by Sarah Rayne
As she waited for sleep to overtake her, she thought about Jessica Cullen. It was comforting to discover that she was smiling at the prospect of Jessica’s visit.
EIGHT
The house that was known locally as the Sexton’s House had been home to a series of gentlemen over the years – usually single, seldom very young gentlemen – who had been grateful to be given a house in return for providing simple maintenance of the local church and the cemetery.
Nowadays the strange, reclusive gentleman lived in the cottage – English he was, so the local people believed, and told one another that if that was right it said it all, for the English were a strange, reserved race.
He might be anyone or anything at all, this unknown gentleman who was seldom seen, and only then in the long dark coat with the deep, turned-up collar. He came and went quietly and unobtrusively, mostly after dark, buying his food and provisions the Lord knew where, doing the Lord knew what inside the house. Music, would it be? Playing it? Composing it, even? Sometimes, on that road, it was possible to hear faint music coming from within the house.
He might be a smuggler, or one of those investment people who somehow made pots of money by sitting at computers and switching cash around all over the world – although you’d expect such a one to live in a grander house. Several people thought he could be a writer, for didn’t writers shut themselves away in wildernesses for months – years, even – to churn out their work?
It had been a source of wry amusement to the present inhabitant of the Sexton’s House to occasionally hear these scraps of speculation. They even provided a degree of reassurance. If you could create a legend around yourself, it might serve to hide you from the whole world. Who had said that? Probably nobody.
This afternoon there had been the most extraordinary mixture of emotions in seeing Beatrice Drury – no, in seeing Bea; that was the version of her name he had decided he could use – in seeing Bea slow down her car and look across at the Sexton’s House. Then she had driven off, and the road and the meadows and hedges all returned to their customary quietness.
It was important not to have too much quiet, though, and it was vital not to let quietness into the house any more than could be helped. It was better if music could be played in the rooms – on the radio or the small stereo so patiently saved up for – and if plates and cups could be clattered while making a meal, creating the impression that there were people around, and a meal was being prepared for them. These were normal, comforting sounds. They helped to drive away the memories. Sometimes they almost smothered the sounds of a young girl crying out for help, and the greedy crackle of the flames turning that girl’s prison into a burning cage …
It had been two years ago, but it was as vivid as ever. So much else had vanished – wiped clean from the mind’s surfaces – but that memory had remained.
The afternoon had been sharp and raw, early January at its coldest, with a bite of frost in the air. The car had been bowling along the road just below Tromloy, not going very fast, certainly not exceeding the speed limit. But there had been something on the road’s surface – a patch of ice, might it have been? Or had something – someone – darted across the road, causing the driver to swerve violently? The impression that there had been someone had lingered.
The car had been too badly burned for the investigators to establish why it had crashed, though. If any specific conclusions had later been reached, details had not reached the hospital or, much later, the Sexton’s House. All that was certain was that at one moment the car had been driving along, the girl in the passenger seat turning to look at the driver, laughing at something that had been said to her. That was another clear memory amidst the confusion.
And the next moment—
The next moment the morning exploded into horror as the car skidded, spun wildly across the road, then smashed into the high, dry-stone wall. Lumps of glass and metal shot upwards, then the car bounced away from the wall and veered back across the road, turning completely over as it did so, the metal scraping sickeningly on the road’s surface, a door tearing off. When it came to a stop, it did so resting on the passenger side. If it had not been that side … If only it had been the driver’s door that had been torn away, it might have been possible to get at the girl. That, too, was a clear, enduring memory.
The boot lid had been torn off, and its contents flung across the road. Two suitcases with Aer Lingus labels on them. A holdall and a box of books. A waterproof jacket and a pair of rubber boots, both of them lying on the road in bizarre symmetry. It had taken several moments to realize that there was a person inside the jacket. The driver, flung from the car? Dead or only knocked unconscious?
The petrol tank exploded then, with a soft whooshing sound, and, as a plume of fire shot upwards, the stench of burning rubber and blistering metal erupted into the morning. Within the spiralling horror was the appalled realization that the bright-haired girl was still in the car, she was trapped on the passenger side, because the car was lying on that side. She was jammed hard against the road, the seat belt cinching her in.
The world whirled in sick confusion and for a moment threatened to plunge into dark unknowing. Then there was the sensation of running hard and fast to get to the girl – nothing else mattered. The man lying in the road did not matter, not for the moment, because the fire was shooting upwards, and in another minute it would engulf the car—
That was when the pain had come, an impossible agony as hands tore at metal and glass burned and scorched. There was the sensation of skin peeling from flesh, as if acid had been thrown on to it, and then of eyes shrivelling and drying. Another layer of panic had slammed in – are my eyes being burned out …? It could not be given any attention, though, because the world had shrunk to reaching the girl.
But the fire was blazing up, and showers of burning metal fragments and lumps of melting glass were falling on the prone figure of the driver – there was a sudden, sickening stench as his hair and clothes caught fire – that, too, was a memory that had remained.
The images were confused after that. Had he turned his attention to the man lying in the road, his clothes already burning? Had he tried to beat out the flames? There was a blurred memory of having thrown his coat over the man to try to smother the fire. After that, the pictures ran into one another like rain on a greasy windowpane, distorting and deceiving. Or was it only that they were so painful they could not be allowed to take on substance? There was certainly a memory of sinking down on the road in agonized despair, knowing it was too late after all, knowing she must be dead, because no one could be alive inside the blazing conflagration. There had been a spiral of hope, because something was screaming, and if she was still able to do that … She was not, of course. The sounds were the sirens of the ambulances and fire engines.
By then the pain of burned hands and face was soaring to levels of agony that surely could not exist, and there were people running everywhere, some of them shouting, others gabbling into phones. Blankets were being unfolded, ice packs were pressed against the burns, a needle was jabbed into one arm … Whatever it contained, that needle, it sent the pain spinning and caused the world to expand dizzyingly, and then to shrink. There were reassuring voices close by, but they, too, were distorted, as if people were shouting down a long, echoing tunnel.
‘We’re looking after you, sir, you’re going to be all right.’
The attempt to speak, to ask what was happening, was impossible. Lips could not move sufficiently to form words, and no sound came from a throat that felt as if it had been flayed raw. But he thought he had made some attempt to sit up, to look across to the still-burning car, and the man lying in the road. The paramedics had seemed to understand. They said he was not to worry.
Swimming in and out of awareness on the frantic journey to a small local hospital (University Hospital, Galway, had come later), the voices had repeated the reassurances.
‘You’re all right, you’re safe. We’re looking after you
.’
And then, as if one of them had understood, one of them said, ‘They’re both gone, poor souls. No one could have done more. You did all you could.’
But did I, thought the man in the Sexton’s House? Did I?
Throughout the agony-filled days that followed, the swirling confusion only cleared fractionally and for brief periods. Memory was erratic and distorted. Speech was almost impossible.
The doctors were reassuring and patient, both about the physical and the mental condition. There were burns, and there was quite severe smoke damage to the lungs and throat. This last was hindering speech, but that would improve and it could be helped. Plastic surgery could be carried out later, but these things could not be rushed. They had to think in terms of many weeks and probably even months. As for the mind – well, for the moment its memory banks, if they could use that term, had been severely jumbled up. Shaken into the wrong patterns. The extreme horror and pain of the crash had smothered everything else in those memory banks – even down to wiping out name, address, family.
‘I had no papers on me? Surely there was something?’ The words had been formed with difficulty and pain and they were distorted, but the doctors had been able to understand.
No, they had said, there had been no papers. The firefighters thought a coat had been thrown on to Niall Drury’s body – was that possible? Had he any memory of doing that?
‘Yes.’ There was sudden gratitude at even this fragment of memory, at knowing this small attempt had been made. Speech was still difficult and painful, but it was possible to say, ‘I threw my coat on to him – to smother the flames. He was lying in the road – flung clear of the car. I remember that.’
Then, said the doctors, since people seldom went around without some kind of ID, it was likely that anything such as a driving licence, bank card or so on, had been in the pockets of that coat. Which had been burned to a crisp, and any papers with it. And quite aside from the massive tragedy of the whole thing, it was deeply worrying to think there might be a wife, family, friends, who would not know what had happened. Still, the hospital had alerted the Garda and also the English police, so anyone who was missing a husband, son, brother, and who contacted the authorities, could be told about the unknown patient here in Galway. Identification would come along – it usually did. Probably it would come sooner than he expected. Or it might come of its own accord from the traumatized mind.
Later, when it was becoming easier to speak, when the numerous tests for memory loss had been done, it was possible to summon up sufficient courage to ask whether a return of memory could be expected.
There had been a noticeable pause, as if the psychiatric consultant was deciding how far to go, but after a moment he said, ‘Our diagnosis is that you have what’s called global dissociative amnesia. Psychogenic amnesia. It’s quite rare, but it can stem from a severe emotional shock – which you certainly had. I’d have to say yours seems to be an extreme case, though. You’ve lost personal memories and what we call autobiographical information.’
‘How long—’
‘Will it last? Difficult to say. It can be quite brief.’
‘Or it can be long-term.’
‘We’ll help all we can,’ he said, evasively. ‘It’s been barely two months. There’s no magic pill we can give you, but there are various therapies. If we could find someone from your family – or some friends – we’d be able to try what’s called reminder therapy. In effect you’d re-learn your life.’
Family. Friends. It was curious – and frightening – how there seemed to be a complete blank surrounding those words. Had I family or friends ever?
‘Someone who knows you might still come forward,’ said the consultant. ‘And your mind could very well heal itself. And on the plus side—’
‘Is there a plus side?’
‘Well, you don’t show any indications of forgetting anything that’s happened since the crash – that’s something you’ll find you’re very grateful for. And, generally speaking, with dissociative amnesia the actual personality doesn’t change. You’re the same person you were before it happened.’
‘Thank you for being so frank.’
In fact there had been deep, if guilty, thankfulness in accepting the massive blank canvases within the mind. There had even been a sense of liberation in being able to remain in a half-world, partially withdrawn from reality, not really required to cope with the terrifying prospect of returning to the world, maimed and scarred. At some point reality would have to be faced and memory would have to be forced back into the light. But not yet.
Some parts of reality could not be avoided, though. The names of the two people who had died were now known. They had been Niall Drury and Abigail Drury. Father and daughter. They were returning to England – to London – after a brief stay in Kilcarne at their cottage, Tromloy. They had locked it up and before driving out on to the Galway road and to the airport, they had gone into Kilcarne to arrange for one of the local shopkeepers to keep an eye on the cottage. So they were retracing their journey, going past Tromloy’s private road when the crash happened.
Both bodies had been too badly burned to establish much at all, but it was thought that Niall Drury had been drinking before the crash. Even after the fire had cooled there had been a strong smell of alcohol on the road, said the doctors, and a pair of driving gloves, flung clear, had had an unmistakable odour of whiskey. The only other person on the scene had been Maxim himself, and since Maxim had certainly not been drinking, it was reasonable to assume that Drury had crashed the car because his driving abilities were impaired from alcohol. It was all circumstantial, of course; nobody could be sure, and as for judging the man, hadn’t he gone to a higher judgement, anyway?
A statement had to be made to the Garda, describing, as much as possible, the events of that morning. Of necessity it was a brief and not very detailed statement, put together in a bedside interview. The Garda were patient and sensitive, but there was no doubt that they would like to know when memory returned, and an identity established. Perhaps he would kindly keep in touch, though. Could he leave an address, at all? No, well, there was no cause to worry.
The burned hands and face were starting to heal by then – which was to say as much as they ever would heal. There was more talk of plastic surgery, and also of speech therapy. Speech was improving, though. It was often painful, and it sounded slightly blurred, but it was recognizable as human speech.
NINE
The offer of the Sexton’s House had come at the end of a long series of surgical procedures – some had been pronounced a moderate success, others had not made any noticeable difference. But there was starting to be cautious talk of a discharge from the infirmary – of going back out into the world. Had he somewhere he could go? asked the doctors.
‘It doesn’t seem like it.’
That was when the Sexton’s House had been mentioned.
‘It’s on the edge of Kilcarne, and it’s a tiny place and likely to be quite basic,’ the consultant had said. ‘And you’d need to do a bit of work in return, of course.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘Looking after the church grounds. Keeping the graveyards tidy. Sweeping up leaves, pruning bushes. The odd bit of maintenance to the church itself – well, two churches, because you’d have a foot in two parishes, as it were. Repairing a broken window, perhaps cleaning out a clogged-up drainpipe or whitewashing a wall. Can you do that kind of thing, d’you think?’
‘If I can’t, I could learn.’
‘And maybe even a bit of cleaning of the church itself as well. Would you mind that?’
‘I’ll gladly scrub floors and wallow in whitewash if it means I can be independent.’
‘Good man. The office of sexton as such doesn’t exist any longer, but the work still has to be done, and the church doles out a tiny stipend.’
‘Sexton.’ The word came out thoughtfully. ‘Isn’t it from the Latin, sacristanus¸ meaning custodian of sacred object
s?’
‘You do come up with some unexpected remarks,’ said the consultant. ‘I’m becoming increasingly curious to find out who and what you really are.’
‘So am I.’
‘And will you take this sexton’s work and the cottage? I’m prepared to stand as guarantor if one’s needed. The Irish Church,’ he said, a touch caustically, ‘likes to cover all bases and safeguard its investments.’
The offer could not be refused. The consultant had become the nearest thing to a friend that had existed during those months.
‘I’d be very grateful if you would stand as guarantor.’ A pause. ‘You do know, I suppose, that beneath all this politeness I’m scoured to the bone with anguish and bitterness, and that I’d sell my soul to the devil if I could have back—’
‘For pity’s sake don’t talk about souls in this country,’ said the consultant at once. ‘They’ll take you literally and you’d never be allowed to be a custodian of sacred objects. And yes, of course I know all that.’ He got up to go, then said, ‘Listen, don’t expect too much of the Sexton’s House. It’s small and basic, but it would be a roof over your head.’
A roof over my head. It was somehow difficult to mentally slot such a concept into place.
‘And certainly don’t expect too much when it comes to the money, either,’ said the consultant, ‘because I think it really will be the tiniest of pittances. But it might be enough to tide you over until … well, until you find your place – or a place in the world again.’
‘It sounds as if my place in the world is going to be that of second grave-digger.’
‘So you remember your Hamlet, do you?’ said the consultant. ‘That’s interesting.’
Day by day, hour by agonizing hour, a semblance of normality started to return.
The work that was required from the incumbent of the little house was easy enough, and it could be done at chosen times when no one was likely to be around. There was unexpected satisfaction in keeping grass neatly cut, in pruning evergreen bushes, and in buffing up the beautiful old graining of carvings and pews.