by Peter James
Oliver phoned a doctor friend who gave him some names and suggested a hospital less than half an hour away, which seemed to relieve the father.
The ambulance arrived a few minutes later. The boy and his mother went in it, and his father followed in the Volvo. Frannie, Oliver and Edward watched numbly as they left. A couple of short pulses of the siren pricked the air and then there was silence.
They walked back towards the house, Oliver with his head sunk in thought, Frannie uncertain what to say. Edward stopped by the pond. Frannie waited a moment for him, then went inside. Mrs Beakbane excused herself, saying she had to go to a problem she had been dealing with in the tearoom.
Oliver poured the remnants of coffee in the percolator down the sink and turned the tap on. Frannie gathered the two mugs from the table and carried them across.
‘It’s OK – they can go in the machine.’ His words made Frannie feel even more useless. As if she hadn’t yet found her role. His eyes skimmed her face and he lowered his voice. ‘You have a bit of – er – warpaint on you.’
She touched her cheek with her fingers and saw blood on them. ‘Oh, God!’
She hurried upstairs to the bathroom. Her reflection in the mirror startled her. Streaks of blood ran down her forehead and cheeks. Her eye make-up had smudged and run. Her stomach rolled again. Sour bile rose in her throat and she puked it out. Then she stripped off and washed herself, put her trousers and top into the sink to soak, wrapped herself in a towel and went to her bedroom to change.
When she returned, Edward was sitting in the kitchen, glancing in a rather adult way through a newspaper. He looked up at his father.
‘Do you think they will be able to sew Dom’s fingers back on, Daddy?’
‘They can do pretty clever things with microsurgery these days.’
‘It’s a pity it wasn’t his left hand,’ Edward said. ‘Then at least he could still do sport.’
The comment hung over them and there was a long silence broken only by the sound of Captain Kirk grinding on a bone. Edward closed the Daily Mail and began turning the pages of The Times. ‘You didn’t remember to fix my Scalextric, Daddy.’
‘I did. The brushes had gone on one of the cars.’
‘It’s not working.’
Frannie frowned, wondered when Edward would have had time to play with any toys. And what he was searching for in the newspaper.
‘It is. Did you switch the transformer on?’
‘You’re useless, Daddy. You should have taken it to the man in Lewes to fix.’
‘Well, it was working last Sunday. I spent an hour on it.’
Edward seemed unconvinced. Oliver looked at his watch. ‘Right, let’s make some plans for this afternoon.’ He shrugged apologetically at Frannie. ‘I have to do a few things. Would you like to lounge around the pool? Have a swim? The water’s very warm.’
‘Can I show Frannie round the grounds?’
Oliver signalled Frannie with his eyes that she did not have to.
She winked, then smiled at Edward. ‘Thank you, I’d love that.’
‘Can I show Frannie the aeroplane, Daddy?’
‘I have to go down and turn the engine over; I might catch up with you.’
‘Is your name really Frannie?’ Edward said.
‘Yes.’
He held out his hand for hers and for a moment she thought he was going to shake it. Instead he held it firmly, pulling her very slightly towards him, as if there was an urgent message he needed to communicate. Then slowly, without slackening his grip, he led her towards the door.
She glanced at Oliver and noticed a strange look of apprehension on his face as he watched his son. The shadow that crossed his eyes was one of fear. She turned to Edward but all she could see was the trusting face of a small boy who has found a new friend.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Frannie and Edward, closely followed by Captain Kirk, ambled past the Range Rover and along the front of the house. A bird chirruped with a ping that sounded like a spoon against china and as Frannie breathed in the scents of the air and felt the afternoon sun on her face, the horror of an hour ago receded a little in her mind; but not the unease. She still wondered why Oliver had kept quiet about his title; quiet about Meston Hall; wondered if it had anything to do with his wife’s death, for instance. And was there anything else he was keeping quiet about?
She avoided looking at the gravel in case she saw the stain of blood and stared up at the façade, picking out details of its decaying state: a chunk missing from the coping-stone of the parapet; a cracked window; a bird’s nest under the eaves; wasps going in and out of a hole in the roof.
An elderly man with a shiny camera case and a woman in a straw hat were going in through the front door and Frannie caught a glimpse of a marble floor and white columns. Edward pointed across the valley. ‘The English Channel’s the other side of those hills. Brighton’s over there to the right – you can see the glow of the lights on a clear night.’
‘Do you like living here?’ Frannie asked.
‘Yes, quite.’
‘Only quite?’
‘I like some things,’ he said, more brightly.
‘Have you got many friends here?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He seemed about to say something else, then changed his mind.
They walked past the end of the house and up the private road towards the junction bounded by hedges.
‘Is Frannie short for something?’
‘My full name’s Francesca.’
‘Is that Italian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does that mean you’re a Catholic?’
‘I am a Catholic, yes.’ She was surprised by the question. ‘What are you?’
Edward was silent for some moments, then he pushed his hands into his pockets and stared down. ‘We have our own chapel.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘There’s not much to see.’
‘I’d be interested.’
He pointed in front of them. ‘It’s through there, but it’s not worth going in.’
‘Couldn’t I have a quick peep inside?’
‘Why?’
There was something oddly strained about his voice and she almost wished she hadn’t pursued the idea. ‘I’m very interested in churches,’ she said.
‘All right.’
They waited for a car full of visitors to pass, then crossed, went through an opening in the hedge and the chapel was in front of them. It was small and narrow, rising out of a riot of weeds and in the same poor state of repair as everything else. A well-trodden cinder path went up to the door, through a tiny graveyard peppered with old tombstones.
The interior felt more cared for. Marble and alabaster tombs were spaced along the sides and there were plaques on the floor. Frannie read one of them. Lord Thomas Bouverie Henry Halkin. 15th Marquess of Sherfield. 1787–1821.
While Edward walked on slowly down the centre of the aisle, running his hand nonchalantly from the top of each pew to the next, Frannie scanned the structure of the building, trying to date it. Deep, solid buttresses and well-dressed stones; classic Perpendicular tracery in an elaborate geometric pattern. Geometry, she thought suddenly. Mathematics. Oliver’s words at lunch on Tuesday echoed suddenly in her head. Mathematics and design are inseparable.
‘Every Marquess of Sherfield for four hundred and fifty years is buried in here,’ Edward said. ‘Except one.’ He stood gazing at the floor in front of him. Frannie joined him. He was looking at an onyx rectangle, with a brass plaque in the centre which read: Lady Sarah Henrietta Louise Halkin, Marchioness of Sherfield. 1963–1988.
Edward’s face reddened, and Frannie sensed a tension in the air between them as if she had intruded into something private. She wondered if that was the reason he had been reluctant to show her in here. She kicked herself for not having realized that his mother would be buried here.
He began to hum softly, and after a few bars she recognized the tune as ‘Swing Low Sweet
Chariot’. Then he turned and began to saunter as if he was in no hurry – as if he had all the time in the world – towards the exit, humming more loudly now, the way someone might who is alone in the dark and wants to demonstrate that he is not afraid.
Captain Kirk was lying obediently outside. Edward stopped humming and knelt beside him, telling him he had been good. Then they left the graveyard and walked along a cart track that sloped downwards towards a cluster of farm buildings. An invisible barrier separated them. Frannie wondered what to say to repair the situation, realizing how very little she knew about children. She was not used to dealing with the problems of motherless young boys and she simply didn’t know what to do. She almost wished that Mrs Beakbane would appear. She had no idea of how Edward felt about seeing his father with another woman.
A vapour trail was unravelling across the sky. Grit crunched beneath their feet. ‘You said there was one Marquess who was not buried in your chapel – who was that?’
‘Lord Francis Halkin,’ he said. ‘The second Marquess.’
‘Where is he buried?’
‘I don’t know.’ He lowered his voice as if he were letting her in on a secret. ‘There were quite a lot of people who didn’t like him very much.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I’d like to be buried somewhere that’s completely secret. Where no one knows where I am,’ he said, not answering her.
‘So you don’t have to spend eternity with your ancient relatives? You’d like to meet some new people when you die?’
Edward broke into a fit of giggles. ‘I think they’d be dead boring, don’t you?’ He giggled again.
‘Dead right.’
‘Dead on!’ he said. ‘Hold out your hand.’
She held it out and he turned it palm up, then slapped it with his own palm. ‘Dead on!’ he said again as he did so. ‘You have to do that when you say “dead on”!’
‘I’ll remember. Dead – cert!’ She stopped as a stone on the ground caught her eye, knelt, and picked it up. She pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, spat on it and rubbed one side that was almost flat. She examined it carefully, whilst Edward watched her in silence, then she held it in front of him. ‘Look!’
He stared blankly. ‘What at?’
Frannie pointed carefully with her finger. ‘Can you see? The shape of the shell?’
He peered closer, still uncertain.
‘It’s a fossil – of a seashell – an oyster or something.’
His eyes brightened. ‘Gosh, yes! Is that really old?’
She nodded. ‘Ten thousand years; perhaps more.’
‘Do you think it’s worth a lot of money?’
She shook her head. ‘The countryside’s covered in them.’
‘I’ve never seen one before.’
‘You’ve probably never looked.’ She handed it to him. ‘You keep it.’
‘You should keep it really, because you found it.’
‘It’s a present.’
‘Hey! That’s great, wow! Thank you.’
She walked on, feeling she was getting somewhere with Oliver’s son after all. But she was taken aback by his next remark.
‘Do you think the dead stay dead, Frannie?’
Mindful of his mother, she deliberately played down her response. ‘I don’t think that oyster’s going to come back to life.’
‘Its spirit might.’
A combine harvester chomped through a cornfield on their right. The stubble stretched out into the distance, short and spiky, and Frannie breathed in its dry, prickly smell. Edward was a strange boy, she thought. Old for his years, he slouched as he walked, as if burdened by a thousand worries.
As they approached the rear of a massive corrugated-iron barn, a bang like a muffled gunshot rang out, making Frannie jump. Captain Kirk barked. There was the clatter of what sounded like an enormous ratchet, and another bang. Edward sprinted on ahead.
Oliver’s Range Rover was parked on the concrete hard in front of the barn. The barn’s doors were open and there was an old-looking single-engined biplane inside, its wingspan taking up almost the entire width.
Oliver had both hands close together in the centre of one blade of the propeller and slowly rotated it anticlockwise, while Edward stood several feet away, watching him. There was a deep sucking noise from the engine. He rotated the propeller completely a couple of times, then tensed up, gave the blade a sharp downward pull, and stepped quickly back and to the side. There was another much louder bang as the engine fired and died, a splutter as the propeller made a half-turn, then the ratchet sound again as it swung to a halt. A small puff of oily blue smoke drifted over Frannie. Oliver looked engrossed and Frannie began to wonder if he’d simply wanted to be on his own for a bit.
He turned and smiled cheerily at her, pushing his hair back from his forehead with a grimy hand, sweat pouring down his face. ‘Got her started last weekend; have to try to run her again for a few minutes to get the oil circulating, but she doesn’t seem to want to know.’ He gazed at the aeroplane admiringly. ‘What do you think of her?’
The plane reminded Frannie of First World War movies. A primitive, open two-seater, with struts and wire rigging between the wings, it sat on a flimsy-looking undercarriage, its nose in the air. Parts of the skin of the fuselage and wings were missing, exposing the skeletal frame beneath and the cylinder block of the engine protruding from the nose. In contrast, the propeller appeared immaculate; it was made of dark, varnished wood and held in place with a polished aluminium spinner.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Frannie said. ‘Have you actually flown her?’
‘Not this old girl. She hasn’t been airborne for about thirty years. I bought her as a complete wreck five years ago. A few more months and she’ll be up there.’
‘Yeah!’ Edward said excitedly. ‘Daddy said we can fly to France!’
Oliver looked at his watch. ‘I’d better get to the estate office. My three o’clock appointment will be waiting.’
‘No peace for the wicked,’ Frannie said.
‘None. See you in an hour or so.’ He began closing the barn doors. Frannie and Edward helped him, then Oliver drove off in the Range Rover.
‘Would you like to see the lake now?’ Edward said.
‘Yes, sure,’ she said, feeling slightly out on a limb at being abandoned again by Oliver, and wondering suddenly if Dom’s snobby mother hadn’t been too far off the mark when she had asked Oliver if she was the nanny. She felt a sudden flash of anger as she wondered whether Oliver had conned her into coming down here in order to look after Edward. Once again, she pictured the party taking place that night in London. Had she made a mistake?
They skirted around the side of a ploughed field, jumped a ditch and came out at the bottom of the visitors’ car park. Captain Kirk ran on ahead then bounded back and walked beside them. They climbed over a fence and walked across a broad, sloping meadow. ‘Do you like it here, Frannie?’ Edward asked.
‘It’s very beautiful.’
‘I had to really twist Daddy’s arm to make him see you again.’
She stopped and stared at him. ‘Pardon?’
‘Daddy wasn’t brave enough. He said he’d be too embarrassed and that anyway you might not like him.’
‘It was you? You made him put the advertisement in?’
He shook his head. ‘I told him that he had to try to find you. He thought you were nice, but he’s very shy, really.’
‘So how did you persuade him?’ Frannie asked.
He looked rather pleased with himself. ‘I did keep nagging him a bit. But I don’t think he needed that much pushing.’
They walked on through some trees, and Frannie smiled to herself, her anger fading. She was amused by the boy’s precociousness. A clock chimed three times in the distance. They passed a collapsed stone folly, and came into a walk of lavender bushes past a cluster of small headstones, most of them overgrown with moss and lichen. On one she could just make out the words: Sam (Nimo San).
Labrador. 1912–1925.
Edward stopped by a lavender bush, and pointed at it, announcing ‘Nana atropurpurea.’
‘What?’ she said, unsure if she had heard correctly. She was startled by a growl from Captain Kirk and turned, wondering what was wrong with the spaniel. Then she realized it was growling at Edward.
Edward walked on down some timber steps and stopped by a rhododendron. ‘Rhododendron campanulatum,’ he said.
The spaniel growled again more deeply, baring sharp white teeth that rose from gums brimming with saliva; its soft hair seemed to rise and harden like spines and its dark brown eyes boiled inside their whites with a sudden rage that frightened Frannie. The dog was crouching on its rear haunches, as if its rear paws were embedded in the earth, its head craning forward, the growl deepening into a ferocious snarl. It pulled itself forward in sharp jerks as if trying to free its rear legs from the ground and launch itself at the boy, and she dived in panic, grabbing it by the collar to restrain it.
Captain Kirk’s head spun round, the jaws showering her with saliva and she just managed to withdraw her hand and jump back before the teeth snapped on air. The dog turned to Edward again, simmering, the snarl deepening. Edward stood his ground in silence, staring back hypnotically. Frannie felt the hairs rising on her own body, the onlooker in a private duel. The dog made a lunge forward towards the boy, then stopped as if restrained by an unseen force. It tried to lunge again, and stopped once more, seemingly made powerless by Edward’s concentrated stare.
Frannie watched in horror as the spaniel’s hair slackened, then it let out a whine and began to shake, backing away, whimpering, and finally retreating like a banished demon.
There was a strange hush. The sun went behind a cloud and Edward stood in silence, as if nothing had happened. Frannie turned to watch the dog but it was almost out of sight, heading back towards the house. She was shaking, not knowing exactly what she had just witnessed.
‘What’s the matter with Captain Kirk, Edward?’
He said nothing at first. Then he suddenly pointed to another rhododendron across the track that had white, trumpet-shaped flowers. ‘Auriculatum,’ he said.
‘Have you been learning Latin at school?’ she asked, her voice quavering.
