It was too easy, but still fun! Merry Christmas!
Bleak Midwinter
At least there was no snow, just wind. But the wind was more bitter than anything I could remember.
How appropriate, I thought, sourly, bending my head against it. Pulling the hood down low on my face and mourned the loss of my designer umbrella, now a tangled metal mess abandoned in a ditch five yards from my front door. I didn’t want to think about the damage the puddles would be doing to my boots. I should have just driven but I knew what a fuss she’d kick up about waste of it, not to mention the idea of drink driving. I knew it wasn’t worth the fight, but why on earth was she so instant we meet at the Exchange? Could she not have just come to the house if she was that desperate to see me?
My cheeks stung with the chill. The puddles or orange street light looked blurred with my watering eyes and I cursed myself for not standing up to her, yet again. But then, I never could.
Did she have nothing better to do on Christmas Eve, seriously?
There was the briefest of lulls in the weather as I passed St. Nicholas’s and for a moment the echo of carols hung in the biting air. The windows of the little church were lit and there was fairy lights around the door. Voices rose and fell in unison and for the first time I could recollect it actually looked inviting, certainly more inviting than the pub across the road to which I was heading. As I crossed the road the wind picked up again, roaring in my ears and bringing a spatter of icy drops which managed to fly into my hood and trickle down inside my scarf.
The Exchange was lit in the windows as well and I knew it would be warm inside but somehow I still didn’t relish the idea of going in. There was a man huddled in the porch, blowing his cigarette smoke out into the wind and shivering. He gave me a dirty look as I passed, as if the smoking ban had been my idea.
It was warmer inside the front door but it also felt damp, stuffy. There were people laughing too loudly and the bar staff had the same ‘Now That’s What I Call Christmas’ album playing that they had the last Christmas and the one before that.
I knew where she would be sitting without looking round so I went straight to the bar and ordered a white wine, large. As I perched on a stool oppisite her she gave me a very obvious up-and-down.
“Hello,” she greeted me politely, taking a sip of her small white wine.
“Carol,” I muttered, taking a large swallow of my own. “Well, I’m here.”
“To the point these days, aren’t you?”
I didn’t answer, knowing the argument that would follow. I took another mouthful, wincing at the cheer from the bar as the opening bars of Slade inevitably blared from the speakers.
“Well,” she said, softening. “You have actually agreed to see me so I suppose there might be hope for you yet. How are you doing?”
“Very well. Very well indeed, in fact. Profits are up.”
“Yes I noticed that. No small achievement in a recession. So many companies in trouble and everything…”
“What’s do you mean by that?” I said sharply.
“Nothing at all,” she gave an easy shrug and I couldn’t help but admire the smooth movement of her slim shoulders. Her face was still bright and open, with just the slightest hint of steeliness in he glance that belied the iron will within. “You always had an eye for business. These times seem to suit you.”
She took another little sip, her wide, dark eyes never leaving mine. I didn’t need to acknowledge the criticism, it hung in the air around her like candle smoke.
“What’s that?” I said, gesturing at a heavy silver chain around her neck. She never used to run to extravagant jewellery. “How does that fit in with your anti-profit tack?
She fingered it idly, eyes still not leaving mine. “You gave it to me, don’t you remember?”
I shook my head, looked closer. It was very heavy chain links, solid looking, rather ugly I thought. “No, I don’t.”
She shrugged again easily. “I thought it wasn’t to your usual taste. But then, you’ve changed since I knew you properly.”
“Look,” I said, irritation reaching it’s peak. “Do you just want to spit it out? You’re obviously not keen on my company and to be perfectly honest the feeling is mutual so do you just want to say whatever it is you’ve got to say so I can go home?”
She didn’t answer for so long I looked up at her, expecting maybe to see her fighting back the tears I felt prickling in my own eyes. But her face was clear, her eyes steady. The heavy chain rose and fell with her breathing and she lifted her glass once more with those steady, long-fingered hands and took a measured sip. I winced again at loud laughter from the bar.
“Do you even remember why we used to come here?” she eventually asked.
“Quite frankly, no.”
The tiniest trace of a sad smile pulled at the edge of her mouth. “You used to enjoy it. We used to have a laugh, have a little drink, sing along with the songs. Some of the best times we had together was here at Christmas time.”
“I’ve got more important things to enjoy now,”
“Yes, your house is very nice, I’ve seen it. Do you live there alone?”
“You know I do.”
She nodded, looking away. She said the next words so quietly I almost missed them in the din, “A golden idol has replaced me. I just hope you’re happy in the life you have chosen.”
I opened my mouth to reply but no sound came out. She eventually lifted her eyes to mine again. She seemed suddenly very far away. In another rare lull in the chatter I heard my phone beeping in my pocket. She held my gaze calmly but I looked away, pulled my phone out of my pocket.
The text flashed across the screen. Mary wanted to meet me, now. She’d had the best idea and I had to meet her, it was urgent. I felt a familiar rush of irritation. I thought I’d managed to end things with Mary. I thought she’d've realised by now we weren’t compatible. Obviously she wasn’t the sort to take a hint. I’d have to meet her and spell it out.
“Carol,” I started, looking up, but she’d gone.
Good riddance. I thought, ignoring the little patch of cold that had spread itself under my stomach at the realisation that it was probably the last time I would see her.
I had what I would say all planned out, but as soon as Mary saw me she wouldn’t let me get a word in edgeways.
“This way, over here. Wait until you see.” There was a palpable buzz of excitement in the way she carried herself as she hurried me along. The exuberant part of her nature seemed to only surface rarely but even that was too often. This whole set up was typical of her and the more I thought about it the more resolved I became in the idea that I didn’t need her in my life. My heart had sunk when I’d stepped out of the taxi into the town square where she’d insisted we meet and seen the village choir assembled with carol sheets under the lights of a large decorated tree that was swaying alarmingly in the wind. Despite the frigid air and the wet underfoot there was a crowd in hats and scarves gathered and chattering loudly over the weather. The choir launched into their first (out of tune) carol with nauseating gusto. There was a vendor with a portable heater full of mulled wine stood to one side and the spicy waft reached me and stirred my longing for my own bottle of red I had on the counter and my deep armchair in front of the wide screen telly.
Luckily, though, she dragged me past the singers into a more empty corner of the square and I thought for a moment that she did actually understand me better than I thought. But then I saw what it was that had spread the smile all over her face. There was a poster pinned to the notice board advertising a theatre company that had come to do a Christmas production in the play house. I felt a scowl weight down my brow.
“Oh come on, I thought you’d be pleased.” There was gravity back in her voice now.
“There’s a reason me and my nephew haven’t spoken in years, Mary.”
“Well there must be a reason for his company to be coming here. He must want to see you.”
“I doubt he even knows I live here.”
“But look at this too, all the proceeds are going to charity. It’s a fundraiser for Robert’s little boy. They want to get him a motorised wheelchair.”
“Robert should be more careful with his money, then his family wouldn’t need charity.”
“Yes, well as generous as I’m sure you are with his wage, don’t you think a little extra couldn’t do any harm? Think of the boy.”
“Robert’s wage is ample, thank you very much,” I said bristling. “Generous, even, I would say, especially as I don’t completely utilise his skills. He could work more hours if he were determined.”
“With all those children at home? How’s his wife supposed to work if she’s in with the children all day every day?”
“Well – ”
“So you won’t come and see it with me?” She crossed her arms, using her more usual voice, the voice she used on rival businessmen. “The last night is tonight.”
I snorted and turned to leave. “I’m busy.”
“Is that so? Doing what?”
I turned back and raised my voice over the wind and bad carols. “Doing anything else but.”
“It’s Christmas Eve,” she insisted. “Is this not the time more than any other to spend with your family? And helping other people?”
“Let me keep Christmas in my own way, please.”
“Keep it?” she snapped. “You don’t keep it.”
“Let me leave it alone then.”
I thought she’d snap at that but she just stood and surveyed me calmly. Though I was roiling at the pity I could see in her dark eyes, I was struck again at by how attractive she could be. I saw again how she looked something like Carol. Older, more refined and with better clothes, but there was similarities in the determination of her dark eyes and in the confident way she held her shoulders. She also tended to temper determination with mercy and, whilst I had to admit this could be an attractive quality, it just wasn’t working in the long term, either on a personal or a professional basis.
“Look, Mary,” I said, looking her in the eye and dredging up the well-practised speech. But she cut me off.
“You’re running out of chances, you know.” She didn’t explain what she meant and I didn’t ask. She turned away just as snow started whirling down in the wind. The clock on the village hall struck eight and I watched her walk away through the gusting snow, across the cobbles until she disappeared into the dark and the sound of her smart boots was swallowed by the wind and singing.
I told myself I couldn’t care less if I never saw Carol or Mary again after tonight and ignored the cold that swilled inside me at this thought. Instead I forced myself to think of my warm living room and the fully stocked wine rack. However, the pleasantness conjured by this thought immediately evaporated when I pulled out my phone to call a taxi to discover the battery was flat. My spare was at home in my briefcase.
Cursing fluently I checked my purse but of course had no change for the payphone, that was even assuming the payphones on the square were still connected. I turned my collar up, tightened my scarf and, hunching my shoulders, set off back across the square, past the warbling singers and chattering people and into the darkened side streets. The noise and the light faded until all I could here was the gusting of my breath and the slushing of my Armani boots in the gathering snow and all I could see was the fat flakes swirling in the dark air with mist from my mouth. The streets were remarkably quiet. All the shop and house windows were dark and I assumed everyone must be in the square or the Exchange.
As I carried on that the air got darker and colder, the snow thicker. In disgust I turned off the main pavement and through a gate in the hedge around St. Anthony’s to duck around the back of the church and across the field to my house, a route darker and muddier but quicker. The church windows were black now, the voices silent. The only light was what spilled through the trees from the street lamps along the main road. Shadows nestled in hummocks of snow, clustered at in the roots of the yews and gathered themselves to the gravestones like masses of dark moss. I picked my way through carefully after the first stumble. My boots crunched but the sound was swallowed in the vast silence. I ducked my head down lower and pressed on.
I was within sight of the back gate when I became aware that mine was no the only breathing I could hear. Every instinct I had told me to speed up get out but instead I paused, trying to convince myself I imagined the sound. It worked until I heard it again, a rattling, suffering breath, shuddering somewhere from the shadows ahead. I tried to move my feet but couldn’t. As the sound continued I made out a shape. It was so twisted and bent I had thought it was part of the tree it was stood under. I couldn’t move forward so I tried to move back but my feet felt like they were frozen to the icy grass.
Whatever it was moved. It took a careful step forward and then another. A slight breeze creaked in the branches above me and bit at my ears and cheeks. The clouds shifted and the cold light of the moon flooded the graveyard.
I swallowed a yell. The old woman stared at me calmly, though her breath rattled in and out in a laboured manner. The shadows from strands of loose hair accentuated the deep lines in her face. But out of the web of wrinkles her eyes were bright, but cold. She was bent low over a stick, her body moving stiffly with laboured breathing. I gradually felt control of my limbs return to me as she just stood there regarding me steadily and I felt anger flare at having been startled but still something about her gaze still fixated me. Something familiar.
“Can I help you?” I asked with as much brusqueness as I could muster. She didn’t move apart from her eyes that looked me up and down and then past me, over my shoulder with a heavy glance. Her breathing rasped on in the silence. “Why are you out here alone?” I pressed, glancing around the snow covered graves. She looked back at me with something like pity in her eyes and slowly shook her head. I felt frustration mounting again, over the cold that continued to gather beneath my ribs.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I must go. I suggest you get home to your family.”
“I have none.” Her voice creaked like the branches above me, as though she used it little.
I dropped my gaze. “I am sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said, in a surprisingly firm voice. “My circumstance are of my own making.”
I lifted my eyes again and she was still staring at me. The wind teased at the strands around her face and mine. The wet from the snow chilled against my calves and a shiver run over my skin. Her eyes finally slid from mine and focussed on a spot over my right shoulder again. Reluctantly, I turned. I knew it must have been a trick of the moonlight and the snow but one grave was illuminated so brightly that it gave the impression of not having been there a minute ago. The flat stone was freshly cut judging by the sharpness of the edges, making the shadows look keen as razors. A neat blanket of snow was gathering on its surface, even and crisp, slight indentations indicating the engravings.
“Not long until my turn,” she said. “I hope there will be flowers laid for me, though.”
I turned back to her, but she was gone. I rubbed my eyes but she was nowhere in sight and no tracks in the snow. I shook my head, thinking I needed my house, needed my bed, a fire to warm my skin and wine to warm my insides. I was obviously more tired than I thought. I wanted to lock all the doors, close all the curtains, disconnect the phone and spend the night and day sheltered with myself. With a pang I realised that being alone with my thoughts was not as welcome a prospect anymore as it had been even two hours ago.
The snow had stopped falling and once again the air around me was still and silent. No breathing shadows. I was utterly alone. Turning back to the naked grave was something I did before I even comprehended what I was doing. The surface was almost blinding with reflected moonlight. I told myself to dismiss my silly thoughts. I was obviously tired and frustrated with all everything that had been said that night and my brain was playing tricks on me. If I just knelt and wiped the snow from the stone, the name would wash away all worries. I took a hesitant step closer, boot crunching and blood pumping in my ears. “Do it,” I heard myself in a voice that sounded unfamiliar in the dead air. “Just do it, it’ll be a Smith or a Jones from here about. One of those from the old folks home that couldn’t live through another winter. Then you can go home and go to sleep and this night will finally be over.”
The snow was wet and cold on my knees and my heart thudded against my ribs. I put out my gloved hand, saw it hovering over the white snow like a shadow. I saw it trembling, cursed myself and angrily shoved the snow away.
CAROL MARY DICKENS
I covered my face with my hands, icy snow pressed against my cheeks and eyes. I dug my knuckles so deep into my offending eyes that it hurt and I saw spots. I felt hot tears mingling with the melting snow against my skin. My breath caught in retching sobs and I couldn’t stop the tide of despair that washed over me, bringing with it ghosts of feelings I had long since thought buried: shame, fear, loneliness. And all my doing. The old lady was right, if there were no flowers on my grave at Christmas Eve with the time came it would be no one’s doing but my own.
I pulled my hands away, the freezing air biting at the hot tear tracks. I blinked the blurriness away and looked down at the empty grass in front of me, the snow disturbed by scrapings and hand prints. The stone was gone. I blinked again but the tears on my face and the snow in my eyelashes and hair were still there and the image of my name carved in stone still rose in front of my eyes. I blinked it away, stumbled to my feet and fled.
I locked my front door behind me and collapsed on the sofa, threw my arms over my face and saw no more.
The sounds of bells woke me. I was stiff and cold and still wearing sodden boots, coat and gloves. I blinked up at my ceiling, listening to the bells that sounded so far away. I got to my feet and stumbled to the window, flung the panes open wide and breathed in the cool, bright air and drank in the sound of the bells. Their music cleared my head. My limbs were aching and cold, my hair hung tangled around my shoulders and a glance at my reflection in the window showed my make up in great black streaks down my face but my mind felt more ordered and content than I realised it had felt in a long, long time. I saw clearly. Everything was as bright and clear-cut as the blankets of snow that lay under the bright winter sunshine.
I left the window open and turned and hurried back into the room, reaching for my phone and phone book, hoping my nephew still had the same mobile number and that his theatre company would accept a late donation.
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A crime story for entry in a competition run by the tv company ‘alibi’. This is what came to me. I attempted to do something original but wonder if it’d ended up as a crime story at all. It’s finally been cut to under the 2,500 word limit but I’m a little concerned it’s lost alot in the process. Comments and suggestions welcome!
Hearth and Home
I pulled the car up some distance away as even the few police cars present clogged up the road. Rain pelted on the roof and threw itself in rivulets down the windscreen. I wondered how I’d forgotten the rain. It seemed like it hadn’t stopped since the day I moved back. The nights drew in quicker too, and were darker than I remembered.
“Just…” I stumbled. “Just try not to embarrass me too much, ok?”
Marlowe snorted. “Doesn’t work like that, Jean. I’ve agreed to help, against my better judgement, and you can’t now specify how I go about it.”
I sighed. “Fine. But just remember this is my job, ok? And how we do directly effects what you get out of it.”
“If you can pull that off.”
“Of course I can,” I snapped, telling myself I’d done the right thing and opening the car door. My heels clicked over the slick cobbles. At the glass front doors a sodden, frustrated constable waved us in. I picked out Evans from the men milling around the room and beckoned him over.
“Any progress?” I asked.
“We’ve got an ID. Robert Muncaster. He’s the company owner.”
“Who identified him?”
“His secretary, Miss Jones. She came to the office about twenty minutes ago, said she’d come to catch up on some paperwork.”
“Do you believe her?”
He snorted. “Hardly.”
“Get a statement from her, including her movements in the last few hours. Anything else?”
“The coroner’s just arrived. They want to know when they can move him.”
“Soon,” I said. “I’ve brought someone who I want to have a look at everything before we move further.”
Evans raised an eyebrow. “Who?”
“An…expert,” I fumbled.
“I wouldn’t say I was an expert.” Marlowe appeared at my shoulder, rain dripping from his uncombed hair and eyes blank as they roved the scene. “One strives for perfection of understanding, of course. But I’m beginning to doubt whether that’s possible.”
“This way,” I said quickly, leading Marlowe away. “Stand back, please.” The policemen cleared a space around the body. Marlowe overlooked the scene, either oblivious or uncaring to the men falling into bewildered silence. He was sprawled face-down, blood soaked into the expensive carpet. His head was turned away, thankfully, at an awkward angle. I noticed again the strange way his arms were bent. Marlowe’s eyes swept over everything, the nearby desks, the fire exit, even the pot plants, before coming to rest on the body. I could feel the people around me getting restless, fidgeting. Marlowe knelt, examining closely. One of the men behind me coughed loudly and I turned and led them out of hearing distance.
“Who is the person, Ma’am?” one scoffed.
“A consultant,” I stated simply. “Now come on, what have you found?”
The same man shrugged. “Small-time graphics company. One office here, his bigger office in Manchester. He was well off, by the look of it, and something of a ladies man.”
“Oh yes?”
“He was in divorce proceedings with his second wife, a messy business by all accounts.”
“Jealous fella, got to be,” Evans grunted. “He dipped his nib in one ink jar too many.”
“It wasn’t a man that did this.” Marlowe appeared again. “This is a woman’s killing.”
“A woman couldn’t have done that,” Evans snorted. “Have you seen the state of him?”
“You mean you wish a woman couldn’t have done that,” Marlowe said. “There’s a passion there, but it’s not the passion of a cuckold. A controlled passion: deliberate and judgemental. Feminine. Plus, the first blow came from below, up into his mouth, so obviously from someone shorter than him, and he’s not a tall man.”
“Or someone sitting down,” someone muttered.
“Have you ever tried to kill someone with a poker from a sitting position? Not easy.”
“A poker?” I asked, glancing back at the body.
Marlowe nodded. “There’s soot in the wound in his mouth. She brought it with her and took it away again, I’d say. You wont find it here.”
“Bull…”
“Ok you lot, that’s enough. Marlowe, could you wait in the car please?”
Marlowe drifted out and the other men descended on me, all talking loudly, angrily and at once.
A fortnight later and once again I found myself parked on a cobbled lane in the gloom of a gathering night, rain thudding on the car roof and streaming down the windows, trying to figure out how I’d ended up there. I swallowed against the darkness rising inside me and was shocked and frightened to find myself blinking back tears.
He buzzed me in without speaking over the intercom. I climbed the stairs in darkness, the bulb having gone long ago and never replaced. The smell of dust was heavy in the darkness and I was relieved to reach the door at the top and step through into the orange light of old lampshades. I made my way to the sitting room without looking around me. My nose and peripheral vision told me the only change in the flat since I’d last seen it was that there was…more. More books, more jars, more bones.
There was a fire blazing in the hearth and the air was close and hot. The must of old paper, old fabric and old ash was underlined by a thin needle of rot. Marlowe was hunched at a desk. “Have you managed to get it yet?”
“The killer?”
“No,” he turned round, glasses on the end of his nose, hair wild where he’d been running his hands through it. “Publication rights. I’ve prepared a paper for an American psychology journal.”
“You know you can’t do that until the lawyers are finished wrangling.”
“I may never get it then.”
“For the wrangling to even start we need a killer.”
“You mean you haven’t got it yet?” he snorted, turning back to his desk and picking up his pen.
“No not yet…” I watched him for a moment, his pen scratching away in the silence. “You know who did it, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“How?” I spluttered.
“Come, come. That would be telling. Besides, you must know I know or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I’ve brought you your consultant’s fee, actually,” I said, throwing an envelope on the nearest table.
“I told you I don’t want money. The only thing I want from you is copyright and you haven’t got me that yet.”
“I’ll get it for you. I will. But first we need a killer.”
He turned his chair to face me, crossed his legs and his arms and I suppressed a shiver at the familiar way his black eyes drank me in. “And you just want me to give you the answer?”
“Don’t patronise me, Marlowe,” I felt the heat rising up my spine and flush my cheeks. “I do whatever it takes to solve these cases. I do what works, have done for years.”
“Yes, I know,” he said, infuriatingly calm. “Apparently you couldn’t move in London for your drugs busts, gang arrests, apprehensions of serial killers. So why do you need my help now?”
I drew myself up to my full height, a half head taller than him when in heels, but then let out a breath and put my head in my hands, slumped onto the arm of a chair. I looked into the fire, watching my pride go up the chimney in ashes and smoke. “I thought it would be…easy…the work up here. But somehow I can’t…”
The fire crackled.
“You can’t see the dark side of where you came from.” He said it quietly, but it sent a jolt through me. I couldn’t look at him. “Of course,” he continued, lightly. “When your passion and subject of study is death, where better than to get your teeth into it than somewhere you’ve known your whole life? And I’ve barely scratched the surface…”
“Don’t,” I said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
He signed, turned away again. “If you hate what I do so much and you’re the big-shot detective Father always wanted you to be, why ask me?” He resumed writing and I couldn’t figure out whether he actually cared if I answer or not. I swallowed hard.
“You’re right.” I said. His pen went silent. “You’re right, Marlowe. This is where we were children. I can’t see people around here the way I saw them in London.”
He turned back, eyes animated. “Yes, it’s interesting isn’t it? Who would have thought when your profession is crime and death, your distance or closeness to the subject could have such a profound effect…” he broke off but stopped him before he could turn back to his notepad.
“Marlowe,” I said, firmly, swallowing the helplessness again, being the older sister. “Marlowe. I need your help.”
His smile was a slow one, triumphant but not as smug as I expected. Amused, even. “Very well, Jean. For old time’s sake.”
He leaned back and regarded me and I attempted to once again force my brain along it’s usually familiar tracks of logic. “His death really doesn’t leave anyone better off. The company remains in his family’s name but still in charge of the directors. It was was successful but not big enough to have an real rivals. He was generous financially to his mother and sister who live nearby. He was something of a womaniser but all jealous partners or husbands have cast-iron alibis and…don’t seem the type. Oh, and all fire and hearth utensils of all his immediate circle have come up cleaner than whistles.”
“So?”
“So, he was an arrogant man it seems, but not a bad one. There is no obvious reason for someone to do this to him, and in such a brutal way.”
“Stands to reason then that there must be an un-obvious reason, then.”
“Like what?”
“I assume you’re not going to give me your year’s wages, Jean, so I’m not going to do your job for you.”
An almost physical effort stopped me from snapping. He never responded to anger. He saw it as weakness. I breathed the anger away and surveyed him calmly, waiting. Eventually, he sighed and rubbed his eyes, like he was dealing with a dense pupil. “Ok, think on this: in London you don’t have to dig very far to get to the bottom. Someone will tell you something if you ask or threaten enough. It’s a different game up here. An older game. Old families, old blood, old values. Old silences.”
“We’ve already ruled out all his adulterous affairs.”
“I never mentioned adultery. He’s been doing that for years and no punishment, hasn’t he? He had many women in his life but few who cared enough about him to care what he was. She knew where he would be, she didn’t try and hide the crime. She wanted him found, she wanted his punishment known. And the way he was lying…”
I felt understanding tickling at the edges of my comprehension but still couldn’t force the answer.
“The killer turned him over, turned his face into the carpet. She didn’t want to see it. IT shamed her. He obviously went too far, did something else, something so terrible and so private that no one you’ve talked to knows about it, or would talk about it if they did.”
His eyes burned like the fire, but darker. We sat looking at each other for some time, the only noise the snapping of the flames. I didn’t want to ask but the whispered question came out all the same…
“How do you know?”
“How do I know something your team of detectives and you with your degrees and your training couldn’t figure out?”
I nodded.
He smiled and I can see all his teeth. “It’s all in the death. Death reveals all.”
I didn’t sleep. I knew the answer, I just didn’t want to know it. Marlowe grinned about it but I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I felt like smiling again.
Evans was only too happy, if a little confused, to drive over to the Muncaster family home and pick up Robert’s sister, the part-time model, and her pleasant, soft-spoken mother, retired history lecturer, the following morning. He was even more confused when I sent a forensic officer with him to collect all the metal tools in the house for a closer examination.
They waited over an hour to be interviewed because I wanted a psychiatrist present and Mrs. Muncaster politely insisted on waiting for her lawyer and both were travelling from Manchester. I interviewed them separately. Lucy, his sister, was a bad liar without her mother. There were tears in her eyes and voice and she didn’t look up from the table. The psychiatrist confirmed my suspicions in private after.
Mrs. Muncaster was short, well-dressed, with a soft voice but stiffened as the questions progressed. She asked me if I knew what her family name meant in this community. I explained calmly that I had grown up here and understood perfectly.
“A long and proud family history,” she murmured, almost to herself, when we’d been going back and forth for almost two hours. “To end like that.”
My instincts buzzed. She’d left an opening. “Lucy’s pregnant.” I said simply, and she nodded, no tears but her eyes were distant and full of pain. “You killed him.” I said it calmly, with no trace of judgement and saw her respond to the tone in kind.
“I’d warned him. I’d reasoned with him. And with her. But she was always the weaker of the two. It was his sin, ultimately.”
“I would like to retire to confer with my client,” the lawyer said smoothly. His lack of response I found more disturbing than the revelations themselves.
I wrote to Marlowe once I was settled again in London. The Muncaster’s lawyer had written out terms for his publication. I got no reply but I didn’t expect one. I sipped strong coffee, staring out the window of my flat into the London rain, wetter but lighter than that of the North West. I was happy it was now at the other end of a motorway, where it could stay in a dream of rolling hills and yellow stone, history and hearth smoke mingled in with it, but with Marlowe safely hidden away in a dark corner that I could pretend never existed.
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Work in progress: new short story for potential entry into a short story competition. The Artists’ & Writers’ year book annual comp is themed ‘compulsion’ but not sure if this fits yet. There is also TNW’s Readers’ Challenge which, this quarter, is simply to be a piece of ‘imaginative’ short fiction. Or else it might be suitable for entry to Women’s Weekly fictional suppliment. I’m wondering if it’s getting too long now, maybe would work as a serial, but I think when it’s finally finished it will berelatively easy to edit it down. I find short stories are often more effective the fewer words used to tell them.
I still haven’t properly edited this yet so apologies for any typos or mistakes
Sweet Tooth
Mrs. Potts opened her eyes onto the dark, five minutes before her 5am alarm, like every morning. She rose, already wide awake. On her way to and from the kitchen she poked her head around her husband’s bedroom door to ensure his snoring was still loud and even. It was, as always.
She clicked her own bedroom door shut behind her and turned the key in the lock. Sitting down at her desk with her cup of tea, she relaxed and unlocked the bottom drawer of the desk with a key from around her neck. She laid out her record book, a selection of notepads and a lockbox, the key for which she retrieved from under the desk lamp. She sometimes wished her husband would prove more of a challenge and force her to come up with new and cleverer ways of hiding things, but he’d never once set foot in her bedroom since she’d moved in there so she doubted even the lockbox was necessary.
She reviewed its contents critically, noting she was low on some of her more vital substances. She transferred a few carefully selected pills and tablets into an empty vanilla essence bottle, pocketed it and locked the box away again before making a note in her record book ad locking that away too. She selected a plain, ruled notepad and started to draft a letter to a GP, writing slowly and carefully, in someone else’s handwriting.
At 6:30am on the dot, dressed smartly and hair sprayed into submission, Mrs. Potts descended the stairs from her flat and unlocked the connecting door to the bakery kitchen. She thought, as she tied on her apron, that Saturday mornings, usually so hectic, were fast becoming her favourite time of the week. It was the shop’s busiest day but since Mr. Potts had been so recently indisposed she found herself enjoying the freedom of moving round her kitchen knowing he couldn’t manage the stairs to come and interfere. She carefully placed the empty bottle of vanilla essence at the back of her spice cupboard and found herself humming as she mixed the various pastry batters and icings, warmed the ovens and laid out bread tins.
Even the familiar smells seemed to have gained something in recent weeks, she was rediscovering how decadent they were as they mingled in the pre-dawn air, loaded with warmth and thick with the sugar and syrup and creams. It was quiet apart from the noise of the mixers and her own humming.
She flipped the sign expectantly at 9am and before she’d even positioned herself behind the gleaming counter, slightly misted with steam from the first pastries and cakes fresh from the ovens, two small old ladies wandered in, arm in arm, identical denture smiles set in the folded flesh of their faces. Mrs. Potts returned the smile still hoping that her own skin was still years off such sagging.
“Good morning, Ladies Smith,” she chimed. “So nice to see you. Would you like your usual order?”
“Oh, yes please, Mrs. Potts,” they both said, more or less simultaneously. “Saturday is our treat day, as you know.”
“I do indeed, I do indeed,” smiled Mrs. Potts as she set about packing a wholemeal loaf, two white buns for their soup luncheon and then, the ultimate weekend indulgence, two fresh treacle tarts, heavy with sugar and syrup, into a brown paper bag. They were muttering to each other as she loaded the bag and Mrs. Potts hid a smile as she asked, “So how has your week been, ladies?”
“Oh fine, fine, thank you Mrs. Potts,”
“Yes very fine indeed. Only…”
“Hush, Violet.”
“Oh?” asked Mrs. Potts casually. “Nothing happened, I hope?”
“No, no, of course not,” Rose insisted. “A very pleasant week. We’ve been enjoying the last of the sunshine before the nights start drawing in.”
“Yes, that’s right. We’ve been enjoying wandering around the common in the evenings. Only, in the mornings…”
“Now, now Violet, Mrs. Potts doesn’t want to hear about our little disruptions.”
“Disruptions? Oh, surely not Miss Smith! In our peaceful little village?”
Violet looked from her sister to Mrs. Potts and back, eyes bright. “Well it’s as you said, Mrs. Potts. You told us to watch out and we did and you were right.”
“Me?” cried Mrs. Potts. “I don’t remember warning you of anything.”
“Oh no, of course not, not a warning exactly,” said Rose, eyes now as bright as her sister’s. “But you…mentioned, merely mentioned…that you’ve been noticing the milk round isn’t quite so…reliable as before…?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Potts airly. “It’s true Maximilian has accidentally left me out of his round once or twice since he took up the job, but it hardly matters.”
“Oh but it does, Mrs. Potts!” cried Violet. “It’s a sacred office, that of the milkman.”
“Violet. You’re exaggerating.” Rose chided.
“Well, maybe a little. But I’ve always thought of the milk delivery is something you could depend on, in this strange and ever-changing world, don’t you think? Something to be certain of. No matter how bad things get or what horrible things are happening on the news or even changing in your own immediate circles, you would always be able to have a cup of tea in the morning because the milk would be on your doorstep waiting.”
“Oh Miss Smith,” said Mrs. Potts. “What a nice way of thinking. A good cup of tea can ease much.”
“Well yes, indeed, Mrs. Potts. So imagine what it was like this week when not once but twice…”
“She’s right,” interjected Rose, leaning in conspiratorially. “Twice.”
“Twice this week young Max has left us the wrong milk or none at all.”
“Surely not,” Mrs, Potts exclaimed, placing a hand on her chest as though deeply moved. “So unfortunate. After his father spent so many years establishing such a good reputation for the dairy.”
“Well exactly, Mrs. Potts. Exactly.” Both the old sisters sighed. “It is most unfortunate.”
“With that young wife to support as well.” Mrs. Potts shook her head.
“Well, of course, she’s going very well.”
“Oh yes?”
“Yes indeed,” continued Rose. “She’s just received a promotion in that law firm she works in in town. She’s doing very well for herself.”
“We always knew when those two got married that Sarah would be the one to support Max,” said Violet wisely.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Potts simply,, schooling her features to impassivity. “Do you think that’s quite seemly? Sarah’s such a wonderful girl. Of course, I’ve always like Maximilian very much, his father is a fine man. But do you think it’s quite right for her to be working so hard for him?”
“It’s quite the thing these days though, isn’t it?” said Violet. “Career ladies and all that. If I had my time again I don’t know that I wouldn’t do things differently.”
“Oh Miss Smith, what a thing to say! You and your sister have that lovely bungalow with the common at your doorstep and all your friends and neighbours. Who could want more than a quiet, happy community to spend retirement in?”
“You’re quite right, Mrs. Potts. Hear that, Violet, and this from a lady with her own business! As you always say, Mrs.Potts, community and the village are more important than the individual, it’s what’s best for everyone.”
“You are right, I suppose,” Violet nodded, smiling. “And in view of that, what do you think we should do, Mrs. Potts?”
“Do?”
“About young Max and his performance this week.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to interfere, ladies.”
“Not at all, we are merely asking your advice. It’s such an unfortunate thing to happen to such a young man!”
“But to be uncommitted to one’s profession,” said Violet. “It unsettles the whole balance of village life. What if he forgot us on an icy day, Rose? And we had to go to the convenience store, risking those icy pavements?”
Mrs. Potts kept her mouth shut and re-arranged cherry bakewells until the sisters said, “What do you think then, Mrs. Potts?”
“Well, it is unfortunate as you see, but it must be considered. My morning delivery from the dairy is vital, especially on a Saturday. If such an unfortunate occurrence was repeated with me I would feel compelled to call the dairy.”
“Poor Max,” Rose shook her head.
“But the lad is young, as you say,” Mrs. Potts added, watching the sisters carefully. “And it must be hard following in his father’s footsteps. I say go on home now and see what this morning’s order has brought you. If he’s managed to get it right I say give him another chance.”
“And if he’s got it wrong?” Violet asked.
Mrs Potts shrugged, holding out the paper bag. “Then it’s up to you.”
Mrs. Potts did swift trade that morning. After the Smith sisters had left, heads together, both clutching their paper bag of Saturday treats, the shop was busy with the stream of early-morning villagers, mostly pensioners, picking up the weekend bread and usually, with only a little prompting from herself, a cake or two for a treat. She smiled at the customers as she reflected how much nicer it was without Mr. Potts wandering down the stairs to interfere.
Trade slowed down about eleven, but Mrs. Potts wasn’t worried as she knew it would pick up again just after lunch. She took advantage of the respite to pop into the back room an ice a fresh batch of fairy cakes and place the bread tins with pale mounds of dough into the warm room for rising for the afternoon’s bake. She was surprised with floury hands and a mouthful of muffin dough by the tinkle of the shop bell at eleven thirty-four. A bit early for people to be picking up pastries for their afternoon tea and a bit late for anyone who liked to pick up bread for lunch.
She found young Michael Holdsworth eyeing up the chocolate muffins behind the glass of the counter with his hands in his pockets and an intent expression on his face.
“Good morning, Michael. What can I get for you this morning? Are you picking up bread for your mother?”
“Hey? No, no not today.”
His mother was a good woman so Mrs. Potts merely pursed her lips at his lack of greeting. “Well then, what can I do for you?”
“I’m after something for Emma…what do you think she would like?”
“Emma?”
“Emma Johnson.”
“Not the daughter of the man who’s opened up the convenience store?”
“Yes, that’s the one,” said Michael, beaming. “Do you think something chocolate? Girls like chocolate.”
Mrs. Potts has only met Miss Johnson once as she had little need for fresh baked goods when she lived next door to the mini-supermarket. Mrs. Potts had tried to recommend her one of her specialities, a custard slice, to which the girl had recoiled, stated how she couldn’t stand custard and went on to select an iced bun, the blandest thing on the counter.
“Don’t you think you’d be more interested in someone else, Michael? Like Amanda perhaps?”
“Amanda Perkins?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, I see a lot of young Amanda. She’s a lovely girl, her mother’s the headmistress of the primary school I believe.”
Michael squirmed a little.
“And what’s wrong with her?” Mrs. Potts asked, folding her arms.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with here I suppose…it’s just…”
“Now Michael, I sincerely hope you are not rejecting her because of her appearance? I surely don’t have to tell you how deceptive appearances can be?”
Michael opened and closed his mouth a few times. She stood there, arms folded, resolute.
“I don’t know, Mrs. Potts. I like Emma. Can I have two chocolate muffins, please?”
Mrs. Potts sighed as if relenting. “Very well, I suppose a young man’s heart is his to do with as he pleases. Here, I have my speciality out the back. I’ll give you two custard slices on the house. Just wait to see how she receives your thoughtful gift.” She gave Michael a wink with her smile and went into the back room to quickly retrieve and pack up two custard slices. When he had the bag in hand, Michael practically ran out of the shop in the direction of the convenience store.
At 1 o’clock she flipped the sign to closed. Muffled thumpings and bumps from upstairs told her her husband was attempting to get to the kitchen table, despite her assurances that he should stay in bed until the cast was removed.
There was some post on the doormat of the main front door. She quickly removed the one with NHS written on the envelope and pocketed it. The rest, statements and a letter from one of her suppliers, she took up the stairs.
“Anything for me?” her husband grunted from the kitchen doorway as she came in through the flat door and into their little living room.
“There’s a bank statement, dear,” she said, handing it over.
“Damn it all to hell,” he cursed, throwing the statement on the floor. “When’s that damn doctor going to write?”
“I’m sure it won’t be long now, dear,” she said as she started to move about the kitchen, putting the kettle on and rooting in the fridge.
“I’ve been in this damn cast for nearly two months. I swear the doctor said 6 weeks, 6 weeks for a follow-up appointment.”
“The doctor did say it was a bad break, dear. Maybe they think you need more time in the cast than 6 weeks.”
“They should bloody well write and tell me so then, shouldn’t they? And my headache’s getting worse. I don’t trust these damn tablets.”
“You must take them anyway, dear. Doctor Leseter knows what he’s talking about.” She said, laying out two blue tablets next to his side plate.
He grumbled and thumped his way, awkward crutches flailing, to the kitchen table and sat himself down. Mrs. Potts emptied the last of the home-made soup from the tupperware container into a pan and heated it slowly, staring out the window as she stirred. The only figures on the common at this time of day were the young twins of the Johnson family. Mrs. Potts was prepared to swear that the mother had as much hold over her young boys as she did over her daughter. One o’clock was the time to be indoors, sat a luncheon. All the closed front doors and vacant pavements attested to that. Of course, the door of that awful mini-supermarket was always stood wide open. She was pleased to see it looked next to empty.
She ignored the continued grumbling of her husband over his bank statement which he’d awkwardly retrieved from the floor and whilst he was preoccupied with it shook some extra pepper in his soup from the pepper pot right at the back of the cupboard, behind the cereal, hoping it would stop him stomping about all afternoon and messing up the house.
She was glad to get back into the quiet and the comforting scents of the shop after lunch, leaving Mr. Potts snoring heavily in an armchair. The next batch of rolls was ready to be put out on the shelves and the brownies were done to perfection. She flipped the sign back to open and soon a smart girl in sensible shoes and a nice overcoat came in, greeting Mrs. Potts pleasantly.
“Sarah, how nice to see you.”
“A white loaf please, Mrs. Potts. And four white rolls too, please.”
“Right away, Sarah. I am glad you still favour my little offerings to those which are stocked at the Mini-Mart.”
“There’s no substitute for fresh bread, Mrs. Potts. It’s only a pity you’re not open Sundays. But I suppose that’s the only day your husband gets you all to himself, I can’t begrudge him that.”
Sarah smiled again and Mrs. Potts nodded and turned away to fetch the bread. “And how is your fine husband, Sarah? Settling in alright at the dairy?”
“Oh, not bad.”
Mrs. Potts turned to her, showing conern on her face. “Oh Sarah, you sound worried. Is Maximilian not happy there?”
“He probably would be, if he was there, Mrs. Potts…” Sarah was picking at her fingernails. Her one bad habit. Mrs. Potts tried to put it aside considering it could be the symptom of internal stress.
“Has something happened, Sarah?” Mrs. Potts said, in her most comforting and sympathetic tone of voice. She wondered if she should feel a twinge of guilt as her face hardened a second and she swollowed, clearly fighting to put on a brave face.
“He got a phone call from the dairy this afternoon. They’ve laid him off.”
“No, surely not!”
Sarah nodded, still picking at her fingernails and not looking up. “I’m afraid so. Apparently he’s been getting complaints. Missing orders or getting them wrong. The Smith sisters alone have put in 3 complaints in the last month.”
“But whatever’s been happening? He’s such a concientios worker.”
“That’s what I thought too. He’s even mentioned he tries to pop in here at least once a week to double check with you that no one’s changed their orders. Apparently people sometimes mention it to you if they can’t get hold of the dairy?”
“That’s right, I try to help where I can.”
“Then I don’t know what to believe. He promised me…” Sarah was quiet for a moment and Mrs. Potts stood still, holding the bag of rolls.
“Chin up, Sarah,” said Mrs. Potts brightly. “Look…just wait here a moment.” Mrs. Potts popped out to the kitchen again and retireved one of fresh steak pies she had put to one side. “Here, she said, coming back out into the shop. “For his tea, to cheer him up. And you be sure to cheer up too, Sarah. Maybe this will work out the better for both of you.”
Sarah looked up. Her eyes were a little red. She managed a small smile and as the bakery door shut behind her Mrs. Potts felt a smile of her own spread across her face. She watched Sarah cross the road as she wiped down the counter, and saw her stop to someone on the other pavement. It took her a moment to recognise Constable Barnes as he was stood slightly behind the postbox and Mrs. Potts was a little diturbed tor reliases she hadn’t noticed he’d been stood there. She carried on wiping the counter but noted Sarah and the constable talk together for some moments, her talking and him nodding. She saw him give her a comforting pat on the arm and then they parted. Mrs. Potts turned away, pretended to rearrange some loves on the shelf behind her and heard the shop door open behind her. She pasted on her smile and turned to greet Constable Barnes, pleased with how easily she looked him in the eye.
“Good morning, Constable. Are feeling peckish? I have got a fresh patch of pies just about ready, I know steak is your favourite.”
“Please, call me Simon, Mrs. Potts. And, no, no pie thank you, Mrs. Potts, not whilst I’m on duty.” his smile was easy and his manner relaxed but she noted how his eyes roamed the store, taking in every detail. She liked the village having a diligent police officer in it’s midst. In this strange and modern world she thought it woeful but necessary to the smooth running of village life, but still thought it a trifle unnecessary and even slightly insulting when he came to her shop when on duty and therefore clearly not in the capacity of a customer.
“What can I do for you then, Simon?” She tried to say his name easily, even though thinking it slightly inapprorproate.
“Just calling in to see how business is doing, Mrs. Potts. I like to know how the village is doing.”
“Admirable,” she said, smiling. “On both your attitide and my business state, thank you for asking Simon.”
“You get quite a lot of the village in here, don’t you, Mrs. Potts?”
“I’d say so,” she said, pretending to think. “A fair portion. I also get people from town and people passing through. I like to think I have a bit of a reputation.”
“I assure you, you do,” he said, still smiling. His gaze was now sweeping the cake and puddings counter. “No custard slices today?”
She swallowed. “Not today, no, I’m afriad. I make the custard from scratch, as you know, and used the last eggs for the fiary cakes.”
“Ah, pity. They are onje of my favourites, was thinking about picking one up on my way home later.”
“I’ll be making more on Monday, I’m sure.”
“Oh good,” he said. “I may pop by then.” He touched his cap, (such old-fashioned and disarming manners, she thought), bid her good day and left and she went to the kitchen to sit down to try to calm the heavy thudding of her heart.
Mrs. Potts checked that the shop door was locked properly before flipping the sign and lowering the blinds at 4:30pm. Muffled thuds from upstairs announced that Mr. Potts had come around and would be wanting dinner but she retreated to the bakery kitchen and washed and cleaned and tidied thoroughly before thinking about having to return to the dingy flat. When every surface, pan, mixer and utensil was gleaming and tidied away, she retrieved the now empty vanilla essence bottle from the back of the cupboard and returned upstairs, overall pleased with the day.
She lay awake for some time in bed, record book propped up on her knee as she added new entries to the pages concerning Sarah, Maxamillian and, of course, the most scribbled-on part of the book, the Johnsons. She had five short years left before retirement and was determined to have the village in perfect shape to receive her golden years, but there was still so much to do. She started writing out the next stages of her various plans, trying to think what supplies she would need to accomplish it. If she hadn’t had a reply to her letter by the end of next week she would have to be more insistent.
She hesitated before turning to one of the last pages in her book. There was very little written on it apart from Constable Simon Barnes’s name. She always found it hard to write on this page, however necessary she told herslfeit was to keep it up-to-date. She took a deep breath and wrote a quick account of what had happened that afternoon and then, in tiny writing and in brackets, the word ‘threat’ with a large question mark. She tapped her pen against her lips, listening to the grating snores once again issuing from the room across the hall, before locking away the account book and turning off the light.
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Halloween is on the approach! Always a time for fun, mystery and imagination. In honour of the Eve of All Hallows I thought I’d try my hand at a ghost story. I’m reading an exerpt from it at tonight’s ‘Spotlight’ open mic night. The full story is published below. Enjoy…if you dare! Mwahaha
“…we haven’t got long to wait,” Matt’s dad said, peering through his binoculars. “Another twenty minutes or so, I reckon…what are you doing now?”
Matthew snapped his gaze back round, tried to slow his breathing. “Nothing Dad. It’s nothing,” he said, trying not to look back over his shoulder again.
“I thought getting you away from home would be what you needed. But it seems you’re tenser than ever.”
Matt rubbed his eyes. “Honestly, Dad, I’m fine.” His voice in his ears seemed small and dead, like it was freezing as it left his mouth.
His dad moved himself in the folding chair so he could look directly at his son. In the half-light of the low, bloated moon his face turned into a mass of shifting holes and polished bone. Matt resisted the temptation to look away. “This is because of that stupid story from the pub, isn’t it? Honestly, I don’t understand what’s happened to you recently. You’re supposed to be going to university next year, you’re old enough to know better. This old ruin’s no more haunted than your bedroom back home.”
Matt didn’t move but his father held up a hand, skeletal in the darkness. “I know what you think you’ve been seeing but it’s only dreams. You used to get them a lot when you were younger. It’s a shame they’ve come back, but not entirely surprising with what’s happened.”
Matt shrugged his face further down into his scarf and swallowed the useless words as the rose to his lips. He stared at the moon as it crawled slowly, slowly into the sky, large, hollow craters of eye sockets fixed on him.
“Besides, just think about it,” his dad continued, lifting his binoculars to the sky. “Even if there were such things, why on earth would Ben want to come back to frighten you? You were friends, remember?” Matt was grateful for the night masking the blood he felt draining from his face. “Good friends. That’s all you should remember about him.”
…all I remember is the look on his face as I pushed him… Matt shook the thought away.
His dad was referring to his light-up watch. “Ok, be ready with the stopwatch and the camera. It’ll be any minute now…”
Matt looked sharply over his shoulder, but there was nothing there again. Despite the chill air sweat collected a in the palms of his hands. He stood up to disguise the shaking that had suddenly taken hold of his limbs.
“Where are you going? It’ll start any minute…” His dad’s question fluttered at the corners of his awareness.
“I’m just going for a slash Dad, I’ll be back in a minute.” He staggered off behind one of the great shoulders of stone that jutted from the hilltop like teeth. Huddling down in the shadows to get away from the stare of the moon, he held his head in his hands and tried once again to slow his breathing. Even with his eyes closed, it was still there. Everyone said it was all in his mind. Even when he’d opened his eyes to see it bent over his bed, its blurry face a mass of crumpled flesh and bone, inches from his own…it was all in his head…
Forcing his eyes open he tried to ignore the thing that wasn’t really over his shoulder by looking at anything else.
The crooked finger of a ruined bell tower loomed on his left. It had been impressive when he’d seen it earlier that day, in the watery winter sunshine, but now in the frosty moonlight shadows pooled in the cracked stonework and distorted the angles and height, making it look like it was leaning over him. The last time the bell was rung by the living, the landlord of The Old Bell had said, was to call for help that never came. The last holy man to serve at this place had been pushed to his death from the tower as he vainly rang the bell to summon the villagers to his aid. Matt had felt a shiver run through his flesh at the story, Ben’s scream suddenly loud again in his ears.
The bell is still heard, sometimes, someone else in the pub had whispered to them. It was a call to judgement, a call to atone. The villagers had left the Catholic priest to his fate to appease the forces of the Reformation. The soldiers left the place in peace but the priest is still waiting for the village of Cenwick to admit to what it did.
Someone had asked what Matt and his dad were doing there this time of year. There had been an odd silence when they’d explained. The county was famous for its lack of light pollution. Amateur astrologers like his dad flocked to the village all year round to observe and photograph the night skies from the top of Priory Hill. There was always a distinct lack of them at this time if the year, his father had said. He assumed it was just too cold even for the most passionate of them. But this year on this night there was to be a lunar eclipse, and when the moon was passing closer to the earth than it had done in a generations. His father had thought it would be a welcome distraction.
If only leaving home could have let him get away from what had happened. When night fell the familiar cold was at his back again. It didn’t need to whisper in his ear any more for Matt to know what it wanted to say. He stared hard at the bell tower, refusing to focus on something cold and pale that was hovering at the corner of his vision.
His heart clutched in his chest like a fist as the low, dead voice of a bell echoed out into the night. One, two…three times. A high, human voice rang out with it, distorted and weak like it was from far, far away. It dissolved into a sickening scream, clawing at his ears and his head and his heart for what seemed like forever until he was swamped by the silence that followed. The light started to dim. Even though his rational mind knew it must be the eclipse, his heart jerked. Silence and darkness swallowed everything around him and he closed his eyes and ears against it, afraid of what might show itself. He wondered if this was what death was like, sight, sound and smell all fading like existence was being leeched away.
A whole forever later he dared to crack an eye. The moonlight had started to return, bleaching the broken rock bones that were scattered around him. He shook himself, got shakily to his feet. Nothing moved or made a noise.
“Dad,” he called. “Dad, are you there?” He started to pick his way back to his father when something caught his eye. At first it looked like another pile of stones hunched against the bottom of the bell tower. Then, as he passed closer, it looked more like crumpled linen. He found himself edging still closer. It took on the shape of a bent and broken body, awkwardly angled, pale as the moon and utterly still. He choked back the bile that rose in his throat but something behind him wouldn’t let him step back. He found himself bending over the cracked and splintered thing, made even more hideous in the sickly light, only identifiable as something once human by the complete but bloody hands, stretched as if still trying to seize something.
Control returned to his feet and he stumbled backwards, staggered back round the wall. Their chairs were there, illuminated in the moonlight, torches, blankets and bags were all neatly piled where they’d put them. But his dad was nowhere to be seen. He opened his mouth to call but stopped as he got the hideous impression that something that was getting to its feet behind him.
He ran, calling out as he went. No one answered. He raced blindly down the side of the hill, not daring to look back, hardly daring to look ahead, staggering and stumbling on the uneven ground. Trying to stop his ears, he ran down the path into the village. The Old Bell was still well lit on the other side of the village square and he could hear music and laughter from inside.
He paused to catch his breath but then something was breathing, staggering, bleeding close behind him. He took off across the square, nearly tripping over the steps into the pub. He leaned hard against the door after slamming it behind him. The same half-dozen people from before were scattered around the room, staring at him. Cold sweat pooling at the base of his back as he searched for his voice.
“Help, please,” he gasped. “You have to help me.”
“Easy lad,” the landlord said. “Calm down. Where’s your dad?”
“I don’t know,” he sputtered, glancing back at the door. “I don’t know, we were up at the ruins…I couldn’t find him after the eclipse…”
“Now slow down. He can’t have just disappeared. What exactly happened?”
He looked right into the landlord’s eyes. Everyone in the room was quiet. The music had stopped.
“I saw it…” Matt could hardly raise his voice above a choked whisper. “I saw him fall. I saw him get pushed…”
“Told you we shouldn’t have let them go up there, not tonight.”
“Quiet!” The landlord snapped at whoever had spoken. The faces were tense. Knuckles were white around pint glasses. He thought he saw a pale shape beyond the glass of the window, one hand raised to knock, but he blinked and it was gone.
“You need to atone.” The voice wasn’t loud but it hushed everyone. A finger of chill crawled up Matt’s spine as he saw a sullen heavy-browed man staring directly at him. “This is judgement. You must own up…all of you. There’s blood on your hands.”
“Out, William,” the landlord bellowed. “Out now, you’ve been warned before. I won’t have this nonsense in my pub.”
The man left, his gaze falling once more on Matt before the door closed behind him.
Matt’s hands were shaking. “Please,” Matt whispered again. “Help me find my dad.”
It’s didn’t look like the landlord was really listening to him. The man was looking out the window, mouth hanging open slightly. “Shut those curtains over,” he ordered and someone obeyed. Hushed conversation rose, many furtive glances being thrown toward the door and at Matt. The landlord turned back to him and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“Now my lad, nothing’s happened to your father, ok? He’s probably wandered off and lost himself in the dark and will be back here by morning.”
“Can’t you help me find him tonight? What if he’s hurt? We could search the hilltop – ”
“No.” The landlord’s hand tightened ever so slightly on Matt’s shoulder. “No, I don’t think anyone will help you with that tonight.” He was glancing at the curtained window. “Best sit tight until night blows over. Always best to stay back, sit trouble out, let things take their natural course.”
A foul taste rose in Matt’s mouth. The landlord moved away but he still felt like something was holding his shoulder. He shut his eyes tight, willing there to be only darkness there. But instead he saw it all again, saw Ben on the edge, saw himself pushing, heard the scream that rose and fell and cut off, so like the scream on the hill. Over the whispers in the room he became aware of a tapping noise, like knuckles on glass. Nobody looked up but it got louder. Something pale was stood at his shoulder. He felt the chill on his neck. He saw it start to bend down to look into his face and he shut his eyes tight again.
“It was me, it was me, it was me.” It went round and round in his head. The smell of rain-slicked tarmac roof rose in his nostrils and the feel of the chilling wind goosepimpled his skin. Ben was stood in front of him with that look on his face, that look he got when he knew he’d won.
“It wasn’t and accident…” He couldn’t tell if he spoke out loud or in his mind. He made his mouth move. “It was me…”
“The lad’s gone mad.”
“…shouldn’t have let them go up, not on this night.”
“It’s got the dad, it won’t bother us again, surely?”
“It was me.” Matt tore his eyes open. It was darker in the pub. The lights had been turned down low and all the curtains were drawn. A chair had been dragged in front of the door but the tapping still carried on. “It was me. It wasn’t an accident, it was me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” He kept saying it over and over. Everyone was staring again but there was a fear in their eyes that was nothing to do with him. “I’m sorry…I did it, I killed him.” Vision blurring with hot tears, his words became thick and he swallowed hard. “I’ll go to the police, anything,” he didn’t even know who he was talking to but he was standing and facing the window. “I promise, I’ll tell everyone, I’ll admit it. Just please let Dad be safe…”
The tapping rose to a banging, an angry fist on the thick wood of the door. Matt moved towards it.
“No, lad. Get back, don’t touch it!” The landlord’s voice was high. Someone moved to stop him but he flung himself across the room and pulled the chair back and threw open the door.
“Matt, there you are! Where the hell of you been, you scared the shit out of me.”
Matt flung himself into his father’s arms and cried into his shoulder like he had when he was a boy. “Now, now, son, don’t be daft. What’s all this? I wasn’t that angry…”
“Get in here now and shut that door,” the landlord ordered, all but pulling them inside by their coats. He bolted the door again, pulled another chair in front of it and drew the blind across the little window beside the door that perfectly framed a pale, hooded figure that stood silently in the middle of the village square.
Everyone retreated back to near the fire. The landlord threw on another log, said they’d have to settle in comfy because he wasn’t opening any door until sunrise. There was no word spoken above a whisper for the rest of the night. There were occasional tappings on the glass of the windows and sometime past midnight a bell was heard tolling in the distance.
Matt felt like a tight band had been taken from around his chest, like he’d not breathed properly days. His sight was clear and nothing hung at his back or at flitted at the corners of his vision. Warmth had returned to his bones and he enjoyed the feel of it under his skin. He and his dad sat in a quiet corner and Matt explained what had really happened to Ben. Towards morning Matt dozed off on the table. He was able to sleep knowing that no matter what happened now, unlike Cenwick, nothing would be returning to him that should stay buried.
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A strange piece inspired by a genuine event.
Under Aletsch
So that was how it happened was it? An oddly quiet way to go. I always imagined you’d leave the world kicking and screaming, like we entered it. It’s suitably dramatic, I suppose. Always knew you’d end early and it wouldn’t be in a nice way.
What did it feel like, Dawn? Was it like going to sleep from the feet up…?
You weren’t destined to last. Even Mum knew it. You could see it in the way she looked at you. Her eyes would go distant and hard, like they were freezing over. Did you never notice? Like the time she found you disembowelling the hedgehog on the lawn to see the roots of the spines from the inside.
I knew you were dead. There was no way you would have left me in peace for thirty-three years if you weren’t.
The first few years you were gone I was afraid you’d show up again, that it was all too good to be true. I half expected you to turn up at my wedding. In fact, I remember now, I stood at the front of the church sweating and shaking. Dad had patted my shoulder with a wise grin across his face, said my cold feet would warm up again soon enough. But I was thinking about how you’d wait until the suitably dramatic moment, just as Marian was pacing down the aisle, a vision encased in the floating ice of veils and rose petals, and then rise from one of the pews in a black hat to laugh and point and screech everything into the church air.
But you didn’t. Of course you didn’t. That was 1983. You’d already been lying still and solid for two years by then, each cell meticulously stiffened and saved from rot.
Marian. My Marian.
That year I found Marian and a house with a little lawn at the back. There were clumps of daisies in the summer, small white islands amongst the grass like icebergs on a green sea. There was a tree and a shed to keep the mower in. Space for a swing set, Marian said, smiling. I smiled back and kissed her, I remember, though I knew there would never be any swings.
I’m supposed to go and see you. They’ve sent me the plane ticket here: SWISS International Air Lines. Business Class. Leaves a week from now. They’ll pay for the hotel, too.
Marian thinks you’re an old flame, you know. She heard the voice message they left on the machine. I couldn’t find the words to explain. I don’t think the words exist. I saw her swallow tears and move to the hall cupboard to fetch a suitcase.
Old flame. I fire that burned once and has since been cooled to zero.
I’ll ring her later. I’ll find some plain, ordinary words that’ll parcel it all up simply. She’ll believe me. She will. Why wouldn’t she? I can make it sound like a perfectly normal story. Why have I never mentioned you? Why, indeed? Were we close? Can one half of you be close to the other, or are you all the same thing?
‘We fell out’; that ought to do it. It’s true, after all. We fell out of whatever we were in. Then you disappeared, like you’d never been there, except for the ache at the back of my head, like a scar inside my skull.
It’s easy to ignore an ache that’s always been there. That’s what the sting of your presence faded to, Dawn: an old wound finally allowed to close a little.
The logo of the airline is the Swiss flag, the white cross on the red, red, red. The same red, unforgiving and artificial, as the dye you used to put in your hair. A chemist down the road sold your favourite colour, unrelenting and plastic, nothing like blood or roses, hedgehog guts or dying sunsets. You’d spend hours perfecting your acrylic face-frame of hair and I’d watch from behind a magazine, each pin-point twitch with your expert fingers arranging it ever so slightly more perfectly. Then you looked at me through your lashes as you blew me a kiss and I had to look away.
You strayed from the path and froze on a glacier. You left the house and got on a plane and flew to Switzerland to wander off the path. Why Switzerland, Dawn? Why on earth…? Did you go on SWISS air?
Most likely it was Switzerland simply because it will have been the first flight out. You will have eyed the clerk up and down, flashed your streetlight smile and said ‘anywhere’ in that voice that is nearly all.
I’m going to go. Of course I am. I was a fool to think I could live without you. I’ll ring the man again in the morning, say I’ll be joining him next week. I’ll make a formal identification.
Mum died in your room, did you know that? She was hoovering it, though no one’s touched the damn place except her in years. That cranky old hoover that weighs a bloody tonne. Dragging it up the stairs and heaving it around the room finished off her little heart.
I hate planes. Always have. And buses and trains. Long, thin people-boxes, one of the most efficient ways possible I can think of to kill off a group of people in one go. Even in Business Class you’re still a billion bloody feet off the ground and the air tastes like it’s come out of a bottle and you have to duck and edge around and purposefully look away from dozens of strange people.
Every single thing I see levers up another paving slab in my mind. All these people breathing the same box of air is like when we snuck onto a train to Manchester in the middle of summer. Mum believed me when I said we were going to a friend’s to study. We’d laughed the whole way and you produced a six-pack of cider that you’d got by smiling at the man in the off-license. Everyone stared at the noise we made but even if we’d been quiet as a pair of curtains they would have stared anyway. We were used to it. We’d come to accept we were unusual, exotic, enticing, two versions of the same thing. You dyed your hair but it just made it look more. When you cut it short like mine and started dressing like me even I found it hard to tell where I ended and you began.
Mum once told me looking at us was like standing at the very point when two rivers meet only to hurtle over a cliff. I copied you when you laughed at that, though I wasn’t sure I liked it the way you did.
You saw a man watching from across the train so you drew me in and kissed me, tongue and teeth and the taste of cider. I could feel his eyes on us as surely as I felt your eyes back at him, even with my own shut.
The police brought us both home the next day, having spent the night in a Manchester cell because you’d screamed and wouldn’t let me tell them where we lived. You’d gone hoarse by the morning whilst I’d lain curled in the corner all night with vomit in my hair and I’d told the policeman the name of our village.
The frozen face, do you remember it? You must have seen it that time, the way the flesh of Mum’s jaw tightened and stuck as the policeman told her what we’d done.
I remember the sting ebbing to an ache. Six months, a year, you still didn’t turn up and it faded and faded even as Mum cried in the evening before she went to sleep. She’d heard our argument, she must have. If I pretend I can say I’ve forgotten all the things I said to you. It was over thirty years ago and I’ve spent all that time forgetting so it’s a believable lie, even to myself. I meant it all, at the time and I’ve spent the rest of my life telling myself you deserved it.
A low, spreading ache. I bathed in its throbbing pulse and as time went on and on, still no word, it spread over all my skin and then down through my mouth and into my guts until it was all of me. When I looked in the mirror and didn’t see you, that’s when I knew you were gone.
I met Marian that very night. She had brown eyes and a soft, soft smile and she knew how to make hotpot and wanted to be a teacher. I sighed out a kind of last breath and settled against her warm breasts and let her lead me somewhere where love wasn’t torture.
You’d have hated Marian. You’d enjoy telling me that she was dull, grey. A cardigan in human form, that’s what you would have said. She’d hate you too, no question, although there’s very little capacity in her for such things. She would have managed it for you, I think. But then she would look from you to me and she’d see the red hair and the lips and eyes and she’d have seen us as one and she’d never be able to look at me again.
But who knows, you might still win. Because here you are again and now Marian knows about you. I might have known you’d find some way to intrude, scratching your way in like claws through a net curtain. Because you never really died, did you? You’ve just been hiding under a thick layer of rocks and ice in my brain.
I haven’t heard you laugh for a lifetime but I can hear it again now, in my mind, ice-clear and fiery. It was the laugh you let fly at Mum when she caught us behind the shed at our thirteenth birthday party. It was the laugh you threw at me when I said I didn’t want to.
You found it so funny that I didn’t want to run away with you.
“Run away? What from?”
“From here, of course.”
“To where?”
“Fucking anywhere.”
You’re not an aunt, by the way. I worked and earned and built and bought Marian everything she wanted to try and make up for what she really wanted from me but that I wouldn’t give. Just think, she said once, just think, a little bit of you, alive with us. But I know two of me is too many. I’ve spent a lifetime pretending, a lifetime’s dedication bent towards burying everything I really am, everything that you personified. A second’s lapsed control and I would feel again in my heart and mind and skin everything I shouldn’t when I looked at you and thought you were beautiful.
I ended up shouting at Marian that day and I caught my face in the mirror, wide mouth open and brow dark and our insane red hair dishevelled. That’s what you must have seen the night you ran away.
Marian never brought it up again, though I saw it in her face sometimes: a melting when we walked past play parks and front gardens in the summer, teeming with sprinklers and happy faces and tiny limbs.
Formally identify the body. Anything and everything and nothing and all of what had been before coming and going, clawing up through rocks and ice to swirl like a blizzard inside my head, parcelled up neatly in four little words.
Yes, that’s Dawn. Look how red the hair is.
Sign the paper, accept the patted back, back to the hotel and, thank God, a mini-bar. Fly home tomorrow. Home to Marian. She’s bringing the Alfa and she’ll meet me at Birmingham International. She won’t say anything, just gather me to her like a child and hold me. I’ll breathe in her smell of violets and ease myself into the familiar shape of her and then I can begin laying a whole new patio in my head.
But that’s tomorrow. Tonight it’s just you and me, again. I’ve come and I’ve disturbed your sleep, just when you thought you’d got rid of me. Just one more night, Dawn, then I’ll spend the rest of the years left to me laying you to rest. I owe you that much.
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Sorry again for the gap in posting. But here is the fifth and last of the presently completed chapters. It will give me the incentive to finish off the novel. I might manage to post a few more up, though maybe in a rougher state than these ones have been, but the rest of it will, hopefully, be available to buy in the shops! I will be seeking publication once I have finished writing it and aim to be done with my manuscript by early next year. Wish me luck!
I will keep my progress updated here and I wish to give a massive thanks to everyone that has taken the time to read and work with me up until now. It is all of you that will get this book written, even more than me!
Chapter 5
The moody silence that took over Lewis for the rest of the day was not enough to lessen the brightness filling me as more and more of the attic room was emptied. We had to stop when the light failed but I could already feel and see the stretching expanse of the attic, filling with light and air. Sinclare folded away from either window in the greying evening and my fingers itched for pencils.
When I finally went to bed it felt like some of the heaviness of the house had been lifted. Turning out the light, I lay down in the dark. Even the smell of my room seemed fresher. I breathed it in and out and felt the tiredness etch itself over my muscles and behind my eyes. I lay still, feeling the exhaustion soaking through me, but sleep wouldn’t come. Lying still and looking into the dark, my mind started pasting images onto the night. I scrunched my eyes tight against the pictures rising in front of them, sketchy, grainy pictures with lots of shading and very strong outlines.
It was a group portrait, up on Stonehill. A shadowy palette, but here and there specks of stark colour picked out in torchlight. There was a delicate blue, expertly mixed and touched into Evelyn’s eyes with the finest of fine brushes. The red of Theo’s overcoat seemed to hold a heat. The scruffy mop of my hair as a torch shone at me was not much different from the night surrounding the stones. Tiny, fire-points of cigarette ends glowed in the dark and reflected in Eve’s eyes.
She sat next to me, cigarette smoke twisting from her mouth. Theo leant against one of the tall stones, staring off into the dark, his torch beam an idle angle of light shining on the crispy grass. “Wouldn’t it be great if we never had to go back home?” His smile was white and wreathed with smoke in the torchlight.
I laughed. “What, never?”
“Yeah, never.” He crouched down, grabbed my knees. “Let’s never go back. We wouldn’t have to listen to our parents ever again or sit any bloody exams.”
“That would be great.” Eve sighed, her eyes shadowed blotches when she looked away from the light. “I’m going to do shit at them anyway. Don’t know why I bother trying.”
“It’s worth a try…” I rubbed her chilled hand between mine. She had problems with her circulation and I kept urging her to wear gloves but she never listened. “It’ll give us a chance to get away.”
“Get away?” Even in the dark I could see her frown was heavy.
“Away…” I said carefully. “To the mainland, like Lewis…college, university. Getting a job somewhere away from here. I always thought…”
Eve chuckled. Theo crouched quietly.
“Theo’s pulling your leg, you silly sod,” Eve said, shaking her head. “We’re not going anywhere. We can’t.” Eve pulled her hand back to ruffle her hair. “It’s too much hassle. Dad’s already said he’ll pay me to help him run the Witch. I won’t even have to move out.”
“But I thought you’d want to,” I said quietly, questioningly, the cold of the night seeping a little deeper into me. “I always thought we were all going to try and…you know…”
Eve stubbed out her cigarette in the grass, took a box out of my pocket to get another. “I know we laugh about it, but I never meant it for real. I can earn what I need at the pub. Theo doesn’t even have to worry about a job. He can mooch off Daddy Marcus in the big house the rest of his life.”
“No, no, no!” Theo got to his feet with a flourish, his torch beam swiping through the dark air. “Let’s all leave. We’ll get a ship and sail away. Somewhere hot. Let’s just fuck off. Goodbye to Dad and goodbye to Sinclare.”
Eve was laughing. I sat in silence.
“It’ll be easy,” he repeated, grinning. “We’ll fix up the Jenny. It’s only been rusting there for like fifty years, right? It’ll be a doddle. We’ll catch fish to eat and find buried treasure to trade for beer. It’ll be great.”
Theo’s voice echoed in my head. I opened my eyes again on the blank of my room and sighed. I’d daydreamed about the three of us sailing off together more and more as I saw less and less of them.
I thought about Eve’s naked eyes from yesterday, pale and silent like a windswept hill. And Theo. Theodore. Lewis had seen him. He was back, had been living again in the big house outside Hoodwin since he turned twenty-one. Three of us had wanted to escape. Three of us were here again.
I held up my hands in the air as if trying to feel Theo’s presence in the night. I wondered if he still laughed the same. I tried to imagine him living in Sinclare House all alone, wondering listlessly from room to room in silence, staring up at the high ceilings.
Refusing to think, I got out of bed, pulled on jumper and trousers and shoes without socks and crept downstairs. Pulling on Lewis’s coat I headed out the door, torch in hand.
The night air chewed at the exposed flesh of my face. I kept my head down and my pace up and crunched along the drive and hurried down the road and was soon crossing the cobbles of Hoodwin, shoes clicking. It was again still as death, the cobbles bathed in little snow-caps of white streetlight like dozens of tiny hills. The square and its light faded behind me as I paced along the north road out of the village. Clouds blotted out the stars. My breaths wheezed into the silence and I clicked the torch on, not trusting my memory on this road.
My torch picked out a battered wooden sign nailed to a post in the verge, partially hidden by the hedge: Sinclare House and an arrow off to my left. I turned off the road and felt frozen mud under my shoes. A slight breeze blew up from the great emptiness on either side of me. The meagre light of my torch picked out the track but the house itself stood shrouded in shadows far ahead.
Off to the left a white scrap of a lighted window sat glowing in the blackness. The smell of wood smoke was on the air, despite the hour. The light disappeared and then reappeared as invisible trees passed between it and me. I swallowed. David Braithwaite used to watch us from those windows in summer, when we still played on the banks of Ercall Pool. I pressed on, deliberately not thinking of the pool that lay in the quiet and the dark just beyond the square of light. I wondered how Theo could bare to look out of his windows and see the pool where his father died every day.
The mud gave way to gravel under my shoes and the dim circle of my torch shone on broad, stone steps. Tilting it higher I could see the great wooden doors, shut tight. Urns of overgrown, evergreen shrubs stood on either side of it. I cast the beam further up and the house piled up above me, all white stone and blank windows. The breeze had dropped again and the silence was smothering.
The guttering above the front door was hanging off the wall, a rusty bleed smeared down the stone from its end. The paint was coming away on some of the window frames. Ivy had begun to twine up a drainpipe and the gravel from the drive lay strewn across the barren flowerbeds and the front step.
Very aware of the noise my feet were making, I went towards the door. I laid my numb hand flat on the wood, like Theo’s presence would make them hum. They were still and chilled. Taking a deep breath, I banged my fist, three times. The noise cracked the silence around me and I heard it throb through the wide entrance hall on the other side. I stood with my breath misting. I counted to sixty, banged again and pushed on the little button of the doorbell but still nothing.
Swallowing, I stepped back onto the gravel, casting the beam of light up again at the house. I felt Theo’s name on my lips but no sound came out. I went to one of the windows. The light of the torch showed the backs of heavy curtains. I tried the next window along. The same. I went round the whole house, checking every ground-floor window. I wanted to see something, anything, but every window was blank with backs of curtains and blinds.
I was shivering violently by now. I sighed, about to give up when something whispered out of the dark nearby. I slow, quiet crunch, like a foot carefully stepping on gravel. Not knowing why, I shut off my torch and held my breath. It came again, once. The night was an unrelieved black blanket around my eyes. No more sound reached my ears except the tiniest breath of breeze in the tops of nearby trees.
Still holding my breath, I began to edge back round the building toward the drive, one hand out against the wall of the house, the other held just in front of me. I felt the corner of the house under my fingertips and took a tentative step out from it, stood still. Still nothing. Calmed, I switched on the torch.
“Hoi!” A gruff yell off to my right, a rapid crunching of feet running towards me. A spark of panic. I ran, clumsily, feet shifting on the gravel and a hand grabbed my coat. “Just stop there, you. What do you think you’re doing?”
Another torch flicked on, shone in my face.
“I…I was just calling at the house.” I blinked into the light, held my hands up to shade my eyes. The grip on the shoulder of my coat was iron.
“At this time of night?” The voice was dark, anger giving it a heated edge. “I should call the police…wait, hang on. Mr. Stefan?” I stammered, tried to bring my own torch up but his arm was in the way. “What on earth are you doing here?”
The grip disappeared. I lifted my light and David Braithwaite was staring at me with watery eyes. “I…” I blinked, lowered my torch out of his eyes. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you,” I mumbled stupidly. “I’m here to see Theo.”
“At four o’clock in the morning?”
A shaky laugh escaped me. “I wasn’t really thinking.”
“Well, I must say you’re the last person I expected to see.” His voice was thin and it cracked slightly but I could still hear the resonance that had used to make my neck-hair stand on end. His moustache still held some brown but from the temples outwards he was white. His face sagged a little more around the smile, which was still broad but slightly yellow. He was a lot smaller than I remembered and stooped, like he was hanging off his frame. I had an idea he’d been at Dad’s funeral but had been kind enough not to try and speak to me
“I came to see Theo,” I repeated, hearing how stupid the words sounded. “I’ve just found out he’s here and couldn’t get it out of my head so I…well, but anyway. He doesn’t seem to be answering so maybe I’ll come back tomorrow.”
His face had fallen out of its smile, brows drawing together slightly. “You came to see Master Warren?”
I frowned. We berated Theo endlessly about the fact his father called himself ‘Master Warren’. Theo had laughed along with us.
“Dad likes playing the Lord of the Manor,” Theo’s tone would arch into high English. “Master this and Sir that – when we all know he’s just a bloody farmhand playing it up in the big house. Still got shit under his nails, for Christ’s sake, whilst getting his tea served in the drawing room. Such a joke.”
As little as the title had suited Marcus, I couldn’t imagine it suiting Theo at all. “Master Warren?” I repeated, carefully. I was shivering so violently the words came out in bites. “I’m after Theodore. Marcus Warren’s son?”
David nodded, face still blank. “Indeed. Yes. But…dear Lord, we’re both shivering here. Let’s get into the warm.” He turned back in the direction of his cottage.
“No, really,” I said. “I should be heading back.”
“You should get warm first,” he said. “You should know better than to come out without gloves and scarf at this time of year. Come on, come and have a cup of tea.”
Cold and embarrassed, I wanted to get home, but the thought of hot tea and a warm room was too much to turn down. And if anyone knew what kind of life Theo had now, his groundskeeper would.
Shivering and clutching myself, I followed the shape of Braithwaite a little way down the frozen drive. He soon turned off onto a narrow, well-trodden track leading down the hill. The only sound apart from our feet in the frozen grass was the rasping of my breath. The ground levelled out. A few paces further and we were moving in through a little wooden gate in a low brick wall. I followed him up a neat garden path and then heard him fiddling with keys.
I shone the torch down the path behind me. The thin beam picked out the garden wall and some grey grass beyond. The grass stopped a few feet from the gate and the light died beyond it. I couldn’t see the water; Ercall Pool was just a still blackness past the grass.
“Here we go.”
I turned back to a rush of warmth sweeping from the opening door. I hurried in after him and felt my limbs melt in relief in the close, quiet warmth. The smell of burning wood hung in the air.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you properly, Stefan.” He was shrugging out of his thick overcoat. “I remember how your brother used to visit me, often. That was a long time ago, too. But all significant times are long ago, don’t you find? What is history but another time a long way away from now.”
I nodded. “Yes, Mr. Braithwaite – ”
“David, please.”
“David.”
“What brings you back to Sinclare then? Thought we’d seen the last of you many years ago.” He smiled at me, took my coat and hung it next to his.
“I’m sorting Dad’s house.”
“Oh yes, of course.” He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, watery eyes looked into mine. “I am sorry, Stefan. Elliot was a good man.”
I nodded whilst staring at the carpet.
He motioned me through to the kitchen. “How does it feel being back? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“It feels good.” I listened to the words and decided it was true. “I’m moving back.”
“Really? Well, that would be wonderful. It’s always good to support the community that brought you up.”
. The kitchen had a curious, sharp smell that hung under the smell of old cooking and wood. It snagged in my mind. The floor was flagged in heavy stones the colour of rust. An aga dominated one side. The walls were bare brick but crowded with dozens of pictures. It brought the Witch back to mind along with the claustrophobic feeling of being watched by dozens of frozen eyes. They were strange pictures of strange things, mermaids and silkies and hinkey-punks and then portraits of people with faces full of stories and landscapes that made me wonder what was just outside the frame. I frowned as Braithwaite moved about the kitchen amongst them all. I stiffened slightly when, again and again, what was clearly the mermaid of Ercall Pool appeared with hands reached out toward me.
“I don’t sleep too well these days, I’m afraid. The cold affects me badly,” he prattled on in a low voice, like he was talking to himself. “I keep my curtains open to watch for the dawn, so couldn’t help but spot your light…”
His voice was so different now. I remembered him shouting. Always shouting. Stefan Bridgeman, your father shall hear of this, waving his cane as I scuttled back into the trees with Theo, clutching something pulled from his garden.
It hadn’t just been his voice. His shoulders, his height, the big coats and boots he wore, not to mention the whispers that he did hit people with that stick. We’d constantly dared each other into his front garden and around the back of his cottage, sniggering in the trees. He’ll set the witch on you. If spotted, we ran fast and weren’t able to laugh about it until hours later.
He chattered on about the weather and the harvest and tourists from Oldport and my gaze landed on the kitchen table. I recognised the notebook from the logo stamped in the corner of it.
“Mr. Braithwaite,” I began, reaching out for the notebook, but he came forward and stood in between me and the table.
“Yes, a young girl came calling, asking for information. Research, I think. She left that by mistake but I’m sure she’ll be back when she realises. Why don’t we move through to the sitting room?” He handed me a steaming mug that smelt tangy and bitter but tasted deliciously warm and smooth. “A little recipe of my own invention. Perfect for winter. Warms you up and should help you sleep. Come, it’s just through here.” He led me back out of the kitchen and across the hall, into the lighted living room. Pictures hung everywhere, dozens of doors to different places and times. The dim light of a few mismatched lamps threw strange shadows around the frames and amongst the jumble of worn and over-sized furniture that crowded the little room.
A large fireplace was set in the middle of one wall, a pile of embers pulsing in the grate. The mantle held a large carriage clock that filled the room with its soft clicking. Above the mantle hung the largest of the paintings. Biblical Eve and her serpent twisted in a frozen dance. The gloom of the shadows and the firelight spread darkness across its corners and Eve’s eyes hung heavy in her face. Even in that light I could see it was laid out in fine, fine oils, so fleshy I could almost taste her. There was something in the moulding of the flesh, in the use of shadow and in the gaze…
“Who painted that one, Mr Braithwaite?” I tried to keep my voice steady.
“You like that one, do you? It’s not one of my favourites, but it is one of the oldest in my little collection. A Sinclare painter, that. Arthur Bulmer. Was quite famous in his day.”
“Who was he?”
Braithwaite eased himself into a massive, battered chair and seemed to shrink as he sat. “He worked a lot on commission for the Sinclare family in the 1700s, when Bartholomew rose the family to status and success and renamed the island. He’s rumoured to have painted many of the family’s portraits but so few of them survive to this day.”
“Was there a Charlotte Sinclare around that time?”
Braithwaite blinked his watery eyes. “Yes, as a matter of fact. Barthlomew’s daughter by his first wife. But she died in infancy. That’s a very obscure bit of knowledge, Stefan. Where did you hear it?”
I was staring hard into the eyes of the painted Eve and he had to ask me again before I heard him. “I found…” I began, but then noticed the way he was looking at me. I swallowed and said, “I found a book. In Dad’s attic. I saw the name when I flicked through it.”
“Do you remember the name of this book?” He was now focussing on the tea in his cup and wouldn’t look at me.
I could feel myself blushing. “Um, no. I don’t remember. I threw it away.”
“Pity.”
I sat on the edge of a high-backed wooden chair and sipped at my drink. Everything started to fuzz pleasantly at the edges and I suppressed a yawn. My gaze kept returning to Eve and shining snake, writhing as they did in their stone-still-motion under a tree laden with unidentifiable fruit, on grass so lush-looking I half-expected it to sway in the heat rising from the fire. “He had an incredible talent.”
Braithwaite nodded heavily, looked up from his cup, one eyebrow lifted. “That he did.” He examined me for a minute or so before turning his head back toward the picture above the mantle. “There were of course, as with anything from that time, wild tales and superstitions floating around the nature of his extraordinary skill. It’s amazing what people will say to deliberately mislead about such things, isn’t it, Stefan?”
I swallowed some tea, taking my eyes off the painting. “It’s an…impressive…collection.”
“Thank you. Sinclare can’t seem to help but inspire artists, though not a lot of the work is widely known. This is only some of my collection. I donated some to the Water Witch when they were refurbishing. Makes you feel safe, somehow, doesn’t it? All this great beings watching over you.” Watching him look around I saw him sink a little further into the chair, a slight smile around the edges of his mouth. “Although I do wish they had changed the pub’s name to The Mermaid,” he continued. “Much nicer. And, obviously, more true to the actual myth.”
He took a long swallow of tea and I did the same. I felt my eyes drooping. The pictures around me throbbed in and out of focus. I rubbed at them, forcing my mind back on track. “So, Mr. Braith – sorry, David. Theo…”
“Ah, yes, yes.” He shuffled, leaning forward to me. “Master Warren. You came to see him?”
“Well, my brother told me he’d moved back. About five years ago? I only found out yesterday…”
“Well, yes, that’s true, he did. He moved back into Sinclare House when it defaulted to him at twenty-one. He was living there quite happily it seemed to me.” He was frowning. “I’m surprised you didn’t know already. I remember you two being very close. Both your fathers commented on it frequently.”
I was too sleepy to fully decide whether there was anything implied in the way he said it. “No, I haven’t spoken to him since Marcus’s…the late Master Warren’s funeral. Theo was moved away a few days later. I was hoping to see him again. I know I picked an odd time to visit, but…”
Braithwaite shook his large head, rather sadly. “You won’t find him at the house at any time.”
“Sorry?”
“No one’s seen or heard from him months.”
“He’s shut himself away?”
He shook his head again, frown deepening. “No. He’s not there at all. I noticed the curtains hadn’t been opened in a few days and went to check but no one was in.”
“Are you sure?”
He laughed a little, a laugh like the creaking of an old tree. “I’m the groundskeeper, Stefan. I have spare keys to everything for just this kind of situation. He wasn’t in the house and it looked like some of his clothes were gone.”
“Didn’t anyone look for him?”
He sighed, leant back in the chair, drained the rest of his mug. “Master Warren’s his own man, Stefan. None of our business should he choose to lift off and leave, for whatever reason.”
Something slumped in me. “Do you know if he’s coming back?”
Another cracking laugh. “I’m not his father, young Stefan. I’m his groundskeeper, certainly, but the Sinclare House Foundation pays me, not him. We keep ourselves to ourselves, me and Master Warren. I was close to the late Master Warren, it’s true. But not Theodore. He never tells me anything, I’m afraid. He could return any second, or never. It’s his house. If he wants to let it fall in on itself and rot away that’s his affair, as much as I would rather it were different.”
I followed his heavy stare out the window, off in the direction of the hill and the house.
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Sorry there’s been such a gap since the last posting. But here’s Chapter 4!
Chapter 4
Lewis helped me light the massive wood burner in the front room. The wood caught easily and the room, so suddenly, smelt and felt different. I closed my eyes and I could almost hear Dad’s knees creak and crack as he straightened from the hearthrug and the soft clapping as he dusted ash from his large hands.
The kitchen had taken most of the previous afternoon after we got back from the Witch. Grendel watched everything from a distance, skittering away whenever Lewis tried to stroke him. He watched us pile bin bags outside the back door, filled to bursting with ageing food, tins, crockery, cookware, books, pens, kettles, irons. They were all things that had sat in their places for years. The kitchen looked strange and cavernous without them but I kept reminding myself that this was my house now. That’s what Dad wanted, surely.
I ventured into the front room early the next morning, the night only just starting to give up to the day. I’d spent the night concentrating on not thinking about Theo. I’d stopped myself at six in the morning, one hand on the front door handle, about to march out to Sinclare House.
The door to the living room was very stiff and the room was pitch and stuffy, the drapes pulled tight against the last night Dad saw. I wrestled them open, coughing in the dust. The morning rising outside, weak and white as it was, was clean and alive and unmistakably winter. So much of the house had always been shut behind doors or curtains that were rarely ever opened. I wanted it to breathe a little.
Lewis joined me, fresh and awake, as I was half way through packing Mum’s books, faded and neatly sorted by author, into boxes. He didn’t say anything as he came beside me and started helping.
We lit the fire to stop our teeth chattering and worked on in silence. I rubbed at my eyes, damp and sore with lack of sleep and floating dust. The only reason I was aware of time passing was the voice of the clock on the mantle, steadily ticking away the seconds. The room gradually emptied itself into boxes and bags, space gathering on shelves and in cupboards.
“Stefan, look,” Lewis said. It might have been five minutes or two hours later. He was stood by the mantle, holding something out something to me. “I found it behind the clock.”
I took it from him, laid it flat on my palm. A small key, old, quite heavy for its size. “What’s it for?”
Lewis leaned over and looked at it. “For the attic, I think. I never knew where Dad kept it. Trust him to keep it right here under our noses.”
“The attic?” I closed my hand over the little bit of metal and made for the stairs. The floorboards of the landing creaked loudly the further down I went. I had to duck through the low doorway at the end, into the darkened room. I blinked in the gloom, felt my way to another pair of heavy curtains that hung across the window. I opened them and spluttered in another great flurry of dust. I grabbed a chair from under the window and dragged it underneath the hatch in the ceiling. Lewis stood with his arms folded, watching me. I stared up at it. “What do you think is up there?” I squeezed the key tighter in my hand.
“Junk, Stef. Another massive room of junk. I don’t understand why you’re so excited.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
Lewis’s face had once again fallen into a heavy frown. “I was done with this house a long time ago. I thought you were too.”
“So did I. Running away didn’t achieve anything though, did it? And I’m tired of being angry with this place.”
Breathing deeply, I stepped up onto the creaky chair and reached up. It was an awkward angle to turn the key from. Finally, the lock clicked and the weight of the door pushed down. I lowered it gently and thick clots of wood dust billowed down. After I’d finished coughing and wiping at my eyes I reached up and grabbed the end of a battered collapsible ladder. I juggled it down, the old metal screeching in protest, the feet fitting into faint grooves in the carpet. I shook it and it held. With one more deep breath I started up into the black mouth.
Coming up out of the light, the darkness seemed complete. The air had a stale taste. The light shining up from below died weakly around me, falling on wooden flooring. I tested it with my foot and stepped off the top rung of the ladder, the floor creaking quietly. I bounced a little, cautiously.
“Well?” Lewis’s face tilted up below me.
“Is there a light?”
“I don’t know, do I? I – ” He cut off. Looking down I saw he was staring off back down the corridor.
“What?”
“Nothing…”
I frowned. “Did you hear something?”
He didn’t answer. I shook my head and tried a few more steps into the dark. My toes cracked against something solid. “Wasn’t there a light up here? I’m sure I’ve seen Dad turn on a light. Lewis?”
I peered back down the ladder but he was gone.
As I blinked my eyes into adjusting to the dark, shapes began to form in the gloom, large and hunkered like giant, misshapen beetles. Feeling about along the closest wall I found a switch that produced a click but nothing else. Peering around again, I saw the room on my right was somehow lighter than the rest. I stumbled forwards and found a slice of thin daylight falling across the far end of the room, disturbed flecks drifting in and out of the beam. The end of the beam fell across the middle of one of the heavy mounds and two eyes, wide and black, stared right through me from the strip of light. I flailed, stumbled back but came up short against a pile of junk.
Breathing heavily, I saw the eyes weren’t moving. Fumbling my way towards it, I reached out and my fingertips brushed against rough canvas. The painted eyes gazed up between my fingers. I felt the outline of a frame and pulled it out of its pile, angled it in the light. I saw bits of dark hair, a silver necklace, a white neck.
With one hand clutching the painting and the other outstretched I edged my way across the crowded and creaking floor, towards the source of the thin finger of daylight. After a few more crashes and some dusty dead ends I laid my fingers on what I’d thought would be nailed shutters but found were curtains. They were extremely thick and heavy, even slightly velvety and, of course, belched out great clouds of dust when I heaved them apart. The white winter sun flooded the room.
She stared up out of her wooden frame with silent, black eyes. There was no smile on her mouth and her chin was tilted up slightly, to look me right in the eye. Her black hair was pulled back tight from her brow, held down with a jewelled pin that the artist had expertly pricked out with light and shadow. The silver necklace was rendered in the same exquisite detail. It was draped delicately under the tsiff collar of her plain dress. Charlotte swirled in black lettering across the solid pendent.
I searched the corners and the shadows of the picture but couldn’t find an artist’s signature. She was in eighteenth century costume, but the style was of no artist I was aware of from that time. She was almost a photograph, but warmer. I felt that if I reached out and touched it I would feel the soft black of her hair and the heat of her expertly-blushed skin. Even holding it right to my face I found it hard to see actual brushstrokes.
“Lewis,” I called, my voice deadened by the silent mounds and dust floating around me. “Lewis, come and look at this.”
He didn’t answer. I called again, starting to clamber back but still nothing. Only now did I look up and around at the rest of the room. I stopped and stared. One pathetic, dead bulb hung from the angle in the ceiling but even when it worked I couldn’t imagine it would have been able to light the whole room. It stretched out in front of me, under the whole length of the roof. At the other end I could just make out in the remaining shadows another window behind drawn curtains.
Carefully propping the painting on the windowsill I scrambled across the length of the room to the other window and threw open the curtains. The icy winter sun flooded the whole place. The window frame had been painted over but with some creaks and splinters I shouldered it open, let the cold freshness come tumbling in to ease the thick and mouldering air. Leaning out I could see further out across the island than from any of the bedroom windows. The drive stretched away from the house on one side under its thin elms. The fields spread out from it on either side, grey under their skin of frost. The finger of the church spire down in Hoodwin clawed black against the backdrop of pale hills. Leaning out still further and squinting I thought I could see the top of Stonehill. I fancied I could even pick out the black fragments of the ring of standing stones on its top.
I didn’t understand how either of my parents could bare to have this room shut up and curtained off. A quick bitterness rose in me. I might have understood Dad locking it away, but not Mum. With the large windows opening up onto the sky like this I felt I was at the top of the whole of the island. The pieces I could have produced from up here…
I pushed the habitual regret away. I was letting go of all that. Lewis was wrong. It was all gone, the bitterness and fear. It was another time. The only way it would spoil anything else was if I let it. After all, Theo had come back. And he had it worse than the rest of us.
I leaned out as far as I dared to see if I could see Sinclare House, perched on its hill north of Hoodwin. I could make out the north road but it disappeared off into trees.
A shiver rippled my skin from the outside air and I was just ducking back in when a movement caught my eye. I leaned out again and squinted at the end of the drive just in time to see a figure duck away behind the hedges of the road. I frowned. The person had definitely been on the drive, not just passing in the road. I hung there until my fingers were numbing but they didn’t come back.
Shaking my head I turned back into the room, rubbing my arms and teeth chattering. The sheeted mounds lay silent around me in the pale light. I felt my excitement wither a little as I took in the sheer expanse of it. I was just trying to decide where on earth to start sorting it all when there was a metallic creaking from the direction of the obscured entrance hatch.
“Where on earth have you been?”
Lewis ascended, coughing in the dust and looking pale in the wan winter light. “Nowhere, I just thought I heard something.”
“Did someone come to the door?”
“What? No.” He gazed around the room, dusting his hands. “It was Grendel. He’d knocked over a pile of books in the living room.”
“I thought I saw someone on the drive.”
He shook his head, not looking at me. “A lost tourist, maybe.” He stared around at the room with his hands on his hips but it didn’t look like he was seeing any of it. “I’m going to get some bin bags,” he said, turning back to the ladder.
“Was he ok?”
“Who?”
“Grendel,” I prompted.
“Oh. Yes, of course he was.” He disappeared and I chewed my lip, watching the space where he’d gone.
Shaking my head, I turned back to the room and started pulling the dustsheets off everything. There were wooden chests, pieces of old furniture, more chairs of more different types than I had though imaginable in various stages of disrepair. Piles of folded and unidentifiable linen, holed by moths and mice. Chests and buckets, piles and piles of boxes, wooden, plastic, cardboard, locked and open, brimming and bursting with anything and everything people collect over their lifetimes. Books, pictures, toys, stacks of newspapers and magazines, long-unused brewing barrels that, even now, smelt of moss and malt. Photo albums with crumbling spines and records packed away in paper sleeves and the broken record player next to them.
“Most of it’ll burn,” I said to Lewis’s worried look when he came back up with bin bags. “And there’s a skip coming from Oldport tomorrow.”
“You’re more organised than I thought.” I didn’t like the way he said it but couldn’t think of any way to reply. I ignored him and bent to start loading magazines into a bin bag.
“What’s that?”
I looked up and followed Lewis’s gaze. Charlotte stared back at him impassively from where I’d propped her. “I found it near the window.”
“What, it was up here?” He looked pale again.
I nodded. “I don’t recognise the artist. It’s old. She must have belonged to Mum.”
“Why?” The word came out bluntly.
I shrugged. “I…I don’t know. I thought Mum must have got it from her mainland family. Why?”
Lewis shrugged deliberately. “Nothing…it’s probably worth a fair amount, right?”
“I imagine so…”
“I know a good auctioneer for that kind of thing. On the mainland. No one around here would be interested.” He was almost glaring.
“Well, I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet.” He ignored me and tore a bin bag from the roll. “Have you seen it before?”
“Of course not.” He began shoving old linen into the bag. “I’ve never been up here before, have I?”
I frowned, first at my brother and then at the picture. “Do you not like it because it looks a bit like Mum?”
Lewis’s movements took on a more deliberate force. “It would raise a fair whack, Stef,” he reiterated. “I wouldn’t want to pass that up, especially if I wasn’t selling the house.”
“Look, Lewis. You got his savings, I got his house. I’m just choosing to spend my inheritance in a different way. Why is that such a problem to you?”
He paused. I could see him breathing. He clutched at the bin bag but didn’t look up. “I really thought you’d managed it, Stef. Left this bloody place behind. Like me. But it looks like it’s too late for you as well as Dad.”
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Thanks once more for all the kind, encouraging comments but most of all taking the time to read my story! The most exciting thing of all for me is that you seem to be genuinely intrigued and interested by it. I plan to post all five of the complete chapters up steadily. Here’s chapter 3 for now and I hope it continues to interest you!
Chapter 3
The dust made me sneeze. Wilting herbs strung up in the kitchen, half-gone soap in grimy dishes and curtains hanging half-shut painted an image of a house in an unpleasant denial. I itched to start sorting. The loss of the previous day grated on me.
The steam from the shower curling against the bathroom ceiling became smoke in my mind’s eye, throbbing from a bonfire at the bottom of the orchard, a great, hot fire roaring up from battered wardrobes, linen boxes, bedsteads, Mum’s dressing table…
“Come on, Stef,” Lewis’s voice floated up from downstairs. “I’m hungry.”
I sighed, climbed out of the shower and made my way down the corridor to my room. Light poured in the hall windows, the day rising grey outside. I stepped past the shut door of Dad’s room.
Lewis’s door was open. His travel bag lay on the bed and he’d balanced his keys, wallet, passport and bits of paper awkwardly on the bedside table amidst a couple of dusty old matchbox cars and a run-down alarm clock. Through the window I could see more of the allotment that spread out behind the house. An ancient greenhouse, rotting and cracked, teetered at the bottom. The end of the large brewing house shouldered up against the edge of the view. There were trees beyond and then hills and then the inevitable sea, looking like a trick of the light.
I moved to return to my own room, wondering whether Lewis would finally throw out the things he left behind, when I caught sight of the bedside table again. Lewis’s ferry ticket lay in a pile of crumpled papers and under a packet of chewing gum. I frowned at it. My fingers tightened on the towel.
“Stefan Bridgeman,” I heard Lewis’s footsteps, “will you hurry up?” I straightened and left the room just as he reached the top of the stairs. “What were you doing?”
My skin was rippling with goosebumps and my hair dripped down my neck but I stood up straight, looked at him. “Nothing. Wanted to see the view.”
He frowned and I turned and headed back to my own room, past the stairs, past more shut doors. When I got there I dressed hurriedly.
Lewis was waiting in the hall, expensive overcoat buttoned up to the top and a cashmere scarf woven tightly around his neck. “Right, shall we go?”
“What time did you get into Oldport this morning?” I kept my voice flat.
“What?” He looked at me quickly then away. “About nine. I know, early. It was a smooth crossing.” He headed to the front door.
“It’s just your ferry ticket’s stamped with yesterday’s date.”
He stopped and turned back to me. His frown was heavy. “Have you been going through my things? Thought you’d have grown out of that by now.” I just looked at him, a patter of nervousness fluttering in my stomach. His frown melted and he shrugged. “Stef, the conductor let me use the same ticket. He stamped it with yesterday’s date so he wouldn’t get into trouble when they saw it on the return journey. Satisfied?”
I dropped my gaze, grabbed my jacket. Lewis laughed, a little louder than I thought necessary. I felt a hot blush creep up my neck as I climbed into my coat. We stepped out into the pale light and I breathed the breezy winter in deep. It was fresh and lively and stripped at my skin, making me feel pleasantly raw. Fingers already stinging, I turned the key in the front door behind us. My breath silvered out and vanished. I stepped out onto the gravel and looked about.
“Ah, there you are,” Lewis said, looking above my head. I followed his gaze and saw Grendel perched above the door. His yellow eyes peered, unblinking and the end of his tail twitched. “I wondered where you’d got to.” Lewis stretched up but Grendel skipped out of reach. “He looks good.”
“I fed him last night,” I said as I rubbed my hands together, “but he must have been looking after himself before I got here.”
Grendel turned away, trotted along the guttering before jumping off into a tree and disappearing around the other side of it.
Lewis walked past his car, crouched like a black beetle against the gravel, and set off down the drive, his feet crunching.
“So we’re not going to Oldport then?” I said, skipping to catch up.
He shook his head. “Long way to go for lunch when the Witch is just at the bottom of the hill.”
A hot flush rippled up from my belly. “Can’t we go somewhere else?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why?”
The breeze picked up, tugged at my damp hair and made me shiver. “The Witch…” I looked at him, raised my eyebrows. He just shrugged. I let out an exasperated noise. “Eve, Lewis.”
“So?”
I frowned. “You know so. It’s not unreasonable. I’d just rather not see her.”
He chuckled. “If all that is in another lifetime like you say it is, then it shouldn’t bother you.”
I held his gaze coolly then turned and looked ahead to the road. Ignore the memories, I told myself. Let them stiffen, wilt and crumble like plants caught in the snow.
We stepped onto the tarmac of the road. Lewis moved on at a clipped pace, the white light shining in his dark hair. I ran a hand through mine, tucked the straying ends behind my ears and wished once again I’d taken the time to shave. The village crept closer. The church spire poked up against the sky at the bottom of the road. The slate roof of the Water Witch piled up on the opposite side. The square spread out beyond the pub, almost as still and silent as it was last night. The daylight showed the patchwork stone of the shops and buildings, leaning and jumbled together. A few human shapes, small and mismatched as the buildings, ambled about in big coats amongst the grocer’s, butcher’s and the Post Office. The newsagent was the only one with a new sign that I could see.
The girl, Melanie, appeared from the grocer’s, scribbling something in her notebook. The grocer came to his door to watch her walk across the square and into the Post Office.
The sign of the Witch creaked above us in a slight, salty wind. It had been repainted at some point in the last decade but I still found it hard to look at. The artist had muted his pallet, all greys and blues. The Water Witch sat on a rock, one corner of her grey mouth smiling. The yawning waters of Ercall Pool were daubed in blacks and blues behind her. The look on the witch’s (or the mermaid, depending on which legend you preferred) face was hungry, narrow and the water behind her was rippled and angry-looking.
Lewis led the way in, ducking under the low lintel. I felt my muscles and joints loosen as we were wrapped in a close, thick warmth. I blinked in the gloom, trying to figure out what I was actually looking at. The stained red carpet had been replaced by a wooden floor, some years ago by the look of the scratches of stools and feet in the varnish. What little of the walls was visible from in between crowds of framed pictures was now a dark blue. All the exposed timbers in the ceiling had been done over in black and the bar was polished pine. A large fire burned in the same big grate but the mantle was a light wood and was crowded with yet more pictures.
There was a single human shape propped against the bar. He looked back over his shoulder at us, a slow, creaking movement like an old oak in the wind. I could feel his gaze rake up and down me before he went back to his glass, turning his hunched shoulders and elbowing himself further onto the bar. There was something in his shape and movements that I recognised but could put no name to. An aging ghost from another life.
There were clanks and chatter from the kitchen and the smells of cooking hung heavy in the air but no one was serving. No Evelyn. I let go a breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding and the smell of food made me realise how hungry I was. Lewis might have brought me down here to try and remind me of some of the things I had run away from, but I stood up straight and smiled inwardly, neatly packing thoughts of Evelyn away and wandered up to the chalkboard menu, stomach grumbling. It was only after I’d decided on the steak sandwich that I realised Lewis hadn’t moved. He was staring at the walls and had gone very pale. I frowned, followed his gaze.
Every single one of the pictures was Ercall Pool, some with and some without the figure of the witch. Different sizes, shapes, styles from different times, different artists. Some looked more like the real thing than others, but all were dark, black, gaping mouths. I swallowed, feeling the blood drain from my own face.
Lewis shook himself and came to my side, eyes still wide and twitching, though he pretended to look at the menu. “What are you going to have then?” His voice had an edge he tried to hide.
“Lewis,” I kept my voice low. The man at the bar continued sitting still, part of the woodwork. “Don’t pretend.”
“I know.” He shrugged, stiffer than before. “They obviously had a refurbish for the tourists; revisited the history and all that.”
“Yes, but…the new pictures. Don’t you think it’s a bit tasteless? After what happened to Theo’s dad?”
Lewis hushed me, whiter than ever. “Quiet, Stef. People drown all over the place all the time. Doesn’t stop people owning pictures of rivers and ponds and whatever. Besides, that was over a decade ago, like you said. Now, come on, choose. I’m hungry and I want to get back. This heat’s making me dizzy.”
“I wonder what Theo would think,” I said, glancing round, aware of a coldness under my stomach.
“Come on, will you.”
We stood at the bar in silence, staring straight ahead. I was still hungry and the smell that drifted over from the lone man’s glass made me ache for an ale but I felt the walls watching me and wanted to get back out into the light. I tried to concentrate on the idea of food and the afternoon’s work but my mind wasn’t listening.
In yet another lifetime we stalked the thin woods around Ercall Pool, daring each other closer to the water. Even in the summer the peaty soil made the water still and opaque as treacle. The reflection of David Braithwaite’s cottage was always perfectly copied in the waters, down to the smoke pulsing from the chimney.
Then they weren’t games any more. Adults began gathering at the pool’s edges with dry sticks and old books. I went to a Branch Burning with Lewis and the water of Ercall danced in shapes of reflected fire. Sinclare House watched from on top of the hill but Theo never came down for the Burnings.
Theo Warren. Wild hair, an echoing laugh. The widest smile I knew. Invincible. I rubbed my eyes against the image of him stooped and drawn at his father’s funeral. At the wake, Eve stood as far away from me as she could.
I shook my head, staring into the whorls of the bar surface. Pine now, not battered redwood. Redwood was from another time. A dead time. I shook my head and straightened myself, concentrated on my rumbling stomach.
The door into the kitchen opened and smells, sounds and a person dressed in black came out, talking over her shoulder and wiping long hands on a tea towel.
“Hello there, how can I help you?” She threw the towel over her shoulder and smiled. She was thinner. Her cheekbones were almost violent angles in her face. Her hair was chopped short and symmetrical, framing her face and making it look like a mask.
“Hello, Evelyn.” It was Lewis who said that, not me. My throat was very dry. Lewis beamed at her and there was a different edge to it, an edge I felt but couldn’t bring to the surface.
Evelyn blinked. I remembered how she used to line her eyes thickly in black. They stared naked from her face now, looking even paler for the lack of paint. She started to speak, shaking her head then stared at him, recognition washing over her face. “Holy Christ. Lewis?”
“In the flesh.”
“My God,” she swore again looking at me. “And Stef.”
The cold that had been lying under my belly was now swamped with a heat that flooded up my body into my face. I pushed at it, pushed it all down. “Hello, Eve,” I managed. “Long time.”
She nodded very slightly. I’d never been able to read her eyes terribly well and the years had hardened their surface further. The tiniest of smiles tugged at the corners of her mouth and I wondered what particular memories were being pulled to the front of her mind. “What brings you here, then?” She asked it quietly but there seemed to be a whole weight of volume riding in it. Or maybe not. I couldn’t tell if it was my mind putting it there.
For once in his life, Lewis was quiet. I looked to him but he just smiled again, rather nastily and gestured for me to carry on. I coughed. “Just for lunch. We’re sorting Dad’s house.”
She nodded again, looking away. “Of course. I’m…yes. What would you like?”
Lewis ordered our food and two pints of Dad’s ale. She pulled our pints in silence and disappeared out the back without looking up.
We chose a table against the very furthest wall. I stared into the darkness of my drink, willing the food to hurry so I could get back out and away. I refused to leave now, as much as I wanted to, because I would not let Lewis be proved right. As soon as I was back outside the wind and the air would scrub away the heat of anxiety in me and I could re-bury things like Ercall Pool, Branch Burnings and Eve.
A couple more people drifted in, bringing in the fresh of outside. Evelyn appearing again to serve and I stared into the darkness of my drink. It smelt like the cellar and the brewing house. I took a sip, willing it to help. It tasted of summers and winters with wind and grass. It tasted like ten years ago. It was a lonely taste, of stinking barrels in the darkened outbuildings and of the moss from the salty standing stones and the wide, naked air of another time.
“So you haven’t seen Theo, then?”
Lewis’s question cut in through my musings as we trudged back up the hill, bellies full and my nerves and mind pleasantly fogged with ale. The fresh air was already beginning to calm me. My mind was wandering in more pleasant directions so Lewis had to repeat the question.
“Theo? You haven’t seen him? I thought that would be one of the first things you did.”
“Talk sense, Lewis. I haven’t seen Theo since Marcus’s funeral. He lives on the mainland somewhere.”
“Not any more. He moved back when he graduated university.”
“He did?” I tried to keep my voice neutral.
“Didn’t he tell you?”
I shook my head.
“Dad told me. Sinclaire House passed to him when he turned twenty-one. I saw him about a couple of times when I visited.”
I found that I’d stopped walking. “Theo’s here?” I saw Lewis nod out the corner of my eye but I was staring at the road.
“I invited him to Dad’s funeral,” he said, “but he didn’t reply.”
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I want to thank everyone for the time they’ve taken to read Chapter 1 and thank them even more for all the kind and encouraging comments. There is still obviously alot of work to be done (like writing the rest of the book) but have interest expressed at this early stage is most encouraging. After all, I’m writing it to be read and if people are wanting to read more that can only be a good thing!
In that vein, here is Chapter 2.
Chapter 2
Lewis came bowling in through the back door a little before ten the next morning. He brought a wash of November air with him that raised the hairs on my neck.
“You’re up, then.”
“Barely.” I blinked at him through sleep-crunched eyes. He was pink-cheeked, black hair a stylish muss from the wind and the smell of winter clung to his long, thick overcoat. “You’re early,” I said stupidly. “I thought the ferry didn’t dock until ten?”
He shrugged. “It made good time today. Bloody hell, coming back here is always so strange. Christ.” He shook his head, staring at nothing. “What a rough few months. Still we’re here now, the beginning of the end. Has that kettle just boiled? Good God, it’s frigid out there. Forget how bloody cold it gets around here.”
I ducked out of his way and he went about mixing himself a drink and I stood watching him, rubbing one eye with the heel of my hand.
“No milk? Black will do for now. So, this is all a bit strange isn’t it?” He turned around, dark eyes scanning the kitchen. Agreeing quietly, I took another gulp of my coffee, hoping it would help anchor my mind. “Strange,” Lewis repeated, leaning back and nodding around the room. “You keep imagining Dad’s going to walk in any second, don’t you?”
I winced, wrapped my fingers tighter around the mug and stared into the coffee.
“So…” He shrugged himself out of the black coat and clapped his hands together, rubbing them. “No reason not to start right away. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem getting rid of all this. Most of it’s not worth keeping. I might take some of the pictures and maybe the piano?”
I stared at him as he bustled around the kitchen, eyes lively, running fingers along the spines of cookery books and fingering pens in a jar on the windowsill. “Well, yes. If you want it.”
He flashed his straight, white grin at me. “Well you were never that keen on the piano, Stef. And I always loved the way that one sounded. I can get it shipped to the mainland somehow, I’m sure. As for the rest of the furniture…auction and bonfire will just about do it.”
I frowned at him. “Well – ”
“We have to be realistic, Stef. I can try and make you money on some of it but most is not the sort that’ll sell. It’s all too bloody old and battered. But anyway, the price we’ll get for whatever furniture’s still in one piece will be pence beside the amount you’ll get for the house itself.”
“I want some of it,” I said, rubbing my eyes, willing myself to wake up. “But the house, Lewis – ”
“Well, of course, some,” he carried on, rolling his eyes. “But we mustn’t get too sentimental. Most of this would never fit in your bedsit, anyway. Don’t worry.” He smiled at the look on my face. “I’ll help you. It’ll be easy, I promise. Like pulling off a plaster: you just need to get it done. Dad would have wanted it that way. Hey up – ”
An echoing banging of the iron doorknocker rattled down the hall.
“Well, go on,” Lewis urged, making a shooing motion. “It’s your house. For now, anyway.” He laughed and started pulling open cupboards.
“Lewis – ”
But the banging came again and Lewis was shoulders-deep in the pan cupboard, clanking about. The caller was knocking a third time by the time I got to the door. The handful of key turned in the lock stiffly. The door swung open with a groan I sympathised with and winter breathed in on me. “Yes?” My teeth were chattering and my eyes fought to focus in the sudden light.
“Hello.” The voice was bright and cheerful. “I’m sorry if this is a bad time…”
I felt myself blushing and folded my arms over my shabby pullover and felt the cold seep through my pyjamas trousers from my feet upwards.
“My name’s Melanie.” The girl held out a hand and I took it briefly. She looked like a sparrow, shining eyes, shining smile, shining hair. I curled my toes inside my patched slippers and pulled my hair out of my face with twitchy fingers. “I’m just doing some research into the island,” she continued, “the history, folklore and traditions. Could ask you some questions?”
“I’m sorry,” I babbled. “I’m not really the right person to talk to. I haven’t lived here for ten years.”
“Oh, ok,” she chirped. “But you have lived here at some point?”
“Well, yes, until I was sixteen. But, really, you’re best off trying in the village if you want to know anything like that.”
“Hoodwin?”
“That’s right. Not much further down the road.” I looked back over my shoulder. I could hear Lewis banging about in the kitchen.
“I’m on my way there. I saw your house from the road. It’s the first house for miles, coming from Oldport. Thought I’d try me luck.” Her smile was stitched back into place. “Thank you for your time, I’ll try in the village. Can I just ask your name?”
I eyed her and she smiled wider, pen poised. She wore gloves and jeans and fairly battered-looking trainers. There was a tiny logo of a mainland university stamped onto the corner of her notebook. “Stefan,” I said. “Stefan Bridgeman.”
She gave a clipped nod, made a note in her book. “Bridgeman? That’s an old name on Sinclare, isn’t it?”
I pushed at the flesh of my forehead with my fingertips. “I think so, I don’t know. I’m really not the one to talk to. Sorry…”
“If you do think of anything that might be interesting, no matter what it is…” She fished out a small card from her pocket and handed it to me. I nodded, already starting to shut the door. “Thank you.” And the door was shut. I secured it with numb fingers and scuttled back through to the kitchen. Lewis was filling bin bags. Grendel was sat on the bookshelf, calm and coiled as a shadow, watching him. There were bits and pieces of mismatched crockery gathering on one sideboard and he was sweeping crumbs out of a now empty cupboard onto the floor. “Who was that then?”
I pushed a bin bag out of my way. “Someone doing research.”
“What?” His hands worked quickly, shutting that cupboard, opening the next.
I waved my hand. “Sinclare history or something. Look, Lewis…”
“Jesus…” He paused, looking over my shoulder down the corridor. “Hope you warned him off.”
“It was a her.”
“Well, her, then.” He turned back to the cupboard, pulling out jars. “If she’s asking about Sinclare traditions she’ll have that David Braithwaite character roping her into the Branch Burning and all that.
“I thought you liked all that? You researched it enough when we were kids.”
“Which is exactly why I know it’s best to stay the hell away from it all. Look, Stef, stop gabbing and grab a bin bag. There’s tonnes to be done before the place is fit to sell and I’m only here a week.”
I shook my head frustrated. “Lewis, wait one second. About that whole selling-the-house business…”
“I’ve done a bit of research over the last few weeks.” He had his head back in a cupboard. “It’s pretty impressive. Seems mainlanders have taken to idealising island life. They’ll learn soon enough but long after we’ve got the cheque and left them to it.”
“Lewis, stop.” He stopped and frowned around the cupboard door at me. “Lewis…” I snapped his name, held up my hands, trying to figure out where to start. “Lewis,” calmer, “why do you think I asked you here?”
“Well…to help you sort out the house, like you said.”
“Yes, but…” I felt myself getting hot in the face. “When I said sort out, I meant just…you know…tidy up, make space. For me.”
“For you?” He put down an ancient tin of treacle, so old there was rusting around the rim.
“Yes, for me. For me to live. Here.”
He was looking at me, face crumpled, scratching his temple. “Let me get this straight,” he said, expression darkening. “You’re moving back?”
I nodded, slowly. I could see the thoughts flying around behind his eyes. “It was all a long time ago, Lewis.”
“Dad’s death isn’t,” he snapped. “He died here, Stef. Right here. In this room.”
“Lewis.” I frowned at him.
“It’s true. Completely alone, he was, too. The Witch collected his ale from him once a quarter and that was virtually all the company he had. A week, the doctors said. Seven days he’d been lying here, alone and forgotten. This damn place…”
“It wasn’t the village’s fault, Lewis,” I rubbed my eyes. “Dad had shut himself off from everyone by the end. Hell, he barely even spoke to either of us.”
He leant back against the counter, crossed his arms and stared at me. “It was this damn village that he shut himself off from, Stef. We were lucky enough to get out when we did, make lives somewhere else. Dad couldn’t, he’d been here too long, knew no different.”
“You don’t need to tell me what it was like.” My voice was low. “That last year here convinced me I wanted to be anywhere but here. But we were so young, Lewis. We never really gave it a chance.”
“Dad gave it too many chances, if you ask me.” He continued pointedly shoving food into the bin bag. “Didn’t do him any good in the end.”
“Lewis, that wasn’t Hoodwin that did that to him. That was living without Mum. You’d left by that point, you didn’t see. Those last few years…he just…couldn’t cope. He didn’t even want me around by the end.”
He was looking at me. Dark eyes, so certain. Everything about him was certain, his expensive clothes, his neat haircut. He’d gone to college on the mainland, like most young people from Sinclaire, but had done well, better than most. Like me, he had the passion to not return. He got his degree, job, promotion. His own house, fiancée, his own life. Even Dad had seen what he’d achieved and was proud of it. He was less enthusiastic about the root I took a few years later, but it got me away and that’s all I’d cared about. At least, it was then.
“Lewis, when you come back to Sinclare, can you honestly tell me that it doesn’t…do something to you? Forget the people, forget the Branch Burnings and May and David Braithwaite and all that. Just the place.”
His face softened slightly. “You know I can’t say no. And you’re like Mum with the art and everything. It must mean something more, this weird wildness it has. But it’s not enough to make me forget. Jesus, Stef, I still have nightmares about the things David used to tell me. Theo’s dad died here…” He went pale. “And, well…now our dad.”
I swallowed, glanced quickly around the chilly, dusty kitchen. But then I looked out the window and saw the grass, trees and the hills, all under the skin of glassy frost and not a single person or another house in sight. “I don’t care. There’s a life for me to live here.”
Lewis sighed and shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. The further away we are from this place, the better. It’s messed up. People say things, do things. We never fit in with the mechanics of this place.”
“I don’t have to,” I poured myself another coffee with my back to him and all the time felt my mind making itself up. “It’s the land and the sea that’s me, not the people.”
“You’ll end up like Dad.”
I glared at him. That was a low shot, even for him. “Why are you so bothered anyway, Lewis? It’s not like you have to live here with me.”
“I’m just worried about you.” He patted my arm and almost managed to look sincere. “After all that happened to you the year you left school. And the practicalities of it all. How are you going to earn a living?”
“Pictures can be sent through the post, you know.” I now picked up a bin bag and started sorting through what junk was left. “And online, now Angela’s got her website running. I can visit clients if I need to, but this is where I want to be.”
I looked over at him chewing his thumbnail and staring at the floor. “I still think you’re making a big mistake.” He said it slowly and didn’t look at me as he did.
“Well,” I threw my hands up in exasperation. “If I change my mind I’ll give you a ring and you can gloat, ok?”
He stared at the floor, still chewing. His eyes were wide and strange. “Lets go out for an early lunch,” he said, one half of his mouth smiling. “We’ll get some good food down us before we start sorting the house.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not going to change my mind, Lewis.”
“I may not try to.”
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At the moment I am working on my portfolio for my MA in Creative Writing which is due in on the first of September. The first few chapters of my full-length project ‘Hoodwin’ are going into this portfolio and so are now edited and polished. (NB: I intend to make a short post with a synopsis and a few more details about the project in the near future for anyone who wants to know a little more about it before they start reading: will keep you informed) The rest of the book is on-going but over the coming weeks I intend to publish the first few chapters as they are now.
Here is Chapter 1 and I sincerely hope you enjoy!
Hoodwin
Chapter 1
My fingers itched to sketch the whole shipwreck. I could bring up the spread of the wind-battered hills and scrublands with my eyes closed. The pencil pulled the land from the paper without me needing to look up. The circle of stone stood around me in silence, watching. The only real problem was scale. How could any of Sinclare Island ever fit on a piece of paper?
I had only seen the whole of the wreck of the Jennifer Green once before. I peered off to the west, narrowing me eyes in the watery November sunlight. The battered skin of the hills stretched for miles before shouldering down into the sea. The water was just visible, a slate smudge beneath the ice sky. The very top of the ship’s rusted spires clawed against the horizon, beyond the furthest hill. The last thing between the land and the sea. I needed to knife the pencil to a needle-point to detail the far-off fingers into the picture.
The next gust of wind brought the broad smell of the coast: wet, ageless. Salt and damp and weed and rust. Scratching stubborn, three-day-old stubble, I chewed my pencil and squinted at the distant point. They never fenced the wreck off or shut the cove. Never campaigned to have her removed. People just told children ‘ward away’. ‘Ward away from the Jenny’, ‘ward away from the cliffs’, ‘ward away from Ercall Pool’.
The one time I had been down to Lovers’ Cove and seen her, impossibly propped against the cliff, her skin of rust only just holding her together and the breeze pulling about the tang of dying iron, the warning had been ringing in my mind. Theo had dared me to climb with him and we made up a story about tripping on old fencing to explain the ragged cuts on our arms and fingers.
The cove was two hours hike from Stonehill. I decided that by the time I got there the light would be too poor for any sketching. The winter evening drew in quickly, shading in the pale sky with broad strokes of cloud. A shiver rippled over my skin and I stood, dusting grass and moss from my damp trouser seat. The lights of Hoodwin poked holes in the shadow of the next hill. Tucking my sketchbook under one arm I set off through the watching stones. I found it hard to look at them now.
My feet found the sheep track even in the dying light and settled into a steady rhythm, taking me down into the thicker evening clinging between the trees. Even here, surrounded by frosting leaf mould and peeling bark, the smell of the ocean laced itself about me. It felt good against my skin and in my lungs, this air, scrubbed clean by the sea.
With the stones retreating behind me it was easier to ignore the scraps of memory being blown about like leaves in my brain. When I let them go, being back here was like breathing again for the first time after being stuffed into a windowless room for years. In the silence of the gathering night, in the wild air between the trees, my blood pumped and my lungs pulled in the fresh tastes. With Lewis’s help, the house could be sorted in a few determined days. Just a few days and the house would feel like mine.
That was assuming Lewis turned up. It was too dark to see my watch and my phone was back at the house (on the windowsill of my old bedroom, the only place there was reception), so I didn’t know exactly what time it was but I knew he was late. Hours late.
The earth started rising gently beneath my feet. Turning sharp left and ducking through a gap in a hedge, I stepped up onto tarmac. I tottered along at the very edge of the road, the darkness gathering thicker around me. Small, stone houses shut up tight against the night passed on either side, tiny front gardens pruned bald against the winter. A car’s headlights spilled my shadow out in front of me. It rumbled past and into the village and out of sight and all was silent again. The road opened out into the broad square, stout buildings facing inwards onto cobbles. Off to my right, between the church and the pub, the cobbles died again and the tarmac road rose out beyond the streetlight. I’d have to walk right past the Water Witch, now with its curtains and door open and lights falling out in pools.
I stood in the shadow of the statue of Bartholomew Sinclare, watching. It took until I was numb nearly all over before I worked up the courage to move. I passed in and out of the lights from the windows of the Witch, heard the chatter and music. I hurried on, head down. As soon as I was away from the last streetlight I breathed again and slowed my pace. I carried on up through the dark, the last of the evening falling into pitchy night around me. My nose and throat ached with the cold but my blood was bright and fresh, enjoying the chill.
I sensed the break in the tall hedge and turned down it, gravel crunching beneath my feet. The shape of the house was hunched ahead, above the shadows of its surrounding trees, a stain under the stars. No lights were on.
No Lewis, then.
A spark of annoyance. He said he’d be catching the midday ferry and would arrive that afternoon. He promised. It would all have to be put off now. One day lost.
Something clutched onto my elbow in the dark, sending a burst of pulse up my throat that almost choked me. I gibbered, pulling away.
“Hush yourself, silly boy.”
A torch clicked on, shone right in my face.
I swore. “What the…? Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me.”
“Don’t be stupid, lad. I’m not going to hurt you, am I?” She lowered the light, let go of my elbow. “Just wanted to see you.”
I smelled her more than I could see her. The stale bitterness of different sorts of smoke, spices, unwashed hair and the shockingly familiar odour of her ancient, patchwork coat. With the light lowered I could make out some of the coat’s patches, the basket she carried on one elbow and some of her face. Bristling hair was pulled into a plait over one shoulder and there was a very toothy smile under a blank shadow where her eyes hid.
I couldn’t find anything to say, hoped she wouldn’t speak but just couldn’t find the balls to turn and leave her in the lane.
“Ten years?” Her voice was the same, though she kept it low.
I blinked. “About that.”
“A long time. The island’s missed you.”
“Has it, now.” I nervously glanced up the drive.
“Oh, yes. And you’ve missed it. Though not it’s people. Don’t blame you.” She gave a strange noise, like a hiss.
“Did you want me for something, May? It’s very cold and getting late…”
She laughed, one single, sharp note. “Saw you head off towards Stonehill earlier, lad. Knew you’d be coming back this way. I’m out for acorns anyways. Just wanted to see your face, like I said. See how you turned out. You need a shave but you still look like your mum. Nothing of your dad in you. Good.” I frowned into the blank of her face. “It’s safe for you to move back now, lad. The water’s just about clean. All the Sinclares are gone, finally.”
“I think you should go home, May.” I managed to turn away and hurry off, shaking my head.
“I’ll come again, lad,” I heard her mutter. I continued up the drive and with a wash of relief I didn’t hear her follow. The light vanished. She needed a torch around here even less than I did. Her footsteps crunched away.
My fingers were marble-stiff with cold as I shouldered the door shut behind me, jamming it into its warped frame, throwing home every bolt, locking the night away. Grendel separated from the gloom and rubbed himself between my legs, purring. Staggering over him, I dropped my sketchbook on the table and switched on the kitchen light Dust motes swirled under the bulb in great swarms, making me sneeze. I had switched the kettle on and was just pulling myself out of my ragged jacket when I heard my mobile whining from upstairs. Grendel glowered at me as I left him in the kitchen by his bowl.
I just managed to get to the phone before it stopped ringing. “Hello? Lewis? Where the hell are you?”
“I’m sorry, Stefan,” Lewis’s voice was tinny and tired. “I’ve been delayed.”
“I’d gathered that.”
“There was a big accident. The roads were jammed, I missed the ferry. I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon. I’ll pitch up in this harbour hotel for the night, get the eight o’clock ferry tomorrow morning, ok?”
I made an effort to suppress the frustration. “Fine, fine. How long have you got?”
“I took a week’s leave. I’ll be with you until Saturday.”
“Good. Thank you,” I added as an afterthought.
“No worries. Good to get it all done in one go. Bumped into anyone?”
“No, I’ve been way out in the hills all day. Oh, I did see May.”
“What?”
“It was strange.” I frowned out into the night beyond my bedroom window. “She was lurking about on the drive, waiting for me. Properly frightened me.” I shut the curtains against the dark.
“What did she want?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. What does she ever want? She was babbling some nonsense about wanting to see what I looked like.”
“Did she say anything else?” Lewis’s voice was a bit thin.
“I can’t remember. Does it really matter?” I was still shivering and I could hear the kettle click downstairs and Grendel’s yowling.
“Just wondering,” he stated. “I can’t believe she’s still allowed to just wander about.”
I told him I’d see him tomorrow and rang off. It was silent again. Grendel had come to the top of the stairs to stare at me. I made my way back down behind him. I watched my hand find the smears on the paint of fingertips forever having been put out for balance against the wall. The bare wood creaked with the same voices I remembered. From frames hung above the banister, my parents and my grandparents smiled at me. They had been little more that coloured patches in the paint to me for years, but now I looked at them knowing none of the people in them were alive.
Lewis and I weren’t pictured until further down the hall: gummy, fat babies and then gap-toothed and grinning in posed infant school photos. Lewis grinned out of his graduation photo, his back straight and his perfect smile wide and white.
Grendel mewed and pawed at my trouser leg. I shook my head and turned away. I managed to find a single tin of cat food in the back of one of the cupboards that was still within its use-by dates. I spooned some out into a clean saucer, having thrown the unwashed cat bowl away, and Grendel went at it, mouthing at great chunks and purring as he ate.
My own belly had started to rumble. I opened cupboard after cupboard in despair. The kitchen was a jumble of occupation, as if Dad had just this second left to go to bed, except that almost everything was out of date. The house had stood empty for weeks but it was still Dad’s house, filled with his things, arranged how he’d always had them. I swallowed at a lump in my throat.
If Lewis had inherited the place it would all be sorted and sold by now. The whole mess of solicitors, funeral arrangements, death duties and all the reams and reams of forms and certificates had sent my last few weeks into a spiral of time distortion and myopia. Lewis had taken the lion’s share of the paperwork but there was naturally a lot that needed us both. The whole thing had made my head spin in on itself and back and forth.
I still hadn’t entirely decided how I felt but finally, weeks later, I’d managed to cobble together a plan of my own, sparked solely from a dream of an idea of a fantasy that had misted through my mind when I’d stepped off the ferry into Oldport on the east coast and smelt the air of Sinclare. I came for the funeral but left still feeling I wanted something more from the island. It owed me.
So I had a sort of plan, more of an instinct. I was still working on not thinking about it too hard.
It was the postman that found him, on the kitchen floor. The door was open and the paper had been left from the week before.
I tried to busy myself with baked beans and some tinned peaches, but I was more than ever aware of the quiet. Different to the wood; this was an empty, dead quiet. A closer look showed a fine layer of dust on the counters and everything fresh had succumbed to mould, giving the whole kitchen a fuggy edge, like a rubbish bin. It was like the house was grieving, silent and still and letting itself decay. All the things that were Dad and could only be Dad had to be laid to rest, including what he’d kept of Mum. Once that was done, I might be able to feel at home again.
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