Unhallowed Ground

by Gillian White

  Oliver slaps his head with his hand. ‘For Christ’s sake, how did this happen? God almighty, come on, come on, let’s face it, some tosser’s chopped off Dave’s sodding foot. I was only gone for ten minutes and look? How else could this have happened? Shit, who the hell could do this?’

  Georgie does not answer. She squeezes her hot hands more tightly together. She checks the look of the knife in the fire, it is red hot and glowing, while Oliver goes on, hysteria rising. ‘Some axe, bloody sharp, a bloody strong bastard. What else could have happened? How else does somebody’s foot get sliced off…?’

  ‘The snowplough…’ starts Georgie, thinking of Lot and his woodpile.

  ‘Damn it! Dave was out of the snowplough! I wouldn’t have left him underneath! And it would fucking well crush his foot, not actually chop it off! By the time I left him he wasn’t anywhere near the snowplough. Oh, Jesus Christ.’ And Oliver says again, as if she didn’t hear him at first, ‘the kid is only eighteen!’

  ‘The kettle’s boiling. D’you want a drink now—or later?’

  But now Oliver sets his face as if he’s going to war, there is no expression upon it and it suddenly feels that they’ve done this before and know exactly what to do. It is extraordinary. Some inner strength, her mother would call it. Well, Sylvia would faint if she were here now. With determined hands Georgie unwraps the bleeding stump and raises it onto the pile of books that are covered with several towels. There’s newspaper all over the floor as if Georgie is houseproud, as if she cares a damn at this stage what the blood will do to the carpet. She rolls up her sleeves like a dull, conscienceless automaton. With a terrible solemnity, that of a ritual, Oliver dons the oven glove to grasp the handle of the now white-hot knife. He swings it from the fire very quickly and, as sweat pours down his face, gaunt in the candlelight, he lays it firmly against the pumping, raw and awful wound—holds it… holds it—he could be holding the sizzling steel against his own flesh by the horrified look on his face, and after counting to ten he replaces it swiftly back on the fire.

  Then sags. And screws up his face in agony.

  Burning pork. Singeing in the soupy air. Georgie has the leg gripped above the knee, and when it’s over it is hard to let go. She is locked there, locked in combat with every nerve in her body. She has to ask if it’s time to let go, and Oliver says, ‘Yes, let go now. But we’re going to have to do it again.’

  With horrified awe they inspect the result. Half the wound has gone quite black. A layer of charred skin has formed, bubbling and blistering around it. Thank Christ it seems to have stopped the bleeding.

  There is no reaction from Dave. Not a flicker. No movement.

  After the longest five minutes of her life Georgie and Oliver repeat the whole abominable process, laying the knife on the other, untreated half of the stump.

  ‘OK. Now. Should we cover it, or will it stick?’

  ‘Perhaps we should lie clean sheets over it and leave it.’

  ‘What about antiseptic?’ And her fingers play stupidly with her mouth.

  ‘Don’t let’s do anything else for now. I don’t think I can do any more,’ Oliver admits with a groan. ‘Let’s not disturb it. I don’t reckon we should wet it with anything.’

  ‘No.’ Just put it away and cover it up. But they decide to keep the leg raised. They feel they ought to do that.

  The atmosphere in the room is so stifling that by now they are both gasping for breath. ‘That’s some fire,’ says Oliver, rolling down shirtsleeves covered in blood and not even noticing. Georgie sits beside him where he has sunk down on the floor. They rest their backs against a chair so they have a good view of the comatose Dave. And then Oliver puts out his hand and takes Georgie’s. She feels her face going, slipping away into tears of tension, she shakes, she jerks, and, still sobbing, she creeps into his arms and he holds her.

  The pair hold each other, sitting there, listening to the wind wailing down the chimney, watching the snowflakes land on the logs and spit, as aware of Dave’s breathing as they are of their own. They make a gory sight, both smeared copiously with blood, and Oliver has a smear of crimson slicing his cheek like a scar. They don’t talk. They can’t talk. They just try to comfort each other until the violent shivering stops.

  He turns and pushes her hair away, where it has stuck to her forehead. Eventually he smiles and sighs. ‘You were great.’

  Her wide eyes stare into his. ‘So were you.’

  ‘I don’t think we could do any more.’

  ‘I think the less we do now the better. As neither of us has a clue.’

  ‘You must love me for bringing this to your door. It’s strange, when I first saw you, when you opened the door, it looked as if you were expecting me.’

  And so, sitting there watching their patient, too weak to rise if they wanted to and unconcerned with the mess, then and there Georgie tells him all of it, every intolerable detail, right from Angie Hopkins’s death to her first visit to Wooton-Coney. At first, too disorganized to find words, she finds it hard to begin. But soon she is almost babbling, doesn’t hide a thing, they are too close to separate one from another and their trauma would make trivial conversation obscene. There is no point in pretending.

  And Oliver is the kind of man who listens without interrupting.

  In the middle of all this Dave groans and tries to turn over. Georgie and Oliver leap to their feet, energized by fear, but his eyes remain closed, thank God, and he does not try to move his leg. She leaves Oliver watching over the patient and staggers to the kitchen to make some coffee. Lola is safely upstairs in her room. No doubt the dog will be sleeping.

  ‘I could do with a tad of Scotch in that.’

  So she pours in a tot of Teacher’s, and they go back to their place on the floor because they can be closer that way, and Dave has the sofa. The coffee gives them strength, it is so comfortingly normal. As the colour returns to Oliver’s face, Georgie resumes her curious tale, the burning doll, the make-up case, the feeling of being stalked on her walks, the figure on the hill, the paint which was blood, the peering eye in the woodshed roof, the strange disappearance of Lola, the decapitated hens and how Donna’s plight kept her here against her better instincts.

  ‘Donna was lying, of course,’ says Oliver. ‘Given everything else you’ve said, it’s pretty obvious she was trying it on.’

  My God. My God. In all the chaos this simple truth had never occurred to Georgie. Of course the girl isn’t pregnant. Donna could not have been pregnant for four whole months without confiding the fact to Georgie, without milking her sympathy. The news was announced right out of the blue when Georgie threatened to leave, and Georgie fell for it, like a fool. Despite all her experience she fell for it!

  ‘It just proves how affected I’ve been, by loneliness and fear.’

  ‘And guilt. Don’t forget guilt.’ Oliver’s face grows more and more serious. ‘It all adds up.’

  She answers his questions, all she knows about the Buckpits, the Horsefields, Chad and Donna. She rambles on about Stephen and his paintings, the good and the bad, the ones she has disposed of because nobody liked them.

  ‘Hell, I’m unstoppable,’ she actually manages a laugh. ‘It’s nerves, of course, I’m sorry. What a bore.’

  ‘I think it’s pretty essential that you go on talking,’ Oliver says thoughtfully. ‘There’s somebody out there causing all this. There’s some kind of monster out there on the prowl, and whoever it is, it’s not just you they’re after. That man you saw on the hill did this to Dave, and if any human being can do this…’

  ‘It’s madness, isn’t it?’ Georgie whispers, looking steadily at Oliver, wanting an honest answer at last, someone to tell her she’s not paranoid. Eager to face the truth herself.

  ‘Yes. It is madness.’

  ‘And we can’t get out of here?’

  ‘Not for the moment we can’t. And they say this weather’s in for a week.’

  ‘What the hell are we going to do?’ And, oh God, i
t’s such a relief to be able to ask someone else this question.

  ‘We are going to keep the doors locked and we are going to try to look after Dave. You know, don’t you, you’re not under any illusions, I hope, Dave will probably die.’

  ‘Yes, I know that.’

  ‘No matter how hard we try, whatever we do, he probably won’t even come round.’

  Georgie nods sadly.

  ‘But at least you’re not alone any more enduring this hellish nightmare. And surely, whoever’s out there must know there are two of us now. Nobody’s going to try anything when they know they are outnumbered.’

  ‘If he hadn’t gone after poor Dave tonight the pig would probably have come after me. Whoever it is is totally insane, a terrible, violent kind of sickness with a psychopathic strength behind it.’

  So they sit in each other’s arms like two frightened children not knowing what to do next. And they hold each other this way all night until a pale daylight pierces the darkness.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  IN HER OVERWROUGHT MIND, every sound, every breath, symbolizes the terror that now surrounds and threatens them. The massive and overwhelming force of madness seems too great for the strength of the two who huddle beside the fire, helpless as rabbits. The steamy heat of the room smells of bodies and burning and pain, dreadful pain, but at least Georgie is no longer alone, despite the additional horror that her two new companions brought with them. Surely she is more secure tonight than she was only yesterday.

  If she’s going to die there’s a very good chance that she might not die alone, like Stephen.

  Now Dave tosses and turns and shakes in a demented fever. His teeth chatter and grate together, and occasionally he moans like a man in torment. He had felt so very cold at first, cold like a long-dead fish, with skin dry and scaley, but now, with the blankets piled on top of him, the heat burns from inside him like a smouldering autumn bonfire. A yellow sheen appears on his skin, a noxious sweat as the sour smell of pain comes and goes, fetid with fear. Georgie and Oliver take turns cooling his face with a damp flannel, clucking motherly words of reassurance that sound idiotic when you bear the situation in mind, but they mouth their platitudes just the same. For their own sakes as much as for his.

  They don’t look at his leg. There’s no point in looking. They have done all they can, so they drip water on his parched lips instead, hoping that some of the drops might find their way into his mouth.

  And they carry on reassuring him as the candlelight casts shadows across the ceiling and into the corners, and the carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticks the grinding minutes away. Oh, the inaptness of ordinary words. But talking to Dave, who is deaf to the world, is an easy way of talking to each other, and they need to keep doing this. They exist within a circle, and somewhere outside that circle a homicidal maniac waits and breathes and watches, and it is essential that the three in the cottage are all included, that nobody be left out in the cold.

  There is menace out there in the moving darkness. Somewhere between the snow and wind the devil still walks in this valley.

  There’s nothing like fear for loosening the tongue. Already Georgie and Oliver feel like old, old friends. They know more about one another, trapped as they are in this bloody hell, than if they shared a lifetime of memories. She told him her story, not giving a damn if he believed her or not, nor in what light she appeared, and it sounded simple, quite straightforward, not the symptoms of some lonely hysteric. Talking like that has been a release.

  ‘Dave’s a student. He was only doing the bloody job to fill in during the holidays.’

  ‘Holidays?’

  ‘Four weeks off for Christmas. He only started yesterday.’

  She’s forgotten Christmas is nearly here. The Maces were supposed to be coming, she was actually worried about lack of space and where she might buy decorations. ‘And you?’

  ‘A private contractor, we work for the council, but so many men couldn’t make it because of the bloody weather that I stepped in at the last minute like a goddamn fool…’

  It is comforting, talking like this to a stranger in the gloom, almost a confessional situation, and their voices are quiet and respectful, as if they are sitting in church and Dave is laid out on the altar. A sacrifice to be washed and pampered to satisfy the gods. If he dies there will be no mercy. If he dies it will all have been in vain. They manage to communicate even though their exhausted eyes rarely leave their patient’s face. ‘So you’re used to driving these huge wagons?’

  ‘I’ll have you know I have driven lumber wagons in the Canadian backwoods in my time.’

  Yes, he looks as if he might have done that. ‘A logger, how romantic. So what made you come back here?’

  ‘To start my own business,’ he shrugs. ‘To see my wife. We’re divorced, but we’re friends. I share the business with my brother-in-law.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was possible to divorce and stay friends.’

  ‘Well, Jess and I have proved that it is.’

  They have to pause because Dave starts one of his terrible shivering fits. They have to stop and cool him. Georgie finds some wet-wipes in the kitchen. Her mind shies away from thoughts of the wound and what Dave might feel if he comes round properly. Will he come round? Oliver thinks not. Will death be gentle if it comes to claim this golden-haired boy who lies shaking and steaming on her sofa? Or will it come with a screaming agony? And what the hell can they do to prevent it? There are no painkillers here.

  But what about the farm?

  Veterinary remedies are often similar, or the same, as the medications for humans, and Mark had commented on the jars and lotions laid out on the shelves in the parlour next to the ashes. Georgie doubts the Buckpits would think to lock any powerful drugs away, partly because they are daft and partly because of the lack of need. She herself has seen Silas picking his teeth with the needle end of some outsized syringe.

  All they want is something for pain, and some strong antiseptic would come in handy. But neither she nor Oliver know a thing about drugs, although Georgie possesses a drug dictionary given to her by her mother along with a book of symptoms, essential reading in Sylvia’s eyes. Georgie tries to think how out of date they would be. How long has she had them and where in God’s name are they?

  At no time does Oliver let the poker out of his hand. It is a heavy brass antique, at least three feet long and a useful weapon. Despite their inept ministrations, at no time does either one stop listening for any unusual sound from outside, something that might not be part of the storm. ‘Now the business is off the ground I’m preparing for the journey of a lifetime, a journey I always promised myself. I’m taking off round the world with a camp bed and a jeep. Or that’s what I thought I was doing.’ Thoughts of this ambition light his pleasant face with a smile.

  Isn’t he, middle-aged as he is, rather old to be off round the world? Is he planning to go on his own? To Georgie, who craves safety, the idea holds little appeal.

  ‘So you’re prepared to give everything up on a whim?’

  ‘The business won’t fold without me. I missed my chance to travel as a kid, so I’m taking it now instead. It’s that simple.’

  ‘And your children? I presume you’ve got children?’

  ‘Two boys. Saul and Daniel. Both at college in the USA. There’s nothing to hold me here.’

  Georgie gives a wry smile. ‘How strange that you should end up here, bang in the middle of nowhere, driving a council snowplough, and now sitting here talking to me like this.’

  ‘Not so strange. The whole of life is dependent on fate.’

  ‘Oh, one of those.’ She gazes at Dave’s poor leg. ‘It works for some, this fatalism. Rather bad luck on the third world.’

  ‘But nothing that’s ever happened to me is quite as improbable as your last few months.’

  She has to admit, ’Till you came along I truly believed I was losing my mind.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell someone? Why didn’t you get
out earlier? You knew something was badly wrong…’

  ‘I thought no-one would believe me. I’ve had rather a lot of attention just lately, people might have thought it was getting to be a habit. I did call the police after the eye in the woodshed roof, but they thought I was barmy, they said it was some animal. And any of those other odd happenings could be the product of an overwrought imagination.’

  ‘Not the paint, though. Your pallet was covered with blood for God’s sake.’

  ‘But I wasn’t sure it was blood.’

  ‘You were determined to overcome, to stay here until the spring, to prove them all wrong. Too damn stubborn for your own good.’

  ‘It’s true. After Angie died I lost most of my confidence and I wanted to get it back somehow. I hated the sort of person I was, dependent on other people, so needy. If they were around I would lean on them, I needed to be alone. Or that’s what I thought. Maybe I could be self-sufficient, more like my brother…’

  ‘And now?’ His smile was rueful.

  ‘Now I wish I’d never heard of the blasted place.’

  ‘It’s laden with atmosphere, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘It’s not quite so spooky as this when the electric’s on. You should see it in the sunshine. During the summer, surrounded by friends, this cottage felt so totally different. But then there were no monsters.’

  ‘Weren’t there? I thought that’s why you came away. Because of Angie?’

  ‘Well, yes. There was Angie. There still is Angie. She will always be with me.’ But Georgie clams up after that, not wanting to open up any further, and slightly annoyed by his attitude, too canny, too invasive.

  Reluctantly, because of the danger of any such action, she mentions the drugs at the farm. She is well aware, if Lot really is the axeman of Wooton-Coney, of the risks involved in any such pillaging operation. Getting across would be bad enough, although Wooton Farm is the building nearest the cottage, let alone the awful danger of being seen.