by Chris Ward
I wanted to ask Matty instead, but he just stared at me with horrible eyes. I looked around behind me at the fire burning in the grate, and couldn’t help but wonder why Matty hates me so. Daddy loves me, but Matty hates me. Only Daddy and Uncle Red seem to love me, now Mummy’s gone. She can’t really give me love when she looks so cold peering in through the glass.
Maybe she might surprise us all, and come back for Christmas. Who knows, diary? Who knows??
12
Matt thought the late night walk would have cleared his hangover. But no, there it was, thudding away at the inside of his skull as he awoke, like a heavy metal band warming up for a farewell tour. He gripped his temples with his fingertips, and squeezed as though he might squash the pain out through his eyes.
‘Fucking . . . hell.’
Even now he couldn’t remember how many glasses of whiskey he had shared with his father. The whole evening was little more than a blur, but no matter, he had to push it out of his mind.
His sister was getting buried later today.
He climbed out of bed, took a brief shower, and threw on some fresh clothes. He hung the damp ones from yesterday over a radiator, despite a small, hand–written note pinned to the back of the door that warned him otherwise. He slipped on his shoes and stumbled downstairs to catch the tail end of breakfast.
Mrs. Carter had cleared away the breakfast things for the other guests, but with a little persuasion agreed to cook Matt a small fry-up, them being old friends and all that. He gobbled down the bacon and eggs greedily, ignored the tomato juice on his chin and spooned down the beans and mushrooms. Nothing helped the hangover, but at least he satiated his hunger.
As he sat back at the table, sipping on a strong coffee, he remembered vaguely that his father had gone over the funeral arrangements last night. Yes, the service would be held in the church in Tamerton, with a small private goodbye up at the old chapel, and a reception back at the house. Matt’s assistance wasn’t required in anything; he came as a guest alone. Which, of course, suited him fine.
Matt thanked Mrs. Carter and went outside. He needed a little fresh air, thought it might help his head. The service was due to begin at one, which gave Matt a few hours to kill. He paused only briefly, remembering that the pub wouldn’t open until eleven, and then turned on to the road that headed up the hill toward the moor.
The fog had partially lifted, some of it burned off by the dim, hidden sun. It was still chilly, though, and Matt had to stuff his cold–stiffened fingers into the pockets of his jacket for warmth. Only the graze on his right hand gave off any heat, in the form of a tingling, numbing pain.
He could cope with the imposing atmosphere during daylight, even the sudden flood of nerves and trepidation as he crossed over the cattle grate on to the moor. He didn’t want to go close, just close enough. Late at night, with his head muggy from sleep and too much whiskey, he couldn’t be sure what his eyes had seen. Dreams were beginning to cross over an invisible line into consciousness with alarming regularity.
That’s what a place like this does to you.
The road, in poor condition and barely wider than a single lane, led across the moor towards Princeton, where Dartmoor Prison stood, and then on to Plymouth, but Matt turned off after some hundred yards and headed downhill across the spongy grass, sheep and wild ponies ambling lazily out of range as he got near. A couple of derelict buildings rose up ahead of him and to either side, the remains of a long abandoned military base. Dating back to the Second World War, the low, arch–roofed buildings had been silos for ammunition and storage buildings for an airbase a couple of miles further out across the moor. They had all stood disused and empty for some fifty years or more, but Matt could still remember the time a kid from school had found a live grenade out in a small hollow formed by an overhanging rock. The army had come out and cordoned the area off for a couple of days while they carried out an extensive search for any other antiquated war artifacts. He remembered being disappointed when no atom bombs or artillery shells were found buried just under the grass, and for weeks afterwards Matt and other kids from the school had carried out their own searches of the moor. He must have been ten or eleven, before everything started to go wrong.
He followed the remains of a path between the two old ammunition stores, heading for another building, one that completed a triangle as it looked out from the crest of the hill towards a wide, sparsely forested valley, and the rise of the next moorland crest a mile or so distant. An old communications tower, it rose sixty feet out of the damp moor, little more than a shell now, everything of value either taken by the departing military or looted decades ago. The stairs to the upper levels still remained, but windows, doors, shelving, even tiles off the floor had all been broken or removed. It smelt of damp and that chalky mustiness that Matt always associated with the rotting, crumbling concrete of old, ruined buildings, and of manure, strong and pungent, made fresher by the rain. From the state of the ground floor Matt knew that the sheep and moorland ponies used the building to shelter from the rain, and was vaguely impressed that they had only crapped along one wall, leaving the other clear to sleep against. Signs of intelligence among sheep were rare, but that was definitely one, he reasoned.
He climbed the stairs to the third floor, more aware now than he had ever been as a kid just how unstable the concrete framework looked. He had to pick his way over a few fallen girders and a scattering of roof tiles, but from the yawning maw of the south-facing window he had a near perfect view of the valley below. The fog was clear enough for his vision to reach the next ridge of moorland, topped by a small granite tor – Merry Tor, he thought, though couldn’t be sure. Hardly appropriate. The moorland vanished into fog a little further on, but he could imagine seeing the metallic grey spread of Plymouth far to the south. Once, on a clear summer’s day long ago, at sixteen years old, a far more athletic Matt had climbed up on to what remained of the tower’s roof and seen the glittering blue of Plymouth Sound and the English Channel. He had planned to come back another day with his binoculars, look for ships out there on the waters, but if he remembered rightly the rest of that summer had been wet and he had gone before the next one came around. He felt a sudden pang of nostalgia for his childhood but pushed it away.
He glanced up at what remained of the roof. He would never make it up through those girders now, but even with the heavy dampness of the air the view of the immediate valley was unhindered and breathtaking. An old clay quarry lay abandoned to the right, a clutch of farm buildings to the distant left, and in the middle was a sparse forest dissected by a thin river that tumbled down a succession of craggy waterfalls. The water gurgled and sloshed over the rocks before finally vanishing into the trees where this valley met the foot of the next. On its way to meet the Tamar, he assumed, though had never found out for sure.
And there, in the centre of his vision, about two hundred yards further down the slope from the old military buildings, he saw something that chilled him like the fog that dribbled down his back.
The cottage of the Meredith sisters.
Matt shuddered as he looked upon it, only the roof and upper floor visible over the valley’s lip, because the house had been built into a deliberately carved hollow and then had trees planted around it which had now grown up to form a screen. On the far side of the valley a thin gravel lane snaked down to end in a courtyard which seemed built for the Meredith sisters alone. No other houses existed for miles; they lived in perfect seclusion.
A thin trail of smoke drifted up from a chimney at the north end of the house, telling Matt all he needed to know. They were still there. In the years since he had left, the Meredith sisters, or one of them at least, had stayed.
Knowing they were still around made him distinctly uneasy, but at least it confirmed what had happened last night. He hadn’t just been chasing ghosts.
Or had he?
No one in the village would openly speak of them. Drunks slumped in a corner of the pub or couples lock
ed inside their warm living rooms with a fire blazing would only speak of them in whispers. As though they were nothing but ghosts.
Matt didn’t know what they were, but they weren’t ghosts.
Hadn’t been when he had seen them.
He closed his mind, shutting out the humiliation of the memory.
His curiosity satisfied, he started to turn away. He had a couple of hours left before the funeral, and the pub would be open by the time he got back down to the village.
Movement across the valley caught his eye, and he squinted to see clearly through the stray wisps of fog.
A big black car was making its way down the gravel trail towards the cottage.
Over the distance it was difficult to tell, but it certainly bore a striking resemblance to the car he had seen at the foot of his father’s lane. He watched as it pulled into the courtyard and stopped. Matt strained his neck, leaning precariously out on to the window ledge, but the screen of trees obscured his view of the figure as it got out and went into house.
Was that one of them? He couldn’t be sure. If so, why had the car been parked where it had? Who had they been visiting last night?
But if it wasn’t their car, who was visiting them? No one had ever visited them when he had lived here, but he had been gone a long time, after all.
He waited for a long time, but no one came back out. The car might not have even been the one he had seen. The world was full of black cars, and he couldn’t even tell the model from this distance. A little presumptuous, not to mention nosey. Just . . . a feeling, that was all.
Time ticked on. Matt had been getting that familiar pang in his stomach for several minutes, the one pining for a drink, something to calm him. He felt edgy, nervous; the Meredith sisters and their mysteries would have to wait. He climbed back down through the old communication tower, and after one last look towards the cottage, vanished now besides a thin wisp of smoke rising into the grey sky like an Indian signal, started off towards the village.
And as he did so, he suddenly remembered the blinking light he had seen upstairs at his father’s house. A feeling of uneasiness found him, and wouldn’t go away.
13
Rachel had thought long and hard about her decision.
Matt’s forced absence had given her a little breathing space, enough to structure everything in her mind, to begin to understand the calamitous situation into which their marriage had fallen. She had had a chance to look at their lives from an exterior perspective, view the changing emotional structure of their marriage and track its degradation. She saw the love turn bad like a rotting apple, saw the arguments increase, the coherent conversations become rarer. She saw their income fall as Matt’s books struggled to sell, saw his drinking increase, her own anxieties grow, constant rows and then that fateful night when he had hit her. The bruise had all but gone but the memory of the occasion remained fresh in her mind, especially the look on Matt’s face. That terrifying power, the dominance in his eyes, and the way the smirk at the side of his mouth told her just how much he had enjoyed it.
But most terrifyingly of all, she thought, as she stroked Sarah’s soft mousy hair while her daughter slept, her new viewpoint came from far too close at hand. From the eyes of her own children.
She had already packed their cases. As she threw a last couple of tops into her own, she knew the time approached.
Time to go.
Earlier, a quick phone call to her mother had found her a place to stay. Indefinitely, if she chose, though she wanted to be out of her parents’ way as soon as she could. She didn’t want to impose, not with the kids as well, no matter how many times her mother insisted they were welcome.
She didn’t want to go, but reason had swayed her. Follow your heart, her mother had told her earlier, which had got Rachel thinking. Was she? Did her heart have any bearing in this decision?
The kids. The kids mattered most of all. No matter what might happen to her, she could not put the kids at risk.
Matt had gone home to see his father. Rachel knew only that they hadn’t spoken for fourteen years. Matt had never divulged the circumstances that surrounded his running away at seventeen, and although she had asked many times he had always refused to talk about it. He hadn’t killed anyone, (at least as far as she gathered), no one was after him and he hadn’t stolen any money. A family feud, she assumed. Matt could be incredibly stubborn and clearly held a grudge, but anything that separated you from your family for fourteen years had to be serious, more than a simple falling out.
He hadn’t been emotionally well for a long time, and his sister’s sudden death would have done nothing to help him. His emotional state was bad now, so she dreaded to think what it would be like upon his return. She feared his return, though hated herself for thinking that, and didn’t want the kids around just in case. She knew how much he loved them, how he could never hurt them. But she had once thought that about herself.
Perhaps, after a few days they might be able to talk, on neutral ground, resolve a few things. Their leaving might just be the shock that would pull him out of his self–imposed quagmire, get him thinking clearly. In time they might resolve their problems and become a family again. A proper family, like they had used to be.
She flipped down the lid of the case and zipped it up. She was leaving a lot behind. Most of her life, in fact. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she brushed it away, annoyed that she felt like this when Matt hardly deserved her sympathy.
She turned towards the hallway and shouted. ‘Are you ready, kids? Sarah? Luke?’
Two distant voices murmured their assent.
Rachel hauled her case up off the bed and made her way downstairs. The kids waited in the hall, already kitted out in their cold weather gear. She couldn’t help but smile; they looked like two miniature Arctic explorers in their hats, gloves and raincoats. Rachel put down her case, dropped to her knees and beckoned the children forward, taking one in each arm.
She hugged them tightly to her, burying her face in two tiny shoulders. ‘Oh, my babies . . .’ she murmured, fighting back the tears.
‘Where are we going, Mummy?’ Luke asked.
She drew back to look at them. Sarah wore a frown and Luke’s eyes looked watery, as though he might cry at any moment. She touched one hand to each of their faces.
‘We’re just going to stay with Grandma for a few days,’ she said softly, trying to convince but, she thought, failing.
‘Why?’ Luke asked, and Sarah nodded her agreement.
‘Just for a little holiday,’ Rachel said. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be home again soon.’ Please, please, let us come home again soon.
‘Where’s Daddy?’ Sarah asked.
‘He’s not coming, is he?’
‘Daddy’s . . . gone away for a little while,’ Rachel said, aware of the tears forming in her eyes, the cracks in her voice.
‘Why?’
‘Luke . . .’ Rachel tried to answer, but words failed her. Her vision had blurred, and to hide her tears she hugged the children tightly again, only too aware of the sobs that shook her body.
‘I want Daddy to come back,’ Luke said, his own little voice starting to tremble.
She swallowed down her sobs, forced herself to draw back again, look at the children. Luke looked away, ashamed of the tears that rolled down his cheeks. Little Sarah just watched her mother, mouth puckered and wearing a frown so deep Rachel thought it might soon cover her eyes.
‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ she said, forcing conviction into the words, forcing them to mean something. ‘I promise you. Everything will be fine.’
Sarah just smiled weakly, nodding. ‘Okay, Mummy.’
Luke looked back at her, his eyes so intent it seemed he had forgotten about the residue of tears that dampened his cheeks. He lifted one small gloved hand towards his mother’s face. Rachel froze, breath catching in her throat as his woolly fingers touched the spot on her cheek where until yesterday a bruise had been.
/> Then, as though breaking out of a trance, Luke snapped his hand away and dropped his eyes towards the floor. ‘Love you, Mummy,’ he muttered to his shoes.
Rachel rubbed his head tenderly and stood up. ‘Come on, best get going,’ she said. ‘Grandma’s cooking us a nice roast.’
‘Yum,’ Sarah said, taking hold of her mother’s free hand. ‘I like roast.’
Rachel looked down at them one last time before she went to open the door. She choked back tears. If she started to cry again now she thought she might cry forever.
###
Bethany’s Diary, January 1st, 1985
It’s New Years Day today, diary. It’s snowing real hard outside, almost came up to my knees last night so I didn’t go far into the woods, only a little way down the path. Haven’t seen Mummy since before Christmas anyway, so perhaps it’s too cold for her too.
She never did come back. Daddy was there, Matty was there, and Uncle Red was there, but Mummy stayed out in the cold. I didn’t even see her. I thought she might have sneaked over for a look at the tree, but if she did, I never saw her.
We had cookies tonight. Daddy made them, and Uncle Red brought them up to my room, some chocolate ones and some cherry ones. Uncle Red stayed to talk to me a while, sitting on the edge of the bed. He talked about Mummy, about how I must miss her so. I couldn’t think of anything to say and eventually he got tired of talking to me and went away. At least Uncle Red likes me more than Matty does. Matty won’t even speak to me.
I like Uncle Red. I’m not sure if he’s actually my uncle, but he seems nice just the same.