Abandoned

I don't know why we went there. I was only a little girl at the
time, about nine or ten I suppose. Funny, I haven't thought about the
place in years. It was that photograph that brought it back. My
research involves going through loads of old newspapers, local ones
especially. I was searching a batch from soon after the war when the
picture caught my eye. There was something about the house, with its
lawn sweeping down to the lake . . .

I remember sitting in the back of the car, bumping along an unmade
road. When we stopped, the moor stretched in every direction, bleak and
empty. Beside us was a wall with a wrought-iron gate opening onto an
overgrown drive.

I have the feeling that it was a Sunday afternoon in late autumn, one
of those dank, misty days, drained of all colour, that you get at the
end of October. We stood where the house had been. Demolished, years
ago, my father said. Only a grassed over space was left, with here and
there patches of black and white tiles showing through. I scuffed at
them with my shoe, hoping to uncover more, without success. Bored, I
wandered off to explore.

There was a terrace, now covered in moss and weeds. A short flight of
steps led down to what had been the lawn. I ventured out onto it a
little way. The grass, though dying back, was still long and wet enough
to soak through my socks. Mum would shout at me. I followed my own
track back to the remains of a gravel path. On one side of the lawn the
remnants of topiary, grown huge and misshapen, loomed over weed-choked
flowerbeds. I shivered and turned the other way.

This led me to a rock garden, a miniature mountain range. I scaled it,
scrambling up tiny paths and stairways, till I reached the summit and
looked down on the garden. My parents were nowhere to be seen. It was
totally quiet, still, not a sound of bird or insect. I could have been
the only one left on earth. I remember the strangeness of it, the
melancholy beauty of that dying garden, abandoned in the middle of
nowhere.

Beyond the rocks, I found a grove of apple trees. The ground was
carpeted with fallen leaves, apples glowing red among them. I picked
one up. It looked almost edible. I was tempted until I saw the
wormholes, and threw it away with a shudder. The air was heavy with the
sweet scent of rot.

Then I came to the lake. A large ornamental pond it was, really, with a
stone rim. On the far side a high wall reared up, blocking my view.
There was some sort of alcove, or grotto, in the middle of it,
decorated with shells. I had reached the end of the garden.

I decided to explore the grotto. The lake was completely dry, its bed
covered in moss and rushes. I began to pick my way across it.

Oddly enough, up till then I had found the garden strange and
fascinating, but in no way creepy or frightening. But as I moved
further and further out into the lake I began to feel - uncomfortable.
To feel that this was somewhere I did not want to be. The light was
starting to fade, and for a moment a panic terror threatened to
overwhelm me. I took one step further -

And all was changed. Sunlight glinted on water that reached to my knees
(and yet my feet were dry). All around me water lilies unfurled their
pink buds. I heard voices and laughter behind me and turned. A large
house stood where moments before had been empty space. Mock Tudor I
suppose I would call it now. I have a vague impression of red brick and
black and white gables. In the midst of a well-tended lawn a group of
people was sitting round a table, having tea. As I watched a maid in a
black dress with a white apron and cap approached them carrying a tray.
The sun shone down from a cloudless sky, yet I still shivered in the
chill of an autumn evening. I took a step forward, and the scene
wavered, became transparent.

"Who are you?"

I wheeled round, to see a girl of my own age, sitting in the grotto. A
small plump girl with golden curls and a pink hair ribbon. A book lay
open on her lap.

"I'm - I'm Janet," I stammered. "How did you get here?"

"I'm Molly, I live here. What are you doing in our garden?"

"I don't know," I said. "I was in another garden - only it was this
garden as well - and then I was here."

"Don't be silly," said Molly, "how could it have been our garden and
another one at the same time? I think you're a trespasser, and I'm
going to call father."

I stepped back, and the autumn garden seemed to superimpose itself upon
the summer one, like a doubly exposed photograph. I could see Molly
staring. She had dropped her book.

"How did you do that? I could see right through you."

"I don't know," I said again. "When I go one way I'm in your garden,
and the other way, I'm in mine. And when I'm in the middle I can see
both."

"Let me see," she said.

"You'll get you shoes and socks wet."

"No I won't." She took off her white socks and black patent leather
shoes and stepped into the lake. "Ooh, it's squishy."

"Now, show me," she said as she reached my side.

I took her hand and moved backwards, carefully. I heard her gasp.

"Oh. It's all different."

She dropped my hand and ran to the lake edge, scrambling up onto the
rim.

"Where is everyone? Where has the house gone?"

Something of what Dad had been telling Mum came back to me.

"I think it was knocked down. After the war."

"But the war - that was over ages ago. Before I was born. I don't
understand."

"Neither do I."

Molly shivered, as if suddenly aware how inadequate her light summer
dress had become in the autumn twilight.

"I don't like it here. I want to go back."

She began to walk towards the grotto. She had almost reached the far
bank when she stopped.

"Why hasn't it changed?"

"You can't be in the right spot," I said. I retraced my steps, trying
to remember exactly where I had been when the strange transformation
had occurred. "It was round here, somewhere."

Molly was casting backwards and forwards across an invisible line,
becoming increasingly agitated as she did so.

"I can't find it!"

She began to cry.

"Janet! Janet!" I heard my mother, as if from a great distance. "Come
along, we're going home."

"I have to go now," I said.

"But you can't, what about me!" cried Molly in panic.

"I've got to, they're calling me," I said. "Just keep on looking,
you're bound to find it."

"Janet, come here at once!"

Molly clutched at my arm, but I shook her off.

"Goodbye."

Her voice followed me as I ran through the long grass. "Please, don't
leave me . . . "

As I reached the terrace I looked back, half expecting her to have
vanished, but I could still make out her white dress through the
gathering gloom.

"Where on earth have you been?" demanded my mother. "I though we'd lost
you! And look at the state of you. Your shoes are soaked."

"Mum, Mum," I gasped. "There's a girl in the garden - "

But she wasn't listening. Grown-ups never did.
"Come along, your father's waiting in the car. Heavens, I don't know
what you were thinking of, going off like that. It's nearly
dark."

Well, I tried. Mum talked all the way back, as usual, and by the time
we were home it had already begun to seem like a dream.

It was a dream. It must have been. I was that kind of child, always
inventing things, stories, imaginary companions. Mother said I spent
most of my life in a dream. I'd forgotten the whole thing. I suppose I
did not want to remember - but what else could I have done? Anyway,
none of it really happened.

Only when I saw the headline 'Palatine House Demolished' I thought -
and the photo looked familiar. Though there's no reason to suppose it
was the same place, there's plenty of mock Tudor mansions around, and I
never knew exactly where it was. The story attached to the picture was
not very helpful, but one sentence did catch my eye.

'The house was empty for many years after the tragic loss of the
family's only daughter, who disappeared one afternoon while playing in
the garden'.

But as I said, I made it all up. Obviously. I was an imaginative
child.