The Hiding Places

by Catherine Robertson

  There was no baking in April’s life now, and she’d convinced herself she did not miss it. But Sunny’s scones were warm and light and plump with raisins. The jam looked like blackberry and was almost certainly home-made. Faced with the real thing and not a memory, April’s regret sounded a low hollow note, a cello groan, at the prospect of having to refuse.

  Thankfully, Sunny did not push her. ‘Edward will have yours.’ She eyed his slender frame critically. ‘Though I’ve no idea where he puts it all.’

  ‘I have the metabolism of a boa constrictor,’ said Edward, spooning jam onto three halved scones. ‘Effective but requiring long periods of torpidity.’

  ‘Irene tells me you take afternoon naps in your office,’ said Sunny. ‘She nurtures fantasies about rousing you with a horse whip.’

  ‘A mental picture of Irene with a horse whip certainly rouses something,’ said Edward.

  Sunny pushed the art folio in front of April, with a nod to indicate she should open it. April did not have to ask whose it was. The name James Potts was neatly pressed into the leather, traces of gold leaf still adhering.

  The spine creaked as April lifted the cover. The first page was loose, tucked inside. It was the original, April saw, of the map Edward had sent her.

  ‘James drew this?’ said April.

  ‘He did,’ said Sunny, ‘some time before 1947. I had left England by then, gone abroad with Perry. I received it in the mail, along with these …’

  She lifted an object off the Ben Nevis tray and held it up. A chain necklace, thin, made of gold, with two tiny brass keys, one plated in silver, one in gold, hanging from it. Sunny handed the chain to April, who took it with some reluctance.

  ‘What do they unlock?’ said April. ‘They’re so small.’

  ‘I have no idea. The whole thing is a mystery to me. There was no letter, no explanation — just the map and these keys. All I know is that the postmark was dated the day he died.’

  ‘It wasn’t, if I may be so blunt, a suicide note?’ said Edward. ‘A farewell gift to you?’

  Sunny cradled her cup of tea in her hands. ‘Oh, curses,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve spent so long refusing to believe he took his life. The idea of it! That someone would prefer to die than to live, when life is so utterly magnificent! I used to be convinced that, if I willed it hard enough, I could live forever. But now …’

  Sunny ran her finger over the rim of her cup. ‘Look.’ She showed them where her finger had stopped. ‘There’s a crack. Auden’s crack in the teacup — the one that opens the lane …’

  ‘You could live for years yet,’ said Edward. ‘There’s a woman in Japan who is a hundred and fifteen.’

  ‘And I sincerely hope I do!’ said Sunny. ‘But my point is that I’d always considered death to be my enemy. Yet now that so many people I’ve loved have died in ways I wouldn’t wish on an enemy, I can see why someone who was desperate and in pain might welcome death willingly, as a friend.’

  ‘Was James desperate?’ said Edward. ‘Desperate enough to walk out into the worst snowstorm in a hundred years?’

  ‘He might have been,’ said Sunny. ‘In his last phone call to me, he was — subdued. To be fair, he was dealing with a lot at the time.’

  April hesitated. She was eager to find out more about the map, to find out whether or not the little pictures had meaning. But the map, it seemed, came yoked to the memory of its artist; and the subject of a son’s death, even though that son had been a grown man and not a child, was not one April cared to explore at all.

  This was her last day, though, wasn’t it? Tomorrow the map, the house and Sunny’s memories would be left behind, and April would not revisit them, even in her thoughts. Nothing she asked today would linger.

  ‘I did wonder if the map could be some kind of message. Could the little pictures be symbols, or clues?’

  Edward was interested. ‘A rebus, you think?’

  ‘A lamb, a black dog, a beehive and an apple.’ April looked at Sunny. ‘Do they mean anything to you?’

  ‘Not a thing.’ Sunny clicked her tongue, annoyed. ‘But as I said the other day, James was hard to read.’

  She peered closer. ‘That apple is right where our apple tree used to be.’

  ‘Our?’ said Edward.

  ‘Empyrean had a walled garden. Vegetables were grown there, and fruit trees. Most of the trees were espaliered against the brick walls, but there was one apple tree in the far corner that had been left alone because it was so very old. It produced a variety of apple you don’t see these days, a yellow one, sweet to eat.’

  ‘Peasgood Nonsuch?’ said Edward. ‘I’ve always loved that name.’

  ‘Yellow Ingestrie, as I recall,’ said Sunny, ‘though the gardeners had other names for it: Early Pippin and Summer Golden Pippin, and my favourite — Little Golden Knob. It was a perfect climbing tree, and it had one large branch at the right height to attach a swing, which James’s father duly arranged. And that’s where, from the time we were all six years old, we would play — James and I, and Rowan and Lily.’

  ‘The four of you had become friends?’ said Edward, surprised. ‘Wasn’t that a little — socially daring?’

  ‘It was the early 1930s,’ said Sunny, tartly, ‘not the Victorian era. Besides, we were the only four children of our age nearby. James, Rowan and I had no brothers or sisters. Lily had two brothers, but they were so much older, she may as well have been an only child. All the others our age were in the village, which was a five-mile walk, or on farms even further away. James and I, once we’d become friends, first co-opted Rowan, and he insisted on bringing with him Miss Blythe. To a stranger, we might have looked like siblings,’ she added. ‘Rowan was dark, but James, Lily and I were all blue-eyed blonds. Though Lily was a beauty, even at that age, whereas I resembled more a wire-haired terrier.’

  ‘Last time we talked, I got the impression you didn’t have that much time for Lily Blythe,’ said April.

  Again, exasperation and shame vied in Sunny’s face.

  ‘Lily was as lovely in person as she was to look at. The trouble was she was too lovely. She was always so very pliant and obliging that she brought out the imp in me. I would always insist she be the damsel in distress, so the boys and I could be knights and rescue her. I’d put an apple on her head so I could practise being William Tell with a toy bow and arrows. She complained only once, when I tied her to the tree trunk and left her there. I can’t remember why she needed to be tied up — perhaps we were re-creating one of The Perils of Pauline? Rowan found a fox cub that had strayed from its den and we became so intent on returning it safely that I forgot all about her. Farmer Blythe came that evening and had words with my mother.’

  ‘And were you soundly thrashed?’ said Edward.

  ‘My mother did her duty and scolded me,’ said Sunny, ‘but I could see her mouth twitching at the corners. She asked me what knot I’d used. I think she was impressed I’d managed to tie Lily up so securely. I was only seven and I did apologise. Lily, of course, had already forgiven me.’

  April ran her finger over the map, the paper dry but soft to touch, and pressed down on the little apple.

  ‘You said “where our tree used to be”. Is it not there any more?’

  ‘No,’ said Sunny. ‘It died and was cut down.’

  Her hand swooped impatiently and pushed the map to one side. ‘Come along. There are plenty of other drawings.’

  April handled the pages carefully, as the paper was stiff with age and disuse. The drawings were in pen and ink, of rural landscapes and village scenes. They improved in execution as James grew older, April presumed.

  ‘Did James give you this sketchbook, too?’ April asked.

  ‘Lewis Potts gave it to me,’ Sunny replied. ‘After James’s funeral. Thrust it into my arms as if it contained something venomous, or explosive, that he had to be rid of immediately lest it injure him.’

  ‘He didn’t want a memento of his son?’

  ‘Don’t be rid
iculous. Who wants to keep reminders of their own failure? Tidy everything away, that’s the trick. Then you can live on, in unruffled denial.’

  ‘I’m not sure “unruffled” is fair,’ said Edward. ‘Lewis Potts became a total recluse, his house crumbling around him. One has to have a little sympathy.’

  ‘No,’ said Sunny. ‘One does not.’

  April kept looking through the folio. She had to turn the pages more carefully now. Not because the paper was brittle but because Fatso had just decided to jump up on her lap. He’d landed with a chirruping purr and a weight that surprised her. Her thighs were numbing already, but every time she shifted, Fatso’s claws would dig in, right through her jeans. It was like being tangled in barbed wire, bearable as long as you never again intended to move.

  April kept her legs still and turned the pages. More hay ricks, more spires; the drawings were becoming repetitive.

  But then …

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Sunny.

  James had drawn a man, poised in a half-crouch, as if he had leapt up from the ground and was about to sprint away. He had on dark trousers and boots, a flat cap and a waistcoat over a loose shirt. Beneath his clothes, his figure was strapping, muscular, a man used to physical labour. You could not see his face. His head was turned away, the lines of his profile lost in a crosshatched, shadowed darkness.

  Sunny tilted her head to one side, and then the other. ‘Can’t be, surely. Unless he drew from memory …’

  Edward caught April’s eye.

  ‘Spill the beans,’ he said to Sunny. ‘Who was he?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Sunny. ‘I saw him no more than twice, and conversed with him not at all. My suspicion is that he lived in the woods.’

  ‘Not Old Ted’s fugitive criminal?’ said April.

  Sunny shook her head. ‘Don’t forget, the woods were much, much larger in those days. Charcoal burners, Gypsies, coppice cutters — there were more people than you might imagine who lived amongst the trees, or made a living from them. There were poachers, too, more than Ted ever knew, certainly more than he could ever hope to catch by himself. Personally, I think Ted’s criminal was an invention, a single personification of every thieving bastard who had dared trespass on what Ted considered to be his territory.’

  April stared at the drawing. ‘Whoever this man was, he wasn’t keen to hang around.’

  ‘We were forbidden, as children, to go beyond the edge of the woods,’ said Sunny. ‘An instruction we all, of course, ignored. We went everywhere, but we never once found any sign of him. If he was living there, he hid himself remarkably well.’

  ‘Then how did you see him?’

  ‘The first time? Ironically, because of Ted. Because the old sod refused to acknowledge that, on the estate at least, there was any law but his own. Because he set a man trap, and it slammed shut on little Billy Curry’s right leg.’

  Both Edward and April gave a sharp intake of breath. Startled, Fatso shot off April’s lap, using all his claws as leverage. April stifled a curse, and rubbed her knees, half expecting to see spots of blood.

  ‘I suspect being caught in a man trap feels much the same,’ Edward said to her, having observed Fatso’s retreat. ‘Only less painful.’

  ‘I wouldn’t suggest you try to compare,’ said Sunny. ‘My abiding memory is of a great deal of screaming and gore. We had no idea what to do. The four of us were the oldest, but we were only eight years old. The others — there were another three, plus Billy — ranged, as I recall, from four to seven. We were supposed to be taking care of them while the adults were off shooting.’

  ‘Driving outlaws from the town?’ said Edward.

  ‘Pheasant, you fool. James’s father had insisted on there being game birds to shoot on the estate, so he made Ted set up a hatchery. Protecting those birds from predators and poachers became an obsession with Ted. Lord knows why — they’re the most brainless of birds, and every October the poor stupid creatures would be chivvied into the open, beaten into terrified flight, and brought immediately down by civilised people wielding shotguns. My mother included.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘She was a crack shot. Wore plus-fours like the men. If she hadn’t been so attractive, I imagine she would have been shunned completely. As it was, there were enough resentful glances. She always shot twice as many as anyone else.’

  ‘I’m assuming a lack of adult supervision was the reason you children had gone astray?’ said Edward.

  ‘The servants were all in the kitchen, preparing for the influx of birds. We children were supposed to be on the lawn, playing quoits or something equally dull. I think it may have been my idea to sneak off and play Grandma’s Footsteps in the woods. I’d already scared little Billy into wetting his pants. It was not the best day for him, all told.’

  ‘I suppose none of you could open the trap?’ said April.

  ‘We tried until we were beside ourselves. Billy’s leg was such a mess. The trap was designed to shut on the shin of an adult, but because Billy was so small, it caught him around his lower thigh. The only mercy was that it missed his femoral artery. He would have been dead in minutes otherwise.’

  Sunny picked up the last of her scone. As she lifted it to her mouth, a dark bead of jam dropped glistening onto the table. She smeared it off with a finger, and finished the scone in two rapid bites.

  ‘All of a sudden, there he was,’ she said. ‘I suppose we were too hysterical to have heard him approach, but he did seem to have appeared out of thin air. He didn’t speak, just got down on one knee and opened the trap. I have no idea how — it looked like sheer brute strength, but he must have known what to press to release it. He lifted Billy out — by then the poor boy was barely conscious — and laid him on the ground to examine the injury. I remember that he looked up to find us all wide-eyed and silent. Then he snapped his fingers at James, and said, “Shirt!” I suppose he deduced James could afford a new one. James didn’t argue. He removed his shirt and handed it over, and watched it being turned into a tourniquet.

  ‘The man picked Billy up, and held him, as if testing his weight. He said to James and Rowan, “I’ll take him to the edge and you lads can carry him from there.” And that’s exactly what happened. The man handed Billy over at the woods’ edge, and James and Rowan carried him fast as they could to the house. Where, as you can imagine, we had to bear more screaming from the silly housemaids. Fortunately, the cook was made of sterner stuff, kept her head and called the doctor. There was a tad more screaming later from Mrs Curry, but I’d taken myself off to bed by then, so it didn’t bother me.’

  April waited, but Sunny apparently had finished.

  ‘Was Billy all right?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, he lost the leg, of course, but otherwise made a full recovery.’

  Edward tapped the sketch. ‘So you think this could be him? The mysterious man in the woods?’

  ‘He wore a cap just like that. And boots. The waistcoat, I can’t recall.’

  ‘What did he look like? His face, I mean,’ said April.

  ‘You know, I’ve been trying to picture it,’ said Sunny, ‘but that seems to have gone, too. One of the many curses of old age. Dark, dark eyes, black as nightshade berries — that’s all I can remember.’

  ‘And unless he’s succeeded in outdoing that Japanese woman, he’ll be long dead now,’ said Edward. ‘At one with the forest floor under a cowslip’s bell, being sucked by bees.’

  ‘What nonsense,’ Sunny said.

  Abruptly, though there were still drawings left unseen, she shut the folio with a dusty thump.

  ‘I want you to have this.’ Sunny thrust the folio at April. ‘And the chain, too. I want you to keep them both.’

  Sunny picked up the chain from where April had placed it on the table, and plonked it down with some vehemence on top of the art folio. She pushed both closer to April, who drew back.

  ‘Oh, no …’

  Sunny’s expression was pugnaciously determined. ‘If
you won’t take the house, then have something of James’s, at least!’

  ‘I can’t,’ said April. ‘Please. I really can’t.’

  Edward reached out and lifted the chain from the folio. He let it dangle from his fingers, the little keys chinking musically together.

  ‘Silver and gold,’ he said. ‘Another Dante reference, you know. The keys to Peter’s gate, the entrance to Purgatory. One is Remorse, the other Reconciliation. Both had to work or the gate would not open, and the soul would have no chance to ascend to Paradise.’

  ‘So who is at the gate to Purgatory?’ April asked him. ‘You or me?’

  He smiled briefly. ‘I suspect I’m an Indecisive. A moral coward. Rejected by Heaven and ignored by Hell. Destined to languish on the shore of Acheron and be stung by flies and hornets.’

  ‘Pish,’ said Sunny. ‘You’re simply lazy.’

  ‘That doesn’t help, of course.’

  Edward let the chain fall back on the art folio, where it slithered gently into a heap.

  ‘In Purgatory,’ he said, ‘there is at least the possibility of change. If you’re in Hell or Heaven, that’s it, you’re stuck. If it were me, I’d prefer to know that my options were still open.’

  In the ensuing silence, Sunny pushed the folio an inch closer to April, who sighed, knowing she was beaten. The folio would barely fit in her suitcase. But she’d have to find a way; she had no choice. At least the chain was light. April picked it up, fastened it around her neck.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said to Sunny.

  ‘What time is your flight tomorrow?’ said Edward.

  It wasn’t till late, but April did not want to risk another invitation. Who knows what else she’d be forced to take?

  ‘I leave first thing.’

  ‘You know, I was absolutely convinced that you’d stay,’ said Sunny. ‘Once I had the idea of you in the house, I couldn’t see how it could be otherwise.’

  ‘Life doesn’t always go to plan, does it?’ said Edward.

  ‘Balderdash!’ said Sunny. ‘If you bother to plan and to stick to it, life goes exactly the way you want it to!’