The Dead Summer

by Helen Moorhouse

  Martha put her fork down. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to offend anyone. Not that it’s offensive to be . . . ummm . . . gay. Or to be . . . umm . . . you, Will . . . it’s just . . .” She reddened deeper as she spoke, wishing she’d never opened her mouth.

  “Oh shut up, both of you!” said Gabriel. “As none of us appear to be eating, shall we retire to that feeble excuse for a bar and get to the bloody point?”

  Once settled on armchairs at the far end of the modern bar area, Martha was amazed to see Gabriel almost undergo a transformation from the moody spoiled child of dinner to the deathly serious man she’d spent the afternoon with in the pub. Within moments of him starting to relay his information, she wished herself back at the dining table, embarrassing herself all over again.

  “I had a very unnerving experience in the bairn’s room,” said Gabriel.

  Will again took out his notebook and started to scribble. “Martha, tell me first about the noises that you hear from the chimney-breast.”

  Martha didn’t want to think about them. It had to be an animal, unlikely as that seemed. There was no other possible explanation.

  “It’s just scratching sometimes,” she shrugged.

  The two men remained silent and looked at her.

  “Please, Martha,” urged Will, “please tell us exactly what you’ve heard.”

  Gabriel placed the tips of his fingers together and nodded attentively as Martha reluctantly described what she’d heard coming from the blocked-up fireplace on a regular basis. She then relayed to them what Alison Stockwell had told her on the night she had gone out with Rob Mountford.

  “You say there was heavy rain that night?” asked Will.

  Martha nodded, wondering what that had to do with anything. “And thunder and lightning,” she added.

  “Perfect conditions,” muttered Will. “However, we’re looking at an impressionable teenage girl left alone in a strange house with a young baby.”

  “Forget that,” said Gabriel, his face suddenly lighting up. “What about impressionable young mum goes on romantic date with landlord, eh? Spill!”

  “Nothing happened,” Martha protested before being interrupted by Will.

  “Gabriel!” he said, annoyance in his tone.

  Gabriel leaned over toward Will’s chair and spoke into his face. “In a Michelin-recommended restaurant,” he said accusingly.

  Will looked away from him in annoyance and back to Martha. Triumphant at staring the longest, albeit in a one-sided competition, Gabriel flopped back in his seat.

  Martha couldn’t help but smile but it fell from her face as Gabriel resumed his serious tone.

  “It’s consistent with what I was picking up from Ruby’s room,” he said gravely. “I don’t really know how to put this, Martha, but by my reckoning there’s a second spirit at the house. It’s a wee boy, and from what I can tell he was bricked up in the fireplace. Before he passed.”

  Martha gazed at Gabriel in horror. That was what Lil Flynn had said. What she thought was a tale grown from the stories about monks walling up their victims. It had to be nonsense. No one could do that. To a child?

  “No!” she found herself saying. “This is going too far now. You’ve been listening to the stories from the village. Walling people up! Rubbish!”

  “Immurement is a historical fact!” growled Gabriel. “As a form of execution, torture or punishment for sin. Virgins were immured in the foundations of buildings as a form of protective sacrifice. Anchorites – sort of extreme hermits, if you like – voluntarily had themselves walled up as the ultimate act of withdrawal from the world – except in their case they lived on, with food passed through the wall to them daily. It’s fact not fiction. Oh, hark at me! I’m as bad as Will and his Interesting Facts about Concrete!”

  “This isn’t the Dark Ages,” said Martha, flushing, “and all those horrors have nothing to do with my house. What’s in the chimney-breast is an animal. Sometimes they can . . . they can sound human – like cats and foxes . . .” She realised she was sounding slightly hysterical and allowed her voice to tail off.

  “Martha,” said Will, “it ties in with what I heard at the pub – the rumour’s been around for years . . .”

  “No!” Martha shouted. “It’s just an animal! My landlord’s going to take care of it!”

  “Oh for God’s sake, woman,” said Gabriel suddenly. “How? How in the name of all that’s holy could it be an animal? That’s survived in a chimney for well over a month at least? Do you see low-flying aircraft round these parts flinging foxes and kittens round willy-nilly? Do you think Santa left it there? I know what I felt – there’s a person’s spirit in there – and it’s trapped!”

  Martha and Will stared at Gabriel, seeing that there were tears forming in his eyes.

  “This is why I don’t do poxy bairns,” said Gabriel, clearly upset and wiping tears as they began to roll down his cheeks. “They can’t defend themselves – living or dead – and I can’t defend them either and time after time awful stuff happens to them. I’ve seen it and I can’t take it. That’s why I don’t do bairns.” His voice had fallen to a whisper by the time he finished.

  “I didn’t know that’s why you felt that strongly, mate,” Will said, and searched in his pockets for a napkin or a tissue, ostensibly to comfort Gabriel but in reality to give him himself something to do with his hands during the awkward moment.

  Martha stared at Gabriel in shock. She hadn’t expected him to be so – sincere, especially as a child was involved. Her heart warmed a little to the giant man, but it couldn’t counter the sense of dread she felt.

  Gabriel took a moment before he spoke again in a soft voice. “He’s petrified in there,” he said, blinking more tears down his face. “He woke up in the dark and he didn’t know where he was. His head hurt – he couldn’t find a way out and he started to call out, to try to . . . escape.” His voice fell to a whisper as the horror of what he was trying to explain became too much for him.

  Martha could feel her own tears beginning to form at the backs of her eyes as she absorbed what the medium was describing.

  “He tried until he passed, bless him.” Gabriel had composed himself.

  “How long?” asked Martha, glad that Gabriel had spared them the details.

  “Too long,” answered Gabriel, shaking his head. “He was very weak when he went in there. He was hungry. And terribly thirsty. ”

  Martha’s eyes flooded with tears at this small detail. How could this have happened? She squeezed her eyes shut to try to stop the tears but it only forced them down her face.

  “He couldn’t breathe,” continued Gabriel. “There was no room for him to move . . . he was crying out for help, trying to scratch his way out . . . no one came for him. No one until you, Martha.”

  Martha sobbed as she thought over all the nights of the scratching noises and the annoyance she felt at them. Was this true? Had she been sharing her home with the soul of a little boy that someone had done this to? Was it really the cause of the crying and the scraping? A sob escaped her and she raised her hand to her mouth as she remembered how awful the noises had been on the night when she thought she had her intruder.

  “I shouted at him!” she whispered, aghast. “Told him to shut up . . . I just couldn’t bear the noise . . .”

  “Since you’ve been there he’s found some comfort,” said Gabriel. “I felt that he likes it when you sing to the baby – he thinks you’re singing to him. Oh – and he likes the moons and stars – does that make sense?”

  Martha nodded. “Ruby’s nightlight,” she explained. She couldn’t get the picture of herself happily dancing and laughing with Ruby, while she changed and dressed and played with her – with a little boy there as well.

  “The funny thing about him, Will,” said Gabriel, “is that now he can actually get out of the wall if he wants to, but he’s so scared of whoever put him there that he never – or rarely – does it.�
� He turned back to Martha. “He said he sometimes gets the comfort and brings it back in with him – does that make any sense to you, Martha?”

  Martha wiped tears from her cheeks, again confused by what Gabriel was saying. It suddenly hit her. “The soothers! Ruby’s pacifiers – they keep going missing and I keep finding them over by the chimney-breast – could that be him?”

  Gabriel nodded. “That’s it. Sometimes he says he can’t reach them and that makes him cry.”

  It made sense to Martha. “They only go missing when I put them on the bedside table, which is low. If I put them on the changing unit then they stay put but that’s higher up. I never realised that before now.”

  Will coughed. “Gabriel, I can understand how an alleged entity can supposedly move a physical object but how are these soothers actually giving him comfort? He can’t bring them through a brick wall.” His voice was calm and rational in the midst of the high emotion.

  “You’ll probably think this is wishy-washy,” said Gabriel, “but I sensed from him that while the plastic bits obviously can’t go through a wall, the comfort attached to them can. He picks up what Ruby gets from them – they soothe her – and he can take that with him. I know it doesn’t make sense but . . .”

  Will shook his head. “I believe you because it’s you, Gabriel,” he said.

  “But this isn’t enough evidence.” Martha was amazed that Will could profess belief so easily. She had found herself impressed by his professionalism, envious of his detachment. A thought struck her and she swung her head around to Will. “I’ve heard him actually,” she said, recalling suddenly the little footsteps that she’d tried to ignore, the plop as the pacifier hit the floor near the wall. “I’ve heard his little feet run across the room and pick up a dummy and then it drops on the floor by the chimney-breast. Is that evidence?” Suddenly, remembering those little footsteps, Martha realised that she couldn’t fight it any longer. She believed.

  Will jotted the information down but didn’t make eye contact. “Do we think he’s connected with ‘M’ in any way?”

  Martha turned to Gabriel – she had all but forgotten the other spirit as she heard about the poor little boy.

  Gabriel nodded. “It blocked me when I was trying to connect with the boy, so I feel it can connect with him as well. They’re on the same plane – I don’t think I’d be putting two and two together and making ten to say that M had something to do with putting him there in the first place. Again, it all leads me to his being a man . . . physically bricking up his body . . . and, I mean, it’s not usual for women to murder children.”

  “But not unheard of,” said Will. “Myra Hindley, Rose West . . .”

  Martha felt a sudden jolt through her body. The words of Lil Flynn again: “Mother did it.” Everything tied up with what she had said . . .

  “Right,” said Will, putting down the notebook. “I think we’ve got a lot here. Is there anything else that’s important, Gabriel?”

  The medium nodded and looked down at his feet. “Just a couple of things,” he said. “The boy’s name is Henry. And he’s nearly four.”

  There was complete silence for a good three or four minutes. None of them knew what to say. Gabriel eventually broke it by standing up and walking off to the lift. He was crying too hard to even say goodnight and the others watched him go sympathetically.

  “He feels a lot of what they feel, apparently,” Will said once the lift doors had closed.

  Martha lifted her tear-stained face from her hands and sniffed. She nodded in response, drained, unable to think of anything to say.

  “I think I’ll head to bed myself,” she said eventually, her voice thick with tears.

  Will nodded. “I’m going to stay up a while. Have a stiff drink.”

  “Goodnight then,” said Martha. There was no point in even trying to talk about what Gabriel had just told them. It was too huge. She stood up and walked a couple of yards, then hesitated and turned back to Will. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Will’s BlackBerry which he had placed on the table earlier beeped and he was momentarily distracted. “For what?” he asked, picking it up and checking the message.

  “For lying. For trying to pretend there was nothing going on. I’ve felt weird in that place for ages, but I just wanted to ignore it and get away. I guess I was in denial . . . especially about the . . . noises I heard from the chimney . . .”

  Will nodded acknowledgement. “I understand why you wanted to stay out of it,” he said. “It sounds like some pretty scary stuff was going on up there.”

  Martha stared into the distance and nodded slightly herself. “And thanks, Will,” she continued, looking back at him. “For going through doors first, and waiting for me – and stuff . . .” Her voice trailed off and she felt a little silly.

  Will smiled. “That’s nothing. Just what I do. Now I have to figure out what to do next.”

  Martha nodded and turned for the lift. She silently wished him well with what he had to do. For her, however, it was over. She couldn’t bear to know any more.

  Chapter 25

  Eyrie Farm,

  Shipton Abbey,

  Norfolk,

  England

  February 1st, 1955

  Dear Caroline,

  “May Brigid bless the house wherein you dwell.” Do you still sing that hymn in the convent on this special day? The first day of spring?

  I am nineteen today, as I am sure you know, and my life continues here at Shipton Abbey, sometimes with great happiness but more often with sadness and a sense of longing. I will tell of our last year here in this letter, and explain why.

  As I have said, we are still here in Norfolk, and there is no sign of us ever going back to Dublin. That makes a part of my heart sing, more of which later, but another part of it aches for our familiar places which I haven’t seen in so long. To walk on the strand at Dollymount, sit in the sun in St Stephen’s Green, take a picnic to the Hill of Howth for a day out. I am now old enough to do all of these things for myself but instead I am trapped here in a tiny village in an alien land. I know nothing of England, just this tiny piece of land where this cottage and this village are. I am in a sort of prison but with enough freedom to make me long for more, and even as I am a prisoner I am a keeper of sorts as I am still Marion’s keeper.

  Daddy no longer writes, or telephones the Mountfords. I fear he has forgotten us, which makes me fear for him, wondering just how badly the shock of Mammy’s death has affected him. I write to him every Monday without fail and tell him of our progress, but there is never an answer.

  To my joy, Henry is still with us, now a boy of eighteen months, walking and talking a little and bringing such happiness to my heart but also such a dread that he should be taken from us now. I am, to all intents and purposes, his mother. Marion has never shown interest in him and couldn’t care if the boy were dressed or naked, fed or starving, indeed, alive or dead, God forgive me. But, to me, Henry is the sun, moon and stars, my greatest joy. To see the sunlight reflected in his brown hair as he potters about outside (when I can risk letting him out), the curiosity in the eyes so like my mother’s, his little winter coat that Robert gave him, from a chest at his house, buttoned up to his neck and the little red scarf and gloves that I knitted him keeping him warm.

  He is a slight small child, skinny for his age, Mrs Collins tells me, but he has plenty to eat and an abundance of love from me. He is still a good sleeper and nowadays I put him in his little crib – he will soon have to sleep in the bed with me, I fear! – and tell him a story. I tell him about Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, and about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and such tales as I can remember from when I was little and my mother, Lord rest her, did the same.

  Henry is such a loving child. He is generous with hugs and little kisses and when he smiles it’s as if the heavens have opened up their glory, such is the effect he has on me. And Robert loves him as well – last summer when he was smaller we took hi
m as far as the seaside on an excursion, Henry hidden on the floor of Robert’s motor car while we drove through the village. We are in a Limbo of sorts. Henry must remain a secret until he is taken away but there is no talk of that yet. How cruel can my father be to leave him with me so long, the threat of losing him always hanging over me like a curse? Every night I say goodnight as though it is the last night I will do so, every kiss may be our last, every game perhaps our final one. I live still from day to day, totally in love with this child and fearful to the core that I will lose him.

  And what of his mother? The woman who carried and bore him? I fear she is a lost cause, Caroline. She gads about day and night, most of the time I don’t know where she is. I fear she may bring more shame upon us for sometimes she is gone all night and returns in the morning looking the worse for wear. She smokes cigarettes and drinks whiskey, she tells me, and goes gambling and dancing with boys.

  I don’t know how much of it is true but I fear for her life as well as her soul. She treats this house like a doss house, and me as her servant. I am expected always to cook and clean and most of the time is it easier to obey as her rages have grown more violent in nature. Last August for instance, I was late back from meeting Robert and I came home to find her hiding in a doorway. She jumped out at me before I saw her and punched my face as hard as she could with her fist, like a cowboy might in the pictures. I was stunned and bleeding and with that she grabbed my hair and drove me into the kitchen. I was fearful for my life and for that of Henry, for I knew that she would harm him but still I left him with her for just half an hour. She had tied him to a chair, Caroline, and I don’t know what else she did to him but he was crying his little heart out and had soiled himself all over and she had bruised his face and pinched his little cheeks. Indeed she cannot walk past him without inflicting some tiny little punishment upon him – a pinch here, a smack there, a tug of his darling curly hair. If I told her off for doing so then she would just scream at me that she is his mother after all. Some mother she is! I pray sometimes that God will just take him away to some lovely people who crave the comfort of a child and who have a warm home with plenty to eat and shiny toys. And then no sooner have I wished this happiness for him than I clutch him to my chest and cry and pray that no one will ever separate me from this darling, darling boy.