Day Four / 7
Alaric climbed the five long shallow steps up from the lane, and paused at the top. The little graveyard, dotted with yews, holly trees and slabs of standing snow, fanned out before him. He knew where he had to go, but he felt a need to work up to the moment of incontrovertible truth, and for the moment avoided that place, went anywhere but. Half way along the concealed path that ran from one end of the cemetery to the other, he came to a poster-sized notice mounted on a wooden post. He’d seen no such notice in his variant of the cemetery, but he hadn’t been there for a while. There were pictures on it of birds, butterflies, frogs, wild flowers. At the top were the words:
EYNESFORD OLD CEMETERY
Below this, was the information that it was now a conservation site, where no further burials would be permitted. And…
Eynesford Old Cemetery is now being cared for in an environmentally friendly manner that will benefit wildlife. The grass will only be cut in early and late summer to create conditions for a range of plants to grow. Over the next few years, as the area becomes more established, visitors can expect to see an increasing variety and quantity of herbs and wildflowers. These plants will provide an important food source for birds and insects.
The snow began falling more briskly as he stepped off the path and walked between monuments large and small. Some of the headstones had been badly vandalized, the same ones, he was sure, that had been abused at home – most likely by alternative versions of the same people. Many of the graves were bunched together, but others were well spaced out. There was plenty of room for new ones without overcrowding, but he was glad there’d be no more. Mum always said she liked room to…
Fool! She wasn’t buried here. Wasn’t dead here. Angry with himself now, he marched to the wall that separated the cemetery from the house. Battered by time and the elements, supporting a thick cloak of ivy, the wall’s height was further increased by three days’ snow. He followed the wall to a particular spot, some way beyond which a Withern gable end rose steeply, the smoke from its chimney fragmented by the dancing snow. It was so easy to imagine that it was his house there, not Naia’s, and that two Februaries ago, on a day much like this, a small group of mourners had assembled here to bury his mother. His chest heaved at the memory. He would never forget the lowering of that hideous box into the neat snow-rimmed hole in the ground. The funeral – even the thought of it beforehand – had numbed him so much that it wasn’t until some weeks later that he thought to ask his father why he had opted for a church service, with all the religious flummery he despised, before incarcerating her in so-called consecrated ground. ‘It seemed the thing to do,’ Ivan had replied. ‘And why here? Because she loved this place. Withern, I mean, not the bone-yard. I thought she’d have wanted to remain as close as could be managed…’
Alaric allowed his gaze to drop at last to the base of the wall, where he saw a headstone within a shallow cloister of ivy. His heart thumped. The position was the same. Exactly the same. Even the shape was the same. The ivy drooped over the top third of the stone so he couldn’t make out the words etched into it until he dropped into a crouch and craned forward. Then he saw that it was not of recent manufacture, but decades old. He cleared the snow from the inscription.
ALDOUS UNDERWOOD
BELOVED SON AND BROTHER
1934 – 45
Aldous? Wasn’t that the name of the horny bishop Naia had told him about? The builder of Withern Rise? This was the grave of a much later Aldous Underwood, but he was struck by the coincidence of coming across such an uncommon name two days’ running. He pondered the dates of birth and death on the stone. Just a kid when he snuffed it. Beloved son and brother. Whose son? Whose brother? He must have been Grandpa Rayner’s generation. Would Dad know of him? Maybe. Unless… and it was certainly a possibility… unless he hadn’t been born at all in their reality.
Well, what did it matter? The main thing was, he’d got what he came for: absolute proof that there was no Alex Underwood buried here. That the voice he’d heard in Naia’s house really had belonged to her; that the photo in the little wallet had not been some sort of –
Crunch of snow. His already cold spine froze utterly. Even in broad daylight a graveyard isn’t a place you want to hear unexpected footsteps behind you. He turned, no idea what or who to expect.
‘Hello,’ said Alex Underwood.
She stood smiling at him from the foot of the grave. He withdrew at once into the shadow of his hood; snapped his chin down hard.
‘I didn’t expect to find anyone else here, day like this,’ Alex said.
His heart was thumping so hard it was a wonder she didn’t hear it. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even grunt. But then she said something that shook him almost as much as finding her standing behind him.
‘This is my spot.’
Her spot? She knew that? But how? Surely she didn’t know about his reality, his Withern Rise, the alternative version of herself who…
She must have realized how it had sounded, for she gave a small laugh, and said: ‘I cut through here all the time, and I’m often drawn to this little corner, don’t ask me why. I didn’t know him, obviously. You?’
‘Me?’ From his lowered hood.
‘I mean what brings you here – if you don’t mind my asking?’
‘I’m not a vandal,’ he said defensively.
‘I didn’t take you for one,’ she said. A pause, then: ‘Poor lad.’
He raised his head a little, assuming she was referring to him. She wasn’t; she was looking at the grave, which gave him a chance to study her. She wore a green headscarf, from which a fringe of snow-frosted fair hair jutted. There was a small crease between her eyes. He’d forgotten that crease. It used to appear at all sorts of odd moments: when she was stressed or elated, thoughtful or angry. There was more strain in her face than he remembered, but time had passed, and she had had that near-death experience when the train went off the track. How often he’d dreamed a situation like this, in which she’d come back to him, only to wake and find himself as bereft and lonely as ever; but here she was, no dream, standing by the grave he’d seen her lowered into two years earlier. He was torn between running away in horror and running to her with joy. Before he was quite driven to either course, she spoke again.
‘So young. I can’t imagine how I would cope with such a loss. Killed his father, you know.’
Alaric pulled himself together. ‘Sorry?’
‘The boy’s death. And with her son and husband gone Mrs. Underwood sold up and moved away with her surviving children. I might have done the same in her position. But could I really leave him here all alone? Not sure, to be honest.’
She looked up without warning, saw him full-face for the first time. And started.
‘But you… you’re the image of...’
Her eyes flitted across his face as she struggled to make sense of the impossible likeness between this stranger, this youth, and her daughter. He no longer shrank from her examination, but then it came to him that if he stayed there much longer she would understand everything, thanks either to some innate sixth sense or his inability to keep his trap shut. He mumbled something about having to go, and turned away.
‘No, wait.’
She hastened round the grave, headed him off. She was within arm’s reach of him. Don’t touch me, he thought. I don’t know what I’ll do if you touch me.
‘Do you live round here?’ she asked. ‘I’ve never seen you. I would have remembered if I’d seen you.’
She imposed the very slightest emphasis on the last ‘you’.
‘Visiting,’ he mumbled, with some truth.
‘Who?’
‘What?’
‘Who are you visiting? Who are you staying w…?’ She checked herself. ‘Sorry, none of my business.’ And, rather too casually: ‘Which way are you going?’
He nodded toward the exit at the opposite end of the cemetery.
‘Me too,’ she said.
; They stumbled through the snow-thick grass to the path. He was surprised to find that he was much taller than her now; also that she limped slightly. Had she hurt her leg in the crash? Naia hadn’t mentioned that. But even with her unsmooth stride, he felt lumpen walking beside her, ungainly, self-conscious, foolish. She talked nonstop about inconsequentials – the weather, the condition of the graves, something on the news – as if her sanity depended on not pausing to think or consider. The tremor in her voice was impossible to miss. Nerves. He made her nervous. If she only knew what state she put him into! He felt obliged to make the odd comment or observation, but his voice was harsh and immature in his ears, his words poorly enunciated and strung together. Nevertheless he was barely able to conceal his elation at the meeting and he let his hood slip back a little so that she could see him more clearly. His concern that everything would suddenly click into place for her, that a flash of intuition would unmask him, had evaporated. Every so often he cast a glance her way, hoping to meet her eye through the tumbling snow. Once, succeeding, her amazement again broke through.
‘It’s unbelievable. You’re so much like my Naia.’
The cemetery ended about half way along the wall that defined the eastern boundary of Withern Rise. The path, bordered on both sides by unused ground, continued until it met a narrow road which, until twenty-odd years earlier had been a simple track down to the river. In the mid-1980s, a swathe of land on the other side of the track had been cleared to support the erection of a number of mock-Tudor houses; houses which still, two decades on, looked far too new for their design. Alaric and Alex had almost reached the road when two women rounded the corner. He knew both of them by sight. They didn’t know him, of course, though one of them blinked with surprise on seeing him: that likeness again. They greeted Alex, and when she stopped to exchange a few words he muttered, ‘See you,’ and hurried on ahead.
Reaching the road he glanced back. She was talking to the women, but waved over their shoulders. He raised his hand in reluctant farewell and passed beyond her sight behind the dense bushes between the path’s end and the five-bar gate at the head of Withern’s drive. The gate stood open, as it always did at home. Same gate except this one didn’t have a broken strut. He started along the drive. The skeletal trees and bushes on his left allowed a clear view of the house. When Alex parted company with the women she too would come this way, and easily see him unless he was in the house by then. He got a move on.
‘Oi!’ he shouted, closing the front door behind him.
A movement in the Long Room to his left, then Naia’s head round the door. ‘I was wondering how long you’d be.’
‘The Folly,’ he said. ‘Your mum’s coming.’
‘Oh no!’ She came out. ‘Get that snow off!’
While he stamped his feet on the doormat Naia fled along the hall as if she were chased. By the time he joined her she was already the bottom of the stairs. They started up.
‘How close is she?’ she asked.
‘Close enough.’
She caught his expression.
‘Chirpy all of a sudden, aren’t we?’
‘I don’t know, are we?’
At the top, he almost danced along the landing, glancing to left and right with new eyes. Naia couldn’t understand it. From that miserable state to this in such a short space of time? What had happened?
She never did find out.
Day Four / 8
The first thing he heard on making it back to his room was Liney, downstairs somewhere, trying to outdo Pavarotti on Nessun Dorma. Didn’t the woman know how to be quiet? He had intended to tiptoe to the front door carrying his boots, slam it, then hang about just long enough to give the impression that he was removing his outdoor clothes before reporting back to the kitchen where (for some reason) he’d expected her still to be. But she wasn’t in the kitchen. She and Luciano were just across from the stairs, in the River Room. He crept past the door, down the hall, discarded his boots and parka, and went back the way he’d come. Entering the River Room he found Liney balanced precariously on the top rung of the stepladder, one leg floating out behind her as she stretched to reach a difficult bit of wall. She was using a roller this time, running it back and forth and up and down and anywhere she felt like over the old wallpaper. The color she’d chosen could have been worse, which was just as well as her face and clothes were liberally spattered with it. Sensing that she was suddenly no longer alone, Liney squawked and came close to toppling off the ladder. Alaric steadied it just in time.
‘You weren’t long!’ she shouted down at him.
He cupped his ear, competing with the now solo Pavarotti. ‘What?’
‘I said you weren’t long!’
‘Can’t hear you! Radio!’
‘What?’ Liney bawled.
‘Turn the radio down!!!’
‘Can’t hear you, I’ll turn the radio down!!!’
The small radio with the big sound dangled from a hook near the top of the ladder. She reduced the volume.
‘I thought you’d be gone all afternoon,’ she said then.
‘Person I wanted to see had to go out.’ He looked around. ‘Shouldn’t you have asked before doing this?’
‘You weren’t here,’ she said.
‘I mean Dad.’
‘Him either.
‘There’s always the phone.’
‘I daresay he’ll ring tonight, I’ll ask him then.’
‘Bit late then.’
‘Well, c’est la vie.’ She climbed down the ladder, all flat feet and sticky-out elbows. ‘Good news. Mr. Dukas rang to say that the man who used to be an ironmonger has the very valve we need for our boiler.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Promised faithfully to come and fit it this afternoon, which means we could be warm by teatime. And I’ve arranged for a team of domestics to give the place a thorough seeing to tomorrow, top to bottom.’
‘Team of…?’
‘Cleaners. They’ll dust and polish, do everything in a fraction of the time it would take you and me.’
‘Won’t that cost a bit?’
‘My treat,’ Liney said, standing back to appraise her handiwork.
He noticed the length of paint-strained rag tucked into her belt. The pattern looked familiar.
‘Where’s that from?’
‘Oh, I found a bundle of old clothes in a bag in the utility room. Obviously your father’s best shot at clearing things out before Kate gets here.’
‘You don’t think it might have been a bag of washing he was thinking of seeing to when he gets back?’ Alaric said.
‘Washing? Your father? Nah.’ But she sounded doubtful.
He examined the piece of torn material more closely. ‘This is part of the shirt Kate sent him for Christmas.’
‘Christmas? This Christmas just gone?’
‘Yes.’
She plucked the piece of shirt from her belt and held it up as though to assess its value, or transparency. ‘Maybe he won’t notice if I wash and iron it, and…’
‘And?’
She looked at him helplessly. ‘Sew it all back together?’
Day Four / 9
Later that afternoon Naia went out again. Out properly this time. She needed a break from the house, the garden. It was nearly dark, and snowing heavily once more. Of her friends in the village, she found only Selma Jakes at home, but Selma was nursing a cold and didn’t feel like going out, or even talking much. Having drawn a blank at other doors, she browsed in the newsagent’s for a few minutes, found nothing she couldn’t resist, and went home the long way, past the chippy, the bungalows, the mock-Tudors of Coneygeare Bank, to finally, like Alaric some hours earlier, pass through Withern’s main gate, adding her footprints to those fast filling in along the drive.
Still in no hurry to shut herself away, she again wandered toward the Family Tree. Leaning against that great gnarled trunk, watching the snow drift through the early dark beyond the ragged perimeter of the tangl
ed boughs and branches, she found herself unbothered by the knowledge that a century-old corpse lay among the hidden roots beneath her feet. A fair third of the south garden lay off to her left, stretching to the boundary ditch that had once been a stream, around which, from the river to the main gate, a hopelessly tousled wood had grown up over the years. Naia had lived at Withern all her life and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. She didn’t like to think about it, but in two, three, four years she would leave it to pursue her studies or make her way in whatever profession she chose or became available to her. Leave she might, but she would return. Unless her parents sold up, all this would be hers one day. She didn’t like to think of this either, because for her to inherit Withern Rise her parents would have to be dead. Would Alaric inherit his Withern? Probably. But would he want it? It was in a poor state now, and she doubted that he had much love for it after the last two years. But then she remembered that Kate Faraday was moving in. When Kate had visited them she’d fallen in love with the house, the garden, the river, everything. She and Mum had similar tastes and enthusiasms, were similarly lively and humorous, which was probably why they got on so well. Alaric might not like the idea of Kate moving in, but she could turn out to be the place’s savior. His too. He’d warm to her when he saw what a difference she made. He was bound to.
The Realities of Aldous U Page 10