The Mark of Cain

by Lindsey Barraclough

  “I’m not going to be here, so there,” he says. “I’m doing some work down the Patches from tomorrow.”

  I stop. “The Patches? You don’t know Mr. Thorston, do you, in the thatched cottage?”

  He stops. “Hal Thorston? How do you know Hal Thorston?”

  “I knew him a few years ago. He helped me out, told me things nobody else would, because round here people don’t tell you flippin’ nothing.”

  Mr. Wragge lifts the handles of the barrow and, without another word to me, trundles it over the bridge.

  I stand there for a while, cold and annoyed, watching the old man as he moves away towards the barn.

  He wheels away the paper the scarred man had them put on the walls to cover over the ancient wood.

  The old, tired house has sloughed them off.

  It did not want to be made new.

  I cook us some fish fingers, call Mimi and Dad.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Dad says, putting his arm in his coat sleeve, that elsewhere look on his face again. “I’m going down the pub.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know why I’m so surprised. He was always in the Half Moon in Limehouse. “The Thin Man?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “That Blezzard bloke said they do a good pint.”

  As the Zodiac grumbles away over the stones in the Chase, Mimi and I eat all the fish fingers between us.

  As the clock strikes nine, I remember I need to forge an absence note for Mother Anselm, my form mistress. She’s been nagging me for it ever since I walked out of school last week. I told her I’d been sick. She said I had to bring in a letter from my mother.

  “Mimi” — I squeeze her shoulder — “you must go to bed now. I won’t be long. I’ve just got something to do.”

  “Ain’t going up on my own,” she says. “I’ll wait till you’ve done it.”

  “I might be ages.”

  “I ain’t tired.”

  I see the dark patches under her eyes. “You look it, sis.” I take my arm from round her. “Tell you what, I’ll make us a nice cup of tea and some toast.”

  “Need the toilet.”

  “That’s all right. You go and I’ll put the kettle on.”

  “You’ve got to come an’ all.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Mimi!”

  She lowers her eyes and says nothing.

  When we come back, we munch our toast and drink our sweet tea.

  “Now, don’t forget I’m going to Prizegiving tomorrow. Don’t be a pest for Dad, all right?”

  I find a pad of cheap notepaper and some scruffy envelopes in the kitchen drawer and take out my pencil case.

  Dear Mother Anselm …

  As I write, Mimi’s head begins to droop. After a short while she lies fast asleep on the table, her head resting on her folded arms. I stroke her hair and run my finger down her soft, flushed cheek.

  It’s easy: black biro instead of school fountain pen and washable blue ink, a slope to the right, a few little flourishes, a bit of fun with the capital letters. Nobody is ever going to read Mum’s writing — possibly nobody in the world ever again. I don’t suppose she writes anything in the hospital. I wouldn’t know. Mimi and I were never allowed to go and see her.

  … she felt a lot better after a good nights sleep.

  Yours sincerely,

  Mrs S. Drumm

  I fold the paper, seal it in a brown envelope, and write Mother Anselm, Wrayness Abbey High School on the outside.

  I lean over Mimi and blow on her eyelashes. “We’ve got to go to bed, Mimi. It’s getting really late.”

  Her head flies up. Her eyes stare wildly although clearly; she hasn’t quite woken up. “She’s looking in,” she cries.

  “What? Wake up, Mimi!”

  “She’s trying to get inside… .”

  “Who? What are you talking about?” I shake her arm.

  Mimi blinks violently and rubs her forehead. “My head hurts,” she says.

  “‘S all right, Mimi,” I say gently. “Let’s get to bed. We won’t turn the lights off.”

  She stands on the bedroom floor, her eyes half closed, and raises her heavy arms for me to lift her gymslip over her head. Something falls out of the pocket and rolls a little way along the floor. I get her into her nightie and tuck her into bed, then begin to pick up her clothes. My foot crunches on something. I look down at a broken stick of white chalk.

  Was it Mimi who scrawled the mark on the doors?

  I glance at her sleeping face, then crouch down and gather up the pieces.

  She’s looking in. She’s trying to get inside… .

  Mimi’s words circle inside my head while the ceiling light glares above us all night long.

  What are these things that Mimi knows and I don’t?

  And why won’t she ever tell me?

  I look up at the clock above the blackboard.

  Ten past three. Dad should be waiting outside school for Mimi, like he said.

  Early this morning I crept into his room. He was still in his shirt, lying back on his pillow with his mouth wide open, stubbled, snoring, smelling of stale beer and sweat. His jacket was lying across the foot of the bed with a crumpled piece of paper attached to the pocket by a safety pin. A scrawl of biro said: Angela Russell, The Cosy Café, Hilsea 463.

  Trying hard not to feel sickened, I shook him, whispered loudly in his ear to remember I’d be at Prizegiving. He stirred and mumbled but didn’t waken.

  I was worried he wouldn’t get Mimi to school so I hauled her out of bed, hurried her ready, and towed her, still half asleep, all the way to North Fairing. I ran like the clappers back up Ottery Lane, only to see my bus pulling away from the bus stop, and got a late mark.

  Forty minutes later, the bell rings. We stand and push our chairs under the desks.

  “Good afternoon, girls.”

  “Good afternoon and thank you, Mother Mary Dominic.”

  I’ve got about three hours before I have to come back to school for Prizegiving.

  It’s cold.

  I wander around Wrayness, from one shop to another, to keep warm. The man in the television rental place lets me watch some of the children’s programmes before chucking me out.

  As the shop doors begin to close and the shutters lower, I walk down to the seafront, my head bent into the bitter wind blowing off the sea, school scarf tight around my neck. I’m looking for a café, but they’re all shut for the winter, except for one grubby fish-and-chip shop at the end of the promenade, with a couple of teddy boys in drainpipe trousers standing outside, eating saveloys out of newspaper.

  “Just some chips, please,” I say to the man. “Can I eat them in here?”

  “If you like,” he says. “But stand in the corner. I don’t want you blocking up the counter. Salt and vinegar?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The corner is freezing, in the line of an icy draught.

  I eat the chips one by one, chewing them slowly, and watch the clock, wondering what Dad and Mimi are having for tea.

  I swallow down a little niggle of unease with my last chip. What if Dad stayed drunk all day and didn’t go to pick Mimi up? It wouldn’t be the first time, by a long chalk, that he’d promised one thing and done another.

  “Would you like some scraps?” the man calls over.

  “Yes, please.”

  He pours some curls of crispy batter into my piece of newspaper.

  At quarter to seven I make my way back to school. Not long afterwards, choir and prizewinners begin to arrive in their white dresses, gloves, and shoes. Thank goodness I didn’t have to have a white dress. Where would I have got one from?

  I stand at the door giving out programmes, smiling politely, not opening my mouth.

  My eyes rove over the honours boards hanging on the walls.

  1956. Josephine Cardwell. Major Open Scholarship in Mathematics, Girton College, Cambridge.

  Penelope Burne. County Major Scholarship to Birmingham University.

  Mothers si
t straight backed, attentive, in neat two-pieces, gloves, and court shoes, next to dark-suited, starch-collared fathers. The front row is a line of nuns in white habits, long black scapulars spilling apron-like over their knees, their smallest tic or twitch marked by the chink of rosary beads.

  Madame Mary Saint Bernard gives a speech — something about humility in victory.

  1957. Margaret Anderson. Open Exhibition in Chemistry, Imperial College, London.

  Subdued clapping.

  Jacqueline Bonville, head girl, swishing in a sumptuous full-skirted dress with a creamy silk rose to one side of the sweetheart neckline, gleaming hair swept up and set with a perfect white bow, breathes in through her nose, opens her mouth, and sings:

  “There once was a Vilia, a witch of the wood.

  A hunter beheld her alone as she stood.

  The spell of her beauty upon him was laid;

  He looked and he longed for the magical maid!”

  The choir joins her. The music swells.

  “Vilia, O Vilia! The witch of the wood!

  Would I not die for you, dear, if I could?”

  The pieces of pottery in the barn come into my head, the hard yellow fingernail, the bundle of twigs tied with red string, the mark chalked on the back door, the little white stones — clink-clink, Mimi …

  The niggle I felt before is becoming a pang of anxiety.

  After the applause ends, a very important man, Marmaduke or Montague or Montgomery Bolsover, in highly polished squeaking shoes, with a red carnation in his left buttonhole, clipped moustache, thinning hair, rounded stomach pushing against his waistcoat, rises to speak.

  My gaze settles on the slowly moving hands of the clock between the two double doors. Nearly nine.

  I can’t swallow down the huge knot growing in my chest; tell myself that Dad did collect Mimi from school, the boiler will be working, and the lights …

  “… more opportunities for girls than there have ever been. These days they can be secretaries, nurses, and teachers. One day we may even find young ladies in the engineering profession — yes, you may smile …”

  Mimi will have had some dinner — in fact, should be asleep in bed by now.

  The knot tightens.

  I should have telephoned home from a box to make sure she was all right. Why didn’t I think of it when I was wandering around Wrayness earlier? I lean against the door frame, feeling sick. I shouldn’t have come to Prizegiving.

  But I had to.

  A burst of clapping. Mr. Bolsover moves back and sits down. His chair makes a rude noise. A couple of girls giggle behind white-gloved hands.

  The presentation of prizes starts. Mr. Bolsover hands out one book after another, from time to time mopping his forehead with his silk handkerchief.

  Madame Mary Saint Bernard is watching the prizewinners, smiling grimly, not looking at me.

  I slip backwards quietly between the double doors, dump my leftover programmes on a bench, turn a corner.

  Distant clapping. The choir begins the school song: “Sing We the Praise of Our Glorious Abbey.” I move quickly through the corridors to the cloakroom for my coat, hat, and outdoor shoes, and make my way out of school. Outside, the road is lined with glossy cars.

  At the bus stop the 2A sign shines out of the darkness. I climb upstairs and settle into the corner seat. The heater under it blows out hot air.

  I’m tired.

  A gentle shake on my shoulder. “Sorry to wake you, love. The bus terminates here.”

  “Sorry?”

  “We’re not going any further.” The conductor’s uniform smells stale. “You’ll have to get off, love.”

  Where am I?

  I look out of the window into the night. A couple of drunks, each with an arm around the other’s shoulder, are swaying down the pavement outside the Longship.

  “But we’re only in Daneflete.”

  “We don’t go no further this time of night.”

  Next to the pub, the clock on the wall of Galleywell’s Garage says twenty past ten.

  “Aren’t you going to Hilsea?”

  “Nah. The bus before this was the last one.”

  “I’ve got to get to Bryers Guerdon.”

  “It said ‘Daneflete’ on the front, clear as day. You’ll have to walk it. Sorry, love, but can you hurry up? Me and the driver want to get home. We’re on earlies tomorrow.”

  I stumble down the stairs, clutching my schoolbag.

  How long will it take me to walk? An hour?

  “Give us a kiss, love!” leers one of the drunks as I step off the platform. The other laughs and belches and kicks a bottle into the gutter behind the bus.

  I move quickly on, crossing over the South Fairing road, and start walking to Bryers Guerdon, my shoulders already stiffening with cold.

  The street lamps run out not long after I pass the last house, and then the pavement disappears into a verge, the ground hard, the grass stiff with frost, dropping sharply at the side into a ditch running under a spiky hedgerow.

  When at last I get to Old Glebe Lane, I start to run on my numb feet, veering off the track in the darkness, slipping on the black glass of the frozen puddles, the fear for Mimi increasing with each step. My schoolbag bounces from side to side across my back as I stumble down the hill and along the Chase. I run with my mouth wide open, gulping in the cold air, the pain from the back of my tongue all the way down to my stomach so sharp it feels as if my throat has been sliced. Within sight of Guerdon Hall I have to stop and knead the stitch under my ribs with a clenched fist.

  And look up.

  There is no car and not one light in any window to break up the solid black bulk of the house.

  Tense, my heart thumping, I dash across the frosty bridge.

  On the other side of the cobbled yard, the back door is slightly open.

  Dizzy with fear, I push through into the stone passage.

  “Mimi! Mimi! Dad?”

  I feel for the light switch, push it down — up — down again — up — down.

  Nothing.

  Complete darkness.

  I move farther down the stone passage, fumbling for the next switch.

  No light.

  I stumble over something, pick it up — Mimi’s satchel.

  “Mimi! Mimi! Where are you?”

  A wave of utter panic floods me.

  Moving farther down the passage, feeling my way along the wall, I turn into the hall.

  “Mimi …” The sound leaves my throat like a whimper. “Mimi …”

  I hold my breath — listen.

  Against the steady ticking of the clock, the layer of silence hovers over the dark, jagged slope of the staircase and steals out into the hall through the open doors of the empty rooms.

  I move blindly down the hall and into the kitchen, barging into one of the spindly dining chairs. It collides with the table, the legs squealing on the lino. Startled, I pause for a moment to catch my breath, listening, every nerve pricking, for any tiny noise in the noiseless house, hoping to hear Mimi call for me.

  I inch my hand along the top of the dresser, over the bin, and across the wall beside the window until I reach the sink. I bend to push open the sliding door of the cupboard underneath. In sightless confusion, I grope my way along the shelves, dislodging packets and bottles that clatter one against the other. A couple of tins drop out onto the floor, each jarring clunk echoing around the panelling in the hall outside — every one stopping a heartbeat.

  At last, towards the back of the bottom shelf, my fingers grasp the familiar shape of the torch. I draw it out and, trembling, push the switch with my thumb. It won’t move. Frantic, I push again.

  The light flares out like a fan, and the straight-edged shadows of the cupboards, chairs, and table leap up the walls.

  “Mimi …” I am so gripped by dread, the name hardly escapes my mouth.

  I must search the house — every murky, shadowed corner of it.

  The crunch of footsteps on the gravel. A
bobbing light moves outside the window.

  Mouth dry, skin bristling, I slide my eyes up.

  The black-dark shape of a head is peering through the glass.

  She’s trying to get inside… .

  I’ve left the back door open.

  Dizzy with fear, I slide down to the floor — sit there with my back to the cupboard, clutching in my hand the torch that throws its beam quivering across the floor.

  I don’t know what to do.

  A furious knocking rattles the window.

  I gulp in a breath, feel for the switch on the barrel of the torch, then press it backwards. I am engulfed in darkness, save for the glimmer from the path.

  A loud whisper from outside.

  Footsteps on the gravel — moving away from the kitchen window.

  Voices.

  The creak of the back door.

  Heavy footfalls in the stone passage — getting faster — now in the hall.

  “Cora! Cora! Where are you?” a man shouts.

  “Cora! We saw your light!” someone else yells. “Tell us where you are!”

  “Who — who is it?” I stammer, my voice catching in my sore, dry throat.

  The voices draw nearer. I gulp — switch the torch back on.

  They are at the kitchen door — two men — behind wide beams of dazzling light that crisscross the room.

  “Cora, Cora — it’s all right, it’s all right… .” the first man says, coming in, crouching next to me.

  “Who — who are you?” A wave rises up through my chest and bursts out in tears.

  “Here, hold this a minute, Roger,” the man says, handing his torch to the other and fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief, which he presses into my hand.

  “It’s Mr. Jotman — do you remember me? And Roger — Roger’s here.”

  “It’s me, Cora,” Roger says. “You all right?”

  I look up but can’t see him beyond the torchlight.

  “We’re taking you back to ours,” says Mr. Jotman.

  One of them — I think it’s Roger, but he’s so much taller — takes hold of my hand in a firm grasp and pulls me up off the floor.

  “You can’t — you can’t — Mimi’s gone. I’ve lost Mimi —”

  “She’s at our house,” Roger says.

  “What?”

  “She was here all by herself and the lights went out,” says Mr. Jotman. “She was terrified — ran all the way up to the village, to us. It was probably the only place she could think of.”