Hush

by Sara Marshall-Ball

  For my parents

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Lily built her memories around nothingness, like so much false smoke around an absence of fire. Tiny glimpses of the earth beneath; a faded photograph, the odd fingerprint here and there. A hairbrush, its few buttercup strands still clinging to the redundant bristles. A mirror, so dusty that she couldn’t really see the face that was reflected. No great loss there; it wouldn’t be the face she was expecting to see anyway.

  It had been twenty years since she’d set foot in that house.

  Floorboards, thick with dust, audibly protested her presence. There were dark patches where the rugs had once been. An empty bed-frame, curtainless windows. And yet, clothes still hung in the wardrobe. A shirt. Two dresses, too large ever to have been hers.

  She heard Richard moving around downstairs, filling the place with noise, as he tended to do. Connie would be here soon. There would be things to do, conversations to be had. It would be better left to Richard, really. He was good at that sort of thing. But that wasn’t fair. Not his family; not his responsibility.

  She picked up the hairbrush and lifted one of the strands away. Others followed, tangled together, and then split apart, brittle with age. Dust clung to the broken threads and followed them to the floor.

  She replaced the brush on the dresser, taking care to put it back exactly, so no dustless space was exposed.

  Flickering faces. Daylight. And voices, which seemed to fade in and out of her hearing, some words unaccountably louder than others.

  – Well if you will let her do this to you but I didn’t I’m telling you I didn’t I just said I know what you said I heard you –

  Connie, eleven, wearing a pink vest, white shorts, ankle socks but no shoes. Laughing, hair flying in her face, or around her face. Movement. Maybe she was running.

  No, she’d been shaking her head.

  Or she’d spun around, too quickly, to share the joke.

  But it couldn’t be sharing. Not when Lily wasn’t laughing.

  – But Mama I only asked her if she wanted to and then she and now it’s all gone –

  Scent of lavender through open windows. Blood. Hers?

  – gone wrong well you know how she gets but I –

  Connie, taller than she should be. And her mother, crouching. On the floor. Shoelaces undone. Or tied together?

  And her mother’s voice.

  We only get what we deserve.

  ‘The wanderer returns.’ Richard was smiling, holding out a cup of tea, and Lily was momentarily confused. Where did he get tea bags? Was there even water, or electricity? Then she remembered the camping stove, the provisions. All lined up on the counter now. Orderly, though they weren’t staying.

  ‘Hmm.’ She took the tea, walked hesitantly towards the patio doors. The kitchen felt smaller, even with the absence of clutter. The stools, red plastic diner stools, had disappeared. So had the blinds. Maybe Connie had taken them. It would be the kind of thing she would do: assuming ownership of something that was shared.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Richard walked around her to open the doors, and stepped outside. The expanse of the garden – the lawn, gently sloping into flowerbeds, then woodland, all overgrown now, impenetrable. Lily followed him, her steps tentative. It was improbably bright, and still there was that feeling of abandonment. Except not quite.

  Whispers of ghosts, gone as soon as they arrived.

  It was she who had done the abandoning.

  ‘Not like the city, huh?’ Richard placed his mug on the wooden table, which was scarred, weatherbeaten, carpeted with moss. It wobbled when he put weight on it, but held.

  ‘I’d forgotten how quiet it is here.’ She stepped further down the patio, until her toes peeked over the edge, hovering above the lawn. She could remember leaping off, from land into the sea, full of crocodiles.

  ‘It’s nice. I could get used to it.’ His voice was reassuring, optimistic. Unfazed by her silence, or her hesitation. ‘Do you want to give me the tour, then?’

  No.

  ‘Okay.’

  The crunch of tyres on gravel, distant, but there nonetheless. Saving her from her insincerities.

  Darkness, or sun obscured by trees. Spots of sunlight, or stars, or maybe lights from the house. Watch missing? Or intentionally left behind. Connie, always laughing, always ahead. Lily trails behind. Unnoticed. Or ignored.

  – but Mama she always ignores me it’s not fair you’ve just got to learn to live with it –

  No, the watch is there. Pink plastic reflects the time, but it’s gone. Numerals blurred, hands vanished. Digital or analogue? Flashing zeros, no time at all.

  – you see Lils there’s this secret place but you can’t tell Mama or I’ll never speak to you again but Mama said we shouldn’t come down here I know that’s why it’s a secret silly now shut up because I don’t want Billy to know you’re here –

  Definitely dark. The house had been asleep, floorboards creaking all the way down the stairs.

  But then hadn’t she been up there, watching? Twigs snapping underfoot. Carpet between bare toes. Which?

  ‘You wouldn’t believe how long it took us to get here!’ Connie, letting herself in through the front door, weighed down with bags, which she left in a pile on the kitchen counter. She grabbed them both in awkward hugs. ‘Oh, I’m glad you remembered to bring tea, I completely forgot.’

  ‘Where are the kids?’

  ‘Just getting out of the car. Luke! Tommy! Where have you got to?’

  Within seconds they were underfoot. Lily crouched down to hug them, and stayed there, perched awkwardly, when they moved away. Richard made tea, while Connie bustled around him, unpacking her own provisions. ‘Cake, anyone?’

  ‘Cake! Cake!’ the boys chorused. Eight and five. Same difference in age as her and Connie. Tom was the protective older brother, making sure Luke got his share, that he didn’t drop it on the floor. They took after their father.

  ‘Where’s Nathan?’

  ‘Oh, working, you know. He apologised. What are you doing still on the floor, Lils? Get up and give me another hug.’

  The second hug was as awkward as the first. As soon as Connie backed away, Lily followed the boys, who had already retreated to the garden. They circled her eagerly, begging for stories, games, treats. She gave them her crocodiles, and watched as they jumped in and out of the water, screaming with pleasurable fear.

  ‘How’s she been?’

  ‘Oh, not great. You know. I think… Well, you know how she gets.’

  They didn’t realise the window was open. Or didn’t care. Their words floated out into the air, caught on a breeze, and dissipated into the sunlight.

  She could hear them but not see them. Dark, very big. Black. Obscuring faces, hands, feet, fur.

  Teeth. All manner of things.

  Which came first, blood or screams?

  No, not yet.

  – I’m not sure I like it out here I want to go home stop being such a baby we’re going to the secret place but I can’t see you I don’t like it where’s Mama oh go on then run home to Mama see if I care –

  She was there, warm hands, kind face, shhhhh, all okay now.

  Not yet.

  No carpet now. Twigs, moonlight on skin. Eyes wide. Mouth open. Gape. Footsteps, two sets, tap, crunch, tap. Branches like fingers in hair. Cobwebs on face.

  – are you sure this is the right way of course I’m sure I’ve been here a thousand times but not in the dark it’s diff
erent in the dark will you just stop whining –

  Monsters in the dark. But no, of course not monsters.

  This is no fairytale.

  ‘Lils. Hey. Lily.’

  She spun around. Richard and Connie were standing behind her, twin expressions of concern on their faces.

  ‘Hi. Sorry. Drifted off for a minute.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Connie’s voice. ‘This place does that to you.’

  Does it do it to you?

  ‘Mmm.’

  The boys had gone further down the lawn, to the edge of the flowerbeds. She hadn’t noticed them go. Tried not to think of what lurked beyond.

  ‘We were thinking: we should probably start going through stuff now. Before it gets dark. I don’t think this place has electricity any more, you know.’

  ‘No. I don’t suppose anyone’s been paying the bills.’

  ‘Well, Mama did for a while…’ Connie trailed off, awkward. ‘Yeah, you’re right, I suppose.’

  ‘There’s not much here.’

  ‘Well, no. No one’s lived here for ages. She was in care for over two years, at the end.’

  ‘I thought there might have been stuff. That was left behind.’ Lily found herself groping for words, and giving up. It was exhausting. Why did no one else seem to be having any trouble?

  ‘I got rid of some of it,’ Connie said, carefully. Watching her for a reaction, but Lily had already turned away, looking back towards the bottom of the garden. ‘There’s still a lot around, though. Maybe we should make a start?’

  Lily’s voice was small, petulant. ‘Richard can do it.’

  ‘No.’ Gentle, but firm. ‘It’s got to be you.’

  Lily looked at her face. Unrelenting.

  ‘Right. Me, then.’

  Blood. All obscured by. And dark, of course. But blood blacker than the dark.

  – I thought you knew the way that’s not the point just help me –

  No screams now, all quiet. Except that she wouldn’t stop crying.

  Which one? Did she feel tears? Hadn’t ever cried as a baby. Mother told everyone. The quietest child…

  – he’s too heavy not moving I –

  And then Mother, crashing, fighting undergrowth. Twigs snap snap snap all over the place.

  – What are you girls doing out here –

  And silence.

  Shhhhh, okay.

  We only get what we deserve.

  It didn’t take long, in the end. They found the important paperwork in one of the kitchen drawers. Made a half-hearted attempt at clearing away some of the residue of their mother’s life, but Lily’s mind was on other things and Connie didn’t want to force her.

  Lily didn’t go back upstairs. Didn’t need to feel the absence of carpet on bare toes. Knew what she’d see if she looked out of the window.

  They locked the door behind them, and Connie pocketed the key.

  Part One

  then

  The funeral service for William Edward Thompson was held in the church at the centre of the village. Connie had walked past it every day for as long as she could remember, but had never attended a funeral before.

  Her grandad – her mother’s father – had died two years beforehand, but she’d been deemed too young to attend the service, despite the fact that she’d been old enough to watch him die. She’d tried to sneak out to the church, she remembered; the neighbours’ teenage daughter was watching her, but not really watching, and she’d managed to get out of the back door and halfway round the house before she’d been seen. She’d screamed when she was caught, a roaring embodiment of a week and a half’s worth of pent-up rage and sorrow that they’d heard, distantly, in the dusty mutedness of the church.

  They wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Anna Emmett held her eldest daughter firmly by the hand and all but dragged her to Billy’s. Connie wore a dress that restricted her breathing and shoes that pinched her feet, and she was miserable, not for Billy, but for the sorry state she found herself in. She cried endlessly, bitterly, while the entire church stared and whispered.

  When she got home they didn’t speak of it, as if by prior agreement. Her father hadn’t come to the service – he’d been visiting Lily, who was at their grandparents’ house – and Connie and Anna resumed their normal lives as if nothing had ever happened. Connie understood that they would not talk about it, would not talk about why Lily had gone, would not even talk about the fact that she had gone. These were not topics for discussion.

  She didn’t ask when Lily would be back.

  Instead she went upstairs to her room and she fought her way out of the dress that didn’t fit and she lay down in the middle of her floor, wearing only her pants, lying deliberately half-across the rug so that its edge would dig into her shoulders and so that her head was resting on cold unpolished hardwood floor. It made her neck ache, but she stayed that way, her head tilted so that she could see, not the ceiling directly above her, but the open window behind her, the curtains that fluttered in the breeze.

  Lily’s room was next door. They were almost identical in size and shape, and Lily and Connie had arranged the furniture so that the rooms were mirror images. Their beds were against the shared wall, so that they slept inches apart. Their desks, in the far corners, were where they retreated when they fought, so that they could be as far away from each other as possible.

  Connie lay in the same position, staring at the open window, until the sun set, trawling its shadow laboriously across her body before slinking off behind the woods. She stared at the string that was tied to the outside of the window; the string that was attached similarly to Lily’s window, which could easily be untied, which the two girls used to pass things from room to room, when they were supposed to be asleep. In the shadow of the setting sun she watched it tremble in the wind, until darkness took hold and she closed her eyes to stave it off.

  Lily had been at her grandparents’ house for two weeks. Her father had turned up twice, both times at Saturday lunchtime, his car horn honking cheerfully as he pulled up outside. The first time, he had stayed a long while after lunch, and spent the whole afternoon asking Lily questions while she stared at him blankly. This time, on the day of the funeral, he seemed to have got a hold of himself: he spent the afternoon talking quietly to his parents in the kitchen, leaving Lily to sit alone. She sat in the living room, perched on the windowsill, and watched the traffic pass by, separated from her by the expanse of grass in front of the house and a low, neatly trimmed hedge.

  The living room was dim, and decorated mainly in shades of brown. Framed photos showed her father at all ages: from grinning blond child to humble teenage graduate to proud father of two, arm slung casually around his wife’s shoulders. Lily found it odd to see photos of her father as a child next to photos of her at the same age. It was as if she were in a photographic race to catch him up.

  Marcus Emmett came into the sitting room to find her, placing a cup of tea and a glass of juice on the table before sinking into the sofa. ‘Come and sit with me,’ he said, patting the cushion next to him, and she obliged, curling herself into him and letting him put his arm around her shoulders. ‘You know it’s Billy’s funeral today?’

  Lily nodded. She didn’t sit up or look at him, but she knew he would feel the movement.

  ‘Do you wish you’d been able to go?’

  She shook her head. Her father squeezed her shoulder, and fell silent for a while. Shaping his mind around phrases that wouldn’t require her to respond in words.

  ‘I didn’t want you to go,’ he said finally. ‘Your mother thought it would do you good. But I think you’ve seen enough.’

  Lily sat up and reached for her juice. The glass was cold, slippery with condensation, and she had to concentrate to make sure she didn’t drop it.

  ‘I’ve been talking to Grandma,’ he said, ‘and we’ve come up with a plan, for the time being. We think it would be better for you to stay here, away from everything that’s gone on at home. Grandma could tea
ch you, because she used to be a teacher. And it would take some of the pressure off your mama.’ There was a slight strain in his voice as he said the last sentence, but he hid it well. ‘What do you think? Does that sound okay to you?’

  Lily looked into her glass. There was a single black hair floating in the opaque orange juice, swirling round in circles in the centre of the glass. Nothing here was quite right. The juice wasn’t right. The bedroom that she usually stayed in with Connie wasn’t right, now that Connie wasn’t here to share it with her. The food that Grandma cooked didn’t taste right and the bath wasn’t the right shape and the toothpaste wasn’t the right colour.

  But then she thought of the house, and the woods behind the house, and Billy, and Billy’s funeral, and thought that maybe things not being right wasn’t such a big deal after all.

  She nodded, and took a long swig of her juice. She drained half the glass in one go, and, when she looked at it again, the hair had disappeared.

  The day after Billy’s funeral, his story reappeared in all the newspapers. Connie, walking past the village newsagent’s, caught sight of his face in the newspaper stand outside and flinched as if someone had hit her.

  She took a paper without paying for it – the old man behind the counter watched her take it without comment – and made her way through the village, down to the river, tiptoeing along the pebble-dashed shore until she found a spot where no one would come to look for her.

  She climbed up the bank and sat down in the grass with her legs straight out in front of her. She smoothed the newspaper over her legs so that Billy’s face came to rest, childish and grinning, over her knees. They had used a different photo last week: a school one, with a less genuine smile. This one was more casual; it had caught him off-guard. He was wearing a ThunderCats T-shirt that Connie had been coveting for the past year.