The Dead Summer

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by Helen Moorhouse


  Chapter 14

  Eyrie Farm,

  Shipton Abbey,

  Norfolk,

  England

  July 25th, 1953

  Dear Caroline,

  It has been a long time, I know, since last I wrote, but I find myself with barely a minute to myself as the time draws nearer for the baby to arrive. Of course I know I cannot send this to you but it’s a comfort for me to write it and I can hope you will read it some day.

  Marion is huge as a house – she’d kill me if she saw that so don’t tell her, whatever you do! Her ankles are swollen as well and she is crippled with pains in her back so she finds it very hard to get up and around sometimes. Again, I find myself doing everything that needs to be done and all of her fetching and carrying as well. At least she seems not to get the fidgets any more in her legs. She’d be up all night pacing the house when they struck and I’d have to be up with her, making sure she was all right. Mammy wrote to me and said that it’s all normal and that it’s my duty as her sister to make sure she’s well and rested, for when the time comes there will be very little sleeping done.

  I am nervous for when the time comes. If it’s sudden, then I’ll be the only person here with Marion and I am no midwife nor matron. Mammy says that as soon as Marion starts to get pains, or when her waters break (she says I’ll know it when it happens) that I am to cycle to the doctor straight away and he will come himself or send a midwife. I think Daddy has made arrangements with the doctor through Mr Mountford. He has sent me an envelope which is to be given to the doctor as soon as the baby is born. I think that it will tell the doctor that the baby is to be put up for adoption straight away. Again, that makes me sad but we cannot keep a baby, just us girls on our own in the countryside, and when the baby is born we can go home again.

  Mr Mountford visited us last week, thank God. I thought that after Marion’s shenanigans he would never call again. He brought the doctor with him and he examined Marion and said that all was well and the baby was a small one but once she could feel it kick that all was fine. Thank God Mr Mountford wasn’t in the room for the examination because Marion made a show of herself. When he asked if she could feel the baby kick she shouted at him “I’ll kick you!” and drew back her leg to do that very thing. She cried and wailed when he examined her, saying that he was molesting her and that she would tell our daddy what he had done and that he’d pay for the consequences. The examination ended soon after that. I hope that the doctor doesn’t tell Mr Mountford what she said to him for we should be shamed again. God forgive me for my lack of charity but Marion seems to do nothing but bring shame on our family name, and these people being so kind and so generous.

  Mr Mountford’s son then came the following day with a box of old toys and baby clothes and blankets. It was very kind of him, of course, but we shall have no need of that when the baby is adopted. Maybe we will pass them on with the baby to its new mammy and daddy – Mr Mountford’s son, Robert, says that they are no use to them any more and are cluttering up the attic. I asked if he would stay for a cup of tea but he had to be on his way. He seems a nice enough fellow.

  I must go now for I hear Marion rousing and I know that she will want a bath.

  May God be with you,

  Lily

  Chapter 15

  July 1st

  Rob Mountford returned the following morning and with him was an assistant – a boy of about seventeen or eighteen years of age, carrying a radio. The lad rang the doorbell before Rob had a chance to let himself in this time, which gave Martha the opportunity to go to the hallway to meet him and say hello. He grunted in response and carried on upstairs, barking orders to the boy who Martha gathered was called Sam.

  She shrugged her shoulders at the response and picked up Ruby’s changing bag to drop her down to Lullabies for the morning. Strangely, considering the events of the night before, she’d had a good night’s sleep, as had Ruby. There had been no scratching in the wall for a change and Martha felt optimistic that it would soon be a thing of the past once Rob had investigated what sort of animal or bird was resident in the chimney-breast.

  When she drove back up the driveway, however, her optimism waned as she was greeted by a foul smell. She followed the sound of voices right around to the end of the garden where Rob and Sam were staring at a patch of ground.

  “What’s up?” she asked gingerly, walking toward the two men.

  “Don’t come any closer!” barked Rob and Martha stopped, but not before she felt a squelch underfoot and looked down to see muddy water rising up around her foot.

  “Oh dear,” she said, and took a step backwards.

  “Bloody septic tank,” said Rob, almost to himself. He then looked at Martha. “Gonna have to fix this before I can do the plastering. You’re in danger of a flood.”

  Martha opened her eyes wide in alarm and she saw Rob’s face soften slightly.

  A note of reassurance entered his voice as he said, “Nothing to worry about. We’ve found it in time but I need to head off in a bit to get my tools. Should be back by the afternoon though.”

  Martha nodded and walked back toward the house as the two men bent again to the ground.

  Once inside she left her soggy shoes in the utility room and went upstairs to wash her feet and fetch clean shoes. Back downstairs she put the kettle on, feeling very frustrated. Time was moving on and she hadn’t written a word yet. This bloody house, she thought. If it wasn’t inexplicable noises and creaks it was the waterworks, or the plastering, or the electrics. If she’d known that it was going to be like this she’d have just stayed in London. Maybe she should have anyway. Martha sighed as she made herself a coffee and headed to her study, determined at least to get some work done.

  She heard the Land Rover pull away outside. She was on her own again and vowed to make use of the reprieve. As always, she found it easier to use pen and paper than the laptop and she settled down to begin the day, determined to have written at least twenty A4 pages before leaving to pick up Ruby. She bent her head over the pad and started to scribble furiously, finally feeling a flow that both the weather and her exhaustion seemed to have drained from her over the past while.

  Martha wrote for about an hour, lost completely in her story. Rufus, her unicorn, had been captured by an evil enemy of the King of Faragad and, still unaware of his magical powers, he had no idea why. Martha placed him in a cell, tethered by his horn to a wall, feeling trapped and isolated, unsure of what was to come next. She closed her eyes and reached inside herself for some of the emotions she’d been having lately and wrote from the heart, passionate about the words. In his mind, Rufus wondered why on earth he’d put himself in the position which had led to his capture and wondered if things would ever be as they should again. Through the magical creature on the page Martha poured out her fear and frustration, almost subconsciously. She had reached half of her day’s target when she was roused suddenly by the thump of footsteps from upstairs and the sudden blast of a radio.

  “Jesus H!” she shouted in shock, and jumped to her feet to go and investigate. She had reached the door of the study when she calmed sufficiently to realise that it must be Sam upstairs. Only Rob needed to go get the tools so Sam must have stayed behind to make a start up there.

  Martha paused and then sat back in her chair. She looked at the pad, filled with writing. She was caught in a flow and she decided to run with it. The radio was very loud but to go upstairs to ask Sam to turn it down would also mean making polite chit-chat with him and that would put her back to square one when she returned.

  She picked up her pen again.

  It was difficult to concentrate with the music blaring from upstairs. She recognised the station as one she never listened to – a local classic hits one. Sam seemed to have a particular fondness for very old songs, she noticed, as the volume rose for particular songs – Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochrane. She pressed ahead with her work, trying to ignore the music. She appreciated the fact
that it sounded like he had taken his boots off and was padding around in stockinged feet. At least he wasn’t treading septic tank overflow everywhere.

  By a quarter to one she had reached the target of pages she had set herself and was feeling very chuffed with herself. She picked up the folded buggy from the utility room and decided to walk down to collect Ruby and then carry on for a stroll in the sunshine.

  “See you later, Sam!” she called up the stairs as she went out the front door. There was no answer. Martha doubted he had heard her with the volume of the music.

  Within the hour Martha was striding along the beautiful country lanes around Shipton Abbey. Ruby sat in her stroller, her feet perched on the safety bar across the front. She giggled in the breeze and Martha stopped at intervals to tilt the stroller back towards her to give her daughter upside-down kisses which made her squeal with delight. Being outdoors after such a productive morning made Martha feel refreshed and revitalised. The noises were nothing more than noises, the septic tank could be fixed. It was all fine. Her resolve to stay in Shipton Abbey, and at Hawthorn Cottage, was strengthened again.

  She was five minutes from the centre of the village when she felt the first thick drops of rain on her head. She ignored them at first until a large splash landed on Ruby’s nose and the little girl crinkled her face and looked upward, blinking into the light. Martha retrieved the plastic rain-cover from the tray under the buggy, glad that she left it there at all times but disappointed to spot that her own rain-jacket was missing. She realised that she hadn’t actually needed it since moving.

  The drops grew thicker and the sky was a block of dark grey above her as she moved quickly toward the village and beyond to the road home. She was soon soaked through, however, her black linen trousers and loose white smock beginning to stick to her skin. She decided to take shelter at the Abbot’s Rest.

  She reversed in through the door of the pub, taking care not to trip on the step down onto the pub floor and gently lowered the buggy after her. She peered inside to see that Ruby was fast asleep and breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to entertain her in the pub.

  Martha negotiated the pushchair into a space between two empty tables. The pub was deserted as far as she could see. She went to the bar where she waited for a while until eventually a girl in her early twenties with a bored expression on her face came through and took her order for a coffee. There was no friendly ‘I’ll drop it down to you’ and Martha had to wait at the bar for the mug of coffee and take it back to the table herself. She sank into her seat and watched as the girl went back through into the lounge where the TV was blaring.

  Martha shook in two sugars and a little milk and sipped the hot drink, surveying her surroundings as she did so. The downpour outside made the room gloomy and the fireplace smelled strongly of soot dislodged by the rain. She felt uncomfortable but it really was too wet to head outside so she sipped her coffee again and leaned over the buggy, wiping the drops off the plastic to peer in at the sleeping Ruby.

  As she leaned over her daughter, Martha became aware of a shape moving slowly toward her in the gloom. She froze, not wanting to look up and see what was approaching her out of the dark inner area of the pub. Out of the corner of her eye she made out a face and the flesh of two wrinkled hands. It was the old lady from the other night. Lil Flynn, Mary had called her. Martha forced herself to look up into the face of the old woman. In turn, Li Flynn was staring at the rain-soaked stroller.

  There was silence for a moment. The old lady broke it by extending one of her knotty, misshapen hands and pointing at the baby, saying, “’R’you keeping her up at Eyrie Farm?”

  Martha was completely taken aback. She looked at Lil Flynn, tried to figure out what to say. “Ummm, hello,” she began. “This is my daughter, and yes, we’re staying at the cottage for a while.”

  “Shouldn’t take a baby up to Eyrie Farm,” came the response.

  The woman must have been drinking since early morning to slur her words so, thought Martha. She knew she should bring the conversation to an end but was intrigued.

  “Why so?” she asked.

  She shifted slightly as the old woman flopped down beside her. She smelled musty and unwashed and a faint tinge of alcohol fumes seeped from her as she leaned toward Martha.

  “One up there already,” she said. “There’s a boy up at Eyrie Farm.”

  Her words chilled Martha, who leaned back and away from the woman. What she said next made Martha turn ice-cold.

  “He’s in the fire,” said the old lady. “In the wall. There’s a boy in the wall at Eyrie Farm.” She fell silent, and turned her head, her vacant eyes having difficulty focusing as she stared into space. “Immured,” she said, rolling the word across her tongue, closing her eyes as though savouring it, or daring herself to say it.

  Martha stared at her in shock.

  “Does he cry at night?” the old woman asked suddenly.

  Martha recoiled in horror and tried to shuffle away along the bench where she sat. The old lady leaned after her, locking her eyes with Martha’s.

  Martha tried to change the subject. “It’s Lil, isn’t it?” she asked, trying to sound as bright as she could. “Lil Flynn?”

  The crone leaned away from Martha as if she had been insulted. She regarded her with rheumy eyes, filled with disgust. “My name is Lily Mountford,” she said, pronouncing the surname with pride, as though it made her titled.

  Martha was taken aback again. “I’m sorry,” she said but the old lady had stood up and was weaving her way back into the gloom in the direction from which she had come. Martha realised she had been holding her breath, and exhaled as the woman walked away. She gasped again as Lily turned one more time.

  “Mother did it, you know,” she said and shuffled away.

  Martha couldn’t get out of the pub fast enough. She slammed five pounds down under her undrunk coffee – it was all that she had in her purse but she didn’t care that she had paid almost three times the price. She bumped and bashed the stroller off stools and tables as she manoeuvred it out the door, all the time peering behind her to make sure that Lil Flynn – Mountford – was nowhere near her.

  She had made it back up the hill out of the village when she realised that the rain had actually stopped and a huge rainbow arched over the abbey and into the sky behind her. She was painfully out of breath – her throat burned from when she had almost flung herself up the hill. She paused for a moment and stared back at the village to catch her breath.

  What on earth did that old woman mean? That there was a boy immured in a wall somewhere at Hawthorn Cottage? And what did she mean did he cry at night? A shiver ran down Martha’s spine. Lately – those dreams of a baby crying, and what Alison Stockwell had said . . .

  “Oh, cut it out!” said Martha out loud. What was she doing scaring herself when the old woman was clearly delusional with drink. What was more interesting was that she had said her name was Mountford. What did that mean?

  Martha walked on toward home. As far as she knew there was only one family named Mountford in Shipton Abbey and that meant that if Lil Flynn – or Lily Mountford – was telling the truth then she was in some way related to Rob. Why then had he been so eager to get Martha away from the pub that night of the dinner? And why did Mary dismiss her so? Maybe the old woman was Rob’s mum? No – too old, and hadn’t Mary said that Rob’s mum had died when he was young? His gran, then? She could understand why Rob would want to keep them apart in that case – it would never do that a relative of the great Rob Mountford was the village drunk. And was Mary playing along because she wanted to get Rob and Martha together after all? She had given him advice on taking Martha out in the first place . . .

  Martha was very confused. Her earlier enthusiasm for life in Shipton Abbey had taken a knock – she felt very much like an outsider all of a sudden.

  She noticed that she had actually reached her own driveway and turned in toward the cottage. Sh
e saw that the front door was open, but there was no sign of Rob’s Land Rover. Sam must still be inside, she thought, and that meant that Rob would most likely have to come and pick him up later. She groaned inwardly – she couldn’t face another awkward conversation and she didn’t want to be on edge all afternoon waiting for him to tramp in on her.

  Ruby was still asleep, she noticed, and she left her in the stroller in the hallway where it was cool and quiet. It was quiet, too, upstairs. Martha crept up to Ruby’s room to check on progress and to advise Sam that the baby was sleeping. She was surprised to find the place deserted – the only change from this morning was that the numbers on the clock radio that Sam had brought with him were flashing on and off. Other than that, he seemed to have replaced everything in the room exactly as it had been that morning. Martha was struck by the fact that this was quite unusual, particularly when he seemed so young, but she didn’t complain. Poor Sam was probably scared of his boss as well.

  While upstairs she peered into the other rooms and found them also empty. The display on her own clock radio was also blinking – she realised there must have been a power cut in her absence. Probably some lightning accompanying the thundery cloudburst.

  Ruby was stirring as she returned downstairs and Martha unzipped her plastic covering and slid the beaming baby out into her arms. She jiggled her gently and asked her what she had dreamed about while asleep. The little girl tugged at the beads that Martha wore and popped them into her mouth to relieve her throbbing gums.

  Martha made her way down the hall and toward the kitchen, her eyes focused on her daughter as she ran a finger around her mouth for any signs of new teeth. When she reached the kitchen she turned to look at the room before her and stopped dead in her tracks.

 

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