At the End of the Garden

Chapter Twenty

If I had anything nice to say about my Grandparents, it was that their house was gorgeous. Actually, saying that, I don't actually know when a house stops being a house and starts becoming a mansion. I think their home was somewhere between the two. The money that hadn't been put into my mother had obviously been put into this home. It looked old though I don't think it actually was with it's medieval charm. Dark wood beams that were made to same like they were holding the house up, the beige walls and black tiled roof. The front garden was huge too, but unlike Victor Quinn's, it was filled with plants and shrubs and bushes. We had to drive through a huge arch of ivy and flowers to get into the paved area we could park in.
A slightly saltier type of air drifted into my lungs the second I stepped out the car. The fact we were by the sea might have been more charming in the summer, right now it was just windier and colder than it was in London. The clouds that took over the sky right now were probably not the first thing you think of when you imagine a seaside home. Not that it overly ruined the scenery.

Every year, I get surprised when a butler doesn't open the front door. As always, it was my grandmother stood on the other side of the heavy looking wooden door. She was tall, like my mother and unlike me. Plus extremely thin. Her cheekbones and shoulder blades looked ready to tear through her skin. I'm sure the arms would look the same if they weren't always covered by a very Christian blouse on a non-Christian woman. She smiled when she saw us (I think), but made no effort to embrace us like Eden's grandmother would have. Instead, she exchanged a polite kiss on the cheek with my parents. When it came to me she examined me closely before stroking my hair. This apparent affectionate gesture was something my mum always did when people were around. My grandmother brushed the hair out of my face and patted it down before deciding maybe I was old enough to do the whole kiss on the cheek thing.
"You'll have to get changed before dinner." Was one of the first things she said to me that wasn't hello.
"I told her that before we left." My mum chimed in with a matter of fact tone. "But she insisted on being comfortable during the car journey."
My grandmother hummed, but in the end didn't seem overly bothered by it. It was like she was looking for things to say rather than purposely criticising me. Though I wasn't sure, she was hard to read.
Dad had been making trips to and from the car to bring in our suitcases, when he bought in the last one, the journey to take them up to our rooms began.
"You've not got your normal room this year." My grandmother began as I picked up my case. "We've put the twins in there, since it's bigger."
Great. These children had made my life more difficult and I hadn't even met them yet. I mean, it wasn't like I was particularly attached to the room. But still.
"I'll show which ones your new room." My grandmother gestured for me to follow her.
The stairs were the first thing you saw when you entered the house. They were wide and split in two direction at the top (like in a castle, I thought as a child anyway). I followed my grandmother up them, dragging my suitcase awkwardly before Dad came up from behind and took it from me. The three of us turned right at the top of the stairs and I entered a part of the house I was a lot less familiar with. No-one bothered to turn on a light switch in this corridor we'd entered. The only source of came from a window right at the very end of the hall and with the old looking wallpaper and carpet it made the place look very gothic.
"Your room was being used to store a lot of my things." My grandmother explained. "But we've cleared out most of it. I hope you don't mind."
Now I was imagining the room being packed with boxes or at least being incredibly messy, but when we got here it was practically empty.
It had a double bed right in the middle of the back wall where the ceiling was at its lowest and made an arch over the bed. For most of the room, the wallpaper was mauve, but the wall the bed was up against had a blue and red floral pattern. The colours didn't seem to mix well in my head, but it looked like it worked in this room. It made it seem fuller than it was. Opposite was a dark brown desk next to a matching set of drawers and a mirror hanging above. That was the give away that nobody used this room. Who wanted to sit up in their bed and see themselves in the mirror opposite? In fact, the whole room was too colourful for my grandparents, no wonder they used it for storage.
"We had it cleaned not too long ago, you shouldn't have to worry."
That was a relief, that would minimise the chance of me finding any spiders in here, but I suppose they could have crawled since it was cleaned. Although, they could crawl in to any room no matter how clean it was. I don't know what attracted spiders to a room. Probably fear.
"Thanks." I said, even if I did feel mildly inconvenienced.
"I'll leave you to unpack, your grandfathers in the living room when you're ready to come down." She said, before turning to leave.
Once my grandmother was gone, Dad inspected the room with closer details.
"Hey, this isn't that bad." He said, "it's a random design choice, but it's alright."
"This is the weirdest wallpaper I've ever seen." I commented as I sat on the bed, which was impressively comfortable, to take my shoes off.
Dad laughed, moving over to look at the dark purple curtains which matched the bed sheets. "You can see the sea from your room now, at least."
Once I was done, I walked over to see the view. He was right, the sea was not too distant and took up the whole horizon. The view in my old room on the other side of the house wasn't bad, there were fields and other pretty looking houses. Now, I could stare and imagine a huge wave coming in from the direction to sweep us all away. Maybe it looked nice in the summer, but there was something eerie about how the water reflected the greyness of the sky.
"I'll trade with you if you want. You can share a room with your mother." Dad said when he noticed my reaction.
"No thanks."
I'll admit, I was being a bit dramatic about my room. My distaste came from the fact I didn't want to be here at all, no matter what room I was in. I wondered what it would be like to spend one Christmas at home, or with my other Grandparents, who were equally as stuck up but a lot more fun. I had cousins my age on that side too. And what if Sidney came back? The thought had crossed my mind more often than it should have. What if he went back to my window and I was away? He wouldn't know where I was. Hold on. How did he know where I lived in the first place?
"I'm trying to think of my exciting ways to get out this house this year." Dad said, knowing neither of us particularly enjoyed spending time with my grandparents. "Though there's not much going on around her this time of year, perhaps we could go do a Café tour? See how many we can go to before the years up."
"That sounds fun." I said with real enthusiasm. It would mean I got to avoid the toddlers I hadn't met yet.
"Great. I'll get looking to see which ones are nearby." Dad said, moving away from the window. "Your mothers probably waiting at the bottom of the stairs for someone to carry her suitcase for her. You should go find your Grandad."
I nodded and prepared to do just that, although procrastinating a little by opening my suitcase and unpacking a few things, including Eden's present which I'd managed to fit into a side pocket halfway through the journey. I left the unopened gift on the desk and left the room.
It took me a moment to get my bearings, since I wasn't used to being on this side of the house, but managed to find my way back to the stairs and eventually made it to the living room. My mum was already in there, perched on a large sofa. My grandfather had his own chair closer to the fireplace. My mum urged me to sit next to her, and as I do so she draped her arms around me and started to talk about my last school report while I sat there, full of fear. Not sure whose behaviour concerned me the most, my mother, who was being unusually nice; or my grandfather who had done nothing but stare since I'd entered the room. It only got worse when the sound of at least four small feet came up from behind. Two unfamiliar sounding voices demanded to know who me and my mum were.
I envied the toddlers lack of fear, the little girl ran straight over to our grandfather and he lifted her onto her lap. The little boy watched us cautiously from the side of the armchair.
The twins were followed shortly by their mother, who seemed genuinely excited to see me and my mum.
"Marie, this is the first time you've met your little cousins, right?" Paige seemed far more excited than I was about the experience. She called her children over to her so she could introduce them. "This is Alice and Freddy."
"Fredrick and Alison." My mum interrupted for a reason I could only assume was because she hated shortened names. Lucky any cuts to my name made it sound ridiculous.
"Yes. But while they're cute little toddlers they can be Freddy and Alice."
Freddy and Alice feared the wrong things. They were completely comfortable with my gargoyle looking grandfather but kept their distance from me and my Mum. At least they had a sense of stranger danger.

The twins must have had aunts on the other side of the family because they had no trouble saying 'auntie' to my mum, but the little girl insisted on calling me 'marry' rather than Marie. If it wasn't sort of cute, I might have been irritated by it.
Though it was their cuteness that drained on me. When the pair figured out I was here to stay, they quickly became less cautious of me. It seemed to click with them that I wasn't part of adult conversation like their parents were, who wouldn't devote their full attention to their children when mingling. At first, I thought they were saving me from a boring after dinner discussion, and I thought it was cute. Alice would come over to me with an arm full of toys and say, "Marry, block!" And would hand me a few. I spent most of that evening wondering if I'd anticipated meeting my cousins a little too much.
But by day three of my visit, Christmas Eve, they'd drained the life out of me. At every possible moment they could find me, I was dragged into whatever they were doing. And they always found me. I got told where to sit, how to stack blocks, was given toys to turn on and off, forced to keep counting to ten so they could hide. At one point, Freddy was very insistent that I should take just one of my socks off. I was practically their toy, because if I didn't do as I was told they were both going to cry. The house was big, but the children had loud enough gobs to send their screams through all of it.
So I'd taken to hiding in my room and pretending to do my homework just to get away. I was disappointed that Dad hadn't extended his offer to try any new cafes yet, I was bored hiding from my cousins and would much rather be out the house.
That meant the day before Christmas, I was inclined to stay in my room. With nothing to do, I walked over to the window to look for inspiration on activities I could do when confined into this small space. My grandparents had no game consoles, even if they did the two devils wouldn't give me a chance to play it. I didn't feel like actually doing my homework, especially not on Christmas Eve, so that left my choices pretty bland.
I didn't want to look at the ocean ahead of me for too long so looked down instead. The garden wasn't as big as Eden's, but connected right onto a field, so still felt like it was. Most of the garden was white stone which was usually covered in furniture which had been put away thanks to the rainy and windy weather. It wasn't completely empty outside. I could see, looking out into the garden and leaning on the fence, was Dad. I opened the window to shout to him, but only got as far as letting cold air in when another voice made me stop.
"She's got more patience with toddlers than I do." I couldn't see my mother, but could hear her voice.
"I'm surprised how good she is with those two. And almost jealous of how much they like her over me." My dad answered.
"You're not getting another one." My mum said. "I've been through that process more times than I'd like."
Dad laughed dryly. He didn't look at his wife, instead stared out into the garden.
"I can tell she's fed up. We should consider ourselves lucky she hasn't decided to lash out at one of them like a certain someone else" My mum said and followed it with a laugh.
Dad didn't seem to find it as funny, and after a short pause said: "poor kid, I feel sorry for him."
I froze. Had my mum been making fun of Eden?
"Oh, don't, he's a fifteen-year-old boy." My mum said. "It's Victor I feel sorry for."
This was the moment Dad turned to face my Mum. From what I could see he didn't look particularly impressed.
"What?" My mum said. She always spoke in this tone, not sounding angry but like she was challenging her husband. "It's not fair, first his son lashes out. Then another child, the one his son hit by the way, goes missing from his school. It's a tough break."
"Another missing child?"
"It was years ago, but still, it doesn't look particularly good on him. Come on, don't look at me like that – you would have kept Marie off school if you knew." My mum continued.
"You have no sympathy for Eden at all?"
"Why should I?"
Dads gaze intensified.
"He's not my responsibility." I could hear my mum shrugging.
Dad sighed. It was so cold outside I could see his breath escape his mouth.
"On that note, I'm going back inside. I think I owe my daughter an opportunity to escape her cousins."
And with that, he walked towards the house. I slammed my window shut. Unsure what to make of the conversation I'd just heard. I'd never heard my parents fight, just them making snide comments at the other (my mother usually). But Dad sounded somewhat angry. Maybe angry wasn't the word, just frustrated. I didn't know what I was missing that would make me understand why. I saved my thoughts for later and prepared myself for the moment he came up and knocked on my door.

*****

I barely edited this because I have five assignments due within the next two weeks. Good luck in reading it. And I genuinely forgot to update last week. The chapter was just sitting there finished and unpublished.