Esther Bligh

by Diana Powell

  ‘Is he fighting?’ she wonders. ‘Weak, pathetic Edmund Bligh?’

  But no, his arms flail with the rest of him, never reaching for her or the pillow, never trying to pull it away. It is his body’s reflex response to the lack of air. It will be over soon. Soon, soon. On and on. Down, harder… until… she is gasping for breath, too. Until her arms begin to falter beneath her. Until…

  At last.

  This is what Grace sees.

  At last.

  At last, it was done. He was dead. Dead in the heart of winter, when half the country was dying, of pneumonia, bronchitis, influenza, tuberculosis, let alone those whose lungs had been reduced to scraps of wheezing offal by the gas. The doctor came and went, signing a piece of paper, questioning nothing but my health, my well-being. Another fool.

  ‘He is at rest, at last,’ I murmured, eyes suitably moist and lowered. ‘He is free.’

  Meaning: ‘I am free.’

  But not then. He would not even leave me, then. The ground was frozen, there was a backing up of burials. He would have to stay in the house for a week or more. Besides, it appeared that this was the way of the Welsh, to make the most of any passing, and it seemed that Edmund Bligh was well-thought of in the community. Weak, foolish Edmund was well-liked. Something I had never known.

  They came then, every day, most of whom I had never seen before, men with their hats in their hands, and words that stuck in their throats. Women with hats on their heads and words and words and words pouring out, swamping me in tea and sympathy – those I could understand. Some I knew, recognising them from the women in the Square, come to see what they could see, hear what they could hear, searching for confirmation of what they were sure they knew – that Mrs Edmund Bligh cared nothing for her dead husband.

  Well, they did not get it then, nor later by the graveside, when he was buried, finally, beside his parents and son, and all the other Blighs. I stood there, sniffing into my handkerchief. No, I did not rend my garments, or tear at my hair, or make to fling myself into the grave along with him, knowing that such a display of amateur theatricals would count against me, rather than for, would add to their suspicion and cries of hypocrisy. No, just a bowed head, a few tears, a trembling, and a desire to stand by the grave, alone, after the service, after all the other mourners had shuffled down the steep path, to their waiting cars and carts. Then I lifted the veil back from my face, and I looked up from the earth, and across to where the entire village lay, and whereas before I had felt condemned to be trapped within it for all eternity, now I laughed.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I whispered, not to my dead husband, but to his body-scourging, thought-blighting, spirit-daunting dwelling place: home.

  Gone, I would soon be gone. All I needed to do was sell the house, take the money, and leave. London, I thought. ‘I will go back to London.’ Paris, even! Why not? Or the south of France, to the sun… oh yes, the sun.

  Rumour… words said in a different way. No more than a Chinese whisper, borne on the wind from one person to the next, on a loose sheet of newsprint caught on the breeze. Rumours had reached even this back of beyond of the new life lived in the cities, where flappers danced in short hair and short skirts, while champagne and diamonds flowed. But now there was new talk. Talk of factories and mines closing, jobs disappearing, banks failing.

  ‘Wait till the Spring,’ the agent told me. ‘There is always more interest in the Spring.’ Then, with April gone, ‘Summer,’ he said, ‘maybe it will be better when the weather improves.’

  But, of course, it never improved, it was never any better. And suddenly, it was winter again, perpetual twilight again. Another winter to be spent, bleak and marrow-numbed. Worse, the bank would no longer lend me money against the sale of the house, and the allowance from Edmund’s father must help to pay what I already owed.

  ‘Sell something,’ the manager suggested.

  ‘There is nothing to sell,’ I replied.

  ‘The books,’ he said. ‘Mr. Bligh’s collection. Even in these troubled times, you will find buyers for those. Such volumes are valuable beyond reckoning – in pristine condition, of course… as I know Edmund’s to be.’

  Oh, my agony, then! What had I done? What had I been? A greater fool than any.

  ‘Surely you can lend some small amount?’ I tried. But it seemed that the bank itself had no money. Nor the country, the world, even – the world that I thought lay before me dwindled down to a kitchen, and the bedroom above it, rooms heated with broken chair-legs and lit by fretful candle-light, echoing with nothing but silence.

  And then…

  And then… a sound. A step, a clang, a flutter. Not so strange – the sound of the brass letter-box. Not so strange – the sight of a cream vellum envelope on the mat. Letters still came for Edmund now and then, whilst bills came for me, wrapped in thin, white paper. I threw all into the stove straight away.

  I picked it up. I turned it over, and there it was. ‘Mrs Esther Bligh’. I opened it; so it began.

  ‘Dear Esther Bligh,’

  So beautifully written, such enticing letters… Curved, and flowing, perfectly aligned, sweet to begin with, drawing me in.

  ‘I trust this finds you well… so much you have been through… your son dead, and then your husband… Sad, so sad…’

  Plump Ssses sweeping up and round, so sinuous; ‘e’ curling in and over, the nib shading. ‘Esther’ written every few lines, as if I were being talked to. As if we were friends.

  Then: whore, bitch, slut, harlot, Jezebel, Lot’s wife, she-devil, snake, trollop, vixen. No, not all at once, it’s true. But enough.

  Still, what was that but name-calling? I had endured worse. Sticks and bleedin’ stones again. I knew already there was no signature, but it was surely just one of those hags in the village, venting her spleen, saying now what they had always wanted to say, or did say, when I passed them in the Square. Did they think I wouldn’t understand, simply because they talked in a foreign tongue? I knew by their beading eyes, their twisted mouths. They would have spat, if that were something God-fearing women were allowed to do. They may as well have spat. Oh such scorn, in their up-and-down gaze. Oh, how they hated me. Me… ‘her’, ‘that woman’ – they never gave me a name. It was so easy to imagine their conversations, behind their claws, behind their nets, when they gathered in their coven. ‘I said it from the moment I first set eyes on her.’ ‘Trouble, I said.’ ‘He’s going to regret this.’ ‘It will only end badly.’ ‘Surely just after his money.’ ‘Poor man. Poor Edmund. Poor Mr Bligh.’

  What did they see in me that made them think these things? What was it about me, that made them think of evil? That I had come from away? That I wore lipstick in too bright a colour? That I had stockings and high-heel shoes? That I wore bright clothes – red, oh, sin of sins! – instead of their greys, blacks and browns?

  Now here was one of them, getting her revenge. That was all.

  It was nothing, until… ‘I know what you have done.’

  Until… ‘murderer’.

  Another letter, and another and another.

  Words coming at me, as hard as sticks and stones.

  Hard black lines, soft black curves, hitting, twisting, flailing my flesh.

  On and on and on.

  No, no they cannot know, there is no way, there can be no proof.

  Who? The doctor. Perhaps the doctor. But the doctor was dead himself.

  The lumpen maid? But she had been gone by that time. Besides, she could hardly spew two words between her lips, let alone put pen to paper.

  Such a skilled pen, with its copper-plate precision and its curlicues and flourishes, with its perfect English, in spelling and grammar. Not the hand of any of the born-and-bred imbeciles, surely. But if not them, who?

  Harlot, Jezebel, Lot’s wife. Words I had heard before.

  Black-wrought script I had seen before, on the inside of a bible, that I had scribbled over, gouged through, and thrown into the flames. Maud Elizabeth Bligh, married
to Arthur, mother of Edmund Bligh. Had she seen what I had done? Was she still here now, or had she returned to torment me? Or was it sent from the spirit world, written in a spirit hand?

  Foolish thoughts, all. Nonsense. For I did not believe in ghosts.

  Black letters, fine and small, like flies, that I tried to swat away from my head, but still they came, nagging, itching, biting.

  Red letters, huge, misshapen.

  Precise black lines, on heavy cream sheets.

  Crude red daubs, on grey stone. Only two words. Only two could fit between the window and door – or almost. Whore! Murd— Enough. Letters that dripped, blood that dripped. They left the body of the pig on the front lawn.

  A man – only a man could do such a thing, though, no doubt, following the instruction of a woman.

  Words I could not put on the fire, except I had not put the others on the fire.

  I scrubbed with bleach, till my hands were raw, until they became ghost words – faint wraiths of what had been real.

  Back-to-front letters, inside-out words, scrawled in the misted windows. Clear lines and curves in frosted grey, dripping water, now, not blood. Tears falling from them, as I puzzled their meaning, whilst knowing what they said, what they were calling me.

  What, who, who, what?

  What did they know, how could they know, who, who, who?

  I would wait till dusk, before going out, then. If I had to go out. I would wear my black widow’s clothes, and walk in the shadows, and wait till I saw the shop empty, before going in. Sometimes, I could not avoid people, and I would look at them looking at me, and wonder. Who? Is it you, or you, or you? The old women would cross the road, and mothers would gather their children to them, and the children would gurn and gibber, and the post-mistress would turn away.

  She knows, I would think, she of all would know. She, and the postman, knowing the hand-writing of every resident.

  Or… is it her? Knowing everything that goes on in this place. Does she know that? Is she the one?

  Food could be delivered, she told me, now. It was plain she did not want me in her shop, and neither did I want to go there again. I did not want to go anywhere. Except…

  home.

  It is dark in Esther’s house now. It is Esther’s house, it has been, all along. She is still here, after all.

  Here she is, scuttling crab-like between kitchen and bedroom, sideways through the shadows cast by the walls, black in black, bent away from the windows, the doors, the world outside. Lighting the fire to warm her meal, herself, only at night, so that ‘they’ cannot watch, they cannot know what she does.

  A stone, one night. A handful of pebbles, the next. The gibbering voices rising to where she lies. That is when she opens the door of her old room at the back of the house, and now, she likes what she sees. This is where she will sleep, now. This is where she will spend her days, taking her food there – bread, and cheese, perhaps. She eats little else now. Sometimes, she forgets to eat at all. There seems no reason for it.

  She sees no reason for it – the woman who catches sight of someone else as she passes the mirror in the hall. A woman in black, with a white-powdered face, who keeps her head down and her eyes low.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asks, in a voice she does not recognise, a voice that scuffs her lips as she speaks, then scours the air. Then she laughs, a bark in her throat, and moves on.

  ‘Bitch, fucking bitch, bastards all. Whore, bitch, liar, thief they call me. Who do they fucking think they are?’

  No, no, no. She clasps her hands to her ears. She hates the words, who is saying them? Where is she? Where is this person with the sewer-pipe mouth? She looks for her behind the curtains, in the cupboard. There is no-one there, but still the words go on, and on, and on. Not the written words of the letters any more, though they are still all around, plaguing her, as usual, never letting her rest. Not the spoken words of the children. Not the voices returned, and turned against her, or new voices come. Someone is speaking, someone so close to her, someone—

  ‘You, you fucking stupid bitch! You!’

  She doesn’t go out. But the day comes when she has used every tin in the cupboard and she has no choice but to go. She will wear the black, and walk in the dusk, with head and eyes down, but still she sees them looking at her. Well, it is what they have always done. There, here, before, now. But now… the looks, the noises they make are different. The older children cross to the other side of the street, the mothers push the younger ones behind them, then hurry them away. She knows all this, though she doesn’t see; but she smells it. She knows that it is fear. But what has she done? Nothing, she has done nothing! Or… did she?

  And yet, here is Mrs Evans… coming from behind the counter, to put a hand on her arm, and say ‘Are you all right, bach?’ until a snarl snaps her back into her place, muttering and shaking her head.

  Grace will not go out any more, she will have her food brought to her in a box left outside the door. That is what she will do. That is what she does, spending most of her days, her nights, in the small room, lying on her bed, trying to hear the beat of her heart between the words, wondering when it will stop.

  – Burn them. I will burn them, like I did with the first… Did I? Like I should have done with all of them. Burn them without opening them. Like you should have done. They weren’t addressed to you. They were my letters. How dare you open my personal mail? How dare you learn my secrets and spread them around? You bitch. Did I? Did you?

  Look at them, a cairn of cream pulp and white tissue, veined black, blocking the way to the door. Immovable, unless a strong gust from outside or my step shudders through them and sends the latest arrival tumbling down. I will pick them up in handfuls and carry them to the stove and put an end to them once and for all. Use them for fuel, like the postman told you a life-time ago. Sit there, warming yourself on them, making good from them, laughing at whoever penned them.

  No, no, no. Burn them where they lie. Get a match – or a taper, a taper would be better, knowing how fickle matches can be, how they can let you down. Bring a taper, and push it into the middle of them, at the bottom where the straw rush of the mat will add extra fuel, where the draught beneath the door will blow onto the flames: and the flames will somersault on the scattered paper, across the mat to the stairs. The dry, old, wood-worm eaten stairs, until—

  Yes, I will fetch the taper, and I will sit for a while on the bottom step and watch as my curse takes hold. I didn’t watch before.

  Before, the first time I did this, I ran. A shame. I wanted to stay and look, to make sure, and to see it. To see the house I had been born in, had grown up in, lost in flame and smoke. To see the rats run out, the grins wiped off their faces, to savour the stench of smoke instead of stew and piss. It wouldn’t have taken long – it was no more than a wooden shack, after all, with rooms of cloth, and furniture from sticks. With no-one inside it… no, no-one inside it. You made sure, I made sure. Sure that my mother, and my brother, and my two younger sisters were at the market that day – and your father, who had come home so drunk the night before, so that you knew as soon as he came in what was going to happen, as it always happened, but— He always left early, didn’t he? No matter how drunk. Didn’t he? He wouldn’t have still been lying on my bed, would he, exhausted and finished after what he had done? No, no, no. It was only the house I wanted to destroy, to see go up in flames, only I didn’t… I ran…

  But I will see this now, you have to see, it is good to see. It is good to see fire, when you have always loved fire, since that first day, knowing it for what it can do. Knowing it for its colour, its reds, its blues, its purple, even, the most surprising colour. Look, there! See! The purple heart wrapped in gold. The golden frittered edge of that paper crown. See! See how it skips across to the ragged rug, catching its frayed strands, stretching out towards you, to welcome you.

  No, no, no. Better to go to my room, better to shut myself in there, and lie down on my hard, narrow bed. It is safe t
here, or safer than anywhere here. I will be safe. I will check the clasp on the shutters, pull the curtains, shut the door tight, like I always do. I will get into bed, and draw the quilt over my head, and…

  Yes. And yes, I am warm here, warmer than I have ever been before. Already, I can feel the heat below getting stronger, reaching up towards me. The words are being burnt away, the words are being replaced by heat. The words are finally being destroyed. Good, good, good. Now something else slinks under the door – not words, good, good, not words, no – but smoke. Grey, winding, like the words used to be, sly, curling, like the words, but it is just smoke, only smoke. It won’t hurt me, like the words hurt me. I will have peace now. At last.

  But… Words. Louder than ever, coming at me, shouting at me, louder than they have ever done before. Noise. Banging, clanging, barging through the walls, the quilt, my hands that are clutched to my ears. A name. Whose name? Or just a word… Grace.

  Grace. GRACE.

  On, and on, and on. A hammer is knocking at my skull. A saw is splintering my eyes apart. A shout is exploding in my ears. More words, more and more. They are coming for me. They are breaking into my safe little room; they are tearing down the door, they are smashing through the window, they are… The fire hasn’t finished them, after all. They have fed off its heat, and they are here. Now. NOW.

  It is quiet again now, so peaceful as she sits in the window of the flat above the post-office, and watches the sea. It is such a beautiful day! The sky is blue, the water is blue, and laps gently towards the front. The scene directly before her looks just like a picture postcard. But the town that stretches away from her on either side has changed. She had been foolish to think it could be the same, after two world wars, and the hardship of the years between. And its location beneath the mountains means the railway will never come here. It will never be the holiday destination she imagined, she remembered from her honeymoon. Perhaps it never was. But still, on a fine day…