Book Read Free

The Soprano

Page 16

by England, Sarah


  “Good of you to go and fetch th’ milk for us, duck,” Auntie Flo said to my mother. “You’re lucky, Louise – your mother’s been going to th’ farm every day so as you can have your milk. You want to thank her.”

  “Thank you,” I muttered, still without looking up.

  Mum poured more tea and Auntie Flo lit another cigarette.

  I didn’t know what to say. The aunties were always so stern and I never knew why except that I was lucky to have a mother like mine and she suffered a lot because of me and my brothers.

  “Have you ’eard anything from Harry yet, duck?”

  My mother shook her head. “He didn’t come to bed. Sat down here supping brandy til first light and then he was off again. Arthur’s still fast asleep.”

  “Did he say owt? Your Harry?”

  “I didn’t hear him come in, duck. I only know as he was ’ere at all because we’ve no brandy left and the fire was stoked up. At a guess I’d say he’s gone down to Puffer’s.”

  “But it is ’er, they reckon?”

  “Looks like it. I don’t know any more than you do, Connie.”

  “I wonder who put the…” Here Auntie Flo cast a sidelong glance at me and stopped short. “The you-know-what–”

  “On our doorstep? I don’t know but I’ve a mind it’s to do with ousit being found…”

  Suddenly Mum put down her teacup with a clatter and glared in my direction. “Louise, have you finished?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. Well Saturday chores time, young lady.” She plonked a duster and a tin of beeswax on the table. “Drink up and then you can make a start.”

  My job was to dust the downstairs furniture – an onerous task, which involved taking every ornament off my mother’s welsh dresser in the parlour and cleaning each one with a damp cloth. All the china dolls must be brought to a shine and their faces polished; and after that the shelves had to be dusted, making sure to get into the corners and use a chair to reach the top. It was hard work for a six year old and I never replaced the ornaments and plates exactly as they were so my mother was rarely pleased – tweaking and adjusting things when I said I’d finished.

  Meanwhile all morning, Iddy, whose job it was to clean the windows with newspaper, speculated on what had happened up at the castle and what Dad and Arthur must have found inside the buried car.

  “Shuddup, our Iddy,” I kept hissing. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”

  “What about?”

  “The doorstep.”

  Iddy lowered his voice and came over to whisper in my ear. “Whatever it were it’s in th’ dustbin now, wrapped in newspaper. I’ll ’ave a look when I go out to th’ bins in a bit.”

  “Don’t let her see you. She’ll go berserk.” Berserk was my new favourite word. It always conjured up the image of an angry bee.

  “Aye, I know.”

  We sprang apart at every door creak or lull in conversation next door. But Iddy, who’d had his head out of the bedroom window that morning so he could listen-in, had heard the neighbours saying the woman who’d been found up at the castle was definitely the lady from Danby, and that Dad had gone down to the police station with Jack, Lloyd and Handel. That’s where they were now. They were saying the woman’s husband had been ‘seeing to’ Auntie Grace, and when she found out she’d driven up there in the snow. With grief, he added solemnly.

  “Why would she do that, though?”

  Iddy paused from cleaning the glass and inched over to me like a seasoned spy. “The lady froze to death in her skin. They said she was found like a mottled, purple statue just staring out with dead eyes, and she was as cold as an icicle and they had to chip at the skin with a chisel to get the body out.”

  “Is that true?”

  He nodded. “And now she’ll haunt the moors forever and her dreadful moaning and crying will always be carried on the wind. She’s filled with rage and terrible grief, you see, and wants revenge.”

  All morning Iddy continued to fill my head with images of an iced corpse with fingers that when prised from the steering wheel had cracked like gingersnaps, and eyeballs that popped out of her skull and rolled down her cheeks. I didn’t know what bits were true and what bits he’d made up but I did know it was very serious, and I craved to know what had really happened.

  “What are you two doing in there? You’re taking a long time. Haven’t you done yet?” Mum shouted.

  “Nearly!”

  “Well, hurry up because one of you needs to fetch the coal up.”

  I didn’t want to be the one to do that so my dusting slowed while I polished the oak dresser to a high shine, delaying the laborious process of replacing the plates and china dolls.

  “Maud…you know Maud, don’t you?” My mother was saying. “Works at the bakery in Danby? Fat as a lardy cake but ever such a nice woman?”

  “Oh, aye? Married to Colin?”

  “Aye, that’s ’er. Well, ’er sister lives over th’ road from Hazel Quinn. Apparently, the neighbours all heard ’er car go off and it were slipping and sliding then.”

  “Daft of ’er t’ go out on a night like that.”

  “She must’ve had good reason, like?”

  “Aye, well apparently…” My mother’s voice trailed off abruptly. It’s like she had eyes up her rear end. “Louise, are you listening in? What have I told you about listening in to adult conversations? Nobody ever hears anything good from eavesdropping.”

  “I wasn’t.” I lied, shuffling away from the adjoining door.

  “Have you finished that cleaning or do I have to come in there and check?”

  “In a minute. Nearly done.”

  “You’re taking your time. Make sure you put those ornaments back where they were and then you can go and do some knitting in your room.”

  “It’s freezing. Can’t I do it downstairs?” I wailed.

  “And don’t answer back.”

  “Iddy, go and fetch the coal up.”

  “I’ve just to put the newspaper in th’ bins.”

  “Leave that in th’ kitchen and go and get th’ coal.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll put th’ newspaper out.”

  The day stretched ahead. And it seemed like a very long time before we heard anything more about the lady from Danby. Everyone was waiting. The aunties stayed on and on and more tea was made. Iddy scraped the cellar floor for the last few lumps of coal but there wasn’t enough, and as the afternoon light began to dim the familiar chill hovered round our backs.

  “We’ve some spare logs in th’ yard if you want them, Viv?” said Connie.

  My mother nodded. “Ta, duck. Iddy, go and fetch the logs from next door and mind you thank Auntie Connie.”

  “Well, I wonder where they’ve got to?” Flo said.

  “They’ve had a long day,” my mother agreed. On cue, the clock pinged rapidly. Five o’clock.

  “Well, I’d best get back and then,” said Auntie Connie. “Our Jack ’ll not be that much longer, I’m sure.”

  “Me an’ all,” said Auntie Flo. “Have you anything in, Vivien? Only I’ve a bit of tongue left if you’d like it, duck?”

  “I wouldn’t say no. Come back with it and then I’ll make us all a bit to eat.”

  Decisions made, the aunties stubbed out their cigarettes and heaved themselves up from the chairs they’d been welded to all day; and my mother began closing curtains and lighting lamps while Auntie Flo disappeared for the plate of tongue she still had in the pantry.

  It was the moment I’d been waiting for all day. With the adults occupied I slipped into the scullery to look for Iddy. I had to know about the contents of the bin and if getting that log had given him a chance to look. I couldn’t see him in the yard though, with it now being lighter inside than out, and cupped my hands to the window.

  “What are you doing, Louise?”

  I’d forgotten all about Arthur and nearly jumped out of my skin. He didn’t look at all well. And it was as I was staring at
him, at his wide, hollowed eyes and the dead expression in them, that we both heard a clatter from outside and leapt flat against the wall.

  The back door creaked open.

  Dad was standing on the step, framed by a starlit night. Shoving Iddy in ahead of him, he called out, “Viv? I’m back.”

  Mum came busying into the scullery, thankfully ignoring Iddy and the clear lack of a log, and ushered Dad into the main room, tugging the coat off his back as he walked. “Go and get his thick jumper, Louise, and fetch a blanket off our bed. Pushing him into a chair by the fire and thrusting a cup of hot tea into his hands she couldn’t wait, though.

  None of us could. I raced upstairs so I didn’t miss anything, praying Dad would drink the tea first.

  Happily, he weathered my mother’s intense stare while he drank the entire cup straight off, holding it out for another before he was ready to speak. I thundered back down the stairs and handed him the sweater. My mother grabbed the blanket and laid it around his shoulders. He took another slug of tea then flicked a glance at his children, deciding whether or not we should hear this, I suppose.

  “And?” said my mother. “Was it ’er or not?”

  Dad seemed to make up his mind, sighed and put down his cup on the hearth. “Well, I suppose you’ll hear soon enough – it’ll be all round th’ village. She was in th’ boot.”

  “Alive?”

  “Don’t be soft, Viv.”

  “Was she all purple and cracked and mottled? And was her skull sliced in two with one eye hanging out and—?”

  Mum’s hand shot out and gave Iddy a clip round the head. “What have I told you about putting the fear of God into folk?”

  “No, duck, .it were a lot worse than that. Somebody’d taken an axe to her.”

  Iddy paled. For all his graphic descriptions he was by far the most squeamish of the lot of us. And something was happening to him. His face was crumpling and he was shaking all over, starting to whimper. We none of us really knew why and stared at him in surprise. But my mother put it down to excitement and tiredness and packed us all off to bed with an early supper.

  Both my brothers were ill that night and we never did get the tongue. No doubt Auntie Flo was hearing the same news as us; and Connie would be too.

  After that there was a tangible shift in atmosphere. The grown-ups talked in whispers and the police came knocking on doors. The thaw was well underway by then with streams of melted snow racing down the roads into gobbling drains. Anaemic light refracted through dwindling icicles and the beads of dew trapped in cobwebs. Mounds of dirty slush bordered the narrow lanes. Mud squelched over boots and splattered up coats, swilling into yards gritty with coal dust. And in saturated fields miserable ponies and moorland sheep stood hock-deep with their backs to the wind, stoically waiting it out.

  Over the next few days more and more information trickled through and the mood became evermore grave. Nobody laughed or joked, and conversations with police officers were conducted in parlours behind closed doors. Practised as I was in eaves-dropping, and even with my ear pressed flush to the keyhole, it was difficult to catch all but the occasional word. But I did manage to glean some important facts. The police had indeed recovered a woman’s body from the boot just as Dad had said. This had then been taken to a funeral parlour in Danby, and then yesterday the car was towed down Gallows Hill by tractor. Very little was known about the murder itself, except – and this was on the wireless – that the husband was the main suspect as his whereabouts on the night Hazel disappeared were still unaccounted for and no alibis had come forward.

  Desperate as I was to ask my mother what an alibi was I didn’t dare, and the only person I could ask was Iddy, who said it meant a Turkish man, which only left me more puzzled than ever.

  Far more disturbing than anything I overheard from the adults, however, was something that came from Arthur. Albeit unwittingly. On the night we children were sent to bed with an early supper, he woke up in the early hours with a horrible blood-curdling scream, thrashing around with his fists and bearing his teeth. I’d never seen anything like it.

  Mum and Dad came rushing in.

  “Mum, what’s wrong with our Arthur? Mum, what’s wrong with him? Why’s he doing that?”

  Neither parent answered, hauling him out of the room, telling me and Iddy not to mind but to get back to sleep.

  After that, Arthur slept in the same room as Mum and Dad for a long while – maybe weeks, maybe months; and Dr Fergusson prescribed him sedatives. He didn’t go to school or fetch up the coal or kid around like he used to. And sometimes I heard him through the walls. I heard what he was shouting out, night after night before he was soothed and shushed.

  The lady had had her head chopped off, and all her arms and legs.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lake House View

  Ellen Danby

  When Ellen next opened her eyes it was to glaring daylight. The bedroom curtains had been drawn back to reveal a whipped-raw day, the grate lay black and empty, and thawing snow was dripping steadily from the eaves.

  Her breath frosted on the air. Mid-morning and the house was quiet, with just the wind rattling at the windows. Her throat was parched and her head thudded. Noticing a cup of steaming tea on the bedside table she tried to prop herself up but hadn’t the strength; forced instead to lie inert and helpless. Someone was looking after her; the blankets were piled high and something hot lay against her feet… but here she began to fade away once more, eyelids weighted and closing.

  He was so close to her now that the scent of his skin lingered from dreams as if he lay beside her in bed, the shivery touch of his soul brushing against hers.

  Ellen…

  She reached into the empty air.

  Ellen…

  Her heart swelled. She tried to mouth his name.

  “Mum, can you hear me?”

  Jolted, confused, she tried to open her eyes.

  Three faces hovered over her, and shadows of monsters loomed along the walls. Where was she and who were these women? Candle smoke… the faint warmth of firelight flickering on her face. Was it night time? Already? What day, what hour, what month? She tried to sit up but nothing happened, to speak but no words came.

  An arm slipped around her back and cool water trickled into her mouth and down the sides of her chin. She gulped and coughed, and more was tipped down.

  “You have to drink. Try again.”

  This time it was easier and a cool rivulet tracked down her throat. Gently she was eased back against the pillows.

  “Mum, the road’s been cleared from Ludsmoor and Vivien’s been for Dr Fergusson. He won’t get down tonight but he’ll be here tomorrow first thing.”

  “Doctor Death,” she croaked.

  Had she spoken out loud? Vaguely aware of a collective puzzlement, she allowed one of the women to lift her head again while another put a glass to her lips. But the weight, oh, the weight of her head, like a stone boulder lolling backwards. Lowered onto the pillows once more she lay wheezy and breathless while they fussed with her nightdress, and a damp sponge was dabbed at her face, neck, and hands. Her head was lifted again and a clean pillow popped underneath; a brush smoothed her hair and the aroma of lavender wafted over her. Oh, stop, stop…

  “Mum, you’ve got to take some more water. You’ve only had three sips.”

  But the energy needed to swallow was too great, and she hadn’t the will. Once again the crush of darkness was folding in, the room dwindling to the end of a tunnel.

  And when she next came round it was to the distinct sound of a man’s voice booming inside her head. Clear and concise. A command. Time is running out.

  Hazy moonlight now bathed the room and downstairs the grandfather clock chimed a solid three o’clock in the morning.

  Time is running out… but why? Whose voice was that? And why would time run out? Fragments of a half-remembered reverie fluttered like a moth in the dustbowl of her head, just out of reach. T
he voice had not been one she recognised, rather it was clipped, displeased and quite definitely Scottish.

  She turned her head and with a rush of huge relief, clearly recognised one of her daughters, who was sitting beside her, chin bent to her chest, snoring softly – the fairest, the oldest - her first. And the question came on the spark of an impulse. Her cracked lips parted. “Marion?”

  Initially, Marion appeared not to hear, but the energy between them quickened and she knew deep down, that on another level, her daughter was surfacing from sleep. Determined to stay alert now, Ellen summoned all the strength she had and repeated her daughter’s name until at last, Marion jerked awake.

  A moment to recollect where she was, then Marion lunged forwards. “Mum?”

  Every word cost her, each syllable croaking in her throat, but this pinpoint of lucidity after decades of confusion suddenly seemed vital. She’d had the gift but never acknowledged it. Had known the black arts were used but tamped her knowledge down with grief as if it never happened. Now though, it was happening again and besides, there was no choice: if she didn’t speak now then this would follow her to the grave and beyond.

  “In the forest. Did you see it?”

  Marion’s eyes held hers for several seconds while she clearly decided whether or not to feign misunderstanding. Her hands had clasped her own and Ellen managed a weak but definite squeeze, tacitly telling her to have courage, that this was their last chance to speak the unspeakable.

  Almost imperceptibly, her daughter nodded.

  “When?”

  Marion checked over her shoulder then bent closer, her voice a whisper, “The graves?”

  “Yes. When?”

  Marion’s hands gripped Ellen’s ever more tightly. She had the air of a frightened pony, eyes darting around the room. Then, as if making up her mind, she leaned in so close her voice was little more than a sigh. “Just a few weeks ago when Rosa and I got lost. It was like being pulled into a maze and we couldn’t get out. It had a bad feeling. So you know what that place is, then?” She shook her head, bewildered. “But I don’t—”

 

‹ Prev