Cut Off

by Gill Mather

  “To keep you safe my dear,” Amelia said. “Keep it with you at all times.” And she bustled off in her long cheesecloth dress, patchwork T-coat, many scarves and bangles and low heeled canvas boots.

  “WELL THAT WAS different,” said Guy as they walked quickly along the footpath, coated, gloved and muffled against the cold night. “What was it that nutty woman gave you?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll look at it when we get back to the caravan.”

  “Hmm. If we can light the tilley lamp. Did you know about the stable block?”

  “Possibly. I may have read something about it but I….er….thought it would be more romantic to stay in a gypsy caravan.”

  “Did you know that BSH stands for Burning Souls Hall? Jack was telling me.”

  “I might have read that too.”

  “A bit gloomy don't you think? It was originally apparently called Purgatory a few hundred years ago. Jack said they tried to change the name about ten years ago but had a terrible run of bad luck. He thought it was nonsense that the two were connected but the majority voted to change the name back to Burning Souls Hall.”

  “And did things settle down after that?”

  “Well yes. He said they did. But again it would just have been coincidence. Or do your special gifts tell you otherwise?”

  “I’m not sure it’s total rubbish you know. People are affected by….their surroundings. They’re bound to be.”

  “Well anyway. I liked the food and the booze and it was certainly a lot cheaper than going to a pub but all the same I wouldn't mind steering clear of that lot for a few days at least.”

  “Oh,” said Roz disappointed. “I thought they were nice.”

  “Yes. But in a rather weird way. I mean stone circles, séances, amulets or whatever it was that woman gave you? People disappearing? We don't really want to get involved in some sort of intrigue do we?”

  “But it is intriguing. Alice implied that a lot of the men there were jealous of Adam.”

  “I don't think you should let them know you were a police officer Roz. Whatever’s happened to this Adam, we should stay out of it. I dare say he just got diverted by something else. There’s probably no mystery there but even if there is, I want to have a nice holiday with you. Relax in our….delightful accommodation. Go out for those bracing walks you were looking forward to.”

  Roz didn't say anything.

  “Roz. We had a very hard time of it last year. We nearly lost each other for good, remember? I’ve still got a possible charge hanging over me. Can't we just have a relaxing, happy time together? Find out about the surrounding area. Languish in charming country pubs as we’d intended.”

  “Yes. Of course you’re right. It’s just my teenage hankering for a hippy existence after all these years of dogged police work. Anyway we’re here now.”

  They climbed the steps and bolted the door inside. Guy lit the lamp and put some more wood in the stove. Roz hung their coats up on the hooks inside the door and felt in her pocket. She brought out a small object.

  “Oh. Isn't it beautiful,” she cried. It was a small piece of jade, exquisitely carved into the shape of a baby dragon. It seemed to smile hopefully and expectantly up at her like a puppy.

  “Very fetching,” said Guy.

  Roz held it up to the light cast by the tilley lamp. The jade flickered and iridesced, having many shades and hues, coruscating and scintillating.

  “I hope,” said Guy, “that it brings you good luck as that woman implied. But,” he paused feeling around at the side near the floor, “I think I’ll find just here something of probably far more use for the time being given our present situation.

  “Voila!” he pulled at the bottom of one of the decorative panels and a tray slid out with a commode of sorts attached to it.

  “No need for night time forays now,” he said triumphantly. “Jack told me about it when you were fawning over the photo of that young man. You have to get to know the right people in places like this.”

  “GUY. THERE’S SOMETHING wrong,” said Roz.

  Guy grunted.

  “No, there is. It’s really quiet. Haven't you noticed?”

  “Well you’re in deepest Suffolk now, you know,” Guy mumbled. “Not the Hertfordshire commuter belt.”

  They had slept in rather late. They’d drunk quite a lot of the communal wine the night before and although Roz was sure they hadn't been roaring drunk, it had obviously relaxed them to a considerable degree. She couldn't recall the last time she’d slept for quite so long, quite so soundly. The commodious contraption Guy had revealed last night, though undoubtedly of considerable potential convenience, had seen no action since they’d both fallen on the bed soon after getting back and more or less blacked out.

  “Guy it’s eleven o’ clock. We ought to get up.”

  “In min’t,” he rolled over.

  “Guy. You don't think there was anything in that wine do you?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don't know. Some narcotic or something.”

  “I expect it’s just the healthy country air.”

  Roz sat up and pulled the curtain back. She gasped.

  “Guy. Oh Guy. I think we’re stranded.”

  “Nonsense.” He peered out at the wilderness of white, the only thing visible for as far as the eye could see being deep snow drifts.

  “Oh well,” he said, “I’m sure we can occupy ourselves somehow until it thaws out. Look,” he turned towards Roz. “You’ve woken me up now.”

  A CHUGGING noise eventually penetrated the thick enveloping silence. Roz and Guy were nearly asleep again when the tap on the door sounded. They girded themselves as best they could and Guy answered it.

  “I’ve been sent to bring you up to the house,” said a man. Guy peered beyond him to a tractor parked a few yards away. He could just make out the roof of his car jutting out of the snow, parked under a tree nearby.

  Guy turned to Roz. “What d’you think?”

  “I suppose we’d better. We’ve got almost no food and there’s only a couple of logs left for the stove.”

  “OK. Give us a few minutes to get our stuff together and we’ll be ready.”

  It didn't take them long to re-pack their cases and within a short time, they were seated in the tractor, being borne back to Burning Souls Hall.

  Chapter 2 Fun & Games

  ROZ AND GUY were inspecting their accommodation, a bedroom on the first floor at the end of a long, dark, wood-panelled corridor.

  “It’s not exactly Spartan,” said Guy, looking around. “But it is rather….er….monastic.”

  “Yes, but it’s got all we’ll need,” said Roz. The spareness of the room appealed to her. White emulsioned walls, wooden pegs for hanging clothes, wash stand with china bowl and ewer. A wood fire blazed merrily in the grate.

  Large double bed.

  They were both looking at the bed.

  “But I’m not relishing the prospect of running down the landing if necessary several times a night to go to the bathroom,” said Guy.

  Roz had draped their coats and some of her clothes over a carved wooden chair with arms and a padded seat. She removed the clothes to reveal some hinges at the back of the seat. Guy frowned and lifted the seat.

  “Oh well,” he said. “All the mod-cons. From the Edwardian period.”

  “I wonder why we have to use candles and oil lamps for lighting,” said Roz. “It said in the information about this place that they relied to a great extent on renewables. I assumed they meant solar energy, wind, heat exchangers, that sort of thing.”

  “To their credit, I think they do. They have a generator but it’s powered by a turbine that’s turned by a stream that runs through the grounds. And at the moment….”

  “It’s presumably frozen,” finished Roz. “But there is a generator operating though. I could hear it outside.”

  “So there is. Running on good old-fashioned fossil fuel. How green is that?”

  “So. Why no li
ghts then?”

  “They decided the priority was to keep the water heated and the central heating going so we don't all freeze to death. And the generator only supplies a very limited amount of power. And they want a bit of juice left to run a few PCs so as not to lose touch with the outside world altogether. But actually the phone line’s down and consequently so is the internet. They haven't got around to having a fibreoptic cable connected to this place yet. They could connect back to the electricity main, but that’s down too.”

  Roz was fiddling with her smart phone. She looked up. “No signal. Anyway. How’d you find all this out then?”

  “Jack of course.”

  “I might have guessed.”

  Guy came up to her, put his arms around her waist and bent to place his mouth near her ear.

  “This wouldn't have happened if we’d gone to Goa,” he said. “By now we’d be lounging in the sun, sipping cocktails, getting ready to go out and enjoy exotic authentic cuisine at a fraction of English prices.”

  She was about become defensive but detected the smile in his voice.

  “Or,” she said, “glued to a toilet seat having our first bout of Montezuma’s.” She wriggled as he kissed her ear.

  “Well,” she said, “we’d better make that bath we planned really worthwhile.”

  THEY HELD HANDS as they tried to find the old orangerie of which Guy, in an unguarded moment, had informed Roz. Though he’d been told that it was virtually derelict, she had been immediately enthusiastic, wanting to see if it was still fit to spend time in, getting some winter sun as they couldn't go outside a great deal. Guy held the oil lamp aloft to light their way as they tried to remember which side of the house faced south, since an orangerie was bound to do so.

  However in the depths of the dark, still house, they seemed to lose their bearings completely. They looked at each other, both realising at the same time how very quiet it actually was given the number of people who must be in the house somewhere. No children running about screaming, no adults patrolling the corridors, no cleaning activities, no clatter of pans or chatter coming from the kitchen below. How strange. Especially as it was nearly dinnertime.

  “We should head back and get ready for dinner,” he said after thirty minutes of fruitlessly prowling about the inside of the walls of the house. “We’ll try another time.”

  DINNER WAS OVER. Roz and Guy were tipsy from the wine and had eaten rather a lot of the delicious apple cake served with a whipped up cream-like substance that tasted of honey and faintly nutty.

  “We have a lot of nut trees, including almonds,” Fairymead told them. When they’d been introduced to her, they’d had to look in opposite directions in case their faces betrayed any amusement. Fairymead worked in the garden and in the kitchen. “We grind the nuts and whiz them up with water and a little honey to make milk and the cream’s made from the milk.”

  But Jack was standing up and Aheming to catch everyone’s attention. After quiet descended, he announced a programme of activities because the children couldn't get to school nor the adults to their places of work. He listed games for the children, arts and crafts for the adults and, he sighed, Amelia and her friends were arranging a series of esoteric attractions including seances, crystal reading, lessons on how to use Tarot cards and astrological and spiritualism discussion groups.

  “Also,” Jack said, “the last time I could get on the internet the forecast was that there wouldn't be any kind of a thaw for a week, in fact if anything more snow’s on the way. Therefore some of us are keen to put on a few entertainments including possibly a short play and maybe a revue. Any volunteers can add their names to the list in the front lobby.

  “Furthermore, you’ll be glad to know, a dance is planned. It’ll probably have to be more along the lines of a barn dance rather than a disco given the lack of power, with some Elizabethan or Tudor chamber music thrown in.

  “And I’d like to reassure everyone, not least our welcome guests,” he inclined his head towards Guy and Roz, “that we have plenty of food, wood and other resources, including oil for lamps to easily sit out this period of exceptionally bad weather.”

  People were getting up and moving about. The children were running around as they had the day before. Jack shuffled his papers and then came over to sit next to Guy.

  “Where was everyone before dinner?” said Guy. “We were wandering the corridors looking for the orangerie you told me about and it was deathly quiet. Roz was interested to see if it could be tidied up for sitting in the sun etc.”

  “What a good idea,” said Jack. “I’ll go and put up a volunteer list in a minute.”

  “So why was it so quiet?” persisted Guy.

  “The main thing is the thick walls and the way the building’s split up into wings. The sound insulation’s incredible.”

  Roz found her attention drifting, so mundane was the reply. No communal meditation sessions, no enforced quiet hours, no pagan rituals. She couldn't help admiring Fairymead’s dress. It was floor length and high-waisted with a short waistcoat laced across her bosom, made of a brocade material and edged with braid. The dress beneath was a rust coloured silky material. The long sleeves ended in points which sat on the backs of her hands. Fairymead’s thick long fair hair was plaited with the same braid as edged the waistcoat. The elegant ensemble looked distinctly medieval.

  “I’m running a class if you’re interested. As well as the gardening and cooking, I make retro-style clothing and sell it at fairs and increasingly online. Mainly hippie type clothing; bags, dresses, jackets, beads, tie-dyed vests. Some of the fabric is dyed using natural materials such as onion skins. They sell like hot cakes. The class I’m doing is for a T coat. You’d have to pay I’m afraid but the cloth etc is included. It’s all done in one day. It’s the day after tomorrow. I put the details on the noticeboard before dinner.”

  “I’d love to.” Roz was enchanted and would have asked for more information but two little girls ran up to Fairymead and tugged at her dress before starting an argument with each other that quickly came to blows.

  The little one began to cry. Her mother gathered her up onto her knee.

  “Just go and play with your friends, Marigold.”

  “See!” said Marigold to her sister, but as she walked away, the smaller girl’s face emerged from behind her mother’s arm and yelled at the top of her voice: “Poo-ey bum.” Marigold put two fingers up behind her and Fairymead quickly turned ninety degrees to face in the other direction.

  Just like my niece’s kids, thought Roz.

  She’d rather expected the children here to be better behaved with so much new-age karma about.

  “What a lovely name,” she said, “and yours too.”

  “My parents thoughtfully named me after a town in Australia where they were backpacking when I was conceived. That’s the story anyway.”

  “Well at least it wasn’t Tittybong or Wagga Wagga. Does the girls’ father live here?” she asked.

  “Oh yes.” Fairymead looked over her shoulder frowning at her older daughter’s receding form. She turned back. “But we’re not together.”

  “Oh,” said Roz, thinking it was a dumb question but she instinctively started to cast about.

  Fairymead laughed. “Not far to look,” she said. “Jack’s their dad.”

  Roz tried not to look surprised. Jack hadn't taken the least notice of his daughters during their exchange. If Guy heard, he gave no indication and carried on talking to Jack. She decided to change the subject.

  “Does everyone eat here? Don't any of the families have meals on their own for example?”

  “Actually they mostly do eat communally. It’s really inexpensive. Only eight pounds per head including breakfast and a cold lunch if required. No preparation for them, no clearing up, no washing up.”

  “Is it the same price for the children?”

  “Oh yes. Definitely. The kids have to be made special stuff. You know vegan fare can be a little uninteresting someti
mes so we have to work really hard in the kitchen to make it tasty for the kids.”

  Roz looked around. There must be sixty or so people in here. That made four hundred and eighty pounds a day. Her mental arithmetic gave out at that point. Rounding up brought the weekly total to three and a half thousand with an annual total somewhere in excess of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Wow! Some industry! If they saved their own seeds, planted cuttings and used the cheap pocket money floating labour of temporary visitors, then most of the income would be pure profit. Roz wondered who got to keep all this money.

  “I can see what you’re thinking,” said Fairymead. “But the upkeep and maintenance of this place is enormous. It’s a very old listed building. It’s still being restored and everything has to be in keeping. People here help as much as they can but sometimes we have to bring in expert craftsmen; carpenters, stonemasons etc.”

  “I suppose,” said Roz. “Do you advertise for people to come here and help in return for pocket money and accommodation?”

  “Mostly we don't need to. People just find us.”

  “Is that how Adam came to be here?”

  “I believe so. Actually, he wanted to be an actor and was trying for RADA. That’s what he said. He’d been turned down a few times and he said he didn't get on with his parents. He ran out of money and thought of coming here.”

  “So what do you think happened to him?”

  “No idea.”

  “Alice said he cycled off one day. Was the bicycle found?”

  “I’m not sure. We have a lot of pool cycles here. People just pick one up when they want one. OK some don't get returned, but then others get left here instead. Why’re you interested anyway?”

  “Well I read about him in a local paper before coming here and it seemed intriguing. Then Alice showed me some photos of him.” Roz rolled her eyes. “An interesting young man!”

  “Very much so. A loss to the acting profession I’d say.”

  “Why? D’you think something did happen to him?”