The Visitors(17)
‘Perfect!’ Karen beamed, pushing over a pen and some papers. ‘Now, if you can just fill in this application form, I’ll print off the job description and person spec. They’re paying above minimum wage, so I expect this vacancy will prove popular when it goes online in the morning. Must be your lucky day, walking in just as we got it through!’
Holly had managed to complete the application form without too much bother and left soon after, assuring Karen she’d be emailing the references and ID documents.
‘I’ll call you later with the time of your interview and details of where to go,’ Karen had replied. ‘Here’s my card.’
On the bus home, Holly had fretted about whether her paperwork would stand up to scrutiny. The last thing she wanted was anyone raking up trouble for her.
If Geraldine found out where she was, she’d have to up sticks and leave again. Holly would face her when the time was right and not before, otherwise she would have no chance of triumphing.
On the spur of the moment, she’d got off the bus a few stops earlier and walked to the street where she’d lived with Aunt Susan.
She’d already decided she wouldn’t just brazenly walk up to the house and knock on the door. She didn’t want to risk finding Keith home alone or Aunt Susan telling her they’d washed their hands of her.
She’d never received reply to the note she’d sent to her aunt and she’d taken that to mean she wanted nothing more to do with her niece. But now she realised that the chances were, Patricia had never even posted it. The last thing they’d have wanted, with hindsight, was her to keep in touch with relatives who might realise what was happening and convince her to leave Medlock Hall.
No. It was best if she just kept watch, visited a few times. She might get lucky and bump into her aunt. It was bound to happen if she kept coming here.
She had turned the corner and froze.
The terraced houses had now completely gone and in their place stood a sprawling block of offices.
As she had stood there aghast, a woman emerged from the offices.
‘Excuse me!’ Holly had crossed the narrow road. ‘Can you tell me when these offices were built? I’ve just returned to the area and I remember there used to be houses here.’
‘That’s right, we’ve been here… let’s see… about seven years now. Our business was one of the first to move in here.’
Holly had thanked her and watched as the woman went on her way.
In that moment and despite her aunt’s faults, she had felt so completely and utterly alone.
* * *
Once she had finished her juice, Holly walked into the living room and looked around at Cora’s drab, dated furnishing.
It was a decent-sized room and it would be improved no end by getting rid of the heavy lace nets that swamped the window and swapping the gloomy fabrics for bright modern prints.
If Cora would give her a free hand to make improvements, Holly knew she could work wonders in here, but she didn’t intend to broach the subject.
Cora Barrett was a woman most definitely set in her ways, and she had very rigid ideas of how things should be. Holly felt sure that in Cora’s eyes, the room looked perfect.
She glanced up at the Artexed ceiling and the tarnished brass candle chandelier above her head. Living here was like being beamed back to the fifties.
However, the house itself was impressive and Baker Crescent was considered one of the better roads in the area. In the future, with younger owners, Holly had no doubt the accommodation would be transformed. One day, the dusty old museum she stood in now would be just a vague memory.
She sighed and took hold of her thoughts again. Old patterns of depressive thinking weren’t going to help her put the whole awful mess behind her, of that she felt certain.
She peeked through the window, but thankfully there was no sign of Cora returning from the shops yet.
Without even really considering what she should do next, Holly padded upstairs and stood outside the front bedroom, Cora’s room.
The plain, glossed white door was closed, so she gave it a firm push. As it began to open, it caught on the carpet underneath, so she kept pushing.
The room smelled a little fusty, as if it hadn’t actually been used for some time.
It was over-filled with heavy walnut furniture that crowded it out and gave the otherwise sizeable space a claustrophobic feel.
The dusty burgundy velvet curtains were half closed, and Holly snapped on the light to save her squinting unnecessarily into the gloom.
She walked over to the chest of drawers that stood by the window. The top was a sea of framed photographs, many of them featuring a gloriously young and vibrant Cora with various people, but mostly with Harold, whom Holly recognised from their wedding photograph on the mantelpiece downstairs.
She picked one of the photos up and studied it. Cora stood clutching the hand of a young girl with ribbons in her hair on Blackpool seafront. Cora was smiling but the child looked surly.
The photograph was black and white, but Holly could imagine the dull grey colour of the foaming sea behind them and the dirty beige sand on which a group of hapless donkeys stood, waiting forlornly for their next riders.
She replaced the photograph and didn’t bother inspecting the others. She felt fed up enough as it was without studying those long-ago scenes. It was nice to see Cora looking happy in most of them, but when Holly compared that glowing girl with the wrinkled woman she had become, she felt even worse about her own future.