by Evie Wyld
‘The main thing is to forget about it, have a nice time and then have a giggle right at the end. And I know I’m not supposed to give away who you are, but frankly, these two can sniff out fresh blood a mile away – is Mr Hamilton not well?’
It was perhaps a tactful thing for her to say, giving Ruth a way out.
‘He’s been unexpectedly called to London. I’m afraid,’ she added a beat too late.
‘Come, come, dearie,’ said Janet and pulled her over to the picnic blankets where a small gathering of women sat drinking.
‘Hello, everyone,’ Ruth said as she sat down; there was a friendly murmur back, some shifting up to make space. She turned to someone she thought was Janet, saying, ‘I thought there would be more children?’
The woman who answered had a thick Scottish accent. ‘Oh, d’you know, it’s become less and less about the children – there just aren’t that many here any more. They have a good time all the same though. That Jon Brown is a natural entertainer.’
They looked over to the game of cricket, which had disintegrated into something like British Bulldog, with Reverend Jon Brown as the Bulldog. He snarled and crouched and chased and the children shrieked. Those he caught stood to the side, hands on knees, puffed and watching, cheering on their teammates. It seemed in the Scottish version of the game only Reverend Jon Brown was the catcher. Michael had been caught early on and had attached himself to an older girl, looking at her when she cheered and joining in. Ruth watched him pull a shell out of his pocket and hold it before offering it to the girl. The girl dropped out of cheering and examined the shell. She said something in Michael’s ear and he smiled, and she gave it back.
Christopher was one of the last to be caught. It was more than a tag, Reverend Jon Brown had to physically get you, it seemed, and it took a long while of backwards and forwards to get Christopher. Long enough that some of his teammates lost interest and wandered down the beach. Someone touched Ruth’s shoulder and she looked up to see Bernadette.
‘Aunt Betty said I could come after all,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ said Ruth, ‘smashing. How did you know it was me?’
Bernadette looked seriously at the other women and then said quietly to Ruth, ‘You don’t look like the rest of them.’ It was extraordinarily pleasing to hear this, and Ruth wondered if she was a little drunk.
Reverend Jon Brown caught Christopher round the waist from behind, and he lifted him clear off the ground, holding him close before letting him go. Christopher spun round as though ready to fight, and Reverend Jon Brown pranced at him until the boy’s body straightened and calmed, and the man threw an arm around the boy’s shoulders and then let him go again. All was well.
‘Would you like to go and join them, or do you want to sit with me a little and watch?’
Bernadette sat down and they watched a new game of cricket begin. ‘I don’t know how to play cricket,’ said the girl.
‘That’s OK – I don’t think they’re taking themselves too seriously today. I’m sure they’d have you.’
‘I’ll wait.’
‘How are you finding it here?’
Bernadette thought for a while. The thing that reminded you she was not Betty’s child was her red hair like Mary’s. She wore it scraped back and plaited so it was only when the sun shone directly on her that you saw how very red it was. ‘I like it better than Blyth, thank you.’
‘I am pleased.’
‘The house is bigger,’ she continued, ‘and it’s nice we can have a fire on.’
‘Did you not have a fire in Blyth?’
‘Uncle James didn’t let us. Said if it was cold we had to put on all of our clothes, even when Aunt Betty gave them money for coal.’
‘That does sound miserable.’
‘And I like being able to see Mother a bit more.’
It was a subject Ruth had no idea how to navigate, so she remained silent.
‘Aunt Betty makes nicer food. Uncle James always wanted hoggert and haggis.’
‘Oh dear. And how is school – is that man your head teacher?’ Ruth pointed out the man she had talked to when she first arrived.
‘Yes,’ said Bernadette. ‘Mr Duggan.’ She turned back to face the cricket. ‘There’s a little ghost, I think, in your house.’
Ruth swallowed a mouthful of champagne, her glass now empty again. ‘Is there?’
A woman squatted down next to them to refill Ruth’s glass and exclaimed, ‘And who’s this pretty wee ’un?’
Bernadette looked wide-eyed at the woman.
‘This is Bernadette. She’s staying with us.’
‘You’re not – are you the granddaughter of old Mrs Whitekirk up at the house?’
‘Yes,’ said Bernadette. It fell suddenly into place why Betty hadn’t wanted to subject Bernadette to the picnic. Ruth hadn’t thought that people would be so difficult, but, she supposed, they were a long way from London, or even Dummer. She bristled on Bernadette’s behalf, but her brain felt very slow and mild after the drink.
The woman said, ‘My God, though, you’re the spit of your father.’ She scurried away, and Ruth watched as the information passed through the group and all heads turned to the two of them.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have come?’ said Bernadette.
‘I think that woman was both a little drunk and a bit stupid,’ Ruth said. ‘Really, don’t pay attention to her.’ One of the mysteries of our times – wasn’t that what Betty had said?
‘Maybe I will go and join in with the other children.’
‘Of course, I expect it’ll be lunch very soon,’ she said, and watched the child walk towards the others with the manner of a person entering cold water.
The men were now drinking whisky and smoking cigars, though not a single dish on the trestle tables had been touched. It would have been a very good idea to eat something, because really she was feeling rather drunk. She thought how she would tell Peter about the strange events of the day, and then remembered morosely they had fought, and she quickly felt anger at his absence. And she wondered exactly where he was and what he was doing, if he thought angrily or regretfully of her. She drained her glass again.
Janet appeared at her side. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘we didn’t know that you had the girl staying with you. How long is she visiting for?’
‘Bernadette? She’s living with us. What on earth is the problem? That woman quite upset her.’
‘I know, and I did reprimand Megan – she has a very loud undistinguished mouth. But what you really ought to know is that one of our party today was married to Bernadette’s father. If you catch my meaning. The husband had a love affair with your Betty’s sister, and then the husband died. Leaving our member rather a wreck, I’m afraid. I just thought you ought to know. It might be something to talk to Betty about – presumably she didn’t offer full disclosure to you taking on the child?’
‘I haven’t taken on Bernadette, she’s just living with us. I don’t see that it should make much difference.’
‘Well,’ said Janet, turning to look at the women huddled around one of their members, ‘it’s gone and got his widow very upset.’ There was the hollow sound of crying and one of the women tucked a handkerchief up under her mask – the mask apparently more important than her grief. It was difficult to think of what to say. ‘Anyway, the children are off on the boat trip now, so hopefully she’ll calm down.’
At the water’s edge, Reverend Jon Brown was helping the final child onto the rowing boat. He had his trousers rolled up high and he pushed them off the sand with surprising strength. Christopher manned the oars until the reverend swapped with him. There were nine of them altogether, and the boat sat low in the water. Ruth stood up.
‘He didn’t ask,’ she said to no one in particular.
‘Didn’t ask what, dearie?’
‘He didn’t ask if my boys could be taken out of bed in the middle of the night, and he didn’t ask if he could take them out on the water – Bernadette can’t swim.�
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‘Well, he’s not taking them swimming. You’ll have to get used to him, he is rather eccentric, he does things his own way, but this is how things work here. You’re much better off relaxing.’ Janet filled Ruth’s glass again, even though Ruth tried to signal to her to stop. ‘And having a bit of fun.’
If the children had not been on the boat, Ruth would have gone back to the house right then and had a hot bath. But in the end, when the men linked arms and closed their eyes, and began to count backwards from one hundred, and the women all scattered into the dunes, she felt she had no option but to hide too.
At first she considered somewhere easy to find, because then the game for her would be over, but as she ran, a feeling of self-preservation came over her. Something clicking its teeth just at her heel. It was the champagne. She found a hollowed driftwood log just as she heard the call ‘We’re coming to get you!’ from the men. She scrambled inside, feeling some of the hysterical joy of hiding she remembered from childhood, laced with an unreasonable sense of dread. There were moments of silence, and then a scream went up and the sounds of men laughing.
Tell us your name.
NO.
Tell us your name.
NO.
Tell us!
And then screaming. The woman screamed and the men laughed and it went on like that until one of the men shouted, ‘We have her! We have Maura McDuff!’
And the same sounds could be heard up and down the beach, and Ruth could not think what was being done to those women.
She wasn’t found for a long time; she heard footfall nearby, but none of it close enough for the men to spot her. She wondered how long until a truce was called, how much longer the children would be at sea. Someone pulled her roughly out of the log by her ankle. It was White, his moustache had collected sand, and he smelled strongly of whisky.
‘I have her by the toe!’ he shouted out, and Ruth tried to pull down her skirt, which had been dragged up, she tried to stand, but was pushed back down.
‘My name is Ruth Hamilton,’ she said, but White sat on her hips, and pinned her arms down under his knees and commenced tickling her, his crown quivering as he moved. Immediately her breath was gone and the noise that came out of her was something like a wounded animal. No words formed, there was no time for them, he dug his fingertips into her ribs hard and deep, she felt her ribs separate, all the time he shouted in her face, laughing, Tell me your name! He dug into her armpit and over her breasts, and then another body was there, tickling her bare legs and working upwards, and with a sudden clasp of breath, she screamed Ruth Hamilton, so that others would surely hear, and the man tickling her legs – Duggan – stopped and he thumped White’s shoulder to tell him to get off.
‘Got to play by the rules, old man,’ he said amiably. White dismounted and Ruth rolled onto her side and coughed up sand. Her eyes and nose ran. She tore off her mask, and turned to the men but they had apparently thought nothing of it and were jogging back towards the picnic, Duggan with an arm over White’s shoulders. Ruth sat in the sand and willed herself not to cry. She was sick instead, and she buried it in the sand, smoothed down her skirt. Back at the picnic, the other women chatted happily and shared plates of pie, their cowls removed. Someone lit the bonfire, and while it burned, Ruth went down to the water to wait for the boat. They had been gone too long.
I
In the morning I find an extra-large Post-it note on the kitchen sideboard.
Dear Viviane,
As I’ve mentioned before, please do not use the mineral water fridge to store your own food. You left an open tin of something fishy in there and it smells bad. This is not the impression I am trying to give, and it would help me enormously if you could keep the place neat and tidy and as you would want prospective buyers to find it.
Sincerely,
Deborah, Evans & Walker
I run water in the sink and watch it go down the plughole a while before it occurs to me to get a glass. I feel disgusting and ashamed. I spend a long time blowing my nose, imagining I am blowing out all the smoke from last night. I remember Maggie, and as I do, she enters the kitchen. She is wearing woollen socks, a bra, an open cardigan and nothing else.
We look at each other and she makes no move to cover herself.
‘Whatsup?’ she asks finally.
‘What happened to your clothes?’
She looks down at herself. Her pubic hair draws the eye. I try not to let it.
‘I don’t sleep in pants – got to wear them today. And I sweat like a mutherfucker in my sleep so I took my T-shirt off.’ Maggie walks to the sink.
‘Aren’t you . . . cold?’
‘I only ever get cold feet – pussy warms itself,’ she says lightly. She touches the kettle to see if it’s warm, and her rings clack against it.
‘You got coffee here?’
I open a cupboard and pass her the jar of instant. She wrinkles her nose but spoons some into a mug anyway.
‘You got a washing machine?’
I point through to the pantry, the start of Bet’s old quarters.
‘Can I use it?’
I think of the note from Deborah. ‘I’m not supposed to use it during the day in case we get a buyer looking.’
Maggie looks confused. ‘What. They don’t like to think of you washing your clothes?’
‘I think it’s more the smell and the noise. The estate agent’s pretty weird about it.’
‘You mustn’t be afraid of the servants, Virginia,’ she says through her nose. ‘I’ll put it on a short wash and we can turn it off if she comes over.’
I shrug and she goes to fetch her rucksack, which is stuffed full of plastic bags with clothes in, the knots of which she undoes enthusiastically.
‘Why do you have so many clothes with you?’
Maggie looks up at me.
‘I’m not homeless, if that’s what you think. I just choose right now not to have a home.’ There is an edge to her tone I haven’t experienced yet.
‘Are you sleeping out? In this weather?’
She pours soap into the barrel and closes the lid.
‘Occasionally. Not often, but occasionally. I have an arrangement with a guy who’s all right.’
I am caught between extreme hangover, concern and a strong feeling of not wanting to get involved. She takes my silence as judgement.
‘Listen, sex work is a completely sound way of making a way in the world. Like I said, this pussy warms itself.’
‘I wasn’t trying to . . . look, all I meant was, I didn’t know. When you’re not with this guy, do you sleep on the beach?’
She sniffs, settles her shoulders a little. ‘Sand turns to concrete if you lie on it too long, the cold gets in your bones. Sometimes I find a bench in one of those golfing shelters, but the golfers are strange fuckers, and they kick me out. They’re on the course at night with golf balls that glow in the dark, and that’s not even a euphemism. I trust a man who golfs less than a man who pays for sex.’
The kettle boils and clicks off.
‘What about last night? What would you have done?’
‘I make it a rule never to fall asleep drunk outside. I would have just walked. Does you good to keep moving.’ She brushes past me and pours hot water into her mug, then holds the kettle up at me in a question. I shake my head. She stirs her coffee, takes a sip, bares her teeth at the taste.
‘Do you want to borrow some pants?’
She puts her mug down and places both hands on the counter. For a moment I think I might have upset her.
‘You know what, I’d like that. Yes. Thank you.’
After her coffee and now wearing my pants – with hers still going in the machine – Maggie says she has to go. ‘I have an appointment, I can’t miss it.’
‘What about your clothes?’
‘Can I come round and pick them up later?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thanks, hen.’
I see her to the door and she kisses me o
n the cheek like we are an established couple.
Vincent kissed me on the lips with a closed mouth last time we saw each other. It came back to me that morning, the memory hidden by drink. He called me ducks. It left me confused. If we’re going to fuck, we should get on with it.
Do you call someone you want to sleep with ducks?
I am cross-legged on the floor of the ballroom, the light is fading quickly. I stand and go to the window; beyond the golf course the sea is a sheet of grey glass. I can’t imagine myself out there. Maggie’s clothes are hanging in the pantry, nearly dry, but she hasn’t returned yet. I wonder whether she ever will, whether I could be the last person to see her.
I have a shoebox from the wardrobe in Mrs Hamilton’s room, and I sip whisky as I go through it, my hangover sufficiently tempered. A black-and-white photograph of a small boy in a Red Indian costume, half the size of a postcard. The boy frowns deeply, perhaps he is unhappy to be dressed up, but the more I look the more I understand he has taken on his role as an Indian Brave, and the serious expression is exactly what he means it to be. I turn it over and on the back, in pencil, Michael 1949. It makes me smile to see the adult there within the child’s face, the same expression of gravity which he used to apply to skinning tomatoes for a pasta sauce.
Another photograph, older, of three children I don’t recognise peering into a box. I think for a moment that it must be an advert on a postcard, because of how the kids’ faces are treated – the lips defined, the skin perfect, and the expression of the boy in the middle, discovering something wonderful and glowing within the box. It could be an old advert for chocolate. The box is the one that Christopher sent me and that I broke when the spider ran up my neck. I turn it over: Ruth, Antony, Alice it says. Looking at the face of the smallest child I see the faintest memory of Mrs Hamilton. I never knew she had siblings.
A bird flusters at the back window but has left behind only a smear on the glass by the time I get there. There is a creak from upstairs. The air in the house stiffens. In the last of the light I go outside and climb the wall and check my messages once more.