Someone Else’s Wallpaper

19Jul08

A horror story originally published in “Not for Bedtime” (Infinity Junction).  Wallpaper can’t grow roses, can it?

Someone Else’s Wallpaper

“I swear I can smell roses,” Charlotte muttered to herself, but as she looked round the room the only roses she could see were crowded on the wallpaper climbing around a green trellis design. A masculine attempt at a feminine touch if ever I saw one, she thought.

From the window she saw her husband flirting with the woman from the estate agent. “I know he loves the garden. And it’s only this chintzy rose that’s bad. Maybe, once Mark’s done the garden, I can persuade him to help me do this room,” she murmured, fully aware that only the roses could hear her. Charlotte shrugged, and went to join her husband.

Mark turned to face her, his blue eyes shining with a boyish excitement, “Seen enough?”

Charlotte nodded and thanked the estate agent

She led Mark back to their car and got in while Mark took one last look at the house before getting in the car. Charlotte drove off. “We could offer a thousand under,” she suggested.

“There are three bedrooms,” began Mark. “One for us, one spare and one for Bethany,” he reminded her why they were househunting: Bethany, at six months, was old enough for her own bedroom. Their child was the spitting image of Charlotte: dark hair, brown eyes and very pale skin. “A thousand under then,” he agreed. “The neighbours are friendly. I got Mrs Stone’s life history and had to stop her telling me all the others.”

“Oh great, we’ll be next to the local busybody.”

“It’s not like that. She’s probably a bit lonely. We were invited round for coffee. I told her we’d take her up when we move in.”

“OK,” Charlotte felt herself smile as she thought, yes, I suppose I could grow to live there.

As if the house had been reserved especially for them, their offer was accepted and the mortgage, conveyancing and move went smoothly. Charlotte found herself arranging furniture while Mark began work on the garden. He’d laughed when she asked about redecorating their bedroom. So she didn’t raise the issue again, nor her worry that there seemed to be more roses on the wallpaper than she remembered from their viewing, although she couldn’t be sure. Charlotte bought her new cooker, promising herself she’d spare some time for baking as the winter nights drew in. Bethany seemed to like her yellow room, even though it wasn’t so bright in the hazy autumn sun.

“It feels so right, doesn’t it?” even badly twisting his ankle on a loose paving stone in the garden hadn’t dimmed Mark’s enthusiasm. Charlotte had struggled with surprise when Mrs Stone called round to check Mark was all right as she hadn’t seen him working in the garden for a day.

“It’s not worn you out, has it?” Charlotte observed, she cuddled against him having turned the bedside light off.

“Only you can do that,” Mark kissed her, “and the more often the better.”

“Can you smell roses?”

Mark sniffed, “No. I can smell your perfume… but not roses.”

“Mind if we open the window a little?” Charlotte was beginning to find the rose-scent stifling. She took Mark’s silence for agreement and opened the window slightly, then hurried back into bed.

Mark wrapped his arms around her, “Bethany’s first birthday soon.”

“I suppose that means we get to put her in that horrible pink outfit your mother bought, you know, the one with the rose motif and go for a visit again? Remember last time when Bethany cried practically non stop?”

“We could put her off until Christmas,” suggested Mark.

“Oh?” Charlotte was expecting Mark to suggest Bethany had been picking anti-mother-in-law vibes off her and to defend his mother.

“And have her over for Christmas Day. She’ll want to see the house.”

“And criticise me for not dusting under the TV set, for not boiling the vegetables to a pulp, undercooking the meat and not sweetening my apple pie enough. Plus any other minor crimes I carelessly commit under her gaze. Not to mention failing to appreciate her mothering skills by bringing up Bethany all wrong and not listening to her proffered advice. I’m surprised the NSPCC haven’t been round.”

Charlotte felt Mark’s hold loosen.

“She’s not that bad. And she didn’t exactly do a bad job with me. The alternative is both Bethany’s birthday and Christmas.”

“OK Christmas Day, she’ll be here,” Charlotte quickly agreed.

Mark kissed her and turned over to sleep. Charlotte found sleep more elusive and counted roses in a patch of wallpaper under the windowsill until she eventually nodded off after reaching fifty.

 

“Must you have the window open?” Mark asked a fortnight later.

Charlotte stood by the window, about to open it a fraction. She paused, “Can’t you smell the roses?” She was sure the headaches she had every morning was down to the stifling rose-scent of this room. Mark had refused to move into the spare room and, disappointingly, laughed when she asked about redecorating.

Mark shook his head, “I’m worried about Bethany. It might be an idea to bring her in here tonight, in case she wakes up.”

Charlotte sighed, “OK.” She thought Mark was over-reacting. Bethany had a cold, not a life-threatening illness. But she knew when to let Mark have his way.

Mark carried Bethany in her cot and put the cot near the window. While he told her a story until she fell asleep, Charlotte began counting the roses under the windowsill again. When Mark got into bed, Charlotte had counted sixty. Hadn’t she counted fifty before? She began counting again and reached seventy before giving into sleep.

Mark was bending over the cot, stroking his daughter’s hair when Charlotte woke. The rose-scent immediately making her feel out of sorts. Was it her headache, or did the roses seem redder than usual?

“She’s got a temperature. I’ve called our GP, just in case,” he greeted her.

“And you were going to leave me here asleep when he came, were you?” Charlotte accused him, “that would look really good, wouldn’t it? We’re supposed to be worried sick and the GP finds me still asleep in bed.”

“Bethany could be seriously ill and you’re worried about your appearance?” Mark stage-whispered.

Charlotte opened her mouth and then closed it. “I’m going to get an aspirin.” She pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater.

“You’re always taking aspirin in the morning.”

Charlotte slunk downstairs: she knew if she tried to talk about the stifling rose-scent, she’d make their argument worse. She couldn’t understand why he couldn’t smell it. He’d probably accuse her of paranoia if she spoke about counting the roses and the fact they seemed to be growing. By the time she took her aspirin and had her morning tea, the GP arrived. She took him upstairs after quietly explaining that Bethany had a bad cold and a bit of a temperature and Mark was panicking.

The GP agreed with her: plenty of warm drinks and lots of rest was his advice. Charlotte felt Mark’s cold glare as she showed the GP out.

“You did the right thing,” she said, trying to reassure Mark. “You were worried and got the GP. It was worth doing, just in case. I’ll stay home today and look after her. You go to work. Over the weekend we’ll organise shifts.”

Mark seemed to relent at this and reluctantly went to work.

Charlotte took her favourite recipe book upstairs, intending to sit and read while keeping an eye on Bethany. As soon as Mark was out of view of the house, she opened the bedroom window. The smell seemed to have grown even stronger. Charlotte searched the fitted cupboard, taking out Mark’s clothes and tapping the walls. The walls sounded solid, so she replaced the clothes. Then she checked along the skirting boards, ensuring there were no gaps between the boards and the walls. She couldn’t find any gaps. She also checked that the light switch was firmly attached to the wall. She rubbed a bit of wallpaper with the tip of her right index finger and sniffed. Her finger stank of roses.

Bethany stirred in her sleep, but didn’t wake.

Maybe, thought Charlotte, maybe the builders mixed rosewater with the wallpaper paste. Unusual, I know, but maybe they really wanted to make this room feminine and one of them ‘borrowed’ his wife’s eau de toilette just to make it smell welcoming and less unlived-in.

She opened the fitted cupboard again and wriggled a fingernail through the join between two pieces of wallpaper. Gently she teased a strip away from the wall. All she could see under the paper was traces of wallpaper paste and the imprint of the rose pattern. She rubbed her left index finger against the plaster. Then sniffed. Only the damp smell of plaster. So the roses smell was either in paper or the paste. Charlotte closed the cupboard again and washed her hands.

She sat on the bed and picked up her recipe book. She flipped through the contents, looking for the apple pie recipe.

Something at the window caught her eye. She began counting the roses under the window. She reached sixty… seventy and there were still more to count… eighty, ninety… How could a wallpaper ‘grow’ more flowers? she asked herself. A hundred. Even if she’d miscounted before, there were definitely not a hundred roses there last night.

Charlotte let her book fall on the bed. She got up, picked up Bethany, wrapping her in her cot blanket and shakily walked downstairs. Once downstairs, she lay Bethany on the lounge carpet. She felt Bethany’s forehead: still hot.

Then Charlotte’s heart began racing: she couldn’t hear or see Bethany breathe. Charlotte tried to feel for a pulse, but her hands were shaking so badly, she couldn’t keep her fingers still long enough.

“Bethany!” Charlotte cried.

The baby didn’t respond. Charlotte gently shook Bethany’s arm. No response.

Charlotte rushed through to the kitchen and picked out a handbag mirror she’d shoved in one of the drawers. Then held it close to Bethany’s mouth, struggling to hold the mirror steady. There was no condensation.

Trying to keep calm enough to speak, Charlotte phoned for an ambulance. Then paced the lounge for the ten minutes it took for the ambulance to get there. The paramedics examined Bethany and took her and Charlotte to the hospital, “as a precaution”. Charlotte phoned Mark at work and told him to meet her at the hospital just before they left.

Hospital felt unreal to Charlotte as she paced the corridor. Somehow Mark found her. Charlotte was still shaking as Mark gripped her and told her it wasn’t her fault. After what seemed like hours they were finally allowed to see Bethany.

Charlotte’s hands covered her mouth as she tried not to cry out. Her daughter was in an incubator surrounded by wires and monitors. Someone in a hospital gown spoke to Mark as she looked down at Bethany. Words like “stable”, “comfortable”, “in safe hands” and Mark’s voice, “we did what we could”, “we didn’t realise how ill she was, it just seemed like a very bad cold”, sounded vaguely distant to Charlotte. Bethany looked so peaceful, so still, even though the bleeps of monitors told Charlotte her daughter was still alive, somehow. One of Bethany’s hands lay outside the blanket.

Charlotte noticed a mark on Bethany’s wrist, a bright red cut that could have been a scratch from a rose thorn.

“It wasn’t your fault. There’s no point in beating yourself up over it.”

Mark’s words as she left him at the hospital still rang in her ears. He volunteered to stay overnight with Bethany. She would relieve him tomorrow morning. Once home, Charlotte bustled around the bedrooms, moving Bethany’s cot to the yellow bedroom, stripped their bed, spare room, moved the furniture in the spare room to accommodate their bed and began emptying the fitted cupboard, piling the clothes up in Bethany’s room. Somehow, with a strength that surprised her, Charlotte managed to move their bed piece by piece and half-dragging the mattress, to the spare room.

Then she went to the cupboard where Mark kept his tools and pulled out a wallpaper scraper and steamer. She quickly read the steamer’s instructions and filled it with water. While waiting for the steamer to heat up, she fetched some dustbin bags to line the floor of the main bedroom with and found the stepladder. Charlotte used the scraper to score the wallpaper with long criss-cross marks. Then she began to strip the rose wallpaper. Or tried to: the top rose-covered layer came off fairly easily, but the layer underneath seemed to be stuck to the walls with superglue. It took two goes with the steamer before she could ease a scraper under the paper and scrape it off.

She opened the window for some air. The combination of heat and rose-scent had made her feel claustrophobic, but she was determined to battle on. It took her two hours to do one of the walls. She heard footsteps outside, but ignored them.

However, she couldn’t ignore the banging on door. Peering out of the window, Charlotte saw Mrs Stone, their elderly neighbour. Briefly, she thought about pretending she hadn’t heard. But then realised Mrs Stone was likely to try and shout through the open window, so it might be better to let her in.

“Hello, dear. Hope you don’t mind, but I saw the light on and wondered if anything was wrong. It’s not like you to be up at this hour.”

“Come on in. Cup of tea?”

“That would be lovely.”

Charlotte made two cups of tea. “You don’t mind coming up to the bedroom do you? I’d just started work and wanted to get as much done as possible.”

“Oh?”

“Stripping wallpaper, nothing exciting,” Charlotte led the way upstairs.

“At this time of night…?” Mrs Stone began when they’d got to the main bedroom.

“Yeah, Mark’ll tell you once I get an idea in my head, it’s difficult to stop me. We decided we didn’t like the wallpaper, the roses were too much for us. I meant to get started earlier, but got delayed,” she stopped abruptly.

“Don’t blame you,” responded Mrs Stone, looking around the room. “That was Jackie’s taste, all right. Pink, feminine, suffocating. Not surprised you want rid of it. Surprised you’ve not woken your baby, though.”

“Jackie used to live here?” asked Charlotte.

“M-m. Five years ago. Moved out six months before you came. Had the house done up though. Thought she’d get a better price. Though this wallpaper would have put anyone off. There was a budget, but there wasn’t enough for the builders to do this room as well, so it got left as it was.”

“What was she like?” prompted Charlotte, shifting the ladder along as she began stripping around the window.

“Desperate.”

“Desperate?”

Mrs Stone nodded. “Man’s kind of woman, if you know what I mean. Never left the house without make-up and red nail polish. Never went out unless she had a man to take her out and there were plenty of those. She wanted to settle down and have children. But none of her men were the settling down type. But she tried anyway. I got to know her cycle, she cried for two days solid whenever her period started. Sometimes she’d have screaming fits about how unfair it was that others should have children when she couldn’t. She’d refuse to even speak to Mrs Green, over the way. Told her she shouldn’t flaunt her kids in front of the childless. Once she screamed at the eldest lad and threatened to murder him. She had a jealous streak, all right. I mean, where are the kids supposed to play if not in the street? And this ‘if I can’t, you shouldn’t’ is just plain selfishness. Then the ambulance came, took her away. She never came back.”

“Did she miscarry?”

“Doubt it. There was an ambulance here earlier, wasn’t there?”

Charlotte was still vigorously stripping wallpaper. “She never came back?”

Mrs Stone sipped her tea.

“Bethany was taken to hospital earlier. She’s got a touch of ‘flu so she’s in overnight for observation. Mark’s staying with her.”

“Ahh,” Mrs Stone nodded.

“They say it’s just a precaution.”

“This wallpaper is really stubborn,” commented Charlotte. “Do you think plaster should be that colour?” Charlotte was beginning to work at the area where she’d tried to count the roses.

“Looks darker than the rest. Maybe it was redone to cover a damp patch so it’s darker because it’s newer.”

“Probably,” Charlotte agreed with Mrs Stone, but wasn’t convinced that plaster came in dark red, particularly in a shade the colour of dried blood. She held the steamer over the top of the bare plaster and cautiously scraped at the very top layer of plaster. It crumbled a little. Charlotte wasn’t sure if she was doing any damage to the plaster, but she persisted where the red colour seemed worse.

“She wanted us to think so, though,” Mrs Stone stared into space.

“Think what?” asked Charlotte.

“That she miscarried. She wanted the sympathy. But it wasn’t a miscarriage. Bloody, though. She’d taken an overdose of sleeping pills and slashed at her wrists. Lost blood, but didn’t cut the right way. Took enough pills though.”

“It’s a sad story.”

“She chose the wallpaper.”

“Well, she didn’t do that bad a job. It’s just in here. The roses are a bit overwhelming.”

“But this room wasn’t redecorated.”

“So she really lived here with those roses?”

Mrs Stone nodded.

“I suppose it was sad. But a woman like that. If she had children, they wouldn’t have known if they were coming or going. No father to speak of. Not like you two. You’re a real family.”

Charlotte smiled. “But what prompted her to take the pills? Was she really that desperate?”

“Mrs Green was having her youngest. He was early and a bit underweight so they kept him in for a couple of weeks. While she was with him, she noticed Jackie visit. Jackie said she’d come to visit her, but Jackie never even said hello to Mrs Green. Jackie kept looking round the ward, watching the new mothers. After that security was stepped up. Mrs Green said she’d heard someone had tried to snatch a baby.”

Charlotte shook her head. “You’d have to be desperate to do that.”

“Nice to see a good young family here. Your Mark’s done a good job on the garden.”

“Yeah. He really wanted a garden.”

“You both work hard.”

“M-m,” Charlotte muttered agreement. “Where’s Jackie now?”

“Didn’t they tell you?”

“Who?”

“The estate agents.”

“No.”

“Thought they had to disclose everything.”

“We bought this house from a Mrs J Smith.”

“That’s the sister. She must have got Jackie’s estate.”

“Ah,” said Charlotte. “I’ve got them confused, obviously.”

“She must have thought it worth spending a bit to get it done up before selling. Strange she didn’t do this room, though. After what happened, this room should have been done first.”

“Perhaps the builders started downstairs and worked their way up.”

“Thanks for the tea. Shall I see myself out?”

“No need. I’ll come down.”

 

Charlotte had a long soak in the bath after she’d finally managed to scrape the wallpaper off. As she climbed the stairs to go to bed Charlotte couldn’t resist pausing in the doorway of the main bedroom to admire the work she’d done. Cautiously, she sniffed. But could only smell the night air and damp plaster. The patch of plaster under the window still seemed darker than the rest, but it wasn’t as red as it had first appeared.

She knew Mark’s first question would be what she intended to do with the room now. Perhaps she’d have a go at decorating it herself. If she selected a vinyl paper without a pattern, like a wood chip, then she wouldn’t have to worry about lining it up. Yeah, she could do it. She remembered the scratch on Bethany’s arm. She didn’t want to think through her instinctive feeling that somehow a jealous desperation had rubbed off on the wallpaper. “Bethany’s safe now,” Charlotte told herself.

After a fitful sleep, Charlotte woke as sunlight streamed in through the window. She’d forgotten to re-hang the curtains after stripping the wallpaper. She rubbed her eyes, put on a bathrobe and went downstairs to phone the hospital to check on Bethany. She almost cried out at the news that Bethany’s condition was stable although she was being kept in another night as a precaution. Charlotte hastily grabbed some breakfast, dressed and went back upstairs to tidy up the spare room, intending to have it in order for Mark’s return. She also got Bethany’s room ready as if expecting her daughter’s return. Charlotte couldn’t resist going to the main bedroom once more to admire her handiwork. She stopped in the doorway, letting her eyes survey the room.

Suddenly she clasped her hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. Her knees gave way so she clung to the doorframe with her free hand. The red patch under the window sill was back. Charlotte couldn’t stop herself staring at it. Not only was it back, the colour was stronger than before, even though she’d scraped the top layer of plaster off.

Realising she was blocking her breathing, Charlotte let her hand fall from her mouth. Cautiously, she walked towards the window and bent down. Softly she tapped the plaster with her fingernail. It seemed solid. She touched it with a fingertip. Dry too.

The phone rang. Charlotte straightened. As she turned to leave the room, she caught a hint of roses. But the smell barely registered as she hurried to answer the phone. She listened to Mark’s gabbled speech, struggling to follow what he was trying to tell her.

“In the theatre…” she repeated, “theatre… transfusion… sudden crying… Mark, what…? bleeding… aneurysm… where? how? Chance…” was that good chance or slim chance? She slid to the floor. “Are you sure? Hopeful?” She heard the tone which meant Mark’s coins were running out. The receiver dropped. “Bethany?”

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Tags: Emma Lee stories, Short Stories, Someone Else's Wallpaper