by Sarah Moss
‘Just remember this isn’t the ’70s and he’s not going to Eton. I’m going to bed.’ I went over and put my arms around him. His jumper was rough under my cheek. ‘And I’m glad to know your dark secret.’
He stroked my hair. ‘How do you know that’s my only dark secret?’
I patted his bottom. ‘How do you know I haven’t got one?’
‘Because your DNA isn’t on the police database. QED. Go on, get some sleep. I’ve just got a bit more work to do.’
I went slowly up the stairs. There is nothing to gain by telling him now.
Night Waking: 02:05
Something woke me, but there is no sound. I sit up. Wind under the eaves, and the roar of the sea. My own heartbeat, Giles’s slow breathing. And then the creak of a floorboard on the landing, and a shuffling noise, as of something brushing along the wall. I get out of bed and go to the door. There is fast breathing on the other side. I open it.
‘Raph. Whatever are you doing?’
He is shivering, goose-bumped. He must have been out of bed for a long time.
‘Come on, love. Back to bed.’
I take his hand and lead him back down the dark passage to his room, and step on something warm and furry. I squeal, which is not helpful. He grabs me.
‘Mummy, Mummy, what is there? What?’
A teddy, of course. The teddy my mother made for him before he was born, the one that, lighter in colour and firmer of face, is in the background of almost all the two hundred photos of his first two weeks of life.
‘Just your bear, love. Sorry.’
But there are more small furry bodies under my feet. I can’t get to the light without treading on them. It is very dark.
‘Raph, can you put your little light on?’
He lets go of my hand, and there is light. He huddles on the bed, shaking, and all his soft toys and several of Moth’s are lying on their backs on rows on the floor, a mass of victims awaiting burial.
‘Where’s your pyjama top?’
He shrugs. I pick up the duvet and wrap it round him.
‘Shall I put the teddies back?’
He pulls the duvet up round his face. I pick them up, arrange them more comfortably on the bed.
‘Why are you awake, love? It’s the middle of the night.’
I stroke the duvet where his shoulder should be. He is still shaking.
‘You won’t – believe.’
I try to hug him but he is stiff.
‘Try me. I’ll believe that it feels real. And important.’
He pulls the duvet up further and speaks from inside it.
‘I’m so cold.’
‘I know. I’ll make you some hot milk if you like.’
He shakes his head. ‘Don’t go away.’
I sit and wait. The wind blows, and behind it I hear a scuffle in the attic above. Raph still has the duvet over his ears. After a while he lies down, and I hear the noise again. It’s back.
‘Mummy?’
‘Yes, love.’
‘I keep hearing that baby. In the night.’
‘Oh, Raph.’ I am trying to get this right. No, you don’t, leaves him alone with his fear. Yes, you do, confirms it. ‘I think you hear it in your mind. Because you’re thinking about it a lot. When I’m away from you and I think about you and miss you, I can hear your voice in my mind sometimes. You’re still at school, or with Daddy, or wherever you are, but I can think of you talking to me.’
He speaks into the pillow. ‘But I’m not dead.’
‘No. None of us is dead. And the baby has been dead a long time.’
‘And one day I will be dead. And you and Moth and Daddy. And Grandma. Grandpa’s already dead. And when people are dead they never come back and we never see them and they are just lying in the ground.’
Another long night yawns in front of me. And Raph’s right, there is something in the attic again.
I had been expecting Judith or Zoe since before breakfast. At mid-morning, when Moth had started trying to turn the pages of a leather-bound world atlas from 1928 which Raph had been studying for nearly an hour and Raph had retaliated by pulling Moth’s jumper up over his head while I neglected them and dragged the clothes airer outside to make the most of what was not quite sunshine, I wandered down the field towards the blackhouse. The curtains were open but I could see no lights or movement in the windows.
‘Mummy, you said we could go somewhere today. You said we could make a special trip.’
I turned back towards them. Raph was in the garden, balancing the atlas on his head with one hand while Moth pulled at his T-shirt.
‘Moth have it! Raph do sharing!’
‘No, love. Raph’s book. Well, Daddy’s book really, I suppose, but Raph’s looking at it. Let’s come back in and I’ll find you Peter Rabbit.’
‘No.’
Raph took his hand away. I caught the book as it fell and went back to the kitchen. I looked at the clock. There was only bread and cheese for lunch, and we seemed to have been eating bread and cheese for a long time. I was not distressed by the idea that Giles might return from the puffins expecting to be served lunch only to find that I had something better to do.
‘All right. We’ll go over to Colla and have lunch at the pub and then you can choose what we do in the afternoon, all right? There’s about a quarter of a tank of petrol in the car.’
There is no petrol station at Colla and when the petrol gauge reads empty there is not enough left to get to Inversaigh. Mrs McConnell at Spar will sell some of her emergency supply but she won’t make you feel good about it.
‘Can we go to the graveyard?’ asked Raph. ‘The proper one by the church with writing on the stones?’
His bare toes were turning blue. ‘Oh, Raph. What about the playground at Inversaigh? I don’t mind driving you over. We could go see the glass-blowers at the same time.’
I like the glass-blowers more than he does. I am a medieval peasant to whom the actions of heat on melted sand remain a spectacle of transubstantiation, while to Raph the scientist these hot bubbles of light are as predictable as water running downhill or copper turning peacock blue. And I will admit that there is little overlap between the responsible parenting of a curious toddler and proximity to glass-blowing.
‘I’d rather go to the graveyard, please, Mummy.’
‘I’ll take you to the bookshop in Inversaigh.’ It’s not Blackwell’s of Broad Street, but people read a lot up here and it’s much better than you’d expect. Than I expected. I could think of a couple of things I might buy myself.
‘Moth have a book?’
‘No.’ Raph stood up straight, frowned out of the window as if what offended him was peering in. ‘You said I could choose. And I’ve told you what I want to do.’
‘Moth go a playground?’
Maybe it would be cathartic in some way. Maybe it was what he needed.
‘All right. If you’d really rather look round the graveyard of Colla Church than go to Inversaigh and play in the playground and go to Bramley’s and the bookshop then it’s up to you.’
They make fudge at Bramley’s. The smell of butter and sugar glides along the High Street, and even Giles will permit an occasional artisanal sugar high.
‘I’d rather go to the graveyard.’
We stopped at Black Rock House on the way, to see if anyone wanted a lift to Colla, and to make sure they were all still alive, although if they weren’t I thought I might creep away and invent a plumbing problem for Jake rather than be the official finder of more bodies on Colsay. I knocked and waited.
‘Moth play a washing machine and press buttons?’
‘No, love.’
I knocked again. Oh God, maybe something really had gone badly wrong. You can’t just be ‘out’ on a small island. I turned to scan the shoreline for Raph, who wanted to wait by the boat and had given a more or less reliable promise not to climb in or touch the mooring ropes until I came.
A shadow appeared behind the frosted glass
panel, a tall male shadow. Brian, whom I’d had down as the most likely victim, opened the door.
Not for him, thank you, he was working on a paper, but he believed that perhaps – no, he hadn’t seen either of them this morning but he had been working since very early. He would ask. He went inside. Brian, I thought, must have a gift even greater than Giles’s for ignoring his family while working if he could really lose two people in the blackhouse.
‘Now Moth see a washing machine?’
‘No, love. Not now.’
Moth began to jiggle up and down, the dance that precedes a tantrum. ‘Zoe share a washing machine!’
Brian reappeared. ‘My wife says Zoe is still asleep and she doesn’t want to leave her. But thank you. And – ah – sorry about – well, the other day.’
‘Oh well.’ Moth was beginning to kick me. ‘No problem. I mean, we’ve all had rows.’
He looked as if I’d stamped on his toe. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Well, don’t let me hold you up.’
‘No. Of course. But Brian? Is Zoe OK?’
He looked tired. ‘It’s good of you to be concerned. Obviously, I don’t think she’s at immediate risk. Yet. She’s sleeping. She’s getting very tired these days.’
‘Mummy! Stop it!’
I couldn’t see a way of saying that it was her mental health I was interested in.
I put Moth down and held on to his hand as he lurched towards Brian.
‘Washing machine!’
‘OK. Tell her I said hello. And if she’d like to come round later I’ve got lots of hot chocolate.’
‘Moth wants chocolate!’
‘Thank you, Anna. Goodbye.’
I could see Raph sitting on the edge of the jetty. He swims well, or at least did when we left Oxford, but he knows about the power of waves only in theory.
‘Come on,’ I said to Moth. ‘Let’s see how fast we can run.’
He sat down. A disadvantage of Danish rainwear for children, lovingly sourced over the internet when I should have been working, is that the under-fives can enjoy the great outdoors without moving much while the adult minder develops hypothermia and suicidal impulses. I picked him up and tucked him under my arm.
Moth remained irate on the boat and along the harbour and up the main street. He was not mollified by two small dogs behind a gate, nor by Raph’s invitation to jump in a coffee-coloured puddle by the postbox, nor even, except momentarily, by my offer of an old train ticket from my pocket to post. I picked him up again, strode into Spar and returned to Raph and the puddle with a packet of chocolate buttons.
‘What would Daddy say?’ asked Raph, holding out his hand.
The day Daddy takes the pair of you out for lunch while I work will be the day he qualifies for an opinion on the subject. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. Moth dribbled melted chocolate on to his Danish raingear and reached out for more. ‘How does he deal with Moth having a tantrum?’
‘Not having a tantrum,’ said Moth. ‘More.’
Raph dabbled his boot in the puddle. ‘I think he calls for you.’
I ate a couple of chocolate buttons. My grandmother used to allow me to sandwich them between ready-salted crisps, making one of the best mouthfuls of the 1980s.
‘Well then. Have another.’
*
The church in Colla is nineteenth-century, made of sandstone for people who regarded aesthetic pleasure as a form of gluttony. No rambling path through ivied life stories on weathered stone here, but suburban rows of red marble gleaming like slabs of pâté in aspic, with inset metal letters as a garnish. There were plastic flowers on some of them, dead carnations on others, and the overall effect reminded me of the large garden centres with piped music enjoyed by my mother.
‘Pretty flowers,’ said Moth, squatting down to smell.
‘They’re nylon.’ Raph nudged one with his foot.
‘Don’t do that. Someone put those there to remember someone they loved.’
Raph nudged it again. ‘Why?’
I supposed this was the conversation we’d come here to have.
‘Hello, blue flower.’ Moth stroked it with a chocolatey finger. ‘Would you like a caterpillar?’
I decided Raph’s interest in rituals of grief took higher priority than Moth’s misapprehension of the relative positions in the food chain of flowers and caterpillars. I shut the gate, which clanged behind us, echoing off the hillside.
‘See if you can find a caterpillar, Moth. For the flower. I don’t know exactly why, Raph. I think it’s traditional in most places where flowers grow to bring them to graves. I suppose because flowers grow from seeds, and they bloom and then they die, but when they die they rot and make compost for their own seeds, which grow and bloom and so it goes. So they’re pretty and they smell nice, but they’re also a way of thinking about being born and living and dying as how the ecosystem works.’ I hoped the Judge of Motherhood was taking notes.
‘But these won’t die and rot. They’re made of plastic.’
‘Well, I suppose in this weather fresh ones wouldn’t last long. Or maybe whoever leaves them can’t come very often but likes to think of them looking nice.’
He scuffed at the grass with his foot. ‘And they don’t have seeds. You can’t even recycle them, they’ll end up in landfill and take about two hundred years to decompose and the PCBs will go into the soil and stop other things growing.’
Moth crawled behind the next row of stones and I moved so I could follow his progress, as if I thought a pâté slab might fall on him. As if I thought I’d be able to catch it if it did. Raph kicked the nylon flowers over. Pellets of white gravel trickled on to the grave.
‘No, Raph. Put them back. Those are important to someone.’
He kicked the gravestone. Andrew McConnell, 1933–2001.
‘Raphael, stop that. Or we’re leaving. You can’t stay in a graveyard and behave like that. Put the flowers back.’
‘No. They’re stupid. And the stone’s stupid and Andrew McConnell’s stupid.’
Moth came running. ‘Mummy, Raph saying stupid!’
‘Put the flowers back, Raph. Now.’
He threw them at the gravestone. The plastic pot cracked and the rest of the gravel spilt. The flowers blew away, and Moth scampered after them.
‘Right. Out. Now.’
I grabbed Raph’s shoulder and pushed him towards the gate. He stumbled, resisting, and I shoved him against the wall.
‘Ow,’ he said. ‘Stop it, Mummy.’
‘Now you stand there and you don’t move one muscle, is that clear? I’m going to pick up the mess you’ve made of that poor man’s grave.’
‘He’s not poor, he’s dead!’ shouted Raph. ‘And it’s stupid to feel sorry for him because he’s rotting into atoms and he doesn’t even know it!’
I took one of the deep breaths recommended by the parenting books, which had no more specific advice for a mother fighting her seven-year-old in a graveyard, and went back to Moth. We reassembled the flowers as well as we could. The sky was clearing and there was watery sunlight on the heather above us. My hair blew into my face and Moth pushed it back and touched my cheek.
‘Raph said stupid. Mummy cross.’
I hugged him. In some ways, people who lie on the floor screaming when the world does not conform to their expectations are easier to live with than people who brood privately on death.
‘Come on. Let’s go make Raph feel better.’
But Raph was talking to someone, or at least being talked to by someone. An old lady, holding some leafy pink roses and a pair of secateurs and wearing a scarlet plastic headscarf which would leak as many PCBs (whatever they are) and take as long to decompose as any artificial plant, stood in front of him. I took Moth’s hand and hurried over. The headscarf was matched by a raspberry-pink jumper and red cord trousers.
‘Hello,’ I said hopefully. Moth ducked behind my legs and clung on, pulling worryingly on my waistband.
Raph scowled at me and kicked at the wall b
ehind him.
‘He doesn’t say much, does he?’ She gestured towards him.
‘Oh dear. I hope he hasn’t been rude. He’s – he’s …’ Congenitally anti-social? The product of maternal negligence, not to mention emotional abuse? A bit upset?
‘Acting up? Aye, well, it’s not really the place for a wee boy, is it, in the graveyard? I suppose you’re looking for someone? The Cassinghams don’t bury here, you know.’
Moth peeped out. ‘Hello.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Raph wanted to come. I offered to take them to the playground at Inversaigh. It’s his choice.’
She turned back to Raph. ‘And why would that be?’
He kicked the wall again. ‘I just wanted to see it. That’s all. But it’s stupid. It doesn’t make any difference. They’re all still dead.’
She looked at him. Moth peeped out again.
‘Hello, you,’ she said. She tucked her secateurs under her arm and held out the other hand to Raph. ‘The graveyard’s for the living. It’s not all just flowers and old ladies, though. If you want I’ll show you Henryson’s grave.’
Raph looked up. The patch of sunlight widened down the hill towards us and there was a slight warmth on my face. I tilted it and shut my eyes. Get the vitamin D while you can.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘It’s where a lot of people got really angry. It was said – come here.’ She bent down and whispered. ‘It was said people came from miles around to piss on his grave!’ She smiled and nodded, as if she’d just told us where they were having a big sale on tea-cosies.
‘What?’
‘I’m sure they didn’t, not in the kirkyard. But they wanted to.’
‘When was this?’ I asked. I’d like to be that kind of old lady.
‘Back in the 1880s. He was Hugo Cassingham’s man, in fact.’
Raph looked confused. ‘Grandpa Hugo?’
I picked up Moth and opened my mouth to rescue Raph from the sins of his ancestors. The Hugos. She stood between us.
‘No, not your grandpa. Long ago. The family lived in London then, isn’t that right, Anna? And came up here just for their summer holidays, like you’re doing. Only they owned more than just the island then, and they kept a man to get the most out of it for them while they were away.’