A shudder ran through Martha. Exactly what she had thought when she had felt his tiny spirit beside her. She couldn’t believe that she was actually talking to someone who knew Henry, that he had been at Eyrie Farm in living memory. She wondered for the first time if she actually wanted to know what had really happened.
“But he was wiry and strong and he’d run from here to Dublin if you let him.” Lil smiled softly, lost in her memories. “He had a funny way of talking – used to call me Mammy, the little divil, instead of Auntie Lily, and Marion he’d call Marion, only he couldn’t pronounce his ‘r’s’ the right way. He’d say an ‘n’ instead. He was ‘Henny’, rabbits were ‘nabbits’ and his mother was –”
“Mannion,” said Martha. The room around her felt like it was spinning. The spirit that Gabriel had banished wasn’t a Mrs Mannion, it was Marion. The name of Henry’s mother. Lil Flynn’s sister. They must have been the two women that Mary had said lived at Eyrie Farm. The start of the mystery, and the hauntings.
Lil seemed not to notice the shock in Martha’s voice and continued to reminisce. “That’s right. ‘Mannion’ he called her. Used to get right up her nose and she’d get very cross, God love the little mite.” A tinge of sadness entered Lily’s voice. “She got cross with him an awful lot toward the end, when Albie finished with her.”
Another name. “Who was Albie, Lil?” asked Martha softly. No sooner was one mystery solved than another opened.
Lil ignored her. “It was her that caused the damage that time. She went mad – I couldn’t stop her rampaging through the house, knocking things over, breaking things, shouting that he’d ruined it all. I tried to hide him upstairs in his bedroom, to protect him from her, but she was like a madwoman.” Panic entered into Lil’s voice as she grew more agitated. “She barged in after us and pushed me outside the door and locked it – she was in there shouting at Henry, curse words and everything at him, and he was crying and screaming and I couldn’t get in to him. I was banging on the door and shouting at her to leave him alone. I thought it worked – he went quiet all of a sudden and she came out to me. Had a pillow in her hand. I tried to talk to her but she started punching me and telling me to shut up, shouting about how Albie had found out and wanted nothing to do with her and if she couldn’t have Albie I couldn’t have Henry, or Robert for that matter.”
Martha was totally confused now. She had no idea who Lil was talking about but the old lady didn’t seem to realise she was even there. Martha knew that all of this was important but could scarcely keep up. Lil’s speech grew more slurred as she spoke as well and it took every bit of concentration that Martha had to keep up in the stifling heat of the kitchen.
“I nearly had her out of the way and then I was going to go in to Henry and lock the door on her, keep him safe until she just calmed down but I saw over her shoulder into the room and Henry was lying on the bed, all still. I knew she’d hurt him, that she‘d used the pillow on him – I couldn’t believe it. At that moment, while I was off guard, she pushed me to the stairs and down the first couple of steps. I tried so hard but she was too strong for me. I lost my step on the stairs and went down like a sack of coal. I didn’t remember any more until I woke up in the hospital. Robert had found me at the farm and brought me there.
That was the end of all of it – they never let me go to Eyrie Farm again and when I got out Marion was gone and there was no sign of Henry at all. I never saw her again, never heard from her even. And my boy was gone. My lovely little boy – she’d taken him and she didn’t even love him.
Then the stories started. Charles Mountford wouldn’t let me up near Eyrie Farm, said we were a disgrace and that I wasn’t to go near the place. I tried telling folk what I’d seen – that she’d hurt Henry – but no one believed there was a boy up there in the first place, we’d hid him so well. I wondered why my friend Mrs Collins didn’t speak out and support what I was saying – but sure she never came near me at all and later I came to understand why. Of course, after my time in hospital I couldn’t talk right so Mountford started spreading it that I’d taken to the drink and that was why Marion had left, to go back home away from me. And Robert told me that we couldn’t be together. He was my last hope but not only his father but Charles Junior turned him against me then. It wouldn’t have done for a Mountford to marry the likes of me after what had happened. Albie agreed not to tell anyone about Henry so it stayed a secret but that was the worst – because no one knew about him, no one believed me, what she’d done to him. And I could never find out if he was dead or not – if my own sister had killed him. He’d looked dead as a doornail when I saw him on that bed but it was only for a second and he might just have been knocked out, maybe. I’ve hoped all my life to see him again but instead I got this – banished, too ashamed to go home, too afraid that I might miss Henry or Marion if they came back. This house was a so-called present from the Mountfords. They didn’t want me at Eyrie Farm so they fixed it that I got a mortgage for this place – imagine, a woman by herself paying a mortgage in that day and age. It wouldn’t have happened at home, I tell you.”
“You never found out what happened to Marion, did you?” said Martha, understanding now why she had seen a similarity between this skeletal woman and the ghostly apparition at the cottage, if only for a brief second. Lil looked as though she would blow away on a gust of wind. The vision at the cottage was someone who enjoyed a healthy appetite by the looks of things.
“I saw Robert one more time – when he came back from Australia.”
Martha began to feel irritated that she didn’t know who this Robert was. Obviously he and Albie were key to the story. She itched to look at the letters, to see what they would reveal. This was like hearing the story in reverse, having to memorise tiny details of the ending before going back to the beginning.
“It was about twenty years ago. He was outside my door one day, looking just like he used to, handsome and clean and healthy. I was ashamed. Sure what did I have to take care of myself for? This place has always been wild. It was a battle when I was a younger woman – my only joy the little patch out the back. I haven’t been able to look after it for a while and the Mountfords never helped me. Anyway, there was Robert, telling me he was sorry about Marion and sure I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. Turns out young Charlie had kept tabs on her for years. He was a sly one, never bloody told me either. She died young. Got hit by a train in London apparently and died instantly. Too good for her. She should have died roaring if she did away with Henry as I think she did.”
Martha thought about telling her about what she knew from the events at the cottage and decided against it. It wasn’t that she would never tell her, but she needed to think about it first.
“All the oul’ stories started then from fellahs going up to the house in the night, about the noises folk hear and all. That chap that Mountford put up there as a security guard, the year of the travellers, was talking about scratching and screaming and all sorts. That’s when I started going into that public house, to hear what he had to say. Couldn’t stop meself. The more I heard, the more I knew in my heart what she’d done with him.”
“What was that, do you think?” asked Martha, intrigued by the fact that Duncan Stockwell’s stories fuelled Lil’s suspicions, that the tales of a drunk were all the proof that this woman had of what had happened to a boy she evidently adored like a son.
“Marion knew how to lay a brick as well as any man,” said Lil.
The words chilled Martha to the core.
“She spent all her time as a girl with my father and he taught her – and in any case, when the fellahs were there building on to the back, sure how could she not have learned anything with the time she spent out there batting her eyelids, Albie or no Albie, like a hussy?”
Martha had to be sure. “What do you mean, Lil? That she knew how to lay a brick?”
Lil Flynn sighed, as though tired of telling the tale. “When Robert brought me here,
to the marsh, after I came out of the hospital, all our stuff was here. My clothes, Marion’s clothes, Henry’s clothes God save us. He’d brought it all here from Eyrie Farm. It was weeks before I went near it, sure I was half crazy with my head the way it was. That fall did me terrible damage altogether. When I got here first he handed me a necklace of Marion’s, said he’d found it near the bricked-up fireplace in the bedroom. My mind was so confused it didn’t dawn on me for a while that sure all the fireplaces in that house were open – didn’t we light them in the wintertime? Although at the end of that last winter the chimney in my room got blocked somehow and, if I lit it, the smoke would just pour out into the room so I stopped using it. I meant to ask Mr Mountford to call a chimney-sweep but then . . .” Lil lapsed into a long silence.
“Lil?” prompted Martha gently.
The old woman sighed. “Then a long time after, I found the courage to sort out Marion and Henry’s things – I knew she wasn’t coming back and my lovely boy gone with her. I remembered the dress that Marion wore the day it all happened – it was her best one, red of course, but I remember it because she’d made such a fuss about getting dressed to go see Albie, to beg him to take her back. There it was in the pile along with all the other stuff, and it covered in mortar. And what’s more I couldn’t find what Henry had been wearing that day at all. I could remember it then and I still can – his little shorts and a blue shirt. He thought it was a big man’s shirt and he used to stomp around the house in it pretending to be a builder, like the fellahs doing the extension. Now I suppose she could have just changed her dress and taken him in what he was wearing but then why would her dress be covered in mortar? I thought about what Robert had said about the necklace and one part of me put two and two together and another has never believed she could do it. Except I know she could. Marion would do anything to suit herself. Anything at all.”
Lil looked pale and exhausted when she finished speaking. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, grimacing with pain as she exhaled.
“I’d better let you get some rest,” said Martha, unwilling to move but knowing that as long as she stayed, the old woman would sit with her and she looked very unwell. Martha wondered if she shouldn’t get a doctor for her.
“You didn’t answer my question?” said Lil suddenly, her eyes still shut.
“What question was that?” asked Martha, genuinely unable to remember what the old woman had asked.
“Do you ever see him up there?” She opened her eyes. “Henry. With all the stories that the Stockwell fellah told me, I thought maybe . . .”
Martha was amazed to see a note of hope in her eyes and felt her heart go out to her. She looked at Lil and thought about telling her everything, then shook her head. “No, Lil. I’ve never seen Henry,” she said truthfully. Well, she hadn’t. She’d felt him, and felt him leave, she was sure. But she’d seen Marion, for her sins. She didn’t think Lil would want to hear that, though, knew that she wouldn’t be doing a sick old lady any favours by telling her. Marion had done enough haunting since her death. Her sister didn’t need to be haunted now that she was definitely gone.
Lil sighed. “Oh well . . . I suppose I’ll never know for sure then.”
Martha remained silent.
Lil pushed her hands against the table in an effort to propel herself upward, but failed. “So now you know,” she said then. breathing painfully. “Now you know. Take them letters away with you. You may as well have them, I suppose. It’s important that someone else knows what went on and you’re as good a person as any as you’re living up there now. They’re no use to me. It’s all in my head and I don’t think I’ll ever get it out, brain damage or no brain damage.”
“Let me get you some water,” Martha said, getting up.
Lil made a face. “No, I can’t even drink water with the awful taste in my mouth. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but it never leaves me. And do you know, the doctor gave me stuff for it and I used it once or twice before I’d go into town but sure isn’t there alcohol in it? If I swallowed so much as a drop then I’d have my pledge broken and I intend to die with that intact, the one sure thing I have.”
Mouthwash, thought Martha. It could sometimes leave a boozy smell on the breath – Dan used to use it before heading into work, she remembered, and she’d often give him a mint heading out the door as a joke – to freshen his fresh breath. Must have made things more pleasant for Paula, she thought, how kind of me. It explained though, she reckoned, why there had been a faint smell of alcohol from Lil Flynn on their second meeting in the pub. It confirmed the woman had been telling the truth: she was simply the victim of her own very slight disability and a smear campaign by a family who didn’t want her talking to a town she didn’t feel she could leave. What a life, thought Martha. What a waste of a whole life!
Lily made to stand again and Martha helped her to her feet.
“I won’t see you to the door, there’s a good girl,” said Lil, leaning heavily on the table. “I’m not able. I’m going to go have a lie down for myself though. I’ll feel better after that.”
“No problem,” said Martha picking up the pile of letters, careful to keep them in the order of the pile on the table. “You’re absolutely sure you want me to take these?”
Lil nodded. “You’re the only person who’s listened to me since Robert and sure he went off to Australia with himself. Married a girl out there, had a family. Charlie inherited everything. Made damn sure that I stayed out here on the marsh, quiet and out of the way.”
Lil stared wistfully into space and Martha again felt so sorry for her. She didn’t know yet exactly what had happened, but she knew for certain that Lil wished it were her that Robert had married and shared a life with.
She realised then that she had got closure here but not what she had expected. That look on Lil Flynn’s face told her just how lucky she actually was, to have been married and to have it end for a clearly defined reason, to have a beautiful daughter to love. Lil never had that, obviously had never had the chance to marry the man she loved for whatever reason, had lost the only child she would ever love. Martha felt like crying and kept her head down as she walked to the door. Once there, she turned to see the old woman walking painfully toward a door that Martha had failed to notice before, alongside the dresser.
“Are you sure you’re alright, Lil?”
The old woman didn’t turn, just waved her arm in dismissal. “I’ll be fine after I have a lie-down,” she said.
Martha watched her disappear and then let herself gently out the brown door. Then she paused, wondering if it was Lily’s habit to leave the front door unlocked in this isolated place. It seemed she must do. Martha let herself out the porch door which she closed carefully behind her.
Once outside, she paused, turned her face to the sky and took a deep breath. If she was expecting to be rewarded with fresh air, she was disappointed, because there had been no let-up in the sultry conditions since she had entered the dark and dirty little house. There was still no sunshine either, although Martha was glad of that. She didn’t think the temperatures would be bearable if the sun came out. She felt exhausted. First Mary and now Lil. And the story was even more complicated than she had first thought – new names, a bigger cast of people than she had originally expected. And so much sadness, both Mary and Lil deprived of their men because of the effects of that house. And this Marion person. Exhausted or not, Martha had to read those letters and find out who this Marion character was. To get to the bottom of the story at last.
Martha’s mind raced as she drove back along the country road to Shipton Abbey. Her glance fell on the pile of letters from time to time – she was itching to start reading them. Lily must have been taking the medication the doctor gave her when she met her in the pub that time, the poor woman. She had seen no signs today of someone who wanted to scare her, just a woman who wanted the truth to be known about the events that had changed her life all those years ago.
Obv
iously with no witnesses – no living ones anyway – it would be impossible to prove, but Martha figured that Marion had smothered her son in a rage with a pillow before turning her attention to her sister. What had driven her into that rage though? And had she then blocked the opening of the fireplace itself with Henry’s body in it or did she have an accomplice? And who were Albie and Robert? The Mountfords were mixed up in this too somehow, she was sure.
Martha’s thoughts turned to poor Henry. Had he simply been unconscious when his mother bricked his little body up? According to Gabriel, that’s what his spirit had told him. That he had woken in the dark, cramped and woozy. Hungry and desperately thirsty – that’s what Gabriel had said – frightened at first but trusting that someone would come and get him – calling out and knocking.
He was probably afraid that his mother was in a rage and was timid at first, but then no one came for him and he started to feel panic. Martha imagined him searching weakly for any sign of light, any way of escape. Would any light have reached him from the top of the chimney? No – Lil had said the chimney had become blocked up. Did he try to climb upwards – no – the space was too tight. The mortar between the bricks was probably fresh enough for him to make fingerprints in it but it seems as though there was no way the small, weak four-year-old was capable of anything.
To die, screaming for the woman you called your mother, when the woman who was your mother had murdered you, or so she thought, and then tried to hide your body by bricking it into a wall . . . no wonder that Henry had still been at that house.
Martha felt tears prick her eyes again and had to pull over as it became too difficult to see. She didn’t want to, but couldn’t stop herself imagining someone doing that to Ruby – imagined herself doing that to Ruby. She couldn’t – it was absolutely inconceivable that she could hurt her in any way. For God’s sake, she had accidentally given her a spoonful of food that was too hot once and had cried herself. What in the name of God had this Marion person been like? This woman who had also pushed her sister down a stairs and left her for dead? Who had lived all those years in London before being killed by a train of all things. ‘Should have died roaring,’ Lil had said.
The Dead Summer Page 31