The Cheesemaker's House

by Jane Cable

  “Looks like it. But Alice, what is it we’ve seen? A ghost?”

  “I don’t know, I...” My hand flies to my mouth. “Adam! We’ve got to tell Adam it wasn’t Owen you saw – he’s breaking his heart up there. Come on.”

  “Perhaps you’d better go on your own. I’m not right comfy with Adam, you know.”

  I grab his wrist. “Oh no, Richard, this is no time for a bout of homophobia; Adam mightn’t believe it if I tell him, but he’ll have to believe a firsthand account.”

  When we arrive Margaret is sitting with Adam in the kitchen. She offers us tea but I refuse, saying I’m drowning in the stuff. Adam is so dazed he doesn’t even question why Richard is there but Margaret looks at us expectantly.

  “Richard was the one who saw Owen jump off the bridge – but now we’ve talked about it we’ve realised it wasn’t Owen at all.”

  At this point Adam does acknowledge Richard. “Crap, Alice. He’s just saying that to get into your good books now Owen’s gone. He’s had the hots for you since the day you arrived.”

  “No – it’s not like that at all. It was me who realised it couldn’t have been Owen because the person Richard saw jump was wearing a cream shirt.”

  “You mean there were two people throwing themselves into the river this morning? Get real, Alice.”

  I want to shake him. “Adam – what Richard saw was the other Owen. I didn’t see where he went because I was too busy trying to catch our Owen, but he must have headed for the river too.”

  “The other Owen?” Adam is more thoughtful now. “I suppose if you can see him, and Owen did, then there’s no reason why Richard shouldn’t...”

  “I’ve seen him before, too,” Richard interrupts, “only I thought it was our Owen at the time – I was just a bit surprised when he didn’t acknowledge me.”

  “Excuse me,” butts in Margaret, “what on earth are you on about?”

  So for the third time today I tell the story of the other Owen.

  I expect Margaret to be highly sceptical but she isn’t. In fact, she passes no judgement at all, just nods occasionally, and when I have finished starts on a tale of her own.

  “Owen’s gran used to tell a story about a young man who killed himself by jumping off that bridge. I couldn’t get it out of my mind in church – I kept thinking that Owen must have known the story too and perhaps that was what had put the idea into his head.”

  Richard looks ashen. “So you think it could have been this other guy’s ghost I saw?”

  Margaret nods.

  “What else do you know about him?” I ask, but my voice comes out hoarse.

  “Well the story goes that he fell in love with a girl who was secretly engaged to someone else. The lad had always been a bit wild, but he went completely off the rails when he found out he couldn’t have her, drinking and wenching, as they put it then – it was even said he fathered an illegitimate child but he never acknowledged it. Still he tried to persuade the woman he loved to marry him but she would not break her word to her fiancé and in the end he drowned himself in the river.”

  It’s only a story but the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I start to shiver. A chill creeps through me from head to foot.

  Margaret asks if I’m alright and I shake my head. “I think I’ll just go home and have a lie down. It’s probably delayed shock – I’ll be OK.”

  She reaches over the table and squeezes my hand. “That sounds like a very good idea, Alice.”

  Back in my own bedroom I draw the curtains against the sun. On the floor next to the window is Owen’s T-shirt – he didn’t even stop to put it on. I pick it up and bury my face in it. It smells of his sweat, and the washing powder he uses, with just a hint of his deodorant. It smells just like Owen and I cannot bear it. I cannot bear to think of him out there, somewhere. I cannot bear to think of him suffering. But more than anything, I cannot bear to put the T-shirt down and I sit on the side of the bed, waiting for the tears to come. But nothing happens.

  I put my face to the T-shirt again. I picture Owen washing the tearstains from his face yesterday evening then pulling it over his head. He’d done a good job – I hadn’t noticed he’d been crying and he hadn’t told me – not anything about the row with Adam. The familiar hurt surges up with a vengeance; I love him so much, but I know him so little. And yet – I know him so well, too. Sometimes, I feel I even know what he isn’t saying. But not this time. When it all came falling down on top of him, he didn’t tell me and he ran away from me. How can I mean anything to him?

  I want to shelve the hurt but I can’t because it’s almost physical. It is gnawing into my stomach and chest like a rat. I didn’t know emotional pain could feel this way. I hug the T-shirt to me, trying to make the feeling so acute that the bubble will burst. I can hear Owen’s voice telling me that it was inevitable he would hurt me and I wonder if even then he was planning to kill himself.

  The thought brings me to my senses; it wasn’t Owen who jumped from the bridge this morning. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t Owen. But as for where he is…I would sell my soul to the devil just to be able to answer that one.

  I sit on the bed for hours, but I don’t cry. Eventually I start to feel cold so I crawl under the duvet. I fall into an exhausted sleep and – rather inevitably – I dream about Owen.

  I am watching from a window as a mob of people banging pots and pans surround him, chanting words I can’t quite make out. In the middle of the crowd are two teenage boys on stilts, but one of them has flowers in his hair and they are bumping and grinding their bodies together like some lewd circus act. Owen is ignoring them and trying to push through the mass.

  His way is barred by the boys on stilts and two women grab him from behind while some of the men pull his leggings from him and lift up his shirt to expose him to the crowd, who are now pointing and jeering loudly. I feel my face glow crimson – I have never seen a man’s intimate parts before and I am burning with shame. I turn away from the window and feel myself falling, falling forever into a blackness where all I can hear is the thudding of my heart.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  This morning is happening to two Alice’s at the same time. There is the practical, business-like Alice, sitting in Owen’s kitchen with Adam, trying to work out what we will tell the police and what we won’t – and there is the totally messed-up Alice who cannot quite believe that pain can be so sudden, so intense.

  Luckily the business-like Alice is winning, because it is the last term you could apply to Adam. He’s all over the place – a total mess, inside and out. Unwashed, unshaven – I don’t think he even went to bed, given he’s wearing the same T-shirt as yesterday. His face is puffy, his eyes red-rimmed – he has been shedding enough tears for both of us.

  I take command. We have to decide how much we are going to tell the police. Owen is so private he won’t want them to know anything about his life. Obviously we can’t breathe a word about the other Owen and there is no way I’m going to let on how Owen was about the baby in the barn. So just what are we left with as a plausible explanation for him taking off like that, and as far as they are concerned, taking his own life?

  We can only come up with one thing. “The pressures of running the business,” says Adam. “The hours he puts in when he shouldn’t be wasting his life fucking waiting tables.” He buries his head in his hands “It’s all my fault.”

  “No, Adam, it’s not. It was so many things, one on top of the other, it wasn’t just the row you had on Saturday and if anything it was my actions that started...”

  “You did the right thing. You saw how shattered Owen was when I refused to. I should have done something weeks ago, but...”

  “Listen, Adam. We can’t keep blaming ourselves – it’s pointless. We’ve just got to do what we can to protect Owen’s interests now. We’ve got to find him, Adam – we’ve got to make him come back. If we just sit and wallow we’ll get nowhere. Maybe…maybe the police would even help if
Richard did tell them he wasn’t sure...”

  “Oh Alice, of course they won’t. You just don’t get it. They’re only interested because they’re looking for a body. We’ve got to hope they’ll actually find Owen alive along the way – or some clue to his whereabouts anyway. Otherwise he’s just another missing person and they’ll do sod all.”

  “What do you mean, some clue?”

  “I…I dunno.”

  But the police do find something. When they arrive to take statements from Adam and me they bring the items that the diving team took out of the river. The policewoman pulls out four little clear plastic bags and lays them on the table in front of us. In the first bag is a bunch of keys I recognise as Owen’s.

  “They’re Owen’s keys.” My voice is almost a whisper. The key to the front door of this house, the ignition key to his Peugeot, and the two little keys that look like they open cupboards or boxes. All attached to a battered York Minster souvenir key ring. I look at Adam.

  “That’s his phone, too,” he says, pointing to another bag.

  “Lots of people have Nokia 7110s.” I don’t want to believe it; I’ve been texting Owen on and off and I can’t bear the thought that he won’t receive any of my messages; then I really would have no way of contacting him.

  Adam picks up the bag. “It is Owen’s. See where the bottom corner of the case is cracked? He dropped it down the stairs in the multi-storey in Leeds. It fell into three pieces, but it still worked when he put it back together. He was amazed. He told me about six times...” He tails off, choking back yet more tears. He has so many memories of Owen to haunt him. I only have a few weeks’ worth – he has years.

  But instead of crying again he looks straight at the policeman and starts to talk. “Owen and I run a business and to be honest the money side of things isn’t great– we only started at Easter and he’s worked all hours...”

  “You both have,” I interrupt.

  “Yes, but all I have to do is bake. Owen does everything else. It’s been a terrific strain...”

  There is a silence and then the policewoman asks, “Did either of you think he might have tried to take his own life?”

  Adam doesn’t answer. Did I? Did I even consider it before? “No.” It’s the truth, but my voice doesn’t sound as firm as I want it to.

  Once the ordeal is over I walk back down the village to New Cottage. Margaret is in the garden and she gives me a big bony hug.

  “Come on,” she says, “there’s plenty to do in the greenhouse.”

  It is while we are re-potting spidery looking bits of green she assures me will grow into lupins that Margaret asks me whether I will be helping Adam in the café from now on. The question stops me in my tracks.

  “I hadn’t thought about the café,” I admit.

  “Well you should. Adam can’t mope at home all day and anyway, it’s his and Owen’s livelihood. He shouldn’t waste all their hard work now, but neither can he run it on his own.”

  “But how are we going to look for Owen if we’re running the café?” I ask.

  “How are you going to look for Owen anyway? Where would you start? He could be anywhere, Alice – anywhere.”

  “But we’ve got to try.”

  She puts her hands on my shoulders. “Alice, child. He’s run away because he doesn’t want to be found. Not at the moment, anyway.” Margaret is so wise, but the words hit home like hammer blows, starving me of air. Something ugly wells up behind the lump in the top of my chest; not a scream, not a howl, not a sob. Margaret takes me in her arms and rocks me. I can smell the moist potting compost, I can hear the birds singing, but I really do not want to feel.

  In the evening Christopher turns up. He’s wearing his dog collar under his jumper so I guess it’s an official visit. He stands at the front door clasping and unclasping his hands.

  “I just wondered how you are?” he ventures.

  “I don’t know,” I answer truthfully.

  “No news about Owen?”

  I look into his anxious face and remember that he and Owen are good friends. I shake my head, “But come in, I shouldn’t keep you on the doorstep.”

  I lead him through the chill of the dining room and into the kitchen. “I was just going to have a glass of wine – will you join me?” Actually, I’d been going to have about half a bottle of gin so perhaps Christopher’s arrival has saved me from myself.

  I give him the bottle to open while I find the glasses. He looks at the label.

  “Owen liked this one, didn’t he? He’d often bring a bottle over if he had an evening to spare.”

  “It is one of his favourites, yes.”

  “He was quite knowledgeable about wine. We used to talk about all sorts of stuff,” Christopher carries on. “He was one of the few people who never lost the art of conversation.”

  It is only then I realise Christopher is talking about Owen in the past tense. I set the glasses on the table and turn to face him. “Owen isn’t dead,” and as I say it I pray for it to be true.

  “He’s not? You said you hadn’t had any news.”

  “We haven’t. Well, they haven’t found him. They’ve…they’ve found his keys and his phone – but not Owen.”

  “Alice, I don’t want to take away your hope, but in the long term it might be better to face facts.”

  “There are no facts.”

  “Margaret said someone saw him jump off the bridge. If that’s the case...”

  “They were wrong.”

  “Alice...”

  I don’t hear what he says because it suddenly occurs to me how I must sound given Christopher doesn’t have the full story. But how would he react to the whole story? He might still think I am deluding myself…but it’s worth a try.

  “It was Richard Wainwright who saw it happen,” I interrupt, “but we now know he was mistaken. The person…whatever…he saw, was wearing a light shirt. Owen wasn’t.”

  “So you’re saying Richard saw someone else?”

  “Or something.” So once again I embark on the tale of the other Owen, finishing my story with a rather limp, “I don’t expect that sort of thing fits in too well with a Christian view of the world.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. As a Christian I have to accept there are many things we don’t understand; how echoes reach us from another time or place, for example. To be honest the idea fascinates me.”

  “Echoes from another time or place? That’s a good way of putting it. Maybe that’s even what the crying is.”

  “The crying?”

  So I start again, this time with the story of the sobbing. How I first heard it, then how Richard did, and how it came back with a vengeance just after the baby’s body was found. But then I grind to a halt and pick up my glass, swirling the wine round and round, watching the legs form and drain away.

  Christopher is looking at me quizzically and finally he asks, “Do you feel able to tell me the rest?”

  I gather my thoughts. “Owen is a great believer in the power of your prayers.”

  “That’s comforting to know. Especially as I will be saying a lot more of them until he’s found.”

  I take another slug of wine and plunge on. “Remember the prayer you said for the baby on Friday night? Well on Saturday I heard the crying again. Well, I had on Friday too but I didn’t say anything to Owen but I think, looking back, maybe he had as well, I can’t be sure…But anyway, he said he was going to the barn and I begged to go with him and he made us both kneel by the grave and he just said your prayer over and over, like a man possessed…I should have known something was badly wrong then, but I…well, I really let him down.”

  I am amazed how much of a relief it is to say the words out loud. Perhaps because Christopher is a priest I feel his knowing might give me some sort of absolution.

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Christopher murmurs.

  “I’m sure I did. I was just so…I don’t know, shocked isn’t the word, or scared…by what he was doing, once he�
�d said Amen and let go of my arm I just crawled out onto the lawn. After a while he came and picked me up. And he was totally himself again, worried I’d get wet with the dew, but I couldn’t handle it at all. He wanted to hug me, but I wouldn’t let him. I…I had to force myself to take his hand to go back inside. I…I don’t think we even spoke. But I should have known. I should have talked to him, not let my own fears get the better of me. He must have thought I’d abandoned him too.”

  “Too?”

  “He’d had a row with Adam. He didn’t tell me about it, though. But now Adam’s beating himself up and I’m telling him not to, while all the time…Listen, Christopher, I know this isn’t completely my or Adam’s fault, but...”

  “You can’t help the way you feel. It’s natural, under the circumstances.”

  “I know that too.” I try to smile at him. “Anyway, tomorrow we’re opening the café again so with any luck we’ll be too busy to dwell on it.”

  “That’s a brave thing to do, Alice.”

  “Margaret talked us into it. Said it was no use moping and Adam needs to make a living. I thought Adam would be dead against it, but he seems to think it’s the least he can do – to make sure there’s a business here for when Owen comes back.”

  “I think he will come back, Alice. When he’s got things straight in his mind.”

  Assuming that his mind is capable of getting straight, of course.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  It is just as well Adam and I turn up early to open the café. I peer through the picture window as Adam unlocks the door. The tables are clear of crockery but I can see mug rings on the nearest one and cake crumbs on the floor. A newspaper hangs off the seat of a chair.

  Inside it is no better. Cups and plates are piled high in the kitchen and there are stale grounds in the coffee machine. The first thing I do is open all the windows. Adam stacks the dishwasher before he starts to bake while I haul Henry the hoover across the floor. This is the easy bit; smiling at customers will be much more difficult.

  But I cope. I am familiar with the coffee machine and the till so I navigate the early morning rush with little problem. When people ask why we weren’t open yesterday I apologise and blame a failure to our power supply. It’s the story Adam and I have agreed. Everything is fine until one of the elderly regulars says: