The Rocking Horse

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The house was as she remembered it. Not the detail. She’d been too frantic for that. But the moonlit sweeping drive outlining curved lawns, the stately staircase to the front door and the large porcelain button, that when pressed produced a thin anticlimactic ring, brought the memories back.  She pressed it again, almost exactly one year since the last time. Then, Peter lay dying. Now he was dead and she was deathly calm.

 

The door slid open a few inches and a creased, gaunt face revealed itself through the gap.

 

‘Mr Kellaway? I’m Christine Spencer, your home carer.’

 

The door opened wide. ‘Oh yes. You’re twenty minutes late. But never mind. Take your shoes off and come in, come in.’

 

Christine removed her shoes and placed them on the door mat. ‘It’s very dark in these parts, very hard to find which house is which.’

 

Mr Kellaway didn’t respond, just walked along the hallway into a back room. Christine assumed that she was meant to follow. The room was not large, a curious mixture of library and play room. The walls were lined with books but across one corner tucked beside a sofa was a giant rocking horse. In another corner was a severe looking woman who studied Christine as she stepped into the room.

 

‘This is my wife,’ said Mr Kellaway.

 

Christine and Mrs Kellaway nodded to each other.

 

‘We’re away in the country for Christmas, just for the week,’ Mr Kellaway said.

‘Yes, the agency told me,’ said Christine.

‘Quite. Well we have no pets,’ he went on. ‘Filthy creatures. But we do have much that we would not wish to risk while away. Our insurance policy requires the house to be occupied overnight, hence your need to be here. I won’t go round the house explaining the value of everything. Suffice to say everything is valuable to us.’

‘I’m sure I’ll manage to cope,’ said Christine.

‘We need the rooms cleaned and dusted every day.’

‘The agency told me your need for scrupulous cleanliness.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mrs Kellaway. ‘I have to say that we’ve been pleased with the agency’s services in the past.’

 ‘We will phone during our trip,’ said Mr Kellaway, ‘just to be sure that there are no problems.’

 

Christine said nothing. There were going to be problems such that they had never dreamed. Mr Kellaway showed her the kitchen, the bathroom, her temporary bedroom, the cupboard where the cleaning equipment was stored, the security system and the remainder of the house stuffed with pictures, porcelain, sculptures and bric-a-brac the value of which she couldn’t begin to guess and cared not anyway.

 

As they left the house Mrs Kellaway said, ‘We would appreciate your not wearing outdoor shoes in the house. And we do not want any visitors. Is that understood?’

 

‘Perfectly Mrs Kellaway. Even if they are in danger or in need of urgent help, I assume.’

 

There was a look of puzzlement on their faces. Christine smiled to herself.

 

‘Nobody means nobody,’ said Mr Kellaway.

 

 Then they were gone and a river of silence flowed rapidly through the house.

 

Christine looked at the white, deep pile carpet that ran from the front door the length of the hallway. She could see why she would not have been welcome that night. She would have been covered in blood and filth and oil. The car had crashed at high speed into an old oak. Peter had been drinking. She knew she should have insisted on a taxi but the right moves are easy to see when you look back on your life. Time is not the great healer. It’s the great restrictor. The past is hazy and the future is locked out. But not for her. She knew now what needed to be done and why.

 

Beside her was a large vase containing dried oriental plants. Clearly not real, thought Christine. That would have meant feeding them with the risk that some water might touch the carpet. She picked up the vase and dropped it heavily on to the floor.  A large piece at the rim broke away and bounced helplessly against the wall. She wandered into the utility room and rummaged in the cleaning cupboard.

 

Nobody had come to their aid. Neither the horn nor the alarm had been set off by the crash but she would have thought the thump of metal on tree trunk would have alerted someone. The car was almost vertical against the oak and Peter was screaming. He was hanging by his legs, trapped by the crunching pinchers formed by the dashboard, the steering wheel and the floor. His body was stretched over her legs and she was hanging out of the open passenger door some feet off the ground held by her safety belt.

 

Christine picked up a bottle of bleach and some cleaning fluids and walked into the dining room allowing the bleach to flow out of its container as she went. She squirted a stream of cleaner on to the dining table. It was a French period piece she guessed and the lazy arc of white added an incongruous modern styling. She picked a cushion from an armchair and rubbed it thoroughly across the table surface.

 

She had managed to scramble to the ground and found the surrounding houses invisible behind trees, high walls and locked gates. Where was her mobile? She had no idea, couldn’t think straight. Peter’s cries were fading. ‘I’ll get help,’ she yelled but he didn’t reply. This had been the nearest accessible house. But when she reached the door, the couple had looked at her in horror and said they couldn’t help. ‘I just want to use the phone,’ she screamed. But they closed the door. She screamed again. ‘Just phone for an ambulance. Please.’ She hit the door with her fists. ‘Please.’ She ran back to the car. The night was black and there were no street lights. The mobile was usually in her handbag. She felt around the floor by her seat but felt nothing but Peter’s silent head.

 

Christine wandered slowly along the hall, up the stairs and along the first floor balcony gently knocking every sculpture and vase off its pedestal as she went. Perhaps she would rest. She didn’t need to sleep but it would be pleasant contemplating what to destroy next and which way would be the most enjoyable. Over the next few hours, every piece of porcelain had been broken, every painting had been scored or stabbed with a kitchen knife and every chair had been scratched or splintered by contact with a vase or lamp as she brought it crashing down from above her head.

 

Peter had died that night in hospital. He could have been saved if he had received help quickly. A man walking his dog had made the emergency call. In her less grief stricken moments, Christine could understand the fear of strangers these people might have had, squirreled away in their cosy, wealthy, pristine home, but it was worse than that. She learnt at the inquest that no other phone call had been made.

 

Christine wandered into the library as the phone rang. She did not answer it. She was allowed to leave the house temporarily so they would repeatedly phone until she responded. After two or three hours they would know there was something wrong and phone the agency. The agency of course would know nothing about it. It had not been difficult to arrange the cancellation of the carer. The agency would simply have assumed that the Kellaways had changed their plans. Christine imagined their reaction once they discovered that they had allowed a stranger into their precious home. Would they be as frantic as she had been when refused even a phone call? And when they arrived back, how desperate would they be to see their art and their antiques destroyed, maimed and beyond repair? As desperate as she was when she lost Peter? She looked at the rocking horse in the corner of the room. She liked rocking horses and had left it undamaged. She and Peter used to ride their own horses every weekend. It was their first love, how they met and how they lived.

 

The phone rang again. One last task. She unfolded some newspaper cuttings and read them briefly for the hundredth time; the report of the car crash, the inquest on the driver’s death and a second inquest, on his wife who, some months later, had consumed a bottle of anti-depressants. She laid the cuttings neatly on the damp, bleached coffee table and climbed gently on to the rocking horse to wait and watch the faces of the returning owners.

 

 

And amongst the detritus of their lives they might eventually get to wonder why the rocking horse remained unmarked and was swaying gently back and forth amongst the broken books. Perhaps it was the cold breeze dancing through the shattered windows.