Whispers in the Graveyard

by Theresa Breslin

  The whispering in my ear and the powerful urge to get up, go now, now, to the graveyard. I’ve fallen asleep lying on top of my bed. The cheeseburger that Ms Talmur forced me to eat earlier lies thick and undigested in my stomach. Her own teeth were chattering and fingers trembling as she drank her tea in the café.

  ‘There is a very real sense of unease in that place,’ she said. ‘I’ll be glad when they’ve moved . . . everything . . . and the river covers it up.’

  It’s too late, I think. Whatever it is, was, has now been released, is out, gaining strength and seeking more.

  And now I have to get there. I’m needed.

  ‘Sssssolomon.’ A whisper beside my face. ‘Come to me.’

  Like a sleepwalker I open my bedroom door. My father is on the landing walking towards me on stockinged feet.

  ‘Sorry, son.’ He points to his shoes in his hand. ‘I tried not to wake you as I came in.’ He peers into my face. ‘You OK?’

  I pass my hand across my face. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Here,’ my dad takes my arm, ‘you’re only half awake.’ He guides me into my room and pulls the quilt back. ‘Lie down now.’ He sits on the bed. ‘I could always tell you a story,’ he says sadly, ‘to get you back to sleep.’ He gives me a faint smile. ‘I guess not, though.’

  He tucks the cover round me and waits until he thinks I’m sleeping before going away.

  I take the ring from under my pillow. The ring I had found in the graveyard. It seems to burn my hand as I twist it round and round in my fingers. It’s cold and gressy in my grasp.

  The lettering on the inside. Two words engraved into the gold. A curtain draws back. I know what they are, who they are. I heard those names spoken aloud this afternoon by Mr Frame.

  Joe Service – disappeared. His wife looking for him – Alison Service. The letter I couldn’t read. The beginning of my own name. The one I draw upside down and back to front. The S. It was in the middle of her name, and blocked me from understanding what was written on the ring. ‘Alison & Joe – FOREVER’.

  It must have been his wedding ring.

  I know this.

  She can search for him from now until hereafter. From where he has gone there is no return.

  CHAPTER XX

  Amy is sick. Early, next day, before the morning break, I saw her little face flushed, her hands shake as she holds her pencil.

  ‘You OK?’

  Her eyes glittered as she raised her lids to answer me. The lip trembled. I stood up and fetched some water from the sink.

  ‘Here.’ I thrust a cup under her chin. I have to hold it as she drinks. I look around me. Ms Talmur is busy. I wring out Amy’s hankie and dab awkwardly at her forehead.

  ‘Oh, dear, Amy. You don’t seem very well today.’ Ms Talmur has noticed at last. ‘Solomon, will you take her to the medical room? I’ll call her home and ask for someone to collect her.’

  I sit with Amy until her mother arrives.

  ‘My arm’s sore again,’ she says quietly to me, leaning her head against my shoulder.

  I look down at the soft curls. ‘Let me see.’ The skin is red, and the darker blotchy patches are hot and itchy.

  ‘Nettles,’ I say firmly. ‘Jaggy nettles. You’ve rubbed up against them and didn’t notice.’

  ‘Is it?’ There is a great relief in her voice.

  ‘Yeah. Definitely. Got a rash same as that dozens of times when I was your age. Needs a docken leaf. You rub it on and it takes the sting away.’ I hesitate. ‘I’ll get you one if you like.’

  She puts her hand in mine. ‘I like you, Solomon,’ she says. It’s the first time I remember anyone ever saying that to me.

  Her mum arrives and takes her away. Amy looks behind her as she goes out the front door. A small scared glance back to me.

  Without her beside me at the desk, I feel them all staring at me. Everything goes wrong. Nothing from yesterday’s lesson has stayed in my head. My fingers can’t manipulate the cards and number blocks. Warrior Watkins is right. I am a baboon, a clumsy ape. Even the way I hold my pencil is different, the way I write is strange. I form my numbers from the bottom upwards. No one else does that. I’ve watched to see.

  Why can’t I make my thoughts sit as words upon the paper? I can only use the words which I’m confident I can spell properly. I have to write ‘nice’ when I mean beautiful, ‘good’ when I’m thinking perfection. All my images and ideas are crushed and stillborn. Rainbows arc inside me, then abort, earthbound, into monochrome dullness.

  ‘Hell, blast it!’

  The sharp crack of splintered wood sounds, and despite the special triangular rubber grip which Ms Talmur has put on it, my pencil is in two pieces in my hand. I grab the jagged end and score the varnished desk top. Vicious lines of rage and frustration pouring out of me to be scraped onto the clean smooth surface. Down from my mind through my fingers to gouge a mark on the world.

  Ms Talmur leans across my shoulder and plucks the pencil stump neatly from my fist.

  ‘Solomon, there is something in particular I would like you to do for me this afternoon.’

  I thrust my legs out into the passageway and slump down in my seat. She snaps her fingers in front of my eyes. I raise my head.

  ‘Amy has gone home without her school bag.’ She holds my gaze until I slowly start to refocus. ‘I shall let you away earlier. Perhaps you could take it to her house. I shall put in some books which she might like to look at, and some drawings to colour. That should amuse her while she is in bed.’

  She talks on, piling the books before me, asking me to select one or two. Her words flow over and around me. She hands me the cards to put in the bag. Bearing me up, pulling me back.

  ‘Good,’ she says finally. ‘That’s us organised, I think.’ She hands me Amy’s school bag. ‘Off you go. Tell her all her class mates are thinking of her.’ She pats my back and gives me a tiny push out the door and into the corridor.

  And coming towards me, is my class. Marching along from the television room.

  Melly sees me first, and gives a big smile, then shrinks back as Watkins spots her and me at the same time.

  ‘Aha! What have we here? Our missing friend,’ he shouts.

  My insides grip, and a fierce pain cuts through my head.

  ‘Enjoying the infants, are you, Solly?’ He waits a second, blocking my path. ‘Are you?’ he repeats louder.

  ‘Sir . . .’

  I can’t speak. My words slurred, my tongue caught inside my mouth.

  ‘Sir . . .’

  ‘He probably is, actually,’ says a voice behind him.

  Peter has come to the front of the line. I stare at him. He gives me a crazy grin and then turns to Watkins.

  ‘Getting taught all the stuff he’s missed. I mean, sir. That’s good isn’t it?’ he asks innocently.

  Watkins looks him over.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Peter says again distinctly.

  Watkins’ eyes drop. He marshals his group. ‘Come along,’ he orders sharply, and the class move off.

  ‘Stay with it, Sol,’ Peter says quietly to me as he walks away.

  I lean against the wall for a minute. Slowly, my mind comes unstuck and I can think again. I straighten up and walk out of the school.

  And I’m thinking.

  Stay with it.

  Stay with it.

  And I will.

  For as long as I can.

  When I get to her house Amy is sitting up in bed with a tight bright little smile fixed to her face.

  ‘Not too long a visit,’ says her mum going out the door. ‘She’s just woken up, but she’s still very tired.’

  I dump the bag on the bed cover. Then I look at her more closely. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I had the dream again.’ Her voice is quiet with fear.

  ‘What dream?’

  ‘The lady singing, and telling me to come to her.’

  My heart thuds. ‘Come where?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She sh
akes her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What does the lady look like?’

  ‘Sometimes like Mummy. She sounds like Mummy, or maybe Daddy, or somebody else I know. She whispers in my head.’

  Now I am truly alarmed. ‘Did you tell your mum or dad about it?’

  She nods. ‘They say it’s a bad dream and it will go away. Will it go away, Solomon?’

  ‘Sure it will.’ I sit on the bed and take out the docken leaves I have picked as I walked from the school. I start to rub her arm with them. As they shred under my fingers I can feel her muscles coiled tight, her body tense.

  ‘Listen.’ I grope about desperately for something, anything to take her concentration away from her fear. ‘Listen,’ I say, ‘I’ll tell you a story . . .’

  CHAPTER XXI

  He was standing by the gate as I came down our street. Chatting away to one of the neighbours, arms waving about, roaring with laughter. Some great tale being told.

  He saw me coming then, and his face beamed with happiness. ‘Have to go now, Sol’s dinner to fix,’ he broke off his story, and I could see she was disappointed. ‘I’ll tell you the rest another time.’ He gave her a wink as he picked up his bags of shopping.

  ‘You got some work today.’ I nodded at the groceries.

  ‘Yeah, a bit of casual out of town, no social snoopers, and a sub until next Friday.’ He lugged the bags into the kitchen. ‘You go and watch the telly, I’ll do that,’ he says quickly as I go to help.

  I am already lifting the first carrier to place it on the worktop. The chink of bottles sounds as I put it down.

  Silence.

  ‘Look, Sol . . .’ he starts as I open up the bag.

  I take the drink out and place it on the counter. ‘Don’t say a word.’ I can feel my throat thick with tears. ‘I’ve listened to you all my life. Who do you listen to? This?’ I point to the bottle.

  He laughs out loud. Harsh and brittle. ‘Don’t be daft. It’s not a problem. Sure, I take a drop too much once in a while. Who doesn’t? Anyway, I deserve a treat tonight. I’ve worked hard today.’

  It’s hopeless. He can’t see it. He really can’t. I look at him. His eyes slide away from mine, a veiled shifting of focus. Then they snap back at me, and I wait for what is coming. Aggression? Charm? Excuses? Flattery?

  ‘Sol, son,’ he says quietly.

  It’s to be sincerity this time.

  Our eyes meet.

  The truth crashes into my head. An awful, terrible truth.

  He can see it. He does know. That hesitation, the way his eyes avoided mine. He knows himself.

  I give him the look that Ms Talmur gave me just before I took the flaky in her classroom and shake my head.

  ‘You’re not fooling me any more,’ I say. ‘I’m not staying around to watch this time. You’d better decide. It’s that stuff or me.’

  And now I know why my mother left. At some time she must have given him the same choice. And he had chosen the booze.

  He picks up a bottle. My eyes follow his hand. His fingers unscrew the lid. He opens a cupboard and takes down a tumbler.

  ‘You’re being silly. What do you know about life? Nothing.’

  My eyes are on the glass in his hand. ‘Don’t, Dad. Please.’

  Defiance. Bravado.

  He starts to tip the bottle.

  I turn away.

  So I’m upstairs and I’m packing my rucksack. I’m going to get as far away from here as I can. He’ll be crazy drunk in an hour or two. I can’t handle it this time. I am so tired. My head aches with all the exercises that Ms Talmur has made me do. The books are scattered on the floor. The coloured perspex sheet which I read through to stop the print jumping about. The dotted shapes of the letters I draw round each night. The card games she plays with me and Amy.

  The pictures she drew to get me to sort out the letters, b, p and d.

  I spy with my little eye.

  The tall straight man with the ball at his feet.

  Something beginning with . . .

  b

  bottle basket bed baby

  d

  dummy desk duckling duck

  p

  pencil pin pebble

  b and p

  baby in a pram

  b and d

  baby doll, baby duck.

  Hours of work with the picture squares.

  For what?

  I knew that answer now. He had told me a few moments ago downstairs.

  Nothing.

  I’ll chuck them in the bin. I gather a handful and then remember as I start to crush them up that a lot of this belongs to Amy. I stuff the cards and books into a plastic bag. I’ll take them to her on my way to the bus station. I want to see her anyway, see if she is any better.

  There is a storm on its way. The air crackles with static as I let myself softly out the front door. I’ll have to hurry. I want to be clear of the town and in some bothy or lock-up before it starts. I run quickly along the lanes to the street where Amy lives.

  I stop abruptly at her driveway. All the curtains are drawn back and every light in the house is on. The front door is wide open. The sound of a woman sobbing carries out into the garden. I can see into the hallway. It’s Amy’s mother and someone else. My teacher. They are standing together in the hallway. Ms Talmur has her arm around Amy’s mother.

  Outside a police car is drawn up, half on the pavement, its blue light endlessly circling.

  CHAPTER XXII

  The gate was double padlocked. Everything silent. Dark and complete.

  The air was close and clammy, a small breeze moved some dry fallen leaves fretfully about on the path.

  ‘I suppose it was a crazy idea we had,’ said Ms Talmur, ‘to think that Amy would come back to the graveyard. It’s just . . . there is something compelling about this place.’ She looked around her. ‘There’s no one here, come on,’ she said.

  I took my eyes from the long paths stretching out and down. I moved away from the gate towards the car.

  What?

  I turn back.

  Nothing.

  We drove to the police station. Professor Miller sat in the interview room, his head leaning back against the bare painted wall, long legs stretched out in front of him. His face is drained of colour, his lips grey. He opens his eyes briefly when we come in and nods to me.

  A doctor appears and speaks to him quietly, tries to persuade the professor to take some tablets. He brushes him aside.

  The duty sergeant enters with tea and cigarettes. ‘There’s a WPC at home with your wife, sir,’ he says. ‘Here, drink some of this.’ He thrusts a mug under Professor Miller’s face.

  The professor takes it from him, looks at it stupidly, and places it carefully on the table.

  ‘Try not to worry too much,’ says the sergeant. ‘Your little girl probably became feverish with that virus she had, went downstairs, got confused as to where she was, and wandered off somewhere.’ He puts his hand on the professor’s arm. ‘She’ll be tucked up in some corner. Don’t fret. It’s a warm night, we’ll find her.’

  The professor gazes at the sergeant for a moment. ‘Do you really believe that?’ he asks. Suddenly he springs to his feet. ‘I should be out looking for her.’

  The sergeant takes him by the shoulder and leads him back gently to his chair. ‘Yes,’ he says steadily. ‘I do believe we’ll find her. She’s not been gone long. We’ve saturated the area with policemen, and these people are experts. Yes,’ he says again, ‘I do believe we will find her.’

  The professor slumps back down in his chair, leans forward and puts his head in his hands.

  It’s oppressive in the small room. The professor starts to pace up and down, up and down.

  A woman police officer brings more cups of inadequate tea, tries some reassuring words, leaves. The professor goes out to the toilet for a few minutes.

  I stare at the wall. There is nothing to say.

  Ms Talmur is tapping with her crimson nails on the edge of
the table. She sees me watching.

  ‘Sorry, Solomon,’ she smiles briefly.

  I shrug.

  ‘I looked up that information,’ she says brightly.

  ‘What?’

  In my head, pictures of stones and stories. The sounds of the words, rolling and crashing together. Setting off sparks to spin and twist, and flare up into the vivid colours I had created only hours earlier, making Amy laugh. She had fallen asleep, quieted. I had done that. Briefly my soul had fluttered against the tight constraining bands which held it down. And now she was threatened. In some kind of unspeakable danger, and I could do nothing.

  ‘Yes, I read through some of the trial and background notes this morning.’ Ms Talmur talking desperately. Trying to fill the silence, the misgivings, with any conversation

  ‘It’s quite an interesting tale about the woman who was burnt as a witch. She lived where the kirkyard is now. No wonder there is a bad atmosphere there. They burnt her within sight of the mill itself. They had diverted the river when they built the mill and it took away her water supply. She is supposed to have put a curse on the miller and all of his family.’

  Himself and all of his. For ever.

  ‘But she was a “spey-wife”, well renowned for her healing powers, and he went to ask her for help when there was illness in the family.’

  A miller. The symbol on the gravestone. The wheel. The water.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask.

  But I know. I know what happened. Nothing I could do. Frail little thing. Too far gone for help.

  ‘She couldn’t cure the child, and everyone said it was her fault. Blamed her for the child being sick in the first place. When the little girl died they said it was a malefice.’

  MALEFICE.

  ‘She vowed at her trial she would have her revenge.’

  I will.

  I will have her.

  The miller’s daughter.

  Professor Miller comes back into the room. He picks up a mug of tea, looks at it and puts it back on the table.

  I needed to breathe, air. ‘I’m going out for a walk,’ I say.

  My face and neck are damp with sweat. In the sky, great black thunder clouds are stoking up a storm. I move through the liquid air. Real and unreal. The sound of the water draws me and I go to the bridge and lean on the stone parapet. The river runs silver in the black night.