Dead Man's Embers

by Mari Strachan

  ‘I’m afraid, Non,’ he says. ‘Something is making me afraid that I’ve forgotten whatever it is because it’s too terrible to remember.’

  ‘Oh, Davey.’ Non reaches to hug him but he pulls away. She feels a surge of panic. Oh no, she thinks, not again. ‘Davey, I think you’d remember if you had done something terrible – because you’re a good man.’ But she recalls that she, too, had wondered what could be so terrible that it would cause him to lose his memory like this.

  Davey stares at the coffin. ‘Some things I’ve forgotten are coming back. I remember more about Ben Bach, but not anything I can tell his mother, so don’t tell anyone this, Non.’

  ‘Of course I won’t.’ Surely Davey knows he does not have to say that to her?

  ‘I remember how terrified Ben was – all the time, Non, shouting for Elsie. It put the wind up everyone in our trench. I was trying to get the high-ups to send him home. They were sending back the under-age boys by then, and Ben was under-age when he volunteered – he lied about his age, Non, you wouldn’t think he’d have the wit – and it was obvious he wasn’t fit.’ Davey makes a circular motion with his forefinger by his head. ‘I thought I could get him home that way.’

  Non is not surprised to hear of Ben Bach’s terror. He had always been a fearful boy, large and tall, but a brain the size of a pea was what the school’s headmaster had told her when she went there as a young teacher. Poor Benjamin.

  ‘Is that what you think Teddy’s talking about? Ben being so scared? How would he know about it?’

  ‘I don’t know how he would know about anything to do with us. But maybe some connection will come back to me, Non.’

  She squeezes his hand. She smoothes the planed and sanded wood of the coffin. It is lovely to touch, like stroking satin. ‘You’re a craftsman, Davey. You do your best work always, no matter what you’re making.’

  He bends to kiss her hair. That will do, she thinks, that will more than do.

  ‘I’d better get home,’ she says. ‘I need to do some shopping on the way. I’ll see you when you’re done, Davey. I expect it’ll be late.’

  ‘Oh, Non,’ he says, ‘there’s a Labour Party meeting straight after work. But it shouldn’t be long.’

  Labour Party!

  ‘It’s important to us all, Non – it’s the future.’

  ‘I know,’ she says. And she does know that Davey believes this as fervently as Gwydion believes in his way to the future. ‘Shall I send Meg with something for your supper, then?’

  Davey catches hold of her hand and kisses it. ‘Thank you,’ he says.

  ‘And shall I take Osian with me?’

  ‘I’ll send him back with Meg when she brings my supper,’ Davey says.

  They both turn to look at Osian who extricates himself from his complicated position in the coffin and comes towards them bearing a carving, carrying it on the flat of both his hands.

  ‘Look at that,’ Davey says. ‘It’s Teddy!’

  Non has only had a brief glimpse of Teddy – when she opened the door to him a few days ago – but she recognises him instantly, the lean, slouched body, the dipped head. She marvels again at Osian’s skill. She takes hold of the carving and through the wood feels the nature of this man that Osian has captured. He is damaged. Badly. She hears Wil describing his empty face. Something clutches at her heart in a way that has not happened since she began to take fewer drops each day, and her hands of their own volition let go of the carving. She watches as it seems to float down into the sawdust on the floor.

  37

  Jackie Post had been late on his first round that morning, so only Non knows that the letter has arrived. She has read it so many times she really does not need to take it out of its envelope and read it to remember what it says. But she sits at the table and unfolds the pages, smoothing them flat.

  Someone, maybe Seb O’Neill himself, has typed it, badly, with xxxxx crossing out several words, on a typewriter that is missing half its lower-case letter a. The whole thing is hard to decipher, but easy to understand. Seb hopes that she has followed his recommendations and is feeling well. His tests on her tincture have proved what he feared, that it is a particularly strong Convallamarin, which, he explains in brackets, acts like the Digitalin found in the foxglove, and which she does not need, underlined. Seb thinks he has saved her life, and he probably has.

  The bad typing continues to tell her that she can lead a perfectly normal life, like any other young woman of her age. He means she can have babies, she supposes, without their births killing her any more than they would kill any other normal young woman of her age. She can think of several normal young women she knew who died in childbirth. Seb would like, the letter continues, to see her again, so that he can check that she is as well as he hopes. And that, she thinks, is highly unlikely to happen. As highly unlikely as normal young women not dying in childbirth.

  Seb has added a postscript in his own handwriting under his signature, which is as difficult to decipher as the typing, to say that he has told Angela the results, and he hopes that she, Non, does not mind, and that Angela sends her best wishes and hopes for a visit from Non when she goes to see Seb. Oh, dear, she thinks, I cannot show this letter to Davey. Not with that P.S. She wonders if she can cut that part off the letter, but thinks that it would look suspicious. She folds the letter back into its envelope and puts it into her skirt pocket.

  It is official now: she is a normal woman and she can do what normal women do without fear of dropping dead. She has realised that until she slowed down the taking of her father’s remedy she lived her life in some kind of dream where she saw the world through a haze which was not unlike the muslin curtains Madame Leblanc employed to separate this world from the next. She is not altogether certain what being a normal woman entails. She hopes it is not entirely about being a competent housekeeper and having babies. Babies! The thought makes her heart leap, but she is not entirely certain that she wants to bear a child of her own. It is a chancy business. What if the child inherited her curse? Or Catherine Davies’s character? Or Osian’s affliction? And is she able to bear a child? Since Davey returned from the War convinced of his unworthiness as a husband she has not needed to think about precautions. But before he went away the precautions she took because she dared not conceive had been entirely effective. She does know several women, Gwen Morgan for one, who have not found these precautions quite as effective. She wonders if this means that she can never be normal, that she can never conceive and give birth. And how would Davey feel about having a baby? He is supporting his parents as well as his own family, and another mouth to feed would put a strain on their resources – although Wil has left them now, and that will make a difference.

  She thinks of Wil, already six days into his first voyage. Is he still at sea or berthed in some foreign harbour already? It will take her longer than a week to become used to his loss! Her thoughts turn to other losses.

  Yesterday Gwydion had received a letter from Aoife that had sent him racing away on his motorcycle early this morning to Aberystwyth, to see his parents. But I’ll be back tomorrow, he had told Non before putting on his aviator’s hat and goggles and running down the front steps to leap on his bike as if it were a horse champing at the bit. Non smiles at the memory, though she wonders what in Aoife’s letter had required this urgent action.

  And Meg no longer stays at home on her half days. She has gone to the beach this afternoon with her friends, to dip her toes in the water and squeal at how cold it is. And Davey and Osian are at work as usual. Non wonders idly what Osian makes of Teddy, then realises that she knows, and a shudder overtakes her as she thinks of the carving she dropped into the sawdust. Osian had carved a man who had lost everything. What had happened to Teddy to cause him to feel such despair – was it the War? But there was something underlying that despair that had frightened Non – an indifference? a ruthlessness? – she is not sure. She shudders again. What is Teddy doing here? What does he want?

  T
he clock strikes the half-hour. She glances at it; it is half-past three, the time that she expects Catherine Davies to tea. She has invited old William Davies, too, but is certain that Catherine will not bring him with her. The little round table under the shade of the large butterfly bush is laid with the tea things, but the plate of bread and butter is in the kitchen with a cloth over it, to keep it safe from the birds and the sun.

  Non can hear the crows cawing, their harsh calls echoing from the stone walls of neighbouring houses. Herman has already visited her today, and though she probably will not see him again, she will need to keep an eye out for him in case he takes umbrage at having Catherine Davies in his garden.

  Inviting Mrs Davies to tea is part of the strategy that Non has in mind for dealing with her mother-in-law. She knows that she is interfering between mother and son, but Wil’s indignation at his grandmother’s unfairness towards his father will not leave her. It is not fair, the way Catherine Davies treats Davey, when he is so good to her. Non knows that nothing he ever does will be good enough for Catherine Davies, and she is curious to know why.

  Non has not seen her mother-in-law since Wil’s leaving supper. She wants to know if she can still see the woman’s illness. She wants to know what Seb cannot tell her, for all his experience and his laboratory tests and his badly typewritten letters: she wants to know if she still has her gift, the gift she has inherited from her mother.

  Catherine Davies is late, which is unlike her. Non lights the little paraffin stove – the joy of not having to light the range! – and balances the kettle on it to boil. Nedw in the hardware shop had disapproved of her delight when she discovered he stocked them: they were all the rage among the visitors, he had told her, but normal women who had fires and ranges at home that they could use were not interested in such fripperies.

  Non feels she ought to wear a placard, like the suffragettes in the photographs that were in the Daily Herald before the War, a placard that says, I am not a normal woman, which she knows is the truth, whatever Seb has written.

  At which point Catherine Davies arrives, puffing and panting, and drops into a chair by the kitchen table.

  ‘Is William Davies not with you?’ Non says.

  ‘I despair of that man.’ Catherine Davies fans her scarlet face with her hand. ‘He is deliberately aggravating, Rhiannon. I’ve had to lock him in the little bedroom.’

  Non looks intently at her mother-in-law, searching for those signs of her illness that she usually sees. Non needs to remember that Catherine is ill so that she, Non, does not become too angry with her and her ridiculous way of looking at life with herself at its centre. But she has no sense of the sickness. What does that mean? Does it mean that what she saw was never real, a hallucination caused by the May Lily, or does it mean that she has lost her ability to see what is there, lost her gift? Has she thought all her life that people were dying when they were not? She thinks of all the people she has seen with terrible illnesses and of what happened to them, and she realises that she did possess the ability, but has lost it. She is glad it has gone. Esmé’s voice comes back to her, telling her not to push her gift away, to be true to herself. She thinks, What does a child know of these things? But it makes her uncomfortable, as if she is doing some wrong.

  ‘Rhiannon, Rhiannon.’ Catherine Davies thumps the floor with her black parasol. ‘You are not listening to me. I cannot possibly, not possibly, sit out there at that table in the open air with all those dreadful birds flying around. What if that nasty one of yours was among them?’ She clutches at her breast. ‘I fear for my life when he is in my vicinity.’

  Non takes the big tray outside to the table, loads everything onto it and brings the tea party – tea party! – indoors.

  ‘What is that contraption?’ Catherine points with her parasol at the kettle burbling on the paraffin stove.

  ‘It saves lighting the range in this heat,’ Non says, busying herself with the tea-making.

  Catherine Davies sniffs. She leans across the table and takes the cloth off the plate of bread. ‘Butter! You are so extravagant, Rhiannon. You must remember that Davey does not earn a great wage from that menial work he does.’

  Non knows this. She also knows that too much of his small wage goes to his mother. So, whose money does Catherine Davies think pays the rent for this house, and bought all the furniture in it, including that chair she is putting so much strain upon this minute? It is a blessing that they have Non’s inheritance to draw upon.

  ‘Maybe he could give you a bit less, Mrs Davies, and then we would have more.’

  Catherine Davies stiffens, and puts the slice of bread that was eagerly on its way to her mouth down on her plate. ‘It is his duty,’ she says. ‘I am his mother.’

  ‘He is dutiful,’ Non says as she pours the tea, with a steady hand, too, she is pleased to notice. ‘He is the kindest man I have ever known. Don’t you think he is kind, and dutiful?’

  Catherine Davies sniffs harder. She helps herself to a spoonful of sugar, which she stirs into her tea, briskly.

  ‘Why are you so hard on him when he is so good to you?’ Non says.

  ‘Hard on him?’ Catherine says. ‘What are you talking about, Rhiannon? He is my son.’

  Remember her illness. Non’s conscience is a small, fading voice. She unclenches her hands and takes up her teacup.

  ‘If Davey had died in the War, he would not have brought back that terrible influenza, and Billy would be alive today. And I would not need Davey’s money. You see how it is, Rhiannon?’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense, Mrs Davies. And it’s unkind. Especially given Billy’s behaviour.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Rhiannon. Really!’ Catherine Davies’s cup clatters down on its saucer.

  Non can hear Branwen somewhere at the back of her mind warning her to curb her tongue, to think about what she is saying, to count to twenty, to stop before she has offended. She ignores her sister’s voice. ‘I mean the reason Davey has to give you his money,’ she says.

  ‘I’ve told you, he is my son, it is his duty. And it is not your business.’

  ‘I think it is my business when I’m bringing up Billy’s son,’ Non says. ‘Haven’t you noticed how like the family Osian is? Everyone else has. Everyone else knows whose son he is.’

  ‘I’m not going to sit here and listen to this . . . this filth,’ Catherine Davies says. ‘You are smirching Billy’s good name! He would never have fathered an idiot like that.’ She manages to stand up, and leans over the table, her bulk towering above Non. ‘Have you not thought, Rhiannon, that the boy looks more like Davey than anyone? You were a disgrace, setting your cap at him the way you did. So brazen. And with no intention of being a proper wife to him, giving him children. No wonder he had to look elsewhere.’ The bulk shakes as the voice rises into a screech, and spittle sprays from Catherine Davies’s mouth.

  Too late, Non realises this is not a good idea, nor a kind one. She ought to know by now that a sensible conversation with her mother-in-law is impossible. She should have listened to Branwen’s voice. Catherine Davies is obviously unwell. Non has been uncharitable. Cruel, even.

  ‘And no good to him for anything else, either, all that reading, no idea how to do anything in the house, refusing to go to chapel. What kind of wife are you, setting a son against his mother?’ Catherine Davies pushes herself upright. ‘I am not a quarrelsome woman, Rhiannon. I have lived in this town since the day I was married and I have never quarrelled with anybody. And I am not going to start now.’

  Behind Catherine Davies, on the sash of the open window, Herman is perched with his head on one side as if he is engrossed in what is being said. His feathers ruffle as Non rises to shoo him out, and he flies at Catherine Davies and circles her head, his wings flapping close to her face and hair.

  Catherine screams and falls back into her chair and then topples to the floor, a dead weight. Herman lands beside her and begins to pull at her hair with his beak, rapidly loosening the
bun she wears at her nape.

  Non fails to shoo him away and picks him up instead and runs out with him, throwing him into the air, so that he takes flight with an indignant caw. She runs back into the house and finds the bottle of Sal Volatile in the remedy cupboard, unstoppers it and waves it about under Catherine Davies’s nose.

  Catherine begins to cough and thrash about on the floor. She opens her eyes and sees Non kneeling over her. ‘Keep away from me,’ she screeches. ‘Don’t touch me, you . . . you . . . witch.’

  38

  Davey had gone to visit his parents when supper had been eaten, at Non’s request. She felt guilt for her part in her mother-in-law’s collapse yesterday. She had fetched Maggie Ellis to help her lift Catherine Davies and walk her home, by which time Catherine seemed herself again and slammed the door in their faces. Maggie Ellis had dashed into her house, then promptly dashed out again in her monstrous sun-hat and scurried off down the hill to town where she no doubt told everyone she met about Catherine Davies’s fainting fit.

  But now, Davey is home. Non rests her head on his shoulder. It is not altogether comfortable sitting on his lap in the old kitchen armchair, with one of its wooden arms digging into her back, but she would not change it for the softest of down beds. Davey’s arm is around her waist, stopping her from slipping off, and his other hand strokes her hair and her face, his hand rough with callouses, but she would not change that either.

  The nights have begun to draw in, and she is sure the air has cooled a little today. The kitchen door is open and the phlox she seeds either side of the doorway each year, which seems to thrive in the heat, is spilling its scent into the approaching dusk.