by Jane Johnson
And she had left Mary locked in her room… Olivia did not feel entirely guiltless about that. She resolved to purchase Mary some sweets as a peace offering out of the housekeeping money Winnie had left. No doubt the child would be compiling a long list of woes with which to regale her mother by the time Winnie returned. Maybe she should hold back her bribes till later in the week, when they would be fresher in the memory.
The rain clouds had drifted east by the time she got out of the car, leaving clear blue skies in the west and the sun falling in great slanted shafts of gold. She spent a cheerful half hour pottering around the harbour, chatting here and there to the local women taking a break from their chores, watching the children jumping into the sea from the Gaps with shrieks of delight. She even treated herself to a sherbet dab from the shop and sat on the harbour wall, swinging her legs and waving away the seagulls that watched her every movement with their cold predatory yellow eyes.
Then, feeling very grown-up, she bought four mackerel for a few pennies at the quay – a proper bargain, and not rationed – followed by a fresh tinloaf, a saffron cake, a small tin of Nestles cream and a large tin of cling peaches (since Winnie, being congenitally mean, still had the relevant ration stamps), which came to over three shillings. She was going to have to be very careful from now on with what remained of the housekeeping money.
Making her way back to the car she came upon an altercation, someone crying out in a harsh, penetrating voice, another person speaking low but urgently. As she neared the small group of people she heard someone say, ‘I won’t have it in my house!’ It was a fat woman in a print dress, her feet planted squarely, finger wagging at a man with a hangdog expression and some large object in his arms.
‘Bugger off, arsehole!’
Olivia sucked in her breath. What shocking language! It wasn’t as if the words were unknown to her – you couldn’t hang around a farm when hard physical labour was going on without hearing these and worse – but in the middle of the village, with children in earshot? For a moment, the little crowd parted and she saw a sudden glimpse of startling colour: a parrot, shaking out scarlet wings! A swearing parrot in a cage!
Delighted, Olivia inserted herself into the crowd. ‘He begged me give un to ’ee, missus. It were his last wish.’
‘Stupid old fool – what do I want with a foul-mouthed bird? I wouldn’t have such a filthy thing in the house. I won’t take un.’ The woman folded her arms across her stout bosom.
The man looked pleadingly around the crowd. ‘A dying man’s wish,’ he said almost in a whisper, but they weren’t having any of it.
‘You could probably eat un, Joan,’ one of the women said. ‘Reckon it’d taste just like chicken.’
The man held the cage tighter. ‘I couldn’t let you do that,’ he said. ‘’Twouldn’t be right.’ He looked around the gathered group. ‘Won’t someone take un? He’s right companionable, and very young. I’m sure you could train him out of his ungodly ways. He’s been among sailors, you know. It’s not his fault.’
People started to peel away, dragging fascinated children behind them. ‘Please,’ he said again. He sounded utterly defeated.
Olivia stepped forward. ‘I’ll take him,’ she said.
*
From its cage on the passenger seat of the Flying 8 the parrot eyed her warily. She had not thought to ask its name, even when handing over the ten shillings the man had demanded at the last moment – ‘for the cage’ – following which the sailor had vanished with suspicious speed. So that was the last of Daddy’s money and a bit of the housekeeping besides.
Olivia held its gaze. ‘You behave yourself, Parrot, and we’ll get along just fine.’
The parrot cocked its head and emitted a soft caw.
Olivia drove the car with exaggerated care back up the hill. The combination of the freedom of the road and the presence of her passenger was intoxicating, as if some wilder, more brazen, aspect of her personality had been released into the world. She found herself driving right past the turning to the garage and carrying on up the hill through the farmland. So what if Jago saw her? She would just say she had Pa’s permission. Laughing out loud, she wound the window down and began to sing, ‘Keep Saturday free for me, Saturday in your heart. Though we’re far apart, it’s always Saturday in my heart for you…’
Every so often the parrot would punctuate the song with a whistle or a click; Olivia was enchanted.
She drove past the top fields where yet more potatoes were being harvested, seeing lines of bent backs and hemp sacks. Beryl and Marjorie would be amongst them, anonymous at this distance in their khaki Land Girl togs, and the POWs too – all hands were needed to get the harvest in before the ploughing could begin. These fields would be turned over to cereals next year and this should all have been finished earlier in the month, and would have been had they not been so short-handed.
She rounded the bend at the top of the hill and changed gear with a crunch. She would, she decided, passing the stump of the road sign, which had been taken down to confuse the enemy, go down just as far as the old mill and turn around there: better not to use up any more fuel.
On her return, as she ghosted down the road back to Chynalls, four men emerged suddenly, one after another, over the stone stile out of the potato field into the road – Leo Roberts and Nipper Martin, with two men in POW overalls: the Italian music teacher, and a blond man she had not seen before. With a start, she realized he must be the survivor of the German bomber and felt a cold frisson run through her. An actual Nazi was standing right in front of her, looking remarkably matey with Leo and Nipper, as if he were on bloody holiday, rather than held prisoner. He accepted a cigarette out of Nipper’s packet of Woodbines and waited for the farmhand who lit it for him with a strange deference, as if their positions had been reversed. As the blond man took a draw on the cigarette, the sunlight hit his face full on, delineating sharp cheekbones. He was, she thought suddenly, like a negative version of the Dark Man, black made white. But whereas the Dark Man gave her a warm feeling, despite his good looks this man left her chilled to the bone.
Leo stepped into the road and held up a hand and Olivia drew the car to a halt.
‘What you doing fossicking about in that car?’
Olivia affected a nonchalance she did not feel. ‘I had errands to run. Too much to carry up the hill.’
‘Standard Flying 8, int’it?’ Leo ran a hand over the gleaming paintwork as if he had every right to do so. He peered in. ‘What the bleddy hell you got there?’
By way of answer the parrot let out an earsplitting squawk that made Leo jump back in shock. The others laughed at him and Leo told them to ‘Shut up! Shut the fuck up!’
‘Shut the fuck up!’ echoed the parrot gleefully, and that made them double up.
‘Got a right one there, Olivia. Where you get un?’ asked Nipper.
‘It’s all rather complicated,’ Olivia said vaguely.
‘Can I have a go in the car later?’ Nipper pushed past Leo. ‘Mebbe we can drive down Love Lane, eh, Livy? That’s where the soldiers go.’ He made kissing noises at her, saliva slicking his red lips, then turned to the pilot and winked.
Olivia felt a bitter taste come into her mouth, and not just at Nipper’s crude suggestion – she was used to that, and worse. What she wasn’t used to was seeing him being so pally with an enemy, an actual follower of Adolf Hitler. She revved the engine.
‘Don’t even think about getting fresh with me, Stanley Martin.’
‘Oh, go on, you know you’d love it.’ He dug in his pocket, brought out a couple of sweets and pressed them into her hand. She looked down. Callard & Bowser toffees. ‘No thanks,’ she said, pushing them back at him. ‘Must dash.’ She felt four pairs of eyes on her as she let out the handbrake and pressed the accelerator, making the vehicle hop and splutter, and then, thank goodness, she was out of their sight.
*
‘But I don’ like mackerel,’ Mary moaned. The child had been angry and
obstinate ever since Olivia had returned, which was not entirely a surprise. The fish spat and hissed in the pan as if in fierce agreement about not being eaten but Olivia was not to be swayed.
‘They’re fresh off the boat and good for you. Your ma said you were to eat them twice a week.’
‘You don’t usually take notice of what Ma says,’ Mary pronounced sullenly.
They were sitting in silence eating the mackerel with bread and butter when the front door banged and there came the sound of voices.
‘Don’t you dare say a word,’ warned Olivia.
‘What’ll you give me?’
The tempting answer was ‘a jolly good hiding’, but Olivia restrained herself. She wished she had gone to the sweetshop after all, or even taken Nipper’s toffees – not that he’d have got anything by way of exchange. The idea of his overly wet, red lips making kissing motions at her… ugh.
‘You can have some pear drops.’
‘When?’
‘Later.’
‘I want them now.’
The bargaining was interrupted by the arrival of the Land Girls. ‘Did you catch his name?’ Beryl was saying, going to wash her hands in the bowl of water.
‘I believe it’s Michael or something,’ Marjorie said. ‘Pronounced in some awful foreign way.’
‘Ah, Michael, like the archangel, with his lovely yellow hair and piercing gaze. Not too much of an angel, though: I swear he was undressing me with his eyes.’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Beryl!’
‘He called me Rita Hayworth,’ Beryl said dreamily. ‘He pointed to my hair.’
Marj snorted. ‘Must’ve lost his glasses in the crash.’
‘I’m quite sure pilots have perfect eyesight,’ Beryl replied sharply.
‘He probably wasn’t the pilot,’ Marjorie said, ‘just aircrew. And how you can find him in the least attractive I can’t imagine. He’s an enemy – a Jerry! Where’s your patriotism? They destroyed half of Penzance. We’d probably both be dead if it had been the night before.’
‘He does look rather dangerous.’ Beryl gave a secret smile. ‘He’s got that sort of mouth – you know, what do they say, chiselled? But anyway, he ain’t a Jerry, he’s Austrian.’
‘How do you even know that?’
‘I asked Nipper.’
Marjorie made a face. ‘I’ll never understand men. It’s like Nipper hero-worships him, stupid beggar. It just isn’t right. Besides, Hitler is an Austrian. You keep away from him, Beryl Hopkins.’
‘Why? Want him for yourself, do ya?’
Olivia could hardly believe her ears: she’d never heard Beryl confront Marjorie in such a way before.
‘Don’t be absurd. I have far better men chasing after me; young men fighting for our freedom, not some wretched Nazi. Now, calm down, Beryl. Let’s make some tea and have a quick game of whist before supper and say no more about it.’
She set about briskly boiling the kettle and assembling on a tray the teapot, cups, saucers, tea strainer, milk, sugar, and the saffron cake Olivia had been earmarking for herself and forgotten to hide. Damn. As Marj warmed the pot then carefully dropped two teaspoonfuls of the precious loose leaves into it and covered them with hot water, Beryl said, ‘Let’s have our tea in the parlour, since Mrs Ogden in’t here to tell us not to. We can pretend we’re grand ladies.’
‘I think there’s a concert on the wireless,’ Olivia said quickly, trying not to sound desperate. ‘And it’s much grander in the dining room – the parlour’s very dusty.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Olivia,’ said Marj, as if noticing her for the first time. ‘It’s Farming Today on the Home Service at the moment and I for one have had quite enough of farming for today.’
‘There’s a surprise in the parlour,’ said Mary. Olivia, holding her by the arm, dug her fingers in harder.
Marjorie fixed the child with a cool gaze. ‘Is there now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Time for bed,’ Olivia said hurriedly.
‘It’s too early for bed.’
‘I don’t think it is.’ Olivia hauled Mary out into the corridor, the child fighting her all the way.
‘… parrot!’ Mary shouted.
‘What was that?’ Beryl came to the doorway, looking puzzled.
‘Oh, nothing. She’s just developed this craving for carrots,’ Olivia called back over her shoulder and launched Mary up the stairs and into her room, where they stared at one another hotly. ‘No sweets for you,’ Olivia said.
‘Don’t care. You’re going to be in big big trouble.’
Olivia shut the door on the awful child and crept along the landing, listening. The inevitable scream came seconds later, followed by loud avian cackling, and Beryl came bolting out into the hall, eyes out on stalks. Marjorie followed on her heels, lips compressed, tea tray firmly in both hands. The cups rattled: she was shaking. ‘Beryl, go into the dining room. We’ll play cards in there.’
Olivia sauntered down the stairs as if nothing had happened and as Beryl scuttled past, weeping, Marj fixed her with a gimlet stare. ‘Well, look at you, little Miss Butter Wouldn’t Melt. You can’t possibly keep that vile thing. I shall ask Jago to get rid of it tomorrow.’
‘It’s mine and I’m going to keep it,’ Olivia returned. ‘This is my house, and you have no say here.’
Into the beat of silence that followed as Marj mustered a furious response there emanated from the parlour a distant but distinct, ‘Bugger off, arsehole.’
10
Becky
THE NEXT MORNING, HAVING NOT SLEPT AT ALL, I AM sitting cross-legged in the snug with several of Olivia’s books spread on the floor around me. It is remarkable, I think, how dependent people have become on the Internet in any quest for knowledge. Under normal circumstances I would simply key the words ‘human finger bone’ into Google and wait for a torrent of information. But of course there is no signal here.
And so, stymied and disturbed, I paced the corridors of Chynalls in the early hours until the book-room beckoned me and there, amongst the cornucopia of travel guides and memoirs, books on photography and art and architecture, encyclopaedias and classic novels, histories (in both English and French) of Morocco and Algeria and the Second World War, anthropological tomes about world cultures and field guides to birds, butterflies and wildflowers, I found on a high shelf a medical volume and a human anatomy manual. Quite the library, Olivia has. Not what you might expect to find in the house of a batty old lady.
The medical volumes are opened to pages showing illustrations and descriptions of the human skeleton.
There can be no doubt as to the nature of the artefact I have found. But nothing I have come upon in my research can reveal the age or identity of the human being to whom it once belonged. And that’s really rather crucial, isn’t it? Yet I don’t know if it was part of someone male or female, child or adult, prehistoric or rather more recent. And I cannot take it anywhere for analysis because of the suspicion and terrifying legal consequences that might fall upon my frail, old cousin, already struggling to survive in Treliske Hospital.
And so here I am now at seven in the morning, with my eyes sore and gummy and my mind fuzzy from lack of sleep, wondering if Olivia has murdered someone, or is covering up for someone else who has murdered someone, or if she is completely innocent and even maybe unaware of the presence of human remains below her house and wants the cellar and tunnel bricked up for some other, unknowable reason.
I know I am not thinking straight. But who would under such circumstances?
At last I stir myself. I put the medical volumes back on the shelves and gingerly pick up the bone with a piece of tissue and take it into Olivia’s old camp-bed room and hide it away in the hollow of the carved totem, where I found the big iron key. I stuff balled-up newspaper in after it till the totem doesn’t rattle. After that, I feel better. Out of sight, out of mind.
I make myself a mug of coffee and some toast and Marmite, and thus restored, arm myself with th
e torch, my phone – in case I need to take photos (it being precious little use in any other capacity without any signal) – and the big key. I have also purloined a small metal trowel that I rescued from among the other paraphernalia caught up in the collapsed porch. Down I go into the cellar, feeling not at all like an explorer but more like a grave-robber. My heart thumps unhelpfully: I can feel panic coming on at what I must do.
Calm down, Becky. Take deep breaths.
Who do you think you are? I ask silently. My mother?
I take deep breaths and feel the panic recede a little. I have to know, I tell myself. I have to know what I’m taking on here. Because if there is a body…
A corpse, whispers the unhelpful voice in my head.
If there is a… If there are human remains, the likelihood is it will involve the police, and I will have to consider my position.
This sounds so pompous even as an internal monologue that I almost laugh out loud. Consider my position. As if I am a corrupt politician, caught out by the newspapers. All I am trying to do is help my poor old cousin, I tell the universe silently. I’m trying to do a good thing here, so please don’t make it any harder than it needs to be, OK?
I drag a heavy paint pot across the dusty floor and wedge it up against the cellar door, so that I can run for my life if I have to. Then I fit the key into the lock. Iron, cold iron. Didn’t people used to believe iron stopped magic from working? Which is why they hung horseshoes everywhere?
