G is for Ghosts by Rhonda Parrish

Author:Rhonda Parrish
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poise and Pen Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

It always takes a while deciding whether a new place will be a suitable home, and I believe it’s not something that can be forced or rushed. I was quite happy to spend the days getting familiar with our flat and the gardens. Mrs. Pott and her children somehow managed to inhabit the entire ground and first floors. I wasn’t sure how the three of them did it. Did they actually use all of those rooms? I was very curious to see the rest of the house, but was in no rush. And the main thing was for Mother to feel that this was an appropriate home, and that, I knew, would take a bit of time.

I spent a good deal of those first few days in the back garden. It was a magical, overgrown place. Fairy tale tangled with brambles and untamed shrubs. Bees hovered, lazy and hedonistic, weighted down by pollen breeches. Time moved differently in the garden. An hour could stretch, spun sugar like, to last days. It was delightful.

Most of the time Mrs. Pott was occupied with chores in the kitchen, or with driving into town to help with the various committees and clubs she was ever-busy with. Finding that Mother and I were without a car, she insisted on picking up groceries and toiletries for us. She never seemed to stop. Vivacious is the word that comes to mind when I think of her. Yes, vivacious.

I started to spend time with Mara while Mother was resting, which she needed to do more and more. At first, Mara would come and sit on the back terrace overlooking the tangled garden while I lay on the grass. But slowly, like a feral cat, she would come closer and want to talk.

“How long has your family lived in this house?” I asked one afternoon as we sat together on the long grass. It was the sort of majestic home that could have been in a family for generations.

“My parents bought it just before Oliver was born. So, a while.”

“How did your father die?” I asked, emboldened by a feeling of intimacy which was, perhaps, fuelled by the lovely weather and the droning of the sun-warmed bees. Mara brought her knees up under her chin, held them in place with knitted fingers. For the first time, I could see the young child in her. The vulnerability.

“Car accident.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He was with his mistress from town. She had her hand down his trousers. He drove into a tree. They both died instantly.”

Perhaps that explained the heaviness hanging over the siblings, and the non-stop action of the mother as well as her refusal to let Mara associate with the girls from town.

“What about your father?” she asked, as I should have guessed she would.

“I…I never knew him.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“Your mother doesn’t seem like that type of woman.”

I shrugged. There was really nothing more I could add.

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