Holt House

by L. G. Vey

  How was it that Holt House, and the Latches, had escaped time, but his own family home had not?

  An upstairs window opened. It had once been his parents’ bedroom, but now an unknown woman leaned out, and said, ‘Can I help? Are you lost?’

  How long had he been standing there? He turned and walked away, fast, further along the pitted, dry road until he could be certain he was out of her line of sight.

  The barbed wire stretched on, unbroken, for minute after minute. He refused the urge to look behind him. He remembered hearing his mother, wailing, wailing in that upstairs bedroom; it had sounded like torture was being committed upon her swollen stomach. And then there had been the sound of the siren: the arrival of the ambulance. Aren’t you going in the car? he asked his dad, and heard: It’s too late for that. Plans had been made and they were left unused. There had been a pram, his old pram, brought down from the attic and cleaned up by himself and his dad, together. His dad wheeled it to the end of the garden and let it sit there, in all weathers, afterwards. The spokes had bloomed red rust.

  I’ve got to go be with your mum, said Dad, as the ambulance men headed up the stairs. The Latches won’t mind having you tonight, I bet. It’s just for tonight.

  Ray stopped walking.

  The beginning of crop growth covered everything, where once there had been so many flowers: cornflowers, campions, catmint. Hadn’t he found a dormouse, once, nestled in stalks? Curled up tight. Secure. Safe.

  He grasped the barbed wire, between the spikes, and hoisted himself over. The bottom of his flared jeans caught, throwing him off-balance; he pitched forward, against the new growth and the dirt. The material gave, ripped away, and when he sat up he could see a strip of the faded blue denim left on the wire, snagged, bearing witness to his presence. He scrabbled at his foot, expecting to see blood, but there was nothing.

  Nobody’s looking for you here, he reminded himself.

  He got up and strode back in the direction of the woods, planting his feet, crushing the tender crops with deliberation.

  *

  Stupid. I’ve been stupid, to leave so many traces of myself behind. People will remember me. If they get asked, they’ll say: oh yes, there was this bloke. He stood out like a sore thumb. He wasn’t one of us. He wasn’t normal.

  I need to get on with it. What I came here to do. I need to know how he lives with what he did to me without a trace of it showing on him. How can he look the same? Exactly the same?

  He marked me.

  I never thought about this stuff once I’d joined up. I was too busy. And then out at sea, seeing the world, working so hard every day. I pushed the thought of that bloody wardrobe so far away from me, it didn’t seem real. The smell of it, the way it felt. What the hell was it?

  She was my security against having to think of it. And now she’s taken all that from me, and I see it and feel it all over again. But I don’t know what it is I’m seeing and feeling and I’m going mad with it. This is what it is to go mad.

  I bet she’s shacked up with someone else. I bet she never gives me a second thought. She’s fine, she’s happy, and I’m here. The dreams aren’t real. It’s just whatever was in that wardrobe, spilling over into my memories. That’s all it is.

  *

  Sunset.

  Ray put his eye to the hole in the fence. It was the sweet spot in the evening when Mrs Latch regularly switched on the light in the kitchen, but hadn’t yet got around to drawing the curtains. He could see her, standing at the window, her head bowed. She was washing up the dishes from dinner, of course; he knew the position of the sink, and could picture it clearly. It was an old-fashioned basin with a wall-mounted heater on the wall by the window, with a long pipe for hot water. While she cleaned the plates, knives and forks, Mr Latch would–

  Yes, here he was. Right on time, in the last rays of the day. The porch door opened and he stood there, stretching his arms out wide, tilting back his chin.

  ‘Time for a smoke,’ said Ray.

  Mr Latch shuffled over to the bench. He took out his pipe, tobacco pouch, and matches, and began the business of lighting up.

  There it was: slowed time, nothing moving, nothing moving. Ray placed his hands against the fence, fingers spread, and breathed in and out in time with the puffs of the pipe.

  If only he could have an honest conversation with Latch. All he wanted was to stand up and cross to him, the fence no longer a barrier or a hiding place, and say easily and clearly: What happened that night, when I stayed?

  ‘She left me,’ he whispered.

  The old man cocked his head, then nodded. Had he heard? Did he understand? Ray felt his heart shudder in his chest, a spasm of fear and longing; then he realised – it was an owl, the raucous screech of a barn own, nearby, that held Latch’s attention.

  The smoke finished, the pipe was tapped out on the arm of the bench. Latch said, loudly, ‘Barn’s out, Gwen.’ He walked back to the house, and closed the door behind him.

  It meant something, it had to mean something: this speaking aloud for the first time in Ray’s earshot. It felt as if it was meant for him rather than for Mrs Latch, to let him know something was different after all. Something was going to happen, change was coming. Time was unpicking itself from the walls of Holt House, removing its protective barrier.

  *

  Nearly a month here. The spring nights mean spending less and less time in the dark. I wouldn’t mind a bit more dark. I might feel better wrapped up in it, burrowed and small, like that dormouse.

  When I’m not seeing red everywhere I’m seeing her face. The bad stuff, the way her face hardened against me, and her mouth spat out words with her lips thinned.

  It’s not even her I’m angry at, really. It’s the neighbours, who don’t see her for a few days and call the police. They don’t trust me.

  Maybe, if I went back to Portsmouth now, she would be there. Back. That would be like putting two fingers up to the lot of them. She would say she was wrong to leave me, and beg me to forgive her. And I could go back to work, see Captain Turner and explain, and he would understand the pressure I was under, and say it was water under the bridge.

  Like he would ever say that to any one of us lads.

  I’m dreaming, dreaming with my eyes open, I know it. It’s too late for all that, and it’s too late to pretend that I’ve just been camping out here rather than waiting. Waiting for the right time to get into that house and get my answers.

  I think the right time is coming. I think it’s nearly here.

  *

  He woke early, at dawn, with a strange, earthy taste in his mouth. For a moment he lay there, listening, trying to place the sound in the distance that had jerked him from a dream of the wardrobe.

  Someone was screaming.

  No. The high wail of a siren was penetrating the Holtwood. He had the sense that everything – the animals, the insects, the trees – had stopped moving to listen to it.

  It was getting closer.

  He sat up in his sleeping bag and scrabbled for his clothes.

  They were coming for him.

  He laced his boots, grabbed his pack, and took off at a blind run towards the river, trying to put distance between himself and the siren. Getting closer. He couldn’t outrun it. He blundered into a thicket of brambles, ripped himself free, feeling the sting of tiny spikes in his skin. Abruptly, he found himself at the bank of the river. The siren was upon him; then it ceased.

  Ray tried to slow his breathing.

  The wood was silent. Natural noises began to return: the water running past, the wind in the branches, the birds.

  The feeling of being watched stole over him, and prickled at his awareness. He didn’t move. He scanned, with his eyes, over the edge of the far bank.

  There it was. A tiny movement gave it away. The vague shapes of leaves and grass coalesced into a brown curve, a black nose, paws. Two eyes.

  An otter.

  It was crouching low, alert through every line of its
body, its gaze on him. He had never seen a creature so intent. It was poised to flee, or attack: its wildness was powerful. He felt it as an awareness between them. His hands trembled. He couldn’t stop them from shaking, but didn’t dare to move them, not even to clench them into fists.

  The otter broke its gaze upon him, and looked away with a sudden disinterest: a judgement. It dropped into the river, smooth and clean, without a splash, and he watched as it passed him by, heading downstream, underwater, a graceful streak of muscle.

  It churned up a curious wake behind it; the usually clear water looked muddy, brownish. Red. Was the otter bleeding?

  ‘Stay,’ he whispered.

  It stopped moving, was still, under the water. For all the world it could have been a stone, or a rag. Not a living, breathing animal. He kept his eyes fixed upon it. Blood unspooled from its back leg, like loose thread. He knelt by the bank, and put his hands into the river.

  It would turn on him, it would bite him, there would be pain. He touched the fur on its back. It was firm, slick. He tried to move his fingers down to the bleeding leg, and then the otter twisted, wrapped around his hand, and he realised it was not alive, not dead, not a creature at all. A piece of material, brown, tangled around his wrist. He lifted it, and muddy water ran down over the cuff of his shirt.

  It was fur. A piece of an old fur coat, maybe.

  He flung it away, back into the river, and stood up.

  The siren. What if it hadn’t been for him at all?

  He started back towards the Latches’ house.

  *

  He could see the brown leather slippers.

  The body was lying on the path outside the toilet. A dark blue blanket covered the face and the torso, leaving only the feet exposed. Those grey socks and the slippers were still in place.

  Two men in blue shirts were standing close to where Mr Latch had fallen. They were facing away from Ray, towards the house; he could only see their backs, and the small movements of their shoulders. As they shifted apart, he caught a glimpse of Mrs Latch, nodding her head at them as they talked. It was a soft conversation. He could hear none of it.

  An open bag sat on the path, and equipment lay inside, but Ray couldn’t see it clearly. Medical, he guessed. Two dark blue hats, like the kind ambulance men wore, were beside it. That made sense.

  Then one of the men stepped backwards, and gave Ray a clear view of her. She may have been nodding still, but her eyes were on the fence – did she see him? No. But something about the fence, very close to the hole, had her attention. How tame and cowed she looked. He had never had such an opportunity to look full at her face before. She was usually moving around, cleaning, preparing things for her husband.

  She looked just as he remembered her from his childhood, except around the eyes. Her eyes looked very tired to him.

  She stopped nodding, and the men’s shoulders stopped moving up and down. They were no longer talking to her. They retrieved their hats, and put them on. Then they followed Mrs Latch back into the house.

  The body was left behind.

  ‘What did you do to me?’ he said, as loud as he dared, speaking only to himself now there was no way to get the answer he needed. ‘What did you do?’ He repeated it, over and over, until they returned with a stretcher and took the body away.

  Chapter Two

  Her eyes brightened at his name.

  ‘Of course I remember you!’ she said. ‘Little Raymond. You were such a nice boy.’

  ‘I just wanted to say – I’m sorry for your loss.’

  She had a small handkerchief, lacy, poking out from the sleeve of her favourite cardigan. Ray drank up the details of her that he hadn’t been able to appreciate from the fence line: her voice, her smile, and the gold bands of the wedding and engagement rings that had worn her finger thin. She took out the hanky and dabbed it under her nose.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘that’s very kind. Look at you! All grown up.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m in the Navy now.’

  ‘Are you really?’

  ‘Is there anything you need? Anything I can do to help?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t really know where to start with any of it, to be honest, dear. I had some papers through from the hospital.’

  ‘Do you want me to take a look? I remember the paperwork – I helped my dad with it a bit after my mum…’

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ Mrs Latch said, her face falling naturally into sympathy, and with that she opened the front door and stepped back to admit him. It was as simple as that. Even with his dirty clothes and his beard, his backpack slung over one shoulder and that smell of rot still spilling out of him, she let him in.

  Standing in the hallway made a boy of him once more. Nothing had changed. The carpet was a rich green, and the yellow Anaglypta wallpaper held a pattern of diamonds. Next to the dark oak banisters of the staircase was a grandfather clock, a fine old example with an ornate face, that gave a rich ticking to the room.

  The plates, Ray remembered best. They were mounted along the wall opposite the staircase, in a row, and they depicted otters in a stylised fashion, one to each plate, facing to the left, showing only one eye that sat precisely in the centre. Their bodies were twisted to fit the circular space, curled against varying backgrounds of delicate leaves and flowers.

  ‘Come through,’ said Mrs Latch, as she shut the door behind him.

  He had a clear memory of having to walk under the stare of those otters when he was a boy; now, he was tall enough to look down upon them as he passed them by.

  The kitchen was the same, too. It was a long, thin room with a high ceiling. Close to the door was a sturdy Welsh dresser, in shadow, next to a round table and four matching chairs which had to be squeezed past in order to get to the cupboards, cooker and sink. Only that far half of the room had light; it poured in through the kitchen window. Ray walked over to the sink and looked out at the garden.

  It seemed so much larger from this vantage point. The outhouse couldn’t be seen at all; the view was obscured by the jutting edge of the back porch, which made it look as if that perfect lawn stretched away forever, beyond his vision. The shed was visible, though, and that was showing signs of decay. The roof had partially collapsed, and the wooden slatted walls leaned inwards, as if the structure had slumped under the weight of its age.

  The fence ran neatly behind the shed, without a trace of weeds or overgrowth around it. Ray could just make out the hole, behind which he had crouched. How obvious it seemed, from here. He supposed that the Latches hadn’t even seen it.

  ‘Would you like tea?’

  ‘Yes please, that would be lovely.’ He moved out of her way, and retreated to take a seat at the table. The tablecloth was clean and white. He smoothed it with his hands as she boiled the kettle on the stove, and warmed the teapot.

  ‘Have you contacted the funeral home yet, Mrs Latch?’

  ‘No, I, do I do that? I couldn’t remember. No, of course, I do that, don’t I?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He thought of his dad, making the arrangements after that night. ‘I can get the telephone number for you. Or I’ll call for you, if you like.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know where to start myself,’ she admitted. She collected objects on a melamine tray and put them in front of him: a teacup on a saucer, a small spoon, a bowl of sugar, a jug of milk.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said, as an automatic reaction, but he had no idea how it would be, or what he even meant by it. Still, it seemed to soothe her. She delivered the earthenware teapot, wrapped in its cosy, to the table, and sat down beside him.

  ‘It was his heart, they said. The two young men who came to help.’

  ‘Really?’ Ray schooled himself, his reactions. He had to be sure not to give away that he had been there, seen it himself.

  ‘It was only yesterday. It feels like it happened a long time ago, isn’t that peculiar? Last night felt like such a very long night.’

  It had been for Ray, too. Lying there in
the tent, wondering what he was going to do next, twisting in his sleeping bag and in his mind, thinking such terrible thoughts, vivid, against the dark.

  Then it had struck him, in the dawn light: he could still get his answers. Mr Latch may have died, but he could get inside and find the wardrobe. Whatever it was that had repulsed him, changed him, would be there; he would have put money on it. They looked like a couple that threw nothing away.

  ‘That’s normal,’ he said. ‘For time to seem a bit out of kilter, after a death.’

  ‘Is it?’ She looked surprised at that. ‘You would know, of course, Raymond. Your mother was such a lovely woman. And to lose a little baby sister as well, at the same time.’ The handkerchief came out again, from her sleeve, and was dabbed under her nose. ‘How is your father doing?’

  ‘He died last year,’ said Ray. He didn’t mention how they had already practically lost touch years ago, doing little more than exchanging birthday and Christmas cards. His father hadn’t approved of his choice to join the Navy, and had liked Trish even less. You two are trouble together, he had said, once.

  ‘Ahhhh,’ she said, and reached over the table to pat his hand. ‘Death is very cruel, isn’t it? I think we should pass a law, and get rid of it.’

  ‘I’d be happy with that.’

  She smiled at him. Thoughts of doing whatever it took to get his answers were difficult to hold in his head when she looked at him that way, as if they were both victims left in the wake of the disaster called death. For the first time he wondered if Mr Latch had made her look into the wardrobe as well. Would she tell him, if she had suffered at her husband’s hands? Could he win her trust?

  ‘Ernie needed to go for a tinkle, I suppose,’ she said, suddenly, leaning in close to him. ‘The sound of him going downstairs didn’t wake me. It takes a lot to wake me up once I’m asleep. So he could have been calling for me, shouting, and I wouldn’t have heard.’

  ‘’There’s no reason to blame yourself.’

  She shook her head at him, quite crossly, but continued in her mild voice, ‘He wasn’t well, you see. I knew it, I should have paid attention. I woke up, like a shock, with a gasp. I can’t explain it, dear. I knew something was wrong. I knew it. I went downstairs and out to the loo, and he was on the path, not moving. I could tell he had gone. It wasn’t him any more. So I came back inside and telephoned the ambulance.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I never wanted to have a telephone, but Ernie said it would come in useful one day, and he was right, wasn’t he? Remember your 999, he said. Modern ambulances can work wonders. But it wasn’t enough, was it? It doesn’t change the fact that when your time is up, your time is up.’