The Burying Ground

by David Mark

  I handed her a warm towel from in front of the range, opening the oven door so the heat from the coals would pump another little cloud of heat into the room. Our clothes started to steam. I wanted to strip off, down to my vest and tights, but I couldn’t do such a thing in the sitting room and it would have been rude to go upstairs and leave her by herself. So I stayed soggy. Towelled my hair and filled the kettle and rummaged in the good tin for the posh biscuits. Laid out the cups and saucers we’d only used a dozen times since we wed. Listened to the kettle rattling on the cooker top and the rain against the window. Those five minutes stretched like dough.

  ‘You know what we saw,’ she said. She had put copies of the Hexham Courant on the sofa and was sitting on them primly.

  ‘Let’s not think about it right now,’ I said, and it sounded rather a hopeless thing to say. ‘Do you want a change of clothes? I don’t know what will fit but you’ll catch your death—’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she snapped. ‘It doesn’t matter. We need to—’

  ‘Warm socks,’ I said, too loud. ‘I’ll get you some of John’s. I knit, he darns. They’ll warm you through. Do you not wear socks in Oxford? Is that not the done thing?’

  She looked at me like I was a mad person. Looked down at her feet, as if answers might be written on her mottled skin.

  ‘I don’t think about it,’ she said, and the answer seemed to come as a surprise to herself as much as to me. ‘I don’t think I’ve worn socks since Stefan died. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I do most of the things I do. I can’t use the machine we have and I got tired of scrubbing them in the sink. It didn’t seem important.’

  ‘You’ll get chilblains,’ I said, relieved to be onto a subject in which I was an expert. ‘They’re horrible things. Your feet split open like they’re a sausage skin. Dad used to say you should soak your feet in a bowl of your own pee first thing in the morning, but it’s not nice, is it? Nobody wants to see their father up to his ankles in his own water. It’s not a position you want to be in when the doorbell goes.’

  She gave a tiny laugh at that. Some colour appeared in her cheeks – two red circles, high on her perfect cheekbones, like you used to get on dollies.

  ‘I can show you how to use the washer,’ I said. ‘It just takes practice.’

  She managed to keep the smile on her face. Didn’t speak again until I poured out the tea. She didn’t say how she wanted it so I put two sugars in and a splash of milk. She didn’t hold it by the handle the way I thought she would. Made a spider of her hand and held the cup by the rim, drinking through the gap between forefinger and thumb. I swear she may even have slurped.

  ‘Coming back to life,’ I said, and felt a little proud for having helped.

  She ate two slices of apple cake. I think she didn’t know she was hungry until she took a bite. Then it was like she remembered what food was for. She kept sniffing the air, as if trying to suck John’s dinner from the oven. If I’d had it to spare I’d have offered her a plateful but John did love his liver and onions and there would have been merry hell to pay if he’d come home to find I’d given it to the pretty lass from over the river. He was a kindly soul but he worked hard and didn’t deserve to be coming home to an empty plate.

  ‘Can we talk about it?’ she asked, quietly. There was steam rising from her damp clothes and she was making little nervous fists with her toes. I worried she was going to wear a hole in the carpet.

  ‘We don’t need to,’ I said. ‘Not until the storm …’

  I stopped talking when I heard the back door going. We didn’t hold much with knocking or standing on ceremony. People announced themselves by name and came straight in the back way. I was over the moon to hear Fairfax call out from the hallway.

  ‘Fairfax coming in,’ he shouted. ‘Somebody forgot to build an ark!’

  He pushed open the sitting room door. Stayed on the threshold of the room. He was wearing his green boots and thick cord trousers, shirt, tie and pullover. He was holding his green jacket over one arm and had his sodden cap in his hand. He looked startled to see Cordelia sitting there with her bare feet and bare legs, her soaking top clinging to her in a way that I hadn’t thought of until I saw it as Fairfax must have done.

  ‘Hello there,’ he said, straightening up a bit. The old dog was nigh-on seventy but he made an effort of pushing the strands of ragged hair back across his patchy scalp and removed his spectacles for long enough to wipe the raindrops from their lenses and smear the drop of moisture from the tip of his nose. ‘Get caught in it, did you? Aye, they said it would be bad but I weren’t expecting this. Haven’t known it come down like that in years! Cats and dogs and cows and sheep. Siling down!’

  Cordelia shrank into herself a little. Looked to me like the air in the room had changed.

  ‘This is Mrs Hemlock,’ I said. ‘From the old Zealand Farm. Mrs Winslow’s.’

  He nodded. Already knew. ‘Still got the greengages at your place?’ he asked. ‘Did some work for old Mrs Winslow and she always said help yourself. Makes a tart kind of jam,’ he said, then his long, loose-skinned face broken into a grin as he thought of a joke. ‘Not a jam tart, though! Ha! I’ll remember that!’

  ‘This is Fairfax,’ I said, before he could show me up any more. ‘Mr Duke. Lives in the house yonder.’ I smiled at him, the way I always found myself doing. ‘He’s a pest but he’s harmless.’

  Fairfax looked indignant. ‘Harmless? How dare you. I’m still a danger. I’m a wounded lion, says I. Ferocious, in fact. Sharp of fang and lethal of claw.’

  Makes me sad and happy all at the same time, thinking of him now. Forty years and I can still see that look on his face. Can’t remember me own mam’s face without looking at a photograph but I remember Fairfax, all pleased with himself and grinning; his little tape recorder always shoved under somebody’s nose and comb-tracks through the Brylcreem in his fine hair.

  ‘He has two of his own teeth left and he can’t fasten his own shoelaces without help,’ I said, grinning, and suddenly the storm seemed like something that had happened long since. ‘Tea, Fairfax?’

  ‘I won’t say no,’ he said. ‘Permission to come aboard?’

  ‘Boots off,’ I said, refilling the kettle and peering out through the glass. The rain had eased off a touch but it was still torrential out there.

  He started kicking his right boot off with the toe of his left. Leaned in the doorway, one big old hand on the jamb. Then she said it. Said what I hoped she would keep to herself.

  ‘A tree came down in the churchyard, smashed through the old crypt. There was a man. A man in a blue suit and shiny shoes. He was dead.’

  Fairfax stayed as he was. Stayed staring at the toe of his boot. Said nowt until I started cursing because the kettle was overflowing and soaking my sleeve.

  ‘Tree come down?’ he asked, eventually, straightening his back. ‘The old laurel? Crying shame. Planted back in Reiver days, I’ll bet.’

  Cordelia’s eyes burned into my back. I could hear temper in her voice. Temper at us. At Gilsland folk. Northern and daft and set in our ways. The sort of people who didn’t want to know. The sort who didn’t ask and didn’t tell and minded their own bloody business. I think she hated us, then. I could feel it. Pure flaming loathing, like the tip of a poker. If I’d stuck my tongue out the spit in my mouth would have sizzled on the air.

  ‘We don’t know what we saw,’ I said, as brightly as we could. ‘But aye, yon tree made a right mess. Crying shame for the Kinmonts.’

  ‘Not many of ’em left,’ said Fairfax, one boot on and one off. ‘Last of them is up at Greenhead and they won’t have money for repairs. Maybe a whip-round, eh? I’d best assess the damage. My job, after all, though there ain’t much wardening to be done when the church ain’t being used.’

  I heard her stand. Heard the rustle of her clothes and the crinkle of paper.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ she said, flatly. ‘I’m warmed through. I’m fine. Come with me and I’ll show you what
we saw.’

  Fairfax gave a sigh. Rolled his eyes a little. ‘Hold the tea, Felicity. The lassie wants me to get another soaking.’

  ‘Lassie?’ she asked, cocking her head.

  ‘Stay where you are, miss. I couldn’t live with myself if you got hurt. I’ll pop down and have a gander and if there’s owt as can be done I’ll go straight to Samson’s. Sergeant Chivers drinks in there afternoons. We’ll have him back up in a flash.’

  ‘I want to go,’ said Cordelia, though she sounded as though she could be persuaded to stay by the fireside.

  ‘You stay,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘I can take a soaking. Easing off now anyways. And I’ve got the Roadster out front. Top’s up, don’t fret. Tractor’s in barn too. It’s only weather. Don’t panic.’

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Didn’t know whether I wanted him to go and see or to stay where he was and keep the whole thing uncertain. I suppose, looking back, I knew what he was going to find. There had been a body, right enough. Fresh enough I’d still have got a stew out of the meat on him and not worried about it being off. I’ve never thought of that moment without crying. Not ’til now.

  ‘Don’t go out in that silly little car in this weather. And only if you’re sure, Fairfax …’

  He smiled at me. Slipped his sock back into his boot and pulled on his hat and coat. I’d known him since I was a girl. Dad’s friend. Bit of a rascal. Bit of a joker. Lost his boy in the war and aged about twenty years overnight. He’d become a bit crooked, as though he were carrying more weight on his shoulders than he was built for. But he always found the strength for a smile and a joke and he always made me feel like I was doing all right.

  ‘Keep the pot warm,’ he said, turning away. ‘Be back before you know it.’

  WE WAITED FOR AN hour and twenty minutes. I remember that exactly. I’d forgotten that the clock in the sitting room had a tick. I’d stopped hearing it. But I heard it count out every second of those eighty minutes and by the time I lost my patience and went to grab my coat, we were both ready to rip the thing off the wall.

  The rain had lost some of its fury and the view from the front door looked fresh and clean, as though everything had been scrubbed with wire wool. The road down the hill was a stream and there were fresh lakes by the edges of the road; deep and black as a wishing well.

  We didn’t speak as we tottered down the hill. I heard her footsteps through the water and I’m sure she heard mine. Heard my own breathing, and hers.

  ‘Fairfax!’ I shouted, pushing back through the gate.

  I think I shouted it again, but perhaps I only got halfway through the word.

  The tree had brought down more than the crypt. It had flattened half a dozen headstones and crumbled them like biscuits. The branches had dragged down a handful of smaller trees and their roots were now pushing up through the earth like giant snakes. I thought of fairy tales: a great tangle of thorns and worms and bones. It made me shudder. Made me want to turn away.

  I felt her push past me. Saw her run to the mangled collection of rock and leaves and earth. Saw her reach out and jerk back as if electrocuted.

  She turned to me with her mouth like a bullet hole. I had no answer for the question she asked with her eyes.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, and meant it. I had no idea where the body had gone.

  I think I left her there without saying another word. Walked back up the hill in case Fairfax had popped home for his car or a change of clothes.

  John was waiting for me on the front step. Solid and straight, like a rock in a stream. I’d have run and kissed him if he held with that sort of thing. But something in his face stopped me. Something told me that my heart was about to get a fright.

  ‘It’s Fairfax,’ he said, and he couldn’t keep his eyes on mine. ‘Went off the Spadeadam road. That daft car folded up like a penknife. Nivver stood a chance.’

  CORDELIA

  I called it my nest. Cushions from the sofa, laid out in a circle in the parlour. The scratchy woollen blankets from the guest bedrooms. The sheets from my own bed and the soft, velvet curtains I had found in a hamper beneath the windowsill in the attic. I dragged them all into the sitting room a couple of weeks after Stefan died. I arranged them like a wren positioning twigs. Made a circle of linens and drapes. Wove myself a comfortable, padded little sanctum on the bare wooden floor. I lit the space with a single oil lamp, feeling oddly proud at knowing how to fill and light the old contraption. Sat there, exhausted and manic, panting in my small, dark room, lit with the kind of glow beloved by painters and poets.

  I kept the curtains closed but there was always enough light to read by. The only picture on the wall was a pencil sketch of a stately home and the shadows cast by the light sometimes conspired to make it seem as if the grand old place was lived in; as if a splendid family were holding riotous gatherings within its great walls. I liked to make up stories for that house. Imagined myself and Stefan and whichever man I saw fit to allow, gliding down polished stairs, my white-gloved hand unsullied by dust as it stroked the varnished wood of the bannister. I saw myself as Jane Eyre. As Cathy. Saw myself as every heroine who had inspired me in happier times. Sometimes I felt as though the world within that picture was more real than the one I inhabited. Every so often I imagined waking up behind the glass; a collection of pencil strokes and smudges.

  That night, the night that Fairfax died, I don’t think I even lay myself down. I sat in my nest like the only survivor of a catastrophe – the only passenger in the lifeboat, sitting up and staring into the distance as though hoping for land.

  Within my nest I had grown used to sleeping for hours at a time. Before Stefan died I made do with what I could. That’s a mother’s lot, I suppose – especially with a child who doesn’t like to close their eyes. When he was alive I slept the way a hungry man eats, gorging myself when opportunity arose, then surviving on just enough scraps to stay upright. After his death I feasted on sleep. Stuffed myself on it. Slept in a place of such utter blackness that to wake felt like breaking through ice.

  That night I knew there would be no sleep. I was too energized to consider closing my eyes. ‘Het-up’. That’s what Felicity called it. Said I was going to do myself a mischief. Honestly, I think she’d have put leeches on my pulse-points to try and drive the demons from my spleen if she hadn’t been in such a state herself.

  Harking back, I remember the feeling of anger. Was that it? Would anger do it justice? Perhaps it was something else. Some feeling I cannot articulate. It makes me smile to think how that failure would have angered me, back then. It was so important to me to know what every word meant, and to be able to use them in conversation without jarring. At Oxford, few things upset me more than hearing an unfamiliar word. I remember when Samuel, an MP’s eldest son from a leafy borough in Surrey, referred to his rooms at King’s as his ‘phrontistery’. He’d said it with a flamboyant sweep of his arm; adoring himself, a lesson in confidence, a vision in his black velvet jacket and tangerine chiffon scarf, with his dark curly hair and dead-eel pout. My face had betrayed my lack of knowledge. He looked at me like I was an infant. Pouted, patronisingly, at the silly girl who had bumbled her way into the same college as so many more enlightened souls. I made it my business to use the word in conversation the next day. Learned its meaning. A thinking place. Samuel heard me say it. Smiled that mocking smile. I still remember the red circles of burning shame he brought to my cheeks. They made a game of it, after that. Made up words and dropped them into conversation, winking at one another as I scribbled them down, desperate to open a dictionary and improve myself. They probably thought they were just being funny. Didn’t realize I would have taken a hundred slaps from hard hands in place of that one sensation of being a fraud; an imposter.

  Samuel would have known the word for how I felt that night as I sat in my nest and ground my teeth, grabbing blankets in my fists and sucking on my cheek until it hurt. Was it temper? Fury at being doubted? Sadness, even. Fairfax had seemed such
a likeable man. Perhaps it was the sting of disappointment. I had glimpsed something other than the darkness of my constant grief. As the body tumbled onto the damp grass I had experienced something ignite within me. It was as if an ember had suddenly erupted in a dead hearth. For that heartbeat, as the rain battered down upon me and I looked upon the limp and broken corpse, I forgot Stefan. For that solitary tick of the clock, I escaped from the mire of my own grief. It felt like being thrown free of a burning car.

  I’d seen him. Of that I was sure. He’d worn a blue suit. He had dark hair and polished shoes and he wore a khaki bag on a strap. His face was white and angular, like dough pulled into points. Not old but not young. A man. A dead man, hidden in a crypt alongside ancient bones.

  ‘That doesn’t matter now,’ Felicity had said, as she snivelled into her sleeve. ‘Fairfax. It’s horrible. We should never have made him go out …’

  I couldn’t stand it. Not the self-pity. Not the weeping and the stooped shoulders and the shaking hands. I’d stayed in that churchyard an hour, looking for a body that shouldn’t have been there. Only gave up when the rain started up again. Knocked on Felicity’s door. Her husband opened it. A little man, with square shoulders and bandy legs and a lipless knife-wound of a mouth. He knew what had happened. Felicity had told him. He’d invited me in and offered tea. Handed me a towel. Told me what had happened to Fairfax. It seemed extraordinary. Two hours before he had been standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Now he was a mangled thing on a dirty, rain-lashed road.

  ‘Sergeant Chivers will be up to talk to Felicity when he has time,’ said John. ‘He’ll want to know what the old sod was thinking, driving in this weather in that daft bloody car. Should nivver have bought it but he wouldn’t be told.’