The Sea Gate

by Jane Johnson

  He hauled her upright and she felt something hard and cold at her throat: a knife. She could smell the nicotine on his fingers, and his sweat. He was speaking in German now – hard, guttural words. Her eyes were riveted by the sight of his grey lips working in the gloom. She couldn’t move a muscle. Petrified, she thought. Now she knew the true meaning of the word, and the true feeling of it. The poor dancing maidens, she thought. Being turned to stone was horrible. Knowing you were going to die, unable to do anything about it.

  He repeated his demands. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Then: ‘Auto,’ he said, and made a cranking gesture with his free hand.

  Her relief was so great she almost wept. He needed the starting handle. That was all he wanted: to escape in the car. It occurred to her he must have already located the garage and broken in if he knew the starting handle was not there. All she had to do was give it to him and he’d go away.

  ‘Go away,’ she said. It came out as a child’s whisper.

  He smiled and his teeth were like bright stars in the darkness. ‘Schnell!’ he barked at her, but still she could not move. He repeated his demand, more angrily, and she felt the knife push against her skin, wet and icy: rain, or blood? Her legs began to shake. When he pulled at her, her feet slipped on the polished wood and she fell the last two stairs, knocking him off balance, sending them both to the ground. Olivia heard the skitter of metal on tile, and when she flicked her eyes towards the sound she saw where the knife had spun away towards the front door. Purpose broke through her paralysis. She got her knees under her and crawled towards it, managed to get her fingers over the haft, but he was fast. Taking hold of her trailing leg he hauled her backwards across the smooth tiles, fell on top of her and pinned her flat, his weight on her ribcage so oppressive that she could barely breathe. Then he inched his thick body up her till his hand was on her wrist, and beat it again and again on the hard floor.

  She would not let go! She would not! Gritting her teeth against the pain, Olivia clung on. She writhed and took a deep breath and tried to buck her spine against him, but it was as if an ox had fallen on her. And then her grip failed and the knife fell from her fingers. With an almighty act of will, she flicked at it as it went, sending it skittering against the skirting board and down the hall corridor. The blond man roared in frustration and knotted a hand in her hair.

  He was going to smash her face into the ground. She could imagine with precise repulsion the way the bone and cartilage in her nose would crumple as it contacted the hard tiles, the tang of blood on her tongue, down her throat; her teeth cracking, her tongue severed by her own jaws. Terror filled her with preternatural strength. She managed to drag her knee under her and push back with her head, hitting him squarely on the chin. Everything stilled and in that moment she writhed free and scuttled like a shore-crab scared out of its hiding place, down the hall, scooping up the knife on her way, hurling herself into the first room she came to: the parlour.

  There was, of course, no lock on the parlour door. She knew her error as soon as she’d made it. Slamming the door shut, she shoved the couch towards it as a barricade, but only got it part way across the opening before he was there on the other side, pressing door, sofa and her backwards in his fury. She remembered being inside the car with his taunting eyes fixed on her, his mouth twisted in a half-smile as he pushed her out of the hedge.

  There was no half-smile now. The moonlight from the uncurtained window shone into his mad eyes – no blackout in here during the winter because the only room she used was the range-warmed kitchen – and ‘I kill you!’ he growled, and she knew he meant it.

  Despite her fear, she wondered where he had learned these English words, and if he had used them before: on Mamie, maybe, or during whatever incident had enabled his escape from the farm.

  Thunder rumbled outside and the window glass rattled as the wind pushed at it and sounded across the chimneys like a moan.

  Then a hoarse voice yelled, ‘Bugger off!’ and the blond man stopped dead, the whites showing all around his eyes. The parrot jumped from perch to perch, rattling the cage on its stand and shrieking, ‘Bugger off, arsehole!’

  Once he saw it was only a parrot, an insignificant distraction, the airman turned his attention back to Olivia, laid both hands on the couch and pulled it away from the door. Olivia’s feet skidded on the rug and it rucked up behind her. Acting before her brain told her not to, she leaped up onto the couch and right at him, stabbing at him as she went. The blade snagged on the fabric of his coat and she put all her weight into the blade and he cried out in what she hoped was pain, but then he roared and shoved her and she flew backwards, losing her grip on the knife and landing heavily on her back.

  In a blink he was on her, laughing in mad, gleeful rage.

  The clouds parted and moonlight spilled in, illuminating his ghastly face, all teeth and eyes like a wild animal. Her arm was painfully twisted behind her; it felt as if her shoulder might spring out of its socket as he pressed down on it. Then his hands were around her throat and she was choking. Awful sounds filled the dark room as his hands bore down on her and she tried to drag in oxygen. Dark stars buzzed in her eyes, the pressure on her throat as hard as a stone.

  Olivia peered piteously past the Nazi airman’s face, not wanting it to be the last thing she saw, and something moved into her field of vision. It was a figure, a man in silhouette, and he reared above them both with a bulky object in his hands. ‘Ba-lack, zamal!’ the newcomer cried and ‘Ba-lack zamal!’ another voice echoed. In the recesses of her mind, Olivia realized that the echo was the parrot: she could hear the bars of his cage rattle as he jumped from perch to perch in agitation.

  The airman looked around, and in that instant the man hit him. Something hot spattered on Olivia’s skin, then something small and hard hit her face as the blond man fell away from her. She moved her hand to her cheek and took the object in her fingers. She could make no sense of what it was, then with a start she realized it was a tooth and threw it down, revolted.

  Olivia coughed and rolled sideways. Beside her the airman was groaning and scrabbling with the other figure on the floor, both roaring out words she could not make out, matched by the alternate barking and shrieking of the parrot. She got unsteadily to her feet. The knife. Where was the knife?

  The clouds had closed over again; she could not see anything. Who was the figure who had come to her aid? The two men were indistinct shapes, entwined in their struggle, a pale head on top, then a dark head.

  It was the Nazi who found the knife. The blade rose in the air in an arc of muted silver and came down and the other figure cried out and Olivia was seized by a fresh wave of terror. The blond man was invincible, a monster; he was going to kill the man who had come to save her, and she would be next. It was absurd, surreal, she almost wanted to laugh. She was going to be killed in her own home, in the house where she had been born, by an enemy combatant while the rest of the war was a continent away, and the only witness to her violent demise would be a foul-mouthed parrot.

  Never had she more wanted to live, never had it seemed more likely that she would die. She turned to run, barked her shin on something hard, almost fell – the bulky object with which the newcomer had hit the airman. When she picked it up she recognized it as a log from the wood pile in the porch. Possession of it made her braver. She turned back to the struggling pair. But the blond man was on his feet now, the knife in his hand. Instinctively, she held the log between them and thrust it towards him as the blade came down at her. The jarring impact drove her backwards. Her foot caught in the rucked-up rug and she staggered and lost her balance. Her agonized cry came as a hoarse whisper out of her tortured throat, then she landed hard, and the world went still.

  16

  Becky

  I WAKE UP WITH MY HEART POUNDING AND EVERY HAIR on my body standing on end. I am more than awake: I am super-alert, hypervigilant. I lie there, stiff as a corpse, sending my senses out into the house to report ba
ck their findings. Rain thrashes against the window: perhaps that’s what woke me? At least this time it’s not pouring through the ceiling, though I have to put the light on and scrutinize the ceiling to be sure.

  Gradually, I take deep breaths and feel my pulse rate beginning to settle.

  Pull yourself together, darling! My mother’s voice, kind but exasperated.

  I was prey to nightmares as a small child – the thrashing-limb, howling-banshee kind that dragged Mum from her bed in the small hours of the night to calm me, which usually involved waking me up then holding me till I stopped wailing and could be persuaded that no monster, bad man or Dalek was pursuing me.

  I look at my phone: it’s four a.m. Rather than try to go back to sleep, which I know will be fruitless, I go downstairs to make myself a mug of cocoa and potter around in the kitchen. Work hasn’t started in here yet. I’m getting used to the vagaries of the old range so have decided that putting in a new oven can wait. I grab a digestive biscuit and my mug of cocoa and head upstairs. I will read in bed until I get sleepy again.

  As I step up onto the first tread, I hear a noise. My ears strain. Rain slapping the path beyond the front door, but beyond that something else. In the house, most definitely in the house. The clink of something hard – metallic? – on stone, then something sounds like the scuffle of feet on a gritty floor.

  There is someone else in the house.

  Trapped by indecision, I hover on the stairs. I could retreat to my bedroom, put a chair under the door handle, get under the duvet and listen to the rain, and wish all the bad things away. Downstairs, there is scary reality, the possibility of confrontation, even violence.

  Buck up, Becky.

  I turn and step down again into the hall, my feet making a soft slapping sound on the bare tiles. How can anyone have got into the house? Have they broken in? But the front door appears untouched: no panes of glass are broken and I know I locked it before going up. I hold my breath and listen. Now I can hear nothing but the rain rattling against the glass. Have I imagined it? I make my way quietly back towards the kitchen, listening, listening. Maybe it was just Gabriel that I heard? But I’m sure I put the cloth over his cage last night, which makes him go to sleep, or at least become quiet.

  I am about to check on Gabriel when I hear the noise again.

  My heart trips and thumps. As if to confirm my suspicions, a finger of light flits across the hall, then disappears. It came, I am sure of it, from the bottom of the door to the cellar.

  There is someone in the cellar.

  God, what am I going to do? And why didn’t I take Olivia at her word and get Reda and Mo to brick it up before they started on the rest of the work?

  I stand there, paralysed, all my senses questing and terrified. And there it is again, low and grumbling: men, talking quietly, furtive but not nervous. Are they planning to come up the cellar steps and through the door into the house? After me? But the door is locked. Isn’t it? I creep towards it, reach to the lintel. Yes, there it is. Now the key is in my hand. Quietly, quietly, I insert it into the lock. If there is a duplicate they won’t be able to open it from the other side. That buys me some time. My heart is knocking, knocking.

  The sensible thing would be to creep back upstairs, get dressed, grab my keys and flee the house. That’s what I should do.

  Instead, shocking myself, I find myself turning the key, pulling the door open and flicking on the light switch.

  Below are Ezra and Saul Sparrow.

  They freeze, blinking in the flood of light. My eyes take in the trails of wet footprints, the oil drum lying on its side. Ezra has a large package in his hands; Saul carries a black torch – its beam made redundant by the unshaded cellar 100-watt bulb – but it looks solid enough to be used as a weapon.

  Behind him, I can see the tunnel door is ajar: they must have come up from the cove. Do they have a key? Did I leave it open? I remember the day I swam with the seal, the small boat that was clearly about to put into shore, and was prevented from doing so by my presence. What are they doing? Hiding something? Something illicit – otherwise why would they be so furtive?

  The moment lies suspended between us: me with my hand on the cellar door, looking down; them, caught in the act, staring up at me. I think: anything could happen. They could rush me, hurt me, lock me in the cellar, drown me at sea… anything. I am an idiot for confronting them, for giving the game away. What on earth did I think I was doing? The image of the rat flickers through my mind, its lips drawn back in rigor, its extruded guts…

  I slam the cellar door shut on them and turn the key in the lock.

  ‘I’m going to call the police!’ I yell through the thick wood.

  I hear heavy feet on the stone steps, then one of them hammers on the door. ‘You got no signal, you ent calling anyone!’

  Ezra Sparrow, I think. The fat one.

  I start to shake. What if the door does not hold?

  The door rattles and rumbles as Ezra kicks it, but it is sturdy and shows no sign of giving way. More swearing; more kicks. Then the sound of footsteps retreating.

  Should I run out of the front door and down the lane till I get a signal and call the police? But if I leave the house, might they not run down the tunnel and come up through the sea gate and chase after me like the monsters in my dreams? What if they come up the path and break down the front door? They cannot let me go, having seen what I’ve seen.

  I must run up through the woods, get in the hire car. I dash up the hallway. Keys, where are the keys? The keys are not in the bowl on the hall console. Where are they? Oh God, they’re still in my handbag, upstairs. And I’m barefoot, in pyjamas.

  A screech splits the greying air. ‘Ba-lack! Ba-lack!’

  Through the parlour door I can see that the cloth I drape over Gabriel’s cage at night has slipped off and he is jumping in an animated fashion from high perch to low perch and back again. ‘What are you doing? Get off me!’ he squawks, followed by, ‘Die, you mad old bitch!’

  I stand there, my heart jumping faster and faster. The first phrase the parrot uttered in Olivia Kitto’s recognizably plummy tones, the second perfectly mimicking Rosie Sparrow. Did Rosie try to hurt Cousin Olivia? Is it how Olivia came by her broken leg? The thought chills me.

  What a monstrous family they are. Dangerous. Violent. I cannot stay here.

  Up the stairs I run, fast as a rabbit, snatch my handbag – give it a shake: yes, keys, thank God. Mobile phone, for what good it is. Grab the marble rolling pin from under the bed – might need a weapon. Shove feet in trainers, try not to trip over the laces as I hammer back down the stairs again, grab my coat and shrug it on (it is pouring out there). I am standing at the front door shuffling through the keys to unlock it with my handbag slipping off my shoulder, trying not to drop the rolling pin jammed under my armpit when the rain, quite suddenly, stops.

  The silence is oppressive. My brain seeks to fill it, searching for noise, but I can’t hear anything at all. Outside the sky is greying. I press my nose to the glass and gaze out at the burgeoning dawn, as the sun creeps over the horizon, gilding the clouds a rich, deep gold, shooting red streaks across the eastern sky.

  Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning, I think.

  Everything is still. Even the seagulls, usually in full cry at this hour of the day, are quiet. Through the stained glass panel to the right of the door I spy in the orchard the tip of an elevated orange tail – one of the local moggies on an early morning hunt, the rest of him obscured by the long grass. Swallows swoop upon insects down near the sea gate; by the path, a blackbird is hauling a worm out from amongst the montbretias. Life and death in the natural world: a constant cycle.

  With the light, reality returns and panic recedes, a little.

  Armed with the rolling pin, I go back to the cellar door and listen. Nothing at all, not even breathing. Holding my weapon high, I quietly unlock the door and crack it open. No one jumps out at me. I peer around. No murderous man comes charging
up the steps at me. The light is still on: I stare into the brightly lit space below. It is empty. Spilled tins lie strewn around on the scuffed and dusty floor, a scatter of tins and paint pots: the shelving unit has fallen over. They seem to have gone, but I have no intention of going down to check, not on my own. I close and lock the door again.

  They’ll be back, of that I am sure.

  I return upstairs and gaze out. I cannot see from here what state the tide is, whether it is in, trapping them in the tunnel below me, or whether they have managed to get to a boat. There are some small boats out there on the sea. Does one of them belong to the Sparrow brothers? Have they motored out through the rock arms of the cove? I hope so. I wish I had some binoculars. I stare and stare, as if hoping might make it so.

  Wings spread wide, a small crowd of seagulls follow a small fishing boat on its way in to Newlyn to land its catch.

  It all seems so normal, as if nothing has happened.

  I should report the break-in to the police, I think. Drive into Penzance and file a report, tell them my suspicions about the Sparrow family. Should I dig up the rat and take it in as evidence of their menaces? And what about Olivia’s broken leg? Had it really been the result of an accident, an old lady simply losing her balance on the stairs? Or had Rosie Sparrow pushed her? Was Gabriel parroting a scene he had heard, or witnessed, or was he simply regurgitating random bits of noise, maybe even dialogue from the television, recast in familiar voices? Could parrots do that? It was hardly evidence, was it? I pictured myself in court, Gabriel balanced on my hand, spreading his wings to show off all his splendid scarlet feathers, telling the judge to bugger off…

  Get a grip, Becks.

  I will go into town later anyway. No point in rushing off in my pyjamas, looking like a loon. Check all the locks, make some coffee, then write everything down and get it into some semblance of sensible order, dig up and take a photo of the dead rat, and go and talk to the police. They can come and have a look at the cellar and see if there is any sign of illegal goods there.