Keepers of the House

by JH Fletcher

  As always, she could do nothing to prevent him as Dominic’s hand explored her, kindling heat. She was drowning, dissolving, and for the moment did not care. Once again, sensation consumed all. The groans of the house, the icy passion of the torrent beyond the wall, the whickering of the horses in the yard became part of the whole, filling her as Dominic himself was filling her with an awareness of life, rough and demanding and indescribably fecund. At the last, she stretched out her neck and bit down on his shoulder to keep herself from crying out.

  Afterwards he objected, half-laughing, half-angry. ‘Jesus and Mary, woman, you savaged me half to death!’

  ‘Serves you right.’

  Feeling her senses languid, drifting, awash in secret triumph. Because at last, for the first time, she had managed to avoid him. It had not been Dominic’s face that had looked down at her out of the darkness.

  They would have to go. Dominic would not want it but it was unavoidable. They were too many for this house. If they stayed, Jack — she herself, perhaps — would end by destroying them all.

  For a month, nothing, although daily Anneliese expected it. A routine grew up. Each day the men went off with the horses. The women, however they might feel about each other, also contrived to live together in a sort of harmony. And always there was the boy.

  Already, at three years, he had a hint of his grandfather’s eagle look, yet in him it was diluted, the bones of his face showing none of the old man’s arrogance and strength. Anneliese had loved him from the first.

  ‘My baby,’ she cried, lifting him high and running, running, loving the crowing laugh, loving him.

  She had expected his grandmother to resent her feelings but, after the first week or two, she had not. Because they were both intruders, Anneliese thought. Over the years, the old woman had established a structure of hours and days that continued to govern all their lives. Out of bed at this hour, meals at these hours, this day for washing, this for cleaning — a framework of duties holding her life together. The baby, even after three years, disturbed the ritual. As did the non-Catholic, foreign woman who never, as long as Carmel Riordan lived, would be other than an intrusion and reproach. The scarlet woman who had trapped her son.

  They lived together, cleaned the house together, used the wooden tongs to lift the steaming washing out of the tub together, breathed the same air together. Until Anneliese, unable to bear it any longer, fled from the house and walked. First to the yard with its horses, then further until, a month after their arrival, she was disappearing for hours into the forest. The vast emptiness, the silence, the lofty communion of trees consumed her, setting her free.

  Later, when she was confident that the forest would not harm her, she took the boy.

  She had been frightened at first, not of Dermot but of her feelings for him. She had known a son before this, had clutched him despairingly, willing his ragged breath not to cease. Had lost him, for all her efforts. Ever since, she had been devoured not only by his death but by the conviction that she had failed both him and herself in her inability to keep him alive. She was afraid that if she took Dermot into her heart she would re-awaken guilt.

  It did not work out like that. There was a sense of healing in once again bestowing love upon a child. He was not hers, yet each day, more and more, became so. She gloried in it.

  She apologised to his grandmother, fearing jealousy, but Carmel Riordan did not care.

  ‘If it keeps the pair of you from under my feet,’ she said.

  So the walks became longer, she carrying the child when he was tired, and the trees, the rocky defiles and slopes littered with leaves, welcomed them.

  One afternoon, wandering from their normal paths, they found the enclosure where Jack Riordan kept his stolen horses. That night she said nothing, but Dermot spoke for her, prattling about the horses they had seen in the forest.

  She felt the weight of Jack’s eyes. ‘I’d have expected you’d mention it yourself.’

  ‘You told me they were there. Remember?’

  ‘I remember it well.’ He watched her consideringly. ‘Dangerous knowledge,’ he said at last.

  ‘You needn’t think I’ll talk,’ she said. ‘I told you: some wars never end.’

  He turned again to his plate. ‘Be sure you don’t forget it.’

  The next day, because Dermot wished it, they visited the horses again. There Jack Riordan found them.

  ‘I was thinkin’ you might turn up.’

  ‘The boy likes to see them.’

  He watched the child looking through the wire at the horses. ‘Taken a dead set for you,’ he said.

  ‘I think so, yes.’ She was pleased.

  ‘Not the only one.’

  ‘Oh?’ Alarm flickered. ‘Who else?’

  The moist red lips smiled through the beard. ‘Why, Dominic, of course.’

  The message of his eyes and smile said nothing of Dominic. She felt as an antelope must, sensing the lion’s presence, unsure when the attack will come.

  ‘He thinks the moon and stars of you. He’s always saying so.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ But was not and she suspected Jack knew it.

  ‘I do, meself. I’ve a great admiration for a woman of spirit.’

  The caress of his voice. He was so close; she could sense his closeness, her body’s reaction to it.

  He put out his hand and moulded her cheek.

  She jerked her head away. ‘Don’t!’

  ‘If it’s Dominic worries you, I’ve sent him across the other side of the valley to have a look at some stock they’ve got there. He’ll not be back for hours yet.’

  ‘Why tell me that? Where you send him is none of my business.’

  ‘Well now, maybe it’s not your business and maybe it is. Maybe it’s not, and maybe it is.’ Again he touched her cheek. ‘I’ve a powerful strong feeling for you, Anneliese.’

  The way he stood over her, stealing the very air from her lungs.

  ‘That’s your problem, not mine.’

  Again she jerked her head but this time his hand did not leave her but lingered, lingered. She felt sparks in her skin at his touch. He smiled slowly, all the time in the world at his back.

  ‘And you feel the same.’

  ‘I never —’

  ‘Knew it the first day I set eyes on you.’

  He dropped his hand so that, instead of her cheek, it caressed her breast. Once, briefly, and gone, yet she knew that his eagle’s eye, watching her closely, must have observed the shock like a jolt of electricity that scoured her and left her heart hammering in her chest.

  ‘Auntie …’

  Dermot, whom both had forgotten, was still watching the horses. Anneliese, released, went swiftly to him.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘That one has a baby.’

  At her back Jack Riordan said, ‘Come tomorrow. And leave the lad behind.’

  For the rest of the day the words plagued her. Not only the words; the texture of his voice, the fleeting pressure of his hand on her breast stood between her and the evening’s routine. Until at last, berthed on the mattress in the corner that had become theirs, Dominic turned to her, and she said no.

  ‘I don’t feel like it tonight.’

  At that moment she wanted nothing to do with him, with any man. Yet she felt the need to excoriate feelings she was unable to control. A part of her even hoped that Dominic would insist, would impose himself upon her by force. She thought it might bring her back from the cliff edge upon which she was teetering, but he said nothing, turned on his side and was presently asleep. She lay awake, body flushed and restless, dreading the morning and what she would or would not do.

  ‘Dermot …’

  Who came running.

  ‘Are we going to see the horses, Auntie?’

  ‘Not today.’

  He started to object, but she would have none of it. A gust of anger, as violent as it was unexpected, shook her.

  ‘Be quiet or I won’t take you at all.’
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br />   ‘There’s no call to be speaking to the boy so severely,’ Carmel Riordan said.

  ‘He must be taught obedience.’

  ‘Screeching at him like a shrew …’

  Shrews don’t screech. Somehow she managed not to say it.

  She grabbed Dermot’s arm, yanking him out of the house and down the slope so quickly that his feet barely touched the ground, and so into the green embrace of the trees.

  ‘Want to see the horses,’ Dermot whined.

  ‘No!’

  Then she thought, Why not? What can he do with the child there? It might even be better, give him a signal to keep away from me. If I don’t go at all, I shall only be putting things off. I shall feel him behind me always.

  They went; they watched the horses. Tension dried her mouth. They saw no one. Later that night, Jack said nothing, by word or gesture. The next day the same, and the one after that. The fourth day, he was there.

  ‘I said to leave the lad behind.’

  She had to stand firm or she would be lost, irretrievably. Permit him an inch, just once, and there would be no denying him.

  ‘If I told Dominic —’

  ‘Dominic?’ The same rich vein of contempt in his voice. ‘Dominic will do nothing.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure.’

  ‘Lift his hand to his own Da? I’d flatten him, he tried anything like that, and well he knows it.’

  She had to defend him. ‘He’s done worse things in his time.’

  ‘Not with me he hasn’t.’

  Gently, confidently, his hand took her by the nape. This is mine.

  Fight him! she ordered herself.

  But could not. Stood shaking as his hand moulded her body. So gentle, but so sure. This is mine.

  One more minute and it would be true.

  Somehow she broke the spell. Breath shuddering, she stepped backwards from him. She expected him to come after her but he did not, stood watching with darkly smiling eyes.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Leave the child.’

  She spoke again to Dominic. Again he dismissed her fears. ‘It means nothing.’

  A time for desperate speaking. ‘The way he’s behaving, he’ll have me on my back the next time.’

  He turned on her at once. ‘You’d like that?’

  Like a blow; to her pride, his own. So be it, she thought.

  ‘You think it was easy for me to say it? Well, I’ve warned you. It is up to you what you do.’

  Dominic tried; Anneliese, who heard it all, had to give him that. He went out, looking for the old man, with something like dread in his face. Found him in the barn, Anneliese following to loiter in the shadow cast by the open door.

  ‘She’s my woman,’ Dominic said.

  She heard Jack laugh. ‘Question is, can you keep her?’

  ‘With my gun, if I have to.’

  ‘You could be right.’ Jack’s voice was amused. ‘There’s one or two in these parts I wouldn’t trust with her or any woman.’

  So he mocked.

  ‘Don’t imagine she’s helpless,’ Dominic warned him. ‘She’s a mind of her own.’

  Again the riotous, lusting laugh. ‘That’s a bit of bad news. A woman with her own mind means trouble in the home. Or hadn’t you heard?’

  Anneliese standing in the door’s shadow, the shadow of the man who was no more than a broken stick beside his father. Fight him, her mind cried. Fight him!

  It was hopeless. With a sense of betrayal, she heard Dominic plead.

  ‘Don’t do it, Da. Please?’

  ‘We need to be getting a parcel of animals together,’ Jack said kindly. ‘For the fair at Jim Jim.’

  Anneliese at his side, Dominic had stood and watched the fire consume their enemies. Here, with this old man whom he hated as much as he loved, he was helpless.

  They went out together for the horses. They passed close by her, unseeing, Dominic trotting in the big man’s shadow.

  That night Dominic said, ‘I spoke to him. It’ll be all right.’

  Silence, then, hanging like the scales of justice between them, while Anneliese judged and found him wanting.

  ‘On your own head be it,’ she said.

  She went to the horse paddock without the child, as Jack had known she would. She had just begun to believe he might not come, after all, when he arrived. As she had known he would.

  She would have fought him but was so sick of fighting, of all the strange ways of this strange land. Whereas Jack Riordan, with his brutal hard body, his brutal hard mind, seemed never to tire. His strength was a tower, guarding her from the strangeness. A tower in whose shade she could rest.

  Dominic’s father. She thought, May God forgive me.

  Afterwards, she looked at him. ‘Never again.’

  Words only and well he knew it. Yet he nodded.

  ‘It was a fever, so it was. A fever in the pair of us. I’m not saying it’s quenched.’ His hand moved gently, caressing. Her eyes closed, her soul was open to his touch. ‘I’ve a fancy you’d be a hard one to get out of a man’s blood, but it wouldn’t be right. No more, as you say.’

  She had said it and meant it yet it was like a sentence of death to hear him say her own words back to her.

  ‘We shall have to leave.’

  No argument. To stay would be ruin.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘We’ll find a place.’

  ‘Take the boy with you.’

  Like sunlight through cloud. She looked at him. ‘What will Mrs Riordan say?’

  He smiled lazily, sunlight striping the barrel chest. ‘Be rid of him and thankful, that’s what Mrs Riordan will say. What I’ll tell her to say.’

  He would, she knew, and the woman would obey, she knew. As, in her place, Anneliese would have obeyed. Still she hesitated, fearful of visiting yet more damnation upon herself.

  ‘She’ll be lonely without him.’

  ‘Not for long.’ He laughed. As he had a few minutes earlier, that great weapon of his pumping deep inside her. ‘She’s got me. I’m enough for any woman.’

  The truth, God knew.

  ‘This is no place for a lad. Two old people like us. He needs proper parents, a proper chance in life. I owe Dana that, at least, after letting that damn mongrel get to her.’

  ‘What will I say to Dominic?’

  ‘What you like. He’ll go along, whatever you tell him. You know that already.’

  So Dermot went with them. They trekked away and Anneliese did not look back. But that night, camped beneath the everlasting trees, she sucked Dominic in and in and again in, seeking to lay his seed on top of whatever other seed might lie within her. Seeking to obliterate all that had gone before.

  They went north. Where there was work they stopped, for an hour or a day or a week. For a month they picked grapes along the banks of the great river. It was a good time, the best they’d had.

  One evening after work, they wandered down to the river bank, sat in the shade and watched the water while Dermot played nearby.

  Dominic tipped the bottle he had brought with him.

  ‘It was grand, seeing the old people after all this time.’ He wiped his mouth. ‘You were right, though; we’re better on our own.’ His laugh brayed. ‘Two women in one house? Impossible.’

  When Anneliese had first told him they would be bringing Dermot along, he had not been so merry.

  ‘Take Dana’s kid?’

  ‘Of course Dana’s child. How many are there?’

  ‘What are we going to do with him?’

  ‘Raise him as our own.’

  ‘Life’s likely to be hard enough without that. We don’t even know where we’re going, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Wherever that may be, Dermot is coming, too. Make up your mind to that.’

  Dominic had thrown a fit of the sulks. ‘Bring him along, then, if it makes you happy. We can all die of starvation, for all I care. Why not? Just so long as we agree it’s you’s got the caring of him.’

  Care for h
im Anneliese did. Like a tiger. There was a man along the river, ran one of the little boats to ferry people across. He stood Dominic a drink, offered a few shillings to take the boy off their hands. Said he’d raise him to learn a trade on the water. The way he explained things, it seemed like a good opportunity — good for the boy, good for themselves. You didn’t raise a child like that for nothing, after all.

  Well. You’d think the man had offered to strangle him, the way Anneliese performed. Screeching about kidnap and child slavery. Nearly threw him in the river. They had to move on quickly after that, with Anneliese still breathing fire and slaughter along the way.

  ‘You ever dare do anything like that again —’

  ‘All I did was talk —’

  ‘Just try it, that’s all.’

  She’d shaken him, although he would never let her see it. He wouldn’t have put it past her to murder him, the way she looked that night. After that, Dominic left well alone. She wanted the kid along, so be it.

  Anneliese, walking alone amid the vines. The sight and smell of the grapes was almost like coming home. Not quite; like viewing the past through a lens that distorted everything yet left the fundamentals unchanged. Grapes and sun. Harvest and growth. Anneliese, too, had growth inside her.

  It is Dominic’s. Silently she screamed the affirmation at the dun-coloured water. Dominic’s!

  God help me. God help us all.

  SIXTEEN

  A thin girl in a white apron held the edge of the door as though guarding the interior of the house from an army. She stared suspiciously through tiny, close-set eyes that took in everything about the visitors. The dusty, stained clothes. The tired boy. The broken shoes. The belly.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  The door was closing.

  Anneliese repeated her request. ‘I need to see your mistress.’

  On top of everything else, an accent. A foreigner, no doubt with the diseases of foreigners.

  ‘No.’