Sugar Hall

by Tiffany Murray

  Her shout came back, an echo.

  John was leaning against her now. His muscles had gone, his strings had been cut and he fought for air.

  ‘Sh…’ she said, a hand patting his back.

  She continued to stare up at nothing. The owl hooted in time with John’s gulps.

  ‘Sh,’ she told him, and then he was stepping away from her, rubbing his chest. He sounded like the bellows she would use for the fire at the Hall. He crouched on the forest floor, wheezing.

  ‘Lil…’ he tried.

  She was still staring up at the angry tops of the Douglas firs that howled like wolves in the wind.

  ‘Lil-ia.’

  She didn’t look down at him.

  ‘Lilia,’ he gulped. ‘Are you…?’

  ‘The foxes smell,’ she said.

  ‘Then, here. Come here,’ he took a deep gasp, and stood, unsteady. He led her to the other side of the trunk. ‘No wind here. Lilia, my Lilia, listen, will you wait a moment? I need to check something, see.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. But promise me you won’t move.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Promise me. Lilia.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He kissed her, it was a delicate kiss and she hated it.

  ‘Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking, my love.’

  ‘I won’t move for five minutes, John. I promise. I’ll listen to the owl.’

  She heard him walk up the hill, his whining breath cutting the quiet of the night. She sank to her knees, back against the fir, and she hummed for company.

  The old oak was up here at the brow of the hill.

  Thing was, you’d never play here, you’d never hang a swing from that tree. You’d never carve a sweetheart’s name on this trunk. You’d never sit beneath it for shade or a nap. Sheep wouldn’t shelter under it either; they’d shiver over by the fence there, the wool on their backs catching on the wire.

  This was a tree you might stand under to curse someone who’d done you wrong.

  That’s what John knew. He also knew he loved her; his Lilia.

  He climbed over the deer fence.

  He made himself think of the ghost as he strode through the misty grass towards the old tree, he made himself think of the ghost because his mind and his body were so full of Lilia he could hardly see.

  The little Slave Boy – so the story went – had hidden in this tree; John’s mam and every other Mam in the forest had told this tale. The child had hidden in the little hollow in the east side of the trunk when he was still flesh and blood: just a scared little lad. This was where his masters had found him and hanged him, and for what John didn’t know.

  That was centuries ago, John thought.

  ‘You get lost in that forest and the boy’ll have you, sure as eggs is eggs,’ his mam had told him when he was a bab. ‘He’ll have you and he’ll drag you down the roots of that old tree and take you straight to hell, so you stick with your mam, you stick with her and you’ll be all right, John.’

  He gazed up at the branches. The moon shone through them, making them silver. It was true that he was frightened for himself, but most of all he was frightened for Lilia. He shone the beam of his torch up into the great twisted thing.

  It took a good while, searching out every lichen-covered limb, listening for a creak that wasn’t the creak of old wood in the wind. This tree was where they hanged the boy and it was where they’d found Richard Sugar, too. John knew that story.

  He breathed at last; there was nothing here but the branches.

  But of course there were the roots, and he walked around the trunk, lighting up every hole, every crevice at the base of the ancient tree.

  Nothing.

  John switched off his torch and waited for his eyes to adjust back to darkness. He had no idea what he would have said to her, to Lilia, if he had found her boy here. It was foolish, childish, a silly superstition, an old wives tale: all of it. He turned and ran back towards the fence, glad it was all nonsense. Her boy would be fine. Dieter wasn’t cursed like his mam had said.

  He jogged down the slope and into the thick forest, his footsteps hollow on the spongy floor. He had to get back to Lilia and tell her how much he loved her, and how her boy wasn’t dead at all.

  Juniper had left the vicar behind, she couldn’t wait about for the silly man; he would have to find his own way. The bare hill felt so open, so fresh, and a bright westerly blew into her. In truth it was keeping her awake. Hispid jangled beneath her and she gripped him, heels in, as he trotted up the hills snorting and rattling his bridle.

  Her eyes were accustomed now, though she could feel the coming of dawn in her bones. She stopped at the brow of the hill and gazed out into the grey light. It was quite beautiful: the low mist sucking at the ground, the peep-peep-peep of early robins, the shriek of waking blackbirds, and curlews moaning from the estuary below, from the wide brown mud of the Severn river. It was quite the view here; there was Wales to the right, the Cotswolds straight ahead, and here she was in the place she had always been. Above the mud of the river she was sure she could see the dot of an air balloon. It was all charming, quite charming: Juniper felt her big horse shiver with it.

  The land – even in this half-darkness – looked so simple. There, far behind and to her left, was Sugar Hall nestling at the foot of the forest, grey in the morning mist. She wondered how many years ago it had been the only place in a sea of trees. Many of the oaks had been cut years, decades, centuries ago for ships. It was a simple landscape but still it had been cut and hacked at; it had histories written on it and this was something Juniper appreciated. Yet at the same time, she felt uneasy with the whole thing. Still, there was new writing on this land: in the far distance across the Severn and nearer to the flatness of the larger towns would be the new builds, the post-war boom of baby bungalows, and to her far right lay a field of prefabs. She had walked among them as they were constructed; to Juniper they seemed rather neat and pleasing. She doubted they would ever be cold.

  Juniper was a practical woman and she believed Dieter had hopped on the milk train to London. She hadn’t been able to say this at the Hall in the darkness of Lilia’s panic, and so she had to put this effort in. In any case, these dark hours had been quite glorious, Hispid quivering beneath her and a new day dawning. What other opportunity would there have been to gallivant across the county like she did as a girl? Juniper sighed; she remembered how she had disappeared for days on that old horse of hers, and no one had noticed, not even her father. It had been bliss.

  Hispid shook his head, the bridle creaked and clattered, and she let the reins go. As the horse munched cool meadow grass, Juniper glanced about, and then she lay back on his rump and waited for the rising sun.

  The Cow

  29

  Dieter was so tired but the boy wouldn’t let him sleep. He had woken him in the early hours, and they had been playing all day and now it was night again, and he had eaten all the damson sandwiches he’d made and he was still in his pyjamas. He shivered in the cowshed as the animals made sounds like old men, coughing. He was so tired and so hungry he couldn’t remember how to get home, even if the boy allowed him.

  ‘Where are you?’ Dieter whispered.

  There was the slam of a hoof on the concrete floor, the ghostly brush of a tail and the wet, lippy grind of cows’ jaws. A dog barked from somewhere but it sounded muffled.

  ‘Please,’ he whispered, ‘come back. I have to get home to Ma.’

  Moonlight shone through the open side of the shed and Dieter saw the milking herd shuffle and chew; they licked the cow cake and peed yellow as disinfectant while their calves shivered in the stalls. Dieter saw their clouds of breath in the bright moonlight as they jostled in one direction. It looked like they were trying to let something through.

  ‘Is that you?’ Dieter asked, and the black and white cows were suddenly still. Dieter walked forwards, trying not to think of the cowpats or the puddles of pee beneath his thin slipp
ers.

  This close he could see how huge they were. Their eyes were luminous green in the milky light and when they lowered their square heads and shook their necks Dieter saw steam rise. He felt warmer this close to them. He crouched; he was looking for the boy’s legs among the hooves.

  ‘Where did you go?’

  A cow made an awful noise at the far end of the shed. The herd shuffled again.

  Dieter tiptoed across the straw and muck, his slippers sliding in pockets of softness.

  He could just make out one cow pressed against the shed’s far wall. She was alone and as Dieter walked to her he saw she was dazed, her big eyes bulging. Dieter heard a strange noise in between the cow’s moans. He stepped closer, as close as he dared, and there he was – the boy. He was sitting on the ground, his back to Dieter: his face pushing against the cow’s udder.

  The boy was bigger again.

  Dieter felt the hot movement of the herd behind him; they were panting and steaming in the moonlight; they were pacing, afraid, and so was he.

  The single cow opened her mouth and bellowed.

  ‘Don’t hurt it,’ Dieter said, because the boy’s head was jerking back and forth so hard, and at each jerk the cow shook her head.

  ‘We have to…’ Dieter started to say, but the pulsing of the boy’s head had him dazed too, and then there was the sound: the deep suck-suck-suck-suck like the boy was sucking up the world; the earth, the sea, the sky, not just that cow.

  As he watched, Dieter felt something nuzzle against his arm, and then something warm and wet was snuffling against his hand. Before he could move, that something tugged hard at his fingers. It was a calf the size of a very large dog, and it had his hand in its mouth. The calf’s suck was strong, its rough tongue curled around his fingers, and Dieter thought maybe his skin would come off. He tried to pull away but the calf had such a firm hold.

  Suddenly, the big cow in front of him slumped forward: he heard the air go out of it with a sigh. That’s how I feel when he touches me, Dieter thought.

  The calf kept its hold on his fingers.

  He was light-headed. Behind him the herd was restless, skittish. He felt their warmth step closer. Dieter closed his eyes and when he did this all he could hear was sucking, the sucking of the calf on his fingers and the sucking of the boy on the fading milk-cow.

  The boy had told Dieter that after he fed they were going down to the big, wide river. He told Dieter he had a surprise for him and they were going to the river that led to the sea, the river where tall ships once sailed, and from there they were going to fly away across oceans in the balloon Dieter loved so much: they were going to have such adventures.

  Dieter would have loved that game if he weren’t so tired, if he wasn’t so faint and so hungry. Tonight he was cold and he was scared and these cows smelled so, and he wanted to go home. Tonight he hated the thought of that big muddy river that he saw every day from Sugar Hall, because his slippers were dirty enough. In any case, Dieter reasoned, it would be impossible to drag the balloon and the basket down there; it was at least a mile away. Dieter wanted to go home, no matter where it was; he wanted the warmth of his own bed, maybe the warmth of his mother.

  Dieter didn’t want to play with the boy: not anymore.

  July 13th, 1955, 7:00 BST

  30

  A new day called the searchers back to the Hall.

  Lilia walked across the sodden grass, led by John; they held hands and their faces were blotched with night-cold. Juniper stood at the stone trough as her horse drank. She patted Hispid’s haunches and cooed, admiring how he steamed in the growing sunlight; flies teased his ears, and his glossy skin twitched, back legs kicking out with irritation.

  The vicar had left his borrowed horse at the Hall and he’d walked home hours ago. He was tucked up safe in his bed now, across from Daphne’s single bed. The vicar had no trouble sleeping. The keeper, Turley, and his sons were leaning up against the sun-side of the grey stone Hall, one knee bent and feet flat to the stone. They were smoking, rolled fags hanging like tree moss from their lips. Turley had retrieved his twelve bore and it stood open across the crook of his arm; he held it as delicately as a lady would a pretty night shawl. Inside Sugar Hall, Alex was walking up from the kitchen a silver tray in his hands; he had made coffee, he had cut bread and found a second large pot of damson jam.

  When Juniper turned, her back to the warmth of her horse, and she saw Lilia and John, she wasn’t surprised they had taken comfort in one another, but she was surprised at Lilia’s face. There was no light in it, no hope. The girl wasn’t bouncing across the lawn to them, demanding, ‘Is he upstairs? Have you found him?’

  Juniper shook her head. It was true that the boy had been gone all night, it was true that they couldn’t find him, but she wondered why Alex hadn’t thought to telephone the boy’s sister in London; Dieter was with Saskia, there was little doubt. Juniper would have to choose the right time to mention this and act on it, and meanwhile she imagined taking Dieter over her knee and giving him the hiding of his life: she doubted anyone ever had.

  Alex stopped at the top step by one of the grand grey pillars, a tea towel over one shoulder, the tray in his hands.

  ‘Have you,’ he asked Juniper and the men, but he didn’t finish because the faces told him, ‘no’.

  Lilia and John’s steps crunched the gravel. Turley and his boys peered round the house at the missus. Alex tried not to notice Lilia’s hand, tied up with John’s, and Lilia kept her face down until she saw Juniper’s strong, brown riding boots.

  She looked up.

  It was then the whole group heard a strange noise, not quite like the ringing of the telephone – although at first Alex moved back into the Hall as if to answer it.

  Juniper secured both horses as Alex put the tray down on the top step. John and Lilia turned towards the sound.

  Turley threw his fag onto the wet grass, his sons copied him, straightening their backs and squaring their shoulders just like their father because they knew this sound: they knew it well and they were ready for it.

  It was the police car. Turley and his sons called her ‘Jenny’ they were so familiar with her. Black and shiny, her chrome bumpers had grills like teeth, her wing mirrors were silver capon wings stuck to her bulging black sides. The youngest Turley, George, had always thought their local police car looked like a mustachioed general, and it put the fear of God into him: George stood to attention.

  Jenny’s silver bells rang louder.

  When the police car took the bend of the drive, pushing fast, Lilia was simply glad that they had finally come to help while Juniper thought of the grand cars that had regularly travelled up this drive once upon a time: the Rolls Royces, the Bentleys. It took what felt like an age for the car to make the final rise to the front of the Hall.

  At last, it ground to a stop, gravel spitting from the wheels. When the two policemen and the one policewoman stepped out of the car, pausing for a moment, and then – very slowly – removed their hats, it was Alex who sprinted first. He ran down the wide stone steps towards Lilia; he ran, but he was too late.

  John Phelps had her hand, but he was too busy staring at the policemen and the policewoman. He was so busy staring that he had simply felt a tug on his fingers and then on his wrist as Lilia fainted, collapsing face first to the gravel.

  As soon as she saw those uniforms and those hatless heads, Lilia Sugar had thought of her pearls and how they sprayed from her neck when she pulled at them that winter morning at Churchill Gardens. She had torn at her pearls because another policeman and another policewoman had stood on her threshold, hats in their hands too, and they had told her that her husband was dead. And that morning when Lilia had scratched at her throat, her cheeks; pulled her hair and her necklace, some of those pearls –which were the real thing – had rolled between the polished black shoes of that policeman and the policewoman. The pearls had bounced back and forth; back and forth between their shoes like the silver ball in a ga
me of pinball.

  And when Lilia heard the ringing bells of this police car, ‘Jenny’, when she’d looked up at these two new policemen and the policewoman taking off their hats and walking towards her in front of Sugar Hall, she thought of those rolling pearls and of Peter; and she heard nothing but the rush of blood in her ears and felt nothing but the stone on her teeth and the turn of her insides. It was such a hard turn, as if she was inside out and all was wrong and all was different: which of course, it was.

  July 13th, 8:50 BST

  31

  Saskia stood on the edge of the curb. Next to her a mother jogged her pram up and down and the baby wailed. The mother grinned at Saskia. ‘Bless her bones, she can feel it, she can,’ the woman said.

  Saskia hugged herself and looked into the blackness of the pram. Hood up it looked like a great cave; gurgles came from inside with the smell of sour milk.

  ‘Bless her,’ the mother repeated, ‘she’s praying with us all. In her own way. Little lamb. Ain’t you?’ The woman looked up. ‘Have you got a watch, love?’

  Saskia turned to the woman, ‘Sorry?’

  ‘A watch? You got one? I ain’t, you see. And I want to count down. You here last night?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Well who else am I talking to?’

  ‘No. I came here early this morning.’

  ‘Well, last night my sister was here, and she said there was crowds that deep,’ the woman pointed to end of the street. ‘She said they was all crying and banging on the doors there,’ the woman made the same motion at the great prison doors in the distance. ‘And they was crying out for Ruth to pray with them, to pray to be saved. And they was singing, blowing the roof off, my sister said. But d’you know what happened?’

  Saskia shook her head. She was wishing she were back with Flinty and her mother at Churchill Gardens: Flinty, who had refused to come.

  ‘Well, they send the guards out, don’t they. Then they send the police.’

  Saskia didn’t like the way this woman, small and bottle-blonde, said ‘pow-leece’.