Storm

I would never forget that rainy day when I had forced my battered old car up a matted, overgrown corridor of trees that I thought might lead to Glendower, until it was stopped in its tracks by a fallen oak blocking all passage. I got out, clambered over the tree and pushed on relentlessly. The rain streamed over my body, seeping into every crevice, and flattening my hair into coils of string that stained my back and front, and slapped my face in damp unruly clumps. When I finally arrived at the top of the long slope, I was practically on my knees in the undergrowth, and must have looked like something that had crawled its way out of the seaweed-strewn surf that follows a raging storm. I stood up in the tightly restrictive area that should have been the drive near the house’s entrance and took in the view.
Glendower was exactly as I’d seen it so many times in my post card. It stood facing the moor country, a large square-fronted building arranged around a courtyard. It had two storeys with a third half-visible at attic level, a huge portico with steps and pillars, and tall, thin doors at its entrance, three quarter paned with glass. It was made of granite mixed with a lighter stone I couldn’t place that had been sited strategically, for decorative purposes. It was majestic, aloof and indifferent. I peered closely through the curtaining rain, but Glendower’s many-windowed eyes stared blankly back at me, giving no hint of what might lie behind them. I shivered slightly, and felt watched by someone unseen.
The inveterate trees seemed to crowd around the building and threaten its very existence. I realised just how poorly the whole estate had been looked after. It was suffering from a serious kind of neglect, not quite terminal, and the house, although not yet ruinous, was well on its way. As I stood in the rain, it seemed to soften its toughened edges, and provided an interesting assortment of grey shades instead of the usual monotone, capped by slate roof
tiles the colour of deep brackish water.
I thought of all those families who had lived and loved and died here. I believed that this house had been built in the eighteenth century, but there had been a family seat here for many generations before this, I knew. I wondered what had happened to the previous houses, and faintly recalled something about one being razed to the ground by fire. It was completely impossible, but it seemed to me that this house had stood here since the dawn of time itself.
The smack of waves roared across the land behind the house. I realised abruptly how close the back must be to the Atlantic cliffs that run up this shore, picking their way over a ships’ graveyard of distress to the next habitable inlet, on and on, all the way to Hartland Point. As I listened to the thunderous waves I wondered whether there was a beach or cove that belonged to this house, and I wanted to know this very badly. I contemplated walking round the house and finding out if there was any sort of path, but then I remembered the threat of a shotgun shoved up my nostrils, and decided against the idea. I would have to screw up all my courage and knock on the imposing door, that much was obvious. I put off the moment.
Although it was a warm September day, I found myself shivering suddenly. Ghosts, I thought. They must march everywhere round here, and they aren’t exactly used to guests intruding on their territory. I turned my back to the house and looked out over the land below me, tracing its turns and boundaries. It seemed at first glance to be all tree, shrub and brush, but if you looked closely it was possible to pick out a few demarcation lines where the Glendower fields had once been laid out, with proportional neatness. Away on the South West boundary I could see the Barton Farm buildings.
There were other buildings near the house, but I wasn’t sure what these were. All I could really see was parts of roofs poking through the autumn glory of the leaves.  My mind raced over a few possibilities: Outbuildings? Stables? New build properties? Despite straining my eyes, I could see no discernible pattern, and gave up, frustrated.
I had a powerful sense that I belonged here, as if I had some connection with this house. I knew this was impossible, yet the feeling persisted. It never left me for the time I was there, but it made no sense at all. It was as if I had been here before, yet absolutely nothing was quite how it was supposed to be. It discomfited me and made me feel unsettled long after I left.
Caught in such a reverie, I didn’t see or hear the woman who approached me from the side of the house until she was almost on top of me. She looked me up and down in a very obvious way. Well into her sixties, she seemed to belong to another time. For a moment, I thought she really was a ghost, but then she spoke to me in a low voice.
“And who might you be then?” Her voice was thick with the local accent, and she seemed to be just passing the time of day; but I wasn’t fooled, not even for a minute.
“I think I’m a bit lost…” I said casually, producing a map and asking for a footpath I knew was located a couple of miles to the West of the house. “Can you tell me where I am on here?” I pushed the folded, damp map towards her, but she wasn’t buying it. “Is this the Barton?” I asked, trying to sound at once innocent and appealing. She never even looked at the map.
“No, that’s over there.” She raised a worn hand to point across the hill. “This is Glendower, as I’m sure you know, young lady…”
I smiled at her and wrinkled my nose.
“Why do you say that? I was out walking, and I got lost. I didn’t know that this house was even here. Who does it belong to anyway?” She laughed.
“I’m sure you know that too,” she said. “You look to me as if you came prepared. No one in their right mind would choose a day like this to go walking, now would they? Not without some purpose. And by the look of things, you’re not short of that.”
Despite the fact that she sparred with me, she seemed friendly enough. It crossed my mind that
maybe they were just starved of visitors, and the rumours I’d heard were all exaggerated. I knew I needed to close the deal and get inside the house in the next few minutes, or I’d lose the chance. Gatekeepers are always the hardest people to get around, and I knew it. So did she. I should have considered this, as it was now obvious to me that Luke Tregenza would have at least one. At this rate I was going to be reduced to asking if I might use the toilet.
We eyed each other across the gap, although she had the advantage of standing under the house’s raised, protective portico, so it was only I that continued to drown as the rain came down relentlessly all over me.
“Look, I wonder if I might come in for a few minutes, just to get dried off. It’s a long way back, and I’ve obviously taken a wrong turn somewhere…”
“Mmm,” she considered this. “Maybe the rain will stop, but I don’t think so myself.” The conversation wasn’t exactly going in the direction I wanted it to. “Alternatively,” she spoke very slowly and calmly now, “you could come indoors and tell me what you’re really doing here, while I decide whether or not we need to call the police.”
Well, it was the nearest thing I’d had to a good offer all day, so I took it. In theory, it should have got easier after that. Getting over the threshold was usually the hardest part, and I didn’t really believe she had any intention of calling the police, as she would have already done it. And anyway, she had no need. It was apparent that she was more than capable of seeing me off all by herself.
We passed through a lobby area, with a chestnut tiled floor, a washing machine and tumble dryer occupying most of it. They looked brand new and very under-used. There was a frosted glass door set in a wooden screen and then we were in a large space that appeared to be a kitchen/breakfast room. It was truly captivating. There was wood paneling round the walls, but only up to waist height, so the rest of the wall right up to the high ceiling was uncluttered
and spacious. Despite this airy effect, I could see that the house was in need of some overdue interior attentions. The paint was half-hearted in its colour, and there were cobwebs in abundance.
The room was full of light, despite the low-slung cloud and pouring rain that had split the day. It had the same tall paned windows that I had seen at the front of the house, and each of these had an internal casement shutter that could be swung over it. I imagined this woman heaving these back every morning and closing them again at night. I guessed this was where she spent most of her time.
The room was quite untidy. Domestic remains littered it and there was an ironing board placed ready for use in the space between the kitchen units ending and the eating area beginning. She rummaged about in a pile of clothing for a lengthy period, and then tossed me a towel. It was the kind of towel I remembered from years back when I still felt safe and small: threadbare yellow with turquoise fish and a hand-made ugly orange fringe that may have once been intended to set it off. I knew she had made it herself a very long time ago.
“Here, use that to dry yourself,” she said. As I began mopping the rain out of my hair and clothes, she filled a huge, aging kettle and placed it to boil on the Aga that dominated the kitchen space. She motioned towards a wheel-backed chair, arranged with others around a six-foot table.
“You may as well sit while I make the tea.”
I did so, and went on rubbing my hair in silence. I felt unnerved and wondered what she was going to say next.
Within ten minutes, she had placed a mug of steaming tea in front of me, sat down opposite, stirred three heaped spoons of sugar into her own cup and advised me to do the same. She set her elbows on the table between us, suspending her cup in her hands near her chin.
“Now,” she said. “What is it that you really want?”
Her question was so direct, it made me sharply aware of how unfamiliar this was to me these days. I took as deep a swig of my over-sweet, searing tea as I was able to before I answered.
“Well, it’s the house,” I lied. “I’ve heard about it, and I’ve seen so many glimpses when I’ve driven along that road down in the valley, it fascinates me. I wanted to come up here and see what it was really like for myself.”
“Hmm,” she said, regarding me with her blue-grey eyes, which I remained unable to meet. I registered how unusual this is – I almost never had trouble looking people in the eye. Rather, I had problems because I did it too often and defiantly and the recipients of this behaviour generally didn’t like it. I was used to being in charge, but here I felt anxious and vulnerable. Flashes of experience came back to me, and I started to remember the wilderness I had occupied for so many years.
“You know, people around here talk about Glendower constantly. I just wondered what it would be like really…” I trailed off, knowing she didn’t believe a word I was babbling, but I could hardly say that I’d come because I thought Mr Luke Tregenza might be my father. Or, worse, that my pimp expected me to get the story of how he had really murdered his wife out of him by sundown, if not earlier.