The Mark of Cain

by Lindsey Barraclough

No home. Nothing.

  Faded old clothes brought through the wind to the front door by curious, peering neighbours.

  Cocoa. The fire blazing, banked high with coal.

  Mimi in the armchair, wearing some unknown child’s trousers and cardigan, knees bent under her, staring at the wall, pushing Pam away.

  Roger, his face waxy, pulling the army blanket around his shoulders.

  The telephone rings yet again.

  “Roger?” Mrs. Jotman comes in from the hall, strokes Roger’s head. “Do you know a Mrs. Ketch — in Hilsea? She says she and her niece couldn’t get through to Bryers Guerdon in the flood — was worried about you and the girls, wants to know if you’re all safe.”

  Roger watches the flames.

  “Who is Mrs. Ketch?” Mrs. Jotman insists.

  “Tell her we’re all fine. Everything’s all right.”

  “What happened, Roger? Why on earth were you in Hilsea?”

  He looks across at me. Mrs. Jotman breathes heavily, goes back to the telephone, mutters something, puts it down.

  It’s after midnight. The broken clock in the hall whirs and clunks two o’clock. The bedroom door opens. A swish as Mrs. Jotman bends to check on Mimi, then another as she straightens up and leans over me. The faint, sweet smell of Yardley’s soap. Her breath is warm on my skin, her fingers light on my forehead. I don’t open my eyes.

  The door softly closes.

  The three lopsided Spitfires dangle on their dusty strings, and above them, through the joists and battens, newly laid chipboard and lino, is Roger, in the old khaki camp bed.

  I reach up between the little grey aeroplanes, stretch, and touch the ceiling with my fingertips.

  That’s where he’ll be, on the other side of my open hand.

  The wind begins to drop, the rain to ease. When the washed-out light of morning starts to pick out the pattern on the curtains, the storm has gone; the air is spent and still.

  The telephone rings.

  A gentle knocking on the door.

  “Cora … Cora … are you awake?”

  Mrs. Jotman is wearing a rose-patterned dressing gown, a cup of hot lemon and honey in her hand, a couple of tablets in the saucer. She squints down at Mimi in the lower bunk, then looks at me, our eyes on a level.

  “How are you feeling? Did you sleep?”

  “I — I’m all right, thank you.”

  “I would have left you longer,” she says, “but — but this is such good news. Your dad’s taken a turn for the better. The hospital’s just rung. He’s had a really good night.”

  I can’t stop a rush of tears. Mrs. Jotman strokes my head gently over the bandage, puts the drink down on the chest of drawers, and takes out a handkerchief.

  I blow my nose and wince as a jolt of pain shoots across my head.

  “Try and drink the lemon and honey,” she says. “I’ve cooled it down a bit.”

  I dab my eyes.

  “Here, have it now.” She brings it over, pats my hand, goes to leave but turns in the doorway. “By the way,” she adds, “you’re not to worry one little bit about school. Mr. Jotman and I are very happy to go to Wrayness Abbey, sort things out for you.”

  I hadn’t thought about it at all, but thank her.

  Taking a little sip of the lemon and honey, I am reminded of Roger and me drinking the mead in Mr. Thorston’s cottage. In my head, there I am again, looking out over the winter garden with its snowy cabbages and tar-papered beehives, climbing up the narrow staircase behind the cupboard door, peeping into the neat bedrooms.

  Nobody’ll want it, because they like things all modern these days — that’s what Mr. Wragge said.

  I feel a little stir of excitement.

  We could buy it and live there — Dad, Mimi, and me. I’ll ask the Jotmans about it: how it’s all done, how you buy a house.

  All morning Mimi is listless, mostly lying on the settee in the sitting room, but a couple of times I catch her in the hall, staring into the corner near the front door, where the boys’ schoolbags are heaped on the floor next to the brown paper parcel for the cleaner’s with our filthy wet coats inside.

  She says she doesn’t want any dinner. I leave everyone eating around the kitchen table and come out to tempt her with a bowl of soup. Startled by a furtive movement near the front door, I spill a bit of it on the lino. She is stuffing something into one of the schoolbags, sees me, folds down the flap, gets up quickly, looks away.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  She heads for the bathroom.

  “Do you want some soup?”

  She goes in and clicks the bolt. I notice the brown paper parcel has been untied and our sodden, muddy coats are spread out on the lino.

  Glancing behind me to check that the kitchen door is shut, I put the bowl down on the floor and stoop to wrap the coats again. Once I’ve reknotted the string, I open the schoolbag, see by the books that it’s Roger’s; and there, squashed in, their cloth limbs crushed between his history and chemistry textbooks, are the two poppets, all soiled and damp, and stinking of dirty water. Mimi must have taken them out of his muddy coat pocket.

  My eyes are drawn to their spiteful little faces, lit in the angle of light from the frosted-glass window by the front door, which seems to heighten the crooked lines of their mouths.

  In the kitchen, the low murmuring continues around the table while the brown, knotted eyes of the poppet with the long dark hair appear to gaze into mine with a horrible intensity. I think I can almost hear the scratched rasp of a whisper: We are the same — you and I, Cora.

  I find myself reaching out, touching the familiar blue fabric of its grubby dress and pushing aside a fold. Peeping out from a small frayed hole in its chest is a little red stone.

  With a shudder I snatch my hand back, shut the dolls away again into the darkness between the schoolbooks, and clumsily buckle down the straps.

  What are we going to do with them?

  Roger and I have hardly spoken, barely exchanged a look.

  Towards evening the telephone rings yet again. Mrs. Jotman pulls the hall door closed behind her. Between the long pauses her muffled, lowered voice sounds grave.

  I feel terribly cold. It must be Dad.

  After a couple of minutes her head appears round the edge of the sitting-room door. “Cora …?”

  I shuffle across the room in slippers two sizes too big for me.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not your dad.”

  My held breath rushes out.

  “It’s Ange.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s very poorly, Cora, and — and not just from being caught up in the flood. They’ve done tests. She — she’s been ill for some time, apparently. They’re transferring her to London tonight, to specialists, but they’re not sure they can do anything for her. She’ll probably have to go into a nursing home. They can’t trace any family. Did she mention anybody to you, any relatives?”

  “Only that she was married years ago, but he didn’t come back from the war. There wasn’t anybody else. Their baby died.”

  Just at that moment the telephone rings yet again.

  “When will it ever stop?” With an exasperated sigh Mrs. Jotman picks up the receiver. “Yes!” she says abruptly, then — “Oh.”

  She beckons me across, puts her arm around my shoulder and the phone into my hand. “It’s for you.” Then she disappears into the kitchen and closes the door behind her.

  “Y-yes? Who is it?” I ask nervously into the mouthpiece.

  “Cora? Cora, is it you?”

  The voice is weak, the breath shallow and uneven.

  “Oh.” I gasp. “Oh, Dad …”

  For a moment I can’t make any other words come out.

  “Are you still there?” he says faintly down the crackling line.

  “Yes, yes. Do you know about — about the flood, the house?”

  “Yes, the police said.” He takes a few seconds to draw in some air. “Are you all ri
ght, you and Mimi?”

  “Yes, yes, we’re all right.”

  “Yes …” He is barely audible. “Yes … good …”

  “Mrs. Jotman?” A woman’s voice comes on the line.

  “No, it’s Cora. Where’s my dad?”

  “He can’t talk for long,” she says. “He needs to rest now.”

  “Oh. Can — can you please give him a message for me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Can you tell him I’ve got us the most lovely place to live — a cottage.”

  “Yes, I will, dear.” I can hear her smiling. “Goodbye.”

  “And we’ll be able to keep bees,” I say, but she’s put the telephone down.

  I can’t sleep. The old creased canvas feels like it’s lined with pencils, the springs need oiling, my feet hang off the end, the angle of the roof makes it impossible to turn over, and Pete’s snoring.

  The broken clock in the hall coughs out five in the morning.

  For two days I’ve chewed it over and over like a piece of gristle that won’t be swallowed. What happened to the witch bottle? Did it explode in the fire or did the flood water put out the flames?

  What became of Aphra Rushes?

  And I can’t believe I haven’t given them a thought until now — the two poppets, still in my coat pocket. Has the parcel gone to the cleaner’s yet? I recall Dad saying he wasn’t going to get the car out until the muck had been cleared off the roads.

  I roll and creak out of the bed, pull over some clothes, get dressed doubled up under the eaves, then steal out of the room and duck down the winding staircase.

  The little lamp by the telephone has been left on.

  To my relief the parcel is still there, but before I even get to it I notice that my schoolbag is separate from the others. I pick it up, see the buckles are done up oddly, and smell something like rotten cabbage.

  Screwing up my nose, I open it, and shudder.

  A moment later I am outside my bedroom, wondering what’s best to do. If I knock, I’ll wake Mimi.

  I turn the doorknob and go in.

  The warm light from the hall falls on Cora’s face as she sleeps. Under the bandage her hair makes a dark, tangled fan over the pillow, and her fingers lie curved along the line of her cheek.

  I watch her, listen to her quiet breathing, uneasy at being there.

  I feel I shouldn’t touch her, but not knowing what else to do to wake her, I gently pull a fold of her pyjama sleeve.

  Her eyelashes flutter for a second, then fall still.

  I glance down at Mimi in the lower bunk. She is half in shadow, facing the wall, her back rising and falling in a smooth, steady rhythm.

  “Cora …” I lean in and hiss close to her ear. “Cora …”

  One eye flickers open. “Roger?”

  Startled, she lifts her head, then moans, pressing her hand to the bandage.

  “Sorry,” I whisper. “You all right?”

  “Yes, yes,” she mumbles. “What on earth is it? What’s the time?”

  “It’s just after five.”

  “What?”

  “Do you think you’re well enough to come out?”

  “What! Outside?”

  “Ssh. You’ll wake Mimi.”

  I glance down again, lower my voice to barely more than a tremor. “We’ve got to get rid of those dolls. Someone put them in my schoolbag. Was it you?”

  She looks intently at me for a moment, then rolls her eyes downwards to the lower bunk.

  “Let — let me find some clothes,” she mutters under her breath.

  “Do you think this would fit you?” Roger whispers, holding up a jacket as I come out of the bedroom, yawning. “It’s Dennis’s.”

  Roger is already wearing his good school coat.

  “A bit big, but it’ll do.” I push my arms into the long sleeves and fasten the buttons.

  We find our hats, gloves, and scarves dangling from the kitchen airer and our dried-out wellingtons by the back door. Roger grabs a torch from the cupboard under the sink. We click the kitchen door quietly behind us and hurry down Fieldpath Road, the torchlight gleaming over rough new craters in the wet tarmac clogged with mud and grass, scattered stones, and broken twigs. Apart from a few puddles, most of the water has soaked away into the drains and verges.

  When we turn right into Ottery Lane, I stop. “Roger, where are we going? All the way to Hilsea, to that hawthorn tree?”

  He breathes out heavily. “No, well, I’ve had another idea, but it’s up to you — only if you want to. Remember Mrs. Ketch said that it was best to find a tree on holy ground?”

  “Surely … surely you don’t mean to go down to All Hallows?”

  “It’s not as far as Hilsea, but — but not if you’d rather not …”

  I’m not sure what I would rather do.

  “Where are they — the poppets?” I ask.

  Roger pats his pocket. “I’ve pinched the bread knife to dig with.” He taps the other. “In here.”

  “Don’t fall over and stab yourself,” I say, then, “What was that?”

  I glance back over my shoulder to the bottom of Fieldpath Road and shiver. “Did you hear something?”

  Roger flashes the torch across the bushes on the corner. “Can’t see anything. Perhaps it was a cat, or a fox.”

  “Maybe.”

  As we trudge on up Ottery Lane, my ears prickle at the slightest sound. Twice more I look back.

  Old Glebe Lane is broken up, covered in loose stones, thick brown puddles, and clods of mud. Roger shines the torch through the wrought-iron gates to Glebe House. It looks black, wintry, and abandoned in the yellow light. The drive is empty of cars. A huge branch lies adrift on the vast, sodden lawn.

  We make our way carefully down the slippery hill. Above us in the star-bright sky the moon hangs as a thin sliver of curved light, faintly silvering the vast, whispering washes of flooded pools and beaten, flattened reed beds stretching away to the far-off river.

  “I hope I never have to come here ever again,” I mutter with a shudder as we continue along the pitted road.

  We pass the bend of the Chase, but I avoid looking along it; instead I keep my eyes on the torch beam threading its way ahead of us over the brimming ditches and standing water on the track to All Hallows. I notice here and there the light skimming over a piece of diamond-shaped glass, a twisted strip of lead, roof tiles, and pieces of jagged wood from Guerdon Hall.

  The churchyard slopes gently upwards from the road. Most of the water has already run off, but dribbles are still seeping down through the hedgerow to join the swirl around our boots. I push at the gate, but the bottom is so choked with debris, it won’t budge.

  I put my foot on the lowest rung to hoist myself over, then think I hear a soft splash from farther up the track. Roger sweeps the torchlight from one side of the roadway to the other.

  “Can you see anything?”

  “Not a thing.”

  We wait, listening, but hear only the gentle lapping of the water.

  We climb over the gate. The soggy ground in the graveyard is strewn with sand and scattered bricks, broken fencing, and crushed vegetation.

  As we trudge up the waterlogged path, the zigzagging light beam sends the jagged shadows of crosses and headstones leaping stretched and distorted into the high corners of the church walls, then up across the wooden slats of the belfry window in the black, looming bulk of the tower.

  We both start as an unseen hunting owl hoots from somewhere up the hill. It won’t find any scurrying creature to catch here, I think to myself. There are only dead things in this place.

  We walk round the back of the Guerdon plot, behind the old elder tree arching over Auntie Ida’s grave. The storm has uprooted the tree slightly at the back, and it is leaning towards the lychgate, where the force of the flood water has flattened the briars and brambles between the pillars. Still standing upright among them, directly under the lychgate roof, is the young tree I shook in the snow. It o
ccurs to me that it seems to have chosen that most mysterious of places to set down its roots — the portal between worlds. Auntie Ida’s last breath was spent dragging Long Lankin through it, and that is where he fell, exactly there.

  Roger sweeps the torchlight across the small tree. “It’s a hawthorn,” he says. “You can see by the berries.”

  Miraculously some still cling to it, gleaming like drops of blood.

  He takes the poppets out of his pocket.

  As I glance at the doll with the long dark hair, my head begins to throb under the bandage. Again I sense that we are not entirely separate at all. I cannot shake off the feeling that there is something of myself in it, beyond the hair and the dress, something that cannot ever be completely undone.

  I look across at the lychgate. In the stillness and the darkness there is that lingering tingle in the air, that sense of some other world, unreachable and unknowable for now, and I don’t want that part of the doll that is me, or the part of Mimi’s that is her, to be buried there.

  I don’t want the hawthorn roots to rip us apart in that fearsome place.

  I turn my head and gaze at Auntie Ida’s grave, then step over the low railing and walk across the long grass. As I lean forward to run my hand over the arch of the stone, a low, delicate branch of the elder brushes my cheek.

  “Here, Roger, under the elder tree.”

  “What?”

  “With Auntie Ida.”

  He looks puzzled. “Are you sure? Shouldn’t it be the hawthorn?”

  “Please.”

  I move round behind the stone, put my hands flat on the trunk, rest my cheek on the ridged bark, and listen. I fancy I can hear some pulse rising up to me from deep under the ground, imagine the kindly roots curving around Auntie Ida and cradling her in the cold, dark earth. I’m not sure if I put my thoughts into any words as I lean there, but I’m certain I feel a warmth on my skin, and a kind of peace.

  I hold out my hand for the bread knife. Roger sighs. “If you’re really sure.” Then he lays the dolls down in the wet grass. He lights the base of the tree with the torch, and I crouch down and plunge the knife into the ground.

  Unlike the hard, frozen earth in the churchyard at Hilsea, here the soil is so wet it takes no more than a few minutes before we see pale roots spreading themselves out like long probing fingers.