Afterwards, Greg understood that this unusual volubility was Jordan’s way of showing that Greg wasn’t going to get him down. Greg could be crude, hurtful, disloyal if he liked: Jordan had self-respect and a sense of his own worth, that was the subtext. Greg thought about this later, during afternoon registration, when they were both summoned to the Head of Sixth. They knew what it was about, but neither spoke while they waited outside Mrs Leeson’s office, Greg sitting on a hard chair, Jordan standing, looking out of the window.
When she arrived, Mrs Leeson led them inside and asked Greg for an account of what had happened at Graveney Hall on Friday; then she explained that Mrs Brampton had phoned the Head to accuse Greg of bullying her son. It wasn’t really a school matter, she added, but she needed to get Greg’s and Jordan’s versions before replying.
‘It’s complete rubbish about the bullying,’ Jordan said. ‘If anything, the Year Nine boys were bullying us—following us, throwing bricks and yelling insults. Besides, Greg’s a trained first-aider—he was the one who looked after Dean till the ambulance arrived. I suppose she missed that out?’
Mrs Leeson asked a few more questions, said she was glad to have got things straight, and the interview was over.
‘Thanks for that,’ Greg said in the corridor outside. They had different lessons now: Greg Art, Jordan Geography.
Jordan shrugged, aloof again. ‘What else was there to say?’
Greg scuffed his feet. ‘You could have made things difficult for me if you’d wanted to.’
‘Not half as difficult as you could make things for me, if you wanted to,’ Jordan said, unsmiling, and walked away towards the Humanities block.
God! Greg screwed up his face, staring out of the rain-spattered window, unable to face his Art lesson just yet. That was true, of course—he could spread rumours and gossip about Jordan if it had occurred to him to do so. But did Jordan really think so little of him as to fear that he might? He wished he’d been quick enough to come back with I’d never do that. You know I’d never do that.
But even if he’d said it, why should Jordan believe him? What Jordan had offered, he’d chucked back in contempt. He banged his head against the glass and stood for a moment leaning against the streaming window, then Mrs Leeson’s door opened abruptly behind him and he stomped off to Art.
It was still pouring with rain when he met Faith by the church. She had taken cover in the bus shelter, but produced an umbrella as he approached and held it over both of them as they walked. Greg pushed his bike—his own bike, which he had just collected from the repair shop, grudgingly handing over a wad of notes.
‘I phoned the matron, Mrs Thorne,’ Faith told him, ‘but she said we won’t get anything out of Joe because he hardly talks. It’s for a project, I told her. Which it is in a way, though I expect she thinks I meant for school.’
‘I wondered about him talking. In the article there were quotes from two other people but not from him.’
‘It said sprightly, though, and enjoyed his party. So he can’t be completely ga-ga.’
Oak Grove was a large Victorian house set back from the common. Inside the lit front room, Greg saw a number of elderly people in armchairs angled at a TV set with the colour turned up to glaring brightness. Mrs Thorne, who looked almost old enough to be a resident herself, answered the doorbell. ‘Our Mr Baillie’s very popular at the moment!’ she gushed. ‘Never had so many visitors in twenty-five years as he’s had this week. Now I did warn you, didn’t I,’ she added to Faith, ‘that he’s not going to understand much.’
Greg mouthed, ‘Twenty-five years!’ at Faith as they followed the matron through the hallway. Longer than they’d been alive! Strident TV noise blasted out of the lounge door as Mrs Thorne opened it. Faces looked round, some of them alert, several completely vacant.
‘Now, Joe,’ Mrs Thorne said very loudly, approaching a large wing-backed armchair that seemed to have no occupant. ‘Here’s your visitors I was telling you about. Faith and . . . er—’
‘Greg,’ said Greg.
‘Greg. Isn’t that nice?’
One of the old ladies made a cooing noise; another started to clap her hands with great concentration. The first Greg saw of Joe Baillie was a gnarled hand, corrugated with blue veins, blodged with liver-coloured spots, that clutched the armrest. Moving closer, he saw a skeletal frame and a slack face with drooping eyelids. The head moved slowly round to face the visitors. The eyes did not flicker, though Greg noticed the squint: one eye seemed to look at him, the other over his shoulder, making him want to turn round to see if there was someone behind him.
‘You can’t talk in here—I’m going to pop you in the visitors’ room,’ Mrs Thorne said. She had the kind of tirelessly cheery voice that people must get from dealing with infants or the elderly, Greg thought. The old man nodded slowly, took the arm she extended and heaved himself out of his chair. His clothes—thick trousers and a knitted pullover—hung on his bony frame. Mrs Thorne supported him, matching his slow steps towards the door, talking all the while. ‘That’s the way! Just along the corridor—walking quite well today, aren’t we?’
Sprightly? Greg thought. This was going to be hopeless, a complete waste of time. He grimaced at Faith, glad to get away from the blaring TV and the overheated room, and the stares of those residents capable of being curious. The visitors’ room was much smaller, with four chairs. Mrs Thorne settled Joe Baillie in one of these, then fetched a rug and tucked it round his legs. ‘I’ll leave you to have a nice chat,’ she told them. ‘Call me if you need anything.’
Faith pulled out a large white envelope and a box of chocolates from her school bag. ‘Happy Birthday, Mr Baillie,’ she said, loudly and clearly. ‘I’m sorry this is late. My name’s Faith and this is Greg. We’ve brought you some chocolates, soft centres. Shall I help you open the card?’ she added as Joe Baillie stared, not seeming to understand what it was. When she took out the birthday card and held it up to him, his face creased into a smile that showed more gaps than teeth, the smile of the photograph; he nodded slowly and reached out his hand, making a sound that Greg couldn’t recognize as a word. Joe opened the card; inside Faith had written, in large letters, With congratulations and very best wishes from Faith and Greg. Greg thought it odd, this business of congratulating people for managing to stay alive. He’d never have thought of getting a card or a present.
Faith was good with the old man, talking to him slowly and clearly about his party and the article in the paper. Joe’s mouth hung slightly open, and one of his watery eyes rested on her face in puzzlement while the other looked off at a tangent. Brown in colour, his eyes seemed overlaid with chalky blue, giving them an odd opaque look. His head seemed to wobble on his neck, as if it were an effort to hold it up. Occasionally he replied with an incoherent sound that was almost a groan.
‘This is pointless,’ Greg said to Faith in an undertone. ‘What can he possibly tell us?’
Faith ignored him. ‘We’ve come to ask you about Graveney Hall,’ she enunciated. ‘About when you were a gardener there.’ Joe Baillie stared at her blankly.
‘Write it down,’ Greg suggested.
Faith rummaged in her school bag and pulled out a red exercise book and a zipped pencil case. She knelt on the carpet in front of Joe’s chair and wrote on the back page: We want to ask you about GRAVENEY HALL.
Joe took the book from her and stared closely at the letters. Greg shook his head at Faith; this wasn’t going to work either. But then Joe made a grunt of recognition and reached for Faith’s pen. Gripping it, breathing hard, he wrote laboriously underneath in shaky capitals: MINE ALL BURND .
Mine all burned? ‘What’s he on about?’ Greg muttered. ‘The gardener’s cottage? But that didn’t burn down, did it?’
‘Wait,’ Faith muttered back, then said gently to Joe, ‘Yes, that’s right. Were you there?’ She wrote it, passed the book back to him.
YES.
Was Edmund Pearson there at the time? Faith wrote.
/>
This time, after scanning the letters for some moments, Joe looked blank.
‘Wait.’ Faith went back to her school bag and took a photograph from between pages of a Geography textbook: the picture of Edmund Pearson with his parents.
‘You stole that?’ Greg asked, impressed.
‘Borrowed. OK, without asking. Important visual aid, I thought.’
Faith held out the photograph to Joe, and wrote EDMUND PEARSON in the book in large capitals. Now Joe became agitated: stabbing a forefinger at Edmund in the picture, looking at Faith, making incoherent noises.
‘He knows something! Get him to write it down!’ Greg urged.
What happened to Edmund? Do you know? Faith wrote.
They both sat with eyes fixed on Joe while he slowly composed his next message. He handed back the book.
DIS APERED, they read.
‘Try again,’ Greg said.
Do you know where he went?
Joe looked at Faith, shook his head. Then, in renewed agitation, he took the book from Faith and wrote again.
GAV IT TO ME.
Gave what to you?
GRAVNY HALL MINE.
‘Mine all burned!’ Greg pointed to Joe’s first written message. ‘He was saying the same thing there!’
What do you mean?
Joe pointed again at Edmund in the photograph, then wrote: HE GAV IT TO ME.
‘Edmund gave him Graveney Hall? But that’s senseless! Ask him more.’
Did you ever see Edmund again after the fire? Faith wrote.
Joe looked at her and slowly shook his head.
How did the fire start?
PARFIN.
‘Parfin—paraffin!’
Did you start it?
‘Faith!’
‘Uh . . . uh . . .’ Joe pushed the exercise book away and began to writhe in his chair, grabbing at the arms, turning his head towards the curtains.
Greg and Faith looked at each other. ‘A servant’s carelessness ,’ Greg said. ‘That’s what the guidebook says. Carelessness, or . . .?’
‘But why, if he thought the house belonged to him?’
Joe snatched the book back and wrote one word: TOLET.
‘Told, told someone?’ Faith guessed.
‘No—toilet! Quick! I’ll get Mrs Whatsit, before—’
Mrs Thorne showed them to the door. ‘I don’t suppose you got much for your project? It was nice of you to come and see him, anyway—I think he really enjoyed it. But it doesn’t take much to tire him out. I hope you don’t mind me shooing you away like this.’
‘How long is it since he stopped talking?’ Faith asked.
‘Oh, he’s never talked. He makes noises, and sometimes we can understand what he means. We manage.’
‘He told us—wrote down—that Graveney Hall belongs to him,’ Faith said.
Mrs Thorne laughed. ‘Did he really? Well, he rambles a bit—he’s very confused, you know. But the things he comes out with! Lovely to see you.’ The door was already half-closed. ‘Bye now.’
Rain was still plashing steadily on the leathery shrubs by the gate. The pavement was wet and shiny, scattered with the first leaves to fall; cars on the main road already had their headlights on. Greg unlocked his bike.
‘Well, where does that leave us? Anywhere, or just where we were before? Can we believe any of that?’
‘The fire started with paraffin. We didn’t know that.’ Faith put up her umbrella.
‘Off-putting, those squinty eyes. You don’t know which one to look at.’
‘Let’s go home,’ Faith said. ‘My house, I mean. You don’t have to rush off, do you?’
Greg balked. ‘Is your mum there?’
‘So what if she is?’ Faith gave him a scathing look. ‘It’s OK, you don’t need a chaperone.’
That was not what Greg had meant. Faith’s crucifix was in his pocket; did her parents know she wasn’t wearing it, and why not? They’d hardly welcome him into their home if they knew—the heathen boy who had demolished their daughter’s faith.
‘Oh, come on,’ Faith said impatiently. ‘I’m getting damp and frozen.’
Faith’s house, as Greg had guessed, was much larger than his: detached, in one of the quiet roads on the opposite side of the main road, near the tennis club. Her mother—Greg now knew her as Margaret—sat at the dining-table, marking exercise books. ‘It’s all right, we’ll talk in the kitchen,’ Faith said when she started to move the books aside.
The kitchen was huge, with another big table, shining utensils dangling from a ceiling rack, and everything tidy. Faith made tea and brought cake in a tin. ‘How on earth can Graveney Hall be his? What could he have meant?’
‘Henry Pearson left it to him after Edmund died? But why would he? Anyway, we know it went to a cousin. It wouldn’t have been Edmund’s to leave, would it? Not while his father was still alive.’
‘And the paraffin. Did Joe start the fire? And if so, by mistake or on purpose? He got upset, didn’t he, when I asked him?’
‘A servant’s carelessness. His? Spilling paraffin? They could have used it for lamps, or heaters, or for drying washing. But he was a gardener, so why would he be lighting paraffin stoves in the house? And I think the getting upset was because he needed the toilet.’
‘So,’ Faith said, frowning as she cut a large slice of cake, ‘the fire started with paraffin, whether by accident or on purpose, and it was the last straw for Edmund—his inheritance going up in flames—so he drowned himself? Just like you said? Disappeared, according to Joe. Disappeared into the lake?’
‘You don’t think—believed killed at the time of the fire—Edmund died in the fire, after all? Joe killed him, then claimed the house as his own?’
Faith stared. ‘You’re suggesting Joe’s a murderer?’
‘It’s obvious he’s always been a bit peculiar, isn’t it? Never talking, and hardly literate—’
‘Lots of people are a bit peculiar. It doesn’t make them murderers. Besides, I can’t believe he’d have been clever—or devious—enough. How would he have managed it, let alone covered it up for all these years?’
‘Body burned in the fire—a handy way of covering up!’
‘But then Edmund would have been found, surely?’ Faith objected. ‘A body, however badly burned—it would’ve been found and buried.’
‘Mm, the lake idea’s better. Less chance of anyone knowing.’
‘Suicide,’ Faith stated. ‘Not murder.’
She darted a warning glance at Greg as the kitchen door opened. It was Margaret, taking a break from her marking: ‘I hoped you were making tea. Cut me a piece as well, please, darling.’
She reached across the table for the plate; a crucifix on a silver chain, swinging forward from her open-necked shirt, caught the light. Greg reached into his pocket to check that Faith’s cross was still there. He hadn’t yet liked to ask whether she wanted it back. Till she did, he felt an obligation to keep it with him. When Margaret had gone back to her marking, Greg ventured: ‘What did you do about church on Sunday?’
He wished he hadn’t spoken. Faith stared back at him, then sat down at the table and covered her face with both hands.
‘I went,’ she said. ‘I said the prayers. I sang the hymns. I thought that would help, but it didn’t. I felt like a total hypocrite. And I can’t keep going—I’ll have to tell Mum and Dad.’
Greg reached across to touch her arm. ‘Sorry,’ he said, inadequately.
She shrugged him off. ‘Not your fault.’
Remembering this morning’s poem, a ridiculous picture slipped into his mind: himself and Faith, on Christmas Eve, tramping across muddy fields, searching the countryside for oxen in a shed, hoping to find them kneeling. ‘There,’ he would say, when they found them. ‘There’s your proof.’ And he would fasten the cross round her neck, and one of his wrongs would be righted.
It rained hard all evening and into the night. Greg woke up in darkness, lay listening to the rain, tried to sleep
, couldn’t. Not in the mood for reading or listening to music, he turned on his bedside lamp and looked at his watch. One-forty.
He pulled on pants and jeans and went downstairs. The kitchen tiles were cold under his bare feet; the cats yawned at him from their basket. He got himself a glass of water, then stood by the patio doors. Rain battered the glass, steady rain, as if it was never going to stop; as if it would always be night-time and raining.
There was nothing to do but go out in it. Quietly, he slid the door open. The ground was wet and gritty; something crunched underfoot as he felt his way to the grass, avoiding the low wall. He stood on the lawn and turned up his face while the rain beat down hard, soaking his hair, running over his shoulders and down his back, clamming his jeans against his legs. It seemed the obvious place to be: outside, not cocooned in bed. The sky was too overcast for stars, but some clear night he’d come and stand here and look. How often had he done that? Not often enough. The universe put on its amazing space-show and he hardly ever bothered to spare it a glance. And the rain was something else, a kind of blessing: the strange, relentless force, the ground receiving it, drinking it thirstily, and the sense of giving himself up to it, letting it drench him. He stretched up his arms, opened his mouth and tasted it.
‘Greg? Greg, is that you?’
He swung round. The downstairs hall light was on, silhouetting the shape of his father in the patio doorway, in his dressing-gown.
‘What the hell are you doing? I heard the door open—thought we had burglars—’
‘No, only me.’
‘What—what are you—’
‘Nothing,’ Greg called back, shivering.
‘Hey, what—’ His father came out to him, put an arm round him. ‘Come on in, you’re soaked! You weren’t sleepwalking, were you? You haven’t done that since you were little!’
Greg allowed himself to be ushered indoors; his father took off his dressing-gown and put it round Greg’s shoulders. Greg noticed that it was his mother’s pink satin one, streaked with rain.
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