The Unquiet House

by Alison Littlewood

  His mother was silent. Everything was still. Then she grabbed hold of his shoulder and shook him, just as she had at the funeral. ‘Now, Frank. I’ll not have any o’ your nonsense. Not now, not ever again. Do you hear?’

  ‘It’s not nonsense. I saw him, after ’e’d gone, only—’

  She got hold of his arm once more and Frank looked down at her fingers pressing into his coat. The last time she’d held him that way she’d left red marks on his skin. He wondered if they’d appear again in exactly the same place. She started to pull him away, back down the slope. ‘Mum, no—’

  He wanted to tell her that he still had the yew in his pocket, that he hadn’t left it for the old man. But it was no use; it was never any use. She wouldn’t listen to him. It was like before, when he’d tried to tell her about the suit. Some things were for grown-ups and some things were for children, and he should have learned to keep his mouth shut.

  He followed at her heels, keeping close so that she didn’t pull too hard. They rounded the corner of the church but instead of heading down towards the lych-gate and home, she led him around the path and up to the church door. She didn’t pause but hauled on the heavy iron ring and the door swung open onto darkness and dust. Her shoes tapped on the stone as if she knew exactly where she was going.

  Then she stopped and swung him around. ‘You’re a nasty little liar, Frank.’

  He blinked. Nasty little thief, he thought, but he didn’t say anything.

  She jabbed a finger towards the altar. Her face had gone red. ‘You should ask forgiveness.’

  ‘But Mum, I did see ’im. And before that, I saw a wo—’

  The slap, when it came, was hard. Frank stared at her, stunned. It took a moment for his cheek to begin to sting. He didn’t put his hand to it; more shocking even than the movement or the pain or the fact that it was his mother who had inflicted it was the look upon her face. Her breathing was hard and heavy as if she’d been running. What was worse than her fury, though, was the look in her eyes before she’d struck him: it was her fear.

  ‘Mum – I don’t think ’e means us any harm, not really. I don’t think that’s—’

  ‘Shut up. Shut up, Frank.’ She leaned in close and he saw tears welling in her eyes. She pulled away and rubbed at them with her sleeve. Then she caught her breath. ‘You’ll not tell tales,’ she said, ‘not again, you hear? They’re not good tales and I’ll not hear them. Never again.’ She held up her hand when he tried to answer. ‘You’ll make up for it. You’ll ask God’s forgiveness. That’s wha’ you’ll do. An’ then you’ll come straight ’ome and we’ll ’ave our tea and you’ll say nowt to your dad and nowt to our Mossy, an’ if I ever catch you talkin’ o’ such things ever again – finished things, things that are ower—’ her eyes narrowed, ‘there’ll be hell to pay for it, our Frank.’

  He didn’t dare move and he didn’t dare to look away but then she broke eye contact and walked away from him, clip-clip-clip, down the aisle. The door thudded behind her. He just stood there; he wasn’t sure for how long. He only knew that the cold spread up from the stone floor and into his ankles and around his knees and up his back. It went deepest, though, around his arm, where his mother had gripped him so tightly. And then he started to cry.

  After a while he stopped. There was no point in crying any longer. No one had come and even if someone had, he wouldn’t want them to see him crying like that.

  He realised he was standing by the pew he’d sat in that Sunday, so long ago. He edged into it, shuffling along the seat until he was in the place he’d sat with his mum next to him, and his dad and Mossy. He’d been in trouble then too, though it hadn’t been half so bad as this. Now he felt empty. There was a depth to his mother’s rage he couldn’t fathom; usually her rages made sense. Usually, he could see them coming.

  He kicked against the wood, sending echoes up into the shadowy rafters. The altar was a plain white table with a silver cross sitting on it. His mum liked to come and help polish it sometimes. He wondered if that would make her feel better now; probably not.

  ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ – they’d sung it that day. He screwed up his face and kicked harder. He’d had a bad thought then too, hadn’t he? The vicar had said something about endurance and Frank had fleetingly wondered why anyone would want to keep faith with God if he only made bad things happen to them. Then he remembered something else and he bent and looked under the pew in front. There it was, the kneeling cushion, still soiled with mud from Matthew James’ boots. He closed his eyes and imagined his mother’s voice saying, the mucky pup. His lip twitched; he almost smiled. Then he slipped off his seat and he knelt and started to brush the dried earth from the fabric.

  You’ll make up fer it, his mum had said. Well, maybe he was making up for it, not for lying but for everything else he’d done; for the old man. Maybe this – doing something to help, something with his hands, was better after all. And it was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  He finished cleaning up as best he could and slipped the cushion back under the seat. He actually felt better now, calmer. Ready to go home. He had a feeling his mum wouldn’t say anything about this – you’ll say nowt – but she’d let him know he was in trouble all the same, banging his plate down in front of him or giving him the burnt bits for his dinner. He’d know and so would the others, but none of them would say a thing.

  He sighed. He felt older somehow, as if he’d learned some important lesson; he just wasn’t sure he knew what it was. He looked up at the altar again before he left. At least he’d tried. He’d tried to make up for whatever it was he had done, even though when he looked up at the church he couldn’t see God, but every time he looked up at the old house the old man was staring back at him.

  He shook his head. It was probably another thought he shouldn’t have had, and now he would most likely be late too. Late for dinner, just the thing to make his mum even angrier. Or more afraid, he thought, but he didn’t know why.

  He turned to leave the church, a place where his mind only seemed to turn to darker things, to head back home where he belonged. The door banged behind him as if it was glad to see him go. He looked up and saw his mother coming down the path; she had come for him after all, maybe even forgiven him. Then he saw her expression and he knew that she had not.

  ‘Where’s Mossy?’ she called out. ‘I sent ’im to fetch yer for tea.’

  Something cold happened inside him. It started down deep and spread up his spine. And then Frank started to run.

  *

  Frank ran so hard that his breath burned him and his lungs felt tight. The mire was ahead of him but it was Mossy he saw, his wide-open eyes, his bright grin.

  Mossy. Frank opened his mouth to shout his name and somehow no sound came out and then the bridge was there, but somehow it was more than the bridge; it was a border. He could see each flake of rust on the handrail. He staggered to a halt and retched. If he crossed it, he would know. There wouldn’t be any room for perhaps he’s gone up to the fields, or to Sam and Jeff’s. He breathed heavily, leaning on his knees and clutching those thoughts close. Then he let them go. He knew it wasn’t any use hanging onto something that wasn’t real.

  He had a vivid image of a flash of colour amid the reeds, those endless reeds, his hand reaching out and seizing on his brother’s coat, and then he couldn’t help it; he was sick onto the grass in a sudden wet spatter. Inside, though, he could hear another sound; the sticky crunch of Mr Owen’s face hitting the walkway.

  He straightened. He knew there wasn’t anything else to be done. He couldn’t think where else Mossy might have gone. The woman was real and the boy who was with her and now his brother was with them. He didn’t know how he knew that, but deep down, he did. He took a last rasping breath and then he stepped onto the bridge.

  Nothing happened. He looked down and something glittered against the concrete: the shine of broken glass. Revenge, he thought; the old man wanted revenge after all, and then he shook his head �
�� no – and he ran again, not stopping this time until he stood among the reeds, and the throb of his heartbeat was replaced by the rustle as he pushed them aside and he saw what it was they held.

  His brother was there, but he was different now. There were his face and his hands and his short, soft hair, but his brother had gone just the same, somewhere Frank couldn’t reach, and he couldn’t unsee it; he knew he would never stop seeing it.

  He opened his mouth to cry out but it was his own name he heard, Frank, and it was his mother’s voice as his knees gave and he fell forward into the marsh and went into the dark, a place where there was nothing and no one at all.

  PART THREE

  1939 – The Last Stook

  CHAPTER ONE

  Aggie looked down at her arms in dismay. Her pale skin was reddened and hatched with lines where the barley had scratched her. She was coming out in a rash too; it would be a wonder if no one thought that she had the measles. The midges were biting and the sun was burning down on the top of her head and as she bent, the heat shifted to her back. The chatter-rattle of the binder filled her mind, though other sounds occasionally crept in beneath it: the low hum of bees, the snorting of the horses, the shouts of her brother Will and her dad, and the steady thwock-thwock-thwock of metal on stone beneath it all, coming from the big house.

  She turned towards it. From here all she could see was the gentle curve of the field, each heavy ear of barley blending into a smooth stretch of near-whiteness. The line was broken only by the sharp triangle of the church spire and the merest suggestion of a chimney top beyond that, but she knew what stood there; the new house that nestled into the plot between the church and the river. Soon, she thought, and smiled: soon.

  ‘Moocher!’ The call rang out and she turned to see Will standing tall on the binder. He pointed. ‘Sheaves!’

  She pulled a face. The binder kept missing; a scatter of stalks lay like jackstraws. That was the reason she was here. They needed someone to trail in their wake, getting prickled by cut stems and stray thistles and the long hairs that surrounded the barley, smooth as silk along their length but barbed at the tip so that when one snagged in her cuffs, they worked all the way down her sleeves. It wasn’t fair; she would never stop someone from doing what they wanted to do, from becoming what they needed to be. She straightened, smoothing down her shirt. For a fleeting moment she pictured the hallway in the new house, full of people wearing silks and ostrich feathers and holding glasses of champagne while a gramophone played.

  Perhaps there would be young men there too. Perhaps some of them might like to dance.

  ‘Aggie! Stop dithering about!’

  She grabbed the spilled barley, pulling it into a thick bundle, the ears brushing her cheek. There was a splash of colour in it, bright red – she knew it wasn’t blood, she had only been scratched, not cut – and she discarded the poppy, cut down along with the rest. She stood and went to gather the sheaves into a stook, leaning them together so that the rain would run off and the wind dry them, though not so steeply that the very next breeze would blow them down. For a second she was surrounded by a float of golden chaff that caught the sunlight and she closed her eyes against it. It was a beautiful day, a rare day. It occurred to her in that moment, standing in the warmth and the clean air, that some of the visitors to the big house might be rich.

  She half-smiled, smoothing down her headscarf over her hair. Her mother had curled it so carefully the night before. Her smile faded as she caught her ear, feeling the flare of pain where her mother had burnt the tip with the tongs she’d heated on the stove.

  The binder was settling at last, the arrhythmic rattles becoming a continual chatter, the smooth dry swish of the blades neat and clean. The sheaves thrown down ahead of her were all neatly bound. She smiled again, moving after it to build the next stook. The last time she’d glanced across the field they had done so little, and now they were almost finished; only a narrow strip remained. She grimaced at the thought even as Will straightened, grinning, looking towards it.

  ‘Rabbit pie tonight, Ag!’

  She wrinkled her nose at him as her dad went to the lead horse’s head and began the clumsy job of turning them. They were the only ones she knew who hadn’t yet changed to a tractor; her dad ‘didn’t hold’ with them. The arc was wide but Dad did it as expertly as he always had, lining up the binder square against the row. They were facing into the sun and she squinted as the remaining barley became a white blur.

  ‘Ready,’ her dad said. His voice, gruff and impossible to counter, carried easily.

  Will’s grin was wider than ever. From somewhere – she hadn’t even seen him stash it – he’d grabbed a pitchfork. ‘Shan’t be long now,’ he said. And the approach began, the blades spinning in a constant empty whirr, the machinery champing, and then came the sharper, dry sound of cutting. It sounded louder than ever and Aggie wanted to cover her ears. She could see the barley beginning to move along the canvas but it seemed to her that everything was still; the sense of waiting hung in the air like chaff, an unbearable lightness, and then came a dark flash in the corner of her vision as the first rabbit broke for cover. Will whooped, striding towards it, but it was too quick. It pelted across the rows until only the white flash of its tail remained, and then there was not even that. She smothered her own grin as it reached the safety of the long grass.

  But it was only the first. It always went the same way: the field’s small creatures retreating as the binder drew inwards until the very last of the crop was cut. They never did run until it was too late. Some were running now, but Will didn’t give chase. They were small, only visible because of their movement against the brown earth: nothing but shrews and mice.

  The binder moved onwards and another rabbit ran. This one headed straight towards them in its panic and Aggie winced. She could already see what would happen. It was written in the curve of her brother’s back as he raised the pitchfork, in his broad shoulders and ready muscles; the concentration on his face. She didn’t watch the rabbit, but she couldn’t look away from her brother as his arm twitched. He struck, the movement fluid and sure. She didn’t look at where the blades landed, but she heard the meaty strike of blood and bone.

  She wasn’t sure if the creature had cried out, but she imagined it anyway, a single high squeal that hung in the air, lingering even though the binder was even now spilling unbound sheaves from its innards and its endless rattle went on around them all.

  Will pulled the pitchfork from the ground – it took two yanks to get it free – and he bent. When he straightened he swung a small limp thing from his hand, the fur stained and dampened. He turned towards the last of the barley and his face lit up. She knew there must be others, running for cover, but she couldn’t bring herself to watch.

  It wasn’t their death – she had seen death before, many times; she had watched her mother catching chickens and wringing their necks, her hands strong and sure, and had done it herself, growing in competence each time. No, it was the fear that troubled her. It was the thought of how their terror must have grown, little by little, as their homes were taken from them. It was the thought of all the things they must feel or imagine in their frozen silence, able only to watch as their death approached.

  There were stalks spilled all around her now. She would gather them up and build the sheaves and the stook and then she would be finished. She could go inside and sluice away the seeds and barbs and dust. She could release her curled hair, change her dungarees for smooth stockings and try not to think about the death-squeal of the rabbit as they all sat down for tea, her and Mum and Dad and Will, for soon her new life would begin and she’d never have to think about it ever again.

  It occurred to her now that if the rabbits had only planned their escape, broken for cover sooner, while everyone was busy, they would have been safe. And yet that just made it worse, more pitiable: the way they had simply hidden, letting their fear grow; the way they had never known when the time had come to run.
r />   CHAPTER TWO

  Aggie lay back on her bed, letting the tiredness settle about her, the aches intensifying and fading by turns along her spine. She had washed in cold water drawn from the pump but now she felt warm again, the heat of the sun still gathered in her little room over the kitchen. Below, she could hear the clatter of pots and the rattle of pans. Soon the rich smell of her mother’s stew began to rise through the gaps between the floorboards.

  She closed her eyes, the hunger growing in her belly. She tried not to think of the rabbit; instead, she pictured the smooth tiled floors of the big house.

  Mrs Hollingworth, the lady of the house, had come down from London for a day to oversee the proceedings. She had worn an elegant dress with a matching coat that she hadn’t removed, though the day had been warm. Her hair looked freshly curled and it shone and she had a gold pencil in her hand, though she hadn’t had any paper. Her expression had been a little reserved and Aggie had decided it was a sign of her superiority, her good breeding, that she hadn’t smiled. She was proud at the thought of working for someone like her, someone with such self-possession. Mrs Hollingworth was dark-haired and her complexion was pale, and she had imagined her in the bustle of London, not that shell of a house which didn’t yet have glass in its windows. Solemn was the word that came to mind, followed by dignified. Mrs Hollingworth’s mouth had twitched, though, when she smoothed her hand down over her belly. It was as if she was already picturing the house full of children. Even with the pregnancy just visible under her coat she still looked like a lady. But then, she was a lady. She had a fine new house being finished around her, and beautiful clothes. What need had she of smiles? And then Aggie thought of washing those clothes, scrubbing those tiles clean, of keeping a house much finer than her mother’s – and of actually being paid to do it – and she grinned even wider.