by Carol Birch
When I turned back, something too white was crawling into the ring from the other side. A cold hand nipped the scruff of my neck. It came not quickly but steadily. One shoulder pointed forward. Low to the ground one arm, one leg, reaching together. It came at a crooked slant across the grass towards me, right up like a slow dog, face to the ground so that all I could see was the top of a cold bald head, sickeningly round like the head of a worm. Three feet away it stopped then turned up its head to look at me. Its neck grew disgustingly thin, stretched up and up towards me like a snake standing on its tail, with a round blank head on the end of it, white and faceless.
I screamed till I was mad and hoarse and woke up at the high point of nightmare, alone somewhere on the hillside below the stones, facing towards the woods and shivering like a dog.
37
All the cats came inside that night, all together, even the ones that never came in, even the ones that didn’t like each other.
That disturbed him. It seemed to mean something. What was out there freaking them out? He tried turfing some of them out the door but they just ran round the front and got in again through the old pipe.
He stood at his back door looking out towards the trees, couldn’t sleep. He didn’t want to know that stuff she’d told him, about her daughter. It had nothing to do with him. Now he felt awful. And the other daughter (you can’t believe a word she says) and Madeleine, back tomorrow they said. He felt like closing and locking all the doors and just pretending he wasn’t in when anyone knocked. He hadn’t asked for any of this. Honestly, you do your best and keep on and all this gets thrown at you. What the fuck was up with those cats? Skittering about like loonies.
‘Shut up!’ he yelled. His own voice was an affront to the darkness and silence of night. And anyway it had no effect, the whispering skittering went on, up and down the stairs, along the landing, in the kitchen. He closed the door, locked it, went upstairs and went to bed, leaving the landing light on.
So what?
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, turning away from the door so that the light didn’t disturb him too much, but half an hour later he was still wide awake, still listening to the whispering and skittering of the cats, their tiny paws never still. What time was it? Reached for his watch on the bedside table. Christ, only eleven. Surely not. Felt like three in the morning. What had happened? Had he lost some time? No, gained some time. No, didn’t know, just – this wasn’t right. Shouldn’t only be eleven. No wonder he couldn’t sleep. Too much was happening.
Might as well get up as lie here.
The fire was still glowing. Three cats on the sofa, all looking at him with their wide haunted eyes.
Two more in the armchair.
‘OK,’ he said, ‘so where am I supposed to sit?’
He threw some coals on the fire and shoved one of the cats off, the big orange one, making room for himself. Going deaf, that cat. It went and sat on the chair, looking like a grumpy old man. Like me, he thought.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said.
But the cat went on looking anyway, green eyes full of reproach.
‘So what you gonna do about it? Eh?’
The cat made a strange movement with its head as if it was about to charge but then thought better of it and settled down.
Everything was wrong. He sat there, just sat and sat and everything was wrong, and the night was hissing. No, that was just the fire. And all the hairs on his neck were on end.
Oh stop.
Stop.
And he thought of that woman still out there and was angry at her for making him feel bad. Packing her things. Where would she go? Fuck, what a life, eh? Horrible. Losing a child like that. And then the bloke buggering off. No wonder she was bonkers. Still. If she was normal, probably the daughter would take her. But then. No. Couldn’t see her and that daughter living happily together, wasn’t going to happen, was it? And I mean really, you had to see the daughter’s point of view.
‘What do you think?’ he asked the orange cat.
Fucked if I know, said the cat. Nothing to do with me.
Whatever, he thought. The poor daft thing’s probably harmless. Out there alone, mad. Could see her point. What’s it to them if she dies of cold? You just want to be alone in your head sometimes and they never leave you alone. He drew in a long stoical breath through his nostrils and stood up. Like it is sometimes, you don’t actually make a decision or think anything through, your body just does it for you, gets up and puts the guard on the fire, finds itself unlocking the back door, stands in the awful darkness at the top of the back steps, calls out: Are you OK?
And of course no one answers.
Because it’s all nonsense, life is nonsense.
He looked up at the incredible starry sky. Fuck, that’s amazing. His head spun. That’s real. What the fuck more do you want? Oh Christ, just go out. See what happens. He was shivering. Take it as it comes.
He walked to her den. The wood chuckled and rustled, the shadows pulsed, the whole place breathed at him. She wasn’t there. He went on to the old ruin. Every step recoiled. She wasn’t there but she was on the hill beyond. Bloody woman was mad, what was any normal person supposed to do? There went a shooting star. Make a wish. Can never think of one at the time. She was sitting with her back against one of the great stones, cuddling her rug.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Come down now,’ he said. ‘You’re not well.’
She stood up, very quickly it seemed to him, not in a natural way. Big man that he was, survivor of sea voyages, he was scared. He heard his teeth chatter, fast like a woodpecker, and that made him more scared.
‘Does the wood hate me?’ she asked. Her voice sounded funny, lower. ‘I can’t get my words out,’ she said and giggled.
She’s lost it, he thought. The thing, he thought, is to get her to take some of those pills. I should have brought them out with me.
‘Of course the wood doesn’t hate you,’ he said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m fucking sure.’
She took hold of his arm, her fingers urgent on his sleeve. ‘Why are you always so angry?’ she said.
‘I’m only angry when there’s something to be angry about.’ He shook her off. ‘Come down now, you’re not well.’
‘Listen,’ she said, as if she was hearing something.
‘No.’
‘Oh please,’ she said, ‘don’t be scared.’
This was all too embarrassingly intimate.
‘Come on now,’ he said, rough, ‘come on, you’re not well.’
‘Listen,’ she said more urgently, ‘I want to show you something. It’s not nice. Please.’ With her face crumpling.
‘Stop it!’ He took her arm above the elbow. ‘Pull yourself together! You come down to the house and have some tea and a lie down.’ He started pulling her, but she held back, surprisingly strong, crying out, ‘Wait!’
But he was stronger. He started walking her down the hill, pulling her along.
‘Please,’ she said, stopping short and digging in her heels, dragging him back by the arm. This moment of intimacy on the side of the hill was horrible and strange for him.
‘Oh, to hell with you,’ he suddenly shouted. ‘Just fuck off then, you’re nothing but a nuisance. A fucking nuisance, you fucking hear me, that’s all you fucking are, just a fucking useless human being, now fuck off and stop hanging round.’
And he walked off.
*
‘Well, if you won’t come,’ she whispered, and ran the other way, down and back into the wood, down to the edge of the great forest, full of shapes that wroil and coil in its black border.
The trees grew faces and fingers, arms. These I knew for pareidolia; you’re nothing, I said, mind-games, and ran out again near that cottage where we used to stay – and it was of course now just a sad old ruin, and no one seemed to have lived there for a long time. The windows were boarded up or invisible with dust, the
door locked with a padlock, all its old red paint hanging off in strips, and the garden was high with long-established weeds.
You can, of course, love and hate at the same time. I know it. It’s the darnedest thing. That’s an Americanism. Harry used to hate it when I said things like that. ‘For God’s sake, Mother,’ she’d say, ‘if you could hear how ridiculous you sound.’
Four years later Johnny came back.
I was alone in that old cottage where we’d watched the swarm. Harry hadn’t wanted to come. She stayed more and more at her friend Holly’s house these days, and when she was at home she hardly talked. It was all my fault, all. Losing her dad, losing her sister. Who else could she blame? I was sitting on the old bench in the garden, a strange sultry summer evening of silent intermittent lightning, working away with my diamond file, the one I’d saved up for, the one that slid against the silver like a knife on butter, on the leaves for a necklace, and I heard the creak of the gate, and there he suddenly was, the Demon Lover, beautiful as ever with his big brown eyes.
‘Hello, Lorna,’ he said.
He had blood on his face. A visiting ghost.
I said, ‘What do you want?’
‘What do you mean?’ He laughed softly. ‘It’s me.’
And like a ghost he scared me into a state where every passing moment that followed was swollen and too full.
‘How are you, Lor?’
‘You can’t do this,’ I said, and the voice coming out of my mouth arrived from far away, the other side of the heights. ‘Can’t just come back like this.’
‘Lorna – Lorna,’ he said. ‘Can I come in?’
The bench beside me was strewn with bits of jewellery and little sharp tools, beads, string, tiny pliers. I picked up my diamond file and smoothed away. ‘What for?’ I said, testing my voice, and yes, it still came from afar, further still, from up there somewhere in space.
‘What for? Oh Lorna! What for? Please, don’t be like this.’
He spoke as if everything was normal, as if he’d just returned from getting a pint of milk and some bits and pieces from the shop. And I, I was being so unreasonable.
‘What do you want?’ I said.
‘I want to come in.’ He sat down on a garden chair with his bag between his feet and stared at me, wild-eyed, as if I was some strange beast he’d never seen before. ‘Can’t I even come in, Lorna?’
In the Bhagavad Gita, before the great Battle of Kurukshetra, the warrior Arjuna, seeing in both armies the faces of his dearest friends and closest relations, is overcome with horror. In his anguish he turns to Krishna, and between the two hosts, god and warrior debate. Surely, surely, to kill all these people, friends and kin, would be a great sin. Better I should die. Why so? the god replies. Every soul has already lived and died more times than can be numbered. Strike or stay your hand – no matter. The one who kills believes that he is killing. The one who has been killed believes that he dies. They are both wrong, for one doesn’t die and the other doesn’t kill. The soul endures and will be born again. Please let morning come, the cock crow, and all dead people run back to their deep beds.
I knew what he’d done.
He smiled at me, deep in my eyes. ‘It’s so good to see you again, Lor,’ he said.
‘How did you get here?’ My voice was faint. ‘How did you know where I was?’
‘Rang Steve. Said you were here. I was up in Liverpool with Maurice.’
‘Maurice?’
All of these people were never supposed to come back. I was finished with all that.
‘Maurice. We came down from Liverpool together.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I came down from Liverpool with Maurice,’ he said again.
Didn’t make sense.
‘Is that where you’ve been all this time?’ Behind him I could see the stars coming out above the woods. ‘In Liverpool?’
‘No no no.’ And he waffled on and on. Half of it just went right through my head without trace. From time to time lightning flickered in the sky, eerily silent. He said he’d been in Ireland these past years. Always stayed in touch with Maurice – Maurice, the pride, the wonder – guess where he’s been. Guess! Istanbul! Fucking Istanbul!
Oh God, give him a medal.
‘Anyway, he’s back now,’ he said, ‘and he’s going to Paris. I don’t know what it is, it’s something important by the looks of things.’
‘Something important,’ I repeated like a machine.
‘Was up north, you know. That’s where he went. Met me in Liverpool and we came down together.’
I laid down my tools and my unfinished leaf.
‘Guess what?’ he said. ‘He was talking about God. Maurice. Can you imagine? I don’t mean in a naff sort of way but like deep, all these concepts.’
‘Did you do it?’ I said. ‘Did you do something to the car?’
‘Of course I didn’t!’
I knew at once he had.
Because he knew at once exactly what I meant. And his face, a wrongness in it, a guilty consciousness. He pressed on with a wild look in his eyes, and all that hardness I’d seen before was gone and there was just this shitscared little weasel who’d caused it all, though God knows what the poor weasel had done to earn its reputation for sneaky weakness. London, they were driving down, drop you here. Then Paris, ultimate destination, gosh how exciting, but the car wouldn’t start, horrible old banger, so we got on the train and you know he’s always wanted to see the Long Wights, so he got off in Gully and got that little bus but it only went as far as that other little village, what’s it called, so we walked up to the Wights and we were going to walk down the other side and round the edge of the wood to here, but then… and we’ve been up on the heights. And I said that he could maybe stay in the other bedroom or if you weren’t keen, cos like I said, we may have one or two things to sort out, he could find a B&B in the village…
‘He’s not here?’
‘Not any more.’
‘You can’t stay here,’ I said, ‘you can’t stay here and he can’t stay here.’
‘He was asking about you, Lor. How’s Lorna? he said.’
‘He’s not staying here.’
‘I know, Lor.’
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘Back to the station, I suppose.’
While he spoke his eyes had filled up, and now tears began pouring down his cheeks and his voice thickened.
‘There’s blood on your face,’ I said.
He wiped his face with his fingers and smiled.
He looked just like before.
‘I got in a fight,’ he said.
‘You? A fight?’
‘Yeah. With Maurice.’
38
The stars whispering above in that story-book sky. His face appeared again, still angry. It was between the moon and me. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ it said, ‘you make things impossible.’
I started to laugh.
Dan raised his eyes to the heavens.
I closed my eyes.
He jerked my arm and shook me.
I don’t know how it was that I found myself in his house again. I don’t remember getting there and I didn’t want to go in.
‘No, no,’ I said.
He said, ‘Stop it! Stop all this!’
‘I was going somewhere,’ I cried.
‘No you’re not.’ He pulled me and made me go in. I was on the sofa, he brought me some pills and a glass of water and stood there till I’d taken them.
‘Pills to purge melancholy,’ I said, and laughed.
The fire was out and it was cold so I put the rug I brought from my den over my knees. I tried to talk but he wouldn’t hear a word, he was furious, he lit a fire roughly but with tender skill, and I watched his stupid wide capable back and it made me cry.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t help.’
‘It’s only water,’ I said, ‘just water that comes out of the eyes.’ The fire was blazing up and
the cat on the end of the settee purred in content, folding its paws underneath its dirty white chest. I hid my face in the cushion and tried to be asleep in the hope that on some other morning I might wake and find that I knew what to do. He drank from the bottle. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I’ll call your daughter. She can deal with this.’
I was sleepy. ‘I’ll move on tomorrow,’ I said from the cushion, ‘don’t you worry your pretty little head.’
He almost smiled. ‘You should get some sleep,’ he said.
‘It’s no good.’ I opened my eyes and lifted my head. ‘I won’t sleep. I’m wide awake. I don’t ever sleep.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘I don’t. I haven’t slept for days.’
‘You probably do sleep, you just don’t notice.’
I reached out and picked up the little wooden dog from the table and turned it round in my hands. It had a face and detailed little paws. ‘You’re quite talented, aren’t you?’ I said.
But when I looked up he’d gone. I slid away. Sometimes I woke, sometimes he was there, sometimes not. He kept the fire fed. I kept sliding away and coming back again. ‘Dan,’ I said one time, finding him there, reaching out and holding his calloused hand, ‘can I tell you?’
‘What?’ he said unwillingly.
My strange confessor.
*
I’m the evil baron. I did that thing. It’ll never ever go away. Lock it away in a haunted house, up in the attic, down in a deep dark wood. Done is eternal and so is the proof, eternal though buried. All that remains is the boiling oil.
*
‘Lor, can I have a cup of tea? I’m parched.’
‘You should go.’
‘Go? It’s me! What are you talking about?’