a lifesaver, but a shower would only be possible by venturing into the inhabited portion of the house, and she had no desire to see relatives fleeing her path as if she were a leper. Plus Jane had enough to do with everyone staying over for Christmas, without feeling obliged to scrub the entire bathroom and disinfect it.
A sudden scratching sound made her start, and she looked over at the door. She had already put out the tray on which her meal had been served earlier, a carefully presented collection of Christmas delicacies that had turned to ashes in her mouth, almost choking her. To avoid insulting her sister’s excellent cooking, she had flushed most of it down the toilet. A shadow wavered in the gap underneath the door, and then a piece of card was pushed underneath. Soft footsteps retreated.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Rose bent over and retrieved the card. A roughly drawn Christmas tree had been splodged with glue and green glitters, happy smiling stick figures surrounding it. In childish letters was printed ‘HApy Crismus aunty Rooz’. Smiling through her tears, she propped the card up against the radio. A gift from her seven-year-old niece. Her sister’s children were the main reason she had agreed to come and visit. After everything they had been through recently, she had wanted nothing more for Christmas than a time of peace together with Alex. The not-so-subtle hints from her family about how everyone would be there for Christmas, how long it had been since they’d been together, and how important it was to keep up the holiday tradition, had left her cold. But little Emma’s pleas on a video call, tears streaming down her face at the thought that her auntie wouldn’t be there for Christmas, combined with the longing to see John walking and to cuddle baby Stevie in her lap for the first time, had won her over. It will only be for a few days, she thought. Go to the family the day before Christmas Eve, fly back again the day after Boxing Day and be with Alex for the rest of the holiday. Glorious days of indulgent meals, chocs guzzled in front of the telly, laughing till her stomach hurt at Alex’s hilarious take on Christmas kitsch. Overcoming all the hurdles required to get to her sister’s would be stressful, as would enduring the barbed comments of her aunts and uncles, the falsely innocent questions about her having a man yet. But it would be worth it for the joy in the kids’ eyes. She had known it was a risk, that she was taking a gamble. But she had never really believed things would turn out this way.
The gauntlet of tests she had had to run for the journey had seemed a simple inconvenience. Test at home, test at the airport before departure, test on arrival. Well used to the routine by now, she had simply endured the swab in her nose and throat, sneezed a few times to get the just-dived-into-a-swimming-pool feeling out of her nose, then donned her mask and continued on her way through the eerily quiet airport. After the final test she had collected her luggage, picked up the keys from the car rental desk – the lone clerk heart-wrenchingly grateful to have a customer – and set off on her way. She had been nearly at the farmhouse, trying to negotiate the insanely narrow lane lined with high hedges without getting expensive scratches on the hire car, when her phone rang with the bad news. Swearing violently over and over, she had banged her head on the steering wheel, then rung her sister, hearing the happy, expectant tones dissolve into a wavering stammer of bewildered disappointment.
On arrival, instead of the door being flung open and her being passed down a whole receiving line of relatives for a marathon of hugs and kisses, then plumping down on the sofa under a haphazard pile of kids, she had been met by only her sister, masked and gloved and clearly very nervous. Rose had followed her at a safe distance along empty hallways, past closed doors behind which she could hear people muttering uneasily, to this lonely room. Where she had been stuck ever since. Isolated from both her family and Alex, with no clear prospect of when it would all end. At some point she would get well and test negative again, of course, but by then the holiday would be long over. It seemed crazy to be in the same house as her family and not be able to actually be with them. Why did this have to happen now and not in all the previous months? Especially given that she and Alex had agreed that if either of them caught the virus they would order in a load of microwave meals and go into quarantine together. Not a viable option in a household that included a three-month-old baby and a ninety-one year-old great-grandmother.
A new flood of tears threatened as a fresh wave of depression almost overwhelmed her. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. Be grateful! Think of those who are stuck in intensive care, gasping for every breath. All you have is a fever, aches and pains, and the prospect of a miserable week or so in the company of a portable heater. But, as she had discovered in the past, filling her mind with the worse misery of others, while it gave perspective to her rational mind, did not one single thing to raise her spirits. Instead, she focused her mind on Alex, imagined her scolding her for being so maudlin, then singing along to their favourite spoof hit about crying at Christmastime, pouting and sobbing in an exaggerated fashion while miming the retro synthesizer soundtrack with gusto. It worked, and giggles took over. She thought fondly of the alternative Christmas playlist they’d put together, a wildly varying mix comprising such diverse styles as country music, a capella, rap and Gregorian chant. The radio here, tuned to a local station whose playlist was as middle-of-the-road as it was short, responded by starting up a mawkish hit for the umpteenth time that day. Annoyed by the contrast, she slapped her hand down on the button, silencing it abruptly.
And heard it again.
The old farm buildings creaked when the wind blew, creaked when the temperature rose or dropped, creaked when they felt like it. The first time she had visited her sister here, she had stayed awake all night, convinced by each creak that this time it really was a burglar. Since then she had got pretty good at ignoring them. This time, though, it was different. The creaks were patterned, and seemed to follow joined-up routes somewhere above and behind the wall. During the night, she had dreamed a fevered, nightmarish vision of giant rats in face masks dragging a wailing baby from its crib and scampering off with it into the darkness, eyes glowing a demonic red. Then awoken to hear the small patter of feet continue in reality. Oh god, don’t let there be rats in the new extension. Jane’s Christmas was wrecked enough without that as well. Her sister was house-proud and regarded cleanliness as next to godliness, if not perhaps slightly higher up the scale. How she raised three small kids on a farm was a minor miracle to Rose.
Straining now to listen more carefully, it seemed to her that the sounds suddenly died away, almost as if the maker were aware of her attention. It was hard, however, to hear anything properly over the pounding in her ears. Her fever was rising again, and the bare surroundings, the glow of the candles against the window and the rain streaming down outside were taking on a haze of unreality. She jumped as the noises started again, louder. This time though, they were followed by a perfectly ordinary knock at the door and a chorus of ‘Merry Christmas!’. Through the lump in her throat, she called back, ‘Merry Christmas’. After more bumps and bangs, the footsteps retreated, with in their wake a forlorn wailing, ‘..but WHY can’t I give Aunty Rose a kiss? It’s Christmas Day…’. To avoid hearing more, Rose quickly turned the music back on. Although she had barely moved all day, her muscles ached as if she had been hiking up a mountain, an impression heightened by the two bands of discomfort over her shoulders, just where rucksack straps would have been. Yawning, a sense of exhaustion overwhelmed her. Clicking off the small table lamp on the floor, she rolled onto the mattress, determined to sleep away as much of this dreadful time as possible.
With a start, she woke in darkness. Strains of music echoed through her head, and for a moment she was surrounded by a choir singing carols, dressed as cartoon characters all except one who, for some reason, was got up as the Eiffel Tower with flashing bulbs. Then they vanished and she realised the music was simply the radio, which she had forgotten to turn off. Groaning, she rolled over and hit the switch. Strangely though, the music echoed on afterwards, as if someone were singing along. Rose grabbed the light switch and turned on the light, and the sound abruptly ceased. Rose shook her head sharply, but that only made her feel worse, the half-lit scene around her swirling violently. It seemed to her that she heard movement again, quick light steps followed by heavier ones. Was that a faint scolding hiss? Had Emma sneaked up to visit her and been caught? But the noise didn’t seem to come from the hall outside, it was more muffled than that. Or was it just her head? And now it had stopped again. Everything was still, but she had the strangest feeling. Like when playing hide and seek as a child, that there were people around her who she couldn’t see, holding their breath and concealing themselves. Deliberately, she reached out and turned off the light, then switched the radio back on. Slowly, she slipped off the mattress and tiptoed towards the door. One hand on the door handle, she hesitated, then opened it, and closed it again behind her, muffling the radio.
Creeping along the hallway, the bare floorboards creaked underfoot, and she felt a stab of panic. She felt like a criminal for being outside her room, and the dread of being caught made her guts twist. Irrational, she told herself. It wasn’t like her walking down the hall of this deserted wing meant anyone would catch the virus. Yet the familiar feeling of guilt at breaking the rules was creeping though her. Just as she had decided to stop being ridiculous and get back to bed, she heard something again. Movement. Her nerves crawling, she tilted her head, trying to work out where it was coming from. Prowling back and forth by the light from the outside lamps that slanted through the bare windows, she mounted the short set of stairs, clutching the makeshift railing, to the little attic above. Avoiding piles of lumber and abandoned tools, the noises drew her towards the back wall. Not stone, but old and dirty plaster, clearly the original partition wall that had been put up when the barn, a well-built stone structure far too good to waste, had been divided over the two properties. Hesitating, she touched the wall gingerly, and then pressed her ear against it. All she heard was the pounding of her own heartbeat and the rushing in her ears. Then, voices. She couldn’t make out any words, but there were clearly voices. What was anyone doing in a barn in the middle of the night? At Christmas? During a pandemic? Thieves? Kids breaking curfew for a party? But the little noises had been going on all day, off and on. What thieves took all day to burgle a barn, what kids had so much stamina for their revelry?
Rose took her ear away from the wall. She was shivering violently, from a mix of cold and fever, and dark specks were swirling round the edge of her vision. Whatever it was, what could she do about it? Ring up Mr Johnson, or the police, in the middle of the night to say she thought she could hear someone trying to be very quiet in an empty barn?
That was when she heard the baby crying.
Incredulous, she pressed her ear to the wall once more. She was delirious, she was hearing things. While her sister’s end of the barn was now almost habitable, the other end was used for nothing, not animals, not even contagious Christmas guests. Her sister had bitterly complained about that when Mr Johnson started legal action. Far from the road, reached only by passing his own extensive farmhouse, it was not a logical place for drifters to end up either. But the baby’s wail was like a hook in her heart, the hungry, desperate sound pulling frantically. She had to get to it. Her head spinning, she tried to work out how to get out and round to the neighbour’s side, but her confused mind couldn’t put the route together. Vague impressions of corridors, doors and outbuildings morphed into each other in her head until one clear image coalesced – the high boundary wall outside, which blocked any access to Mr Johnson’s property. Running her hands over the peeling surface of the wall again, Jane’s voice echoed in her memory, ‘…rubbishy job they did when they put that partition in, it’s basically just wood and plaster, but it’d cost a mint to put in a proper replacement. So we’ll just have to patch up the dodgy bits and slap on some insulation’. In the muddle of tools she had passed was a sledgehammer…
Her muscles screaming at the effort, the sensible part of her mind screaming at the total lunacy of smashing through a wall in her sister’s house, still Rose couldn’t stop herself from fetching the hammer and swinging at the wall. Clouds of dust from the plaster swirled around her like snow. The planks behind it were tougher, but rotten in one corner, so she just managed to open a hole a bit bigger than her hand before her strength gave out and she collapsed, panting with exhaustion. She crawled forward and looked through the hole. Her jaw dropped in disbelief.
Rays of dim light from a small lamp filtered through the settling cloud of plaster dust, creating almost a halo around the figure of a young woman, a baby cradled protectively in her arms. Several other figures stood around, and Rose had the bizarre impression that she had broken into someone’s Nativity scene. She almost expected sheep and donkeys, three wise men bearing gifts and an angel descending from the heavens. Then she realised that the other figures were also young women, with the exception of a small child clutching the legs of one woman. They stood, frozen, looking back at her.
Then they erupted into a frenzy, running towards her. Rose flinched back against the side wall as they attacked the hole with their bare hands, wrenching hopelessly at the rotting boards until one spotted the hammer and managed to poke an arm through to pull it back. After that it was only moments before the gap was so wide that one woman could squeeze through. She sprang forward and pinned Rose against the wall, in rough desperation but without violence, while the others crept through the gap and ran past, carrying the baby and the child, calling urgently to one another in low whispers, in a language she did not recognise. She stiffened in fear of what might happen when they met the others in the house, who must surely be coming to see what was going on. But she heard no evidence of a confrontation, only what might have been a door swinging open in the distance. The woman holding her released her then, and when she made no move to rise, rested her hand briefly on her shoulder and said something, her eyes staring intently but not unkindly, then followed her companions into the night.
In her mind’s eye, Rose followed their course. Down the stairs, along the twisting hallways, out the door into the cold air. Imagined rain on their faces, wind ruffling their hair, the fresh smell of the outdoors after far too long confined in a musty room, the wide open spaces they could wander as they wanted. She longed to follow them. Instead, she silently wished them peace and goodwill and, as other voices and footsteps approached, took a deep breath and waited to see what would happen next.