The Silence

by Daisy Pearce

  I end the call abruptly. Blue is scrabbling to get into my lap. He is afraid, and so am I. There is a thick gurgling as of milkshake being drained from an empty glass through a straw. The sound of a throat struggling to work in uncompromising flesh. Drawing breath, or trying to, into wet lungs.

  ‘You don’t frighten me, you know,’ I whisper. I squeeze my eyes closed and when I open them and turn slowly, so slowly I can almost hear my tendons creak, there is no one there. There is no one there. The doorway is empty, bar the long afternoon shadows. On the floor, a little pool of water. And all about me is the smell of the sea, the sea.

  Chapter 20

  It’s dark, and I am awake with a sharp jolt like a single handclap. I lie, my eyes wide, staring at the ceiling. The dreamcatcher spins on the end of its thread. Blue is pacing the room. I can hear his claws clicking against the wood, but that is not what has woken me. I sit up. I’m listening. I can hear voices.

  I walk to the bedroom door and pull it carefully, quietly open. There are people talking downstairs. I can’t make out what they are saying but there is the murmur of conversation, lifting and falling. My skin prickles with cold. I don’t like this. Blue huddles beside me in the doorway, a whine trembling in his throat. I walk the dark hallway to the top of the stairs. Down there, in the darkness, a light is flickering. More voices, and then laughter, the canned kind. It’s the television. I put my hand on Blue’s flat skull and tell him it’s all right. But even as I walk down the stairs I am listening and a hard ball of ice is forming in my stomach. I know those voices. One of them is mine.

  ‘What are we plantin’ here?’

  ‘Lettuces, tomato, carrots . . .’

  ‘Parrots? I want to grow parrots!’

  (Audience laughter)

  ‘Not parrots, Pudge. Carrots. You know, the ones that you eat?’

  ‘I don’t want to eat parrots! The feathers will get stuck in my teef!’

  (More laughter)

  ‘He means carrots, Katie Marigold. You know, the orange things?’

  ‘Oranges? I want to grow oranges!’

  (Audience laughter, the sound of a doorbell)

  I am standing at the foot of the stairs in the darkness. From here I can see into the sitting room, the light flickering from the TV set. It is playing my old show. I step into the room, eyes quickly darting around. There is no one here.

  ‘Come on, we’d better be quick. We need to start digging. Bonnie, grab that fork.’

  ‘I thought we was diggin’, not eatin’.’

  ‘It’s a garden tool. You know, like a spade or a rake?’

  ‘A snake? I don’t wanna see no snake!’

  I sit slowly opposite the TV. My face is lit with jittering shadow. There I am, tiny, doll-like. My face dimpled, my hair tied up in irregular bunches. I remember this episode. It was called ‘Look What’s Growing, Katie Marigold’, one of the later ones. By the end they were all called things like that. ‘Here Comes Katie Marigold!’ and ‘Katie Marigold Rides Again!’ And now, here it is, me, running to keep up with the older kids, me with all the funny lines, the eye rolls, the catchphrases. Me, with all the applause. I hug my knees tight to my chest. I can’t stop watching and my eyes are full of tears. Here is my childhood; in make-up, on set, in production meetings. Just off screen is my mother, arms folded, mouth a thin line, head tilted to one side. She was always there, I realise, every single episode, a copy of the script curled up beneath one arm. I don’t remember any of the other parents being there, but maybe it’s because they were a couple of years older than me. Maybe.

  ‘Uh-oh, what’s this?’

  ‘Katie Marigold, what have you found?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I fink we’d better ask Daddy!’

  (Laughter, applause.)

  I stand up and turn it off. It’s a video, I realise. I bend down to the machine. I hadn’t even seen it when I’d arrived but now I do see it I realise how long it has been since I saw a VHS player. It is top-loading, and I press the eject button with the pad of my thumb. The tape rises and I pull it out. On the label in felt-tip is written ‘Marigold! Series 4-6’. It is childish, blocky writing. I put it on the table and lie on the couch, waiting for sleep. It is a long time coming.

  The next morning I walk into town. I am going to meet Heidi, I have decided. That videotape in the night was enough for me to want to get out of the house and have company. I’d held it in my hands that morning, turning it over and over between my fingers. Where had it come from? One thing was certain, I was sleepwalking again. I must be. Because how else would it have got into the house?

  She is waiting outside the café, her coat pulled up against the wind. She holds a flask in one hand and waves when she sees me. She is like a sprite, fizzing with energy.

  ‘Hi, thanks for coming,’ she says, and then kneels to nuzzle Blue, slapping him gently on the flanks. When she straightens she gives me a smile.

  ‘I thought we’d go to the beach. I’ve brought a flask and some croissants. The forecast said rain but not till this afternoon, so I think we’ll be all right.’ She hooks her arm in mine and I flinch at the familiarity. If she notices she doesn’t let on, keeping up a steady stream of chatter until the dunes are behind us, rising at our backs like the tundra of a vast and distant planet. On the beach the wind is strong and thick with salt, the sand treacle-coloured and shimmering.

  I let Blue off the lead and we scramble up rocks studded with mussels and barnacles. Pools are cradled in hollows, and much of the moonlike surface is slick with treacherous gutweed.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good,’ I reply. ‘Fine, fine. Fine.’

  ‘I’m hungover,’ Heidi groans. ‘White Russians and some awful cider. I feel like death. Times like this I can understand why you don’t drink. I must look like shit.’ She nods to Chy an Mor at the top of the cliff. ‘Is that your place up there?’

  Shielding my eyes, I follow Heidi’s gaze and see the squat little cottage with the warped roof, long chimney like a finger raised to the sky. I’ve never seen it from this angle. It looks so remote.

  ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s the cottage.’

  ‘Is it haunted?’

  I turn to her, not knowing what to say. She hands me a croissant. ‘That’s what people say. Is it true?’

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts.’

  ‘Aw, that’s a shame. I was hoping you might have some good stories for me.’

  The sand is dimpled with the scars of the retreating tide. Blue charges into the shallow river where the seaweed floats in the current like witch’s hair. He rolls his wet body in the sand and then veers off, tail high in the air.

  ‘What a life that dog has.’

  ‘Yes. And look at this. It’s lovely, isn’t it? I will never get tired of this view.’

  I nod towards the surfers right out past the breakers where the mist hangs over the sea like a nimbus. ‘They’re brave.’

  ‘They’re nuts, more like. It must be freezing.’

  ‘I’d love to try it.’

  ‘You should ask Frankie to teach you. You could talk about wipeouts and hang ten or whatever till the cows come home.’

  ‘Frankie?’

  ‘I know, right? You look at the size of him, and you’d think he’d have no centre of gravity at all but he’s actually very agile, like a cat.’

  I think of the time he caught me on the clifftop, the sure manacle of his hand about my wrist.

  ‘See?’ Heidi points at a dark shape in the water. ‘See him there? Sitting on his surfboard. Posing, some people would call it. Do you want some tea? I hope you like it sweet.’

  I do. She pours us both cups from her flask and I cradle it, ruffling the surface with my breath.

  ‘You must miss your boyfriend.’

  I don’t reply. Heidi reaches over and touches my cup to her own. I look at her, surprised.

  ‘I hear you. Fond of your own space, right? “Besser allein als in schlechter Gesellschaft”
,’ Heidi says and smiles. ‘I have German grandparents. It means “Better to be alone than in bad company”.’

  I feel a brief jolt of memory, sharp as jagged glass. Martha, of course. Sweet, kind, generous Martha, who had been afraid of swearing during labour. I feel a flare of loneliness then, and perform a quick mental calculation as to when the baby would be due.

  ‘What do you mean by “bad company”?’

  She ignores me, looking out to the horizon. ‘Listen. I wanted to speak to you. I hope I have this completely wrong and that you’ll tell me to shut up and stop being so paranoid, but someone has been looking for you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He wouldn’t give his name. At least not to me. He’s been in the café a few times, just asking around. At first I thought he was just interested in the area – we get a lot of that, you see – geologists, botanists, historians – so I was happy to answer his questions but after a while I just’ – she shrugs – ‘I just thought something wasn’t right.’

  She points at the scar on her face, the one like a curving sideways smile. ‘Although, as you can see, I’m a pretty lousy judge of character.’

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing.

  ‘My husband did this to me. I’d like to tell you it was the last straw, the very last, but you know what? It wasn’t. It was just one in a very long, very boring list of injuries he liked to inflict on me.’

  She holds out her hand, and I can see that two of the fingers on her right are misshapen, as though from arthritis. ‘Ask me why he broke my fingers.’

  ‘Why did he break your fingers?’

  ‘The volume on the TV was too loud, and I didn’t get to the remote fast enough. That’s the punchline. Pretty funny, huh? Pretty funny.’

  I don’t think it’s funny, and I tell her so. She smiles, watching the brace of the waves hurtle towards the shore.

  ‘It’s a chemical process, love. I found that out a while ago. The hormones which are released have an effect on the brain similar to mental illness. Did you know that?’

  I tell her I did not.

  ‘It’s that little chemical that makes you stay with a man even when he’s breaking your fingers or cutting up your face. Just a little hormone with a lousy name, making you blind. When Tony hit me, he was relaxed, in good humour. That’s what made it so frightening. He told me the trick was to relax, to breathe through the pain.’

  ‘That’s awful. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Well. Long time ago. But the scars are still there, you know? The person who got me out of it was Frankie’s wife. Amazing woman, she was. It was she who told me to change my name and do something crazy with my hair to draw attention away from my scar. She helped me with a place to stay and food to eat. She was incredible. You better believe I cried my eyes out when she died. I always told myself that if I ever saw a woman in the same kind of trouble as I’d been in, that I’d try to help in some way.’

  I see a figure emerging from the waves, surfboard tucked beneath his arm. He waves, and we wave back.

  ‘Ah. You think I’m that woman,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m not. I’m happy. I’m getting married soon.’ But I’m thinking about that photo, of course, that woman’s face so similar to mine yet bruised and deformed, horrifying.

  ‘This man, the one who’s been asking questions. I got the same feeling about him. He came into the café but he didn’t seem like he was all there, you know? Of course I’ve told him nothing. But I just wanted to let you know, in case – in case it’s a situation like mine, like an ex, someone you don’t want to find you.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  Heidi thinks for a moment. ‘Middle-aged but trying not to show it. He looks like he’s had some work done – cosmetic, I mean – he has that tautness, do you know what I mean?’

  I tell her yes, I know.

  ‘His teeth are very white. More work, I think. He’s charming, very pleasant. Slight American accent, but only a trace. Nice car, nice shoes, expensive. Either he’s rich or it’s a mid-life crisis. He smells good too, sort of like clean water.’

  ‘I thought you only met him a few times?’

  ‘I did. I’m capable of taking in a lot of information about people very quickly. I’m always on alert, do you see?’

  ‘Yeah. What did you tell him?’

  She laughs drily. ‘Not a thing. He’ll be asking around though, so he probably already has the answers to his questions. So be warned.’

  Frankie has drawn level with us both, his feet planted in the sand, wetsuit glistening like sealskin. He wipes wet hair away from his face. ‘What’re you two talking about?’

  ‘Your missus.’

  ‘A wonderful woman. Why are you talking about Erica?’

  ‘Just telling Stella a story.’

  ‘Ah,’ he says, nodding, and picks up a long branch of seaweed from the sand. ‘Old bones.’

  ‘Leave them buried, right?’ Heidi replies, head tilted to one side. Her hair blazes crimson.

  ‘That’s right. Leave them buried.’

  I know who Heidi is talking about. Joey Fraser. That prick. I pull out my phone when I get back to the cottage, scroll through the numbers on the call log.

  ‘Stella.’

  ‘What’s going on, Joey? You’re lucky I haven’t called the police.’

  ‘You’re going to need to humour me with specifics.’

  ‘You’ve been coming to my house, trying to frighten me. Even for you this is low.’

  ‘Stella, please, calm down. I thought you’d grown out of this.’

  ‘I know what you’re doing and it’s not funny. I can’t believe you got hold of a videotape – haven’t you heard of computers? Of the Internet?’

  ‘Stella, I— You should hear yourself, you really should. Take a breath.’

  ‘You’re haunting me. Leave me alone.’

  ‘You owe me!’ I have to hold the phone away from my ear. He is so angry his voice distorts. ‘You made my life hell! You made all our lives hell! You deserve to live in fear and panic the rest of your life. Why should you have it easy?’

  ‘Wh— What?’

  ‘Oh, come on. Come on, Stella. Don’t play dumb. Your. Mother. Talk about a pushy parent. She hoovered up every good line on that show and had them rewritten just for you. She made sure we all knew we were the supporting cast, the backing dancers. She even had the name of the show changed.’

  ‘Ha!’ I’m laughing but it’s shrill. It feels like a fist made of ice is sinking into my stomach. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You really don’t remember, huh? The first series of the show was called Two and Six. It was your mother putting pressure on the producers – and we all know how much she liked to do that, right? Getting them to change it, to give you the best lines. Only when putting pressure on them stopped working she started threatening to pull you out altogether. Of course that made them nervous and so they changed the title. Don’t you realise that you were the only one in the whole show to be called by your full name? Katie Marigold. Katie Marigold. Only you and no one else. She used to say you were the heart of the show so often that people started believing it.’

  ‘You’re making this up.’

  ‘Look it up if you don’t believe me. You were a monster. If you didn’t get your own way you lashed out, usually at us, the bigger kids. I have a deep, deep scar, sister. Don’t you remember?’

  I tell him I don’t but I do, I think. I can remember standing in a caravan and screaming and screaming, my lungs white-hot, burning. Someone had done something to me, something awful. Joey had been there, glaring at me, not helping. Why hadn’t he helped me? I feel furious again.

  ‘I remember how much you bullied me. The things you used to say. How lonely you made me feel. It’s not my fault I had the biggest part, I—’

  ‘There you go again! You didn’t have the biggest part, at least not in the beginning. You had the same as everyone else, one or two lines apiece. And the episodes weren�
��t all about you then either. One of them was about me, can you imagine? Only your mother thought you were Shirley fucking Temple and started causing trouble and before you knew it the whole cast were reduced to bit players.’

  ‘I was a kid. I was just a kid!’

  ‘Look at the first two series. The actress who played Bonnie was replaced twice. No one could stand you, so they quit. The original Mikey quit because you scratched him till you drew blood. A year later our mother was replaced, and still no one stopped you. There used to be a joke on set that even the dogs were dying just to get away from you.’

  I am shaking. I was in a caravan, screaming. I had the Katie Marigold dress on, and my hands were sticky and I was screaming. Why hadn’t he comforted me? Why hadn’t he got an adult? What had he done?

  ‘If you come near me, if you come near the house again, I will call the police. I haven’t forgotten what you did.’

  ‘I’m not here to threaten you, Stella. You’re turning into your mother, do you know that? You’re out of your fucking mind.’

  I clench and unclench my fists. I am filled with anger, slippery as a nest of eels. I can’t grasp it. I am not used to this rage. The pills kept it at bay. It’s overpowering, and I realise I am grinding my teeth together so hard that my jaw aches.

  Back at the cottage I lift the videotape from the table and stalk over to the tall bookcases in the corner, filled with the curling pages of Jilly Coopers and Jackie Collinses. But there are no more videotapes on the shelves or in the cupboards of the dresser. I turn it over in my hands, wonderingly. You’re sleepwalking again, princess, Marco had said to me, and he’d put that soft grey pill in my mouth and I’d ground it to powder before I’d even swallowed it.

  I open the back door and let Blue out into the garden. He immediately sits beneath the shade of the apple tree which grows stubbornly against the bracing wind, heavily knuckled branches already bearing fruit. October already. The clouds are low and grey, rolling in from the sea. As I turn I notice that the woodshed door is ajar. I stop, stand very still. The padlock has been opened. It hangs from the handle, the key still in the lock. Well, there you go then, I think, moving slowly over the damp grass, only you could have done that because only you have the key.