“It’s not. It’s ours. Do you even know how lucky we are? Are you such a spoilt wee princess that you can’t see how good we have it? This house, all this land, and no mortgage, no debt hanging over us? My father found this place for us, did all the dealing, did all the work renovating it. And you’re pissing and moaning about something that happened more than thirty years before you were born.”
“It matters,” she said. “I don’t care how long ago they died. It still matters. We don’t belong here. It’s not our—”
“Shut up!”
His voice boomed in her ears, between the walls, through the house. She took an involuntary step back.
“Shut your mouth,” he said, his voice retreating low into his throat. “Everything my father did for us, everything he did for you, even after you took those pills, and you throw it in my face. What an ungrateful wee bitch you are.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said.
“I’ll call you what I want. I’ll call you what you are. And you listen to me, if I think you’re going bad again, I will have you committed. Don’t you think I won’t.”
The threat stung. She remembered the three days she’d spent in an Early Intervention Unit, a separate building on the hospital grounds, with the alcoholics and the drug addicts, all the people who could no longer function. For three days, she was one of them, one of the wasted people, and the idea of going back scared her more than anything she could imagine.
But she would not be cowed.
“What did he find here?” she asked.
The words seemed to hit Damien like a punch to the belly, took his balance so he rocked back on his heels.
“What?” he asked.
“When they were working on the extension,” she said, “they found something. Under the concrete floor of the old stable block. They called Francie in. What did he find there?”
Damien placed both his hands on the worktop, shook his head like she made no sense at all.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“What did they find?” she asked, moving closer, even if it put her within his reach. “They called your father, closed the site down. It must have been something. What did they find?”
He gave her his gaze, full and hard and hateful. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Sara had the feeling of a line being drawn, of stepping across it, passing over a threshold from which they would never return. She should back down, be quiet, accept his word.
Instead, she said, “They found remains, didn’t they? I don’t know what. Bones, I suppose. That’s all there could be after all these years. Mary told me, they planted them like seeds. Is that what they found? Did they find the children?”
Damien held her stare as he slowly shook his head.
“And they called Francie,” Sara said. “They called your father and he came and he looked and he saw the remains, but they didn’t do anything, did they? They didn’t call the police because it would’ve messed everything up. There would’ve been an investigation, more digging, and the site would’ve had to close. So they said nothing.”
“Stop talking,” Damien said, his forefinger raised. “Shut your mouth right now and don’t you say another word.”
“Did they take the remains somewhere else?” Sara asked, closing the space between them. “Or did they just dig over them?”
“Shut up.”
“I suppose it would make more sense just to dig over them, bury them deeper. Is that what happened? Are we walking on graves?”
Damien glared at her for a moment, breathing hard, before he gathered up the bundle of newspapers and carried them to the sink. He dropped them in and opened a drawer, then another, and a third before he found what he wanted: a box of kitchen matches.
“Don’t,” Sara said. “They’re not ours.”
He struck a match, held it over the sink filled with old paper.
“Don’t,” she said again, crossing the kitchen to him, reaching for his hand.
He dropped the match, but the fall extinguished it. As he fished another from the box, Sara took hold of his wrist. He pulled his hand away, back, then swung it up, hard and fast.
The back of his hand connected with her jaw, the impact staggering her. She took three steps back before the room tilted, spilling her to the floor. Her vision tunnelled and sparked. She saw the matchbox fall, matches spilling.
Damien stood over her, his arms at his sides, his shoulders rising and falling.
“I . . .” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. But you shouldn’t have grabbed me like that.”
Sara got to her knees, then to her feet. She tasted blood and knew she had bitten the inside of her cheek. The room swayed, but she held her footing, went to the hall.
“Love, stop, come on,” Damien called after her as she opened the front door.
She walked along the drive to the lane, ignoring the rain, turned towards the village as her walk sped to a jog, kept running until she heard an engine behind her, tyres on rough road. Looking behind, to the bend in the lane, she could see no sign. She made for the hedgerow, forced her way through despite the scratching and tearing at her skin and clothes. On the other side, at the top of the riverbank, she crouched down and watched as Damien’s BMW passed.
When it had gone, and she could no longer hear its engine, she stood upright. She glanced down at the river. Light reflected on its surface, pocked by raindrops.
The girl looked back, unmoved by the current, scarlet ribbons clutched to her belly.
Sara looked away, closed her eyes.
When she looked back, the girl had gone.
Had never been there.
29: Joy
Joy had fallen into a shallow and greasy sleep when she was woken by raised voices above. Her first instinct was to reach for Mary, but she found the space beside her empty. She sat upright, disoriented, searching the room. Mary lay on the next bed, Noreen crouched at her side, dabbing her forehead with a wet cloth. The child’s breath came in thin, rattling wheezes. Joy went to ask after her, but another round of shouting from above drowned her out.
“They’ve been at it a good while now,” Noreen said. “Tam’s drunk, fighting the both of them.”
It had been some time since Tam had been drinking. Weeks, maybe months, it was hard to tell. Time here passed in days and seasons, nothing in between. When Tam started on the drink, there was no stopping him. His temper was foul enough when he was sober; with drink on him, he was pure wicked. Even his brother and his father tread carefully around him.
“What are they fighting about?” Joy asked.
“The child, I think.” Noreen pressed the cloth against Mary’s chest. “George wants them to help her. Tam wants to let her die.”
Heavy feet shook dirt from the ceiling above, bellowing voices, furniture pushed around the living room then moving to the kitchen. A clatter and a thud, and Joy pictured the table upended, a chair cowped. Then the entire world seemed to shake with the impact of bodies on the floor. Joy and Noreen both flinched. Roaring from above, two voices cursing, a third telling them to stop.
“They’re killing each other,” Joy said.
“I hope they do,” Noreen said. “Let one kill the other till they’re all dead. That’d do me all right.”
The bodies rolled across the floor, like thunder across the sky. Joy put her hands to her ears. She did not like noise. The sound of raised voices, the banging of doors. They sparked dread in her. She found herself rocking back and forth and wondered how long she’d been doing it. Noreen watched, and Joy felt ashamed, forced herself to be still.
“They’ll wear themselves out,” Noreen said, “or the da will get the belt off.”
As if conjured by her words, there came the sound everyone in the house feared: leather on flesh. Even from down
here they could hear it, the slap, followed by a cry far higher than a grown man should make. Then again, and again, and a fourth time.
Ivan’s voice, now, cutting through everything, telling them to stop, stop, stop or he’d whip the skin off their backs.
Joy knew what the leather felt like. The sting and the heat of it on her shoulders, her buttocks, her thighs. How the pain lingered like it had been stitched into her skin. Of all the torments of this house, Ivan and his belt were the worst of them. The brothers were as likely to get it as the women, and somewhere inside, Joy was glad they got it now. She was glad of their pain, for they deserved every bloody bit of it.
Quiet fell over the house, sudden and heavy, the wretched rattle of Mary’s chest the only sound. Joy and Noreen looked to each other, both questioning. They each flinched at the sound of the padlock being undone, the bolt sliding, the door opening. Neither of them dared to turn their heads and look.
“I want to see her,” George said.
Joy heard the steps creak under his weight. He was as large as his brother, but more fat than meat. His breath sounded like it was hard come by, juddering in and out of him. Joy felt the bulk of him through the wooden boards beneath her feet, and she wondered when he had last come down here. Years, she thought.
He came to the foot of the bed, and Joy dared to glance at him. His thinning red hair stood in clumps over his pink scalp. His lower lip was swollen and bloody, and his right cheek had puffed up. Half the buttons had been torn from his shirt, revealing the stained vest underneath.
George stood entirely still but for the rise and fall of his chest, staring down at the child. Joy searched his face for any sign of emotion, but apart from his wounds, it was as blank as ever, his lower lip drooping.
She inhaled, ready to speak, and the sound of her breath startled him, as if he hadn’t known she was there. He looked down at her, and she felt naked. She stared back for a moment as she sought her tongue.
“Please help her,” she said.
He looked back to Mary, reached down, touched her bare foot. Joy felt the urge to slap his hand away, but she swallowed it.
“You have medicine for the cattle,” she said. “Give her some.”
“There’s penicillin,” he said. “I don’t know if it’ll do her any good.”
“You can try.”
He fell silent, his fingers still resting on Mary’s toes.
There was a forbidden thing Joy wanted to say. Something that was never mentioned, not in this house, not between these walls. She had never said it aloud, barely even thought it. But now, she had no choice.
“She’s your daughter,” she said.
He pulled his hand away from Mary’s foot, brought his fingers to his chest, cast his gaze down to the floor.
“Don’t say that. You’re not allowed to say it.”
“It’s the truth.”
He formed his right hand into a fist, raised it over her. But she knew he would not strike her. He didn’t have the fury left in him.
“Get her the medicine,” she said. “Please.”
George lowered his fist, turned, and climbed the stairs.
He returned some time later carrying a tray. Noreen went to the corner without being asked, but Joy remained where she was, on the bed next to Mary’s. George set the tray beside her. On it there sat two bottles, one labelled penicillin, the other white spirit. Alongside them, a clean cloth, and a syringe with a vicious-looking needle. He opened the bottle of white spirit, tipped some onto the cloth, then wiped the rubber cap on the bottle of medicine. Then he pierced the cap with the needle and drew some of the liquid into the syringe. Joy hadn’t had an injection since she was a child, but she knew this needle was thicker than any that had ever pierced her skin.
“I boiled it in water to sterilise it,” George said. “I had to guess her weight to measure the dose, but I think it’s about right. Turn her over.”
Joy hesitated, then did as she was told, rolling Mary onto her stomach.
“Pull that up,” he said, indicating Mary’s nightdress.
He dabbed more white spirit onto the cloth, wiped a patch of skin on Mary’s buttock. Joy looked away as he plunged the needle into the muscle. Mary emitted a low groan.
“There,” he said. “Now we have to wait and see.”
He returned the items to the tray and went to lift it. Joy placed her hand on his forearm. He turned his head to her, shock in his eyes.
“Thank you,” she said.
He did not answer.
30: Mary
I was standing on a beach. I’d never seen one before, and I never have since. Not till now. But I was there, on the sand. The farm was behind me. The house and the barns and the old stables and the fields on the hills. When I looked over my shoulder, I could see Mummy Joy and Mummy Noreen in the windows. I don’t mind if they was watching me or not, but I could see them.
The sea was afore me. It didn’t make any sound. I wouldn’t know what noise the sea would make, but I thought I should hear something. Away in the distance, I could see all the other countries. I could see America and France and Africa and England, all those places, far away between the sea and the sky.
Esther stood in the water. It came up to her middle. She helt red ribbons in her hands, up agin her belly. She was saying something to me and even though I could hear nothing, I knew what it was. Come in, she was telling me, come into the water. And I felt it on my bare toes, the sea, just lapping at them like a kitten. I mind it was warm and blue and I wanted to dive in and swim in it. I didn’t know how to swim, I still don’t, but that didn’t matter. The water would carry me to her.
But something stopped me going in. I knew if I went into that water, if I let it swallow me up, then I would never come out again. I looked back at the farm and I remembered that I hated thon place even though it was the only place I knew. I turned back to the water where Esther stood, and I saw she wasn’t alone. The children were with her, and they were watching me, and they wanted me to come to them. They all did, them and Esther, and I wanted to go to them so much I could feel it pulling like there was a string tied to the heart of me. But I knew I’d stay there forever if I took another step.
I opened my mouth to say I couldn’t go with them into the sea, but no sound came out of my mouth, only air, like there was no voice in my throat. There was a wee boy, maybe five or six years old, he looked awful familiar, like I’d known him before. The water was near up to his chin, and he helt his hand out to me. Maybe I should have taken it. Things might have been better for everyone if I had. If I’d gone into that water, into the sea, and stayed there with them.
But I didn’t. I turned away from them and walked back towards the farm. The sand under my feet turned to muck and grass and then the concrete of the yard.
And the children followed me.
It was terrible dark when I woke, and terrible cold. I was wild afeart. I wondered if I’d died and if this was hell, and if hell wasn’t a lake of fire but a cold and black place where you could see nothing but what was inside your own head. I must have cried out loud because straightaway I felt a hand on my arm, and I knew whose hand it was. I heard her reaching around in the dark for something, and then a match striking, and the lamp came on, and there was Mummy Joy leaning over me.
Ah, wee pet, says she, I thought you would die.
And she gathered me up in her arms and helt me awful tight, too tight, near crushing me, but I had no strength to get free of her. So I let her crush me and I was glad of it as she rocked me.
I fell back into my sleep near straightaway, but before I did, I saw them in the shadows, the children, watching.
For days, I came and went between one world and the other, and many’s a time I couldn’t tell which was which, nor where I belonged. Esther lived in the dream place. I saw her there, but I could never speak to her, and she couldn�
��t speak to me. But I could tell she was afeart, and she was lost. She wanted to go home but couldn’t find her way.
The children came with me, from one world to the other and back again. At first they kept a distance from me, like they weren’t sure of me, but after a while they came closer. Still none of them spake, but they watched.
That wee boy came closest of all, and I felt like I knew him, and he knew me. I thought of that memory I had of a boy that lived with me and the Mummies, and tried to mind that boy’s face, to mind if he looked like this one. I tried but I couldn’t. Memory is a liar; it tells you things that never were and forgets the things that were real.
What I do know is, he’d always been there. And the others. Always.
When I think about it now, I wonder, was that place always bad. Was the wickedness in the soil? Maybe it had always been there, even before the house. Maybe the wickedness seeped up through the soil, like the water did through the floorboards, and maybe it spread its wickedness to them men.
Maybe it’s always been there. Maybe it’s still there now.
After a few days, I was awake more than I was asleep. I could do no more than lift my head from the pillow, and I had a terrible cough that hurt every bit of me. But I was well enough that I could be left to myself while Mummy Joy and Mummy Noreen got on with their work upstairs. Once a day, Daddy George came down with a tray. He stuck me with a needle in my backside, and it was terrible sore, but he said it was what saved my life. If I was good and took the needle, I was allowed an apple or a plum, but only for them lock of days. I wasn’t to get used to having good things like that.
When I was all alone, the children gathered around. They didn’t speak, but I talked to them. I didn’t have much of a voice, and sometimes I could hardly fit a word around the coughing, but I did it anyway.
There was half a dozen of them, sometimes more, sometimes less. All ages, from a wee tote who could barely walk, to a girl who was near my age. One time, she carried a baby, all covered in blood, and I screamed and screamed till Mummy Joy came down the stairs to see to me. I never saw that baby again. I think it was in the house somewhere, but they kept it hidden from me after that.
The House of Ashes Page 17