The Knotted House

by Ruth Skrine

  I squash into a corner of the chair so that Quentin can sit beside me. Then I wriggle onto his lap and rest my head on his chest.

  He flicks my nose. ‘I think we could be good for each other.’

  ‘I feel so safe with you, as if I’ve known you all my life.’

  ‘Well, I’m not as safe as all that. I’m not just a friend you know. I’m a man and you’re a woman.’ He bends his head to kiss me.

  ‘Umm, that’s nice.’ My voice trembles between tears and laughter. I begin to feel distinctly better. ‘Oh dear, I think I’m pissed.’

  ‘I won’t take advantage of you in that state. I’m too much of a gentleman for that.’

  ‘It might be the only way of doing it.’

  ‘No, it goes against my moral code. I do have one, you know.’ He prises me off his lap and helps me up the stairs. I sink back on the bed and he tucks the duvet firmly round me, right up to my chin as if every bit of me has to be enclosed in a chastity belt. Then he kisses me gently before straightening up. ‘Goodnight, my darling.’ He has never called me that before.

  I wake in the middle of the night, and struggle up to undress. A foul taste fills my mouth. For a moment the whole experience in the cellar feels like a dream. Then I see the pipe cleaner boy on the table by my bed. I carry him into the bathroom to wipe the dirt off with my damp flannel but it just smears into streaks. He will never be clean again. I feel so bad about leaving him in that dark corner, forgotten all these years. The window is partly open and the wind rustles the curtains so that the seals in the pattern move. I know now that the man who drowned in the dream must have been my father and I could not save him. Why should I want to save him if he damaged me? No, I will not allow such thoughts into my mind. With a shiver I fasten the window tight shut. Back in bed I rest the little boy against my father’s photo. Two pairs of eyes look down at me. Neither my father’s searching gaze nor the funny little stitched slits can help me understand why I am different from other women.

  I am so tired but afraid of dropping off in case I have another nightmare. To my surprise I see a room full of black children. Their faces are turned up towards me as I stand writing on the blackboard. A great pile of bananas rises on one side, and a cow looks in at the window. The children start to sing and clap their hands. Welcome, welcome, happy to see you. I snuggle down and sink back into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 9

  The train to London doesn’t leave till the afternoon. Quentin comes in at coffee time carrying a soft package. I have bought socks for him, as he wouldn’t let me darn his old ones. He makes me guess what is in his parcel: a scarf, dishcloth or gardening gloves for our next bonfire? It turns out to be a bra and pants set, scarlet with black lace trimmings. We laugh, happy and hugging before he drags himself away.

  Paul meets me at Paddington and we arrive at the house after a slow journey through the traffic. The children are fretting that they will be late for the carol service. After taking my case upstairs he sweeps them out. As soon as the door closes, Briony seizes a bottle of wine and swallows a glass before pouring mine. We sit at the table surrounded by damp sprouts and partially peeled chestnuts. She looks haggard. I pick up a knife to start on the sprouts but she snatches it out of my hands. ‘For God’s sake leave them.’ She refills her glass. ‘I shouldn’t be drinking, but what the hell. I’m going to get rid of it next week.’

  I look at her more closely. ‘You mean... you’re pregnant?’

  ‘Of course I’m pregnant; the abortion is fixed for Monday.’

  ‘Why? How can you?’ I clutch my stomach. Over the years I have watched my sister’s devotion to her children. She is making piles of chestnut shells, leaning one against another as if the creation of some secure structure is her only concern. ‘Can’t you afford another baby? Or doesn’t Paul want it?’ I stare bleakly across the room. ‘If you really can’t manage, I would be happy to adopt it.’

  Briony leaps to her feet, sending her wineglass flying. ‘How can you suggest such a thing? You jolly well make your own. If I can’t look after it myself, I shan’t let it live.’ She bursts into tears and, seizing a dishcloth, dabs at the wine stain that is spreading over the table.

  I sit in impotent silence before trying to explain. ‘I’m sorry. You see, none of my relationships work so I’ll probably never have any of my own. I just thought I could help.’

  Briony flings the dishcloth into the sink and turns on me. ‘You want to take the baby away from me just like you took Daddy and everything else.’

  That’s not fair. ‘I didn’t take him away from you, he died.’ To my disgust I burst into tears too. ‘It wasn’t my fault he died.’

  Briony flinches. ‘Of course it wasn’t. He had a heart attack. But you’ve kept his memory all for yourself.’

  ‘You have everything. You have children, and now you don’t want this one. You have a husband and a lovely house. All I have is the awful responsibility.’

  She takes a step towards me. ‘Don’t Meena, don’t. You never cry. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault he died,’ I repeat.

  She flares up again. ‘You always did things I couldn’t. Mummy took you to Peter Pan and I was left behind.’

  I remember that afternoon as one of complete happiness. For once I had my mother all to myself. But how can it still rankle with my sister – after all these years? She hands me a tissue. As I wipe my eyes I try to see it from her angle. I expect she has problems of her own. But, whatever they are, they have not stopped her having sex. When I can trust myself to speak, I ask how Paul feels about the baby.

  ‘He won’t talk about it, says it’s my decision.’

  I can’t imagine what it must be like to be married to a man who refuses to talk about something so important. The outburst has left me shaky. Without asking, I refill my glass. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted when you’re so unhappy. That’s the third time I’ve lost my temper in the last week.’

  ‘Goodness, that’s not the controlled Meena I know.’ She wipes her eyes on her apron and we sit down again. ‘What else set you off?’

  She seems genuinely interested. It is a relief to tell her about the nativity play and my spat with Quentin. ‘He found the little boy from the doll’s house in the cellar. It reminded me of the day Daddy died.’

  Briony looks round her kitchen, her face bleak. ‘That was a different world.’ She is silent for a moment. ‘Actually I would like to keep this baby.’

  ‘Then why don’t you?’

  ‘It would mean cutting back so much.’

  ‘When we sell the house …’

  ‘We can’t sell it.’

  ‘Why ever not? That’s what we planned.’

  ‘I know, but it’s your home. You must stay there.’

  I walk over to the sink. How can she misunderstand so completely when at other times we feel so close? I try to control myself but the words come out as a strangled snarl. ‘Can’t you see? I don’t want the damned house. I want to be rid of the wretched place.’

  ‘But it’s always been our home. I thought you loved it.’

  A man is struggling past carrying a huge Christmas tree. The branches are constrained by several twists of string. He turns into a drive and two children run out to greet him. Once inside, he will cut the bonds and the tree will spring back into its original shape, the form it had when growing in some forest, its roots firmly embedded in the nourishing soil. Ridiculous to be envious of a tree.

  I go limp as the anger drains out of me. ‘I don’t know, Bri, something clings to the building. Even Aunt Beth says it’s time it went out of the family. But I feel so disloyal.’

  She comes and takes my arm, leading me back to the table. ‘I thought if you kept the house it would make up for not having your own family.’ She holds onto my hand as she sits again. For the first time in her life she seems to be trying to look after me. If I am cracking up it will be her turn to do the caring. ‘What will you do if we sell it?’ she asked. ‘Where will yo
u live?’

  ‘I could do lots of things. I might go abroad.’ My words startle me. ‘Or, you never know, things might develop with Quentin.’

  ‘If you married him you could live in the house.’

  My fist comes down hard on the table. ‘I don’t want to live in the house. He’s not even divorced yet and I am very unlikely to make it work.’

  ‘I never understood why your marriage failed.’

  I snatch my hand away. ‘It just did.’

  ‘But with a different man? He could help you with the house...’

  ‘Can’t you understand? I have to get free of it, I am being destroyed.’

  Sighing, she says she doesn’t care what I do. She stares across the kitchen at the turkey waiting to be stuffed, and the piles of dirty saucepans in the sink. ‘I suppose I might be able to persuade Paul to keep the baby if he knew there would be some money.’

  I explain that probate is promised soon and that we can then sell the furniture and put the house on the market. ‘You can keep any capital that is left after death duties.’

  ‘Self-denying Meena again.’

  ‘I’m not being a martyr. I’ll do anything to get rid of the house. And anything to help you… as an aunt of course.’

  ‘We’d better get on with all this, I suppose, ’ is all she says.

  When the family burst in I go upstairs to unpack. Taking my belongings out of the case I spread them on the bed. I am stacking the presents on the table ready for the morning when Julie comes in without knocking. She looks at the pile with predatory eyes, then scrutinises my things. My face flares as I see her eyes fasten on a packet of sanitary pads. She probably uses tampons with no problem for, although she is only eleven her breasts are well-developed. She is a pretty girl, with my grandmother’s grey eyes. ‘How are you, Julie?’ I ask. ‘How’s school?’

  She doesn’t bother to answer but picks up the book I am reading, Mrs Gaskell’s North and South. ‘Isn’t this a bit old fashioned?’ Her voice is scornful.

  ‘It’s a great story, really well written.’

  She drifts to the window.

  ‘What books are you studying at school now?’

  She shrugs. ‘I don’t remember.’ Then she brightens. ‘Do you watch Coronation Street?’

  ‘Not often I’m afraid.’ I feel like a prig. ‘Is it good?’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  Putting my book on the windowsill she drifts out of the room. She must guess something is troubling her mother. I should make more effort to be friendly but I can’t be bothered when she is so rude.

  Somehow we survive the festivities. Briony and I find no further chance to talk but before Paul drives me to the station she gives me a big hug and says she will phone. Once I am settled in the train I think back to our conversation. Did I imagine that moment of warmth when she seemed to be looking after me? It was so fleeting and she would not hear what I was trying to say. I feel now as if she were using me to cling to her own past, turning me into a tentacle through which she is pushing her own feelings about the house. Her antics are yet one more thread that binds me to the wretched past from which I am trying so hard to escape.

  I doze and see the ancestors again in their heavy, gilt frames. If the sale means Briony can keep the baby perhaps they will forgive me. I can offer them a new life in payment. ‘Look, here is a Smedley I’ve saved for you. A living human being is more important than stones and spirits: a new life in place of dusty papers and half-remembered stories. It’s a good bargain.’

  Waking with a jolt I remember the memoir is still waiting.

  ***

  Next morning I wake to find the oak tree is shrouded in an opaque curtain. Snowflakes are landing against my window, a silent multitude that gathers and coalesces in every available corner. I go downstairs to stand at the drawing room window wrapped in my dressing gown. The valley is hidden but, as I watch, the clouds shift imperceptibly and the hedge at the bottom of the field slips into view, then disappears again. The silence muffles my feelings, wrapping me in cotton wool. The sharp edges of past and present are smoothed so that I am suspended in an unreal world, outside time.

  I take a cup of coffee back to bed and prop myself up with the memoir, watched by the little boy and my father from the table by my side. For pages there is nothing more about the murder but Duncan writes vividly about the people who worked on the estate, not just the succession of tutors, but the keeper who taught him to shoot, and the bailiff, Mr Knight, whose son acted as ferryman. Here are the details of the skimming net they used at flood time: “This was a gigantic net on the end of a long pole with a flat lip, which was carefully projected over the edge of the bank, lowered and brought in under the bank and drawn up.”

  Unbidden I see the spot where I stood after seeing the doctor. “That was where the fish lay at such times, and care was needed not to startle them when getting the net into position, and then strength and quickness made the stroke. The water has to be right at the top of the bank.” That water flows on through time with the same noises, the same patterns of light and shade, taking no notice of the generations of my family who walked its banks and fished its depths.

  The account moves on to various schools and Duncan’s university days. Then he is in Ceylon as a tea planter. He had a hard life at the beginning, building his first shelter with his own hands, and facing the possibility of riots among his labourers. He writes lightly with an ironic touch. The story becomes a bit boring, nothing but horses and racing. I begin to think he is never going to mention the murder again, but two thirds of the way through he goes back to it. “I came home for a couple of years to recover from a bout of fever. My father was asked to stand surety for Jake Farley who was applying for release from Broadmoor. Of course he could not do so, for we had to weigh our family responsibility to Jake against the safety of the rest of our servants.”

  Here it is again: Our family responsibility to Jake. There is more. Although he was not mad when he committed the murders he went mad in Broadmoor. I don’t understand. If he wasn’t mad why wasn’t he hanged like any other murderer? I have to know more about the trial. The clock strikes ten. The holiday is over and the library will soon be open.

  By the time I am dressed the branches of the tree are moving in a light breeze. The valley clears within seconds, as if an unseen wiper has swept a misted window. One of the doors to the balcony gives under my hand. I force the snow back and reach round with a small shovel to clear a space just large enough for my feet.

  Each line and curve of the ironwork is laced by a three inch topping of snow. The crystals, a delicate honeycomb, sparkle in the sun that has appeared so suddenly. All the irregularities of the land are rounded. Only the top of the church tower keeps its straight edges, softened in white. Vivid patches of light glint beyond the trees along the riverbank. The sound of falling water, that had been lost in the silence a moment before, reaches up across the snow-covered field.

  A sense of joy spreads through every cell of my body. The feeling is so great that I have to brush the snow from the top rail and hold on with both hands. The beauty of the scene makes me aware of my heart beating strongly. The valley has been here for thousands of years, even though the family has only lived in it for the last few hundred. I am not tied to the place, it does not need me or any of my family for its survival. The land will go on, spring replacing winter, then the lush summer and the smoke of autumn fires.

  My eyes go back to the church. I have to find an explanation for my problem in the lives of my ancestors, so as to exonerate my father. But they can’t be made to give up their secrets if they choose to keep them hidden. All I can do is to follow the trail as far as they will let me. After that I may be free to lead my own life.

  The snow is melting as I walk down to the town. Cars climb the hill easily, throwing sludge at my ankles. The pavements are still slippery in places but my boots have good soles.

  One of the women at the desk in the library shows me where the microf
iche reels of old newspapers are stored. She helps me to feed the first one into the machine. I decide to start in 1853, the year of Henry’s death. At that time Duncan’s branch of the family inherited his money and moved into Oakdene. In the memoir Duncan wrote of that time, Now we had money we could afford a grand footman in black epaulets and a cord.

  The layout is very different from the pages of a modern paper, with none of the dark capitals and fancy type that blaze out twentieth century stories. The print used to introduce the assize reports is little bigger than that of the ‘HUNTING APPOINTMENTS’. These are not, as I had expected, the appointment of new Masters or Whips, but just the places, days and times of the meets in the area surrounding the city. The print is faded in some places. As my eyes get used to the format I move through the years more quickly. After nearly two hours I am half-way through the third reel when the heading leaps out at me:

  HORRIBLE TRAGEDY AT OAKDENE

  TWO PERSONS KILLED AND ATTEMPTED

  SUICIDE OF THE MURDERER

  The viewing machine doesn’t hold the microfiche in steady focus, and I have to twiddle the knob continuously to read the small print. My eyes become tired as I struggle with the story. The first account tells of the coroner’s court held, with a jury, in one of the cottages two days after the murders had been committed. I scroll forward to find the record of the trial.

  After stating that Jake Farley was indicted for the murders, and naming the two men acting as counsel, the reporter describes what he had seen and heard in court:

  The prisoner, Jake Farley, on being placed in the dock, came forward in a stooping posture, with his hands clasped, his mouth partially open, and his eyes cast on the ground, presenting every appearance of melancholy insanity. Mr Sheldon, the defending counsel, asked the learned Judge to accommodate the prisoner with a chair, but his Lordship declined doing so, unless the prisoner himself applied for the accommodation. The prisoner remained in the position we have described for some time, but shortly after his mother had been examined, though he appeared to have taken no notice of her as she gave her evidence, he began to move backwards and forwards in the dock. His hands still clasped, his eyes cast down he uttered deep and distressing sighs. This continued for some time when he suddenly fell to the ground. He was lifted up, and his Lordship ordered him to be accommodated with a chair.