‘But it’s more than just that?’ she coaxed. She liked him; and she was nosy about Wallney.
‘Yes, well.’ He made a gesture, as if shoving something away. ‘There was . . . Miss Yaxley’s brother. A troublesome man. Though of course I was sorry when he died,’ he added hastily.
‘An atheist?’ She had had bother with militant atheists all her life.
‘No, not an atheist exactly.’ He seemed to come to some kind of decision. ‘What the old Norfolk people used to call a Cunning Man. Almost the last of them, actually. Thank God. As far as I know, that is. At least we haven’t got one in Cley any more. They say, last century, there used to be one or more in every town in East Anglia. Almost like doctors. The National Health Service seems to have finished them off.’
‘What did they do?’
He shrugged. ‘Charmed warts . . . herbal remedies, that sort of thing. People went to them . . .’
‘Father!’ An irate female voice was raised from the far end of the nave. ‘Will you come and settle something about the altar flowers?’
‘Not the damn flower-rota again,’ muttered the minister savagely under his breath. Then he gave her a bright smile, said, ‘So nice to have met you,’ and whisked away into the female huddle that, from the sound of its voices, was growing more irate by the minute.
Rose waited for him to come back. She was remembering the child in Wallney, who had asked her if she was the lady who was staying at the Cunning’s house.
But when the flower-rota row was over, he didn’t come back to her. He walked out. She wondered if he didn’t want to say any more.
Then, looking at her watch, she saw it was nearly two o’clock. The kids would be starving.
She went into the kitchen, dumped her groceries and shouted, ‘Hallo?’ There was no reply, the house’s silence seemed oppressive. Where on earth could they have got to, all this time? She cursed herself for being an irresponsible mother, letting her children wander wild in a strange place, while she wallowed in the fleshpots of Cley.
But it was all right. There they were down by the outhouse; crouched on their heels, playing with something.
Something that seemed to be moving, alive. A wild thought about black rabbits in her head, she ran down the path.
But it wasn’t a black rabbit; it was a cat; the cat she had met two nights ago, walking back from the village. Again she thought what an unlikeable cat it was; the massive back, the thick neck, the wedge-shaped head and dark striped coat. But it seemed to have made friends with the children. It was allowing itself to be stroked; was even extending and retracting its claws with a tiny scratching noise on the brick path, rubbing its head against Timothy’s hand. But . . . stiffly, as if it was playing a part it scarcely remembered.
‘I don’t think you should encourage it,’ she said. ‘I’ll bet that’s the thing that was making the row all night. If it does it again tonight, I’ll hold you responsible.’
‘I expect it was just lonely,’ said Jane. ‘It hasn’t tried yowling since we met it.’
‘Did you find Mr. Gotobed?’
‘We had to go to his Mum’s cottage. She said he’d gone to bed and couldn’t talk to us. But we showed her the wheelbarrow and said we’d come to say we were sorry, and could he still come and see to us? Then she went upstairs and nagged him something terrible, and when he came down he had his rubbers on the same as usual . . .’
‘What did he say?’
‘He was very jumpy. But he took us to see his vegetable garden at the back, and asked us a lot of questions about you.’
‘Me?’ She got into a flurry, wondering what they must have told him. Children did say the most dreadful things about one . . .
‘He asked if you ever cured our warts? And we said yes, and he asked how, and we said with some brown stuff out of a bottle that the doctor gave you. And then he asked if you ever found things for people. And we said just things like text-books and gym-kit for us in the mornings, and that really you were far better at losing things yourself than finding things. That seemed to cheer him up. Then he asked if you had any books and we said thousands and he nearly had a fit till we said they were all Dad’s paperbacks and the novels that were up for the Booker Prize and all that stuff. Modern printed books. He said there were no harm in them modern printed books. Then he asked about the book you were holding this morning, and we said you’d just found it and were trying to read it, but couldn’t. Then he said if you promised to burn that book, he’d come back and see to us, though he wouldn’t do no more gardening for you . . .’
‘I can’t go burning books.’ Rose’s liberal soul rose up in rage. ‘If you start burning books, you end up burning people. Hitler burnt books. Besides,’ she added, ‘that book is the property of Miss Yaxley. I can’t burn her property. Really, that man is getting above himself. There must be somebody else who can see to us, in the village . . .’ But her heart failed, at the idea of asking.
‘Maybe you should ask Miss Yaxley,’ said Tim. ‘If she says burn it too, you’re off the hook. Go on, Mum. The outhouse’s starting to smell.’
Dear God, she thought, as she set off for Miss Yaxley’s with the book in her hand, this is totally ridiculous. Other people are batting me around like a ping-pong ball. This has really got to stop.
She found Miss Yaxley gardening: crouched on an ancient garden-kneeler with all rusty handles, removing low weeds that looked as stubborn as herself from the cracks of her crazy paving. Miss Yaxley rose with a great effort to her feet; her downward pressure on the rusty handles made the kneeler quiver. Rose thought how sad it was; the garden was truly lovely, but Miss Yaxley seemed to garden without pleasure, with a grim set mouth as if she were preparing a corpse for burial in the autumn.
‘What is it now?’ asked Miss Yaxley, crossly. Rose knew she had long outworn any welcome.
‘I came to ask you about this book I’ve found – it must have been one of your brother’s.’ Rose took the book from her long cardigan pocket.
‘I don’t want that,’ said Miss Yaxley abruptly. ‘Shove it in the fire and burn the thing.’
Rose was appalled at being given the same heartless advice twice. ‘But it’s old. It might be valuable. Or of historic interest.’
‘You keep it then!’ The words were almost spat out; never had Rose known a gift given less graciously.
‘But . . . aren’t you interested? He was your brother!’
‘He were a pain and botheration to me all me life,’ said Miss Yaxley. ‘I don’t want reminding of him.’ But perhaps she was not quite so hard as her words sounded. For Rose saw she was chewing her old lips, with her head right down.
‘Well, thank you very much,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve got friends who might be interested in this book . . .’
‘If you’ll take my advice, you’ll burn it,’ said Miss Yaxley. ‘There’s a fire yonder.’ She nodded towards a bonfire in the corner of the garden, where she was burning a mass of leaves and garden rubbish. ‘You don’t know what you’ve got there. But God has no mercy on the ignorant.’
Something in her voice frightened Rose. Like an obedient small child, she walked up to the bonfire. It looked just a heap of slightly-smoking weeds, but one side had fallen in, disclosing a pile of grey ash that glowed deep red as the wind blew. She held the book out over it. But it went against the grain of all her upbringing. Her father had worshipped books and she was his child too.
Finally, after hovering a long time, she thrust the book back in her pocket. ‘I’ll keep it, thank you. In memory of your brother.’
Miss Yaxley stood staring at her garden hedge. Still she bit her lips, as if fighting against tears. It was unusually dreadful, in such a grim old woman; it was like watching a rock trying not to cry.
‘He weren’t a bad man,’ she said. ‘Just a meddling fool, who thought he was something he weren’t. What he did, they wanted him t’ do and they paid him for it. They beat a path to his front door. And then they turned agin him;
those who made him do things. That child wasn’t his fault. The coroner said so. But they took agin him.’
‘Which child? Who were they?’
‘None o’ your business. I told you to burn that book. It’s on your head now.’ She shook herself, like a dog shakes off water after a swim and said, ‘I’ve got things to do.’ And knelt again to her weeding.
Rose dithered; and then went. There was no point in talking to that bent back; no more than there would be to a stone.
She had not been gone five minutes when an old man put his head over Miss Yaxley’s hedge and said sharply, ‘She brought the book?’
Miss Yaxley did not look up at him. But she said, quite distinctly, ‘I told her to burn it. But she wouldn’t. She kept it. You can’t hold that against me.’
That evening, when Rose went up to phone Philip, she noticed the lights were still on in the mini-market. It must be a late closing night or something.
She rang her home number. And still got the answering machine. A storm of worry and rage burst out of her like a hurricane. Philip was trying to punish her for changing his well-laid plans for her holiday. He was cutting her dead. He was trying to frighten her into rushing home like a terrified child. Well, two could play at that game! She was damned if she would rush home. Let him sweat it out as well.
Then another wave of emotion hit her, running in the opposite direction. He might be lying ill and helpless, after a heart attack. His cholesterol level had been high, in his last checkup. Or he might have fallen downstairs and broken his leg . . .
She thought of ringing the neighbours. But she didn’t know the neighbours. She didn’t even know their name.
She could ring the police; they’d check. Then she thought of all the scorn Philip would heap on her, if he was really all right. A silly woman, making a silly womanish fuss . . .
She bit her lip. She could ring him at the office in the morning. When of course she would get his secretary, the super-efficient Ms. Sampson. Who would say, with the faintest tinge of scorn, that Philip was in some meeting, and had she a number where he could ring her back? Explaining her situation to the cool scorn of Ms. Sampson would be very humiliating.
In the end, she said to the answering machine that she would ring at eight the following night. She had a problem that she could do with Philip’s advice on. Quite a worrying little problem! That would fetch him; like the cheese in a trap fetches the silly mouse. Philip could no more resist giving good advice than a silly mouse could resist cheese.
Quite pleased with herself, she thought she’d buy the kids a chocolate bar each, as a treat. To eat over the evening game of Scrabble. Of course it was bad for their teeth, but if they cleaned them thoroughly at bedtime it would be all right.
She walked across to the mini-market. Said good evening warmly to the round-shouldered woman with the hair on her upper lip, since the shop was otherwise empty.
The woman did not reply; did not look up from the evening paper she had spread on the counter. Rose wondered whether she was a bit deaf. So she said loudly, ‘Two Kit-Kat bars, please, and a tube of Smarties.’
The woman still did not look up; but her right hand, as if it had a life of its own, went behind her, and lifted two Kit-Kats and a tube of Smarties off the shelf and put them on the counter. Then the hand was held out for money . . .
Rose put a pound coin into it. Silently, the pound coin was put in the till, and the change produced, and dropped on to the open newspaper. Oddly shaken, Rose scrabbled for the coins, very aware that her fingers had all turned into thumbs. Then she said ‘Good night’ without hope; she wondered curiously what was so enthralling in the newspaper that it had made the woman so rude . . .
It appeared to be the fat stock prices at Norwich Market. She was being deliberately cut.
She walked out briskly, telling herself she had been a fool to break her resolution not to enter that shop again. The shop door closed behind her in silence.
Across the square, the single streetlamp glimmered bluely on Rose’s white Golf. It looked more desolate than ever. Rose walked across, to check the doors again.
Right across the passenger door was scrawled one word. Very large and very jagged and violent, in the thin layer of road-dirt.
The word was
WITCH
Rose stared and stared at it. She wished it had been some other word, like ‘Bitch’ or even ‘Fuck.’ A word that belonged to the real if sinful world. But this was a word that nobody ever used, unless they were reading some silly book to children. Yet somehow, on her own car door in the dim lamplight, the word did not look silly at all. It looked as real as the word ‘Yuppie.’ And the venom in the strokes . . .
Rose took out her handkerchief and smeared the word out. She could not bear it to exist in her world. She rubbed and rubbed long after the word was gone; until the door was shiny and clean as the day she had bought the car.
Then she thought she was a fool. She had just shown to the village that she had read the word; and that it had upset her into ruining with black dirt a perfectly good hanky.
She set off at a brisk pace for the cottage, aware that the eyes of the woman in the shop were following her all the way. And how many other eyes, behind the curtains of the village? By the time she reached the cottage, she was running.
And yet how silly it all seemed, as she opened the kitchen door. Curtains drawn against the dark, oil-lamps lit, the fire well made up and casting everything in a rosy glow. The kitchen table laid for Scrabble . . .
The two kids sitting peacefully in the rockers each side of the range, rocking, with their feet up on the fender, a picture of contentment.
And on Jane’s knee, the cat.
‘I told you not to encourage that animal,’ she snapped.
They looked at her with open mouths; she had never been a snapper.
‘It’s lost and hungry,’ said Jane. ‘We gave it a pasty and it ate the lot, even the pastry and crumbs.’
‘People have tried to shoot it,’ said Timothy. ‘It has all little scars on one side and a shotgun pellet came out of one when I picked it. The people round here must be beastly.’
The cat continued to purr and knead on Jane’s knee. But it gave Rose a wary, calculating look, an old cold look. It knew it had won two hearts, but not three.
And yet its wounds won it the day.
‘Yes,’ said Rose, ‘the people round here are rather beastly, I’m afraid.’
‘Even Mr. Gotobed,’ said Timothy, with the sudden crushing condemnation of the young. ‘We’ve been thinking about it. We don’t think he set those snares to catch a rabbit. We think he set them to try and catch the cat. Those hairs I found round the snare weren’t rabbit-hairs, they were hairs from the cat. There aren’t any rabbits round here. There isn’t a trace of droppings.’
‘But why would he want to catch the cat?’ asked Rose. ‘What had it done to him?’ She was reluctant to cast Mr. Gotobed as a villain, along with the rest.
‘Because the cat was digging in our garden, I suppose. Cos if there are no rabbits, the cat must have dug those holes down by the outhouse.’
‘But cats don’t dig burrows,’ said Rose, a bit feebly.
‘They do to bury their cr – droppings,’ said Jane, with a last-minute swerve of voice.
‘Oh, I suppose so,’ said Rose. ‘Though what damage a cat could do to a hopeless garden like this . . .’
‘I expect Mr. Gotobed had grand new plans for it,’ said Timothy. ‘Like that stupid rockery of his.’
‘You mustn’t be rude about him,’ said Rose hastily. ‘The outhouse . . .’
‘Oh, we won’t be rude to him,’ said Jane. ‘We’ll be polite for your sake. But we’re not friends of his any more . . .’
Rose shuddered. Mr. Gotobed was out in the freezing wastes now. She hoped she was never sent to join him.
‘Oh, I suppose the cat can stay. If it behaves itself,’ she added. It wasn’t just that she wanted the children’
s approval. She felt . . . beleaguered now, and the cat became a comrade in misfortune. When they went, they’d take the cat with them, if it wanted to come, leave this horrible village. They could find it a good home, even if Philip put his foot down about keeping it. A little glow lit up in her, a mischievous little glow. Let Philip try fighting the kids about getting rid of the cat. That might cut him down to size a bit . . .
Really, she told herself severely, I’m turning into a not very nice person.
‘Scrabble,’ she said briskly.
Jane got up, and carefully replaced the cat on her rocker. It turned round and round about six times, then settled with a satisfied look on its face. Almost as if it lived here . . .
It was not a very good game of Scrabble. At least for Rose. Visions kept drifting through her mind. Miss Yaxley’s grim tormented face; tears gathering in the corners of its stoniness, as if Moses had smote the rock and water came forth. The silence of the woman in the shop, the coldness of rejection. The scrawl on the car door . . . the little minister’s doubtfulness.
‘Poor old Mum’s off form,’ said Timothy smugly at the end. ‘Me 197, you 192 Jane, Mum 109.’
‘How’s Daddy?’ asked Jane, with careful casualness.
‘How’s the answering machine,’ said Rose with feeling.
‘Poor old Mum,’ said Timothy, pouring the Scrabble tiles back into the bag that held them. ‘You don’t think he’s having an affair with Ms. Sampson, do you, Mum?’ He asked with only the mildest interest.
‘Don’t be stupid, Timothy,’ said Jane. ‘Dad’s got more sense than that. If he got mixed up with Ms. Sampson, the whole firm would fall apart. Daddy’s in love with his computer . . .’
‘You mean he switches Ms. Sampson off when he goes home at night,’ said Tim.
They both giggled.
Spectral Shadows Page 27
