by L. G. Vey
‘Hello,’ said Ray. ‘You not feeling well?’
The lad shook his head.
‘Never mind.’
Gwen closed the door and turned around with her smile for company ready-prepared. ‘You poor thing,’ she said. ‘Do you think you could manage a biscuit? Raymond here will take you to the kitchen to get one, if your tummy is up to it.’
‘Yes, please, Miss,’ said the lad. The name came back to him in sudden realisation. Jimmy.
She laughed. ‘You can call me Mrs Latch,’ she said.
‘Mrs Latch,’ Jimmy repeated, and then Ray led him to the kitchen and took out the biscuit barrel from the cupboard.
‘They’re only Rich Tea,’ he said. ‘Usually there are pink wafers, but I’ve eaten all those, I’m afraid. They’re my favourite.’
Jimmy took two, then nibbled at the edge of the first while looking around the kitchen, until Gwen bustled in and said, ‘You two gents go off and amuse each other, then,’ with an air that would not brook disagreement.
The garden seemed the only option. ‘Come on,’ said Ray, and led the way out into the sunshine.
There was not much to do except sit on the bench, so Ray did that, and Jimmy followed suit.
How slowly time was moving.
‘Do you like football, then?’ Ray asked him, and then had to wait for a reply while the boy finished a mouthful of biscuit.
‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘Who do you support? That’s the Portsmouth strip, isn’t it?’
‘Portsmouth,’ the boy confirmed.
‘I’m more of a rugby man, myself.’ He racked his brain for other things boys liked. ‘You play in the woods, sometimes? Fishing, stuff like that? I used to do that, at your age.’ At your age. How old he sounded. He wondered if he looked ancient to Jimmy. Foolish, with his stupid questions. He vowed to himself that he wouldn’t ask about school.
‘Yeah, I like the woods. I go looking for insects and things. Animal tracks. I got a magnifying glass for Christmas, but Dad says not to go far so I haven’t found much.’
‘That’s a shame.’ A brainwave came to him. ‘Do you like making stuff? You can make something out of wood, in the shed, if you want.’
Jimmy nodded, so they walked down the path and Ray opened the door for him. He didn’t shut it, aware that it was a small space; he didn’t want the boy to feel uncomfortable.
But Jimmy appeared to be unbothered by having Ray in close proximity. His attention was fixed on the hooks on the wall, and the tools that hung there.
‘Is it traps?’ he said.
With a closer look, it was obvious. Semi-circular halves bearing curved rows of jagged teeth, closed over a rectangular metal plate – Ray counted four of them. Traps, for catching animals that would be perhaps the size of a terrier. Designed to snap closed on legs, hold the creature in place until the hunter could return.
‘They’re really old,’ he said. ‘There are more humane ways of getting rid of pests now.’
‘My dad poisoned the rats in the storeroom out the back of the shop. They scratched and scratched. I found a dead one. Is that more... humane?’ He seemed unfamiliar with the word.
Ray suspected he should lie, but found himself saying, ‘No, no, that would hurt too. They have boxes now, though, the rat goes in, the box closes, then you take it outside and set it free.’
‘That’s what mum wanted to use. They had a fight about it.’
‘Do they fight a lot?’ He got the feeling Jimmy wanted to talk about it.
‘No. Not now she’s gone to live with her new boyfriend.’
‘Oh. Right. I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘It’s okay.’
But it wasn’t. Ray could see it, in the lad’s face, and it was like being eleven again, and realising his own mother was never coming home. He reached out and gave Jimmy’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘Women leave,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why, but they leave.’
The boy controlled a sob.
For a distraction, Ray took down one of the traps and showed him the rusty teeth, the pressure plate. ‘The animal would put its foot in here,’ he said, ‘and it would snap shut. Do you want to hold it?’
Jimmy stiffened, ducked his head down. Ray realised he was too close to the lad, bending over him, holding this terrible device close to his young, pale face. He drew back, and the lad vomited, in a rush, throwing up the biscuits down his jumper. Then he pushed past Ray and ran out of the shed, down the path, and back into the house.
Ray put the trap back on the hook.
He would be the last person Jimmy would want to see. He made the decision to let Gwen clean the lad up and entertain him until his dad returned. He would stay in the shed, out of the way.
He tinkered with some offcuts of wood, nailing them together, and waited for time to pass. It seemed like hours before Gwen emerged. He watched her through the window, then left the shed to meet her in the garden, beside the immaculate lawn.
‘I’m a bloody idiot,’ he said. ‘I think I scared him silly.’
‘He’ll be back,’ said Gwen, with such certainty that it was easy to believe her. ‘Sit on the bench, dear, and I’ll get you a cup of tea.’
Chapter Three
His bladder ached. The pressure was insistent.
If there had been a clock in the room Ray would have checked it, but there were only the usual items, untouched since long before his arrival. Although he practically thought of the room as his, he did not want to move, remove or add anything to it. It suited him just fine as it was, apart from his broken wristwatch which sat on the bedside table; he had caught it against the work bench in the shed while mucking about with bits of wood, and the face had smashed.
He estimated from the light seeping through the gap in the curtains that it was five o’clock-ish, not long past dawn for this time of year. Summer. He was reminded of waking in the tent, where only canvas had separated him from the wild, and birdsong, too insistent to sleep through, had acted as his alarm clock. Each day began early. But now, ensconced in his single bed, he could doze back off, sleep late. Gwen never minded.
No – his bladder wouldn’t stand for it. He threw back the blankets, stood up, and stretched.
His jeans were stiff and tight with regular washing. Gwen had pressed a line down the centre of each leg, and the flares were unmoving triangles. He got into them with difficulty – was he putting on weight or was the washing shrinking them? – and threw on yesterday’s shirt without bothering to button it, then opened his door.
The landing was silent.
Gwen’s door was tightly shut, and he knew her well enough to be sure she would not surface for a while yet. Still, he tiptoed past, and made his way down the stairs to the hall, where the painted eyes of the otters on the plates were fixed upon him. They were so different from the real thing. It had been proud, and strong, gazing at him from the river bank. No, it hadn’t been real either. It had been in his imagination. So much had been only in his head. Perhaps the wardrobe had never existed at all.
The grandfather clock ticked on. He glanced up at its face as he passed it. The ornate black hands did keep time: twenty past five. The golden pendulum swayed, visible through the burnished glass case.
Through the kitchen, out into the garden, with the shock of the early morning air on his exposed chest: Ray felt the need to urinate shift from urgent to explosive. He hurried to the outhouse, and locked himself inside, eyeing the cobwebs that had built up overnight behind the cistern. He wasn’t fond of spiders, but had yet to see one while he was doing his business. They wisely kept out of his sight.
He finished up, zipped his jeans shut, and pulled the chain. The cistern was still gurgling as he stepped outside and saw him.
Latch.
Latch couldn’t be there. But there he stood. The bald head, the braces, the brown slippers.
Ray did nothing.
Latch was not looking at him. He was facing away, his features visible only in profile, while his fee
t remained pointed in the direction of the house. His attention was on the shed.
‘Latch,’ said Ray.
There was no response.
It was not fear, there was no fear at all. Shock, yes, at seeing the old man again, and the shock did not want to pass. It felt deep, profound, an expanding sickness that triggered a memory – revulsion. At that night. The wardrobe.
‘Latch,’ he said, louder. ‘What did you do?’
Latch did not move.
‘What did you show me?’
A movement. It caught his eye. A man had walked through the fence, and was heading for the shed. For a moment Ray thought it was also Latch; the slippers, the braces, were the same. But this man had hair, although it was fine and white around his head. The face was thinner, the jowls less pronounced.
It was undoubtedly not Latch.
But the clothes were identical.
I’m seeing ghosts, Ray thought.
The second man placed his feet precisely, with a delicacy, as if walking pained him. He had, in one hand, a collection of spent traps, the teeth coated black. In the other hand he held two brown baggy bundles, arms and legs and tails and heads dangling. Drops of red fell, scattering behind him, leaving a trail of blood.
He opened the shed door, went inside, and closed it behind him.
Latch watched the whole thing.
Ray said, ‘Why?’ He wasn’t sure what he meant. He stood very still, tried to think. He had seen Latch’s body. The ambulance men, and the distress on Gwen’s face; that had all been real, and only weeks ago. He could remember it. The funeral, he couldn’t picture. Hadn’t he helped to arrange it? Hadn’t he attended? He felt certain those things had happened, and yet he couldn’t see them in his mind. They were hazy, indistinct, as if they had taken place a long time ago. There had been a service. Yes. A tall, thin Vicar with a beaky nose. Or was that from his mother’s funeral? All the past was mixing together.
The second man emerged from the shed, his hands empty. He stretched out his arms to the early morning sunlight, then rubbed his lower back. Ray watched him walk away, back through the fence.
He was gone.
Latch remained where he was, his gaze still fixed upon the shed.
Ray skirted Latch, keeping close to the outhouse, and walked down the path to the shed door. He opened it slowly, just a crack, enough to see inside.
It was empty.
He stepped in, and shut the door behind him.
There, he could breathe. It felt safer.
Was that a clock was ticking? No – the regular sound was dripping. Blood, dripping from the teeth of the traps. It was fresh, the smell strong in the small space. The blood filled Ray’s vision; he crouched down, beside the tea chest, closed his eyes, but still there was the sound of dripping, and red everywhere, red behind his eyes and he balled his hands into fists and squeezed, squeezed, until the pain of his fingernails biting into his palm cut through him, and he had to stop.
He opened his eyes.
The traps no longer bore blood upon them. The dripping had stopped.
Ray stood up. He steeled himself, then reached for a trap and took it down from the nail tapped into the wall. It was rusted, rough-textured under his fingers, and the teeth had clamped shut, and lost their sharpness.
Times had changed.
Once, otters had been thought of a pest, and were fair game for whoever wanted to catch them. But Ray couldn’t hold the trap and think of it as anything but an instrument of suffering. He put it back on the hook and wiped his palms on his jeans.
A plank from the pile of wood scraps in the corner of the shed clattered to the floor.
Bending to retrieve the plank, Ray saw it: a small, brass keyhole, in one of the remaining planks in the pile. He knew it in an instant. It belonged to the wardrobe.
The wood pile was the remains of the wardrobe.
‘There,’ he said, then, for some reason, ‘Trish.’
He took the piece with the keyhole in his hands. It released no further memories in him. It had been turned into dusty, splintered scrap. Whatever it had been, had meant, was lost to him.
Underneath it – just visible inside the gap left in the pile – was a brown swatch of material. Ray reached in and touched it; it was so soft between his fingers. Fur. He had felt something like it before, retrieved from the river.
He pulled at it, and it moved freely, then caught on something, a nail perhaps. Afraid of tearing it, he widened the gap in the pile, one plank at a time, seeing for the first time how each piece had been placed to create a secret space inside. He found the splintered plank upon which the fur had caught, and removed it. Then he lifted up the fur, and shook it out to reveal a short coat.
It was not an attractive coat, not like the expensive furs models and actresses wore. One shoulder looked bulkier than the other, the buttons were not aligned, and the fur itself was uneven, lumpy. The stitches that held it together were thick, black, and haphazard. So many stitches, for so many otter pelts.
Feel this, Latch had said, and it was like being back there, feeling the man’s breath on the back of his neck, Go on. Put it on your cheek. It’s the softest thing. It’s otter. I made it.
Latch pushes forward, thrusts his face into the wardrobe; Ray reacts against the pressure of his hand on his back, but isn’t strong enough to escape, and there is a strong, musty smell, like rot, and then the feel of the fur on his face, closing over his nose, filling up his nostrils, blocking the air. He panics, flails, and falls forward – in the dark, the coat surrounds him, engulfs him, and he grabs at it, and sees his mother, his mother being stitched up tight, stitched to death. The coat is bleeding. The coat is alive and squirming in blood.
Whoopsy daisy, Latch says, and then Ray is tugged back, set on his feet, and the wardrobe door is closed, closed shut, and the memory has faded.
Ray held the coat and relived Latch’s face, after he was retrieved from the wardrobe. The old man had looked apologetic for what had just happened, and surprised. Red-faced.
It had not been deliberate. Not an attempt to scar him, or make him suffer. Latch had meant him no harm. He had wanted to show off this creation of his, that was all. Like the fort made of wood, and the contents of the shed. Nothing more. And yet it had become something so terrible in his imagination. He had pictured the blood. Perhaps it was not surprising, considering what had been happening to his mother at that time.
But, with the face of Latch clear in his mind, Ray had a clear, certain thought that cut through all the emotions left in the wake of that realisation.
The man who had died on the path a few weeks ago had not been Mr Latch.
Gwen’s husband – the man who had shown him the wardrobe – and the man who had died on the path were two different people.
Ray folded the fur coat over his arm, and felt something solid within the material. Feeling inside its folds, pushing down the clear memory of revulsion as its scent filled the shed, he came across an inner pocket with a crude front flap.
He pulled out two books.
Both were small, hard-backed, and musty with age. The first had a title:
Traps and Trapping
Ray flicked through the pages of small print and diagrams, then turned his attention to the second book: small, black, leather, without a title. Inside, the yellowed, crackling pages were filled with neat handwriting. For a moment he thought it was his own; the hand looked like his, and the words were shaped by thoughts to which he felt an immediate connection. There were the carefully spaced letters, and the slope of the script to the left.
He put both books back in the coat pocket, and opened the shed door.
Outside, the men stood, their eyes on him. Five of them, in a line, on the lawn, old and stooped and all dressed the same: shirt, braces, brown leather slippers. Behind them was Holt House, the curtains still shut tight.
They watched him as he walked down the path, the coat pressed against his chest, his heart painful, tight, drumming. He
stared back. Latch was there – the one who had held him to the coat in the wardrobe. The one who had died on the path, too. The others, he didn’t know.
He turned as he passed them, and walked the rest of the way backwards, feeling his way carefully with his feet. They did not turn in response. They stayed facing the fence, and the woods beyond, as he slipped inside the house and made his way silently back to his room.
*
Ray sat on the single and flipped open the notebook. It bore no name, no dates:
It’s a peculiar thing, I’m thinking, for a young man like me to start a journal of his life, but I’m used to being called an odd one. It’s not the presumption that one day anybody would want to read it. That’s not it in the least.
I was thinking the other day about how, as a boy, I used to make little forts in the woods, with the sticks that had fallen from the trees, with daisy chains for banners and grass blades for soldiers. I never wanted anyone to see what I’d made. I used to spend hours making one, gone from home to the Holtwood on a Sunday, from after church till dinnertime, and then when I returned to the smell of a roast just cooked, or maybe sausages, Mum would ask me what I’d been doing, and I’d say – nothing, Mum.
I always liked to oversee the soldiers in their fort, but I never wanted to be one myself. And, now I think of it, there was never a war in my land of sticks and grass. There was only marching, and lining up for inspection. So that was nothing like what happened when I got called up. Having gone to grammar school made no difference to it at all. I was a private, down in the dirt with the rest of the scared, useless buggers.
Sometimes I still see it, in my mind. The fighting.
Still, I’m not writing a memoir. The war is over and I’m making a fresh start, with my Gwen. Here we are, newly married and in our own house, and a job for me in her father’s insurance office. I never thought such a thing would happen to me. I don’t feel like I had a hand in it, if I’m honest. She says she always wanted me, from when we were little ones in school together (before I went off to the boys’ grammar), so when she saw me at that demob party that was that.