Unhallowed Ground

by Gillian White

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  For the first time there’s some life in her voice.

  ‘Right. You’d better wrap up.’

  They trudge through the orchard. They scramble over the stream at the end. They start off up the hill. Georgie shouts to Donna, who is only just beside her, but the wind whips her words away and she is forced to repeat them. ‘This is ridiculous.’ The wind blows saliva back in her face and she wipes it off with a saturated glove. She acts out her words, pointing. ‘You go round the front and check, I’ll keep going up here.’

  Donna nods numbly. The girl must be perished, that hopelessly thin coat of hers can’t keep a slither of this weather out. Her face is deathly pale and beaten. Cramer is far too mean to provide Donna with sensible clothes, and when Georgie gave her a Mickey Mouse fur, fashionable in its day, thick and cosy, Chad made the tearful girl give it back. ‘You’re taking nout from that dyke,’ he said. The man prefers to keep his women threadbare and miserable as his damn cottage.

  So Donna retreats to the road while Georgie carries on up the bill. Although there is no point in calling, she calls anyway, clinging all the while to her hood to keep it up over her ears, and the skin of her face stretches back from her cheeks with the crazed force of the wind. After a futile hour of this—it’s hardly possible to see further than a few yards because of the rain—she returns to the cottage with her heart in her mouth. Is there a logical reason for panic? Surely not yet. She must keep a sense of proportion. Lola will come back in her own good time. The dog is probably as bored as Georgie and has seized a brief diversion.

  But in this weather? Lola is no fool. Georgie stares out. Lola is renowned for her fondness for creature comforts.

  When Donna finally returns, soaked to the skin and shivering, teeth chattering in her skull, her reaction is alarming. ‘Something terrible’s happened! I know it. I can sense it. Lola’s dead, she’s dead…’

  ‘Donna, calm down, calm down!’ They hang their dripping coats in the kitchen, they might as well have left them outside for they are sodden, wringing wet. They attempt to warm themselves by the fire, but there seems to be little warmth in it now and all the time the wind shrieks down the chimney in a wild and mocking cacophony.

  ‘Lola’s a wise and sensible animal. There’s nothing much can happen to her…’

  ‘What if she’s swept away in the stream?’ Donna is almost hysterical.

  ‘We’re talking about a stream, not a torrent, not a raging river. And Lola’s a very competent swimmer.’

  ‘A branch might have fallen and knocked her unconscious and she’s lying out there, fatally wounded.’ Donna’s eyes flicker round in her head as she searches for the worst scenario. ‘Or what about a trap? One of Chad’s traps?’

  ‘What traps? It’s illegal to set traps, even Chad must know that.’ It is a relief to feel anger flood through her.

  ‘Since when did that sod give a toss for the law? That’s how he catches his rabbits. He sells them to Darren at the butchers, makes a quid or two.’

  ‘Well, I imagine his traps are set well away from the farm, and Lola wouldn’t have wandered that far.’

  ‘What about a rabbit hole? Or a badger set? Perhaps she’s stuck half in, half out, screaming to get free.’

  ‘Shut up, Donna, for Christ’s sake. There’s no point in this sort of panic. If Lola’s not back in an hour I’ll go back out again. I’ll ask around, then I’ll go to the police.’

  Donna’s shivering makes her words jerky. ‘What good will that do? I’ve got this awful feeling…’

  So has Georgie. So has Georgie.

  They sit morosely before the fire. This is the worst thing that could happen. If anything happens to Lola…

  They brave the storm once again. They search. They call. They trail round to the Buckpits to ask, and when hatchet-face opens the door Georgie is not prepared for tolerance. ‘Have you seen my dog?’ And she feels like pushing past the woman and searching that dark and comfortless house, as if, out of sheer spite, the Buckpits could have kidnapped her dog, another horror deliberately inflicted.

  ‘No, I have not seen your dog,’ snaps this venomous woman, still clutching the same tight cardigan. The cowardly Donna shelters behind Georgie. ‘And you ought to be more careful. If you’re going to let a hunting dog out then you should go with her.’

  It is not worth staying to argue. Georgie needs to conserve her energy. To waste it on this heartless woman would be daft.

  They almost fall into the Horsefields’ hall. They are swept in by the wind. There’s a kind of wild excitement in Nancy’s flashing eyes, caused, possibly, by the weather.

  ‘Oh, you poor, poor souls,’ as she hurries away in the direction of her kitchen. ‘What a worry on a day like this. You are badly in need of something hot…’

  Their anxious calls of, ‘No, don’t worry,’ float uselessly past her.

  ‘We can’t stay,’ Georgie tells the anxious Horace. ‘I just popped in to ask if you’d seen Lola and to tell you to keep an eye open just in case she should turn up here.’

  ‘Of course I will, yes, of course. I’d come and join the hunt except Nancy’s a little upset today and I just daren’t leave her.’

  The poor man never leaves his wife. Like a great spreading chestnut tree he stands, staunch and dependable and sheltering over her.

  So they quickly back out of Wooton House and cross the smart little bridge. They continue searching as darkness falls and the lights of Cramer’s Land Rover appear, wetly wavering, over the brow of the hill.

  ‘I must go,’ screams Donna wildly over the top of the wind, her hair tearing about her face, slapping it cruelly, tangled and wet.

  ‘I’ll ring the police now,’ Georgie shouts back, knowing what a waste of time that will be, but battling to stand up, forcing herself a little bit further.

  ‘I’ll be round first thing in the morning.’ The wind takes Donna like a wisp and she disappears in the direction of a cottage with no friendly lights burning, no warm fire to greet her.

  In the comparative silence of Furze Pen, Georgie strips off her sodden clothes. Even her underwear is saturated. She passes through the kitchen and into the converted shower. She lets hot water flow over her, take her and drench her. She rubs herself dry and the feeling comes back to her feet and hands. She changes into warm, dry clothes. Hopefully, she opens the door once more. It is dark, but still she opens it, going against every instinct, the irrational fears which probably have all been imagined. But this one is horribly real. Now, this minute, the terror is real, and it is essential that she hold herself together.

  She telephones the police, of course, knowing the uselessness of it. But if Lola has strayed too far someone from a neighbouring hamlet might have rung in and reported their find, or taken her in, some isolated farmhouse perhaps, maybe they’d think of phoning the police? The desperate Georgie can’t afford to miss chances.

  Then, out of need, she calls Isla, trying to keep her voice careful, making light of this awful event, because if she lets herself go she might never find herself again, and what good would that do for Lola?

  ‘Georgie! You must be distraught!’

  ‘I am, yes, but I’m telling myself she’s going to come back.’

  ‘Dogs don’t just disappear,’ says Isla flatly, ‘not wise old things like Lola.’ How silent the line sounds, no chaos on the other end, no hideously raging wind, no storm, just London. Slightly breezy perhaps…

  ‘I’d prop the back door open, but if I did that the cottage would probably lift off…’

  A joke, but she is glad that Isla doesn’t laugh.

  Georgie rings Helen. Georgie rings Suzie. In the end she even rings Mark, who blurts out with a desperate honesty, ‘God, I wish you’d never gone to that godforsaken place. Let me come and get you, right now! I can be there in five hours.’

  But she cannot make that sort of decision, not in the state of chaos she’s in. She wishes she’d never come here, too. Anyt
hing else she could tolerate, but not this. Who has taken her dog? What are they doing? Is she frightened? Is she being hurt? Lola was a rescue dog. When Lola was a puppy she endured the kind of cruelty you only read about in RSPCA magazines. It took many months of tender love to restore the spaniel’s confidence, to take the fear of pain from her eyes. So Georgie sits by herself all night, hugging and rocking and getting up every ten minutes to check the back door. She makes a small bargain with God: if Lola comes back unharmed, Georgie will return to London at the first opportunity, no more of these silly heroics. She has tried, she has failed, now she is ready to throw in the sponge. Staying here on her own is achieving absolutely nothing, she should have gone back with the last of her summer visitors.

  For comfort she plays her music softly, trying to erase the moan of the wind. She avoids the booze, she must stay sober, she no longer cares about proving herself, or discovering from what she is hiding. All this self-analysis is sheer self-indulgence, and Lola is too high a price to pay for any such bloody nonsense.

  TWENTY-TWO

  FEAR HAS A SOUND—running your finger around the wet rim of a glass.

  ‘Listen to me, Donna,’ goes Georgie, ‘is it remotely possible that Chad came back during the day, saw Lola, and snatched her on an impulse? Please think very hard about this. Would he hurt her, kill her perhaps, just to get back at me?’

  The pained look on her pasty face tells Georgie otherwise. ‘No way, Georgie. He’s not that much of a bastard. God, I wouldn’t bleeding well stay with him if I thought he could do something like that.’

  Georgie continues to pummel the pastry. How would Donna know? Too thick, it clings to her fingers, it’s stuck under her rings. ‘I just thought… knowing how he loathes me… knowing how jealous you say he is…’

  ‘But he wouldn’t deliberately injure a dog!’

  Oh no? He will hurt human beings, he will abuse women without a second thought, but he’ll stop short when it comes to animals. What rubbish, him with his guns and his evil traps. Donna’s world is full of such fantasies. There is little point in arguing.

  Lola has been missing now for two whole days. Donna and Georgie have searched everywhere. Last night Georgie dragged the mattress downstairs and slept by the fire so she would hear if Lola scratched to get in. When she is not searching she keeps herself busy doing unnecessary tasks, but that is half the trouble, since Lola’s curious disappearance nothing seems important in this unreal world. All that is really required of Georgie is that she gets up in the mornings, eats to keep herself alive and goes back to bed at night. She is not required to speak to anyone, love anyone, help anyone…

  Only Lola.

  And now look, she is making pies which nobody wants.

  ‘Seven’s an awful lot of people to be coming to stay.’ Georgie resents Donna’s knack of picking up her negative thoughts and putting them into such worrying words.

  ‘It’s only for three days, Donna, and if Lola doesn’t come back it probably won’t happen at all because I might as well pack my bags and leave.’ Donna is watching her work. The girl is a watcher, not a doer, her fascinated face slackens into a kind of mesmerized expression. ‘Even if Lola does come back I’ve decided to move out. If she walked through the door this minute I would bin these bloody pies, pick her up, get straight in the car and leave this ill-wished place for good.’

  It is no surprise when Donna’s face crumples. ‘I knew you wouldn’t bleeding well stick it. Nobody in their right mind stays here…’

  ‘That’s not true. It’s amazing how many people do. Look at the Horsefields and the Buckpits, even Stephen. They’ve all lived here for twenty years or more, quite happily.’

  ‘None of them’s happy. It’s just a bleeding existence, that’s all. Like my life is just an existence.’

  ‘Even your Chad,’ Georgie goes on, ‘he’s no fly-by-night either, there must be something about the place that keeps people here.’

  ‘Well I haven’t managed to find out what it is,’ whines Donna, her mouth dropping open as she watches Georgie fill the cases with mincemeat.

  ‘You don’t really mean it, Georgie, do you? You wouldn’t really just go like that?’

  ‘Oh yes, I would, I’m afraid. Living here has become intolerable.’

  Georgie works on in silence for a while, thinking of Lola, wondering where she might be and whether she should phone the police again, just in case they have heard something.

  ‘I dunno how you can bear it,’ moans Donna, sniffing. ‘If she was my dog I’d be mad by now.’

  But Georgie is mad. Inside she is hysterical, her heart weeps and tears seem to fill every vein, despair adds weight to her limbs. But even now she is covering up, afraid to let Donna see the depths of her desperation. She must think small practical thoughts and keep busy busy busy making mince pies, and she’ll go and alter some curtain hems next.

  ‘What you need, Donna,’ says Georgie firmly, ‘is somebody to look after.’

  ‘I don’t. I don’t. I want somebody to look after me.’ She stops suddenly. ‘And now I’ve got a bun in the oven,’ she adds in the most expressionless voice Georgie has ever heard her use.

  Oh Lord, no!

  Georgie does not answer immediately. She is sticking the pastry lids down. She continues to do so without a pause, in fact, she works more quickly. She starts to crimp the sides with her fingers and then says, ‘How far gone are you?’

  ‘Four months.’

  ‘Does Chad know?’

  ‘He’d throw me out if he did.’ Her blue eyes are fixed on Georgie’s hands.

  ‘How certain are you? Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘I went last week while Chad was doing the market. I said I was at the dentist. He was good about it, he even paid.’

  Georgie continues to crimp the pies, she even holds her head back and pretends to study the effect. She knows that she ought to stop what she’s doing, sit down, make a drink, hold poor Donna’s hand. But she doesn’t want this! She honestly does not want to know, or talk about it, or react correctly. She’s had it with the caring professions, she’s up to here with social work. The whereabouts of a mere dog should take second place to this little drama, of course it should, because how on earth will Donna cope with a baby, or an abortion? But her brain screams back, Too late for an abortion.

  Careful to keep the slightest hint of accusation from her voice, Georgie says, ‘But you must have suspected earlier, Donna. Couldn’t you have done something then? When there was a choice to be made?’

  Donna looks guilty and says not a word. There is no point in berating the girl, what’s done is done. My God, she is so maddeningly simple.

  She really is not Georgie’s problem.

  ‘You won’t be able to hide the fact for much longer.’

  ‘Chad’ll throw me out.’ Her face is paler than usual, the colour of used white sheets. ‘He can’t stand kids, or illness, nothing like that.’ There’s a tremor of terror in her voice.

  She is surely not angling to leave here with Georgie?

  ‘You are going to have to go and see someone about this, Donna. You are going to need some professional help.’ Careful, Georgie keeps herself distant.

  ‘But you are a social worker, aren’t you?’

  ‘How do you know I’m a social worker?’

  ‘You said so, you were talking about it with your friends. All the time. I didn’t know it was meant to be secret or something.’

  Why so defensive? ‘Oh yes, of course, I didn’t mean to snap, I’m sorry.’

  ‘So why can’t you help me then?’ And she stares at Georgie defiantly. ‘You are supposed to care, so why can’t you bleeding well care about me?’

  Where is that kind and responsible person? Georgie sits down, they have to sit down. It’s no good trying to deny this is happening. It is here and they have to confront it. ‘Well, I will help you, Donna, as much as I can. But I’m not in any position to be able to give you the practical help that you’re going to ne
ed, or the counselling.’ She forces herself to be very stern. ‘No, I have done all I can to help you, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to find professional help elsewhere.’

  The silence widens until it engulfs them. Donna’s greasy hair droops down and the girl peers miserably through it. ‘You’re not really my friend, are you? Not like those others from up the line. You’re only pretending ’cos there’s no-one else. You just put up with me, don’t you? And I bet you’re always glad when I go.’ And with this she bursts into paroxysms of violent weeping, howling, drumming her fists on the table so the pastry cases leap in their tins, and Georgie is shocked by the passion in this.

  ‘Donna! How can you say that?’ Georgie gets up to comfort her. She can feel the girl’s misery under her hand in the little hard knobs of backbone and the damp smell of neglect, hot, sticky, shaking and unendurable. ‘That’s not true at all,’ she half lies. Dear God, has it been so cruelly obvious?

  Donna chokes, ‘Anyway, I’m gonna get rid of it on my own.’

  ‘Now you’re just being silly…’

  ‘Fuck off, I’m not! I know the ways…’

  ‘What ways?’

  Phlegm rattles in her wheezy chest. ‘Well I’m not going to sodding tell you, am I?’

  Georgie lets her cry, it’s best. Agonizing jerks of tears, streams of water pour down her face, and now and then there’s a howl of pain. ‘Donna! Donna! Come on, my love, it’s not as bad as you think. We have got to calm down and start thinking about what is best for you. We have got to start thinking about you and your baby’s future.’

  The word ‘we’ is jerked out of Georgie with a terrible reluctance. ‘You might even qualify for a flat, Donna, you’ll certainly be entitled to some financial support. They can’t just turn you away now you’re going to have a baby.’

  Donna wipes her nose with the sleeve of her jumper. ‘Don’t say it like that—“going to have a baby”—because I’m not going to have one. I don’t want it and I’m not bleeding well having it.’