I tried everything. I danced up and down in the yard till bright spangles of hotness came floating down in front of my eyes. I threw myself off the highest rung of the ladder in the barn and let myself roll around in the rat mess and the dust. I made myself swallow comfrey juice and then vomited until water poured out of my eyes and small red pinpricks appeared on my face. I did everything painful that I could think of that might put a swift and violent stop to what was happening inside me.
And all of it was pointless.
You’re looking very bonny, Eliza, Miss Narket said.
Meanwhile the constabulary had come to the village to search for Phoebe. They sucked up the light, crawling along the edges of the lanes and fields, poking and nosing around like a line of flapping black crows. Only unlike the crows, you knew that no amount of hand clapping would be enough to scare them off.
MARY HEARS SOMEONE CALLING HER NAME. SHE TURNS AND sees Deborah in a bright skirt and sandals, picking her way down the weed-covered steps into the garden. Straightaway, the dog runs toward her, barking. Mary calls her off.
“Do you mind?” Deborah laughs and puts a hand down to stop the dog jumping up. “I rapped on the window and couldn’t get any answer so I guessed you must be out here. I was just on my way to the shops and Eddie said you weren’t very well, so I thought I’d come and see if you needed anything.”
Mary stares at her for a moment.
“I’m fine. I’m perfectly well.”
Stroking the dog’s head with one hand, Deborah glances up, shielding her eyes in the sunshine.
“But Eddie said he’d seen you and you were looking very pale or something and he was worried about you.”
For a moment, Mary struggles with this.
“I don’t know what he meant. I’m fine.”
Deborah laughs. “Ah, well, that’s good. Glad to know all’s well. I know he’s very fond of you.” She looks at Mary for a moment. “He says you’ve been a very good friend to him recently. And I think he’s needed it. I wanted you to know that we both appreciate it.”
Mary feels the blood go to her face.
“I haven’t done anything.”
Deborah smiles.
“Well, that’s not what he says.”
Mary shakes her head, tries to smile.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
A brief, awkward silence. She looks up, lets her eyes go to the house. There’s a face at Ruby’s window. Suddenly unmistakable—a quick, pale movement. Swish of hair. Her heart contracts.
“All the same,” Deborah is saying, “after what you guys have been through. I think you’re so brave. And kind as well. More than kind. Seriously, he’s very fond of you. Never stops talking about you, you know.” She hesitates, glancing around her. “Goodness, isn’t it lovely out here? I always forget how huge your garden is. And I love the way you’ve left it to go so wild.”
Mary tells her it’s more through lack of energy than intention.
“Well, I like it,” Deborah says. “It’s very special. It’s got an atmosphere.”
That’s right, Mary thinks, that’s right, it has. She glances back up at the window again. Nothing. She asks Deborah if she’d like some coffee and is relieved when she says she doesn’t.
“Can’t stop. It’s book group tonight and I’ve got a million and one things to do before tomorrow when Eddie gets back.”
“He’s gone away?”
Deborah blinks.
“London. Just for the night. He’s got various friends there. He wasn’t going to go till next week, but one of the people he was seeing, their plans changed or something.”
I TOLD JAMES I NEEDED TO TALK TO HIM. AT FIRST HE LOOKED very cold and doubtful, but eventually he agreed to meet me behind the apple shed. I told him frankly then what was happening to me, that I was in no doubt, that it was perfectly obvious, that I knew all the signs.
At first he seemed quite unconcerned. He looked at me and he laughed. He said I had a good imagination and that was a fact.
I do not see how you can be in the family way, Eliza, he said. What I mean is, I promise you it is very unlikely.
I asked him what he meant by that and he told me that he had always been very careful. I thought about this.
What does careful mean?
His face went tight.
If you knew how people came to be in the family way, you wouldn’t have to ask. You would just get it, Eliza.
I told him that I did know all of that very well and remembering all the things we’d done, I didn’t think he’d been careful enough. Very slowly, as if he needed time to think, he rubbed at his face. Then he shook his head.
You’re a young girl, he said. You’re very innocent.
When I protested that he of all people knew very well that I was not innocent, he looked at me thoughtfully.
If you really believe you are burdened in this way, he said at last, then all I can say is it is not by me.
Now I grew properly furious.
What are you saying, James? That I went around giving myself to other men?
He blinked.
I did not say that.
What, then? You’re saying that you had nothing to do with it? That you did not have connection with me whenever you felt like it?
He shrugged.
You’re very young, he said again. And very pretty. Any man would notice you, Eliza. And I like you—very much—you know that I always have. But I do believe this is all a very fanciful story you’ve allowed to take root in your head.
I stared at him. I could not believe what I was hearing.
In my head? I said. In my head?
He sighed. I watched as he leaned against the apple shed and folded his arms.
You remember that I told you once about the woman in Lowestoft? The one who died?
I felt my heart jump.
Yes, I said. What was it that she died of?
I knew he would not tell me and I was right.
Never mind about that. It was a long time ago and it was all quite unfortunate. But you remember that there was also another one?
Violet, I said. The one who was too crazy for the workhouse and too sane for the asylum. She died too, didn’t she? Along with her poor pony.
He looked at me as if he was startled that I should remember.
What happened to Violet? I asked him. And what’s she got to do with it?
He stared into space as if he hadn’t heard me.
I told you before. Violet destroyed herself and the pony too.
But why?
He tilted his head and frowned.
Well, I don’t know what it is with some women. But they get to know me and then, well, it all somehow seems to speed up.
It? I said. I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is it exactly that speeds up?
James jutted out his bottom lip. I saw that he was trying to seem unperturbed but was not managing it. In fact, talking like this seemed to be exciting him. His eyes were a little too alive and bright. It seemed he could not dim them however hard he tried.
Well, let’s just say they seem to get ideas.
Ideas?
I watched him carefully, but the whole time he spoke, my blood was chilling. I was struggling to stay level and calm.
He bit his lip.
They get it in their heads that I’ve promised them things, don’t they? And then when they don’t get whatever it is they think they want—well, they seem quite prepared to fabricate.
Fabricate?
Just like you, Violet said I’d had relations with her. Many, many times she said we’d done it.
And you hadn’t?
He scratched his head till the hair stood up on end in a bright red coxcomb. He blinked twice as if he’d just woken up and seen what was around him.
I had never been near her. Not one time. It was all some fancy story that she’d dreamed up. She was a lively girl, a little like yourself, Eliza. A lively girl with a lively imaginat
ion to match. I’m not saying you’re like this. But some women would do anything to catch a man.
Now I began to understand the meaning of his words. And as I did so, something in me started to fall. It was my heart, dropping like a stone.
And what about Phoebe Harkiss? I said.
I saw him tense.
Phoebe Harkiss?
Was she also a lively girl?
He looked at me and he did not answer.
Well? I said.
When he spoke, his voice was slow and cold.
You ought to be very careful, Eliza, he said.
Careful about what?
The things you talk about. You don’t want to end up in the asylum, do you?
My mouth fell open.
What? I said.
He kept his eyes on me.
It’s just that some of the things you say, they make no sense at all.
WHEN GRAHAM AND MARY FIRST KNEW FOR CERTAIN WHAT had happened to their girls—when the police officer called Claire with the short blond hair and the gold studs and the knitted thing that hung with the keys at her waist, when she came and took them into the other room and sat them down and told them what she had to tell—Mary found herself down on the floor.
She did not collapse, or faint or fall. Instead, she simply laid herself down on the old beige carpet with its drift of gray dirt and fluff. She put herself down there and she stayed very still.
And Claire and another officer—were there two or even three of them in there? it seems absurd that even now, after not that many months, she cannot recall—knelt down on the floor beside her and took cushions from the sofa and put them under her head and her knees. And she knows that she let them do it and that she lay there. Helpless and unwitting as a person after an accident. Not yet daring to let herself think about what they’d just said.
She knows too—and this still appalls her—that a strange kind of comfort seemed to spread over her. Euphoria even. She felt like laughing, though she did not laugh. Or did she? She knows that someone touched her hands. And found them very cold. Her hands and feet, so cold. To her they might as well have been dead. Sloughed off, discarded, no longer a part of her.
Shock, someone said. She’s in shock. Can you hear me, Mary? Just try to breathe.
And so she did as she was told. She lay there, doing her best to take slow gasps of that quiet and terrible air. She kept on doing it. One breath after another. She was surprised at how easy a thing it seemed. Almost a pleasure, she felt it was, even though she knew that each breath she took was carrying her that little bit further from her girls.
NINE
ON SATURDAY MORNING, AS SHE SITS ON THE BENCH DRINKING tea and throwing a tennis ball for the dog while trying at the same time to read the papers, Mary sees Graham in his paint-spattered DIY clothes, carrying a bag of tools down to the bottom of the garden.
“Decided I couldn’t put it off any longer,” he says.
“What?”
“That shed. I thought I should just get on with it.”
She stares at him, suddenly afraid.
“The apple shed?”
“If it ever really was used for storing apples, yes.”
“You were the one who told me that.”
“Was I?”
“You said it when we first came here.”
Graham thinks about this.
“Well, I don’t know where I got that from.”
“You said it was on the deeds.”
He frowns.
“All right, well, I don’t care what it is. It’s had it. It’s going.”
Mary hesitates. A cloud moves and the sun is suddenly in her eyes. The dog runs up with the ball. She reaches out a hand to take it, but the dog holds on, so she lets go.
“What, but you mean you’re going to pull it down just like that?”
He looks at his trousers. Takes hold of the old tie that he uses for a belt and pulls it tighter.
“It’s half-rotten anyway. It won’t take much. And it’s not like we’ll ever use it for anything, is it?”
Mary glances off down the lawn. The apple shed is hidden by a thick screen of trees, thicker now that they’re all in leaf. She can’t even see the dark edge of it. Inexplicably, her heart speeds up.
“It’s just it’s been there a very long time, that’s all.”
“An old shed?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s a reason to keep it?”
“No. No, I suppose not.”
He picks up the tools again.
“You’ll see, it’ll make a big difference to that bit of the garden. Open it up. Get some light in there.”
“Light?”
“Well, it’s a dark corner, isn’t it? Dark and gloomy. It’s not just you who gets the heebie-jeebies when you go down there.”
The heebie-jeebies. She’s not sure anymore. If Mary tries now to think of what she saw—the young girl, her body, her bloodied face—she can only hold it in her mind for only the smallest second before it slips straight out again.
She looks at him. The dog nudges at her hand. Drops the ball at her feet. She bends forward to pick it up.
“Is that why you’re doing it?”
“What?”
“Because I got scared that time?”
“Not really. Not just that, no.” He stops, looking at her. “What is it? I don’t get it. You really don’t want me to?”
Mary shakes her head. She realizes her hands are trembling.
“I don’t mind. I don’t mind what you do.” She throws the ball and the dog runs off. “Do you want some help?”
“From you? No, thanks. I offered to pay that layabout of a daughter to give me a hand, and she seemed quite keen yesterday, but now—surprise, surprise—she won’t even get out of bed. But don’t worry. Help is on its way. In fact, here he is. Help has just arrived.”
He lifts a hand and waves and she turns and sees Eddie letting himself in through the side gate.
I KNEW THAT IT WAS OVER BETWEEN JAMES AND ME. MY HEART felt dead, squashed, all life and happiness gone out of it. I knew that he would never love me or touch me or look on me kindly again. It was as if our love had never happened, but also as if it was the only thing that had ever happened. I hated him for loving me and I hated him for stopping. I could not think straight anymore. I cried myself to sleep at night and cried myself awake as well. At last Jazzy came and told me to please be quiet.
The little ones won’t sleep with all the noise you’re making.
I stared at her. What noise? I hadn’t known I’d been making any noise.
You do it every night, she said. All this crying. It’s too much. It makes everyone miserable. Go to sleep and in the morning you’ll surely feel better.
I didn’t tell her that I wished there was no morning. That I wished I would not wake up, wished that God would just be merciful and take me in my sleep. But there was no such thing as mercy: the days stretched out ahead of me, days and days and hours and nights and I did not know how I would get through them. And meanwhile in my body, everything was changing.
Now when I crept into Ma’s room and lifted my skirts and looked at the shape of myself in the glass, I saw the beginnings of something that wasn’t like me at all.
My mouth still tasted different—blacker and sparklier—and sometimes my toes pinched in my boots. I felt dizzy and saw pink lights flying off in all directions if I stood up too sudden or quick. I could not stand the warm udder smell of the milk in the pail. Or the fatty after-whiff when the candle blew out. But I liked the clean sharpness of vinegar and sometimes woke in the mornings wishing I could glug it down.
Meanwhile Lammas Day had been and gone and the weather stayed fine. The wheat was thick and gold and higher than our Jazzy’s head. The men were all out from first crack, hoeing the turnips and lifting the barley and corn while we gaveled and raked to make it ready for the bind-pullers. And a man had come from London with a camera. He walked around the fields staring at peop
le and had a boy with him that carried the black cloth on legs and the machinery for doing the pictures. The reason he had come had nothing to do with Phoebe. He wanted to make pictures of the harvest, he said. To show rich people in London what real sweat and toil looked like.
He’ll be lucky to get a picture of that, Pa said. But if he wants to see a whole lot of good-for-nothings lying around in the dinner hour and swilling beer, then he can be my guest.
Still, I knew my father liked it that people in London might see the farm. He let the man photograph a row of black sows and some chicks that had hatched in Frank’s old bicycle basket, as well as a cow at her fullest and heaviest just before the milking.
Pa was worried about the harvest. They were short on labor this year in the village and Ma was much too far gone now to help with the gaveling, so he said I had to do it.
I shut my eyes. I did not see how I would get myself to that baking-hot field, let alone lift a fork.
Jazzy will give you a hand, he said.
But who will do the elevenses and fourses? I said, thinking of all the men that would need their dinner bringing.
It will have to be the twins, he said.
The twins aren’t reliable. They’ll get up to some mischief. And anyway, Charlie can’t carry things because of his leg.
My father thought about this.
Lottie’s big enough. She can do it.
What, all on her own?
Minnie can help her. And Honey, for that matter. Honey can help.
Honey’s a baby, I said. Honey’s no help.
All right then, she can tag along.
What? With Lottie and Minnie?
I don’t see why not.
I sighed. My father never did understand the first thing about babies.
Lottie’s four years old, I said. She’s cleverer than Minnie but she can’t look after Honey. She’ll get caught up in something and forget what she’s doing.
Pa looked at me.
Then we’ll tie them together, the way your ma does.
I still don’t think she’ll manage it, I said.
Pa said nothing. I knew we were both thinking the same thing. That we had never felt the loss of our Frank more keenly than now. Our Frank, who even from the age of three or four was sturdy and sensible and who would work till his small fingers were rasped and specked with blood and who wasn’t afraid to lead the big horse along as the men tossed the sheaves in, even though he barely came up to that great beast’s nostrils and had once almost got trampled to death when a young rabbit went scampering under its feet.
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