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Ivy

The architectural trends of the manor houses of my youth are long gone, fragmented into dusty rubble by German planes targeting the shipyards and steelworks of The Clyde. The Orchard of Scotland received its share of misplaced bombs tearing apart fields of apples, plums and pears. Later, more buildings were lost when their roofs were removed. Buildings reclassified as ruins to avoid 1950s taxes.

Chalo, I urge myself. I can’t stand here, exposed to the elements, recalling the entire history of the region or I’ll lose sense of where I am.

Marigold will be mad enough as it is that I left the house while she was brushing her teeth.

The mossy steps form a semicircle, flanked by turrets and crow-stepped gables crowding the double archway which is adorned with faded and weatherworn thistle motifs. This entrance wouldn’t be out of place in a Mughal palace. The stone steps seem too large for my shaking legs. Back then they seemed too large for my tiny limbs – I’d been shorter, yet springier, than the average girl, earning me the nickname “bandar” (monkey).

Tick … click …

When we’d first arrived, I’d expected all the staff to line up at the front door to greet us, as they did for our departure from Karachi. As the mud-splattered carriage wheels came to a creaky halt the house’s doors groaned open, and a lady with a cane hobbled down the icy steps. A tartan shawl of berry red and holly green was wrapped around her shoulders.

“Welcome home, sir.”

Who could this withered woman be? A grandmother perhaps?

“Children this is Philips, our housekeeper. She’ll show you to your rooms.”

She took in all eight of us brothers and sisters with sleepy eyes and runny noses. I suppose it looked a bit like a travelling circus trick. How many children could one fit inside a carriage? We had set out equally divided across both carriages, but the boys had squabbled and ended up between us girls, not riding with Sita, the Captain and Baby Marigold.

The main door still creaks when it opens all these decades later, the rus-ty hin-ges fight-ing against me.

I resist the urge to call out the names of my brothers and sisters, and feebly call, “I’m home!”

Yet only spiders’ webs and mouse droppings greet me. My voice bounds back in a series of diminishing echoes. It’s too silent. There’s been no one here to wind up the grandfather clock.

Why am I here? We don’t live here anymore. Marigold parrots that day and night assuming I don’t remember. She’s going to be mad at me, but what’s new? Still, I better get back. I lock the door and painfully slowly retreat down the steps. Then I remember, why I’m here. The key!

I grip my cane, needing a moment to rest before tackling those stairs again. There it is! The Sunbird. A flash of iridescent purples and greens in an upper window.

Talitha

The woman, her Jackie O blowout whipping around her, stared at the house with an intensity that suggested more than just the wind made her hair stand on end. Talitha immediately clocked her as a potential witness.

“Who invited all these people?” the lady asked. Closer up her face was a spidery web of lines and her blouse and skirt too light, considering the overcast weather.

Ian blew a pink bubble, throwing an irritated glance Talitha’s way. His way of politely asking “deal with it”. He might fancy himself as India Jones, but he was no Harrison Ford.

Chewing and framing the house with his index fingers and thumbs, he directed long-bearded Ben and shaved-head Greg where to set up their first shots. The sound guy, Scott, rolled his eyes. They’d done five shoots together, and Talitha had yet to hear him speak.

Talitha introduced herself.

A beaming smile transformed the lady’s face. “Goddess of wealth!”

Mrs Matthews had said the same thing about Talitha’s surname over the phone when she’d arranged for the crew to film there this week. Mrs Matthews had explained that her mother – her siblings’ stepmother – had been born in India, as if Talitha had never heard the infamous story surrounding Broomhill House and the Indian Princess.

“Are you Mrs Matthews?” Talitha asked. Even if Mrs Matthews had been a toddler when Sita vanished, and now in her 70s, a family connection was invaluable to the credibility of the shoot.

“I’m Ivy.”

Talitha realized the lady’s legs were bare. She wore plain slippers blending seamlessly with her outfit, and was visibly shivering. Talitha shrugged off her leather jacket. Only yesterday she’d gone over the final details with Mrs Matthews, and the owner of the house had been insistent: “If my sister turns up inform me immediately.”

Ivy backed away from the offered jacket. “I’m not going back! You can’t make me!”

Greg turned his camera on. Tasteless, but drama was literally their bread and butter.

“Ivy?” Talitha asked.

“Yes, Sita?”

Ian leapt in, “Ava McNeil? I’ll be doing your interview.”

Typical, he clearly hadn’t even bothered to read her one page summary of the hefty research file. Talitha said, “I’ve to call—”

“Scott!”

Talitha ground her teeth together and pulled her jacket back on. So they’d film and hope Ivy’s family didn’t complain, and she’d have to be the one to sort out this mess with Mrs Matthews before it escalated to that point.

All cameras were on Ian. “Here we are, folks, at Broomhill House. The sight of the brutal murder of McNeil’s Indian Princess. For decades, sightings have been seen of The Lady of Broomhill. According to local lore, a mysterious Indian woman roams the grounds. Some say she was brought to Scotland by a British officer, who murdered her, and ever since she has haunted the area ...

“The name of the officer was Captain Henry McNeil. And we’ve got a real treat for you guys, as his daughter Ava is here with us today. What we know so far from our research is that Captain McNeil, after his service in India, brought Sita back to his ancestral home at the start of the nineteenth century. This new wife embraced her role as the mother to Henry’s children from his previous marriage. They also had a daughter of their own. However, their happiness was short-lived. One misty morning, Sita vanished without a trace …”

Ivy’s sea-blue eyes appeared clearer after listening to Ian’s introduction. “It was a stormy night,” she corrected him. It had been in the file.

“Huh?”

“When Sita went missing.”

“Um, so Ava—”

“Ivy.” Her back straightened as she stared directly into the camera, with her blue eyes and the ancient, cracked windows of the mansion behind her. Talitha had to admit that was a lovely shot.

Talitha drew in a breath tasting vanilla on her tongue. Ivy’s hair was fine and flat, and she lacked the beauty spot and thick eyebrows often celebrated in glossy fashion magazines. Yet, she possessed a timeless elegance. The world had changed around her in ways this lot couldn’t imagine: women’s rights, technology, fashion... Was there a way life hadn’t changed over the past eighty years?

Ivy continued, “We came here in 1902, which was the twentieth century, and Sita vanished on a stormy night.”

The film crew groaned.

Greg, on camera one, gave a fixed, grin. “No worries, Ivy, we’ll edit your interruption out.”

“How about dubbing my real name in,” Ivy responded, indicating that she knew something about the devices they were poking in her face.

“Talitha, keys,” Ian demanded. She fished them out of her ripped jeans, tugging her Exploited T-shirt back over her belly. “I’ll open up.”

The front door resisted. Its hinges groaning.

“Jesus Christ!” Ian said. “How’s that for a sound effect! Ben, get a shot of the door opening.”

While Ian was distracted, Talitha went to see if the house had a landline.

In the large hallway a grand staircase took up most of the space, still leaving enough room for an elephant or two to amble past. The building was immense. She craned her neck at the ceiling. Were those ships in the centre of each carved panel?

Dust stuck to every surface, feeling tacky under her shoes. Cobwebs trailed along the walls. Talitha doubted they had electricity, let alone a telephone wire. The nearest telephone box was back down the mile long drive, plus the three miles to the nearest village. She’d seen the flash of red as Ian had speeded through.

It was also freezing inside, and so quiet. Not a ghetto blaster in sight. Even beneath her jacket the hairs on her arms stood up. Or was that in reaction to the soft sigh, and shadowy figure floating towards her from the far corridor?

A breath brushed the back of her neck. Just like a James Herbert book. And just like in the unputdownable The Fog, she felt unable to move as the indistinct darkness drew closer.

“Beeswax. Can you smell it?” Ivy asked.

Talitha pressed a hand to her chattering heart. Reading horror was one thing; living it quite another. Until now, she’d thought herself immune to the “haunted” buildings they’d visited. She rubbed her sweaty hands together, hoping that there also weren’t any giant rats about intent on gnawing on human flesh.

Entrance hall

The tiled entranceway of the Scottish manor house looks as abandoned as I felt on first arriving in this cold, windbitten country. The staircase’s main supporting posts, obscured with grime, used to be honeyed-dark wood smelling of honeycomb. I’m afraid it will crumble if I touch it. There’s been no one here to polish and guard against insect invasion for a long time. The wood is peppered with holes and crawling beasties. Why did Duncan let it fall into such disrepair? And when he passed on why didn’t Marigold sort things out in her usual fashion?

The balustrade used to be as solidly built as a ship. The railings smooth and slidable – if it hadn’t been for the frozen swish of mermaid tails blocking one’s way they would have tested them out. When father was away. I can still make out the carved ocean waves, supporting mermaids at their tips.

Tick … click …

I skipped away from Sita.

“Try to keep up,” said Philips, taking the moaning steps one at a time.

Her Scottish accent, was as hard on the ear as British-Indian, garbled as if she were speaking through a mouthful of boiled sweets.

We traipsed after her, our shoes tapping faster than the grandfather clock over the white and blue tiles that mimicked stylised waves. Ahead, stained glass windows, with images of ships in battle, cast their light as the seven of us brothers and sisters jumped, skipped and sprang upwards in slow motion, mocking Philips behind her back.

Marigold was still a baby and stayed with Sita.

“What’s that in your hand, Ivy?” Talitha asks.

I’ve been lost in my head again.

I sniff. Is it my imagination or does the air smell damp and salty? I scrape my foot across the dirt to reveal the Greek key pattern. Yet keep my stooped back to the clock for now, not wanting the memories that will arise with it.

I clench my sole purpose for being here. The key.

Head down, I make my way to father’s study.

When I’d found the key, I’d immediately thought of the Captain’s desk draws. Always locked, his study was off limits to us; an ogre’s lair guarded by unseen forces. So I’m unsurprised the door refuses to yield. Left locked all this time … Must have been done out of habit the last time we were here.

I rest my forehead against the panelled door, as I had when I’d wanted answers, and he and Sita had retreated for private conversations.

Tick click … tick tock …

“You’ve invited this stranger to stay for how long?” Sita asked.

“Nagy’s not a stranger.”

“Tch! He is to me. To the children.”

“You can’t go to the entertainment, so I bring it to you, my pretty one.”

“Achha, I’m an embarrassment.”

“My precious …”

I lost track of the conversation for a moment. She’s not a “precious” nor a “pretty one”. She’s a goddess. In Hindu belief, the wife of Lord Rama is called Sita. The name a symbol of devotion and courage. For to love requires courage, Sita taught me.

The Captain said, “I’m sorry to have left you alone here for so long.”

“I’m not alone.”

“The children don’t count.”

Don’t we? I stirred against the wood, hoping they didn’t hear my sudden outward puff.

Sita said, “I have Mrs Carmichael and Mrs Adair, even if the others scorn me.”

“A single mother and a cripple!”

“Henry.”

I’d never heard her use his name like that before. My cheeks grew warm. They go warm with the memory of it as I feel around the ring of keys to locate the right one.

The lady from the film crew follows me as if afraid I’m about to collapse. It’s irritating when people keep expecting you to croak your last.

“I’m perfectly capable of opening a door,” I say. Embarrassed when my wrists neglect to do my bidding. As Marigold jokes, it’s always the ability to open a pickle jar that is the first to go, but we have men for that.

Talitha reaches out a young supple wrist, and although the lock protests she forces it open eventually.

Inside, the smell of decaying leather hits me. His claret red chair. I disturb a jackdaw on the head rest. It flaps frantically out of the hole in the window. Feathers and nesting material are scattered about the room. It must be nesting in the chimney.

His beautiful desk is clawed. I don’t know the name of the style. It’s rectangular, with draws piled on top of it, all the way around and down both sides, each with tiny keyholes like fairy doorways. I tug a few, then remove the chain from around my neck and try each lock in turn.

“No luck,” I say. But I didn’t expect it to work here. Not really.

“What are you looking for?” Talitha asks.

I ignore her, because silence is the best protest to questions you don’t want to answer. Where else could I try?

A memory presses in on me. A hot palm, tick, pressing the warmed key into mine, click, “Ise surakshit rakhen” (keep it safe) … the wood and cinnamon of the cigars he used to smoke … the sensation of the wooden pin, the belaying pin, above the fireplace next to his flintlock pistol. It was used on a ship to secure the lines. As he brought it down on the back of my thighs I used to peer into the gardens, imagining running in the maze and never being caught. Catching your child reciting a Gayatri Mantra, purifying the body for spiritual awareness, didn’t warrant such an excessive punishment. But it did make her less likely to be caught again.

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