The Thin Place

by C D Major

  Ava was disquieted, unable to step forward and speak. A bone?

  ‘You’re on private property.’ His mild affability abandoned, Keven stood in front of her, patterns on his face from the leaves over his head. He scowled at the churned-up earth and scarred grass. ‘I’m not sure what that dog’s doing, but I don’t want you here – making the house look bad, stirring up all the old wives’ tales . . .’

  Ava felt the hard nub of the bone in her hand and said nothing.

  ‘I think you should go, Ava. You did your story. I’ve tried to be helpful but it’s disrespectful to be coming back here like this, filming it again when we haven’t had a dog jump in years. Trying to find something that simply isn’t there.’

  Neil had lowered the camera, and Aaron didn’t say anything. Bella still pawed at the ground.

  ‘We’ll go.’ Ava coughed, half-relieved to be interrupted, half-wanting to stay and watch Bella. Keven looked surprised, as if he had expected her to protest. ‘We’ll go,’ she repeated.

  A bone?

  Chapter 32

  CONSTANCE

  Crumpet woke me this morning for the first time in days, wriggling down the sheets like a hairy snake, paws straight up, making me scoop him to me with a laugh. His claws scrabble at my skin as his hot breath clouds my face. I squeeze him tight. Forgetting everything else, I get out of bed. My bare feet move quickly over the wooden floorboards as I chase him in delight. We can spend hours like that some days. His yapping is loud and my laughter joins it. Kneeling on the floor, I make silly noises, watching him skip and growl as my fingers chase after him. He steals my sock, scuttles under the bed. It dangles from his mouth like a huge tongue as he crouches low, a ridiculous growl, loving my laughter as I tug at it.

  I miss the sound of the key in the lock until it is too late. Mother stands in the doorway, her eyes wide as she sees me in the middle of the rug, scratching Crumpet’s stomach as he writhes.

  ‘Oh, Mother!’ I get quickly to my feet, rush over to her, still forgetting, ‘Look, look, I think he’s better. He’s up and . . . look!’ Crumpet tugs on my abandoned dressing gown and shakes his head back and forward, dragging it to the floor and looking back at me so I might tell him ‘good boy’. Rushing back down to bundle him up, I cover him in kisses.

  I stop as suddenly as I began when I realise.

  Mother has still not spoken and I see her staring at the wheelchair next to my bed. My muscles are so weak, my left leg will grow useless, the bone might break. I must always use it to stop making myself much worse. I know that. But this morning I have forgotten.

  ‘I . . . I . . .’ Crumpet is still in my arms, his warm little body giving me strength to find some words. ‘Sorry, Mother. I forgot.’

  It is for my own good. I will never get better if I don’t follow the doctor’s advice. I stand and drop into the chair, reach for the leather strap around my waist and buckle myself in. Wait for her to wheel me out of the room and up the wooden ramp she had installed. Crumpet wags his tail, looking up at me as if there is no danger.

  She still says nothing and I feel the hairs on my arms stand up as she steps inside the room. She walks over to me and I repeat how sorry I am. ‘My leg is alright today, though, Mother.’

  It isn’t the right thing to say.

  Reaching down, she grabs Crumpet. With a frightened yelp, he twists back in her arms, his brown eyes trained on me.

  ‘No!’ I go to stand, but the leather strap means I drop back into the chair. My fingers wrestle with the buckle but she has already walked back out of the bedroom door. The lock clicks and her heels tap loudly on the wooden ramp that leads up to the hallway.

  ‘No!’ My fists bang on the arms of my chair. ‘No, no, no, no! Please, no!’ My screams tear out of me, the tears already streaming. ‘Please, please, no!’ My lap and chest are cold without his tiny body next to me. It feels like she has removed part of me. It is like no other pain I’ve known, like this time the doctors have cut into my chest and are squeezing my heart.

  I am finally out of the chair, back on my feet and I race to the door and pull pointlessly at the handle. But I know it’s locked. I pummel my fists on the wood, over and over until they feel bruised, knuckles bleeding. I can hear Crumpet whining somewhere nearby. ‘Mother, please . . .’ I sink to my knees and rest my head against the door, my body shaking with tears. I cry for I don’t know how long. Then I strain to listen for noises in the house. I can’t hear him whine. I can’t hear his padding footsteps. Where has she taken him? Will she give him back?

  ‘I’m sorry, Mama,’ I plead, using the name for her that she likes best. ‘Please, Mama, please . . .’

  When I peer through the keyhole I can only see tiles, the claws of an angry bear, feel an icy blast that seems to be a warning shot to get back inside. The house is angry too: I am sure of it.

  I wait by that door for the whole day, my stomach aching with hunger, loss and fear that I will never see Crumpet again.

  Chapter 33

  AVA

  She knew she had to go home but she found herself turning right at the end of the driveway, back into Dumbarton, the town that had started this whole thing. On a busy bank holiday Saturday, it was thriving. She noticed the remnants of a market: cabbage leaves, squashed coffee cups, bruised fruit being swept away. People sat on benches or meandered next to the river.

  What could she do with the bone? How could she find out where it had come from, how old it was? She had put it in a tote bag and glanced often at its peculiar lumpy outline on the passenger seat. She flinched, wanting to scrub her hands clean. With more distance she started to think more logically. No one had buried anything. It wasn’t related to the bridge. Was it that unlikely to find an old animal bone? It didn’t necessarily mean anything sinister. She was being dramatic, had watched too many movies. Still, she now knew where she was going.

  She parked her car outside and glanced one last time at the bag before stepping out. This time, there was no sellotaped sign on the front door. She pushed it open into a dark panelled corridor lined with watercolours of the River Clyde. To one side was a small, unstaffed reception desk. The air smelled of burned toast.

  ‘I’m in here!’ a voice called from a room on the right. Ava followed the sound through two glass doors into a small dining room. There were four square tables with sprigs of yellow flowers propped up in vases. The woman from the high street held a bunch of cutlery in her hand as she looked up. She wore the same shade of pink lipstick.

  ‘It’s you,’ the woman, Mary, said wearily. Ava couldn’t help but stare at the knives gripped in her hand.

  A bone.

  ‘I’m sorry to burst in like this.’

  The cutlery clattered back onto the table in a pile. ‘I thought we made it clear that we don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Please . . .’ Ava held out both palms. ‘I’m not here with a camera. I’m not here for the news.’ She took a step forward. ‘I just need to know what you know.’

  The woman stood stock-still for what seemed like an age, her fingers worrying at the sleeve of her blouse.

  ‘I promise . . .’ Ava sensed a chink in Mary’s armour. ‘It’s not for a piece, it’s for me.’

  ‘We don’t talk about the house,’ Mary said. There was a tremor in her voice. She collected a pile of napkins and started to fold them mindlessly.

  ‘Can I just ask you one question? When we met, you said your mother cleaned there.’ Ava recollected the sound of the baby, felt her own baby inside her. ‘I need to know about the child in that house. I’ve seen the room. I’ve heard . . . things. I was told she was sick.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ The woman’s head snapped up sharply, napkins abandoned.

  ‘Keven. He lives up there.’

  ‘I know who Keven is.’ Mary didn’t comment on what he had said. She worried again at her sleeve, twisting a button until Ava thought it would snap.

  The silence stretched on, the quiet hum of traffic passing as Ava
waited.

  ‘She was sick. Very.’ The words were so quiet that Ava thought she might have misheard. Mary looked up, her pink mouth pressed shut tightly. ‘My mother’s friend, Annie Hughes – Keven’s mother – told her about the girl. My mum only saw her the one time. A birthday party, she said. She sat in a wheelchair with a dog. I remember that because I’d always wanted a puppy. Annie said she’d been ill for many years. That she’d died.’

  ‘She died?’ Ava hadn’t meant to speak so loudly.

  Mary nodded. ‘Died, poor hen. And then her mother . . . to do what she did? No wonder the place is cursed.’

  Ava felt her legs wobble and had to lean on one of the breakfast tables.

  Help me.

  ‘Annie was so upset. My mother said that. She didn’t like to go back there. And after . . . with the rumours about her poor David . . .’

  Ava was one step behind as she looked up at Mary. ‘The rumours?’

  ‘Nasty maliciousness.’ Mary’s voice was hard, her eyes narrowed. ‘Annie’s husband couldn’t hurt a fly. I remember him from when I was a child, gentle as anything. Gave all us kids conkers from the estate. But some say they saw him that day, on the estate, and that he’d been shouting at the lady of the manor. It dogged him for years. The police investigation cleared him, but still people talked. It upset my mother. She said the lady of the manor didn’t seem quite right.’

  ‘How did the girl die?’ Ava needed to know.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Mary said, looking uncomfortable. ‘She’d had operations for all sorts of things. The town raised money for her, paid for some equipment and such, for the house. She was young, I’m sure of that.’

  The shrill ring of a telephone jolted them both. ‘I need to get that,’ Mary said, turning to leave. She looked relieved.

  ‘I can wait,’ Ava said.

  Mary turned. ‘There’s nothing else to say. It was a sorry business and no one wants it all brought up again.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘You need to leave now.’

  She left her standing in the small dining room, a carriage clock chiming four. Mary’s distant conversation could be heard in the background as Ava let herself out.

  Dazed, she wandered out of the B & B and into her car, pulling away from the kerb without even clicking her seat belt.

  The baby she’d heard . . . it had to have grown up to be the girl who’d lived in that room – and who’d died. Her mother had killed herself. So much sadness.

  The drive took her less than a minute; the church was around the corner from the B & B. She parked haphazardly outside then spared a single glance up at the turrets of Overtoun House, looming over this part of the town. She stepped out of the car and moved quickly towards the iron railings, opening the lychgate. The scent of roses was sweet as she passed under it. Flattened grass pathways made tracks between the stones and she imagined what was buried beneath them, her mind full of death and bones. Reading a myriad of names and ages as she passed, she found herself wondering at the lives of Beloved Mothers, Granddads, Sons. Dead flowers leaned in dirty jam jars in which dried insects curled up in the glass. There were cracked and sloping stones under a small beech tree, the inscriptions no longer legible.

  Somewhere in the distance a baby cried, a wail in a direction she couldn’t make out – muffled but persistent. She kept moving, the cry not ceasing as she pictured Bella sniffing the ground of this graveyard, pawing frenziedly at the soil. She had to find the girl; it felt vital in that moment.

  In the farthest corner, she found a stone crypt, a low rail and a small gate around it. Her heart raced. It looked suitable for a local wealthy family. Steps led down to an ancient locked door, the keyhole thick with dust. WEST. Here it was. It didn’t take long to scan the names of the occupants. There were no children. Nobody, in fact, buried since 1925: a Lord and Lady West who had both died in the same year, Beloved Parents of Hamish. Ava frowned. But where were the mother and child? Was the younger Lady West’s suicide the reason they were not here? And where was this Hamish?

  Next to the crypt an old, faded gravestone stood out for being so well tended: the grass was neatly clipped; the flowers, pinks and oranges clashing, upright in a proper vase – such love! ANNIE HUGHES. Ava started. This was the grave of Keven’s mother. Did he bring his dad to this spot? Why had Mr Hughes been seen shouting at the lady of the house? She thought then of an old man somewhere in a care home in Dumbarton. Had a killer escaped justice for all these years? Was that why the house felt so unsettled? As if it was angry about something?

  She left the graveyard and returned to her car. She pulled out her mobile – four missed calls from Fraser. Checking the time, she was shocked to see it was past five o’clock. His last voicemail message was simply a dropped call. She could picture the expression on his face as he was met with her answerphone message for the fourth time.

  She called him back, her eyes falling on the bag on her passenger seat, the outline of the bone inside.

  The lady of the manor didn’t seem quite right.

  He answered just as she was about to give up.

  Help me.

  ‘I’m sorry, sorry. I’m not sure where the time’s gone . . .’ She attempted to inject a lightness in her tone but knew the words were falling short.

  ‘Are you back soon?’ His voice was clipped.

  She brushed her fringe out of her eyes. ‘I . . .’

  Help me.

  What had happened to that girl? Why would she ask for somebody to help? Why were the letters facing out, away from the house? The bone still sat there. Ava’s eyes rested on it – and then it dawned on her. ‘I have to do one more thing.’

  ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘Sorry, I really won’t be long.’

  ‘OK, Ava, you need to be back here by six, alright? Six thirty at the latest. Promise.’

  She started the ignition. ‘Promise,’ she murmured, her hand reaching for the bag on the passenger seat, feeling the strange hard surface through the material, remembering the weight of it in her hand. ‘Promise.’

  Fraser had already hung up.

  Before pulling away, she took one more look at the house, picturing that child’s dusty room. It wouldn’t take long, she convinced herself – a quick detour and home.

  ‘Hey!’ Pippa couldn’t hide her surprise.

  ‘Hey,’ Ava said breathlessly. ‘Sorry I didn’t call. Well, I sent a message but I don’t think you got it. It doesn’t say you read it.’ She was already inside the house. The living room door was open and Tommy was inside, running around in a Spider-Man outfit.

  ‘Hey, Tommy.’

  He didn’t look up.

  Pippa turned and went into the kitchen. ‘Do you want a drink? I’m just re-heating something for Tommy for a late dinner.’

  ‘No, I’m alright. I won’t stay. I need to get back and make amends to Fraser. Is Liam around?’

  Pippa took a plastic bowl with dinosaurs on it from a cupboard. ‘He’s away on a stag weekend. Tea?’

  Ava slumped. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Did you want something?’

  ‘Hmm?’ Ava didn’t want to reveal that she had only come around to see Liam. ‘Just to check in. I didn’t like the way we left things the other day.’

  Pippa raised the kettle and an eyebrow.

  ‘That would be great.’ She couldn’t help the glance over her shoulder at the clock.

  She sipped at the tea as quickly as she could and made her excuses. Tommy wiggled in Pippa’s arms as she carried him through for dinner. ‘Cars!’

  ‘Not now.’ Pippa strapped him into his high chair, his feet now dangling below the bar they used to rest on. ‘Auntie Ava’s here.’

  Ava ended up staying to watch Tommy eat, an agonisingly slow process that made her foot tap on the floor. Pippa soon warmed up and started chatting, lonely from a long day without help.

  ‘Well, I’d better go,’ Ava managed at last. Pippa wiped down Tommy, the chair and the floor around him. Ava
felt her baby move, a reminder that she would be wiping things down herself within a few months. The thought surprised her, as ever. It was like being dragged back from somewhere else.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry!’ she stressed as she burst through their flat door. The words died on her lips as she took in an entirely silent flat, spotlessly clean, the smell of bleach and lemon hitting her. There was a brief note on the side from Fraser: I waited till seven. Staying the night at Calum’s.

  She felt her body sag and the note dropped from her hands. In the living room, half-moon marks on the carpet showed where Fraser had hoovered. He wouldn’t have wanted her lugging the hoover around in her state. Christ – even angry, he couldn’t help showing that he cared about her. Feeling heavy, Ava sank onto the sofa, picking up a cushion to shove behind her back. She frowned as two pink rose petals fluttered to the floor.

  Chapter 34

  MARION, 1939

  He has stayed away. The worries about an encroaching war keep him in London. I try not to think of the chatter at the last ceilidh I went to. The rumours that my husband is a regular visitor to the nightclubs of Mayfair. More items are sent to Sotheby’s: a small Monet and a silver teapot his grandmother was gifted by Queen Victoria.

  I have found stubs from his cheque book, made out to The Astor, Murray’s Club and other establishments. When home, he plays new, unfamiliar dance records on the gramophone and talks endlessly on the telephone. Whispers, laughter and plumes of smoke emerge from the cracks in the study door. Sometimes I believe he has forgotten I exist. As I wander the grounds, corridors and halls, I feel like a ghost.

  The house sees me. The bridge guards my secrets. I feel them both, like solid arms around me, drawing me to them.

  Hamish rents an apartment now in Mayfair but I do not travel down. I went back to London once for Father’s funeral. The shock of the place – the grey, dirty, noisy streets, the crush of people, the jangle of bells and horns, the stench – made me shake. I pictured a mossy bank, silence bar the noise of running water. There was only Mother beside me at Father’s funeral. The vicar had almost refused. It was ‘ungodly’ how he had died. I still picture a room with closed curtains, a knotted belt, my mother’s scream.