The Dead Summer

by Helen Moorhouse

  Do you mind me unburdening myself upon you, Caroline? I had no one else to turn to while there were troubled waters at home in Clontarf, and I have had to beg God’s forgiveness for asking Him in a weak moment to send you home from the convent to me so that I could see a kindly face.

  It all started a month ago when Marion began to be ill all the time. I thought she would die she was so unwell, her face paler than milk, and I confess that I took to listening at doorways to hear what Mother and Father were saying when they talked about her. I know it was dishonest and sneaky but I feared I would lose my sister and, no matter how bad she can be, she is my only one and I should die myself to lose her.

  Daddy was in a terrible mood all the time as you can imagine. He was slamming doors and coming in at all hours and going out again early in the morning. I found out then that he was making arrangements for Marion to go to a convent in Kerry of all places, a place where girls who have got themselves into trouble go until their babies are born and then the babies are taken from them and they can go home. Mammy, in turn, was upset as well – she didn’t want Marion going to the nuns – the nuns in Killarney, Caroline, I mean – if your good sisters took in girls in trouble then she could have rested easy, knowing that Marion was as good as in the hands of Our Lady and St Brigid themselves.

  Then the fortunes took a turn on us and Daddy received a letter from an old friend of his, a man called Charles Mountford, who was in the army with him during the war. After the war ended, thank God, Daddy and this man worked together on the building sites where they learned their trade until Daddy had enough money to come home to Ireland and start up the building company. As it happens, this man Charles Mountford did the same and started to build houses and factories and all sorts around here in Norfolk. He is very rich now, it seems. So he and Daddy had many hushed conversations on the telephone.

  In the heel of the hunt, I was told two weeks ago to pack my bags, that Marion was with child, Lord save us, and that Mr Charles Mountford of Shipton Abbey was very kindly allowing us to live for a time in his cottage there. I was to travel with her and take care of anything that she needed because she was in a very delicate condition.

  And so we are here, Caroline, without a farewell to a soul. Marion has been very unhappy – she is very ill and when she is not being ill in a pan by her bed she sits by the fire in the kitchen which I must keep lit for her at all times. Sometimes she goes into rages and I might make her a cup of tea to make her feel better and she’d smash the cup on the ground and make me clean it up. Or she might miss the pan sometimes and I have to clean that up as well. I am probably wrong to tell you these things. I’m sure they’re just a sign of her condition. Mammy said that her humours might be funny sometimes but that everything will be all right when the baby arrives.

  Daddy sends us some money to live on – the first of it has arrived today and I am to leave now to go to the village and do our shopping for the week. It is too cold for Marion to go outside, even if she were well enough. And, besides, Daddy says that she is not to be seen by anyone other than myself or Mr Mountford until the baby arrives and then he will decide what we should do. God willing, the baby will come near the end of the summer and then maybe I can return home and see you. I must go now and do my messages. Marion will need her lunch at one and I have nothing for her.

  I pray for you every night, Caroline, that your life as a Bride of Christ is making you happy, although I know that our happiness is secondary to serving the Lord. Mammy says that by taking care of Marion I am serving the Lord and if it is His will then I will be able to come home soon to finish my Leaving Cert and go to secretarial college. You are so lucky that you have the Leaving Cert over you!

  Write soon and tell me your news!

  May God be with you,

  Lily

  Chapter 3

  May 30th

  With the sun streaming in the tiny leaded windowpane, Martha smoothed down the duvet on the guest bed again and took a final glance around the little room at Hawthorn Cottage. This would be Ruby’s room but, for the moment, her cot was set up in Martha’s room.

  It was only a matter of an hour or so before Sue arrived with Ruby. It was the first time that Martha had been away from her little girl for even a single night but they had agreed it was best that she travel alone to Norfolk first to sort out the cottage and that Sue and Ruby would follow the next day. It always made Martha smile that Sue, of all people, should be Ruby’s most eager baby-sitter when needed. To the casual observer, Sue Brice was adamantly footloose and fancy-free, but Martha knew that she would always be there for Ruby, as she had proven throughout the messy period of the divorce.

  Martha had stumbled across Hawthorn Cottage by accident on the internet, while idly skimming through rental websites at work one day. In the seven months since the divorce proceedings had started and the six since Ruby was born she had toyed with the idea of finally doing it – making a break, getting as far away from Dan and Paula as she possibly could – but she hadn’t thought about it seriously until she found the picture of her new home. It was a picture-postcard whitewashed cottage near the Norfolk Coast. She was mesmerised by the pictures of the tiny rooms upstairs, the large kitchen and dining area and the view of the garden with its lavender bushes and mature trees around. A phone call to the owner later and she began to formulate a plan. Martha couldn’t help but feel a slight sense of pride as she looked out the window over the driveway now. She had done it, actually done it. Her new life was beginning.

  “Everything okay for you then?”

  Martha jumped. She had forgotten that the owner of the house was still here, doing some last-minute jobs to complete the recent renovation.

  She turned and smiled at the stocky man who filled the doorframe of the little room. “Oh, hi, Rob – yes, everything looks great now, thank you very much.” She could never get over how tall and broad the man was, with his sandy hair and permanent stubble.

  “I’ve been having a problem with this, though,” said Rob Mountford, striding across the little room in two long steps.

  Martha cringed as she spotted the dusty prints his boots made.

  Rob rubbed his huge dirty hand along the chimney-breast. “The fireplace was bricked up years ago,” he said. “Don’t know why. Ugly old thing, and a terrible job, so I just put plasterboard up over the whole thing. The plaster’s caused me nothing but problems though – just won’t stay put. Hopefully what I’ve done’ll stick this time.” He gazed at the wall and then turned to smile at Martha.

  She noticed he had to stoop slightly in the room because of his height against the beamed ceiling, one side of which slanted. The sunshine continued to flood in the window which was set into the slanted roof, adding to the quaint beauty of the house.

  “I’m sure it will, Rob – thanks very much for everything,” said Martha. “You’ll send on the bill?” she added, eager for him to leave so that she could finish the preparations for the arrival of her friend and daughter.

  “Well, it’s all taken care of by your landlord!” replied Rob, pointing to himself as he did so, grinning at his little joke.

  “Oh, of course it is!” Martha found it difficult to remember that she wasn’t an owner any more and not responsible for repairs and building work. For a split second she felt very sad.

  Thankfully, Rob actually was finished and Martha walked him down the stairs, assuring him along the way that, yes, she would contact him for anything at all. She sighed with relief when she heard the crunch of the Land Rover’s wheels on the gravel of the driveway. Her first task was to run back up the stairs with a cloth, wiping away the dusty footprints as she went. Everything had to be perfect when Ruby arrived at her new home.

  Martha was in her room rearranging Ruby’s changing gear on the unit when she heard the crunch of the gravel again and groaned. What did Rob Mountford want now? She stood and peered out the window and her heart leaped at the sight of Sue’s green Citroën pulling up out
side, her blonde head peering out the open window.

  Martha paused only long enough to check her appearance. At thirty-five, she looked younger, her five-foot three-inch height and slim frame certainly adding to the illusion that she was in her late twenties. Her dark hair was cut short in a pixie crop and her fringe was tucked into a decorative clip over her left ear. She smoothed down the patterned tea dress that she wore and then ran down the stairs as quickly as she could in her green ballet pumps, tearing out through the front door to greet the new arrivals.

  Martha swept her daughter out of the car seat and into her arms before Sue could straighten her legs after the three-hour drive from London.

  “Hello, pigeon!” shrieked Martha, covering Ruby’s tiny blonde head with kisses, and holding her out in front of her face so that the baby could see who she was. When the little girl registered that it was her mother who was there, her mouth spread open in a wide beam and she jigged up and down with excitement. Martha pulled her towards her for another embrace, but it was a hug too far for Ruby who gave a grunt and tried to struggle free, looking over her shoulder at Sue who was extending her arm to hug Martha.

  “Don’t know how you tolerate her, Ruby!” said Sue. “All that hugging and kissing – bleucccchhh!” The face and noise made Ruby giggle.

  “Has she been good?” asked Martha, snuggling her face into Ruby’s soft neck.

  “You know yourself,” replied Sue, opening the boot to begin disgorging the buggy, steriliser and other Ruby-related items. “Makes a great cup of tea but then leaves the bag in the sink – and I caught her smoking twice. My fags too!”

  “Oh Ruby!” said Martha in mock horror. “I thought you’d quit!”

  Ruby looked at her mother, beamed, and batted at her nose with a chubby little hand.

  Sue straightened, having placed the buggy on the driveway. “What a cracking spot,” she observed, nodding at the cottage.

  Martha turned to look also. “It’s lovely, isn’t it? Told you!”

  The cottage was, indeed, idyllic. Set back three or four hundred yards from the main road along a gravel driveway, it looked even more inviting in the sunshine than it had in the pictures the friends had seen on the internet. Intended as a holiday cottage for rental, Rob Mountford had renovated and modernised it over the past couple of years and was delighted to have a continuous tenant for six months for the first letting.

  Martha thought the cottage looked as though a child had painted it in a picture. The outer walls were whitewashed and the woodwork painted an inviting shade of teal green. The front door was in the exact centre and inside it lay a hallway with a wooden floor, the stairs slightly to the left inside the door. Off the hallway were a number of doors – on the right a cosy living room, further on Martha’s study. To the left, under the stairs, a small door led into the dining area and beyond it was a door to the kitchen. At the very end of the hallway, to the rear of the house, another door led into a utility room where the washing machine and dryer lived, and the walls were lined with shelves for household bits and bobs. The dining room and kitchen were separated by a folding partition which Martha chose to keep open, spreading daylight throughout the long room from the bay window to the front of the house and the small conservatory attached to the kitchen at the side. The living room also had a bay window and Martha had already envisioned staying until after Christmas, and maybe having her dad and stepmum along with Sue to stay, with a huge real tree glimmering in the window, like a picture on a Christmas card.

  At the top of the old wooden stairs was a landing area, with what looked like the original floor varnished a dark colour, the doors to the rooms the same. The ceilings throughout the upstairs were beamed. There was no window at the end of the landing which was a pity, as that meant it had little natural light when the doors leading off it were closed. But, inside the two little bedrooms, two front windows jutted out from the slanted roof, leaded like the bay windows downstairs.

  Martha was to sleep in the room to the right of the stairs, Ruby to the left, directly across from her. Beyond Ruby’s room, over the kitchen, was a small unused room that Martha had used to store all of the empty boxes from her move. Beyond Martha’s, the bathroom with its old-fashioned suite and claw-footed bath. The house brimmed with character. Martha’s room, the living room and dining area all had original fireplaces which worked. The doors upstairs were original, the walls throughout the older part of the house bumpy with age but freshly painted.

  Outside, the back garden was huge, leading around the side of the house to the small conservatory whose door was the sole exit to the rear of the house. Although Martha knew she would enjoy the conservatory, it was the one thing she felt was incongruous, the bright modern white frame out of character with the original cottage. Through it, however, she had a delightful view of the garden, all freshly landscaped and planted with mature shrubs and flowerbeds, and separated from the fields beyond by its surrounding lavender bushes and the mature trees which stretched high into the sky.

  On this last day of May the sunshine beamed down and Martha felt it was all a dream come true, and with her daughter back in her arms she felt in one piece again.

  “Pretty isolated though,” observed Sue.

  Martha turned back to her – she had almost forgotten that her friend was there. “It’s not too bad,” she replied. “There’s a farm out the back, about half a mile across the fields, and the village is the same distance away to the right when you come out the drive. And, before you say it, I know I’m a city girl at heart but –”

  “You always said you’d never live anywhere where there wasn’t a Tesco within walking distance!” exclaimed Sue, closing the boot of her car.

  “I know, I know! But look at this place – it’s absolutely perfect! You never know – I might turn into a total Wurzel and move here forever!”

  Sue gazed at the house. “And Ruby might recite Shakespeare over dinner,” she said sarcastically and trudged toward the front door, cases in hand.

  Martha laughed and followed her.

  Martha plonked a third bottle of Pinot Grigio on the glass-topped table in the conservatory and moved the empties down beside the wicker couch where Sue lay barefoot.

  “If I can’t see them, then we haven’t drunk them and I won’t have a hangover when Ruby wakes at five in the morning!” she explained, plonking herself into the wicker chair opposite Sue, slurring her words slightly and giggling.

  “At least you won’t have far to go if she does wake,” observed Sue, equally glassy-eyed. “I’m sorry to be ousting her from her room. You sure it’s okay?”

  “Oh, for sure,” said Martha, spilling wine on the table-top as she filled up their glasses. “I’d have kept her in my room with me to settle her anyway. ’Sides, I’ve really missed her and I’ll probably lug her into my bed when I go up anyway.”

  “That’ll be pleasant for her with the amount you’ve put away tonight!” giggled Sue.

  “Not to mention my garlic breath!” added Martha.

  The two laughed and Sue struggled to her feet and padded over to the open door of the conservatory for a cigarette. The evening was still balmy though it was nearly ten thirty. “God but it’s quiet,” she remarked, gazing at the silhouettes of the trees surrounding the house and listening to cattle lowing gently in the distance.

  Even though the cottage wasn’t far from the main road, only the occasional sound of traffic reached them. All around, the fields lay dark and silent. Inside the house too, it was dark and silent. Apart from the glow of lamplight in the conservatory and a dim nightlight upstairs for Ruby, the house lay in total darkness, the occasional creak coming from the settling floorboards.

  “So who lived here before you?” asked Sue, looking back in at her friend while trying to blow smoke outside and failing.

  “Not a soul,” replied Martha. “The place was derelict apparently until the local builder bought it three years ago and did it up bit by bit to rent out. So
me of it apparently dates back centuries but, in saying that, which bits do and which bits don’t,” she smiled and indicated the modern conservatory, “are anyone’s guess. There are walls knocked through, bits added on.”

  “What was it originally then?”

  “Farmer’s cottage, I think.”

  “So, nothing special then?” Sue sounded disappointed. She loved a good story.

  “Nope, nothing at all,” replied Martha. “Just an ordinary old cottage in the countryside.”

  Sue flicked her cigarette butt out the door and stepped after it to grind it out with her foot. She bent to pick it up but, as she did so, heard something that made her turn sharply and look back into the conservatory in disbelief.

  Both women turned to stare at Ruby’s baby monitor as the lights indicating a live link to the unit in her cot danced all the way up to red, indicating maximum volume, and what sounded like a long, rasping sigh was transmitted into the room. Martha felt the hairs on her arms stand up as the sound continued, filling with voice as it did so and ending loudly. If she hadn’t known better, she would have called it a growl.

  Martha and Sue stared in stunned silence at the monitor as the sound died away and silence once again filled the room. They were transfixed for a moment or two, both of them trying frantically to process what they had just heard.