2006 - Wildcat Moon

by Babs Horton

  “And so you just pitched up here?”

  “I did. Well, I was half out of my mind on drink and drugs, I thought it was some sort of joke. But when I got here and the key fitted the door to the Grockles I could hardly believe it. How did you come to live in the Skallies, Nan?”

  Nan was silent for a moment.

  “It’s a long story and I’m not sure I’m ready to tell it yet.”

  Fleep patted her hand.

  “Anyway, Fleep, tell me what has the woman who was here tonight got to do with you trying to end it all?”

  “I’d made my decision, decided there was nothing left in this life for me. I went around the coast, there’s a small beach there and I had a lot to drink. I’d planned to walk out into the water, keep on walking, then swim out to sea and drown myself.”

  “You don’t still feel like that?” she asked anxiously.

  He shook his head and smiled. “Not any more. The worst bit was that all of a sudden that woman and her friend appeared with hundreds of schoolgirls and I was…”

  “You were what?”

  “God, this is so embarrassing. You see, I was standing there absolutely naked.”

  Nan put her hand over her mouth. “You’re joking!” she squealed with laughter.

  Fleep nodded and blushed. “There didn’t seem much point walking out into the sea with clothes on.”

  “Oh, my God, and they all saw you, all those schoolgirls?”

  He nodded again and covered his face with his hands.

  “Nan, I still have nightmares about it. It was awful.”

  But Nan couldn’t answer she was laughing so much.

  “I hope she didn’t recognize me tonight,” Fleep said.

  “She wouldn’t with your clothes on!” Nan shrieked.

  “Pack it in, Nan, it wasn’t funny. There was another woman with her who was screaming for her to call the police. I could have been locked up.”

  She tried to stem her mirth but every time she looked at Fleep’s horrified face it set her off again. She laughed until her sides ached and she felt weak all over. Soon Fleep was laughing too and the Pilchard echoed to the sound of their laughter. Outside, the wildcats slept on the outhouse roof under a soft and silver moon.

  From her eyrie in the convent Sister Isabella watched the small English boy who was staying with Alfredo and Lena climb the hill to the baker’s each day. At first he climbed slowly, dragging his feet, looking over his shoulder as though he were afraid that someone was following him. With each day, though, he seemed to grow stronger, and his withered leg grew a little more sturdy.

  Taking up her binoculars, she focused on his face and saw that the hue of his skin had grown steadily darker and the blue of his eyes more vivid, the front of his hair bleached fairer.

  The day he had stood nervously, looking into the alleyway just below the panettiere, she had watched him with fascination. He was curious but afraid, finding his way round hesitantly. Little by little he was getting braver and ever more curious about life in Santa Caterina. He was just a child, though; he wouldn’t get in the way.

  She turned away from the window and made her way down the steep stairs and out into the enclosed courtyard.

  It was hot and the courtyard was deserted. Most of the sisters were inside busy with their chores. Now she was so old she had little work allotted to her and so she was free to do whatever took her fancy. Most days she went to the library to write up her memoirs of life here in the convent but of late she grew tired more easily and spent more time outside in the courtyard in the shade of the old lemon tree.

  She sat down stiffly, dipped her hand into the cool waters of the fountain and drifted off into her memories of the past.

  When she’d first entered the convent she’d come under false pretences. She’d had no vocation to be a nun; she’d just been trying to run away from the pain of unrequited love. Life as a nun had been an escape from a world too painful to contemplate. She’d imagined a life of meditation and serenity, of prayer and praise and long periods of silence. How wrong she’d been!

  She looked up then as the children came out of the door on the far side of the courtyard. A crocodile of chattering boys and girls on their way to breakfast under the watchful eye of Sister Benedicta. Their voices filled the courtyard and she smiled to see their faces. A small girl who was holding the hand of a tiny boy caught her eye. Sister Isabella waved to her and the girl waved back. She had arrived as a silent, frightened little girl and now she was in the middle of every sort of mischief. A spirited soul saved from a life without hope, with the whole world ahead of her now. The children’s voices died away as they went through the door into the refectory for their breakfast.

  She closed her eyes and prayed that the convent would always be a place of sanctuary for the lost and dispossessed. She opened them to look up at the clear blue sky above the convent. A bird soared to a great height and then swooped, singing joyously. A fat lemon fell from the tree and landed with a thud, sending up a small cloud of dust from the parched soil.

  In the kitchen of Killivray House the tap dripped with a monotonous regularity into the sink. A film of dust covered the stone floor and cobwebs dangled from the light bulb. On the dresser flour spilled from a broken bag and a trail of mouse droppings led across the kitchen table.

  The clock in the hallway had stopped and the stag’s head looked down forlornly from the wall. The air was thick with silence and a pall of mustiness hung over the whole house.

  Mice had built their nest in the foot of the brown bear at the top of the stairs and in the nursery the draught from a broken window made the rocking horse creak. The one-eared teddy bear was gone from the window seat and the front of the dolls’ house was opened and the tiny dolls lay scattered on the floor as though someone had hurriedly tried to scoop them up.

  In Margot Greswode’s room a bottle of perfume was overturned and had stained the walnut dressing table. The smell of Midnight in Paris hung faintly on the air. The wardrobes were still full of her clothes and her shoes were lined up tidily in a rack.

  Gwennie walked stealthily from room to room. At the end of the corridor, past the long room, was the governess’s room. It was damp and airless and a spider dangled from a broken gas mantle. No doubt the police had gone over it with a toothcomb after the murder.

  On the dressing table there was an empty spectacles case and next to it a pile of hairpins and a hair net. She opened the cupboard but it was bare, just the smell of moth balls and mildewing newspapers lingered.

  She remembered with a smile how once Thomas had hidden in this cupboard and frightened the life out of her. The cupboard was back to back with the one next door in the long room and between the back panels of the cupboards there was a hidden space. The little monkey had hidden there and while she was going about her jobs he had made eerie noises. She’d looked under the bed, in the wardrobe and the cupboard but found nothing. Then when she’d moved on to clean the long room the same thing had happened. His giggling had been his undoing in the end.

  He’d clambered out from his hiding place and shown her how you could lift up the wood and get inside. He’d said it was a big secret that only a few people knew of. His papa used to hide there when they played hide and seek when he was little and he’d never been caught once.

  Sometimes, when she’d been unable to snatch a few moments with 60, she’d left notes for him in here. If only she could close her eyes and make time turn backwards. Thomas would still be hidden here in the cupboard, trying to stifle his giggles. The baby would be growing inside her and soon she and Bo would be gone from Killivray House forever…

  Gwennie tried to get a grip on the wood and push it upwards and to her surprise it lifted easily. There was a large space between the two cupboards and someone had stuffed a brown paper bag in there. She fished it out and opened it. Pulling out the contents, she looked at them in astonishment. A grey wig and a pair of spectacles.

  Then things began to fall into place. The
description that the police had put out for Clementine Fernaud had described her as grey-haired and wearing spectacles. It wouldn’t be very helpful in finding her though. All those dubious sightings of a grey-haired woman hadn’t been Clementine Fernaud at all; she’d left the spectacles and the grey wig here at Killivray just before she’d fled. No one even knew what she looked like so there was little chance of her being caught.

  Gwennie stuffed the wig and spectacles back into the bag and shoved them back into their hiding place and then she saw a drawstring pouch in the far corner, shrouded with cobwebs. She got down on her hands and knees and pulled it out. She slipped the wood back into place and sat down on the bed.

  The string threaded through the top of the leather disintegrated at her touch. She slipped her fingers into the mildewed pouch and pulled out a roll of oilcloth. Opening it, she looked at a roll of once crisp bank notes. They must have been hidden here in the cupboard for years. Who on earth would have put them here? She slipped her hand back into the pouch and fished out three small cards. Then she stood up unsteadily, walked back out onto the landing and walked slowly down the stairs.

  She sat down heavily at the kitchen table and thought about the dreadful day when she’d returned to Killivray and cook had told her the terrible news about Bo. She recalled the baby moving suddenly inside her and the wave of nausea spreading through her whole body. She’d sat without moving, her mind unable to take it all in.

  And cook had said, “Gwennie, it’s not safe for you here. There’s gossip about you, all the talk is that Bo shot himself because of the baby.”

  She sat now as still as she had that day, unable to move, unable to sort out the thoughts in her head.

  She was sure now that Bo had been murdered, but why? Old Greswode had been a nasty piece of goods but he wouldn’t have murdered a man because of jealousy over her. He’d had wandering hands where any woman was concerned. His motive must have been stronger than that. Now she wouldn’t have put anything past Charles Greswode but he was only a child, he could never have overpowered Bo. Bo must have known something, something that the Greswodes wanted keeping quiet—but what?

  Cook had been right. If she’d gone there and then maybe things would have worked out. But she hadn’t because she’d been paralysed with grief. And soon after Greswode had sent for her father and they’d taken her away from Killivray screaming and kicking, howling like a dog for all that she’d already lost and was about to lose.

  She put the cards down on the table. They were faded and spotted with mildew and she could barely read the writing on them. She squinted, screwed up her eyes. Dear God! Three one-way tickets on the SS Northern Horizon sailing from Bristol to Africa. Bo had bought tickets for the three of them. He was planning on taking her to Africa. And then he’d been killed! He must have bought the tickets before Thomas had disappeared and was meaning to take him too. But that didn’t make any sense, did it? Bo would have known that Thomas would have wanted to go back to his father in Italy so why buy him a ticket?

  And then she realized that Bo had known something important and Greswode must have panicked and taken it upon himself to get Bo out of the way.

  Standing up slowly, she made her way towards the back door. She closed it softly behind her and wandered down over the overgrown lawns where once the peacocks had proudly strutted on those far-off sultry afternoons of her youth.

  The cemetery at Santa Caterina was on the left-hand side of the twisting road that led up towards the towering convent.

  Once a month Alfredo and Lena made the long walk there to visit the graves of Alfredo’s family.

  One Sunday Alfredo suggested that the three of them go together and then afterwards have a picnic in a pretty spot he knew below the convent.

  The graveyard was a peculiar place. It was full of white tombs that reminded Archie of iced wedding cakes. There were huge ornamental angels, shiny crucifixes and photographs set into the headstones.

  “Is the woman they called the silver bird buried in here?” he asked nonchalantly.

  “St. Over in shady corner near the wall.”

  While Alfredo and Lena tidied the graves of long-dead family, Archie sauntered among the graves whistling to himself.

  He stopped suddenly. He was quite sure that someone was watching him. He looked around the cemetery but there was no one there except Lena and Alfredo who were busy arranging flowers in glass pots and taking no notice of him.

  Turning around slowly, he looked up at the convent towering above him. There, at a high window, a nun stood looking down at him. He knew that she was watching him and it made him shudder.

  He turned away and wandered on, looking for the grave belonging to Rosa Gasparini.

  Finally he saw it. A dainty white angel with frilly wings and standing on one leg guarded the grave, poised as if to fly off at any moment.

  He read the inscription.

  Rosa Gasparini Greswode e Morto Agosto 4th 1895

  Beneath her name another name was written:

  David Thomas Greswode e Morto Giugno 11th 1900

  So Thomas would have been about seven when his mother had fallen to her death and twelve when his father had died.

  It was sad that the mother and father were buried together but poor Thomas was buried all alone in the dark and spooky chapel back in the Skallies.

  He looked down at the grave in puzzlement. Something didn’t make sense.

  He reread the words on the grave.

  David Thomas Greswode died June 11th 1900. That wasn’t possible. He couldn’t have died two months before Thomas had drowned. He remembered Thomas saying in his diary that he had written to his father and he wouldn’t have written to him if he knew he was dead, would he? Someone would have told him if his father had died, you didn’t keep important things like that a secret. Archie racked his brains. Thomas had said in his diary that he hadn’t had a letter from his father in a long time. Dead men can’t write letters. But surely when his father had died someone here in Santa Caterina would have written to the Greswodes at Killivray House.

  It didn’t make any sense.

  If only he could find out how Thomas’ father had died and why no one had told Thomas! But how was he to do that?

  He so wished that he could talk to Romilly again. It wasn’t half so much fun trying to solve a mystery on your own.

  He walked on and paused before a simple cross that bore no name. He walked around it slowly, so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t hear Alfredo and Lena approach him and he jumped in alarm when Lena rested her hand gently on his shoulder.

  “Archie! Why you so frightened? What’s the matter?”

  “It’s just graveyards, Lena, that’s all, they make me jumpy.”

  “You don’t need to be scared of the dead. Dead is nothing to worry about,” Alfredo said, ruffling his hair.

  Alfredo’s words reminded him of Benjamin, “Death’s nothing to be afraid of, Archie. You’re alive now and before you were born you must have been dead, stands to reason.”

  And he remembered saying to Benjamin, “But I can’t remember before I was born…” and Benjamin had laughed and replied, “You’d remember, though, if it were bad, wouldn’t you, you silly young bugger!”

  And for the first time for ages as he looked up at Alfredo’s smiling face he was able to conjure up Benjamin’s face in his mind, recall the sound of his voice. He felt very close to the old man then, closer than he had in a long time. It was almost as if Benjamin hadn’t died but rented a room in Archie’s head.

  “Alfredo, why is there no name on this grave?”

  “I thinks is someone killed in the war and no one know the name; the unknown soldier.”

  “That’s sad,” Archie said.

  “Come on, then, enough of the cemetery, we go for picnic now,” Alfredo said and took Archie’s hand in his.

  When they reached the cemetery gates Alfredo stopped and waved up at the convent.

  “Who are you waving to?” Archie asked.r />
  “Sister Isabella, see she up in the window, look.”

  Archie looked up to see the nun who he was sure had been spying on him.

  “Is she your relation, Alfredo, the one Lena told me about when we were in the Skallies?”

  “That’s right,” Lena said.

  “She is my mother’s older sister,” Alfredo said. “Look, she waving at you, Archie.”

  “Is she locked up in there?” he asked hopefully.

  “In a way but we allowed to visit. One Sunday soon we go to mass at the convent and we meet with her. You like her, I think.”

  Archie wasn’t so sure. He was afraid of nuns. He didn’t like the way their faces peeped out menacingly from their wimples, or the smell of incense, strong soap and stiffening starch that clung to their clothes.

  Once, in St Werburgh’s a nun with a collecting box had stopped to talk to his mammy and he’d been terrified and hidden his face in her skirts and howled like a baby.

  Freddie and Charlie Payne were minding the pub for Nan who had gone out for a walk to Nanskelly with Fleep. There were no customers and they sat sipping from their pint pots and playing dominoes. Cissie was perched on a stool at the bar busy decorating a letter that she was sending to Archie. She looked up as the door opened. Her eyes widened with surprise and her pencil and pad slipped into the hearth with a clatter. She got up and hurried behind the bar.

  Freddie Payne looked up at the visitor and spat a stream of beer down over his stubbly chin. Charlie Payne stared, mouth opening and dosing like a beached cod, his pint perched halfway to his quivering lips.

  A man stood in the doorway, the dying rays of the sun outlining his body in gold and pink. Freddie and Charlie Payne sat silently gawping. Cissie peered over the top of the bar.

  “I’m looking for a woman called Gwennie,” the man said.

  Cissie could not take her eyes off him. He was beautiful, the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Her eyes soaked up his appearance greedily and her fingers itched to draw him. She took in the colours of his skin, skin as dark as raisins, an indigo tinge around the cheek bones and eye sockets; the soft tight curls on his head around which the light played tantalizingly. His eyes were dark as a mermaid’s purse, his lips soft and dusky as velvet. She marvelled at the deep slow tones of his voice.