Joseph sits on the ledge, dangling his legs and smoking. His right arm is bound up in a sling. If people ask him how it happened, he lowers his head. Father Peter sent him here to mend, and because his sister Alice was sent here too. He has yet to find her among the fen and flat, but Joseph has found someone else.
At first, he only saw the man down there, coming and going along the track, digging a trench which filled overnight into swamp. Joseph recognized his gait, the small, hunchedness of him, but couldn’t remember where from. He watched the man, and the dog in the yard, leaping backwards and forwards as if plagued by a hornet. There was a stiff old woman who sometimes came to the door and called at the man; he had seen her in the village too, bending her way up to the church in the field. And then he saw the girl. He knew her straight away. Hair like glass: the girl on the bridge at Chapelfield, who said she had a red-haired sister, waving from the wall in the garden down below.
He watches as at last the three figures negotiate the ditch at the edge of the farm. Now the man will bend from the waist, flourishing an arm, and make his way back up towards the house. Now he will stop and look over his shoulder, like a reluctant dog. Now the man will stand and wait as the two walk away, down past the shop, left up the lane, and out of sight to the church. But this time the man doesn’t stop, doesn’t bow, doesn’t stand scuffing his boots in the dirt. He walks with them, holding the hand of the girl with the hair, walking with them all the way. Joseph has no time to consider this development; a flash of white light in the corner of his eye, a sharp metal wail, distracts him. Above their heads – Look out! – Joseph cries, still not used to the way the perspective is flattened, the plane turning on its nose, cutting the day in two, dying. Joseph stares open mouthed as it sinks into the fen.
He would like to run down and tell the vicar what he’s seen. But he isn’t allowed up the tower; he would no longer be able to sit with the birds and the bird’s eye view, watch the girl as she makes her way to church. Joseph decides to say nothing. He knows how the fen will suck any weight into itself, remembers the cow in the bog, no trace of it by the time the farmer arrived. The plane’s cockpit is under now; in a few hours, even the tail will be invisible. Joseph decides it’s already too late.
~ ~ ~
Aunty Ena’s wish came true. Mr Stadnik’s boots with the knotted laces now sit side by side outside her bedroom door; unpolished and caked in mud, with the socks stuffed into them. I wished for my hair to always be white, a cake on my birthday, and that I would be allowed to go to school in the village. I wished for Billy the dog to come back in out of the weather.
That one didn’t work. He stays outside, grating his chain through the night, while my grandfather the scarecrow stands alone in the far field, bending his white head under the weight of rain. I lie in my bed, listening to the usual noises of the night, and to the new ones: the laughs and sighs and muffled ohs from the room over my head. They sound like falling stars. I wished again that night, because I’d forgotten just about everyone. I wished them all back: my father, my grandfather, my mother. I wanted her to get out of her bed on the other side of wherever she’s gone and see what kind of a house Aunty Ena keeps, ghosts or no ghosts. I wished for the men in the plane to be safe and not buried in the fen. I wished them all back.
When nothing happened, I consulted Mr Stadnik. I found him at the end of the field, whistling to himself and scraping the earth with a pitchfork.
How long does it take for a wish to come true? I asked. He gave me a guilty look.
That would depend on whatever the wish might be, he said.
He examined the end of the fork very carefully, pulled a stone out from between the tines and bowled it in front of him. I couldn’t tell him what my wishes were, so I said nothing.
Sometimes, he said, It is better to be grateful for small things.
I wished for Billy to come back indoors, I said, That’s not such a big thing.
Mr Stadnik smiled.
Ah! he said, But what does Billy wish for?
~
I think this is the pattern of days and nights; I think it means forever. Mr Stadnik works in the fields during the day and sleeps above my head in Aunty Ena’s room at night. On Sundays, we all go to church, like a normal family; they swing me over the puddles and ditches, and let out their guilty laughter, and sit silently on either side of me in Aunty Ena’s pew. Except no one speaks to us, and the women move very deliberately out of the way as we pass, their eyes sharing a joke with each other. Their bullying is refined and cool, but they are still bullies. Aunty Ena shows that she’s above it, holding her head high and wearing a haughty expression.
They were always against me, she tells Mr Stadnik, And now they’re jealous. They just want what I’ve got. Well, it’s none of their business!
Mr Stadnik doesn’t think so.
Jealousy. It’s a powerful weapon in the hands of an enemy, he says, watching the sky. At Stow Farm, this is all we ever do: looking out of the window at the rain and mist, speaking of the weather, which does nothing but hang, thick as a bag, over everything. I think this is the pattern.
The newness, when it comes, is unexpected: I wake up, and the sky has moved. It’s moved about three miles up in the air.
At last, says Aunty Ena, bashing at the windows with her fist in an attempt to force them open.
That’s torn it up, says Mr Stadnik, pulling on his boots and stuffing his socks in his trouser pockets, Now everyone will want to know your business. You see if I’m wrong.
It’s the cleanest deepest light, it shows me the green of Aunty Ena’s eyes, the black under Mr Stadnik’s, the pinkish stains around Billy’s mouth, the house in its shroud of dust.
Outside, this new light gives me a windmill where there was only mist, a long road where there was water, the sail of a wherry, gliding through a field. I can’t think why Mr Stadnik is so cross; it’s such a beautiful, clear world. When I ask him, he holds his finger under his nose.
What? I say, not getting a clue, What is that?
The corn, he says, although we have no corn, It makes me cry. It will all be ruined.
Mr Stadnik is right about nearly everything. The clear light brings a visit from the vicar. The clear light shows that he lives only a field away, but Mr Stadnik says he wouldn’t trouble to visit in poor weather, on account of maybe falling in the fen. He is banished to the scullery when the vicar comes; sitting on the pantry steps, ranting under his breath about fair-weather friends and muddy skirts and women’s hands, while I am brought out for inspection. The vicar catches me by the shoulder, turning me round on the spot, staring intently at my head. He doesn’t mention Mr Stadnik, and he speaks in code to Aunty Ena. He says I am impressionable, unschooled; I will soon be a young woman. That she must set a good example. He’s sure that she would understand his meaning.
I see now what Mr Stadnik feared. The clear light shows him that there is nowhere to hide; it shows me too that wishes don’t come true. No one comes back; not my grandfather, or my father, or my mother, or the men in the plane. And my hair at the roots has begun to fill with red: slow, like blood, seeping out from beneath my scalp; all our secrets will be revealed.
twelve
Mr Stadnik left me in the middle of the night. He didn’t tell me he was going. It was one of the new things, like the sun that was too bright, and his polished boots, and him putting his socks in his pockets. New things were happening fast; new things were piling up. I heard noises in the night, a man shouting, a single bang like a door in a draught, two sets of footsteps, light and heavy, crossing the yard. I heard the absence of a grating chain, and the nothingness that the wind leaves when it falls. But I didn’t see him go.
The morning was still. Downstairs, Aunty Ena was sitting at the piano with her fingers held over the keys, as if she was waiting for someone to crank her up. Her gaze was fixed on the sheet music on the stand. She didn’t move her head when she saw me, just her eyes.
Mr Stadnik had to leave
, she said, He said to say goodbye.
What about Billy?
I shifted from one leg to the other. My boots weren’t where I’d left them; the flags were burning cold.
He’s taken him. This is no place for a pet. Go and put your boots on, she said, her voice under ice, Henry – Mr Stadnik – has left them for you in the scullery.
But my feet had got stuck to the floor. I didn’t trust my legs. Aunty Ena bent her head, pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve.
We’ll manage without them, she said, in a crooked voice, We’ll just pretend they never existed. And if anyone asks, say nothing. It’s nobody’s business, after all.
~
Mr Stadnik had polished my boots and retied the knots with new laces made out of twine. He’d left them side by side, in the correct order, although as soon as I looked at them, I knew which one was the right and which was the wrong, without knowing how I knew. He would’ve been pleased at that. The boots had nothing inside them. I was hoping for a note, something from him, anything to tell me where he’d gone, and why. I pushed my fingers up into the dents made by my toes, all around, pulled out the tongue and held each boot up to the windowlight; still nothing.
His room was airless, dead quiet. Nothing there I could say was his. The wardrobe door was open, empty except for the stick of rosemary, crumbling to dust when I touched it. Nothing under the bed, his washbowl dry when I ran my finger round it; not a single hair, nothing. Nothing to say he lived. I looked in every other room. They were just as Aunty Ena said they were, empty, apart from the one above the parlour where the faint sound of music rose like vapour. I could picture her below, sitting at the piano, riddling her hands on the keys. Everywhere empty. At last, I tried the handle on the door of her bedroom. It turned but did not open.
All the colours smelled different in this new light. I walked into its sharpness; searched the field beyond the yard, the gullies on either side, and right up to the fence around the church plantation, where I wasn’t allowed to go. I studied the trees inside it, looking for a sign; only dark in there, and the far-off, hollow cry of a bird. In the yard, Billy the dog’s chain was snaked along the ground in a long length, as if he finally snapped it and went flying off into the sky. Mr Stadnik had given me a clue after all: he didn’t like the corn, he said, what would Billy wish for, he said. Billy hated the chain and the outside; he would rather be back in Chapelfield. They would be keeping my grandfather company, Mr Stadnik sipping tea off his spoon and arguing, and Billy under the chair, his head poking out between Mr Stadnik’s feet, just where he liked it best. Perhaps that’s what he had wished for. They would have walked back together, starting at dawn. It was such a long way. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t take me; perhaps they thought I’d slow them down.
They would be at Chapelfield, is what I told myself, as if telling myself would make it real. But like a bird in panic, the fluttering inside me wouldn’t rest. I searched the lane, the barn, calling for them, shouting their names, and then I searched the house again. I didn’t want to believe that they’d gone without me. When there was nowhere else to look, I stopped looking.
sticks
What’s in a name? I’ll tell you. Everything, that’s what: lies and truth alike. I’ve been called a hobo and a tramp and down-and-out; a dipso, a wino, even though I don’t care for it. I only have it for medicinal purposes: to keep warm, to keep the ghosts away. Keep them at arm’s length, if you understand me. I’ve been called a beachcomber too. I’m rather fond of that. I like the idea of me – the other me, the one who’s living the life I haven’t got – making scratches in the sand, the sun on her back, rake in hand. Once a woman at the food counter in Marks and Spencer’s called me a derelict. Precisely, if I’m true, she referred to me as a derelict, which is not the same thing at all. She pointed her pink fingernail in my direction and asked the security guard if he couldn’t ‘do something about that derelict’. I almost turned round to see what on earth she might be talking about. Now I’m lying and that’s not true. I knew what she meant, all right. Who she meant. I was used to it by then.
The security guard asked me if I intended to buy anything. It was after talking had stopped; I couldn’t say what my intentions were. I couldn’t say it was warm and dry inside. I couldn’t say a single word that would have any meaning for him. I couldn’t say I thought I was a ghost, how on earth could he see me. Or that I wasn’t doing anybody any harm. I wasn’t a thing unallowed, a symbol on a sign with a red line through it: a dog, or a cigarette with a smouldering tip. I simply couldn’t say. And then it occurred to me that the woman was right. She had spectacles hanging from a gold chain, and wore the kind of hair they give old women these days, beige and woolly and puffed up like cotton wool. She was a lady with a purse in her hand and jewellery on her fingers and an orange mouth which let the words come out in the right order. And I was a ship at sea.
I went outside and had a shout. Don’t ask me what the words were, it’s letting them out that counts, not the order, not the meaning. Although if something does come out right, it helps. But it isn’t essential. It’s not a requirement of the shouting.
~
I have been Lillian and Patricia and Patsy. Mr Stadnik called me none of these. He called me Princess. I had nothing to remember him by. Scanning the room, wild with grief, my fingers trailing the edges, the creases, the folds; for a speck of dust, a single hair, anything to say he was here on the earth. I had been taught to believe in artefacts: to balance them, store the person in an object. The only thing he had ever given me – a toy made from an old glove – was stolen. Alice Dodd could never have known how much it would mean, once it was gone.
All my other bits, I kept in my case. And it was safe, it was safe for years. No one would want to steal an old cardboard thing. And besides, it had my name on it. No one would want that.
thirteen
Aunty Ena has put the maroon dress and the unlucky opal out of sight; she now wears no adornment of any kind. She doesn’t play the piano any more, doesn’t sing; and she never mentions Mr Stadnik. She won’t talk about anything. She moves round me as if I am invisible, and soon I am, except if I make my way down the track towards the ditch, and then she takes me by the arm and turns me back inside, without a single word.
The windows grow dim with grime, making the inside soft as gauze against the prickly light. We don’t look out; there is nothing to see we haven’t seen before. The horizon stretches away as it always did, without needing us to remark on it.
One evening, a face appears at the glass, moonlit and grinning. I think it is a ghost, imagining that this is how it was for my mother at the end, and how soon my death would follow. But my Aunty Ena sees it too; she’ll have no truck with ghosts. She goes out into the dark and speaks with it, comes back carrying two gargoyle masks that she throws straight into the pantry, fierce, walloping the back wall.
After that she buys tape at the post office, and has black cloth delivered for the windows. It’s night all day then, except if I stand at the back door, where the daylight is harsh and full of tiny arrows. Aunty Ena turns the mirrors to the walls, for which I’m grateful, and covers the tap in the yard with a floor rag, binding it with string. The barn is locked. There is no need to use it. We bring her mattress from her room, dragging and pushing and sliding it down the stairs. It is the last thing we do. The upstairs is abandoned to itself; we sleep together on the floor in front of the fire. I like it; the nearness of her, the faint talcum smell and her thin arms golden in the firelight as she lets down her hair last thing. I listen to her breathing in the night. All this is to keep the ghosts away. Aunty Ena breaks her silence. She says No.
You are a very silly girl. There’s no such thing as ghosts. We’re having a war.
It was comforting to me to think that somewhere, my grandfather and father were still battling it out, still there, fighting over a name. Only later, the comfort leaves: it’s not that sort of war at all. It’s another thing completely.
At Chapelfield, the garden grows wild. Brambles curving over the path, the wall shaking itself down at the far corner, brick by brick, dropping onto the railway sidings below. With his hands in his lap, my grandfather sits under the elder tree. In the house, he sits under the stairs. Silence all around him, soft as a newborn. He thinks the quiet is outside, in the world. He thinks it has been growing steadily, creeping up, after all that noise. He doesn’t understand, as people do who realize they are going deaf, that the world is pulling away from him. He doesn’t think, after the screams and screaming bombs, that it’s a bad thing, this silence. When he speaks, which he rarely does these days, he can still hear his own voice in his head. So he knows it’s not that. It’s not deafness, only quiet after bedlam, like the clear air after a storm. He thinks of me, and of Mr Stadnik, hoping we stay safe, hoping we are happy.
~
In another part of the city, a blue suit hangs in the window of the pawn shop. It jostles for space with other suits in more tasteful hues. They remain unclaimed.
~ ~ ~
We eat what there is, where we find it. Hunger is our companion. Scouring the earth for vegetables, we walk minute steps along the side of the verge where the beets and potatoes were bagged. Nearly all are gone; the few that are left behind are wormy and black. We eat standing up, wherever we happen to stop. Crumbs on the piano lid, the floor, the seat of the couch. Later when she finds them, Aunty Ena picks them off and puts them in her mouth, absently, without thought to what it is she might be chewing on. She won’t sit at the kitchen table. I think she sees Mr Stadnik there, his napkin, big as a tablecloth, tucked neatly at his throat, his dainty fingers marking the air as he describes the progress of his day. She wears the memory of him in her face. At times during the day, I will find her lying on the mattress, her head beneath the piano. The world gives her a headache, she says, when she’s tired of me asking. But it’s a quiet world for us. It makes me long for Billy’s hammering bark and the grating chain. Mr Stadnik goes very small in my mind, even smaller than real life: tiny, far away, vanishing over the edge of the horizon, until he is doll-sized and Billy at his heel is no bigger than a flea. He’s barking, but I can’t hear him.
Remember Me Page 10