House of Echoes by Barbara Erskine Page B

workshop – with small business grant –’ he had all the papers spread out over the dining room table – ‘herb nursery, play group and counterfeit money press.’
    She laughed. ‘I’m glad we’re not contemplating anything too ambitious. Pour me a glass of wine to celebrate and we’ll drink to Grant, Grant and Davies Industries.’ She hauled Tom onto her lap and dropped a kiss onto his hair, screwing up her face at the smell of oil and hand cleaner and dirt. ‘You need a bath young man.’
    Tom wriggled round to smile dazzlingly up at her. ‘Tom go swim in the water outside,’ he said.
    Joss froze. Her arms tightened round him as suddenly the image of another small boy rose before her eyes, a small boy collecting tadpoles from the lake.
    ‘No, Tom,’ she whispered. ‘Not outside. You don’t swim outside. Not ever.’

9
                                          
    ‘L uke?’
    ‘Mmm.’
    Luke was poring over some papers, sitting at her mother’s desk in the study. They had had supper and had brought the last of the bottle of wine, eked out from lunch, to drink by the fire. Joss was sitting on the rug, feeding twigs to the hungry crackling flames. Outside the curtains a deep penetrating frost had settled over the silent garden.
    ‘I suppose with a cellar full of wine, we could afford to open another bottle, couldn’t we?’ Beside her sat a box of letters and papers, extricated from beneath some old silk curtains in the bottom drawer of the chest in her bedroom. It was still tied with a piece of string. The label on the box said Bourne and Hollingsworth. It was post marked September 23 1937 and addressed to John Duncan Esq, Belheddon Hall, Essex.
    ‘We could. But one of us would have to fetch it.’
    ‘Bags you do.’
    He laughed. ‘Bags we both do. It means we’d have to go down there.’
    ‘Ah.’ She bit her lip.
    ‘It’s not so scary, Joss. There’s electric light and hundreds and hundreds of wonderful bottles. No rats.’
    ‘I’m not scared of rats!’ She was scornful.
    ‘Right then.’ He threw down his pen and stood up. ‘Come on.’
    ‘Why don’t I fetch the corkscrew from the kitchen?’
    ‘Joss.’
    She gave an awkward shrug. ‘It’s just – Luke, one of my brothers died falling down the cellar stairs.’
    He sat down again abruptly. ‘Oh, Joss. Why didn’t you tell me?’
    ‘I only found out this morning from Mary Sutton. But last time,when you went down – I felt it. Something strange – something frightening.’
    ‘Only the smell of cold and damp, Joss.’ His voice was very gentle. ‘Surely there would be nothing frightening about a little boy’s death. Sad, yes. Very sad. But a long time ago. We are here now, to bring happiness to the house.’
    ‘Do you think so?’
    ‘Why else did your mother give it to you?’
    ‘I’m not sure.’ She hugged her knees, gazing into the flames. ‘She gave it to me because my father wanted me to have it.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s strange. He seems such a shadowy figure. No one talks about him. No one seems to remember him.’
    ‘He died a long time before your mother, didn’t he? That’s probably why.’ He stood up again. ‘Come on.’ Stooping he caught her hand and hauled her to her feet. ‘We’ll find a bottle of Philip’s best and get gloriously uninhibited, while Tom’s asleep and we’ve still got the house to ourselves. Sound good?’
    ‘Sounds good.’ She reached up and kissed him.
    The key was in the door. Turning it, Luke reached round into the dark for the light switch and clicked it on, looking down the wooden stairs towards the small underground vaults and the wine racks. Dust lay over the bottles. The cellar was very cold. Cautiously he padded down the steps ahead of Joss and waited for her at the bottom. ‘OK?’
    She nodded. The air was a curious combination of stale and fresh – the stillness and silence of a tomb and yet, through the mustiness, the clear freshness of