Hush

by Sara Marshall-Ball

  She found she was crying, without quite knowing how it had happened.

  She read the words beneath his face, picking them apart as she knew others would. Her name was there, and Lily’s. It is alleged that two of Billy’s schoolmates were with him at the time of death – Connie Emmett, 11, and her sister Lily, 8. It is not known why the three children were out of the house in the middle of the night. Their parents have refused to comment.

  There wasn’t much more detail than there had been last week – rumours of brutal injuries, coroner refuses to comment – but they picked apart his funeral in detail. Took all the beauty from it and left dry, empty words where before there had been something more. They spelled his father’s name wrong and confused the names of the songs.

  She got to the end and read it again, just to be sure. No new information, but there was still the hint of accusation when they spoke about her and Lily. Not so much that the paper could be accused of outright speculation; just enough to plant the seed in people’s heads.

  She folded the newspaper over and tossed it to one side. The police hadn’t wanted to speak to her again since last week; she supposed they, at least, thought the possibility of her and Lily murdering someone was out of the question. Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they hadn’t believed her version of the story, and were just waiting until they could talk to Lily, to see if her story would tally.

  Lily was showing no inclination towards speaking, though, from what Connie had heard. Connie lay back on the grass, staring up at the sky, her vision still half-blurred with old tears. She was exhausted and confused, and she wanted so much to talk to Lily, to find out what she saw, what she remembered; to confirm that they hadn’t done anything wrong.

  That this wasn’t their fault.

  Because the longer Connie went without talking to her about it, the more possible it seemed that the past would be lost altogether.

  The village in which they lived didn’t have a secondary school, so Connie had to get a bus into the nearest town with the thirty or so other children who lived nearby. Her first day was just over two weeks after Billy’s funeral – two weeks which she had spent sitting in the garden, or the nearby park, or walking in the fields on the outskirts of the village. She had avoided the woods that connected her back garden with Billy’s, but otherwise she didn’t worry about being by herself. In fact, she preferred it.

  Her father, when he was there, tried to engage her in conversation, but she deflected his interest. Truth be told, he had other things to worry about, another daughter who was in a far worse state than Connie. Connie was a trooper. She’d be fine.

  Her mother didn’t talk to her, and she didn’t talk to her mother.

  In the fields on the other side of the village, ten minutes’ walk from her house, there was a barn that had probably once been used for storing tools. There was no purpose to it now: there was nothing inside it; no one owned it. One of the windows had been smashed, long before Connie had ever been there, and the remnants of glass still littered the wooden floor inside. There were shelves on the inside, with empty jars, or old boxes full of nails and screws that had no purpose to serve.

  She had been here before, with Billy, sheltering from the rainstorms at the beginning of the summer. They had been soaked through, and huddled together for warmth, watching the rain driving against the one remaining windowpane, and forming window-shaped puddles on the floor in the places where there was no glass.

  They’d talked about starting secondary school. They’d agreed to sit together on the bus, at least on the first day. They hadn’t thought beyond that. It was the first day that had loomed ahead, unknown, unknowable. The first day that they’d created contingency plans for, in an attempt to unravel the knots of terror they’d constructed around it.

  When it came to it, Connie sat alone, halfway down the bus, and huddled against the window for comfort. It was raining now, too, and she watched the water as it clung momentarily to the glass, attempted to worm its way across, and then was flung off into the road by the movement of the bus. She spoke to no one, and no one spoke to her, and she bit the inside of her cheek for the whole twenty-minute journey. Her mouth was filled with blood by the time they arrived.

  now

  Throughout the four years that Richard and Lily had been together, Richard had met Connie for dinner around once a month. Originally it had just been an exercise in getting to know each other; it was hard to speak freely when Lily was around, almost as if her awkwardness with words spread outwards into everyone in the room, making them all curiously muted. Over the years it had developed into a strange kind of companionship, almost a parental relationship: Richard sometimes felt that they were united by their shared interest in Lily.

  There were unspoken rules to their conversation, subjects that were permissible and things that were left noticeably unbroached. Richard never asked questions about Lily that she would not have answered herself; it would have felt like a betrayal, delving into her past without her explicit permission, and, besides, he had no interest in hearing details of her personal life from anyone except her. But Connie could be useful in the sense that she seemed almost to be able to read her sister’s mind at times, and could advise Richard on changes in Lily’s mood that he sometimes missed.

  Now, though – a month after her mother had died, less than a week after they’d visited her house – Richard needed no help to translate Lily’s silences.

  ‘She’s okay, I think,’ he said, spearing a piece of steak on his fork and lifting it halfway to his mouth before changing his mind and replacing it on the plate. ‘I mean, she’s certainly not showing any signs of being actually upset. But she’s even quieter than she was before, and I’m not sure whether I should be doing something about it or not.’

  Connie watched him from across the table. They were in the same restaurant they always came to – a small place halfway between both of their houses, which was cosy without being overly intimate, and was one of the few local places capable of cooking steak to both of their tastes. ‘She hadn’t seen Mama for years,’ she said, the tone of her voice carefully even.

  ‘Yeah, I know. But it’s got to have an effect, hasn’t it? She was still your mother.’ Richard stopped abruptly, realising how insensitive he was being. ‘I’m sorry. Are you okay about it? I haven’t even asked.’

  Connie laughed. ‘It’s fine. I, at least, am capable of telling you when I’m not okay. And, besides, I’m not your responsibility.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I don’t care.’

  ‘I know.’ She smiled, kindly. ‘I’m not so bad. I don’t miss her or anything – I hadn’t seen her for months either. I’m just – I don’t know. Sad that she had such a miserable existence, I suppose.’

  He nodded. They ate in silence for a while, letting the murmur of the other diners wash over them.

  ‘Have you decided what you’re going to do about the house yet?’

  ‘No. I need to talk to Lily about it.’ Connie laughed dryly. ‘That’ll be a fun conversation.’

  ‘It might be a bit one-sided,’ Richard said, with a smile.

  ‘I suppose we should probably sell it, really. I can’t imagine either of us wanting to live there. It’s not like we have many happy memories of the place.’

  ‘There must have been some good times, though?’

  Connie took a sip of her wine, and shrugged.

  ‘None that springs to mind. Oh, it wasn’t all completely awful,’ she added, seeing the look on his face. ‘But we were both glad to move on.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, it’s a nice place. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a buyer.’

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping. The thought of actually selling it, though… It just seems like so much effort.’

  ‘If you find a decent estate agent it shouldn’t be too hard.’

  ‘True.’ She nodded, chewing slowly. ‘I suppose I should talk to Lily about it sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Might be an idea. Maybe we could all
have dinner at some point. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah. That would be nice.’

  Richard poured them both some more wine. ‘Would you not think of moving back to the house? Bringing the kids up somewhere quieter?’

  Connie made a face. ‘No. Drayfield is too weird, too insular. I want them to grow up somewhere with a bit more life to it.’

  ‘And Nathan? Does he feel the same?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s got this idealised view of living in the countryside, I think. Knowing everyone by name and keeping horses and so on. But he’s never said anything about moving.’

  They ate and drank slowly, their conversation skimming over subjects that held no controversy: Richard’s job, what the boys had been up to, Connie’s latest forays into the world of socialising with the mothers at school. They lingered over the wine, and Connie described the relief of having her mother buried at last, after long years of worrying about her as she went in and out of hospital, and trying to arrange her care.

  ‘I can’t miss her, because there was nothing left to miss,’ she said, her voice blunt and uncharacteristically harsh. ‘All the goodness, the personality that she might have once had disappeared years ago. All that was left was bitterness and self-pity.’

  ‘But you didn’t see her much, did you? Do you think she was different when you weren’t there?’

  Connie shrugged. ‘I doubt it. She’d been that way for years. Since we were kids, really.’

  ‘Do you think there was a reason for it?’

  Connie looked away. ‘Probably lots of reasons. But she’d had plenty of time to get over them.’

  Richard looked at her curiously, but she didn’t say anything else, and he didn’t press her. Connie might find conversation easier than her sister, but there were still some subjects on which silence was resolutely upheld.

  There was a documentary on the TV. Something about the Great Depression, though Lily had stopped watching it fifteen minutes ago, flicking the sound off so it wouldn’t interfere with her thoughts. She was in the kitchen, a good six feet from the battered old fourteen-inch TV that had seen her through her days at university, and she could only just see the shapes as they flickered across the screen. Richard kept suggesting they buy something bigger, more modern, but neither of them could bring themselves to spend money on upgrading something they only ever used as background noise.

  The whole flat was a mishmash of things that they should probably have updated or thrown out long before now. It was something Connie commented on every time she came over, though Lily had never asked for her opinion.

  Lily was trying to remember how it felt to sit on the red plastic bar stools in her mother’s house. She’d been walking backwards and forwards between the living room and the kitchen, trying to work out when she’d last sat on one. She couldn’t possibly have been older than twelve, and therefore the seat would have been huge in comparison to her legs; the whole length of her thighs would have been pressed against the plastic, with just her shins dangling over the edge. And yet. She could so clearly remember the feeling of being perched on the edge of a stool, with the tips of her toes brushing the coolness of the kitchen floor, as they would be now. As if she’d been sitting on one just last week.

  She knew she was just superimposing memories of later times. False memories were a fact of life. But it was picking, gnawing at the edge of her brain. Making her restless, so that she walked to the kettle, got stuck at the sink, left the tap running for minutes before she shut it off, went back to the sofa, back to the kitchen, back. Paused at the kitchen window, which looked down over a glimpse of street, always empty, lit with its own, personal, grimy-England-orange glow. If she pressed her nose against the glass she could make tiny, clear holes in the fog on the pane. She could feel the conversation between the heat of her skin and the coolness of the condensation.

  She loved this flat. Loved everything about it. When Richard was out she spent hours wandering from room to room, picking up objects, looking at bookshelves and picture frames and ornaments from different viewpoints. She tried to imagine how other people saw it. Spread out on the bed, or the sofa, or the floor, she would focus on individual freeze-frames of her flat and imagine what they said about her. About her-and-Richard.

  When Richard was around everything was bustling, busy. The radio was on, or the TV, whichever, it didn’t matter as long as there was inane chatter going on somewhere in the background. When he was there the phone rang all the time and people came to the door and Lily’s contact with the outside world was real, tangible, there for everyone to see. She was a genuine, real-life person.

  When he went out, which he did often, and left her alone, she retreated back into herself. She became just Lily.

  She didn’t mind. In some ways she liked it best when she had breathing space. Thinking space. Imagining space.

  But she was always glad when Richard came back.

  The flat was dark when he got home. He let himself in quietly, placing his keys on the table by the door, slipping off his shoes and nudging them with his toes, into line with Lily’s battered once-white trainers. The front door opened directly on to the living room, the familiar furniture and debris of their life together lit only by the silvery-orange glow of the moonlight and the street-lamps outside.

  He padded through to the kitchen to get a glass of water, automatically registering the objects that had moved since he was in here last, subconsciously taking note of the clues which were his daily insight into Lily’s state of mind. It was tidier than when he’d left, indicating restlessness, dissatisfaction. His unopened mail, neglected that morning owing to an early meeting, was piled neatly in the middle of the table. She’d been thinking of him, then. It wasn’t all bad news.

  He took the water through to the bedroom, opening the door as quietly as possible. The hinges always creaked slightly, but if he opened it slowly enough then the creaking didn’t reach the pitch required to wake Lily up; rather, it was a low groan, unobtrusive. She slept sprawled across the bed, wearing a T-shirt and knickers. Her dark blonde hair was loose, tangled around her face. Her mouth was set in a stubborn line, and she breathed out tiny huffs of air, as if exhaling her discontent with the world.

  He placed his glass of water on the bedside table and stood for a moment, watching her sleep. It wasn’t the only time she was peaceful. But it was the only time he ever had a chance of being able to guess what she was thinking.

  then

  Lily had been at her grandparents’ for two months before Connie’s parents broached the subject of taking her to visit. Connie had begun to get used to being an only child: the silence Lily had left behind her now seemed almost normal. She was okay with her parents arguing, with being the sole focus of attention. She didn’t like it, but she no longer hated it.

  She wasn’t sure how she would feel about going to her grandparents’ house, a place they had always visited together, and finding Lily there by herself. Her grandparents would presumably now be much closer to Lily than they were to her. Perhaps she and Lily would no longer feel like sisters, but like friends, or strangers even: people who were separated by the differences in their daily lives.

  In the end, though, they didn’t go to the house. They met halfway between the two houses, a two-hour drive for each, in a pub with a playground in the garden. The weather was cold but sunny, and Connie took Lily outside while the adults chatted and waited for food to arrive.

  ‘You want to play on the swings?’ Connie offered. Lily nodded, and climbed on to a swing, clutching the chain tightly on each side with her hands. Connie pushed her, making sure she didn’t go too high. She remembered the last time they’d done this: maybe six months ago? Connie had been less cautious then. Pushing her sister carelessly, wanting her to fly, without sparing a thought for what would happen if she did. Now Connie realised she thought of her as fragile; something to be protected.

  She wasn’t sure she liked it much.

  After th
e swings they played on the slide, Connie going down first, Lily following with a wordless swish and a smile. They landed side by side in the dirt.

  ‘How about we go down together?’ Connie suggested. Lily nodded, so they climbed up together, fitting their feet into the ridges in the wood. The slide wasn’t wide enough for them to sit alongside each other, so Lily sat between Connie’s legs, Connie holding on to her waist. When they landed at the bottom they heard a cheer; Marcus had been watching them from the doorway.

  ‘Do it again,’ he urged, so they did. By the end of the third time Connie found the back of her jeans was covered in mud.

  ‘No more, Dad, please,’ she said, when he seemed about to ask.

  He laughed. ‘Okay, then. I was only supposed to be coming to tell you the food has arrived, anyway.’

  They trooped back inside, their mother clucking disapprovingly over the state of their hands as soon as they sat down, ordering them to go and wash them. They obeyed, Connie muttering under her breath about selective parenting.

  Over dinner the main topic of conversation was the inquest, which had taken place the day before. Lily stared at her plate and gave no indication that she heard anything that was said around her. Connie glared at her mother, who spoke in hushed tones, as if that would somehow soften the blow of her words.

  ‘We thought we’d better go,’ she said. ‘I mean, the police had already told us what they were going to say, and they didn’t need us as witnesses, but I really think it’s better to know what’s being said. I wanted to be on hand, in case they mentioned the girls.’

  ‘And did they?’ Her grandmother’s question, but it was Connie who held her breath, awaiting the answer.

  ‘They mentioned that they were there, obviously. Quoted Connie’s statement, explained that Lily couldn’t talk about it. They recorded a verdict of accidental death.’