forgotten about, including a green slab which I think, a few months previously, had been a half-price packet of Wiltshire cured ham.
I was trying to breathe. I knew I should be thankful, and yet I was unable to summon up any sense of gratitude. As the bin bag filled, I began to twitch my head, and fidget with my hands, my shoulders knocked against the doorframe and I took a step into the room, my hands gripping the wooden backs of the stacked garden chairs, and then a step backwards. I rolled my foot against the edge of the bottom microwave, pinning it there. I rubbed my hand across my ribcage, to try and still what felt like impossibly rapid movement. I swallowed several times. It had got warmer in the room, despite the open back door. A vegetal, sulphurous smell filled my nostrils.
She washed out the fridge with soapy water and then she sprayed it with Mr Muscle, scrubbing at it with a J-cloth. She put a few things back – a jar of Nescafé, an unopened carton of long-life orange juice. Then she stood up and, without asking, reached over to open the cupboard next to the fridge.
She peeled apart another bin bag, taking some time to rub one end to separate the sides, and began dropping in tins – baked beans, chicken soup, peach slices in syrup.
I pushed forwards and snatched out the tin of peaches. ‘These are fine,’ I said, sharply. ‘There’s nothing wrong with these.’ They were Faith’s favourite. She liked them with Ambrosia Rice Pudding. I’d got both in for her when I thought she was moving back. Ailsa was probably about to chuck that away too. I reached past her and began searching the cupboard.
‘These are all rusty, Verity, past their sell-by date. They’re spoiled.’
I’d found the Ambrosia rice and I held both tins to my chest. ‘You’re being over-zealous,’ I said. ‘No one cares about sell-by dates. They’re just a way to make us buy more things than we need.’
Now I had stood up to her, I felt quite aggressive. ‘I don’t mind you throwing some things out,’ I said. ‘But this is just ridiculous.’
She folded her arms, her yellow rubber hands clamped in her armpits. ‘I understand. It’s part of it, don’t you see? You’re both attached to and overwhelmed by your hoard. You’re fearful of the emptiness associated with clearance. This stuff – you see it as part of you. You’ve used your hoard to avoid confronting emotions that are difficult for you, to funnel anxiety, and it’s hard, Verity. It’s hard. All that anxiety is going to come flooding back. The grief for your mother, the row with your sister. But I’m here and we’ll do it together.’
I didn’t like the way she spoke: the practised use of ‘your hoard’, the overly dramatic repetition of ‘it’s hard’. I didn’t like her bringing my sister into this. She had done some research and was enjoying the sound of her own voice, her intellectual engagement with the subject. She was pleased with her cod psychology, her sense of herself as my redeemer.
‘I can tell you’ve been on Wikipedia,’ I said. ‘What did you search? Hoarding Disorder? I’ve watched the TV shows. This isn’t what this is.’
‘It’s something like that.’
‘It isn’t. I’m not that kind of person. I’m not ill.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re a wonderful, highly functioning individual. I’m sure the reasons for this go deep, way back into your past.’
‘Like what?’
‘You’ve told me about your mother’s anthropomorphism of inanimate objects. I’ve been thinking too about that story you told me. The time you and Faith filled the wardrobe with old men’s clothes – her reaction to that. She was touched and must have been cheered up for a bit but in your eyes the stuff made all her grief for your father disappear. I can see how very early on you associated possessions with keeping emotions at bay. But Verity’ – she gestured to the room – ‘it is a condition. It’s not normal. Isn’t it helpful to know that it’s a psychological disorder, that you don’t have to live like this, that we can do something to combat it?’
‘A “psychological disorder”? Our culture’s obsessed. It’s all a matter of definition, Ailsa, and you can only define something by what society considers “normal”, which is itself contingent on the whims and subjective values of the time.’ I was, as I often do, taking refuge in language, but my voice sounded unnaturally