The Bone Yard and Other Stories

by John Moralee

  Dominic’s father had been the sole wage-earner in his own family and Dominic sometimes felt embarrassed by his reliance on her. Dominic had not want to have any children until he had fulfilled his dreams. But for a few years she had worried about what if he never did?

  She wanted children before it was too late. When he kept saying “let’s wait a little longer”, she grew restless. How long could she wait? She was in her forties. Her biological clock was screaming for a baby. And so she had done something bad - she stopped taking the pill without telling him. She was sure he would be angry for a while but forgive her eventually, once he saw how good having a baby was.

  She got pregnant almost immediately, almost as if her eggs had been stockpiling in readiness. It was something she did not regret, but she knew having a baby had distanced them. She had told him the truth, which he had accepted by immersing himself in his work. He loved the baby, she knew, but he had difficulty accepting what she had done.

  To make up for it, Rachel had approached the subject of him quitting the ad agency so he could concentrate on his art, but that had further humiliated him.

  No, he would not quit the ad business because that would feel like an admission of failure. He was a father now, he said. He had responsibilities to provide for his baby. Sometimes he said he felt caught in a trap. Occasionally, Rachel wished her success had never come – at least not first. Dominic’s opinion of himself depended on how other people perceived him. Seeing the anger in his eyes, the contempt and loathing he had for the work he did, she felt sick.

  What if he blamed her for it?

  Had he started an affair to pay her back for her success?

  His lie about the £600 started her worrying.

  The only answer to it was to find out what he had bought with it.

  That was why she got the address of Black & Sons from the Yellow Pages. It was twenty miles from their home, in a small village.

  The next day, she packed Angela into the baby seat in her BMW and drove to the address. Angela cried most of the way. Rachel had trouble finding the address using her RAC map, but eventually she did. She parked outside it, looking. Her hands gripped the wheel so hard her knuckles throbbed.

  Black & Sons was a small factory-shop with a large window display of gravestones.

  That was all they sold.

  *

  Rachel drove home in a daze, trying to think while Angela screamed and screamed. She parked outside the garage, took Angela into the house, changed her pungent nappy, then went looking for the gravestone.

  It could be somewhere in the house, she reckoned. She would not – could not – rest until she was certain it was not lurking in some corner of the house. She went from room to room without finding anything. She saved the attic and cellar for the last places. Nothing. She sighed with relief, but then remembered one place she had not checked. The garage.

  It was normally so dark in the garage she didn’t noticed what was at the back. She took a torch into it and shone the light over Dominic’s tools and her gardening equipment, unused since the weather turned into a Siberian winter.

  There was something in the dark covered with a tarpaulin.

  Her torch illuminated a large rectangle resting against tins of paint and varnish. It was as wide as her arms fully outstretched and just as tall.

  From a distance it looked like part of the wall. But now she could see what it was – a gravestone like those seen in the window. She touched the tarpaulin and felt how cold it was. She tapped it – stone.

  Hating herself for doing it, she undid the tarpaulin and pulled it off.

  The dark marble gravestone towered over her.

  There were words engraved on it. Words that made her chest tighten. She could hardly keep the torch steady as she read them.

  HERE LIES

  RACHEL CARPENTER

  BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

  BORN 1969

  DIED 20

  *

  “Why is there a gravestone with my name on it in our garage?”

  “Ah. I knew you would freak, that’s why I didn’t tell you. But I can explain.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I was talking to this guy the other week. He’d recently lost his parents in a car crash. He was devastated, but one thing gave him comfort – the fact they had a beautiful memorial, a headstone carved by a true master. He actually showed me a photograph. And I was impressed, Rache. The thought of a loved one being remembered that way, with something so brilliantly made, it got me thinking. Particularly when he said the guy who did it was close to dying himself. The guy had gone back to have his own gravestone engraved. It’d given him enormous peace of mind knowing it was ready for when he passes on. By buying it now, he didn’t have to worry about his relatives being able to afford one later. It was a real bargain. So, I thought, why not buy one for my dear wife? I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Oh, you surprised me. Gave me a heart attack, more like.”

  “You’re upset?”

  “How would you like to find a gravestone with your name on it?”

  “I’d like it if it was as good as yours.”

  “You got one for me. You didn’t buy yourself one?”

  “I don’t care what I’m buried in. I do care how you’re buried. It was supposed to be a gift for your birthday.”

  “Dominic, get it out of the house.”

  “What?”

  “Take it away.”

  “You’re been irrational. It’s just a slab of marble. It’s not like a coffin.”

  “I don’t like it. Will you get rid of it or shall I?”

  “Okay,” he sighed. “Consider it gone.”

  *

  Dominic kept to his promise, for the next time she check in the garage there was nothing. And yet she had a sneaking suspicion he had given in to her wish a little too easily. After all, he had spent £600 on something she’d asked him to throw away. Would she have thrown away something she liked if he didn’t like it? Not without a huge fight.

  So, though the matter had been settled, Rachel felt no better. She started sleeping badly, waking from nightmares in which she was buried alive. Her work suffered as a consequence, which resulted in greater stress.

  The gravestone was all she could think about.

  She could not forget it. She searched the house again. It wasn’t there. But the house came with acres of thick woodland, several stone outhouses, and a stables for a dozen riding horses. The previous owner, a drug-addicted earl with more debtors than friends, had taken the horses with him. As a non-rider herself, she had not visited the stables since the property was bought ten years ago. She had considered converting it into a guest-house – or perhaps a studio away from the house. She never went there. But it was only four hundred yards up the lane.

  Her instincts told her to look.

  *

  “No,” she moaned.

  Cold air whipped around her as she stared at her name. The stables was gloomy, but the solid blackness of her name RACHEL CARPENTER deeply engraved into the marble literally pulled at her eyes. A sickness hit her, and she staggered out into the lane, shuddering, crying, head reeling, fear and anger and confusion rippling through her mind. She could feel the waves of conflicting emotions pounding against her skull. HERE LIES RACHEL CARPENTER. She was powerfully sick then. It steamed on the ground, grey and lumpy, like brain tissue puked out. Oh, God, she had never felt so violated. The betrayal and disgust physically hurt.

  Dominic had lied to her. Again. He had kept it hidden.

  She closed the doors to the stables, hands trembling as she attached the padlock, locking IT inside. She hurried to the house. She called the ad agency. She told him there was an emergency. She begged him to come home immediately. When he asked what was wrong, she hung up the phone. She did not answer it when he rang back.

  Almost an hour later, he pulled up outside in his Porsche. She stepped outside.

  “What’s wrong?” he said. “Is it Ange
la? Is there something wrong with her?”

  “Angela’s fine,” she said. “It’s that – that thing. What is that thing doing in the stables?”

  “Hey, calm down. I can’t believe you made me drive all the way home for that. I did what you said – I moved it out of the garage.”

  “I asked you to take it away.”

  “I can’t take it back. It’s engraved. There are no refunds. What’s the harm of keeping it in the stables?”

  “It’s creepy, Dominic. I want it destroyed.”

  “Destroyed? You didn’t say destroy it the other day. That’s extreme, Rache.”

  “I said get rid of it. That didn’t mean keep it in the stables -”

  “But we don’t use the stables, Rache.”

  “Destroy it,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You heard. Get it out of the stables and destroy it. I want to see you take it away right now. Or I’ll start screaming.”

  “I’ll need to call the guys again.”

  “Do it.”

  “They’ll take some time.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  Over an hour later, two big, muscular men arrived in a grey van marked Black & Sons. Dominic unlocked the stables and led them to the gravestone, while Rachel kept an eye on it from down the lane. The men had to be the old man’s sons, she guessed. It took the two men to lift the slab into the van, walking very slowly, their faces dripping with sweat. Neither looked pleased to be moving it. She felt guilty for acting like a scared little girl, but she hated the gravestone too much to let it stay. They drove away. Dominic walked back down the lane towards the house, shaking his head. “There. It’s gone. They’ll smash it up for you. Are you happy now?”

  She was happy now.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She approached Dominic to kiss him, but he drew away, storming into the house as though she did not exist.

  *

  The next morning, Rachel looked out her bedroom window and saw the gravestone.

  It was at the far end of the garden, where the grass met the trees. The gravestone had not been there the night before. The stonemason’s sons must have erected the dark-grey tombstone while she and Dominic slept. In the winter light the grave cast a shadow almost reaching the house. She felt as though it was reaching for her. She stepped further back into the bedroom.

  “Dominic …” she said, but of course he was not in bed. It was nine o’clock and he would have gone to work when it was still dark. He would not have seen the gravestone. Was he avoiding her? Had he told the men to do that? It seemed so spiteful and cruel, she could not believe Dominic would tell them to do that. But the gravestone was there, lingering at the bottom of the garden.

  Someone had done it deliberately. The engraving was in shadow, a wall of blackness, but as the sun rose over the woods, the white light heating up the garden, she could read the epitaph and feel the downy hairs on her arms stand upright.

  HERE LIES

  RACHEL CARPENTER

  BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

  KILLED IN COLD BLOOD

  BORN 1969

  DIED 2011

  The date had been completed. And it was this year! No, no! This wasn’t happening. Killed in cold blood? Rachel pulled her velvet nightgown around her tighter, but she was aching with biting coldness. She dressed quickly, then grabbed her phone. She was tempted to call the police, but first she dialled Dominic’s number.

  It wasn’t connecting.

  No. She’d dialled wrongly in her haste.

  Try again. It rang. He picked it up. “Hello?”

  “This isn’t funny, Dominic.”

  “Rache? What are you talking about?”

  “The gravestone. Killed in cold blood? Is that how you feel about me? You want me dead? You hate me that much for Angela?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t hate you.”

  “The gravestone. In the garden.”

  “What? I swear I don’t know anything about it. You’re telling me the gravestone is back?”

  “Duh. Like you don’t know.”

  “I told those guys to dispose of it.”

  “I’ll dispose of it myself. With a hammer and chisel.”

  “Wait!”

  “No,” she said, hearing the doorbell ring. “I’m not discussing this with you. I’m hanging up now.”

  “But –”

  She hung up. The phone started ringing again. She took it downstairs with her, but she didn’t answer it. Let him wait a few minutes, she thought, as she walked down the hall towards the door. There was someone standing outside, a hazy figure through the glass. Probably the postman. Her phone stopped ringing. The figure was ringing the bell again. Now her phone was ringing again. As she put her hand on the latch, she glanced down at the newspaper on the mat. It was the local Gazette. There was a picture of an old man on the front page.

  VILLAGE MOURNS DEATH OF MASTER STONEMASON

  GRIEVING SONS BURN DOWN SHOP

  WHO WILL WRITE THE EPITAPHS NOW?

  She opened the door – too late recognising the men. Big and strong, the two sons were standing there, waiting, one with a hammer, the other with a chisel, both with weird, sadistic grins.

  “We make home deliveries now.”

  The Deepest, Darkest Fear

  Temple had not heard her voice in eleven years, but he knew it immediately without her saying her name. It was Montana, pronounced Mon-tar-nah, not like the state. There was something desperate and urgent in the tone of her voice. He would never forget Montana Doland’s gentle Southern accent if he lived to be a hundred. Every night, he heard it whispering to him in his dreams, its aching sadness charged with deeply hidden sensuality. Montana had a voice like butter, like a breeze on a hot day. It was the voice of a Southern Belle who had sought happiness once but had long forgotten what it was like. He held the phone to his ear and walked with it outside where his wife would not overhear. It was dark and cold on his sun porch, the moon and stars already out, bright and clear in the summer night.

  “Montana?” he whispered.

  “Temple, something awful has happened.”

  He could hear her soft exhalations as she said the words all parents dread:

  “Our son is missing.”

  He was silent.

  “Temple?”

  “I hear you. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Temple went inside for his sheriff’s jacket and car keys.

  *

  Temple was a deputy when he fell in love with her.

  He was assigned as protection for her husband Nelson Dolan and his family when an ex-employee called Trey Ramirez made some threats after he was fired for drinking at work. Trey Ramirez was a jailbird with a history of violence so his threats had to be taken seriously. He’d smashed up Nelson’s office and sprayed the walls with I’M GOING TO PAY YOU BACK. An arrest warrant was issued but nobody knew where he was. The fear was he would attack Nolan or his wife or his baby daughter.

  Temple guarded the Dolans for three months.

  At first Temple and Montana tried ignoring their mutual attraction, but as weeks turned into months they spent more and more time together – alone. She was a lonely woman – what she jokingly referred to as a business widow because her husband worked 24-7. Her husband had lost interest in her sexually after she had her first baby, Angela, who was sixteen months old. They still made love – but rarely. It was not enough for Montana.

  Temple was drawn to her like nobody before or since. They began their affair one weekend when Nelson was in New York. It started in a motel room and moved on to anywhere they could meet in secret. Their affair ended two weeks later when Trey Ramirez was captured breaking into the house. Temple was a hero for saving the Dolans, but it ended his assignment - and his romance. They both knew it was wrong, but he could not regret it. His love had been real. Their romance had only lasted two weeks but it felt like a lifetime of joy. They made love only seventeen times, but
that was six times more than Nelson and Montana had done in a year. One of those times made Montana pregnant. Bradley was his child, but nobody except them knew. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, Nelson was Brad’s real father.

  Temple had moved on by marrying Judy, a nurse who worked at the county hospital. He loved Judy … but when they made love he thought of Montana.

  *

  The Doland ranch was a soft glow among the low hills of Green Vale County until Temple drove around the final bend and then the ranch appeared in all its glory. It was huge and white and cost nine million dollars to build in the 1980s, when Nelson Dolan shifted his business offices to Green Vale County. Light was coming from a floodlit lawn that any pro football team could have used for practice. The lawn was luminous green, with a marble fountain in its centre, where a waterfall cascaded down a bronze sculpture of an oil pump. The sculpture was so accurate the pump went up and down. Nelson Doland had made his money in oil and loved the display of his wealth. Every light in the ranch was on, which made it seem like day as he drew up beside the entrance. He walked to the white doors and rang the bell.

  Nelson Dolan opened the door, frowning as he saw the sheriff standing there. “Oh. It’s you, Sheriff. I was hoping it was my son. What brings you here?”