The Seance Read Free

of Asphodel, carpeted – or so I imagined them – with flowers of the richest purple, and when you were weary of tunnels you could ascend to the Elysian fields, where the sun always shines and music never ceases.

    At home, however, my dead sister was always with us. Mama had made a shrine of Alma’s room, a small chamber opening off her own bedroom, keeping everything as if Alma might reappear at any moment: the sheet turned down, Alma’s favourite rag doll by the pillow, her nightgown laid out, a posy of flowers in a vase upon the dresser. The door was always open, but no one else was allowed across the threshold; Mama did all the dusting and polishing of it herself, which suited Violet well enough, for she was lazy and hated climbing stairs. Violet slept in the attic bedroom across the landing from mine; sometimes at night I would hear her grumbling and puffing on her way up to bed.
    I wonder now why she stayed with us so long, for our house had so many stairs that you could scarcely go anywhere without climbing at least two flights. Apart from Violet, we had only Mrs Greaves the cook, who lived entirely in the basement. Mrs Greaves was a widow, grey-headed, stout and red-faced like Violet, but whereas Violet wobbled like a blancmange tied up in a cloth, Mrs Greaves was as round and solid as a barrel. Though the kitchen had only one grimy window into the area below the street, it was the brightest and warmest place in the house, for Mrs Greaves kept the gaslight turned as high as it would go, and in winter she would heap up the coals in the range until you could see the red glow pulsing through the cracks around the door. It was she who gave Violet her orders, which were carried out slowly and sullenly, but obeyed nonetheless. There was no laundry; the linen was sent out to a laundress.
    Outside of Alma’s room, Mama took no more interest in the housekeeping than in anything else, and I suppose that Papa either did not know what gas and coals ought to cost, or did not care so long as his serene existence was not disturbed. Mrs Greaves slept in a little room behind the pantry, opening on to a dank, high-walled courtyard. The dining- and drawing-rooms were on the ground floor; and Papa had the first floor to himself, with the library at the front, his study in the middle, then his bedroom, and a bathroom on the landing, so that there was no necessity for him to ascend any higher; at least, I had never seen him doso. Mama’s and Alma’s rooms were on the next floor up, along with the room that had been Annie’s, and above them the attics. My own little room faced eastward, and often on wintry Sunday afternoons, I would climb into bed for warmth and try to lose myself in the sea of slate and blackened brickwork stretching away towards the great dome of St Paul’s, thinking of all the lives going on behind those endless walls.

    I had always liked Mrs Greaves, but so long as I had Annie to speak for me I had been too shy to say more than ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘thank you’. And for a long time after Annie had left us, I missed her too much to want to make advances to anyone else. But as the months dragged by I was drawn to the light and warmth of the kitchen, especially on Saturdays, when Violet had her day off. At first I simply sat on a stool and watched; little by little I began to help, until I became quite proficient at peeling potatoes, rolling pastry and kneading dough. Sometimes I was even allowed to polish the silver, which I thought a great treat; all in all, it seemed to me that the life of a servant was far preferable to that of a lady.
    ‘I think I should like to be a cook when I grow up,’ I said to Mrs Greaves one winter’s afternoon. It had been raining steadily all day, and through the soft rumble of the stove I could hear water gurgling down the area drain.
    ‘I can see where you might think that,’ she replied, ‘but it ain’t like this, most places. There’s many a poor skivvy shiverin’