A Peculiar Collection Page 10

would have dared step foot in her garden anyway. She came down the steps carefully, as if each movement hurt, one arm twisted around so her gnarled fist pressed into the small of her back, the other clenched the banister. With slow, stiff movements, she bent over and scooped the ball off the grass. Then she had a hatpin in her hand, as if from nowhere. Slowly, she placed the point against the ball, made sure we were all paying attention, and pushed the pin in. Once through the flesh, she pulled the hatpin out, and tossed the ball back out onto the street.

  Billy caught it. I could hear the hiss from where I sat.

  “Bitch,” he whispered, and stalked off.

  No one dared openly taunt Mrs. Cook. She’d lived on the street longer than anyone; all the mums and dads who’d grown up locally knew her from when they were young. They said she looked old back then, and was just as horrible. But no one seemed to know what had made her so mean.

  In the spring of 2000, the rain fell, and fell, and wouldn’t stop. Billy and I went down to the Thames and threw sticks into the water, holding hands and standing as close to the edge as we dared, eddies swirling as the level rose. It was scary – I remember my heart beating hard, the nerve ends tingling all over my body. I couldn’t tell if my heightened emotions were from the approaching flood, or Billy being so close.

  He told me, “My mum says Lewis Carroll wrote a poem about this stretch of the river, for Alice in Wonderland.”

  “You’ve read Alice in Wonderland?”

  “Why, got a problem with that?”

  I wanted him to kiss me. I’d never kissed a boy before, never been interested.

  “Nope, no problem at all.” I stared at the Thames. The river was full of twirling branches, churning water and ducks trying to feed.

  “We’re going to get our feet wet,” he said suddenly, and pulled me away from the river’s edge. Water spilled over the bank and flowed towards where we stood.

  We jogged back to the street, not knowing what to do. Billy told his Dad, who went down to the Thames, and ran back screaming, “The river’s flooding!” Before an hour had passed, half a dozen men and women were knocking on doors, helping get people out and up to higher ground.

  The water came fast. After a couple of hours, dirty water lapped against the steps to our house. We went up to The Barn and stayed for the night. In the morning, Billy and I returned. Grass, plants, pots, and a kid’s tricycle, all were half-submerged under water. Some houses had been built up high, ready for the water. Ours was one of those, but three steps had disappeared under the thick silty liquid that covered our street. And everything stank. Billy said sewage had come up through the drains and mixed with the river water. I gagged, and left him there – he wanted to know whether the level was going up or down.

  The flood stayed for a week, long enough to make all us neighbors best friends. Some people had family nearby, and left The Barn. I felt sorry for them, as the rest of us had a pretty fine time camping out together.

  Another two weeks passed before they allowed us back in our houses. The authorities had to scrape off all the muck, so we didn’t catch dysentery or something. Then we all teamed up and helped those who had fared the worst. I wore four pairs of marigold gloves right through, scrubbing and cleaning.

  The only part of our house damaged was the bathroom. When the water levels came up, the toilet overflowed. We cleaned that up first, so we could share with the Pritchard’s. Their house had been built at ground level, and two feet of water and mud had seeped in. The upstairs stayed dry, but they cooked dinners at ours for ages until the insurance company gave them a check to replace all their stuff.

  Some time after the floods receded; we kids noticed a smell wafting from Mrs. Cook’s house. Tim, from two roads up, threw a Frisbee, and it flew right over the roof, and into her back garden. We all froze, unsure of what to do.

  “You seen her?” Tim asked, turning to me.

  I looked over at her bungalow, thinking. “Not since before the flood.” I finally said.

  “Didn’t anyone check on her, when they evacuated us?” Billy asked.

  He was in year ten, one year above me, and his hair fell like chocolate brown curtains about his face. He tucked his fringe behind his ears, and tried to peer in the front windows without stepping in her garden.

  “Dad knocked, but there was no answer. We figured she’d already gone,” I said.

  “Shouldn’t we do something?” Billy asked.

  “Like what?” Tim said, and tentatively walked down the now overgrown path. “I want my Frisbee. My brother will kill me if I don’t give it back.”

  Tim disappeared around the side of the bungalow, opening and closing the tall gate to the back garden almost silently. He remained there a long time, when the gate creaked open; he beckoned to us, his face pale and tinged with green.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Billy went first, stepping carefully; no one had cleaned her garden after the flood. The mud had dried to a sticky paste, with a crust almost hard enough to walk on.

  I kept thinking about the diseases we could catch.

  “It’s the smell.” Tim pointed to a back window.

  Mrs. Cook’s home was built a couple of steps off the ground, but not high enough to stop the floodwater entering. Billy stood on tiptoes and peered in. He looked for a long time, cupping his hand above his eyes.

  “Christ.” Billy turned around. “You shouldn’t look, Jane.”

  “She in there?” I whispered.

  Both nodded.

  “Is she okay?”

  Tim walked off when I said that, rubbing the back of his sleeve across his face. I heard the gate open and slam closed in a series of rickety bangs.

  We told Mum, but she didn’t want to go in the bungalow. I don’t think she quite believed us, so we waited until six o’clock, when my father strolled in, with a wide smile and the sweet scent of hops wafting from his skin.

  He went straight round, knocking furiously before trying the door. It was locked, but Dad is a strong man. He threw his shoulder against the wood until the lock gave way and the door opened a little. A gush of stinky water poured over his feet. Dad didn’t take any notice, and started slamming the door against the mud inside until he had enough room to get through.

  “Stay here,” he ordered us, took a look, and walked in, his boots sucking and squelching. The stench overpowered me; rank and so thick it coated my mouth and the inside of my nose. There were flies as well, they fled the confines of the room, more and more taking flight as Dad struggled across the living room.

  He got to the back bedroom, clambered through the mud, and then backed out in a hurry. He struggled to get out of sight and started retching.

  Before the emergency services came to remove Mrs. Cook’s body, I decided I needed to see. I took a box around the back, and with everyone occupied at the front of the bungalow, I slipped from view. I climbed up to the window, and peered in.

  The room must have been a foot deep in muck. It lapped up against the sides of the bedside cabinet, where she’d placed a book, the bookmark poking out the top. A glass with white scale coating the inside, the water long evaporated, stood on the bedside table. Mrs. Cook lay face down, spread across the floor like an angel, arms outspread, her nightdress black from mud and decay. Woolly blue slippers became one with her feet at the end of blackened swollen legs, and her hair floated on the top of the mud, still white and perfect.

  I climbed down; glad her face had been hidden, and went home.

  A year after the floods, we had a neighborhood party. Tables were set up in the middle of the street, flags and Chinese lanterns covered the trees and the fronts of houses. Two large boxes of fireworks sat on the front of Billy’s lawn, waiting for nightfall.

  Glasses were raised, and as a raucous cheer and impromptu hip-hip-hooray were shouted out, I glanced over to Mrs. Cook’s bungalow. It was uninhabitable, still filled with silt and muck. Also smelly, and there had been talk during the day of each house
on the street chipping in a little to hire some professionals and clean it up. None of the adults mentioned the fate of Mrs. Cook. Billy and I spoke of her sometimes, sat out on the banks of the Thames, our bare feet trailing in the water.

  I ignored the party, and as I watched she appeared on the porch, her nightdress billowing out in the wind, her hair free and perfectly white, catching on swirls of air, moving as if alive. She put up a hand in greeting. I toasted her, as the others cheered at the cleanup effort. She turned as I drank, and opened her front door. But before she disappeared from view, she glanced back, and motioned for me.

  I don’t know why I did, but I got up and went over to her bungalow. She waited, holding the door open, but I didn’t go in: the place was still almost knee high in mud. She transformed the living room, redecorating before my eyes, people moved about, as shadows. Three children dashed by, barreling past me and out the door. Their giggles hung in the air. Then I watched myself walk down the stairs, older, my hair long, almost to my waist. Billy followed, his hair speckled with silver at the sides, still grinning that cheeky smile of his. He caught up to me, kissed my neck from behind, and wrapped his hands around my stomach, clasping them together over a small bump.

  Mrs. Cook floated from the bungalow, taking the vision with her.

  I still think of her, seven years on. I’ve asked around about Mrs. Cook. She’d moved to Purley with her husband in the