The Imposter by Anna Wharton (i have read the book txt) 📕

place has its individual notes. Ones we quickly become accustomed to; an infusion of dust and washing powder, perfume and aerosols, cleaning products, human skin. So far she’s been struck by an old-fashioned potpourri smell about the Kyles’ home, that and another bottom note, one she can’t quite put a name to, some kind of earthy, damp scent. She casts her mind back and wonders how she would have once described Nan’s house. Mothballs and old-lady perfume? There had been the cat then, too.

Suddenly light fills her room. Enough to define the shape of the wardrobe, the bed, a pile of her clothes on the floor. She scrambles up on the mattress, folding up her knees and wrapping her arms around them. A strip of light illuminates under the door. She sits on her pillow, holding her breath.

Outside on the landing, she hears the soft padding of footsteps. One or two floorboards creak underfoot. Perhaps Maureen or Patrick has got up to use the bathroom? But there’s something different about the creak of the door that opens, as if the sound is contained in the wall beside her. And there’s something else – it’s not followed by the soft ping of the pulley light in the bathroom, the stir of the electric air vent. Just a dull click that could almost be coming from inside her own room.

She gets up, tiptoeing across the floorboards. She presses her ear up to the door. She tries desperately to still her breath or at least slow it down so she can listen, but instead the rush of her own blood pounds inside her ears. Her hand reaches for the brass doorknob; she turns it, feeling it click underneath her grasp. The latch breaks free of the frame, and Chloe opens the door slowly, peering out onto the landing. All is still, all is dark. The moon beams through the small window at the top of the stairs, falling on Christ on the wall inches from her own head. Each door is still closed. No light shines out from underneath the bathroom door.

Perhaps she had imagined it. Perhaps what she thought were footsteps was actually the soft tap-tapping of the radiators, of the copper expanding and contracting between the joists. There would be a simple explanation. Only she’s about to return to the warmth of her sleepy duvet when she sees another slit of light. It is shining out from the room next to hers – the room Maureen told her is for storage. She stops still – something about the door is different. She realizes the shiny padlock has gone, and in the exact same second a shadow passes underneath the door. Someone is in there. Someone is in the padlocked room. And then, as quickly as that thought occurs, the light inside goes off. As if whoever it is knows she is watching.

Chloe stands once again in the darkness, the moon making her nightie shine whiter. She holds her breath, listens for another sound. But there is nothing. No one moving inside, no footsteps. All is absolutely still again.

Why would anyone be in there at this time of night?

She wraps her body around her own door frame as if it might offer something more solid. Now her mind really is racing. Her toes wriggle against the grain of the wood under her bare feet, a soft draught wraps itself around her ankles. She shivers.

She takes one step back into her room and closes the door, wincing as it clicks into place. Back in bed she peers out from under her duvet, once again unable to make out a thing in her room. She doesn’t hear another sound, as if it had all been a dream.

TWENTY-FIVE

Chloe times her arrival at Park House for just after the staff have finished clearing away lunch.

‘Hello, Chloe, we haven’t seen you in a while,’ says one of the care assistants as they buzz her in.

‘Yeah, I know. Work.’ She shrugs her shoulders and the woman nods like she understands.

‘Sometimes it’s hard to fit it all in, isn’t it?’ she says, throwing a tea towel casually over her arm. It’s a generic line Chloe is sure she’s used to rolling out here, but she nods as if it was meant especially for her.

‘Is Nan around?’ she asks.

‘Yes, she’s in her room, I think, but she usually has a nap after lunch.’

‘Oh,’ Chloe says.

‘Pop along anyway, she wouldn’t want to miss you.’

‘Thanks, yeah,’ Chloe replies. But she has no intention of waking Nan up.

Her door is closed when Chloe arrives at it. She doesn’t knock. Instead she lingers for a while in the corridor, wasting a few moments looking at the watercolours of bland fields that line the walls, the same kind you’d see in any care home. What is so attractive about this one-size-fits-all approach? As if people find safety in keeping things the same. It’s always been the opposite for her.

Chloe lets a few more minutes pass before she takes the circular corridor back round to the office.

‘No luck?’ the same carer says.

Chloe sighs. ‘Never mind. Will you let her know I popped by?’

‘Of course, no problem at all. Just sorry you had a wasted journey.’

Chloe heads out through the double doors. It’s a sunny day. Spring is starting to coax daffodils to reveal their faces and birds flit here and there happily. Chloe takes the short path around the back of Park House into Ferry Meadows. She comforts herself with the fact that at least she has tried to see Nan today.

Nan had recovered quickly after her fall, and Miriam had assured Chloe on the phone that what she needed was more rest, not to be exhausted with visitors. At least that’s how Chloe had interpreted it. Although, in truth, she only has one visitor, and that is her. But Chloe knows Nan finds it tiring to have someone sitting there, prodding at her with 2004 when she’s far happier back in the fifties