‘How, though?’
‘Patience, Claude.’ She taps the card to the fob on the door before us, then clicks it open. ‘Patience.’
Brow creasing, more intrigued than anything now, I follow her into a fluorescently lit service room that holds several luggage trolleys, and a fire-door, which, with the same card, Ana opens.
As she pushes it wide, I feel a punch of cold. Curiosity growing, realising we’re heading into an un-refurbished section of the house, I follow her along another corridor. This time, the floor is stone, and the doors are of old wood. Lead-lined windows rattle in the wind, letting more icy air in.
Ana heads to the closest door, creaking it open onto what I recognise immediately as a servants’ staircase. I’ve acted on enough locations to know one. And I don’t question any more where we’re headed. It’s certainly not to any set, which are confined to Doverley’s ground and first floors, where there’s easy access for the rigs. An old drawing room has been repurposed as Iris’s billet, which she shared with Clare – who poor Emma is playing – but their room wasn’t in the main part of the house. No, it was as far away as could be got from the men in their offices.
It was up in Doverley’s attics.
‘I’ve worked it out,’ I say to Ana, as she lights her phone’s torch.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes.’ Then, so there’s no doubt, ‘We’re going to my room.’
‘Oh, Ilovethat you just said,myroom. Too bad you guessed though.’ She sighs. Then, grins. ‘No matter. It’s still gonna knock your socks off.’
She sets off at a jog, and, lighting my own phone, I follow, more slowly, distracted by the strange echoes our footsteps throw, and a tightening in my chest that takes me back to how I felt driving through the woods earlier. Just as then, I’m disorientated by the oddest sense of somehow having been here before.
‘Be careful now,’ Ana says, as I join her on the attic’s landing. ‘I doubt our insurance will cover any accidents. I probably should’ve got you to sign a waiver.’
‘How did you even find your way up here?’
‘Imogen gave me the route.’
I nod, making sense. Imogen’s relayed her explorations of Doverley in interviews, thanking Tim Hobbs for showing her around, back when he was in better health.My very own navigator.I haven’t yet met Imogen, but we’ve spoken on the phone quite a bit – mainly so I could pick her brain about Iris. Apparently, Imogen drew all her inspiration for her from Tim.
‘He’d talk and talk about her when we used to meet,’ she’s told me. ‘I’m certain he was in love with her, too. The way he spoke about her, I think he loved her very much.’
I felt no surprise, hearing her say that. She infers as much in her novel. She describes too how close Tim, Iris, and Robbie were growing up, all attending the same village primary school. It wasn’t far from here. Not far at all. Just like me, the three of them were children in this vast, rugged place, and even though I’ve known that a while now, it still makes my spine lengthen, thinking about the coincidence of it.
‘Come on,’ says Ana, swivelling her phone to light our path down a narrow hallway.
As we walk, I glance at the closed doors running either side of us, and find myself imagining the bustle that must have once filled this silent space. The air shifts in a whispering draft, and, for a disorientating second, it’s as though I hear it, still going on now.
Ana comes to a halt, opening a door midway down the hallway, and stands back to let me through.
Wordlessly, I go.
Then, I stop.
I stare.
The room before me is nothing like what I was expecting.
I’dexpectedit to be an empty shell.
But this room is furnished. Not extravagantly. Enough though for it to feel instantly like a home. Slowly, my hand trembling with the now almost choking proximity of the past, I move my torch, illuminating a pair of metal-framed beds wedged beneath sloping eaves. Both of them, unbelievably, still have their pillows on top of them. At their feet are two storage trunks, open and empty, but very easy to picture bursting with stockings and fair isle jumpers. To their right stands a chest of drawers with a mirror above it, and a dark dash of what might be nail polish staining the wood.
I turn back to Ana. ‘It’s as though they just left.’
‘I know, right?’
‘And you found it like this? You didn’t have the furniture moved up here?’
She laughs. ‘I knew you were gonna ask that. And no, I swear it. Jeff’s been finding loads of stuff around the place. I guess the RAF had more than they knew what to do with, once it was all over. Props are like kids at Christmas.’
