Stoker Chapter 2 - Happy Birthday

It is a crisp, clear summer day. Today is my birthday. I am eighteen.

It is a special day but at the same time a perfectly ordinary one. I am merely a day older than I was yesterday, or a year older if you count from the last time the day was fêted. In truth, age does not merit its own reward, but I am looking forward to the quiet family celebration planned for the evening nonetheless. It is one of those rituals which we carry out unbidden to distinguish such days from others, behavioural bookmarks in the unbroken narrative of our uneventful lives. But the best part is that in exchange, I get the morning and afternoon entirely to myself, to do with as I wish.

I am always at my happiest when I am exploring our grounds and the fields which border them. Though I must have covered every inch during my eighteen years, having fallen in love from the time I took my first wobbling baby steps on the lawn before the house, clinging tightly to my father’s hands, I see something new every single time. Here is a proud new bud that was still a plump little node yesterday; there in the mud, the tracks of a fox who must have hunted here last night, holly-beads of blood on his whiskers. Nature unveils its infinitesimal secrets so slowly, so reluctantly that most people do not notice the seasons changing until the fallen leaves are already thick on the ground, or frost patterns have begun to trail their white-glitter fingers over the cold windows.

Now I roam far and free, wading through the sea of tall swaying grass, in no-one’s company but my own, stopping frequently to admire the fragrant, the favourite, the familiar all around me. It is a wholesome, glowing day, and everything seems lucid and shining, created in the greatest of detail. I can count each blade of grass and revel in the knowledge that it belongs to me. The fields are more of a home to me than my home is. I
imagine curling up in the bracken each night, lulled by the scents of the soil and the leaves, so soft that they are like spirits of scents, ghost-fragrances.

My loose hair swings in a darkly gleaming swatch over my shoulders, the untamed weedy tangles of the forest pricking at my bare calves and shoulders, seeds clinging, hopeful stowaways, to the loose white lace of my dress. My battered saddle shoes clip the ground smartly as I run, flashes of black-white-black-white like a zoetrope. A sudden stab of pain blooms across my heel; wincing, I set myself down in the dappled shade under the oaks and ease off one too-tight shoe. Gently I poke the creamy raised lump of the blister with the sharpest pine needle I can find until it sinks, a burst bubble; the granite statue opposite might be watching in concern or disdain, but its features are so weathered it is impossible to tell.

Listen, my father says whenever we walk here. Can’t you hear all the little chirps and rustles of timid hidden things? Birds and rabbits and mice and squirrels peeking out at us from their hidey-holes. Of course I can hear them; all those and more that I wish I could share with him. I listen now, enjoying the controlled cacophony of nature; the electric hum of the insects, the round golden ring of sunlight infiltrating the tight-packed earth like a damp finger circling the rim of a copper bowl.

Dangling the shoes from lazy fingertips, I savour the searing heat of the tennis court tarmac against my soles. Maybe I will play against my father later, after dinner. I love the grace in each of his serves, the dizzying, howling vortex of air that swirls in the wake of each ball. My mother might watch narrowly from the sidelines, a romance novel with
the spine still uncracked a photogenic prop in her lap; or she might dispense with the charade and stay home, pleading a headache. I empty the bucket of balls onto the court now with a chorus of hard plunk-plunk-plunks; oversized neon hailstones falling, then falling in reverse, then falling again, on and on and on, until my eyes blur greenly from
watching. The heat is a dull, hovering haze in my head. I seek shade, shinning up the sturdy Y of my favourite tree, straddling the fork for balance.

That’s where I find it.

I savour the momentary thrill of surprise which ripples from throat to navel, smiling at the white oblong box balanced in the crook of the tree. It is tied with a yellow ribbon so bright I can almost taste lemon on my tongue, just like every year. A matching notecard is tucked under the bow, wishing me a Happy Birthday in a calligraphic script, elegant
and anonymous. My eager fingertips stroke the silken sheen before slowly tugging the ribbon, watching the knot-heart unravel, an opening bud. I lift the lid.

The box is empty.

I blink at the translucent layers of creamy nest-paper, still preserving the ghost imprint of the object they once enveloped. Gingerly I raise the box and shake it, the lid gaping at me like a mocking mouth. Something small slides hidden beneath the tissue, striking the cardboard confines. This is a different kind of surprise; this one chills rather than warms, just as the voice of a wrongly-struck key jarrs sharply, shattering the comforting cradle of the melody. A strange shiver passes over my skin in a cold breath of warning. I do not want to understand. Tucking the box under my arm, I slide from the tree and run with the
urgency of the pursued through the cooling fields back to the house.

This house has always belonged to my father’s family, and it is my father who revealed to me all the strange tucked-away corners and nooks and alcoves of his boyhood; hidden staircases behind disguised doors, peepholes from which you can see someone but they are unaware of your silent presence. It is a house made for secrets, made of secrets. The darkly gleaming mahogany of hard-backed chairs and claw-footed tables is rich and heavy with them; they flit across the gaudy dreamscapes of my mother’s prized bone-white porcelain. Secret sounds come from the kitchen, the hub of activity; rustlings of paper, the metallic clinking of cutlery, the brisk slams of closing cupboard doors. One of the housekeepers catches sight of me as I pass and hurriedly shuts the door; the raucous medley of voices sinks to a low murmur. In pleasant anticipation I hasten away to wash my hands, brush pollen and burrs from my skirts. Far away, the telephone shrills. I expect it to be Auntie Gin, calling to wish me many happy returns, and dart out still clutching a towel; but it is not her, and it is not for me. I hear my mother’s voice, bright at first, then wrongfooted, wavering; there are several pregnant pauses. The kitchen sounds have stilled; all that stirs the deathly hush is the solemn ticking of the grandfather clock in the passage. All at once I know there will be no birthday celebrations. This has been a day of terrible secrets, and one more, one which somehow I know will be the heaviest, has just been added to the number. As if to prove me right, the calm before the storm breaks; my mother lets out a full-throated shriek: “Richard!”

Something heavy crashes to the floor. The whole house seems to shake with the impact. Everything is a confusion of frenzied activity, raised voices, loud footsteps.

Slowly, heavily, I make my way to the dining room, the curtains still drawn. A beautiful chocolate cake, resplendent with delicate white roses and crowned with a round chocolate plaque iced with my name, sits abandoned. I sit silent at the long table where my parents should be, sat on either side of me, wreathed in smiles. I rest my head on my folded arms and watch the smoke from the extinguished candles coil snakelike up the
walls of the bell jar. The room is cold.

I can’t help myself. I think of ghosts.

Happy birthday, India.