The House of Ashes

by Stuart Neville

  As the days went by, I got a wee bit stronger and the cough started to fade. Soon I was able to sit up in the bed, then stand on my own two feet for a wee bit. All the while, I talked to the children. I showed them the room, and my bed, and the wardrobe. I showed them the dollies I’d made from sticks and twine.

  By the time I was fit to get back to work, I knew why the children had followed me back into my world: they needed someone to care for them. So that’s what I did. I was their mummy now. So when Mummy Joy telt me we were going to try to get out of that place, I didn’t know what to do.

  31: Sara

  Sara climbed into the passenger seat of Tony’s van. She had called him as she reached the edge of Morganstown; he had suggested she wait in the forecourt of the small filling station that stood at one end of the main street. A good choice, as it happened, because she was able to stay behind a cage full of gas canisters, watching for the van, ready to hide if she saw Damien’s BMW.

  “What happened?” Tony asked as she buckled her seat belt.

  Without thinking, her hand went to her jaw, and she saw the realisation in his face. It caused hot shame to break within her.

  “I just need somewhere to stay,” she said. “Just for tonight. I’m sorry to bring you into this, but I don’t know anyone else here.”

  “I’m happy to do it,” he said, putting the van in gear and pulling out of the forecourt. “I’m not sure how my mother’s going to feel about it, mind you.”

  They spoke little as Tony drove towards Lurgan, country roads giving way to a stream of dual carriageways punctuated by roundabouts and housing estates. The town itself was jammed with vehicles, pavements lined with schoolchildren waiting to cross at one of the never-ending sets of traffic lights. Graffiti on the walls as Tony cut through housing developments, three-letter acronyms, most of which Sara didn’t recognise. Some streets with Union flags dragging from the lamp posts, red, white, and blue; others with Irish tricolours, green, white, and orange. Small houses clustered in rows, some well-tended, others going to ruin.

  These were the streets she had seen on the news as she grew up, not the peaceful country lane where she now lived, but these dense gatherings of houses with barely room for Tony’s van to navigate. It was these streets where she saw youths throwing bricks and petrol bombs at police in riot gear, children growing up in battlegrounds, raised to hate and be hated.

  His mother’s home was a three-bedroom redbrick in a cul-de-sac of near identical houses that faced a fenced-off railway track. She waited in her doorway, watching as Tony pulled up at the kerbside. A small woman of late middle-age, distrust in her gaze. She flicked ash from a cigarette and coughed into a tissue.

  Sara followed Tony through the gate and along the path.

  “Ma, this is Sara,” he said.

  “You can call me Nuala,” the woman said, stubbing out the cigarette against the brickwork before tucking the butt into the packet. “I don’t need trouble brought to my door, but Antonio says you need help, so I’ll not turn you away. You’ll take something to eat.”

  It was an instruction, not a question, and thirty minutes later Sara sat at the table in Nuala’s kitchen, a plate of chips, beans and fish fingers in front of both her and Tony. The sight and the smell brought a memory of her grandparents’ home on a council estate back in England, a place her own mother seemed ashamed to come from. She ate in silence and gratitude, not realising how hungry she’d been until her plate was cleared. Sara insisted on doing the dishes, Tony drying, and once everything was put away, Nuala announced she was going to bed, leaving them both alone at the table.

  “You want a beer?” Tony asked.

  Sara almost refused before she realised she did indeed want one. A lot. He fetched two cans of Harp lager from the fridge, opened them both. Sitting down, he took a swallow straight from the can. Sara did likewise, the beer fizzing icy-cold on her tongue.

  “What now?” Tony asked.

  She thought about it for a moment before realising she had no answer to the question. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “You could go back home to England,” he said. “Have you still got family there?”

  “My mother and a younger brother. Near Bath. We haven’t spoken for a couple of years. Our relationship is . . . difficult, I suppose you could say. I could get a flight, but I’ve no cards to pay for it. Damien keeps control of the money.”

  “I could book it for you. I haven’t much, but I could cover that.”

  “Thank you, but I think I should stay.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . .”

  She looked down at the table, the beer can held there between her hands. She had an answer, but it seemed foolish, and she didn’t want to say it out loud.

  “You can tell me,” Tony said.

  She lifted her gaze to see him looking back, and she believed him.

  “Because I feel like I’m needed here.”

  “Who needs you?”

  “Mary,” she said. “The children.”

  She could not hold his gaze as she waited for some scornful dismissal.

  Instead, he said, “If that’s how you feel, then you have to go with it.”

  Sara placed her hand on his forearm and squeezed it. It rested there a moment too long before he got up from the table. He drained the last of his lager.

  “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I’m having another one.”

  A mild but pleasing beer buzz had helped Sara fall asleep in the spare room, curled on top of the covers, her cheek resting on her hands. The vibration of her phone woke her at close to two in the morning. She checked the display: Damien calling again. He had tried a few times around ten, then every thirty minutes until midnight. As she thumbed the red reject icon, she pictured him pacing the kitchen floor, one hand balled into a fist, the other pressing the phone to his ear. She thanked God she had disabled the location services, or Damien would have been at Tony’s door by now. He would figure it out eventually, though.

  Sara rolled onto her back and pulled the light duvet around herself. She had slept for more than three hours, probably the longest stretch she’d had in weeks. Maybe she could get some more before morning light crept through the blinds. Her mind had begun to drift when the phone vibrated again. She rejected the call. A minute or two later, another vibration, and this time it was a different caller: Francie Keane. She rejected his call, too, then powered off the phone.

  As she fell back into sleep, she thought of lost children in the darkness, trapped between walls and floors, calling to her, asking her to help them. And a girl with scarlet ribbons.

  She did not stir until Tony knocked on the spare room’s door just before nine in the morning.

  “Can you take me to see Mary at the care home?” Sara asked when she’d finished the breakfast of toast and cereal Tony had made for her. The cutlery rattled in the bowls and plates as a train passed along the track outside. His mother had gone to her job behind the counter of the small corner shop a few streets away.

  “Again?” he asked. “Why?”

  Sara searched for a truthful answer. Eventually, she said, “She needs me. And I owe her.”

  “Owe her what?”

  “She reminded me who I am. I know that doesn’t really make any sense, but that’s the best way I can put it. If she hadn’t come to the door that morning, I’d still be scrubbing the floor, trying to wash those stains away.”

  Tony stared at her, patient confusion on his face. Sara couldn’t blame him. It made no more sense to her than it did to him.

  “Can you take me?” she asked.

  “Aye, why not?” he said. “Not much point in me going to the house to work, I suppose, is there? When I don’t show up, Damien will know you’re here, but he’ll work that out sooner or later.”

  Sara could see the fear on him even as he tr
ied to hide it by turning his gaze to the window overlooking the small backyard. She understood the risk he was taking.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Less than an hour later, the van pulled up once more in front of the care home. Margaret, the receptionist, recognised Sara as soon as she entered.

  “Are you here to see Mary again?” she called from behind the desk.

  “Yes, please, if that’s all right.”

  “Course it is,” Margaret said with a beaming smile. “She was asking about you as soon as she got up this morning, saying you’d be coming by. Can you remember how to get to her room?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Sara said, wondering how Mary knew she would come back. She thanked Margaret and climbed the stairs, remembering the doors she’d passed the day before, the turns and the corridors. A shower at Tony’s house had freshened her, and the first proper food and sleep she’d had in days buoyed her, but she was conscious of wearing yesterday’s clothes. Not that Mary would mind or even notice.

  She found her waiting exactly where she’d been sitting the day before, by her open window, with the other chair already in place.

  “Come on in,” Mary said, beckoning with both hands, a smile glowing on her face. “Sit down. You’ll take a cup of tea before we go. The girls will bring you a cup of tea and some biscuits if I ask them. They’re awful good to me here.”

  Mary’s smile dimmed as she saw the confusion on Sara’s face.

  “Go where?” Sara asked as she sat.

  Mary took Sara’s hand in hers. “To the seaside. To Portrush. Do you mind you said you’d take me?”

  Sara considered telling the truth, that she had promised no such thing, but what was the point?

  “Yes, I’ll take you,” she said. “But not today. I don’t have a car.”

  “But some day you’ll take me,” Mary said, her smile brightening again.

  “Of course I will. I just wanted to see how you were doing today, if you needed anything.”

  “No, I don’t need anything, except maybe to get out of here once in a wee while. And maybe to see the children. See that they’re all right. Did they find you?”

  Sara shook her head. “No. But I think someone might have found them.”

  The smile fell from Mary’s lips. “How?”

  “When the people were working on the house, they dug up the floor of the old stable block. I’m not sure, but I think they found something. And I think they buried it again and built over the top of it.”

  Mary turned her gaze to the window. “They shouldn’t have disturbed them. It’ll do nobody any good at all.”

  “Are there more?” Sara asked. She pictured the red stains on the kitchen floor. “Are there any more in the house?”

  “Aye,” Mary said. “They’re everywhere. Don’t you worry, they’ll find you when they’re ready. When you’re ready.”

  “I should call the police. They should know if there were human remains found, no matter how old. Shouldn’t they?”

  “For why? Just so they can go tramping through the place digging up more floors? Sure, what good could that do?”

  “I don’t know,” Sara said. “Some kind of justice, maybe.”

  “Justice?” Mary looked back to her now, a thin smile on her lips. “Them men who planted them children in the ground, they got their justice. Believe you me, they got what was coming till them.”

  Sara hesitated before asking her next question, unsure if she really wanted the answer.

  “Can you tell me about them? I read some newspaper stories, but I wondered, what actually happened in the house?”

  Mary became silent, eyes distant, and Sara felt sure she’d lost her again. Then she spoke, her voice firm, her words final.

  “I tried to tell them what happened, the doctors and the police and the judges, but sure, no one ever listened to me. Not a one of them ever paid a bit of mind to what I saw, what happened to me or the women, nor any of it. They all had their spake, but they’d no use for mine. They just wanted it all swept away, like yesterday’s dirt.”

  She leaned forward, her eyes sharp.

  “I mind the way they looked at me in the hospital, then in the police station, then in the courthouse. Like I was some wild animal they’d found in a trap. They couldn’t get rid of me quick enough, away to that home they put me in where they wouldn’t have to look at me any more. No one cared tuppence for what I said then, and no one cares now.”

  Mary got to her feet, unsteady, refusing Sara’s outstretched hand for support. She limped towards her bed, her foot still tender from the cut.

  “I care,” Sara said.

  “I’m awful tired,” Mary said, hoisting herself up onto the bed. “I’m going to take a wee sleep. But you can come again if you want to.”

  “I will,” Sara said, standing and heading for the door.

  “And here,” Mary called after her, “you can still take me to Portrush, if you want to. I’d like to go to the seaside. I never did see the ocean.”

  “Okay,” Sara said, unable to hold back a smile. “Soon. I promise.”

  32: Joy

  For Joy, the days settled back into their usual grind, one much the same as the next, with Mary improving a little with each that passed. Up early in the morning, cleaning out the fires, lighting the stove, boiling water so the men could have tea with their breakfast. In the midst of it all, through the ashes and the grime, Joy saw a glint of something she hadn’t seen in such a long time. Maybe years.

  Joy saw hope.

  At first it seemed a foolish notion, and she dismissed it. But as the days came and went, the idea of it grew bigger and brighter, like something unearthed from the soil. So she kept picking at it, revealing more and more of its shine.

  One evening, as Mary slept, Joy spoke to Noreen as they scraped the last crumbs out of the bowl of food that had been sent down. The makeshift bandage and splint had been removed from Noreen’s fingers, and they had healed crooked, gnarled like those of an arthritic old hag.

  “You remember what she said?” Joy asked. “About George?”

  “What?” Noreen asked, but Joy knew she remembered.

  “About using him. About him being the way out.”

  Noreen was quiet for a moment, then she said, “Don’t.”

  “But what if she’s right?”

  “She’s not, though. There’s no point in talking about it.”

  “But what if she is?”

  Sitting next to her on the bed, Joy felt Noreen stiffen as her patience thinned.

  “Whatever you’re thinking of, you better put it out of your head. It won’t work. All you’ll do is get us into trouble.”

  “You don’t know that,” Joy said, her own anger rising.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You haven’t even heard what I’m thinking of.”

  Noreen leaned forward, rested her elbows on her knees, her hands over her eyes.

  “Go on, then.”

  Joy couldn’t help but smile.

  “It’s like Mary said. George is the weakest of them. And he has a soft spot for me and Mary. We can use that.”

  “How?”

  “Let him think I’m sweet on him. See if I can put notions in his head.”

  Noreen took her hands from her eyes, turned to look at Joy. “What sort of notions?”

  “That he could have a life away from the other two. Sure, Ivan and Tam treat him like dirt. They treat him near as bad as they treat us. Maybe I can put it into his head to leave and go out on his own and take me and Mary with him. That I’ll be his wife and Mary will be his daughter. But a real wife and daughter, a real family, not like it is here.”

  “And then what?” Noreen asked.

  “Then we leave him. As soon as we’re out of here, me and Mary can go to the police and tell them wh
at’s been going on.”

  Noreen’s laughter crackled like old leaves as she shook her head.

  “Oh, you’re an awful stupid wee girl.”

  “Why?” Joy asked. “Why am I stupid? Why wouldn’t it work?”

  “Because they’ll never let him go. Even if you could talk him into it, Ivan and Tam would put a stop to it. They’d kill him before they’d let him go, you and the child along with him. Me too, probably.”

  “Not if we keep it a secret,” Joy said. “If we sneak away in the night, they wouldn’t—”

  “And what about me? They’d have me buried out in the fields before the day was over.”

  “No, I’ll get help, I’ll tell the police to come and get you out.”

  “I’d be dead long before you even called them. Sure, they’ll come after you and George and the child. They’ll kill us all. Can you not get that into your head? We’ll all be dead before you can set one foot out that door.”

  “We have to try, for Mary’s sake.”

  “We have to live,” Noreen said. “That’s all that matters.”

  Joy knew the words on her tongue were a mistake, but she spoke them anyway.

  “You want to stay here, don’t you?”

  Noreen’s eyes hardened. “Don’t you dare say that.”

  “It’s true,” Joy said, regretting each word as it left her mouth. “You’re too scared to go back to the world, so you’d rather stay here. You’ll keep Mary and me locked up with you because you’re too much of a coward to—”

  Noreen slapped her hard. Joy felt the callouses of Noreen’s palm on her cheek, her head rocking on her shoulders, followed by a floating sensation. She slipped from the bed and backed away across the damp floor. The urge to bite and tear at Noreen came on her strong, but then she saw Mary woken from her slumber, looking from one to the other, confused.

  “It’s all right, love, go back to sleep,” Noreen said.