It was, to him, no different to pruning a garden, I suppose. The gillie hadn’t hated these animals for following their instincts of survival anymore than a gardener hates his plants for growing. It was a necessary mastery that he exercised over the estate. Without him, there would have been nothing but chaos, and I suspect that it’s reverted back to wilderness now that there’s no one looking after it anymore.
I worked for an hour or more until I heard the doors at the other end of the basement opening. I put my glasses down on the desk (I have become short-sighted in recent years) and looked around the shelves. Helen appeared, her coat over her arm.
‘Are you there?’ she called, making a visor with her mittened hand and peering through the shadows.
I got up from the desk.
‘Yes? What is it?’
‘Good news. We can go home,’ she said.
‘Home?’
‘They’re going to close the museum because of the snow.’
‘I’ve got work to finish off.’
‘You don’t have to do it,’ said Helen. ‘Everyone else is leaving.’
‘All the same. I’d like to get it done.’
‘It’s really coming down out there,’ she said. ‘I’d get going if I were you. Otherwise you might be stuck here all night. If you need a lift, I can take you as far as Paddington.’
She had come further towards me now and stood at the end of the 990s: history of New Zealand to extraterrestrial worlds.
‘I don’t mind,’ she said.
‘It’s out of your way,’ I replied.
‘It doesn’t have to be.’
I looked back at the book on the desk.
‘I’ve too much to do to go home,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you?’
She looked at me, gave me that frown smile again and zipped up her coat.
‘I’ll see you on Monday,’ she said and went back towards the door and the basement became silent again apart from the steady tick of the central heating.
I returned to the book and gently removed the stitching from the spine of McKay’s Prevention of Galliforme Diseases with a pair of tweezers before dropping the brittle strands of thread into the bin. No, it was better that I stayed here. It wasn’t fair to ask Helen to drive a mile out of her way in this weather. And they would only start gossiping again if they saw us together in her car.
***
I didn’t stop working until hours later. It was three in the afternoon. I hadn’t eaten any lunch, but I wasn’t hungry, and I often lose track of time down there in the basement anyway, separated as I am from the world of scurrying feet above. A day could sometimes easily pass without me once looking up from what I was doing.
I switched on the kettle to make tea and as it boiled I looked up at the glass panel. It glowed with a buttery light and I wondered if it had stopped snowing at last and the sun had come out. Whatever, it would be going dark before long.
I sat back down at the desk but hadn’t taken a sip before there was someone knocking at the door. It wasn’t Helen come back to rescue me, I knew that. She had keys. Most likely it was Jim, the caretaker, who I’d fought tooth and nail to keep out of the basement with his anti-bacterial sprays and his polish and his propensity for throwing things away. He’d always been a little abrupt with me since I’d had his key off him and rattled the ones he had left in a plaintive way, it seemed, as though without the full set he felt somehow emasculated.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t dislike him. I’d just rather it was me who kept the place clean and tidy. Jim doesn’t really get the idea of an archive, keeping things. I quite admire him in many ways and had half expected him to have stuck around that afternoon. He’s a stubborn old sod like me and wouldn’t have gone home just because it was snowing.
I put the cup down and went to open the door. Jim stood there—brown overcoat and navy tattoos—his mace-head of keys hanging from his belt.
‘Yes?’
‘Visitor for you,’ he said, stepping aside.
‘Hanny?’ I tried to sound surprised, but I knew with all this business at Coldbarrow that he would come to see me sooner or later.
‘Hello, brother,’ he said as he sidled past Jim and shook my hand.
‘I’m locking up at four,’ said Jim pointedly and wandered off up the stairs, jangling his keys.
‘What are you doing here?’ I said and gestured for Hanny to go down to my desk as I closed the door. He was damp with snow and his scarf was caked in ice.
‘I rang the flat, but there was no answer,’ he said. ‘I must admit I thought you’d be at home today.’
‘I’ve too much to do,’ I replied.
‘You work too hard.’
‘Pot. Kettle.’
‘Well, you do.’
‘Is there any other way to work?’
He laughed. ‘No, I suppose not, brother.’
‘Tea?’
‘If you’re having one.’
I made Hanny a cup as he draped his wet things over the radiator.
‘Don’t you get lonely down here, brother,’ he said, looking up at the glass panel.
‘Not at all.’
‘But you do work alone?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘You said that with some conviction.’
‘Well, there was someone else once.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘She wasn’t quite suited.’
‘To what?’
‘To detail.’
‘I see.’
‘It’s important, Hanny.’
‘It must be.’
‘It’s not easy staying focused all day,’ I said. ‘It takes a particular type of mind.’
‘Like yours.’
‘Evidently.’
Hanny took the cup of tea off me and pressed the back of his thighs against the radiator. He looked up at me, went to say something, but stopped short and changed tack.
‘How are things going with Doctor Baxter?’ he asked.
‘Baxter? Alright I suppose.’
‘He said you were making progress last time I spoke to him.’
‘I thought our sessions were meant to be confidential.’
‘They are, you fool,’ said Hanny dismissively. ‘He didn’t give me any details. He just said you’d turned a corner.’
‘That’s what he seems to think.’
‘And have you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You seem happier.’
‘Do I?’
‘Less anxious.’
‘You can tell that about me in just a few minutes?’
‘I do know you, brother. I can see it, even if you can’t.’
‘Am I that transparent?’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant that it’s hard to perceive things about yourself sometimes.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, I can see that Baxter’s making a difference. And that our prayers are too.’
‘Oh yes, how are things at the church?’ I said.
‘Couldn’t be better,’ he replied.
‘Still packing them in every Sunday?’
‘Sunday, Monday, Tuesday … We’ve been very blessed, brother. We light a candle for you every day.’
‘That’s good of you.’
Hanny laughed quietly. ‘God loves you, brother,’ he said. ‘Even if you don’t believe in Him, He believes in you. It will end. This sickness will leave you. He will take it away.’
Perhaps it was the light down there, but he looked old suddenly. His black hair was still thick enough to have been tousled into a nest by his woollen hat, but his eyes were starting to sink into the soft cushions of the sockets and there were liver spots on the backs of his hands. My brother was slowly slipping towards pension age and I was following like his shadow.
He embraced me and I felt his hand on my back. We sat down at the desk and finished the tea in silence.
Having circled around what concerned him and run dry of small talk, he looked troubled now,
frightened even.
‘What is it, Hanny?’ I said. ‘I’m sure you didn’t come all this way to ask me about Doctor Baxter.’
He breathed out slowly and ran his hand over his face.
‘No, brother, I didn’t.’
‘What then?’
‘You’ve heard the news about Coldbarrow, I take it?’ he said.
‘I could hardly have missed it, could I?’
‘But have you heard what they’re saying now?’
‘What’s that?’
‘That this poor child was shot.’
‘It was on the news this morning, yes.’
‘And they reckon it was some time ago. Thirty or forty years. Back in the 1970s.’
‘Yes?’
‘When we were there.’
‘So?’
His hands were trembling slightly as he brought them to his face again.
‘I’ve been having this memory,’ he said. ‘They sometimes come back to me out of the blue but I don’t always know what they mean.’
‘Memories about the pilgrimage?’
‘I suppose they must be.’
‘Like what?’
‘A beach. A girl. An old house with ravens.’
‘Rooks. That was Moorings.’
‘Moorings, yes that’s right. And I vaguely recall going to the shrine, but that might just have been Mummer putting things into my head. She was always talking about it, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
It was all she talked about.
‘And there are other things, brother, things that are just feelings or images. A door. A tower. Being trapped and frightened. And …’
‘And what, Hanny?’
He looked at me, blinked back a few tears.
‘Well, this is it. This is the memory I’ve been having since I saw Coldbarrow on the news.’
‘A memory of what?’
‘A noise close and loud. And something thumping against my shoulder.’
He looked at me.
‘Like a gunshot, brother. Like I’d fired a gun.’
‘What are you saying, Hanny? That you think you did it? That you killed this child?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why would you? It makes no sense.’
‘I know it doesn’t.’
‘It’s a trick of the mind, Hanny,’ I said. ‘We were always playing soldiers on the beach. That’s what you’re remembering.’
‘But it seems so real.’
‘Well it isn’t. It can’t be.’
His head sagged.
‘What happened to me, brother? I’ve prayed so many times for Him to show me, but there’s nothing but shadows.’
‘You were healed by God. Isn’t that what you believe?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Isn’t that what everyone believes?’
‘Of course …’
‘Isn’t that what brings them to the church every day, Hanny?’
‘No, no,’ he said, raising his voice a little. ‘Something else happened that Easter.’
‘What?’
He breathed out and sat back in the chair, nervously thumbing his bottom lip.
‘I’ve never really talked about it, brother, not even with Caroline, and I suppose I’ve tried to push it down inside me, but if I ever think about the pilgrimage, there’s always something else there in the background.’
‘Something else?’
‘Behind all the euphoria.’
‘What?’
‘A terrible guilt, brother.’
I shook my head and touched him on the shoulder.
‘I feel as though I’m going to drown in it sometimes,’ he said and his eyes glistened again.
‘It’s not real, Hanny.’
‘But why would I feel like that, brother, unless I’d done something wrong?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps you don’t feel as though you deserved to be cured. I understand it’s quite common in people who have been saved or rescued from something. Don’t they call it survivor guilt?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Look, I may not believe in what you believe, Hanny, and perhaps that’s my loss, but wherever it’s come from, even I can see that you’ve not wasted the opportunity you’ve been given. You’re important to people. You’ve brought so much happiness into their lives. Mummer, Farther. Everyone at the church. If anyone deserved to be released from the prison you were in it was you Hanny. Don’t throw all that away now. You’re a good man.’
‘If only Mummer and Farther were still around.’
‘I know.’
‘I just wish I could remember more,’ he said.
‘You don’t need to. I can remember everything as it was. I’ll speak for you if the police come.’
‘Will you?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’m sorry to have to rely on you, brother, but I just can’t remember anything clearly.’
‘Do you trust me?’
‘Yes, yes of course I do.’
‘Then you needn’t be troubled anymore.’
He wept now and I put my arms around him.
‘Those nights I spent outside the house,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you or worry you. I just wanted you to know that I was there.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m not ill.’
‘No, no, I know that now.’
Jim knocked on the door again. I heard him coughing and rattling his keys.
‘We’d better go,’ I said.
‘Yes, alright.’
‘Once Jim sets his mind on something there’s no getting around it.’
He looked me square in the eyes. ‘Thank you, brother.’
‘What for?’
‘Watching over me.’
‘That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, Hanny.’
‘I’m sorry that I didn’t let you.’
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ I said.
Jim let us out and then closed the main doors behind us.
‘Did you come in the car?’ I asked as we wound scarves and fitted gloves at the top of the steps.
‘No, I couldn’t face the traffic. I got the tube.’
‘I’ll come with you some of the way then.’
Hanny looked at me.
‘Why not stay on and come back to the house?’ he said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sure.’
‘What about Caroline?’
‘I’ll talk to her. She’ll understand.’
It had stopped snowing and had gone dark. The sky was clear and full of hard stars. Everything had been whitened and thickened and there was a crust of ice over the drifts. Road signs were buried and street edges dissolved. Hanny went down the steps and hesitated at the bottom.
‘I think I’ve lost my bearings, brother,’ he said, looking back up at me with a smile.
‘This way,’ I said and took his arm and led him along the road to the station.
***
We sat opposite one another on the tube, my faint reflection hanging next to his face. We couldn’t have looked more different (I have become a little gaunt around the cheeks these last few years, a little thin on top) but we were brothers none the less. Bonded by the business of security and survival.
Like Father Bernard said, there are only versions of the truth. And it’s the strong, the better strategists who manage them.
Who were the police going to believe fired the rifle? Hanny? Pastor Smith? The dumb boy healed by God? My gentle, middle aged brother sitting across from me, swaying with the rhythm of the train?
No, they would believe what I would tell them. That we were nowhere near Thessaly when it happened. That we were running back across to the mainland, stumbling through the water channels in the fog, when a single gunshot echoed around The Loney, and was lost in the silence of the sands.
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