The Silence

by Daisy Pearce

  The miserable weather of the last few days has given way to a mellow morning of butter-coloured sunshine. On the kitchen table in the fruit bowl there is a satsuma slowly turning green with putrid, sunken flesh. No food in the fridge. I have to go to town.

  As I cross the beach car park I see Frankie. Immediately I remember the sting of our argument, as intimate as a secret kiss. He waves and I lift my hand in response but do not smile. Halfway up the hill I hear him calling to me and I turn to see him barefoot in a wetsuit.

  ‘Can I give you a lift anywhere?’

  ‘It’s fine. It’s a nice day. I’ll walk.’

  ‘Stella, listen. I owe you an apology for being a drunk asshole. I shouldn’t have said the things I did. It was nice to be your friend.’

  We look at each other and I can see him itching to smile. I swallow. I need the company, God knows. I miss having a friend too.

  ‘Sure, okay. A lift would be nice. Thank you.’

  At his van he peels the wetsuit away from his damp skin and I can’t help but look at him. He isn’t as out of shape as I’d suspected. I am so familiar with the lean and hungry body of Marco, with his personal trainer and high-protein diet, crunches and pull-ups, that I can’t help but look at Frankie with his rounded stomach, the line of hair bisecting it a curved black feather. His arms are roped with muscles and his chest broad. I notice another tattoo on his pectoral muscle and when he sees me looking he touches it briefly with his fingers. A series of three fat black lines stacked atop one another. The simplicity appeals to me and I tell him so. Frankie nods.

  ‘I like it too. I forget what it means now but at the time you can be sure that there was some deep philosophical junk I’d attached to it. At that age everything is heartbreaking. One thing I’ll teach my kids is that you grow out of it. You always grow out of it. Love? You grow out of it. Grief? You grow out of it. Heartbreak? Scandal? Your first pair of shoes? You grow out of it, baby.’

  ‘Do you want kids?’

  Frankie shrugs, pulling a towel around his middle and removing his shorts, sitting down on the floor of the van. Uncomfortably aware of the thin towel concealing his nakedness, I turn away from him, very deliberately.

  ‘I don’t know. Depends what mood you catch me in. Some days I’ll tell you that it’s a cruel world and overpopulated and other times I’ll tell you that I can’t imagine not being a father. I thought I would know by now, but I’m still waiting to see. Do you?’

  ‘Want children?’ I shake my head. ‘No. I’ll never be rich enough or free enough or well-travelled enough. That perfect time doesn’t exist, at least not for me.’

  ‘Not for you right now,’ he corrects me. ‘You and Marco are still young, and he makes good money. Your position could be a lot worse.’

  I blink. I hadn’t even been thinking about Marco. I turn to face Frankie but he isn’t looking at me, he is standing and buttoning his jeans.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continues, throwing his towel into the back of the van. ‘Let’s get going.’

  We drive in silence, Blue panting noisily in the back. The light casts long shadows across the curve of the valley, through the atrophied trees, branches swept eastward by the winds. Here and there granite boulders thrust up through the ground like the exposed bones of the old land, and buzzards and gulls float on warm updrafts. Finally, we turn into the lane which leads to Chy an Mor. I am thinking of the way the contents of the cupboard had been piled on the floor, the way the voice had spoken to me from the darkness. I think of Heidi saying that the chemicals released when you fall in love are close cousins to those responsible for mental illness.

  Frankie switches off the engine. He is looking at me curiously, arms crossed over the steering wheel.

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Hmmm?’ he says. His eyes are narrow, smiling.

  ‘You said you found something out about Marco. What was it?’

  He sighs. ‘When I first came to Tyrlaze, I didn’t know who Marco Nilsen was. I didn’t know about this house. I didn’t know anything. I took this job on because the money was good. I did it as favour to Jim Kennecker but anytime I mentioned it to anyone it got the same reaction. Can you guess what it was?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘You don’t see it? Didn’t notice when he walked into the pub last night? How people look at him or try to get out of his way?’

  ‘No.’ But then again I hadn’t been paying attention, had I?

  ‘People are scared of Marco. The ones who live here in this town, especially the ones with long memories. Not one of them will say why. That’s the kind of fear it is, the kind which shuts you up. Remember what Jim Kennecker told me when I took the job?’

  I do. ‘“Keep her warm and keep her safe.”’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘But that’s just gossip,’ I say, folding my arms. ‘It’s the way all small towns are. And he’s not like them, is he? He’s—’

  I hesitate. What is he? There is a word on the tip of my tongue and I don’t like it. Cruel.

  ‘Do I need to be worried about you, Stella?’

  Of course I’m going to tell him that it is all fine. I will tell him that everything’s just peachy, thank you, just dandy. So what comes out surprises me more than Frankie.

  ‘There are two possibilities and each one scares me. The first is that I’m losing my mind.’

  ‘What’s the other?’

  ‘The other is that this house is haunted.’

  We both look towards the house, so like a witch’s cottage in a fairy tale, one of the cold ones, the Brothers Grimm, in which the children are tricked and eaten. In the half-light we peer at the cracked and flaking paintwork, the slightly tilted aspect it has, the tarnished brass knocker in the shape of a fox. In the silence I tell him about the footsteps and the noises in the night which sound so much like weary sighs. I mention the smell that lingers in some of the rooms after dark, seeming to draw in like an ancient rising tide.

  Frankie listens stoically. When I finish he cracks his knuckles.

  ‘Are you taking your medication?’

  ‘I poured it away, into the toilet. Sleepwalking. I’m aware of how all this sounds, by the way. You don’t need to look at me like that.’

  ‘How am I looking at you?’

  ‘I believe the word is “sceptical”.’

  Frankie sighs, running his fingers over the cracked leather of the steering wheel. He dips his head momentarily, letting the dark mess of his hair fall over his face.

  ‘When my wife died I went into shock. I felt nothing for a long time. The last time I saw her she was standing in the kitchen, telling me how I’d made the pancakes wrong. She was laughing, framed in sunlight. That’s how I remember her, like an Egyptian goddess. She had a way of teasing me which made her eyes gleam. So that was then, and five hours later there is a call from the hospital, which makes all the saliva in my mouth dry up. She’s gone by the time I get to her bedside but really she was gone before her poor body had hit the floor. No warning. Just a bit of faulty wiring up here.’ Frankie taps his temple. His eyes are cold and troubled. ‘That’s all. Just that and nothing more. Like a bulb fizzling and blowing out. And in the months which followed part of me got lost. I became convinced that she was trying to talk to me. I thought that she would be scared and confused, not knowing what had happened to her. I thought maybe if I could just talk to her I could stop – I could stop her being so lonely. Her loneliness was killing me. So I hired mediums and went to spiritualist churches. I played with Ouija boards and I tried automatic writing and sound recording and magic mushrooms and ayahuasca and tarot cards. I cried my throat raw.’

  He takes my hand in his, interlocking our fingers tightly together. His profile like a charcoal sketch in the growing dusk.

  ‘Stella, she never came back, not once. So I will ask you once more. Do I need to worry about you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Frankie smiles weakly. ‘Who should I call first? The doctor or the priest?’r />
  ‘I feel like my mind is slipping away. Everyone keeps telling me I’m losing control.’

  He bends towards me. Our faces almost touch in the inky twilight.

  ‘Say that again. The last bit, say it again.’

  ‘Everyone keeps telling me I’m losing control.’

  ‘Yes, Stella. Now we’re getting somewhere.’

  As we walk towards the house the shadows swell and grow fat, black as cartoon holes. The moon is rising, the pole star glittering like a hard frost. Frankie looks up at the house, then back to me.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  I look to where he is pointing over my shoulder. A movement, in the garden. Someone small and slightly built hurrying away from the house, hood drawn up, shielding their face.

  ‘Hey!’ I shout, and the figure begins to run towards the road. Frankie brushes past me, moving with that slippery grace which Heidi had spoken of. The diminutive figure, now only a sketch in black against the tall hedgerow and violet sky, is pulling something from the ground. I am running too, and distantly I hear Blue barking from the cab of the van. I run forward over the rocky uneven ground. In the spring the fields here will be carpeted with pink thrift and yellow vetch, veined with blue spring squill and heather. Now it is just the yellowing sea grass and outcrops of rock finely laced with lichen. I hear Frankie shout, and then a shot rings out, sudden and violent, the amplified sound of a branch snapping. A clamour of rooks lifts off from the trees, startled. They rise like pieces of burned paper into the air.

  ‘Frankie!’

  ‘It’s okay.’ His voice. ‘It’s okay.’

  He is still standing, one hand pressed to his shoulder. I stop, just feet away. I can see the gun in the hands of the hooded figure.

  ‘Have you been shot?’ My voice is high with panic.

  ‘Air pistol. Stings. But I won’t lose my arm.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  I move forward, and the figure moves back a pace. I can hear my pulse throbbing, blood ringing in my ears, Blue barking: woof, woof, woof.

  The figure pulls back his hood. A boy, no older than thirteen. His face is a waxy-white circle, his eyes round and terrified.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, voice cracking. ‘I was just trying to scare him off. I didn’t mean to hit you, Frankie, swear to God. Please don’t call the police.’

  ‘Mickey? Mickey Tallack?’

  Frankie steps forward, hand outstretched, palm facing outwards. Mickey wipes a hand across his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Frankie mate. I didn’t know it was you, I swear.’

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ I am so angry, my whole body vibrates. My fists are open, closed, open, closed. Frankie looks at me.

  ‘Why have you got a gun?’

  ‘I’m Mickey Tallack,’ the boy is saying. ‘I’m twelve years old. I live on Polperro Rise, number seven. Frankie knows my dad, don’t you, Frankie?’

  Frankie nods solemnly. There is a hole in his jacket where the pellet hit, no bigger than a penny. He winces when he touches it.

  ‘I’m calling the police.’

  ‘Stella. I know this kid. He’s not dangerous.’

  ‘I don’t mean to state the obvious, but he’s just shot you.’

  There is a bike lying in the grass a metre or so away. Mickey must have cycled all the way up here in the inky twilight, all the way down those dark, leafy lanes. Why?

  ‘I’m not trying to hurt no one. Someone asked me to come up and give you this. They gave me twenty quid and told me to leave it on the door.’

  He holds out an envelope, small and white. There is no writing on it.

  ‘I hid in your garden but then you got out the van and I ran for it. I didn’t mean to hit you, Frankie, I’m so sorry.’

  His voice is becoming tarry and thick. He is about to cry. Good, I think. Good. Cry, you little shit. His eyes switch between Frankie and me, pleading.

  ‘An air rifle though? Why are you even carrying that thing?’

  ‘Mrs Dalton told me to. She said it was dangerous to be here. That I should protect myself.’

  ‘From me?’ I’m shocked.

  ‘No, from the other fella. Marco Nilsen. She said if he caught me he’d kill me.’

  There is something here. A thickening as of strangers pressing close together, a feeling of feverish anticipation. It is almost tangible, like the smell of cordite or blood in the air, heavy and slow-moving.

  I take the envelope from Mickey Tallack and tell him to go home.

  ‘Tell your friend Mrs Dalton to expect a visit from me very soon,’ I add as he climbs onto his bike. ‘Tell her I don’t like playing these sorts of stupid games.’

  Inside the cottage it is cold, almost dank, and there is a smell like the water at the bottom of a ditch. The pendant light which hangs over the dining table is a glass globe in a delicate shade of rose-pink. As we walk into the room the light stutters once, twice. I can hear the bulb fizzing. In the hallway the telephone pings as though a storm is approaching.

  Frankie takes off his top, inspecting his shoulder. There will be a bruise, he says, but there’s no blood. I turn the envelope over between shaking fingers.

  ‘It’s cold in here. Is there a window open?’

  I shake my head. He is right, it is cold, dank and heavy like the chill of a cave.

  ‘I can smell the sea.’ Frankie walks to the back door and moves his hand over the frame. ‘No, more than that. It’s like the water at the bottom of a vase of old flowers. Something rotting.’

  I move to the table. ‘I found a stone in my bed on my first night. Only small. A small speckled stone, still wet. Sometimes I find others, balanced on things. I see things out of the corner of my eye, just shadows, really. But there have been moments when those shadows have looked like figures, and faces.’

  Frankie looks across the room at me, frowning. ‘Look. Whatever is happening here, it isn’t Mickey Tallack. He’s a good kid. Well – generally a good kid. He’s young and dumb and his family are – uh – feckless, I suppose is the word. Sounds to me like he just found a way to make some money. But he hasn’t been breaking into your house, I’d put money on it.’

  I cross the room and open the back door. The night air is sharp. I feel as though it could blow me away like powder.

  ‘Who is Mrs Dalton?’ I ask, and just as quickly I remember. ‘It’s Penelope, isn’t it? Penelope Dalton. She lives in the house in town, the one with all the chickens. She’s been funny with me since I first saw her. Her mother-in-law has dementia, and I suppose she’s unhappy. It can’t be much of a life, waiting for someone to remember you.’

  ‘I know her.’ He chooses his words with care. ‘She’s eccentric, lonely. But not malicious. I’m certain this is a misunderstanding.’

  I open the envelope carefully with a strange impending feeling. Not a letter, as I had first thought, but a page, lined and torn from an exercise book. The paper has a soft quality as though it has been folded and refolded over a long time. At the top, underlined:

  Ellie

  The writing is rounded, the dot over the ‘i’ a big comic love heart. It is girly and charming and at the same time so insufferably babyish it makes my teeth itch.

  ‘What is it?’ Frankie asks. I pass it to him.

  ‘Nothing. Numbers – phone numbers, by the looks of it. Don’t recognise any of them.’

  However, a dread is forming in me, a vault of ice melting to reveal a terrible knowledge, fossilised. Something seismic, shifting. Frankie stares at the paper, smoothing his fingertips over the words. He is reading aloud.

  ‘“Mum and Dad”, “Laura” – who are these people? “Marcella”, “Claudia”? Do these names mean anything to you?’

  I fill the kettle, trembling slightly. It is full dark out there now.

  ‘No. It’s just numbers,’ I repeat. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Okay,’ Frankie says, passing it back to me. ‘Why don’t we call one?’

  ‘Are you mad?’ I la
ugh, but Frankie isn’t joking. He has taken a packet of frozen peas from the freezer – years old, by the looks of things – and wrapped them in a tea towel before pressing them to the welt on his shoulder. It is a livid red.

  ‘Call one, find out. Tell them who you are, ask if there is a reason you’ve been given their numbers. If not, then’ – he shrugs – ‘at least we know that Penny is just losing it.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say more quietly, looking at the numbers in that childish hand. The network of creases remind me of writing Mr Kennecker’s number in tiny digits and slipping it into my bra so Marco wouldn’t see. Hiding it. There is something there, isn’t there? Something about to drop into place like the spring on a mousetrap swiftly closing or mental locks tumbling.

  ‘Which one? I’m not calling “Mum and Dad” – I have a nasty feeling about this and I don’t want to upset them.’

  ‘Call Claudia. See the way her name’s been written there? It’s bigger than all the others, plus there’s a landline and a mobile. Call her and just ask.’

  ‘She’s going to think I’m a nutcase,’ I say, dialling. After a few rings I get a recorded message thanking me for calling Blades hairdressers in Falmouth, would I like to leave a message? Relieved, I hang up.

  ‘Well, that’s that.’

  ‘Call her mobile.’

  Frankie is leaning forward. He has such a clarity about him; his warmth, his weight, the smell of him, like something solid and resinous.

  I dial the mobile with shaking fingers and when Claudia picks up she sounds annoyed. I think I can hear a TV in the background. I’d been told when making cold calls that you need to say something of interest in the first five seconds so they don’t hang up. Once they hang up, you’ve lost them.

  ‘Claudia, my name is Stella and I have been given your number by someone who knew Ellie. Why do you think that is?’

  I can almost hear the frown in her voice. ‘Sorry, what? Who is this?’

  ‘My name is Stella. I’ve been given your number by someone who knows Ellie.’