by Ruth Skrine
‘There’s a crack.’ She screws up her face with effort before withdrawing her arm. ‘I think there’s a bit of stone that we might be able to prise loose. What can we use as a lever?’
‘I’ll get something.’ I run up the stairs and all the way to the glory hole where there are some tools. Choosing a couple of screwdrivers and a heavy metal file that had been my father’s, I hurry back.
‘D’you want to try?’ asks Beth.
I put my hand back in to find the crack, then insert one of the screwdrivers and put my weight on it. Nothing moves. The longer file provides more leverage. Something gives. I shift the angle of pressure and a lump of stone falls out, grazing my arm and almost knocking me off the ledge. I reinsert my hand. 'There’s something here.’ Picking up the file again I chip away at the edges of a hole that has opened in the roof. Feeling again my fingers come up against a hard corner. I wiggle it till my arm aches and I think I have to give up. One more try… and an object comes free in a cloud of dust that makes me choke. I draw out a small metal box, covered with a thick layer of grime.
Standing close to Beth I am careful not to drop my find. A cloud of disturbed debris swirls around us. ‘Am I dreaming or is this it?’
Beth puts out her hand and runs a finger round two edges of the rectangular shape and over a white dent on one side. ‘It’s solid enough and not much damaged.’
‘I must have scraped it with the file.’
‘There’s no harm done. It’s only a scratch.’
We carry the box up into the drawing room where our filthy state becomes all too obvious in the bright light. Cobwebs cling to our hair and clothes, and our hands are grey. We laugh as we carry the box onto the balcony to wipe the worst of the dry muck from it, and from ourselves. Particles sparkle in the cold February air. Down in the kitchen we use a damp cloth to wipe our treasure before washing our hands. It is as if neither of us wants to hurry the moment when the lid will be lifted – we may find ourselves staring into an empty space. We stand looking at it.
‘Well?’ says Beth.
‘D’you think it’s locked?’
‘There’s only one way to find out.’
I take it between my hands and try to prise open the lid. It gives a fraction and then catches. Again I use one of the screwdrivers gently at several places round the edge. It opens. Yellowing sheets of paper nestle inside. After guarding so hard against disappointment I can hardly believe they are real. For a moment I stand drained of feeling. ‘Oh my!’ is all I can say.
Beth takes the box from me and puts it on the table. After a hesitant twitch, she reaches in and lifts out a small bundle tied with a length of frayed cotton tape. The pages look in surprisingly good condition. The writing is readable and clearly the same as that in Henry’s memoir. She does no more than glance at the first few words. Then she returns them to the box.
‘I don’t think you should read them now. Put them in your room and take your time with them.’
I nod. ‘Thank you so much.’ Shutting the lid of the box I clasp it to my chest. ‘I would never have found this without your help. I would have lost my nerve and felt I was trespassing, that I had no right…’
‘You have every right. This is your task,’ Beth says firmly.
I know she speaks the truth. I put the box by my bed with the pipe-cleaner boy, the two memoirs and the photo of my father, still face down. The house is slowly emptying, first the contents of the drawers and cupboards, then the furniture; soon it would be the turn of the pictures to leave the walls where they have hung for so long. As the life of the place drains away, the remaining energy is gathering on the table that holds the fruits of my search. That energy must contain some explanation for my sexual hang-up so that my faith in my father can be restored.
Chapter 12
I stand suspended in silence as the sound of Beth’s car fades into the distance. A crow lands on the fountain and lets out a croak, as if to remind me of the mission waiting for me inside the house. I hurry up to my room where the box is waiting.
Prising it open I find the fragile sheets in several bundles. I take out the top one and close the lid to protect the others, worried that I should be wearing special gloves to examine such ancient documents. The library and the archivist’s office, where I could phone for advice, will both be closed as it is Sunday. Anyway, they are my documents, or as much mine as anyone else’s. I turn the electric stove on high but then move it to the lowest setting afraid that the heat will damage the pages. Pulling on a heavy sweater instead I settle in my chair by the window.
The faded writing is difficult to read, and I start to copy it out into an old exercise book. Soon I am so enthralled by the story that my pen drops from my fingers.
October 1804
At last I have escaped from Aunt Elizabeth. She was determined to make me pay for my visit to the river last night. She was so vicious that I feared she had found out about Emily. She flayed me with her tongue for being tardy with the logs, for treading mud into the house and dropping bark and dirt as I tried to hurry. I held myself taut and stiff. I was fearful that she would notice some change in my face or my movements, which would betray the momentous thing that had happened to me.
I have never had the intention of writing a diary before, through all my unhappiness and misery. It is writing that has taken Papa away from me on his travels. He comes but seldom to visit me, and then only to shed tears over my misdeeds. I do not want to follow his way, but there is no one to talk to, and if I do not put my feelings onto paper they will burst out and betray me. I will keep this record up here in the dell, and bury it under the roots of the old oak tree.
Can that be my tree he is talking about? I look up at it, not knowing what the site was like before this house was built. I know oaks can live for hundreds of years so it could be the very same one.
I will spare no pains to put down all that happened, as truthfully and honestly as I can.
Last night I looked at the moisture on the wall of the old house and was filled with despair. Green mould was creeping along the crack where the wall joins the ceiling over the small windows. In their meanness they let in so little light that it was dark inside by half past five. I knew I must light the candles, but if I got up to do it before Aunt asked, she would shout at me, and if I waited for her to tell me, she would be angry just the same. She no longer whips me with the long canes she used to collect in the woods, I’m too big for that, but her tongue lashes me in a way that is so cutting that I can hardly bear it.
‘You no good lazybones, you never lift a finger to help,’ she shouted. She called for Maria to bring the candles and I jumped up, knocking over one of the holders as I did so. I don’t know why I am so clumsy. It is as if the floggings I have received over the years have disjointed my arms and legs. I am not like this with my grandmother. It is only here that I feel my body is disconnected, so that I flay about and break things.
I look up from the page again, astonished that such a distant ancestor can capture the awkwardness of my own adolescence so vividly. I know too well that any movement becomes risky when you have no confidence in your body. At this moment Henry is no longer a frightening old man but has become a friend who would have understood how I felt when I was that age. Picking up the bundle of pages I turn the stove off completely and retreat to my bed under the duvet.
‘You clumsy fool, you are worse than the dogs,’ she shouted, and hit me in the face. I stood paralysed as she crouched down to the floor, her black skirts crumpled around her as she felt for the candlestick. For one moment I wanted to kick her. Such an evil thought had never crossed my mind before, and the side of my face flushed to match the one that was stinging from the blow she had given me. God will strike me down for such a thought. How could I have been so wicked? She stood up and stretched to her full height. I watched her, mesmerised as if she were one of those cobras I had seen in my father’s book about India. I thought she would hit me again, but instead she hissed, ‘when wi
ll you learn anything?’
Small drops of moisture spattered my face. She is still several inches taller than I am, for, despite some recent growth on my part, I am still a small chap. Luckily Maria came in just then with the candles and soon after she brought the food.
I did not plan to write about my aunt. I want to fill these pages with Emily. I love that name, so neat but flowing like the spirit I met by the river. My aunt always intrudes and spoils everything.
I offered to carry the dishes out to the kitchen, but that was wrong. ‘Leave them for Maria. What do we pay the girl for?’ Poor Maria. She is not a girl, but an old woman now. I don’t know how she sustains her life with Aunt.
‘I’ll take the dogs out,’ I said, and left before she could contradict me. I glanced in at the window as I went round to get them from the shed where they live. She was crouching over the dying fire as if surrounded by spectres of hate. Aunt has never wanted me. I have always been a trial, a no-good monster of a boy who should never have been born; she has told me so time and again.
I walked down through the trees to the river below the weir. A last ray of light burst through the clouds and flamed the oak trees before the sun sank below the hill. In the sudden gloom I could just make out the flat-bottomed ferry pulled up under the willow where it was always moored. I untied the rope and pushed off with the pole into the middle of the stream, and then let the current carry me down. No one would want the ferry this late, and Alan, the ferryman, is a friend of mine. Patch sat in the bows, his shaggy black coat etched against the water where it glinted in the light of the rising moon. Percy hates the boat, and went hunting along the bank, hoping to disturb a sleeping vole or water rat. He is a good ratter despite being so young. If I were here all the year I could train him into a fine hunting dog. Each time I whistled he appeared on the bank, level with the drifting boat, and raised his muzzle wagging his tail.
I want to remember each part of the evening that led up to the moment of our meeting, and I can feel myself savouring every sensation and deferring the magic of writing about her. That first glimpse of the white dress through the trees, her small cry and then her surprisingly strong voice with its lilting accent, talking to Percy.
‘Get down dog, look what you’ve done to my dress! Bad boy,’ followed by, ‘Oh, you pretty thing! Where’s your master then?’
I took up my pole and brought the ferry to the bank with two or three strong thrusts against the gravelly riverbed. She turned towards me and I saw her impish face, half-hidden by golden hair. She was a character from a time-honoured legend. For a moment I thought she was a figment of my fancy. I held out my hand to her and she climbed aboard, and I felt her warm and living flesh.
Perhaps after all I cannot write about her. She is so sweet, yet at first she was afraid of me. As I paddled back towards the tree to tie the ferry to the strong root, she sat with her arm round Patch. We began to speak, hesitant at first. I felt myself grow under her eyes, changing from the clumsy lad I know myself to be, into a hero, a figure that could have sprung from the pages of one of my grandmother’s novels. She let the leaves of the willow trees run through her fingers as we passed beneath them. She loves the river as much as I do. She lives up the valley where the sides get steep and the small houses crowd by the river’s edge. Her father is the blacksmith at the forge. Eddy is good with horses. I’ve seen him when I have gone there with old William, the outside man, to get the mare shod. I’ve heard he has a mad, wild temper when in his cups. I hope he treats her well, better than Aunt treats me. If he beats her I will be tempted to take my horsewhip and give him a good thrashing. I’ve never seen her about the place. Perhaps he keeps her close confined except when she escapes down the valley.
Her soft, Somerset voice flowed more easily as she told me of the flowers and mushrooms she picked, and the rinse she made from a creeping plant to keep her hair shiny. It was as if she put her small confidences in my hands for safekeeping.
After I fastened the boat she took my arm, just like a lady, putting her feet to the ground as daintily as if they were enclosed in satin slippers. We walked through the woods, followed by the two dogs, and came to this private place. I stroked her hair and we lay down together and she showed me the secrets of her womanhood. After a while I was at peace. Then she was gone. I cannot wait to see her again.
I let the pages fall onto the duvet. I have slipped down in the bed so I am lying nearly flat. Outside, darkness has fallen. I roll off my bed and draw the curtains before picking up the other diary Henry wrote so many years later. It is difficult to believe that the man who writes with such bitterness could be the same person as the romantic youth who met his love by my river. Leafing through the later pages I find the passage about fallen women. I should be angry at the double standard that lies exposed between the two bits of writing. He doesn’t appear to take any personal responsibility for the “fall” of women. Yet the pull of sympathy I feel for him now is too strong to pass any easy judgement. His blood runs in my veins. His father travelled away for so much of his life that he might as well have been dead, as mine was. But the women in his life were different. Those round me were loving, almost too loving at times. His Aunt Elizabeth sounds like a witch.
Henry’s description of feeling comfortable with Emily reminds me of moments with Quentin. But Henry consummated his love. He could not have been much more than sixteen or seventeen, quite time for a young man to lose his virginity. Emily may have been even younger. ‘She showed me her womanhood.’ She was only a slip of a girl, damn her. I seem to have no womanhood to show. Once again I remember the friend who fell on the stick at school. Then my mind goes back to that moment in the cellar when I thought I had caused my father’s death. My face burns as I let myself wonder, for the first time, if I had wanted to kill him. My loving memories could be hiding fearful hatred.
I must escape, find some solace somewhere. I run downstairs to my mother’s bedroom and take her precious hairbrush out of the drawer where Briony and I packed it away weeks before. Drawing it through my hair I try to feel her presence. Despite her outbursts she was often on my side. The bristles catch in strands of my hair. As I tug, the handle twists out of my fingers and the brush clatters to the floor. ‘Bloody hell!’ Picking it up, I see the beautiful tortoise-shell back has a ragged white crack across the middle. How can I be so careless? In my journey back to Henry’s youth I have reverted to the clumsiness of my own. My mother’s most treasured possession is ruined. She doesn’t deserve my anger – unless she connived with my father in some way, turning a blind eye to any wickedness he may have perpetrated.
Wrapping the broken treasure in tissue paper I carry it upstairs and push it to the back of my bottom drawer. Briony has taken most of the jewellery so I can, in all fairness, keep the dressing table set and not have to admit to the damage.
I replace the bundle of sheets that still lies on the bed and close the lid of the box. The rest must wait till I feel stronger. If only Quentin would come back early from his weekend away but that is a vain hope. I have to make this relationship work or my future holds nothing but loneliness.
The house is so oppressive that I decide to serve supper in the flat. I go through and lay the table, putting a posy of flowers in the middle to welcome Quentin home. I will cook in my own kitchen, where my hands find their way automatically to the various things I need.
As soon as the headlights of his car sweep across the window I bring the saucepan of water back to the boil and drop in the pasta. The sauce has been simmering for a couple of hours, and some grated Parmesan cheese and a salad stand waiting on a tray.
‘Ready for supper?’ I call as I push open the door of the flat with my foot.
‘Great.’ He takes the tray out of my hands and unloads the dishes before taking me in his arms. I run my fingers over the dark lines under his eyes. ‘You look exhausted. Come and eat while it’s hot.’
He sits down and helps himself. ‘I’ve had a foul time. The children were away
staying with friends, so I didn’t see them.’
‘Did Janice arrange that on purpose?’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I suppose so. I took her out to lunch, but we argued the whole time. She wants to keep all the furniture. Seems to think she’s entitled to everything we’ve bought together. She had even forgotten that I had the sofa bed before we were married.’
‘Sounds awful.’ I try to be sympathetic but I am bursting to tell him my news and hope it may cheer him up. ‘Beth and I found an old box in the cellar.’ He doesn’t take his eyes off his food. ‘One of my distant ancestors had an affair with a village girl.’
‘Not another memoir.’ He sounds bored.
‘But this one is really old. And romantic.’ He does look up then and reaches for my hand. ‘You and your histories,’ he says.
Deflated, I continue with my food in silence. When I get up to make the coffee he comes to put his arms round my waist. I lean against him, prepared to forgive his disinterest for the sake of the solid feel of his body.
‘Why don’t you stay with me for the night?’ he suggests. ‘It’s a pity not to use that double bed your mother supplied.’
I hesitate as I think of that time with my ex-husband when I had perched on the furthest edge of the bed, willing him to keep away from me.
Quentin is nuzzling my neck. ‘Go and get your things. I’ll turn on the fire in the bedroom and make it cosy for you.’
I nod. Perhaps, if we spend the whole night together, his gentleness will make it possible for me to let him go further. I bought a new nightdress last week, hoping that there might be a chance to christen it in his arms. This feels like the right moment.
Our lovemaking starts as usual, but it is not enough for him this time. After touching me in the way I like, his fingers start to stray further.
‘Don’t,’ I wince.
‘Why not? We know each other better now. You should let me.’
