A haunting presence next door

By Julie Myerson, FT.com site

Published: Oct 27, 2006 

Maggie and Ken lived next door when I was 13. While our house - a wonky Victorian pile complete with turrets - faced on to the street in the normal way, theirs was turned sideways to face ours. It was much older than the other houses and probably even pre-dated the street. Long, low and white-washed, its dark windows gazed out unblinking, like eyes.

I was transfixed by this house and by its occupants. Late middle-aged and childless, Maggie and Ken seemed to like having our big, noisy family next door. Maggie had bright red hair and skin like paper. She wasn't pretty but she wasn't ordinary either. She'd stand in her garden and talk to Mum over the ivy-clad wall with the house staring from the gloom behind her.

We five kids were regularly invited round for home-made chocolate ice-cream. We'd never tasted anything like it. We thought all ice-cream was made by Wall's. Every time we trooped up the drive for ice-cream, the house watched us.

Some houses seem to be lying in wait. This one knew something. I was worried by its long, low-ceilinged rooms, dark barley-twisted furniture, ticking grandfather clocks and rugs from India. Maggie said she grew up in India and as a child was so anaemic that she was forced to eat raw liver. Something about this story horrified me so much that, when I went upstairs to the bathroom, I froze on the landing, unable to go up or down. It felt like the whole house was tipping over, tipping me out of it.

"Oh the floorboards aren't quite straight, " said Maggie when she found me trembling there. "That's why they creak so much. " But I hadn't heard them creak. I'd just been terrified.

It wasn't that I didn't like going round to Maggie and Ken's - a calm relief after the bright, barking chaos of our own home - it was more that something about the actual house felt wrong. It didn't want me there. Maggie told us that sometimes you could hear children laughing.

"But you have no children. "

She looked triumphant.

"Don't worry, " she said. "We're completely used to it now. It's been going on for years. "

Our mum was very fond of Maggie but admitted she got a bit much sometimes. Mum worked full-time and Maggie just sat in her house. Maggie didn't always understand that not everyone had time to chat.

"I think she's lonely, " our stepfather said, ' "with Ken out all day. "

Ken worked for the Post Office. He left each morning in a brown coat and came back each evening carrying a newspaper. He never ever mentioned his work.

One night our parents went round there for dinner and came back with a story.

"They've got a ghost, " said our stepfather. "A maid called Lily. " He winked at me but my heart lurched. Next time we went round for ice-cream, I asked Maggie about Lily.

"Oh yes, " she said. "Have I never mentioned her? She's here all the time, probably right now. Sometimes you get these wafts of lily of the valley scent, right under your nose. "

"Do you ever see her? "

"Ken did once. On the landing. She was carrying a bundle of washing. She moved aside to let him pass. She's very polite. "

After that I stopped using their bathroom. If I had to go, I waited until I was bursting, then made an excuse and went home.

Maggie and Ken's bedroom upstairs was heavy and ornate, with a huge bed like the ones in a stately home. Soon Maggie started to be in bed all the time. Her skin turned yellow and the roots of her bright ginger hair were white.

"Is she anaemic? " I asked Mum.

"No, " Mum said. "I'm afraid she has cancer. "

After Maggie died, we didn't see Ken any more. He kept to himself and sent out such signals of wanting to be left alone that, as Mum said, it wouldn't have been the right thing to press him. With Maggie gone, the house stopped staring at us and seemed to shut its eyes.

The following year we moved to another part of town. Our neighbours were teenage boys, which was much more fun. And I didn't give Maggie any thought until years later when I was suddenly overcome by a memory of that strange old place, the way everything was infused with a sense of significance, of eeriness and somehow of panic. And I found myself wondering, was it actually haunted, that ice-cream house of my childhood? And if it was, who exactly was haunting it - Lily or Maggie?