by Peter James
‘ELMWOOD. TWINNED WITH BEIZE-LES-AIX.’ A groundsman was rolling the cricket pitch. A kid came out of a newsagents drinking a Coke and behind him a Wall’s Ice Cream sign rocked in the breeze. She was already familiar with the mini-roundabout next to the petrol station, the sight of the church ahead up a steep lane and the bustling high street to the right, with bric-a-brac on the pavement in front of an antiques restorer. She’d seen a promising-looking butcher and found a good farm shop.
A mile past the village Tom turned off the main road and drove in through the gateway at the end of a cluster of farm buildings. Several signs were fixed in a line down one gatepost: MANOR HOUSE. THADWELL’S BARN. ROSE COTTAGE. ELMWOOD ANGLING CLUB. The bottom one, rotted and barely legible, said ELMWOOD MILL.
The pantechnicon loomed in Charley’s mirror and she turned into the cloud of dust kicked up by the Audi. The little Citroën banged through a pothole with a jar that threw her up against her seat belt and she cast a worried glance at the cardboard box on the passenger floorwell.
The track dipped steeply, then levelled out past a large modern red-brick house in a garden that was still maturing. A blonde-haired woman in Wellington boots and a bikini strode out of a loose box towards a Range Rover. In the garden was a swimming pool surrounded by stark white busts on Grecian columns. Naff. Tom had christened it Yuppie Towers.
There was a stagnant pond, then a wooden barn neatly converted into a house with a dilapidated corrugated iron workshop adjoining it that jutted out to the edge of the track. An elderly saloon car was parked on the hard, and through the open doors of the workshop she could see a pair of feet underneath a jacked-up car. The trail of dust from the Audi stung her eyes. The pantechnicon laboured behind.
There was one more building, a stark grey stone cottage with a white picket fence and a neat garden. An old bicycle leant against the wall and an ancient Morris Minor sat in the driveway. The track narrowed and dipped again, the tall straggly hedgerow on each side pressing in on the Citroën like the brushes of a car wash. She felt a twinge of claustrophobia. The hedgerows had grown rampantly in the past three weeks. A bramble clawed at the window and the aerial twanged and juddered.
A cow stared down over the hedge beside an old bathtub that was its trough, then the light dimmed as the sun was blotted out by the interlocked branches of the woods rising up on either side. Among them cables swung between the telegraph poles that followed the track. Charley bit a nail. She’d seen too many movies about isolated houses where the wires had been cut.
She pulled her finger from her mouth. Ben whined. Remote. It was beginning to feel too remote. ‘OK, boy! Nearly there —’ She hesitated. ‘Nearly home!’
Home.
It had been strange last night, with the carpets rolled up and the curtains down. Sad. Sad that a house could be your home one day and belong to a total stranger the next. Gone. Too late to turn back. The bridges were burnt. Tonight 14 Apstead Road would have new people under its roof, new voices, new laughter, new tears. They’d probably change the colour of the front door and pave over the front garden, and she and Tom would drive by in a couple of years and scarcely be able to pick out the house.
A trail of cuttings of leafy branches and brambles littered the track around the next bend. The hedgerow was cut in a neat flat-top style. In the next dip a short man in a tweed cap lowered his power trimmer and pressed himself into the hedge to let her pass. She waved an acknowledgement and Ben barked at him.
Tom was heaving a cool box out of the boot of the Audi as she pulled up and the pantechnicon inched its way through the gate pillars. As she climbed out of the car she heard the steady roaring of the weir and the mill race tumbling over the wheel. Ben ran around excitedly.
She opened the lid of the cardboard box and peered in. The perforated cling-film was still in place over the neck of the bowl, and Horace was swimming around happily enough. She felt a surge of relief. She had been frightened the fish might die during the journey. She wanted no omens.
The engine of the pantechnicon clattered then faded, and there was complete silence except for the sound of rushing water. The breeze died and the still air was hot in the sun; sheep bleated in the distance and there were two faint blasts from, possibly, a shotgun. A bird trilled. Her feet scrunched on the gravel. Ben began barking again.
A metal door slammed. Voices. A bumble bee zoomed towards her and she flinched. Tom called out, ‘Any of you guys like a beer?’
She walked to the bank of the stream. Only about three feet wide and maybe a couple of feet deep, it was easily jumpable. The water moved swiftly, clear and fresh, and the bed was lined with pebbles and rounded stones. The shadow of a bird strobed across.
‘Cor, it’s all right, innit?’ someone said. A beer can opened with a hiss. She looked at the other side of the bank, at the patch of scrub grass.
Stables.
The feeling remained each time she had come, nagged her from a dark recess of her mind that was just out of reach, taunting her.
The executors of Nancy Delvine had taken every light bulb, even the one in the cellar.
‘Bastards!’ Tom said angrily, and drove off to the village in search of an electrical shop. The removals men took their lunch break and sat by the stream with their sandwiches.
Charley carried Horace into the house and placed him safely on the draining board. ‘Like your new home?’ She screwed up her face at the custard yellow. ‘Think we’ll change the colour scheme. Any preferences?’
She walked around the house, her plimsoles squeaking on the bare wood. Without furniture, the rooms seemed smaller, lower-ceilinged and dingier. Light rectangles marked the walls where pictures had hung or cupboards had stood. They reminded her of a film about Hiroshima her mother had taken her to see as a child; it had shown shadows on the walls that were the remains of people who had been vaporised when the bomb dropped.
She climbed the steep staircase to the attic. Shafts of light from the one small window picked their way through the dust which hung as thick as sleet, tickling her nose and throat. There was a faintly unpleasant smell of something decomposing. It was hot and uncannily quiet. The only sound was the sharp ping … ping … ping of a single drop of water every half second on to something metallic. The room was empty, the boxes of junk under dust sheets had been cleared out. She walked across to the window, the hardboard floor sagging then springing back into place with a dull boomf, shedding small eddies of dust into the air.
Most dust came from human skin.
Weird. Weird thoughts coming into her head. Maybe it was part of moving. Moving was the second biggest trauma of married life. Or third. Something like that, Tom had told her.
There was a fine view out of the window over the lake and beyond. Maybe a couple of miles across the woods and down the valley on the far side, were the roof and chimneys of a large house.
It was going to be OK. Tom was right. It was beautiful here. Beautiful and peaceful.
A shadow moved across the wall, as if someone had walked behind her. She turned, but the attic was empty. It must have been a bird passing the window, she thought. Except the shadow had come from a different direction. She felt a prickle of unease and stepped to the left, then right, to see if the shadow could have been from herself.
A rattle above her head, like dice, startled her, then she heard the chirp of a bird. A man shouted, his voice faint. Another replied.
Boomf.
She looked round as the floorboard made a sound as if someone had trodden on it. Probably just springing back into place after she had walked over it, she realised, but she left the attic quickly.
As she went on to the first floor landing a thud echoed around the house. It was followed by several more in rapid succession.
Door knocker.
She hurried down the stairs. A tall man was standing at the front door wearing grimy overalls over a frayed collar and a ragged tie. He was in his early forties, she guessed. He had an unkempt beard and there were streak
s of grease on his high gaunt cheeks. His straw hair looked as if it had been battered by a hurricane. She liked his face instantly. It had both a salt-of-the-earth trustworthiness and a hint of fiery nobility that reminded her of Russian aristocracy. His eyes were sharp, penetrating, but warmth and a hint of mischief danced in them like winter sun.
‘I’m Hugh Boxer, your neighbour from up the lane. Thought I’d pop by and say hallo.’ His voice was easy and cultured.
She held out her hand. ‘Charley Witney.’
He wiped his grimy paw of a hand down his trouser leg and shook hers with a solid, positive grip. ‘Welcome to the lane.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled. ‘Which is your house?’
‘The barn. Thadwell’s Barn.’
‘With the old cars?’
His eyebrows were like miniature bales of straw, and his face crinkled as he smiled back. ‘Some people in the country breed animals — I prefer cars. They don’t need milking.’
She laughed. ‘I think the barn — house — looks great.’
‘Not bad for a cowshed, is it? Actually, the other thing I came to see you about was the car. I wondered if it would be OK to leave it for a day or two.’
‘The car? I’m not with you, I’m afraid,’ Charley said.
‘Nancy Delvine’s old Triumph Roadster. I bought it from the estate. It’s in the barn, behind the straw bales.’
‘I didn’t know there was a car there. Is it something very rare?’
The removals men were unloading a sofa from the lorry.
‘No,’ Hugh Boxer said, ‘not exactly. There are a few around. Ever watched Bergerac?’
She nodded.
‘One of those. I don’t think its been on the road for thirty years.’
‘Do you collect them?’
‘Sort of.’ His eyes studied her more seriously for a fleeting moment, as if they were probing for something. It made her feel uncomfortable.
The removals men were humping the sofa up the steps behind him.
‘It’ll take me the best part of a day’s work to move the bales. I’ll try and do it sometime in the next week.’
‘There’s no problem. We’re not using the barn for anything.’
They stepped aside. An arm of the sofa thumped into a doorpost. ‘Where’s this to go, missus?’
She pointed through to the drawing room. ‘Anywhere in there.’
‘I’ll get out of your way,’ Hugh Boxer said. ‘If I can be any help any time, anything you want to know, just give a shout.’
‘That’s kind of you … Oh, who’s the chap trimming the hedge in the lane?’
‘Gideon. We all employ him. He’ll be along to see you, I should think.’
‘We were told.’
‘The George and Dragon’s the best pub for food. Turn right out of the lane and it’s a mile straight on.’
‘Thanks. You must come and have a drink when we’re straight.’
‘Have you got a lot to do?’ he glanced past her into the interior of the house.
‘Plenty.’
‘Nice house. I always thought it was rather attractive.’ He hesitated, as if he were about to say something else, then he turned away. She followed him down the steps and Ben bounded up. ‘Hallo, chap!’ he said, pausing to pat him. ‘You’re not much of a guard dog, are you?’ He gave Charley a cheery wave, and strode off.
The barn had double doors, both halves rotten and held shut with bricks. She tugged one open. Something small scuttled across the concrete floor and disappeared into the shadows. There was a smell of straw and oil. The ancient sit-on lawnmower they had bought from the executors was in front of her, its grass collector unhooked and propped against the wall beside it. It was about the only thing they had wanted that the executors had been willing to sell at a reasonable price.
Halfway across the barn was a wall of straw bales, and a narrow gap to the right which she had not been through before. As she approached she could see an old work bench under a high window. She squeezed through into what appeared to be a derelict workshop. It was dark, with one grimy window filtering out most of the light.
In the middle of the floor was a tarpaulin, old and heavily coated in dust, the shape of a car silhouetted beneath it. Her heart rose into her throat; there was something about it that made her hesitate. A sleeping monster that should not be disturbed.
There was a scratching sound in the rafters and a trickle of dust fell. Rats? Bats? The wall of straw towered over her. More shapes came into focus out of the gloom. An old metal table. A garden roller with its handle broken.
Leave it, a voice in her head whispered.
I’m not going to be spooked by my own damned barn!
She lifted a corner of the tarpaulin. It revealed the dull pitted chrome of a bumper and a black wing with a sidelight mounted on top. She tried to peel it back further, but it was heavy. She walked sideways, tugged it over the bonnet and saw the upright radiator sandwiched between two massive headlamps. There was a chromium cap on top of the radiator and a small round badge on the front with a coloured globe of the world and ‘Triumph Motors’ in tiny letters.
She stepped backwards, tugging the tarpaulin across the bodywork and over the canvas roof. Finally it came free and slithered into a crumpled heap on the floor. Her nostrils filled with a smell of metal, musty canvas, stale oil.
The car looked familiar.
Because of Bergerac on television. She had seen the detective series, knew the model. She circled it. A bulbous sports convertible with running boards and a stubby nose. There was a narrow window at the back of the roof, and two glass panels in the boot where the dickey seats were. The black paint was thick with dust and the tyres were flat. A cobweb was spun across a corner of the windscreen, and a tax disc was visible behind it. She leaned closer and could just make out the faded lettering. Nov 53.
She pressed down the passenger door handle and pulled; the door opened with a cracking sound, as if some seal of time had been broken, and the smell of old leather and rotting canvas rose up from the interior, engulfing her.
The silence was complete. She had a feeling of being an intruder. She squeezed in through the passenger door and sat on the bench seat. It was hard and upright. Knurled black knobs protruded from the wooden dashboard on metal stalks. Two round, white dials were mounted in the middle, the speedometer on her side. The large spoked steering wheel was almost touching her right arm, the tiny column change gear lever sticking out from it like an antenna. She pulled the door shut with a dull clunk and felt very enclosed, the roof inches above her head, the screen just in front of her nose.
She pushed herself further down in the seat and sat for a moment, uncomfortably aware of the silence. She could see the outline of the bonnet through the dust on the windscreen and the radiator cap at the end. She touched a knob on the dashboard, then gripped it in her fingers and twisted it; it was stiff and for a moment would not move. She twisted it harder, and the windscreen wiper blade lifted an inch and broke several strands of the spider’s web. She let go of the knob, startled, and the blade dropped down. The spider ran up the screen and she could almost sense petulance in the motion. She put her hand on her lap guiltily.
She was trembling. The seat creaked, crackled, a spring twanged.
A spring released itself somewhere inside her too.
She knew this car. Not just from seeing one in the television series. She had been in one like this before, travelled in it. She was certain it was the same make of car in which she had made love in her regression.
She could remember everything: the roughness of his tweed jacket, the gruff roar of the engine, the wind thrashing her hair, the harsh ride on the uneven surface, the engine straining, the biff of the exhaust as he changed gear, the minty taste of the gum in her mouth.
She remembered the erotic sensation of the finger inside her. The car slithering to a halt. The smell of burned rubber, fresh leather, the rumble of the exhaust, the knocking rattle of the engine, the bonnet s
haking, vibrating, the tweed of his sleeve brushing her face, his mouth over hers, their lips pressed together, kissing hungrily. The rubbery ball of chewing gum she had plucked out of her mouth and pushed under the glove locker.
There was a crack like a pistol shot.
She sat up with a jerk, dripping with perspiration, a deep feeling of fear in the pit of her stomach. She shook her head but her hair, matted with sweat, barely moved. Rivulets ran down the back of her neck, her armpits; she was shaking. The car seemed to be shrinking around her, the air getting scarcer as if something was sucking it out.
She scrabbled for the door handle and as she did she realised she was holding something in her hand, something small and hard.
She stumbled out, grazing her leg on the top of the sill, but barely noticing. She stood and stared at the small hard object in her hand, took it over to the window, but it was too dark to see.
She hurried through the barn and outside, squinting against the dazzle of the brilliant light. She looked down. About half an inch across, dark grey and pitted like a miniature shrivelled brain. A tiny strip of wood veneer was stuck to one side.
It was an old dried piece of chewed gum.
Her hand shook, making the gum dance like spittle on a griddle. Then it fell. She looked down, tried to spot it, knelt, sifted through the gravel, rummaged her hands backwards and forwards. Over by the house she heard a shout, the sound of metal banging, the scrunch of feet; a laugh. She carried on rummaging, making a widening arc, but it had gone, swallowed by the pebbles the way the sea swallows a footprint in the sand.
A voice called, ‘Mrs Witney? Hallo? Need to know where you want these packing cases!’
‘Coming!’ she shouted.
Hundreds of people chew gum in cars. Thousands. Millions. There was nothing special about finding gum in a car.
Nothing special at all.
Chapter Nine
Tom and Charley dined outside on the sheltered patio at the rear of the house, on a Chinese takeaway and a bottle of champagne, and watched the red ball of sun sink down behind the paddock, leaving its heat behind it in the dusk.