Just Before I Died

by S. K. Tremayne

  The barns stare at me. As if they know me. Know of me. Or I know them.

  Ducking past the last black-eyed cottage, I hop over another stream, walk around a small copse of conifers, which trap mist in their topmost branches, like cold smoke. Soon I will be able to see Huckerby. My home. Where Lyla waits. The girl I will save. By working it out. By solving the mystery of myself.

  But I don’t see Huckerby. As I trudge around the last grey palisade of firs, I see the figure of a man, barely discernible through the drifting mist. It looks as if he is wielding a tool, an axe, or hatchet, and he is hacking wildly at a hedgerow. He’s got his back turned to me, the blade swings. Manic, brutal, ruthless.

  It’s Adam.

  I am sure it is. The shoulders, the stature, the thick, dark hair.

  But why? How? The fear stirs. Why is he out here? Where’s Lyla? He’s meant to be at home. My black-haired husband is out on the moor, with a big axe or hatchet. And I have to confront him, I cannot run away, I’ve had enough of running away: so I run towards him, through the curdling mist, towards my mad husband who is hacking away as if he is killing a pony, cutting off its head.

  ‘Adam?’

  I feel as if I have caught my husband doing something awful, something that might explain everything. The next few seconds might change my life.

  The man turns, in the fog.

  It’s Harry Redway.

  ‘Kath?’

  I feel like a fool: but not like a lunatic. It is not that insane an error. Harry has the same build as Adam. Same dark hair. Similar leather jacket, different boots. Different jeans. In the mist, from a distance, he does look pretty similar. Now I get close, I see that, of course, this man is younger.

  But there’s still something wrong. Harry looks furtive. Adam’s cousin is one of the most likeable of the Redways: normally. He’s quick with a joke, quick to buy a round in Warren House, quick to find a new girlfriend when he gets bored with the last. He’s never alone for long.

  But he’s alone out here.

  With a big hatchet hanging from one hand, in the middle of the moorland bleakness, and he looks evasive.

  ‘Hello, Kath.’

  ‘Uh, hi Harry.’

  ‘Car doing OK?’

  I nod. Say yes and thanks. Mention the clutch. But the conversation feels absurd. The blade in his hand is so big.

  ‘What are you doing, Harry?’

  Harry looks down at the hatchet in his left hand, and his eyes widen, as if he is surprised to see it there. ‘Ah yeah. Swaling.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Got a gig from the Bowens, neighbours of the Spaldings, to help ’em out.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  His characteristic grin returns, though it seems forced. ‘Gotta make a firebreak, cut back the gorse, you know. So it doesn’t burn all the way to Brixham. Before they start the swaling.’

  A firebreak? This makes a kind of sense. I’ve seen men doing this before. Swaling is so controversial, hated by so many: the assiduous winter burning of the moor, the deliberate destruction, the grand and raging fires: it is hedged about with endless rules and by-laws.

  But I’ve never seen anyone making firebreaks around here, and I’ve seen a lot of swaling. Ever since I was a kid I’ve seen swaling: because my mum used to love it. She actually loved the ritual winter fires: she used to drive us all up to see the really big swales. She’d stand there in the glow, entranced. Worshipful. She thought it was so authentic. A three-thousand-year-old tradition, pre-Christian but still enacted. She loved the old stories of how the kids were sent out to collect the burned gorse afterwards, the blacksticks, to use as fuel, how the monks would pray for the success of the fires to drive away serpents, to drive away the Devil.

  And I can vividly remember the smell of those fires, that looked so enormous to me, an eight-year-old girl confronted by ten-foot-high flames: the mix of that sweet coconut scent of gorse-flower, with the acrid smell of ash, and soot, and cremated things. Torched animals.

  Harry lifts the hatchet. ‘Sorry if I scared ya.’

  ‘No no, it’s fine, it’s really nice to see you.’

  ‘You, too. You too. Anyhow, Kath—’ He nods at the gorse. ‘I’d better get back to work – bloody toilet of a day. But tell Adam I’ll be round for a pint, end of the week, probs.’

  I nod. ‘Yes, of course, sorry. Man at work! I’ll give Adam your best.’ We wave goodbye, and I jog on. After a few hundred yards I turn. Harry has his back to me again. Cutting and hacking at the gorse and the ling. Making a firebreak.

  Harry Redway?

  My mind is stirred. I am tempted to run all the way back to Huckerby. Because I have the sense of memory returning, of my mind trying to fix itself, as Tessa said it would. I want to grab the moment, rush through the opening window. I’m not far from home: I’m past the last muddy path. I have to make the most of this opening brightness, like the fog that parted, briefly, over Black Tor. Showing the Promised Land.

  The kitchen is warm, and empty.

  Fumbling water into the kettle, I hear a noise from the living room and Adam walks in with a bottle of beer in his hand. He looks at me with a level, contemptuous expression. And then he walks away again, back down the hall, towards the living room. As if I don’t even deserve a greeting.

  As if I have done something new, and bad.

  Whatever. Right now I don’t especially care.

  Sipping my tea, I lean back against the sink, thinking. Breathing deeply, meditatively: as Tessa recommended. I am remembering that smell, coconut and ash. The dark smell of the moorland, tortured by fires. I can picture it all: I am a little girl like Lyla, staring into the meaningless flames, alongside my mother. I am holding my mummy’s hand, and not quite understanding why men would set fire to the beautiful moorland, deliberately.

  I can picture the moment so vividly: because smell is so deeply interlinked with memory. Smell invokes memory.

  Here is my chance. Why didn’t I think of this before? I have mild brain trauma, and it can be healed.

  Crossing to the larder, I pull the old wooden door open. There it is. An old plastic lemon, full of juice. I’ve been avoiding the smell of lemon ever since that moment in Brian Angove’s house, because it made me so uneasy. But what if I force myself to inhale that smell?

  Snatching a tea towel from the cooker, I squirt lemon juice into the towel, soaking it. Pressing my nose deep into the wet cotton I breathe in the sweet citrus scent.

  At first, nothing. Blurs. Nothing.

  Lemon.

  I breathe deep, again and again. Inhaling the lemony perfume. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe again. And now there’s something. It’s working. I can see me, and it’s not what I expected. Not what I expected at all.

  Nothing to do with Adam.

  I am in Two Bridges Hotel. It is lunchtime. It is the day I tried to kill myself, I am sure.

  I am drinking a glass of wine, and then I am not. Why? Because I am hurriedly leaving the pub. And as I leave the pub, and go to my car, I see another car pulling in. Yet I do not go over to the driver, even though I know him. Instead I duck down and run to my own car, so he can’t see me.

  Why?

  I don’t know. The brief, generous tumble of memory has ceased, like a fruit machine that stops paying out. I breathe deeply, in and out, inhaling the scent, but all I can see now is a standing stone. Somewhere on the moor, with an unusual shape, thicker at the bottom. It’s not a stone I recognize.

  And that is it. The image of the stone melts away, and I am left here, in my own kitchen, holding a tea towel soaked in lemon juice. But I am also holding something else, in my mind. The first crucial piece of that puzzle.

  I was at Two Bridges the day I tried to kill myself. And so was another man I know.

  My brother Dan was the driver of the car. And I was running away from him.

  Huckerby Farm

  Thursday afternoon

  Trying to work it out, I drop the tea towel in the sink, and start rins
ing out the lemon juice, gazing around, lost in my thoughts. Wondering about Dan, and Harry, and all of it, and the standing stone I do not recognize. Where is that?

  Dartmoor stares at me from the calendar on the wall. The photo of snow and flowers on Kitty Jay’s grave. The last resting place of the legendary suicide, the place where my mum’s ashes are scattered.

  I’ve always wondered why my mum chose Kitty Jay’s grave. She never really liked it there. She much preferred Wistman’s Wood, or the sea at Salcombe. Yet she was quite explicit. Scatter my ashes at Kitty Jay’s grave.

  Did she believe the legend? Was that it?

  Perhaps. Thirty years ago some archaeologists dug up the grave, and found the skeleton of a young woman, about two hundred years old, implying that the legend concealed a truth. That the girl who killed herself, from unrequited love and shame and a guilt-ridden pregnancy, really was buried there: interred at a crossroads. Suicides were traditionally entombed at crossroads so that when they woke up and went to haunt people, they wouldn’t know which way to go.

  Kitty Jay’s grave is the kind of place they would once have buried me, if I’d finished the job at Burrator.

  But what am I doing? I have a vital new piece of information: Tessa needs to know. Going closer to the window to get the best signal, I dial Salcombe.

  She answers at once.

  ‘Tessa, I’ve remembered.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Remembered the day I did it. I used a memory trick. With lemon. Associations. And it worked, a memory returned, and I am sure it’s true.’ I pause.

  ‘And?’

  I take a deep brave breath, and go on, ‘Dan was there. At Two Bridges. The day I drove into Burrator. I know he was there – because I was there. But he was there in the afternoon, Tessa. And for some reason I didn’t want to see him, I ran away to avoid him.’ My voice is tense, but it is clear. ‘And I’ve no idea why. So—’

  ‘She knows.’

  I turn, startled. It’s Adam, leaning against the frame of the hallway door. I nod. As if I understand what he is saying. I do not.

  He takes a swallow of beer and says it again. ‘She knows.’ A glare, as he adds, ‘She knows what you did.’

  This feels significant, and ominous. I tell Tessa we’ll talk later, and I turn to my husband. ‘Sorry, Adam, what do you mean?’

  He wipes beery lips with the back of his thumb. ‘Have a guess.’

  The bottle of cheap Lidl beer is nearly finished. I look at him, and at the drink. My husband never drinks alone, at home, and rarely in the afternoon.

  ‘Lyla,’ he says simply. ‘Lyla knows. Think someone told her at school.’

  He swigs from the bottle, his eyes still fixed on me.

  ‘I tried to tell her it wasn’t true. But she doesn’t believe me. She’s been doing that thing again. What d’you call it, that thing. Stimming. Doing it all day.’

  I look at him. My darling daughter. She knows about my attempted suicide. Oh God.

  ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘In the car coming back from Lidl, this afternoon. She was rocking back and forth. Like a robot. Even banging her head against the window.’ He glares, relentless. ‘So, yeah, Kath. I’d say she’s stimming badly. Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty bloody badly.’ He sets the beer down, picks it up again.

  He looks so coiled and malign, I wonder if he wants to crack the brown bottle against the sink, make it into a jagged weapon, and grind it into my guilty face. I refuse to cower. Though I want to cower.

  ‘How do you know she knows, Adam? Has she said anything explicit? Where is she now?’

  ‘She’s out with the dogs, she wanted fresh air. She’ll be back for tea soon, so you could ask her all this yourself. Spend some time with her.’ He sucks the beer bottle. ‘When was the last time you and Lyla talked, about this shit, eh? Since that fuck-up of a party?’

  Despite my guilt, I bridle at this, because this is unfair. He did nothing about the party because he seldom does anything like that. Sure he was right it was a mistake, but at least I tried. It’s always me that tries: he always leaves that kind of organizing to me: anything formal to do with Lyla.

  From school uniforms to school days out, that’s all down to me. Plus all the various attempts to get her to learn music, or enjoy drama, or ride a bike, I tried them all – and I failed, because all she loves is jam jars filled with April tadpoles from the Taw and looking at kestrels over Chinkwell. And sitting in her den, listening to the blue and silver sounds.

  I gaze at Adam with deepening despair. My minor victory with my memory and the scent of lemon seems trivial now. I am despairing, but I am also angry. My outrage rises to meet his. ‘At least I am having a go, Adam. At least I am trying to socialize her. When was the last time you took her to a play-date or a movie, did something normal like that?’

  ‘I don’t bloody do that,’ he says. ‘Because she doesn’t bloody like it. There is no damn point.’ Another slug of beer, but it doesn’t stop him talking. Fast and hard, almost shouting. ‘She’s a loner, that’s our beautiful daughter, let her be what she is, let her be herself, let her wander the moors, let her climb the bloody hills, look for nightjars: it’s what I did – she’s my girl.’ He is speaking so fast the beer spits from his mouth. ‘She’s her father’s daughter – is that what offends you? That I’m her dad? Did you want someone else? Someone richer? Like your brother? Did you want to fuck someone else?’

  ‘What? Don’t be ridiculous.’

  How have we got to this? We used to love each other. But now I am bristling, defensive. Yet I have nothing to fight with, no weapon. All I have is suspicions. Adam on the hill, Adam working on my car. Emma Spalding’s comments.

  I am a suicide. I have woken at a crossroads and brushed the soil from my face, and now I don’t know which road to take.

  Adam reaches into the fridge for another beer. Clunks the door closed, beer in hand. How many has he had? It doesn’t take much to get him drunk: though he doesn’t usually let it get that far. I think of the sheep he shot on the northern moors so casually, with that laconic violence. I look at the calendar on the wall again, that sad, pretty grave in the snow, near where he stayed over Christmas.

  ‘Adam …’

  He opens the beer bottle, and tosses the metal cap into the sink. It clatters. ‘What? What now?’

  ‘When you were up at that place. Over Christmas. Man … something. Up by Kitty Jay – where Mum is scattered—’

  There it is again. Guilt.

  He pauses, briefly looks away, at the kitchen door. I can hear the dogs barking in the distance. Lyla coming home, probably. He looks back at me.

  ‘Were you there all the time, Adam? All that week? Because I keep having a memory. Of a man, in a car. On that night. Was it you?’

  For a moment he is silent. Then he slaps the beer bottle on the counter so hard it clangs. The dogs are barking in the yard, but Lyla has not reappeared. She’s probably gone to the den. I hope she’s gone to her den. I don’t want her to hear this. To hear her father, ranting at her guilty mother.

  ‘Hell with this, Kath! Stop this crap! Please! I was not there. I am not following you. I did not come back. What is this idiotic shit? I work sixteen hours a day.’ He wipes his lips and snaps again, ‘Fuck this. I can’t pretend any more. I can’t pretend I’m not angry. My daughter, my only child, is traumatized. She’s rocking back and forth in the car, she’s scratching herself. She’s scared of me, her own dad. She blames me for the state of you. Why? Why is she doing that? Because of what you did. And now someone has told her the whole truth, so it’s even worse.’

  His eyes blaze, I am cowering, backing away. He looms large, beer bottle in hand, ready to swing.

  ‘You. You’re the one making it worse. You, Kath. You. Because you tried to kill yourself. That’s why our daughter is helpless and scared, that’s why she’s stimming, and rocking, and flapping her hands. That’s why she’s sad and frightened and arranging dead birds and feeling even mor
e lonely. There is no other reason. It’s all on you. Because you decided we should suffer, Lyla and me. Because you drove your car into a lake. Because you decided Lyla and I were worthless. You did it. YOU.’

  Huckerby Yard

  Thursday evening

  He has me pinned with guilt. I cannot stay here. Flinging open the door, I escape into the twilit farmyard, the tears bright in my eyes. Adam is right: it is my fault. I have to go and find my daughter. Hug her. Say sorry with an embrace. I heard the dogs return, so she must be in the den. That’s where she goes when she wants to be alone.

  Lyla’s den is past the old, ruined barn; she cut the space out of brambles and witchbeams and hazel. Adam helped her. They spent hours and days slashing the greenery, making a leafy, twiggy little cave for her where she could be alone. Adam put up planks and plastic to keep it dry, I brought cushions and blankets. Adam even made a little wooden gate, on squealing hinges.

  I knock at the barred gate. ‘Can I come in?’

  Her voice is so very quiet. ‘Yes.’

  I open the gate, and crawl into her den. She is sitting cross-legged in a red T-shirt, a thin blue hoodie, black leggings. She looks so small and vulnerable. She must be freezing but apparently she isn’t. Felix and Randal are there, on either side of her, snoozing.

  Her eyes avoid mine; she is reading a book, in the fading light. It sits open in her lap.

  Lyla is surrounded by all her collections. A couple of gorgeous kingfisher feathers. Last year’s wildflowers. Rocks, stones, and tiny shells. On a shelf there are neat long rows of birds’ eggs, all pale blue and cream and yellow, all cracked and split because she would never take a living egg. To her left there are books, encyclopaedias in clear plastic bags, so they don’t get wet. An open matchbox contains the skull of an adder.

  As the soft winter breeze shivers her den, the chains of paper clips make her favourite tinkly-tankly sound, subtle and ghostly.