God's Acre

by Dee Yates

  A row of blackened pans hang from hooks beneath a shelf running the length of the kitchen. On it are ranged baking trays, rusting metal biscuit tins, jars and containers of various sizes, a glass demijohn, furry with grey dust, and a set of weighing scales, their copper surface tarnished and dull. It seems to Liz as though she has stepped back several decades into the kind of house beloved of museum curators. A stone sink stands in the corner beneath a small window and, next to it, an electric cooker. On the floor, linoleum, cracked and lifting round the edges, reveals glimpses of the stone floor beneath. All that is needed, she thinks, is the model of a cook, in black dress, frilly apron and starched hat, standing uncomfortably angled at the stove, wooden spoon poised over a never-boiling double pan of hollandaise sauce. Although, she realises, even as she imagines it, that a maid of that generation would not have had the advantage of electricity. This amenity has been listed with others as contributing to part of the cottage’s ‘modernisation’. Looking up at the metal lampshade suspended from a frayed twist of wire, Liz considers the word overstated.

  ‘I hope the owner doesn’t mind us looking round when she’s out,’ she says, seeing the further signs of habitation in the stained tea towel on a hook beneath the window and a greasy oven glove hanging by its side. She turns to Kenneth Mackie, the young man from the estate agent’s, who has ventured no further than the front door. He sniffs.

  ‘“She” was a “he”, actually. I believe the old chap died, so I’m sure he won’t mind you looking round.’

  ‘Oh, I’d no idea.’ She scans the room, seeing it with new eyes. ‘Did he live here long?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘It doesn’t look as though he had many visitors. That’s sad.’

  Her companion glances at his watch. ‘Perhaps you would like to see the rest of the cottage.’ His voice is bland, disinterested. It is clear that he has no opinion on the previous resident, dead or otherwise, or the property in his charge.

  ‘Yes… yes please.’ Liz follows him into the bedroom. It’s sparsely furnished, but the heavy, old-fashioned pieces fill the space. The bed is situated within a recess, where it can be closed off with a curtain. The curtain has been pulled back and hooked behind a chair and the bedcovers are crumpled, as though someone has been lying on top of them. This intimacy comes as a shock to Liz. She glances towards the door, eager to leave the room and look elsewhere.

  The living room is a little more welcoming. In it she can picture the old man going about his tasks. He must have been very old, she thinks, given the antiquity of the furniture. His favourite chair is drawn up to the fireplace. Ashes lie cold in the grate and litter the hearth. On a rag rug down-at-heel slippers wait for their departed owner. A naked light bulb hangs from the centre of the ceiling. Against the wall opposite the fireplace stands a bookcase, stuffed with volumes in identical orange-brown covers and with indecipherable titles. A small sash window adorned with cobwebs rations the light entering the room. She walks over to it, examining the deep recess with its eighteen-inch-thick walls. Hopefully these will keep out the chill of winter.

  On the windowsill is propped a solitary photograph. It is sepia and blotted with age. Liz steps up to it slowly and stares at the smiling girl with a frizz of hair encircling her face. She is standing in a field and holds a bucket in one hand, a rake in the other. Around her and in the distance are sheep. But the girl has eyes only for the view in front of her. She is looking not at the photographer but to one side. The young face is radiant. But it is not this that causes her heart to leap. It is the familiarity of the image in front of her.

  It is a photo of Liz’s own mother.

  When she can trust herself to speak, she turns to the estate agent, steadying herself with a hand on the back of a chair. ‘What… was the old man’s name… the man who lived here?’

  Kenneth Mackie shrugs. ‘No idea, madam.’

  ‘But surely, if you’re selling his cottage….’

  Kenneth opens his folder and glances at the sheaf of papers it contains.

  ‘The vendor’s name is a Mr N. Cunningham. He’s at an address outside the village. The property was no doubt rented.’

  Liz frowns. The name means nothing to her. ‘Can you give me his address, this Mr Cunningham?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to do that, madam. All negotiations take place through the estate agent.’ He shuts the file with a snap.

  ‘I wasn’t wanting to negotiate with him.’ She glances at the photo and back to the young man. ‘I only wanted… What will happen to all these things?’ Liz gestures around her. ‘Has the man no relatives?’

  ‘Apparently not. Presumably the solicitor of the deceased will make arrangements for disposal of the contents.’

  ‘You mean throw them away?’ Liz is horrified by the thought.

  ‘Well, if you ask me, there’s nothing worth saving here. It’s just a load of junk. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you around outside.’ The man turns and walks into the entrance. She hears the hinges squeak as he opens the front door.

  Liz scowls at his unprofessional summing up. She waits a second, throws a glance into the empty corridor and steps back to the window. Picking up the sepia picture, she blows the dust off it quickly and slips it into her handbag. Her heart is beating fast. She takes one last slow look at the room and steps briskly over the threshold to join the callous and unhelpful estate agent in the garden.

  But Liz has already seen all that she needs to see. Even before coming face to face with the coincidence of her mother’s photo, she has decided that she wants to live in this cottage. It has given her a feeling of having arrived, of having stumbled upon something for which she has been searching for a long time. The photo has, heart and soul, cemented her resolution. This, it is telling her, is where she belongs.

  Even the outside toilet and the lack of a bathroom don’t deter her. They are merely two of the many things that will need bringing up to date. Neither is she put off by the garden, now untended and overgrown, although clearly it has had care and attention for many years until recently. The sight of it raises her spirits. She will restore it to its former glory, and she will try and persuade whoever has responsibility for the old man’s possessions to allow her to keep his shed full of garden equipment. It will give her something with which to begin her task.

  She picks up a spade which is resting against the wall of the garden shed and lovingly runs her hands over its handle, smooth with work. The garden will hopefully recognise the implements that have lovingly tended it for so many years.

  *

  The name Cunningham in the local telephone directory fills half a page. She runs her finger down the list, checking addresses. ‘Outside the village’ the estate agent had said. Did he mean just outside or in a different area altogether? There is no way of telling. All she can do is ring each of the numbers in turn until she finds the person she is searching for.

  Her phone calls draw a blank. Her enquiries are met either with an apology that he or she is not the person she is looking for or with a recorded message to ring back later. In several cases the phone rings and rings and no answering voice comes to her aid. She makes a note of those numbers and sits back, frustrated that she is no further forward.

  Having little else to do, Liz decides to pay another visit to the village, to recapture the excitement that has now been dimmed by the impersonal surroundings of the hotel in which she has chosen to stay.

  A raw wind is gusting through the valley as she walks slowly downhill past the cottage. She gazes at its forlorn appearance, hunkered down against the weather, and the windows stare back blindly, their glass, filmed with dust, having the appearance of elderly cataracts. By the time she has reached the river, her fingers are numb and the air is full of starved snowflakes. It is no day for enjoying the environs of the village and, turning, she makes her way briskly up the hill. By the time she reaches the pub, her cheeks are glowing and blood is beginning to flow back into her deadened extre
mities, giving her hot aches.

  ‘Not a day to be out and about if you can help it,’ the landlord says unnecessarily, as she climbs onto a bar stool. A fire burns in the grate and the small room exudes cosiness.

  She smiles at him through the pain of her fingers and looks round the empty room. ‘It looks as if all your customers have decided to stay at home.’

  ‘Och! It’s always quiet the noo.’ He glances at the clock on the wall. ‘See, there’ll be one or two in shortly on their way back from market. Or they’ll call in to get warm after a morning on the hill checking sheep. Now, what can I get you, hen?’

  ‘I’ll have half a lager and lime, please.’

  ‘Coming up.’ The landlord takes down a glass from the shelf above the bar. ‘You’re not from round these parts, are you?’

  ‘No, but I’m hoping that I will be shortly. I’m planning to buy in the village.’

  ‘You mean the cottage down the hill?’ He looks at her as though her brain has become slightly unhinged. ‘You’ll have your work cut out with that one.’

  ‘It does need a bit doing with it, I’ll grant you that.’

  A draught of cold air heralds the entrance of someone else seeking warmth or sustenance, or both. Liz turns. The man is late middle-age, with a face scoured and stained by a life lived outdoors. He wears a waterproof jacket and trousers and smells unmistakably of sheep.

  ‘A good morning at market, Alastair?’ the landlord asks, reaching down a pint glass and tilting it to accept the steady black stream of Guinness.

  ‘No’ so bad.’ The newcomer rubs gnarled hands together to warm them. ‘Better inside than out on a day like today.’ He turns to Liz and nods. She smiles back and takes a sip of her lager.

  ‘This young lady’s thinking of moving into the village… buying the cottage down the hill.’

  ‘Neil’s decided to sell then, has he? Can’t say that I’m surprised. Tam’s been gone a few months. After all, it was built as a farm labourer’s cottage and there aren’t the farmhands needed now… and not likely to be. There’ll be more and more of these labourers’ cottages up for sale. Just so long as the people buying them aren’t going to leave them empty as holiday homes while they go and stay in the big city.’

  ‘Nothing like that', says Liz. 'That way leads to the death of a community. No, I’m determined I’m going to live in mine and make my home here. Er, Tam, you said, used to live there. Did you know him? What was he like?’

  Alastair turns his mouth down at the corners. ‘Old Tam? I didn’t know him well… nobody did. Bit of a loner, he was… a proper old bachelor. Looked after himself all the time that I knew him. His father used to farm where I am now. I came from a neighbouring village and took over the tenancy not long after the old man died. Well, I say “old”, but to be honest he wasnae that old. Tam, now, he became a bit of an odd-job man – some farm labouring, some tending gardens round the village. Oh, and he used to help the gamekeeper out at busy times of the year.’

  ‘Did Tam have no family at all, then?’

  The farmer is quiet for a minute, thinking. ‘I heard there was an older brother – Alan, I believe they called him.’ He takes a sip of his Guinness and runs his tongue across his upper lip to remove the moustache of froth.

  ‘Don’t mind me asking.’ The landlord gives her a bemused look. ‘But do you have family here? After all, it’s a bit out of the way for someone like yourself, is it no’?’

  ‘I don’t have family here now, as far as I know, but my mother knew the village years ago. She used to talk about it and, more recently again, before she died.’ She pauses and the two men, understanding her grief, are silent too. Eventually she continues, ‘So, you know the man who’s selling the cottage – Mr Cunningham, is it?’

  The man called Alastair snorts. ‘Neil Cunningham! Aye, I know him. Born and bred in these parts, he was. Most of the land between his place and the cottage belongs to him. What would you be wanting with him then? He’ll no’ be willing to bargain with you, if that’s what’s on your mind.’

  ‘Oh, no. Nothing like that. Could you tell me where he lives?’

  ‘Aye. Follow the road a mile or two up the valley. Take the left turn down the hillside into the bottom of the valley, then keep straight ahead. Turn right before the gamekeeper’s cottage and follow the road to the bridge. Cross the bridge and his farm is at the end of the road, surrounded by trees. He needs them too, to give him a bit of shelter from the elements. He gets the full force, and no mistake.’

  ‘I’d better have something to eat before I go… a cheese and tomato roll, perhaps? I think I might walk. The fresh air will do me good.’

  ‘Nae problem,’ the landlord says and disappears through a door to the side of the bar. They can hear him humming tunelessly as he goes about his work. The farmer lifts his eyes to the ceiling and smiles at Liz. He downs the remainder of his drink and gets up to leave.

  ‘My dinner will be on the table. Mustn’t keep a good lady waiting.’ He pauses. ‘Watch yourself, hen. He’s a cantankerous old bugger, if you’ll forgive my choice of words.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I’ve handled worse in my time,’ she laughs.

  The landlord returns with her sandwich and she goes to sit by the fire, storing up some of its heat to take with her when she ventures out.

  In a few minutes, she is wrapping her scarf round her neck and pulling on her gloves.

  It’s a long walk, but she has nothing better to do. Besides, the roll and lager have given her a boost of energy. She can see the farm in the distance while she still has some way to go. It looks desolate, almost unlived in, against the grey backdrop of the sky. The surrounding hills, though, are dotted with sheep, suggesting that someone must be there to care for them.

  She knocks on the door of the farmhouse and steps back waiting, almost relieved when no one comes. She knocks a second time and is turning to retrace her steps across the muddy yard when the door opens a fraction.

  The face that confronts her is surly and unwelcoming. Beneath watery eyes, bags of loose skin give the appearance of a bloodhound. Deep wrinkles form crevices on either side of the moist mouth and a dribble of food clings to the stubble of his chin. On his head is a woolly bobble hat, misshapen with years of pulling it on and off. The rheumy eyes take in her expensive cold-weather gear and travel upwards to her face. There is a sharp intake of breath… and the old man starts to cough as the cold air irritates the lining of his lungs. For a minute the vehemence of the paroxysm prevents his talking. He draws from his pocket a soiled handkerchief and wipes each of his watering eyes in turn.

  Liz stands helpless, making pointless remarks such as ‘Are you all right?’ and ‘Can I do anything to help?’ though it is clear that he isn’t and she can’t.

  At last he spits a generous gobbet of phlegm onto the ground in front of her. He stares at her again, before shaking his head, as if to rid himself of some unwanted picture that has lodged there.

  ‘What do you want?’ he says coldly.

  ‘I’m looking for a Mr Neil Cunningham.’ Liz replies, thinking how the description given her in the pub matches that of the man standing in front of her.

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘Er, I’m new to these parts but…’

  ‘I can see that,’ he interrupts, his eyes travelling down her warmly clad body before returning to her face. 'Aye, I'm Neil Cunningham.' He frowns and looks away.

  ‘Well, I’m thinking of buying the cottage that’s for sale in the village and…’

  ‘It’s all being handled by the estate agents,’ he interrupts. ‘Their number’s on the board if you’re wanting to view.’

  ‘Oh, I already have. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the man who used to live there. They said in the pub that you know as much or more than most people round here.’

  ‘Aye, I reckon so.’

  ‘They said his name was Tam.’

  ‘Did they now?’ It is clear the man is not keen to engage i
n conversation but Liz refuses to be put off by his unfriendly manner.

  ‘Yes, they did. I was wondering if you could tell me if he’s still alive. Only I’d like to see him. The estate agent thought he had died.’

  His eyes narrow. ‘Why would you want to see him? You’re buying the cottage, aren’t you, not checking up on the previous owners?’

  ‘It’s just that there was this picture of my mother on the window sill in the cottage.’ She delves in her bag to try and locate the picture but fails to find it. ‘I thought he must… well, he must have known her.’

  ‘Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. What’s it to me?’ the old man snarls, stepping close and staring into her eyes. ‘Anyway, it’s like the estate agent said. He’s gone… gone… a few months ago.’

  A wave of disappointment sweeps through Liz. Disappointment that she won’t be able to meet this man who has lived for so long in the cottage that will be hers, regret that she will not learn the connection between Tam and her mother.

  ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you then. I’ll leave.’ She turns away, but the old man puts a restraining hand on her arm.

  ‘Why have you decided to move here anyway, seeing as you’re not from these parts?’

  ‘I’m from England. My mother lived in London. That’s where I was born. Mum died recently, but she had visited this village when she was young, so I thought I’d like to come and see it for myself. And, well, I’ve fallen in love with it.’

  The man shrugs as if to contradict her. ‘This picture you saw,’ he goes on. ‘You took it then?’

  ‘Well, yes I did. I thought it would otherwise be thrown away. Do you want to see it?’ She rummages in her bag again and, locating it this time, hands it over.

  The old man stares at it, showing no emotion. For a full minute there is silence as he peruses the picture of the girl in the field.