by David Mark
I stayed silent as he spoke. When he finished I didn’t know what to say. I felt an overwhelming urge to thank him again. He gave me a smile, and raised his knuckles to his forehead as if saluting the lady of the manor. I watched him turn. Was still watching when somebody called my name.
I spun at the sound. A man was walking towards me from the parked car. He wore a grey suit and a brown hat and his collar and tie were fashionably modern. For all that he was well dressed, his face was nothing special. His features were gathered together in the middle of his round countenance, the way posh restaurants serve fancy meals.
‘Mrs Hemlock,’ he said, again.
I felt the absence beside me. Heron had disappeared down the track. Was he watching? Was I alone?
‘I’m Cordelia,’ I said, stiffly, as he came to a halt a little closer to me than I felt comfortable with. ‘Can I help you?’
He looked me up and down. He made no attempt to disguise it. I could see the wheels turning in his head as he worked me out. I couldn’t tell whether he would make a good poker player or a poor one. Perhaps that was the intention all along.
‘Been for a stroll, have you?’ he asked. He had no accent. Kept his hands by his sides as he spoke. He had schooled himself in giving nothing away. ‘That would be your bodyguard, I presume.’
I didn’t turn my head as he glanced at the path down which Heron had disappeared. I took an instant dislike to the man and refused to give him any information.
‘Would you mind telling me how you know my name?’ I asked, and the sisters would not have recognized me. Suddenly I was the wife of a senior civil servant – a respectable woman in sensible clothes and enough starch in my voice to stiffen a clown’s collar.
‘I’m Dingwall,’ he said, and his face remained expressionless. ‘You had rather hoped that your husband could assist you with some research, am I right?’
I looked at him hard. He had grey eyes and there were ugly, bristly hairs between his eyebrows and emerging from his ears and nose. I looked him up and down, as he had done me. There were white dog hairs on his shins and his shoes were wet at the tops.
‘My discourse with my husband is my own affair,’ I said, and it was hard not to blush at how prim I was pretending to be.
‘Affair, you say?’ he asked, and his cheek twitched in a way I did not like.
‘What is it you want?’
‘I want to help,’ he said. ‘As you requested. Information. Names. All manner of little secrets, untangled, just for you.’
His whole manner oozed with contempt. I didn’t know what it was that he took particular objection to but I got the impression he would never have tired of rubbing the heel of his shoe into my eye.
‘My husband sent you, did he?’ I asked, and I found myself wondering if I should tell Cranham just how unpleasant his messenger had been. I decided against it. The man was presumably some office underling – a rank-and-file everyman who objected to running errands for a man several tiers his superior.
‘In a manner of speaking,’ he said, and his cheek twitched afresh.
‘Well,’ I asked. ‘Shall we go back to my house and you can tell me what I want? I must say, you were very prompt. It can’t be two hours since I asked …’
‘I shan’t,’ he said, flatly. ‘I don’t wish to linger here. Ghastly place.’
I looked shocked. Showed surprise and irritation in my face. ‘Gilsland has a lot going for it,’ I said.
‘I have no doubt,’ he said, though as he looked around him it seemed he could smell something distasteful. He looked at the spa. ‘This place, for example. I’m sure it will be splendid. Though I do wonder if the guests will allow themselves to dwell on the more unsavoury elements of its past. Its time as a convalescent home, for example, when men scarred by war would fit and cry and scream long into the night. Or its time as a maternity hospital, perhaps. All those women from the north east, driven here by the coachload to open their legs and spew another pink, round-faced little bastard onto crisp white sheets.’
It seemed as if the world was slowing down. I felt my legs weaken. Felt sick rise up my throat. Could he know …?
‘Your mother, for example,’ he continued, smoothly. ‘What was she? She told the doctors eighteen, but who could say, eh? Which of the men from the base was it, do you think? She enjoyed her fair share, so it goes. It was almost a crime giving you back to her, no more than a girl herself. She wanted to kick up her heels and throw off her petticoats and she was lumbered with a baby, howling and crying and getting in the way. No wonder she forgot to feed you. No wonder she’d lock the door on you and go away for days and never once think about you, snivelling in the dark. It’s a shame what happened to her. But some women just can’t say no to it, and that “it” could be all sorts. Drink. Opiates. A bit of hows-yer-father. She liked the lot. It’s amazing she kept you so long really. But them nuns wanted you, didn’t they? Bloody shock to all when you passed those grammar school exams with the best marks in the county. But they didn’t see into your soul. Not properly. They wanted the credit for taking a poor little girl from a broken home and turning her into an Oxbridge scholar and they put up with what they knew about you because it was worth it for the reward. The people who know you properly – they always knew it would go wrong. You had your mother’s ways. And you proved it, didn’t you? Opened your legs like there was no tomorrow. Made yourself popular as the whore on campus. And then you set your sights on the big fish …’
‘Stop it,’ I whispered, and I felt as though I was going to sag to my knees. ‘Please …’
‘A peer of the realm, no less. A rich, powerful, elderly gentleman and honorary faculty member at your college. You saw him, you seduced him and you got yourself pregnant by him. Oh you played well, my girl.’
‘How …’ I begged. ‘How can you know?’
‘What was it, eh? Love?’
He was mocking me. I couldn’t find my voice. I wanted to scream the truth at him. I fell for him. He was kind and clever and his eyes sparkled when he laughed and he made me see things in a way I hadn’t seen them before. He had done so to be generous to a girl who did not know where she was supposed to fit in the world. I had tried to reward him in the only way I thought men wanted. Rewarded him as I had so many of Mam’s friends when I was young. He had turned me down. He wanted none of what I had to offer. So I pushed. Promised him secrecy and pleasures beyond imagining. I was wicked, like they’d always said. I hadn’t expected Stefan to arrive. But even then, he fixed things. Found Cranham for me. Even now, I would give myself to him if he wanted it. He was the only person to have ever shown me kindness for its own sake and I had corrupted him in my desperation to show gratitude.
‘You asked your husband to look into something for you. He called my department. And my department called me.’ For a moment, something close to pity crossed his face. Later, I wondered how much of what he did was an act. ‘You won’t be asking anything else, Mrs Hemlock. Not if you want your secrets to stay hidden. And not if you want your husband’s second life to stay that way. You are the wife of a man who might one day be powerful and for that reason it’s important we know the kind of person you are. Can I report back that you are the kind of person who knows when it is important to close their mouth and open their ears and not do the kind of things that could prove very embarrassing for people so much more important than you?’
I looked at the floor. I could feel tears at my cheeks. I refused to give in to them. Something defiant and vengeful was beating tiny wings in my throat and I could feel myself growing furious. How dare he!
‘I’ll tell Cranham,’ I hissed. ‘Tell him what you’ve said …’
‘Cranham is not our concern,’ he said, silkily. ‘Cranham could be controlled as easily as an old dog. But for form’s sake, it would be wise to thank him for his help and not to mention our conversation. It would be a shame if he were to learn the truth.’
‘He knows!’ I protested. ‘He agreed to the marriage any
way …’
‘Oh, Mrs Hemlock, there are so many truths. And he will hear the one that best suits our needs.’
He turned at a sound from the vehicle. I peered past him. Had that been the sound of the passenger window winding down? Was somebody else in the vehicle?
‘I’ll bid you goodnight, Mrs Hemlock. I do not want us to meet again but something tells me there is little I can do to influence that matter. Please, do place some flowers on your son’s grave for me, should you choose a resting place where those other than yourself can pay their respects. I know the boy’s father would dearly love to have been able to send lilies. Perhaps he will yet get opportunity to do so. Good night.’
I managed to stay on my feet until he had climbed inside the vehicle and driven away. His car purred as he backed out of the parking space. He did not switch the lights on until he was out of sight. I could not make out the registration plate or the identity of the passenger.
Only when the car was out of sight did I give in. I slid to the floor as if made of wet paper; hands upon my face and my knees drawn up like a child’s.
I didn’t respond when Heron said my name. Just scrunched up my eyes and shook my head and thought of my boy. Smiling. Playing. Laughing. Then fading. Dying. Dead. My boy. Dead. Taken. Gone …
He scraped me off the floor like I was an injured doe.
‘Don’t worry, lass,’ he said, and his nose touched my damp cheek as he whispered into my ear. ‘I heard nowt. And that which I did hear will go no further. You were a good mother to that boy and there aint no wickedness in you. You were sent, lass. That’s what I knew first time I saw you. This place. This time. You didn’t choose it. You’re here to do right. And I’m glad to know you.’
This time, when the tears came, I thought of the water gurgling at the foot of the cliff.
And in my mind it carried an accumulation of miseries; a surging crimson torrent containing all the sticks and all the bones; all the stones and all the tears, of all the years. These were tears I shed for people unknown. For lives I had never touched and which were no more to my own existence than pebbles in the water. And yet I wept for their pain and their absence.
I huddled into him as he carried me. I didn’t feel the rain until it had already soaked him to the skin.
FELICITY
Transcript 0008, recorded October 30, 2010
There wasn’t enough hot water for a proper bath. It were only an inch deep when the hot ran out. I boiled the kettle twice and did my best to make it a bit more comfortable for him but I don’t think he’d have cared if he were frozen or scalded. He just sat there, all pink and goose-pimpled and naked, hugging his legs and resting his face on his knees.
‘I can leave you alone,’ I said, and the steam rose from the water to form a little cloud below the ceiling. I didn’t want him feeling funny about being naked in front of his mam. They can be like that, can boys. ‘Brian? Good scrub. Feel better.’
He gave the smallest shrug. He looked like he did when he was small and the fever nearly took him. Dark under his eyes and skin that looked like he’d been slapped all over. He looked at me the same way then, too – as if something awful was happening to him that I should have the power to prevent. It broke my heart when he were small and it broke my heart that night too.
‘Shall I do it then?’
He nodded again, and I decided not to notice the tears that trickled from the corners of his eyes and dripped into the water.
I took the flannel and rubbed it against the soap. Big, chunky soap, the size of a sandwich. Got you proper clean and turned your bathwater the colour of October skies. Scrubbed his back and his neck and both arms and legs. Lifted his arm and did his armpits. Handed him the flannel without a word so he could tend to his own business. He did as he was bid. When I stood up my knees cracked and I felt a sharp pain down my side.
‘Do you want in after me?’ he asked, quietly.
I smiled, pleased that he had thought to ask. He wasn’t sulking exactly, though John had given him a telling off that would have stripped the skin off some people. He just looked fragile. He’d been gone the best part of five hours and I’d spent most of it with my fingers gripped tight around the material of the sofa. I was like a bird perched on a branch. I had to hold myself still or I swear I’d have shaken myself to bits. It’s a terrible thing is that kind of fear. Everybody knows what it is to be scared but until you’ve imagined never seeing your children again, you don’t know the half of it. Thinking rationally, there was no way Pike would have risked prison just to teach a young lad a lesson. But terror isn’t rational and as the time ticked away in the aftermath of Pike’s warning gunshot blast, my imagination started playing pictures. I kept seeing him with blood coming out of his nose and his mouth – all broken and twisted on the riverbed. I saw him with a tree branch stuck through his middle and his head hanging forward on his chest. I saw him with bulging eyes and lolling tongue with a rope burning his skin beneath his jaw. I saw him dead on the grass outside the church: blue suit and brown shoes.
He’d been with Heron, he said, when he finally came back. Talking, down by the river. Pike had come for him but Heron had seen him off. He reckoned he was safe now. He stood with his head bowed as he spoke, like he were a praying choirboy. I didn’t know whether to hug him or slap him but the relief that flooded through me as I helped him out of his wet clothes was so powerful I half thought I was going to come apart at the seams. John put the kettle on and made him a ham and tomato sandwich. Good white bread and thick butter with a smear of mustard. He didn’t start telling him off until he’d eaten it and drank two mugs of hot tea. Then he told Brian this would have to stop. He couldn’t keep putting his mother through this kind of thing, though there were redness in John’s eyes each time he came back from walking the woods and said there were still no sign of him. He couldn’t tell Brian that, of course. Wouldn’t have been right to tell the boy his dad were in tears over him. I hadn’t expected John to get so angry but it didn’t take him long to work up a lather. Brian didn’t even answer back. Just sat there, nodding, wrapped in a blanket covered in crumbs while I stood at the sink and watched the rain put tiny bullet holes in our reflection.
‘Mam? You getting in?’ he asked again.
‘I’ll leave it. Not enough water to bath a rabbit,’ I said, and handed him the big towel from the top of the set of drawers. I turned away as he stood up. He got himself out. I wrapped the towel around him properly and started scrubbing him. I tried to be gentle but the towel was rough as sandpaper and it took him an effort not to let on it were hurting.
‘He didn’t mean it,’ I said, under my breath. ‘About you being good for nothing …’
‘He did,’ muttered Brian. ‘You could see it in his eyes.’
‘Pike went after you with a gun,’ I said. ‘It was horrible.’
‘He wouldn’t have done owt. Not really.’
‘So why did you run?’
Brian looked at me thoughtfully. He was mulling it over. Chewing on it, like stale bread.
‘I thought he might take it,’ he said, at last.
‘Take what? The tooth?’
He nodded, closing his eyes.
‘Why would he take it?’ I asked, and I kept drying him just so I had something to do with my hands. In truth, I think I wanted to put my palms over my ears and start singing at the top of my voice. I already knew more than I had ever asked to.
‘He takes things. That’s what he does.’
I turned him to face me and for the first time in my life I put my finger under his chin and made him look straight into my eyes. I’d seen it done in a film and always thought I would be too embarrassed to do it myself. But it felt like it was the right thing to do and I didn’t even think about it until later.
‘He steals, you mean?’
‘He takes what he wants. He’s taken a fishing reel and a pocket magnifying glass off me. Tom from school – he took this buffalo-skin wallet that his uncle had sent him
from America. That coin that James said he’d lost playing football? The one we found at Birdoswald and was hundreds of years old? Pike took that off him.’
I stayed quiet. I were as guilty as Brian. Everybody knew you had to keep your hand on your purse or your pocket near Pike. He’d been no different at school. Took your lunch or the laces from your shoes and swore blind he’d stick his thumb in your eye if you told a soul.
‘Where did you get it, Brian?’ I asked, quietly. ‘It’s not a nice thing to have …’
His face creased up and I could see he was fighting with himself.
‘I won’t take it,’ I said, when I realized that was what was scaring him most.
That seemed to clinch it. He gave a little nod and I stopped drying him. His pyjamas were on the rail in front of the fire and I wasn’t sure if I should go get them before he started telling me so I just stood there, a bit daft, waiting for him to talk, with one foot in the bathroom and the other on the landing. That’s where I see myself when I think of that night. Half-in, half-out, like I’d been cut in two.
‘It were in the collection box,’ said Brian, and there wasn’t any emotion in his voice. ‘In the front of the church. The wooden box on the wall. I looked in the slot at the top and it was glinting up at me and I took it.’
I didn’t know what to say. We’d never been religious but stealing from the collection plate was something that bad people did. I gave him a hard look before a dozen questions rippled my features into an expression of pure bafflement.
‘The church hasn’t had a collection in years,’ I said. ‘It’s not held a service while we’ve been here. And what were you doing in the church anyway? Did Fairfax let you in?’
He raised his hands as if I were hitting him.
‘I’d seen Pike going in. I never meant any harm. He had a key. Why would Pike have a key, Mam?’