The Book of Secrets

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘But did she like him?’

  ‘Like? Oh I wouldn’t have said that. One didn’t like McLeod. No, it was my mother, your great-aunt, who was enthralled. Or so it seemed to me. Though it could be, the poor creature, that there was naught much else for her.’

  He looked at her curiously. Often she appeared to talk more to herself than to him, yet he suspected there was always a point to what she said.

  ‘We should be going up, it’s late. I’ve made up the bed in mother’s room for you.’

  ‘You have? Why don’t you sleep in there yourself?’ He had observed in his explorations of the house that it was a large and much more comfortable bed than the one she slept in, with a deep feather mattress and fat plumped-up pillows. The upstairs portion of the house unnerved him, lined as it was with darkly ageing newspapers. Faded pink and blue crocheted mats hung like abandoned cobwebs on the dressers. He thought it looked like the inside of a mad castle, or Miss Haversham’s house, although Maria, even in her long and unfashionable clothes, did not fit this image. He hesitated at the thought of sleeping up there, and besides, he was unsure as to whether she really wanted him to go up, or if she was merely being polite.

  ‘It’s never seemed like my bed to sleep in,’ she said. And it was true. Isabella had slept there, and after her death Annie had returned to the bed she had vacated on her mother’s behalf. Maria’s room was screened off from the second room, small and narrow under the steep roof which had seemed large when it was built, but never quite big enough for three women living alongside one another. When Isabella died and Annie moved back into the main bedroom, Maria felt she had made great progress in having the second room all to herself. Later, alone in the house, she dusted the larger room and polished the arched bed-ends which stood as high as her shoulder. Once a year, she turned the mattress. But when she had finished these tasks she pulled the door behind her each time with a sigh of relief. She felt like an intruder in the room and it occurred to her that while there were voices she still listened to and for, Annie’s was one she did not wish to hear again. It would be bad enough for her reproaches to be repeated; even worse would be the constant expressions of her love, more pathetic and misjudged than her anger. More demanding, too, of an answer, and Maria knew of no answers across the years as to why love had so failed them, why love appeared always to have failed her mother.

  It was better that she did not sleep in the room.

  ‘I’m sure my mother would have given you the best bed in the house,’ Maria said. ‘Come on, I’ve aired the blankets for you, didn’t you see them on the windowsill today? It’s a waste for the bed to stand empty.’

  In the dark she lay awake, her eyes as dry and crisp as crackling, and through the wall she could hear him breathe, the deep even breathing of a young man sleeping. She touched herself deeply between her legs and at first was ashamed to find herself wet, and then, hearing him call out in his sleep, went to work on herself with a steady intimate hand, and when she had done, began to weep for the first time in many years.

  It came to her then that she was different from the women who had gone before her. They had been made afraid, and denied choice through circumstances and violation, and what had happened to them had made them turn away from accepting themselves as they were. Nor had she ever made a choice of her own, acting always blindly and without thought. She was not certain, even now, what it was she wanted. Feeling the matter to be beyond resolution, she fell into an uneasy sleep.

  At daybreak it was not the voice of her child she heard, but the young man’s, as if taking up from some point where she had been in the night. She swung her feet onto the floor and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment or so. Hesitating a little longer, she unfastened the teeth from around her neck. After that, she got up and stole to the door of his room. It was ajar and she pushed it gently open.

  He was still asleep. Crossing the floor on her bare feet she sat on the bed beside him, at first afraid to touch him, but then as he appeared racked by his dream she put her hand on his shoulder.

  Immediately he opened his eyes and saw her on the bed. He put his arm about her and pulled her towards him, with his free hand opening her nightdress. Her breasts were large and tight, with pain around the nipples. She cried out as he fastened his mouth on her breast but as he sucked her the pain began to dissolve and she could hardly wait for him to start the other one; she wished he could have fitted them both in his mouth at once, it was so pleasurable. He is like my child after all, she thought.

  But he was drawing her into the hot nest of the bed and it was clear that he was more than a child. He moved aside in the bed for her but immediately she had lain down he was untwining her knees with his own so that she was spread beneath him. She turned this way and that for a moment as if resisting.

  He drew back, asking her without words what it was that she wanted and whether he was to be allowed to proceed. She touched her breast with a gesture of anguish, where his mouth had been, and then placed her fingertips on his face. I am in charge here, she thought; he is, at least, allowing me a decision. But it is hopeless, the decision is already made. I am like a ripe peach, all soft fur and ready to yield.

  He moved in towards her.

  Outside, the morning was alight and the room was flooded with sun. Maria was shaken by the light and the fragile sound of her own voice.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ he said every time when, of necessity, she left the bed.

  They had been there for days; she felt blurred with exhaustion and at times her legs would hardly hold her up when she did walk across the room. They ate scantily of the remains of food in the house and slept fitfully. She had never slept in a bed with anyone before, except when she was a small child, with Isabella. Now she was becoming afraid of empty space beside her.

  She thought of herself as a cave. There were those other caves in the history of her people, the dark caves where people had hidden, and the caves in the hills beyond Waipu, where the glow-worms shone, and she thought that now she was the shining place that would provide a haven.

  ‘What do you dream of?’ he asked her one morning.

  ‘That I am walking around the room with my head just below the ceiling. It is like flying or floating, or something of both. That is what witches do, you know, they ride the air.’

  He laughed. ‘It must be nice. I wish that I could do that.’

  ‘Tell me then, what do you dream of?’

  He looked sideways at her on the pillow, and his eyes clouded over. She remembered him calling out in his sleep.

  ‘I dream that I am already dead,’ he said.

  Sooner or later, Maria knew that she would have to get up and go outside. If she missed collecting her groceries someone would be bound to seek her out. Besides, the fire had not been lit for several days, and the absence of smoke might invite attention from beyond.

  When at last she did get up, late one afternoon, she all but crawled around in the kitchen preparing food then dressed to go out to collect firewood. She felt light-headed and giddy.

  Outside, the yard was full of the navy light of evening. The paddocks lay still and dark green, and several cows had come over the hill in front of the house, grazing against the skyline. One of them shook its head, appeared to prick up its ears. Along the track a fine eddy of white dust stirred and hung on the air. It is nothing, she told herself, the cow has heard the bull roar in the distance, it is the wind that throws up the dust. There is no one near. Brown ducks marched in formation towards the river, flopped over the bank, and dropped into the water. That’s not unusual either, she decided, it is evening and they are going downstream to wait out the night. The river looked the same as ever.

  She picked up the axe, and lifted it above her head, bringing it down over and again with strong, steady strokes, cleaving the wood. When a pile lay at her feet, she gathered it up and looked around. The hairs along her arms prickled. She put the wood down again, and took a few steps away from the house, thinking that sh
e would walk up the hill and survey the landscape as far as she could.

  She had a swift vision then, of a nameless army whose faces she could not imagine, sweeping over and down the hill towards the house to scoop up Jamie and take him away before she could save him.

  So I am guarding the house, she thought, is that it? She knew it was so, and that she would not risk leaving him alone. He had committed himself to her care, and it was clear that she could not forsake him, nor turn her back upon him for a moment.

  For what would become of her, if she were left on her own again?

  Although she knew she would come to that. But not yet. She was not ready.

  ‘Will you tell me about Isabella, our grandmother?’ he asked.

  ‘Why do you want to know so much?’

  ‘She’s a legend.’

  ‘Oh, she was just an old woman,’ she said quickly, wishing to change the subject. Too quickly.

  ‘You don’t want me to know about her,’ he said, and for the first time there was a tension between them.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She spoke rapidly, wishing to dispel it. ‘It’s true, I loved her in such a way that everyone else was excluded. Not that it mattered, because no one else could be bothered with her very much. She loved me so much, in return, as if I were a light seen after a long time of darkness. We were at each other’s centre.’

  She fell silent, and watching her, Jamie left her alone. For her memory was printing the words of Isabella’s journal before her as surely as if the page were open in her lap.

  1878

  Annie is with child again and that no-good husband of hers has up and died on her, so she is moaning and carrying on that she won’t manage. The truth being, I suppose, that she will not. So I am to move in with her.

  Perhaps I am too hard on her. I always have been. If it is not too late, maybe this is a final chance for us to make something of each other. And I am an old woman, I might as well put what’s left of my life to some useful purpose. Who knows, this child might survive and be the miracle I thought would never happen, the granddaughter I have in idle and most indulgent moments dreamed of having.

  For what is there in this life, if we have no links with past or present? In this community where the ghosts of our ancestors walk with the living, I seem set to be singularly alone. For circumstance denies me connection with Hector’s family, and what good would come of it anyway, knowing what I do? And remembrance of my other son desolates me, and teases me with the mysteries of his life … I have waited a long time for something that may never happen, a child who might never be born. But if it was, oh how I should love that child.

  Finally Maria broke the silence. Something inside her ached, as if her bones were betraying her. ‘After grandmother died there seemed to be nothing. People thought it was odd. She had become so ugly. And cantankerous. But never to me. They couldn’t understand why I loved someone who was, in the end, so grotesque.’

  ‘I heard she had always been bad-tempered.’

  ‘No, that’s not so. Maybe disappointed.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Oh, who can say? Many things. The death of Duncan Cave I suppose.’

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘An uncle.’

  ‘I never heard of him.’

  ‘Maybe that’s not surprising. I think she had conceived images of love, but they were difficult to realise.’ She knew he wanted her to tell him of the mysterious uncle, but how could she do that without telling him of the journals, the secrets that rustled inside this house?

  ‘You were certainly close to her,’ he said.

  ‘Closer than I’ve been to anyone,’ said Maria, and saw him wince. He is so young, she thought again, wanting to have me all to himself; that is the way I was.

  She put her hand on his face, leaving it to rest there. She wondered how true it was, what she had said to him. How well had she really known Isabella; how much had she been intended to know? Isabella might have said that finding out was not the same as knowing. Had she thought the secrets of her life would be useful to Maria? Perhaps she had forgotten, with age, what it was she was leaving behind. There were things which now, at this moment, Maria would have preferred not to know.

  But Isabella had told her more than once to make her choices, and she has chosen to know the secrets.

  ‘I wish I’d known her,’ Jamie was saving. ‘My father never spoke of her. He didn’t seem to know her at all.’

  ‘Well. She was very old,’ she said by way of excuse. She saw his look. ‘It was not a close family.’

  ‘I remember you. In church,’ he said. ‘You were my family then.’ He traced the line of her collarbone with his finger, touched it with the tip of his tongue.

  ‘You were nothing but a baby.’ Her voice was sharper than she intended.

  He paused. ‘Still, I remember you.’

  In her mind she explored the edges of her treachery.

  When Jamie had been there for more than a fortnight she saw someone passing the house. He looked like many of the local farmers, with strong, lined features and the large bony frame of some of the northernmost Highlanders. He guided his horse along the track without looking to the left or right and his has was drawn so low that she might not have recognised him. But the shape was too familiar. It was William McIssac.

  Every evening Maria and Jamie heated the copper and poured warm water over each other as they knelt in the tin tub. Tonight, when they had towelled themselves dry, she sent him ahead of her upstairs, and when he had gone she freshly ironed his clothes and took them up to the room with her, laying them beside the bed.

  ‘Why are you doing that?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. ‘There’s a restless feeling in the air. You should be thinking of going soon.’

  ‘You’re tired of me?’

  ‘I could never be that.’

  ‘Are we being watched?’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s nothing I can tell for sure. But when you’ve been watched for as long as I was, you get a feeling for it. I might be wrong. But it’s an instinct I’ve had since you first came, and it’s getting stronger.’

  She touched his face. ‘I’ve had other things on my mind since then. It’s difficult to know what is happening.’

  He drew her into the bed. ‘We can stay together.’

  ‘No. They wouldn’t let us. And you’ve got your future to think of.’

  ‘I can’t see it coming to much now.’

  She shook her head and drew the candle towards them, close to her own face. ‘Look at me, Jamie. Soon I’ll be old. I’ve nothing to take into the world with you. It’s too late. And you, you’d fade away and die here with me. In the end. Look at you, you’re fading from lack of sunlight already.’

  ‘I’m not ready to go.’

  This is no cave, she reflected, but a palace he has, he will never have better than this.

  ‘I’m not going,’ he said, apparently decided.

  ‘You must. I am telling you to leave.’ They stared at each other, both implacable.

  ‘Then I must show you,’ she said at last. She got out of bed and went to the dresser, pulling open the drawer which held Isabella’s journals. She found the one she sought and handed it to him. ‘I’m going downstairs for a while,’ she said.

  At the door she looked back at him. ‘Forgive me,’ she said.

  Downstairs, she sat and dozed by the fire.

  1865

  Hector and Rose have had a child, a boy named William. He is my first grandchild, as was pointed out with increasing excitement as the time of Rose’s confinement came closer. Naturally, when the hour arrived I was sent for, and I did help the midwife with various small services. Annie was there with sleeves rolled up, making a great show of pleasure and chattering about the fact that ‘at least one member of the family was getting things right’, meaning successful childbirth.

  Anyway, all of our help was superfluous, as the child slipped in to the world with very little trouble, and
Rose, smiling a Madonna-like smile, held the baby up, waiting for us to praise her accomplishment. Which I duly did, in the presence of the others.

  At last Rose and the boy and I were left on our own in the room. The general opinion was that I had been overcome with emotion and needed time to study the child in peace.

  ‘He is a handsome child,’ I said reiterating my applause. I paused, summoning up my most dramatic effect. Then I said: ‘I wonder what Francis will think of him.’

  It was cruel, but then those who know me would not be surprised how irresistible I found the situation. And she has been so uppity with me, this Rose.

  The colour drained out of her face. ‘Who told you?’ she whispered at last.

  It was something of a guess but I was not really surprised that it landed on the mark. McLeod and I do not like each other much better than we ever have, but old age and mutual solitariness sometimes draw us together, and when he is out riding — which he is able to do less and less these days — he stops by my door, enquiring with a civility after my health, and in return, I give him a mug of tea and a bannock cake. He is a lonely fellow since Mary died, though he won’t admit it. He tells me this and that when he is passing, and sometimes offers a little information which he thinks I would be the better for hearing. The subject of Rose has come up, told to me as a pastoral matter though not pursued, for Rose is outside the old community, and Hector’s problem.

  Besides, it was not much McLeod told me — a whisper of yellow skirt in a barn door and Francis hurrying down the road. But I had felt in my bones that he was right.

  Well, I think it is all a bit of a joke.

  Toward midnight, he joined her by the fire.

  ‘William is my brother. Or near enough.’ Maria’s voice was dull.

  ‘I know.’ He touched the nape of her neck. ‘Come back upstairs,’ he said. ‘The fire’s nearly out.’ When she did not move, he took her hand, pulling her roughly to her feet. ‘Come with me,’ he said.