Dovecote

by Oleson, Anne Britting;

  Martin was openly crying. They both were.

  “And she was afraid of what you would have done.”

  “I would have gone after the bastard. I would have killed him with my bare hands.”

  Gwynn took a deep breath. “Part of her knew that. Then you’d have been in trouble, and she didn’t want that, either.” She wiped her face with the back of her sleeve. “He shamed her. She couldn’t tell anyone. I don’t think she ever told her own mother.”

  “But she married him, Gwynn. After what he did to her. She married him.”

  Now Gwynn squeezed her eyes shut, willing the horror away—but it did not go. “She had no choice, Martin.” Her voice broke. “She had no choice.” Slowly she told him about Tommy Chelton’s threats, about the pregnancy which, in the end, was not.

  For a long time the only sounds were the ticking of the mantle clock and the labored breathing of the old man on the sofa.

  “How can you know this?” he asked again, raggedly.

  She couldn’t meet his eyes.

  Martin freed one of his hands, then she felt his bony finger beneath her chin, tipping her head up.

  “Does she come to you?”

  She shook her head now, she could feel the tears splash against her skin. “No, Martin,” she said, her voice nearly inaudible, even to her own ears. “No, she doesn’t come to me.” She took a deep breath which tore at her insides, then opened her eyes to look straight into his face. “She is me.”

  Martin looked down on her in horror. “You—are each other,” he whispered. “That’s how you know what happened to her? Because it happened—”

  “To me,” she said.

  “Oh, Gwynn,” he said after a moment, his voice strangled in his throat. He leaned forward until his wrinkled cheek rested against her head. “Oh, my Gwynn.”

  “WE NEED A drink,” Gwynn said, at last.

  “I’ll get it. Same place?” Martin leaned on his stick all the way out into the kitchen. He returned with the new bottle under his arm and two glasses in one hand. He sank back down onto the sofa and poured out two healthy fingers for each of them.

  “To hell with the coffee,” he grunted, shoving one glass toward Gwynn, who had returned to the chair. “We both need this straight, and plenty of it.” He downed his shot in a single gulp, then leaned back and closed his eyes, his breathing labored.

  Gwynn drank hers more slowly. If she had her way, this bottle would see some good use this morning. Drunk before noon—it didn’t seem like too bad an idea at all. Martin would help. It might even be worth the hangover.

  “Does anyone else know about this?” Martin asked after a pause.

  Gwynn took another sip before answering, letting the whisky burn its way down her throat and into her gullet. It was supposed to radiate warmth once drunk, had always done so for her, so she waited, half-hoping. Nothing, though, was getting through this chill.

  “No,” she admitted at last. “I haven’t told anyone.”

  “No one at all?”

  She chose to ignore the implication which lay behind his words. “No one. Mary asked, the morning after it—happened—in the dream. But I couldn’t tell her. I knew it wasn’t my secret to tell.”

  “Yet you came to me.”

  Her glass was suddenly strangely empty, and she leaned forward to pour another two fingers into it. “She wanted me to tell you. My great-aunt.” Don’t ask anymore. Just don’t.

  Martin nodded, and poured more whisky into his glass as well. “I see.” Then he shook his head, half angry, half confused. “No. I don’t see. She could have told me. Years ago. Back then.”

  “Not while your wife was alive.”

  Martin fell silent again.

  The clock on the shelf rang the hour.

  Gwynn roused herself, looking down into her glass, which was approaching empty once again. She had to stop, she told herself, because, while on the one hand she would welcome the obliviousness of drunkenness, on the other, she wouldn’t welcome the ensuing hangover, which would make everything a hundred times worse. She glanced at Martin, sunken and small on the sofa. He’d made pretty good headway on his own drink: he’d be drunk, too. Then he wouldn’t be able to get home, and Mary would find he’d been out, and there’d be hell to pay. Especially if she found out that Gwynn had been the whisky supplier.

  “You wanted to come see me about something,” she said, trying to bring the bleak morning back into focus. She suddenly hoped he wasn’t going to ask for the scrapbook; she didn’t want to have to tell him where it was now. Nor how it had come to be there.

  Martin leaned forward, elbows on knees, and set his glass down on the table. “It doesn’t matter now. I don’t think I should bother you with it.”

  Gwynn too set her glass down. “You’d best just tell me. You said you would need my help. Tell me what it is you need.”

  Still he evaded her eyes. “It’s not important now.”

  The now hung between them like a live thing.

  She cleared her throat. “It’s all important now.” She didn’t even know what she meant by that. “What did you come for, Martin?”

  He pressed his thin lips together, and again clenched his hands between his knees. “I thought—I needed—” He stopped, coughed, drew out a carefully pressed handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth before going on. “I needed to go up there.”

  The morning had suddenly grown still, and dark.

  “Where?” Gwynn asked, but it was only a stall. She knew.

  “The dovecote,” he said, his voice low. Then he shrugged, and the effort seemed to pain him. “But it doesn’t matter now.”

  Gwynn swallowed hard.

  “You need me to take you up there?”

  Martin grimaced, lifting a bony hand and letting it fall helplessly. “I thought I needed to go up there. To see if it would help.” He looked away, toward the window, where the roofline of The Stolen Child was visible. “I didn’t think I could make it up there by myself, not with this stick.” He blinked a few times, quickly. “But it really doesn’t matter. I don’t want to go up now. I don’t want you to have to go up there now.”

  Gwynn hadn’t been up there in weeks, save in the dreams. The thought of the dovecote made her cold, dizzy, nauseated. How could her great-aunt have lived in its shadow for the rest of her life? But then, the place where she was didn’t affect Gwynn Chelton’s feeling shackled to Tommy; in her mind, Gwynn knew, her great-aunt would always have been shackled to Tommy Chelton. Him, or his memory. She would have always lived in the shadow of what he had done to her, that late summer afternoon.

  Again she closed her eyes, listened with her entire body, trying to feel any message that her great-aunt might be sending. Martin had had to be told; but did he need to be taken up there? The raw note in his voice made plain that he had made up his mind that the journey was a necessary one; what if he attempted it alone? What if he fell, was injured, was alone?

  “I’ll go with you,” she rasped out.

  “No, Gwynn,” he said.

  “I’ll go with you,” she repeated, without looking at him. She picked up her tumbler and tossed back the remains of the whisky, feeling the shock in her throat, wishing for the false courage that was supposed to come with it. “Let’s go now. I’ve got a flashlight in the kitchen.” She didn’t wait for his further objections, but pushed away from the chair and went to the kitchen door. “It’ll be dark in the dovecote.”

  GWYNN REMEMBERED THE dimness so thick it was tangible. She felt it again on her skin, and her resolution faltered. But she took a deep breath and opened the cupboard for the flashlight, heavy and sturdy in her hand. She could hear Martin coming behind her. Though she knew they were brand new, she tested the batteries, and, satisfied, opened the back door.

  The brambles still clung to everything, still spread their way across the path she and Colin had cut and uprooted. They clawed at her jeans, at her shirt, at her skin. Gwynn slowed, pushing them aside as best she could fo
r Martin. Behind her, he stopped every few feet and swung his walking stick, attempting to beat his way through. The sky lowered over them, dark and sullen. As they neared the gate, she could see through the opening, that last distance between wood and wall where it refused to be closed. If anything, the world beyond the gate and wall looked darker and more menacing than the day itself.

  “Be careful,” she said over her shoulder.

  Martin only grunted, whacking with his blackthorn. Then he stopped, lifting his head to listen. “Doves,” he said, wonder in his voice.

  Gwynn paused with her hand on the rusted and broken latch and tilted her own head. The rustling and cooing grew stronger.

  “There are still doves?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Then how?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She dragged the gate across the scarred ground until the opening was wide enough for them to pass through. “Watch your head.” She ducked under, and Martin followed, his wizened face a play in confusion.

  Outside the wall, the air seemed thicker. A miasma. Again Gwynn fought back the urge to flee, back into the house, back to relative safety. Martin needs this, she thought, steeling her spine. Martin needs me. She bit her lip and pushed on into the trees with their glistening boles, where the sky was scarred by dark branches crisscrossing overhead.

  Gwynn needed her. And had needed Martin, had been unable to reach out to him.

  It was getting harder to breathe. She slowed, half-turning to wait for Martin. He was laboring along the vague path through the trees, jamming his stick into the ground and pulling himself along with its help. He reached her and stopped, his chest heaving.

  “Are you sure?” she whispered, close to his ear, almost afraid someone would overhear. Who? They were alone in the wood, along with the cooing of doves, which no longer existed.

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything.” His jaw, unevenly shaven, was hard, his Adam’s apple working as he strained to take a full breath. “Take me up there. If you can.”

  Gwynn took his arm now, and they walked together through the trees along the faint path, which shone oddly in the dimness. It led them to the clearing, and Martin paused again, looking on the wreck of a building, tiles missing from the roof, the piece of burlap flapping loosely in the window beside the sagging door. She saw it through his eyes: the crooked lines, the wood sinking slowly into the earth. Soon it would fall in of its own accord, and that, she knew, would be a good thing. It couldn’t happen soon enough. For even as she saw it as Martin was seeing it, it transformed in her sight into the building from which Tommy Chelton had emerged that afternoon all those years ago and stood waiting, for the words he had been expecting from her great-aunt.

  “What’s happening, Gwynn?” Martin whispered. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  But she couldn’t.

  There was no sound. The doves were gone. They had always been gone. She looked down, half-expecting to see the single dead bird at her feet.

  There was a single dead bird, its red-rimmed eye staring sightlessly up at her.

  Gwynn caught her breath sharply, stopping so abruptly that Martin stumbled against her, and it was all she could do to retain her balance and hold him upright.

  “Whoa, there, Gwynn. Easy, now. What’s the matter?” Then he peered at her closely, licking his lips. His Adam’s apple worked in his throat. “Which Gwynn are you?”

  Gwynn swallowed again, her fingers digging into his sleeve. “Both,” she said, and realized that it was true.

  For a moment Martin stiffened in surprise, but then he covered her hand with his own. “Let’s go back.”

  She looked into his face, and he returned her gaze steadily. “You need this.” She dropped her eyes to the dead bird on the leaves before her, expecting it to be gone. There was nothing there. She prodded the ground gently with the toe of her shoe.

  “But you don’t.” Martin cleared his throat. “You’ve seen it. You’ve felt it. You’ve been it. You don’t need to go through this again.”

  “She wants me to take you up here.” The words both made sense to her and didn’t. There was no time to worry about that now. Keeping her hand on Martin’s arm, Gwynn took a step forward, around the dead bird which wasn’t there, toward the sagging door.

  It opened surprisingly easily under her touch.

  Inside it was cool and dim, much as she remembered. The smell was of earth and decay, the floor covered in rotted straw, which deadened their footfalls. As her eyes adjusted, Gwynn saw the thick rafter beams overhead, and the empty boxes that lined the walls. No rope. No feet. No circular tracings in the dirt. The ghosts of the birds were silent now, but she could still hear them in her head, imagine their hushed conversation as the other Gwynn stepped forward into the long barn. She didn’t want to go too far down into that memory, into that dream; she clutched at Martin’s sleeve now with a shaking hand, trying to remain grounded, trying to remain in the present.

  The dovecote, she told herself fiercely, was empty, abandoned, the violator and the violated both dead, the birds gone, the time past. It was over, she told herself. Over. Still she held on to Martin’s arm, the tweed of his jacket a welcome roughness to her touch.

  “Tell me what to do, Gwynn,” Martin whispered suddenly.

  She sought his face again in the dimness, but he was not looking at her; his words were addressed to the air around them. They did not echo under the beams, but instead swelled to fill the dark space.

  They waited.

  Then Gwynn felt the faint stir of the air that told her they were not alone. She tightened her grip on Martin’s arm, her eyes darting about toward the dark corners, the dim overhead. She could see no one, but her neck prickled, the hair lifting. Slowly she turned back toward the door, where the sliver of dull light fell inside from the narrow opening: no one stood there. No one she could see.

  He had come up behind her, Tommy Chelton had. He had touched her in that ugly possessive way, running his fingers down the inside of her arm. Gwynn glanced down now, feeling the burning, expecting to see a hand, a furious red scar from the touch—but there was nothing save the pale glow of her arm below her sleeve.

  “Who’s there?” Martin called out sharply. “Who is it? Gwynn, is it you?” He jerked away from her hand, turning almost drunkenly with the aid of his stick, his eyes wild in his face. “Gwynn, I want to help you. Tell me what to do!” He staggered away, calling frantically into the darkness. “Gwynn, I’m sorry—I’m sorry! Tell me how to help you!”

  She didn’t feel Gwynn near her, nor in her. The movement on the air was not her great-aunt, but something dark, pulsing. Something angry and evil.

  “Martin!” she cried.

  He wheeled, and his eyes traveled beyond her, to something over her shoulder. She turned but could see nothing.

  “Gwynn,” he gasped, and then, dropping his blackthorn stick, he folded to the ground, in slow-motion, his legs giving way and his body sinking without grace, without a sound.

  With a strangled cry, she tore herself away from the thickened air which mired her, throwing herself to her knees next to Martin’s crumpled form.

  HE WAS BREATHING. Under her hand his chest rose and fell, shallow, but steady. She looked around helplessly, desperately. There was no help up here—of course there was no help. She dashed to the door, wrenched it open further, and looked down through the trees toward the cottage, but she could see nothing, no one.

  “Hello?” she shouted. “Help! Someone!”

  Nothing. She looked back over her shoulder at Martin, where he lay in the straw, his arm thrown out awkwardly, his stick under one leg. She shouted again, even while recognizing its futility. Then she ran back to drop to her knees at Martin’s side. Her hand found his chest again, and she leaned over his mouth, trying to feel the movement of air on her cheek. His eyelids fluttered, opened, closed again.

  “Martin?” she called to him, her voice thick with panic and tears. “Martin? Can you he
ar me?” She lowered her forehead to his chest and let out a sob. “Martin. Don’t die, Martin, please don’t die.”

  She felt the weak movement of his hand against her hair.

  “Gwynn,” he said again, his voice barely audible. Then, more strongly, “I’m here.”

  She grasped his fingers. “Martin. I need to get you help. Can you hear me? I need to run down to the cottage. Can you hang on?”

  His knobby fingers moved in hers.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Get help.”

  Gwynn struggled to her feet and ran.

  41

  “WHATEVER WAS HE doing up there?” Mary asked “It doesn’t make sense. Do you know how he got up there?”

  The paramedics had found them at the dovecote; Gwynn had left instructions for them to come through the house and garden, and had left the door open. Mary had rushed up through the trees in their wake. Gwynn had returned from phoning for help and discovered Martin at the edge of the clearing. The knees of his suit were muddy and torn; he was leaning against the trunk of a tree, his head cradled in his hands, his breathing shallow and ragged, his face as white as milk. I couldn’t stay in there, he’d told her.

  Now Gwynn huddled in the plastic chair in A and E, her own head in her hands. She couldn’t bear to answer the other woman.

  “How did he come to be at your cottage in any case?” Mary went on, her voice querulous with worry. “He’s not supposed to be out and about without help. He’s ninety-four, for God’s sake! He knows better.”

  I know better, Gwynn berated herself. I knew I shouldn’t have let him. I knew I shouldn’t have encouraged him. She tugged at her hair anxiously, guiltily. She could feel the weight of Mary’s suspicions around her neck. What if Martin died? He was an old man. The dovecote had been a shock. His heart, these past several days, had been overworked, had suffered more than it had since he’d returned on leave that long-ago December to find his love married to someone else. She should have let him be. Left him alone to his comfortable sofa in his comfortable robe and slippers, to meet his comfortable end. Instead of dragging him out in pursuit of the haunt of his long-dead love. I knew I shouldn’t have taken him up to the dovecote.