The Fire Child

by S. K. Tremayne

  I nod, and say nothing.

  Kelly picks up her coffee mug, holds it between two warming hands, and gazes about. I see a faint twinkle of wonder in her eyes, probably she is marvelling at the size of the kitchen, as big as some of the many flats I grew up in. Probably as big as her flat, too.

  ‘So you reckon you’ll be OK here, on yer own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I know it’s old and big and beautiful, but I reckon it would creep me out. Sorry. Probably shouldn’t say that either!’ She blushes, sweetly. I shake my head.

  ‘I’m getting used to it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And I am. I am getting used to the added darkness, and the intensified silence, since David was thrown out. Sometimes I sit in the Yellow Drawing Room, with all the lights off, listening to the house and the sea. The waves sigh and crash, down at Morvellan, and a few seconds later Carnhallow answers: a cold wind stirs the dust in a moaning basement corridor; a leaded window rattles. As if the sea and the house converse, as if they are conscious of each other, both been here so long. And in between them, Nina walks. Ready to replace me, maybe around Christmas. Everything happens around Christmas.

  Coffee drunk, Kelly rises. Apparently my silence has led her to think our conversation is finished, and her duty is done. As she buttons her plain raincoat I have an urge to ask her to stay and keep me company through the endless winter evening, right up to the moment I can creep into my bed and pretend the house is ten times smaller.

  Because I am so very alone, tonight. And my sleeping patterns are getting worse. Mostly I lie there. Scratching. Scratching and sometimes sleeping. Last night when I finally slept I dreamed of the hare I killed, I lifted up its dead body, and held it in my hand, its blood dripping down my arm, and then it suddenly came alive, screaming, shrieking, spitting blood in my eyes.

  I woke up with my heart pounding anxiously and very painfully. I did not sleep again.

  I don’t want to be alone in my room, like that, with dreams like that, not tonight.

  But Cassie is again out with friends, enjoying her day off. She seeks every chance to leave the house now, looking at me sharply as she leaves. Like I am the guilty party. The bad woman who replaced Nina. Juliet is silent in her apartment. Only Jamie is here. In his room. Barely speaking. He clearly blames me for causing his father’s exile, and yet, when we offered him the chance to stay elsewhere, to avoid the upsetting sight of his beaten stepmother, he flatly refused. And wouldn’t tell us why.

  No, I’m staying.

  But he doesn’t really talk to me. So I have created the most intense loneliness for myself.

  PCSO Kelly Smith is waiting patiently for me to emerge from my daydream. Like she is used to my wandering mind. I rush to reassure. To be normal. No, I’m not mad. Honest.

  ‘Thanks for everything, Kelly. You’ve been brilliant. I’m not sure I could have got through this week without you.’

  ‘Hey,’ she says. ‘No worries! I do it for the coffee. That’s a joke.’

  We walk to the big front door. For a moment it looks like we are going to shake hands. This seems crazy after the week we’ve been through, so I give her a quick, embarrassed hug, and she looks at me, with curiosity, and maybe pity, and then she touches me very gently on the arm, and says:

  ‘If there’s anything, anything at all that bothers you, Rachel, call me.’ A pause. ‘Even after work? I don’t mind! And if you see any sign of him near the house, prowling around, breaking the injunction, call at once, even if it’s bloody three in the morning! Promise me you’ll do that?’

  I nod. And say Yes. Choking back any emotion.

  ‘I will, I will. Thanks, Kelly, thanks so much.’

  Keeping myself calm, I watch her walk away, climb in her little car, turn the ignition – then give me a cheery wave through the chilly drizzle. For several minutes I observe the twinned lights of her headlamps dwindling through the woodlands. And then, at the last moment, the very last moment, I want to run out and bang on her window.

  Because I also want to confess. Admit my guilt.

  I knew from the very beginning – without any nudging from lawyers – that it would be very hard to get a restraining order against David. I googled it all from my hospital bed as soon as I woke, as soon as I felt the stinging pain from my bruises.

  My smartphone told me my cause was useless, but I was too angry to give in. Memories of my past had returned in my dreams. So I decided to fight back and to lie. Take revenge.

  When the police came in to interview me, and take me home, I told them David knew I was pregnant before he assaulted me. And that he still attacked me, knowing that. Therefore risking the life of our unborn child.

  Kelly has told me his reaction was dramatic, in Truro Magistrates Court, when they read out my witness statement, when they told him that my pregnancy was the reason he was exiled from his own home, his beloved Carnhallow. According to Kelly, David actually shouted at the magistrate: I didn’t fucking know, I didn’t know she was fucking pregnant.

  But his shouting made his position worse: and so we got the injunction. David Kerthen is not allowed to approach within five miles of Carnhallow for the next three months. David Kerthen is excluded from the valley where his family have lived for a thousand years, amongst the rowans from which the Kerthens took their name.

  Because I lied.

  I can imagine the pain this causes him, and it doesn’t gratify me – but neither does it worry me. Instead, I worry about my lies. If I can lie to the police and to the courts, to get my husband thrown out of his own house, I wonder what else I am capable of doing. To defend my unborn child. To stay here in Carnhallow. This house that I love despite it all, or maybe because of it all. This house that should belong to my daughter and Jamie. The house that is their birthright.

  Now I sense the darkness of the house behind me. Waiting to eat us all up. So I stand in the open doorway, gazing out into the fog. My breath makes plumes of white in the freezing dark. Soon it will be Christmas. When things come down the chimney, like a poison gas. And Carnhallow has so many chimneys.

  19 Days Before Christmas

  Morning

  ‘David, you’re a lawyer, how could you have done that, in a court? Lose your temper like some toddler?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t really understand why I did it, snapped so badly. Believe me, I feel guilty. But what can I do about it now?’

  David paced to the window of his big hotel room, gazing out over Truro Town Centre. The three spires of Truro Cathedral dominated the skyline of the quaint and pretty little city, spread out before him. They always slightly annoyed him, those towers. Irritated him with their fakery, the ersatz Gothic, pretend-medieval – built in 1900.

  Fake fake fake. Like the woman who lied to him, and betrayed him – made him act like a madman, for a few minutes, so he could be thrown out of his Own Fucking House.

  The house he’d spent two decades rescuing, when the family was on the brink of bankruptcy, when it was about to be sold.

  He’d salvaged things by working a hundred hours a week for two decades. Now he was excluded. At the very moment when he had the evidence he needed, to eject her from Carnhallow, he’d done the stupidest thing, and got himself banished. Because Rachel lied to the courts.

  The anger inside him was ulcerating. He paced from side to side.

  ‘David?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry. I feel like one of those psychotic bears in a shitty zoo.’

  ‘Well, what did you expect?’ Alistair’s voice was terse. His Scottish accent flavoured with stern disapproval.

  ‘I lost my rag – once. And for that they take away my house?’

  ‘You lost your temper in a courtroom. That’s a proximate cause. But the ultimate reason they put an occupation order on is because you beat your wife, David. Your pregnant young wife. You beat her pretty badly. You need to accept that. You need to express proper remorse: the courts will want to see this and be
assured of your contrition, and good behaviour, if we are to get the injunction lifted.’

  David hung his head. ‘I did something terrible, I know. But I really didn’t know she was pregnant. She lied.’

  The Christmas music filtered up from the hotel lobby. Handel. For unto us a child is given.

  The saddening thought came roaring back. Jamie. His beloved son. He had to save him from all this mess.

  ‘David?’

  Sinking wearily on to the oversoft hotel bed, David rested his head in his hands. ‘Alistair, I know I’m the villain here. But she provoked me, by going to the psychiatrist.’

  ‘How? Why is that so bad?’

  ‘Al— As I told you. It’s very private.’

  ‘And that’s it? That’s all you can tell me? You keep saying this.’

  ‘Alistair—’

  ‘You’re a lawyer, David, a much better paid lawyer than me. You know how difficult it is to assist a client who is so reticent about important details. I’m not sure what further point there is in this conversation.’

  ‘OK, wait. Please. Give me a minute?’

  Alistair said he would wait, though he added another modest, contemptuous sigh.

  The piped Christmas music percolated up to his hotel room from the lobby. Hark the Herald Angels Sing. David thought of all the shoppers in Truro town centre, the Santa in the grotto, the anxious mothers, the over-excitable kids, the phoney commercial silliness of it all, and he felt a pure and piercing sadness. Now he was excluded from his own home, and only allowed access to Jamie when it could be organized outside Carnhallow, the shiny charade of Christmas time seemed unbearably poignant, and seductive.

  God and sinners, reconciled.

  Was he a sinner? Was he truly evil? He’d done one significantly wicked thing. Beaten his pregnant wife when she had severely provoked him. He’d also done one singular thing, but he wasn’t sure that was even wrong.

  But deep down maybe he was bad, an evil Kerthen, like his dad. Just another one in the line. One of the rich and heartless men in the portraits.

  Dark thoughts were crowding him now.

  ‘David?’

  ‘Yes, I’m still here.’

  ‘You need to reassure me you aren’t going to break the injunction, and go anywhere in the vicinity of Carnhallow. I know that will be difficult for you, but things will get a whole lot worse if you do. The next exclusion order could be twenty miles and six months. Then it could be a year.’

  David tightened his fist around his mobile phone, wanting to strangle it, like an unwanted animal, like her fucking throat. ‘But it’s my damn home, Alistair. My family’s home for one thousand years – I’ve given my life for Jamie and the house, they’ve been everything to me.’

  ‘Well now you must be content with your hotel room. I’m sure it’s sizeable.’

  ‘Oh, it’s fucking beautiful. The breakfast buffet is imperious. They have pink grapefruit juice.’

  ‘You could always rent a flat. For the time being.’ Another judgemental sigh. ‘And you should be thankful the Family Courts are so secretive. They kept all the names out of the papers, for the sake of Jamie and your wife. To protect their identity, not yours. Nonetheless you benefited.’

  ‘Benefited?’ David heard himself growling. Actually growling with anger.

  ‘I rather think we’re done, aren’t we? I’m sure we both have other matters to attend to.’

  ‘Wait – I’ve got one more question.’

  No doubt Alistair was irritatedly shuffling papers, far away in London. But David was paying this guy five hundred pounds an hour. ‘Alistair, what if she sues for divorce?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Simply that. Now she’s pregnant, if she went for a divorce, is it possible she could get the house?’

  A deep, long pause.

  Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells.

  ‘Difficult to predict, depends on the court and the judge, but … You know the precedents as well as me – indeed, better, I imagine.’

  ‘You mean there’s at least a chance she would get it. Right? The house? If she got some friendly judge. She could start divorce proceedings now, and on the basis that she is pregnant – and on what I did – she might actually get the house. Carnhallow.’

  ‘It’s not entirely impossible, put it that way.’

  ‘Thank you, Alistair.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  He shut the phone off – and stared in cold fury at the window. Trying not to punch through the glass, let the freezing air blast his room. This crazy bitch, this madwoman, she could get it all.

  All.

  So it had happened. His worst nightmare gathered, like the cold winter rainclouds he could see now through the hotel window, building over steepled Truro, bullying their way from the hills to the west. From Carn Brea, and the cliffs of Portreath.

  And beyond that, further west, where the rocks of Penwith began? The rain was probably already falling there, falling on the oaks and rowans of Ladies Wood, pattering on the dank tangled brambles of Carnhallow Valley. Falling on that house, where his son was trapped with a lunatic stepmother – yet stubbornly refusing to leave. Why? It was as if Jamie was growing closer to Rachel, and detaching himself from his own father. He was losing the love of his son, to another.

  For the first time in his life, David realized how Nina might have felt.

  Evening

  ‘She really believes this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She really thinks she is going to die at Christmas?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s distressing. It is also pretty indicative. Schizotypal, maybe.’

  Anne Williamson ate an olive. Pensively. And then she discreetly laid a pip on the saucer, and sipped from her large glass of red wine.

  Truro’s one and only tapas bar was busy; they were tucked in a cramped corner table, in the darkest part of the big and bustling room. This was fine by David. He didn’t want to be seen, to be acknowledged. He wanted this done quickly and discreetly. The money was in an envelope in his jacket pocket. Along with all the information.

  ‘In fact, that does sound slightly like a command hallucination. Which is a classic symptom.’

  ‘Yes. She really is crazy, like I said – and she has a history of it. It’s here’ – he tapped his breast pocket – ‘with a donation. That donation I’ve been promising your charity, Anne. I know the cuts have taken a chunk of your funding.’

  Anne Williamson sat back. He could see the immediate scepticism in her expression, maybe even a hint of contempt.

  She was a psychiatrist in her late thirties, she’d known David for years, she’d been to dinner parties at Carnhallow when Nina was alive, with her yacht-building husband. They were now divorced. And David and Anne had slept together during her marriage. So he knew she was no saint.

  Her lovemaking, as he recalled, was like her persona: businesslike, and efficient. Here was a woman who liked to get things done. Achieve satisfaction. Two orgasms in an hour. Pull on her jeans.

  No love had ever been expressed between them, because they had never been foolish enough for that. Theirs was an exchange of pleasure. Two attractive adults who needed sex. Then a meal. Some intelligent conversation. No strings. Move on.

  That was why he’d chosen her. She was smart but not obsessive. More than anything she was deeply pragmatic. He wondered if there was a slight possibility she’d take the money for herself, not mention it to anyone? No. She would do the right thing for the right reasons, albeit in the wrong context. She’d give it all to the Centre at Treliske. She was practical, and cynical – but not venal.

  ‘You don’t have to tell people it’s from me. Make it anonymous.’

  ‘Yes. I understand.’

  The Christmas office-party-goers had filled the bar with slightly forced laughter. One woman, by the gleaming metal beer pumps – San Miguel, Corona – was wearing gold tinsel on her head. Another had a Santa hat. Leeringly drunk.

  He t
ook the envelope out. And put it on the table. And now his lawyer’s eyes detected the gleam behind Anne’s mild frown.

  ‘You see, Anne, I remembered, when I called you, what I promised, years ago. And I’d like to keep on supporting the Centre, after this – make large and regular donations, over time. I’d hate to see the Centre closed. I know what good work you do with young people in Cornwall. I know they need it.’

  Anne sighed. ‘We’ve got a major skunk problem in Penzance right now. The number of mental issues caused by that stuff – it’s horrible. And heroin, too.’ She gazed at the envelope, distractedly. Still frowning. ‘Tourists come down to Cornwall and all they see is the beautiful coast, and the lovely valleys; they don’t understand the poverty. But …’ She looked away from the envelope. And turned to David. ‘Let’s go back to your wife. I’m grateful for your generosity, David, but be assured, I will only do this for proper medical reasons.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She really believes your son can predict the future?’

  He nodded.

  Anne pouted, thoughtfully. ‘And she hears voices, sees things. And you say she has a history of psychosis? Mental breakdowns?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, yes, yes. All of it. All of it. It’s hair-raising. And she’s affecting my son, he’s told me. They both think they can see his dead mother, see ghosts. Read the notes. So how can she be allowed to look after him, given all that? How can she be allowed to look after my own son? Jamie?’

  ‘I can see why it pains you.’

  ‘So you’re agreed?’

  Anne was tight-lipped. She looked at her watch. ‘I must go.’ She looked directly his way, as she stood up, unsmiling. ‘I have a date.’

  David stood too. Picking up the chunky envelope, he put it in her hand. Without flinching, she took the envelope, put it in her handbag, clasped it shut.