by David Towsey
People thought she wouldn’t hear, thought she had no idea, but she knew folk had been whispering; especially since Jared. Their gossip didn’t matter; Thomas had told her already.
*
They were sitting on the river bank, the evening breeze rippling across the water. Thomas had been quiet all day. Summer was almost gone and he would start helping with the harvest soon, which meant less time together. He would be bone-weary each night. She didn’t want the sun to set, the season to change. She felt her stomach beneath her linen dress. Was it bigger?
Thomas’s hand touched hers.
‘Our son,’ he said, smiling.
‘Our daughter,’ she teased.
He snatched a kiss. He hadn’t shaved in the months since they were married. His chin tickled. Lying back on the woollen blanket, Sarah stared up at the sky and watched the sun paint the clouds.
He cleared his throat.
‘I want to be a father.’
She couldn’t see his face.
‘You haven’t got much choice,’ she said.
‘No, I know. It’s just … I’m not sure I should be.’
She sat up, putting her arm around him.
‘You will be a great father.’
He was quiet for a while.
‘When I was young,’ he said eventually, ‘I woke up one night from a bad dream. I could hear Ma and Pa talking outside. He sounded angry, nothing strange about that, but I was curious. I peeked out behind the curtain. A dead face looked up at me. It was so sad. Now I’m older, I know why. At the time I screamed. I was terrified because I recognised the face: it was my aunt.’
‘Your aunt?’
‘I would have told you before, but I thought you’d leave me. It was selfish.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘You have to understand,’ he said. His eyes were wet. ‘It could be in me. I could become one of them.’
Her heart was pumping so fast the whole world seemed to jump. She took her arm away.
‘How could you?’ she said. Her voice was cold.
‘It doesn’t change who I am, doesn’t change how I feel.’
‘It changes who you will be!’
‘Sarah—’
‘How could you? You didn’t tell me? And now we have a child.’ Her voice grew louder with each word.
‘I’m sorry—’
‘Damned blood! My baby, my child?’ She was shouting.
‘Do you still love me?’
‘Of course I still love you,’ she screamed.
‘It will be all right,’ he said.
‘Why didn’t you say something? What will we do?’
‘Put me on a pyre. No one needs to know.’
‘And the baby?’
‘Don’t,’ he said.
‘When it dies?’
‘Don’t.’
‘When it dies?’ she shouted.
‘Then our grandchildren will burn him. Or her.’
She let herself fall into him, feeling the beat of his heart.
‘Ashes, or I never see you again. You stay dead to us.’
*
Not a day ended without her wishing away those words. If she could only unstitch them from the past. So many actions were forgotten, but words like that stained for ever. Thomas. Her husband. She would give anything to see him, just once. His arms shutting out the rest of the world. Walkin’ or no, she still loved him.
‘Right,’ Sarah said, shaking away her memories. ‘We’d best get you ready for school.’
Mary finished her breakfast. She’d wiped the bowl clean. Sarah followed her upstairs, noticing her neck and arms were covered in dust.
‘Mary, why are you so dirty?’
‘I don’t know.’ Mary stopped, one foot on the next step.
Sarah shooed her daughter up the stairs, wielding motherly sounds like a broom, brushing her daughter into the bedroom. Mary’s fingers fiddled the buttons of her nightie undone. She knelt down in the corner and began to wash her face. Sarah stared at yesterday’s dress, now a wrinkled heap on the floor. Grubby yellow streaks flashed against the black.
‘Mum? My hair?’
Sarah moved away from the discarded clothes and picked up Mary’s brush. Kneeling on the floor behind her daughter, she unpicked the two long braids. Little clouds of dust puffed into the air as each strand came loose. Sarah noticed the brown water in the wash bowl. She looked hard at Mary’s face in the mirror.
‘What have you been doing?’
‘Nothing.’
Sarah’s head felt as muddied as the bowl. The whole morning had been strange; the usual routine of waking up, eating, and washing had changed. Even Mary’s hair was different, older, as Sarah ran the brush through it. For a moment they looked at each other in the mirror. A woman stared back at Sarah, until Mary looked away.
‘Did you sleep all right?’ Sarah said.
Mary shrugged.
Sarah rebraided Mary’s hair, the two large weaves branding her young, unmarried. Still a child in the eyes of Barkley. But not in her mother’s. This morning they seemed out of place.
‘Hurry with your dress, or we’ll be late,’ Sarah said, standing up.
*
Main Street was stirring into life as Sarah and Mary headed along the board-walk. The shops on each side opening up. Barber Barringlsey was in front of his, putting to good use his brittle twig broom. The Smithy was clearing his yard, his apprentice sulkily shovelling the leavings of the last shaggie. Windows were wiped. Signs polished.
Barkley in the morning; there was such a sense of purpose to everyone and everything. The air was fresh and new. The sunlight was a ready yellow, not a tired and spent orange. There was hope in the morning.
Turning off Main into an alley, she heard the shrill voices of children echoing against the wooden houses. The school came into view as they rounded a corner. It was a simple building: a single floor – much like the church – with Barkley’s whitewashed wooden walls.
She missed the houses she’d grown up around, all different colours; some made of stone, some of wood. The city was much more interesting to walk through. So many sights and places she’d taken for granted as a girl – fountains, statues, grand houses with gates, wide streets lined by trees, shops three storeys tall, and pubs. They didn’t seem real any more, as if she’d spent her childhood daydreaming. At one time she would have instinctively crossed the street to avoid a group of drunken men. Now, she could barely remember what a drunk looked like.
The only feature that set the school apart was the playing patch – a little square of fenced-off ground where children ran and tumbled and played. It was as though, rather than keeping the children safe, the white fence protected Barkley from their untempered imagination.
Opening the school gate, Sarah ushered her daughter in. She watched Mary walk slowly across the playing patch – like Moses and the Red Sea, Mary parted the waves of youngsters. Behind her, the rushing water of ‘catch-my-neighbour’ and ‘stuck-in-the-sand’ closed in. Sarah turned to go.
‘Mrs Gray.’ Lois Wellins pulled at the teacher’s hand, staring up with her big, expectant green eyes. Loud sniffs punctuated each word: ‘Matthew just bit me.’
Sarah stood by the gate.
‘Matthew Smith!’ Bethany called.
The playing patch stopped.
One boy was slow to notice and bumped into another. Sniggers rippled out amongst the motionless pupils.
‘I didn’t do it,’ a boy said.
‘Didn’t do what?’ Bethany moved further into the patch.
‘Bite her.’
‘Who said anything about biting?’
‘I— Well, I didn’t do it.’
Bethany snatched the boy’s ear and made him stand beside her. Matthew would probably end the morning with bruised knuckles.
Sarah went home, following the sandy roads that cut between the houses. Shapes seemed to be drawn into their surface by the breeze, only to be wiped away again.
1 : 8
It was early morning when Nathaniel Courie walked the dirt track to the graveyard where he worked. He heard a noise in one of the bramble hedges and stopped for a moment. Tiny creatures moved about their business between the branches and thorns. Insects appealed to him; they knew what had to be done and did it.
Tails, a black mouser, stepped out of the hedge. He was a bruiser with a neck as thick as his shoulders, which gave him a hunched swagger. His fur was wiry, like an old broom. Tails was the other Gravekeeper and did the job well. Nathaniel called him ‘Tails’ because that was only thing left of the mouser’s work.
‘Mornin’, Tails. Sleep well?’ Nathaniel said.
The mouser purred, rubbing its head against his leg.
‘Me neither.’
Nathaniel would likely be alone at the graveyard today, as he was most days, with the exception of Tails. He had nearly stayed in bed.
Barkley’s cemetery was a respectful distance outside the town, on the low-lying hills just before the Redlands. It was large – too large for a town like Barkley. He stopped at the entrance, underneath the stone archway, and pinched his arm. He did so every day, looking on at the headstones.
Willows ran along the four wide walls of the graveyard. Nathaniel had planted many of these trees as a youngster. They had seen generations pass through the arch and into the ground.
‘Willows break a harsh wind,’ his father once said. ‘But their real value is they never stop mourning. Folk appreciate that.’
He started towards the east wall, where Tails sat peering out of the cemetery.
‘Found one that bites back, Tails?’
Miaow.
‘Well, what is it then?’ Nathaniel said, leaning against the wall. Stones littered the ground on the other side, as if a giant paw had swiped at the wall. ‘What’s happened here?’ Tails leant further, sniffing. The mouser hissed and bolted. ‘Easy now, Tails. What’s got into you?’ But the mouser was gone, lost amongst the graves. ‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘the rounds first, then I suppose we’ll go about fixing this mess.’
*
Blood pounded in his face and ears. He’d been leant over too long, taken too long to decide. Each rock had to be picked up, handled for weight and shape, and remembered in relation to all the others. The wall had to fit together piece by piece, otherwise it would fall.
The morning was lost in that pile of stones and now the afternoon was wearing thin. Weak sunlight played across the graves, brushing the ochre soil.
‘Blood and bones,’ he muttered. ‘If I can’t even right a dry-stone any more, I’m no use to nobody.’
Straightening, he heard the steady thud of hooves. A cart was coming down the path, churning up dust. It was still too far away to make out the driver, but he knew who it was. Caleb Williams drove the only grey shaggie in Barkley: a heavy-set animal with the patience of a saint. Couldn’t mistake the pair and no other shaggie made that kind of sound. It approached like a storm.
Stepping away from the wall, the Gravekeeper surveyed his ‘workshop’. Weeds were creeping up by the Farlys. That was tomorrow morning accounted for. The willows in the south end would need tending again; the lower branches were beginning to cover some of the headstones. And there was the wall. Simple work. He should have been a gardener.
‘Nathaniel, you work-shy old digger,’ Caleb Williams called from the seat of his cart. Crates of vegetables jostled and bumped on the wagon’s bed as it slowed.
‘Sat down again, Caleb, I see. Letting this poor animal drag you around.’
‘Sampson doesn’t mind, do you, boy? He likes a good challenge.’
Nathaniel stroked the shaggie’s nose. ‘Where you headed?’ he said.
‘Town. Dropping off these.’ Caleb took off his straw hat and motioned to the back of the wagon. He’d been a solid man, squarely built, a man of the mountains, as he used to say. Seasons had passed, muscle had turned to fat, and he’d lost his hair. However, he’d kept his sense of humour.
Nathaniel hefted a leek and looked up at his friend.
‘Well, these are barely worth taking to town. I’ll save you the trouble.’ He took a potato. ‘And the embarrassment.’
‘Now listen to me—’
‘And don’t you cause that girl any trouble. Lord knows she’s having a hard time.’
‘Sarah? Wouldn’t dream of it.’ Caleb glanced at the cemetery and flicked the reins. Sampson stood there for a moment and then clearly decided it was time to leave.
*
The house was set back from the track, in a hollow. Compared to the exposed graveyard his home felt like a burrow: warm and secure. He had dug out and levelled the ground, many years ago. Lydia, his first wife, had brought him fresh juice during the hot days.
Dry-stone walls and willow trees lined the path to the house. They never stopped mourning.
The porch steps creaked. All across the front of the house the white paint was beginning to flake. He marked off another day to paint it. How many days did he have left? He took off his boots. Red mud coated the leather and he leant over the porch fence to scrape it off.
Lydia’s hand, warm and delicate like the departing light, would rub his lower back. She knew he’d be tense, a day’s work bunched there, alongside all the tears and grief that he brought home. Laying her head on his shoulder, they would just stand together.
‘There’s tea in the pot, when you come in.’
He turned to see Rachel holding the door, smiling. He was remembering Lydia and it was obvious that Rachel knew. She had known from the very beginning and loved him for it.
‘I’ll share you, if that’s the only way I can have you,’ she’d said. He couldn’t let go of Lydia; she was still in this world and that was his fault. Whether or not she enjoyed the Walk, whether she was happy, whether she hated or loved him, he could never know. As a Gravekeeper, he had deliberately failed to do his job for her. He hid her body in the shed, wrapped in sheets and surrounded by rose-scented logs. He knew how quickly a body should rot; he knew what she’d become. By morning she was gone.
‘I’ll be right there.’
Rachel looked down. Her sandals would need mending soon. He would do that for her; she wouldn’t even have to ask.
The smell of freshly ground chamomile leaves, their time in the sun split and crushed and dried, drifted out onto the porch.
‘How was your day?’ Rachel said.
‘Not good.’
Nathaniel walked into the kitchen and took a seat. He looked at his wife. Her hair was tied back today, stopping in a short, blonde ponytail. She looked younger. Loose strands played across her face as she busied herself at the cooking pot.
‘Something took a chunk out of one of the walls. It’ll take a while to right; no idea what knocked it about.’ He idly spun a potato on the table top. The oak table had been a gift from her father. Nathaniel had made the rest of the kitchen: the chopping tops; the cupboards; and the chairs. ‘Caleb gave us these vegetables. He asked after you.’
‘No he didn’t,’ Rachel said, placing a log on the embers.
‘I haven’t forgotten my promise. Have you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Good. We’ll go to the hives after we eat, then. That’s if you still want to?’ he said.
Rachel left the fire and stood behind him, putting her arms around his shoulders.
‘I can’t wait.’ She kissed his neck. She smelt happy. ‘I’ve put some under-mutton in the stew.’
‘Need anything done?’ he said.
‘We need more firewood.’
Nathaniel kissed her arm. It tasted earthy. He could see the dust of Barkley, marking her as a woman of the town just as much as the dress and apron. He stood and stretched. His arms and legs ached.
The firewood was behind the house, beneath a lean-to. Nathaniel stooped to check the three logs he’d placed outside the shelter. They were as wet as he could hope for. Picking up a few from the dry pile, he went back to the kitchen, where the sme
ll of the stew had chased away the chamomile leaves. He could chart the progress of the sun through the scents in his kitchen: burning embers at dawn; herbs in the morning; tea in the afternoon; stew in the evening.
The meal cleared the day’s dust and dirt from Nathaniel’s mouth. It wasn’t until he ate something that he realised how much sand he had unwittingly chewed. He savoured every bite: the rosemary dancing on the meat, the stew hot but not scalding. They finished and he cleared the plates.
‘Does your veil fit now?’ he said, leaning against a cupboard.
‘Yes, I just took out a few stitches. The gloves are a little tight, but I haven’t found the time.’
‘You can use mine.’
‘Won’t you need them?’ she said.
‘No, not with the smoke. They get in the way. If you pick up the veils and my gloves, I’ll get the smoker ready.’
The smoker was a metal tube he’d found when he was clearing stones in the graveyard. The Smithy had fixed a small set of bellows to it. Nathaniel split one of the wet logs and put half in, alongside a bit of kindling taken from the cooking fire. A careful press of the bellows and the log caught. He split the other logs and stuffed the pieces into a bag.
*
The hives were a short walk from the house. They were once in the back garden, but Lydia had hated them. Lying in bed, they had argued through many nights over his workers. She had shouted and screamed, balling her fists until they were white. The buzzing; the fear of being stung; how he never took her feelings seriously; all were stabbed at him with venom.
‘I could have married the Elder’s son, don’t forget,’ she’d spat. He could still feel the passion of her words. His hands shook.
‘Ready?’ Rachel said.
He blinked.
‘Aye, smoking nicely.’
She took his arm and they walked out past the herb patch and the weeping willows and onto the hills that embraced Barkley. As they walked, Rachel spoke of all the chores and touches of her day. How she’d washed the bed linen, though it hadn’t quite come clean on one corner; and when she’d swept the kitchen a big huntsman had scuttled away, nearly frightening her to death. Nathaniel could tell she was excited. He knew his wife desperately wanted to share his love for the workers; she’d said that anything important to him was important to her. But he wondered how much of Lydia’s hatred for the workers was on Rachel’s mind.